Gospel Story Finder

Eliza moved to Kirtland to join the Saints for a time and taught school. When she returned to her family’s home at the end of the term, her old friends and neighbors asked about the “strange people” with whom she associated. “I was exceedingly happy in testifying of what I had both seen and heard,” she later wrote. Eliza determined to change her life and live permanently with the Latter-day Saints. Her conversion deepened even further in 1837 when she lived with Joseph Smith and his family. Again, she observed. “I had ample opportunity of judging his daily walk and conversation,” she recalled. She saw much more than the miraculous events of the Kirtland Temple dedication—she saw the life and relationships of a prophet of God. “The more I made his acquaintance, the more cause I found to appreciate him in his divine calling.”7

Over the years I have watched one dear sister give service far beyond any calling to teach or lead in the Church. She sees a need and serves—not “Call me if you need help,” but “Here I am; what can I do?” She does so many small things, like holding someone’s child in a meeting or taking a child to school who has missed the bus. She always looks for new faces at church and steps forward to make them welcome.

Her husband knows that when they attend a ward social, he can generally count on her saying, “Why don’t you go along home. I see they are a little short on help to clear up and do the dishes.”

He came home one evening to find her putting the furniture back in place. That morning she had the feeling that she should see how an elderly sister with a heart condition was managing a wedding breakfast for a grandchild who had come from out of state to be married in the temple.

She found the woman sitting alone at the church, in despair, surrounded by the things she had brought in preparation. Somehow there had been a double booking of the hall. In a few hours the guests would arrive. Whatever could she do?

This attentive sister took the older sister home with her and put her down to rest. Then she went to work moving the furniture around. When the guests arrived, a beautiful wedding breakfast was ready to be served.

She learned that spirit of service from her mother. The spirit of service is best taught at home. We must teach our children by example and tell them that an unselfish spirit is essential to happiness.

ELDER BENNETT: Because our goals shape our priorities, and our priorities determine our actions, and what we become, we must change our goals if they are not leading us to eternal life and to what we want to become. When I was 12, I had a goal to be a dentist in Hollywood. Twenty years later, Shelley and I were living in Hollywood, with an orthodontic office in Beverly Hills, California. Goal accomplished, right?
Well, we realized that our greatest desires, eternal life and exaltation, and our highest priorities—obeying our Heavenly Father and following Jesus Christ and His prophets—were at risk because of worldly values and all the material distractions that the world claimed would make us happy and fulfilled.
We realized that our greatest desires and highest priorities in eternity must also be our greatest desires and highest priorities now.Thus, Heavenly Father's plan for our family required us to move. We prayed for and were eventually blessed with another opportunity that was more ideal for our family.

Indeed, sometime not long after 9/11, a missionary asked me in all honesty and full of faith, “Elder Holland, are these the last days?” I saw the earnestness in his face and some of the fear in his eyes. I said, “Yes, Elder, we are in the last days, but there is really nothing new about that. The promised Second Coming of the Savior began with the First Vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1820. We can be certain that we are in the last days—years and years of them.” I gave him a friendly shake of the hand and sent him on his way. He smiled, seemed more reassured to put all this in some context, and held his head a little higher as he left me.
I hasten to say that I do know what this young man was really asking. What he really meant was “Will I finish my mission? Is there any point in getting an education? Can I hope for a marriage? Do I have a future? Is there any happiness ahead for me?” And I say to you what I said to him, “Yes, certainly—to all those questions.”

I last felt this way in August 1966, when I was taking prelim exams in economics at the University of Chicago. The purpose of the exams was to ascertain whether or not one could continue on in the doctoral program and whether or not there would be a fellowship for the next year. It was well known that about half of the class failed the exam each time. Fortunately you could take these two four-hour exams over again in six months if you failed, but the exams were a terrifying experience. The stench of fear of failure and feelings of inadequacy were all about me as I took those exams. So, try to recall how you felt when taking the exam for which you were the least prepared. That is the feeling I have here at this podium when I think of the wonderful messages and ideas that have been expressed here.

As a discus thrower for my high school’s track-and-field team, my dream was always to become good enough to compete in the state track meet.
I worked tirelessly to achieve this dream: I was the first to arrive at practice and the last to leave. When everyone else huddled inside because of the weather, I practiced in the pouring rain.
After three years, I had vastly improved. I kept beating my personal record and placing in meets, but I still couldn’t make it to state! I only had one season left before I graduated, so I pinned all my hopes on it.
Then the district meet came—my last chance to qualify for state. And I lost. I failed.
At the end of the meet, I felt so defeated. In one moment my dream seemed so real and so possible, and in the next, it was all gone. I felt like I had wasted those years of practice.
Then one day a song came on the radio that reminded me of one of my favorite track meets, when my teammates and I spontaneously sang that song together. It reminded me that there were so many good memories and lessons from track that I could always remember, even though I hadn’t achieved my goal.
It can be painful when we don’t reach the goals we’ve worked really hard for. But because of Jesus Christ and His tender mercies, we can find hope and focus on the good in life.
Heather C., Oregon, USA

The Neels have been reading the scriptures in the morning as a family and studying the plan of salvation. That helps to strengthen Drew’s understanding of where he came from, why he is here, and where he is going. At one of those family discussions, his parents talked with him about a special experience that took place when he was born. “Just when you were getting here, there were problems,” his father explains. “But thanks to faith and a priesthood blessing, both you and your mother pulled through.”

In the October 2018 general conference during the women’s session, President Russell M. Nelson issued some invitations for us to follow.1 One of them was to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Like many of you, I wondered how I would accomplish this. I felt the Spirit urgently tell me that I needed to read as much as possible and quickly.
I gave up my normal books for a few weeks and read the Book of Mormon. Soon, I was nearly finished with Alma.
It was just as well I crammed so much, as something happened to my mum and she became very ill. Then followed lots of trips to the doctors, ambulance call outs and trips to hospital. She was ill for over a year and needed three separate operations. She was so ill we couldn’t attend Church.
Support never came from the sources I or should expect. I think this happens to many of us. I’m grateful I listened to the Spirit about the Book of Mormon. It gave me the strength I needed to endure this extremely stressful time.
The Lord never abandons us or leaves us stranded. He is always there comforting and guiding us. Help is sent sometimes in the form of strangers who we never see again. He never leaves us to cope alone, and reading the Book of Mormon helps us to handle whatever life throws at us.

In the humid heat of a Thai morning, the newly ordained elder knelt on an old newspaper to protect his knees from the rough concrete floor of the hut. He was wearing a second-hand white shirt, an old tie, and sandals on his feet. Reverently, he broke bread and blessed it. Thach Khuong was not only grateful for the opportunity to participate in a sacrament service, but also for life itself. He had recently led his family through the dangers of war-ravaged Vietnam and Cambodia to the promise of freedom and safety in a United Nations refugee camp in Panat Nikom, Thailand.
When Brother Thach first arrived at the camp, he surprised Church welfare services missionary Elyce Jones by shaking her hand instead of giving her the traditional Cambodian bow of greeting. He told her that he was a member of the Church and that he held the Aaronic Priesthood. It was welcome news. Welfare services missionaries were assigned to teach refugees Western culture and English as a second language, but it was against United Nations’ policy for them to proselyte. However, with proper authority, refugee Church members were permitted to conduct Church affairs, including Sunday services.
At Brother Thach’s news, Sister Jones and other welfare services missionaries contacted Elder Marion D. Hanks of the First Quorum of the Seventy, then the Church executive administrator for Southeast Asia, and informed him that an Aaronic priesthood holder had arrived in the camp. Following a personal interview, Elder Hanks ordained Thach Khuong to the office of elder. “Brother Thach was our first priesthood holder in the camp,” says Sister Jones. “With his ordination, we were permitted to hold Sunday services.”
Brother Thach had joined the Church in 1971 while on a South Vietnamese air force training assignment in the United States. He made Latter-day Saint friends, attended Church meetings, accepted the missionary discussions, and was baptized. On his return to Vietnam some nine months later, his suitcase containing his copy of the scriptures was stolen. At the time, he was not aware of any Church organization in Vietnam, although a branch did exist in the capital city. But he did receive a twelve-month gift subscription to the Ensign, the English-language Church magazine. Reading and rereading the twelve copies of the magazine sustained him spiritually during the next ten years. When the government changed in Vietnam and “foreign” printed materials were viewed with suspicion by the authorities, he cherished his copies of the Ensign even more and hid them for safe-keeping.
When he left Vietnam and arrived in the refugee camp, he wrote to the Ensign and asked that his letter be forwarded to an old Latter-day Saint friend in the United States. The friend was traced. He began corresponding with Brother Thach and sponsored his immigration to the United States.
Thach Khuong is only one of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees who attempt to escape Indochina in order to live a better life. Many fail. Many die.
Many pay large amounts of money to be transported in small, overcrowded boats that often are in disrepair, hoping that some friendly vessel will come to their rescue before ocean storms, pirates, starvation, or dehydration overcome them.
Others, like Brother Thach, risk capture and death by traveling from Vietnam in the south, northward through Cambodia to neutral Thailand. With Brother Thach was his wife, Minhdan, three-year-old daughter, Minhvan, and a nephew, eight-year-old Khaivien. Brother Thach says, “Khaivien’s father was unable to pay the price to get his wife and six children out of Vietnam. He asked me to take the boy. Even though it meant giving up their oldest son, he and his wife felt that at least one of their children should have a chance at freedom.”
The journey through Cambodia was arranged with the help of a “guide” who charged Brother Thach one and one half taels of gold, approximately equivalent to his entire earnings for eighteen months. Brother Thach worked hard to save the money, accumulating the funds secretly so as not to arouse the suspicions of the authorities. Finally prepared, after selling the family’s meager possessions to relatives and friends, the group left on a moonless night in March, 1981, praying that they would be successful in their venture.
Brother Thach knows that their prayers were answered. Although they were Vietnamese citizens, he and his wife shared a Cambodian heritage and assumed the identity of Cambodians for their journey. “We were not always successful,” he recalls. “For instance, my wife dressed like a Cambodian woman, but one day we were questioned by someone who wondered why her sarong looked Vietnamese and not Cambodian. Even though the two countries have the same cultural background there is a difference in the style of sarong and in the way that it is worn. We gave some excuse or other, and we were allowed to go on our way.”
They were stopped several times by soldiers, but each time a small miracle occurred and they were free to continue. “One time,” says Brother Thach, “we were stopped at a checkpoint where there were two soldiers on guard; one of them Cambodian and the other Vietnamese. For some reason the Vietnamese soldier turned away and didn’t talk to us. The Cambodian soldier asked to see our identification papers. I decided to tell him the truth—where we were from and where we were going. He let us go. I’m sure we would have been detained had the Vietnamese soldier challenged us.”
The family also escaped other potential dangers—being attacked by robbers or getting caught in military skirmishes—as they made their way by overloaded and ancient buses, bicycles, ox-drawn cart, and railroad train to Batdambang south of the Thai-Cambodian border.
The train carrying them had to make frequent stops while repairs were made to railroad tracks damaged by land mines. Brother Thach explains, “To clear the tracks, the train crew would unhook the locomotive from the passenger cars and use it to push ahead a weighted freight car to set off any unexploded mines. Then they would repair the track. This took so long to do each time that all of us on the train were afraid we would be stranded without food.”
Brother Thach says that at one repair stop, “I left the train and prayed that the Lord would help me find food for my family. They had not had anything substantial to eat for some time. After walking for about two kilometers I came to a village. I went to a house at the edge of the village and asked a lady if I could buy some food from her. She cooked a pan of rice, packed it in a banana leaf, added a pinch of salt, and gave it to me.” He paid her and took the rice back to his wife and the two hungry children, not forgetting to thank the Lord.
The family finally arrived at the refugee camp in Batdambang, but because it was located in Cambodia, Brother Thach requested that they be transferred to safer refuge at Panat Nikom, Thailand, where they arrived in May, two months after leaving Vietnam. From Thailand, they relocated to the United States where Minhdan Thach was baptized. She now serves as a Relief Society counselor in the Taylorsville 40th (Vietnamese) Branch, Taylorsville Utah Central Stake. Brother Thach, second counselor in the branch elders quorum presidency, is now an electronic test technician with a national engineering and research company with a manufacturing plant and offices in Utah.

In 1832 Martin Harris’s older brother, Emer, who is my great-great-grandfather, was called on a mission from Ohio (see D&C 75:30). Emer spent a year preaching the gospel near his former home in northeastern Pennsylvania. During most of this time Emer’s companion was his brother Martin, whose zeal in preaching even caused him to be jailed for a few days. The Harris brothers baptized about 100 persons. Among those baptized was a family named Oaks, which included my great-great-grandfather. Thus, my middle name and my last name come from the grandfathers who met in that missionary encounter in Susquehanna County in 1832–33.

“We’ve also had many foster children in our home,” Celese says. “I’ve learned a lot from being around them, especially patience. It gets really crowded, but it helps us learn how to get along without killing each other. We’ve taught those children what it means to have a family and be safe and warm. One foster child, who is my age, came back for a visit. He was upstairs while my mother and his aunt talked. He came running down and said to the aunt, ‘Can’t you just feel the love here?’ It was an eye-opening experience for me to realize how blessed I am to have a family and parents such as mine.”

I first met Latter-day Saint missionaries at a train station when I was 19. I could tell that there was something special about these young women, and I felt an urge to talk to them. So I approached and asked what they were doing in Taiwan. They told me they were missionaries and began to talk about the gospel. Over the course of several meetings, I learned about Jesus Christ, His restored gospel, and the Book of Mormon. It was the last of these topics—the Book of Mormon—that caused me to join the Church.

I cannot begin to tell you how much the New Era has meant in my life. I received a copy of the New Era at the Young Women fireside in November of 1985, and it has strengthened my life. At first it just sat on my desk collecting dust. Then one day I came home from junior high feeling depressed, so I thought I would take a little peek. It just so happened that I spent the rest of the afternoon reading it—all!
Today I had a quarrel with my friend. When I got home from school I just fell on my bed and started to read the New Era. Then I prayed. Then I apologized to my friend, and the rest of the day has been wonderful!
I love the New Era so much, and I always know it is there when I need it, because we’re now subscribing to it.
Wendy FindgrenSandy, Utah

Later in my life, my father saved me again. This time I was not facing physical danger, but my spiritual life faced a challenge.
In high school I played sports, mostly football and baseball. During my last year, I was selected to play in an all-star baseball game at the end of the season. After that game, when the school year was ending, I was invited to play on a local baseball team. It wasn’t a professional or even semiprofessional team, but I was flattered to be invited to play. The only problem was that most of the games were played on Sunday afternoons.
I did a pretty good job rationalizing. I thought I could play because my Church meetings were in the morning. I could attend my meetings and teach my Sunday School class before going to the games each Sunday afternoon.
With this in mind I spoke to my father. I told him about the baseball invitation and what I was thinking of doing. Although he was the stake president at the time, he wisely restrained himself and did not tell me to give up my baseball wishes, as he could have. Instead, he simply said, “Well, when you make the final decision, just remember the impact it will have on your Sunday School class.”
Nothing more needed to be said. At that point the answer was absolutely clear in my mind. I turned down the invitation to play on that team, and I have not played a game of baseball since. Instead, I enjoyed playing on Church softball teams for many years, never having to play on Sunday.
I appreciated the way my father helped me make that difficult decision. He did it in such a way that allowed me to see the importance of such a choice and understand that the decisions I make can have a great impact on people other than myself. This decision also set the stage for a choice I had to make later about serving a mission.

Two years after my father’s death, I left Uruguay on a mission to Peru. Upon my return, life blessed me with a family of my own, university degrees, and a career in business. I became an international executive, which made it necessary for us to move from country to country—Peru, Argentina, Venezuela, and the United States. My home base was then in the United States, and I eventually became a citizen.
Then life took a sudden turn. I became a diplomat for the United States government, first in Mexico, then in Chile. I sought the assignment to Chile because I desired to get to know the country where I had been born and perhaps find more about my father.
A few months after my arrival in Chile, I had the opportunity to make an official visit to Antofagasta, the city of my birth. I knew that my father, a British subject from whom I had inherited my name, had worked at the Chile-Bolivia Railroad as his own father once had. Therefore, I asked my secretary to make an appointment with the president of the Chile-Bolivia Railroad to see what I could learn about my father. As the main diplomat on commercial business, this meeting with the railroad was eminently qualified for my assignment as well.
Because the company’s president was traveling, my secretary set up an appointment with another executive by the name of Jorge Lyon on a Saturday morning. Saturday came. I put on my best suit and headed for the offices of the railroad. Mr. Lyon soon arrived, and I introduced myself as John Harris, head of commerce for the United States in Chile. He was a stately man in his sixties, who had sacrificed part of his day off to see a visitor from Chile’s main trading partner.
I started the conversation with the usual questions about goods transported, tonnage routes, and expansion plans. After a few minutes, Mr. Lyon interrupted me and said, “It is quite a coincidence, but I used to work at the railroad for a man with your same name.”
I remained silent for a moment. John Harris is not a common name in South America, much less in a railroad company in the midst of the Atacama Desert. I knew I had found someone who had known my father personally.
“How was he?” I managed to ask. But inside I was asking questions similar to those of Joseph of Egypt: Did he love me? Did he care about me?
Mr. Lyon answered. “He was a good man. He hired me and trained me. He was a patient and good teacher. He knew the railroad business better than anyone else in the company.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “He was my father,” I said, barely containing a tear.
Mr. Lyon then showed me what my father did and where he worked. I did not find out about his feelings toward me; for that I will have to wait a few years. But in my search I have been able to define my feelings toward him.
That day in the city of my birth, I learned something about my two fathers. I learned about the life of my earthly father, but more importantly, I learned that my Heavenly Father cared enough for me that 33 years after my father’s death he had helped me find the only man alive in Chile who had known my father. If the president of the railroad had been able to receive me, I would have missed the opportunity to meet Jorge Lyon and thus learn about my own father.
I have learned that our Father in Heaven lives, that He loves us, that He indeed cares for us and is always close to us. I know I was guided by the Lord to meet Jorge Lyon in order to satisfy my thirst to know my earthly father. How grateful I am for the plan of salvation and eternal life and for the opportunity to reunite with loved ones in the next life.

Let's consider the offices that Jesus put in His church to assist us: apostles and prophets. President Monson is an example. As I read his biography and his talks, I realized a pattern in his talks. It is the pattern for how we become like the Savior and obtain revelation in our lives. His stories are for children and all those who humble themselves like a little child. What happens to your heart when you hear this story from President Monson's biography, written by Heidi Swinton?

"...the home was buzzing with Thanksgiving preparations when Charlie Renshaw, a friend over the back fence, stood outside, as was the custom...and hollered, 'Tom-my!'

"'What are you eating?'

"Tommy told him it was turkey, and Charlie asked what turkey tasted like.

"Tom responded, 'Oh, about like chicken,' to which Charlie asked, 'What does chicken taste like?'

"Tom ran into the kitchen, snatched a piece of breast meat, and handed it to his friend. 'That's good!'

"When Tom asked what Charlie's family was having for dinner the answer was, 'I dunno. There's nothing in the house.'

"Tom had no turkeys or chicken or money. But he did have two pet rabbits, a male and a female, the pride of his life. He motioned to his friend and headed for the specially constructed rabbit hutch...and reached in and grabbed his two pet rabbits, put them in a gunnysack, and handed the bag to Charlie.

"He said: 'Rabbit meat tastes better than chicken.'"

Brothers and sisters, when one gives a love gift, all that one has, the meal will taste better than any dish prepared by a gourmet chef. President Monson's stories are not just stories. They teach us how to become like the Savior.

I was five years old when our grandmother died back in 1892. We children stayed upstairs while all the neighbors gathered in the parlor below for the funeral.
“My little sister and I pressed our noses against the windowpane, and we saw horses and carriages and wagons up and down the whole lane.
“Then we saw the two black velvet horses come, pulling the shiny black hearse toward the house. The horses had gold fringes on their necks, and the high-wheeled hearse had windows on the sides with gold drapes and gold fringes.
“The horses walked slowly, and they looked sad. I was sad too because we loved our grandmother and I didn’t understand, but I did know she would not be in our house anymore.
“My mama cried, and her sister, Aunt Emily, came, and she held her little baby and cried. I felt sorry for them, but I didn’t cry.
“Mama told me grandmother was old and needed to rest, so I didn’t cry.
“It was two weeks afterward that I did cry. Just a few days after the funeral, Aunt Emily’s little baby took pneumonia. Maybe because she had been moved from her own house over in Emporia. We tiptoed around the house, my little sister Becca and I. We tiptoed, and we didn’t ask for anything. But the little baby died.
“We were back upstairs, and the carriages were again up and down the lane. This time a little white hearse came, drawn by two little white ponies.
“Now,” continued our grandmother, as the tape circled around her words. “Now we have sealed them all in the temple of the Lord, and they are together again. They didn’t know while they were on this earth that they could be together. Missionaries never came to our countryside homes.”

When she was four years old, Rowena Bright sat by her mother, Marian, in the small town of Cooma, Australia, as they watched the 1984 Summer Olympics taking place in Los Angeles, California. “I have a vivid picture of that time,” says Rowena. “I remember my mother in tears when gymnast Peter Vidmar won gold and the announcer said that he and his wife were devout Mormons.” The Brights had joined the Church just a couple of years before, and Marian was thrilled that a Church member was getting such worldwide recognition.
Rowena turned to her mother and said, “I’m going to do that.” Her mother answered, knowing what it takes to get to the Olympics, “Oh, are you?”
It turns out that Rowena was right. She is going to do that, as an alpine skier in slalom, giant slalom, and the combined (downhill and slalom) when the Winter Olympics take place in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Last May our oldest grandson Tanner graduated from high school. During those years he had the opportunity to participate in the special needs seminary class. He was assigned to work specifically with Alex who had both mental and physical disabilities. Every day he would walk with Alex from the high school to the Seminary building and then be his friend in the classroom as well. It just so happened that Alex and Tanner were also both in the same ward.

At the end of the school year all of the graduating seniors spoke in a special Sacrament meeting. Alex had been preparing his talk for weeks and was the first on the program to speak. When he stood at the pulpit, he was absolutely paralyzed and could say nothing. Finally, his mother stood beside him, but she couldn’t get him to say anything either. As the situation became more desperate, Tanner felt impressed to go to the pulpit. He put his arm around Alex and read the first line of his talk. Then Alex repeated it. They then continued this pattern, until Alex successfully delivered his message. The trusting hearts they had built during that school year paid dividends in that meeting.

When it was Tanner’s turn to speak, he said, “Today I want to tell you about the seminary steps.” His talk went something like this:

“Every day I walked Alex up the steps to the Seminary building. One day he fell and hurt himself. He was so discouraged that he just sat on the stairs and said he couldn’t go on. I urged him and nudged him and encouraged him, telling him that I would help him make it up those steps and that it would be worth it because of all the fun things the teacher had prepared for us in class that day. Finally, I got him to class. The next day the same thing happened, and I had to encourage and help him all over again. And there were many subsequent days that he sat on the stairs fearful that he would stumble and hurt himself again. But he learned to walk with a more courageous heart, and we made it, day by day. Now we are graduating and moving on to new things.

“Today I feel somewhat like Alex on those seminary steps. In my heart, I feel scared to go on. I’ve come from many good experiences at the high school and made it through challenging classes. Now I have some steps to climb to get to the next level, to go to college, to serve a mission, to be ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood, etc. I need courage.; I need help. Sometimes I don’t know how I am going to do it. But then I remember that I have family, friends, leaders, bishops, many people who will be there to urge and encourage me on. And especially I will have a loving Heavenly Father and power from His Son Jesus Christ that will strengthen my heart and help me climb every step of the way.”

Scripture study was a welcome break for Angel, even if her friends didn’t understand why she would take time away from her school classes to bother with religion. “A lot of them think it’s strange that I spend time with my church. Most of my classmates don’t have any religious beliefs,” says Angel, who was the only Church member in the Taipei First Girls’ School student body of 4,000-plus. “Some students will discuss religion with me, but most of the time they just think being LDS is strange because it takes me away from my schoolwork.”
One of those classmates is a friend Angel invited to church one Sunday. Angel says her friend had a generally positive experience at church. She even told Angel afterward that she felt religion was good and that she might think about becoming religious herself—after she graduates from the university. “She just didn’t think she had the time for church,” Angel adds.
Even Angel’s father, Liu Chuen Hsin, isn’t completely convinced the time his daughter spends learning the gospel is all that productive. He often questions if Angel’s time wouldn’t be better spent studying or going to the library. When Angel’s mother, Catherine, joined the Church in 1984, Angel was only seven. Although Liu Chuen Hsin didn’t object to his wife’s baptism, he had no interest in joining the Church with her. However, he did allow Angel to be baptized when she turned eight.
“My father is interesting,” Angel adds. “Sometimes he will say, ‘Since you have an exam coming up, maybe you shouldn’t go to church.’ But there are other times when he’ll tell me to hurry up because he doesn’t want me to be late for church.
“My parents have high expectations of me. My father thinks I can have a great impact on our family by continuing my education and doing well,” Angel adds. Angel is quick to point out she can also have a great impact on her family by staying active in the Church.
“In Taiwan, parents who are members of the Church set examples for their children,” says Kent Liang, a former regional representative and stake president. “They go to church and perform their callings, and the children are able to see this. But some kids whose parents aren’t members are often tempted to rest and not go to church on Sundays. And the school competition is so high that school is sometimes all they see. They think, Should I go to church or go to the library? Sometimes they don’t worry that much about church things because they don’t see that far into the future. Right now, many of the kids in Taiwan are worried only about school.”
And that is what is so amazing about Angel. She graduated near the top of her high school class, yet she doubts she could have done it had she not had the gospel’s guiding influence in her life. “The Church was especially helpful to me during my senior year of high school. I noticed a lot of my schoolmates were easily depressed because of school,” she says. “But I knew if I did my best, Heavenly Father would help me. Usually, my grades were better than I expected.”
Today, college life keeps Angel busy as she studies to become a doctor. As Angel returns home from a full day, she still takes time to read from the scriptures. When she closes her scriptures, it’s 10:30 P.M. Angel’s day is over—finally. She can close her eyes knowing she is doing well in school, and, more importantly, she is finding time to include the gospel in her busy life. In less than eight hours, her day will begin all over again. Angel will undoubtedly enjoy a very sound sleep.