Gospel Story Finder

When I tell you that I played football in high school, it is not a boast. It is more of a confession.
You see, football came to our country town later than most. The school board had neither the money for equipment nor for a coach. Instead, we all played basketball. The only equipment you needed was a pair of shoes.
Finally, our principal saved enough to buy 12 inexpensive football outfits, not including shoes. The cleated shoes were too expensive, so we used our basketball shoes instead. Our coach was recruited from the faculty. He was selected because he had once watched a football game. We learned a few simple plays. We learned how to tackle—or so we thought. Then we set off for our first game with Twin Falls, the previous year’s Idaho state champions.
We dressed and went out to the field to warm up. Their school band started to play. They had more students in the band than we had in our entire high school! Then through the gates came their team. Our team of 12—a full team of 11 plus one all-around substitute—watched in amazement as they kept coming through the gates, all 39 of them in full uniform.
The game was most interesting. To say it was a learning experience is rather mild. After two plays we didn’t have any desire to have the ball, so we would kick it away, and soon they would score. Our main problem was how to get rid of the ball. It was less punishing for us when we weren’t being tackled!
In the final minutes of the game the other team became a little reckless. A wild pass fell into the arms of Clifford Lee, who was playing halfback with me. He was startled. He didn’t know what to do until he saw what seemed to be the San Francisco 49ers thundering after him. Then he knew what to do! He was not interested in six points. He ran for his life.
He was fast. He made a touchdown, and we finally got six points on the board. We really didn’t deserve the six points, but with our torn shirts and socks and our bloody shins, we took them anyway. The final score: 106 to 6!
That game was definitely a learning experience. I learned that a team (or an individual) must be prepared. Success in all things depends on preparation.

Father dropped a stack of books on the table and announced, “Tonight for family home evening we are going to write our testimonies in a Book of Mormon. Practice first on a piece of paper. Then, using your best handwriting, put your testimony on the inside cover, and sign your name. We’ll glue a picture of you underneath it, and tomorrow I’ll give the books to the bishop to donate to the missionaries.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Mother. “Maybe what we write will inspire someone to join the Church. Let’s put our address under the pictures, too, and maybe someone will write back to us.”

David and Anna eagerly reached for a piece of paper.

“I’m going to explain about the priesthood and how I was ordained a deacon,” David said.

“I’m going to write about our family and how we can be together forever,” said Anna.

John just sat and stared at his paper.

Soon everyone except John was busily writing. Several minutes later Mother stopped and said, “What’s wrong, John?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“Can’t you decide what to say?” Father asked.

John shook his head.

“Maybe you could write how the Church has a living prophet,” Mother suggested, “or how we read the Book of Mormon every day as a family and how that helps you to make right choices.”

“Yes, I guess I could,” John said. He stared at his paper some more. What could I say that would help anybody? he wondered. Who would ever believe what a seven-year-old had to say?

John thought about his next birthday. It was four months away, and he would be baptized then. An idea began to form in his mind, and he started to write. Several times he crushed up his paper and threw it away, but he kept working at the project.

Everyone else had finished writing when John finally started copying his testimony on the inside cover of his Book of Mormon. When he finished, he reread it one last time.

My name is John Richards. I am seven years old. Soon I will be eight. When I turn eight, I will be baptized by immersion as Jesus was. My father will baptize me and confirm me a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe that this is the true church of Christ. If you read this book and pray about it, Heavenly Father will tell you that the teachings in it are true. Then you can get baptized too. Please write and tell me how you feel when you read this book.
Sincerely,John Richards

Satisfied, John carefully glued his picture underneath it, wrote his address, and added his book to the stack.

“All finished?” Father asked.

“Yes,” answered John. “That sure was hard!”

“Sometimes trying to express your feelings is hard,” agreed Father. “But sharing your testimony will not only help someone else learn about the Church. It will also help your testimony grow stronger.”

“Is that why I feel good now?” John asked.

“I’m sure it is. And when someone gets your book and reads what you wrote, maybe he will get that good feeling too.”

Each day after school John eagerly raced to the mailbox, hoping to find an answer from the person who received his Book of Mormon.

But it was Anna who excitedly said one day, “An answer! An answer! I got an answer!” And three days later both Father and David got a letter.

“My letter came all the way from half way around the world,” David bragged.

Tears welled up in John’s eyes. He crept round to the back of the house and sat by his favorite tree.

Mother came out and sat down beside him. She sat in silence for a few minutes, then said, “You’re really disappointed, aren’t you? Do you want to talk about it?”

John hesitated, then wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. “What if the person who gets my book laughs at what I said? What if he thinks that I’m stupid? What if he thinks that a kid doesn’t know anything, and he decides not to read my book?”

Mother gently put her arms around John. “No one would laugh. He’d know that you’re very sincere and that you care about him. And children can often touch people’s hearts in a way that grown-ups can’t.”

“The why haven’t I gotten an answer?”

“I don’t know, but I’sure that there is a good reason. Maybe the missionaries just haven’t found the right family to give your Book of Mormon to yet. And whether we like it or not, just because we bear our testimonies doesn’t mean that the persons who receive them will accept them. No one has written to me yet, either, so let’s just hope that we’ll still get letters. Sometimes it just takes a while.”

That night when he went to bed, John prayed, “Dear Heavenly Father, please help the missionaries to find the right person for my Book of Mormon. Bless him not to laugh at what I wrote. Bless him to read the Book of Mormon and get a testimony. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

Days became weeks. Finally it was John’s baptismal day. Just before lunch, Anna came running into the house, yelling, “John! John! Look what the mailman just brought.”

John took the envelope Anna was waving and quickly tore it open. It read,

That evening, on August 30, as John came out of the waters of baptism, he whispered, “Peace to you, Tuilolo. Peace to you.”

I know how you feel. My mother died when I was eight. I was bitter, and I hated everything that had anything to do with the Church. I especially hated God for taking my mother from me and my family.
For a long time I just went through the motions of Church activity, and then when I was seventeen my Laurel adviser gave a lesson on families being forever. That lesson really made an impression on me. After that, I started praying and reading my scriptures. I finally got some answers that were real to me. I also talked to my bishop. He helped me understand what I was reading and receiving in my prayers.
Families are forever.
Tina Miller, 19Danbury, Connecticut

A true story from South Africa.
Allyson’s heart pounded. It was almost her turn to give her history presentation. She had practiced again and again with her mom the night before. But still, she felt really nervous. She hated talking in front of people!
“Next up is Allyson,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Please come present your report.”
Allyson stood up from her desk and nervously walked to the front of the classroom. She looked out into the faces of her classmates and took a shaky breath. Her palms felt sweaty. She wiped them on her school uniform.
She opened her mouth to start. But suddenly she didn’t know what to say. Everyone was staring at her, waiting for her to speak. It felt like all the words she had memorized were stuck in her throat. Her stomach felt all twisty.
Then Allyson remembered something. A few weeks ago, her dad had told her a story about how he prayed for the Holy Ghost to help him.
Quickly Allyson said a prayer in her mind. Heavenly Father, she prayed, please help me be calm and do well with my presentation. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
As soon as Allyson finished her prayer, the panic began to melt away. Her shoulders relaxed, and her mind felt clear.
This time when she opened her mouth, the words came easily. “My report is on the early settlers in South Africa in the 1600s,” she said. She shared the facts she had memorized. As she got to the end of her presentation, a feeling of happiness spread through her. She had done it!
Allyson sat down with a smile on her face. Her report wasn’t perfect, but she was really proud of how she did.
“Hey,” her friend Emily whispered from the desk beside her. “You did so good! I thought you hated talking in front of people.”
Allyson laughed quietly. “I thought so too! I just prayed and asked God for help, and He helped me.”
Emily was quiet for a second. Then she whispered, “Wow, maybe I should pray more too.”
As the next student began, Allyson thought about what had just happened. She felt so different after saying her prayer. The Holy Ghost really had helped her feel calm and brave!
Allyson said another quick prayer in her mind. Thank Thee, Heavenly Father, she prayed. Thank Thee for sending the Holy Ghost to help me.

One day at church, we learned a neat lesson about our spirits. I liked it so much that I wanted to go to church a lot more. Now I like every part of church. Every week, I ask how many more days until we go to church. My mom or dad will tell me, and if it is a long time, I am sad. If it is soon, I am happy. Before all this happened, I did not like church. But those days are over. When you go to church more, you learn a lot more. I love church. It is great!Eric Longley, age 8Pearland, Texas

After earning his PhD, the family moved to Bristol, England, where Christophe worked as a computer science professor for six years. He left academia for a time to accept a manager position at ELCA Informatique in Lausanne, Switzerland. In Switzerland, they were just two hours from family for the first time in nearly 13 years. They loved living in Switzerland.

BYU had regularly asked Dr. Giraud-Carrier if he would consider accepting a professorship at the Provo campus. The answer was always no. When the Giraud-Carriers traveled to Utah in 2004, the Computer Science department chair asked them again, “What would make you stay in Utah?” Both Christophe and Isabelle had a strong impression that they should accept a professorship at BYU. They said yes and moved resolutely forward with the direction the Lord was revealing to them.

Who would think that a fire in a sorority house could lead to new progress for the Church? The Alphi Xi Delta sorority house, located adjacent to the University of Michigan campus, caught fire last spring, and the first floor was seriously damaged while the upper two floors suffered smoke damage. Rather than make repairs the sorority sold the handsome brick structure to the Church. Plans were soon under way to make the ideally located building an institute of religion. Contractors took care of the major renovation but members of the Ann Arbor Ward subcontracted the painting of the structure as a building fund project for the new ward house.
Once the work was completed, the Ann Arbor Ward and the University First and Second Branches opened the building for public viewing in a “Meet the Mormons” night. Members and their non-Mormon friends were met with displays on Church publications, the Welfare Program, family home evening, seminary and institute, the Church auxiliaries, genealogy, and restoration. Tours were conducted past the displays and into the Relief Society room where the film “In This Holy Place” was being shown.
Currently classes are being held in the building and are attended by university students and Church members in Ann Arbor and the surrounding area. According to Warner Woodworth, director of the institute, the building is “a religious education center to bridge the gap between spiritual life and academic life.”

The branch president of the Kingston Branch of the Church wore his own identifying label. Gustav Wacker was from the old country. He spoke English with a thick accent. He never owned or drove a car. He plied the trade of a barber. The highlight of his day would be when he had the privilege of cutting the hair of a missionary. Never would there be a charge. Indeed, he would reach deep into his pockets and give the missionaries all of his tips for the day. If it were raining, as it often does in Kingston, President Wacker would call a taxi and send the missionaries to their apartment by taxi, while he himself, at day’s end, would lock the small shop and walk home—in the driving rain.
I first met Gustav Wacker when I noticed that his tithing paid was far in excess of that expected from his potential income. My efforts to explain that the Lord required no more than 10 percent as tithing fell on attentive but unconvinced ears. He simply responded that he loved to pay all he could to the Lord. It amounted to about half his income. His dear wife felt exactly as he did. Their unique manner of tithing payment continued throughout their earning lives.
Gustav and Margarete Wacker established a home that was a heaven. They were not blessed with children but mothered and fathered their many Church visitors. A sophisticated and learned leader from Ottawa told me, “I like to visit President Wacker. I come away refreshed in spirit and determined to ever live close to the Lord.”
Did our Heavenly Father honor such abiding faith? The branch prospered. The membership outgrew the rented Slovakian Hall and moved into a modern and lovely chapel of their own. President and Sister Wacker had their prayers answered by serving a proselyting mission to their native Germany and later a temple mission to the beautiful temple in Washington, D.C. Then, after his mission in mortality was concluded, Gustav Wacker passed away peacefully while being held in the loving arms of his eternal companion. Only one label appears fitting for such an obedient and faithful servant: “Who honors God, God honors.”10

My great-grandfather Henry Jacob Faust was born in a small village called Heddesheim in Rheinland, Prussia. The family went to the United States, and Grandfather Faust went through Salt Lake City on his way west to find his fortune in the goldfields of California. As he was going southward through Utah, he stopped at a well in a little town called Fillmore. There he met a young lady named Elsie Ann Akerley. Grandfather was not a member of our church. This young girl he met was a member. She had crossed the plains with the pioneers. Soon they fell in love. Grandfather went to California and stayed only long enough to get enough gold for a wedding band and then came back to Fillmore, where they were married.
Grandfather was not converted to the Church by the missionaries. I believe he was converted in the main by the testimony of this young girl he met by the well in Fillmore. Grandfather was later appointed by President Brigham Young to be the first bishop of Corinne, Utah. At that time Grandfather was helping bring the railroad to Utah. I am grateful to my grandmother Elsie Ann Akerley, who as a young girl bore her testimony to this strange young man, Henry Jacob Faust from Germany, and helped convert him to the Church.

When I was about six years old, I had two different experiences that, at the time, felt like near-death experiences. The first happened at school. We were outside at recess when the bell rang telling us it was time to head back to class. Unfortunately, a bunch of us reached the door at the same time and there became a terrible bottle neck. I happened to be in the front of this traffic jam that had tripped onto the floor. Then a huge doggy pile began as more and more children reached the door. It was getting harder and harder to breathe at the bottom of this pile. I remember looking up and seeing one girl joyfully pushing other children on top of the pile! I desperately looked for someone—anyone—to help pull me out. Other children in front of me just stared in both amusement and horror. (Useless little...) Well, I made it out, obviously, but that traumatic event left me a little more untrusting of my classmates.

The second experience took place at a small water park about 15 minutes from my home. I remember riding down a water slide, plunging into the pool at the bottom, and then noticing that my feet couldn’t reach the bottom of the pool. The current from the water slides made it difficult to tread water for a child my size, who also lacked swimming experience. I struggled to stay afloat as I went under, came up, went under, and came up again. Just as before, it was getting more and more difficult to breathe, and I really felt that I wasn’t going to make it. Just as I was about to go under again, my Dad appeared. I don’t remember whether he reached into the water or jumped in altogether, but he saved me from what felt like certain death.

Now, in both instances I was being suffocated by my surroundings and was desperately looking for someone to rescue me. And even though I made it out alive, only at the water park did I experience comfort and assurance because my father was both near and attentive, presiding over my welfare, providing life-sustaining breath, and protecting me from a strong current.

Gabe King, 15, of Jeffersonville, Indiana, wasn’t exactly looking for a service project. But when he found out about his neighbor’s misfortune, he couldn’t help but act.
While working in his orchard, the neighbor fell out of a tree. He was hurt badly enough that picking the apples himself was impossible. If the apples weren’t picked, he wouldn’t be able to make a living. Gabe organized a group of about ten young women and men to join him in an apple-picking party. They chose a cool day in October and picked all day long to bring in the man’s crop.
“He was very grateful and really happy,” Gabe explains. “He would have lost a lot of money had we not picked his apples. It was a great feeling to know how much it meant to him.”

In the warmth of late morning on July 7, 1972, President Harold B. Lee walked purposefully from the Salt Lake Temple toward the Church Office Building and the newsmen waiting for his first press conference as the 11th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had just been set apart for his new calling by Elder Spencer W. Kimball, then President of the Council of the Twelve. Upon assuming the leadership of the Church, and flanked by his two newly called counselors, President N. Eldon Tanner and President Marion G. Romney, President Lee said, “The greatest message that one in this position could give to the membership of the Church is to keep the commandments of God for therein lies the safety of the Church and the safety of the individual. There could be nothing that I could say that would be a more powerful or important message today.” (New Era, August 1972, p. 13.)

“I need you to watch your brother,” Mama said. “Your pa and I are going to help someone who is sick.”
I looked up from sweeping the floor of our small house and nodded. Mama was the Relief Society president, and she often went to visit sisters in our ward.
“Thank you, Arlyn,” Mama said, kissing the top of my head. “John’s asleep. And there’s bread dough rising on the counter. Please don’t touch it.”
I watched through the doorway as she and Pa rode the wagon down our dusty road. I felt proud that Mama trusted me.
As I swept the kitchen, I stopped to look at the bread dough. I could hardly wait for Mama to bake it tonight. Usually we ate the fresh bread with homemade jam. But we had run out of jam three months ago.
Jam! The thought made me hungry for something sweet. I glanced up at the sugar jar, high up on the shelf. I knew Mama was saving it to make more jam.
But the more I thought about the sugar, the hungrier I felt. Finally, I pulled a chair up to the counter and reached up. My fingers just barely touched the jar of sugar. I pulled it closer to the edge of the shelf. …
And then the jar slipped right off the shelf! I tried to catch it, but it fell with a loud plop right in the middle of the bread dough. Sugar spilled all over the bread and counter and onto the floor.
“Oh no!” I yelled. That woke my baby brother up. He started crying. I wanted to cry too. What would Mama say about this mess?
After I got John calmed down, I did my best to clean up the sugar. I pulled the jar out of the dough and washed it. I wiped the sugar off the counter and floor. But there was nothing I could do to get the sugar out of the dough.
I thought about putting the jar back on the shelf. Maybe Mama wouldn’t notice it was empty. But I knew that wasn’t right. So I set the jar on the table and waited for Mama and Pa to come home.
When they got home, Mama noticed the sugar jar right away.
I took a deep breath. “I just wanted a taste of sugar. But I knocked the jar off the shelf. I tried to clean it up, but I couldn’t get it out of the bread dough.” The words rushed out as I looked down at the floor.
Mama was quiet for a minute.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
Mama let out a sigh. “Well, I guess the bread will be extra sweet tonight,” she said. I looked up. She gave me a little smile. “Thank you for telling us what happened.”
As we ate the sugary bread that night, Mama and Pa and I talked about honesty.
“We all make lots of mistakes in life,” Pa said. “But when we are honest and try to repent, Heavenly Father and Jesus are happy. We will always be blessed for being honest—even if it seems harder at first.”
I was still sad that I had spilled the sugar. I knew we probably wouldn’t have as much jam this year because of my mistake. But I was glad I had told the truth. That was a sweet feeling no amount of sugar could give.

Often, the activation energy needed for blessings requires more than just looking or asking; ongoing, repeated, faith-filled actions are required. In the middle of the 19th century, Brigham Young directed a group of Latter-day Saints to explore and settle Arizona, an arid region in North America. After reaching Arizona, the group ran out of water and feared they would perish. They pled with God for help. Soon rain and snow fell, allowing them to fill their barrels with water and provide for their livestock. Grateful and refreshed, they returned to Salt Lake City rejoicing in the goodness of God. Upon their return, they reported the details of their expedition to Brigham Young and pronounced their conclusion that Arizona was uninhabitable.

After listening to the report, Brigham Young asked a man in the room what he thought about the expedition and the miracle. That man, Daniel W. Jones, tersely replied, “I would have filled up, went on, and prayed again.” Brother Brigham put his hand on Brother Jones and said, “This is the man that shall take charge of the next trip to Arizona.”

The business I own today was founded by my father nearly 60 years ago. He died in 1980, leaving me to take the helm of the company at the young age of 30.
In those early years, situations came up that required me to make decisions that affected the future of our frail business. I worked hard to act as my father would have acted, and I spent a great deal of time on my knees, trying to discern what to do. In all those decisions, I never felt a calming influence or any direction one way or another. I ultimately did what I thought was best and moved on. But I was disappointed I had not been able to get any confirmation of my actions.
One night my father came to me in a dream. I began to chide him for not helping me know what to do. He said he was aware of my situation but he was busy where he was and his former business was not terribly important. “Chris, we really don’t care about the business up here,” he said. “What we care about very much is what you become because of your business.”
That was a great lesson I hope I never forget. What we get during our life is inconsequential, but what we become in life makes all the difference.

After we got married, I was a fulltime student working on a Ph.D., teaching part time, and we had a new baby girl, Kialoa, our oldest, and I thought I was busy. Then, I was called to serve as the elders quorum president of the Kahaluu Ward by the president of the Kaneohe, Hawaii Stake at the time: President Scott D. Whiting, who is now Elder Whiting whom I just quoted. I laugh now because I thought I was busy then, and now I have six children.

Anyway, I accepted the call with some reluctance. He asked if I had any concerns, and I said something like, “I’m concerned because if I say I’m going to do it, that means I have to do it.” President Whiting, also a lawyer, smiled and said, “It’s funny how that works – when you say you’re going to do something, you have to do it.”

I served as well as I could and then I had to be released because we were moving to Waianae on the other side of the island. When President Whiting released me, he asked, “Why are you moving to Waianae?” I said “I’m pursuing a Ph.D. and doing my dissertation field work there.” “Why a Ph.D.?” he asked. I told him, “My goal is to teach at BYU–Hawaii.” After our interview, I asked him to give me a blessing. The main thing I remembered him saying in that blessing was that our goal of being at BYU–Hawaii would take longer than expected.

A few years later, in 2005, I applied for a position here at BYU–H. I thought the process went well; I think I gave the best research presentation I had ever given (before or since) and felt like that was confirmation that that was the time and place. Humbled is a nice way of saying it, but it was really disappointing and hard to take when I was informed that I didn’t get the job. It didn’t help that the grant I was working under at UH at the time was coming to an end, and I was about to be unemployed when my wife was pregnant with our third child. I thought, “We talk about returnability, but I’m returning home and can’t get a job.” To make a long story short, this was a very challenging time for us but a time we value and have learned from.

Hindsight is always 20-20, and for me, I’m half blind, so that doesn’t help, but I can see clearly now that not getting the job at that time was the best thing that could have happened. I ended up elsewhere, and that experience was invaluable. I completed my Doctoral degree at UH, got a tenure track job at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, we lived on an acre in lower Puna, we made lifelong friends, and my family was thriving. And then to make a long story short, four years after I first applied, I got a job here, and we ended up coming back home; however, it was in a position that I honestly didn’t anticipate or expect to be in.

I guess four years is a magic number for me; it was also four years after we met that we were married. I guess I’m lucky it was not seven years like Jacob or 40 years like Children of Israel.

However, President Whiting’s blessing proved prophetic – it took me longer than expected to return to BYU–Hawaii. In many ways, that’s the story of my life. My name Kali means “wait” in Hawaiian. Things have taken longer than expected. I was born late, and I’m a late bloomer – I was the last of my friends to serve a mission, one of the last to get married, and it also took me a while to finish my education and to start my career.

One day while running some errands, I saw a homeless man in front of the bank. I had seen him there before, and I had always tried to make sure that I smiled and said hello. Although I didn’t usually give him money, I wanted him to know that I’m not trying to avoid him and that I recognized him as a real person. When I got out of the car, I went to put change in the meter, but all I had was a “loonie” (Canadian dollar coin) and a bunch of pennies.
As I stood there and pushed the pennies around, making sure there wasn’t a nickel or dime, I heard the homeless man ask, “Do you have change?”
I told him I didn’t, not even for the meter. Then he surprised me by saying, “Oh, here. I’m sure I have a dime for you.”
I had just tried to shake off this homeless man because I didn’t have any change for him, and then he handed me a dime. But his gift was more than monetary. He also gave me a change of heart. His simple act was charity and service in its truest form. A homeless man begging for change gave his change to someone who needed it more at the moment. I thanked him and then, even though he wasn’t expecting it, gave him my loonie.

But that was all before I began using my famous one-liner: “I intend to go on a mission for the Mormon church, sir.” This was not an original phrase for me. I just happened to pick it up one day in World Studies II, Advanced Review of the Emerging Third-World Nations. In this class we spent a lot of time memorizing the African states, capitals, and leaders. A Mr. Cranberg from Trenton, New Jersey, taught the course very methodically. Most days I quickly memorized my three countries and went on to my geometry. I never noticed that everyone else around me did the same until one day I suddenly detected a slight change in Mr. Cranberg’s drone.
“Anderson, stand!”
“Sir?” replied Anderson, standing in the formal Eaton manner.
“What are you doing?”
“Reading, sir.”
“World Problems?”
“No, sir.”
“How then, explain, do you expect to succeed in this class? And if you do not succeed in this class, how do you expect to understand this complex world in which you live?”
“I live in the dorms, sir. It’s very educational.”
Even I snickered at this.
“Don’t be funny, Anderson. You do not seem to understand the necessity of succeeding in this world. What may I ask do you intend to do after your graduation?”
Looking straight ahead and without a smile, Anderson replied, “I intend, sir, to go on a mission for the Mormon church.”
“A what?”
“A mission, sir.”
“To where? Africa?”
“My brother, sir, went to New Jersey.”
The class broke into an uproar. Mr. Cranberg, furious at this apparent slight toward his home state, assigned us all 18 extra pages of reading, with outline. All of us except Anderson who got 36. No one complained much because of the great joke. And also because of who Anderson was.
He was fairly good-looking and a pretty good athlete, but most of all he was just the sort of fellow who was friends with everyone. Never crude or wild or conceited like some of the boys I watched, he was always so friendly, as though his world were an excellent place into which he wished to draw all his fellows. Even me, it seemed, which puzzled me. I had never had a close friend with whom I confided my problems, my hopes, my dreams. I believe that is why his warmth fascinated me. And also that is why I took as my own his famous line.
It was not that I intended to go anywhere for the Mormon church. In my mind the Mormons were still out in the Rocky Mountains trudging around the hills in their covered wagons. I didn’t connect Scott Anderson with them; I just admired him so much that I stole his line. Besides, I was tired of being “we” and needed a conversation stopper.
But soon after I began using it, I became Anderson’s close friend.
It happened in gym through a bizarre accident. We were on the field playing soccer, when suddenly a ball came sailing from nowhere.
“Save it, Jack, save it,” I heard, and the next thing I felt was a terrible blow to my head. Some primitive instinct told me to fight back, so I kicked with all my strength and heard a crunch before I fell into blackness.
When I awoke, I saw the white curtains of the infirmary and knew I was going to be sick.
“Want me to call Ol’ Collins?”
I rolled over and in my misery saw Anderson’s grin with a slightly fat lip and missing one tooth.
“Anything you want,” I groaned.
Collins came bustling in, murmured about “concussion” and “our mother” and bustled out.
“I didn’t know you could kick so hard.” Again I saw the snaggly grin.
“It must have been the blow to my head. It gave me strength.”
“Your head is only half your problem. We also have two months in the clink together for fighting.”
“Fighting? Who was fighting? And what’s the clink? Where am I, Africa?”
“You and I, sir, have two months in detention hall.”
And that’s how I met Scott Anderson.
For a first friend there could have been no better. He showed me how to play soccer, and I showed him geometry and sentence diagraming. He explained to me the caste system of Eaton from the lowliest freshman to the headmaster. His parents had been assigned to a post overseas, so he was at Eaton finishing up his junior year. His comprehension of human systems astonished me just as my understanding of split participles fascinated him. I felt as though that day of our soccer crash had been for me a grand awakening to a world that had always been but I had never seen. I was a blind man granted sight.
It was four weeks into our detention that I mentioned to Anderson his famous quote from World Problems.
“That was some line,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s no joke, you know. I really am going on a mission.”
“A mission, a mission, what is a mission, Dr. Livingstone?”
“I’m going out into the world to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
“Why?”
“Because the Church is true.”
“Are you really Mormon?”
“Sure thing, died in the wool, true blue.”
“No kidding. I never thought they got out of Utah.”
“Yeah, they did. Got out all over the world.”
So not only did I meet Scott Anderson, but also the Mormon church.
Too soon the term came to an end. When I came back from vacation, Scott Anderson was gone. “Moved,” somebody told me, “back to Utah.” I clung even more to his famous one line in memory of our friendship.
It was a fresh April day at the Apothecary Outdoor Restaurant when I had a final chance to use Anderson’s line. We had just finished our salad and were beginning our soup when an acquaintance of my mother stopped to greet us. He added the usual, “And what are you going to be doing next year, Jack?”
“I will be going on a mission for the Mormon church, sir,” I replied.
“You will?” He seemed more than astonished. “Why I didn’t know you were Mormons!”
“We’re not,” my mother smiled her let’s-get-on-to-other-things smile.
“But I am,” the man went on. “As a matter of fact, I’m bishop of the Manhattan Third Ward.”
“A bishop? I’ve heard of bishops,” I said. “You see, I had this friend at school …”
And so I met Bishop Beesely. And now I am going on a mission for the Mormon church. My father thinks that I am tomorrow’s Dr. Livingstone because I am going to South Africa.
My mother, though, is her same plural self. Just yesterday she said, “We’ll be needing some white shirts and dark suits now, won’t we, Jack?”

In celebrating the organization of the Young Ladies’ Retrenchment Association, the predecessor to the Young Women organization, the Provo Utah Edgemont South Stake held a program using the theme “Apples and Aprons.”
The theme came from the girls’ service activity that involved making aprons for missionary work. Each ward selected a different color of checked gingham, and each girl used her own pattern to make an apron with a pocket. Placed in the pocket was the girl’s written testimony along with her photograph and address. The aprons were sent to the missions presided over by members of the stake. They went to Denmark, Mexico, Argentina, and California.
The girls wore their aprons to the get-together, where they participated in activities that were common 116 years ago when Brigham Young organized the Retrenchment Association. These included a spelling bee, a cake walk, and jumping rope. Refreshments were also typical of that earlier time: milk, homemade bread, jam, honey butter, and apples. Raquel Lambert, one of the stake Young Women, said of the experience, “It encouraged us to be proud of our heritage, spread the seeds of our religion, and make new friends.”

In the same talk from which I quoted a statement from President Woodruff, he also said: “After I came to these valleys and returned to Winter Quarters, I was sent to Boston by President Brigham Young. … While on the road there, I drove my carriage one evening into the yard of Brother Williams. Brother Orson Hyde drove a wagon by the side of mine. I had my wife and children in the carriage. After I turned out my team and had my supper I went to bed in the carriage. I had not been there but a few minutes when the Spirit said to me, ‘Get up and move that carriage.’ I told my wife I had to get up and move the carriage. She said, ‘What for?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ That is all she asked me on such occasions; when I told her I did not know, that was enough. I got up and moved my carriage four or five rods, and put the off fore wheel against the corner of the house. I then looked around me and went to bed. The same Spirit said, ‘Go and move your animals from that oak tree.’ They were two hundred yards from where my carriage was. I went and moved my horses, and put them in a little hickory grove. I again went to bed.
“In thirty minutes a whirlwind came up and broke that oak tree off within two feet from the ground. It swept over three or four fences and fell square in that dooryard, near Brother Orson Hyde’s wagon, and right where mine had stood. What would have been the consequences if I had not listened to that Spirit? Why, myself and wife and children doubtless would have been killed. That was the still, small voice to me—no earthquake, no thunder, no lightning—but the still, small voice of the Spirit of God. It saved my life. It was the spirit of revelation to me.” (Millennial Star, 53:642–3.)