Gospel Story Finder

One day in October 1992 as I was coming home from my school in Cape Verde, I noticed two young men dressed in white shirts and ties. I decided to speak to them. As we talked, I could feel great love emanating from them. They told me their names and the name of their church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then they invited me to become acquainted with their families by showing me photographs. They also expressed an interest in coming to my house and meeting my family.
When they came to my house, my mother was courteous, but she was not interested in their message. Still, I liked the discussions immensely; each one seemed better than the last. The testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the news of the restored gospel were the most marvelous messages I had ever heard. They truly changed my heart. Eventually, the missionaries mentioned baptism. My mother was not pleased with my desire to join the Church and would not permit me to be baptized.
I continued to investigate the Church and to attend every Church meeting and activity. But I was also obedient to my mother. Many times the elders explained to her the importance of my being baptized, but she would not change her mind.
One day in sacrament meeting, a sister missionary spoke on the subject of prayer. Her words touched my heart deeply, and later at home I meditated on what she had said. Prompted by the Holy Ghost, I decided to pray. I went up on the porch of our house and prayed out loud, opening my heart to my Father in Heaven. I fervently told Him of my desire to join His Church and asked Him to touch my mother’s heart so she would let me be baptized.
It was a prayer I will never forget. Then I went into the house and opened the subject of baptism with my mother. Without a single objection, she responded, “If this is your desire, you may be baptized.” My heart was filled with happiness and praise to God. I knew without a doubt He had heard and answered my prayer.
I was baptized on 13 February 1993 on the island of São Tiago, Cape Verde. A little over a year later, after many more fervent prayers, I baptized two members of my family, my Aunt Edna and my Aunt Ana. In June 1994 I received one of the greatest blessings of my life when I baptized my mother.
Our Father in Heaven is loving and kind. And He always answers our prayers in the way He knows is best for us.

My brothers and sisters, how grateful I am to be here with you in this historic Tabernacle today. Seventy-four years ago, my grandfather Lars Peter Oveson stood at this pulpit and bore his testimony as an invited stake president from Emery County, Utah.
Although he died when I was just a boy, my grandfather has always been one of my heroes. I have studied his journal, which recounts over and over again his willingness to answer the calls that came to him throughout his lifetime. He and his parents converted to the gospel in Denmark, immigrated to this country, and came across the plains to join the Saints in Utah. One of the calls that came to him required leaving his new, young wife for six months to work on the building of the St. George Temple. He left her and their young family again to serve a two-year mission in his native Denmark. Later the calls of bishop and stake president necessitated their relocating and rebuilding their home and farm on three different occasions. Through all of these upheavals, he remained grateful, cheerful, and faithful to the principles of the gospel, leaving a great legacy of faith to those of us who bear his name.

“Father and Mother went to great lengths to make Christmas a happy time for us. One Christmas a piece of string led from our filled stockings to our major presents hidden somewhere in the house. Hours had been spent making these preparations. We boys arose before we were supposed to, and in the dark we accidentally broke the strings. Father and Mother had to spend the remainder of the night repairing the damage.”

Illustrations by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki
Matt: My snowman will be twice as big as yours!
Mandy: In your dreams!
Matt: OK, we’re even so far. But my snowman’s tummy will dwarf yours.
Mandy: Keep dreaming!
Matt: Uh, Mandy? I can’t seem to lift mine.
Mandy: I can’t lift mine either.
Matt: I guess maybe we’ll have to work together.
Mandy: Looks that way.
Matt and Mandy: Heave ho!
Matt: It’s just like I told you, Mandy—It’s better to work together than try to beat each other.
Mandy: You are so wise.

When I was about your age, I learned the importance of a straight and narrow path and how difficult it was to be focused and stay on it. I grew up in a very small town in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. My dad was a farmer, and I learned to work! Every summer I drove the tractor for him, mowing and raking hay, hauling hay bales, and plowing fields. I remember when I first started to learn to plow and cultivate a field. Dad explained the importance of plowing a straight furrow or a straight line. If you went crooked, there would be spots missed in the field and the weeds would take over. He said: “If you will keep your eye focused on the fence post across the field and let that be your goal, you will plow a straight furrow. Don’t let the bumpy terrain throw you off. It’s when you start looking at the end of the tractor that the holes and bumps take you off course and you begin to go crooked.” Then he left me to do the job.
I remembered about the fence post across the field for several rounds, then I started singing songs to make the time pass. I sang every song and hymn I knew, and those I didn’t know I made up. I was singing at the top of my lungs and having a good time when I noticed my dad walking through the field towards me. I stopped the tractor and he said, “Can you tell what has happened to the straight lines?”
I said, “What do you mean?”
He said: “Look at the line. Your first few rounds are straight, but evidently you quit paying attention to where you were plowing. You must have quit looking at the fence post across the field—your goal. Can you see that gradually each time you’ve gone around, you’ve just gone a little crooked until now there are big spots in the field?” He got on the tractor and drove a few rotations to straighten out the lines. As he got off to let me try again, he said, “Sharon, always pay attention to where you are going.”

For Nepali families, drinking tea with milk first thing in the morning is an ingrained tradition. In every home and every tiny shop along every narrow street, small stoves brew tea. To begin to follow the Word of Wisdom has been difficult for many of these young converts.
When Deepak Shrestha’s older brother, who was the first missionary to serve from Nepal, told him the Church was the greatest thing in the world, Deepak was interested. Then his brother challenged him to live the Word of Wisdom. Deepak quickly felt the wisdom of this advice because “it affects the future.” The result of that decision has been the start of Deepak’s strong and continually growing testimony of the gospel.

When Bill and I decided we would like to go to college, we found it would take almost all we had saved since graduation from high school to pay the modest tuition required at the state university located about one hundred miles from our home. On a visit to the campus we did locate a place where we could get board and room for 20 dollars a month apiece but, to our dismay, found that even part-time jobs at less than 25 cents an hour had many takers. The fact that Bill and I had graduated at the top of our high school classes apparently did not qualify us for the few scholarships available; our mother was undergoing expensive medical treatment (she would die within the year), and our father’s small coal mine, still under development, could not be counted on for consistent support. Our determination to attend college seemed hopelessly blocked.
Then Boyd, who was still in high school and a truly extraordinary student, came home to announce that a local transfer company had offered him a job as bookkeeper for their entire operation at a salary of 40 dollars a month. He would have to work long hours after school and all day Saturday, but I can still hear the delight in his voice as he said, “Now Bill and Bob can go to school.”
How our parents and brother managed to send us the 40 dollars we needed each month I still can’t figure out; but, obviously, most of it came from Boyd. My guess is that he spent almost nothing on himself to be sure we had what we needed. Happily, over the years, Bill and I have had a chance to help Boyd, but the very essence of total sharing is that there is no attempt to balance the books. Gifts of pure love are never a sacrifice, and losing one’s life completely in the service of others is to find it completely. Now, after all these years, I understand the deeper meaning of what Mother was trying to instill in us: Unconditional love within the family can prepare us to appreciate the Savior’s gift of eternal life, for he is our brother.

Three years ago, Edward Pentreath was attending a large youth activity in England, where he lives, when he remembers feeling the Spirit in an overwhelming way.
“After the evening fireside, I went back to my room. I was praying, and suddenly I realized that this gospel is all true. I was so happy. All I could say was, ‘It’s true. I know it’s true.’ I remember calling a good friend of mine. When he picked up the phone, all he could hear was me saying, ‘It’s true! It’s so fantastic!’”
Now when Edward, a member of Ipswich England Stake, describes the feeling he had that night when the Holy Ghost testified of the truthfulness of the gospel, he describes it as a “warm shiver and a tingle which went through my body.” He has learned to recognize that feeling. He says he feels the Spirit often now that his friends are going on missions and as they have opportunities to bear their testimonies at camp, at youth conferences, or in church.

Shortly after I returned from my mission, I received an invitation to go to a dance. At the dance, I misplaced my phone and a young man offered to help me find it. As we talked, we discovered we were both returned missionaries and shared many ideas and goals.
Our relationship continued to develop, and we became engaged. It was our dream to be sealed in the Washington D.C. Temple before it closed for remodeling in March 2018. But after making that decision, we were tested. First, I lost my job and had no way to save money for our trip to the temple. Next, a hurricane was on track to hit Puerto Rico just before our wedding date.
When Hurricane Maria struck, it devastated our beautiful island. Stores closed. We lost electricity; water, food, and other basic items became hard to find. We lost everything we had planned to use for our reception. We had to cancel the reception, and it looked like we would also have to cancel our wedding. Travel in and out of Puerto Rico was limited, and no one knew for how long. I began to feel discouraged, and I was filled with doubt and confusion.
One night, my fiancé and I talked about our situation. Travel was uncertain, and we would have no reception or wedding clothes, but the Spirit confirmed that we needed to trust the Lord. The most important thing was to be sealed in the temple. We prayed to Heavenly Father for help.
Once flights out of Puerto Rico resumed, we had to make new flight plans and reschedule our sealing date. We were without communication for weeks after the hurricane, but a friend’s cell phone worked. She let us use it to contact the temple. We were able to rearrange everything so we could still be sealed! A few weeks before our trip, family members and friends donated shoes and clothing and helped us obtain many things for our wedding.
When we finally entered the temple, we left all our worries behind. We held each other’s hand to enter our future together. I can truly say I felt the Lord’s hand guiding and reassuring us that as long as we trusted Him, everything would be OK. Today, we are blessed with a beautiful son and we are a family sealed for all eternity.

Soon after Sabrina and Camila returned to church, they began reaching out themselves. When Ana Carolina Batista, 14, began investigating the Church with her mother, the twins were there to help. The first time she attended church, Ana Carolina’s anxiety melted when the twins sat by her side and showed her how to look up scriptures from the lesson. “This made me feel good, because I didn’t know what to do. I felt relieved to see there were people to help me.”
Ana Carolina says the friendship of the twins made her decision to join the Church much easier. Sabrina and Camila were also happy; their little class was growing.

I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”

Jaslyn Simpson took a leap of faith in a Beehive class of only two young women. The Beehive adviser in the Crofton Downs Ward, Wellington New Zealand Stake, challenged the Beehives, as part of a lesson on missionary work, to invite a friend to church. And Jaslyn decided she would do it.
“I knew there was something missing in Amy’s life,” Jaslyn says, “so I knew I should introduce her to the gospel.” Jaslyn’s small act of love triggered a major change in the life of her best friend, Amy Valentine. Amy came to church with Jaslyn at the first invitation. She kept coming to Sunday meetings and weeknight activities for the next two months, until Jaslyn and her family moved to Sydney, Australia.
“I had never really had a Christian background. I had no idea how to pray or anything,” Amy says. “But before Jaslyn and her family moved, I decided I was going to keep going to church without them. By then, I knew some other people at church.”
One of those people was Michelle Broczek, the other Beehive in the Crofton Downs Ward. Michelle invited Amy to take the missionary discussions in her home and, with her parents’ approval, Amy was baptized when she was 13. That was five years ago.

Jacob ran into the kitchen with Wyatt and Lucy. “Let’s get ready for general conference!” Daddy said. Mommy cracked eggs into a bowl. Wyatt scooped in flour. Lucy poured in milk. Daddy sprinkled in sugar. Jacob stirred everything with a big spoon. Daddy poured batter into a hot pan. The pan sizzled and popped! Jacob watched the pancakes cook. Daddy put the pancakes onto plates. Everyone carried a plate to the table. After the pancakes were all gone, Mommy turned on the TV. “There’s the prophet!” Jacob said. He loved General Conference Pancake Breakfast!

Sometimes we need strength because life is hard for us. Christy wanted to memorize the articles of faith and earn her Gospel in Action award. It was extra hard for her because she has cerebral palsy. Christy had faith that the Lord would help her. She listened to the song tapes of the Articles of Faith over and over. She practiced until she could sing them all—and earned her award. Her family and friends were blessed by her good example.

Several years ago I attended a stake conference in Tonga. Sunday morning the three front rows of the chapel were filled with men between 26 and 35 years of age. I assumed they were a men’s choir. But when the business of the conference was conducted, each of these men, 63 in total, stood up as their names were read and were sustained for ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood. I was both pleased and stunned.

After the session I asked President Mateaki, the stake president, how this miracle had been accomplished. He told me that in a stake council meeting reactivation was being discussed. His stake Relief Society president, Sister Leinata Va‘enuku, asked if it would be appropriate for her to say something. As she spoke, the Spirit confirmed to the president that what she was suggesting was true. She explained that there were large numbers of wonderful young men in their late 20s and 30s in their stake who had not served missions. She said many of them knew they had disappointed bishops and priesthood leaders who had strongly encouraged them to serve a mission, and they now felt like second-class members of the Church. She pointed out that these young men were beyond missionary age. She expressed her love and concern for them. She explained that all of the saving ordinances were still available to them and the focus should be on priesthood ordinations and the ordinances of the temple. She noted that while some of these young men were still single, the majority of them had married wonderful women—some active, some inactive, and some not members.

After thorough discussion in the stake council, it was decided that the men of the priesthood and the women of the Relief Society would reach out to rescue these men and their wives, while the bishops spent more of their time with the young men and young women in the wards. Those involved in the rescue focused primarily on preparing them for the priesthood, eternal marriage, and the saving ordinances of the temple. During the next two years, almost all of the 63 men who had been sustained to the Melchizedek Priesthood at the conference I attended were endowed in the temple and had their spouses sealed to them. This account is but one example of how critical our sisters are in the work of salvation in our wards and stakes and how they facilitate revelation, especially in family and Church councils.

Klarie dribbled hard and fast down the court. This is it, she thought. The tallest, fastest girl on the team had been guarding Klarie the whole game. But now she was guarding someone else. This was Klarie’s chance!
She quickly spun away from another player and set her feet. Then she jumped and took her shot. The ball sailed through the air as Klarie held her breath. Please go in.
The ball swished through the net.
Klarie’s team members gave her high fives. Then Coach Garcia looked down at the timer and blew her whistle. “And that’s the end of practice! Good job, everyone! I’ll see you all tomorrow. Make sure to rest up because we’ll be doing a lot of sprints.”
Klarie groaned and walked over to gather her stuff. Then she saw Coach Garcia waving her over.
“Hey, Klarie,” she said. “Good job today. I know you work really hard in practice, and I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you,” Klarie said with a big smile.
She was still smiling as she walked out to her mom’s car. And as they drove home, she replayed her last shot in her head. Especially the swish of the ball through the net. She hardly even noticed the conference talk Mom was listening to.
But then something caught her attention. The speaker said, “We must take time to actively exercise our faith.”* The words “actively exercise” sounded like something she would hear at basketball practice. How do you exercise faith? she thought. Do you run with faith? Or dribble faith like a ball?
Klarie turned to Mom. “How do you exercise faith?” she asked.
Mom smiled. “How do you get better at basketball?”
“I practice,” Klarie said. “My coach tells me how to get better. And when we do drills, I try really hard to do them right.”
“Is it easy?”
“No!” Klarie said, remembering how tired her legs felt after sprints. “I have to practice a lot.”
Mom nodded. “Heavenly Father wants us to have faith in Him, but we have to work on it. He gave us ways to practice and get better.”
“Like what?”
“He asks us to talk to Him in prayer. He’s kind of like our coach. He gives us scriptures. They’re like His playbook. And He inspires prophets to encourage us to learn as families. Our family is like—”
“Like our team!” Klarie interrupted.
“Exactly! Our family team works and practices together,” Mom said. “So what happens when you go to practice, Klarie?”
“I get better,” she said. She thought of how good it felt to make her final shot after working hard in practice for weeks.
“That’s right. When we practice, we’re exercising our faith. That helps our testimonies get stronger. And it makes us happier.”
Klarie had never thought of faith like that. She had heard faith was like a seed. But she’d never known it could be like playing basketball! She thought about how her coach made practice plans for their team. Maybe I can make a practice plan too, she thought, but for faith! As soon as she got home, she found a big notepad and started writing:
Prayer—morning and night
Scripture study—every day
Church—every Sunday
Maybe exercising faith wasn’t exactly like practicing basketball. But practice was practice. She felt warm and happy inside as she looked at her plan. She trusted Heavenly Father and knew He would help her!

A few weeks ago, just before 6:00 a.m., my wife and I boarded a taxi to begin the last lap of our trip to Salt Lake City from Australia. Our driver, who had been on duty since 3:00 a.m., was anxious to talk with us, his first passengers of the day. We learned his parents were born just outside of Mexico City. They moved to Chicago, where he was born, and then moved to New Mexico. Twenty years earlier our friend had come for a short visit to San Francisco and had never left. During our trip to the airport, this man related a few incidents from which some great truths were reemphasized.
One other important point was made by this unusual taxi operator. He told us that some of his unmarried friends who are also taxi drivers are often out of money. They come to him to borrow. He indicated that he is generally able to help them over tight money spots. When his companions asked how he is able to support his family on his salary when they can’t even keep themselves, he said, “I tell them I don’t waste money at the races or on liquor or tobacco. My wife fixes our meals at home, and we don’t have to pay for expensive restaurant food.” He smiled when he added, “We do our partying with our family.” This man’s objectives are family-oriented, and he has learned the folly of serving the gambling, drinking, and momentary expensive habits.

As Church members unearthed their ancestral past, Sister Stoffers began wondering how they might experience the joy of serving in the temple on their ancestors’ behalf, given the expense of traveling to the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple.
Considering her resources, she remembered the youth and adults in her home ward near Ogden, Utah, USA. With their enthusiasm to serve, could they fill the gap and help their brothers and sisters in Barbados?
Sister Stoffers’s home-ward bishop liked the plan and rallied the support of youth and adults. Soon, names from Barbados were being shared instantly on FamilySearch.
Now, as often as their schedule permits, a battalion of youth converge on the Ogden Utah Temple, where Bishop Rob Smout pulls from a stack of ordinance-ready printouts to divvy among the youth. The talkative youth grow whisper quiet as they contemplate the unusually spelled names of people with whom they have no connection but feel a spiritual kinship.
Participation has been widespread across the ward. On certain Saturdays, a family of five boys arrives early at the temple to enjoy the sunrise over the Wasatch mountains before performing baptisms.
“It’s become a ward quest,” said Bishop Smout. “It has united the ward. Many have become involved and take names routinely, including those who haven’t attended the temple in years. Others have come back into activity to participate.”

Who would have known that one decision made when I was 11 would touch the rest of my life?
At that time, my family seldom attended church. But my brother and I attended Primary. My teacher, in her lesson on temple marriage, told us, “You have to decide now that you’re going to be married in the temple. It can’t wait. Decide today.” It’s the first time I remember feeling touched by the Spirit, and I did decide, right then, that my goal was the temple.
For a few years, nothing changed. I still seldom attended church, but I thought differently. I believed I would someday go to the temple.
Eventually that one decision began to affect other decisions. When I was 14, I decided that a person planning to go to the temple needed to take seminary. I saw myself as a going-to-seminary kind of person.
My friends from seminary attended Young Women activities, so I started going too. I decided that someone who planned to receive temple blessings would be helped by earning her Young Womanhood Recognition award. It wasn’t easy because of my late start in church activity, but a great leader helped me set extra goals to catch up.
One of my goals was 100 percent attendance at church meetings for one month. It was hard to have my parents drop me off each week. Sometimes I coaxed my little sister into going with me so that I wouldn’t have to sit alone. Achieving that goal helped me see that I was a going-to-church kind of person.
I made mistakes, lots of them. Sometimes I became discouraged and thought my temple dream would never come true. A loving bishop guided me, taught me about repentance, and helped me find the determination that no matter how difficult, reaching the temple would be worth it.
Turning 16 brought more decisions. One of my Sunday School teachers warned, “You will marry someone you date. Make sure you date the kind of person you can marry in the temple.” I took his advice seriously and asked myself about each friendship, “Is this the kind of person I could go to the temple with?” Sometimes my judgment was off. Still I kept to my plan until I found the right person to marry in the right place.
My parents supported me in all my decisions. Mom and Dad stood with me on the stand in sacrament meeting the day I received my Young Womanhood medallion. They were there when I graduated from seminary. They were with me when I received my patriarchal blessing, and they supported me as I attended Ricks College.
They were both with me the day I walked to the doors of the temple. I had finally reached the day when I would enter the temple and receive the blessings I had learned about. The angel Moroni, glowing in the early morning sun on the temple spire, seemed to proclaim my joy to the world. I kissed my parents good-bye as I entered.
If I had waited to decide where to marry, it would have been too difficult to leave my parents outside and be married inside the temple. I wouldn’t have had a strong enough testimony of the gospel and the importance of the temple. I may not even have had the opportunity to decide. Leaders, bishops, and friends helped me. My family supported me. But I never would have made it if I hadn’t first decided that I was going to the temple.
In the temple I learned more about Heavenly Father’s plan for me. I hadn’t reached the end of my goal at all. I had only made one more step. So I decided right then to keep my temple promises, no matter how difficult. I decided I was someday going to return to my Heavenly Father.

In my English class we were having a debate about evolution. We easily wandered into the topic of religion. Some students started to ask what members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe. My teacher could not answer the questions.
So he said, “Aleesha, why don’t you tell us what you believe?” I knew that I could not turn this opportunity down. I stood up and told the class some of our basic beliefs. They asked a few questions, which I was able to answer. After class, one girl came up to me and asked me how to learn more. I gave her a Book of Mormon the next day.
The gospel has never made so much sense to me. Being able to share my beliefs with my peers at school strengthened my testimony so much.