Gospel Story Finder

When Jani Elizabeth Piercey first entered St. Margaret’s, an Episcopal girls’ school in Tappahanock, Virginia, she was looked at with a little curiosity and a little suspicion. After all, she was the only LDS girl there.

But when she graduated, it was with honors and respect. She was awarded the outstanding student award in eight different disciplines, was valedictorian of her class, and won the Spirit of St. Margaret’s Prize, awarded to the student who best exemplifies the “high ideals of young womanhood.” And that’s only to name a few.

Jani also took advantage of the many missionary opportunities in the area, giving presentations on her beliefs in religious education classes, and, as a ward missionary, she helped the sister missionaries often. She also served as a Primary teacher, Laurel class president, and earned her Young Womanhood Recognition. In addition, Jani received Harvard University’s “Most Outstanding Rising Senior” award.

Now that her high school career is over, Jani is taking on another challenge—the honors program at BYU.

My high school football team was playing for the North Carolina state championship. Our coach, Bill Grice, was not only a great coach and motivator, but he had never, in our presence, taken the Lord’s name in vain; had never cussed; and had never used any expletives or profanity. He had never lost his cool.
We were in the locker room getting ready for the big game. It was raining so hard we had to yell at each other to be heard. Coach Grice asked our equipment manager to hand out the mud cleats. We heard the equipment manager say, “I forgot the mud cleats, coach.” But Coach Grice didn’t hear him. We nudged one another and realized that for the first time in our presence, Coach Grice would in fact lose his cool and swear.
We steadied ourselves as Coach Grice asked, “Where are the mud cleats?”
“I forgot them, coach,” repeated the equipment manager.
It became absolutely silent in the room except for the rain pounding on the roof.
Then Coach Grice said, “Well, shucks, we’ll have to play without them!”
Oh, coach, how proud we were! We tied the football game and lost the state championship on the flip of a coin. But we won the most important honor. Our coach didn’t let us down.

“I got started in eighth grade in Tucson, Arizona,” Richard said. “I was in a math class with four friends. One day one of them brought a maze he had made and started a contest to see who could make the best maze. After a while the other four stopped making them, but I haven’t yet.
“I would make mazes at home and take them to school. Some of my friends got excited about them and started copying them, and that kept me excited about them. One of my favorites is a maze that’s a map of the United States. It begins in Maine and ends in Washington State.” He said he also likes a maze designed to look like wood grain and another modeled after Uncle Sam.
“When I feel like doing a maze, I sit down and think of movies I’ve seen, books I’ve read, anything that might bring me an idea. I’ve taken art all through school, but I don’t have any particular tricks I use in drawing mazes, though I do like to take a particular path a long way and then turn it into a dead end before I finally create the one good path. Usually, I just sit down and start drawing, and the idea works itself out as I go along.”
Richard, 19, attended Magee Junior High and Sahuaro High schools in Tucson and Jordan High in Sandy, Utah. He is from the 15th Ward, Sandy Utah Crescent West Stake, and has held leadke, and has held leadership positions in deacons, teachers, and priests quorums. An Eagle Scout, he also enjoys hiking, art, drama, and sports.
It was Richard’s father who first thought of using the maze book as a financial resource for a mission. “I promised the Lord that all the money would go into my mission fund,” Richard said. “The books weren’t selling too well to begin with, but last Christmas we had more orders than books and had to have some more printed.” They have now published more than 1,000 copies and hope to have more printed by this Christmas.
Richard has also made mazes for friends (“Usually they want me to make their name into a maze”), for the high school paper, and for teachers. He keeps a copy of every maze he’s ever made on file at home.
For the moment, however, mazes have faded into the background. “In the mission field,” he says, “I don’t have time to draw one, because it takes about two or three hours. Besides, there are more important things to do.” When he returns home, though, he’ll probably hit the drawing board again.
Here are some samples of his work.

The Campbells didn’t have as far to travel as many volunteers. Their home is in Gowanda, New York, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. They arrived on a Friday. The next morning began with breakfast and a devotional. Then casting (choosing people for parts in the pageant) started.
There are ten major scenes in the pageant. Each scene has a director. Each director chose the people for their scene and what part each person would play. Brittany and Tishna’s little brother Montgomery (5) was given the part of Jesus Christ as a young child. Their mother and other brother, Christian (2), were assigned to the scene where Christ visits the Americas. Their father didn’t have an acting part. He’s served as a pageant choreographer (someone who plans out everyone’s movements on stage) for ten years.
The girls’ favorite scene to be in is the “Voyage to Ancient America.” When Tishna and Brittany went to the tryout, there were more children than parts. Three years earlier, Brittany had played a child on Nephi’s ship in the voyage scene. She’d had fun being tossed into the air on a blanket by other actors. She decided that it was someone else’s turn this year and tried out for another scene.
When the tryouts were over and the parts had all been assigned, the directors started blocking the scenes. Brittany and Tishna learned where to stand, what to do during the scene, and how to get on and off the stage. The speaking parts, music, and sound effects for the pageant were all prerecorded, but the actors had to learn to move and react in time with the tape. The first practices were held on the big lawn in front of the stage. Later, rehearsals were held on stage.
Tishna was cast as one of Lemuel’s daughters in the voyage scene. Wondering if and when she’ll get splashed by the water during the scene added excitement. Usually she did get wet. After the scene was over, she had to be especially careful to hang up her costume neatly so that it would dry before the next performance.
“The boat scene is the most fun,” Tishna said, “because you get to run and play during the scene.” The tricky part of her scene was opening the floor hatches so that Nephi’s ship could be raised onto the stage. “It can be hard to do it quickly enough,” she added.
Rehearsing wasn’t always easy. Brittany was cast in the “Burning of the Prophet Abinadi” scene. She played a page in King Noah’s court. It was an important part because she was responsible for handing fans to all of King Noah’s courtiers as they came onstage. But once she herself was onstage, she didn’t have much to do but stand beside King Noah’s throne. Rehearsals lasted up to three hours and sometimes were hot and boring, but she still wouldn’t trade being in the pageant for any other vacation.
Although they weren’t in it, Tishna and Brittany’s favorite part of the pageant was the harvest dance. “That’s when the Book of Mormon people were righteous and they prospered,” Tishna said. “It’s a happy scene—very colorful, and everyone is dancing.”
When Tishna and Brittany weren’t practicing their scenes, they met in small groups they were assigned to. They had leaders who prepared lessons, stories, and activities for them.
“I like working on our journals,” Brittany said. “We write things down, and the leaders give us stickers and stamps we can use to decorate the pages.”
One year each child drew a picture on a quilt block. The group leader sewed the blocks into a quilt. The child who picked up the most garbage from the grounds during the pageant would win the quilt. Brittany won it.
Tishna’s favorite group activity was stamping designs on fabric.
Montgomery liked making a little garden, and one day his group went out and looked at the trees and leaves through magnifying glasses.
Everyone involved with the pageant attended three 35-to-45-minute devotionals each day. Sitting quietly through the devotionals was the hardest part of the pageant for Montgomery and Christian, but Tishna and Brittany enjoyed them. On performance days, the actors didn’t have to arrive at the grounds until noon. The Campbells used this time to sleep a little longer, get pizza or ice cream together, or visit some of the Church historical sites in the area.
With all the work and practices, why do the Campbells keep coming? “I have been to the Hill Comorah Pageant every year since I was three years old,” Brother Campbell said. “It’s a family tradition.”
“At the pageant, people are so nice to you,” Brittany said. “You make a lot of friends here. When we get home, we run to the mailbox each day, looking for letters from our new friends.”
“Everyone plays with my little brothers, and there’s no fighting here,” Tishna added. “It’s exciting because it’s for the Church, and it helps you understand the Book of Mormon. It’s our favorite vacation in the whole world.”

“President Lee once told of a woman in New York who approached him concerning her nonmember husband. Her spouse wanted her to attend parties that were far below Church standards. President Lee advised her that whereas a woman should follow her husband, she need not follow him to hell. The husband, upon hearing this from his wife, was, like your parents, extremely resentful.

“Let your parents know how much you love them and appreciate their offer but also that the Lord has said that sacrament meeting is the most important meeting we have to attend. Being the only member or active member of a family is sometimes a lonely ordeal. But if we seek to do the Lord’s will over the conflicting desires of loved ones who don’t or won’t understand, he will bless us. He certainly blessed the lady from New York. A few months after she had revealed the advice of the prophet, her ‘resentful’ husband was baptized.”

I can’t think of a better example of helping someone gain understanding than the story of Helen Keller. She was blind and deaf and lived in a world that was dark and quiet. A teacher named Anne Sullivan came to help her. How would you teach a child who can’t even see or hear you?

For a long time, Anne struggled to connect with Helen. One day around noon, she took her out to the water pump. She put one of Helen’s hands under the waterspout and began to pump the water. Anne then spelled out the word W-A-T-E-R on Helen’s other hand. Nothing happened. So she tried again. W-A-T-E-R. Helen squeezed Anne’s hand because she began to understand. By nightfall, she had learned 30 words. Within a matter of months, she had learned 600 words and was able to read Braille. Helen Keller went on to earn a college degree and helped change the world for people who couldn’t see or hear.9 It was a miracle, and her teacher was the miracle worker, just like you will be, parents.

Let me share with you an example of the results of daily determination and performance.
In 1960 the Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia. There on the winner’s platform in the spotlight one day stood a beautiful, tall, blonde American girl. She was being presented a gold medal, symbolic of first place in worldwide competition. As she stood there, some boys whistled and others were heard to say, “There’s a gal who has everything.”
Tears ran down her cheeks as she accepted the recognition. Many thought she was touched by the victory ceremony. The thing most of the audience did not know was the story of her determination, self-discipline, and daily action. At the age of five she had polio. When the disease left her body, she couldn’t use her arms or legs. Her parents took her daily to a swimming pool where they hoped the water would help hold her arms up as she tried to use them again. When she could lift her arm out of the water with her own power, she cried for joy. Then her goal was to swim the width of the pool, then the length, then several lengths. She kept on trying, swimming, enduring, day after day after day, until she won the gold medal for the butterfly stroke—one of the most difficult of all swimming strokes—in Melbourne, Australia.
What if Shelly Mann had not been encouraged to achieve at age five and to continue and overcome? What a tremendous asset were parents who assisted her in the importance of now and today in preparation for tomorrow.

Growing up in the Church, Sundays tended to feel tedious and monotonous. It was rare for me as a kid to actually listen to what was being said. Maybe that’s why it’s so interesting to me that to this day I remember a single line from a talk I heard when I was Primary age.
At the time I was sitting in sacrament meeting, wondering why I had to be at church every single week. Then the speaker said, “Sunday shouldn’t get in the way of our lives, Sunday should be the center of our lives.” At the time that idea was so different from what I’d always thought that I wasn’t really able to understand what it meant. Even so, I could tell it was important.
In Primary we learned that we came to church to take the sacrament. I figured these two things were related, but I could never figure out how. I didn’t think too much about the sacrament. It was just something I did, and it didn’t have any meaning to me. Throughout the years, though, those two ideas stayed with me. I knew I was missing something.
Years later, in junior high, I found myself in a hard situation. I had a bad habit I was trying to get rid of. I knew it wasn’t so serious that I had to talk to my bishop, but it was still really bothering me.
I was embarrassed and didn’t want to ask anyone for help. Not even my parents. Not even Heavenly Father. I determined I could overcome this challenge on my own.
Weeks went by. I tried so hard to be better but without result. I was still struggling. I knew the Sabbath should be the focus of my week because of the sacrament. I had also been taught that the sacrament was a tool I could use to access the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
After trying and failing for so long, I finally decided to turn to the Lord. At last I set aside my pride, opened my heart, and prayed to Heavenly Father. I asked for help, strength, and forgiveness. I stopped waiting for change to happen to me and started focusing on taking small steps toward improvement, with faith that the Lord would bless my efforts.
For the first time I focused on preparing for the sacrament all through the week. The sacrament became something I looked forward to. I began to see it as an opportunity rather than a routine because it brought the power of the Savior’s Atonement into my life.
I felt change in my life. The things I was struggling with faded. I became more confident in myself. I was able to open up to my parents and seek more assistance. I felt grateful to the Lord for all of the help I had received. I felt forgiven. I felt clean.
I grew to understand what that speaker meant all those years ago. When I centered my life around being ready for the Sabbath, I came closer to Jesus Christ in a way that purified me and made me stronger.
Through prayer and guidance from Heavenly Father, I learned that I could not walk through this life alone, but that the Savior and Heavenly Father truly had to be a part of my life. I learned that when I spent my whole week preparing to partake of the sacrament, I was better able to fully access the power of the Savior’s Atonement.
I learned that Heavenly Father loves us and has created a way for us to be forgiven and receive blessings, but we need to do our part to make it more meaningful. I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for all that He has done for me and continues to do for me when I remember to prepare for the Sabbath.

The next morning I found my father in the kitchen again.
"What shall we do today?" he asked.
"Let’s go to church," I said.
"Aw, no one at church wants me there," he replied.
"I do," I said.
He looked at me for a few moments, then smiled. "Okay. Let’s go."
I slipped on the dress my father had bought me the day before and brushed my hair.
My father whistled when he saw me. "You look pretty as a picture. All the boys in the ward will be glad I came today and brought my daughter."
I laughed.
When we entered the foyer at the church, a short stocky man came forward to greet us. "Hello, John," he said, extending his hand to my father.
"Hello," my father replied. "This is Cathy, my daughter. Cathy, this is my home teacher, Brother … ah …"
"Richardson," the man said. "Nice to meet you, Cathy."
"Nice to meet you, Brother Richardson," I replied.
The man disappeared in the crowd but reappeared a few minutes later with a pretty brunette woman about my father’s age.
"John," he said, "I have someone I’d like you to meet. This is Myrna Wilson. She’s a widow," he said meaningfully.
Myrna Wilson blushed noticeably, and my father sputtered out a "Nice to meet you." I suppressed a giggle.
I teased my father about it later that day when we were home from church. "You have to watch those Mormons," I grinned. "They’re always trying to marry someone off. But I have to admit, Widow Wilson wasn’t bad, was she?"
He laughed. "Yes, you Mormons are always trying to marry someone off."
"Would you do me a favor?" I asked suddenly serious.
"What?"
"Would you quit smoking?"
My father’s face fell. "I’d like to, Cathy, I really would. I’ve tried a hundred times, but I can’t."
"I’ll help you this time. Brother Richardson probably would too." Then I grinned. "I’ll bet even Widow Wilson would help."
He grinned back. "Okay. I’m not making any promises, but I’ll try."
"Good," I said. "I just know you can do it." Outside a car horn honked. "There’s your mom," my father said. "You better not keep her waiting. I’ll call you, okay?"
"Okay," I said. Then I hugged him.
"Good-bye, Cathy," he said.
"Good-bye, dad," I answered. Halfway out the door I turned back. "Tell Widow Wilson hello from me."
I could hear him chuckling as I shut the door and headed for the car where my mother was waiting.

It all started when the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra began outdoor summer performances at Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, a restored 1836 village. The first few years, all concertgoers sat on lawn chairs or blankets on the grass. Later, Symphony on the Prairie organizers offered reserved tables and chairs near the stage for a higher price. But who would set up a hundred tables and a thousand chairs twice a week? The symphony looked for a service group, and that’s where LDS Boy Scout troop 596 came in.

They are not alone. Scout leaders, families, and friends all lend a hand. “It’s a time to see friends and get to know new people,” says Emily Runyan, whose brother Chris is a Scout. “Those of us who aren’t in the troop can still be an example of service to others.”

Missy Wardwell feels that her work at Conner Prairie changed her attitude towards service. She used to feel it was a duty, “but I found this was fun because I chose to come. It was great to work on something important.”

People notice the unity between youth and adults in the Noblesville Ward. Jennifer Rasmussen attributes it to what happens when teachers and leaders labor alongside the youth. “Before,” Jennifer says, “you only saw them on Sunday. But working together is a bonding experience.”

Jennifer also points out the benefits for new or quiet kids in the ward. “These youth get to know people and become comfortable working together, whereas otherwise they might have taken years to open up. They get invited to stay and join us in other activities.”

Missy points out another benefit. “In the summer, sometimes school friends call and invite me to a party. I know what kind of party it will be. It’s security for me to have another place to go that is good and fun and social.”

The LDS youth finish and settle down on the hill with cool drinks and snacks. With their service comes a bonus—they can stay and hear the symphony concert for free. As the sun lingers near the edge of the concert shell, thousands of concertgoers arrive. Sometimes 10,000 people throng the grounds on a symphony night. After the sun goes down, the scattered lights of hundreds of tiny citronella candles flicker like caged fireflies.

“I never thought the kids would stay for the program,” says Rich Armstrong of the Scout committee. “I could see youth using lots of outdoor energy, but I didn’t expect them to be interested in symphony music.”

“I had never heard a symphony orchestra before,” says Brennan Wood. “But the more you hear symphony music, the more you understand it.”

Trent Wardwell agrees. “This has given me a better appreciation for what goes into producing symphony music. Hours before the concert, while we are putting up chairs and tables, the symphony workers have to set up their sound system and prepare the stage, just for a short, two-hour show.”

The concert is finished. A few fireworks light the sky over the orchestra shell, and the LDS youth scramble up from their places. Swarming down the hill, they start folding chairs, clearing tables, and carrying them back to storage. Now that it is cooler, demonstrations of strength take place. Austin Armstrong carries eight chairs at once. Brennan staggers under 13. Jamie Ketring and Jennifer tote one table between them, but Jon Foote hoists one above his head and carries it alone.

The final tarpaulin is tugged up and over a mountain of chairs. It is time to go home.

The thoughts of all the youth are echoed by Emily Runyan. “My main memory of summers is our work at Conner Prairie.”

My wife, Maria Isabel, and I served in Central America, being stationed in Guatemala City. There I had the opportunity to meet Julia, a faithful member of the Church. I had the impression to ask her about her family. Her mother died of cancer in 2011. Her father had been a faithful leader in his stake, serving as a bishop and as a counselor to his stake president for several years. He was a true undershepherd of the Lord. Julia told me of his tireless efforts to visit, to minister, and to serve. He indeed rejoiced in feeding and tending the precious sheep of the Lord. He remarried and stayed active in the Church.

A few years later, he went through a divorce, and now he had to attend church alone once again. He felt out of place and also felt that some people were critical of him because of his divorce. He stopped attending church as a negative spirit filled his heart.

Julia spoke highly of this wonderful undershepherd, who was a hardworking, loving, and compassionate man. I vividly remember that a feeling of urgency came to me as she was describing him. I just wanted to do something for that man, a man who had done so much for so many throughout those years.

She gave me his cell phone number, and I began calling him, hoping to have the chance to meet with him personally. After several weeks and many, many phone calls without success, one day he finally answered the phone.

I told him that I had met Julia, his daughter, and that I was captivated by the way he had served, ministered, and loved the precious sheep of the Lord for so many years. He was not expecting a comment like that. I told him that I really wanted to visit with him eye to eye, face to face. He asked me my purpose in proposing such a meeting. I replied, “I really want to meet the father of such a wonderful lady.” Then for a few seconds there was silence over the phone—a few seconds that seemed to me like an eternity. He simply said, “When and where?”

The day I met him, I invited him to share with me some of his experiences visiting, ministering, and serving the precious sheep of the Lord. As he was recounting some touching stories, I noticed that the tone of his voice changed and the same spirit he had felt so many times as an undershepherd came back. Now his eyes were filled with tears. I knew this was the right moment for me, but I found that I did not know what to say. I prayed in my mind, “Father, help me.”

Suddenly, I heard myself saying, “Brother Florian, as a servant of the Lord, I apologize for our not being there for you. Please, forgive us. Give us another chance to show you that we do love you. That we need you. That you are important to us.”

The following Sunday he was back. He had a long conversation with his bishop and remained active. A few months later he passed away—but he had come back. He had come back. I testify that with our Savior’s help, we can love His precious sheep and minister to them as He would. And so, there in Guatemala City the Lord Jesus Christ brought back one more precious sheep into His fold. And He taught me a lesson on ministering that I cannot forget. In the name of the Good Shepherd, the Beautiful Shepherd, the Magnificent Shepherd, even the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Kai noticed that every other Friday, Dad put a check on the refrigerator door.
"What’s that?" Kai asked.
"It’s our tithing check," Dad said. "I put it there to remind us that tithing comes first." He put a magnet over the corner of the check. "I get paid every second Friday. The first check I write is for tithing."
"Even before the house payment?" Kai knew his parents made a payment for the house every month. One time Dad had told him that if they didn’t pay it, they could get in trouble with the bank.
"Even before that," Dad said. "Mom and I have always put tithing first. That’s one way of showing how important Heavenly Father is to us."
Kai thought about it. "What if you don’t have enough money to pay tithing?"
"I’ve found that if you pay tithing first, the money works out. Or you find a way to do without."
Kai remembered the time the car broke down. They didn’t have the money to fix it right away. But Dad said he didn’t mind walking to work for a few weeks.
"Wouldn’t Heavenly Father understand if you had to pay your tithing late?" Kai asked.
"Heavenly Father understands everything about our lives," Dad said. "But when your mom and I were sealed in the temple, we made promises to the Lord and to ourselves. We decided that we would always pay our tithing first, before anything else."
Kai thought of the allowance he got every week. Sometimes he forgot to pay tithing on it for a week or two. He thought about the money he earned mowing lawns around the neighborhood. It wasn’t a lot, since he was only 11. But he decided right then to pay his tithing first—just like his parents did.
From then on, every time Kai earned any money, he set aside his tithing before spending even one penny.
Many years later, Kai had a family of his own. And just like Dad had done, he put his tithing check up on the refrigerator door as soon as he was paid.

And then there’s Natalia Yereskovska. As a 15-year-old exchange student, she left Cherkassy, Ukraine (south of Kiev), for Sleepy Hollow, Illinois (northwest of Chicago). She gave her LDS hosts quite a shock when, on the way home from the airport, she said, “I know God sent me to you.”
She had been praying to be placed with a religious family, “so I could find my spiritual life.” When she read the profile sheet of the Bruce B. and Jean Bingham family, she saw that they didn’t smoke and that they attended church regularly. But she also felt something, a witness that she should listen to the Binghams and follow their example. Natalia spent the next year participating in family prayer, home evening, Young Women, sacrament meetings, and Sunday School.
Her sensitivity to the Spirit grew. She found answers she’d been seeking for years. She took the missionary discussions. She fasted and prayed and received an answer that she should join the Church. Fearful that her parents would never approve, she gathered her courage, made her request, and received permission. She was baptized on January 7, 1996. But soon she faced concern of another kind. She must return to Cherkassy, a town of 350,000, where she would be the only Latter-day Saint.
“I was scared,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine going where there is no church, where I wouldn’t be able to go to meetings or take the sacrament. But on the flight home I remembered what Brother Bingham told me: ‘No matter where you are, you can be a light.’ That gave me some comfort.”
After spending two Sundays studying scriptures, praying, and singing hymns by herself, Natalia heard of an LDS youth conference in Kiev. She went, and there she met President Wilfried M. Voge of the Ukraine Kiev Mission. Together they mapped out the required steps for the Church to be recognized in Cherkassy. The process started with getting signatures on a petition inviting missionaries to come. But the request had to come from adults.
Natalia made friends with a university professor who once stayed with an LDS family in Wisconsin. He agreed to help, prepared an official letter of invitation, got a group of business students to agree to listen to the missionaries, and even arranged a meeting with the mayor of a small town nearby. After Natalia explained about Church standards, the head counselor of her school also signed the petition and requested that missionaries speak to the entire school!
In September 1996, the first missionaries came. In October, Church meetings were held. In January, the first convert was baptized. Then another in February. Then families. Additional missionaries were assigned. Young Women, Relief Society, Sunday School, and Primary were organized. Picnics and service projects were held. Men were ordained to the priesthood. A branch president was called. Natalia led one of her lifelong friends to the Church, and even the professor’s wife was baptized! In short, the branch kept growing and growing. Today, if you visit the Cherkassy Branch and ask for Natalia, five members will turn and say, “Yes?”
When Natalia first thought about establishing the gospel in her hometown, she was nervous. But President Voge said, “Heavenly Father will support you.” That kind of faith has paved the way for others.

This story took place in Guatemala.
Alejandra sighed in relief. She had just finished singing her solo in the music room for her teacher. All her weeks of practice had been worth it! She didn’t even struggle with the tricky part.
“What a beautiful voice!” Ms. Pérez, the school music teacher, stood and clapped. “You can move on to the next round in the talent contest.”
Alejandra was thrilled! In this contest, students from several schools would sing, dance, or play an instrument to compete and win prizes. Ms. Pérez was the judge who chose who got to stay in the contest. And now Alejandra had passed to the next round!
“You need to pass two more rounds of auditions,” Ms. Pérez said. “If you do, you can enter the final contest. It’s on a Sunday later this month.”
Alejandra’s joy disappeared as quickly as it came. She felt like there was a heavy weight in her stomach.
She knew Sunday was a day to go to church and learn about Jesus Christ. It was a day to take the sacrament. It was a day to rest and be with family.
“Sunday?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can.”
“If you can’t be there for the last day, then you can’t be in the contest. I know you would do well if you entered, but it’s your choice. Think about it over the weekend and let me know on Monday.”
The next day, Alejandra kept thinking about what to do. She always went to church with her family on Sunday. But did she really have to be there every week? It wasn’t that bad if she missed church just once, was it?
At bedtime she talked to Papá about what she should do. “Should I sing in the contest or go to church?” she asked.
“The Sabbath is a day we give to God.” Papá pulled her blanket up to her chin and sat next to her on the bed. “We have six days for ourselves. God asks for only one day. But I can’t make this choice for you.”
The next day at church, Alejandra and all her Primary friends got to sing “A Child’s Prayer” in front of the whole ward. They had been working on this song for a long time!
Alejandra sang with her whole heart. The music made her forget about the hard decision she had to make tomorrow. When they finished the song, she proudly walked back to sit with her family.
Mamá gave her a hug. “You sang beautifully!”
“We’re so proud of you,” Papá said. “Sharing your talent showed your testimony and faith in God.”
Alejandra was happy to use her talents to sing Primary songs. She knew it made her family happy too.
Then Alejandra thought of something. If today had been the contest, she would have missed the chance to sing about Heavenly Father. What would she miss if she didn’t come to church on the contest day? She wouldn’t be able to sing her testimony in Primary with her friends. And she would miss the sacrament.
On Monday, Alejandra knew what she had to do. She went to the music room to talk to her teacher.
“Thank you for the opportunity,” she said. “But I don’t want to be in the talent contest if I have to do it on Sunday.”
Ms. Pérez put down the sheet music she was looking at and frowned. “Are you sure you want to miss out on the contest?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Alejandra was proud of her decision. It was hard to make, but she knew it was the right choice. “I’ll miss something even more important if I go.”
Illustration by Janelle Anderson

Cody Carr knew when he was only four that he wanted to be an astronaut. He had a little bank shaped like a spaceship that he put his tithing money in, and each time he dropped in a penny, a light would go on as if the rockets were firing. As he grew older, his school friends kidded him about being a spaceman, but Cody was serious. Those were the days of the birth of the manned space program, and he listened to every minute of every flight.

Naturally, his twin interest was astronomy. He received a telescope for Christmas and began getting up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning to look at the stars. “The night sky always fascinated me,” he said. “The whole universe is God’s creation, but we don’t know very much about it. I have often thought that if there were another frontier left, I’d be out exploring it. But the only one left is outer space, and there’s only one way to get there—by becoming an astronaut.”

In school, Cody took all the science and electronics classes he could. “I didn’t think electronics had much to do with space exploration, but dad suggested it, and I loved it!” He became a finalist in a statewide electronics competition.

Part of Cody’s goal to become an astronaut included a goal to become an Air Force Academy cadet. As he progressed through high school, he counseled with his father and mother and prayed about each step along the way. He had three great goals in life.

The first was to keep all the commandments of his Father in Heaven. The second was to serve a full-time mission. “All my life we have talked about a mission and the things pertaining to a mission. It was never ‘if you go on a mission’ but always ‘when you go.’” The third great goal was temple marriage.

“Every night before we went to sleep, mom or dad would come around to our beds and ask each of us in turn, ‘What do you want out of life? What do you want to do? What do you want to be?’ Those goal-setting sessions really helped me keep my head on straight. Every night I said those three things and sometimes others—like the astronaut plans—but always those three. We would talk about what I needed to do to achieve those goals, and then we would talk about any problems or questions I had.”

But two of Cody’s goals conflicted with each other. In order to go on a mission, he would have to resign from the academy after his first year—there was no such thing as a leave of absence for a mission. If he left, he was probably out of the program. To get back in, he would have to be renominated, and the mere fact of his resignation might work against him. What were the odds?

The preparations continued. Cody ran four or five miles each night to condition himself. As a junior, he spent one whole day taking college entrance exams, including the ACT (American College Test), SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), an Air Force engineering aptitude examination, and a physical fitness test. He was also interviewed and appraised for leadership potential.

The first year at the academy wasn’t spent just waiting for a mission call. “It was hard,” he remembers. “After the first four months I started asking, ‘Is this what I want to do in life?’ But then I would think back to the confirmations I had received through the Holy Ghost. I knew I was doing things, as President Kimball says, in their proper season and order, and I prayed, and the plan was reconfirmed. I knew I was right where I should be, and that really helped me.”

As the first year drew to a close, Cody had to reaffirm in his own mind his decision to go on a mission. To survive the toughest year in the academy and then give it all up took a lot of courage. And it might also mean abandoning his lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut. “But I had already made the decision to resign eight years earlier. I had no doubt what I was going to do even though I agonized over it.”

In March, during spring break, Cody had his mission interviews with his bishop and stake president. At the end of the summer, following SERE training (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape), he resigned. As with any cadet who asks to leave the academy, he was sent to interviews with several different counselors and officers.

“All of them would grill me at first,” Cody said, “but as soon as I told them my reasons for resigning, their attitude changed. They all expressed their respect for the LDS people they knew, and when I told them I was going to try to come back, which was something of a shock in itself, they said fine.” His written statement included a full explanation of what a mission is and why he wanted to serve.

The officer who had to sign the paper as a witness commented, “I’ve never read anything like that before in my life. Is that really what you believe?”

“I sure do,” Cody replied.

“A lot of them didn’t understand,” Cody explains, “but they accepted. They were feeling something they’d rarely felt before.”

In May Cody received his call to the Switzerland Zurich Mission. He entered the MTC in August. Concentrating on studies was second nature, and obedience was ingrained. “I wanted to use my time wisely because I knew I was paying a price for my mission,” he said.

At first the thought of not being readmitted hung over him, but the time finally came when he stopped worrying and left it in the hands of the Lord. Besides, missionary work presented its own challenges. “For the first six or seven months, I found myself going through the motions. I knew the Church was true and that the work was important, but I didn’t love it as I should. My academy experience came to my aid. I was used to doing difficult things. I worked hard and prayed every day that the work would become a joy instead of a burden. In the course of about a week, the whole thing turned around. Suddenly I was happier; I was working out of desire, not just duty. I knew my mission would be worth it even if I never got accepted back into the academy.”

Then a letter from home told Cody that Ted Parsons, another cadet who had resigned from the academy to serve a mission, had been readmitted! Maybe there was a chance after all!

Cody took the necessary exams at a U.S. military installation. “My mission president gave me a blessing. He told me I had served an honorable mission and that the Lord would help me accomplish what I needed to.”

Shortly after the blessing, Cody had a head-on bicycle collision, shattering his nose on the handlebar. “Qualifications at the academy are stringent. With an impact like that you would normally lose pilot qualification. If I had hit my eye or forehead or even my teeth, it would probably have disqualified me.” Cody is convinced he was protected.

When the test results arrived, they showed a score higher than the first time Cody applied for admission, which was advantageous because the competition was tougher.

“I had done everything I could. I made sure my end of things was in order. I wasn’t expecting the Lord to meet me more than halfway. Then I left it up to him,” Cody said.

Cody was renominated by his senator. His faith had paid off. Two weeks after returning from Switzerland and two years after leaving Colorado Springs, Cody Carr entered the academy once more. His dream of being an astronaut was fully intact, along with his other goals of keeping the commandments, marrying in the temple, and being a lifelong missionary.

Bishop Edgley has told you a basketball story. I think I’d like to tell you a baseball story. I was reminded of it while watching a program on the Public Broadcasting System one evening not long ago. It was a program on baseball, once the great American pastime.
I recognize that baseball has little interest for people in most nations of the world, but I speak of it to highlight a principle that has meaning for people everywhere.
The event of which I speak occurred in the World Series of 1912. It was an eight-game series because one of the games was called at midpoint because of darkness. Playing fields were not electrically lighted at that time. It was the last game and the score was tied 1–1. The Boston Red Sox were at bat, the New York Giants in the field. A Boston batter knocked a high-arching fly. Two New York players ran for it. Fred Snodgrass in center field signaled to his associate that he would take it. He came squarely under the ball, which fell into his glove. It went right through his hand and fell to the ground. A howl went up in the stands. The roaring fans couldn’t believe it. Snodgrass had dropped the ball. He had caught hundreds of fly balls before. But now, at this crucial moment, he dropped the ball. The New York Giants lost. The Boston Red Sox won the series.
Snodgrass came back the following season and played brilliant ball for nine more years. He lived to be eighty-six years of age, dying in 1974. But after that one slip, for sixty-two years when he was introduced to anybody, the expected response was, “Oh, yes, you’re the one who dropped the ball.”

Four-year-old Genny stared at the picture of her mom in a long, white dress. “Mommy, you look just like a princess going to a ball. Is that a castle behind you?” Genny asked. “I felt like a princess that day, but that’s not a castle. I’m at the temple,” Mom said with a smile. “It’s my wedding day.” She put Genny on her lap. “Daddy and I were sealed in the temple six years ago,” Mom said. “We were promised that our family can be together forever.” “Was I sealed at the temple too?” Genny asked. “You and your brother and any other children we have are sealed to us forever just by being born into our family,” Mom said. Genny liked the sound of forever. She looked at the picture again. “You look so pretty, Mommy.” “Would you like to see my wedding dress?” Mom asked. “Yes,” Genny said. In her bedroom, Mom took a white plastic bag from the closet. She unzipped it and pulled out a beautiful white dress. It had long sleeves, each with a row of tiny buttons. “Can I touch it?” Genny asked. Mom nodded. Genny gently touched the fabric. “It’s so soft.” “My mother helped me pick it out,” Mom said. “It’s the most special dress I’ll ever have.” Genny threw her arms around her mom. “When I grow up, I want to go to the temple and be sealed just like you and Daddy.” Mom said, “That’s just what Daddy and I want you to do.”

Tonight my thoughts are about a boy somewhere in the world. He is wondering if he can do what being a priesthood holder will require of him. I had that worry when I was about 13 or 14.
I had grown up in the mission field where there was only a tiny branch, which met in my home. Then my family moved to where there were stakes and large wards and chapels and quorums of boys who all seemed to know so much more than I did about what priesthood holders do. They had in that ward a complicated pattern for passing the sacrament. I felt almost certain that I would make a mistake when my turn to pass or prepare the sacrament came.
In my fear and desperation, I remember going outside the chapel to be alone. I was worried. I prayed for help and for some assurance that I would not fail in serving God in His priesthood.
It is now many years later. I have held the Melchizedek Priesthood for more than 50 years. But in the last few days I have prayed with that same pleading for help and assurance that I will not fail in the call which has come to me to serve in the First Presidency. Others seem so much more able to serve and so much better prepared. But as I prayed this time I think I could feel an answer that was probably sent to me outside the Yalecrest Ward chapel long ago. It is the same answer you can expect to get when you face a call to serve in the priesthood which seems beyond you.
The message may come in words to your mind or in a feeling or both. But it will include at least three things to give you assurance and guidance in what you must do in this seemingly overwhelming calling.
First, the assurance will come from a memory of times Heavenly Father has helped you through dangers and difficulties. That’s happened to me in the last few days.
When I was young and still living in New Jersey, a large crowd of angry people gathered in front of our house. My mother went out to meet them, standing alone in this crowd of people who looked very dangerous to me. I couldn’t hear what she said, but after a few minutes they went away peacefully. I still remember that I had seen a miracle.
From when I was older, I have a more recent memory of a crowd of angry people I was called by the First Presidency to face who suddenly and inexplicably were touched by a spirit of calm and reconciliation.
Another time, I was sent to speak to leaders of churches in the United States and ministers of those churches who had met in Minneapolis to deal with the problem of competition among churches.
When I arrived, I found that I was assigned to be a speaker. My subject was to be: Why there was a need for a restoration of the true Church through Joseph Smith. I was a last-minute substitute for Elder Neal A. Maxwell.
When I arrived in the city the night before the meetings and looked at the program, I called President Hinckley. I told him that the meetings were to last three days, that many talks were to be given at the same time, that the crowd could choose which one to attend. I told him that I thought if I told the truth, I feared that no one would come to my second session and that I might be coming home very quickly. I asked him what he thought I should do. He said, “Use your best judgment.”
I prayed through the night. Somewhere near dawn, I was sure I was to say about the Restoration not, “This is what we believe happened to Joseph Smith and why we believe it happened,” but, “This is what happened to Joseph Smith, and this is why the Lord did it.” In the nighttime I was given no assurance of the outcome, just a clear direction—go forward.
To my amazement, after my talk the ministers lined up to speak to me. Every one of them, one after another coming to me, told essentially the same story. Each of them had met a member of the Church somewhere in their lives that they admired. Many of them said that they lived in a community where the stake president had come to the aid of not just his members but of the community in a disaster. They asked if I could take back their greeting and their thanks to people I not only didn’t know but had no hope of ever meeting.
By the end of the three days of meetings, larger and larger crowds were coming to hear the message of the Restoration of the gospel and the true Church of Jesus Christ not because they believed the message but because they had seen goodness in people’s lives—the fruits of that restoration.
As I prayed in these last few nights, those and other memories flooded back with an assurance something like this: “Haven’t I always looked after you? Think of the times I have led you beside the still waters. Remember the times I have set a table before you in the presence of your enemies. Remember, and fear no evil.” (See Psalm 23.)
So to the new deacons: remember. He has always taken care of you from your childhood. To the new quorum presidents: remember. To you fathers with children that are a challenge to you: remember, and have no fear. What is impossible for you is possible with God’s help in His service. And even when you were very small and in the years since, He has with His power and His Spirit gone before your face and been on your left hand and on your right hand when you went in His service (see D&C 84:88). You can receive assurance that God will watch over you if you pray for it in faith. I know that.
The second part of the message you will receive as you pray for help in facing a hard assignment came to me very early Friday morning. I had prayed, as you will, about overwhelming inadequacies. The answer was very clear and very direct and really a rebuke as I prayed. “Forget yourself—start praying about the people you are to serve.” That does wonders, I can testify, to bring the Holy Ghost.
But be prepared to lose track of time as you pray. You will feel love for the people you are to serve. You will feel their needs, their hopes, their hurts, and those of their families. And as you pray, the circle will grow wider than you would imagine, to perhaps people not in your quorum or your family but to those they love across the world. When you forget yourself to pray for the circle of others, your service will be extended in your heart. It will change not only your service but your heart. That is because the Father and His Beloved Son, whom you are called to serve, know and love so many people your service will touch, however limited to a few it may seem to be to you.
The third and final message you can watch for when you pray for help in a hard priesthood assignment is this one—I got this one as well—go to work. Priesthood power is given you to bless others. And that always takes moving out and doing something, usually something hard to do. So you can expect, in addition to assurance of God’s help and the command to forget yourself, the clear prompting by the Holy Ghost to go and do something which will bless someone’s life. That may be as obvious as going prayerfully to visit a person or a family or a quorum member to whom you are assigned to serve. For a father it may be to correct one of his children.
Whether what you do is to correct or to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will do it better if you remember what success will be. You are to help Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, make eternal life possible for those you serve. To do that, the Spirit must take a testimony down into their hearts. And that testimony has to lead them to choose to keep the commandments of God, whatever storms and temptations may come.
With that in mind, the Spirit will guide you in teaching and correcting with priesthood power. You will keep yourself clean so that you will teach with the Spirit. You will pray for the Spirit to tell you when to correct and how to correct and how to show an increase of love (see D&C 121:43–44). Whatever you do in your priesthood service can be guided and measured by how well it could or did help the person take a testimony of the truth down into his or her life and heart, enough for the Atonement to work and keep working.
You can get assurance in your service. You can forget yourself and begin to pray for and love those you are to serve. And you can choose what to do and measure success by the degree to which it changes the hearts of the people you serve.
But it is never going to be easy for you or for those you serve. There will always be pain in service and in the repentance necessary to bring the power of the Atonement to change hearts. That is in the nature of what you are called to do. Think of the Savior, whose service you are in. At what point in His mortal life can you see an instance when it was easy for Him? Did He ask easy things of His disciples then? Then why should it ever be easy in His service or for His disciples?
The reason for that is suggested by the phrase “a broken heart,” about which you have been taught so well today. The scriptures sometimes speak of people’s hearts being softened, but more often the words describing the state we seek for ourselves and for those we serve are a “broken heart.” This may help us accept that our call to serve and the need for the repentance we need and seek will not be easy. And it helps us understand better why testimony needs to go down into the hearts of our people. Faith that Jesus Christ atoned for their sins has to go down into the heart—a broken heart.
Now, tonight let us decide together what we are going to do. All of us, whatever our callings may be, face tasks that are beyond our own powers. I do and you do. That’s true from the simple fact that success is to get testimony down into the hearts of people. We can’t make that happen. Even God won’t force that on anyone.
So success requires people we serve to choose to accept the testimony of the Spirit into their hearts. The Spirit is ready. But many people aren’t ready to invite the Spirit. Our task, which is in our power, is to invite the Spirit into our lives so that people we serve will want to have the fruits of the Spirit in their lives—the fruits that they can see in ours.
This leads me to some suggestions of what we can choose to do or not to do. Some things we can do invite the Spirit. Some force the Spirit to withdraw. You know that from your own experience.
No priesthood holder who wants to succeed will be careless about where his eyes may go. Choosing to look at images which incite lust will cause the Spirit to withdraw. You have been warned by Elder Clayton as well as you may ever be warned about the dangers of the Internet and the media in putting pornographic images before us. But immodesty is now so common that everyday life requires discipline—a conscious choice not to linger watching whatever might create in us feelings which would repel the Spirit.
The same care is required in what we say. We cannot hope to speak for the Lord unless we are careful with our speech. Vulgarity and profanity offend the Spirit. Just as immodesty seems to be more common, so does vulgar and profane language. It used to be that only in certain places and with certain groups would we hear the name of the Lord taken in vain or hear vulgar words and crude humor. Now it seems to be everywhere and, for many, socially acceptable, where once it was not.
You can decide—and you must—to change what you say even when you can’t control what others say. But I know from my own experience that even in such a terrible situation you can count on God’s help. Years ago I was an air force officer serving for two years in an office with a marine colonel, an army colonel, and a grizzled navy commander. They had learned to speak in war and in peace in a way which offended me, and I know it repelled the Holy Ghost. I was at the time serving as a district missionary, trying in the evenings to go out to find people and teach them under the influence of the Holy Ghost. It was very hard. I was only a lieutenant. They were very senior to me. I had no way of changing their language. But I prayed for help. I don’t know how God did it, but in time their language changed. Slowly the profanity disappeared and then the vulgarity. Only when they drank liquor did it come back, but that was in the evenings, so I could excuse myself for missionary work.
You can have memories like that to sustain your faith when life puts you in difficult places. God helps the faithful priesthood holder who decides to see and say no evil, even in a wicked world. It will not be easy. It never is. But you can have the promise fulfilled for you as I know that it can be for me: “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven” (D&C 121:45).
I testify that I know that you and I hold the priesthood of God and that He will answer our prayers with sweet assurance and with the help to serve Him better. I so promise you and testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

“Roberto,” Mama called. “Time for dinner!” Roberto forgot all about the toy cars he was playing with and ran to the table. Papa and Carlos were already sitting in their places. Roberto could smell fideos, his favorite food. He climbed into his seat and reached for the steaming bowl of slippery noodles.
“Roberto, did you forget something?” Papa asked.
Roberto slid down and raced to the sink. He washed his hands and dried them quickly. Mama was just sitting down at the table when Roberto returned. He climbed up on the chair beside her and reached for the noodles again.
This time Mama stopped him. “Roberto, have you forgotten something?” Roberto looked around. Everyone’s arms were folded, and Carlos was bowing his head. Roberto folded his arms and bowed his head, too. Papa asked Carlos to pray.
Roberto heard Carlos thank Heavenly Father for the food, but then Roberto began to think about Mama’s yummy fideos and he didn’t listen to the rest of the prayer. As soon as Carlos said amen, Roberto grabbed the serving spoon. He piled the noodles on his plate until Mama took the spoon away.
“Eat that much,” she said. “Then if you’re still hungry, you can have more.”
When he finished all the noodles on his plate, Roberto wasn’t hungry at all. He couldn’t eat one more bite, not even when Mama brought out the flan she had made for dessert. He watched Carlos smile as he spooned the custard into his bowl. Roberto wished everyone would hurry and finish so he could go back to his toys.
At last Papa leaned back and smiled at Mama. “That was wonderful,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you, Mama,” Carlos said.
“May I be excused?” Roberto asked.
Roberto played until bedtime. Carlos helped him make buildings and houses out of blocks. They made tunnels to drive their toy cars under. They had almost finished making a city when Mama announced, “Bedtime.”
After Roberto and Carlos said their prayers, Papa told them a story. It was a story from the Bible about when Jesus Christ helped 10 men who were lepers. “Do you know what a leper is, Roberto?” Papa asked. Then he explained: “Lepers are people who are very sick—so sick that sometimes they have to go away and live by themselves. The Savior made the 10 lepers well again so they could go home and live with their families. But only one of the men remembered to say thank you.”
“Oh,” Roberto said. “Why?”
“I don’t know why they didn’t thank Jesus. What do you think, Carlos?” Papa asked.
Carlos thought for a moment. “I think they were so happy to go home they forgot all about it.”
Papa nodded. “And what do you think, Roberto?”
Roberto suddenly jumped out of his bed. “Just a minute,” he said. “I remembered something.” He ran downstairs.
Mama was putting away the dinner dishes. She was surprised to see Roberto. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
“I have to tell you something first. You made my favorite food for me, and I forgot to say thank you,” Roberto explained.
Mama smiled. “You’re welcome. I like to do things for you, especially when you remember to say thank you.”
Roberto ran back upstairs to his bedroom. Carlos was listening to Papa finish the story. “Thank you for playing with me today,” Roberto told Carlos. “And thank you, Papa, for telling me stories about Jesus.”
“You’re welcome,” Papa said and turned off the light. “Good night, Roberto. Good night, Carlos.”
But Roberto didn’t go right to sleep. He lay still and thought of the many things he was thankful for. He felt happy, and he wished he could give Heavenly Father a hug. At last he slipped out of bed and said another prayer. This time he really meant it when he thanked Heavenly Father for fideos, for Mama, Papa, and Carlos—and for helping him remember to say thank you.

I received one of those blessings just a few weeks ago. Since general conference falls on a weekend that would normally include the fast and testimony meeting, I fasted and prayed to know how I should still obey the commandment to care for those in need.
On a Saturday, still fasting, I woke at 6:00 and prayed again. I felt impressed to look at the world news. There I read this report:
Tropical Cyclone Pam destroyed many homes as it made a direct hit on Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. It killed at least six people in Vanuatu, the first confirmed from one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall.
“Hardly a tree stood straight [as the cyclone] bellowed across” the Pacific island nation.
World Vision’s emergency assessment team planned to view damage after the storm died down.
They advised residents to seek shelter in sturdy buildings such as universities and schools.
And then they said: “‘The strongest thing they’ve got is cement churches,’ said Inga Mepham [from] CARE International. … ‘Some of them don’t have that. It’s hard to find a structure that you’d think would be able to withstand a Category 5 (storm).’”
When I read that, I remembered visiting little homes on Vanuatu. I could picture in my mind the people huddled in homes being destroyed by winds. And then I remembered the warm welcome to me of the people of Vanuatu. I thought of them and their neighbors fleeing to the safety of our cement chapel.
Then I pictured the bishop and the Relief Society president walking among them, giving comfort, blankets, food to eat, and water to drink. I could picture the frightened children huddled together.
They are so far away from the home where I read that report, and yet I knew what the Lord would be doing through His servants. I knew that what made it possible for them to succor those children of Heavenly Father was fast offerings, given freely by the Lord’s disciples who were far away from them but close to the Lord.
So I didn’t wait for Sunday. I took a fast offering to my bishop that morning. I know that my offering may be used by the bishop and Relief Society president to help someone in my neighborhood. My small offering may not be needed near where my family and I live, but the local surplus could reach even as far as Vanuatu.