Gospel Story Finder

When I was serving as a missionary in northern Mexico, a few days after the baptismal service of the Valdez family we received a telephone call from Brother Valdez asking us to come to his house. He had an important question for us. Now that he knew the will of the Lord regarding the Word of Wisdom, and even though it would be difficult to find a new job, he wondered if he should continue to work for the cigarette company where he had worked for many years. Only a few days later Brother Valdez again asked us to come by and visit him. He had decided to quit his job because he was not willing to go against his convictions. Then with a smile and emotion in his voice, he told us that the very day he quit his old job, another company had called to offer him a much better position.

On another occasion, we were at the visitors’ center on Temple Square with these same grandchildren. Two-year-old Ashley was tired and wanted to leave. Sister Mask asked her if she wanted to see a big Jesus like the one on our wall. She asked, “Is He as big as me?” “Even bigger,” Sister Mask replied. When that tiny, little girl looked up at the majestic Christus, she ran and stood at the feet and gazed up reverently for several minutes. When her father indicated it was time to go, she said, “No, no, Daddy. He loves me and wants to give me hugs!”

While serving as an Area Seventy, I reserved each Tuesday night to do ministering visits with the stake presidents in my area of responsibility. I invited them to make appointments with those who were in need of an ordinance of the gospel of Jesus Christ or who were not currently keeping the covenants they had made. Through our consistent and intentional ministering, the Lord magnified our efforts and we were able to find individuals and families who were in need. These were the “poor little ones” who lived in the different stakes where we served.
On one occasion, I accompanied President Bill Whitworth, the president of the Sandy Utah Canyon View Stake, to do ministering visits. He was prayerful about whom we should visit, trying to have the same experience as Nephi, who “was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which [he] should do” (1 Nephi 4:6). He demonstrated that as we minister, we should be led by revelation to those who are most in need, as opposed to just going down a list or visiting individuals in a methodical way. We should be led by the power of inspiration.
I remember going into the home of a young couple, Jeff and Heather, and their little boy, Kai. Jeff grew up an active member of the Church. He was a very talented athlete and had a promising career. He began to drift away from the Church in his teenage years. Later, he got into a car accident, which altered the course of his life. As we entered their home and became acquainted, Jeff asked us why we came to see his family. We responded that there were about 3,000 members who lived within the stake boundaries. I then asked him, “Jeff, of all the homes we could have visited tonight, tell us why the Lord has sent us here.”
With that, Jeff became emotional and began to share with us some of his worries and some issues that they were dealing with as a family. We began to share various principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We invited them to do a few specific things that might seem to be challenging at first but in time would bring great happiness and joy. Then President Whitworth gave Jeff a priesthood blessing to help him overcome his challenges. Jeff and Heather agreed to do what we invited them to do.
About a year later, it was my privilege to watch Jeff baptize his wife, Heather, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are now preparing themselves to enter the temple to be sealed as a family for time and all eternity. Our visit altered the course of their lives both temporally and spiritually.

At three in the morning, Beverly and Amber Williams, of McCammon, Idaho, are usually asleep. But July 1, 1996, wasn’t a typical morning for these teenage sisters. Instead of sleeping, they were rushing their mom, Effie, to the hospital in nearby Soda Springs. About four hours later, their mom delivered a healthy baby boy. She named him David, after her husband and the girls’ father, who was killed not long before in an industrial accident.
“We wanted to be there with my mom,” says 16-year-old Beverly, “and to be with a brand-new baby who just came from where my dad is.”
The girls stayed by their mom’s side through the delivery and probably would have stayed at the hospital much longer if it weren’t for one small problem: most of the baby clothes Effie had purchased were pink, for a girl. So Beverly and Amber hopped in the car and drove more than an hour to Pocatello to exchange the clothes. They also used their personal savings to buy a dresser for their new baby brother. They put the clothes and dresser in his room at home before returning to the hospital. Oh, and Beverly mowed the lawn first too. After all, Monday had always been the day that Effie mowed the lawn. Beverly knew her mom wouldn’t be up to it.

Some years ago, while I was serving as the mission president in Portugal, several of our missionaries introduced me to their shoeshine man. Their shoes looked so good that I was anxious to meet the man that could put such a shine on missionaries’ shoes. Even though he had not chosen to listen to the missionaries’ message, I considered the shoeshine man my friend, and we visited while he was busy shining my shoes. He indicated that his wife had died, that he had no family, and that about the only pleasure he had in life was seeing people walk away happy with the shoes he had just shined.
His place of business was on the curbside of a small square on a busy street in downtown Lisbon. His stand seemed to have all that was necessary. It consisted of a short, rusty, three-legged stool, upon which my frail friend would sit as he shined the shoes that were placed on a stained and well-used shoeshine box that was full of his polishes and brushes, and there was an ornate lamppost (which was kindly furnished by the city of Lisbon), upon which the customer would lean while he was having his shoes shined.
He would carefully apply two coats of polish, using a brush to polish between each coat. Last, he applied a special product that would give the shoes that extra special shine. With a final snap of the cloth, he would stand up, take off his little Portuguese cap, make a deep bow, and say, “Pronto. Seus sapatos foram engrashados pelo o melhor engraxate do mundo.” “There. Your shoes were shined by the very best shoeshine man in the world.” I was convinced that I had had my shoes shined by the very best.
A few months after our mission, I was called to serve as the Regional Representative to Portugal and had the opportunity to return to Lisbon a number of times. As occasion permitted, I would have my shoes shined by the “best shoeshine man in the world.”
The last few times that I went, I was unable to find him at his usual place of business. I finally inquired at the prestigious stores that surrounded the square. The response was the same, “We don’t know what happened to him. It seems that we had heard that he had died.” I remember thinking, Could it be that the best shoeshine man in the world had died, and no one really knew or even seemed to care? I wondered: Had there been someone there with him, or did he slip away unnoticed?
May we contrast that for a moment with Brother and Sister Joaquim Aires, a marvelous man and his wife who came to Portugal following the 1974 revolution of Portugal’s colonies in Angola and Mozambique. They had returned to Portugal unknown and with very few possessions. A great blessing occurred in their lives. They opened their door to two young missionaries, who taught them of the restoration of Christ’s church. They received the missionaries, accepted their message, and were baptized.
As is the opportunity for all worthy men in the Church, he received the priesthood—authority to act in the name of our Father in Heaven—and to become a leader in the Church. Brother Aires became President Aires, president of one of the mission districts.
One day I received a telephone call. President Aires was in the hospital in Coimbra, several hours’ travel away. He had suffered a very serious cerebral hemorrhage and was in very critical condition. Another priesthood holder and I made the trip as quickly as possible. As we walked quietly into the hospital room, we found him asleep. My first inclination was not to awaken him. And then I thought he would want to know that we had come. So I reached over and carefully touched his hand. He slowly opened his eyes and then looked at me for a moment, and then the tears came to both of our eyes. He then said in a very weak and soft voice, “I knew you would come. I knew you would come. Would you please give me a blessing.” In his dear, sweet faith, he was asking for a priesthood blessing, the same that is taught of and recorded in the Bible. We read in James 5:14–15: “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.”
As men of the priesthood, it was our privilege to pronounce a blessing on him with power and authority of our Father in Heaven.
As I would meet with the members of the Church from one end of Portugal to the other, the brothers and sisters would ask, “How is Brother Aires? Will you please tell him we love him and we’re praying for him?”
This good man and his wife, who had returned to Portugal almost unknown, now, because of their membership in the Church, had literally thousands who loved them and were concerned about them and remembered him in their prayers.
The prayers of faith were answered. He recovered completely, and he and Sister Aires went on to fulfill a full-time mission together.
I have thought often of the contrast between the two—my little shoeshine man on one hand, who, like so many of life’s unknown wanderers, had slipped away without any understanding of life’s purpose; and Brother Aires on the other, who was not only taught of life’s real purpose, but had now become a part of a great body of people who showed their love and appreciation for him.
As the Apostle Paul wrote to the members of the Church, or Saints as they were called and are called today, he reminded the newly baptized members of the Church of the blessings of belonging when he told them, “Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19). What a blessing it is to belong and to be wanted and needed! It becomes even more apparent during life’s tender moments.
To all who find yourselves outside the household of faith and away from the Saints, would you please accept this invitation to come unto Christ that we might all, as Alma said, “bear one another’s burdens” (Mosiah 18:8). Join with the Saints, that you might not be any longer strangers alone in this world, but truly cared for, loved, and appreciated.
And to all of us—those of us who are members of the Church, could I just counsel with you for a moment? Do you have anyone that you know who might be as our little shoeshine man, who is alone—alone in this great crowd of people—that could use your special love and caring and concern? Could you take a moment and let such people know how much you love them?
And may we also, as members of the Church, truly do our part to make His church a welcome refuge for all of our Father in Heaven’s children, I pray humbly in the name of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.

Jacob pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket that read,
Please take good care of Henry.
My mother wouldn’t let me take him with me.
Benne
That morning Jacob had found the note taped to the bare wall of his room when his family arrived at their new home. While the furniture was being carried in, Jacob looked everywhere in the house, in the yard, and even out around the cholla and prickly pear cacti growing outside the fence beyond the mesquite trees. But he didn’t see a sign of any pet.
After supper Jacob got two bowls and put leftovers and bones in one and some fresh cold water in the other and set them outside the back door.
“Henry! Henry!” he called in every direction into the cooling desert air, but there was no answer and no pet came running to eat. He watched until the sunset had faded and bright stars twinkled through the purple and gray of the night, but no pet came.
“I guess Henry is lost,” he told his mother, “or maybe he ran away.”
That night Jacob woke up to the sound of a coyote calling from the mesa out in the distance. He sat up to see if he could see it from his window. But all he could see was the moonlight reflection, glimmering off the desert sand. Then Jacob thought he caught a glimpse of something moving in the corner of his room.
“Henry?” he called and crawled to the foot of his bed to see what it was.
Jacob’s eyes grew larger and larger. He rubbed them hard and then looked again. There in the corner was a snake. He could see its yellow markings in the moonlight against its black body. It was just swallowing the last of a small mouse and was too busy to notice Jacob.
Jacob watched as the end of the mouse’s tail disappeared inside the snake’s mouth, then he saw the bulgy, black and yellow snake crawl slowly into a knothole in the baseboard.
The next morning what Jacob had seen seemed like only a dream, and he forgot about it in all the excitement of his first day at school.
After school one of the boys in his class introduced himself. “My name’s Tom. You moved into the house out near Chacho Mesa, didn’t you? I went past there yesterday with my father and saw you. We live about half a mile farther on.”
“Did you know a boy named Benne who used to live there?” Jacob asked.
“Sure.”
“I’m afraid that his pet, Henry, is lost. There was a note asking me to take care of him, but I can’t find him.”
“Oh, haven’t you met Henry yet?” Tom asked with mock innocence. “He’s probably hiding till he gets used to your family. I’ll bet he’s around there somewhere,” Tom added, suppressing a smile. “My father’s planning to stop and get acquainted with your family tonight. I’ll come with him and help you hunt for Henry then.”
Tom and his father arrived right after supper, carrying a plate heaped with chocolate chip cookies. After Jacob and Tom each ate one, they took two more and headed outside.
“Henry’s really hard to find when he wants to be,” Tom said. “There’s an old pack rat’s nest out here that Henry sometimes checks out to see if it’s occupied. Let’s start looking there.”
Tom wove his way in and out of cedar clumps, barrel cacti, and grasses that grew in thin tufts. Here and there he had to step over lechuguilla spines. “Watch out for those!” he warned Jacob. “They’ll slice into even the toughest shoes.”
Soon they reached a large mound of dirt piled around the base of a creosote bush. Bits of foil and shotgun casings and colorful pieces of plastic and metal were poking out here and there from the dirt. Up and down the sides of the mound ran four-toed tracks and long grooves made by something being dragged up its sides.
“It looks like a new pack rat has taken over this place,” Tom said. “If Henry had been here lately, it would have been empty. Let’s go.”
From behind a yucca, a roadrunner darted, then strutted off ahead of the boys, stopping now and again to raise and lower its tail.
“Is Henry a dog?” Jacob finally asked.
“No,” answered Tom briskly.
“If Henry’s not a dog, then he must be a cat?” persisted Jacob.
Tom laughed. “Benne really didn’t tell you in the note who Henry is, did he?” he said incredulously.
“No, who is he?”
“Henry’s a pet snake.”
“A snake!” Then Jacob remembered. “What kind of snake? What does he look like?”
“He’s a king snake. He’s black with yellow markings that look sort of like a chain on his body. He can catch a rat or mouse better than a cat. I already have a pet snake, or I would have taken him home with me when Benne moved away.”
Then Jacob told Tom what had happened the night before. It didn’t seem at all like a dream now.
“That sounds like Henry all right. If he comes out before I go home, I’ll introduce him to you and let him know you’re his new friend. He trusts me already.”
The boys went into Jacob’s room and looked into the knothole.
“I can’t see him in there, but he’s probably awake by now,” Tom said. “He usually sleeps all day and comes out to eat about this time.”
The boys played two games of checkers before a black and yellow head with two bright eyes poked out of the knothole, and the snake crawled into the room.
“There you are, Henry,” Tom said and he picked up the snake. “Meet Jacob. He just moved in here.”
Tom placed the snake in Jacob’s hands. Henry looked at Jacob with unblinking eyes.
“Look,” Jacob said as he walked into the living room to show his mom and dad. “We’ve found Henry.”
“So this is what you were telling us about,” Jacob’s dad said to Tom’s father.
“A pet snake!” Jacob’s mother exclaimed. “That will take a little getting used to. But if he’s as friendly and as good at keeping the mice away as you say, I guess he can stay.”
Henry looked around at Tom and Jacob and their parents, flicked out his tongue, and laid his head down on the coil his body had made in Jacob’s hands and went to sleep.

Daily study of the scriptures is another important family activity. I remember when my son was seven years old. He was taking a shower one night during a storm when we lost the power in our home. My wife called to him and told him to hurry to finish his shower and to then take a candle and come slowly downstairs for our family prayer. She warned him to be careful to not drop the candle on the carpet because it could start a fire and the house could burn down. Several minutes later he came down the stairs struggling to hold the candle in one hand, and with his other arm he was carrying his scriptures. His mother asked him why he was bringing his scriptures. His answer to her was, “Mom, if the house burns down, I must save my scriptures!” We knew that our efforts to help him to love the scriptures had been planted in his heart forever.

Before reviewing some of the discrimination Church members have experienced, let me be clear that this discrimination is not comparable to the devastating personal impact and societal consequences of slavery.

With this in mind, in the early 1830s, as Latter-day Saints moved to Jackson County, Missouri, to establish Zion—a covenant community—opposition arose from other settlers based on numerous issues, including the Saints’ sympathetic views toward Native Americans and the Saints’ disapproval of slavery. The early Saints took seriously Book of Mormon prophecies that the gospel would be taken in the latter days to the descendants of the Lamanites, whom they understood to be Native Americans. These prophecies and the Saints’ attempts to preach to Native Americans raised suspicions among Missourians who were generally hostile to Indians. Even more concerning for other Missouri settlers was the issue of slavery. Already by the 1830s, significant cultural and economic differences were arising between Americans in the northern states, where slavery was largely outlawed, and the southern states, where slavery was expanding. Most Church members were from the northern states and did not own slaves. Most other Missouri early settlers were from the South, supported slavery, and worried that large numbers of non-slaveholding Saints would shift the control of local politics.

In July 1833, William W. Phelps published an editorial in the Church’s newspaper that heightened these fears. Titled “Free People of Color,” Phelps’s editorial cautioned freed Black Latter-day Saints to have proper paperwork if they migrated to Missouri due to state law. Local citizens misinterpreted the editorial as an invitation by Church leaders for freed slaves to settle in Missouri. The Saints were accused of inciting a slave rebellion, promoting interracial mixing, and giving free Blacks rights of citizenship upon their arrival. Despite attempts to calm the situation in a follow-up article, vigilantes demanded that the Saints leave Jackson County. When Church leaders refused, vigilantes destroyed the Church’s printing office and tarred and feathered two men. The Saints were violently driven from Jackson County later that year.16

Ward families are a refuge. I know a young family who lived in south Los Angeles during the violent summer of 1992. They could feel the heat from the fires as they sat terrified in their little apartment. Their families in Salt Lake City offered encouragement and their prayers. They could do no more at such a distance. It was a ward member who made arrangements for this family to get themselves and their baby out safely. They stayed with members until they could go back to their apartment. They were safe.

Mom wasn’t surprised at all, and she told me a story: “When you were a tiny baby and round all over, your daddy brought you this blanket. He held you and the blanket in one arm and said, ‘Blanket, blanket,’ lots of times. You said, ‘Ginky.’ Dad smiled and said, ‘Blanket.’ Both of you were talking about the same thing.”
I had to laugh at that.
“Pretty soon,” Mom went on, “we all got used to calling your blanket Ginky, the way you did. ‘Here’s Ginky,’ your daddy or I would say, or ‘Won’t you let us wash Ginky just once, real quick?’ But you never wanted Ginky to be washed.”
“I didn’t want Ginky swooshing around in all that soap,” I told her.
Now Ginky smells kind of stuffy and dusty from being in the drawer so long. Ginky used to be soft. I remember stroking my cheek with Ginky and wrapping it around my arm (the one with the good-tasting thumb) before I went to sleep.
At first Ginky had a satin edging that I could curl around my fingers. I could make a scratchy noise on it, too, with my fingernail. But the satin is almost all worn off now.
Lots of babies have blankets. But there isn’t another Ginky.
You know, I took Ginky to bed with me last night—just for remembering. I didn’t really need to. I tried wrapping Ginky around my arm. I tried scratching the worn-out satin. I even tried sucking my thumb.
But my thumb just doesn’t taste good anymore. After a while, I got all tangled up in Ginky. I wanted to go to sleep, so I folded Ginky carefully beside me. “Good night,” I said.
This morning Ginky was still there, looking kind of raggedy on my pillow. I packed Ginky away in my special box. Mom says that when I’m a big person, we’ll open my box and look at all the things I saved as I was growing up.
My picture album and my doll without any hair and a drawing I made of a fire engine were in my box already. I think Ginky belongs there with those other things.

Consider this example: Brother Evans was surprised when he was prompted to stop his car and knock on an unknown door of an unknown family. When a widowed mother of over 10 answered the door, their difficult circumstances and great needs became readily apparent to him. The first was simple, paint for their home, which was followed by many years of temporal and spiritual ministering to this family.
This thankful mother later wrote of her heaven-sent friend: “You have spent your life reaching out to the least of us. How I would love to hear the things the Lord has to say to you as He expresses His appreciation for the good you have done financially and spiritually for the people that only you and He will ever know about. Thank you for blessing us in so many ways, … for the missionaries you provided for. … I often wonder if the Lord picked on you exclusively or if you were just the one who listened.”

More than 300 adults from across India gathered in Hyderabad on January 17 to 19 to learn how to become more self-reliant, both temporally and spiritually.
“Our goal with this conference,” said John Gutty, manager of Welfare and Self-Reliance Services, “was to teach young people the principles of self-reliance, to encourage them to take charge of their lives, and to put themselves in a position to provide for themselves and to help others.”
Activities on Thursday and Friday were held at the Marigold Hotel and included personality assessment and development, resume writing, interviewing skills, managing personal finances, and setting and reaching educational goals. Saturday was devoted to workshops on spiritual development.
The group was diverse with as many dreams and challenges as attendees. Nagaraj Govindhraj, Naga Sai Kiran Gubbala, and Madan Govindraj all traveled from Chennai to the conference. Each found something that addressed their particular situation.
Nagaraj, 18, whose parents work as cooks, wants to go to college and plans on serving a mission. “We need to be self-reliant, to support ourselves and our families,” he said, “I earn money for my mission working as a cashier and bell boy in a hotel.”
Nagaraj found the workshop on budgeting especially helpful. “At the conference,” he said, “they taught us how to manage money, to think about what we need and how much we spend, and how to live within our means.” He added, “We also learned about how faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to His commandments can create happiness and stability in our lives.”
Gubbala, 27, is a returned missionary and works as a senior process assistant in a call center. He is thinking about looking for a new job. “I realized that I need to update my resume,” he said. “I also learned what to expect in an interview and how to present myself.” Gubbala also liked learning about the spiritual aspects of self-reliance, like finding the right partner to establish a strong and stable marriage.
Madan, aged 24, is working in Bangalore. He has a diploma in computer engineering and has been doing marketing for a nongovernmental organization while studying through BYU-Pathway Worldwide, an online certificate and degree program offered through Brigham Young University-Idaho. He hopes to eventually earn a master’s degree.
“At the conference, I learned how to go for a better job while studying and how to find jobs in sectors related to my field,” he said. “I also learned how to handle the stress of working and going to school at the same time, which was very helpful.”
Saturday’s sessions were held at the Hyderabad stake center and included presentations about missionary work, family history, institute, and choosing an eternal companion. Anjali Barunal from Delhi said, “I felt the Holy Spirit testify to me that I can do my family history and provide temple ordinances for my ancestors.” Her favorite workshop was the one on eternal marriage where she learned how important it is to date and marry a worthy priesthood holder.
Participants also learned that living a self-reliant life includes serving others. The conference ended with a blood donation drive organized in conjunction with the Indian Red Cross Society. Priya, aged 20, felt that this was a perfect way to conclude her experience in Hyderabad. “Donating blood is the best gift one can give,” she said. “I am happy to share the blessing of my good health with those in need.”

Years ago I read of an African-American man who rose from humble circumstances to become the general counsel of General Motors, without question one of the most lucrative and prestigious positions for a lawyer in all the world. As a boy he was poor; he was required to obtain his education through efforts that were heroic and under circumstances that were difficult in the extreme. He was required to work one and even two menial, dirty jobs regularly and, if I am not mistaken, occasionally three. He was asked if he felt uncomfortable among the highest-paid executives in the world. His answer was no. He said that most of them had been poor boys, like him, who had worked their way up being tested, challenged, threatened, and discouraged. Adversity is the refiner’s fire that bends iron but tempers steel.

As many of you know being in the temple can touch our feelings very deeply, perhaps more deeply than others of you might suppose. During the open house of the Rexburg Temple in early 2008, I was blessed to lead a few tours. In doing so, I had an unforgettable opportunity to witness just how quickly and how profoundly the temple can touch people. A temple open house will attract many different kinds of people. In an area such as this, many will be active members of the Church wishing to bring their children or other family members to experience the beauty and serenity of the temple. However other people, inactive members and those of other faiths, will also attend, perhaps only out of simple curiosity. They might not be interested in the Church but just be curious to walk through a building that soon will be inaccessible to them.

Let me tell you about one such family. It was a family of three—a father, mother, and an approximately sixteen or seventeen-year-old daughter. Each of them had the definite appearance of being very worldly. Certainly they did not look like folks you would remotely expect to see in your Church meetings on Sunday. They stood out distinctly among the other people on the tour. While they were respectful as we proceeded through the tour, they maintained a steady demeanor of aloofness and indifference. Their very manner repeatedly seemed to say, “We are not buying into what you are telling us.” However, this changed quite suddenly when we got to the celestial room in the temple. I was not expecting the change that came upon them, and they were expecting it even less.

Just prior to entering the celestial room, tour groups were informed that while in that room there would be no talking, but that each person on the tour could use the quiet minutes there to contemplate the reality of a loving Heavenly Father and the concern He has for them. As we entered the room I found myself standing directly opposite this family, where I was able to discretely observe them. Within 30 seconds of being in the celestial room, the wife, with a sudden look of surprise upon her face, began to cry. Her husband, sensing this, looked at her in disbelief, and then he too started to cry. The daughter then turned toward them both and her jaw literally dropped in astonishment as she just stared at them for several seconds before she abruptly burst into tears as well. I watched as this family then fell into each other’s arms and wept quietly together.

How beautiful a contrast in attentiveness they showed when we went next to a sealing room. You could see in each of their eyes a depth of earnest interest regarding the message that families may be sealed together for time and for all eternity. I would love to know if other changes in their lives have come from the feelings they jointly experienced in the temple that day. Of one thing I am certain, they walked out of the temple with very different feelings from the feelings they had when they walked in earlier.

After recovering from three major surgeries which have prevented me from speaking in the past two general conferences, what a joy it is to be able to stand in this beautiful Conference Center today to teach and bear testimony to those who desire to hear the word of the Lord.
In the past two years, I have waited upon the Lord for mortal lessons to be taught me through periods of physical pain, mental anguish, and pondering. I learned that constant, intense pain is a great consecrating purifier that humbles us and draws us closer to God’s Spirit. If we listen and obey, we will be guided by His Spirit and do His will in our daily endeavors.
There were times when I have asked a few direct questions in my prayers, such as, “What lessons dost Thou want me to learn from these experiences?”
As I studied the scriptures during this critical period of my life, the veil was thin and answers were given to me as they were recorded in lives of others who had gone through even more severe trials.
“My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
“And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high” (D&C 121:7–8).
Dark moments of depression were quickly dispelled by the light of the gospel as the Spirit brought peace and comfort with assurances that all would be well.
On a few occasions I told the Lord that I had surely learned the lessons to be taught and that it wouldn’t be necessary for me to endure any more suffering. Such entreaties seemed to be of no avail, for it was made clear to me that this purifying process of testing was to be endured in the Lord’s time and in the Lord’s own way. It is one thing to teach, “Thy will be done” (Matt. 26:42). It is another to live it. I also learned that I would not be left alone to meet these trials and tribulations but that guardian angels would attend me. There were some that were near angels in the form of doctors, nurses, and most of all my sweet companion, Mary. And on occasion, when the Lord so desired, I was to be comforted with visitations of heavenly hosts that brought comfort and eternal reassurances in my time of need.
The experiences of the last two years have made me stronger in spirit and have given me courage to testify more boldly to the world the deep feelings of my heart. I stand before you today with a resolve to teach the gospel principles like the prophets of old—without the fear of man, speaking clearly with plain talk, and teaching simple gospel truths.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell tells the following story:

Thomas B. Marsh, once president of the Twelve Apostles, was excommunicated, yet he returned. In 1857 he made his way to Salt Lake City, where he spoke in the Bowery and humbly asked for forgiveness. To the congregation he said: "I became jealous of the Prophet and then I saw double, and overlooked everything that was right and spent all my time looking for the evil; …I thought I saw a beam in brother Joseph's eye but it was nothing but a tiny mote and my own eye was filled with a beam."

Elder Maxwell goes on to say, "Those in communities of Saints will love but not follow the disappointed dissenter. Instead they will help each other to sustain and support the brethren" (If Thou Endure it Well p. 102).

A warm spiritual feeling mixed with the customary Scottish rain brought the first annual Scots-Irish Youth Convention to a close last summer. Two hundred youth and leaders from Northern Ireland and southwestern Scotland gathered together in the heart of Glasgow, Scotland, for a weekend of sports activities, talent-sharing, workshops, and testimony building. All participants were members of the Scotland Glasgow Mission, which unites the two lands that are otherwise separated by 65 miles of sea.
After registration on Friday afternoon, the youth participated in a three-hour talent show that helped them to get acquainted as well as entertain each other. Saturday morning was filled with workshops that discussed such topics as the environment, career selection, and “How Others See Us.” Also included was a “keep-fit” class conducted by Brother Eric Bower, convention chairman and professional soccer player.
Soccer, volleyball, and table tennis were in the afternoon’s schedule, followed by a gala banquet. A fully-kilted, tartan-dressed Scottish piper (complete with bagpipes) entered the banquet hall just prior to the beginning of the meal and entertained the diners. The young people topped off the day’s events with a disco.
Sunday morning dawned brightly and began with a priesthood session and Young Women meeting. Elder James A. Cullimore of the First Quorum of the Seventy presided at a testimony meeting that followed.
One of the most significant events of the convention occurred after the participants returned to their homes. One of the young men attending the conference (a non-Mormon) spoke so enthusiastically about the weekend that his parents agreed to let him and his brother take part in the seminary and youth programs of the Church. As a result, the whole family has begun taking the missionary discussions.
Altogether the conference was considered a great success and plans are being made for the second convention to be held in August. It will take place in Northern Ireland.
by Dan Anderson

In 1993 the Hawaii State Supreme Court found the states refusal to grant same sex marriage licenses, discriminatory. In 1998 a constitutional amendment granting the Hawaii State Legislature the power to reserve marriage to opposite sex couples was voted on, however prior to the vote members of our BYU-Hawaii student body along with members of the L.D.S. church throughout the State of Hawaii were invited to rally and show their support for the Constitutional Amendment. On two occasions I was privileged to witness our BYU-Hawaii students raising banners supporting traditional marriage as we marched along the medial strip along Kahekili Highway in Kaneohe and Kuulei Road in Kailua. I heard the jeers and sneers and abusive words of non traditionalists, however the reassuring message from the Teachings of Joseph F. Smith buoys me up,
".... ..the people of God know the voice of the true shepherd, and the stranger's voice they will not heed, nor the counsels of him who assumes authority that does not belong to him. None such will they ever follow. The Latter-Day Saints know the spirit of the gospel; they understand the spirit of truth. They have learned their duty, and they will stand by truth, no matter what may come."
I witnessed a young married student mother holding aloft her baby. Standing next to them was the baby's grandmother, three generations in support of an amendment, similar to what has become known as the Family Proclamation issued by our modern day Prophets and apostles,
"The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and women is essential to his eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity."
As I witnessed these events, for me it was not unlike envisioning Moroni in the Book of Mormon,
"And it came to pass that he rent his coat, and he took a piece thereof and wrote upon it - In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives and our children.... .Behold, whosoever will maintain this title upon the land, let them come forth in the strength of the Lord, and enter into a covenant that they will maintain their rights and their religion that the Lord God may bless them" (Alma 46:12, 20).
As a result of this support, the Hawaii State Legislature passed a law that banned same sex marriages. Today, Same sex marriages are prohibited by Hawaii State statutes.

Rosa Clara was born in 1837 on the island of Guernsey, located in the English Channel between France and Britain. But she was taken first to England and then to New South Wales, Australia, after her father died. By 1849, when Rosa Clara arrived with her mother, Eliza Friedlander, and younger brother, James, Sydney was a large, prosperous city. Two years after their arrival, Rosa Clara’s mother married George W. Watson.
Just six weeks after the marriage, Elder John Murdock and Elder Charles W. Wandell arrived to open the Australian Mission of the Church. By Christmas they had baptized twelve converts, and on the first Sunday of 1852, Elder Wandell organized the Sydney Branch.
Eliza Watson, her husband, and her children accepted the gospel and were all baptized within a few weeks of the branch’s organization. George Watson was ordained a priest, and the whole family was active in the newly formed branch. Frequently, they hosted cottage meetings in their home, and when the elders needed someone to move to Melbourne and serve as a part-time missionary there, George Watson volunteered.
Rosa Clara was devastated. At fifteen, she enjoyed working in the little branch and had become close friends with another young member, Mary Clines. Although she loved her mother, Rosa Clara apparently did not get along well with her stepfather. So, with her parents’ consent, when the rest of the family sailed for Melbourne, Rosa Clara remained in Sydney under the guardianship of successive mission presidents.
Rosa Clara lived with her newly married friend Mary and Mary’s husband, Robert Evans, at Kissing Point on the Parramatta River. Every Sunday she walked twelve miles into the city to attend meetings in the Old Assembly Rooms opposite the law courts in King Street. These rooms in the upper story of a school building had been used some years previously as a temporary meeting-place for the Presbyterian church. Latter-day Saint missionaries now rented them for the Sydney Branch services.
Rosa Clara attended singing practice on Thursday evenings and sang in the choir on Sundays. She helped distribute Church tracts and did all she could to further missionary work in Sydney.
On 21 May 1853, sixteen-year-old Rosa Clara Friedlander married Charles Joseph Gordon Loge, a recent convert, in the Scots Church. The Reverend James Fullerton performed the ceremony because Latter-day Saint elders were not then approved to perform marriages in Australia; but the new mission president, Elder Augustus Farnham, and another of Rosa Clara’s Latter-day Saint friends, Mary Ann Gingell, attended the ceremony and signed the register as witnesses. “Attended the wedding of Brother Loge and Sister Rose Friedlander at Parson Fullerton’s,” wrote President Farnham in his journal. “Returned to Brother Gingell’s and married them over again. Spent the evening very happily … in good spirits, peace and harmony.”
Rosa Clara and Charles Loge set up house and continued their work in the branch. One of the new missionaries, Elder John Hyde, was ill with cancer of the mouth. His health worsened, and the only place he could be cared for was in a public institution. Rosa Clara Loge worried about the lonely, ill, and pain-wracked missionary. Finally, she and Charles arranged for Elder Hyde to be taken from the institution to the Loge home, where the courageous sixteen-year-old girl nursed him until his death.
On 27 June 1854, Rosa Clara had her first baby, a little girl, named Annie Augusta after President Farnham. When little Annie Augusta was fourteen months old, the family sailed from Sydney with a company of Saints on the Julia Ann, bound for California. Disaster struck four weeks later.
On the evening of 3 October 1855, Rosa Clara put her baby to bed while some of the pioneering Church members sang hymns on the deck. Suddenly the vessel struck a coral reef. For a little while, confusion reigned. Then, one of the ship’s crew swam to the reef and managed to fasten a rope. With a sling, the captain prepared to ferry the women and children one at a time to the reef.
No one knew what lay ahead in the pitch-black night. The women were afraid. Finally Rosa Clara, not yet eighteen, volunteered to be the first. Hurriedly, she helped tie baby Ann securely to Charles’s back in a brown woolen shawl and readied herself to be taken to the reef. But then, before Rosa Clara’s horrified eyes, her husband and baby were swept overboard by the huge seas. One of the sailors rescued them unharmed.
With enormous courage, then, in leaving her family on the wreck, Rosa Clara climbed onto the captain’s lap and was pulled, hand over hand, to the reef. Here the captain left her standing barefoot on the sharp coral, chest-deep in the sea, with the surf breaking on the reef. She stayed alone and in darkness while he returned for the other women. Gradually, most of the company, including Charles and baby Ann, arrived safely. But not all were so fortunate. Two little girls were washed off the deck and were lost; two women and a small baby drowned in their cabin.
When daylight arrived, the crew made a raft from timber and nails salvaged from the wreck. They managed to get the passengers from the reef to a small island, which became their home for the next eight weeks.
A barrel of hard biscuits and a chest of tea retrieved from the ship, as well as coconuts, fish, turtle meat, and eggs sustained everyone. They formed coconut shells into drinking vessels. With a large silk skirt also salvaged from the wreck, Charles Loge fashioned a tent for Rosa Clara, who was ill, and baby Ann crawled around playing happily in the sand. After repairing the ship’s boat, some of the crew rowed more than 300 kilometers to the Society islands (Tahiti) for help.
The Loge family and others were taken off the island two months after the wreck, finally arriving in San Francisco. There, Elder George Q. Cannon presented Rosa Clara with a small pewter teapot in recognition of her bravery in being the first to go to the reef. The teapot is a treasured family heirloom today, together with a carved coconut-shell drinking vessel and a handmade nail from the Julia Ann.
Charles and Rosa Clara Loge eventually settled in American Fork, Utah, where Rosa Clara raised twelve children. But although she served the Lord to the end of her days, the service she gave as a young girl in the first Sydney Branch of the Church has not been forgotten. “There are several large and flourishing Colonies [in Australia] each containing many thousands of British inhabitants,” wrote Charles Wandell to Franklin D. Richards in 1852, “and the little branch in Sydney is the nucleus of the Kingdom which must spread through them all.”
Today, more than seventy thousand Australian members in eighteen stakes and five missions are a lasting memorial to the pioneer spirit of missionaries like Charles W. Wandell and stalwart members like Rosa Clara Friedlander Loge.

When I accepted a mission call to the California Anaheim Mission, I had to leave one of my most prized possessions at home: my violin. Why? I wondered. Didn’t the Lord realize how much I love to play for people and how music can touch the soul?
One Sunday I felt even worse about the loss of my instrument when a woman stood up in testimony meeting and told of a spiritual experience she had had while listening to Yehudi Menuin, a world-class violinist, perform at a nearby cathedral.
My heart sank as she described in detail the priceless violin that he played, the beauty of the cathedral, and how thousands of people moved by his music jumped to a standing ovation at the close of the performance.
I could have been there, I thought bitterly. The cathedral is just down the street. I wondered where I had been as the great musician had performed—getting a door slammed in my face? Being told I was nosy by the people we tried to contact in the park? Trying to answer the questions of a skeptical Protestant Sunday school teacher who misunderstood the beauties of the gospel? I wondered where I would have been if I had had a choice.
As these regrets crowded my thoughts, I reflected on my experiences as a missionary. I remembered teaching Bob about the gospel and testifying that his family could be together forever if he would pray and take the steps needed toward baptism. I remembered feeling a burning inside as the words poured out of my mouth.
I played a beat-up, borrowed violin at Bob’s baptism. No concerto—just a well-loved Church hymn. No cathedral—just a small room crowded with Bob’s friends and family. No applause after the music ended—just an outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon those in the room. I knew this experience was of much greater worth to me.
When the woman finished bearing her testimony, I stood up and expressed to the congregation how thankful I was to be a missionary. I thanked the Lord for showing me that I must learn to be his humble instrument, not a maestro seeking applause. Little did I realize that the Lord was asking me to give up my violin in order to make me his instrument, not the player.
The words of Alma rang true to me: “I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. … and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy” (Alma 29:9).