Gospel Story Finder

I’m a farm boy. My family raised cotton, alfalfa, and grains. As a boy I learned that growing cotton requires a certain type of weather. When the weather is too wet and cool, cotton plants grow very fast and spend all their energy growing branches and leaves. But if the weather is hot and the cotton plant has just enough moisture, the cotton balls will grow.
One year when I was a teenager, it had been quite a cool spring with lots of rain. Dad could see that the cotton plants were growing very fast and that he would have a problem meeting his financial obligations if the weather continued in the same pattern. He went to the bank and borrowed some money. Then he took me with him to our bishop’s office and prepaid his tithing for that year, even though it looked like the crop might not be very good. Immediately after he paid his tithing, the weather changed and got very hot. We had a large crop, and Dad met all his financial obligations. Needless to say, I was born of goodly parents who taught me to live the gospel by example.

I heard one of my Brethren tell of a recent visit he made to the prison. There he noticed a young man, handsome in appearance and intelligent in his ways.

My brother said to the prison official, “What is that young man doing in here?”

The reply was that one evening he had taken his mother’s car, had obtained some beer and drunk it, and then, not in control of himself, he drove the car down the sidewalk and killed two girls.

I do not know how long he will be in prison, but I do know that he will never get over his feelings concerning the act that put him there. On such small hinges turn the gates of our lives. Little mistakes that seem so unimportant in their beginnings determine the eternal courses we follow.

Had there not been that car and that beer, he would be in school today, a bright and happy young man moving forward on the way to a productive life. Now he sits in misery for nobody knows how long—musing, thinking, repenting of the terrible thing he has done that has blighted his life.

I relate a story of a young man of great potential. I first became acquainted with him while serving as his stake president. He was intelligent and confident, a good athlete, tall and handsome with a keen sense of humor, and even an Eagle Scout. He was a leader among his peers and served a successful mission, returning home to further his education. He received his Bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and in the process fell in love and married a beautiful young woman in the Salt Lake Temple. He entered another institution of higher learning and obtained a Juris Doctorate. His hard work and diligence were rewarded with an outstanding business opportunity with a prestigious law firm. Life was bright and exciting!
He had it all! A wonderful wife, the perfect job, the gospel and two beautiful children. He had done all that anyone could expect from a worthy priesthood holder of his age. However, over the next few years, I detected changes in his personality. He began to be somewhat combative, arrogant, prideful, and not as tolerant of other's shortcoming. His testimony showed signs of waning as he questioned the doctrines of the church--doctrines that he previously embraced. And despite the best efforts of those who loved him, I watch him gradually cast off his stable anchor and drift into a stormy sea on his own merits. This young man thought he could ascend that corporate ladder faster by compromising his principles, after all, he was in control. Then came the social drinking, accompanied by improper relationships with women in the work place, and over the next few years, his boat capsized, if you will, his anchor was gone! He lost his eternal family, his testimony, his employment and his ability to have the companionship of the Holy Spirit. Now he is a broken man left to wallow in his own miserable sin.

I was 16 years old then. I had a girlfriend I loved very much, but she left me. That was hard for me. I suffered a lot for almost a year. Because of that experience, I wanted to understand where I came from, why I was on earth, what the purpose of life is, and what happens after death. I wanted to find the answer to these questions on my own. But after thinking about them a long time, I turned to God again and said to myself, “The Creator of life knows life better than I do. I should find answers from Him.”
Reading the Bible, I learned that Jesus called twelve Apostles. “If God had a church today,” I thought, “it should have Apostles.” I became more and more attracted to religion, and I wanted to be baptized.
When I talked about God with my father, he told me that God is just. He said either you are baptized to be saved, or you are damned to hell forever. I didn’t want to believe that a loving Father in Heaven would take pleasure in sending His children to hell forever just because they hadn’t been baptized. What about those who didn’t have a chance to be baptized?
In France, there are few believers. I had friends who were nice, but they weren’t baptized. I concluded that it was not right to think they would all go to hell.
So, I decided to form my own beliefs. I believed in a God whose love is perfect and who would do everything in His power to save His children. If His children don’t want to receive His glory, that would be up to them. But He would give them a chance.
One day two full-time missionaries who were working in my village felt prompted to take a detour to go home. On their way home, they met my mother. She stopped them and made an appointment for me to meet them. I wasn’t happy about that. I didn’t want to talk to them. I thought they would say, “You must listen to us. You must believe what we are going to tell you.”
When the missionaries arrived for our meeting, I told them, “Don’t waste your time. I have my own beliefs. What you are doing is good, but I believe that family is very important. I believe that church leaders should be married. I believe that a church should have twelve Apostles. I believe that God will save as many of His children as He can. And I don’t believe in smoking and drinking.”
I was surprised to learn that their teachings matched my beliefs. They gave me a Book of Mormon and asked me to pray about it. I felt the Spirit when I read the book, and I felt the Spirit with the missionaries. But I thought, “Maybe I’m just creating these positive feelings.”
I prayed and got an answer in a dream. In my dream, I opened the Bible. Inside the Bible were tabs with the different books of the Bible. The last tab said “Mormon.” This message helped me understand that the Bible and the Book of Mormon contained the same gospel (see Ezekiel 37:15–19).
My testimony was further strengthened through other experiences reading and studying the Book of Mormon. When the missionaries invited me to be baptized, I accepted with joy. I was baptized exactly one year after my girlfriend left me. My baptism marked a big change in my life. I lost some friends when I joined the Church, but I found new ones in the branch I attended.
“The gospel brought me a lot of light and happiness,” says Nicolas. “God blessed me. I met a good woman, and we have three good daughters.”
The gospel brought me a lot of light and happiness. I was filled with the Spirit and with joy. I thought, “All that I have suffered before has brought me here.”
God blessed me. I met a good woman, and we have three good daughters. Two of them have served missions, helping others understand what I came to understand years ago: “The family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children,” “the dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 138:58), and the Lord calls apostles and prophets in our day to lead His Church (see Ephesians 2:20).

I spent a year away from my family in Japan, living in Utah as a high school exchange student. After I returned home, I received my first calling in the Church—president of our Mia Maid class. In a letter to my host family in Utah, I wrote about my calling.
A couple of weeks later I received a letter from my host “father.” He wrote:
“I didn’t tell you then, but one month before you left for home, our bishop told me ‘We want Kazuko to be class president of the Mia Maids. How long will she be here?’
“I told him that you would be leaving the following month. So they didn’t give you the calling.”
I found it remarkable that the same calling the bishop in Utah had been inspired to extend to me was given me when I came back to Japan. It made me realize that God knows about me no matter where I am—in Utah or Japan or anywhere else. I believe he knew that particular calling was what I needed then in order to grow.

President Spencer W. Kimball also recognized the benefits of taking on a challenging goal. He told this story of a goal he made when he was 14:
“When I heard a Church leader from Salt Lake City tell us at conference that we should read the scriptures, … I walked to my home a block away … and I read the first chapters of Genesis. …
“I found that this Bible that I was reading had in it 66 books, and then I was nearly dissuaded when I found that it had in it 1,189 chapters, and then I also found that it had 1,519 pages. It was formidable, but I knew if others did it that I could do it.”
That amount of reading wasn’t easy for a teenager, but nevertheless President Kimball persevered and completed his goal. As an adult, he said, “I have always been glad I read the Bible from cover to cover.”
President Kimball benefited from taking the time to think through the logistics of his goal. Even though it sounded daunting, the information prepared him to succeed. As was the case with President Kimball, reaching for and achieving a challenging goal at a young age can bring feelings of confidence and satisfaction to serve us throughout life.

To get ready for the Primary program, I learned the songs and memorized my part. But when it was my turn to speak into the microphone, I was scared by all of the people watching me. My Primary teachers tried to help me, but I was still too scared to say anything. Then my dad came up and held my hand. I didn’t feel scared anymore, and I said my part just right. That must be like how Heavenly Father helps all of us.

Over on the other side of the camp, teamwork was fully evident as Scouts from the New Orleans Louisiana Stake organized themselves for a firebuilding contest. One team member struck a match as others huddled around to shelter it from the wind. Another Scout raced to a pile of straw to gather fuel, rushed back, and as the initial flame leaped up, carefully nourished it. A string scorched, blackened, untwisted, broke, and a water balloon tumbled down, dousing the fire. “You have to know what each person is going to do before you start,” advised Paul Seager, 15, of the West Bank Ward. “But it feels great when you see what you can do.”

Let me tell you a story of a great missionary in our stake. Tyler is a young man attending high school. He loves to share the gospel and is bold in sharing his faith. He started talking to one of his teachers in school about baptism, and there was some interest in learning more. Tyler made a referral to the sister missionaries in his ward, who made a referral to the elders in my ward. The missionaries quickly discovered that this teacher is a neighbor to the stake president. The elders showed up to my home, and the pressure was on. I immediately took them across the street, through the pasture, and to the home of Dave, Bidya, and their two daughters. The invitation was made to come over and continue the discussion about baptism. The missionaries taught all of the discussions, and they were baptized just a few months ago. They are doing well in their early efforts to live the gospel. It’s always a joy to see God’s children accept and embrace the restored gospel.

I know of another little boy who came home from school one day long ago to find a rented piano in the house. “What’s this piano here for?” he asked his mother.
“It’s for you,” she replied.
“For me?” he asked. “Why for me?”
“Because,” she said, “you are going to take piano lessons.”
He said he didn’t want to take piano lessons. But she had already arranged for a teacher.
Well, this little boy began to miss a few lessons. One day his mother asked, “How was your piano lesson?”
He said, “Fine. I’m doing pretty well.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. “I just talked to your teacher, and she hasn’t seen you for a while.” He had been caught. He didn’t know what the punishment would be, but he knew it would be bad. Then his mother said, “Just for that, you may not take piano lessons.”
He tried to look punished, but inside he was very happy with her decision. Mother, he thought, you have hit on the perfect punishment. I hope you use it often. Within his heart he felt that he had just been liberated. He was free from practice, free from lessons, free from discipline, routine, and regimentation—free from all that seemed to limit his freedom.
When he grew to be a man, he was sitting one day in a church meeting during which a woman was to sing a solo. When her time to perform came, she walked up to the podium and announced, “My accompanist could not come today. I need someone to accompany me.” Looking over the congregation, she saw a man who used to teach piano. “Will you accompany me?” she asked him. The man came forward, and she handed him the music.
As he watched this happen, my friend who had avoided music lessons thought, What would I have done if she had asked me? If she had asked me, I would have been free to do only one thing: to say no. Suddenly, he realized that what he had assumed to be one of the great liberating moments of his life—when his mother said, “You may not take lessons any more”—was in fact a moment of bondage, not freedom. As he sat in that church meeting, he might as well have been handcuffed, for he could not have played the piano if he had wanted to. The other man was free; he could choose to play or not to play. Ultimately, then, freedom is more a matter of capacity and ability than of permission.

A friend of mine from South Carolina has demonstrated that even multiple problems can be overcome when one is true to his faith in God.
Laurie Polk is a dwarf. From the time of his birth, life has been a challenge. When he became old enough to go to school, he pedaled himself on a tricycle in order to move about and keep up with the other children. When his short legs kept him from playing games and participating in athletics, he busied himself in preparing for a vocation in the business world. To obtain employment, he found it necessary to persist and to prove himself. When a job opportunity finally came to him, he found joy in life through his love for his work.
Then another challenge arose. Laurie Polk, already extremely limited in his physical mobility, lost the sight in one eye. Nearly complete loss of the use of his crippled, dwarfed legs followed shortly thereafter. Then, as if that were not enough of a trial for any man, the retina of Laurie’s other eye became detached and complete blindness encompassed him.
Where did Laurie Polk gain his strength to overcome such darkness and despair? Through the power of faith in God, Laurie Polk has learned the meaning of life. In his thirty-four inch frame, he possesses a strength not unlike the sons of Helaman, through which he not only overcomes the personal challenges he encounters—he actually finds joy in living. He knows he can solve any problem by putting his life in harmony with God and serving his fellowman. He says, “With the help of the Lord there are no problems, only challenges.” Laurie Polk is now a high priest group leader in the Charleston South Carolina Stake.

My legal name is Dora Jolene, but growing up I always went by my middle name. My grandma, Dora Green, passed away before I was born. My grandma, Dora Erickson, was a well-known educator in eastern Idaho. She has a school named after her in Idaho Falls: Dora Erickson Elementary.
It was my first day at Ricks College, my first semester, and my first class when our instructor began taking the roll. I was nervous to say the least, and when the instructor called the name “Dora,” no one replied. He repeated two, three times until it dawned on me. I raised my hand and said, “Oh . . . I think that is me!” The silent classroom was no longer quiet; you could hear laughter coming from our room. I told the instructor—and the rest of the class—that I go by my middle name “Jolene.” I’m sure I made a lasting impression on everyone. In fact, I think I even got a couple of dates out of it.

I grew up in Rexburg, Idaho, where I was influenced and taught by a wonderful family, friends, teachers, and leaders. There are special experiences in the lives of all of us that touch our souls and make things different forever. One such experience happened in my youth. This experience transformed my life.
I was always active in the Church and progressed through the Aaronic Priesthood. When I was a teenager, Brother Jacob, my teacher, asked that I write down on a card what I had thought about during the sacrament. I took my card and began to write. First on the list was a basketball game we had won the night before. And then came a date after the game, and so went the list. Far removed and certainly not in bold letters was the name of Jesus Christ.
Each Sunday the card was filled out. For a young Aaronic Priesthood holder, the sacrament and sacrament meeting took on a new, expanded, and spiritual meaning. I anxiously looked forward to Sundays and to the opportunity to partake of the sacrament, as understanding the Savior’s Atonement was changing me. Every Sunday to this day, as I partake of the sacrament, I can see my card and review my list. Always on my list now, first of all, is the Savior of mankind.

When I was 15 years old, I gained a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and was so happy to join the Church. At the time, I was working to help support my family. Not long after I was baptized, however, I lost my job.
I needed to find a new job soon because my family depended on me, but every job I applied for required that I work on Sundays. I turned down many job offers because I knew that I needed to be at church on Sundays (see D&C 59:9–10).
After two months of searching, I still hadn’t found a job. My mom was not a member of the Church, and although she believed in God, she was very angry that I was passing up so many jobs.
One night she looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked, “Why is God letting this happen to us when you are so faithful in doing what is right?”
I replied, “Mom, I don’t know why this is happening to us, but I do know that I am doing the right thing, and I know that God will bless us for it.”
The next morning someone offered me a considerable amount of money to spend two days moving some heavy cargo from one house to another. The work was strenuous, but when I received the money, I went straight home and offered a prayer of gratitude. I soon found a good job that allowed me to take Sundays off, and I haven’t been unemployed since.
I am glad that I chose to keep the Sabbath day holy. There are many challenges in life, but I know that if we strive to be strong despite those challenges, the Lord will bless us.

Brad took to Scouting with the same gusto as the other boys his age. Hiking, swimming, and other strenuous activities didn’t discourage him. He asked no special treatment in passing his Scouting tests, and he got none. A Scoutmaster recalls the astonishment of canoeing instructors at Bear Lake when Brad emerged from the water wearing his “fishing leg.” Some of the merit badges, Life Saving for example, were especially difficult, but they were goals, and they were met.

Brad’s leg has never been a source of embarrassment to himself or his family, so it has never been a source of embarrassment to others. There is something about Brad that makes it easier to envy him than to pity him. He was always expected to do his share of the work at home and to accomplish just as much outside the home as the other children. He was also allowed to take part in the rough and tumble play of the neighborhood boys the same as everyone else. His “handicap was simply never treated as a limiting factor.

In fact, it gave him a rather novel way of having fun. Throughout school he delighted in playing tricks on substitute teachers by such little devices as calmly turning his leg around backwards in class, or kicking it off entirely in the middle of a spirited game of playground ball. One little classmate was so impressed with the possibilities that he went home and tearfully demanded “a leg like Brad’s.”

An incident that took place one summer typifies Brad’s attitude. “I was at the swimming pool and had on my fishing leg, of course. A little boy saw it, and of course he pointed and said right out loud, ‘Look, Mommy! That guy’s leg!’ His mom was embarrassed. I walked over to her and said, ‘Don’t worry; you’ve got a good boy there; he’s observant. Don’t try to cover it up. I’m not.’”

Now is the time of year when most of us get out a clean sheet of paper and write down a list of new year’s resolutions we have absolutely no intention of keeping. We will find plenty of “handicaps” along the way to use as excuses for failure, and then next year we will still have the same unaccomplished goals to put down on another clean sheet of paper.

This year when we get ready to abandon the last resolution on the list, perhaps we should form a mental picture of a red-headed young man with freckles, in a green and white jersey, with absolutely no handicaps, lining up a field goal.

Maybe we can’t all kick a 49-yard field goal; our talents don’t all lie in the same areas. But we can do a lot more than we are doing, and there’s no better time to begin than right now at the beginning of a new year.

That’s part of Brad’s philosophy too. “What you do now—your habits, studies, morals, goals—it all adds up to what you’re going to be in the end.”

One night Braden was sitting in his bedroom playing a game. He thought he heard someone crying, but who could that be? Braden kept playing with his game. Then he heard the crying again. Something told him that he should go downstairs, and that maybe he could help. He got up and went downstairs.
His mom was sitting on the sofa, crying. What would make his mother feel better? He began cleaning up the living room. Then he put some ice in a cup for her. She was expecting a baby and liked ice.
His mother hugged him. She told him that she was feeling sick and lonely because Dad was out of town on business. She had asked Heavenly Father to please send someone to help her. Braden told her about the feeling that he should come downstairs. His mother told him that the feeling was the Holy Ghost, and that by following the Holy Ghost he had been an answer to her prayer.

As a BYU student long ago, my brother-in-law was an example of fearlessness and not faintheartedness. Since the statute of limitations has run out, the story can now be told. In the dim recesses of time, when phones were rotary and thumbs were for hitchhiking, not texting, computers were huge and programs and data were entered into them on computer cards.

This gentleman, whom we’ll call Frank, because that’s his name, was an electrical engineering major here at BYU. The by-product of entering data onto computer cards then was that in punching them there were resulting leftover tiny bits of paper or cardstock.

Frank, and some undisclosed accomplices, collected and introduced this computer confetti, or chad, into the ventilating ducts of my sister’s BYU apartment so that later, when they turned on their cooler or heater fan, they would be greeted by a Christmas-like shower of paper snow. Unfortunately, such chad or confetti didn’t all come out at once. In fact, due to static electricity cling and the interactions of metal ducts and energized small bits of paper, there was a shower of confetti from then on every time the fans went on. I daresay that someone in this audience has just learned why the vents in their apartment still occasionally waft stray bits of computer-card chad gently onto their carpet.

Unsurprisingly, this greatly annoyed my sister’s roommates—who were not sufficiently childlike, I guess—but Frank’s pluck and daring warmed the cockles of my sister’s heart. The point is that although Frank may have exercised questionable judgment, it was kind of cool. He dared and he won the fair maid because his own heart was not faint. Now, President Samuelson and members of the campus law-enforcement and student-discipline community, I’m not advocating any types of pranks; it’s more a mind-set and a childlike courage I advocate.

A lot of people are thankful to Shawn for their introduction to the gospel. One of his favorite activities is helping the missionaries. When invited, he sometimes travels across four or five states on an airline or in his own plane to tell an assembly of investigators about rodeoing and the gospel. He explains some of the finer points of bronc riding and then winds up the meeting telling them why the gospel is so important. After a recent trip to an Indian reservation where he explained about the gospel and how to ride broncs, he said, “I guess this approach has helped opened a few more doors for the elders.”

Third, promptings sometimes comfort or prepare us for things Heavenly Father knows are coming.
Some years ago I awoke one morning with a clear but curious impression: I should use frequent-flier miles to upgrade my parents’ airplane tickets for their visit to our family in Virginia. I had the tickets upgraded, then forgot completely about it.
During the visit my father was very tired one afternoon but wanted to go with me as I ran errands. Although I thought he should really stay and rest, I happily agreed for us to run the errands together. Somewhere between the laundry and the grocery store, I had a quiet feeling my father would not visit again.
A few months later I was attending a business conference in Kyoto, Japan, when I received word my father had unexpectedly died. I cried for many days. But, as I looked back, I realized I had been lovingly prepared in advance. Earlier small promptings regarding plane tickets and running errands later provided great comfort.

When Nuria and I were being taught by full-time missionaries in 1982, we were invited to visit the local ward meetinghouse and to attend the Church meetings there. As we arrived on a beautiful Sunday morning, the first two members that we met at Church were two sisters from our Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. That was a pleasant surprise! We then entered the sacrament hall and beheld families talking reverently to each other, as the sacrament meeting was about to begin. There was great love and friendship in evidence among them.
The missionaries then pointed out the bishop in the stand talking with one of his counselors. I knew the bishop, though not as the local leader of the Church, but as a faculty professor of mine, whom I respected as a great physician and individual. Nuria and I loved the service. From that very first day, except for illness, we have always attended Sunday meetings. I had received a spiritual confirmation in my heart that this Church was true and that the will of our Lord Jesus Christ was for us to remain. Shortly thereafter, we were baptized together and began attending sacrament meetings as members of the Lord’s restored Church.