Gospel Story Finder

Ricardo O., age 3, from Mexico, likes to serve. Each Saturday, along with his little sister, Olea, he helps his parents sweep the building where his branch meets for sacrament meeting. He serves with a smile—not only at church but also at home.

President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) announced plans to build the Rome Italy Temple on October 4, 2008.
President Monson dedicated the site and broke ground for the temple on October 23, 2010. The groundbreaking was attended by the vice mayor of Rome.

When I was Relief Society president for the Luton Ward, I encouraged the ward to collect clothes and other goods for asylum seekers and refugees. I took the goods to the county of Hertfordshire and gave them to refugees there. I started feeling a bit guilty about this, because I was taking donations from ward members into a different county when I knew that Luton itself had a massive population of refugees and asylum seekers that needed help.
I decided to find out who was working with asylum seekers and refugees in Luton so we could give them the goods the ward collected. I attended a National Churches Together meeting and asked. They told me that Care4Calais and another church or two, were helping. I contacted Care4Calais and I also found out how to apply to Churches Together in Luton. A week or so later, I heard back from Churches Together and they told me my application was rejected. I felt so upset. All I wanted to do was help whoever was helping asylum seekers and refugees. So, I phoned the director of Churches Together in Luton and explained to her how shocked and saddened I was. She relented and gave me the number of the Reverend of All Saints and St. Peter’s Church, the main church in Luton helping and supporting the large population of asylum seekers there.

When Newel Knight informed his wife, Lydia, that the Saints would have to leave, she responded with great faith, saying, “Well, there’s nothing to discuss. Our place is with the Kingdom of God. Let us at once set about making preparations to leave.”
Lydia Knight’s devoted submission to what she knew was God’s will typifies powerfully the faith of those heroic early Saints.

I attended a church class in which the instructor asked what counsel we would give our children in the closing moments of life. I answered: “First, keep your covenants. God keeps His. It will mean much to stand before your Father in Heaven and report: ‘I am home. I am clean. I have done all I covenanted to do.’”

Second, seek the Spirit of God. The scriptures plead: “Quench not the Spirit.” “Grieve not the … Spirit.” It will not come to impure hearts or minds. It comes quietly and without drama. A listening ear can hear the faint rustle of a wing. If we do not listen, it will leave.

When they moved to Palmyra, New York, in 1816, they had been tried in every possible way. Two of their 10 children had died. They had been impoverished by a national economic downturn and a dishonest business associate. Poor weather had caused crop failures three seasons in a row. Lucy came near death from the consumption that had killed her two sisters. A typhus epidemic attacked all of Joseph and Lucy’s children. Little Sophronia’s life was spared only after her parents poured out their hearts on their knees by her bedside with “grief and supplication.” And young Joseph, age seven or eight, suffered a bone marrow infection—a complication that required almost-crippling surgery. The family’s good reputation had also suffered along with their fortunes, and they were “warned out” of the Vermont village where they lived so that the town would not be required to provide assistance.

My great-grandfather was a Pawnee Indian born in the mid-1800s in present-day Nebraska, USA. He was the first to carry the name Echo Hawk. Among the Pawnee, the hawk is a symbol of bravery. As the elders of the tribe watched my great-grandfather, they saw many deeds of bravery. They also noticed that he was quiet and reserved and did not speak about the courageous things he had done. The elders also heard about his brave deeds from others.
Elder Echo Hawk’s great-grandfather
“It is like an echo,” they said. “We will call him Echo Hawk because he is like the hawk whose deeds are echoed.”
As the elders of the tribe watched my great-grandfather, they saw many deeds of bravery. … [Yet] he was quiet and … did not speak About the … things he had done.

Max rocked back and forth in his chair. His favorite part of Primary was about to start.
“Welcome to singing time,” Sister Rose said. The piano started to play. Max sang along.
Max loved singing time. But his family wasn’t really like the happy families he sang about in Primary. Things were hard at home.
That’s why Max liked Primary so much. He always felt loved and safe when he was there. He felt peace in Primary.
“For our next song, I have a special challenge for you,” said Sister Rose. “As we sing, I want you to think about what it will be like when you are grown up and have a family of your own.”
The piano music started again. The notes were soft and peaceful. Max looked around the room. He could see pictures of Jesus and the temple hanging on the wall.
The other children began to sing. Max started singing too. Mine is a home where every hour is blessed by the strength of priesthood power.
Max closed his eyes and imagined being a dad. He thought of praying with his future family. He imagined singing songs with them, playing games together, and having home evening.
As he sang the last words, Max had a big smile on his face. I can often feel the Savior near when love is spoken here.
Someday Max could have a family like that. Someday he could have a home where he felt peaceful like he did in Primary. Thinking about it made Max feel warm all over.
He raised his hand. “Sister Rose,” Max said, “I think that song is kind of like a recipe. A recipe for a happy family.”
“You’re right,” Sister Rose said. “No family is perfect. But when we try to be like Jesus, we can help our families. We can help make our homes peaceful places.”
Max looked at the picture of the temple on the wall. He knew he could help his family now by being like Jesus. And even though it was far away, he was excited to have his own family. And it made him happy to know that he could be with them forever.
After his mission, Max got married in the temple. Now he always does his best to make his home a place where people can feel loved.

Recently I was reading the journal of my great-grandfather, Nathaniel Hodges, who was called on a mission to England in 1883. He told of coming to Salt Lake City to be set apart for his mission and attending conference while he was there. Listen to his description of that conference: “Went to meetings in large Tabernacle all day. There were splendid instructions given. The remarks of Joseph F Smith and George Q Cannon and President John Taylor were particularly powerful. I heard some of the oldest inhabitants say they never attended a more powerful and Spiritual Conference.”

Ha Phuoc Thach and his wife, Nguyen Thi Hong, are Vietnamese converts of nearly three years. In 1990 all three of their teenage children were lost at sea in a boat filled with Vietnamese refugees. Despite—or perhaps because of—this tragedy, the couple embraced the gospel when they heard it. Speaking about their baptism, Ha Phuoc Thach says: “Our lives changed. It was a spiritual change.” His wife adds, “I want everyone to pray, because God does answer prayers.” He serves as a counselor in the branch presidency of the Vietnamese-speaking branch. His wife is the Relief Society president. When asked why with all they have suffered they are always smiling, the couple respond, “Because now we are happy.”

Describing the experience that began his transformation, he speaks softly, with a mixture of reverence and certitude. “I was confronted with death,” he explains. In fact, he was so ill with a liver ailment that the doctors had turned off life support systems and his family could hardly bear to visit him and see him suffer.
On the day that everyone expected that he would surely die, he lay alone, in great pain, close to the other world. Unexpectedly, he was confronted with experiences he now calls “spiritual manifestations.” He saw himself as if from outside his own body: a man in his sins—cynical, unaware, ungrateful, and uncommitted. He felt unclean and unprepared to enter the next world. “I became painfully aware that I could not enter the next world without someone to speak for me, help me, and cleanse me. I sensed the need for a Redeemer.”
He struggled with this feeling for several days, feeling a fervent desire to start anew, to be clean, to have an opportunity to live differently. Then he had a sacred experience that he finds impossible to describe adequately with words. A voice of unmistakable authority addressed him: “If you can pray now, you will recover.” Enzio Busche realized in shock that this was a voice from a real world, whose power and authority dwarfed all his previous mortal experiences. He felt that he was being asked to do more than merely recite the Lord’s Prayer, the only form of prayer he knew. In sober sincerity he was able to utter three words: Dein Wille geschehe (“Thy will be done”). In the twinkling of an eye, his dark and fearful feelings were replaced with a sudden rush of joy and peace. “I know now that I was experiencing what Alma the Younger described when his sins were forgiven,” he explains.
He also received an assurance that he would totally recover.
Lying in his hospital bed, Enzio Busche made three commitments which have motivated his actions ever since. First, he committed to live differently than he ever had, to live in a state of constant awareness of the power of the other real world. Second, he made a commitment to never deny the experience and to always testify of the power he had felt. Third, he committed himself to go to the ends of the earth, if necessary, to find the source of this power and to become a disciple of it.

Each Sunday in the Highland Utah 30th Ward, Richard Christiansen and his counselors in the Sunday School presidency go through a routine familiar in almost every unit of the Church. They make sure that each class has a teacher and help students get from the hallways to the classrooms.
However, Brother Christiansen has caught the vision that his responsibilities are not limited to herding students and ringing bells.
One of the primary roles of each quorum and auxiliary organization is to teach members gospel principles essential to their salvation. The role of a Sunday School presidency, such as Brother Christiansen and his counselors, is to assist auxiliary and priesthood leaders in this charge by acting as teacher training specialists within the ward.
As ward Sunday School president, Brother Christiansen has the responsibility to serve as a resource for parents, leaders, and teachers to help improve the instruction that occurs in the home and in the Church.
“Teaching is what it’s all about, and being effective as a teacher helps others be excited to learn,” Brother Christiansen said.

When President Russell M. Nelson invited us sisters to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year (“Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel,” Oct. 2018 general conference [Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2018, 69]), I decided to try. I finally finished reading the Book of Mormon (for the first time on my own!) at 11:55 p.m. on December 31. Then I asked Heavenly Father if it was true. I didn’t really feel anything different, but I shrugged it off.
As time went on, though, I started getting a bit worried about not receiving an answer. I thought that eventually, I’d feel a KABLAM, and I’d just know it was true—but I never got that mind-blowing feeling. I finally reasoned that I might as well read the Book of Mormon again and see what happens. So I went back to 1 Nephi and started over.
At that time, I was a captain on my robotics team. When I’d sit down to read my scriptures, I was often worrying about some aspect of our team. But as I read the Book of Mormon, I began to see how it applied to my problems, and I started to recognize a pattern of the Lord’s hand helping me. It was a huge faith-building experience. I really did know the Book of Mormon was true; I just hadn’t realized it before.
Now I’m reading the Book of Mormon again. As you read it, you can come to know it’s true as well.
Katy B., Rhode Island, USA

“This day,” one of the greatest missionaries of the Book of Mormon is President Russell M. Nelson. When he was a newly called Apostle, he gave a lecture in Accra, Ghana. In attendance were dignitaries, including an African tribal king, with whom he spoke through an interpreter. The king was a serious student of the Bible and loved the Lord. Following President Nelson’s remarks, he was approached by that king, who asked in perfect English, “Just who are you?” President Nelson explained that he was an ordained Apostle of Jesus Christ. The king’s next question was “What can you teach me about Jesus Christ?”
President Nelson reached for the Book of Mormon and opened it to 3 Nephi 11. Together President Nelson and the king read the Savior’s sermon to the Nephites: “Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world. … I am the light and the life of the world.”
President Nelson presented the king with that copy of the Book of Mormon, and the king responded, “You could have given me diamonds or rubies, but nothing is more precious to me than this additional knowledge about the Lord Jesus Christ.”

In 2011, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave approval for the first-ever British Pageant. During an audition for a role in the pageant, Matt P., 12, from Lincolnshire, England, met a man who had faith in these servants of the Lord. Because of his testimony of the Apostles, the man told Matt, “I know this pageant is the work of God.” The man then explained that because of that knowledge, he wanted members and nonmembers from South Wales to attend the pageant and learn more about the restored gospel, so he booked and paid for three buses to take them.
“At that time, five months before the pageant,” Matt explained, “no one knew how the pageant would turn out.” The cast was made up of people who aren’t professional actors, and it took a true leap of faith to believe that the cast could put together a professional production with just a few weeks of practice. However, the man Matt talked with knew that the messages of truth in the pageant would touch the audience’s hearts—and he wanted others to have a chance to attend.
“His faith, above all other spiritual experiences at the pageant, touched me the most,” said Matt. “I never learned his name, but if I could, I would like to tell him thank you.” It was a moment that showed how you can find many ways to help others receive messages of the gospel—messages of truth.

For an example of being concerned, lest something about us deter others from examining the gospel, he can marvel at the prospective missionary, facially flawed at birth, who willingly undergoes his ninth ordeal with plastic surgery so that others can hear the gospel from his lips, undistracted.

The stillness, feathered in the hush of trees,
Should have carried our voices on the mist
To where they swam, figurines on glass, and
Turned them to us; easy as you turned to me
When we first met. Instead they swam away.
Sometimes they come in shades of lilac gray
As dusky as a winter’s setting sun
To cross my lake in dreams. They bring a hush
From that cold lake where they once swam,
Where we loved once, and once I turned away.

Linda of California, USA, shared how a friend’s visits helped her: “I remember those special people in my life—especially those who really listened and conveyed the Spirit’s sweet counsel. After being widowed at 30 years old with five young children, I felt my Heavenly Father’s and Savior’s love more deeply because of my good friend Karen. She was always in tune and had her ‘listening ears’ on. I never felt alone as she consistently reminded me of the beautiful bond I have as a daughter of God.”

Orderville, Utah—One December evening some of the sisters of Orderville met to plan a Christmas treat for the children. The Order had no luxuries and the necessities were strictly rationed. About the only sweets the people had was molasses, so, the sisters decided to make molasses candy and cookies for the youngsters.
But on Christmas Eve, they came to “Grandmother Spencer,” wife of Howard Orson Spencer, bishop and leader in Orderville, with the news that the brother in charge of the molasses “won’t let us have any. He says our allowance for the month is already used.” Grandmother’s lips tightened. “The children are going to have something for Christmas. I’ll speak to my husband after dinner—he’ll give us permission.”
When her husband came in tired and hungry, Sister Spencer hovered over her husband and after dinner urged him to rest by the fire. As he sat looking drowsily into the flames, she said in a low voice, “You do think the children should have some candy and cookies for Christmas, don’t you Howard?” “Ummmhmmm,” was the sleepy response, and grandmother went away smiling. She reported to the ladies that everything was all right, “My husband has given us permission.” “Did he say we could have the molasses?” asked one doubting Thomas. “He didn’t say ‘No,’” replied Sister Spencer truthfully. “Now we won’t wake up the brother in charge of the molasses. We’ll just slip out and take what we need.”
The man in charge of the molasses barrel was very conscious of his responsibility. On the lid of the barrel he had placed a section of heavy logging chain and a large boulder. Only a thin wooden partition at the head of the bed separated him from the barrel outside, and he was a light sleeper. Shivering from the cold the women crunched through the snow toward the barrel. It was beginning to snow again and the night was very dark.
With infinite caution they removed the heavy chain without so much as one betraying clank. It took the combined efforts of all the women to lower the boulder noiselessly to the ground. There was a breathless pause as Sister Spencer raised the lid and dipped into the barrel with a saucepan. She emptied its contents into a bucket and dipped again, and again. “We have enough now,” whispered one of the women. “Let’s go back.” With the same caution the chain and boulder were replaced and the women filed back to the warm kitchen to make the Christmas goodies. But, there was a dismayed gasp when they looked into the pail. “Oh dear, we haven’t enough molasses. We’ll have to get some more.” “Oh no, Sister Spencer. It’s cold and dark. It’s too risky.” “Well, just the same, we must unless we want the children to be disappointed.”
There could only be one answer to such a statement and the little band of mothers went again to the molasses barrel. They returned safely and set to work. When morning came, every child in Orderville had two molasses cookies and one big slightly sticky lump of candy in his stocking. Santa Claus had not forgotten them. Grandfather insisted all his life that he could not remember ever having given the women permission to get the molasses.
Our Pioneer Heritage, 18 (1975): 160–61

Each night before I go to bed, I take out a small card and write a list of the things I need to do the next day in order of their priority.

When I arrive at the office in the morning, I check my card and put all my efforts into the first item on the list. When I accomplish that item, I move on to the second and so on. Some days, I finish every item on my list. On other days, some tasks are not completed. I don’t become discouraged, however, because I’m focusing my energies on the things that matter most.