Gospel Story Finder

Page 104: President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, told a story about his father searching for church one Sunday while he was visiting Australia. As he searched, he prayed at each street intersection to know which direction he should walk. Soon he heard singing and knew that the Holy Ghost had helped him find his way. Think of a time when you felt the Holy Ghost. How did it make you feel?

During the exodus of the Latter-day Saints from Missouri, ordered by Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, a man taunted Eliza R. Snow, saying, “Well, I think this will cure you of your faith.” She retorted, “No, sir, it will take more than this to cure me of my faith.” He humbly responded, “I must confess you are a better soldier than I am.” Later Eliza would write, “I passed on, thinking that, unless he was above the average of his fellows in that section, I was not complimented by his confession.”

My message is to those who are converts to the Church. More than half the members of the Church today chose to be baptized after the age of eight. So you are not the exception in the Church. To you I wish to say how much the Lord loves you and trusts you. And, even more, I wish to tell you how much He depends on you.
You felt His love at least to some degree when you were baptized. Years ago I took a young man, 20 years of age, into the waters of baptism. My companion and I had taught him the gospel. He was the first in his family to hear the message of the restored gospel. He asked to be baptized. The testimony of the Spirit made him want to follow the example of the Savior, who was baptized by John the Baptist even though He was without sin.
As I brought that young man up out of the waters of baptism, he surprised me by throwing his arms around my neck and whispering in my ear, tears streaming down his face, “I’m clean, I’m clean.” That same young man, after we laid our hands on his head with the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood and conferred on him the Holy Ghost, said to me, “When you spoke those words, I felt something like fire go down from the top of my head through my body, all the way to my feet.”
Your experience will have been unique to you, but to some degree you felt the magnitude of the blessing which came to you. Since then, you have felt the reality of the promises made to you and the promises you made. You have felt the cleansing that came from your baptism, because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And you have felt the change in your heart as the Holy Ghost has become your companion. Your desires have begun to change.
When someone tells me that he or she is a convert to the Church, I ask, “Has anyone else in your family accepted the gospel?” When the answer is “Yes,” there follows an excited description of the happy miracle in the life of a parent or a brother or sister or a grandparent. There is joy in knowing that someone in his or her family is sharing the blessing and the happiness. When the answer is “No, so far I am the only member,” he or she will almost always speak of parents, saying something like this, “No, not yet. But I am still trying.” And you can tell from the sound in the voice that the convert will never stop trying, not ever.
The Lord knew you would have those feelings when He allowed you to receive the covenants which are blessing your life. He knew you would feel a desire for your family to share the blessings you felt coming into the Church. Even more, He knew how that desire would increase when you came to know the joy of the promises He makes to us in sacred temples. There, for those who qualify, He lets us make covenants with Him. We promise to obey His commandments. And He promises us, if we are faithful, that we may live with Him in glory in families forever in the world to come.
In His loving-kindness, He knew you would have a desire to be bound forever to your parents and their parents. You may have had a grandfather like mine, who always seemed to treasure my visits. I thought I was his favorite grandchild until my cousins told me they felt the same way. He is gone now. All my grandparents and their ancestors have died. Many of your ancestors died never having the chance to accept the gospel and to receive the blessings and promises you have received. The Lord is fair and He is loving. And so He prepared for you and me a way for us to have the desire of our hearts to offer to our ancestors all the blessings He has offered us.
The plan to make that possible has been in place from the beginning. The Lord gave promises to His children long ago. The very last book of the Old Testament is the book of the prophet Malachi. And the last words are a sweet promise and a stern warning:
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”
Some of those words are crucial to understand. The great and dreadful day of the Lord is the end of the world. Jehovah, the Messiah, will come in glory. The wicked will all be destroyed. We live in the last days. Time could be running out for us to do what we have promised to do.
It is important to know why the Lord promised to send Elijah. Elijah was a great prophet with great power given him by God. He held the greatest power God gives to His children: he held the sealing power, the power to bind on earth and have it bound in heaven. God gave it to the Apostle Peter. And the Lord kept His promise to send Elijah. Elijah came to the Prophet Joseph Smith on April 3, 1836, just after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, the first temple built after the Restoration of the gospel. Joseph described the sacred moment:
“Another great and glorious vision burst upon us; for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said:
“Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come—
“To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse—
“Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.”
As you came into the Church, you have felt your heart being turned toward family, both those who are living and those who are in the spirit world. The Lord provided another vision to help you know what to do with those feelings.
After Joseph Smith, the Lord called other prophets to lead His Church. One was Joseph F. Smith. He saw in vision what happened in the spirit world when the Savior appeared there between the time of His death and His Resurrection. President Smith saw the joy of the spirits when they learned that the Savior had broken the bands of death and because of His Atonement they could be resurrected. And he saw the Savior organize His servants among the spirits to preach His gospel to every spirit and offer the chance to choose the covenants and the blessings which are offered to you and which you want for your ancestors. All are to have that chance.
President Smith also saw the leaders the Savior called to take the gospel to Heavenly Father’s children in the spirit world. He named some of them: Father Adam, Mother Eve, Noah, Abraham, Ezekiel, Elijah, prophets we know from the Book of Mormon, and some from the last days, including Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff. Think of the power of those missionaries to teach the gospel and to touch the hearts of your ancestors. It is not surprising that Wilford Woodruff said while he lived that he believed few, if any, of the ancestors of the Latter-day Saints in the spirit world would choose to reject the message of salvation when they heard it.
Many of your deceased ancestors will have received a testimony that the message of the missionaries is true. When you received that testimony you could ask the missionaries for baptism. But those who are in the spirit world cannot. The ordinances you so cherish are offered only in this world. Someone in this world must go to a holy temple and accept the covenants on behalf of the person in the spirit world. That is why we are under obligation to find the names of our ancestors and ensure that they are offered by us what they cannot receive there without our help.
For me, knowing that turns my heart not only to my ancestors who wait but to the missionaries who teach them. I will see those missionaries in the spirit world, and so will you. Think of a faithful missionary standing there with those he has loved and taught who are your ancestors. Picture as I do the smile on the face of that missionary as you walk up to him and your ancestors whom he converted but could not baptize or have sealed to family until you came to the rescue. I do not know what the protocol will be in such a place, but I imagine arms thrown around your neck and tears of gratitude.
If you can imagine the smile of the missionary and your ancestor, think of the Savior when you meet Him. You will have that interview. He paid the price of the sins of you and all of Heavenly Father’s spirit children. He is Jehovah. He sent Elijah. He conferred the powers of the priesthood to seal and to bless out of perfect love. And He has trusted you by letting you hear the gospel in your lifetime, giving you the chance to accept the obligation to offer it to those of your ancestors who did not have your priceless opportunity. Think of the gratitude He has for those who pay the price in work and faith to find the names of their ancestors and who love them and Him enough to offer them eternal life in families, the greatest of all the gifts of God. He offered them an infinite sacrifice. He will love and appreciate those who paid whatever price they could to allow their ancestors to choose His offer of eternal life.
Because your heart has already been turned, the price may not seem high. You begin by doing simple things. Write down what you already know about your family. You will need to write down the names of parents and their parents with the dates of birth or death or marriage. When you can, you will want to record the places. Some of that you will know from memory. But you can also ask relatives. They may even have some certificates of births, marriages, or deaths. Make copies and organize them. If you learn stories about their lives, write them down and keep them. You are not just gathering names. Those you never met in life will become friends you love. Your heart will be bound to theirs forever.
You can start searching in the first few generations going back in time. From that you will identify many of your ancestors who need your help. Someone in your own ward or branch of the Church has been called to help you prepare those names for the temple. There they can be offered the covenants which will free them from their spirit prisons and bind them in families—your family—forever.
Your opportunities and the obligations they create are remarkable in the whole history of the world. There are more temples across the earth than there have ever been. More people in all the world have felt the Spirit of Elijah move them to record the identities and facts of their ancestors’ lives. There are more resources to search out your ancestors than there have ever been in the history of the world. The Lord has poured out knowledge about how to make that information available worldwide through technology that a few years ago would have seemed a miracle.
With those opportunities there comes greater obligation to keep our trust with the Lord. Where much is given, much is required. After you find the first few generations, the road will become more difficult. The price will become greater. As you go back in time, the records become less complete. As others of your family search out ancestors, you will discover that the ancestor you find has already been offered the full blessings of the temple. Then you will have a difficult and important choice to make. You will be tempted to stop and leave the hard work of finding to others who are more expert or to another time in your life. But you will also feel a tug on your heart to go on in the work, hard as it will be.
As you decide, remember that the names which will be so difficult to find are of real people to whom you owe your existence in this world and whom you will meet again in the spirit world. When you were baptized, your ancestors looked down on you with hope. Perhaps after centuries, they rejoiced to see one of their descendants make a covenant to find them and to offer them freedom. In your reunion, you will see in their eyes either gratitude or terrible disappointment. Their hearts are bound to you. Their hope is in your hands. You will have more than your own strength as you choose to labor on to find them.
A few nights ago I had a dream. I saw a piece of white paper with a name on it I did not know and a date I could only partially read. I got up and went to the records of my family. The last name on the slip of paper is from a line which came into my mother’s ancestry 300 years ago in a place called Eaton Bray. Someone is anxious for a long wait to end. I have not yet found that person. But I have found again the assurance that a loving God sends help in answer to prayer in this sacred work of redeeming our families, which is His work and His glory and to which we have pledged our hearts. I so testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

After I finished high school I got a job that didn’t pay very much, and I was embarrassed to be paying so little tithing. One of my friends reminded me of Jesus praising the poor widow (see Luke 21:1–4). From that point on, those thoughts didn’t return to my mind. I continued to pay a full tithing. Later on I was blessed to get a better job and earn money for my mission.
Fabián Argote Montalvo,Las Granjas Ward, Neiva Colombia Stake

The Young Women in the Hemet Third Ward, Hemet California Stake, used their artistic talents to provide a quiet activity for children waiting to be sealed to their parents in the temple. The girls painted wooden dolls and puzzles for the children to play with.
After their project was completed, the girls were told they could see their toys in use when they went on their next trip to do baptisms for the dead. Now they have other reasons to look forward to going to the temple!

At one time or another each of us will be called to fill a position in the Church, whether as a deacons quorum president, a teachers quorum secretary, a priesthood adviser, a class teacher, a bishop. I could name more, but you get the picture. I was just 22 years of age when I was called to be the bishop of the Sixth-Seventh Ward in Salt Lake City. With 1,080 members in the ward, a great deal of effort was required to make certain that every matter which needed to be handled was taken care of and every member of the ward felt included and watched over. Although the assignment was monumental in scope, I did not let it overwhelm me. I went to work, as did others, and did all I could to serve. Each of us can do the same, regardless of the calling or assignment.
Just last year I decided to see how many residential dwellings were still standing from the period between 1950 and 1955 when I served as bishop of that same area. I drove slowly around each of the blocks that once comprised the ward. I was surprised to observe in my search that of all the houses and apartment buildings where our 1,080 members had lived, only three dwellings were still standing. At one of those houses, the grass was overgrown, the trees unpruned, and I found no one was living there. Of the other two houses remaining, one was boarded up and unoccupied, and the other housed some sort of a modest business office.
I parked my car, turned off the ignition, and just sat there for a long while. I could picture in my mind each house, each apartment building, each member who lived there. While the homes and the buildings were gone, the memories were still very vivid concerning the families who resided in each dwelling. I thought of the words of the author James Barrie, who wrote that God gave us memories that we might have June roses in the December of our lives. How grateful I was for the opportunity to serve in that assignment. Such can be the blessing of each of us if we put forth in our assignments our very best efforts.

It was a cold, blustery Sunday afternoon. I was away from home serving in the South African army, and the 10 men of our section had gathered in our tent to visit and relax after having just completed some chores. Unfortunately, much of the conversation became crude, as often happens among young men in such circumstances.
I was uncomfortable and thought about leaving. My eyes turned toward the tent door, which was flapping wildly in the wind and failing to hold back the chill of winter. The sight immediately convinced me it would be foolish to leave, so I decided to remain inside and read my scriptures. Although it had not been uncommon for me to read from them in the presence of these men, on this day it would prove to be difficult. The discussion soon took a turn for the worse as my friend, something of a ringleader in the group, began telling some dirty stories.
My immediate impulse was to object out loud. However, I was checked by the thought that others might consider me self-righteous and accuse me of trying to spoil their fun. After a few troubling moments, I decided to do the only thing I thought possible under the circumstances: shut my ears and concentrate on my reading. This approach worked somewhat. Yet I could not shrug off a feeling of uneasiness.
Time has a way of clouding our memories, and within a few weeks I forgot about the experience. Then, two years later, my friend did something that brought the memory of that day back into focus. We were in the presence of a number of soldiers who were drinking beer. In the group was a man I didn’t know. He began teasing me for not joining them in drinking a little alcohol. My friend rose to my defense and added with an earnestness that surprised me, “Chris Golden is the only true Christian in our group.” Others who knew me joined my friend in defending me, which silenced my critic.
Later, as my friend and I walked back toward our foxhole on a gray, half-moonlit night, he suddenly stopped and looked at me with a seriousness I had not been accustomed to during our friendship. He recalled the event of earlier that evening and said, “I meant what I said. In fact, I have never met an individual who has been more true to his faith in God than you, Chris!”
This was unexpected. Even though I had always tried to live the gospel, I felt I had not done more than many Latter-day Saints would have done in similar circumstances, and I had always tried to do it without drawing attention to myself.
Still, he had more to say: “You have let me down only once.” My shock at his matter-of-fact accusation was matched only by the speed with which my mind raced through all of the events we had shared together. I finally remembered that blustery, cold Sunday two years earlier. My friend’s words exposed painful memories of a day I would rather have forgotten.
He continued, “Do you remember that cold Sunday afternoon when we were sitting inside our tent and telling stories, some of which I frankly now feel quite embarrassed about?”
I nodded a little numbly in acknowledgment. Standing opposite him, I hoped that the shadows of the night hid my discomfort.
He said, “While I was talking, I had been silently praying that you would ask me to stop telling those dirty stories—but you did nothing.”
During the long silence that followed his stinging condemnation, a deep sense of disappointment welled up within me. I had let not only him down, but I had failed the Lord—and myself.
Ever since that day, I have tried not to make the same mistake. I was taught an important lesson about the true meaning of the Lord’s command to “let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). Observing that “no man can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24), the Savior counseled us, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33).

The dorm was quiet Saturday night because nearly everyone except Carol was on a date. She studied until 10:30 and went to bed.
A little past midnight the overhead light flashed on, and her roommate Natalie bounced in and gleefully announced her engagement to David. For the next 15 minutes she sat on Carol’s bed and gave a complete playback.
Finally she stopped, looked seriously at Carol, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. How must you feel listening to me go on and on?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s not fair that I’m a junior and engaged and you’re a senior with no prospects. You must hate me.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“How can you be? This is your last semester. If you don’t find anyone now, what’ll become of you?”
“Don’t worry,” Carol said nonchalantly.
“You’re so brave,” Natalie said, “but don’t worry. Now that I’m engaged, I’ll devote my efforts to helping you find someone. Now don’t fall asleep because while I brush my teeth I’m going to plan it all out.”
As soon as she left, Carol’s smile vanished. What would she do if nobody ever asked her to get married? She never used to think about it, but lately it kept surfacing, like some Loch Ness monster in her mind.
A minute later, smelling of toothpaste, Natalie returned. “I’ve got it all figured out. You can date David’s roommate—his name is Tom. He’s a senior too, so he must be as desperate as you.”
Natalie spent the next few days coaching Carol, teaching her stock phrases designed to boost a guy’s ego. Carol didn’t find it strange that Natalie believed they were necessary to impress a guy, but what did surprise her was that for the first time in her life, she was trying to fit someone else’s mold, because she very much wanted to find a husband.
David and Tom were invited for supper on Saturday evening. Carol hoped that Tom would not be too much like David, who never seemed completely human to her. She could imagine that he was a cleverly made robot, and that someone plugged him in at night to recharge his battery pack. Also there was his smell—the aroma of the chemistry lab always permeated his clothes.
At least Tom was not a chemistry major, Carol thought. He was a civil engineering student specializing in concrete, one who had brought fame to the school by designing and building a concrete canoe which actually floated and had won a race against other colleges.
By the time Saturday night arrived, Carol was wearing Natalie’s dress, sporting her hair style, and mouthing the guaranteed phrases.
Finally the time arrived and so did David and Tom. Carol’s first reaction to meeting Tom was to inhale sharply, trying to find out if the rancid smell coming from the pair was from David or Tom. Was it nitric acid or sulfur dioxide, she wondered, trying to remember back to her high school chemistry class.
“Well, let’s get acquainted, shall we?” David said heartily, attempting to be warm and human. “Carol, I keep forgetting—what’s your major?”
“Music education,” she said, repeating the answer to the question David asked each time he came to pick up Natalie. It was his version of conversation.
“Oh sure,” he said with a superior grin. “You came to college to learn how to sing songs and play games—right?”
“Actually,” Carol said, fighting to maintain her pleasant smile, which Natalie stressed was a necessity for the evening, “it’s a difficult discipline.”
“Oh sure. I bet you have to learn how to use the pitch pipe, don’t you?” David said, laughing at his little joke.
Tom turned to her and said, “I’m sure there must be more to it than just singing songs.”
She liked him for rescuing her from David’s superiority complex. She leaned toward him and took a whiff. He was not the one who smelled like rotten eggs. It must be David.
“Yes, there is,” she said.
“Would you like to tell me about it?” Tom asked.
“Oh, there’s not much to tell. Besides, I’m dying to hear about your concrete canoe. I heard about you winning the race against the other schools.”
“Well, it floated. That’s one of the most important things you want in a canoe.”
“And you built it yourself?” she said, gushing the way Natalie had taught her.
“It wasn’t that hard.”
“Oh, I could never do anything as complicated as that. You must be so smart.”
Natalie winked at her to tell her she was doing well with Tom, and then she left to borrow something from another apartment. David sat down and played with his $700 programmable calculator.
A few minutes later Tom again asked about her major, and she offered to show him what she was doing that semester. She went to her room and returned with a tuba mouthpiece.
“Where’d you get that?” he asked.
“Brass workshop,” she said.
His eyes widened in astonishment. “You made that in a brass workshop?”
“No,” she laughed, “a brass instrument workshop. I have to learn to play every instrument, and right now it’s the tuba.”
She showed him how to hold his lips for the mouthpiece.
“I’ve always wanted to play the tuba,” he said.
“I brought it home for the weekend. If you want, I’ll bring it out for you to try.”
In a minute she was back from her room with the tuba.
“Play me a song first,” he said.
“This will be ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’,” she said, preparing to play. With some difficulty, she made it through.
“When I hear that song on the tuba,” he said, “I picture a two-ton lamb who roams the fields scaring the socks off the local coyotes.”
He’s got a sense of humor, she thought approvingly.
Just then Natalie returned, took one look at the tuba, and said icily, “Carol, could I have a word with you in private?”
They went to their room.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked. “Do you think a guy will fall in love with a girl tuba player?”
“He seems interested in it.”
“Oh sure, he’ll say he’s interested, and he’ll let you make a fool of yourself, but let me tell you, when it comes to taking a girl home to meet his parents, it won’t be the girl with the tuba. No sir!”
“Why not?”
“Tubas aren’t feminine! You can play the piano or the violin or the clarinet for him, but the girl who plays the tuba will never marry.”
If there had been anyone else waiting in the kitchen, she might have argued with Natalie about the tuba, but she felt a deepening interest in Tom, and in the worst way didn’t want to harm her chances.
“What should I do?” Carol asked.
“I’ll get David to put the tuba away. Here, you put on this crocheted shawl of mine and go in there and imply you made it.”
“Imply?”
“Just go in and ask him how he likes your homemade shawl. Say to him, ‘Alhm made this shawl.’”
“I don’t want to lie.”
“It’s not lying. There’s a lady down the street, her last name is Alhm, and she made it, so you can tell him that Alhm made this shawl.”
A few minutes later Natalie coached Carol in the kitchen with the shawl.
“Are you cold?” Tom asked, looking at the shawl.
Carol wasn’t sure what she should answer so she looked at Natalie who nodded her head. “Yes, a little.” Then her conscience got the best of her. “No, not really.”
“It’s pretty.”
Natalie looked sharply at Carol and waited.
Finally she did it. “Alhm made this shawl,” she whispered.
“I can’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Alhm made this shawl.”
“Really? You made it?”
She looked down at the floor and knew she was blushing, and then shook her head and said, “No, not me, a Sister Alhm made it. I don’t know anything about crocheting.”
Natalie cleared her throat and asked to see Carol again. They both returned to their room.
“Why can’t you just do what I say? Then he’d fall for you. Don’t you like him?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then just do what I say.”
“I’ve never lied like that. It makes me nervous. And I don’t like the idea of putting up a phony image.”
“Everyone does it—it’s a part of life to hide things from others. Listen to me. I can make him fall in love with you if you’ll just cooperate. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but who would he love?”
“He’d love you.”
“Which me—the real me or the phony one?”
“What does it matter as long as he asks you to marry him? Okay, we’ll forget the shawl, and I won’t ask you to lie. I’ll go in and ask you to drain the spaghetti, and David and I will leave to borrow some dessert goblets. You say to him, ‘Tom, this pot of spaghetti is so heavy. You’re so strong. Could I get you to lift it from the stove and help drain it?’ And after he does it, you tell him how wonderful he is.”
“I’ve drained spaghetti by myself since I was ten years old,” Carol said quietly.
“I know, but men need to feel strong and masculine, especially these days when they’ve been replaced by electricity. Besides, what’s the harm? Men are supposed to be strong, aren’t they?”
A few minutes later Tom lifted the large pot off the stove onto the counter next to the sink.
“You’re so strong,” Carol said, nearly choking at the words. She dumped several pitchers of cold water on the noodles to rinse them out, and then asked him to tip the pot so the water would run out.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“A little more.”
He tipped it too much, causing the noodles to rush into the kitchen sink, at the same time spilling water all over their shoes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it. Just think of the mess I would’ve made if I’d tried to do it myself.”
She went to her room, found another pair of shoes for herself, and decided the only thing she had that he could wear was her ancient slippers with the bunny face on each toe. They were well worn with all but one of the button eyes missing and one bunny ear gone.
“Golly, look at them,” he laughed as she brought him the slippers.
“I got ’em as a joke my first semester here. I’ve worn them for nearly four years now.”
“Poor bunny rabbit,” he said, looking at the one eye on one of the slippers. “Do you ever write imaginary talks?” he said. “Brothers and Sisters, each of us in life is given a new pair of bunny slippers. But what do we do with them? For some of us, the little ears have come off, and we haven’t got around to sewing them back on. Brothers and Sisters, what have you done with life’s bunny rabbit slippers?”
She smiled and told him he was clever. She wanted to say more but was afraid it might be the wrong thing.
They had left the water on to let the spaghetti rinse itself out, and soon heard the water overflowing onto the floor.
Tom turned the water off and scooped the noodles out and plopped them back in the pot. The entire drain pipe was crammed shut with noodles.
Just then David and Natalie returned with the dessert goblets.
“Why are you both looking down the drain?” David asked.
“It’s clogged,” Tom said.
“Let me take a look,” David said, scooting Tom and Carol out of his way. After carefully examining the situation for a while, he summed it up, “There’s noodles in your drain pipe. That’s your problem.”
Carol backed away from David. Maybe it was hydrochloric acid she was smelling.
“Somebody forgot to put the stopper in the drain,” David said ominously.
“I always put the stopper in the drain,” Natalie said self-righteously.
“Well, somebody forgot,” David said. “If the stopper had been where it belongs, the drain pipe wouldn’t now be full of noodles.”
Natalie and David looked with silent accusation toward Carol.
Tom took a large knife and stuck it down the drain pipe, trying to cut the noodles into little pieces.
“No, no, that’s not the way!” David barked. “If we’re going to do a job, then let’s do it properly. We’ve first got to remove the trap down below. Let me show you.”
With a flair for the dramatic, David opened the cupboard below the sink and pointed. “You see that bend in the drain pipe there? That’s what we call the trap. Do you see it there, Natalie?”
“Oh yes,” she said, “there it is. Oh, David, you’re so smart. How did you ever know about that? I’ve never noticed it before. So that’s the trap.”
“I’ve got a pair of pliers in my car,” Tom said.
“No, not pliers,” David said, on his knees looking at the trap. “Pliers would be the very worst thing to use. Let me give you some advice. In plumbing, if you use the wrong tool, you can harm your threads. Do you know how many people end up buying new fixtures because they’ve harmed their threads?”
Carol wanted to put her hand on Tom’s arm and tell him she didn’t care about plumbing threads, but she didn’t say anything. Natalie hadn’t coached her about what to say when the drain is clogged.
“You know,” David continued, “it’s a good thing I always carry a set of tools in my car. Natalie, will you take this key, go out to the car, open the trunk, and bring me a pipe wrench?”
“I can get it for you,” Tom offered.
“No, no. Natalie and I are a team, aren’t we, dear?”
“With you telling me what to do, we are.”
“While you’re doing that, I’ll clear away this junk down below so we can get to the trap.”
“You’re so smart,” Natalie said before leaving.
A minute later she returned with the wrench.
David, whose head was in the cupboard, pushed himself out, took one look at the wrench and scowled. “No, dear,” he said, his voice grating, “this is a crescent wrench and I asked for a pipe wrench. Can you go out again and get me a pipe wrench?”
Natalie smiled faintly and looked as if she were going to cry.
“Now what’s wrong?”
“I left the keys in the trunk.”
David sat up on the floor and stared at her. “Why would you do a dumb thing like that?”
“I had to go through the entire tool chest, and I must’ve set the keys down while I was looking.”
“You left the keys in the trunk and then closed it?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Sorry isn’t going to open the trunk, is it? Without the keys, how am I going to get back to the lab and check my experiment? Well, we’ll just have to get the keys, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry,” Natalie pleaded.
“I have to watch you all the time, don’t I?”
That’s when Carol realized that if you play the role of being less than you are, then before long people will treat you that way. Suddenly she didn’t want to play the games Natalie had set for her, even if it meant that Tom was turned off by it, because she realized that she was important and if she didn’t treat herself with respect, nobody else would.
From now on, I’m going to be me, she thought. And if that turns the guy off, then that’s tough.
Natalie started to sniffle. “I’ve ruined the whole evening, haven’t I?”
“Maybe next time you’ll remember to make sure you have the keys with you when you close the trunk,” David continued.
“Yes, dear, I will.”
“Well, it’s water under the bridge, isn’t it? We’ll have to take out the back seat, crawl in through there, get the keys, and fix the drain. We might as well get going.”
“I don’t think I want to go out and watch,” Carol said.
“Aren’t you going to help us?” David said.
“I don’t think so. We’ll just stand around watching you do everything, and I don’t want to do that.”
She realized that Tom was looking at her with a bewildered expression on his face.
“The least you can do is come out and show some interest,” Natalie said. “It’s your fault the drain was clogged anyway. The least you can do is show appreciation to David for making things right.”
“Maybe David will need some help,” Tom said, trying to smooth things over.
“All right,” she said, walking over to the tuba.
“I hope you aren’t planning on taking that outside,” Natalie said.
“I am,” she answered.
“You’ll never get married,” Natalie whispered as she marched past her. Carol followed after her playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
To watch David giving a detailed description of everything he was doing one would have thought he was the first man on the moon.
Tom and Carol sat on the hood of the car and traded off playing the tuba. Every few minutes, Natalie would look up from her reverential attention to David’s work and give them a withering glance because they were not paying sufficient homage to his efforts.
After David had retrieved the keys, fixed the drain, and cleaned out the trap, he decided to return to the lab to check on his experiment. Natalie left with him.
Carol and Tom sat in the kitchen, talked, and played the tuba.
“You know,” Tom said contentedly, “this is a picture, isn’t it? Me here in these bunny slippers, you playing songs on the tuba. I think I could do this forever.”
“That won’t be possible,” she said, finding enough courage to tease him.
“Why not?”
“Next Wednesday I have to turn in my tuba, and it’ll all come to an end.”
“And then what?” he asked, looking as if he had a little more than tubas on his mind.
She looked at him for a second, smiled, and said, “The trombone.”
“Ah, the trombone,” he repeated with a grin. “One of my favorites.”
Two weeks later, if you had been standing on the shore, you might have marveled at the sight of the handsome couple in a concrete canoe, the guy paddling slowly along the shoreline while the girl happily played a love song on the trombone.
Well, it wasn’t actually a love song. It was “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” But it was played with deep feeling.

Elder Monte J. Brough of the First Quorum of the Seventy tells of a summer at his childhood home in Randolph, Utah, when he and his younger brother, Max, decided to build a tree house in a large tree in the backyard. They made plans for the most wonderful creation of their lives. They gathered building materials from all over the neighborhood and carried them up to a part of the tree where two branches provided an ideal location for the house. It was difficult, and they were anxious to complete their work. The vision of the finished tree house provided tremendous motivation for them to complete the project.

They worked all summer, and finally in the fall just before school began for the new year, their house was completed. Elder Brough said he will never forget the feelings of joy and satisfaction which were theirs when they finally were able to enjoy the fruit of their work. They sat in the tree house, looked around for a few minutes, climbed down from the tree—and never returned. The completed project, as wonderful as it was, could not hold their interest for even one day. In other words, the process of planning, gathering, building, and working—not the completed project—provided the enduring satisfaction and pleasure they had experienced.

Let us relish life as we live it and, as did Elder Brough and his brother, Max, find joy in the journey.

I think my young son understood this when he was only three. One morning I stepped to our back door to see the children off to school. Our little three-year-old son followed the children to the edge of the yard and watched them as they cut across the grass of a newly moved-in neighbor. Enraged, the neighbor called out, “Don’t you kids ever cut across my lawn. Don’t you dare step one foot on it again.” He couldn’t see me, but I could surely hear him, and so could every other mother that was out to see her child off to school. As sweetly as three-year-olds can talk, ours turned to this angry neighbor and said, “You can step on our lawn if you want to.” The next day that neighbor came out with a big smile and a darling teddy bear, and he gave it to our little son. There was never again a problem over that lawn.

Sacred music is an important part of any Church gathering and when the committee coordinators looked for someone to conduct a special choral item for this event, Sister Adele Wi Repa from Auckland Henderson Stake’s West Harbour Ward was the first person who came to mind.
“I had a giggle when Brother and Sister Smith said that,” Adele says, “because I don’t think they knew anyone else! But I felt very grateful and privileged.”
Adele’s first task was to find the right song for the occasion. She searched the internet for suitable sheet music, but it soon became clear that she needed to arrange the song herself. To allow the choir time to learn her composition, Adele gave herself one week, and stopped working on the song at the end of that week despite her concerns that it wasn’t quite finished yet. The result of her effort was a beautiful arrangement of the well-loved hymn, Joseph Smith’s First Prayer.

I belong to a family of five, and we attend church every Sunday, all except my dad. He is not a member of the Church, and this makes me sad. He is a very good dad and sometimes comes to parties or trips organized by the ward. I would like it if he always came.
My mom taught me in Primary that Heavenly Father listens to our prayers and wants to help us. So I said a prayer that He would help my dad understand how much the gospel means for our family.
One Saturday I was about to watch TV when something happened. My dad came and said there were better things I could be doing instead of sitting in front of the TV. “For example,” he said, “what would you think if I read you a nice story from the Liahona?”
So he sat down with me and my two little brothers and read to us. I don’t know how my dad knew those stories were in the Liahona. But I do know that Heavenly Father had listened to my prayers and answered, touching my dad’s heart so he read something in the Church magazine.
I thank my Heavenly Father because He listens to my prayers.

When I was older, I backpacked into Glacier National Park. I rose one morning at five o’clock and walked to Lake Elizabeth. There wasn’t a ripple to break the surface of the water. The peaks behind were lit by the rising sun, whose light reflected off a hundred tiny waterfalls. There was just a hint of pink against the morning blue of the sky. I could smell the pines, feel the breeze, and hear a pair of birds. My words were inadequate to describe the majesty of the moment, but words that had been revealed to Joseph Smith came to mind:
“All things which come of the earth … are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart; … to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul. And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man” (D&C 59:18–20; emphasis added).
That morning, I could feel God’s pleasure, his love of beauty and solitude.

The Lord does manifest His power among His faithful. Alejandra Briones Parra of Madrid, Spain, testifies of this sustaining influence: “One day my sister became very ill. I went to a quiet place in our home and knelt down to pray. With tears in my eyes, I asked Heavenly Father to bless my sister and to give me strength and peace. As I poured out my heart, feelings of security and peace rushed over me. I had entered the room with tears of anguish—when I left it, my tears were of joy. I knew everything would be all right, and I knew Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are always there, eager to help and console us and to give us Their love.”

Illustrations by Vivienne To
If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s bullies.
If there’s one word I don’t like, it’s ugly.
If there’s one thing I don’t like doing, it’s crying.
And if there’s one person I don’t like, it’s Olivia. She’s a bully. She calls me “ugly,” and that makes me cry. Plus, she picks on my friends. She makes fun of my clothes. And her name even sounds like olives—the one thing I don’t like on pizza.
I had to do something about Olivia. So I made a plan. I would tell her what I really thought. I would hurt her back.
All morning I practiced my speech in my head. I could imagine the scene exactly. She’d walk past me at recess and say something rude. Then I’d step in front of her and put my hands on my hips. She would suddenly look very small.
“Olivia,” I’d say, “you think you’re so much better than me, but you’re not. I’m four months older than you. I get better grades in reading than you. And I’m nicer to people than you.” Everyone on the playground would stare at us. They would see how cool I was. They would see how awful Olivia was. Olivia would beg me to forgive her, or maybe she’d just run away and cry.
I liked both ideas.
At morning recess I was ready. Olivia walked past me just like I knew she would. “Don’t you know half the people at school think you’re ugly?” Olivia said to me.
I wanted to give my speech, but now it just sounded silly. “Well, you’re uglier,” I finally said.
Olivia just laughed. “Whatever.”
I couldn’t say anything else, so I just walked to the bathroom with my head held high. But once no one could see me, I cried and cried and cried.
When I looked at my face in the mirror, it was splotchy and red. Maybe Olivia was right. Maybe I was ugly.
I felt ugly on the inside too. What had happened to my plan? This was no good! I had tried being mean, and it only made me feel worse.
When the bell rang, I washed my face so no one would see how much I cried. The splotches went away. The bad feeling didn’t.
I sat in class and tried to think of a new plan. But I was stumped. If being mean didn’t work, what would?
At lunch I ate as fast as I could and then hurried outside to hide from Olivia. I sat by the wall and tried to squeeze all of me, even my shoes, inside its shadow.
When Olivia came outside, she didn’t notice me. She just strutted to the corner of the playground. I watched her play with a small rubber ball. She bounced and caught, bounced and caught, bounced and … didn’t catch. A boy on the playground caught it first.
“Give it back,” I heard Olivia tell the boy.
“No way, Ugly Face. I caught it,” the boy said.
“But it’s mine,” she said.
I felt like I should help her. Help Olivia? I thought. Help the bully who calls me “ugly” and makes me cry?
But Olivia was being bullied now. I knew how bad that felt. So I stepped out of the shadow and marched over to the boy.
“It’s hers,” I said. “Give it back.”
“No.” He laughed and waved it in front of Olivia’s face. Then he threw it as hard as he could and ran away. “See ya, losers!” he called over his shoulder.
He didn’t see where the ball went. He didn’t care. But I did. I saw it hit the basketball hoop. I saw it bounce twice and land in the grass. So I found it and took it to Olivia.
When I got close, I could see there were tears on her face. If there’s one thing I didn’t know Olivia could do, it’s cry.
I pretended I didn’t notice, though, so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed. “Here you go.”
Olivia took the ball. “Thank you,” she said. If there’s one thing I didn’t know Olivia could say, it’s “thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” If there’s one thing I didn’t know I could do, it’s feel good for being kind to Olivia.

Some of my personal feelings were very spiritual. To look down on the earth from space is absolutely incredible. I knew ahead of time just exactly what I was going to see. I was intellectually prepared, but I was not prepared emotionally for what I saw. The world is very large. I knew that. But to see this huge, magnificent sphere slowly rotating beneath me was overwhelming. I have no ability to describe what it was really like, and no photographic emulsion can even start to do it justice. The visibility, of course, was excellent. But I was amazed at the intensity of the colors. I estimated that there were twenty shades of intense blue as the earth’s atmosphere changes from the gray of the curved horizon into the incredible black void of space. And when you look at an archipelago of islands, there are hundreds of shades of blue and green and yellow tan that are just beyond description.
The first time I had a minute to stop and just look at the earth, the absolute beauty of the scene brought tears to my eyes. In weightlessness tears do not just quietly roll down your cheeks. They stay in front of your eyeballs and get bigger and bigger and in a few moments you feel like a guppy looking up through the surface of the aquarium.
Now, try to imagine what it was like for me to have that scene in front of me and then have the fragments of half a dozen scriptures pop into my mind. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Ps. 19:1.) If you have seen the heavens, you have “seen God moving in his majesty and power.” (D&C 88:47.) I am sure you can imagine the closeness I felt to my Father in Heaven as I looked down at one of His beautiful creations. I was really stirred by an increased awareness of what He did for us as the Creator of our earth. That was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

I get up almost every morning and pour myself some cold cereal for breakfast. I used to pour a bowl of Grape Nuts or Corn Flakes and set the box right in front of me where I could read it for 10 or 15 minutes. I could read each panel close to three times in one sitting. Eating cold cereal five days of the week meant I was reading the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances 15 times per week or 60 times in a month!
In high school I had a difficult time getting excited about scripture reading. In my seminary class, though, daily scripture reading was required if I wanted a good grade, so I would read the scriptures—for the grade. Each night, just before my eyelids were ready to close, I would remember about the “A” that I wanted in seminary and grab my scriptures from my desk. As I fell into a deep sleep, my mind would skim over the words and I never really got that much out of them.
Then I started college. Every night I was up so late I didn’t feel like I had time to read the scriptures. There were so many other things to do—like sleep! But I began to feel guilty seeing them sitting on my shelf, only taking them down for church or home teaching. Besides, I could always find the time to read a good novel or go to a movie. So one morning, I took my scriptures to the breakfast table with me. Rather than reading those daily allowances that I had memorized anyway, I read the scriptures. I found something very interesting—the scriptures fill another type of Recommended Daily Allowance: things like increased spiritual awareness, a good feeling inside, and answers to my problems.
After reading my scriptures in the morning, my day goes a lot better. Reading every day has evolved into an everyday habit which I now enjoy very much. I am glad that my Heavenly Father loves me enough to show me how much I need his word in my life.

I thought of this lesson about repentance after watching my sister one afternoon. Our family’s backyard opened onto a field that had been cleared for construction. During heavy rainstorms, the field would turn to mud. This was no average mud. No, this mud was gross, gooey, and deep. If you got stuck, getting out was like trying to run through peanut butter.

One day my little sister decided she wanted to go outside and play. My mom reminded her to stay on the cement patio close to the house. Instead, my sister wandered off into the field.

After a while, I heard somebody crying and looked outside. I couldn’t believe it! My sister was sitting in the middle of the mud, completely covered, with tears rolling down her face. She kept trying to get out, but it was impossible. Every time she tried to move, she sunk deeper and deeper into the gross mud. Of course, we quickly ran out to rescue her.

I helped my mom lay down boards so we could walk out to my sister without getting stuck ourselves. The mud was so thick that when my sister was pulled out, her shoes and socks were sucked right off!

Life can be a lot like that muddy field. If we’re not careful, we can become bogged down by sin, worldly influences, or poor decisions. These things are like spiritual mud sticking to our spirit and make us feel awful inside.

As we choose to turn to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, we find that They are there and ready to help us get out of any sticky situation. It is because of the Savior Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice that we can be forgiven and become clean again. You will always find “joy in choosing to repent.”*

When I was 14 years old, I began my first job, earning 2 U.S. dollars per hour as a construction laborer. The paycheck for my first week totaled 80 dollars. I wanted to buy an eight-track tape stereo, which was the newest music technology at the time. The full-function model I wanted cost 320 dollars. I excitedly shared with Mom and Dad my intent to purchase the stereo after completing four weeks of work.
My parents wisely taught, “It will take more than four weeks to earn enough money to buy that music player. You should express gratitude to God for His many blessings by paying 10 percent of your income as tithing. You will need to pay the government about 10 percent in taxes. And you should learn while young to obey the counsel of prophets in preparing financially for the future, including your mission; we suggest you set aside 30 percent of your earnings in a savings account.”
My teenage mind quickly calculated that if I did as my parents taught, I would have only 40 dollars each week to spend, which meant I would have to work at least two months to purchase my desired stereo. I found myself at a critical decision point—would obtaining material possessions be my priority, or would I sacrifice to pay tithing and set aside savings?
I decided at age 14 to pay an honest tithing for the remainder of my life. I determined to follow the prophet in saving money for my mission and future education. This experience also taught me to distinguish between wants and needs. I wanted the newest technology, but I did not need it. So I decided to buy a much less expensive model with fewer functions, and it was still performing well when I left on my mission.

While living in Argentina, Luis’s Polish parents, though not Christian, raised him in a good, religious environment. Invited one day when he was 17 years old to talk to a seminary class about the Old Testament, he gladly obliged. He felt at home with the youth in the class and continued to attend the early-morning meetings to answer their questions. “I thought I was teaching them,” he says, “but they were teaching me.” Luis became interested in finding out about the Book of Mormon, and one day he began reading it. “As I read, it slowly came to me who Jesus Christ really was—the Messiah!” he recalls. “This affected me profoundly. I read all night long.” After receiving an answer to his prayers, he decided to be baptized, despite the strong disapproval of his family. “I had a great desire to study and make up for all I felt I’d missed,” he says. In time he married Laura Moltó, the daughter of his seminary teacher, and soon after began serving in leadership positions, first in the ward, now in the stake.