Gospel Story Finder

I once read a book about a pioneer girl who traveled across the plains with a Mormon wagon train. All she could take with her were a few articles of clothing and her special box of small treasures. Her many dolls and toys she had to leave behind. Included in her special box were some material scraps, a packet of precious needles, several buttons, and two spools of thread.
The girl was very brave and very clever. She knew it didn’t matter that she had to leave her dolls behind, because she could always make some new, even better ones, if she had the materials. She and her family finally arrived safely in Utah. When the girl wasn’t helping her mother and father, she started making her own toys in her spare time.

Church history includes incidents of priesthood holders of great capacity. A few were brilliant but also erratic and unreliable and so lost the spiritual gifts and talents with which the Lord had so richly endowed them. I would like to tell you about one such.

Samuel Brannan led some Saints around Cape Horn on the ship Brooklyn. They made a brief stop in Hawaii before docking at San Francisco Bay. He became convinced that the main body of the Saints should not settle in the Rocky Mountains but should go on to California. So he traveled east and encountered the first party of emigrants under the leadership of Brigham Young in Green River, Wyoming. He used all of his persuasive powers trying to convince Brigham Young to take advantage of the opportunities which he felt California offered. Brigham Young responded, “Let us go to California, and we cannot stay there over five years; but let us stay in the mountains, and we can raise our own potatoes, and eat them; and I calculate to stay here.” Brannan stayed with the main body of the Saints for a few days, but then, because he was headstrong and self-centered, in August of 1847 he headed back to California.

Like the big engine that wouldn’t condescend to pull the cars over the mountain, Sam Brannan was not focused on building up the kingdom of God. Instead he was directed toward business and making money. He became the first millionaire in California, with numerous business ventures and extensive land holdings. Because he had been the leader of that group of Saints, President Young asked him to account for the tithing that he had collected from the members of the Church in California, including those involved in the gold rush, but he did not do so. Nor did he use those funds to establish the Church or to help the members there.

For a time and a season, Brannan was very successful in establishing enterprises and acquiring land for his own benefit, but eventually he fell on hard times. His family did not stay together. When he died he was alone, broken physically, spiritually, and financially. For 16 months no one claimed his body. Eventually it was placed in San Diego’s Mount Hope Cemetery. Sam Brannan accomplished much in his life, but in the end he paid a terrible price for not honoring his priesthood stewardship and having failed to follow the prophet of God.

Packets of seeds in bundles were scattered all over the floor. Mixed in were Bibles, copies of the Book of Mormon, and hymnbooks in Russian. The girls of the Bountiful Hills Ward, Bountiful Utah Central Stake, were busy packing both plant seeds and seeds of the restored gospel into boxes ready to make the trip to Armenia. With food scarce, Armenians are turning to small gardens to supplement their family’s diet. With religious freedom so new, copies of scriptures are hard to come by.
Amy Poulton, the Young Women president of the Bountiful Hills Ward, can look back and see how a series of small miracles led to the girls in her ward being able to help new Church members in Armenia. Seeds just happened to be on sale at an incredibly low price right when they needed to buy 6,500 packets. A person was found who could take the seeds and books personally to Armenia with him. The little branch in Yerevan, Armenia, became real people to them as they began to correspond.
Their own copies of the scriptures became more precious as the Young Women thought about the girls their age who are just learning about the truths of the gospel. “Reading the scriptures has changed my outlook on things. I don’t take things for granted, especially after doing this project,” said Heather Bodily, 18. “I think it’s exciting to see people opening their minds and listening to the gospel. The seed is planted. Now it just needs to mature and grow.”
As the girls in the Bountiful Hills Ward looked at pictures of the Armenian branch Young Women with their flags of value colors displayed and a picture of Christ on the wall, they felt a connection. These girls are like them. They love the Lord and his gospel too.
“Now when I read the scriptures, the message jumps out at me and says this is for you. They are talking directly to me” said Jennifer Petersen, 18. And somewhere around the world, some other girls are thinking the same thing.

Last year I did something I’ve wanted to do for years—I gave my parents a book filled with letters from their friends and family. These letters recalled cherished experiences and expressed love and respect for my parents. As a result, my parents were reminded that there are many people who need them, love them, and look to them for inspiration and as an example.
I wasn’t surprised at the number of people who thought of someone they wanted to honor in this way. But I was surprised that everyone seemed convinced it was too difficult for them to do.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Compiling this book was one of the most exciting and enjoyable things I have ever done. I discovered things about my parents that I had never known before. Some of the letters made me laugh, like the one from an old friend who told me about a live chicken that laid an egg on center stage during my Dad’s big scene in the school play. Other letters told of experiences that filled me with overwhelming love and respect, such as the letter I received from a couple who gave my parents credit for inspiring them to marry in the temple.
Based on my experience, here are some suggestions for creating a book of joy, love, and memories:
1. Compile a list of the names and addresses of all the friends and family members that you can think of. Don’t worry if it isn’t complete at first—you can add to it as you go along.
2. Send a letter such as the one that follows:
Dear___________,
I would like to honor my parents, (insert their names here), this year (at Christmas, on their wedding anniversary, on their birthdays, etc.) with a book filled with highlights from their past. I want include letters, stories, memories, and photographs that will remind them of the joy they are to us and others.
Would you please help me with this project by writing down some of your memories of your relationship with Mom and Dad? If you prefer to tape-record your thoughts, I will transcribe them; or you may call and give me the information over the phone, and I will type it. Whatever you send will be treasured.
You can help me further by sending me the names and addresses of other friends of my parents so that I can ask them to participate in the project as well.
I appreciate you help. I am sure you can understand how much this will mean to my parents.
Sincerely, ____________.
Type the letter and mail copies of it to the people on your list.
3. As the letters come in, check the names off your list. Add any new names and addresses you receive, then mail letters to those people.
4. Compile the incoming letters in a book. A photo album, three-ring binder, or padded notebook all work well. The letters can be arranged in alphabetical order with a table of contents at the beginning so they can be easily located. Or they can be divided into sections representing different times in your parents’ lives.
Before you give the book to your parents, you may want to make copies of it to share with your brothers and sisters.

As a young missionary in Japan, I received a knock on our apartment door just before bedtime. I was surprised to see our mission president standing in the rain at the apartment’s threshold.
He said, “Elder Gilbert, get dressed. We are going to see Elder Matsuo.”
Elder Matsuo’s father was dying of cancer. I immediately assumed what had happened, but as I got into the mission vehicle, President Matsumori turned to me and explained that the missionary’s mother had been killed in an accident.
He then said, “Pray that we will be able to empathize and understand what will comfort this missionary.”
I felt overwhelmed and inadequate. I can still remember the windshield wipers going back and forth as we drove in silence. Suddenly the Spirit brought Alma 7:12 to my heart:
And he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people.
I knew that the Atonement of Jesus Christ allows us to overcome sin. I knew that through Christ we could overcome death. But that night, on the Osaka freeway, I learned that Christ could also comfort us in our struggles—in our ­suffering—when life isn’t fair. I didn’t know what that young missionary was facing, but through the miracle of the Atonement, there was One who did.
For any of you who are struggling with challenges that don’t seem fair, don’t turn to the world for answers. Please turn to the covenants that bind you to Jesus Christ. He can comfort you in a way no one else can.

A number of years ago, my brother Ron and I went scuba diving in California. After we had finished, we decided to leave our equipment on the beach and go bodysurfing. We were out quite a distance when I looked back toward the beach and saw a woman in the water in full scuba gear drowning. She had walked out into the ocean intending to scuba dive but had unexpectedly stepped off a sandy shelf into water over her head, and she then panicked.

The woman had at her fingertips everything she needed to be safe. She could have dropped her weight belt with a flick of her finger on the quick-release buckle, pressed the button on her inflatable buoyancy vest so she could float, or put her regulator in her mouth so she could breathe underwater.

We quickly swam back to her and pulled her to shore. She was embarrassed and obviously inexperienced. She had been taught the correct principles of how to scuba dive safely but hadn’t applied what she had learned. She was, you could say, living well below her privileges and almost died because of it.

My father practiced what he preached. He didn’t just tell others to be self-reliant; we were taught to exemplify it as a family. We raised almost all of our own food. He always wanted a garden—he wanted a garden to eat from and a garden to smell. I used to pump the water by hand to water the garden, and also I learned to milk the cows, prune the fruit trees, mend the fences, and all the rest. I had two older brothers, who, I was convinced, took all the easy jobs and left me all the hard ones. But I don’t complain; it made me strong.

Perhaps the nature of the stewardship changes from locality to locality. Perhaps our stewardship is simply caring, having a respect for life. A simple form of stewardship is expressed in the life-styles of two men I remember who used to live along the Yukon River. George McGregor, a prospector and trapper, was already an old man when I first met him. He is dead now, but for many years he lived alone in a log cabin he had built at the foot of a falcon crag. Every year the falcons came to nest on the rocks above his cabin. They were not disturbed by him, because he was a quiet man who blended serenely and unobtrusively into his surroundings and was a part of the land just as much as the falcons, the river, and the spruce tree. Once, George saw a female falcon swoop out of the air and strike a marauding raven dead in midair over the river in front of his cabin, and his old eyes used to brighten when he told about it. He had never read Walden, but I am sure he instinctively understood the meaning of stewardship.

I was with a bishop the other day who told me of how his eight-year-old daughter came in and woke him up in the middle of the night to ask him a question. The next morning the bishop explained to the girl that he was a very busy man and had a lot of work to do and needed his sleep. He would be most grateful if she didn’t wake him up in the middle of the night.

The little girl waited patiently and finally in an almost exasperated manner she said, “Yes, Daddy, but you don’t understand. You see, you’re the bishop, and I had a problem.”

In this sense, oh, may each of us be the bishops of our own home just as the duly authorized bishop is the father of his ward. I would hope too that the bishop of the ward and the home teachers would be especially attentive to those families where the fathers are permanently or temporarily missing.

May we take the time and do what we need to do and want to do with our children now, before it is too late, because the days have a way of escaping into months and then into years.

Bishop Gérald Caussé spoke about three men who lived in a village in Africa. When it was time for a district conference, they walked for two weeks through muddy roads to get to the meeting! They brought tithing from people in their village to give to Church leaders. They stayed for a week so that they could take the sacrament before heading home again, carrying boxes of copies of the Book of Mormon on their heads to bring to their village. What sacrifices are we willing to make to live the gospel?

For example, Roy D. Atkin noticed a number of his classmates drop out after the first year of dental school as the classes became more competitive.
He said, “Some students decided that the way to succeed was by cheating. …
“… But I knew I couldn’t cheat. I wanted to be right with God even more than I wanted to become a dentist.”
During his third year, Roy was offered a copy of an upcoming test. He had the chance to have the test questions ahead of time, but he declined. When the corrected tests were returned, his score was low compared to the high class average.
“Roy,” his professor said, “you usually do well on tests. What happened?”
“Sir,” he said, “on the next exam, if you give a test that you have never given before, I believe you will find that I do very well.”
When the next test was handed out, there were audible groans. It was a test the teacher had never given before. When the graded tests were handed back, Roy had received one of the highest grades in the class. From then on, all the tests were new.1

Kim Ho Jik was the first Korean to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was born April 16, 1905, to Confucian* parents in P’yöngyang Province. As a young boy, he yearned to find the true religion, and he began attending many different church services. He joined the Presbyterian Church in 1925 and was very active, but something still seemed to be missing from his life.

Ho Jik wanted to learn about many things, so in 1950 he went to Cornell University in New York State to study nutrition. There he met Oliver Wayman, a fellow student and a Church member. Ho Jik was impressed by Brother Wayman’s clean lifestyle—he didn’t smoke, drink, or do other bad things.

When Oliver gave him a copy of The Articles of Faith by James E. Talmage, Ho Jik read it within a week and eagerly asked for more information. Soon he had finished the Book of Mormon, too, and believed it to be the word of God. He started attending Church meetings with Oliver; he also continued to attend Presbyterian services.

On the day Oliver left the university, he stopped his Korean friend in a hallway. “I then bore my testimony of the gospel and told him that it was my opinion that the Lord had moved upon him to come to America … that he might receive the gospel and take it back to his people.” He also told Ho Jik that “if he refused to do the work the Lord had for him to do, another would be raised up in his place.”

Those words had a powerful effect upon Kim Ho Jik. He read the Book of Mormon again, and the Spirit again told him it was true. In July of 1951 he was baptized in the quiet waters of the Susquehanna River, near the place where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had been baptized. As he came up out of the water, a voice said to him, “Feed My sheep. Feed My sheep.”

Brother Kim graduated from Cornell a short time later—getting the degree that entitled him to be called doctor—and returned home to South Korea, which was at war. Amid the violence and destruction, he felt the quiet peace of the Holy Ghost as he attended Church services with LDS servicemen from the United States.

Dr. Kim was given many important responsibilities by his country. He was a professor at various universities and president or dean of several colleges, and he later became vice-minister of education and president of the Seoul City Board of Education. He was also a well-known expert on the nutritional content of the soybean. In spite of his many duties, he faithfully obeyed the Lord’s command to feed His sheep.

In 1955, President Joseph Fielding Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Dr. Kim, and several servicemen traveled to one of the hills that overlooked Seoul, the South Korean capital. There, in a quiet, private place, President Smith dedicated the land for missionary work.

Soon Dr. Kim was president of the Korea District of the Church’s Northern Far East Mission. He helped the Church gain legal recognition in South Korea so that missionaries could serve there, and he even rented a house where they could stay. Members and investigators met there often to discuss the gospel with the elders.

Dr. Kim translated the Articles of Faith, the sacrament prayers, hymns, and other Church materials into Korean. He served as a branch president, and he donated much of his money to the missionary effort and the poor. His example led many to investigate the Church.

Dr. Kim passed away suddenly on August 31, 1959, at the age of 54, just eight years after his baptism. But he had tried hard to feed the Lord’s sheep, preparing the way for tens of thousands of Koreans to become members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My name is Matthew. I guess I was a typical boy growing up. I liked to play games and be outside when I didn’t have to be in school. When I was eight years old my brother Raymond and I started taking piano lessons. I didn’t like sitting in front of that old piano and practicing every day before I could go outside and play with my brother and my cousins Chance and Brian, who lived down the street. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as riding bikes and climbing trees, especially during summer break. But I did it because Mom insisted.
One day I was just begging to go outside and play. “Please, Mom, Chance doesn’t have to practice the piano. Why do I have to?”
“Because it’s good for you. Now I want you to practice some of the Primary songs that I gave you yesterday. And hurry, Raymond needs to practice too, before you boys can go play.”
“All right, but only for 20 minutes today, OK?”
“OK.”
So there I was dragging my feet over to that old piano. At least it was only the Primary songs today. I liked the Primary songs. They always cheered me up when I was sad or scared, but I still would rather have been outside playing with my cousins.
I opened the book and started plunking out the notes to the song “Search, Ponder, and Pray.” I slowly got the hang of it, and it began to sound a little bit like the song I learned in Primary. Softly, I started to sing along. “‘I love to read the holy scriptures, and ev’ry time I do, I feel the Spirit start to grow within my heart—a testimony that they’re true. Search, ponder, and pray are the things that I must do. The Spirit will guide, and, deep inside, I’ll know the scriptures are true.’” Then I felt a feeling that I’d never felt before. As I started singing the second verse, tears began running down my cheeks. “‘So, prayerfully I’ll read the scriptures each day my whole life through. I’ll come to understand. I’ll heed the Lord’s command and live as he would have me do. Search, ponder, and pray are the things that I must do. The Spirit will guide, and, deep inside, I’ll know the scriptures are true.’”*
Later I realized just what it was I was feeling that day. The Holy Spirit had testified to me that the scriptures are true. Heavenly Father had blessed me with the gift of the Holy Ghost, and through that gift came my testimony of the truthfulness of the scriptures. I’ll always be grateful that my mom made me practice the piano that day instead of letting me go out to play.

by Craig Doxey
“No way,” I heard a few of the Venturers murmur as we looked down at the Snake River for the first time. “Look at some of those rapids!”
“Don’t worry,” I assured them, “we won’t be going down this portion of the river. But we will be hitting King Rapid before our river trip is over, and it’s pretty big!”
The Venturers of the Orem 27th Ward, Orem Utah South Stake, had been planning and preparing for this trip since last year. In the back of the Venturing manual there were several pages of instructions detailing how to build a kayak. At a post officers seminar in the fall the presidency had voted to build kayaks during the winter and plan a superactivity around them. Last January when we finally began seriously looking at the idea of building our own kayaks and running a river, we suddenly began to realize the great amount of planning and work that this project would take. After several voting sessions with the Venturer post, post committee, and parents, we decided to give it a try.
We were able to enlist the aid of an explorer adviser who had done this before, and with his instructions and guidance and a kayak mold that we rented, we began purchasing materials. Each boy was asked to earn $50.00 in order to purchase the necessary resin and fiberglass. The post presidency planned several money-making projects, and the boys were able to come up with the rest of the money through cherry picking and yard work.
As each boat was built, our Venturer post learned to work together. At least four or five people are needed for each kayak built. Gradually teamwork skills emerged as the boys began helping each other with their boats. With visions of whitewater and beautiful rivers, they labored through the smell, stickiness, dirtiness, and work of each boat.
As plans for the superactivity began to materialize, we decided to run the Snake River from Jackson Lake Dam to a small resort called Astoria Hot Springs about 70 miles downriver. It was decided in our post meetings that we needed to learn how to read a river and how to paddle. We also needed experience before hitting the “big water” of the Snake. Utah Lake served as our first practice camp, followed by several practice runs and camps down the Provo River. One of the most important skills learned was how to “ferry glide” across a river. This technique is used to move swiftly across a river, even through a rapid, without wasting energy. Our practices required each Venturer to intentionally swamp his boat—many were able to perform this great feat without even trying. I’ll never forget the picture of one of our smallest Venturers towing our 200-pound assistant adviser across the Provo River after the adviser had unintentionally swamped his boat!
We felt well prepared as we began our trip down the Snake River, and each of the skills we had learned and developed were evident as the Venturers ran rapids as tall as they were. “It was worth all that effort,” several of them said as we floated through the beautiful, primitive parts of Teton National Park, camped on the shores of the Snake, and saw elk, beaver, eagles, and other wild animals. Throughout the river trip, and in testimonies given at the testimony meeting the final night on the river, gratefulness was expressed to the Lord for the great experience we had had, for the brotherhood that had developed, and for the beauties of the land that we saw on our trip down the Snake River.

Caleb slid out of his bed to greet another golden autumn morning. His big brother, James, was already outside working, probably helping Pa mend fences. When he heard his mother fixing breakfast in the room below, Caleb hurried to dress. But where was his favorite brown wool shirt?
He dug through the blankets, then searched under the bed. No shirt. So he just pulled on his pants and shoes and climbed down the ladder from the loft.
“I can’t find my brown shirt,” Caleb told his mother.
Ma looked up and smiled. “That shirt was getting so worn out that I made you a new one. Here, try it on.”
Caleb took the shirt from his mother and examined it closely. It didn’t have as many thin places as his old one, and no buttons were missing. But something was familiar about it. Quickly Caleb slipped on the shirt, buttoned it up to his chin, then huddled close to the stone fireplace to warm himself. He didn’t say anything to Ma, but he knew that James used to wear this shirt. Ma had cut it up and made the shirt smaller. Caleb couldn’t remember, but he suspected that Pa had worn the shirt before that, just as he had the old brown one.
After breakfast, Caleb kept so busy with his chores that he forgot all about his comfortable old brown shirt. At the end of the day, while Caleb’s sister, Dorcas, washed the supper dishes, Ma brought out her scrap bag. One by one she pulled colorful pieces of cloth from it. They fluttered down noiselessly, covering the wooden floor like a rainbow. Caleb watched with wonder.
Because women in the frontier settlement traded fabric swatches, some of the bright pieces in Ma’s scrap bag had once belonged to the neighbors. Caleb recognized nearly every scrap. One strip was from a petticoat that Dorcas had outgrown. Another piece came from James’s old black Sunday trousers. Caleb spotted parts from Grandpa’s winter coat and a few inches of his friend Willy’s knit cap. On top of the pile lay Caleb’s favorite brown wool shirt.
Ma announced, “I’m going to make a quilt.”
Caleb had already figured that out. Often when Ma sorted through her scrap bag, she had a patchwork quilt in mind. So he wasn’t surprised to see her cut his old brown shirt into several pieces. In fact, Caleb expected the shirt he was wearing to be cut up for a quilt when it was worn out and too small for him.
Night after night, when the day’s farm work was done, Ma and Dorcas sat by the fire, sewing the cloth pieces together. Moving smoothly, Ma’s practiced hand worked the needle in and out in tiny, even stitches. Every scrap was precious.
“Isn’t this one too small, Ma?” Caleb asked, picking up a little square of flowered cotton.
“No piece is too small, Caleb,” Ma assured him. “We’ll need every one.”
One afternoon Caleb came in from feeding the chickens to find Ma in her rocking chair with the patchwork pieces.
“This gives me a chance to sit down,” she told him, “while still keeping my hands busy.”
Caleb gently fingered an odd-shaped piece of Grandpa’s green winter coat. In his imagination, it still smelled of smoke from the campfires Grandpa used to build on his hunting trips. Last fall, when Caleb turned seven, he was allowed to go with Grandpa and Pa and James to hunt for food for the winter. Rubbing the green wool against his cheek now reminded Caleb of Grandpa and his stories around the campfire. He was glad that his mother had saved the old coat. Caleb watched her fit a piece of it into the patchwork quilt top.
“Who are you making the quilt for, Ma?” Caleb asked.
“Someone special.”
As soon as the quilt top was finished, Pa and James set up the heavy wooden frames. Dorcas helped Ma tack the backing of the quilt to the frames. It was a piece of coarse homespun cloth Aunt Polly had made—a bright strawberry red that made Caleb think of summer. Ma and Dorcas pinned the thick wool batting to the cloth. Finally they spread out the patchwork top and stretched it over the batting.
Caleb stood back and gazed at the quilt top. It was a wonderful kaleidoscope of patches, all sizes and shapes, fitted together with neat little stitches. In the center, Ma had sewn a square of brown wool cut from Caleb’s shirt. He knew what came next: a quilting bee!
Aunt Polly and several ladies from neighboring homesteads gathered to help Ma sew the three layers of the quilt together. Sitting around the frame, the ladies chatted as they worked their needles up and down through the layers of fabric. Caleb and his friend Willy crawled under the quilt and watched the thread make a fine white trail all across the red backing.
Every time a needle ran out, the boys rushed to thread it. By the end of the day, when the sewing was done, Caleb and Willy had each earned a shiny penny for keeping the ladies’ needles threaded.
It was almost dark when Willy and his mother and the other women rode off for home. Then, with Pa’s help, Ma carefully removed the quilt from the frames. “Tomorrow I’ll bind the edges,” she said.
When Caleb scurried down from the loft the next morning, Ma was already sitting in her rocking chair, with the quilt overflowing her lap. Caleb settled on the floor next to Dorcas, who, like Ma, was folding under the edges of the backing and the top and stitching them neatly together.
“Can I help?” Caleb asked.
Ma smiled at him as she patiently worked her fine little stitches. “How about your chores, Caleb?”
Caleb went outside to help James stack the wood Pa had cut. As he worked, the boy thought about the quilt. Its large and small patches of red, blue, and green, some plain, some fancy, reminded him of Grandpa, Ma and Pa, James and Dorcas, Aunt Polly, and all the neighbors. He thought of his own brown wool square in the center. “We will need every patch,” Ma had told him.
That night when Caleb climbed up to his bedroom loft, Ma was waiting to tuck him in bed under the new quilt. “I told you I was making this quilt for someone special,” she said, kissing him good night.
Caleb wrapped himself in the quilt with its comfortable old patches and smiled.

After graduating with honors from high school, Bien studied political science at the Christian College of the Philippines. “We were talking in class about earthquakes,” Bien remembers, “laughing about getting caught in one.” Suddenly, the whole classroom swayed. It was an earthquake.
Terrified, everyone scrambled to escape. The building was dancing madly. Just as Bien was about to dash to safety through an open door, he was pinned by an avalanche of concrete.
“A broken chair jabbed at my stomach, one of my legs was in a half-kneeling posture, and I was face down,” he remembers. His fractured right arm bled profusely under a block of collapsed flooring. Yet, incredibly, a huge chunk of fallen concrete had barely missed his head. “Classmates were crying for help, but I couldn’t budge,” Bien recalls. One by one they died, including three lying on Bien. The quake struck in late afternoon, and by evening it was pitch dark. Everything was silent.
“I cried,” Bien admits. But as he wept, a Primary song crossed his mind. He started singing “I Am a Child of God.” As each word pierced the silence, a feeling of peace came, a feeling that he was no longer alone. “I prayed, saying, ‘Father, if I still need to live, then please let me live.’” As he prayed, Bien remembered the Savior. “He suffered a lot more than I did,” Bien realized. The cave-in became a tremendous spiritual experience.
As the sun rose the following morning, so did Bien’s hopes. Rescue workers pried him from the rubble and carried him to safety. His relieved family was notified. Bien was rushed to a hospital. Doctors immediately amputated his right arm. “I woke up, looked at my right side and cried out, ‘What’s happening here?’ I thought I was dreaming.” Shock turned to sorrow. “I felt so lonely because I might not be able to do what I used to do.”
After three bedridden months, Bien went home. Nearly all of his 50 classmates had perished. It seemed the same thing happened to Bien’s will to live. How could he, a right-handed person, manage with just his left hand?
While tutoring his nephews one day, Bien felt prompted to practice writing the alphabet. At first it was pure frustration. “My mind knew the shapes, but my hand had difficulty following.” However, practice makes perfect; less than a year after that fateful day, Bien was not only writing with ease but also back to his oil-painting hobby. And he resumed college.
After a year, he felt it was time to make use of his newfound strength to serve a mission. His family was aghast. “We’d really worry about you,” his mother protested.
“I know this is what the Lord wants,” Bien reassured her.
Months later, as a missionary, Bien received a family letter. “Don’t worry about us,” they wrote. “We’re boasting about you already.”
Bien’s personality affects just about everybody. At the Manila Missionary Training Center he was an inspiration, and his dedication has touched the Santa Maria branch. But Bien admits there are still some challenges, like forgoing basketball and service projects like harvesting rice.
One of Bien’s favorite scriptures says God “will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will … also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). It’s a scripture that helps Bien see everything as a learning experience.
Mission life, he says, “is like a school where I learn much, not only about the gospel but also about myself.” He hastens to add that it was in the rubble of another school where he learned to trust Heavenly Father.
Ask Bien to sum up his blessings and he’ll share his motto: “I asked God for health that I might do great things, and I was given an infirmity that I might do greater things.”
Then he’ll smile and extend his friendship to you—with a warm, left-handed handshake.

I too, feel honored and blessed with many opportunities to serve. Among all of my service experiences, my favorites have been missionary visits and home teaching appointments. These visits help me feel of God's love for His children. In one occasion I was at a home teaching appointment with a brother who was preparing for his mission. I will call him Brother A. Brother A has expressed his concern of going on a mission. His family members were against such decision because they are not of our faith and he felt like he had lost the fire within him to do so. I shall never forget the clear message I felt from the Holy Ghost that God loved Brother A and I was there to help him regain determination to submit his mission paper. With God's help, I delivered the message to him. Both of us wept and he had agreed to fulfill his duties as a nineteen year old priesthood holder. Upon that upcoming Sunday, he turned in his paper and went on a mission shortly after. Unfortunately, neither home teaching nor any services we give to our brothers and sisters were designed to be convenient. It requires sacrifice of our time, talent, energy, money, entertainments and sometimes even our comfort to rescue souls.

As he grew older Wilford continued doing the things he loved as a child—fishing and praying. While traveling across the plains with Brigham Young, Wilford fished at every possible spot.
Brigham: You sure love to fish, don’t you, Brother Wilford?
Wilford: It gives me time to meditate. Sometimes it gives me dinner too!
These prayers helped Wilford become a very faithful man and a Church leader. Other people noticed his good example and gave him the nickname “Wilford the Faithful.”

Our translation drawing to a close, we went to Palmyra, Wayne county, New York, secured the copyright, and agreed with Mr. Egbert B. Grandin to print five thousand copies for the sum of three thousand dollars.

Oliver Cowdery made a copy of the entire manuscript for the printer so that the original translation could be kept safe. The printer was given only a small number of pages at a time. When manuscript pages were delivered to the printer, whoever was taking them was accompanied by a guard. The guard also guarded the house where the manuscript was kept. All these precautions were taken so that the manuscript wouldn’t be lost or tampered with again. In March 1830 the printing was completed and copies of the book were available for sale.

I eagerly glanced down at the basketball summer league schedule, and saw to my dismay that 8 of the 12 games were on Sunday. What was I going to do? I don’t play on Sunday.
I looked across the room at my talented teammate. I had worked so hard to win the starting forward position, and if I didn’t play, I was going to lose the job to him. But I had decided a long time ago to never play on Sunday, and that wasn’t about to change now.
The coach finished up his speech by saying, “Congratulations on making the team. The first practice is tomorrow at five. See you then.”
The team slowly filed out the door as I sat nervously in my seat. I knew my course of action, but that wasn’t going to make this any easier. I hesitantly walked up to the front of the room and said, “Hey coach, I have a little problem.”
“What’s that, Brad?” he asked.
“Well, I was looking at the schedule, and I saw that there were eight games on Sunday. I won’t be able to play in those games,” I said with a shaky voice.
“How come?” he asked with a surprised look on his face.
“It’s a religious thing. I believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy and part of that is not playing sports on Sunday,” I responded, feeling a little awkward with the situation.
“Okay, well listen. I would still love to have you for the other games—that is if you still want to play,” he said with a smile.
“I would love to,” I said, and we shook hands as if to seal the agreement. I turned and walked out the door, feeling less awkward and more satisfied.
True, I wasn’t going to play for most of the league games and I might lose my starting position, but I felt good all the same. If I hadn’t made the decision early that I was never going to play on Sunday, I might have chosen differently. But I knew I would be blessed for keeping the Lord’s commandments. I confidently walked away from that room knowing that everything was going to be all right.