Gospel Story Finder

This young woman enjoys her life now, but she didn’t always feel that way. Here’s an account of how she found peace after struggling with feelings of worthlessness and suicide. We hope that hearing this true experience will reassure you that your journey is also important. If you are struggling with hopeless thoughts, please don’t give up—you are not alone. Your life is valuable, and you are loved. Hang on. Things will get better.
Answer: I struggled as a child. I had a wonderful family and didn’t go through any obvious tragedies, but I always seemed to feel angry at myself and those around me. I would take these feelings out on my siblings. The more I mistreated them, the worse I felt. And yet I couldn’t seem to stop. This behavior drove a wedge between me and my family members. When I was 12 years old, I thought I was an evil, rotten, worthless person. I thought everyone would be better off without me.
Answer: I remember one time at the doctor’s office, the pediatrician asked Mom if she had ever heard her children say, “I wish I’d never been born.” And Mom answered, “No, all of the kids are fine.” I was surprised that Mom didn’t know I had thought about killing myself. So I tried to tell her what I was going through. But she acted so shocked that it made me never want to talk about it again. I pretended that I hadn’t really meant it.
Answer: Yes, but I didn’t really understand what a testimony was. I always knew deep down that there was a God, but Satan was working hard to convince me to doubt everything else. So I started wondering if the entire Church was wrong. Fortunately, I had some great Young Women leaders who were inspired to help me and show me a lot of love. One of them in particular helped me start feeling better about myself.
Answer: A bright spot was my Young Women class. I had a teacher who taught right at my level. She’s since moved away, and I wish I could tell her what she meant to me. I don’t remember what she taught exactly, but I remember feeling like I belonged there.
Another thing that really helped were temple trips. Even though I often felt worthless and didn’t think anyone cared about me, I enjoyed the spark of light and goodness of the temple. I often felt the Spirit there. One trip in particular made a difference. It started out bad because one of the older girls said something hurtful to me. But later that day, she apologized and gave me a hug. And I learned that I really liked hugs! After that, I asked her for a hug every Sunday. One Sunday I sat down in sacrament meeting without getting a hug from her. And she came up to me and said, “Where’s my hug?” with a smile. I felt so surprised and special that she sought me out and showed me love. She and I became closer and closer friends. I know hugs don’t help everyone, but they helped me.
Answer: Sure! She was the craziest, most energetic person I have ever known. She seemed to have never-ending amounts of happiness to share. She greeted me with so much enthusiasm and love every Sunday and gave me a hug. Her dose of goodness seemed to be just what I needed. I would carry it with me during the week. Over time, I began to accept that what she said was true. The Spirit was working on me. This is when my behavior finally started to improve in a lasting way. And my suicidal thoughts, which I’d had about a year, went away, though I still had to work on how I felt about myself.
Answer: Another turning point was when I began to volunteer at a nonprofit organization each week with my older brother and my mom. I was sometimes the only volunteer on my team who showed up regularly, so my supervisor counted on me. I found I really liked that. For example, one time we were cleaning up together, and she got called away to do something else. I kept sweeping and working hard. When she came back, she said that I had really good initiative and gave me so many compliments. And it felt so good. I realized that working hard and doing a good job was fun. Helping was fun! So I began to try my hardest to be the best volunteer that I could be. I gained enough experience to train other volunteers. I developed a passion for this organization and made friends.
Photograph from Getty Images
During this time, my behavior continued to change in positive ways as I felt the Spirit increase in my life. Over the next couple of years, I made friends again with my family members. I started feeling like a good person instead of a bad person. I became a happier person. People even commented on how much I smiled. And my happiness no longer depended on having a leader saying good things at church. My testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ was growing, and I could feel Their love for me.
Answer: My testimony keeps growing stronger. I know now that Heavenly Father loves every one of us—including me. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that no matter what mistakes we have made, we can come back to goodness. We can repent through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Anyone can return to Him again.
Answer: Please, if you are experiencing low self-worth, or depression, or want to die, or any other feelings like that, reach out for help. Go to a parent, a youth leader, a former Primary teacher, a bishop, even a friend—anyone you feel you can trust. I promise you that Heavenly Father does not want you to die. He wants you to live and feel joy. He wants you to feel His love. Turn to Jesus Christ. He can help you throughout your trials. He knows everything you are going through. Meanwhile, Satan is the one who tells you lies about yourself. Ignore him. He wants you to fail. Heavenly Father wants you to succeed.
Answer: Honestly, I still have a hard time accepting compliments or believing good things about myself sometimes. And I think insults hurt me more than they hurt most people, even if they’re just a joke. I still sometimes have a hard time believing that people love me until I feel convinced. But overall, I like myself and who I am becoming. It is a glorious feeling!

Many years ago Elder Sterling W. Sill was driving down a road. He became thirsty, so he pulled into a gas station. He put a dime in the soda pop machine and pulled out a bottle, but his dime was returned. He took the dime, looked at it, put it in his pocket, and said, “They charge too much for this stuff anyway.”

He didn’t get very far before the still small voice said, “Sterling, are you really going to be a thief for a dime?”

“Of course not,” he said. “The price is not nearly enough.”

He then returned the dime to the gas station attendant.

You, the children of the Lord’s church today, are following Jesus down into the waters of baptism and beyond. Nine-year-old Sandra Martinez of Lakeview, Oregon, says of her baptism: “My mom said that I should pray about whether or not to be baptized, so that night I prayed. The next day I got a warm feeling in my heart that I should be baptized. I felt very close to Jesus and felt that He wanted me to be baptized. The bishop baptized me in Spanish so that my family could understand.”

This next story is by Elder Ruben G. Gapiz, again showing the tremendous faith of these wonderful people.
In October 1975, I was diagnosed with cancer of the naso-pharynx. The doctor told me I had only five years to live. I underwent chemotherapy for the next three years and had to eventually retire from my job three years later. In August 1978, I received my patriarchal blessing from Patriarch F. Briton McConkie. My wife was in the room with me as he pronounced my patriarchal blessing. Patriarch McConkie did not have any prior knowledge of my affliction. Toward the end of the blessing, he pronounced these words which really struck me and brought tears to my eyes and caused me and my wife to sob softly: “You will live your life to the fullest and will be called to serve in many leadership positions.” After the blessing was over, Patriarch McConkie asked me the reason for my tears. I told him that I had been diagnosed with cancer and that I only had two years to live and that the blessing he pronounced was almost too good to hope for. He assured me that it was the Lord’s blessing and he was only a conduit.

Ever since that visit to the doctor’s office, I have always had a prayer in my heart. I didn’t want my children to grow up without a father. My father was killed in the war, and I had a difficult childhood. I knew that day that the Lord had answered my prayer. It has been 21 years since that day, and I am grateful to the Lord for extending my life.

Brother Ruben Gapiz now serves in a leadership position as one of our area authorities in the Philippines.

For over twenty years we lived next door to Jan, a sister who is filled with the love of God and others. She not only blessed her doctor husband and nine children, but went about blessing everyone around her. One day when I backed out of our driveway and started driving down the street, I hit and killed our family dog right in front of her house. I don't know how she knew I needed an angel of mercy right then, but there she was to comfort and console me. She told me to go on my way and continue to take our two daughters to their piano lessons. When I returned home she had cleaned up the mess and had prepared our dog for burial. She always seemed to know when I or someone in our family needed her help. Most recently, in May of this year, she attended the funeral of President Peterson's father, which we were unable to attend. While there, she comforted his mother and siblings and our children and took many pictures to send to us so that we could feel like we had been a part of the celebration of his father's life. Over the years, our family has been on the receiving end of one charitable act after another from this remarkable friend.

I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it and smiled and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush say this:
“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”
That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”

Just a few days before the first conference session, a group of more than fifty people arrived at the Tahiti Papeete Mission office. Mission president Raymond Baudin was acquainted with the Saints from the various island groups of French Polynesia, but he did not know any of these people. He assumed that they were a group of nonmembers interested in attending the conference.
But they introduced themselves as Latter-day Saints from the little island of Taenga, located in the Tuamotu Archipelago. The mission president couldn’t believe it! Church leaders in Papeete had not thought that there were any Church members on Taenga. The people explained to President Baudin that nearly the entire population of Taenga was Latter-day Saint, and that every single Taengan had made the three-day voyage to Tahiti by schooner to see the prophet of the Lord!

When young Gordon had a bout of whooping cough, his doctor suggested that he spend time in the country to recover, so his father purchased a 30-acre fruit farm in Millcreek, on the southeast side of Salt Lake City. The farm did more than help the boy regain his health—it helped him and his brothers learn to work. Each Saturday during the spring and fall, his father took them to the farm. The family lived there during the summer months and in town during the school year.

Another young woman decided that one of the stakes in her life was to observe the Sabbath, regardless of her circumstances. One year after she was baptized a member of the Church with her family, her ward was divided. Her family was assigned to the newly formed ward, and she was the only young woman in the new ward. Her parents resisted the change and stopped attending church, but she wanted to follow the guidelines in For the Strength of Youth on “Sabbath Day Observance.” She decided to go to church in the new ward whenever she could, even though it meant attending all of her meetings alone.
On Sundays she read her scriptures and worked on Personal Progress. Her decision to be “steadfast and immovable” in observing the Sabbath encouraged her mother and younger sister to begin attending church again. Her mother testified that her daughter’s steadfast example of living the gospel and her goodness helped them return to activity.

Yes, the older and more established members of the Church play a most important role in helping you, the new member, come into the kingdom and find your way. A recent convert, Alan John Nubeck, reflects on the recent conversion of his family and the role older members played.
“One of the greatest things that helped us to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a meeting on a Thursday evening before our baptism. We were met by a family who they found had a lot of things in common with us. They talked about our pending baptism and explained things to us.
“When we went to our baptism, they greeted us at the door and said they were going to attend our baptism. It was quite an assurance for me to enter the waters of baptism and look up and see faces of friends.
“After joining the Church, they helped us in church meetings by sitting beside us with other families, and the spirit we felt from them was tremendous. They also helped to explain the various doctrines of the Church and helped us with our scripture studies. They fellowshipped us on weekdays and weekends and especially in family home evenings and helped us to design a special family home evening for our family. After fast and testimony meetings at church, we would attend a meeting at their home in which they invited other members of the Church to meet us. Even now they still remain our companions and still explain things we don’t understand.
“I know through this fellowshipping that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Elder Ulisses Soares traveled with President Dallin H. Oaks to help dedicate a new temple in Colombia, in the city of Barranquilla [bar-an-KEE-ya].
Many children came with their parents to see the new temple be dedicated.
President Oaks invited a boy and girl to help seal the cornerstone in place. The temple was finished!
Inside the temple after the cornerstone ceremony, Elder Soares gave a talk. Then President Oaks gave a prayer to dedicate the temple to the Lord. Now the temple is the Lord’s house.
Now children will be able to go inside to be sealed to their families and do temple baptisms!
“Whatever you do, keep your eyes on the temple.”
—Elder Ulisses Soares

A few minutes later, Tyler heard his father come home and ran out to tell him about the name tag.
“You know,” his father said, “not all missionaries wear name tags. When I was a missionary, we didn’t have name tags.”
Tyler was surprised. “How did people know you believed in Jesus Christ?”
“We told them,” Dad said. “And we tried to show them by the way we acted.”
That evening Tyler and his parents went to the stake center because one of his friends was getting baptized. During the meeting, a speaker talked about Jesus Christ. “If we try to live as He did,” the man said, “then people will know that we believe in Him.”
Tyler thought about that as they went home. Remembering what Dad had said, too, he suddenly knew what he could do.
“Mom! Dad!” he said excitedly. “There is a name tag I can wear that won’t get ruined or lost—an invisible one! If I try my hardest to live like Jesus Christ did, it’s like telling people I believe in Him. It’s like wearing an invisible name tag!”
Dad smiled. “You’re right, son.”
Mom hugged Tyler. “I’ve already seen your invisible name tag.”
“You have?” Tyler asked, looking down at his shirt.
“Yes, it’s been there,” replied his mother. “Each time you’ve been helpful and kind—like when you washed the dishes for your sister, and when you helped little Jimmy—your name tag was there.”
Tyler looked down again. He didn’t see the invisible name tag, but his mother had seen it. He hoped other people would see it, too, because he wanted everyone to know that he believed in Jesus Christ.

We also can learn from the experiences of others. If I may, please let me share a personal experience that was very helpful to me in making an important decision. It taught me that getting proper inspiration and direction from heaven requires more than just going through the motions.

During the time I was deeply involved in my postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University after completing my medical internship and residency, I was approached with several interesting opportunities for my future academic career. I admit that the entreaties were flattering and most looked attractive. The problem for us was that we were very happy at Duke and in living in Durham, North Carolina. We loved our ward, our friends and felt that the academic experience was first-rate. While we missed our extended families, all living in the West, we felt we would return there some day and were quite content that we were exactly where we ought to be.

Thus, we prayed about our options and opportunities, but did not feel any compulsion or even inclination to do so more than just casually mention our preferences in our prayers. Happily for us, a man who later became a good friend and mentor sized me up much better than I had myself.

One day he called me about an opportunity that we had discussed twice in recent weeks. Not wanting to close any doors for future opportunities, my answer to him on those two occasions was that I appreciated the offer, the position was attractive, but the timing was not right and therefore I needed to decline. On the third call, he simply said that he understood my position and that the offer was the same as before. He then said if I could assure him that I had gone about the decision-making process in exactly the right way, he would not bother me again.

I did not know Dr. John A. Dixon very well at that point, although I knew he was a faithful Latter-day Saint and a former bishop. His question about "exactly the right way" caught me off guard and led to new and serious consideration about what that really meant and what I really should do. Without further details, I will report that we went about the process in the right way and got the right answer--an answer the Lord would not provide when we prayed as if we already knew the answer.

This process led me to leave my position at Duke and return to my alma mater. While perhaps not nearly as earthshaking as was President Clark's leaving Harvard for BYU-Idaho, it was traumatic for us. My chairman at Duke thought I was committing career suicide and even gave me the chance, which I did not take, to repent of the decision a couple of years later. The fact that my decision was not understood by most didn't matter. Now almost forty years later, some of my associates from that time acknowledge that perhaps the decision was not too bad after all since I seem to have been very happy over the years. What is not clear to most is that this was a very pivotal time in our life and many of the opportunities and experiences we have enjoyed over the years would not have been ours if our good friend had not insisted that we make our decision in exactly the right way.

A convert to the Church, I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Although my parents were not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I look back with gratitude upon how they have influenced my life. My mother was born with a congenital heart defect and was told that having children would endanger her life. She waited eight years to have me; I am the only child in the family. Mother was a loving and compassionate person. She always spoke good of everyone and ingrained that teaching in me. In spite of health complications, she lived life to the fullest before she passed away at age fifty.

To illustrate, I’d like to share one of the most significant dots of my life: attending Ricks College.

I began attending school in Rexburg during a summer term in 2000. I intended to earn an associate’s degree before serving a mission and then transfer to a four-year college. Those plans changed on June 21 of that year, when President Gordon B. Hinckley, the 15th president of the Church, announced that Ricks College would become Brigham Young University-Idaho. I remember the impression I had that I would attend BYU-Idaho following missionary service.

Countless dots of paint have since been applied to the canvas of my life via lessons that I’ve learned from roommates, friends, faculty mentors, supervisors, and ecclesiastical leaders. They would not, however, exist in the same ways or forms had I not followed the prompting to attend BYU-Idaho.

Vivi Tzanis, a Beehive in Wollongong, is pretty much like all the girls in her branch, except that she has a special reason to be thankful for her LDS friends. Vivi had to wait several years for permission from her father to be baptized. Vivi’s mother is a member of the Church and has always been a great support. Fellow Beehives Mei-Eun and Mei-Jin Lee have also encouraged her as she has prepared and prayed for permission to be baptized.
“Mei-Eun and Mei-Jin and I love to talk and laugh together,” she says. “It’s great to have friends who are the right kind of influence on me.”
While she was waiting, the members of the branch treated her just like everyone else and prayed and fasted for her. Finally, after a fair amount of waiting, Vivi’s father felt good about giving her permission.
“My dad really likes the Church, and it has been my greatest wish to be baptized and to be a member of the true Church,” says Vivi. “The day my dad gave me permission was the happiest day of my life.”
Now that Vivi is officially a Church member, some things in her life will change. One thing that won’t? The help and support of the friends she has in her branch.

“I remember sometimes staying at Grandmother’s when I was very young,” Sister Smith recalled. “One day she took my brother and me with her when she went to deliver a new baby. When we got to the house, she told us to wait in the car. We stayed in the car a long time, until the children living there invited us to play with them. We got out of the car and all ran around to the back of the house where we saw my grandmother through the sundappled window, bathing a brand new little baby. Suddenly she looked up to see a window full of little faces peering in. I remember how she put her head back and laughed! She didn’t get after us for getting out of the car, because I guess she realized that we had become restless waiting for her.

Teenagers in Taiwan have to get up at 5:00 a.m. to go to seminary at 5:30. This is a very big challenge for me because I have a lot of exams and homework. So I have often been late for seminary. Originally, I blamed the Church for making me get up so early. But my parents advised me to pray and ask Heavenly Father for help.
At first, I thought Heavenly Father couldn’t help me. But one night I knelt down by the bed and prayed, asking God to help me find the reason I couldn’t sleep enough. After that, I reviewed my routine. I saw that I wasted a lot of time before bed.
Now I try to go to bed earlier. I pray before bed, thanking God for giving me happiness and peace and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I pray before bed, thanking God for giving me happiness and peace and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Another thing about the relationship of sins and mistakes is that they often go together. This serious truth is illustrated by some humorous examples in a pamphlet BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School published a few years ago as a tribute to Professor Woody Deem. The companion relationship between sins and mistakes is neatly captured in the title: Criminals Are Stupid. Here are some examples (see pp. 7, 14, 25 in Criminals Are Stupid: A Tribute to Woody Deem, 1990):

A bank robber stuffed $850 in his bag, ran outside, and found he had left his car keys at the teller’s window. When he returned to get his keys, he was met by a welcoming committee. Some bank robbers make their demand for cash by writing a note and handing it to the bank teller. Some of these robbers have assured their speedy apprehension by writing their robbery demand on the back of their personalized check or their phone bill. Another robber used the back of a letter that notified him of the time of his next appointment with his parole officer.

For sheer stupidity it is hard to match the mistake of the robber who put his demand note through the automated teller machine at the bank. When nothing happened, he shouted, “This is a stickup; give me the money quick.” When this was ignored, he whipped out his revolver, pumped two shots into the belly of the machine, and drove off. A policeman who heard the shots arrested him for attempted robbery and drunk driving.

Bank robbing sinners seem prone to mistakes, but no more so than the parolee who entered a florist shop and ordered flowers sent to his girlfriend. After this order was put in writing, he pulled a gun and held up the shop. The shop had the address of the girlfriend, so she got the flowers and the police got their man.

Finally, I cite the case of the burglar who ran away from a burgled house, forgetting that he had parked his car in the victim’s driveway. The next morning he missed his car and reported it stolen. When the police located the car, they were immediately aware that they had also identified a burglar.

Many years ago I was engaged in the practice of law with a small law firm in Phoenix, Arizona. Though extremely happy and comfortable with life in Arizona and our special ward and dear Church friends, Connie and I harbored a troubling concern. How were we ever going to earn enough money to provide a college education for our then five young children? We were not earning very much and future prospects were uncertain. In this quandary of worry and consequent unhappiness, we sought for direction from Heavenly Father. For two years, Connie and I fasted and prayed each month with a specific purpose seeking inspiration and an employment opportunity to resolve our concern. At the conclusion of each fast day of supplication, we both received the same impression--be patient and it will all work out.

Sure enough, over a two-year period an incredible sequence of amazing events occurred that culminated in the uprooting of our family from the comforts of Phoenix to move across the country to Midland, Michigan, and accept a position as an attorney in The Dow Chemical Company Legal Department.

The Lord generously blessed our family both spiritually and temporally as it expanded to eight children. Abundant opportunities to serve in our developing ward and stake as well as a remarkable community permitted us to grow and contribute as valued members and citizens. During the ensuing twenty-seven years of working for Dow Chemical and living in Michigan, Switzerland, and Italy, we often reflected upon the many experiences and blessings that had transpired in our lives and knew of a surety that Heavenly Father had responded to our fervent fasting and prayers. We also knew that we had been transplanted to Michigan where the Lord wanted us to be to assist in the growth and image of the Church in Michigan.

Some of you may be familiar with the game of dominoes. You may have also seen the beautiful and interesting patterns that result when by creative arrangements and designs, hundreds of dominoes stand and then fall in programmed sequence. In our situation, all of the dominoes of discontent, fasting and prayer, patience, and unfolding of amazing events had to occur in their right sequence so that they could then fall into place and cause us to be where the Lord wanted us to be. The key domino or trigger was that we had to be sufficiently worried and unhappy in order to be prepared to accept an unanticipated relocation that we in and of ourselves would not have planned. Had we been totally happy in Phoenix, the dominoes would have remained standing and the blessings and opportunities awaiting us would have never been realized.