Gospel Story Finder

Many years ago I attended a large gathering of Church members in the city of Berlin, Germany. A spirit of quiet reverence permeated the gathering as an organ prelude of hymns was played. I gazed at those who sat before me. There were mothers and fathers and relatively few children. The majority of those who sat on crowded benches were women about middle age—and alone.
Suddenly it dawned on me that perhaps these were widows, having lost their husbands during World War II. My curiosity demanded an answer to my unexpressed thought, so I asked the conducting officer to take a sort of standing roll call. When he asked all those who were widows to please arise, it seemed that half the vast throng stood. Their faces reflected the grim effect of war’s cruelty. Their hopes had been shattered, their lives altered, and their future had in a way been taken from them. Behind each countenance was a personal travail of tears. I addressed my remarks to them and to all who have loved, then lost, those most dear.
Though perhaps not so cruel and dramatic, yet equally poignant, are the lives described in the obituaries of our day and time when the uninvited enemy called death enters the stage of our mortal existence and snatches from our grasp a loving husband or precious wife and frequently, in the young exuberance of life, our children and grandchildren. Death shows no mercy. Death is no respecter of persons, but in its insidious way it visits all. At times it is after long-suffering and is a blessing; while in other instances those in the prime of life are taken by its grasp.
As of old, the heartbroken frequently and silently repeat the ancient question: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” “Why me; why now?” The words of a beautiful hymn provide a partial answer:
Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart, Searching my soul? …
He answers privately, Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind, Love without end.
The plight of the widow is a recurring theme through holy writ. Our hearts go out to the widow at Zarephath. Gone was her husband. Consumed was her scant supply of food. Starvation and death awaited. But then came God’s prophet with the seemingly brazen command that the widow woman should feed him. Her response is particularly touching: “As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
The reassuring words of Elijah penetrated her very being:
“Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.
“For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail. …
“And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah. …
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.”
Like the widow at Zarephath was the widow of Nain. The New Testament of our Lord records a moving and soul-stirring account of the Master’s tender regard for the grieving widow:
“And it came to pass … that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people.
“Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her.
“And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.
“And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.
“And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.”
What power, what tenderness, what compassion did our Master and Exemplar demonstrate. We, too, can bless if we will but follow His noble example. Opportunities are everywhere. Needed are eyes to see the pitiable plight, ears to hear the silent pleadings of a broken heart; yes, and a soul filled with compassion, that we might communicate not only eye to eye or voice to ear, but in the majestic style of the Savior, even heart to heart.
The word widow appears to have had a most significant meaning to our Lord. He cautioned His disciples to beware of the example of the scribes, who feigned righteousness by their long apparel and their lengthy prayers, but who devoured the houses of widows.
To the Nephites came the direct warning: “I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against … those that oppress … the widow.”
And to the Prophet Joseph Smith, He directed: “The storehouse shall be kept by the consecrations of the church; and widows and orphans shall be provided for, as also the poor.”
The widow’s home is generally not large or ornate. Frequently it is a modest one in size and humble in appearance. Often it is tucked away at the top of the stairs or the back of the hallway and consists of but one room. To such homes He sends you and me.
There may exist an actual need for food, clothing—even shelter. Such can be supplied. Almost always there remains the hope for that special hyacinth to feed the soul.
Go, gladden the lonely, the dreary;
Go, comfort the weeping, the weary;
Go, scatter kind deeds on your way;
Oh, make the world brighter today!
Let us remember that after the funeral flowers fade, the well wishes of friends become memories and the prayers offered and words spoken dim in the corridors of the mind. Those who grieve frequently find themselves alone. Missed are the laughter of children, the commotion of teenagers, and the tender, loving concern of a departed companion. The clock ticks more loudly, time passes more slowly, and four walls do indeed a prison make.
Hopefully, all of us may again hear the echo of words spoken by the Master, inspiring us to good deeds: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these … ye have done it unto me.”
The late Elder Richard L. Evans left for our contemplation and action this admonition:
“We who are younger should never become so blindly absorbed in our own pursuits as to forget that there are still with us those who will live in loneliness unless we let them share our lives as once they let us share theirs. …
“We cannot bring them back the morning hours of youth. But we can help them live in the warm glow of a sunset made more beautiful by our thoughtfulness, by our provision, and by our active and unfeigned love. Life in its fullness is a loving ministry of service from generation to generation. God grant that those who belong to us may never be left in loneliness.”
Long years ago a severe drought struck the Salt Lake Valley. The commodities at the storehouse on Welfare Square had not been their usual quality, nor were they found in abundance. Many products were missing, especially fresh fruit. As a young bishop, worrying about the needs of the many widows in my ward, I said a prayer one evening that is especially sacred to me. I pleaded that these widows, who were among the finest women I knew in mortality and whose needs were simple and conservative, had no resources on which they might rely.
The next morning I received a call from a ward member, a proprietor of a produce business situated in our ward. “Bishop,” he said, “I would like to send a semitrailer filled with oranges, grapefruit, and bananas to the bishops’ storehouse to be given to those in need. Could you make arrangements?” Could I make arrangements! The storehouse was alerted, and then each bishop was telephoned and the entire shipment distributed.
The wife of that generous businessman became a widow herself. I know the decision her husband and she made brought her sweet memories and comforting peace to her soul.
I express my sincere appreciation to one and all who are mindful of the widow. To the thoughtful neighbors who invite a widow to dinner and to that royal army of noble women, the visiting teachers of the Relief Society, I add, may God bless you for your kindness and your love unfeigned toward her who reaches out and touches vanished hands and listens to voices forever stilled. The words of the Prophet Joseph Smith describe their mission: “I attended by request, the Female Relief Society, whose object is the relief of the poor, the destitute, the widow and the orphan, and for the exercise of all benevolent purposes.”
Thank you to thoughtful and caring bishops who ensure that no widow’s cupboard is empty, no house unwarmed, no life unblessed. I admire the ward leaders who invite the widows to all social activities, often providing a young Aaronic Priesthood lad to be a special escort for the occasion.
Frequently the need of the widow is not one of food or shelter but of feeling a part of ongoing events. Elder H. Bryan Richards of the Seventy once brought to my office a sweet widow whose husband had passed away during a full-time mission they were serving. Elder Richards explained that her financial resources were adequate and that she desired to contribute to the Church’s General Missionary Fund the proceeds of two insurance policies on the life of her departed husband. I could not restrain my tears when she meekly advised me, “This is what I wish to do. It is what my missionary-minded husband would like.”
The gift was received and entered as a most substantial donation to missionary service. I saw the receipt made in her name, but I believe in my heart it was also recorded in heaven. I invited her and Elder Richards to follow me to the unoccupied First Presidency council room in the Church Administration Building. The room is beautiful and peaceful. I asked this sweet widow to sit in the chair usually occupied by our Church President. I felt he would not mind, for I knew his heart.
As she sat ever so humbly in the large leather chair, she gripped each armrest with a hand and declared, “This is one of the happiest days of my life.” It was also such for Elder Richards and for me.
I never travel to work along busy Seventh East in Salt Lake City but what I see in my mind’s eye a thoughtful daughter, afflicted with arthritis and carrying in her hand a plate of warm food to her aged mother who lived across the busy thoroughfare. She has now gone home to that mother who preceded her in passing. But her lesson was not lost on her daughters, who delight their widowed father by cleaning his house each week, inviting him to dinners in their homes, and sharing with him the laughter of good times together, leaving in that widower’s heart a prayer of gratitude for his children, the light of his life. Fathers experience loneliness as well as mothers.
One evening at Christmastime, my wife and I visited a nursing home in Salt Lake City. We looked in vain for a 95-year-old widow, whose memory had become clouded and who could not speak a word. An attendant led us in our search, and we found Nell in the dining room. She had eaten her meal; she was sitting silently, staring into space. She did not show us any sign of recognition. As I reached to take her hand, she withdrew it. I noticed that she held firmly to a Christmas greeting card. The attendant smiled and said, “I don’t know who sent that card, but she will not lay it aside. She doesn’t speak but pats the card and holds it to her lips and kisses it.” I recognized the card. It was one my wife, Frances, had sent to Nell the week before.
We left more filled with the Christmas spirit than when we entered. We kept to ourselves the mystery of that special card and the life it had gladdened and the heart it had touched. Heaven was nearby.
We need not wait for Christmas; we need not postpone till Thanksgiving Day our response to the Savior’s tender admonition: “Go, and do thou likewise.”
As we follow in His footsteps, as we ponder His thoughts and His deeds, as we keep His commandments, we will be blessed. The grieving widow, the fatherless child, and the lonely of heart everywhere will be gladdened, comforted, and sustained through our service, and we will experience a deeper understanding of the words recorded in the Epistle of James: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

I recently was standing at the luggage retrieval at the Salt Lake City International Airport when a woman came to me and asked my name. I recognized her as a former South Rich High School classmate from years ago. She had changed since I had last seen her. You all know how you feel at the old dreaded high school reunion. She had added some gray hair and a few wrinkles. (Of course, I hadn’t changed.) It was obvious that she was meeting her missionary child, who was returning from a mission. It surprised me. While she was yet in school, her family, who were not members of the Church, had moved into our small community. Her name was Alice Gomez. She was about the same age as me and my friends. I remembered that she was friendly and always polite but that she never did attend any of our Church meetings.
I said to her, “Alice, tell me your story. You are obviously now an active member of the Church, but you never joined while we were going to school.”
Her answer was condemning: “No one ever asked me!” Wow! Our quorum really dropped the ball on that one.
Recently reported to me was the story of a priests quorum in Jamaica that decided to help the missionaries with their work. So this quorum of young men went knocking on doors, trying to find appointments for the missionaries. They soon found more referrals than the missionaries could handle.
Members of a priests quorum in Kaysville, Utah, decided they would not lose one member of their quorum. The whole quorum would go to a less-active member’s home and have their Sunday lesson sitting around the less-active boy’s bed. Soon that young man joined his quorum in taking the Sunday lesson to another home.
As of the year 2003, there are more than 26,000 wards and branches in the Church, with approximately 78,000 deacons, teachers, and priests quorums. Talk about an army!
The contribution the quorums of the Aaronic Priesthood could make to the work of converting, retaining, and activating other members of their quorums is enormous.
If 16-year-old Mormon could be the commanding officer of a large military army, and if Jeremiah as a child could have words put in his mouth by the Almighty God, and if Timothy could be wise as he was, then each young man within the sound of my voice can rise to the challenge of his quorum responsibilities.
The responsibilities of the Aaronic Priesthood quorums are no less important than the responsibilities of elders quorums or high priests groups. Remember, they hold “the keys of the ministering of angels.” We need young men to stand up in their calling, knowing of their ordained right to act in the office to which they are appointed.
I testify that these Aaronic Priesthood quorums hold the holy priesthood of God. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

It’s something like the experience of a young girl who was walking with her grandmother. The song of the birds was glorious to the little girl, and she pointed out every sound to her grandmother.

“Do you hear that?” the little girl asked again and again. But her grandmother was hard of hearing and could not make out the sounds.

Finally, the grandmother knelt down and said, “I’m sorry, dear. Grandma doesn’t hear so well.”

Exasperated, the little girl took her grandmother’s face in her hands, looked intently into her eyes, and said, “Grandma, listen harder!”

There are lessons in this story for both the nonbeliever and the believer. Just because we can’t hear something doesn’t mean there is nothing to hear. Two people can listen to the same message or read the same scripture, and one might feel the witness of the Spirit while the other doesn’t.

On the other hand, in our efforts to help our loved ones experience the voice of the Spirit and the vast, eternal, and profound beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, telling them to “listen harder” may not be the most helpful way.

Perhaps better advice—for anyone who wants to increase faith—is to listen differently.

I’m grateful for the gift given to me of ears to hear. One of my great-grandfathers, John Bennion, walked or rode his horse from over Jordan to this place to hear his name called out to go on a mission to Dixie. His journal doesn’t say much, except just that the next day he prepared to go, and he went. His assignment was to be a sheepherder. In his journal there is a record of an evening in which he met with Erastus Snow. He said another man was in the room; his name was Henry Eyring. And somewhere in St. George that night was Bishop Miles Romney. They talked about sheep. And you might have thought they were talking about something temporal. But not to those men, because they knew they were God’s sheep, and they knew they were for God’s people. And they knew how to listen, and they knew how to do what they heard.
John Bennion went on another mission to Wales and back again to this valley. Henry Eyring went on to Colonia Juarez, as Miles Romney did. And they left for me a tradition which I deeply appreciate. They were the yeomen of the Church, the soldiers of the Church, and my great-grandfathers. You can’t find in their journals records of the positions they held, just of the instructions they heard, and knew were from God, and followed. I’m grateful to my parents who handed me that heritage undiminished. I’m grateful to my wife, who more than once has heard when I did not and gently said, “Would you pray about it?” If my sons and daughters will listen to her, and hear through her what God has in mind for them, we will pass the heritage on again.

Sometimes overcoming fear is a journey, like traveling through a dark valley, as Psalm 23 mentions. Nicolas F., from Brazil, can testify that if you keep moving forward, healing will come. He struggled with feelings of failure and fear for a long time.
“I prayed a lot, asking God to take the bad thoughts out of my mind, asking Him to take away the bad feelings,” he says. He went through times of confusion and dwelt on the mistakes he’d made.
“I tried to find the power of God, but I didn’t yet feel His healing,” says Nicolas. He searched the scriptures for verses about overcoming fear and found strength in those words. He got support from his mother and others.
Eventually, one afternoon, he felt particularly whole and grateful. He realized how far he had come.
“Before I felt like I was in prison,” he says. “But now I feel like I can win the battles. As I seek the Lord’s help, I feel hope.”

In Tullahoma, Branden talks with two fellow Eagle Scouts, Joseph Jackson and James Ferguson. They’re close friends who all got their Eagles within months of each other. Joseph built picnic tables for a senior citizen center. With proper approval, he upgraded speed bumps in the road outside the center and installed and painted concrete parking barriers to help with traffic flow. But the highlight, he says, was meeting with those who use the center and hearing them say thanks for what he’d done. “Now I drive by and see them seated at the tables,” Joseph says. “I know the people, and I see how I helped them. I know it’s the kind of thing I’d like somebody to do for me.”

Earlier I mentioned Sister Andersen and her Beehive Girl’s Handbook. She is the wife of Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Presidency of the Seventy [now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles], a mother, and a grandmother. I love the thought that even though she has moved so many times, she has always known where to find her Beehive Girl’s Handbook and achievement bandlo. Sister Andersen has stood by her husband and taught the gospel all over the world. She has also exemplified womanhood and goodness as a faithful member of the Church.
As an 11-year-old girl, Sister Andersen couldn’t wait to enter the Young Women program. When her birthday finally arrived, she was given the Beehive Girl’s Handbook. Sister Andersen explains:
“In the beginning of the book it said, ‘As a Beehive girl, and for the rest of your life, set your goals high’ (Beehive Girl’s Handbook, 12). I could tell this was going to be a great adventure for me. I took my book home and immediately read it from cover to cover to see what goals I should complete during the next two years.
“I discovered that there were 80 possible goals to choose from. In my excitement, I determined that if I worked hard, I could complete all of the goals in my book—well, all except one: to go to the temple … and be baptized for the dead (Beehive Girl’s Handbook, 140). I [could not] be baptized for the dead because there [was] no temple in Florida.”
Sister Andersen decided to tell her father about her situation. Her letter continues:
“My father hesitated only a moment. We had no family in the West and no other reason to travel to Utah. He thoughtfully said to me, ‘Kathy, if you [will] complete all of the other goals in your Beehive book, we will take you the 2,500 miles [4,000 km] to the temple in Salt Lake City so that you can do baptisms for the dead and complete your final goal.’
“I worked on the goals in my Beehive book for two years and completed 79 goals. My father worked during those two years to save enough money to make the journey to the temple. My father kept his promise to me.
“Air travel at that time was too expensive for our family, and so we traveled 5,000 miles [8,000 km] by car to Salt Lake City and back so that I could complete my last Beehive goal. What joy I felt as I entered the Salt Lake Temple and in proxy was baptized by my father. It was an experience I will never forget.
“I will forever be appreciative for my mother and father’s willingness to make the temple an important part of my life. … They wisely understood that as I worked on my Young Women goals, my faith would be strengthened. My parents’ faith and sacrifice in making the long journey to Salt Lake City significantly impacted me and the generations that have followed” (“I Can Complete All of the Goals—Except One,” unpublished manuscript).
As a young girl, Sister Andersen strove to do the small and simple things that would help her become an exemplary woman— “an example of the believers”— and that is what she has become. Each of you has the same opportunity. The small and simple things you choose to do today will be magnified into great and glorious blessings tomorrow. Living each day as “an example of the believers” will help you to be happy and more confident. It will strengthen your testimony, help you to keep your baptismal covenants, and prepare you to receive the blessings of the temple so that eventually you can return to your Heavenly Father.

In addition to my wonderful mother, I’ve had many mentors in my life. I first became acquainted with the process of mentoring when I was just nine years old. My Primary teacher taught me to cross-stitch “I Will Bring the Light of the Gospel into My Home,” a picture that hung in my room during my teenage years. My teacher guided me, corrected me, and always encouraged me along the way. Other mentors followed. Two excellent seamstresses in my ward taught me sewing. With their guidance, patience, and encouragement, I entered a dress in a sewing contest when I was 14, and I actually won a prize! The process increased my thirst for knowledge and excellence in other areas as well.

It was in the home that I learned principles of provident living and the dignity of work. I can still visualize my mother spending numerous nights at home, using a foot treadle sewing machine to stitch shoes for a local shoe factory. This was not to enable her to purchase anything for herself but to help to provide financial support so that my brother and I could attend college. She later expressed how this act of service was a source of satisfaction for her.

Because my mother was raised in Southern California and that was where we lived, I knew my mother’s side of the family much better than my father’s side in Utah, simply because of proximity. My dad felt strongly about my getting to know the Utah side of the family and getting to know the people in Salt Lake. He thought there was experience to be gained and strongly encouraged me to go to the University of Utah, which I did.
When I arrived, I joined a fraternity. A majority of the fraternity were also Church members, some of whom were returned missionaries. After a while I began to notice that the returned missionaries just seemed to “have their act together” in a way that the others, in my opinion, didn’t. I had not been raised with the notion of serving a mission, although as I got to be an older teenager my parents began to mention it. My father had not served a mission because of World War II. His medical school training went right through the war.
As I spent more and more time in Salt Lake and got to know the returned missionaries, somehow I was able to perceive that these missionaries had gotten more out of life and were further down the road in a very positive way than others of the same age. They were directed. They had goals. They had a feeling for who they were that others didn’t seem to have. In my view, they had social skills that I thought were an advantage. That was what got me started thinking about a mission. At first, it was entirely for the wrong reasons, for selfish reasons.
Even within this group there were some returned missionaries whose stories about their missions made me feel hesitant about service. Their stories were about how hard it was or how cold it was or how primitive the circumstances were. I was basically reluctant to do anything cold or difficult. But other returned missionaries took me aside and said, “Whit, let me tell you what it is really like, how wonderful it is.”
Nobody who was a returned missionary said, “Don’t go.” They all told me to go, but a few of them delighted in telling me the hard parts. I decided to listen to these others who said, “That’s just the way he talks. He had a great experience, and look what he became. You’ll have a great experience too.”
At the same time I had an experience that was very important to me. I used to go down to a local gym to work out. One time when I was down there in the late morning, I noticed Elder Marion D. Hanks of the Seventy. We were the only two in the gym, and he struck up a conversation with me.
After a little small talk, I asked him if I could ask a question.
“Sure, please go ahead,” he said. He was very friendly, very warm.
“I’m trying to decide whether to go on a mission.”
He said, “What are the things that you are thinking about? What are the considerations?”
I said, “Really just one, and it is a question about the amount of time it would take.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
At this point in time I thought I wanted to be a doctor. My father was a doctor, and I wanted to be a doctor. This was before I knew much about organic chemistry.
I said, “I’m 19 now and still have three years of college and then time as an intern and a resident. I expect to be drafted into the military (it was during the Vietnam conflict) plus a mission. You add all of these things up, I’ve got 14 or 15 years to go before I get to real life. If I do all of these things, I won’t get to real life until I’m 33 or 34 years old. That seems like a very late start.”
He said, “Well, that’s an interesting question. You should know that I did not serve a mission. I was in the military during World War II and was not able to serve a mission, but I’ll tell you how I think you should answer the question.”
He asked me, “How old are you now?”
I said, “I’m 19.”
“How old will you be in 14 years if you don’t do any of those things?”
I answered, “I’ll be 33.”
He again asked me, “How old are you now?”
I said, “I’m 19.”
“How old will you be in 14 years if you do all of those things?”
I said, “I’ll be 33.”
Then he asked me. “When you are 33, what would you rather have done? None of those things, half of those things, or all of those things?”
I saw immediately the wisdom of his response, and it just penetrated me. I saw how it fit with what I had seen in the returned missionaries on campus. I decided then and there I was going to serve a mission.
That was the best decision I have ever made, because everything good in my life has come from that decision. I don’t believe my wife would ever have been willing to consider marrying me if I had not been a returned missionary. I think her decision to marry me was the best thing that has happened in my life. Our experience together across the years, raising a family and being involved in Church service, our community involvement, my professional involvement, all of those things have been influenced by that mission.
I am so grateful for the example of returned missionaries—for the way they dressed, for the way they talked, the way they worked, for the light in their lives, which was immediately evident to me. I could see the difference in the way they dressed, spoke, and carried themselves, in the way they behaved. It was discernible. I could see it, and I wasn’t looking for it. It was simply that I began to perceive something that I hadn’t noticed before, and I learned that the Lord blesses those who do the things He asks them to do. He blessed me, and He blesses everyone who goes on a mission and then stays in essentially a modified missionary lifestyle after that. I’m grateful for that.
Those two experiences—watching returned missionaries and having a chance (well, maybe not a chance) meeting with Elder Hanks. That was the turning point in my life. My parents wanted me to go on a mission and were delighted when I did. And I think it helped my younger brothers to see me go.
Young men, look forward to serving a mission. It is hard; it is work, but there is nothing about it that you can’t do. You’ll love the experience. Doing hard things is good for us, and missions aren’t so hard that you can’t do them. They just require something of you. You have to grow up a little, and I promise you that if you will prepare yourself for a mission in every way—intellectually, physically, and spiritually—keeping yourself clean and ready to go, you’ll have a tremendous experience, and you’ll be grateful.

But at least as numerous as the stories of those who faltered are the stories of the quiet heroes who did not. Though not mentioned by name in the Doctrine and Covenants, Polly Knight, mother of the family who so faithfully stood by the Prophet, became the first Latter-day Saint laid to rest in Missouri and earned her place in Church history. Traveling to settle in Missouri, she became so ill that her son, Newel, was dispatched from the riverboat to buy lumber for her coffin. Despite her illness, she insisted on completing the journey and died soon after reaching the gathering place.
After burying his wife in Missouri, Joseph Knight recorded the following: “She was Burried in the woods a spot Chosen out By our selves. I was along By where she was Buried a few Days after and I found the pigs had Began to root where she was Burried. I Being verry unwell But I took my ax the next Day and went and Bilt a pen around it. It was the Last I done for her.”10 Her faithful sacrifice bears the Lord’s benediction. Soon after her death, the Lord told Joseph Smith, “Those that die shall rest from all their labors, and their works shall follow them; and they shall receive a crown in the mansions of my Father, which I have prepared for them” (D&C 59:2).

Shortly after returning from his mission Ross went to work for a packaging and printing company in West London. During break times the men would meet in a smoke-filled room to play darts. Ross chose to stay at his workstation and read the Book of Mormon. One of the female packers asked him why he didn’t join the others and Ross took the opportunity to tell her about the word of wisdom and shared gospel principles with her. Not long after that conversation he changed jobs.

A couple of years later, while serving as a bishop, he received information about a new family moving into his ward. He felt he knew the name and to his delight found it to be that of the lady with whom he’d had the gospel discussion. Along with her husband and son she had joined the Church not long after her breaktime discussion with Ross.

My name is Micah Bybee. I’m a fourth grade student at Millville Elementary School in Millville, Utah. My teacher, Mrs. Bartelt, asked for volunteers to work as peer tutors in her classroom. She explained that she needed them to teach a few students who needed extra practice in reading. I like reading, and I wanted to help other children have fun reading. My parents gave their permission for me to be a peer tutor in my classroom every morning for twenty minutes.
It took Mrs. Bartelt about four days to train me to be a peer tutor. I learned how to teach a special reading assignment to a girl named Erica Bothwell (a fictitious name)* who has a learning disability. Most of the time it was fun and exciting to be a peer tutor. But it also took a lot of hard work to help her learn how to read words that I thought everyone knew.
I taught Erica how to sound out letters and to read words from a workbook and some other books. Afterward, she read her lessons to Mrs. Bartelt. It was exciting to hear Erica say the sounds and words that I had taught her. She and I were both excited when our teacher placed a special marker on the bulletin board after Erica had completed her first workbook. I invited her over to my house after school, and we celebrated by eating ice cream!
Erica worked very hard during our tutoring sessions, and we enjoyed being together every morning, sitting at a separate table where we reviewed words. She was patient with me, and I learned to be patient with her. Words that came easily to me were often very hard for her to learn. She was often frustrated because she couldn’t learn as fast as most of the other students. But whenever she was discouraged, we worked even harder to learn new words. I brought some stickers from home to give to her whenever she passed off a chapter in her workbook with Mrs. Bartelt. Sometimes after school, Erica and I would practice her reading assignments and do math homework too.
I felt like a real teacher as I tutored, and I noticed that my own schoolwork improved. I concentrated more during school, and I studied harder. Before I became a tutor, I didn’t like doing my homework. Now I do it because I understand how valuable it is to try hard and to learn new things. I was able to practice my own reading skills, too, which made me a better reader. I am more accepting now of children with handicaps. My mother said that I’ve become more tolerant of my sisters’ behavior at home too. Now I accept them for their own personalities and abilities and try not to be critical of their imperfections.
Erica hadn’t liked reading because it was so difficult for her, and she’d felt embarrassed when she tried to read in front of others. The tutoring taught her reading skills and gave her confidence to read more difficult words and stories. She began to feel the joy that comes from being able to read an entire story and understand its meanings.
Erica and I became good friends, and I learned that people who have handicaps like to do many of the same things that I do. I also better understand that we are all children of our Heavenly Father and that we should respect and love each other. We have differences, but we are more alike than we realize. For example, Erica and I both enjoy riding our bikes. We watch TV together and go to swimming lessons on Saturdays. We even practiced reading the Book of Mormon together. I’m so glad that I had the chance to be her tutor. I think that she’s glad too.
I worked with Erica for the whole year, and the time went very fast. It wasn’t very long before she started checking out books from our school library. Her mother and dad were excited to hear Erica reading to her brothers and sisters.
When the school year was over, I wondered who learned the most—Erica or me.

The cool evening air felt good on my face as my companion and I were frantically riding our bicycles back to our apartment to make it home on time. The May weather had been typical for Texas, hot and humid, so the crisp evening air was a welcome feeling.
I began thinking of the success we were enjoying in the city of Brownsville. A family of five was baptized last month and another family of five was to be baptized this month. Suddenly that warm, familiar, and welcome feeling came over me, and I was prompted to look back. Through the trees I saw a row of houses a little way off the road—houses I had never noticed before!
When we reached the apartment I told my companion, Elder Maughn, that we needed to go back to those houses in the morning and meet a few people. Then we planned our activities for the next day and went to bed. I could hardly sleep for the excitement of that day. We had challenged a family to be baptized, and they accepted, and now it seemed that the Lord had more people for us to teach.
The morning came not too soon for me. After a shower, breakfast, and study class, we headed out for the houses I had noticed the last night. It was easy to see why we had missed them before. Somehow between the junkyard and bushes and the low-hanging trees, there was a road. Actually, it was more like an alley. It was so rough that we could hardly get our bikes down it.
There were about seven houses down this road, so we began at the first and worked our way to the last. Yes, number six was the house. We knocked at the door, and a woman answered. Her face radiated with a warm, kind, and protective glow. We introduced ourselves and said we had a brief message about the Lord. She invited us into a small, two-room house.
As we entered the living room, we were greeted by no less than five children, ages ranging from eleven down to two. The children giggled as we spoke to them. We told her we would like to return when the father was home, and she invited us back that evening.
The rest of the day my head was spinning with thoughts of how we would teach the family. We knew with the Lord’s help and consent we would help this family become members of his church.
Somewhere between banging on doors and lunch a fearful thought came over me. Tithing! Reflecting back about that family we visited earlier that morning, I wondered how they would accept the principle of tithing. I thought of that family of seven and their home, which apparently had only the bare necessities. The kitchen had just a table and benches in it. The other room, which was divided in half and separated only by a curtain, was both the bedroom and the living room. The only furniture in this room was one chair and a tattered couch. How would this family be able to budget tithing?
Paying an honest tithe seemed to be a stumbling block to some of the people we had taught before, and I worried about this all day. Silently I prayed that this family would gain a strong testimony before we were to teach the principle of tithing to them.
Again the cool evening air felt good on my face as we rode back to that home to meet the father and begin teaching his family. The father held as many of the children as he could, and the others huddled close by. We felt a warm, familiar feeling as we visited with them and explained our message about the Lord’s true church.
After a brief prayer we started with the filmstrip Man’s Search for Happiness. It would keep the children interested, and parents always seemed to enjoy it. I glanced over at the mother during the part about leaving the pre-mortal existence, and I thought I saw traces of tears in her eyes. I couldn’t help but again glance over at her during the part about death and our spirit returning home to loved ones. Yes, this time it was plainly clear. That sweet mother had tears in her eyes and half way down her face.
The mother was still wiping away the tears when the film ended, so I quickly bore my testimony to the truthfulness of the concepts taught in the film and the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We then proceeded into the rest of the discussion. It was accepted well, very well. After arranging another appointment for the next night, we offered prayer and were on our way.
I noticed that there was no car in front of the house, and again I wondered how they would accept the principle of tithing.
When we reached our apartment, Elder Maughn and I knelt down and prayed. We prayed to our Heavenly Father to bless this family with a strong testimony and to provide a way that they could keep the commandments.
When we knelt for personal prayer I stayed on my knees a little longer than usual before climbing into bed. When the time came, how could we present the commandment of tithing so the Spirit would touch them with a testimony and a desire to keep it?
The family was progressing well. Every lesson was a spiritual experience for all of us. Members visited them and took them to church. Finally the challenge was given to be baptized, and they accepted.
The next step was the lesson on the commandments. I cleverly arranged it so my companion would present the concept on tithing. Yes, I would give the first concept, he the second which was tithing, then I would continue with the third and so on. This way I wouldn’t have to ask the family to keep the law of tithing and wonder about their answer.
That moment seemed to come all too soon. When we entered the home that evening and settled down for the lesson I began the discussion with the first concept. Before I had completed two sentences the father eagerly asked a question, and my companion answered it and continued on with my concept! He then finished the first concept, and now it was my turn—tithing! I said a quick silent prayer and proceeded with confidence.
I explained what the word tithe meant, how it was a commandment anciently and now also in our day. Then I came to the part I dreaded—to ask the family to keep the law of tithing. This fine brother answered back, but I was so worried that I didn’t hear the answer. I hurriedly continued on with the concept and then realized he had answered yes! I was then at the part where the question was to be repeated so I confidently asked again, “Will you keep the law of tithing?”
Again the answer was yes. I then bore my testimony with tears in my eyes that it was a true commandment and that many blessings would follow.
That following Sunday, just a week before the family was to be baptized, I looked eagerly for them. When Sunday School began, the family was not there. I didn’t see them anywhere. Perhaps they had decided they couldn’t keep the commandments after all, I thought to myself. I wondered if the problem was tithing.
Then just before sacrament meeting started, in through the front doors walked the family. I hurried to greet them. I had a smile on my face from ear to ear I’m sure. They explained that they had walked all the way, at least four miles I think, and the father carried two of the little ones.
We sat down in time for the meeting to start, and all I could think about was this family. What an example to me. I loved them already, and I had only known them for three weeks.
After sacrament the mother took me aside and said, “Here, Elder Myers. Here’s ten dollars. My husband gets paid every two weeks, and we wanted to start paying tithing now.” I stood there for what seemed like an eternity and just looked at the mother, with sincerity and humbleness written all over her face. I looked at the ten dollars. Her husband made two hundred dollars a month, and they were willing to keep the law of tithing. What a faithful family.
I guess I hesitated too long, for the mother said, “Isn’t it enough?” I quickly turned my head for tears began to fill my eyes. I found the second counselor in the bishopric and asked him to explain to this good sister about filling out the tithing slip.
As he explained the process to her, I slipped away to an empty room. I tried to hold back the tears, but “Here, Elder Myers” kept ringing in my ears. I thanked my Father in Heaven for this great opportunity and the testimony he had given to this family.
That following week the family was baptized.
Even now that I have returned home from my mission and have continued on with my life, I still think of this wonderful family and the great lesson they taught me about tithing. Every time I pay tithing I can still hear those words from that sweet sister, “Here, Elder Myers. Isn’t it enough?”

One evening when my son Peter was only seven weeks old, I sat rocking him in our living room. I was telling him what a beautiful and precious little boy he was when a question came to my mind: “Who would you want to raise this child if you couldn’t do it yourself?”
I thought “I would choose a loving family who had peace and harmony in their home. They would love and encourage him and help him to know he is a child of God. Even when annoyed, they would speak in quiet tones. They would also be honest in both word and deed. I would want Peter to feel comfortable and secure with them.”
“Yes,” I thought, “I would want such a family to love him and to help and encourage him as they raised him in the gospel.”
Then a second thought came clearly to my mind, almost as if Heavenly Father had spoken to me: That’s how I felt as I passed this little spirit into your care.
I knew then how our loving heavenly parents must feel as they give their children to us to rear in mortality. I realized, too, how precious each child is to them just as my children are to me.
As I thought about the parenting characteristics the Lord would want me to have, I felt humbled, for I knew that I would often fail. But I also felt a sense of great joy as I promised my Heavenly Father that I would try hard to be the kind of mother he would have me be.

Instinctively Danny fled to his favorite fishing spot to hide. How strange it looked, all icy and frozen over. The forest and winding creek were beautiful in spring and summer when trees were leafed out and wild flowers bloomed along the steep clay banks.
He swept snow off a log and sat down, remembering happier days. I’ll bet Gramps and I have taken over a hundred pounds of big catfish and perch from this spot over the last four years, Danny reminisced. He threw a pebble and watched it skid across the ice and splash into open water where a swift current had kept ice from forming.
When fish weren’t biting, he and his grandfather often selected flat stones and skillfully skipped them across the surface of the water. Danny’s never skipped as many times as Gramps’ before sinking. His grandfather always said it was because he didn’t bend down low enough before throwing. “I don’t do lots of other things right, either,” Danny muttered unhappily.
He clasped his knees for added warmth and rested his chin on them. How desolate everything looked, even with a sparkling mantle of snow. The scene matched his mood. I’m letting everyone down by hiding here, he admitted. There was a lump in his throat as he wondered if he could ever be happy again.
He wasn’t sorry that he had rescued the Clark children when the family’s trailer burned, of course, but being a hero was about the worst thing that had ever happened to him or so he felt now. He had enjoyed all the fuss at first—too much—he remembered, flushing. He hadn’t been modest enough for the honor, so his unhappiness was mostly his own fault. He had boasted and made such a fool of himself that his friends started avoiding him. Even worse, now that the nightmares and guilt had struck, he knew he wasn’t a real hero at all!
Feeling as he did, there was no way he could attend the dinner being given in his honor or accept the medal his boss Mr. Edmonds was supposed to present to him. And the reward money! He felt that accepting it would be just like stealing.
Danny started at the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow, and looked up to see his grandfather walking toward him, gasping from exertion in the frigid air.
“Thought I’d find you here,” the gray-haired man drawled as he sat down beside his grandson. “We’ve looked everywhere else, and your parents are worried and churned up about you taking off like this. What’s ailing you, boy? This should be one of the happiest days of your life. Those folks at the trailer court have worked hard preparing a big dinner for you. They’ve invited lots of people, even the mayor and city council members will be there, to see you get that medal and the $1,000 check they’ve collected for you. Surely you aren’t planning on letting them down, are you?”
“I’m sorry about letting them down, but I’m not going, Gramps,” Danny whispered, looking out across the creek. “I don’t deserve the medal or the money. I’m not a hero. I just happened to be delivering a newspaper to the Clarks when I noticed a trailer on fire. Mrs. Clark came out of the trailer next door with some sugar she’d borrowed and started screaming that her babies were inside their burning trailer. I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I just ran in through the smoke and felt around in the cribs until I found the baby and little girl and crawled outside with them. If I hadn’t done it, someone else probably would have. I—I’m really ashamed of strutting around like some big war hero or movie star,” he added miserably.
“I’m glad you admitted that last part, Danny,” his grandfather said quietly. “You did have a swelled head for awhile, after the newspaper stories and after being on the evening news, but I knew you’d get over it. I guess it’s only natural when you’re suddenly plunged into the limelight to enjoy getting attention, but now you’re going too far the other way. Suppose someone else hadn’t done what you did in those few critical seconds—”
“You don’t understand what I mean, Gramps. Nobody does,” Danny interrupted. “That’s not all that’s bothering me. The treatments for smoke inhalation, being in the hospital with my eyes bandaged, and my burned arms and hands really scared me but I didn’t realize then that smoke is so deadly even without flames. But it isn’t that or the pain I had that’s bothering me. Now I keep having nightmares about being trapped and burning to death! Gramps,” Danny whispered desperately, “if I had it to do over, I’m not sure I’d go in after those little kids! I’m not a hero … I’m just the biggest coward in the world!” He buried his face in his arms, not wanting to see shame and disappointment in his grandfather’s eyes.
The elderly man put his hand on the boy’s arm. “I doubt that there’s ever been a hero who wasn’t scared witless later when he realized the full danger of his act. And there probably wouldn’t be any heroes at all if they stopped to think about the risks.”
Gramps was silent for a few moments, thinking back on his own life. Then he went on. “You’ve seen the medal I received for grabbing up a live hand grenade tossed by an arsonist when I was a city fireman. I threw it just before it exploded and was the only one injured. What I never did tell you is that once it was over, I shook and trembled so bad that I fainted. I’ve had my nightmares, too, son, and feelings of guilt. Did I do it to save myself or the seven other firemen who stood staring at it for those few deadly seconds? Well, I still don’t know the answer. Don’t reckon I ever will. But, regardless, eight of us lived, and I got a medal for heroic action. I’m mighty proud of it, and I hope you will be, too, when you show it to your grandchildren someday. But I hope you’ll leave out the part about me being so scared and fainting.” Gramps grinned and reached over and tousled Danny’s hair.
Danny felt the heavy load lift from his shoulders. Gramps did understand his mixed emotions. He had been through it too. Danny arose and smiled as he helped his grandfather to his feet. “I guess we’d better hurry so we don’t disappoint all those people who are waiting. I’ll accept the medal, but I’m going to give the money to Mrs. Clark and her children. They really need it to get settled in another home. And right now I’m promising that my friends will never again have to listen to my big hero story!”
Gramps chuckled and laid his arm across Danny’s shoulders as they walked back to his car. “As one reluctant hero to another, son, I’m proud of you!”

Jeffrey Holland, president of Brigham Young University, while working on his Ph.D. at a prominent eastern American university, got to know well one of the reference librarians who had helped him with some research.
One day he said, “Ilene, I need to know how many books we have in the university library which claim to have been delivered by an angel.”
As you can imagine, the librarian gave him a peculiar look and said, “I don’t know of any books that have been delivered by angels. Swords maybe, or chariots, but I don’t know of any books.”
“Well, just run a check for me would you? It may take a little doing, but I really would like to know.”
The librarian dutifully did some checking of the nine million books in the library. For several days she had nothing to report, but then one day she smilingly said, “Mr. Holland, I have a book for you. I found one book which, it is claimed, was delivered by an angel,” and she held up a paperback copy of the Book of Mormon. “I’m told you can get them for a dollar. My goodness,” she continued, “an angel’s book for a dollar! You would think angels would charge more, but then again,” she said, “where would they spend it?” (See Pat Holland, President’s Welcome Assembly, Brigham Young University, 9 Sept. 1986).

Along with continuing spiritual growth came additional Church responsibilities, the adoption of two sons, and rapid professional advancement. As a colonel in the air force, Bert was known and respected for his integrity, willingness to work, and his ability to get the job done. Such a reputation made him a top candidate for assignment in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1970s as an adviser to that country’s military services. He was offered the position, but the decision to accept or refuse it was his. “I looked at a Church directory to see if the Church was there,” he says. “There were two stakes, so I thought, ‘Well, we’ll go.’” Then he and Amanda went to Washington, D.C., where he took an intensive six-month course in Spanish language and culture.
But then came a telephone call for Bert from his superiors. “They said, ‘We need you more in Bogota, Colombia, than we do in Montevideo, so we are changing your assignment.’ I could find no Church listings for Colombia, so I refused, and there was nothing they could say to change my mind.
“Then one day I had another telephone call from an officer. I tried to explain to him that I was a member of the Church and why I didn’t want to go to Colombia. It turned out that he was a member of the Church, the senior president of the seventies in his stake, and he said, ‘Brother DuPont, have you ever thought that maybe the Lord has a job for you to do in Colombia?’ It was the first time we had thought of it like that. We decided that we would go.”
Once in Colombia, the DuPonts found that the Lord did indeed have a job for them—several jobs, in fact. “I really feel,” says Bert, “though I didn’t feel that way at the time, that we were sent there to help with the Church. When the Church moves into a new area, the people who are converted are not the bank presidents or the university professors; they are the humblest and the poorest people. And all we had there were missionaries from the United States, who often weren’t accepted by the people. I was somewhat different because of my rank in the air force; being in the military helped. And I wasn’t white; that helped, too. Missionaries would tell the people something, and they wouldn’t believe it; but if we walked in the door and said the same thing, they would listen.”
Soon after the DuPonts arrived in Bogota, Bert was called to be a counselor in the district presidency; later he served as a branch president in Bogota. Amanda, warmly interested in her Colombian sisters, learned the language and was called to assume leadership responsibilities in the Relief Society and Young Women organizations. Both the DuPonts were loved and honored for their commitment to the gospel and their daily acts of Christian service.
A good part of their service embraced the missionary effort; still developing in Colombia some twelve years ago, the Church needed all the strong testimonies and good examples it could get. One returned missionary who served in Colombia recalls that the DuPonts were “great examples for the Saints. They demonstrated what home teaching and visiting teaching really were; what home evening is all about, and what it means to love and serve each other.”
The DuPonts’ home was a much-loved gathering place for the elders and sisters. Bert remembers, “We’d sometimes have as many as sixty missionaries over for dinner for the big U.S. holidays—Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas.”
From their earliest days in Colombia, the matter of heritage played a significant role in the DuPonts’ remarkable success story. Consider, for example, their participation in the Church’s first youth conference in that country. Invited to provide some Hawaiian entertainment, they drove ten hours over a tortuous mountain road to attend the conference.
Once there, Bert was asked to speak. “As I looked out into that group—the leaders and the youth—I was struck by the impression that it was like I was in Hawaii. They all looked like my relatives; their Indian background matched up with the Hawaiians and the Polynesians. So I decided I would tell them about Hagoth, the Nephite shipbuilder; I started out talking about that, and about how they looked like my uncles and aunts back in Hawaii. Our relationship with them grew from that. I told them, ‘When I say hermanos y hermanas to you, I don’t mean brothers and sisters only in the gospel; I really mean that we have a blood relationship—the blood of Israel is here.’”
The “blood of Israel” image became still more personal when Bert and Amanda invited his parents to visit them in Bogota. It was a new beginning.
“My dad was a good man,” reflects Bert, “but we couldn’t convince him to join the Church—even though whenever he visited us, he would comment about the happiness we had in our family, and how he wished the other children could have it.”
Late one night during his parents’ visit, Bert was awakened. “I was prompted,” he recalls, “to go and challenge my dad—again—to be baptized, even though he had refused many times before. I woke Amanda (I always have to confer with her, because she’s got the Spirit!), told her my feeling, and she said, ‘Well, I guess you’d better go do it.’ So I went into his room … it was like Daniel going into the lions’ den.”
Bert woke his father, bore testimony, issued the challenge. The response? “My dad put his arms around me and hugged me and cried. He had been shot, stabbed, and injured many times during his life as a police officer, and he had never before shed a tear as far as I knew.”
Within weeks, Brother DuPont had fully embraced the gospel. “The missionaries from the U.S. could not teach him in English,” Bert explains, “because they only knew their discussions in Spanish. So I interpreted for them. My parents came to church with us every Sunday even though they couldn’t understand what was going on because everything was spoken in Spanish. But evidently my father could feel something—and I believe it was the spirit of the people. There was standing room only the day he was baptized.”
It wasn’t until 1975, after Bert and Amanda had returned to Hawaii, that Bert’s testimony of the living prophet was solidly confirmed. Bert had been asked to assist with security measures for President Spencer W. Kimball who was making a short visit to Bogota. Bert’s description of the experience is a moving testimony of the prophet’s influence:
“President Kimball shook my hand, and it felt like electricity going up my arm. He looked into my eyes, and that was it; I knew. We were together a good deal of the time, and it was the most wonderful experience.
“We had family home evening at the mission home, and I was the only one without my family. I sat right next to President Kimball, and he put his arm around me. Then we knelt down, and the mission president asked the President to give the family prayer. My whole life changed in those moments; I just knew he was a prophet. It was the full conversion.”
Meanwhile, Amanda recalls with a knowing smile, while Bert was with the President, “things weren’t going too well back home. I was in a car accident; I wasn’t hurt, but the car was damaged.”
“You have to understand,” adds Bert, “that I was a person who had to have everything neat and clean. You didn’t touch my car, because you might leave a fingerprint on it.”
Amanda says their two sons, “Duane and Doug, kept saying, ‘Oh, boy, wait until Dad comes home and sees the car.’ The day Bert arrived home, they wouldn’t even go to the airport with me to meet him, so I went by myself; there hadn’t been time to get the car fixed.”
But something had changed. “Bert came off that airplane, and I think he was walking above the ground. When he saw me, all he could talk about was what a great experience it was to be with the prophet. He went right past the damaged fender on the car and didn’t even see it.
“When we got home, the boys were peeking out from behind the drapes. Bert said, ‘Okay, when my boys are hiding, something’s happened.’ So I had to show him the damaged fender. He looked at it, turned to me, and said, ‘Oh, Mom, I’m really glad you didn’t get hurt.’ Then he gave me a big hug.”
The stories go on and on. The DuPonts have opened their arms and home to a procession of foster children, less-fortunate Colombian friends and fellow Saints, missionaries whose finances and confidence needed help, and anyone else who can use a warm Hawaiian greeting, a generous sampling of Amanda’s expert cooking, or a gentle but persuasive nudge in the general direction of truth and righteousness.
“We love people,” says Amanda, “and the gospel gives us direction in serving and helping them wherever we can.”

Suppose you received, as the head of a family, a telephone call from your stake president, who said, “The local newspaper is doing a series of articles on the Church. They have asked permission for a reporter to move into one of our homes for a week to observe firsthand what a Mormon family is really like. We have selected you to represent the Church in our stake.”

You say, “Yes, President, we will be happy to do it.” You have seven children ranging from age two months to a nineteen-year-old son awaiting his mission call. Little time is allowed for “sprucing” things up—just a typical week with life as you live it.

This actually happened to Max and Nettie Ann Nelson of Boise, Idaho, in 1983. How proud I was of this fine family as I read the reporter’s account. What a positive impression was made upon him. The question going through your mind is possibly the same one that I had: “If our family were selected, would we be ready?”

“I remember the bombings, and I remember soldiers occupying our country,” Elder Didier recalled. “But I especially remember the scarcity of food. We grew up without many of the basic foods that most children have today. During five long years, only once did I have an orange to eat. It was a Christmas present at school. I took it home, and my mother peeled it carefully so that we could all have a piece.”