Gospel Story Finder

Elder Carlos E. Asay, an emeritus member of the Seventy, shares an experience he had as a missionary with this gift. He and his companion visited a branch torn by divisions. His companion was asked to speak at the meeting held to deal with the conflicts. After fasting and prayer, his companion “stood with confidence and worked the miracle. He spoke with the tongue of an angel. That young, inexperienced elder’s words healed wounds festering in the hearts of men much older than he, prompted confessions, and literally saved a branch of the Church” (Ensign, April 1988, 17).

When I began my studies at BYU after my mission, I was pretty much set on becoming a teacher. My father and two of my brothers were teachers, so I thought that would be my path. I started in that direction with great anticipation. I completed a good number of classes in my major. Then, after a day of substitute teaching at a local high school, I felt like I should take another path. I dreaded the call to my parents to let them know I was changing my major. The problem was I had no idea what I was changing it to! Does that sound familiar to any of you?

I prayed and pondered and still had no idea what to do. The clock was ticking, and I knew I needed to get things figured out fairly soon so I didn’t waste time and money.

One day in the spring of 1982, I was walking across campus when I ran into a good friend who had served in my mission. I shared with him my dilemma and asked what he had decided to study. He said he was majoring in computer science. These were his exact words: “I hear this whole computer thing is going to be big!” How prophetic!

I don’t know if there has ever been a more direct answer to the prayer of a very anxious soul. I immediately enrolled in computer science classes and began my studies.

My decision to follow that inspiration truly lifted me up and has been life-changing for me and my family.

Sometimes pioneer children divided into two groups and played dare base. Helen and Loren were the two team captains. Helen’s team’s base was the area around the flagpole. Loren’s team’s base was the area around the seesaw.

Loren felt daring; he thought that he could run around the flagpole without getting caught. He ran his fastest, and he made it! Since Loren’s dare paid off, he got to choose Henry to join his team. Carrie was on Helen’s team, and she felt daring too. She ran her fastest but only made it halfway around the seesaw before she got caught. Her dare failed, and she had to join Loren’s team.

A friend of ours (and most of us were recent converts) was getting into the drug culture with all its wrong attitudes and acts. Some might say we shouldn’t have kept this kind of friend, but we did. (Later he said that he had felt he was losing us even so, but this was because he had been failing to keep his part of the relationship.) At any rate, we didn’t throw him out of our lives for taking drugs, or for any of the other sins, small or great, that it led him to. Then we saw him turn to paths of repentance, and when he finally asked, we helped him climb back. The day of his temple marriage was a day of deep joy to us all.
Sharon DequerMunrovia, California

This idea is not always easy to comprehend, let alone understand, but I learned a deeper meaning from my daughter as she shared with me this story about how her perception changed with a trip to the temple.

As she approached the temple doors, she noticed a young man dressed in shorts and a t-shirt talking on a cell phone, and pacing back and forth outside the temple. He was kind of a big guy, and looked very suspicious. He made her nervous...especially when he walked in behind her as she entered the temple. He stayed back as she showed her recommend but then she observed him walking towards the desk. She walked slowly contemplating how she would alert help, and ward off this terrible intruder trying to sneak into the temple.

However she was taken back and even embarrassed by her thoughts when the young man pulled out his recommend and informed the brother at the desk that he was in the military on route to Afghanistan for an extended duty. He had a few hours unexpected layover in Boise. This would be his last opportunity to attend the temple.

His clothes were all sent ahead, but he wanted to spend these precious moments serving in the house of the Lord to give him comfort and peace while he would be so far away. He asked the brother at the desk to see if he could get him some appropriate clothing, since everyone he had called was unavailable to help him.

This experience teaches the need to look deeper, to understand others, and not just go with first instincts. The words from Job seem appropriate, "Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred" (Job 6:24).

I would like to tell you a story. It's a personal story. It helps explain God's perspective in a way that has been personally compelling to me. And like many lessons we learn in this life, it seems that sometimes it's the most painful lessons that clarify for us the most important lessons we must learn. After I retired from business last year, Sister Willes and I moved to Provo. We expected to teach at the Brigham Young University - Provo Campus. Three weeks after we got there we received this [mission] call, so we knew we weren't going to be teaching too long. A few weeks after that, our second daughter who lives in Utah gave birth to a critically ill little girl. She was unable to move. She was attached to more pieces of medical equipment to sustain her life than I thought even existed.

This little girl's mother and father asked me on two different occasions if I would give her a blessing, which I was grateful to do. And I found myself in those blessings saying something I had never said before. And that was, that after the doctors and nurses had done all that they could do, the Lord would heal her, completely. You can image my surprise and yes, even some confusion, when I would give those blessings and feel so comfortable about them, to then see as the days and weeks went on that she got worse instead of better.

I could not understand. I thought perhaps I had misunderstood the Spirit, that because of my own desire that this sweet granddaughter of ours live and be whole and happy, perhaps I had misunderstood the Spirit. Therefore out of concern, yes even a quiet desperation, I called President Hinckley - the only time I have ever done this. By this time this little girl was in a hospital in Salt Lake City, not far from where he lives. I asked him if there was any way possible that he could come and bless this little girl? With the kindness that you might imagine only the prophet would have, he said, "Of course," and we arranged a time to meet.

You can imagine how thrilled we were as the prophet of the Lord laid his hands, in this case fingers, on her small head, and gave her virtually the identical blessing that I had given her twice before, promising her that after the doctors and nurses had done all that they could do that she would be touched. . .by the finger of God, and healed totally and completely.

You might therefore understand my surprise and concern when shortly thereafter she died. I didn't understand, until, as I was preparing to speak at her funeral, the Spirit led me to the 55th chapter of Isaiah, where the Lord says,

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."

And then I understood that God has an eternal perspective. He is not bound by the narrow earthly perspective that we so often look from, and make decisions from. And given His heavenly perspective, every blessing that this young girl had been promised had in fact come true.

After the doctors had done all that they could do, a little girl who was never to move in this life, was now able to move freely and happily. A little girl that would have had a very limited earthly life, now had an unlimited eternal life. A little girl who would have faced severe tests all of her earthly life, had now passed the one and only test required of her and was now happily and gloriously back with her Father in Heaven. Oh yes, she had been touched. . .and healed. . .totally and completely, as only God can.

I learnt from this experience to rejoice in His eternal perspective. If we are to understand how God answers prayers it is not sufficient to look from our earthly perspective. We must also look from His eternal perspective if we are to understand how and why He does what He does.

For a while when he was 14, Aleksey Kulikov was a man without a country.
Though his mother was from St. Petersburg, she had taken work in Nuremberg, Germany. While there, she and Aleksey met the missionaries, studied the gospel, were baptized, and became active Latter-day Saints.
Now they had to leave Germany. The government said noncitizens on work visas must return to their homelands. To make matters worse, Aleksey and his mother were told their papers were no longer valid in Russia.
“Officially,” Aleksey explains, “we had no citizenship anywhere.”
Things seemed pretty dark, but Aleksey and his mother knew about faith.
“I remembered what the missionaries taught me,” Aleksey says. “If you have problems, then pray about them. So we asked Heavenly Father to bless us.”
From then on, the trip became easier. “We found out we did have Russian citizenship. When officials found out we were carrying all we owned, they waived the luggage restriction. At the Lithuanian border, some kind soldiers took pity on us and kept us from being forced off the train. They even called ahead to the next border and asked them to let us pass. So we came without trouble to St. Petersburg.”
After six years, they were home. But what would the city be like, now that the Soviet Union was gone? What would the Church be like, compared with their wonderful friends in Nuremberg?
“We were delighted with what we found,” Aleksey remembers. “The city had a happier feeling. Some beautiful buildings were being renovated. But best of all, we found there is a new dawn of the Church in St. Petersburg. We knew the gospel had been restored, but now we know it’s been restored here too.”
Aleksey is now 17, a member of the Nevsky Branch. His greatest desire is to serve a full-time mission, “perhaps in Germany.” But it doesn’t matter where he’s called. “I know there’s gospel light to share wherever you go,” he says.

Billy knew if he could ever win the permanent position as center fielder for the Highland Lake Tigers, he would have to prove himself now. Hermie had just walloped the ball, and it was sailing straight for center field.
Billy could not take his eyes off the white ball. He knew that with his poor eyesight if he looked away for even an instant, he might not be able to again locate the ball in time. Billy also knew that if he would only put on his new glasses, he could see perfectly. But he wasn’t going to give his teammates a chance to call him “four-eyes.” No sir! Those glasses were going to stay under the socks in his dresser drawer for the whole summer vacation.
The ball was dropping fast now, and as Billy ran toward it with his outstretched arms, he ran smack into Marty. The collision left both Billy and Marty sprawled on the grass with the ball on the ground between them. Billy jumped to his feet, but he was too late. Hermie was on third!
“Oh, Billy!” groaned Marty, “What’s the matter with you? You’d think I was invisible the way you ran into me.”
Billy muttered something under his breath about the accident being Marty’s fault. But Billy knew who was at fault. He should have seen Marty standing there! After all, Marty was the tallest boy on the team this year.
When the game was over, Billy walked over to watch Mr. Francers, who was busily sanding the weathered bottom of his boat. Billy sat down dejectedly on a pile of old lumber.
“Well, that was a bit of bad luck you had out there, Billy,” Mr. Francers sympathized.
“I guess so,” sighed Billy. “I sure missed that ball.”
“But you didn’t miss Marty!” chuckled Mr. Francers. “When you arrived last week and I helped your family unload the station wagon, didn’t I see you wearing a pair of glasses?”
“I guess so,” admitted Billy. Then he told Mr. Francers how he was afraid the other boys would laugh at him, and so he had decided to keep his glasses in a drawer all summer.
“I know just how you feel, Billy,” Mr. Francers smiled. “I began wearing glasses when I was younger than you, and I must admit they were a nuisance.”
Mr. Francers paused for a minute as if he were remembering something, and then he continued, “It’s a funny thing, Billy, but I tried to get by without wearing my glasses just like you’re doing. Then one day when I was playing baseball, I looked around at my teammates and realized that baseball is a true team sport! I expected the best from each of my teammates. But there was one boy on the team who was not giving his very best—me! From that day on I always wore my glasses. I’m sure if I hadn’t, my baseball career would have gone no further than those sandlot games.”
“Did you play professional baseball?” gasped Billy.
“Yes, fifteen years in the major leagues—and I loved every minute of it!”
“Wow!” cried Billy, jumping up. “I didn’t know that!” Billy hesitated and then added, “I just remembered something I left at the cottage. I’ll see you later.”
As the afternoon breezes began picking up off the lake and small clouds of dust swirled around homeplate, Billy was given another chance at center field. But Billy knew that this time it was going to be different—he would be doing his best. He was being honest with his teammates and honest with himself. Billy could see this fact quite easily now—especially with his new glasses!

There was little time for grief that first year. The awesome responsibilities of my new role as sole parent were overwhelming. Ralph had been very much in charge, and I relied heavily on his judgment and leadership. Attempting to establish my authority was of prime importance. The children thought they were very funny when they made birthday and Mother’s Day cards depicting me in a general’s uniform. However, I knew my authority was finally recognized when I overheard one small child say to another, “What are Mother and Daddy going to do when they get together again, now that Mother’s the boss?”

Elder Lawrence described a friend who decided to pray for the gift of charity. He related her experience: “She wrote: ‘I have been praying specifically for an increase of charity for several months. … Gradually my perception of others has changed. … I have begun to not just love the people around me but to enjoy them. Before, I may have kept my distance, but now I am genuinely interested in everyone.’”2

Missionary service has ever called for courage. One who responded to this call was Randall Ellsworth. While serving in Guatemala as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Randall Ellsworth survived a devastating earthquake that hurled a beam down on his back, paralyzing his legs and severely damaging his kidneys. He was the only American injured in the quake, which claimed the lives of some eighteen thousand persons.
After receiving emergency medical treatment, he was flown to a large hospital near his home in Rockville, Maryland. While Randall was confined there, a newscaster conducted with him an interview that I witnessed through the miracle of television. The reporter asked, “Can you walk?”
The answer: “Not yet, but I will.”
“Do you think you will be able to complete your mission?”
Came the reply: “Others think not, but I will. With the president of my church praying for me, and through the prayers of my family, my friends, and my missionary companions, I will walk, and I will return again to Guatemala. The Lord wants me to preach the gospel there for two years, and that’s what I intend to do.”
There followed a lengthy period of therapy, punctuated by heroic yet silent courage. Little by little, feeling began to return to the almost lifeless limbs. More therapy, more courage, more prayer.
At last, Randall Ellsworth walked aboard the plane that carried him back to the mission to which he had been called—back to the people whom he loved. Behind he left a trail of skeptics and a host of doubters, but also hundreds amazed at the power of God, the miracle of faith, and the example of courage.
On his return to Guatemala, Randall Ellsworth supported himself with the help of two canes. His walk was slow and deliberate. Then one day, as he stood before his mission president, Elder Ellsworth heard these almost unbelievable words spoken: “You have been the recipient of a miracle,” said the mission president. “Your faith has been rewarded. If you have the necessary confidence, if you have abiding faith, if you have supreme courage, place those two canes on my desk and walk.”
After a long pause, first one cane and then the other was placed on the desk, and a missionary walked. It was halting, it was painful—but he walked, never again to need the canes.
This spring I thought once more of the courage demonstrated by Randall Ellsworth. Years had passed since his ordeal. He was now a husband and a father. An engraved announcement arrived at my office. It read: “The President and Directors of Georgetown University announce commencement exercises of Georgetown University School of Medicine.” Randall Ellsworth received his Doctor of Medicine degree. More effort, more study, more faith, more sacrifice, more courage had been required. The price was paid, the victory won.

The first branch of the Church in Scotland was established in Paisley. Early convert Andrew Sprowl was baptised there in May 1841. Two months later he was called as a missionary in the Paisley Branch. His journal is replete with baptisms and confirmations, many of them being his own relatives. He made this entry in his journal dated 24th March 1847:
“The place where we immerse in the water of baptism is only large enough to admit the administrator and the candidate. The spot where we immerse is only about two feet of a waterfall over which the water leaps into the place where we perform the baptisms. It is fairly secluded by trees all around a gently rising hill just above. In this place, the greatest number of the Saints have come into this branch and have been baptised here.
This place seems to be hallowed by the frequent baptisms that have been performed, joy and peace rests upon this place. The Spirit of the Lord is here when we come together to obey the voice of the Redeemer, Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God.
The name of this beautiful scenic place is the Meikleriggs Burn.”
This is the only known written description of this baptismal site. Between February and May 1840 the first eighty convert baptisms were performed here and it was continuously used up to at least 1847. I knew the burn, but Paisley has grown a great deal over the years and it seemed as if the burn was now underground.

My best friend, Julie, is not a member of the Church. She is very religious, however, and has the ability to draw people to her. Almost all the LDS students in my school care for her very much and would love to see her come into the Church. Because they care for her, people often get into discussions with her and try to teach her what we believe.
There are some boys my age who talk to Julie a great deal about the Church. They know how wonderful she is and what a great asset the gospel would be for her in her life. One day when we were in junior high, Julie and I met after a class to go to lunch. She told me she had had another Church discussion and that she had been watching these boys and noticing how they behaved and treated other people. She saw how particularly mean they were to another boy in our grade who was less fortunate than the rest of us. And then she said something that I have never forgotten: “They tell me wonderful things about what Mormons believe, but they sure don’t act that way.”
Every time I think about this I cry inside. That day I learned better than ever what it means to be an example. I better understand what Alma meant when he was talking to his son Corianton and said, “When they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words” (Alma 39:11). People are watching us. It is so important to live the way we know we should.

You’d have to have been me that day, lying on my bunk bed, before you could feel how I wanted a dog. I’d sneaked into the house and was lying there for about an hour before Mother knew. She stood in my bedroom doorway for a minute or so before she came over and lay down beside me and asked, “What’s the matter, son?”

Sometimes you can say, “Oh, nothing,” when Mother asks that. And other times you can’t. This was one of those other times. It was as if she had her arms around me and was looking into my eyes with all her might. Only she was just lying there beside me, waiting.

So I told her all about how I’d got into a fight up at Barney’s, and Tom and Scott said if I couldn’t play fair I could just go home. So I went. Talking about it to my mom made me cry. So while I was at it I told her what the real trouble was. “All this wouldn’t have happened,” I bawled, “if I only had a dog.”

Mother didn’t ask me whether or not I’d really been playing fair and what a dog had to do with it. She just lay there very still and listened. So I said some more. I told her that I hated school and that nobody liked me. I asked her how she would like to be seven years old and dumb and ugly and awkward and have people laugh at her when she used big words. I said I didn’t fit in this world anyplace, and God must have sent me to the wrong planet. The more I talked the more things I thought of. It was as wild and wonderful as any of my stories about Joey, and I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed howling so loud and feeling so miserable. Finally, I blurted out something I hadn’t really meant to say. “Besides,” I yelled, “There’s no such thing as Joey!”

Mother’s eyes filled with tears, and I was so sorry. I stopped crying right off and said quickly, “Please don’t tell Daddy—he’d be just sick.” That was a lucky thing to say because it made Mother smile right through her tears. And it struck me that this was the time to ask about a dog.

“Mother,” I said, wiping my eyes, “I’ll do anything in all my life if you’ll only get me a dog. I’ll do housecleaning forever. I’ll practice my piano lesson night and day. I’ll never ask for any more candy. I’ll do anything!” I was trying hard not to cry again because my mom never gives us what we bawl for. “I need a dog to love,” I whispered, “and most of all I need a dog to love me back.”

Mother started to explain once more about dogs in the city, and when she got to where she says that Tom and Scott had both wanted dogs, my mind was jumping with words, and I hoped the right ones would come out. And they did. They were magic words that changed everything.

“Mother,” I said, “I’m Rulon. And I’m a different kind of boy.”

She stopped right in the middle of what she was saying, and this time she did put her arms around me and looked into my eyes with all her might. She looked for so long I could hardly breathe. Then she said quietly, “Rulon, we will get you a dog.”

We got him the next day at a pet shop—a brown and white Pomeranian puppy, round and furry, with great, dark eyes and a waggly tail. You should have seen Tom and Scott when we brought him home.

“Spoiled kid! How come Rulon gets a dog?” they said almost together.

Mother seemed baffled for an answer, so I tried the words that had worked once before.

“Because I’m a different kind of boy,” I answered.

Their mouths dropped open. And they just stood there staring at me and my pup. Then Scott said to Tom, “He can say that again.” And they both snickered. So I did say it again.

“I’m a different kind of boy,” I sang out, “and Joey is a different kind of dog. He’s really mine. All mine. But you can pet him. And maybe when you say three times, ‘There’s such a thing as Joey’ he will be your dog too.”

They weren’t snickering anymore. They were laughing a real laugh, and I laughed too all the while they were saying, “There’s such a thing as Joey. There’s such a thing as Joey. There’s such a thing as Joey.”

The McDowell family moved into a house across the street nearly six months ago. They sure are different from the rest of the families in the neighborhood!
First I met Nephi, their 11-year-old son. Nephi told me his parents named him after an ancient American prophet. I’d never heard of any ancient American prophets, but he showed me a book with his name in it—a book called the Book of Mormon.
My family goes to church, and sometimes we read the Bible. But nobody in my family had ever heard of the Book of Mormon. Nephi called it a second testament of Jesus Christ and said it was an ancient record of the Lord’s dealings with people in the Americas. That was my first clue that Nephi and his family were different.
Next I met Nephi’s older sister, Glitchen. She wasn’t named for a prophet. She was named for her great-grandmother Glitchen Kelly, who was Irish. Glitchen’s great-grandmother had red hair and married a man from Poland named Alex. Glitchen knows all this because her family studies their family history.
All I know about my family is that my parents were born here in our town. I’d like to know more, but I can’t imagine spending all the time that Glitchen’s mother does researching their ancestors.
When the McDowells first moved in, the whole neighborhood changed. For one thing, it looked better. The house they moved into hadn’t been kept up very well, but not long after unloading their furniture, the McDowells set to work repairing their new home. They painted it and fixed the front gate. Then Mr. McDowell put Nephi to work in the garden plot, clearing weeds and tilling the soil.
Back then, no one in the neighborhood cared much for gardening, but Nephi said their prophet wanted them to grow a garden and be as independent as they could. At first I thought Nephi meant the same prophet he was named after—or maybe Moses or Abraham. But Nephi said he meant the living prophet, the one who leads their church today. He said their prophet is a man who speaks for God down here on earth. After all, Nephi said, the world needs a prophet today as much as people needed one in the Bible.
When I told Mom about this living prophet, she didn’t laugh like I thought she might. Instead, she sighed and said she prayed that such things were true. That evening we went into our own abandoned garden and started pulling weeds.
So Mom, Dad, and I grew our garden, and the McDowells grew theirs. In the fall, Mom and Mrs. McDowell swapped recipes, and Mrs. McDowell taught Mom how to preserve food. Then Nephi’s dad and my dad began fishing together on Saturdays and sometimes on Friday evenings—but never on Sundays. We quickly learned just what the McDowells would and would not do on Sunday.
“It’s our Sabbath,” Nephi told me. They didn’t fish or go shopping or do anything but spend family time together and do church stuff. I felt really sorry for Nephi and Glitchen, but they didn’t seem to mind, even when I heard Nephi’s stomach growling one Sunday when he’d been fasting all day.
Now, believe it or not, after all I’ve seen of the McDowells, I like them. Maybe it’s because they laugh a lot and seem to have fun. Or maybe it’s because Nephi helped our soccer team win a few games. Or maybe it’s because I just feel good when I’m with them.
Tonight after dinner, the McDowells are bringing over some missionaries to tell my parents and me more about their church. Mom has cleaned the house and baked a cake, and Nephi and Glitchen are bringing a Book of Mormon just for me.
I’ll soon know all about Nephi the prophet and about family history stuff and gardens and the Sabbath day, plus a whole lot more. I’ll even learn what it means to be different, like the McDowells. I think sometimes different is good.

From her home near the mouth of Emigration Canyon in Salt Lake City, Sareah Gardner can hear the lions roar. It’s nothing new for her to be lying in bed at night and hear the elephants trumpeting. And if it’s really still, she’ll listen for the seals barking. The noise from a wide variety of animals is one of the advantages of living near a zoo.
Another advantage is that Sareah is close enough to Hogle Zoo that she can walk to work, something she has done each summer since 1987, when she became one of the zoo’s junior zookeepers. In this program, young people with an interest in animals can help take care of the animals by feeding them, cleaning their cages, and taking them for walks. It gives them hands-on experience with a variety of animals, and, in Sareah’s case, helps them decide if working with animals is something they want to do for a career.
“It’s a great chance to be involved with the animals, and to learn about them,” says Sareah, who thought she wanted to be a veterinarian when she began in the program. Now, graduated from high school, she says she’d rather do something involving wildlife biology.
But back when she first became a junior zookeeper, Sareah wasn’t sure if the job was for her. “When I first started, I thought, What have I gotten myself into? I didn’t expect it to be what it was.” It turned out that Sareah was asked to clean the cages her first day on the job. It wasn’t very fun, and it certainly wasn’t very glamorous. “The job has become more enjoyable, and I don’t mind what I’m doing when I’m doing the worst job,” says a more experienced Sareah, reflecting on her first days at the zoo.
Sareah’s interest in animals stems from family camping trips where she would go with her older brother and look for animal tracks, hoping to see different forms of wildlife. “It was a really neat thing to be the one who spotted the animal first, not just to see it,” she says. “Those trips have given me an appreciation for wilderness, and helped interest me in animals.”
When Sareah’s not camping, she can step into her yard and usually find animals roaming there, as well. In the nine years her family has lived in the house near the zoo, they’ve had skunks, porcupines, deer, raccoons, and quail stopping for a visit. The most recent inhabitant was a pheasant, and they’ve even had a rattlesnake stalking the premises. It’s no wonder Sareah considers her yard a refuge park.
With college in Sareah’s future, her days as a junior zookeeper are numbered. Learning about different animals has been one of the enjoyable parts of her job. In college, she expects the learning to only intensify.
As far as a career goes, she’s leaving her options open. Sareah does know that because of her love for animals, a job with animals is definitely in her future.

Illustration by Greg Newbold
After my classes finished in the late afternoon, I stopped by a tiny antique store just before I made my way home—an errand I wanted to finish despite the increased intensity of the rain. I was the only person in the store, and the woman working there helped me with the lamp I’d had my eye on.
As she opened a shopping bag, I noticed a display of brightly colored bracelets on the counter. I reached for one just as she placed the lamp into the bag. She brushed the display, and about half the bracelets clattered to the floor. She looked a little flustered but finished ringing up my purchase. I left the store, umbrella in one hand, bag with a lamp in it in the other.
I walked home, took off my wet boots, and put on some music. As I took the lamp out, I noticed something at the bottom of the bag. It was a red bracelet. It must have fallen from the display into my bag. I smiled, thinking how much this moment was beginning to resemble a story from the old Young Women manual: “Then Valerie thought of the lesson they’d just had in Laurels class.”
I tossed the bracelet on my bed and plugged in my lamp. It created a warm glow in the gray afternoon. I looked out the window. It was raining even harder, and the snow on the ground was turning to dirty slush.
I looked at the bracelet. It was cherry red. I slipped it on my wrist. The price tag swung—$20. Of course I would return it. It never entered my mind not to. I pulled it off and put it on top of a pile of books I’d been meaning to put away. I walked into the other room to make a cup of hot chocolate.
Then I walked back in.
How long had I put off dealing with those books anyway? A while. How long would that bracelet be there if I put off taking it back?
My intention was to return it. But when would that be? Would I wait so long that I would feel awkward returning it? Would I forget about it?
I hesitated a little more. I looked out the window again. I thought about how my feet had just warmed up. I thought about my delicious hot chocolate.
Then I grabbed the bracelet, pulled my boots back on, and headed back out.
When I arrived at the store, the woman was helping someone else. I stood and waited. When she finished, I pulled the bracelet out of my coat pocket, explaining how it had come to be there. She looked sort of surprised, a little confused, said thank you, and that was it. She didn’t offer me a reward for my honesty. She wasn’t excessive in her thanks. And no one else was around to see it.
As I walked home, I thought about how I’d always considered myself an honest person. It is a quality I value and look for in others. But real honesty, like real love and real charity, is an active attribute. However honorable and true my intentions, I only became an honest person when I put those rain boots back on and acted on my intentions.
I felt my bare wrist inside my coat and smiled a little.

The next step was to go to Ch’ungpoong to try to locate my father and brother. Ch’ungpoong is southwest of Jechon, in a secluded part of Korea. Many days later we took a country bus over dirt roads and rice fields to get there. When we arrived, we asked at the records office, but the officials had never heard of Kim Chin Ku. We also went to the school to check its records. The school had no record of the son, but we met a person there who knew of the family. He told us that they went by other names (not unusual for Koreans). We checked again and found a reference to a high school in Taegu, another city in southern Korea.
Back in Seoul, President Ch’oi consulted with some Church leaders in Taegu, and they were able to locate two addresses among the school records: one in Young Duk, where Kim Chin Ku had lived before his marriage to my mother, and one in Taegu. We decided to check them both. President Ch’oi’s son, who went with us, felt that we ought to go to Young Duk first. When we arrived at the village, we went to the police station. The men on duty knew of the family and offered to take us to meet them.
We rode into another secluded part of Korea through rice fields and mountains before we came to a little village at the foot of a canyon. We got out of the taxi, and Brother Ch’oi talked with one of the villagers. The man told us that Kim Chin Ku lived in the village and was working in the fields. The taxi driver offered to go find him and bring him back to us. As we waited, I felt panic. What if this man really was my father?
The taxi approached. In the back seat were two people—a little boy and an old man. We greeted each other. The elderly man was wrinkled and aged from the sun, but he had a sweet, sincere air. I felt confident that he was my father.
His real name was Kim Hong Suk, but he was also known as Kim Chin Ku. He invited us to his home. We walked up a dirt road and entered the yard, where an ox was tied to a tree. On the other side of his house was a barn. Inside the house, a straw mat was spread on the floor. We sat down, and this man—my father—sat next to me. He stared at me, and I at him. One by one, the villagers came to see us. We told him the story of our search, and he confirmed the account Mr. Ko had given.
Next we asked about the son—my brother. His name was Kim Do Yun, and he was attending a technical college in Taegu. My father indicated that he would telephone and arrange a time for us to meet. While he was telephoning, I asked the other family members if they had any family records. They brought out a huge published book of their lineage.
My father made arrangements for us to meet Kim Do Yun at a restaurant in Pohang that evening. When I met him, I had a sweet, peaceful feeling. I knew that this was the right family—my Korean family. My brother was very nervous. He trembled with emotion as we told him the story and showed him our papers. Up to now he had never known that the woman whom he had thought was his mother, was actually his stepmother. But after overcoming the initial shock, he seemed excited to be my big brother.

So, imagine wonder of these people who’ve just walked across the central plains of the United States of America on the mainland only two days after they’ve arrived, two days after they’re in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, President Brigham Young marched to a center site, stuck his cane in the ground and announced, “Here will be the Temple of our God.”[14] No one knew that it would take now nearly four million dollars in 19th-century currency[15] and 40 years to construct, but they did know what they had just been through in the Ohio, and Missouri, and Illinois.

Surely there must have been at least a few in the congregation who heard that announcement that day, and from the memory of those earlier experiences where it was simply too fresh and too painful, were feeling some resistance. “Why spend the time and the money, and the tears and the labor to build another temple that we’re going to have to abandon? Surely this is too much to ask. That’s all they knew and it’s what they expected. Surely their sacrifice was too great to ask after so much. Such a gesture can’t be this important to the Lord.”

I don’t know whether people actually said that or not. But I am guessing that they had to at least felt it and perhaps there were some who said it. We can’t know, but presuming that a few may have been so troubled and so weary, President Brigham Young anticipated that and said on that day on that spot:

“Some will inquire, ‘Do you suppose we will finish this temple, Brother Brigham!’ I have had such questions put to me already. My answer is, I do not know, and I do not care. . . I have never cared but for one thing, and that is, simply to know that I am now right before my Father in Heaven. If I am this moment, this day, doing the things God requires of my hands, and precisely where my Father in Heaven wants me to be, I care no more about tomorrow than though it never would come. I do not know where I shall be tomorrow, nor do I know when this temple will be done. . . .

“This I do know?there should be a temple built here. I do know it is the duty of this people to commence to build a temple.”[16]

Years ago, I befriended a group of young men in Boston. While my initial connection to these youth came from a Church calling, the relationships quickly grew to the point where I saw them the way the Lord saw them, and I grew to love them as if they were my family. And, like I would with my own children, I began to counsel and teach them things as a father would. That meant our conversations went far beyond requests to participate in stake activities or attend church. A desire grew in me to teach them so the gospel would sink deep into their hearts. Our conversations expanded to include plans for missions, how to be an effective missionary, college preparation, the importance of marriage, and early careers.
Here is a picture of three of those young men when they were later students at BYU-Idaho and I was visiting as a guest of the university. In that setting, on that day, in this very auditorium, I shared with them counsel about how to succeed at BYU-Idaho and how to become who the Lord wanted them to become.
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Here is a picture of some of those youth from Boston when they came to our inauguration last year. Most of them are or will be graduates of BYU-Idaho. Many of them have been married in the temple and are starting productive careers and beautiful families. Not all of their lives have been perfect or easy, but they are trying to do their best. I hope they all know they are children of promise.