Gospel Story Finder

Another entry by Elizabeth Huffaker, reflecting back, said:
I remember our first Christmas in the Valley. We all worked as usual. The men gathered sagebrush, and some plowed; for though it had snowed, the ground was still soft, and the plows were used nearly the entire day. We celebrated the day on the Sabbath (Christmas was on Saturday), when all gathered around the flagpole in the center of the Fort, and there we held a meeting. And what a meeting it was. We sang praises to God, we all joined in the evening prayer, and the speaking that day has always been remembered. . . .
. . . Many who were there for that first Christmas in the Valley later remarked that in the sense of perfect peace and good will, they never had a happier Christmas in all their lives. [Madsen, Christmas, p. 26]

Their Christmas spirit was really the peace, comfort, and sense of well-being they felt from a Heavenly Father who knew they had done their part, that they had given their all—literally—to the furthering of the kingdom on earth. He blessed them, not with material rewards, but with gifts of the Spirit.

When Jamie learned of her husband’s pornography use, she reacted with an understandable desire to control whatever she could. She thought she could arrange the life of her husband, Jon, so he wouldn’t seek instant gratification through pornography, and he would, therefore, have no other option but to choose righteousness. She wrote daily lists for him: what he could do for fun and what chores he needed to complete.
A pivotal moment in Jamie’s journey came when her bishop was inspired to emphasize, “Jamie, this is not your fault. Nothing you are doing is making him look at pornography. He is choosing.” And just as she was not the cause of his looking at pornography, she also could not be the cause of his stopping. Intellectually, she already knew what the bishop told her, but Jamie says that after the bishop’s reminder, “the lists stopped. I gave up trying to control his behavior and trying to force him into righteousness—and I focused on myself.” In effect, Jamie gave herself permission to feel her own hurt and to work on her own recovery.
After Jamie’s realization, Jon struggled and relapsed often, but he took responsibility for his own actions. And as they each worked on their own healing, Jon and Jamie found that they could heal better as individuals and as a couple.
Another turning point for Jamie and Jon came when one of their children needed a blessing. They called their home teacher, who bravely explained that he was seeking help to deal with his own struggles with pornography. He offered to find someone else to give the blessing. That openness lessened the shame Jon and Jamie felt about their own situation, and Jon finally felt safe enough to discuss his addiction with someone besides Jamie.
When the home teacher’s wife offered to talk with Jamie, Jamie didn’t see the point since her talking wouldn’t fix Jon—and at that point, fixing him was her goal. Yet after she and the home teacher’s wife visited, Jamie felt lighter. Nothing had changed. Jon still struggled, but she was relieved that someone else knew what she was going through and her world hadn’t come crashing down.
Well into their journey of overcoming pornography, Jon and Jamie discovered how helpful it was to set boundaries, and they still have them today—even after a good amount of sobriety—because of the peace of mind that boundaries provide. Jamie says that when she was most vulnerable, setting boundaries “protected my heart.”
She and Jon agreed that there were appropriate times and ways to discuss issues surrounding a relapse. They agreed not to have “text wars” but to speak in person. They also agreed that if a discussion was turning into an argument, they could take a break and talk later.
Many of Jon and Jamie’s boundaries relate to how they communicate, but some of their other boundaries take the form of if/then statements in which they agree that certain actions will lead to certain consequences. That, Jamie says, allows them both to feel that life isn’t quite so chaotic.
So do Jamie and Jon, who actively help other couples find the healing they have found through the Savior and His Atonement.

Randy McGee has imagination. He’s unintimidated as well. He’s also the cheerleader at Thomas Jefferson High School in Washington who had “lost so many school elections” he decided to run for an office he could win! He invented the office of Archduke, and his campaign included the wearing of a red cap and the handing out of a job description with his picture to student voters. The student council admitted that his speech got the most raves at the election assembly, and Mormons in the area appreciated the good publicity in the local papers. As Archduke, Randy spreads good cheer, stirs up goodwill efforts between schools, and acts as chief pepper-upper at games. “As far as I know,” comments Randy laughingly, “I’m the only Archduke in the USA”.

Let me give you an example. Earlier this summer I drove my son down to Provo to drop him off at the MTC. He is our eldest child, and it was just me and him for those four hours since his mom and sisters were at Girls Camp, and the youngest was at Grandma's house.

We had a really nice time together on the way down, and we visited together on the steps of the Provo Temple for a few minutes before I dropped him off. We took a picture, had a big hug, shed a tear, and off he went. He didn't look back. I know because I watched him all the way.

I drove away, around the corner and down the street. By the time I got over, adjacent to Lavell Edwards stadium, I was overcome by the grief and pain of the departure of my little boy—my hiking and climbing buddy, our lawn mower and babysitter, my son.

I pulled over, sobbing, unable to see the road in front of me through my tears. I knew what he would be going through. I knew it would be wonderful and hard, exciting and scary, that he needed to experience that, and I knew God would guide and keep him, but I missed him, and it hurt.

In this my moment of sorrow, I cried out to my Heavenly Father, "How can I do this?" and He said, so clearly I could hear it, "How do you think I felt when you left?" Pow. It hit me right in my heart.

If God loves us like this, sending us to earth, eagerly anticipating our return, hearing my prayers in the same way I can hardly wait for each P-day with its accompanying pictures and precious email—wow! That's how it works.

This experience has become a touchstone for me, a persistent example of things Heavenly Father prepared to remind us of Him, His love for us, and His hand in our lives. All things testify of him.

I have read almost all the New Eras all the way through this year. It is the best magazine! I especially liked the Message for December entitled “The Gifts of Christmas” by Elder Mark E. Petersen.
I gave a New Era subscription to two of my nonmember friends for Christmas this year. I have gained a stronger testimony by reading the New Era, and I hope this gift will help my friends get interested in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much!
Kimberli RiserRoosevelt, Utah

When I was a young bishop in Tennessee, we were neighbors to a wonderful Christian couple named Will and Karen. They weren’t members of our Church, but they were deeply Christian…good people in every sense of the word.

When I would speak in church, I would often invite them to come and see. Every time, they declined but always did so very politely.

Later, I learned Will was studying to become an associate pastor in a small Baptist church in a tiny, tiny town outside of Nashville. When I found out he was preparing for his first sermon, I asked if my family could come hear him preach. To say he was surprised would be an understatement. But he said we were more than welcome.

His church services started at 10 a.m.. Our church met at 1:00 p.m., but we also had Ward Council that morning. So, I called every member of the council and told them, “The meeting is canceled, I’m going to the Baptist church.”

When we arrived that Sunday morning, we were greeted so warmly. And I don’t just mean polite handshakes…I mean genuine, joyful, we’re-glad-you’re-here warmth.

There were a couple of things they did in that church that I loved.

If someone liked what the preacher said, they shouted out “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!” right in the middle of the sermon. Sometimes when I speak I feel like I could use a good “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!”

Right in the middle of the service, the senior pastor stood up and said, “Brothers and sisters, it’s fellowship time. I want you to stand up and go shake hands with someone you’ve never met before.”

Now, this was a very small church. And I don’t think there were any other visitors. I felt like I was in a wedding reception line as person after person came by, shook our hands, and said things like:

“We’re so happy you’re here.”

“We hope you will come back and worship with us again.”

I could have felt different and alone in that church, but somehow they made me feel like I belonged.

When our ward council finally met again, can you guess what we talked about?

We talked about how to help people feel like they are not alone on the Jericho road they may be traveling. We talked about how to help people feel that they are, as Paul said, “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” [8]

And here’s the thing—the answer isn’t complicated.

It’s as simple as seeing ourselves as neighbor to each individual we interact with and treating them the way Jesus would treat them.

This summer I injured a shoulder and lost the use of an arm for weeks. I hadn’t realized how much one arm depends upon the other for balance, or how much less I could lift with one arm than two, or that there were some things I couldn’t do at all. This disability not only renewed my respect for those who deal so well with a physical limitation, but helped me realize how much more two arms working together can do.

One of my beloved uncles went on a mission in 1912–14 to an enlightened nation in Europe. He found great satisfaction and fulfillment in being part of the great missionary activity and in his involvement with the Saints. After his mission he remained very loyal to the Church but became somewhat inactive because he had a Word of Wisdom problem. My brothers and I used to thrill in hearing him tell about his mission. He would tell us by the hour about his mission president, his companions, the Saints, the country, and its culture. His mission was, in many ways, the highwater mark of his life. He was thrilled when we went on our missions. He treasured missionary experience; it became the destination of his life rather than a journey.

Illustration by Melissa Manwill
When I was nine, my brother Leif got really sick. He went to the hospital. My mom told my sister and me that my brother had leukemia, a blood cancer. We prayed that my brother would be OK.
My dad stayed at the hospital with my brother. Two days later we drove to the hospital to see Leif. It was the first time I’d seen him since he was diagnosed. My grandma and grandpa were there helping. When I walked in, my brother was on a bed with many tubes and needles connected to his arms. I gave him a hug and began to cry. But I felt the Spirit with me. Heavenly Father was comforting me. He gave me love and support.
As we drove home from the hospital, the Spirit was still with me. I’m thankful that Heavenly Father blessed my family and my brother in many ways. The members of my ward helped our family. And my schoolteachers showed kindness to me. I felt the love of Heavenly Father through many people.
Leif has had a lot of struggles with his leukemia. Prayer and family and ward fasts have helped him so much. Leif has two years left of chemo treatment, but he has made it through the first and hardest year.
Heavenly Father sends the Holy Ghost to comfort you in times of need and inspires friends and family to help you.

In fact, many LDS youth here look at music as a worthwhile way to employ their time. For example, Sara Williams, 16, her brother, Tyler, 18, and Rebecca Howell, 15, all members of the Byrd Springs Ward, are among 10 Latter-day Saints in the award-winning Virgil I. Grissom High School marching band.
“Through band, you learn to appreciate all kinds of music,” Sara says. “But band teaches you a lot of other things, too.”
“It teaches teamwork, especially marching band, because you can’t march a solo,” she says. “You gain good friends in the band, because you work so hard together.”
And yet, in some ways, Sara is familiar with the all-alone routine. It’s an experience born of standing up for her standards.
“Someone would say, ‘We want to watch this movie.’ And I’d say, ‘What’s it rated?’ At first they’d say, ‘Oh, come on.’ But now they know I will not watch an R-rated movie. And they know I don’t come out on Sundays and go places with them, because it’s the Sabbath. They respect me a lot for what I believe.”
And the respect is mutual. “The kids in the band all have pretty good standards, to where you’re not the only one who is saying, ‘No, I will not drink or smoke,’ or ‘No, I will not have sex before marriage.’ Like it says in For the Strength of Youth, they’re a good influence, so I enjoy hanging out with them.”

“Okay, here are the trash bags,” the bishop said. “Let’s get to work.”
This year for our yearly stake service project we were cleaning up a middle school by our stake center. When we arrived at the school, we saw that the fairly small campus was covered in trash. The wind had blown piles of garbage along a chain link fence. The grass was yellow and dying in patches. Flowers and plants had been planted in an obvious effort to beautify the school, but they had not been maintained, and a field of weeds grew as high as my elbows. The paint in the bathrooms was peeling away from the walls, and spitballs covered the ceiling. I held my nose in disgust as I looked around.
I started picking up garbage along the fence. “This is gross,” I thought. “Why should I pick up someone else’s mess?” I turned to a girl who was working next to me and said, “I have never seen so much trash before. Yuck!”
After a few minutes of filling my trash bag, I thought, “It’s so hot out here. My back hurts, and my hands are getting dirty. I’m sure there are germs all over them! Maybe I can paint the bathroom instead. That would be easier, and I could get out of picking up trash.”
But there were enough volunteers painting already. I walked as slowly as I could back to the hot asphalt near the fence.
Then, as I looked around, I thought, “If this were my school I would be so happy to know that people were cleaning it. I wonder if the students will be surprised on Monday? I bet they’ve never seen this chain link fence completely free of trash.”
I began working harder, making sure I picked up every piece of garbage around the fence and all the trash stuck in the links. My dad mowed the field of elbow-high weeds, and I helped trim bushes and paint an exterior wall.
When we were finished, I looked back at the school and the clean area along the fence and thought, “These students will be so happy!” Then I thought of what I had accomplished and how I had changed. Alma was right: “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6).

The two eagles gulped altitude with their broad, golden wings until the cliff line was far below them. Then they closed their wings and dropped out of the sky, spinning downward at a wind-warping speed of almost 200 miles per hour. Just as the juniper and sagebrush rushed up to crush them, they spun the world on end with a flick of their seven-foot wings and shot upward again. Spiraling up on a thermal, they banked away from each other and were soon a valley apart. Then, pivoting in midair, they rushed together like two warring biplanes, their wingbeats cracking echoes off the cliff face. Just inches short of disaster they casually palmed the air aside and brushed feathers as they blasted past each other. They flashed together again, flipping on their backs and displaying their talons in mock combat. They soared and dived, playing the wind like a violin, spinning gravity like a yo-yo. One moment they were sailing ships, running with the breeze or tacking against it. The next they were jet fighters, dive-bombing their shadows. They were more free in their ocean of air than any fish in water or any man on land.
But one man on the land watched them—with his eyes hardly comprehending, with his camera clicking like a telegraph, and long afterward with a notebook and pencil, remembering. Kent Keller, of Orem, Utah, had seen golden eagle courtship flights before, but like any reasonable person, he could only fully believe it when he was seeing it.
Perhaps it is partly this aura of impossibility that draws Kent to eagles, just as it has drawn poets, prophets, and emperors for centuries.
Actually, it all started with snakes. From the day he was born, Kent seemed to delight in all wild creatures, but snakes were his first real love. As a very young boy, he turned his backyard into a reptile menagerie with cages full of crawling snakes, gila monsters, horned toads, lizards, and just about any other tail-twitching belly-crawler he could find. As soon as he learned to read, he went hunting for reptiles in the library too.
But a new love was waiting in the wings, and at 12 years of age, Kent was to have his eyes snatched from the delightful snake-harboring ground to the wide, blue, eagle-bearing sky.
One day on a camping trip Kent’s Scoutmaster pointed at a dead cottonwood tree and said, “Hey, guys, there are two eagles!” The two golden eagles perched on skeletal limbs burned their image into an unexposed surface of Kent’s brain and filled his life’s appointment book all in an instant. He came. He saw. He was conquered.
But finding eagles isn’t all that easy until you learn where to look, and it was two years before Kent was able to make a house call. One rainy afternoon in early May he stepped onto a tiny protruding ledge that overhung more than 150 feet of sheer emptiness. As he peered over the edge, the sun burst through the rain clouds, spotlighting the golden hackles of a female eagle on her nest about ten yards down. Seeing Kent, she soared silently away but left behind two eaglets who sat cheeping at him in a blaze of downy sunshine.
Kent says of that instant: “At that moment I was so inspired by the beauty and majesty of the eagles that I felt more alive myself. The air smelled fresher, and the stream far below sparkled more brightly than before. I had simply opened my eyes and had really seen and felt what was around me.”
From eagles Kent’s love spread to all raptors (birds of prey). The fierce independence and aristocratic bearing of these aerial hunters caught his imagination and sent him out during every spare moment to follow their flight and study their habits.
He went to the library too, hunting these feathered sky-riders among the quiet stacks of books. He learned, both from books and experience (he doesn’t believe a book until he has proved it in nature) about the different raptors—where they nested, where they hunted, how they hunted, what their prey was, how they mated, and even how they flew. Before long he could see a bird silhouetted gnat-small on the horizon and name it by its flight pattern. Every time he saw a bird or visited a nest, he took careful scientific notes of everything he observed. He has several PhD dissertations lying unwritten in his notebooks.
During his junior year in high school, Kent dropped out of football and basketball to allow more time for raptor study. He traveled miles and miles searching out nests and roosting areas. He developed the climbing ability of a mountain goat and the stamina of a mustang. Leaving home Friday night after school or well before dawn Saturday morning, getting home well after dark Saturday night, and spending much of the time in between climbing steep mountains at a brisk trot, he found many raptor nests and gradually became a legitimate expert in the field. Weekdays after school also found him in the hills as often as possible.
One of his most rewarding experiences came one winter after a month-long search when he found the winter roosting grounds of bald eagles from Canada and Alaska. “I stood alone in two feet of snow near the bottom of an isolated canyon in west-central Utah, my eyes searching the sky for signs of life. Suddenly, as if by magic, they came, one by one, in pairs, and in small groups. Bald eagles dropped from the tall pine trees to the south and were gradually caught up in thermal drafts of air. Slowly circling higher and higher, traveling on wings of up to eight feet in length, they drifted west in a steady stream of traffic across the sky.”
That summer he carried back-breaking loads of wood and canvas up a towering mountain in order to build a blind from which to observe these eagles during the coming winter. When the snows were deep on the mountain a few months later, he spent hours watching them up close. “I have often crawled out of a warm bed at 3:00 A.M. and hiked up tall mountains through three feet of snow in the dark. Then I have sat cramped and numbed in a dark blind until mid-afternoon. By that time I have begun to wonder what is wrong with me. Suddenly, only 30 feet away and halfway up a scraggly old pine tree, a beautiful bald eagle has landed, and I wonder no longer.”
Kent interrupted his eagle watching to accept a mission call to the Kentucky Louisville Mission, but on his return he was on the road again checking nests.
Kent, like other students of raptors, is especially interested in the predators’ nesting behavior because this is the cycle that stands between the species and extinction.
There is also the mystery of the eternal interplay between the flight and the nest, freedom and responsibility. “An eagle’s freedom is exciting. They can leave the ground any time they want and ride the wind, and yet, like people, they’re tied down with responsibilities. When an eagle has eggs, she’s on the nest for 45 days, and she may leave it for only an hour a day. Eagles must follow their food supply too. They have certain laws they have to live within, but when they get up there and ride that wind, there’s not much that can touch them.”
In Utah, golden eagles begin their courtship flights in January or February, lay eggs from late February through March, and then incubate them from 42 to 45 days, after which the eaglets stay in the nest for from eight to ten weeks before taking to their wings. Kent warns that anyone interested in eagles should simply stay away from the nests during egg laying and incubation because during that period adult eagles are most prone to abandon the nest. Whenever a human being approaches her nest, the female eagle will invariably leave it until he is gone, and even if she returns, exposure to heat or cold can easily destroy the eggs. After the eaglets have hatched, the nest can be safely visited for very short periods of time, but after the eaglets are about seven weeks old, there is serious danger of frightening them off the nest before they are able to fly.
First flight is as breathtaking an experience for eagles as it is for people, and the proud lords of the skyways start out as bumbling, incompetent aviators. They too often crash and break a wing on the first flight and become easy prey to starvation or some four-legged predator. Kent once saw a ten-week-old eagle make its first flight and remembers: “He hopped off the nest as if he knew what he was doing, but all of a sudden he was speeding down toward the opposite cliff and losing altitude fast. You could see the shock in his eyes. His wings were spread out, his primary and secondary feathers flapping back and forth in the breeze. His head was moving back and forth watching the ground and looking back up at the nest—looking everywhere at once. He looked as if he was wondering what he had gotten himself into, whether he had really blown it, but you could also feel his exhilaration and the thrill of his first flight. He dropped down to the mouth of the canyon and hit an updraft that just pushed him right up out of sight. I found him the next day sitting on a tree unhurt.”
Kent realized from day one that it would be unthinkable to put an eagle in a cage like his childhood pet lizards, so he found another way of capturing the wild, free beauty of these magnificent creatures—photography. He seldom goes anywhere without his camera and his 400, 150, and 50 mm lenses. Over the years he has accumulated a fine collection of raptor slides and has organized them into several slide shows guaranteed to make you sad you were not born an eagle. He presents these shows to many groups and enjoys sharing them with people in rest homes and with handicapped children. It is his way of giving wings to people who are the most earthbound.
“I love eagles,” he says, “but people are the most important part of that love. It wouldn’t mean a thing to me if I went out there and filmed all those great things and didn’t have anybody to share it with.”
In photographing raptors, Kent has developed a skill that few people share. If you don’t believe it, go out sometime and photograph a bird moving in and out of focus at eye-blurring speed across blue sky, white clouds, black mountainsides, and blazing patches of snow, all in a few seconds. You’ll be very lucky even to find the thing in your telephoto lens, much less focus it and get the right exposure.
Kent’s delight in all living things has never faded. He still can’t pass up a lizard without stopping and watching. A porcupine is still a miracle. A turtle is still a masterpiece. A raven or a meadowlark is still breathtaking, and snakes still make him shiver as good as they make most of us shiver bad. There are no commonplace animals for Kent; they all bring him joy just by being. It is significant that on the gun rack in his pickup he has hung only a pair of binoculars.
But in spite of his reverence for all things, those binoculars are filled mostly with raptors right now, and Kent has been repaid for his thousands of hours of work with some heart-thumping experiences—a squadron of bald eagles on a winter day, the soaring rise of a Swainson’s hawk, the screaming dive of a prairie falcon, the puppet-like unreality of baby owls. And speaking of owls, he had the privilege of being knocked backwards off a 30-foot cliff by a frightened great horned owl and of having his face bloodied by the fierce attack of another not-at-all frightened member of the species.
He especially remembers one top-of-the-world moment on a peak high in a remote canyon. The granite walls were so buffeted by a tree-toppling wind that day that he had to lie flat to avoid being blown away like a leaf. A golden eagle came floating down onto the highest point on the peak, sorting out the changing, punishing wind with his wings, and somehow keeping an even keel. He stood there a moment looking regally around at the whole world lying beneath his talons as if inspecting his kingdom. “He only touched down for a few seconds, and then he simply opened his wings and turned them back into the wind. He shot up and out of sight like a rocket without ever flapping a wing.”
No one but Kent can say how many hours of sleep or basketball games or TV shows that experience was worth to him, but he isn’t complaining.
There is another aspect to Kent’s studies beyond the intellectual and aesthetic. Living with these magnificent birds has strengthened his testimony of his Creator. One winter day he took an atheist friend to a canyon where he knew there would be eagles. As they stood in the snow watching some 50 bald eagles soar above them, Kent looked at his open-mouthed friend and said quietly, “That didn’t just happen by accident.”
“Boy, I know it!” his friend said, his voice small with awe.
If anybody wants to know why eagles are worth saving, maybe that’s why.

Our family will not forget our little friend Becky, who invited us to hold our family home evening in her home. Even though her daddy was not a member of the Church, she wanted him to participate in a family home evening. Most of all, she wanted him to become a member of the Church.
Becky’s daddy said he would be glad to have us go to their home for family home evening. We had a beautiful time together. The spiritual lesson was followed by refreshments, some games, and family prayer. As we were saying goodnight, Becky looked up at me and asked, “Bishop Simpson, will you do me a favor?”
“Of course,” I answered, “anything you say.”
“Will you please baptize my daddy for me?”
That request, filled with the hope and faith of a child, sank deeply into the heart of her daddy, and it was just a few weeks later that his baptism was performed.

I feel victimized by the nanny agency with whom we worked. Though they advertise that they place “helpers with high moral standards” and that they screen for “any negative health or behavioral traits,” the nanny who came to me in September drank, had used cocaine, chain-smoked in bed, and I later learned, had a psychiatric history of many years’ duration which included injury to children. I terminated her employment on the third day when she gave my three-year-old son a plastic garbage bag and when he wandered from the fenced-in yard while in her care.
Nancy Sharts EngelBryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

The stake Primary Christmas Nativity activity included an aspect of service. Sister Leni Hester, stake Primary music leader, described the event below and entitled her remarks “A night in Bethlehem”.
“In a world of Santa Claus, reindeer, and elves, what better way to draw Primary children’s attention back to the Saviour than to transport them to Bethlehem to experience the days before the Saviour’s birth.
“Metres of muslin cloth and a few trees transformed our cultural hall into the streets of Bethlehem.
“As the children entered the city, a tax collector explained about city taxes and gave them a bag of cardboard coins to spend at various stalls. A carpenter taught them the basics of carving (using bars of soap).
“Next to the carpenter, a weaver taught the children about wool and knitting, while another vendor shared the delights of local fare … and the children could make ‘pottery’ out of salt dough. A manger scene reminded us of the Saviour’s birth. The programme ended with the children singing some specially prepared musical numbers.
“The children embraced the beautiful importance to us of the Saviour’s birth and enjoyed the opportunity to get a glimpse into what life in Bethlehem was like all those years ago.”
The element of service involved children painting small wooden-peg dolls, which were included in the shoe boxes.

While serving a mission in Britain, Elder Durham made two decisions that affected the rest of his life. During a visit with the Apostle Joseph F. Merrill the young missionary was told, “You must go get a Ph.D.”
Elder Durham answered, “Do you think I could really qualify?”
Elder Merrill answered, “No question about it.”
Elder Durham not only earned his Ph.D., he had a distinguished career in education. He was Utah’s first commissioner and executive officer of the Utah System of Higher Education, president of Arizona State University, and academic vice-president of the University of Utah.

I would like to share a few personal experiences from our lives as we have felt and seen and personally witnessed the unmistakable power and love of our living Father in Heaven.
We have known many great and noble spirits here in this special place. Our faith and testimonies have been forever strengthened by what we have witnessed in the lives of so many faithful servants of our Father. In my work in medicine, I have felt on countless occasions His healing power step in where my professional knowledge and skill had reached their limit. I have witnessed miraculous healings. Some who had crossed the veil came back and told me of their experiences being on both sides. I have seen the hand of our Father reach out to His children and felt His thoughts and words flow through my mind and my mouth to express His love for them. I have felt impressions come to my mind to look for something or think of something that I would not have otherwise done without His influence and His love for each individual. I have also seen many times when healing did not occur and witnessed the pain and heartache of loss. It is often difficult to understand or explain when it seems that prayers are not being answered in the way that we want. These are truly the times when our “hearts” are tested and tried. Do we really trust Him and put ourselves in His hands and say, “Thy will be done.” We had some dear friends who lost a young son in a flash flood while he was on his first overnight camp with the Boy Scouts. He and our son were walking together and both were swept into the flood waters together. How do you explain why one is taken to the other side of the veil, and the other one, our son, remains here? It is in these times, however, that we feel His comforting reassurance that eternity truly is our “rock and our salvation”, that the promises given by The Lord in D&C 121-122 are literally true, and that He understands.

A bad and dangerous attitude? Of course. But it’s not limited to gang members. There’s the experience of author Geoffrey Canada, who grew up in a violent neighborhood in New York’s South Bronx. As he reached college age, he saw the increasing viciousness of the gangs in his area. Out of fear, he bought a gun. He describes the feeling of power it gave him, a feeling that would cause his behavior to “become more and more reckless every day. … I knew that if I continued to carry the gun I would sooner or later pull the trigger.” He got rid of the gun.

Five years ago I was invited to a very candid conversation with then Elder Jeffrey R. Holland on whether BYU was realizing its prophetic potential. Sensing his concern, I explained that we still had the honor code, our academic freedom policy, religion classes, and devotionals to act essentially as “bumper lanes” protecting us from getting too far off spiritually.
Without hesitation, Elder Holland cut me off and responded, “Clark, bumper lanes are very different than bowling for a strike!”
In the ensuing years, we have ensured that BYU has appropriate bumper lanes in place: temple recommend requirements, mission-fit hiring, aligned promotion criteria, mission-focused questions in the student application, and other key institutional guardrails. We will continue to safeguard this university, its standards, and its expectations with clarity and purpose. This is a basic stewardship of governments.
But if these boundary conditions capture our concerns and attention, we may be missing the real aim of the university itself. Hiring and promotion standards establish boundaries, but they are not the goal.

“Missions are fine for some people, bishop, but not for me. I’ve been out with the missionaries, and all the good we did was to relieve some people’s frustrations by letting them slam a door in our face, and someone else threw a beer can at us. Now what good is that? If you ask me, bishop, I’ll do the world a lot more good by getting through school and becoming a doctor. Besides, if I went on a mission I would lose my scholarship.”
The bishop sat calmly through my whole speech. I don’t know how he could be so calm, because he had heard this speech twice before. He just leaned back in his chair, sighed softly, and said good naturedly, “You are stubborn, aren’t you? Well, I’ve done everything I can to help you understand how important a mission is, but the final decision is yours and I guess you have made it. If anything changes your mind,” he added with a smile, “be sure to tell me.”
“If anything can change my mind, you will be the first to know.”
I saw my friend Ted sitting underneath a tree in the middle of the church lawn as I walked outside. I walked over to where he was and sat down beside him. Neither one of us spoke for a moment, but then Ted said, “So, what happened?”
“It was just the same old speech by both of us. He told me to let him know if I changed my mind,” I said with a chuckle.
“Maybe you will.”
“Now come on, Ted. You know me better than that. Nothing could make me change my mind.”
“All I know is that the bishop is pretty inspired sometimes.”
“We’ll see,” I said confidently. “Come on, let’s go home.”
The early spring air was still a bit cool, but it felt good blowing through my hair. The budding maple trees on the side of the street disappeared behind us one by one as we passed by.
Ted and I had grown up together. We lived just a few houses apart on the same street. He had just recently decided that he was going to go on a mission. He would be leaving soon after graduation, which was in a few months. It really made me feel bad that we wouldn’t be rooming together at college like we had originally planned.
When we reached Ted’s house, we both sat down on his porch steps for a minute.
“Hey, Ted,” I said, “after you eat dinner do you want to go to the creek and see if any water snakes are out yet, just for old times’ sake?”
“I’d like to, but I’m going home teaching after dinner.”
“Well, then, I guess I’ll see you at school in the morning.”
I jogged on up to my house and ran into the kitchen just in time to hear the “amen” of the blessing on the food. My mom and dad and little sister greeted me as I sat down. I knew they were all wondering how my talk with the bishop had turned out. Of course, I had discussed it with my parents before. They had encouraged me strongly to go on a mission but had always let me know that it was my decision. Just so they wouldn’t ask me any uncomfortable questions now at dinner, I hinted at what happened by remarking how I would miss Mom’s cooking while I was at college. I knew they were hurt and disappointed, but the bishop was right when he said I was stubborn.
After dinner I helped Mom with the dishes. Through the kitchen window I could see the hay fields behind the house and the creek which lay beyond. It looked so nice outside that I thought I would walk down by the creek even if Ted couldn’t go. After the dishes were done, I changed my clothes and started walking across the empty hay fields. The sun was warm on my back, and the air was cool and clean. It really made me feel good. When I got to the creek I lay down on my belly in a patch of tall grass. The bank where I was lying was about three feet higher than the creek and was eroded quite badly. I just lay there soaking in the sun and listening to the forlorn call of the mourning doves. The sound of the moving water lulled the thoughts of a mission and the bishop out of my mind. I had almost forgotten about my original idea of walking along the creek to look for water snakes and was almost asleep when I felt something wet and slippery slide up my pant leg. Now I know it isn’t manly to scream, but I’m no John Wayne, and I let out a yelp and leaped forward. The eroded bank gave way, and I tumbled into the creek. That water was really cold. Not wanting to impose on the snake’s territory, I quickly waded ashore and climbed back up the bank to level ground. I was surprised to see a girl my age with a concerned look on her face standing there watching me.
“Are you all right? Here, take my jacket. You must be freezing.”
Hesitantly I took her jacket, wrapped it around me, and then sat down in the sun to rest and dry off.
“I hope you will forgive me. I didn’t mean to scare you that bad.”
From the confused look on my face she must have gathered that I didn’t understand what she was talking about, so she went on to explain.
“I saw you lying there and I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t know if you were asleep, so I touched your leg with this stick I pulled out of the creek. You were awake all right,” she said with a giggle.
My face went kind of red. “I thought it was a snake. There’s a lot of them around here, you know. Anyway, who are you?”
“I’m Susan Ward. My dad and I moved into that red brick house about a half mile up the road yesterday.”
“Just you and your dad?”
“My mom died a few months ago in a car accident. There were too many memories of her in the old house, so we moved.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. We both sat quietly for a moment. I threw a couple of rocks into the creek. Then I changed the subject.
“Are you in high school?”
“Yes, I’m a junior this year. I’m kind of nervous about going to school tomorrow. I don’t know anybody there.”
“I can understand that.” I thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t want to sound forward, but I would be happy to pick you up and take you to school tomorrow and show you around to your classes.” Then I added, “Just don’t tell anyone how we met.”
She smiled. “That would be nice, and I won’t say a word.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.”
We talked a little longer, and then because of my shivering I decided I’d better go home and change clothes, so we said good-bye and went our separate ways.
My family had a hard time finding out how I got all wet and muddy. When they finally pried the truth out of me they had a good laugh.
Later that night I was in bed reading when my little sister tiptoed into my room.
“Hi, Chad.”
“Hi, Sara. What are you still doing up?”
Sara is eight years old. She has sandy hair and blue eyes. And she and I are good buddies.
“I couldn’t sleep. Besides, I wanted to talk to you.”
“So, what’s on your mind?”
“Did you catch a cold or anything from falling in the creek?”
“Nope. I’m fine.”
Sara sat there playing with her toes for a moment. Then she looked up at me and asked, “What does Susan look like?”
I leaned back and thought for a minute, trying to picture her in my mind.
“Oh, Susan is a lot shorter than me. She has short, brown hair with threads of red in it. She has big brown eyes and a cute little nose.”
“She sounds pretty.”
“She is. Kind of spunky, too,” I added thoughtfully.
“Is Susan a Mormon?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then are you going to convert her?”
Sara was looking me right in the eye when she asked that question. I don’t think I would have felt any more uncomfortable if it had been a General Authority who had asked me.
“Uh, well, maybe. What makes you think that Susan would be interested in the Church?” I was trying to put Sara on the spot just like she had done to me, but she answered quickly and sincerely.
“Don’t you think that she would like to be able to live with her family and Heavenly Father forever if she could, just like you and me?”
Now my bishop had given me all kinds of reasons for being a missionary and I had always been able to come up with excuses, but it was different coming from my little sister. All I could say to her statement was, “Yeah, I guess she would.”
“Well, I’m tired now. I better go to bed.” With that she reached over and gave me a hug and then disappeared out my bedroom door.
Leave it to my little sister to find my conscience. In her simple way she had made missionary work sound important. I didn’t sleep very well that night.
I picked up Susan a little early the next morning so I would have time to show her where her classes would be. It ended up that she was in my chemistry class. I have seminary last period in the seminary building across the street from the high school. Susan must have seen me come out of it after class, because when I was taking her home she asked me what class I had in that building. I told her that it was seminary, which is a religion class for my church. When I told her that, I remembered my talk with Sara last night and thought, “Here’s my chance to see if Susan wants to know about the Church.” It took a minute to build up nerve, but finally I asked, “Are you interested at all in religion?”
Susan stiffened up a little when I asked that question. She answered curtly, “No, I’m not. I used to believe in God until he took my mother away. But not anymore.”
I was embarrassed and scared to say anything else. Every time I do something to try to spread the gospel people get mad. It’s good I’m not going on a mission, I thought.
I continued to pick Susan up and take her to school for a week. By then she had made some girl friends and they took over. After that I didn’t see Susan much except in chemistry. We were lab partners, and we had a lot of fun working together. She never let me forget about the snake and the creek. I never forgot about the religion discussion we had in the car, but I never brought it up again.
It wasn’t long after that short discussion that Sara asked me if I had told Susan about the Church yet. I told her what happened in the car, thinking she would be satisfied with my attempt. All she said was, “You just approached her the wrong way.”
I was a little irritated that Sara thought she knew more than me. “Then show me how you would approach her,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, walking to the phone. “Tell me her number, and I will show you.”
Her seriousness surprised me. “No way. You just tell me how you would do it.”
“You are just a scaredy-cat,” she said accusingly. With that she stomped out of the room. I wanted to argue more with her, but I knew she was right. I was a scaredy-cat.
About three weeks before graduation, Ted and I decided to have a party at my house. We invited ten friends of ours and told them to bring dates. I had a hard time finding a date. I called a couple of girls from my ward, but both of them were busy that night. I didn’t know it, but my little sister was sitting outside my bedroom listening to me trying to get a date. After my second strike she stuck her head through the doorway and said, “Ask Susan.”
I usually get after Sara when she listens to me talking on the phone, but this time her suggestion caught my attention first. “Well, I guess I could.”
“Do it. Then maybe you could talk to her about the Church again.”
“Sara, this will be a party, not Sunday School.”
“But you never know what might come up …”
I cut her off. “Maybe, but I don’t want you saying anything about religion to her unless she asks. Okay?” I said that because I knew Susan wouldn’t ask.
“Okay,” my sister said with a shrug.
I didn’t trust her.
I did call Susan and was excited when she said that she would like to come.
The night of the party came, and so did all of my friends and their dates. We had a barbecue out back and then went down in the family room and played some games. After the games, Susan and some of the other girls went upstairs to the kitchen to fix some banana splits. Since I was the host, I went up after them to see if they could find all of the things they needed. When I got to the kitchen I found all of the girls working on the banana splits except Susan. “Where’s Susan?” I asked.
“I think she is in the front room with your little sister,” answered one of the girls.
“Oh no,” I thought as I walked to the front room. Sure enough, there was Susan sitting next to my little sister, who was in her nightgown. They had the big book on the temples in their laps. I was in the process of giving my sister a “You are in big trouble” look when Susan said in a serious voice, “I asked your little sister about that cross-stitch picture on the wall that says ‘Families are Forever,’ and she was just showing me these temples and telling me how families can get that way.”
Sara just smiled at me.
“Your sister was telling me that I could be with my mother again someday. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is,” I managed to say.
Susan sat there quietly thinking, and I stood there quietly wondering what to say next when Sara mouthed out the words, “The missionaries.”
I don’t know how I did it, but I heard the words coming out of my mouth, “Would you like to come back tomorrow night and talk to a couple of young men who could tell you a lot more about how families can be forever?”
I was getting ready for another rejection when Susan answered excitedly, “Yes, I would. Could my father come, too?”
I was too shocked to answer, but my sister spoke up. “Yes, that would be great!” I couldn’t believe this was happening. I don’t remember what happened the rest of the night except that when I got back from taking Susan home I found Sara lying asleep on my bed. I picked her up gently and carried her to her room. As I tucked her into bed I thought of the scripture, “Except ye … become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).
I wanted to wake Sara up and tell her I was sorry for being so afraid of being a missionary, but instead I kissed her on the cheek and went to my own room.
Three weeks after Susan and her father had their first discussion, they were baptized. I had the honor and privilege of baptizing Susan, and my father baptized her father. My heart did a lot of changing during those three weeks. I guess while the Spirit was converting Susan and her father, it was also doing a little work on me. It wasn’t until I heard Susan’s father bear his testimony after his baptism that my heart was totally changed. This is part of what he said:
“I could become a millionaire, or I could become famous, but nothing greater could happen to me than to have the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and know that I have the opportunity to live with my Heavenly Father and my family forever.”
Then I understood fully how 18 months spent on a mission could do more good than 50 years as a doctor. After the closing prayer my little sister came up to me, gave me a big hug, and said, “Missionary work is worth it, isn’t it?” A tear rolled down my cheek as I nodded. Then I said, “Let’s find the bishop. I have something to tell him.”