Gospel Story Finder

In 1937, Elder Ashton accepted a mission call to Great Britain. After arriving in his mission field, Elder Ashton wanted to have a “burning” testimony. After reading and rereading the Book of Mormon, he said he had an impression: “You’ve known the Church was true all your life. Get off your knees and go to work.” His testimony was not quite the lightning bolt he wanted, but his quiet kind of testimony was just as powerful.

Illustration by Carolyn Vibbert
When I was six or seven years old, I knew I wanted to be an oceanographer. I focused on my goal, worked hard, and got into a good college. I took several courses in zoology and loved it. But as I got further into my studies, I became fascinated with the human body, particularly on the cellular level. I decided to become a pathologist.
I soon met my future husband, and we decided to get married. Having a family was always part of my plan, but while I knew I could be a great doctor and a great mother, I felt that I couldn’t be great at both at the same time. Because family is essential to the Lord’s plan of salvation, I decided to become a mother first. I figured that once my kids got into school, I could go back to school myself.
When my youngest child entered kindergarten, I began the application process for a PhD program in nutritional studies at the University of Texas in Austin. Just before submitting my application, I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant with my seventh child. I was in my 40s, and by the time this child entered school, I would be nearly 50.
“A little late to start a new career that takes extensive schooling,” I thought.
All at once I saw my life’s career dreams crumble around me. As I began to despair, a scripture came to my mind and my heart: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). I had always considered this scripture to mean one person dying for another, but now it means so much more.
I realized that the greatest love I could show was to lay down the life I had planned for myself and give my time and energy to raising my children. I felt that for me, this was what the Lord would have me do. Yes, I could have helped a lot of people as a doctor, but I also know that the greatest eternal impact I can have is in the lives of my own children.

After having been set apart to serve in the Second Quorum of the Seventy, I, with my wife and one of our children, visited my father. We asked him to give me a blessing, something which I have always striven to do when I have received a new priesthood assignment. He laid his hands upon my head and gave me a short but grand blessing. He said, “Son, I bless you that the Holy Spirit may accompany you, your wife, and your children in everything you do.” What more could I wish for?

The following experience is an example of how this principle can work.
Two young missionaries knocked on a door, hoping to find someone to receive their message. The door opened, and a rather large man greeted them in a less-than-friendly voice: “I thought I told you not to knock on my door again. I warned you before that if you ever came back, it would not be a pleasant experience. Now leave me alone.” He quickly closed the door.
As the elders walked away, the older, more experienced missionary put his arm on the younger missionary’s shoulder to comfort and encourage him. Unknown to them, the man watched them through the window to be sure they understood his message. He fully expected to see them laugh and make light of his curt response to their attempted visit. However, as he witnessed the expression of kindness between the two missionaries, his heart was instantly softened. He reopened the door and asked the missionaries to come back and share their message with him.

The Alonso family has also made the trip from Monterrey to Mexico City many times, but the most memorable one for them was when the teenagers in the family, Carlos, Emilio, and Rosa, were very small.

“I was four years old the first time we went to the temple,” says Rosa, who is now in the Beehive class. “I remember that when we were sealed we knelt around the altar, all dressed in white. Every time I remember that occasion, I feel warm inside.”

Carlos and his twin brother, Emilio, were nine years old when the family was sealed, and they too have wonderful memories of that time.

“It was very beautiful,” says Carlos. “I remember the mirrors where you can see for eternity.”

Emilio feels very much the same way. “It was beautiful because we were all together in the temple, and that is where we learn to be an eternal family and how to live.”

Finally the time arrived for the time-honored tradition of opening birthday gifts. This is always a frustration for my family. What do you give a dad, at my age, when he already has a drawer full of new, unused socks, white shirts still in plastic wrap, and four racks full of ties? My son came forward and said, “At last I’ve found just the right gift for you,” and he handed me a baseball bat with a white stocking over the end. My first reaction was, “A baseball bat at seventy years of age?”
I pulled off the white stocking, and then I understood why it was a perfect gift. On the end of the bat was imprinted “Adirondack, Willie Mays’ Personal Model” with the actual signature of Willie Mays. This bat was a symbol of many great memories. My mind was flooded with memories of a special birthday that had occurred thirty years earlier. We had just moved from California to New York. We had left our favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, and Willie Mays, who was, of course, their star.
On this special birthday, Willie and the Giants were in New York playing the Mets. My son had saved his money and purchased two tickets as his birthday present to me that year. I came home from work early that day so we’d have time to make the long traffic-filled drive to the Mets’ ballpark for the start of the game. We bought hot dogs, 7UP, and popcorn and settled in our seats to watch Willie Mays beat the Mets. The game was tied at 4 to 4 at the end of nine innings. Willie’s record was four at-bats and zero hits. I said to my son, “We have a long drive home, and I have to get up early to catch the train in to the city for a meeting.” His response was, “Willie won’t be up until next inning. Let’s watch him bat once more.” The same response came after the eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth, and the fourteenth innings—and on up to the twenty-third inning. Now it was well after midnight, and the drive home was well over an hour. Each time I suggested leaving, his response was, “Let’s watch Willie bat one more time.”
Then, in the first of the twenty-third inning, Willie came to bat and drove the ball over the center-field fence. Of course we finished watching the last of the twenty-third inning to be certain the Giants would win 5 to 4. We arrived home at 2:30 a.m. I wasn’t at my best in the meetings the following day, but I had a lasting memory to cherish. Now a piece of wood, a baseball bat, stands in the corner of my office to remind me of a special father-son relationship filled with so many great memories.

For example, for years, my mother made sack lunches for myself and my five sisters. I’m not sure that she ever saw this as a sacred act; I doubt that the five thousandth sandwich made a lasting impression. But as I have looked back on my childhood, I recognize this as a consistent sacrifice in that my mother was taking a daily ordinary action that she made sacred by trying to make each day a little better for her children. And now, I have tried to carry on that tradition by preparing lunches for my own children.

Glen Hoelscher, from St. Lawrence, Texas, recently returned from a mission to Tacoma, Washington. Glen, shown here with his mom, Doris, and his dad, David, grew up on a farm, and he and his father devised an unusual way of financing Glen’s work for the Lord. They used some of their farm land to grow watermelons specifically for the purpose of paying for Glen’s mission, figuring they’d have to sell eight melons for each day that Glen served.
Their efforts proved “fruitful,” and Glen was blessed with a bumper crop—one of the best he and his dad have ever had.

With the hovering heat it seemed more like the Fourth of July than Christmas Day. It was the kind of heat Santa Cruz, Bolivia, is famous for. But I soon forgot about the stickiness and my longing for a white Christmas in my excitement to visit Lily and her family.
I had thought about them often, worrying that the children wouldn’t receive any gifts for Christmas because of the economic situation of the family. Yet during the three months I lived with them, they always offered to share whatever they had with me and my companion.
The courage and determination of Lily, the mother, had impressed me as I watched her fight to support her six children by her own ingenuity and the sparse, sporadic help of her estranged husband. She was always an example of faith and trust in the Lord. She often visited other sisters in the ward she knew needed help, even when she was greatly in need of help herself.
I had wanted this to be a special Christmas for the family, so I bought gifts for the children and wrapped each one in pretty paper. But I had a hard time finding a gift for Lily. I kept thinking of the one thing I knew she needed.
Oftentimes missionaries would leave personal belongings behind to make room for souvenirs in their suitcases. Clothes that had been well broken in during their mission life were usually left with friends. Lily had always admired the one thing I hadn’t thought of leaving behind—my coat. It was a burgundy raincoat with a removable wool lining. My mother had helped me pick it out, and I loved it. We had bought it on a special sale where a certain amount of the price was deducted if you traded in another coat which would be given to charity. My mother had donated one of her coats to help me buy mine. My raincoat was my favorite possession. But now I just had two months left in my mission and it was summer.
They had invited us to join with them in their meal of chicken and rice. We gratefully yet reluctantly accepted. I knew that what we ate would be subtracted from their share. We talked and laughed, and the children opened their presents.
Lily told us how blessed they had been that Christmas. All the children had received one nice present through the telephone company where their father worked. Since they all had received a nice toy, she had asked each one to take a favorite toy, not one that was all worn out, and wrap it up. They each took the toy to church with them and gave it to one of the children in their ward who had not received anything for Christmas.
While we were talking, Lily motioned to the girls to go get something from the back of the house. The girls returned a few minutes later with a small package they laid in my lap. I opened it, and pulled out a white, odd-shaped, furry ball that had orange ears and crystal blue eyes. I wanted to cry. It was probably the funniest little stuffed dog I had seen, yet it meant more than any other gift I had received. I tried to protest. They didn’t need to give me anything. But there was no getting out of it. That little fur ball was mine.
It was then that I went to the corner and picked up Lily’s present. When I gave it to her she at first refused. “No, it’s your coat. I couldn’t.”
But as I insisted she began to cry.
She didn’t expect to receive anything, yet she had given me so much by her example of selflessness and her great power to love.
Now, years later, when I hold that little dog in my hands, I can still feel the warmth of our embrace and our tears intermingling. I remember the sweet peace I felt that Christmas day with a family that thought more about giving to others than they did about receiving.

Not many teenagers get a chance to launch a small business with one of their parents. But when 15-year-old Blythe G. and her mom made a one-of-a-kind cloth doll for Blythe’s younger sister, they had so much fun that they decided to keep going. “We started selling them,” Blythe says. They also donate one doll a month to a sick child.
Blythe, an artist, loves her part of the process. “My main job is to paint the dolls’ faces,” she says. In addition, she’s acquired other talents along the way. “I’ve learned a lot about marketing,” Blythe says.
She’s also learned how to sew. “That’s been really fun,” she says. “Now I can make all sorts of things.” In fact, Blythe has already put those sewing skills to good use. As she and her mom sold more dolls, they added stuffed animals to their lineup. Blythe personally designed several of the stuffed animals they now sell.
Running this business has brought Blythe and her mom closer together. “I love doing it with my mom,” she says. “My mom is my best friend.”
To other youth thinking about starting a job, Blythe says, “Go for it! There are a lot of things you can’t learn in school that you can learn only from going out there and doing stuff.”

Third, watching what you think. When inappropriate thoughts do enter the scene, quickly change the channel to something wholesome. I recall a few years ago working on a project for the US Olympic Committee, when I received an apparent email from one of our group working on the project. When I opened the attachment, I found myself face-to-face with pornography. I was all alone in my office. No mortal being would know of what I did next. I could either indulge it and open the other accompanying attachments and whisper to myself that, 'it won't hurt to just look for a few minutes,' or do the right thing. I immediately shut off the computer and felt shaken. I fled the temptation as did Joseph. After deleting the email, I notified the sender, and it turned out that someone had hijacked his email box. We can seemingly face temptation at almost any time.
Such a 'Moment of Truth' would lead to one of two potential paths. One was that of driving the Spirit from my life and potentially beginning a life of an imprisoning addition, or living true to who I am. The right path was chosen due to a preparation of daily commitment to gospel and doing the right thing at any time in any place.

“I quietly observed the woman sitting next to me on my 7:00 a.m. flight home. She had ordered an alcoholic drink before the plane had taken off, and when she asked me if I was married, my negative judgments of her began piling up.
“‘Yes, I have four children and four grandchildren,’ I answered with some pride.
“She then told me something that changed everything. Her husband had passed away the previous day after being in a coma for five days. Though she was an emergency physician, she had been unable to save him after he collapsed while on vacation.
“I was ashamed that my quick judgments were so far off the mark. What could I say to her? As I gathered my composure, I felt Heavenly Father pour out His Spirit so I could minister to this woman and share some of the precious truths of the gospel.
“I learned that though she didn’t attend any church, she believed in Jesus Christ and read the Bible. When I asked if she knew about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she replied that she knew very little. I shared with her a general conference message by Elder Richard G. Scott (1928–2015) titled, ‘The Eternal Blessings of Marriage,’ and then testified of eternal families and how Heavenly Father knows and loves each of us individually. I found that she was going to Hawaii, USA, where she had grown up, and I encouraged her to visit the Laie Hawaii Temple.
“We parted in the Salt Lake City, Utah, airport. I am so grateful that the Lord was able to use me, in spite of my faults, to reach a sister in need of love and comfort.”
John Tippetts, Utah, USA

“When I was in Korea,” I continued, “I carried my small Book of Mormon and the book Principles of the Gospel that the Church supplies to all LDS servicemen. Habitually I slipped my Book of Mormon into the breast pocket of my uniform and read it during every available moment. Having studied it in seminary, it meant a lot to me. And even though I can’t carry a tune in a barrel, I liked to sing the hymns in the back of my Principles of the Gospel book when I was alone.

“On October 4, 1951, we were caught under fire in some rice paddies and could almost feel the whiz of shells overhead—they were that close. There were 150 men in our company. We managed to pull into a draw where we waited to advance up a sparsely covered mountain 30 miles from Uijongbu.

“Next day the Air Force laid a smoke screen around that mountain to prepare for our attack. Hearing orders to advance, I started to put my Book of Mormon in the breast pocket of my fatigues, as usual, then instantaneously dropped it into my deep hip pocket and moved out, keeping close to my platoon leader, a first lieutenant.

“We were near the top when the North Koreans stopped us with a volley of grenades. I was knocked out! When I came to, I looked down at my leg. My pants were completely soaked with blood. I spotted the lieutenant lying on the ground nearby—a twitching finger told me he was dead. That one shell got seven of our platoon right there. I was the only live soldier in sight. And I knew I wouldn’t be alive very long if I didn’t clear out. Boy Scout training saved my life. I pulled the towel from under the radio at my neck and put a tourniquet above the gaping wound in my thigh. At that point I didn’t know what had happened, but I did know the shrapnel had hit my thigh and traveled down my leg. Why hadn’t it blown my leg right off?

“My radio wasn’t knocked out. ‘Groucho one! Groucho one!’ I spoke into the set. That was our code. Headquarters responded. I said, ‘Platoon leader KIA. I’m hit. Send a medic. We’re in heavy fire.’

“At last a medic arrived. Removing the tourniquet, he put on a big compress bandage. As he prepared a shot of morphine for the pain, shells again exploded, and he took off. My buddy Harold Wiggint from Minnesota and a Spanish-American buddy found me and dragged me down the mountain. Once my foot was caught in the crotch of a fallen tree. The pain was unbearable. Finally I reached the hospital ship Repose.

“My doctor, from Logan, Utah, was the first LDS man I had found in Korea. Following surgery, he came to my bed and handed me a riddled, blood-soaked Book of Mormon.

“‘This was in your hip pocket. If that shell hadn’t been stopped by this book, it would have taken your leg with it,’ he said.

“‘And in my position, it probably would have gone right through both legs,’ I added.

“‘Could be. It takes tremendous force to go through a book like this,’ he replied.

“I was later sent to a general hospital in Sendi, Japan, where my leg received further treatment from another LDS army physician, Sherman Thorpe from Salt Lake City.

“In my letters home, I hadn’t told Grandma I’d been injured seriously. (Grandma had raised me.) But Dr. Thorpe’s mother lived in Salt Lake City, and she called Grandma, so my secret was exposed. The Church makes this a small world.

“In Japan as soon as I was able to get out of bed, Dr. Thorpe arranged for Church services to be moved to the hospital so I could attend in a wheelchair for the first time since I’d been in Korea. Then when I was well enough to get up and around, he took me into town to church. He was like a father to an 18-year-old soldier.”

Taking the stained, riddled Book of Mormon from my pocket, I let eager class members examine it. I now stood squarely on both my legs—saved by a prompting of the Holy Ghost to put the book in the proper pocket.

The Young Women of the Bartlesville Oklahoma Second Ward, Tulsa Oklahoma Stake, have been working for several years to earn enough money to make a temple trip. They originally intended to make the trip to Utah to do baptisms for the dead in the Salt Lake Temple. But when the announcement was made that a temple was to be built in Dallas, Texas, they decided to donate the money they had earned in money-making projects to the temple fund.

Although their temple trip has been postponed until the new temple is completed, the Bartlesville Young Women are excited to know that the temple will be close enough to make more frequent trips.

When our only daughter, Lindsay, was young, she and I enjoyed watching movies together. One that we enjoyed immensely and watched together many times was an animated film called “Finding Nemo.” In this movie Nemo, a fish, is caught by a fisherman and taken from his father, Marlin, and put in a fish tank in a dentist’s office. Marlin is determined to find Nemo. In that journey he meets another fish named Dory. Obstacle after obstacle happen as these two try to find Nemo. On occasion the obstacles they faced were big ones. Dory’s message to Marlin was the same, “Just keep swimming --- just keep swimming.” Lindsay and I made a game of it and would try to sound like Dory as we said, “Just keep swimming – just keep swimming.” Several years later she was serving a mission in Santiago, Chile’. Missions are hard. Disappointments are many. Each week I wrote her a letter and at the end I wrote, “Just keep swimming, Love Dad.” She is now expecting her second child and recently found out that the unborn baby has a hole in his heart and has Downs Syndrome. Once again as I write her trying to help her get through a very difficult time in her life, I close the emails with “Just keep swimming.” I think that is a good message for you and me. Obstacles come into each of our lives, but in order to get where we want to go we must keep swimming. That’s life, also.

I was visiting with a neighbor’s family that had traveled to Salt Lake City for the holidays. I asked how they liked their ward in their distant city, and Hanna said, “Cary likes it, but I don’t. Sister Jack, I’m having a hard time. I’m the only Hispanic in the ward, and they are not friendly to me. They ignore me in the hallways, and sometimes I don’t go at all.”

My heart went out to this usually happy and gregarious woman. I said, “Be patient with them. Maybe you are there to help them learn understanding, and it will take time.”

Sometimes our pattern and response to difficulty is to circumvent the situation rather than to step back and try to learn from it. We become immersed in the circumstances and lose sight of the long-range goal. A better approach is to do what we can, being “steadfast and immovable in keeping the commandments” and carrying in our hearts the assurance that the Lord is with us and that our patience will turn the tide.

I am the youngest in a family of four boys, and about twenty-two years ago I was encouraged to apply for a faculty opening here at BYU in the Department of Mathematics. At the time, I was a faculty member at Oregon State University, and my three older brothers lived in Iowa, Washington, and California, while my parents lived in Logan, Utah. In addition to this being a great opportunity for me to come to BYU, it allowed me to be a little closer to my parents, because their health was failing.

My father did not want my decision to move to Utah to be based in any way on helping him and my mother. He was very proud of the fact that his sons were contributing to the kingdom outside of Utah. My wife, Shauna, and I felt that the move to BYU was the right decision, and we arrived here in August 1996.

Six months after our arrival in Provo, my father had surgery in Salt Lake City to repair a heart valve. Ten years earlier his original valve had been replaced with a pig valve, at which time he contracted hepatitis C. Because this pig valve was now failing, the doctors decided to replace it with a mechanical valve. During the surgery the doctors realized that the hepatitis C had wreaked havoc on my father’s liver, which made the heart surgery very traumatic on his body. This was the beginning of a seventeen-day roller coaster ride.

At this time my mother’s health was not good, so she was only able to visit my dad about every two to three days. Thus the responsibility of visiting my father and communicating with the doctors fell to my wife and me. One or the other of us would travel from Mapleton, about ten miles south of Provo, to the hospital in Salt Lake City every day. Many times my wife would visit in the afternoon, and I would spend the evening at the hospital, or vice versa. This was particularly challenging because we had four children ranging in age from three to nine.

I referred to this time as a roller coaster ride because on one day a particular doctor would be pessimistic and on the next day another doctor would be optimistic about the eventual outcome. These varied opinions and outlooks greatly affected my emotions as I went to visit my father.

I remember driving up State Street toward the hospital in Salt Lake City and feeling the dread of what I might hear from the doctors on that day and wondering to myself, “Am I afraid of my dad dying?” I also thought to myself, “I have a testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and of His Resurrection. Am I afraid of death? Do I really believe I will see my father again?”

It is this question of “Do we really believe?” that will be the focus of my comments today. As I pose this question, I do not do so to introduce doubt, because when I was going through these trials associated with my father’s time in the hospital, I never really doubted my testimony. Instead I wondered why I was feeling this wide swing of emotions when I knew I did have a testimony that the Atonement of Jesus Christ would allow me to see my father again.

Moroni 7:41 says:

And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

I believed this scripture, but this was the first time I had had to directly apply it in my life. We don’t truly gain a testimony of many principles of the gospel until we exercise faith and apply those principles in our lives. I already had a testimony of the blessings of paying tithing, a testimony that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ, and a testimony of God’s presence in the temple because I had had many opportunities to test these principles and had had confirming experiences about them. Facing the death of my father, however, was my first opportunity to test my faith and understanding of the Resurrection.

As I faced this trial, I recalled something that my father had told me many times growing up: “Hold fast to the things you know are true, and the answers to the rest will come to you in time.”

When I was on this trying journey of driving to the hospital each day and was facing the fact that my father might not recover, I held fast to the testimony I did have of various gospel principles, and I knew that someday I would better understand the Resurrection. One thing that I have since come to realize is that the main contributing factor to the swing in my emotions at this time was the fear of the temporary loss of association with my father.

One of the main things we enjoy about our families is spending time with them. My father never missed attending a game in which I participated as a young man. Whether it was church basketball or high school football or basketball, he never missed a game. We also attended many Utah State University basketball games together and even had a chance to attend a Jazz basketball game in the month before his surgery. I believe that one cause of my fears as I drove to the hospital was not a doubt of my testimony but the sadness I would feel in not being able to spend time with him.

After seventeen days in the hospital, my father passed away, and I was forced to consider the question “Do I really believe in the Resurrection and Atonement?”

I conclude where I started by sharing an experience that happened to me several weeks after my father passed away. Sitting in an elders quorum class, I was asked to read Doctrine and Covenants 138:28–30, which states:

And I wondered at the words of Peter—wherein he said that the Son of God preached unto the spirits in prison, who sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah—and how it was possible for him to preach to those spirits and perform the necessary labor among them in so short a time.
And as I wondered, my eyes were opened, and my understanding quickened, and I perceived that the Lord went not in person among the wicked and the disobedient who had rejected the truth, to teach them;
But behold, from among the righteous, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.

As I read these verses in that elders quorum lesson, the Spirit powerfully testified to me that my father was one of those missionaries sharing the gospel in the spirit world. Do I really believe in the Resurrection and that I will see my father again? Yes. I followed my father’s counsel and held on to what I believed, and the answer did come.

I slammed the plate into the dishwasher and cried in frustration.
“Erin, you can go to that pool party,” my dad said. “You can take a break.”
“It’s not about that!” I yelled as I stormed from the room.
My tantrum wasn’t about Adriane’s pool party. My mom and my youngest sister, Abby, were sick with pneumonia. My dad and I had spent the last week caring for them and trying to keep the household functioning normally. This meant cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, doing laundry, and driving my other two sisters around.
All of these things muffled my nagging worries and fears. I was worried about my family and nervous about leaving for college soon. So I kept myself busy and tried to ignore my fears. I had even planned on skipping Adriane’s party, but I was tired and the thought of a carefree evening, hanging out with friends by the pool, pushed my emotions over the edge. I exploded and took out my frustration on my dad.
I cried for a while in my bedroom. Then, feeling guilty, I went upstairs to see if my mom or Abby needed anything. I found my mother giving medicine to my fever-flushed sister. My mom was barely able to breathe and had been bedridden for days. My dad and I urged her to return to bed. We told her that we could take care of Abby. She wouldn’t listen.
“I’m all right. You two get some sleep,” she said. “Abby needs me.”
I tried not to cry as I watched my mom comfort my 10-year-old sister. She checked her temperature, helped her into bed, then crawled in after her and held her shaking body. Abby stopped moaning and calmed under my mom’s protection.
My mom was more ill than she had ever been. The pneumonia would eventually send her to the hospital for several days. Yet in the middle of her trial, she forgot about herself. Rather than complaining about her own illness, she found a way to ease her daughter’s pain.
I had planned on becoming the martyr that night by staying home to help. Instead, I was embarrassed by my outburst and humbled by my mother’s actions. Watching her, I knew she would do anything to help my sisters and me.
I felt her love that night and wanted to follow her example. I resolved to show those I love that I will be there when they need me, regardless of the personal sacrifice required.

Let me share an experience from my own youth, an experience that taught me the importance of obedience in doing even small things well. I loved to play football in high school and at the university. I wanted to be a good athlete. I especially remember one game. Our university team faced the University of Colorado in a contest for the conference championship. We were well coached and really well prepared.
The star of the Colorado team was Byron “Whizzer” White, an all-American who was a tremendous athlete. He was a fast, versatile, and powerful quarterback. His athletic prowess was legendary. His scholastic abilities were equally impressive. He later became a Rhodes scholar and retired recently as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Our wise coach was Ike Armstrong. His warnings before the game included two simple instructions: one, do not kick off or punt the ball to Whizzer White, and two, never let him get past the line of scrimmage.
We followed his instructions and held Colorado scoreless throughout the first half. Early in the second half, however, Whizzer White kicked a field goal. We answered with a touchdown and kicked the extra point. We were ahead seven to three at the end of the third quarter.
On the second play of the fourth quarter, we punted. The ball sailed deep into the corner of the field, near their end zone. Whizzer White plucked the tumbling ball out of the air at his fifteen-yard line and dropped back to his five-yard line to evade the first of our tacklers. Then with the speed, strength, and agility that had built his reputation, he started upfield and sidestepped every player of our team. I managed only to touch him with my little finger. He ran the entire length of the field for a touchdown—thrilling for Colorado, but disappointing for us.
Later in the fourth quarter, Whizzer dashed around his own right end and beyond the line of scrimmage and ran fifty-seven yards for another touchdown. The game ended with a score seventeen to seven. Colorado won the game and the conference championship.
Though we lost, I learned the importance of constant obedience to detailed instructions of our leader. Failure to obey our coach’s two pregame warnings for just two plays—two brief lapses in an otherwise outstanding effort—cost us the game and the conference championship. That is all it took for us to lose something we had worked so hard to achieve.

Little did Grandma Jones realize when she began the parties in 1962 what a missionary tool they would be. She recorded in her journal: “I had read an article on the Prophet in the Church News and was so impressed I decided to have a family birthday party to honor and study about him. Since his birthday was so close to Christmas, I combined learning about the Prophet with more serious thought on our Savior’s birth. I wrote a small invitation to each family member but did not tell them who it was for. I was afraid they would either laugh at me or think I had lost my mind. I even had a small eight-inch white cake with a tiny manger scene on top.”
But her children did not laugh. It was such a success they asked, “Mom, can we do it again next year?” And that is how the tradition began.