Gospel Story Finder

The small farmhouse appeared dreamlike in the predawn Florida mist that enveloped it and the surrounding swamplands. A large white ibis resting atop a darkened tree shape started at the sound of a screen door banging closed. A young girl ran from the farmhouse toward an as yet invisible landing on the edge of the swamp. She was crying and carrying a large doll with a broken right leg.
Cassie Gunnerson climbed into one of three wooden boats, untethered the rope that secured it to the pier, and shoved off into the gray silence. Using a long pole, she pushed with angry, tearful grunts against the soggy bottom of the shallow water.
The ibis blinked its eye, and the eleven-year-old girl was gone, swallowed up by the mist.
It wasn’t long before Cassie’s twelve-year-old brother, Nathan, and their parents, were up and searching for her. “We got in a fight, Pa,” Nathan sheepishly admitted as he and his parents scoured the mangrove thickets on the outer edge of the field. No one bothered to call to Cassie because she had been born deaf. “Cassie dropped the spyglass you gave me into the water yesterday while we were fishing, because …” Nathan’s voice trailed.
“Because why?” his father gently but firmly probed.
“Well,” Nathan continued somewhat hesitantly, “I guess because I cut her line. And that’s because,” he added defensively, “she kept splashing her feet in the water and scaring away the fish!”
“You haven’t told us why she ran off,” Nathan’s mother prompted him.
Nathan’s eyes fell, then lifted slowly. “I really liked that spyglass.” His look shifted to his father’s, hoping to find some kind of sympathy. But what he saw was deepening concern. “With it I could see things in the marsh nobody knew were there,” Nathan continued. “Little things like cooties and skater bugs and cucumber beetles and potter wasps and …” Anger festered inside Nathan as he tried to justify what he was about to say. “I broke Cassie’s doll,” he declared, “because of what she did to my spyglass!”
“Do you realize how long your sister saved for that doll?” Nathan’s mother questioned sternly. “How much it meant to her?”
“I guess about as much as my spyglass,” Nathan retorted.
Father rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Do two wrongs make a right?”
Nathan’s mother stared toward the swamp. “Cassie’s boat is gone!”
The swamp was deep, a maze of twisting waterways in a jungle of trees and vines. What made matters worse was Cassie’s being deaf. She couldn’t hear them call for her.
Father rested a calming hand on his wife’s arm. He turned to Nathan. “Son, I’ll take my boat; you take yours. I’ll carry my rifle; you take my Colt Dragoon. Whichever one of us finds Cassie first will fire three shots, is that understood?”
“Yes, Pa.”
Father’s eyes focused on Mother. “You stay near the house, in case Cassie shows up here first. Grandpa Sawyer’s pepperbox pistol is in the root cellar. If she does come here, fire three rounds to let us know.”
Nathan navigated his small boat through the lily-pad-laden backwater with his long pole. His eyes scanned the densely brushed islands and the countless waterways between the huge cypress trees for any sign of his sister’s boat. To his right, on some goldenrod that protruded above a log wrapped with Spanish moss, he observed a tiger swallowtail butterfly. To his left, a harmless rat snake rested in the fold of a dead tree. Directly above him on an old, dilapidated walkway that spanned two small islands, a gray squirrel chattered loudly and shook its bushy tail at him. And less than fifty yards in front of Nathan a sandhill crane waded looking for food. The young boy found himself thinking that he would gladly trade all these wondrous sights for a glimpse of his younger sister.
The boat scraped against hidden roots of cypress trees and groaned like Nathan’s conscience. He gazed into the smooth, glassy water and stared at his reflection. Then he disrupted his image with a swish of the pole—he didn’t like what he saw.
The thrashing of brushwood on one of the nearby small islands caused him to lift his eyes with a start. There, in a little clearing high atop dry ground, Nathan witnessed two male white-tailed deer contending with each other. They pushed against each other with their heads and curved antlers. Finally the fight ended when one of them tired and ran away. “I guess Cassie got tired of fighting and ran away, too,” Nathan muttered. “It was a stupid argument,” he added as he continued on down the winding, watery corridor. “Why do people who love each other fight so much? And what if something’s happened to Cassie and I didn’t tell her I was sorry!” Nathan’s pace quickened, scanning the shadows with unblinking scrutiny.
Nathan searched all day, meandering in and out of a maze of waterways. He was a few miles from home when it started to rain. He steered his little boat under the protection of an overhanging tree limb. His eyes welled up. He hadn’t heard any gunshots. Cassie hadn’t been found, nor had she returned home. He gazed through the gray curtain of falling rain. “Cassie!” he screamed, knowing full well that she couldn’t have heard him even if she was sitting right beside him. He bowed his head and beseeched his Heavenly Father to help him find his sister. He knew that Heavenly Father could hear him even through the pounding rain.
A few moments later the rain stopped as quickly as it had started, and Nathan continued his search. A great horned owl stared out of the mossy shadows with its bright yellow eyes and hooted as the little boat moved quietly by.
A short time later Nathan’s dugout floated into a clearing. He felt prompted to stop and listen. He heard someone whimpering! Rapidly poling toward the sound, he saw a small boat harbored along the shore of an island. Then he saw Cassie. She was sitting in a patch of goldenrod, her face soiled and drawn, her hair tangled. She looked very lost and very frightened. Relief washed over Nathan.
A moment later Nathan was standing before his sister. She was relieved to see him, but her reaction was dulled by leftover hurt. He glanced at the broken doll in Cassie’s boat, then at a paint-root plant in a tuft of grass. He picked some seeds from it and crushed them on a smooth rock. He dabbed his index finger in orange dye from the seeds and wrote “I love you” on Cassie’s arm. After a long look at her arm, then at Nathan, Cassie leaned forward and hugged her brother.
Smiling through his tears, he took his father’s Colt Dragoon from his boat and fired three rounds skyward.

My wife and I love this scripture so much that she painted it on a wall in our living room, below a beautiful white porcelain Christus. They are a constant reminder for us to live Christ-centered lives.
On one occasion, we were at the visitors’ center on Temple Square with our grandchildren. Two-year-old Ashley was tired and wanted to leave. Sister Mask asked her if she wanted to see a big Jesus like the one on our wall. She asked, “Is He as big as me?”
“Even bigger,” Sister Mask replied. When that tiny, little girl looked up at the majestic Christus, she ran and stood at the feet and gazed up reverently for several minutes. When her father indicated it was time to go, she said, “No, no, Daddy. He loves me and wants to give me hugs!”

His house key is in the lock. He’s home from work and about to step inside. In the kitchen, real life is scattered all around. The baby is crying. The three-year-old just poured milk—not in a glass but all over the counter. The seven-year-old needs some daddy attention. And dinner isn’t ready.
With a deadline at work tomorrow, a head buzzing from rush-hour traffic, and a Church meeting tonight, he’s hoping she will greet him with some relief.
Hearing him come in, she is glad a relief party has arrived! But when she sees his face fall as he looks around, she defends herself: “Look—I work all day too. I’ve been with these kids nonstop, and I really need a break. Will you please fix this macaroni and cheese and help with the kids?”
In the heat of her request, his hope evaporates into exasperation, and he is about to react.
At this crossroads of their busy day, these two have some choices. Will they use this moment to practice being the kind of companion each has covenanted to become? Or will each one default to past conditioning—familial and cultural? Certain attitudes and ideas have crept into the very air they breathe, challenging them as they try to work with each other rather than against each other.
That couple we saw at the kitchen threshold share a commitment to the promise of eternal family unity. But equal partnerships are not made in heaven—they are made on earth, one choice at a time, one conversation at a time, one threshold crossing at a time. And getting there is hard work—like patiently working through differing assumptions about who was bringing relief to whom that night or any of thousands of nights like it.
As milk drips from the counter, she holds a box of macaroni and cheese in her hand, he faces a deadline and a meeting, and both feel the pull of weariness on their faces. How would people in a covenant, balanced relationship handle such a moment, and how could the next few moments help create an equal partnership?
Young wife, do you see in him someone who has worked all day to bring sustenance to your table? Young husband, do you see in her someone who has worked all day to make nourishment of that sustenance? Can you both see beyond the doing of the day and remember the inestimable worth of the being to whom you are married?

As the Church continues to expand, especially in foreign lands, the percentage of members who are literal descendants of the pioneers decreases, but I believe that those who bind themselves to this great work that the pioneers began are somehow spiritually adopted and become descendants of those noble forbears. This very real bond was touchingly displayed for me once when I listened to one of my students with tears running down his cheeks express love and gratitude for his heroic pioneer ancestors who crossed the plains. This would not have been so unusual except that his name was Doug Sakaguchi and he was a Japanese convert. In a very real way, I believe Brother Sakaguchi is just as much a descendent of the pioneers as I am.

At age 16, I began working as a lifeguard and teaching swimming lessons at an outdoor swimming pool in the center of the town. It was my dream job. Two years later I became the pool manager with a lot of responsibility.
As summer approached, I interviewed and hired all the lifeguards, arranged the work schedules, and organized the swimming lesson schedule. My days were full of lifeguarding and teaching lessons, and each night I counted all the money and took it to City Hall after we cleaned and locked up the pool.
The summer was going well and I loved my job. Then one day, several of the guards came to me wanting the following Sunday off; they all planned to be out of town. The pool had always been open on Sundays, but I had never had to work them because I never scheduled myself and the others weren’t bothered by working on Sunday.
I could almost hear the tempter’s voice in my ear saying, “Just work one Sunday. What’s the big deal?” But I wanted to remain firm in my commitment to never work on Sunday. It took a lot of arranging, but I finally was able to fill that shift and didn’t have to work.
Over the next several weeks, I felt more and more anxiety about the whole Sunday situation. I realized that there might be some day in the future where I would have to work because no one else was available or might call in sick. I had made a commitment to keep the Sabbath day holy, and I didn’t want to break it, but I needed a solution or I would have to find a job elsewhere for the next summer.
I gave the problem a lot of thought and decided I might be able to figure out a way to get the pool closed on Sundays. Could it even be possible? I would have to approach the city council, since they were the ones who were in charge of the city pool.
So I brainstormed all the ideas I could think of to justify closing the pool. I figured out how many people usually came to swim each Sunday and what the average revenue was. I deducted the costs of operating the pool, heating the water, and paying the lifeguards. Typically, Sundays were slow at the pool—and my minor research had confirmed that. Closing the pool could save the city money.
A friend of mine helped me find more reasons why closing the pool on Sundays was beneficial to the city. Together we worked on a proposal, and a few weeks later I took the proposal to the city council. To my great surprise, they agreed and accepted my proposal. Within a short time that summer the pool was open each week only Monday through Saturday.

When I served as a mission president in Canada more than 50 years ago, one young missionary who came from a small, rural community marveled at the size of Toronto. He was short in stature but tall in testimony. Not long after his arrival, together with his companion, he called at the home of Elmer Pollard in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Feeling sorry for the young men who, during a blinding blizzard, were going house to house, Mr. Pollard invited the missionaries into his home. They presented to him their message. He did not catch the spirit. In due time he asked that they leave and not return. His last words to the elders as they departed his front porch were spoken in derision: “You can’t tell me you actually believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God!”

The door was shut. The elders walked down the path. Our country boy spoke to his companion: “Elder, we didn’t respond to Mr. Pollard. He said we didn’t believe Joseph Smith was a true prophet. Let’s return and bear our testimonies to him.” At first the more experienced missionary hesitated but finally agreed to accompany his companion. Fear struck their hearts as they approached the door from which they had just been ejected. They knocked, confronted Mr. Pollard, spent an agonizing moment, and then with power borne of the Spirit, our inexperienced missionary spoke: “Mr. Pollard, you said we didn’t really believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I testify to you that Joseph was a prophet. He did translate the Book of Mormon. He saw God the Father and Jesus the Son. I know it.”

Some time later, Mr. Pollard, now Brother Pollard, stood in a priesthood meeting and declared, “That night I could not sleep. Resounding in my ears I heard the words ‘Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I know it. I know it. I know it.’ The next day I telephoned the missionaries and asked them to return. Their message, coupled with their testimonies, changed my life and the lives of my family.” Brethren, teach the truth with testimony.

I’m a missionary serving in the Costa Rica San Jose Mission. I’ve enjoyed the New Era since I was 13 years old. Each issue has had articles that have helped me. The article by Vicki Leavitt Driggs in the November 1986 issue, entitled “The Grudge” seemed to be meant especially for me. It helped me tremendously with my own particular problem.
Normally, I get along well with the people I meet, and as a missionary, of course, I meet and work with a lot of different people. But I’ve had to work with a certain individual with whom it has been very difficult for me to get along. I was really feeling awful inside. I didn’t want to have bad feelings about anyone, especially one with whom I had to be very closely associated.
A couple of days ago this person did something that really hurt me. I felt quite angry and was even more “unkindly disposed” toward her than I had previously been.
When I returned to my apartment, I opened the November issue of the New Era I had just received from my parents. I started to read “The Grudge.” After reading it I realized that I felt exactly like the girl in the story. I knew I had to talk to this person whom I was allowing to make me have these negative feelings. I had to clear the air.
That’s exactly what I did. Now things are better between us than ever before. Thank you so much for this story.
Sister Cami OscarsonCosta Rica San Jose Mission

The scriptures are for people of all ages. Young children can also learn to read, ponder, and appreciate them. A father recently assigned two of his children, ages eight and nine, to read four chapters from the New Testament each Sunday. At first they had to be prodded, but they gradually developed interest and even began to read on other days of the week. Soon they were reading before going to bed each night. When they finished the New Testament, they started the Book of Mormon. Within three months the older child finished the Book of Mormon and started it again.

In the faraway islands of the Pacific, hundreds who were near-blind now see because a missionary said to his physician brother-in-law, “Leave your wealthy clientele and the comforts of your palatial home and come to these special children of God who need your skills and need them now.” The ophthalmologist responded without a backward glance. Today he comments quietly that this visit was the best service he ever rendered and the peace which came to his heart the greatest blessing of his life.

Illustrations by David Habben
At the end of my eighth grade year, I was so excited to try out for my junior high’s cheerleading squad. I remember watching the ninth-grade cheerleaders, hoping that I might be one of them the following year. I was excited when I realized a lot of my friends would be trying out too. After tryouts, I was thrilled to find out I had made the squad.
Throughout the summer, we learned chants, stunts, and a dance that we’d be performing throughout the year at games and assemblies. I asked my mother to download the song we were dancing to so I could practice at home. After she did, she was concerned that it was suggestive and inappropriate. I quickly explained that the music we were using at school had been edited and that the bad words were taken out. Then my mom explained that just removing the bad words from a song doesn’t remove the meaning. She helped me understand what kind of message I would be sending about myself if I were to dance to this kind of music.
The next day, I brought some wholesome music, hoping the coach would be open to changing the song because it was not appropriate for us. No one really liked my idea, and I chose to sit out while the rest of the squad continued to rehearse to the inappropriate song.
I was disappointed that I was the only one who seemed to be bothered by our squad’s choice of song, and I knew that by choosing to sit out, I would most likely be sitting out the entire year. This was very hard for me because I really wanted to feel like a part of the cheer squad. I knew this was the only dance we would be performing and that I would not get to be a part of the halftime performances.
I realized I would need to rely on the Lord to get me through this trial. I had not made the popular decision. I was very discouraged as young women I trusted as friends began gossiping about me, sharing unkind text messages with one another, and turning their backs on me. There were times I would show up and my teammates would ignore me and pretend I wasn’t there, but even this was better than the times we would sit in a circle while everyone openly talked about me. I struggled with the idea of having to suffer through this for the entire year. I am proud to say I never second-guessed my choice. I did, however, wonder why the right thing didn’t feel better. Why was I being punished for making the right choice?
In church when we talked about standing for truth and righteousness, I often pictured how glorious it would feel to make the right choice and have others happily follow. I thought of how wonderful it would feel to be a righteous leader. This experience helped me understand how difficult it truly is to stand up against your peers and those you respect—and how lonely it can be to stand alone.
As youth in the Church, we are going to have to make unpopular decisions. I know that by taking a stand for things that are virtuous and true, we will not only bless our own lives but the lives of those around us as well. In Joshua 1:9 we read, “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” The Lord loves us and is there to help us make the decisions that will define whom we will become.
I am grateful I was given the opportunity to stand up for what I believe in. I was grateful that I had the courage to stand alone among my peers. I was grateful to experience that the Lord does help us find the strength to do what is right. I could feel in my heart that He was proud of me. Deep down I knew I was a righteous leader, even if no one else followed.

I have had that experience in my own family. When our children were small, my wife and I sometimes punished their disobedience by making them go to their room or sit on a chair. I remember one particular time when one of my daughters who was about four or five was sent to her room for punishment. When she started her door was closed but pretty soon I heard it quietly and slowly open. It wasn’t long before a little foot appeared in the doorway and slid carefully into the hall. After a few minutes part of a body began to appear. Gradually, she extended more and more of her body into the hall until only her hand was left in the room. She then asked, “Can I come out of my room now?” In her mind she was still in her room because her hand was there, but the rest of her had escaped. She had basically disobeyed the order to stay in her room, but was going through enough of the motion of being there that she could think that she wasn’t violating what she was told. Too often in life we are like my daughter pretending to be obeying the Lord when in reality we have left the spirit of it far behind.

In 1997, during the 150th Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley, Sister Puzey and I were invited to ride our horses along as outriders for the wagon train that would be entering the Salt Lake Valley. We rode with the wagons and teams of horses in case there were problems.

One morning as we were working our way up a steep mountain pass, we came to a riverbed that was muddy and difficult to travel through. I moved up alongside the wagon that was about to cross the muddy riverbed and asked the experienced teamster driving what I might do to help. He calmly turned and assured me he would be fine and then added, "Always remember on a difficult trail to keep encouraging your horses on and never say 'whoa' in a mud hole." I have always remembered that wisdom in difficult times in my life: "Never say 'whoa' in a mud hole."

A busy teenager in a rather large family complained about the amount of time taken with daily family prayer. As the wise mother was praying, she intentionally left out the name of the complaining child. As the prayer concluded, the busy child said, “Mother, you left me out of your prayer!” The loving mother explained that she was just responding to the complaint expressed. The busy child exclaimed, “Don’t leave me out.”

Around the world literally hundreds of people are gaining this testimony daily. I heard one such person speak just a few days ago. He was a new convert to the Church. He was a young man and he had a young family. He told how his life had literally changed—how the life of his whole family had changed. For the first time he knew what his relationship to God was and what the Lord expected of him. Because of this, he said, he was a better husband and father. He knew where he was going and could lead his family in a better way. But mostly he was happy—happy with the quiet joy that fills the life of every truly converted person.

The burning testimony of God’s love which still excites my soul came to me when I was only ten years old, at a time when I needed strength to sustain me through a very frightening experience. That testimony, firmly embedded in my soul, became the motivation in my search for truth and led me to a testimony of the gospel and membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints years later.
The experience began with Aunt Maggie and a little book called the Ten Commandments which she had given to my youngest sister for Christmas. Because Aunt Maggie came nearer to being an angel than anyone I knew, there was no doubt in my mind that we should live by every word written in that book.
Aunt Maggie loved the scriptures. Her life was one of selflessness, and often in our family gatherings she would speak of the importance of learning Jesus’ teachings and using them as a guide in our daily lives. I felt warm and secure in her home, and that feeling came back to me when I read the little book and looked at its lovely family illustrations. I knew I wanted our family to look like that.
One day my little sister, Edres, and my younger brother, Wade, and I were playing in the sand dunes across the field from our house when we suddenly felt a change in the atmosphere. Looking up, we could see an angry, dark storm approaching rapidly. We had seen such storms before. One had recently blown down our windmill, torn great branches from trees around our yard, and sent small farm sheds bouncing along the ground.
Now we were frightened, and Edres began to cry. I took her by one hand and my brother took her by the other, and we began to run toward home. My little sister couldn’t run that fast for long, however, and we had to slow down when home was still a hay field and an orchard away. As we hurried along, I kept telling them, “Don’t worry. The Lord will take care of us. If we do what he says in the Ten Commandments, he will protect us.”
I must have repeated these phrases to them more than a dozen times, partly to reassure them and partly as a form of prayer. “The Lord loves little children,” I told them. “All he wants us to do is keep the commandments. If we just ask him to help us, he will.” I was scared, but I couldn’t show it because I had to keep them from being scared. I knew we had to reach home before the full force of the storm hit, but Edres’s little legs couldn’t carry her very fast. Still, from all that Aunt Maggie had said and from the things written in the little book, I knew the Lord would help us.
And then the testimony came. We had just passed the peach section of the orchard and were going past the apple trees when a glowing, exciting warmth surged through my body, telling me that the things I was saying to my frightened brother and sister were true. That burning within me I would never forget. I felt 3 meters tall! I was no longer afraid! Although the wind grew stronger and balls of hail and huge drops of rain began to fall, I knew we would reach home in safety.
Mama came running out to meet us. She took Edres up in her arms, and we all hurried back to the house as fast as we could.
Later, alone with my thoughts, I pondered what had happened out there on the orchard road. I knew I had had a spiritual experience and that it had to do with the things written in the Ten Commandments. From listening to religious discussions between my mother, grandma, and Aunt Maggie, I knew there was a lot more to it than that, and that somewhere on earth there was a church that taught what I decided in my own mind was the way the Lord would have us live.
That experience became a treasure to me, and years later when I found the Latter-day Saints that same burning within that had come to me as a child returned. How grateful I am to Aunt Maggie, her devotion to the scriptures, and her gift of the little book.

When I was 12, I introduced the missionaries to my family. I had met them on the street, and they were friendly to me. They were helping the Church build a chapel in my city in Brazil, and they invited me to help them, which I began to do in my free time. I had never heard of young men who would choose to spend their time building a church.
I was so impressed with them that I decided to introduce them to my parents, and we invited them to come to our home. The missionaries gave our family the first discussion. We hadn’t ever smoked, so our family was already keeping that part of the Word of Wisdom, and we had family home evening every night in our home. We didn’t call it family home evening, but that’s what we were doing. We were Catholics, and we attended our church regularly, so my father told them we felt comfortable with our religion.
The missionaries left, but they wrote about our family in the missionaries’ area book that remained in the missionary apartment, including their impression that we would join the Church.
Ten years later I was living in another city when new missionaries arrived in the area where my family lived. They didn’t have a single person to teach and decided to look in the area book. They found the name of my parents and decided to visit. The missionaries prayed before they went, and the Lord inspired them. Despite being very faithful in his religion, my father had a question. He couldn’t believe that after death his wife would not still be his wife. He really felt that family ties needed to continue after death. He had asked ministers from different churches about this, and everybody explained to him, “No, after death your wife will be like your sister, and your son will be like your brother.”
When these missionaries knocked on my parents’ door, my father opened it and told them he had heard their message previously and was not interested. But the missionaries said, “We have another message for you. Do you know that your family can be together forever?” Those words inspired him. My father invited them to come in and teach him. Guided by the Spirit, the missionaries told my family about eternal marriage and eternal families. With this introduction to the gospel, my family continued to meet with the missionaries until they gained a testimony and decided to be baptized and confirmed.

Many of us remember President Hugh B. Brown telling of a personal epiphany that he had in World War I. At that time he owned a farm in Canada. One morning he went out to prune a currant bush that had grown all to wood and no longer blossomed or produced currants. So he got his pruning shears and cut it and pruned it and clipped it back until there was nothing left but the stumps.

President Brown said he imagined that if the currant bush could speak, it would say, “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down.”

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

President Brown then explained that when World War I came, he was in England in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian army. He was a field officer and was being considered for promotion to general in the British army. He was ordered to appear one morning in the office of the commanding general of the Canadian forces. His uniform was pressed and his buttons polished and his boots shining. President Brown recalled: “I walked smartly into the office of the general and I saluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of salute a senior officer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He then advised President Brown that he was not going to be appointed a general even though he had passed examinations and had the seniority and was a good officer.

He was being sent back to Canada to become a training officer and a transport officer. As the general slipped out of the room to answer a telephone, President Brown noticed on the general’s desk his personal history sheet. Across the bottom, in bold block-type letters, was written “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.”

The general came back, dismissed President Brown, and President Brown went away with a broken heart, bitterness in his soul, and a feeling of failure and disappointment. When he got back to his tent, he clenched his fists, shook them at heaven, and said:

“How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.

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

President Brown would have been the senior military officer in all western Canada, with security and a good income, and he would have had to raise his daughters and two sons in army barracks. He commented that they probably would have married out of the Church and not amounted to anything.

President Brown concluded this remarkable story by saying that when we are overcome with disappointment and heartbreak and defeat, we should remember that

“God is the gardener here. He knows what he wants you to be.” Submit yourselves to his will. Be worthy of his blessings, and you will get his blessings.

Case 7. Two missionaries struggled through barbed wire fences, sprinklers, mudholes, and ferocious dogs, but in the end they found a golden family—of members.
After the opening prayer, the projectionist hit the switch, and the evening was awash in cheers, laughter, and even a few friendly groans. Poor Cindy Ella, outcast because of her curly hair, did get to the governor’s ball (thanks to her fairy godperson) and fell in love with the governor’s curly headed son. A new banana eating record was set. The three junk food junkies did lose weight. The missionaries did keep tracting. Fun triumphed again. All seven wards had come up with their own idea of what the silver screen is all about, and all were pretty proud of what they had done.

At a Young Women in Excellence event in her ward, Lily was recognized for completing her Individual Worth value project. For this project, Lily participated in Special Olympics. She competed in three track-and-field events and three swimming events. She worked very hard to prepare for her competitions and learn the proper techniques.
When Lily first started learning how to throw a rubber javelin for a track-and-field event, it was a bit tricky. But Lily practiced hard, and when the day of the event came, Lily was not nervous at all because she knew just what to do. When the results came in, Lily earned the gold medal!
Lily’s participation in Special Olympics helped her learn that she can do hard things, that she can develop her talents, and that she has great worth.

That same brother, Phineas, was the first of the Young family to see the Book of Mormon, though even before it was published, they had all heard and read of the Prophet “Joe Smith” and his “gold Bible” over in Palmyra less than 15 miles away. In April 1830, Phineas was given one of the first copies by the Prophet’s brother Samuel, and because he felt responsible to his little religious society to expose any such things “got up to lead people astray,” he read it carefully. But he could not find the errors he expected, and when he appeared before the group the next Sabbath, quite certainly with Brigham present, he “had not spoken ten minutes in defence of the book when the Spirit of God came upon me in a marvelous manner, and I spoke at great length on the importance of such a work, quoting from the Bible to support my position, and finally closing by telling the people that I believed the book.”22

Phineas lent his copy of the Book of Mormon to his father, who thought it “the greatest work he had ever seen,” then to his sister Fanny, who declared it “a revelation.” Fanny passed it on to Brigham, who was more reserved:
“When the Book of Mormon was first printed, it came to my hands in two or three weeks afterwards. Did I believe, on the first intimation of it? … ‘Hold on,’ says I. … The mantle of my traditions was over me, to that degree, … it was almost impossible for me to see at all; though I had beheld, all my life, that the traditions of the people was all the religion they had, I had got a mantle for myself. Says I, ‘Wait a little while; what is the doctrine of the book, and of the revelations the Lord has given? Let me apply my heart to them;’ and after I had done this, I considered it my right to know for myself, as much as any man on earth.
“I examined the matter studiously for two years before I made up my mind to receive that book. … I wished time sufficient to prove all things for myself.”23

On another, later occasion Brigham further explained this reserve:
“Upon the first opportunity I read the Book of Mormon, and then sought to become acquainted with the people who professed to believe it. … I watched to see whether good common sense was manifest; and if they had that, I wanted them to present it in accordance with the Scriptures. … when I had ripened everything in my mind, I drank it in, and not till then.”24