Gospel Story Finder

Don was born with a withered and almost useless right arm. It would have been easy for him to feel sorry for himself and shy away from physical activities requiring the use of two arms. But he has never let it be a problem. If you were to say something to him about his handicap, he would probably answer in all sincerity, “What handicap?” Don plays golf, baseball, and basketball, and is able to compete very well. The withered arm is usually a problem for him only upon first acquaintance. Once you know him you forget all about it. He is a student officer in his high school and has many friends. Don’s parents have never dwelt upon his “handicap.” They expect him to perform well in the things he does, and his ability to meet their expectations gives him a feeling of capability and self-esteem.

“At first, I never knew how to share the gospel with anyone or how to introduce the missionaries to my friends,” Eduarda explains. Eduarda is from Brazil and, while she isn’t surrounded by many members of the Church, she knows that “the Lord always prepares a way for His children to know the truth.”

Eduarda shared a Church video with a friend, who loved what he saw. When her friend grew more interested in the Church, Eduarda invited him to meet with the missionaries and used the missionary referral feature on the Church’s website. Eduarda added a comment saying that she wanted to participate in her friend’s gospel learning progress. The missionaries happily agreed. Eduarda even participated in the baptism.

Eduarda says she felt God’s love for His children in that moment. She also explains, “We all have someone who sees the Light of Christ in us. We just need to invite them to see what that light is!”

In high school I ran cross-country and distance track. I was never very good, but I enjoyed running and worked hard. One day my team was scheduled for a cross-country meet that took place on a particularly hilly course. I’d been practicing hard, so as we lined up in our starting positions, I said a silent prayer to Heavenly Father to ask if He would bless me with success in accordance to my hard work.
The gunshot sounded, and we were off. The first mile was flat and I was feeling pretty well, so I began to run even faster. Surely this was going to be my finest race! Then came the first hill. I ran up as fast as I could and came tearing down the other side. But then there was another hill. This one was even steeper, and I quickly lost my momentum. I started feeling like I might fall down the other side. I held it together, but when I came around the next corner, I saw multiple hills to come. Before long I became very tired. By mile two, other runners continually passed me. I became frustrated with myself for taking the first part of the race so fast, using all the energy that I needed now. I wanted to give up and walk off the course.
I decided to say another silent prayer. I asked my Father in Heaven to bless me with the ability to finish the race. Then the thought came, “Sometimes life gets hard, and it’s all you can do to keep running, but in the end you’ll be glad you didn’t give up and walk.” I was able to finish the race, and while I didn’t run the amazing race I’d wanted to, I gained something that has helped me ever since—a sense for how it may feel to endure to the end.

When I was 17 years old, I enlisted in the Royal Canadian Army Reserve. I was sent to a training base, and for the first time in my life, I was on my own to determine my path. I suspected that I would be tempted not to remain active in the Church and that my testimony would be challenged
When I arrived on the base, a course sergeant gave a tour of the different buildings and churches. I was prompted to ask where the LDS branch was located. The sergeant paused for a moment. Then he said that church won’t be found on base, but if I would like to attend, I could go with him and his wife. He was a recent convert to the Church and was happy to take anyone who wanted to go. I was glad to have the option of going, even though I had not decided if I was going to go that Sunday. After all, I was alone and free to choose for myself now. But something in my heart told me I needed to attend.
That Saturday night was one of the hardest in my life. I have since called it my “tree of life” experience. It started when my friends wanted me to hang out with them at the mess hall. I knew they were just going to drink, and I told them I needed sleep because I had to get up early for church. They laughed at my choice and went their way.
After they left, I sank into my bunk. From there, I could look out the window and watch my friends on the mess hall balcony, drinking and laughing. I remembered how they had teased me for not joining them. I felt like I imagine Lehi must have felt when he looked at the great and spacious building, where people were similarly laughing at him. I turned around to face my desk, only to notice my scriptures. I eagerly opened them and began to read. These were my iron rod, and just as the word of God had kept Lehi’s family safe, I knew they would likewise protect me.
I don’t recall what I read that night, but I do recall the Spirit I felt. I felt it again when I went to church the next morning. By attending church every Sunday while I lived on the base, I built a lasting testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Since my time at training camp, I was given the opportunity to share my testimony with others as a full-time missionary in the California Sacramento Mission.

My father served as a bishop of the El Sereno Ward when the Church was just getting started in the Los Angeles, California, area. The ward members still talk about his kindness to them and to their families. One Sunday Dad was not at priesthood meeting. Everyone wondered what had happened to him. Later they discovered that one of the priests was having trouble getting up on time to go to the meeting. So in kindness he held the quorum meeting in the priest’s bedroom.

When my wife and I visited Salt Lake City recently, we needed to find an ATM on the street. While we were looking around, we heard a voice from a parked car behind us say, “Are you looking for something? Can I help you?” The man, who introduced himself as Mike, added with a smile that it feels probably weird for a stranger to yell at us from a car, but in Utah we might not be surprised by that. He asked where we are from and when he learned that we are from Prague, his eyes lit up. He had recently spoken to a friend of his who was having trouble getting information about her ancestors from the Czech Republic, so he immediately wondered if there was anything we could do to help. We replied that we would be happy to send him contacts of brothers and sisters who were doing genealogy in our country. He thanked us, we said goodbye and he got into his car. As we were leaving, we noticed that Mike had gotten out of the car again and was coming back to us. This time, however, the happy smile was replaced by emotion.
With tears in his eyes, he told us how grateful he was for our brief encounter and that he felt urged to get out of the car. He had been trying unsuccessfully to help his friend with genealogy in Bohemia for a long time, and because of her advanced age, she was losing hope of finding her ancestors in Bohemia. Mike too was about to give up, but the previous day when he visited the temple he felt that the solution would come - and it came through us. And so he wanted to share with us the joy and gratitude he felt at another testimony of how wonderfully God‘s guidance works in our lives.
Our encounter with Mike is an example of how the Spirit works. Mike made an effort to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and through his willingness to help complete strangers, he subsequently received not only help for his friend, but we all received another testimony of how God, through the Spirit, gives us answers and brings solutions. Yes, it was a small thing, but it is from such small and tiny things that the great mosaic of spiritual knowledge in our lives is made.

I carried this faith into the first years of my life as a college student at the University of California at Santa Barbara. About that time, however, a philosophy class opened challenges and raised issues about the very existence of God. About this same time, I faced the decision of whether to take a leave of absence from college to serve a mission. To add to the dilemma the Korean War commenced with its disquieting influence on my generation. I wrestled with the issue of God, not exactly doubting, but thinking more deeply about it. I loved the Church, but being somewhat analytical developed a list of doctrinal and policy issues and concerns to which I wanted to find answers. For me the list was somewhat lengthy and formidable.

What carried the day on the question of leaving college to serve a mission was probably a feeling of trust in my parents' and my grandparents' viewpoint on the existence of God and Jesus Christ together with a feeling that there was good and evil in the world and the Church was a source of light, goodness, and truth. I was drawn somehow to that feeling of goodness, not then knowing its source, but despite my decision to serve I wanted to know more and I wanted to find answers to my concerns. Reading the Book of Mormon gave me enough assurance to go on, but it also made me realize how much I didn't know and gave me a thirst to want to know more, much more. If I am right some of you may have had somewhat similar experiences to mine.

I entered my first assignment in northern Montana with enthusiasm, but also full of desire to know more. I read everything about the gospel I could get my hands on, and especially the scriptures which I read over and over until my eyes were sore. Over the next couple of months, I found answers to virtually all of my questions, enough so that I felt complete assurance that there were answers to all of my fundamental questions. We never in this life get to know everything, but I knew enough and had enough experience by then that my testimony had become firm. It has never left me, even though I still have things I would like to more fully understand. I felt sorry for my first companion who had to put up with all of my probing and searching. The result of this early experience was personally helpful and powerful. Study and reasoning had confirmed the feelings of the heart that caused me to volunteer for missionary service.

One brother who had once been a prisoner of war had to withdraw money from his savings account—money which had been set aside for another special purpose. Then he learned of a pension for Canadian prisoners of war and found that he qualified. In fact, he was awarded the pension retroactively, and the cumulative amount was slightly in excess of the amount he had withdrawn to pay his building assessment.

When President Dieter F. Uchtdorf was just 11 years old, he worked as a laundry delivery boy. He had to pedal so hard pulling a heavy cart behind his clunky workhorse of a bicycle that he sometimes thought his lungs would burst. It wasn't until he joined the German Air Force many years later that he realized how his childhood affliction would create a lifelong blessing. Doctors who examined him discovered evidence of lung disease that had been healed, and they wondered what treatment he had received for it. President Uchtdorf had received no medical treatment for his lung disease, because hadn't even known he had the disease. He realized then that without his hard work in the fresh air as a child, he would never have become a pilot.[20] We might add that he also would never have become the senior vice president of flight operations for Lufthansa, one of the largest airlines in the world--an experience that undoubtedly prepared him, in turn, for his current administrative responsibilities as a member of the First Presidency.

Pierre Anthian, son of a French army officer, was born in Algeria during that country’s war for independence. When he was four years old, his family moved back to Pau, a city in southwest France. A short time later his parents divorced, leaving his mother, Michka, with custody of their four children. When Pierre was nine years old, the missionaries found them. The children were baptized first, followed by their mother.
Sister Anthian taught gospel lessons, including Christlike love and service, the best way they can be taught: through personal application. She and her children served both in the Church and in the community. Sometimes the family would invite homeless people to share a meal. Pierre’s volunteer efforts included hospitals and rest homes, homeless shelters and hostels.
After graduating from dental school, Pierre served a full-time mission in Switzerland. Upon returning home, he began making dentures, first in the French Riviera and later in Paris. By then, helping others had become a way of life, and he volunteered to serve meals at the largest homeless shelter in Paris. It was here he became troubled over merely giving handouts. “It’s good to give food,” he says, “but what do we teach in the Church? We teach people to be self-reliant. So I began looking for an idea, a special tool, to give these people dignity and autonomy.”
Eventually, it occurred to him that music might be just the tool he needed. Not only was music part of Pierre’s religious culture, it was a personal passion for him. He had studied music, particularly choral music, in conservatories of Pau, Cannes, and Paris, and he had once directed a Church choir. He determined to start a choir among society’s outcasts.

A loving mother once gave the following wise counsel to her daughter, who was unhappy with a struggling marriage. She had the daughter draw a vertical line down the middle of a sheet of paper and write down on the left side all the things her husband did that bothered her. Then, on the right side, she had her write down her response to each offense. The mother then had her cut the paper in half, separating the two lists.

“Now throw the paper with your husband’s faults in the garbage. If you want to be happy and improve your marriage, stop focusing on your husband’s faults and focus instead on your own behavior. Examine the way you are responding to the things that bother you and see if you can respond in a different, more positive way.”

This mother understood the power and wisdom of 100 percent responsibility.

I was so happy to meet President Nelson. When tickets became available for the event to meet the prophet, I made a phone call to our district president for a ticket, but he told me to wait. Later I prayed to God for a ticket and made a phone call to the district president again the next day and I got a ticket. I travelled with three other brothers by car to meet President Nelson in Bengaluru. On the way we stopped our car to have lunch in a village, where we met family members who were sad because their son had died, so we shared our testimony and told them that we were travelling to meet the living prophet, and later they felt so happy. When I met our prophet, I was so happy to hear the words which God instructed him to speak to us. I felt so blessed to hear God’s words. I was thankful to God for helping me to meet living prophet. —Prakash Prince (Chennai 1st Branch)

I gained a better view and understanding of this heavenly law by climbing atop my parents' shoulders when I was 12 years old.

I loved snow skiing and found myself in a sporting goods store standing in front of a rack of brand new skis. One particular pair of skis seemed to call out my name, sing the Sirens' captivating song, and whisper, "Buy me!" I knew at that moment that I was meant to call these skis my own. Unfortunately, I didn't have the funds for a cheeseburger, let alone a pair of skis. So I found my mother in the mall, brought her to the sporting goods store, and stood her in front of the skis so she too could receive revelation and do what every inspired mother should do--buy skis for their beloved children. I stood next to her looking at the skis, waiting for the big moment. Nothing! No whispers, no singing, no light shining on the skis, nothing! Undeterred, I made my emotional plea, asking her to fulfill my dreams, and reminded her of her role as a good, honorable mother. Nothing! I told her it was her duty to help her children to be happy. Nothing! She finally turned, looked at me, and said calmly, "Matt, you'll appreciate these skis more if you earn the money to buy them yourself."

What? I tried in vain to convince her that I would appreciate the skis if she bought them, and besides, where would I be able to earn money--I was 12 years old! Since Mom said no, then obviously I should ask Dad. Nothing! Well, actually he did say, "Matt, you'll appreciate these skis more if you earn the money to buy them yourself."

I was convinced this was a conspiracy. Not long afterward, I found work on a local farm. I pulled and shucked garlic, fed chickens, and helped load the farmer's truck for market at 5:00 a.m. A neighbor saw me working early in the morning and asked if I was interested in stocking frozen foods at a local grocery store after my farming chores. This led to another person asking if I wanted to stock all the potato chips in the store as well. Obviously there were no child labor laws when I was young, and I wasn't complaining.

I was able to scrape together enough money for a down payment to hold the skis, and then every two weeks, I walked to the mall and made a small payment on the skis. I would ask if I could see the skis, and the salesperson would bring them out from the storeroom. Oh, sweet reunion! After spending some quality time together, I would hand the skis back, wave longingly goodbye, and get back to work. It took a year to earn enough money to take those skis home. I have owned many pairs of skis in my lifetime. But there was only one pair that was never sold, given away, or sent to the local thrift store. It is this pair.

I learned that the old-school pioneer law of the harvest really did work. It took much longer than I hoped, but in due season the reward did come. It was much harder than I expected, but I fainted not. Or, in other words, I didn't quit or stop, even though I had no idea when the harvest would actually come.

I learned something else about the law of the harvest that I didn't quite bank on. Oh, I got the skis that I worked for, but I also received much, much more. For example, my mother and father were right. I did appreciate these skis more because I did buy them myself. I also harvested something of even greater and lasting value. I reaped a knowledge that I could find solutions to my challenges, that I could do difficult things, and that I could endure much better than I thought I could. I harvested experience, grit, and a determination that continues to bless me to this day.

I remember helping my eight-year-old son make a gift for his mother. He had determined to make a key holder from a piece of board. Following the guidelines of not purchasing anything, we found an old piece of wood. It took about three times longer than normal to sand it down, as it was not a quality piece of wood.
When it came time to paint it, we realized we didn’t have a paintbrush. So we took some pieces of straw and bamboo from an old basket and made our own. I wondered whether it really would look that nice when finished, but to our surprise, the bamboo and straw together worked as well as any paintbrush I had ever used.
I wanted to buy the hooks needed to hold the keys, but my son reminded me that we couldn’t do that. We ended up using some headless nails that we patiently shaped with great love and dedication. They were shaped into hooks as beautiful as any that we could have purchased at a store. When it was all finished, it was a gift from our hearts to Mom.

One year as I was driving myself and my niece Shelly, who was then seven years old, back from a trip to Vernon, British Columbia, I had an experience that has helped me as I try to improve my ability to prune wisely and to load or unload my wagon, as the case may be.

During the trip when we were not playing the tape “Winnie the Pooh” for the hundredth time, Shelly would be asleep in the backseat of the car, and I had many hours and many miles to weigh, compare, and wonder. I had gone to Canada to take care of my sister’s family of nine children while she was in the hospital with her tenth baby. After a week of doing laundry, matching socks, tending to paper routes, meals, lessons, car pooling, bedtime stories, lunch money, settling disputes over time spent in the bathroom, finding shoes, and planning for family home evening, I felt overwhelmed to say the least. At the appointed time my sister returned with a babe in arms. I stood in awe and reverence as I watched her step back into that routine with the ease and harmony of a conductor leading a well-trained orchestra with each player coming in on cue. It was a miracle to me.

As I thought of her life and mine, I began measuring what I was not doing in comparison to what she was doing. We do that, you know. I began wondering and feeling discouraged, despondent, even depressed.

At that moment, somewhere between the Canadian border and Spokane, my father’s voice came into my mind. He had passed away two years before, but his voice was as clear as though he were sitting by my side. “My dear,” he said, “don’t worry about the little things. The big things you agreed to before you came.” And for the rest of the journey, between moments of listening to “Winnie the Pooh,” I asked myself over and over again, “What are the big things in life? What is essential? What is the purpose of life?” I share this experience with you, my brothers and sisters, because I believe there are times when these same questions weigh heavily on your mind.

The years have passed since that experience, and Shelly has traded Winnie the Pooh for the more important things. She has just recently received her mission call to New Zealand. She is now willing to leave important things behind, including ballroom dancing, which for Shelly borders on being essential, to go forth and teach the real essentials, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My second story centers around Great-Uncle Grover, who lived in a house out in the country, far from the city. Uncle Grover was getting very old. We thought our sons should meet him before he died. So, one afternoon, we took a long drive to his humble house. We sat together to visit and introduce him to our sons. Not long into the conversation, our two young boys, maybe five and six years old, wanted to go outside and play.
Uncle Grover, hearing their request, bent over with his face in theirs. His face was so weathered and unfamiliar that the boys were a little scared of him. He said to them, in his gravelly voice, “Be careful—there are a lot of skunks out there.” Hearing this, Lesa and I were more than startled; we were worried that they might get sprayed by a skunk! The boys soon went outside to play as we continued to visit.
Later, when we got in the car to go home, I inquired of the boys, “Did you see a skunk?” One of them replied, “No, we didn’t see any skunks, but we did see a black kitty cat with a white stripe on its back!”
In the second account, the boys were blissfully unaware of the unsavory threat they faced from a skunk. Unable to properly identify what they had actually encountered, they ran the risk of suffering some unfortunate consequences. These are stories of mistaken identity—presuming the real thing to be something else. In each case, the consequences were minor.

My own experience as a convert at the age of nineteen might be helpful, here, in understanding how faith and reason sometimes compete, and sometimes can work together. I had first learned of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through my sister, who had been found by missionaries and had joined the Church. She was ten years older than me, and in quite a different place, spiritually. She had always been something of a seeker, but at last she had found what she was looking for.

For me, it was quite different. In the British high school I attended, my closest friend and I were known as the class atheists. I was quite familiar with the Bible -- in fact, in the English education system at that time we not only had a devotional assembly every morning, but scripture knowledge was a required subject. I passed the scripture exam quite easily because I simply memorized scripture passages and knew the answers to the questions--not because I believed in God.

So when my sister began to share her religious convictions with me I wasn't greatly impressed. Like all good Mormons, however, she didn't give up. Eventually I found her religious views to be so provocative I determined to learn enough about this new religion to set her right.

That process took a few years, and ended differently than I expected. I began to be a frequent attender at the great city library in Liverpool, an impressive and imposing building where I discovered, as I recall, some 33 books about Mormonism or with extracts about the subject. Only two of them were favorable to the Church. I read everything.

And I learned a lot of facts. I quickly found that most of the anti-Mormon literature was written by members of other faiths whose distortion of Latter-day Saint history and doctrine was so palpably obvious, that it drove me to seek out more LDS literature where I could at least see for myself what Mormons believed.

Then, gradually, something began to happen. As I worked through the pages of the Book of Mormon, went back to the New Testament and associated with Latter-day Saints, I found my natural cynicism to be in retreat, and I began to think of things more objectively. Whereas before, I read passages of scripture like any textbook, I now began to feel something. You will recognize what I could not at that time--that the Spirit was beginning to work on me. Very unscientific, but true, nonetheless.

Toward the end of 1967 I had progressed enough, read enough, had enough time with missionaries and members that it had become all-important to me to know for myself whether Joseph Smith was a prophet, the key to which appeared to be the Book of Mormon.

Moroni 10:4! How many members around the world have arrived at that scripture, exactly as I did, and come face to face with those remarkable verses that call for faith in Christ and real intent as preliminaries to a witness from the Holy Ghost.

I had prayed about this for weeks--yes, I had got that far since my atheist days at school--and one evening alone in my room I was wrestling for that testimony after fasting for far longer than was wise. I was nearing the end of my prayer. My mind began to settle on whether I was willing to be baptized. Had I learned enough? Could I say that the Church was true? And although not in these words the question I was asking myself was, "Should I stretch?" Should I take what I had and embrace the gospel even though it meant a few steps into the unknown. The answer, I concluded, was, yes, I could. And it was in that moment of decision that the witness came. "Ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." I understand that scripture now with perfect clarity. The Lord could have answered my prayers weeks earlier and saved me a lot of anxiety. But he cares enough about us to stretch us, to push us beyond where we would otherwise go.

People come into the Church in many different ways. Some have a believing heart and need no convincing. Some, stubborn and proud like the teenage me, require something more. There is no one way, no single prescribed way. But what a difference attitude makes. Like my schoolboy peers, I stood in those morning assemblies for six years, sang the hymns and heard the scripture readings. But I remained completely unmoved by any of it. Yet today, there are times in a sacrament meeting when I drill down deep into the words of some of those same hymns and savor the music and I literally feel the tears running down my cheeks. I read the words of the four gospels or the Book of Acts and they seem to me to be so far above and beyond what I once failed to recognize. This is not just great literature, it is life changing, lifesaving eternal truth. Such is the difference that attitude makes. Such is the difference that comes from asking questions with real intent. Such is the different when the Spirit is present.

Did I have all my questions answered, that night when I received that witness? Not at all. As a matter of fact, there were two big questions with which I had greatly wrestled and which the missionaries had not been able to answer satisfactorily. Neither could I find answers in Church literature. And yet, though those questions had once seemed like great, insurmountable stumbling blocks, now they seemed of far less consequence. Since I could not resolve them, I decided to put them on the shelf for some future resolution. In time, one of those troubling questions settled itself--in June 1978 when the priesthood was extended to men of all races. The second one, you may be interested to know, is something I am still working out, 45 years later. But I'm getting close!

My name is Tanoh Ahoukou Mariette, I am a member of the Abobo East Côte d’Ivoire Stake. I would like to share my testimony about believing in God even in the middle of the storms of life.
Due to financial difficulties from my parents, I had to drop out of primary school at the age of eight in a rural area in the east of the country. At the age of 18, I married a young man from my village whom I loved very much and with whom I had four children.
As a young couple, life was difficult, but I had small gainful side jobs to support my husband. Subsequently, he was recruited into the national army with the corollary of a better and more stable life for my children and me.
Once, a young man came to our house and wanted to be a tutor at home for my children. Oddly enough, I had sympathy for him, but my husband didn’t want it. I had to undertake to pay the young man myself with my meagre means. I later learned that he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This would prove to be precious for later.
After several years of marriage, my husband ended up leaving our home, leaving me alone with six young children. My whole world turned upside down. I had no sufficient source of income to take care of my children and me.
Depressed and seeing no prospect in front of me, I decided one morning to end my life. My last-born son was five years old at the time came to me unexpectedly (probably sent by God) and said, “No mom, don’t do that. What do you want us to become without you?” I hugged my son Martin and we cried together. I felt a sense of guilt and shame. But I had decided to live.
Life was still difficult, so much so that I left home for a brief time to give myself moments of reflection. I went to a friend’s house outside of Abidjan. One day around 6 am, a voice said to me: “Get up quickly and join your children in Abidjan”.
When I arrived, my children taught me that they should be baptized at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose missionaries had previously taught my children, but to whom I paid little attention because I was not attracted to religions. I was therefore invited to attend the baptism of my children at the Quatre Etages Ward.
Bishop Etian’s speech had a positive impact on me. It was the story of the “King with the Severed Finger” told by Muslim folk wisdom. A king had a finger cut off during the hunt and imprisoned his advisor who told him to let Allah (God) prevail in all things. Sometime later the king and his retinue were captured in the bush by cannibals who did not want him because of his disability. He was therefore the only one released and his life spared. He ran to deliver his servant, apologizing profusely. The latter replied that God is never wrong and that everything works together for our good. He said, “If you hadn’t put me in jail, I would be with you, captured, devoured by the cannibals, and probably dead today.”
From that moment on, I made a firm resolution to take my life and that of my children totally into my own hands by being baptized. From then on, I decided to forgive my husband for the wrongs I had suffered. My husband is still not in our home, but I have a more brotherly and kinder relationship with him through the power of forgiveness. I undertook income-generating activities that have allowed me to provide for my family and especially to ensure the schooling of my children for more than 15 years. Today, two of my daughters are starting careers as teachers in public schools. My last son has just been admitted to the university for which I am looking for ways to finance the courses. They make me proud. I have been able to go to the Accra Ghana Temple where I was endowed and sealed to my deceased parents.
I hope one day to be able to remarry in the temple to have an eternal marriage. The lessons I draw from my life is that everything works together for the good of one who believes in God.
As told to Sadia Zouzou, Côte d’Ivoire communication director

I have a friend who got married recently, and I gave her a Liahona magazine that talks about marriage and the sacred responsibility to love each other and care for each other. Even though my friend is not a member, she read the magazine with her husband, and she thanked me sincerely because it helped her strengthen her marriage. The Liahona brings blessings to both members and nonmembers.
Beatriz de Guaigua, Venezuela

It was a passing down if ever there was one—third and long and late in a catch-up game. The defensive line grinned big ugly grins and licked their lips. Sack lunch time! Today’s special: quarterback.
Quarterback Jeff Brimhall took the snap and then a quick five-step drop. Reading blitz, he fired a short, tight spiral over the center of the line just as a linebacker fell out of the sky and smashed him to the turf. On the way down, Jeff caught a blurry glimpse of the ball spinning incomplete through the clutching fingertips of receiver Shaun Gifford.
Climbing to his feet, Jeff expected to meet the punting unit. Instead he saw the referee signaling a first down. He heard the home town crowd cheering. He saw John Martin holding the football high in triumph. John, who had been running along behind Shaun on the 80 slant left play, had gathered in the deflected pass and turned upfield for a big gainer.
In the bleachers, some unknown fan jumped to her feet and shouted out the words that were to become a war cry at Lake Havasu City High School football games. “Mormon connection!”
Mormon connection? Somehow the fan knew that Jeff, Shaun, and John were all members of a strange organization called the “Mormon church.” Somehow, in fact, just about everybody in high school knew it. Somehow just about everybody knew they didn’t believe in drinking or cussing or using drugs. Somehow just about everybody knew they had high moral standards. Odd guys in a way. But friendly and fun, and boy could they play football!