Gospel Story Finder

Anita Gaya’s family has lived on New Caledonia for three generations. She and Ricardo met at a party and were married in 1968. Three years later, LDS missionaries contacted Anita’s mother, Gabrielle Laigle. She invited her two daughters, Anita and Armelle, to join her in receiving the discussions. At the time, Ricardo wasn’t interested; he was too busy with his job and his position as goalkeeper and captain of his soccer team.
Sister Laigle and Anita were baptized on 23 October, Anita’s birthday. Anita became so excited with interest in the Church that Ricardo knew something important had happened to her. And so when she asked him to take the missionary lessons, he consented. He was baptized in January 1972, along with his sister-in-law Armelle Aparisi. Armelle’s husband, Miguel, was baptized the next day, and a few months later his brother and sister-in-law, François and Madeleine Guerrera, joined the Church.
From their very first exposure to the gospel, some people discover in the missionaries’ message truth they had somehow always known but hadn’t recognized until hearing it. It is familiar light. So it was for the Gayas and their extended family. “The message the missionaries gave us was like an echo,” Sister Gaya says. “The way they described the Church is the way I had always imagined the Lord’s Church should be. I felt at home.”
Brother Gaya felt the same way. “For me, it was so simple. The Church was what I had always been waiting for. When the missionaries talked to us about tithing, I said, ‘Why not? If it’s a commandment of God, we will do it.’ Don’t drink alcohol—it wasn’t difficult to quit.”
What was difficult for Brother Gaya to change was playing soccer on Sunday. For him, this was a real sacrifice. As captain of Association Sportive Le Nickel-SLN, he felt responsible to his teammates to be available for every game—and in New Caledonia, practices for the high level of soccer he played are held only on Sunday. He was an excellent player and had been the national soccer team goalkeeper for 10 years. It became clear, however, when he was called to be a counselor to the branch president that it would be impossible to continue competing on that high level. “I couldn’t follow two roads,” he says. Refusing to let soccer compete with his duties to the Lord, he abandoned competition and made soccer a hobby only.
On 3 March 1973, Ricardo, Anita, and their two children, accompanied by Anita’s mother, became the first to travel from New Caledonia to New Zealand to be sealed in the temple for time and eternity.

Some time ago, a friend and I applied for an educational program. I was confident I would be selected. When the results came out, I was disappointed that my friend was selected but I was not. I felt wronged because I thought I deserved to be selected more than my friend.
At that moment, I saw my friend as an opponent or someone who had taken something that belonged to me. A few days later, while studying Jacob 2 in the Book of Mormon, I read how Jacob had rebuked his people for their sins. One of those sins was pride.
Jacob’s teachings made me realize that I was committing the sin of pride toward my friend by thinking I deserved something given to him. Jacob’s words were a revelation to me:
“Let not this pride of your hearts destroy your souls!
“Think of your brethren like unto yourselves” (Jacob 2:16–17).
I prayed to Heavenly Father to forgive me and to help me avoid the sin of pride in the future. Then I spoke to my friend about how I had felt and asked him to forgive me. I felt peace and joy in doing so and in receiving forgiveness from him and from Heavenly Father.

Elder Holland: Matthew 7:16 says, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” For example, even when our children were very young, they could recognize their mother’s devotion to the gospel and the role that a woman plays in it. They were often with her as she served her Relief Society sisters. Sometimes they had to pray that our old car would start. They saw her in an old coat trudging through the snow to care for Relief Society sisters in New England. They were only little, but they’ve never forgotten that. They saw their mother’s sacrifice and faithfulness, and as a result our daughter is a Latter-day Saint woman deeply committed to service, and our sons have deep respect and admiration for the commitment and devotion of our daughters-in-law. It is clear from their mother’s example that our children know the crucial, exalted place of women in their lives and in the kingdom of God.

The rain started falling on Norfolk, Virginia, Thursday night while the Corbin children were still painting the banners.
“But it can’t rain tomorrow,” Matt, age 12, said. “That will ruin everything.”
“I don’t care if it rains all day,” 14-year-old Margaret said. “Dad’s coming home, and that’s all that matters.”
Out in the ocean, Richard Corbin, a Radio Officer, stood on the deck of the U. S. S. Nimitz, one of the largest aircraft carriers in the world. Corbin, the father of Margaret, Matt, and 10-year-old Nathan, and the husband of Jo Ann, was thinking of family and home. He’d been at sea for six months.
The carrier made steady headway through the misty sea. Rain was falling there, too, thick and heavy. In the evening light, the only way to tell the sky from the water was that the ocean was a darker shade of gray.
The Nimitz is a mobile, man-made island. Six thousand men live and work in its engine rooms and on its flight decks, in its galleys and its control tower. Among the thousands of men aboard are 15 LDS sailors. Brother Corbin is their group leader. Tonight he’d been finding his fellow Saints, taking time to wish them well and tell them good-bye.
“You get close to people when you work with them,” Brother Corbin said. “And you get especially close when you share the bond of the gospel. We have a place to hold Sunday meetings, and we have a family night activity. We invite other sailors to join with us and learn about the Church. And we talk about where we’re from, news we’ve received from home, how things are going. I’m glad to have an adopted family here on the ship, but I’m sure eager to see my real family at home.” Brother Corbin’s living quarters (he shares a small stateroom with another officer) are just six inches below where the airplanes land. “It gets rather noisy sometimes,” he conceded. “But after a while you can get used to anything. You learn to sleep, even with the noise. You get to where you can tell what kind of plane is landing or taking off just by the sounds it makes. There’s one plane, the S-3A Viking, that we call the ‘Hoover’ because it sounds like a vacuum cleaner.”
He looked around, above his desk and bed, at the collection of photographs of his wife and children, at the photos of the Washington D.C. Temple. “Every time the mail comes there are some snapshots,” he said. “After a while you get a pretty goodcollection.”
“I won’t sleep at all tonight,” he added. “Nobody will. We’re all too anxious to get home. They’ll show movies all night long to give us something to do. It’s funny. Lots of people dream of a cruise in the Mediterranean, and that’s where we’ve been. But nothing compares with coming home. Nothing.”
Nathan helped Matt finish the red border of a cardboard replica of the family coat of arms, a shield with two ravens on it. “That should stand out in a crowd,” Sister Corbin said. The other banners read, “Corbin’s the name we’re looking for,” and “Glad to have you back, Dad,” the last one spray painted on an old sheet so it wouldn’t fall apart in the rain. That was Margaret’s idea.
Matt and Margaret got out the stepladder and hung the sheet along the front of the house. Nathan watched.
“The one on the house will let everybody know he’s coming,” Margaret explained. “We’ll take the others with us to the docks so he can see us.
“You kids are soaked!” Sister Corbin called out the front door. “Come get dried off so you can go to bed.”
On the television, the newscaster was talking about the 16 ships heading for Norfolk and other home ports along the Atlantic seaboard. Everyone, it seemed, was anticipating the homecoming, the return of the men from the sea.
The rain kept falling all night long.
Friday morning dawned gray. The downpour had faded to a drizzle, but forecasts predicted more on the way. Brother Corbin climbed through a bulkhead, leaned over a railing on the carrier’s massive tower (called the “island”), and looked down at a helicopter taking off.
“That’s the travel agent, headed back to shore with orders for plane tickets. Once we dock, a lot of sailors will be headed for the airport,” Brother Corbin said.
He climbed back inside, down a set of stairs so steep it’s called a ladder. The interior of the ship was a flurry of motion, with men constantly running through narrow passageways, clanging up and down the ladders, or bending slightly to squeeze through a hatch. Almost every time Brother Corbin passed someone, there was a smile and a hello.
“The tide has finally come in,” Brother Corbin explained on his way to the communications center. “Now the water’s deep enough for us to make it to port. We won’t go quite fast enough for you to waterski behind the ship, but now we’re on a beeline for home.”
The Corbins live in Virginia Beach, a bedroom community near Norfolk. As Sister Corbin, Margaret, Matt, and Nathan rushed to beat the heavy traffic to the naval base, they could see signs everywhere. Some were red and white, posted along the road like Burma Shave ads. Others were simple but sincere, with messages like, “We love you” or “Happiness is having your ship come in.” In the car talk turned to Dad and the family. “Richard is from Webster, Texas (near Houston), and I’m from Spring Hope (near Raleigh), North Carolina,” Sister Corbin said. “We met while I was in school in Mars Hill, North Carolina. I had always told my mother I’d never date a Navy man. But then someone lined me up with a blind date.”
A whistle blown by a sailor pointing to a parking stall interrupted the discussion. On the waterfront, hundreds of people were already waiting. Banners and balloons were everywhere. Someone was handing out small American flags. “It’s like being at the airport with 6,000 missionaries all coming home at the same time,” Sister Corbin said.
As the family got out of the car, they opened their umbrellas. The rain was thundering down again.
You don’t unload the Nimitz in a minute or two. If you’re assigned to stand at attention as the ship pulls in (a ceremony known as manning the rails),then you can thrill at the sight of the crowds awaiting your arrival. But as soon as the ship is docked, it’s back to your duty station again, or back to waiting.
The planes flew home days ago. The four-and-one-half-acre deck is now empty, except for a few sailors scanning the docks for loved ones. Like others still on duty, Brother Corbin is busy filing reports and finalizing communications records. Down in the hangar bay normally used for plane storage and repair, the majority of the carrier’s personnel wait for permission to disembark. The bay is larger than a football field, now filled to standing room only. Men and duffle bags are everywhere.
Brother Corbin asks for permission to go ashore and bring his family back with him. Permission is granted. He joins the men in the hangar bay. And he waits, too. It seems like hours.
Finally, a microphone clicks on. Congratulations for a successful cruise are given. Announcements are made. Officers not on duty are cleared to leave, and they walk out single file. Then all others not on duty are cleared to leave, and they race for the quarterdeck and down the brow (a landlubber would say they’re rushing down the gangplanks).
On the pier, the crowd, now grown to thousands, cheers as the first sailors touch the ground. A band plays. Desperate eyes search and search, then finally meet. Then there’s running, running through a crowd for miles it seems, until those who stayed at home and those who have been at sea try to melt the absence in embraces. Fathers and mothers hug their sons, brothers and sisters smile and cry as though the reunion can’t be real. Husbands and wives hold each other and kiss. Older children put on their father’s cap or try to pick up his gear and find it far too heavy. Younger children hold onto his legs and wait for their turn to be held and loved. Babies, oblivious to it all, doze in their strollers as the rain keeps pelting the ground.
Margaret and Matthew spot Brother Corbin first. They start jumping up and down, almost screaming as they point him out to Sister Corbin and Nathan. Then Sister Corbin and Nathan are jumping up and down too, and so are some friends and neighbors who have joined them. They wave the soggy banners whose colors have faded in the rain.
“I looked and looked at the crowd and couldn’t see anything,” Brother Corbin said. “There were thousands of people, all holding signs. Then, when I was about halfway down the ramp, I spotted the red shield with the ravens.”
Now it was Brother Corbin’s turn to jump and shout, and finally free from the rails and the ramps, to rush into the embrace of those who love him.
The Corbins were finally reunited.
And this time, Brother Corbin was home for good. “I’ve been assigned to shore duty at a communications station in Virginia for three years,” he said. And with his record for time already spent at sea, he shouldn’t have to go away again.
Over the next few days, the rain would be forgotten in the sunshine of love. The Corbins would talk and talk. They would want to take Dad everywhere and tell him everything. They would listen to his stories of ships, planes, places, and people. They would hear his thanks for their Christmas package full of cookies and dried pineapple. They would tell him thanks for seashells from Israel.
On Sunday he would tell them about 18 missionaries who visited the ship in Naples, Italy, about holding church right above the flight deck where catapults launch jets into the sky, about mechanics who came to sacrament meeting dressed in dungarees. Margaret would tell him about being Beehive class president. Matthew would know his father was watching him pass the sacrament. Nathan would show Dad the new kittens born while he was away. And Brother and Sister Corbin would gather the family together to pray.
More than once they would wonder if this wasn’t what it will be like in heaven, when a loved one returns after being away. And more than once they would rejoice, glad their family was sealed in the Hawaii Temple years ago, an ordinance that opens the door to family homecomings forever.

Nik’s brown eyes sparkled with excitement as he thought about the trip that he and his father would take to Chiang Mai that evening.
There were many parasol makers in Thailand, and Nik’s father was the best in his village. Someday Nik would be a parasol maker too. He was already helping his father make parasols, and he’d practiced painting on some. And just last week his father had promised that one day soon Nik could paint some parasols to sell in the market.
“Tonight we will see loy krathong (a festival) in Chiang Mai,” Nik said, as he carefully opened an unpainted parasol for his father.
“That’s right. Tonight in the city you will see thousands of decorations with small candles on them floating down the river. It is a sight you will never forget.”
“I can hardly wait!” Nik said.
“You catch some fish for our lunch while I paint these parasols,” Nik’s father said. “A buyer is coming to see them late this afternoon. Then we will leave for the festival. Maybe we will see someone there making merit.”
“What does it mean to make merit?” Nik asked.
“To make merit is to do something good for the right reason,” Nik’s father explained.
“Do you think I will make merit?”
“You do already, Nik, and when you are a man, I am sure you will make much merit.”
“I saw a woman who bought a cage of birds and then let them fly free. She said she was making merit.”
“Each one must make merit in his own way.”
“I want to make much merit,” Nik said.
Nik’s father smiled. “You run along now and fish, or I will not get these parasols painted.”
Nik picked up his fishing net and headed toward the river. He splashed his way through the edge of the rice field, dipped his net, and gazed into the yellow green waters. He tried to imagine the festival he would see that night.
Before long the sun was overhead. Nik checked his net. He could tell by his growling stomach that it was time to kin kow (eat). He gathered in five fish. They would be tasty as the gup kow (any dish served with rice) for lunch.
As Nik neared his home, he was surprised. He had expected to see a great number of freshly painted parasols drying outside. Instead, there were only three or four.
Nik broke into a run. As he burst into the house, he saw his father with his arm in a makeshift sling.
“I was reaching for a bundle of bamboo and fell off a ladder,” Nik’s father explained. “I think it’s only a sprained wrist, but I’m so slow and awkward with only one good hand that I’ll never finish the parasols before the buyer comes.”
“Don’t worry about that now, Father. I can help you.” Nik stirred the paints until they were smooth, then, with his father helping him hold some of the pieces, Nik finished assembling and painting the parasols. Some were a soft yellow. Some were as pink as a cloud at sunset. A few were blue and red. By midafternoon, a rainbow of parasols stood drying in the sun.
Luckily the buyer was a little late when he came, so all the parasols were dry. “These are fine, indeed,” he said. “I will take them all.”
Nik’s father smiled. “I will have more for you next time. I now have an assistant.”
“Excellent!” the buyer said, and he went his way.
“I’m sorry it’s too late for us to get into the city to see the festival tonight,” Nik’s father said apologetically.
Nik saw the sorrow and disappointment in his father’s face. Nik was disappointed, too, but he was glad that he had been able to help his father and that the buyer had liked the parasols. “We can have our own festival by the river,” Nik said.
Nik and his father each put a small, flat candle onto a strip of bamboo. Then they knelt on the riverbank and sent the candle-lit floats downriver.
Nik watched the candles bob and blink. How could the Chiang Mai festival be more wonderful than this? he thought.
“Today you have made much merit,” Nik’s father said.
Nik and his father smiled at each other. Under the full moon they sat watching until the flickering lights disappeared into the night.

Cliff Johnson was born in 1921 and grew up during the depression. Although his family did not have much in the way of money, he was richly taught by his parents how to securely anchor his life.
During the early 1940's World War II was raging across Europe when Clifton Johnson, my father, joined the Army. Prior to leaving for boot camp he was given a blessing and was told others would have as their purpose the destruction of his ideals. Cliff was promised if he would be humble, courageous, and kept himself morally and spiritually clean that those who were inclined to ridicule and oppress him would be rebuked and many of them would come to look to him for leadership and advice.
At the train station his mother told him "Son, remember, praying will keep you from sinning and sinning will keep you from praying. Always remember to pray." The first night in the barracks, after the lights were turned out, Cliff knelt down by his bunk and began to say his nightly prayer. Immediately others in the room began to mock and ridicule him. The next night he had a decision to make. He could yield to the pressure and avoid mockery by just climbing into his bunk, or he could pray. He decided to pray. Eventually those who ridiculed him apologized and, realizing the battles they would soon face, asked him to say a pray for them too.

Sometimes a prayer may not be answered because we do not truly want it to be. When my husband was in his late teens, he read the Book of Mormon and became confident that it would be possible to communicate with the Lord. He says that he put off making that awesome move, not from thinking it impossible as much as from not being ready for so great a step. One day he rode his horse out into the mountains, dismounted and knelt down to pray. As he contemplated the possibilities of personal change and responsibility that would come if the Lord communicated with him, be began to realize that he was not as ready to give up his comfortable style of life as he was eager for the Lord’s approval. He felt so certain the Lord would answer him if he asked that he became acutely aware for the first time that he did not really want to experience a change as great as that communication might lead to. He got up and rode away.
It was a few months later that he approached the Lord again, this time readier to accept the communication and the responsibility. And on that occasion, the Lord did answer.
It had not been the Lord who was unwilling the first time, but rather Bob. He had wanted to please the Lord, and had wanted the Lord to think well of him, but did not fully want to give up the easiness of the world—not really knowing that the gospel is true, and not really wanting to grow up quite yet. The Lord knew his heart better than he did himself, and allowed him his truest desire on both occasions.

Thinking about health reminded me of an experience last year when I had to get a CT scan for the first time. When they shot dye into my vein to help get good pictures of my brain, in an instant I became keenly aware of my circulatory system. I felt the dye move with each heartbeat from my arm into my heart, and then down my leg and up into my head, then to the other side of my body, and back again. Something that happens every second of every day of my life I had taken for granted. This led me to think of the wonder of the human body, and how delicate life is. Then I thought of the whole universe, from the tiniest veins on a baby leaf to the spidery filaments of planetary nurseries in the middle of galaxies.
When I think of God, and how He watches over each heartbeat, my attitude of gratitude increases exponentially.

Youth all over the world are drawn to temples. In Lima, Peru, I met a father and three of his daughters outside the entrance of the temple. I saw the light in their faces. Two of the daughters were severely disabled and sitting in wheelchairs. The third daughter, while attending to her sisters’ needs, explained she had two more sisters at home. They too were in wheelchairs. They were unable to travel the 14 hours to the temple. The temple meant so much to this father and his daughters that four of them had come to the temple that day—two of them simply to observe the one who could be baptized for the dead and perform that sacred ordinance. Like Nephi, they “[delighted] in the covenants of the Lord.”

Another story involves Ruth, a seminary student, who felt she had no occasion to exercise her free agency. At home she was a servant to her inactive and very demanding mother and stepfather. At school she had been placed in a specific seminary class without any choice on her own part. She decided to drop the seminary class as part of her decision to use her free agency. After two weeks away from the class, she returned—she had made a decision with her agency, and it was a decision she felt good about.

After reading the Book of Mormon, seminary students in Sidney, Montana, went to pizzas. Twenty-one of them.
Brother Charles L. Duncan, seminary teacher, challenged the entire Sidney Branch to read the Book of Mormon before the night of seminary graduation. He promised a pizza party to everyone accepting and accomplishing his challenge.
Of those taking on the challenge, some were really speedy, finishing the book in a matter of weeks. Some procrastinators read the last 100 pages in the final two days. When the deadline passed, over 70 percent of those accepting the challenge had finished and were qualified to attend the pizza party. A total of 16,434 pages were read.
The youngest person to read the Book of Mormon during the challenge was nine-year-old Dean White. He finished it long before most of the older readers. A nonmember, David Pope, finished reading the Book of Mormon and was baptized soon after the pizza party. Brother Duncan’s children, too young to read themselves, had the Book of Mormon read to them during meals.
On the night of the party, the Book of Mormon scholars descended on the Duncan home armed with pepperoni, mozzarella, olives, and mushrooms. Soon 21 pizzas were made and eaten.

At the beginning of my mission, I served in a small city in South Korea. One rainy day we had not had a lot of success but wanted to keep working until it was time to go home. My companion and I decided that we would knock on a few more doors.
At one door a woman answered, and my companion started talking to her. As a new missionary, I had a hard time understanding, but after a few minutes she began speaking to us in English. We found out that she was from Chicago, Illinois, USA, and had moved here with her family. Her husband was a preacher for a church that did not have friendly feelings toward our beliefs.
The woman was nice but eager to disprove the Book of Mormon and convince us that our church was incorrect. I stood there with my companion as he tried to answer her difficult questions. My companion tried to testify to her that the Book of Mormon is true and that it could help her, but she insisted on believing that he was incorrect.
After about 30 minutes of discussion at the door, she asked my companion, “Where will we go after this life?” I could tell she was eager to refute my companion’s teachings, as she had before. My companion testified of the plan of salvation and that we can live with our families forever in the celestial kingdom. Before he could continue, she stopped him and asked him to repeat what he had just said about families being together. He again replied with the same response. I felt the Spirit so strongly, and I could see in her eyes that something had touched her deeply too. After that short but powerful testimony, she stopped arguing with us, took a Book of Mormon, and asked us to come back to talk with her and her husband about the Book of Mormon.
I remember walking home with my companion that evening, amazed by the effect of my companion’s testimony. I understood then that a testimony accompanied by the Spirit is the most powerful teaching tool we have. I’ll never forget my companion and his testimony that night. After that experience I decided that, even with my limited ability to speak Korean, I would try to bear my testimony no matter what. As I did, I began to feel the Spirit more and more. I learned that the best communication happens when you teach by the Spirit.

I have watched my senior Brethren move around the circle and then graduate to the other side of the veil—so many great ones. President Harold B. Lee told me that I should associate with the older Brethren and learn from their experiences. I followed that counsel.

From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.1
These “footprints on the sands of time” will always remain visible to help guide you.

When I was a young member of the Quorum of the Twelve, we walked from our weekly temple meetings back to our offices. I would linger behind and walk with Elder LeGrand Richards. He had been somewhat crippled in an accident in his youth and walked slower than the others.

The other Brethren would say, “You are so kind to take care of Elder Richards,” and I would answer, “You don’t know why I do it!”

As we walked, I listened. He could remember President Wilford Woodruff. He was twelve the last time he heard President Woodruff speak. Elder Richards was a link to that generation. I absorbed every word he spoke.

My beloved and wonderful brothers and sisters, I seek an interest in your faith and prayers these few minutes that I stand before you. A few years ago, just before our departure for a mission to Belgium, our family went on a vacation. Upon arriving at a motel, our children were out of their clothes and into swimming suits before we could unload the car. As I passed the swimming pool, the sign struck me forcefully: “Do Not Leave Children Unattended.” Though I had read similar signs and ignored them many times before, I felt compelled to stay and watch my young children. (My wife wasn’t very happy; she was unloading the car.) In minutes, one of my daughters was in deep water, and deep trouble, and struggling for help. I dove into the pool, clothes and all, and with all the energy I had, I reached her just in time. I recognized that frantic yet unspoken call for help that day, and I will never forget it.

I recall a young man who, as a boy of thirteen, led a successful rescue of such persons. He and his friends lived in a ward where many poor, elderly widows lived. I was their bishop. The boys had been saving and planning for a glorious Christmas party. They were thinking of themselves—until the Christmas spirit prompted Frank, their leader, to suggest that they use their money not for the planned party, but rather for the benefit of three elderly widows who lived together. The boys made new plans.
With the enthusiasm of a new adventure, the boys purchased a giant roasting chicken, potatoes, vegetables, cranberries, and all that would make a Christmas feast in the United States. To the widows’ home they went carrying their gifts of treasure. They knocked on the door, then in the unmelodic voices characteristic of thirteen-year-olds, began to sing, “Silent night, holy night; all is calm, all is bright.” They then presented their gifts. Angels on that glorious night of long ago sang no more beautifully, nor did the three wise men present gifts of greater meaning.

I recall a young man who was in our stake when I served as a stake president. He traveled around with a crowd that thought it was smart to do things that were not right. On a few occasions he was caught in some minor violations. One day I got a call from the police station and was told he was being held because of a traffic violation. He had been caught speeding, as he had on a few other occasions prior to this time. Knowing the things he was doing might prevent him from going on a mission, he straightened up, and when he was 19 years of age, he received his call.

I shall never forget the talk we had when he returned. He told me that while he was in the mission field he had often thought of the trouble he had caused by the mistaken belief that the violation of little things was not important. But a great change had come into his life. He had come to the realization that there is no happiness or pleasure in violation of the law, whether it be God’s law or the laws that society imposes upon us. He said to me, “When I drive a car now and the speed limit is 55 miles an hour, I feel it is morally wrong to drive a single mile faster.”

I was impressed by the great change that had come over this young man while he served on his mission and studied moral principles. How unfortunate it is that he had to learn his lesson the hard way, but what a great blessing comes when there is the realization that one cannot be in violation and feel good about that conduct.

Brother Artel Ricks tells an interesting story of an inspired Primary teacher. Artel was a little boy five or six years old. One night his family sat around the dinner table and talked about tithing. They told him “that tithing is one-tenth of all we earn and that it is paid to the Lord by those who love Him.”
He loved the Lord, and so he wanted to give the Lord his tithing. He went and got his savings and took one-tenth of his small savings. He says: “I … went to the only room in the house with a lock on the door—the bathroom—and there knelt by the bathtub. Holding the three or four coins in my upturned hands, I asked the Lord to accept them. [I was certain He would appear and take them from me.] I pleaded with the Lord for some time, but [nothing happened. Why would He not accept my tithing?]. As I rose from my knees, I felt so unworthy that I could not tell anyone what had happened. …
“A few days later at Primary, the teacher said she felt impressed to talk about something that was not in the lesson. I sat amazed as she then taught us how to pay tithing [to the bishop, the Lord’s servant]. But what I learned was far more important than how to pay tithing. I learned that the Lord had heard and answered my prayer, that He loved me, and that I was important to Him. In later years I came to appreciate still another lesson my Primary teacher had taught me that day—to teach as prompted by the Spirit.
“So tender was the memory of that occasion that for more than thirty years I could not share it. Even today, after sixty years, I still find it difficult to tell about it without tears coming to my eyes. The pity is that a wonderful Primary teacher never knew that through her, the Lord spoke to a small boy” (“Coins for the Lord,” Ensign, Dec. 1990, 47).

The story is told that in ancient Rome a group of women were, with vanity, showing their jewels one to another. Among them was Cornelia, the mother of two boys. One of the women said to her, “And where are your jewels?” To which Cornelia responded, pointing to her sons, “These are my jewels.” Under her tutelage, and walking after the virtues of her life, they grew to become Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus—the Gracchi, as they were called—two of the most persuasive and effective reformers in Roman history. For as long as they are remembered and spoken of, the mother who reared them after the manner of her own life will be remembered and spoken of with praise also.

Life has some strange turns. I will share some personal experiences that illustrate this.
When I was a young man I thought I would serve a mission. I graduated from high school in June 1950. Thousands of miles away, one week after that high school graduation, a North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel, and our country was at war. I was 17 years old, but as a member of the Utah National Guard, I was soon under orders to prepare for mobilization and active service. Suddenly, for me and for many other young men of my generation, the full-time mission we had planned or hoped for was not to be.
Another example: After I served as president of Brigham Young University for nine years, I was released. A few months later the governor of the state of Utah appointed me to a 10-year term on the supreme court of the state. I was then 48 years old. My wife June and I tried to plan the rest of our lives. We wanted to serve the full-time mission neither of us had been privileged to serve. We planned that I would serve 20 years on the state supreme court. Then, at the end of two 10-year terms, when I would be nearly 69 years old, I would retire from the supreme court and we would submit our missionary papers and serve a mission as a couple.
I had my 69th birthday two years ago and was vividly reminded of that important plan. If things had gone as we planned, I would have submitted papers to serve a mission with my wife June.
Four years after we made that plan I was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles—something we never dreamed would happen. Realizing then that the Lord had different plans and different timing than we had assumed, I resigned as a justice of the supreme court. But this was not the end of the important differences. When I was 66, my wife June died of cancer. Two years later I married Kristen McMain, the eternal companion who now stands at my side.
How fundamentally different my life is than I had sought to plan! My professional life has changed. My personal life has changed. But the commitment I made to the Lord—to put Him first in my life and to be ready for whatever He would have me do—has carried me through these changes of eternal importance.
Faith and trust in the Lord give us the strength to accept and persist, whatever happens in our lives. I did not know why I received a “no” answer to my prayers for the recovery of my wife of many years, but the Lord gave me a witness that this was His will, and He gave me the strength to accept it. Two years after her death, I met the wonderful woman who is now my wife for eternity. And I know that this also was the will of the Lord.
I return to the subject with which I began. Do not rely on planning every event of your life—even every important event. Stand ready to accept the Lord’s planning and the agency of others in matters that inevitably affect you. Plan, of course, but fix your planning on personal commitments that will carry you through no matter what happens. Anchor your life to eternal principles, and act upon those principles whatever the circumstances and whatever the actions of others. Then you can await the Lord’s timing and be sure of the outcome in eternity.
The most important principle of timing is to take the long view. Mortality is just a small slice of eternity, but how we conduct ourselves here—what we become by our actions and desires, confirmed by our covenants and the ordinances administered to us by proper authority—will shape our destiny for all eternity. As the prophet Amulek taught, “This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God” (Alma 34:32). That reality should help us take the long view—the timing of eternity.
I pray that each of us will hear and heed the word of the Lord on how to conduct ourselves in mortality and set our standards and make our commitments so that we can be in harmony and in tune with the timing of our Father in Heaven.

When I was about 12 years old, my father became very ill with bone cancer. I prayed and prayed that he would get well, but he grew steadily worse until finally he died, leaving my mother alone to care for 10 children. I could not understand why the Lord didn’t answer my prayers or why my father was taken from us. We felt that we needed him much more than the Lord did. However, as the years went by I learned that the Lord’s ways are not necessarily the easiest ways. We all missed my father a great deal, but I came to understand that the struggles we endured without him made us stronger and helped to build character in each of us. Although it was very difficult for my mother to rear 10 children alone, because of her great faith in Heavenly Father and her constant prayers, all of us grew to love the Lord and to be faithful members of the Church.