Gospel Story Finder

Sister Margaret Kirkham reported, “Our whole family looks forward to Richard Newman, our captain of ten, coming to encourage us. This project has been a great influence to our entire family.”

Dione’s sister, Paige, had to work and couldn’t come to camp for the whole week. She made a special effort to come join the Adventurers for the last two days. Paige said, “This is the only place I know that when you walk down the path you can hug anyone you meet, and they won’t think you are weird.”

For one of my sons, I was prompted to carve a sun—that is, the sun in the sky—and the words from the Savior’s Intercessory Prayer: “This Is Life Eternal.” Near the end of His mortal ministry, the Savior prayed to His Father:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”5

My son has given priesthood service across three continents but most importantly in his home and within his family. He has built his life around them. He works close to home, and he often returns to join his wife and younger children at the lunch hour. His family lives very near Sister Eyring and me. They care for our yard as though it were their own. This son is living not only to qualify for eternal life but also to live surrounded eternally by grateful family members whom he is gathering around him.

Many years ago I was introduced to an idea which at first seemed only an exercise in imagination, or perhaps a peg on which to hang a story. But I have thought of it occasionally since as I have traveled the earth, often separated from family and other loved ones.

Suppose that everyone in the world received simultaneously the word that the inconceivable was about to occur: civilization as we know it was about to end.

What would happen?

Well, for one thing, the streets would be a maelstrom of frantic people trying to get to a telephone to talk with someone. Every line would be jammed and every telephone booth besieged by people trying to reach someone to say “I love you.” There would be other messages also. “I’m so sorry,” would be one of them, or “How foolish I have been.”

The condition of the world about us assures us that the unthinkable could happen; but it is not of such a cataclysm that I am thinking, but of our daily walk and our everyday relationships.

Something else that helped me adjust to post-mission life was sharing my testimony whenever I got the chance. Sometimes I even had the opportunity to share my beliefs during presentations in my university classes.
After my philosophy professor assigned me to do a presentation on justice and freedom, I showed a Church video called “Be Still, My Soul.” The video is about a woman who is arrested for drug abuse. While she’s in jail, she misses her children. After she goes through rehabilitation, she returns home a new person.
I ended my presentation with my testimony. I said we all have our God-given agency, but that He has given us commandments to help us understand how to not harm ourselves or others. I also testified that He lives.
My professor and classmates didn’t protest against anything I said. And my testimony left them feeling thoughtful. I’ve learned that you never know when someone might need your insight in order to believe that God and Jesus Christ really do exist.

“I learned what it means to give. These people give when their wells are nearly dry. We were each given a loaf of bread at one home visit, and then a fourth loaf was divided up among the nine children and their mother. We were invited to a sister’s home to share the small birthday cake of her two-year-old son. His birthday wasn’t until the next day, but she knew we wouldn’t be there, and so it was cut especially for us. It was, perhaps, a small gesture, but it was a sacrifice on their part and a great lesson in giving.”
Cheri CarrWilton, California

“When he was older and wanted to join a baseball team, … the other [boys laughed] at him, … calling him a ‘sissy’ because he could not throw the ball between the bases. His teammates teased him so much that … he … made up his mind that he was going to play with the nine who would win the championship of the Territory of Utah. He purchased a baseball and practiced hour after hour, throwing at a neighbor’s old barn. Often his arm would ache so much he could hardly … sleep at night. He kept on practicing and … improving and advancing from one team to another until he finally [succeeded] in playing [on the team that] won the [territorial] championship!”

When I was five years old, my mother took me to Grandmother’s house to stay overnight. My grandmother lived on a farm, and it was always very exciting for me to play outside. But this time Grandmother warned me, “Be careful of that red hen with baby chickens. Don’t get too close or she might think you want to hurt her chicks.”
“I won’t, Grandma,” I promised. “I’ll be very careful.”
But when I saw the mother hen and yellow chicks, I forgot my promise. They looked so soft and fuzzy that I bent down and reached over to touch one of them. The tiny chick peeped and quickly ran away from me. Then the mother hen flew at me and pecked me on the hand until I ran into the house crying to my grandmother.
Grandmother held me close until I stopped crying. When I was able to talk, she asked me what had happened.
“I just wanted to see if the little chick was as soft as it looked,” I told her. “I wasn’t going to hurt it—I just wanted to touch it. Then that old mother hen pecked me!”
“But how was the mama hen to know you weren’t going to hurt her little baby chicks?” Grandmother asked. “You are much bigger than she is, and she didn’t want anyone to hurt her little chickens. That is why she pecked you—to make you go away.”
Then she told me to go out and play in the yard again, but to stay away from the mother hen with her babies. She also gave me another warning, “Now don’t go too close to that mother goose either. She has some babies too, and she is bigger than the mother hen. If you try to touch one of her babies, she might really hurt you.”
“I won’t touch them, Grandmother,” I promised.
When I went back outside, I stayed away from the mother hen. But I soon saw the mother goose and her train of baby geese following behind. I couldn’t see them very well, so I went closer to take a better look.
When I was close enough to see, the mother goose spread her big wings, stretched out her long neck, opened her beak, and hissed at me. I was so frightened that I ran back into the house and told Grandmother what had happened.
“Parents love their children,” Grandmother said, “and they want to protect them. That is what the mother hen and the mother goose were doing.”
Then my grandmother taught me a valuable lesson. “Not only do your father and mother and family love and want to protect you,” she said, “but our Heavenly Father loves you. He has placed a prophet here on earth to watch over us. This prophet has many assistants, such as the stake presidency, the bishopric, the home teachers, and your teachers in Primary and Sunday School. Many people love you and will protect you, so you never need to be afraid.”
I remember my grandmother’s lesson whenever I hear children sing “I Am a Child of God” or “My Heavenly Father Loves Me.”
This is a lesson all of us should remember, for we are His children and He loves each one of us!

The same wonderful result comes when I pray for it before I give a priesthood blessing to someone who is ill or in a time of need. It happened once in a hospital when impatient doctors urged me—more than urged me—ordered me—to hurry and get out of the way so they could do their work, rather than giving me an opportunity to give the priesthood blessing. I stayed, and I did give the blessing. And that little girl I blessed that day, who the doctors had thought would die, lived. I am grateful at this moment that that day, I didn’t let my own feelings get in the way but felt that the Lord wanted that little girl to have a blessing. And I knew what the blessing was: I blessed her to be healed. And she was.

“My dad was a farmer at heart. He had eighty acres that he farmed, although we lived in town. Dad and I used to spend a lot of time together, and we understood each other very well. He was very, very strong on obedience and felt that it was the most important principle. He never questioned any instruction or guidance that was given by Church leaders. He obeyed any directive they gave, and he instilled that desire to obey in his family. I remember Dad as being a strong disciplinarian, but he always tempered his discipline with love and concern. Once when he spanked me, he cried. But he felt that he had to execute the discipline in order to teach me obedience. I remember thinking then that it hurt him worse than it hurt me.”

For us, those missionaries—Elders Reed Harris and Marty Kemsley—were like two angels. When they taught us how to hold a family home evening, they brought their whole zone. Somehow we managed to fit all those missionaries into our small home. The first hymn we sang was “Love at Home.” We’ve always remembered how that made us feel.
Later, Elder Harris asked us, “Do you know why we were so persistent to teach you and bring you to church?” Then he answered, “Because we know that you are going to be leaders in the Church.”
We never forgot that. Since our baptism, we have had many wonderful opportunities to try to emulate the Savior as we have served Heavenly Father’s children. I have served in many leadership positions, including as Relief Society president and Young Women president. Javier has served as elders quorum president, twice as bishop, and as stake president.
Recently we served a full-time humanitarian mission in Bolivia. That calling gave us the blessing of meeting many wonderful brothers and sisters, sharing our faith in Jesus Christ, and giving love, help, and humanitarian aid to some of our nation’s most vulnerable people and areas.

The second-generation Church members in the Kreiberg family are solid evidence of President Andersen’s assessment of the fortification that comes through temple marriages. For Inge Kreiberg the strongest proof of this is in their third child, Caroline.

“We wouldn’t even have Caroline if we hadn’t joined the Church,” Inge explains. Like most Danish women, Inge felt she was through with having children—“I thought two kids and a job were enough. Then one evening as I prepared to teach an institute class on women’s role in giving birth, I stopped abruptly. I knew I wasn’t practicing what the lesson taught.”

She recalls believing the lesson was teaching the truth. She knew she needed to study and pray about motherhood, and her study became intense and personal. She decided that, for her, having another child was right—a choice of no small significance in Denmark. Now Finn, Inge, and Caroline, eleven, live in Odense, in a sturdy house with lots of leaded windows, converted from a derelict railway station where Finn had played as a boy.

At a stake conference many years ago, I met a woman who said she had been asked to come back to church after many years away but could not think of any reason why she should. To encourage her I said, “When you consider all of the things the Savior has done for us, don’t you have many reasons to come back to church to worship and serve Him?” I was astonished at her reply: “What’s He done for me?” For those who do not understand what our Savior has done for us, I will answer that question in His own words and with my own testimony.

“Conducting is my main interest, not just being a violinist. For two summers I attended a conducting school in Hancock, Maine. I was the youngest person there. I’ve conducted a lot of major orchestral works and have done some conducting here in New York City. It’s difficult to break into, though, and not many major music schools have conducting as a major, so I’ve decided to concentrate mostly on my violin while I’m here taking classes. One of the best ways to learn to be a good conductor is to play in various orchestras and observe conductors. I’ve played under some of the finest conductors, like Aaron Copland, Seiji Ozawa, and Zubin Mehta.”

4, 5 Stonecutters worked on the temple grounds, cutting blocks of granite that were brought by wagons from the quarry in Little Cottonwood Canyon over twenty miles (32 km) away. The blocks weighed 2500 pounds to 5600 pounds (1125 k to 2520 k) and sometimes took four days to be delivered.

Once I heard a forceful appeal by a woman from the Mutual. … She gave a rousing talk on the reading of the scriptures and making them our own; then she stopped her dissertation to ask this mixed congregation, about a thousand of us, “How many of you have read the Bible through?”
I think I was about fourteen years old at the time. An accusing guilt complex spread over me. I had read many books by that time, the funny papers, and light books, but my accusing heart said to me, “You, Spencer Kimball, you have never read that holy book. Why?” I looked around me at the people in front and on both sides of the hall to see if I was alone in my failure to read the sacred book. Of the thousand people, there were perhaps a half dozen who proudly raised their hands. I slumped down in my seat. I had no thought for the others who had also failed, but only a deep accusing thought for myself. I don’t know what other people were doing and thinking, but I heard no more of the sermon. It had accomplished its work. When the meeting closed, I sought the large double exit door and rushed to my home a block east of the chapel; and I was gritting my teeth and saying to myself, “I will. I will. I will.”
Entering the back door of our family home, I went to the kitchen shelf where we kept the coal oil lamps, selected one that was full of oil and had a newly trimmed wick, and climbed the stairs to my attic room. There I opened my Bible and began on Genesis, first chapter and first verse, and I read well into the night with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, and Enoch and Noah and through the flood even to Abraham.
Note: Young Spencer went on to finish the Bible. Since then he has read it and all the scriptures many times.

In his hometown there was a theater that only showed X-rated movies. People had tried to close it down but had never succeeded.
One time in priesthood meeting, the priests’ adviser asked if they had ever thought about going to any of the movies at that theater.
“Troy, how about you?”
“I guess I’ve thought about it, but I’d never go.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just my luck you’d drive by just as I was going into it,” he said, only half joking.
“Is that the only reason you don’t go?”
“No. I don’t go because I know it’s not good to have that stuff in your mind.”

The Savior’s words were written for us. It’s OK if we’re weak, as long as we don’t stay weak, as long as we do something about it. Katie is a young woman who did just that. Let me share her story with you.
“All my life I have wanted to be good, but I got to the point where I wondered, ‘How can anyone really know if the Church is true?’ I took Moroni’s challenge and for five months prayed and read my scriptures every day. One night I sat on my bed almost in tears, giving up. I decided to pray. I said, ‘Heavenly Father, help me to please just know you are there. I’ve done what Thou hast asked according to the Church and I just really need to know.’ Immediately I felt like someone had wrapped their arms around me. I didn’t hear a loud voice or see an angel, but I felt Heavenly Father telling me, ‘Sweet Katie, you’ve known all along.’ It was like a kind and loving father comforting his little girl” (letter).
One of the main functions of the Holy Ghost is to testify of truth. The Spirit testified to Katie that the gospel is true. Katie had paid the price. As the Savior said, she went to her home, studied His words, and prayed—for five whole months. Katie is developing her talent for spirituality. She can use this gift to govern her life.

For the choir and their guests, that journey of the spirit began on December 27, shortly after their arrival in Israel, as they attended a sacrament meeting at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center. They saw Jerusalem at night as they sat in the center’s auditorium, with its glass walls on three sides. Before them spread a full view of many of the places where Jesus walked—from the road to Bethlehem on the left, to the area of Gethsemane on the right. Every facet of the meeting was filled with a strong spirit—from the opening prayer and partaking of the sacrament, to the talks by Truman Madsen, director of the Jerusalem Center; Ann Madsen, a faculty member; and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.
“I helped set up the sacrament trays,” says Stephen Bardsley, a choir member. “I was asked to bless the bread. How can I express in words the tender feelings that swelled up in my soul? I wept every time I thought about the singular privilege of blessing the sacrament as the Savior had done so many years ago near here. As I prayed, each word was sweet as it flowed slowly out of my mouth. To speak his sacred name and to plead to Heavenly Father to bless the bread filled me with great emotion.”
After the sacrament, Brother Madsen spoke. “We dreamed it, we hoped it, and now it is happening,” he said of the choir’s visit. “The Lord has called you here.”
Elder Holland told the story of Orson Hyde’s dedication of this land for the return of the Jews as he stood on the Mount of Olives on 24 October 1841. “You are making memories and history for a dispensation,” he said. “I testify of that.”

Soon I started inviting my Church friends to go with me. Though they didn’t show much interest at first, now they go every month. Many people in the ward also started going to the temple. Now no matter how often our ward plans a temple trip, many people come—more than our stake has ever seen before.