Gospel Story Finder

During a family home evening activity, I used the Family Tree app to learn who my ancestors were and what their lives were like. I was surprised to learn that one of my ancestors had been a cavalryman who had guarded a Japanese emperor who lived long ago.

To grow fruit there is a yearly challenge. After the fruit has blossomed, if it gets extremely cold, the blossoms will freeze, and the whole crop will be wiped out. Just as the fruit farmers relied on the Lord for rain, they also relied on the Lord to help them protect their crops. One time we had a long, hard cold spell that lasted night after night. Our stake president asked for a special fast that the elements would be tempered, and we were able to save our fruit.

I am grateful for the Liahona. Besides strengthening us spiritually and assisting in our family home evenings, it has also been a compass in my responsibilities as bishop.
We have been concerned about how to help the young people in our ward who are preparing to serve missions. To our joy and delight, the March 2004 issue contained two excellent articles, “Be One of the Greatest” and “About Patriarchal Blessings,” which I feel will help our future missionaries prepare to serve.
I am so thankful that we have this inspired magazine to guide us in our responsibilities.Amarildo Martins, Parque Dorotéia Ward, Diadema Brazil Stake

I can remember when I was called as a bishop, my predecessor, Bishop Russell Johnson, warned me that I would have to be careful what I asked the members to do. He said, “Some will respond to every suggestion, even at great sacrifice.” He mentioned one widow in her 80s who had cared for both a husband and a son through long illnesses before they passed away. Bishop Johnson said that despite having small resources, she would always try to respond. I found this to be true. Every time I mentioned the need for contributions or service to bless others, Sarah was often the first to respond.
One Saturday another sister called me and said, “Bishop, come quick! Save Sarah!” This sister reported that 80-year-old Sarah was on top of a ladder cleaning out this neighbor’s rain gutters. This sister was terrified that Sarah would fall and wanted the bishop to intervene.
I am not suggesting that everyone can or should imitate Sarah. Some feel guilty because they cannot meet every need immediately. I love the quote Elder Neal A. Maxwell often used from Anne Morrow Lindbergh: “My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.”18 King Benjamin taught, “See that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.”19 But he added that we should be diligent.

“When I left for school,” I’ll say, “a big lion chased me for two blocks.”
“Really?” she’ll say.
“Well,” I’ll say, “it was really Johnson’s cat. But it looked like a big lion to me for just a minute.”
“Oh,” she’ll say. “I’m glad it wasn’t a real lion.”

When my younger sister, Dania, was diagnosed with a rare disorder, I wanted to do something to help her. Turner Syndrome is a genetic disorder where a girl is missing one of her X chromosomes, and that results in short stature, possible heart problems, and other difficulties. My sister was 11 when she was diagnosed, and she sees this as a blessing in her life and a chance to help other girls who have this syndrome.
My mom and I brainstormed ideas on what I could do to help, and we decided to sponsor a run for a society to help those with Turner Syndrome. I didn’t know where to start, but I gathered a group of friends together who helped me find sponsors and to spread the word around the community.
The response from community members was great—so many people were willing to help out. The event turned out to be fun and lively, and everybody had an amazing time. There were 12 girls with Turner Syndrome at the run, as well as many Church and community members.
I met so many wonderful people and heard their stories; I saw these people through God’s eyes. I learned that we really develop a love for those whom we serve, and I know that “when [we] are in the service of [our] fellow beings [we] are only in the service of [our] God” (Mosiah 2:17).
Makaila E., California, USA

Members of the Church around the world met in meetinghouses and homes by satellite, television, radio, or Internet to sustain in solemn assembly the new President and First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 5, 2008.
President Thomas S. Monson and his counselors in the First Presidency, President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, were announced on February 4, 2008, following the passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley on January 27. However, the 178th Annual General Conference of the Church held on April 5 and 6, 2008, was the first opportunity that members of the Church as a whole had to sustain their new leaders.

And when I was baptized a blessing was said
By strong priesthood holders with hands on my head.
The gift of the Holy Ghost, given to me,
Will help me be faithful, God’s servant to be.

A call to his high school principal’s office did not mean trouble for Kelter Stenzel Fittipaldi, of the Curitiba Brazil São Lourenço Stake. Kelter did not have the best grades in school, but his principal said he exhibited good behavior and good fellowship. He had been selected to represent his school. He would be going to Chile with the possibility of meeting the president of that country.

Besides the gifts the school had prepared for the Chilean president, Kelter and his mother wrapped a special gift in gold paper for him—a Book of Mormon. But only four out of the fifty high school delegates from various countries would actually get to meet the president. Kelter prayed he would be able to give his gift, and his prayers were answered. He was one of the four. “Of the gifts I presented to the President of Chile, the golden gift was the most precious of all,” he said.

For the last 30-plus years I have been practicing law. I think there is a reason they refer to it as the practice of law.
I have never taken a perfect deposition nor conducted a perfect cross-examination—there was always another question or a better question I could have asked.
I have never written a perfect brief, because, in retrospect, there was always a point I could have articulated with more clarity.
And I never presented a perfect oral argument before a judge or justices. Almost always in the middle of the night after the argument, I thought of something really clever and persuasive I could have said.
But I believe the service I provided to my clients was not only satisfactory but also of value. I was practicing law with an eye toward changing, improving, and perfecting. My efforts, though imperfect, were sufficient because I was practicing.

“This [upper state New York] is where the First Vision occurred. This is the pivotal thing of our story. Every claim that we make concerning divine authority, every truth that we offer concerning the validity of this work, all find their roots in the First Vision of the boy prophet. This was the great curtain-raiser on the dispensation of the fulness of times, when God promised that He would restore all the power, the gifts, the blessings of all previous dispensations in one great summing up, as it were, and we are right here where it occurred. And, I repeat, my beloved brethren and sisters, that becomes the hinge pin on which this whole cause turns.”6

When a single adult friend of mine moved to a new geographic ward where he did not know anyone, his way of creating a community of faith was through service. He actively volunteered for elders quorum projects, from helping people move to assisting older members. As he did, he was able to get to know the members of his quorum and the people they were serving—both members and neighbors. He shared his faith and developed friendships with his new community.

Another time, my uncle, who was only three years older than I was, put me in a baby carriage and took me for a walk around the house. In front of the house was a road, and behind the road was an irrigation canal. When he took me across the road, the carriage slid into the canal. It was empty at that time, but my uncle couldn’t get us out. My mother felt concern for me and began to call me. Then she looked for me in the house but couldn’t find me. She felt prompted to look on the road and in the canal. She found us and got us out of the canal just before the water started to come through the canal. Had she not listened to the Spirit, my uncle and I would have drowned.

I grew up in Norway. The nearest temple was in Stockholm, Sweden, an 8- to 10-hour drive away. Needless to say, any trip to the temple took careful planning and deliberation. Our stake planned two visits to the temple for the youth each year; several wards would rent a bus and go to the temple for a weekend. It was fun to go with other youth, but my family and I wanted to go to the temple together sometime.

So one year we decided to go to Stockholm during our summer vacation. It was a great experience, and it soon became a pattern for our summers. We would camp at a campground close to the temple. Each morning we would get up early for a baptismal session with other families from Norway who had come to the temple. Afterward we would play football and go swimming at the campground.

These summers are sacred memories for me now. Although we didn’t live close enough to the temple to go there each month, it was always a special occasion when we could go. And even though the car ride was long and tedious, the Lord blessed us for our sacrifice. The spiritual experiences I had at the temple helped me develop my love for the temple and its ordinances. They also brought us closer together as a family.

About three years ago, Sinah M., a 17-year-old young woman from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, faced these questions. Her answers were influenced by what had come before that moment.
“I danced all my life and was very passionate about it,” says Sinah. “I did ballet, modern dance, jazz—a bit of everything, but mostly ballet.” Dancing made her happy and was a big part of her identity. “Everything revolved around dancing,” she says.
But then she started feeling pain in her feet whenever she would dance. She felt it even when she walked, and it wouldn’t go away. She sought answers and healing through doctors, priesthood blessings, and prayer. But the cause of her pain remained a mystery, and relief from her physical suffering did not come.
“I definitely had moments where I suddenly had thoughts like, ‘Does Heavenly Father love me? Why do I have to go through this? Why does he allow it to hurt me so much?’” says Sinah.
But in spite of such thoughts, she responded to this trial with overwhelming faith and trust in the Lord.
Before facing this challenge, Sinah had already developed faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
“I’ve always been interested in the gospel,” says Sinah. She’s glad her parents taught her the gospel, took her to church, and planted within her a desire to learn about the gospel for herself.
“I’m a person who questions a lot, but I don’t despair in this questioning,” she says. “It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I actually learned that it’s OK to have questions. I allowed myself to have questions, and I prayed for knowledge and strength and that Heavenly Father would help me to build my testimony even stronger.”
Over time, she noticed that this approach had, in fact, made her testimony stronger. “I’ve always been very open to the gospel, but I also allowed myself to have questions when they came, and I sought gospel knowledge even more.”
Though her physical struggles were at times hard to deal with, Sinah’s foundation of faith prepared her to face this challenge.
“I actually told myself from the beginning that no matter how hard it is, no matter how much it hurts, no matter what I’m going through, I don’t want to blame the Lord or be angry with Him,” she says. “So I told myself I can be frustrated, I can be sad, but I don’t want that to be a reason why my testimony suddenly starts to crumble. I’d rather come out of this stronger than suddenly have doubts.”
“I told myself I can be frustrated, I can be sad, but I don’t want that to be a reason why my testimony suddenly starts to crumble.”
Sinah also decided early on that she would not go through this trial alone. Since she doesn’t dance anymore, she now finds great joy in just being together with family and friends. And she has sought comfort and counsel from her Heavenly Father as well as from parents and leaders.
For example, she says, “I’ve talked about it a lot with people on temple trips and so on, and they’ve said that questions often pop into your head—always this why. But they’ve said, ‘Father in Heaven knows that you’re strong enough to deal with it.’ And hearing that from other people is very helpful.”
She has also felt love and strength from Heavenly Father by being with other youth at FSY conferences. But perhaps more than anything, she has felt strength and peace through priesthood blessings. “With every blessing I’ve received, I’ve felt the Spirit so strongly and really noticed that Heavenly Father is really there and that He really loves me. I notice that it can’t have been said to me just by the priesthood holder, but it was really inspired.”
“Because I couldn’t dance anymore, I had to set a different center,” says Sinah. “And that is becoming more and more the gospel. Of course, it’s still hard. But I’ve simply learned to trust in the Lord much more.”
That trust means she’s able to move forward despite not having the answers or the outcome she would have liked. “The healing I was hoping for has not yet come,” says Sinah. “But I have learned even more that Heavenly Father does have a plan, that I am going through this for a reason.”
“The healing I was hoping for has not yet come. But I have learned even more that Heavenly Father does have a plan.”
Her faith also gives her perspective. “I don’t know when I might be pain-free again or if that will be the case for the rest of my life,” she says. “I don’t know, but I have faith in the Lord that at the very latest when I am back with Him, I will no longer have to be in pain and that there is somehow a reason why I am going through this.”

“I remember as a young father hearing Elder Richard L. Evans (1906–71) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles say, ‘Hobbies none, just my sons.’ That was a lesson to me that I needed to first pay attention to my family.”

In 1902, Miles suffered a cardiac arrest; and although his life was spared, he died two years later of a second attack. A daughter, Lula, remembers that they had no tree the following Christmas, even though there were gifts in their stockings. She recalls, “I fear I showed my disappointment and self-pity, for mother told me I was to go on an errand as soon as I finished my breakfast. I really did not want to do it for it was a long way, clear on the other side of the railroad tracks, to an elderly couple who were strangers to me, and I was to pull the red wagon in which we used to take my cripple little brother to Sunday School. I watched as my mother put into the wagon a blanket, a pillow, and part of our Christmas dinner—turkey, potatoes, vegetables, doughnuts, butter, etc.
“‘Just knock on the door and say “Merry Christmas,” she said. ‘Then you can hurry home and play.’
“It wasn’t hard to find the place, a little mud hut, quite alone it seemed, on the prairie. A little old lady answered when I knocked.
“‘Merry Christmas,’ I said.
“‘Oh, you’re just like a little Christmas angel,’ she said as she kissed me. There were no steps, so she pulled the wagon inside to unload it. An old man with a long white beard sat staring at the little fire in the fireplace.
“‘See, John,’ she said, ‘what the good Lord has sent us?’
“I thought that was an odd thing to say, for I knew it was my mother who sent it and not the Lord. The elderly man didn’t answer or even look up, so I realized he was deaf. The remains of a meager breakfast were still on the table. Pointing to the tiny remnants, the lady said, ‘See, this was all we would have had for dinner, if you had not cared.’
“As I left the home after receiving another kiss, I had a very sweet, peaceful feeling flood over my body. How glad I was that my mother had sent me to keep them from going hungry on Christmas! I almost skipped all the way home, and I am sure I never enjoyed Christmas dinner more than I did that day.”

Have you ever felt like you failed at something even though you had hoped with all your heart you would succeed? That’s how I felt as I came home from my mission. Two years in France, and what good had I done? Sure, I had made friends, learned a language, and grown to love faithful Saints who strive to live the gospel.
But I hadn’t baptized anyone.
Then I remembered advice my mission president gave me during my final interview: “If you can honestly say that the Lord is pleased with the effort you have made, if you can honestly say that you did the best you could for Him, then that is the measure of your success. Nothing else matters.”
As I thought about that, I felt compelled to pray. Slowly, peace came to my heart. The Spirit whispered, “The Lord knows you did the best you could. Your sacrifice is acceptable.” It was time to get on with the next steps of my life.
Fast-forward many years. I was writing a letter to my daughter, who was serving a mission in Canada, when I heard a ping on my phone. Someone had sent me a photo of the inside front cover of a copy of the Book of Mormon with a testimony written in French—in my own handwriting! I had given the book to a sister who had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while I was a missionary (though I hadn’t baptized her), but she had fallen away a couple of years later. Why would someone be sending me a photo of the testimony I had written so many years before?
The picture came with a message: “I thought you would be interested in seeing your testimony again. My aunt was so excited when I joined the Church that she gave me the Book of Mormon you once gave to her. I thought you would appreciate knowing what a treasure it is to me.
“My aunt didn’t remain active in the Church, but she always spoke highly of it, so much so that her younger sister (my mother) asked the missionaries to teach her. My mother joined the Church. She was married in the temple. She and my father raised four children as members of the Church. My three siblings and I have all served missions and been married in the temple. We are all active and faithful.”
Emotion overwhelmed me. All those years ago, I thought I had failed. But now I could see how the Lord had accomplished His work, in His way, over time.
If you had asked me at the end of my mission, I would have said I was a failure. But as I thought about the testimony I had written in that Book of Mormon all those years ago, I realized that you haven’t failed as long as you do your best for the Lord. “Maybe the only thing I failed at was being a failure,” I thought.
“I realized that you haven’t failed as long as you do your best for the Lord.”

When I was 17, my mother had a sewing job for a doll factory. She worked from home, but she would go to the factory to get more to do and to turn in her work. The man she gave her sewing to had something special about him.
As my mother got to know him, she realized that something had happened to make him sad. She invited him to visit us, and he came that very day and spent several hours with us. We learned that he had come to Argentina from Brazil in search of work and had never returned to his home, as he wanted to.
Our family has a custom of inviting someone to spend Christmas with us, and in December we began, as we do every year, to discuss whom to invite as our guest. However, this Christmas was different for a special reason; it was the first we spent as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I thought of my mother’s co-worker right away but didn’t say anything. Later my mother mentioned that she wanted to invite him.
The next time my mother turned in her sewing, she asked him whom he was going to spend the holidays with, and he replied that he didn’t know. My mother told him how nice it would be if he would come to our house on Christmas Eve, and he said he would let her know.
Late on Christmas Eve, someone came to the door. When we answered, there stood my mother’s co-worker and his three-year-old son. It was exciting to meet this little boy and spend the evening with him. He had the loving spirit of his father. Our family felt like we had bells ringing in our hearts as we listened to the sweet singing of this little boy on Christmas Eve.
I am grateful for the gospel, which added to the spirit of our Christmas beginning that year and increased our family’s resolve to “remember … brotherly kindness [and] charity” (D&C 4:6).

Thank you so much for printing the article “Why Am I LDS?” (Feb. 2009). I was wondering that very same question when I got the New Era. The article helped me gain a testimony of the gospel.
Rachel R., Georgia