Gospel Story Finder

Several years after I was married, I was called to teach a Sunday School class of 15-year-olds. It was a large class of enthusiastic and energetic students. I had to prepare well each week in order to stay ahead of them.
One Sunday after class a young man waited for the room to clear and then asked if we could talk privately for a moment. He poured out his heart to me about a moral transgression that he was involved in. He cried, and I could see that his heart was filled with great remorse.
I encouraged him to go see the bishop, and eventually I went with him to his appointment and waited outside. Of course, I was not privy to what happened from there, but almost immediately I saw the dark veil of sorrow, grief, evil, and contempt lift from this young man’s face. In time he was back to being the normal and fine young man that I had known him to be for some years previous. Repentance cleansed his soul and it cleansed his heart, mind, and even his face. His eyes were brighter, his smile broader, and his walk and the way he carried himself suggested happiness.

Since neither she nor Pa had ever been to a grade school, it was Pa’s dream that we should get an education. His dream became Ma’s fixed goal. “If we all work hard, the way will be opened up,” she maintained.
When mining boomed at Silver Reef, I got a job on the pony mail route. My sisters wanted to work at the “reef” too, but Ma put her foot down.
“A mining town is no place for girls,” she said. “We will pray a little harder and think a little harder and we will make work for ourselves at home.”
Ma found joy in working. She was manager of the little one-room co-op store in our town, and the girls took turns clerking. They also took in sewing and all of us dried grapes and peaches by the ton. Still, the savings account to go away to school was small.
After a while lovers came courting and my three older sisters married.
Still concerned about her goal, Ma said, “Now is the time for the rest of you to go to school.”
“We haven’t enough money,” Kate insisted.
“The Lord will provide,” soothed Ma.
So that fall we packed our bottled fruit in the bottom of the wagon and arranged our bedding and supplies over it, leaving Mary and her husband in charge at home. On top of the load was a sack of washed sheep’s wool. For the thirteen days that the horses plodded toward Provo, LaVern and Evadna picked trash from the wool, Ma carded and spun it into yarn while Kate and Annie knitted our winter stockings, and I drove.
Sometimes the littlest girls got awfully tired and I felt sorry for them, but Ma said, “Only after we have done all that we can will the Lord take over.” However, the miles were shortened considerably when we sang songs like “Swinging in the Lane,” and “Daisies Won’t Tell.”
At Provo the house we rented had more rooms than we needed, and by the time we furnished it, our money was gone. After years of working and planning, we were starting school practically penniless.
“Ma,” I said, “do you think we’re doing right? It’s mostly your spunk that’s keeping us here.”
“Not spunk, faith!” she corrected. “We’re doing what Pa would want us to do. Now get busy all of you and make this place look like home. I’m going to the academy to see President Cluff.”
Before she left we knelt in prayer. As I led, I put my question before the Lord. “If it is right for us to stay, please give Ma the answer when she talks to President Cluff.”
She never had the chance to talk to him at the academy. When President Cluff saw her coming, he rushed to the door and hurried her back home to receive three young men he had just sent to board with us. After that we had all the boarders we could handle.

Now Rigmor faced an overwhelming set of circumstances. She left her comfortable home and moved to a small apartment. Needing to support herself financially, she had to seek employment for the first time since the birth of her oldest child. But, as the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote, a very small helm working determinedly can keep a very large ship safe “in the time of a storm.” And if we will “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power,” we can trust “with the utmost assurance” that his mighty, saving power will ultimately be manifest in our lives (see D&C 123:16–17).
With intelligence, energy, and determination, Rigmor did what lay in her power to do. She worked briefly as a clerk and then got a job as a substitute teacher in a youth school. The Nazi occupation of Norway in 1940 had ended her university studies. Now Rigmor enrolled in college to get the training to be a full-time teacher. And it was here that a remarkable lifelong mission as a goodwill ambassador for the Church began.

“And please, Heavenly Father, bless me to know what our family can do to help build the temple,” Mama prayed. Phoebe looked at Mama’s face and saw tears rolling down her cheeks, dripping onto her faded blouse. “Into bed with you now,” Mama instructed.
As she pulled the covers up Phoebe asked, “Why are you crying, Mama? Is it because Papa’s on another mission?”
“I do miss Papa. It will be a glorious day when we’re all together again,” Mama said. She tucked the quilts around Phoebe, tight against the bitter night. “But we have so much to be grateful for—our house here in Nauvoo, and six healthy, beautiful children. The Lord is watching over us, Phoebe.”
“But why are you crying, Mama?”
Mama sighed. “I just want so much to help finish the temple.” Mama stood up. “Good night, sweet Phoebe,” she said, and snuffed out the candle.
Phoebe found it hard to sleep. Her arms ached from scrubbing, wringing, and hanging laundry. Her thumb throbbed from pricking it again and again while mending. Even her back was tired from carrying wood.
All of Nauvoo was busy as the Saints worked to finish the temple. While the men did the heaviest labor of hauling and hammering, carving and cutting, the women and children helped by spinning, weaving, knitting, and embroidering the finest additions for the inside of the temple. They also kept the workers fed. A warm feeling filled Phoebe’s heart as she remembered dishing the soup from the big pot at the temple grounds.
“Over here, little sister,” a worker had called to her.
As she offered the soup to the stonecutter she noticed how he held the steaming cup in both hands, soaking the warmth deep into his freezing fingers. The workers only took a moment to relax, then back they went to the next task. “Thank you, little sister,” the man had called.
And with that memory, Phoebe was sound asleep.
As the sun lightened the sky, Phoebe awakened and began to prepare for church. Sunday was the day she missed Papa most. But there were many things she loved about the Sabbath. She loved how everyone looked their best for church, and she loved how even the babies quieted when the Prophet Joseph Smith stood to speak.
This morning the Prophet thanked the Saints for their hard work on the temple and hoped they would double their efforts. Tears formed in Mama’s eyes again, and Phoebe imagined she could hear her mother praying, “How I wish we had more to give.” But they had given everything. How could Mama’s prayer be answered?
Driving home in the wagon, Mama suddenly yanked back on the reins, jerking the wagon to a stop while straining to see something near the roadside. Phoebe peered over the side of the wagon and saw two brown, furry heaps.
“Why, there’s the answer to our prayer,” Mama said. She pulled her sewing scissors from her bag and asked the older children to help her.
“Buffalo,” said little Sarah, pointing a chubby finger.
Two dead buffalo lay in the underbrush and Phoebe wondered where they possibly had come from.
“Help me, children,” Mama directed. The older children pulled at the long mane hair and Mama cut and snipped until they had a large bundle of brown, coarse hair. It took a long time, but their work had just begun. The next day, they washed the hair squeaky clean with strong lye soap. Next, Phoebe brushed and brushed the hair with the carding comb till it was straight and tangle free. Mama spun the hair on a spindle, making yards of dark brown yarn.
All the while Phoebe held back the question until she couldn’t wait another minute. “What, why … how could we ever use such ugly, coarse yarn for something as beautiful as the temple?”
“You’ll see,” Mama replied.
At last the yarn was ready. As Mama began to knit, Phoebe watched in fascination as it slowly took shape. Suddenly, the image of the stonecutter’s cold, red hands came clearly to Phoebe’s memory.
“Mittens!” Phoebe exclaimed. “Mittens for the stonecutters. Now they won’t have to wait for a bowl of soup to warm their hands.”
By the time Mama finished she had knit eight pairs of brown mittens. “They’re beautiful,” Phoebe sighed as she touched each pair. She felt as if her heart was wrapped up in a warm mitten. Mama’s prayers had been answered and their buffalo mittens would help build the temple.

When our young daughter was practicing the piano, I suggested she play her piece over five more times to be prepared for her lesson.
She said, “No, Mom. Five is too many.”
I said, “Then you choose how many times you need.”
She said, “No. You choose—but don’t choose five!”
Are we ever like that when the Spirit prompts us what to do and it isn’t easy or comfortable or popular? We say, “Please tell me again. I want to be obedient, but just tell me something a little easier—and more fun.” It can be dangerous trying to please ourselves.

They are both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have known each other since they attended Church College of New Zealand (CCNZ).
“I lived in Dinsdale, Hamilton . . . so I was a day student since 1977,” Gordon recalls. Brandt, who is a year older, enrolled in 1978. “That’s when we first got to know each other.”
It was a teacher at CCNZ, Brother Jim Kingi, who first planted the seed in Gordon’s mind that law could be a career for him. He didn’t know then that Brandt would eventually choose a similar path.
In his final year, each was elected CCNZ’s student body president, Brandt in 1980 and Gordon in 1981. They went on to serve full-time missions for the Church in Australia—Brandt in Perth and Gordon in Brisbane.
After his mission, Brandt enrolled at Waikato University to study social sciences. When Gordon returned, he signed up for pre-law at Waikato, where he and Brandt did a Maori paper together.
From there, Brandt gained a law degree at Victoria University, and Gordon finished his studies at the University of Auckland. They reunited in Hamilton in the early stages of their respective law careers.
The parallels continued.
In 1996, Gordon became the first Maori coroner in New Zealand, and a decade later, he was appointed full-time coroner for both the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. That same year, 2007, Brandt left a thriving law practice in Hamilton to accept his own full-time coroners’ role in the Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) region.
As coroners, they’ve each had to “manage the impact of dealing with death on a daily basis,” Brandt says. “On top of that . . . dealing with grieving whanau (families) in the rawest of times is a tough ask.” He coped by keeping himself physically fit and attending church regularly. “I have been lucky,” he adds, “with a whanau that keep my feet on the ground.”
Gordon remembers a difficult call regarding a 3-year-old who had drowned in a paddling pool. “I immediately went outside, emptied out [my own child’s] paddling pool and put it away.” But Gordon says it was only when the details of a case mirrored his own life somehow that it could affect him this way. “Otherwise, I didn’t find it that difficult . . . because of our knowledge of the plan of salvation. I knew that death is a part of life.”
Over the years, both have also served in various Church leadership roles. When they became district court judges, each had to be released as the first counsellor in his respective stake presidency.
“Everyone is entitled to be equal before the law,” says Gordon, “. . . to be represented.” Brandt says it’s about balancing human compassion with the requirements of the law. “I’d like to be remembered for being fair and respectful to all who appeared in front of me.”
These days, the friends don’t get to see each other as often as they’d like, but they continue to appreciate and support each other from afar. “Brandt has an uncanny ability. . .to remember people’s names,” Gordon says, “and he can talk to anyone . . . people warm to him. I admire that because it’s not one of my strengths.”
“[Gordon] has always been calm and measured in . . . all that he does,” Brandt says. “He has been a faithful servant. He has outlasted the trials that should have taken his life.” On top of all that, Brandt adds, “He is a great musician who loves to sing.”

Clara groaned. “There’s nothing to do!”
There were lots of things she wanted to do. But she couldn’t. She wanted to go swimming. But the pool was closed. She wanted to play with her toys. But they were packed away. She wanted to play with her friends. But her family had just moved. Now they lived in an apartment where they didn’t know their neighbors.
“Why don’t you color a picture?” Mom asked.
“That’s boring,” Clara said.
But her little brother, Ben, jumped up. “OK!” he said. He ran over to the table and found some crayons. He drew a tree and a yellow sun.
“I want to give this to our neighbor,” he said.
Clara frowned. “But we don’t know our neighbors.”
“Then let’s go meet them!” Mom said.
Ben and Mom walked out the front door. They knocked on the door across the hall. Clara watched from the doorway.
A woman answered. Ben handed her the picture. The woman smiled. “Thank you,” she said.
Clara watched Ben walk back to the table with a big smile. Maybe coloring isn’t so bad, she thought.
Clara sat by Ben. They both colored a picture. Clara drew a rocket ship and lots of stars.
They gave their pictures to two more neighbors. Then they colored more. They gave out pictures for the rest of the afternoon. Some people looked sad when they answered the door. But when they saw the picture, they smiled. Clara and Ben even met a few kids who lived in the apartment building.
When they were done, Clara grabbed Mom’s hand. “That was really fun.”
Mom smiled. “When we do a nice thing for someone, it makes them happy. It makes us happy too. And best of all, it makes Heavenly Father happy.”
“Maybe tomorrow we can ask the other kids to color with us,” Clara said.
“That sounds like a great idea.”
Clara smiled. Coloring and sharing pictures had been fun. Her boring day had turned into a happy one!
This story took place in the USA.

I have been a member of the Church for five years. At first I was the only member in my family; my wife was very active in another faith. Now two of my children have been baptized, and my wife and a third child are receiving the missionary discussions. I firmly believe that these blessings have come about because I fasted and prayed and attended the temple. I exhort you to do the same and to have patience. Your desire may be granted when you least expect it.
José Marcos García,Newark (Spanish) Ward, Scotch Plains New Jersey Stake

Let me speak of another experience where the heart of the widow was in full view. In Samoa, we labor with village councils to gain access for missionaries to preach the gospel. A few years ago, I had a conversation with a chief from a village where the missionaries had been prohibited for many, many years. My conversation occurred not too long after the paramount chief had opened the village to the Church, permitting our missionaries to teach those interested in learning about the gospel and its doctrines.

After so many years, to have this miraculous turn of events, I was curious to learn about what had happened to cause the paramount chief to take this action. I asked about this, and the chief with whom I was conversing replied, “A man can live in the dark for a period, but there will come a time when he will long to come into the light.”

The paramount chief, in opening the village, demonstrated the heart of the widow—a heart that softens when the warmth and light of the truth is revealed. This leader was willing to relinquish years of tradition, confront much opposition, and stand firm so that others might be blessed. This was a leader whose heart was focused on the welfare and happiness of his people rather than on considerations of tradition, culture, and personal power. He gave away those concerns in favor of what President Thomas S. Monson has taught us: “As we follow the example of the Savior, ours will be the opportunity to be a light in the lives of others.”3

Elsie and Edwin Dharmaraju joined the Church in Samoa and were called by President Spencer W. Kimball to return back to their home in Hyderabad as missionaries to their family. In 1978, 22 of Elsie and Edwin’s family members were baptized, and from this beginning the first stake in the country was organized in Hyderabad in 2012.6

They also listened to John Santosh Murala, then serving in the mission presidency, talk about how his aunt Elsie and uncle Edwin Dharmaraju came to Hyderabad to teach their family the gospel. John was the youngest of the 22 pioneer members to be baptized in 1978.

Mark and Barbara were engaged. In fact, it was just a few weeks before the wedding. Everything seemed to be in their favor. They were in love, they wanted children, Mark had a job waiting for him to start right after graduation, and just to make sure that they would get off to a great start they were taking a class together at Brigham Young University, “Achieving Success in Marriage.”
And then the plot began to thicken. One of the major assignments for the class was for a couple to do a babysitting project together. They were to volunteer, without pay, to spend as long a period as they could tending the children of a family they would choose. When Barbara proposed the plan to Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, who had seven children, they thought it was the best thing that had happened since Christmas and made plans to spend the next Saturday off by themselves in the mountains, leaving at nine in the morning and returning at ten in the evening.
The very first time Mark and Barbara had talked about having children, Mark had assured her that he wanted six. “Six?” Barbara had asked weakly. “Are you sure we can handle six?”
“Six,” Mark had emphasized. “The Lord will provide.”
At ten minutes past nine, seven children under eleven years of age waved good-bye to their parents and turned curiously to their two baby-sitters.
“Want to play ball with me?” said the five-year-old to Mark.
“Uh—sure.” Mark followed the boy out to the backyard.
In 15 minutes Mark was back in the house. He fished out his Advanced Accounting text from his briefcase and quickly converted the dining room table into a desk.
“I didn’t know about this test on Monday, Barb. But I think just a couple of hours should take care of it. If you can keep them outside for a while, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Come on, kids. Out to the backyard,” said Barbara. “I’ve got this game I want to teach you.”
The next three hours sped by for Barbara on wings of lead. She kept the children as quiet as possible while Mark studied, and then they all joined together for a backyard picnic lunch that Barbara and the older children had prepared.
“I think I’m too old to be a mother,” Barbara sighed, pouring Mark another glass of lemonade. “When I was 13 I used to do this all the time. What’s happened to me?”
“You’re doing great,” he assured her, fortifying her with a kiss.
“Wrestling time, wrestling time!” The eight-year-old boy pounced on Mark, and was quickly followed by three other children.
Mark good-naturedly rolled onto the grass, tickling as many ribcages as he could reach. Then he pushed the two-year-old toward Barbara with a look of great distaste on his face. “Phew. Smells like somebody’s pants need changing.”
So Barbara changed the pants. And Mark sat on the couch reading a storybook to the younger children, which was soon replaced by a news magazine. For the rest of the afternoon Mark’s major participation in the flow of events was to tie three pair of shoelaces and to send the rest of the problems to Barbara. At six o’clock he asked, “How long until supper, Barb?” And at eight o’clock, “Hey, isn’t it time these kids were heading for bed?”
At nine o’clock the last head was lying on its pillow. Barbara collapsed on the couch and closed her eyes.
“Alone at last,” sighed Mark and pulled her close to him.
“Just a minute,” said Barbara coolly, moving away. “I think we need a little talk.”
“Oh?”
“Six children? You said you wanted six children?”
“Yes.”
“You said the Lord would provide?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s beginning to seem to me that what you meant was that the Lord was going to provide you with me to do all the work.”
“I—I don’t get it.”
“Your idea of family living seems to be that you will preside and I will conduct—everything. Is that right?”
“Well, no. I expect to do my share. I’ve been working my tail off to get through school and get a job. It’s no easy thing to be a breadwinner these days.”
“So that’s all you’re going to be—a breadwinner? Have a nice, tidy, eight-to-five job, while mine goes eighteen hours a day, seven days a week?”
“Well, people sort of have to specialize. Our economy’s built on it. I guess I figured that I would specialize in bringing home the bacon and you would specialize in taking care of the kids. What do you want—one of those fifty-fifty contracts that some brides draw up?”
“No. No, I don’t. But I do want a husband that intends to be a father to his children, not just somebody that shows up at the supper table and gives a few instructions and hides behind a magazine.”
When the Taylors came home, the discussion was still going strong.
“Thanks so much,” said Mrs. Taylor, as she saw them to the door. “We had a wonderful time. I hope you learned what you came to learn.”
“More,” Barbara smiled. “Much more.”
At her place the discussion resumed, a discussion that should have happened months before. As they parted, Mark and Barbara were no longer engaged. Her idea of what a father should be, and his idea, were not the same.

I am reminded of an experience I had with a fine old Christian gentleman—a great Constitutional lawyer—named John D. Miller during an evening he spent in our home in Washington, D.C. After an hour of visiting in the living room, Sister Benson and the daughters who had been preparing the dinner announced that it was ready. We went into the dining room, and the children started preparing chairs for family prayer. And so I said to Judge Miller, “Judge, it’s customary in our home to have family prayer, daily devotion, morning and evening. Would you care to join us?” He said, “Yes, I would.” Then he watched the children to see what they did, and then knelt at his chair. We called on our oldest daughter, who was then probably eight or nine years of age, to lead the prayer. She is now the mother of five children, the wife of a stake president. Barbara offered a sweet, lovely prayer, and then she added, “And Heavenly Father, bless Judge Miller that he will enjoy his visit with us and return safely to his hotel.” That was all.

We drove the judge down to his hotel. Nothing was said of the incident.

About six months later this man was host to some 25 or 30 industrial, business, labor, and agricultural leaders at his winter home in Florida. After the dinner they were seated in the large living room talking about problems facing the nation, and as often happens-more often I think than we realize—the subject turned to things of the spirit—to religion. And then John D. Miller, this fine Christian gentleman, not a member of the Church, told of this little incident that had happened in our home—this simple thing of family prayer. And he said, “Gentlemen, I went to my hotel that night feeling that I had not fully measured up as a father. We had never had devotion in our home with my children.” And then he went on to tell of the power he felt must be in the lives of children reared in a home where there is spirituality.

We take it for granted as Latter-day Saints. I presume we don’t think it’s anything particularly special.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on the Anaa atoll in the Pacific Ocean, an Aaronic Priesthood holder named Tamanehune addressed a conference of more than eight hundred Latter-day Saints. “A letter should be sent to the Church in America,” he proposed, “requesting them to send out here immediately from five to one hundred elders.” Ariipaea, a member of the Church and a local village leader, seconded the proposal, and the South Pacific Saints raised their hands in assent.32
Presiding at the conference, Addison Pratt agreed wholeheartedly with Tamanehune. Over the last three years, Addison and Benjamin Grouard had baptized more than a thousand people. But in that time they had received only one letter from any of the Twelve, and it had given no instructions for returning home.33
In the six months since that letter had arrived, the two missionaries had heard nothing else from family, friends, or Church leaders. Whenever a newspaper came to the island, they scoured its pages for news about the Saints. One paper they read claimed that half the Saints in Nauvoo had been slaughtered while the rest had been forced to flee to California.34
Anxious to learn the fate of Louisa and his daughters, Addison decided to return to the United States. “To know the truth, even if it is bad,” he told himself, “is better than to remain in doubt and anxiety.”35
Addison’s friends Nabota and Telii, the husband and wife who had served with him on Anaa, decided to return to Tubuai, where Telii was beloved as a spiritual teacher among her fellow women of the Church. Benjamin planned to remain on the islands to lead the mission.36
When the Pacific Saints learned of Addison’s coming departure, they urged him to return quickly and bring more missionaries with him. Since Addison already planned to return to the islands with Louisa and his daughters, provided they were still alive, he readily agreed.37
A ship arrived at the island a month later, and Addison sailed with Nabota and Telii for Papeete, Tahiti, where he hoped to catch a ship to Hawaii and then California. When they arrived in Tahiti, he learned to his dismay that a package of letters from Louisa, Brigham Young, and the Brooklyn Saints had just been forwarded from the island to Anaa.
“I thought that I had got care-hardened to disappointments,” he lamented in his journal, “but this made impressions on my mind that I had heretofore been a stranger to.”38

At about that same time, I was invited to a lunch for all of the Relief Society sisters in my ward who had read either the Book of Mormon or a short Church history book. I had become casual in my scripture reading, so I qualified to attend the luncheon by reading the short book because it was easier and took less time. As I was eating my lunch, I had a powerful feeling that though the history book was a good one, I should have read the Book of Mormon. The Holy Ghost was prompting me to change my scripture reading habits. That very day I began to read the Book of Mormon, and I have never stopped reading it. Though I do not consider myself to be an expert, I truly love reading all the scriptures, and I am grateful I started the lifetime habit of reading them. It would be impossible to learn the lessons the scriptures contain by reading them only one time through or studying selected verses in a class.

Robert Rightenour, a 14-year-old teacher from the Seattle (Washington) First Ward, spent six months at a special sports training school in Trencin, Slovakia, one of the first Americans ever to attend the school. While he was there, Robert attended the tiny branch, which consisted of seven members and two missionaries.

When Robert wasn’t training with world champions in canoe racing and kayaking, he spent time as a home-teaching companion with the missionaries.

Robert also helped his family do their genealogy. Many of his ancestors came from Slovakia, and he has met several relatives in the nearby town of Svidnik.

Watoy paused under the colorful Filipino flag outside his school before heading inside.
“Good morning, class,” his teacher said. “It’s time for our morning prayer.”
All around, Watoy’s friends each touched their foreheads, chests, and shoulders to form the shape of a cross. Then they recited the prayer they always said at the beginning of class. As usual, Watoy didn’t join them. Instead, he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and said his own silent prayer. He prayed about different things each time, the way he was taught to pray at home and in Primary.
When he finished and looked up, he saw that his teacher was watching him with a confused expression on her face.
“May I talk to you after school?” she said.
Watoy swallowed and nodded. Was he in trouble?
When classes had ended for the day, Watoy’s teacher walked over to him.
“I see that you never cross yourself or recite our morning prayer,” she said. “Will you please tell me why?”
Watoy breathed a sigh of relief. His teacher wasn’t upset, just curious! He thought about how to answer.
“Well,” he began, “in my church, when we pray, we talk to Heavenly Father about many different things. And the cross reminds us of when Jesus died. But Jesus is not dead. He lives!”
His teacher thought about this for a moment and then nodded slowly.
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she said.
As Watoy walked to football practice, he felt warm and good inside. He liked teaching others about Jesus Christ.

My paternal grandparents had two children, a son (my father) and a daughter. After serving a mission and military service in Hawaii, my father returned to the islands in 1946 to establish himself professionally and raise his family. His parents lived in Salt Lake City, as did his sister. She married in 1946 and four years later was expecting a child. There is something very special for parents to anticipate a daughter (in this instance an only daughter) giving birth for the first time. No one knew that she was carrying twins. Sadly, she and the twins all died during childbirth.
My grandparents were heartbroken. Their grief, however, immediately turned them to the Lord and His Atonement. Without dwelling on why this could happen and who might be to blame, they focused on living a righteous life. My grandparents never had wealth; they were never among the socially elite; they never held high position in the Church—they were simply devoted Latter-day Saints.
After retiring professionally in 1956, they moved to Hawaii to be with their only posterity. The ensuing decades found them loving their family, serving in the Church, and mostly, they just enjoyed being together. They never liked being apart and even spoke of whoever died first finding a way to help them reunite soon. Nearing their 90th birthdays and after 65 years of marriage, they passed away within hours of each other by natural causes. As their bishop, I conducted their double funeral.

When I think of how we show faith, I cannot help but think of the example of my own father. I recall vividly how the spirit of missionary work came into my life. I was about thirteen years of age when my father received a call to go on a mission. It was during an epidemic in our little community of Whitney, Idaho. Parents were encouraged to go to sacrament meeting, but the children were to remain home to avoid contracting the disease.

Father and Mother went to sacrament meeting in a one-horse buggy. At the close of the meeting, the storekeeper opened the store just long enough for the farmers to get their mail, since the post office was in the store. There were no purchases, but in this way the farmers saved a trip to the post office on Monday. There was no rural postal delivery in those days.

As Father drove the horse homeward, Mother opened the mail, and, to their surprise, there was a letter from Box B in Salt Lake City—a call to go on a mission. No one asked if one were ready, willing, or able. The bishop was supposed to know, and the bishop was Grandfather George T. Benson, my father’s father.

As Father and Mother drove into the yard, they were both crying—something we had never seen in our family. We gathered around the buggy—there were seven of us then—and asked them what was the matter.

They said, “Everything’s fine.”

“Why are you crying then?” we asked.

“Come into the living room and we’ll explain.”

We gathered around the old sofa in the living room, and Father told us about his mission call. Then Mother said, “We’re proud to know that Father is considered worthy to go on a mission. We’re crying a bit because it means two years of separation. You know, your father and I have never been separated more than two nights at a time since our marriage—and that’s when Father was gone into the canyon to get logs, posts, and firewood.”

And so Father went on his mission. Though at the time I did not fully comprehend the depths of my father’s commitment, I understand better now that his willing acceptance of this call was evidence of his great faith. Every holder of the priesthood, whether young or old, should strive to develop that kind of faith.

When I think of charity, I again think of my father and that day he was called on his mission. I suppose some in the world might say that his acceptance of that call was proof he did not really love his family. To leave seven children and an expectant wife at home alone for two years, how could that be true love?

But my father knew a greater vision of love. He knew that “all things shall work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28). He knew that the best thing he could do for his family was to obey God.

While we missed him greatly during those years, and while his absence brought many challenges to our family, his acceptance proved to be a gift of charity. Father went on his mission, leaving Mother at home with seven children. (The eighth was born four months after he arrived in the field.) But there came into that home a spirit of missionary work that never left it. It was not without some sacrifice. Father had to sell our old dry farm in order to finance his mission. He had to move a married couple into part of our home to take care of the row crops, and he left his sons and wife the responsibility for the hay land, the pasture land, and a small herd of dairy cows.

Father’s letters were indeed a blessing to our family. To us children, they seemed to come from halfway around the world, but they were only from Springfield, Massachusetts; and Chicago, Illinois; and Cedar Rapids and Marshalltown, Iowa. Yes, there came into our home, as a result of Father’s mission, a spirit of missionary work that never left it.

Later the family grew to eleven children—seven sons and four daughters. All seven sons filled missions, some of them two or three missions. Later, two daughters and their husbands filled full-time missions. The two other sisters, both widows—one the mother of eight and the other the mother of ten—served as missionary companions in Birmingham, England.

It is a legacy that still continues to bless the Benson family even into the third and fourth generations. Was not this truly a gift of love?

Three Christmas trees stand out in the memory of Elder Gary B. Sabin.
The first was a beautiful Christmas tree of his youth. When Gary scaled the tree trying to reach a candy cane, the entire tree crashed to the ground.
The second was an evergreen branch he found as a missionary while serving in Belgium and the Netherlands from 1973 to 1975. Elder Sabin and his companion took the branch home to their apartment and propped it up around the Christmas cards they had received from home.
The third was a tree made of Christmas lights strung on the IV stand next to his daughter’s hospital bed. One of three Sabin children to suffer from cystic fibrosis, his daughter had received a double-lung transplant one year after the death of her brother from the same disease.
“We have learned a lot more from our children than they have learned from us,” says Elder Sabin.
As a General Authority he will remember the Christmas trees and the lessons he learned from them. Each tree highlights portions of his journey—from a young boy wanting a candy cane to a missionary teaching the plan of salvation to a father who relied on the plan and the Savior’s love to sustain his family through mortal trials.

We are grateful President Dallin H. Oaks will be our concluding speaker. When I was a new freshman at Brigham Young University and President Oaks was the new president of Brigham Young University, we spoke together on a panel for parents and prospective students. As I waited nervously for the program to begin, President Oaks leaned over to assure me. With a warm smile, he said he was wearing a red tie because he was celebrating his 40th birthday and was feeling old. To me, as a new freshman, 40 did seem pretty old!