Gospel Story Finder

I had the privilege to serve my mission in Anchorage, Alaska, USA. It was heartbreaking to come home early due to complications from spraining both ankles and feet. It was certainly not easy, but I had many experiences that taught me valuable life lessons. I learned that Heavenly Father has a purpose for everything that happens in our lives. I also learned how to go through trials with a better perspective. My relationship with the Savior became stronger than it had ever been because I learned how applicable the healing power of His Atonement is.
Heavenly Father truly helped me through this difficult time. Even though I still struggle at times, I know that Heavenly Father is in control and that He knows what I need in my life more than I do.
Amber Bangerter, Utah, USA

While I was growing up, reading the scriptures was not emphasized in our small branch, and very few young people could afford their own sets of scriptures. I tried to read the Book of Mormon but never seemed to get past 1 Nephi. I knew I would have to read more someday, but the real motivation didn’t come until my mission.
Two weeks after I arrived in the mission field, my companion announced that we were scheduled to meet with a family to present a discussion. I was new, so I told my companion he would have to do the talking and I would provide moral support.
That evening we met in a humble home crowded with a family and their friends. I found a chair almost out of sight behind a big pot-bellied stove. My companion presented the lesson, and I was pleased and proud of the clarity of his message and the apparent acceptance of the group. We received permission to meet again the following week.
When we arrived for our next visit, I noticed a newcomer—a large man dressed in a suit. He was introduced to us as the family’s minister, and he said he wanted to hear what we were telling the members of his congregation. His appearance intimidated me, so I quickly found my chair behind the stove.
My companion again began the discussion. This time, however, he was constantly interrupted by the minister, who challenged every point my companion made and tried to refute it with other scriptures. I was not able to contribute anything. When my companion finally finished, the minister stood and condemned us, saying that we were preaching the doctrine of the devil and that we should go back to Utah and ask the Lord to forgive us for deceiving these people.
I was shaken and confused. That night I slept little, but I made a clear, firm resolution. I had to find out if what I was teaching was the truth—for if it was not, I knew I could not spend two years doing work I did not really believe in.
The next day I began to earnestly read the Book of Mormon for the first time. I read every day, every chance I could get. For the first time, I got past 1 Nephi. I was engrossed in the story, in the trials of the Nephites and their wars with the Lamanites. I learned about Jacob, Enos, King Benjamin, Ammon, Alma, Mosiah, and other great prophets in the first half of the book.
Then I began reading the latter part of the book of Alma. I immersed myself in the discourse of Alma to his son Corianton. Then I read Alma’s discussion of the Atonement. I had never read anything so clear. It penetrated my mind and heart. It was as though the Spirit opened my mind to matters beyond my understanding. The laws of justice and mercy became clear, and I knew then, more than ever, that Jesus Christ was indeed the Redeemer of the world.
As I completed the Book of Mormon, I knew that the gospel of Jesus Christ that I was preaching was true, and I was proud to be a missionary for the Lord. The testimony I gained through the Book of Mormon has been a bulwark in my life ever since.

When I was a young man, I spent summers working on my Uncle Bill’s farm. Each year we would spend weeks getting our old John Deere 95 Hillside Combine in working order to harvest our grain. The 95 Hillside was old even back then; I was pretty sure that the model just before it was pulled by horses. It was a tremendous effort to get the combine ready each season. One year, my uncle was able to purchase a used Massey Ferguson Combine. The Massey Ferguson was still old but newer than the 95 Hillside and it featured a cab, which I was very excited about.

One morning, my uncle asked me to drive up to the field and start cutting grain with the new combine. I was thrilled! As a newly licensed teenager, any excuse to drive, let alone run the combine, was exciting. Upon arriving at the combine, I went through a mental checklist of things my uncle had taught me, and within a few minutes, I was off and running. It was exhilarating until at the top of a hill I heard a loud clang from the engine. I quickly looked around the combine, and gauges and everything seemed to be okay, so I decided to ease the combine off the hill before checking what had happened. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, however, the combine was overheating. I started to panic. I had once observed my father let an engine run after climbing a hill to help it cool off so I decided not to turn the engine off. While sitting there I realized I was in the middle of a tall growth of grain. My uncle’s warning to never park a hot vehicle in a field pierced my thoughts and escalated my panic. I jumped out of the combine and rolled around on the ground to flatten the grain around the combine. Then I jumped back into the combine praying that the engine had cooled down. It had not. Panicked, I ran back to the pickup and drove to a neighbor’s field to ask for help. When I explained the situation to my neighbor, he just looked at me and said, “Well, did you turn it off?” I didn’t say anything, I just backed away jumped in the pickup, and drove as fast as I could back to the combine. When I arrived, the combine was sputtering and cackling. I quickly turned the engine off. At that moment, I had the thought that I should open the hood and see what had happened to the engine. I opened the hood to discover that the fan pulley had broken. No amount of letting the engine run would have cooled it down. Suddenly the weight of what I had done pressed down on me. For those of you who are unfamiliar with farm economics, losing a combine is a big deal. I was defeated; a wave of emotion hit me as I thought about how I would explain this to my uncle.

As I pulled up to the driveway, my uncle came out to meet me. I took a shaky breath and, with my head down, explained what had happened. I ended with the comment, “I guess you’ll never want me to run your equipment again.” He paused for a moment, looked at me, and said, “Well, you’re a better operator now than you were this morning.” I was taken back. I thought maybe he doesn’t understand how bad it is, but to his credit, he never said anything more about it, even when we had to pull out the old John Deere 95 to finish the harvest.

After that moment my feelings towards my uncle changed. I had always been a good worker; I was obedient and did my duty, but the mercy my uncle had shown to me was beyond my understanding. He could have crushed me in that moment by validating all the negative thoughts I was having about myself—how stupid I had been, how I had known better, how broken I felt inside—but instead he built me up and used this experience to help me grow. After that, I would wake up at 4 AM and get dressed, then lay in bed until I heard his footsteps on the floor above. Then I would race up the stairs to meet him by the door because I never wanted a day to start without him knowing how grateful I was and how much I loved him. My uncle’s mercy had switched my obedience from doing “chores” to working because I loved him.

This experience has helped me contextualize God’s love for me, because if my uncle could forgive me for ruining the combine, then I could start to understand how a loving Heavenly Father could forgive me of my combine big failures. I could start to get a glimpse of His willingness to work with me on the sins that so easily beset me.[3] And while I don’t understand how He could offer up His Only Begotten Son for me,[4] the fact that He did has changed the way I keep His commandments. I pray each day because I never want a day to go by that I don’t express my love for Him. I pour out my heart unto Him in my weakness because I need God in my life. Understanding God’s mercy and love for me, getting a glimpse of what Christ suffered for me, changes my obedience from compliance and duty to love and service. I cleave unto God because I love Him.

It was the middle of winter, and I was in my beach clothes. My little sister had been planning this for weeks, and it was finally here: the family inside beach party! We’d all helped prepare by drawing decorations, hanging lights inside, and covering the floor with beach towels. My dad even joked about putting sunscreen on! We listened to beach music and ate our dinner on the floor. After eating we played our own version of volleyball by tying a string across the room for the “net” while each team tried to blow a feather over the string rather than hitting a ball. Laughing together at the different faces each of us made was the best part of the night. But doing something together as a family—something really fun and different—made it even better.

When I was a young man, I accompanied a Protestant friend to his church service. There I heard a minister take on the subject of sin. It was an uneven contest. That minister really beat up on sin. He condemned it. He denounced it. He castigated it. He left no doubt in the mind of anyone that he was against sin. But he didn’t give the congregation one word of definition or explanation about what it was.

One of my favorite hymns is “Because I Have Been Given Much” (Hymns, no. 219). As a member of an area presidency in the Philippines, I once attended a stake conference in the Philippines just a few days after a bad typhoon. Many of the members’ homes had been destroyed, and I wondered if they would come to the conference. But the Philippine Saints filed into the chapel with smiling faces. In that meeting, they sang “Because I Have Been Given Much.” I marveled at their faith and devotion.

It was in Toronto that John Taylor heard the gospel as a result of some unusual circumstances. Parley P. Pratt had been sent to the city by revelation (Elder Heber C. Kimball had also prophesied: “… and from the things growing out of this mission, shall the fulness of the gospel spread into England”). He had received from a stranger in Hamilton, Canada, a letter of introduction to a John Taylor in Toronto, but when Elder Pratt called at the Taylor home, his reception was polite but not exactly cordial. So after presenting his message to ministers in the city, Elder Pratt prepared to leave. Valise in hand, he was saying good-bye to John Taylor when a neighbor came in, offered her home for Elder Pratt to preach in, and proposed to lodge and feed him. The neighbor was a member of a study group that the Taylors had organized. Within a number of days, John Taylor heard Elder Pratt preach. This was his response:
“We are here, ostensibly in search of truth. Hitherto we have fully investigated other creeds and doctrines and proven them false. Why should we fear to investigate Mormonism? This gentleman, Mr. Pratt, has brought to us many doctrines that correspond with our own views. … We have prayed to God to send us a messenger, if he has a true Church on earth. … I desire to investigate his doctrines and claims to authority, and shall be very glad if some of my friends will unite with me in this investigation. But if no one will unite with me, be assured I shall make the investigation alone. If I find his religion true, I shall accept it, no matter what the consequences may be; but if false, then I shall expose it.”
He followed Elder Pratt around and wrote down eight different sermons he delivered. He then privately compared them with the scriptures. “I made a regular business of it for three weeks and followed Brother Pratt from place to place.” He and his wife joined the Church shortly thereafter.

And I have seen it in young fathers trying to provide for their families. In that regard I once terrifyingly saw it in myself. At one point in our married life when financial fears collided with staggering fatigue, I took a psychic blow that was as unanticipated as it was real. With the grace of God and the love of my family, I kept functioning and kept working, but even after all these years I continue to feel a deep sympathy for others more chronically or more deeply afflicted with such gloom than I was. In any case we have all taken courage from those who, in the words of the Prophet Joseph, “search[ed] … and contemplate[d] the darkest abyss”3 and persevered through it—not the least of whom were Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Elder George Albert Smith, the latter being one of the most gentle and Christlike men of our dispensation, who battled recurring depression for some years before later becoming the universally beloved eighth prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I made a new friend who was not a member of the Church, and he sometimes invited me to go to parties. These parties were the same day as Mutual, so I told him, “I’m sorry. I would like to go, but I have other plans.”
He asked what I was doing. I told him, “I’m going to Mutual.”
“What’s Mutual?” he asked.
I explained that we had a lot of fun activities at Mutual and that I was serving as a counselor in the presidency. After I turned down three invitations to his parties, he said, “Invite me to Mutual.”
So he came with me, the missionaries taught him, and he was eventually baptized.

There are times when we can become upset at imagined hurts or perceived injustices. President Heber J. Grant, seventh President of the Church, told of a time as a young adult when he did some work for a man who then sent him a check for $500 with a letter apologizing for not being able to pay him more. Then President Grant did some work for another man—work which he said was 10 times more difficult, involving 10 times more labor and a great deal more time. This second man sent him a check for $150. Young Heber felt he had been treated most unfairly. He was at first insulted and then incensed.
He recounted the experience to an older friend, who asked, “Did that man intend to insult you?”
President Grant replied, “No. He told my friends he had rewarded me handsomely.”
To this the older friend replied, “A man’s a fool who takes an insult that isn’t intended.”3

A year ago, a man in our ward was diagnosed with cancer. By the time the cancer was detected, the tumor had grown around the bone and nerves in a way that made it inoperable. Randy was given 10 months to live. He began chemotherapy treatments, and his family and the ward began fasting and praying for him and others in the ward with serious health problems. At nine months, on Randy’s last visit to his doctor, the doctor sat at the desk and shook his head. Nine months before, Randy was given no chance of survival; that day, the tests showed no signs of a tumor.

God answers prayers and performs miracles today. But why did God perform a miracle by sparing Randy’s life when another man in our ward died from cancer just a few weeks later? The other man’s family and the ward prayed and fasted for him as well. In both cases, there were lessons to be learned—for the individuals involved, for their families, and for the ward. Faith was tested, people became stronger, and a ward grew closer together.

Recently in the mail was a query from friends in California, now retiring from schoolteaching, who indicated a desire to return to Utah and who asked, “What can we do for the Church when we return?”
My answer was, “Don’t come to Utah. Your church experience is needed out in the world. Brush up on your Norwegian that you learned as a missionary years ago.” I understand they will soon be on their way. He is thrilled with this opportunity to serve a second mission, and this time he will have an added blessing of keeping the same companion for his entire mission.

A little-known fact is that President Monson has rescued someone in distress. Here’s how the story goes: A warm summer day found 12-year-old Thomas Monson floating in a large, inflated inner tube from a tractor tire down the river in Provo Canyon. Just as he was about to enter the swiftest part of the river, he heard frantic cries, “Save her! Save her!” A young woman had fallen into a deep part of the river. None of the people on the bank could swim to save her. President Monson reports that he saw the top of her head disappear several times under the water before he stretched forth his hand, grabbed her hair, and lifted her over the side of the tube. He paddled the tube with the young woman over to her relatives and friends, where he was hugged and kissed. He says that he was embarrassed and that he quickly returned to the tube and continued his float down the river.

Thirteen years ago this month, my wife Kristy's little brother Derrick was tragically killed in an ATV accident one Saturday morning when he was with his friends. He was a BYU-Idaho student who had just returned home from his mission. His sudden passing was a great trial that was unexpectedly thrust upon my wife, her parents, and the rest of the family. This was a difficult experience; it wasn't easy to process the tragedy. It would have been very easy, and even understandable, for his family members to ask why, to blame, to become bitter or angry, and to lose faith. They could have chosen to take that path-but they didn't.

Never once have I heard Kristy, her parents, or anyone else in the family question, complain, or express bitterness about what happened.

Instead, they chose to accept what happened and to move forward with faith, not letting that difficult experience become a stumbling block for them. It was tough. It hurt then, and it still does today, but they chose the better path—the path of having faith in a loving Heavenly Father, in His plan, in the covenants they have made, and in the knowledge that they will see Derrick again. They provided support to each other, and they received support from the scriptures, the words of the prophets, the Atonement of Christ, their friends and family members, and keeping their covenants.

A long, long time ago, Juanita Ray and I met while attending BYU. We played racquetball together, courted for a time, and were married in the temple. As newlyweds, we had no money. We lived in a tiny two-room apartment with low ceilings, we bought clothes from Deseret Industries, and we ate her family’s food storage. We drank powdered milk for almost a year—yuck! But we had each other, we had our love, and we had the gospel. It was a good year. We learned that you don’t need a lot of money to be happy.

“When is your uncle Tanolo going to take you into the kiva?” Little Brown Bear asked. “I am four moons younger than you, yet I was taken into our kiva this day.”
Acuma pulled his rabbit robe closer around his shoulders and sat huddled by the fire, watching the smoke curl upward to add more blackness to the sooty ceiling of the big cave.
“I don’t know,” he said sadly. “I have done everything I am supposed to do.”
“A boy must prove he is now a man before he can enter a kiva,” Little Brown Bear continued. “Have you gone on a hunt?”
“Oh, yes. We stalked the deer through snow and drove him to the edge of our flat mountain. It was my arrow that brought meat to our fire.”
Little Brown Bear shook his head. “I cannot understand. Surely Tanolo is not so cruel that he would tease you.”
Acuma shrugged but did not answer. He had done everything that was required. He knew the legends, his arrow points were well made, he could make fiber from the yucca plant and weave it into heavy sandals, and he could shoot a straight arrow. All these things his cousin from the big cave village had done too, and this day he had been taken into the kiva.
This was an honor for which every Indian boy lived. Yet Acuma could not go. His father said he was well prepared, but Tanolo would not take him. An Indian boy could not be taken to the kiva by his father. At birth an uncle is chosen to be his teacher, and it is this uncle who must take him to the kiva, where he will go through the rituals to become a man.
Acuma glanced at his cousin, wishing Little Brown Bear could tell him what had happened down in the kiva in his own village. But of course, it was a secret.
When Little Brown Bear left for his own cave village, Acuma jumped up and called his brown dog. He threw off the rabbit blanket. He would be running and his body would warm on this winter day.
“I will not shed tears like that foolish Popeta,” he exclaimed, and he dashed off to chase rabbits. Maybe he would kill one with his throwing stick and show his uncle how skilled he was. Acuma’s dog romped along beside him as they scrambled down the side of the canyon to the creek below.
Then he stopped in surprise. Popeta was filling a water jug to carry back up the steep canyon wall to the cave. She seemed small although she was his own age. Her father could not till his cornfield properly because of a lame leg, so the family did not have enough to eat. And because the father could not run fast, he could not kill enough rabbits to make new blankets. The one over Popeta’s shivering shoulders was badly worn.
“You wear no blanket,” Popeta said in surprise, her teeth chattering. “It is cold.”
Acuma squared his brown shoulders. “I am a man, and I do not feel the cold,” he boasted. “I shall run and catch a rabbit for our dinner.” He started off.
Popeta lifted the heavy water jug. As she did so, the blanket fell from her shoulders. Immediately the brown dog grabbed it in his teeth and raced off, dragging it through the thorny bushes.
“Come back, come back!” Popeta cried out. “It is my only blanket.” She spun angrily on Acuma. “Your horrible dog has stolen my blanket. Go get it.”
Then her shivering grew worse and she began to cry as she climbed the canyon wall with the water jug on her head.
Acuma tried to find the dog, but it had raced down the canyon, dragging the blanket. He could see torn scraps hanging on bushes.
“It is no good now anyhow,” he said as he raced along, feeling warm. Soon he threw his curved stick at a rabbit and proudly carried the dead animal home.
“We already have meat for stew, my son,” his mother said while she stirred something in a clay pot over the fire. “You are a great hunter, and my heart is proud. But why not give it to one who has none?”
Acuma strolled over to Popeta’s fire. “Here you will have meat.”
She thanked him, then asked, “Did you find my blanket? Without it I will have nothing to warm me tonight.”
Acuma shrugged. “No I could not find it.”
He forgot about Popeta as he ate his hearty stew that night and sat huddled by the fire, his own warm blanket over his shoulders.
During the night he awoke feeling cold and pulled the rabbit fur blanket up closer. Somewhere he could hear crying.
It is probably that foolish Popeta, he thought. She always cries.
The next day he could not see her by her fire.
“She is not well,” his mother said. “She needs food and warm blankets. But I have none to spare.”
Too bad, Acuma though carelessly and ran off. But every now and then he remembered her crying.
“It is the fault of my dog,” he grumbled to himself. And the more he thought about it, the less he enjoyed the games he played with his friends.
That night he could not sleep. Finally he got up and went to the small dark room behind the cave where Popeta slept.
“Here is my blanket,” he said. “Use it.”
“But it is not yours to give,” she said in surprise.
“I will lend it,” Acuma said, and he hurried back to his room. He was shivering. How cold it was! He found an old feather blanket that was so worn it could not cover him well. But if he curled up in a tight ball in the very corner of his room the blanket kept out a little of the cold. Popeta had been right—he could not give away his blanket, since all things in the family belonged to the mother. Though he used it, the blanket was his mother’s property.
Then I must make Popeta one, he decided.
For many days his friends called him to play games, but he could not because he was hunting rabbits. He had no idea it took so many to make a blanket. He gave the meat either to his mother or to Popeta, and he sat late into the night cleaning and tanning the skins. He sighed wearily. There was so much work and no fun. At times he was tempted to stop, but remembering Popeta’s tears during that cold night kept him going.
And the few hours he slept, he was always cold. He longed for his own rabbit fur blanket again.
After he had collected enough skins, he had to make many, many arrow points—the very best he could. Then he hurried to his cousin’s village, to the Blanket Maker.
“I will give you these fine arrow points if you will make me a blanket,” he said. “But I must have it quickly. The nights get colder and snow is now on the ground.”
Soon the blanket was finished and Acuma took it to Popeta. “This is yours. It should keep you warm.”
Popeta handed him back his own. “You are kind and it is a beautiful blanket. You have brought us so much meat that I am well. My mother and father do not feel hunger either.”
“I shall see that you have meat in your pot,” Acuma said in embarrassment, then hurried to his own campfire.
That night his uncle came to him.
“When the morning sun rises, you will come with me. It is time for you to enter the kiva to learn the things that will make you a man.”
Acuma’s heart leaped with joy. “I am pleased, my uncle. But tell me, why have you chosen the time as now? For these many moons I have been ready—knowing the making of arrow points, yucca fiber, and the hunt.”
“But the one thing you did not know, my son, you have learned,” Tanolo replied. “A boy plays and gives no thought to others. A man gives up his playing when there is work to be done. Because your dog caused misery to another, you did what was you duty to do, and you did it without complaint. I have watched you and my heart is proud. You shall be known as Acuma, the one who has the heart of a man, though his body is still that of a boy.”

When I was 17 years old, it was time for me to prepare to serve a mission. I had my interviews with my bishop, and in one of them he asked me if I had a testimony of the restored Church of the Savior Jesus Christ.
I began to meditate and simply shared with him the things that I had heard from the other members of the ward when they shared their testimonies. Then I realized that I had never prayed for myself to know if the gospel was true. I was born in the covenant, but when it came time to prepare for my mission, I realized that I was simply active in the Church out of custom or tradition.
I made it a goal to study The Book of Mormon every day and to pray to my Father to find out if it was true. Time passed, and I didn’t feel any answer until I got to the last chapter of the Book of Moroni, verses 3 through 5, which say:
“Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
“And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:3–5).
I was concerned because I had already finished the whole book and didn’t feel like I had received any response. In my neighborhood there was so much noise that the windows in my room were vibrating, I knelt down and prayed the most sincere prayer I have ever prayed in my life, and I begged my Heavenly Father to help me know if the Book of Mormon was true and if the Prophet Joseph Smith was a true prophet and if this was His Church.
With tears in my eyes and a very warm feeling in my chest, I felt how everything around me fell silent, and I heard the voice of the Spirit testifying to me that it was true. Since that day, I am a totally different person, and I have a solid and firm testimony thanks to my Heavenly Father.

I think of my ancestors in Scotland and northern England who left behind everything they had known to follow the call of a prophet of God telling them to gather with the saints in America, ancestors who essentially came with nothing but their meager possessions and a testimony of truth. Many had no idea where they would be going, had no home or job waiting for them and in many cases no family to anticipate other than those they brought with them. I can scarce imagine such faith. One of these, Robert Harris, a member of the United Brethren, knew nothing of the church and when his wife Hannah Maria went with her sister and her husband, Daniel Browett, to listen to a preacher named Wilford Woodruff, he was not interested. But his wife was. Robert became frustrated with her interest and determined to do something about this Mormon preacher. My grandmother's journal records the following: "That evening he organized a mob. The plot was to 'rotten egg' the Mormon Preachers and then ride them out of town on a rail, and perhaps even tar and feather them. That night they went to the meeting. As Brother Woodruff was speaking, Robert gave the signal and said, 'Now is the time, boys. Let's go in and pitch Woodruff and his companions out.' As he walked toward the front, Robert saw his wife on the front seat listening intently to the words of Brother Woodruff. Again this strange feeling engulfed him and he became overpowered. He put up his hands to stop the mob. 'There is something to this religion.' The mob all bowed their heads and went out. Brother Woodruff continued his meetings and Robert attended. At the end of the sixth meeting, he stepped up to Brother Woodruff and said, 'You have made me a convert to your teachings. I desire to be baptized at your hands.' He was baptized in March 1840, just three weeks after his wife." Later, in 1841, Robert was Daniel Browett's counselor on the ship "Echo" that sailed with 109 members of the church for America. It took them 10 weeks to get from England to Nauvoo. He was among those driven out, and subsequently enlisted with the Mormon Battalion, eventually returning overland from California to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley in October of 1847.

Sacred music has tremendous power to help us learn and live gospel principles. A sister was asked to talk to some youth in a seminary class about Church music. Her first question to the youth was, “What were some of the lessons you were taught in Primary?” There was no response. Then she asked the students if they could remember any Primary songs. Many hands were raised, and the youth shared countless song titles. The sister wrote gospel principles on the chalkboard, and Primary songs and hymns were listed under each principle. Those young people quickly understood that music teaches the principles of the gospel, and songs and hymns—and the messages they teach—are remembered for years.

The other day I was playing outside with my younger brother. As I was walking on the grass outside our apartment, I spotted something pink and shiny. I picked it up and saw that it was a pen with pictures of naked women on it. I remembered the story about pornography in the March 2004 Friend that my mom read to us during family home evening just two weeks ago. I immediately threw the pen over the fence and ran upstairs to tell my mom what happened. My mom asked me to show her where the pen was so that she could throw it away where no one else might find it. I felt good inside and knew that the Holy Ghost helped me to choose the right.