Gospel Story Finder

Please make sure your seat belt is fastened and adjust your seat back to its upright position. You are about to land in Auckland, New Zealand.
Giant Puhutukawa trees dot the rolling hills around the city. And the boat-flecked sea surrounding Auckland, the City of Sails, is shining in the sun. But the variety in the landscapes, buildings, and boats is only a reflection of the colorful and varied cultures and personalities of the people of New Zealand.
The youth and other members of the Church are no exception. To the mix of the many things that make up life in New Zealand they add their own main ingredients of faith and testimony.
In Auckland is the Panmure stake. And in that stake’s boundaries is Bucklands Beach, where Bella Aniterea and Nicolas Purcell live. This morning Bella, a Mia Maid, is giving a talk on prayer in sacrament meeting. There’s a good reason her dad, a member of the Howick Ward bishopric, asked her to give that talk. She says she has a testimony of prayer because she prays.
In preparing for her talk, Bella reread the story of Enos in the Book of Mormon. “He prayed for one whole day, and he prayed for his enemies,” Bella recounts. Although she had read the story before, she had never noticed that Enos prayed for his enemies. “I haven’t done that yet,” Bella says, “but I think I’m going to start today.”
And, if you look to the left of the pulpit where Bella bore her testimony of prayer, you’ll see Nicolas, a teacher, putting away the sacrament trays after the meeting.
It might sound strange, but Nicolas’s testimony of the priesthood began with a head injury. “I was Rollerblading down a hill with a mate, and I hit something and cracked the back of my head open.” At 10 inches, the “crack” was more like a canyon, and the doctors said Nicolas would not pull through or he would have severe brain damage. A priesthood blessing from his dad and others in the ward proved the doctors wrong. “That experience gave me quite a shining testimony of the priesthood,” Nicolas says. The Lord preserved his life through the power of the priesthood, and Nicolas plans to honor his priesthood by serving a mission.
Nicolas and Bella’s stake is only a hop, skip, and a jump from the Avondale Ward in the Waterview stake. The trip to the temple from there takes a few hours. Nevertheless, the youth of that ward all pile into a minibus so they can do baptisms for the dead in the Hamilton New Zealand Temple.
The road to Hamilton twists and turns, and the Avondale youth sway from side to side as they become even more excited about going to the temple. They look out the windows of the minibus at the rain. It is like liquid sunshine. Warm and wet. There’s a good reason the Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, or the Land of the Long White Cloud.
After the baptisms, the Avondale youth go to the soggy, green temple grounds. This was Jordon King’s first time doing baptisms for the dead, but she knows how important the work is. “We were there to help the people who can’t do their own work. I got a warm feeling.” And with that warm feeling, Jordon, 12, joined the other youth in their testimonies of temple work.

It was Friday morning, June 28, 1844, and already the summer sun was hot in Illinois. Since about eight o’clock that morning Dr. Willard Richards, Samuel H. Smith, and nine others had plodded along the dusty road between Carthage and Nauvoo, Illinois. Moving along the road with the solemn procession were two wagons heaped with bushes to protect their cargo from the blistering heat of the sun.
Laid out on the wagons were the lifeless bodies of Joseph Smith, age thirty-eight, over six feet tall, and Hyrum, his brother, age forty-four, and even larger in stature than Joseph. Wearily, Dr. Richards and Samuel Smith, brother to the two murdered men, pressed toward Nauvoo and talked of the events just the day before during which Joseph and Hyrum were gunned down by an armed mob with painted faces. The two victims, along with Dr. Richards and John Taylor, were lodged in Carthage Jail, supposedly for their protection, when the mob, numbering from 150 to 200 marauders, stormed the jail and shot to death their intended victims.
Word of the deaths had already reached Nauvoo, headquarters city for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As the wagons and their foot-weary guardians entered the city, several thousand citizens greeted the procession with the most solemn lamentations and mourning.
The bloodied bodies were tenderly removed from the wagons at the Nauvoo Mansion and were carefully washed from head to foot. The various wounds were filled with cotton, soaked in camphor, and death masks were impressed on each face. Fine, plain clothing was then placed on each body. When these preparations were completed, the bodies were viewed that night by the bereaved widows and children of the two men, along with many of their closest associates. Then on Saturday, more than ten thousand mourning Saints viewed the remains of their beloved Prophet Joseph and his brother, the Patriarch Hyrum. The bodies were then secretly and lovingly buried. (See History of the Church, 6:614–31.)

Many families throughout the world struggle financially, especially during times of economic crisis.1 The impact of such a crisis was felt in our local ward several years ago, as we saw several families in need of assistance. At the beginning of that year, our bishop shared with us an invitation from our stake president to give a generous fast offering to help those in need.
Although our leaders asked us to look at our individual situations and consider if we were able to be more generous with our fast offerings, they did not specify how much we should give. However, the Spirit reminded us of the counsel given years ago by President Marion G. Romney (1897–1988), First Counselor in the First Presidency. He said: “I am a firm believer that you cannot give to the Church and to the building up of the kingdom of God and be any poorer financially. … A person could not give a crust to the Lord without receiving a loaf in return. That’s been my experience. If the members of the Church would double their fast-offering contributions, the spirituality in the Church would double. We need to keep that in mind and be liberal in our contributions.”2
We knew it would be a sacrifice for our family to increase our fast offerings, but we considered President Romney’s teaching and promise carefully. As a family, we had been blessed abundantly and we felt a strong desire to increase our fast offerings.
Moreover, we wanted our family to overcome the tendency to be selfish. Because we live in a society so focused on acquiring things and filling our own desires, we were concerned that our children might grow up selfish. But we had hope in President Spencer W. Kimball’s (1895–1985) words: “Upon practicing the law of the fast, one finds a personal well-spring of power to overcome self-indulgence and selfishness.”3
Within the first three months of giving a more generous fast offering, we began to see many blessings. We were able to spend less on groceries, and our gas tank seemed to stay full longer. Our children asked for fewer things, and the selfishness in our home almost disappeared.
For example, when we contributed to the local food drive, our children began encouraging us to give more. When we did our annual inventory of our food supply, we found that we actually had two years’ worth of food. Additionally, in the past it would take us one month to go through a 50-pound (22.7 kg) bag of rice. Now the same bag of rice lasted us two months. It seemed like our food storage was multiplying.
We were reminded of the story of the widow of Zarephath. During a time of famine, the prophet Elijah called upon a widow, who had no means to feed him, to provide him with water and bread. Her response was, “As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die” (1 Kings 17:12).
The prophet promised her that “the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail. …
“And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days” (1 Kings 17:14–15). Her barrel, which had enough for one last meal for her family, was multiplied to allow her family and others to eat many days. The same type of miracle—based on our own offering—was occurring in our family.
During financial difficulties, giving a generous fast offering and helping care for the needy can be difficult, particularly when we are—like the widow of Zarephath—among the needy. Giving a generous fast offering, no matter the amount, requires faith in the Lord and His promise to care for us. But the Lord fulfills His promises, and our family’s experience taught us that the more we are willing to share, the more we are blessed.
As President Romney said: “Don’t give just for the benefit of the poor, but give for your own welfare. Give enough so that you can give yourself into the kingdom of God through consecrating of your means and your time.”4 Giving a more generous fast offering helped our family find joy in caring for the poor and strength in our own spiritual welfare.
Our willingness to give a crust has brought us many loaves in return. Our willingness to give generous fast offerings more than doubled our food storage. Indeed, the Lord’s power to multiply five loaves and two fishes to feed 5,000 men, besides women and children, with enough fragments to fill 12 baskets (see Matthew 14:16–21), is the same power that filled the barrel for the widow of Zarephath and multiplied our family’s food storage. Still, our greatest benefit has not come in the form of multiplying food but in the decrease of selfishness and increase of spirituality in our home.
It is our witness that as we contribute generously to the fast offering funds of the Church, including when our means are limited, the Lord will magnify our efforts and bless us beyond our understanding.

Sometime back I had the privilege of attending a stake conference in the company of President Spencer W. Kimball. He was not the president of the Church at that time. Elder Kimball worked tirelessly holding one meeting after another until late Saturday night. On Sunday we held a meeting with bishoprics and high councilors at 8:00 A.M. This was followed by the general session, a meeting with the seventies quorum, an interview with the patriarch, the dedication of a chapel, and a talk to the seminary students in the evening. We went to the stake president’s home about 9:00 P.M. to wait for our plane that did not leave until nearly 11:00 P.M. The kindly stake president’s wife wanted to fix us dinner. Elder Kimball said, “Please, all I need is a bowl of milk and some of your homemade bread to break up in it.” These are not men to be conquered.

After young Gordon had been ordained a deacon, his father took him—somewhat unwillingly, he recalls—to a stake priesthood meeting. While his father as stake president took his place on the stand, Gordon sat on the back row. During the singing of the opening hymn, “Praise to the Man,” his attitude changed. “As I heard them sing that hymn with power and conviction, there came into my heart a witness of the divine calling of the boy Joseph, and I am grateful that the Lord has sustained that witness through more than seventy years since then” (Ensign, Nov. 1993, p. 51).

Several years ago, while preparing for a business trip, I began to experience chest pain. Out of concern, my wife decided to accompany me. On the first leg of our flight, the pain intensified to the point that it was difficult for me to breathe. When we landed, we left the airport and went to the local hospital, where, after multiple tests, the attending physician declared us safe to continue our travel.
We returned to the airport and boarded a flight to our final destination. As we were descending, the pilot came on the intercom and asked me to identify myself. The flight attendant approached, said they had just received an emergency call, and told me there was an ambulance waiting at the airport to take me to the hospital.
We boarded the ambulance and were rushed to the local emergency room. There we were met by two anxious doctors who explained that I had been misdiagnosed and actually had a serious pulmonary embolism, or blood clot, in my lung, which required immediate medical attention. The doctors informed us that many patients do not survive this condition. Knowing we were far from home and not sure if we were prepared for such life-altering events, the doctors said that if there was anything in our lives that we needed to consider, now was the time.
I remember well how almost instantaneously in that anxious moment, my entire perspective changed. What seemed so important just moments earlier was now of little interest. My mind raced away from the comfort and cares of this life to an eternal perspective—thoughts of family, children, my wife, and ultimately an assessment of my own life.
How were we doing as a family and individually? Were we living our lives consistent with the covenants we had made and the Lord’s expectations, or had we perhaps unintentionally allowed the cares of the world to distract us from those things which matter most?
I would invite you to consider an important lesson learned from this experience: to step back from the world and assess your life. Or in the words of the doctor, if there is anything in your life you need to consider, now is the time.

I went sledding with my family. We had a lot of fun. There were lots of kids on the hill. I noticed that a girl was going too fast and was going to hit the fence. As she hit the fence, I ran down the hill to help her because I knew she must be hurt. She wasn’t hurt badly but she was scared and crying. No one else was around to help her, so I helped her get off her sled and made sure she was all right. Later that night when I went to bed I had a warm feeling in my heart. I knew it was the Holy Ghost telling me I had done something good and that Heavenly Father was happy with me.

One of my general education requirements was to attend a certain number of cultural events. Does that sound familiar? I decided I would attend an upcoming performance by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. The concert was to be held in the Marriott Center. I thought to myself, “That’s where they play basketball, not violins.” Even though I didn’t hate classical music, I didn’t exactly embrace it either. My mother had taken us as small children to see the Utah Symphony on one or two occasions. They were thoroughly enjoyable outings. But, I went to this one with a little bit of the attitude that I’m really not into this type of music. The first number to be performed was a piece composed by Igor Stravinsky called the Firebird Suite. It only took about 60 seconds into the piece for me to become completely mesmerized by the music I was hearing. I had never heard music like this before. The remainder of the concert was equally beautiful and impressive to me. I could not remember having witnessed such a display of skill and perfection. The experience changed me. I discovered that what we call classical music could engage me spiritually, intellectually, and aesthetically in a way few things outside the gospel could. It has been a profound blessing to have great music as part of my life. These days when I need a haven from the world, I retreat to the beauty of great music from all genres.

Would you ever believe that the quiet, grandmotherly lady in your ward first kissed a boy on a dare? Or that the smiling, old grandpa who’s been in your ward forever once drove his car into the side of a barn because he forgot that he had to hit the brakes instead of yell “Whoa”?
It’s probably difficult to imagine that the seniors in your ward ever did such crazy things—especially when the only thing you know about them is what bench they usually sit on during sacrament meeting. But that’s not the case for the youth in the Dalton Gardens Ward, Coeur d‘Alene Idaho Stake. They know all about the lives of the ward’s elderly members. Of course, it hasn’t always been that way. It wasn’t until their ward’s “Family History Can Be Fun” night that they began to learn about the older people’s lives.
But ever since then, their hearts have been turning—not only toward their ward’s seniors, but also toward their ancestors and toward each other.
All this turning began when the Dalton Gardens Ward youth took Malachi’s prophecy to heart and became excited about family history work (see Mal. 4:5–6).
They did this by filling out pedigree charts, having classes on the importance of genealogy, visiting with their ward’s senior citizens, and organizing a ward activity in which they acted out episodes from the lives of the grandparents in their ward family.
And what’s been the outcome of all this excitement? For one thing, the ward’s generation gap has narrowed.
“Now when you go to church, you see a lot of the young people going up to the older people in the ward and saying hi and maybe walking them to class,” says Russell Isaacson, a 16-year-old priest. “Before we might have just walked by them because we didn’t really know them at all, but now we see them as our friends.”
Desiree Wallace, 15, interviewed Virginia Gjevres about her life. Desiree found out about Virginia’s first teddy bear and her longing for a dog. And she learned that while Virginia was growing up she was so accident prone that everyone called her Calamity Jane.
“I didn’t really know Sister Gjevres before I interviewed her. I had only seen her at church. But now I just have this love for her, and I want to adopt her as my grandma,” says Desiree, who doesn’t have any grandparents living nearby.
As connections were made between the youth and the elderly in the ward family, it caused some to reflect on the importance of forming eternal connections with their own ancestors.
“The grandparents just really seemed enthusiastic about us getting to know them better. They looked so happy,” says Cassie Gatten, 15. “So it made me realize that when we do genealogy work for our ancestors who have died that they’re probably really happy about that too.”
Interviewing the grandparents about their lives, writing the scripts, finding costumes, and then having rehearsals to make sure everything was just right took a lot of time. But the youth said the time spent was worth it when they saw everything and everyone come together on the night of the activity.
“Sometimes I didn’t really feel like it was worth all the time it took to put this activity together. But then when I saw the final night and the looks on the faces of the elderly as they watched incidents from their lives acted out before them and as they realized that the youth in the ward care about who they are, it all seemed worth it,” Cassie says. “It also made me want to live my life in a way so that if someone were to write a play about me when I am old I wouldn’t be embarrassed by it.”
After acting out scenes from Reny Sampert’s life, Kim Pearson, a 17-year-old Laurel, and her group sang Reny’s favorite song, “O My Father.”
“When we were singing ‘O My Father,’ Reny got tears in her eyes, and you could tell she was really touched,” Kim says.
“This activity brought us so much closer to the older people,” says Amber Isaacson, 15. “A lot of people in the ward are related, but there are families like mine who are not, so it’s just really neat to get to know them like the relatives do.”
Even though Amber and her brother Russell don’t have any relatives in the ward, in doing this activity Russell has realized how much some of the ward’s grandparents have contributed to his life.
“Talking with the elderly in our ward helped me to understand that they are actually a part of me because they helped form the Church here in Coeur d‘Alene. And just to look at it today and see how I’m involved and see the key part they have played in my life makes me grateful that I was able to get to know them better,” Russell explains.
Learning about the grandparents in the ward has also given Russell some understanding about the effects that trials can have in a person’s life.
“Talking with Frances Young and learning about the different trials she went through in her life helps me to see how things like that have made her the great person she is today,” Russell says. “It’s just interesting how different experiences can mold a person.”
Cassie says she learned a lot of new things about the people she interviewed too, even though they were her own grandparents.
“A lot of what I learned about them was a surprise to me,” she says. “But in learning about their youth, I realized where some of their characteristics came from.”
Cassie has also learned that it is only by understanding her heritage that she is able to understand herself.
“It made me really want to figure out where I came from,” she says. “We’re made up of all these people and we don’t even know what they are, so how can we know what we are?”
Whether they learned more about themselves, about their ancestors, or about the seniors in their ward, one thing is certain for the youth in the Dalton Gardens Ward—their hearts have been turned.
“Doing this brought us so much closer to the elderly,” Amber says. “The older people were excited to share their lives with the youth, and we were excited to know about their lives. Everyone wanted to do a really good job with the skits because they had become such good friends with the elderly that they wanted their skit to be the best.”
Everyone in the ward took part in the activity. The Primary children sang, the Relief Society prepared food, the youth performed, and the older members brought their heirlooms to put on display.
A few hours before the activity started, all of the heirlooms were dropped off at the church, making several large piles of mismatched items. By the time everyone arrived, just a few hours later, the piles of items from various families had been organized into an old-fashioned bedroom, kitchen, and living room. All the mismatched items had come together to form a perfect display. And this is the way the activity affected the Dalton Gardens Ward. There was a group of people—some old, some young, some related, some not—that have now come together so well that no one would know they weren’t all from the same family.

Last week I received a faith-filled letter from Laurence M. Hilton. May I share with you the account of surviving personal tragedy with faith, nothing wavering.
In 1892, Thomas and Sarah Hilton, Laurence’s grandparents, went to Samoa, where Thomas was set apart as mission president after their arrival. They brought with them a baby daughter; two sons were born to them while they served there. Tragically, all three died in Samoa, and in 1895 the Hiltons returned from their mission childless.
David O. McKay was a friend of the family and was deeply touched by their loss. In 1921, as part of a world tour of visits to the members of the Church in many nations, Elder McKay stopped in Samoa, accompanied by Elder Hugh J. Cannon. Before leaving on his tour, he had promised the now-widowed Sister Hilton that he would personally visit the graves of her three children. I share with you the letter David O. McKay wrote to her from Samoa:
“Dear Sister Hilton:
“Just as the descending rays of the late afternoon sun touched the tops of the tall coconut trees, Wednesday, May 18th, 1921, a party of five stood with bowed heads in front of the little Fagali’i Cemetery. … We were there, as you will remember, in response to a promise I made you before I left home.
“The graves and headstones are in a good state of preservation. … I reproduce here a copy I made as I stood … outside the stone wall surrounding the spot.
Janette Hilton
Bn: Sept. 10, 1891
Died: June 4, 1892
“Rest, darling Jennie”
George Emmett Hilton
Bn: Oct. 12, 1894
Died: Oct. 19, 1894
“Peaceful be thy slumber”
Thomas Harold Hilton
Bn: Sept. 21, 1892
Died: March 17, 1894
“Rest on the hillside, rest”
“As I looked at those three little graves, I tried to imagine the scenes through which you passed during your young motherhood here in old Samoa. As I did so, the little headstones became monuments not only to the little babes sleeping beneath them, but also to a mother’s faith and devotion to the eternal principles of truth and life. Your three little ones, Sister Hilton, in silence most eloquent and effective, have continued to carry on your noble missionary work begun nearly 30 years ago, and they will continue as long as there are gentle hands to care for their last earthly resting place.
By loving hands their dying eyes were closed;
By loving hands their little limbs composed;
By foreign hands their humble graves adorned;
By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.
“Tofa Soifua,
“David O. McKay”
This touching account conveys to the grieving heart “the peace … which passeth all understanding.” Our Heavenly Father lives. Jesus Christ the Lord is our Savior and Redeemer. He guided the Prophet Joseph. He guides His prophet today, even President Gordon B. Hinckley. Of a truth I bear this personal witness.

Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles tells the story of his father teaching him to set goals by sitting down with the children individually and offering help.

“I had the desire to engage in this practice with my children,” Elder Cook said. “When our son, Larry, was five years old, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said he wanted to be a doctor like his Uncle Joe. …

“Several months later, I asked him again what he would like to be. This time he said he wanted to be an airline pilot. … I said, ‘Larry, last time we talked you wanted to be a doctor. What has changed your mind?’ He answered, ‘I still like the idea of being a doctor, but I have noticed that Uncle Joe works on Saturday mornings, and I wouldn’t want to miss Saturday Morning Cartoons.’

“Since that time our family has labeled a distraction from a worthwhile goal as a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

“What are some of the Saturday Morning Cartoons that distract us from attaining the joy that we desire? … If we examine the reasons we don’t do what we ought to do, we find that the list of Saturday Morning Cartoons is almost endless.”

Elder Cook’s teachings show us that we need to reflect on how we are doing, avoid distractions, and stay focused as we seek to achieve our goals.

Josh W.

As a new deacon, Josh W. of Utah, USA, was asked to teach a lesson about being a disciple of Christ. “I found scriptures about when Peter and others were fishing. They tried one side of the boat and didn’t catch anything,” Josh says. “Then the Savior told them to fish on the other side, and they caught lots of fish (see Luke 5:5–11 and John 21:6–11). So in my lesson, we read that. Then we talked about how it’s like that for us. When we go on our own, we can have trouble. But when we listen to the Lord, He helps us.”

Josh says that learning, teaching, and sharing are important in priesthood quorums. “In Primary we learned a lot and had lots of activities,” he says. “Now we’re learning a lot and sharing. That means doing a lot with what we learn.” For example, after a priesthood lesson, Josh visited a friend who hadn’t been to church for a long time. “His parents work on Sundays, so they don’t come. But I told him he could come with me.”

Josh is learning the purpose of Young Men and Young Women. “It’s to show us how to become more like the Savior,” he says. He knows that the call to “come unto Christ” means moving along a path that started with baptism and confirmation, continues toward the temple, and leads to eternal life.

“I’m ready to move forward,” he says.

After Todd and I got engaged, my mom suggested that we go to the temple a lot as a way to prepare for our marriage. Todd and I decided it was a good suggestion. Sometimes Todd performed baptisms with me, and sometimes he went to an endowment session while I participated in baptisms.

Todd and I were sometimes so busy we thought we wouldn’t have time to go to the temple. We had work and school and wedding preparations, but we wanted to go to the temple. Once we went to the temple instead of a football game that we had tickets to because we didn’t have any other time to go.

The blessings have been amazing. When I do baptisms for the dead, I learn how the Spirit speaks to me. Being able to forget worldly things and focus on the Savior has been really good. Todd and I haven’t had struggles or felt tempted because we’ve been going to the temple so often.

Sister Hansen and I had an experience some years ago that illustrates the point I want to make. We were serving as chaperons to a young adult group from our stake on an overnight retreat to a cabin in Huntsville located in the mountains east of Ogden.

This retreat we were chaperoning was in January, and it was a particularly cold January. When we were given the details, no one mentioned that the large log cabin we would be staying in was heated by a single fireplace in the living room.

Well, as the time came for retiring—the young women upstairs, the young men downstairs with their sleeping bags laid out on the plank floors—Jeanine and I were given the privacy of the bedroom and the luxury of a bed. There were no blinds on the windows, so with the lights out we removed our street clothes and quickly jumped into bed.

We were surprised to feel such a light set of covers, but we thought with the help of the bedspread we might make it through. We quickly dropped off to sleep, but as we did, the temperature dropped, too.

As we awakened shivering, we could tell that the young man assigned to keep the fire going had dropped off to sleep also and not one Btu could be felt radiating under the door into our room. What to do? We hurriedly got up and put on our clothing—but even with all our clothes, including the light jackets we had worn in the car, we spent the next four hours literally in a slow freeze. I am sure the temperature went down to twenty or twenty-five below zero outside, and it wasn’t much warmer inside. We were reluctant to turn on the lights and try and get a fire going and wake everyone up, so we just toughed it out.

Without a doubt that was as uncomfortable as any night we have ever spent. As daylight broke, we couldn’t wait to get out of bed and start moving. Then, as we removed the pillows to make the bed, to our great surprise there were the controls for the electric blanket we had unknowingly slept under during that miserable night.

Unfortunately, we ofttimes have similar experiences, though not necessarily involving an electric blanket. But we make things harder than they need to be as we fail to recognize or take advantage of facilities or resources that would make our lives or our work more enjoyable and more effective or even more bearable in some cases.

When we returned home from our mission I had a friend ask if I was able to have a personal relationship with each of my missionaries. With 230 missionaries in the mission it was impossible to spend the time you would like with each individual missionary. Before entering the MTC, like most mission presidents I was determined to be as prepared as possible to efficiently interview the missionaries. Knowing that time would be limited, I prepared a list of questions that I could ask in interviews to really get to know the missionaries.
I worked hard and had my questions ready. The day after we arrived in the mission field we had thirteen new missionaries arrive. After a welcome dinner, I took the first missionary into the office for their initial interview. I started with my questions to guide our conversation. About three minutes into the interview something happened. A spiritual feeling came over me; I knew this missionary as well as I had ever known anyone. I had a deep feeling of love for them. That love I can only describe as the kind of the love I have for my own children. I recognized their strengths, weaknesses and more importantly their potential. I had similar experiences with the other twelve missionaries that night. This same thing happened each time I interviewed our missionaries. I came to understand one of the powers of priesthood keys is to convey God's love and His personal concern for His children. I would later try to express this by saying, priesthood keys allow you to think things you wouldn't normally think, to see things you wouldn't normally see, to say things you wouldn't normally say, and to feel things you wouldn't normally feel. That was my experience everyday of my mission. No wonder those missionaries became like our own sons and daughters. I related more with the Book of Mormon account of Helaman describing those valiant young men he served with as his sons.

Everybody’s doing it! And the nice thing about it is that nearly everybody can do it. I’m talking about cross-country skiing or ski touring.*
The basic technique is fairly simple, it comes fast, and the satisfactions are immense. If someone had suggested to me two years ago that I should trade a Saturday of Alpine skiing for something called ski touring, I’d have said, “Sorry, no way.” But then one late spring day, on our final run, I took the ill-fated little fall that turned into months in a cast and strict orders to stay off the slopes for a year. In desperation I bought a pair of those skinny little touring skis, found someone to show me the basics (it took about 30 minutes), and I was off and running. Remembering my early days of Alpine skiing (about the first ten years or so), I kept expecting some agony. But there wasn’t any. I could do it right off the bat. The only thing that has proved any problem at all has been deciding on where to stop for lunch—and how to stop, period. Straight striding and running is a snap, if you don’t mind working a little.

Elyssa Portillo (9) of Tucson, Arizona, has many talents. She dances, sings, draws, crochets, cooks, and acts out plays she makes up herself. But her greatest talent may be the talent of gratitude. She is grateful for good friends, good food, and the beautiful desert scenery that surrounds her home. “And I’m thankful for the Prophet Joseph Smith, President Gordon B. Hinckley, the Church, and the Book of Mormon,” she declares.
“Most of all, I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for my mom. Whenever I need her, she’s there. I’m thankful for Nana (her grandmother). She’s a teacher, and whenever I need help with my homework, she helps me. I’m very thankful for my dad. I like to take walks with him. I’m thankful for my tío (uncle). I like to sing with him while he plays the piano. I’m thankful for my dog, Pixie. I love them all.”
Elyssa lives in her grandmother’s home with all these loved ones, who love her right back. “When Elyssa’s around, we’re always laughing,” Uncle Eric says. “She makes us laugh when we least expect it. She’s very creative, and you never know what she’s going to do next.”
Nana recalls, “When Elyssa was young, instead of watching TV we just sat around watching Elyssa and her puppy. She liked the attention and started creating games and plays. She would dress up as Cinderella or Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and act out the part. She filled the whole house with her personality. When she went out, the house was empty and too quiet.
“She’s sensitive to others and sees people’s needs. If I’m walking, she makes sure that I don’t trip: ‘Nana, wait. There’s something in your way.’ She often reminds her mom to put on her seat belt and to not lock her keys in her car. She likes to open doors for the elderly, and at church, she’s always helping mothers with their young children. I feel very safe with Elyssa around.”
“I love her dearly,” her mom says. “She’s my little companion, my little shadow. Everywhere I go, she’s right behind me. She’s a happy child.”
Elyssa also loves her tata (grandpa). When Elyssa was a baby, Tata would play the guitar for her. Later they sang together. Tata was with her a lot because he developed a serious disease and couldn’t go to work. Each day, he picked her up after school and took her to eat at a place of her choice. When Pixie was missing one stormy night, Tata comforted Elyssa, prayed with her, and kept searching until her beloved pet was found safe several days later.
Since Tata couldn’t go to work, he did much of the cooking at home and became a really good cook. Elyssa helped him and became a good cook herself. Their specialty was empanadas, a sort of meat pie that is held in one’s hands. Nana remembers her working beside Tata, flour all over her little face.
“They grew very close,” Nana recalls. “She was his life.”
When Elyssa was eight years old, Tata died suddenly of a heart attack. Elyssa took it very hard. “I felt lonely inside and was crying in my heart. I had a hard time at school. But the teachings of Jesus Christ have helped me to know that someday I will see my tata again. I know that if I keep the commandments, I can be with my family forever.”
In spite of having felt grief—or perhaps because of it—Elyssa has developed a talent for feeling joy. She remembers her baptism as an especially joyful experience. “I’m thankful that I get to have the Holy Ghost with me all the time. Every child in the world deserves to be blessed with the Spirit.” She was grateful that her dad and his parents came to the service to show their love and support, though they are not members of the Church.
Elyssa likes to use her talents to help others feel happy. She studies the violin and guitar and sings in the Little Mariachis at school. (Mariachi bands play traditional Mexican music with brass and string instruments.) Like her dad, she draws well, and she uses this gift to create greeting cards for her friends and family. She uses another talent to crochet purses for people.
She also helps her friends by setting a good example and sometimes by reminding them to choose the right. One day, she came home and reported, “My friend said a bad word. I told her that she shouldn’t say those things.”
A good student, Elyssa isn’t sure yet what she will do when she grows up. Three possibilities are “a police officer to protect the community, a firefighter so I can help others, or a teacher like Nana because I like to help people learn things.” She plans to follow the example of Uncle Eric by serving a mission. “And I plan to get married in the temple and raise a righteous family.”
In the meantime, in the words of a proud Nana, “Elyssa brings us all a lot of joy. We love her, and she knows it.”

A great example comes from President Gordon B. Hinckley, who wrote about his early discouraging days as a missionary in England. He said:
I was not well when I arrived. Those first few weeks, because of illness and the opposition which we felt, I was discouraged. I wrote a letter home to my good father and said that I felt I was wasting my time and his money. He was my father and my stake president, and he was a wise and inspired man. He wrote a very short letter to me which said, “Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.”
President Hinckley continues,
Earlier that morning in our scripture class my companion and I had read these words of the Lord: “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.”
Those words of the Master, followed by my father’s letter with his counsel to forget myself and go to work, went into my very being. With my father’s letter in hand, I went into our bedroom in the house at 15 Wadham Road, where we lived, and got on my knees and made a pledge with the Lord. I covenanted that I would try to forget myself and lose myself in His service. [11]

A practice that was part of LDS culture for many years had to do with dancing and departing missionaries. Shortly before the young elder left for the mission field, a dance in his honor took place in the cultural hall of the church. In the February 1904 issue of the Improvement Era, Don C. W. Musser explained why the Latter-day Saints would find this appropriate. He said:
They find nothing incompatible with their ideas of true religion, in the innocent pleasure of dancing. In fact, like God’s people of ancient times, they find this one way of rejoicing together, and of giving vent to their feelings of gratitude for blessings daily received. In early times, while pushing their handcarts across the plains, they frequently danced under the light of the moon and stars, and around their camp fires, because their hearts were so full of praise, words could not express it, and they had to dance. And it has always been a custom with them, to give their departing missionaries a farewell . . . , and in no way can this end be better accomplished than in a dance. [Don C. W. Musser, “A Peculiar Custom of a Peculiar People,” Improvement Era 7, no. 4 (February 1904): 297–98]
It was at his missionary farewell dance that young Spencer W. Kimball was introduced to a pretty blonde girl who was new in the valley: Camilla Eyring. I would like to paraphrase the story as it appears in the biography of President Kimball, written by his sons Edward and Andrew. Shortly following his mission Spencer picked up the local newspaper one evening and noticed a photograph and article in the upper right-hand corner. It was about Camilla, who was now teaching home economics at the Gila Academy. He read the article several times and then said aloud to himself, “I am going to marry her.”
He lost no time in asking around about Camilla and discovered that she lived with her parents in Pima—several miles down the valley. She rode the bus to Thatcher each day to teach at the Academy. Well, one day soon after that, when Camilla arrived at the bus stop in Thatcher to return home, there was Spencer—on his way to visit his friend Lawrence Holladay, who just happened to live in Pima. During the bus ride “Spencer talked about Shakespeare and art, certain that was the way to a teacher’s heart.” Before the ride ended Spencer asked Camilla if he might call on her sometime, and she invited him to do so.
One evening a short time later, Spencer showed up at her house unannounced. Camilla was preparing to go dancing with another boy named Alvin, but she sat on the porch and visited with Spencer anyway. When it became apparent to her that Spencer had no intention of leaving soon, she said she “fudged.” A crowd of people were going dancing, she told him. Would he like to come along? And so it was that when Alvin drove up, he found two people waiting to pile into the car. As you might imagine, Alvin was not very happy with this arrangement, and he applied his foot to the accelerator to show his anger. Camilla said later that Alvin drove “like the devil was after him.” By the time they arrived at the dance, Alvin was so mad he decided he was through with Camilla—which goes to show you that one man’s bad luck is another’s good fortune! (From Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Jr., Spencer W. Kimball: Twelfth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977], 71, 83–84.)
I wonder if Spencer ever wondered what would have happened if he had not arranged to be at the bus stop? What if he had decided that he was too tired or didn’t want to go to the effort that afternoon? Was Spencer’s sudden interest in Camilla just a random thing or was it something more than that? How is it that the future President Spencer W. Kimball, along with Camilla, was in the right place at the right time?

About 8,000 Southeast Asian refugees live in Utah, with about fifty to one hundred new refugees arriving every month. Donald and Irene Jones, of Mesa, Arizona, are a welfare services missionary couple who labor among the Cambodian refugees. Elder Jones relates that “about thirty percent of the people we help with clothing, furniture, food, and job-training are not members of the Church. Helping people often opens the door to teaching the gospel.”

One such conversion story is that of Sakhan Lay, who was a school teacher in Cambodia. When the government fell, her family was separated and she was sent to a prison camp. Twice she faced a firing squad, but her life was spared. Miraculously she escaped, and was able to locate her children who had fled to Thailand. A Latter-day Saint Cambodian family living in Utah sponsored the Lays so that they could come to Salt Lake City. They have since joined the Church, and Sister Lay is now working as a social worker among her people.