Gospel Story Finder

Upon his release from the hospital, Enzio immediately sought out his Lutheran minister, recounted his conversion, and declared his desire to follow Christ. But after a period of attending every possible meeting—and finding some satisfaction in the dignity and ceremony of the services—Enzio was troubled by doctrines and practices he could not understand. Why, for example, did infants need to be baptized? And why had ministers blessed the weapons of the war? The ministers and presbyters of the church could give him no sound doctrine—just conflicting opinions.
One evening Enzio and Jutta knelt in despair to tell the Lord of their situation. By now Enzio could form his own prayers, “I told the Lord we wanted to find his church,” Elder Busche recalls. “I knew that the earlier followers of Christ had been persecuted, so I told the Lord that it didn’t matter if his was an obscure church, even a ridiculed church.” After that prayer, the overwhelming peace Enzio had felt in the hospital returned.
Several weeks later, two Latter-day Saint missionaries stood on the Busches’ doorstep. At first, Enzio Busche was skeptical of their “strange” message, but he was always impressed with their sincerity and righteousness. His two years of investigation were accompanied by dreams and spiritual experiences that had the same sacred quality and authority that he had felt in the hospital. At last, he had to admit that the Spirit truly was in the message of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, although he still feared breaking with his social life and the traditions of his family.
When he was finally ready for baptism, he asked his wife to investigate the gospel. Jutta Busche had long before felt the Spirit in the message of the missionaries, though she had not been involved in the sometimes long discussions. After just three evenings of hearing them teach her the gospel principles—to her husband’s astonishment—she too had a testimony. Both were baptized on 19 January 1958 in a public swimming pool in Dortmund.

In December 1987, about two weeks before Christmas, I had to go to Israel on business. Unfortunately, it was not a peaceful time in the Holy Land. There were riots in the West Bank, the streets of Old Jerusalem were deserted, and the shops were boarded up. Political tension filled the air, and to make matters worse, a cold rain drizzled most of the week. Fearful of violence, tourists stayed away in droves. Yet as I walked through Jerusalem, peace filled my heart to know that this was the city the Redeemer loved so much.

I returned to the United States late on the Friday before Christmas. When the Sabbath dawned two days later, my alarm woke me to the music of “O Holy Night”:
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our friend.6

The music and message pierced me deeply, and tears flowed as I contemplated the glorious sacrifice and perfect life of the Redeemer of Israel—He who was born to be the friend of the lowly and the hope of the meek. I thought of my experience in Jerusalem, and love flooded through my whole being for Him who had come to earth and taken upon Himself the burdens of us all. I was overwhelmed to think that He might regard me as a friend. I have never forgotten the tender feelings of that early Sunday morning, which were as pure a witness as I have ever received.

A friend of mine once told me about his experience in coming to know and understand the gift of the Holy Ghost. He had prayed often and longed to know the truth of the gospel.
Although he felt at peace with his beliefs, he had never received the certain knowledge for which he hungered. He had reconciled himself to the fact that he might be one of those who would have to walk through this life relying upon the faith of others.
One morning, while pondering the scriptures, he felt something surge through his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. “I was immersed in a feeling of such intense love and pure joy,” he explained. “I cannot describe the measure of what I felt at that time other than to say I was enveloped in joy so profound there was no room in me for any other sensation.”
Even as he felt this outpouring of the Holy Ghost, he wondered if possibly he was just imagining what was happening. “The more I wondered,” he said, “the more intense the feelings became until it was all I could do to tearfully say, ‘It is enough.’”

The doctor at the army base near Taejon, Korea, looked up at me and smiled. I had been congratulating him and his colleagues on their brilliant management of a carbon monoxide poisoning incident. As Chief of Professional Services for the Surgeon of the U.S. Army and for the United Nations Forces, I had been so impressed by this young doctor’s actions that I came down personally to review the case with him.
In his tent we chatted about the incidence of such poisoning among soldiers. Korean homes are heated with a soft coal, called yantan, which is pressed into large bricks and burned in a stove beneath one corner of the house. Smoke and fumes are ducted through the clay and tile floor to a chimney on the opposite side of the structure, warming the building and its occupants. If a leak develops, carbon monoxide is released into the house.
Often U.S. soldiers would leave their base of assignment, go into a nearby village, get drunk, and fall asleep near a yantan stove. Occasionally they suffered carbon monoxide poisoning and were returned to the base unconscious. In the course of treatment, it was customary to check the alcohol level in their blood.
I asked the doctor what this soldier’s blood-alcohol level had been, and his answer was both startling and satisfying.
“Oh, I didn’t get a blood-alcohol reading on Private Christian,” he said. “He’s a Mormon.”
I pretended not to understand why that would make a difference.
“What’s that got to do with it?” I asked. “This soldier went into town and was found unconscious. How do you know his unconsciousness wasn’t caused by alcoholic intoxication?”
The doctor replied, “Because this is Christian. He never does anything that is not proper and exemplary.”
The doctor explained that nearly everyone on the base knew that Private Christian was a returned missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had served his mission in Korea, spoke the language, and during his off-duty hours he often went to the village to visit with the people. He had taught some of them about his church, and they had joined. They lived in a small hamlet next to the base but had gone with Christian to religious services in Taejon.
The private had returned home with them Sunday evening and was invited to spend the night. Because he was the honored guest, he was given the place closest to the smoldering yantan. But it was a cold night, and all the openings in the building had been closed. A crack in the floor had not been noticed. As the American soldier slept, he had been overcome by the gases.
With utmost pride I informed my medical colleague that I, too, was Mormon. I marveled that he could have known this young private so well. He replied that he didn’t know many soldiers closely but that Christian’s life was so distinct that it set him apart from all the other men on the base. I have never had the opportunity to meet Brother Christian and can only speculate about the total amount of good he did in an environment that normally draws out the base instincts of men. But I will never forget the impression he made on the doctor who treated him and the example he set for me. He had made proper decisions about many things in life years before being plunged into the challenges of military life, and he had not allowed his environment to deter his power to be good. The other soldiers knew him for what he was—uncompromising. I am sure that many of them carry his example in their memories, even as I do, and I’m grateful to him for letting his light shine.

I had always planned to go on a mission. In the spring of 1950, I was eighteen and finishing my sophomore year at the University of Utah. I was studying for my final tests when my father, who was also my bishop, came into my room and asked me, “Are you ready to go on your mission?”

I said, “Yes, Dad, I am.”

He asked, “Is your life in order?”

I said, “Yes, it is.”

“Good,” he said. “You’ll leave in two months.”

I immediately submitted my papers and soon received my call from President George Albert Smith. Before I reached the British Isles Mission two months later, the Korean War had started and there were restrictions on the number of young men who could serve missions. If I had waited to go, I might not have been able to serve a mission.

Not that long ago, while Melinda was attending Samoa College before she transferred to the Church College, she barely knew Justina. “I knew her from church, but she wasn’t one of my really good friends. Back then I didn’t go to seminary that often, and I didn’t understand the importance of the gospel. My parents aren’t members, and I wasn’t really strong at church,” Melinda says. “Tina’s really helped me with church. She’s been a good influence for me. She’s a really good friend.”
Justina adds, “Yeah, we do practically everything together. It’s nice to have someone who has the same standards as you. We have a lot in common.”

Janet was new in my class. I knew right away that she wasn’t someone I wanted for a friend because whenever Mrs. Shell said anything to her, she put her finger in her mouth and said, “Duuuuuh,” then laughed as if it were really funny. A lot of other kids laughed too. Mrs. Shell didn’t.
On the playground, Janet was a bully. One day she was pushing a little kid around until a teacher stopped her. When she called the teacher a name, she was sent to see the principal. From then on, it seemed that Janet spent almost as much time in the principal’s office as she did in our classroom.
I stayed away from her because she was always getting into trouble. She didn’t like me, anyway. She couldn’t call me by my name, Esther—she called me Redhead-Wet-the-Bed. I thought she enjoyed being mean.
In January I went into the Merrie Miss class in Primary. There were seven girls in my class, but only six of us came. Janet was the seventh. When Sister Card asked us about Janet, we told her what kind of a girl Janet was. She hadn’t been to church since her family had moved into the neighborhood, so we hadn’t even known that she was a member.
Sister Card went to Janet’s house several times to invite her to Primary, but she didn’t come. Nobody in her family came to church. Sister Card suggested that we try something as a class to see if we could get Janet to come to Primary. We weren’t very eager to do it, because we were all a little bit afraid of her. She was different from us, and we didn’t understand her. But Sister Card said she would help us, so we finally agreed.
We had a hard time deciding what to do. “Maybe we need to try to understand why Janet acts and talks the way she does,” said Sister Card. “That might help us come up with a good idea.”
I knew why she acted and talked like she did. I said, “Her whole family acts and talks like that, even her mother and father. I’ve heard them when I walk past their house.”
“Yes, I suppose they do,” said Sister Card sadly. “Do you think there are any other reasons for her behavior?”
“Maybe she’s lonely,” said Christina.
“Maybe she is,” said Sister Card. “What do you think we could do to help her realize that we like her?”
“Let’s be pixies to her for a week!” said Mandi excitedly.
“That’s a good idea,” Sister Card said, smiling.
Well, we planned to deliver something to Janet every day for a week, beginning on Sunday. It was kind of scary going up to her porch after dark to ring the doorbell and hope we could run and hide fast enough to not get caught. Each night it got to be more and more of a challenge because everyone in her family began watching for us. We decided to reveal ourselves on Saturday and take her a necklace with a little gold heart and a note telling her that we loved her and wanted her to come and be part of our Primary class.
Ringing the doorbell and hiding had been fun, but meeting Janet face-to-face was going to be different. We were all nervous, even Sister Card, because we didn’t know what Janet would do or say. As we stood on the porch, getting ready to ring the doorbell, the door flew open and Joel, Janet’s eight-year-old brother, yelled, “I caught you!”
We must have all jumped a foot in the air. Then we started laughing. Finally Sister Card asked if Janet was home. Joel left us standing on the porch while he went to look for her.
Just when we began to think they had forgotten us, Janet appeared at the door. She looked a little uncertain when she saw all of us standing there.
“Hello, Janet,” Sister Card said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I’m Sister Card, your Primary teacher. You remember me, don’t you? And I think you already know all of these girls from school.”
Janet barely nodded her head.
Sister Card then looked at us expectantly. We had decided earlier that we couldn’t let Sister Card do all the talking, or Janet might think it was only the teacher who wanted her to come to Primary. We looked at each other, and then Kelly said, “We wanted to do something special for you so that you would know that we like you.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling a bit more courageous. “We hope you got all the things we’ve been bringing you.”
Before I could go on, Janet said, “Oh, so it was you guys who were bringing that stuff. I guess you’re trying to bribe me into going to Primary. That’s kind of what they tried to do where we lived before, too, but it didn’t work. I just don’t like to go to church.”
We were all stunned. No one said anything. Janet looked triumphant, like she had just scored a crucial point.
Then Sister Card spoke. “No, Janet, we’re not here to bribe you. We brought you those gifts to let you know that we like you, just as Kelly said. We brought one more today.” She handed Janet the necklace, beautifully wrapped in a small box, accompanied by a card with the note we had all signed.
“Thanks,” Janet said, as she took the gift, “but don’t expect to see me at church.”
And she went inside and closed the door.

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.

What do you get when you combine a small airplane with an overwhelmed mother and an irritable little boy? A very stressful situation. From a few rows behind, I watched the drama unfold. It went something like this:
Little boy: I’m hungry!
Mother: Well, let’s look in my purse and see what I have.
Little boy: Nooooo!
Mother: But aren’t you hungry?
Little boy: Give me that!
Mother: Give you what?
Little boy: Thaaaat!
Mother: Honey, you can’t have my necklace.
Little boy: I want it!
You get the idea. Over the next 20 minutes, the mother used a range of tactics to try to calm him down: bribery, diversion, humor, even one or two mild threats. Nothing worked. “It’s only a short flight,” I reminded myself. “She’ll be OK.”
But she wasn’t OK. Her stress was mounting, and she began wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. Although I didn’t know her, I felt drawn to help her. Reflexively, I started praying for them both.
I wasn’t the only passenger affected by the scene. Just as the strain on her emotions peaked, another passenger came to her aid. She was a much older woman, seated immediately across the aisle. Radiating kindness, she turned to the young mother, quietly spoke a few reassuring words, and took her hand. That was it. And that was enough.
These two women held hands across the aisle throughout the remainder of the flight. Although the little boy continued to rant with spectacular intensity, his mother appeared serene. It was a miracle.

For Morris Overstreet II, the LDS institute is a place to find answers to his gospel questions. He had only been a member of the Church for a year when he became concerned about being the only black member at the institute. “I wanted to know when and if the gospel was ever going to reach the black community,” Morris says. “Having grown up in a black community, I know they need it.” So Morris talked with Brother McMullin about his worry. “He helped me realize that just by being involved in the Church, I will have a great influence with the blacks around me. It’s made me realize I need to be doing the right things so that I can be an influence.” Morris leaves on a mission this year.

He loved the youth of the Church, as is evidenced by the experience of Heber J. Grant. Nine days after Heber’s birth, his father, Jedediah M. Grant, who was Second Counselor to President Brigham Young, died. For the next 21 years, Brigham Young took special interest in the boy Heber J. Grant.

Heber J. Grant wrote:
“I was almost as familiar in the homes of President Brigham Young as I was in the home of my own mother. In one home … if I was hungry I felt as free to go in and ask for something to eat there as in my own home. … I knelt down time and time again in his home in the Lion House at family prayers, as a child and as a young man.”

When I was in junior high, I was honored by the school administration when I was asked to become a member of the student hall patrol. On the days we were assigned to be on hall patrol, we were instructed to bring our lunch to school and eat it together. It was always a special treat, and there was always a lot of competition to see whose mother had prepared the most desirable lunch. Often we traded lunch items among ourselves.
One day when I was assigned to be on hall patrol, I forgot to tell Mother I needed a lunch until I was almost ready to leave for school. An expression of concern came over Mother’s face when I requested a lunch. She told me she had just used up her last loaf of bread for breakfast and would not be baking until that afternoon. All she had in the house to make a lunch was a large sweet roll left over from the previous night’s supper. Mother made delicious sweet rolls. She always arranged them in a pan so there was one large one across the top of the pan and then rows of smaller ones down the length of the pan. Only the large one remained. It was about the size of a loaf of bread in length but, of course, not in thickness. I was embarrassed to take just a sweet roll for lunch when I imagined what the other patrol members would have, but I decided it was better to go with the sweet roll than go without lunch.
When it came time to eat lunch, I went to a far-off corner so I wouldn’t be noticed. When the trading of lunches started, my friends wanted to know what I had. I explained what had happened that morning, and to my dismay, everyone wanted to see the sweet roll. But my friends surprised me—instead of making fun of me, they all wanted to have a piece of the sweet roll! It turned out to be my best lunch trading day of the entire year! The sweet roll I thought would be an embarrassment to me turned out to be the hit of our lunch hour.

When Deborah learned of her son’s drug addiction, she was plagued by feelings of guilt as she thought about how she could have been a better mother. Then she discovered that she could apply the steps to herself. She says, “What I learned in the program is that no matter how my son is doing, I can still be happy and have Heavenly Father in my life.” She adds, “On the outside I look the same, but my life has completely changed on the inside.”

I remember when I was quite a lad (and that’s remembering a long way back) what my mother said to me when I went to go on my mission in 1904 (and that’s before some of you were born). She said, “My boy, you are going a long ways away from me now. Do you remember that when you were a little lad you used to have bad dreams and get frightened? Your bedroom was just off mine, and frequently you would cry out in the night and say, ‘Mother, are you there?’ And I would answer, ‘Yes, my boy, I’m here—everything is all right. Turn over and go to sleep.’ You always did. Knowing that I was there gave you courage.

“Now,” she said, “you will be about 6,000 miles away, and though you may cry out for me, I cannot answer you.” She added this: “There is one who can, and if you call to Him, He will hear you when you call. He will respond to your appeal. You just say, ‘Father, are you there?’ And there will come into your heart the comfort and solace such as you knew as a boy when I answered you.”

I want to say to you young people that many times since then, in many and varying conditions, I have cried out, “Father, are you there?” I made that plea in the mission field when we were mobbed almost every night, driven from place to place. We were beaten and expelled from cities; our lives were threatened. Every time before I went out to those meetings, I would say, “Father, are you there?” And though I didn’t hear a voice and though I didn’t see His person, I want to tell you young people that He replied to me with the comfort and assurance and testimony of His presence. It made me unafraid, and with that presence, I am grateful to say, we did not suffer much.

This story about the Aaronic Priesthood begins with a young woman, 16-year-old Lauren DellAquila of the Cary Second Ward, Apex North Carolina Stake. Lauren hadn’t come to Church for years. She had never been baptized and confirmed, “but I just knew in my heart that the Church was true.”
She also knew David Christison, 16, and Andrew Hill, 15, who attend the same school, are Latter-day Saints. “I’m in marching band with David and had a couple of classes with Andrew last year,” she says. And she knew they stood by their beliefs. “It meant a lot to see their example, because most teens at our school don’t have values like they do,” Lauren explains.
Then one day after band, some other classmates were making unkind comments about the Church. Lauren told them if they really wanted to know the truth, they shouldn’t repeat rumors; they should find out for themselves. Afterward, David thanked her and asked how she knew so much about the Church. “She said that when she was really young she went to Church, but then her parents divorced and she stopped coming,” David says. “So I invited her to come again.”
“People had tried to get me to come back before, but for one reason or another it had never happened,” Lauren explains. “But when I told David and Andrew that I did want to try again, they were excited. I started coming to meetings, and they introduced me to the bishop, the missionaries, and the young women in the ward. They helped me feel at home.”
Soon Lauren was baptized and confirmed, and today she’s a happy, confident Laurel who recently gave a sacrament meeting talk about the importance of the priesthood. “If the gospel had not been restored,” she says, “I wouldn’t have seen two young men honoring their priesthood. And I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I have had to make covenants and to draw close to the Savior.”
It’s a similar story for Hope Riner, an 8-year-old in the same ward. She benefited from the good example of her 17-year-old half-brother, Andrew Roberts. He joined the Church a little over a year ago and was recently ordained a priest, which meant he could baptize her. “I felt great about it, because we have a strong bond already,” Hope says. “I was glad my brother could use the priesthood to help me.”
“It was an incredible experience,” Andrew says. “I know I need to be an example to my sister, not only as a brother, but also as an example of the kind of young man she should have as friends and the kind of man she will marry one day. By my example, I’m preparing her to understand how the priesthood can bless her life.”
Both Lauren and Hope know that the young men in their ward—as well as in the Cary Third Branch (Spanish speaking), which is dependent on their ward—take the priesthood seriously. “They don’t just talk about it,” Lauren says. “They live it.”
Maxwell Guerra, 13, is another example. He’s a member of the branch but serves as the deacons quorum president of the ward. On any given Sunday, he’s meeting with the presidency and the quorum adviser to keep track of the quorum members, plan activities, and make sure all the deacons needed will be there to pass the sacrament. After church on a recent fast Sunday, he helped another deacon collect fast offerings and then visited Alma Parraga, who is about to turn 12 and will soon be joining the quorum.
Andrew Hill, mentioned earlier, is president of the teachers quorum, and he loves the fellowship he finds there. “It’s more than just getting along with each other,” he stresses. “We strengthen each other and learn from each other.” Any assignment, he has found, is easier with teamwork, and that includes home teaching. “One of the great things we do in the Church is to look after each other,” he says. “It’s a powerful thing when an Aaronic Priesthood holder and a Melchizedek Priesthood holder become a team, with a responsibility to watch over families and individuals.”
The teachers also spend time preparing the sacrament, and Andrew says that has special significance for him. “Priests bless the sacrament,” he says, “and deacons pass the sacrament. But teachers set a tone of reverence by having everything ready before the meetings begin.” Being involved with something so sacred is a great privilege for the Aaronic Priesthood, Andrew says.
Of course, the bishop of the ward is the president of the Aaronic Priesthood. In the Cary Second Ward, Matthew Watkins is the first assistant to Bishop Charles N. Anderson. Matthew says he feels one of the most important things the priests do is to study the gospel together. He is grateful when the bishop helps the priests to understand gospel principles. “The priests help teach each other, too,” he says. “Each Sunday I feel like I understand more and more.” In particular, he remembers a lesson about fasting. “It helped me see how important it is to get close to the Spirit.” He also enjoys providing music for priesthood meeting. “Music is another way of getting close to the Spirit,” he explains.
Another priest, Erick Wells, 18, recently ordained his younger brother, Michael, 12, to the office of deacon. “I wanted Erick to ordain me,” Michael says, “because he’s one of the greatest examples in my life. He never does anything wrong that I’ve noticed, so everything he does, I know I can do too.”
Erick smiles at the tribute. “I really enjoyed being able to use my priesthood to confer it on Michael,” he says. “I feel a great responsibility to be an example not only to my family but to other people as well so that I can share in the gospel with all of them.”
Erick says the goal of all young men in the Church should be “to obtain both the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods, make covenants in the temple, be missionaries, prepare for a lifetime of service, and live faithfully with their families so that they can be together with Heavenly Father again.” Matthew agrees. “The Aaronic Priesthood lifts us to a higher sense of what we need to be doing,” he says.
And that’s what’s happening in the Cary Second Ward. Ask these young men who is using the priesthood to make a difference right now, and they can truthfully answer, “We are!” Ask them who is using the priesthood to prepare for the future, and the answer is the same.
How has the priesthood made a difference in your life? E-mail your experience to us at newera@ldschurch.org.

Brady really liked the song Sister Robers had taught in Primary. He whistled the melody all the way home from church. He hummed it as he washed his hands for lunch and as he raced downstairs to help his mom.
“Hi, Mom,” he called cheerfully. “What can I do to help?”
His mom chuckled as she handed him the forks. “Please finish setting the table.”
“What are you laughing about?” Brady asked as he began putting a fork next to each plate.
“You’re the fourth person who has offered to help,” Mom said. “There’s nothing like a fast Sunday to get cooperation in this family!”
Brady laughed with her. It was true. All the Marsh family eagerly volunteered to help speed up the meal preparation after fast and testimony meeting.
“Brady!” Dad called from the study. “Can you come in here for a minute?”
“Sure, Dad,” Brady called back. He hummed as he put the last spoon in place, then raced to the study. In the dim light of the hall he tripped over something hard and fell to the floor.
“Ouch!” he said, rubbing his stubbed toe. “What was that?” Looking around he saw Trent’s dump truck. It was his little brother’s favorite toy, and he didn’t let Brady play with it. Forgetting the pain, Brady began to work the levers on the truck.
“That’s mine!” Trent yelled from the doorway. “Give it back!”
Brady gave the truck a shove toward his brother. It missed hitting him by inches. “Here, baby. I don’t want to play with your old truck, anyway!”
Brady stomped on down the hall, fuming.
“Come on in,” Dad called from the study. “We need to talk about family home evening. It’s your turn to give the lesson, remember?”
“I forgot,” Brady mumbled. He didn’t feel like thinking about a lesson. He wanted to be mad.
“Is there something you learned in church today that you could share with the family?” Dad sat back quietly and waited for Brady to answer.
“No.” Right then he couldn’t think of one thing he’d learned at Primary that day.
“Maybe I should help Mom get lunch on the table,” Dad said gently, looking at Brady’s angry face. “You sit here where it’s quiet and think. I’m sure it won’t take long for you to come up with something. The books we use for the lessons are on the shelves.”
“All right,” Brady muttered.
After the door closed, Brady stared out the window. All he could think about was being angry. He picked up a pencil and began doodling. As Brady sketched, he began to hum the Primary song that was still in the back of his mind. He stopped, his anger forgotten. What was that song again? he asked himself. “‘I’m trying to be like Jesus; I’m following in his ways,’” he sang softly. That’s it! That’s what I’ll use for my lesson. I’ll challenge the family to try to be like Jesus this week, he decided. I’ll teach them about what He was like and then ask them to follow His example!
After lunch Brady read all he could about the Savior. I’m going to be more like Him, too, he promised himself. I’m going to play with Trent. I’ll help Merry with her chores so that she can practice the piano more. I’m going to be a better friend to all the guys at school.
The next day after school, Brady hurried home to finish preparing his lesson. He took the pictures of Jesus off the walls to use in the lesson. He especially liked the one of Jesus blessing the children.
It seemed forever before supper was over and the last dish was put away. But finally he could start his lesson. The rest of the family seemed to really listen to him as he showed the pictures and told examples of Christ’s life from the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. At the end he said, “I want our family to really try to live as much like the Savior as we can. It’s a challenge from me to you. Next week we’ll all report on how we did.”
For the closing song, they all sang “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus.” Merry played the piano, and Trent led the music. No one even snickered as he wildly waved his arm. They wanted to be like Jesus, and He would never hurt anyone’s feelings.
After the lesson, Mom gave Brady a hug and Merry stopped to say, “Great lesson.”
Brady smiled as he put the pictures back on the walls and returned the books to the study. When he came back to the family room and saw Trent standing on a chair, patting the picture of Jesus blessing the children, he yelled angrily, “What are you doing? You’re going to knock that picture off the wall, you little brat!”
Trent turned around and smiled at him. “I’m going to be just like Him,” he said, patting the picture again. Hopping down from the chair, Trent pushed his dump truck over to Brady. “Here. You can play with my truck. Jesus would let you.”
Embarrassed, Brady just stood there looking at the truck. Then he walked over to his little brother and put his arm around him.
“Thanks, Trent,” he said. “I’m going to be a better big brother too. Come on. I’ll help you get ready for bed. Then I’ll let you listen to my new tape.”
“On your very own recorder?” Trent asked in awe.
“Yes,” Brady answered. “Until it’s time to go to sleep.”
Trent noisily ran upstairs with Brady following behind, whistling his song. It was going to be a great week!

A boy named Gordon grew up on a farm in Canada. On Thanksgiving morning, his father would take Gordon and his siblings to count their blessings. They went to the cellar with its barrels of apples, bins of beets, and mountains of sacked potatoes as well as peas, corn, string beans, jellies, and strawberries. The children counted everything carefully. Then they went to the barn and counted the hay and bushels of grain. They counted the cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and geese. Their father wanted them to realize how richly God had blessed them. Finally, they sat down to a feast.
But one year it seemed they had nothing to be grateful for. Storms had beaten their crops down and left their potatoes rotting in the mud. All they had harvested was a patch of turnips that had somehow weathered the storms. The only good thing that happened that year was that electricity came to their town. There would be no more lamps to fill with oil, no more wicks to cut.
On Thanksgiving morning, Gordon’s father brought a jackrabbit for Gordon’s mother to cook. When it was finally on the table with some of the turnips, the children refused to eat. Gordon’s mother cried, and then his father went up to the attic. He got an oil lamp and lit it. Then he told the children to turn off the electric lights. They could hardly believe it had been that dark before. How had they seen anything without the bright lights made possible by electricity?
The food was blessed, and in the humble dimness of the old lamp, Gordon’s family felt grateful. Their home, for all its want, felt rich to them. In addition to all else for which we are grateful, may we ever reflect our gratitude for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“Mom, I don’t think I want to go to school today.”
“Of course you don’t. You never do.”
“Maybe I’m sick today. You know something? I think I have a headache. I really do. I think I’ll stay home today.”
“Laurie, I am counting to three. One …”
“Mom, you only count to three for little kids. I’m in high school.”
“Well, sometimes I forget. Come on, get out of bed.”
I crawled out of bed. There’s something futile about trying to get out of going to school when you’re too tired to make up a good excuse. At least Mom hadn’t noticed my messy room.
When I entered the kitchen for breakfast, my brother Jon was putting six or seven peanut butter sandwiches on his plate.
“Look, Laurie!” he said. “Guess how many I’ve got?”
“Oh, about 952,” I said. I got out the cold cereal and started to read the newspaper.
“Can I read the comics?” Jon asked.
“I guess so.”
“Jon!” Mom said it so loud that Jon dropped his peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Bugs Bunny. “Jon! What are you doing with all that junk on your plate?”
Jon grinned sheepishly. “I guess I’m eating,” he said, as he tried to get his sandwich off the paper.
“Don’t take so many at once. I just came up to remind you that your room needs cleaning.”
I was reading something about how the governor wanted some bill passed or something. I knew I would probably get yelled at about my room too.
“And yours, young lady …”
I looked up and said, “I know. I’ll clean it up when I get home from school.”
I finished my breakfast and went downstairs. Then it hit me like the shock of running through the sprinklers: the algebra test! No wonder I didn’t want to go to school.
It was the start of a glorious day.
My first period class was gym. I put on my green bag that is generally termed a gym suit and started out the door to run around the track. You see, our teacher finds it necessary that all young teenage girls become physically fit, and running is supposed to be very good at aiding in the achievement of this goal. I do not find running around the track in my gym suit a time when I feel particularly ravishing. So of course when I emerged from the school door, Dave and his friends were walking across the street. Of all days they picked this one to be late for school! There I was, standing in my lovely apparel.
I couldn’t turn around and go back in the door because everybody was pushing to get out and it was too crowded. I couldn’t jump under a rock because there wasn’t a rock in sight for 50 yards. I would have cried, but that would have made my mascara run. There I was with no alternative but to run with the crowd to the track and pretend I couldn’t hear Dave laughing.
The algebra test was terrible. It had lots of questions like, “If Harold can get to school in 7/8 of an hour riding his bike and in 1 3/5 hours walking, and the sum of the minutes it takes for him to walk to school and ride his bike home 17 times is the same as the number of yards from Harold’s house to the school, please set up an equation that will give you 1/3 of the distance of the round trip.” I’m not sure if that was it exactly, but we had a problem something like that. I missed about half the problems.
Then in history Mr. Crispin called on me to give three ways that the Industrial Revolution affected the West. I started to talk, but I really didn’t know what to say, and after making a fool of myself for two minutes, I was invited to sit down.
To finish it off, my English teacher, Mr. Drake, thought we were all spoiling for some intriguing activity for the night and assigned us five pages of grammar in our workbooks. That, added to history and biology, gave me so much homework that I was afraid I would have to take two trips to the bus just to load up my scholastic supplies for the evening.
When I finally got home, I opened the door and threw my books on the floor.
“Laurie, would you mind running over to Mrs. Jacobson’s house to get a pan that she borrowed from me?”
What a greeting!
“Why don’t you make Jon go?” I asked. “I’m tired.”
“Jon is playing with Brian.”
“Why can’t Mrs. Jacobson bring it over herself? She’s the one who borrowed it.”
“Mrs. Jacobson is getting old, and she can’t walk very far at a time.”
“You know,” I said, “that would make a good algebra problem! If it takes Mrs. Jacobson three hours to bring a pan to Laurie’s house, and two hours for her to return to her house empty-handed—”
“Laurie! Go on over to Mrs. Jacobson’s house right now.”
I decided it was useless to fight the taskmaster, so I turned around and walked to Mrs. Jacobson’s house.
I rang the doorbell, and she invited me in. She told me to sit down, so I picked a green sofa and collapsed into it. Mrs. Jacobson brought out a tray of cookies.
“I just made them,” she said. “Have one!”
“Thanks,” I said, and bit in, tasting rye. I hate rye! When Mrs. Jacobson went in to get the pan, I stuffed the cookie under the cushion.
I don’t know for sure why I did it. I think it was mostly that I don’t get along with rye, but it was partly that I had to wear a green gym suit when people could see me, that Mr. Crispin called on me in the middle of class, that I had tons of homework, that a teacher would actually give a test on how much 1/3 of the round trip was, and finally that Mom would make me come to some old lady’s house just for a pan on a day like this. I was tired of the conspiracy against me.
When Mrs. Jacobson came back with the pan, she asked me if I’d like another cookie. I told her no, thanks, I was on a diet. Then she said she had some skim milk in her fridge, and would I like some? I told her that I wouldn’t really care for any and that I had to get back to do my homework.
When I got home, I started to feel guilty about what I’d done. It really wasn’t fair to take out my frustrations on some nice old lady’s rye cookie and couch. What if Mrs. Jacobson found the cookie?
I felt guilty about it all the next day. By the time I got home, I had a stomach ache, and all my internal organs were yelling at me for worrying. However, I can’t just say, “I guess I will quit worrying now.” When I’m worried, I have to do something to make the problem go away. I knew what I needed to do. I had to get that cookie out from under that green sofa before Mrs. Jacobson found it. I started forming all sorts of plans to get the cookie back.
I could sneak in during the middle of the night and steal the cookie. But if I did that, I might wake her up, and she would get scared thinking I was a burglar coming to steal her skim milk or something. I could get my best friend Julie to ring the doorbell and pretend to take a survey while I ran in the back door and retrieved the cookie. I could tell Mrs. Jacobson that I needed service hours and that I would clean her house for her. At last I decided on an easier plan.
I rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Jacobson answered it. She opened the door and just stared at me for a minute. Then she suddenly hugged me. I hate to be hugged.
“Oh it’s you, angel dear!” Oh heavens, I thought. Don’t tell me I’m dead already.
“I’ve come to visit.”
“Oh bless your heart! Come in, dear.” I hate being called dear.
“Sit down,” she said, pointing to the familiar green couch. I decided to really ham it up.
“Oh my,” I said, trying not to laugh, “I’m so tired. Could I have a glass of water?”
“Why of course you may,” she smiled, and she turned to do my bidding. As soon as she was in the kitchen where she couldn’t see me, I began my task frantically.
I took out the plastic bag I had stuffed in my pocket and lifted up the cushion, revealing about four major pieces of a rye cookie.
I was sweeping the smaller crumbs into my bag when I heard her coming back. I pushed the bag into my pocket and tried to fix the cushion. I turned around quickly to see her looking at me with a nervous smile.
“I see you’ve noticed how dirty my couch is. I must have the cleaning lady vacuum it.”
“Oh, I wasn’t looking at the dirt …” Suddenly I realized that that hadn’t sounded too good. “What I mean is, I, uh, was looking at how well it is made. It’s certainly very nice.”
“Thank you. Here’s your water, dear.” (I wished she wouldn’t call me that.)
I stayed for about ten minutes, and we talked about her cat and how the dear thing should have kittens any time now and how warm the weather was. I must say I was relieved when I was safe at home with the cookie crumbs in my garbage can.
It was some weeks later when I decided to visit Mrs. Jacobson again. I’d been thinking about how awful I was to put the cookie under the couch and what a hypocrite I had been to get it back. She was really quite a nice old lady. I decided to go visit her just one more time.
Once I got there, I didn’t know what to say. What did I have in common with a 70-year-old lady? I didn’t want to spend half an hour talking about cats again.
I tried to think of a question to ask her. It occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t sure what to say to a 16-year-old girl. I asked her how she’d met her husband. She said she had a job in a department store where her husband used to buy things.
Then she asked me about school, and I told her about our gym suits and how embarrassing it was to go outside wearing one. She smiled, and we really had a good time. We didn’t talk about the weather but about things we were both interested in. We talked about the mountains and how pretty they are. I told her about how I planned to go to college and major in psychology. When I went home, I was glad that I had gone.
I rarely had a chance to talk to someone who listened so well and seemed to be interested in me. It seemed my friends liked to talk only about clothes. My mom listened to me, but she was always reminding me to clean my room and sit up straight—and have I brushed my teeth?
It was two years ago that I first visited Mrs. Jacobson. Since then I have gone many times to visit her. She often tells me stories about when she was young. She dropped out of school after eighth grade to help her mother with her younger brothers and sisters. She had a job once, living on a farm. She helped the lady with cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children all day long, all week, for a dollar a week.
We had Mrs. Jacobson over for Christmas dinner last year. I now have someone to visit with when I feel depressed, like the other day when I went out with Dave and I spilled spaghetti all over and felt like climbing under the table. I told Mrs. Jacobson about that, and she told me about how once when she was dating her husband, he came to visit her one evening. She thought he was coming a half hour later than he did. He came to the door while she was in her room. Mrs. Jacobson’s sister invited him in to sit down and started to go up the stairs to announce that he was there. Mrs. Jacobson came out of her bedroom door, intending to go downstairs and borrow a necklace. She started singing a song and was halfway down the stairs when she saw the young man grinning up at her. I guess everybody does things like that sometimes.
I think Mrs. Jacobson is glad when I visit her. She lives all by herself, and I don’t think she has much to do besides watch soap operas. Her eyes are getting bad, and she can’t read very well anymore.
Yesterday I went to visit Mrs. Jacobson. I walked in and sat down on the green sofa. She asked me to wait just a minute, and she went into the kitchen. She returned with a tray of cookies. I bit in and tasted rye. I smiled and ate the whole thing.

I made my first covenant on November 13, 1977. I don’t remember much about my baptism, but I do remember Elder Pistone helping me into the water and Elder Morasco confirming me while my hair was still wet. I also remember the joy I felt as new ward friends gave hugs and kisses in the Argentine way and the strong desire I felt to be a faithful daughter of Heavenly Father.
Young Sister Spannaus (middle) with her parents (left), her sister Silvina (far right), and Elder Morasco.
Later I realized that the joy I felt came from the gift of the Holy Ghost. I learned that as I faithfully kept my covenants with God, the Spirit would be with me. The Holy Ghost is just one of the powerful blessings that come from a covenant relationship with God and Jesus Christ.

“My mother opened a little country store to help keep our family financially afloat. I worked with her in the store quite a bit. She taught me about respecting and serving people. Once, when I was fourteen, my mom and dad went to Salt Lake City for a conference and left me to mind the store. The Hutterites in our area wouldn’t go to the bank to cash their huge grain checks, so Mom was a bonded payor, and we would sometimes have thousands of dollars in the store safe. I knew the combination to the safe, and I knew that my parents trusted me, so I opened and closed the store on time and took care of customers.”