Gospel Story Finder

When the time came for me to serve a mission, I felt a desire to bless the people in neighboring Uganda with the gospel, but I also wanted to teach the people in Zimbabwe, home of the missionary who had baptized me.
I prayed, but in my heart, I saw no way I could serve in two countries located far apart. Soon, I received my call to Zimbabwe, but while I was in the missionary training center in Johannesburg, South Africa, my visa was delayed. I was redirected to Uganda, where I served for eight months before receiving visa clearance for Zimbabwe.
“The Lord has His mysterious ways,” I thought to myself.

It was almost midnight in South Africa when President Russell M. Nelson announced in the last conference session on April 4, 2021 that 20 new temples would be built.
Sister Shelly Herbert, who had been watching the session in bed whilst her husband slept, sat up a little straighter. President Henry B. Eyring’s earlier address, in which he invited the saints to ready themselves “for the increased opportunities for temple experiences that are coming for us,”1 had piqued her interest.
When the Prophet read the words ‘Cape Town, South Africa’, “the tears were just streaming down my face,” says Sister Herbert. “As I cried, I shook my husband to wake him up and said, ‘it’s happened!’”
“There were so many people who doubted that we would get a temple, but we expected it, because we believe in petitioning the Lord.”

Nellie Middleton, a fifty-five-year-old Latter-day Saint, lived in Cheltenham with her six-year-old daughter, Jennifer. To prepare her home against air strikes, she had used her modest wage as a dressmaker to furnish an area in her basement as a shelter, complete with food, water, oil lamps, and a small iron bed for Jennifer. Following instructions from the government, Nellie had also covered her windows with netting to catch flying shards of glass in the event of an attack.1
Now, all over Cheltenham, bombs were whistling through the air and crashing to the ground with a thunderous roar. The terrifying noise grew ever closer to Nellie’s home until a tremendous explosion on a nearby street rattled her walls, shattering the windows and filling the netting with razor-sharp glass.
In the morning, the city streets were filled with rubble. The bombs had killed twenty-three people and left more than six hundred homeless.2
Nellie and other Cheltenham Saints did their best to endure after the attack. When British Mission president Hugh B. Brown and other North American missionaries left the country nearly a year earlier, the small branch and others like it struggled to fill callings and run Church programs. Then the local men went away to war, leaving no priesthood holders to bless the sacrament or formally administer branch business. Before long, the branch was forced to disband.
An older man named Arthur Fletcher, who held the Melchizedek Priesthood, lived about twenty miles away, and he rode his rusty bicycle to visit the Cheltenham Saints whenever he could. But most of the time it was Nellie, the former Relief Society president in the Cheltenham Branch, who took responsibility for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the Saints in her area. With the branch closed, the Church members could no longer meet in the rented hall they used on Sundays, so Nellie’s living room became the place where the Relief Society prayed, sang, and studied.3
On a quiet November night in 1943, Nellie Middleton heard her doorbell ring. It was dark outside, but she knew enough not to have the lights on when she opened the door. Nearly three years had passed since German bombs had first fallen near her home, and Nellie continued to darken her windows at night to keep herself and her daughter safe from air raids.
With her lights out, Nellie opened the door. A young man was standing on her front step, his face in shadow. He extended his hand and quietly introduced himself as Brother Ray Hermansen. His accent was undeniably American.4
A lump came to Nellie’s throat. After their branch disbanded, she and other women in Cheltenham had longed to take the sacrament more regularly. The United States had recently sent troops to England to prepare for an Allied offensive against Nazi Germany. Once it had occurred to Nellie that some of the American soldiers stationed in her town might be Latter-day Saints who could bless the sacrament, she had asked her stepsister, Margaret, to paint a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and place it in town. Below the picture was a message: “If any soldier is interested in the above, he will find a warm welcome at 13 Saint Paul’s Road.”5
Had this American seen her poster? Did he have authority to bless the sacrament? Nellie shook his hand and welcomed him inside.
Ray was a twenty-year-old Latter-day Saint soldier from Utah and a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. Although he was stationed ten miles away, he had heard about the Salt Lake Temple painting from another Church member and obtained leave to visit the address. He had walked to Nellie’s home on foot, which was why he had arrived after dark. When Nellie told him about her desire to take the sacrament, he asked her when he could come to administer the ordinance to her.
On November 21, Nellie, her daughter, and three other women welcomed Ray to their Sunday meeting. Nellie opened the meeting with prayer before the group sang “How Great the Wisdom and the Love.” Ray then blessed and passed the sacrament, and all four women bore testimony of the gospel.
Soon other Latter-day Saint soldiers heard about the meetings at Saint Paul’s Road. Some Sundays, Nellie’s living room was so full that people had to sit on the staircase.6

“Missionary work?” Sue Ann Yazzie, a 17-year-old Navaho from Shiprock, New Mexico, brushed long, black hair from her shoulders and smiled. Her warm, brown eyes sparkling, she said, “The best way to get someone interested in the Church is to be friends with him.”
A member of the Church for two years, Sue Ann talked about her conversion: “Even before I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believed that when we die we will be able to see friends and relatives who have died before us. I lost faith in the church I was attending when the minister said, ‘If you think you will be able to see your dead ancestors when you die, you’re mistaken.’ It was then that I asked the Lord which church was true. I promised I would keep the commandments if he would help me.”
Sue Ann wanted to attend high school off the reservation. When she was asked to participate in the Indian education program in Richfield, Utah, she accepted. In Richfield the Indian students live in a dormitory and attend local schools.
When one of the employees in the dormitory invited Sue Ann and several of her friends to a family home evening, she wasn’t really interested. “At the time I wasn’t sure if I liked the Mormon church. I didn’t know very much about it. But I went just to keep my friends company. That was when I first became interested in the Church. I liked what I heard.
“Later, when I read the Book of Mormon, many of the parts seemed familiar. When I was younger my grandmother told me many of the Navaho legends. It was from her that I first heard the story of the great white god, who will one day return,” she said.
Sue Ann wants to share the gospel with as many people as she can. Recently a friend of hers, Elouise Meyers, finished the missionary discussions and was baptized. Sue Ann explained, “I had an appointment with my bishop and decided to take a buddy with me. I took Elouise. I knew she didn’t know much about the Church. While we were waiting for the bishop, the missionaries walked by. I asked them if they were teaching anyone that night. They answered, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you teach my friend?’ They set up an appointment.”
For David Wojnar, 22, from Springfield, Massachusetts, a good friendship played an important role in his conversion to the Church. Now a missionary serving in the Utah Salt Lake Mission, Elder Wojnar talked about the role of friendship in missionary work.
“When I graduated from high school, I decided it was time to move away from home. I got a job in Virginia and moved in with an old friend. One of my roommates was a Latter-day Saint. We soon became good friends. We did things together, and we could talk about anything. He had a sincere interest in me. We were friends first, and being friends probably helped more than anything else,” Elder Wojnar explained.
“Eventually he asked me to go to a young adult activity with him. They were putting on a play. The young people came up and made me feel welcome. They all were excited about meeting someone new,” Elder Wojnar said. “They were different from anybody I had run around with before. There was a different spirit.
“When I became involved in the activities and started attending church, the members made me feel special and important. They never put me down because I was a member of another church.”
At that time, Elder Wojnar still wasn’t ready to commit himself to baptism. “My other roommate, my friend from Massachusetts, was taking the discussions and was almost ready for baptism. When the missionaries came, I always found an excuse to leave. Most of the barriers I had were just fear and not knowing what would happen. I was determined to serve the Lord, and I just needed time. No one seemed excited or upset about the hesitancy that I was experiencing. My friend was patient and didn’t give up on me. He was still my friend, and eventually I did make the commitment,” Elder Wojnar said.
“Being sincere is one of the most important aspects of missionary work,” Elder Wojnar explained. “If you’re sincere and a true friend, people will respond to the gospel. It’s not as important for members to teach the doctrines as it is for them to plant the seed. Being a good example is also important. It means more than just living the principles. It means going out and showing the results of living the gospel. Don’t be afraid to let people know you’re a Mormon. I’m tickled pink whenever I can tell anybody I’m a Mormon,” Elder Wojnar concluded.
Patience is an important part of missionary work. Both Cindy, 15, and her sister, Tina Doxstater, 14, were involved in Church activities for two years before they were baptized. Cindy explained that she was impressed by the closeness of Mormon families and by the Church activities that her friends took her to. But she wasn’t ready or sure about making a commitment.
“The members of the Church accepted us for what we were,” she said. “They didn’t push, and that helped.” Cindy’s friends didn’t give up on her. When one of them said, “Why don’t you take the missionary discussions?” She said, “Yes.” With the encouragement of their friends and a science teacher at school, Cindy and Tina were baptized this year. The science teacher, Larry Anderson, baptized them.
Violet Wilson, 18, from Kellogg, Idaho, had also been involved in Church activities for several years before she joined. She said that an important influence in her joining was the members making her feel like she was one of them.
Cragg Rogers, 21, from San Diego, California, was first introduced to the Church when his parents gave him a survival trip for a graduation present. There were 37 Mormons and three non-Mormons enrolled in the program. They spent 28 days in a southern Utah desert.
“It was really a spiritual trip,” Cragg recalled. “From the first I noticed there was something different about the Mormons. Whenever we came up against hard circumstances, they would pray about it. We were out in the middle of the desert, with almost no food or water, and they held church on Sundays. They even had me give a talk, if you can believe it. In the general misery of a survival trip, everyone helped each other. There were no airs. That survival trip turned my whole life around,” Cragg said.
It was two years after that first introduction to the Church before Cragg finally joined. The spirit of the LDS friends Cragg had made on the survival trip left a deep impression.
“The spirit I felt on that trip was on my mind, and I couldn’t get rid of it,” Cragg said, smiling. “I finally decided to get into it and really find out what it was about. The members were more than willing to help.”
Referring to missionary work, Cragg said, “The best way to influence someone is to live what you believe. Be yourself and don’t try to be what you think someone else would like you to be. Those people who lived the way they should brought me into the Church. I’m grateful for them. I hope I can do the same. I may get turned down 40 times when trying to interest someone in the gospel, but the one success makes it more than worthwhile. I’m sure the people who helped me were also turned down many times,” Cragg concluded.
Being a true friend, having respect for other people’s values and beliefs, exercising patience, being yourself, setting an example, and avoiding forming member cliques that shut out or look down upon nonmembers are some of the important techniques these recent converts recommend in member-missionary work.
Sue Ann Yazzie said something else that applies to missionary work: “Missionary work? My advice is to get busy.”

I am a first-generation university student. I am almost finished with my second certificate, and then I will finish my associate’s and bachelor’s degree. With every certificate or milestone, my self-esteem increases and my fear of the future decreases because I feel I am one step closer to securing a better future. Because I know I am nothing without God and this inspired program, I have learned to be humble and kind. I have extended helping hands to many other PathwayConnect students to give back. I created a WhatsApp group for PathwayConnect students around the globe to help them through tips and video demonstrations each week. Now, whenever I think about what lies ahead, I can’t help but smile and be eternally grateful for an inspired program called PathwayConnect.

Although he was a school teacher, my father raised animals and cared for a large garden and fruit orchard. In the summertime, it was a rule that we worked in the mornings in the garden or orchard; in the afternoons, we could play.
My father had a way of making our work pleasant. He could turn any chore into a game. He knew that we loved to play baseball. One day he told us to pick up fallen apples in the orchard and feed them to the pigs. We didn’t particularly enjoy that job. So he placed boards in the form of a man on the back of the pigpen. Then he stepped off the distance from the board form to a pitcher’s mound. From that point, we threw the gathered apples at the pretended man just as a baseball pitcher would in a game. Of course, the apples crashed against the board and split into pieces, and the pigs had a feast.

He had only a few missions left to fly before his tour of duty ended, but welcomed his leave time, which he spent in Naples, Italy. While there, he sent a package and a letter home to his mother, which promised that “he knew the Gospel was true and that he was going to live it and was going to share it with his friends. He also sent his tithing home which included everything he owed, to bring it up to date.” Post was slow and uncertain during war time, so it would be weeks before his family received the letter and package.
In the meantime, on 7th July 1944, George H. Robinson’s plane was shot down over Klagenfurt, Austria, where he and his comrades were subsequently buried. The inscription on his gravestone reads: “Now he’s in the Lord’s safe keeping and wanted on the other side. Sadly missed."

The second story unfolded this summer and centers on the service rendered a foreign government officer by two BYU students from the same country. The official had been assigned by her government to do a special report on the LDS Church. Until the assignment she had been responsible for minority religions in her country. She had completed sometime earlier a PhD thesis on Protestantism in America. In order to complete her study of the LDS Church, she was invited by Church officials to spend three weeks in Salt Lake City and Provo visiting with Church leaders and a small team of BYU faculty.

Three individuals were assigned to host the visitor. One was a professor at BYU who was a returned mission president from the visitor’s country. Two were BYU women students native to the country in question. Between the three of them, they arranged housing, meals, appointments, translation, and visits to Temple Square, Welfare Square, and other off-campus sites. They helped her gather information and learn firsthand about the Church.

During the second week the visitor became ill. Having some knowledge of the Church, she asked one of her student hosts if it would be possible to receive a health blessing. The young student, a recent convert, responded favorably but was not sure who might give the blessing. She asked for a little time. Suddenly she felt a prompting and hurried to the temple. There she met two returned missionaries who had served in her homeland. They accepted the invitation and administered to the visitor. Three days later the government visitor said to her student friend, “Your Church is true!”

The student responded, “Why do you say that?”

The woman then said, “Because of the feeling that was present during the blessing given by the two young men.”

One does not know what the government official will do in her personal life with respect to the Church. One does know, however, that a strong friendship exists between the woman and her hosts. The students and the professor who served her during the three-week period have become the woman’s close friends. The professor has been invited to attend the meeting at which she will present her report to top government leaders.

The work and privation were intensified for the entire family when Brigham’s mother died of tuberculosis in his 14th year. The father soon after moved to a new homestead on 100 acres of timber 15 miles from any settlement and was sometimes away working or getting supplies in the nearest towns. At these times the children were left to clear land and care for the maple trees by themselves. Brigham’s younger brother, who was named after the great Methodist preacher, Lorenzo Dow, recalls that one time when he and Brigham were left alone for a few days while their father went for food, they were famished from living only on the insubstantial maple sugar. Brigham finally shot a robin that lit near the house, and while it was cooking, they managed to thump a few spoonfuls of flour out of the cracks of the empty flour barrel and thus “thickened the broth.”7 The grimness of such an existence was intensified by the father’s continuing insistence that the children not indulge in any amusements. Brigham remembers that his brother Joseph, older by four years, seemed never to smile “during some four or five years.”8

Late one evening shortly after I had been called as bishop, I received a telephone call from a distressed member. She told me her elderly husband was missing. He had left home to perform some errands and was long overdue. Tearfully, this sister explained that she had called all the hospitals in Southampton to check if he had been admitted following an accident of some sort. The police had also been alerted and were on the lookout throughout the city.
I said I would visit immediately to see if the ward members could help in any way and to give her a priesthood blessing if she wished. She gratefully agreed.
I quickly called the elders quorum president. By now it was after 10:30 P.M. I didn’t normally like to bother members late at night, but this was an exceptional situation and I knew I could rely on Brother Rosser to assist me.
When we arrived at the sister’s home, members of her family were there, and it soon became clear that all that could reasonably be done to help had been done. There was little to do other than to offer comfort and perform the priesthood blessing. We laid our hands upon this dear sister’s head and blessed her by the power of the Melchizedek Priesthood. But when I reached the point when one usually adds comfort and insight as directed by the Spirit, my mind was completely blank. I found myself pleading with Heavenly Father for some words with which I might bless her, while simultaneously examining my life to see if some personal unworthiness was acting as an impediment to divine communication. After what seemed a lengthy silence, I was at last inspired to ask Heavenly Father to bless her with the Holy Ghost in His role as Comforter and then I closed the blessing.
After the blessing as Brother Rosser and I walked to the car, I expressed my concerns about feeling nothing other than to make the request concerning the Holy Ghost. The more I dwelt on the matter, the more my fear increased that something dreadful had happened to the missing husband.
It was now past midnight. As Brother Rosser and I drove away, I felt impressed to drive through a particular district of town rather than taking the direct route home. Brother Rosser agreed that we should follow the impression.
After a few minutes we were halted by a red traffic light where I intended to make a left turn. At that moment what seemed to be a loud and distinct voice instructed me to turn right. The light changed to green, and I turned right. As we drove over the junction, I saw a solitary figure seated on a bench in a deserted shopping precinct. I pulled over, and we got out of the car. As we approached the person huddled against the cold, we called out the name of the missing man. He looked up, and we recognized him. We had been sent directly to him!
This elderly brother had fallen and been knocked out earlier in the day. By the time we found him, he had regained consciousness but was in pain and suffering from exposure to the cold. We quickly called the police, summoned an ambulance, and informed his wife that he had been found.
After we had ensured that all was well, Brother Rosser and I started again for home. We reflected upon what had happened. We had been specifically guided by the Holy Ghost. Our tears flowed freely.
I learned a number of things that night. First, we should give only the blessings we are inspired to give, not those we think the recipient would like to hear. Second, a priesthood holder must always keep himself worthy to be called upon at a moment’s notice. Third, Heavenly Father makes known His will in His own time and way. Fourth, we need to recognize the many ways in which the Holy Ghost communicates to us and to act upon those promptings when we receive them. Finally, I learned that at times the Lord does intervene directly to help, and we can sometimes be the means through which His help comes. I am grateful for the many lessons of that cold, dark night.

The conversation then turned to recollections of Elder Perry’s parents and his own childhood: “I grew up very close to the Church,” he said. “My father was made bishop of our ward when I was only six months old. By the time I was six years of age, our ward was building a chapel. Father would take us all over to work on it. I remember that my first job was pulling nails out of boards and straightening them so they could be used again.
“My father came from a large family. They were homesteading in Idaho and had little money. When he reached high school age, he asked my grandfather to allow him to go to high school. His father gave him five dollars and a one-way ticket to Salt Lake, where he had to make it on his own. He found a job caring for President Joseph F. Smith’s cows and lived in the Beehive House like a member of the family for three and a half years. Father attended LDS High School and then went on to the University of Utah, where he was valedictorian of his graduating class. He accepted a position as principal of a school in Rexburg, Idaho. There he met my mother who was a teacher in the same school. They were married and Dad left teaching and went to law school and became an attorney.
“Dad was a very intense man, but he knew how to relax. Saturday afternoon was spent with the family—fishing, hiking, or playing ball up Logan Canyon. He and I enjoyed pitching horseshoes together even when I was very young
“My mother was a tremendous woman. She had more energy than anyone I’ve ever been around. She was the first one up in the morning and the last one to bed at night—just perpetual motion all day long. Her family came first and she was a tremendous support to my father, who was a bishop for eighteen years and then in the stake presidency for another twenty years.
“I had some great teachers when I was a boy. I remember a Sister Johnson, who was president of the Primary for years and years. How tender she was!
“But the teacher I remember best was Sister Call. She was just a jewel. I remember how impressed I was that she was willing to go on hikes with the Trail Builders. She’d plan scavenger hunts, but they were not just the regular kind. Each one would have a connection with some part of the lesson. As we would find each thing, it would teach us another part of the lesson. Then there was always a nice reward—some special treat at the end. I can’t believe the creative ways she used to keep our attention as young boys.
“Sister Call is a person who keeps on giving. Recently I received a phone call from her son. He wanted to bring a gift Sister Call had just completed for me. He brought to my office a beautiful quilt she had made. Thousands of careful stitches prepared in a beautiful pattern. She is ninety-one years young. I could not hold back a tear as I thought of the kindness of this great teacher.”
We concluded the interview with some conversation about Elder Perry’s own family: “I have two grandchildren who live here and two who live in the East. We try to have family home evening together once a month with those who live here. One of our greatest family activities has been a garden that we planted in a vacant lot. We call it the Perry Family Welfare Farm. Both grandchildren have assignments. We plant, water, irrigate, harvest, and have a great time together! I hope I’m teaching them something about the Lord’s cycle of replenishment—that if we’re diligent, He will reward us abundantly. Each little seed brings forth a hundredfold.”
“Do you have a last word about children?”
“Children are receptive and attentive and able to follow the leader. They have freshness and are eager to learn. Children are wonderful!”

Two ranchers who lived side by side in southwestern Montana argued and fought. Each thought that he was being cheated by the other because a rusty barbed wire fence that separated their ranches was not the true property line. The real estate records were unclear on the matter.
They told their children not to play with one another. The conflict became worse until finally, after years of exchanging words and threats, one of the ranchers said to himself, “Enough of this.” He drove down the lane from his place to his neighbor’s.
“What do you want?” his neighbor asked.
“Look, you take your hired men and your sons, and I’ll take mine; and we’ll put the fence wherever you’d like it. I’ve had enough of this quarreling. I want us to be friends.”
His rawboned neighbor softened, and tears ran down both of their faces. The neighbor responded. “Hey, let’s drive to Virginia City and record that the present fence is where both of us want the property line to be.”
They did, and the problem was solved. Why? Because a neighbor wanted to be friends with the family next door.

Let me share a personal story.
My wife and I learned to work better at being equal partners after one day when I decided to make an important decision without consulting her. My action surprised her, took her off guard, and put her in a very difficult situation. Afterward, she put her hands on my shoulders and firmly said, “Ron, please, never do that to me again.” We have pretty much been on the same page ever since.

Years ago, one of our sons, who was in fourth grade at the time, came home from school and asked me, “Dad, how much money do you make?”

I replied, “That’s a very personal question. Your mom didn’t ask me that until the third date.” (I’m kidding of course. She asked me lots of questions, but not that one.)

I asked him, “Why do you want to know?”

He explained, “At school today, we learned about income. So what is yours?”

I said, “I tell you what. I will give you one guess, and I will tell you if my income is higher or lower than your guess.”

Without hesitation, he quickly responded, “OK, $47,000.”

I responded, “That’s a pretty specific guess. Why did you guess $47,000.”

He said, “Well, we learned that the average income is $45,000 . . . and I thought you were a little above average.”

There are times that I feel I do not even measure up to average, much less a little above average. Most of us experience, at some point, what could be called the Ds of the devil: doubt, discouragement, despair, despondency. If you ever feel those Ds of the devil, go to the temple. In the temple, we can be reminded of who we are, that we are children of a loving God. We are also taught that He has a plan of happiness for us. I find that the temple does not take away my challenges or feelings of inadequacy, but the sweet whisperings of the Spirit felt in the temple remind me that I am not alone and that God is anxious to bless me.

The sunny skies of Cape Town were dark with rain clouds. Why, oh why, the children thought, would it rain today?
The special afternoon the boys and girls had been working and waiting for had finally come, and now it seemed as if their bake sale would be ruined by the storm. But they knew that Ouma (Grandmother) Fourie would expect them regardless of the weather, so they all splashed through the rain to be at the chapel at the hour she had set.
Sister Ouma greeted them in her usual loving way and then explained that the sale must be held that day since the baked goods could not be kept over. She also said the sale must be held outside so people would stop to buy.
“We’ll all pray for the rain to stop,” she directed, “and we know it will, for we need the money to continue holding our Primary. This is what our Father in heaven wants, so of course He will help us.”
There was so much assurance in Sister Ouma’s voice that as each child bowed his head and she prayed for the rain to stop, everyone just knew it would.
And it did!
The rain that had pelted unceasingly for several days stopped almost at once. The sun smiled on the children as they carried tables outside and placed on them the baked goods they had brought. After a most successful sale, the empty tables were carried back into the chapel, and the rain began again and continued steadily during the next three days.
“But what would you have done, Sister Fourie,” asked a Primary worker later, “if it hadn’t stopped raining?”
This woman, who for thirty-four continuous years loved and taught the boys and girls of South Africa, answered very softly, “But we all knew that it would!”

Shannon, a young mother, did not expect that she would teach her children the power of prayer when they piled into their van to drive to their home just 40 minutes away. There was no storm when they left their grandmother’s home, but as they began to drive through the canyon, the light snow turned into a blizzard. The van began sliding on the surface of the road. Soon visibility was near zero. The two youngest children could sense the stress of the situation and began to cry. Shannon said to the older children, Heidi and Thomas, ages 8 and 6, “You need to pray. We need Heavenly Father’s help to get home safely. Pray that we will not get stuck and that we will not slide off the road.” Her hands shook as she steered the car, yet she could hear the whisper of little prayers repeatedly coming from the backseat: “Heavenly Father, please help us get home safely; please help us so we will not slide off the road.”
In time the prayers calmed the two little ones, and they stopped their crying just as they learned that a road closure prevented them from driving any farther. Cautiously, they turned around and found a motel for the night. Once in the motel, they knelt down and thanked Heavenly Father for their safety. That night a mother taught her children the power of holding true to prayer.

Illustrations by Garth Bruner
Stay close! We don’t want to lose each other.
Can we go on that one?
That might be too scary for Lilly. Let’s find one we can all go on.
Can we please go on the rollercoaster next, Mom?
Mom? Lilly?
I’m never going to find them!
I need to pray.
Heavenly Father, please help me find my family.
Can you help me? I don’t know where my family is.
Sure, don’t worry. Let me make a call.
Mom! Lilly!
Tucker! We were so worried!
Heavenly Father answered my prayer.
Hey, Lilly, wanna go on the bumper cars?
Thanks to Tucker D. from Texas for sharing this story! We’re glad you thought to pray.

A couple of years ago my grandson Christian was turning eight and planning his baptismal service with great anticipation. He asked his mother if I could be one of the speakers and share my conversion story. When I asked him why he wanted me to do that, he replied, “Grandma, that is so important. Do you realize that if you hadn’t accepted the gospel, I wouldn’t be getting baptized? I wouldn’t even be who I am.”

I don’t know if missionaries realize the far-reaching impact of their work. In my own family, the blessings of the gospel have now touched four generations. Didn’t President Gordon B. Hinckley say that “when we save a girl, we save generations”? I got married in the temple and have eight children. They are all faithful members of the Church, endowed in the temple. Six of them are now married and have their own children. At present there are 34 of us. And that is not all. Both my husband and I served missions, and our two sons and three of our six daughters have also served missions. Collectively we have helped hundreds embrace the gospel in many countries. Some of those converts and their children have also served missions.

In the October 2012 general conference, President Boyd K. Packer related an incident that explains this very well. On one occasion he was assigned to a stake conference in Western Samoa. As part of the conference the group had to travel from Savai’i to Mulifanua on Upolu Island. They had originally planned to go by plane, but weather conditions prevented that, so they set out on a forty-foot boat. What they did not know is that they were headed into the center of a ferocious tropical storm. After many hours they crossed the rough seas and arrived at the harbor at Mulifanua. President Packer explained what happened next:

We arrived in the harbor at Mulifanua. There was one narrow passage we were to go through along the reef. A light on the hill above the beach and a second lower light marked the narrow passage. When a boat was maneuvered so that the two lights were one above the other, the boat would be lined up properly to pass through the dangerous rocks that lined the passage.
But that night there was only one light. Two elders were waiting on the landing to meet us, but the crossing took much longer than usual. After watching for hours for signs of our boat, the elders tired and fell asleep, neglecting to turn on the second light, the lower light. As a result, the passage through the reef was not clear.
The captain maneuvered the boat as best he could toward the one upper light on shore while a crewman held [a] flashlight over the bow, searching for rocks ahead. We could hear the breakers crashing over the reef. When we were close enough to see them with the flashlight, the captain frantically shouted reverse and backed away to try again to locate the passage.
After many attempts, he knew it would be impossible to find the passage [without the second light]. All we could do was try to reach the harbor at Apia 40 miles (64 km) away. We were helpless against the ferocious power of the elements.25

The group eventually made their way to safety, but it was a harrowing experience. President Packer observed, “I do not know who had been waiting for us at the beach at Mulifanua. ... But it is true that without that lower light, we all might have been lost.”26

Wyoming can be a cold and snowy place in the wintertime. That’s why one troop decided to make snowshoes. During the fall they were looking ahead to the Klondike derby coming up in January. They wanted an activity that could prepare them for winter camping.
Under the direction of their Scoutmaster and deacons quorum adviser, the young men went online to find a pattern and instructions for making snowshoes out of rawhide and wood. “We realized this project was going to take a long time,” says Sam F., deacons quorum president, “but we were all excited, and we had a plan.”
As the young men worked on their snowshoe frames, they discussed how they could help others in the quorum who were less active, and they made a plan to visit them. “We visited every boy on our list and invited them to come to Scouts,” Sam says. “We told them we were making snowshoes for the winter campout coming up.” Having a clear goal was helpful in drawing other boys to the troop.
As the snowshoes progressed, so did the quorum. Six young men started the snowshoe project, but soon others joined in, including one of another faith.
John B.’s friend, Timothy N., was active in his church, but it didn’t have a Scout troop, so he started coming with his friend. His brother, Thomas, even joined the ward’s 11-year-old Scout patrol and earned his religious award. He was then presented with the award at his own church service.
While the young men and leaders worked, they made religious connections between wrapping the rawhide tightly and bringing their quorum together.
Jacob D. started coming regularly to the Scout meetings. His mother, Heather P., later thanked the troop for welcoming her son and their family. Other young men who had never attended church came to the Scout meetings to make snowshoes.
By January, the snowshoes were finished and each young man had a pair to use during the Klondike derby. Aiden H. said what they all felt about making snowshoes: “It was fun because we got to use them!”
“We learned a lot about enduring to the end on a project and about strengthening our quorum through Scouting,” Sam says. “My snowshoes will last a long time, and whenever I see them I’ll remember this experience, as well as the great friends we made in our troop and quorum.”