Gospel Story Finder

I was in my first year of employment with a cosmetics company. At the time I was divorced and lived alone with my two children. In December the company sent each salesperson large boxes containing the Christmas merchandise we were to sell during the holiday season. That meant, however, that a large amount had been withdrawn from my salary. When I calculated all my monthly expenses and tithing, I had enough for three people to live on—but only for one week. And this money had to cover groceries for the entire month and gas for the car, which I needed for my work.
When our home teacher came, I told him about our situation. I told him I would not be able to pay my tithing because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to feed my family. My faithful home teacher counseled me to pay tithing. He recommended that I do it faithfully, and the Lord would surely bless me. My home teacher had always been distinguished by faithfulness and reliability. I jokingly told him, “If I cannot buy groceries, I will come to you.” But I trusted him and did not want to disappoint him by not following his advice. So I paid a full tithing.
When I presented the Christmas merchandise early in the month, I was able to sell many of my goods. By the end of the month I had sold all of the Christmas items and all of the goods I had had in stock for several months. Had I had more products on hand, I would likely have been able to sell them too.
My home teacher’s promise was completely fulfilled. The Lord really did open the windows of heaven. We had more money than we needed that month. Later I inquired of my colleagues how their Christmas business had gone. They were not satisfied. At that time, a recession had caused a strong decline in sales in the cosmetics industry.
How grateful I am to that home teacher for giving me this good counsel. I have had a strong testimony of tithing ever since. When I visit teach sisters who feel they have too little money to pay tithing, I share my testimony about how much we will be blessed if we do so.

One evening I argued with my mom and felt pretty bad. So I decided I would pray. Although I was in a bad mood and didn’t want to be “spiritual,” I knew praying would help me feel happier and less argumentative. After my mom left the room, I started my prayer. “Dear Heavenly Father, I’ve come to Thee tonight because …” No. I opened my eyes and unfolded my arms; that sounded awkward. I tried again. “Heavenly Father, I need …” That also sounded strange. I felt Satan urging me to give up my prayer of asking Heavenly Father for help.
Suddenly I had a prompting to say thank you! So I did, and thoughts started spilling from my mind of all the many things I could thank my Father in Heaven for. When I was done thanking Him, I discussed the problem at hand.
Afterward I felt a wonderful peace inside me, the warm spiritual feeling that I know our Heavenly Father and my parents love me and that I am a child of God. I was able to apologize to my mother and accept her apology.

This we are to do with tolerance. While in Moscow in June 1991, in that spirit of preparation and with sincere respect for leaders of other religious denominations, Elder Dallin H. Oaks and I had the privilege of meeting with the presiding official of the Russian Orthodox Church. We were accompanied by Elder Hans B. Ringger and the mission president, Gary L. Browning. Patriarch Aleksei was most gracious in sharing a memorable hour with us. We perceived the great difficulties endured for so many years by this kind man and his fellow believers. We thanked him for his perseverance and for his faith. Then we assured him of our good intentions and of the importance of the message that missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be teaching among his countrymen. We affirmed that ours is a global church and that we honor and obey the laws of each land in which we labor.

Taking a stand wasn’t easy for Sarah Koyle, a Laurel who lives in Rancho Cucamonga, California, but she knew it was the right thing to do. When a teacher at her school showed a movie that Sarah felt was inappropriate, she made her opinion known.
After Sarah’s bold move, there was little room for doubt by her peers as to what Sarah believed was right. Then a local newspaper interviewed Sarah about her stand on R-rated movies. Again, Sarah was able to voice her opinions without reservation.
Was all the attention worth it, especially when Sarah seemed to be the only one who felt that the movies were wrong?
“If I were given the chance, I would definitely do this again,” says Sarah. “Standing for the prophet’s words is something I can’t do enough of. It wasn’t easy, but it was right.”

Just as I did on every other day, I arrived at work on 2 May 1997 at 8:00 A.M. I was going to begin work when the boss said he wanted to talk to me. Throughout our conversation, I sensed he wanted to fire me. He spoke of bureaucratic problems with the employment agency I worked for and of laws I didn’t know much about.
Ultimately, I was let go, and I walked away thinking, What will happen now? I will arrive home and say I have been fired, and my grandmother will be disappointed. She and others in my family depended on me to work and help my family financially.
All at once, I remembered: I could pray to God. Maybe He would help me find work yet today. I walked into some trees, got on my knees, and prayed, “Heavenly Father, please help me find work today, so I won’t have to go home and make my grandmother sad.”
I thanked Him, arose, and began walking. With a happier outlook, I thought, If I lost that job, then it must be because I will find a better one. I walked for about two kilometers until I passed a construction job where a friend of mine was working. When he saw me, he asked, “Rui, aren’t you doing anything?”
I explained what had happened, and he said, “If you want to, you can work here.” He was in charge of the job. Of course, I agreed to work there.
And so it was that at 8:00 that morning I was fired, and about 9:30, just 1 1/2 hours later, I was working again. God had heard my prayers, and He blessed me in a short time with even better work.
Great is the power of prayer.

I remember meeting with a man some time back. Seventeen years before, his wife had a problem. She embraced another man in a moment of weakness, and then this was kept a secret for 17 long years. And this good brother, her husband, who had kept the law, who had never violated the code, all of a sudden found out about this, and it almost totally destroyed him. He came to see me and he asked, “What do you think I should do?”

And I said, “You must forget and forgive. And when I say forget, it must be taken from your mind forever and ever.”

He said, “But I can’t. I can’t get it off my mind, seeing her in someone else’s arms.”

And I said, “Then you remember what it was like in the temple, and you view her in your mind every time kneeling across the altar from you. I am sure she has been punished enough and has suffered enough; she needs no more. She has repented, and you forgive her.”

Well, he took that advice and was kind enough to follow it.

There is an antidote for times [of testing and trial]: learn to laugh. …
… I remember when one of our daughters went on a blind date. She was all dressed up and waiting for her date to arrive when the doorbell rang. In walked a man who seemed a little old, but she tried to be polite. She introduced him to me and my wife and the other children; then she put on her coat and went out the door. We watched as she got into the car, but the car didn’t move. Eventually our daughter got out of the car and, red faced, ran back into the house. The man that she thought was her blind date had actually come to pick up another of our daughters who had agreed to be a babysitter for him and his wife.
We all had a good laugh over that. In fact, we couldn’t stop laughing. Later, when our daughter’s real blind date showed up, I couldn’t come out to meet him because I was still in the kitchen laughing. Now, I realize that our daughter could have felt humiliated and embarrassed. But she laughed with us, and as a result, we still laugh about it today.
The next time you’re tempted to groan, you might try to laugh instead. It will extend your life and make the lives of all those around you more enjoyable.

“During the war, my father had to work on Sundays. Whenever he could find time, he attended sacrament meeting. During these years, Mother had to become a strong spiritual leader in the family. One of my vivid childhood memories of her is of the time she went to tithing settlement and discovered that we still owed about twenty-five dollars. As ward Relief Society president, she wanted the family to close the year as full tithe payers. Dad was working as usual and could not be reached. Mother suggested to the children that we talk about our family tithing problem and have a family prayer. When the prayer was over, Mother had an idea. We were living on a walnut ranch, so we sold enough of the walnuts in our cellar to pay our tithing in full!”

Graziely Moreira, 25, was pretty much raised to do good. When people in her hometown of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, see someone in need, they help. “It’s a cultural thing,” she explains. And for members of the Church, “it’s also because we just think about, as Jesus Christ said, love others as you love yourself. So we just do it. We do it because we like doing it.”
With her quiet example of watching out for and going out of her way to help those in need—like when she saw an old man struggling to carry heavy bags and crossed the street to help him carry them home—Graziely is a force for good. She also knows that we can do the most good when people know that we’re serving out of love, not obligation. “There’s something I learned from my mom: Do to others what you want people to do to you. It’s Heavenly Father’s plan—He wants us to help people.”
We also can’t let things like technology (AKA our smartphones) get in the way of our reaching outside ourselves to do good, says Graziely. “That’s the thing—we have to know each other, we have to understand others’ needs because our life is not based on apps. Our life is based on people. It’s based on what we have to do to become better and to follow Jesus Christ.” And a big part of following Jesus means doing good.

Are you in the right place, or have you pegged yourself? One young girl was getting into her mid-twenties and without opportunity. I urged her to move from the home that she shared with several older girls, leave the office as stenographer, and go to college where she would meet people of the right age. Sometime later I happened one day to be on that campus, and here she came to me, bubbling like a fresh new breeze, with a bright ribbon tying her hair and an optimistic and happy personality. A few months later I was invited to a temple marriage. It may not always work that well, but it did in this case.

A related strength that can be corrupted to our downfall is a desire to excel in a Church calling. I remember a graduate student who used his Church service as a means of escape from the rigors of his studies. He went beyond what we call Church-service time and became almost a full-time Church-service worker. He consistently volunteered for every extra assignment, giving help that was greatly appreciated in the various organizations and activities of the Church. As a result of this inordinate allocation of time, he failed in his studies and then mistakenly blamed his failure on the excessive burden of Church service. His strength became his downfall.

Five years later—I was 27 by then—I came back to my father’s home for a time. My father was ward mission leader, and the sister missionaries were teaching someone else in my home. I overheard them teaching about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, and I decided to pray about it. It made sense in my mind that if Joseph Smith was a prophet, then the Book of Mormon is true and the Church is true.
That night I began to read the history of Joseph Smith and of his vision in the Sacred Grove. Then I stopped, and I prayed to the Lord. I spent the whole night in this manner, reading and praying about each paragraph. It took me 14 hours. Something happened to me when I began to ponder. It seemed that I was in the grove with Joseph. It was a vivid and real experience. It seemed I could see what happened. When I finished the prayer the next morning, I knew Joseph Smith was a prophet.
I went immediately to find the missionaries. At noon, when the sister missionaries came home for lunch, I was sitting in front of their door waiting for them. I asked them to teach me the discussions. After they taught me the seven discussions in a short period of time, I was baptized and confirmed into the Church.

My dear wife, Irene, and I joined the Church 31 years ago when we were newly married. We had both grown up in Colombia, but a few months after our marriage, my career took us to live in Germany. We were very young and had great hopes and expectations; it was an especially exciting and happy time for us.
While I was concentrated on my career, Irene was feeling that we would receive some kind of message from heaven, without knowing how or when. So she started letting into our home all kinds of door-to-door salespeople with encyclopedias, vacuum cleaners, cookbooks, kitchen appliances, and so on, always waiting for that unique message.
One evening she told me that two young men in dark suits had knocked on our door and that she had felt a very clear and distinct impression to let them in. They had said that they wanted to talk to her about God but would come back again when I was also at home. Could this be the expected message?
They began to visit us, and with their guidance, we read in the scriptures and came to understand the crucial importance of Jesus Christ as our Savior and Redeemer. We soon regretted that we had been baptized as little babies, which had not been a conscious covenant. However, being baptized again would also mean becoming members of this new Church, so first we really needed to understand everything about it.
But how could we know if what the missionaries were telling us about the Book of Mormon, about Joseph Smith, and about the plan of salvation was actually all true? Well, we had understood from the words of the Lord that we could “know them by their fruits.” So, in a very systematic manner, we started examining the Church by looking for those fruits with the eyes of our very rational minds. What did we see? Well, we saw:
Friendly and happy people and wonderful families who understood that we are meant to feel joy in this life and not just suffering and misery.
A church that does not have a paid clergy but one in which members themselves accept assignments and responsibilities.
A church where Jesus Christ and families are at the center of everything, where members fast once a month and donate to help the poor and needy, where healthy habits are promoted, teaching us to abstain from harmful substances.
In addition:
We liked the emphasis on personal growth, on education, on hard work and self-reliance.
We learned about the remarkable humanitarian program.
And we were impressed by the general conferences, with the wonderful music and the profound spiritual principles shared there.
Seeing all this, we could find no fault in the Church. On the contrary, we liked everything we saw very much. However, we still could not decide to be baptized because we wanted to know everything before doing so.
But, even in our indecision, the Lord was patiently preparing us, He was molding us, and He was helping us to discover that we should learn to discern the truth not only through our rational minds but also through the very still and small voice of the Spirit, which speaks especially to our hearts.
That voice and the resulting feeling came one evening after 10 months of learning the gospel, when we read in Mosiah 18, “As ye are desirous to … bear one another’s burdens, … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, … if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord?”
That passage from the Book of Mormon entered our hearts and souls, and we suddenly felt and knew that there was really no reason not to be baptized. We realized that the desires mentioned in these verses were also the wishes of our hearts and that those things were what really mattered. They were more important than understanding everything because we already knew enough. We had always relied on the guiding hand of a loving Heavenly Father and were confident that He would continue to guide us.
So, that same day, we set up a date for our baptism, and soon we were baptized, finally!

As rich as those blessings were, the reality of temple blessings became especially poignant in 2007. The morning of October 21, our twins, then 17, were in a car accident. Tessa sustained minor injuries, but Jenna’s condition was serious. She was taken to an area hospital, where she lay in a coma. When we learned she might not live, our three oldest children returned from college. As we spent the next days together in Jenna’s hospital room, our family took great comfort in the ordinances that will allow us to be together after death. We spent time talking about the eternal nature of families—of our family. A week after the accident, Jenna passed away.

Our temple covenants have become even more important to us since her death. We miss Jenna terribly and long for the day when we can be together again, but our faith in the plan of salvation and our testimony of eternal families sustain us. We display in our home a picture of our family at the temple, which reminds us of our experience and the promises we know can be ours.

To become consistently charitable is a lifelong quest, but each act of love changes us and those who offer it. Let me tell you the story of a young woman I met recently. Alicia, as a teenager, had drifted far from the Church, but later she felt stirrings to return. She often visited her grandfather in a retirement home on Sundays. On one of those days she decided to attend the Latter-day Saint meetings there. She opened the door and found a Relief Society meeting, but no empty seats. As she was about to leave, a woman motioned to her and scooted over to make room for her on her chair. Alicia said: “I wondered what the woman would think of me. I was covered with body piercings, and I smelled of smoke. But she didn’t seem to mind; she simply made a place for me at her side.”

Alicia, heartened by this woman’s charity, returned to activity. She has served a mission and is now sharing that same kind of love with other women. The elderly sister who shared her chair understood that there is a place for every woman in Relief Society. Sisters, we gather for strength, but we bring with us all our weaknesses and imperfections.

Alicia told me something I will never forget. She said: “I only do one thing for myself when I go to church: I take the sacrament for me. The rest of the time I watch for others who need me, and I try to help and nurture them.”

My grandma had taught me to pray at night before going to bed. But to whom was I praying? What was he like? Where did he come from? These were questions that couldn’t be answered. I felt as if I were in a dark and dreary world with no hope of light.
Determined to understand more about this mystery, I started attending the church to which we then belonged, because Grandma said God could be found there. But it didn’t do much good. It confused me more. They taught me about Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, who, I was told, belonged to and were one with God.
I visited many other churches. When we studied the Bible and the life of Christ, I felt a very different feeling.
I discovered that this feeling had something to do with Christ, the Bible, the Holy Ghost, and God, but I was still confused. I started to pray and have trust in the Lord. Still, there was something missing. Although I could have the good feeling while reading the Bible, I couldn’t have that feeling with me all the time.
One teacher told me a way to retain this feeling was by being baptized, so I was baptized. But nothing changed. All churches seemed the same, so I decided to stay home and study on my own. I found myself praying more intensely for the Lord to help me find the true path that led to him. He heard my prayers.
I met a young man, and we became friends. For the next ten months we shared our ideas and thoughts about many things, but never religion. One day I found that my friend traveled with a Bible, so I asked him if he went to church and what the name of his church was. It was some long name—The Church of Jesus Christ of something something Saints. I wasn’t the least bit interested—it sounded like just another church to me.
My friend later told me he was going to serve the Lord for two years in another country. I figured he was going to be a pastor. When he left, I began to wonder what his church was like, and I began to search for their meeting place.
I found it a few months later, but I also found something more. As I walked through the doors of the meetinghouse, I felt a feeling impossible to describe; it was joy, peace, comfort, certainty, and happiness all in one. It was like coming home. My questions had now been answered.
The members of the church welcomed me with open arms. At first, I was reluctant to accept these welcomes because it was a little too much. I wasn’t used to so many people. They welcomed me whether they knew me or not. At the end of the meeting, a calm feeling came over me, and I heard these words in my mind: “Debbie, this is the place, and these are the people you have been searching for.”
Looking back, I see that my life in the ghetto was difficult and that a person could make it harder by making wrong choices. There was little opportunity for progression. But I wanted something worth living for. When the opportunity came to leave the ghetto with part of my family, I decided this was my chance.
Many of the girls I grew up with never left the ghetto. I could not have made it without following the desires of my heart and trusting in my Father above to lead me. I was blessed with the chance to leave the ghetto, be baptized a member of this church, gain an education, and fulfill a mission. I know Heavenly Father loves us all and is mindful of our circumstances, no matter where we are. He desires above all things that we find true happiness.

I recently was made aware of a touching example of loving kindness—one that had unforeseen results. The year was 1933, when because of the Great Depression, employment opportunities were scarce. The location was the eastern part of the United States. Arlene Biesecker had just graduated from high school. After a lengthy search for employment, she was finally able to obtain work at a clothing mill as a seamstress. The mill workers were paid only for each of the correctly completed pieces they sewed together daily. The more pieces they produced, the more they were paid.

One day shortly after starting at the mill, Arlene was faced with a procedure that had her confused and frustrated. She sat at her sewing machine trying to unpick her unsuccessful attempt to complete the piece on which she was working. There seemed to be no one to help her, for all of the other seamstresses were hurrying to complete as many pieces as they could. Arlene felt helpless and hopeless. Quietly, she began to cry.

Across from Arlene sat Bernice Rock. She was older and more experienced as a seamstress. Observing Arlene’s distress, Bernice left her own work and went to Arlene’s side, kindly giving her instruction and help. She stayed until Arlene gained confidence and was able to successfully complete the piece. Bernice then went back to her own machine, having missed the opportunity to complete as many pieces as she could have, had she not helped.

With this one act of loving kindness, Bernice and Arlene became lifelong friends. Each eventually married and had children. Sometime in the 1950s, Bernice, who was a member of the Church, gave Arlene and her family a copy of the Book of Mormon. In 1960, Arlene and her husband and children were baptized members of the Church. Later they were sealed in a holy temple of God.

As a result of the compassion shown by Bernice as she went out of her way to help one whom she didn’t know but who was in distress and needed assistance, countless individuals, both living and dead, now enjoy the saving ordinances of the gospel.

Some years ago a young mother of my acquaintance shared this event in her life. She had been active in youth activities in the ward for several years and was at the time president of the young women. The stake president called one day and asked her to meet with the stake presidency the following Sunday afternoon. With anxiety in her voice and tears close to the surface, she went to her husband and said, I’m afraid they want me for a stake job. I don’t want a stake job. I love the ward. I love the youth in the ward. I love my counselors. I love my job. I don’t want to change.”

Her husband said, “Please go and see what they want. I’ll support you in any assignment.”

Her fears were realized. She was asked to be stake president of the Young Women. Later, the stake president told her that after she had reluctantly accepted the call, he had never seen a more forlorn-looking person walk out of his office.

For over six years she, with the same sisters as counselors, took care of the stake work for the young women. “Those were some of the best years of service for me,” she said. “My horizons expanded. I became acquainted with the wonderful leaders and great young people in our stake. I even had leadership experiences with other fine leaders in the whole valley. Later the opportunity came to serve on a general board. I shudder to think what I would have missed if I had declined the change in assignments.”

Brother Lowell also arranged for the team to travel to Australia and to the Church College of New Zealand and to play several exhibition games en route. To help fund that project, the polo players swam 7,000 laps in a hotel pool, with people pledging money for each lap completed. During the tour they stayed part of the time with LDS families and were impressed by their friendly attitude, high standards, and enthusiasm for life. “They made us feel at home,” Guy Baker, one of Cal’s teammates, said. The team gained enough recognition with its 13–1–1 record during the tour to receive tentative invitations to Japan and Cuba next year.

“Margo, who do you want to baptize you?” Mom asked as we drove home from church.
Dad! I thought. I want Dad to baptize me.
But I knew that wasn’t an option. So I just shrugged. “I dunno,” I said.
Dad isn’t a member of the Church. He reads the scriptures and prays with us, and he believes in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, but he’s never been baptized. He doesn’t have the priesthood, so he can’t baptize me.
“You should decide soon,” Mom said. “Your baptism is only a few weeks away.”
“I’m still thinking about it,” I said.
But what I was really thinking about was how sad I was that Dad couldn’t baptize me.
When we got home from church, I saw my cousin Collin in the living room with Dad. Collin was going to college nearby and liked to come for dinner on Sundays.
Dad got up to help Mom in the kitchen, and I plopped down on the couch next to Collin.
“Hey, Margo!” Collin said. “I can’t wait to come to your baptism. Are you excited?”
I looked down at my feet and shrugged.
Collin frowned. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know if I want to get baptized!” I blurted out.
“Why not?”
“Because Dad can’t baptize me,” I said. “All of my friends’ dads baptized them, but mine can’t, so it won’t be as special.”
Collin nodded slowly. “That would be hard,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean your baptism won’t be special.”
I just shrugged again.
“Let me ask you something,” Collin said. “Do you know why we get baptized and confirmed?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We talked about that today. We make promises with God and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
“That’s what God promises us,” Collin said. “But we make promises too. Do you know what you promise God at baptism?”
I counted off on my fingers. “To take the name of Jesus Christ upon me, to keep His commandments, and to remember Him.”
“Right,” Collin said. “So when you get baptized, you make a special promise with Heavenly Father. That’s all that matters. Your baptism is between you and Heavenly Father, so it will be really special, no matter who baptizes you.”
I guess that did sound pretty special.
“You know, by getting baptized, you’re also setting a good example for your dad,” Collin said.
I perked up at that. “Really?”
“I know your dad is proud of your faith and your decision to be baptized. Maybe seeing how important baptism is to you will help him start thinking about getting baptized too.”
Collin reached in his pocket and pulled out a small box. He opened it and pulled out a necklace with a pretty gold charm.
“Here,” he said, handing it to me. “An early birthday present.”
“Wow!” I said. “Thanks!”
That night, as Mom and I did the dishes, she asked if I had decided who would baptize me.
I touched the gold charm around my neck. “I think I know.”
A few weeks later, I stood in a white jumpsuit and looked down into the font. There was Collin, reaching out his hand for me.
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Jesus was baptized by His cousin too! Watch a new video about His baptism at friend.lds.org during June.
I looked at the people in the room and saw Dad. He was smiling at me. I walked into the water to be baptized, and I thought about my Heavenly Father. I was excited to make this first covenant with Him. I bet He was smiling too.