Gospel Story Finder

Young Tommy Monson had always wanted a pony. He often admired his friend Henry’s Shetland pony. Wouldn’t he love to have one too!
One December, right before Christmas, Tommy’s mother took him to the toy department of a store in Salt Lake City. The store was going to give away a Shetland pony! To enter the contest, children had to write a note telling why they wanted the pony for Christmas. Tommy carefully wrote his note and placed it in the large box right next to the live pony in the toy department.
Finally the day came when the winner of the pony was going to be announced. Tommy and his mother waited in the excited crowd. Tommy was sure he would win the pony. He had already made a home for it in his sister’s playhouse in the backyard and stacked a pile of hay nearby. But when the name was chosen out of the box, it wasn’t Tommy’s name. Another child took the pony home, and Tommy was heartbroken.
As they left the store, Tommy and his mother walked past a man ringing a bell beside a small kettle to collect money for the poor. Tommy’s mother stopped and dropped in a big silver coin. Then she asked, “Tommy, do you have any money you would like to give to the poor for Christmas?” Tommy reached in his pocket, pulled out two nickels, and dropped them into the kettle, one after the other. It was all the money he had.
President Monson still remembers that day. “I didn’t win the pony,” he recalls. “But I received a far greater gift, even ‘the smile of God’s approval.’” It was a good Christmas after all.

As clear evidence that the Lord loves His people in every dispensation of time, we have modern witnesses of the resurrection as well. The Prophet Joseph Smith, as a young boy with a desire to know which of the churches in his day was the true church of Christ on the earth, knelt in a grove of trees near his home and asked of God. He gave this account of his First Vision.

"So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of 1820. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.
"After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God... I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me...When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other - This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"[24]

Several horses were dozing against the pasture fence as we turned into the cemetery. A stylish palomino raised its head. It looked like the horse owned by that blonde down in Glenville.
“You better not let her beat you at the barrels,” Grandma had said.
There is something I can do for Grandma, I thought. I can beat the rodeo queen in the barrel racing competition.
I was next. Ginger knew it too. She kept prancing sideways and tugging on the reins.
“Easy, girl. Don’t get all worked up before we get out there.”
The afternoon was warm. Sweat was already seeping from under Ginger’s saddle blanket. The reins felt sticky in my fingers.
The crowd roared as last year’s rodeo queen zoomed out for her turn at the barrels. I could see her blonde braids streaming behind her. She zipped sleekly around the first barrel and bolted for the next.
This blonde and I were the last two barrel racers. The other competitors’ times had been mediocre, so I felt Ginger and I still had a chance.
The rodeo queen circled the second barrel without a hitch. Uneasily, I eyed the last barrel. Maybe she would tip it over and get disqualified.
I could see the girl and her horse lean together around the third barrel. It was too close. The barrel rocked wildly. But it didn’t go over. At least it might have knocked a couple of seconds off her time. The crowd thundered as she spurted toward the finish.
I’ll show them, I thought, as I positioned Ginger for a run into the arena. But I was scared.
I charged out. The flag dropped at the starting line as Ginger and I flashed past. I hadn’t thought of Grandma until that very second. Suddenly I had a feeling that beating this rodeo queen was not what Grandma had in mind.
Ginger’s black mane flew in my face as I reined her low around the right barrel. She veered around it smooth and tight—just like a pro. I didn’t feel as much like a pro. I was slightly off balance and bumpy as we raced down the arena to the far barrel. Ginger went a little wide on this barrel, but we were still on target.
Now for the last barrel. I was in her rhythm again, so my confidence rose. “Dig, Ginger, dig,” I whispered, leaning over her neck.
She flicked her ear back briefly. I felt the tremble before blastoff.
Then we were hurtling toward the last barrel. Too fast. I tried to check her, but we were already swerving steeply around the barrel. I was off balance, askew in my stirrups. Ginger was sliding. Too far. We were falling. In slow motion, we were crashing into the barrel. Grandma’s sad gray eyes flashed before me. “You can do it,” she was saying.
“I’m sorry, Grandma. I thought I could beat her.”
I was falling.
“I was never too good with words,” said Grandma. “But you are.”
“No, my words hurt you.”
Falling. Falling.
“It’s okay,” whispered Grandma. “I know you can write it.”
“Write what?” I muttered.
Then I hit the barrel.
When I came to, I was deep in rodeo arena dirt, and Ginger’s hot breath was in my face. But I knew what I needed to do.
A cowboy was leaning over me. “Write what?” he said.
“Did I say something?” I asked.
“You keep saying you need to write something.”
I rolled to my feet. “That’s right. I do need to write it.”
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m just fine.”
I started by interviewing Grandma’s seven sons. They each gave me a different view of Grandma’s life.
“Mom was the only widow I knew who could get seven kids ready for church and still be five minutes early,” said Uncle Orvil.
“Mom would feed every hobo who’d come along the tracks,” said Uncle Russ. “I was scared of them and would hide behind her skirts. But she wasn’t scared. She’d just put them to work chopping wood.”
“I remember Mom telling me that she wanted to be Annie Oakley when she was little,” said Uncle Rolfe, “so she took her stick horse and ran away. She was gone for most of the day. Half the county was looking for her. They finally found her fast asleep in a pasture full of unbroken mustangs.”
“Long before anyone had heard of family home evening, Mom had what she called family time once a week,” said Uncle Matt. “There was no getting around it. We had to be there.”
None of my uncles knew much about the chestnut horse or the rodeo saddle.
“Mom kept pretty silent on some things,” said Sid, my oldest uncle. “All I know is that she didn’t have that horse very long.”
He motioned to several boxes of scrapbooks and letters. “But you might find something there. You’re welcome to take them home with you.”
Digging through the scrapbooks, I finally found a small picture of Grandma on her chestnut horse. “Me and Flash, 1930” was scrawled on the back. I was surprised how much Grandma looked like me sitting on that horse. Straight brown hair and freckles.
When my great-uncle Al came to town, I asked him, “Do you know any other stories about Grandma besides the ones you told at the funeral?”
“Oh, I’m chock-full of tales about my sister,” he said. “I remember her first date with your Grandpa.”
Date? It had never occurred to me that someone would actually remember Grandma going on a date.
“To be honest, I remember her second date better. It was almost the last. Her first date was kind of normal. She came home with this goofy smile on her face and walked past me like I didn’t exist. But on her second date, she came home scratching like a hen in the barnyard. I thought she must have fleas. She kept yelling, ‘I can’t stand it,’ all the while yanking at her clothes and peeling down her socks. Come to find out, Harry’s old Plymouth also served as a truck. He’d forgotten to take the chicken feed sacks out in time for his date. Harry and Annie got covered with chicken mites. They were scratching like a couple of dogs all night and didn’t dare say a word to each other. Luckily, chicken mites would rather be on chickens than people, so Annie got over it quick. But it took a few weeks for her and Harry to get back together.”
Uncle Al and my dad were laughing so hard tears were running down their cheeks. Suddenly I remembered the words from the funeral. “Whoever does Annie’s life story is in for a few laughs.”
Uncle Al knew a little more about her chestnut horse. “Oh, yes, how she loved that little mare. Annie’s dream was to become a trick rider and ride in rodeos and wild west shows.”
“A trick rider?”
“Yep, she got pretty good at it too, considering she didn’t have that horse very long. I did watch her fall a few times in the pasture.”
“Did she barrel race too?”
“Oh, no, that was before the days of barrel racing,” he said. “But she did enter some sort of horsemanship event at the rodeo. Maybe you’ve heard about the saddle she won?”
I nodded.
Uncle Al shook his head. “It’s too bad about that saddle. I don’t think she ever got to use it.”
“She didn’t?” I said.
“Nope. She sold Flash right after that.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I have my suspicions. But the person who might know is my brother Bill.”
I hugged my notebook as I entered the rest home. Uncle Bill, Grandma’s next oldest brother, always made me a little nervous. He tended to get confused when he talked. But today he seemed sharp.
“Why did Annie sell her horse?” he repeated, leaning forward in his wheelchair. “Well, the Depression was coming on. I told her it didn’t matter; I could earn the money myself. But she had already made up her mind. Maybe you know how bullheaded she could be. She wanted to do her part for my mission. She said she couldn’t stand watching Flash eat hay in the barn while I might be hungry in England.”
“And she sold her new rodeo saddle too?” I said.
“Well, I don’t recollect that she did,” replied Uncle Bill, scratching the top of his head. “I think she kept that saddle a long time, hoping to buy another horse so she could be a trick rider. Then later on she hoped to have a daughter to give it to. To be honest, I don’t know what happened to that saddle.”
I had almost completed Grandma’s history by the time I found out what happened to her prize saddle. I ran across a letter from Bishop Jensen in the box of papers Uncle Sid had given me.
“Dear Annie: I know how you like your gifts to be anonymous. But I just wanted to tell you how thrilled the Hansens are with your saddle. They were afraid of paralysis after the accident, but now their little Marie seems determined to put that saddle on a horse. I knew you wanted your saddle to go to a girl who loves horses, and there’s no doubt Marie loves horses.”
I finished Grandma’s history and made copies for my family. Everyone was thrilled, including Bishop Jensen, who turned 100 years old the day I gave him his copy.
By the way, I never did beat that sassy blonde from Glenville in the barrels. She got married that summer and moved away. But the next year, I shortened my stirrups a notch like Grandma said and won second place. First place went to Rebecca Williams, who happened to be “little” Marie Hansen’s daughter.
Grandma’s saddle deserved to win first.

Driving one of the 40 wagons in the Joseph W. Young wagon train, Zeb rolled out of Salt Lake City around April 23, 1861. Three other trains left too, making 200 wagons total heading east that week.
The Utah trains did not travel empty. “In my wagon,” Zeb wrote, “I had a couple of ladies to take East; they are going to Boston.” But his delight in escorting the ladies was short-lived. A westbound company brought news from “the States” that civil war had broken out, so the ladies decided to return to Utah with that company.

I sat in the temple waiting to do baptisms for the dead, and I prayed. I was 20 years old, and I wanted to know: Should I serve a full-time mission? I had been feeling that the answer was no, but I wanted to ask once and for all.
Suddenly I shivered all over, as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over me. No was the impression I felt. No mission for me.
Although I knew the expectation for young women to go on missions is not the same as for young men, I was confused. Why did the Spirit encourage me not to serve? Wouldn’t I be good at spreading the gospel?
As some of my friends received mission calls, I sometimes wondered what my future would hold. My 21st birthday was approaching, and I couldn’t help thinking, “There’s still time to be interviewed and submit my mission papers.”
I was studying in England when my parents called me. I could hear my mother crying as she told me the devastating news. She had been diagnosed with cancer.
By the time I came home to the United States a month later, chemotherapy was making Mom weak. I started helping around the house, learning to manage chores and meals. I also spent hours talking to Mom, fearful that I might lose her. I learned that managing a household is complicated, time-consuming work, and I gained a new appreciation for Mom’s efforts over the years. I barely managed to put decent dinners on the table.
Fortunately, our ward members and others in the community gathered to help us.
Mom’s treatment went on, and meanwhile our family grew closer. Mom told us stories about her youth, and we played lots of board games. We talked about the scriptures. My dad shared his fears with me as well as his testimony.
That summer, I learned eternal lessons. I knew my place for now was at home. My testimony grew as I felt Heavenly Father’s love all summer long. I became better friends with the ward members I had known all my life. My family grew closer, comforted by the knowledge that our family ties would last beyond death. I thanked the Lord for answering my question about serving a mission, guiding me to be with my family.
Editor’s note: Since her treatments, the author’s mother has recovered her health.
[illustrations] Illustrated by Greg Hally

Let me give you an example. About four years ago, I had such an experience. My lesson came late in the night one Saturday night from a very pure source. On that day, I was called to serve as the stake president of the Rexburg Idaho North Stake. In the morning, two stakes would come together to become three in a gathering so large it was moved to the Hart gym here on campus. I would be sustained and set apart as a stake president. As you can imagine, it was a fairly restless night. I tried to go to sleep that night, but it was useless. I got up and sat on the couch in my front room. I thought about what all this would mean.

Then came the questions. Why me? Did Heavenly Father really know what he was doing? Did he know what this was going to mean for me and my young family? I was sure I was not qualified to be a stake president; I was going to need to make some changes. Changes I wasn't sure I wanted to make. Nothing major of course, after all I was serving as a Bishop, but I could do much, much better. As a sat pondering all these changes, my then four-year-old daughter, noticing that the light was on, crawled out of bed, came into the front room, and sat on my lap. Wiping her eyes she gave me a look as if to say, "Well, I'm here, now what?"

So, I began to explain my problem to her. "Hallie, Daddy's got a problem. You see I have to talk in church tomorrow to a lot of people, and I'm not sure what to say. But I want to sound smart and maybe just a little funny. I want to say something that they are going to remember, so what should I say?"

(All good questions for a four year old at 1:00 in the morning.) She took my question seriously. She, too, pondered for a moment. She scratched her head, she thought hard, and then it came to her. She pointed at me with her little finger and said, "I know, I know, Dad. Tell them about Jesus." (Not a bad response). I didn't say anything, I just looked at her and thought, "You are one smart little girl. You must get that from me." (The whole humility thing hadn't quite set in yet.) Apparently, I wasn't convincing enough for her because she then took my face in her hands and said, "You know dad, He lived. Then He died. Then He lived again."

"That is right, sweetheart. That is right. We call that the Resurrection."

"Oh," she replied, "I didn't know that." She nestled down in my lap and went back to sleep. As she dosed off, she again offered one more reminder, "Tell them, Dad. Tell them about Jesus."

A simple reminder of the power of choices that we make and where true joy comes from. A reminder that if we want to find joy often we need to set our own concerns aside, and find our Savior.

One of the president’s sons gives this poignant insight into his father’s character and to the source of President Smith’s great inner strength:
“As children, so frequently we would hear him say, ‘If only the people in the world would understand the trials, the tribulations, the sins our Lord took upon himself for our benefit.’ Whenever he would refer to this, tears would come into his eyes.
“A few years ago, as I sat alone with my father in his study, I observed that he had been in deep meditation. I hesitated to break the silence, but finally he spoke. ‘Oh, my son, I wish you could have been with me last Thursday as I met with my Brethren in the temple. Oh, if you could have heard them testify of their love for their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!’ And then he lowered his head, and tears streamed from his face and dropped to his shirt. Then, after many seconds, without as much as raising his head, but moving his head back and forth, he said, ‘Oh, how I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!’”

In my early years as a BYU faculty member, I was anxious to make a research contribution to my discipline that would be of enduring value. At the time, my research focused on the study of the heat transfer and flow characteristics of liquid jets striking hot surfaces. Liquid jets offer the potential of the most effective heat removal of any cooling configuration. My research group had been studying through careful experiments the cooling effectiveness of liquid jets impinging against hot surfaces, and I was anxious to conceive an experimental program that would provide understanding into the detailed nature of the liquid flow of the problem.

Around that time I attended a research conference in Boston. I was seated in a lecture room of the conference venue listening to a technical presentation when an idea burst into my mind. I remember nothing about the presentation, but the impression came to me so powerfully that I remember to this day how the lecture room was configured, where I was seated in the room, and the impression that came. What was presented in my mind was a radically different experimental approach for studying the liquid flow directly under a liquid jet and in the very thin layer that forms. I returned from that conference and shared the impression with my PhD student, and we pursued that novel approach for the next several years. Using laser instrumentation, we imaged the flow in the jet as it struck a transparent plate and looked at it from the back side. Now I am confident that the idea came to me by the Holy Ghost.

The result of our work in that experimental effort didn’t change the world, but it did bring new understanding to a difficult problem, impacting both the academic knowledge and the industrial implementation of this cooling technique. I ask myself, “Why would God want to share that impression with me?” I believe it was, in part, to demonstrate to me early in my career that learning is always magnified by the Holy Ghost—to tutor me in the divine direction to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” I have witnessed this pattern repeatedly in my research activity at BYU. Most important, I have seen it manifest in my students as we have worked together.

Ryan: When I was about 12 years old I went to a friend’s house and found him and a bunch of neighborhood boys gathered around the computer. I joked, “Hey, are you guys looking at pornography?”
They said, “How did you guess? Come check this out.”
That was the beginning of a problem in my life. I soon began using our family computer to find more and more images.

I felt relief when I stopped pretending. Sharing the burden with my bishop and my family meant I no longer had to deal with this addiction alone. Now I hold on to this support system.
A problem that dominated my youth could not be overcome overnight. This road has been long and hard—and it continues. It isn’t enough anymore to look happy. I want to be happy. I am coming to know Christ and the Atonement with much deeper and more personal meaning. The Atonement gives me the strength I need so my self-confidence and self-respect grow step by step each day.
I was honest with my bishop. And when my dad talked to me about the Internet sites I was visiting, I was honest with him too. We worked on the problem together. We decided not to have the Internet in our home for a while. That was a big help.
I’m turning 16 soon, and I’m glad I decided not to let pornography control my life. I feel better about myself, and I think about young women differently than I did before. With my bishop’s help, I’m preparing now for the temple, a mission, and a great marriage one day.

My grandmother left Lithuania after the First World War. Her husband had died fighting in the First World War. So, alone, she gathered her resources and travelled with her four children to Brazil to start a new life. It must have seemed to her that she was leaving her heritage behind, along with family, friends, and culture. She was traveling alone across the world to a country that did not speak her language. She knew she would never see her homeland again, but she couldn’t have imagined the importance that place would have for her grandchildren.
Twenty years ago, 60 years after that brave woman left her home, my brother Nelson and I travelled back to Lithuania together. We were on a journey to discover our long-lost family connection. We found more than we expected.
I believe we were moved by the spirit of Elijah to begin that search. We hoped, at least, to find the records of our ancestors so that we could give them the opportunity of receiving the covenants of God in the Lord’s House.
We only had scraps and pieces of clues to help us begin the search. We had a picture of a cousin named Marcelle who was a child when my grandmother left the country. We also had two postcards sent by Marcelle to our family in Brazil. They had been sent without a return address, but they had a post-office stamp naming the city from which it had been mailed. One postcard was mailed in 1935, and the other in 1945. They had been mailed from two different cities.
We would only be able to look for our family in Lithuania for four days before having to return home. Time was short. On our first day, we asked our guide to take us to the city the more recent postcard had been mailed from. We figured we should start there. We hoped the people in the most recent place she had lived might remember her.
After a two-hour drive, we noticed a mistake. Our guide had not followed our instructions. He had taken us to the city where the first postcard had come from. Disappointed, we asked the guide to take us to a Catholic Church, hoping we could find some information about the whereabouts of our cousin Marcelle or her family.
I can still picture in my mind the small Catholic Church we were taken to. As we arrived, I saw a priest locking the gate leading to the entrance of the church. He appeared to just be leaving.
We parked our car quickly and hurried to stop the priest to ask him if he had ever heard of a Marcelle Aidukaitis. To our surprise, he told us that he had known a woman by that name. She was a nun who had passed away 10 years earlier. He did not know if this was the Marcelle we were looking for, but he said he knew where her family’s home was and would be willing to take us there.
The family we met was indeed the family we were looking for. We had found our family in Lithuania. We had found a needle in the haystack on our very first try. A real miracle.
I still think of how God guided us that day. First, contrary to our instructions, our guide took us to a different city than the one we were expecting to go to. Next, we arrived at the Catholic Church at the precise moment the priest who remembered Marcelle was leaving the premises. If we had been delayed by only 30 seconds on that two-hour drive, we would have missed the priest. If the priest had not needed to take the time to lock up, we would have missed him. If anything had gone differently, I have no idea if we would have been able to find our family during that trip—if ever.
But God knew our intent, and He guided us exactly to where we needed to be.
Three days later, we had a family reunion with the relatives we found in Lithuania. There were over 60 family members present. An incredible thing.
God is so interested that we take the names of our own relatives to the temple, and to perform saving ordinances for them, that He will intervene in our plans to help us find them. When we show the least interest in looking for them, He will do miracles.
I invite all to experiment with the hand of God in this work by doing what we can to bring our own deceased relatives to the temple. May God bless us in this great cause.

My friend Katie was sick. She’s in my class at school. She didn’t come to school for two months. I heard that the doctor didn’t know what was wrong with her. Everyone in class wrote get-well cards to her. We felt sorry for her.
I told my mother about Katie. We talked about it and thought that it was a good idea to fast for her. That Sunday, we prayed and fasted for her.
One Sunday, I made cookies and a card for her, and after church, I took them to her house. Her dad took the cookies and the card and said, “She is getting better and is coming to school tomorrow.” That made me feel very happy.
The next day at recess, we all were so happy that we crowded around her. We were happy to see her again.

A few years ago, my older sister Tamara was admitted to the hospital for jaw surgery about a week before Christmas. Since Christmas has always been the time when all my family can come together, it was hard to see my sister away from us in the hospital during this season. My whole family was scared for her, so we all prayed that the operation would go according to plan and that the surgeon and the nurses could give her proper care and restore her to good health soon.
The surgery was successful, and she stayed in the hospital a few nights while she recuperated. She couldn’t eat solid food, couldn’t speak very easily, and had to take pain medication. It was hard to see her suffer, but we all knew that Heavenly Father was with Tamara and that she would be home for Christmas Eve. And she was! She came home the night of the 23rd, and my whole family was able to sit together around the fire on Christmas Eve like we do every year.
We all learned to be more grateful that we can have not only each other but also the Holy Ghost and the Lord with us whenever we need Them. That Christmas I learned that love and family are more important than presents and that being with each other and remembering the birth of Christ are what matter most.

While I was in South America recently, Brother Roger Parra from Venezuela shared the following experience with me:
“In 2019 Venezuela was shaken by problems that caused a power blackout for five days.
“Chaos and anarchy reigned in the streets, and many desperate people did not have sufficient food.
“Some began looting food businesses, destroying everything in their path.
“As the owner of a small bakery, I was very worried about our business. As a family, we decided to give away all the food in our bakery to people in need.
“Through one very dark night riots were everywhere. My only concern was for the safety of my beloved wife and children.
“At dawn I went to our bakery. Sadly, every nearby food business had been destroyed by looters, but to my great astonishment, our bakery was intact. Nothing had been destroyed. I humbly thanked my Heavenly Father.
“Arriving home, I told my family of God’s blessing and protection.
“They were all so grateful.
“My oldest son, Rogelio, only 12 years old, said, ‘Papa! I know why our store was protected. You and Mama always pay your tithes.’”
Brother Parra concluded: “The words of Malachi came into my mind. ‘I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground’ [Malachi 3:11]. We knelt down and gratefully thanked our Heavenly Father for His miracle.”

When the area conference plans were announced for Asia in 1975, I became a little concerned and felt that someone should go along as a physician to the General Authorities, their wives, and other members of the group. There were quite a few people traveling together, and it seemed appropriate to have medical help available if needed. A recommendation was made and accepted to have a physician accompany those traveling to the various area conferences. In 1976, I was asked to go to Europe in this capacity.
From the very start of our journey, I was moved by President Kimball and Sister Kimball’s concern for the others traveling with them. When my wife and I boarded the airplane in Salt Lake City we took seats to the side and in back of President Kimball. A few minutes after the plane took off and the seat belt sign was turned off, President Kimball turned around and said to us, “Are you comfortable?” I was there to serve him and the others traveling with him, and yet he showed this concern for us. Throughout the entire trip, this great, kind, friendly man was always interested in the welfare of the people around him. We felt so comfortable traveling with him because of his warmth and graciousness.
After the first area conference in Paris, we traveled to Helsinki, Finland. President Kimball had been actively working now for three days. He was up early every morning, worked a very heavy schedule throughout the day, and then went to bed late at night. His responsibilities were greater than anyone else’s.
His job included not only presiding and conducting, but he spoke for long periods of time using a translator. He had held an exhausting press conference and had interviewed and set apart many local Church authorities. We boarded an airplane late in the evening for Helsinki. It was necessary to change planes in Copenhagen, and as we walked through the hallways of the airport, President Kimball carried a travel bag with his suits in it. I had a free hand and walked up and said, “President Kimball, let me carry that.” He turned and said, “No, thank you, I have to have a reason for being here.” He was almost serious in humbly expressing his desire to carry his own weight; he didn’t want to be a burden on anyone. I was impressed with that same beautiful attitude during the entire trip.
In Dortmund, Germany, during the last area conference on this trip, we stayed in an older, beautiful hotel. The manager was an austere, tall, straight, gray haired Prussian gentleman. He looked as if he could have been an officer in the army. On the second day after arriving at the hotel, the manager commented, speaking of President Kimball, “Every time that man walks through this lobby, I feel goose bumps all over me.” He felt the spirit that radiates from President Kimball. After making that remark, he was introduced to the prophet. President Kimball spoke with him briefly and gave him a family home evening manual. Arrangements were made for him to receive the missionary discussions.
The hotel manager was vividly influenced by that very brief contact with the living prophet. On the day we left, we boarded a bus in front of the hotel and drove around the block, passing the hotel again because of the one-way streets. As we passed the hotel, this handsome, stately gentleman was standing outside on the sidewalk waving good bye to President Kimball with his white handkerchief. It was significant that the hotel manager could feel the Spirit of the Lord just by watching our prophet walk through the hotel lobby. You know, President Kimball looks like any one of the rest of us. Some may not think that there is anything unusual about his appearance—but there is an unusual spirit that he carries with him.
After the Dortmund conference, while most of the group returned to the United States, President Kimball, President Tanner, and their wives, and a few others traveled to Bern, Switzerland. Here the two members of the First Presidency were busy for an additional day and a half in the Swiss Temple. They had been traveling now for 14 days while participating in the five area conferences. They had been going unceasingly when we boarded a bus at Bern to go to Zurich where we were to catch our flight to New York and then on to Salt Lake. I saw President Kimball’s exceptional enthusiasm in action again.
There had been 14 days of going, going, going, and in the 30 hours ahead, there would be no opportunity for the prophet to go to bed or really relax. On the bus, most of us leaned back in our seats and began to nap. I was seated behind President Kimball and expected that he would use the next hour for some well-deserved rest. We had not quite reached the autobahn when President Kimball stood up and made his way up the aisle to a jump seat next to the bus driver. As I sat in my seat feeling almost exhausted, our prophet, who had reason to be more tired than anyone else, couldn’t rest because there was a person on that bus who hadn’t been taught the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As I watched what happened, I had a feeling of guilt—I had been content to sit back and relax, but the prophet, realizing the transcending importance of missionary work, didn’t let weariness dampen his burning desire to share the gospel with others.
I wondered how he was going to talk with the bus driver who seemed to speak little English. President Kimball doesn’t speak German. Initially, there was some difficulty as they tried to speak to one another. After only a few minutes, however, the two of them were obviously quite able to understand each other. Now my worry was transferred from how they would communicate with each other to whether the bus driver, while glancing frequently at President Kimball, would be able to keep the bus on the road. It was clear that he understood and was interested in President Kimball’s sincere message. Their conversation continued until we reached the outskirts of Zurich when President Kimball returned to his seat.
When the bus pulled up at the Zurich airport, President Gary E. O’Brian, president of the Zurich Switzerland Mission, was waiting on the curb. President Kimball went to the door of the bus as it opened. He asked President O’Brian to step on the bus, and while shaking hands with him, said, “President O’Brian, this is Mr. _____. Will you promise me you will teach him the gospel?” President O’Brian said, “Yes, President.” And then President Kimball said, “Mr. _____, this is one of our mission presidents. Will you let him teach you the gospel of Jesus Christ?” The bus driver nodded his head and said he would.
This experience really taught me the importance of sharing the gospel. Our prophet is in close communication with our Heavenly Father and sees beyond the veil much more clearly than I do. He puts this degree of urgency on missionary work. Even when he has every reason to be tired, when sitting back and resting would seem to be a valid excuse for passing up a missionary opportunity, President Kimball continues to be a vigorous missionary. How can you or I do less than share the gospel with our families, our neighbors, our friends, and everyone else we meet?

1 I was nine years old when I first began to really study the Book of Mormon. That year in school I realized that if I finished reading it by a certain date, I could use it for a book report.
2 The night before the report was due, I stayed up late to finish reading it and to draw a picture of Samuel the Lamanite preaching to the Nephites from the city wall.
3 The next day I gave my report. I told everyone about the Book of Mormon and recited my favorite story in it.
4 After class I gave my teacher a copy of the Book of Mormon and bore my testimony that it is true, that Joseph Smith was truly a prophet of God, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church of Jesus Christ.

I have had the honor of working with the missionaries of the Church for over three decades, and I know that a great many of them were able to get through those first shaky minutes and hours and days of their mission because of their fathers or mothers. I remember one experience of a fine young man who spent his life on the ranch, just as his own father did. When the boy got into the mission field, it was all strange: too many people, not enough open spaces. He wanted badly to go home. Finally, the mission president had the young missionary call his father. The father listened patiently as his son said how homesick he was, and then the father spoke in terms that his son could understand, and as I heard about this, it brought a smile to my face. He said with firmness but love, “Son, you’re just going to have to ‘cowboy up.’” The boy knew exactly what that meant, and he is hanging on as the spirit of his mission begins to come. He knows his father will not give up on him.

Last week Dad took me with him to a town called Winchester. For his work he had to take some field strength measurements there and at some places along the way. I don’t know much about field strength measurements, but I do know about my dad.
One of the things I know is that he likes to take me places and do stuff with me. On the way to Winchester, for instance, we stopped and hiked across a big field with yellow flowers to a real pretty waterfall. We waded in the shallow parts of the pool under the falls and talked and laughed at a squirrel that was scolding us worse than Mom did the day Dad and I rode my go-cart down the steep part of Willow Lane and crashed through out little white picket fence and into her daffodils.
Another thing I know about Dad is that he loves Mom. He always opens the car door for her and helps her wash dishes and takes her on dates and hugs her a lot.
And he never yells. Well, almost never. I can only remember three times he did. One was at my soccer game when I made a winning goal. He ran out onto the field, put me on his shoulders, and hooted like he did the day my baby sister, Patience, was born. That was the second time he yelled. The third time was when our cat, Guinevere, ate Aristotle, his sixty-five-dollar tropical fish.
I know other things about Dad, too: He likes to jog, and he counts to ten a lot (like when he hammers his finger or steps on my baby sister’s loud, squeaky toys when he’s trying to tiptoe out of her room at night). He likes country-western music and Mom’s cheese enchiladas, but he hates cauliflower as much as I do. And he cries sometimes when he goes to Sky Hill, where Grandma and Grandpa are buried. They’re Dad’s mother and father, and they died in a plane crash about three years ago.
Something I don’t know about Dad is why he doesn’t go to church with Mom and me anymore. Oh, he still takes us to church, but it’s just to drop us off. Sometimes when kids ask me why he doesn’t come to church, I pretend I don’t hear them or I just say that I don’t know. I feel bad—not because their dads are there and mine isn’t, but because, well, because I love him a lot and I want him to be with us. It’s hard to explain. It’s just that Dad’s part of Mom and Patience and me, and we’re part of him. And what are families for if it’s not to be together? I get lonely, sort of, deep inside. As I said, it’s hard to explain.
Dad sometimes goes to pack meetings at the ward with me—when I earn a Scouting achievement award or when we have our Pinewood Derby. But that’s about all.
Once, when we were flying my kite behind the school, I asked him why he didn’t go to church with Mom and me. He looked like I did the time Mom asked who tracked mud across her clean carpet. But he just gave a little tug on the kite string and said, “Look at that thing climb, Arny!” And I knew better than to ask him again.
I know that Dad thinks about Church, though. And about God and Jesus. I know because when I was baptized, Dad was there, sitting right next to Mom and Uncle Henry, and he squeezed me afterward in a way that I will never forget. I can still feel it. There were tears in his eyes and the same kind of look that he had the day I scored at that soccer game and the Sunday Bishop Huxley blessed my baby sister. And I know because when my pet lizard died, Dad said that God would look after it, that Heavenly Father wouldn’t have taken the time to make something that He didn’t love.
When I asked Mom if she thought Dad would ever go to church again, her eyes shone as brightly as Aunt Margaret’s rosewood music box, and her chin jiggled like it does every time she bears her testimony. She said that she hoped that he would and that until then we should go on loving and supporting him as he does us and letting him know every day that we think he’s the greatest guy on earth.
“That won’t be hard,” I said, “because he is!”

President Benson lived on a farm in Whitney, Idaho, when he was a child. There were chickens, milking cows, beef cattle, and horses. There were also neighbors. Ezra’s mother taught him to greet people with a polite “How do you do?” One afternoon while the family was seated at the dinner table, little Ezra noticed the bowl of boiled eggs and said courteously, “How do you do, eggs?” Everyone laughed, and it was a family joke that was retold for years.

Another story about my mother had an even greater impact on me. It shaped how I resolved to live my life.
When I was a priest, my assignment one Sunday was to bless the sacrament in Sunday School. In those days, we took the sacrament during Sunday School in the morning, and then returned for sacrament meeting in the evening.
I had a 1946 Chevy coupe that I had made into a hot rod, and I wanted to compete in some races that were being held that Sunday. I knew that my parents would not approve, so I said nothing. I am ashamed to say it, but I left church and went to the drag races. I raced one time and lost.
When I returned home, my mother was standing at the kitchen sink, finishing up the dinner dishes. I could see tears on her cheeks. I asked, “Mom, what’s the matter?”
She turned and asked, “Son, where have we failed as parents that you feel you can violate the Lord’s holy day?”
I couldn’t bear it! My dear mother was taking the blame and burden for my wrongdoing.
That moment helped me understand more about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that someone else was willing to bear the burden of my wrong choice. I began to understand how the Savior could do that for me because I saw my mother do it in this instance.

You and I have been blessed with the promise of such an inheritance. I owe much of my happiness in life to a man I never met in mortal life. He was an orphan who became one of my great-grandparents. He left me a priceless heritage of hope. Let me tell you some of the part he played in creating that inheritance for me.
His name was Heinrich Eyring. He was born into great wealth. His father, Edward, had a large estate in Coburg, in what is now Germany. His mother was Viscountess Charlotte Von Blomberg. Her father was the keeper of the lands of the king of Prussia.
Heinrich was Charlotte and Edward’s first son. Charlotte died at the age of 31, after the birth of her third child. Edward died soon thereafter, having lost all his property and wealth in a failed investment. He was only 40 years of age. He left three orphaned children.
Heinrich, my great-grandfather, had lost both of his parents and a great worldly inheritance. He was penniless. He recorded in his history that he felt his best hope lay in going to America. Although he had neither family nor friends there, he had a feeling of hope about going to America. He first went to New York City. Later he moved to St. Louis, Missouri.
In St. Louis one of his co-workers was a Latter-day Saint. From him he obtained a copy of a pamphlet written by Elder Parley P. Pratt. He read it and then studied every word he could obtain about the Latter-day Saints. He prayed to know if there really were angels that appeared to men, whether there was a living prophet, and whether he had found a true and revealed religion.
After two months of careful study and prayer, Heinrich had a dream in which he was told he was to be baptized. A man whose name and priesthood I hold in sacred memory, Elder William Brown, was to perform the ordinance. Heinrich was baptized in a pool of rainwater on March 11, 1855, at 7:30 in the morning.
I believe that Heinrich Eyring knew then that what I am teaching you today is true. He knew that the happiness of eternal life comes through family bonds which continue forever. Even when he had so recently found the Lord’s plan of happiness, he knew that his hope for eternal joy depended on the free choices of others to follow his example. His hope of eternal happiness depended on people not yet born.
As a part of our family’s inheritance of hope, he left a history to his descendants.
In that history I can feel his love for those of us who would follow him. In his words I feel his hope that his descendants might choose to follow him on the path back to our heavenly home. He knew it would not be one great choice to make to do so but many small choices. I quote from his history:
“From the time I first heard Elder Andrus speak … I have always attended the meeting of the Latter day Saints and the instances are very rare indeed, when I [have] failed to go to meeting, it being at the same time my duty to do so.
“I name this in my history that my children may imitate my example and never neglect this … important duty [to assemble] with the Saints.”
Heinrich knew that in sacrament meetings we could renew our promise to always remember the Savior and have His Spirit to be with us.
It was that Spirit that sustained him on the mission to which he was called only a few months after accepting the baptismal covenant. He left as his heritage his example of staying faithful to his mission for six years in what was then called the Indian Territories. To receive his release from his mission, he walked and joined a wagon train from Oklahoma to Salt Lake City, a distance of approximately 1,100 miles (1,770 km).
Soon thereafter he was called by the prophet of God to move to southern Utah. From there he answered another call to serve a mission in his native Germany. He then accepted the invitation of an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ to help build up the Latter-day Saint colonies in northern Mexico. From there he was called to Mexico City as a full-time missionary again. He honored those calls. He lies buried in a small cemetery in Colonia Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
I recite these facts not to claim greatness for him or for what he did or for his descendants. I recite those facts to honor him for the example of faith and hope that was in his heart.
He accepted those calls because of his faith that the resurrected Christ and our Heavenly Father had appeared to Joseph Smith in a grove of trees in the state of New York. He accepted them because he had faith that the priesthood keys in the Lord’s Church had been restored with the power to seal families forever, if only they had sufficient faith to keep their covenants.
Some of Heinrich Eyring’s descendants have seemed to wander. But many of his great-great-grandchildren go to temples of God at 6:00 in the morning to perform ordinances for ancestors they have never met. They go out of the heritage of hope he left. He left an inheritance that is being claimed by many of his descendants.