Gospel Story Finder

Several years ago I received a letter from a woman who had emerged from a long period of Church inactivity. She was ever so anxious for her husband, who as yet was not a member of the Church, to share the joy she felt.

She wrote of a trip which she, her husband, and their three sons made from the family home to Grandmother’s home in Idaho. While driving through Salt Lake City, they were attracted by the message which appeared on a billboard. The message invited them to visit Temple Square. Bob, the nonmember husband, made the suggestion that a visit would be pleasant. The family entered the visitors’ center, and Father took two sons up a ramp that one called “the ramp to heaven.” Mother and three-year-old Tyler were a bit behind the others, they having paused to appreciate the beautiful paintings which adorned the walls. As they walked toward the magnificent sculpture of Thorvaldsen’s Christus, tiny Tyler bolted from his mother and ran to the base of the Christus, while exclaiming, “It’s Jesus! It’s Jesus!” As Mother attempted to restrain her son, Tyler looked back toward her and his father and said, “Don’t worry. He likes children.”

After departing the center and again making their way along the freeway toward Grandmother’s, Dad asked Tyler what he liked best about their adventure on Temple Square. Tyler smiled up at him and said, “Jesus.”

“How do you know that Jesus likes you, Tyler?”

Tyler, with a most serious expression on his face, looked up at his father’s eyes and answered, “Dad, didn’t you see His face?” Nothing else needed to be said.

As I read this account, I thought of the statement from the book of Isaiah, “And a little child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6).

At the Berlin Olympics in 1936, Hitler declared that Caucasians were a superior race. North America had 10 black athletes, who, much to Hitler’s chagrin, scored more points than any national team. Chief among them was Jesse Owens. At the opening ceremonies, Hitler refused to greet Owens and deliberately snubbed the black athletes. Owens simply shrugged and said, “I didn’t come over to shake hands with Hitler, anyway.” Owens then battled to win four gold medals. As he broke the world’s record for the running broad jump, the first to greet him was not a fellow team member but an exuberant German competing in the same event, Luz Long.
“I have never seen anything like this. You are the greatest of all!” Long exclaimed.
As Owens took Long’s hand in both of his and squeezed it, the crowd thundered approval. Then the two competitors wrapped their arms about one another and began to walk toward the track. The crowd—in spite of Hitler’s presence—went wild with joy and shouted for many minutes.

As a new General Authority, Elder Marion G. Romney (1897–1988) felt inadequate in fulfilling his important calling, so he sought advice from his friend Elder Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The counsel offered that day both surprised and motivated Elder Romney. Elder Lee said: “If you are to be successful as a General Authority, you will need to be inspired. You will need to receive revelation. I will give you one piece of advice: Go to bed early and get up early. If you do, your body and mind will become rested and then in the quiet of those early morning hours, you will receive more flashes of inspiration and insight than at any other time of the day.”
Years later, reflecting back on that experience, then-President Romney said: “From that day on, I put that counsel into practice, and I know it works. Whenever I have a serious problem, or some assignment of a creative nature with which I hope to receive the influence of the Spirit, I always receive more assistance in the early morning hours than at any other time of the day.”1

These area conferences are wonderful experiences. They’re something fairly new in the Church, as you know. Let’s go to Manchester, England, for just a glimpse. The ecstasy on the faces of the Saints as they saw the prophet was more to be felt than to be described. To see the tears coursing down their cheeks as they came in close proximity to him was wonderful. Let’s look into the mind of the prophet for a moment. On Saturday, we had two meetings going simultaneously, a meeting for adults in one building and one for youth in another. President Joseph Fielding Smith was to be the first speaker in the adult session and then, halfway through, at the rest song, was to move to the other meeting. At the time of the rest song, then, Arthur Haycock (the prophet’s secretary), a physician, and myself were accompanying the President between the two meetings. Halfway through the walk we were complimenting President Smith on how well we felt he had done and how he had impressed the Saints with his testimony. He stopped, got our attention, and said, “I haven’t come this far to fail.” You could just feel his whole body desiring to respond to the Spirit of the Lord and to reach out and touch those members that were there assembled.

From this point forward, I began to experience mixed emotions about becoming a member of the Church. I was concerned about my father’s opinion and his reaction to my decision.
During the sixth discussion, I received the message that I had an incoming call from my father. The phone rang. I picked it up, and it was indeed my dad.
He said, “Your mother informed me you’ve made a decision to join the Latter-day Saints.”
I said yes.
He said, “I’m here to prevent that from happening.”
And I said, “You know what, Dad? I love you and you’ll always be my dad. You’ve done a great job with me. But I’m 22. I’m a man now, and these decisions are for my family and my future. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me and will continue to do for me, but this is my decision. I’m going to do it, and I know the Lord wants me to do this.”
My dad wasn’t very happy when he hung up the phone. Immediately I got on my knees and asked the Lord to help me see and understand that what I was going to do was correct. I was thousands of kilometers from home. I was all alone, and nothing was going right. Only when I was with the missionaries did I feel good. At that moment the Spirit testified to me that it was the Lord’s will and that the Lord wanted me to be baptized. A very clear voice said, “You are to do the Lord’s will. You are to follow His example.” Then I knew. I never looked back after that. I was baptized on 12 October 1995.

Even though Corey was constantly busy with his academic studies and activities such as debate and drama, he made the choice to attend early morning seminary. He knew he would have to give up something, and that something was swimming. By then he knew he wanted to focus on academics, and that made dropping swimming much easier. Seminary, on the other hand, was too valuable. Corey says, “I’ve known all my life that I would take seminary. It is very helpful in understanding the scriptures. If you study the scriptures every day, you come to a better understanding of what they are all about.”

“Where did you get your name?” Elizabeth asked Jenny as they climbed to the fork in the branches of the old cherry tree and settled in to enjoy the spring sun shining through the leaves.
Jenny had never thought about where her name came from. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I guess from my mom and dad.”
“No—I mean, where did they get it from to give it to you?”
“Where did they get if from?” Jenny repeated, puzzled.
“Well, Mother said that they named me Elizabeth and hoped that I’d be as strong and courageous as my great-great-great- grandmother Elizabeth. She crossed the plains with a covered wagon, and she walked most of the way and never complained a bit.”
Jenny smiled, but something in the way Elizabeth talked about her grandmother Elizabeth made Jenny a little envious.
“And she got married when she was seventeen,” Elizabeth went on enthusiastically, “and she had nine children. Four of them died when they were little, but she kept on going. She made hats to earn money while her husband served a mission. I want to be just like her: strong and valiant and faithful and courageous and wonderful.”
“Is that all?” Jenny laughed good-naturedly.
“Are you sure you’re not named after one of your ancestors?” Elizabeth queried her friend. “Maybe a famous queen named Jennifer or something? We could have magnificent times pretending to be the women we’re named for.”
“Nope,” Jenny said a little sadly. “I’m not named after anyone. I’m just me.”
“Well, ask your mother. Maybe she’s just never told you.” Elizabeth made it sound as though you weren’t important if you weren’t named after someone else.
“I could pretend that I was named after someone,” Jenny said, wishing that she could change the subject.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” Elizabeth persisted. “Somehow when you’re named after a true blood relative, it makes all the difference in the world.” Elizabeth leaned closer and whispered, “It makes pretending seem almost real.”
Jenny smiled. Sometimes Elizabeth’s dramatic ways made Jenny feel as if they were on television or something, not just friends talking to each other.
“Jen—ny! Jen—ny!” her mother called from the back door. “Time for lunch.”
“I have to go now,” Jenny said, “but I’ll see you right after lunch.” She climbed down from the cherry tree and ran into the house.
Mother was at the sink, filling water glasses with one hand and holding Joey, who was crying, with the other. Jenny was still thinking about what Elizabeth had said. “Why did you name me Jenny?” she asked.
Mother looked up startled. “Because we liked the name. Don’t you?”
“Yes. But why Jenny and not Ann or Margaret or some other name?”
Joey cried louder and hit one of the glasses with his two-year-old fist, sending water spraying across the kitchen.
“Joey!” Mother cried and began wiping up the water while trying to calm Joey down.
Jenny took Joey from her mother and sat down. But she couldn’t quit thinking about her name. Why couldn’t I have been named after some fantastic, wonderful woman I could tell stories about? She hardly noticed her mother taking Joey for his nap or even the taste of her sandwich. Why don’t I have the name of someone I can dream about and try to be like?
“Is anybody in there?” Mother put her nose next to Jenny’s and peered into her eyes and laughed.
Jenny laughed too. “I was just thinking.”
“I could tell,” Mother said. “But what were you thinking so hard about?”
“My name. Why am I just Jenny and not Jenny named after some other Jenny?”
“What?” Mother looked even more puzzled, so Jenny started from the beginning and told her everything.
“I can see why Elizabeth likes being named after her great-great-great-grandmother. She must have been a wonderful woman. But you do have someone wonderful whom you can try to be just like.”
“I do?”
“We all do. Let me show you.” Mother got her scriptures, then sat by Jenny and opened them to section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants. “Read this,” she said, pointing to verse 77 [D&C 20:77].
Jenny quickly read it. “That’s the sacrament prayer on the bread,” she said.
“What does that have to do with me being named after someone wonderful?”
“Do you remember when you were baptized and Dad and I told you about the covenants that you were making?”
“Yes. You said that taking the sacrament each week was to remind us to keep those promises. But I still don’t understand. …”
“Read this part of the verse again,” Mother told her, “starting with the second ‘O God, the Eternal Father.’”
Jenny found the words, “‘… that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son’”—Jenny stopped and read it again—“‘that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son.’”
“When we take the sacrament,” Mother explained, “and have been baptized as members of His church, we promise the Lord that we are willing to take His name upon us and to be called by His name.”
A warm tickle spread up Jenny’s back. “I do have someone I am named after!”
“Yes, but it is a very sacred thing. It is not something to pretend about in the cherry tree. It is not something to even talk about lightly with friends. But it is something that you should think about every time you partake of the sacrament—and every time you make an important decision! You are a member of Christ’s church. You should be like Him and live worthy of His name.”
“Wow! That’s a lot to think about.”
“It’s the most wonderful name you could ever hope to be called by. So don’t worry about Jenny being just a name. You have another name to live up to.”

Some years ago my business partner and I needed to terminate an employee. After some discussions we reached a settlement to compensate him for his past services. I felt the settlement was more than fair, but, nonetheless, there were some strained relationships as a result of the negotiations. That night I felt a gloom come over me. I tried to dispel it by reasoning within myself that I had been fair, but the feeling would not leave. Then this impression came: “It’s not enough to be fair; you must also strive to be Christlike.” Adherence to the highest moral code is a hallmark of a man or a woman of integrity.

How do we prepare our children to make and keep sacred covenants as they enter and progress along the covenant path? Teaching children to keep simple promises when they are young will empower them to keep holy covenants later in life.

Let me share a simple example: In family home evening, a father asked, “How are we getting along as a family?” Five-year-old Lizzie complained that her big brother, Kevin, was teasing her too much and hurting her feelings. Kevin reluctantly admitted that Lizzie was right. Kevin’s mother asked him what he could do to get along better with his sister. Kevin thought and decided he would promise Lizzie that he would go one whole day without teasing her.

At the end of the next day as everyone gathered for family prayer, Kevin’s dad asked Kevin how he had done. Kevin’s response was “Dad, I kept my promise!” Lizzie happily agreed, and the family congratulated Kevin.

Kevin’s mother then suggested that if he could keep his promise for one day, why couldn’t he do it for two days? Kevin agreed to try it again. Two days passed, Kevin was successful in keeping his promise, and Lizzie was even more thankful! When his father asked why he was keeping his promises so well, Kevin said, “I kept my promise because I said I would.”

A succession of small, successfully kept promises leads to integrity. The consistent practice of promise keeping is spiritual preparation for children to receive their first covenant of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, wherein they covenant to serve God and keep His commandments.15 Promises and covenants are inseparable.

The play revolved around the struggles in the lives of the three oldest children in a large LDS family. The oldest daughter had to decide whether to marry a young man who could not marry her in the temple; the nearly nineteen-year-old son had to decide between a football scholarship and a mission; and the sixteen-year-old daughter faced the choice of maintaining her standards or joining with her peers in a more wild way of life. By the end of the play, because of sincere personal efforts and help from family members and leaders, all three had reached the right decisions.

My years at Ricks College, during which I tried to seek God’s will and do it, kept the pavilion from covering me or obscuring God’s active role in my life. As I sought to do His work, I felt close to Him and felt assurance that He knew of my affairs and cared deeply for my happiness. But as they had at Stanford, worldly motivations began to present themselves to me. One was an attractive job offer, extended just as I was finishing my fifth year as president of Ricks College. I considered the offer and prayed about it and even discussed it with the First Presidency. They responded with warmth and a little humor but certainly not with any direction. President Spencer W. Kimball listened to me describe the offer I had received from a large corporation and said: “Well, Hal, that sounds like a wonderful opportunity! And if we ever needed you, we’d know where to find you.” They would have known where to find me, but my desires for professional success might have created a pavilion that would make it hard for me to find God and harder for me to listen to and follow His invitations.
My wife, sensing this, had a strong impression that we were not to leave Ricks College. I said, “That’s good enough for me.” But she insisted, wisely, that I must get my own revelation. And so I prayed again. This time I did receive direction, in the form of a voice in my mind that said, “I’ll let you stay at Ricks College a little longer.” My personal ambitions might have clouded my view of reality and made it hard for me to receive revelation.
Thirty days after I was blessed with the inspired decision to turn down the job offer and stay at Ricks College, the Teton Dam burst nearby. God knew that dam would burst and that hundreds of people would need help. He let me seek counsel and gain His permission to stay at Ricks College. He knew all the reasons that my service might still be valuable at the college and in Rexburg. So I was there to ask Heavenly Father frequently in prayer that He would have me do those things that would help the people whose property and lives had been damaged. I spent hours working with other people to clear mud and water from homes. My desire to know and do His will gave me a soul-stretching opportunity.
That incident illustrates another way we can create a barrier to knowing God’s will or feeling His love for us: we can’t insist on our timetable when the Lord has His own. I thought I had spent enough time in my service in Rexburg and was in a hurry to move on. Sometimes our insistence on acting according to our own timetable can obscure His will for us.

I needed that confirmation when I was first called to serve as Young Women president for the Church. It came in a way I didn’t anticipate. I felt terrified and inadequate, lying awake at night worrying, repenting, and crying. After several nights of this I had a very moving experience. I started thinking about my Young Women nieces, then about the Young Women in my neighborhood and ward, then about the Young Women I saw regularly at the high school, and then I envisioned young women throughout the world, over a half a million of them. The most wonderfully warm feeling began to envelop me and surge through me. I felt such exquisite love for them, each one of them, and I knew that what I was feeling was our Heavenly Father’s love for them, for each of them – and for me. It was powerful and all-encompassing. For the first time I felt peace, because I knew that what Heavenly Father wanted me to do, I could do. He wanted me to witness to share with young women everywhere of His great love for them.
I know that when Heavenly Father gives us assignments to work with His children, he endows us with love for them, his perfect, powerful love. I testify that He loves His children, each of us. He has a plan for us, and He will ever be there to lead us and love us.

A young Nauvoo widow with several children, Sister Ellen Douglas, gives a glimpse of the early Relief Society ministrations in a letter dated April 14, 1844, to her parents in England:
“I was taken very ill. … Sometimes I thot I should die and then I thot of my poor children. I prayed for their sakes that I might live. I didn’t pray alone, but many of my brothers and sisters prayed likewise and our prayers were answered.” (Kate B. Carter, comp., Our Pioneer Heritage, Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1960, 3:159.)
After Sister Douglas began to recover, she visited a friend who suggested she “make application to the female Relief Society for some clothing which I needed for myself and family. … I [reluctantly] agreed and we went to one of the sisters [of the Society]. … I told her … while I was sick my children wore out their clothes because I could not mend them, so she said she would do the best she could for me. … In a few days … they brought a wagon and fetched me such a present as I never received before from no place in the world.” (Ibid.)

As I began talking to you tonight, I was remembering the family I grew up in. In closing, let me tell you something else I remember about that family. When I was only nine years old, our one-day-old baby brother died. We were so sad and disappointed and crying so hard. And do you know what our father did? He gathered us together, and we knelt in family prayer. He thanked Heavenly Father for this little baby that we’d had such a short time, and then he asked the Lord to bless this little baby, David, who was now in heaven. Daddy asked Heavenly Father to bless our mom, who was very sick. Mother regained her health, and we’ve all tried to live so that we can be reunited as a family with David one day. I always pray for David. He will always be my brother. We are an eternal family because our parents were married in the temple. You can give your children that same gift, the blessing of belonging to an eternal family. It is the most priceless gift you could ever provide for them. Plan to do it. Prepare to do it. Live worthy of it. May He bless you to do so, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I share with you an account of one family which was able to find blessings in the midst of serious challenges. This is an account I read many years ago and have kept because of the message it conveys. It was written by Gordon Green and appeared in an American magazine over 50 years ago.
Gordon tells how he grew up on a farm in Canada, where he and his siblings had to hurry home from school while the other children played ball and went swimming. Their father, however, had the capacity to help them understand that their work amounted to something. This was especially true after harvesttime when the family celebrated Thanksgiving, for on that day their father gave them a great gift. He took an inventory of everything they had.
On Thanksgiving morning he would take them to the cellar with its barrels of apples, bins of beets, carrots packed in sand, and mountains of sacked potatoes as well as peas, corn, string beans, jellies, strawberries, and other preserves which filled their shelves. He had the children count everything carefully. Then they went out to the barn and figured how many tons of hay there were and how many bushels of grain in the granary. They counted the cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and geese. Their father said he wanted to see how they stood, but they knew he really wanted them to realize on that feast day how richly God had blessed them and had smiled upon all their hours of work. Finally, when they sat down to the feast their mother had prepared, the blessings were something they felt.
Gordon indicated, however, that the Thanksgiving he remembered most thankfully was the year they seemed to have nothing for which to be grateful.
The year started off well: they had leftover hay, lots of seed, four litters of pigs, and their father had a little money set aside so that someday he could afford to buy a hay loader—a wonderful machine most farmers just dreamed of owning. It was also the year that electricity came to their town—although not to them because they couldn’t afford it.
One night when Gordon’s mother was doing her big wash, his father stepped in and took his turn over the washboard and asked his wife to rest and do her knitting. He said, “You spend more time doing the wash than sleeping. Do you think we should break down and get electricity?” Although elated at the prospect, she shed a tear or two as she thought of the hay loader that wouldn’t be bought.
So the electrical line went up their lane that year. Although it was nothing fancy, they acquired a washing machine that worked all day by itself and brilliant lightbulbs that dangled from each ceiling. There were no more lamps to fill with oil, no more wicks to cut, no more sooty chimneys to wash. The lamps went quietly off to the attic.
The coming of electricity to their farm was almost the last good thing that happened to them that year. Just as their crops were starting to come through the ground, the rains started. When the water finally receded, there wasn’t a plant left anywhere. They planted again, but more rains beat the crops into the earth. Their potatoes rotted in the mud. They sold a couple of cows and all the pigs and other livestock they had intended to keep, getting very low prices for them because everybody else had to do the same thing. All they harvested that year was a patch of turnips which had somehow weathered the storms.
Then it was Thanksgiving again. Their mother said, “Maybe we’d better forget it this year. We haven’t even got a goose left.”
On Thanksgiving morning, however, Gordon’s father showed up with a jackrabbit and asked his wife to cook it. Grudgingly she started the job, indicating it would take a long time to cook that tough old thing. When it was finally on the table with some of the turnips that had survived, the children refused to eat. Gordon’s mother cried, and then his father did a strange thing. He went up to the attic, got an oil lamp, took it back to the table, and lighted it. He told the children to turn out the electric lights. When there was only the lamp again, they could hardly believe that it had been that dark before. They wondered how they had ever seen anything without the bright lights made possible by electricity.
The food was blessed, and everyone ate. When dinner was over, they all sat quietly. Wrote Gordon:
“In the humble dimness of the old lamp we were beginning to see clearly again. …
“It [was] a lovely meal. The jack rabbit tasted like turkey and the turnips were the mildest we could recall. …
“… [Our] home … , for all its want, was so rich [to] us.”

I am so grateful I followed this counsel, for as a student at Ricks College I received several impressions from the Spirit that I chose to follow that have been anchors in my life.

The second prompting was strange to me. I had my class schedule completed and was in the first week of classes at Ricks, but I just knew I was missing a class. Later in the day, the impression came to take a social dance class. I thought, “Wow, that is out of my comfort zone!” I was raised on a dairy farm in Oregon and hadn’t spent much time on a dance floor. However, with my brother’s encouragement, who happened to teach in the math department at Ricks, I found myself registering for the only social dance class that fit my schedule. To my surprise, the first day of class, in a round dance where you change partners often, a beautiful blonde girl became my partner, and I had the witness that I should get to know this young lady. Now, I thought of every reason under the sun why she would never go out with a red-headed, freckle-faced, farmer-tanned, skinny farm boy. Well, a couple of weeks later as we left the dance class, I found myself behind her on the way to devotional. I’m sure it was accidental. Catching up to her, I asked if I could sit with her during devotional. How original was that? To make a long story short, we still enjoy devotionals together.

I will be eternally grateful for being worthy to receive those promptings. Obeying these prompting has made all the difference in my life, brought me such happiness and joy, and will continue to do so through the eternities.

Thirteen-year-old Florence Onyejekwe reached her usual spot in the crowded outdoor market in Onitsha, Nigeria. The street was packed with sellers calling out to busy shoppers. Women balanced bundles on their heads as they walked. School had just ended for the holiday, and Florence knew her friends were enjoying the break from class. But Florence spent her holidays selling bitterleaf here at the market. It was her only chance to earn money for her school fees.
Florence did not complain, though. After all, her mother spent long hours at the market every day selling yams to buy food for the family. Mama worked so hard. Her parents both did. But without much education, there was only so much they could do. Florence was almost finished with primary school. Perhaps if she could continue her schooling, she could get a good-paying job and help her family.
When she returned home, Florence found her parents and asked, “Do you think I could go to secondary school? And maybe university?”
Mama looked at Nnam (dad) and shook her head. “University costs so much more than we have,” said Nnam. Florence looked down at her shoes. She didn’t want Mama and Nnam to see how disappointed she was.
A few days later, Florence stopped at the hospital to pick up some medicine. The hospital was almost as busy as the market, though not as loud. Florence stared at the nurses in their crisp, white caps. She pictured herself in a uniform like that, helping the sick and taking care of babies in a big hospital. Perhaps she could become a nurse.
Florence knew her parents were right—getting an education would be hard. But Florence knew how to work hard. She decided to try.
No matter how many chores filled her day, Florence made time to study. She passed the tests for secondary school, and Nnam borrowed enough money for her to go. Later she found out that the government would help pay for nursing school. Her dream was within reach!
But when it came time to begin nursing school, Florence felt a little doubt. What if it was too hard? What if she was lonely? Florence bowed her head and prayed, “Dear God, please give me the strength to go to nursing school and work hard.”
At nursing school, Florence learned how to give medicine and keep tools clean from germs. Sometimes her patients got better, but sometimes they didn’t. Florence prayed often for courage. After three long years, Florence graduated with the award for best student in her class. Her dream had come true! She got to wear the white nurse’s cap, and she was able to earn enough to help her family.
Many years later, Florence visited a small branch in the Ghana Accra Mission. Her husband, Christopher Chukwurah, was the mission president there. Florence met some children in the branch who couldn’t always go to school. They weren’t sure what to do with their futures. They reminded Florence of herself as a child. “What can I say to help them?” Florence prayed silently.
Then she felt a clear prompting: Tell them about your life.
Florence thought about her life. She had worked in hospitals in Nigeria and the United States. She had married a good man, and together they had found The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She had become a mother. Now she was helping missionaries stay healthy and work hard. Heavenly Father had helped her become a nurse. He had helped her do so much more than she had imagined. He could do the same for these children.
Florence looked at the children and smiled. “You know those white caps that nurses wear? I saw a cap like that and decided to become a nurse …”

Once, following little more than a hunch, the representatives took a taxicab to a village 30.5 kilometers from the Nigerian town of Owerri, in search of a man whom they had heard was interested in the Church. Following directions from a native, they drove directly to “a little building with a sign across the front, ‘L.D.S. Nigerian Mission.’” Elder Cannon says, “We knew we had arrived.” The founders of that “mission” were later baptized into the Church.

My grandparents weren’t members of the Church. After they passed away, my family was able to serve as proxies for their baptism and temple ordinances. It’s amazing to know that even though those loved ones we had here on earth are gone, we can still be with them in the next life. Before entering the baptismal font when I was a proxy for my grandma, I was overwhelmed by the Spirit, and I knew that what I was doing was right—not just for me, but also for my grandma. After the baptisms for them, my parents and I felt the Spirit much stronger, knowing that our ancestors can be with us in the next life. I miss my grandparents, but I know that we can all be together one day in the presence of God.

My brothers, Billy, Tommy, and Jimmy, and I were gathered in the living room for family home evening. Father was talking about the importance of always prayerfully considering our actions before they become acts—thinking before doing. He said that Satan would rather we act on impulse, just like a fly that buzzes blindly into a spider web hidden in the shadow of an overripe July melon.
I guess that makes sense, I told myself. But what could possibly happen to a twelve-year-old boy like me?
Two weeks later, my brothers and I were sitting atop a huge rock on the crest of one of the forested hills behind town. The dry wind blew across our sweaty faces as we drank from bottles of water we’d brought in paper bags from home. After taking a swallow of cold water, Tommy thoughtlessly dropped his bottle back in his paper bag that was sitting near the edge of the rock. The bottle broke, its water spilling out. We all laughed, except for Tommy who glowered at the rest of us.
I lay back on the rock and gazed up at a buzzard that was circling high above. I wish I could fly, I thought. I also told myself that I was getting bored. To wish to do something I knew that I couldn’t do meant that I was running out of real things to do. I knew that my brothers were bored, too, because they were staring at the same buzzard and wishing that they could fly.
“Let’s play a game,” my oldest brother, Billy, said.
“What kind of game?” Tommy piped in crossly. “If it’s a running-around game, you can count me out. I’ll get thirsty, and I don’t have any water!”
“You can have some of mine,” Billy offered, “if you play.”
“What kind of game is it?” I asked.
Billy sat up. He took his water bottle out of his bag, slid down off the boulder, picked up a stick, and broke it in four pieces, each a different length. Then he dropped them into his bag and closed it up.
“Are you going to tell us about the dumb game or not?” my youngest brother, Jimmy, snapped impatiently.
“It’s kind of like tag, but different,” Billy explained as he picked up a small branch. “The one who draws the shortest stick from the bag is ‘It.’ He has to sit on this rock and count to fifty while everyone else hides. We can hide anywhere from up by the quarry down to the old graveyard.”
“What’s so different about that game?” Tommy asked.
“Well,” Billy went on, “the one who’s It uses this stick to tag with. Then the person tagged gets a stick, too, and he and It look for someone else together. Then—”
I sat up, my excitement growing. “Oh, I get it!” I interrupted. “Then they tag the third guy, and they all go after the last guy!”
Billy drew the shortest stick and started counting. Everyone else scattered.
About a half hour later, I was hiding behind an old shack. I saw Billy, Tommy, and Jimmy above me on the top of a hill, looking down on the dumped rocks from the quarry. We knew the area well because a lot of blue-belly lizards lived in those rocks, and we often tried to catch them. Anyway, now I knew that I was the last one left to be tagged! It was kind of scary in a fun sort of way because they were all after me! It would only take them a minute or two to see me and scurry down those rocks and tag me with their sticks.
I turned and bolted away. I looked back once and saw my brothers already close to the bottom of the hill. They had spotted me!
I lunged through the trees, jumping over rotting logs. I glanced behind me. I couldn’t see my brothers. For the moment I was safe from their sight, but I soon found myself in the middle of a clearing. They would spot me unless I lost myself in the tangles.
Suddenly I was face-to-face with a wall of thick brushwood. I’ll hide there until I can catch my wind, I thought as I protected my face with my hands and leaped through the dense undergrowth, not knowing what lay beyond, and not taking time to even think about it.
Everything beyond the wall of brushwood was a good ten to fifteen feet below me! I fell hard through its brittle branches and landed on my back.
The rest of the world above me was spinning—the sun, the clouds, the twisted tops of the towering oaks. And my wonder at what had happened. Rising between my right arm and side, protruding like a great spear with a big, ugly point, was the shaft of a long, iron spike from an old graveside!
I felt a stinging sensation on my arm and discovered that the point of the huge spike had torn my shirt and scraped the inner side of my arm. If I had landed few short inches farther to the right, the spear would have pierced my chest and my time on earth would have been brought to an immediate end.
I lay there listening to the sound of my pounding heart, glad it was still beating. Glad that when my brothers found me, after coming the long way around to where I lay in the old graveyard, it would be a happy tagging. As I waited, I remembered my father’s words at family home evening two weeks before. He had said that we should prayerfully consider our actions before they become acts. That we should let the Spirit, instead of blind impulse, be the guiding force in our day-to-day living. My father always said that it’s in our hearts and minds that God speaks to us.
In the quiet of the thicket that day, I promised Heavenly Father that from then on I would try to live as my father had counseled. As I gazed up and again caught sight of that buzzard high above me, I was glad that it was circling something else and not me!