Gospel Story Finder

Distractions can sometimes prevent us from experiencing God’s love in our family relationships and activities. A mother, feeling that gadgets were taking over her family relationships, came up with a solution. At the dinner table and at other family times, she just calls out, “Phones on the deck; let us have face time.” She says that this is the new norm for their family and that it strengthens their relationship as a family when they have real face time. They now enjoy quality Come, Follow Me discussions together as a family.

1 This true story happened to me when I was twelve years old. I lived in a little cottage with my parents; I had no brothers or sisters. Three things were dominant in our English village: the church, the school, and the mayor.
2 We didn’t have television or movie theaters. The highlight of our year was the Garden Fete and Horticultural Show, which had booths and games during the day and a barbecue and a barn dance at the mayor’s in the evening. We liked the mayor very much.
3 Every Sunday we went to church. It was a very small one, but it had a large arch stretching from one side of the church to the other. On the arch were these words from Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
4 P. C. Claris was the only policeman in the village, and as a special privilege, we children were allowed to call him “Clarry.” He would play with us and tell us stories. He knew everyone of us by name and always had treats in his tunic for us.
5 The year that I was twelve, I went to the big senior school. I was very small for my age—probably about as big as you at eight or nine—and on my first visit, a prefect (student monitor) lifted me up so that I could see through the tiny window of the big classroom door.
6 A few weeks before Christmas, snow fell so hard that after lunch our teacher announced that we were to leave for home right away. Great! I thought. A whole half-day off! What I didn’t know was that the snow would prevent me from leaving my home for several weeks!
7 Two friends and I cycled to and from school each day along a deserted footpath with a field on one side and a tall hedge on the other. That day the snow was forming drifts against the hedge. My bicycle had a heavy frame, and it became harder and harder to lift it over the drifts. Our skirts quickly became wet and clung to our legs.
8 All our parents worked and would not be home before six, so no one would be waiting for us. The journey normally took less than thirty minutes, and we had already been out nearly three hours! As a sense of hopelessness overwhelmed us, we remembered the scripture on the church archway. Well, there were three of us, so we prayed—oh, how we prayed! Then we picked up our bicycles and trudged on.
9 About ten minutes later we heard a familiar whistle—and turning the corner came Clarry! “Hello,” he said. “Something told me that I would find you here.” He leaned our bicycles against a pole, saying that he’d come back for them later. He stooped down, and I climbed onto his back. Then he picked up a child in each arm and carried all three of us toward the village.
10 Mine was the first house. While we changed our clothes, Clarry made us a hot drink and shoveled a path from the back door to the toilet—our toilet was not indoors, as I expect yours is, but was in a small building in the yard. Then he wrapped my schoolmates in blankets and took them home.
11 There are two morals to this story. First, it saddens me to hear young people today calling policeman rude names and laughing at them. I don’t expect that you do this, but you may have friends who do it. Most schools nowadays have visits from policemen; they enjoy working with children. I hope that you have as much fun with your policemen as we had with Clarry.
12 The other moral to my story is that earnest prayers are answered. Remember Clarry’s first words to us that day: “Something told me that I would find you here.” We knew Who had told Clarry where to find us.

This man who has achieved so much and shared so much once had to learn to live with a great disappointment. Almost every day for many years he has driven past a reminder of a dream that did not come true. On a lawn near the entrance to the NASA compound is a Saturn V launch vehicle with an Apollo spacecraft at its tip. It lies on its side, broken into stages like the earth-beached skeleton of some great space creature. People stand and look at it and shake their heads. It is so huge there isn’t room for it in their imaginations. Standing there they have to reach inside themselves and expand their estimate of what man is. This is the stuff of legends. This earthbound ship was built to take men a million times higher than the ancient tower that provoked God’s wrath when its builders aspired to heaven. This mighty craft was scheduled to propel Don Lind to the moon, until budget cuts canceled his flight. Now that dream lies rusting on the grass with the mighty Saturn engines.
Looking at the Apollo rocket, Brother Lind said reflectively, “When I realized that I wasn’t going to the moon, that was a traumatic experience, and I had to reevaluate what was really important. I realized again what I knew all along—being an astronaut is not my most important calling. I remember a discussion my wife Kathleen and I had in which I said that getting to the moon couldn’t be all that important because probably 15 years later only she and I would remember if I made it. Can any of you name all the people who’ve been on the moon? But if one of my kids was in the state penitentiary or had just gone through some horrible divorce or something like that, that was important, so what I did as a father was obviously more important than what I did as an astronaut. So I came to the conclusion that there are really only two things that count—what you do for the family and what you can do to build the kingdom, and the rest of it is pretty trivial. And really, whether you walk on the moon just isn’t that important.”

One of the most pleasant and productive experiences in my life happened in 1943 as the Japanese war was taking place. I heard Dr. Adam S. Bennion give a lecture on the value of great literature. You can sell the idea of the value of great ideas to anyone. That is, we all believe that we should be acquainted with great human thought. But almost everyone gets away from its benefit by saying that he doesn’t have time to read. To get away from this objection of not having time, Dr. Bennion said, “Suppose that you were going to be a prisoner in a Japanese concentration camp for the next four years and you could take with you the works of any ten authors. Which would you take, and what would you expect to get out of them?” That is, what are the values of great ideas, of great literature? His idea was to take the ten authors you would most like to resemble and then exhaust each one in turn. That is, you would read every thought and consider every idea that a particular author had ever recorded; you would rethink his every idea. The psychologists say that when you run an idea through your brain, it makes a little groove or engram. If you run through your mind the kind of ideas that went through the mind of Shakespeare or Emerson or the apostle Paul or Moses or Jesus of Nazareth, then your brain will tend to respond as their brains did.
From someplace I got the courage to make the start. I guess Shakespeare comes fairly close to the top of most people’s lists of great authors. So I got out Shakespeare’s 37 plays, his sonnets, and his poems and went to work. Reading them was pretty difficult at first. I read very slowly and perhaps not very comprehendingly. Shakespeare wrote a long time ago, and there were many things that I did not understand. I had to reread some things several times, look up their meanings, and ask people about them. But finally the clouds began to part, a little bit of the sunlight began to come through, and I had a tremendous experience with Shakespeare. Shakespeare looked with clearer insight into human life than do most men. He said his purpose in writing was to hold the mirror up to life, to show virtue her own image and scorn her own likeness. He said, “I your looking-glass will be and will modestly discover to yourself qualities which you yourself know not of.” I had a great uplift as I read his speeches and his arguments for success. And as he pictured life in miniature with his great characters acting and reacting upon each other, I was intellectually born again—a great many times. Each time we discover some inspiring thought, we can be changed, and changed for the better.
I always read with my pen, marking every idea, every phrase, every quote, and every other thing that I think will help me. And then I put these thoughts into my notebooks. One of my most valuable possessions in the world is my collection of 25 notebooks. They are just regular 8 1/2-by-11-inch page size, three-ring binders, with about 300 pages in each one; so I have 7,500 pages of notes. I think of my reading as a combine harvester sweeping across a field of wheat. It cuts everything before it, but throws out the weeds and the chaff and the straw and puts the wheat in the sack. If I were now going to read something that would be particularly exciting to me, it wouldn’t be Shakespeare, it wouldn’t be Emerson, it wouldn’t even be the scriptures. It would be my notes, because I have selected for my notes those things that particularly inspire me.
I have always felt a little bit cheated in my life that no one has ever tried to talk me out of my faith. I have heard many people say that they got into the wrong crowd or listened to the wrong professor or were influenced by the wrong philosophy. But everywhere I have gone, people have encouraged me to live my religion. Once I thought that maybe I believed as I did just because I didn’t know any better, so I got the complete works of Robert G. Ingersoll. In my opinion Robert G. Ingersoll was the greatest atheist, if you could use that term, that ever lived in the world. I don’t know how convincing other people’s atheism is, but Robert G. Ingersoll was a great salesman. He was a great orator. He was a great architect of speech. He knew how to put ideas together. If anybody could persuade me about something, I think maybe it would have been Robert G. Ingersoll. His complete works are made up of 19,900 pages. There are 214 pages in my New Testament, so I read 90 new testaments of atheism. I didn’t read his works to try to out-argue him or to find fault with them. I read them actually to try to help him persuade me that there was something better than those things that I believed. I read him very carefully. I don’t skip read. I don’t jump over things or just read things that I think will be interesting. If something is important enough for him to write down, it is important enough for me to study and to try to find out the right answer to the subject discussed. And in all of my experiences in reading his work, he hasn’t shaken my faith in the smallest degree. Since that time I have read 987 of the great books, and I have had some tremendous experiences in a lot of different directions with what I have read. These great new philosophies have enabled me to have an “intellectual rebirth.”

Recently, Sharon Eubank, the director of Humanitarian Services and LDS Charities, told of an experience shared by Elder Glenn L. Pace. There was widespread drought and extreme famine in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s. To provide relief, feeding stations with water and food were created for those who could get to them. An old man who was starving was walking a long distance to get to a feeding station. He was passing a village when he heard the cry of a baby. He searched until he found the baby sitting on the ground next to his dead mother. Picking up the baby, the man continued to walk 25 miles (40 km) to the feeding station. When he arrived, his first words were not “I’m hungry” or “Help me.” They were “What can be done for this baby?”

My third example involves a letter I received from a student who wanted advice. When he was a freshman he had been arrested and convicted of a minor crime. After he completed a successful probation his court record was removed and destroyed. Now he wanted to go to law school. How should he answer the invariable question on all law school application forms: “Have you ever been arrested?” A truthful “yes” might keep him from realizing his dream to attend law school. Karl G. Maeser, the founding genius of BYU and one of its greatest teachers, told his students that sooner or later everyone of them “must stand at the forks of the road and choose between personal interests and some principle of right” (Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years, 1:591). As you would expect, I advised this student to make full disclosure of his earlier arrest, facing it at this point rather than answering dishonestly and having to bear the guilt of concealment and the risk of disclosure all his life. A year later he wrote me as follows:

I decided to take your advice and I made full disclosure on the law school application, and instead of facing a possible expulsion from a law school and a ruined career and, as far as that is concerned, a ruined life, I chose a hard route, but it’s my pleasure to inform you that I was accepted into a law school. It was difficult at first to tell this truth, but I don’t think words can express what has happened.

In December 1996, my wife was close to the end of her pregnancy with our last child. It was a Sunday, and my bride requested that I give her a blessing. She was concerned with the well-being of our unborn child.

For some reason--and, brethren, do not make this mistake--I took her request lightly, thinking that she was just overreacting. She was so close to having the baby that everything was sure to be just fine. I predetermined what "I" was going to say in the blessing, instead of remembering that we need always to seek those warnings, promptings, and revelations that Heavenly Father wants us to pronounce when we have the privilege to exercise His priesthood. We never give a blessing. It comes from Him.

After visiting with family that Sabbath afternoon, we retired to our little apartment in Logan, Utah, and tucked our three children into bed. We then prepared for the blessing. I placed my hands upon her head and closed my eyes, and then the most incredible thing happened. I could not remember what I was doing. I opened my eyes and could see my beautiful bride sitting in the chair with her head bowed, waiting. I remembered that I was giving her a blessing and began once again. I placed my hands on her head and started over, when, to my surprise, the very same thing happened. I went completely blank. I could not remember what I was doing. I then sat down by my bride and said something like "You are right, my dear; something is wrong."

What I was experiencing can be described only with the Lord's words:

"But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong."[11]

I have never experienced a stupor of thought even remotely as strong since that cold day in December 1996. Heavenly Father taught me in such a powerful way and prevented me from making a mistake from which I might not have been able to recover. After that experience, I have become much more sensitive to "if it be not right you shall have no such feelings."

The remaining portion of the story is sacred and does not apply to this subject today. Let me just conclude the story by saying that we immediately called my wife's doctor, who is a wonderful priesthood man. When we told him what had happened, he explained that he had felt anxious the last time she was in the office, but with no evidence as to why. Now he felt that we should leave immediately for the hospital, and he would be there to start labor as soon as we arrived. About 48 hours later, and after several very crucial moments, our beautiful youngest daughter was born.

My young friends, Heavenly Father is here to keep us from making very costly mistakes if we are seeking His warnings, promptings, and revelations from all available sources--and if we heed and act upon them. We have the right to have the Holy Ghost always be with us, especially in crucial moments of life.

July 1
Dear Sarah,
So much has happened that I don’t know where to start. The home teachers came and helped Dad give Lindsay a blessing. After that, she wasn’t so scared. But she looked so little standing there with her bag in one hand and that big stuffed penguin under her other arm. I guess Mom and Dad told you in their letter that the surgery went fine. They let me go see Lindsay the second day. She still looked pretty sick.
After Lindsay came home, Mom had to spend a lot of time caring for her, and I helped a lot around the house, I didn’t have much time for the garden. I didn’t go all week, and when I finally got over there on Saturday, Mr. Trujillo was really sad. About half of our tomato plants were gone. Gophers got them. They just burrow underneath and pull the plants down—one day you see them, and the next day you don’t. He said he didn’t know how to get rid of the gophers. He was afraid to put out poison because pets might get into it. And he didn’t want to flush the gophers out and bash them over the head the way some people do. He’s really a nice man.
I told him I’d pray about it, and he kind of smiled and patted my head. On Sunday I fasted and prayed for Lindsay to get all well and for a solution to the gopher problem.
Monday morning I thought of Billy Swenson who lives down by the river. Remember him? He’s the kid who has live traps and catches squirrels and stuff up in the canyon. I went to see him, and we made a deal. He said that he’d come and trap the gophers and turn them loose down by the river if I would give him some tomatoes, three pumpkins, and two watermelons when they’re ready.
Mr. Trujillo was pretty surprised and happy. He looked at me in that puzzled way he does sometimes.
It took Billy four days to get all the gophers, but they’re gone. Yesterday we set out more tomato plants.
Love,Angela the Problem Solver
July 15
Dear Sarah,
How great to hear that the Gonzales family was baptized!
Guess what we had for dinner—zucchini squash that I grew myself! Mrs. Trujillo gave me a recipe, and Mom cooked it. Even Lindsay ate some of it. Mr. Trujillo says we’ll have beans in two more weeks.
I thought raking and planting were bad, but this week we’ve been hoeing weeds, and I have blisters again (not as bad as before because my hands are tougher) and a backache. But Mrs. Trujillo made lemonade and cookies, and we sat under the peach tree and ate them. They told me some stories about Mexico, and they asked about you. I told them about the Gonzales family. So it was kind of nice, even though I had aches and pains.
Love,Angela the Contented Gardener
August 10
Dear Sarah,
Nothing has been worse so far than picking beans. Mr. Trujillo can’t bend over now, so I picked all the beans, my rows and his. Your back aches, and the leaves make your skin itch, and the sun is beating down on you. Mrs. Trujillo gave me an old straw hat to wear. We got three bushels! Mr. Trujillo smiled and said, “There’ll be this many again in about ten days.” I could have cried. But by then it was cooler, and Mrs. Trujillo brought out ice cream with fresh peaches sliced on it. Then you’ll never guess what happened—Mr, and Mrs. Trujillo took me into their garage and gave me one of their kids’ old bicycles. It was all clean and shiny, with new paint and new tires and the chain all oiled. I gave them both a hug.
I took a big, juicy peach home to Lindsay, and she ate it all!
Have you found any new people to teach?
Love,Angela the Cyclist
August 20
Dear Sarah,
Mr. Trujillo and I took the beans to the Farmer’s Market and sold them. I got $8.00! After tithing, that’s $7.20 I have ready to send you, but I’ll wait till I get some more.
Yesterday I picked beans again. It was easier this time.
Do you remember the Claybourne family? The ones with all those kids? Well, he lost his job, and they’re having a hard time. Mom said they’re trying to get by on their food storage, so she wondered if I would mind giving them the beans from this picking to freeze for the winter. Mom said she’d like to freeze some, too, and that would help us have more money for bills and for you.
So I told Mr. Trujillo why I wouldn’t be selling my beans this time, and he looked at me sort of funny again, then gave me a bushel from his rows too. We gave the Claybournes zucchini also.
I hope you won’t mind about the bean money.
Love,Angela the Delivery Girl
September 2
Dearest Sarah,
We sold some tomatoes this week, and I got $13.00. They’re easier to pick than beans, and I like the way the vines smell. I also like to stop every now and then and eat one—all juicy and warm from the sun. I wish I could send you one in the mail.
I hope that you’ll understand this part. I was in a store last week, looking for notebooks and pencils for school, when I saw this little sweatshirt just Lindsay’s size with a penguin on it. She needs school clothes. I knew it would remind her of you; she still adores the penguin you sent her. It was $9.99, and so I bought it for her. Lindsay was thrilled. She put it on and wouldn’t take it off, even for bed. But after tithing and the notebooks … well, I hope you understand.
School starts Monday.
Love,Angela the Spendthrift
P.S. I promised the Claybourne kids some pumpkins for Halloween and a watermelon.
September 15
Dearest Sarah,
Thanks for not minding about the sweatshirt. Enclosed is a money order for $7.20.
Mom says having the vegetables is helping. The bills for the operation are getting paid gradually, and Lindsay’s eating fine now, and Mom and Dad always seem to find the money to send you.
Now for my surprise! The Trujillos are having the missionaries come and teach them! They came over last night, and the elders taught them the first missionary lesson. Mr. (Brother) Trujillo gave the prayer and thanked Heavenly Father for “the flower”—he meant me!—“that bloomed in his garden and showed him a more beautiful way of life.” Wasn’t that beautiful? And they’re coming back next week for another lesson.
We served watermelon from the garden!
Love,Angela the Missionary

I know of a young widow who invested part of the proceeds of her husband’s life-insurance settlement with a close friend with the promise of a guaranteed high interest rate. Though the investment paid out for several years, one day the checks stopped coming. Soon thereafter, the company filed for bankruptcy, and the widow lost many tens of thousands of dollars. She felt betrayed that the sacred funds her late husband had provided were lost in this way.

As the only active teen in her branch, Gina took home-study seminary. She started it a few months before she was baptized. She studied the scriptures on her own, then met with her teacher at the church once a week. When Gina’s teacher moved out of the state, Gina’s mother volunteered to teach. They had seminary every morning at 6 a.m.
Gina enjoyed being the only student because she didn’t have to compete with other students to ask questions. “My mom and I grew so much closer,” Gina says. “We had that connection. I absolutely loved doing seminary with my mom.”
As a new member, Gina wanted to get as much from seminary as possible—to catch up for all those years without the scriptures. What was supposed to be an hour-long lesson sometimes stretched to two hours. Gina says the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants “are the two most important books that I’ve grown up without. To be able to learn about them in depth was wonderful. To get my mom’s insight along with my study was an experience I would never want to give up.”

When our oldest daughter, Jen, brought her third daughter home from the hospital, I went to her home to help. After getting her oldest daughter off to school, we decided that what Jen needed most was rest. So the best help I could give was to take her daughter Chloe home with me so her mom and new baby sister could have some quiet time.
I buckled Chloe into her car seat, secured my own seat belt, and drove out of their driveway. However, before we reached the end of the street, Chloe had unbuckled her seat belt and was standing up, looking over my shoulder, and talking to me! I pulled the car over to the side of the road, got out, and buckled her back into her seat.
We started again but had gone only a short distance when she was out of her seat again. I repeated the same steps, but this time before I could even get back into the car and fasten my own seat belt, Chloe was already standing up!
I found myself sitting in a car, parked on the side of the road, having a power struggle with a three-year-old. And she was winning!
I used every idea I could think of to convince her that remaining fastened in her car seat was a good idea. She was not convinced! I finally decided to try the if–then approach.
I said, “Chloe, if you will stay buckled in your car seat, then as soon as we get to Grandma’s house, we can play with play dough.”
No response.
“Chloe, if you will stay buckled in your seat, then we can make bread when we get to Grandma’s house.”
No response.
I tried again. “Chloe, if you will stay buckled in your seat, then we can stop at the market for a treat!”
After three attempts, I realized this was a futile exercise. She was determined, and no amount of if–then was enough to convince her to remain fastened in her seat.
We couldn’t spend the day sitting on the edge of the road, but I wanted to be obedient to the law, and it wasn’t safe to drive with Chloe standing up. I offered a silent prayer and heard the Spirit whisper, “Teach her.”
I turned to face her and pulled my seat belt away from my body so she could see it. I said, “Chloe, I am wearing this seat belt because it will protect me. But you aren’t wearing your seat belt, and you won’t be safe. And I will be so sad if you get hurt.”
She looked at me; I could almost see the wheels turning in her little mind as I waited anxiously for her response. Finally, her big blue eyes brightened, and she said, “Grandma, you want me to wear my seat belt because you love me!”
The Spirit filled the car as I expressed my love for this precious little girl. I didn’t want to lose that feeling, but I knew I had an opportunity, so I got out and secured her in her car seat. Then I asked, “Chloe, will you please stay in your car seat?” And she did—all the way to the market for a treat! And she stayed buckled all the way from the market to my home, where we made bread and played with play dough because Chloe did not forget!
As I drove back onto the road that day, a scripture filled my mind: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” We have rules to teach, guide, and protect children. Why? Because of the great love we have for them. But until Chloe understood that my desire for her to remain securely fastened in her car seat was because of my love for her, she was unwilling to submit to what she considered a restriction. She felt her seat belt limited her freedom.
Like Chloe, we can choose to see commandments as limitations. We may feel at times that God’s laws restrict our personal freedom, take from us our agency, and limit our growth. But as we seek for greater understanding, as we allow our Father to teach us, we will begin to see that His laws are a manifestation of His love for us and obedience to His laws is an expression of our love for Him.
If you find yourself figuratively parked on the side of the road, can I suggest a few principles that, if followed, will help you get safely back on “the road of faith and obedience”?
First, trust God. Trust in His eternal plan for you. Each of us is “a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.” Their love for us is apparent in commandments. Commandments are vital instructions to teach, guide, and protect us as we “gain earthly experience.”
In the “premortal realm” we used our agency to accept God’s plan, and we learned that obedience to God’s eternal law was vital to our success in His plan. Scriptures teach, “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated.” If we obey the law, we receive the blessings.
Even with all of the mistakes, opposition, and learning that accompany our mortal experience, God never loses sight of our eternal potential, even when we do. We can trust Him “because God wants His children back.” And He has provided a way through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ. The Atonement “is the core of the plan of salvation.”
Second, trust Jesus. The ultimate expression of obedience and love is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Submitting Himself to the Father’s will, He gave His life for us. He said, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
Jesus also taught:
“Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
“This is the first and great commandment.
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Each Sunday we have the opportunity to ponder and remember our Savior’s pure love as we partake of the emblems of His infinite Atonement. During the sacrament, I watch as hands and arms extend to pass the bread and the water. As I extend my arm and partake, I covenant that I am willing to take His name upon me, always remember Him, and keep His commandments. And He promises “that [we] may always have his Spirit to be with [us].”
Third, trust the whisperings of the Spirit. Remember during my experience with Chloe that the Spirit whispered a scripture to me? It is in John 14:15: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” And these important verses follow:
“I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
“Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
Every worthy, confirmed member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the right to the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Fasting, prayer, scripture study, and obedience greatly enhance our ability to hear and feel the promptings of the Spirit.
When your mind is filled with doubt and confusion, the Father and the Son will send the Holy Ghost to warn you and guide you safely through the dangers of this mortal journey. He will help you remember, comfort you, and fill you “with hope and perfect love.”
Fourth, trust the counsel of living prophets. Our Father has provided a way for us to hear His word and know His law through His prophets. The Lord declared, “My word shall … all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.”
Recently, living prophets have counseled us to “remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy,” and to live the law of the fast. Obedience to this prophetic counsel provides a way for us to be obedient to God’s commandment to love Him and our neighbor as we increase our faith in Jesus Christ and extend our hand to love and care for others.
There is safety in following the word of the Lord through His prophets. God called President Thomas S. Monson, the counselors in the First Presidency, and the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators. In this world of increasing fear, distraction, adversity, and anger, we can look to them to see how disciples of Jesus Christ—filled with charity—look, sound, and react to issues that could be divisive. They testify of Jesus Christ and respond with charity, the pure love of Jesus Christ, whose witnesses they are.
After my experience with Chloe, I searched the scriptures for verses that mentioned commandments and love. I found many. Each of these verses reminds us that His commandments are a manifestation of His love for us and obedience to His commandments is an expression of our love for Him.
I testify that as we trust God, our Eternal Father; trust His Son, Jesus Christ, and exercise faith in His Atonement; trust the whisperings of the Spirit; and trust the counsel of living prophets, we will find our way off the edge of the road and continue safely—not just enduring but finding joy in our journey home. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I grew up in the Church, and my parents did their best to provide me with the things I needed to gain a strong testimony, such as learning how to pray and how to study the Book of Mormon and Church magazines. When I was close to missionary age, it wasn’t a question of if I would go—it was only a question of when. So when the news came from my bishop that I did not meet the medical requirements to serve a full-time mission, I was heartbroken.
Often I prayed asking why I could not fulfill my desire to be a missionary. My loving mother would remind me that a service mission was still an option, but my reply was always, “That doesn’t count.” The months went by, and even though I was old enough to serve, I remained at home. Each day, the plea “every member a missionary” rang through my mind until I eventually decided to look into a Church-service mission.
I browsed through the options and came across one that stood out to me. Through prayer I received the firm approval of the Spirit. When I talked with my bishop about it, he told me that the Lord had saved me for this Church-service mission rather than a full-time proselyting mission. I must admit that I agree with him now. The experiences and blessings surpass anything I could ever have imagined.
Soon I will complete my Church-service mission, and I want the youth of the Church to know that a mission changes lives, even if it’s a Church-service mission. If a health problem or other situation keeps you from entering the full-time mission field, it does not mean the Lord does not want your service. It just means that He needs you somewhere else.
Take it from a Church-service missionary.

Occasionally, we are given a reminder of how precious a gift it is to understand the plan of salvation. While serving as missionaries in the Philippines, my companion and I were given a referral for a man named Johnny Sajonas. He was about 75 years old and had become frustrated with religion. The investigator who gave us the referral said he was afraid Johnny was almost ready to completely abandon his belief in God.
After we knocked on the fence just outside his door, a partially bearded old man with a cane in his hand and a frown on his face appeared and asked what we wanted. We told him we were missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that we wanted to share a message with him about the gospel.
He stood silent, examining us from head to toe for a moment and then observed, “You’re very young. I doubt you can teach me anything.”
Smiling, I responded, “Oh, sir, we have great confidence in our message. Please let us share it with you.”
He took a minute to think about it and finally mumbled, “You come back tomorrow at ten o’clock.” Then he turned and walked in the house.
At ten o’clock sharp we arrived at Brother Sajonas’s house. He invited us inside and seated us in front of a small table. We began, as was customary at that time, with a discussion about the Restoration. As we began to teach, we noticed that our investigator was rather anxious and fidgety. He’d look at the floor, then at the ceiling, then off to the side. We tried desperately to follow his eyes with our flip-charts to keep his attention. To make things even more challenging, he didn’t seem to be listening to what we were saying. After a few moments, he interrupted us in midsentence, looked straight at me, and asked almost angrily, “Who created evil?”
We sat for a moment in shock. I cleared my throat and responded like any good senior companion, “Well … uh … you see, it’s uh … uh … Elder Warren, you want to take that one?” After a few seconds, I finally began to understand Brother Sajonas’s real question: Did God create evil?
I picked up my Bible, and we began to tell Brother Sajonas about the premortal existence. I doubt he’d ever heard anything like this before, since the belief in a pre-earth life is unique to our faith. We referred to Isaiah and told him about Lucifer, who, by his own choice, rebelled against God and fell from heaven, becoming the father of evil.
He paused, then nodded slowly as if to say, “Okay, I’ll buy that for now.”
Hoping we had answered him adequately, we tried to continue where we had left off in the discussion. But again our investigator was off in another world.
Again he stopped us, loudly demanding, “Why are there so many wars?”
“Uh … well, you see, it’s uh … Elder Warren, you want to … uh.” Then the answer came to me again. “You see, sir, it has to do with something we received in the premortal existence. It’s called moral agency.” We explained how people seem to have a hard time getting along. Often they are selfish. Occasionally, a leader will send his country to war for selfish reasons, and the countries attacked must defend themselves. We said that God helps us a lot, but He wants us to learn to solve our own problems so we can learn and grow, which is what life is for. Our response seemed to start him thinking, and we continued with the discussion. After another minute, he stopped us a third time and asked, “Why do so many children starve?” What a good question. I had asked myself similar questions on many occasions.
In silent prayer, I begged the Spirit to teach us what to say. “Heavenly Father has a different perspective than we do,” I began. “When we see a child die, that’s how we see it—a child dying. I believe that Heavenly Father, on the other hand, sees one of His own spirit children being set free and coming home to Him. Of course, we need to do all we can to prevent suffering. God expects us to. But when death comes, we return to the peace and love we knew in God’s presence before this life.”
It was at this point we realized we were teaching the wrong lesson. Every question he asked was answered in the Purpose of Life discussion. The introductory visual aid for this discussion listed three questions. I opened my flip-chart and began to explain. A change of expression came over Brother Sajonas’s face, and we watched him in silence as he read and reread each question on the flip-chart:
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
Where will I go when I die?
His eyes moistened, and tears fell from his face. I had never had this reaction with this picture or any other in our flip-chart, and I wasn’t sure what was happening. I looked at Elder Warren, looked back at Brother Sajonas, and then the Spirit spoke to my mind: “Elder, testify.”
Sitting up on the edge of my chair, I testified that we knew where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going.
He sat sobbing for a moment, then he stood up and walked slowly to the back of the room. Picking a little red book from the shelf, he returned to where we were sitting. He opened the book to the back inside cover, held it up in front of our faces, and said tearfully, “You are so young!” Written in old man’s shaky handwriting, I read:
My Eternal Questions
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
What do I need to accomplish?
Where will I go when I die?
After we read the words, I looked back into Brother Sajonas’s teary eyes as he marveled, “You are so young, and you’ve come from so far to teach me these things.”
The next day we explained the entire plan of salvation to him with little cardboard visual aids. In the middle of the lesson, Brother Sajonas bowed his head, covered his face with his hands, and cried: “I have been looking for this for 40 years.” Who would have guessed that three little questions on a flip-chart could bring a 75-year-old man to tears? He was an educated man who only wanted answers to three simple questions: who was he, where was he from, and what did God expect him to do? And one day a couple of 19-year-old elders walked in and taught him simple gospel truths.
Elder Warren and I walked back to our apartment in silence that day, struck with the power of the tremendous knowledge we possessed and had possessed since we were in Primary. I had taken that knowledge for granted. I felt the joy of sharing the plan of salvation and a profound awareness that in every country we have brothers and sisters who are “only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it” (D&C 123:12).

Sister Madsen: First, Catherine Smith Salisbury, the Prophet's sister.
She told her granddaughter that she was present at home when her brother, Joseph Smith, came in nearly exhausted carrying the package of gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. He was carrying the package clasped to his side with his left hand and arm, and his right hand was badly bruised from knocking down at least three men who had leaped at him from behind bushes or fences as he ran until out of breath. She said he entered the house panting from his extraordinary exertion. "She told me Joseph allowed her to heft the package but not to see the gold, as the angel had forbidden to show them at that period. She said they were very heavy.
She told me her brother Joseph was six feet tall, athletic and fair and loved to wrestle. She said that he was not in the least snobbish but treated all he met with kindness, consideration, and respect; she said that on her rare visits to Nauvoo, the Prophet treated her and her family with great generosity and sent her home laden with food, money, and clothing.

The closest temple for the saints in Brazzaville is currently in Kinshasa, in the DRC. Getting there has not always been easy.
“We organized massive trips to the temple in Kinshasa, which meant we had to brave the challenge of crossing the turbulent river with our families,” said President Gayouele. “It was also during a time when our country was going through a severe recession. Families were destitute, but for these trips, members made enormous sacrifices to pay for the tickets for crossing the river, meals, and accommodation. There were so many of us leaving for the temple that very often there was no more room for us in the Kinshasa temple. Some brothers and sisters had to stay outside the temple and wait for their turn. These trips were times of trial of faith and determination for temple ordinances. Eventually, these trips have enabled us to bring the spirit of the temple into the hearts of Church members.”

Trisha watched as Mommy taped the family job chart on the refrigerator. “Everyone’s name is on the chart,” Mommy told her. “Here is your name, Trisha. It’s the one with the smiling-face sticker next to it.”
Trisha was three years old. It made her feel very grown-up to have her name on the family job chart. She watched as Mommy wrote down assignments for her older brother and sister. Then she came to the name with the smiling face sticker by it.
“Now, Trisha, you have a special job,” Mommy said. “You get to be the Dust Bunny.”
Trisha had never heard of a Dust Bunny before, but she watched excitedly as Mommy got out one of Daddy’s old white socks. It had been made into a bunny!
“Each morning you can put on this Dust Bunny mitt and dust the living room like this.” She showed Trisha how to carefully dust the piano keys, the tops of the end tables, and the TV.
“Now, you try it,” Mommy said as she handed the Dust Bunny mitt to Trisha. The inside of the sock felt fuzzy and warm when Trisha put it on. She carefully dusted the piano keys, the tops of the end tables, and the TV.
“Super job, Dust Bunny!” Mommy declared. Then she gave Trisha a big squeeze. Trisha felt good inside.
That night when Daddy came home from work, she said, “Guess who came today.”
“Grandpa and Grandma?” Daddy guessed as he scooped her up into his arms and gave Mommy a kiss.
“No.”
“Santa Claus?” Daddy guessed.
Trisha giggled, “No, Daddy, that’s silly! It isn’t even Christmas.”
“Well then, who?” Daddy asked.
“The Dust Bunny!” Trisha said with a big smile.
“Who is the Dust Bunny? Is she related to Bunny Rabbit?” Daddy asked.
“No,” Trisha said with a laugh. Then she ran and got the mitt and put it on. “I’m the Dust Bunny!”
Daddy watched as Trisha showed him how she dusted the piano keys, the tops of the end tables, and the TV. It looked like so much fun that Daddy had to try it, too!

Such has been the history of the Church in Chyulu, and the members have been greatly blessed. I witnessed the beginning of such a blessing as my July 1992 visit came to an end. As we prepared to leave, President Kasue asked if he could come with me to Nairobi. He said he needed to talk to President Brown, but he did not give any indication of concern. The following day President Brown informed me that there was a drought in the Chyulu area so severe that some people were near starvation. I was shocked. None of the members had complained about it privately or in their testimonies on Sunday, nor had they asked for my assistance.
President Brown took action immediately. With approval from the Area Presidency, he arranged for corn, rice, and beans to be delivered to Chyulu to relieve the suffering people. A missionary couple, Elder Ted and Sister Jaclyn McNeill, made the arduous trip. Because of the large truck and heavy load, eight sisters worked ahead of the truck rolling huge lava rocks off the road. The arrival of the food was greeted with gratitude and joy. Sister McNeill recalls: “You have never seen people so happy to receive anything. They knew this was going to save their lives.”
President Kasue visited with every family to assess their needs. Then he and Sister Kasue spent the night making porridge and taking it to the many who were too weak to get out of bed. Sister McNeill observes, “The Spirit there was so strong, it made us weep to see how President and Sister Kasue were handling things.”

This brief story teaches a lesson that I learned when I was very young. We were fairly newly married, living in a subdivision with echoes of ourselves all around us: people in the same boat. It was that kind of community.

There moved into our place a young couple from a small Utah town. They had big dreams: he was going to go to school; she would teach piano lessons and make the money. They’d move ahead and not be stuck down in some little place where they couldn’t progress.

But things seldom work out exactly as we plan. She was always pregnant or always playing at funerals or always diapering. He was always doing little odd jobs to get a little more money because she was always having babies and taking care of them. So his schooling didn’t go very fast, and life got away from them. The house got out of control. The children were left pretty much to themselves, and chaos soon took over.

She was taken to the hospital desperately ill in a season like this we’re coming into—struggling for her life. No piano lessons now, no money coming in. He had to be gone at least sixteen or seventeen hours a day trying to get money to keep food on the table.

When the word got around into our neighborhood, the sisters moved on it. We were good do-gooders, we were going to help, and I will never forget going into the house and suddenly becoming aware of what people do in a house that is unattended by the owners. Judgment and criticism, unhappy partners, complaints over the refrigerator, over the organizational structure, over the décor, and it was finally agreed—you see, hearts were opened then in the season of the celebration—“Let’s change all this. We’ll paint it, we’ll clean it up, we’ll make it wonderful, and when she comes back it will be pleasing.”

This family liked every room brightly colored. What happened in this well-meaningness was the rooms were scraped and scrubbed and painted clinical white. The kitchen cupboards were rearranged according to a stranger’s kitchen habits. Pictures were hung at the eye level of the person who now had the hammer. Worst of all, the children’s progress marks of growth were painted off the wall.

The family came back intact. We were surprised when a few weeks later they moved from our neighborhood. It was the day of a terrible snowstorm, so thick it fell that everything was whitened like the clinical rooms. As the family left, they preceded the moving van, and they had crepe paper streamers tied to the handles and the antennae and the décor on the front of the grillwork of the car, and they proved they liked color, and they honked all the way through the neighborhood, down the hill, out of our lives.

You see, like a deciduous tree at this season, like our Christ upon the cross, they had been exposed to the neighborhood and found wanting. Help was necessary, but not complete change from what they had established as their life style.

As I looked over my new visiting teaching assignment, I saw the name of a new member of our ward. I felt apprehensive about calling someone I didn’t know, but my companion and I made an appointment to visit Jane (names have been changed). We arrived on the appointed morning and quickly said a prayer before approaching the door. We found Jane and her three young sons waiting for us.
As we grew closer to Jane through our monthly visits, we also tried to get to know her sons. The two youngest would sit next to my companion and me, and we would read them books and play with them. But four-year-old Alex, the oldest of the three, was not so eager to warm up to his mother’s frequent visitors. He was independent and hesitated to become friends with us.
I had been Jane’s visiting teacher about a year when I received a call that Jane’s house was on fire! My husband and I felt prompted to grab crackers, bottled water, and toy cars and to hurry over to see if we could help. We found Jane standing on the sidewalk across from her smoldering home. Jane’s husband had joined the firefighters to take stock of the damage while Jane comforted their three crying children, who were clinging to her knees.
When we spoke to her, she told us she was eager to join her husband. We took her two youngest children to our car. They were hungry and thirsty, and I was grateful for the inspiration of the Holy Ghost to bring food and water. They were soon content. But Alex, still sobbing, held tightly to his mother. Jane could not take him with her, and she felt torn between going to her husband and comforting her son.
I encouraged her to go and then leaned over and asked Alex if I could hold him while his mom went to find his dad. To my surprise, he agreed. When I scooped Alex into my arms, he rested his head on my shoulder, and I rubbed his back. While Jane went to find her husband, I whispered comforting words into Alex’s ear. I could feel his sobs slow and his breathing relax.
As we stood on the sidewalk, Alex said softly to me, “You’ll take good care of me ’cause you’re my mom’s teacher.”
I quietly shed tears as I realized that Alex knew we were important in his mother’s life. He recognized that he could trust and rely on me to take care of him too ’cause I was his mom’s teacher.

Promised blessings vary from person to person according to need. Sometimes it may even seem that the blessings promised could not ever be fulfilled, but we need to remember that our Heavenly Father sees things from a different perspective than we do. For example, Elder Thomas S. Monson, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, tells this story:
“Several years ago a patriarch gave a blessing to a teenage girl … who lived in Poland. In the blessing he felt impressed to promise her that she would marry in a temple of the Lord. He hesitated to give that promise, for there was absolutely no way for her to leave Poland allowing her to marry in a temple. But he responded to the whisperings of the Spirit and gave the girl the promise.
“After giving the blessing, the patriarch came to my office and asked, ‘Did I do the right thing?’ I indicated that a man always does the right thing when he responds to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. He said, ‘But I have bestowed a promise which cannot be fulfilled.’ I replied, ‘Let us trust in the Lord with all our hearts …’ Within a period of two years, a pact was signed between Poland and Germany that permitted those of Germanic origin to return to West Germany. That lovely teenage girl moved to Germany where she would be free to go to the temple of the Lord when the time came for her marriage.” (Scandinavian Area Conference, August 1976, page 10.)