Gospel Story Finder

One class was really difficult for Yvette—computers. The computer terminals and commands were all in English, and that made the class hard for her. She didn’t believe she could pass the class, even if she did study, so she didn’t study. She thought that if she just prayed and prayed and prayed, Heavenly Father would help her. But she found out that wasn’t so. She took her test and didn’t pass. She learned she has to study in order for Heavenly Father to help her succeed. After that, she studied and prayed and did much better in computer class. “I have to do my part,” she says.

Katya carried a large box as she walked out of her apartment building into the sunshine. It was summer, and for a few months, the weather was warm in her city in Russia. She set the box down on a bench where her friends Dima and Sonya were waiting.
“Here’s everything we need for our play!” Katya said. She opened the box and pulled out a plastic crown and pieces of purple, blue, and red cloth. With some creativity, these would make great costumes.
“What play are we doing?” Dima asked.
Katya smiled. “I think we should do ‘The Frog Princess’!” It was her favorite fairy tale. Katya smiled as she imagined herself playing the beautiful Vasilisa.
Sonya grabbed the blue cloth from the box and draped it around herself. “I want to be Vasilisa!” she said.
“Wait,” said Katya. “It was my idea. That means I get to be Vasilisa.”
“You can be her,” said Sonya, giggling. “When she’s a frog!”
Katya frowned and pulled the blue cloth away from Sonya. “It’s my play!”
Sonya put her hands on her hips. “Nobody wants to play with you if you’re bossy. You’re a better frog than a princess.”
Katya felt tears in her eyes. She grabbed her box and ran inside, all the way up the stairs into her family’s apartment. She slammed the door behind her.
“What’s wrong?” Mama said. Katya burst into tears.
“Sonya is ruining everything!” Katya told Mama the whole story. “She said I was a frog!”
“Oh, Katyusha,” Mama said. Katyusha was Mama’s nickname for Katya. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice of her.”
Just then there was a knock at the door. Mama went to answer it, but Katya ran to her room. She heard voices. Then Mama called to her. “Would you like to talk to Sonya? She has something to say to you.”
“No!” Katya yelled.
She could hear voices again, and then she heard the door close.
“I think Sonya is sorry,” Mama said.
“I don’t care,” Katya said. She pushed her face deeper into her pillow.
Mama stood by the door for a minute. “You know, sometimes when I’m really angry, I don’t want to forgive other people. Sometimes I need to ask Heavenly Father to help me want to forgive.”
Katya was too angry to forgive. Sonya had hurt her feelings! But … being angry didn’t feel very good either.
She sighed and knelt by the side of her bed. Katya knew Heavenly Father wanted her to forgive Sonya. It was the right thing to do. But maybe Heavenly Father also wanted her to forgive because it would help her feel better too.
“Heavenly Father, please help me forgive Sonya,” she said. “I really don’t want to, but I also don’t want to stay angry.”
She finished her prayer and took a deep breath. Katya felt her anger start to melt away, just a little. She could do this. She could forgive. She walked to Sonya’s apartment and knocked on the door.
Sonya opened it and started talking right away. “Katya, I’m sorry for what I said.”
“I forgive you,” said Katya. “And I’m sorry I took my costumes back. You would be a good Vasilisa too. We can take turns.”
Sonya smiled. “OK. Can we go play now? I’ll get Dima!”
Katya smiled back. “I’ll get the costumes!”

It was a new school, but it was the middle of the school year. I had to say goodbye to all of my friends at my old school and start making new ones. I was grateful a girl named Chynna decided to be my friend. I felt really comfortable around her even though she isn’t LDS. But I didn’t feel comfortable when she used the Lord’s name in vain. I knew I had to say something, but I didn’t want to get embarrassed.
One day my mom asked me about her. I felt that if I had my mom and the Lord’s support, I could do something about my situation. I talked to Chynna on the phone and told her about our faith. She respected what I shared and said she wouldn’t say the Lord’s name any more. I am glad she gave up using that word instead of our friendship. I am glad I asked her to stop saying it. Now she is asking me a lot of questions about our Church and has even come to Mutual with me.

One faithful sister shared a special spiritual experience in the Salt Lake Temple. While in the confirmation room, after a vicarious confirmation ordinance was pronounced, she heard, “And the prisoner shall go free!” She felt a great sense of urgency for those who were waiting for their baptismal and confirmation work. Upon returning home, she searched the scriptures for the phrase she had heard. She found Joseph Smith’s declaration in section 128 of the Doctrine and Covenants: “Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free.”

Our youngest grandson illustrates the first principle. After learning to crawl and then stand, he was ready to try walking. During his first few attempts, he fell, cried, and gave a look that said, “I will never—ever—try that again! I’m simply going to keep crawling.”

When he stumbled and fell, his loving parents did not feel that he was hopeless or that he would never walk. Instead they held out their arms while calling to him, and with his eyes on them, he tried again to move toward their loving embrace.

Loving parents are always ready with outstretched arms to welcome even our smallest step in the right direction. They know that our willingness to try and try again will lead to progress and success.
The Savior taught that to inherit the kingdom of God, we must become as a little child. So, spiritually speaking, the first principle is that we need to do what we did as children.
With childlike humility and willingness to focus on our Father in Heaven and our Savior, we take steps toward Them, never giving up hope, even if we fall. Our loving Heavenly Father rejoices in each and every faithful step, and if we fall, He rejoices in each effort to get back up and try again.

I think dinosaurs are terrific! My mom says I’ve been crazy about them ever since I could talk. I can’t always visit the museum or library when I want to, so I go on lots of pretend dinosaur hunts. Then I make a museum in the backyard. When my family and friends visit my museum, I tell them all about these wonderful animals.
Other prehistoric creatures roam my backyard too. I dig holes in the dirt and fill them with water so the woolly mammoths and sabertoothed tigers can have a drink at my tar pit.
One day my backyard games turned into the real thing. I was digging a tar pit in the garden when my shovel clanked on something buried underground. I bent down to see what it was and I came up with a hard brown rock about the size of my fist.
I couldn’t wait to show somebody what I had, and I ran into the house calling, “A fossil! I found a fossil!”
“Take that dirty dog bone back outside,” Mom said.
So I did. I pulled some picnic benches together and set up my museum workshop. I knew just what to do because I had watched the scientists through the glass wall at the Page Museum. The equipment I needed was under the kitchen sink: a scrub brush, a towel, a container for water.
I went to work cleaning my discovery. With the brush and water I scrubbed off most of the garden soil. I dried it with a towel. It was smooth and dark brown with two bumps on one end. The other end looked like it had been broken.
It was a wonderful fossil. I played museum with it until dinnertime. This time when I took it into the house Mom didn’t say no. And the next morning she told me she had looked at my fossil while I was sleeping. “I’m sorry I called it a dog bone,” Mom said. “It really does look rather unusual.”
Then she called the page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California. She described what I had found in the backyard, and the man asked her to bring it in for him to examine.
So the next Saturday our family drove to the museum. We met the man my mom had talked to on the phone. I showed him my fossil. He showed it to another man, and I thought he said, “Bison.” Then he looked at me and said, “I think you’ve found something, son.”
The man took us into a room on the other side of the glass wall. There were rows and rows of big gray drawers. He pulled open a drawer and brought out a fossil that matched mine and another one that was longer than my arm.
“You have found part of a rib bone of a Bison Antiquus,” he said. “This long one is what the entire bone looks like.”
He told me that the Bison Antiquus is an extinct relative of our American buffalo and that an ancient Indian tribe used to hunt the Bison Antiquus in what is now Southern California. I closed my eyes and tried to picture all this happening in my own backyard thousands of years ago.
“Before you leave, be sure to take a look at the skeleton of the entire Bison Antiquus in the exhibit area,” the man said.
My mom asked him what we should do with my fossil. And he said to take it home and save it, because someday I might be a paleontologist who studies fossils.
We said good-bye and he shook my hand. “Keep up the good work,” he told me.
And I have. I still play museum in my backyard. Sometimes friends come over to help me dig because they heard about my fossil on the six o’clock television news. But mostly I play with my little brother, Jeff.
The other day Jeff found something in the dirt, and I knew it was a fossil. We showed it to Mom and she promised to take us back to the museum soon. I wonder what this fossil is. It sort of looks like it came from a sea animal.
When I grow up I want to learn all about prehistoric animals. Then when I find a fossil, maybe I’ll have a real museum and can figure out what it is all by myself.

In a small country town lived a boy named Willard. Willard collected everything imaginable. In fact, his room looked like a junkyard. But Willard knew that one day he would build something truly magnificent with all the junk he’d collected.
Willard started keeping all his junk in his room after his parents told him that he couldn’t leave it scattered throughout the house.
In one corner of his room Willard had an assortment of cardboard boxes. The smaller ones were stuffed inside the bigger ones to save space. Dangling from his doorknob were old shoelaces and pieces of string and yarn. Willard had shoe boxes full of different-size wheels from broken toys. Old wagon wheels were propped against the wall. Piled here and there were old inner tubes, Popsicle sticks, bottle caps, milk cartons, stacks of pictures from magazines, crayons, pencils, and all kinds of tape. And on his dresser he had soda cracker boxes piled to the ceiling.
One evening when Willard’s mother tried to get into his room to say good night, she could barely squeeze through the doorway. “Willard,” she said, “this mess is getting to me.”
When his father pushed into the room, he ordered, “Willard! This stuff has to go. You have until the weekend to get your room cleaned out. That’s it!”
Willard didn’t sleep much that night. He couldn’t possibly throw out all his magnificent junk. He knew that the time had come for him to build something truly magnificent.
It took Willard two days to carry all the junk from his room to the backyard. On the third day he started building. First Willard threaded some heavy wire through an old bicycle inner tube and nailed it to a tree. “A truly magnificent basketball hoop,” he said, pleased with himself.
Then he cut shorter pieces of heavy wire and shaped them into small hoops. “A truly magnificent ringtoss,” he murmured.
Next he built a pushcart, using some discarded wagon wheels. He made a seat for it and oiled the wheels. “Truly magnificent,” he said, beaming.
Willard took the tops and bottoms off all his cardboard boxes. He laid them end to end, forming a maze. He crawled through the boxes and pasted his collection of pictures on the inside walls. A truly magnificent fun house, thought Willard.
Willard stacked some milk cartons on a crate, then called it a day.
On the fourth day Willard still had lots to do. He made airplanes and little houses out of his piles of Popsicle sticks. He made kites out of newspapers and used his yarn collection for tails. Finally he built lots of his favorite toy—cracker-box trucks. He cut down one end of each box a little, folded down the flaps to make the cab, and taped the folds in place. He punched holes in the sides of the box, pushed dowels through for axles, snapped on wheels.
On the fifth day Willard put up a sign in his front yard:
WILLARD’S MAGNIFICENT CARNIVAL
ANY GAME OR RIDE—ONLY 5 PRETTY ROCKS
MAGNIFICENT PRIZES
Curious, all the children in the little town came to his carnival. They played ringtoss and basketball and knocked down milk cartons with balls. There was always a line of kids waiting to ride the pushcart.
One girl came out of the fun house and said, “Willard, this is the best fun house I’ve ever been in—it’s not even scary.” One boy said, “Willard, this is great. I have enough rocks to spend the whole day here.”
Willard gave prizes to the game winners. They could choose an airplane, a house, a kite, or a cracker-box truck. Like Willard, their favorite was the cracker-box trucks. “These are really nifty,” they said. Everyone wanted one, even the girls.
After two days of fun and games, Willard was out of prizes. So he asked for everyone’s attention. “Thank you all for coming to my carnival. You may take home anything that you see here.”
Some children took bottle caps, some took boxes, others took wheels and odds and ends until everything was gone. Soon Willard’s backyard was clean and quiet and back to normal.
All during the carnival, Willard’s parents had looked on in amazement. Now his father said, “I’m really proud of Willard for having this carnival. He got rid of all his junk and provided a great time for all the kids in town.”
“He certainly did!” said his mother.
But when they walked into Willard’s room to tell him how proud they were of him, they were stunned. All over the floor, and in every nook and cranny, were boxes and sacks filled to the top with pretty rocks!

Much like Angela and Annette, Marco Dauphin is eager to spread the gospel by sharing it with anyone who will listen. Marco is pretty much like any young man his age, with a passion for basketball and a quick, easy smile. But there is something a little different about him, too. He is a leader. He introduces his friends and family to things he thinks are good and uplifting. He knows how to include everyone and make each person feel comfortable. When he first met the missionaries a few years ago, he immediately knew they had something special—something he wanted to have, too.

“I remember learning from the missionaries about the Second Coming,” he says. “I loved it.”

Soon he was ready for baptism, and so was his younger brother, Derek. Younger sister Sandra soon followed. His youngest sister, Tina, was too young then but has since been baptized. But Marco’s older sister, Rosenelle, wasn’t so sure that joining the Church was a good idea.

“I was strong in my belief that the Church was not true,” says Rosenelle.

But at Marco’s urging, Rosenelle continued to meet with the missionaries, never committing to baptism but never completely rejecting the idea either.

“I never gave up,” says Marco. “I knew it would happen.”

And it did. While reading the Book of Mormon one afternoon, Rosenelle read about Alma the Younger. Soon she was thinking about her own life and the direction it was taking. She prayed for a long time that day and started to have some feelings that she couldn’t quite describe.

“Marco told me it was the Spirit,” says Rosenelle. “I knew he was right. I became converted and was baptized. I haven’t ever regretted it.”

While I was on my mission, I missed my best friend’s wedding.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her all day. We’d met as college roommates, and she quickly became like a sister to me. I knew that Heavenly Father had guided me to meet her.
But now, I couldn’t be there to celebrate one of the biggest moments of her life. And I was furious.
Before my mission, my life wasn’t perfect, but it was good. I loved college and had just formed the best friendship I’ve ever had. I was pretty happy.
I knew that serving a mission would be challenging. Still, I had this expectation that serving a mission would be the best 18 months of my life—with minimal hardship.
But six months in, my friend’s wedding became the newest entry in a list of hard things I hadn’t expected. Moving to a foreign country and learning a new language made me lonely and anxious. The rejection I experienced as part of missionary life was mentally exhausting. Honestly, I just wanted to go home.
I was tired and frustrated, and I didn’t feel like God was offering me the hope and happiness that I desperately needed. Only after exhausting every other option did I turn to a promise from my patriarchal blessing: that I would feel Heavenly Father’s love through the scriptures.
I realized that in my anger and loneliness, my perspective had become narrow. I’d been so focused on what I was missing that I’d failed to see what I had gained: a closer relationship with my Savior.
I realized I needed to repent for my poor attitude. It took time, but as I pleaded for my Redeemer’s help, I was reassured that “in this life I shall have joy” (Moses 5:10).
I was still sad that I missed my friend’s wedding, but in time, the Lord answered my prayers. I was so happy for my friend, and I found so much joy in my testimony that Heavenly Father really does see and love every one of His children. I gained so much more than I missed out on.

Achieving the Eagle award before the age of 13 is only one of the goals David Nielsen of the Orem 63rd Ward, Orem Utah South Stake, has set and fulfilled. In addition, he has earned all of the Boy Scout skill awards, 53 merit badges, his Trail to the Duty to God award, the Boy Scout Conservation award, the Presidential Physical Fitness award, and two citations in the American Red Cross Basic Life Support Course in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. He earned the Boy Scout Lifeguard award (which included swimming a half mile) while his arm was in a cast. He also made two 25-mile bike rides toward his cycling merit badge during the same time.

In June of 1986 I drove my mother to the Cardston Alberta Temple so she could receive her endowment. I had already received my endowment, but my nonmember husband and I lived in a remote part of British Columbia, and I had allowed my recommend to expire. Therefore, I was able to walk with my mother to the recommend desk but could follow her no further. I went outside, leaned against the temple wall, and cried.
After that experience, I determined never to be left outside of the temple again. My husband supported me in my decision, and I was soon attending the temple as frequently as I could. There I learned principles that made a profound difference in my personal life and in relationships with family and friends.

Josh Rohatinsky, a deacon in the Provo Fourth Ward, Provo Utah North Stake, realized a year-long goal when he became the Junior Olympics National Champion in the 3,000-meter run for the 11–12 age group. The games were held in Gainesville, Florida. Josh outperformed the second-place winner by 19 seconds.

Josh is coached by his dad and would like to run in the 2000 summer Olympics. For now, though, he’s just glad the race is over.

"It was hard," says Josh, "but I’m glad I did it."

All it took was a call to Gary’s Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Tennessee for Chris Collier to find the perfect Eagle Scout project.
Chris, a member of the Memphis First Ward, Memphis North Stake, says, a little nervously, “This is something that’s never been done before.” Gary’s Creek church asked him to document its cemetery—the oldest black cemetery in Shelby County.
Chris first needs to meet everyone involved and decide how much help he will need on the project. He drives to Gary’s Creek Cemetery on a road paved over the old stagecoach line. As soon as he steps out of the car, he has to swat at a mosquito. It’s the height of Tennessee heat in August, and it’s so humid you can practically drink the air. But that isn’t going to stop Chris.
There’s a group waiting for him at the gate to the cemetery. Mr. Lacy, who has many ancestors buried here, greets Chris. “This cemetery is a gold mine for genealogists,” Mr. Lacy tells Chris as he adjusts his wide-brimmed hat. “Think of all those people’s stories buried under the ground.” Mr. Lacy has uncovered the story of one of his ancestors buried here—Joseph H. Harris, better known as “Free Joe.” He wrote two books about Free Joe’s adventures and is turning them into a Hollywood screenplay.
Chris walks through the cemetery with his notebook and camera. The huge trees’ heavy branches droop in the heat, and thick emerald grass covers some of the grave markers completely. There are all types of people buried here, from tiny babies to Civil War veterans. Some of the markers are simple rusty spikes in the ground; others have hand-carved names in aged, chipped stones. Nobody can tell what they say, except for the caretaker, Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Brooks has been caretaker of Gary’s Creek Cemetery since 1939. He moves slowly around the cemetery with the help of his cane and quietly points out different grave markers to Chris. Mr. Brooks is the only one who knows the names on and locations of all the graves. His father was caretaker before him.
“I used to walk around the cemetery with my father while he helped me memorize the graves,” Mr. Brooks says. Many of the graves are unmarked, and the only documentation is in Mr. Brooks’s memory. If Mr. Brooks dies, the information dies with him. Chris isn’t going to let that happen.
Leslie Louthain, the director of the LDS family history center in the area, and her husband are also here to help. She gives Chris tips on how to put all the information in a database. He’ll give one copy to the Gary’s Creek church and send one to the Church’s Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
Sister Louthain thoughtfully examines a grave marker near the woods until she discovers there is more than family history in this cemetery.
“There are snakes in those trees!” she shrieks. Her husband laughs, and she heads for higher ground.
As Chris wraps up his first visit, he sighs. “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. This one cemetery could be a lot of separate projects,” he says. But he isn’t afraid to plunge in anyway.
Chris doesn’t feel so overwhelmed when he comes back with a big group of teens to help him. The ladies from Gary’s Creek church provide lunch, and it isn’t as hot, because now it’s well into autumn.
Chris divides up the teens into groups to document the graves, with the help of Mr. Lacy and Mr. Brooks, of course. You can barely tell who belongs to which church because everyone is mixed together, trying to get all the information recorded.
As Chris wraps it all up, everyone is pleased. The members of Gary’s Creek church can rest easy, knowing the information in their vast cemetery has been preserved, and Chris’s group can be satisfied knowing they’ve helped preserve information for future family history work.
The cemetery seems a little more peaceful now, thanks to Chris, because the richness of its history won’t be lost. Who knows what stories might later be uncovered?
As Chris takes a reflective look around the cemetery, Mr. Lacy says, “Family history is going to be what brings religions and races together.” And in his little corner of Tennessee, Chris helped do just that.

Paul, 11, was exhausted. He was almost too tired to look up from the river in which he was wading to the cliffs that surrounded him.
The red sandstone walls loomed high over the riverbed, spanning it like a pair of giant legs, 2,400 feet straight up, or twice the height of the Empire State Building. They seemed so close to each other that Paul felt like Jason about to steer the Argonauts between the monolithic Cyanean rocks, which crashed together and squashed ships that dared to pass through.
Moving his 80 pounds against the swift current while he looked, Paul suddenly slipped, but an older, bony hand grabbed his and held him up.
“Once when I was walking through here with some other fellows, I fell right in,” Paul’s 74-year-old grandfather, Otto Fife, said to him. “That was the first time I knew you could hear sounds underwater; I could hear all the other birds laughing at me!”
Paul giggled, and the two continued to ford the Virgin River, now hand-in-hand.
It was one of many experiences during an exhilarating two-day hike through the Narrows of Zion National Park in southwestern Utah. The trip, a family get-together in one of nature’s most supreme wonders, was one that Otto and his seven grandchildren would always remember.
For Otto, too, it was historic.
Years ago, when only a few men had tried the tramp through the huge, long defile in the Markagunt Plateau known as the Zion Narrows, he had ventured down its course. It had a lure that pulled him into its depths as surely as a cactus plant sucks up moisture in desert sand. “There’s something about the Narrows I can’t get away from,” Otto tells his grandchildren. He has hiked the Alps, the Matterhorn, the Sierra Nevadas, across the Grand Canyon, and “all over America,” but nothing compares to Zion Canyon, with its awe-inspiring combination of narrowness and depth.
Otto has hiked it 49 times—far more than any other man—and planned his 50th trip as a gala event. He invited his two daughters’ families to join him. From Beaverton, Oregon, came his son-in-law, Don Woodlief, and the Woodlief children—Donna, 15; Bruce, 13; and Graydon, 12. The Jones family arrived from Tustin, California, including Nadine, 22; Chris, 18; Richard, 14; and Paul. Only Nadine and Chris had been through the Narrows before.
On a sunny Saturday morning, early, Otto and 16 others met on a private ranch at the top of the Virgin River’s North Fork to begin the rugged, 15-mile hike. Grassy meadows and sandy flats greeted the adventurers’ first steps as they followed the meandering stream.
Paul announced enthusiastically that he would carry anyone’s pack if they got tired, but he soon relinquished his own load to his father.
The panoramic backdrop that unfolded as Otto’s companions on his 50th trip rounded the first of a thousand bends and twists in the river was stunning. “It is impossible to describe adequately the grandeur,” wrote Grove K. Gilbert in his 1873 diary of the first recorded trek down the Narrows.
Only ten years before, young Joseph Black, a Mormon pioneer, had sung the canyon’s poetic beauty from its clifftops and been laughed at by his friends. They called the place, deridingly, “Joseph’s Glory,” just as those who heard John Colter’s eulogy of Yellowstone named that park “Colter’s Hell.”
Nadine, a self-described artist, was awed by Joseph’s rainbow canyon of color through which she was walking—even though she’d been through it before. “I wonder if it could be painted,” she paused once and mused.
Not even Van Gogh, though, might have attempted to capture Zion’s picture … of brilliant-colored rocks in shades of chocolate, vermilion, lilac, maroon, blue and yellow … of white alpine fir trees, maple hardwood, ponderosa pines, or golf-course green Aspen trees, shimmering in the breeze … of the canyon’s traffic: wrens, chattering squirrels, orange and black butterflies, and water ouzels …
“Gosh!” That’s all 12-year-old Graydon could say about it, and maybe that said it all.
After about two hours out, the whole group halted in a grove of pines as the younger members began calling for lunch. The perspiring hikers made a rite of the midday meal—salami, oranges, crackers, fruit punch, and sandwiches of all sizes and fillings. Richard finished early and poked his walking stick in the riverbank mud. “Anyone for golf?” he shouted, as he took a swing at the water and doused Donna. She hastened back to the safety of more peaceful picnickers, and Richard went off by himself to drill in the mud for oil.
“How many more miles do we have to go?” Paul asked, a little tuckered-out.
Grandfather Fife looked at him, and winked. “About 100 miles!”
With a second wind, the group pushed out again, this time wading in the water. Marching through the Narrows is one excursion where everybody gets their feet wet. There’s no way to avoid baptizing those walking appendages—eventually. In places the water is knee-high, and waist-high in others. To wee-er ones, that translates to neck-high, and a little swimming or piggyback is required.
Once, when Otto was leading a San Fernando, California, LDS Boy Scout Troop, he gave a small, laughed-at lad the important task of notching his stick with a nail each time they crossed the river. Faithful to the task, the boy scratched 252 marks on the stick by the trip’s end. (Brother Fife, now choir president of the Cedar City [Utah] 5th Ward, has led 1,060 LDS Scouts through the Narrows in all.)
“My feet feel like squeegees,” Paul piped, as he sloshed along a riverbank and up on a little pine-cone strewn plateau.
Many obstacles appeared before the hikers along the path—upturned redwood trees spanning the canyon and huge, wedgelike rocks, some so square they looked like massive beef bullion cubes. Potholes and brief caves offered extra enticement to those with spunk and spirit. Bruce was off into a series of caves that burrowed through one sandstone wall like an anthill before anyone could call him back.
About mid-afternoon the 17 hikers found an obstacle that stymied them—a 20-foot rocky waterfall. When it appeared there was no other way down, Otto asked for a volunteer, while veteran Nadine quietly smiled over this trick she’d seen on her last Narrows trek. Graydon stepped forward and, imitating the beginning of a leap, was held back by the all-knowing Otto: “There’s another way.”
He took the group through some trees and bushes on the left bank to a small crack in the rock, barely three feet wide. As they descended the hidden, natural cleft staircase, Otto was laughing with his arm around Graydon. “I did have to jump that the first time I went through,” he explained. “But the next trip I saw deer tracks leading up here. I followed them, and found this crevice.”
By this time it was late afternoon, and the distance between the weary hikers, whose packs had grown heavier and heavier, began to widen. Bruce, deacon’s quorum president in his home ward, surged in the lead. “This is what they mean by getting away from it all,” he told Richard, when the hikers reassembled. “I like to be where no one else is—to see everything before everyone else.”
The hikers had gathered at the Y-shaped confluence of the North Fork and Deep Creek—known locally as Crystal Creek because of its sparkling-clear water, as compared to the muddy Virgin. The area was a natural, red-and-white temple set off by emerald-green cottonwood and the bright, yellow beams of the sun, which were slanting on the tall walls. From this waterstop on, it was a race to the campsite for the night. Caution was always required, as the marchers felt around on the riverbottom with their walking staffs for safe footing or took care to avoid soggy sand along the bank.
At one point, Graydon and Donna, who had been bringing up the rear with their father, stepped into some quicksand—more accurately, water-saturated sand. Graydon quickly leaped free, but Donna struggled too hard and was soon in the bog up to her waist. Graydon and his father couldn’t pull her out, and the others were too far ahead. But Chris Jones, who had arrived later in the day and started the hike with a friend, caught up to them from behind like the Cavalry. Between the four men, a branch, and stepping stones that kept sinking in the mud, she was extricated, a little shaken after the half-hour ordeal. “Guess I don’t have to find those scissors to cut your legs off,” Chris laughed, trying to cheer her up.
Fires were lit and sleeping bags set up at the Grotto, a sandy, flat alcove in the canyon wall. Boots and sneakers were propped up on sticks next to the fires, wet clothes tossed over tree branches, and some of the cousins took off to find some drinking water—after a change into dryer clothes.
Following a meal of hot dogs roasted over the flames, the group sat on logs and viewed the hasty Zion Canyon sunset, too tired to move. Walls turned the shades of sunset, becoming ghostly cliffs of greenish-white sandstone as the moon shone on them, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Thoughts like the 19th psalm came easily there.
Donna was whispering to her cousin, “It’s so beautiful, all of it. It makes me appreciate what God has given us.”
A spoonful of fruit cocktail in his mouth, Otto overheard.
Women had spoken this way in this place before. An adventurous group of University of Utah coeds in 1920 had made international headlines by exploring the entire Zion Park in pants-and-boots fashion. One of their group had noted in her diary: “Zion Park is a beautiful world of its own, a good world. For when one looks upon the gigantic grandeur of it all, it makes one wonder if anything vile or criminal could ever happen in its surroundings. One can only think beautiful thoughts amid such splendor.”
None of these latter-day adventurers could disagree as they bedded down for the night, tucked in by the rush of the river, the whispering leaves. A blaze of stars shining down into the canyon insured peaceful dreams.
Richard was the fastest riser the next day. Others tumbled out, sleepily, behind him.
None but Otto seemed to look forward to a plunge in the cold stream again, since sunrise doesn’t warm the Virgin River until after 10 A.M. when the sun is more directly overhead and can get into the canyon. Breakfast quickly vanished, though, and packs were donned to begin the tramp again, this time more quietly.
The Narrows hike can be made in a day—only weeks before, Otto had done just that. But it’s an arduous hike and should be taken slowly, unless expediency requires it. One early pioneer reported that he was out of the canyon by sunset “after spotting fresh cougar and bear tracks along the way. I didn’t want any of them critters for sleeping companions.”
It wasn’t long before the hikers entered one of several sets of Narrows. The defile was more than 2,000 feet high and demanded the walkers stare up at the faraway clifftops nearly straight above the base of the river. “To all the aches and pains that must be endured on this walk, you have to add a kinked neck from looking up,” Otto said.
At one spot, Otto encouraged his family to toss rocks into a pothole scooped out of the sheer wall, about 12 feet above and across the river. Only a few could keep the stones inside the hole. That accomplished, they continued to amble along the winding walls that are the hallmark of the park—and as impressive as vaulted Medieval cathedrals like London’s Westminster Abbey.
When the dark, narrow canyon opened out again, Otto’s family was again stunned by an array of colors and sheer beauty that make even adjectives about it sit up and take notice. Even though Otto has been through the Narrows far more than any other person in the world, it is always new to him, he said. “It always surprises me. Something different about it every time.”
The real Narrows were reached by noon. Because of potential flash floods, those who attempt these must check weather reports and go after the cloudburst season is over, in September or October. Inside the Narrows, which extend several hundred winding yards, the tall walls stand shoulder to shoulder. In places they are only 20 feet apart and give an Alice-in-Wonderland sensation—something like a flea would feel on the scrimmage line between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins.
Paul clasped his grandfather’s reassuring hand tighter as the group unconsciously sped faster into the dim and echoing corridor.
Throughout the Narrows, it was wall-to-wall water they hiked in, except for a few gravel beds. The powerful Virgin River has alone cut this deep, knife-gash gorge into the park. For ages the grit-bearing water has eaten its way like acid through the sandstone. Even now it carries out millions of tons of silt a year, at the rate of 80 railroad boxcar-loads a day.
Once past the Narrows, the family who came on Otto’s Golden Anniversary trek began to meet packless hikers walking upstream on short outings. Yet even toward the end of this trip, Otto’s grandchildren still saw sights that were new. They saw the “hanging gardens” of Zion—bright, green moss growing out of the water seepage that wetted and blackened the river’s awesome perpendicular partitions.
A closer look revealed Rhysa Zionis, little pinhead-size, freshwater snails, peculiar to this canyon only, that cling to their vertical homes and look like so many black dots.
As they sloshed out of the water for the last time at the beginning of a paved tourist trail leading to the parking lot (CARS! No more walking!), the hikers heaved their soggy packs onto the wet sand. Both mothers were there to meet, and hail, their hardy children, soon to whisk them back to comfortable homes and beds in California and Oregon.
Otto set his pack down somewhat reluctantly.
He wondered if his tired grandchildren had learned what there was to learn in this land of Zion he could not leave. Like Antaeus, the mythological giant who drew his strength by touching the earth, Otto somehow pulls philosophy and poetry from that canyon.
Had they understood what one pioneer felt in his very veins? He was a Mormon who had written about his turn-of-the-century trek:
“I was now thankful for every condition which had combined to bring me into this mighty thought-inspiring solitude, this place called Zion, where the stars shine by day and brighter by night. Where earthly achievements and thoughtless, indefinite desires appear as things not worth while, if they are to be charged to our eternal account; where simple, silent thought comes to be regarded as the highest and most perfect expression of prayer; where man learns to fear God, to pray to God, to rely on God. Where man can stand without the support of his fellow men when he feels that he is right; where hope and faith in the universal scheme of things is inspired; where man is made to feel that if he is anything, he is the humble servant of God.”
Perhaps it was too much to understand, Otto thought, and said his goodbyes. But in later letters came the verdict: “When can we go back again? When can we?”
“Zion Canyon is a great symphony I want to hear over and over again,” Otto had said. “When I can’t go down it anymore, I’d better be six feet underground!”
And the family was with him.

Mingan, the young Mongol boy, fastened his padded collar closely beneath his chin. The icy winds from the plains whistled around the great felt tents and drove dust into his face. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he saw a ball of dust rolling across the plain toward camp and heard a faint jingle of bells. The cloud grew larger and resolved into a rider, his wide belt set thickly with bells, leaning close to his mount. It was a messenger from Kublai Khan!
Turning, Mingan lifted the flap of the nearest tent. “Father!” he shouted. “A messenger from the great Khan approaches!”
Prince Catu, Mingan’s father, pushed past him and shouted orders. Men hurried from their tents. The horseman, with a clatter and a jangle, slid from his snorting mount and handed Catu a scroll. A waiting herdsman seized the bridle of the messenger’s lathered animal and led the horse away to shelter.
Mingan leaned forward. “What does the Kahn say?”
Catu smiled. “We are honored! The new court commissioner will arrive today. Kublai Khan asks us to receive this new envoy with all courtesies and to supply him with an escort to Singui. I have heard good things about this man. They call him Marco Polo.”
“Is he a great warrior like the Khan, Father?”
“No, he is a fair-skinned agent from the kingdoms in the West. He has found great favor at court.”
“But aren’t all great men warriors?” Mingan asked. “The Khan surrounds himself with only great men.”
“Part of what you say is true, my son. The Khan does bring the most able to his court, but not all great men are warriors. You will understand when you meet Marco Polo.”
“He cannot be much if he has not been trained as a warrior,” Mingan muttered as he turned away.
“Wait, my son,” Catu said. “I will need escorts to accompany our honored guest to Singui. You will be one of them.”
“But, Father,” Mingan protested, “you promised I could go hunting with you tomorrow!”
“There will be other hunting trips.”
“But I wanted to show you what a good rider and marksman I am.”
Catu smiled. “I send you with Marco Polo because I know your skills. Now go. Tell your mother to prepare a feast to greet the new envoy.”
Mingan, full of disappointment, slowly headed for the tent. Now it would be many months before he could join the hunters. The journey to Singui would seem long when one had to jog beside a scrawny little man from the West. There would be no racing one’s pony and standing in the stirrups to shoot arrows at moving targets and no practicing turns at full speed—turns that could surprise and defeat an enemy. By the time the lookout sighted a thin dustline approaching, Mingan wished he had never heard of Marco Polo.
The dusty caravan drew up before the felt tents, and the riders dismounted. All the men were dressed in the padded winter clothing of the Mongols. Not until Mingan came closer and saw the fur flaps turned back from their faces could he distinguish between Marco and his companions. The face of this Westerner, bronzed like the rest, was young and smiling. His eager round eyes, resting for a second on Mingan, were warm and friendly. Marco laughed as he pushed back a lock of his curly black hair. How can any man laugh after the grueling journey across the plains? Mingan wondered.
Catu beckoned to Mingan as he said, “Worthy Commissioner, this is Mingan, my firstborn. He will be among the escorts who accompany you to Singui.”
Marco smiled and in the Mongol tongue replied, “I feel honored that the eldest son of Prince Catu will be with me.” He put an arm across Mingan’s shoulder. “He is a sturdy lad, and a fine horseman, I’ll wager.”
Mingan found himself warming to Marco. “I can handle a bow too.”
“Fine!” Marco said. “I shall have need of your skills to keep us in game between here and Singui.”
The feast was a happy one, much pleasanter than Mingan had anticipated. He found himself forgetting his disappointment over the postponed hunting trip as he listened to the many lively adventures Marco described to his attentive audience.
The wind had died down by dark. When the feasting was over, Mingan escorted Marco to his tent. The outside air struck Mingan’s face like an icy hand.
Marco stopped suddenly. “Look at those stars!” He swept his arm in an arc over his head. “Are they not brilliant tonight?”
“They are, indeed,” Mingan replied. “That one in the west is brightest of all.”
Marco spoke softly. “It would be tonight.” He sighed. “In my home in faraway Venice, it is Christmas Eve, a joyful night when everyone celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.”
Mingan turned and asked, “Was this Jesus one of your great warriors?”
“No, but He was the greatest man who ever lived.”
“How can that be?” Mingan asked. “Great men are always warriors.”
“You are right, Mingan, but not warriors as you know them—men who ride fast and shoot well. Christ never touched a bow or spear, yet He fought evil and injustice. His sword was truth, and His shield was a deep faith in God. He believed in doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and in peace and goodwill to all men!”
Mingan looked thoughtful. “Those are fine ideas to believe in, like the sayings of our wise men. But how can we live them?”
Marco faced Mingan and placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I wondered the same thing when I was your age, Mingan. I didn’t find the answer until I began to travel.”
“Did the great Kublai Khan reveal it to you?”
“Not the Khan alone, but many people—people like you.”
“Like me?”
Marco nodded. “As I met people and grew to know them, I found I understood and appreciated and respected them. It was easy to do unto them as I wished them to do unto me, and to feel goodwill toward all men.”
Mingan was quiet as he gazed at the bright star near the horizon. At last he spoke. “On the way to Singui, will you tell me more about Jesus Christ, whose birth is celebrated tonight?”
Marco seized Mingan’s hand in a warm grip. “Indeed I will! Good night, my friend, and Buon Natale to you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means ‘a good Christmas to you.’”
Mingan smiled. The trip to Singui would be long, but it promised much. Softly he repeated, “Buon Natale, Buon Natale.”

Lethbridge, Alberta, is quite a long way from the Sweetwater River in Wyoming, but during a recent pioneer trek, they looked a little bit the same. Three boys from the Lethbridge Stake—Randy Bullock, Drew Walters, and Brett Barfuss—were inspired by a story they heard about three young men who helped rescue members of the Martin Handcart Company. The young men carried many Saints through the icy river, risking their own lives to save others.
The boys in Lethbridge reenacted the brave service rendered by those young men so long ago. And although they didn’t risk their lives to carry their friends across Lee’s Creek, all the youth felt of the sweet spirit that service brings.

Being brought up in the Church, I was always told by my friends and family that this was the true church. But I never really bothered to find out for myself. I just assumed it was true because everything pretty much made sense and my parents seemed so sincere about it.
I had always planned to go on a mission, partially because I felt I was expected to and also because I felt I needed to. After I received my mission call, I really began to wonder about the truthfulness of the Church. But I had never prayed about it, and now that I was close to going on my mission I didn’t have the courage to ask.
While at the Missionary Training Center, I was in high spirits. I was enjoying the knowledge I was gaining. Still, in the back of my mind the thought still lingered. I needed to know for myself if the gospel was true, but I continued to push the thought away.
One day my teacher finished giving a great lesson. He then bore his testimony and challenged each of us to find out for ourselves that the Church was true. I felt the lesson was aimed specifically at me. That night, I asked Heavenly Father to help me know that what I was doing was right and that the Church was true.
I finished my prayer and waited and waited. Feeling nothing, I became discouraged and went to bed.
A couple of days later, I was studying the scriptures when I read: “Verily I say unto you my friends, fear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks;
“Waiting patiently on the Lord, for your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and are recorded with this seal and testament—the Lord hath sworn and decreed that they shall be granted.
“Therefore, he giveth this promise unto you, with an immutable covenant that they shall be fulfilled; and all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good; and to my name’s glory, saith the Lord” (D&C 98:1–3).
These verses helped me understand the need for patience. A few days later at a fireside, we were talking about our prophets. I’ll never forget that night. It was the first time I had ever felt the Spirit so strongly. Toward the conclusion, we stood and sang “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.” I was overwhelmed. I knew the Holy Ghost was testifying to me; I also knew that the current prophet was leading the true church.
I recently returned from serving in the Tucson Arizona Mission. I am grateful for that special day in the MTC. I learned it’s never too late or too early to pray about the truth. The Lord always answers our prayers.

As the wedding day approached, every cedi and every pesewa had been spent for the ceremony. The Ofosu family had spent all their money to have the Ghanaian traditional marriage.
On the morning of the marriage, Samuel Ofosu did not have a car or money to get to the place the wedding was being held. His phone was broken, it was 3 a.m. and he had no idea what to do to get to his own marriage ceremony. With a prayer in his heart, he found someone and asked them if he could use their phone to make a phone call. Samuel had a thought to call a random friend. Thankfully, his friend picked the phone and Samuel told him about the situation. His friend told him not to worry, just wait for a short time. In less than 20 minutes there was a car there to take Brother Ofosu to the wedding free of charge, a pure miracle by God’s hand.
“We truly thank you for your prayers,” Brother and Sister Ofosu told Elder Olsen and Elder Linger. “It is only by your prayers that everything worked out fine. Everyone was safe. The marriage was wonderful. We don’t owe anyone anything, but our pockets are empty.”

Another experience began 48 hours after my wife’s burial. At that time, I was rushed to the hospital in an acute medical crisis. I then spent the first four weeks of a six-week stay in and out of intensive care and in and out of consciousness.
Virtually all my experience in the hospital during that first period is lost to my memory. What is not lost is my memory of a journey outside the hospital, out to what seemed the edge of eternity. I cannot speak fully of that experience here, but I can say that part of what I received was an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, more faith in His word.
I couldn’t help but feel I was receiving my own personal version of a revelation given to the Twelve nearly 200 years ago:
“Thou shalt bear record of my name … [and] send forth my word unto the ends of the earth. …
“… Morning by morning; and day after day let thy warning voice go forth; and when the night cometh let not the inhabitants of the earth slumber, because of thy speech. …
“Arise[,] … take up your cross, [and] follow me.”
My beloved sisters and brothers, since that experience, I have tried to take up my cross more earnestly, with more resolve to find where I can raise an apostolic voice of both warmth and warning in the morning, during the day, and into the night.

Brethren, in many, many areas it is time we take stock of ourselves and do what the Lord wants us to do. A man said to me the other day, not long ago, “This Church just demands too much of us.”

I said, “Brother, this Church demands nothing of you. It just offers you a better way of life.” He said, “But it is awfully hard.” I said, “Let’s see if it is. Let’s go and get a cigar and have a good smoke. Let’s go and hold up a bank and see what happens. Let us go and join a group tonight as they go out on a big drunk.” He said, “President Tanner, don’t be ridiculous.” I said, “All right, I won’t if you won’t.” Then I said, “Just name one commandment that you think you shouldn’t keep, or you would advise your son not to keep.” He could not.

Regarding our tithing, surely, brethren, we should be prepared to pay one-tenth of what the Lord has given us, especially when we realize that it could be taken away from us overnight with fire or hurricane, or any other thing that might take it away from us.

When I was presiding over the Edmonton Branch a man came to me and said, “I can’t pay a full tithing this year. I have had to do some building, some remodeling, and so on.” I told him that the Lord had said that he would pour out blessings that we would hardly be able to contain. He said, “I still can’t do it.” Right after the first of the year that man spent several days in the hospital with a high doctor bill, and he paid it. I am not suggesting that he was there because he didn’t pay a full tithing, but I am suggesting that the evidence is there that he could have paid a full tithing.

How would you like the Lord to figure out his blessings on the same basis that you do when you are figuring out your tithing? If you were in deep trouble, had physical or mental illness, or your family were suffering and causing you much concern, would you want him to say, “Well now, just how much can I keep from giving him? How close can I figure this blessing?”

Brethren, let us be obedient to the commandments of God. Let us prove faithful, let us be an example to the world, a light unto the world. Appreciate the priesthood which we have and the calling that is ours. We have been given the great privilege of holding the priesthood and the responsibility of taking the gospel to the world. We can do it by our actions as well as by precept, which is much more effective. Only as we live and keep the commandments of God, being obedient in all things can we fully enjoy life here and eternal life in the world to come, and be able to influence the world for good, and help build the kingdom of God here upon the earth.

May we do this, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ, which we are, and follow the prophet of God who has been chosen and through whom the Lord speaks, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.