Gospel Story Finder

Once they followed the old pony express trail for about 200 miles, stopping at the way stations just as if they were carrying the mail. They came home feeling like authentic time travelers.

With the agility and energy of a six-year-old, I climbed to the stool and perched myself expectantly at the kitchen counter beside my four-year old sister, Kristy. This was the moment we had been waiting for all evening. In bright-eyed anticipation, I tossed back my long, sun-bleached curls and looked over at Kristy, giving her a knowing, dimpled grin. With her thick, brown pigtails and soft, brown eyes that were as big as pennies, she looked at me and burst into a stream of excited giggles.
You see, Mom was gone to a meeting, and we were fortunate enough to have our favorite baby-sitter—the Sugar Cookie Baby-sitter. Some baby-sitters just watch TV or talk on the phone the whole time; others are mean and bop you if you spill your soup. Some baby-sitters are nice enough to read you stories and play games with you. Some will even let you stay up late past your bedtime. But the best kind of baby-sitter is the kind that bakes you cookies. Our baby-sitter made us sugar cookies, and he always let us help. He was our dad.
So it was with a great deal of enthusiasm that we peered over the counter as Dad assembled the necessary ingredients and equipment. Making the dough was a team effort. Dad was in charge of measuring, and Kristy and I took turns dumping and pouring. As it came time to add the eggs, Dad took over. This was a job requiring a lot of talent, so we were told. With reverent awe, Kristy and I watched as Dad’s large, skillful hands precisely cracked each egg with a tremendous “whack” on the edge of the bowl and carefully pulled the shell apart as the liquid oozed out, cascading into the bowl with splendid ease. Stirring the dough with great vigor was also a job for Dad.
Kristy and I watched with eager intent as the dough was mixed. Finally it was time for the most important part—“testing” the dough. The ritual began with Dad eating a heaping spoonful of the soft, white dough. This first test was never quite accurate enough, so he would ask for second and third opinions. This is where we could help, and we completed our task with expert competence. The ritual was repeated several times, each taste followed by an “ooh” or an “ah.”
After the dough had successfully passed all the tests, Dad rolled it out and we helped him cut it into circles for baking. The problem came when we had only one cookie cutter. Since this was a team effort, something had to be done; and Dad was creative and resourceful. Bright-colored aluminum drinking cups became elegant and stylish cookie cutters. Putting the circles of dough onto the cookie sheet and sprinkling them with sugar was a job which was given exclusively to Kristy and me. Of course Dad pretended not to notice when some of the circles never quite made it to the cookie sheet.
While the surviving cookies baked, Kristy and I raced to get ready for bed and climbed onto Dad’s lap for stories. The stories were followed by “horseback” rides and eating warm cookies. Then off to bed we went, content with the evening’s festivities.
Such are my memories of my Sugar Cookie Baby-sitter. It was several years later, as a college student, that I became aware of the sacrifice my father had made to spend that time with his two little girls. Along with working full-time, he was going to school at the university. Instead of doing his homework in the evenings, he would spend that time with us. Mom tells of scolding him when she came home after meetings and found him just beginning his school assignments. He often had to stay up until the early hours of the morning to finish them. Parents make a lot of sacrifices for their children. As a recipient of those sacrifices, I will always be grateful for those sugar cookie nights and times spent with my dad.

On the morning of the last day of school before the Christmas holidays, I had the strangest thought pop into my head. I was tying bows around bunches of gourmet candy canes to give to my friends when my mind said, “You should give one of these to Megan*.”
What a crazy idea! Megan, a very popular girl in my English class, was terribly mean. In addition to the rude things she said to me, she and her friends were always giggling and pointing in my direction. She made me feel horrible. Why should I give Christmas candy to someone like that?
Today was always the best day of the whole year at Valley Middle School. Like the last day of school in June, schoolwork would be pushed aside in favor of movies and games. But what made it even better than that was the candy we exchanged with our friends. As we went from class to class, our stacks of goodies grew and we found out who liked us enough to put us on their gift list. You could tell who the really popular kids were by their enormous piles of candy. Someone like Megan would have to bring an extra bag to carry everything. She certainly didn’t need anything from me.
I was confident I would have a respectable pile of sweets myself. I was nowhere near being part of the popular crowd, but it was a big school, and I had a large group of friends. However, because I was one of the few Latter-day Saints in the school, I really stood out. Anyone who stands out too much in middle school becomes a target for teasing, so, unfortunately, I had as many tormentors as I had friends.
It is sometimes really tough to know how to deal with people who pick on you. I had long ago decided that the best way was just to ignore them. But sometimes this just didn’t seem to work. Earlier that school year, two girls in my science class had hurt me so much with their cruel words that I finally burst and fired similar cruel words right back at them. This landed me in detention, and I spent a miserable afternoon picking up trash. Worse than the actual punishment was how horrible I felt inside. I knew my actions weren’t Christlike, and that hurt me more than anyone’s awful words ever could. After that, I stuck like glue to my old policy of keeping silent and expressionless, hoping people would get bored with me. But Megan still hadn’t given up trying to have fun at my expense, and I had been wondering recently if there were something more I could do besides just turning the other cheek.
Looking down at the candy canes in my backpack, I realized that the Spirit had just given me a solution to my dilemma. I thought of Matthew 5:44, in the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ says, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.”
“Well,” I thought, “it’s worth a try.” Even though the thought of doing such an unusual thing scared me, I told myself it couldn’t make the situation any worse.
I almost chickened out. It was the very end of the class period before I had the guts to approach Megan. When I called her name, she turned and looked very surprised that I was speaking to her.
“Here, this is for you.” I held out the candy.
She looked at me very suspiciously. I could tell she was trying to figure out what the trick was. I knew she thought I was trying to do something mean because she knew she’d never done anything nice to me. So I smiled and said, “Merry Christmas,” hoping she would trust me just a little bit.
She took the candy. When I turned to walk away, and it was clear that there were no strings attached, she said, “Thank you.”
I wish I could say Megan and I became friends after that. We didn’t. But she left me alone the rest of the school year, and her eyes lost that hard, malicious glint when she looked at me.
I like to hope I gave her more than just candy that Christmas. I hope that’s what happened, but maybe it didn’t. Maybe she never thought about it again. But I was changed for life after that simple exchange. I was filled with the joy of having done what Jesus would have done. The gift I gave her paled in comparison to the gift I received—a taste of charity, the pure love of Christ, a feeling sweeter than all the Christmas candy in the school.

When I was about six or seven years old, our family went to Kanab, Utah, to visit my aunt, who was married to a forest ranger. My uncle was in charge of the Kaibab Forest, one of the largest national forests in the United States. We arrived there late at night and went right to bed at their home.
The next morning I was awakened by my cousins, who were younger than I. They said, “There’re some deer out there. Come and look.” I jumped out of bed and got dressed and ran to the back door. Sure enough, within twenty yards of the house was a doe with her two little fawns. After we watched for a few minutes, I wanted to get closer and try to touch them.
My three cousins and I started walking toward them, but just as we got close to them, they moved away. They kept doing that, and we kept following them. All of a sudden, the mother deer decided that she’d had enough and bounded away, her little ones behind her.
My cousins and I turned around to go back to the house and realized that we were lost. In our minds it seemed easy to just turn around and go back, but we had gone much farther than we thought we had.
I had never been in a forest before. My cousins kept saying, “Let’s go this way.” “No, let’s go this way.” So we just wandered around, and pretty soon we started hearing sounds that we imagined were bears and cougars.
We called and whistled for our families to answer, but we didn’t hear a thing. We wandered around in the tall trees for maybe an hour and a half. Then the thought came to me that we should pray to Heavenly Father. We knelt in a circle, and I said a simple prayer. As we got up, I had the distinct impression that we should walk in a certain direction, which we did. We walked that way for another thirty minutes or so. The little ones were tired, and I had to carry the smallest one on my back.
When we heard a motor in the distance, we knew enough to walk toward the sound. All of a sudden, we broke into a clearing. We could see a road, and the motor we’d heard was in a road grader. We were really tired and upset, but we knew that we had to get over to the road grader before it went by the clearing, so we ran as fast as we could. When we got close enough, we waved, and the road-grader operator saw us and stopped. He put us in the cab and took us down to the forest rangers’ headquarters. By that time, my parents and aunt and uncle had all the forest rangers out looking for us, so they were glad to see us. That experience was a testimony to me that Heavenly Father does hear and answer our prayers.

Following a family study period on Sunday morning you prepare to leave for Sunday School with your mother and your younger brothers and sisters, but Dad is missing. You find him in the basement watching a football game on television.
“I’ll try to get there in a little while,” he says. He reasons that no one will miss him at church, and he has few opportunities to see his favorite sport.
The bear that blocks the path may appear small, but it could grow quickly into a grizzly bear for both you and your dad. Besides setting a good example through your own church attendance, it may become necessary to say a prayer for the courage to respectfully express how you feel.
“Dad, we’ll all miss you. Our family doesn’t seem complete when you’re not there.”

Thank you for the wonderful article entitled “RMs at QB” in the January 1987 issue. I loved it!
I have been trying to decide which college to go to when I graduate from high school. That article and the darling pictures almost made me want to run to BYU and see if they would let me go to their school.

“No school today!” came the magic words from the radio.
Remembering last night’s house-shaking blizzard, Dave thought that a holiday from school was a beautiful bonus.
“I wish Dad weren’t out of town,” said Mother, briskly beating pancake batter. “Something always happens when he’s gone.”
A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows. Dave peered out. He could hardly tell where the road was. It looked like a white river with waves whipped up by the wind.
“Being snowed in isn’t so bad,” he said happily. “Nothing can get through, not even a school bus.”
During breakfast, the radio broadcast several weather-related stories: A forty-mile-an-hour wind had roared all night, blowing three feet of snow into massive drifts. Semitrailers had jackknifed, and cars and buses had slid into ditches. Some snow-plows were still stuck on major highways. “The worst of the storm is over,” the announcer concluded, “but some areas might not be plowed out until tomorrow.”
The phone rang. It was Dave’s best friend, Tim. “Tough about school, huh? Think we can handle it?”
“Maybe if we get together for moral support,” Dave replied.
“Glad to help a buddy out,” Tim said cheerfully. “Be right over.”
Tim lived only two blocks away, but by the time he got to Dave’s house, he was covered with snow. “The Abominable Snowman himself!” he laughed.
“I know a perfect place to build a snow cave-fort,” Dave suggested, pulling on his ski jacket, snow bib, boots, hat, and mittens. He felt as if he was outfitting for a polar expedition.
“Snow’s sticky enough,” agreed Tim.
“Build it where I can see you from the house,” Mother warned. “And be careful.”
“Sure,” the boys said in unison.
Outside, the wind punched them in the face, and snowflakes as thick as feathers swirled around them. Sinking deep into the drifts, they plodded toward the garage, where Dave pointed to a high snowbank.
“It is perfect!” Tim said. The giant snowbank blocked the wind and had plenty of raw material for their cave-fort. They set to work tunneling into the base of the big drift, shoveling out the snow and packing the sides as they dug.
Two houses away their friends Jeff and Brian were piling up snowballs.
“We just have to get our fort done before they start a snowball fight!” Tim exclaimed. They worked all morning, then stopped only for lunch and to change their wet mittens.
“How’s your fort coming along?” Mother asked, dishing up tomato soup and handing them grilled cheese sandwiches.
“It’s the best ever,” bragged Tim. “It’s the biggest and highest—”
“And strongest, I hope,” Mother put in, looking worried.
“We’ll find out in the snowball showdown!” replied Tim, gulping down his soup.
When they went out again, they saw that Jeff and Brian had started to build a fort too. Dave wondered how much ammunition they had stockpiled.
Dave and Tim’s fort was shaping up. They widened the entrance, enlarged the inside, and sloshed water onto the sides to ice them firm. Finally, pushing out a big snow chunk, Dave grunted, “We’re just about done.”
“If you clear the doorway,” said Tim, “I can finish up inside.”
Dave crawled out and started shoveling out the entrance. He looked at the fort looming high above him. It seemed strangely quiet. The wind had died to a whisper. The snow had stopped. Nothing moved. It was like a movie that had stopped, frozen in one frame. He shivered.
Then, without a sound, the snow roof slowly slid inward, collapsing the fort and burying Tim. This can’t be happening! Dave agonized, and he flew at the crumpled white mound with his shovel, flailing away furiously. “Tim! Tim!” he yelled. But there was no sound. “Cave-in!” he shouted to Jeff and Brian, and they came running with shovels. “Tim’s under there!”
Dave’s mother came running out of the house. “I called an ambulance, but nothing can get through. The roads are still blocked!” She frantically started scooping at the snow pile with her bare hands.
Dave’s heart sank. “Please, God,” he murmured desperately, “help Tim.” Shoveling furiously again, he shouted, “Hang on, Tim! We’ll get you out!” Finally, his breath coming in great gasps, Dave stopped shoveling. Looking at the huge pile of snow and at the very little that they had uncovered, a wave of despair swept over him.
Suddenly a story flashed through his mind, one that he’d read long ago. It was about an avalanche, a boy who was buried, and his friend who kept poking a broom handle deep into the drifts until he found him.
Dave tore off his mittens. He wanted to feel with his fingertips. Plunging his arm deep into the snow, he jabbed down in different places, calling, “Tim! We’re coming, Tim!” over and over. Tim had to know that help was on the way, so that he could hold out longer.
I must hurry, Dave told himself. There’s so much snow to cover. Am I reaching deep enough? Again and again he thrust his arms into the snow—reaching, reaching.
Suddenly he thought that he felt something way down deep. Was he imagining it? His arm pushed through the snow again. There was something there! “Dig here!” he yelled.
The diggers scooped out snow with their shovels and then with their hands until they had uncovered Tim’s arm, hanging limp. Quickly they uncovered Tim’s head. His face was ashen, but he opened his eyes and mumbled something. In just minutes he was freed, carried into the house, stripped of his wet clothes, and wrapped in blankets.
It wasn’t until then that Dave was conscious of his own red, throbbing hands. He soaked them in tepid water, but they hurt for a long time afterward. A small price to pay, he thought.
Meanwhile, everything around him was a blur … people coming, Tim’s mother talking to the doctor on the phone: “He just wants to sleep,” she was saying, her voice shaky. Dave’s thoughts focused again when she told him, “The doctor wants us to question Tim. If he makes sense, he’s probably all right.”
Dave went with her into Tim’s bedroom. Tim’s face was still pale, but he was breathing steadily. His eyes were closed. “Tim?” Dave asked softly.
Tim opened his eyes. “Thanks,” he said, trying to smile. “You saved my life.” His eyes closed again.
Dave swallowed hard. “Tim, did you hear me calling your name?”
Tim shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Not even the yelling?” asked Dave.
Tim’s voice was low. “I just kept thinking, ‘Don’t panic. It uses up more oxygen.’” Then he fell asleep.
He makes sense, all right, Dave thought, relieved.
Tim’s mother turned to Dave. “You’re a hero,” she said, her voice soft with tears.
But Dave knew that he couldn’t take all the credit. It was a miracle. It had to be. Why else would he have remembered that long-ago story? Why else was he able to find Tim in time? God was looking out for us, Dave thought. Miracles are never a one-man show.

Some years ago in Eastern Europe, I listened as a young elder stood before his fellow missionaries in zone conference to share an experience that shaped his life. He and his companion had found and taught a middle-aged man named Ivan (name has been changed) in a distant city. Their investigator came from a difficult background, as was reflected in his well-used clothing, ragged beard, and hesitant demeanor. Life had been harsh and unkind to him.
Without any prior religious training, Ivan had much to overcome. Practices not in harmony with the restored gospel had to be set aside. New principles needed to be accepted and then incorporated. Ivan wanted to learn, and he prepared himself diligently for his baptism and confirmation. His clothing remained threadbare and his beard ragged, but he had taken the first steps. Shortly after Ivan’s baptism, the missionary was transferred. He hoped that he might again cross paths with Ivan.
Six months later the mission president reassigned the young elder to his former branch. Surprised but eager to return, the elder, with a new companion, came early to sacrament meeting his first Sunday back in the branch. The members were pleased to see the missionary in their midst again. They rushed forward with broad smiles and warm greetings.
The elder recognized nearly everyone in the small congregation. However, he searched in vain among the faces for the man he and his companion had taught and baptized six months earlier. There arose within the elder a sense of disappointment and sadness. Had Ivan returned to his harmful habits? Had he failed to honor his covenant of baptism? Had he lost the blessings promised by his repentance?
The elder’s fears and reflections were interrupted by the approach of an unfamiliar man who was rushing forward to embrace the missionary. The clean-shaven man had a confident smile and an obvious goodness radiating from his countenance. Wearing a white shirt and a carefully knotted tie, he was on his way to prepare the sacrament for the small gathering that Sabbath morning. Only when the man began to speak did the elder recognize him. It was the new Ivan, not the former Ivan they had taught and baptized! The elder saw embodied in his friend the miracle of faith, repentance, and forgiveness; he saw the reality of the Atonement.
The missionary told his peers attending the zone conference that Ivan had changed and grown by every measure during the months the elder had been away from the branch. Ivan had embraced the gospel, and it radiated from him. He had experienced a “change of heart” (Alma 5:26) sufficient both to be baptized and to press forward in the continuing process of conversion. He was preparing for the higher priesthood and the ordinances of the temple. Ivan had indeed been “born again” (Alma 7:14).
As the missionary concluded his remarks, he asked himself aloud, “How much of a ‘change of heart’ have I experienced in the past six months?” He continued his self-examination, asking aloud, “Have I been ‘born again’?” These are two profound questions that each of us should privately pose on a continuing basis.

When I was given the assignment to speak in the priesthood session of general conference, I immediately thought of a wonderful Primary teacher. Her great desire was to prepare us to be worthy of receiving the priesthood. She grilled us on the requirements then in place for graduation from Primary—memorize the names of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the Articles of Faith. She also made us a promise—if all of us could recite the thirteen Articles of Faith by memory, we could choose the place and go on an outing for our last class.
We decided on a special spot we liked to hike to on the rocky slopes just above the first dam at the entrance of Logan Canyon, in northern Utah. There was a small, flat space in these rocky cliffs that had a natural fireplace where you could cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows. When we chose the location, however, we did not consider our teacher, who was older and certainly not the athletic type. If we had thought about it more carefully, it might have occurred to us that she would have a difficult time making the hike. Her promise was her bond, however, and she gamely followed us.
First we climbed up the small hill. In our day there were no power lines to prevent access. With some help our teacher made it up the hill. Once over the top we dropped down into a rocky ridge to a place we called “Turtle Back.”
After we arrived, it took our teacher a little while to catch her breath. By the time we prepared to sit down and eat, she had recovered enough to teach us our final lesson. She told us how she had enjoyed teaching us in Primary for the last two years. She complimented us on how we had mastered the Articles of Faith. She could call out the number of any one of them, and we could quote it back to her. Then she said memorizing the Articles of Faith would mean nothing more than a lot of words unless we understood the doctrines and principles contained in them. She encouraged us to study the gospel doctrine taught in each of the Articles of Faith. She explained that the doctrine found in the Articles of Faith was divided into sections.
The power of our teacher’s words has been a source of inspiration to me because of the emphasis she placed on gospel study. The scriptures guide us to a standard of truth by which we can judge the knowledge we are receiving, whether it be true or false. True doctrine comes from God, the source and foundation of all truths. The teachings and concepts of true doctrine are found in the gospel of our Lord and Savior. False teachings come from Satan, the father of all lies. His desire is to pervert, change, and alter revealed truths. He wants to deceive us so some of us will lose our way along the journey back to our heavenly home.
My Primary teacher instilled in me a determination to study the doctrines of the kingdom. She taught me to seek the deep meaning contained in these simple Articles of Faith. She promised me that if I would invest in learning these sacred truths, the knowledge I acquired would change my life for the better, and I testify to you that it has.
After my teacher’s wonderful lesson on that mountain in Logan Canyon, we noticed that we had stayed a little longer than we had planned. The evening was drawing to a close, and we realized we had a problem.
My teacher had struggled to arrive at our special spot, but returning presented a major challenge for us. This only compounded the poor selection of a place for our outing. The climb back was difficult for us, but even more so for a person of her age.
As we struggled to help her back up the hill, two policemen appeared. The Primary president had sent them out to find us, fearing we were lost. The drama of the event and the lessons taught made it an unforgettable experience in my life.

5. This temple was the first one built on the European continent. So many members of the Church throughout Europe came to the dedication that two sessions were held daily from September 11, 1955, to September 15. The dedicatory prayer for the __ __ __ __ __ Temple was given at each session by President David O. McKay.

When I began teaching at the University of Kansas City in 1940, I spent a lot of time on the trains, going back and forth between Kansas City and Chicago. My salary just about kept the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe rolling. I would often find myself in the club car with the world’s traveling salesmen. They meet there. They would begin a ritual—a very tight ritual. It always seemed to have the same opening phrase. They would say, “What are you in?”
One man would say he was in glue, and they would talk about that for a while. Another man would say he was in brass doorknobs, and they would talk about brass doorknobs for a while.
Then they would turn to me and say, “What are you in?”
At first I used to invent things. I had a feeling that it would take too much explanation to tell a club car full of salesmen that I was a poet.
But one day, for the fun of it, when the question came to me, “What are you in?” I said, “I am a poet.”
I found that it took very little explanation. As a matter of fact, there was a long silence, in which people detached and regrouped. After a suitable interval, I went into the main body of the car and sat down. Soon a salesman slid into the seat next to mine and began talking in a low voice. He had something that he wanted to say to me that he could not say to other salesmen. This experience was repeated many times. Often the salesman would have a poem in his wallet. I think I have seen some of the world’s most miserable and most uninspired poems out of the wallets of salesmen.
Always they would make the terrifying mistake that all bad, over-enthusiastic poets make—the assumption that if the subject is large enough, it does not matter whether or not the poem is good. If you can just take the largest possible subject and begin the poem “Truth is … , “Beauty is … ,” “Life is … ,” you have got to end up beautiful. I am afraid such a poem is more likely to be a disaster. The size of the poem is not determined by the size of the subject. It is determined by the size of the mind that is trying to enclose it. The value of a science is not decided by the size of the subject it studies. Otherwise microbiologists would be insignificant people and only geologists would really count. They deal with mountains and whole continents.

It was interesting to watch the young people at a recent political convention in Miami. How well behaved they were in their own “political convention,” and how respectful they were to the President of the United States when he spoke to them briefly. They represent a clearer picture of today’s young men and women than do those who were organized outside Convention Hall and who were well trained in disrupting law and order.

Buddy, the First Seeing Eye Dog This book follows the life of Buddy, who became the first Seeing Eye dog in America and a friend to Morris Frank, the blind man who adopted her.Eva Moore, illustrated by Don Bolognese7–9 years

Recently in South America, a lady missionary, who impressed me greatly, told me the story of her conversion to the LDS Church and her missionary call. Before coming on her mission she was a nurse. Her roommate was a Mormon girl. The nurse liked the girl’s habits, was very pleased with her character and personality, and so she decided to study the LDS religion. The Mormon girl got two missionaries to teach the nurse the gospel.

When the nurse’s parents heard that she was favorably inclined toward the Mormon religion, they thoroughly opposed her actions. They forbade her to join the Church, telling her that if she did she would be disinherited.

The Holy Ghost had borne witness to her so strongly that the Church of Jesus Christ was the true church that she asked the missionaries to baptize her even against the wishes of her parents, whom she loved dearly. It grieved her when her father and mother told her not to return home.

After joining the Church, she had a very strong desire to go on a mission and so she decided to work and save the money. It took her three or four years’ time to save approximately $3,000. She was called to labor in South America, where she is doing an outstanding job in taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of that land. When she returns home, she hopes to regain the love and favor of her parents.

After President Wilford Woodruff joined the Church he desired to serve a mission.
“I was but a Teacher,” he wrote, “and it is not a Teacher’s office to go abroad and preach. I dared not tell any of the authorities of the Church that I wanted to preach, lest they might think I was seeking for an office” (Leaves from My Journal, Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882, p. 8).
He prayed to the Lord, and without disclosing his desire to any others, he was ordained a priest and sent on a mission. They went to the Arkansas Territory.
He and his companion struggled through a hundred miles of alligator-infested swamps, wet, muddy, and tired. Brother Woodruff developed a sharp pain in his knee and could go no further. His companion left him sitting on a log and went home. Brother Woodruff knelt down in the mud and prayed for help. He was healed and continued his mission alone.
Three days later he arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, weary, hungry, and very muddy. He went to the largest inn and asked for something to eat and for a place to sleep, although he had no money to pay for either.
When the innkeeper found he was a preacher, he laughed and decided to have some fun with him. He offered Brother Woodruff a meal if he would preach to his friends.
A large audience of the rich and fashionable people of Memphis gathered and were quite amused by this mud-stained missionary.
None would sing or pray, so Brother Woodruff did both. He knelt before them and begged the Lord to give him His Spirit and to show him the hearts ot the people. And the Spirit came! Brother Woodruff preached with great power. He was able to reveal the secret deeds of those who came to ridicule him.
When he was finished, no one laughed at this humble holder of the Aaronic Priesthood. Thereafter he was treated with kindness (see Leaves From My Journal, pp. 16–18).
He was under the guiding, protecting power of his Aaronic Priesthood. The same power can be with you as well.

When I was a university student, I knew I wanted to take a specific career path. I had planned all my classes until graduation, and I had a business opportunity I was ready to accept. Everything was in place.
After counseling with Heavenly Father in prayer, however, I felt He was saying to me, “I need you to go in a different direction.” Soon after that, an opportunity to work for the Church appeared. It was completely unexpected, but I recognized it as a new direction He had prepared me to take.
I explained to my family that a new opportunity had opened as training and operations manager at the Pacific Missionary Training Center. This led to a position three years later as institute director with Seminaries and Institutes of Religion. My original career plan would have likely been more temporally prosperous, but we decided to see what would happen if we put our trust in the Lord.
That decision led to blessings the Lord seemed to have prepared for us. It has been amazing. We aren’t wealthy, but we have always had the things we need, and our children have been raised in a wonderful gospel environment.
I have never regretted my decision 23 years ago, though I have had to forsake some things and leave behind some people, places, possessions, and positions. But we have been happy to do that for Heavenly Father. Doing so has been a great blessing.

We needed these testimonies to remain strong in the Church, for we faced many trials. My mother would not allow us to be baptized, but she did not stop us from going to church. We faithfully attended church and seminary. I also suffered persecution at school from people I thought were my friends. It was difficult, but these experiences strengthened my testimony.
After seven months a missionary challenged us to fast with him for the purpose of being baptized. When we ended the fast, the missionaries came to my house and spoke with my mother. To our great joy, she gave her permission for my brother and me to be baptized.
Trials make us strong.

A small Scout began a 50-mile hike in the mountains, laden down with a backpack he could hardly lift. As he struggled up the trail, he thought of giving up many times, yet carried on, successfully completing the hike. At the end of the trail, he stood in front of a framed map of the area, pointed his finger at the trail, and shouted, “I licked ya!”

I believe most of us are familiar with the sad account of Thomas B. Marsh and his wife, Elizabeth. Brother Marsh was one of the first modern-day Apostles called after the Church was restored to the earth. He eventually became President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
While the Saints were in Far West, Missouri, Elizabeth Marsh, Thomas’s wife, and her friend Sister Harris decided they would exchange milk in order to make more cheese than they otherwise could. To be certain all was done fairly, they agreed that they should not save what were called the strippings, but that the milk and strippings should all go together. Strippings came at the end of the milking and were richer in cream.
Sister Harris was faithful to the agreement, but Sister Marsh, desiring to make some especially delicious cheese, saved a pint of strippings from each cow and sent Sister Harris the milk without the strippings. This caused the two women to quarrel. When they could not settle their differences, the matter was referred to the home teachers to settle. They found Elizabeth Marsh guilty of failure to keep her agreement. She and her husband were upset with the decision, and the matter was then referred to the bishop for a Church trial. The bishop’s court decided that the strippings were wrongfully saved and that Sister Marsh had violated her covenant with Sister Harris.
Thomas Marsh appealed to the high council, and the men comprising this council confirmed the bishop’s decision. He then appealed to the First Presidency of the Church. Joseph Smith and his counselors considered the case and upheld the decision of the high council.
Elder Thomas B. Marsh, who sided with his wife through all of this, became angrier with each successive decision—so angry, in fact, that he went before a magistrate and swore that the Mormons were hostile toward the state of Missouri. His affidavit led to—or at least was a factor in—Governor Lilburn Boggs’s cruel extermination order, which resulted in over 15,000 Saints being driven from their homes, with all the terrible suffering and consequent death that followed. All of this occurred because of a disagreement over the exchange of milk and cream.
After 19 years of rancor and loss, Thomas B. Marsh made his way to the Salt Lake Valley and asked President Brigham Young for forgiveness. Brother Marsh also wrote to Heber C. Kimball, First Counselor in the First Presidency, of the lesson he had learned. Said Brother Marsh: “The Lord could get along very well without me and He … lost nothing by my falling out of the ranks; But O what have I lost?! Riches, greater riches than all this world or many planets like this could afford.”

He has marked the path and made it available for our return to His presence, but an important question we might ask ourselves individually is, How willingly do we accept His interest in our well-being and happiness? This question is at the heart of the following allegory.
William loved all of his many sons and daughters. Each was very special to him. Although he wanted them to stay close to him, he allowed them to leave home for a time so they might answer for themselves who they were and what they were to be. He gave them instruction, blessings, and counsel. He pled with them to accept and keep the rules he had taught them so they might be rewarded for their willingness to learn, to understand, and to act appropriately. He invited them to call often, telling them he would always be there, excited to hear from them.
Having made careful and prudent investments in the past with his own time, intelligence, and resources, William had amassed wealth and influence he now sought to share. He busied himself with carpentry tools, plants, and flowers in preparation for his children’s return. He began to prepare a place for each of them more beautiful than they could imagine. Everything around William glowed with warmth, love, and sunshine, and he smiled as he considered each child’s return and pondered the joy and peace they would all share on his pleasant estate.
Finally the day came when the children began to return. First came Paul and Mary, then Kenneth and Sarah. William had never seen them so happy, and he wept as he took them into his arms and kissed them. Then, to their delight and joy, William gave them a glimpse of the great estate to which they were heirs and helped them realize that what lay before them was only a beginning, that its dimensions and beauty would increase according to their own vision and effort.
“But where are Charles and Thomas, Nancy and Clara?” asked William. The promise to them was the same. Did they not know they needed to follow his simple instructions and persevere?
“Father,” said Kenneth, “they understood in part but really couldn’t see. Some things blinded them. Thomas said he wanted to come, but he was a little too busy; he didn’t even have time for his children. Charles is building an estate; it has a modest beauty, and between that and a booming business, he has time for very little else. Nancy said she’s confused and disoriented and it’s not her fault, but she won’t be coming. Clara’s case is another matter. She said she had kept the rules long enough; she asked that we please leave her alone and said she just wants to be free.”
William sorrowed over these words, for the gift he had offered seemed as marvelous as all eternity. Said he: “How will they even begin to comprehend the blessings of this great gift I have prepared if they receive it not and reject me as the giver? What great joy will have slipped from me and from them!”