Gospel Story Finder

Claudia also explains another time when it’s impossible not to feel the spirit of Huntsville.
“Once a year, all the girls in the city dress up like Southern belles, in fancy dresses with hoop skirts. The boys dress up like Rebel soldiers or Southern gentlemen. They light candles all around town as a reminder of all the cities that were burned during the Civil War, as the Northerners marched to the sea.”
Huntsville, though, was spared.
“The general who was supposed to burn the city fell in love with a young woman who lived here, so he spared the town. After the war, he came back and married her, and they lived in Huntsville.”
Their former home is still a landmark.

Wilford Woodruff recorded a powerful recollection from the early days of the Church. A discussion of scriptures and living prophets came into question. One man asserted modern revelations should be confined to what was already contained in scripture.

At that moment, Joseph Smith asked Brigham Young to stand and declare his testimony of living prophets. Brigham Young stood and set the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants in a stack before him and said, “Those books do not convey the word of God direct to us now, as do the words of a Prophet . . . in our day and generation. I would rather have the living oracles than all the writing in the books.”

When he was through, Brother Joseph said to the congregation, “Brother Brigham has told you the word of the Lord, and he has told you the truth.”

The month of December found me in the mission field, living my childhood dream. I had been serving in Siberia for six months, and though I wasn’t fluent in the language and had not baptized thousands, my time in Russia had been the happiest of my life.
Christmas had always been my favorite time of the year because of the chance to be with family, visit Temple Square, decorate the tree, and enjoy all of the other traditions that had developed over time. But this year all those memories I treasured were in the past, and my family was literally on the other side of the world. I tried to be positive, realizing I had the opportunity to make this the best Christmas ever. I thought and prayed about how I could make the most of this holiday season. I wanted to draw closer to Christ and serve those around me. But day after day, as I pondered how to make Christmas special, the inspiration I sought wouldn’t come.
I was frustrated with my failure to make the holiday unique. I finally decided to continue serving the Lord as I had since the beginning of my mission, knowing that simply serving Him with all my heart, might, mind, and strength would be the best way to observe Christmas.
On Christmas Eve we went with the branch president to give an older woman a blessing. I remember feeling that I was ministering in behalf of the Savior for one of Heavenly Father’s children in need. After coming home we read the account of the Savior’s birth in the Bible and reverently sang “Silent Night.”
Unlike my childhood years, I had no problem falling asleep. In the morning we arose, turned on Christmas music, and took turns opening the packages we had received from family at home and from our friends in Russia. After a while, torn wrapping paper covered the floor, and we only had a few presents left. I decided to open the nicely wrapped gift that Ella had given me two days earlier. She had been an investigator for the last few months and was slowly progressing toward baptism. Her circumstances led us to hope she would be baptized in February or March.
Ella was an English teacher with a wonderful family, and every week we looked forward to our discussions with her. We had become good friends, and I wanted her to have the blessings of the gospel in her life.
As I opened the package, I found a book of sonnets of a famous writer that I’d told her I wanted to buy. Opening the book I found a small note that read, “I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.” In the postscript, she had written, “I want you to baptize me in January.”
I screamed for joy loud enough to wake the neighbors. But following the initial excitement I started crying. The joy I felt is impossible to describe. Heavenly Father had answered my prayer. This Christmas was a special one. I had been a part in helping someone else come unto Christ.
Two weeks later, Ella was baptized, and now she is working on bringing the rest of her family into the Church.
Christmas that year was unique, and the joy I felt was unmistakable.

Rebecca loves music and ballroom dancing. Actually, Matthew loves music, too, and they often sing and play piano together. But ballroom dancing? More on that later.
Remember the ballroom dancing mentioned above? That’s where Matthew may have set the gold standard for sibling support. Not only did he practice ballroom dancing at home with Rebecca, he also learned a routine so that he could perform with another girl on a song Rebecca choreographed. When the ballroom dance club needed an extra member, Matthew joined. Now Rebecca relies on him when she tests routines: “I ask him if it will work or not, and together we figure it out.”
Not long ago, members of the club staged a workshop for the youth in Rebecca’s and Matthew’s ward. Rebecca took charge and got everyone involved. “And Matthew got to dance with all the girls!” Rebecca teases. Matthew just grins.

Elder Kikuchi served in Japan as Executive Administrator from 1978 till 1982 and was there when area conferences were held in many places in Asia and the Tokyo Temple was dedicated. Then came another transition: leaving Tokyo—once the strange city but now home—and leaving their homeland itself, the Kikuchi family moved to Salt Lake City to adopt a new language and a new culture. One simply needs to imagine departing his or her native country to understand what an adjustment such a move must involve.
“The English is difficult,” says Sister Kikuchi, who now serves as a Relief Society music director and a visiting teacher, “but we are having a very happy experience here.”
The Kikuchi children—Sarah, nineteen; Renah, sixteen; Ruth, fourteen; and Matthew, ten—have endured the difficulty of leaving Japan and learning a new language. They now attend the same English-speaking schools as their many friends.
“We were homesick at first,” says Elder Kikuchi, “but we are now settled.” Then, with a smile, he adds, “But we do miss sashimi [raw fish].”

My grandmother Isabel Blanco was born in Potosí, Nicaragua. In my memories, she is a loving, hardworking, and faithful woman. As I was growing up, she planted in my young heart the seed of faith as I saw her pray to God with fervor and as she took me to mass every Sunday to worship Jesus. However, she did not have an easy life. Among many other things that she did, when she was young, she worked as a maid for an affluent family. As was sadly common, her employer got her pregnant and when she could no longer hide her pregnancy, she was dismissed.

My father, Noel, was born from that pregnancy, and although Potosí was a small town and everyone, including Noel, knew who his father was, Noel never had any direct contact or relationship with him.

Isabel never married, and she had two other children out of wedlock. After some time, she and her three children moved to the country’s capital, Managua, looking for better employment and educational opportunities.

At some point, we also performed the temple work for my grandmother, Isabel, except for the sealing to spouse ordinance because she was not married in her life. Just think about this, a woman like Isabel, who was not treated with respect by men and who dealt with many struggles in her life, can be given the opportunity on the other side of the veil to exercise her agency and make a sacred covenant with God through a vicarious ordinance in the temple. She, like all of us, is in need of increased faith, in need of repentance, in need of love, in need of sanctification—in short, in need of healing.

I learned why during a religion class I taught once at Ricks College (now Brigham Young University–Idaho). I was teaching from section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants. In that section Emma Smith is told that she should give her time to “writing, and to learning much” (verse 8). About three rows back sat a blonde girl whose brow wrinkled as I urged the class to be diligent in developing writing skills. She raised her hand and said, “That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. All I’ll ever write are letters to my children.” That brought laughter all around the class. Just looking at her I could imagine a full quiver of children around her, and I could even see the letters she would write. Maybe writing powerfully wouldn’t matter to her.

Then a young man stood up near the back. He had said little during the term; I’m not sure he had ever spoken before. He was older than the other students, and he was shy. He asked if he could speak. He told in a quiet voice of having been a soldier in Vietnam. One day, in what he thought would be a lull, he had left his rifle and walked across his fortified compound to mail call. Just as he got a letter in his hand, he heard a bugle blowing and shouts and mortar and rifle fire coming ahead of the swarming enemy. He fought his way back to his rifle, using his hands as weapons. With the men who survived, he drove the enemy out. Then he sat down among the living, and some of the dead, and he opened his letter. It was from his mother. She wrote that she’d had a spiritual experience that assured her that he would live to come home if he were righteous. In my class, the boy said quietly, “That letter was scripture to me. I kept it.” And he sat down.

“Elder S. Dilworth Young’s article in the February 1976 New Era mentioned a map and a compass. What did they signify?”
Before the “fy” had left the moderator’s lips, three hands flashed into the air.
“Yes, Roger,” said the moderator as the scorekeeper indicated that Roger had been first.
“The map is the revealed word of God, and the compass is the living prophet,” Roger almost gasped.
“That’s correct,” intoned the moderator as a mild rumble among the spectators turned into applause, over which the scorekeeper shouted, “Time’s up!”
“We won, we won!” whispered Roger as he rose to his feet and shook hands with his other three teammates. The girls, Becky and Mary, were only slightly flushed with their victory as they turned to congratulate the other team.
Sister Weston, Roger’s mother, hurried to the front and asked the four to cluster around the trophy as she fiddled with the flash attachment on her camera.
“You never know,” she said, after telling the group to smile. “The New Era itself might be interested in a picture of the seminary regional winners of the New Era Bowl.”

I was recently called as Relief Society president in my district. I am truly grateful for the privilege of having this new assignment because I consider callings to be a sign of the trust the Lord places in us to help further His work. But at the same time, it is a challenge to live up to that privilege, and we often feel uneasy about whether we will be able to fully fulfill what the Lord expects of us.
My first assignment in this new responsibility was to choose my counselors. I prayed and meditated deeply for several days after the call was extended to me. Our district is made up of five branches. I had an extensive list of sisters from whom I could choose, but I didn’t know most of them personally.
Still, I strove to draw closer to the Lord, seek inspiration, and ask for His guidance in prayer. One night, I had a special dream in which I was visiting the home of a sister I didn’t know. My husband was with me in the dream. While in her home, we learned about many of the challenges she was facing in her family. As we left her home, I said to my husband, “I know that she (mentioning her name specifically) will be one of my counselors.” When the Relief Society presidents from each branch shared with me the list of names of the sisters who didn’t have a calling in their units, to my astonishment, the name I had mentioned in my dream appeared on one of them. When I looked at it, I knew this was the sister the Lord wanted me to choose as one of my counselors.
I wanted some reassurance about that impression. Before I made a decision, I decided to visit each branch, participate in their classes, and meet as many of the sisters as I could. I wanted to know for myself if she was the right choice. I felt a deep commitment to making a decision that the Lord would be pleased with. Due to circumstances, I wasn’t able to visit all the units, which concerned me.
This was my state of mind as I began watching general conference. I already had two names in mind, but I hadn’t suggested them to my district president yet. With a prayer in my heart, I listened to the conference, hoping to receive inspiration. I received my answer as Elder Steven D. Shumway of the Seventy taught, “While the easier path may be to give faithful members a second calling, the more excellent way is to invite the unlikely to serve and let them learn and grow.” I realized the sisters didn’t need my approval, nor did they need experience to serve in this calling. The Lord knew them and their potential. He directs His Church, and He chooses His leaders.
After I turned in the names and the sisters received their new callings, I talked with the good sister I had dreamed about and learned more about her. She told me she wasn’t very active in the Church, but even though she didn’t know what she should do, she had a great desire to learn. She knew this new assignment would allow her to draw closer to Heavenly Father and enjoy His love more fully. This filled my heart with great joy.
This experience helped me reaffirm my conviction that Jesus Christ directs His Church, that leaders are called by Him, and that we don’t need perfect knowledge but rather a genuine willingness to learn and do the things the Lord expects of us. President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) taught: “It is the Lord’s work, and when we are on the Lord’s errand, we are entitled to the Lord’s help. Remember that whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies.”

Church meetings are worth the effort, though. The closeness of the Crandalls seems to be shared by other families in the branch. And it spills over into the greater branch family. A willing hand is always outstretched. Making the most of each moment is their byword. One day Steve forgot his shirt for meeting, so another boy loaned him one of his. Although two of Steve could have fit into the shirt, one very relieved Steve could attend his meetings. B.J. tells of one experience she had with the Young Adults in the area:
“One night after I had not been to Young Adults for three weeks, they all came to my house for a party!” She shook her head in wonder.
The pioneer spirit shows in little ways. At dances, beneath the elegant gowns, girls wear mukluks, sealskin boots. After a shipment of fabric comes into the general store, everyone shows up at church and school with shirts, dresses, and skirts of the same fabric. And this spirit shows in big ways, too. When the hay is ready to harvest, everyone comes to help. Eggs and milk are shared by all.
“The whole branch is close.” Dad sums it up well. With little else to hold onto, that gospel love is like an iron rod in the vast wilderness. “The people up here have to live like the Mormon pioneers. They share. They work together,” Dad explains.
Steve agrees. His life is painted in pioneer panorama, but with strokes that show a Master’s gentle touch. Last year when winter was fierce, the whole family gathered in the front room, some of the smaller members in Dad’s arms. They read from the scriptures by the flickering light of kerosene lamps. Through the front window, Steve could see the bright lights of the Aurora Borealis dancing silent approval over the warm scene. This is life at its best—a candle on a very cold hillside.

“Yes, I watched that show! I loved it! There wasn’t anything concerning in it—just some bad language.”
I was recommending a show to a friend. Because I’d enjoyed the story so much, I hadn’t thought twice about the amount of profanity in each episode.
It wasn’t until later that I thought about what I said and gave myself a spiritual facepalm.
“Since when is profanity not a problem in the shows I watch?” I thought.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ, I have always tried to be mindful when it comes to the media I enjoy. However, profanity was becoming common in the shows and books I consumed. I had started to become numb to it.
This led me to ponder on what other less-than-wholesome content I was allowing into my life.
Was I letting things slide in the music I listened to? Was I batting an eye when explicit content appeared in my books or crude reels on my Instagram feed?
I think you know the answer.
President Russell M. Nelson has taught, “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”
I could see how easily media was interrupting my connection with the Holy Ghost each day. I needed to “resensitize” myself to the Spirit. But when inappropriate media is a constant in this world, how do we do that?
For a more specific example of this realization, not too long ago, I was reading books that my friends (many of whom are members of the Church) were reading.
Often, I would be enjoying the stories, only to be unexpectedly jarred by profanity or sexual content.
For a while, I convinced myself this wasn’t a big deal. They were just books, right? Everyone from the millions of readers on social media to my friends seemed to be reading them with no complaints.
So how could I not agree?
I enjoyed these books and wanted to be part of conversations about them! Deep down, though, they were affecting me and my outlook on life and relationships. But I was afraid to stop reading them because I didn’t want to be seen as prudish or immature.
The Lord offers this warning: “The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:19).
This helped me realize I needed to be honest with myself.
I was justifying my behavior by following everyone else’s choices. I was fearing their judgment and ignoring the Spirit’s red flags instead of heeding His warnings.
A few years ago, President Nelson invited us to fast from social media for 10 days. While studying his challenge recently, I noticed that in addition to social media, he included “any other media that bring negative and impure thoughts to your mind.”
So I started taking note of what content I am sensitive to. I’ve tried to establish better habits with the media I consume. Media use isn’t inherently bad, but it’s always important to make sure we pay attention to the Spirit when consuming it.
If you are having trouble knowing where to make changes in your media habits, try asking yourself questions like these:
Are you feeling uplifted and inspired? Or numb and lonely?
Have you felt any discomfort that might be prompting you to step away from certain content?
Are you feeling a need to “fit in” with others by watching or reading certain media?
Are you being honest with yourself?
Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recently taught, “It takes a courageous and a willing heart to pause and pursue an honest and meek introspection to acknowledge the presence of weaknesses of the flesh in our life that may impede our ability to submit ourselves to God, and ultimately decide to adopt His way rather than our own.”
And he’s right. It can be hard to acknowledge our weaknesses and make changes that align with God instead of the world. I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to my media choices (and all my choices), but I’m striving to do better each day.
We have the beautiful promise of having the Spirit as our constant companion as we renew our covenants through the sacrament each week and through the gift of repentance. As we do this—and are truly honest with ourselves—we can “resensitize” our hearts to His guiding influence.
I know that we can always try again when we don’t always make choices that align with the Lord’s commandments. But by focusing on Jesus Christ, we can increase the Spirit’s influence in our lives and limit the world’s.

Morningsides were our seminary’s version of firesides. They were really early in the morning, but I was always glad I went.
At one of those early morning meetings, the speaker gave each of us a penny as we entered the chapel. We held the pennies throughout his talk, and at the end he challenged us to put our pennies in our shoes. His suggestion, at first, sounded like one of those things people do for good luck, like keeping a rabbit’s foot in your pocket. But then he explained his strange request.
The speaker asked us to pray every time we felt the pennies in our shoes. It didn’t sound too hard, but when I got up I realized that a penny in your shoe is only slightly less annoying than a rock in your shoe. Still, I decided to take the challenge.
During the day at school, the penny would slide around as I walked. And when I felt it, I remembered to offer a silent prayer. I forgot about the challenge after I took my shoes off until I wore those shoes again later in the week. I didn’t take the penny out but decided to pray again throughout that day. My day went so well I decided to put a penny in every pair of shoes I owned.
Those pennies changed me. Their effect was much better than good luck. They taught me how to pray and communicate with my Heavenly Father. Now I know how it feels to pray without ceasing and to always have a prayer in my heart (see Alma 34:27; 3 Ne. 19:24, 30).
I don’t keep pennies in my shoes anymore. After a few months, I didn’t need the reminder to thank Heavenly Father for my many blessings or to ask for His help when I needed it. I feel like I know Him better now, and I know He is always there to listen to and answer my prayers.

Grant Morrell Bowen was a hardworking, devoted husband and father who, like many who made their living on the land, had an economic downturn when the local potato crop was poor. He and his wife, Norma, took other employment, eventually moved to another city, and started their climb back to economic stability. However, in a terribly unfortunate incident, Brother Bowen was deeply hurt when, in a temple recommend interview, the bishop was a little skeptical regarding Morrell’s declaration that he was a full-tithe payer.
I don’t know which of these men had the more accurate facts that day, but I do know Sister Bowen walked out of that interview with her temple recommend renewed, while Brother Bowen walked out with an anger that would take him away from the Church for 15 years.
Regardless of who was right about the tithing, evidently both Morrell and the bishop forgot the Savior’s injunction to “agree with thine adversary quickly”2 and Paul’s counsel to “let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”3 The fact is they didn’t agree and the sun did go down on Brother Bowen’s wrath for days, then weeks, then years, proving the point made by one of the wisest of the ancient Romans, who said, “Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more [destructive] than the injury that provokes it.”4 But the miracle of reconciliation is always available to us, and out of love for his family and the Church he knew to be true, Morrell Bowen came back into full Church activity. Let me tell you briefly how that happened.
Brother Bowen’s son Brad is a good friend of ours and a devoted Area Seventy serving in southern Idaho. Brad was 11 years old at the time of this incident, and for 15 years he watched his father’s religious devotion decline, a witness to the terrible harvest being reaped where anger and misunderstanding had been sown. Something needed to be done. So as the Thanksgiving holiday approached in 1977, Brad, a 26-year-old student at Brigham Young University; his wife, Valerie; and new baby son, Mic, loaded into their student version of an automobile and, bad weather notwithstanding, drove to Billings, Montana. Not even a crash into a snowbank near West Yellowstone could keep this threesome from making their ministering contact with Brother Bowen Sr.
Upon arrival, Brad and his sister Pam asked for a private moment with their father. “You have been a wonderful dad,” Brad began with some emotion, “and we have always known how much you loved us. But something is wrong, and it has been for a long time. Because you were hurt once, this whole family has been hurting for years. We are broken, and you are the only one who can fix us. Please, please, after all this time, can you find it in your heart to lay aside that unfortunate incident with that bishop and again lead this family in the gospel as you once did?”
There was dead silence. Then Brother Bowen looked up at these two, his children, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,5 and said very quietly, “Yes. Yes, I will.”
Thrilled but stunned by the unexpected answer, Brad Bowen and his family watched their husband and father go to his current bishop in a spirit of reconciliation to set things right in his life. In a perfect response to this courageous but totally unexpected visit, the bishop, who had extended repeated invitations to Brother Bowen to come back, threw his arms around Morrell and just held him—held him in a long, long, long embrace.
In a matter of only a few weeks—doesn’t take long—Brother Bowen was fully engaged in Church activity and had made himself worthy to return to the temple. Soon enough he accepted the call to preside over a struggling little branch of 25 and grew it into a thriving congregation of well over 100. All of this took place nearly half a century ago, but the consequence of a son and a daughter’s ministering plea to their own father and that father’s willingness to forgive and move forward in spite of the imperfections of others has brought blessings that are still coming—and will come forever—to the Bowen family.

William Clayton was the official camp historian. To help direct those who would follow, he and others kept careful records of the camp’s travel. In order to calculate the distance traveled each day, he tied a piece of red flannel to a wagon’s wheel spoke and walked beside the wagon, counting the times the wheel turned. This was a tiresome task, and he proposed the idea for a mile counter. Orson Pratt designed the machine, and Appleton Harmon constructed it. This device, called an odometer, tallied ten miles, then started over. This made William’s job much easier.

I want to talk briefly about being honest, also. One summer I spent a few weeks at my bishop's house. They had a son my age and we were preparing for scout camp while my family had to go out of town. We bought some illegal fire crackers. We hid them in my coat pocket so no one could find them and made a pact with each other that we would always deny having any knowledge of the whereabouts of the fire crackers. Each night before bed we would take one of the firecrackers and attach a long fuse to it and place it under the window sill of my bishop's bedroom window. Each night at about 2:00 a.m. the firecracker would explode, waking the bishop and his wife. They would get up and look around and they always found us fast asleep. After doing this every night for about a week, Bishop Allred — with my buddy beside him — came to me and asked me if I knew anything about the fire crackers. Being true to my pact to deny any knowledge about the fire crackers, I said no. He then reached into my coat pocket and pulled them out. I looked at my buddy quickly. He was looking down at the ground. I learned a great lesson that day: Be honest even when it is just the simplest little things. He couldn't lie to his father, despite having a pact with me to deny having any knowledge. Be honest and keep the commandments, even the smallest little simple ones that seem trivial.

But now, years later, I received a tape recording in the mail and learned the story of the Desmurs’ conversion to the Church.
About a month after my last visit to their home in 1964 Mrs. Desmurs was polishing shoes for the family one Sunday morning and talking with her husband about the gospel. He was totally opposed to the Book of Mormon, as he had been from the beginning. She mused, “I don’t know, but we might just find out some day that the book is true.” At that moment, she suddenly heard my voice speaking to her, bearing testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. At first she felt fear, but that was suddenly replaced by a feeling of great peace and joy. During the next weeks she thought often of her experience and felt the witness of the Spirit.
Years passed; the family moved from their home to an apartment in another part of Versailles. In 1970—six years after my contact with them—two elders knocked on their door. The first thing Mrs. Desmurs told them about was the visits of the sister missionaries years before, and about the spiritual experiences she had had since then. The elders explained to her that it had been the witness of the Holy Ghost. She said she knew that was true, and she wanted to join the Church. But her baptism had to wait for a change of heart in her husband.
One day when their daughter was ill with appendicitis, Mr. Desmurs had gone straight to the hospital from work. Surprised that his wife was not there with the girl, he went home to find her talking with the two elders. In anger he told her she had better concern herself with her daughter before she worried about religion. He tore up the Bible of one of the elders and put them out of the house. Then he took his wife back to the hospital to see their daughter.
The next day Mrs. Desmurs chastised him, saying, “Those missionaries aren’t rich, you know. They come over here at their own expense. You ought at least to pay for that Bible.” So Mr. Desmurs went to the missionary’s address, paid them for the book, and told them he never wanted to see them again.
Yet over the next few months his heart softened, and he allowed his wife to resume her studies; she and the three oldest children were baptized in 1971. He began to attend church, stopped some bad habits, and finally in 1972 followed his family into the waters of baptism. He later contacted the missionary whose Bible he had torn, an elder who had gone home from his mission with few baptisms and one ripped Bible among his souvenirs, and who received this unexpected news with tears of joy.

Jim was an old-timer. He had been an ironworker for over 30 years and had worked on about every type of job in the trade, which gave him a rich background of experience. He had walked narrow beams hundreds of feet off the ground and moved or crawled to the end of beams to make the connections thousands of times. Connectors are supreme among ironworkers. They take the greatest risk, and their job requires the greatest courage. Jim was admired by his peers as a man of great courage and stability.

One day he was working with a crew of ironworkers on a job in the rugged mountains of the Colorado Rockies when a storm struck without warning. The rain poured down, the lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and the wind blew with fury. The ironworkers quickly climbed down and gathered in their work shack to wait for the storm to end.

They had been there for about fifteen minutes when someone asked, “Where’s Jim?” He wasn’t in the shack. They went outside and looked up at the steel structure. There he was, standing on a beam with his arms wrapped tightly around a steel column. They called but got no response, so two of the crew went up the framework and found him frozen in panic. His arms were so tightly clenched around the column that they had to pry him loose. Then they fastened him to a cable and lowered him to the ground. He was terrified with fear.

They took him into the shack and warmed him by the fire. An hour later the storm was over, the weather was calm, the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang in the trees. The crew started back to work, but Jim stayed behind. He had lost his nerve and was afraid to get back in the air.

The foreman recognized the problem. It was not something for Jim to be ashamed of. It happens to the best of men. The situation needed wise care and attention. If Jim didn’t get back in the air now, he never would. The fury of the storm combined with the risk of his trade had broken the spirit of an old-timer. He alone could mend the damage. But he needed a helping hand as he had never needed one before.

The wise foreman put his arm around Jim and said that what had happened to him could happen to any one of them. The foreman told Jim to get back to work and assured him of his complete confidence that he could do so. Jim knew that the foreman was right. Every ironworker knows he has to go back. Jim knew he had to do it now. It would be even more difficult tomorrow if he didn’t go back today, and within a week it would be impossible. Finally, he demanded of himself that he get up on the steel structure and go to work. His legs felt weak and his body shaky. As he climbed the steel and cautiously proceeded to carry on, the members of the crew gave him a rousing cheer. That gave him the strength and confidence he needed.

Jim went to work, and as he strove to keep pace with the others in the crew, he gradually regained his self-confidence. Had the foreman not been understanding or had the other members of the crew been critical, he would likely have been unable to return to work. Jim learned that his fellow workers were his true friends, for they had understood and given him support in a time of dire need.

I met a young woman in California who told me this story. She started keeping company with a young man who was a member of the Church, but he wasn’t active. When he got serious and proposed to her, she said, “I will never marry a man who doesn’t honor his priesthood and do his duties in this church. I want to be able to say to my children, ‘You follow your father.’” He wasn’t willing to pay the price, so their courtship ended right there. She was an uncommon girl.

I would like to read to you part of an e-mail President Clark received from a student recently. This student was at work at a business here in Rexburg and was approached by a Bureau of Land Management employee. The following conversation took place between the BLM employee and the student:

"I have a question--Are you a student at the University?" I told him I was, and then he seriously asked, "What is a typical student like there?" I wasn't sure what he was getting at, so I paused to think how to answer him. He then explained that he had had to kick out a group of about 50 students who had built a bon fire in the wrong part of the sand dunes. He told me with slight awe that not one of them yelled or swore at him or made any sort of fuss (apparently that's what usually happens to him when he tells people they have to leave a place where they shouldn't be). They [the students] quickly obeyed and promptly put out their bon fire.
I told him that experience pretty much describes BYU-Idaho students--they probably just felt REALLY bad.
He said that was exactly the impression he'd gotten. I could tell this man had been quite impacted by this experience. It seemed like he couldn't shake off how honest and simply nice the students had been.
I felt proud to be a BYU-I student, that's for sure. What if those students HAD been rude? What kind of impact would they have had on the man then?"[3]
I am grateful that those students did what was right. They were true at all times. They had integrity.

Fredrick A., 17, says that when his friend Robert invited him to church, he felt the Spirit so strongly that he couldn’t deny it.
“When I got to church, the Spirit of God was sent upon me,” Fredrick says. “As I was given the Book of Mormon, I started reading it. If I don’t understand, I always ask my branch president and pray.”
Robert (left) and Fredrick have remained friends since Robert introduced him to the gospel.