Gospel Story Finder

Below the 13th article, Andrea saw the name Joseph Smith. “When did Joseph Smith write these?” she asked.
“Well, a man named John Wentworth, who was the editor of an Illinois newspaper, wanted to know how the Church was started and what members believed. Joseph Smith told him in a letter, which became known as the “Wentworth Letter.” The principles mentioned in that letter later became the Articles of Faith. They don’t go into a lot of detail about all the things that we believe, but they list many basic truths of the gospel.”
“I’ve been learning at home and at church all my life, but”—she grinned at her friend—“I had a little help from a newspaper man.” Then she told Jane about the Wentworth Letter and about how Joseph Smith’s reply had become the Articles of Faith.
“Andrea, the Prophet Joseph Smith would be happy that what he wrote to John Wentworth helped you to share the gospel. Remember to thank the Lord tonight for him and the great work he did.”

Hip: I had a roommate who was engaged. One day we were talking about his upcoming marriage, and someone asked, “What are the commitments you two think will help you stay strong?” His answer was, “Not keeping the law of chastity could destroy our relationship. So we decided that we wouldn’t do anything we would not feel comfortable doing in front of the bishop or our parents.” That still has an influence on me.

“I don’t know, but I know that He does. I remember reading a story several months ago in the Ensign. It was a true story about a little sparrow that flew into the Tabernacle while the doors were open.”*
“You mean that big building on Temple Square where they hold general conference?”
Dad nodded. “The workers at the Tabernacle opened all the doors, hoping that the bird would fly out.”
“Did it?”
“No. They tried calling animal control, who brought some nets with real long handles so that they could try to catch the bird.”
Beth remembered how tall the ceiling in the Tabernacle was. Her mother and father had taken her there for a Christmas program last December. The handles on those nets must have been very, very, very long!
Dad continued. “The people ran from one end of the Tabernacle to the other, trying to catch the bird, but that just frightened the poor thing. Terrified, it flew back and forth from the pipe organ to the balcony. The people who worked in the Tabernacle were getting worried because there was an important concert scheduled for that evening and they were running out of time. They had to get the bird out.”
“What did they do?” Beth whispered.
“The animal control people couldn’t think of anything else, so they suggested that they use a pellet gun to shoot the bird.”
“Oh, no!”
“Or they thought they could put out some poisoned food that the bird would eat.”
“Oh, Daddy, they didn’t, did they?”
“Well,” Dad continued, “Brother John, the manager, wouldn’t let them hurt the bird. He thought about how important this little bird was to Heavenly Father and knew that Heavenly Father would know how to take care of the bird. So he turned around and said a quiet, simple prayer. Right away the Holy Ghost helped Brother John know what to do. He quickly gave instructions to the other workers to turn off all the lights; close the blinds, and close all but one of the doors. Soon light poured through that one single door, and the bird was finally able to find its freedom. Out it flew, safe at last.”

Welcome to the butterfly garden. Please move slowly, pay attention, and do not touch the butterflies.
Later …
How was the butterfly garden?
It was quiet and peaceful. I was kind of stressed at school today, but being in the garden made me feel better.
That’s how I feel when I go to the temple. I leave all my worries behind. I feel God’s love there.
I can’t wait until I’m old enough to go inside the temple. Can we visit the temple grounds together?
Of course!
This story took place in the USA.

I know of a man named Tom who agreed to drive his son Michael and some of Michael’s soccer teammates to their Saturday game. The boys were noisy, and Tom was getting frustrated trying to find a playing field he had never been to before. Unable to concentrate on his driving, Tom ran into another car. The accident was minor, but Tom let his frustration out in profanity.
Later that afternoon, young Michael asked his mother if his dad was a member of the Church. Michael had been taught that good Mormons don’t swear. His mother was surprised and said, “Of course your father is a Church member.”
“Well, Dad may be a Mormon, but I know he is not a Cub Scout!” Michael replied.

One time, early in the morning after Mama and I had spent the night with him and Grandma, Grandpa and I went to buy a morning newspaper because the funnies are the best thing to read before breakfast. On the way, he found a big broken branch that made a good walking stick. He pretended to hobble with it, then did a silly hop, skip, and jump. We had more fun than anything!
When we got home, Grandma took one look at Grandpa’s stick and said, “You get that dirty old thing out of the house!” Grandpa just laughed. He lifted her off the floor and swung her around.
“Put me down!” she screeched, but she was laughing too.
Grandpa kissed her before we went into the living room to read the funnies to each other.
That’s the way it used to be.

It was the summer of my sixth year. I loved to sleep in but was awakened early that Saturday morning by my mother. She reminded my sisters, brother, and me that we were going to drive out to the Barkley Ranch so that my older sister could play with her friend.
We quickly dressed while Mother filled a gallon jug with water to take with us on the trip. Mother and we four children climbed into our little gold car.
I can remember the excitement as we headed out toward the desert. None of us had ever been to the Barkley Ranch. Although I wasn’t the lucky one who would get to stay and play, at least I got to go for a ride.
Mother drove while trying to follow a few directions she had been given. It seemed forever before she finally turned off the main highway. I was sure we were almost there. We had traveled down a dirt road for several miles, when we came to and crossed a wash (the dry bed of a stream). As we continued on, the road became more treacherous. Finally, Mother decided that she had taken the wrong road. She turned the car around, and we headed back to the highway.
We soon came to the wash again and attempted to cross it. This time, the wheels of our little gold car sank deep into the sand. When the wheels just spun and spun in the sand, Mother told us that our car was stuck. I thought she was teasing us. We couldn’t get stuck out in the middle of the desert—it just wasn’t possible!
She tried again and again, but the tires just made bigger ruts in the sand. Finally she told my eight-year-old brother to steer while she got out of the car, walked around to the rear, and tried with all her might to push the car out. The car did not move.
The smell of the burning rubber made my empty stomach ache as I came to the sickening reality that we truly were stuck in the middle of the desert.
We all got out of the car and took refuge under the scanty shade of a paloverde tree. Mother took the little collapsible shovel out of the trunk and tried to dig the mounds of sand out of the way so that the wheel could roll forward.
I felt bad for her as we sat in the shade, watching her work in the heat of the morning sun. Her face was bright red, and the sweat poured off her brow as she dug and dug and dug.
We were all hopeful as she started the car, but instead of moving forward, the car’s wheels dug deeper into the sand.
Mother came over to us and told us that we needed to pray for help. We all knelt while she asked Heavenly Father to help us get our car out of the wash.
Then she sat down, and we each took a swallow of water from the gallon jug. My two-year-old sister spilled some water on her clothes. She was so thirsty, that she chewed a hole in them, trying to suck all the water out.
The sun’s scorching rays came relentlessly down on us. There was no breeze to bring relief to our sweaty faces.
Mother did not give up. She took a quilt out of the back of the car and laid it in front of the rear tires, trying to tuck the edge of it under the wheels as best she could. She was hoping the quilt would provide enough traction for the wheels to drive out of the ruts.
She again turned on the engine and pressed the gas pedal. The quilt was ripped to shreds by the spinning of the tires. It would take something much more substantial than a quilt to unwedge the wheels.
I was scared. No one knew where we were, not even our father. He had gone to the university for the summer to work on his master’s degree. I was sure that we were going to die.
Mother took the hatchet out of the car and began to chop a huge limb off a nearby mesquite tree. It was her intention to use the limb as a wedge to free the wheels. For hours, she and my big brother took turns chopping at that tree. It was hard work, and their progress was slow.
With one final chop of the hatchet, the limb fell to the ground. The limb was so big and so heavy, that they couldn’t move it. All their hard work had been in vain.
My brother was angry. He said, “Heavenly Father can’t hear us! He’s not going to answer our prayer.”
But Mother kept her faith. Again we knelt in prayer, this time much more humbly than before. Mother was exhausted and couldn’t think of any other way to get our car out. She said we had to leave it up to Heavenly Father to save us.
I watched as a centipede crawled down the bank of the wash, leaving lines in the sand behind him. I wondered why anyone or anything would choose to live in the desert with the cactus and lizards. I knew that I did not want to stay here forever. This was not a good place to die.
Our ration of water was getting low. We always had only clear water in the container for windshield wiper fluid—instead of the bought stuff, which is poisonous—so Mother poured it out of the container and into our water jug.
We were all very hungry as well as thirsty, for by then it was late afternoon. My little sister kept begging, “Baby cereal. Baby cereal.”
Suddenly Mother stood up and announced that we were going to start walking. She lifted the baby up onto her shoulders and, with our precious water in hand, headed out. The road seemed to be endless, and my legs soon felt wobbly. We took a rest alongside the road. We each drank a swallow, then got up and continued on our way.
I wondered how many miles it was to the main highway. Was it five? Was it ten? I didn’t know if I could walk that far—I didn’t know if I would make it. I tried to think of happy thoughts to take my mind off my misery, but they just wouldn’t come.
Then, far in the distance, we saw something: a truck coming down the road! I felt my heart pounding as we waved our arms in the air trying to attract the driver’s attention.
It seemed to take a lifetime for the truck to finally reach us. It belonged to a cattle rancher and was filled with his ranch hands. The rancher told us he thought at first we were cattle. Since he knew there should not be cattle where we were, he had driven down the road to investigate.
We all climbed into his truck, and they gave us cold water from their water cooler. I can still remember how good it tasted! Then he drove us back to the wash, a place where I was hoping to never go again. He had his men hook a tow chain to the front of our car and then push from the back. As the rancher drove his truck forward, our car, almost effortlessly, followed behind.
With smiles of relief, we thanked the men and headed for home. We had spent ten long hours out in the desert sun. We were weak from exhaustion.
When home at last, I guzzled glass after glass of delicious, wonderful water. I drank until I felt I was going to float away on a sea of happiness.
After we had rested and regained our strength, my mother asked us if we thought Heavenly Father had answered our prayers. Yes, I knew He had. I would never doubt Him again.

I first experienced the blessings of someone fasting in my behalf when I was a young single adult investigating the Church. At that time, I was strongly against the Church and argued a lot when I discussed with the missionaries. I thought that was a way for me to avoid being indoctrinated. I was obviously not the golden investigator and did not progress at all. A few weeks later, a series of miraculous events I could not explain happened in my life and made me humble myself and receive a testimony from the Holy Ghost. I later learned that my member friend, who introduced me to the missionaries, had prayed and fasted for me.

“I remember more than 30 years ago when I was first called to be a visiting teacher, I was assigned a young woman who never came to church,” recalls Catherine Carr Humphrey of the Hillside Ward, Rancho Cucamonga California Stake. “She impressed me in those early 1970s as a hippie type. I faithfully went every month and knocked on her door. She would open the inside door but leave the screen door shut. I was never really sure what she looked like. She would not say anything. She would just stand there. I would look cheerful and say, ‘Hi, I’m Cathie, your visiting teacher.’ And as she would say nothing, I would say, ‘Well, our lesson today is on …’ and try briefly to say something uplifting and friendly. When I was through, she would say, ‘Thank you,’ and shut the door.
“I did not like going there. I felt embarrassed. But I went because I wanted to be obedient. After about seven or eight months of this, I got a phone call from the bishop.
“‘Cathie,’ he said, ‘the young woman you visit teach just had a baby who lived only a few days. She and her husband are going to have a graveside service, and she asked me to see if you would come and be there with her. She said you are her only friend.’
“I went to the cemetery. The young woman, her husband, the bishop, and I were at the graveside. That was all. I had seen her only once a month for a few minutes at a time. I hadn’t even been able to tell through the screen door that she was expecting a baby, yet even my inept but hopeful visiting had blessed us both.”

To start the project, each young woman collected five generations of ancestors’ names. The group began by visiting a local family history center, where they learned how to do family history research online. Monica B., 14, especially enjoys researching names on new.familysearch.org and submitting her ancestors’ names for temple work. She says, “It was a neat experience to take family names—that I found myself—to the temple to do baptisms. I feel a stronger connection to my ancestors now and love seeing their names on the tree displayed in our home.”

I can talk to Grandpa. He always listens to me, and he seems to know how I really feel. Like the time I got picked from my Little League farm team to play in the majors! Now, tennis shoes are OK for a farm team, but for the majors—that’s different! For those teams, you should have real cleats and a glove that isn’t a hand-me-down from three older cousins. I tried to explain all this to Mom, and she just sighed and looked up at the ceiling. But Grandpa put his thumbs in his braces and did some tall thinking. A while later, when I was trying on my uniform—not just a T-shirt with the team name on it, but a real uniform with striped pants and socks and everything—Grandpa came in and gave me two boxes tied with string. In one was a set of real cleats, and in the other was my very own new glove! Now that’s what I call a buddy! Grandpa grinned at me, and I grinned right back.

For most of the four years I played high school basketball, I’d been a starter and never missed a game. So when my coach told me that I wasn’t doing enough for the team and wouldn’t be starting the next game, something inside me broke. I’d been benched.
Trying not to cry, I ran out of the gym and, for the first time in my life, felt like giving up. And right then, for some reason, the word fortitude came to mind.
Fortitude means “courage in pain or adversity.” I lifted my head. Fortitude. No one was asking me to do this alone. Hands shaking, I opened my phone and searched the lyrics to “Come, Come, Ye Saints” (Hymns, no. 30). As I read the words, I felt I was being gently reminded of two things.
First, the lyrics ask, “Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? ’Tis not so; all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight?” And I remembered to be grateful.
Then, second, I read, “Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake; and soon we’ll have this tale to tell—all is well! All is well!” And I remembered to be brave.

In a recent news report we learned of the release of the grandson of one of the world’s wealthiest men by his drug trafficking captors for the incredible amount of nearly $3,000,000. The ransom money was paid by the boy’s mother, who had a love for her son that far exceeded any monetary consideration. As the mother was reunited with her son, she hugged and kissed him repeatedly. She was quoted as saying, “Only now I’m beginning to live again.”

I met a great little family some time ago while attending a stake conference. They bore a sweet testimony to me of what the sacrament has come to mean to them. The father some years before had lost his job when a factory he had been working in had closed. Rather than move to another city to obtain new employment, he proposed that the family open a family fast- food business. The business was successful for several years; then a chain fast-food business opened up across the street and remained open seven days a week. In family council they determined that they must meet the competition. They would remain open on Sunday and take turns going to Church. After one year of seven-days-a-week operation, they discovered they were worn out, cross with each other, and complained about every little thing that would arise.

Another family council was called and the proposition presented that they close on Sunday to see if they could get back their family spirit. They soon discovered that the Lord’s system works. Even though sales were fewer, profits increased.

I first became overtly aware of the profound influence of BYU in my life as a young high school student in our small, isolated, predominantly Latter-day Saint community in northern Arizona. Most of our graduates attended Arizona colleges, and indeed, as a result of winning a statewide public speaking contest, I was offered a scholarship to the University of Arizona, no mean inducement to an impoverished farm boy with few other prospects. Scholarships were very scarce in those days. Some of my teachers, and even my bishop, who was one of them and a University of Utah graduate, incidentally, counseled me to go to the University of Arizona. But the teachers who had the greatest influence upon me were BYU ­graduates, [they were] my science and my agricultural teachers, who had been students, respectively, of two of BYU’s greatest teachers, Joseph K. Nicholes and Thomas L. Martin. My consuming passion since the seventh grade had been the study of chemistry, and they arranged for me to acquire a full-year’s credit in college chemistry at BYU by examination and demonstration before I ever left home. Thus it transpired in due time that I arrived in the back of a pickup truck at the steps of the old Education Building, green and scared, nearly penniless, but eager to begin my college education. I endured the trauma of poverty and homesickness, but I have never regretted my decision to attend BYU.

When I left with my baccalaureate degree to begin graduate study elsewhere, it was with no thought that I might ever return. Consequently, it was a considerable surprise when on the eve of receiving my Ph.D. degree I received a telephone call offering me a position on the BYU faculty. I had already accepted an appointment as a Milton Fund post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University, and I had several very tempting offers designed to take effect at the end of that appointment, one to the faculty of my graduate alma matter. All of them by any standard of the world offered far more than BYU—more than twice as much. I was ambitious and prospects for professional achievement at BYU seemed dim; yet we knew fellow Mormons on faculties of eastern universities who had lost their entire families from the Church, partly at least, we felt, due to lack of sufficient LDS influence in their lives. Other factors were involved, of course, but one could not lightly dismiss any major positive influence on a growing family. My wife was supportive, as she has always been, of whatever major decision of this kind I should make. I was torn. My graduate professors regarded returning to BYU as professional suicide. On the other hand, it seemed to me, none of my undergraduate college, high school, and public school mentors, to whom I owed so much, had chosen their place of employment primarily for personal advantage. In retrospect, I think, I never wavered in my emotional commitment to BYU, but I could not escape the nagging feeling that rational analysis dictated otherwise. In any event we did finally choose to return to share the fortunes of a BYU just emerging from the rigors of the World War II years, and here we have remained to make a career and to rear our family in spite of renewed offers to go elsewhere. We will be eternally grateful for having made those decisions. . . .

Clint Stoddard of Tucson, Arizona, set a goal and achieved it through hard work. After coming in second the previous year, he set a goal to become the state wrestling champion in his weight class.
He played football to keep in shape for wrestling. In addition, he kept up his high grades and served as seminary president. In the state wrestling tournament, he was named state champ.
Clint is a priest in the Tucson 13th Ward, Tucson Arizona North Stake.

Let me illustrate with a story that a friend and faculty member at this university shared with me. Several years ago a student came to his office. She was distraught. Tears ran down her face as she outlined her situation. She had not done as well as she thought she would in some of her classes, and if she did not get a high enough grade in his class, she would be deported to her country of origin. She felt as if her whole future rested upon his decision.

With that preface, she pleaded, “What are you going to give me?”

The professor was warm and compassionate, but forthright. “What have you earned?” he responded.

Together they went through the ledger. They tallied her points, even added in some extra credit she had not yet completed, and determined that her scores were far, far below the university’s standard. The professor felt that it would not be fair to other students who had studied, sacrificed, and rightfully earned their grades to raise her mark as high as it would need to go. He counseled with her. They agonized over the situation together. In the end, the professor was sincere and kind, but fair. He could not give her what she had not earned but desperately wanted.

Needless to say, she was quite upset. She had to leave BYU. Upon returning home, she enrolled in a community college. She studied and worked hard. Over the course of time she became committed to academic achievement. She began to recognize the Lord’s hand in her life. She served a mission. Two and a half years later, she returned to BYU a different person. Ready to shoulder the responsibility of her own actions, she had become a conscientious student and a better person. A little more humble and a lot more mature, she looked up her former professor and thanked him for being firm. With love and respect he had invited her to do some soul-searching, and maybe for the first time in her life when confronted with a problem, she had really asked herself the question “What am I going to do about this?” And that made all the difference.

My parents both served missions in Mexico. I’ve wanted to go on a mission since I was about 15 years old, so I’ve been preparing to serve. My younger brother turns 18 when I turn 19, so we will turn in our mission papers at the same time. I’m saving money for my mission by working with my mom. I have a small jar that I put my money in, and I’m trying to fill it. I want to bring more people to Christ and His Church to bring good into their lives and mine.

In 1932 the Olympic Games tryouts and the national A. A. U. (Amateur Athletic Union) championship meet were combined. Colonel M. J. McCombs called Babe into his office at the insurance company where they worked. He told her that he thought that she could represent the company team and win the national championship all by herself!
Over two hundred entrants were competing in the women’s events, and “for two-and-a-half hours I was flying all over the place. I’d run a heat in the eighty-meter hurdles, and then I’d take one of my high jumps. Then I’d go over to the broad jump and take a turn at that. Then they’d be calling for me to throw the javelin or put the eight-pound shot.”
Babe placed fourth in the discus and the hundred-meter dash at that meet. She tied for first in the high jump, and she won the running broad jump, the eighty-meter hurdles, the javelin throw, the baseball throw, and the eight-pound shot put. Along with the six gold medals she won, she set four world records and scored thirty points for her company’s “team.” The second-place team—with twenty-two members—scored only twenty-two points!

Some years ago a faithful convert, Brother George McLaughlin, was called to preside over a small branch of 20 members in Farmingdale, Maine. He was a humble man, driving a milk delivery truck for a living. Through his fasting and earnest prayer, the Spirit taught him what he and the members of his branch needed to do to help the Church grow in their area. Through his great faith, constant prayer, and powerful example, he taught his members how to share the gospel. It’s a marvelous story, one of the great missionary stories of this dispensation. In just one year, there were 450 convert baptisms in the branch. The next year there were an additional 200 converts. President McLaughlin indicated: “My job as branch president was to teach [the new converts] how to be Mormons. I had to teach them how to give talks and lessons in church. I had to teach them how to teach the gospel to their children. I trained the new members to become strong members.” Pretty simple.

Just five years later, the Augusta Maine Stake was organized. Much of the leadership of that new stake came from those converts in the Farmingdale Branch. Now we might ask why there was such great success in those days, and the answer may be because of the urgent need to strengthen the Church. Let me assure you that that same urgency in all units of the Church is every bit as critical today as it was then.