Gospel Story Finder

Brother Stewart’s desire to help his priests avoid similar situations was greeted enthusiastically by the quorum. His approach included a quiz on the young men’s existing knowledge of etiquette, with a discussion afterward, and a formal dinner for the priests and Laurels. The class exercise was well received, and the dinner turned out to be one of the best-attended activities of the year. “I thought the dinner would be fun but that I wouldn’t really learn anything new,” admitted Buster Child, first assistant to the president of the priests quorum. “But I was wrong. I really have learned a lot.”
Printed invitations were sent to each of the priests and Laurels in the ward, and the priests were assigned to escort the Laurels. As a result, shortly before 7:30 on a calm, clear, spring night, the Stewart sidewalk began filling up with beautiful young women in long, colorful dresses and handsome priests in coats and ties. Inside, several tables had been covered with fine cloths and set with china, silver, and goblets. Placecards indicated where each guest was to sit, and the tantalizing aroma of baked ham and scalloped potatoes floated into the dining room from the adjoining kitchen.
The young people spent the first part of the evening mingling, talking, and eating hors d’oeuvres of sausage-filled mushrooms and chips with dips. Such whispered comments as “I ate before I came so I wouldn’t stuff myself when I got here” and “Is it all right to pick up a mushroom with my fingers?” could be heard amidst talk of school, ward activities, and the approaching summer vacation.
Soon, however, it was time for dinner to begin. After a short welcome and a blessing on the food, Brother Stewart encouraged his guests to feel comfortable and to ask as many questions as they wanted. And they did. Throughout the evening the room buzzed with questions. “How do I butter my roll?” asked one, and from someone else, “Do I pass the food to my left or to my right?” Brother Stewart also brought up some points for discussion. Some of the answers were obvious: “Should you leave some food on your spoon or fork to be waved about during conversation?” brought spontaneous laughter from the group. But the answer to another question, “Is it considered proper to butter a whole ear of corn at once?” (the answer is no; butter and eat only a few rows at a time) was greeted with disbelief, and the consensus was that perhaps this is one area that should be left up to personal taste.
When the evening was over, however, the group generally agreed that understanding etiquette and practicing good manners are just as important today as ever before. “Once you learn the basics, you can relax and enjoy yourself without wondering if you are going to make a big mistake,” said Mike Bonnelli. And Sharon Matsen added, “It’s being courteous, but it’s more than that, too. It’s a way of showing others you want them to feel comfortable. For example, I really like my date to open the car door for me. Even though it might be considered a little thing, it makes me feel that he thinks I’m someone special.”

Photographs courtesy of Sherry LaBoon
A troop of Latter-day Saint Boy Scouts from Georgia, USA, were on their way to a high-adventure campout when they came across a family in need of some extra muscle. A mother, father, and their five kids had been out on a hike when the mom had fallen and broken her leg only five minutes before the Scouts showed up.
The family was a mile and a half away from their car. They were also outside cell phone range. The only solution was to carry the mother back to the car. The Scouts immediately put their own plans on hold to help the family. One of the Scouts had a cot in his car, so two Scouts made the three-mile round-trip run to bring the cot back to the injured mother. The troop members took turns carrying the injured woman over rough terrain for an hour and a half.
The young men don’t believe it was merely chance that they showed up at the right place at the right time. “I know we were supposed to be there,” says Alex J., one of those involved in the rescue. “God put us in that place at that time so we could help her.”

Many years ago, I climbed to the top of Mt. Fuji in Japan. Because I was running late, I decided to go straight down the mountain and not take the trail. I aimed in the direction I thought would lead me back to my staring point. However, as it turned out, I was off by just a few degrees at the top of the mountain. By the time I reached the bottom, I was clear on the other side of the mountain. A small mistake of only a few feet at the top had led to a distance of many miles at the bottom. Likewise, good decisions in small matters can have a great positive impact. In DC section 64 verse 33, the Lord says, "Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great."

I was converted to the gospel when I was very young. Throughout my youth, I held different Church callings, and it is impossible to describe the joy I received from them. But one of the most remarkable experiences I had as a young person came the week before my mission.

I turned in my mission papers in January 1976. After some time, which seemed very long to me, I received a letter calling me to serve in the México Monterrey Mission.

Because my stake president was about to be released, he set me apart a week before I was to leave for my mission. He cautioned me about how I would need to live now that I had been set apart, but we agreed that I would continue at my job for one more week—as I had planned. I wanted to continue working as long as possible to earn more money for my mission and to help my family. As I left the stake president’s home on the Sunday evening I was set apart, I felt a beautiful warmth fill my entire body.

The next morning I got up to go to work as usual. As I entered the office building where I worked, I greeted the elevator operator and told him which floor I wanted. The operator did not answer but just stared at me. Then the owners of my company got on the elevator, and we greeted each other. After the elevator doors closed, I noticed my bosses were staring at me too. They asked me what had happened. I answered that nothing had happened.

When I walked into the department where I worked, my coworkers stopped talking and looked at me. I still could not understand why.

Later that day my bosses called me into their office. They asked me to recommend someone responsible to take my place. Then they asked why I seemed so different. I told them about my religion and my mission. They congratulated me and refused to accept my resignation. They said they would instead allow me to take leave for a year and a half so I wouldn’t lose my job benefits. And they asked me to return to work as soon as I finished my mission.

As I looked at my coworkers on my last day of work, I realized how much I loved them, even though their standards were very different from mine. María, who worked near me, asked, “What is happening to you? Why are you so different?” She said she could see a light in my countenance. “Why is that?” she asked.

Finally I began to understand the importance of missionary work from a new perspective. I had been called as a servant of the Lord, and the influence of the Holy Ghost was shining through me.

I am grateful to our Heavenly Father for that week of preparation before my mission. I am also grateful for my coworkers. They strengthened my testimony of the gospel by letting me see the importance of my calling through their eyes.

One time a young missionary who had recently arrived at Bogotá to serve in our mission said to me in an initial interview: “Well, President, I guess you’ve heard all about me and about all the trouble I was before receiving my mission call and all the problems I had at the MTC.”
I said to him: “No, Elder, I haven’t heard a thing and, frankly, unless it concerns a serious moral transgression, I don’t want to know. The only thing that matters to me, and I believe that the only thing that matters to the Lord, is what you do from now on. I know that you have been called by God to serve in this mission and that you can be a powerful and effective advocate for the Savior. You have a real opportunity right here and right now to go out and show the Lord and others who you really are and what you can do.” I think the missionary was a little surprised at my response, and it effectively terminated our interview.
That young man worked with enthusiasm and energy in some of the areas of our mission that might be considered tough. He taught, he converted, he baptized. He became a district leader and a zone leader. He left our mission with my greatest respect for the work he had done and for the man he had become.

I carried a tray of food, prepared by my mother-in-law, into a cluttered and dusty home. The sole occupant sat where she always sat, on a big armchair positioned so she could see out the window. Her swollen legs were stretched in front of her and her cane, which she used only with great effort, leaned against her arm. She smiled when she saw me, thanked me for the food, and apologetically asked who I was. As I sat next to her and listened to her stories, I was filled with warmth and peace.
Three years later, I was on the floor with my two young children, bouncing them on my legs and singing a racehorse tune. Only a few feet away, my kitchen was in disarray and toys were scattered across the floor. I suddenly felt a reassurance from the Spirit that I was right where I needed to be. Warmth and peace flooded my soul, filling its worn edges and giving energy where there was none.
Another two years forward, I was lying on the bed. A pile of laundry was visible on the floor, and a stack of papers littered the desk to my left as I fed my newborn son for the fourth time that night. I brushed my fingertips against his long lashes, felt his soft bald head, and was thrilled when fingers curled around the lace of my shirt. I was so filled with warmth and peace that I didn’t even mind that I was sometimes awake at three in the morning.
In each of these cases, the Holy Ghost was with me, telling me I was in the right place and doing the right thing, and in each of these cases, I was in a messy home.
I still remember the shock I felt the first time I made this connection—I began questioning my experiences. After all, I had always thought growing up that the Holy Ghost doesn’t dwell in unclean places—so I took that to include dirty homes. And these thoughts were nearly always accompanied by a scriptural reference. We learn in 1 Nephi 10:21 that “no unclean thing can dwell with God.” And the Lord tells us in Doctrine and Covenants 88:124 to “cease to be idle; [and] cease to be unclean.”
The irony in all of this is that I missed the deeper meaning of these scriptures—the importance of keeping our personal temples, our minds and bodies, clean—and instead jumped straight to the physical meaning. I had somehow learned from all of these lessons that my worth as a young wife and mother was all wrapped up in how perfect and clean my house was—and the effect of that belief was devastating.
I was always paralyzed with fear when the state of my home was not so perfect. I often didn’t listen for whisperings from the Spirit because I would look around my apartment and think, “No, there’s no way the Spirit can dwell here.”
I can’t remember the exact moment I realized I could feel the Spirit in a home that fell far short from the temple’s standards of cleanliness. But I do remember when I realized that the Lord, with His infinite capacity for compassion and empathy, saw the less-than-perfect efforts I offered, accepted them, and still sent me the spiritual companionship I desperately needed. He doesn’t need me to be perfect right now—He just needs me to do the best I can.
It hasn’t happened overnight, but slowly I’ve let go of what Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles refers to as “toxic perfectionism” (see “Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2017, 42). I’ve started allowing myself to believe that I can have the Holy Ghost with me even if I don’t have the energy to stay up all night with a teething baby and keep up with the laundry. Instead, I make sure I give the best I can give, and I accept the love Heavenly Father sends in return. I haven’t given up on becoming a better homemaker, I just say yes to the grace and inspiration the Lord has been trying to give me for so long. Because when I keep myself spiritually clean and do what He asks me to do, the Holy Ghost comes, messy house or not.

I also know a woman in Cape Coast, Ghana, who somehow tuned into general conference. She had never heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but she became glued to what she saw and heard from prophets, seers, and revelators. Afterward, she looked for the Church. She found a chapel and met the missionaries. Eventually she was baptized. Recently, she sent me pictures of herself at the temple to receive her endowment.

I think, too, of Barbara Taylor, whom I met in 1962, on the day I entered Hong Kong as a new missionary. Sister Taylor was the wife of President Robert Sherman Taylor, president of the Southern Far East Mission. The day after I arrived, she took me visiting teaching. With a couple of sister missionaries who could speak Cantonese, we took a bus to the harbor, then a ferry to a place called Aberdeen.

Among the homes we visited were some dug out of the side of a hill. We reached these homes by hiking up hand-dug stairs, scattering chickens and children as we climbed. As we visited with one sister—a beautiful young Chinese mother—I saw and felt things I had not felt before. I looked at the refugee families on the side of that hill and realized they were children of God who deserved all the help I could give them in making sense of life on earth with all the challenges they faced. All around me were hosts of waiting youth, speaking a language I could not understand—yet communicating with me through smiles and feelings, eager to learn and grow and help.

We left Texas to move to Utah in 1995. My mother had flown to Texas to help us pack and make the drive. Sister Richardson had very recently given birth to Jacob, who is now almost 13, and had to rest and take care of the new baby while my mother and I did our best to get everything in order. Nathan, who is now 16 years old, but was three-and-a-half back then, went in to Sister Richardson and said:

"Mommy, are you feeling a little left out?"

Sister Richardson said, "Yes."

Nathan said, "I'll be right here by you."

I'd like to make three brief points. The first: We each make a commitment to stay "right by" or stay close to the Lord when we covenant each week to always remember Him in sacrament meeting. One of the ways in which we can keep this promise is to "cast [our] burdens on the Lord and trust his constant care," as suggested in one of our hymns.

A young adult woman had a gift for writing and some personal experience with depression. When her teenage sister was dealing with a difficult situation at school, she was able to recognize that her sister was slipping into despondency. Heeding the Spirit’s promptings, she wrote her sister a series of beautiful notes, expressing her love and confidence, one for each day of an especially trying two-week period. In that small choice to meet her sister’s need, this young woman was living her mission.

Since I know something of the anxiety the pressure of time creates in your life, I would like to share what I have learned about how to handle that feeling of hurry. It’s important to be sure we agree on the nature of the problem. Time passes at a fixed rate and we can’t store it. You can just decide what to do with it—or not to do with it. Even a moment’s reflection will help you see that the problem of using your time well is not a problem of the mind but of the heart. It will only yield to a change in the very way we feel about time. The value of time must change for us. And then the way we think about it will change, naturally and wisely.
That change in feeling and in thinking is combined in the words of a prophet of God in this dispensation. It was Brigham Young, and the year was 1877. “The property which we inherit from our Heavenly Father is our time, and the power to choose in the disposition of the same. This is the real capital that is bequeathed unto us by our Heavenly Father; all the rest is what he may be pleased to add unto us” (Journal of Discourses, 18:354).
Time is the property which we inherit from God, along with the power to choose what we will do with it. President Young calls the gift of life, which is time and the power to dispose of it, so great an inheritance that we should feel that it is our capital. The early Yankee families in America taught their children and grandchildren some rules about an inheritance. They were always to invest the capital they inherited and to live only on part of the earnings. One rule was “Never spend your capital.” The hope was that inherited wealth would be felt a trust so important that no descendant would put pleasure ahead of obligation to those who would follow.
There is more than one way to spend time foolishly, as you know. You may sleep it away or play it away. But the bankruptcy that will cheat all those who come after you, comes after the idleness and the thoughtless seeking for thrills.
When you choose to see or hear filth portrayed, for instance, you may at first feel you have just spent some time. But if you persist, you will find that beyond time wasted you have allowed Satan to draw you toward sin and then into it. And then you will have incurred debts that will burden and diminish every minute of existence that follows, unless and until you find the healing balm of the atonement of Jesus Christ through repentance, which takes pain, and time. Oh, what Brigham Young would want for you, and what I pray you may have, is a heart that wants to invest your inheritance, time.
It’s worth doing, not only because you have life ahead but because you have eternity ahead, as well. Here is one report that suggests your reward for investing your inheritance well here will be to get to do it forever. President Wilford Woodruff gave this report in general conference in 1896.
“Joseph Smith continued visiting myself and others up to a certain time, and then it stopped. The last time I saw him was in heaven. In the night vision I saw him at the door of the temple in heaven. He came to me and spoke to me. He said he could not stop to talk with me because he was in a hurry. The next man I met was Father Smith; he could not talk with me because he was in a hurry. I met half a dozen brethren who had held high positions on earth, and none of them could stop to talk with me because they were in a hurry. I was much astonished. By and by I saw the Prophet again and I got the privilege of asking him a question.
“‘Now,’ said I, ‘I want to know why you are in a hurry? I have been in a hurry all my life; but I expected my hurry would be over when I got into the kingdom of heaven, if I ever did.’
“Joseph said: ‘I will tell you, Brother Woodruff. Every dispensation that has had the priesthood on the earth and has gone into the celestial kingdom has had a certain amount of work to do to prepare to go to the earth with the Savior when he goes to reign on the earth. Each dispensation has had ample time to do this work. We have not. We are the last dispensation, and so much work has to be done, and we need to be in a hurry in order to accomplish it.’
“Of course, that was satisfactory, but it was new doctrine to me” (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, sel. G. Homer Durham, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1946, pp. 288–89).
Can you see and feel the truth in these familiar words of President Benson? “You have been born at this time for a sacred and glorious purpose. It is not by chance that you have been reserved to come to earth in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. Your birth at this particular time was foreordained in the eternities. You are to be the royal army of the Lord in the last days. You are ‘youth of the noble birthright’” (Ensign, May 1986, p. 43).
When I heard those words I thought of a boy with a noble birthright, but lacking what many of you have. He was born on November 22. Thirteen days later his father was buried. He was named and blessed by the bishop of his ward, Edwin Woolley. The name he was given by the bishop was Heber Jeddy Ivins Grant. “I was only an instrument in the hands of his dead father … in blessing him,” Bishop Woolley later remarked. Heber Grant “is entitled to be one of the Apostles, and I know it” (The Presidents of the Church, ed. Leonard J. Arrington, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1986, p. 212).
People then and since have called Heber J. Grant a “child of promise.” He was. But his departed father didn’t make the promises to the child. His Heavenly Father did. Your Heavenly Father did—the same Father who chose you to come into this time and place to hold, honor, and to nurture those who hold his power. You have a right to become like your Heavenly Father. You are a royal child of God, a child of promise, chosen from among many to be here and to have your royal inheritance, time in the fulness of times.
One young man changed forever my feelings about the value of that gift, and what it means to be a child of promise. Bob Allen was an undergraduate at Stanford University when I was his bishop. He left his schooling to serve a mission in Japan. He came back to school, took up his studies, and lived in a world of too many demands and too little time.
One day I was sitting at my desk in the graduate school of business at Stanford. I looked up and saw two people. I remember that their faces seemed to shine. Suddenly, Bob Allen stepped between them and, smiling as broadly as they were, said, “These are two new bishops from Japan.” They could speak little English, but I could tell they loved Bob Allen and, because of something he must have told them, they loved me. I thought then, as I have many times since, how remarkable it was that he had found time to spend days with those young men from Japan.
I spoke in a sacrament meeting in Tokyo ten years later. The person who had introduced me mentioned that I had been at Stanford. Two young people, a couple, rushed to me after the meeting and said, “Did you know Bob Allen? We love him.”
Later I was in Tokyo again. Of all the excellent presentations made to me, one seemed most remarkable. I asked to see the man who had made it. He was introduced and then said, “We have met before, at Stanford University.” He was the young man, now older, who had stood with his fellow bishop in my office door. He told me about his life, and the life of the other man, now a great leader in Japan. In that moment, I learned again, in my heart as well as my head, what it means to have a royal inheritance of time, and how a child of promise, who believes the promises, can invest it to produce returns for eternity.
Because of that moment I’ve come to understand something that happened to me in my early teens. I was in a hurry when I felt, not heard, a voice, an impression, which I knew then was from God. It was close to these words: “Someday, when you know who you really are, you will be sorry that you didn’t use your time better.” I thought then that the impression was odd, since I thought I was using my time pretty well and I thought I knew who I was. Now, years later, I am beginning to know who I am—and who you are—and why we will be so sorry if we do not invest our time well.
You will develop your ability to invest your precious time well by gaining three confidences. First, you must gain confidence that God keeps his promises. Second, you must gain God’s confidence that you will always keep the promises, not that you choose to make, but that he asks you to make. And third, you must help others gain confidence that God keeps his promises.

As a boy, he had been one of those little children, so common in Korea, who follow the missionaries everywhere. The elders lived near Daeyoon’s home in Chinhae, so he would pester them for conversation, treats, games, any kind of fun. They were always patient and kind, so he came to like them. After a while, he started following them to church. When he was twelve, some missionaries taught him the discussions, and he was baptized. Because of the recurring warmth and loving attitude of the elders, he continued to be active in the Church.

Many years ago, as I began serving as head coach of the Ricks College men's and women's cross country teams, I reflected on my experience as a distance runner and assistant coach. I had observed runners--inferior in talent to their peers--often out-perform these peers in key races. I had also observed talented runners who ran well, race after race. What was it about these runners that enabled them to experience consistent success? In what ways did they focus internally to get the most from what they did physically? As a young coach I concluded if I could figure out what consistently successful runners focused their thoughts on as they prepared for and ran races and teach this in a way those I coached could learn and passionately apply, then as individuals, as teams, and as a program we would realize greater success and be happier with the results.

One of the most foundational of these success principles is to have a clear understanding of your purpose. Understanding a strong, well-defined purpose empowers you to succeed. It strengthens your resolve and commitment, energizes you to get through obstacles, and focuses your efforts as you proceed along your chosen path. The first step to understanding your purpose is to discover what it is.

At one of our team meetings at the first of each cross country season, I would invite then college president, Elder David Bednar, to speak to our athletes. One of the first questions he would ask them was, "What do you think is the purpose of our cross country program at Ricks College?" After listening to their responses, he would clarify, "There is really only one reason why we have athletics at Ricks College and that is so others may see Christ's image engraven in your countenances."[2] He would then invite each of our team members to embrace the Honor Code, to live by both the letter and spirit for which it was given. He would also promise our athletes that as they diligently strove to realize that purpose, the Lord would strengthen them to perform beyond their natural abilities.[3] Understanding that purpose, buying into it as if it was their own, and exercising faith to receive the promised blessings, our athletes and teams radiated the light of Christ and were empowered to experience great success.

First we visit the Hausmanns, a German family. Their Christmas tree fills the house with a pungent, piney fragrance. Apples and spicy cookies hang from the tree’s spiked branches, along with a few treasured glass balls and many small ornaments that Papa has whittled out of wood—stars, bells, birds, and even a beautiful Kris Kringle.
Willie Hausmann’s stomach growls hungrily as the combined smells of roast goose, apple stollen, and molasses cookies tickle his nose. Tonight he must be on his best behavior so that Kris Kringle will leave him a gift. Willie has been wishing for a knife of his own so that he can help Papa carve ornaments for next year’s Christmas tree.
In the Italian neighborhood, Sophia Petroni is sniffing the aroma of a very different meal. Fish is the main dish of this dinner. In the main room Sophia has helped set up the family’s beloved presepio (manger scene), which is the center of the Petronis’ Christmas celebration.
Sophia looks forward to the drawing of small gifts from the Urn of Fate after Christmas Eve supper, but the real gift-giving of the season will come on Epiphany Eve, January 5. On that night La Befana, the good witch, still searches for the Christ Child in Bethlehem, flying through the skies on her broom and dropping gifts down chimneys for children to find.
On the other side of town, in a fine, large home live the van Littens, a family that has preserved Christmas traditions from Holland for generations. Dirk is wistfully remembering the fun when Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) came to their house on December 5.
Dirk had put his shoes on the hearth and filled them with sugar and hay for Sinterklaas’s white horse. The next morning the sugar and hay were gone, and in their places were a fine set of paints and new skates for Dirk.
Dirk sighs. The saintly old bishop in his red robe is gone, along with the gay parties and nonsense of Saint Nicholas’s Eve. Christmas Day is for going to church and eating a great dinner. Dirk wishes that Sinterklaas would come again instead.
Nearby, at the home of a Polish family named Slovik, Miklaus, or Mike, as his friends call him, helps to scatter clean straw to remind the family of the manger where Christ was born. Straw is everywhere—on the floor, under the white cloth on the table, even in the children’s beds!
Mike keeps peering out the window anxiously, for only when the first star appears may the family sit down to eat their Christmas Eve feast. His mouth waters as he thinks of the twelve-course dinner to come—one course for each Apostle.
After supper the Wise Men will bring gifts, which are sent to them by the stars. At midnight the Sloviks will attend church.
“The star! The star!” Mike shouts at last. As he sits down at the family table, he glances at the extra place that is always set for the Christ Child. Could His spirit really be here this holy night? he wonders.
As we leave the Sloviks and visit the Halversson family, who have recently arrived from Sweden, dusk is gathering. Helga helps to light a candle in each window, an important ceremony in her family. The traditional Swedish Christmas season lasts for a whole month, and Helga and her mother have been busy making cookies, breads, candles, and straw ornaments.
As she helps herself to the different dishes of the smorgasbord, Helga thinks about their farm in Sweden. All the animals there were given extra food on Christmas Eve, and a bowl of rice pudding was always left in the loft for Jultomten, the mischievous elf who guards one’s home. After Jultomten ate his pudding, he would leave gifts for Helga and her family. Tonight Helga will leave Jultomten’s pudding on the table.
In the small room of the Murphys, who immigrated from Ireland, a bright wreath of holly with its shining leaves and red berries makes the walls look cheery. Colleen and her sister, Mary, help set the table, even though they have just finished their dinner. They place a loaf of bread and a pitcher of milk on the clean table, along with a large candle.
The girls’ grandmother smiles at them. “Since you have been blessed with the name Mary, you may light the candle, my dear,” she says. There is a deep hush as Mary solemnly lights the candle.
Colleen, who feels a bit left out for a moment, runs to the door to make sure that it is unlatched. The Christ Child, or any lonely wanderer, might see the Murphys’ lighted candle and know that He/he is welcome in their home for food and friendship.

I don’t remember exactly what comment in seminary made me start crying. Maybe it was “You know, less-active members just didn’t search hard enough for answers,” or the consensus that they’d all been deceived. Maybe it was the comparison of former members to people in the mists of darkness (see 1 Nephi 8:23–24) or the implication that there was no hope for them unless they speedily returned to church.
One of these comments was the breaking point, and I burst into tears. I didn’t leave class; I just sat at my desk and cried.
I was 15 years old. My dad had left the Church 13 years before.
I wish I could say that one seminary class was the only time I heard comments like that, but discussions about less-active members seemed to be everywhere. Most of them weren’t flattering. Many people didn’t know that my dad stopped going to church a long time ago—they were careless, not cruel. But their comments were still deeply hurtful.
Some people were kind and inclusive, but I think we can be more thoughtful and sensitive in how we discuss those who are not active in the Church. To help us all consider how we speak about a topic that could be painful for some, here are a few questions to ask yourself about how you discuss disaffected members, along with some tips on how to be more sensitive.
I love and respect my dad. He’s one of the most honest, hardworking, and intelligent men I’ve ever met. To hear people speak negatively about less-active members is especially painful because my dad has good principles, morals, and values.
Tip: Remember that there are good people everywhere, whether they’re active or less-active members of the Church or not members at all. It can be easy to use us/them language and moralize the decision of others to stop believing or participating, but remember, we don’t know all the circumstances surrounding their choice to become less active.
Generalized comments assume that everyone sees the world exactly as we do, that everyone’s experiences have shaped their perspectives in the very same way, and that everyone comes from similar backgrounds. We need to remember that each one of us has a unique journey in mortality.
Tip: Keep an eye out for innocent but exclusionary questions. For example, in Young Women classes, we were often asked to share stories about how our lives were affected because our fathers held the priesthood. It only takes a little rewording to make a world of difference and include everyone. Perhaps it would have been better to ask something like, “How has your life been affected by the power of the priesthood?”
My dad’s been out of the Church for two decades now, and it’s not looking like it’ll change anytime soon. I still love and respect my dad. And while there are difficulties, I’m pretty content with how my family runs.
Tip: Having less-active loved ones is not nearly as uncommon as it used to be, and people have come a long way in their responses to all sorts of families and circumstances. We can be understanding and offer heartfelt responses that won’t minimize the person’s current experience.
When my seminary class discussed anything that had to do with the hereafter, from spirit prison to sealed couples being sorted into their degrees of glory together, my stomach started to do somersaults. I won’t lie—I do worry about where my family will fit in after death. I try to trust in the knowledge that God is good and that my dad is good, but right now, there’s a gap in our family’s eternal future. We simply don’t know what will happen.
Tip: Show empathy for others. Families with less-active members aren’t the only people who deal with this, but it can be emotionally taxing, especially in Church settings. When I share my concerns, I’m not looking for answers—I’m just looking for empathy, for someone to agree that this is hard sometimes.
I eventually realized that I could soften a negative discussion by piping up and saying, “Oh, I disagree. My dad is less active, and …” Almost immediately, people’s comments became kinder, and many even backtracked on their previous insensitive statements.
Tip: A good rule of thumb in Church discussions is to assume that no matter what you’re discussing, someone in your group has experienced it, is experiencing it, or will experience it—or they have a loved one who is going through it. Once people knew about my family situation, they were much gentler. They knew that, to me, this wasn’t just a conversation about less-active or disaffected members—this was about my father.
All of this boils down to what we already know and what we are taught: be empathetic and loving. Elder W. Craig Zwick, an emeritus General Authority Seventy, said: “The willingness to see through each other’s eyes will transform ‘corrupt communication’ into ‘minister[ing] grace.’ … It may not change or solve the problem, but the more important possibility may be whether ministering grace could change us.”1
Mortality means we all end up in unique circumstances. And whatever those circumstances are, we can always be accepting and kind to all. My family is a part of my unique mortal journey, and I love them as they are. But I do have hope that Heavenly Father will help everything work out for our eternal family in the end.

In our multicultural family, we celebrate all the English, Irish and Dutch national holidays abundantly. My wife, Kirsty, loves going all out on decorations and traditional foods for Halloween, Sinterklaas, Christmas and so much more, and our children and their friends loved it!
One evening, Kirsty and I were discussing how we could create a similar experience for our children during general conference. We decided to introduce homemade croissants with ham and cheese as the general conference food of choice. We prepared coloring papers with gospel topics and word games that would help them to be engaged in conference talks. On conference morning we would be dressed in our Sunday best. But we also had lots of pillows and cozy blankets that the children could build pillow forts and tents out of to make them feel safe, secure, and loved.
We enjoyed watching conference as a family and savored the inspired messages from Church leaders whilst the smell of freshly baked croissants filled our home. The younger children got plenty of praise for sitting through one session of conference. We expected a little more from our older children as time went by. The excitement over general conference brought us all so much joy. Now we are grandparents, we love receiving pictures of our grandchildren through social media having a similar conference experience.

Brothers and sisters, I have learned a painful lesson since I last occupied this pulpit in October of 2022. That lesson is: if you don’t give an acceptable talk, you can be banned for the next several conferences. You can see I am assigned early in the first session of this one. What you can’t see is that I am positioned on a trapdoor with a very delicate latch. If this talk doesn’t go well, I won’t see you for another few conferences.
In the spirit of that beautiful hymn with this beautiful choir, I have learned some lessons recently that, with the Lord’s help, I wish to share with you today. That will make this a very personal talk.
The most personal and painful of all these recent experiences has been the passing of my beloved wife, Pat. She was the greatest woman I have ever known—a perfect wife and mother, to say nothing of her purity, her gift of expression, her spirituality. She gave a talk once titled “Fulfilling the Measure of Your Creation.” It seems to me that she fulfilled the measure of her creation more successfully than anyone could have dreamed possible. She was a complete daughter of God, an exemplary woman of Christ. I was the most fortunate of men to spend 60 years of my life with her. Should I prove worthy, our sealing means I can spend eternity with her.
Another experience began 48 hours after my wife’s burial. At that time, I was rushed to the hospital in an acute medical crisis. I then spent the first four weeks of a six-week stay in and out of intensive care and in and out of consciousness.
Virtually all my experience in the hospital during that first period is lost to my memory. What is not lost is my memory of a journey outside the hospital, out to what seemed the edge of eternity. I cannot speak fully of that experience here, but I can say that part of what I received was an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, more faith in His word.
I couldn’t help but feel I was receiving my own personal version of a revelation given to the Twelve nearly 200 years ago:
“Thou shalt bear record of my name … [and] send forth my word unto the ends of the earth. …
“… Morning by morning; and day after day let thy warning voice go forth; and when the night cometh let not the inhabitants of the earth slumber, because of thy speech. …
“Arise[,] … take up your cross, [and] follow me.”
My beloved sisters and brothers, since that experience, I have tried to take up my cross more earnestly, with more resolve to find where I can raise an apostolic voice of both warmth and warning in the morning, during the day, and into the night.
That leads me to a third truth that came in those months of loss, illness, and distress. It was a renewed witness of and endless gratitude for the resolute prayers of this Church—your prayers—of which I have been the beneficiary. I will be eternally grateful for the supplication of thousands of people who, like the importuning widow, repeatedly sought heaven’s intervention in my behalf. I received priesthood blessings, and I saw my high school class fast for me, as did several random wards across the Church. And my name must have been on the prayer roll of virtually every temple in the Church.
In my profound gratitude for all this, I join G. K. Chesterton, who said once “that thanks are the highest form of thought; and … gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” With my own “happiness doubled by wonder,” I thank all of you and thank my Father in Heaven, who heard your prayers and blessed my life.
Brothers and sisters, I testify that God hears every prayer we offer and responds to each of them according to the path He has outlined for our perfection. I recognize that at roughly the same time so many were praying for the restoration of my health, an equal number—including me—were praying for the restoration of my wife’s health. I testify that both of those prayers were heard and answered by a divinely compassionate Heavenly Father, even if the prayers for Pat were not answered the way I asked. It is for reasons known only to God why prayers are answered differently than we hope—but I promise you they are heard and they are answered according to His unfailing love and cosmic timetable.

When Isabelle was a young girl, her dad worked in the French military. Their family moved around a lot. When she was eight, they moved to the Sahara Desert. There were no other Church members nearby, so they got permission to have the sacrament in their home.
Every Sunday, Isabelle and her family gathered in the living room and sang hymns they had memorized. Her dad blessed the bread and water for the sacrament. Then her parents and siblings took turns giving talks.
This showed Isabelle how important it was to live the gospel. Since they lived far away from other Church members, no one would have known if they stopped having church at home on Sunday. But they chose to do the right thing.
Two years later, they moved back to France, where there were more members of the Church. Isabelle was able to be baptized. Seeing her parents live the gospel in the Sahara Desert helped her testimony begin to grow. It gave her faith in God to do the right thing, even when no one was watching.

Some have the gift of being a friend, of being selfless and thoughtful and lifting those around them. Speaking of the most treasured spiritual gift of charity, Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:5 says it "seeketh not her own." That certainly means that someone with the gift of charity isn't always looking out for himself or herself, isn't overly concerned with his or her own self-interest. But I learned something of charity from someone with such a gift of friendship. After graduate school we moved to Southern California. We moved in on a Saturday, a call came on Sunday, and on Monday I was surprised to find myself the new early-morning seminary teacher, facing a group of 30 high-school juniors and seniors. They were delightful. As I got to know them I particularly noticed one young man. Everyone wanted to be around him. It was interesting that there was nothing superficially exceptional about him: he didn't have a great car, was not a big athlete. So I observed, and I learned. For example, when most of us go into a fireside, who do we look for? I think we would agree, for our friends, for those with whom we're comfortable. Not my friend Sean. Though everyone was saving him a seat, Sean would look for the person who was alone, who needed to have someone to sit by. He was not seeking out his own buddies, not seeking out his own. When you walk into a dance, who do you look for? Well, you'll have to answer that one for yourself; but I suspect some of you might have been thinking of physical descriptions of people in the room. My friend Sean was looking for whoever might feel a little lonely or awkward. Sean's goal was to see everyone had a good time. He wasn't seeking his own pleasure or gratification, he wasn't seeking his own. And I can tell you his gift had a significant affect, on the love and the unity of our Stake, and a richness came into his life.

I give you an example of how this works. Let me share with you an experience of President Heber J. Grant. While he was a member of the Council of the Twelve, when asked by the President of the Church to submit names, he repeatedly submitted that of a very good friend of his for consideration to fill existing vacancies among the Twelve. The man was never chosen, and President Grant is reported to have said at one time that if he ever became President of the Church and there was a vacancy to fill, he would call that man because he was so well qualified.

After he became President and it was necessary to fill a vacancy, he told the Lord that he knew whom he wanted, but that he wanted to select the man the Lord wanted and would like to have. The name of Melvin J. Ballard, whom President Grant knew only slightly, came into his mind and kept coming to let him know that he was the man who should be called; and he was nominated by President Grant and approved by the Twelve.