Gospel Story Finder

The light of the temple has come into many lives. “Before I became a member of the Church I did not know what my life would be after death,” explains Marguerite Teriinohopua. Her family learned of the Church because another family prayed to find them. Ernest Montrose, now first counselor in the Faaa Tahiti Stake presidency, was at that time bishop of the Heiri Ward. When missionaries encouraged members to pray to find investigators, “I figured our family should go first.” Inspiration came. Bishop Montrose invited a coworker, Danielson Teriinohopua, to bring his family to a home evening with the missionaries.
“We were at the same time praying to be guided to the truth,” recalls Danielson, who is now a member of the high council. “At the end of the evening, we told them we wanted to know more—immediately.” Bishop Montrose scheduled another meeting the next night, then the next and the next. Within weeks the Teriinohopuas were baptized and confirmed, and a year later they were sealed in the temple. “Today I have a response to my questions,” Marguerite says. “In the temple I feel great peace and joy.”

As a young father, sealed in the temple and with my heart turned to my wife and a young family, I met President Joseph Fielding Smith for the first time. In the First Presidency council room, where I had been invited, came an absolutely sure witness to me as President Harold B. Lee asked me, indicating President Smith, who was sitting next to him, “Do you believe that this man could be the prophet of God?”
President Smith had just entered the room and had not yet spoken a word. I am eternally grateful that I was able to answer because of what came down into my heart, “I know he is,” and I knew it as surely as I knew the sun was shining that he held the priesthood sealing power for all the earth.
That experience gave his words great power for me and my wife when, in a conference session on April 6, 1972, President Joseph Fielding Smith gave the following counsel: “It is the will of the Lord to strengthen and preserve the family unit. We plead with fathers to take their rightful place as the head of the house. We ask mothers to sustain and support their husbands and to be lights to their children.”9

In recollecting times where I have acknowledged the hand of the Lord in my life, I was reminded of a time when I was eleven years old. I had an accident that punctured my spleen. This required hospitalisation and, in advance of the operation, going without food and drink for what seemed like an eternity. I particularly remember being in a large room, feeling vulnerable and alone in the early hours of the morning. I silently prayed for help to ease my anxiety and discomfort. Within a very short period of time, a nurse came and offered me an ice cube wrapped within a cotton bandage to suck on. The relief and refreshment felt like a luxurious feast. More importantly, however, I recognised and acknowledged the hand of the Lord.
A scripture in Psalms was fulfilled in that hospital bed. That night “I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears”.2 Though this may seem trivial, my attempt to ask and exercise faith was answered. And I had not only felt physical relief, but I also felt that He knew me.

Newell B. Stevenson, a lifelong friend of Elder Faust, recalls that Butler Hill was also the local ski resort. “We used to go skiing there,” he relates. “That was back in the days when we didn’t know what ski boots and ski bindings and all those sorts of things were. We built ourselves a jump, and if you had a little good luck, you made it all the way down to the bottom. Of course, once you got to the bottom of the hill, you had to walk back up. Once Jim (Elder Faust) lost a ski and fell hard and broke his collarbone.
“We used to swim together a lot during the summer at a cold-water, spring-fed lake near our home. If we could have spent our lives there, we would have. A couple of times we went there in the early spring and dared each other to get into the water. We were so cold we got out in a hurry!”
Other sports also attracted Elder Faust’s interest, especially football and track. His father was his most ardent supporter. In recalling those days, Brother Stevenson said, “I don’t think I ever went to an athletic event that those Faust kids were in when their father wasn’t there to support them.
“Even as a boy—but particularly when we got into our teens—Jim was the spiritual leader of our group. We did everything together, and I have to give him a lot of credit for keeping us out of trouble. He wasn’t overbearing, domineering, or falsely pious—he just always did what was right.”
“It is wonderful to be a parent and a grandparent,” Elder Faust declared. He and his wife, Ruth, have five children—three sons and two daughters—and sixteen grandchildren.
Stressing the importance of the influence of parents and grandparents, Elder Faust counseled, “Boys and girls, have confidence in the direction and counsel and advice of your parents and grandparents who love you more than anybody else in the world does. They always have your interest at heart. I have sometimes questioned the advice and direction I received from my parents and grandparents, but I never questioned the fact that they loved me. I learned that they were in a better position to know more about right and wrong than I did from my limited understanding and from my limited experience.”

On April 29, 2019, my father-in-law, who was 95 years old, was baptized. It was truly a miracle for his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We had waited for his baptism for a long time. What a gift for our family!
What changed him? Why did he commit to be baptized?
A few months before his baptism, he had a stroke and was hospitalized. My wife, Tazuko, returned home to see him. He was very pleased to see her. He had been afraid that he wouldn’t see her before he died. He started to tell her many things that he was worried about. He was thinking about his funeral.
But Tazuko told him, “Father, if you trust in God and leave everything to Him, your mind will be at ease and you will feel peace.” She explained about Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness and what the Savior Jesus Christ has done for us. They talked about the spirit world, where my father-in-law’s wife, his oldest son, and his parents already are. “The next world will be amazing,” she said.
She also told him that it is better to be able to go there without sin. She said that thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ and thanks to baptism, he could be spotless before God. He thought a little and said, “I want to be baptized.”
Then he said, “It has been wonderful to see your children establish their own faith and continue to go to church, keep the commandments, and rely on God. I am so impressed with them.” And softly and with emotion, he said, “Family is really important! It is wonderful that our family can be one.”
After he joined the Church, I asked my father-in-law why he finally committed to be baptized. He replied without any hesitation, “I chose the right.”

On 26 July 1943, Ezra Taft Benson’s true vocation of serving in the kingdom became his full-time occupation when President Heber J. Grant called him to be the youngest member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He was set apart on October 7 of that year, the same day as Elder Spencer W. Kimball, whom he would follow as President.

Just over two years later, in December 1945, Elder Benson was assigned to preside over the European Mission in the aftermath of World War II. Specifically, his commission was to reopen missions throughout Europe and to distribute food, clothing, and bedding to the suffering Saints.

On an almost eleven-month mission of love, Elder Benson traveled more than sixty thousand miles to Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Scandinavia—often in freezing weather in unheated trains and planes. With typical optimism, he organized the “K-Ration Quartet” with his traveling companions, to sing away the tedious and uncomfortable hours.

Time and time again, when permission to enter war-torn countries or to distribute supplies seemed impossible to obtain, Elder Benson appealed to the Lord to open the way. Barrier after barrier was dissolved, and thousands of tons of Church welfare supplies were sent to the Saints in Europe. During this mission, Elder Benson also dedicated Finland for the preaching of the gospel.

Elder Benson met in bombed-out schoolhouses and meetinghouses with Saints who had lost homes, families, health—everything except their devotion to the gospel. The scenes of starvation and destruction never faded from President Benson’s memory. Nor did the faces and the faith of his beloved European brothers and sisters, of whom he often spoke throughout his life.

SYDNEY—“Flames were shooting 50 feet into the air. They were about 15 yards off. I could feel the heat on my face. That’s hot enough to know what firefighters would feel.”
But Michael James Davis isn’t a firefighter. The then 18-year-old member of the Sutherland Ward, Sydney North Stake, was standing in the driveway of his family’s home, ready to flee in horror as fire surged up from the valley where normally he walks his dog Jess.
The fire was one of about 130 that ravaged much of New South Wales in January, many of them set by arsonists. Nearly 1.5 million acres were burned.
Michael and his father had been trying to pump water from their swimming pool to hose down their house, but the fire got too intense. Firefighters ordered them to evacuate.
“I haven’t prayed so much in a long time,” Mike said. “I felt calm, but I still thought the house was going to burn. Just as long as everyone was safe, that was the main thing.”
Out in the street, he saw “everyone crying and trying to get their children out. All the people in the street, everyone just fled. It hurt me to witness that. That was almost as bad as the fire.”
He and his father joined the rest of their family at the home of some fellow Church members. After 45 minutes, a radio announcement said the fires had passed and residents were allowed to check on their homes.
“First we went to the chapel, to let them know we were safe and to see if anyone needed help. Then we came home to inspect the damage.” Miraculously, their home had been spared, even though the house next door had burned to the ground.
“All around their porch there were thick shrubs, and the shrubs spread the fire to their house,” Michael explained. Everything was gone but the foundation and a children’s play area out in the yard.
At his own house, Michael and his father found that two big gum trees in the backyard had burned completely. An iron fence had melted in the intense heat. And on the back porch, a mop sitting on the wooden deck had burned—the scorch marks are still there—but the deck had not ignited. That’s how close the fire had come.
That night Mike was allowed to sleep in his home. “The air smelled bad,” he remembers. “You could look down in the valley and see the embers glowing in the dark.” He lay there thinking of what he’d learned in just a few short hours:
—“Heavenly Father did hear my prayers. He helped me to be calm, to know that everything would be all right, even though he didn’t tell me exactly what would happen.”
—“There was a lot of help and friendship from the Church, but there was a lot of help from people in the general area as well. I took a walk around an area that wasn’t burning. Everyone was stopping and having a chat and saying, ‘Is your family all right? Is there anything we can do to help?’ These are people I hadn’t ever seen, people who weren’t in the Church, and they were good people trying to help each other.”
Over the next few days, he learned some additional things:
—“Fifteen members of our ward chipped in and bought a new fridge and a washing machine and brought blankets for the people in the house that burned down. They were just renting, but they didn’t have the contents insured. We helped them start getting their life back together.”
—“The worst thing is that police caught people looting burned out houses for jewelry. How people could do that to someone who is already hurt by their house being burned down is incredible to me. I’ve seen the bad side of people and the good side, too. I’ll take the good side.”
Time passed. “Soon we had the pool cleaned of the soot deposited during the fire, and fertilizer greened up our grass.” Down in the valley, green shoots poked through the ashes on the ground.
“Life comes back,” Mike says. “But the memory of this fire will be around for a long, long time.” Even more enduring, however, will be the new understanding of the things that are really important in life, and Mike’s deepened gratitude for them.

“Just right,” Andi thought as she quickly looked in the mirror. She was wearing her favorite red dress. She always wanted to look her best on Sundays. She ran down to breakfast.
Andi was just finishing her last piece of toast when the Reeders’ car horn honked from the driveway. “Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad!” Andi said, kissing them as she ran out the door.
Even though Mom and Dad were not members of the Church, they encouraged Andi to go to church each week. The Reeder family had given her a ride almost every Sunday since she had been baptized and confirmed. Andi liked how they always made her feel so welcome and loved.
After sacrament meeting it was time for Primary. Andi loved being in Brother and Sister Long’s Valiant class. They were kind, and their lessons were always the best.
“Today we’re going to talk about temples,” Sister Long said. “What are some things we know about temples?”
Andi knew one answer: “We can do temple baptisms.” She was excited about that because every year the young women in her ward made a trip to the temple to do baptisms. Soon Andi could go too!
“Great, Andi. What else do we know?”
“You can be married in the temple,” said Andi’s friend Allison.
“Very good,” said Sister Long. “Anything else?”
“Families can be together forever when they’re sealed in the temple,” Allison added.
“But not my family,” thought Andi. “Mom and Dad haven’t been sealed in the temple!” Suddenly her face felt hot, and her eyes began to sting with tears.
“Are you OK, Andi?” asked Sister Long.
“Yes,” Andi sniffed, trying to hold back the tears. But she could feel her heart pounding all through the rest of the lesson.
When class was over, Sister Long sat by Andi and put an arm around her. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I won’t be with my mom and dad forever,” Andi said. “They haven’t been married in the temple. Who will I belong to after I die? Does Heavenly Father still love me even if my parents aren’t members?”
Sister Long looked directly into Andi’s eyes. “No matter who you are and no matter if your family has been to the temple or not, you are still part of Heavenly Father’s family. You can stay close to Him and be an example to others. He will always love, guide, and protect you, no matter what. He wants to bless you and your family. You are a child of God, Andi.”
Just then Andi’s heart seemed to skip a beat, and the pounding stopped. Now a warm feeling filled her heart instead. She knew what her teacher had said was true.

Perhaps it is partly this aura of impossibility that draws Kent to eagles, just as it has drawn poets, prophets, and emperors for centuries.
Actually, it all started with snakes. From the day he was born, Kent seemed to delight in all wild creatures, but snakes were his first real love. As a very young boy, he turned his backyard into a reptile menagerie with cages full of crawling snakes, gila monsters, horned toads, lizards, and just about any other tail-twitching belly-crawler he could find. As soon as he learned to read, he went hunting for reptiles in the library too.
But a new love was waiting in the wings, and at 12 years of age, Kent was to have his eyes snatched from the delightful snake-harboring ground to the wide, blue, eagle-bearing sky.
One day on a camping trip Kent’s Scoutmaster pointed at a dead cottonwood tree and said, “Hey, guys, there are two eagles!” The two golden eagles perched on skeletal limbs burned their image into an unexposed surface of Kent’s brain and filled his life’s appointment book all in an instant. He came. He saw. He was conquered.
But finding eagles isn’t all that easy until you learn where to look, and it was two years before Kent was able to make a house call. One rainy afternoon in early May he stepped onto a tiny protruding ledge that overhung more than 150 feet of sheer emptiness. As he peered over the edge, the sun burst through the rain clouds, spotlighting the golden hackles of a female eagle on her nest about ten yards down. Seeing Kent, she soared silently away but left behind two eaglets who sat cheeping at him in a blaze of downy sunshine.
Kent says of that instant: “At that moment I was so inspired by the beauty and majesty of the eagles that I felt more alive myself. The air smelled fresher, and the stream far below sparkled more brightly than before. I had simply opened my eyes and had really seen and felt what was around me.”
From eagles Kent’s love spread to all raptors (birds of prey). The fierce independence and aristocratic bearing of these aerial hunters caught his imagination and sent him out during every spare moment to follow their flight and study their habits.
He went to the library too, hunting these feathered sky-riders among the quiet stacks of books. He learned, both from books and experience (he doesn’t believe a book until he has proved it in nature) about the different raptors—where they nested, where they hunted, how they hunted, what their prey was, how they mated, and even how they flew. Before long he could see a bird silhouetted gnat-small on the horizon and name it by its flight pattern. Every time he saw a bird or visited a nest, he took careful scientific notes of everything he observed. He has several PhD dissertations lying unwritten in his notebooks.
During his junior year in high school, Kent dropped out of football and basketball to allow more time for raptor study. He traveled miles and miles searching out nests and roosting areas. He developed the climbing ability of a mountain goat and the stamina of a mustang. Leaving home Friday night after school or well before dawn Saturday morning, getting home well after dark Saturday night, and spending much of the time in between climbing steep mountains at a brisk trot, he found many raptor nests and gradually became a legitimate expert in the field. Weekdays after school also found him in the hills as often as possible.
One of his most rewarding experiences came one winter after a month-long search when he found the winter roosting grounds of bald eagles from Canada and Alaska. “I stood alone in two feet of snow near the bottom of an isolated canyon in west-central Utah, my eyes searching the sky for signs of life. Suddenly, as if by magic, they came, one by one, in pairs, and in small groups. Bald eagles dropped from the tall pine trees to the south and were gradually caught up in thermal drafts of air. Slowly circling higher and higher, traveling on wings of up to eight feet in length, they drifted west in a steady stream of traffic across the sky.”
That summer he carried back-breaking loads of wood and canvas up a towering mountain in order to build a blind from which to observe these eagles during the coming winter. When the snows were deep on the mountain a few months later, he spent hours watching them up close. “I have often crawled out of a warm bed at 3:00 A.M. and hiked up tall mountains through three feet of snow in the dark. Then I have sat cramped and numbed in a dark blind until mid-afternoon. By that time I have begun to wonder what is wrong with me. Suddenly, only 30 feet away and halfway up a scraggly old pine tree, a beautiful bald eagle has landed, and I wonder no longer.”
Kent interrupted his eagle watching to accept a mission call to the Kentucky Louisville Mission, but on his return he was on the road again checking nests.
Kent, like other students of raptors, is especially interested in the predators’ nesting behavior because this is the cycle that stands between the species and extinction.
There is also the mystery of the eternal interplay between the flight and the nest, freedom and responsibility. “An eagle’s freedom is exciting. They can leave the ground any time they want and ride the wind, and yet, like people, they’re tied down with responsibilities. When an eagle has eggs, she’s on the nest for 45 days, and she may leave it for only an hour a day. Eagles must follow their food supply too. They have certain laws they have to live within, but when they get up there and ride that wind, there’s not much that can touch them.”
In Utah, golden eagles begin their courtship flights in January or February, lay eggs from late February through March, and then incubate them from 42 to 45 days, after which the eaglets stay in the nest for from eight to ten weeks before taking to their wings. Kent warns that anyone interested in eagles should simply stay away from the nests during egg laying and incubation because during that period adult eagles are most prone to abandon the nest. Whenever a human being approaches her nest, the female eagle will invariably leave it until he is gone, and even if she returns, exposure to heat or cold can easily destroy the eggs. After the eaglets have hatched, the nest can be safely visited for very short periods of time, but after the eaglets are about seven weeks old, there is serious danger of frightening them off the nest before they are able to fly.
First flight is as breathtaking an experience for eagles as it is for people, and the proud lords of the skyways start out as bumbling, incompetent aviators. They too often crash and break a wing on the first flight and become easy prey to starvation or some four-legged predator. Kent once saw a ten-week-old eagle make its first flight and remembers: “He hopped off the nest as if he knew what he was doing, but all of a sudden he was speeding down toward the opposite cliff and losing altitude fast. You could see the shock in his eyes. His wings were spread out, his primary and secondary feathers flapping back and forth in the breeze. His head was moving back and forth watching the ground and looking back up at the nest—looking everywhere at once. He looked as if he was wondering what he had gotten himself into, whether he had really blown it, but you could also feel his exhilaration and the thrill of his first flight. He dropped down to the mouth of the canyon and hit an updraft that just pushed him right up out of sight. I found him the next day sitting on a tree unhurt.”
Kent realized from day one that it would be unthinkable to put an eagle in a cage like his childhood pet lizards, so he found another way of capturing the wild, free beauty of these magnificent creatures—photography. He seldom goes anywhere without his camera and his 400, 150, and 50 mm lenses. Over the years he has accumulated a fine collection of raptor slides and has organized them into several slide shows guaranteed to make you sad you were not born an eagle. He presents these shows to many groups and enjoys sharing them with people in rest homes and with handicapped children. It is his way of giving wings to people who are the most earthbound.
“I love eagles,” he says, “but people are the most important part of that love. It wouldn’t mean a thing to me if I went out there and filmed all those great things and didn’t have anybody to share it with.”
In photographing raptors, Kent has developed a skill that few people share. If you don’t believe it, go out sometime and photograph a bird moving in and out of focus at eye-blurring speed across blue sky, white clouds, black mountainsides, and blazing patches of snow, all in a few seconds. You’ll be very lucky even to find the thing in your telephoto lens, much less focus it and get the right exposure.
Kent’s delight in all living things has never faded. He still can’t pass up a lizard without stopping and watching. A porcupine is still a miracle. A turtle is still a masterpiece. A raven or a meadowlark is still breathtaking, and snakes still make him shiver as good as they make most of us shiver bad. There are no commonplace animals for Kent; they all bring him joy just by being. It is significant that on the gun rack in his pickup he has hung only a pair of binoculars.
But in spite of his reverence for all things, those binoculars are filled mostly with raptors right now, and Kent has been repaid for his thousands of hours of work with some heart-thumping experiences—a squadron of bald eagles on a winter day, the soaring rise of a Swainson’s hawk, the screaming dive of a prairie falcon, the puppet-like unreality of baby owls. And speaking of owls, he had the privilege of being knocked backwards off a 30-foot cliff by a frightened great horned owl and of having his face bloodied by the fierce attack of another not-at-all frightened member of the species.
He especially remembers one top-of-the-world moment on a peak high in a remote canyon. The granite walls were so buffeted by a tree-toppling wind that day that he had to lie flat to avoid being blown away like a leaf. A golden eagle came floating down onto the highest point on the peak, sorting out the changing, punishing wind with his wings, and somehow keeping an even keel. He stood there a moment looking regally around at the whole world lying beneath his talons as if inspecting his kingdom. “He only touched down for a few seconds, and then he simply opened his wings and turned them back into the wind. He shot up and out of sight like a rocket without ever flapping a wing.”
No one but Kent can say how many hours of sleep or basketball games or TV shows that experience was worth to him, but he isn’t complaining.
There is another aspect to Kent’s studies beyond the intellectual and aesthetic. Living with these magnificent birds has strengthened his testimony of his Creator. One winter day he took an atheist friend to a canyon where he knew there would be eagles. As they stood in the snow watching some 50 bald eagles soar above them, Kent looked at his open-mouthed friend and said quietly, “That didn’t just happen by accident.”
“Boy, I know it!” his friend said, his voice small with awe.
If anybody wants to know why eagles are worth saving, maybe that’s why.

On November 19, 1972, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), then of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, organized the Santiago Chile Stake, with Carlos Cifuentes as president.
The preparation for the stake showed the character of the Saints in Chile and their willingness to follow the prophets. Elder Hinckley had arrived in Chile several months earlier to organize the stake. But after holding interviews, it was postponed. At that time, many people were going through financial problems, and some members were experiencing difficulty in abiding by the law of tithing.
Elder Hinckley explained, “I returned six months later, and while I was interviewing, I found the blossoming of faith; they were once again walking in honesty before the Lord, the stake was organized, and ever since then they have grown and flourished.”7

When I was growing up, whenever we got any money, my mother would take the very best bills—the ones that were the least wrinkled or dirty—and give them to the minister of the church we went to. She did this her whole life. She said, “This belongs to God.” Those words have stayed with me ever since.
When I was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an adult, it was not hard for me to pay tithing because my mother had taught me to obey that law.

My parents joined the Church when I was young. We were in a small branch in Australia. My mother played the piano at church. But she could play only a few of the hymns. I was learning to play the piano too. When I was seven, the branch president asked me to play at church.
When I played the piano in church, I made mistakes. And when I made a mistake, I would cry. I was very shy and nervous. But I kept practicing. I wanted to play the hymns well. Now I love to play the piano! I can play all of the hymns.

Consider this lesson taught to me many years ago by a patriarch, whom I will call John. He was as saintly a man as I have ever known. His was a life of service, both to the Church and to his community. Although I thought I had known him, he told me things about his life I would not have supposed.
John grew up in a little community. He had a desire to make something of himself. He struggled to get an education.
He was well employed, he had married his sweetheart, and she was expecting their first baby—everything was just right.
The night the baby was to be born, there were complications. The only doctor was somewhere in the countryside, tending to the sick. After many hours of labor, his wife’s condition became desperate.
Finally the doctor was located. He acted quickly, the baby was born, and everything seemed to be all right. However, some days later, the young mother died from the very infection that the doctor had been treating at another home that night.
Now everything was all wrong. John had lost his wife, and he had no way to tend the baby and do his work too. He grew angry and bitter. “That doctor should not be allowed to practice,” he said. “He brought that infection to my wife. If he had been careful, she would be alive today.”
One night a knock came at his door. A little girl said simply, “Daddy wants to talk to you.”
“Daddy” was the stake president. This spiritual shepherd had been watching his flock. His wise counsel was simple: “John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring your wife back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.”
My friend wondered how he could leave it alone. Right was right! A terrible wrong had been done, and somebody must pay for it! But he decided at last to follow the counsel of the stake president. He would leave it alone.
Then he told me, “I was an old man before I understood, before I could finally ‘see’ that a poor country doctor—overworked, underpaid, run ragged from patient to patient, with little medicine, no hospital, and few instruments—was struggling to save lives, and succeeding for the most part.
“He had come in a moment of crisis, when two lives hung in the balance, and had acted without delay. I was an old man,” he repeated, “before I finally understood. I would have ruined my life—and the lives of others—if I’d done something.”

President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, told this story that a friend shared with him:
“After the death of his beloved wife and the mother of his children, a father remarried. Some grown children strongly objected to the remarriage and sought the counsel of a close relative who was a respected Church leader. After hearing the reasons for their objections, which focused on conditions and relationships in the spirit world or in the kingdoms of glory that follow the Final Judgment, this leader said: ‘You are worried about the wrong things. You should be worried about whether you will get to those places. Concentrate on that. If you get there, all of it will be more wonderful than you can imagine.’
“What a comforting teaching! Trust in the Lord!” 4

One blustery day last March, a young man named Layne Anthony climbed out of his father’s car beneath the flags to answer that call and undertake that adventure. As he lugged the heavy suitcases through the doors, he may have been thinking of the moving promises and awesome authority that had been given him the night before when his stake president set him apart. He may have been remembering the inspiring missionary farewell in sacrament meeting or the day he was ordained an elder. Perhaps he thought of the moment his eyes scanned down his call letter and he learned he was being sent to the Peru Lima North Mission. Maybe he was even thinking about his last good-bye to his girl friend. There were plenty of memories to choose from, because his old life and the old Layne Anthony were being left behind when he walked through those doors.
As the new missionaries came streaming in, a battle-wise old veteran of two or three weeks stood observing them with a knowing eye. “Once you walk through those doors,” he said, “you never come out.” And then he smiled and lent a hand with the luggage to show that he was just kidding. But whether by design or by chance, he spoke the truth, because when these young men and women boarded busses for the Salt Lake City Airport several weeks later, they would not be the same men and women who strained at their luggage that brooding gray morning in March. The real journey, the one inside their hearts, the one that would take them where no jet airliner could fly, had begun.
After leaving their luggage in a large room, the new missionaries and their families gathered in one of the Missionary Training Center’s many chapels. Allen C. Ostergar, administrative director of the MTC, addressed the assembly, telling of the joy of missionary work, recalling his own mission, and explaining some of the rules. He urged the parents not to duplicate the adventure of one lonesome mother who came and hid in the bushes to get a glimpse of her son. Some of the mothers didn’t laugh.
Recalling his own mission call, Brother Ostergar said, “As I read the call I knew I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do. I knew the Church was true. The Spirit literally touched my heart, and it changed my life. And above all other things that the missionaries will feel here, they will feel the Spirit of the Lord, and they will strengthen their testimonies. Please rest assured that that happens. We love the missionaries as if they were our own sons and daughters.”
Before long the meeting was over, and Brother Ostergar invited the missionaries to come forward and exit through doors at the front of the chapel. “Anyone who comes up this way, we keep,” he added, “so the rest of you will have to leave the way you came in.” He invited the missionaries to give their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters a hug and a kiss and shake their girl friends’ hands. They obeyed enthusiastically, as good missionaries should. All the young ladies present were apparently sisters, because there were few handshakes. Elder Anthony gave a good hard missionary squeeze to each of his family and walked through the doors.
Emerging on the other side, the missionaries found themselves much the same as before, to all appearances, but there was a subtle difference. Now they were really on their missions. The last mooring line had been cast off, and they were embarked.

It seems like not so long ago I was but a boy, young and green with eyes unmellowed, but believing I was indeed extremely wise. I was no expert at baseball, but my bedroom was adorned with photographs of baseball heroes—especially those of Pete Dillard. Pete was a famous professional player whose parents lived in our town, and he came every summer for a week with his family to visit them. It was kind of fun to see him around town, shaking hands with everybody and sometimes joining in a neighborhood game and signing autographs afterward. But I never seemed to get close enough to him to even say hello. One day when I was approaching a crowd of fans around Pete, I overheard a boy say, “Hey, Pete, how did you ever get so good at baseball?”
Pete shrugged his shoulders modestly, smiled, and said, “Lots and lots of practice.” But then he paused for a while as if he remembered something and added, “Maybe it’s because I once had a Sunday School teacher who loved me. All of us called him Chief.”
And then Pete was gone.
Most of my experiences with baseball consisted of playing games with my dad and a sprinkling of friends on hot summer evenings. When Dad didn’t have meetings or if he didn’t have to work late at the office, he usually spent some time with me. After dinner we often played catch out in our front yard until way after the street lights blinked on. I still remember his calm, deep voice as he called out to me, “Good throw, Son” or “A little higher, boy” or “Nice curve, John.”
Then other boys would come straggling over one by one and stand and watch us, and Dad would stop the game and invite them to join us. If we eventually accumulated enough people, we’d begin a game of baseball. Everybody liked my dad—almost as much as I did.
There was a boy who lived directly across the street from us, Homer Johnson. He had a mop of red curls, pale thin skin that revealed his veins clear through, and thick, thick glasses. He hardly ever came out of his house. My mother said that he had had a lot of illness. But every so often I’d see his piercing eyes watching us from an upstairs window as we played ball. I’d try not to feel those eyes, but I could not ignore them.
One day just when we had chosen up sides for a game, my team was short one player. But that didn’t matter, because I had all good players. Then suddenly Dad turned his head and said in his calm, deep voice, “Oh, hello there, Homer. Want to join us?”
I reeled around, and there was Homer standing across the street in front of his house, his hands in his pockets. He fidgeted a lot, but slowly he dragged his feet and crossed the street. As he neared, I noticed that he was thinner and smaller than he looked to be from his window … and he didn’t look very strong.
I turned toward my father. “Dad …” I tried to whisper. But he had already walked over and put an arm around Homer. Now they were both walking toward us.
“John needs one more man on his team,” Dad was saying. “You can be an outfielder for now.”
I felt my ears burn. Dad caught my eye, and I think he knew how I felt—he always did. But there was something in Dad’s look that silenced me. I picked up my ball and mitt and stomped off to my position.
The other team scored two home runs. And then it happened. Someone smacked the ball out into the field toward Homer. I saw him position his hands to catch the flying ball, and then … splaatt! His glasses flew, and he was holding his nose, with blood dripping from beneath his hands. Dad had him lie down on the grass to stop the bleeding. Then he sent him home to wash up. Fortunately his glasses hadn’t broken.
After Homer left, I said, “Dad, he’s no good as a player. He shouldn’t be on anyone’s team ’cause he’ll make it lose.”
Then in a low voice so no one else could hear, Dad said, “He’s a child of God, John. Always remember that.”
I didn’t want to make a scene in front of everybody, so I just tromped off and continued playing ball, but my ears were burning. I didn’t say anything else for the rest of the evening. I resented being preached to.
Homer didn’t return the next day or the next. But the following week he was back again, standing in front of his home, fidgeting and staring at us. As we pitched and threw and shouted on my lawn, I could not help but feel two penetrating eyes on us. Then I heard Dad’s voice inviting him to join us, and again I felt my ears turn hot. As I glanced over at my father, I saw a pleading look on his face as he gazed back at me.
That night I lay in bed, wide-eyed. I had thrown off the covers, and still my bedclothes stuck to my back. I heard a rustle. Standing in the doorway was Dad. “You still awake, Son?”
I nodded, and hoped that he could see my response in the dark. His large angular figure came toward me, his gentle eyes sparkling in the dark. I thought of Homer and looked away.
He sat beside me, and I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Son …” he began softly. “Things are getting tight at the office, and I’ll have to stay late at work for a while.”
My heart fell.
“But I have one day reserved just for you,” he continued. “Pete Dillard is going to be in town in a couple of weeks, and they’ve asked him to speak at a fund-raising dinner for crippled children. I have two tickets for you and me.”
Suddenly I was smiling. “Dad!” I shouted. “You mean I get to see Pete Dillard for real! Boy, oh, boy! Wait until my friends hear about this!”
Even though I had this exciting event to look forward to from that day on, things were not the same when my friends and I got together to play ball on the front lawn. Without Dad, we often got into squabbles, and one of the fellows would go home mad. Sometimes Homer would stand at his front door, watching us. But nobody invited him to play ball. So he just stood there all the time with his piercing, piercing eyes.
At last the day of the dinner came. There was Pete in the front of the hall, shaking hands with people and looking really interested in what everyone had to say to him. I don’t remember what was served. My only thoughts were about the baseball that I set beside my plate for Pete to autograph after the dinner.
When it was time for Pete to talk, he arose confidently. He didn’t give the speech we all expected, but said only a few words. Again he mentioned Chief, the Sunday School teacher I had heard him talk about sometime ago.
“I was awkward and clumsy as a boy,” Pete said, “but it was the confidence that Chief had in me that gave me what I needed in my long struggle to become the person that I wanted to become.”
Then he sat down. People began crowding around for autographs. I picked up my ball and started up front. Suddenly I realized Dad was next to me, waiting to meet Pete too.
Finally our turn came. I held my ball up for Pete to autograph. But Pete was staring past me with a funny look on his face, arms outstretched.
“Chief!” he cried. “What are you doing here?” And he threw his arms around my dad.
“I’ve lived here for five years,” Dad replied. “I’ve tried to get hold of you every time you’ve been in town, but you’re an awfully busy man!”
On our way home in the car, many unanswered questions filled my mind. But somehow I couldn’t seem to find the right words to express them. All I could say was, “Dad, you’re great, you really are. Even Pete Dillard thinks so.”
The next evening seemed so empty without my father. I stood in front of my house, waiting for the neighborhood boys to start coming by to play ball again. Idly I tossed a ball into the air, marveling over the happenings of yesterday.
Suddenly I became aware of two piercing eyes upon me. I tried to ignore them, but they were there nonetheless. Then the scene of Pete Dillard embracing my Dad flashed through my mind, and the word Chief! seemed to ring out loud and clear. And I realized then that I yearned to be like my dad.
I found myself slowly crossing the street, walking up the steps of the house opposite mine, and knocking on the door.

After completing my five-year engineering apprenticeship, I was made redundant. I prayed earnestly as to what I was to do. As I read my patriarchal blessing. It said that I would be called to teach within and outside of the Church. I then undertook a one-year teacher training course and commenced teaching. Whilst teaching I was approached by another teacher with a proposal for an arranged marriage. My older and younger brothers, and sisters, had already become married in this way.

A registry wedding was arranged. I had only once briefly met my wife before the registry wedding. A date was set for the Sikh wedding a year later. There was no contact with my wife until a few months after the registry wedding; we met secretly and I explained to her I was Christian and gave her a Book of Mormon. However, this did not go down well as she told her parents and then both families engaged in persuading me to leave the Church. I made promises to do this. It tore me apart and I cried bitterly, as though I had denied Jesus Christ.
The Sikh marriage took place, and I kept my promise to not to go to Church for six months. Every Sunday I would get the yearning to go to Church. I went secretly to a member’s home to take the sacrament and always paid my tithing, read the scriptures, and prayed daily. I desperately needed a solution to this problem.
One day, my best friend from the Church provided it. I was to leave my parent’s house and establish a home elsewhere. I managed to get employment in Burntwood (Staffordshire) and bought a home there. After some time, my wife, Rajinder, let me go to a one-hour meeting one Sunday and I was called as the Sunday School president. But Rajinder refused to let the children go with me and at one time ripped up the Book of Mormon in front of me. She had been brought up as a strict Sikh and did not want to dishonour her family.
In 1982, we moved to Hemel Hempstead (Hertfordshire). The meetings were now consolidated, and I stayed for the whole three hours. I was called as the elders quorum president. An elderly missionary couple were assigned to visit my home, and for the first time Rajinder said a prayer and felt the Spirit. I subsequently baptised her. We were later sealed in the London England Temple with our children.
In 1986, I was called to be the branch president. I served in that capacity for three and half years and was released when our branch was merged into the Watford Ward.
My testimony has grown from strength to strength. I love the Lord and His restored gospel. I am in His hands and will always give thanks to Him for saving me and sending those missionaries. The evidence that this is the true church, is too great; I cannot deny it. Regardless of what happens to me or my family I will bless the Lord my God. I believe in His goodness, and that He will uphold me if I do as He asks. I give daily thanks for all the blessings He has given me and the tender mercies He has shown me.
I have recently published a book called LDS Christians and Sikhs. This book was the result of an inspiration I received to invite Sikhs to come to Christ. I have included many testimonies from Sikhs who have converted to the Church. I hope that it will do some good in persuading and inviting Sikhs to examine their religion and to offer them further blessings through the gospel.

Katy Mangus was crowned Miss Legend at Oconee County High School’s annual pageant in January 2005. A Laurel in the Athens Second Ward, Athens Georgia Stake, Katy stood out from the other contestants in many ways—but one distinction was the most obvious. Of the 30 contestants who each took the stage in a formal evening gown, Katy was the only one whose dress was modest. When she stood at the microphone to introduce herself and her platform, she explained, “Something that influences our everyday lives—how we feel about ourselves and how we interact with others—is my platform: ‘Making a Difference with Modesty.’”

By choosing to stand for modesty, Katy hoped to set an example for other young people, both in and out of the Church, and to encourage them to take a stand and make a difference through modesty in dress and behavior. She said, “We can influence others for the better by being an example of modesty and setting a higher standard for ourselves.”

A few years ago our teenage son traveled a long way from home. Distance made communication so difficult that we could send him only a brief written message with this postscript: “Read Alma 37:35–37.” Here Alma says, “O, remember, my son, and learn wisdom in thy youth. … Cry unto God for all thy support; yea, … let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever. … And he will direct thee for good.”
In his equally brief reply, our boy concluded: “Read D&C 2.” There we found Moroni’s words to Joseph Smith, promising that prior to the Lord’s coming, the priesthood will be revealed by the hand of Elijah, who “shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.
“If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming” (D&C 2:2–3).
I was moved by his response. I wondered if he realized what deep nerves of meaning he was touching. He reflected his acceptance of the fifth commandment, to “honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Ex. 20:12).
Moroni’s adaptation of Malachi’s prophecy (see Mal. 4:5–6) extends the spirit and promise of the fifth commandment far beyond simply showing respect for parents, as important as that is. Moroni promised that the spirit of Elijah—the priesthood power that seals families together—would plant in the hearts of the children a desire to realize the same promises the Lord gave to Abraham. For many Latter-day Saint children, those are the promises made to their own earthly parents in the temple. And the realization of these promised blessings will save not only them but the “whole earth” from being “wasted.”
How miraculous, literally, that a thirst, even a yearning, for these marvelous blessings can take root in the hearts of our children! I suspect that many parents in the Church pray every night, as we do, that this hunger will be planted in the hearts of their children.
To explain why I was so stirred by our son’s response, I must share a story about his older brother, born shortly after my father’s death. We gave this older son his grandfather’s name as a middle name. He felt awkward about that old-fashioned name in his early years and didn’t use it. But when he took up debate in high school and learned that his grandfather had been a champion debater in the 1920s, he began feeling a tie to his namesake. My father had kept a personal journal during much of his adult life, and one day I showed my son an entry describing his grandfather’s big debate. I left that journal with him, hoping he would read it.
He was a good boy, but he wasn’t easy to rear. We prayed for patience. We prayed that the seeds of faith would take root in his heart, but we knew we couldn’t force that process. I thought during those days about my own older brother, who died in an accident during his turbulent adolescence. How my parents had prayed and grieved for him! Then one night my son left me a simple note: “I never want to do anything that would hurt you and Mom the way your brother’s problems hurt your parents.” I wondered how he could have known of something so personal from a generation ago. Then I remembered the journal, but I chose not to ask more.
A few weeks later, our son worked his way through a particularly trying experience and came to us late at night to tell us what had happened: “Dad, I never knew Grandpa Hafen, but I felt he was there, helping me.” I held him close that night, and I told him more about his grandfather.
Not long afterward, he was deciding how he should respond to a mission call. We were in southern Utah for a family reunion. One afternoon, with no explanation, he drove alone to the isolated little canyon where his grandfather had loved to ride his horse—the place, in fact, where he had passed away. Our son had read of this canyon in the journal and had seen it from a distance but had never been in it. In a secluded spot there, he knelt and asked the Lord’s help in sorting through his questions about his faith, his mission, and his life. At his missionary farewell, he alluded to the sacredness of that day and described the deep assurance and sense of direction he had carried from his grandfather’s canyon. Now, some years later, with children of his own, he reflects in his life that same assurance and direction, and I know the joy my father must feel.
I have no doubt that God’s promises to my father were planted in the heart of our child, just as they were in my own heart. There really can be a bond and a sense of belonging that ties together generations on both sides of the veil. This bond gives us a sense of identity and purpose. Our ties with the eternal world suddenly become very real, sharpening our life’s focus and lifting our expectations.
As we honor father and mother by turning our hearts to them, the Lord promises that our “days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with [us], in the land which the Lord [our] God giveth” us (Deut. 5:16). How is this promise to be fulfilled? We may hope not only that our “days may be prolonged,” but also that our days and lives may be blessed with personal security, happiness, and meaning. We can expect not only that “it may go well” with us individually, but also that our society will enjoy peace and liberty. The key to social as well as individual survival depends on children turning their hearts to their fathers and learning from the wisdom they have accumulated.
Today, those basic human relationships we call kinship and marriage are disintegrating. Many children, parents, and spouses are turning their hearts not toward one another but toward their own self-focused needs. “They seek not the Lord … , but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world” (D&C 1:16).
Perhaps we are witnessing the negative aspects of the promise associated with the fifth commandment, namely, that the earth could be “utterly wasted” at the Lord’s coming. For “the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link … between the fathers and the children” (D&C 128:18). The curse, like the blessing, was part of Malachi’s prophecy. Other prophecies also foretold the curse of an earth wasted by the loss of family bonds: “In the last days … men shall be lovers of their own selves, … disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection” (2 Tim. 3:1–3). “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12).
Statistics reflect some results of this problem—rising rates of adolescent crime, births to unwed parents, divorce, and family violence. But the attitudes that produce these statistics are in some ways more revealing than the statistics themselves. As one anonymous writer said, we are seeing today a “general … transformation of our society from one that strengthens the bonds between people to one that is, at best, indifferent to them; a sense of an inevitable fraying of the net of connections between people at many critical intersections, of which the marital knot is only one.” This disintegration has at least one common cause: “The overriding value placed on the idea of individual emancipation and fulfillment, in the light of which, more and more, the old bonds are seen not as enriching but as confining. We are coming to look upon life as a lone adventure.”1
In addition to individual isolation, this trend leads us to forget our “group memory”—the essential knowledge each succeeding generation must possess to ensure social continuity, even survival of the culture. The loss of human connections is keeping knowledge and understanding from being passed from one generation to the next. “Our society requires, as a minimum for its survival, that its members share a common set of beliefs, abide by a common set of rules, and … recognize their mutual dependence.”2 In this sense, the connection between honoring parents and living long in the land seems especially strong.
The fifth commandment’s focus on child-parent relations calls attention to a modern trend—a “children’s rights” movement. In some ways, this movement has helped raise society’s awareness about the seriousness of child abuse, and it has made government agencies and schools feel more accountable for what they do. But rather than planting the promises made to the fathers in the hearts of the children, this movement has too often sought to release children from any sense of dependence upon, or even connection to, parents and other adults.
This movement to give children their “rights” can actually leave them feeling abandoned. In fact, children’s highest “right” is to be loved, taught, and nurtured by parents and communities who honor and protect them. Only in this way do we teach them to honor their parents and to honor the interests of their communities. Only this reciprocal honoring—and belonging—will deliver the promise of the fifth commandment.
Ironically, adults face some confusing conflicts of interest when thinking about the “rights” of children. Child rearing makes great demands on the time, energy, and financial resources of parents and communities. Giving “rights” to our children is a beguiling invitation, for it offers an escape from those demands—a liberation from the responsibility of long-term nurturing. The notion that we should “respect our children’s freedom” enough to “leave them alone” can too easily justify the attitudes of adults whose personal convenience is also best served by leaving their children alone. Such parents might decide it is not worth the patience and frustration required to provide children with meaningful discipline.
Those who give in to that temptation miss a wonderful opportunity for personal growth. Unqualified commitments to our children, spouses, parents, and brothers and sisters allow us to learn and grow in ways not possible in less-demanding relationships.
I once saw how this kind of learning can take place. One of our children was in great difficulty in his fourth-grade class. He needed to complete a certain project by the next day, or he would face disaster. After dinner, my wife, Marie, told me that she had thought of a way she could help him. I ushered our other children out of the kitchen, and the handicraft project began.
I periodically heard outbursts from our fourth-grader, who kept insisting that he wouldn’t do another thing on the project. At one point, I offered to send him to his room and tell him to forget it, but Marie calmly urged me to let her proceed with the plan.
After about three hours, as I was tucking the other children into bed, our son and his mother entered the bedroom. Carrying his project as proudly as if it were a birthday cake, he invited the other children to see it.
He had made every part of it himself. He placed it on a counter and started for his bed. Then he looked back at his mother with a broad, boyish grin. He ran across the room, threw his arms around her waist, and hugged her close. The two of them exchanged glances that carried great meaning. He went to bed, and we left the room.
“What happened?” I asked my wife. “How did you do it?”
Marie replied that she had made up her mind that no matter what he said or did, she wouldn’t raise her voice or lose her patience. She had also decided that leaving him was not an alternative, even if the project took all night. Then she made this significant observation: “I didn’t know I had it in me to do it.”
She had discovered within herself a reservoir of patience and endurance she never would have found without the deep commitment that grew from a sense of real belonging. Belonging is for thick and thin, and this was one of the thin times! Exerting such immovable loyalty to another person teaches us how to love—indeed, how to be more like the Savior.

Carly sat beneath a big tree in front of her house. She was so absorbed in the book she was reading that she didn’t even look up when the fire trucks flew by, their sirens howling. She was reading a book called The Adventures of Justine. Justine was the heroine of the book, and she was just about to save the day for at least the third time. This time she was singlehandedly stopping a stampede of wild horses.
Carly thought that Justine was brave and daring. No matter what the danger, Justine always found a way out of it, not just for herself but for everyone else too.
“Come on, Carly!” called her brother Sam. He was already on his bike, ready to tear down the street after the fire truck. “Don’t you know that there’s a fire down at the Johnson house? Hurry or you’ll miss it!”
“I’m busy,” she said.
Sam gave her an exasperated look and took off on his bike.
If I were Justine, I’d be down there, Carly thought, and I’d probably be rescuing people—if there are peopleto rescue. But I’m too young to do any real good. They’d never even let me close enough to do anything brave. If only I were as old as Justine and as daring and as beautiful!
She tried to go back to her book, but it was hard to concentrate. Down the street, people were coming out of their houses and flocking toward the Johnson house. “Maybe I should go,” she said, closing her book and standing up. Taking the book with her, she started down the street. She fell into step beside Mrs. Haskins, an elderly neighbor. Mrs. Haskins’ hair was white and her skin was wrinkled, but she surely didn’t act old! She went bowling every Tuesday night, and last winter she’d gone skiing in Colorado. She taught a writing class for children once a week, and she also found time to teach Primary. Carly liked her a lot.
“Ah, Carly,” the woman said, noticing her book. “Doing a little reading, I see. The Adventures of Justine. That ought to be exciting.”
“Oh, it is!” Carly exclaimed, almost forgetting about the fire. “Someday I’m going to be just like her. Someday I’ll be a heroine.”
“Someday can take a long time to get here,” Mrs. Haskins told her. “How long do you suppose it will take?”
“I don’t know. But I have to grow up first. Nobody would let a kid do the things that Justine does in this book. A kid wouldn’t be strong enough, anyway.” After thinking a moment, she added, “Or brave enough.”
“So you think that Justine is brave?”
“Oh yes, she’s brave. Do you know that she saved a whole schoolroom full of children from being swept away in a flood?”
“Pretty impressive. Do you suppose that she was afraid?”
“Not Justine. She isn’t afraid of anything.” They were at the fire now, and suddenly Carly realized just how horrible it was. It wasn’t anything like she imagined a fire would be.
The Johnsons were gathered on the sidewalk, most of them crying. Some of their neighbors were crying too. The house was charred, and the smell of smoke was everywhere. The firemen were racing here and there, not looking the least bit dashing or handsome. They were dirty and sweating, and some of them looked worried and frightened—but they kept moving. Huge, surprisingly ugly flames were licking out of the broken second-story windows, and the roof was smoking.
Suddenly Carly felt like crying too. If only she could make it stop! If only things like this didn’t happen. Tommy Johnson, who was two years ahead of her at school and always trying to act tough, was standing with his arm around his mother, sobbing. Carly didn’t blame him. Everything that he owned was probably in the house. And from the looks of the gutted building, there wasn’t going to be much left when the fire was finally out.
Carly remembered the book in her hands, and now it seemed no more realistic than a comic book. “I’d like to see Justine save the day in this situation,” she muttered under her breath. What could Justine possibly do to help the Johnsons? Carly wondered. There’s no one left inside to rescue. There’s no way to stop the fire instantly and then undo the damage that’s been done. And there’s no quick, simple way to rebuild the Johnson’s home—and their lives.
Carly felt let down. If there weren’t heroines out in the real world to prevent this sort of thing from happening, what was the point in even trying to be a heroine?
“Everything!” Mrs. Johnson cried, suddenly breaking down. “Everything we own is in there—baby pictures, my purse, the dishes … And we don’t even have insurance!”
Carly had to turn away. She couldn’t bear the pain in Mrs. Johnson’s voice. She kept asking herself, What if it had been my house, and all my things were … ?
Turning to Mrs. Haskins, she asked through tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks, “Isn’t there something we can do? Anything?”
“There’s always something to be done,” the woman said quietly. “And it’s up to ordinary people like you and me to figure out what it is and then do it. Do you have any suggestions?”
Carly only had to think for a moment. “They’ll be needing food and clothes and things. Maybe we could get started finding some.” She spotted her brother and his friend Mitch standing beside their bikes and staring in disbelief as the building burned. “Sam! Mitch! Over here!” she called.
When they had walked their bikes over, she said quickly, “We have to get busy. There’s a lot that we need to do, and fast. First, we have to go door-to-door and see if people have anything that they can donate to the Johnsons—clothes, food, blankets, money, whatever they can. Can you guys and some of your friends do that? You could each pick a street, then bring all the stuff you get to our house. Maybe tomorrow we can put up a note at school.”
“You’ve got it!” said Sam, and he and Mitch quickly rode off.
“Sorry to desert you, Mrs. H.,” Carly said, “But I have to get busy. It’s going to be dark pretty soon.”
“You know, Carly,” Mrs. Haskins said, “I have two guest rooms, now that I’m alone. Do you suppose that the Johnsons would care to keep an old lady company until they find another place to live?”
“That’s a terrific idea!” said Carly. “While you talk to Mrs. Johnson, I’m going to call Edna and Jerry. They’re friends of Tommy’s, and I know they’ll want to help.”
As she started up the street, Mrs. Haskins called to her. “Looks like your someday didn’t take so long in getting here, after all.”
“What?” asked Carly, turning.
“To be a heroine. I’d say that you’re getting a good start.”