Gospel Story Finder

“Twelve years old—my first Church calling,” remembers Elder Robert S. Wood of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. “I was asked to be the music director in Mutual.” But he had to overcome two difficulties: one, he couldn’t sing; and two, he didn’t know anything about music. “The Young Women president took me aside and said, ‘Okay, Robert—one, two, three, four.’” His arm sweeps the air in four-four time as he recounts the story. “And so I learned how to do it.”

“Most of you knew Brian before he left on his mission,” she was saying. “You remember that he wanted to be an individual. He would rather take off with his dog in the hills than go to church.”
“Sometimes he would disappear for days—take off in the hills with his dog,” she continued. “We would stay at home and simply pray that God would protect him, wherever he was.”
“Brian has always wanted to worship in his own way,” said his mother.
Her boy had changed. He had gone on a mission. It had been a miracle.
“I wasn’t going to be like everybody else and go on a mission,” he said. “I was different, and I knew I was all right without the Church. I thought I was happy not going to meetings, but hiking off into the mountains for days. Sometimes my parents didn’t know where I was. I know I gave them a lot of concern.”
“But the time came when my friends were going on missions, and I had to make a decision,” the missionary continued. “It was one of the most difficult times of my life. I had never even read the Book of Mormon.
“And one of my friends who was going on a mission told me: ‘Sure, you’re supposed to go on a mission, but nobody will force you to go. Just give it a chance. Read the Book of Mormon. If you don’t want to go after that, at least you gave it a chance.’
“Well, you all know how that turned out.”
“But I want to tell you how it happened,” the missionary said. “I said okay, I’d take a couple of weeks in the desert with my dog and read the Book of Mormon. My friend drove me and my dog out into the desert 100 kilometers from any road. He left us out there with nothing but a little food and our survival equipment. I told him to pick us up in the same spot in about two weeks.”
“I finished the book in two days, and I knew it was true. I knew I wanted to go on a mission. I knew I wanted to tell the world that God still cares and that he provided this book for our guidance. I was ready now. But there I was, 100 kilometers from civilization, and my friend wasn’t going to pick me up for twelve more days.
“Well, I sat down on a rock and thought about what I should do. There really wasn’t any purpose for me to stay out there anymore. So I decided I’d try to walk out. I knew the direction I should go. I knew how far I was from the road. And, although when I look back on it I realize what a crazy decision it was, I thought I could reach the road in a couple of days if I left most of my food supplies and camp gear to retrieve later with a truck. So in the morning, I started out.
“I left camp in my jacket with only a couple of apples in my pocket, my knife, and some matches. I set out at a fast pace, probably covering almost thirty kilometers by mid-afternoon. But then it began to rain.
“It was not a usual rain. It flooded. The water fell in thick black sheets around me so that I could not even see landmarks to know where I was going. My dog and I were drenched within moments, and as the afternoon dragged on, we began to shake with the cold. I huddled inside my coat, overwhelmed with a dreadful feeling. What was I going to do?
“I’d heard enough about hypothermia—where the body gets too cold—to know that I needed to get out of the rain. It was February, and with evening so close, the rain would soon turn to ice. I needed to get dry, but I was too far away from my camp gear to turn back. Luckily, at that moment, I found some shelter in the crevice of some rocks. I crawled inside, and there was just enough space for me. My dog, wet and shaking with cold, stood outside wagging her tail. I wanted to wait for the storm to pass and stayed there for what seemed like hours. It became evident that we could not stay there in that rain. I needed to move and keep my blood circulating, yet out in the cold desert the rain was still pouring down. What could I do?
“I think it was the first time in my life that I really talked with God. I conversed with him like I never had before. I told him my dog and I were in great danger if we couldn’t dry off before the water turned to ice, and if the storm should last several days, we could not find food or build a fire.
“I told Heavenly Father that I now knew the Book of Mormon was true, and that I would serve a mission to tell others to read it so they would have the same confirmation.
“For a moment I stopped pleading with him and listened. I believe I thought he would stop the rain, but the rain continued to pour down in sheets.
“Never had I prayed like I did in those moments. Suddenly, the thought came into my mind that the Lord would do his part if I would just get out there and go. Maybe he would give me the strength to withstand the cold, but I just had to get out and get moving.
“In the moment that I left those rocks, I had a feeling of peace. My dog and I walked for a hundred meters or so in the drenching rain. I walked away from the rocks and into flat, open ground. My shoes, my clothes, my matches—everything was soaking wet, and the rain was still falling down on me in gray sheets.
“But as I continued, praying in my heart for strength, praying for purpose, a sudden soft light opened up above me. I looked around. There was no rain!
“I paused and looked at the blue hills. The rain had stopped only in a large area where I walked. On the edge of the great circle around me the dark rain was still falling, like a gray veil. I couldn’t believe it. The light came down softly around me. I felt warmer, drier, and was able to walk out of the desert.”

Subject: Dan
Age: 18 years
Event: Discussion with his boss
“Dan, how long have you worked here?” his boss asked one day.
“A year.”
“It’s time we changed you from stocking shelves and taught you how to sell clothes. Come with me.” They walked up on the balcony and looked down at the activities on the first floor. “What do you think we sell here?”
“Men’s clothes,” Dan said.
“Oh no, we sell much more than that. Men come here because they need confidence to help them make a promotion in their company or to ask that special girl to marry them. We have the finest clothes in this city, and some of the most influential men in town shop here because they want the assurance that comes from quality tailoring.”
“I never really thought about that before,” Dan said, suddenly impressed with his boss.

Esther and her Merrie Miss classmates have a hard time liking Janet. She is a bully and often calls them embarrassing names at school. When they try to fellowship her, she accuses them of trying to bribe her to come to Primary. The teacher realizes that Janet must have a point, so she asks the girls to think about what Jesus Christ would do. Esther’s mother gives her some good advice that she later shares with the Merrie Miss class. Even though it won’t be easy, the girls agree that they need to pray for Janet and to try to make her their friend. However, when Esther invites her to play kickball, Janet walks off, sneering, “That’s a sissy game.”
I flinched and had to remind myself to be patient. I just hoped that it wouldn’t take another ten years for her to change her behavior.
Mandi called to Janet to come and sit with us in the lunchroom. Janet gave her a look of surprise but went to another table.
The rest of the week, we tried to get her to join us in some kind of activity, but she never did.
On Sunday we reported our lack of success to Sister Card. She said, “I’m glad that you are trying so hard. Don’t get discouraged. It may take Janet a while to understand that you really want to be her friends.”
The next week in school, Mrs. Shell moved Janet into the desk next to mine. Janet leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I hope those freckles aren’t catchy. One polka-dot face is enough in this classroom.”
I could feel the red creep up my neck and into my cheeks. “Please, Heavenly Father,” I prayed, “help me ignore this remark and be nice to Janet.”
And the answer came. “Don’t worry,” I whispered back, “I’m not contagious anymore.”
She looked surprised, and then she actually smiled at me! I felt triumphant. That was the first friendly response she’d given me since she’d moved here.
As we began our math assignment, I noticed her drawing pictures instead of doing the problems. “Aren’t you going to do your assignment?” I whispered.
“Me? Do an assignment?” she whispered back. “I don’t do math assignments.”
I was going to ask why, but I saw Mrs. Shell looking at us. I went back to working on my own assignment.
The next day, I again noticed that Janet didn’t even make an effort to work on her math assignment. After school, I touched her arm and, speaking softly, said, “Janet, if you don’t start doing your math assignments, Mrs. Shell may not promote you to the sixth grade. She’s a pretty strict teacher.”
“Oh, I’ll take my chances—I’ve always made it before.”
I was really puzzled by her attitude. That evening I told Dad about it. He said, “Maybe she doesn’t know how to do the math. Rather than admit her lack of knowledge, she might be pretending that she doesn’t care.”
That possibility had never crossed my mind. Maybeshe really doesn’t know how, I thought. I wonder if she would let me help her. “There’s only one way to find out,” I mumbled out loud to myself.
The next day I asked Mrs. Shell if Janet and I could work on our math together. Surprised, Mrs. Shell said, “I’ll be glad to let you work with Janet, provided you work. You can use the table in the back of the room so that you don’t disturb the others.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Shell.” I started to walk away.
“Esther, does Janet know about this?”
“Not yet,” I confessed.
“I hope it works,” she said with an encouraging smile.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get Janet to do math with me, but it was much easier than I expected. When I told her that Mrs. Shell said we could do our math at the table in the back of the room, she just grinned, got up, and went back there.
I soon discovered, however, that she had no intention of doing math. She was drawing a picture of a horse. It was really quite good, but I knew that she was supposed to be doing math, not drawing.
I didn’t know what to do. Then an idea came into my mind. “Janet,” I said, “I’ll help you get your math assignment done if you’ll show me how to draw a horse like that.”
“Do you like it?” she asked shyly.
I was surprised at her sudden change in manner. “Yes,” I answered truthfully. “It’s really good.”
Again came the shy smile. “I’ll show you how to draw a horse,” she said, “but I don’t think you can help me with math.”
“Why not? Anyone who can draw a horse like that can learn to do math.”
“You don’t understand,” Janet said. She looked embarrassed. “I can’t even do simple add-and-subtract. When I was in first grade, we moved three times. When I was in second grade, we moved five times. It was hard enough for me to learn to read. I didn’t get around to learning arithmetic.”
Dad was right, but I didn’t know what to say next. Then almost as if I could hear someone telling it to me out loud, another idea came into my head. “I’ll help you memorize the math facts,” I said. “You’re smart, I can tell, so it won’t take you long. Then you’ll be able to do the assignments.”
Suddenly the old Janet returned. “Why do you want to help me? I can just hear you telling everyone what a dummy I am.”
“Come on, Janet,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that. Besides, I really do want you to teach me how to draw a horse.”
“Well,” she said, struggling not to smile, “I guess we could try it and see how it goes.”
“I think we ought to tell Mrs. Shell, so she can help too.”
Janet’s face fell. “I’d rather have just you help me,” she said. “Teachers make me nervous.”
“OK. I’ll make some flash cards with addition and subtraction facts on them, and you can be memorizing them a few at a time while I do the math assignment. Then I’ll quiz you to see if you know them.”
That was the beginning. Janet was very quick. She learned all the addition and subtraction facts in two weeks. I told Mrs. Shell what I was doing, and she was excited to know that Janet was willing to learn. She gave me lots of help and ideas.
Janet still called me Redhead-Wet-the-Bed when other kids were around, but somehow it didn’t seem so bad anymore. I knew she liked me, because she actually came over to my house after school sometimes to help me learn to draw, or so I could help her with her math.
Mrs. Shell displayed some of Janet’s drawings in the front hall by the principal’s office. Janet looked proud!
One Sunday as I went to my Merrie Miss class, I heard the familiar greeting—but with a slight change: “Hey, Redhead-Stay-in-Bed!” Janet stood there grinning from ear to ear, pointing at the gold heart necklace around her neck.
I laughed as I walked over to her. “Oh, Janet, now our class really is complete!”
Christina and Mandi were right behind me. We all laughed together.

You can’t help but like Andrea* when you meet her. She’s warm and friendly and fun, and she knows how to make you feel good about yourself.

But she wasn’t always like that.

For a long time, she carried around a dark and tragic secret that she could confess to no one. She cried a lot. She was usually depressed. She withdrew from people—wasn’t close to anyone, and didn’t have the self-confidence to excel in school or anything else. Andrea had been sexually abused when she was younger.

“I thought I had committed a terrible sin,” she said. “I thought it was too gross to tell anyone. I felt disgusting and totally worthless, until a very understanding bishop explained to me that it wasn’t my fault, that the Lord still loved me, and that I could get help.”

The help Andrea got, which included professional and spiritual counseling, is enabling her to put those traumatic experiences in the past and become emotionally and spiritually healthy again.

Going through these stages has helped Andrea begin to lead a happier, more fulfilling life. Others like her who have experienced sexual abuse can also begin to recover. It is important for them to realize that they have a right not to be abused, and that they need to get help if it happens. They need to know that they are not at fault, that they are not impure, nor are they any less chaste. And most of all, they need to know that Heavenly Father still loves them, has great hope for them, and has provided ways for them to recover.

Cleaning up after a hurricane sounded like it might be fun. That’s what the Boy Scouts of Troop 304 in the Athens Georgia First and Second wards thought when they heard about the hurricane hitting the coast of their neighboring state, South Carolina.
Jacob Keith decided to take on the assistance effort as an Eagle project. At first Jacob was a little hesitant. He said, “I’m not much for calling people I don’t know, but I got used to it after a while. I was surprised how helpful people were. When I called the Scouts, I didn’t think they would want to spend their whole weekend in South Carolina working. But they said yes.”
The group ended up unloading semitrailers into a warehouse. When the boxes were light, they made a game out of it. When the goods were heavy, like the load of doors they had to unload, they just buckled down and got the job done.
The most impressive thing was that the project was planned and carried out completely by the Scouts themselves. Scoutmaster Scott Johnson said, “The relief team thought I was one of the boys. They spoke on the phone to Jacob, so they went to him to make decisions and organize the effort.”
The troop spent two weekends helping distribute relief goods.

The youth of the Idaho Falls Idaho Eagle Rock Stake (left and below) shared their talents and their testimonies as they performed a musical called One Life to celebrate the Prophet Joseph Smith’s birth and life. The musical was so successful that they performed it multiple times for audiences in Idaho.
Krista Klingler, 14, who participated in the ensemble, said, “Doing this play was one of the best experiences of my life. It showed me how great a man Joseph Smith truly was. I am still amazed that at 14 years old he acted upon the principles Heavenly Father revealed to him. From birth to death he lived a remarkable life.”

In the early 1950s the United States was at war on the Korean peninsula. Because of the draft policy of the government at that time, young men were not allowed to serve missions but instead required to join the military. Knowing this, I enrolled in the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps when I went to college. My goal was to become an officer like my oldest brother. However, during a visit home for the Christmas holiday, my home-ward bishop, Vern Freeman, invited me into his office. He advised me that a young Church leader by the name of Brother Gordon B. Hinckley had negotiated an agreement with the U.S. government permitting each ward in the Church in the United States to call one young man to serve a mission. This young man would receive an automatic deferment from the military during his mission.
Bishop Freeman said he had been praying about it and felt he should recommend me to serve as a full-time missionary representing our ward. I explained to him that I had already made other plans—I had enrolled in the Army ROTC and expected to become an officer! My bishop gently reminded me that he had been prompted to recommend me to serve a mission at that particular time. He said, “Go home and talk to your parents and come back this evening with your answer.”
I went home and told my father and mother what had happened. They said the bishop was inspired, and I should happily accept the Lord’s invitation to serve. My mother could see how disappointed I was at the prospect of not becoming an army officer right away. She quoted:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
That night I went back to the bishop’s office and accepted his invitation. He told me to go to the Selective Service Office and advise them of my decision.
When I did so, to my surprise the lady who was chairman of the Selective Service Office told me: “If you accept a mission call, you will receive your draft notice before you can reenter Army ROTC. You will serve as an enlisted man, not as an officer.”
Despite this unexpected change, my mission was wonderful. It changed the course of my life as it does for those who serve. But, true to their word, the government sent an induction letter drafting me into the U.S. Army about one month before my mission release.

Sue didn’t start out as a leader. She learned by trial and error. Growing up, Sue was just part of the crowd until the crowd started going a direction she did not care to follow. Her upbringing in the Church gave her a perspective different than that of her friends.

“In my second year of high school, my friends started doing awful things that would make me cry for them. I just wanted to shake them and ask, ‘What are you doing?’ but I couldn’t. It was frustrating. I started saying to myself, ‘Hey, Sue, you don’t need to do those things.’ “

That’s when she decided to make her own choices and possibly lead her friends in the right direction as well. Her bishop, Allen Dance of the Snoqualmie Valley Ward, noticed her ability to be a positive influence on her friends. “Sue has always sought the good. She has strengthened the weak in our ward and in the school. She goes out of her way to be friends to people who need a friend. As a result of her example, others have been blessed.”

Fatima skipped down the street. She was walking home from school with Mamá. She hummed a song while she skipped.
“Ms. Lopez asked us to learn a song,” said Fatima. “Can you teach me one?”
Mamá smiled. “Of course!”
When they got home, Mamá and Fatima sang songs together. They sang lots of songs. But they hadn’t sung her favorite one.
“Can I sing a Primary song?” Fatima asked.
“Sure,” Mamá said.
Fatima sang “Families Can Be Together Forever.” She practiced the words with Mamá. Then she sang it alone. She sang it until she got all the words right.
At school, Fatima was excited to share her song with her class.
“Does someone want to share their song?” Ms. Lopez said.
Fatima raised her hand. “I will!”
She stood up and smiled. “I have a family here on earth. They are so good to me,” she sang.
While she sang, Fatima felt happy. And she remembered the whole song! Everyone in her class clapped.
After class, Mamá came to pick up Fatima. Ms. Lopez spoke to Mamá.
“She sang a beautiful song. And she didn’t seem scared at all.”
Fatima smiled. So did Mamá.
“We sing beautiful songs every week at church!” Fatima said.
“You can come with us anytime,” Mamá said.
Ms. Lopez smiled. “Thank you.”
Fatima sang as she walked home with Mamá. She liked sharing a song with her class. Singing made her feel happy.
This story took place in Guatemala.

I first discovered the Liahona when I joined the Church several years ago. In the beginning I didn’t think much of it, but as time went by it became one of the most wonderful things in my life and a key to my success. It strengthened my testimony of the restored gospel and helped me stay strong in the Church. Because of this strength, I was able to resist temptations and set a good example for a co-worker, who was eventually baptized and confirmed.
It is so wonderful to study and share the Liahona. It will help me for the rest of my life. I’m so thankful to receive the messages from the Lord’s prophet and apostles every month. The Liahona is sweeter to me than honey and more valuable than gold.
Aldemir Guanacoma Ave, Bolivia

A few years ago as I was leaving Temple Square in Salt Lake City after a general conference session, I encountered a small group of people handing out anti-Mormon pamphlets. The leader of the group styled himself a “missionary to the Mormons.” I was interested to know why he spent his time in this way. Also, his pamphlets intrigued me, for they revealed that this man had very little knowledge of the Latter-day Saints’ true beliefs.
As I talked with him briefly, he pulled from his pocket a list of questions that he frequently asked members of the Church. “Is God a man?” he asked me confidently.
“No,” I replied, “God is not a man. It says so in the Bible.” (See Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29.)
“You’re the only Mormon who believes that,” he said. “Your church teaches that God is a man.”
“That’s not correct,” I countered. “Let me read to you from the Bible exactly what my church does teach.” I then quoted from Psalms 82:6, which reads: “Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.”
“No,” I said, “God is not a man; man is a god—or, at least, so he may become. This is what Jesus said to the Jews in the tenth chapter of John when he quoted that very Psalm.” (See John 10:34–36.)
As I walked to my car after this unsuccessful encounter (the man soon left me to hand pamphlets to others), I thought of the many ways in which God’s true nature is distorted in the teachings of so many Christian churches. Joseph Smith taught that not only does God have a body, but that he “dwells in everlasting burnings.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1938, p. 361.) (This idea is found in a number of ancient sources as well.) But many—perhaps the majority—of churches teach that it is the devil who has a body (often pictured with horns, tail, and cloven hoof) and dwells in everlasting burnings. How often I have thought that Satan must surely enjoy the visual irony that much of Christianity has reversed his position with that of God! For the truth of the matter is that it is the devil who is but a spirit.

When I was growing up, playing soccer brought me confidence and happiness. So it was difficult when my soccer team began losing games. We had a history of winning, but now our confidence as a team was shaken. I also got injured and missed some games and practices. I felt disappointed in myself because I wasn’t performing at the level others expected of me.
One evening before a game, the coaches told me that a teammate would be starting in my place. I wasn’t surprised, but I felt discouraged. This teammate and I competed for the same position and had developed an unspoken and unfriendly rivalry.
As I watched my team struggle, I noticed the teammate playing in my spot get pulled from the game. She walked off the field, looking really disappointed. I felt impressed to talk to her. I approached and offered her some words of encouragement. She was surprised, because we hadn’t been friendly to each other before. As I walked away, I felt joy and peace come over me. From that day on, we weren’t rivals but friends.

Later in my life, I was preparing to leave college and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I went to a meeting where information was given on several different kinds of work. I got excited about printing and decided that I wanted to be a printer. I made an application and was offered a position with a printing company. I had a vision in my mind of being in charge of a big printing press.
On the first day of work, I was delighted when the supervisor took me to a very large machine that was printing in two colors. I thought he was going to say to me, “This is your machine.” I didn’t realize how much training I would need to perform that responsibility. The supervisor assigned me to work with the man in charge of that machine, which I did for six months. All I did that six months was move the paper to be printed on into the machine.
After that, I was put on another machine, and I worked with somebody else. Then I was assigned to a third machine, which was a handfed machine. That means that I “fed” each sheet of paper into the machine by hand. I could do that because by that time I had learned to handle paper well.
A few weeks later, the supervisor came up to me and said, “We feel that you have come to the point where you can be in charge of this machine.”
I was excited. This machine put glazing on the labels that were used for a very popular product in the United Kingdom.
The supervisor said to me, “Before I leave you in charge, you need to spend a little while longer developing your skill. There are a few more things that you need to know.” He stood by me while I was feeding paper into this machine and said, “There is one special thing you need to know—you need to listen for a particular sound. It’s sort of a clicking sound.”
The noise of the machine running with its gears rolling, along with the noise of twenty-five other machines, made it difficult to distinguish sounds, but I confidently said, “Yes, I hear that.” I thought that I was hearing what he was describing.
He said, “That’s all you need to know. As long as you can recognize that, you’ll be fine.”
He left, and I fed the paper into the machine for forty-five minutes. Suddenly the machine came to a grinding halt, making an incredible noise. All sorts of parts were knocking together. The other workers came running to see what had happened.
My supervisor came back and said, “Did you hear the sound?”
I said, “I thought I did.”
He said, “Let’s clean the machine up.” There was paper on the rollers and the cogs, and it took us about thirty minutes to clean up the machine. When he turned the machine on, he said, “Listen, there’s a sort of clicking sound. That’s the best way I can describe it. Can you hear it?”
I listened and just heard all the same noises that I’d heard before, but I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Fine.”
About thirty minutes later, the same thing happened. The supervisor said to me, “You can clean the machine by yourself this time.”
It took me over an hour to clean the paper off the rollers and out of the cogs and get the machine ready to run.
The supervisor came back and stood beside me and asked again, “Can you hear the clicking sound?”
Suddenly, above all the other sounds, I heard a sound that I hadn’t heard before, and the best way I could describe it was that it was a sort of clicking sound. The supervisor explained to me that the sound was made when the paper separated from the printing plate. The sound was determined by the consistency of the gloss that was glazing the paper.
If that sound changed, it meant that the gloss was getting too thick and too tacky. And when that happened, the paper would jam up in the grippers, causing a big pileup of paper that stopped the machine. Once I discovered that sound, I could fix the consistency of the gloss, and my machine never stopped again unless I myself turned it off.

My husband and I were living in on-campus housing at the Texas State Technical Institute when our two oldest children were four and two. It was our first experience in Texas hill country, and I loved it! Every spring, central Texas is awash with flowers. In gardens, woods, vacant fields, on roadsides, everywhere I looked there were more blossoms to see.
I took my children on stroller rides nearly every day. We’d find new places to explore, and I let the children pick as many wildflowers as they wanted. We’d finish our ride through a neighborhood where most of the houses had beautifully maintained flower gardens.
One day we came around a corner to discover a large mass of papers spread across one of the flower gardens. The wind quickly scattered the paper all over the yard. I decided to tidy up the litter before it spread further. I grabbed handfuls of pages and stuffed them in my diaper bag.
As I looked down, I realized I was holding pornography. Appalled, I asked my children to stay in the stroller as I snatched up the rest of the pages. I became upset as I saw glimpses of things I never wanted to see. In my heart, I began complaining, “Why didn’t God warn me to go another way home?”
Then I heard the unmistakable huff of school bus brakes. About a dozen kids got off the bus. They all moved past the yard that had been filled with pornography only moments before.
In that moment, my whole perspective changed. I now knew why I hadn’t been warned to go another way. I was grateful I was there to pick up those pages so those children could be spared seeing those damaging images. As I made my way back home, I thought, “What if the school bus had come later? What if I had never found out why I had that experience? How long would I have been upset with God?”

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I enrolled in night school. I worked hard and had another child and my husband sent me to college where I earned my associates degree in animal husbandry. This made a way for me to teach at the Booker T. Washington Institute. I taught there from 1986 to 1990. I was teaching students how to raise goats, chickens, and sheep. After the war years, I was chosen to teach agricultural skills to the ex-combatants to help reintegrate them into society. It was very hard and dangerous. But I was grateful for the job.
By then my parents realized I was doing the right thing for myself and for my family. I was working and earning my own money. They could see I was doing something better for the future.

Now, let me mention a powerful example of taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ by bearing testimony of Him through actions.

Last August, I accompanied Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt to the open house of the Feather River California Temple in Yuba City. There I had the blessing of guiding groups on a tour of the temple. One of these groups included a member of the Church, Virgil Atkinson, and seven friends of other faiths. Toward the end of the visit, in a temple sealing room, Brother Atkinson was emotional as he expressed his love for his friends who had come to the temple that day. Almost immediately after he had done so, a woman in the group stood up and said, “We all love Virgil. He has never imposed his faith on us. But he is not shy about it either. He just lives what he believes.”

Over the years, Brother Atkinson’s Christlike living served as a powerful testimony to his friends. His example is strong evidence that he has taken upon himself the name of Christ.

In 1832 Martin Harris’s older brother, Emer, who is my great-great-grandfather, was called on a mission from Ohio (see D&C 75:30). Emer spent a year preaching the gospel near his former home in northeastern Pennsylvania. During most of this time Emer’s companion was his brother Martin, whose zeal in preaching even caused him to be jailed for a few days. The Harris brothers baptized about 100 persons. Among those baptized was a family named Oaks, which included my great-great-grandfather. Thus, my middle name and my last name come from the grandfathers who met in that missionary encounter in Susquehanna County in 1832–33.

Devan DeWitt has come a long way since joining the cross-country team two years ago as a sophomore. He wasn’t a particularly fast runner when he began, but as time went by he improved. By his junior and senior years, he had earned the right to compete at the state cross-country championships.
“When I discovered I could succeed at running, it helped me in other areas,” he says. “My grade-point average went from a 2.6 to a 3.0, and I had the courage to try out singing. Now I’m in the a capella choir.”

1 Over the mountains and through the desert to Grandmother’s house we go!
2 Abuelita (Grandmother)!
3 The day after Thanksgiving
Why haven’t you gone into town with your brothers and sisters and cousins?
Because I love you, and I don’t get to see you very often.
4 You’re a good boy, Ramón, and you’ll be a good man. I wish your grandfather could have known you.
I wish I could have known him, too, Abuelita. I’m trying to be good so I can be with him someday. I don’t always make it, though.
5 Neither do I, querido (dear), and he didn’t either. But he always tried to do his very best, and he always repented of his sins. If we do the same, I think we’ll be fine.
6 Now, can you find room for another piece of my candy?
I’ll do my very best.