Gospel Story Finder

“As the deacons quorum president,” says Jared Rivera, 13, “I encourage the deacons to bring others to church because we all need the Lord’s help to fight temptations. We come to church before sacrament meeting starts and have a prayer that the sacrament will go well that day. And we visit quorum members who don’t come to church. We want to find out how they are.”

Nearly 30 years ago I drove to Utah for the first time. I had been living a very unchristian life but wanted to change. I just didn’t know how.
The evening of my second day in Utah, I stopped at a motel in a small town in southern Utah. As the lady in the office gave me a room key, I asked if she was a Latter-day Saint. She pleasantly replied, “Yes, I am.” Beaming, she added, “Have you read our wonderful book, the Book of Mormon?” Both startled and enticed, I told her I had not.
“There’s a copy in your room,” she continued. “There is nothing exciting for you here in town, so you might as well get acquainted with this wonderful book.”
I thanked her and took my luggage to my room. Once there I saw a maroon paperback titled the Book of Mormon on the nightstand.
I casually opened the book near the center and read a few verses, but my mind went blank. I did not understand anything. Disappointed, I put down the book and left my room, feeling empty. I drove around until I found a bar—a dark, ugly place. I went inside and instantly felt miserable, lonely, and hopeless. I stood there for a few minutes and then turned around and strode out, determined to never again waste a moment of my life in any bar.
Invigorated, I returned to my motel room and picked up the Book of Mormon. I knelt before the Lord, whom I knew little about, and pleaded with Him to have mercy on me. I asked Him to forgive me for the mess I had made of my life and to help me to understand what I read in the Book of Mormon, to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and to know if the Mormon Church was for me.
I opened the book reverently and read the first verse I saw: “I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell” (2 Nephi 33:6). My heart burned and my tears fell. The words stood out with a wonderful light of hope—a light of Jesus Christ beckoning me to come unto Him.
Weeping, I again knelt in prayer, begging the Lord to lead on. Then I opened the book again and began reading the first chapter of 1 Nephi. I was filled with awe at the unmatched power, purity, and truth of the words and testimony of Nephi. I read until 2:00 the next morning, the Lord opening my understanding as I read.
Six months later I was baptized a member of this wonderful, true Church. I know the Lord blessed me to find and read the Book of Mormon—the book that established my faith and testimony in Jesus Christ.

During periodic dental exams and treatment he would talk to me about what I was interested in for my life’s work. As it turned out, I did follow the professional path, but as an attorney rather than a dentist.

He was still thinking about that rare smile, when a bee buzzed close to his ear. He sat up. His swim trunks were nearly dry, and the planks of the boat ramp were getting hot in the sun. He remembered Grandpa telling him the story of building the boat ramp on the little pond.
“When Grandma and I were first married and bought this farm, Davy, there was no ramp, just a pond. Grandma said that she wanted to swim but that she wasn’t going to get her feet muddy getting out of the water—you know your grandma. So I went up to the lake to see how it was done, then came back and built Grandma the boat ramp.”
“Is that when the neighbors started to tease you?”
“Yes.” Grandpa laughed, remembering. “They wanted to know when I was going to bring my yacht up to our watering hole. But it didn’t matter. I loved your grandma so much that I would do anything for her. I still do.”

Hey, Hyrum!
Hey!
#@*!!
Ha ha!
%?&!
@#!
!$*?@
I hear bad words all the time. It’s hard to ignore them.
!@$?!
Oh no!
Heavenly Father, please help me have clean thoughts and not think of bad words.
That Sunday …
How can I think of good words when something goes wrong?
Scripture power keeps me safe from sin. Scripture power is the power to win. Scripture power! Every day I need the power that I get each time I read.”*
That’s it!
*?@!
Scripture power keeps me safe from sin …
!@$?!
Scripture power is the power to win.
Scripture power! Every day I need the power that I get each time I read.

A few years ago, I became active in the Church again after six months of inactivity. My spiritual thirst was unbelievable, for I was once again on the right path. After just a few months, I felt the desire to serve the Lord as a missionary. I had interviews with my bishop, who helped me prepare. I had to wait to be truly ready, and in the meantime the bishop advised me to tell my parents of my plans.
My parents are members of the Church, but they had been less active for more than nine years. From the day I spoke with them about my desire, the opposition became real. I agreed with my family that if I passed the competitive examination from the school I had been accepted to, they would let me go on a mission in one year.
That year ended up being the most difficult of my life. My mother thought I would forget about my desire to go on a mission. However, after I had attended a few months of school, she realized I was truly preparing for a mission. So she cut off my financial support. It was then that my prayers became great blessings.
My Heavenly Father inspired me to look for a job, which I did. After finding three good openings, I wrote my letters of application and pleaded with the Lord to let me receive at least one positive response, for I had done all that He had commanded me.
A response came only three days later. I was called in for an interview with one of the companies. Following the interview, I got the job that day. The only problem was that I was still not earning enough money to cover all my expenses. After praying to God, I felt inspired to trust Him and not to fear. So I paid my tithing without fear.
A few weeks later my landlord asked to see me. “Most likely to talk about rent,” I thought. What he said was, “You will not need to pay your rent until you finish school!”
I could not believe it. This blessing enabled me to pay for what I needed, and most important, it helped me prepare financially for my mission. Miracles were taking place in my life at just the right time.
I have now completed my mission. I feel such gratitude for the ability to pray to our Father in Heaven. I am so happy to know with a certainty that He lives and that He loves His children. If we listen to Him, we will see many miracles in our lives.

Also, the Church in the Washington D.C. area was strong and growing fast. Members from adults to grade-school children felt a strong sense of identity with the Church. The opportunity to identify oneself as a Latter-day Saint promoted awareness of doctrine and practices and, through commitment to covenants, helped build strong testimonies of the gospel.
There was a feeling of missionary excitement. Our neighborhood is filled with beautiful churches of various Christian denominations. In the months and years after we returned to our home, school friends who were members of those churches invited our children to speak to their youth groups about Mormonism, and the interest and questions of the young people and their religious leaders challenged our children to expand their knowledge and test their faith. Many close friendships and several conversions resulted.

Pray for your friends. “Amber zeroes in on feelings,” said Cami Smith. “She has a way of dealing with her friends’ distress that works every time. She prays for them. When Amber prays, she prays for us individually. She asks Heavenly Father to help us be happy again. And while she’s praying, she touches the person she’s praying for, tapping her on the head or on the shoulder. Sometimes she ends her prayers with a hug.”

Jonathan had his own motivations when he took lessons from the Heaps. “At first I wasn’t really keen on the idea,” he says. “Ever since I was young, I wanted to play the piano, but Marvin was always a better piano player than me. So when I was younger, I kind of gave up.”
Marvin and Jonathan are best friends, so they have a healthy rivalry in a lot of the things they do. When Marvin saw that Jonathan wasn’t too excited about taking lessons from Elder and Sister Heap, Marvin challenged him to do better. “I said, ‘Let’s see if you can catch up to me. I want to see how good you can get and how much you can practice.’”
Jonathan responded to Marvin’s challenge. “I realized I should just give it a try, and after the first time I tried, everything turned out OK. I got into the habit of playing, and I started to get good at the piano. And now I can sight-read music pretty well.”
Although Marvin’s challenge got him going, Jonathan says the real reason he loves to play has nothing to do with competition. “We feel the Spirit when playing these songs,” he explains. “I want to encourage others to learn how to play the piano, to bring music into everyone’s life, and to make people happy so they can feel joy and comfort in their souls.”

Mercy, help thy brother, child.
Bring wood for the hearth’s bright blaze,
And heed thee that thee do not tip
That bowl of sun-dried maize.
Patience, stir the bubbling broth,
Take care with the heavy ladle,
And when thee has stirred the pot
Rock the baby’s cradle.
Prudence, benches thee must dust,
And scrub the table board,
For tomorrow we will give
Our thanks unto the Lord.
All must be in readiness,
So be not idle, nor at play,
For hands and hearts and thoughts all make
A glad Thanksgiving Day.

After attending Brigham Young University for a year, Elder Walker served as a full-time missionary in the Tennessee Nashville Mission.
To assist his father’s recovery from a serious accident, Elder Walker delayed his plans to return to school following his mission and returned to Argentina. That’s when he met Ines Marcela Sulé at an institute dance. Eight months later, on August 12, 1993, they were married in the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple. The next day, the young couple moved to Provo, Utah, USA, where Elder Walker completed his bachelor’s degree in economics in 1996.

Year by year the challenges to William’s childhood religious beliefs seemed to increase. At age 15 he left home to become a butcher’s apprentice, and his first landlord, religiously an Independent, tried unsuccessfully to convert the young Anglican boarder. That experience, William admitted, “unsettled my religious views very much.” He also discussed religious ideas with Catholic sisters while making regular meat deliveries to a nearby monastery.
During this troubled time William learned that his good friend John M. Bridge had joined the Latter-day Saints. William scolded John for converting because Mormons then “were held in such bad repute by all the good people of my town.” But after work one evening John explained some principles of the restored gospel to his former schoolmate. William felt that the teachings made sense so he agreed to attend a Latter-day Saints meeting of the Maldon, Essex, Branch. There the fellowship and doctrines impressed him.
Three weeks after John first discussed Mormonism with him, William asked traveling elders Joseph Silver and John Lindsay to baptize him. So in late April 1855 he was baptized at Maldon in the Blackwater River. A short time later he was ordained a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood.

And yet most parents throughout the world continue to know both the importance and the joy that are attached to natural families. Friends of mine who just returned from speaking to families and parents on several continents reported to me that the hopes and concerns of parents are remarkably similar throughout the earth.
In India a concerned Hindu mother said, “All I want is to be a bigger influence on my children than the media and the peer group.” And a Buddhist mother in Malaysia said, “I’d like my boys to be able to operate in the world, but I don’t want them to be of the world.” Parents from all different cultures and faiths are saying and feeling the same things we are as parents in the Church.

“Please give these dish towels to Suzi,” Grandma said. She handed Nika a stack of towels. “She can put them in the box with the other kitchen things.”
“Great-grandmother sure had a lot of nice things,” Nika said, fingering the dish towels with the embroidered edges before handing them to Suzi. “The whole house is like a treasure chest.”
“Yes, it is,” Grandma said. She reached into a cupboard and brought out some beautiful dishes.
“What will you do with all of these wonderful treasures now that Great-grandmother has died?” Nika asked. “Can we keep them?”
“We’ll divide them among family members and give the rest to charity,” Grandma said. She began wiping dust off the dishes.
“Look what I found,” Uncle Mike said, laying a large book on the table. “It’s an old photo album. And look at this, Nika,” he said. He carefully turned the brown pages. “Here’s a photo of your great-great-grandmother when she was about your age.”
Nika looked closely at the black-and-white photo of the smiling little girl. She was wearing button-up boots, her hair was in long ringlets, and she was holding a china doll in her arms.
“Look at that!” Nika said, pointing excitedly. “She’s missing a tooth, just like me!” Nika stuck her tongue through the gap in her teeth.
“So she is,” Uncle Mike said. “And you both have the same freckly nose.” He smiled and carefully closed the album.
“Grandma,” Nika said, folding some cloth napkins, “are family pictures the treasure you want to keep?”
Grandma looked up from dusting. “I’m grateful to get the photos and family records. I want to organize them and make copies to share. They are important to me because they strengthen the thing I treasure even more.”
“What’s that?” Nika asked.
“This.” Grandma waved her hand to indicate the whole room.
“The house?” Nika was puzzled.
“No. Look again,” Grandma said. “What do you see in this room?”
Nika looked around. She saw her relatives everywhere, all working together.
“Family,” Nika said at last. “That’s what you treasure most, isn’t it?”
“Exactly,” Grandma said. “That’s the only thing that can last forever.”
“Were Great-grandma and Great-grandpa married in the temple?” Nika asked.
“Yes. They did their part to make sure our family is sealed together,” Grandma said.
“Do you know what treasure I’d like?” Nika asked.
“What?”
“I’d like you to tell me more stories about that girl with the missing tooth in the photo.”
“Oh, I have lots of stories to tell you,” Grandma said. “The question is, will you have time to hear them all?”
“I will,” Nika declared. “Even if it takes forever!”

I still miss my brother, Sergio. He, my sister, and I were very close. We spent a lot of time together and had a lot of fun. We loved to play and joke around. Before Sergio went on his mission, he baptized me. Sadly, though, he passed away while serving in Peru.
I believe that Sergio is in a better place and that he is an angel. My sister, Ximena, and I feel blessed to have him as a brother, and our parents feel blessed to have him as a son. I know that he is waiting for us. We must put forth our best effort to become an eternal family so that we can all be together forever.
I know our Father in Heaven loves us and wants the best for us. I love my parents and my sister very much. I try to take care of them and help them however I can, including working with my parents in our family store.
Sometimes I still get sad, but I can’t stay that way because I know that Sergio is happy, that he is in a safe place, and that he is all right. He loves us and protects us.
I have faith that we are going to be together again and be an eternal family. This faith helps me to stay strong.
Ruth O.,14, Argentina

The year before I served my mission the bishop called me into his office and extended a call for me to be a CTR B Primary teacher. I accepted the call, excited to teach the seven- and eight-year-olds in my class. At the same time, I also worked at a local supermarket. It was a good job.
Not long after I was hired, the manager and assistant manager of the store where I worked informed me that I would have to start working on Sundays. The manager said, “I am not going to work around the Mormons or any other church.” To keep my job, I knew that it would mean giving up my calling. My manager wouldn’t discuss it any further.
I sat down with the bishop and explained the whole situation. This was one of the first times we talked about a mission. I wasn’t sure that I would even go on a mission. But if I did go, I would need a job to earn money to pay for it. But I also wanted to keep the Sabbath day holy and be able to attend church and teach Primary. After a long discussion with the bishop, I decided to quit my job. Not long after that, I found a job at another store that allowed me to have Sundays off. I kept my calling, and for the next several months I helped those children prepare for baptism.
One day I was looking at the missionary discussions, just to see what was in them, and it suddenly became clear to me why it had been so important for me to teach Primary. The discussions taught about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, the First Vision, faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost—the very same principles I had been teaching my Primary class. I decided to pray about a mission.
I received an answer to serve a mission. I was interviewed by my bishop and received a call to serve in the Jacksonville, Florida, area. Teaching Primary gave me a better understanding of the things I would need to know to be prepared to serve a mission.
When I quit my job, some people might have wondered why, especially when someone else could have easily taught that Primary class. But giving up my job to keep the Sabbath and teach Primary resulted in a greater blessing for me.

Like all of us, Toshio Kawada of the Obihiro Ward, Sapporo Japan Stake, has had to make crucial choices when faced with life’s difficulties. He joined the Church in 1972, and he and his wife, Miyuki, were sealed in the Laie Hawaii Temple in 1978. They have two sons. Brother Kawada served as president of the Obihiro Branch, president of the Kushiro Japan District, and counselor in the Japan Sapporo Mission presidency for many years.
More than 20 years ago, when his family was still very young, Brother Kawada was working for his father as a dairy farmer. Tragically, one day the large barn where they kept their milk cows and all their equipment burned down. Financially devastated, his father went to the farmers’ union for a loan but was turned down. Subsequently, his father and older brother filed for bankruptcy. Although not legally responsible, Brother Kawada felt obligated to help pay back all the debts.
As Brother Kawada was pondering a solution to his problem, he decided to plant carrots. He had grown potatoes, but he did not know how to grow carrots. He planted the seeds and prayed earnestly for his carrots to grow.
All this time, Brother Kawada faithfully served in the Church, kept the Sabbath day holy, and paid his tithing. When he and his family dressed in their best clothes and went to their Sunday meetings, many neighbors scoffed at them. It was difficult to lose one day a week in their fields, especially at harvesttime. It was not always easy for them to pay their tithing, but they offered it to the Lord obediently and cheerfully.
Fall came and Brother Kawada’s carrots turned out to be unusually sweet and large, with an exceptionally rich color. He had an abundant harvest and went to the farmers’ union for help, but they refused to sell his carrots through their distribution system. He fasted and prayed and felt inspired to try to find a produce distributor in Tokyo—something that is very difficult to do without introductions or connections.
Brother Kawada was blessed to find a large distributor in Tokyo. Since then he has been very successful and has repaid all his father’s debts. He currently has a large agricultural operation with many employees, and he is teaching young farmers how to effectively organize their businesses.
Even in exceptionally trying circumstances, Brother Kawada chose to be true to the promises he made in his baptismal, priesthood, and temple covenants. Although it would have been easy to rationalize working on the Sabbath, not serving in the Church, and not paying tithing until his problems were resolved, he was resolute in following the directive to “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” He then found that, indeed, “all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).
I respect Toshio Kawada not simply because he overcame hard times and became a successful farmer. Far more impressive is that he made courageous choices during a difficult period, knowing they would not necessarily bring an immediate reward—or any temporal reward at all. His example of righteously using agency and steadfastly holding to everlasting principles is worthy of emulation.

When I was released from my calling as a stake president, my sons were excited about spending more time with me. Three weeks later I was called as a Seventy. At first I thought they might be disappointed, but my youngest son’s humble response was “Daddy, don’t worry. We are an eternal family.” What a simple and clear truth it was! I worried a little because I looked around at this mortal life first, but my son was happy because he did not look around but looked up with eyes toward eternity and the purposes of the Lord.

“Once when I was a baby, I was very ill and my father was away from home. It was a Sunday evening, and our home teacher—called a block teacher then—came to our home before sacrament meeting. He had heard that I was ill, and he’d stopped to ask if there was anything that he could do. Mother said no, so he left. But after sacrament meeting he felt impressed to come back. This time Mother asked him to bless me, which he did, and in the blessing he promised that I would recover. That night Mother woke in the middle of the night and checked on me. When she did, she thought that I was dead, because my skin felt cold, but it was only because the fever had left me.”

Elder David Rawls and his companion, Elder Rahrick, stood at the door of the small LDS meetinghouse in Tokyo, Japan, and waited.
“What if he doesn’t come?” Elder Rahrick asked.
“He’ll come.”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
“Then he won’t.”
“You’re not much help, you know.”
“Don’t worry. He’ll come,” David said.
“I already wrote my folks and told them we were going to have a baptism, so if he doesn’t come, what’ll I do?”
“Tell them he didn’t come.”
“You don’t know my dad. He wants results.”
“Go see how close to being full the font is, okay? That’ll give you something to do.”
Elder Rahrick started off and then stopped and turned around. “He’d better come, that’s all I can say. I wrote my girlfriend about the baptism too.”
“Go check the font, will you?”
“All right, but if he doesn’t come, it won’t matter if the font is full or not, will it?”
David watched as Elder Rahrick went down the hall of the church to the baptismal font. They were about as different as two people could be. David couldn’t understand how some guy just off the plane thought he knew more about missionary work than he did.
It was a tough mission with long hours, a difficult language to learn, and few converts, and no California beach boy was going to change it in a day. Don’t let him get to you, he thought. This is a day of celebration, because today the hurt will go away.
Ever since he was a little boy, he had in his mind the image of being on his mission, standing in the water, baptizing someone. But somehow the reality had been that, even though he’d worked hard, he’d had no baptisms. Of course there had been people he’d taught who eventually were baptized, but always just after he was transferred.
His parents had always told him not to worry, that he should just do his best. And he had. He worked hard and lived mission rules and prayed, but still no baptisms came.
As time slipped by, he thought about what it would be like, after his mission, talking with his friends from high school, guys he’d played basketball with, guys who thrived on competition. He knew they’d ask how many baptisms he’d had on his mission. From letters they’d written, he already knew one of his friends had 30 baptisms.
And he had none.
“Don’t let it get you down,” his father had written. “The important thing is that you are serving with all your heart, mind, and strength. We couldn’t be more proud of you than we are.”
David knew his father was right, but still, he wanted at least once on his mission, to stand in the baptismal font with someone he’d taught, and raise his right arm to the square, and actually perform the baptismal ordinance. If for no other reason, just to make his boyhood dream come true.
Just when it seemed that it would never happen, four weeks before his release from the mission field, they met Katsutoshi Tanaka, a white-haired retired gardener, a gentle man, a widower, who lived in a small apartment in the city. He seemed to have been waiting for them. Each time they came to give him a missionary lesson, he was there, well prepared, having read the pamphlets they’d given him. When he attended church, the members seemed drawn to him and they welcomed him openly.
Of course Elder Rahrick, David’s companion, with the confidence that comes from not knowing very much, had attributed their success to his having come into the mission field. “You see what happens when you plan your work and work your plan?” he told David once after an especially good discussion with Brother Tanaka. That really grated on David’s nerves. You have so much to learn, Elder, he thought.
When it became apparent that Brother Tanaka was actually going to be baptized, Elder Rahrick asked, “How about if I baptize him?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” he had said. In David’s mind though there wasn’t much to talk about. He was the senior companion, about to go home, having gone his mission never having fulfilled his dream of baptizing someone in the mission field. Elder Rahrick would have plenty of chances later on.
Elder Rahrick returned from down the hall. “The font’s almost full, but I don’t know where to turn off the water, and the custodian’s gone. Would you do it for me?”
David nodded his head and went back to the baptismal font. He looked at the font now full of water. It looked so beautiful. He was so grateful that Brother Tanaka had accepted the gospel. It had been so hard to go on without any apparent success, with mission newsletters telling of the baptisms of others when he was always two weeks too late or one week too early.
At first he had thought it was punishment from God, that for some reason he wasn’t good enough to have baptisms. He talked to his mission president about it, who said, “Elder, you’re one of the best missionaries I’ve got. We’re not out here to have a contest with numbers. I’m sorry that transfers have caused you to miss out on some baptisms, but wherever you’ve served, people’s lives have been blessed. Do you know how many converts sing your praises for having contacted them?”
Even so, it had been difficult to take. Sometimes at night, when he couldn’t sleep, he knelt beside his bed and poured out his heart in prayer, and from those silent vigils strength and commitment had come—but no baptisms.
David knew he was stronger than he would have been if it had been easy. He had learned not to give up and had mastered the ability to work hard even when he was discouraged.
Eventually there came a time in his mission, when he knew he could take whatever happened and it wouldn’t affect how hard he worked, or how committed he was, or how much faith he had in Father in Heaven.
Shortly after that, they found Brother Tanaka.
He sat down to gaze at the now nearly full font. It was beautiful to see. My mission is just about over, he thought with a rush of sadness. I’ve come to the end of things.
He’d been reading the book of John in the New Testament, and this morning he’d read the words of the Savior to his Apostles given his last few days upon the earth. David sensed a reluctance on the part of the Savior to leave these men to themselves, a concern that they may have not learned enough to carry on, and a genuine affection for those who had stood by him during those past three years of his ministry.
The Savior knew their weaknesses, David thought, and yet he still loved them. And he encouraged them to have love for each other. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).
And now I go and leave Elder Rahrick here to carry on. Have I shown him the same kind of love the Savior did his Apostles? It hasn’t been easy for me with Elder Rahrick. Maybe because I’m about to leave and he’s just come. We seem worlds apart at times. He’s so caught up with himself; whatever good he does, he does it with the idea in mind of how impressed the people back home will be when they hear about it.
If I can show love to Elder Rahrick, he thought, I can show love to anybody. Getting along with a wife will be a breeze compared to this.
David got up and turned off the water, and suddenly it struck him that in one week he would be back home in Arizona, getting ready to start college again, concerned mainly about himself again. For an instant, more than anything in the world, he wanted to stay where he was and not go home. It had taken so long to get where he was now, willing and able to devote his entire self to the work, and now they were going to tell him they didn’t need him anymore. It didn’t make sense.
Oh, Father in Heaven, he thought, please help me get through these changes in my life.
Elder Rahrick came back to see him. “No sign of Brother Tanaka yet. He’d better come, that’s all I can say.”
David stared at Elder Rahrick, who looked to be about 17 years old. “Elder,” David said, “we haven’t always gotten along, have we?”
“Oh, it hasn’t been that bad.”
“I just want you to know I love you.”
Elder Rahrick got red in the face. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“I know we’re supposed to say that, but still, it really seems weird to me.”
“I know, but you’ll get used to it. Jesus loved the men who served with him. We should do the same.”
“I suppose. I’ll go back and see if Brother Tanaka is coming.”
David watched him go. He’s so young, David thought, so inexperienced. What if he goes his mission without any baptisms? Will he be able to stand it?
David suddenly realized he really did love Elder Rahrick. Beyond his bluster was a scared young man, as he himself had once been, in a strange country with a strange language and customs. Have I taught him enough? Is he ready to carry on as a senior companion after I leave?
What was it like for the Savior, he thought, to leave the men he loved, his beloved Apostles? Impetuous Peter, always quick to act. John, gentle, sensitive. Each one with their flaws and strengths.
My gift to this mission is Elder Rahrick, he thought. I’ve got to do all I can to help him.
Elder Rahrick, he thought, you’ve complained about the way we live as if it’s my fault we sleep on floor mats and eat raw fish. You’ve told me that if I were only closer to the Spirit, people would come to us and ask to be baptized. But none of that matters. I think I thought the same things too.
I love you, Elder Rahrick. Carry on the work when I’m gone. You will carry a part of me with you always, like it or not. I am a part of you, and you of me. And after our missions we will someday meet and shake hands and introduce our families and talk about the good times.
David returned to where Elder Rahrick was waiting at the door. “Elder Rahrick, I’ve been thinking. How would you like to baptize Brother Tanaka?”
Elder Rahrick got a big grin on his face. “That’d be great! Do you suppose we could get some pictures of me and Brother Tanaka in our baptismal clothes? I want to send them back home to my parents and my girlfriend.”
“We can take pictures before, but not during the service itself.”
“Great. This is going to be terrific! How about if I go find some baptismal clothes that’ll fit me?”
“Sure, fine.”
David watched him go. He was a little disappointed in Elder Rahrick for not realizing what a sacrifice it was for him to give up his last chance to fulfill his boyhood dream of performing a baptism in the mission field. Sometime, Elder, he thought, when you come to the end of your mission, you’ll understand how much I cared for you.
Just then the thought flashed into his mind, as if the Savior were saying that perhaps someday David would understand how much the Savior loved him.
This is a gospel of love, David thought.
Just then Brother Tanaka turned up the walk to the chapel.
Thank you, Father in Heaven, David thought. This will be a day I will always remember.
And it was.