Gospel Story Finder

Oliver could smell Granny’s brownies baking in the oven, and there was a reverent feeling in Granny and Grandad’s house. Oliver had been looking forward to this special family home evening all day.
“Our lesson is about the plan of happiness that Heavenly Father made for all of us,” Grandad said. “Tonight the kitchen is going to represent heaven, where we lived with Heavenly Father before we came to live on earth,” he said.
“Was I there, Grandad?” asked Archie. Oliver looked around the kitchen at Granny and Grandad, Mum and Dad, and his younger brothers, Archie and Ethan.
“Yes,” Grandad said. “We were all there. And when Heavenly Father told us about His plan to create a world and to send a Savior for us, we were so happy that we shouted for joy!”
Archie and Ethan laughed and jumped up and down.
“Who was the first person in our family to leave heaven and come to earth?” Grandad asked.
“You were,” Oliver said.
Grandad left the kitchen. Next Granny left. Then one by one everyone in Oliver’s family joined them in the bedroom.
“This room is going to represent the earth,” Granny said. “What are some of the things we can do on earth to help us return to Heavenly Father?” she asked.
“Be baptized,” Oliver said.
“Go to the temple,” Mum said.
“Choose the right,” Archie said.
Granny nodded and smiled. Then she said it was time to leave the earth and return back to Heavenly Father.
“I’ll go first,” Grandad said.
“Oh, Grandad, don’t leave!” Ethan said.
“Don’t worry,” Grandad said. “Leaving the earth is part of Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness. Soon we’ll be back together again.”
One by one, everyone went back to the kitchen. “We’re all back in heaven!” Dad said as Archie and Ethan ran into his arms.
Oliver felt as glad to see his family as if he had been away from them for a long time. He ran over to hug his brothers and Mum and Dad. Now he understood why Grandad had called it Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness.

After a discouraging day of prom-dress shopping with two of my daughters, we returned home in weary tears. We had not found one modest dress. I encouraged my daughters to take their desires to the Lord in prayer. They looked at me quizzically, not at all certain that a wardrobe concern was prayer-worthy. I promised them that Nephi’s conviction in 1 Nephi 3:7 applies to the mundane as well as the monumental: “I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” My daughters agreed to pray about the problem, and within a week we found beautiful dresses in unexpected places that we could alter to be perfectly appropriate.
We continue to make modesty a matter of prayer. I have learned to follow small promptings from the Spirit, even if it means driving a distance, searching through sample racks, or making substantial alterations. I want my daughters to know that I value modesty enough to go out of my way.
Jerie Jacobs, California, USA

A missionary assignment to Great Britain late last year allowed me to reflect on the precious spiritual events that were foundational to my decision to serve as a missionary. When I was 15 years old, my beloved older brother, Joe, was 20—the age of eligibility then to serve a mission. In the United States, because of the Korean conflict, very few were allowed to serve. Only one could be called from each ward per year. It was a surprise when our bishop asked Joe to explore this possibility with our father. Joe had been preparing applications for medical school. Our father, who was not active in the Church, had made financial preparations to help him and was not in favor of Joe going on a mission. Dad suggested that Joe could do more good by going to medical school. This was a huge issue in our family.
In a remarkable discussion with my wise and exemplary older brother, we concluded that his decision on whether to serve a mission and delay his education depended on three questions: (1) Is Jesus Christ divine? (2) Is the Book of Mormon the word of God? and (3) Is Joseph Smith the Prophet of the Restoration? If the answer to these questions was yes, it was clear that Joe could do more good taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world than becoming a doctor at an earlier date.
That night I prayed fervently and with real intent. The Spirit, in an undeniably powerful way, confirmed to me that the answer to all three of these questions was yes. This was a seminal event for me. I realized that every decision I would make for the rest of my life would be influenced by these truths. I also knew that I would serve a mission if given the opportunity. Over a lifetime of service and spiritual experiences, I have come to understand that true conversion is the result of the conscious acceptance of the will of God and that we can be guided in our actions by the Holy Ghost.
I already had a testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ as Savior of the world. That night I received a spiritual testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Prophet Joseph Smith.

“Meet you at the graveyard.” That was the byword for the Pleasant Hill First Ward Young Men and Young Women, Walnut Creek California Stake, for their super service project. They met at the cemetery in Martinez, California, carrying rakes, hoes, and shovels that were put to good use during the next few hours. Some of the older volunteers started cataloguing the graves, too, to help with the genealogical records for the graveyard. The cemetery was the only one in the county during 1850 through 1870, so many of the pioneers who settled that part of the San Francisco Bay Area are buried there. Despite the rain, the group of 35 volunteers transformed the badly neglected cemetery into an orderly, well-cared-for place.

I remember when I was preparing to be trained as a fighter pilot. We spent a great deal of our preliminary military training in physical exercise. I’m still not exactly sure why endless running was considered such an essential preparatory part of becoming a pilot. Nevertheless, we ran and we ran and we ran some more.
As I was running I began to notice something that, frankly, troubled me. Time and again I was being passed by men who smoked, drank, and did all manner of things that were contrary to the gospel and, in particular, to the Word of Wisdom.
I remember thinking, “Wait a minute! Aren’t I supposed to be able to run and not be weary?” But I was weary, and I was overtaken by people who were definitely not following the Word of Wisdom. I confess, it troubled me at the time. I asked myself, was the promise true or was it not?
The answer didn’t come immediately. But eventually I learned that God’s promises are not always fulfilled as quickly as or in the way we might hope; they come according to His timing and in His ways. Years later I could see clear evidence of the temporal blessings that come to those who obey the Word of Wisdom—in addition to the spiritual blessings that come immediately from obedience to any of God’s laws. Looking back, I know for sure that the promises of the Lord, if perhaps not always swift, are always certain.

I knew a mother who in her younger years began smoking. It finally gained such a control over her that it was a habit she had great difficulty breaking. She said to her beautiful young daughter: “Look at me and make up your mind to never let a vicious thing like this little cigarette make you a slave to it. I would give anything to quit. I just haven’t got what it takes. Profit from my example.”

The daughter did. She became an active member in the Church, doing everything that she knew was right and good. She loved her mother, yet pitied her, as no doubt the mother did herself.

My senior year in high school brought a challenge I wasn’t expecting. Shortly after school began, our speech teacher assigned me to participate in debate. We studied, practiced, and competed, and I humbly learned many valuable lessons.
Months later and four weeks before the state speech competition, my teacher casually informed me that he had also just entered my name to compete in extemporaneous speech. He began explaining that on the first day I would be required to deliver at least three different seven-minute speeches in front of a panel of judges.
And there was another catch—the speech topics were randomly assigned contemporary issues, with only 30 minutes to prepare. I was stunned; I had never even witnessed an extemporaneous speech.
Preparing in the remaining weeks, reading as many articles on contemporary issues as I could, I still felt overwhelming self-doubt and anxiety. On the day of the competition, I asked the officials, “I’ve already drawn my topic, but may I go in and listen a couple of moments to someone who’s actually giving his talk?” They replied, “You’ve only got 30 minutes. If you want to spend it listening, that’s up to you.”
That very first time, I went in and listened for a few precious moments. I knew I needed to be alone and pray to my Heavenly Father. I noticed a secluded grove on the university campus next to a pond where I could be alone, on my knees.
I pleaded with Heavenly Father for help. It wasn’t a prayer to win—it was an earnest prayer for the assistance of the Holy Ghost so that I would be able to do something I had never done before and make it through this challenge. I realized I needed God’s help.
Heavenly Father answered my prayer. I remembered what I had studied and was able to connect facts and impressions. With every new topic drawn, I would first leave to pray. Then I would go to work. The next day surprisingly brought me to the final round.
My faith in God was developing into my testimony, and my faith grew stronger as I felt Him near. I thanked Heavenly Father for the help I had received, for after doing all that I could do, He made more of me than I could ever have done myself (see 2 Nephi 25:23).

One of the choicest examples in my personal life of “charity [that] never faileth” was manifest in the life of a close friend known to my family as Grandma Gardner. Muriel Gardner recently passed away after a courageous fight with cancer.

While this sweet lady was not directly related to us, her example of the pure love of Christ made me and my family feel that we were her own. We were prayed over, watched over, and blessed by her faith throughout the past 30 years of our lives. She always seemed to know when we were at a challenging crossroad and needed additional help or encouragement.

She would not be considered as anyone of great acclaim or importance. She did not change the world, nor was she instrumental in making any remarkable contribution to her community. Grandma Gardner was just an ordinary individual trying to live the best she knew how. It was through the latter refining months of her life that she exclaimed that she finally “got it”—meaning that she finally understood the purpose of the Atonement and Christ’s love for each of us.

Her own life was filled with trials and challenges. She bore them with dignity and thankfulness to the Lord for allowing her to be an instrument in His hands. Always a vibrant and lively person, she refused to let cancer destroy her love of the Lord. Never did she blame the Lord for the afflictions she bore. She continued to express her testimony and faith in writing—even when the cancerous growth took away her ability to speak and bear testimony vocally. She hoped that by doing so, her family and friends would be led to say that they also got it. I am grateful that the Lord placed this dear sister along my life’s path as an example to me.

I should like to conclude by relating one recent experience which had an impact on hundreds. It occurred at the cultural celebration for the Kansas City Temple, just five months ago. As with so much that happens in our lives, at the time it seemed to be just another experience where everything worked out. However, as I learned of the circumstances associated with the cultural celebration the evening before the temple was dedicated, I realized that the performance that night was not ordinary. Rather, it was quite remarkable.
As with all cultural events held in conjunction with temple dedications, the youth in the Kansas City Missouri Temple District had rehearsed the performance in separate groups in their own areas. The plan was that they would meet all together in the large rented municipal center on the Saturday morning of the performance so that they could learn when and where to enter, where they were to stand, how much space should be between them and the person next to them, how to exit the main floor, and so forth—many details which they would have to grasp during the day as those in charge put the various scenes together so that the final performance would be polished and professional.
There was just one major problem that day. The entire production was dependent on prerecorded segments that would be shown on the large screen known as a Jumbotron. These recorded segments were critical to the entire production. They not only tied it all together, but each televised segment would introduce the next performance. The video segments provided the framework on which the entire production depended. And the Jumbotron was not working.
Technicians worked frantically to solve the problem while the youth waited, hundreds of them, losing precious rehearsal time. The situation began to look impossible.
The writer and director of the celebration, Susan Cooper, later explained: “As we moved from plan A to B to Z, we knew that it wasn’t working. … As we were looking at the schedule, we knew that it was going to be beyond us, but we knew that we had one of the greatest strengths on the floor below—3,000 youth. We needed to go down and tell [them] what was happening and draw upon their faith.”3
Just an hour before the audience would begin to enter the center, 3,000 youth knelt on the floor and prayed together. They prayed that those working on the Jumbotron would be inspired to know what to do to repair it; they asked their Heavenly Father to make up for what they themselves could not do because of the shortage of time.
Said one who wrote about it afterward, “It was a prayer the youth will never forget, not because the floor was hard, but because the Spirit melted their bones.”4
It was not long before one of the technicians came to tell them that the problem had been discovered and corrected. He attributed the solution to luck, but all those youth knew better.
When we entered the municipal center that evening, we had no idea of the difficulties of the day. Only later did we learn of them. What we witnessed, however, was a beautiful, polished performance—one of the best I have seen. The youth radiated a glorious, powerful spirit which was felt by all who were present. They seemed to know just where to enter, where to stand, and how to interact with all the other performers around them. When I learned that their rehearsals had been cut short and that many of the numbers had not been rehearsed by the entire group, I was astonished. No one would have known. The Lord had indeed made up the difference.

Opportunities for Christian acts of service do not always come at convenient times. Approximately two or three years ago I was in southern California. I had reorganized a stake. Just as I was getting ready to go out to the airport where I could relax, a woman approached me. She was in her mature years and she said, “Elder Featherstone, are you going back to Salt Lake City today?” I said, “Yes.” She continued, “Are you going on that four o’clock flight?” I responded that I was. Then she said, “Would you mind doing a favor for me?” I quickly thought about the schedule I had just been through, and the flesh was begging for a little break. I assumed she wanted me to hand carry something to her relatives. I never check baggage unless I absolutely have to. I wondered if I would have to check what it was I assumed she wanted me to bring back. I thought about waiting at the baggage claim for the item; then I wondered where it would need to be delivered. Only a moment’s pondering and as always, the spirit thrust aside all empty excuses and responded as a service-oriented leader should.
I said, “I will be glad to help in whatever way possible.” Then the woman said, “My grandson Phillip has been down here with me for a couple of weeks. How would you like to baby-sit him home to Salt Lake City? He is two-and-a-half years old. His mother will be waiting for him at the airport.” We arranged to meet at the Los Angeles Airport, where the grandmother introduced me to Phillip. Just before we boarded the plane she said, “Here is an envelope. Will you wait until you are on the plane to open it?” I found out why she made that request later.
Phillip and I boarded the plane.
I reached into my pocket and opened the letter from the grandmother. It went something like this:
“Dear Elder Featherstone, Thank you for taking Phillip back to Salt Lake City and baby-sitting him for us. We appreciate it. His mother will be there at the airport to meet you; but if she is not there, then here is what you do.”
Then she had written, “The reason I did not dare have you open the letter before you were on board the plane is that I did not have enough courage to ask you to do another favor for us. Phillip’s brother Ricky is in the University of Utah Hospital. He has had constant seizures, many in one day. The doctors do not know what else to do. They have done all they know, and he still has the problem. Do you think you could possibly find time to go by the hospital and give him a blessing?”
When we arrived in Salt Lake City, there was no one to meet us. We walked the length of the airport terminal. Still no one recognized Phillip. We went down the escalator, past the baggage claim, and out to the street. I have done some unusual things in our marriage, but I wondered what my wife would say when I came home from a stake conference visit and brought a two-and-a-half-year-old boy with me.
I looked around and stood with Phillip for a moment, and then his mother arrived driving a car and stopped by us. She had been delayed in heavy traffic coming to the airport. The sweet mother was very kind, and she loaded a happy Phillip and all his luggage into the car.
A short while later I was standing in one of the pediatric wards at the University of Utah Hospital. There were about six children in cribs. An attendant was mopping the floor, and then he left the room. I was all alone in the hospital room with these six beautiful children.
I found out which was Ricky’s bed and went over to him. I said, “My name is Vaughn Featherstone. Do you know who I just left?” He said, “No,” and I said, “I came back from Los Angeles today, and I brought your brother Phillip home. I told him I was coming here to see you.” Ricky was only about four, but tears came to his eyes. He missed his little brother.
Then I said to him, “Ricky, I am a friend of President Spencer W. Kimball, and he loves you. President Kimball is a prophet. Your grandmother asked me if I would give you a blessing. Do you know what it means when someone lays his hands on your head and gives you a blessing?” He said, “Yes.” And then I said, “Ricky, do you believe in Jesus?” He said, “Yes.” “Do you know that Jesus loves you? Do you know that Jesus can heal you?” He answered, “Yes.” Then I asked, “Would you like me to give you a blessing so you can be healed?” “Yes,” he said.
I laid my hands upon his head and gave Ricky a blessing. An interesting thing happened in the little pediatric ward. The other children stopped playing or crying and seemed to listen.
When I finished the blessing I reached in my pocket and pulled out a beautifully polished rock with my name on it that someone had given me. I gave it to Ricky, so that when his mother came she would know that I had been there.
Two years later I was in the Kingsport Tennessee Stake and a sweet young mother came up to me after conference. She told me it was her mother that had asked me to baby-sit Phillip and bless Ricky and then she said, “Have you ever heard of the results of your blessing?” I told her I had not. Then she shared with me the great miracle, “Ricky has not had another seizure since you gave him the blessing.”
It was not convenient to take Phillip home, nor was it convenient for me to go to the University of Utah Medical Center; but it was what Jesus would have done. Our service must always lead us to ask, “What would Jesus do?”

In 1977 the newly created Ottawa Ontario Stake in Canada, was facing some unique challenges. With headquarters in Ottawa, this large stake took in eastern Ontario, part of the province of Quebec, and northern New York State. The new stake thus showed a varied ethnic composition. It included a Chinese branch in Montreal, Canada, where two missionaries from the Hong Kong Mission aided in proselyting; a bilingual (French-English) branch at Hawkesbury, Canada; and an all-Lamanite branch at Hogansburg, New York, on the St. Regis Reservation.
One of the most urgent needs of the new stake was the erection of suitable buildings, since many wards and branches were meeting in rented halls and schools. Our stake president, Boyden E. Lee, felt impressed that before the Church could more rapidly increase its growth in the area, suitable chapels would have to be built. A five-year stake building plan was initiated, but by the end of the first year it had produced very limited results.
So the stake presidency decided on a special program to raise the required amount—one million dollars—in two years. President Lee worried a great deal about this decision, wondering how, during a period of inflation and financial stress, he could ask the members of the stake for such a large amount of money in such a short time.
As he prepared for a special stake assembly, he said he felt impressed to pronounce a special blessing and promise upon the members of the stake and to seal that promise by the power of the priesthood, just as one would in giving an individual blessing. He was initially hesitant, but the impression persisted, and he was unable to forget it.
The special stake building fund program was presented at the assembly. Adult members of the Church had been asked to fast and pray before coming to the assembly. At the close of that meeting, President Lee did indeed pronounce a special blessing on the members of the stake and promised then that if they would do all they could, the Lord would open doors to enable them to meet their building-fund assessments. This promise was sealed upon each member of the stake by the power of the priesthood.
Many others reported similar experiences. Jobs were found, promotions were obtained, seemingly worthless investments became profitable, bank accounts long since forgotten were discovered, and inheritances were received.
Two years after the challenge was issued, over $ 800,000 had been raised for the stake building fund. Three chapels have since been completed, two more are under construction, and four have been approved for construction. When these buildings are completed, each of the sixteen wards and branches of the stake will indeed have a modern chapel.
The refrain from the familiar hymn that “sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven” (Hymns, no. 147) has been richly felt throughout the stake. Our special building program is now bearing fruit in increased spirituality and convert baptisms. On 6 July 1980, only three and a half years after its creation, the stake was divided into the Ottawa Ontario Stake and the Montreal Quebec Mount Royal Stake, thus laying the foundation for future growth and development.

A number of years ago, I was assigned as the first home teacher to a man who had the missionary discussions in our home. He was in his mid-thirties, had lived a life almost devoid of the spirit. He had been through many trials. His wife had left him. He was a heavy drinker and big into drugs. He had no purpose, no meaning, no direction in his life. He had contemplated suicide. He had been recently in a serious accident that had almost killed him. He had been driving under the influence of alcohol and a number of different drugs. One Sunday, after being released from the hospital, and as a last effort to save himself, he walked into one of our chapels. He did so because he had reflected upon the warm feeling he had when he met and lived with a Mormon family for a short time as a teenager. He recalled that there was a special feeling, a special spirit in their home, and he wondered if they had what he needed in his own life.

In my first home teaching visit with him, he asked me if we could meet more often than once a month. He said he wanted to learn and knew he needed to learn so much more and he didn't want to waste any time. I responded, "Sure, how often would you like to meet?" He said that if it wasn't too much to ask, he wanted us to get together once a week to study the gospel together. I gulped a little bit, but agreed to his request. We put together a schedule of topics, committed to prepare for each successive meeting by studying the scriptures and the words of the prophets on that particular topic.

Our second meeting lasted for nearly three hours. He had a hunger that would not quit. He wanted not only to understand the principles of the gospel, but he wanted to know how to apply them in his life the very next day. He would always ask how he could apply each gospel principle in a variety of situations. He worked in a tough neighborhood and owned a business where his employees and customers would regularly try to "rip him off." He wanted to know how to develop and share the pure love of Christ, how to be patient, understanding, and forgiving in a place and with people who lived very differently, and whose values were almost the opposite of what the gospel teaches.

Every single week, for one solid year, we met and studied the gospel this way. This wonderful man, who had a passion for the gospel and for learning to live as his Heavenly Father and Savior would want him to live, pushed me to be what a home teacher really should be. He taught me what it means to be a valiant home teacher. It was so much more than I had ever done, so much more than I had ever really imagined. What a grand blessing he has been in my life and how he helped me to raise my own standards.

The rest of his life was devoted to his new family and the gospel of Jesus Christ, which had rescued him. He gladly gave away his former life as he began to "see" more clearly.

This insight was shared by President Harold B. Lee, "The greatest responsibility that a member of Christ's church has ever had is to become truly converted --- and it is just as important to stay converted...One is converted when he sees with his eyes what he ought to see; when he hears with his ears what he ought to hear; and when he understands with his heart what he ought to understand---then he is converted" (When Your Heart Tells You Things Your Mind Does Not Know, p. 3)

And Elder Neal A. Maxwell shared, "Another measure (of our conversion) is the degree to which we are giving "away all (our) sins" in order to know God better (Alma 22:18). All real disciples believe in and apply the Atonement regularly in their lives, shedding sins and shortcomings along the way ." ( Moving in His Majesty & Power , p. 49)

By these standards, my friend, Cameron Davis, was truly converted and passed from this life into the next as a true disciple of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

As a single woman I yearned for marriage and children for many years. Yet despite sincere effort, I could not seem to make that reality happen. At the time, I could not see the miraculous work the Lord was bringing about in my heart through that struggle. My unfulfilled yearnings played a sacred role in inclining my heart toward my Redeemer to seek peace and direction He alone could provide and deepen my trust in His perfect love and enabling power. Daily prayer and scripture study, and especially the words of general conference, became a lifeline of hope and direction. I felt compelled to turn to the words of my patriarchal blessing—and other priesthood blessings—to find love and direction that were personal to me from my Eternal Father.

Eventually, I did miraculously marry my beloved companion, Michael. But I found that my need to be deeply anchored in Jesus Christ only continued. I faced infertility, yearning for more children. When we were finally blessed with our two children, I felt keenly my inadequacies and weaknesses as a mother, knowing that I sometimes failed them in ways I feared would inhibit their growth. I wondered sometimes if the other children we had yearned for had run when they witnessed my struggles as a mother. I wondered how could I ever create the kind of family I desired?

As I struggled it became clear to me that I was denying the reality of my Redeemer. Yes, this is the great plan of family – the Creation provided the place for the family to live. The Fall provided the place for the family to grow. And it is the Atonement of Jesus Christ that makes possible the fullness of grace that is needed for the family to become healed, and eternally one.

In pouring out my heart to God, I found that the Lord, Jesus Christ, answers the pain and loss inherent to our mortal experience with the purest form of love, covenant, drawing closer to us, sharing our pain and weakness in the most profound form of intimacy. In that covenant relationship, His sanctifying power enters us, giving us power to do what is needed to bless our families, opening the way for us to be ever closer to Him, and ever closer to others. [22] Miraculously, through His grace and redemption, and His alone, we can become the kind of people in the kinds of relationships that define heaven.

I would like to confess a time when I flunked. I had just finished my intern year in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. I was a new resident and was working with a challenged intern. It was 2:00 a.m., and the intern was incapable of obtaining intravenous access for a critically ill patient. The intern had gone to bed and did not stay up to help. I meticulously placed a central line into the subclavian vein under the left collarbone.

After placing such a line, it is standard practice to obtain a chest X-ray to make sure that the procedure has not caused a complication. As the X-ray technician walked away down the hall after getting the X-ray, I checked on the patient before going downstairs to review the X-ray. To my horror, I saw that the central line that I had just so carefully placed had been ripped out of the patient as the technician had manipulated the hospital bed to get the X-ray.

On that hospital floor, at that time of night, there were just patients, several night nurses, and me. I let slip an expletive. One of the night nurses, Mrs. Paulee, who I did not know well, was shocked and said, in her quaint Baltimore accent, “Dr. Renlund! I never heard you cuss even when you were an intern.”

Well, that stung. After redoing the central line and reviewing a correctly obtained X-ray, I sought out Mrs. Paulee. I apologized and promised she would never again hear me cuss.

Without cutting me much slack, she simply said, “Well, I should hope not.”

We had the blessing of having children. A daughter, the first child, continues to be an enormous blessing in our lives. A couple of years later a son we named Richard was born. A few years later a daughter was born. She died after living only a few minutes.
Our son, Richard, was born with a heart defect. We were told that unless that could be cured, there was little probability that he would live more than two or three years. This was so long ago that techniques now used to repair such defects were unknown. We had the blessing of having a place where doctors agreed to attempt to perform the needed surgery. The surgery had to be done while his little heart was beating.
The surgery was performed just six weeks after the birth and death of our baby daughter. When the operation finished, the principal surgeon came in and said it was a success. And we thought, “How wonderful! Our son will have a strong body, be able to run and walk and grow!” We expressed deep gratitude to the Lord. Then about 10 minutes later, the same doctor came in with an ashen face and told us, “Your son has died.” Apparently the shock of the operation was more than his little body could endure.
Later, during the night, I embraced my wife and said to her, “We do not need to worry, because our children were born in the covenant. We have the assurance that we will have them with us in the future. Now we have a reason to live extremely well. We have a son and a daughter who have qualified to go to the celestial kingdom because they died before the age of eight.” That knowledge has given us great comfort. We rejoice in the knowledge that all seven of our children are sealed to us for time and all eternity.

On another occasion we were returning from area conferences in Europe, and we had a rather extended layover in New York City. Although tired and weary from his rigorous schedule, President Kimball eagerly visited with six missionaries who were en route to the Germany Munich Mission. He inquired about their families, their personal feelings about serving on missions, and then he charged them to be the best missionaries in their mission. He encouraged them to be diligent and faithful and promised that success would accompany such efforts. The missionaries left feeling uplifted in spirit and determined to serve valiantly. President Kimball edifies and inspires others.

The rest of the story is this. Two weeks after my son left on his mission, and as part of training for teaching my church history course, I was invited to cross the Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah expanse following the Mormon trail. Following in the footsteps of my ancestors and even the footsteps of Jens and Elsie Nielsen.
At rocky ridge our leaders asked me to get in a handcart and have Donna pull me up that rough trail. As I thought of the story that I knew we were reenacting I was moved to tears. Even though Donna had other sisters to help her I was overcome by feelings of Love. My heart was tender and overflowing, even through my eyes.
When we reached the top of the hill, Donna and I were asked to share our feelings. We could hardly speak. The spirit was so strong. Our hearts were tender. For at least that short time our hearts were soft and smart. Perhaps you can get a sense of our love story.

There are so many great young people. One who comes to mind was a well-dressed, good-looking young man, sharp, well-spoken, and contemporary in every constructive way, but he was obviously deeply distressed as he rose to offer a greeting in behalf of the university student body of which he was president. His audience was made up of regents and trustees of institutions of higher education meeting in conference at his school. The group had listened to a series of speeches from educators, noting with approval the abandonment on college and university campuses of the doctrine of in loco parentis, a term that means, as you may know, “standing in the place of a parent.” The schools, the speakers said, no longer accept the responsibility of standing in the place of a parent to the students who attend them. Knowledge, intellect, reason—these are the goods with which these institutions deal; the private life of the individual is not their proper concern.
The young student president said what many of us were thinking:
“I’ve listened to your announcement of the abandonment of the principle of in loco parentis,” he said, “and feel there is something you should know. If in fact the school is no longer interested in or willing to fill that role—if it doesn’t care about us as persons, as good parents would care—then that leaves a great many of us with no parents at all anyplace.”
No further explanation was made, and none was needed.

Now, those four men saw him. But so did Emma Smith, the wife of the Prophet Joseph, and Mary Whitmer. Mary Whitmer was the mother of David Whitmer and the four other Whitmers who were all witnesses of the Book of Mormon. It was in her home that the Brethren organized the Church; and while they were there holding the meetings of organization, she was doing the cooking and all the hard work for the men. She went out into the barn to milk a cow; and while she was out in that barn, Moroni appeared to her and showed her the plates and gave to her a testimony that she never forgot.

The brisk spring morning had been an exhausting one. It was the first day our modest lumber crew had been in action all season. My father, my two brothers, and I constituted our wood-hauling team in Idaho’s Targhee National Forest. For the past three summers, my family had sold firewood to pay for family vacations and other extras my parents’ income didn’t provide for. We considered ourselves experienced in our humble profession, and prided ourselves in knowing we could load our four-cord* truck as fast as any wood hauler in the valley.
“Whew! How ’bout we take ourselves a little soda pop break, kids?” Dad said.
I hated pop breaks. I loved the thrill of finishing a load in record time and getting home to a hot shower. Somewhat annoyed, I peered over the truck bed and saw my exhausted dad talking to another muddy, tired-looking man. I heard the man ask Dad, “Do you have a shovel?”
“We sure do. Are you stuck?”
The man nodded with discouragement.
“Well, let’s take a look,” said Dad, who always insisted on helping. “Sit tight, kids. We’ll be back in a minute.”
Dad spoke with complete sincerity, but as my aging father limped into the forest with his bad hip and knee I wondered if his heart was really in it.
As soon as they had disappeared into the thickness of the trees, my brother Kevin threw up his arms in disgust. “He’s doing it again.” Brad and I knew what Kevin was referring to. Our father knew no limits when it came to service. Inconvenience wasn’t in his vocabulary.
“I bet we end up digging that guy out,” whispered Brad, poking gloomily in the dirt with a stick. The day suddenly felt a century long.
The rustling in the trees alerted us that Dad had returned from his service project. “I don’t know kids. It looks pretty bad.” Dad’s head was slowly shaking. “Let’s go give him a little tug and see if we can’t break him loose.”
After loading our supplies into the truck, we rounded the grove of trees and surveyed the scene. I witnessed a truly depressing situation. The truck was situated in the worst possible place, a low valley meadow where all of the late-spring run-off would settle and create a greasy swamp. The monstrous six-cord truck was sunk past its axles. Firewood weighed heavily on the bed of the truck increasing the complexity of the problem. That’s how we were introduced to the Lopez family, a wood-hauling crew consisting of Mr. Lopez, his wife, and their two small children.
Dad took us aside, looked at us, and began carefully and sternly convincing us of our responsibility. “Now if you kids think you’ve had a hard day, just think how those two kids are feeling. What you don’t realize is that this is their dad’s job. If they don’t get their wood, they don’t eat.”
Dad was right. These people were in some serious trouble, and we had to help them. Besides, how hard could it be to tow them out?
Feeling like good Samaritans, we quickly hooked up our truck to the Lopez’s. Two spins of our tires later Mr. Lopez frantically waved his arms signaling my dad to stop. Between the weight of both trucks and the soft, marshy earth, our truck had sunk to its axles too.
The despair that came over our newly formed group was like a thick, scratchy horse blanket too heavy to remove. But then Dad came up with a solution. About 100 yards from our imprisoning muck we saw a black truck.
“Hey! Hey you over there! Do you think you could help us out of here?”
The stranger nodded slowly and climbed into his truck. When he saw what he had agreed to deal with, he said shortly, “Won’t pull ya loaded.” And with that, he made a graceful exit to his truck.
I looked at my dad and shot him the “You have got to be crazy” glance. He replied with the “What can I do?” shrug. We had no options available. All of us—including the Lopezes—scrambled to the top of the mountain of firewood in the back of our truck ready to destroy our entire day’s labor. As we worked side by side with one another, a strange feeling settled among us. I began to feel a bond with the Lopezes. If we didn’t work together, nobody was leaving tonight. A feeling of appreciation for one another was developing.
Little by little, our truck bed’s load was lessened until it was finally empty. Immediately, it sprang forward like a cheetah pouncing on its prey.
“Well, let’s get started on the Lopez’s truck. It’s not going anywhere loaded.”
The familiar process began yet again. Except this time, the mountain was Mt. Everest and the troops were showing signs of fatigue. The day began to haze over as the sun slowly set behind the mountain skyline.
Mr. Lopez was astoundingly strong, lifting enormous blocks like they were Tinkertoys. By the time we’d emptied the truck, the piles of firewood scattered about the muddy meadow surpassed any I had seen before. And the routine was the same. Once the Lopez’s truck was unloaded, it leaped forward from the sticky mess. Both trucks were now free.
Without hesitating, the Lopezes began throwing the burly logs into the back of our truck. We were touched by their grateful actions, and as a result found hidden strength to finish this eternal load of firewood. I never saw my brothers work harder. Our companions had set a feverish pace, and our pride wouldn’t let us lag behind. When the last block was toppled on, I headed for the truck to climb in but was stopped by my father’s voice.
“There’s one truck left, kids.”
Like we hadn’t noticed.
Kevin shook his head in unbelief. “Dad, I don’t think I can do it.”
Dad looked at his crew and smiled. It was a smile that said, “I know you can, and you will.” It was a smile filled with genuine love for his fellowman. It was a smile that told us in 20 years this would make a great family reunion tale.
We loaded that six-cord truck that night for a total of 20 cord of wood we had moved in one day. We never saw our friends again, but a strange bond developed between us that day. Our dad taught us a great lesson of service, one that would have a lasting effect on us. Because our dad had so strongly insisted on helping that family, we learned how wonderful service really feels.
The sore muscles are gone, but we still feel a love for the Lopez family. And I know that in 20 years, ours won’t be the only family reunion where this story is told.