Gospel Story Finder

Dear brothers and sisters, I recently officiated in a temple sealing, following COVID-19 guidelines. With the bride and groom, both faithful returned missionaries, were their parents and all their siblings. This was not easy. The bride is the ninth of ten children. Her nine siblings sat in order, oldest to youngest, socially distanced of course.
The family had sought to be good neighbors wherever they lived. However, one community had been unwelcoming—because, the bride’s mother said, their family were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The family did everything to make friends at school, contribute, and be accepted, but to no avail. The family prayed and prayed hearts would soften.
One night, the family felt their prayers were answered, though in a very unexpected way. Their house caught fire and burned to the ground. But something else happened. The fire softened their neighbors’ hearts.
Their neighbors and local school gathered clothes, shoes, and other necessities needed by the family, who had lost everything. Kindness opened understanding. It was not the way the family hoped or expected their prayers to be answered. However, they express gratitude for what they learned through hard experiences and unexpected answers to heartfelt prayers.

Because of physical health problems, when I was about a year into my mission, I had to go home for a little bit. But before I left, one of the other sisters told me, “Be home for Christmas. This is your home.”

I made that a goal. I knew the mission field was where God wanted me to be, and I really wanted to do what He asked, feel the joy I’d felt before, and spend my Christmas experiencing miracles as a missionary.

I returned to my original assignment in the first week of December. God helped me jump back into the work, and it was such a good Christmas season. It was service-oriented and Christ-centered, just how it’s supposed to be. Sometimes we get caught up in the material aspects of Christmas, but that’s not the point. The point is that Jesus Christ was born for us, lived for us, and died for us because He loves us.

I loved having Him be the center of my life during my mission because it helped me feel closer to Him, and I got to share that gift with other people too. We were teaching a woman who really wanted her family to come over for Christmas because she hadn’t seen them in a while. We cleaned up her house, set up her Christmas tree, and watched the Church video “The Christ Child” with her.

Later she told us, “I got to have Christmas because of you sisters. I wouldn’t have had my family over if you hadn’t helped me.” It really touched my heart. I was so grateful that God let me experience that.

In the future, I want to make my Christmases more about Christ and be more involved in Light the World. That’s how we can be more like Him: by serving more and being outward-focused.

Mary M., from Colorado, USA; served in the Arizona Mesa Mission

Sometimes people won’t understand your actions, but if you follow the Holy Ghost, you will always know that you are doing the right thing. When I received my mission call, I had finished two years of schooling at Stanford University. I announced that I was dropping out of school for two years to serve a mission, and soon afterward, my advisor asked to meet with me. When I walked into his office, the first thing he said to me was, “Robert, are you crazy?” He told me that I was making a mistake and that the university might never let me back in. He encouraged me to finish my schooling and then serve a mission.
Many years later, I received a call from the prophet asking me to retire and serve as a General Authority. At the time, I had a responsible position in the United States government. I accepted the call, just as I had accepted the mission call when I was nineteen years old, and I announced my retirement. Soon afterward, a senior official walked into my office. The first thing he said to me was, “Robert, are you crazy?” I said, “I think I’ve heard this before.”
I wasn’t crazy when I served a mission, and I wasn’t crazy when I retired to serve as a General Authority. No matter what else is going on in your life, when the call to serve comes, that is the moment to do it.

When Elder Henry D. Taylor was a little boy living in Provo, Utah, he often walked across the lane from his home to his grandmother’s house. Whenever he visited her, she would offer him crackers, raisins, or other delicacies. “One day, however,” Elder Taylor recounts, “without waiting to be offered a treat, I reached into the box where the crackers were stored and, much to my amazement and anguish, put my hand into a mousetrap that had been set. This remains as one of my earliest recollections.”

We later learned that Mac was a prayer cat in more ways than one. I discovered this one afternoon when I couldn’t find my list of spelling words. I needed it to study for a big test the next day, but it wasn’t in my backpack or with my schoolbooks. I was frantic. I came out from looking under my bed and saw Mac watching me.
“What do you want?” I said irritably. “It’s not time for family prayer. Go away, you silly cat.”
Mac just sat staring at me. As I looked at him, I remembered that I hadn’t prayed.
“Well, maybe you’re right,” I admitted. “This is probably the perfect time for a prayer.”
I knelt by my bed and asked Heavenly Father to help me find my spelling list. When I finished, I felt Mac brushing his head against my arm. I sat down and scratched behind his ears. Then I remembered! On the way home from school I had taken my list out to practice the spelling words with my friend. Quickly I felt in my coat pocket and found the list.
“Thanks, Mac,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me that any time is a good time for prayer.” Then I knelt again and thanked Heavenly Father for helping me.

After two weeks of constructing carnival booths, baking cookies, and wrapping candy and prizes, the youth, of the Ventura California Stake were ready for their “Getting to Know You” session with retarded young people.
Nestled against low hills and surrounded by lush landscaping, the Camarillo State Hospital is home to over 200 severely retarded youths. These young people were greeted on a one-to-one basis by their “friends for a day” and led from booth to booth where they earned rewards for achievement, stopping now and then to sway and dance a little to a youth band.
In the afternoon, 150 more young Latter-day Saints joined the group, and it was not uncommon to see a patient, hand-in-hand with an LDS youth, being led around the crowd and personally introduced.
Randy Jabbs, in charge of one of the booths, commented, “This was a good project, a big learning process. It has let us know some of the problems to be coped with.”
Steve Moore, a young patient, said that the fish pond was his favorite booth and then summed it up for many others when he said, “Best of all, I found a friend!”

Some of my favorite entries are about my friends. When my brother was on his mission I wrote to him every week. I wrote a lot of the same things in my journal. I’ve written about my own baptism, about Young Women activities, and just recently I’ve written about sharing the gospel with a friend I’ve known for six years, who finally took the missionary discussions and decided to be baptized. If she can’t remember who was there and how we all felt, I have all that recorded so I can share it with her. I’m trying to convince her to keep a journal of her own.

My Father has kept a garden most of his life and encouraged us as children to help him. While still rather young, he encouraged me to work a small patch of garden to try and grow my own vegetables. So, I worked, I dug, I weeded, I planted seeds, I watered, and eventually over a period of time, I was able to harvest my first rather small misshaped cucumber. To me, it was the sweetest cucumber there ever was, and I remember feeling very proud. It made me happy. I felt joy in the results of my labors.

I share this because we know that God creates, he works, he is the ultimate gardener - He is the creator of Heaven and Earth and all things thereon. The work of Creation brings him joy, and when we emulate that work in the right context, we feel good, we open ourselves and our souls up to feeling joy. When we participate or act in doing Godly things, in doing that which God does, even in the smallest or simplest of things, it resonates with who we are.

A few years ago I traveled to Italy. Our plane arrived in Rome in the early afternoon, but we had been traveling all night and were exhausted. But we knew if we had a nap, we would make our jet lag worse. So my friend and I decided to go exploring for the rest of the evening and then come back to the hotel and go to bed at the proper time.
We left our hotel, hopped onto the metro, and went exploring. We explored several areas of the city, had a fabulous dinner, and visited St. Peter's Basilica at sunset. It was a great evening, and we were happy but exhausted when we got back on the metro to return to our hotel.
When we got off the metro, we pulled out our map so we could reorient ourselves and walk the right direction back to the hotel. But nothing looked familiar. And we couldn't find any street names we were seeing on the street on our map. The name of the metro station was correct, but nothing else matched up with our map. By this point, it was dark, the neighborhood felt a little sketchy, we had been up for over 36 hours, and we were tired.
We decided to walk in a circle around the metro station. We figured if we did that, we had to find a road name that matched our map somewhere, so we could figure out where we were. But after looking for 20 minutes or so and not being able to orient ourselves with our maps, we were getting worried. We hadn't found anyone we could ask for directions, and we were completely lost. So I prayed.
After praying, we walked for another block, and, to our great joy, we saw two sister missionaries walking towards us! As we went up to them, we were so excited to find out they spoke English, were from Idaho and Utah, and would be able to help us.
Before I finish our end of the story, let me tell you the story from the sister missionaries' point of view. They told us that they had been at appointments that evening, but as they rode the bus back toward their apartment, a man came up to them and started talking to them. He was making comments that were unkind and crude. When they got off the bus, he followed them. They tried to lose him by going into a convenience store, but when they came out, they found he had waited for them and was following them again.
The sister missionaries didn't dare go back to their apartment, because this man was with them, and they didn't want him to know where they lived. They knew from his comments that he wasn't safe. They didn't know what to do. So they said a prayer. That's when they saw two tourists from Idaho coming up to them.
After we approached the sister missionaries, the man following them left. We didn't see him again that night. We explained our predicament and showed the missionaries our map. They explained that the metro station had two exits. The exit we had used wasn't on our map, which is why we were so confused. The other exit (the one we had entered earlier in the day) was several blocks away. But their apartment was right next to our hotel, and we all happily agreed to walk back together. They showed us how to get to our hotel. We made sure the man didn't follow them home.
I love this experience because the Lord literally directed our path. Quite literally. But it also shows figuratively three ways that the Lord directs our paths.

President Monson recalls an act of priesthood service that changed his life.
I recall the time when I was ordained a deacon. Our bishopric stressed the sacred responsibility which was ours to pass the sacrament. Emphasized were proper dress, a dignified bearing, and the importance of being clean inside and out. As we were taught the procedure in passing the sacrament, we were told how we should assist Louis McDonald, a brother in our ward who was afflicted with a palsied condition, that he might have the opportunity to partake of the sacred emblems.
How I remember being assigned to pass the sacrament to the row where Brother McDonald sat. I was fearful and hesitant as I approached this wonderful brother, and then I saw his smile and the eager expression of gratitude that showed his desire to partake. Holding the tray in my left hand, I took a small piece of bread and pressed it to his lips. The water was later served in the same way. I felt I was on holy ground. And indeed I was. The privilege to pass the sacrament to Brother McDonald made better deacons of us all.

Kinsey watched through the car window as soggy brown hills zoomed past. Patches of snow clung to the ground. Tiny green leaves dotted the barren trees, not quite ready for spring.
“Why does the drive to Grandma’s house take so long?” Kinsey complained.
“Just a few more minutes,” Dad said.
“Why don’t you play a game?” Mom suggested.
“I already played the alphabet game and the license-plate game,” Kinsey said. “I colored pictures in my notebook and made paper animals. I’m bored!”
Kinsey pressed her nose against the car window. She glanced at her little brother, Taylor, asleep in his car seat. Even though she was bored, Kinsey was too excited to sleep. She hadn’t seen Grandma in so long. Grandma would have new books for her to read. They would gather at Aunt Michelle’s house for a family dinner with all the cousins. Most of all, Kinsey looked forward to a whole weekend of spending time with Grandma.
“Oh! It’s already started,” Mom said as she turned on the radio.
A clear, calm voice came from the speakers. Kinsey sat a little taller. She closed her eyes and tried to think. Where had she heard that voice before? Suddenly, she remembered.
“I know that voice!” she said with a smile. “It’s the prophet!”
Kinsey loved the prophet’s voice. It was strong and peaceful and kind. When the prophet spoke, it felt as if he were talking right to her. She listened closely to his words.
The prophet announced new temples being built in faraway parts of the world. Kinsey thought about all the people who would now be closer to a beautiful temple.
The prophet talked about missionaries. Kinsey remembered the letters they wrote in Primary for an older couple from their ward serving a mission in Slovenia.
The prophet talked about being kind to others. Kinsey thought about how she had been trying hard to be kind to her brother, even when he grabbed her toys or scribbled with her markers.
Finally, the prophet talked about families. Kinsey thought about how much she loved visiting her family at general conference time.
“We’re here!” Dad announced.
Kinsey looked out the window. How did they get to Grandma’s so fast?
“Let’s hurry inside so we don’t miss any more of conference,” Mom said.
Kinsey ran up the steps and rang the doorbell to Grandma’s house. The drive hadn’t been boring after all!

At first, Bernard Lefrandt refused to listen to the two American missionaries who came to his home in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1950. It was an uncharacteristic response for a man whose hospitality was well-known throughout his native Indonesia. But Bernard—or Bert, as friends in several countries came to know him—believed he already had a God who had preserved his life innumerable times. Bert had been saved from the wild animals he hunted in island forests, from enemy soldiers when he was dropped behind enemy lines in World War II, and most recently from assassins’ bullets when he was blacklisted in Indonesia. Bert’s God had even spared the lives of his wife and children in a refugee camp. How, then, could he turn to a new one?
The missionaries first came to the Lefrandt’s home in the Netherlands at the end of 1950; the family had moved there in 1948. Nora, a deeply spiritual woman, felt impressed by their message of God’s goodness and a restored gospel. God’s mercy had helped Nora and her family through almost insurmountable difficulties. She accepted the Book of Mormon as well as the challenge to read it. But when Bert learned of the missionaries’ visit, he stubbornly refused to have anything to do with either the elders or the book Nora read so intently.
Were it only a matter of courage for him to face up to these Mormon messengers and their book, then no one came better equipped than Bernard Willem Lefrandt. A descendant of Dutch, Indonesian, and French ancestry, Bert was an expert at courageously confronting challenges in Indonesia. His immense physical strength earned Bert a reputation among the villagers of having almost supernatural power. He was unanimously declared throughout the islands the national champion of wild-pig catching, a sport he accomplished with his bare hands.
Neither could his hesitancy be attributed to ignorance. Bernard Lefrandt’s intelligence, education, and natural generosity gave him a fair-minded, loving attitude toward everyone. Bert worked as a customs officer for the Dutch government when he met and married his boss’s daughter—an intelligent Dutch-Indonesian school teacher named Nora. Eventually he went on to become a naval officer in the Royal Dutch Navy. Bert and Nora were both gifted linguists, speaking French, German, Dutch, and English, as well as several Indonesian island languages. Together, they raised their young children to believe in God’s goodness and in the value of Christian principles.
The major obstacle for Bert was the definite ideas he held about right and wrong religions. In Indonesia, he had felt uncomfortable with local superstitious beliefs and spiritualism. He searched for higher truths, and once considered becoming a Buddhist priest—a consideration he abandoned because it would mean leaving his wife and children. His wife’s strong beliefs in Jesus Christ became his own, and he learned the Bible well from constant study.
Nora finished the Book of Mormon on her own. At the close of another solitary lesson with the missionaries, she felt the Spirit so overwhelmingly that she wanted to be baptized. But she also wanted to wait for her husband, whom she had noticed reading the Book of Mormon when he thought she was asleep. Late at night, he would turn on the dim light and read until two or three in the morning, pretending to have slept well the next day. Nora patiently waited for him.
She had learned about waiting during World War II when she thought her husband had died. The same bravery that led Bert to earn decorations from the Allied High Command and from the Dutch government for valor in the face of grave danger also led him to be parachuted behind Japanese lines with the English. He had been borrowed by the British forces, and Nora knew nothing about his whereabouts. Left alone with two small children, she survived in a post-war refugee camp in Bombay, India, assuming she would never see her husband again after receiving no word from him for four years.
But one day in 1946 as she was teaching a class to some children, a man stood at the back of the room. It was Bert. On an assignment with the British, he had been stationed in Singapore, where he searched the lists of refugee camps in the country. After a joyful reunion with his family, Bert went on another assignment to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), this time with his family, before returning to Indonesia.
Bert continued to read the Book of Mormon in secret, and even started covertly listening from the next room to the missionary discussions. When he finally consented to talk to the elders in person, he became known as a “very hard” investigator, constantly demanding biblical proof of every doctrinal point and requiring a year of discussions.
Meanwhile, Nora and her daughter, Bertie, were baptized. Wanting to share her joy with those nearest her, Nora wrote to friends in New Guinea, telling them of her new Church. Only a few days later, she received a letter from them—the letters had crossed in the mail. Her friend told of a fisherman in New Guinea who had discovered a strange book in the sea, a Book of Mormon. Did the Lefrandts know anything about this book or about Joseph Smith? Surely, the book was a book of God, their friends wrote. They encouraged the Lefrandts to find out what they could about the Mormons.
Their appeal had a good effect upon Bert, who had learned to listen to friends. When he had returned to Indonesia from Singapore in 1946, he had returned to a country in political turmoil. Indonesian nationalists were fighting for independence from the Netherlands, a sentiment Bert understood and even sympathized with. But he was still a Dutch officer and had even received an assignment to hunt down and kill nationalist snipers. He hunted them down, then saved their lives by letting them work in his garden at home. When the nationalists took over, a former “gardener” for Bernard became a government official and relayed a message to the Lefrandts: Bert was on a list of people to be shot for his affiliation with the Dutch. Ten days later the Lefrandts and their three children were on a boat to the Netherlands.
It was there that Bert finally gave up his resistance to the higher truths of the gospel. One day during a discussion with the elders, Bert set his Bible on the table and rested his hand on it. “I don’t know what else to ask you,” he said. Within a year of Bert’s baptism in March 1952, he was called to be the president of The Hague Branch.
The tenacity and determination that took Bernard Lefrandt through jungles and enemy territory now found a purpose in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Bert and Nora became faithful servants and pioneers not only in the Netherlands, but in New Guinea, where Bert was later transferred by the Dutch government from 1954 to 1956. There the Lefrandts held Sunday School and sacrament meeting in their home for their family and the two other members stationed in New Guinea. Bert introduced the gospel to other naval officers and held monthly meetings with local priests and church ministers to teach them about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon.
Always mindful of God’s goodness to their family, Bert and Nora exemplified His love and generosity, earning a reputation of fairness, generosity, and open-mindedness wherever they went. Bert spoke enthusiastically about the gospel whenever the opportunity arose, and he left New Guinea having given away a large supply of Church books and pamphlets in an effort to build the kingdom.
The Lefrandts returned to the Netherlands in 1956, this time to Amsterdam, where Bert was again called to be a branch president. After they moved again to The Hague in 1960, Bert was called to be a counselor to the president of the first stake in Europe: The Hague Netherlands Stake. He brought to these callings an enthusiasm that his children—Frank Cornelius, Bertie Louise, Eric Gerard, and Robert—always sensed. “My parents were true builders, true pioneers,” recalls Bertie (Mrs. Jack P. Van Oudheusden), “Both of them were always working; you could just feel their love for the gospel.”
When Nora died in August 1971, people came by busloads to the funeral. Bernard’s funeral in January 1985 occurred in the midst of a blizzard so harsh that a burial was impossible that day. Still, many traveled through freezing temperatures to pay tribute to their friend.
In the Netherlands, as in the other countries through which Bernard Willem Lefrandt traveled and lived, many seeds that he planted have come to fruition, and honor his efforts as an international pioneer and servant of the Lord.

He came into our lives one cold March morning by meowing at the kitchen door. When Mom opened it, the huge black cat—wet, scrawny, and bedraggled—held his swollen, bloody left front paw in the air.

“Why you poor thing,” Mom said, “where did you come from?” She picked him up and got a towel from the bathroom and dried him off. As she was doing this, we kids came downstairs for breakfast. All activity stopped as everyone took turns petting the cat, who by this time was purring like a muffled motorboat.

“You’re as black as midnight,” Mom said, and so he was dubbed “Midnight.” Mom removed a large sliver of glass from the pad of his swollen paw, bathed it in warm water and Epsom salts, then bandaged it. Meanwhile we kids put some old clothes in a cardboard box to make a bed for Midnight.

Mom placed the box behind the old, wood-burning kitchen stove and told Midnight that he could sleep there till his paw got better. After that, she advised him, he would have to make his home in the barn, where there were grain-eating mice to catch. After consuming a saucer of milk to which Mom had added a few drops of cod-liver oil, he lay in his bed and slept till evening. Mom fed him again, and he went back to sleep.

The next morning he crawled out of the box, gingerly testing his paw on the floor. Mom fed him some more milk and cod-liver oil, then a small piece of meat, which he ate with relish. After he ate, Mom bathed his paw again and put a clean bandage on it. By the next day Midnight was favoring his paw only a little bit, and we took him to the barn.

A week later Midnight was making forages into the woods each day. One morning Mom heard him meowing on the back porch. Upon investigating, she found him there with a dead field mouse at his feet. He looked up at her as if to say, “Here’s a present.” Mom petted him and told him that he was a good cat and a good mouser. When he saw that Mom didn’t want the mouse, he took it in his mouth and headed for the barn.

Two or three times a week after that he brought field mice, ground squirrels, small snakes, butterflies, and young rabbits for Mom to inspect. Each time, he meowed to let Mom know that he was there, then looked up at her to see if she took what he brought.

One day Midnight brought a very young woodchuck. He was holding it in his mouth the way a mother cat carries her kittens. Mom took it from him and saw that it wasn’t harmed in any way. She couldn’t tell exactly how old it was, but she knew that it was still nursing. Always softhearted, she took the baby woodchuck in and made it a bed in a box. When she gave the baby creature a doll’s bottle filled with warm milk mixed with a drop of honey, it took to it like a duck takes to water. So that’s how Woody joined our family.

After that, Midnight stopped presenting his offerings at the kitchen door. But he came each day to see how Woody was getting along. He would look into the box and touch the baby with his paw, then look up at Mom.

Woody grew like a weed and was soon following Mom around as if she were his mother—indeed, she was the only mother that he knew. He became such a nuisance that Mom decided that he was big enough to live in the backyard. He didn’t seem to mind the change at all, and he scampered all over, examining everything in sight. At night he curled up with his small tail over his nose in an old easy chair on the back porch. One day Mom called for us to come and look—Midnight and Woody were playing together like a couple of young kittens. Woody chased Midnight for a while, then Midnight chased Woody. They even wrestled with each other. These playful antics went on for an hour or two every day till they wore themselves out. They shared the same water dish, and they would lie down side by side in the warm sun and sleep.

When Woody was about three months old, he started digging himself a hole under the stone fence that surrounded the yard. He worked on it every day till he got it to his liking. While Woody was busy digging his den, he wouldn’t play with Midnight, no matter what enticements he offered. So Midnight just lay on the grass and watched his playmate and thought his own thoughts. When Woody finished his hole, he went back to playing with his friend each day.

Woody had very good manners when following any of us into the vegetable garden. He wouldn’t touch a thing unless we offered it to him. Then he would sit on his haunches, take the offered vegetable, and eat it with gusto.

As fall came and the days became cooler, Woody seemed to eat all the time. Pop said that he was storing fat for the winter. Woody also pulled up grass, laid it in the sun to dry, then took it into his den. Pop said that Woody would use the grass to make a warm bed for the winter and to store as food.

When the weather broke and we had warm days during the winter, Woody came out of his hole and sunned himself. We took carrots, apples, and chunks of cabbage to him on these days. Other days we went to the edge of his hole and left food, which would be gone the next time we looked.

Spring came early that year. By the middle of March, all the snow was gone and things started greening up. Woody came out on a warm day and walked around the yard, inspecting everything. He and Midnight resumed their playing with each other. One morning in early June we heard a commotion in the backyard and howls of pain and growling. A stray dog had jumped the stone wall and was attacking Woody. Before any of us could come to his aid, a huge black streak cut across the yard—Midnight to the rescue! He leaped onto the dog’s back and sank his teeth into its neck and clawed at his head with his long, sharp claws. The dog let go of Woody in order to rid himself of his own attacker. But the harder he tried to shake Midnight off, the tighter Midnight held on. Finally the dog took off running, with Midnight’s claws still gripping his back. We watched, spellbound, as Midnight rode him like a steeplechaser over the stone wall, down the road, and out of sight around a turn in the road.

When we turned our attention to Woody, he had crawled to the edge of his hole, where he lay whimpering with numerous bites all over his body. As she had with Midnight, Mom washed and dried his wounds and bandaged them. When she finished, he looked like a mummy. Then, knowing some herbal lore, she made some strong catnip tea, cooled it, and forced a half cup of it down Woody’s throat by using an eye-dropper and rubbing his throat till he swallowed it. As soon as Woody went to sleep, Mom laid him in a bed that we kids made from a box and some old clothes.

By this time Midnight was meowing at the door. Mom let him in, and he headed straight for Woody’s bed and looked down at him. Then he looked up at Mom as if to ask, “Will he be all right?” We all petted Midnight and told him how proud we were of him for what he had done. Then Mom did something that I had never seen her do before. She got a big piece of steak and gave it to Midnight. After eating his reward, he lay down beside Woody’s bed. Mom didn’t say anything about him staying in the house that night.

Whenever Woody stirred in his sleep, Midnight scrambled to his feet to look at him. Then he’d gently stroke Woody’s head with his paw. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I would never have believed it. I thought to myself that if two different species of animals can show love and affection like Midnight and Woody did, then why can’t people do the same?

After many days of tender nursing from Mom, Woody was up and about again. And in a month or two, new fur covered his many scars. But he had a limp in his right rear leg, and he was never really the same after the attack. He and Midnight played again in the yard, but Midnight saw that Woody wasn’t his old self, and he took it easy in their play.

As summer was drawing to a close, we noticed that Woody was less playful than he used to be, and he spent a lot of his time sleeping beside his hole. One morning in late fall, we found him lying on the cushion of the easy chair instead of by his den. He was dead.

When Midnight came from the barn for his daily visit, he looked at Woody and sniffed him and then walked to Woody’s den and back again. Then he walked back to the barn to be alone in his grief. Not long after that we discovered that Midnight was missing. Although we searched high and low, we never found any trace of him. Maybe it was too painful for him to stay around after his friend had died. Everyone in our family still cherishes the memory of the two animal friends who brought so much love into our lives.

It was dismissal time at school. I got in line with all the other bikers and walkers. A timid boy from my class was in front of me, and a group of tough boys was behind me. A rude boy from my class was with them. He was always starting trouble. He told me, “I dare you to do this.” He made a rude gesture with his hands over the timid boy’s head. The other boys in his group giggled and whispered and began to taunt me, “Go on. Do it. Are you chicken?”
The timid boy begged me to not do it. I remembered learning “Dare to Do Right”* in Primary. The Primary leaders had told us that if we ever had the chance, we should dare someone to do right. So I told the rude boy, “No—but I dare you to do something.” I knew that he would do almost anything anyone dared him to do. I told him, “I dare you to do right.”
He slowed to a stop, puzzled. Finally he sneered weakly at me and moved on. The timid boy tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Thanks for not doing that.” I smiled, realizing that I had not only made myself feel good but had made the timid boy have a better day. When I told my family what had happened, my parents told me that they were proud of me. That night I still felt good, like a light shining in darkness.

“My turn!” Johnny called, jumping up and down.
“Yes, Johnny,” said Mom. “What did you do with your Popsicle?”
“First I ate it.” Johnny giggled, showing his red tongue. “And I had to think for a while to get an idea too. As I was thinking, somebody called to me. It was Jeffrey—the boy in my class who has to stay in a wheelchair. He was on the porch of his house and asked me to come over. He seemed pretty sad. I thought that if summer vacation gets boring for me, it must really get boring for him: no bike riding, no baseball, no swimming. So when I went over to his house, I knew what I was going to do with my stick. His mom got me a piece of heavy paper and a pin, and I folded a paper airplane. Then I worked the pin through the middle of the Popsicle stick and stuck it into the nose of the airplane to make a propeller. I gave it to Jeffrey, and do you know what? Even though he has some pretty neat toys, he thought the airplane was great.”
“And you’re pretty great, too,” said Mom. “Good job!”

When I was 17 years old, I faced heavy peer pressure at my high school. The friends that I did have didn’t share my values. My friends and I participated in many appropriate activities together like playing basketball or football. But they also drank alcohol and smoked—two activities I didn’t do with them.
One day a group of us was outside of our school studying for a test we would take later that day. With me were two of my closest friends, Juan and Francisco (names have been changed). At one point, someone got out lighters and cigarettes. I thought my friends had gotten bored with studying and had forgotten I was there. I learned I was wrong when they turned to me and said, “Now is the time for Hugo to learn how to smoke.”
Before I even had the chance to react, Juan and Francisco leapt toward me and took me by the arms, one on each side. They held my arms down as someone pressed a cigarette between my lips. My body immediately rejected this, and I spit the cigarette on the ground, far from me. Soon after, I felt the blow of a clenched fist squarely connect with my cheekbone. They threatened me, saying, “We’re going to light the cigarette again, and you’re going to learn to take the smoke. Don’t throw it on the ground. If you do, it’s not going to go well.”
In that moment, I knew I was in trouble. I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer asking for some type of help. As soon as I finished my prayer, our teacher’s car pulled up and parked near us. Our teacher got out of the car and asked us what we were doing. My friends released me. “We’re getting ready for the test,” they assured the teacher. We went into the school and took the test, and the situation ended.

We have some great experiences as General Authorities. We don’t feel worthy to have them; we wish everyone could have them. For example, one of the most delightful experiences of the Spirit, wherein we feel the guidance of our Heavenly Father, is every time we create a new stake or change a stake presidency. We know beforehand that the Lord has already picked the man and we have to find out through the spiritual guidance of the Holy Ghost who the man is that he has already chosen.

Some of us who have the blessing of working in Latin American countries have the opportunity to create new stakes frequently. You are worried, nervous, and tremble all of the time, knowing that you must pick the man that the Lord wants to preside over that stake. The Lord is so wise and we have such limited knowledge. He seems to tell us in a different way every time, so the nervousness and the trembling go on.

Sometimes you know the instant the man walks into the room. Sometimes you know before you even commence your interviews. And sometimes you don’t know until the very last second when you are offering the final prayer to receive his approval. Sometimes in the prayer you’ve entirely forgotten the name of the one you had chosen and the name of another man comes visibly before your mind. You then express it and feel his influence upon you.

I remember last week in Mexico City vividly. I had the pleasure of dividing a stake and forming the new Pachuca stake on the outskirts of the city. I remember all the men with whom we interviewed, and felt that it should be Brother so and so. The man who was chosen was right next in line, nearly equal to that man. But as to which one of these two or four was the very difficult question to answer. But, again, the Lord told us in his unique way who that man should be. Can you imagine the feeling of satisfaction you get to know that it seems to meet with his approval as unworthy as you are to be his instrument?

“Tara has chicken pox?” Barney and I gasped when Sister Cluff told us the bad news.
“That’s right. She broke out yesterday afternoon.”
“You mean she wasn’t at the circus last night?” Barney asked.
Tara’s mom shook her head.
I looked at Barney, and he looked at me. I felt sick just thinking of Tara missing the only circus that had ever come to Maryvale.
“You boys had better run along now,” Sister Cluff told us. “I’ll tell Tara you came by.”
We started home, but as soon as Sister Cluff closed the front door, we crept around to Tara’s room at the back of the house. We peeked in through the open window and saw Tara lying on her bed, looking at the wall.
“Hey, Tara,” I whispered, “how do you feel?”
Tara rolled over and looked at us. “Terrible,” she moaned. The way her voice quivered, I could tell that she’d either been crying or was about to start.
“Is it that bad to have the chicken pox?” I asked.
“The chicken pox aren’t bad at all,” she sobbed. “It’s missing the circus that’s so terrible.”
“Maybe another one will come to town,” Barney said, trying to cheer her.
“No it won’t. That’s the very first one that ever came to Maryvale. If another one ever comes, I’ll probably be an old lady and won’t care about going to it.”
“We could tell you about it,” I offered.
“No!” Tara cried, grabbing her pillow and covering her ears.
“We’ll have to think of some other way to cheer Tara up,” I told Barney as we left.
Barney kicked at a clump of grass and muttered, “I wish we had our very own circus. Then we could —”
“That’s it!” I practically screamed at him. “We’ll bring her our circus.”
Barney scratched his head. “But, Bryan, we don’t have a circus.”
“Maybe we don’t now, but by this afternoon we’re going to have the Bryan and Barney Circus.”
All morning Barney and I rushed around the neighborhood, putting our circus together. Everybody wanted to be in it, and it wasn’t long before we had more circus people and animals than we knew what to do with.
Tara’s mom was going visiting teaching with my mom at 2:00 P.M., so that’s when we told everyone to meet in Tara’s backyard.
Barney and I were the first ones to reach Tara’s house. Since I was the ringmaster, I wore black pants, a white shirt, and a stovepipe hat that Mom had helped me make out of an oatmeal box and newspaper. Barney was a clown. He wore his dad’s bib overalls with the pant legs rolled up; he’d stuffed old rags down the front to make a round belly, and he had on his uncle’s tennis shoes. They were so big that they wobbled and flopped when he walked. His face was painted white, and he had drawn huge red lips around his mouth and taped a red balloon to his nose.
I rushed around to Tara’s window. “Hey, Tara,” I called out excitedly, “guess what!”
Tara didn’t even look up from the book that she was reading.
“You’re going to see a circus!” Barney burst out beside me.
“The circus left this morning,” Tara whimpered.
“Yeah, but a better one showed up,” I told her.
“And,” Barney got out between giggles, “there’s going to be just one performance—in your backyard!”
“You’re fibbing,” Tara said, putting her book down. Looking at us for the first time, she gasped, “Barney, what happened to your face?”
He grinned. “I’m part of the circus.”
“And,” I said, “you’re going to have to pull a chair up next to the window if you want a front-row seat.”
Just then Kyle began to blow his trumpet—a paper towel tube—while Annie and Jackie marched across the backyard in their swimsuits, twirling batons and carrying a big sign that read, “The Bryan and Barney Circus.”
I grinned at Tara, who was hurriedly scooting a chair over to the window.
I marched back a few steps, bowed, and shouted in a deep voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the greatest show on earth, the one and only Bryan and Barney Circus! For our first incredible act, Jesse Jim, a daring young man, is going to swing on the high trapeze!” I pointed to Jim, who was standing on a stepladder by the Cluff’s maple tree. He had tied a rope to one of the branches and was getting ready to jump. “This tree,” I went on, “is five hundred feet tall. Jesse Jim’s going to be the first man to swing from it without a net.”
Just as I finished speaking, Jim came swinging over the lawn. Before I could move out of the way, he banged into me, knocking me down, then crashed into the patio furniture.
“Why didn’t you wait till I was out of the way?” I squawked, jumping up.
Jim was lying on his back. “I slipped,” was all that he had breath to say.
I shoved my stovepipe hat back on and continued, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, Terrific Tyson, the lion and tiger tamer, is going to go into a den of the most ferocious, deadly man-eating tigers and lions in the whole world!” I looked toward Tara’s window, and she was actually smiling!
Tyson marched out with a rope whip in one hand. He made a big bow, then shouted, “Send out the lions and tigers!”
Tony, Kyle’s big St. Bernard, came bounding out with a big black wig tied on his head. He was supposed to be a ferocious lion, but when he reached Tyson, he sat down and began tearing at the raggy old wig on his head. “Down!” Tyson shouted at him, waving the whip over his head. But Tony was already down, and the only thing that he cared about was getting rid of the wig.
Then Pop and Pete, Joe’s two bassett hounds, ran out. They had tiger stripes painted all over them. When Tyson saw them coming, he waved his whip and shouted, “Down!” But the dogs didn’t pay any attention to him. One went running between Tyson’s legs, almost knocking him over, and the other grabbed one end of the rope whip and began playing tug-of-war.
I shook my head disgustedly, then looked around desperately for Barney. “Are you ready?” I whispered loudly. When he nodded, I warned, “Don’t blow it like the others.” Then I announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, now we will show you the most terrible monster ever to be found in a circus. Baritone Barney has captured and trained a man-eating, two-horned unicorn. He will—”
Even before I could finish, Barney’s pet goat, Harriet, came galloping around the corner of the house, pulling a red wagon. Barney, flopping around in his clown suit, chased after her, waving his arms and shouting, “Harriet, slow down! I have to get into the wagon.” But Harriet didn’t slow down until she’d reached the other side of the lawn and started eating Sister Cluff’s petunias.
I shook my head. So far, this was the worst circus in the whole world. I swallowed and began to shout again. “Ladies and gentlemen, for our next act, we have the world’s strangest animal, a two-headed cat!”
As I spoke, Annie came out carrying her two cats wrapped together in an Ace bandage with both their heads sticking out. The cats squirmed and twisted until they broke free of the bandage. As they jumped out of Annie’s arms and dashed for the tree, Tony spotted them. He ran after the cats, with Pete and Pop following him, barking and howling.
When Barney’s goat, Harriet, heard the racket, she bleated and started charging around the yard, pulling the red wagon behind her. Barney lunged after the goat but tripped on his floppy shoes and fell flat on his face. His balloon nose popped, and half his belly stuffing came out.
When the dogs realized that they weren’t going to get the cats, they charged after Harriet. Harriet went crazy. She ran in circles, still dragging the wagon behind her. She knocked over the lawn chairs, then raced up and down Sister Cluff’s petunia bed.
I knew that we had to stop Harriet before she tore up every flower in the Cluff’s yard, so I lunged for her and grabbed her around the neck. She just shook her head, kicked her legs in the air, and sent me crashing into the flower bed!
As I started to get up, I heard a terrible scream. The Bryan and Barney Circus came to a sudden halt. All of us—the animals, too—turned around and saw Sister Cluff staring in shock at the terrible mess in her yard. “What’s going on here?” she yelled. “Look at my … Oh, my!”
None of us answered. I felt sick inside. I didn’t know how to explain to Sister Cluff what had happened. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and stared at the ground.
Then I heard someone laugh. At first it was just a little giggle, but soon it exploded into side-splitting laughter. I lifted my head a tiny bit and looked toward the house. There was Tara at the window, laughing so hard that big happy tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“It’s the Bryan and Barney Circus,” she explained to her mom between laughs. “And it’s the best circus that’s ever come to Maryvale.”
“A circus?”
Tara nodded, still giggling.
“But who’s going to clean up this mess?” Sister Cluff asked. She didn’t sound angry anymore, though.
“Oh, we’ll clean up the mess,” Barney spoke up, beaming and grinning. “The Bryan and Barney Circus is a lot more than a regular, ordinary circus. We clean up messes too.”
Sister Cluff looked at me. I nodded and smiled. Sister Cluff smiled back, and before she could say another word, the Bryan and Barney Circus started cleaning up the yard.
When we were finished, I turned to Tara, who was still at the window, and said, “I wish that you could have seen Annie’s snake act, Justin’s frog race, and—”
“Maybe I can see that another day,” she cut in merrily. “And as soon as I get over the chicken pox, I want to join the Bryan and Barney Circus.”

I have found a stable job because of the English language I learned on my mission. I was first recruited as a motorcycle delivery agent. At the end of the first day of work, some of my colleagues refused to pick up some of the goods by hand, arguing that it was not part of their responsibilities. But based on the principles of service I had learned on my mission, I set to work with one of the modestly dressed people who later turned out to be the company’s manager. Immediately after picking up the goods, he gave me a very important financial responsibility in the office.

Can I give you one other piece of advice? Be willing to laugh at yourself. When Elder Matthew Cowley (1897–1953) was first called into the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President J. Reuben Clark (1871–1961) invited him into his office and counseled with him about his new assignment. President Clark was one of the great leaders and thinkers of the Church. He left a post as the United States ambassador to México to accept a position in the First Presidency of the Church. He was a man long accustomed to bearing the weight of heavy responsibility.
As the meeting between Elder Cowley and President Clark drew to a close, President Clark said, “Now, my boy, kid [President Clark called all the members of the Quorum of the Twelve ‘kid’]—Now, kid, don’t forget rule six.” Elder Cowley asked, “What’s rule six?” President Clark said, “Don’t take yourself too darn seriously.” Elder Cowley asked, “What are the other five?” President Clark said, “There aren’t any” (Matthew Cowley Speaks [1954], 132–33).