Gospel Story Finder

Here in the mission field, I have learned to do many things on my own initiative and not to wait for someone to tell me what to do. We need to be like the Savior, who volunteered to come to earth and to pay for our sins. Although he suffered greatly, he was happy because he was doing the will of his Father.
Elder Jorge Guevara,Las Delicias Ward, Sonsonate El Salvador Stake

When I was little, I was afraid of water. Even though people told me I didn’t need to worry, I was scared. The missionaries told me that Jesus Christ was baptized to set an example, and I could feel my fear go away. When I was baptized, I felt a great joy.
Sarah T., age 11, Île de France, France

Marty was excited. Marty was scared. Today was his first day of real school. Not preschool at the little school down the street.
“This school is miles away,” Marty told his stuffed bear, Chipper, as he pulled on his socks.
“Hundreds—maybe thousands—of kids go to real school,” Marty told Chipper as he zipped his new jeans.
“Maybe I won’t find one friend at the real school,” he said as he buttoned his shirt. “I wish you could go to school with me. Then I’d have at least one friend.”
Slowly, Marty picked up his new backpack. It felt light in his hands.
“I only have crayons and pencils and my new drawing tablet in the backpack,” Marty thought. He smiled. “Yes! You’ll fit right inside too,” he said, and tucked Chipper inside before pulling the pack over one shoulder.
The school looked even bigger when Mother helped Marty find his classroom. It looked like there were hundreds—maybe millions—of kids inside. He didn’t know one of them! But at least he had Chipper with him.
Marty watched the children in his classroom hanging their backpacks on the hooks against the wall. One girl put her backpack on a table, unzipped her bag, and pulled out her crayons and pencils and drawing paper before hanging it up.
“Oh no!” Marty thought. He’d have to unzip his backpack right in front of everyone. Suddenly, having Chipper along didn’t seem like such a good idea. All the children would call him a baby!
Marty stood at the back of the room. He put his backpack on the table and wished he could unzip it just a little bit so no one could see Chipper. But the drawing tablet was large. It would never come out.
A boy just his size stood beside him. He stood with his hand on the zipper of his backpack too. He wasn’t pulling it either.
“Please hang up your backpacks and bring your tablets, pencils, and crayons to your seats, boys,” the teacher said. “We will all draw pictures about our story today.”
Marty moved the zipper on his backpack down just a bit. The boy beside him did the very same thing. Marty pulled his zipper down a tiny bit more. Just enough for one of Chipper’s fuzzy brown arms to pop right out!
Marty’s face grew hot. He looked at his feet.
“Boys!” the teacher called. Marty looked back at his backpack.
The boy beside him did the very same thing. Marty looked at the other boy’s backpack. There was a fuzzy brown arm sticking out of his backpack too!
Marty looked at the boy. “I’m Marty,” he said.
“I’m Hank,” the boy said.
Marty unzipped his backpack and took out his tablet, pencils, and crayons. Then he hung up his bag. Hank did the same. Somehow, Marty didn’t think either of them would need to bring their stuffed bear friends to school again.

Karl G. Maeser was the first president of Brigham Young University. Born in Saxony, Germany, in 1828, he was the first member to be baptized into the restored Church there. In 1860, when Dr. Maeser and his family moved to Utah, he became the private tutor to Brigham Young’s family. Sixteen years later, Brigham Young called Dr. Maeser to organize the Brigham Young Academy.
Not only was Karl G. Maeser known for his intelligence and teaching skills; he was also known for his humility and honesty. In his first address to the new Brigham Young Academy he said, “I have been asked what I mean by word of honor. I will tell you. Place me behind prison walls—walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground—there is a possibility that in some way or another I may be able to escape; but stand me on the floor and draw a chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross it. Can I get out of that circle? No, never! I’d die first!” (quoted in Emerson West, Vital Quotations, 1968, 167).

Since we arrived my family has increased three more. I now have two sons, David and Daniel, ages 5 and 8, and a daughter Rebecca Rachel, 3 years old. This is an actual fulfillment of our patriarchal blessings. Certainly, we will leave with mixed emotions when the time comes. My daughter LaVonne said, “Papa I don’t know anything except in the Philippines, I grew up here.” I think we all did a little.

Jesse fidgeted from one foot to the other and chewed hard on his bottom lip. He couldn’t believe that he had really rung Mrs. Finster’s doorbell. Maybe she wouldn’t answer. Some of the kids at school said that she was a witch, but Mom said that that was silly and to not talk mean about people.
Jesse glanced back at the huge rosebush next to the sidewalk. He and his best friend, Billy, walked by that bush every afternoon on their way home from first grade. It was loaded with large pink flowers. He could barely see the top of Billy’s head ducked behind that bush. He could have just used his pocket knife to cut off a rose—Mrs. Finster would have never known. Maybe he could still do it. …
The door opened suddenly, and Jesse jumped. A gray-haired woman, her face creased with wrinkle upon wrinkle, stood silently in front of him.
“I’m Jesse Brown. I wanted a rose for my mama, and you have a bunch, and pink’s her favorite, and it would make her really happy, but it’s OK if you say no. Sorry to bother you.” Jesse turned to run. Billy was already halfway down the block.
“Wait just a minute, young man. You want one of my roses for your mother, is that it?”
Jesse turned slowly back to face her, “Yes, ma’am, if you don’t mind.” He hoped that he could remember his manners—this was no time to mess up.
“Haven’t you heard that I eat little boys who bother me?”
Jesse would have run, but his legs wouldn’t move. “Yes, ma’am, but I don’t believe it. It’s against the law, you know.”
Mrs. Finster’s smile lit up her whole face. It twinkled from her eyes and melted away most of her wrinkles. “I’ll get my clippers, and we’ll get the biggest, prettiest pink rose your mother has ever seen.”
As they walked down the driveway, Mrs. Finster said, “Your mother must be very proud of you. Other boys might have just taken a rose. But you see, if a rose isn’t clipped just right, it damages both the bush and the flower. I’m glad that you asked first.”
“Me too.” Jesse felt pretty good inside. Mama would be pleased with him—and she was going to love the rose!
They searched the bush together for the biggest, brightest rose. When they found it, Jesse thought that it smelled almost as good as fresh-baked cookies. Mrs. Finster clipped it so that it had a nice long stem and handed it to Jesse. “Be careful of the thorns,” she warned with a smile.
Jesse held his prize gently in his hands. “Thank you very much,” he said. He turned and started for home.
“Stop by anytime,” Mrs. Finster called after him. “I have plenty of roses.”
“I will,” Jesse promised as he waved back to Mrs. Finster. “I’ll stop by soon.”

This article touched me in many ways (see “How to Prepare for the Sacrament” at lds.org/go/427). Being that I just turned 14 and had my first opportunity last Sunday to prepare the sacrament has made a big difference to me. We try to encourage each other to talk reverently and talk about Church-related things. We dress our best to show that we try to be modest.
Corbin Mark O., Texas

Just as parents often teach their children to swim, so does the sea otter’s mother prepare her baby for life in the water.
A mother sea otter teaches her baby, called a pup, everything. She must teach him how to swim, because even though he is born in the kelp beds surrounded by water, the sea otter is not a natural swimmer. Sometimes he can float quite well, but swimming is another matter. A mother puts her pup’s face down in the water, then swims a short distance away from him. He tries to follow her but cannot go forward even an inch, so he begins to make a crying sound.
She always returns to her baby, swims around him, then draws away. In a gentle voice she urges him to follow her. He tries, fails, and cries. Over and over again, for days and days, she helps him until at last he can haltingly swim after her. But he cannot dive, so this is another thing he must be taught.
A pup cannot seem to get the idea that when he dives he should stay down and forage for food around the kelp roots at the bottom of the ocean. When he dives he immediately pops up to the surface again. But as he grows stronger, and with much patience, he finally can swim and dive too. Then he follows his mother everywhere, searching for food and playing.

I thought of the stripling warriors when I heard the son of a Relief Society sister say: “I have been blessed by the faith and example of my mother. By the time I became a priesthood holder, I had learned as much about home teaching from my mother’s visiting teaching efforts as by my father’s example of home teaching. … Her faith in the priesthood affects my faith and strengthens my desire to be [a] worthy … elder.”

After the bishopric member invited families to sit together during ward conference, someone tapped me on my shoulder.

“I guess you’re in my family for the next hour,” a kind sister said, inviting me to sit with her husband and children. I am grateful for people like her who show they care about me and want me to feel welcome. Another such person was a bishop who regularly invited me to weekly home evening with his family.

I had always considered myself to be a “good listener” until that night. Being raised in the middle of a large family had forced me to do my share of listening just to keep the decibel level to a low roar in my home. But I didn’t realize, until that night, that listening required more of me than just being quiet. I didn’t realize, until that night, how desperately someone could need to be listened to.
It had been a long day. In order for me to stay in school at Brigham Young University, I had to work part-time at night and go to school and study during the day. I was feeling tired and a little sorry for myself as I walked into the cafeteria late that night after a particularly hard day. The cafeteria was almost empty at that late hour.
I picked up my dinner tray and turned around to find a table. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a girl sitting alone at one of the tables. She was staring at her food with her head bowed. A large backpack, books, and papers were scattered all over the table where she was sitting. By all appearances, she obviously wanted to be left alone. There were plenty of empty tables and I started to walk toward one of them to sit down.
Suddenly I felt impressed to sit down next to the girl that I had noticed. Even though I was usually reserved, I found myself walking toward her table. I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if I could sit next to her.
She silently and reluctantly agreed as she began to move her books and papers off the table. Her appearance and posture and manner all told me that she wanted to be left alone, and I wondered why I was being so intrusive.
Then we started to talk, slowly and cautiously at first. I felt strangely as if she were a lifetime friend of mine that I hadn’t seen for a long time, and I wanted to know all about her and what was happening to her. We both spoke freely, maybe even more freely than real friends because we had no images to maintain and no reputations to uphold.
The young girl told me about some extremely depressing things that were happening in her life at that time. We talked for hours. Then the tears came.
After several hours had gone by, she looked at me and said, “Tonight I was sitting here alone again, and I felt and really believed that I didn’t have a friend in this whole world. I couldn’t think of even one person that cared about me. I was sitting here thinking how I could do away with myself when you walked up and asked me if you could sit next to me. You’ll never know what you’ve done for me tonight. I’ve only known you for a few hours, but I know that you are my friend and that you care about me. There must still be a God that cares for me if you can care for me.”
Later we embraced and walked away in separate directions. I turned, suddenly remembering that I didn’t even know her name. But she had disappeared into the night.
As I walked toward home, I was feeling pretty good about myself knowing that I had heeded the impression to sit next to the girl. My problems seemed pretty small compared to hers.
Then suddenly it hit me like a brick. All the times I had been similarly impressed to speak to someone, to spend time with someone, to call someone, or to say an encouraging word to someone, flashed before my mind. I remembered the excuses of not wanting to be too forward, or being too tired or worried about my own problems, or all the millions of reasons I had used for not heeding the promptings that I often received.
I suddenly wondered how many of those people I had neglected had needs as desperate as those of the young girl that I had just talked to.
Never before had I realized that to truly be a “good listener” I had to first learn to listen to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. Alone, without the Spirit, I was unable to discern the real needs of the people around me. With the Spirit, I could listen with my heart as well as my mind.
I will probably never see that girl again, but I hope I will never again fail to listen to the impressions that the Spirit gives me.

Occasionally Papa got a job laying brick for a fireplace chimney, and once he received a horse in trade for his work. It was a gentle, broad-backed creature named Bessie, who would carry as many children as could climb on. When she got tired she would walk under the low limbs of the Early Harvest apple tree and sweep the laughing riders off onto the ground. Ed could leap onto her back with a quick, smooth movement that I envied. I always seemed to get stuck lying across her back on my stomach, unable to wiggle around to swing one leg over and sit upright. Ed usually had to give me a shove that threatened to push me off.
One day I had an idea as I sat on the barn roof watching Ed ride Bessie around the yard. “Bring her over here,” I called. “I want to try something.”
Ed rode over. “OK, here we are,” he said. “Come on down.”
“Back her up under the sliding board,” I said.
Ed could see my idea at once and did as I asked. It was not more than two inches from the end of the board to the horse’s back, and I slid easily from one to the other. After that I always mounted Bessie the same way, and before long she backed herself close to the board as soon as anyone was on the barn roof. She learned to lower her head so we could slide down the board onto her back, over her head, and onto the ground in one quick swoop. We called that game the Bessie Bounce, and it was one of our favorites.

Elder Ronald A. Rasband visited Oklahoma just after a huge tornado struck the area. He was especially touched by a fifth grader he met there named Tori. She had huddled in the restroom with her friends as the tornado roared through her school. Tori said a prayer that Heavenly Father would protect them. Suddenly the roof tore away! Tori kept praying. “All of a sudden it got quiet,” she said. “When I opened my eyes, I saw a stop sign right in front of my eyes!” Later Elder Rasband gave Tori a blessing. He told her that angels had protected her in the storm. (See “The Joyful Burden of Discipleship” from the Saturday morning session.)

“I started to find out more about the history of the Church by reading Saints and Revelations in Context. When I started to read them, I had many doubts. I also started to pray a lot to God, because my parents always taught me to doubt my doubts before my faith. It wasn’t easy, but early Church members were human, and they sacrificed and believed in the living God. That is why we have the Church today.”
Elisa L., 17, Santa Catarina, Brazil

The first time Melanie had been in the hospital, she had been very frightened. Mommy had stayed with her the whole first night, but the second night, Melanie had awakened and Mommy hadn’t been there. Melanie felt so little and so afraid! She had cried and cried and cried, until finally she had fallen back to sleep.
Later, Mommy had said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. You were sleeping so peacefully that I decided to go and get a sandwich before I went to sleep. Why didn’t you say a prayer when you woke up frightened?”
“I couldn’t pray. I’m not supposed to get out of this big bed by myself. How can I pray when I can’t kneel by the bed?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mommy explained, “didn’t you know that you can pray anywhere? Of course, it’s good to kneel by your bed. But when you can’t, Heavenly Father understands. He hears your prayers very well while you’re lying here in bed. He wants you to pray. In fact, in the Book of Mormon, we are told to always have a prayer in our hearts for ourselves and for others.”*

And Rhonda, in New York, explains, “Here in the city, there are not many Latter-day Saint fellows to choose from and vice versa, but the friends we do have are very close and we do many things together. Every now and then a lasting relationship develops; I met my fiancé in New York! We often joke about how far we had to go to meet each other.”

Serving as stake patriarch for three decades, Reg has given more than seven hundred patriarchal blessings to members of the Hull, Leeds, and York stakes. As a young man during World War II, he began his working life on the railway as a fireman. He then qualified as a driver of steam locomotives, working on the East Coast railway line, through to the advent of diesel trains in the 1960s. In 1983, he was the first to drive the City of York Intercity 125 on its maiden run to London.

I recently spoke with a faithful man who shared with me the deepest feelings of his heart. In a meeting, I had just explained the difference between being called to the work and assigned to labor. This good brother shook my hand and with tears in his eyes said to me, “The things you helped me learn today have lifted a burden from my shoulders that I have carried for more than 30 years. As a young missionary, I was initially assigned to a field of labor in South America. But I was unable to obtain a visa, so my assignment was changed to the United States. All these years I have wondered why I was unable to serve in the place to which I had been called. Now I know I was called to the work and not to a place. I cannot tell you how much this understanding has helped me.”

My heart ached for this good man. As I have taught these basic principles throughout the world, countless individuals have expressed privately to me the same sentiment as the man I just described. I am addressing this subject today because not a single member of this Church should carry an unnecessary burden of misunderstanding, uncertainty, anguish, or guilt about an assignment to labor.

One day, 15-year-old Lucy Morley was helping her neighbor, Abigail Daniels, weave cloth. As they worked, three missionaries knocked at the door. They said that Jesus Christ had sent them to share a message.
The men told Abigail and Lucy that Jesus had called Joseph Smith to be a prophet. They also told them about the Book of Mormon.
To Lucy’s surprise, Abigail became angry. She made the missionaries leave.
Lucy knew the missionaries were servants of God. She told them to visit her family down the road.
The missionaries went to the Morley home. Lucy’s parents invited the missionaries to teach them and their friends.
That night, 17 people were baptized. In the next few days, 50 more people heard the missionaries and were baptized. Even Lucy’s neighbor Abigail changed her mind. She and her husband, along with Lucy and members of her family, chose to follow Jesus Christ by being baptized.

Now 150 years later, the date is June 9, 2006. One more handcart company is leaving Iowa City.
This time the company is made up of about 70 young men and young women from the Iowa City Iowa Stake. Dressed in pioneer clothing, with their handcarts full of supplies, these youth are gathered at the Mormon Handcart Park just outside of Iowa City—the same place from which the first handcart company left exactly 150 years earlier on June 9, 1856. Looking west, they can’t help but think of the original pioneers who stood here so long ago.
Kameron Hansen of the Iowa City First Ward thinks of his fourth great-grandmother, Janetta McBride. Kameron, 14, is almost the same age Janetta was when she started walking to Zion.
“I like to think how happy she would be to see me doing this,” says Kameron. “I hope she is proud that her family is still faithful in the Church.” Kameron knows his journey will be much shorter and easier than Janetta’s, but he still feels grateful for this chance to remember and honor his ancestors.
Anna Shaner of the Fairfield Branch is also grateful to honor the pioneers. She is amazed they walked into the frontier not knowing whether they would live through the experience. Anna gains a lot of strength from the people who, as she puts it, “had faith in what they were supposed to do and the courage to do it.”
This trek is a great opportunity for all the Iowa City youth to honor their ancestors. Whether they have handcart pioneers in their family line or not, the youth are members of the Church, so the handcart pioneers are their spiritual ancestors.