Gospel Story Finder

Let me tell you the story of Laurie, a young BYU student who finally gathered the courage to visit the campus health center. She was always exhausted. Some days she couldn’t get out of bed at all. And she was having chest pain, shortness of breath and other physical symptoms of panic.
To her deep dismay, Laurie was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The doctor gave her a comprehensive treatment plan and a prescription for medication. But as soon as Laurie got back to her apartment, she flushed the pills down the toilet. “I was embarrassed,” she told me. “I felt like this was a weakness that I could will myself out of.”
Laurie went on to have many difficult years—denying her symptoms and suffering in silence.
It wasn’t until her third child was born that she finally decided to do something about it. She reached out for help and started to feel better.

President Harold B. Lee told of calling a patriarch. He and the stake president had gone to the man’s home. He had been out with his sons on the welfare farm all day and was tired and weary and covered with grime.
President Lee said, “I made him more weary when I told him what it was I had come for—that he was to be called as the patriarch to that stake.”
After the morning session of conference, where the man had borne a remarkable testimony, they went to a basement office.
The stake president’s wife was present and wrote to President Lee: “As you walked over to put your hands on [his] head, I thought to myself, He is a man with whom we socialize. We have gone on trips with him, to dances. … Now part of his responsibility is to declare the lineage from which each one has come in these blessings. He hasn’t been a student of ancient languages—how is he going to know?
“… You walked over and put your hands on his head, and a light came from behind you and went right through you and into him. And I thought to myself, Isn’t that a strange coincidence that the sunlight has come in just at that moment. And then I realized that there was [no window,] no sunlight. I was witnessing the answer to my question. … That light came from somewhere beyond Brother Lee and went through Brother Lee into this patriarch. Then I knew where he was going to get that information—by the revelations of Almighty God.”

Brother Thamas, a thin elderly man, sat by himself, often some distance from the other members who gathered to greet each other at the beginning of our Sunday meetings. His was a small figure, humble in appearance. He had been recently baptized and had no family. His Spanish, although understandable, was a mixture of Portuguese, French, German, English, and his native Hungarian. In brief conversations with those members who tried to fellowship him, he spoke of faraway Hungary.
One day the bishop asked him to speak for a few minutes in sacrament meeting. He was surprised but accepted. We too were surprised to hear his name announced. We prepared ourselves for a brief and simple testimony.
But once he stood at the pulpit, this brother’s appearance was transformed in a most remarkable manner, and he immediately captured our attention. His posture became erect, almost military, although he wore no uniform or medals. His manner was that of a soldier—old, but proud. Slowly but confidently he began his compelling story.
During World War II he had served in an infantry battalion in an area where constant combat covered the earth with blood, pain, and death. His squad was commanded by a sergeant who had earned the hatred of his men through extraordinary harshness. One terrible night a mortar shell exploded not far from the sergeant, critically wounding him. The commanding officer stopped a dilapidated truck that often passed by to pick up the wounded and dying and take them behind the lines to be cared for or buried.
The squad watched the fate of their dying leader from a distance. Not one went to help him. The officer asked for a volunteer to carry the man to the truck and accompany him behind the lines. No one volunteered.
Then, after something of a pause, Brother Thamas stepped forward. “Moved by compassion,” he told us, “I decided to carry the unfortunate fellow and go with him on his trip. I took care of him the best I could during his long and painful ride.
“I returned later in search of my squad. When I reached the front, I learned that fierce bombardment had wiped out a large number of men on the awful night of my departure. Not one man from my squad had survived apart from myself. And then I understood. I thanked God for having moved me to compassion. He saved my life and gave me a chance to hear the restored gospel.”
Our simple affection for a bent old man changed to appreciation, admiration, and gratitude for his having shared an example of the pure love of Christ.

Counseling with my bishop. I came to appreciate my bishop’s guidance in helping me make a number of sound decisions. He checked on our family often and made sure I was all right and my family was well cared for. He was my support both temporally and spiritually.
One day the bishop called me into his office and discussed with me each of my children, one by one, to see how they were doing. We came up with a plan to make sure each of my boys received priesthood support through their quorum and auxiliary leaders. He also discussed my financial situation and made sure we had food in the house, and when Christmas came he checked again to be sure we had something to go under our tree.
Besides helping my children, he gave me priesthood blessings and helped me explore my new role as a single sister. What a comfort it was to know I had his backing.

After I was baptized, the Church became my world. I loved being at church with the other members. I remember many times being there on Saturdays with the deacons, cleaning the chapel and preparing it for Sunday. I also participated in Mutual activities. From seeing the missionaries in Primary and at home, I decided early in my life to go on a mission. When I served my mission, I was very happy. I served two years in the west of Mexico.

Children, obey the Lord’s commandments. Decide now to go on a mission and to marry in the temple. If you decide in your minds and hearts now, while you are young, to do these things, you will be good missionaries, good spouses, and good parents. I believe that what the world needs most is good mothers and good fathers guiding their families.

Children, keep away from those things that would separate you from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ—things like lying, stealing, using drugs, violating the Word of Wisdom, doing whatever the prophets have taught us are wrong.

Be careful in choosing your friends. Good friends help us to do good things; bad friends influence us to do bad things.

Prepare now for a mission. Keep yourself morally clean. If you keep yourself clean and worthy in every way, if you take the sacrament worthily every Sunday, you will be very powerful missionaries and later you will be leaders in the Church.

I love the children of the earth. With the power and authority that I have as a General Authority, I bless you that you can gain all the blessings that your parents want for you. Where you live is not important, nor the color of your skin or your eyes or your hair. Everyone on earth is a son or daughter of God, and He wants us to return to Him as clean and innocent and worthy as we were when we were born.

One day a grandson of President Tanner’s approached him and said, “I have observed you and other successful men, and I have made up my mind that I want to be a success in my life. I want to interview as many successful people as I can to determine what made them successful. So looking back over your experience, Grandpa, what do you believe is the most important element of success?”
President Tanner replied that the Lord gave the greatest success formula he knew of: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).

Deacons and others of the Aaronic Priesthood who perform today this sacred service, please know this to be a sacred duty. I recall that as a bishop, one morning the boys in the ward over which I presided had assembled—sleepy-eyed, a bit disheveled, and mildly complaining about arising so early to fulfill their assignment. Not a word of reproof was spoken, but during the following week we escorted the boys to Welfare Square in Salt Lake City for a guided tour. They saw firsthand a lame sister operating the telephone switchboard, an older man stocking shelves, women arranging clothing to be distributed—even a blind person placing labels on cans of food. Here were individuals earning their sustenance through their contributed labors. A penetrating silence came over the boys as they witnessed how their effort each month helped to collect the sacred fast offering funds which aided the needy and provided employment for those who otherwise would be idle.
From that hallowed day forward, we no longer had to urge our deacons with regard to collecting fast offerings. On fast Sunday mornings, they were present at 7:00 a.m., dressed in their Sunday best, anxious to do their duty as holders of the Aaronic Priesthood. No longer were they simply distributing and collecting envelopes. They were helping to provide food for the hungry and shelter for the homeless—all after the way of the Lord. Their smiles were more frequent, their pace more eager, their very souls more subdued. Perhaps now they were marching to the beat of a different drummer; perhaps now they better understood the classic passage, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

For Niilo Kervinen, a 24-year-old young adult from Rovaniemi, Finland, the 10-hour train ride to Helsinki is a small price to pay for the blessing of serving in the temple.
Before the dedication of the Helsinki Finland Temple in October 2006, Niilo and other members of his ward had to travel to the Stockholm Sweden Temple or to the Copenhagen Denmark Temple. “The trips would usually take a week during the summer vacation,” he remembers. Traveling by bus and sleeping in tents on those trips are some of the best memories he has.
Yet having a temple in his native land is a wonderful blessing. “When they announced the Helsinki Temple, I was so happy,” Niilo says. “The dedicatory prayer still resonates in my heart each time I go inside.”
In speaking of conversion, Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has said, “I promise that as we come to a knowledge of the truth and are converted unto the Lord, we will remain firm and steadfast and never fall away.”1 Although traveling to Helsinki requires time and money, Niilo is committed to being a disciple of Christ. And for Niilo, that is no sacrifice at all.

• Sealings. Former United States senator Jake Garn was reluctant to remarry following the death of his first wife, Hazel, in 1976, but he soon realized he could not be both a father and a mother to his children. When he began dating Kathleen Brewerton, who would become his second wife, questions soon arose about how his first wife would feel should he become sealed to a second wife. The couple took their questions to President Spencer W. Kimball.
“He said he did not know exactly how these relationships will be worked out, but he did know that through faithfulness all will be well and we will have much joy,” Brother Garn later recalled. “Kathleen told him that she was afraid of offending Hazel. President Kimball’s demeanor seemed to change. From being somewhat hesitant in his earlier answers, he now became sure and spoke with firmness. He looked right at Kathleen and with a tear forming in his eye, he said, ‘I do know this: you have nothing to worry about. Not only will she accept you, she will put her arms around you and thank you for raising her children’” (Why I Believe [1992], 13).

A few weeks after my daughter’s death, the realization and magnitude of what had happened started to creep in. It was like heavy, thick black smoke seeping in at first, followed by all-consuming billows until I was surrounded by complete darkness. Grief in its rawest has its own dimension of blackness.
Natalie had died on Thanksgiving Day. It was now Christmas. The holidays only magnified my loss. The agony lingered throughout the day and tormented me throughout the night. It was relentless. The tears poured endlessly for days. Minutes passed like hours. Hours passed like days. Days passed like years.
As a divorced woman, I did not have a husband who could go out and earn a living. If I could have, I would have curled up in a ball, locked myself in a closet, and remained there forever. But I didn’t have that luxury. I had to somehow gather the strength to function. I had to find a job. I was working when Thanksgiving Day happened, but somehow in all the chaos, I had forgotten about my job. I could have gone back to it, but my Natalie loved to hang out there, and the thought of going back without her was unbearable.
By the first week of January, I had gotten a low-paying job. I tried to act like I was normal. My body kept going, but I felt like my soul had died. No one knew I was a hollow shell of a being just going through the motions. It was only during the drive to and from work that I was able to break down emotionally. This was my new normal.
I started going to my new ward a little at a time. I just knew if someone asked me how I was doing, I would fall to pieces. I desperately wanted to go to church, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone, much less make eye contact. I wished with all my heart that I could be invisible. More than anything, I just wanted to rip this all-consuming pain out of my chest!
I have no idea what the sisters in Relief Society thought of me, and at the time I didn’t much care. I was too busy just trying to breathe! I’m sure I gave off the impression that I wanted to be left alone, for none of them bothered me. They did, however, occasionally give me a warm smile that I found a little comforting—just the exact small dose to keep me from running out the nearest exit, which was a constant thought.
Time is a healer. It doesn’t erase events, but it allows gaping wounds to slowly close.
That fateful Thanksgiving Day was in 2011, and it took me a few years to realize just how much I was helped by my brothers and sisters in the Church. I felt like I was carried off the battlefield after having been critically wounded. I was nursed back to health and cared for until I could stand on my own.
Countless blessings have come my way, in a variety of ways. My testimony has grown to near full maturity. I know now what it feels like to be held in the loving arms of our Savior.
So to answer my friend’s question, “How did the Church help you through this ordeal?” I say, “They didn’t help me. They saved me.”

We are a humble and very happy family. We were baptized in 1993, although it feels as though we have always been members of the Church and blessed with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Initially, we were not interested in A Liahona (Portuguese). But then we read a copy loaned to us by a special missionary. We immediately realized that we wanted our own subscription. Now, should we ever miss an issue, it would be quite a spiritual loss for us.

One ordinary Sunday I was sitting with my family in sacrament meeting. We heard the announcements and listened to the prayer; then as we were singing the opening hymn, something very out of the ordinary happened. Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife walked into our chapel! Sister Perry sat in the congregation as her husband walked up and sat on the stand. It was a complete shock to everyone. Elder Perry explained to us that he had planned to attend a different ward but had become lost and decided to attend our ward instead.
Although we were surprised that an Apostle of the Lord had come to our sacrament meeting, we were prepared. The priesthood holders blessed and passed the sacrament reverently. The girls in the congregation were dressed modestly. Our meeting was being run with order. Our building was clean and was a place where the Spirit could be present, and the speakers were ready with well-prepared, inspiring talks.
On a more personal level, I felt that my family and I were prepared. We had been taught by my parents to be reverent, to listen, and to sing the hymns. We didn’t need to change our routine because Elder Perry was there.

Such forgiveness not only brings the promised blessings of peace, but it strengthens our faith in the Savior. And as we feel His healing power in our own lives, we naturally draw closer to Him. In my own case, I have had the blessings of forgiveness again brought into sharp focus just recently. For several years I had a business partner, in what I thought was a successful business with a fixed limit on the financial risk involved. Unbeknown to me, the business was not succeeding and my partner was hiding the losses by inappropriately circumventing the loan limits set by the bank. This all came to light after we returned from our mission, and we found ourselves suddenly having a loan called by the bank that was five times what we understood to be the loan limit.

You can imagine the lack of peace Margaret and I suddenly felt! For a few weeks, we were extremely distraught. It was hard to think about anything else. But through a series of invitations from the Lord, that experience became a wonderful blessing as sadness and frustration were replaced by faith and peace.

At the time, I was not thinking of forgiveness. I was thinking of survival. But I'm grateful that the Lord knew and loved us and was willing to guide us. First He inspired faithful friends to offer special Priesthood blessings. Second, He helped me find a lawyer, an accountant, and an operating manager who could represent us until we could sell the business. Third, He made it possible for us to quickly sell a long term investment and pay the partnership debt without losing our home or retirement. Fourth and finally, at the meeting where we settled our debt to the bank, the Lord revealed to me what would happen to my partner and his family if I did not take full responsibility for the debt and allow my former partner to continue fulfilling his duties as a husband and father.

With so many blessings from the Lord, I felt my heart softening and could see myself offering to fully forgive my former partner without delay, and experience even greater peace. That all happened three years ago. Since then we have periodically heard from the wonderful wife of this former partner, and each time have felt that special peace of knowing we have done what the Savior would have us do. In a recent letter from this dear mother, devoted wife, and daughter of God, we were again reminded of how grateful we were for the promptings of the Lord in that situation and that we acted on those. And it was indeed acting on them that brought such a sense of peace.

I am a child of record born and raised by members of the Church. I served my mission in the Nigeria Calabar Mission from 2011 to 2013.
Interestingly, it was on my mission that I met my wife, who was serving her mission in Lagos, Nigeria. When we returned from our respective missions, we lived in different towns in Liberia. However, we were able to stay connected through phone calls and we developed love for each other.
We dated for about eight months before performing both the traditional and the white wedding on the same day, Feb. 11, 2015. We did this to avoid unnecessary cost and delay. Even though our wedding wasn’t that fancy, what mattered most to us was to keep the law of chastity, and bring forth our children in the covenant, as instructed in The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

Digger, you silly dog! You’re as bad as a bull in a china closet! Outside you go!
The next day …
Mama …
Yes, sweetheart? Why, you’re crying! What’s wrong?
You know the vase that Digger broke?
I sure do. I love that animal, but he doesn’t know his own strength.
Digger didn’t break it, Mama. I did. I was pretending to carry water from the well like the Bible women. I’m sorry. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to play with it.
I’m proud of you for telling the truth. That’s another thing that Bible women did, and it’s even more important than carrying water.
Later …
And that’s why you should always tell the truth.

Perhaps I can do this more quickly by referring to an interview I had in London, England, in 1939, just before the outbreak of the war. I had met a very prominent English gentleman, a member of the House of Commons, formerly one of the justices of the supreme court of England. In my conversations with this gentleman on various subjects—“vexations of the soul,” he called them—we talked about business, law, politics, international relations, and war, and we frequently discussed religion.

He called me on the phone one day and asked if I would meet him at his office and explain some phases of the gospel. He said, “I think there is going to be a war. If there is, you will have to return to America and we may not meet again.” His statement regarding the imminence of war and the possibility that we would not meet again proved to be prophetic.

When I went to his office he said he was intrigued by some things I had told him. He asked me to prepare a brief on Mormonism.

I may say to you students that a brief is a statement of law and facts that lawyers like President Wilkinson prepare when they are going into court to argue a case.

He asked me to prepare a brief on Mormonism and discuss it with him as I would discuss a legal problem. He said, “You have told me that you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. You have said to me that you believe that God the Father and Jesus of Nazareth appeared to Joseph Smith. I cannot understand how a barrister and solicitor from Canada, a man trained in logic and evidence, could accept such absurd statements. What you tell me about Joseph Smith seems fantastic, but I think you should take three days at least to prepare a brief and permit me to examine it and question you on it.”

I suggested that we proceed at once and have an examination for discovery, which is, briefly, a meeting of the opposing sides in a lawsuit where the plaintiff and defendant, with their attorneys, meet to examine each other’s claims and see if they can find some area of agreement, thus saving the time of the court later on.

I said perhaps we could see whether we had some common ground from which we could discuss my “fantastic ideas.” He agreed to that quite readily.

I can only give you, in the few minutes at my disposal, a condensed and abbreviated synopsis of the three-hour conversation that followed. In the interest of time I shall resort to the question-and-answer method, rather than narration.

I began by asking, “May I proceed, sir, on the assumption that you are a Christian?”

“I am.”

“I assume you believe in the Bible—the Old and New Testaments?”

“I do!”

“Do you believe in prayer?”

“I do!”

“You say that my belief that God spoke to a man in this age is fantastic and absurd?”

“To me it is.”

“Do you believe that God ever did speak to anyone?”

“Certainly, all through the Bible we have evidence of that.”

“Did He speak to Adam?”

“Yes.”

“To Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and on through the prophets?”

“I believe He spoke to each of them.”

“Do you believe that contact between God and man ceased when Jesus appeared on the earth?”

“No, such communication reached its climax, its apex, at that time.”

“Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God?”

“He was.”

“Do you believe, sir, that after Jesus was resurrected, a certain lawyer—who was also a tentmaker by the name of Saul of Tarsus—when on his way to Damascus talked with Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified, resurrected, and had ascended into heaven?”

“I do.”

“Whose voice did Saul hear?”

“It was the voice of Jesus Christ, for He so introduced Himself.”

“Then, my Lord—that is the way we address judges in the British Commonwealth—I am submitting to you in all seriousness that it was standard procedure in Bible times for God to talk to man.”

“I think I will admit that, but it stopped shortly after the first century of the Christian era.”

“Why do you think it stopped?”

“I can’t say.”

“You think that God hasn’t spoken since then?”

“I am sure He hasn’t.”

“There must be a reason. Can you give me a reason?”

“I do not know.”

“May I suggest some possible reasons? Perhaps God does not speak to man anymore because He cannot. He has lost the power.”

He said, “Of course that would be blasphemous.”

“Well, then, if you don’t accept that, perhaps He doesn’t speak to men because He doesn’t love us anymore and He is no longer interested in the affairs of men.”

“No,” he said, “God loves all men, and He is no respecter of persons.”

“Well, then, if He could speak, and if He loves us, then the only other possible answer, as I see it, is that we don’t need Him. We have made such rapid strides in science and we are so well educated that we don’t need God anymore.”

And then he said—and his voice trembled as he thought of impending war—“Mr. Brown, there never was a time in the history of the world when the voice of God was needed as it is needed now. Perhaps you can tell me why He doesn’t speak.”

My answer was: “He does speak, He has spoken; but men need faith to hear Him.”

Then we proceeded to prepare what I may call a “profile of a prophet.”

Perhaps you students would like to amplify what I must condense today and draw your own standard or definition of a prophet and see whether Joseph Smith measures up.

We agreed between us that the following characteristics should distinguish a man who claims to be a prophet:
1. He will boldly claim that God had spoken to him.
2. Any man so claiming would be a dignified man with a dignified message—no table jumping, no whisperings from the dead, no clairvoyance, but an intelligent statement of truth.
3. Any man claiming to be a prophet of God would declare his message without any fear and without making any weak concessions to public opinion.
4. If he were speaking for God he could not make concessions, although what he taught would be new and contrary to the accepted teachings of the day. A prophet bears witness to what he has seen and heard and seldom tries to make a case by argument. His message and not himself is important.
5. Such a man would speak in the name of the Lord, saying, “Thus said the Lord,” as did Moses, Joshua, and others.
6. Such a man would predict future events in the name of the Lord, and they would come to pass, as did those predicted by Isaiah and Ezekiel.
7. He would have not only an important message for his time but often a message for all future time, such as Daniel, Jeremiah, and others had.
8. He would have courage and faith enough to endure persecution and to give his life, if need be, for the cause he espoused, such as Peter, James, Paul, and others did.
9. Such a man would denounce wickedness fearlessly. He would generally be rejected or persecuted by the people of his time, but later generations and descendants of his persecutors would build monuments in his honor.
10. He would be able to do superhuman things—things that no man could do without God’s help. The consequence or result of his message and work would be convincing evidence of his prophetic calling: “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20).
11. His teachings would be in strict conformity with scripture, and his words and his writings would become scripture. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21).

Now I have given but an outline that you can fill in and amplify and then measure and judge the Prophet Joseph Smith by the work and stature of other prophets.

I said to my friend, “My Lord, I cannot understand your saying to me that my claims are fantastic. Nor can I understand why Christians who claim to believe in Christ would persecute and put to death a man whose whole purpose was to prove the truth of the things they themselves were declaring; namely, that Jesus was the Christ. I could understand their persecuting Joseph if he had said, ‘I am Christ,’ or if he had said, ‘There is no Christ,’ or if he had said someone else is Christ. Then Christians believing in Christ would be justified in opposing him.

“But what he said was, ‘He whom ye claim to serve, declare I unto you,’ paraphrasing what Paul said in Athens: ‘Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you’ (Acts 17:23). Joseph said to the Christians of his day, ‘You claim to believe in Jesus Christ. I testify that I saw Him and I talked with Him. He is the Son of God. Why persecute me for that?’

“When Joseph came out of the woods, he had at least four fundamental truths, and he announced them to the world: first, that the Father and the Son are separate and distinct individuals; second, that the canon of scripture is not complete; third, that man was created in the bodily image of God; and fourth, the channel between earth and heaven is open and revelation is continuous.”

Perhaps some of you are wondering how the judge reacted to our discussion. He listened intently; he asked some very pointed and searching questions; and, at the end of the period, he said, “Mr. Brown, I wonder if your people appreciate the import of your message. Do you?” He said, “If what you have told me is true, it is the greatest message that has come to this earth since the angels announced the birth of Christ.”

This was a judge speaking—a great statesman, an intelligent man. He threw out the challenge: “Do you appreciate the import of what you say?” He added, “I wish it were true. I hope it may be true. God knows it ought to be true. I would to God,” he said, and he wept as he said it, “that some man could appear on earth and authoritatively say, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’”

As I intimated, we did not meet again.

One spring day, we were playing in our front yard. A very old, rusty, and dented van pulled up and parked on our street. A tiny old lady got out. She didn’t seem very strong. She opened the back of her van and gathered in her arms many heavy, new, yellow-page phone books. She began to deliver them to the houses on our street.
We watched as she delivered the few she could carry and then went back to her van to get more. It took her quite a while to do just a few. They looked heavy!
Mom thought we could let her use our red wagon to put the books in. She could pull it around our neighborhood. The four of us went over to talk to her. She said that the wagon would be helpful because the books get heavy, especially when she delivered them in office buildings.
We ended up giving her our red wagon to keep. Even though we liked playing with it, we knew that she needed it more than we did.
Several days later, as we were driving to school, we saw our tiny friend with the wagon, delivering more books. We felt really good knowing that we were trying to be like Jesus!

During one of the recent tours of Elder and Sister Wong at the Cabanatuan Philippines Mission, stake and district presidents were challenged to work with the missionaries on a special ministering method. Members and leaders who had the resources but lacked the time to visit their assigned families were asked to share the names of the families with the full-time missionaries. The members prepared food items as gifts to express their love for the non-participating members, and the missionaries delivered the food and invited the recipients to come back to Church. The outpouring of love and delicious food strengthened their testimonies and saw a lot of returning members enjoying the fellowship of their wards and branches.

The day after the explosion, doctors transferred Elder Navarro to a clinic in Lima. There Elder Charles A. Didier of the Area Presidency gave him a blessing, promising that he would soon return to the mission field.
After attending to Elder Navarro’s other injuries, doctors turned their focus to reconstructing his injured face. Shrapnel had cut his cheekbone and severed the optic nerve of his right eye, requiring the eye’s removal. His parents, who had come to Lima, broke the news to him.
With full financial support from the Church, Elder Navarro underwent three operations to remove his eye and repair its damaged socket.
While recovering at the clinic, Elder Navarro received visits from Luis Palomino, a friend from his hometown who was attending school in Lima. Although his injuries made it difficult for him to speak with Luis, Elder Navarro began sharing the missionary lessons.
Luis was surprised and impressed by Elder Navarro’s decision to finish his mission. “I want to know what is motivating you,” Luis told him. “Why is your faith so great?”
“I want to know what is motivating you. Why is your faith so great?”
Six weeks after the explosion, Elder Navarro left the clinic and started serving at the mission office in Lima. The threat of terrorism still loomed, and he was afraid every time he saw a car like the one that exploded. At night he struggled to sleep.
One day, Luis came to the mission office to visit Elder Navarro. “I want to be baptized,” he told him. “What do I have to do?”
Over the next few weeks, Elder Navarro and his companion taught Luis the rest of the lessons at a nearby chapel. Elder Navarro was excited to teach a friend, and Luis eagerly completed all the goals he set with the missionaries.
On October 4, 1990, Elder Navarro performed Luis’s baptism. Although Elder Navarro was still suffering from his injury, the ordeal had made it possible for him to baptize a friend from his hometown—something he never expected to do. After Luis came out of the water, they embraced, and Elder Navarro felt the Spirit strongly. He knew Luis could feel it too.
To commemorate the occasion, Elder Navarro gave Luis a Bible. “When the days get dark,” Elder Navarro wrote on the inside cover, “just remember this day, the day you were reborn.”

Another day, Bob had stopped to fish. When he looked up, a large wolf, about 30 feet away across the creek, was staring at him. It followed us for several days. I’m pretty sure he was a dominant wolf that had been driven out of his pack. He still carried his tail curled way up above the top of his back, a sign in the society of the pack that he’s a leader. We finally lost him when we crossed a large lake.