Gospel Story Finder

While attending a boarding school, I lived in a hostel with other students. I tried my best to live the principles of the gospel by praying and studying the scriptures often.
One day a classmate noticed me studying the Book of Mormon on my bed. She began to angrily list all the ways she thought that my church was false. She then told everyone else in the hostel about my “strange” beliefs. Some classmates began to mock me and my religion; others just avoided me. I finally hid my Book of Mormon under a box of my clothes and studied only the Bible so my classmates would stop taunting me.
I went on studying the Bible until I came across Romans 1:16, which proclaims: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” I realized that by hiding the Book of Mormon, I was showing my classmates that I was ashamed of my beliefs. I retrieved my Book of Mormon and asked Heavenly Father for forgiveness. Then I went to my peers and bore my testimony of the restored gospel. Most of them stopped insulting me and became my friends again.
I know that God understands the trials we pass through. When we stand up for our beliefs and show that we are “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” He will provide us with His power, protection, and direction.
Pamela O., Abuja, Nigeria

We moved into the Ogden Fourth Ward in the fall of 1937. As a home teacher (then called a ward teacher), I was assigned an old home that had been converted into ten apartments.
One December evening, while making the ward teaching visits, I noticed a trailer house south of the apartments. Not sure it was included in any ward teaching district, I wondered if the occupants of the trailer had been visited. I decided there was only one way to find out.
A blue-eyed, blonde woman answered my knock and explained that the family was not Latter-day Saint. She said they had recently moved from Kansas. I took a few minutes more to quickly explain the program of ward teaching.
Her reception was so kind that I briefly related the story of Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. I suggested that she might like to read the book if she had a copy.
“Yes, I think I would,” she replied.
At first I intended just to loan her the book. But when I was home and took a copy from the shelf, I decided to make the book a gift to the woman, Maxine Protzman, and her husband, Paul. I wrote on the inside cover a few words of encouragement to study the book. Then I carried the book to the Protzmans’ home.
Church assignments soon took me elsewhere. Years went by. The incident faded from my mind.
Fifteen years elapsed before I was reminded of it again. My wife and I were attending our dancing club when during intermission, I noticed a blonde woman looking steadfastly at my wife. Finally, the woman spoke. “You don’t know me, do you? “she asked. My wife responded, “No, I’m sure I don’t.”
“Well, I know your husband,” the woman said. “He’s the one who is responsible for first bringing me the gospel.”
I broke in, “I’m sure you’re wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever met. …”
“Isn’t your name Morrell Clark?” she asked. With astonishment I replied, “Yes, it is.”
She continued: “Every time I see that Book of Mormon, I see your name in it, and your reference to the promise it makes to those who read it with a sincere heart.”
I began to remember the trailer, ward teaching, and the Protzmans. They had read the Book of Mormon I left, and had begun attending ward meetings. Stake missionaries taught them about the gospel, and the family joined the Church. Later they moved to North Ogden, where they built a home and became strong, active members in their ward.
What started that change in their lives was simply a few extra steps. That spiritual prompting that brought me to their door and that testified to them of the Book of Mormon brought them into the Church.

For most of his early life, the only sports Stanley Moleni played were rugby and basketball. But before his junior year of high school, after his family had moved from New Zealand to Hawaii, Stanley discovered football. “I fell in love with it,” he says. It didn’t hurt that he was naturally good at it too.

Coaches were impressed with his size. Stanley is six-feet-two inches tall, and at the time he was a lean 200 pounds.

“I was still learning, but by my senior year I started catching on and the coaches stuck me at outside linebacker. I was still only 205 pounds, and I was missing a lot of plays. I really didn’t know how to play the game that well,” he says.

That didn’t stop college coaches from showing interest in him—especially after he bulked up to 250 pounds. The sport he’d taken up for fun was suddenly his ticket to college. After a lot of thought, he signed a letter of intent to play football for BYU. But instead of enrolling in school immediately after high school graduation in 1994, Stanley moved to Utah and worked to save money for a mission.

“My whole life I was planning on a mission,” says Stanley, now known as Elder Moleni as he serves in the California Ventura Mission. “There was nothing that was going to stop me from coming on a mission.”

And that included the glamour of playing big-time college football.

Says Elder Moleni, “One of our investigators said that he really admired us because he knew we really believed in what we were teaching. When he said he admired me for coming on a mission and leaving my scholarship behind, it felt really good.”

And now just three months short of the completion of his mission, Elder Moleni is concentrating on the work at hand. Soon enough, he’ll be a college student and an outside linebacker.

“I’ll be behind physically. I know that,” he says about football. “But I see a parallel between my not knowing how to play football and missionary work. Through hard work and sacrifice I became better at football. And through hard work and faith in the Lord, I’ve had a successful mission.”

Many children, and some adults, may for personal reasons find a 24-hour fast difficult. It can be, in the words of Isaiah, felt that the fast has “afflicted [their] soul.” Wise parents recognize that possibility and so are careful to follow the counsel of President Joseph F. Smith: “Better to teach them the principle, and let them observe it when they are old enough to choose intelligently.”12
I saw the blessing in that counsel recently. One of my grandsons had found a 24-hour fast beyond his powers of endurance. But his wise parents still placed the principle in his heart. One of his school friends recently lost a young cousin to accidental death. My grandson asked his mother on fast day, at about the time he had always felt the fast was too hard to continue, whether it would make his grieving friend feel better if he continued his fast.
His question was the confirmation of President Joseph F. Smith’s counsel. My grandson had come to the point where he not only understood the principle of the fast, but it had also been planted in his heart. He had come to feel that his fasting and prayers would lead to a blessing from God for someone in need. If he lives the principle often enough, it will bring the wonderful effects in his own life, as promised by the Lord. He will have the spiritual blessing of power to receive inspiration and greater capacity to resist temptation.

Because of President Monson’s example of service, our family was inspired to get a small puppy. We will raise her until she’s ready to be trained. After she’s trained, someday she will help someone with a disability have an easier life.

I was reared in a home in which the children were taught great love and respect for the General Authorities of the Church. I remember as I was learning the names of the members of the Council of the Twelve as a Primary graduation requirement, my father spent time and patience to teach me about the lives of each, as well as the required memory work.
To this day, I think you can ask me at any time to recite the names of those great men from Rudger Clawson to Charles A. Callis; and I can repeat them rapidly and remember events in their lives.

I am very happy to be baptized in the true Church of Jesus Christ. I know the Book of Mormon is true, and I love to read it every day. It makes me a more responsible older brother to my siblings.

Many years ago, on a waiting shed along EDSA, 11-year-old Cynthia Timario and her siblings helped their father earn a living selling candies and newspapers. “We were very poor,” she ecalls, “and we all had to help for us to survive and support our daily school expenses.”
During her elementary school graduation, instead of celebrating, Cynthia’s father announced very sad news: “He told me that he could not afford to send me to high school anymore, because there was no money and if ever he would have some, I would not be a priority because I had brothers that he also had to send to school.”
Instead of resigning herself to her lot, the young girl resolved to find ways to achieve her goal to continue her schooling. “I did not know how to do it,” Cynthia remembers, “but I promised myself that I would send myself to school no matter what it takes.”
Cynthia enrolled in high school and found ways to support herself. Opportunities arose even as a student, and she found employment as a factory worker, which helped her enter Far Eastern University (FEU) in Manila. Although she found a better-paying job as an office worker, high tuition fees forced Cynthia to transfer to Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) where she was able to graduate.
After graduation, Cynthia embarked on another goal along her personal EDSA: she had discovered the gospel of Jesus Christ and chose to follow the road to eternal life by being baptized. From a little girl on a waiting shed, this woman pursued the highway to happiness—and it all started by setting goals.
“Heavenly Father wants us to progress because He wants us to succeed,” Cynthia Timario- Pelobello shares. “He gives you guidance from the Holy Ghost, the scriptures, and living prophets…You will learn from your experiences, especially when you rely on Jesus Christ and His Atonement. We are on earth to progress, to be tested, to grow, and to rely on the Savior.”
The gospel of Jesus Christ provided the further guidance and direction Cynthia needed in her life. For Filipino Latter-day Saints today, the Philippines Area Presidency recently launched the 2021 Area Plan which aims to provide guidance and direction to Church units, families, and individuals in setting worthwhile goals.

When the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, was being built, President Brigham Young wanted an organ built for it that was just as special as the Tabernacle itself. He asked Joseph Ridges for a plan. When he saw what Brother Ridges wanted to build, he was stunned. “Can we do this thing?” he wondered. Then he declared, “Yes, we can! … Go ahead with this, Brother Ridges.”*

On April 18, 2006, the First Presidency announced the construction of the Cebu City Philippines Temple. Upon hearing the news, many Church members shed tears of joy. “We are blessed because the Lord had chosen Cebu City to be the site of the next temple,” said Cesar Perez Jr., director of the Cebu City Institute of Religion.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies. Our Church leaders today have often counseled us to do the same when we harbor ill feelings. While growing up, I used to think this was an old cliché used because no one could think up a better answer. There came a time in my life, though, when the only thing I could do was pray for those I so despised. I learned the wisdom in that counsel from an experience with prayer and forgiveness that changed my life.
It started when I entered the Young Women program in our small ward. I had always had fairly healthy self-esteem, mostly a result of accomplishing my goals. Involved in many activities, I always tried to do the best I could in each area. I was excited about being in Young Women, and I began trying to develop a relationship with the four girls I would be in constant association with. My excitement soon turned to bitterness as these four girls became one of the biggest trials in my life.
Being jealous of my accomplishments, they started doing anything they could to bring me down. At first it was just cutting remarks behind my back. Then they would band together and make fun of me in Sunday School. One day in Young Women class I sat next to one of the girls, and she stood up and moved across the room. Whenever I suggested an activity or was in charge, they failed to show up or carry through with their responsibilities.
I tried hard to uphold my standards, and was sometimes recognized for doing so. This did not improve my social standing with them. Everyone’s favorite section of the school newspaper was the song dedications. One week I was horrified to read that these girls had dedicated “Goody Two Shoes” to me. I felt this was an attempt to embarrass me in front of the whole school.
A person can endure this sort of treatment for a few months, or even a couple of years, but it went on for four years at an age when it is very important to feel a sense of belonging. I felt I was a failure because I had no friends. It was a terribly lonely time.
When I was 16, our family moved. I thought all my problems would be solved, but they were just beginning. In a new environment, I felt like a social worm. With little confidence left, I believed no one could ever like me. I hated the girls back in my hometown for making me feel this way. How could I “start over” with my past haunting me?
Feeling horribly alone, unloved, and bitter, I questioned what I should do. There was that old cliché, “Pray for your enemies.”
Pray for the girls who have destroyed my self-esteem, my social life, and hope? Be real, I thought.
But I felt the Spirit nudging me to pray.
I knew I had to forgive if I was ever going to progress and regain my confidence. I knelt and said my usual prayer. Then I stopped. I couldn’t pray for them. I just couldn’t. I stayed on my knees for about a half hour weeping. Praying for strength, I then said, “Dear Father, please bless Kathy, Ann, Sherri, and Julie.” That’s all I said. I didn’t feel any different, and it was the hardest prayer I had ever offered. The next night I said the same thing.
After a few months of praying every night for them, an amazing thing started to happen. The words came more easily, and I started feeling better about myself. Soon I prayed specific things for each girl: “Bless Ann to do well in her dance lessons. Bless Julie to get along with her parents. Bless Kathy to have the courage to stand up for the right, and bless Sherri with the strength to accomplish her goals.”
After an entire year of praying, the thing that I thought impossible happened. I loved them, and the bitterness and bad memories were erased. We have now become good friends.
It has been three years since that move and prayer, yet I still take time out in my prayers to remember them. The night I decided to pray and forgive them was probably the most important decision I ever made. You see, I could have spent my whole life being angry and hurt. In the end, I would have only destroyed myself.
Through those prayers I was able to improve my self-esteem. I learned faith, the power of prayer, and the truthfulness of the scriptures. I have been blessed with many friends who love me. I have not carried around a guilty, heavy conscience. It has become a habit for me to fall to my knees and pray for anyone who offends me. I have learned the sweetness of forgiveness.

In 1988 I was struggling in my business. After I consulted with my stake president, my wife and I decided to sell the business and find other work. I followed numerous leads in pursuit of employment, but each one left my wife and me frustrated, heartbroken, and without a steady income.
After a year our funds were running low, and I felt weighed down by a burden that seemed unbearable. We had a son on a mission and six more children at home, and I felt that I was failing them.
One day while feeling this burden, I realized that I had been repeating a tune in my mind for several days. I soon realized that it was a hymn, and the Spirit comforted me as I recalled the lyrics:
Be thou humble in thy weakness, and the Lord thy God shall lead thee,
Shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answer to thy prayers.
(“Be Thou Humble,” Hymns, no. 130)
Instantly my burden seemed lifted, and I realized that Heavenly Father knew my situation. Although we struggled financially for several years, I felt comfort knowing that He would guide our decisions if we sought to do His will.
We moved to a new town and eventually acquired a new business. With the help of others, our family was able to buy a home and make the business successful.
Even though that financial challenge is now gone, I continue trying to listen when hymns come to mind. I have learned that Heavenly Father often answers my prayers through sacred music.
Warren C. Wassom, Idaho, USA

“Congratulations, Marcus,” Mom said on the way to the car. “You pitched a great game!”
“Last April, when you pitched your first game,” Dad asked as we started home, “did you think you’d be pitching in the regional finals?”
“I guess I dreamed about it some,” I answered honestly, “but I really thought that Gary and the Pirates would end up going again.”
Dad, Mom, and I relived the game, especially that last inning with a guy on third, one on first, and Gary up to bat. The Pirates were down by two runs, but Gary had already hit one homer that day, and everybody on the Pirate bench was counting on him to hit a second one. That would have put them up by one and sent them to the regional games. But Gary struck out. Then Willie popped up, and I snagged the ball to end the game.
“Oh, before I forget, Marcus,” Mom told me, “Sister Anderson called this afternoon and wants you to give a talk in Primary a week from Sunday.”
Talking in Primary wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but this time I knew immediately what to talk about. “I think I’ll talk about Little League.”
Mom turned around to look at me, and Dad glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “This is Primary, you know,” Mom pointed out, “not another baseball game.”
I grinned. “I know, Mom. I’m not going to talk about the game of baseball.” I explained, “You see, Heavenly Father has really helped me this season. Even though I’m the only Church member on the team and it hasn’t been easy, I’ve tried hard to do what’s right, and He’s helped me.” I went on quietly, “I could feel Him helping me out there this afternoon. I wasn’t nervous, even when Gary came to the plate. I said a little prayer, asking the Lord to help me do my best. Even before I threw that first pitch, I knew everything was going to be all right. That’s what I want to talk about in Primary—how the Lord can bless us when we work hard and choose the right.”

Not long ago, I visited a small branch of the Church in Chiapas, Mexico. The people there speak Tzotzil, which is an ancient Mayan language. I visited the home of a counselor in the branch presidency. His home was a small hut made of rough-sawed pine that was held together by log poles made from eucalyptus trees. The family slept on mats on the dirt floor. The only furniture was a small table and tiny chairs—the size that would be used in a Primary nursery. The women cooked the meals outside. I was most impressed to see hanging on the wall a picture of the Mexico City Mexico Temple and a temple sealing certificate, both beautifully framed.
I also visited the small school that the children of the branch attended. Those children had no TV, no computers, no video games. They ate mostly corn, beans, and rice. But they had the most important thing—loving parents who were sealed in the temple and who were teaching them to follow the prophet.

My call gives ample evidence to the truthfulness of the Lord’s statement early in this dispensation: “That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world.”1 I am one of those weak and simple. Decades ago, when I was called to be the bishop of a ward in the eastern United States, my brother, slightly older and much wiser than I, called me on the phone. He said, “You need to know that the Lord hasn’t called you because of anything you have done. In your case, it is probably in spite of what you have done. The Lord has called you for what He needs to do through you, and that will happen only if you do it His way.” I recognize that this wisdom from an older brother applies even more today.

The Christmas Teddy Bear Usually we hear stories about a little boy or girl getting lost in the snow. But when Grandpa went to town and got a teddy bear for Ellen, the snowstorm was so bad that he got lost on the way home. Ellen helped with rescue efforts, and Grandpa was found just in time!Ivan Gantschev5–8 years

May I share with you an example of Brother Clayton M. Christensen, a member of the Church who is a professor at Harvard University.

When he was 16 years old, Brother Christensen decided that he would not play sports on Sunday. Years later, when he attended Oxford University in England, he played center on the basketball team. That year they had an undefeated season and went to the championship tournament.

They won their games fairly easily in the tournament, making it to the finals. Then Brother Christensen looked at the schedule and saw that the final game was on a Sunday. He went to his coach with his dilemma. His coach told Brother Christensen he expected him to play in the game.

Brother Christensen went to his hotel room. He knelt down. He asked his Heavenly Father if it would be all right, just this once, if he played that game on Sunday. He said that before he had finished praying, he received the answer: “Clayton, what are you even asking me for? You know the answer.”

He went to his coach, telling him how sorry he was that he wouldn’t be playing in the final game. Then he went to his Sunday meetings.

Brother Christensen learned that it is easier to keep the commandments 100 percent of the time than it is 98 percent of the time.

Tanna Island, in the Tafea Province of Vanuatu, is a 45-minute flight—or a very long boat ride—to Efate Island, where the mission office for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located.
During the global pandemic, travel to Vanuatu was severely restricted, making it difficult for the Church in the area to send out or receive missionaries. Eventually, Tanna Island had no full-time missionaries and missionary work was forced to slow down.
In early 2022, as life began returning to normal, Vanuatu’s mission president, Mark Messick, was delighted to receive a request from Tanna’s district president: “Send missionaries as soon as possible!”
President Messick learned that while Tanna was without full-time missionaries, local members of the Church and returned missionaries on the island continued to teach the gospel to their friends and neighbours, and they had around 85 candidates ready to be interviewed and baptised. President Messick immediately arranged to send his assistants to Tanna.
The plan was postponed because Tanna’s live volcano started rumbling. Then, a small cyclone hit the island, causing widespread damage—further solidifying Vanuatu’s status as number one on the World Risk Index for the likelihood of natural disasters. Just as Tanna began to recover from the cyclone, a sudden outbreak of COVID-19 shut all of Vanuatu down, and once again, travel was restricted.
It wasn’t until the middle of August that President Messick was finally able to send his APs to Tanna to interview the baptismal candidates and prepare them to join the Church. By then, President Messick was worried that the long wait had deterred some of them, that their interest might have waned.
But when Elder Silas Toa and Elder Brian Moses Nalin arrived—armed with a stack of paperwork for the baptismal interviews—they found the opposite to be true. Not only were all 85 still eager to join the Church, but their numbers had increased by 29. Now, 114 candidates were faithfully waiting to be interviewed and baptised. The elders embarked on their tour of all eight of the Church’s branches in Tanna.

Thank you for the article “Five Easy Ways to Make School Hard and Five Hard Ways to Make School Easy” in the April 2009 issue. It helped me through the tough days at school. I carry around a copy of the issue in my school bag and when I think that a topic is getting too hard, I pull it out and reread it. I also enjoy the music printed in the magazine because now I can play Church music that isn’t in the hymnbook and that also relates to the youth as well as to older people.
Kimberley T., New Zealand

Tracy sat very still. She was almost five, but it was very hard to sit quietly. Today was supposed to have been a special day. Tracy and her mother had planned to go to the zoo! They had been all ready to go when the phone rang. Mother had answered and had listened for a long time before she finally said good-bye. She was crying when she turned to Tracy and said, “Honey, I need to talk to you.”
Now Tracy and Mother were visiting Sister Abbot, and Sister Abbot was crying. Tracy’s mother said, “Sister Abbot, I know how hard it must be for you. I’ll be happy to listen if you want to talk, or to help in any other way that I can.”
Sister Abbot put her arm around her three-year-old son, Jimmy, and cried harder. She hardly seemed to have heard Tracy’s mother.
Tracy watched, feeling uncomfortable. She knew that her mother was a visiting teacher and that Sister Abbot was one of the women whom she visited each month. Earlier Mother had told Tracy that Jimmy’s brother, Alan, had died that morning. Tracy knew about dying. Her cousin, Marnie, had been hit by a car last year, and she had died two weeks later. Tracy had cried and cried. Mother had told her that this life was only part of Heavenly Father’s wonderful plan. Tracy remembered that she had wanted to be with Marnie again right then, but her mother had explained that we all have to wait until the right time.
As Tracy thought about this, Sister Abbot said, “Why would God want to punish me so? First my husband, now my son.” She began to cry even harder.
Then Tracy spoke. At first no one heard her, so she spoke a little louder. “He loves me,” she said.
“What?” Sister Abbot asked, between sobs.
“He loves me,” Tracy repeated, looking at Sister Abbot.
“Who loves you, child?” Sister Abbot said, looking confused.
“Heavenly Father,” Tracy replied.
Sister Abbot looked puzzled, so Tracy tried to explain. “My cousin Marnie died last year, and Mommy told me that death isn’t forever. Heavenly Father loves me, so He let Jesus die so that we could all live again and be with Him.”
Sister Abbot still looked puzzled, so Tracy tried again. “He must love me very much to let His Son die so that we can all be together.”
Tracy looked at her mother. Her mother smiled at her with tears in her eyes. Sister Abbot had stopped crying and seemed more calm. She hugged Tracy and her mother before they went home.
The next Sunday, in testimony meeting, Sister Abbot went up to the pulpit and told everybody how grateful she was for a visit from a little girl who knew that her Heavenly Father loved her.