Gospel Story Finder

I looked at the clock and shut my scriptures, relieved that my 30-minute study had finally ended. I knelt and offered a mostly passive prayer. The one thing I was sincere about was this: “Heavenly Father, please please please help me know if I’m worthy to go to the temple today.”
I repeated that phrase over and over as tears began to stream uncontrollably down my cheeks and the pit in my stomach grew.
It was the eighth week in a row I had gone through this before my weekly temple appointment. Each week my prayer seemed to grow longer and the pleading more fervent.
I knew I had sinned. I knew I had done something that made me unworthy to attend the temple.
I just couldn’t figure out what that thing was.
I had a habit of repeatedly confessing sins to my bishop. I confessed things that I had done as a child, things I had already repented for, and worst of all—things I wasn’t even sure I had done.
Although each confession provided temporary relief, the next day I would be overwhelmed with guilt again. I began obsessively reviewing my life to find the sin I was sure I had willfully committed.
Each Sunday I would take the sacrament and be filled with the purest peace imaginable. That moment was the highlight of every week. Five minutes later, however, I would be back to painstakingly reviewing my sins and shortcomings, convincing myself that each infraction was far more severe than I’d originally thought.
This constant pattern of constantly repenting and feeling guilty continued until I sought help. Three years later, through the divine guidance of a newly called bishop and small, miraculous circumstances, I found myself sitting in a therapist’s office. I was formally diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

In high school, quarters became merely small change. Our attention was drawn to larger sums of money with bigger wagers, usually around big-ticket sporting events. Every week there seemed to be a big game, and betting circles were frequently established. Obviously, the more people there were contributing to a pot, the greater a winner’s takings would be. I remember one student who kept a notebook with the particular bets, the odds, and the individuals involved. Between and sometimes during classes he would approach you, asking if you would like to bet.

Shortly after getting my first driver’s license, I drove alone to southern Utah to visit a favorite aunt and uncle and get in a little fishing. After fishing without much success Saturday evening, I proceeded Sunday morning toward my aunt’s home. I had time to get there before church began.
As I drove past Duck Creek Springs, I noted the clear surface mirroring an emerald meadow and tall pine trees. I stopped the car to take a closer look. Then I saw a resplendent, 20-inch crimson-striped rainbow trout slowly fin over a moss bed not far from the bank. The fish seemed intent on slurping up every insect in sight.
My fishing rod was in the trunk of the car. I’d have plenty of time to put my humpy fly pattern in front of that feeding fish and still get to church on time. I was alone and no one would know that I was fishing on Sunday.
At that precise moment I truly felt that I could make a few casts, then quit, whether I caught the fish or not. But what about the time after that? And then, would I arrange deliberately to spend Sunday fishing?
I had heard people tell me they could “worship God out among his creations, in nature; you don’t need to be within the walls of some church building.” However, that thinking always seemed shallow to me. Even if you did yourself some good, what good would you do anyone else spending Sundays by yourself?
I got back in the car and headed for my aunt and uncle’s home and ward.
Over the years, that Sunday experience has always stood out as a source of strength in my mind. Since then I’ve taken fishing trips in many parts of the world, sometimes fishing almost every waking moment from Monday to Saturday night. But Sunday is different. No, it hasn’t always been easy. But it has been easier to keep things in proper perspective since that first Sunday decision at Duck Creek Springs.

Valued companionships begin with a personal commitment to be an exemplary companion. I was taught the importance of such caring attention and loving personal influence many years ago on Temple Square. When I was a young man, I was on my way to a session of general conference when someone took my elbow. It was President David O. McKay. “Come with me, Joseph,” President McKay said. “I’ll help you find a good seat.”

For those few moments as we walked toward the Tabernacle, President McKay seemed to focus his entire attention on me. He spoke reverently of his love for the Lord and his love for the members of the Church. He looked me straight in the eye as he firmly shared his testimony with me.

“I want you to know, Joseph,” he said, “that the President of the Lord’s Church does receive inspiration and revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ.” At that moment, the Spirit whispered to my heart that President David O. McKay was telling me the truth. I knew then that he was truly a prophet of God. That testimony has remained with me throughout my life, filling me with reverence and respect for the office our prophet holds.

I felt his love and was enriched by his humble act of kindness during those few minutes together. I don’t think that I was ever quite the same after that. I then resolved that I would try to be as good a companion to others as he had been to me.

Here’s what keeping a broad perspective looks like for me:
If there’s something I’m really excited to cook, but the utensils I need to make it are dirty, I have no problem washing them. My excitement for good food overpowers my distaste for scrubbing out pots and pans.

1 Wilford loved to play with his two brothers, Thompson and Azmon. They spent many happy hours playing in the barn or outside in the fields.
2 One Saturday evening the boys were sitting around the house, bored. Thompson suggested that they explore the attic.
3 The boys’ father had told them not to play in the attic. It was dark and dangerous. Wilford hesitated because he didn’t want to disobey his father. But the mystery of the attic attracted him, and he agreed to join in the adventure.
4 The boys raced up the stairs, eager to see what treasures they would find in the forbidden room.
5 However, just before Wilford got to the top stair, he tripped and fell all the way to the bottom.
6 Wilford felt a horrible pain in his arm, and he knew that he had broken it. It took a long time for his arm to heal, and Wilford learned how important it was to be obedient.
7 From then on, not only did Wilford obey his parents, he also obeyed the Lord. And many years later, Wilford Woodruff became the fourth President of the Church.

Believe it or not, the New Era was in production in 1902. It was called by its producers “simple, reliable, efficient, and practically noiseless.” It did not come by mail but was found in a few garages, and it used gasoline. The first New Era was an automobile.
Karl Benz was probably the first man to successfully adapt the gasoline engine to a motor vehicle. He achieved this in 1885. Gotlieb Daimler, a man working independently of Benz in the very same city, produced a four-wheeled car in 1886. By the time Henry Ford built his first car in 1896, both Daimler and Benz (later Mercedes) automobiles had been produced in five different models each. A new era was still dawning in the automotive industry six years later. A New Era car was produced in 1902, and to call a car “New Era” in 1902 was entirely proper.
What was a gasoline automobile like in 1902? Using the New Era motorcar as our guide, we see that a seven horsepower engine found under the seat drove the rear wheels through double chains and could propel its weight of 950 pounds up to a speed of twenty-five miles per hour. Steering was by tiller, which you turned to the left if you wanted to go right. Unless you lived near Camden, New Jersey, or were fortunate enough to have an agent in your area, you probably had to do without the New Era motorcar. If you were in the right area, however, a New Era car could be bought, including all the extras, from the Automobile and Marine Power Company for $850.
Besides being among the first of the American automobiles to go into circulation, the New Era was among the first of the American automobiles to go out of circulation. This happened in 1903, even before the Ford Motor Company was founded.

Sometimes we forget who we are. The other day, I stopped at a magazine shop to buy a newspaper. I was shocked to see a man whom I knew well, a high priest, viewing a magazine in the “adults only” section. He was unaware that I saw him. I was quite disappointed. The thought occurred to me: What if I had been his son, who looked to his dad as a hero?

The houselights fall; the last few coughs and whispers fade; and a girl comes on stage. Under a soft spotlight her face is beautiful, its innocence incongruous in the gaudy, western saloon. As she feels her way from table to table, her eyes wandering blankly across the painted bar and rows of painted bottles on the canvas backdrop, the audience realizes that she is blind.
“Is there no one here?” she asks timidly, to be answered only by silence. “Will no one help me?” she says a little louder, her voice quavering on the edge of a sob. There is no reply from the empty saloon. She sits down unsteadily in a chair, her face inexpressibly weary, her shoulders drooping. “Will no one help me?” she whispers hopelessly. Her vacant eyes pass once over the audience as if yearning to penetrate the darkness, and then with a small sigh she bows her head and seems to give up.
Suddenly, a few rows back, a man springs to his feet. He struggles free from the row of knees and backrests and is quickly on the stage. Drawing up a chair to face the actress, he takes her two small, trembling hands in his two large, strong ones. “I’ll help you, dear,” he says softly.
His words produce instant pandemonium. The audience surges to its feet, sending wave after wave of cheers and applause crashing against the tiny stage, and for several long minutes the melodrama waits; the stage crew waits; the actors backstage awaiting their cues wait; the whole little theater world waits while men and women and children are happy out loud.
It wasn’t exactly a theatrical triumph; there was no such line in the script; the man wasn’t a cast member; no one was more surprised than the “blind girl” at the unexpected offer of assistance. The incident, which really happened, wasn’t so much theater as it was a peculiar form of magic, and it took place, as that sort of magic often does, at a little theater in West Yellowstone, Montana, known as the Playmill.

We sustain 15 men who are ordained as prophets, seers, and revelators. When a thorny problem arises—and they seem only to get thornier each day—these 15 men wrestle with the issue, trying to see all the ramifications of various courses of action, and they diligently seek to hear the voice of the Lord. After I fast, pray, study, ponder, and counsel with my Brethren about weighty matters, it is not unusual for me to be awakened during the night with further impressions about issues with which we are concerned. And my Brethren have the same experience.
The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together and share all the Lord has directed us to understand and to feel individually and collectively. And then we watch the Lord move upon the President of the Church to proclaim the Lord’s will.
This prophetic process was followed in 2012 with the change in minimum age for missionaries and again with the recent additions to the Church’s handbook, consequent to the legalization of same-sex marriage in some countries. Filled with compassion for all, and especially for the children, we wrestled at length to understand the Lord’s will in this matter.
Ever mindful of God’s plan of salvation and of His hope for eternal life for each of His children, we considered countless permutations and combinations of possible scenarios that could arise. We met repeatedly in the temple in fasting and prayer and sought further direction and inspiration. And then, when the Lord inspired His prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to declare the mind and will of the Lord, each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation. It was our privilege as Apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President Monson. Revelation from the Lord to His servants is a sacred process, and so is your privilege of receiving personal revelation.

We stopped at a pizza parlor on the way home from the priesthood session of general conference when I was 15 years old, and as a result I learned a lesson about tithing that I will never forget.
My father, my two brothers, and I were hungry. As we waited for our order, I saw one of my friends working as a busboy. I asked him how he got the job, and he told me they still needed extra help. A few minutes later he came back and told me that the manager would interview me immediately. Perhaps it was because I was wearing a dress shirt and a tie, but the employer seemed impressed. The interview went well. I expressed my wish not to work on Sundays, and he said there would be no problem—plenty of people would cover for me. I was hired to begin work as soon as I could.
During the next two years, I gradually worked my way up to the position of pizza cook. Then one evening as I began my shift, I noticed one of my scheduled days had been taken off the calendar. My boss told me that if I wanted to work the regular number of hours, Sunday was open. I worked one Sunday and felt rotten about it, so I declined to work on the Sabbath from then on. My relations with my employer started to deteriorate, and I began to look for another job.
It was interesting that although I was fairly adamant about keeping the Sabbath day holy, I was lax in obeying another commandment—the law of tithing. I didn’t pay tithing at all, unless my parents prompted me. Then I’d say, “Sure, sure,” and put something in the envelope the next week. I just couldn’t see the sense in giving away one-tenth of my hard-earned money.
I kept searching for a job but with no results. I prayed to my Father in Heaven sincerely, confident that he would help me find employment. One evening while praying, a thought came to me. Why should the Lord help me find another job if I wasn’t paying tithing on the income from my current job?
I studied a couple of scriptures:
“And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Mal. 3:10).
“I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (D&C 82:10).
I decided to obey the commandment. I went to the bank and secured a large sum of money from my savings account to catch up on the tithing I had missed. I took it over to the bishop’s house that very evening.
In my pursuit of better employment, I had applied for work in a muffler shop. This was in January, and they said they wouldn’t need any additional help until the following December. Two days after I paid my tithing, someone from the shop telephoned with an offer for me to start work the next day. By the time I left on my mission, I was making three times as much money as I had made cooking pizza, plus a handsome commission. I was able to finance half of the expense of my mission by myself. Furthermore, after I had been in the mission field about a year, my employer from the muffler shop called my parents and asked if he could help pay the rest of my mission expenses.
Some might say that all these things happened coincidentally. I would be inclined to say that I was blessed because I finally started living a gospel principle. Tithing opens a door to blessings from the Lord.

Fatima Alves of Portugal, who has spina bifida, found that the website has helped her realize exactly that: she is not alone.
“It is important to me that the Church has a website to help people with disabilities so that we feel united as Church members. It’s helpful to know that the Church is concerned and has a desire to help and support people in special situations,” she said.

Following the dedication of the magnificent new temple in Nauvoo, we rode home on the airplane with Sister Parkin, Sister Hughes, Sister Pingree, and their noble husbands. I asked the sisters if they had gone to the red brick store in Nauvoo where the Prophet Joseph established the Relief Society on March 17, 1842, with only 20 members present. Sister Parkin responded that they indeed had.

As I was speaking to them, I was forcefully reminded that all of the sisters anywhere in the world can inherit and benefit from the blessings of the Lord for women. The Prophet Joseph Smith said: “I now turn the key to you in the name of God. … Knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time.” This blessing of knowledge and intelligence comes to all righteous women in the Church, regardless of their race or nationality, and irrespective of whether they are new in the Church or descendants of one of the first 20 members in Nauvoo in 1842. These blessings flow to those sisters who willingly perform the work of angels.

The scriptures first came to life for me one Sunday evening when I was seven years old. My grandfather had invited my cousins and me to his home that night to read the Book of Mormon with him, and we were a little skeptical. Having already sat through Sunday School in the morning and sacrament meeting in the afternoon, we weren’t too excited about hearing more religion in the evening, but our interest soared when we learned that Grandma would provide dessert afterward.
That night we sat next to Grandpa as he pulled a child’s version of the Book of Mormon from the shelf and started reading. What an exciting story was unfolded to us! Before we left that night our hearts and minds were filled with the story of Lehi and his family.
Over the next weeks Nephi became our great hero. He was the gifted hunter, the valiant leader, and the faithful follower. We wanted to be like him.
I was especially impressed by Nephi’s courage and faith as he carried out the seemingly impossible mission of obtaining the brass plates of Laban. I have since often drawn strength from his words.
“I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the things which he commandeth them.” (1 Ne. 3:7.)
What a great experience it was to sit at the feet of my grandfather and hear from him the stories of the Book of Mormon. I can somewhat understand the meaning of Paul’s words to the youthful Timothy:
“From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim. 3:15.)
Nephi said, “My soul delighteth in the scriptures and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and profit of my children.” (2 Ne. 4:15.) How grateful we should be for prophets like Nephi and for parents and grandparents and teachers who teach us in our youth to read and ponder the scriptures.

My decision to become a Latter-day Saint was difficult for my family to accept. As I announced that I would be serving a full-time mission without pay, not everyone understood how or even why I would want to. My parents wanted to share my enthusiasm, but they had difficulty seeing me “give up” the religion they had raised me in.
When I received my call to the Honduras Tegucigalpa Mission, included in the envelope was a checklist of things I needed to bring. My mom noticed that one of the items on my list was a laundry bag. Now that was something she could understand! She quickly purchased some heavy blue denim and handcrafted a simple, functional laundry bag made with love. It was a gift that would keep on giving.
That laundry bag accompanied me to the missionary training center and then to Honduras. It traveled with me from one small village to another, little by little aging from dark blue to light blue, in the way a pair of jeans becomes a favorite and perfect-fitting pair of pants. At the end of my mission, I gave away most of my clothes to a special family I had grown to love, but I held on to the laundry bag. My mom had made it just for me even though she did not understand the significance of a mission.
Nearly 30 years later, our oldest son received his call to the California Carlsbad Mission, along with a checklist of items he would need. We read it together, and when we came to “laundry bag,” we retrieved the bag my mom had made for me. Though it was even more faded by then, off it went to California.
A few years later, my daughter was called to serve in the Ohio Cleveland Mission, and the laundry bag accompanied her there. When she returned, she brought it home a bit more aged but still without significant wear and tear.
The bag reminds me that some things, like the lessons learned from serving a mission and from showing love for others—as my mother did for me—can bless us over and over again. It has become part of a family tradition of missionary service that I hope never wears out.

Having virtually no quantitative skills, I was seldom if ever able to help our children with math and scientific subjects. One day our high school daughter Nancy asked me for “a little help” regarding a Supreme Court case, Fletcher v. Peck. I was so eager to help after so many times of not being able to help. At last a chance to unload! Out came what I knew about Fletcher v. Peck. Finally my frustrated daughter said, “Dad, I need only a little help!” I was meeting my own needs rather than giving her “a little help.”

As a young woman I searched the scriptures for similar promises and assurances of the Lord and relied upon them with all my heart. I still do. In time, I arranged some of those scriptural promises into a poetic text that my brother, Mark, has set to music—music intended to convey both the power and peace of these promises.

Before the prayer was offered, Sister Yvonne Nelson, a pioneer member of the Church in Barbados, spoke briefly about her encounter with missionaries in 1979 and her journey of testimony and baptism. Sister Nelson said she was first contacted by missionaries in 1979.
“They started to give me some lessons,” she said. “They gave me a Book of Mormon and told me I should read, but before I read, I should pray and ask Heavenly Father if it was true.”
Active in her own Christian faith, Sister Nelson would attend LDS services after attending her own church. Over time, she said she gained gospel knowledge about the premortal existence, the purpose of mortality, and life after death.
“What I didn’t understand, the missionaries would make clear to me,” she said.
She was baptized on February 3, 1980.
Joining the Church was “the best decision I ever made,” she said. “It helped me to get closer to Heavenly Father.”
She added, “Living a righteous life is not easy. There are ups and downs and temptations, but with Heavenly Father’s help, we can overcome them. We have to keep our covenants and do everything possible to do what Heavenly Father would want us to do. Sometimes we might not want to forgive our enemies, but we have to try to love everyone.”

My new friend Jonah told me about how he often felt worried at school. But when he started to pray before school, he felt peace. Jonah prays to grow every day, and you can too!

By the autumn of 1838, the spirit of his missionary calling began to press so heavily on his mind that he longed to engage in its labors, though he had been ill through much of the summer. His strength was depleted, but he felt if he would make the effort to embark in the Lord’s service that God would supply the needed strength. Therefore, contrary to the advice and wishes of his parents, he set out to share the gospel. At first he could only walk a short distance before he was forced to sit down and rest, but gradually his strength returned and he was completely restored to health.

During this missionary journey he labored in four states. February found him in Kentucky, preparing for his return to Ohio, a journey of five hundred miles through deep snow. He had only $1.25 in his pocket, but he had a deep faith that the Lord would provide.

This return trip was a difficult one. During most of the trip his socks were wringing wet from mud, snow, and rains, and he was fortunate if he found lodging before a fire. The trip completely emaciated the young missionary, and when he returned to his friends in Ohio, he was not recognized. Under the care of his friends he collapsed and was seized with a violent fever, lying many days prostrate in bed.