Gospel Story Finder

I also think it’s essential that our spiritual side be developed along with our craftsmanship. Fifteen years ago I had a conversation with Elder Boyd K. Packer. He said, “As an artist what is your concern?” and I said, “My problem is that I watch the non-LDS artists paint 50 paintings a year and I paint 25 because I have made a commitment that I will seek first the kingdom of heaven. I will be active in the Church, and so I’ll be Young Men president and take my kids around to collect fast offerings and go to Mutual and go home teaching and all those things that eat up one’s time, while other artists can paint twice as much as I do. And because the more you paint the better you get, they just keep on outdistancing me.”

He said, “Why do you fail to recognize that with the help of the Spirit, which is what you’re spending all that time being active in the Church attempting to obtain, you can accomplish more in 10 paintings than another painter can in 30 or 40? It’s not the quantity of paintings, but the quality of the spirit within you that will move you to do good work.” And his words just went right to my heart.

We live on a beautiful Pacific Island that does not have a temple. But members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Caledonia are familiar with traveling long distances to visit the house of the Lord.

My family and I saved our money during the COVID-19 pandemic and in December 2023, we were able to travel to Utah to visit our daughter and the many temples available there. After five years of not being able to do work for our ancestors, we had prepared 65 names to take to the temple during our stay.

It was a challenge to line up appointments for all the temple work we had planned for Utah. We were desperate to help our ancestors, and as our return date approached, our incredible adventure began—we secured four baptism sessions in four different temples on the same day.

We entered the baptistry at the Provo Utah Temple early in the morning, and I begged Heavenly Father to provide a miracle for the work we needed to do. I had faith that He would also want to see my ancestors baptized.

The patrons at the baptismal font were moving slower than usual that morning, but I explained our situation to a sister working in the temple, and she invited other willing patrons to help perform the work with us.

It was an incredible and emotional experience to witness all 65 ancestors baptized by proxy, one by one, after the significant effort we had made to find them! We were so grateful for this first miracle. The Spirit was strong, and we could feel the relief, gratitude and happiness from those 65 precious souls.

This sister who helped us—we call her our “Sister Miracle” now—invited us to her home, wanting to know more of our family’s story. Our two families enjoyed talking over waffles about missions, temple work, family history, and all our blessings from Heavenly Father.

As the evening ended, Sister Miracle asked for a priesthood blessing of comfort as she had just been diagnosed with aggressive cancer and was preparing for chemotherapy, surgery and radiation.

Together with her husband, I pronounced a blessing that her life would not be cut short, that she would see her children serve missions, and enjoy watching her grandchildren grow up.

Later, Sister Miracle shared with me about our visit:

“It was a tender mercy from the Lord, knowing that He was aware of me and my new trial with cancer. My faith was strengthened in Jesus Christ. I am blessed to have had this experience with my new friends from New Caledonia.”

She continued to share what she is learning:

“We all experience different trials and challenges in our lives. I am choosing to center my life on Jesus Christ and keep my covenants with Him. I have confidence that He will bless me in His perfect way. I often use the phrase ‘but if not’ in my prayers. I ask for healing and strength, but if I am not cured from cancer, I trust that He will bless me in His perfect way. I have confidence that He will provide miracles as well as little tender mercies along the way; to help me know He is aware of me.

“This message from Elder Soares explains how I feel: ‘I know that when the Lord sees even a spark of desire or a flicker of righteous effort in our willingness to center our lives on Him and on the ordinances and covenants, we make in His house, He will bless us, in His perfect way, with the miracles and tender mercies we need.’”

From the day of our first visit, we prayed for Sister Miracle. Treatments became more complicated, and her white blood cell count was often too low to continue chemotherapy at the same pace. Even with these complications, I had faith and trusted the Lord for her recovery.

Seven months later, Sister Miracle and her husband called me on my way to work. Through video chat, they explained the post-surgery results, after the cancer growth had been removed. Miraculously, the doctors found no cancer cells in that tissue. Words could not describe my joy and tears over this new miracle!

While such a miraculous response is not always the outcome in life’s challenges, Heavenly Father is aware of our needs and has provided strength through covenants with Him.

Indeed, for Sister Miracle, the sustaining help and love she felt from Heavenly Father was the real miracle in her life. As President Russell M. Nelson has said: “All those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy.”

He also said, “Every woman and every man who makes covenants with God and keeps those covenants, and who participates worthily in priesthood ordinances, has direct access to the power of God.”

I testify that, like our Sister Miracle, we can fully benefit from the infinite power and love of God through faith, covenants, service, and obedience. God is a God of miracles. He is loving and merciful. His Son is our Savior here on earth and beyond the veil. His power is infinite and available to all His children.

I realize very well the obstacles faced. Many are the times when it seems absolutely impossible to maintain the proper standard of appearance.
In the mission field where I labored, we were normally interviewed by the president at conference time. In most cases, we traveled to the conference and did not do normal missionary work at this time. Thus, it was easier to make a presentable appearance, and, of course, we always tried to look our very best.
One particular time, however, the president made a tour of all the cities to interview each missionary. It happened that our interviews were to be early in the morning. We did our best to get ready and then realized that it was raining heavily outside. I will never forget the shocked look on the face of the president and his assistant as we drove up to the small meeting hall on our motor bikes. I have to admit that we must have presented an amusing sight, emerging out of the early morning darkness, draped completely in our drab, shapeless, rain ponchos, hunched over our bikes, with rain dripping off our noses and chins.
If a sister can laugh at those times when a radiant appearance is impossible and work smartly behind the scenes to look her best when it is possible, she will feel better herself, she will look better to others, and the Spirit will be better able to work through her, for she will be a pure and holy vessel, inside and out.

President Spencer W. Kimball also recognized the benefits of taking on a challenging goal. He told this story of a goal he made when he was 14:

“When I heard a Church leader from Salt Lake City tell us at conference that we should read the scriptures, … I walked to my home a block away … and I read the first chapters of Genesis. …

“I found that this Bible that I was reading had in it 66 books, and then I was nearly dissuaded when I found that it had in it 1,189 chapters, and then I also found that it had 1,519 pages. It was formidable, but I knew if others did it that I could do it.”

That amount of reading wasn’t easy for a teenager, but nevertheless President Kimball persevered and completed his goal. As an adult, he said, “I have always been glad I read the Bible from cover to cover.”

President Kimball benefited from taking the time to think through the logistics of his goal. Even though it sounded daunting, the information prepared him to succeed. As was the case with President Kimball, reaching for and achieving a challenging goal at a young age can bring feelings of confidence and satisfaction to serve us throughout life.

When I was a little girl, my parents took my sister and me to an orchard owned by the Church. We were there to help pick peaches. We climbed up on tall ladders and reached through thick leaves to pick the peaches off the trees.
At first, we were excited. But soon the fuzz on the fruit made our arms all itchy! We told our mom, “We don’t want to do this anymore. We want to stop.”
My mom asked us if we knew where all the peaches went. When we said no, she explained it to us.
“Each of these peaches is taken to a building where volunteers put them in cans. Then those cans are given to people who need food. Each year the Church donates thousands of cans of food.”
All of a sudden, my sister and I stopped worrying about our itchy arms. We were helping people who needed food! After that, we had fun climbing up the ladders and picking the fuzzy orange fruit.

I remember once in 1957, while I was acting as a new president of a branch in Argentina, I decided to interview the members with respect to the importance of paying tithing. I found myself talking with one good brother of the branch whose name was Jose, who had difficulty paying his tithing. I asked him bluntly, “Brother Jose, why don’t you pay your tithing?” I’m sure Jose didn’t expect me to be so direct.
After a moment of silence he responded: “As you know, President, I have two children. The wage of a laborer is very low. This month I have to buy my children shoes to go to school; and, mathematically, I just don’t have enough money.”
In an instant response, I said, “Jose, I promise you that if you pay your tithing faithfully, your children will have their shoes to go to school, and you will be able to pay for all the needs of your home. I don’t know how he will do it, but the Lord always keeps his promises. Besides that,” I added, “If you still find that you don’t have enough money, I will give you back what you paid in tithing from my own pocket.”
On the way home, I wondered if what I had done was the right thing. Here I was, recently married, just getting started in my career, and faced with my own economic problems. I began to worry about my own shoes, let alone those of Jose’s family! Even though when I got home my dear wife wholeheartedly supported me and reassured me that everything would be all right, I must say that that night nobody prayed harder for Brother Jose’s economic welfare than I did.
One month later, I once again sat down with Jose. Though the tears in his eyes almost made it impossible for him to speak, he said: “President, it is incredible. I paid my tithing; I was able to meet all of my obligations, and I even purchased the new shoes for my children, all without an increase in my wage. I know that the Lord keeps his promises!”
Jose remains to this day a faithful tithe payer.

Mutual can also be an opportunity to participate in missionary work. It is a great place to invite less-active members or friends of other faiths to feel the Spirit in a casual, less intimidating setting.
Brother Dahlquist told the story of a priesthood leader he met in Uruguay. After talking with him for a minute, Brother Dahlquist discovered that this man went through a period of inactivity in his youth. When Brother Dahlquist asked what happened, this man said, “When I was 12, I received a visit from a deacons quorum president and his counselor, and they invited me to come play soccer at Mutual. And so I went, and I brought some friends for moral support. My friends and I outnumbered the quorum that was there, but we had a great time. After the activity, the quorum president came to me and said, ‘Why don’t you come on Sunday? We’d love to have you.’ The rest is history. I went on a mission. I married in the temple, and I am now serving in the stake presidency.”

In 1829 Joseph Smith, with the help of his scribe Oliver Cowdery, finished translating the Book of Mormon.
Oliver, the Lord is pleased with us.
Now we just need to publish this great book.
Joseph and Oliver went to Palmyra, New York, and spoke to Egbert B. Grandin, a printer.
We need 5,000 copies of this book as soon as possible.
It will cost $3,000. Since you want so many copies and this is such a big book, it may take me over a year.
Several months later Mr. Grandin became worried that Joseph would not pay. He stopped the printing of the Book of Mormon until he could be sure. Then Martin Harris gave Joseph some money.
I mortgaged my farm to pay for printing the Book of Mormon. That should put Mr. Grandin at ease.
That’s wonderful, Martin!
Mr. Grandin had a new press that made the printing process much faster than earlier presses.
Mr. Grandin, we’re almost finished, and it has been only seven months!
I don’t completely understand how.
Once the Book of Mormon was published, the Lord commanded Joseph to organize the Church. On April 6, 1830, about 60 people met in the home of Peter Whitmer Sr.
Welcome, brothers and sisters.
The members sustained Joseph as the prophet and took the sacrament.
Though the Church started out with just a few members, Joseph later told some brethren in Kirtland about its destiny.
It is only a little handful of priesthood you see here tonight, but this Church will fill North and South America—it will fill the world.

Nathan Skene of Salt Lake City didn’t always know how happy service could make him. The summer after graduation from high school, Nathan really didn’t want to go to youth conference. He would be the oldest there. All his friends were gone, and it didn’t look like it was going to be that much fun. But he went anyway.
The theme for the youth conference was MASH—Modern Army Serving Heaven. His “platoon” was chosen to spend time with a group of mentally handicapped students. The students chose a partner; then each pair took a walk together.
“Terry chose me,” Nathan explains. “Being close to him and seeing what kind of spirit he had opened my eyes to how much I love people and how much I enjoy serving others.”
Nathan’s bad attitude dissolved. And now he sees things a little differently. “My most important goal is to gain a Christlike love for everyone,” he says.

An experience I had when I was 15 years old was foundational for me. My faithful mother had valiantly tried to help me establish the foundations of faith in my life. I attended sacrament meeting, Primary, then Young Men and seminary. I had read the Book of Mormon and had always prayed individually. At that time a dramatic event occurred in our family when my beloved older brother was considering a potential mission call. My wonderful father, a less-active Church member, wanted him to continue his education and not serve a mission. This became a point of contention.

In a remarkable discussion with my brother, who was five years older and led the discussion, we concluded that his decision on whether to serve a mission depended on three issues: (1) Was Jesus Christ divine? (2) Was the Book of Mormon true? (3) Was Joseph Smith the prophet of the Restoration?

As I prayed sincerely that night, the Spirit confirmed to me the truth of all three questions. I also came to understand that almost every decision I would make for the rest of my life would be based on the answers to those three questions. I particularly realized that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was essential. In looking back, I recognize that, primarily because of my mother, the foundations were in place for me to receive the spiritual confirmation that evening. My brother, who already had a testimony, made the decision to serve a mission and ultimately won our father’s support.

In May of 1974, I was with Brother John H. Groberg in the Tongan islands. We had an appointment to visit the king of Tonga, and we met with him in a formal session. We exchanged the normal pleasantries. However, before we left, John Groberg said something that was out of the ordinary. He said, “Your Majesty, you should really become a Mormon and your subjects as well, for then your problems and their problems would largely be solved.”

The king smiled broadly and answered, “John Groberg, perhaps you’re right.”

I thought of the Apostle Paul before Agrippa. I thought of Agrippa’s response to Paul’s testimony: “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”4 Brother Groberg had the courage to bear his testimony to a king.

“Son, get up! We’ve got a lot of things to do this morning.”
I turned over in bed and looked at my alarm clock. It read 5:30 A.M. I thought, the sun isn’t even out. It’s snowing, and I have to be to school at 8:15! Quickly I realized that I’d better quit complaining and do my chores before I was late for school.
Life wasn’t easy as a teenager growing up on a ranch in southern Colorado. I had many responsibilities, and my father depended on me to fulfill them. I found little time to watch television or just hang out with my friends.
I remember in the winter months, my job was to feed the bulls, the horses, and a few cows. In the summer when we were putting up hay, my Dad would assign me to certain tasks like cutting, baling, or hauling, and in between, I would have to find time to change the irrigation water. My Dad put complete confidence in me that I would get the job done. I often thought that this responsibility put a lot of pressure on me and that I would have gray hair by the time I reached 20.
I never could understand exactly why my parents wanted me to keep busy and gave me such responsibilities until I left for college. There, for the first time in my life, I was separated from my family. I then realized that because my parents had kept me busy, I had missed some of the bad influences that young people find when they get bored and have nothing to do. Having responsibilities taught me the importance of staying with a job until it’s finished and doing it right the first time. These habits helped me while I was serving a mission. I also found I had patience. (I probably got that from working with stubborn sheep and cattle.)
I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for permitting me to be born to such good parents, who taught me the importance of working hard. It has helped to this point in my life, and I know it will continue to help me throughout my life.
Every time your parents give you a chore or an assignment or a responsibility, take it and do the best you can.

When I was nine years old, I became an altar boy. Altar boys in the Catholic Church help the priest during the Sunday worship service, called Mass. My brothers and many of my friends served with me—a great honor for us. We lit candles at the altar, carefully unfolded the priest’s robes, and placed the scriptures next to the altar. During the service we helped pass the bread for Communion, similar to the sacrament.
To become altar boys, we memorized words of the Mass in Latin. We also participated in weekly religion classes. Each summer my friends and brothers and sisters and I attended Bible school about 20 miles (32 km) from our home. My parents were busy on our wheat farm during the summer. They could have used our help during those weeks, but they felt it was important that we have this opportunity to learn about God and be with good friends. The faith of the priests and nuns who were our teachers impressed me. I decided then that I would do what God wanted me to do.

It is related of Spinola and Richardet, the ambassadors sent by the king of Spain to negotiate a treaty at the Hague in 1608, that one day they saw some eight or ten persons land from a little boat and, sitting down upon the grass, proceed to make a meal of bread, cheese, and drink.
“Who are those travelers?” asked the ambassadors of a peasant.
“These are our worshipped masters, the deputies from the state,” was his reply.
Spinola at once whispered, “These are not men to be conquered.” (From Happy Homes and the Hearts That Make Them by Samuel Smiles.)

This is the world Mike Lee stepped into at age 16, when his father sent him out to learn about work.
Now, before you start picturing Mike’s father as some sort of hardhearted Captain Bligh, let’s set the record straight. His father’s act may have seemed at the time almost cruel, but in truth it was an act of love.
It was 1979. “I’d been having a lot of trouble in school, a lot of trouble in everything,” Mike explained. “I wasn’t a bad kid. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do.”
Mike’s father, W. Boyd Lee, was serving at the time as president of the Norfolk Virginia Stake. He loved his son and worried about him a lot. “Mike’s mother and I prayed constantly. I kept feeling that Mike should work on Spencers’ boat.”
Ira Spencer, Jr., a good friend of Brother Lee, was the branch president of the Manteo (North Carolina) Branch. Ira owned a fishing trawler that his son Duke piloted out of Wanchese, a little town near Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers first flew a plane. Ira and his wife Shirley also ran a seafood restaurant in Nags Head, and maybe Mike could help out in the kitchen when the ship was in port. Ira and Duke enjoyed having LDS crew members, because they had proven to be honest and dependable, and they didn’t use foul language or smoke on the ship.
“Still, he was only 16, and I didn’t want to impose on the Spencers,” Brother Lee explained. He talked the idea over with Ira.
“Mike seemed like a good boy,” Ira said. “Sometimes you’ve just got to give a boy incentive, and on his own he’ll move from where he is to where he should be.”
So Mike became a fisherman on the War Cry, a boat named after a line in the hymn “Hope of Israel”: “Sound the war cry, ‘Watch and pray!’” (Hymns, no. 64).
“It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done,” Mike said. “It’s not only skill that’s involved, but also a strong stomach and a desire to keep going. A lot of people can work hard for eight hours, but when you’re working almost twenty-four hours a day over a long period of time, you learn about endurance.”
At first Mike was in charge of small but important details. He had to make sure tools were always returned to the right place. He helped push trash fish overboard when the sorting was done. When the boat went after scallops, he learned how to cut the shells open and slice out the edible muscle.
“He was kind of timid at first, but pretty quick he showed us all what a good worker he was,” Duke said. “It got to where we’d trust him to run anything. He knew the gear and could do anything the rest of us could do.”
The basic crew included three returned missionaries, two others just getting ready to leave, a recent convert, captain Duke (who served a mission in Brazil), and an inactive prospective elder. “Working together, we developed quite a camaraderie,” Mike said. By the end of the summer the inactive member wasn’t inactive anymore, and Mike was ready for school again.
“Working on the boat gave me a chance to sort out my life,” Mike explained. “Even though you’re working, you’ve got plenty of time to think, and I thought a lot about the future. I thought about college, about a mission, about my family.”
He also said that being out at sea “made me love the ocean, made me respect its power. It helped me appreciate what God has created, the same way that getting out in nature helps you. It’s just a different kind of nature. The sea makes you appreciate the world that you’re a part of.”

During my first couple years in high school, I was a little embarrassed to be a member of the Church because my religion was so different from those of my friends. I didn’t make much of an effort to share my beliefs.
I only felt brave enough once or twice to invite a friend to church, and each time I was extra careful to make sure it wasn’t on a fast Sunday. If I take her to a testimony meeting first, she’ll never want to come back, I thought. But one summer I learned a lesson about the power of testimony meetings.
School was out, flowers were blooming, and my younger sister Natalie and I were eagerly awaiting youth conference. Natalie, as usual, decided to bring along some friends—nonmembers named Tareneh and Angel. I thought they’d probably like youth conference, except for the testimony meeting.
We all had a great time together going to classes, dancing, and socializing. Then came the last activity of the weekend—Sunday’s testimony meeting.
The Spirit was overwhelming; it seemed to make our hearts expand. I was sure everyone in the room could feel that Spirit, but I still couldn’t help wondering if Angel and Tareneh thought Mormons were weird because they go up to the microphone and pour out their hearts to a few hundred people.
But before I knew it, Tareneh went up to the microphone to bear her testimony. I couldn’t believe it! She told everyone that although she wasn’t LDS, she knew there was something special about the Church because of the way she felt during the meeting. She, like everyone else, had felt that amazing spirit.
Angel is a little shy and didn’t bear her testimony, but she later told us that she had wanted to. She eventually joined the Church.
That day I learned that a testimony meeting can be a powerful missionary tool because of the strong spirit that comes with it. I also realized it was wrong to let self-conscious, embarrassed feelings get in the way of sharing the gospel. There’s no reason to be embarrassed about being a Latter-day Saint.

I can personally testify to this form of revelation because I have experienced it.

For example: I was once concluding a talk I had given at the funeral of a fine Latter-day Saint mother and was almost ready to say amen and sit down. There came into my mind the words, “Turn around and bear your testimony.” And this I did. I thought no more about the event for several months until my sister, then living in a neighboring stake, paid us a visit and told us this incident:

She said: “There lives in our ward a woman who for many years has taken no interest in the Church. Our efforts to activate her have been fruitless. Recently she has completely changed. She pays her tithing, attends sacrament meetings regularly, and participates in all Church activities. When asked what caused the reformation, she said: ‘I went to Salt Lake City to the funeral of my mother. During the services a man by the name of Romney spoke. After he had given an ordinary talk, I thought he was going to sit down; but instead he turned around to the pulpit and bore a testimony which greatly impressed me. It awakened in me a desire to live as my mother had always taught me.’”

Two of the most difficult experiences of his life occurred in the early 1960s. In 1962 his wife, Fern, became very ill and passed away. Just four years later, his oldest daughter, Maurine, died suddenly while he was in Hawaii attending a conference. She left behind four young children. These experiences plunged him into deep grief. Only his great faith in the Lord gave him the strength to carry on.

Later, when speaking at a memorial service honoring Latter-day Saints who had lost their lives in the Vietnam conflict, he comforted the mourners: “Having gone through some similar experiences in losing loved ones to death, I speak from personal experience when I say to you who mourn, do not try to live too many days ahead. The all-important thing is not that tragedies and sorrows come into our lives, but what we do with them. Death of a loved one is the most severe test that you will ever face, and if you can rise above your griefs and if you will trust in God, then you will be able to surmount any other difficulty with which you may be faced. … Faith can lift you beyond the sordid trials of the day and point you to the glorious tomorrow that can be yours.”

It was Sunday, nearly forty years ago, and an important political matter suddenly needed attention. Syngman Rhee, president of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), sent his secretary to find his vice-minister of education, Kim Ho Jik.
The secretary found the vice-minister teaching Sunday School in his LDS branch. “You’ll have to wait until the class is over,” Dr. Kim told the secretary.
When Dr. Kim finally arrived at the presidential palace, President Rhee scolded him for taking so long. Dr. Kim explained to the president and the others gathered there that his calling as a Sunday School teacher was important, and he had needed to finish his lesson.
President Rhee patted him on the shoulder. “Chal haesso (You did well)!”

Katie wiped tears from her cheeks and waved goodbye as Mom drove away.
“I remember the first time I stayed at my grandparents’ house,” Grandpa said as they walked back to his porch. “I was seven, just like you.”
Katie swallowed a lump in her throat. She loved Grandma and Grandpa, but she’d never stayed here without Mom before. “What was it like?”
“Well, my grandpa gave me special jobs to do.” They sat down together on Grandpa’s porch swing. A soft breeze stirred leaves in the trees.
“What kind of jobs?” Katie asked.
“Oh, I fed cackly old hens and found their eggs. I pulled weeds and carried firewood. I had a great time.”
Katie smiled a little. It sounded fun to gather eggs. “Do you have any special jobs I can do?”
Grandpa grinned. “Oh yes! Last night’s windstorm left a lot of sticks and pecans to pick up.”
Katie looked around. Grandpa’s yard was like a big park with giant pecan trees growing around the edges.
“I’ll help!” Katie said.
Grandpa pushed his wheelbarrow around the yard while Katie picked up sticks and pecans. Something caught her eye. Under a large tree was a pile of pecans stacked up as neat as could be.
“Grandpa! Look over here!” Katie shouted.
Grandpa hurried over. “Well, look at that! How many are there?”
Katie knelt down to look closer. “… 10, 11, 12,” she counted. “Is an animal saving the nuts for winter?”
“Hmm,” Grandpa said. “Let’s leave them here and check again tomorrow to see if there are any more.”
Katie’s eyes grew large. She’d watch every day!
The next morning Katie ran to the big tree and got down on her hands and knees—11, 12, 13. There was one more! She checked around the yard. What animal would save up pecans one at a time?
As soon as Katie woke the next day, she ran to the tree—14! She couldn’t believe it. “Grandpa, is it a bird?”
“Let’s watch and find out,” Grandpa said.
They sat on the porch swing and kept quiet. Robins hopped around the yard, tugging earthworms from the ground. Warblers jumped from branch to branch. Woodpeckers hammered on tree trunks.
Squirrels picked up nuts, but they carried them to a hole high in a tree. No birds or squirrels came close to the pecan pile.
The next morning Katie helped Grandma and Grandpa bake puffy sugar cookies. Katie smelled the sweet vanilla as she put a pecan half in the center of each one. Once the cookies were ready, Katie grabbed some to nibble on while she hid by some bushes in the corner of the yard and watched the pecan pile.
Suddenly she saw Grandpa walking to the pile. Was he going to count the pecans? Then Katie’s eyes opened wide. Grandpa took something from his pocket and put it carefully on top of the pile.
“Grandpa! It’s you!” Katie shouted. She jumped out and rushed to hug his knees.
Grandpa raised his arms in the air. “I’ve been caught!” he laughed. “You solved the mystery!”
Katie jumped up and down. “It was you, Grandpa, saving up for winter!”
He nodded. “Yes, indeed. But we don’t have to wait for winter. Let’s surprise your mother tomorrow with a pecan pie.”
“Is she coming back already?” Katie asked in surprise. Grandpa’s mystery had made the time zoom by. “I can’t wait to come back and visit again!”
Next time, maybe she would be the one to come up with a mystery.