Gospel Story Finder

Let me share with you a rather private but joyful example from my own experience.
As a bishop, I worried about any members who were inactive, not attending, not serving. Such was my thought one day as I drove down the street where Ben and Emily Fullmer lived. Aches and pains of advancing years caused them to withdraw from activity to the shelter of their home—isolated, detached, shut out from the mainstream of daily life and association. Ben and Emily had not been in our sacrament meeting for many years. Ben, a former bishop, would sit constantly in his front room reading and memorizing the New Testament.
I was en route from my uptown sales office to our plant on Industrial Road. For some reason I had driven down First West, a street which I never had traveled before to reach the destination of our plant. Then I felt the unmistakable prompting to park my car and visit Ben and Emily, even though I was on my way to a meeting. I did not heed the impression at first but drove on for two more blocks; however, when the impression came again, I returned to their home.
It was a sunny weekday afternoon. I approached the door to their home and knocked. I heard the tiny fox terrier dog bark at my approach. Emily welcomed me in. Upon seeing me, she exclaimed, “All day long I have waited for my phone to ring. It has been silent. I hoped the postman would deliver a letter. He brought only bills. Bishop, how did you know today is my birthday?”
I answered, “God knows, Emily, for He loves you.”
In the quiet of their living room, I said to Ben and Emily, “I really don’t know why I was directed here today, but I was. Our Heavenly Father knows. Let’s kneel in prayer and ask Him why.” This we did, and the answer came. As we arose from our knees, I said to Brother Fullmer, “Ben, would you come to priesthood meeting when we meet with all the priesthood and relate to our Aaronic Priesthood boys the story you once told me when I was a boy, how you and a group of boys were en route to the Jordan River to swim one Sunday, but you felt the Spirit direct you to attend Sunday School. And you did. One of the boys who failed to respond to that Spirit drowned that Sunday. Our boys would like to hear your testimony.”
“I’ll do it,” he responded.
I then said to Sister Fullmer, “Emily, I know you have a beautiful voice. My mother has told me so. Our ward conference is a few weeks away, and our choir will sing. Would you join the choir and attend our ward conference and perhaps sing a solo?”
“What will the number be?” she inquired.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’d like you to sing it.”
She sang. He spoke to the Aaronic Priesthood. Hearts were gladdened by the return to activity of Ben and Emily. They rarely missed a sacrament meeting from that day forward. The language of the Spirit had been spoken. It had been heard. It had been understood. Hearts were touched and souls saved. Ben and Emily Fullmer had come home.

Although the hurricane was frightening when they were in the middle of it, most of the youth of Charleston learned something unique about themselves. They discovered that material possessions didn’t mean as much as they thought. Christina said, “When my dad went out to see if our house was still there, I thought, ‘It doesn’t matter because I know my whole family is all right.’ We would be glad if the house was okay, but if it wasn’t, we were still okay.”

When I had my first baby, I was overjoyed about having this little person in my home and couldn’t believe how much I loved him. But I also felt overwhelmed with how much care he required and my inability to live my life as freely as I had before. I kept thinking about how life used to be simpler. I thought about how I used to be able to shower and do my hair each morning. I thought about how I used to like my body better. I thought about how I used to be more well-rested and therefore more fun. I felt awful when I focused on my past like this.

Eventually I realized I could not find answers in the past. I had to focus on the future. I had to start visualizing myself doing the things I wanted to in my life, but with a baby. I had to tap into the person I wanted to become, not the person I used to be. This is not always easy, but it’s available if you’re willing to open yourself up to possibility.

Captain Simpson, who is also a flight paramedic, knows from his own experience how effective the bears can be with children. Twelve-year-old Nicole Wallace had to be flown by helicopter from one hospital to another. She was bleeding internally from a lacerated kidney and liver suffered in an automobile accident. She refused to let go of her bear at any time during the transfer from hospital to helicopter to hospital. She finally gave up the bear just before undergoing surgery.
Speaking about the accident, Nicole says, “The car was badly smashed, and the paramedics had to take out the back seat before they could lift me out of the rear window. When they put me in the ambulance, they gave me this cute little bear,” Nicole said. “It kept me from getting scared. I would hold on to it, so I wouldn’t hurt so bad. In the hospital it stayed right by me in my bed.”

Some years ago I was in Monroe, Louisiana, attending a regional conference. It was a beautiful occasion. At the airport on my way home, I was approached by a lovely African-American woman—a member of the Church—who said, smiling broadly, “President Monson, before I joined the Church and became a member of Relief Society, I could not read nor write. None of my family could. You see, we were all poor sharecroppers. President, my white Relief Society sisters—they taught me to read. They taught me to write. Now I help teach my white sisters how to read and how to write.” I reflected on the supreme joy she must have felt when she opened her Bible and read for the first time the words of the Lord:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
That day in Monroe, Louisiana, I received a confirmation by the Spirit of the exalted objective of the Relief Society to help eliminate illiteracy.

Recently in South America, a lady missionary, who impressed me greatly, told me the story of her conversion to the LDS Church and her missionary call. Before coming on her mission she was a nurse. Her roommate was a Mormon girl. The nurse liked the girl’s habits, was very pleased with her character and personality, and so she decided to study the LDS religion. The Mormon girl got two missionaries to teach the nurse the gospel.

When the nurse’s parents heard that she was favorably inclined toward the Mormon religion, they thoroughly opposed her actions. They forbade her to join the Church, telling her that if she did she would be disinherited.

The Holy Ghost had borne witness to her so strongly that the Church of Jesus Christ was the true church that she asked the missionaries to baptize her even against the wishes of her parents, whom she loved dearly. It grieved her when her father and mother told her not to return home.

After joining the Church, she had a very strong desire to go on a mission and so she decided to work and save the money. It took her three or four years’ time to save approximately $3,000. She was called to labor in South America, where she is doing an outstanding job in taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of that land. When she returns home, she hopes to regain the love and favor of her parents.

Tony Williams, 13, is the only LDS student in his junior high school, so he took advantage of the situation. During the school’s social science fair he set up a display telling the residents of Kennett, Missouri, about the Church, and he walked away with first prize.
Tony’s display included three panels. One part told of the apostasy and restoration while another explained the Church’s First Presidency, Council of the Twelve, Articles of Faith, and the standard works. Details of the pioneer trek from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City was on another panel.
After winning first place in his school’s fair, Tony’s display won third place in the district social science fair held at Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
Active in the Hayti Ward (Memphis, Tennessee), Tony serves on the bishop’s youth committee and is president of his deacons quorum.

Ever since their father’s remarkable experience when writing the family’s first musical, the Howards have had deep-rooted feelings about family ties spanning generations. Brother Howard never set foot on a stage as a young man and knew nothing about writing scripts. It was years later, when his children were growing, that he wrote the amazing script that started their performing.
Sixteen-year-old Celese tells the story. “Dad kept getting these promptings to write a play. He thought it was a crazy idea and kept pushing it away. Besides, he was always too busy.”
Brother Howard adds, “It wasn’t until I was traveling to Salt Lake City one day at five in the morning, surrounded by peace and quiet, that the promptings came again—so strong that I couldn’t ignore them. I finally gave in and asked, ‘But what am I supposed to write about?’”
Annicka, 15, joins in. “I can hardly believe what happened next,” she says. “Thoughts kept coming into Dad’s mind. He was supposed to write a play about our ancestors who crossed the plains—the Jonathan Harriman Hale family.
“But the words came at such speed that he could hardly write fast enough to keep up. And then …” she smiles. “Then came the awesome part. A few months later, we were at my uncle’s house for Thanksgiving. This uncle has a lot of family history books. Dad wasn’t feeling too well that day, so he asked for something to read. Uncle Mark offered him a book he hadn’t noticed in his collection before. It was the story of the Jonathan Harriman Hale family. All the things Dad had been writing in the play really did happen all those years ago. Even the names my dad thought he’d invented for the play were actually real people!”
“I know the show was inspired,” says Celese. “It’s called ‘Lilacs in the Valley,’ and the audience laughs and cries in the same minute. It helped one young man decide to go on a mission and has changed many lives.”
“And the music,” adds Annicka, “that’s awesome, too. My mother wrote it, and she’d never had any direction on how to do that. It turned out really good and made you feel everything that was happening in the show.”
Twelve-year-old Scott says, “I think that the way the Lord inspired them is amazing.”

Christmas dawned on a day as murky as my mood. A dense fog had crept into the Italian city where my husband’s military assignment had taken us. My two daughters were not very excited about the few gifts they had received. Their thoughts, like mine, were with their father, who was in a military hospital in Germany.
“It doesn’t seem like Christmas without Daddy here,” eight-year-old Diana commented. I nodded, thinking about all the seasonal cheer we were missing—decorations, family parties, holiday feasts.
“Well, at least some of us are together,” said 17-year-old Athena quietly.
When my husband called from the hospital in Germany, I talked to him briefly and then handed the phone to Diana. To my surprise, she refused to speak to him, even though she hadn’t seen or talked to him in weeks. Confused by her reaction, I ran the events of the past month through my mind.
Some weeks earlier my husband, Ed, began complaining of pain in his left forearm. In no time it swelled and became stiff. The doctors hospitalized him and gave him antibiotics intravenously. But his hand became useless.
I arranged for our oldest son to stay with his grandmother for Christmas instead of coming home from college. Our three other children tried to help me get ready for Christmas, but the spirit of the season could not penetrate my anxiety.
One night was especially bad. I couldn’t sleep, so at 3:30 A.M. I called the hospital. The nurse said Ed was in such pain he was pacing the floor. Suddenly I knew he needed a priesthood blessing. Since the hour was so early, I hesitated to call our home teacher, Bob DeWitt. But Bob arrived on his own at about 5:00 A.M. He called another priesthood holder and hurried to the hospital. Bob felt prompted to promise Ed he would eventually regain the full use of his hand.
Moments after the blessing, a group of doctors conferred around Ed’s bed. They couldn’t explain what was causing the damage to his arm. Although in pain, Ed commented that it was too bad the X ray couldn’t show more than just the bone in his arm; it would help if they could see the tissue as well. Ed’s words startled the doctors, and they decided to use an ultrasound machine to look at his arm in a manner not commonly used. The procedure was later written up in medical journals.
Using the ultrasound in this new way, they located a large pocket of infection deep within Ed’s forearm. They operated immediately.
“It’s lucky we located the abscess when we did,” the surgeon explained to me later. “Even a few more hours could have cost Ed the use of his arm completely. As it is, I doubt he will ever be able to use his fingers again.”
The doctors transferred Ed to a large hospital in Germany, and I accompanied him while friends took care of our children. Ed’s condition became worse; the bone became infected, and antibiotics were unexplainably ineffective.
Days went by in a blur as Ed underwent multiple surgeries. Ed insisted I fly home to be with the children for Christmas.
So here it was Christmas morning. I held my youngest daughter close, still not sure why she had refused to speak with her father. Finally she hesitantly took the phone, and within seconds, her face was wreathed in a smile.
“I thought Daddy was dying,” she explained later. “He was so sick when he left.”
Holding both daughters tightly, I smiled through my tears. Faintly, through the fog, the tolling of Christmas bells reached us. I reflected on the gift we commemorate each Christmas—our Savior, who redeemed us from eternal death and made eternal families possible. I realized that through the Lord’s Atonement and the ordinances of the temple, we could be together forever.
Ed spent nine months in hospitals—and three long, difficult years passed before he recovered completely. But we never questioned that his priesthood blessing would be fulfilled or that our greatest blessings came through the Lord Jesus Christ.
As I listened to the bells that Christmas morning in Italy, I finally welcomed Christmas into my heart.

Once upon a time, in a very small village, there lived two brothers. Peter, the older brother, was very smart and strong. He did everything well.
He planted his garden in nice straight rows.
He gathered his hay and straw into neat bundles.
He fed his chickens and cow well.
He chopped wood exactly the right size and piled it neatly by his little stove.
He kept his little cottage and the shelters for his animals clean and dry.
Yes, Peter did everything well.
Putter, the younger brother, was also smart and strong, but he did very little well. He played his guitar very nicely, and he sang beautifully, but that is all he did well. People thought Putter was lazy. Peter loved his brother and his brother’s music, so he was content to do most of the work for both of them.
When Putter was little, he followed Peter around as he did his chores.
“Let me help you,” Putter would beg.
Peter would hand him seeds to drop into the straight rows that Peter had plowed. But soon he would yell, “Putter, stop! Your seeds are not exactly the same distance apart. You don’t know how to do this.”
“I can learn,” Putter said.
“I can do it better myself,” said Peter.
When he was a little bigger, Putter got some hay to feed the cow. “Stop!” said Peter. “You’re not taking the right amount, and you’re dropping some on the ground.”
“Show me the right way, and I’ll do it,” cried Putter.
“No, I’ll do it myself. Why don’t you try feeding the chickens.”
Putter scattered corn for the chickens and laughed as they clucked around him. But no sooner had he started than Peter came rushing over to the chicken coop. “Stop!” he yelled. “You’re feeding them too much. They’ll grow swollen and sick, and I’ll run out of chicken feed.”
“Just tell me how much to give them, Brother. I want to help,” said Putter.
“No, you can sing and play, but stay out of my way while I’m working.”
Putter and his cat, Matilda, walked to the oak tree. He sat under it and played his guitar. He sang sweet songs, but he was not happy.
When he grew to be a young man, Putter decided that he must help his brother more, so while Peter was out working, he made a meal for him. He sang while he cooked, and he served Peter a dinner of soup, fresh bread, milk, and apples.
“This soup has too little salt,” said Peter, “and the bread is not crusty enough. My bread isn’t, either, but it’s better than yours. You had best let me do the cooking.”
One day Putter said, “Brother, I am too big and strong to allow you to do all the work and take care of me. I will move to the cottage down the road and have my own little farm.”
“How will you manage?” asked Peter.
“I will learn,” said Putter. He packed his things, picked up his guitar, and set out down the road with Matilda following. He got a cow, some chickens, some seeds, and an ax. He sang while he worked, and he worked very hard. He played his guitar and waited for his garden to grow.
When the green shoots came out of the ground, they were weak and straggly and the rows were very crooked. Some seeds had been planted too deep and didn’t come up at all. Some had been planted too shallow and were washed away by the rain or eaten by the birds.
“Oh dear,” said Putter. “I won’t have enough corn for my chickens. But I see now what I did wrong.”
The hay he planted grew a little, but Putter did not know how to tie and stack it properly or when to bring it in. One night, rain soaked it and made it moldy. “Oh dear,” Putter said. “I worked hard, but now there won’t be enough hay for the cow. However, I see now what I should have done.”
Winter was coming, so Putter chopped wood for his fire. When the snows came, he put some of the wood into his little potbellied stove. But the pieces were too long, and he could not close the door, so the fire burned too quickly, and soon his supply of wood was gone.
Matilda sat beside him while he played a sad song on his guitar. “I’m sorry, Matilda,” he said. “I’m a failure. I must admit my faults and take you and the cow and the chickens to my brother’s home, or we will all starve.”
He knocked on Peter’s door, but his brother did not open it. He knocked again. A weak voice called, “Come in.”
Putter found his brother in bed, looking very ill. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I was chopping wood. One piece was not exactly the right size, and when I trimmed it, the ax slipped, and I cut my foot deeply.”
“How glad I am that I came. I’ll do your chores and care for you until you’re well.”
“Oh dear,” Peter moaned as soon as Putter had gone out to the barn.
Putter tied his thin cow in the stall next to Peter’s fat cow. He looked to see how much hay Peter had set out for his cow, then gave both cows that same amount.
He put his chickens in the yard with Peter’s chickens. He looked at the corn Peter had measured out to feed the chickens, then added another measure just like it to feed all of them.
The sky looked a little stormy, so he gathered the neat piles of hay and straw and put them under shelter.
While Peter slept, Putter made dinner. “This time I will taste the soup so I will use enough salt. And I will butter the top before I bake the bread. That will make it crustier.”
While the soup simmered and the bread baked, Putter gathered apples and milked the cows. He chopped wood, too, remembering to make the pieces smaller.
When Peter awoke, the cottage was warm and cozy and smelled of good things. He heard sweet music and smiled. “I’m very hungry, Brother,” he said.
Peter tasted the meal that Putter had made. “Why, this is fine food, Brother. How did you do it?” Putter just smiled and strummed his guitar.
Peter tried to climb out of bed. “I must feed our cows and the chickens,” he said.
“I have done that already,” said Putter, gently pushing him back into bed.
“But you don’t know how!” Peter exclaimed. “And it’s raining! The hay will be wet—the firewood too.”
“They are dry, and the wood is chopped and stacked by the stove.”
Peter scratched his head. “How did you learn so much so quickly, Brother?”
Putter smiled again. “By my mistakes, I suppose. When I first played my guitar, I made many mistakes. Then I learned what I did wrong, and I improved. But when I made mistakes helping you, you never let me try again. In my little house, I did everything wrong. But God has blessed me with the brains to see my mistakes, and I am learning. Did you never make mistakes before you got so smart, Brother?”
“I suppose I did.” Peter thought a while. “Come to think of it, I’m still making mistakes. I kept my strong, smart brother from helping me, and I cut my own foot trying to be perfect. I’ll probably make more mistakes, but I hope you’ll stay here and help me.”
Putter played a happy tune on his guitar, Matilda curled up by the stove, and Peter smiled and tapped the floor with the foot that didn’t hurt.
“Perhaps you will show me how to make that delicious crusty bread, Brother,” said Peter.
“Of course I will.” Putter’s eyes twinkled as he added, “And if it doesn’t turn out well, I’ll let you try again until you get it right.”

When Matt was in junior high, he was standing at the bus stop absentmindedly kicking rocks. One of them accidentally hit the shoe of a fellow classmate—the wrong classmate. He was smaller than Matt, and younger, but he just happened to be a member of a very wild gang. The boy began pounding Matt in front of all the other kids at the bus stop. Matt didn’t fight back, knowing that if he did he’d have the entire gang to deal with. He went home humiliated.
Matt got over the incident when he left junior high. Everything was much better in high school and got even better in college. What he learned was that, basically, there are very few situations in life that are permanent. Time heals wounds, and embarrassment.

A number of years ago a friend of mine called me on the telephone and asked me if I would come to the hospital and give him a blood transfusion. Then as I lay there and watched the blood run out of my arm, I asked the nurse how many blood transfusions I could safely give in the course of a year, and she said that it would be perfectly all right if I gave four. That is, if it were necessary, I could save the lives of four people each year by a transfusion of my blood.
A few years later I found myself on the other end of this great miracle of transfusion. During and after some major surgery, I was given nine blood transfusions wherein a majority of my total blood supply was exchanged. One afternoon when the intern wasn’t very busy, he figured out for me that in this process I had received 27 billion white corpuscles, and as he described their function, I thought of these 27 billion little medical men dressed in white uniforms going throughout my system killing the disease and fighting the infection that otherwise might have terminated my life. But then, in addition to that, he pointed out that I had also received 18 trillion red corpuscles. These were the little engineers that carried oxygen and nutrition to every one of my locations to keep me in business. And all of this came for just the few dollars that I had previously put into the blood bank. (Incidentally, I asked the intern if he would figure out how much money I was paying per corpuscle, but he thought that problem would be a little bit complicated.)

Cautiously, I chose my first goal. It wasn’t a very great thing, but it was a persistent problem. I didn’t enjoy attending church. So, morning and night, I would pray: “Lord, bless me to feel about our worship services just the way thou do. Help me to find in them the things that you would find. Help me to participate in the ways that you would.” And unbelievable things began to happen. Sunday became a day filled with light; I found myself hungry to greet the other members of the Church, to share my testimony with them, to learn from the teachers, to express in song the feelings I had no words for, and to partake of the emblems of our Savior’s sacrifice with humility and gratitude. Sunday became a Sabbath. Attending Church did not mean that I had suppressed my desire to rest, read, study, ski, or play. Now it was an expression of righteous, loving desires.
That simple experience made another scripture acquire new meaning. The doctrines of the priesthood had indeed begun to distill upon my soul; as I felt the companionship of the Holy Ghost, spontaneously keeping the Sabbath day holy, “without compulsory mean,” its blessings flowed to me (see D&C 121:45–46). As this astonishing experience progressed, my faith grew and I began to have real hope that from now on my challenges could become changes.

The words Jesus Christ spoke to Joseph Smith are called revelations. Some of these revelations were published in the Book of Commandments. While this book was being printed, people became angry with the Church members who had moved to their town. They threw the printing press into the street. Two sisters named Mary Elizabeth and Caroline Rollins gathered as many pages of the Book of Commandments as they could. They ran into a cornfield to hide from the angry men, and Heavenly Father kept them safe. The revelations in the Book of Commandments later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants.

A few weeks ago, just before 6:00 a.m., my wife and I boarded a taxi to begin the last lap of our trip to Salt Lake City from Australia. Our driver, who had been on duty since 3:00 a.m., was anxious to talk with us, his first passengers of the day. We learned his parents were born just outside of Mexico City. They moved to Chicago, where he was born, and then moved to New Mexico. Twenty years earlier our friend had come for a short visit to San Francisco and had never left. During our trip to the airport, this man related a few incidents from which some great truths were reemphasized.
His parents, he told us, had remained in New Mexico, but liked to visit him and his brother whenever they could afford it because they loved being with their children and grandchildren. In New Mexico his mother’s health was rather poor, but whenever she was in San Francisco, she seemed to feel much better. This discerning son had said to his brother, “I know just exactly what mother needs.”
He said, “I found a large truck. My brother and I drove to New Mexico, loaded our parents and all their possessions into the truck, and brought them to live near those who loved them most. Mother’s health improved noticeably.” Then he added, “You know, love is very important if it is done right.”
The second incident related by this humble but wise man was also significant. He said, “I teach all my children to work. I want them to have schooling, but they must learn to work to get it. I just finished helping my sixteen-year-old son get a part-time job at a bank. While he is going to school, he only works two hours a day, but he is learning to work. He knows I love him because I do my part, too. Due to the uncertainty of my driving hours, I can’t always take him to work, but I’m always there to bring him home. He looks forward to our ride together, and so do I.”
One other important point was made by this unusual taxi operator. He told us that some of his unmarried friends who are also taxi drivers are often out of money. They come to him to borrow. He indicated that he is generally able to help them over tight money spots. When his companions asked how he is able to support his family on his salary when they can’t even keep themselves, he said, “I tell them I don’t waste money at the races or on liquor or tobacco. My wife fixes our meals at home, and we don’t have to pay for expensive restaurant food.” He smiled when he added, “We do our partying with our family.” This man’s objectives are family-oriented, and he has learned the folly of serving the gambling, drinking, and momentary expensive habits.
A happy man, this driver; he has realized through experience important areas of love. He knows that nurturing love is healing; it is teaching. It requires sacrifice, and that which we love will be that to which we give our allegiance. He had shared some basic principles of love in action that were potent. Frankly, we were enjoying his comments so much we could have wished the airport terminal were another half an hour away.

The day school was out at the beginning of each summer, our family went to our ranch in Wyoming. It was there with my parents and brothers and sisters, and a few cousins mixed in, that I learned about family loyalty; love and concern; birth and death; that one must finish a job once it is started; and, to quote my father, “There are only two things important—the family and the Church.”
One year my father was waiting for us as we arrived. He said he had a big job for my brother Clay and me to do that summer. I was about twelve at the time, and my brother was two years older. Pointing to the field by the side of the house, my father said, “Do you see all of these lambs in that field? I’ll share the money we get for the ones you raise when we sell them in the fall.” Well, we were excited. Not only did we have a significant job to do, but we were going to be rich! There were a lot of lambs in that field—about 350 of them. And all we had to do was feed them.
However, there was one thing that my father hadn’t mentioned. None of the lambs had mothers. Just after shearing, there was a violent storm that chilled the newly shorn sheep. Dad lost a thousand ewes that year. The mothers of our lambs were among them.
To feed one or two baby animals is one thing, but to feed 350 is something else! It was hard. There was plenty of grass, but the lambs couldn’t eat the grass. They didn’t have teeth. They needed milk. So we made some long, V-shaped feeding troughs out of some boards. Then we got a great big tin washtub, ground up some grain, and added milk to make a thin mash. While my brother poured the mash into the troughs, I rounded up the lambs, herded them to the troughs, and said, “Eat!” Well, they just stood there looking at me. Although they were hungry and there was food in front of them, they still wouldn’t eat. No one had taught them to drink milk out of a trough. So I tried pushing them toward the troughs. Do you know what happens when you try to push sheep? They run the other way. And when you lose one, you could lose them all because others will follow. That’s the way with sheep.
We tried lining up the lambs along the troughs and pushing their noses down in the milk, hoping they’d get a taste and want some more. We tried wiggling our fingers in the milk to get them to suck on our fingers. Some of them would drink, but most of them ran away.
Many of the lambs were slowly starving to death. The only way we could be sure they were being fed was to pick them up in our arms, two at a time, and feed them like babies.
And then there were the coyotes. At night the coyotes would sit up on the hill, and they’d howl. The next morning we would see the results of their night’s work, and we would have two or three more lambs to bury. The coyotes would sneak up on the lambs, scatter the herd, and then pick out the ones they wanted and go after them. The first were those that were weak or separated from the flock. Often in the night when the coyotes came and the lambs were restless, my dad would take out his rifle and shoot in the air to scare them away. We felt secure when my dad was home because we knew our lambs were safe when he was there to watch over them.
Clay and I soon forgot about being rich. All we wanted to do was save our lambs. The hardest part was seeing them die. Every morning we would find five, seven, ten lambs that had died during the night. Some the coyotes got, and others starved to death surrounded by food they couldn’t or wouldn’t eat.
Part of our job was to gather up the dead lambs and help dispose of them. I got used to that, and it really wasn’t so bad until I named one of the lambs. It was an awkward little thing with a black spot on its nose. It was always under my feet, and it knew my voice. I loved my lamb. It was one I held in my arms and fed with a bottle like a baby.
One morning my lamb didn’t come when I called. I found it later that day under the willows by the creek. It was dead. With tears streaming down my face, I picked up my lamb and went to find my father. Looking up at him, I said, “Dad, isn’t there someone who can help us feed our lambs?”
After a long moment he said, “Jayne, once a long, long time ago, someone else said almost those same words. He said, ‘Feed my lambs. … Feed my sheep. … Feed my sheep.’” (John 21:15–17.) Dad put his arms around me and let me cry for a time, then went with me to bury my lamb.
It wasn’t until many years later that I fully realized the meaning of my father’s words. I was pondering the scripture in Moses that says, “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of [all mankind].” (Moses 1:39.) As I thought about the mission of the Savior, I remembered the summer of the lambs, and, for a few brief moments, I thought I could sense how the Savior must feel with so many lambs to feed, so many souls to save. And I knew in my heart that he needed my help.

God uses another form of chastening or correction to guide us to a future we do not or cannot now envision but which He knows is the better way for us. President Hugh B. Brown, formerly a member of the Twelve and a counselor in the First Presidency, provided a personal experience. He told of purchasing a rundown farm in Canada many years ago. As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, he came across a currant bush that had grown over six feet (1.8 m) high and was yielding no berries, so he pruned it back drastically, leaving only small stumps. Then he saw a drop like a tear on the top of each of these little stumps, as if the currant bush were crying, and thought he heard it say:

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me. … How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

President Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”

Years later, President Brown was a field officer in the Canadian Army serving in England. When a superior officer became a battle casualty, President Brown was in line to be promoted to general, and he was summoned to London. But even though he was fully qualified for the promotion, it was denied him because he was a Mormon. The commanding general said in essence, “You deserve the appointment, but I cannot give it to you.” What President Brown had spent 10 years hoping, praying, and preparing for slipped through his fingers in that moment because of blatant discrimination. Continuing his story, President Brown remembered:

“I got on the train and started back … with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. … When I got to my tent, … I threw my cap … on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, ‘How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?’ I was as bitter as gall.

“And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, ‘I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.’ The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness. …

“… And now, almost fifty years later, I look up to [God] and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”

God knew what Hugh B. Brown was to become and what was needed for that to happen, and He redirected his course to prepare him for the holy apostleship.

“Remember to keep your eyes on your own paper,” Ms. Mori said.
Nathan stared at his test. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his friend Jason flip open his math test and start writing. Nathan sighed.
“Something wrong?” Ms. Mori asked.
“No, ma’am,” Nathan said quietly. But that wasn’t totally true. Unlike Jason, Nathan couldn’t stand math. He didn’t hate all schoolwork—someday he wanted to paint like Da Vinci or write like Shakespeare. In those subjects, there was usually more than one right answer to a question. But in math, there was only one correct answer. Just one! And Nathan never seemed to get it.
“Psst!” Jason whispered. He flicked a crumpled paper under Nathan’s chair. At first Nathan thought Jason was teasing him. But then Jason grinned and tapped his test, and Nathan knew what was on the paper—the answers!
He looked up. Ms. Mori’s back was turned. Now was the perfect time to grab the paper! This could be one math test he didn’t fail.
Nathan stretched to snatch the paper off the floor …
To cheat or not to cheat—that is the question, Nathan thought, borrowing a line from Shakespeare. As soon as he asked the question, he knew the answer. Nathan kicked the answers back under Jason’s desk. He had already decided to never cheat, no matter how tempting it was.
At the end of class, Nathan still didn’t like math. But he was glad he chose the right, even though he probably didn’t do well on the test. Maybe Jason could help him study for the next one.
Just like math, Nathan thought, when it comes to choosing whether to cheat, there’s only one right answer. He was glad he’d passed.

Chanta and Sounthara Luangrath sat in their home in California, USA, wondering what they should do. They had prepared their four children to serve missions, and now they knew it was their turn. The decision was bigger than they’d expected: they would miss their grandchildren so much! They were also concerned about a few health issues. And what would they do with their home and belongings while they were gone?
The Luangraths’ concerns about serving a mission are not unique to them. In fact, Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles identified four categories of obstacles to senior missionary work: fear, family concerns, finding the right mission opportunity, and finances.1
Overcoming these obstacles requires great faith, a trait the Luangraths demonstrated when they heard President Thomas S. Monson’s call for more missionaries in the October 2010 general conference. “We felt the Spirit so strong,” they reflect. “We wanted to follow the prophet, so we turned in our mission application.”
The Luangraths were called to serve as humanitarian missionaries in Laos, the land where they were born, raised, and married. Their worries faded as they prepared to serve: their family supported them, they resolved their health issues, and they made their home available for lease. They felt confident as they did what the Savior commanded: “Go thy way, … take up the cross, and follow me” (Mark 10:21).

During the tears and other hubbub of leaving from the airport, I paid little attention to all the words of advice and caution everyone was giving me. All I could see was the jet pulling up to the gate and visions of converting the entire countries of Guatemala and El Salvador. Finally, we were told to board. There was a rush of last minute hugs, kisses (from my parents and sisters), and, of course, that special handshake from a smiling beauty with a quivering chin.
When I reached the door leading to the boarding area, my father said, “Son, obey all the rules, and you’ll be happy in life.” I nodded a hurried “Sure, Dad” and was off. As I walked to the plane, I laughed to myself. “Dad, you got your ‘mords wixed’ again. You meant to say, ‘Obey all the rules, and you’ll be happy on your mission.’” With that, I tossed his advice into the oblivion of my memory, filed under “Parental Counsel.”
Seven months later, my father was dead.
In those first wavering hours after my mission president told me of the tragic plane accident, I found myself much like the cartoon character who has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The devil said: “What are you doing here? All that life after death bit is a bunch of bunk. You go on a mission and what happens? You break your foot; go to the hospital; come to a strange land, with strange people and strange customs; and your father gets killed. Sure it’s the happiest two years of your life. Two thousand miles away from home, and you’re all alone.”
Such thoughts were foreign to me. I had been a faithful member of the Church all my life; yet, the thoughts were there.
The angel on my other shoulder said: “Stand tall, Elder. You had a great father you can be proud of, a mighty patriarch who taught you the gospel in all things. You know eternal life is a true principle of the gospel, and you know your father will be waiting for you. You’ve had a testimony of the gospel since you were old enough to cry. This is no time to start doubting.”
In the midst of this struggle between doubt and reality, my father’s last words at the airport came echoing into my mind: “Son, obey all the rules, and you’ll be happy in life.” Dad hadn’t mixed his words up at all. Those final words to me were inspired counsel that would guide me for the rest of my life. My father lived as he taught, and a few weeks following his passing, the full testimony of his life was made manifest to me.
Finances became a major concern. I had enough money in the bank to cover 11 of the remaining 15 months of my mission and hoped Mom could get enough together for the remaining four. My plans for college were now pushed back into the realm of hopes and dreams. However, the Lord takes care of his missionaries.
I received a letter from my mother telling me that I needn’t worry about finances anymore. A man had contacted my bishop and asked if he could support me for the rest of my mission. This is not too unusual, since there are many good-hearted men in the Church, but the twist in this instance was in what the man told my bishop: “I’m not a member of your church, but out of the love and respect I have for Horace Rappleye, I’d like to support his son for the rest of his mission.” And he did. For 15 months the money was placed regularly in my bank account by the anonymous benefactor.
He remains anonymous to this day.
My father’s life of obedience brought blessings to him even after he died. His death became the highlight of my mission. That may be a strange thing to say, and I wish my father were still alive, but my mission thereafter became a living testimony to my father’s life. I soon found how precious it is to live “all the rules.” No matter how small or insignificant the rule seemed, if I obeyed, I was happy.
We are told by the Lord, “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
“And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:20–21.)
This scripture is true. Whenever I find myself slipping into depression or unhappiness, I usually find it is because I am not being obedient in all things as I should. At these times a comforting echo reverberates in my head: “Son, obey all the rules, and you’ll be happy in life.”