Gospel Story Finder

My parents were hardworking. They made every penny stretch as far as possible. That was probably the reason everything they gave me was always two or three sizes too large.
When I was thirteen years old, I wanted football shoulder pads and a helmet more than anything else. On Christmas morning, I opened my packages and there they were: shoulder pads and a helmet—sized to fit Goliath!
“Mother, they’re too big,” I complained.
“Be grateful for what you have, Joseph,” she said. “Don’t worry—you’ll grow into them.”
When I put on the new equipment, the shoulder pads hung so far over my shoulders that about the only things they protected were my elbows.
Even though I stuffed cotton and newspapers into the helmet, it jostled every time I took a step. When I ran, it would turn and turn until I was looking out through an ear hole. One time I rambled for a long gain right into a tree. Each time I was tackled, the helmet would spin 180 degrees and I’d get up looking like my head had spun with it. How I yearned to grow into that helmet!
I had even more important growing to do. My father was truly a great man. I remember one day putting my feet in my father’s shoes. I was amazed at the size. Will I ever be big enough to fill his shoes? I wondered. Can I ever grow into the man my father is?
I look back with tenderness to my dear mother’s encouraging words, “Don’t worry, Joseph—you’ll grow into them.”
In a similar way, we all need to learn how to grow into our duties as members of the Lord’s Church. Heavenly Father loves you. He is the Father of your spirit. That makes you His literal child. As such, you have inherited the potential to become like Him. His greatest desire is that you grow in this life, becoming more like Him so that one day you can return to His presence.
It is my prayer that we may all grow into the kind of people our Heavenly Father wants us to be.

“Now for the story of how I came to be a recipient of the CTR tie tack. A few weeks ago before coming to New Zealand as a mission president, I was in the Kayenta Ward in Kayenta, Arizona. As I was saying some tender farewells to many of my Navajo friends, a remarkable young Navajo bishop gave me a big hug, then removed his tie tack and pinned it on my tie. As he did so, he asked me not to forget him.

“Now here in New Zealand, the last thing I do every morning as I dress for this great calling is to pin my tie tack with this beautiful silver and turquoise CTR emblem on my tie. I love it! It helps this old boilermaker make the right choices throughout the day. I know that it also helps fulfill the prophetic promise made to my wife and me from President Gordon B. Hinckley as he laid his hands on our heads and set us apart.

“He said words to this effect: ‘You will have an instant bonding of love for every missionary in your mission.’ I can’t tell you how many times that a missionary, during a visit, has said something like this: ‘President Gardner, I love your tie tack.’ And then he or she will show me their CTR ring.

“I believe that Navajo bishop was inspired to give me the tie tack and that I make the right decision every day when I choose to wear it. And the beautiful blue and silver CTR pin is helping bond me to a royal army of missionaries in the New Zealand Wellington Mission.

“I appreciate the opportunity of relating to you my special experience associated with this great Primary children’s motto, ‘Choose the Right.’”

As a small boy in grammar school, I had a teacher who made King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table come alive. She caused me to become so obsessed with stories of knights that I played and dreamed that I was one.
One evening I dreamed that I was a white knight on a white horse riding over the greens of England. Suddenly, without warning, a knight dressed in black armor and mounted on a black horse appeared at the edge of the forest. We measured each other carefully, lowered our lances, and charged at full gallop. The lances struck target and both of us were knocked off our steeds.
I scrambled to my feet knowing that swords would be drawn and that hand-to-hand combat was imminent. Fear gripped my heart as I saw my opponent rushing toward me flashing a long, gleaming sword. Instinctively, I reached to my side and drew forth from the scabbard my weapon. That is when the dream turned into a nightmare! For in my hand was a small, dinky dagger—not a long, gleaming sword. I woke up in a cold sweat screaming for help.

No long ago, after 42 years as members of the Church, we finally tracked down one of those tenacious missionaries who brought us the gospel. Reed Harris was then serving as a mission president in Chile. We shared a very emotional phone call. We wept as we talked of our families and our lives in the gospel. We thanked him for what the gospel has given us—a healthy lifestyle, love from our Heavenly Father, and a life full of blessings.

In life’s spiritual battles, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against … rulers of the darkness … [and] against spiritual wickedness” (Ephesians 6:12). We, too, need to be reminded of what the fight is all about. Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004), a former member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, expressed this thought in an eloquent, albeit brief, conversation.

In 2004, I visited Elder Maxwell in his hospital room not long before he died. He was so kind to everyone who visited or helped him. Health-care workers went into his room and came out weeping. I said to him, “Elder Maxwell, this is really hard.” He chuckled and said, “Oh, Dale, we are eternal beings living in a mortal world. We are out of our element, like fish out of water. It is only when we have an eternal perspective that any of this will make any sense.”

The most important teachers I’ve had in my life have been women. When I was young, my father died, and my mother became very ill when she was studying at a university. My grandmother was like another mother to me, even after my mother got better. Both of them taught me about the gospel, service, and family responsibilities. My faith in the Lord came almost entirely from them.
My wife June was also a wonderful companion and teacher for me. After June died, I married my wife Kristen. She has had a great influence in my life.
I will always be grateful for the faithful examples and teachings of these women.

I received just the other day a letter from a dear friend. Her name is Helen, and her husband’s name is Charlie. She writes as follows, among other things:
“Today Charlie and I spoke at our sacrament meeting. In my talk I related the advice you gave me when I graduated from Idaho Falls High School and had made plans to attend Ricks College. You told me that I should attend the Church College of Hawaii, where I would have a better chance to meet and marry a young man of Chinese ancestry.
“I took your advice and went to CCH, where I met Charlie and married him. We have been married 37 years and have five children. All of our five children have served missions. … Three of our children married in the Hawaiian temple. We have two single children, and we hope they will find worthy individuals to take to the temple soon. We have six adorable grandchildren and two more on the way.
“I have been blessed to have a faithful husband who honors his priesthood and has been worthy to serve the Lord as bishop, stake president, and mission president. It has been my privilege to support him in all his Church assignments. I have served as stake Relief Society president for almost five years.
“Today, as I count my many blessings, I could not help but think of what a great influence you have been in my life. I just want you to know that I followed your counsel, and because of that my life has been blessed abundantly. I thank you for taking the time to follow my progress when I left Hong Kong to come to America.”

After the meeting, several students shared how they heard about the Church from Pavel Agafonov.
Pavel learned of the Church in March 1990, while studying engineering and psychology in the United States. Previously, he had visited many other churches, asking hard questions. “None of the churches I visited could answer the questions I had,” explains Pavel. “I wanted a real church, one that knows God today.”
He was baptized in April 1990, then began bringing his friends. Since then, his two roommates, Andrei Chromovskich, another engineering and psychology major, and Vladimir Shestakov, a semi-professional basketball player and athletics major, have both joined the Church. Another friend of Pavel’s named Valeri Pomazanov, who studies at the institute of teachers, has also joined the Church. These young men agree that there is no other place where they’ve found as much closeness, both emotionally and spiritually, as they’ve found in the Church.

“Are you girls excited to see the temple?” Mom asked as she, Natalie, and Stephanie drove to the Detroit Michigan Temple site.
“Yes!” the sisters said.
“Is it true they’re putting the marble on the walls right now?” Natalie asked.
“I think so,” Mom said.
“I can’t wait until it’s done,” Stephanie said. “It’s going to be so pretty.”
The girls were going to a special activity day. They were visiting the new temple while it was still under construction.
When they got to the temple site they met their group of girls and their leader, Sister Jones.
Walking around the construction site, Sister Jones told stories of the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples and the early Latter-day Saints.
“They built temples and then were run out of their towns. They had to leave behind the beautiful buildings they had spent so long making,” Sister Jones said. “We are blessed to have the temples that we do today, and to now have a temple so close to us.”
Natalie looked at the temple and imagined what it would be like to have to leave it after working so hard to build it. It made her sad.
“Do any of you know what blessings the temple gives us?” Sister Jones asked.
Kelsy raised her hand. “My family was sealed in the temple.”
“That’s right! People are married and sealed together in the temple so their families can be together forever. What other blessings are there?”
“Baptisms for the dead,” Natalie said. “That’s when people are baptized for people who aren’t alive anymore so they can choose to be members of the Church if they want.”
“Very good,” Sister Jones said. “Those are just some of the blessings we can receive in the temple.”
Natalie was excited to do baptisms for the dead when she turned 12. On her own baptism day she had felt clean and peaceful, and she wanted to share that feeling with others. Natalie felt important knowing she could do something to help people who had passed away.
“I have a gift for each of you,” Sister Jones said. She opened a bag and pulled out a piece of white stone.
“This is a piece of the same marble they are using to make the temple. I got special permission to give each of you one piece.” Sister Jones handed out the pieces of marble. “I want you to keep your marble in a special place to remind you of the temple and the blessings that the temple gives us. Can you do that?”
“Yes!” the girls said.
“I also want to challenge you to make goals to be worthy to enter the temple to do baptisms when you are 12, and to be married in the temple when you are older. The temple is a special place, and I want each of you to be a part of it,” Sister Jones said.
Natalie held her piece of marble tightly. It was white and beautiful and reminded her of being clean. She knew she wanted to be worthy to go inside the temple someday.
“I promise to remember the temple. I will go inside someday,” she said to herself. As she held the marble close to her heart, it felt like she was holding a piece of the temple there as well.

… As a missionary, I was speaking [in London, England, when a heckler interrupted], “Why don’t you stay with the doctrine of the Bible which says in John (4:24), ‘God is a Spirit’?”
I opened my Bible to the verse he had quoted and read to him the entire verse: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
I said, “Of course God is a spirit, and so are you, in the combination of spirit and body that makes of you a living being, and so am I.”
Each of us is a dual being of spiritual entity and physical entity. All know of the reality of death … , and each of us also knows that the spirit lives on as an individual entity and that at some time, under the divine plan made possible by the sacrifice of the Son of God, there will be a reunion of spirit and body. Jesus’s declaration that God is a spirit no more denies that He has a body than does the statement that I am a spirit while also having a body.

When the Hayman forest fire raged through the mountains near our home, our ward became very active in trying to help the firefighters. Our son David, who is known for his baking skills, was asked to make some cookies for the firefighters that evening. He was told how the firefighters work hard all day long in the heat and smoke, and that many of them were far away from home and didn’t have a nice meal waiting for them when they got off duty. Some homemade cookies would certainly cheer them up. David made over 200 cookies that day, and for several days afterward he arranged with other ward members to bring cookies for the firefighters each day. Although the fire canceled his summer camping plans, David felt great satisfaction in serving others.

Of course the gospel brings a sense of peace too, a comfort and reassurance the youth of Huntsville want to share with their friends. So when Amanda and the rest of the youth in her ward wanted to know how to be better missionaries, they called in some experts—the elders serving in their area! And since ward members already take turns inviting the missionaries to dinner, the youth promised to feed their guests before hearing from them.
“It was a lot of fun,” says Jared Mayfield, 13, who craves almost anything associated with cheese and pepperoni. All of the youth helped in making, baking—or at least eating—the pizzas. After dinner, the elders gave advice about how to prepare for a mission and told how they felt when their own calls came. They suggested ways to bring the gospel into everyday conversations and discussed how to tell if people are interested in what you have to say.
But most of all they bore testimony of the Restoration of the gospel and the change it can bring in the lives of those who embrace the truth. And they encouraged the youth to do their part in sharing the gospel right now and in preparing themselves for future missionary service.

Many years ago when at the age of twelve I was ordained a deacon, my father, who was president of our stake, took me to my first priesthood meeting. In those days these meetings were held on a week night. I recall that we went to the Tenth Ward building in Salt Lake City, Utah. He walked up to the stand, and I sat on the back row, feeling a little alone and uncomfortable in that hall filled with strong men who had been ordained to the priesthood of God. The meeting was called to order, the opening hymn was announced, and—as was then the custom—we all stood to sing. There were perhaps as many as four hundred there. Together these men lifted their strong voices, some with the accents of the European lands from which they had come as converts, all singing these words with a great spirit of conviction and testimony:
Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah!
Jesus anointed that Prophet and Seer.
Blessed to open the last dispensation,
Kings shall extol him, and nations revere.
(Hymns, No. 147.)
They were singing of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and as they did so there came into my heart a great surge of love for and belief in the mighty Prophet of this dispensation. In my childhood I had been taught much of him in meetings and classes in our ward as well as in our home; but my experience in that stake priesthood meeting was different. I knew then, by the power of the Holy Ghost, that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet of God.
It is true that during the years which followed there were times when that testimony wavered somewhat, particularly in the years of my undergraduate university work. However, that conviction never left me entirely; and it has grown stronger through the years, partly because of the challenges of those days which compelled me to read and study and make certain for myself. I think that many of you have gone through similar experiences. President Harold B. Lee once said that our testimonies need renewing every day. In harmony with that principle, I would desire to strengthen our testimonies of the great work that the God of heaven has permitted to transpire in these last days.

Katherine Kitterman has always been curious about her great-grandmother, Clara Turner, who died when Katherine was just a baby. She found some taped interviews of her great-grandmother and began transcribing them. Eventually this became her Individual Worth Value Project. She has spent dozens of hours at the computer recording her great-grandmother’s history so other family members can read and enjoy it.
“Some people might think it is boring, but it’s fun,” says Katherine. “The first thing to do is to ask questions. Then you become more curious. The more you find out about someone, the more you get to know them.”
Katherine says this project taught her how important it is to keep a journal. “I’m really interested in the everyday things my great-grandmother did, like chores and school, sewing rag rugs, or making silk from cocoons on mulberry trees. This made me realize that things we don’t think are very out of the ordinary or exciting would be very interesting to our posterity.”

What you do when you are alone is generally a good indication of the kind of person you really are. The same is true when you find yourself to be the only Latter-day Saint in a crowd of people who are not members of the Church.
Although it may be tempting to rationalize that no one knows you’re a Mormon, that no one will ever know if you decide to relax your standards, don’t give in! Someone is always watching you, and if you have the courage to be a good example, you may guide someone else who is searching for the truth.
Years ago, when I was in the military, my family and I were stationed at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. There we met Willis Hepworth, who was serving in the navy. Willis taught us some important lessons about being a good example even when there are no family members or Church acquaintances nearby.
Willis was active in the Church and had been involved in its youth programs. He had musical talents and had participated in a variety of activities.
When he graduated from high school in Magna, Utah, he had decided to join the navy. One of Willis’s naval assignments was aboard a minesweeper operating off the east coast of the United States. As far as he knew, there were no other Church members among the crew.
When the ship put into port at New Bern, North Carolina, for repairs, Willis looked up the address of the local branch and attended services. He found out that the next Saturday there would be a dance at the branch. Excited at the prospect of going to a dance, Willis asked two of his shipmates, Kenneth Kinzel and John Archer, to go with him. The two liked the idea of going to a social function where there would be some single girls, so they accepted the invitation.
They attended the dance and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Ken was particularly impressed that they had such an enjoyable time without drinking and without the other activities usually associated with “hitting the beach.” He wanted to know more about a church that would sponsor that kind of activity and asked Willis how he could learn more. Willis contacted the missionaries. They taught Ken and John, and in a few weeks both were baptized.
After his baptism, Ken wanted his parents to know about the gospel. “I doubt that my parents would ever be interested in becoming Latter-day Saints,” he said. After all, his father held a prominent position in his own church.
But when Ken was home on leave, he asked his parents if they would be willing to have the missionaries tell them about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being the fine, open-minded people they were, they agreed. Later, Ken had the privilege of baptizing and confirming them. They later became temple workers.
Don Dewey, a nonmember, was one of Ken’s friends stationed aboard a sister minesweeper. He wanted to discover the inconsistencies in the Church’s doctrine so that he could point out to Ken the error of his decision to be baptized. So when the three men returned from sea, Don decided to join Willis and Ken at sacrament meeting in Charleston.
But Don never did find the inconsistencies he sought. Instead, after months of intensive study, he also chose to become a member of the Church.
One night shortly after his baptism, Don was tending the ship’s engines and reading the Book of Mormon in his spare time. Burt, one of the crew, came up behind him and asked what he was reading.
“It’s the Book of Mormon,” Don replied.
“Are you Mormon?”
“Yes, I am.”
Burt ground out his cigarette and said, “So am I.” He had been brought up in the Church but had stopped participating when he joined the military. Don convinced him to join the others at sacrament meeting the next Sunday. But began the process of repenting and getting his life back in order.
Just before Don was released from military duty, he wrote to my wife and me.
“As you know,” he said, “I am the only member of the Church in my family. I had been saving part of my paycheck so that when I get out I would be able to pay cash for a new car. But now I’ve decided to use the money for something better—to support myself on a mission.”
Ken also decided to serve a mission. After their missions, both Ken and Don were married in the temple, and both have served faithfully in many Church callings.
We asked Ken and Don what it was about the gospel and the Church that attracted them most. Without a moment’s hesitation, they each said that it was Willis’s life, his example.
What if Willis had thought no one was watching him? If he had abandoned his beliefs, would Ken and Don and their families be members of the Church today? Where would Burt be? What would have happened to Ken’s parents? And how about others who also joined the Church because of Ken’s and Don’s efforts?
This great cycle of service, conversion, and good works was generated by Willis’s quiet yet powerful, consistent example as a righteous young Latter-day Saint. Willis was willing to face the challenge of living up to his standards, even when he found himself alone and when he may have thought no one else was watching.
The truth is, people do watch. Your friends and associates, both within and outside of the Church, watch you all the time. They look for the light the Lord said that you should be to the world.
May each of you be blessed to be strong in setting a proper example, even—and maybe especially—when you think you are all alone.

Zipporah Garba of Jos District Nigeria
I grew up with the knowledge that I am creative, and I love it. As I grew up, I became more interested in the production of garments, but I needed to learn the skill of sewing to help me achieve my dreams. I enrolled in the self-reliance program and took the Education for Better Work course. I chose tailoring/fashion design and then applied for the PEF loan. That started my journey into the fashion world. It was a beautiful experience. I learned tailoring in one year and now I can make female garments in African styles and English wears. I made my first wedding dress in 2019 and have been able to create many beautiful designs and patterns.
Currently I teach draft garment patterns to some sisters from the Dogon Dutse Branch, and in my neighborhood, as my own way of giving back to my people. I do not only see myself as teaching but also as ministering. I hope that by the end of 2020 I will have created a style and standard for myself and the garments I make which will be a signature for my work because I hope that it becomes a global brand.
I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father for the privilege of the PEF. It has greatly blessed my life and put me on the pedestal of achieving all my dreams. I am prepared to pursue my dreams including all I learned in the self-reliance group meetings.

The Prophet Joseph Smith was totally committed to the Lord and was willing to serve him at all times, at all costs, and at all hazards. He was willing to serve the Lord even when it was not convenient. When Joseph was living in the Johnson’s home at Hiram, Ohio, his wife, Emma, gave birth to twins who died the day of their birth. The wife of John Murdock also gave birth to a set of twins on that same day, but Mrs. Murdock died in childbirth. Joseph and Emma asked Brother Murdock if they might adopt his twins, and he readily accepted that offer.

When the twins were 11 months old, they became very ill with measles, causing many sleepless nights in the Smith household. One night the Prophet told his wife to go into the back bedroom and try to get some rest while he sat up in the living room with the sicker of the two children. As the night passed, Joseph lay down upon a trundle bed and dozed off. The next thing he knew, he was being carried bodily through the front door by an angry mob who were shouting among themselves, “Don’t let his feet touch the floor, or he will take us all.” They realized what a tremendously powerful man he was physically as well as spiritually.

They carried him out through the orchard, and as they did so, he saw Sidney Rigdon lying on the ground, presumably dead. The mob had also dragged Brother Rigdon from his house by the heels, bumping his head on the frozen ground until it had knocked him insensible.

After coming to a halt, the mob deliberated as to whether or not they should kill the Prophet but decided against it. Finally one of them said, “Let’s tar up his mouth.” With that they tried to force the tar paddle into his mouth. Next they tried to force a phial of poison between his teeth, but he kept them clenched so tightly that the bottle broke, along with the corner of one of his front teeth. Failing to tar up his mouth or poison him, one of the members of the mob fell on him, and after the others had torn off all Joseph’s clothes except his shirt collar, began scratching him like a mad cat, muttering: “… that’s the way the Holy Ghost falls on folks.” They then poured hot tar on his body, rolled him in a feather tick and left him for dead.

After regaining consciousness the Prophet made his way to the house. When his wife, Emma, saw him coming to the door with his body covered with tar and feathers, she fainted. The rest of the night was spent removing the tar from his body. The tender hands of Dr. Frederick G. Williams, a physician and also a counselor to the Prophet in the First Presidency, performed the heartbreaking task. Sometimes large pieces of skin came off with the tar. The next day was the Sabbath, and the Prophet, in great discomfort, was at the service where he spoke.

It is hard to study the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith without remembering that he learned to serve the Lord fully, at all times, and at all costs.

Michael Diaz looks past the long barrel of a heavy cannon and scans the choppy waters of Portobelo, Panama. If an attack on the stronghold and the gold it guarded were to come by sea, the attacking ships would have to survive heavy fire from more than a dozen cannons, and their sailors would have to get past soldiers manning two waterfront forts, including the one where Michael stands. Past battles were fierce and frightening.
Fortunately for Michael, no such battles have taken place in more than 250 years.
A lot has changed since then. But as he paces along the thick stone walls of the ruins, Michael, 15, isn’t thinking about cell phones, the Internet, or men walking on the moon. He and his friends from the Colón Panama Stake are talking about the changes they have seen in themselves thanks to the Duty to God program.
“I’ve learned a lot,” Michael says. The others nod in agreement. “I have more faith in myself. I don’t have to depend spiritually on others so much. I have the courage to talk to others about the Church.”
Built to be strong, the forts stood guard over Portobelo for more than 100 years, and their remains still stand today.
The strength of the Duty to God program, according to these young men, is found in setting and completing goals. Their goals are helping them build spiritual strongholds that will help them stand against whatever they will have to face in life.
“You live in a day of great challenges,” said the First Presidency. “You can strengthen yourself, building faith and testimony, living the gospel while you learn it and share it” (Aaronic Priesthood: Fulfilling Our Duty to God [2001], 4).
Aldo Cardenas of the Puerto Pilon Ward recalls a recent goal to organize a family home evening with his father’s help. “My dad gave me the theme of the priesthood and how important it is to our family. I learned a lot about the priesthood. It’s a great blessing to us and others through us.”
He’s grateful for the way the program works. “Having to follow through with the goals has helped me to be more responsible,” he says.
Narcisso Garay, 17, of the Barriada Kuna Ward decided to set a goal to read the Book of Mormon every day. “My parents suggested that I read the other scriptures too. Now I’ve almost finished the New Testament. At first I thought it was boring, but now I’ve seen what Jesus suffered for us, and I know that we can return to Him.”
Michael’s older brother Isaac says completing the goals he has set in the program has strengthened him spiritually. When Isaac was a teacher, he was the only active member in his quorum. Duty to God has not only helped him; it has also provided opportunities for him to get the three quorum members who didn’t attend regularly to come to some activities, and one of them has attended church.
“I tried to visit the others and invite them to come to church,” Isaac says. “That was my duty to God.”
Perched on top of a long-unused cannon, Michael can easily imagine defending the fort against the fierce attack of an enemy. But as he looks out to sea, he talks about strengthening himself against a different kind of attack—one without cannons and gunpowder.
“My friends at school sometimes make fun of me for belonging to the ‘church of Mormon,’” he says as the sun sets on Portobelo. But he’s not afraid to tell them, “I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

On 26 October 1964 the city of Kingston, Jamaica, officially recorded the birth of twins. This was the beginning for me. I never knew my parents. I was raised by my grandmother. The first home I knew was a one-room wooden shack in the ghetto.
While growing up in the severe poverty of the ghetto, I realized how hard my grandmother worked for us. She would rise at five o’clock every morning from the tattered old bed she shared with five other family members. After waking us kids, she would take us to search for bricks. With the bricks we collected, Grandma built an oven to bake bread that would be sold to neighbors. Grandma struggled every day, yet she always had a smile on her face and seemed happy.
We didn’t have running water in our shack that combined with many others to form a compound. There was one main pipe. Everyone caught their water there in buckets. We had to take the water on our heads to our homes. The water pipe was surrounded by a green, muddy area; the children used it for a playground. Ghetto children didn’t always wear clothes. Usually they were just covered with mud and dirt. The toilets and bath places were placed in the center of the compound so everyone could use them.
Low self-esteem and lack of money in the neighborhood caused many there to turn to immorality as an escape. This led to higher population and congestion in the ghetto. Most people didn’t work; they depended on the government for food. To obtain nice clothes and other material possessions they would often steal.
My best friend was born outside in the streets. Her mother was only fourteen years old at the time. Following in her mother’s footsteps, my friend had her first child at the age of thirteen, making her mother a grandmother at age twenty-seven. She had her third child by the age of nineteen. After leaving her third boyfriend, she moved in with her mother, adding her three children to her mother’s six. My friend had the responsibility for nine children under the age of seven before she reached her twentieth birthday. As I looked at my friend’s life, I realized that I wanted something better for myself. I wanted a home and a family. I knew I had to leave the ghetto.
My grandma had taught me to pray at night before going to bed. But to whom was I praying? What was he like? Where did he come from? These were questions that couldn’t be answered. I felt as if I were in a dark and dreary world with no hope of light.
Determined to understand more about this mystery, I started attending the church to which we then belonged, because Grandma said God could be found there. But it didn’t do much good. It confused me more. They taught me about Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, who, I was told, belonged to and were one with God.
I visited many other churches. When we studied the Bible and the life of Christ, I felt a very different feeling.
I discovered that this feeling had something to do with Christ, the Bible, the Holy Ghost, and God, but I was still confused. I started to pray and have trust in the Lord. Still, there was something missing. Although I could have the good feeling while reading the Bible, I couldn’t have that feeling with me all the time.
One teacher told me a way to retain this feeling was by being baptized, so I was baptized. But nothing changed. All churches seemed the same, so I decided to stay home and study on my own. I found myself praying more intensely for the Lord to help me find the true path that led to him. He heard my prayers.
I met a young man, and we became friends. For the next ten months we shared our ideas and thoughts about many things, but never religion. One day I found that my friend traveled with a Bible, so I asked him if he went to church and what the name of his church was. It was some long name—The Church of Jesus Christ of something something Saints. I wasn’t the least bit interested—it sounded like just another church to me.
My friend later told me he was going to serve the Lord for two years in another country. I figured he was going to be a pastor. When he left, I began to wonder what his church was like, and I began to search for their meeting place.
I found it a few months later, but I also found something more. As I walked through the doors of the meetinghouse, I felt a feeling impossible to describe; it was joy, peace, comfort, certainty, and happiness all in one. It was like coming home. My questions had now been answered.
The members of the church welcomed me with open arms. At first, I was reluctant to accept these welcomes because it was a little too much. I wasn’t used to so many people. They welcomed me whether they knew me or not. At the end of the meeting, a calm feeling came over me, and I heard these words in my mind: “Debbie, this is the place, and these are the people you have been searching for.”
Looking back, I see that my life in the ghetto was difficult and that a person could make it harder by making wrong choices. There was little opportunity for progression. But I wanted something worth living for. When the opportunity came to leave the ghetto with part of my family, I decided this was my chance.
Many of the girls I grew up with never left the ghetto. I could not have made it without following the desires of my heart and trusting in my Father above to lead me. I was blessed with the chance to leave the ghetto, be baptized a member of this church, gain an education, and fulfill a mission. I know Heavenly Father loves us all and is mindful of our circumstances, no matter where we are. He desires above all things that we find true happiness.

Lives are shaped through the influence of obscure, faithful members who carry the spirit of the gospel.
When once I tried to thank a great teacher and patriarch, William E. Berrett, he quickly passed the credit back to one who had taught him. An old convert from Norway was called to teach a group of mischievous Aaronic Priesthood boys. They were greatly amused by his broken English, but somehow the Spirit polished his words and soon the boys responded.
I have heard Brother Berrett testify on more than one occasion, “We could warm our hands by the fire of his faith.”