Gospel Story Finder

In contrast, seniority is honored among ordained Apostles—even when entering or leaving a room. President Benson related to us this account:
“Some [years] ago Elder Haight extended a special courtesy to President Romney while they were in the upper room in the temple. President Romney was lingering behind for some reason, and [Elder Haight] did not want to precede him out the door. When President Romney signaled [for him] to go first, Elder Haight replied, ‘No, President, you go first.’
“President Romney replied with his humor, ‘What’s the matter, David? Are you afraid I’m going to steal something?’”

There was nothing particularly interesting about my feet, so I was a little confused when Nieves, a recent convert in Bolivia, said she was thankful for them.
“I’m so grateful for your feet,” she would tell us in the weeks following her baptism.
Nieves had readily received the restored gospel, but when we invited her to be baptized, she hesitated.
She explained that she suffered from a painful skin condition. When her skin touched cold water, it felt as if a thousand needles were piercing her pores. This condition prevented her from doing even ordinary tasks, such as washing vegetables or scrubbing clothing by hand.
We explained that the baptismal font could be heated, and we assured Nieves that she would be baptized in warm water. Her face brightened, and she chose to be baptized on Christmas Day. My companion and I told the branch president about her skin condition, and he said the font would be heated in time for the afternoon baptism.
When we arrived at the chapel for the baptism, however, the font had just been filled with extremely cold water! The frantic branch president explained that because of a miscommunication, the water would not be ready until much later.
My companion and I knew that Nieves wanted to be baptized that day, and we believed that the Lord desired the same thing. We found an empty room and prayed that He would help Nieves to be baptized.
We felt comforted after the prayer and decided to proceed with the service. Those who spoke before the baptism taught beautifully, but I was suddenly nervous when I heard, “Elder Nelson will now baptize Sister Nieves.”
I tried to hide my discomfort as I stepped gingerly into the frigid water. Nieves took my hand and lowered her foot toward the water. I braced myself for the worst, but Nieves did not shriek or even wince. She stepped calmly down the stairs and smiled up at me.
After the baptismal prayer, she lay back into the cold water. When I lifted her, she emerged grinning. I was filled with gratitude. To me, her baptism was a miracle.
The last time I saw Nieves, she said something that cleared up my confusion about her interest in my feet. She said, “I’m so grateful for your feet, which walked to my door and brought me the truth.”
I think of Nieves and her simple faith and gratitude whenever I hear these words of Isaiah: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” (Isaiah 52:7; see also Mosiah 12:21).

One night before bed I was thinking about what to pray for when I felt prompted to pray for my uncle’s family. I prayed that they would feel the Spirit. Two days later I learned that my uncle had lost his job and that his family would have to move.
It was then I realized that what I had prayed for was a prompting from the Holy Ghost, and I felt grateful that I had listened to the still small voice. In a situation where I could not do much else to help, I felt good knowing my prayers could help. Sometimes instances like this may seem insignificant, but I know that seeking personal revelation, listening to promptings, and following them—even small ones—can increase our faith and strengthen others.

One day I watched an interview with Brother Tad R. Callister, who was then the Sunday School General President. As I took notes, I had an impression on how to heal my relationship with my son, John. I was impressed that we should read the entire Book of Mormon together prior to his baptism six months later.
This impression was so clear that I even knew which room we should read in and at what time we should read. I also felt a distinct impression that we should finish our reading on the grounds of the Meridian Idaho Temple.
As we took time to read one-on-one each night, our relationship sweetened. We had more patience for each other, we better understood each other’s perspectives, and we regularly felt the presence of the Holy Ghost.
The night before we finished the book, we read Moroni’s promise that if we ask God with a sincere heart, with real intent and faith in Christ, if the Book of Mormon is true, we will know the truth of it by the power of the Holy Ghost (see Moroni 10:4–5). We felt the confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the kingdom of God upon the earth.
The next day we sat on a bench on the temple grounds. We looked up at the statue of angel Moroni and read again his final testimony. Since that day, John has mentioned on multiple occasions the time we read the Book of Mormon together at the temple. Now every time I attend the temple, I see the bench and reflect on the special moment John and I had when we completed our inspired goal.

By early 1828, Joseph and Emma had moved to Emma’s father’s property, about eighteen kilometers from the Knights. Joseph Smith found it impossible to both earn a living and translate the plates. The Smiths asked Father Knight for help. Although the Knights were not too well off financially, Joseph Knight, Sr., gave the young man some goods: “Some few things out of the store, a pair of shoes, and three dollars.” A few days later, Father Knight visited the couple and gave them some money to buy paper for the translation. Joseph Knight, Jr., recalled that, prior to Oliver Cowdery’s arrival, “Father and I often went to see him [Joseph Smith] and carry him something to live upon.”

With the birth of each of their four children, Richard and Jennifer Fisher have felt an intense responsibility to rear them in righteousness and help them return to their heavenly parents. To see one of those children surrender his life to drugs and alcohol has been almost more than they can bear. The heartache, they say, is indescribable.
“There’s such an overwhelming feeling of failure,” says Sister Fisher. “I review every day from the time he was born and ask myself what happened. What did we do wrong? What did we do differently with him than with the other children? And of course we can’t find any answers.
“I have felt a sense of failure to the Church family, too, not just to my own. At first I felt unworthy to serve in my Church calling and I asked to be released. When something appears in the paper about my son’s problems with the law, I think, how can I be an effective missionary?”
Those words describe the darkest periods of Sister Fisher’s struggle, intervals that recur less often now that her son has largely withdrawn from cocaine and other drugs, though he continues to use alcohol. The intensity of her distress also has diminished as she has learned not to blame herself but to see her son as a child of God with divine agency. He himself has reassured her many times that his choices are his own and that she was, indeed, a good and loving mother.
The Fishers found they could draw on their ward’s love and fellowship without reserve. “I told the ward in testimony meeting that I needed the ward members to join in prayer for my son, and I got a tremendous response. They have written notes and have made extra effort to speak to Jason when he attends church.”
Jason himself says he considered suicide but didn’t proceed with it because he knew of the love that others had for him. He has told his parents that their prayers and those of ward members protected him and that his life was spared because of it.
For Sister Fisher, the fruits of her faith have not yet fully materialized, and she realizes her son may never turn entirely away from his chosen way of living. Still, she refuses to give up.
“I will never cease to have hope. Never.”

Elder Lawrence described a friend who decided to pray for the gift of charity. He related her experience: “She wrote: ‘I have been praying specifically for an increase of charity for several months. … Gradually my perception of others has changed. … I have begun to not just love the people around me but to enjoy them. Before, I may have kept my distance, but now I am genuinely interested in everyone.’”2

My three-year-old granddaughter illustrated the power of innocence and humility to connect us with God. She went with her family to the open house of the Brigham City Temple in Utah. In one of the rooms of that beautiful building, she looked around and asked, “Mommy, where is Jesus?” Her mother explained that she would not see Jesus in the temple, but she would be able to feel His influence in her heart. Eliza carefully considered her mother’s response and then seemed satisfied and said, “Oh, Jesus is gone helping someone,” she concluded.
No pavilion obscured Eliza’s understanding or obstructed her view of reality. God is close to her, and she feels close to Him. She knew that the temple is the house of the Lord but also understood that the resurrected and glorified Jesus Christ has a body and can only be in one place at a time.3 If He was not at His house, she recognized that He must be in another place. And from what she knows of the Savior, she knew that He would be somewhere doing good for His Father’s children. It was clear that she had hoped to see Jesus, not for a confirming miracle of His existence but simply because she loved Him.
The Spirit could reveal to her childlike mind and heart the comfort all of us need and want. Jesus Christ lives, knows us, watches over us, and cares for us. In moments of pain, loneliness, or confusion, we do not need to see Jesus Christ to know that He is aware of our circumstances and that His mission is to bless.

The day we interviewed Talon Hobbs of Franklin, Idaho, it was easy to see why he loved his small family farm so much. The hill behind their fields glowed gold in the sun and was plastered against the dark green of the mountains. The sky was intense blue. The air was clean and crisp, with the drifting scents of fresh hay and distant animals. It was the kind of day that makes you want to stand still and enjoy where you are and what you are doing.
In fact, that is exactly the reason Talon gives for wanting to go into the family business. At 18, he has learned from his father how to do virtually every job on the farm. “My dad tells me what I need to get done, but I can choose what I do throughout the day. It’s really quiet. You’re not stressed. You get to have your quiet time. That’s what I really like about it.”
But it’s not easy work. There’s no such thing as procrastination when chores need to be done and animals cared for. “I figure you might as well get the worst job done first, then you get to do the easier ones. There is always something to do.”
And what about when it’s winter, when it’s 20º below with the snow blowing? Talon shrugs because he doesn’t really see that as the worst thing. “You just have to deal with it.” He goes on to explain how his parents will give their hired hands the day off on holidays such as Christmas. “We used to groan and moan about it when we were little, but now it’s our family tradition to be on the farm on Christmas Day doing the chores together.”
Ironically, the only way that Talon Hobbs will get to own part of the family farm and the outdoor life he craves is by getting more indoor learning. “I’ve always wanted to farm, even when I was little. I wanted to have some of my own animals, but Dad didn’t want me to get too tied down. He wanted to give us the opportunity to go to college. I plan to go into animal science. I’d like to take some plant science classes, and learn how to add to the farm and make it better. I’ll need to learn some small business management. I figure it’s better for me to take classes than struggle my whole life trying to figure it out.”
In the meantime Talon is getting ready for another kind of advanced education, his mission. Looking back, his mission preparation has been going on for years. He tells of meeting a girl just as they were starting high school and how he admired how she stood up for the gospel. He says, “I saw that she could be strong at that age, and her example made me realize that I also knew the Church is true. It made me think. Choosing to follow the Church may not always be the popular thing to do, but it’s always the best.”

Although Harold B. Lee was a master of seeing the big picture and coming up with creative and far-reaching solutions, he never lost sight of individuals. On Christmas day during his first year as stake president, he became distressed when his daughter went across the street to show her new doll to her friend and came back crying because the other little girl had received no gifts for Christmas, her daddy being out of work. He recalled, “For me it was a very difficult Christmas. I did not enjoy the dinner that I sat down to that day, because I, as stake president, had not become acquainted with the people in my stake.

“The next Christmas we made preparations. We made a survey, and we found that we had more than a thousand people who needed help during these difficult times. So we made ready by gathering toys and taking them to the old storehouse. Then the fathers and mothers came and helped fix the toys, putting them together, dressing dolls, and sewing things.

“We had oranges and apples. There was roast beef with all the trimmings for Christmas dinner. The bishops arranged to have it delivered to all the needy families, and then called to let me know that all had been visited.

“That year when I sat down to my Christmas dinner I felt I could enjoy it, because, as far as I knew, every family in my stake was having a good Christmas.”

May I conclude with the inspiring example of Melissa Engle of West Valley, Utah. Melissa is featured in the August 1992 issue of the New Era. She tells her own story:
“When I was born I only had a thumb on my right hand because the umbilical cord got wrapped around my fingers and [severed them]. My dad wanted to find something I could do to strengthen my hand and make it useful. Playing the violin seemed like a natural because I wouldn’t have to finger with both hands, like you would with a flute. …
“I’ve been playing for about eight years now. I take private lessons, and I have to work at things like a paper route to help pay for them. I get to [my violin] lessons by riding a bus across town. …
“A highlight [of my life] was Interlochen, located on a lake in Michigan, one of the best music camps in the world for [youth]. I sent in my application for the eight weeks of intensive music training and couldn’t believe I [was] accepted.
“The only problem was money. It costs thousands of dollars, and there was no way [I could] make that much before the deadline. So I prayed and prayed, and about a week before I had to send in the money, I was called into the office of a man who had a grant for someone with a handicap who was pursuing the arts. That, to me, was a miracle. … I’m really grateful for it” (“Something You Really Love,” New Era, Aug. 1992, pp. 30–31).
Melissa, when she received the grant, turned to her mother, who had been anxious not to see her daughter disappointed and had thus attempted to curb her enthusiasm and hope, and said, “Mother, I told you Heavenly Father answers prayers, for look how He has answered mine.”
He that notes a sparrow’s fall had fulfilled a child’s dream, answered a child’s prayer.

His childhood experiences seem to have been part of a divinely directed training process which would sensitize Thomas Monson to the condition of the poor for the rest of his life. When he later became bishop of that very Sixth-Seventh Ward into which he had been born and raised, he had 1,060 members, including some 85 widows and the largest welfare load in the Church.
Many may know that young Bishop Monson took a week of his personal vacation time every Christmas season to visit all of those eighty-five widows in his ward. Many may not know that for the first several years the gift he would take them was one of the hens raised by him in his own poultry sheds. And although it has been more than thirty years since he was released as their bishop, President Monson has taken a gift and visited every one of those widows every Christmas for as long as each has lived.
Furthermore, these sweet folks never seem to die until Brother Monson is back in town from his many assignments, enabling him to speak at their funerals. Perhaps no one in the present leadership of the Church has spoken at so many funerals—he once had three services in one day—and always very personal remarks are given for the sometimes ordinary and otherwise unknown souls that he has met and loved somewhere during his ministry.

I was born in The Hague, the fourth son and the youngest child in my family. My father always wanted me to read, write, and speak perfect Dutch. When I had been disobedient or had done something that was not to his liking, I had to copy in my best handwriting the whole front page of the local newspaper. He said, “Here is paper, and here is a pencil. Copy every line and every headline on the front page of the newspaper, and then I will see how you are doing.” If I made ten mistakes in the spelling of words, I had to do it all over again. If I made five mistakes, I had to do half the page. If I had made no mistakes, he would reward me with a Dutch chocolate bar. That’s the type of man he was. If you performed well, he said, “You’ve earned a reward.”
How grateful I still am for this useful way of correcting wrong behavior in my youth. Now I know how to spell words not only in the Dutch language, but also in the English language because I have sought the same perfection in other languages as I have in my native tongue. My father instilled in me the belief that when one communicates, one must be word perfect.

Marcus watched the crackling campfire as he listened to his father’s lesson.
“We should all follow Jesus Christ’s example so we can be happy,” Dad said to the family. They were sitting on logs around the fire. “It’s very important for each of us to show charity toward others,” he said.
“What’s charity, Dad?” Marcus asked.
Dad added more wood to the campfire. “Charity is the pure love of Christ,” he explained. “We cannot be saved in the kingdom of God without it.”
Marcus looked confused. Dad looked around at their family and asked, “Can each of you think of an example of charity, to help Marcus better understand what it is?”
Mom turned a marshmallow over the fire on a stick. “When Mrs. Clanton fell and hurt her hip, I helped do chores around her house,” she said.
Tanner told how last week he helped the deacons quorum collect food and clothing for some of the city’s poor and homeless.
Ashley had befriended a neighborhood girl whom other girls ignored.
“Dad helped fix Mr. Johnson’s roof because Mr. Johnson is in a wheelchair,” Mom said.
“Does taking care of Jo-Jo count?” Marcus asked. Jo-Jo was his hamster. “I feed him and change his water and give him a new sock for his bed.” Marcus bit into a toasty marshmallow.
“Any act of kindness or service we do for someone—including Jo-Jo—is charity,” Dad said.
“I want to do stuff for somebody bigger than Jo-Jo, like you and Mom and Tanner and Ashley do,” Marcus said. “But I’m too little, I guess.”
“You don’t have to be big to help someone, do you, Marcus?” Dad asked. “Or to have your prayers answered?”
Marcus smiled. “No.”
“Why don’t you ask Heavenly Father to help you find someone you can help, and when the time is right, you’ll know it.”
“How will I know it?” Marcus asked.
Ashley reached over and wiped a smear of marshmallow from the side of Marcus’s mouth. “You’ll feel it about as deep down inside you as that marshmallow you just ate,” she said.
Later that night, Marcus lay curled up in his sleeping bag. He listened to the tree branches rub against the outside of the tent. “Heavenly Father, please help me find someone I can help,” he prayed. “I’m just a little kid, but Dad said you don’t have to be big to be kind or helpful to others. I help Jo-Jo and my family by being kind and doing my chores, but I want to do something for somebody else. Jesus helped lots of people, and I want to be like Him.”
One Saturday afternoon two weeks later, Marcus worked alongside his mother in their flower garden. He noticed their next-door neighbor sitting alone in her front-porch swing. She looked sad. “Mom, what’s the matter with Mrs. Walton?” Marcus asked.
Mom straightened up from bending over the flowers and looked at their neighbor. “Mr. Walton died almost a year ago, and she misses him very much. Some days are hard for her, and it looks like this is one of those days.”
Marcus stood up and looked at Mrs. Walton across the low hedge that separated the two yards. He felt a feeling deep inside him. It got bigger and warmer just like the campfire did when his father added more wood to it. “Can I pick one of our big yellow flowers and give it to Mrs. Walton?” Marcus asked.
Mom smiled and nodded.
A few moments later Marcus stood in front of Mrs. Walton. She looked surprised. Marcus held out the flower to her. “This is for you,” he said.
She took the flower and then looked at Marcus. He climbed into the swing and sat beside her. He didn’t say anything. He just smiled. Mrs. Walton patted Marcus’s hand, and the two of them sat there together and listened to two red birds singing in her maple tree. Then Mrs. Walton looked at Marcus again. He was still smiling.
“You’ve got miles and miles of smiles,” she said. “Did you know that?” Marcus kept smiling. “Your smiles came at a time when I most needed them. Thank you.”
That night Marcus put clean bark shavings in his hamster’s cage before going to bed. “Jo-Jo, today I worked with Mom in the flower garden, and I helped Mrs. Walton be happy. It made me feel happy too. I don’t have to be big to help others. I can be like Jesus right now.”

Loran C. from England had this experience: “I was just starting my mission papers when the bank told me I had major credit card debt. My bishop and I set up a budget plan for how much I’d pay toward my debt, my mission, my tithing, and my other expenses. It took a lot of sacrifice, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to reach my goal. However, I faithfully paid my tithing and the Lord stepped in. A gift from a stranger gave me the money I needed to pay off my debt and fulfill my mission goal.”

When I was a young man, there was a time when I hated church. Things were rocky at home, and as I watched my family breaking up and my mother’s medical problems, I became rebellious. I started to hang out with the type of people I never would have hung out with before. I got a job and, with the money I earned, got two piercings and dyed my hair almost every color of the rainbow.
My family never knew where I was. I was dumb and doing dumb things. I didn’t care what I did or who I was with, as long as I was having fun. But I knew that I wasn’t really happy.
Then a new missionary moved into the ward—Elder Smith. He talked to me like no one else in the ward would at that time. I thought he was a weird guy at first because he smiled all the time. But soon we became friends, and he and his companion would come over to see me just to say hello. He talked me into going to church and priesthood meeting. It took a while before I said yes.
At that time the missionaries were teaching someone else my age. I saw how this person was made truly happy by the things the missionaries shared—by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wanted that happiness. I knew I had to take a big step in my life and pray for the first time about the Book of Mormon and about the Church. I had heard of Moroni’s promise, which says that “if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, … having faith in Christ, … he will manifest the truth … by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Moroni 10:4–5).
I got my answer. I was overwhelmed with the Spirit. I know that there is a living prophet on earth, that Joseph Smith did in fact see Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, and that They restored the Church through him.
I have a treasure, a dear gift that I have been given—the blessing of this valuable gospel every day. I didn’t know I had it until I prayed about it. The message is so strong that it has changed my life and the lives of many others.

I was shy and a bit of a bookworm. I’d pick reading and arithmetic over recess and soccer any day. I always did well in school, and I earned good grades. But my mother knew that I needed more than straight A’s in school. She always encouraged me to do active things and to get involved in other activities. Most of the time I would have stayed home, but her influence helped me gain other leadership abilities, and I developed a willingness to meet challenges and try new things. By the time I left high school, I was “into” varsity basketball and many outside clubs and other activities.

Until I joined the Church, I had never seriously disappointed my family. When I joined, I knew they felt betrayed, and I felt horrible for hurting them so much. I continued in the Church because I knew in my heart that it was what the Lord wanted for me—and for them.
I was not living close to home at the time. Whenever I visited, I was met with accusations and insults. The situation worsened when I decided to serve a mission. My grandmother had tears in her eyes when she said, “Annie girl, if you serve this mission, you will break my heart.” I told her that a mission was something I had been prompted to do, and if I didn’t serve, I would be disobeying Heavenly Father.
While I prepared for my mission I found comfort and strength within my ward family. They did an amazing job of helping me adjust to the lifestyle changes that come with being a Church member, and they gave me support in coping with the opposition of my family. I found it easier to persevere despite the frustrations by immersing myself in the Church through callings, activities, and going on exchanges with the missionaries. Also, I lived close to Palmyra, New York, so I often found myself sitting in the Sacred Grove, pondering my situation and seeking peace.
Although I had support from my ward, I still felt frustrated and misunderstood by my family. Everything they knew about the Church they had learned from outside sources, and they would not accept anything I told them. I tried to discuss the gospel with them and correct their misconceptions, but I never seemed to succeed in reaching common ground. The gap separating me from my loved ones was widening, and I did not know how to narrow it. By the time I left on my mission to Virginia, I had almost lost hope that my family would ever show interest in the Church.
Through my letters home, I continued my efforts to share the gospel. I remember inviting my father to meet with the missionaries. He said frankly that he was not interested. Reading his response was one of the hardest experiences of my mission, but it gave me a greater drive to work hard and share the gospel with anyone willing to listen. I came to realize that everyone is someone’s family member and that by helping one person I might be answering someone else’s prayers. I strive to continue in my efforts in sharing the gospel, even though I am no longer a full-time missionary.
When Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles got up to speak at the April 2005 general conference, I felt a strong impression that I needed to pay close attention to what he was about to say. He started his talk with these words: “My message is to those who are converts to the Church. … You are not the exception in the Church. To you I wish to say how much the Lord loves you and trusts you. And even more, I wish to tell you how much He depends on you.”1
He spoke of how converts should never stop trying to share the gospel with their families. He then explained that another important aspect of missionary work within the family is temple work.
Elder Eyring’s words inspired me to make goals about temple attendance and family history work. I have found much fulfillment in taking family names to the temple and have received some amazing, unexpected blessings in the process. It has greatly increased my connection with those on the other side of the veil. I have seen miracles as I’ve tried to find their names, and I have felt their presence while performing their ordinances.
Another blessing came when I saw my grandmother for the first time after my mission. She gave me a list of names to take to the temple. She also talked about how she wanted to read the “Mormon book” because she remembered her father reading it. She now calls me every week to talk about what she has learned from the Book of Mormon.
Prior to leaving on my mission, I had felt an impression that my grandmother’s husband—who died in 1996, before I joined the Church—was striving to help soften her heart. While I was in the Missionary Training Center, the elders in my district did his temple work. Sitting in the celestial room, I was overwhelmed with the idea of my entire family being there together. I like to think that my grandfather is doing all he can to help our family accept the gospel.
My mom came to pick me up from my mission, and it happened to be October general conference weekend. She watched three of the conference sessions with me and enjoyed them so much that she asked for them on DVD for Christmas. To me, this was a miracle to let me know that I need not lose hope.
At the present time, no one in my family has shown much interest in joining the Church, but I feel it will happen one day—whether in this life or the next. Our relationship has improved so greatly that I know it was not through my own efforts but through the workings of the Spirit. Heavenly Father blesses us with miracles and the righteous desires of our hearts when we are striving to do His will. I have felt His strength and support to move forward, and I know that I will never be alone in His true Church.
Find comfort and strength in your ward or branch family.
Seek peace and direction through prayer.
Share the gospel with others. Remember that everyone has a family, and you may be the answer to someone else’s prayer.
Participate in family history and temple work.
Never give up hope that your family may some day accept the gospel.

When Carrie and her mother, Ginger, returned home, they organized the youth in their ward, taught them how to read Old German script, and helped them prepare the names to be submitted for work at the Chicago Temple.
“We knew we were going to the temple, and we wanted to make the experience more meaningful,” explains Sister Hamer, a counselor in the ward Young Women presidency and a past president of the Minnesota Genealogical Society. “We wanted the youth to know that these names for which they would be baptized were not just names; they were actual people. We could even show them photos of their hometown.
“But it wasn’t until they began actually working with the names that the people became real. Suddenly the youth were saying things like, ‘Hey, this person was born on Christmas,’ or ‘This family had three sets of twins.’”
Young people in the stake became so interested that they spent several summer vacation days copying names. Then in October, 36 teenagers traveled to the temple and were vicariously baptized for 565 people who were no longer just names on a chart. The rest of the 1,500 names were also submitted for temple work.

I knew of a couple in the Tongan islands who discovered what their mission together was. Years ago as a young missionary, I was impressed by this couple who were always helping the missionaries and others. Every time I went to their home I would find them reading the scriptures or making a meal for a missionary or taking care of a neighbor’s child or preparing a Relief Society lesson or doing some sort of service. They were not blessed with children of their own, but they were always helping other people’s children.

Years later, back in Tonga as the mission president, I was asked if I would visit an elderly widow named Luisa. When I was given the address, I realized it was the lady I had come to appreciate so many years before.

It was late afternoon when we drove up to her home. I was surprised to see that hardly anything had changed. It was a neat, clean home, but a very humble one. As I walked up to the house I noticed her waiting by the open door. As she held her hand out I realized that she had gone blind. Embracing her, I realized also that she had not long to stay in this life as she had a frail body of skin and bones.

We sat and visited, and she talked about her desire to help the “poor” people. I suggested that she may need some help herself. She kindly informed me that she was rich and had nothing to worry about.

I was a little confused and began to inquire. I found that she and her husband had often saved money to pay their air fare to the New Zealand Temple only to end up lending it to someone else who needed it more. When all the facts came out, I said to her, “Luisa, how can you say you don’t have anything to worry about? You have no husband, you have no children, you’re blind, you are in poor health, you live in a poor home, you haven’t been to the temple. How can you say you’re rich?”

Then she stopped all of my questions by quietly informing me that she was rich because she knew the Lord was pleased with her life. She said, “I know I will be with my husband soon. I know the Lord will bless us with a family. I may not have done all that I could do, but I know that the Lord is pleased with what I have done.”

Consider D&C 6:7, wherein the Lord says, “Seek not for riches but for wisdom, and behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich.”

Luisa had taken the time to discover her mission and calling in life and had done whatever was necessary to fulfill it. She had obtained the “wisdom” spoken of.