Gospel Story Finder

“I had a good example in my life,” said Junjiro. “That was my father. He had been the bishop and the stake president when I was growing up. He said that in a leadership position, you have to be an example and participate in everything. It’s not just telling the members what to do but showing by example. You have to do all the things that you ask them to do. You have to be at the activity or at the service project. Then they will do the things you ask them to do more willingly because they know you are doing them as well.”
“My father always drove me to Church activities,” said Junjiro. “Sometimes I just wanted to stay home and play with my friends, but he was always there to take me. Because of my father, I developed the habit of participating in all Church activities. To me, he was what a leader should be.”
Junjiro follows his father’s advice. If he asks the members of the quorum to volunteer for service or to teach a lesson or come to an activity, he is there himself offering support. He said, “Before my calling, I didn’t know the members of my quorum very well. Now I worry about how I can help them to do their part.”

While attending high school, I was reluctant to socialize with anyone who smoked or drank, either in school or out of school. I had friends at other schools who would invite me to worldly parties, but I chose not to attend. Rather, I wanted to be a light, or an example, to my friends by showing them that it was possible to live in the world but not of the world.
My example helped many of my youthful friends to become missionaries and great workers in the Church today.
I always remember the saying, “A huge fire started as a little flame.”
Pongia Vaka, 21,Havelulotu Second Ward, Nuku’alofa Tonga South Stake

I’m not sure why my mom showed me the note that afternoon. The oldest of six children and a junior in high school, I couldn’t wait to graduate and move out on my own. I was tired of having to be the example and of baby-sitting my siblings whenever my parents wanted to go out.
Perhaps my mother knew, somehow, that sharing the note from Michael was the best thing she could have done for me that day. I arrived home from school earlier than my three brothers and two sisters. I confess I was impatient when my mom said, “I want to show you something.”
I followed her into my brother’s room, where she picked up a note from his pillow. In his 11-year-old scrawl, Michael had written, “I’m not coming home today. I’m not part of this family.”
I could feel the tears spill over onto my cheeks. Mom said, “Let’s pick him up from school today.”
I was too choked up to say anything. I nodded to my mother and resolved to myself, No one in our family will ever feel this way again.
We got to the school just as classes were being dismissed. Michael was surprised to see us but happy we were there. He never said a word about his note. He never wrote another one.
Michael and I became the best of friends. And although thousands of kilometers sometimes came between us when I left home after graduating from high school, we continued to be close.
The day I saw the note from Michael was the day I realized no one is more important than those we call “family.”

Jetta Pearl Stewart pulled off her bonnet and plopped down on the porch next to Father. “What’s a pearl?” she asked him.
Eight-year-old Jetta knew what a pearl was, but she loved hearing Father’s answer. Like always, Father explained how pearls grow in oysters, layer upon layer, until they become a bright, shiny jewel.
“Pearls shine like you, my little Jetta Pearl,” he said, smiling. Jetta smiled back. She liked being his Pearl.
At dinner that night, Father told Jetta he had an important question for her.
“Ever since you were little, you have had a special way with music,” Father said. “Would you like to learn the piano?”
Jetta’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes!”
“It would mean traveling far away and staying with your teacher for a while,” Mother said. “No one here in Milburn can teach you.”
Jetta’s smile faded. She had never been away from her family for more than a day. And to be far away …
“But it’s important for us to develop our talents, even when it’s difficult,” Father said.
Mother nodded. “You must work very hard,” she said.
Jetta loved music. And she had always wanted to play the piano. Slowly, a smile crept onto her face. “I’m going to play the piano!”
But the next morning, as Jetta watched Father hitch the horses to the wagon, she didn’t feel excited at all. Today she was just scared. She hadn’t expected to be leaving home so soon.
Jetta slowly climbed up into the wagon next to Father.
“You ready, Jetta Pearl?” he said.
She didn’t feel ready, but Jetta nodded. The wagon lurched forward.
After a while, Father glanced over at her. “Do you know how proud your mother and I are of you?”
Jetta nodded. “But what if you need my help at home?”
Father smiled. “We’ll sure miss you, but this is a way only you can help. You’ll be serving Heavenly Father by developing gifts He gave you.”
She hadn’t thought about it like that. Could her musical talent really be a gift from Heavenly Father?
Father continued. “It will take time, but little by little you’ll get better at playing piano. And then you’ll be able to serve lots of people.”
Jetta felt her fear start to fade. She was going to learn the piano and serve Heavenly Father. It would be scary, but she knew that He would help her.
Father winked. “Layer by layer, my little Pearl is getting bright and shiny.”
Just like Father had said, little by little Jetta learned to play the piano. She even learned how to play the organ.
After a few months, Jetta returned home. That Sunday she became Milburn’s very first organist! Her heart raced as she sat at the huge organ the community had worked to buy for her to play. It was so beautiful that Jetta was almost afraid to touch it. She had to sit on a book to reach the keys.
She took a deep breath and started to play. The notes soared across the room, full and beautiful.
Jetta sneaked a peek at the congregation. People were smiling as they sang. Jetta smiled too. Her playing was far from perfect, but she was using her talents to serve.
She remembered Father’s words: “Pearls shine like you, Jetta Pearl.”
Little by little, layer by layer, Heavenly Father was making her into a true pearl.

One group of young people from a college ward and a stake institute class determined to spend a Super Saturday serving those in need. They started in the morning with baptisms for the dead, and those who were endowed did an endowment session. There were 113 who turned out, and they spent the rest of the day making hygiene kits for Humanitarian Services. They produced 3,500 kits. Each kit contained two unbreakable combs, two toothbrushes, one tube of toothpaste, a bar of soap, one bottle of shampoo, one travel sewing kit, and one hand towel. These kits are sent out to orphanages, women’s shelters, and homeless shelters. They are also used for emergency relief efforts. After this activity the consensus of this youth group was that with every future activity they needed to include a service project.

I am acquainted with a family which came to America from Germany. The English language was difficult for them. They had but little by way of means, but each was blessed with the will to work and with a love of God.

Their third child was born, lived but two months, and then died. Father was a cabinetmaker and fashioned a beautiful casket for the body of his precious child. The day of the funeral was gloomy, thus reflecting the sadness they felt in their loss. As the family walked to the chapel, with Father carrying the tiny casket, a small number of friends had gathered. However, the chapel door was locked. The busy bishop had forgotten the funeral. Attempts to reach him were futile. Not knowing what to do, the father placed the casket under his arm and, with his family beside him, carried it home, walking in a drenching rain.

If the family were of a lesser character, they could have blamed the bishop and harbored ill feelings. When the bishop discovered the tragedy, he visited the family and apologized. With the hurt still evident in his expression, but with tears in his eyes, the father accepted the apology, and the two embraced in a spirit of understanding. No hidden wedge was left to cause further feelings of anger. Love and acceptance prevailed.

One Sunday afternoon, I began thinking about Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice. Those thoughts helped me feel safe and sound.
Suddenly, however, I remembered the rising cases of COVID-19 in my country. Immediately, I felt sadness for people worldwide who were suffering. I said to myself, “They don’t feel the same security and peace that I do.” Those feelings brought me to my knees, and I began to pray.
I prayed for those who had died, as well as for those who had lost loved ones. I wept for them because I know the pain that comes with losing someone you love. During the COVID-19 global pandemic, many have carried alone the burden of losing a loved one.
Then my thoughts turned to my mother, who had passed away when I was five years old. As tears continued to run down my cheeks, I prayed to Heavenly Father about how much I missed her. Then I remembered that Jesus wept with Mary and Martha after Lazarus, their brother and His friend, had died (see John 11:19–35). His compassion comforted me, but the tears still came as I thought of how much I missed my mother.
As I continued to pray, I included my mom in my prayer. I thought of her and imagined her in front of me. I told Heavenly Father how much I loved her and missed her. I thanked Him for the time I had with my mom in this world. I miss her, but I believe that one day we will meet again and be together as a family forever.
I paused, and my heart filled with hope. I prayed to Heavenly Father to bless my father and me to endure until we could see my mom again. Then I shed tears of joy and hope for that glorious gathering made possible through the Savior’s Resurrection.
I feel immense gratitude to Heavenly Father for the plan of salvation. The death of my mother was painful, but my pain has been “swallowed up in the joy of Christ” (Alma 31:38). I am grateful for Him. He renews my hope in the life to come. His Resurrection means more to me now than ever. I will see my mother again because of my Savior.

When I was young, we moved. We had no idea we would be living on my great-great-great-grandpa’s farmland! I learned that he and I shared the same chore: picking rocks out of the garden. He said, “There were so many rocks, it was like the garden grew rocks!” I used to hate picking up rocks, but then I began to love it. It makes me feel close to him because we are so much alike and have the same chores.
Fay K., age 11, Utah, USA

“Boy, I’ll bet you’re glad that your sister’s getting married tomorrow!” With all the fussing over Christine’s temple wedding and reception, and finding himself in everyone’s way most of the time, Jason had to agree with his friend Randy. He was glad that the wedding was tomorrow! As he tossed the baseball idly back to Randy, he said, “Well, at least I won’t have to stand in line anymore to use the bathroom. She’s always in there taking a bath or doing something to her face.”
“Yeah, sisters can make life miserable,” Randy agreed. “Even mine, and she’s only two years old!”
The boys called it quits on the game of catch and found a seat on the back porch steps.
“Remember that game we played in the mud last summer?” Jason asked. “Lucky for me, I got home before my folks saw me. But who do you think I found in the bathroom? Christine! It smelled like a perfume factory in there! Phew!”
Randy frowned. “I bet she told on you, too, didn’t she?”
“Well, … no.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I guess she didn’t,” Jason said with a shrug. “At least Mom and Dad never said a word when—”
Before Jason could finish, two of Christine’s girlfriends, her bridesmaids for the reception, came out the back door, down the steps, and drove away in their car.
“Don’t girls ever stop giggling?” Randy complained. “I guess you’ve heard a lot of that in your house.”
“Yeah.” Jason sighed. “Sometimes when Christine had friends over, I’d go to my room just to get some peace and quiet. All they ever did was eat pizza and talk about boys! Yuck!” Jason kicked a stone off the step below, then added thoughtfully,
“But she always saved me some pizza.”
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“Oh.”
The two friends silently watched a robin working on a worm in the grass.
“Hey! Just think!” Randy shouted. “Now you’ll have a new sitter when your folks go out.”
“So?”
“Well, didn’t you always tell me that your sister gave you a hard time when she stayed with you, making you go to bed at the same time, even when it wasn’t a school night?”
Jason remembered the many times that Christine had watched him. “Yeah. Nine o’clock, even on weekends!” Then he remembered something else. “Nine o’clock without fail except for that night last year when we had the bad storm and the lights went out.”
Randy elbowed his friend. “She made you go to bed earlier, right?”
“Well, … no,” Jason admitted. He smiled a little. “Christine got out our sleeping bags and flashlights, made some sandwiches, and turned on her portable radio. We camped out in the living room.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah! It was neat!”
“Neat, huh?” Randy teased. “OK. I guess you forgot the Halloween when she made the costume that made you a laughingstock!”
Jason stopped smiling. That was a Halloween that he’d never forget! Christine had volunteered to make him a costume in her home economics class at school. Jason was supposed to be a plain old pirate. But Christine outdid herself and added so much ribbon and lace and so many sequins that Jason ended up looking more like a gypsy than a pirate.
“Ha! You really looked funny!” Randy laughed, wagging a finger at Jason.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jason admitted, his face getting hot and red. He didn’t like remembering that terrible night! “If it hadn’t been for that lousy costume, those big guys from Willow Street would have left me alone and not taken my whole bag of candy.”
But Jason also remembered how Christine had gotten angry—not at him, but at the bullies who’d stolen his candy. “Let’s go!” she had ordered, grabbing Jason by the arm, then spending two more hours in their rainy neighborhood with him, watching and waiting as Jason refilled his treat bag.
“Boy, she’s some sister,” Randy said in a tone of disgust.
“Yeah, she sure is,” Jason agreed quietly. He got up, adding, “And tomorrow’s the wedding. This is my last chance to really tell her what I think of her.”
Jason marched straight to Christine’s bedroom, took a deep breath, and knocked.
“Come on in,” Christine called. She was setting her hair, stretching and pulling strands of it over prickly tubes. “Hi, Jase!” she said cheerfully. “What’s up?”
The room was filled with clouds of Christine’s perfume. Jason almost forgot what he wanted to say as he stared at the billowing, white gown that hung on her closet door.
Christine looked at him in the mirror. “Is something wrong?” she asked, putting down her brush and turning to her little brother.
“I—I—” he stammered, blushing. “I just wanted to tell you something,” Jason managed to say very quickly. Standing as tall as possible, he took a deep breath and let it out: “Christine, I love you, and I’m gonna miss you!”

When I joined the missionary preparation class, things didn’t go smoothly. I was battling personal conflicts and worried that I wouldn’t make a difference as a missionary. I felt more anxious every day.
I struggled with these feelings for a while and prayed to know if I really was good enough to serve.
One day, as I checked my email, I opened a message from ComeuntoChrist.org. There, in big, bold letters, were the words “You Are Enough!”
These words pierced my heart, and I felt comforted. My prayers had been answered! I realized that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are fully aware of our circumstances and can answer our prayers in the most personal ways.

From the time she was a young teen, Emilie struggled with substance abuse. Experimentation led to habit, and habit eventually hardened into an addiction that held her captive for years, notwithstanding occasional periods of wellness. Emilie carefully concealed her problem, especially after she became a wife and mother.

The beginning of her deliverance did not feel like deliverance at all. One minute, Emilie was undergoing a routine medical exam, and the next, she was being driven by ambulance to an inpatient treatment facility. She began to panic as she thought of being separated from her children, her husband, her home.

That night, alone in a cold, dark room, Emilie curled up on her bed and sobbed. Her ability to reason diminished until finally, overcome with anxiety, fear, and the oppressive darkness in that room and in her soul, Emilie actually thought she would die that night. Alone.

In that desperate condition, Emilie somehow summoned the strength to roll off the bed and onto her knees. Without any posturing that had sometimes been part of previous prayers, Emilie completely surrendered herself to the Lord as she desperately pleaded, “Dear God, I need You. Please help me. I don’t want to be alone. Please get me through this night.”

And immediately, as He had done with Peter of old, Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught her sinking soul. There came over Emilie a wondrous calm, courage, assurance, and love. The room was no longer cold, she knew she was not alone, and for the first time since she was 14 years old, Emilie knew everything would be all right. As she “awoke unto God,” Emilie fell asleep in peace. And thus we see that “if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.”

Emilie’s healing and ultimate deliverance took a long time—months of treatment, training, and counseling, during which she was sustained and sometimes carried by His goodness. And that goodness continued with her as she entered the temple with her husband and children to be sealed together forever. Like the people of Zarahemla, Emilie now gives thanks as she reflects on the immediate goodness of God and His power in delivering her from bondage.

I was attending a religious conference with my sister when she asked me to climb a tree and get a bunch of coconuts for the conference. As I was collecting the coconuts at the top of the tree, I suddenly blacked out and fell. I landed hard on my back and could no longer feel my legs.
I was taken to the hospital, where the doctors stabilized the bones in my back. For three months, I lay on my back in the hospital, unable to even sit up. It was an emotional and depressing time. I would just lie there and wonder what was going to happen to me and what I was going to do next.
After the three months, I was told to go to New Zealand for an operation for my back. The operation made it so that I could sit instead of only lie down. While in the hospital in New Zealand, I met a girl who was working there. She asked me, “Do I know you? You look familiar.”
We started chatting. She shared the gospel of Jesus Christ and gave me a Book of Mormon. At first, I didn’t read it. I left it untouched beside my bed. One day, however, I was alone and there was nothing interesting to watch on television. Then I saw the Book of Mormon on my table. I opened it and began to read and read.
As I read, I had the feeling that there was something different about the Book of Mormon and that it must contain the true gospel of Jesus Christ. The girl in the hospital had marked several verses, one of which was Alma 37:37: “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good.”
Those words jumped out at me and made me think. To know if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the true Church, I knew I needed to counsel with the Lord. I also wanted to go see this church for myself.
When I got home from New Zealand, I invited the missionaries to teach me. As I learned, I gained a testimony that this is Christ’s Church. I am grateful to the missionaries who taught me. At my baptism, they had the strength to carry me into the water—one holding me in his arms while the other performed my baptism.
With my baptism, all the feelings of depression and hopelessness I had endured were washed away. I knew I had a purpose in life and that God loved me.

When I was investigating the Church, I remember the missionaries teaching me about the importance of partaking of the sacrament after being baptized. This helped me to remember the covenant I chose to enter. I was baptized on Dec. 6, 1988. I will always remember the Sunday that followed because I was then able to partake of the sacrament. I felt joy, simple and sweet joy, peace, and confidence. I felt that I was completely part of this special meeting. My Sundays became different because of being able to come to the table of the Lord. I felt empowered by the covenant and received the promised Spirit of the Lord to start and handle the coming week.
Thirty-five years have passed since then and I think that I rarely missed a sacrament, always making it a commitment to come to sacrament meeting and partake of this special supper.

Abigail sat quietly during sacrament meeting. Today she felt sad. She was thinking about how she hadn’t been nice to a girl at school. Abigail felt even worse because she had been baptized a few weeks earlier. She remembered how good she felt on her baptism day.
“I wish I could get baptized again,” Abigail thought. “Then I could feel good again.”
She thought about one of her favorite Primary songs: “I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away, and I can be forgiven and improve myself each day.”*
Abigail remembered that by fixing her wrong actions and taking the sacrament, she could be clean again—as clean as she was after her baptism! Abigail planned to apologize to her classmate. She smiled and prepared to take the sacrament.

Illustration by John Kachik
During my sophomore year in high school, I volunteered as part of the technical crew to produce my high school’s annual musical. The experience became one of my favorite memories of the year, because it was fun and I learned so much doing it. I also loved working with the people I met.
But the most important thing I learned was not something I had expected.
In order for the tech crew to communicate quietly with each other, we used radio headsets. We also used them to tell jokes, have conversations, even to sing to each other to entertain ourselves during the long rehearsals.
But the first time we used the headsets wasn’t actually so comfortable for me. At first I was having a blast. Then some people started gossiping about the actors rehearsing onstage. I tried to ignore the snide comments and rude remarks, but as the conversation developed, the gossip grew crueler and more offensive.
I felt sick hearing some of the comments, but I was afraid to stand up against my new friends. I wish I had, because as I tolerated their jokes, I was eventually tempted to laugh and make my own comments. I began to rationalize why it would have been fine. Nobody but the tech crew would have heard me, and I wanted to fit in with the people around me.
As hard as it was, I knew that backbiting about those onstage wasn’t right, and I chose not to gossip.
After the rehearsal we learned that everything we had said over the headsets had been broadcast backstage. All 60 or so of the cast members had heard us talking. Some were angry, upset, or embarrassed. No one was impressed.
Later, while I was talking with one of my friends about what had happened, she said, “Everyone knows you’d never say anything like that.” Her comment shocked me, and I realized the significance of the choice I had made. If I had chosen to join in with the gossip, what would that have said about me? What would that have said about the Church?
I’m grateful for the choice I made in that dark, little theater, even when I thought others wouldn’t know, because it has opened blessings of friendship, peace, and confidence that I would have lost had I chosen to gossip.

When I was baptized I wanted to have a strong testimony like other members of the Church. I fasted and prayed until I gained a small testimony, but I still felt a little sad. Then I read “A Growing Testimony” by President James E. Faust, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, in the January 2001 Liahona (Spanish). President Faust said that our testimonies will continue to grow, and I know this is true. My testimony is getting stronger every day. I’m grateful and happy to be a Latter-day Saint and to have a growing testimony.
Gilberto Cordero Castro,Coronado Branch, San José Costa Rica Toyopán Stake

My second story centers around Great-Uncle Grover, who lived in a house out in the country, far from the city. Uncle Grover was getting very old. We thought our sons should meet him before he died. So, one afternoon, we took a long drive to his humble house. We sat together to visit and introduce him to our sons. Not long into the conversation, our two young boys, maybe five and six years old, wanted to go outside and play.
Uncle Grover, hearing their request, bent over with his face in theirs. His face was so weathered and unfamiliar that the boys were a little scared of him. He said to them, in his gravelly voice, “Be careful—there are a lot of skunks out there.” Hearing this, Lesa and I were more than startled; we were worried that they might get sprayed by a skunk! The boys soon went outside to play as we continued to visit.
Later, when we got in the car to go home, I inquired of the boys, “Did you see a skunk?” One of them replied, “No, we didn’t see any skunks, but we did see a black kitty cat with a white stripe on its back!”

I started preparing to be a professional ball player at the age of three, and I never took my mind off it. And that was one of my problems. I didn’t think that public school or church had anything to do with becoming a ball player, and because of my poor vision in terms of values, I had to learn a very hard lesson. Everything I did from age three until I was 18 and signed that first professional ball contract was oriented toward the ball field. I ate, slept, and drank baseball. That’s all I could think of, but it was necessary in terms of my preparation. My only problem was I got overbalanced in it. I collected more Wheaties box tops than you can ever imagine, because I thought there was some correlation between eating Wheaties and being a better ball player.
For 12 years of public education I never took a book home to study. I’m not proud of it. I’m sorry, and I’ve tried to repent, and I’m spending the rest of my life paying the price of the void that I created by that silly observation of a few years ago, thinking as I used to in algebra and English, “Of what value is this to me if I become a great pitcher? I can throw a curve ball just as well without algebra and English as I can with it.” I used to go home and say, “Yep, I’m all prepared for life. I can throw as hard as anybody and run just as fast and hit just as far. So don’t bother me.” I’ve lived to see the fallacy of that one.
When it came time to go to church on Sunday, I took it as a personal affront to me, because how could church help me be a better ball player?
That’s the way my mind worked. I’m not saying that becoming a great ball player or lawyer or doctor isn’t important. It is; it’s necessary for temporal salvation, but it isn’t the most important thing that we’re sent to earth to do. It’s the eternal things that really count, and it’s a sharp, intelligent person who can catch this vision early and do something about it.
At the age of three I had not calculated that World War II would be on the scene. I hadn’t put that in my program. I didn’t know about it, and little did I know that Uncle Sam would tap me on the shoulder when my 18th birthday came and say, “Come on, buddy, follow me. That’s what you’re going to do for the next three years.”
Three months before I had signed my first ball contract. Do you know what that means? Here I planned for 15 years to be what I wanted to be. I had eight major league scouts tracking me down; I was finally graduated from high school and arrived at age 18 when I was permitted by my parents to sign that contract and to put my name on the dotted line with what was then a pretty good bonus. You know what kind of thrill that is for a teenager? I wish I had the ability to tell you. And then I reported to that first team, and I stepped into that dugout with a new number. You know what a thrill that is? Then to get a letter two or three months later that says, “Forget that, brother, and follow me. We have other plans for you.” That’s what I hadn’t counted on. That was the uncertain part of my life that I had never planned for; there are those things in the lives of us all.

Last year, Lisa dislocated her shoulder and missed a chance to go to the Blue Star Basketball Camp to be seen by college recruiters. She was disappointed, but she didn’t give up. “I knew that I’d kept my body clean and strong and that it would heal fast.” She came back playing even stronger.
Lisa’s coach, John Schneiter, says, “In my 35 years of coaching, I’ve never seen a harder working athlete.”

After this experience, the Veranos attended Church meetings for a time, but quit after a few weeks. During this period there were several “coincidences” that helped to keep the Church in their thoughts. Sig’s mother-in-law, visiting from Colombia, spoke favorably of the clean-cut young American missionaries whose meetinghouse was near her home. An old friend from Colombia, now a sailor in the merchant marine, came for a visit. At dinnertime, he asked if he could say a blessing on the food—and Sig Verano recognized from his prayer that he was a Latter-day Saint. The friend, a convert who studied the scriptures ardently during his long voyages, bore his testimony to the Veranos, not knowing they had been investigating the Church.
Earlier, Sig Verano had told one pair of missionaries that they could come to visit as friends, but not as teachers. Before one of them went home at the end of his mission, he and his companion stopped by to visit and to invite the Veranos to meet his parents at a small farewell gathering hosted by friends. The Veranos were so impressed with the loving Latter-day Saints they met that they began taking the missionary lessons again.
But Ana Verano, faithful to the traditions of her forefathers’ church, became stubborn when she realized her husband was serious about joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She felt she didn’t need to be baptized again. So they reached an agreement: since the children liked the Church, he would take them there after his baptism. She would continue to go to her church.
But repeatedly during the week preceding Sig’s baptism, Ana dreamed of the Savior’s baptism by John in the River Jordan. She concluded that it was an indication, meant just for her, of the right thing to do.
Sigifredo and Ana were baptized in January of 1974. Their son Edison was baptized later that year, after his eighth birthday.
The Veranos’ struggles with faithfulness were not yet over, however, and neither was the loving work of others in fellowshipping them.
A fine home teacher, George Baker, helped keep them active in the Church, Brother Verano recalls. Unused to attending church meetings three times a day, beginning with priesthood at seven A.M., Brother Verano was ready to quit. The early meetings were difficult because he was working from midnight to six A.M. But Brother Baker, who could not go himself, arranged for someone to drive the Veranos to ward meetings, and kept them coming.
The Veranos’ spirituality grew as they faithfully attended meetings and obeyed gospel principles.
He was called as president of his stake’s Spanish-speaking branch, created in 1978, and was made bishop when, after five years, it became a ward.
The creation of that branch was a blessing also for Ana Verano. What little English she knew had made it difficult for her to participate in an English-speaking ward. In the Spanish-speaking branch, she could hold callings and grow in service as her husband had.
“My real testimony has come through working in the Church,” Brother Verano says. “Constant service is one of the things that strengthens one’s testimony.”
The first Spanish-speaking ward in their stake was divided shortly after its creation, and Sig was called to the high council. He now serves as stake executive secretary for the three Spanish-speaking wards in the Los Angeles California North Hollywood Stake. Ana serves in the stake’s English-language name extraction program.
Among the vocational courses Sig Verano completed in his wide-ranging studies was one in real estate sales. It led to a profitable new career—and to further strengthening of his testimony.
His sales career didn’t begin well. He was fired after only one week when the owner of the real estate agency learned the new salesman’s religion following Brother Verano’s refusal to work on Sunday.
“The gospel is so important in our lives that Sunday is empty if we can’t go to Church meetings,” he explains. But the owner of the real estate company said that the Mormons put too much time into Church service to be successful. Go work for a small agency where the owner will not care so much about sales success, he told Sig Verano.
Brother Verano took the dismissal as a challenge. He found a job with a larger agency, and, working only part-time in 1979, was its top salesman. He has consistently refused to work on Sundays; as branch president and bishop, he also devoted part of his Saturdays to Church service. Yet for several years he has been among the company’s top five salespeople.
In Church service, Brother Verano says humbly, he has gained knowledge that the Lord lives, that through him we can be redeemed, and that he has placed prophets on earth to help guide us. Those who only tentatively believe that the gospel is true can come to know of its truth with certainty as he has—by testing it in obedience and in service to others.
“When I was baptized into the Church,” he reflects, “I believed. But now I know.”