Gospel Story Finder

During my early days in the church, I remember hearing about one Brother, who was the only member of the Church in his family and faced much opposition when he decided to serve a mission. His parents, siblings, and relatives all strongly criticized his decision as a sign that he was discarding his identity for an alien faith. His parents were so disappointed and heartbroken that they disowned him the night before he reported to the mission office.

As a new convert, hearing stories like this Brother’s really made me wonder if the gospel of Jesus Christ really was as foreign and alien to Chinese beliefs as some tend to think.

Of all the requirements Rocco has fulfilled to earn his various awards, he points to one in particular as most valuable for his personal growth: “Reading the Book of Mormon,” Rocco says without hesitation. “That was the biggest and most rewarding challenge.”

“I had read the Book of Mormon once already, a year or so ago, but I was just reading to get it done,” Rocco explains. “When I started reading it again, I really wanted to learn and gain a testimony of it.” He approached reading the Book of Mormon in a completely different way his second time through. “Every time I read now, I pray before to ask Heavenly Father’s Spirit to be with me as I read.”

Rocco’s already begun on his next big project—to more actively share his testimony with others as he prepares to serve a full-time mission. His Scouting experiences and earning the Duty to God Award have helped him in his personal development and in becoming a missionary. “To spread the gospel, I needed to know what is in the Book of Mormon, and I needed to know that it is true,” he says. “After reading the Book of Mormon for the second time, I received a testimony of it.”

This is our second child, Chrysanne. She is extremely creative, and a joy in my life. Several years after the birth of our first child we started working with medical experts in Southern California in order to have a second child. Nothing seemed to work. I would give my wife daily injections, we would then go to an infertility clinic in Hollywood each month for a procedure, only to be told later that it did not work out. Trust me, for us Hollywood is a place of many shattered dreams. Again we were filled with heartache and petitioned the Lord for help with this righteous desire. Shouldn’t we have another child? Didn’t our little girl deserve a sibling?

After years of trying we had dinner at the home of some friends who were not members of our Church. They too were dealing with infertility and had started the process of adoption. They detailed what was required, and we felt their excitement and hope to have a child of their own. Adoption was something Caryn and I had never contemplated before. As we discussed adoption with our friends, the Spirit entered our hearts and we both felt that this was something we should explore. Maybe we needed to open up another window for the Lord to send us this desired blessing. However, what we did not realize was what a hassle it was to become eligible for adoption in the state of California! We had to become certified foster parents first, take infant CPR & first aid, take several child raising courses, have home inspections, and fill out mountains of paperwork. To be honest, we both got discouraged by the shear scope of the endeavor. We had a sweet little girl at home, and my life was busy with my PhD program and being in the bishopric. Maybe we were ok with just the three of us. And then the Lord spoke to me. I was working on some homework and looked over at the adoption paperwork on the desk nearby that still needed to be done, and the Spirit said quite forcefully “Do it! Do it NOW!” I immediately stopped what I was doing and started working on the numerous essays that still needed to be written. I called out to Caryn, and said, “I feel we need to get this done right away.” Together we finished the paperwork, submitted it to the LDS Family Services, and then got back to our lives. I don't know why I had that strong impression from the Spirit, since nothing progressed with the adoption for months.

As time went along, we moved from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City, and started a new phase of our lives. My new job was exciting and fulfilling, and we bought a beautiful home. A few months after arriving we got a call from the Oklahoma offices of LDS Family Services asking if we were still interested in adoption, and that they got our paperwork transferred from California. They asked us to meet with them the next day. When we arrived for what we thought was just a “get to know you” meeting, we were told we had been selected for adoption, and that the baby would be arriving in 3 weeks. Just imagine, this is like finding out you were 8 1?2 months pregnant and didn’t realize it!

We were told about a young woman in California who, when she found out she was pregnant, saw our paperwork just 2-3 days after we had finished it. It was her first opportunity to consider who the adoptive parents for her future baby would be, and the Spirit had strongly spoken to her as she saw our pictures that we were the parents who the Lord wanted to raise this baby. If I had not listened to the Spirit back when I was busy with my PhD program, she would never have seen our paperwork, and we would not have our beautiful and creative Chrysanne as part of our family. Because Caryn and I, as well as this sweet young woman, listened to the spirit, and followed up on those promptings, the Lord was able to change four lives for the better.

It was a warm fall day in 1961. Bobby and his friend Jeff were walking home from a Cub Scout den meeting. Bobby was feeling good. It had been a fun meeting. They had talked about the Cub Scout Promise. Their leader let them draw pictures on a chalkboard to show what the Cub Scout Promise meant to them. Bobby had drawn a picture of a smiling Scout taking out the trash. That was how he could “help other people.”

“What did you draw?” Bobby asked Jeff. “I forgot.”

“I drew a Cub Scout going to church,” Jeff said. “He was doing his ‘duty to God.’”

“Oh, yeah.” Bobby looked down and noticed chalk dust on the sleeve of his uniform. He brushed it off. He was proud of his uniform. When he wore it, he felt like someone important. He tried to take good care of it.

Jeff thrust his hand into his pocket. “Hey, what is this?” He pulled out a long stick of chalk. It was the chalk he had used to draw on the blackboard at Scouts. “Oops. Guess I’ll have to return this next week.”

Bobby reached for the chalk. “Give it to me for a second.” He put the chalk between his index and middle fingers and brought it up to his lips. Then he looked away and pretended to blow smoke. “Who do I look like?” he asked, repeating the action.

Jeff laughed. “The cowboy guy on that billboard ad.”

“Yeah, look at me. I’m cool.” Bobby strutted around, puffing on his chalk stick. Just then a car drove by and honked. The car was full of teenagers who waved at him and cheered.

“Who are they?” Jeff asked. “Do you know them?”

“No,” Bobby said. “And I don’t want to. They are the tough kids at the high school.” Bobby handed the chalk back to Jeff. “Here. You keep this.”

They walked home in silence.

When Bobby walked through the front door of his house, his mother was waiting for him, arms folded. “Sit down, Son,” she said. “We need to talk.” They sat on the couch. “I just got a phone call from Sister Jensen. She was on her way home from the store and saw you and Jeff standing on the corner. She said you were smoking cigarettes.”

Bobby moaned. “It was chalk, Mom. We were just pretending. Honest.”

“Where is the chalk now?”

“Jeff has it. We accidentally brought it home from the den meeting. You can ask him.”

“I will. But first I want to know why you would pretend to be smoking.”

Bobby squirmed. “Well I thought it would make me feel cool. Like that guy on TV.”

“Did it?”

“Just for a minute. Then I felt really stupid.”

“I didn’t think you really had been smoking,” Mom said, putting her arm around Bobby. “But can you see how even looking like you’re doing wrong can get you into trouble? The Apostle Paul taught that we should avoid the very appearance of evil.”*

“That’s only half of it, Mom. While I was pretending to smoke, some obnoxious teenagers drove by and cheered. I felt dirty and ashamed. Why did they do that? I’m not like them. I never want to be like them.”

“But they thought you were. Which is another reason to avoid the appearance of evil. Evil attracts evil. If people making bad choices think you are doing bad things, too, they’ll encourage you to keep doing worse things. You want good friends who will encourage you to do your best.”

“D.Y.B.” Bobby smiled. “Do your best.” That was the Cub Scout Motto and something Bobby’s mother said to him every morning when he walked out the door. “But what do I do now, Mom? Do I need to repent? I didn’t really do anything wrong. I just pretended.”

“I think you still need to undo any wrong impressions you gave. Why don’t you call Sister Jensen and apologize for acting the way you did?”

Bobby sighed. “OK.”

“And from now on, try to be so good that there will be no doubt in the minds of those teenagers what you really stand for and whom you follow. And return the chalk, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And tell Jeff what you learned from all this. By the way, what did you learn?”

“Well, my Primary teacher once told us you can’t do bad and feel good.”

“That’s true. In the Book of Mormon, Alma taught, ‘Wickedness never was happiness.’”†

“But I’ve learned that there’s even more to it than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve learned that you can’t even pretend to do bad and still feel good.”

As a young elder in the missionary training center, I thought I knew how to do missionary work until I had an experience that changed everything about my approach to sharing the gospel. It happened in a Sunday School class with hundreds of other missionaries.
During the class, the teacher focused our attention on a comment made by the Prophet Joseph Smith. He explained that in the area where Joseph Smith grew up, missionaries of other churches tried to convince people that their churches were true by reasoning from passages of the Bible. These efforts often became quite intense, leading young Joseph to describe them as a “war of words and tumult of opinions” (Joseph Smith—History 1:10).
Over time, Joseph recognized that this approach was ineffective and confusing, and he offered an insight that can influence the way we share the gospel. He said, “The teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question [of which church was true] by an appeal to the Bible” (Joseph Smith—History 1:12).
This was a revolutionary idea to me. I had assumed that the most effective way to share the gospel was by teaching it primarily from the Bible—common ground with other Christians. What Joseph Smith discovered had never occurred to me: because the Bible can be interpreted so differently, it can be a source of contention and misunderstanding, sometimes leading to “Bible bashing.” As President Jeffrey R. Holland, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, explained, “The Bible, so frequently described at that time as ‘common ground,’ was nothing of the kind—unfortunately it was a battleground.”
So what should we rely on when sharing the gospel? Again, Joseph Smith identified the answer: “Unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know [which church was true]” (Joseph Smith—History 1:12; emphasis added). Joseph discovered that the only way to know which church was true was to get “more wisdom,” or, in other words, more revelation, truth, and inspiration from God. The revelation he received to answer his question is known today as the First Vision.
This is the simple realization that changed my life as a missionary. I knew what I should do. Instead of trying to prove the Church true by reasoning from the Bible, I would rely on latter-day revelation. Specifically, I would teach the First Vision because it is God’s answer to the question of which church is true. The Holy Ghost could then confirm that answer to each individual. As one former mission president counseled, I would take “the quickest and most direct route to the Sacred Grove.”

When I was 17, I went to live with my aunt and uncle, who were sponsoring my education. When I arrived at their home in Sekondi, Ghana, I immediately noticed unusual things about their family. They had morning and evening prayers together and held family meetings on Monday evenings that seemed to make each family member feel loved and appreciated. Even though I was an active member of another faith, I became interested in finding out about their beliefs.
When I asked Uncle Sarfo about the Church, he explained many of the Church’s teachings. Some I believed, and others I did not understand.
My uncle then asked the missionaries to teach me the discussions, and I received all six of the lessons. But when the missionaries invited me to be baptized, I refused because I did not have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I found it difficult to read and understand.
To please Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Sarfo, I had already been attending sacrament meeting. Now they encouraged me to enroll in the early-morning seminary course that was to begin in two weeks.
Getting out of bed at 4:30 A.M. was no small matter for me, but the seminary teacher, Solomon Agbo, visited me, encouraged me to attend, and seemed already to care about me. I decided to go to seminary, and once I made that decision, I resolved not to be absent even for a single day. The course of study was the Book of Mormon, and I wanted to see if I might gain a testimony of the book.
As I began studying the Book of Mormon for seminary, I experienced the feelings Elder Parley P. Pratt (1807–57) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles described when he first found the Book of Mormon. “I opened it with eagerness, and read its title page,” he wrote. “I then read the testimony of several witnesses in relation to the manner of its being found and translated. After this I commenced its contents by course. I read all day; eating was a burden, I had no desire for food; sleep was a burden when the night came, for I preferred reading to sleep” (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt [1985], 18).
As I read, the Spirit of the Lord bore witness that the Book of Mormon is truly another testament of Jesus Christ. Through seminary the Book of Mormon became much easier to read. Whenever it was hard to follow, my teacher helped me understand. I received a testimony that the Book of Mormon is “the most correct of any book on earth, … and a man [will] get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 194).
I was baptized on 5 March 1995. By the time I was 21 I was a seminary teacher myself, helping others know of the divinity and truthfulness of the book that changed my life.

The women of Kettering Ward, Northampton Stake were invited to share their knitting skills with the Linus Project in Northamptonshire and knit coloured squares to make into blankets for sick and distressed children.
The ladies started to meet for one morning a month, and for the first few months shared their knowledge and skills. The less practiced knitters learnt new skills, forgotten skills were renewed and the first blankets were made. The women formed a group and called themselves the “Busy Bees” and it wasn’t long before they were able to sew the squares together and send nineteen blankets off to the Linus Project.

As young married students, Holly and I were approaching graduation. We planned to move to Chicago for graduate school. We had traveled there twice and had put in deposits for my program and for an apartment. When we were back in Provo, one morning I awoke with what I can only describe as a revelation to pursue a completely different path and to take a job for which I wasn’t even being considered. I had no offer; I hadn’t even sent in a résumé. Talk about quixotic! All of this might seem irrational or unreasonable to the uninitiated, but reason itself demanded that I acknowledge the reality of this revelation.

Reason, then, together with revelation—the head and the heart—allowed Holly and me to jointly pursue this new path with faith. And although I was frequently tempted to waffle in the weeks that followed, in hindsight, Holly and I are immensely grateful that we did not fall prey to the false dichotomy of choosing either reason or revelation alone. It wasn’t until years—and a few jobs—later that Holly and I connected the dots to see the Lord’s hand guiding us to experiences and opportunities that have helped us serve more effectively. “Dispute not because ye see not,” the Book of Mormon teaches, “for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.”

I remember as a young missionary in New Zealand seeing men who stood way above the other people in that country because they had testimonies of the gospel and lived the way they should. One of them was a rugby player for the All Blacks (the equivalent of being an all-American football player in the U.S.). He had played rugby all over the world and told me that he always knelt down and prayed in the locker room before going out to play in any game. When I met him, his rugby career was over, but he was strong in the faith and a good, hard worker who could shear sheep with the best of the Maori men. He has always been one of my heroes.

Six months before my twenty-first birthday, my life was anything but hard. I had just finished my nursing prerequisites and had applied to the nursing program at the University of Utah; I had a super part-time job selling cosmetics for ZCMI, which included an hourly wage plus commission; I was seriously dating a young man and thinking I would be engaged in the not-too-distant future; and all was well with the world. And then my bishop, who just happened to be known as the “mission bishop” by the youth in our ward, called me in for an interview. My first thought was the obvious: he is going to ask me to go on a mission! And, sure enough, during the interview he encouraged me to put in my papers and go out and serve the Lord.

A mission was never part of my life’s master plan, so I decided that I was not going to even consider the bishop’s suggestion, nor was I even going to ask in prayer if that was what I needed to do. I didn’t share this interview/request from the bishop with anyone—not my parents, not my closest friends, not anyone. I knew better than anyone else what course my life should take, and I didn’t need anyone’s help or advice!

Now, for those of you who have big grins on your faces and for others of you who are quietly chuckling to yourselves, you can see where all of this is headed—and you’re absolutely right! When the other shoe finally dropped—and it did drop—it dropped with a loud bang! A mere few weeks after that initial interview, the young man I was dating stopped calling me without any explanation; the new manager where I was working decided she wanted everyone in that department to be full-time, and, since I was in school full-time and was not able to change my school schedule, I was moved to a less desirable area of the store and was no longer earning a commission from my sales; I was informed that I was not accepted into the nursing program; and the list went on and on. In a matter of months I felt like the whole world had come to an end.

President Era Taft Benson taught: “God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble” (“Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, 6).
Obviously I was not going to humble myself, so the Lord chose to do it for me.

It was at that moment in my life that I knew I needed to approach my Heavenly Father in prayer to plead for His forgiveness and ask what He would have me do. And I knew the minute that I asked, without a doubt, that I needed to serve a mission. By the way, from the moment the bishop asked me to serve a mission, I knew what it was that I was supposed to do, but I didn’t want to pray about it because I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to ignore the answer and do what I thought was best for me. If I didn’t ask, then I could simply go on as I had been and not have to worry about making dramatic changes to my master plan for my life. What I have since come to realize is that the real master plan for my life was, and is, really in the hands of the Master.

The time between when the bishop first interviewed me to the time when I entered the MTC here in Provo was a little over seven months. I served a full-time welfare service mission to the Asunción Paraguay Mission, speaking Spanish. Little did I realize what the Lord had in store for me in the future because I had been willing to replace my plan with His and to serve Him in the way that He intended.

The prophet has asked us to “love thy neighbor” as Jesus Christ did. My sister, Lynn, and I like to build tepees in our yard out of sticks and leaves. Our next-door neighbor likes building tepees, too. She took our sticks and said that they were hers. We argued about it.
We apologized for arguing, and she invited us into her yard. “But,” she said, “if you come into my yard, you have to promise that you will not take my sticks.” She wanted us to swear by Heavenly Father’s name. We told her we can’t do that because of our religion. We explained that we use Heavenly Father’s name reverently because we love Him.
She didn’t know what reverent means, so we told her. We promised in our own way that we wouldn’t take her sticks, and we’ve been friends ever since.

On a special weekend, I had the privilege of assisting Elder Jorge M. Alvarado of the Quorum of the Seventy in the wonderful reorganization of a stake in the Dominican Republic. After stake conference, we decided to counsel with the families of the newly called leaders. Elder Alvarado looked at the young couples who had just been given this enormous responsibility and asked, speaking especially to the sisters: “Sisters, what are your feelings, what are your impressions?”
One of the sisters replied, “Elder Alvarado, after all I have just heard and felt, nothing will ever be the same again. For me, there is a before and an after this conference. Nothing will be as it was before!”
Later in the afternoon, we had the honor of visiting a couple of families in their respective homes. The same question was addressed to a couple who had been married for several decades. The sister replied with a big smile: “My husband and I have been married for several years; it may sound strange for many to hear, but after what we just went through and felt at the conference, our married life has just begun.”

“Hey, Maxine, how about a game?” Henry was calling to her from the rumpus room downstairs. They’d played a game of table tennis almost every night since the new table had been put up. This time she didn’t feel much like playing.
“No, thanks,” she shouted back. “I’ve given up sports.” Soon she saw the top of her brother’s head as he climbed the stairs two at a time.
“Come on. Afraid I’ll beat?”
“Uh huh,” she mumbled. “I wish,” she thought. Henry was good at table tennis. There was no doubt about that, but he wasn’t quite as good as she was. Why did she have to be so good at sports? Her baby brother was almost a foot taller, yet she could beat him at bowling and tennis, and of course, table tennis.
“I’ve given up table tennis,” Maxine said as she shifted her weight in the vinyl easy chair.
“Aw, sure,” Henry said. “And Hank Aaron’s giving up baseball. Don’t give me that.”
“Okay, I won’t, but I am.”
Henry looked at her out of the corner of his eye while he pretended to shoot a basket.
“Why would you give up table tennis?”
“It isn’t feminine. Guys don’t like girls who are good at sports.”
“Oh, that’s what I thought. A guy, huh. Brother, women are sure funny.” Henry had just started calling girls “women,” and it annoyed Maxine.
“Girls,” she said.
“Okay, girls.” Henry did a mock jump shot. “Bill Jensen?” he asked.
“How did you know? How do you know everything?” She looked back down at her book, and her dark hair fell into her eyes. She’d grown it longer to look more feminine, but it always seemed to be getting in the way.
“You were with him last night, weren’t you? So, it was elementary, my dear Watson.”
“Yes, I was with him last night,” Maxine moaned. “And he’s not exactly a table tennis champ. As a matter of fact, he’s terrible. He’ll never call again. I beat him pretty badly. I didn’t want to play in the first place, but Louise and Cal told him we have a new table, and he really wanted to try it out.”
“The plot thickens.” Henry said.
“Now tell me the truth, Henry. Should I have let him beat me?”
Henry chuckled. “Nah, of course not.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“It’s just good to know I’m not the only one you can beat.”
“But really, don’t you think I should have let him win?”
“No, he would have caught on. You’re not a very good actress.”
“But do you think he’ll call again?”
“Probably not. But then again, he might. But then again …” Henry was making this an opportunity to tease her.
“You’re being no help at all. Let me put it this way,” Maxine said. “If you dated a girl who beat you one night at some sport, would you still be interested in her? Now be serious.”
“I don’t date yet,” Henry said. “And I don’t want to think about it.”
“Okay,” Maxine said. “Go away. Just go away. I have to study.”
“Okay, Sis. See you.” He grabbed his basketball out of the flower box and began dribbling it down the hall.
“If Mother saw you do that …” Maxine changed her mind. It wouldn’t help anyway.
“I know. I know,” Henry called back. “Tell her I’ve gone to shoot a few baskets. I’ll be back around 4:00.”
“Okay,” Maxine said. Then she looked back at the same page in her book. “Brothers,” she mumbled. “Who needs them?” She closed her book. “I’ll finish reading this when I’m less miserable.”
When the phone rang, she couldn’t help hoping it was Bill. It was a silly thing to hope anyway, she decided. If he planned to call again, and most certainly he didn’t, why would he call again so soon? It was Sister Price.
“No, Mom won’t be home for about an hour. She had a few errands to run.” She hung up the phone after she had said goodbye and taken a message. “Hope is a thing with feathers,” she said, quoting Emily Dickinson. “A silly useless thing,” she added. The phone rang again and she answered it on the first ring.
“Hi, Max!” It was Linda.
“Please don’t call me Max,” Maxine said.
“Oh, I forgot, you’re trying to be more feminine this year. How was your date last night? You doubled, didn’t you?”
“Yes, with Louise and Cal. We went bowling, and I beat everyone. Then we came to my house and played table tennis, and I beat everyone. He’ll never ask me out again.”
“Maxine, you’re dumb, really dumb. Boys want to be masculine and strong, the leaders.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t be phony, I guess.”
“Well, you should have tried. It would have been worth it.”
“I guess so.”
“Nobody likes to be beaten, especially not a boy.”
“Maybe I should have broken my right arm before the date.”
“It might have improved your chances for another date with him.”
“You’re probably right, but you’re not making me feel much better.” After she had hung up, she looked into her aquarium to see how her favorite fish was doing. “Dare to be yourself,” she had always been taught. That was easy to say. Bill was the only guy she’d met for quite awhile whom she really wanted a second date with. There was just something interesting about him. The others didn’t matter. Joe Miller hadn’t asked her out again after that one tennis match last summer. Frank Simpson hadn’t asked her out again after she’d beaten him at bowling. But, she really hadn’t minded. Now she did mind.
“Well, it’s silly to sit and mope. I’d better do something physical. Maybe I could clean out the kitchen before Mom gets home. It’ll make both of us feel better.” She was just putting away the mop when her brother and her mother came in the door together.
“Stop dribbling in the hall,” Mother said.
“Okay, Mom,” she heard her brother say. Then Henry appeared in the kitchen door, his basketball tucked under his arm. He had a sly look on his face.
“Guess who I saw at the school?”
“Who?”
“Bill Jensen,” she thought. She could tell by the way Henry had said it. But Henry, tease as usual, just started walking to his room.
“Henry!” she called. “Come back here and tell me.” She followed him down the hall.
“What will you give me? Your new album?”
“No, but I’ll let you beat me at table tennis once,” Maxine said.
“No thanks. I have an ego, you know. Okay, I’ll tell you. It was the one and only Bill Jensen. He was practicing a little shooting with some guys. I joined them. He’s one good shot, you know it? One good shot. Oh, and he said to say hi.”
“Is that all he said?”
“No. Do you want an exact quote of what else he said? It’s good.”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay, I tried to memorize it. I knew you’d want a quote. He said ‘That sister of yours is some sportswoman.’”
“That’s good?”
“That isn’t all.”
“Go on.”
“Then I said, ‘She makes a pretty good omelet too.’”
“Henry, I love you,” Maxine said. “I love you!”
“Who can help it,” Henry said, trying not to smile.
“Do you think he’ll ask me out again?”
“How should I know? I can’t read the guy’s mind. Oh, but he did say one more thing. He said maybe he could come over for lessons some time.”
“Table tennis or omelet-making?” Maxine asked.
“I asked him that. He said, ‘Maybe both,’ and I told him he was welcome anytime.”
Maxine pushed her hair out of her eyes and smiled broadly at her brother.
“You have pretty good eyes when you can see them,” Henry said. “I liked the way you used to wear your hair better.”
“You mean really short?”
“Yah, short and sort of wooly. It looked better on you. More feminine or something.”
“You think so? Thanks for the suggestion. I was thinking of having it cut again.”
“Anytime,” Henry said grinning. “What’s a brother for?”

They started to raise their family from a very humble single attic-room apartment in the heart of Amsterdam. After several years of washing their clothes by hand, they had finally saved up enough money to purchase a washing machine. Just before they would make the purchase, the bishop visited them, asking for a contribution to build the meetinghouse in Amsterdam. They decided to give all they had saved for the washing machine and continued to do the laundry by hand. As a family we went through some hardships, just like any other family. These have only made us stronger and have deepened our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, just like when Alma was sharing his story with his son Helaman, where he told him that he had been “supported under trials and troubles of every kind” because he had put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. How did two people who experienced so many trials in their younger years become the very best parents I could ever wish for? The answer is simple: they fully embraced the gospel and live by their covenants to this very day! After more than 65 years of marriage, my mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, passed away in February. My father, at the age of 92 and still living at home, visited her as often as he could until she passed away. Some time ago he mentioned to my younger siblings that the dreadful experiences in the camp in Indonesia during World War II had prepared him to patiently care for his wife for so many years as she fell ill and deteriorated from this horrible disease and also for the fateful day he had to entrust her primary care to others and could not be by her side anymore. Their motto has been and still is to “Just carry on,” having a perfect hope in Christ to be raised up at the last day and to dwell with Him in glory forever.

Olivia burst through the door after school. “Mom! I’m supposed to write about the strongest person I know! Who should I write about?”
Mom looked up from her computer. “The strongest person you know, huh? Well, how do you know if someone is strong?”
Olivia flexed her arms. “They have really big muscles!”
“What else?”
Olivia thought for a moment. “Um … they can lift really heavy things.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Mom said. “When is your paper due?”
“In two weeks,” Olivia said. “I’ll keep thinking about it.”
Later that night, Olivia watched her little brother, Reese, play with their stepdad, Trevor.
“Can you lift me over your head?” Reese asked.
“Sure!” Trevor swung Reese into his arms and held him up high. “How long do you want to stay up there?”
Reese giggled. “Forever!”
Olivia laughed too.
At first she hadn’t been sure about Trevor, after her parents divorced and Mom married Trevor. He was all right, but he wasn’t her dad. She had clashed with Trevor over a lot of things, especially when he tried to give her chores. But then she started getting along better with him. He liked a lot of cool things, like biking and running. And she could see that Trevor really cared about her family.
Reese started flapping his arms. Trevor had been holding him up there for so long that Reese was pretending to be a bird. Suddenly Olivia had an idea. She ran to the kitchen.
“I’m going to write about Trevor!” Olivia said. “He’s been getting ready for his half marathon, so he’s really strong.”
“I think that’s great!” Mom said. “Are you going to tell him about it?”
Olivia shook her head. “I’ll show him when it’s all done and graded. I want it to be a surprise.”
After dinner Olivia got out a clean sheet of paper. She wrote, “The Strongest Person I Know” at the top. Over the next two weeks, Olivia wrote a little bit every day. At first, she wrote about how Trevor lifted heavy weights and went on long runs.
Then she started noticing all the things he did for their family, like helping Olivia shop for silly hairbows the night before her school’s “crazy hair day.” Or when Mom got sick and he stayed home from work to take care of the family. That week, Trevor hadn’t been able to train for his half marathon, even though it was only a week away. He was too busy doing laundry, cooking meals, and helping Mom feel better. But Trevor said he didn’t mind. “Family comes first,” he told Olivia.
Olivia realized that there were many ways to be strong, like doing hard things. She wrote about how being strong meant choosing the right. It meant making sacrifices to help those you love.
On the day of Trevor’s half marathon, the whole family came to cheer him on. Olivia found Trevor stretching before the race and handed him her essay. The teacher had given her an A+!
“I wrote this about you,” she said.
Trevor read it. There were tears in his eyes. “Thank you!” he said. “This means so much to me.”
Olivia grinned. “Good luck,” she said. “We’ll see you at the finish line!”
Mom, Reese, and Olivia watched excitedly as runners made it to the end of the race. When they saw Trevor, they waved and cheered.
Nobody cheered louder than Olivia.

Despite the company’s progress, Brigham was often frustrated when he saw the actions of some members of the company. Most of them had been in the Church for years, served missions, and received the ordinances of the temple. Yet many ignored his counsel on hunting or idled away their free time with gambling, wrestling, and dancing late into the night. Sometimes Brigham woke in the morning to the sound of men arguing over something that had happened during the night. He worried that their quarrels would soon lead to fistfights or worse.
“Do we suppose,” he asked the men on the morning of May 29, “that we are going to look out a home for the Saints, a resting place, a place of peace, where they can build up the kingdom and bid the nations welcome, with a low, mean, dirty, trifling, covetous, wicked spirit?”8 Each of them, he declared, ought to be men of faith and sober minds, given to prayer and meditation.
“Here is an opportunity,” he said, “for every man to prove himself, to know whether he will pray and remember his God, without being asked to do it every day.” He urged them to serve the Lord, remember their temple covenants, and repent of their sins.
Afterward, the men grouped themselves together in priesthood quorums and covenanted, by uplifted hand, to do right and walk humbly before God.9 The next day, when the men partook of the sacrament, a new spirit prevailed.
“I have never seen the brethren so still and sober on a Sunday,” Heber Kimball noted in his journal, “since we started on the journey.”10

In standing up for Church standards, sometimes it’s possible to turn opponents into allies. When she started at her school, Carina Schultes was bullied and put down by others. “They couldn’t accept that I had my religion, my standards, that I didn’t smoke, didn’t drink alcohol. At first they couldn’t cope with it, but luckily after four years they accepted it so they thought it was really cool and really supported me and got others to leave me alone.”

Mandy dropped her book beneath the tree and excitedly ran to the fence. Next door a large truck had just pulled up at the curb.
Mandy watched closely as two men began to unload furniture from the truck. She wished very hard that the new neighbors would have to have a girl her age! All the other neighborhood kids were either older or younger than she was. It would be wonderful to have a friend her own age to talk to.
As Mandy stood watching and wishing, a car pulled up behind the large truck. A man and woman climbed out—and a girl just Mandy’s size!
“Hello!” Mandy called out.
The girl didn’t answer.
“Hello, there!” Mandy called again.
The parents were busy talking to the men who were unloading the truck, and the new girl was just staring at the house. She didn’t turn around.
Mandy felt disappointed as the girl followed her parents into the house. With a sigh, Mandy sat down under the tree again and tried to read her book. She couldn’t concentrate, though. She was too busy watching to see if the new girl would come back outside.
It wasn’t until the truck was nearly empty that the neighbors reappeared. Mandy ran to the fence and tried again. “Hello!” she called out loudly.
The new girl still didn’t turn around. Her mother heard, though. She motioned to her daughter and pointed to Mandy. The girl turned and smiled.
Now that’s better. She must have been too busy thinking about something to hear me before, Mandy decided.
“My name’s Mandy. What’s yours?”
The new girl didn’t answer. Instead, she turned and motioned to her mother. The mother nodded, and they both walked over to the fence where Mandy stood.
“Hello, Mandy. I’m Mrs. Henderson, and this is Carol.”
“Hello, Carol.”
Carol smiled shyly but still didn’t say anything.
“Please forgive Carol for not speaking to you,” continued Mrs. Henderson. “She was born deaf. Because she can’t hear, she can’t speak well enough for you to understand her. But I know she’d like to be your friend.”
Mr. Henderson called to his wife, and she hurried back to the truck. Carol stayed by the fence and continued to smile at Mandy, but her eyes were looking all over the yard.
Mandy could feel her face turning hot with embarrassment. Now what do I do? she worried. How can I be friends with someone who can’t hear or speak? Carol and I can’t just sit and smile at each other all day.
Suddenly Carol turned and ran to her father. She made motions asking for help. Smiling fondly at her, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a book, and gave it to her. When Carol ran back to the fence, she pointed to the gate and looked at Mandy questioningly.
“You want to come in?” asked Mandy. Then she thought, How dumb, talking to her like that. She can’t hear me.
But Carol was looking closely at Mandy and understood what Mandy had said. She nodded her head.
Mandy nodded back and watched while Carol ran to the gate and let herself in.
Carol went quickly to the tree and sat down. She motioned for Mandy to join her.
Mandy wasn’t quite sure what to do, but Carol patted the ground beside her, so Mandy sat down and leaned against the tree trunk while Carol opened the book.
Carol pointed to the word tree in the book, then touched the tree they were leaning against.
“Tree?” asked Mandy.
When Carol could see that Mandy understood, she nodded.
Carol started to giggle, then Mandy giggled too. They laughed so hard that they both fell backward and bumped their heads against the tree.
O-u-c-h, spelled Mandy from the book.
Tears of laughter rolled down Carol’s cheeks.
This is going to be fun, thought Mandy. She pointed at the word f-r-i-e-n-d in the book and gave Carol a big hug.

While living in the Dominican Republic, I went to visit a sister who had just gotten home from the hospital after giving birth to her third child. I was surprised by how well and calm she looked. Her other two children were still so young! After a few minutes into our conversation, she shared with me how peaceful she felt because the Relief Society sisters had signed up to come to help her every day for the next few days. She felt loved.

The moment I decided to be a teacher is very clear in my mind. During World War II, I was in my early 20s and a pilot in the Air Force. I was stationed on the little island of Ie Shima. This island, a small, lonely one about as big as a postage stamp, is just off the northern tip of Okinawa.
One lonely summer evening, I sat on a cliff to watch the sun go down. I was pondering what I would do with my life after the war, if I was fortunate enough to survive. What did I want to be? It was on that night that I decided I wanted to be a teacher. I reasoned that teachers are always learning. Learning is a basic purpose of life.
I first taught seminary in 1949 in Brigham City. I had been a student in that seminary in my high school days.
There were three courses originally taught in seminary: Old Testament, New Testament, and Church History. It was my privilege to add an early-morning class on the Book of Mormon. I had returned from the war with a testimony of the Book of Mormon and an understanding of how the gift of the Holy Ghost operates.
You have been taught all of your lives about the gift of the Holy Ghost, but teaching can only go so far. You can and, in fact, you must go the rest of the way alone to discover within yourself how the Holy Ghost can be a guiding and protective influence.
For young men and young women, the process is the same. Discovering how the Holy Ghost operates in your life is the quest of a lifetime. Once you have made that discovery for yourself, you can live in enemy territory and will not be deceived or destroyed. No member of this Church—and that means each of you—will ever make a serious mistake without first being warned by the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
Sometimes when you have made a mistake, you may have said afterward, “I knew I should not have done that. It did not feel right,” or perhaps, “I knew I should have done that. I just did not have the courage to act!” Those impressions are the Holy Ghost attempting to direct you toward good or warning you away from harm.
There are certain things that you must not do if the lines of communication are to remain open. You cannot lie or cheat or steal or act immorally and have those channels remain free from disruption. Do not go where the environment resists spiritual communication.
You must learn to seek the power and direction that is available to you, and then follow that course no matter what.
First on your “to do” list, put the word prayer. Most of the time, your prayers will be silent. You can think a prayer.
You can always have a direct line of communication with your Father in Heaven. Do not allow the adversary to convince you that no one is listening on the other end. Your prayers are always heard. You are never alone!
Take care of your body. Be clean. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).
Read carefully the promises found in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants. The Word of Wisdom does not promise perfect health but that the spiritual receptors within you might be strengthened.
Stay away from tattoos and similar things which deface your body. Your body was created in God’s image.
I want to speak now in the pattern of straight talk about another matter.
We know that gender was set in the premortal world.1 “The spirit and the body are the soul of man” (D&C 88:15). This matter of gender is of great concern to the Brethren, as are all matters of morality.
A few of you may have felt or been told that you were born with troubling feelings and that you are not guilty if you act on those temptations. Doctrinally we know that if that were true, your agency would have been erased, and that cannot happen. You always have a choice to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost and live a morally pure and chaste life, one filled with virtue.
President Gordon B. Hinckley announced the following in general conference: “People inquire about our position on those who consider themselves … gays and lesbians. My response is that we love them as sons and daughters of God. They may have certain inclinations which are powerful and which may be difficult to control. Most people have [temptations] of one kind or another at various times. If they do not act upon these inclinations, then they can go forward as do all other members of the Church. If they violate the law of chastity and the moral standards of the Church, then they are subject to the discipline of the Church, just as others are.
“We want to help … strengthen them, to assist them with their problems and to help them with their difficulties. But we cannot stand idle if they indulge in immoral activity, if they try to uphold and defend and live in a so-called same-sex marriage situation. To permit such would be to make light of the very serious and sacred foundation of God-sanctioned marriage and its very purpose, the rearing of families.”2
President Hinckley was speaking for the Church.
The first gift that Adam and Eve received was agency: “Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee” (Moses 3:17).
You have that same agency. Use it wisely to deny acting on any impure impulse or unholy temptation that may come into your mind. Just do not go there, and if you are already there, come back out of it. “Deny yourselves of all ungodliness” (Moroni 10:32).
Do not tamper with the life-giving powers in your body alone or with members of either gender. That is the standard of the Church, and it will not change. As you mature, there is a temptation to experiment or explore immoral activities. Do not do that!
The key word is discipline—self-discipline. The word discipline comes from the word disciple or follower. Be a disciple-follower of the Savior, and you will be safe.
One or two of you may be thinking, “I am already guilty of this or that serious mistake. It is too late for me.” It is never too late.
You have been taught at home and in seminary about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The Atonement is like an eraser. It can wipe away guilt and the effect of whatever it is that is causing you to feel guilty.
Guilt is spiritual pain. Do not suffer from chronic pain. Get rid of it. Be done with it. Repent and, if necessary, repent again and again and again and again until you—not the enemy—are in charge of you.
Life turns out to be a succession of trials and errors. Add “repent often” to your list of things to do. This will bring you lasting peace that cannot be purchased at any earthly price. Understanding the Atonement may be the one most important truth that you can learn in your youth.
If you are associating with others who drag you down instead of building you up, stop and change company. You may be alone and lonely at times. The important question may be asked then, “When you are alone, are you in good company?”
Unwinding a habit that you have allowed to entangle you can be difficult. But the power is in you. Do not despair. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “all beings who have bodies have power over those who have not.”3 You can resist temptation!
It is not likely that you will ever have a personal encounter with the adversary; he does not show himself that way. But even if he came personally to you to test and tempt you, you have an advantage. You can assert your agency, and he will have to leave you alone.
You are not ordinary. You are very special. You are exceptional. How do I know that? I know that because you were born at a time and in a place where the gospel of Jesus Christ can come into your life through the teachings and activities of your home and of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is, as the Lord Himself has said, “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth” (D&C 1:30).
There are other things we could add to the list, but you know what you should and should not be doing in your life. You know right and wrong and do not need to be commanded in all things.
Do not squander these years of seminary instruction. Take advantage of the great blessing you have to learn the doctrines of the Church and the teachings of the prophets. Learn that which is of most worth. It will bless you and your posterity for many generations to come.
Not many years will pass until you are married and have children, a marriage that should be sealed in the temple. Our prayer is that you will find yourself, in due time, safely settled in a family ward or branch.
Do not fear the future. Go forward with hope and faith. Remember that supernal gift of the Holy Ghost. Learn to be taught by it. Learn to seek it. Learn to live by it. Learn to pray always in the name of Jesus Christ (see 3 Nephi 18:19–20). The Spirit of the Lord will attend you, and you will be blessed.
We have deep and profound faith in you.
I bear my testimony to you—a witness that came to me in my youth. And you are no different from anyone else than I am. You have as much right to that testimony and witness as anyone. It will come to you if you earn it. I invoke the blessings of the Lord upon you—the blessings of that witness to be in your life, to guide you as you make a happy future.