Gospel Story Finder

When my son was three years old and my daughter was four, they were part of a neighborhood preschool group. That winter those of us in charge of the group decided to do a Christmas project that included having each child donate a toy to a needy family.
We taught many lessons in the preceding weeks about how gratitude and sharing with others make us happy. I told my children to start thinking about which toys they would like to give, wanting them to have the experience of choosing what to give. Our family finances were limited, and I was curious which of their few toys they would be willing to part with.
One Saturday morning I told the children it was time to select their donation. I helped Hunter wrap the truck he had chosen and then went to see how Mikelle was doing. The scene I witnessed from the doorway of her room brought tears to my eyes.
Mikelle was holding her favorite doll, Mella, dressed in her best doll clothing, and she was singing to her. Then she tucked a small blanket into the bottom of a gift bag. She smiled at the doll, hugged and kissed her, and lovingly placed her in the bag. Seeing me, she said, “Mella’s all ready, Mom. I hope someone will love her.”
Knowing how my daughter felt about this doll, I was stunned she was giving her away. I almost wanted to tell Mikelle she didn’t have to give up her favorite doll, but I stopped myself.
“She understands giving,” I thought. “She is giving her very best.”
Suddenly I recognized that part of me was willing to give and share but not at too great a personal sacrifice. I had placed limits on my charity, and I knew I needed to change.
I thought of how Heavenly Father gave up His only perfect Son and allowed Him to suffer and die for me. I pictured a loving Father in Heaven kissing His Beloved Son and sending Him to earth as a baby, hoping that we would love and follow Him.
The Savior Himself held nothing back and gave everything He had to give.
I wondered if Mikelle would change her mind before the Christmas program, when the toys were to be donated, but she did not. I wondered if she would later regret her choice and feel sad, but she did not.
Seeing my daughter’s Christlike example, I decided that whether I have much or little to give, I would always cheerfully give my best when I have an opportunity to share.

Frequently the profound influence one life has on the lives of others is never spoken and occasionally little known. Such was the experience of a teacher of girls, even 12-year-olds in the Beehive class of Mutual. She had no children of her own, though she and her husband dearly longed for children. Her love was expressed through the devotion to her special girls as she taught them eternal truths and lessons of life. Then came illness, followed by death. She was but 27.
Each year on Memorial Day, her girls made a pilgrimage of prayer to the graveside of their teacher. First there were seven, then four, then two, and eventually just one, who continued the annual visit, always placing on the grave a bouquet of irises—a symbol of heartfelt gratitude. That last girl later became a teacher of girls. Little wonder she is so successful. She mirrors the reflection of the teacher from whom came her inspiration. The life that teacher lived, the lessons that teacher taught, are not buried beneath the headstone which marks her grave but live on in the personalities she helped to shape and the lives she so selflessly enriched. One is reminded of another master teacher, even the Lord. Once, with His finger, He wrote in the sand a message. The winds of time erased forever the words He wrote but not the life He lived.

My mother taught me from a very young age to be hardworking and to serve others. When I was six years old, my family helped in building a new chapel in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Back then, ward members and construction missionaries built the chapels for wards and branches.
I remember going with my family to help build the chapel. I carried bricks from one place to another. I poured water on top of bricks. I carried tools from one workstation to another. I remember working hard and knowing that my hard work would help others.

There are two main experiences that led to my testimony of Christ. The first happened the day my big brother died. He passed away on a Scout outing in eastern Arizona. I was 14 years old. When my parents and I found out, we were heartbroken.

At first, it was hard to imagine that I would be living the rest of my life without my big brother. But I was wrong. From the moment I heard of his death, I felt peace. I was at peace because Christ was there to mourn with me when I mourned and comfort me when I needed comfort. Never for one minute did I feel alone.

More than a year later, I participated in the Mesa Temple Easter Pageant. It depicts Christ’s life on the earth and plays six nights during the week of Easter. The best part was that it took place on the temple grounds. I was just one of the crowd in a cast of 300. For several weeks, I was able to spend hours near a house of the Lord.

As I watched Christ’s life portrayed to thousands of people, I was able to witness a representation of His birth. I was feet away when He was shown healing the sick and raising the dead. I watched when He was portrayed suffering and atoning for the sins of the world, and I was there when He was depicted dying on the cross for all. I was there and saw the portrayal of Him rising from the dead three days later, and I saw the representation of Him ascending to His Father.

The feelings I had at that time are indescribable. It seemed so real to me. I was able to testify of Christ’s message many times to those who had never heard it—that He lives!

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Because of Him I can be with my brother again. Because of Him, I can be with Heavenly Father. This message is what will save the world in the last days. If we have faith in Him, we can receive blessings beyond measure. If we follow Him, we can become like Him.

Like many of you, I have shared the gospel with some who are soon baptized or activated, and others—such as my nonmember friend Tim and his less-active wife, Charlene—take much more time.

For over 25 years I engaged Tim in gospel conversations and took Tim and Charlene to temple open houses. Others joined the rescue; however, Tim declined each invitation made to meet with the missionaries.

One weekend I was assigned to preside at a stake conference. I had asked the stake president to fast and pray about whom we should visit. I was shocked when he handed me the name of my friend Tim. When Tim’s bishop, the stake president, and I knocked on the door, Tim opened it, looked at me, looked at the bishop, and then said, “Bishop, I thought you told me you were going to bring somebody special!”

Then Tim laughed and said, “Come on in, Merv.” A miracle occurred that day. Tim has now been baptized, and he and Charlene have been sealed in the temple. We must never give up.

The Prophet Joseph was allowed to see the Nauvoo Temple in vision. Concerning its appearance, he recorded this experience: “In the afternoon, Elder William Weeks (whom I had employed as architect of the Temple), came in for instruction. I instructed him in relation to the circular windows designed to light the offices in the dead work of the arch between stories. He said that round windows in the broad side of a building were a violation of all the known rules of architecture, and contended that they should be semicircular—that the building was too low for round windows. I told him I would have the circles, if I had to make the Temple ten feet higher than it was originally calculated; that one light at the centre of each circular window would be sufficient to light the whole room; that when the whole building was thus illuminated, the effect would be remarkably grand. ‘I wish you to carry out my designs. I have seen in vision the splendid appearance of that building illuminated, and will have it built according to the pattern shown me.’” (N. B. Lundwall, Temples of the Most High [Lundwall, 1941], pp. 51–52.)

A few years ago, I was extremely depressed. The only thing I could find a little motivation for was my best friend and her children. We went for walks on weekends, which I enjoyed. Over time, however, we began to go on walks less and less frequently. I began to miss my friend and her family. I later learned that our walks became less frequent because my friend and her family had resumed a practice they had stopped many years before—attending church.
One day they invited me to lunch. Seeing them again made me feel very happy. I told them how much I missed them. My friend’s six-year-old daughter suggested that we solve that problem by going to church together. So without thinking twice, she invited me to go.
Oh, no! How could I make this family understand that going to church was right for them but too boring for me? I hadn’t gone to church for years, but how could I say no to a child? I said I would go, but the truth was that I didn’t have the least intention of keeping that promise.
That Sunday, I went to breakfast with my dad. My cell phone constantly rang, reminding me that I had promised a little girl that I would go to church with her. I ignored my cell phone until my dad asked me why I wasn’t answering it. I admitted that I had been invited to go to a church meeting but didn’t want to go. He smiled and said, “Lluvia, never make a promise to a child if you are not willing to fulfill it.” I decided I would keep my promise.
When I arrived at church, I felt something different, something that I can’t describe. I still can’t explain how it happened, but the next Sunday, I found myself there again, and the next and the next, until I understood what I was feeling: the Holy Ghost.
The Church members began to make me feel at home. Without any doubt, I was curious about the Church. I began meeting with the missionaries, and I also began to gain a testimony. The missionaries’ visits became more constant, and my understanding of the gospel grew until I felt an immense desire to be baptized. I was baptized a short time later, and now I enjoy the blessings of the gospel. Because of this, I’m so grateful I kept my promise to a six-year-old girl.

A week and a half before the October 2019 general conference session, I, along with family and friends, had to bury the loveliness of my mother, Eudie (YOU-dee) Charnes. My heart was broken, grieving, and empty beyond empty. The beauty of Eudie, the beauty that was Eudie, was, simply and sadly, no more. She was no longer before me to hold, to hug, or to nourish—to bless, to sing to, to cry over, or to pray with. The life and the light that had given me life had died, her blessedness now gone and beyond. And so too a part of me died with her also, a part deep within, leaving me forever without. With grace she died, embraced by faith, interlaced in the loving arms of her beloved family: of my wife, Sarah; of our daughter, Yael; and of mine, her newly orphaned son.
We were all together, yet completely alone—each alone in our individual loss, but bound together in our shared loss. And that fragile togetherness that we shared with each other was helped, and at times was even held together, by the kindness and presence of two living Latter-day Saint community treasures: Brother Mike Law and his eternal celestial companion, Sister Debbie Law, of Colorado, USA. Their humble hearts overflow with a love that can only be described as being inspired from above, and we are forever grateful for the light of their accompanying presence during our walk through the darkness and the despair of death.
It was during this time, a mere two days after burying my mother, that my desperate cry for the blessed was answered—answered in the form of a simple phone call and offer from my treasured friend Brother Mike Law. He was again reaching out and reaching in, as always, to see how I was faring and wayfaring along, in loss along this long and lonely journey of woe.
While we were speaking, I noticed a subtle tenor of uncertainty entering into Mike’s voice as he asked me the following question: “Joe, I know the answer is probably going to be no, but would you like to go to general conference, if I can get tickets?” My response was simple, immediate, direct, and urgent: “Mike, there’s actually nowhere else that I’d rather be.”
Those were my words, friends; those were my words—words sung forth in solemn song and solemn sorrow. I just knew that general conference would be that consecrating moment of graceful uplift for my heart. I knew the generous arms of every Latter-day Saint–inspired heart would be unconditionally extended and extending in love—that the arms of their loving hearts simply would not fail.
At general conference, people simply smile from the heart. They say hello from the heart, and they glow from the heart. There is an unspoken language of presence of heart. Their presence says hello. Just being there says hello. Just being there is being embraced.
That was the balm my aching soul needed—that heart-embracing balm of general conference kindness. That is why general conference would truly be that healing balm of Gilead for my soul in need.
And this is a general truism of your grand faith. Wise, loving, nurturing kindness is the service anthem of the Latter-day Saint community; it is the emblematic hallmark and legacy of your faith. If the old adage is true that “the highest form of wisdom is kindness,” then general conference is truly a gathering place for some of the wisest human beings on the planet.
You are “a light unto the nations,” and a light unto my heart. Bless you, Mike, for following the promptings of your heart. Your devotion to helping me restore peace within has the heavenly choir above singing, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted. As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car.
Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box.
Curious, but somewhat Disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the young man's name embossed in gold. Angrily, he raised his voice to his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible? and stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible.
Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things.
When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search through his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. His father had carefully underlined a verse,
Matt 7:11, "And if ye then, being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?"
As he read those words, a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL.

How many of us get frustrated and impatient when we are forced to stop for 5 or 10 minutes because of road construction on Kamehameha Hwy? "Why does this have to happen to me?" e ask ourselves, or "I'm already late to my appointment. Will this construction ever finish?"
Well, I reacted that way all the time until my chiropractor in Kaneohe scheduled me for 3 visits a week for 12 consecutive weeks. I knew I had to find a way to endure those construction stops that occurred two or three times each way. As I stopped at each road block, I turned my head to the left and right of the highway and started noticing more than just the road construction. The wide angle lenses were on my soul and I saw how beautiful the scenery was on either side of Kamehameha Hwy. I wondered to myself, "How did I miss it all these years before?" I saw attractive houses and yards I had never noticed before. The ocean had its own personality and characteristics at different points along the Kam. Highway route. I even noticed the rock formations that seemed to change on a daily basis. And instead of envisioning a pontoon bridge right across Kahana Bay, I saw several hues of green and blue in its depths and on some days the surface was so still it was like a mirror was laying on the surface. It is a gorgeous bay!

The Koolau mountain range had so many ridges sculpted by years of erosion that it created a different appearance each time you viewed them depending on how the sunlight was hitting them at various times of the day. I even discovered a major landslide deep in the mountains of Kahana Valley that could only be viewed from a certain angle as I turned the corner from Crouching Lion. I began to gain a deeper appreciation for the wonders and beauty of the windward side of Oahu. I always knew Hawaii was beautiful but it wasn't until I had to stop at those many road blocks did I begin to develop a love and sense of humble gratitude for God's creation of these islands. I looked forward to my trips to Kaneohe because I was drinking in the beauty of this island from my saucer.

A week ago I had an interesting experience. Without any official assignment, I attended a stake conference in a rural area of southeastern Utah. The stake president and his wife had invited Sister Hinckley and me to stay at their home. While he conducted his Saturday afternoon meeting, we rode about the stake, visiting a half-dozen little towns, in each of which there is a Church meetinghouse. We noted that the lawns were green and the buildings nicely kept, although they are small and some of them are old. We drove about and looked at the homes, modest in their appearance, but in almost every case there was neatness and beauty with flowers in bloom. Having a free Saturday and Sunday, I had wanted to make this trip simply to thank the people for their faith and faithfulness and to express my love to them. Most of them are farm folk who work hard for a small return. But they know a great truth. They know the law of the harvest—“Whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap.” (D&C 6:33.)

They know that you do not reap wheat after sowing oats. They know that you do not get a racehorse from a scrub mare. They know that if you are to build another great generation, you must work with vision and faith. You must dream and plan, serve and sacrifice, pray and labor. After being with these wonderful people for two days, Sister Hinckley observed, “These are the kind who constitute the glue that holds the Church together.”

The home where we stayed was not pretentious, but it was comfortable and clean and delightful. The husband, I believe, did not have a large income, but he knew how to spend it wisely, first paying his tithes and offerings and setting aside some in savings. His wife is a beautiful woman, the mother of six sons and one daughter. You need not look far to know that in that home there is love and respect one for another. There is appreciation and gratitude. Through the years they have known adversity—lean times and death-threatening sickness.

I repeat—I went among these people to express my gratitude and love. I felt a great overwhelming measure of love in return. Here in this stake of small rural wards, among people who made no pretense of sophistication, I found strength and faith and virtue. I found men whose hands were gnarled and whose skin was wrinkled with the sun’s heat of many summers—men in whose hearts there was a great capacity for love—love for the land and the sky above it, love for their wives and children, love for the Church and its eternal purposes, love for God and the Savior of all mankind.

I looked into the eyes of beautiful women—women of virtue and strength and capacity, older women who knew much of struggle and disappointment and pain, young women who knew much of purpose and goodness and art and learning. I looked into the eyes of children—beautiful and innocent and wonderful.

I do not wish to imply that I could not find such in cities and towns all over the world. Such people are to be found everywhere, but somehow there seemed so much larger a percentage of them among the folks whom we visited. Their feet were planted on the solid earth. They knew the meaning of work without respect to hours or season.

I also wanted to visit among them because I have met their sons and daughters in the mission field in many lands. These have been effective missionaries because they have learned to get up in the morning and get their chores done. They have been dedicated missionaries because when they were very young they learned to pray at their mothers’ knees and heard their fathers bear testimony of the truth of this great latter-day work. Not only have these sons and daughters gone on missions, but by dint of great sacrifice they have gone away to school and won places of honor across the nation as they serve in business and the professions.

Jason and Alanea Hanna faced many financial questions when Jason lost his job. Should they relocate and find another job? Should they try to find a job where they were currently living? After considering several options, they asked the most important question of all: “What would the Lord have us do?”
“We studied talks by prophets and apostles on topics like debt, budgeting, and saving to try to figure out what the Lord wanted us to do,” Alanea explains. “We knew that the Lord’s plan was the best plan and that we would be blessed if we followed it.”
After prayer and contemplation, Jason and Alanea both decided to return to college and finish their bachelor’s degrees. They took out minimal student loans to pay for their education, and both worked full-time to provide for their other expenses. They coordinated their work schedules to ensure that one of them was home with their children. They budgeted carefully, spending their money on the essentials and eliminating fast food, cable TV, and new clothes. Jason even rode his bike to school and work to limit the costs of gasoline and car insurance.
Now Jason works as an engineer. Alanea also completed her degree and is currently fulfilling her responsibilities as a full-time mother of five children. They still live within their means, budget carefully, pay tithing, and live according to the financial counsel of Church leaders. “We’re grateful for the trial and the experience,” Alanea says. “It ended up being a great blessing in our lives and taught us that the Lord will always bless us if we are obedient.”

I had a conversation once with a young man I cannot forget. His story of activity, complete inactivity, and a return to activity included the description of two classrooms. He said: “When I was about 15, I started to have a lot of questions about the Church. I thought maybe there would be a chance to talk about my questions at church, but it didn’t happen. In priesthood it seemed like most of the time everybody talked about the game the night before. Sunday School was about the same—maybe a little lesson thrown in during the last five minutes where the teacher asked questions, and it was kind of ‘guess-the-right-answer-from-the-manual-time.’”
Well, other things happened—late Saturday nights, a switch to an earlier meeting schedule—and soon the young man’s attendance dropped to nothing. Several years passed by until he found himself in church again. This time his face lit up as he described his Sunday School class:
“The teacher was this unimpressive-looking guy, but he was so excited about what he was teaching. He didn’t waste a minute. He asked important questions. Everyone had their scriptures. They looked up verses, shared ideas. They listened to each other. They talked about problems at school and how they fit in with the lesson. You could tell that the people in the class were all different, but they had one amazing thing in common—they were all interested in learning the gospel. After five minutes, I knew that this was a good place for me.”

I am so thankful for all the help I received from full-time missionaries for both getting to the temple and while there. A senior missionary couple, who are serving a humanitarian mission in Nepal, went with our group to the temple. They were like shepherds to us, making sure we had food and shelter and no problems in our travels and getting us to all the places we needed to be. Missionary sisters, serving in the family history center across the street from the temple, helped me prepare the family group sheet I needed so I could be sealed to my deceased parents. While inside the temple, missionaries guided us every step along the way. I know Heavenly Father will bless all these missionaries who come from halfway around the world to serve us. They are wonderful people.

Although they are not full-time missionaries, there was a Filipino couple, Jimmy and Rose Albos, who were especially kind to us. They catered meals for us and arranged the sightseeing which we did one afternoon. I am thankful to them from the bottom of my heart. May the Lord bless them for their generosity to our group.

Let us cite only a few of the numerous cases that have come to my personal attention recently. A few months ago a mother of five children came to my office. She wept bitterly as she told me that her husband had spent most of his time during the past year with another man’s wife. She explained that on a number of occasions she followed him in her car to the other woman’s place. Naturally, the sinful husband was miserable, the wife was very sorrowful, and the children were brokenhearted. “… wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10.)

I used to work at a camp where I helped campers rappel (or abseil) down a 100-foot cliff, a difficult and terrifying task for some. Most of them struggle with it for one reason: they lack trust. When rappelling, you need to trust your partners, the gear, the rope, the belay, and the carabineer. But most importantly, you need to trust yourself—or nothing can be accomplished.
Many people who approach the cliff come with wide eyes and shaking hands. But before they can scramble away in fear, I look at them and say, “Everything will be OK. I know you can do this. And I’m holding you up the whole way.” And when they make it to the ground, everyone cheers and hugs them, celebrating that they were able to conquer their fears.

“Shucks, Wendy! I’m not doing anything to your silly flower. I’m just talking to it.”
“Well stop it, Peter!” Wendy warned.
Peter liked to talk to Wendy’s flower. One day Mother told him that flowers were happiest when people talked to them. So whenever Wendy was at school Peter talked and sang to the flower on her dresser.
Wendy’s teacher had given everyone in her class a little package of seeds and a jar of dirt. Wendy planted the seeds and after a long time, green shoots pushed up through the dirt and grew and grew until the leaves of a tiny plant popped open. Now there was also a little yellow flower on the end of the longest stem. Wendy was happy about her flower and protected it fiercely from anyone who came near.
“There’s no need to scold, Wendy,” Mother said. “You know that Peter won’t hurt your flower. Flowers grow better when they receive attention. Look how much it has grown already! Soon you’ll have to move the flower outside so it can have more room for its roots to spread out.”
The next morning Peter went back to Wendy’s room. He walked over to Wendy’s dresser and spoke softly, “Hello, Flower. Are you really too big for your jar? Do you want to move outside?” The flower didn’t answer, so Peter pretended that he was the flower answering: “Yes, Peter, I do need some more room so my roots can stretch out.”
Peter carefully picked up the jar. He carried it in both hands through the house and out into the backyard.
Then he sat down on the step to think. Wendy will be happy when she sees that I moved her flower, Peter thought. But where will I put it?
He looked for a place all over the yard—by the fence, by the swings, by the picnic table, even by the garbage cans. Then in the corner of the yard he spied a small pile of sand where he played with his bulldozer and dump trucks.
“There’s just the right place for you, Flower!” he said happily, as he headed for the sandpile.
While Peter was scooping out a hole in the sand, he found a little green car that had been lost. “There you are,” he said to his toy. “I guess I buried you and then I forgot to dig you up again.”
When Peter thought the hole was deep enough, he sat down beside the jar and tried to pull the flower out. But the roots were tangled up in the dirt, so Peter had to pry them out with his fingers. Some of the root hairs broke off. He put the flower in the hole and filled in sand around it.
Just as he went to fill the jar with water for the flower, it started to rain. With all this rain, I guess the flower doesn’t need any more water, Peter thought, and he went back into the house to wait for Wendy.
Wendy always watered her flower as soon as she came home from school. That was one job her mother never had to remind her to do. But when Wendy walked into her room after school that day, the flower was gone!
“MOTHER! My flower is gone!” Wendy cried as she ran into the kitchen.
“Now, Wendy, where would your flower go? Nobody has been here all day except Peter and me,” Mother said.
Just then Wendy turned around and saw Peter holding the empty jar in his hand. “Where is my flower? I told you not to touch it!” she declared angrily.
“Come and see,” he said excitedly. Mother and Wendy followed Peter outside.
He led them to the sandpile and proudly pointed to the little hump of sand where he had planted the flower. “See, Wendy, I moved your flower out here so it could have more room,” he said.
They all stood there, looking at it, but something was wrong. All the leaves were folded together and the head of the flower was drooping down to the ground.
Suddenly Peter was worried. He knelt down on the sand and tried to fix the flower so it would stand up straight. But it just kept flopping over again. His big eyes were filled with tears as he looked helplessly at Wendy and Mother. Then Wendy began to realize how much the flower really meant to her little brother. He feels even worse than I do, she decided and went over and knelt down beside him.
“Peter,” she comforted, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt the flower. You were only trying to help. Tomorrow we can get some more seeds and plant some flowers that we can take care of together.”

Charles Redd later wrote about the climb up Comb Ridge: “Aside from the Hole-in-the-Rock, itself, this was the steepest crossing on the journey. Here again seven span of horses were used, so that when some of the horses were on their knees, fighting to get up to find a foothold, the still-erect horses could plunge upward against the sharp grade. On the worst slopes the men were forced to beat their jaded animals into giving all they had. After several pulls, rests, and pulls, many of the horses took to spasms and near-convulsions, so exhausted were they.”
“By the time most of the outfits were across, the worst stretches could easily be identified by the dried blood and matted hair from the forelegs of the struggling teams. My father [L. H. Redd, Jr.] was a strong man, and reluctant to display emotion; but whenever in later years the full pathos of San Juan Hill was recalled either by himself or by someone else, the memory of such bitter struggles was too much for him and he wept” (in David E. Miller, Hole-in-the-Rock, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966, pp. 138–139).

Some of my friends have gone into Young Women, leaving me and another one of my friends behind. After the other girl turns 12, and when she leaves, I won’t have any of my friends in Primary with me. It makes me feel kind of sad and lonely.
I read the Friend from January 2017. On one page, it had mazes and pictures of people feeling different emotions like confusion and being afraid, with scriptures in the middle of each. I looked them up, and I prayed. Before I saw this, my heart was hurting a bit. But afterward, I felt peace and love from Heavenly Father. I have underlined those four verses, and I keep them with me in my heart.
Thank you for printing that. It made me feel loved and peaceful and that everything was going to be OK. I’m sure that the feeling has happened to others as well.
Robyn G., age 11, Utah, USA

Harry Guan, Utah, USA
I grew up in China and considered myself a Christian, despite the fact that I never actually went to church. I was interested in God and Jesus Christ, and I thought Christian doctrine was very comforting.
When I moved to the United States for college, I started attending a nondenominational Christian church. After a few months, I heard about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from some friends who were considering attending Brigham Young University. I asked a few students at the Christian church about the Latter-day Saints and was surprised when they fervently warned me to stay away from the “Mormons.” I listened to their advice at first, but as I was scrolling through social media about a week later, I came across an address by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In the talk, he mentioned that members of the Church should be respectful to other religions (see “Faith, Family, and Religious Freedom,” lds.org/prophets-and-apostles). As I listened to Elder Holland, I felt what I now know as the Spirit and decided that I needed to learn more about the Church.
I ended up going to church and later met with missionaries. I was touched by their teachings, particularly the plan of salvation. My parents weren’t too happy when I decided to be baptized, but they accepted that I was old enough to make my own decisions. When my grandparents visited me in America a few months later, I was able to teach them about the gospel. They both decided to be baptized.
The gospel has brought me so much joy and it has led me to my soon-to-be wife. It is worth every sacrifice I have had to make or will make.