Gospel Story Finder

I have been a member of the Church now for one year, and I still have a lot of questions. Last Sunday I was called to be the teachers quorum president, and I wasn’t too sure of all the duties and responsibilities of a teacher. On Monday I received the May issue of the New Era. The article on the role of the teacher really answered a lot of my questions as did Brother Backman’s answer in Q and A. It came just in time!
Buzzy JohnsonSouth Pasadena, California

Easter was a week away. Daddy told Oliver that today was called “Palm Sunday.”
“Why?” Oliver asked.
“When Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem, people were so happy to see Him,” Daddy said. “They waved palm branches and shouted, ‘Hosanna!’ That’s why we call it Palm Sunday.”
“Can we wave palm branches too?” Oliver asked.
Mommy smiled. “Well, we don’t have any palm trees. Let’s see what other branches we can find.”
Mommy, Daddy, and Oliver went outside and cut a few small branches off a tree in their yard. The branches didn’t have any leaves yet, just tiny blossoms.
Oliver waved his branch back and forth as he took it inside. “Hosanna!” he said, just like the people in the scriptures said when they saw Jesus. Then he helped Mommy put the pretty branches in a vase.
He liked looking at the branches while they ate dinner. He thought about the branches people waved when they saw Jesus.
The next day, Mommy pulled out a basket of plastic Easter eggs. “Let’s write down why we love Jesus. We’ll put our papers in the eggs and hang them on our special branches.”
Daddy got pens and paper. Oliver told Daddy what to write. Oliver said, “I love Jesus because He’s nice.”
Oliver helped fold up the paper. He put it inside a green plastic egg.
Daddy wrote, “I love Jesus because He understands how I feel.”
Mommy wrote, “Because of Jesus, someday we will see the people we love who have died.”
“Like baby Sophie?” Oliver asked.
Mommy gave him a big hug. “Yes! You will see your baby sister again one day. That’s because Jesus lived again after He died. Because of Him, all of us can live again too.”
“That makes me happy,” Oliver said.
“It makes us happy too,” Daddy said.
They filled lots of Easter eggs with things they loved about Jesus. Then Daddy tied strings through the eggs. Oliver helped hang the eggs on the tree. It looked so pretty!
“Let’s call it the Easter Tree,” Oliver said. He counted all the colorful eggs. “We have so many reasons we love Jesus!”

“Are you excited for Activity Day?” Chloe asked Gabby as they sat down in sharing time.
Gabby shrugged. “We’re supposed to learn about a pioneer ancestor and do a presentation, right?”
Chloe nodded. “I’m excited. My great-great-great-grandma was from Scotland. She crossed the plains to Utah in a covered wagon. I think I’m going to bring her journal and read it in a Scottish accent.”
“That’ll be cool.” Gabby looked down at her hands. “I don’t think I’m related to any pioneers, though.”
“Hmm,” Chloe said. “Well, Sister James says we’re all pioneers.”
Gabby imagined everyone in the room dressed in pioneer clothing and laughed. “I’m glad we don’t have to wear bonnets!”
Later that day, Gabby was helping Mom cook dinner when she thought about Activity Day again. “So … what pioneer ancestors do we have?” Gabby asked, stirring a pot of bubbling red sauce.
Mom threw some spices into the pot, then started chopping little sausages.
“Ancestors? I tell you about them all the time. You should know.”
“Wait, like who?”
“Like your Great-Grandpa …”
“No, I mean pioneer ancestors who crossed the plains. Ones who pulled wagons and wore bonnets and stuff.”
Mom laughed. “Well, we don’t have any of those. But we do have other awesome ancestors who did pioneering things. Like your Great-Grandma Luisa.”
Gabby smiled. “I love hearing stories about your grandma! She grew up on a farm in Spain, right?”
Mom nodded. “Then she moved to Argentina and started her own business. Even though she never had a chance to finish school, she made sure her children got a good education.”
As the sauce simmered, they sat at the kitchen table, and Mom told Gabby more stories about Grandma Luisa. She was a gardener and talked to her flowers. Whenever she went on a trip, the flowers would wilt a little, just because they missed her.
“And the most important thing to remember about Grandma Luisa is her faith,” Mom said. “She would pray out loud as she did dishes, as she cooked, as she gardened … she loved talking to God!”
Mom got a happy-sad expression on her face, like she was looking at something far away.
Gabby reached out and put her hand on Mom’s arm. “Those are cool stories, Mom,” Gabby said. “I think I’ll tell the other Primary kids about Luisa. I wish I could have known her.”
“Me too. She would have loved spending time with you,” Mom said.
When the day of the activity came, Gabby was ready. She’d gathered a few of Luisa’s things to show: her favorite lotion, a beaded rosary she held while praying, and a gourd she used as a cup for traditional drinks. But Gabby’s favorite thing to show was a picture of Luisa when she was 18 years old. It made her seem so real!
At the activity, Chloe presented first. She had dressed up like her great-great-great-grandma, with a bonnet and everything. Then it was Gabby’s turn.
“I want to talk about my Great-Grandma Luisa,” Gabby said. “She was my mom’s grandma …”
As Gabby kept talking, she felt really good inside. Even though she had never met Luisa, she loved her!
“Because of Luisa’s faith, my mom learned about God,” Gabby said. “And then my mom joined the Church when she grew up. And that’s why I’m here!”
As Gabby sat down, she looked down at her picture of Luisa.
Thanks for being a pioneer, Gabby thought with a smile.

As each month passes by on my mission, I am always thrilled to receive the New Era. The article “We Talk of Christ” really hit me hard. As I was working with the hearing impaired in the Portland area, my companion and I met a fine young lady and became good friends. She asked a lot of questions on a lot of different subjects, especially about prophets and temples, and we answered the best we could.
After the third visit she asked us not to return. I asked myself what we had done wrong. Looking back, I remembered reading “We Talk of Christ” in the New Era two days earlier. I realized that we didn’t talk about Christ very much, perhaps leading her to suppose that we worshiped prophets.
The next day we called her and apologized. I told her that we believe in Christ as the cornerstone of our religion. She responded happily and wanted us to come back and talk to her. I pray that she will accept the gifts of the gospel.

Maybe this move won’t be so bad after all, Tanya thought as she watched Josh Tartello walk to the front of her fourth period creative writing class.
It was Tanya’s first day at Washington High, but she’d already met Josh in early-morning seminary. It was a small class—only seven kids strong, and they represented the entire LDS population at Washington. The interesting thing was that they all seemed to stand out in something. The Mormons were well known. Let’s see, there was the president of the jazz band, the captain of the swim team, the school newspaper editor—she couldn’t remember them all. But there was no way she could forget Josh, the junior class president with curly black hair and crystal blue eyes to die for.
What luck to come across him in creative writing—especially since it was a subject she felt confident in. She’d feel relaxed with the subject matter, and maybe be more relaxed about getting to know Josh. Was that a smile he flashed at her as he began to read his most recent fiction composition?
“Hey, Matt, where’d he come from?” Josh began, reading the first line from his story. Beginning with an interesting question—not a bad lead, Tanya thought, as she settled down to listen to the rest. The story was set around a basketball game and involved two guys—one with a bad mouth, and one with a bad attitude. They ended up resolving their problems. It was a good story, but it sounded vaguely familiar. Had she heard it before somewhere?
Just as the teacher congratulated Josh, Tanya’s stomach lurched. She realized where she’d seen the story. It was the fiction piece from the New Era a couple of months back. She was almost sure. Before she jumped to any conclusions though, she would go home and check it. After all, there was the remote possibility she was imagining things.
“Hey, Mom, do you know where the box with all the old Church magazines is?” Tanya called as she walked into the living room of their new apartment. There were boxes stacked everywhere, and her mom was kneeling over one of them, looking exasperated.
“I can’t even find my purse, and you want to know where the Church magazines are?” she asked incredulously. “Looks like you’re going to have to find them on your own, and if you come across my purse, let me know. Otherwise I don’t know what we’ll do for dinner tonight.”
Tanya realized that helping her mother unpack all those cartons was probably a little more important at the moment than checking to see if Josh had copied his paper. In a way, Tanya didn’t want to know. Mom had stayed home from work that day to try to get things organized, so Tanya decided to dig in and help.
With a new school, a new ward, and a new apartment to get used to, checking on Josh’s story soon dropped to the bottom of Tanya’s priority list. Besides, Josh was being friendly to her and had introduced her to all his friends. She almost forgot about the plagiarism issue entirely—until it was Josh’s turn to read another paper in front of the class.
“There they were again. Those ten white pins—staring straight at me,” he began.
This time there was no doubt in her mind. Tanya remembered well that story about bowling. She’d identified with it when she read it in the New Era, because she’d had a similar experience. Now she was positive Josh was lifting his stories from the New Era. What should she do?
She was too agitated to let it drop this time. She waited for him at the door of the classroom and walked into the hall with him. “Uh, Josh,” she began, not really knowing what direction she would take. “Your story—it was good, but it sounded kinda familiar.”
“I had a feeling you’d catch on to what I was doing,” Josh said, looking very apologetic. “There are only seven other people in this school who read the New Era, and it’s just my luck to have one of them in my class. I know it looks bad, but let me explain. Buy you lunch?” he asked.
How could Tanya resist? As they made their way to the cafeteria, Josh tried to explain.
“It’s not like I lifted it directly,” he said. “I took out all the parts that talked about the Church so it wouldn’t confuse Ms. Dougherty. She doesn’t know anything about the Church, and I didn’t want to have to explain.”
“She’d get a pretty bad impression of the Church if you had to explain that one of her star LDS students was plagiarizing.”
“Exactly!” Josh cried. “Well, not exactly. I don’t really feel like I stole it, since I did change it a little bit. Besides, you know the LDS kids are pretty well respected at this school. How would we look if one of us was caught cheating? You know the story would be all over the campus in five minutes.”
By that time they’d made their way to the cafeteria line and students were crowding everywhere. By mutual understanding, they dropped the conversation for a while as they chose their lunches. Tanya really wasn’t hungry, so all she took was yogurt and corn chips. She felt strange about letting Josh pay.
As Josh carried their tray to a table in the corner by a window, Tanya said, “You know, in the time it took you to copy those stories, you probably could have come up with something pretty good of your own.”
“You might be right,” Josh agreed. “But I just didn’t have the mental energy. Look, with all the things I have to do for church, for seminary, for student council, for the soccer team, for my family—I’ve got to coast somewhere. I need a good grade in this class. For my sake, and for the sake of the LDS reputation at this school, couldn’t you please just let it drop for now?” Josh was almost pleading.
And Tanya was almost taking it in—almost. What bothered her was the fact that Josh had worked long and hard to come up with every reason imaginable to justify what he was doing and to keep the truth from getting out. At this point, he seemed more worried about getting caught than about being honest.
“What’s the worst that could happen to you if you tell Ms. Dougherty you copied those stories?” Tanya asked. “Maybe she’d be so happy with your honesty that she’d let you do those assignments over again.”
“You’re dreaming,” Josh replied. “I’d probably get an F in the class, which would blow my whole GPA, I’d get suspended for a couple of days, and I’d get kicked off student council and the soccer team. That would look great on my record. I’d probably never get into college.”
“You feel good about cheating to get into college?”
“C’mon, everyone cheats once they get there. You can hire people to write your papers for you. Fraternities have files of tests and papers you can use any time. Borrowing ideas from the New Era is small-time stuff compared to that.”
“I guess everyone starts somewhere,” Tanya said quietly, more to herself than to Josh. She’d finished her yogurt but hadn’t touched her chips. She stood up.
“So what are you going to do?” Josh asked, looking up at her with those crystal blue eyes to die for.
“I’m going to start doing what’s best for everyone,” she replied, as she slowly walked away.

My mother, Margaret, moved from Switzerland to the United States as a young woman. Not long after that, she had an appointment to receive her patriarchal blessing. But when she went to meet with the patriarch, he wasn’t there. For whatever reason, my mother felt like that was confirmation the Lord didn’t have anything to tell her, and she never rescheduled her appointment.
From time to time over the years, I would suggest to my mother that she reconsider receiving her blessing. She was one of the most faithful women I ever knew. However, she was so humble that she replied that she didn’t merit anything special from the Lord. She didn’t need a blessing, she said, because she was just a simple girl. And she was OK with that.
Finally, when she was 90, we convinced her to schedule an appointment with her patriarch. Ironically, there was a miscommunication with this patriarch as well, and when Mother showed up, the patriarch was out of town. “See?” she said. “I told you the Lord has nothing special to tell me.”
Fortunately, she and the patriarch were able to meet the next week. When the blessing was given, it was filled with gifts, promises, and details about her life that were so personal they could have come only from the Lord’s knowledge of her.
“I guess the Lord did have something to say to me, after all,” she said.

During a youth conference in the Uintah Mountains, I convinced my dad to hike with me to the top of a mountain. While waiting for him, I sprawled out on a rock and fell asleep. However, the medication I was taking at the time warned against staying out in the sun for too long, so when I awoke, I had a pounding headache.
My dad and I headed out, but I knew there was a problem. With every step I took, my head pounded, and I began to feel lightheaded and dizzy. I got slower and slower and fell farther behind my dad. All I could think about was the pain I was in, and how I wasn’t going to be able to finish.
My dad guided me to a rock, where we sat down. When I explained what was wrong and that I wanted to turn around, he offered comfort. He said, “I would do anything to take the pain away from you. I wish I could feel it for you, just so you wouldn’t have to feel an ounce of it.” He reminded me of my desire to hike the mountain and offered to go slower so that we could finish.
Once again we began. This time I was in the front so I could take it at my own pace. Although the headache was still painful, I was no longer sick to my stomach and dizzy, and we proceeded to work our way up the rocks.
My dad had just given me an example of true love and of what Christ has done for all of us. Christ took our sins upon Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross so that we, through repentance, might not have to suffer and so that we may return to our Heavenly Father forever and be with our families. I’ve had many lessons on the Savior’s love, but until that moment I hadn’t ever truly made that connection. I not only realized how much my dad loved me but also how much my Savior and Heavenly Father must love me.

Wilford Woodruff (1807–98), who later became the fourth President of the Church, was once sleeping outside in his wagon with his wife and child when the Spirit whispered, “Get up and move [your] carriage.”1 He could have dismissed it as a strange idea, but instead he obeyed. Half an hour later, a whirlwind snapped off an enormous tree and flung it through the air. The tree landed exactly where the wagon had been.

After a busy week of serving as a worker in the Stockholm Sweden Temple, I went to the guesthouse laundry room to wash some clothing. As I loaded the washer, I absentmindedly whistled one of my favorite hymns, “High on the Mountain Top” (Hymns, number 5). This hymn and its reference to people “in distant lands” hearing the gospel and serving the Lord has always resonated with me. I have always felt that I am one of those the hymn refers to because I was born in Denmark, where I was converted to the gospel, and moved to Utah with my family at age 14.
As I was going about my chores, a Russian brother who was attending the temple that week walked in. As he did, I ceased whistling. He immediately started whistling the same hymn I had been whistling. When he stopped, he pointed to me. I whistled from where he had left off.
He then started at the beginning of the hymn once more, pointed to me, and stopped whistling. Neither of us could speak the other’s language, hence all the pointing. But I managed to understand what he wanted, and I started at the beginning as he had done. He whistled a beautiful harmony to my melody.
There we stood—a Russian and an American—face to face, whistling in two-part harmony one of the most beautiful hymns of the Restoration. We did not get all the way through it before tears filled our eyes. Finally, we could not go on. We embraced and he uttered the only English words I heard him speak: “Russian duet.”
I think we both felt an overwhelming gratitude for the gospel of Jesus Christ, which breaks down cultural and geographic barriers. Our beliefs and our commitment made it possible that we, both from different “distant lands,” could stand as brothers in the gospel in yet another land and share a moment of joy, proclaiming together as the hymn says, “High on the mountain top / A banner is unfurled. / Ye nations, now look up; / It waves to all the world.”

A young man once walked the foggy streets in London, England, carrying a brightly burning lamp. An old man approached him, saying, “I will pay you if you can guide me to my hotel.” The young man lifted his lamp and took the older man to the appointed location. When they arrived the young man received not one, but three payments, because two other men who were lost had also followed the light through the fog.
“The light that we shine will be seen by the people around us, often without our knowing it,” says Sister Julie Jacobs, relating one of her favorite stories from the Ster, the Church’s International Magazine in the Netherlands.

Later in my life, my father saved me again. This time I was not facing physical danger, but my spiritual life faced a challenge.
In high school I played sports, mostly football and baseball. During my last year, I was selected to play in an all-star baseball game at the end of the season. After that game, when the school year was ending, I was invited to play on a local baseball team. It wasn’t a professional or even semiprofessional team, but I was flattered to be invited to play. The only problem was that most of the games were played on Sunday afternoons.
I did a pretty good job rationalizing. I thought I could play because my Church meetings were in the morning. I could attend my meetings and teach my Sunday School class before going to the games each Sunday afternoon.
With this in mind I spoke to my father. I told him about the baseball invitation and what I was thinking of doing. Although he was the stake president at the time, he wisely restrained himself and did not tell me to give up my baseball wishes, as he could have. Instead, he simply said, “Well, when you make the final decision, just remember the impact it will have on your Sunday School class.”
Nothing more needed to be said. At that point the answer was absolutely clear in my mind. I turned down the invitation to play on that team, and I have not played a game of baseball since. Instead, I enjoyed playing on Church softball teams for many years, never having to play on Sunday.
I appreciated the way my father helped me make that difficult decision. He did it in such a way that allowed me to see the importance of such a choice and understand that the decisions I make can have a great impact on people other than myself. This decision also set the stage for a choice I had to make later about serving a mission.

Derek saw paw prints in the snow. What animal made them? Derek followed the paw prints down the sidewalk. He looked around and saw Mrs. Lawson walking slowly across the ice. Derek held her hand and helped her into her house. The paw prints kept going, and Derek followed them. He spotted Mr. Russell shoveling snow. Derek stopped to help him shovel. Then Derek saw more paw prints! He followed them and peeked into Mr. Russell’s backyard. There was Cloudy, Mr. Russell’s cat! Derek likes following things. Most of all, he likes following the example of Jesus by helping others.

Two missionaries in the New Zealand Christchurch Mission decided that more people needed to know just how important families are—so they decided to build a float to tell them. Elder Dick Bybee and Elder Jeff Jarvic entered the resulting “Families Are Forever” float in the Blossom Festival parade in Alexandra. The float was shown on television and to the 15,000 visitors who came to the festival. Local Church members helped work on the float, which in turn helped open doors in town for the missionaries.

Some years ago I served on the Priesthood Home Teaching Committee and was assigned to attend stake conferences with the General Authorities to teach leadership principles relating to home teaching. During a Saturday night priesthood leadership meeting in the Raft River Stake in Idaho, Elder A. Theodore Tuttle of the First Quorum of the Seventy called on me to make my presentation. For about 15 minutes I talked about the subject of home teaching and presented what I thought was a very comprehensive outline of methods that might be used to improve the performance of the brethren of the stake. The audience was courteously attentive except for a few yawns on the back row. These I attempted to cure with some interesting stories and all the enthusiasm I could generate. When I ended the talk, I sat down feeling much like a football coach who had just given a rousing talk to his team before a big game.
Elder Tuttle had a very thoughtful look on his face as he arose to talk to the group. He began his presentation by saying something like this: “I tried to listen attentively to Brother Anderson’s presentation, but my mind kept wandering. I couldn’t help thinking about the home teaching families to which I am assigned at home. I have some real challenges in trying to reach and influence them, and they are a constant concern to me. Maybe I could just tell you a little about them, and you could help me with some suggestions.”
Elder Tuttle did not reveal any personal information that would betray a confidence, but he did proceed to illustrate some problems. Before long, hands were in the air; the priesthood members were offering suggestions and solutions, and everyone in the audience was involved in helping. Who were they helping? They were helping themselves learn how to solve home teaching problems.
And me? I was observing with awe the work of a great teacher who could really motivate people. He was busy leading, delegating, creating enthusiasm, and the receivers of the learning were hardly aware of their change in attitude. They were busily involved, they thought, in solving someone else’s problems.

For many, the seeking requires sacrifice. “After my conversion, I had to wait half a year to be baptized,” recalls Olga Kovárová of Czechoslovakia. “Because we had no baptismal font, we needed to wait until summer when we could be in the woods and not be noticed.” When they reached the reservoir on the night of the baptism, they saw many fishermen. “We waited, and the time dragged on,” she said. Finally, a brother suggested that they pray and ask Heavenly Father for help. “This was my first miracle with a priesthood prayer. Within a few minutes of our quiet prayer, most of the fishermen left the river’s edge. … You can imagine my feelings of joy as I came up out of the water.” Olga was the first young woman convert in Czechoslovakia in almost forty years. When she was confirmed, she was told that through her, “many people would come to the Church.”

One of my first experiences in being restrained by the Spirit came soon after I was called as a counselor in a stake presidency in Chicago. In one of our first stake presidency meetings our stake president made a proposal that our new stake center be built in a particular location. I immediately saw four or five good reasons why that was the wrong location. When asked for my counsel, I opposed the proposal, giving each of those reasons. The stake president wisely proposed that each of us consider the matter prayerfully for a week and discuss it further in our next meeting. Almost perfunctorily I prayed about the subject and immediately received a strong impression that I was wrong, that I was standing in the way of the Lord’s will, and that I should remove myself from opposition to it. Needless to say, I was restrained and promptly gave my approval to the proposed construction. Incidentally, the wisdom of constructing the stake center at that location was soon evident, even to me. My reasons to the contrary turned out to be short-sighted, and I was soon grateful to have been restrained from relying on them.

Since childhood, I dreamed of serving a mission. As I got older, however, my perspective on life began to change, and prioritizing my family’s well-being became the most important. With the responsibility to support us, I watched my mother shouldering the care for me, my brother, and my three other younger siblings—Winyordy, Drey, and Ros—‚without the assistance of my stepfather, who had previously filled that role. It was solely her and me, with the guidance of our Heavenly Father, providing for the family. I understood that I was an essential pillar in supporting the family. Nevertheless, despite knowing the hardship it would bring her, my mother encouraged me to pursue my mission.
Throughout my life, my mother always reminded me that God always knows what is best for me. But it wasn’t until one day at work that I really listened to her. I felt like I was wasting my time there and had a strong feeling I should go on a mission. Even though friends and Church leaders had told me before to follow my heart, I hadn’t wanted to admit it. When I got home, I told my mom, “I’m going to serve a mission.”
She was excited and surprised and completely supported my decision.
I was called to serve in the Dominican Republic Santiago Mission. Incredibly, while there, I have become reacquainted with Elder Jean Louis, the first missionary who taught us the gospel. God’s timing is perfect, and when you put God first, everything else will come as a result.

I had just celebrated my eighth birthday and my baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Grandma gave me a CTR ring. It meant a lot to me.
One evening after a big snowstorm, I went to the barn to do my chores. Then I had a friendly snowball fight with my brother. It was getting dark when I saw that my CTR ring wasn’t on my finger anymore. I ran into the house, crying, and told my mother.
My whole family prayed, asking Heavenly Father to help us find my ring. Then we all took lanterns and flashlights and searched everywhere I had been. We couldn’t find it, and we decided that with the snow so deep, it would be weeks before it melted enough for my ring to be seen. But when I went to bed, I was still hoping Heavenly Father would help me find it.
The next morning, Nathan, my older brother, came running into the house, shouting, “I found Natalie’s ring!” We went to see where he had found it. The snow was still everywhere, except where a ray of sunshine had melted it around the ring. It was a miracle! I have a strong testimony of prayer, and I know that Heavenly Father loves me and wants me to know that He does answer my prayers.

President Spencer W. Kimball was concerned because not all men in the Church could receive the priesthood.
___He spent many hours and days praying and thinking about the situation. In the temple, he asked the Brethren what they thought.
___President Kimball decided to ask Heavenly Father whether the time was right for all worthy men to hold the priesthood, and he led the Brethren in prayer.
___One of the Brethren said that there was a sacred feeling in the room. The Spirit of God was there. The Holy Ghost gave President Kimball a special feeling that what he had prayed for was right. Everyone there knew the same thing by the power of the Holy Ghost. They didn’t hear a voice with their ears, but the Spirit whispered to their minds and hearts that the choice was right.

I recently read the account of some deacons who got a little careless in their attitude towards passing the sacrament. They began to think of it as a chore, something that no one else wanted to do. They often came in late, and sometimes they didn’t dress appropriately. One Sunday their priesthood adviser told them: “You don’t have to worry about the sacrament today. It’s been taken care of.”

They were, of course, surprised to hear this, but as usual, they were late for sacrament meeting. They slipped in casually during the opening hymn and sat in the congregation. That’s when they noticed who was sitting on the deacons’ bench—their adviser and the high priests of the ward, who included men who had served as bishops and stake president. They were all dressed in dark suits with white shirts and ties. But more than that, their bearing was one of total reverence as they took the sacrament trays from row to row. Something was deeper and more significant about the sacrament that day. Those deacons who had become so perfunctory in their duties learned by example that passing the sacrament was a sacred trust and one of the greatest of honors. They began to realize that the priesthood is, as the Apostle Peter called it, “a royal priesthood.”