Gospel Story Finder

But Rigmor does not see her willingness to speak up as especially courageous. “I don’t really need courage,” says Sister Heistø. “I just think, ‘Oh, here is something I can do.’” One day, for example, she picked up the newspaper and read an interesting article in which Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, the attorney general of Norway, lamented the state of family life and cultural values in Norway. He warned that the pursuit of materialism could destroy the country and called for the state church to teach values with authority.
Sister Heistø thought the attorney general needed to know that a church is already doing the very things he advocated and that its name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So she wrote a letter to him.
A week later, the attorney general himself called, asking Sister Heistø to meet with him. As a result, she spent several hours explaining the Church to Mr. Rieber-Mohn. “I think the Lord knows two things about me,” says Sister Heistø. “He knows I am not afraid of other people. Why should I be? … And,” she adds, smiling, “he knows I can talk.”

Parable of the bicycle
Stephen E. Robinson, has written a wonderful parable, “You Are Priceless - The Parable of the Bicycle”, which I want to share with you.

“Daddy, I need to talk to you,” the little girl said. Seeing her earnest expression, the father set his newspaper aside and looked into his daughter’s eyes.

“All my friends have bikes,” the little girl explained. “Can I get a bike? I could ride it to school and lock it with a lock. I could go to my friend’s house all by myself and you wouldn’t even have to drive me.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement at the thought.

“Well,” he said, “that is an interesting idea. But having a bike is a big responsibility, you know. And bikes cost quite a lot of money.”

The little girl smiled confidently. “I’m going to pay for it myself,” she declared. ”I’m going to save up all my money and not spend even one penny. If I save and save, don’t you think I’ll have enough for a bike someday.”

Her father sat for a few moments without answering. He knew that his little girl had no idea what a bicycle would really cost. There was no way her small allowance would be enough, even if she did extra jobs around the house to add to it.

But she was so excited, so earnest – so priceless – that his heart melted. He took her into his arms and hugged her tightly. “A goal is a good thing to have,” he said. “Why don’t you try it, and let’s see what happens.”

A few days went by, and the father found his little girl sweeping the porch. The following week he noticed her working alongside her mother in the garden, pulling weeds and planting flowers. And once or twice, as the little girl went into her bedroom, he heard the clink of coins being dropped into a glass jar.

After a while, the little girl came to her father and said, “Daddy, I’ve been working and saving up all my money for a long time. Can we get my bike now?” She shook the coins in the bottom of the jar.

The father looked at the little collection of coins, and then he looked into the pleading eyes of the little girl he loved so much. “Let’s go and see what we can find out,” he suggested.

The bicycle shop had a little bell that made a tinkling noise when they walked into the store. They hadn’t looked around very long when suddenly the little girl froze. There it was! The most beautiful bicycle she could ever have imagined! She ran to it, stroking its shiny chrome and running her fingers through the colorful streamers that flowed from its handle grips. Never could there be a more perfect bike than this one. She clapped her hands with the pure delight of it.

Then she reached for the price tag.

The next moment, the sunshine in the little girl’s eyes melted into tears. “Oh, Daddy,” she wept, “I’ll never have enough. Never.” She threw herself into his arms.

Her father cradled her head on his shoulder and gently stroked her hair, letting her cry.

When the little girl finally settled down, her father wiped her tears away and said, “How about this? How much money do you have?”

“Sixty-one cents,” she answered in a forlorn voice.

“Then I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Let’s try a different arrangement. You give me everything you’ve got – the whole sixty-one cents – and a hug and a kiss, and this bike is yours. I’ll make up the difference.”

Hope came back into the little girl’s eyes. “Really, Daddy?” she asked.

“Really, honey.”

“Oh, Daddy!” she said once again, but the words were happy ones now, and the little girl hurried to fill her part of the bargain with several hugs and kisses just to be sure.

The deal was completed, and the Most Perfect Bike Ever was purchased, and the father walked beside his little girl as she wheeled it proudly to the car. In his pockets jingled the sixty-one cents, and in his heart glowed his love for his daughter and the joy he felt in knowing how hard she had worked to reach her goal. When it came down to it, the sixty-one cents – and the hugs and kisses – were exactly enough.

But the story doesn’t end there. . . .

The truth is, there’s something we all want, and we want it more than any child ever wanted any bicycle. We want the kingdom of God. We want to go home to our Father in Heaven worthy and clean.
At some point in that spiritual voyage, we recognize the full price of admission into that kingdom, and we also realize we cannot pay it. We’ll never have enough - - never. The tremendous price of perfect performance is hopelessly beyond our means.
And so we despair.
Only then can we fully appreciate the One who comes to save. For Him, each soul is priceless. When we finally feel the pain of our own shortcomings, the Savior, Jesus Christ, steps in and lovingly says, “Let’s try a different arrangement. How much do you have? You give me exactly that much (the whole sixty-one cents) and do all you can do, and I will provide the rest for now. You give me all you’ve got, and a hug and a kiss (signifying the love that cements this covenant), and the kingdom is yours. Perfection will still be our ultimate goal, but until you can achieve it on your own, I’ll let you use mine. What do you say?”
To all who want to serve God and keep his commandments, who hunger and thirst after righteousness, we declare, this is the “good news” of the gospel. Christ is the answer. He is the bridge from here to there. He is our hope when we feel cut off and alone. He is our Savior.”[20]

I am old enough now to understand that Devotional messages have had an effect in my life. Early in my career, I wanted to work on cancer or research for a biotech company. I definitely did NOT want to teach at the time. Teaching was not emphasized much in my field 10-15 years ago. I was being groomed, like so many other scientists, for research, and I enjoyed it. Federal funding was plentiful, and the scientific research was growing. During recruitment for graduate school, the one guy who stated that he wanted to teach was the only 1 of 60 recruits who did not get accepted to the PhD program. Everyone was being prepared to research. Many factors have changed the focus on research, though it is still very important. The global downturn rippled through the economy. All of us were affected in many ways. Among many other effects, I was nudged in the direction of teaching, so here I am today and happy to be here I might add. I could be bitter or disappointed for not fulfilling my “dreams,” or I can accept that so much is out of my control. I would encourage you to continue to pursue your dreams, but I was able to recognize that my “dream” was not my dream at all. It was a plan I had made, and I know I could have been successful had it worked out that way, but it did not. I have learned to be flexible because the Lord had a different plan.

When Jason Olson was a teenager, he was warned repeatedly by family members and others against becoming a Christian. He had two good friends, however, who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they often discussed religion. His friends, Shea and Dave, respectfully countered arguments that others had given Jason against faith in Jesus Christ. Finally, they gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, saying, “This book will answer your questions. Please read it.” He reluctantly accepted the book and put it in his backpack, where it stayed for several months. He didn’t want to leave it at home where his family might see it, and he didn’t want to disappoint Shea and Dave by returning it. Finally, he settled on the solution of burning the book.

One night, with a lighter in one hand and the Book of Mormon in the other, he was about to set fire to the book when he heard a voice in his mind that said, “Do not burn my book.” Startled, he paused. Then, thinking he had imagined the voice, he attempted again to ignite the lighter. Again, the voice came to his mind: “Go to your room and read my book.” Jason put the lighter away, walked back to his bedroom, opened the Book of Mormon, and began to read. He continued day after day, often into the early hours of the morning. As Jason came to the end and prayed, he recorded, “I was filled from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet with the Spirit. … I felt full of light. … It was the most joyous experience I had ever had in my life.” He sought baptism and later became a missionary himself.

The Laurels in the Arvada Second Ward, Arvada Colorado Stake, exemplified the meaning of sharing at their “Time for Sharing” program recently. Earlier they had determined to make and give a quilt to someone as a service project. When their “Time for Sharing” night drew near, they decided to present it to their stake Young Women president, scheduled to be the guest speaker. The girls wanted the quilt to be something Sister Felice Swain would treasure as she had served lovingly for six years and was now preparing to move to Arizona. After discussing different ideas, they decided to incorporate the six areas of focus of the personal progress program into the quilt.
The Laurels spent one evening learning to quilt and getting started on their project. Copies of the pictures representing the areas of focus were hand-appliquéd onto the quilt. In addition to their Mutual night, the girls also planned a Saturday afternoon quilting bee and potluck lunch with their mothers. Many extra hours after school, as well as some evenings and Saturdays, were devoted to finishing it. As a final touch each of the Laurels embroidered her own autograph onto the back of their handmade gift of love.

When I taught seminary many years ago in Arizona, I showed a Church film to the students entitled And Should We Die. The movie is based on a true story about Latter-day Saints in Mexico who were persecuted for their religious beliefs by Zapatista rebels during the Mexican civil war shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. The movie focuses primarily on two LDS fathers, the branch president and his first counselor, who were imprisoned and sentenced to death. They were told they would be spared the firing squad if they would denounce their Mormon beliefs. Because they refused to do so, the two men, President Rafael Monroy and Brother Vicente Morales, were executed in front of their families and branch members on 17 July 1915.

My students were deeply affected by the movie; many were even in tears. In this setting I asked my sobered high school students—whose minds only minutes before had been on such things as proms, football games, cool cars, hot guys, and what they were going to do for fun on the weekend—“Would you be willing to lay down your life rather than denounce your faith and testimony of the restored gospel?” The question was designed to get the students to appreciate the sacrifices others had made for the gospel’s sake. It was also meant to stimulate self-examination of their convictions and commitments to the Lord. I didn’t expect anyone to answer. And, at first, only an outspoken macho young man on the back row said anything. He boldly declared, “Yeah, I’d be willing to die for the Lord.” I wasn’t sure that he was serious, because he was rarely serious about anything. However, this time he seemed very sincere. After a moment or two of dead silence, others began earnestly and in hushed tones (rare in a high school seminary class) to declare their willingness to die for the cause of the Master. A young woman with tears streaming down her face sweetly stated that she, too, would be willing to die for her beliefs, “because Jesus suffered and died for me.” It was one of the most remarkable occasions in my teaching career.

The moment I shall never forget, however, came after the bell rang to end our class. As the students were filing out of the classroom, one young man turned back to me and quietly asked, “Brother Top, would you die for him?” I hadn’t been expecting that, so a moment or two of silence passed that seemed like an eternity. I was so flustered I didn’t really know quite how to answer. Before I could answer, he turned and left the building. I have thought of that moment many times since. I have replayed it over and over in my mind, each time giving a response that I thought would adequately and profoundly declare my devotion to the Lord and his kingdom. Yet the young man never got an answer from me. I know what I should have said and what I wanted to say. But what would I really say—and more important, what would I do—when my life and soul depended on the answer?

Now, more than two decades since my seminary teaching days in Arizona, I still think of that lone student asking me as he was exiting my seminary class, “Brother Top, would you die for Christ?” I believe I now know the answer: “Only if I am daily living for him.” It is those daily acts of conviction, conversion, and consecration—the degree to which I am living for him—that will determine whether or not I could really die for him.

While my husband, Brandon, was in Orlando, Florida, on business, he woke up one night with a high fever and difficulty breathing. He called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital, where he learned that he had a serious case of pneumonia.

Because Brandon and I have toddler-age sons, I couldn’t immediately travel from our home in Pennsylvania to Florida. I called Brandon daily, hoping for his improvement so that he could return to us.

However, Brandon’s condition worsened. When a nurse at the hospital urged me to come to the hospital as soon as possible, I started thinking about who might be able to take care of our boys.

My mother agreed to take time off from work and said she would come as soon as she could, but the flight I needed to take left before she would arrive. I called a few friends to see if they could watch the boys until my mother arrived. A friend from Relief Society, Jackie Olds, said she’d be happy to watch them.

“Just bring their clothes and diapers,” she said, “and I’ll keep them for however many days you need to be gone.”

I started to refuse because this sister, with three children of her own, had a busy life, but she insisted. When I dropped our boys off a short while later, she comforted me by saying, “Don’t worry about them. Worry about getting Brandon better and getting him home. I’ve taken care of toddlers before.”

I knew then that the boys would be safe, happy, and well taken care of, which they were. I was able to be with my husband, who was seriously ill by the time I arrived at the hospital. But after a few days, he was well enough to return home.

I am grateful for a good friend who responded—far beyond what I would have asked of her—and ministered to us in a time of need.

Kelly Parks, Pennsylvania, USA

“One evening while I was visiting Grandpa Snow in his room in the Salt Lake Temple, I remained until the door keepers had gone and the night watchmen had not yet come in, so grandpa said he would take me to the main front entrance and let me out that way. … After we left his room and while we were still in the large corridor leading into the celestial room, I was walking several steps ahead of Grandpa when he stopped me and said: ‘Wait a moment, Allie, I want to tell you something. It was right here that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me at the time of the death of President Woodruff. He instructed me to go right ahead and reorganize the First Presidency of the Church at once and not wait as had been done after the death of the previous presidents, and that I was to succeed President Woodruff.’
“Then Grandpa came a step nearer and held out his left hand and said: ‘He stood right here, about three feet above the floor. It looked as though He stood on a plate of solid gold.’
“Grandpa told what a glorious personage the Savior is and described His hands, feet, countenance, and beautiful white robes, all of which were of such a glory of whiteness and brightness that he could hardly gaze upon Him.
“Then he came another step nearer and put his right hand on my head and said: ‘Now, Granddaughter, I want you to remember that this is the testimony of your grandfather, that he told you with his own lips that he actually saw the Savior, here in the temple, and talked with Him face to face.’”

With that in mind, no story seems quite so appropriate as one told about Henry Ford II. While he was still head of Ford Motor Company a number of years ago, he was approached by a little band of sisters running a convent who, after laboring for years to get a school started, wanted to provide a hospital somewhere in upstate Michigan. It was not to be a big hospital—in fact, it was not a very big community. But that was the very point—it had not had adequate medical facilities, and they wanted to do what they could. They needed several thousand dollars. They summoned all the courage they had and made a journey downstate to Mr. Ford. There in his office they approached him for a gift toward their little hospital.

Well, I’m sure Mr. Ford and others like him are used to that kind of thing, and he said, “I’ll be glad to help. I do a lot of this around the country and can’t do a great deal for any one group, but I’ll be glad to help. I’m touched by your sincerity,” and he wrote out a check for $10,000. This was many years ago, and $10,000 on a first contact was more than these sisters could imagine. They ran home to their little community absolutely delighted, shared it with the local press, which was a little hand-run operation, and the newspaper came out that weekend saying, “Henry Ford II gives $100,000 to hospital.”

Well, you see the problem. These nuns were very embarrassed because they lost both ways. First of all, people thought they had $90,000 that they didn’t have and I can imagine them explaining that. On the other hand, if Mr. Ford saw it and read about it, he would be embarrassed.

They did not know what to do. They worried about it and prayed about it and talked to each other about it and finally and fearfully returned to Mr. Ford, showed him the headlines, and said, “We are deeply apologetic. We will work it out. We’ll just go tell the people that you didn’t give $100,000.” He sat in silence and then smiled and said, “That probably isn’t a good thing for my image.” Then he took his checkbook out of his pocket and wrote another check for $90,000 and handed it to them.

They were stunned. They were emotional and very, very grateful and said, “What can we do? What can we do to thank you?” And he said, “Really nothing, but you’ll probably have some dedicatory space in this hospital somewhere. I don’t want any personal publicity; I would not like my name associated with it. But somewhere in that hospital on a brick or a small plaque, just record Matthew 25:35,—no message, just the numerals and the citation.”

They were a little embarrassed, religious women that they were, that they couldn’t quite, without scriptures in hand, identify Matthew 25:35. As they got home, (as you are now doing) they opened the covers of their scriptures and read simply, “I was a stranger and ye took me in.”

About two years ago I graduated with my Ph.D, and since that time I have been somewhat irritated with my lack of improvement in my teaching. Perhaps naively, I had anticipated that once I went through the process of getting a doctorate I would become not only a better scholar but a better teacher. Instead, as I moved back into the classroom, I saw with even more clarity my teaching defi
ciencies. I decided to make this a matter of prayer. In the evenings and before class, I prayed to be a good teacher. As time passed, I felt like I was making little progress. Clearly, it was time to select another seed, another way of conceptualizing what I should pray for. I learned from Enos and prayed for my students' welfare. What I mean by this is that I didn't just ask that they would learn. I asked that I might be part of helping them return to Heavenly Father and that as part of that endeavor I would be inspired to help them see and understand the workings of the world better in order to magnify their agency and choose the good path-that they could act rather than be acted upon. I am still in the midst of this process of planting and tending to this seed, but I can report that as I have chosen to focus more on the work of the Father and more on the welfare of my students I have experienced an increase of inspiration in the classroom and feel more often the sweet quickening of the Spirit.

In another occasion, a fried of mine, got a master's degree in information sytems. When she and her husband moved to a new town in the midwest where there were very few Mormons, she was asked by a neighbor to help the local library choose a new computer system. My friend told me she spent ten mintues consulting on the system, and hours explaining the beliefs of the church. Not only did she help serve her community, she was given missionary opportunities because of her degree. Your education, too, can give you a "greater influence . . . for good."

Others were called upon to speak, and near the close of the meeting, the president suggested that I take the remainder of the time. “Have you had any inspiration?” I asked. He said that he kept thinking of the mayor. (The voters in that large city had elected a member of the Church to be mayor, and he was in attendance.) When I told him we could have a greeting from the mayor, he whispered that the man was not active in the Church. When I suggested that he call upon him anyway, he resisted, saying flatly that he was not worthy to speak in that meeting. At my insistence, however, he called the man to the stand.

The mayor’s father had been a pioneer of the Church in that region. He had served as bishop of one of the wards and had been succeeded by one of his sons—a twin to the mayor, as I recall. The mayor was the lost sheep. He came to the pulpit and spoke, to my surprise, with bitterness and with hostility. His talk began something like this: “I don’t know why you called on me. I don’t know why I am in church today. I don’t belong in church. I have never fit in. I don’t agree with the way the Church does things.”

I confess that I began to worry, but he then paused and lowered his eyes to the pulpit. From then until his talk was over, he did not look up. After hesitating, he continued: “I guess I just as well tell you. I quit smoking six weeks ago.” Then, shaking his fist in a gesture over his head towards the congregation, he said, “If any of you think that’s easy, you have never suffered the hell I have suffered in the last few weeks.”

Then he just melted. “I know the gospel is true,” he said. “I’ve always known it was true. I learned that from my mother as a boy.

“I know the Church isn’t out of order,” he confessed. “It’s me that’s out of order, and I’ve always known that too.”

Then he spoke perhaps for all of the lost sheep when he pleaded: “I know it’s me that is wrong, and I want to come back. I have been trying to come back, but you won’t let me!”

Of course we would let him come back, but somehow we hadn’t let him know that. After the meeting the congregation flooded up—not to us but to him to say, “Welcome home!”

On the way to the airport after conference, the stake president said to me, “I’ve learned a lesson today.”

Hoping to confirm it, I said, “If we had done what you wanted to do, you would have called on this man’s father, wouldn’t you, or perhaps his brother, the bishop?”

He nodded in affirmation and said: “Either of them, given 5 minutes, would have presented a stirring 15- or 20-minute sermon to the approval of all in attendance. But no lost sheep would have been reclaimed.”

Peggy awoke on Christmas morning. She was excited to receive a fun new toy and eat a Christmas feast. But as she looked around, she knew this year would be different. Even though her father worked hard, money had been scarce for her family.
There were no signs of an upcoming Christmas feast. The vegetable trays were empty, and there was no food in the refrigerator.
Peggy and her brother, Malcolm, walked to the door of their parents’ bedroom and saw them kneeling next to their bed. They quietly listened as Mother and Father prayed that Heavenly Father would help the family have food.
“Come on,” Peggy said to Malcolm. “Let’s go outside.”
Peggy and Malcolm went out and collected some of the wild ferns that grew near the garden. Maybe there wouldn’t be any toys this year, but they could still make their home feel like Christmas.
They felt better after they decorated the house with green ferns, but there was still no sign of food.
“The Lord will provide,” Mother said. “Now let’s set the table.”
Father placed plates on the table while Mother set out forks and spoons.
The children looked at each other with confusion in their eyes. The table was ready, but there was still no food. Breakfast soon passed and lunchtime neared. Peggy was hungry! She wondered how her family would get food.
The clock ticked to 12:00, then 12:30, then 12:45. Still nothing. Then Peggy heard a knock on the door.
She rushed to open the door and was shocked to see the Kirk family standing there. They were holding ham, bread, chicken, salads, and sweets. Peggy couldn’t believe her eyes.
“We were just sitting down to eat our Christmas meal when we thought of you,” Brother Kirk said. “We hope you can use this food.”
Father shook Brother Kirk’s hand, and Mother began to set the food on the kitchen table. Peggy was still shocked. She looked with wide eyes at Mother and Father, but they looked like they expected this to happen.
Peggy knew the feeling she had in the morning was right. This Christmas was different. This was the Christmas that she learned that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. And that was the best gift she could have received.

Aurelia stood on the bank of the Mississippi River and looked back across it. Never before in her eleven-and-a-half years had she been west of the wide river, and now here she was in Iowa.
She shivered in the February cold and tucked one hand into her coat. With the other, she held George’s hand. He was only six and was her responsibility. Ellen, thirteen, and nine-year-old Catherine walked ahead with seven-year-old Howard; little Lucy rode in the wagon with Mama, who was still very sick. But Aurelia and George stood and looked back across the river to Nauvoo.
Nauvoo! How could they bear to leave their beautiful home? All was cold and gray across the river, but Aurelia remembered how the city had looked when she first saw it.
It was already a bustling, growing city when the Spencer family arrived. Thousands of people lived there, and more were coming every day. There were hundreds of log cabins and many brick homes. People were building, buying and selling, planting, working everywhere! Aurelia had never seen so many people—and most of them were Latter-day Saints.
Her family had rented a room until Papa could build a house for them. He had chosen a lot on a hill above the town, a little northeast of where the temple was being built.
Their lot, like most in Nauvoo, was big enough to plant a large garden and some fruit trees. Ellen and Aurelia had helped Papa plant the trees that first spring—peach and apple trees, Papa said, although they looked like twigs to Aurelia. She had asked Papa why he planted the tiny trees so far apart.
“They are small now,” he had said, “but if we want them to grow large and give fruit, they will need space to grow.” Aurelia had watched them grow until last year they had finally blossomed and borne fruit!
All of Nauvoo blossomed in the spring. The mud in the streets was deep enough to suck the boots right off your feet, but flowers and fruit trees bloomed in every yard. Aurelia wished she could see spring come to Nauvoo again. But the Prophet Joseph was dead, and soon his beautiful city would be deserted.
George had been too young to remember the first time he and Aurelia met the Prophet. Aurelia remembered it clearly. She had met a real, living prophet! He had come to their home to visit, and he limped very slightly when he walked, just like Papa! Papa told her later it was caused by the same illness that had caused his limp—typhus fever, which had settled in his leg.
Lucy was born there, and when Joseph saw her, he exclaimed, “Oh, what a little black head!” Even as a baby, Lucy’s hair was thick and dark. Joseph had laid his hand on Lucy’s head and blessed her. Aurelia had loved the Prophet from that moment. He was God’s own prophet and the most important man in Nauvoo, yet he loved little children and liked to be with them.
Aurelia shivered as she remembered the terrible day two years later, when Joseph and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob in the nearby town of Carthage. Aurelia could scarcely believe that anyone could be so wicked as to kill a kind man like the Prophet.
Aurelia’s Papa had taken her to the Mansion House to see Joseph’s body. A great crowd was there, all crying and crowding to look. Aurelia couldn’t see, so Papa had lifted her up to the window from where she could see Brother Joseph one last time. That had been nearly two years ago.
Things had been hard since Joseph’s death. Nauvoo wasn’t allowed to use its police force, so bad men did what they wanted. They burned farms outside town and caused trouble in Nauvoo. Then some of the Latter-day Saint boys formed the “Whittling and Whistling Brigade.” When one of the bad men came to town, the boys followed him everywhere, whistling and whittling pieces of wood with their pocketknives. There were too many boys for the man to fight, and they wouldn’t let him out of their sight long enough for him to do anything bad, so finally he would leave and look for mischief someplace else. Howard and George couldn’t wait to join the brigade, but they were only six and four then, and Mama wouldn’t let them use her knives to learn to whittle. They practiced whistling, however. Finally, though, even the brave boys couldn’t keep the bad men away.
Aurelia squeezed George’s hand and pointed to show him the temple across the river. Even on this cold, gray day, the tall building seemed to shine on the hill. She remembered when its roof had caught fire one day. She lived only a block away and had run with a bucket of water to help fight the fire. It had been put out, and work on the temple had continued. Just two months ago, Mama and Papa had gone to the temple to be sealed together. Mama said that that was the hardest part of leaving Nauvoo—leaving the temple they’d worked so hard to build. It still wasn’t quite finished. “Heaven only knows when we’ll have a temple again,” Mama had said. “We’ve been blessed to have this one.”
Aurelia looked to the left of the temple to see if their house was visible from here. She couldn’t see it. But she did see Mary Ann Stearn’s house. Mary Ann and her cousin Ellen Pratt were Aurelia’s best friends. They had gone to school together and played together. Aurelia stared at Mary Ann’s house, but she knew that Mary Ann wasn’t there. She, too, was going west with her family. Aurelia wondered if they’d meet again on the way to the Rocky Mountains. Oh, she hoped so! It was hard leaving everything and everyone to travel to a strange land. Why shouldn’t the bad men have to leave instead? It wasn’t fair to be forced to leave friends, homes, gardens, orchards, the temple!
Thinking of Mary Ann made Aurelia remember something else. At the last general conference, in October, Mary Ann’s stepfather, Parley P. Pratt had spoken to the Saints. People had crowded into the temple to listen. Elder Pratt spoke about how hard the Saints had worked to build a beautiful city and temple and how hard it was to leave it all behind. But the Lord had other plans for this people, Elder Pratt had said. He explained that a small nursery could produce many thousands of fruit trees, but that as they grew, they must be transplanted. They need room to grow if they are to produce fruit. He promised that the Lord had a place for the Saints to grow, where they wouldn’t be crowded and where they would enjoy liberty and equal rights.
Aurelia knew that it was true. She thought of those tiny twigs of fruit trees she and Ellen and Papa had planted. She had seen them grow and blossom and produce sweet fruit. It was hard to leave Nauvoo, but it was time to be transplanted to a place where she and her family and all the Saints could grow strong and bloom.
Aurelia murmured, “Farewell, Nauvoo,” and turned with George to face the west. It would be a long journey to the Rockies, but she had her family and the true gospel. She was ready.

I’m bored! Let’s do something!
I’m already doing something. I’m looking at family photos.
But I want to have a party!
How about doing both? We could have a family history party!
It sounds boring.
Let’s go! It’ll be fun.
Should we make some popcorn?
Welcome to the family history party! Our first game is family tree trivia.
Where was Grandma Jensen born?
Now it’s time for the great index race! The team that indexes the most names wins.
Look! That person has the same name as me.
Now we’ve saved the best for last. Family history story time!
When my dad was little, his family lived on a ranch …
Later that night …
That was the best party ever. Let’s do it again tomorrow!

Christ has rescued me so many times in my life. This last year we experienced the death of a beloved niece, Nona. I am sure that I will experience more difficult things, but I have had no more painful moment in my life than watching my sister bury her only child, a princess she and her husband had so fervently wanted.

I remember one day while I was working in my office that I was so sad that I couldn’t seem to work. I remember shutting down my computer, crawling under my desk, curling up in a little ball, and just sobbing. I felt like nothing could ever be right in the world again.

I began to pray for comfort and understanding. The Spirit filled the room and penetrated my heart so that I could barely breathe. I realized that Heavenly Father had also lost a child, and I imagined the pain He must have felt as He watched His Beloved Son on the cross. I was given an assurance that my niece, our little princess, was destined for royalty and that the bands of death were nothing compared to the “happily ever after” that she was currently experiencing.

Several years ago, I was invited to give an important lecture at a medical school in New York City. The night before the lecture, Sister Nelson and I were invited to dinner at the home of our host professor. There he proudly introduced us to an honor medical student—his beautiful daughter.

Some weeks later, that professor telephoned me in an obvious state of grief. I asked, “What is the matter?”

“Remember our daughter whom you met at our home?”

“Of course,” I replied. “I’ll never forget such a stunning young lady.”

Then her father sobbed and said, “Last night she was killed in an automobile accident!” Trying to gain composure, he continued: “She asked permission to go to a dance with a certain young man. I didn’t have a good feeling about it. I told her so and asked her not to go. She asked, ‘Why?’ I simply told her that I was uneasy. She had always been an obedient daughter, but she said that if I could not give her a good reason to decline, she wanted to go. And so she did. At the dance, alcoholic beverages were served. Her escort drank a bit—we don’t know how much. While returning home, he was driving too fast, missed a turn, and careened through a guardrail into a reservoir below. They were both submerged and taken to their death.”

As I shared my feeling of sadness, he concluded: “My grief is made worse because I had the distinct feeling that trouble lay ahead. Why couldn’t I have been more persuasive?”

The meaning of church to most people is a little different than what it is to me. Where I live, church consists of the two LDS families in Sand Point (an island town on the Aleutian Chain in Alaska) meeting for an hour to partake of the sacrament and participate in talks, prayers, and questions. My dad is the branch president. Our branch has no meetinghouse, so my family and the other member family take turns hosting the Sunday meeting.
At first I didn’t like “going” to church, and I really don’t know why. Maybe it was because I was the only teenage girl on the island who attended. I know it wasn’t because my friends teased me about church as much as it was the questions they asked. I really didn’t understand the Church and I had doubts about it. Was the Church true? Did God care? And most of all, What would happen to me when I died?
For a while, I’d read the Book of Mormon and never seemed to get anywhere. Satan seemed to be doing all he could to keep me from gaining a testimony.
One day, my feelings began to change. After a very difficult day, I came home from school very upset. I’d forgotten my lunch, had an unfriendly run-in with a hockey puck, and my best friend and I had had an argument. When I returned home, I ran upstairs, dumped my books on a chair, flopped onto my bed, and started crying.
As my tears ceased, I noticed I had left my triple combination on my desk. As I walked over to put it away, it fell open to a page marked by a card. The verses marked in ink caught my eye. I read in Doctrine and Covenants 18:10–11 [D&C 18:10–11]: “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him.”
Suddenly I realized that Christ loved me and I wanted to know him better. I had expected my testimony to be handed to me. I assumed it would be easy. I know now that I have to search, ponder, and pray. I’m not going to get my testimony from my parents or grandparents, or my brothers and sisters. If I have faith my Savior will help me, and together we will find my testimony.
That night I decided to start reading the Book of Mormon again. This time, I was committed to finishing 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.”

I was six years old when my father brought Bimbo home. He was a tiny black and white fox terrier puppy, so small he could fit into my father’s overcoat pocket. Having a pet is fun, but it also requires work. My big brother, Alan, and I had the responsibility of feeding our puppy and giving him water every day. As Bimbo grew, bathing him was one of our jobs, and we were always just as wet as Bimbo before we were through. We loved our puppy and treated him like a member of the family.