Gospel Story Finder

Some years ago I was assigned to a stake conference in San Diego, California. It was a hot, humid Saturday in June when I stepped off the plane and began searching for the stake president among the faces in the crowded waiting area. Although we had spoken to each other on the telephone, we had never met in person. It was not difficult to spot him. He was the one person wearing a dark suit and tie. He was standing against the waiting room wall. As I approached him he smiled and I smiled and asked, "How are you, president?" His reply was a pleasant, "I'm happy!" I loved that greeting.

Throughout the day the president used that same response whenever he was asked the proverbial question, "How are you?" I determined that I would ask him about that greeting. As we were driving toward his home that evening, he beat me to it. "Elder Pinegar," he said, "you want to ask me a question."

"I do?"

"Yes. You want to know why I say, 'I'm happy.'"

I admitted that I was curious and asked him to tell me the origin of this now familiar greeting.

This is his story:

He was called to serve a mission at age 19. During his initial interview with his mission president, he told him he did not want to be there. He wanted to go home. The president told him he couldn't send him home. He couldn't release him because he was not the one who had called him on his mission. He would have to stay. The young elder resigned himself to being in the mission, but he determined he would not work. Every weekly letter to the president contained a request for a release from the mission. In every personal interview with the mission president, he asked to go home.

After one such interview following a zone meeting, the president said, "Okay, Elder, you are going home. I've arranged for one of my assistants to remain with your companion." The missionary could hardly believe what was happening. They drove to his apartment where he packed up his things, said goodbye to his companion, and then drove away. He was happy! He was going home!

As they traveled, the missionary began to express his gratitude to the president for allowing him to go home. "Oh," said the president. "I'm not sending you to your home. I'm taking you to the mission home. I'm turning you over to my wife."

"But I don't want to go to the mission home. I want to go to my home," the missionary insisted. They drove on in silence.

It was dinnertime when they pulled into the driveway of the mission home. The president's wife came out to the car. With a bright smile she greeted her husband and then welcomed the frustrated missionary to her home with a question: "How are you, Elder?"

With a frown and an angry voice, he told her he was not happy to be there. He wanted to go to his own home. She smiled and said, "Elder, that's the wrong answer. Now, look at me with a smile and say 'I'm happy!"

"But I'm not happy! I just want to go home."

"Wrong answer, Elder! Let's try that again. How are you, Elder?"

His response was the same. "I'm not happy. I want to go home."

"Wrong answer!" the mission president's wife replied.

The fourth time she repeated the question, he was tired of what he considered "her little game," and responded, without a smile, "Okay, I'm happy."

"Good," she said. "Now we can eat dinner!" For four days, whenever the president's wife saw him, she would pester him with the same question. He continued to reply, "I'm not happy! I want to go home!"

On the fourth night as the elder was walking down the hallway toward his room he saw her coming from the opposite direction. He knew what she was going to say, but this time he would surprise her with the "right answer." "How are you tonight, Elder?" she asked.

"I'm happy!"

"That's great, Elder. Now you can go back to work."

This time he was more emphatic as he responded. He did not want to go to work. He wanted to go home. In a concerned but kind way she invited him to meet with her in the dining room. She had something she wanted to share with him.

As they sat opposite each other at a large table, she looked him squarely in the eyes and told him that he should be a happy, grateful young man. He had the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the only true plan of happiness in the world. Only through this plan could he, or anyone, find true joy in living. By following it he could learn everything he needed to know and to do in order to find success and real happiness in life. She told him how the principles of the gospel blessed her life for good; how the power of faith and the atonement of Jesus Christ gave her strength to deal with the challenges and difficulties in life. She assured him that through faith and prayer he would be able to fulfill the mission to which he had been called.

As she expressed her deep feelings of faith and joy in the gospel he was filled with the Spirit and somehow his heart changed. He knew what she was saying was true. He was filled with gratitude that the Lord trusted him and had called him to share this great plan of happiness with others. He felt a strong desire to be a missionary, and he received the strength of faith to continue.

At the conclusion of their conversation, the mission president's wife sweetly asked, "How are you, Elder?"

Now, he sincerely responded, "I'm happy!"

As the stake president concluded his story, he said, "Elder Pinegar, from that time until now I have always responded with that truth, 'I'm happy!'" We and he is! However, life has not always been easy for this man. He and his family have experienced some very trying challenges; but they have retained their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ - the Lord's true plan of happiness. Everyone needs the strength that comes from having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the understanding, as President Clark declared, that "faith is a principle of action and power."

Amanda had many friends who watched videos after school. Some of the videos had scenes that Amanda wasn’t sure Heavenly Father or her parents would like, and she wondered if she should watch them.
____ Being with her friends was fun. The videos weren’t that bad, and she would be a part of the group. If she didn’t watch the videos, she might not have anything at all to do after school.
____ Amanda chose to watch the videos with her friends.
____ She prayed to know if her decision was right.
____ Amanda felt uneasy about her decision to watch the videos.

Pursuing a Pathway degree is sometimes a long, patient process. Daddy Kampoy David shares his experience: “I have a young family and a full-time job. I serve as the first counsellor in the Bandalungwa Ward, DRC, and I teach in the EnglishConnect program. My time for study is very limited. I started my degree in 2020 and hope to finish in 2024. I get up at 5:00 am for study, care for my family, work all day, and study a couple of hours before returning home at night. Before exams, I take a few days of vacation for study. I know this degree will help me grow as a person and provide a more secure life for my family. I know this is worth it!”

President Heber J. Grant told the story of two men who had quarreled about business dealings. They came to President John Taylor and asked him to settle the matter. President Taylor consented, but said: “‘Brethren, before I hear your case, I would like very much to sing one of the songs of Zion for you.’
“Now President Taylor was a very capable singer, and interpreted sweetly and with spirit, our sacred hymns. He sang one of our hymns to the two brethren. Seeing its effect, he remarked that he never heard one of the songs of Zion but that he wanted to listen to one more, and so asked them to listen while he sang another. Of course, they consented. They both seemed to enjoy it.”
Then President Taylor sang a third and a fourth hymn. When he finished, the two men “were melted to tears, got up, shook hands, and asked President Taylor to excuse them … for taking up his time. They then departed without his even knowing what their difficulties were” (Improvement Era, September 1940, page 522).

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the longevity of seeds, however, is the very real possibility that many plant species long believed to be extinct may be brought to life again by what we may call “plant prospecting.” Although the term is new, the concept has a long history, reaching back at least to 1859. In that year, an old house constructed well before 1700 on land owned by the governor of Massachusetts had been torn down. The famed naturalist Henry David Thoreau carefully searched through the exposed cellar for plants that may have sprouted from seeds long hidden from the light of day. Indeed, his stated goal was “to reproduce long extinct plants.” His results—“a species of nettle which I had not found before; dill, which I had not seen growing spontaneously; the Jerusalem oak, which I had seen wild in but one place; black nightshade, which is quite rare hereabouts; and common tobacco, which, though it was often cultivated here in the last century, has for fifty years been an unknown plant in this town.”

“Now for the story of how I came to be a recipient of the CTR tie tack. A few weeks ago before coming to New Zealand as a mission president, I was in the Kayenta Ward in Kayenta, Arizona. As I was saying some tender farewells to many of my Navajo friends, a remarkable young Navajo bishop gave me a big hug, then removed his tie tack and pinned it on my tie. As he did so, he asked me not to forget him.

“Now here in New Zealand, the last thing I do every morning as I dress for this great calling is to pin my tie tack with this beautiful silver and turquoise CTR emblem on my tie. I love it! It helps this old boilermaker make the right choices throughout the day. I know that it also helps fulfill the prophetic promise made to my wife and me from President Gordon B. Hinckley as he laid his hands on our heads and set us apart.

“He said words to this effect: ‘You will have an instant bonding of love for every missionary in your mission.’ I can’t tell you how many times that a missionary, during a visit, has said something like this: ‘President Gardner, I love your tie tack.’ And then he or she will show me their CTR ring.

“I believe that Navajo bishop was inspired to give me the tie tack and that I make the right decision every day when I choose to wear it. And the beautiful blue and silver CTR pin is helping bond me to a royal army of missionaries in the New Zealand Wellington Mission.

“I appreciate the opportunity of relating to you my special experience associated with this great Primary children’s motto, ‘Choose the Right.’”

The other experience came as I followed, as carefully as I knew how, the principles we have discussed. One of the most sacred responsibilities of a mission president is the assignment of companionships, for it must be done through inspiration. On one occasion, having carefully followed the same procedure as always, I invited a missionary into my office and said, “Elder, you’re going to be thrilled with your new assignment.”

His eyes lit up with enthusiasm. Then, just as I was about to give him his assignment, a powerful impression came to my mind: “No, not there; you can’t send him there.”

The more he stared wide-eyed at me the more uneasy I became. I said, “Just a minute, elder; I’ll be right back,” and, of course, I went to another room and prayed to find out where he should go.

I know that when we live righteously, exercise faith, and supplicate the Lord, using the proper principles, if we feel no confirmation immediately we should act on our decision. If that decision is consistent with gospel principles and our other teachings one of the two feelings will surely come.

The Prophet Joseph was truly blessed with the ability to inspire faith. One bright morning Joseph walked up to John E. Page and said, “Brother John, the Lord is calling you on a mission to Canada.”
John E. Page was rather astonished and said, “Why, Brother Joseph, I can’t go on a mission to Canada. I don’t even have a coat to wear.”
The Prophet Joseph took his own coat from his back, handed it to John Page, and said, “Here, John, wear this, and the Lord will bless you.” Brother Page took the coat, went to Canada, and in two years walked 5,000 miles and baptized 600 souls, because he trusted in the words of a prophet of God.3

I never knew that becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would negatively affect my relationship with family members. I joined the Church two months after getting a new job. My first day attending church was the day a friend invited me to help her with her baby as she was going to be baptized.
The moment I stepped into the chapel, I felt peace, comfort, and joy in my heart, and I knew that I belonged here and that the search for the right church had come to an end. I started reading the pamphlets from a friend and later booked appointments with the missionaries and I got baptized after a couple of weeks of learning with the missionaries.
However, because my family has been staunch Anglicans, I hid my new identity of being a member of the Church until I read a scripture in Romans 1:16, which says that “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”. This scripture gave me a sense of direction, and I said to myself that I need not to be ashamed of the gospel if I have joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I started changing everything on my social media accounts to say that I am a member of the Church. Even though people contacted me about what they were seeing on the accounts, I proudly replied to each one that I have joined the Lord’s church and that I love it and I know that it is true.
Not long after, it was time to serve a mission. I received my call to the Ghana Cape Coast Mission. I proudly shared the news with my family, and they were happy for me, and I thought all was well with the family about my decision to serve. But a few days before mission, my family was still opposed to my decision and requested that I postpone my mission instead of leaving in December 2019, to go in 2020. It became evident that my family was unhappy with my decision to go on a mission. I knew that the God I serve lives, He knows me, and He had called me to serve Him and that the time is now or never.
I needed to make a choice between my family and my mission. I was stuck, but I prayed fervently and amidst all that was happening, I stood firm with unwavering and unshakable faith knowing that He can see me through those trying moments.
The Lord comforted me at that time, and I knew that I was not alone, and He was there for me. I felt at peace even though things had not been settled between me and my family and with less than 24 hours left, the family accepted my decision to go and serve and I was able to leave for my mission. My family has embraced my service and I am happily serving my mission with love and a cheerful heart, knowing that all things are possible with God if we look unto Him in every thought, fearing not and doubting not with faith that whatever you ask you will receive.
You either stand with God and are condemned by man or stand with man and are condemned by God. If you know the truth and you put your faith first, you can find joy in your challenges because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that faith can move mountains and make the impossible possible.

My parents moved to St. George a few years after they retired. I loved to visit them and escape from the cold and the smog of the Wasatch Front. After one visit with them, my daughter Laura and I left to drive home. We had just passed the fourteen-mile marker on I-15, north of St. George, when we got a flat tire. I pulled over to the shoulder and quickly reached for my cell phone to call my dad and ask for his help. He was at the neighbors’, but my mom went over to tell him of our plight.

In the meantime, a couple of nice men stopped and began to change our flat tire. They were just finishing when my dad pulled up behind us. He got out of his car and thanked the men for helping me. My dad and I visited briefly and then said our good-byes once more.

I got in my car, started it, and tried to pull forward but could not. Something was wrong. My dad was behind us, so he had not yet moved. We got out of our cars, and he took a quick look at my tire. He went to his trunk and removed a two-by-four piece of wood and a hammer. Something was hanging underneath my car in the wheel well against the tire, preventing it from rotating. He placed the two-by-four along the top of the tire and hit the other end of the board with his hammer, moving the dangling piece out of the way so the tire could rotate freely.

When I looked at my dad, I noticed he was a bit teary. I thanked him, and he said, “There is something you need to know. When I entered the garage to get in the car and come to you, I felt prompted to take a two-by-four and a hammer. Although I wondered why in the world I would need a two-by-four and a hammer to change a tire, I gathered them and put them in the trunk. They were exactly what I needed to fix your car.”

I became teary too. A loving, watchful Heavenly Father had communicated to my dad through the Holy Ghost to help me with a need that neither my dad nor I knew I had when the prompting was given. My heart filled with gratitude for my Heavenly Father, for my wonderful earthly father, and for the Holy Ghost. I felt so loved, so protected, and so safe. Our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost care about the details of our lives.

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.”

In 1834, Polly heard about the plight of the Saints who had been driven out of Jackson County, Missouri, USA, by mob violence. Through a revelation to Joseph Smith, the Lord asked Church members to donate money to help the suffering Saints redeem Zion (see Doctrine and Covenants 103:22–23). Polly didn’t have much, but she had faith in the Lord’s promise that if the Saints would relieve the suffering of others, great blessings would follow (see Doctrine and Covenants 38:35; 39:8–9). Acting on that conviction, Polly sent $150 to Kirtland, Ohio, USA, in 1834 to help supply the Camp of Israel expedition (later known as Zion’s Camp).3
One hundred fifty dollars was a lot of money for anyone—but especially for Polly, who was now 54 years old. The highest-paid women workers in the textile industry of Lowell, Massachusetts, made only about $3 per week, so $150 may have been about a year’s worth of wages for Polly.4
The day before Joseph Smith received Polly’s money, he had told Wilford Woodruff and others that the Church did not have enough resources for the Zion’s Camp expedition. But Joseph wasn’t worried. “I am going to have some money soon,” he told the group. And sure enough, the next morning, Polly’s donation arrived. Her $150 provided the means to purchase equipment and supplies for Zion’s Camp.5

In Belfast, in quieter times, I had two roommates—girls of another faith whom I had met through a mutual friend. None of us had any extra money. Carol and Anne were both midwifery students, and I was saving for a postgraduate nursing course.
Our apartment was dismal, faded, and hard to bear, but we could find no other place within our means.
Nevertheless, Carol and Anne decided to call the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and offer to give a Christmas party for 12 needy children. Of course, I agreed to help with the work and the financing as did Carol’s sister Marian.
I had seen some of the miseries of the slums. The most appalling thing I remembered was a little girl in a torn summer dress sitting on the cold, windy sidewalk molding a lump of filthy clay because she had no other toy. I could not now find and help that child, but I could try to help some others.
Our Christmas tree was two feet high, decorated with nine small glass balls, one package of tinfoil icicles, and a star we had made from the foil inside a cracker box. The room was decorated with a few streamers and a dozen balloons. The food was simple—fried potatoes and sausages, grilled tomatoes, cookies, and orangeade. Fancy food is almost unknown to ghetto children, and we were afraid they would not eat anything unfamiliar.
Besides, we couldn’t afford it. The 12 gifts were small and inexpensive: a string of plastic beads, a doll’s feeding set, a young child’s picture book, small toys and games. And, remembering the girl on the sidewalk, I bought a package of clay.
The children arrived semiclean and in their best rags. Eleven, twelve, thirteen! One of the girls had come with her toddler sister, who had refused to stay at home. That presented a problem.
In those days my annual project for the Relief Society bazaar was dressing little plastic dolls in sturdy clothes for girls to play with. Several such dolls were in my room. I quickly wrapped one of them in the last scrap of tissue paper for our extra guest and hurriedly put it under the tree.
Most of the children stood in a group at the door, but one determined boy about eight years old examined all the gifts through the paper.
“If you don’t mind, Missus,” he declared, “I’ll have this game of blow football for me and me mates.”
Carol smiled but was firm.
“We’re giving out the presents at the end of the party. Right now we’re going to play some games.”
We played their games; they played our games. We told stories; they related past experiences. We sang songs and grew decidedly tired of the children’s favorite, “Jingle Bells.”
“Last year,” announced the oldest girl, trying hard to be sophisticated in an ill-fitting sheath and high heels much too large, “I was to a party in the Linen Makers’ Hall. Hundreds of us there was, and a tree 30 feet high.”
“Was it grand, but?” asked a slightly envious voice.
“It wasn’t, for no one had time to talk with us like these good ladies are doing.”
We served the simple food, which first brought forth cries of delight and then the silence of serious eating.
“Ye’ve left food on your plate,” objected our blow football elf to his neighbor.
“I can’t eat it, but,” she replied, “for I’ve never had this much food on me plate at once.”
“Give it here, then, for tis a shame to waste good food.”
He ate several children’s leavings and then conceded defeat.
He could not prevent a few scraps from going to waste. We gave him the blow football game. We gave the 12-year-old, would-be sophisticate the plastic beads.
We gave the doll’s feeding set to a seven-year-old Raggedy Ann.
“It’s no use to me, Missus. I ain’t got a doll.”
So the Relief Society lost another plastic doll. This time it was wrapped in writing paper, and we pretended it had fallen behind the tree. “Tis the best party I was ever at,” someone announced with satisfaction.
“I felt right to home.”
“Indeed it was grand, Missus,” seconded another voice. “For whenever we’uns wanted something, one of you ladies was near.”
I thought then that I had learned something about giving, but I was shortly to learn more.
The sophisticate I noticed, had traded her beads for the clay, the clay for a toy car, the toy car for the baby’s picture book.
“Sure it’ll do,” she said, trying to rewrap it. The used cellophane tape wouldn’t stick.
“And would you have a bit of string, Missus? And a pencil, please?” I produced them, wondering.
She tied the parcel awkwardly, and in large uneven letters she printed on it “TOMMY.”
She saw me looking and she explained: “Tis me wee brother, Missus. Nobody invited him to a party, and we can’t afford him no present.”
Ragged, messy little girl in your run-over, outsized high heels, I seem to remember that you are beautiful.

Seventeen-year-old Bikki Sahi has recently been baptized. And like many of the other Latter-day Saint youth here, he is the only member in his family. He feels strongly that he has “chosen the right way.” Bikki has a new but beautiful testimony to share. “When I first came to the Church, I felt peace in my heart,” he says. “I also felt that my tensions and sadness were driven away. The brothers and sisters showed me their love and taught me about Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. When I obeyed the commandments, it helped me improve my habits, and I felt good. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that the Book of Mormon is true.”

Now, having greeted all of you, I want to confess to all of you. I stand before you a repentant and shamed man. I do faithfully testify that one’s transgressions will be found out and that “the rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow; for their iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed.”1
I, who have systematically carved out a reputation for corpulence and the sedentary life; I, who like Abe Lemons of the University of Texas resisted jogging because, said he, “When I die, I want to be sick”;2 I, who have done more to set back physical fitness than anyone in recent BYU memory—it is I whose name and photo were splashed across newspaper headlines and electronic media as one grabbed by the Divine Hand of Retribution while playing a little early-morning racquetball.
Pain, anguish, hospital, surgery, cast, crutches, cowboy boots, and humiliation. Tell me now, how does one live this down? I thought I had been discreet. A little perspiration here. A little competition there. Squeezing by over these years with just as much as I thought I could stand and as little as I thought heaven would tolerate. And then, crash! One day I have simply gone too far. And a lifetime’s reputation is shattered.
Couldn’t this have been a somewhat more private rebuke? Couldn’t this have been handled on a low-key basis? Oh no. “There is nothing which is secret save it shall be revealed; there is no work of darkness save it shall be made manifest in the light.”3
Was it such a terrible offense? I’m still limping. Will I ever walk again? In return for a healed Achilles tendon, would it be enough to promise I would never again physically exert so long as the sun shines and the rivers run to the sea?
And as if that weren’t enough, we had a plane wreck, still on the ground, while we were seated in the first-class section. Now, can there be a more embarrassing combination than that? Contrary to the rumors being spread by my colleague Art Bassett, the first-class upgrade was a freebie, a courtesy, an unexpected gift from the airline company. Not one dollar of tithing appropriation was used, not a cent of university money expended. There we were, eagerly looking around back there in steerage, where all BYU personnel are to travel, when we were for this trip unexpectedly invited up to the head of the table. We thought, “This is it. The books shall be opened. The last shall be first class” and all that.
Then the Hand of Retribution once more. We were blissfully enjoying our unaccustomed spaciousness when a nearby Boeing 747 was dispatched to ram us. I don’t mean just ram the airplane we were in—I mean ram us. It was as if some great air controller in the sky said, “They are seated in first class. Get it? First class! If we work it just right, we can knock them silly without touching one other passenger on the plane—and the plane doesn’t even need to leave the ground! It will take skillful navigation to hit their seat and their seat only, but we believe it can be done. Good luck. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”
Anonymity? A private reconciliation of one’s sins? Oh no. It’s from “the housetops” again.
Well, believe you me, I’m no slow learner. I can get the picture. Upgrades or no upgrades, it’s back into steerage for me, and I’m just grateful that such strict BYU budgeting policies would be confirmed right at the top, so to speak.

Although I wanted the humor to begin our conference this morning, I found it difficult to joke about our recent experience coming back from the Middle East. I might well have been stepping down this morning—which thing I hope to do someday in any case—but which I surely would have had to do now if my dearest friend and closest advisor, the patient and attentive guardian of my soul, and the mother of my children had been taken from me. A few inches of wing tip in almost any direction—a great, blunt knife slicing through the fuselage of a plane like a butcher knife attacks beef—and her life would have been taken, and surely my life would have been over even if I had lived. And even when the tearing of metal stopped that day in Vienna, I was not unmindful that the greatest air disaster in recorded history was from the aftermath of fire when two 747s had collided on the ground in much the same way we had been involved in those identical planes. Six hundred people had burned to death that day in Tenerife. At least 158 didn’t survive last week’s tragedy in Detroit, where just this morning it is reported that the child is asking for her father.
I do not know the answer to such things—why they happen or why some are taken and some are not. But I do know that God loves us all and that surely we will all go sometime. I was touched by Elder Dean L. Larsen’s devotional address for Education Week in which he acknowledged such “intimations” of mortality and wondered whether for him there was time enough left to set right what needed to be set right and to do what conscience knew needed to be done.42 These recent events affecting so many on our campus have sobered and saddened me, and they have given me some of the same thoughts.
I said that I do not know the answer to many of these things, nor why they come in just the way they do. But I do know where ultimate peace and safety lie, regardless of when death stops to call for me.43 I believe in repentance and ordinances and covenants and redemption. I believe in the gifts of God. I believe in the power of the Comforter, and I believe in Christ, who gave us everything. He is the Shepherd of our souls, the eternal Prince of Peace.

Earlier this year, my three sons and I visited the sites in France where my father fought in the U.S. Army in World War I. Great was the suffering and terrible were the consequences to all involved in that war. Millions lost their lives. Although my father was not killed, he carried mental and physical scars until he died. Despite his terrifying experiences, he prefaced his diary as follows: “If I had to do it again, I would do it because it was my duty.” As we traveled 80 years later through the beautiful countryside, we visited battle sites and cemeteries of the combatants on both sides. In the military cemetery outside Paris, with my hand resting on Stanford Hinckley’s cross, I called President Hinckley on a cellular phone to express my feelings on that occasion.
World War I was particularly tragic for our family because my father had some second cousins serving on the other side of that conflict in some of the same general battle areas. We eventually became acquainted with these relatives and found them to be decent, God-fearing Christians. They had nothing to do with the grand geopolitics or causes of the war. Like my father, they were serving their country because it was their duty. World War I and the wars that followed brought such great suffering and caused the deaths of countless innocent people. In its simplest terms, wars are so often caused by a great lust for power.

After graduating from BYU, I took a job with the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. I was soon called as an assistant Scoutmaster in our ward. One year we spent the summer taking hikes, including a fifty-miler around Mount Rainier. The early hikes prepared us physically and helped us develop the skills needed for the ultimate hike. We learned how to use maps and the compass and also to set checkpoints along the trail to find where we were and how to get where we wanted to go. It was a wonderful time for us.

For the Scouts, a hike in the Cascades was an exciting adventure and an end in itself, but for us, as leaders, it was an opportunity to teach them the skills, character traits, and testimony needed for life’s journey.

Last Christmas was the turning point. My brother was on his mission, and we were all anxiously waiting for the opportunity to talk to him. My parents and I still opened presents, but the best part of the day was later when I got to hear my brother’s voice and talk to him. That’s when I learned that for me, Christmas is about family, the people I get to spend eternity with. By spending a day doing things together, beyond the opening of presents, we celebrate one of the reasons Christ was born.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I was your age. I didn’t worry about drugs or pornography because they were not available then. I worried about school and where it would lead. It was the season of the terrible economic depression. I worried about how to earn a living. I served a mission after I finished the university. I went to England. We traveled by train to Chicago, made a bus transfer across that city, and went on to New York, where we caught a steamship for the British Isles. While riding the transfer bus in Chicago, a woman said to the driver, “What is that building ahead?” He said, “Ma’am, that is the Chicago Board of Trade Building. Every week some man who has lost his fortune jumps out of one of those windows. He has nothing else to live for.”

Such were the times. They were mean and ugly. No one who did not live through that period will ever understand it fully. I hope with all my heart we never have anything like it again.

For nine years Professor Marvin Hill and I had worked on the book Carthage Conspiracy, which concerns the 1845 court trial of the murderers of Joseph Smith. We had several different sources of minutes on the trial, some bearing their author’s name and others unsigned. The fullest set of minutes was unsigned, but because we had located them in the Church Historian’s Office, we were sure they were the minutes kept by George Watt, the Church’s official scribe who was sent to record the proceedings of the trial. We so stated in seven drafts of our manuscript and analyzed all of our sources on that assumption.

Finally, the book was completed, and within a few weeks the final manuscript would be sent to the publisher. As I sat in my office at BYU one Saturday afternoon, I felt impelled to go through the pile of unexamined books and pamphlets accumulated on the table behind my desk. At the very bottom of a pile of 50 or 60 publications, I found a printed catalog of the contents of the Wilford C. Wood Museum, which Professor LaMar Berrett, the author, had sent to me a year and a half earlier. As I quickly flipped through the pages of this catalog of Church history manuscripts, my eyes fell on a page describing the manuscript of the trial minutes we had attributed to George Watt. This catalog page told how Wilford Wood had purchased the original of that set of minutes in Illinois and had given the Church the typewritten version we had obtained from the Church Historian.

We immediately visited the Wilford Wood Museum in Woods Cross, Utah, and obtained additional information which enabled us to determine that the minutes we had thought were the official Church source had been prepared by one of the lawyers for the defense. With this knowledge we returned to the Church Historian’s Office and were able to locate for the first time George Watt’s official and highly authentic set of minutes on the trial. This discovery saved us from a grievous error in the identification of one of our major sources and also permitted us to enrich the contents of our book significantly. The impression I received that day in my office is a cherished example of the way the Lord will help us in our righteous professional pursuits when we qualify for the impressions of his Spirit.