Gospel Story Finder

I grew up in the church but really just went through the motions. Attending three meetings on Sundays was a real challenge. Like most young men I loved sports. We attended Priesthood in the morning, Sunday school in the afternoons and Sacrament meetings in the evening. Between every meeting a group of young men would be playing at the ballpark. I was 15 or 16 when upon returning to sacrament meeting a young man in our ward talked about following counsel given to him to keep the Sabbath Day holy and making right choices.
He was an all-state swimmer and had chosen not to participate in a swimming meet the previous Sunday. He bore testimony of the joy he felt in obeying his parent’s counsel. Then he said something that changed my life forever. He said that he knew that Heavenly Father directed him to make the right choice and to be true to his beliefs. My heart was beating rapidly and I was moved by his words and the Spirit as I sat there. I searched this question deeply... do I really know that there is a God and that Jesus Christ is truly His Son. I prayed for an answer and eventually received a testimony of that truth.

There’s a boy at school who is teased behind his back and is lonely. I saw him sitting alone one day, so I went to talk with him. I found out that when he was a baby he had seizures and a stroke. The stroke injured his brain and makes certain things harder for him to do. I decided to invite him to my birthday party. His family was excited because he hasn’t been invited to very many parties. He doesn’t smile very often, but he smiled a lot at my party and had a great time!
Jason D., age 11, Arizona

In April 1844, President Joseph Smith called the Twelve Apostles to serve missions in the Eastern United States.
Joseph Smith: All of the Apostles except Willard Richards and John Taylor are called as missionaries to continue preaching the gospel.
Wilford Woodruff had already served as a missionary in England and America, but he was obedient to the Prophet. He packed his things and got ready to travel.
When he went to say good-bye to the Prophet, Elder Woodruff could tell that he was sad. Elder Woodruff felt sad too even though he didn’t know why.
Joseph Smith: You are about to start upon your mission. God bless you, Brother Woodruff. Go in peace.
Two months later, Elder Woodruff was preaching the gospel in Maine when he heard some terrible news.
Woman: Have you heard, Elder Woodruff? The Prophet has been killed! Joseph Smith has been shot in Carthage Jail!
Elder Woodruff immediately left to meet with the other Apostles in Nauvoo.
Elder Woodruff: Now I know why I was so sad before. That was the last time I would ever see the Prophet Joseph Smith here on earth.
Although many Saints were worried that the Church would not be able to go on without the Prophet Joseph Smith, Elder Woodruff was not afraid. He was asked to go and comfort the Saints in Europe and lead them until a new prophet was called.
Elder Woodruff: Though our Prophet has been killed because of his testimony, the keys of the kingdom of God are still here upon earth. The heavens are not closed.
Elder Woodruff: Heavenly Father will still speak to us and direct His disciples. Be humble and faithful, and the Lord will bless you.

Pat: In that same spirit may I just insert a very personal piece of counsel on a matter that has been a great blessing to us and I believe can be a great blessing to you. While working on his Ph.D. at Yale University, my husband got to know well one of the senior reference librarians who had given him valuable help researching for his dissertation.
On a whim one day, he said, “Ilene, I need to know how many books we have in either the Sterling Memorial or Beinike Rare Book Libraries that claim to have been delivered by an angel.”
The librarian gave him a peculiar look (but my husband has always received peculiar looks) and said, “I don’t know of any books that have been delivered by angels. Swords maybe. Or chariots. But I don’t know of any books.”
“Well, just run a check for me would you? It may take a little doing, but I really would like to know. It would help me with some religious writing I am doing.” (Now, please understand that Yale has the fourth-largest library in the nation, with nearly 9,000,000 volumes in its collection.)
Ilene dutifully did some checking. For several days she had nothing to report, but then one day was all smiles as my husband strolled by to his carrel.
“Mr. Holland, yoo hoo,” she said, very unlibrarianlike. “I have a book for you. I found one book which, it is claimed, was delivered by an angel. But it’s one from your people,” she said. (She always spoke of Latter-day Saints as my husband’s people, which probably meant she had him confused with Wilford Woodruff.)
“But it’s one from your people,” she said, and she held up a paperback copy of the Book of Mormon. “I’m told you can get them for a dollar.”
“My word,” she continued. “An angel’s book for a dollar. You would think angels would charge more, but then again, where would they spend it?”
Well, that’s a funny—and true—story, but I wonder if we have considered the majesty of our message to the world. Prophets are not just everyday people, and angels do not visit us often, but of all the books that will be at your disposal this year at the university, only one has been delivered by an angel.

Alivsi H., Jalisco, Mexico
At the beginning of every semester at school, we get a free set of products containing a notebook, an agenda, and a random sample product. One year I lined up to get my set and realized that the sample I got was particularly useful for me.
At the end of the day, I saw that they were giving two samples of the same product. It would be easy to get in line again and get a second set, and I decided to do it. After all, they were free, and I needed that product.
I made a quick stop at the restroom, where I saw a cell phone that some girl had left by accident. It was one of the latest models, and I had just lost my own phone a week before. But I didn’t even consider keeping it. “That’s stealing,” I said to myself.
Then, on my way to get my second set of free stuff, I realized that would be as dishonest as keeping the phone because I would have to lie and say I hadn’t gotten one before.
I was thankful for this small experience that taught me a big lesson. I turned the phone in and went home with only one notebook, one agenda, and one sample product, but with a nice feeling for being true in all things, no matter how small.

When we could find one, we set up camp next to a stream. One time when we did, Ed and I took off with the fishing pole to look for a deep hole in the nearly dry creek. We found a beautiful spot out of sight of camp but close enough that we could still hear the cries of Annie-I-over. There was a strict rule that no one got so far away that he couldn’t see or hear the camp.
When we got off alone together like this Ed tried to show me how to talk, and I learned to say a few new words. “Look at that frog,” he shouted and bounded across the mossy stones to grab it.
“Frog,” I said. “Frog.”
“What a beauty! Look how big he is. I wonder how far he can jump.”
We stayed until nearly dark testing his ability. By the time we heard Papa coming to get us, the frog’s record was six feet, measured with Ed’s feet.
“Papa, look at my pet,” Ed called as he came closer. “Can I keep him? Can I?”
“That’s a fine frog all right,” Papa said. “But you’d better leave him here. He’d only die if we took him with us.”
“I can take him in a bucket of water. He won’t die.”
“A bucket of water is not the same as a stream. This is his home.”
“Please, Papa.”
“No, Ed. Now put him down, and I’ll tell you a story on the way back.”
“What about?” Ed asked.
“About a frog.”
“A true story?”
“Absolutely.”
Papa’s stories were always worth whatever we had to give up to hear them. Ed put his pet down carefully in a sheltered spot by the stream and took hold of Papa’s other hand. Then the three of us began to walk toward camp.
“What’s the story?” Ed asked.
“How butter was discovered.”
“You said it was about a frog.”
“So it is. You see, a long time ago, a frog jumped into a bowl of cream that was left by a dairymaid to keep cool at the edge of a stream. All night long he paddled around trying to get out, and when the girl came the next morning to get the cream, it had turned to butter.”
“Was the frog still alive?”
“I don’t remember that, but since there was no cream to spread on the bread, the dairymaid used the butter. She was afraid she’d be scolded for being careless enough to leave the lid off the cream, but everyone said the new spread was better. ‘Betty’s better spread’ they called it and wanted her to make more.”
When we got back to the wagon Mama had a good hot supper ready. Afterward we had a campfire program and evening prayer. Then the children were put to bed, and soon the fiddle began its tune and the grown-ups were moving their feet in time to the music. We happily watched them from the place where we slept beneath the wagon.
The next morning was washday, which meant the clothes were put into a half-full water barrel with a bar of homemade lye soap and jostled clean as we rode along. When we stopped, they’d be rinsed, wrung out, and hung on ropes stretched between trees. It wouldn’t take long to dry them if there were a little breeze.
Washdays were always planned between two stops where there was plenty of water so we wouldn’t run short. And since it was an extra busy day for Mama we had to help more than usual. Before camp broke up she assigned the chores.
“Caroline, you take care of the chickens,” she said. “Make sure they get fed and watered and don’t let any of them get lost when you turn them out to run.
“Dora, I’ll need you to watch Frank and Georgie while I do the washing. And Ed, you can churn the butter.”
Just then I saw the look come into Ed’s eyes that meant he had an idea, and I knew what it was because I had it too. Although he didn’t need to, he jerked his head at me in a way that said come on. Grabbing a bar of soap and a towel, we ran off in the direction of the stream.
“Where are you two going?” Mama called, and Ed shouted, “To wash our hands.”
“You told a lie,” I accused.
“No, I didn’t. We’ll wash our hands.”
The frog hadn’t got warmed up enough to move around yet so he was still where we had left him.
Ed started to lather him with the soap, and he slipped away. He picked up the slick frog again and said, “Have to get him clean enough.”
After he’d washed and dried the frog, he put him inside his shirt. We stayed by the stream cutting willows until the camp was ready to leave and then ran and jumped in the back of the wagon.
Mama was riding up front with Papa, holding Frank on her lap, and Georgie was asleep in his wash-basket bed. Caroline was walking with her friends.
Ed plopped the frog into the butter churn, and we settled into the back of the wagon for a leisurely ride. We reached over the tailgate, dragging our willows in the dust to make patterned trails behind us.
Several times we peeked into the churn where the frog was still swimming around, but there was no sign of butter. Ed started to work on teaching me some new words, and we forgot about everything else.
At lunchtime Mama asked, “Did the butter come yet?”
“Not yet,” Ed said.
“Well, it will pretty soon,” she encouraged. “Even the bouncing wagon helps it along.”
Then Papa told her the frog story. “Now don’t go giving these children any crazy ideas. It would be just like Ed and Dora to try that out.” She looked at us. “AND DON’T YOU DARE!” she warned.
We were glad she didn’t check out the butter churn before the wagons started up again. We decided that as soon as it was safe, we’d get the frog out of the cream and churn the way we were supposed to. When we lifted the lid, there sat the frog on an island of butter it had made. We laughed and laughed, and Ed put the frog inside his shirt to keep him safe until later. He wasn’t going to turn him loose here where there was no water.
As soon as we stopped, we took off for the stream to release the frog, and no one but us ever did know how the butter was churned that day.

Of these women, the only one I had known was my cousin Olga.
Olga, who was from Italy, married at a very young age, but sadly, her husband was violent and unfaithful to her. With the help of her father and her brother, Olga decided to escape when she was expecting her fifth child.
She went to live with her parents and brother. After the birth of her child, Olga passed away. Olga’s parents never recovered from the shock of her sudden death.

When I was in high school, I was one of three LDS students in a student body of five hundred. One year I sent invitations out for my 16th birthday. On the bottom they read, “No alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs.” When I gave those invitations out, my parents and I were afraid that no one would show up at the party. However, 35 out of 50 did show up.

About a month later, I received an invitation to a friend’s party. On the bottom it read “No alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs.” More such invitations followed in the next two years.

What you have to do is decide now what you will do and then stick to it. True friends will accept you for who you are. They may continue to smoke or drink, but they won’t pressure you once you’ve politely said, “I don’t smoke” (or drink, or whatever). If they do continue to pressure, find a new set of friends who accept you for you and what you stand for.

I remember when I was about your age wishing the Spirit would tell me something different. I grew up in a small town in Canada. There were 10 people in my high school graduating class, so I graduated in the top 10 of my class! One evening my sister Shirley and I were going to the same party at a friend’s house. Mom and Dad reminded us to come right home after the party. Shirley was a year younger than I and went with her group of friends, and I went with mine. After the party Shirley went directly home, a clear indication to Mom and Dad that the party was over. I was not as wise. With my group of friends we began driving around the exciting places in town—the grain elevators and the cemetery!
As time passed I got the strong feeling that I should be home. But how could I be the first one to say, “I have to go home”? So I didn’t. I stayed with my friends, laughing and pretending I was having a good time. The feeling that I should go home grew stronger and stronger. Finally I laughingly said to my friends, “If you see a blue car ahead, it’s just my dad looking for me.” No sooner had I said those words than there indeed was a blue car and my dad standing in the middle of the road (there wasn’t a lot of traffic), waving his arms for us to stop.
Dad came around to the car door, opened it, and said quietly, “Sharon, you’d better come home with me.” I wanted to crawl under the floor mats of the car and never come out! How could my dad be so cruel and insensitive, and why didn’t my sister wait outside the house so Mom and Dad wouldn’t know when the party was over? I talked to my sister recently about this, and she said, “I did wait outside until I almost froze to death.” At the time I was sure it was everyone else’s fault that I was so humiliated in front of my friends!
Through the lens of time and reality, I see more clearly what really happened. I was prompted and warned several times—not by a legion of angels or even one small angel, but a still, small voice. Actually, it was just a feeling I had. It was so subtle, so quiet that it could be easily brushed away and I could pretend it wasn’t really there—and my friends were!
I had overstepped something that was expected of me. I had chosen to be popular with my friends instead of pleasing my parents and the Lord. But even when I deliberately chose not to obey, the Spirit was still there prompting me. You can’t do wrong and feel right. Pretending the Spirit isn’t prompting you when it is, is like putting the wrong answer down on a test when you know the right answer.

I saw the promise come to fruition that my doctors would be guided. When I awoke after one of my operations, the surgeon came to see me.
“I was all done,” she explained, “but something told me to go deeper, and I found additional problem areas, which I was able to remove. We’re fortunate to have found them.”
She is not a member of the Church, but the promise of the blessing I had received early on had come to pass. The Spirit had guided her.

Several years ago while my wife and I were serving in Venezuela, our youngest son left the comfort of his high school to join with us. He did not complain, but it was obvious that he struggled as he went to this country where everything was new to him; but in an amazing turn of events, the experience went from one of trial to a huge blessing in his life. He accomplished this by changing his own attitude and developing a determination to succeed.

Aunt Helen’s barn was old and weather-beaten and not used much anymore—except by us children as a refuge from boredom all during the spring and summer. The old rope swing tied to the ridgepole provided hours of excitement in our contests to see who could swing the highest and farthest. The barn’s many nooks and crannies offered great hiding places for games of hide-and-seek. And the old straw and hay gave us soft nests to curl up in while we shared secrets, desires, and dreams.
We thought of the barn as ours during the warm months. But when old Jack Frost started to paint the leaves on the mountainside each year, Aunt Helen would start acting mysterious. “The barn is closed now till spring,” Aunt Helen would state matter-of-factly, but with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Aw, Aunt Helen. Please just let us play in the barn after school,” we would beg.
“That old barn needs a rest after your playing in it all summer,” Aunt Helen would state firmly, and we knew not to ask again.
What’s Aunt Helen’s mystery? I wondered. What does the old barn have to do with it all? This year I was curious enough to decide to find out!
To get to the school bus stop, I had to walk right past the lane that led up the hill to Aunt Helen’s house. From the bottom of the lane, I could see her house and the old barn just beyond it.
Each morning and afternoon I routinely stopped to study both buildings. The first few days I saw nothing out of the ordinary. On the fourth day, while coming home from the bus stop, I noticed something that made me stop and stare: Mr. Rice was driving his hay wagon with a full load of hay up her lane. What’s Aunt Helen doing with a load of hay? I wondered. She doesn’t have any cows or horses to feed. Now, I knew that Mr. Rice had just built a huge new hay barn to put his hay in. He wouldn’t need to use Aunt Helen’s old barn for storage too. Why all the hay?
The next day was Saturday, bread-making day for Aunt Helen. Since Mom thought that it was well past time for me to learn the art of bread-making, I had no trouble persuading her to let me go over to Aunt Helen’s for the morning.
Aunt Helen was pleased to see me and tickled that I had come to help make bread. Soon I was up to my elbows in flour and dough. It was always fun to be with Aunt Helen. She liked to hear all about what I was doing at school. And she had funny stories to tell and interesting things to discuss. As we kneaded the dough and talked, I said as casually as I could, “I saw Mr. Rice coming up your lane yesterday with a load of hay.”
“Oh, did you?” was all that she said.
Her answer threw me off. “Why do you need hay?” I asked not so casually.
“A barn isn’t a barn without hay,” she said, adding abruptly, “It’s time to put the dough into the pans.”
This is going to be tougher than I thought, I realized as I put the dough into pans to rise.
Now, Aunt Helen had been a schoolteacher for over thirty years. And since she knew everything there was to know about anything, she was the most likely person to ask when I needed help with my homework. So after school Monday, instead of just passing by Aunt Helen’s lane, I walked up it. I made my mind up to become Aunt Helen’s shadow until I had solved the mystery.
“Hi, Aunt Helen,” I said as I walked up to her in the flower garden, where she was pulling weeds. “We were given a really tough assignment in English today. Would you help me with it?”
“Oh, I think so—after you have some cookies and milk. One can’t do tough homework on an empty stomach,” she said with a big smile.
Each day after that I spent the afternoon with Aunt Helen. She’d help me with my homework; then I would help her with whatever needed to be done. Sometimes some of my other cousins would stop by for help or to visit, but most of the time, I had her all to myself.
One very cool afternoon I found Aunt Helen in her vegetable garden, digging carrots. “Hi,” I said. “No homework today. Wow! You sure have a lot of carrots,” I remarked, looking at the three huge baskets full of carrots. “You must really like them.”
“No, actually I don’t,” she said with a chuckle.
I bent down and helped her dig some up. Is this another clue to the mystery? Hay and carrots … hay and carrots … what’s the relationship? “For someone who doesn’t eat carrots,” I said, “you have enough to feed an army!”
She just chuckled, but I thought I heard her say softly, “No, not an army, just a small herd.” When we finished digging up all the carrots, she said, “Run and get the wagon, and we’ll load these baskets into it.”
When it was loaded, Aunt Helen pulled it while I pushed. We headed for the old barn! I’m finally going to get a look inside the old barn! I thought. I just knew that I was going to solve the mystery that very day. But when we unloaded the carrots in the old side storage room, it was completely empty except for a few baskets of carrots already stored there.
I was able to catch a glimpse of the main part of the barn, but it was just as we’d left it weeks before, except that there were stacks of hay scattered around. It did seem strange that the hay was stacked only a few bales high—most hay is stacked as high as the barn rafters.
As we walked back to Aunt Helen’s house, I was desperately trying to piece everything together. “My, you’re awfully quiet,” Aunt Helen observed.
“Oh, I’m just thinking,” I replied, and I saw that mysterious twinkle in her eyes again.
Soon the leaves on the mountainside were a blaze of color. One afternoon as I went into Aunt Helen’s house, I overheard part of a telephone conversation. “Yes, Howard, I’ll need at least ten bushels of apples this year. Yes. Two bushels for here at the house, and the rest can be put into the barn’s side storage room. The end of the week will be fine. Thanks, Howard. Good-bye.”
Apples in the barn? Hay, carrots, and now apples? This is getting more and more mysterious!
After my homework was done and I was eating homemade bread and jam, I said, “Dad says that it’s going to be an early winter this year. He says that he can’t remember a year being so cold so early. I bet he and the boys freeze their feet off on the deer hunt next week.” I started to chuckle. “It serves them right, too—grown men chasing and killing helpless deer like that. It’s totally disgusting!”
Aunt Helen laughed, too, but it was a mischievous laugh. “Yes, it would serve them right. I bet they don’t get any deer around here again this year.”
Saturday, the first day of the big deer hunt, was indeed cold, and there was a biting breeze. Aunt Helen had asked me to come over that morning. She hadn’t said why, but she had had that mysterious twinkle in her eye when she’d asked. So as soon as the breakfast dishes were done, I ran over to her house.
I found her sitting on her back porch, watching her barn with that funny little smile on her lips. “Hello, dear. Come sit down for a minute,” she said. “Well, you were right about the hunters getting frozen feet today.”
We sat for a couple of minutes without talking. I studied the old barn. Nothing seemed to have changed about it, but I knew that something was going on inside. I could just feel it.
“Rebecca, do you know that you are the only one of the children who realizes that there is something secretive about my barn in the autumn? And that is why I’m going to share my secret with you. I know that I can trust you and that my secret will be safe with you. Come on.” With this she took my hand and started walking toward the barn.
About halfway there, Aunt Helen stopped and pointed to it, saying, “Shhh. You must be very quiet now.”
Just inside the barn doors stood a beautiful deer. Her fawns were not far away, and apples and carrots were scattered on the barn floor. I could see at least six more deer inside the barn, lying in the soft hay or eating. I just stood there with my mouth open.
After about five minutes of watching, Aunt Helen pulled me away. I was speechless until we sat down in her warm kitchen. “How?” was all that I could say, even then.
“Well, Rebecca, I hate the killing of the deer. About ten years ago, just before the hunting season, I saw a doe and her fawn eating out by the barn. I said to her, ‘Go into my barn. Go into my barn with your baby. You’ll be safe there.’ And she did! She stayed there with her young for about two weeks. Then she just left. I think that somehow she knew when it was safe to leave.
“Since then, about this time each year, a number of deer come to my barn. I make sure that there is food for them—hay, carrots, and apples. Then, when the hunting season is over, I tell them that it’s safe to leave. And they seem to understand and leave. But when we’ve had winters with lots of snow, the deer come back to feed in the barn. They know that there will always be food for them until the snow melts enough for them to browse for their own food.”
“Safe in the barn!” I exclaimed gleefully. “Safe in Aunt Helen’s old barn!”
Each year now both Aunt Helen and I become a bit mysterious in the autumn because we share and enjoy the secret in the old barn.

Jenny rested her head against the school bus window. This was the first time she had ridden the bus to school, and she felt strange—sort of lonely, despite the greetings by the other children.
When the bus stopped at the corner of Cedar and Oak, she noticed an old man with white hair standing by the curb. He looked at the bus and waited. Just as the bus began to move again, he quickly raised his arm and gave a friendly wave.
“He waved to us,” Jenny blurted out to Billy who had sat down next to her. “Why did he do that?”
“I don’t know. He just does. He’s just some old man.”
One morning before Halloween, Jenny said, “Look, Billy. There’s a cardboard pumpkin on the old man’s door.” When the old man waved, Jenny smiled and waved back. She felt good inside.
By late November, the days grew colder. One morning, as a bitter chill frosted up the windows, Jenny said, “I wonder if the old man will be there today?” She crooked her neck to look up ahead. She saw him tacking up a colorful turkey decoration. “Hurray!” she exclaimed.
In the days that followed, Jenny didn’t wonder anymore if the old man would be there. She knew that he would be. It was as simple as that.
Time drew near for school to let out for the December holidays. Every morning Jenny anxiously glanced at the old man’s door. On a cold and dismal morning just before school let out, Jenny spotted a snowman decoration on the old man’s door. In spite of the cold, she felt sunshine inside when the old man smiled and waved.
A light snow was falling when school started again in January. Bundled up snugly, Jenny bounded up the steps of the bus. It sputtered and shuddered as it neared Cedar and Oak. When everyone began to cheer and shout, Jenny knew that the old man was there.
And then one morning, as a February drizzle fell in a gray and dreary mist, Jenny thought, Valentine Day is almost here. I wonder what the old man will put on his door. Her eyes searched for him. He wasn’t at the curb, or on the sidewalk, or on his porch. As the bus rolled by, she pressed her hands against the window, peered at his house through the streaks of dribbling rain, and felt sad. Where’s the old man? she wondered. She turned to Billy. “Do you know his name?”
“Mr. Brown. He’ll probably be back tomorrow.”
But the next morning he wasn’t there, either. Nor the next morning. Nor the next.
Finally Jenny said, “We have to call and find out where he is.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “There are hundreds of Browns.”
“But we know his address—717 Cedar.”
At lunchtime Jenny and Billy found a telephone book in the office. “Just look at the Browns one at a time,” Jenny said. “Not the name, just the address.”
“OK, but this could take days,” Billy moaned.
Jenny lowered her head. “Just start looking,” she said firmly.
With a steady rain beating against the windows, they read through the listings on the first page, then the next. Just as Billy licked his finger to turn the page, Jenny shouted, “Here it is—717 Cedar! Brown, Quincy. Let’s call.”
“Not me. Maybe he’s not there anymore.”
“But maybe he is.” Jenny picked up the phone and dialed the number.
After two rings, a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”
Jenny gulped. “Mrs. Brown?”
“Yes?”
“This is Jenny. A friend of Mr. Brown. Is he there?”
“A friend of his?”
“Sort of. I used to see him from the school bus every morning.”
“Oh, the school bus. He’s been worried about that.”
“Worried? That’s great! I mean, I’m glad to know he still lives on Cedar.”
“Oh, yes, but he’s been in bed with the flu. He’s over the worst of it, but until he gets his strength back, he has to stay inside. Unless the sun is out. Sunshine would do him a world of good.”
Jenny thanked Mrs. Brown and hung up. Sunshine, she thought. She raised an eyebrow and looked at Billy. “You’re thinking,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m thinking about sunshine. We have a few more days before Valentine Day. And I know just what we can do.”
When Valentine Day finally arrived, the sky was cloudy as they rode to school.
“All set?” Jenny asked.
“All set,” Billy said. “But the sun isn’t out.”
“The bus driver said it will be OK. He checked with Mrs. Brown. She’ll be there if Mr. Brown can’t be.”
As the bus rumbled along, Jenny could hardly breathe. But even though she wished as hard as she could, the sun did not come out.
“It’s not going to work,” Billy said. “Maybe we should wait.”
“We can’t,” Jenny said with a sigh. “Valentine Day is today. I guess we’ll have to give them to Mrs. Brown.”
The brakes whined as the bus slowed to a stop. When Mrs. Brown came outside, Billy and the others rifled through their backpacks and found the valentines they had made, and Jenny reached under the seat and pulled out the huge red heart trimmed in white that they had all signed. They watched silently as the bus driver collected them and gave them with a grin to Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown smiled at everyone on the bus, then hurried back to the house.
“We didn’t even get to see him,” Jenny mumbled.
That afternoon as the closing school bell rang, bright rays of sunshine streamed in through the classroom window. “Great!” Jenny grumped as she frowned at the clear blue sky. “Where were you this morning?”
She slumped in her seat as they rode the bus back home. Even though the sun was shining now, inside she felt as if the clouds had not gone away.
When they reached the corner of Cedar and Oak, Billy poked her with his elbow. “Look!”
Jenny turned her head and peered out the window. “Wow! There it is,” she said. “The heart we made is on Mr. Brown’s door.” She bounced up and down and clapped her hands. “And look at that.”
A roar went up, and everyone clambered for the windows on that side of the bus. Valentines filled Mr. Brown’s yard. Red hearts on long skinny sticks poked up all over the place. As they got closer, Jenny squinted her eyes. “They’re ours,” she squealed. “The ones we made for him.”
“Look over there, Jenny,” Billy said, as another cheer came from the bus.
There, standing in the sunshine and waving from the curb, was the old man at Cedar and Oak. Jenny beamed as she waved back.
“Well,” Billy said, “the old man is back, and things are just the way they were.”
Jenny’s eyes sparkled. She felt warm and snug inside. “No,” she said with a smile. “Mr. Brown is back, and things will never be the same old way again.”

That gift continued in the hospital after his wife died. We gathered up my mother’s things to take home. Dad stopped to thank every nurse and doctor we met on the way out to the car. I remember I felt, with some irritation, that we should leave to be alone with our grief.

I realize now that he saw things only the Holy Ghost could have shown him. He saw those people as angels sent by God to watch over his sweetheart. They may have seen themselves as health care professionals, but Dad was thanking them for their service on behalf of the Savior.

A friend shared an experience she had as a small child in a branch of the Church where she was the only child of Primary age. Week after week, her mother held home Primary on the same day and at the same time. She eagerly anticipated sitting on the sofa with her mother and learning the gospel of Jesus Christ and how to live it. Minutes carefully recorded by her mother in a notebook revealed the home Primary meetings always included prayers, songs, and a lesson.

The desire of this mother’s heart was for her little daughter to develop a testimony of Jesus Christ and to feel the joy of the gospel. She provided her daughter with what had been so important to her as a child. This little girl, now a woman of faith and covenant, looks back on her childhood with deep appreciation for her mother’s enthusiasm and commitment to teach her of the Savior. This mother’s diligence became her daughter’s delight—with an exclamation mark.

Several hours later however, our sincere prayers were answered in a very different manner. After getting everyone down off the rappel, it started to rain. The rain made the rocks very slick which made the descent event more difficult, but the greater challenge was that the steep descent had taken its toll on my brother-in-law's knees and he was struggling with every step. He was a real trooper and never complained, but he was in a lot of pain and it really slowed our progress as we descended down off the mountain. The rain finally stopped, but the sun quickly set and we once again found ourselves hiking in the dark. We had made it through the technical parts of the mountain, but we still had several miles to hike and by this time we had been awake for over 40 hours straight. As we continued down, we came to a meadow and then a large boulder field and once in the boulder field, we lost the trail. We searched and searched, but could not find the trail to take us out of the boulder field. We worked our way back to the meadow because we knew there was a sign there that would indicate we were in the right spot but we could not find the sign. We all prayed that we would find our way out and we had great faith that we would be guided to know what to do, but as hard as we tried, we could not find the trail or the sign indicating where we were.

We began to think that we had possibly missed a turn so while the others rested, my other brother-in-law and I hiked back up the mountain to try to find a fork in the trail and to also see if we could get cell phone reception to let our families know that we were o.k. We were not successful in either endeavor. We were finally so exhausted that we turned around and went back down to the meadow where our brothers were sleeping. When we reached them, we happened to look across the creek and in the faint light of our headlamps we saw something. We walked over to it and there, not 50 ft. from where our brothers were resting, was the metal sign indicating the trail and verifying that we were going the right way. We had walked past that spot at least a dozen times and had not seen the sign. We were elated to know that we were in the right spot, but we made the conscious decision to rest for a bit to clear the fog from our sleep deprived minds. We slept for a couple of hours on the side of the trail and when we awoke, our minds were clear. We re-entered the boulder field, found the trail through it and were able to safely hike out the rest of the way. Our prayers were answered, but in a different way than we had anticipated.

My classmates and I were stationed near Hanover. Every month or so our unit of about 300 people would get together. Usually there was a unit party, and everyone would be drinking and smoking—except me. I didn’t know it at first, but our commander-in-chief watched me during these parties.
One day he asked me why I didn’t smoke or drink. I was a little shy, and I told him that I just didn’t believe in it. I think I was the only one who didn’t smoke or drink in the whole group, and I was the only Latter-day Saint.
“There must be a specific reason why you don’t do that,” he continued questioning me. I told him it was better for the body to abstain from those things, and I tried to evade the question a little bit. When you’re 15, it’s not so easy when people laugh at you and say you’re not a man if you don’t smoke and drink. My fellow soldiers had made fun of me quite often, and my commander had heard that.
“You’re a Mormon, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” he asked.
“I’m not that outgoing. I’m a little shy,” I explained. “You’ve seen what kind of reaction the others have.”
“Well, that might change if you just tell them,” he replied.
One night we were all sitting at a big table at a party, and everyone was drinking, except me. I think I had a soft drink that I had bought downtown. My commanding officer was watching me again.
He stood and said, “Rahde, get up.” Then he said to the whole group, “I would like to inform you that Rahde is a Mormon. He doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t smoke. And I would like you to respect that. If I see anybody making fun of him because of that, I will put you in jail.”
I was shocked. I turned red because everyone was looking at me. Then he said, “From now on, Rahde, it is your job to take care of these men and see that when they go downtown and have too much to drink they find their way home.”
From that minute on, I had a lot of groups that wanted me to go with them every night. They took me with them to the bars, and as soon as we went in they said, “No drinks for Heinz. He has to take us home. He doesn’t drink, and don’t you bother him.”
I didn’t have to mention anything anymore. I had more friends that way than I would have had any other way. Nothing could have done more good for me than this frankness, as my wise commanding officer had sensed. It was a testimony to me that the others trusted me so much that whenever something came up, they always asked me to go with them, and they protected me. No one dared offer me anything again.

“Hi, Tommy,” Mom said as Tommy walked in the door and dropped his backpack on the floor.
“Hi, Mom. Guess what?” Tommy opened his backpack and took out a piece of paper. “Soccer sign-ups are this week!” Excitedly, he handed Mom the paper and watched as she read it.
“It says the city leagues are forming, and any interested boys should meet at the park this Saturday.” Mom looked up at Tommy. “What do you think? Do you want to play soccer this season?”
“I really want to,” Tommy said, “but my other friends have been playing for a couple of years, and I might not be a very good player. What if I make a mistake and our team loses a game?”
“Winning isn’t everything,” Mom said. “Having the courage to try, even if you’re scared, is more important. I think you should try.”
Later that evening as the family was sitting around the dinner table, Tommy told Dad about the soccer sign-ups.
“Are you going to play this year?” Dad asked.
“Mom says I should have the courage to try,” Tommy said.
“That’s right!” Dad said. “Having courage is more important than winning. Remember in family home evening when we talked about Nephi building a boat? He had the courage to try something new. Without Nephi’s courage, his family would never have made it to the promised land.”
Tommy sat silently for a few moments. “Dad, will you go with me on Saturday to the soccer meeting?”
“Sure.” Dad smiled. “I’ll give you an extra boost of courage.”
The rest of the week went by quickly, and soon it was Saturday morning. Tommy and his dad sat on the bleachers at the park with the rest of the boys who wanted to play soccer. Some of them had brought their parents along too.
After dividing everyone into teams according to where they lived, the man in charge spoke to each group and asked them to choose a coach. Tommy and his dad looked around at the other parents in their group. They were all shaking their heads.
“I’m too busy,” one dad said.
“I work on the weekends,” said another parent.
Soon the man in charge stood in front of Tommy’s group.
“We still need a coach here,” he said. He waited a moment, but nobody raised a hand. “Without a coach, you can’t form a team,” the man repeated. Everyone was silent.
Tommy pulled on his dad’s sleeve. “You could coach our team!” he whispered.
“No, not me,” Dad said. “I’ve never played soccer. I don’t know anything about the game.”
“But without a coach, we can’t play!” Tommy insisted. “C’mon, Dad, you’d do a great job.”
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “I can barely even recognize a soccer ball!” They sat in silence a few more moments. Still, no one offered to coach the team.
Tommy leaned over to whisper to his dad again. “Remember, having courage is more important than winning.”
His dad’s brow furrowed as he thought for a moment. Then he slowly raised his hand. “I’ll coach the team,” he said quietly.
“Hooray!” The other boys cheered as they jumped up. “We can play soccer!”
Tommy grabbed his dad’s hand. “I’ll be with you at every practice and every game, Dad,” he said. “And I’ll give you an extra boost of courage!”
Even though the team had a great time that season, they never won a game—and only scored one goal. The details of their soccer games are now forgotten, but the lesson Tommy and his dad learned about having the courage to try will last a lifetime.

Brigham’s mission to England, as the head of the Quorum of the Twelve, began with two dramatic departures that reveal his growing confidence in the Lord and his own developing ability as a courageous and prophetic leader. Indeed, the two years between April 1839, when Brigham led a majority of the Twelve in a daring, necessarily secret, formal farewell ceremony while surrounded by their enemies in Far West, and April 1841, when he triumphantly led them back from England, were among the two most important of his life—both in accomplishment and in personal development. We need to remember that in England he participated in the justly famous mass conversions in Herefordshire along with Wilford Woodruff; that he preached in London and visited St. Paul’s Cathedral and the British Museum; that in England he healed the lame and sick, compiled a book of hymns, published the Book of Mormon and prepared an index for it, established and for a time edited the Millennial Star—these things while welding the Quorum of the Twelve into a unified, smoothly working executive and apostolic body, with himself firmly at its head.
The first departure came as the result of a revelation Joseph Smith received in Missouri in July 1838, commanding that the Twelve, recently riven by the apostasy in Kirtland, be organized again and expand upon its assigned task of proselyting by going to England. They were to “take leave of my saints” in Far West the next April 26 on the building site of the temple.18 But before that time came, Joseph and many of the leaders had been jailed, leaving Brigham suddenly in charge of a desperate winter exodus back across the state to Illinois. The Governor’s extermination order was in effect, so enemies of the Saints were openly boasting that they would kill anyone who tried to fulfill “Joe Smith’s prophecy” about the Twelve leaving for England from Missouri.
Some of the Saints who were gathered in Quincy, Illinois, argued that in their persecuted condition surely the Lord would not require them to fulfill his word to the letter, but Brigham had been learning from Joseph the value of something more important than practical expediency. He knew the value of energetic, even dangerous, effort and sacrifice in keeping faith with the Lord and His prophet, and he knew the value of great example in motivating faith in the Saints. The three other apostles in Quincy agreed with Brigham that “the Lord God had spoken and it was our duty to obey and leave the event in his hands and he would protect us.”19 The four traveled back by carriage, picking up apostle John E. Page (who was still bringing his family out of Missouri) on the way and meeting Heber Kimball in Far West, where he had been in hiding awaiting them. Heber recorded that the Lord cast a deep sleep on the town.20 They met while it was still dark (Brigham was practical as well as courageously faithful) on the morning of April 26, ordained Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith apostles, thus providing a minimum Quorum of seven to do business, directed the laying of a token stone for the foundation of the temple, and “took their leave … agreeable to revelation.”21
The Twelve then returned to Illinois (taking with them the last group of refugees, who had risked their lives to fulfill the Lord’s command to the Twelve to “take leave of my saints”), assisted in settling the scattered Saints on the future site of Nauvoo, and spent the summer getting ready for their missions—preparing physically for their families as much as their destitute condition would allow, and preparing spiritually through meetings with the Prophet, who had been released from jail in time to join them in founding the new city. Then a memorable meeting was held at Brigham Young’s cabin across the river in Montrose on July 2, where “brother Joseph taught many important, glorious principles calculated to benefit and bless [us] on [our] mission,”22 especially advising the apostles to be merciful with each other and pray for each other, to avoid all pride and backbiting such as had brought on the past troubles with dissension and apostasy.23
When the apostles tried to leave in August, the malaria that infested the low, swampy ground where they had settled along the Mississippi had disabled nearly everyone. Brigham’s description is typically simple and restrained, leaving us to imagine the physical and emotional suffering of this second dramatic departure: “My health was so poor I was unable to go thirty rods to the river without assistance. … I left my wife sick, with a babe only ten days old, and all my children sick and unable to wait upon each other.”24 His family was even without adequate clothing because of losses to the mob in Missouri; Brigham himself was wearing a cap made out of a pair of old pantaloons, and he took along a quilt because he had no overcoat until some Saints in New York made him one. He commented that he thus “had not much of a ministerial appearance.” But though deathly ill for a time, and literally carried from place to place as he and a few companions were shuttled by the Saints across Illinois, he gradually recovered strength and began to have experiences commensurate with his calling—even though he lacked the “appearance.”
Traveling without purse or scrip, Brigham found that $13.50 given them by the Saints and kept in his trunk became like the Old Testament widow’s cruse of oil and barrel of flour that were continually replenished; drawn from again and again, it provided $87 worth of fares and meals as they traveled by stage across Indiana and Ohio to Kirtland. There they found John Taylor; he had left earlier while in good health but had been stricken enroute by a near fatal illness from which he was just then recovering. Brigham, showing the expanding dimensions of his spiritual leadership, met with the apostles in the temple where he anointed and blessed Elder Taylor and washed the apostles’ feet.25 This quality, Brigham’s growing confidence in the power of the Lord available to him, associated closely with the humble recognition of his own roughness and his need for polishing, is revealed again in his entry on crossing Lake Erie:
“The lake was so rough that no boat came into port until the 26th, when we went on board the steamboat Columbus. … The wind rose about one o’clock in the morning. I went up on deck and felt impressed in spirit to pray to the Father, in the name of Jesus, for a forgiveness of my sins, and then I felt to command the winds to cease, and let us go safe on our journey. The winds abated, and I felt to give the glory and honor and praise to that God who rules all things.”26
The missionary journey took great physical courage as well as faith. While jumping onto a ferryboat in New York, Brigham slipped and fell against an iron ring on the deck, severely dislocating his shoulder:
“I directed brothers Kimball and Hedlock to lay hold of my body, and Brother Pratt to take hold of my hand and pull, putting his foot against my side, while I guided the bone with my right hand back to its place. … When I came to a fire I fainted, and was not able to dress myself for several days.27
Brigham reported that on the voyage across the Atlantic “I was sick nearly all the way and confined to my berth. … When I landed on the shore I gave a loud shout of hosannah.”28 When he arrived in England on April 6, 1840, he was so emaciated that his own cousin Willard Richards (who had remained in a leadership role there since coming with Heber Kimball in 1837) did not recognize him.

I remember reading several years ago of a man who had gone into the wilderness area of the state of Montana with a companion on a big game hunt. The hunters came upon a grizzly bear at rather close range, and one of the men fired at the bear and wounded it. In a rage the huge animal charged the hunters. One of them, in panic and in a desperate attempt to save himself, climbed into the lower branches of a small tree close by. The tree was not large enough to support the man’s weight and hold him beyond the reach of the bear’s powerful claws and jaws. Before his companion could destroy the bear, it had inflicted such serious injuries on the treed hunter that it was necessary to amputate both his legs in order to save his life.