Gospel Story Finder

Following the earthquake there was a run on gasoline. The fuel trucks that could maneuver over broken roads traveled very slowly, resulting in three-hour waits for gasoline, if any was available at all. But the Lord provided for us in miraculous ways. For example, while evacuating sisters and elders to safety in Niigata on the other side of the island, we realized we had driven 18 hours on a single tank, with a gas gauge that always registered “full.” As we neared Niigata, the gas gauge immediately dropped to “empty.”

Fortunately, our loving Father continued to direct an orderly evacuation amid severe devastation. Long-distance travel was dangerous. There were continuing aftershocks. Public transportation was shut down. Water and electrical supplies were interrupted, and it was nearly impossible to buy gas or food. Sister Tateoka and I understood very well that we were the only ones able to reach two elders in a mountainous area and two other elders over the mountain on the other side of the island. Freeways were closed, so this last trip would require a five- or six-hour drive one-way north up the mountain on back roads, another two to three hours over the mountains and down to Tsuruoka, and four more hours back to safety.

We left early on the morning of March 16 and arrived at Elder Ohsugi’s and Elder Yuasa’s apartment around 5:00 p.m. To pick up the last two elders, we needed to travel back south, over a mountain summit, and down to the city of Tsuruoka. With less than half a tank of gas, we knew that we could not turn back. As we began traveling to pick up the last two elders, snow began to fall. Soon, we found ourselves in a blinding snowstorm, traveling at less than 15 miles (24 km) per hour. I could not see the lines on the highway.

At 7:30 p.m., as we finally reached the summit, we were stopped by the police. An officer informed me that an avalanche had blocked the road and closed the mountain pass. He told me that we could go no farther; we had to turn around and take an alternate route to the other side of the island around the avalanche. Without enough gas to go around the avalanche, it appeared we had no way to reach Elder Lay and Elder Ruefenacht in Tsuruoka.

Dejectedly, we turned back as directed by the police. I asked the elders in the van to call every member of the Yamagata Ward to see if we could find someone who could give us some gasoline. We stopped and prayed earnestly, drawing upon all of the power of heaven we could. We prayed for another miracle and again turned to the Lord.

The missionaries called every active member. But no one had gasoline. Gas stations had run out of supplies and were closed. Then the elders were impressed to call an less-active friend, Brother Tsuchihashi. Our Heavenly Father had once again directed our path. Brother Tsuchihashi could give us 20 liters (5 gallons) of gas. But to meet this good brother, we had to travel another hour north, the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. The quantity of gas would be helpful but not sufficient to allow us to travel around the avalanche.

Having faith, we traveled north, still not knowing how we would pick up the other two elders. We made it to Shinjo City, where we received the 20 liters of gas. Soon thereafter, I received a call from President Yoshida, my counselor, who by now was very worried that we had not yet returned. He asked where we were, and when I told him Shinjo, he was shocked that we were so far out of our way. It was beyond his ability to reach us and help us return.

Then he looked on his map, and in a broken voice stammered, “There is a little-known mountain pass that will take you from Shinjo to the elders in Tsuruoka.” The Lord had prepared a way for us to be precisely where we needed to be to drive around the avalanche. The gasoline we were given was exactly the amount necessary to make the trip safely around the avalanche to pick up the elders.

When I contacted each missionary after the earthquake and learned how they had all been directed to safe ground just prior to the earthquake and tsunami, I felt so grateful. Two missionaries, who had been protected from the tsunami by climbing to an evacuation center’s fourth floor, expressed their gratitude for being kept safe in a time of great peril.

They felt that the words of Helaman described their situation: “The Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him” (Alma 58:11).

The last day of her fifth grade year was a day Rose would never forget.
She was eleven years old, quiet, and shy. But she loved being with her friends, playing games and competing with them.
That day was a field day. She thought, I can choose to do whatever I want!
A few teachers had set up games and races for the children. Rose and her two best friends, Tricia and Kelly, decided to help some of the teachers set things up. Rose had a lot of fun helping her own teacher, Mr. Charles, put up signs and get the first-, second-, and third-place ribbons ready for the winners.
Of course, Rose wanted to be one of the winners. In fact, she thought, I sure would like a first-place ribbon to take home!
At last the fun began. Rose, Tricia, and Kelly competed in several games together. Each of them won second- and third-place ribbons.
After a while, Kelly decided that she wanted to help the first grade teacher with the sack race, and Tricia wanted to enter the drawing contest. Rose didn’t know what else she wanted to do, so she decided to walk around.
When she came to the peanut race, it looked like it would be fun. She watched the younger children’s division and saw that it was no ordinary race. She clapped her hands as the winner got to the finish line—it was her happy little neighbor, Andi Marie.
When she signed up for her own division, Rose saw that about nine other girls had entered. She didn’t know any of them very well, but they all seemed to be friends.
The teacher in charge, Mr. Stevens, was one of the favorite teachers in the school. He handed each girl a peanut and a flat, wooden ice-cream spoon and explained the rules. “First, place the peanut on the spoon. When I blow the whistle, go as fast as you can toward the finish line, trying to not let the peanut fall off. If it does, stop, pick it up, put it back on your spoon, and continue the race. The first one who crosses the finish line will be the winner. No cheating!”
As Mr. Stevens headed for the finish line, which seemed very far away, Rose saw that many kids had gathered along both sides of the race course. Her heart began to pound.
The whistle blew, and off they went! Rose was determined to win, but it was harder than she’d thought it would be. Every few steps the peanut rolled off her spoon. She kept stopping to pick it up, put it back on her spoon, and hurry on. It was fun at first, but then she heard some kids laughing. The laughter got louder and louder. Mr. Stevens was yelling out over the noise, “Come on, keep it up! You can make it!”
When she dared to glance up, she saw that all the other girls had already crossed the finish line. How could they have gotten there so fast? Rose thought. They were laughing, too—and hooting—at her: “You’re too slow! We all beat you! Ha-ha-ha!”
All eyes were on Rose. The peanut kept rolling off, and she kept picking it up as even the bystanders laughed and made fun.
She was only halfway down the racecourse. Her face flushed bright red with embarrassment. The next time the peanut rolled off, she stopped, picked it up, and walked off the course. What’s the use of going on? She asked herself. She just wanted to go home or hide someplace.
Feeling a tap on her shoulder, she turned around to see a concerned Mr. Stevens. When he asked why she had walked off, all she could do was shrug. If she’d tried to speak, she would have cried.
She never forgot what Mr. Stevens said to her then: “You should have kept going. Even if you had come in last, you would have been the winner. Didn’t you know that every one of those girls had their thumbs on the peanuts? They all cheated. You were the only one who wasn’t cheating. But you gave up.”
“But you gave up” kept ringing in her ears. She didn’t like those words. She didn’t believe in being a quitter, but she had quit. Instead of being an embarrassed loser, she could have been a happy winner taking home the first-place ribbon!

As a boy, I remember driving in the car with my father and seeing individuals on the roadside who had found themselves in difficult circumstances or who needed help. My father would always make the comment “Pobrecito,” which means “poor little one.”
On occasion, I watched with interest as my father would help many of these people, especially when we would travel to Mexico to see my grandparents. He would typically find someone in need and then go privately and provide the help they needed. I later discovered that he was helping them enroll in school, buy some food, or provide in some way or another for their well-being. He was ministering to a “poor little one” who came across his path. In fact, in my growing-up years I cannot remember a time when we did not have someone living with us who needed a place to stay as they became self-reliant. Watching these experiences created in me a spirit of compassion toward my fellow men and women and for those in need.
Throughout the years, while serving in the Church, I have tried to seek after those who needed help in their lives, both temporally and spiritually. I would often hear the voice of my father saying, “Pobrecito,” poor little one.

My older brother was the first convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my family. He was a good missionary, and even though he lived far away from us, year after year he kept sending missionaries to our door. We were Catholic, and my mom was not interested in listening to the missionaries. Finally my older sister decided to invite the missionaries inside, which led my mom, my sisters, and me to later be baptized into the Church. My dad joined us a few years later. Many miracles followed our conversion. The gospel brought us a new hope and the knowledge that God had a plan for each one of us. Our lives were filled with the joy of knowing our divine heritage and understanding the purpose of our existence here.

During a recent assignment to Peru, I visited the humble home of Brother and Sister Morales. It was filled with love. They are the parents of three children and have been members of the Church for four years. Sister Morales has learned much in Relief Society. To help provide for their family and their missionary son, she took in washing and ironing. She helped with two children of a neighbor who had to leave home to work. She supported her husband, who is struggling with kidney failure and was serving in the elders quorum. They discussed the Heber J. Grant lessons together in preparation for his teaching the lesson.
I asked her, “Are you a visiting teacher?” With a smile on her face she responded, “Oh, yes, Sister Parkin. I visit four sisters. Two are less active, but I will love them back.”
Leaving their home, I noticed a hand-drawn sign above the door. It asked, “Did you read your scriptures today?” Relief Society is blessing this home, this ward, this neighborhood. How has it blessed you?

In Elder Pedro X. Larreal’s fourth month as a full-time missionary, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) visited the Venezuela Caracas Mission.
Elder Larreal recalled, “He extended an amazing invitation to us about consecration: ‘If you are focused 100 percent, I promise your future family will receive blessings.’”
Afterward, Elder Larreal wrote a letter to break up with his girlfriend back home. “I needed to put everything on the altar because I needed to be more focused.”
Looking back, he recognizes many blessings—beneficial education, successful employment—sprouting from trust in that apostolic promise.
“When we follow the direction of a prophet, seer, and revelator, we will get blessings in our life,” he said. “I promise.”

To illustrate what I’m trying to tell you, I had a letter from one of the faculty members down here, and he told me this story. He had had a young man in his class who wasn’t a member of the Church, and this young man didn’t want to have to study religion. The professor spoke with him and handed him a copy of the missionary book that I wrote called A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. He said, “If you’ll read that and give me a book report on it, I’ll excuse you from any other study.” The professor sent me the letter that this boy had written when he was about halfway through the book. The final result was that he joined the Church, and I had the privilege of performing the marriage ceremony for him and one of our Mormon girls in the Salt Lake Temple.

Seventeen-year-old Brandon Frampton shared an experience about simply saying thank you.
“At my high school, I usually eat in the cafeteria. Every day I get in line, buy my lunch, eat, and leave. One day I felt impressed to say thank you to the lady who was serving me my lunch. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but later I learned that because of my remark she had a much better day. I still always say thank you, and I have noticed others doing the same now. Everyone can make a difference.”

We can bear witness with our words and with our actions. We recently had a wedding in our family—I pause to say that you should know that our families are one of the most important places following Him will lead us. This wedding has a story.
My niece, Mari—some of you may know her since she lived here with me during Fall semester—was married in March.
John, her new husband, joined the Church just over a year ago. When he came to work in Arizona, he lived with some co-workers who happened to all be returned missionaries. When President Hinckley asked the members of the Church to read the Book of Mormon, his roommates obeyed and because they were all reading the Book of Mormon, John decided to read it, too. Then he called up the missionaries and asked them to teach him.
In our family, we call him President Hinckley's convert, but he was also directly influenced by the example of his roommates and the spirit of the Book of Mormon.
John and Mari were sealed in the Mesa, Arizona Temple.
At their sealing were two missionaries, one of whom had taught John the gospel. John had asked him to serve as his witness at the wedding. With permission, he came to the temple to perform this service for the investigator he taught and baptized—on the very last day of his mission!
What a wonderful day it was! To what a beautiful place following Him had led our family—to the temple in company with family and friends and those two missionaries.

Mama Wong and Annie
Photograph courtesy of the author
After I was baptized in June 2002, I shared my faith with my mother. Though Mama Wong often attended church with me, she did not want to learn more.
At last, 10 years later, Mama Wong chose to be baptized. I was thrilled. Sadly, a few years later, she stopped strengthening her testimony and made excuses for not attending church.
I urged her to come to church, but that only caused contention. Eventually, I quit pushing her so that I wouldn’t harm our relationship.
During the October 2019 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson invited Church members to “design [our] own plan” to strengthen our testimony of the Restoration.1 As I thought about his invitation, I felt strongly that I should do something to make things better between Mama Wong and me.
For my New Year’s resolution, I committed myself to read the Book of Mormon with Mama Wong. Whenever she said her eyes hurt, I said, “You can just listen.” When she said she needed to do the dishes, I followed her to the kitchen and kept reading out loud.
It turns out that Mama Wong listened closely and remembered what I read. Over time, she chose to read on her own. Later she told me that an ordinary man could not have written the Book of Mormon. She had no doubt that the book is the word of God. For me, seeing her go from being uninterested to wanting to read and bear testimony of the Book of Mormon is a miracle.
After Mama Wong was baptized, I worried that she had joined the Church just for me. But now she has a testimony of her own. For years I tried to “fix” her, but all she needed was the simple, powerful word of God.
I’m thankful for a living prophet who always gives us timely guidance. If we act upon what he teaches, great blessings will follow. This experience showed me how much the Lord wants to bless us. All I did was read a few chapters to my mother from the Book of Mormon. Then the Lord took over!

When I was 15 or 16, I was deeply self-absorbed and, like many of us in our adolescence, unsettled, uncertain, and vulnerable. I felt lost, self-conscious, and awkward. It didn’t help that my parents lived far away in Saudi Arabia while I was at boarding school on a desolate bit of coast in England. In terms of the school, Hogwarts with Snape would have been more welcoming.
Bad weather was common along that coast, but one winter a particularly formidable storm blew in across the Irish Sea with hurricane-force winds. Around 5,000 homes were flooded, food was running out, and people were left cut off without electricity or any means of heating and lighting their homes.
As the flood started to subside, we were dispatched by the school to help with cleaning up. I was astonished to experience such a natural disaster close up. Water and mud were everywhere. The faces of those whose homes had been flooded were ashen and gaunt. They hadn’t slept in days. My fellow schoolboys and I went to work, moving waterlogged belongings to upper floors and pulling up ruined carpet.
But what struck me most was the camaraderie that developed. There was just a wonderful, good-natured feeling among people united in a worthy cause under challenging circumstances. I later reflected that all those insecure feelings that usually consumed my teenage thoughts left while I was involved in this great effort to assist our neighbors.
The discovery that helping others was the antidote to my gloomy, self-obsessed state should have been transforming. But it wasn’t, because the discovery didn’t sink deep enough, and I failed to reflect more thoughtfully on what had taken place. That understanding came later.

Imagine having some free school days to start the new year—your possibilities are wide open. Do you go camping? Take a road trip to visit relatives? Start a new hobby? A group of 29 youth from Texas, USA, chose to hold a scripture-reading marathon. Their goal: to read the entire Book of Mormon over the break.
Held during a school break at the beginning of 2012, the reading marathon was an ambitious undertaking. To help them all stay together, the youth read along while listening to an audio narration.
There were also some surprising challenges. During the first day a main waterline broke in town, leaving them with no running water. Determined to stay on track, leaders hauled in water from food storage. The youth wanted to keep reading despite the obstacles. As they approached the end of the reading marathon, a big cheer went up after they turned off the recording and a member of the stake presidency read the final chapter out loud. “There are good things and there are better things,” says Audrey J., one of the youth in attendance. “This was a better thing for us.”

Alma Richards stands in the Stockholm stadium at the 1912 Olympic Games.
Alma Richards’s eyes hurt as he peered at the high jump bar. It was the third day of the 1912 Olympics. The sun over Stockholm’s new brown-brick stadium was unbearably bright, irritating an eye infection that had plagued Alma for weeks. When he was not jumping, he wore an old, droopy hat to shade his eyes. But now that his turn had come again, he stepped to the side of the field and tossed his hat into the grass.4
As Alma prepared to jump, his mind raced. There he was, representing his country at the greatest athletic competition in the world. Yet he felt weak, as if the whole world were resting on his shoulders. He thought of Utah, his family, and his hometown. He thought of BYU and the Saints. Bowing his head, he silently asked God to give him strength. “If it is right that I should win,” he prayed, “I will do my best to set a good example all the days of my life.”5
Raising his head, he felt his weakness slip away. He threw his shoulders back, walked up to the starting line, and crouched into position. He then skipped forward in a burst of energy and leapt into the air, tucking his knees beneath his chin. His body barreled forward and sailed over the bar with inches to spare.
After returning from the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, Alma Richards was honored in a parade.
On the sidelines, Hans Liesche suddenly looked nervous as he warmed up for his jump. Alma ran in circles to keep his legs limber. If Hans cleared the bar, as Alma was sure he would, the bar would be raised even higher, and Alma would have to jump again.
When Hans launched into his first jump, he fell on the bar and sent it crashing to the ground. Frustrated, he returned to the field and made a second jump. Once again, he knocked the bar off its pegs.
Alma could see that his competitor was losing composure. Just as Hans squared up for his final attempt, a pistol fired nearby, signaling the start of a race. Hans waited for the runners to cross the finish line and then prepared to jump. Before he could, though, a band began playing, and he refused to start. Finally, after nine minutes, an official prodded him to hurry along. With nothing left to do but jump, Hans bounded forward and threw himself into the air.
Once again, he failed to clear the bar.6
Joy washed over Alma. The competition was over. He had won the gold medal and set an Olympic record. Hans came over and heartily congratulated him. Others soon joined in the praise. “You have put Utah on the map,” one man said.
James Sullivan, an official on the American Olympic team, was especially impressed with Alma’s coolness under pressure and wholesome lifestyle. “I wish we had a hundred clean fellows like you on our team,” he said.7
Within days, newspapers across the United States praised Alma’s victory, crediting his success in part to his religion. “They call the winner of the great jump ‘the Mormon giant,’ and he deserves the title,” one reporter wrote. “He is a self-made athlete, and his winning of world renown comes after years of endeavor and a determination inherited from the men who established the Mormon religion and made the desert blossom.”8
One of Alma’s friends, meanwhile, teased him about praying before his winning jump. “I wish you wouldn’t laugh,” Alma quietly responded. “I prayed to the Lord to give me strength to go over that bar, and I went over.”9

I remember well the adjustments we had to make when we went to live in Utah. My first call in our ward was to serve as a Relief Society teacher. I watched the other teachers very closely and was deeply impressed with their striving for perfection in their teaching. Even their hairdos and immaculate dress showed their striving for perfection. I admired how fluent and articulate they were in the English language. How could I, with my poor English, compete with them and be their teacher? I was eager to learn and was so glad to hear that there was a stake preparation class for Relief Society teachers.

When I attended the training meeting for the first time, I was full of high hopes. I was not prepared for the question I was asked about what kind of centerpiece I would use when I gave my lesson. How incompetent I felt! I had no idea what a centerpiece was or what its purpose in the presentation of a lesson could be. Negative feelings about myself began to undermine my confidence. …

I continued to feel inferior as I watched the sisters in my ward and saw them planting gardens and canning the produce. They exercised daily by jogging. They sewed and bargain-shopped. … They took dinners to new mothers and the sick in their neighborhoods. They took care of an aged parent, sometimes two. … They were faithful in doing temple work, and they worried about catching up on their journals.

Intimidated by examples of perfection all around me, I increased my efforts to be like my sisters, and I felt disappointed in myself and even guilty when I didn’t run every morning, bake all my own bread, sew my own clothes, or go to the university. I felt that I needed to be like the women among whom I was living, and I felt that I was a failure because I was not able to adapt myself easily to their lifestyles.

I could have benefited at this time from the story of a six-year-old who, when asked by a relative, “What do you want to be?” replied, “I think I’ll just be myself. I have tried to be like someone else. I have failed each time!” Like this child, after repeated failure to be someone else, I finally learned that I should be myself. That is often not easy, however, because our desires to fit in, to compete and impress, or even simply to be approved of lead us to imitate others and devalue our own backgrounds, our own talents, and our own burdens and challenges. … I had to learn to overcome my anxious feeling that if I didn’t conform, I simply did not measure up.

… When I tried to copy my wonderful sisters as I taught my class with a special centerpiece and other teaching techniques that were unfamiliar to me, I failed because the Spirit still talks to me in German, not in English. But when I got on my knees to ask for help, I learned to depend on the Spirit to guide me, secure in the knowledge that I am a daughter of God. I had to learn and believe that I did not need to compete with others to be loved and accepted by my Heavenly Father. …

It was early spring in Nauvoo when I first walked the Trail of Hope. The light was golden and the shadows warm as I walked the tree-lined path. As a photographer, I was focused only on shutter speed, aperture, and the amazing light that filled my lens.
Then gradually the thoughts of my ancestors who had walked this trail began to fill my heart. First it was Jared and Cornelia with their two-year-old son. I felt the chill in the air, but that chill was nothing compared to the freezing conditions Jared and his little family had experienced during their exodus. Cornelia died somewhere between Nauvoo and Salt Lake. I imagined Jared weeping as he picked up his son and continued on.
Afraid the feeling of their presence would leave, I didn’t stop photographing as tears blurred my view. Then I remembered young Sarah, who had left with her loving stepmother in the last group of Saints to leave Nauvoo. At one point, a loving Heavenly Father filled their camp with quail to feed them. Then they struggled forward with grateful hearts.
My heart began to swell with emotion; it felt as though Sarah had joined me. Jared and Cornelia with their little son were with me also. We walked together amid the light and shadow, past and present merging on this trail—this trail of hope, this trail of tears. In a way I can’t explain, they were with me and awakened in me our shared love of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I realized that my testimony burns in me because it had burned in them—passed from generation to generation—each laying the foundation for the next. I wept with gratitude.
Soon my husband, who had been photographing elsewhere, caught up with me. I stood close to him as I told him of my experience. He, like those Nauvoo Saints, was the first in his family to believe the gospel. And he, like those who had walked this trail more than 150 years before, would not be the last to believe. His testimony and mine nurtured the testimonies that now burn in the hearts of our children, just as the testimonies of Jared and Cornelia and Sarah nurtured the testimonies of thousands of their descendants.
Forgetting about our photography, my husband and I slowly walked the rest of the Trail of Hope together, quietly remembering those who had gone before.

By Rajane S., Jamaica
I have always been fascinated by genealogy work, so when our Area Presidency gave the youth the goal of gathering 10 ancestors’ names to do baptisms and confirmations for them at the temple, I was ecstatic.
I started my research without any help, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I had three names without any information, and at that point I felt stuck both spiritually and physically. I decided to ask my mother for help. She suggested that I call her mother. When I called my grandmother, she was more than happy to help. She even gave me permission to act as proxy on behalf of the names we talked about. I was overjoyed and grateful.
The temple trip was approaching, and I had no names from my father’s side. A few hours before I was to leave home, I felt impressed to go to the cemetery and have my father call his aunt to come. We went to the cemetery, and as I watched my father and great-aunt walk around the cemetery, I felt myself being led toward some of my ancestors’ headstones. I felt their willingness to be part of the gospel. With help from the Holy Ghost and from my family members, I had reached my target. I had the names of 16 temple-ready ancestors!
When I went to the temple, I could feel the enthusiasm and excitement of my ancestors who were ready and waiting. During the baptisms and confirmations, I could feel their souls filled with joy and peace. I felt amazing, and all I wanted to do was thank them for giving me the opportunity to be a part of something so special.

Andy Mair has heard many of the stories about sacrifices made in building the first Nauvoo Temple. He knows about the men and boys who cut stone by hand, hauled heavy loads with just horses and mules, went without good food and clothing, and spent every minute they could building a beautiful House of the Lord.
Andy has plenty to eat and wear and because he’s only 14 he’s not really allowed to work on the temple site. But Andy has made sacrifices. He willingly left his friends and home to come with his family to Nauvoo where his father would oversee the reconstruction of the Nauvoo Temple. “I am not sorry that I came,” says Andy. “I have been able to learn a lot more about the history of the Church and Joseph Smith. I can say that I have walked and lived where the Prophet Joseph and the early leaders of the Church did. As I see the temple workers, I notice that they all have shoes and shirts. They also have modern equipment like cranes, lifts, cement trucks, dump trucks, tractors, and power tools. I try to imagine how people in the 1840s built such a huge building without these things.”
Also, during the construction of the temple, Andy has seen what kind of man his dad is. “It means a lot to me to have my dad be able to oversee the construction of this temple, because I know I am one of a few young men who is able to participate so closely in such an historic event. My dad is a great example to me of hard work and dedication.”

One night in early 1908, passersby in Colchester, Essex, England, must have rubbed their eyes and looked again. Among the dim splashes of lamplight, a short, broad-shouldered man with three heads and six legs came striding up North Hill through a heavy rain. He walked boldly up on High Street, down Culver, and stepped into a doorway. Inside he shed his dripping raincoat and, without so much as a flourish, turned into three boys. From the right arm of the coat stepped Arthur Sadler, from the left arm his brother Stanley, and from between them their brother Herbert.
Standing unconsciously at attention, Arthur spoke to the man at the desk. “We’ve come to join the troop, sir.”
The man was friendly but non-commital. “You’re soaked,” he said. “How far have you come?”
“We live on Baker’s Lane.”
The man shook his head. “I’m sorry, but that’s two miles from here, and we’re looking for boys who can guarantee 100 percent attendance. With this Colchester weather I’m afraid we couldn’t count on you.”
Arthur wiped the rain from his forehead. “Try us a month, sir. If you find you can’t trust us, drop us.”
So, with only one raincoat among them, the three already-Scouts set off to become a part of it all.
The man at the desk was dubious, but something about the three boys impressed him. Maybe it was just that they had walked two miles in the rain to join, or perhaps it was the understanding of the Scouting program that they had gained in their own patrol. Whatever it was, Arthur and his brothers got their month’s trial period, and for as long as they belonged to the troop none of the three ever missed a meeting, although it often meant two miles of rain or snow coming and going. They believed in the simple advice their father had once given them: “If you give your word, keep it!”

Elder Stobbs grew up in Worcester Ward, Cheltenham Stake. He has been serving as a full-time missionary in the South Africa Johannesburg Mission since October 2021. Here he shares the story of his conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ:
“Gaining a testimony was very hard for me. I grew up through Primary knowing that the Church was true because, I reasoned, my parents were always right. The first time I realised my parents didn’t know everything and that there was a possibility that the Church wasn’t true, was when I was about 10 or 11.
“I spent most of my time in Young Men sitting on the fence; I wasn’t sure if the Church was true. I had spiritual experiences and answers to my prayers, but I found, to my frustration, that I was quick to forget or discount them. In Alma 46:8, we read, ‘Thus we see how quick the children of men do forget the Lord their God, yea, how quick to do iniquity, and to be led away by the evil one.’
“As I was doing my scripture study one day, I read 3 Nephi 23, where the Saviour chastises the Nephites for not writing down sacred events. I realised that this is what the Lord wanted me to do as well. At the end of every day, I wrote down how I had seen the hand of the Lord in that day. As I did this. I recognised miracles that I had not seen during the day. I also wrote down experiences of feeling the Spirit or having my prayers answered. These experiences formed a wall of faith that I could turn to if I ever felt my testimony wavering.
“Since then, my gratitude for God has grown, and my testimony has been strengthened immensely. I am grateful for the chance to serve His children in South Africa. I know that God lives and is always mindful of us. Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world, and this is his Church again restored to the earth. Because of him we can live with Heavenly Father and our families forever in a state of never-ending happiness.”

1 Senora Chali sat quietly in the cool shade of the trees in the backyard and read from her Bible. She found comfort in reading the words of the prophets and the stories of Jesus’ life.
2 The senora worked as a maid for a lady who lived in a large house and who sometimes rented rooms to other people. At this time a family from the United States was staying there. Senora Chali thought that they were a nice family and that their children were well behaved.
3 As the senora continued her reading, the family’s little girl came into the yard. Seeing the book, she asked, “Are you reading the Book of Mormon?”
“What is the Book of Mormon?” Senora Chali asked.
“It’s a book like the Bible that we Mormons believe in. Joseph Smith translated it from some golden plates given to him by an angel,” the child explained.
4 Senora Chali had not heard of the Book of Mormon before. In the weeks that followed, she wanted to ask the family about the book, but she couldn’t find the courage to do so. Then one day the family moved back to the United States. The Senora continued to read her Bible and wonder about the other book.
5 Some years later two young missionaries from the United States came to live at the house. As she became acquainted with them, they offered her a copy of the Book of Mormon. After all the years of waiting and wondering, she could hardly wait to read it!
6 From the very start of the book, the senora knew that the writings were truly the words of prophets. She could tell that it was a book much like the Bible, just as the little girl had told her. Senora Chali now could sit under her shady tree and read the Book of Mormon every day.
7 The missionaries were busy with their charlas (discussions) and tracting, and they forgot to ask the senora if she had read the book. Then they were transferred to another area.
8 Many months later Elder Scott Kelly and I were sent to the city. We also came to live at the house where Senora Chali worked. One morning as we were leaving to go tracting, she asked, “Do you have any other books that I can read besides the Book of Mormon? I have already read it three times.”
9 We were surprised to learn that Senora Chali had read the Book of Mormon and wanted to know more. We had been so busy asking others if they wanted to learn about the Church that we had neglected to ask her. We told her that we would teach her the gospel if she would like us to. She agreed, and in a short time she was baptized!
10 She became one of the most active members in the branch. She told her friends about the gospel and the Book of Mormon, just as the little girl had told her about them many years before.