Gospel Story Finder

“I have a surprise!” Ema (Mom) said when she picked Rasmus up from school. They walked together down the narrow streets lined with colorful buildings.
“Rosolje for dinner?” Rasmus guessed hopefully. They had eaten it just last week for his seventh birthday. But he could always eat more beet-and-potato salad with pickled herring!
Ema shook her head with a smile. “I met two young women on the bus this morning. Missionaries. They’re coming to visit tonight to talk about their church.”
Rasmus looked up curiously. He had never met missionaries before.
He was in his bedroom playing with his fire truck when the missionaries came. “Tere! Tere! Hello!” they greeted Ema as they walked into the apartment. They removed their heavy boots and put on the house slippers Ema kept for visitors. Ema led them over to the couch. But Rasmus hung back by the door.
The taller woman noticed him and smiled. Her black name tag said Õde Craig (Sister Craig). “Your mother told us you just had a birthday,” she said. “We brought you something.” She held out a small card. Rasmus looked at it closely.
It was a picture of a man. He wore a white robe, and his hand was stretched out.
“Do you know who that is?” Õde Craig asked.
Rasmus didn’t know the man’s name. He had never seen this picture before. But the man looked kind and powerful. “I think he’s a king!” Rasmus said.
Both missionaries smiled. “Yes, He is! He is the King of kings! His name is Jesus Christ.” Õde Craig pulled out a book with a blue cover. “And this is a book that teaches about Him, the Mormoni Raamat. The Book of Mormon.”
Rasmus and Ema began reading the Book of Mormon every day before he went to school. During school, Rasmus and his class went on nature walks and then took a nap. After school, he and Ema often met with the missionaries. They talked with the missionaries about what they had read in the Book of Mormon. Sometimes Ema fed everyone kringel, braided cinnamon bread. On weekends he and Ema rode bikes or picnicked on the beach. Sometimes they took long walks in the forest or along their favorite river.
On one of those forest walks, Ema told Rasmus she wanted to be baptized. Rasmus grinned. The missionaries had asked Ema to pray about whether or not to get baptized. It sounded like she had gotten her answer!
“And I know just where I’m going to be baptized,” she told him with a smile. “Can you guess?”
Rasmus thought about the missionaries’ lesson on baptism. They had held up a picture showing Jesus with John the Baptist in a river …
“The river!” he exclaimed. “Our favorite river.”
One week later, Rasmus stood on the riverbank with the missionaries and some other people from church. Ema was ready to be baptized. She went all the way under the water, just like Jesus did. When she came up, she was smiling. Rasmus wanted to remember this moment forever—the blue water, the white wildflowers in the green grass, and his mother’s smile.
“What did getting baptized feel like?” he asked later, when everyone was eating cookies the missionaries had brought.
“Wonderful,” she told him. “I wanted to stay in the river forever. I feel so new!” She hugged him tight.
“For my next birthday, I want to be baptized, just like you and Jesus,” he told her. “I want to feel new too!”
The boy in this story lives in Estonia. You can read more about his country on page 14.

And the pattern of example is continuing in the family. As part of the “Learn, Act, Share” process in Duty to God, Scott shared his testimony of scripture study with his younger brother, Josh, who is a deacon. Scott wrote him this note to encourage him to read the scriptures:
“Josh, I don’t know if you have started reading the Book of Mormon by yourself or not. But if you haven’t, I would challenge you to start. The Book of Mormon has been a huge influence on strengthening my testimony. I know that it is the word of God. I love you and want to be with you forever in the celestial kingdom. I know that my life has been blessed through the teachings of the Book of Mormon, and yours can be too.”
Now, Josh has set a plan in Duty to God to read his scriptures every day and to keep a scripture journal—following the examples of both his older brothers.

My falling away from the Church was gradual. It began in the fifth grade, when I met some new friends. We used bad language and got into all the wrong things. Once junior high came around, we entered into all the wrong groups, and by high school, things started to get really bad.
I became really depressed. I was wearing more and more black and kept insisting on thickly layering dark eye makeup. To me, life became something just to get through and not to enjoy. My thoughts were often suicidal, and I had no confidence. I almost completely shelled up. I never really talked to anyone, never told people what was going on. I knew I was loved, but I just didn’t care.
I almost completely fell away from the Church. I say almost because I was never allowed to skip church, and my parents always expected me to take seminary during high school. But I wanted nothing more to do with the gospel or the LDS Church.
My family and loved ones saw this downward spiral, and they tried to help. I often spent time on Sundays in the bishop’s office, and just as many days trying to avoid the bishop. He showed a lot of support and interest in me, looking into the things I believed in so that he could better understand me. My parents kept trying to help, but they didn’t know what to do. There were times when my dad and I were near tears trying to talk about our differences.
During my sophomore year, I hit a turning point when a foreign exchange student from Japan came to live with us. She was a softball player, and she convinced me to play that year. That experience alone did a great deal of good for me. The coach helped me raise my self-esteem, and the experience of belonging to and working on a team gave me the blessed feeling of belonging somewhere.
That summer I went to Japan to stay with the family of our foreign exchange student for five weeks. During my stay, I went four weeks without going to church. Finally, in the very last week, we stopped by the Tokyo Japan Temple to take pictures. In a strange country where the language and customs were so foreign to me, it was the most comforting feeling to finally be in a familiar place. The Spirit there was so strong.
That Sunday we found a ward building, and I attended church. It was amazing to experience sacrament meeting and Sunday School in Japanese, but what hit me most was when I went to Young Women. Seeing those few Japanese girls rise and say the theme, I realized that the gospel was just as strong halfway across the world as it was at home. I knew that many of these members didn’t have the support from friends and family that I did, but they still believed. Again, I felt at home.
Shortly after I returned to Utah, my brother Richard came home from his mission. Rich noticed my struggles and made it apparent that we would be having a lot of talks. He got me to pray with him.
But what really hit home was seminary. My dad found out I wasn’t enrolled for my junior year and was surprised. It wasn’t long before I was called to meet with the seminary principal. It was very nonconfrontational; he just talked to me, conveyed friendship, and expressed concern that I wasn’t enrolled. Finally I agreed to take seminary. I met my teacher, went to class, and that was it. I never skipped and rarely begrudged going.
I’m not sure when the transition took place, but I started to feel comfort. I began to pray regularly again. It was really hard at first, but I stuck with it. I read my scriptures and knew that they spoke truth. Life began to look up. I had more energy, confidence, and ambition. I felt better about the new friends I began associating with. I tried out for plays, immersed myself in my artwork, and started singing again. I tried out for my school’s select choir group and made it. I was no longer the shy, introverted girl I had been for so long.
I was also called to serve on the seminary council, and that was when I knew that I would be okay. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be where I am now, I never would have believed it could happen. I’m a completely different person. And I’m grateful to my friends, family, and teachers, who gave me their love and patience. Their faith in me was the constant in my life that I could always fall back on in my darkest hours. And now I’m so grateful for the gospel. I feel it really has saved my life. If I hadn’t made the turnaround when I did, who knows how far off the path I would have gone. I’m grateful I’ve never had to find out.
The Church is true; I know that with all of my heart and mind. Heavenly Father loves His children, and Jesus Christ is our Savior. Having the restored gospel on earth is one of our greatest blessings, and I pray that someday all of God’s children will come to know the truth and feel the same gratitude and love for Him that I have in my heart.

Trevor Sims turned the volume up on the radio as he turned down Cherry Drive and accelerated for home. Now that Brad was gone and he was alone, he needed a distraction to ward off his nagging conscience. Earlier, while Brad had been with him, everything had been so funny. They had laughed and made light of their evening, but how as Trevor drove home there were mirthless regrets. The humor had long since dissipated; only the bitter realization remained.
He pulled into the driveway and parked the family car. He saw a lamp burning in the living room. He squirmed uneasily in his seat and suddenly felt a queasy reluctance to go inside. Did his parents know, he wondered. Several excuses flashed through his mind, excuses which had seemed so valid earlier and now seemed empty and trite.
Whistling quietly in an attempt to allay his own anxiety and appear casual, he strode across the lawn, leaped up the steps, and pushed open the front door. His father sat in his easy chair reading his scriptures, something he did early every morning—or when he was troubled. Trevor glanced at his watch and then at his father, who peered over the top of his reading glasses.
“You’re up late,” Trevor remarked with a forced smile. “Checking up on me?”
His father closed his scriptures and pulled the glasses from his nose and smiled. “How did it go?” he inquired cheerfully. “Did you have a good time?”
Trevor avoided his father’s eyes, sank onto the sofa, and grabbed a magazine. “Oh, it was all right,” he remarked, thumbing through the magazine. He could feel his father’s gaze upon him, and he sensed a warm guilt redden his cheeks. That was what happened when a boy’s father was the bishop, he thought. Bishops seemed to have that uncanny ability to look right inside you and know what secret thoughts you harbored there. Of course, Trevor’s father had been like that even before he was made bishop, but Trevor felt it more nowadays, especially tonight.
“How did you like Michelle?”
Trevor shrugged indifferently, trying to avoid an untruth. The thought of telling a lie to his father had always been repugnant to him, and yet right now he didn’t feel capable of telling the truth. The truth shamed him. He groped for a noncommittal answer, one that would not plunge him into a lie but which would circumvent the truth just enough. “Oh, Michelle’s all right—for a sophomore. She’s not the greatest girl in the world, but she’s—well, I don’t know how to describe her. I’m not planning to go out with her again if that’s what you mean.”
“She called tonight,” his father said simply. It was a mere statement, and yet the words hit Trevor like a powerful hammer. His stomach knotted, and he felt the blood creep up his neck and flood his cheeks.
“What’d she want?” Trevor asked, attempting to sound disinterested.
His father set his scriptures to one side and sat up, his forearms on his knees and his head and shoulders leaning forward. “She called about an hour after you left. She was wondering where you were.” The room was silent. Trevor suddenly wished that the evening had been different. “I told her that there was no need to worry, that I was sure you would be there soon. I said you might have had car trouble or that Brad might have been late.” He chuckled. “I think she was worried you might stand her up. I told her not to worry though. I told her you weren’t that kind of a boy.”
“I guess we did have a little trouble,” Trevor explained, fidgeting and thumbing rapidly through the magazine and then closing it without having read a single word. “Well, I better get to bed. That welfare project at the stake farm is tomorrow morning, isn’t it?”
“Six o’clock.”
Trevor stood and started down the hall to his bedroom.
“Trevor,” his father called after him. Trevor stopped without turning around. “Did Michelle have a good time?”
“How should I know? I didn’t ask her.” There was a sharp edge in his voice, one he rarely used with his father, and he had not meant to use it then. It just slipped out.
“I was just wondering,” his father replied, no rebuke in his voice. “These girls’ choice dances are always hard on a girl. They take them so seriously. It would be a shame if they worked and waited for weeks and then didn’t have a good time. I always worry about the girls.”
“Well, I didn’t ask her,” Trevor mumbled. “I guess I’m going to bed.”
Inside his bedroom, Trevor sat on the edge of his bed without getting undressed. He grabbed his pillow and flung it angrily across the room. If his father had accused him, he wouldn’t feel so bad now, but he had merely asked, not out of suspicion but out of concern. Trevor slammed his fist hard into the mattress. If he had not just listened to Brad’s proddings, Trevor thought. If he had just said no rather than having toyed with the idea as he had done and finally succumbed to Brad’s coaxing.
For almost 15 minutes he sat on the edge of his bed, his conscience refusing him any peace. Finally he stood, opened his door, and returned to the living room, where his father still sat reading.
“You might as well know it. I didn’t pick her up,” Trevor blurted out, as though he were challenging his father to chastize him, ground him, anything to appease his conscience. His father looked up but didn’t answer. “I didn’t want to go,” Trevor argued. “Brad didn’t want to go either, so we stood them up. They shouldn’t have asked us. I hate these girls’ choice dances. You’re always stuck with someone you’d never pick in a thousand years.”
“Like the girls are most of the time?” his father asked with a wan smile.
“That’s different. It’s the boy’s job to ask. If the girl doesn’t want to go she doesn’t have to.”
His father took a deep breath and stared down at his opened scriptures. “All she has to do is stand the guy up. Is that what you mean?” he asked softly.
Trevor licked his lips. “No, she can, well, she can tell him when he calls.”
His father set his scriptures aside. “Couldn’t you have done the same thing with Michelle?” he asked in the same quiet tone.
“She had no business asking me,” he retorted, searching for some justification. “Nobody told her I wanted to go. She hardly knows me. And she’s as homely as a mud fence—glasses, braces, and she’s only a sophomore.”
“Does any of that give you the right to hurt another person, to break a promise?”
“I didn’t promise.”
“Didn’t you accept the date?”
“But I didn’t promise. I didn’t promise I would go.”
His father took a deep breath. “Trevor, a person does not have to preface everything with ‘I promise’ to make a promise. When a person says he will be at a certain place at a certain time, he has made a promise. If he fails to appear, unless there is a very good reason, he has broken his promise. Maybe not in a court of law, but he’s broken a promise in the Lord’s court—in the long run that’s the only one that counts.”
Trevor looked at his father and then at the floor. He pushed his hands into his pockets and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He knew his father was right. His own argument was just a front, a hasty attempt to clothe a wrong in respectability. “Okay, I should have gone,” Trevor admitted begrudgingly. “I’m sorry.”
“I told Michelle I was sure you would come. I told her that you weren’t the kind of young man to let a person down, that you were true to your word.”
“Look, dad, I said I was sorry.”
His father nodded his head. “I know you’re sorry, Trevor, but I don’t deserve the apology. I wasn’t stood up. I guess I’m a little disappointed, but I’ll get over that because I know you. I know that you probably didn’t do this maliciously. I accept that. I doubt you’ll ever do anything like this again. But, Trevor, someone has been wronged. Someone has been hurt.”
“Oh, it’s no big deal. It was just a dumb dance. There will be another one sometime. She can ask someone then—someone that wants to go.”
His father shook his head ruefully. “It’s more than a dumb dance, Trevor. It’s your word and Michelle’s feelings, her entire evening and probably more than that.”
“Come on, you’re making a big deal out of it. If I got stood up, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.”
“You’re not a girl. It’s different with a boy.” He paused. “When did Michelle ask you?”
“Two or three weeks ago.”
“Do you ask girls out that much in advance?”
Trevor shook his head. “No, because it’s no big deal, as you said. But with a girl like Michelle it is a big deal. She’s planned this. Maybe it’s her first date. She probably made a dress just for tonight. She’s probably planned this thing for weeks, even before she asked you. She probably fixed her hair special. She has probably talked this over with her friends. She’s proud and honored that you accepted, and all her friends will know that. They will also know you didn’t show up.
“With a boy it’s different. He takes a shower, combs his hair wet, puts on the same suit, walks out the door, and doesn’t really think about the evening until it’s started. If he’s ever stood up, he might let off a little steam, his friends might kid him in the locker room, and then he forgets the whole thing, unless it’s to joke about it later.”
Trevor’s father bowed his head and was silent for a moment, and then he continued, his voice soft: “This wasn’t just a dumb dance for Michelle. I know. You have two older sisters. I’ve watched them get ready. I’ve watched them wait and fret, and I’ve seen them when they were brokenhearted.” He looked up at Trevor and asked, “How would you feel if someone did to your sister Susan what you have done to Michelle?”
“She doesn’t even date.”
“She will.” He paused. “How would you feel?” he persisted. “Would it be no big deal? It would be a big deal to me.”
Trevor knew he was wrong. He had known it all during the movie he and Brad had decided to see. “All right,” he conceded, “I’ll apologize Monday. Will that make you happy?”
His father leaned back in his chair. “Trevor, you didn’t stand me up. Michelle is the one you need to consider, her and Brother and Sister Stewart. They’ve all been anxious. Are you going to make them wait and wonder until Monday?”
“You don’t expect me to go there tonight?”
“You told her you would be there.”
“But, dad, it’s almost midnight. They’ll all be in bed.”
“I doubt it. With her hair fixed, her new dress ready, her parents and family expectant, excited to greet this young man their daughter and sister has asked out. No, she won’t be in bed. She won’t be ready to go to a dance, but sleep won’t come easy tonight, not for any of them. Do you think it’s fair for you to go to bed and sleep and leave them hanging, not knowing why?”
“But, Dad, not tonight,” Trevor pleaded.
His father took a deep breath and began to speak: “I knew a boy once who stood up a girl. He was a senior, like you. She was a junior. It was a hayride for a girls’ glee club. She asked him to go, and he accepted—reluctantly.
“First of all he felt quite superior to the girl. He was an athlete and rather popular. She was shy and a little homely. Her complexion wasn’t good. She wore braces and glasses. For two weeks he thought of how he might get out of his commitment. Well, the night of the hayride he had a bit of a cold. Nothing serious. He had gone to school, but he rationalized that he was too sick to go on a hayride.
“Half an hour before the date he called her and cancelled. He tried to sound sick, but she wasn’t fooled, even though she did accept his excuse graciously. He went to bed to at least give his excuse a semblance of truth. But he didn’t sleep. He had lied, and he knew it; he knew that there were some girls who could have asked him and he would have made the date regardless.
“At 11 o’clock that evening he got out of bed and went over and apologized to her. I know for a fact that it was the most difficult thing he had ever done up to that point. I also know for a fact that he never regretted doing it.”
The room was silent. Trevor stared at the floor and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He wished he could relive the evening. He was trapped. He could go to his room and climb into bed, but sleep would elude him. His father was right, and yet he hesitated, his cowardice standing obstinately in his way. “So you think I should go tonight, is that it?”
“Trevor, I’ve always had a lot of faith in you. I still do. I can’t make decisions for you. You have to decide. But whatever you do, make sure that you’re the one who decides. Don’t go because you think I want you to, because when you look back on this moment, you’ll want to look back on something that you decided and did.”
The minutes ticked away. Trevor stood before his father, not debating his course of action. That was settled, even though he had not yet verbalized his resolve. The pause was an attempt to build his courage. It had taken no courage to leave Michelle waiting. It would require a great deal of courage to face her now.
“Can I take the car?” he asked in a whisper. His father nodded. Slowly he turned and walked to the front door, his stomach churning, his mouth dry and his hands slightly shaking.
On the way over to the Stewarts’ home Trevor hoped that the house would be dark, everyone in bed, giving him an excuse to postpone the confrontation. He groped for an apology, something that would lessen the ignominy of his tardiness, but his nervousness prevented him from organizing anything coherent.
Finally he was there. One light burned in an upstairs window. He knew if he lingered in the car for just a moment he would lose courage and never go through with it. He stepped from the car, and before he fully realized it he was at the door ringing the bell. His heart was pounding, and his breathing was deep and almost painful. All the while he hoped that no one would come, that the upstairs light would flick off and leave him in the black stillness.
Soon he heard footsteps; then the porch light flipped on and the front door opened a few inches. Mr. Stewart stood there, still dressed, no sign that he had been in bed that evening. There was no smile or greeting, just a curt “Yes?” which came out more as a challenge than a question.
“Is Michelle up?” Trevor ventured, his voice cracking slightly. Mr. Stewart stared at him for a moment without answering and then nodded his head. “Can I speak with her?”
Mr. Stewart looked at his watch and glanced back into the house. “It’s a little late,” he answered shortly.
“I know, but I think I need to talk to her—if I could.”
Mr. Stewart took a deep breath and said gruffly, “I’ll go check.” He was about to leave Trevor standing on the porch, but he reconsidered and invited him in by opening the door a little wider and motioning with his head.
For almost five minutes Trevor waited, and then Mrs. Stewart stepped in and said, “She’ll be here in just a second.”
“Oh, Mrs. Stewart,” Trevor called out, “could you and your husband come in too.”
The three of them were soon standing there. The two parents entered somberly and Michelle followed timidly, avoiding his eyes, but even in the shadows of the dimly lighted room Trevor could see she had been crying. She wore her dress, and although her hair was a little messed up, it was apparent that it had been fixed earlier.
“I want you to know,” Trevor began shakily, licking his lips and shuffling his feet, “that I have no excuse for tonight. I’m sorry. I’m not here to tell you why I didn’t come, because that doesn’t make any difference now.” He paused and sucked in a breath of air. “I’m here to tell you that … well, that I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t fix things up, but about all I can do tonight is tell you that I realize how wrong and cruel I was. I guess I didn’t think about that earlier, or I wouldn’t have done it.”
“It’s all right,” Michelle mumbled, looking at the floor.
There was a long awkward silence, and then Trevor continued: “There is something I would like to do though. I know you think I’m a real—well, I don’t know what—and I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to avoid me and never see me again, but I would like to show you that tonight isn’t a good example of what I’m like. I think I’m better than that, and I’d like to prove it to you. I would like to take you someplace, someplace nice, and show you that I’m a lot better than what you probably think I am. I know I don’t have any right to ask you to go, but I’d like you to give me another chance. I won’t blame you if you don’t want to. I’ll understand if you say no.”
Trevor couldn’t remember the rest. He didn’t know how he finally ended up in the car, but he was there and he felt good. He was even looking forward to the next weekend, and he was determined that it would be a memorable one.
When he arrived home, the light in the living room was still on, and as he came in the door he found his father still reading. At least the scriptures were still on his lap, but Trevor guessed that his father had not read much. The misty blur in his father’s eyes was evidence of that. His father looked up as he came in.
“Well,” Trevor announced humbly, “I did it.” His father smiled. “I knew you would. I’m proud of you. It took a lot of courage, but you’ll be a better person for having gone.”
They were both pensively silent for several minutes, each content to be alone with his own thoughts. Finally his father sighed. “You know that boy I told you about earlier?” he asked. Trevor nodded. “Well, he forgot about that girl—for a little while anyway.” He smiled. “After his mission and two years of college, he saw her again. She had changed.” He chuckled, leaned back, and stared up at the ceiling. “She had shed her braces and glasses, and her complexion had improved. She wasn’t the same girl. In fact, he didn’t even recognize her at first. He wanted to ask her out, but he didn’t dare. He was afraid she would remember. She was in demand then. Finally he built up his courage and asked her out, hoping all along that she wouldn’t remember that night five years earlier. She did though, but she accepted anyway. She told him later—after they were engaged to be married—that it was because he had gone to her home that evening and apologized that she accepted his date later. She said she knew how much courage it must have taken and she always respected him for that.”
Trevor smiled and glanced slyly at his father. “I think I know that boy.”
“Which boy?” his father asked with mock surprise.
“The boy you’re talking about.”
His father smiled, pushed himself to his feet, stepped up to his son, and put his arm over his shoulders. “Yes,” he said with a smile, “I think you do know him. I believe he married your mother.”

A sister with Down syndrome testified at a legislative hearing in Utah to protect unborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome. She boldly stated that she and others like her had a right to live. Afterward, she stood and gestured to all the committee members and stated, “And I love all of you!”
Lisa Wilson testified at a Utah legislative hearing to protect unborn children with Down syndrome.
Photograph courtesy of Lisa Wilson’s family

A Relief Society sister who had moved to Texas to continue her education and then was moving again wrote to me this summer. She told of her experience with the sisters in her ward, of their quick action, willing hands, warmth, and kindness. But it wasn’t what they did that prompted her letter; it was why. They loved her, and she could feel it. As they shared with her, multiplying their gifts, she too was strengthened in charity. Listen to her story, because it represents all of you and your quiet goodness:
“As I write these words, I have to squint at my computer screen and keep blinking away tears of gratitude. From the first day I attended the Austin Fourth Ward, I was touched by the spirit of love and caring I felt in the Relief Society. These sisters are very diverse. There are converts and lifelong members, native Texans and Mountain West transplants. They are married, divorced, and single, some with sufficient means, others with very few resources. Yet it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
“I can’t tell you of the untold kindnesses they’ve done for me. They aren’t earthshaking events, but an accumulation of small blessings: stopping by my apartment to take my dog for a walk, offering to take care of some mending, tracking down packing boxes for me, and including me in their personal prayers. This Sabbath day, the words of the hymn ‘As Sisters in Zion’ [Hymns, no. 309] keep running through my mind. I want you to know that the sisters are indeed ‘build[ing] up his kingdom with earnest endeavor,’ and ‘comfort[ing] the weary and strengthen[ing] the weak’” (letter from Katherine Boswell, 11 Aug. 1996).

This legacy was passed to me by my father, Merrill M. Oveson, the youngest in the family of 13 children. He and my mother, Mal Berg Oveson, also from a faithful lineage, were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple, boarded a train, and went to Oregon to further my father’s education. They remained for more than 40 years, during many of which they lived in a very small farming community where we were the only members of the Church.
I have often thought how easy it would have been for my parents simply to change their faith and join their many friends in the community’s Christian church. This action would have simplified life for them, especially during the World War II years, when rationing of gasoline and tires made it impossible for them to travel the 40 miles to the nearest organized branch of the LDS Church. Instead, they received authorization to have a home Sunday School, which they faithfully held weekly during all those years. There we shared the sacrament as a family. There my brother and sisters and I learned the principles of the gospel and listened to Bible and Book of Mormon stories literally at the feet of our parents.

History is filled with numerous examples of men and women who wore out their lives in service to others. One such person was Florence Nightingale, the founder of the modern nursing profession. Born in 1820 in Florence, Italy, where her well-to-do parents were temporarily residing, she grew to womanhood in England. A child of privilege, she could easily have spent her life in the mindless pursuit of pleasure. But she felt deeply that God had a mission for her to accomplish. She trained in Germany as a practical nurse and became the superintendent of nurses at a hospital in London. It was not an easy task. Nursing at that time was a profession with little prestige.
In 1854, when war broke out in the Crimea, Florence took a party of nurses to work in the military hospitals in Turkey. When she arrived she found that wounded men were being kept under appalling conditions of filth, degradation, and gross overcrowding.
Blessed with an iron will and unflinching courage, Florence fought the hostility of the medical establishment and the army bureaucracy to obtain supplies needed for proper nursing of desperately wounded soldiers. Prodigious efforts were made to clean the wards and bring to the injured some of the amenities of civilized life. The wounded began to receive nourishing, well-cooked food and the comfort of clean linen. Wounds were dressed regularly, and the men were bathed and given clean clothing.
Florence drove herself hard. She worked 18-hour days, making her rounds through the wards late at night, a lamp in her hand, giving comfort and solace to thousands. She became idolized by the soldiers, who called her “the Lady with the Lamp.” Her unstinting service paid off. In a few months the mortality rate among the wounded fell from more than 40 percent to just over 2 percent.
The justly honored position held by the nursing profession today throughout the world has resulted in no small measure from the example of Florence Nightingale’s extraordinary life of unstinting service. I believe she would have agreed with King Benjamin, who knew that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).

How do you remember to choose the right? Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles tells a story about a young boy and his friends who found a package of cigarettes: “They decided to go down on the cliff alongside some large boulders and smoke. … They lit up, and the young man said that as he was looking down at the smoldering cigarette that he held between his fingers, he saw his CTR ring. He quickly put the cigarette out. … He chose to choose the right, as he remembered what the emblem stood for” (“‘Choose the Right,’” Ensign, Nov. 1993, 66).

I urge you to do what a missionary companion of mine did. He had run away from home as a teenager, and someone had placed a Book of Mormon in a box he carried with him in his search for more happiness.
Years passed. He moved from place to place across the world. He was alone and unhappy one day when he saw the box. The box was filled with things he had carried with him. At the bottom of the box, he found the Book of Mormon. He read the promise in it and tested it. He knew it was true. That witness changed his life. He found happiness beyond his fondest dreams.

Some time before I was called as a General Authority, I faced a personal economic challenge that persisted for several years. It ebbed and flowed in seriousness and urgency, but it never went away. At times this challenge threatened the welfare of my family, and I thought we might be facing financial ruin. I prayed for some miraculous intervention to deliver us. Although I offered that prayer many times with great sincerity and earnest desire, the answer in the end was no. Finally, I learned to pray as the Savior did: “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). I sought the Lord’s help with each tiny step along the way to a final resolution.
There were times when I had exhausted all my resources, when I had nowhere and no one to turn to for help to meet the exigency before me. With no other recourse, more than once I fell down before my Heavenly Father, begging in tears for His help. And He did help. Sometimes it was nothing more than a sense of peace, a feeling of assurance that things would work out. I might not see how or what the path would be, but He gave me to know that, directly or indirectly, He would open a way. Circumstances might change, a new and helpful idea might come to mind, some unanticipated income or other resource might appear at just the right time. Somehow there was a resolution.
Though I suffered then, I am grateful now that there was not a quick solution to my problem. The fact that I was forced to turn to God for help almost daily over an extended period of years taught me how to truly pray and get answers to prayer and taught me in a practical way to have faith in God. I came to know my Savior and my Heavenly Father in a way and to a degree that might not have happened otherwise or that might have taken me much longer. I learned that daily bread is a precious commodity. I learned that manna today could be as real as the physical manna of biblical history. I learned to trust in the Lord with all my heart. I learned to walk with Him day by day.

1 Let’s turn left on the next street.
2 Now let’s turn right.
3 Wait! I have a bad feeling about that street.
4 What kind of a bad feeling?
I—I don’t know. … Maybe the kind Sister Simon was telling us about—you know—about promptings by the Holy Ghost. I just know that I don’t want to go down there.
5 The next day
You know that street we didn’t go down yesterday?
Yeah, what about it?
There was a robbery there about the time we would’ve gone past!
6 Oh, no! I wonder …
Yeah, me too.

“Mother helped us feel a closeness with our father. She made him a reality for us while we were growing up. I remember once when I was twelve going out with the bishop of our ward in Vernal to take baskets of fruit to the widows. When we pulled up in front of our house and the bishop gave me a basket for my mother, it was a shock. I never thought of my mother as being a widow, because we still had a father. He and Mother had been married in the temple, and I knew that he was with us, although he was on the other side of the veil. He loved us and knew what we were doing.

“I was raised in a home where faith was present and the commandments were taken seriously. I didn’t get a testimony of the gospel at any particular time. I just grew up with it! I didn’t really know what a strong testimony I had until I got to graduate school. Then, when I was confronted with a lot of questions and challenges, I found that I was strong. I think my mother’s faith was the greatest single factor in my testimony.

“The most important thing I can say to children is this: Lots of you boys and girls are having difficulties. Some of you have the challenge of not having a mother or father in your home. Some of you have physical handicaps. Others of you feel frustrated and inadequate because you can’t do the things you think you’re supposed to do—you can’t throw the ball far enough or you think you aren’t attractive, for example. Everybody has those feelings. Problems like these are part of the experiences that all of us have in this life.

“Remember that sometimes the greatest blessings our Heavenly Father gives us are blessings that come out of what we first think are hardships and problems.

“Hang on. Keep trying. Say your prayers. Trust in your Heavenly Father. He loves you, and He will bless you to carry on and accomplish what you need to accomplish in this life so that you will receive all of His choicest blessings in eternity.”

I remember a day when I was only three years old and my family was living in a humble two-room home with a dirt roof. My father was in bed, delirious with scarlet fever. There was a heavy storm outside, and my mother, four-year-old brother, and I were putting out pans, cans, and buckets to catch the water dripping through the roof. My little sister slept in a cot near my father.
When the pans, cans, and buckets were in place, Mother called my brother and me to her side and had us kneel in prayer. I am sure she had helped me pray many times before, but on this occasion it was different. I remember her helping me with the words of the prayer. They went something like this: “Heavenly Father, we really need Thy help. We need our dad to be made better. Please bless him to get well. We need our roof to stop leaking so he doesn’t get wet and cold and become more ill. We love Thee, Heavenly Father, and we always want to serve Thee.”
There must have been more said in that prayer, but those words of faith from my dear mother in the tender childhood years of my life have never left my memory. I learned the principle of prayer and its value in the home through the example and teachings of my faithful, obedient parents.

Some years ago, a missionary and his companion were teaching a woman of the restored gospel. She was very interested and she read and prayed as the missionaries asked. However, she was uncertain about whether she should be baptized. She went to the minister of her protestant church and asked his opinion. He wrote her a response. It was 21 pages long. I examined the first few pages. I recall the minister warned this woman that the Mormons have a very strange belief. They believe that God speaks directly to man today and that revelation is available to every Mormon. He pointed out that even if you show a Mormon in the Bible where he is wrong, he will not believe the Bible if it conflicts with his revelations. He concluded with the warning that Mormons invite you to pray and listen to your feelings. But, he said, feelings can be misleading, and he recommended she should avoid prayer and avoid examining her feelings. He reminded her that there were no such things as visions and revelations in this day and all such things had ceased with the Apostles. This lady said at her baptism a few days later: "I knew the minister was wrong. He was wrong about revelation, because I prayed and God revealed to me the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the gospel taught by the missionaries."

I scanned my planning sheet and wondered how my companion and I were ever going to do it. How could I have forgotten that we had missionary exchanges this week? Poland had been newly opened for missionary work, and most of the members were young in age and in their knowledge of the gospel. The members of this small branch were so excited to learn, and we, as missionaries, were doing our best to teach them.
Sunday meetings had just ended. Small groups socialized around the apartment where we met, as I reviewed our plans for the coming week. We had several discussions already scheduled—something rare at that time—and they all seemed to be set for one day. I had agreed we would take a member with us.
I remembered back to a month ago when Kasha, a member with cerebral palsy, approached me so hopefully. She wore a big grin as she walked over on her crutches.
“Sister McGregor, would you please take me out to do missionary work for a day?” she had asked.
I adored Kasha and would have done anything for her, but I wondered how we would get around. No missionaries or members had cars, so our main mode of transportation would be our feet or the bus. If walking was painful for her, wouldn’t climbing bus stairs all day be worse? But there she stood, waiting for a reply. I had picked a date out of the air. The day fell in our busy week, and I desperately wanted to change it.
I picked my way over to Kasha and showed her our schedule. Her eyes glowed with excitement. I explained to her how all these appointments were scattered throughout the city and asked her how we were going to get around. She looked at me as if I had forgotten something obvious and explained that the bus was usually a pretty good way. I quickly decided that if she wasn’t worried about it, then I shouldn’t be either—but I wasn’t entirely convinced.
We picked her up in the morning and practically hoisted her onto the bus while the driver glared at us for slowing him up. There were no seats, so on our way to our first appointment, we supported Kasha on the swaying bus. Getting off wasn’t much better, and walking was slow and tedious over broken sidewalks and cobblestones. As we sat through our first discussion, Kasha taught two young women with love, testimony, and the Spirit. She was an incredible missionary.
Obstacles other than cobblestones arose as the day continued. Bus drivers had agreed to strike that day, and around noon buses, parked end to end, began to fill the streets of the city. The bus drivers refused to move them.
We walked slowly from place to place, and Kasha did her best to be cheerful. We caught taxis on the edges of the city when we could, and my companion and I physically supported her as much as she would let us.
It was getting late as we inched up the walk to Kasha’s apartment after the long day. Our discussions had been wonderful, but I was looking forward to bed. Kasha suddenly stopped on the walk, forcing me to stop also.
“Oh no!” my mind raced. “I’m going to have to carry her!”
“I’m not tired, Sister McGregor,” Kasha said. “At the end of every single day I’m tired and hurting. I’m usually in bed by now. But today, walking all over the city doing the Lord’s work, I feel like I could keep going and going.” She continued her labored walk home.
I learned a great lesson walking to Kasha’s apartment that night. When we are doing the Lord’s work, He will assist us no matter our weaknesses or disabilities. My disabilities are not the same as Kasha’s, but when I worry that I’m not quite up to what the Lord wants me to do, I think about Kasha.
She had all she needed on her day of missionary work and a little more.

Thirteen-year-old Henry Sanderson, on his way from Connecticut to Nauvoo, Illinois, was not sure if he was riding a railroad train or a boat on wheels.
This was September 1842, and Pennsylvania’s forests were becoming dotted with the reds and golds of autumn. To cross the Allegheny Mountains, Henry boarded a train with his parents and two younger sisters. It had a steam engine like a normal train, but the passenger cars were actually boats on train wheels. Near the mountain summit, trainmen unhooked the engine and snapped a cable to the cars. A motor at the top wound the cable and pulled the train cars up. At the summit, men released the cars and let them coast down the other side of the mountains without any engine at all. Then, for Henry’s final train-boat adventure, trainmen removed the wheels and put the boat-cars into a canal. Horses on a towpath beside the canal pulled Henry’s boat-car to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Henry knew his stay in Pittsburgh would be short, lasting only one winter. His parents, James and Mary Jane Sanderson, had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a few months earlier and had decided to move to Nauvoo. Henry felt glad to move because boys in his neighborhood in Norwalk, Connecticut, had made fun of him after his parents were baptized. At Pittsburgh, Henry helped his father do shoemaker’s work, a skill Henry had learned from him.
Late the next spring, the Sandersons boarded a steamboat and churned down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi River. They reached Nauvoo in the summer of 1843 when Henry was 14 and Nauvoo was barely four years old. Henry found young Nauvoo filled with new buildings, most of them small and made of wood, with taller brick houses here and there. Embracing the city on the west was a broad, crescent-shaped bend of the Mississippi River.
Soon after Henry’s family arrived, he hiked up the bluffs to visit the temple construction project. He walked around the 60-centimeter-high walls that workers were building skyward. He inspected the red brick store whose upper floor was the headquarters for the Church. On Main Street he found a brick post office and the Merryweather store.
The Sandersons became neighbors of Joseph Smith on Main Street, two blocks from the river. Henry’s parents moved into a log cabin next to Sidney Rigdon’s home, which stood between them and the Smiths’ new residence, the Mansion House. Henry saw workers put the final touches on the Mansion House, which the Smiths opened that September as a hotel.
Henry played with the Prophet’s sons. The oldest was Joseph Smith III, three years younger than Henry. Henry became best friends with Sidney Rigdon’s sons, Algernon and John W., who were near his age.
In Nauvoo, men and boys paid their tithing by working every 10th day on building projects. “My father and myself went regularly every 10th day to labor on the temple,” Henry said, “sometimes at the quarry and other times on the temple grounds.”
Henry, who knew and liked the Prophet, “had been to his house frequently and played with his boys and he would occasionally join us. I had been in games of ball where the Prophet was one of the players.”
Henry, 15, was outside his house when Joseph Smith left for Carthage. Henry saw Joseph shake hands and exchange canes with a stranger. Then Joseph rode away. That was the last time he saw the Prophet alive. Henry first heard the tragic news from Carthage Jail “when a runner went past our house shouting that the Prophet was killed.”
A day or two later Henry and crowds of others visited the Mansion House, where “I saw their murdered bodies after they were brought from Carthage.” The murders were “a sad blow to my father,” Henry said, “and for a time he was at a loss to know what the results would be, but [he] finally settled to the conviction that the Church would continue its progress and that the Twelve Apostles were the proper leaders.”
Needing income, Henry and his father went downriver to St. Louis, Missouri, to find jobs. His father joined George Betts’s shoe shop, which employed 25 men. Henry took a job at a small shop belonging to three LDS shoemakers. His mother and sisters joined them in St. Louis in the spring.
Henry’s good friends from Nauvoo, Algernon and John Rigdon, visited him in his new home. Their father, who had been Joseph Smith’s counselor, had decided to leave the Church and was moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In “the last conversation that I had with them as we were saying good-bye,” Henry said, “the boys declared that they would return to the Church. … Knowing they were … sincere, I expected for some years to hear from them but was disappointed.” (John Rigdon rejoined the Church in 1904 just before he died.)
Mr. Betts sent Henry’s father to work on a farm that the Mississippi River had flooded the year before. The Sandersons moved there and lived in a “very good log house.” They plowed and planted, and the farm prospered. But with the summer heat, river sickness (probably malaria) struck the family. Henry’s father suffered the most and died on 16 September 1845, at age 41.
Henry, now 16, returned with his mother and younger sister, Mary Jane, 4, to Nauvoo. An older sister, Maria, stayed behind to work for the Betts family.
Henry, weak himself from the summer sickness, returned to St. Louis for his sister. He earned his passage downriver and back by working on the riverboats. On the trip down he was an assistant fireman, carrying firewood and loading and unloading freight.
On the boat trip back to Nauvoo, Henry was third cook and “had the cabin dishes to wash, they being brought down to me by the cabin boys.” He liked the job because he could eat the leftover food, which was better than what he usually ate. Some plates of food came to him “untouched,” so instead of dumping the food overboard as ordered, he let other cabin boys eat it.
Henry, who was big for his age, joined the Nauvoo Legion. He “enrolled in a Captain Black’s company” when unfriendly neighbors began harassing the Mormons in and around Nauvoo. Officers gave this teenager “something of a gun,” and he “sometimes was scouting all night and took delight therein, even at times when the mob was expected every hour.”
Early in 1846, when Henry was 17, the Saints had to leave Nauvoo. For the wagon trek across Iowa, Jonathan C. Wright hired Henry to be a chore boy and drive an ox team. Henry liked this job, except for Brother Wright’s restriction that Henry walk his horses but never run or race them.
While Henry was camped with the Wrights at Council Bluffs, Iowa, a United States army recruiter arrived. “I had told my comrades that he would not get a man,” Henry said. But President Brigham Young called a meeting in a brush-covered bowery and asked that 500 men enlist in the Mormon Battalion for the Mexican War. Henry felt impressed to answer the call, so he joined the army. Mr. Wright, upset at losing his hired hand, “was wrathy and said that I could not go.” But Henry went. He was not yet 18, as required by the government, “but as I had nearly got my growth in height I passed without difficulty.”
The next summer, when he was 18, he left California, where the Mormon Battalion had completed its march, and entered the Great Salt Lake Valley just after the 1847 pioneers arrived. Wanting to rejoin his family, he returned east with Brigham Young’s company late that same year to the Winter Quarters area.
Henry and his family came west three years later, in 1850. He married and lived at Union Fort, Fillmore, and Fairview, Utah. During his adult years he was a farmer, teacher, and shoemaker.

How can we possibly use these guides to shape our scholarly work? Let me share an example. One Sunday morning I was sitting in the open-air courtyard of a chapel in the village of Saipipi in Samoa. I was there as part of a humanitarian trip that was a collaboration between medical professionals and BYU faculty and students. My role was as a program administrator. That morning I was somewhat troubled. You see, I had all the powerful positive emotions that come with serving. I was feeling blessed by my friendships with villagers and students and by the many things I had learned from them. However, my scholarly skills were only modestly connected to our work there, and I knew I had more to offer through my training as an ecologist. I prayed for God to show me a way that I might be of better service.

That afternoon as we got back to our hotel, I had emails from two of my inspired colleagues. They had been on a visit to our sister campus in Laie, Hawaii, and both had been impressed by a young man who had guided them. Stau Segi was Samoan, and, as we found out later, he was prayerfully seeking to know his life path, having recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marine biology. He and I scheduled a call and found shared passions and interests. Miraculously, he was born and raised in the village less than half a kilometer south of where I sat praying to know how to be of better service.

Stau joined my research lab, and he developed a dissertation that directly addressed many critical environmental concerns in the South Pacific. He has become a remarkable scientist who is guided by spiritual principles of stewardship and who has key insights into conservation needs in the South Pacific. Four months ago, Dr. Segi defended his dissertation. He is equipped with skills that will bless his native Samoa and the broader world. In his time here at BYU, he was a mentor to many undergraduate students. He trained others using his computational and field biology skills and also shared his life experiences of growing up in a small village in Samoa and the times when God had intervened in his life to make his PhD possible.

Stau currently serves on an international committee representing small Pacific Island states in establishing best practices for marine protected areas. This work is possible only because of God’s grace, an answer to prayer, an institution where scholarship is inspired by our mission of lifting others, and the celestial ideal of building a covenant community that thrives because of the diverse experiences of each of us serving together in a common cause.

Sacred experiences don’t always occur in the temple or at church. One night, I had a sacred moment in the dark, quiet living room of my college dorm.
I’d gotten home late. Everyone was either gone or asleep. I relaxed on the couch, enjoying the glow of the Christmas tree lights. In an electrifying instant, I realized that the house was all mine. In that moment, I wanted to dance.
It was an irrational desire; I was definitely not a dancer. However, this night I was alone and no one would see if I made a fool of myself.
I couldn’t sit still any longer. I had to dance. I ran up the stairs to grab a CD and flew back to the living room on tiptoe. I pressed play and listened as the first song began. Slow steps and careful twirls began my secret recital. Then I gave myself to the music and simply danced. Soon I was running, leaping, flying with my heart, and reaching for the sky.
The music soared, and so did I. If I was clumsy, I didn’t notice. I no longer cared. No one was there to judge me. I danced free in a place where the world could never judge me.
For a moment, I saw myself through God’s eyes, and it was glorious. I was completely myself. Not the self that others expected me to be. Not even the self that I was “supposed” to be. The self that God knew was in me—the truest part of my soul.
What freedom I felt then. I was of worth! I was worth something because I was myself. Me. God loved me, not my skills or my looks. I was beautiful and precious just because I was His daughter.
My dance changed. Instead of expressing the beauty of the music, I was literally dancing for the joy of the beauty of my soul. I spun in the rainbow glow of Christmas lights, knowing that God was watching over me and that He was smiling.
That night the dirty carpet of a college dorm became holy ground as I danced by the light of a Christmas tree and saw the eternal worth of my soul.

by Jennifer Haldeman
Our first full day together was finally over, and we turned out the light. Within two minutes, each of our pillows was wet with tears of homesickness. And yet, there was a closeness among us. Debbie Dall, Jennifer Waite, and I had all felt at ease with one another since our first meeting (although it had taken place just a few days before we were to live together). Our mothers love to tell the story of how we had talked nonstop for nearly two hours when we first met.
Our parents were all living and working in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of our junior year in high school. There being no American high school in the kingdom, our parents arranged for us all to attend an American boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland. We would room together, the only three LDS girls in the school. Never having met one another, we were perhaps at first a bit apprehensive about the arrangement, but our parents continually assured us that we had much in common and would get along fine.
Our parents’ words of encouragement did prove to be true, and Debbie, Jennifer, and I became close remarkably fast. Within the first week of school, word spread that we were Mormons. We easily squelched most of the strange rumors circulating about the Church, but some prejudices still existed. One girl even admitted to me that her brother said he felt uncomfortable around us because our strength to uphold our morals frightened him and made him realize his own mistakes.
Many positive things also happened due to the “advertisement” of our religion. Several of our good friends became interested in the gospel. Although it was difficult to interest them in attending sacrament meeting because it was in Italian, we found an alternative. Through the kindness of an English-speaking member in our branch, we were able to use her home to hold weekly Family Home Evenings with the missionaries and hopefully plant the seeds of the gospel.
On one such occasion we asked a teacher at school to drive us to the meeting, as it was difficult to reach with public transportation. She agreed, and upon dropping us off, asked if she could join us. At the end of the evening this teacher revealed her motives in attending. She said that she had noticed us on campus as a happy group, and one which did not obtain this happiness artificially through the use of alcohol, etc. She said that as the school’s college counselor she saw we had direction and a set of goals in our lives which was absent in so many of the students she counseled. She confessed that she had come that night simply to see what made us tick but that events of the evening had impressed her more than she ever expected. She subsequently began taking the missionary discussions.
As the year came to a close, Jennifer and Debbie decided they would not be returning to the school the following year. There would not be another “Mormon room” in the dorm or questions about all the pictures of big white buildings on our walls. But hopefully, the seeds we had planted and the friendships we had made would never be lost. We had lived together like sisters, and on our last day together, as on our first, the tears flowed freely—but this time for a different reason.