Gospel Story Finder

Recently during a special women’s conference, a speaker told about how he’d been quite successful in land development and how everything he’d touched had turned to gold. He’d also tried to live a faithful life and had been a very active servant in the gospel. Then he’d been called as a mission president. He had apparently been a very effective mission president and had subsequently returned to his home state. Throughout his life he’d experienced one success after another—he was a recognized leader in his community, had built a prosperous business. Being called as a mission president had sort of cemented in his mind that he’d “made it”—that he was an all-around success.
When he returned from his mission, a combination of changing interest rates and other business factors caused his once-prosperous business to plummet. In fact, he’d lost nearly everything. Telling the story, this man said, “I realized that I’d become quite boastful—that while I felt I had a testimony of Jesus Christ, in my mind I had brought about all of these wonderful things through my hard work, intelligence, and so forth. But when hard times hit, I began to realize how offensive I must have been to others and to my Heavenly Father to assume that I had brought all of these good things on my own. I felt like I’d lived a life of arrogance and boasting.”

Like Ruth, Daynalee has learned the importance of service.
Daynalee started volunteering at a soup kitchen three years ago. Though it means giving up some of her time every Saturday, she sees it as an opportunity for her to learn new things and help people in need.
Volunteering at the soup kitchen has helped her learn to be more responsible and communicate with different people, Daynalee says. “I feel very calm and happy knowing I’m serving others,” she says. “I know Heavenly Father is happy when I serve, and that makes me happy.”
Ruth and Daynalee both took the opportunity to serve others. God is pleased when we choose to serve His children.

In Armenia, Brother Berlin gathered with a group of about 20 people, and each person shared a scripture from the new publication and told why it had touched his or her heart.
“It is so powerful as 15 to 20 people hold in their hands their own copy of the Book of Mormon—marked up, loved, cherished,” he said. “They shared their love for scripture passages and for the Lord.”

“You are a good mother,” Stephanie Fackrell Hill said to a stranger in the Logan Utah Temple. “How do you know?” the young mother asked hesitantly. Sister Hill said, “I saw your children’s paint on your hands, and as I did, I felt prompted by the Spirit to tell you.” The young mother had been trying to hide her hands. Relieved, she now felt accepted rather than conspicuous.

When Cham Nap first started going to church, he didn’t understand anything except for sacrament meeting, which was translated into Cambodian. But he kept on going because it made him happy. “Even though I didn’t understand in the classes, I felt the Spirit and I liked to go. Afterward I’d go to Sister Harkness and ask her questions and she would teach me.”

“My mother opened a little country store to help keep our family financially afloat. I worked with her in the store quite a bit. She taught me about respecting and serving people. Once, when I was fourteen, my mom and dad went to Salt Lake City for a conference and left me to mind the store. The Hutterites in our area wouldn’t go to the bank to cash their huge grain checks, so Mom was a bonded payor, and we would sometimes have thousands of dollars in the store safe. I knew the combination to the safe, and I knew that my parents trusted me, so I opened and closed the store on time and took care of customers.”

Dan had recently moved to Brigham City from Washington and really didn’t know many people. When a man dressed in a suit and tie walked into his seminary class, pointed him out, and announced that he wanted to talk to him, Dan was sure he was in big trouble. But when the man explained that he was the one they wanted to play the Nephi-like character Ben, Dan was more than happy to comply.

Dan rearranged his schedule as a lifeguard so he could give his time to the project. When he asked his boss for permission to be out for the last day of shooting, his boss took him into his office and showed him a long, detailed list of all the hours he’d missed for the filming. Then he computed that into the dollars and cents that Dan would have earned. It was quite a sum, but Dan didn’t mind.

“The film really helped me,” he said. “It brought my testimony way up. After playing a character that was a lot like Nephi, it made me feel closer to him—like I knew him. I can really relate to his story in the Book of Mormon.”

I have met some people who have been interested and puzzled why a young man would do what I do. I spend most of my time cleaning the headstones, so that I can read them and take photos, or hacking my way through overgrown grass and weeds. One time I found a small headstone beside a big tree near a footpath, that had been lost in the undergrowth, and completely hidden from view. I cleaned it up and removed the holly bush, other weeds and grass that were hiding it. It was a grave of a five-week-old baby boy, Tony Hamilton, lost from view and forgotten. Now, since I cleared it, someone has mowed around the tree and the grave, so hopefully he will not be lost again.

I had a good experience when I was seven years old. I wanted to know if the Church was true. So I said a prayer and asked our Heavenly Father. I finished praying, and I lay down to sleep. I had a dream where Jesus Christ told me, “This is the true Church.” When I woke up, I remembered my dream, and I knew that I was in the true Church.
Miranda R., age 9, Querétaro, Mexico

Later when he married and began raising a family, a sense of humor helped him deal with three children (and one wife) who possess a weakness for stray animals. Although he himself was raised in a family that believed animals belong in a barn, dad has survived over the years any number of dogs, cats, guppies, goldfish, turtles, lizards, rabbits, chickens, frogs, toads, chameleons, mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, parakeets, and one foul-tempered cockatiel named Doosey. I remember one winter when I brought home two full-grown cats and asked if I could keep them.
“Are they males?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Their names are Sam and George.”
That convinced him. “All right, but they have to stay outside.”
That spring Sam and George had 13 kittens between them. And they didn’t stay outside either!

More dramatic and perhaps more profound was the actual voice of Moroni himself whom Joseph came to know as his own spiritual teacher in those annual meetings on the west slope of the Hill Cumorah. Each year Joseph kept that September appointment, climbing with what anxiety and anticipation we can only imagine, feeling in the pull of mortal muscle against the slope of the hill the finiteness and limits of his own existence, yet knowing that shortly he would again see a face by now familiar yet not of this earth, a figure recognizable but incomprehensible. Here was a mere man going, by appointment, to meet an angel from heaven.

As overwhelming as such an encounter might have been, the task the angel outlined was more so: To bring forth upon the earth the great and marvelous latter-day work. This was a task of heroes and giants, not frontier farm boys. Yet as Joseph turned in his hands that first copy of the Book of Mormon, he saw the very fulfillment of a part of that task. Once hidden in the earth, for a long time hidden from men, the Book of Mormon was now ready to go forth to the world, to speak the message that had already come forth in the heart of this young man.

The hot Venetian sun fills the upstairs room where the teenagers are discussing their upcoming activities. They’re using hesitant, mispronounced Italian, broken English, and some French, so the communication can’t help but break down.
Finally, one of the American boys turns to an Italian boy and translates into German. “Capito!” (understood), the boy replies, and the Young Men/Young Women group continues its discussion.

Missionary work comes naturally to Miyako. Once when she was at a friend’s house, she suddenly announced that she had to leave because it was time for family home evening. Intrigued, her friend’s mother asked her to explain, and Miyako did. Another time, she told a friend that she prays often to Heavenly Father. The friend asked questions, and Miyako taught her how to pray.

Brother Michael Kagle took a convoy of trucks loaded with equipment from his own company to Mississippi. Many employees, who are not of our faith, volunteered to go with him every weekend to give assistance in the storm-stricken areas. Walkie-talkies were used for communication along the way. Mike’s high priests group leader, while driving along with them in his pickup truck, said he had white knuckles from driving so fast. Trying to slow the convoy down, he got on the walkie-talkie and said, “Gentlemen, do you realize we are going 80 miles per hour?” One of the truck drivers came on and said, “Well, you have to understand that’s all these big trucks will do. We can’t go any faster.”

Some years ago a young man I’ll call Jim was in the seventh grade. He was a little taller than the other boys and was doing quite well in basketball and track. However, as the year progressed, the coach of the basketball team began saying to him, “Jim, stay seated. You’re no ball player. You’re too clumsy!” At one game he said, “No, we don’t need you. You stay right there. You can’t run. You can’t shoot the ball. You’re not fast enough.” This continued for a number of months. Finally, Jim began to believe what he was being told about himself. He stopped playing basketball, both at Church and at school. He stopped running. Throughout high school he avoided sports as much as possible. In his first year of college, some athletics were required, but he did as little as possible.
At nineteen, he found himself on a mission in a distant land. There he found that the buses did not stop to let people get on or off. So the missionaries had to learn to do that on the run.
One afternoon Jim and his companion were a block or two from the bus stop when they saw the bus coming. One of them said, “Run, Elder, or we’ll miss our next appointment.” To Jim’s great surprise, he beat his companion to the bus stop. Later that afternoon, Jim purposely arranged a few runs for the bus. He beat his companion each time.
He was amazed, almost disbelieving, because he knew that his companion had received a number of awards for being the fastest runner in his home state. Jim was overcome. Could it be so? They ran again. He won.
Suddenly came the terrible realization to Jim that he had wasted his athletic ability. He could have excelled in athletics, but he had come to believe someone else’s opinion of him. Jim began to seriously question other negative attitudes he had about himself. Perhaps, they, too, were false.
You will recall that Jim discovered his real self in the mission field. Didn’t the Lord teach us that whosoever sought his own life would lose it, and he that lost his life in the service of others would find it? (See Matt. 16:25.) Discover yourself! If you have not yet gone, go on a mission. As you seek to serve the Lord, you, too, will find yourself.

The sky was greyish-white, the grass damp, and there were periodic showers that Sunday morning, but not one of the 350 young people seated on logs or blankets cared about the weather. This was the scene for the testimony meeting that concluded the Alberta tri-Institute camp-out held at Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada.
Young people had arrived and set up camp on Friday evening. Early Saturday morning they were addressed by President N. Eldon Tanner, who had taken time from his vacation to speak to them. He emphasized that the Church will never ask anyone to do anything that is not worthwhile.
Other Saturday activities included Hiking, fishing, tubing on the Belly River, and a softball tournament. After a variety show that night, there was dancing in the Waterton meetinghouse.
Young adults came from as far as Manitoba and Grande Prairie for the camp-out. “Oh, It’s So Nice to Be with You” was, for them, not only the theme of the gathering, but the mood of the entire weekend.

When I was in the first grade, one of my classmates kept asking if she could copy off of my paper. I said, “Stop trying to copy off my paper. I am trying to work.” Later that day, I told my mom what happened. I said, “She was trying to cheat, and that is the same as lying.” During the school year, I tried to help my classmate with her work because I knew she wouldn’t learn anything by cheating. It made me feel good knowing I had done the right thing.

I first discovered the garage when I was seven years old and spending the day at my grandparents’ house. I quickly settled into my routine of playing with toys in their living room. Just as I jumped my toy car off of the armrest of the sofa, my grandpa walked through the den wearing a set of blue overalls covered in stains and his favorite “Ford Racing” hat. Opening the sliding door and stepping over the threshold, he looked back to find me staring at him wide-eyed. With a wink, he motioned for me to follow him.
As we walked across the backyard and came to the door of the gray garage, Grandpa reached into his pocket and retrieved his keys. Slowly and methodically, he fingered through the keys with his big, calloused hands that were the result of a lifetime of hard work. Finally, he found the old brass key he was looking for, inserted it into the lock, and opened the door.
After climbing over boxes and tiptoeing around engine parts and transmission pieces, we stood in the middle of the garage. Grandpa showed me around, pointing to various parts and explaining what they did in a way that my seven-year-old mind could understand. He pointed out the cars he was fixing and what they needed to run well again. One was a 1940s-era roadster that looked just like one of my toy cars. The other was a 1965 Mustang that was lying in pieces all over the floor. It was amazing how much my grandpa knew and how he could figure out exactly what was wrong with something so complex. His stories of growing up in a family of 12 and buying old cars, repainting them, and selling them to make money made me laugh and the stories of car crashes and real fiery explosions astounded me.

Later in my life, I talked to President Marion G. Romney. He said about his own youth, “I don’t know any better today than I knew then that the gospel is true. But I do know the gospel better today.” I knew as a young man that Joseph Smith told the truth. My testimony was really a continuation of what I had been taught and what I was doing—reading the scriptures, praying, and trying to keep the commandments.

I have an aunt living in Ogden, Utah, who says that as a young girl she had a memorable Sunday School teacher. When he was called, he said, “A Sunday School teacher is the most important calling in the Church,” and he was the best Sunday School teacher she ever had. His name was David O. McKay.