Gospel Story Finder

I have subscribed to the Liahona (Spanish) for two years, and I enjoy reading it each month. Every article just hits the mark, helping us come closer to our Heavenly Father.
Since my baptism, my life and that of my family has changed. I have realized that the life the Lord gives us is the most precious thing we have. We must not let this opportunity pass to demonstrate to him that we truly love him by putting into practice all his commandments. We will truly be saved if we fulfill our duty with all our will and heart.
I know that the Spirit influences us and helps us to do the things that are right.
Now that I am a member of the Church, I can testify to you that knowing the truth is something truly marvelous, and that no one can change that. I have found many friends, good friends, and earned the respect of many people.
Just remember that the blessings that the Lord pours out on us are many, but if we keep his commandments, there will be many more.
Jenny Amaya A.Huacho, Perú

Bishop Keith B. McMullin (above right), Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric:I remember my first home teaching assignment was with a brother from Scandinavia who spoke broken English. He called me on the phone, and I tried hard to understand what he was saying. He invited me to come to his home. He was an older man, a very fine Latter-day Saint, and my senior companion. He invited me in and said in a heavy accent, “I think we should say a prayer.” We knelt down and had a prayer. At that time in my home, our family prayers were reserved for major occasions—they weren’t an everyday occurrence. My home teaching companion, however, placed prayer into a much different category for me. I thought to myself, “Home teaching is really important, and prayer is an important part of home teaching.” And of course I learned what a wonderful, precious experience it is.

My mother, my elder and my younger sisters all got baptized when I was on my mission. We lived with my mother for 10 years without my father’s love, and my sisters and I had our mother by our side all the time. I had all the love for my father despite the fact that he had distanced himself from us for 10 years. When I was on a mission, I knew I shouldn’t change the lives of others while my family perished, so I did everything I could to get back in touch with my father.
As I got in touch with my father, I knew I had a huge responsibility to introduce him to the missionaries. I attended his first meeting with the missionaries through a WhatsApp video call, but the first time, the missionaries and I faced a lot of criticism and backbiting. My father didn’t believe that there can be a true church of God in the world today. I asked my mission president for a favor to go to the temple. On my way to the temple, I prayed and fasted for my father.
Two months after I returned from my mission, on August 5 and 6, 2023, I was privileged to baptize and confirm my father and today we are all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through prayer, fasting and meditation in the holy house of the Lord. Today all the members of my family are with me, and we share the same faith and the same gospel of Christ.

Luke Johnson
Here is a picture of Luke Johnson’s journal. He also traveled with Brigham Young as the company doctor. In those days, a doctor had to make the medicines he used to help people get well. He wrote the recipes for his medicines in his journal.

It was a hot summer day and the neighborhood boys were preparing to engage in their favorite pastime, shooting their BB guns. On the fences surrounding the fields around our neighborhood, many a tin can had met its demise as a sharp-shooting rooster-tailed boy drew aim and gently squeezed the trigger of his Daisy Red-Ryder lever-action BB gun. This day would be like many others as the boys embarked on their excursion.
Being the only five-year-old boy in the neighborhood left me with no one to play with most of the time. I needed to belong, so I would often tag along with my older brother and his friends despite their insistent pleas for me to return home. Again, this day would be no exception. Time after time I hunted them down, only to have them try to ditch me again.
As their obvious attempts to relieve themselves of my presence failed, they turned to more cunning tactics. My brother approached me. I should have known by the gleam in his eye that deception was in the wings. “Dane,” he said manipulatively, “if you will go home and make us all a peanut butter and honey sandwich, we will let you shoot our guns.” My heart leaped at the prospect of firing one of those choice weapons. I raced home. My legs had never known such speed.
At home, I noticed that my mom had company and that she wouldn’t be able to make the sandwiches for me. Too bad, I thought to myself. Another obstacle had been placed in my pathway. But I would overcome. I would not be denied the opportunity to master the Red-Ryder.
While sloppily spreading peanut butter on the tearing bread, I began to be prodded by my conscience. My mother’s words of warning echoed through my mind. “Dane, you’re too small to get the bucket of honey from the top shelf by yourself.”
As I finished with the peanut butter and dropped the sticky knife on the carpeted floor, I ignored my conscience and headed for the shelf. Opening the door and looking up, I saw the two-gallon bucket of honey looming overhead just within reach of my fingers. Reaching up and inching the bucket toward the front of the shelf, I was not at all prepared for what happened next. As the honey arrived at the edge of the shelf, the bottom of the bucket caught on the ridge at the front of the shelf, became upended, and came hurtling down, upside down, onto my head.
My first thought was, What should I do about the mess? The situation, however, quickly got serious as the sticky substance covered my eyes, leaving me unable to see. The vacuum effect the bucket had on my head made it impossible to remove. I strained and struggled, but to no avail. The honey descended, covering my mouth and nose, making breathing very difficult. Panic stricken, I staggered into the living room. Blowing honey bubbles out my nose and mouth in an effort to breathe and trying to peer through the haze that covered my eyes, I saw my mother and her friend laughing hysterically.
My mother finally gathered herself enough to show the necessary compassion. As she shoved my sticky, honey-covered head under the bathtub faucet, she said something I have never forgotten. “If you are going to do things you know you shouldn’t,” she said, “you must face the consequences that accompany your actions.”
While humorous, this experience has had a very profound effect on me, helping me realize the importance of obedience. Fortunately for us, valuable lessons can sometimes be learned through harmless incidents. Learning obedience through a childhood mishap has benefited me greatly.

When I was nine years old, I committed a crime. I made a decision to steal a comic book from the small town store which kept an old twirling black metal rack over in the corner by the stacked wooden cases of bottled soda pop. The owner did not catch me stealing, but at home my parents were suspicious, knowing that I had no money to purchase the comic book. Prying the truth out of me, my mother finally marched me back to the store, where I confessed my guilt to the owner. He let me decide how to make full restitution and how I was going to go about learning not to steal again.
The store’s floor was made of old-time hardwood, and each evening he would throw sawdust down and sweep it to get up all of the dust balls and grime from the foot traffic of the day. That chore was assigned to me. I was sure that I would only have to do it for a few days. As I came into the store each afternoon after school to do my sweeping, the proprietor would nod his greeting and motion toward the broom and cardboard box of sawdust in the back. It was weeks before he told me one night that he thought I had swept long enough.
I relate this particular incident, not to rehash the sin, but to point out that it is the sweeping and the price I had to pay that I remember vividly. I still have the memory of taking the comic book, but the feelings of guilt, heartsickness, distress, and deep sorrow are long gone because I was helped to repent. I remember those long hours of sweeping now to remind me of the price of stealing. That encourages me not to be dishonest again.

Doodles covered every scrap of paper in the Sorbonne home from the time Ellesse, now 20, could hold a crayon. Recognizing her talent, Ellesse’s parents enrolled her in art lessons at age five, and she began to develop her skills in drawing and painting. During junior high, Ellesse began her first apprenticeship as a painter, and that’s where her real education began.

“I remember the first time I went to my teacher’s studio,” she recalls. “He told me I needed to start to relearn how to draw, and I was a little offended because I felt like I had been studying art forever. But actually, I could never be more grateful for that. Having to go back to the basics was very humbling. The experience was so good for me.”

Eventually, Ellesse left that studio and went on to apprentice with another painter. Her experience there proved equally valuable. She came to appreciate the value of watching a master at work. Her new teacher, who is also a member of the Church, helped her to recognize the source of true beauty. “Everything he taught me was an acknowledgement of truth and beauty and how that’s not just within us. It’s from a greater source—from the Greatest Master.”

In addition to her painting, Ellesse is now pursuing an interest in photography through an internship with a portrait studio in her hometown. As evidenced by Ellesse’s experience, apprenticeships and internships are available in a very broad range of fields. Apprenticeships and internships are often part of a school program to enhance in-class learning. They can take place in your hometown or halfway around the world, and you can gain experience in teaching, public affairs, carpentry, journalism, fashion design, and accounting, just to name a few of the choices.

“Anyone who has the opportunity to apprentice or intern should go for it,” says Ellesse. “There’s so much you learn from doing and observing that you can’t get from books.”

And if you’re not sure yet what you want to do, don’t worry. “Take whatever you’ve been given and learn more about it, because the intelligence you gain will take you places,” says Ellesse.

On May 15, 1829, John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood to the earth. He did so by laying his hands upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and speaking these words: “Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins” (D&C 13:1).

When I was growing up, every year or so my stake would hold a “roadshow”—a night of laughter and fun as each ward performed an unashamedly amateur melodrama before the rest of the stake in the crowded cultural hall. For weeks before the event, leaders in the wards would concoct unlikely plots, create ridiculous songs and dances, and coerce reluctant youth into wearing outlandish costumes. Our roadshows could hardly be termed theater, but they were a lot of fun.
Of all the stake roadshows I took part in, one in particular stands out in my memory. The year I was 16, the stake presidency, of which my father was a member, decided the wards would not be allowed to use glitter in their costumes or makeup. Although the shimmering flecks looked wonderful on stage under the spotlight, they invariably found their way into the carpets and furniture of the rooms the wards used for preparation. Because the roadshow was to be held on Saturday night, the stake presidency hoped this measure would help keep the building clean for the Sabbath.
But in the enthusiasm and good-natured competition of that year’s roadshow, the stake presidency’s counsel went largely unheeded. After the performances concluded, I looked for my dad among the members slowly trickling from the building. They all seemed to have had a night of friendship and amusement. When I finally found my father in one of the rooms used for preparation, I could see that he was not amused. He was walking slowly around the room, gravely surveying the sparkles scattered about the floor.
“Most of the wards used glitter,” I said, stating the obvious.
“It’s like this in almost all the rooms,” he said and sighed. “Weren’t we clear about not using glitter?” he asked in frustration.
“I think you were,” I said, hoping to ease some of the tension.
By the time we found the rest of the family and went home, it was already late. But after seeing the younger kids to bed, my father took his car keys and went to the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Back to the stake center,” he said quietly. “I’m going to see what I can do to get it ready for Sunday. Do you want to come?”
I didn’t have any special desire to spend what remained of my Saturday evening cleaning, but when I thought about my dad doing all that work alone, I agreed to go.
By the time we reached the stake center, my dad’s attitude had changed. As we cleaned, he seemed less discouraged and even somewhat enthusiastic about the challenge before us. He spent the time asking me about school and my friends.
Although the cleaning took several hours, we both felt a certain pleasure in our work and tried to be as thorough as possible. It wasn’t until after midnight that we felt the building was ready for church in the morning.
The next day, I felt special satisfaction as I looked through the clean rooms and remembered how they had appeared the night before. I considered telling my friends about my one-night stint at janitorial work, but that didn’t seem appropriate. Apparently, my father felt the same—to this day I can’t remember him mentioning that night to anyone.
Today when I think back to that roadshow, I can’t remember any of the humor or costumes or music. What comes to mind are images of my father vacuuming and sweeping and picking glitter from the floor of the church—doing behind-the-scenes work in preparation for the Sabbath.

Lamar has also found courage in Christ in other personal ways. “I suffer with quite bad anxiety sometimes,” Lamar says. “I guess the ultimate person to give me courage to carry on is Jesus Christ Himself. He went through so much, yet He carried on with His mission.”
When Lamar is having a particularly bad day, he often imagines the Savior encouraging him, saying, “You can do this. You can get through anything.”
He also draws strength from his mom and dad, his friends, and other people who are close to him. “There was a time where I kind of got led down the wrong path,” Lamar says. But thanks to a good support system, he was able to adjust his course and strengthen his testimony of Christ.

One morning, a friend of mine who is a lifeguard on the Gold Coast was sitting on his lookout carefully watching the people swimming between the flags when a boy came running up the beach. His father had been swimming just down the beach with another young son on his shoulders. The father had suffered a heart attack, and both went down. They were 200 meters from the flags. The lifeguards did everything humanly possible, but by the time they got there, both father and son had drowned.

Rain poured as a cold wind blew. I saw trees that had been uprooted and lost all their leaves. The power was off in some areas due to damaged electrical lines. The scene before me was now like a haunted place. Everything had been blown away. People were starving for food and longing for shelter.
My heart was filled with the desire to serve. My family and other members of the Church had traveled to a poor community where a typhoon had devastated thousands of homes and taken thousands of lives. We were there to give relief goods to the victims.
When we first arrived, I had seen the mourning in people’s faces. I realized then how blessed we were that our homes hadn’t been destroyed.
It was still raining when we started handing out relief packs at a muddy, roofless gym, but that didn’t matter to us. The relief packs—sets of plastic trays, kettles, plates, spoons, forks, glasses, and flasks—we nicknamed “home-return kits.” As my family and I handed relief packs to the people, they gave us warm smiles and thank-yous.
The priceless gratitude of the people uplifted me, and I felt the influence of the Spirit. Their smiles manifested that there is hope and that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will never leave us and will always bring light to our dark days.
I know that if we serve and love one another, we will gain eternal blessings and inherit Christlike attributes. The blessings of serving do not always come right away, but they will come if we continue to serve others with a sincere heart. I know that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).

Beans and More Beans
In one hour the girls bagged 1,400 bags of pinto beans for the bishops’ storehouse to give to those who need food!

“Our first night out after starting on our journey, we camped on the prairie; Father had unyoked the cattle and turned them out to feed on the grass. He had to look after them to keep them from straying away. We had picked up enough fuel to make a good fire and Mother was preparing supper, when all at once there came up a most terrific thunderstorm. The rain poured down in torrents and we were all drenched. Although we got into the wagon as soon as we could, the wind blew the rain with such force that the wagon was very little protection. Of course, the fire was put out which didn’t help the preparations for supper that night. However, the next morning the sun shone bright, everything got dry, and we continued on our journey.”

Some years ago when Aldin Porter was president of the Boise North Stake, he dropped by the home of Glen Clayton, who was the Scoutmaster in his ward. Glen and his son were working together repairing a bicycle. President Porter stood and talked to them for a few minutes and then left. Several hours later he returned and the father and son were still working on the bike together. President Porter said, “Glen, with the wages you make per hour you could have bought a new bike, considering the time you have spent repairing this old one.”

Glen stood up and said, “I’m not repairing a bike, I’m training a boy!”

That year twenty-one boys achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in Glen’s troop. Impact teachers do not teach lessons, they teach souls.

In June of 1986 I drove my mother to the Cardston Alberta Temple so she could receive her endowment. I had already received my endowment, but my nonmember husband and I lived in a remote part of British Columbia, and I had allowed my recommend to expire. Therefore, I was able to walk with my mother to the recommend desk but could follow her no further. I went outside, leaned against the temple wall, and cried.
After that experience, I determined never to be left outside of the temple again. My husband supported me in my decision, and I was soon attending the temple as frequently as I could. There I learned principles that made a profound difference in my personal life and in relationships with family and friends.

My missionary companion and I were having difficulty getting along well together. I still do not know all that lay at the root of our difficulties, but after we had been together only a few weeks, walking the streets of a small Brazilian town, resentment, pride, and petty differences began to darken our relationship. Our prayers together became more and more perfunctory, and resentment more and more frequently broke out in sharp words. Almost unnoticed, the Spirit began to slip away from us.
One afternoon, after one of many unfruitful days of tracting and visiting members, and with what promised to be a barren afternoon stretching before us, we decided that we could fill some of the empty spaces on our daily activity records by visiting Antonio. Antonio was a non-member whose wife had joined the Church several years before but had been only marginalIv active. He respected the missionaries and several times had shown sufficient faith to ask them to administer to him when he was ill. My present companion and I had administered to him twice, and I knew that earlier elders had done so. All of that took place before we learned that Antonio was dying of an abdominal cancer and had only a few months, perhaps weeks, to live.
When his wife answered the door that day, she looked drawn and worried. She took us into her kitchen, from which an open door led to Antonio’s room. Through the door we saw Antonio threshing in agony on a narrow bed, unconscious that we were even there.
We were suddenly at a complete loss for what to do or say. Antonio’s wife looked at us silently. We looked at each other, at Antonio, at the floor. We had no idea what to do, and worse, without a word being spoken between us, we knew that we were both thinking that we were in no spiritual condition to do anything. Finally, one of us asked if there was a room where we could be alone for a while. Antonio’s wife showed us to a bedroom, and we closed the door behind us.
We knelt and took turns praying, at first asking the Lord to make known to us his will concerning Antonio. In the silence that answered our first prayers, the knowledge of our unworthiness to receive an answer fairly shouted at us. Then, at first awkwardly and cautiously, and finally pleadingly, we began to confess to the Lord and to each other our sin in allowing vanity and pride to rob us of the power to use our priesthood. We pleaded that Antonio not be denied release from his suffering because of our unworthiness, that the Lord would forgive our sin and bless us with faith and power to bless Antonio, or that he would bless Antonio without us.
We must have prayed for half an hour, taking turns, before a peace came to us. We agreed that we should go out, lay our hands on Antonio, and let the Spirit guide us.
When we went out, his wife asked, “Did you pray?” We said yes, and she said, “He has gone to sleep.”
We left the house subdued and chastened. Permanently and profoundly recorded in our hearts was a hard-learned lesson in the foolishness of allowing personal differences to cut us off from the source of the power to bless.

After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found establishing settlements in the desert to be a real challenge. Daily they encountered trials and hardships that kept reminding them that their new life was very different from the one to which they had been accustomed. There were homes to build, land to develop, irrigation ditches to dig, gardens to plant, wood to chop, and cattle to herd. Also there were constant immigrations into Utah, drought, and the grasshopper plague, all making the economy of this new territory very uncertain. Because of the great effort required to provide for their families, some of the early pioneers drifted into spiritual lethargy. This was of grave concern to the early Church leaders. They believed that some of their struggles were the direct result of the Saints’ laxity in keeping the commandments.
In 1856 the First Presidency commenced a reform movement. Church leaders traveled throughout the territory crying repentance to the Saints. They sent the block teachers out with a list of questions to ask the families. Some of these questions were:
Have you betrayed your brethren or sisters in anything?
Have you committed adultery?
Have you taken the name of Deity in vain?
Have you been intoxicated with strong drink?
Have you paid your debts?
Do you teach your family the gospel of salvation?
Do you pray night and morning with your family?
Do you attend your ward meetings? (Adapted from “Questions to Be Asked the Latter-day Saints,” in Church History in the Fulness of Times [Church Educational System manual, 1993], 366.)
The Saints were challenged by their leaders to rededicate themselves to serving the Lord and keeping His commandments, and they accepted their leaders’ counsel and repented.

Another mother expressed regular disappointment to her teenage daughter any time the girl showed sadness or didn’t live up to the mother’s standards. If the expectations were not met, or if her husband expressed concerns, she icily gave everyone the silent treatment.

A friend of mine recently said to me, “Do you know what you and Steve Young, the quarterback of the 49ers, have in common?”
And I said, “I can think of a number of things—on either side of the fence.” Then I said, “You tell me what we have in common.”
And he said, “What you have in common is that we’re wondering if you’ll be back for the next season.”