Gospel Story Finder

School was even more wonderful than I had imagined. I got to see Lucy every day, and we could share secrets at recess or trade sandwiches and cookies during the lunch hour. The rest of the time there were plenty of girls for a game of hopscotch, jacks, or jump rope.
The school was only one room that could be divided into two when a big partition was let down from the ceiling. The first four grades met in one half of the room with the new teacher Miss Foster, and the older classes met in the other half with the principal Mr. Stern. Stern was a good name for him too. I seldom saw him smile, and he was very strict and sometimes cruel in his punishment. Although I was two grades behind Ed, I was in the same section of the room with him, and since we were seated alphabetically, I sat next to him.
I learned to read rather easily after my games with the ABC’s and that opened new doors of adventure. I found that if I studied and knew the answers, there were no cracked knuckles or no standing in the corner. Once I learned something, it stayed in my memory for a long time and that was very handy for examinations.
My favorite subject was grammar, and I especially liked to diagram sentences. It was fun to draw lines like shelves in the air for the words to be put away in just the right place, some sitting on top, others hanging down below, and some sliding down a slanty line to another word on a line below that. Sometimes the diagrams covered half a page and looked like a neat design, with the words all filed away where they belonged—subjects and predicates and modifiers of simple, complex, or compound sentences.
The boys thought it was fun to pull pranks on the teacher, so Miss Foster was in the habit of shaking out her handkerchief with a loud snap when she took it from the top drawer of her desk to make sure there were no stinkbugs or caterpillars hidden in it. One day when she opened the drawer, a kangaroo rat leaped out in front of her face. She was so startled she screamed and jumped back, upsetting her chair and knocking her off her feet. She fell over backward and sprawled on the floor.
Mr. Stern came in fuming from around the other side of the partition, demanding to know what on earth was going on. He tried his best to find out who was guilty of putting the rat in the drawer, but no one would tell, so he made the whole class practice penmanship during recess as a punishment. We wrote: “I will not play pranks on the teacher” over and over in our best handwriting.
One Saturday, soon after school started, Sister Williamsen left Lucy at our place to play while she and Mama went to the store. We were practicing for the circus we had been planning, and Lucy was learning how to ride standing on Bessie’s back so we could be twin riders. Ed was trying to do flips in the haystack, and Georgie was clowning around with Spot. Frank came out of the barn carrying his whip and a cat in each arm.
“Why don’t you do what I tell you?” he scolded. “I’m only going to give you one more chance!”
He put each kitten on one of the steps in his lion taming cage. “Now stay there!” he shouted and cracked his whip. Both cats streaked off through the fence and right in front of Bessie’s nose. The horse reared, and Lucy flew off and hit a fence pole.
“Now look what you’ve done,” I shouted at Frank and ran over to help Lucy get up.
She was lying there still and white, with a red stream of blood trickling down her face. Ed and Frank came running over to see. I was scared, but just then she opened her eyes. “You hit your head,” I told her. “But it’s going to be all right. Let me look at it.”
I found a deep cut on her scalp and tried to stop the bleeding by pushing it together. “It has to be sewed up,” I said. “Go get Papa, Ed. He’s down in the field somewhere. And hurry, she’s bleeding badly.”
Ed jumped on Bessie and galloped off to find Papa.
“Frank,” I said urgently, “go into the house and get the needle and thread and scissors, and a match.”
“You aren’t going to stitch it are you?” he asked fearfully.
“Of course not, but we need to have it all ready for Papa when he gets here.”
He came back with a darning needle and cotton thread.
“Not that kind, dummy! The curved needle and the black silk thread Papa uses on the animals.”
While he was gone I clipped the hair away from the cut. The blood was still oozing out though not as fast as at first. Lucy was pale and silent.
I pinched the wound together, and when Frank came back I instructed him how to sterilize the needle with the match and put the thread through it.
In a little while Ed galloped up. “I can’t find Papa anyplace,” he reported. “He’s not in the corn patch or the garden. Where else shall I look?”
“Maybe he’s fixing the fence. Keep looking, and hurry.”
He was gone a long time and my fingers were cramping from holding the cut together. But every time I released the pressure, it bled some more. Finally I decided I would have to sew it up myself.
“Will it hurt?” Lucy wanted to know.
“Don’t know,” I told her. “Haven’t ever been sewed up. Probably will sting a little.”
I was finishing the last stitch when Papa and Ed rode up. Papa jumped quickly from his horse. “What’s the trouble here?” he asked and took a look at Lucy’s head. “Why it’s stitched up already,” he marveled, examining my work.
“Couldn’t have done a better job myself. You’ll be as good as new,” he told Lucy. “Now why don’t you girls go over by the house and play something quiet until your mamas get home?”
We were sitting on the back steps, cutting out dancing paper dolls holding hands when Mama and Sister Williamsen drove up.
“Get your hat and come along, Lucy,” her mama called from the wagon. “We need to hurry home and get some supper for your daddy.”
“OK,” Lucy said, folding her dolls back together and standing up.
“What’s that white spot on your head?” Sister Williamsen asked.
“Oh, that’s just where I cut off some hair before I sewed her up,” I explained.
“See,” Lucy said and showed her mother the spot.
All the pink had gone out of Sister Williamsen’s face, and I could hear a little gasp and see her lean against Mama.
“Papa says she’ll be as good as new,” I assured her. “It won’t leave hardly any scar at all.”
“Run get Sister Williamsen a drink of water, please, Dora,” Mama directed. “She’s had a shock.” Then she helped her out of the wagon and into a chair on the porch. In a little while she quit shaking and took another look at Lucy’s head. “She could have bled to death if you hadn’t known what to do.”
“Papa would’ve done it, but we couldn’t find him,” I replied.
“You did just fine,” Sister Williamsen said. “And I’m mighty grateful.”
Lucy wore a wide ribbon around her head until her hair grew out. She always had one to match her dress, and I almost wished I had had my head stitched up so I could have pretty hair ribbons like that.
A few weeks later I thought I was going to have a chance to wear ribbons, but it didn’t work out that way after all.
One day I was having a quarrel with Caroline, and she screamed her usual taunt, “You make me sick! You think you’re so smart with that curly hair. I’ll fix you once and for all!” And she grabbed the scissors and cut off one of my long ringlets.
Mama was horrified, and she punished Caroline severely. I didn’t really care too much. Now, I thought, I’ll get to wear a ribbon like Lucy does. The only trouble was, the bare spot was right on the crown of my head. And there’s no way a ribbon will stay tied around there unless it goes under your chin, and that looks pretty silly. In the end, Mama had to cut all my hair short to match.
I was glad to have my hair cut, except when I thought about being a great circus lady riding my horse standing up. Then I was sorry I didn’t have long hair to fly out behind me.
(To be continued.)

My friends and I were really into video games. The games we played were not driving games or sports games. We spent most of our time playing violent games that tried to show us what war was really like. My mother had been trying to get me to stop playing them, but the games were fun, and I thought she just did not understand the amazing things that the computer could do. I never realized that my behavior had changed until President Gordon B. Hinckley gave us the six Bs (see “A Prophet’s Counsel and Prayer for Youth,” New Era, Jan. 2001, 4).
I started to notice that after playing those violent games, I could not be nice to people. One time, after playing a game, a friend asked me if he could get something out of the refrigerator. I responded to him very rudely. I thought I was joking, but he didn’t. I felt horrible for being mean to him and making one of my best friends feel bad. I never wanted to hurt anyone after that.
I could not “be smart” or “be humble,” as the prophet has told us. These games distracted me from studying. I spent all of my free time playing these games so I could be better than everyone else. Playing these games built up a lot of pride in me, and I could not control myself from making fun of the people I had beaten. After a few weeks of feeling horrible after playing games like these and feeling horrible about the things they influenced me to do, I resolved to never play a violent game ever again. It didn’t matter if the game was just a little violent or a lot; I would never play a game with violence in it.
I have tried this for a while now, and I see blessings for doing so all around me. Giving up these games has allowed me to do so much more. I went from having no job to having a full-time job, from starting to lose friends to making more. I can spend more time on school and my studies. I have even started to write a short story that I enjoy.
I have found that listening to your parents and the prophet can save you a lot of heartache. The simple phrases “be humble” and “be smart” have made me a new person. I believe that as I continue to stay away from violent games, I will be blessed.

Although Justin and Tiffany now live in Utah while they are finishing their schooling, they grew up hundreds of miles apart. Tiffany grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and Justin’s family lived in Roanoke, Virginia, both largely non–Latter-day Saint environments. They would likely have never met, except that both decided to make every effort to attend school where they could be around other members of the Church. They chose to attend Brigham Young University—Idaho. They were assigned seats next to each other in their geology class. At first, Justin, a returned missionary from the London England South Mission, was quiet (he insists he was just trying to concentrate). Soon they started having fun discussions.

As their friendship developed, it changed to courtship. But because they were apart during the summers, they dated for more than two and a half years. During this time, Tiffany and Justin discovered they shared a rock-solid desire for a temple marriage. Tiffany says, “I first developed a desire to be married in the temple when I realized that there were special covenants I could make there that could not be made anywhere else. I knew that if I was married in the temple there would be no other place I could possibly be married that would be more right.”

The first time Aries and Lowenna saw each other was at a young single adult dance. It was just a glance; neither spoke. Six months later, Aries and a couple of his friends traveled 120 miles (190 km) to a young single adult housewarming activity at Lowenna’s student house. He says, “I guess it was the normal thing to do where the young single adults are so far spread.”

They both recognized each other from the dance, and Aries wasted no time inviting Lowenna and her sister to go wakeboarding with him. Lowenna and her sister didn’t make it because the distance to pick them up and return would have been too difficult for Aries, but they continued to see each other a couple of times a month at dances and activities. They grew to be good friends. As their feelings became stronger, they would regularly call and talk on the phone.

As Lowenna says, “Our feelings were stronger than we had ever experienced with past boyfriends or girlfriends. We both wanted to be the best that we possibly could for each other.”

Aries planned to propose and secretly bought a ring and overcame the daunting task of asking her dad’s permission. The couple planned to walk to a beautiful waterfall in a place where Aries spent a lot of his childhood. As Aries knelt to rummage in his backpack for the ring, Lowenna, thinking he wanted to take everything slower, said, “Is there anything you would like to change in our relationship?”

Aries replied, “Yes, there is actually. I would like to change quite a lot.” He pulled out a box with a ring inside.

The couple immediately started making plans. They were married 10 weeks later in the Preston England Temple, with Lowenna’s grandfather performing the temple sealing.

Lowenna says, “The Spirit was really strong through the day and served as an excellent introduction to the gospel to all our nonmember family and friends. We felt that there was nothing more important in this life than our eternal marriage. We are so grateful for the strength that we were to each other during our courtship, which enabled us to enter worthily into our Father’s house to make the sacred covenants that guide us in our married life today.”

Shortly after Ka Po was baptized, the sister missionaries encouraged her to take an institute class. It was held early Saturday mornings, and Ka Po remembers how hard it was to wake up and get to class on time.

A classmate called Ka Po every Saturday morning to wake her up and encourage her to attend class. One day the classmate gave the responsibility of calling to King. That was the beginning of their friendship.

Ka Po says, “Church activities helped us know more about each other.” Their first date was a dance practice for young single adults.

Ka Po and King dated for four years. King helped Ka Po share the gospel with her grandmother and brother. Then on the night he proposed, he met Ka Po in the playground of the school where she was attending night school. She had just finished a big exam and was exhausted, but she felt wonderful when he asked her to marry him and gave her an engagement ring.

They were married in the Hong Kong China Temple. Ka Po says, “I will never forget the day we were sealed in the temple. It was so beautiful and amazing that we could be together for eternity. I could not stop crying, and my heart was so full I couldn’t speak. I love the temple and the great blessing that we can go to the temple in our own country.

“Our temple marriage will influence not only us, but it can influence our children and their children. It is so important that we have the same purpose and goals on earth. I love the gospel, and I love my eternal spouse.”

“By the time I was 12,” says Taiana, “my desire for a temple marriage became more and more firm. It was more than just an objective I had to achieve. I wanted to become a person worthy to marry in the temple. So I worked toward it, especially through Personal Progress. And there were lots of people helping me—my parents, my Young Women leaders—and many Church activities to help keep me on track.”

Tururarii, on the other hand, has not been a member for most of his life. He joined the Church at the age of 25. “But having received the gospel,” says Tururarii, “and learning more and more about the blessings, I immediately set a goal to be married in the temple.”

Tururarii and Taiana met during choir rehearsals for an Easter concert fireside put on by the Church. They performed with the choir, became better acquainted, and began dating. But it was at a young single adult conference on a neighboring island that they decided they should be married. When they returned from the conference, they talked to their bishops and began making plans to be married in the Papeete Tahiti Temple.

Tururarii explains the closeness that working toward a temple marriage brought into their lives: “Since I joined the Church, it has always been my goal and my desire to be married in the temple. Then when I met Taiana, it became our goal and our desire, together.”

Alexander and Rachel had a mutual friend who introduced them at a young single adult activity. But the first time they really talked was at a young single adult convention held in Brisbane. Alexander said hello to Rachel as they were leaving the food hall. Rachel had a lot on her mind and needed someone to talk to. So they sat on the grass outside one of the dormitory buildings and talked.

Alexander promised to take Rachel out for her birthday, but before their first date, he was hospitalized because of a motorbike accident. They began spending a lot of time together. But since they lived a long distance from each other, they ended up breaking up and going their separate ways.

More than a year later, Alexander bought another motorbike. While riding home from church, he was struck by a vehicle and was again hospitalized. Rachel’s mother found out about the accident and mentioned it to her daughter. Rachel decided to make the long trip from Brisbane to Sydney to visit Alexander.

Alexander says, “I still had feelings for Rachel, and she must have had feelings for me if she was willing to make the trip from Brisbane just to visit me.” The couple had spoken about marriage when they were going out, but now Alexander felt it was time they prayed about getting married. Rachel was startled by the question but agreed to pray about it.

Alexander already knew his answer. When Rachel prayed to know if they should marry, she felt she should say yes. Alexander was her best friend.

With a cast still on his leg, Alexander took Rachel to the same grassy spot where they had first talked, and then, while sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean, he officially asked her to marry him.

In three months, with the help of family and friends, Rachel moved to Sydney and made plans for a temple marriage. For Alexander and Rachel, their sealing in the temple represents commitment and a promise that they will work on creating an eternal marriage together.

As a college student, Marion G. Romney (1897–1988) had decided he could not serve a mission because of his family’s financial situation. On one occasion, however, he heard Elder Melvin J. Ballard (1873–1939) speak. A biography notes, “Little did [Marion] know that the course of his life, in one very short moment, was about to be completely changed.”

The story continues: “For the first time Marion … fully understood what it was [like] to be under the influence of inspiration. A piercing, tingling sensation filled his soul. He … never had been so touched as he was now, listening to the words of this newest of the Apostles. …

“… The glow of the Apostle’s countenance and the sincerity of [his] testimony filled him with an irresistible desire to go on a mission. … He knew that his plans for further education must be postponed.”4

Soon, Marion was on his way to Australia, where he served faithfully. Later he became a mighty Apostle and a member of the First Presidency.

The trail seemed new to Zeb, who was only six when he traveled it to Utah. So, like a tourist, he watched for famous landmarks along the trail. At one, Devil’s Gate in Wyoming, he examined the spot where the snowbound handcart companies holed up in November 1856. Those pioneers had left behind much of their baggage and buried many prized possessions until someone from Utah could pick them up. According to Zeb, he and the Utah Boys “dug out a piano, and several sacks of salt, which had been cached 4 years ago. They were not damaged in the least.”

To illustrate, may I share with you an experience which took place several years ago when Sister Monson had been hospitalized because of a fall. She asked me to go to the supermarket and purchase a few items. This was something I had not done before. I had a shopping list which included potatoes. I promptly found a grocery cart and placed a number of potatoes in it. I knew nothing of the plastic bags in which produce is normally placed. As I moved the cart along, the potatoes fell out and onto the floor, exiting through two rather small openings in the back of the cart. A dutiful clerk hurried to my aid and called out, “Let me help you!” I tried to explain to her that my cart was defective. It was only then that I was told that all the carts had those two holes in the back and that they were meant for the legs of children.

Next the clerk took my list and helped me find each item. Then she said, “You are Bishop Monson, aren’t you?”

I answered that many years earlier I had been a bishop. She continued: “At that time I lived on Gale Street in your ward and was not a member of the Church. You made certain the girls who were members contacted me each week and took me with them to Mutual and other activities. They were fine young women whose friendship and kindness touched my heart. I want to let you know that the fellowshipping you arranged for me led to my being baptized and confirmed a member of the Church. What a blessing this has been in my life,” she said.

The Catspring Somersault Flying One-handed Flip-flop by SuAnn Kiser Willie practiced and practiced, and when she finally could really do a Catspring Somersault Flying One-handed Flip-flop, all her eleven brothers and sisters and her mom and dad were too busy to watch her do it. When she complained that no one would miss her if she ran away, their funny story about what would happen if she did, let her know how much they loved her. And they clapped and cheered loudly when they watched her do the Flip-flop—right there in the dining room!

One Saturday afternoon in September 1985, our family was enjoying a restful afternoon under the shade of a tree after a late lunch at our new home in Gigiri, Nairobi. We had moved there earlier that year and found that the garden needed much work. We did not have the money to hire a professional landscaping contractor, and so we made it a family project to do the work ourselves. As we had done on most Saturdays for several months, we spent much of the morning and early afternoon digging up the lawn to level it in preparation for planting new grass and flowers.
It was in this situation that, without prior appointment, two gentlemen walked in through the gate. One was an extended family member whom we knew well. He introduced his companion as an engineer who had recently returned from the US where he had gone to study.
That engineer and his family became new family friends. We learned that he was a member of a church which was not yet established in Kenya at that time. A short while later, Sister Sitati and I felt the desire to check on him after visiting a relative who lived in his neighborhood. Soon after we arrived at his home, the senior couple missionary—who later baptized us into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—walked in. After answering our curious questions, the couple invited us to attend church in their home the following Sunday. We accepted the invitation. The rest is history—we have attended church every Sunday since then.
Out of the normal and natural interactions of our lives, our family came to learn about and join the Church.

After a lifetime of practice and patience together, what will your last earthly threshold look like? Will it look and feel something like John and Therissa Clarks’? In 1921 John Haslem Clark of Manti, Utah, wrote what became his last journal entry:
“The folks have been here today, but have gone to their homes. The clatter of racing feet, the laughter and babble of tongues have ceased. We are alone, We two. We two whom destiny has made one. Long ago, it has been sixty years since we met under the June trees. I kissed you first. How shy and afraid was your girlhood. Not any woman on earth or in heaven could be to me what you are. I would rather you were here, woman, with your gray hair, than any fresh blossom of youth. Where you are is home. Where you are not is homesickness. As I look at you I realize that there is something greater than love, although love is the greatest thing in earth. It is loyalty. For were I driven away in shame you would follow. If I were burning in fever your cool hand would soothe me. With your hand in mine may I pass and take my place among the saved of Heaven. Being eight years the eldest—and as the years went by and I felt that the time of parting might be near—it was often the drift of our thought and speech: how could either of us be left alone. Alone, after living together for 56 years. I scarcely dared think of it and though a bit selfish comforted myself thinking [that] according to our age I would not be the one left alone.”
Another handwriting then appears later on the same page. It is Therissa’s voice, gently closing John’s journal:
“Almost two years and a half since the last writing, and its following events are so sad, so heartbreaking for this, his life’s companion that this pen has been laid down many times ere this record is made. Loss and loneliness [are] ever present and will be with me to the end. … Will time soften this sadness, will I be able to leave the Old Home and not feel that he is waiting for me, calling me? I am only content at home where I feel that he is watching over me, his presence always with me.
“On March 11, 1923, John Haslem Clark passed away after an illness of only one week. He seemed so like himself, talking and active. We had no thought that the end was near until he passed into unconsciousness a few hours before his death. Oh, may we all be as clean and pure, ready to go before our Maker.”10
We do not know the details of John and Therissa’s life as they crossed over the thresholds of their days. But we do know how 56 years of daily conversations finally shaped the kind of people they became, the kind of love they knew.

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.

I was a 13-year-old Latter-day Saint young woman living in Gilbert, Arizona, and each year our stake held its yearly girls’ camp in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona.
That year, at the beginning of camp, our leaders gave us each a small spiral notebook. On the inside cover of each was written our name, the name of the camp, and “Summer of ’76.” On the first page of the notebook was the heading, “I hope, I wish, I dream.”
We were instructed to write in this notebook our hopes, our wishes, and our dreams for the future. We were also told to put our notebooks somewhere safe. Our leaders hoped that when we were grown up, we would take our notebooks out and see what our dreams had been and if we had achieved them.
I took our leaders’ words to heart. I filled page after page with my hopes for the future. When I came home from camp that year, I unpacked my suitcase and took out the little spiral notebook and set it carefully inside my hope chest.
Years went by, and I gave little thought to the notebook. Over the next 20 years, I went through many moves. I transferred the contents of my hope chest to a cardboard box, which I labeled “Mementos,” and that box followed me wherever I went.
One day, 20 years from the day that I wrote in that notebook at camp, I walked into my garage and saw the box labeled “Mementos.” I decided to get it down and see what was inside. I began pulling out items. Then I came across the little spiral notebook. I opened it to the first page and read, “I hope, I wish, I dream.”
I began to read and ponder what I had written—of my desire to be married to a good man in the temple and my desire to have a big family and a happy home. I had written of my desire to keep the commandments. I continued reading about how important it was for me to not compromise my principles and to keep the light of the gospel in my life.
I paused for a moment from my reading and thought about how my life had turned out. I had not compromised my principles. I had married a good man in the temple. We had three children at that time. We were a happy family, and we taught our children the gospel. All that I had read had come true or was coming true.
I then went on to read of a more specific dream I had. The last sentence I had written was, “I want to write a book.”
After reading this, I found myself standing perfectly still, in awe. Then my heart began pounding, and I smiled as my entire being was filled with a warm tingly feeling. I closed the little notebook and held it close to me. A publishing company had just accepted my manuscript for publication.
I received a strong testimony that day of the power of goal setting. I received a testimony that our Heavenly Father loves us and will help us in achieving our hopes, our wishes, and our dreams. I believe that when I was 13, I knew what I wanted to do in my life, and I knew what Heavenly Father wanted me to do. I believe in the importance of setting righteous goals now and not compromising your principles. If you do set righteous goals, they will become reality.

When I was 16, most of my friends at school weren’t members, but they knew that I was a member of the Church. They started to smoke and do other things I wouldn’t do. So things began to change between us; our types of conversation were very different, and our thinking and activities weren’t compatible.
One day my father asked me, “Why aren’t you thinking about your friends’ effect on you?” He counseled me to be careful and think about the necessity of changing my friends.
When I started at the university, I became very busy and didn’t spend a lot of time with my friends, but one time when we were together, they decided to do something bad. We were in a car, and they drove really fast. A policeman pulled us over, and I was scared. I remembered the words of my father about taking care of the future. That experience helped me make a decision about the kinds of friends I wanted to have.
I became very involved in Church activities. Attending Mutual was wonderful because I decided to have those kinds of friends. I learned that my father was right—that I should take care of my relationship with good friends. I needed friends who would help me prepare for a mission.

When it was time to come up with some ideas for a song for the 2017 Mutual Theme album, I immediately knew what I wanted to write about: I basically gave up seeing my best friend so that I could focus on my mission. I wanted to write about how even though those were some sad, dark days, I knew it was what I was supposed to be doing.
I still had another decision to make. My first year of college was hard because pretty much all of my high school friends had already left on their missions. But the girl I’d known my senior year actually came to BYU too, and she and I became even closer. We started hanging out all the time. Even though I didn’t want to admit it, I could tell—we were slowing becoming boyfriend and girlfriend.
Part of the way through the semester, I started getting a prompting, “You’ve got to stop hanging out so much with this friend.” I knew a mission was on the horizon, and I could tell that because we were hanging out all the time, I wasn’t focusing on preparing for my mission. Actually, this was making it harder for me to go.
It was a really hard prompting to get, because she was my best friend—and one of my only friends. I prayed constantly to know if it was the Lord’s will, even telling Heavenly Father, “This is going to be really hard for me.”
One day I went to the temple and asked Him, and I just felt that that was what I needed to do. So I decided I needed to follow the Lord’s will. I finally talked with her about it, and she understood that I needed to focus on my mission. Still, it was a really difficult, emotional experience.
Over the next few days, I felt so much strength and peace from Heavenly Father. I was able to focus on my mission a lot more and started feeling myself progress spiritually much faster than I had before. Scriptures started standing out to me during my personal scripture study—like Isaiah 3:10, which says that the righteous will “eat the fruit of their doings,” which means that if you do the right things, you will reap the rewards. Once again, my testimony of following the Lord’s will was strengthened.

Casey wiped the inside of the bus window, trying to see the frozen world outside through the blinding snow.
“It’s coming down really hard,” Andy remarked beside him.
“Looks like a blizzard!” Casey exclaimed.
“Won’t our moms be surprised at our getting home from school at noon!” Andy chortled.
“I’m going to play video games all afternoon!” Casey announced.
“Lucky you!”
“Ask your mom if you can come over.”
Andy beamed. “OK! If she says no, I’ll call you and moan over the phone.”
Casey chuckled. “Don’t call till after lunch!” He licked his lips. “Mom fixes the best grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup and a glass of cold milk! It sure beats our cafeteria food.”
“It sure does. Here’s my stop—I’ll call you.” Andy hurried to the front of the school bus to get off.
After Casey got off the bus, he scurried along the lane toward his house. As the snow piled higher, his house seemed farther than ever from the road. It sure will be good to get inside! he thought as he reached the door.
“Mom?” He hung up his cap and coat. “School let out early! I’m home! Mom?” He went into the kitchen and circled into the living room. No Mom. He ran into the laundry room and looked for her. Where was she? He was home—cold and hungry!
He looked out the window and toward the garage. The doors were closed, so he knew she hadn’t gone anywhere in the car.
He raced up the stairs two at a time. “Mom?” he shouted as he ran to his parents’ bedroom door. Then he stopped abruptly. “Mom?”
He tiptoed to the bed. She was covered with a quilt pulled high around her chin. “Mom?” Gently he touched her shoulder.
Her red-rimmed eyes barely opened. Casey touched her forehead lightly—it was hot! “Mom, you’re burning up! Should I call Dad … or Grandma?”
Her eyelids closed, then reopened. “Water, honey—a glass of cold water,” she said weakly. “With ice.”
Casey hurried downstairs to the kitchen. “Pitcher, pitcher,” he muttered. “Where’s the pitcher?”
He found the pitcher on the shelf beneath the breakfast counter. Quickly he filled it with ice and water and started back toward the stairs. Then he spun around and returned for a glass and a straw.
“Mom.” Casey slid a hand under her head. “Here’s your water.” He lifted her head and put the straw between her lips. “Drink, Mom—it’s ice water.”
She sipped the water, and Casey felt her skin burn beneath his touch.
“I’m calling Dr. Marshall!” he announced.
“I talked to him, honey. He said it’s just the flu.”
Just the flu? She looked awfully sick! “What’d he say you should do?”
“Just take aspirin, drink liquids, and get plenty of rest.”
“Aspirin—did you take some aspirin?”
She nodded, smiled, and closed her eyes.
Casey held her hand for a long minute. Coming home from school, he had only thought of himself. Now he was concerned about her.
Quietly he tiptoed from the room. The phone rang, and he grabbed it right away so it wouldn’t disturb her. “Colby residence,” he whispered with his hand cupped around the mouthpiece.
“Casey?” Dad replied. “What are you doing home, Son?”
“School let out early because of the snow, Dad, but Mom’s sick! She’s in bed, and I gave her some ice water. Can you come home early?”
“I talked to your mother and Dr. Marshall this morning, Casey. He told her to go right to bed and stay there. I’ll stop at the pharmacy on my way home and pick up some things that may make her feel more comfortable, but the doctor said the flu simply has to run its course. I’ll try to get home early, Son, but with the roads as they are, I doubt that I’ll get there much sooner than my usual time. Is everything else OK?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like it that Mom’s sick.”
“She probably got it nursing us a couple weeks ago.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“If you need me, call. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
Casey ate a sandwich and drank some milk, then went back upstairs to check on Mom. Gently he put a damp cloth on her forehead. He felt the heat pouring out of her, and he suddenly felt awful. What if something happened to her? What would he and Dad do without Mom? She was always there for them. Please, Heavenly Father, make Mom better, he prayed silently.
When the phone rang again, her eyelids fluttered.
“I asked Mom, Casey,” Andy said on the other end. “The snow’s let up a little, and she said I could come over.”
Casey sat on the carpet with his back against Mom’s dresser and the phone cupped close to his face. His eyes were on his mother’s sick face.
“Sorry, Andy. Maybe another time. My mom’s sick, and the doctor told her to rest.”
“All your mom’s going to do is sleep, I bet!” Andy said. “Why don’t you come over here?”
Casey thought about how Mom had taken care of him when he was sick. “Thanks, but I’d better stay here. If she needs me, I want to be here. I’d better go now, Andy. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait! My mom wants to know if there’s anything she can do.”
“Tell her thanks, but everything is under control.”
“What about dinner?” Andy asked. “Can she send something?”
“Thanks, but I’m going to make waffles for me and Dad.”
“Waffles? When did you learn how to make them?”
“The frozen kind, Andy,” Casey explained. “Anyone can make them.”
“Well, OK. I’ll talk to you later, Case.”
Casey put the phone back on the nightstand. He pulled the quilt higher around Mom’s shoulders so she wouldn’t get a chill. As he tiptoed from the room, he smiled. It felt nice taking care of her for a change.

I grew up as an only child, raised by a single mother. We moved a lot. I remember feeling like I had no stability or a place to call home. When I was a senior in high school, my mother moved to California and I stayed behind in Utah, hoping to find some stability in my life.
I moved in with some relatives. I came and went as I pleased, and I never had to check in with anyone. Sounds like every teenager’s dream, right? It wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t the stability I was hoping for. I still felt like I didn’t belong. I felt alone.
I put on a brave, happy face during the day, but at night I often found myself parked in a Church parking lot listening to Church music in tears. I began to have this desperate feeling to know that God truly existed.
“Heavenly Father, I want to know that Thou dost exist. I am lost. I feel alone. I want to know for myself. I so desperately need to know.”
Silence. All I heard was silence.
That peace and comfort never came. I always left feeling defeated, like I had wasted my time in prayer. The prayers I offered up those nights in my car, in tears, always seemed to go unanswered. There always seemed to be … silence.
Over the next several years, I still felt alone, but despite those prayers that seemed to go unanswered, I still had faith that God existed.
When I met the man who became my husband, I finally felt a sense of belonging and stability—a sense of home. His family welcomed me wholeheartedly. That was a big deal for me because I had longed for those feelings for so long. When we married in the temple, I felt so much joy in joining a family centered on the gospel.
I loved seeing priesthood blessings being given at home, attending church in my husband’s mother’s ward with dinner in her orchard to follow, and listening to sweet music playing from her kitchen window as we all sat, ate, and talked. These experiences took root in my heart and began to fill a void that so needed to be filled. This family unit was just what I needed, and God knew it. But He wasn’t finished answering those late-night prayers.
I sat with my mother-in-law on her porch one morning. She said something that was so meaningful to me. For the first time in my life, I heard the Spirit testifying to me that Heavenly Father really existed.
“When you know Heavenly Father is really there,” she said, “everything changes.”
From there, everything did change! My testimony grew as I sought to know more. Now I know when the Spirit speaks to me. I know that sweet feeling when He is near.
One day I read an inspiring question on social media that asked, “Where will you meet the Lord today?”
I “met” Him through a spiritual impression that came to me as I walked along a trail near our home several years after I got married. I stopped walking and wrote down the impression. I saw myself all those years ago, sitting alone in the Church parking lot and understood that, back then, God saw what I couldn’t.
What I couldn’t see then was that one day God would show me who He was through my future mother-in-law, whom I had not met yet. He could see that I would gain a bond with her that would build and strengthen me in ways I had never known before.
He was answering me way back when, but I didn’t hear it. He saw the big picture, and I didn’t. I couldn’t see His plans for me. In that moment on my walk, He gently impressed upon my heart what He had had in store for me all along.
When I hear my mother-in-law pray or speak of her steadfast love for her Savior, I can feel her testimony. Being blessed to become one of her daughters is a special gift from God. Her testimony is also a gift from God that blesses all our lives. I know that my Savior lives because she has spent her whole life drawing near to Him. She radiates His reality for all to see.
“To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world.
“To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful.”
Doctrine and Covenants 46:13–14.

Let me illustrate. In 1999 a young man named Todd collapsed from a ruptured blood vessel in his brain. Although Todd and his family were members of the Church, their activity had been sporadic, and none had experienced the blessings of the temple. On the last night of Todd’s life, his mother, Betty, sat at his bedside stroking his hand and said, “Todd, if you really do have to go, I promise I’ll see to it that your temple work gets done.” The next morning, Todd was declared brain dead. Surgeons transplanted Todd’s heart into my patient, a remarkable individual named Rod.
A few months after the transplant, Rod learned the identity of his heart donor’s family and began to correspond with them. About two years later, Todd’s mother, Betty, invited Rod to be present when she went to the temple for the first time. Rod and Betty first met in person in the celestial room of the St. George Utah Temple.
Sometime thereafter, Todd’s father—Betty’s husband—died. A couple of years later, Betty invited Rod to vicariously represent her deceased son in receiving his temple ordinances. Rod gratefully did so, and the proxy work culminated in a sealing room in the St. George Utah Temple. Betty was sealed to her deceased husband, kneeling across the altar from her grandson who served as proxy. Then, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she beckoned for Rod to join them at the altar. Rod knelt beside them, acting as proxy for her son, Todd, whose heart was still beating inside Rod’s chest. Rod’s heart donor, Todd, was then sealed to his parents for all eternity. Todd’s mother had kept the promise she made to her dying son years before.
But the story does not end there. Fifteen years after his heart transplant, Rod became engaged to be married and asked me to perform the sealing in the Provo Utah Temple. On the wedding day, I met with Rod and his marvelous bride, Kim, in a room adjacent to the sealing room, where their families and closest friends were waiting. After briefly visiting with Rod and Kim, I asked if they had any questions.
Rod said, “Yes. My donor family is here and would love to meet you.”
I was caught off guard and asked, “You mean they’re here? Right now?”
Rod replied, “Yes.”
I stepped around the corner and called the family out of the sealing room. Betty, her daughter, and her son-in-law joined us. Rod greeted Betty with a hug, thanked her for coming, and then introduced me to her. Rod said, “Betty, this is Elder Renlund. He was the doctor who took care of your son’s heart for so many years.” She crossed the room and embraced me. And for the next several minutes, there were hugs and tears of joy all around.
After we regained our composure, we moved into the sealing room, where Rod and Kim were sealed for time and all eternity. Rod, Kim, Betty, and I can testify that heaven was very close, that there were others with us that day who had previously passed through the veil of mortality.

The young man had been on the job a little more than a year. He hoped his part-time assignment under one of the most influential supervisors in the organization might develop into a challenging, satisfying full-time assignment.
Then one day as he and his supervisor met with their manager, the young man’s trust in his supervisor vanished. The manager criticized a report the young man had prepared, and the supervisor, who had reviewed the report and changed the section in question, sat silently, offering no help.
“But I handled this in what I wrote originally,” the young man said, turning to his supervisor. The supervisor answered, “I don’t remember reading anything about it.”
The young man was certain of what he had written. Later in the day, after the supervisor left, the young man went to the file where everyone in the department filed copies of their reports. All the copies were in place, in proper order, except the one in question. It had disappeared.
After that day, the young man was careful to keep a second copy of everything he wrote. He cooperated with his supervisor as the job required, but when an opportunity came for a less prestigious assignment under a supervisor he knew to be honest, the young man took it. His life had been affected by someone who bore false witness.

My great-great-aunt Laura Clark Phelps was the first member of the Clark family who joined the Church. She was a woman who uniquely demonstrated a faith in the Lord that stands fast, nothing wavering.
Laura’s legacy teaches much about the doctrine of faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” She received her patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Sr. In it she was counseled to be faithful and she would have an inheritance in Zion. She was further told to “call upon God in faith, and if thou wilt thou shall have all of the desires of thine heart.”
Laura and her husband knew the Prophet Joseph Smith. On one occasion, the Prophet and his brother Hyrum came running to their farm outside Far West, Missouri, where Laura hid them behind the clothes curtain. She calmly faced the mob leaders who rushed in shortly afterwards in search of the Prophet.
Laura experienced the joys and privations of the early Church members in this dispensation. Her faith deepened as she was driven from her homes and separated from her husband on various occasions. As an efficient midwife, she worked and traveled day and night in all kinds of weather to help provide for her family. This overexertion and exposure took their toll. She died at the young age of 34, leaving behind her husband and five children. She did not live to see her children, her grandchildren, or her great-grandchildren following her in faith. She did not experience the blessings of receiving her own temple endowment in this earth life, blessings I believe she would have cherished.
Laura’s faithful life bears witness of this verse from Hebrews: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” Faith lived in Laura, and Laura lived her faith.

Of all the New Eras I’ve read, I was never so happy to see one as I was last week. Here we were, sitting in our flat, my companion sick with German measles, both of us feeling like “dead fish” missionaries, when we received our first New Eras since the 19-week-old mail strike here in the Emerald Isle. And boy did they cheer us up! Especially the article “Your Life Has a Purpose.” We really felt guilty about complaining. Cheerio!
Elders Egan and ElliottIreland Dublin Mission

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