Gospel Story Finder

As many of you know, our family experienced a tender separation three months ago when our daughter Wendy departed from this mortal life. In the final days of her battle with cancer, I was blessed with the opportunity to have our farewell daddy-daughter conversation.
I held her hands and told her how much I loved her and how grateful I was to be her father. I said: “You married in the temple and faithfully honored your covenants. You and your husband welcomed seven children into your home and raised them to be devout disciples of Jesus Christ, valiant Church members, and contributing citizens. And they have chosen spouses of that same caliber. Your daddy is very, very proud of you. You have brought me much joy!”
She quietly responded, “Thank you, Daddy.”
It was a tender, tearful moment for us. During her 67 years, we worked together, sang together, and often skied together. But that evening, we talked of things that matter most, such as covenants, ordinances, obedience, faith, family, fidelity, love, and eternal life.
We miss our daughter greatly. However, because of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, we do not worry about her. As we continue to honor our covenants with God, we live in anticipation of our being with her again. Meanwhile, we’re serving the Lord here and she is serving Him there—in paradise.1

In 1932 the Olympic Games tryouts and the national A. A. U. (Amateur Athletic Union) championship meet were combined. Colonel M. J. McCombs called Babe into his office at the insurance company where they worked. He told her that he thought that she could represent the company team and win the national championship all by herself!
Over two hundred entrants were competing in the women’s events, and “for two-and-a-half hours I was flying all over the place. I’d run a heat in the eighty-meter hurdles, and then I’d take one of my high jumps. Then I’d go over to the broad jump and take a turn at that. Then they’d be calling for me to throw the javelin or put the eight-pound shot.”
Babe placed fourth in the discus and the hundred-meter dash at that meet. She tied for first in the high jump, and she won the running broad jump, the eighty-meter hurdles, the javelin throw, the baseball throw, and the eight-pound shot put. Along with the six gold medals she won, she set four world records and scored thirty points for her company’s “team.” The second-place team—with twenty-two members—scored only twenty-two points!
Babe never doubted that she would qualify for the Olympics. In 1928, when her father read to the Didrikson children about the Olympics from the newspapers, Babe and her sister Lillie decided to train for the next Olympics. Babe decided to be a hurdler because “I never was too good at straightaway running. I didn’t seem to want to stay on the ground.”
One of the ways she trained was to jump over the hedges between her house and the corner store. One of the hedges was too high for her to hurdle, so she asked the neighbor who lived there to cut it to the same height as the others. He did, and soon she could hurdle the hedges on the way home faster than her older sister could run there with no obstacles.
Babe was good at almost anything she put her mind to. “All my life I’ve always had the urge to do things better than anyone else. Even in school, if it was something like making up a current-events booklet, I’d want mine to be the best in the class. I remember once I turned one in with hand-drawn maps and everything, and my teacher … wrote on it, ‘Babe, your work is beautiful. A triple plus!’”
For a home economics assignment, Babe made a dress that later took a prize at the Texas state fair. And she once won an award for her typing.
Besides schoolwork and sports, Babe had work to do at home. Times were hard during the Great Depression, and “for several years Poppa couldn’t get work regularly. … Momma took in washing. All of us pitched in and helped her. … We’d wash the clothes and rinse them and hang them out, and then while that was drying we’d do another wash.”
Other chores included polishing shoes at night, helping to wash “those twenty-eight windows in the porch” every Saturday, grocery shopping, and ironing her three brothers’ clothes.
“Momma was a good organizer. She’d divide up the work so that everything got done. And we didn’t realize it then, but she was also teaching us. She was showing us that everyone has responsibilities in life. …
“I know [we] kids were a lot of trouble to raise. But I think we realized more than some kids do that Momma and Poppa had it pretty hard, and that we should try to help them.”
When Babe started to work at the insurance company, she sent almost all her earnings home. Later, whenever she could, she’d take her mother and her father shopping and buy them clothes or whatever they needed.
When Babe was about eight years old, she earned money for a harmonica by cutting some neighbors’ grass. It was so high that she had to cut it with a sickle before she could mow it. When she got the harmonica, she practiced for hours and hours. Her brothers played the drums, two of her sisters played the piano, her other sister and her father played the violin, her mother sang, and Babe played her harmonica. Even when she was older and famous for her athletic prowess, she was good enough to play her harmonica in public.
Although most people might consider winning the A. A. U. meet her most incredible feat, for Babe, it was simply her key to the door of the Olympics. She must have been disappointed at being allowed to compete in only three Olympic Games events. And she must have been even more disappointed to win only two gold medals—in the javelin throw and the eighty-meter hurdles, setting world records in both events.
In the third event, the high jump, her last jump was disqualified. The judges said that it was illegal because her head had preceded her feet over the bar. That’s not against the rules anymore, and Babe believed that a photograph taken at the Olympic Games proved that her feet had actually gone over the bar first. But in those days the officials had only their own eyes to judge with, so Babe had to settle for the silver medal.
In later years Babe became famous for her golf playing. She was the first American to win the British women’s championship, and she set a record that has never been beaten by men or women when she won seventeen consecutive tournaments!
After cancer surgery, Babe played golf again. And she made many guest appearances at benefits for cancer research. But at age forty-two she was defeated by a second attack of that dread disease.
Before she died, she related her life story, dedicating her book “in memory of my mother and father, and to my husband, George, without whom there never would have been a life to lead.”
Although Babe participated in only one Olympic Games, that competition was one of the highlights of her life. On pages 24 and 25 you will find a game reflecting some of the features of the original Olympic Games in ancient Greece.
NOTE: Most of the preceding information, and all of the quotations, are from Babe Didrikson Zaharias’s autobiography, This Life I’ve Led.

One morning some years ago, I received a telephone call from Brother Omar Alvarez, who at the time served as one of my counselors in the bishopric. His three-year-old daughter had died in a tragic accident.
He related the account of what happened that day as follows:
“As soon as we arrived at one of the beautiful Venezuelan beaches, our children begged us to let them go out and play in a small river near the beach. We allowed them to go. Then we started to get some things out of the car. Two minutes later we noticed that our children were starting to get too far from the shore.
“As we went toward them to bring them closer, we noticed that our three-year-old daughter was not with the other children. We looked for her desperately, only to find her floating near the place where the other children were. We quickly pulled her out of the water. Some people came to try to help save her, but nothing could be done. Our youngest daughter had drowned.
“The moments that followed were extremely difficult, filled with anguish and pain for the loss of our youngest daughter. That feeling soon turned into an almost unbearable torment. However, in the midst of the confusion and uncertainty, the thought that our children had been born under the covenant came to our minds, and through that covenant, our daughter belongs to us for eternity.
“What a blessing it is to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ and to have received the ordinances of His holy temple! We now feel that we are much more committed to be faithful to the Lord and endure to the end because we want to be worthy of the blessings that the temple provides in order to see our daughter again. At times we mourn, but ‘we do not mourn as those without hope’ (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society course of study, 2007], 177).”
This faithful family came to understand that when adversity arrives in our lives, the only true source of comfort is God. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

Let me offer a clinical example. Over fifteen years ago we were designing a treatment program for a five-year-old boy with language impairment. Despite the fact that he was bright, that he came from a supportive home, and that he was anxious to communicate, his ability to understand and produce language was markedly impaired. He did not understand much of what was said to him, and he struggled to express his ideas and share his thoughts. Basically, at age five he could not communicate nearly as well as a typical three-year-old. At the time, the traditional wisdom in our field dictated that we should direct our intervention focus on helping this child learn to produce and understand language structure. That is, we should facilitate his ability to learn the grammatical morphemes to put sentences together. But we had more pressing concerns than his immature sentence structure. This child’s inability to communicate made it difficult for his parents to relate to him in the same way they did to their other children. The child did not like conversation. He could not share his feelings with his family, and he could not express his ideas. He could not explain what he had done that morning to his dad when he got home from work. He disliked print and avoided shared book reading with his mother.

Our academic anableps view of this child pushed us to concentrate not on the form of this child’s language but on his ability to use what language he had to connect with his family. From a spiritual perspective, what could be more important than enhancing this child’s ability to communicate with his parents? What would matter more than this from an eternal perspective? Wouldn’t the ability to communicate in order to form family relationships be paramount? We consciously let this spiritual perspective guide our scholarly perspective when we predicted that if we could enhance this child’s ability to use language to relate to his family, he would have access to interactions and contexts that would facilitate the growth of his sentence structure.

In terms of treatment methods and approaches, we took a very Latter-day Saint approach. We gave this child a journal. Yes, we gave him a journal despite the fact that he didn’t talk or understand well, he disliked books, and he couldn’t write. We then planned and carried out interesting events with him and chronicled those events in the journal afterward. To do this, we had the child tell us to the best of his ability about the events he had experienced, and we wrote down exactly what he said. Then we sent the journal home with him, and his dad read the day’s entry with him in the evening.

Within a short period of time, this child took ownership of the journal. He loved dictating entries, and he would ask us to read and reread the entries so that he could edit them—adding details and more complex forms. We have one lovely therapy segment on tape where a student clinician is writing the child’s comments in his journal, and he takes the journal out of her hands and tries to write in it himself—even though he can’t form letters. He looked forward to sharing his day’s events with his dad in the evening; it provided a framework for more complex and meaningful conversations than they usually had. And yes, we observed the growth in sentence form that we had hoped for.

I think the journaling did something else for this child, something one could only appreciate with anableps eyes. Writing down the things that this child did emphasized the idea that his life, his actions, and his choices mattered—they were important enough to capture in print and reflect on later. Although he may not have been interested in books initially, he was fascinated by his own written story. And that led him to an increasing interest in the stories of others. This was a significant breakthrough for a child with his type and level of disability.

Our approach with this child was unconventional at the time. Working within an institution where we could recognize and own the values that framed our decisions made it possible for us to try something innovative. Now, fifteen years later, the approach we took is common—it is considered sound practice. But we had to recognize that our spiritual perspective underlay and supported our empirical perspective in order for our approach to make sense at the time.

Some years ago my father, who was an attorney, was trying a lawsuit. For his authority, he cited only one case--an old California Supreme Court case, issued many years before. His opponent cited a number of lower court decisions of much more recent vintage. The judge finally said to my father: "Mr. Callister, don't you have a more recent case than this?" My father looked at the judge and replied: "Your honor, may I remind you that when the Supreme Court speaks on a matter, it only needs to speak once." The judge nodded with approval. He was reminded that the Supreme Court trumps all lower court decisions, however numerous or recent they may be. So it is with God our Father--He only needs to speak once on the issue of morality, and that one declaration trumps all the opinions of the "lower courts," whether uttered by psychologists, counselors, politicians, friends, parents or would-be moralists of the day.

Christl Fechter faced this challenge and, with the Lord’s help, overcame it. As a young woman, she was forced by political upheaval to leave her home-land—what is now Czechoslovakia—for Germany. There she learned about the Church and was baptized. She later moved to the United States. While living in Utah, she was hurt terribly by someone and, for the first time in her life, felt hatred.
“I had been through all the terrors of the invasion of my country, but I had never before experienced the feeling of hate,” she says. “I knew this feeling was wrong, but I did not know how to change it.”
One day she read Matt. 5:43–44: “I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; …
Christl felt that this passage was meant just for her. “I could not imagine myself praying for this person, but I wanted to do what the Lord said, and I knew I had to get rid of the hatred,” she says. So she knelt that night and prayed, through clenched teeth, that the Lord would bless the person who had hurt her.
She felt a little better. The next night she prayed again, this time sincerely, and she immediately felt the hatred leave her, never to return. She discovered that the Lord could pour out his Spirit upon her and teach her to love as he does.

Tonight I would like to talk to him and tell him some things he may not know about the priesthood he holds. I’d also like to visit with his friends—the members of his deacons quorum—and, in fact, with all of the young men—the deacons, teachers, and priests—throughout the Church. I’d like to visit with you about this very special Aaronic Priesthood authority you now have.
I recognize that to some of you this special authority may not mean so much right now. Others of you may really be excited about it, but you may not know why you feel as you do. And some few of you may not yet have qualified yourselves to receive it.
Now, to my grandson for a moment: Darren, I remember a few weeks ago when we visited your ward sacrament meeting in Arizona. I was seated on the stand and you were assigned to pass the sacrament to those seated there. You passed the bread and the water to me in remembrance of the Savior. In your office as an Aaronic Priesthood bearer, you actually helped me rededicate my life to keeping the commandments of God. Even though I am your grandfather and a Melchizedek Priesthood holder, you used your authority to help me renew my covenants. I was thrilled with that experience we shared together. As I saw the reserved smile on your face I sort of thought you had figured it to be pretty neat too. Did you know that I’ve passed the sacrament during sacred times to the Presidency of the Church, as well as to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the other General Authorities? Isn’t it terrific that you and I use this same priesthood authority to help each other make these covenants with the Lord?
Sacrament time is a very special time, and you are now an important part of it. You are different now than you used to be. The Lord has said he is going to share with you some of his power and authority to help others through life. He is going to let you do some sacred things now that you couldn’t do before. Let me tell you some more of them.
If you live worthy of it, as a teacher you will be able to go into the homes of some of the members of your ward with the responsibility to help them understand some of the gospel teachings. You don’t need to be afraid; you’ll be surprised and thrilled when you feel the inspiration to say certain things to your families. One of our home teachers is an Aaronic Priesthood bearer. He comes every month. Three weeks ago he prayed with us and left a blessing on our home. We all felt good.

You are right now in the most crucial years of your life regarding the WORK of making your family dreams come true. You will be confronted this year, maybe this week, with some frank realities that will force you to decide how much your dream really matters to you. Imagine with me a young man your age whom I'll call Jared. Jared's parents had tried to teach him the gospel in their home, but as he got older they felt they hadn't reached him. They dearly wanted him to gain a testimony, go on a mission, and marry in the temple. But Jared wanted to live his own life, and it bugged him that his parents kept asking him about a mission. He enrolled as a freshman in a state college far from home, where he could be his own person and do his own thing. He was tired of seminary and what he called "cheesy Church kids."

Jared loved the freedom of doing whatever he felt like doing. He got involved with the wrong kind of movies, music, dancing and girls. His parents had taught him to make better choices, but he was on his own, and he loved it. Jared began hanging out with a very cute girl I'll call Stephanie. Their relationship got very physical, very fast, and Jared found that exciting.

One night Jared and Stephanie started to become even more intimate together. She was very playful about the whole thing, and Jared gulped as he realized how willing she was. "What if you get pregnant," he asked. She just smiled and said, "I'm on the pill. And if that doesn't work, it's no big deal. I know how to get an abortion."

"An abortion?" Jared asked. "Wait a minute." It hit him like a freight train that they were now talking, even if only hypothetically, about a baby that could be his own child. Suddenly he felt confused and uncomfortable. He was seeing a connection that had somehow escaped him before, a link between sexuality and children--what the scriptures call "posterity." He also felt hurt that what she was willing to do with him, she had probably done with other guys.

"Listen," said Jared. "When you talk about sex, you're really talking about getting married and having kids. And when you talk about families, you're talking about religion. I don't like this, Stephanie. I know where the spirits of babies come from, and I know what sex is supposed to mean. Sorry, but I'm out of here."

Stephanie was shocked. She didn't understand what he was talking about, and she asked him not to push religion on her. Jared didn't think he'd said anything about the church. He was just talking about what seemed right to him. He took her home abruptly, then drove off feeling angry, but not quite sure why. Close to tears, he kept on driving, trying to settle down and clear his head. He kept thinking about what he'd almost done.

After driving around the city for an hour in an aimless sort of way, Jared decided to call his cousin, a returned missionary who was married and attending his same college. He'd seen his cousin once on the campus, but he had passed up the cousin's invitation to come for Sunday dinner. "Look, I know it's late," said Jared, "but I need to talk to you." As they sat together in the cousin's little apartment, Jared told him about Stephanie and that he'd just broken things off with her. Then Jared gave his cousin a very serious look. "You know what," he said, "I need to date active LDS girls who really care about the whole family thing the same way I do. Why couldn't I see that before?"

A few years ago in Italy, LDS missionaries were harassed by some Italian youths. Among the group on two occasions was a young man named Felice Lotito. He was challenged by a bold elder to come to the local LDS branch so that he could judge for himself. It was a dare which Felice accepted. He came. He heard. He studied. He believed. He was baptized. Later he was sent on a mission to England where he increased his faith and his facility with English. He served honorably, came home, married a lovely Italian girl in the Swiss Temple, and became one of the directors of the seminary and institute program in Italy, which now serves nearly 1,000 students.

In July of 1980, Felice Lotito left at age 32 to be the mission president in the Italy Padova Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! God saw in Felice possibilities that Felice did not see in himself. When the gospel was presented to him, Felice had the integrity of heart and intellect to believe it, even though he had been hassling the missionaries just days before. The Lord reached out for Felice Lotito who will now reach out to thousands of his countrymen and touch hundreds of missionaries—missionaries like those of whom he was so critical just a few years before.

Indeed, most discoveries require lots of hard work. As a tax lawyer in Los Angeles, I repeatedly saw the value of the Mormon commitment to hard work. In one case, I represented movie star Burt Reynolds. A tax issue over whether he was a California or a Florida resident had arisen, and his case hung in the balance. People had been over the documents many times. A couple days before our hearing in Sacramento, I decided to double-check everything. I even went back over Burt’s appointment books to see if any detail might have been missed. And there it was: every year Burt was always in Florida on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Well, I walked into the hearing humming “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” The legal issue of residency, after all, is all about where home is. I introduced this new fact into the record, and the state asked for a recess. When they returned, they dropped the case. The point of this little story is simply that I was glad to have gone the extra mile.

Illustration by Joel Castillo
“Do you believe in God?” one of my new co-workers asked me.
“Yes, why?”
“Because Mr. Lee* doesn’t,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t get into an argument with him about the existence of God. You’ll lose.”
It was my first day on the job at a drive-in movie theater in Arizona, USA. I’d just graduated from high school and wanted to make some money for my education and my mission, not get in a debate with an atheist boss. I took my co-worker’s advice.
My co-worker and most of the other employees, on the other hand, did believe in God. But that didn’t stop them from swearing, eating food from the snack bar without paying for it, and smoking marijuana after work.
I never joined them in any of those activities, and it didn’t take long before they wanted to know why. I told them I was a Latter-day Saint, I told them about the Word of Wisdom, and I told them I was preparing to serve a mission for my Church. They didn’t make fun of me, but they did start to call me “The Reverend.”
One night when Mr. Lee was off, another employee and I ran the cash register at the snack bar. That night after the snack bar had closed and we’d added up all the money from the register, the assistant manager told us we had $100 more than what the cash register receipts said we should have.
“There’s no record of this $100,” he said. “So it looks like we each make an extra $33 tonight.”
I didn’t feel right accepting the cash, but I put it in my pocket anyway. The longer the money stayed there, the worse I felt. About half an hour later I approached the assistant manager.
“The money may be unaccounted for,” I told him, “but it isn’t mine.” Then I handed it back.
The following week Mr. Lee called me into his office. I was hoping he didn’t want to talk about God, but actually he did. He asked some questions about the Church and my beliefs. After I’d answered, he said something that surprised me.
“You appear to be the only worker at the drive-in I can trust,” he said. “I’d like to ask a favor, and I’d like to give you some extra work.”
He told me that the other employees were, in his words, “stealing me blind.” He asked me to keep setting a good example for them and to encourage them to be honest. Then he gave me some extra after-hour security duties he didn’t trust the other workers to do. Those extra duties meant more money for college and my mission.
I didn’t ask Mr. Lee if the money I’d been given the week before was a test. But obviously, the assistant manager told him what had happened. I was just glad I’d been honest. I was also glad my boss knew that my belief in God and my participation at church had influenced my actions.
Through that experience, I learned for myself that “being honest will enhance your future opportunities and your ability to be guided by the Holy Ghost” (For the Strength of Youth [2011], 19).
I quit the drive-in job at the end of the summer and left for college. When I returned home during Thanksgiving vacation, I went to the drive-in one night to watch a movie and to say hello to my former co-workers. During the movie, one of them announced over the drive-in speakers: “Reverend Morris, please report to the snack bar. Reverend Morris, your congregation would like to see you.”
We had a fun reunion, and I was glad I’d left everyone with a positive impression. I’m especially grateful, though, that my honest behavior had made a believer out of my boss.

We never fail to meet on Tuesday nights. By now, over 60 people have attended, almost half of them friends of other faiths. After we had been meeting for two years, Eddie asked how we had grown from our meetings. Each of us acknowledged the remarkable strength we derive from each other. We have become friends who support and love one another. The Spirit is always present as well. We’ll keep going, inviting new friends every week to delight in and ponder on the things of our souls (see 2 Nephi 4:15).

If I close my eyes, I can still see those two young men trying to work under the scalding sun of a Brazilian summer. I approached them and asked, “Are you Mormons?” I had never before seen a pair of missionaries, but since my uncle had been a member for some time, I supposed those two perspiring boys must be from the Church he always talked about.
It was 1970, and I was only 13 years old. I had never seen smiles so bright as when I asked that simple question. We set up a time for the first lesson. My three sisters and I received all of the lessons and were soon baptized.
I cannot forget the care with which those missionaries taught and fellowshipped four young people. They came to get us when we missed church. They visited us often. Why so much concern for us? Would so much effort for these young people be worth anything at all?
When I was called to fulfill a full-time mission, I thought about Elder Clark and Elder Bushman. Those missionaries had planted seeds; those seeds had germinated and grown. Now we were ready to plant seeds for others.
Sandra, a friend who was baptized about the time I was, and I both served missions, and one of Sandra’s sisters went on a mission. Five of the young people I taught and baptized on my mission also went on missions. My son has returned from the Brazil Campinas Mission. All of this happened because those two young missionaries cared about me and my activity in the Church.
Many years ago at the dedication of the temple in São Paulo, Sandra gave me Elder Bushman’s mailing address. I wrote to him, “You can count the seeds in one apple, but you never know how many apples each seed will yield.”

Grandpa, you’re bald.Thanks for noticing.
When you get resurrected, will you still be bald?Certainly not! I plan to have a magnificent head of curly black hair. Do you think you’ll still know me?
Hmmmm. Will you still be old?As a matter of fact, I expect to be rather young and handsome.
Will you still have your same happy smile?Well, it may be even happier.
Will you still love your Mandykins?More than ever.
I’ll know you, Grandpa.I’ll know you, too.

That same patience and gratitude deepened the love in her marriage. One daughter, Louise, who later became the seventh general president of the Relief Society, says that the only time she saw Elizabeth cry was when a cat knocked down the shelves in the cabin and broke that precious china. Thomas ordered the first set of Haviland that ZCMI shipped into the territory to replace it—a measure of love indeed, for they were struggling to make a living in Scipio, Utah, where he served as bishop and she as Relief Society president.

“OK, Jason,” Mom said as she tucked him into bed. “You’ve been extra quiet tonight. Is anything wrong?”
Jason looked up at her. “It’s about school,” he said. “I just wish recess was different.”
“Have you made any new friends?” Mom asked.
Their family had just moved, and Jason was finally starting to feel comfortable in his new third-grade class.
“A few,” he said. “But it’s the playground helper. She’s grouchy all the time! And some of the kids say mean things about her.”
“What do you think about that?” Mom said.
“Well, I don’t think she’s nice, but I also don’t like it when the kids talk like that about her,” Jason said. “It makes me feel bad inside, even when she doesn’t hear them.”
“Jason, do you remember how the Holy Ghost speaks to you?” Mom said.
Jason tapped his heart.
“That’s right,” Mom said. “He talks to you through feelings and thoughts.”
Jason loved the peaceful feeling of the Holy Ghost. But when the kids were mean to the playground helper, he didn’t feel peaceful at all.
“But the Holy Ghost makes me feel good,” he said.
Mom nodded. “That’s right, but He also tells us when something isn’t right, or when we need to fix something. When you feel bad or uncomfortable inside, it could be the Holy Ghost telling you that something is wrong and you need to do the right thing.” She smoothed his hair. “What do you think is the right thing to do?”
“Well, I know Jesus wants us to be kind to everyone,” Jason said thoughtfully. “I guess that means playground helpers too.”
“Yes, it does!” Mom said. “We are all children of Heavenly Father, so we should treat everyone nicely.”
“Well, what can I do?” Jason said, frowning. “If she wasn’t so grumpy, maybe everyone would be nicer to her.”
“We don’t always know why people act a certain way,” Mom said. “We don’t know what’s going on in her life. Maybe she’s doing the best she can.”
Jason thought about when they had first moved here. Everything was so different from his old home. He had tried not to show it, but at first he had been scared and sad. Maybe the playground helper felt that way too.
“But if I don’t know why she’s feeling bad, how can I help?” Jason asked.
“We don’t always have to know what’s wrong to cheer someone up,” Mom said.
Jason thought about what cheered him up. “I know! Can we make her some chocolate-chip cookies?”
Mom smiled. “That’s a great idea.”
Jason was getting excited. “And maybe we can make some extra cookies to give to the kids at recess too!” he said. “I could share cookies with everyone and talk about how we can brighten her day even more!”
“Even better,” Mom said. “I sure am proud of you, Jason.”
Jason smiled. He was glad he had the Holy Ghost to remind him to treat others like Jesus would treat them. Recess was going to get a whole lot sweeter.

My husband’s great-grandfather Henry Clegg Jr. was a finisher. He joined the Church with his family when the first LDS missionaries went to Preston, England. Henry had a view of his destination in his mind as he and his wife, Hannah, and their two young boys immigrated to Utah. Henry left his older parents, who were too feeble to make such a long and arduous journey, knowing he would never see them again.
While crossing the plains, Hannah contracted cholera and died. She was laid to rest in an unmarked grave. The company then moved on, and at six in the evening, Henry’s youngest son also died. Henry retraced his steps to Hannah’s grave, placed his young son in his wife’s arms, and reburied the two of them together. Henry then had to return to the wagon train, now five miles away. Suffering from cholera himself, Henry described his condition as being at death’s door while realizing he still had a thousand miles to walk. Amazingly he continued forward, putting one foot in front of the other. He stopped writing in his journal for several weeks after losing his dear Hannah and little son. I was struck with the words he used when he did start writing again: “Still moving.”
When he finally reached the gathering place of the Saints, he began a new family. He kept the faith. He continued his story. Most remarkably, his heartache over the burial of his sweetheart and son gave birth to our family’s legacy of moving forward, of finishing.
Henry Clegg was still moving forward to live among the faithful Saints, to take his place, to raise a righteous family, to serve his neighbor. He had that picture in his mind even when his heart was breaking. I heard a Primary child from Ghana answer the question “What does it mean to choose the right every day?” with, “It means to follow the Lord and Savior every day and do your best even when it is hard.” This modern pioneer boy knew President Hinckley’s admonition. He knew about keeping commandments every day. He understood that his own story would unfold simply by putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.

When I was a freshman in college, I had a part-time job at a convenience store in a small town. I had the closing shift, which ended at 11:00 p.m. Despite the relative safety of the community, I would frequently get nervous while closing the store all alone.
One night I felt particularly anxious. As I finished cleaning the store and made my way to the cash register to shut it down, a feeling of dread came over me. I did not have any logical reason for being so afraid, but I could not shake my nervousness. I did not want to overreact by calling the police, but I also wanted to be protected if there was any real danger.
Finally, I knelt to pray. I told Heavenly Father that I was afraid and didn’t know what to do. It was the most sincere prayer I had ever given.
As I stood up, I immediately noticed a vehicle pulling up to the fuel pump nearest to the building. To my surprise and relief, it was a police officer. As he pulled out his credit card to fill his patrol car with fuel, I quickly started my final closing responsibilities. I wanted to take advantage of his protective presence and get as much done as I could before he finished at the pump. When he had finished fueling, he made a call on his cell phone and sat in his car as he talked. He was still there when I locked up and got in my car. Both of us pulled away from the convenience store at the same time.
As I drove home, I was amazed at how quickly my prayer had been answered. I humbly thanked Heavenly Father for listening to me. I had been taught that I was a daughter of God, but until that night I had never felt His love for me so near or so tangibly. Words cannot describe the peace I felt in my heart. I know that the Lord will bless me if I have faith and ask for His help.

The next day in nearby Peñaflor a group of Saints gathered at another font to savor the fruits of missionary labors. Cool leaf-shadows from a neighbor’s fig tree patterned the white baptismal clothing and the bottom of the font. Patterns of light and dark lay on the wall behind them. The service was being held beneath the sky in the backyard of the branch president’s home, but no gleaming new chapel was ever filled with more solemn joy and reverence.

All in white, missionaries and converts stood side by side as the opening hymn was sung and the meaning of the baptismal ordinance explained in talks. A fresh breeze ruffled the leafy vegetables in the backyard garden and whispered through the trees. The shadows in the font shattered into facets of light as a wind ruffled the surface. Elder Sanchez conducted the meeting with quiet dignity. Elder Gonzales told of a bright new life on the other side of the baptismal waters. One by one candidates entered the water and were baptized. Sometimes the words of the ordinance were spoken in easy Chilean Spanish, and sometimes they carried a strong English accent, but always they were spoken clearly and with authority.

While the shadows grew quiet again in the font, the congregation sang gospel hymns until the officiators and candidates returned in their Sunday clothes. Now Elder Holbrook spoke humbly of the gift of the Holy Ghost. Firm, strong hands were laid on heads while words of confirmation were spoken. Afterwards there were hugs and handclasps. Some of the hands that clasped that day will remain to build up Chile. Others, in their proper time, will labor in vineyards far north, but the shadows of fig leaves, the wavering pattern on the baptismal waters, the cool, leafsweet breeze, the clouds mounting from the sea, the smell of spring flowers, the love written on faces and in hearts—these will go with everyone there although years and oceans and mountain ranges, and even death itself, may lie between them.

Mark helped his sister, Mattie, across the dirt and rubble in the street. The snow that had been white and sparkling earlier that morning on their way to school was now gray with the city’s soot.
As they walked home, Mark thought about his first day of school after the Christmas holiday. The teacher and children had taken down all the Christmas decorations, and the classroom had a clean new look that matched the clean new morning snow.
Maybe, Mark thought, when we get home, Mattie and I can work together and clean our house too.
He was about to tell Mattie his idea when almost at the same moment they saw a green tree limb sticking out of a pile of dirty snow.
They bent down to pick it up, but the limb was crusted over with ice. Twisting and turning together, they were finally able to loosen the ice and snow and pull out a Christmas tree that had been thrown away. Pieces of tinsel and ribbon clung to the brittle green needles, and here and there were small bits of bright paper.
“Do you think we could take it home?” Mattie asked.
“Sure!” answered Mark. “No one else would want it. And now we can have a Christmas tree—even if it is after Christmas!”
Together they dragged the tree to the corner of the street. They struggled up the three flights of stairs of the apartment building and into their living room.
Mark quickly cleared a space by the window and set the tree carefully on a small piece of rug. Then they both sat down in front of the tree and looked at it.
Father lay on the couch as usual. He lifted the paper he was reading to watch them. Mother came from the kitchen and stood in the doorway silently. Neither of them said anything.
Each afternoon Mattie and Mark hurried home from school to see their tree. Mattie cut her favorite bright red ribbon and tied small bows on the tree. Mark went through his box of treasures and found a few things that almost looked like Christmas ornaments. Both of them watched for bits of tinfoil and pieces of bright yarn or string to make their tree more beautiful.
In the long evenings as they sat before the tree, they softly sang carols they had learned in school. Neither Father nor Mother seemed to pay much attention. The children felt as if they were living in a different world, so they were surprised when one night Father started humming the songs with them.
That same night Mother came to the kitchen door and said, “Don’t make so much of that tree. After all, it was the Child who made Christmas, not just a tree.”
“Tell us about the Baby,” Mark and Mattie pleaded.
Mother took the old Bible from the round table, dusted it, and read to them. Night after night they asked for the story. And over and over again Mother read about the small Child in the manger and Mary and Joseph who were so careful and protecting.
“That star was something too,” Father said one night.
“Tell us again about the star,” Mark asked, and no one seemed to think it strange when Father began talking about the star that led the wisemen.
Once when Mother put the book back, she dusted and straightened the round table and swept the floor around the tree. The next night when she read, Mother had on a pretty pink apron.
When the snow began to melt, Mark and Mattie found many shiny bits for the tree, until its branches were filled with color and sparkle. Even though many of the needles on the tree had fallen off, the children noticed that Mother still kept the floor swept clean.
In honor of the tree, they thought.
Mark and Mattie just laughed when the children of the neighborhood called them scavengers. Nothing was too good for their tree!
They were so happy with this bit of beauty in their lives that at first they didn’t even notice their father no longer lay on the couch most of the time.
Then one warm afternoon in March, they came home to noise and confusion. Many people were gathered around their apartment. They heard an officer say to their mother, “I’ve been told that there is still a Christmas tree in your house. I’m afraid it’s dry as tinder and a real fire hazard. The tree must go!”
“But it’s so pretty,” said Mattie.
“Please, can’t we keep it?” Mark pleaded.
The officer sent the curious crowd away. Father came running in, looking excited. The officer closed the door to the apartment and sat down in front of the tree with Mark, Mattie, Father, and Mother.
“Why did you keep it so long after Christmas?” he asked.
Mark explained how they hadn’t had a real Christmas. But when he and Mattie found the tree and brought it home and decorated it, Christmas came at last. Mother told them the story of Christ’s birth, and Father sang songs with them.
Mattie looked as if she was about to cry.
“And now it will all be over,” Mark said, and there was an odd little catch in his voice.
“No,” said Mother quietly. “It’s just the beginning. The tree has been a miracle for us. Because of it, we have changed our ways. Now we can have beauty and happiness in our home without the tree.”
“And next Christmas,” said Father, “we’ll have a tree of our own. I got a job today.”
“You have more than a tree now,” said the officer. “And just so you can keep all you have, we’ll remove the fire hazard.”
After the tree was gone, Mark and Mattie looked at Father and Mother. There was something different about them.
Then they smiled at each other, for suddenly they understood that after all they didn’t really need the Christmas tree to be happy!