Gospel Story Finder

Allow me to illustrate with a personal experience. When I was a young child, I was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Perhaps many of you are also converts and can identify with my story. Our family lived in a small trailer. A neighbor family, the Kimballs, belonged to the local LDS ward.

The mother of that household, Betty Kimball, invited my younger sister and me to attend Primary with her two daughters. My mother granted permission. For more than a year, we attended Primary at the chapel in a nearby town, Valpariso, Florida. Betty Kimball always drove us there and brought us home. Betty Kimball reached out. It proved to be an unexpected benefit in my life. We moved away from that area and so did the Kimballs. We lost contact.

More than fifteen years later, when some members encouraged me to listen to the missionaries, I knew something of what they spoke. Betty Kimball's kindness to reach out to the poor and needy-a nonmember child-had prepared me.

We are encouraged to warn our neighbor. [D&C 88:81] A testimony of the gospel should not be offensive in its delivery, but should be delivered in a kind and loving manner. What could be more tender than taking a child to Primary?

My sisters came into the living room each carrying a shiny baking powder can. The cans tinkled with the sound of coins that they emptied onto the table to be counted.
“Bishop Isom will pat me on top of the head when I give him my money and say, ‘My what a fine tithing!’” Mildred said proudly.
“Then he’ll say, ‘You are good girls,’” Kate added.
The bishop’s last name was the same as ours because he was Papa’s cousin.
I didn’t have any nickels or pennies. I didn’t even have an empty baking powder can, but I knew a little about tithing. I liked sitting on top of a load of hay as the horses clopped along the dusty road to the tithing barn. And I enjoyed watching Mama push the firm yellow butter out of the wooden mold onto the wrapper. Some of it she set aside for “tithing butter.” And our chickens laid “tithing eggs.”
I went into the kitchen where Mama was mixing bread. “When can I pay tithing?” I asked.
Mama’s dough-covered hands stopped still in the big tin pan. She looked at me for a long minute then smiled. “My goodness, you are getting to be a big girl, aren’t you! You’ll be five next summer. Why of course you want to pay tithing. Tell your sisters to wait until I finish mixing and you can go with them.”
Dancing into the living room I happily announced, “I’m going to Bishop Isom’s too.”
“You can go, but you don’t have any tithing,” Kate said.
“Wait for Alice,” Mama called to my sisters. Then she washed the dough from her hands and said, “Come with me.”
I followed her to the barn where she scooped up a can of wheat, scattering it in the yard. “Here, chick, chick, chick,” she called.
Greedily, the chickens flocked around her, so it was easy for Mama to slip her hands over the wings of a young rooster and hold him firmly while the plump bird squawked in alarm. “Here.” she said, handing him to me, “hold him while I tie his legs.” From a bunch of used binding twine that hung on the corral fence, she selected a short piece. Securing the rooster’s legs she said, “You’ve worked hard feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. You can take this rooster to the bishop for your tithing.”
“I’m going to pay tithing. I really, really am,” I cried, running to the house.
My sisters giggled at the rooster squirming in my arms.
Purple daisies were blooming along the fences and the leaves of the fruit trees fluttered about us as we walked the six blocks to the bishop’s house. I hugged my rooster and he cackled back at me. The sun on his shiny black feathers picked up glints of green and gold. He was as beautiful as any bird that ever went to see the bishop.
When Bishop Samuel Isom saw us coming through the gate, his front door opened wide. His ample front was made for hugging children. “Come in, come in,” he said merrily. Then, seeing the rooster in my arms, he asked, “Oh-ho, and what’s this?”
“He’s a tithing rooster,” I proudly announced.
“Oh, he’s a real dandy,” the bishop said. Taking the rooster from me he gently set him down on the porch and ushered us inside.
Sister Isom came into the room, tall and smiling. Her neat hair was wound in a bun on top of her head. Over her blue checkered dress she wore a snowy white apron bordered with wide handmade lace. “Have a chair, girls,” she invited.
The bishop sat at his rolltop desk and Kate and Mildred gave him the coins from their baking powder cans.
We sat on polished high-backed chairs, feasting our eyes on the cheerful room while the bishop made out our receipts. I hoped that when I grew up I could have a stairway with such a beautiful bannister sweeping down into my living room.
Tearing out the receipts the bishop arose. “Mighty fine, mighty fine,” he said handing us each a receipt.
“Will you please read my receipt for me?” I asked, looking up at him.
“I’d be glad to,” he replied. Taking it from me he read, “Alice Isom has voluntarily contributed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints one young rooster.”
I sucked in my breath. “Oh, my!” The Church of Jesus Christ was so big and I was so small. I had really and truly contributed to this great big wonderful Church. Happily I took my receipt out onto the porch. “Look, rooster,” I said, holding it in front of him, “you belong to the Church now, because I contributed you. That makes you a Mormon rooster.”
Bishop and Sister Isom were in the doorway laughing heartily. I skipped to the gate ahead of my sisters, feeling that I was the happiest tithe payer in the whole town of Hurricane, Utah.

A year and a half after my wife, Rebeca, and I married, the company I worked for closed. Suddenly I found myself unemployed.
Rather than look to be hired by someone else, I felt prompted to start my own company. I knew that this challenge could be a complicated one, so I turned to Heavenly Father to confirm what I had felt. Prayer played a vital role in that initial decision and has continued to be crucial since.
In August 2003 I started my own company doing painting, gardening, landscaping, and maintenance work. Things aren’t always easy when you have your own company, especially when starting out. At the beginning of one month, Rebeca and I needed to pay rent for our home. We didn’t have a penny. So one morning we prayed that we might somehow obtain the money we needed. Later that day I was hired for a job that paid enough to cover our rent.

Hiking into the foothills and onto the mountain east of Manti, Utah, was a favorite activity for me when I was growing up. One crisp fall day when I was about ten years old, my friend and I decided to go for a hike.
My mother carefully wrapped two peanut butter and jam sandwiches and pieces of raisin pie in waxed paper and put them and an apple apiece in brown paper bags for us to take for our lunches.
I enjoyed the cool, fresh air and the smell of the fields and orchards as we made our way past the outskirts of town, past one neighbor’s farm and through another’s apple orchard. The trees were loaded with delicious red apples.
We were each carrying a large burlap sack, as we hoped to find pine nuts. As we took the narrow trail through the sagebrush and into the junipers, we found a piñon pine tree here and there, and a few pinecones.
We put the cones, sticky with fresh pine gum, into our burlap sacks, with the knowledge that each hard, green cone contained a number of pine nuts locked tightly inside it. I loved pine nuts then; I still do. The Indians liked them, too, but they gathered them for survival. They made a pine-nut bread that was half pine nuts and half grasshoppers. I preferred my pine nuts straight.
My friend and I climbed higher until we came to a maze of flat, white rocks laid out so that they formed a huge letter “M” visible throughout the valley below. At the top right side of this letter, we found a large, flat rock and sat down to rest. Taking our shoes off to cool our feet on this smooth rock, we enjoyed looking down on Manti, out across the fields and valleys, and beyond. The air was clean and clear, and we could smell the mixture of sage, juniper, and pine. It was good to be alive!
So that we could roast some of our pine nuts, we gathered dry brush and limbs and started a fire. It was soon blazing quite high—too high!
The flames caught onto a nearby clump of sagebrush, then another and another. It looked as though it would soon spread to the whole mountainside and be a forest fire. We had learned to put a fire out by pouring water on it, but we had no water, so we tried to beat it out with our burlap sacks, but every time we beat at the fire, it seemed to fan out and spread more. In desperation my friend said, “I’ll go for help.” He pulled his shoes on and took off running down the mountain.
I was alone! I went to my knees in prayer. “Father in Heaven, help me put this fire out.” This is all I remember saying. I don’t know what I expected. There was not a cloud in the sky, and it didn’t suddenly start to rain. I didn’t hear a voice telling me what to do, but He answered my prayer.
Before I’d even gotten off my knees, I was impressed to start throwing dirt on the nearest burning bush, and then on the next one. I threw dirt on another, and another until I had encircled the entire fire and had it under control and only smoke was left blowing up on the mountain where the fire had been.
I had not heard a voice saying, “Throw dirt on the fire,” but I had felt strongly impressed to do it. In some way Heavenly Father had conveyed that intelligence to my mind. If I forgot to thank Him then, I have thanked Him many times since then!
I am grateful, too, for the way He answered my prayer. He didn’t put the fire out. He could have, but I’m glad that He didn’t. I would have been embarrassed. Instead, He allowed me the dignity of putting the fire out, which boosted my self-confidence and helped me realize that I could solve difficult problems with His help.
I learned many lifelong lessons from this experience, the first being to not start a fire next to brush with a breeze blowing. More important, I learned that the prayer of a small boy on a mountain would be heard and answered. I also learned that Heavenly Father will generally not do for us what we can do for ourselves but will prompt us to use our own intelligence, our own strength, and the materials at hand, such as the dirt under our feet.

As a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, I bear witness of the Book of Mormon that led me to Him. I found the Lord Jesus Christ within the covers of the Book of Mormon as a 19-year-old missionary, walking through the rain and the mud of England, riding a bike with mud clear up the back of my coat and over the top of my head, tracting in cities that had never been opened, with baptisms that did not come for a long time. Those nights I went back to No. 3 Gilmore Road and read and read and wept. I knew that Jesus was the Christ, that the Book of Mormon was true, that the gospel had been restored. If the folks in England didn’t understand that, then I would just keep knocking on their doors until they did.

Togtokhin Enkhtuvshin, who now serves as president of the Ulaanbaatar Selbe Branch, recalls that during Mongolia’s socialist era, Mongolians “were not taught about religion. Moral values declined. Drinking, smoking, and moral sin became accepted. When I was a little boy, though, my grandmother taught me about God. She was Buddhist, but she told me about Jesus Christ. I felt that religion could unite our people and help them progress.”
Enkhtuvshin prayed to find something that would change his life and help the country. “I didn’t know what God I was praying to,” he says, “but my parents said that if there was a God, he would help me.” Eager to find out more about Jesus Christ, Enkhtuvshin accepted an invitation to study in Germany, where he knew he would find many Christian religions.
One day in Germany, Enkhtuvshin met Latter-day Saint missionaries on the street. “They gave me Russian and German copies of the Book of Mormon,” he recalls. “I read the book in one day and one night. I love this book.” Two days later he attended church, and during the summer of 1993 he was baptized. “I was excited to be baptized and thought I might be the first Mongolian member,” he says, “but I was concerned about returning home and not having the Church.”
Unaware of the gospel developments in his country, Enkhtuvshin returned to Mongolia the same month that six young elders arrived there to teach English, learn Mongolian, and share the gospel. He was shopping in a department store with his children when he noticed a familiar sight: clean-cut young missionaries! “At that time I knew that God was helping me,” he says. “I was very excited to find that I was not alone.”
Enkhtuvshin’s wife, Doyodiin Dashgerel, and their five children have joined the Church, and Enkhtuvshin has been a key figure in helping the Church gain government recognition. The Church was legally registered in October 1994.
As a professor, Enkhtuvshin struggled for many years to provide for his large family in a two-bedroom, Russian-built apartment. Inflation makes it difficult for Mongolians to live on an average salary of U.S. $50 per month, and they are dependent on imported goods that are expensive and limited in supply. With the new freedom of the market-based economy, Enkhtuvshin and his wife decided in 1994 to open a small delguur, or food shop. Shoppers in the couple’s food shop could find Dashgerel weighing sausage, cucumbers, or tomatoes in a four-foot-wide shop with a picture of the resurrected Savior on the wall behind her.

Some years ago, I was in the mountains camping and hiking with my sons and friends. I wanted to head out on my own, so I informed the group of the terrain where I would be hiking and set off for the afternoon. As I enjoyed a beautiful, brisk, fall day, I hiked a considerable distance in just a few hours.
After a while, I determined I had better head back if I wanted to return to the campsite before dark. Too soon, however, darkness began to set in. I had a general idea where I was, and knew I couldn’t be too far from the base camp, yet the darker it became, the more difficult it was to orient myself towards camp.
I stopped and tried to logically direct myself, which became more and more difficult in the dark. As my heart started to pound harder and my breathing began to increase, fear began to take over. I found myself walking faster, almost wanting to run, but without knowing which direction to head. Adrenaline coursed through my bloodstream. I realized I needed to take special care so as to not lose rationality or allow panic to overtake my emotions. This, unexpectedly, required considerable concentration.
By now it was dark enough and the temperature cool enough for me to know that our group would be comfortably settled around a campfire, and that if I found the right vantage point, the fire would be visible from a long distance.
It was with great relief that I spotted a golden flicker far off in the distance. Remarkably, this small speck of light provided the perspective necessary to immediately reorient myself and plot my return course. The fear that had been building inside of me dissipated faster than it came and was replaced with peace.
Today’s cultural landscape is full of those who would mock and ridicule our beliefs. We worry that if we express our peculiar beliefs—and they are peculiar—that this will somehow become an embarrassment, or ultimately, a disadvantage in our relationships. But we shouldn’t hide among the shadows, trying to blend in. “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14). Remember how far away I was from the campfire when I was lost, and how penetrating a single spark can be in the black of night.
And so we end where we began. Once again, out in the darkness, looking for the way back to camp, paralyzed by fear, and then rescued by the vision of a tiny spark of light—the fire of faith, the flame of testimony, the burning brilliance of divine strength, the shining gleam of spiritual armor, and the golden glow of selfless service. These will restore peace, provide direction, and eliminate fear.

I had the privilege of being involved with a young man and a father recently. The young man and a friend were up hiking in the lower foothills near Cody, Wyoming. The friend jumped across a high-power line that was down, but the young man got tangled in it and was electrocuted. The friend turned and ran all the way back down to where the father lived—and it was no short distance—and told him that his son had been electrocuted and was dead. The father, who was not a young man, ran all the way back up, taking about fifteen minutes. When he got where the boy was lying across the wires, he in some way removed the boy from the wires with a board or large stick. Then he picked his son up in his arms and held him, saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ and by the power and authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, I command you to live.” The dead boy in his father’s arms opened his eyes. He was taken to the University of Utah Medical Center for treatment and a blessing. I believe that it is this kind of experience that we have as we walk through this life with Him.

I recall reading a story written by John Burroughs, the famous American naturalist, containing a most touching experience. As I remember, the details went like this: His brother was rather timid, somewhat below the average in those powers and qualities that insure worldly success. He was the kind of man that is “so often crowded to the wall.”
This brother had his plans for going west. Somehow that land of the West would be different. There he might leave the causes of his failure behind. He kept his suitcase packed continuously, ready to go at a moment’s notice—whenever he really firmly made up his mind to go.
John Burroughs told how once he actually started and got as far as White Pigeon, Michigan. There his courage gave out and he came back. Still he kept his suitcase packed, but the end of his life’s journey came before he was ready to go west again.
It was not really the West on the map that he was longing to visit. What he longed for was the dream of a far greater freedom. The dusty suitcase he left behind him was evidence of what had consoled him through the years of his long defeat. It meant for him that his dream was waiting to become a reality somewhere. At any moment he could break away and find what he had never found before.

Ramona Morreale of the Cannonville Ward, Escalante Utah Stake, writes of a special family home evening when she read from her journal: “I found entries about our children and humorous things they said and did when they were younger. Before long we were all laughing. Our children often ask to have a ‘journal’ lesson again. Sometimes we also read spiritual entries from an ancestor’s journal. This brings great joy and helps us get to know them.”

One day, my mom needed to take me to urgent care because the blisters had an infection. I was so scared. I didn’t want to get in the car. My mom knew I was scared. She told me about when Joseph Smith was my age. When Joseph Smith was seven years old, he had an illness that required the doctor to do surgery on his leg. He was scared too, but he knew that Heavenly Father was with him and would help him. The doctor took nine pieces of bone out of his leg! I was so surprised. He was brave. If he could do that, I knew that I could get in the car and go to the doctor. I would be brave, and Heavenly Father would help me with the pain I was feeling.

William Lee came from the old sod in 1745. He must have had an unexplained urge, because he could not know really why he came. He might think it was to better his condition. He fought in the American Revolution and was wounded. Many of us have ancestors who are reported to have fought in the Revolution, but few of them were wounded. This man was left for dead in the battle of Guilford County Courthouse in the Carolinas in March 1781. Thanks to good nursing he recovered and as in all good endings, married his nurse. Four sons came to him, one of whom was Samuel, who was the youngest.
Samuel’s sons, Francis, Alfred, and Eli, and their families joined the Church in 1832, about the time that my great-grandfather joined. They suffered through all the vicissitudes and the troubles and persecutions and mobbings of Jackson County, Far West, and Nauvoo, and finally came west. At Winter Quarters their father joined them. He had not joined the Church until this time but joined shortly afterward. Francis married a young woman by the name of Jane Vail Johnson. I shall speak of her later.
They all came to Utah and settled in Tooele County. They were just getting settled and making things go when they were called by President Brigham Young to St. George, and they went, like all good Latter-day Saints did in those days. But they had not been in St. George very long when they were called to settle in Meadow Valley. That is a place you folks probably have not heard about. It is now known as Panaca, in what they thought was southwestern Utah, but which actually later came to be Nevada. These people, obeying the call, again without question, were the first family to move to Meadow Valley, and they made a dugout house. Sister Young said that you may not know what a dugout house is. I replied that most of the folks would know: One digs a cubical hole in a hillside and covers it with a roof of wooden poles topped with clay.
Troubles of the few settlers with the Indians caused the authorities in St. George to give them permission to abandon the project, but Sister Jane Johnson Lee refused to leave. She said she was there to stay, and stay they did. Later two Indians came into her dugout home, and one of them, seeing a rifle in one corner of the room, demanded it. Sister Lee refused to give it to him. He started for the gun, but she struck him so hard with a piece of stove wood, it knocked him down. He staggered to his feet and drew his bow, aiming the arrow at her. She let him have another piece of wood, which smashed the bow and arrow. Both Indians departed.
Two sons of this brave couple married sisters. Samuel Marion Lee married Margaret McMurrin, and Francis Lee, Jr., married Mary McMurrin. The McMurrins were converts from Scotland who had crossed the plains with the hand-cart companies. Brother McMurrin, a cooper, which is a man who makes barrels and bends wood, repaired many a handcart wheel en route, which helped get the carts to the valley but delayed him and his family. They also settled in Tooele. Each of the Lee brothers took his bride to Meadow Valley.
I speak of Margaret’s bravery.
Eleven times she placed
Her life upon the block
And offered it that
Children might be born.
No sterile chamber
Where the doctor waits,
The anesthetic cone
And nurse in readiness,
Could be her lot.
The cabin walls absorbed
The agonizing cries,
With Death close by.
He did not claim her life.
Instead he took each child—
Each little one to heaven—
All eleven.
Then came the twelfth.
For her the light burned
Dim, then flickered low,
And out—
But she had filled her life, and
Given all that she could give.
Her mission was performed;
A son was born.
The only child to live.
He was named his father’s name—Samuel Lee.
Mary McMurrin Lee took the child and let him nurse along with her own child, but after a time the strain was too great, so they took the baby to Salt Lake City to Grandmother McMurrin.
“I’ll give him one last nursing,” she said, and then laying him in his crib, she went back to Meadow Valley.
Under his grandmother’s care the baby Samuel grew into a stalwart boy, and when sixteen went to Clifton, Idaho, in Cache Valley, where he worked on a farm and there later met Louisa Bingham.
The Bingham family, stalwart in the faith, were pioneers. They endured the hardships of the plains and the difficulties of conquering the new land. They were among the early settlers of Clifton.
Out on the farm
Louisa Bingham
Grew and blossomed
Into girlish womanhood.
Her eyes
Caught the color of the
Somber hills in spring,
And in the fall they
Danced with joy
At autumn’s coloring.
At home she learned
To wash and cook and sew.
And winter
Saw her
Skating, sledding, and
Riding the bobsleigh
Through the snow.
Then Samuel Lee, now
Working on this nearby farm,
Watched her grow,
Saw with his heart
As well as with his eyes
The slow unfolding
Of her girlish charm,
The bloom of girlhood
High upon her cheeks,
A budding woman,
Gentle, soft, and warm.
And she saw him,
The young, strong, steady hands,
The head well set,
The shoulders square
And broad,
The muscles strong
And firm.
A good young man.
She knew his story well—
The twelfth and only child
Which lived.
And so they came together,
Drawn by a magnet
Neither one could see,
To be the parents of a
Man of destiny.
And so, in good time, and in his turn, there came into the family circle on a windy day in late March 1899 a son. They named him Harold Bingham Lee.
It is fitting this day that we speak briefly of this heritage. The Lord prepared the lineage through which President Lee came that he might inherit their bravery, their loyalty, their integrity, and their devotion to the truth.
Twenty-five hundred and seventy-two years ago, give or take a year, a prophet accepted of the Lord began to write his history: “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents. …” And then he went on to say, “I make a record of my proceedings in my days.” (1 Ne. 1:1.)
And so the first prophet of our times might have said the same words: “I, Joseph Smith, having been born of goodly parents … make my record.”
And now, so it is today. Beginning his work as the prophet of the Lord, this modern seer and revelator may thus also begin his history: “I, Harold Bingham Lee, having been born of goodly parents, begin my work.”
Prophets are born of goodly parents. Before the earth was formed the heavenly hosts gave shouts of joy, both because they could come to the earth and that their leaders were chosen and recognized. …
Said the Lord: “Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.” (Abr. 3:23.) And the Lord designated the others who have been chosen. I do not presume; rather, I am sure, President Lee, thou wast chosen before thou wast born.
I pray that the whisperings of the Spirit, the visions of eternity, the mighty words of Christ our Lord will come to and be with you, even as they were with Nephi and with Joseph Smith. And I pray too that the disloyal and the disobedient will lose their power to hurt or make afraid.
I know that President Lee is a prophet and a seer and a revelator. I have seen with my own eyes the mantle fall upon him and have had a witness borne into my soul that the Lord has chosen him and sustains him.
God our Father, through his Son, Jesus Christ, directs the work of this the true and living church established by the Lord Jesus Christ on the earth. I know it, and bear witness of it, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Seeing an excellent financial opportunity, Elder Ribeiro and his wife Zélia and their small children, planned to move to the USA. Ready to leave, after prayer, fasting and attending the temple the answer was “no”. Months later, Elder Ribeiro was called as a stake president. His wife comforted the family by saying, “We were born to serve the Lord.”
During the following years, they experienced very significant financial losses. The hardships seemed to have no end. The heavens were silent. Days followed months, and months followed years. Faith was tested to the limits. Elder Ribeiro‘s testimony was forged. He learned to know his Saviour in a deeper way. He said: “The Son of God trusted in His Father, endured all things, and endured well until the end. We‘ll never know when the end will come. We can only bear it and bear it well”.

Aaron Story, a priest from Baldwin, Kansas, is a talented artist. On a recent school trip with his art class to Spring Hill, Kansas, Aaron teamed up with three other artists to participate in a chalk-drawing contest. Although the other three members of the team are not LDS, they were so taken with the image of the St. Louis Missouri Temple which Aaron had in his sketch book, they insisted on including it in their drawing.
The judges loved the image, too. They awarded Aaron and his fellow artists first place for the boldness and originality of their drawing.

“I started ballet at age seven because I wanted to be a princess,” says Bianca Carnovale, from Sydney, Australia. Soon after she began training, she learned that the dance world does not stop to remember the Sabbath day. She had to decide where she stood.
As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bianca strives to keep Sundays free from work and other activities that take her away from worship. Whether it’s sports or performing arts, the decision for Latter-day Saints to set these activities aside on the Sabbath can sometimes be emotionally challenging.
Not wanting to let anyone down, knowing that Sunday pieces would have to be choreographed without her, Bianca also struggled. Her teachers would say, “No company will want you; why would they choose you over someone who will dance on Sunday?”
But Bianca remembers, from as young as seven, talking with her mother about dancing on Sundays. When she had to miss out on exams and performances, those talks helped Bianca understand that pleasing God was more important.
She studied at Marni’s School of Performing Arts until the age of 14, then won a spot in the pre-professional program at the National College of Dance in Newcastle, which was two hours away from home. For the next three years, Bianca lived in Newcastle five days a week, an experience that prepared her to move to New York City, USA on her own.
Although she still never danced on a Sunday, at age 17, Bianca was accepted into New York’s prestigious Ballet Academy East, where she had the exciting opportunity to study the Balanchine ballet method.
It wasn’t always fun. “There were times in New York, away from all my friends and family, I felt I had no one,” Bianca remembers. “Crying one night . . . I remember praying to my Heavenly Father and asking Him for [a hug]. I will never forget the warmth that flooded my chest. Although it made me cry more, they were definitely happy tears, and I did not feel alone anymore.”
After almost two years, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down New York and sent Bianca home, where she had to find a job, but kept up her ballet training. Later, she prayerfully considered a full-time mission, but was prompted to move to Melbourne where she hoped to get into the Australian Ballet Company.
Then the lockdowns started again, and Bianca soon missed performing. She began dancing in the park, just to get outdoors, but then her mother suggested she try ballet busking when the lockdowns ended. At first, Bianca thought the idea was crazy, but when her friends from Church also encouraged it, she gave it a go.
Bianca choreographed dances in her flat, then ventured into the city streets to perform them. “At first, I only had headphones, but started dancing anyway. Then I got speakers. From there, I learned all the tips and tricks of busking: using cones and roping off a stage area . . . perfecting choreography . . . [managing] a crowd. Busking was a whole new world.”
Bianca still dreamed of getting into a ballet company. While busking, she kept training and auditioning. One company that seemed interested in her asked, “Why don’t you . . . perform on Sunday, and then go to church?” With Bianca’s insistence that Sabbath observance was more than just going to church, that opportunity fell through.
“I wanted so much to dance professionally,” Bianca reflects. In her prayers she even told Heavenly Father how inspiring it would be to all the little dancers if I got into a ballet company without working on Sundays. “Looking back, I now laugh at trying to tell Heavenly Father what was best.”
Bianca ponders a lesson taught by Elder D. Todd Christofferson: “We ought not to think of God’s plan as a cosmic vending machine where we (1) select a desired blessing, (2) insert the required sum of good works, and (3) the order is promptly delivered.”1
“I knew Heavenly Father wanted me to dance,” she says. “I knew He wanted me to strive towards getting into a ballet company, but as the years went by it became very apparent that He never promised me I would actually get into one.”
Pursuing her dream to work for a company has made Bianca an exceptionally skilled performer, but as of March 2022, she has supported herself completely on busking—a path that has had unexpected outcomes.
While she was dancing one day, she recalls, “I happened to see the glowing face of a 13-year-old girl . . . I’ve been that girl before, and I know that feeling. I can make people smile and cry; I wouldn’t change that for anything . . . I always wanted to serve others . . . now Heavenly Father has provided me with the opportunity to serve in the most unique way!”
“Getting into a company would be inspiring,” she continues, “but I think it is so much more inspiring that I would keep His commandment.”
President Russell M. Nelson once said, “Obedience brings success; exact obedience brings miracles.”2
Echoing his words, Bianca proclaims: “Heavenly Father has told me, ‘If you keep my commandments, I will show you miracles’.
“Do I trust Him? Yes!”

Shortly after applying to officers’ candidate school in 1942, President Faust was summoned before a board of inquiry. Nearly all of the questions the board asked him centered on his standards and beliefs. Did he smoke? Did he drink? Did he pray? Though fearful of giving offense, President Faust answered each question without equivocation. Then he was asked whether the moral code should be relaxed during times of war.
“I recognized that here was a chance perhaps to make some points and look broad-minded,” he said. “I suspected that the men who were asking me this question did not live by the standards that I had been taught. The thought flashed through my mind that perhaps I could say that I had my own beliefs, but I did not wish to impose them on others. But there seemed to flash before my mind the faces of the many people to whom I had taught the law of chastity as a missionary. In the end I simply said, ‘I do not believe there is a double standard of morality.’”
To his surprise, he passed the inquiry and was selected for officers’ candidate school.

My siblings and I grew up believing in God, but our family wasn’t religious. We did our own thing and didn’t bother to learn about our purpose on earth. When a few relatives died, I wondered if I would ever see them again. I remembered my grandfather warning us not to sleep too much because when we die, we sleep forever, and it got me curious. Was death just a dark place of eternal sleep? As my soul searched for the answer to what happens after death, a neighbour—a former bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—sent missionaries to us. They taught my sister, Fiasili, and me the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and introduced us to the plan of salvation, which finally answered all my questions about death. Fiasili and I were soon baptised. She was 13 years old and I was 12.

As a thirteen-year-old deacon's quorum president, one fast Sunday I encouraged the entire deacons' quorum to go up as a group to bear our testimonies. Part of my motive was quite deaconish as I suggested, "Let's make the bishop faint." All of us went to the stand together, and each of us bore his testimony, even the rascal of the group. When my turn came, I stood to bear my testimony. I said only a few words and was surprised to find myself in tears. Something happened that I had not expected. I had shared a Primary testimony many times before, but this was different. I was concerned about the health of a grandfather figure in my life. A powerful feeling came into my heart, an assurance of God's eternal plan. The fire of testimony burned in my soul, and I knew that the Church was true. I have never forgotten that event or those feelings.

A friend spoke to me recently of her father, who had suffered a stroke. She faced a hard time of life as she tried to determine the best way to care for and support him and also consider her mother, who had good health and days still filled with promise and grandchildren. Then my friend spoke of the reverence she felt for this time. She said, “I am finding I enjoy learning from him, watching him deal with this difficult process of an aging body.”

All of us must speak and act in the name of God in moments when our unaided judgment will not be enough without inspiration. Those moments can come upon us when there is not time to make preparation. That has happened to me often. It did many years ago in a hospital when a father told me and my companion that the doctors had told him that his critically injured three-year-old daughter would die within minutes. As I placed my hands on the one spot on her head not covered with bandages, I had to know, as God’s servant, what He would do and say.

The words came to my mind and my lips that she would live. The doctor standing by me snorted in disgust and asked me to get out of the way. I walked out of that hospital room with a feeling of peace and love. The little girl lived and walked down the aisle into a sacrament meeting on my last day in that city. I still remember the joy and satisfaction I felt from what I had said and done in the Lord’s service for that little girl and her family.