Gospel Story Finder

This past summer my wife and I had two of our young grandsons staying with us while their parents participated in a pioneer trek activity in their stake. Our daughter wanted to be sure that the boys practiced the piano while away from home. She knew that a few days with the grandparents makes it a little easier to forget about practicing. One afternoon I decided to sit with my 13-year-old grandson, Andrew, and listen to him play.
This boy is full of energy and loves the outdoors. He could easily spend all of his time hunting and fishing. While he was practicing the piano, I could tell that he would rather be fishing on a nearby river. I listened as he pounded out each chord of a familiar song. Every note he played had the same emphasis and meter, making it difficult to clearly identify the melody. I sat beside him on the bench and explained the importance of applying just a little more pressure on the melody keys and a little less on those notes that accompany the melody. We talked about the piano being more than just a mechanical miracle. It can be an extension of his own voice and feelings and become a wonderful instrument of communication. Just as a person talks and moves smoothly from one word to another, so should the melody flow as we move from one note to another.
We laughed together as he tried again and again. His dimpled-cheek smile increased as the familiar melody began to emerge from what was previously a wild set of sounds. The message became clear: “I am a child of God, and he has sent me here.” I asked Andrew if he could feel the difference in the message. He responded, “Yes, Grandpa, I can feel it!”

I am grateful for the 2025 Area Priorities introduced by the Philippines Area Presidency. The emphasis on ministering under the first priority “Come Unto Christ” reminds me of a letter I received from a bishop a while back.
“One Sunday, a poor mother of eight children came to see me at my office. She was nine months pregnant with her ninth child. She was worried that her husband did not have the money to pay for the delivery of her baby. He worked as a security guard with a meager salary. So, she came to me, her bishop, to ask help.
“I brought the matter to my stake president to ask for his counsel. To my surprise, the stake president told me not to help her because pregnancy takes nine months so the couple should have prepared for it. Perhaps you remember how this policy was effective back then. But the pregnant DATELINE PHILIPPINES The True Essence of Ministering wife obviously did not have the mentality and training to prepare so she came to me to ask for help.
“Again, I asked the stake president if we could extend food assistance. He said no because “the church has extended food to that family multiple times already and yet the father remained less active because of an offense he could not forgive.” I then responded, “what about the pregnant wife and the children who are actively participating in church? We shouldn’t let them suffer, should we?” He responded back, “Let the sufferings of the family be a curse to the father who is unfaithful.” This counsel left me deeply troubled. I could not understand then why I left that conversation feeling so hurt and bothered.
“The poor mother delivered the baby, but my hands were tied. I could not help with the hospital bill. I did not have the authority, and the stake president told me he will not support any request for financial assistance. The father took out two months’ salary in advance from his company to pay for the bill. This left the family without food to eat.
“I decided to convene the ward council to discuss the matter. I decided to provide the family with food. Using up the amount I could disburse in my capacity as a bishop, I asked the Elders Quorum President to buy 50 kilos of rice and asked the Relief Society President to buy groceries including the needs of the baby and the mother. I then asked the council what time the husband usually gets home from work. They said, 8:30 pm. So, I went to visit the family at 9:00 pm.
“The house was small, dark, and in the middle of a field. There was no electricity. But, to my surprise, the Elders Quorum and Relief Society Presidents with their counselors were there ahead of me. They introduced me to the father. He could not believe that a young bishop like me could be called and that I came that night to his house.
“I peeked through the window and saw the children lying side by side on the floor, sleeping and cramped. In one corner was the mother with the newborn baby lying on the floor.
“The father told me he is so embarrassed to receive food from the Church because he’s been less active for a long time. But his family needed it, and he was grateful. I told him we did not come to buy his church activity. I did not know him, so why should I even care. But I said to him, “someone knows you. He knows your family’s needs. He is your Father in Heaven. He sent us here to let you know He cares and loves you.
“The father cried. He sobbed like a little child in front of us. We were all touched by his emotion.
“I then told him that on Sunday, he should not come to church. Not even next week or next month. I warned him that I cannot control people’s remarks and perceptions. Perhaps he may hear someone say he showed up only because he received help from the Church, and it may hurt his feelings. But if he’s interested in coming regardless of what people might say, especially if he recognizes the spirit inviting him, he’s welcome to come to church anytime.
“I looked for him on Sunday, but he didn’t show up. Neither did he show up in the few weeks that followed. Two months later, as I was conducting the sacrament meeting, I saw someone walking up to the sacrament hall. It was the father, sneakily entering and sitting down in the last row. But he was surprised and later became very emotional to hear the stake president announce my release as a bishop. He said he dreamed several times of serving with me in any capacity in the ward. But he agreed to do it with his new bishop.
“Six months later my previous counselor informed me that the brother is the most diligent home teacher the ward has ever had. “This experience taught me a great deal about ministering. I thought I’d share this with you. But I wonder how many bishops today have received the same counsel from their leaders, followed it, and had the charity in their hearts extinguished in the process. I hope there is none. If there is one, I hope he repents and recovers.”

“I love the Personal Progress program. I have learned to do things I never knew I could,” says Mindy Sutton of the Twenty Wells Ward. Mindy believed a choir experience would help the youth in her Grantsville Utah Stake feel the Spirit in their lives, and Mindy needed a Laurel project. So she organized and directed a choir for stake Standards Night.
But the task wasn’t easy. Mindy says although she loves music, she has no natural ability. In fact, she was very discouraged after the first practice. “It was so hard to be in front of my peers trying to tell them what to do. But my stake leaders encouraged me to pray for help and promised the Lord would bless me.”
She went home and fasted and prayed. Her prayers were answered when the choir’s outstanding performance two months later not only brought the Spirit into the choir members’ lives but inspired those in attendance.
“I feel a lot closer to my Heavenly Father and know He has helped me so much,” Mindy says.

On the other side of town, in a fine, large home live the van Littens, a family that has preserved Christmas traditions from Holland for generations. Dirk is wistfully remembering the fun when Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) came to their house on December 5.
Dirk had put his shoes on the hearth and filled them with sugar and hay for Sinterklaas’s white horse. The next morning the sugar and hay were gone, and in their places were a fine set of paints and new skates for Dirk.
Dirk sighs. The saintly old bishop in his red robe is gone, along with the gay parties and nonsense of Saint Nicholas’s Eve. Christmas Day is for going to church and eating a great dinner. Dirk wishes that Sinterklaas would come again instead.

I remember well the adjustments we had to make when we went to live in Utah. My first call in our ward was to serve as a Relief Society teacher. I watched the other teachers very closely and was deeply impressed with their striving for perfection in their teaching. Even their hairdos and immaculate dress showed their striving for perfection. I admired how fluent and articulate they were in the English language. How could I, with my poor English, compete with them and be their teacher? I was eager to learn and was so glad to hear that there was a stake preparation class for Relief Society teachers.

When I attended the training meeting for the first time, I was full of high hopes. I was not prepared for the question I was asked about what kind of centerpiece I would use when I gave my lesson. How incompetent I felt! I had no idea what a centerpiece was or what its purpose in the presentation of a lesson could be. Negative feelings about myself began to undermine my confidence. …

I continued to feel inferior as I watched the sisters in my ward and saw them planting gardens and canning the produce. They exercised daily by jogging. They sewed and bargain-shopped. … They took dinners to new mothers and the sick in their neighborhoods. They took care of an aged parent, sometimes two. … They were faithful in doing temple work, and they worried about catching up on their journals.

Intimidated by examples of perfection all around me, I increased my efforts to be like my sisters, and I felt disappointed in myself and even guilty when I didn’t run every morning, bake all my own bread, sew my own clothes, or go to the university. I felt that I needed to be like the women among whom I was living, and I felt that I was a failure because I was not able to adapt myself easily to their lifestyles.

I could have benefited at this time from the story of a six-year-old who, when asked by a relative, “What do you want to be?” replied, “I think I’ll just be myself. I have tried to be like someone else. I have failed each time!” Like this child, after repeated failure to be someone else, I finally learned that I should be myself. That is often not easy, however, because our desires to fit in, to compete and impress, or even simply to be approved of lead us to imitate others and devalue our own backgrounds, our own talents, and our own burdens and challenges. … I had to learn to overcome my anxious feeling that if I didn’t conform, I simply did not measure up.

… When I tried to copy my wonderful sisters as I taught my class with a special centerpiece and other teaching techniques that were unfamiliar to me, I failed because the Spirit still talks to me in German, not in English. But when I got on my knees to ask for help, I learned to depend on the Spirit to guide me, secure in the knowledge that I am a daughter of God. I had to learn and believe that I did not need to compete with others to be loved and accepted by my Heavenly Father. …

A few minutes later, Tyler heard his father come home and ran out to tell him about the name tag.
“You know,” his father said, “not all missionaries wear name tags. When I was a missionary, we didn’t have name tags.”
Tyler was surprised. “How did people know you believed in Jesus Christ?”
“We told them,” Dad said. “And we tried to show them by the way we acted.”
That evening Tyler and his parents went to the stake center because one of his friends was getting baptized. During the meeting, a speaker talked about Jesus Christ. “If we try to live as He did,” the man said, “then people will know that we believe in Him.”
Tyler thought about that as they went home. Remembering what Dad had said, too, he suddenly knew what he could do.
“Mom! Dad!” he said excitedly. “There is a name tag I can wear that won’t get ruined or lost—an invisible one! If I try my hardest to live like Jesus Christ did, it’s like telling people I believe in Him. It’s like wearing an invisible name tag!”
Dad smiled. “You’re right, son.”
Mom hugged Tyler. “I’ve already seen your invisible name tag.”
“You have?” Tyler asked, looking down at his shirt.
“Yes, it’s been there,” replied his mother. “Each time you’ve been helpful and kind—like when you washed the dishes for your sister, and when you helped little Jimmy—your name tag was there.”
Tyler looked down again. He didn’t see the invisible name tag, but his mother had seen it. He hoped other people would see it, too, because he wanted everyone to know that he believed in Jesus Christ.

NOTE: Elder David B. Haight, of the Quorum of the Twelve, was so impressed with a letter he received from eleven-year-old Brennon Fuelling of Oakley, Utah, that he suggested it be printed in the Friend. He had asked Brennon in person what he was doing for the Church, and Brennon had replied, “Well, I helped people join.” At Elder Haight’s request, and with the hope that other boys and girls will catch the spirit of missionary work, Brennon explains in the following letter what he did recently to help someone join the Church.
Dear Elder Haight,
Five months before Christmas, a family consisting of a husband, a wife, and their twin boys came to our door to ask if the house right by us was for rent. We said yes and took them over to show them around. They said it was nice and that they would think about it.
Well, the next day we received a phone call. It was from Mr. Nacy, the father of the family that had knocked on our door. He told us they would move into the house within two days, so I took over the lawn mower and started mowing the lawn and cleaning up the yard. When the Nacys got there with the moving van and saw me working on the yard, Mr. Nacy offered to pay me, but I refused. I helped them move in.
As the days passed, I started wondering if the Nacys were Mormons. I asked Mom and Dad if they knew, but they said they probably weren’t because the Nacys hadn’t attended our church.
I went over the next day, and Mrs. Nacy answered the door. I asked if they were Mormons. She said that she was a Baptist and that Mr. Nacy was a Mormon. I asked if they would like to come to church with us the next Sunday. It was stake conference, and I told them what time church started and everything.
Sunday I saw the Nacys in church on the front row.
The next day I went over and asked if they enjoyed the meeting, and they said yes. Later, a little before Christmas, I asked if they had a Christmas tree. Mrs. Nacy said no. I knew we had an extra one, so I told her that I had better be going home, and I ran over and got our extra Christmas tree. I took it over and gave it to her and said it was a Christmas present from me.
The Nacys moved shortly after Christmas. And last summer when I was hauling hay, Mr. Nacy stopped and told us his wife had been baptized.
Respectfully,
Brennon Fuelling

Jay stepped off the bus and slung his big backpack over his shoulder. It was a long walk home, and his load was heavy.
He kept remembering the disappointed look on his teacher’s face when she realized he’d lied about his homework. He hadn’t meant to lie. Not really, anyway.
This whole mess started about two months ago.
“Hi, Jay,” Mom had said when he came home from school. “How was your day? Do you have any homework?”
His day had actually been pretty lousy, and he didn’t feel like doing homework.
“Uh, I don’t have any,” he’d said. “I finished it at school.” It was only a little lie, he thought. And besides, he told himself, he’d just do his homework on the bus ride the next morning, so maybe it didn’t even count.
As he trudged to his room, Jay ignored the queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
A few days later it happened again. When Mom asked about his homework, he pulled out his math worksheet but left the rest in his backpack. So easy!
Before long, though, his backpack was growing heavy with unfinished homework.
And then there was the whole school-lunch problem. A friend asked him a couple of weeks ago if he was sitting with the hot-lunch kids or the cold-lunch kids, and Jay ditched his sack lunch on the spot.
Over the next few weeks, Jay shoved several of his home lunches to the bottom of his backpack and tried to ignore them. Mom never went through his bag, so how would she ever find out?
The problem was, as the backpack got heavier, so did his heart. Why did he always feel so rotten inside? He’d even started snapping at his little brother.
Jay dreaded seeing the look on his parents’ faces when they found out.
Walking in the door, he dropped his heavy backpack with a thud and slunk into the kitchen. “Hi, Mom,” he said.
She hugged him and stood back. “Jay, I got an email from your teacher today. She said you lied about your homework. We need to talk.”
Jay sat down at the table and buried his head in his arms as Mom opened his backpack.
“Honey, when did this thing get so heavy? What do you have in here?”
She pulled out two months of unfinished homework and at least six lunches.
Jay burst into tears. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just didn’t do my homework, and no one noticed. I’m so sorry! Can you and Dad forgive me?”
Mom sighed and pushed the pile of unfinished papers and moldy lunches aside. “Sweetheart,” she said, “We will always forgive you, but you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you here.”
“I’ll do it!” he said, looking up. Suddenly he felt hopeful for the first time in weeks. “I’ll do every page, and I’ll pay for the lunches too.”
He dashed to his room for his money box. “Here, Mom,” he said, pushing the dollars and change toward her. “There’s over 20 dollars; just take it all.”
Mom carefully counted out the necessary amount and gave him back the rest.
Walking back to return his box, Jay paused in his room. He knew he still had one more apology to make. Kneeling by his bed, he bowed his head and asked Heavenly Father to forgive him. Then he ran back to the kitchen table to start his homework.
The next morning before school, Jay grabbed his backpack with his finished homework in it on his way out the door. “Hey!” he said to his mom, “This thing is so light! It’s like there’s nothing in it!”
He headed off with a smile. His backpack wasn’t the only thing that felt lighter. So did his heart.

In the meantime, however, Ed had set his sights on All-America status as a freshman in college. To be All-America, you have to finish in the top six among collegiate athletes at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) finals. It was an ambitious goal, but Ed’s times weren’t too far off, and, if he worked hard enough, he saw no reason why he couldn’t reach it.
He came close to reaching that goal, too, but another roadblock popped up. The finals were held in Austin, Texas, right in the middle of one of the severest heat waves on record. Ed, however, was paying more attention to the race than to the heat. He was running the 10K, which is 25 laps around the track, and about halfway through, he was in the sixth position, which is exactly where he wanted to be. Suddenly, one of the runners in front of him started to wobble, then passed out on the side of the track from heat prostration.
Ed was now in the number five position. If he could hold it, he’d be an All-American in his freshman year for sure. Then, with about three laps to go, Ed felt the two runners behind him begin to gain on him. He knew he couldn’t let them pass, and he exerted all the effort he could to stay ahead. But suddenly, “everything went fuzzy around the edges, and instead of running straight, I was running to the left and to the right. I was doing what the guy in front of me had been doing before he dropped out. I guess I was feeling the effect of the heat. I don’t remember much after that, but a half a lap later I was dragged off the track by my coach and a few teammates, and I remember waking up in the training room in a tub of cold water with some ice in it. I went back to my hotel room just thinking that I blew it,” he said.
But this time there was a hand outstretched, waiting to help him over that particular barrier. “One of my coaches came by to talk,” Ed relates.
The coach was also a rancher and said, “Ed, I’ve worked a lot with runners, and I’ve worked a lot with animals, and I just want you to know that today you ran like a horse.”
“I didn’t exactly know how to take that,” Ed confided, “but then the coach explained, ‘You can take a good mule out and work with it, and it will do what you want it to until it gets tired. Then it will just sit down. And you can kick it and beat it and do whatever, but until it’s good and rested, it’s not going to budge. But you can take a good horse, and that horse will work for you until it drops over from exhaustion. Today, you ran like a horse, Ed.’
“I learned a great lesson that can be applied in jobs or studies or any aspect of life, really,” Ed relates. He realized that the endurance to follow a job through and give your all is more important than the final outcome. It’s the ultimate effort you put into anything that makes it worthwhile.

Elder Meurs told the story of his parents, who lived in the area, joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1958.

Fred and Lois Meurs, strong Christians from different faiths were actively searching for someone to answer their gospel questions. After carefully studying the New Testament, they began to search for a church that had teachings that were consistent with Jesus’s teachings.

They had questions about the purpose of life, priesthood authority, what happens when we die, ordinances like baptism, and the role of prophets and apostles. They had spoken to the religious leaders of the community, but no one could give them the answers they were searching for. They began to earnestly pray for someone to answer their questions.

That same week, two full-time missionaries, Elder Jones and Elder Erikson, knocked on their door and said they had a message about Jesus Christ to share with them. Fred and Lois asked them all their questions, and the missionaries answered every one. Three weeks later the Meurs were baptised and confirmed. Some other families joined soon after, and the first Warrnambool Branch was formed.

Seventh, we must live our religion. We must each consistently live our religion so that other people will recognize what we stand for. Many years ago now, when I served in the armed forces, I think I never had a close non-Mormon companion who didn’t know that I was a member of the Church and who didn’t know I had been a missionary. They treated me with the utmost respect and admired my standards. I don’t believe that I ever gave my companions cause to think less of the Church in all those years that I served with them.
One of those companions joined the Church. I didn’t preach a word to him about the gospel. Somebody else found him and taught him, but I suppose he remembered a young fellow named Bangerter who was a Mormon and remembered the way I had lived. I hope so.

After junior college, Kalin was heavily recruited. He made a recruiting trip to BYU. A couple of hours into the tour, Kalin used the phrase made famous by Brigham Young. “This is the right place.” He did have one condition before he would agree to come to BYU. He told the BYU coaches he wanted the chance to talk at firesides, to share his story with young people who might be helped by what he had to say. They smiled and said there would be no problem. He’d have more chances to speak than he would know what to do with.
Kalin’s interest in the choices young people are making with their lives has decided his major. He’s in social work. He intends to finish his degree and work with children. He’s so determined to make this goal that he is concentrating on finishing his degree and perhaps going on for a master’s.
Here’s the advice he has for kids: “Be your own person. Be a leader. The hardest thing is to stand up for yourself and what you believe in. Don’t get caught up in being a follower. If you have to, move on to another set of friends or be a loner for a while.”
As a running back on the BYU football team, Kalin’s athletic talents are evident. He’s hard to stop. But he has a very healthy attitude about sports in general. “Athletics is not the most important thing in the world. But they can be used as a positive tool in your life. For me, it’s been very positive.”
Football has given Kalin the opportunity to go to college. College led Kalin to the gospel. The gospel directed him to BYU, where he met and married his wife, Holly Hamilton, in the temple. The temple can lead them to an eternal family, a concept that is extremely meaningful to an only child who spent a lot of time alone.
If asked, Kalin will tell you about a favorite scripture. It’s the one in Alma about nourishing a seed (see Alma 32:28–43). Kalin says, “The seed was planted when I first started to turn my life around. Then the gospel came, and that’s when the seed was covered by the soil. When I read the scriptures, that’s when I nourished the seed, and it keeps growing as I gain more insight into the gospel. That’s how you progress.”
Sounds like a ball carrier who is on the ball.

When I was 10 and living in Taiwan, my grandmother introduced the missionaries to our family. My dad was able to baptize me, my mom, and my brother. However, soon after we were sealed in the temple, the rest of my family stopped attending church.
So, naturally, the responsibility of family history work fell on my shoulders. But that task was never easy for me.
I tried to follow the invitations from our Church leaders to do this sacred work, but because of various setbacks, I stopped putting in much effort.
For one, my parents never liked the idea of doing temple work for the dead. They felt that we were making the decision for our ancestors to receive ordinances and that it was disrespectful to their agency.
I also had a hard time finding information about my ancestors. Most Chinese families keep a book of genealogy called a zupu that contains records that trace as far back as 2000 B.C. But my family’s zupu didn’t have the birth and death years of my male ancestors or any information at all about my female ancestors, so I couldn’t submit names to the temple or perform ordinances for my ancestors.
After these setbacks, I gave up on my family history efforts.
By the time I got to college, I hadn’t thought about family history for years. Then, during one semester, my stake encouraged us to set a goal to take a family name to the temple. Our stake leaders promised us that if we would pray before we started doing family history work, we would be led to the ancestors who wanted their ordinances done.
At first, I wasn’t really excited about this invitation. I had already tried and failed before.
However, as I prayed every day to have success in my family history work and for a desire to keep moving forward in my efforts, my heart was softened. And soon enough, I did start feeling a desire to begin again.
One night, I felt a strong prompting to open up my family tree on FamilySearch and research one particular line of ancestors. After unsuccessfully searching a few different names in a search engine, I found a web page for one of my ancestors.
Apparently, this ancestor was a prominent figure during the revolution in Taiwan, and all his information was recorded on this page, with sources attached. From there, I was able to find more information about his children and parents.
Through that random internet search, I was able to find and submit six names to the temple that day, and within a month I had submitted over 50 names.
It was incredible.

Recently at a stake conference a young man was called to the pulpit with only a few moments’ notice. He said he had been away to school and had come home to find a very dear friend in trouble. She had become enmeshed in the drug scene and had been tragically hurt. The young man sought the Lord in prayer, crying out for strength to help his friend. “For the first time in my life I truly forgot myself,” he said. “While I prayed I came to a consciousness I had never before possessed. My concern for her was honest and intense and without self-reference, and I knew as I prayed that the love and concern of Almighty God for me and for my friend were pure and real and very personal.”

That is how a legacy of testimony is created, preserved, and transmitted in a family. It isn’t easy, but ordinary people have done it. Like many of you, I had such ancestors. One was my great-grandfather John Bennion. We cannot duplicate what he did because the world has changed, but we can learn from it.

He was a convert to the Church from Wales. He, his wife, and his children came into the Salt Lake Valley in one of the early companies of pioneers. We know something of his life because after that time he kept a journal, making a short entry nearly every day. We have the journals from 1855 to 1877. They were published in one bound volume because his descendants hoped to transmit that legacy of testimony. My mother was one of them. Her last labor before she died was to transform the daybooks in which he’d written into a manuscript for publication.

His short entries don’t have much preaching in them. He doesn’t testify that he knew Brigham Young was a prophet. He just records having answered “yes” every time the prophet called him on a mission from “over Jordan” to the Muddy mission, then on to a mission back to Wales. He also answered “yes” to the call to ride into the canyons to track Johnston’s army and the call to take his family south when the army invaded the valley. There is even a family legend that the reason he died so close to the day when Brigham Young was buried was to follow the prophet one more time.

The fact that he wrote every day makes clear to me that he knew his ordinary life was historic because it was part of the building of Zion in the latter days. The few entries which record his testimony seem to appear when death took a child. His testimony is to me more powerful because he offered it when his soul was tried.

Here is his record of one of those times. His daughter Elizabeth died in his arms. He reported her burial and the location of her grave in a few lines. But then the next day, November 4, 1863, this is the entire entry:

“Wednesday. Repairing up the stable my little children pratling around me but I miss my dear Lizzy. I pray the Lord to help me to indure faithfull to his cause to the end of my days, that I may be worthy to receive my children back into the family circle, who have fallen asleep in Christ in the days of their innocence Ann, Moroni, Esther Ellen & Elizabeth, blessed & happy are they because of the atonement of Jesus Christ.”

All the elements are there. He taught the truth. He testified that it was true. He lived consistent with his testimony and prayed that he might endure faithful until he could be united with his dear family. I feel his love and a desire to be included in that circle.

From the time I was eight years old until I was fifteen, my parents owned and operated a flower shop. It was a family business, and everyone in the family—my parents; my older sister, Pat; my younger brother, Steve; and I—helped in either the shop or the greenhouse. We all helped in delivering the orders.
During the spring, I transplanted flowers in the greenhouse after school and on Saturdays. Another of my responsibilities was to water all the flowers and green potted plants in the large showroom. My father also worked for the railroad, so while he was gone during the day, my mother operated the shop. Holidays were very busy times in the shop. We often worked long into the night, getting orders ready.
Every summer my parents closed the flower shop for two weeks so that we could go on a family vacation. We often went to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. One year we visited a redwood forest in northern California.
When I was about twelve, my parents planned the most exciting trip of all! My father ordered a new car from Detroit, then scheduled his vacation for the following summer, when it would be ready. Our plan was to take the train to Detroit, pick up the car, drive east to New York City and Washington, D.C., and then drive home. We were all very excited that whole year as we planned the trip. By the time school was out for summer vacation, we could not think or talk about anything else.
One day, about two weeks before we were to leave, Dad came home from work with a worried look on his face, and I knew that something was bothering him. He told us that some unexpected things had come up at his office. He would not be able to leave, and we could not take the vacation we had planned. It was hard to believe what we were hearing, and the disappointment was almost more than we could bear. Dad said that Mother, my older sister, and my aunt would take the train to Detroit and pick up the car. I would have to stay home to take care of Steve, who was eight.
At first I felt it was unfair that I should be the one to stay home, but my father explained that my sister, who was then sixteen, could help Mother with the driving, and I was needed to help with my brother. I felt an ache in my heart that I didn’t think would ever go away.
One day after my mother and sister had been gone about a week, Steve was playing with some of his friends in the field up the street. They had made a fire and put a can of water on it. One of the boys accidentally kicked the can, and the boiling water splashed all over Steve’s stomach, burning him badly.
For the next week, I sat with him as he lay on the couch, unable to move. I found things to do with him that helped to get his mind off his pain. We played lots of games. One of our favorites was Fish, a card game. I also read to him. My father told me how thankful he was to have me there. I found that I was no longer thinking about my disappointment; instead, I was thinking about how I could help my brother feel better. And the ache in my heart was gone.
Dad surprised us at the end of the week—the three of us got on the train for Denver, where we would meet my mother, aunt, and sister. I will never forget seeing my brother stretched out on the train seat, unable to sit up because the burn on his stomach had still not healed. For a few days, we stayed with my uncle who lived in Denver; then the six of us drove home in our new car. Even though the trip was shorter and less scenic than a trip to the East Coast, it was enjoyable because our family was all together.
Giving up the trip to Detroit, New York City, and Washington, D.C., was a very difficult experience for me, yet I knew how much it meant to my brother to have me there. I understood why my family needed me to stay home, and it gave me a good feeling to know that I was needed and that I had chosen the right. My brother and I became very close through this experience. We found that we enjoyed spending time together long after he recovered from the burn. As adults, we are still close.

Shortly after I joined the Church, a Relief Society leader was joking about funny situations. Suddenly she started joking about me in front of everybody. I felt uncomfortable and let myself be offended.
My first thought was not to return to the ward. I opened my scriptures, trying to find comfort. As I read, I came across a verse where Jesus asked those offended by His teachings, “Will ye also go away?” (John 6:67).
Immediately, I answered in mind, “No, I will not go away!”
I called the Relief Society president, who recommended that I call the sister who had joked about me. I called her and expressed my feelings. We concluded that a sense of humor is great but that we shouldn’t joke about someone we don’t know in front of a group of people. We also talked about being sensitive to new ward members.
I continued attending that ward while I lived in that city. I had many wonderful experiences following my conversion to the gospel.

I have never regretted getting close to someone to more genuinely serve him or her. I do, however, regret the times I have failed to do so. Many years ago I was practicing law at a firm in Salt Lake City. Every morning I would drive to the light-rail station near my house, park my car, and take the train into downtown Salt Lake. One morning I was running very late. I parked my car just as a train pulled into the station, and I rushed toward it. Ordinarily I had more time to evaluate the cars and select the car that appeared to have the most open seating. This time, though, I rushed onto the closest car. To my surprise and delight, I found the car completely empty. But as soon as I sat down, I understood why.
An elderly man in worn and heavily soiled clothes sat slumped and crumpled on the floor at the opposite end of the car. His fingernails were long and jagged, his hair was dirty, and it was clear from the smell in the car that he had not bathed in some time. My heart ached for him. Some part of me wanted to help him, but I didn’t know how. I worried about embarrassing him or embarrassing myself by trying to help. I worried about being late for work and about getting my clothes dirty.
I wavered too long. A couple of stations down the track, a man, dressed as if he too had a job downtown, entered the car near where the old man sat. Instead of turning around and finding a different car, as many others had done, he reached down, pulled the man up toward him, wrapped his arms around him, and gently helped him off the train.
I don’t know what happened after that. But the rescuer did not get back on the train. He likely didn’t make it to work that morning. He probably got his clothes dirty. He got physically close and gave of himself. I wish I had had the courage to do that. But I am also grateful for that lesson. I am working on better recognizing and seizing opportunities to love my neighbor—el prójimo.

It was a hot and humid June day in Brooklyn, New York, USA. I was touring a Hasidic Jewish community with several other Brigham Young University communications students. Despite the weather, the man giving us the tour was covered from head to toe in dark clothing—from his black top hat to his dark suit to his formal shoes. As we walked around the neighborhood, we passed other members of the community, all similarly dressed. We then traveled to the wig shop, where we learned that Hasidic Jewish women wear wigs and long dresses.
I could only imagine how hot and uncomfortable that all would be, especially during a humid New York summer. And yet this was their lives—every single day. They dressed like this as part of their religion to show their devotion to God.
In a way, I could understand their commitment. We had those among us who had been endowed in the temple and were wearing the temple garment beneath their clothing. We all had made covenants with God through baptism and did things regularly that showed our devotion to God and to our beliefs. But it was interesting to see devotion shown in a different way than I was used to.
And it made me really think about how much I could learn from other people’s religious practices—and how that could help me be more intentional in how I worship and show my devotion to God.
We entered our tour guide’s home and saw his family’s kosher kitchen, consisting of two ovens, two stovetops, and two sinks. This was to keep the meat and dairy separate while cooking, since the two food groups are not allowed to touch.
I have often reflected on that hot and humid day in New York. I was so inspired by our Jewish tour guide’s devotion to live his religion not only on the Sabbath but every single day. That experience, and others, has allowed me to contemplate how I can better show God my devotion to Him and His gospel through my everyday actions.

A young college student found herself almost overwhelmed by personal and family difficulties. “It was a time of grief and loneliness,” she recalls. “Then, Lila, a young woman who served with me in a ward calling, began stopping by my apartment to visit with me. Again and again her visits came at the very moments when I felt nearest despair. Her friendship gave me the courage to go on—not only because it lifted me—but because it showed me that my Heavenly Father knew my need.”