Gospel Story Finder

“Mommy,” Marla called, frowning, “I’m hungry!”
“Lunch isn’t ready yet, but while you wait, you can play a game,” said Mother.
Marla’s frown vanished. “OK!”
Mother picked up a ball of string, opened the back door, and said, “Follow me.”
Marla skipped along beside her mother. The sun danced on Mother’s hair as they made a big circle with the string in the yard.
“Inside this circle,” Mother explained, “are many wonders of God’s world. While I’m fixing lunch, I want you to count them.”
Marla’s smile faded. “All I see is grass.”
“Look carefully. Not all of God’s wonders are big,” Mother explained.
Marla squatted inside the circle. She spied a purple violet blooming.
Next, she discovered an acorn missed by the squirrels. The brown shell had cracked open, and a sprout was curling out of it. Marla gazed at the tall, leafy branches above her. Will this little sprout grow that big? she wondered.
Nearby an earthworm poked its way through the earth, seeming to wave hello.
Her eyes now saw tiny ants zigzagging through their grass jungle.
When Mother returned, Marla proudly shared her discoveries with her.
“What a good detective you are,” Mother praised her. “But I see one of God’s wonders that you missed—a very large one, compared to all these others.”
“Where? Where?” Marla asked, looking around.
“Why, you, of course!” Mother told her. “You’re the most special of God’s wonders in that circle to me.”

I often reflect on the wonderful mothers I have had in my life, especially when Mother’s Day gets close. Although many sons could say many good things about their mothers, I briefly offer my own experiences and circumstances—they may be a little different. I publicly declare my enormous appreciation for mothers, despite having experienced much motherly absence in my own life. I am also conscious that Heavenly Father was most likely involved in the positive aspects of my short account. He certainly was in later years when I was blessed by being baptised at the age of 33, along with my wife, Jenny.
My natural mother, Irene, was unknown to me; she died from a serious infection in 1946 caused by inadequately clean medical instruments. I was 8 months old at the time, so the key consequence for me was the loss of that physical bond so essential to an infant in their early years. I was the fourth child, so very fortunately there were older siblings who had some memories of Irene; and even more fortunate was the connection I made with Shirley, the dear lifetime friend of my oldest sibling, Gwen, who fondly recalled her memories of my mother.
Shirley would often visit our home in Hayes, within a stone’s throw of her own home. She always remembered the very kind lady that was my mother. This connection with Shirley was made when I was in my fifties, and fortunately well before Gwen passed away in her late 70s — this long-distance friendship between Shirley in England and Gwen in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was crucial to me in becoming better acquainted with my early departed mother.
Following Irene’s death, my father, Joe, had to decide on his children’s care. My two oldest siblings (Gwen and Peter) were placed into an orphanage called Spurgeons, located in Reigate, Surrey (now the headquarters of the Surrey Fire Service). My immediately older sister, Sue, was taken in by Grandmother Ada, Irene’s mother. In my case, my father made an unusual arrangement by letting a young married couple, the Tappins, move into our house and become my foster parents. They cared for me while my father went to work in Nigeria for the next six years. (In later years I tried to find the Tappins, unfortunately without success.)
Then in 1950, my three siblings were shipped out to what was then, Southern Rhodesia under the Fairbridge scheme, set up to provide opportunities in the British colonies for fruitful lives for orphaned British children.
In my case, I escaped shipment by coming under the care of my stepmother, Hilda, in 1949, who moved into our house in Hayes with my half-brother John, when the Tappins moved away. Hilda was a marvellous lady and loved me as her own; she was in fact a good friend of Irene’s sister Molly. Hilda, John, and I, then spent 1951 and 1952 with Joe in Nigeria.
Among many very good deeds, Hilda was largely responsible for gathering the whole of Joe’s offspring as a family. In late 1952, Joe, Hilda, John, and I went to Southern Rhodesia, and siblings Gwen, Peter and Sue were taken out of the Fairbridge home, located near Bulawayo in the south, to join the rest of us now located in what was Salisbury, the capital. We were all together in the one home for a precious two years. Then, due to concerns about space in our three-bedroomed Rhodesia-Railways-provided house, Gwen left to live in a special establishment set up to house young single women.
Those years in colonial Rhodesia were wonderful, especially for John and me. As youngsters we lived a largely outdoor life, often running around barefoot and getting up to mischief, but mostly creatively (building platforms in trees; forming rowing boats from corrugated metal sheets — usually used for roofing purposes; fabricating catapults from carefully chosen branches of trees and rubber strips from old car-tyre inner tubes, and bows that we used to shoot arrows made from dried elephant grass with pins in their heads and chicken feathers as fletching). Hilda was always around to attend to our injuries, and provide as best she could for us, including repairing clothing.
Most significantly, Irene was a devoted Christian, of the Anglican order. She gave time to keeping the local church building clean and tidy. It was she who was responsible for bringing a knowledge of Christ into my life and helping me to prepare for confirmation in the Anglican faith when I was twelve (I also had to be baptised just before, as there was no record of this having been done when I was an infant). I remember many of those times.
But, tragically within a year, Hilda died from a bloodborne disease, probably arising from an insect bite, but never confirmed. So, the wonderful architect of our recovered life was taken away from the family that she had gathered, loved, and cared for during the 1950s.
Life thereafter was very much based on the children taking up various responsibilities, the greatest burden falling on Sue (Gwen married a year later in 1959). Gwen nevertheless became a confidant during my growing teenage years. My formal attachment to the Anglican faith quickly faded, my father being a declared atheist. However, I often wonder whether, in some way or another, the spirit of Hilda, in her post-mortal state, was influencing events when I became a member of the Church in 1979 (I do like to think so).
Now, onto my third ‘mother’, in fact my mother-in-law, Christine. Jenny’s parents Christine and Bill were a wonderful kindly couple — what examples they were to Jenny and me as we started our own family (eventually including six children). There came a time after some house moves during our early years of our marriage, that Jenny’s parents relocated a few miles away from our home in Tunbridge Wells. Christine was an ever-present support to Jenny in those days, and she was always very welcome to our home. I mostly remember the happy banter she and I would have. When she passed away in 2000, in her mid 80s, it took me years to come to terms with her absence; one always seems more appreciative of loss in later years. To say I had a soft spot for Christine would understate it. She was my adopted mother, whether she knew it or not. I remember, once so shocked and agitated by Jenny’s and my joining the Church, Christine in subsequent years became a staunch defender, while remaining wedded to her Anglican faith. Close to her death she occasionally expressed doubts, but I tried to reassure her that her faith in Christ was not misplaced.
Finally, I must add my love for my wife of 55 years — what a mother she has been to our children, someone who has been ever ready to serve them, and her grandchildren, as well as her slothful husband, without question or reservation. What a treasure!
What treasures are all our mothers.

I took the opportunity to hike two amazing hikes with my daughter this year. One of those hikes was Table Rock.

I had always heard of this place, but this was my first attempt at this hike. I never hurt so badly at a physical event in my life. My muscles started cramping about four miles in, with three miles left to go. I found out I don't like straight-off edges and slippery, rocky slopes. I found myself at times clinging to rocks, not able to move from the fear that was setting in. I thought to myself, "This is beautiful right here. I bet the top isn't that much grander." I asked a couple of people coming back down how it was, and their comment was they wanted to quit. But they were so glad they didn't, because it was amazing.

Then something inside starting saying, "What if this is symbolic of your journey to the celestial kingdom?" Am I willing to settle for something less? I kept praying for divine help to work through the pain and the crippling fear I was experiencing, and then came this life lesson. I had made the decision to do this hike. I did not want to fail. If I did not look ahead or behind and I only focused on what was in front of me at that very moment, keeping a prayer in my heart, I was able to move forward one step at a time until I pulled myself over the top of that rock.

The view was breathtaking, literally, and I could not hold back the tears of accomplishment. I could do hard things and was all the better for it.

One day a young woman came to my office wanting help with a problem. I asked what it was. She said she was pregnant but not married. Furthermore, she did not want to be pregnant or be married. She wanted an abortion. She claimed to have prayed a lot about what she should do, but didn't seem to get any answers to her prayers. I told her the answer to her prayer was in my file cabinet. I took out a statement by the First Presidency and read to her what the Lord thinks about His children aborting their children. The Lord had already revealed through His prophet the position of heaven on that subject. All she needed to do was to trust Him and thereby avoid the resultant regrets and sorrow that always accompany decisions that are contrary to the Lord's teaching. When she finally decided against the wisdom of having an abortion, she began at that same moment to build on the only sure and safe foundation.

Tony loved trucks. He would sit on his front porch step and watch them pass his house. He saw a big yellow _________ carrying somebody’s furniture. Then he saw a green _________ pass by with its mixer turning. Mr. Jones drove by in his orange _________ loaded with firewood. A red _________ raced by, screeching its siren. Soon a letter carrier came down the street and stopped his white _________ in front of Tony’s house. The letter carrier walked up to Tony, holding a big brown box.
“Are you Tony Brown?” asked the letter carrier.
“Yes,” said Tony.
“Then this box is for you.”
Tony took the box into the house and opened it. Inside was a big blue _________ that he could use to haul and dump sand in his sandbox. He also found a card that said:
“Happy Birthday, Tony.Love, Grandma.”

When I was born, I was given the name of Ronald A. Rasband. My last name honors my father’s ancestral line. The middle initial A was given to me to remind me to honor my mother’s Danish Anderson ancestry.
My great-great-grandfather Jens Anderson was from Denmark. And in 1861 the Lord led two Mormon missionaries to the Jens and Ane Cathrine Anderson home, where the missionaries introduced them and their 16-year-old son, Andrew, to the restored gospel. Thus began a legacy of faith of which my family and I are the beneficiaries. The Andersons read the Book of Mormon and were baptized a short time later. The following year, the Anderson family heeded the call of a prophet to cross the Atlantic to join the Saints in North America.
Sadly, Jens died on the ocean voyage, but his wife and son continued to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving on September 3, 1862. Despite their hardships and their heartaches, their faith never wavered, and neither has the faith of many of their descendants.
In my office hangs a painting that captures so beautifully a symbolic reminder of that first meeting between my ancestors and those dedicated early missionaries. I am determined not to forget my heritage, and because of my name I will forever remember their legacy of faithfulness and sacrifice.

Cheating at school is practically expected where I live. But I still live up to my standards and am respected for it. And you will be too.
I can tell you this because one guy was mad at me because I wouldn’t let him cheat off my test. He didn’t like me for a long time. But at the end of the year, he was able to joke about it. Be an example and others will follow. When you get depressed about things like this, pray. It truly helps.
Peggy Dyer, 15Evergreen, Colorado

Elder Betteridge has a passion for team sports—when it came time for one of his sons to start playing football for their local club, he was disappointed to learn that they only played matches on Sundays. He persuaded the club to allow him to put together a new team and to join a Saturday league. He took on the role as the team’s manager for six years, running training sessions and matchday responsibilities alongside his many other work, Church and family commitments.

I remember being on an assignment in the Ivory Coast to reorganize a stake presidency in Abidjan. One of our Area Seventies was with me as we interviewed the 40 priesthood leaders in the stake trying to find who the Lord wanted to be the stake president. One by one as they came in I would ask them if they had been to the temple in Accra. At that time it had been operating for about 18 months. For many big smiles spread across their faces as they told us they had been and had their wives and children sealed to them. Others hadn't been so blessed.

I remember one faithful priesthood leader with tears in his eyes, saying, "President, we have been saving our money to go to the temple. Hopefully this year my wife and I will be able to go and maybe take one of our six children to be sealed." My heart ached for them as I thought of my own children. How could I decide which child I would take? Thankfully, because of the General Temple Patron Assistance Fund, we were able to assure that this faithful Ivorian brother and all his family were able to go to the temple and be sealed together forever. You will remember in October 2011 General Conference that President Monson encouraged those who wished to contribute to this worthy fund.

When I was kid, about two weeks before Christmas, my dad said something really weird at dinner. I wasn’t quite sure what Santa was going to bring me for Christmas that year, but the possibilities occupied all my thoughts and time. My dad made the comment that he thought the days leading up to Christmas were more fun than the days after, when all the mystery of what you might be getting is gone.
As a kid I didn’t understand that, but now I think I know what he meant. When I’ve really wanted something and then I am finally able to get it, it’s fun at first, but over time that thing isn’t as cool as it was when I was anticipating getting it.
Maybe you’ve had a similar experience; you’ve wanted something really bad, but then when you finally have it, it doesn’t have the same meaning anymore.

I usually take one of the local freeways to work. It’s the quickest and easiest way to get there. I try to leave early enough in the morning to miss the heavy traffic, when things slow down and accidents can happen.
One morning, however, I got out of the house later than usual and ended up in congested traffic. As I merged onto the freeway, I thought about my scripture study that morning. I had had the impression that I focus too much on worldly things and not enough on spiritual things. As I drove to work, I thought about how I could be more attentive to spiritual things throughout the day.
Then I noticed a message on one of the large electronic signs over the freeway that alert drivers of accidents or road conditions. As I got closer, I read, “Crash ahead at Mesa Drive—center lane blocked.” I didn’t want to be inconvenienced by having to get off the freeway, so I wondered how long I could stay on the freeway before I had to exit.
Then another thought came to my mind: If I ignored the sign, could I be putting myself in a situation that would be dangerous? Was I ignoring a warning just because I didn’t want my schedule disrupted? Clearly, I was inclined to ignore warnings of my physical safety; how often I had pushed aside promptings for my spiritual safety?
As I pondered about how to be more attentive to the Spirit, I realized that Heavenly Father probably sends me many messages throughout the day. I wondered how many times I had missed His messages because I wasn’t listening for spiritual promptings. I committed to do better.
I checked the traffic, changed lanes, and took the next exit. By using the city roads to get to work, I was able to avoid all the hazards and dangers of staying on the freeway as the accident was cleaned up.
I know that the Lord loves me enough to send me His messages. I simply need to be in tune with the spiritual promptings He sends me.

Kate Hansen and her family haven’t had a real plan for her participation in luge. They seem to take and evaluate opportunities as they come. Heidi, Kate’s older sister, explains, “My brothers and I thought it was funny because she was luging, and no one really knows what that is. We thought she would only do it for a while, but then she would do well and get invited to train or to be on teams, so our family would say, ‘I guess she’ll move up.’”

Eventually Kate started to get noticed. In her first junior international competition at the junior level, she came in third, shocking everyone because she was so young and inexperienced. A few months later, at 15, she came in first at the Junior World Championship. She was only the third American to ever win. She now spends most of the winter months living with the team in Europe and competing on the Junior World Cup Tour. Her name has started rising to the top.

With the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics, Kate will be invited to participate in the Olympic trials. There are only three slots on the team, and most of the competitors are much older. Kate finished sixth overall at the end of last season and looks forward to competing for a spot on the team. Whether she makes it or not, Kate has had fun participating and succeeding in luge, but it will not become the only focus in her life.

Children have the capacity for compassion. They have no fear to express their genuine feelings. In the popular movie entitled Home Alone, a scene near the end grips the viewer’s emotions and causes that familiar lump to fill the throat. The scene takes place in a chapel; the time is Christmas; the two lonely characters are seated next to one another on a church bench. The older man, who lives by himself, is estranged from family and bereft of friends. His next-door neighbor, played by McCaulay Culkin, is the lad left “home alone” by his family, which had departed for a European vacation, inadvertently forgetting this one small family member.
The boy asks the lonely man if he has any family. The gentleman explains quietly that he and his son and his son’s family have parted ways and no longer communicate. In the innocence of youth, the boy blurts out the plea, “Why don’t you just call your son and tell him you are sorry and invite him home for Christmas!”
The old man sighs and responds, “I’m too afraid he would say no.” The fear of failure had blocked the ability to express love and to voice an apology.
The viewer is left to wonder concerning the outcome of the conversation, but not for too long. Christmas comes; the boy’s family returns. He is pictured at an upstairs bedroom window looking in the direction of the old man’s sidewalk. Suddenly he views a tender scene as the neighbor welcomes his returning son, his daughter-in-law, and their children. Son embraces father, and the old man buries his head against the shoulder of his precious son. As they turn to walk on, the old neighbor looks upward to the bedroom window of the house next door and sees his small friend observing the private miracle of forgiveness. Their eyes meet, their hands express a gentle greeting of gratitude. “Welcome home” replaces “Home alone.”

In Brisbane, Australia, a seven-year-old boy pleaded with his father to join the Church so his father could baptize him. While his father had attended church for several years and had good experiences there, he had not taken the step to be baptized. When I met with them, I extended a bold invitation to the dad to accept his son’s loving request. He gently declined. And yet the love remains. The invitation remains. The agency remains. Sometimes the seed is planted long before it breaks the soil.

We called him Grandpa, but everyone else in town knew him as P. A. My earliest recollection is watching Grandpa, dressed in blue and white pin-striped coveralls and a neatly pressed white shirt, hoeing and pruning in his garden.
Grandpa was blessed with an appreciation of beauty, and was a talented sculptor. When he was a young man, Cyrus E. Dallin, a famous sculptor, invited Grandpa to come to Boston and study under him. Grandpa planned to accept Mr. Dallin’s offer, but in the meantime he worked as a fireman on a train to provide for his growing family.
One foggy day, there was a mix-up in schedules and two trains collided head-on. Grandpa was caught beneath the engines of both trains. Escaping steam scalded his face and arms. Seeing that his left leg was pinned in the wreckage and partially amputated, he free himself by completing the amputation with his pocketknife. Blood poured from the wound, and the faithful priesthood holder, in the name of Jesus Christ, commanded the bleeding to stop. It did. The stump of his leg turned white and did not bleed again.
Later, in the hospital, doctors amputated his other leg below the knee. During his long period of recuperation, Grandpa spent much of his time visiting and encouraging other patients.
After the accident, Grandpa traveled in several neighboring states representing a coal distribution company, taking orders and collecting money. Many a hitchhiker found himself riding in Grandpa’s car, sharing his lunch and his philosophy of life.
Sometimes Grandpa’s generosity got him in trouble. A hitchhiker once pulled out a gun and tried to rob him. Grandpa said, “I have only the money in my wallet. Take that and go.”
Apparently the man knew that Grandpa collected money from the coal company’s customers and was expecting to find a few thousand dollars. But after a thorough search of every possible hiding place in the car, all he got was a five-dollar bill from Grandpa’s wallet. After letting out the frustrated thief at the edge of town, Grandpa chuckled and drove away—with ten thousand dollars in collection money tucked safely inside his artificial legs!
Later, Grandpa became the owner of a roadside cafe. At Christmas time he gave the widows in our town a supply of coal and groceries. Grandpa took very seriously the admonition of Christ to visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction. In fact, no one who came to him for help was ever turned away. One cold winter’s day, a couple with five young children came to the cafe. Despite the freezing weather, they wore only lightweight summer clothing.
The family was travelling through to another state where a job had been promised. Their car had broken down, and they had walked many kilometers into town through the snow. Grandma fixed them a hot meal in the cafe while Grandpa drove the father to town and bought winter clothing for all of them. Then he paid for a mechanic to tow in the car and repair it. The next morning, as the family prepared to leave, Grandpa pressed a helpful amount of money into the father’s hand. The man cried and embraced Grandpa, asking God to bless him.
Heavenly Father truly did bless Grandpa. Losing both legs at a young age could have turned him into a self-pitying, embittered man. But he turned his feelings outward and lost himself in the service of others.

Members of the Chico California Stake did so much to serve those affected by the fire. Every person who came to the stake center on evacuation day was housed within hours by other members of the stake. They brought us into their homes and helped us get the things that we needed. I was also amazed by the donations of every kind that we received from Saints all over the world. We’ve been blessed and supported, and we can feel their love. It’s so great to be a Latter-day Saint. I will shout that at the top of my lungs!

When I was 11, my parents dropped me off at the Salt Lake City home of my great uncle Gaskell Romney. He was a patriarch, and, because he was my father’s uncle, he could give me, a boy from the mission field, a patriarchal blessing. I don’t think he even sat down to visit with me. He didn’t know me except as my father’s son. He just led me through the house to a room where a recording device was on a table. He sat me down facing a fireplace, put his hands on my head, and began to give first my lineage and then a blessing.
He began to tell me about the home in which I would someday be the father. That’s when I opened my eyes. I know the stones in the fireplace were there because I began to stare at them. I wondered, “How can this man know what is only in my heart?” He described in concrete detail what had been only a yearning, but I could recognize it. It was the desire of my heart, that future home and family that I thought was secret. But it was not secret, because God knew.

Melissa’s parents are divorced. On the weekends that she spends with her father, she attends church with him. But when she stays with her mother, she is not allowed to go. Melissa was given a part in the Children’s Sacrament Meeting Presentation, but the presentation was scheduled for a weekend when she would be staying with her mother. Melissa was disappointed, because she wanted to participate. She prayed every night that her mother would allow her to go to church. On the day of the presentation, Melissa found the courage to tell her mother how important going to church was to her and to ask her mother for permission to attend and participate in the presentation. Her mother said yes! When Melissa stood at the pulpit, tears ran down her face as she told of her gratitude to Heavenly Father for answering her prayers and giving her the courage to choose the right.

When I was a boy, my mother had to go to work at Garfield Smelter and work like a man to help support the seven children. She worked the graveyard shift as much as she could, I’m sure to be with us during the day. I don’t know when the poor woman slept. One Saturday morning, she got off work about 7:00 or 8:00 A.M. She went to bed for a couple of hours and then got up. She had invited all her relatives to dinner. There must have been 35 or 40. She decorated the tables and arranged the chairs and put all the dishes and silverware out. She cooked and baked all day long. The dirty pots and pans and dishes stacked up.

Everyone came to dinner, and after dinner all the dirty dishes were brought into the kitchen. The food was cleared and stacked on the table and cupboards; then the kitchen door was closed and the family began to visit. It was about 8:00 P.M.

I remember standing all alone in the kitchen. In my young mind, I thought: My mother worked all night; she has worked all day to get this dinner. When everyone leaves, she will have to do the dishes and put the food away. It will take two or three hours, and that’s not fair. Then I thought, I will do them.

I washed the dishes, did the silverware, the glassware. We didn’t have an electric dishwasher; ours was a manual dishwasher, and that night I was manual. I used a half-dozen dish towels. I was drenched from head to foot. I put the food away, cleaned off the table and drainboards; then I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floor. When I was finished, I thought the kitchen was immaculate. It took about three hours.

Then I heard the chairs shuffling, and everyone left. The front door closed, and I heard my mother coming to the kitchen. I was pleased and thought she would be. The door swung open, and even at the age of 11, I recognized that she was startled. She looked around the kitchen, looked at me, and then there was a look I didn’t recognize at the time. I do now. It was something like “Thanks. I am tired. I think you understand, and I love you.” And she came over and hugged me. There was a light in her eye and a warmth in my heart. I learned it is a wonderful feeling to turn on the lights in our parents’ eyes.

Eleven-year-old brothers Paul and Phillip Hathaway have been close to each other ever since they were born. In fact, they’ve been close even longer than that! Paul and Phillip, who live in a suburb of Seattle, Washington, are fraternal twins. So they shared space together even while they were waiting to be born!
They also shared an early arrival. “They were born 12 weeks premature [earlier than expected],” explains their mother, Sherri. Sometimes babies born that soon are so small they die.
“They weighed three pounds, one ounce, and three pounds, three ounces,” their father, Wayne, adds. “Each little head was smaller than a baseball. We gave them a priesthood blessing and all we could do was put two fingers on their heads. They were tiny.” The babies spent eight weeks in the hospital. Doctors found their condition was better when they were together than when they were apart, so they kept them close to each other.
But Paul was born with something Phillip didn’t share—a disease called cerebral palsy. Although Phillip soon grew to be healthy, Paul had problems controlling his leg muscles. His brain would send too many signals to his legs, so the legs didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t sit up or walk. He had to have lots of physical therapy.
Then when Paul was five years old, a therapist recommended a new kind of surgery. Fewer than 100 people in the country had ever had such an operation, but doctors said chances were good it would help.
The operation was long. Surgeons cut nerves in Paul’s back and in one leg to reduce the nerve signals to his legs. After the surgery, the recovery was slow and painful, with six more months of therapy. “It was hard for Phillip to watch Paul struggle,” their father says. “They asked to be together, so sometimes we would let Phillip spend the night where Paul was recovering. He just wanted to be with his brother.”
Today the brothers are still together—and still sharing. Paul drags his foot a little, but he walks! That allows him to pass the football back and forth with Phillip. He can also hold the ball while Phillip kicks. They work on Cub Scout pins and badges, and go to their Primary class on Sundays. They earned their Faith in God Awards together. And they practice their trumpets while their older sister Avery, 12, plays clarinet and their younger sister Kaylene, 10, holds the music. All of the children love soccer, and Paul was asked to be the manager for Phillip’s team at school. All of the brothers and sisters read and study together and talk about their school assignments. And all of them play with Avery’s pet hedgehog, Pooka, which she shares with the entire family.
In fact, sharing is what Paul, Phillip, and their family are all about. Join them for family home evening and you’ll see. Every Monday night, the Hathaways share a moment of prayer. They share hymns and scriptures. They share a lesson. They share plans for the coming week, talk about rules they have as a family, and plan chores that must be done. Then they share treats. It’s all well organized, because Dad and Mom share an assignment sheet with the family several days before. That gives everyone time to prepare.
Along with everything else the Hathaways share, they also share a great love for their Heavenly Father. “I know He has blessed me a lot,” Paul says. “I know He has blessed our whole family,” Phillip agrees. That knowledge is called a testimony. And that’s one of the greatest things brothers can share—whether they’re twins or not.