Gospel Story Finder

One day my mother, Linnie P. Gold, related an experience to me that has shaped my life ever since.
She said that after World War II Church members were asked to donate clothing for the destitute people in Germany. My mother was therefore collecting from our drawers and cupboards well-worn discarded clothing that was too good to throw away. Suddenly she heard a voice say, “Is this what you would give to Me?”
“Oh no,” was her immediate cry. And she quickly began gathering the best clothes in the house. As editor of the ward newspaper to be printed the next day, she quickly penned a poetic appeal for clothes. Readers were deeply touched by the appeal and responded in abundance.
I know now why my mother gives so very freely and is always doing things for others. She gives to Him.

I had a sense of this truth a few months ago when I was walking one day and suddenly my sight became blurry, dark, and wavy. I was scared. Then the doctors told me, “If you don’t begin treatment immediately, you may lose your sight even in a matter of weeks.” I was even more scared.
And then they said, “You need intravitreal injections—injections right in the eye, wide-open eye—every four weeks for the rest of your life.”
That was an uncomfortable wake-up call.
Then a reflection came in the form of a question. I asked myself, “OK! My physical sight is not good, but what about my spiritual vision? Do I need any treatment there? And what does it mean to have a clear spiritual vision?”
So is my spiritual sight clear as I get my eye injections? Well, who am I to say? But I am grateful for what I see.
I clearly see the hand of the Lord in this sacred work and in my life.
I see the faith of many wherever I go who strengthen my own faith.
I see angels all around me.
I see the faith of many who don’t see the Lord physically but recognize Him spiritually, because they know Him intimately.
I testify that this gospel is the answer for everything, because Jesus Christ is the answer for everyone. I am grateful for what I can see as I follow my Savior.

If we had lived on a farm, I guess the pear tree wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But we lived in town, so when we moved to a new house with a pear tree in the backyard, Mom was really pleased.
So were my brother, Jimmy, and I. The pears were kind of hard and didn’t have much taste, but we used a little salt to give them zing. By picking time, we had eaten every last pear on that tree.
Mom wasn’t a bit happy about it. She had wanted to make pear preserves. So the next year, she laid down the law: Under no circumstances were we to pick even one pear from that tree! Mom said that she knew that she could trust us because we were Boy Scouts and had promised to be honest and trustworthy. And that meant no lying.
She had us there. We hadn’t told a lie since we’d become Boy Scouts. Maybe we stretched the truth a mite, but we didn’t do any real lying. Anyway, we promised not to pick any pears.
But as those pears got bigger, they became more tempting. Every day Jimmy and I stood under that tree with our mouths watering.
“You know something, Bill?” asked Jimmy one day as we stood craning our necks up at the tree.
“Yeah?”
“I know a way we can keep our promise and eat a few pears too.”
“I’ve already thought of shaking the tree,” I said. “I tried it, too, but it’s too big.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” Jimmy said. “Why can’t we shin up that tree and eat all around the cores of the pears? We didn’t promise not to eat the pears—we just promised we wouldn’t pick them.”
I looked at Jimmy. His eyes were all lit up just thinking about biting into those pears. “Eat around the pears and leave the cores?” I asked.
Jimmy nodded, chuckling.
I didn’t feel too good about it. Still, it wouldn’t be lying, and those pears did look awfully good.
The next day Mom had to take our neighbor, Mrs. Garrett, to the doctor. We shinned up that tree as soon as the car was out of sight. We ate pears until we thought Mom’d be bringing Mrs. Garrett back. Then we climbed down and were sailing boats in a tub of water on the back porch when they got home. They sat down by us and started talking about a book they were both reading.
“That’s funny!” Mom said suddenly. “It looks like the birds have been into my pears. How strange—they’ve eaten the whole pear and left the core! You’d think they’d just take a few bites from each pear.”
Jimmy and I found another game to play real fast.
The next day Mom had to go to her sewing club. We knew we were safe for a long time. We climbed the pear tree and ate and ate until I started feeling funny. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was my stomach or my conscience hurting, but soon there was no doubt. I climbed down, went in the house, and lay moaning on my bed. Jimmy came in right after.
We tried to stop groaning when Mom came in the front door. Dad got there about the same time, and I heard her tell him that the birds had been working on her pears again. She said it was mighty strange to see those brown pear cores hanging all over the tree like that.
I tried to keep quiet, but I thought I was going to die. I think Jimmy thought the same thing, the way he was carrying on. We finally groaned so loudly that Mom and Dad heard us and came tearing in.
Dad called the doctor, who told him to bring us right in. It might be appendicitis, he said, though it wasn’t likely we’d both get it at the same time.
After examining us, the doctor said, “It looks like a good case of green-apple stomachache.”
“Would green pears do the same thing?” Mom asked, glaring at us.
“Yes, they would,” said the doctor. He gave us some stuff to drink and sent us home.
After we got home and our stomachs had settled down, Mom asked us about the pears.
Well, when she asked us point-blank like that, there was no way around it, and we told her what we’d done.
“Well, boys,” Dad said after hearing the story, “you can’t separate actions from words. The truth is the truth, no matter what words you use.” He didn’t even raise his voice, but I felt awful.
I was starting to sniffle by then, and Jimmy was bawling up a storm. We could hardly choke out that we were sorry. After agreeing to use our allowance to buy more pears for Mom to preserve, we put on our pajamas and knelt for family prayer. Mom and Dad hugged us extra tight after the prayer, gave us good-night kisses, and said they loved us. I was feeling much better after that.
The next year we had pear preserves practically coming out of our ears. I can’t say that I liked them much, but I sure liked myself a whole lot better!

As a new member having received my patriarchal blessing, I would read it from time to time. One day I read something that I had never read before. I cannot remember the exact words, but I was told how the Lord had preserved me for this time. In that instant my mind went back to the late 1950s when I worked for a private firm repairing railway wagons. Twice a week about eight of us would pile in the works’ van to be dropped off at places where wagon repairs were needed.

I realise now that the Lord had protected me, I did not show my patriarchal blessing to my wife, but I told her about what I had read. However, the following week when I read my blessing again, looking for the phrase about Lord preserving me for this time, it was not there. I read and re-read it, but it was not there. To this day I cannot explain this, but I do believe that our Heavenly Father is watching over us and preparing the way we go.

A year after Carlos joined the Church, he and María decided their house was too small for their growing family. So Carlos designed and built a new, larger home. It is beautiful and spacious—with lots of room for children and friends. Nathalia is practicing the piano in the living room. Verónica is doing homework at the dining room table. Marcelo is outside playing with Alfie, their cocker spaniel. And Sandra and Andrea are giving their dolls a party. Guests are treated like family here. A barbecue, a covered patio, a trampoline, and a swimming pool are out back. The garden is full of vegetables, pineapples, and sugar cane. And the trees are heavy with fruit: bananas, oranges, guavas, avocados, and mangos.

Carlos dedicated their home when it was finished. “A spirit of love and happiness reigns here,” he says. “We’re trying to comply with what the Lord wants. And all these things have been added to us, just as the scriptures say.

“These are really unimaginable blessings,” he says. He shudders when he realizes how close he came to losing—or giving up—everything. “I have no time for my social clubs now. Instead, we have our family gatherings. And I give most of my time to the Lord. While I’m driving, I’m thinking about the members of the stake and their problems. There’s lots to do. I wasted forty years of my life. Now I need to give Him my time.”

“Carlos is the best member of the Church I know,” says Sister Roig. “He magnifies his callings, he loves the gospel, and he’s the greatest defender I know of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith.”

One of my favorite books is the British classic Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë and published in 1847. The main character, Jane Eyre, is a penniless, teenage orphan who exemplifies what it means to be true. In this fictional account, a man, Mr. Rochester, loves Miss Eyre but is unable to marry her. Instead, he begs Miss Eyre to live with him without the benefit of marriage. Miss Eyre loves Mr. Rochester as well, and for a moment she is tempted, asking herself, “Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?”
Quickly Jane’s conscience answers: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God. … Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this. … If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed. … Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”8
In a desperate moment of temptation, Jane Eyre was true to her beliefs, she trusted in the law given by God, and she planted her foot in resistance to temptation.

Long ago, the renowned author Charles Dickens wrote of opportunities that await. In his classic volume entitled Great Expectations, Dickens described a boy by the name of Philip Pirrip, more commonly known as “Pip.” Pip was born in unusual circumstances. He was an orphan. He never met his mother or father. He never saw a picture of them. Yet he had all the normal desires of a boy. He wished with all his heart that he were a scholar. He wished that he were a gentleman. He wished that he were less ignorant. Yet all of his ambitions and all of his hopes seemed doomed to failure. Do you young men sometimes feel that way? Do those of us who are older entertain these same thoughts?

Then one day a London lawyer by the name of Jaggers approached little Pip and told him that an unknown benefactor had bequeathed to him a fortune. The lawyer put his arm around the shoulder of Pip and said to him, “My boy, you have great expectations.”
Tonight, as I look at you young men and realize who you are and what you may become, I say to you, as that lawyer said to Pip, “My boy, you have great expectations”—not as the result of an unknown benefactor, but as the result of a known Benefactor, even our Heavenly Father, and great things are expected of you.

The sky is still black when 15-year-old Jossie Comandao and her father, Domingo L. Comandao, awaken. They get up every school day at about 4 A.M. “When the alarm rings,” Brother Comandao explains. “I have to use an alarm clock.”
The Comandaos live in Tatalon, one of several relocation areas in Manila, capital of the Philippines. “We don’t have any running water,” Brother Comandao explains. “So after breakfast I must go fetch water so Jossie can take a bath.” Jossie wants to be bright and fresh for her seminary class. As soon as she’s ready, she and her father begin the one-and-a-half mile walk to the stake center.
Jossie’s regular school classes don’t begin until 7 A.M., and her father doesn’t have to be to work until 8 o’clock. “So we have plenty of time to walk,” Jossie says. “And I enjoy talking to my father.” They both carry their scriptures with them, and gospel discussions are common.
Friends smile and wave as the Comandaos arrive at the church. While Jossie visits with her friends, her father rests for a moment before turning to walk back home.
“I am very grateful for the seminary program,” he says. “It has been most worthwhile for my daughter. Seminary has helped her to be more industrious and to learn to prepare assignments on time. It has also helped her to make many good, strong friends. It has also helped us as a family.”
He pauses. “My wife is not yet a member, but perhaps as she sees Jossie grow in the knowledge of the gospel, she will realize how important the Church is to all of us.”
Inside the classroom, Jossie and her fellow students are eager to share their own appreciation for early-morning seminary.
“I enjoy seminary because I feel myself and the members of this church being blessed through it,” Jossie says. “I know that if we prepare ourselves and become worthy people, we will receive great blessings at the Second Coming of Christ.”
The lesson ends all too soon. Following a closing prayer, Jossie and the other students walk out to the parking lot and linger for a moment, talking and savoring seminary’s happy spirit. The gospel light is rising, like the sun that is now greeting the radiant morning. A moment later, Jossie is running to catch a bus that will take her to school. It’s a direct route—she doesn’t even have to transfer.

Not all of Kevin’s helpful plans turn out quite so well. Once, he made a birthday cake with two packages of cake mix. The cake overflowed its pan and cooked in a pile on the bottom of the oven. What a mess! Kevin and his family still chuckle over that mistake. “I haven’t made a cake since,” he admits. But he does volunteer to cook other things for the family—especially hot dogs and ravioli—and he feeds Belle twice a week.

Sister Daisy Ogando lives in New York City, home to more than eight million people. Some years ago Sister Ogando met with the missionaries and was taught the gospel. Gradually, she and the missionaries lost contact. Time passed. Then, in 2007, the principles of the gospel she had been taught by the missionaries stirred within her heart.

One day while getting into a taxi, Daisy saw the missionaries at a distance, but she was unable to make contact with them before they disappeared from view. She prayed fervently to our Heavenly Father and promised Him that if He would somehow direct the missionaries to her once again, she would open her door to them. She returned home that day with faith in her heart that God would hear and answer her prayer.

In the meantime, two young missionaries who had been sincerely praying and working to find people to teach were one day examining the tracting records of missionaries who had previously served in their area. As they did so, they came across the name of Daisy Ogando. When they approached her apartment the very afternoon that Sister Ogando offered that simple but fervent prayer, she opened the door and said those words that are music to every missionary who has ever heard them: “Elders, come in. I’ve been waiting for you!”

Two fervent prayers were answered, contact was reestablished, missionary lessons were taught, and arrangements were made for Daisy and her son Eddy to be baptized.

Nadene Thomas, who leads the mission with her husband, shared one such experience. Two sister missionaries invited her to meet with Susi, because, like her own son, Susi’s son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
Sister Thomas said, “I believe Susi moved her feet closer to God because of the heavy burden that she was now feeling daily, keeping her son alive. Susi knew when I looked into her eyes that I understood the gravity of her new caregiver responsibility. Diabetes never sleeps. We FaceTimed Zack who was diagnosed at age three and has grown into a strong and healthy young man. As he spoke of his zest for life and talked of future goals, Susi felt hope for the future.”
Sister Thomas continued, “We opened the Book of Mormon and I shared some of my favourite scriptures that carried me through the hardest years of my life. We cried together, we laughed together, and we felt the Spirit together. The words filled us because they are the Saviour’s words and we rejoiced that we are not alone.”

When girls do get a chance to get together and go into town, they sometimes ignore warnings about not flirting with guys on the subway or not going into certain bad areas of town. Rosalie Dolan, who teaches the Sunday School class for nannies in the ward, said, “One of the things we cautioned these girls against was going into the ‘combat zone’ in downtown Boston. Two girls, their first Saturday here, headed straight to it to find out what was so terrible. They saw someone who had just been murdered. That really scared them. It seems like the worst thing to do is tell teenage girls not to do something.”

Where I grew up, just outside Buenos Aires, Argentina, soccer is very popular. When I was 10 or 11 years old, the boys in my neighborhood would get together to play in an empty lot on a corner where the truck and bus traffic was heavy.
One day as I sat on my bike at the curb watching some older boys play, I heard a voice say, “Jorge, scoot over.” I looked around, but there wasn’t anyone there with me. I was alone.
But I paid attention. I moved my bike just around the corner of the lot and went on watching the game from the curb of the other street. No more than a minute later, two trucks collided in the intersection and slid into the curb where I had been standing.
If I had stayed there, they would have smashed me. But someone told me—and I know who it was—that I should move just around the corner.

In April 2019, I decided to visit a friend. He is someone my family appreciates, and we really wanted to spend time with him and his wife. While there, he decided to give me a tour of Brigham Young University to get to know the university. As we reached the climax of the tour, arriving at the university museum, I was captivated by the exhibition they had by Brian Kershisnik, especially the piece She Will Find What is Lost. I spent hours staring at the piece, in genuine amazement at what it meant.
In 1992, I began the search for the fourth generation of my family as requested by the prophet, and my effort did not stop until I found the first member of my family to arrive on the island.
Sister Yngrid Cepeda, temple and family history consultant for the San Gerónimo Stake shared the following from the stake indexing day: “Today I had a beautiful experience with my dear friend Sister Marte from the Enriquillo Ward. She didn’t know anything about her father’s relatives, and she only had the names of her grandparents. She had not had the work done for her grandfather, and we decided to print the card. As we entered the website, we saw a suggested record that was a death certificate of an aunt about whom I knew nothing. We continued researching and found a baptism certificate for her grandparents, where we found her parents (her great-grandparents). Next, we found five more children of this couple. All of this in less than 20 minutes. Thanks to someone’s indexing these records, Sister Marte has more than eight family name cards including those of her grandfather and of her great-grandparents. The spirit of Elijah manifested itself in such a clear and precise way. Tell me if this is a coincidence or is it the work of the spirit of Elijah that helps the living and the dead to meet again?”
Brother Elian González from Mirador Ward, recently returned from his mission, made it his goal to attend the temple with his girlfriend every Saturday: “Regular temple attendance has filled my life with countless blessings. Returning from a full-time mission, I was very concerned about how I could constantly keep myself in a holy place. As I try to have the Holy Ghost present in my home and become holy, I have made it a goal to attend the temple as regularly as possible, each week. By going to the temple, I do not escape from problems, but rather I find solutions for them. I do not hide from the world, but rather I find the spiritual forces to conquer the world and its desires. As I consistently attend the temple, I receive guidance from Heavenly Father and divine comfort from the Savior. As I perform temple work, I have seen the promise fulfilled to become a savior on Mount Zion. I was blessed to do the ordinances for my father, and I have felt peace and immense love knowing that, thanks to temple ordinances, families can be eternal. I testify that temples give us hope and peace, I know that they are the house of the Lord and that in temples we can be instruments in his hands to help gather Israel on the other side of the veil.
“As for me, I have truly found what was lost; I have found the strong women of my family, who were an active part in the struggle for national independence (1844) and who were avant-garde in wearing pants at a time when it was not usual.
“Finding them at this time in my life makes me feel more comfortable with myself and helps me understand that who I am is a precious legacy of valuable women who will now be valuable women in the gospel of the Lord.”

I was raised in a home of faith. My parents taught me to pray and love Jesus as early as they taught me to walk and talk. But every one of us must be converted, changed. We cannot always remain reliant on others’ testimony of Christ.

As I share one of my early faith-building experiences, I hope you will remember times when your faith has been increased.

When I was a teenager, I re-read Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision. I thought it was true, I believed it, but I wanted a witness. I remember kneeling in my room and asking sincerely for a confirmation that Joseph saw and experienced what he said he saw and experienced. As I knelt, I felt light in the room, in my heart, and in my mind. I felt a warmth and comfort, a witness. I felt as though heavenly arms were wrapped around my shoulders, and almost a whisper in my heart said, “God, the Father, and Jesus Christ live! They appeared to Joseph Smith and, through him, restored the church and priesthood. It is true!” This and other experiences with prayer have taught me that God hears and answers prayers. He knows me by name. The scriptures and the prophets speak truth. Our Heavenly Parents love us. Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. The Holy Ghost guides and comforts us. These things I know.

Géoffroy wanted to go on a mission. He didn’t have enough money, so he sold his farm. A few months later, he received a mission call to the Ivory Coast. He was the first missionary from Benin to get a mission call!
His dedication helped him for years. Because of his faith, and that of other members, many more people were baptized. His branch became a ward. That ward is now part of the first stake in Benin!
Géoffroy Koussemou continues to work hard and rely on God. He knows that great things can happen with God’s help.

I wanted to get better at cooking. So when I got my Children’s Guidebook, I set a goal to cook with my dad. Whenever my father would cook, I watched him and saw how cool it was. I wanted to learn to cook like him.
My dad and I went to the store to buy ingredients. Then he taught me step by step how to turn flour into a beautiful cake. Later he also taught me how to make other things.
Working on this goal has helped me be closer to my dad. I love spending time with him! He has been a great teacher. One thing he taught me was that when we’re cooking, I can’t be distracted on my cell phone!
Now when I think of cooking, the feeling that explodes inside me is joy, because I love cooking! This goal helps me not only do something I love but grow spiritually too. I like that I get to choose my own goals. Heavenly Father wants to help me with this goal because He wants me to grow my talents. He wants to help me because He knows it makes me happy.

Her life-long dream had turned into what now seemed like a nightmare. During the long, hot summer days of picking potatoes and cucumbers, Alice had envisioned herself walking across the campus as a student at BYU. It was the goal that had kept her going when she would otherwise have given up.
Her determination had brought her to BYU for fall semester. And now the frustration, the pressure, the anguish that she faced seemed more like a nightmare than a reward for such effort.
She hadn’t planned it this way. In fact, after arriving she had hardly planned at all.
Alice was one of the students in my class. Somehow she hadn’t realized the big difference between going to school and learning.
Alice found the social side of college life more enticing than studying and learning. The urgency of preparing for her final exams hit her only after the opportunity for preparation had almost passed. It all seemed like a nightmare now. She must not fail, but she was unprepared. She had not committed herself to an education; she was just going to school.
She remembered people often asking her back home, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Growing up had seemed so far away until this day. Now she was searching for the answer to that question, not for them but for herself. What did she want to do with her life and how did an education fit in?
We must all face that question eventually if we are to be responsible for our lives.
When you find the answer, you’ll have a sense of what you want to learn or what kind of job you may someday have or how you can become a better mother and wife, because of your education. You’ll catch a glimpse of a bigger picture—a purpose, a destination, a course of action for this life that determines what you can become through the eternities. It’s when you catch even a glimpse of the excitement, the benefits, the opportunities, the richness of life that an education can provide, that the discipline required to study becomes a small price to pay.
With your eye toward eternity, education is the treasure you will take with you and give you so much the advantage in the world to come (see D&C 130:18–19). And for today, it opens doors to opportunities that would otherwise be closed tight. Nephi writes, “To be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (2 Ne. 9:29). If we lack wisdom we are to ask, and when we seek diligently we will know the truth. And the truth shall make us free (see John 8:32)—free to make wise choices; free to experience life with ever-changing, wonderful, new horizons; free to speak up and speak out for what’s right; free to influence those who are seeking truth; free to prepare in the time of youth for a rich and rewarding lifetime; free to hold on to the love of learning your whole life long making every day more zestful.

In family rooms Brigham Young University football fans paced the floors and smashed their fists against the nearest walls. In department stores they threw their hands into the air and muttered. In apartments they roared like wounded animals. In plush living rooms some sank into their easy chairs and calmly waited for the kill.
Fifty thousand TV sets eyed them coldly. Deluxe console models showed the brilliant red and gold of Arizona State linebackers blowing through the blue and white of BYU in an explosive blitz. Ancient models with snowstorms and horizontal lines revealed a wave of black and white rushing in upon retreating quarterback Gary Sheide, who saw that his wide receiver was covered. Plastic portables flickered as the relentless wave descended and the quarterback disappeared.
One hundred thousand BYU fans groaned. A stadium full of spectators in Tempe, Arizona, sprang—screaming—to their feet. Some in the crowd clapped their hands against their heads. Others clenched their teeth and closed their eyes that bleak November afternoon.
The play had begun late in the game with BYU deep in its own territory and the score BYU Cougars 14, Arizona State Sun Devils 18. Now it would be third down and a day’s journey to the line of scrimmage.
Suddenly the groaning stopped. Hands dropped. Fists unclenched. And mouths plopped open. Bellows of pain burst into shouts of unbelieving joy. True, Gary Sheide was on the ground under a surf of Sun Devils, but the football was in the air. A split second later, running back Jeff Blanc gathered it in for the first down, and BYU was on its way to a touchdown and a victory that kept alive its hopes for a 1974 Western Athletic Conference championship.
It was an impossible pass. There was no time to get rid of the ball and no way to see the receiver over the onrushing wall of bodies. Cougar football coach LaVell Edwards was later to refer to the play as one of the pivotal moments of the season, but it was the sort of thing the young quarterback from Antioch, California, did as a matter of course.

Mom brushed my hair gently and tied a ribbon in it before she caught my gaze in the mirror. “You look awfully grumpy this morning,” she said cheerily to my reflection.
“That’s because I am grumpy,” I replied, scrunching up my face so my lower lip stuck out in a frown.
Mom turned me around and knelt in front of me, looking me in the eye. “You will make friends in this ward. Don’t worry!”
“But, Mom, I liked our old ward! I liked my old friends! Why did we have to move, anyway?” I felt tears sting my eyes.
“Because of Daddy’s job!” a voice piped in helpfully.
My younger sister Alison peeked into the bathroom from the hallway. She smiled her biggest smile—a smile so big that it showed the gaps where her two front teeth were missing and made her eyes disappear into little half-moons. I scowled at her.
“That’s right,” Mom said to her. Alison beamed.
“But I don’t have any friends here,” I said to Mom, ignoring my sister.
“You’ve still got me!” Alison grinned at me from the doorway.
“Great.” I rolled my eyes.
Alison frowned for a few seconds and then said, “We’re best friends!” She ran off laughing before I could shout back at her that we were not best friends.
Later that day I looked glumly at all the people in sacrament meeting. I didn’t know one person in this new ward! My family had been here for only a few days. “Please, Heavenly Father,” I silently prayed, “help me make one new friend today.”
I was nervous when sacrament meeting ended and my parents took Alison and me to our Primary classes. During class, I sat alone and didn’t say anything.
When my class walked down the hall to the Primary room for sharing time, I clutched my scriptures tightly. I still felt nervous. I stopped at the drinking fountain to get a drink of water, then went into the Primary room. It was bright and cheery and full of children. As the pianist played a song I had learned in my old ward, I felt a little better.
But as I looked around, I realized that I couldn’t find the other children in my class. I didn’t know where they had gone, and I didn’t have anyone to sit by. I glanced around the room again, biting my lower lip nervously.
Then, from the corner of the room, a little girl started grinning and waving her hands at me. She pointed to a seat next to her. I smiled back at her as I walked to the empty seat. She smiled her biggest smile—a smile so big that it showed the gaps where her two front teeth were missing and made her eyes disappear into little half-moons.
That little girl rescued me. She was the friend Heavenly Father had sent for me.
I decided that sisters were best friends.