Gospel Story Finder

Elder F. Burton Howard of the Seventy acquaints us with a strong testimony of the converting power of the Book of Mormon: Sister Celia Cruz Ayala of the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission decided to give the Book of Mormon to a friend. She wrapped it in attractive paper and set out to deliver her present.

On the way she was attacked by a bandit who stole her purse and with it the wrapped copy of the Book of Mormon. A few days later she received this letter:

“Mrs. Cruz:
“Forgive me, forgive me. You will never know how sorry I am for attacking you. But because of it, my life has changed and will continue to change. That book [the Book of Mormon] has helped me in my life. The dream of that man of God has shaken me. … I am returning your five pesos for I can’t spend them. I want you to know that you seemed to have a radiance about you. That light seemed to stop me [from harming you, so] I ran away instead.
“I want you to know that you will see me again, but when you do, you won’t recognize me, for I will be your brother. … Here, where I live, I have to find the Lord and go to the church you belong to.
“The message you wrote in that book brought tears to my eyes. Since Wednesday night I have not been able to stop reading it. I have prayed and asked God to forgive me, [and] I ask you to forgive me. … I thought your wrapped gift was something I could sell. [Instead,] it has made me want to make my life over. Forgive me, forgive me, I beg you.
“Your absent friend.”

Such is the conversion power of the Book of Mormon.

Several weeks later, I was in Penns Grove, New Jersey, with my first companion, Elder Rumsey. We had been teaching an older, single woman who always had the most unusual concerns, worries they don’t teach you about in the MTC. For instance, she wondered that if men changed and corrupted the Bible as they translated it, couldn’t Joseph Smith have done the same thing with the Book of Mormon? Her questions always kept us on our toes.
One day, she had been reading toward the end of 2 Nephi when she became disturbed by some of Nephi’s statements. In 2 Nephi 30:18 and 31:1 [2 Ne. 30:18; 2 Ne. 31:1], she had noticed Nephi had used phrases like “my sayings” and “my prophesying.” To our investigator, it sounded like Nephi was taking the credit for the marvelous things he had written instead of acknowledging that the Lord had inspired him. She declared that Nephi, therefore, must not be a true prophet.
“Let’s look at the end of 2 Nephi,” I said.
If you had asked me right then what was at the end of 2 Nephi, I couldn’t have told you. I had read 2 Nephi 33, of course, but not in several weeks, and I certainly hadn’t memorized any verses from it. I stepped out on a limb, but with amazing confidence. I wasn’t the least bit afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find an answer to our investigator’s problem. I know it was the Spirit that caused me to suggest looking there because I certainly wouldn’t have thought of it on my own.
As soon as we turned to chapter 33, a verse I had previously marked caught my attention. I read aloud the second half of verse 10. [2 Ne. 33:10]
“And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me.”
There! Pow! Nephi gave credit to the Lord exactly as our investigator thought he should.
Doctrine and Covenants 84:85 [D&C 84:85] sayss to “treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.”
I know that through my study of the scriptures the Lord was able to bless me with the perfect answer to our investigator’s question. That day I was able to say, with Nephi, that my words were “the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me.”

I am a level 5 gymnast at my gymnastics club, and I was having a very good season. The state meet was coming up, and if I did well in the state meet, I would qualify for region. But the region meet was going to be on a Sunday. I had been working so hard to get to this point, and I wanted to go, but I felt like I shouldn’t.
A couple days later was fast Sunday, and I told my mom and dad what I was going to fast for. Together with my family we fasted that I would know what the Lord wanted me to do. I fasted Saturday night, all the way to Sunday dinner. Boy, that was hard.
That night when I was sitting with my mom, I decided that I shouldn’t go. I felt good and peaceful about my decision. The next day my mom got an email saying the region meet was changed to Friday. The following week I competed at state and took first place all-around, and now I get to go to regions in Colorado.
I know my prayer was answered. My faith in fasting and prayer is a lot stronger.

I started preparing to be a professional ball player at the age of three, and I never took my mind off it. And that was one of my problems. I didn’t think that public school or church had anything to do with becoming a ball player, and because of my poor vision in terms of values, I had to learn a very hard lesson. Everything I did from age three until I was 18 and signed that first professional ball contract was oriented toward the ball field. I ate, slept, and drank baseball. That’s all I could think of, but it was necessary in terms of my preparation. My only problem was I got overbalanced in it. I collected more Wheaties box tops than you can ever imagine, because I thought there was some correlation between eating Wheaties and being a better ball player.
For 12 years of public education I never took a book home to study. I’m not proud of it. I’m sorry, and I’ve tried to repent, and I’m spending the rest of my life paying the price of the void that I created by that silly observation of a few years ago, thinking as I used to in algebra and English, “Of what value is this to me if I become a great pitcher? I can throw a curve ball just as well without algebra and English as I can with it.” I used to go home and say, “Yep, I’m all prepared for life. I can throw as hard as anybody and run just as fast and hit just as far. So don’t bother me.” I’ve lived to see the fallacy of that one.
When it came time to go to church on Sunday, I took it as a personal affront to me, because how could church help me be a better ball player?
That’s the way my mind worked. I’m not saying that becoming a great ball player or lawyer or doctor isn’t important. It is; it’s necessary for temporal salvation, but it isn’t the most important thing that we’re sent to earth to do. It’s the eternal things that really count, and it’s a sharp, intelligent person who can catch this vision early and do something about it.
At the age of three I had not calculated that World War II would be on the scene. I hadn’t put that in my program. I didn’t know about it, and little did I know that Uncle Sam would tap me on the shoulder when my 18th birthday came and say, “Come on, buddy, follow me. That’s what you’re going to do for the next three years.”
Three months before I had signed my first ball contract. Do you know what that means? Here I planned for 15 years to be what I wanted to be. I had eight major league scouts tracking me down; I was finally graduated from high school and arrived at age 18 when I was permitted by my parents to sign that contract and to put my name on the dotted line with what was then a pretty good bonus. You know what kind of thrill that is for a teenager? I wish I had the ability to tell you. And then I reported to that first team, and I stepped into that dugout with a new number. You know what a thrill that is? Then to get a letter two or three months later that says, “Forget that, brother, and follow me. We have other plans for you.” That’s what I hadn’t counted on. That was the uncertain part of my life that I had never planned for; there are those things in the lives of us all.

“I couldn’t get the money,” Jun-Jun told his father, out of breath from running.
Father, holding Jun-Jun’s crying baby brother, looked worried. Suddenly, Jun-Jun was scared. The baby had been crying for two days with a terrible sickness in his tiny body. Mother had also been sick for many days, hardly able to breathe as she lay on the bamboo floor of their small hut in the Philippines. Jun-Jun had gone to a friend’s house to try to borrow money for medicine. But their friends had no money either. The boy felt helpless. He was only 10 years old—what could he do?
Just then, he heard someone at the door. “Tao po!” a voice called. “Someone is here!”
Father opened the door. “Magandang gabi!” the sister missionaries said. “Good evening!”
The sisters’ smiles quickly vanished when they saw the worried look on Father’s face and heard the baby crying. “What’s wrong?” Sister Clawson asked as she stepped inside their home.
Father explained that he hadn’t been able to go to work because he was taking care of everyone, and now they had no money for medicine.
Jun-Jun was relieved to see the sister missionaries. They had been visiting his family for many months, teaching them about Jesus. He and Father had been reading the Book of Mormon together, and he always felt happy when they did. Maybe the sisters could help!
“Can you give us money for medicine?” Jun-Jun asked the sisters.
“We can’t give you money,” Sister Clawson said, “but there is something even greater than money or medicine. Do you remember what we taught you about the priesthood?”
Jun-Jun nodded his head. He remembered. The priesthood was power from God.
“Men who hold the priesthood can give blessings to heal those who are sick,” Sister Clawson explained to Jun-Jun’s father. “Do you want us to ask priesthood holders to come and give your wife and baby a blessing?”
Father nodded. “Oo,” he said. “Yes.” Tears welled up in his tired eyes.
Sister Elizan looked at Jun-Jun and asked, “Do you have faith that your mother and baby brother can be healed by the power of the priesthood?”
Jun-Jun felt a warm, peaceful feeling in his heart—the same feeling he had when he read the Book of Mormon. But he wasn’t sure if that was faith. “I think so,” he said.
“Good,” Sister Elizan said. The sister missionaries left and returned later with two men dressed in white shirts and ties.
Jun-Jun’s baby brother was still crying and gasping for breath. The men took the baby in their arms. One of them poured a little oil onto the baby’s head and said a short prayer. Then the other one spoke in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the priesthood. It sounded like a special prayer. He was talking to Heavenly Father and asking Him to bless the baby. During the blessing, the baby stopped crying for the first time in two days. After the blessing, he coughed up white phlegm.
“That’s why he couldn’t breathe!” Father exclaimed. He held his baby close, listening with relief to his normal breathing.
Jun-Jun saw a new look come into Father’s face. He looked strong again. Now Jun-Jun knew what it meant to have faith. He could see it on Father’s face. He could feel it in his own heart. He knew that Heavenly Father knew their family, and that He had blessed them through the priesthood. Jun-Jun felt so happy he started to cry.
“Now I know what faith is,” Jun-Jun said with a smile. “I have faith.”

Children are so capable of learning the significant things of the kingdom. As we listen to them, we can better understand how they are applying what they are learning about the gospel. A father explained to his four-year-old daughter that the family had spent most of the day cleaning the house and every room was clean except one.

“Do you know which room is not clean?” he asked her.

“Mine,” she quickly replied.

“Do you know anyone who could help clean your room?” he asked, expecting her to answer that she could.

Instead she replied, “Well, Daddy, I know that any time you are scared, worried, or need help, you can get down on your knees and ask Heavenly Father to help.”

It is interesting to note that as we listen to our children, they can also teach us. A father shared an experience he had with his eight-year-old daughter. He said: “While I was contemplating remarks for my sacrament meeting talk on ‘Becoming like Little Children,’ I asked my daughter why we needed to become like little children. She responded, ‘Because we are all little children compared to Jesus, and because little children have a good imagination.’”

Surprised by the last part of her answer, he asked why we need a good imagination. She replied, “So we can imagine Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, and when we take the sacrament we can think about Him.”

As in all things, the Savior set the example for us in how we should love and teach our children. When He appeared to the Nephites in the Western Hemisphere, the scriptures tell us that as He spoke to the people, “he wept, … and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them.”

Referring to this occasion, President Gordon B. Hinckley said, “There is no more tender and beautiful picture in all of sacred writing than this simple language describing the love of the Savior for little children.”

The key to accomplishing effective gospel teaching in the home is to invite the Spirit of the Lord to be with us. Some of the best counsel my husband and I received during some turbulent times of raising our children was to do all that is possible to invite and keep the Spirit in our home. Children cannot learn spiritual things and have spiritual feelings without the guidance of the Spirit.

As parents, we can share our testimony of Jesus Christ with our children often. The bearing of testimony, whether during family home evening or in a teaching moment, will invite the Spirit. President Boyd K. Packer also instructs us to “teach our young people to bear testimony—to bear testimony that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, that the Book of Mormon is true.”

President Hinckley reassures us: “Of all the joys of life, none other equals that of happy parenthood. Of all the responsibilities with which we struggle, none other is so serious. To rear children in an atmosphere of love, security, and faith is the most rewarding of all challenges.”

I know—with an exclamation mark—that children can receive a witness by the Spirit that brings conviction and commitment to their hearts! I bear witness that this is our charge, this is our opportunity: to diligently teach and testify to our children of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that they might also hear the “voice of gladness.” In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

My father had a horse and buggy when I was a boy. Then one summer day in 1916, a wonderful thing happened. It was an unforgettable thing. When he came home that evening he arrived in a shining black, brand-new Model T Ford. It was a wonderful machine, but by today’s standards it was a crude and temperamental sort of thing. For instance, it did not have a self-starter. It had to be cranked. You learned something very quickly about cranking that car. You retarded the spark, or the crank would kick back and break your hand. When it rained, the coils would get wet, and then it would not start at all. From that car I learned a few simple things about making preparation to save trouble. A little canvas over the cowl would keep the coils dry. A little care in retarding the spark would make it possible to crank without breaking your hand.

But the most interesting thing was the lights. The car had no storage battery. The only electricity came from what was called a magneto. The output of the magneto was determined by the speed of the engine. If the engine was running fast, the lights were bright. If the engine slowed, the lights became a sickly yellow. I learned that if you wanted to see ahead as you were going down the road, you had to keep the engine running at a fast clip.

So, just as I’d discovered, it is with our lives. Industry, enthusiasm, and hard work lead to enlightened progress. You have to stay on your feet and keep moving if you are going to have light in your life. I still have the radiator cap of that old 1916 Model T. Here it is. It is a reminder of lessons I learned seventy-seven years ago.

While I was growing up, my father was a very busy man because he had a demanding job as a truck driver for construction projects. But he always took time for me. When I was in high school, my father would ask my five sisters when he came home from work, “Where is Benjamín?”
My sisters would come to me and say, “Father wants you.”
I would leave playing with my friends and run to ask him, “What do you need, Father?”
He would say, “Bring your scriptures, and come with me.”
Two or three times a week we would read the scriptures together like that. He was a master teacher of the scriptures. At that time we did not have seminary in Mexico. Now I think of those study sessions as my own seminary class with my father as the teacher.
While reading the scriptures and hearing my father explain them to me, I learned for myself what the Spirit feels like in my heart and in my mind. Many times the Spirit was very strong as he would explain the scriptures.
These kinds of experiences with my father were the beginning of my own testimony of Heavenly Father and the Church. I always thought that the Church was true, but just thinking so was not enough. My father took my hand and put it on the iron rod. His manner of taking care of me was the key for my testimony and my inner security in the gospel.
During those meetings, not only did I learn many things from him about the scriptures, but I learned that my father loved me in a way that I couldn’t quite understand at the time. Many other times he would invite me to a movie or to eat, and I know that I was protected by my father’s care for me. Now I am a father, and I know that he loved me in a special way.

I recall that when I was a missionary in London, England, more than fifty years ago, we held our meetings in the Battersea town hall, which we rented. The floors were hard, and we sat on chairs. Every time a chair moved there was a noise. But this was not the worst aspect of the situation. Far worse was the noisy socializing of the members of the branch.

On one occasion we invited a family whom we had met while tracting. With great expectation we as missionaries stood by the door to welcome them. There was the usual convivial spirit in the hall, with the members talking noisily one with another. When this family came into the room, they quietly moved toward some chairs, knelt for a moment, and closed their eyes in a word of prayer. They then sat in an attitude of reverence amidst all the commotion.

Frankly, I was embarrassed. They had come to what they regarded as a worship service, and they behaved themselves accordingly.

At the close of the meeting they left quietly, and when we next met they spoke of their disappointment in what they had experienced. I have never forgotten that.

Two enthusiastic young women of the Modbury Ward, Adelaide Australia Modbury Stake, entered the Junior Miss South Australia Quest and achieved great results. The Quest is an annual affair held to raise money for research for the Epilepsy Association of South Australia.
Debbie Johnson, 14, and Sandra Moore, 15, put in many long hours in raising funds. Their families and friends were supportive and helpful.
Debbie placed third in her age-group and Sandra took first place.

I used to feel the same way towards a person who had hurt me. I carried a grudge for years. In fact, I had no desire to forgive, except I hated the awful way I felt. Then I remembered that the Church teaches us to pray for those who hurt us. For lack of another solution I decided to give ita try. At firsts felt totally foolish praying for this person to be happy or do well in school, but when I was finished I could feel the grudge I’d held for so long melt away and become replaced with love for that person.
Ana Nielsen, 16King City, California

I recently met a young missionary who is a great example of the sacrifice and gratitude Elder Bednar describes. Elder Rabemananjaina is from the town of Toamasina in Madagascar and is a very recent convert who was the only one to join the Church in his family. After his conversion, he desired to serve a mission and discussed this with his branch and district president. Although it would have been easy for the branch president to simply submit this eager young convert’s mission papers once he expressed the desire, these wise leaders taught the good young man the importance of making a meaningful personal sacrifice of time as well as money. So they agreed on a personal goal for how much he would earn before submitting his mission application. He then diligently and very willingly spent the next year working hard in various jobs and was able to save the money needed to meet the goal. Elder Rabemananjaina’s mother is not a member of the Church but is very proud of her son and knows how hard he has worked for the privilege of serving the Lord on his mission. When the mission president visited her following a devastating cyclone which severely damaged her home, he was deeply touched to see that one of her remaining prized possessions was a copy of the area plan, proudly displayed on the wall alongside a photo of her missionary son.
This well-prepared missionary did not hesitate when his priesthood leaders told him he needed to wait and work to demonstrate meaningful sacrifice for the privilege of serving the Lord. Now he is full of enthusiasm and gratitude to be sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in his own country.

Let me cite just one example of that preparation which started many years ago, when President Kimball was the age of many of you sitting within the sound of my voice tonight. When he was fourteen years old, a Church leader visited a conference of the stake over which his father presided and told the congregation that they should read the scriptures.
President Kimball, in recalling that experience, said: “I recognized that I had never read the Bible, [so] that very night at the conclusion of that very sermon I walked to my home a block away and climbed up in my little attic room in the top of the house and lighted a little coal-oil lamp that was on the little table, and I read the first chapters of Genesis. A year later I closed the Bible, having read every chapter in that big and glorious book. … It was formidable, but I knew if others did it that I could do it.
“I found,” said President Kimball, “that there were certain parts that were hard for a 14-year-old boy to understand. There were some pages that were not especially interesting to me, but when I had read the 66 books and the 1,189 chapters and 1,519 pages, I had a glowing satisfaction that I had made a goal and that I had achieved it.
“Now I am not telling you this story to boast,” President Kimball concludes, “I am merely using this as an example to say that if I could do it by coal-oil light, you can do it by electric light. I have always been glad I read the Bible from cover to cover.” (Ensign, May 1974, p. 88.) In this and a thousand other ways, young Spencer Woolley Kimball silently and efficiently prepared, never dreaming of what lay ahead.

My family continues the tradition of reading Christ’s birth by candlelight every year. One December when I felt stressed about final exams at school, I thought that I had missed my chance to enjoy the Christmas season. But this simple tradition was the one activity that left me feeling uplifted, content, and grateful. Remembering Christ’s birth brought more satisfaction than any present I received or any decoration I hung that year.

In 1992, time was a precious and limited commodity for Elder S. Mark Palmer and his wife, Jacqueline.
Elder Palmer was serving on the stake high council at the time. He was also working hard to build his professional career. Sister Palmer’s time was stretched just as thin. The Palmers were raising six children in their Austin, Texas, USA, home—including a six-month-old baby boy.
When their stake president invited them to serve as workers at the Dallas Texas Temple, they didn’t know how they could handle one more duty. But they accepted the call—and then prayerfully asked for the Lord’s help.
Making a monthly bus trip to serve all day in the temple required sacrifice and careful planning. “But it blessed our lives enormously,” says Elder Palmer.
Serving in the temple, he adds, prepared him spiritually for future priesthood callings. It also made him a better husband and father—and he found balance in his busy life.
“Going to the temple often helps you reset your priorities and be reminded of the covenants you have made,” he says.

Another diligent member is Talma “John” Bastian. Born in Haiti, Brother Bastian was introduced to the gospel by his friend Antoine Ferrier. After reading two Church pamphlets, Talma asked his friend for more information. Brother Ferrier gave him some Church books, including A Marvelous Work and a Wonder by Elder LeGrand Richards. He read the books eagerly and was ready when the missionaries came to him. He now serves as elders quorum president in the Soldier Road Branch.

Sister Yanet Gómez is the living testimony of how great the love of our Heavenly Father is for each of His children, and she manifests the strongest faith and gratitude of a faithful servant.
Despite living with very particular health conditions, Sister Gómez maintains her active service as Young Women president of the La Vega District, in the Dominican Republic. She affirms that although she has lived through so many experiences that have led her to critical states of health, she could never deny the Lord or get angry with Him, rather she feels fortunate to go through all these situations and considers that the Lord allows her to have them so that she can help others.
Having been diagnosed in 2018 with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), with congenital thrombophilia and dual pathways, conditions that currently have no cure, being alive has been considered a miracle by medical specialists, who affirm that Yanet is the only person who has survived so long after being diagnosed with this condition.
Science says that the congenital thrombophilia that affects Yanet is an inherited coagulation disorder, due to a reduction in the level of synthesis and/or activity of protein S and characterized by the development of symptoms of recurrent venous thrombosis, with the condition two-way, it causes your body to bleed and clot at the same time.
On the other hand, the antiphospholipid syndrome that she also suffers, occurs when the immune system mistakenly creates antibodies that make the blood more prone to clotting, causing dangerous clots in the legs, kidneys, lungs and brain and, in pregnant women, can lead to miscarriage and fetal death.
Doctors say that they do not know how to explain how she has been able to survive so long, while she, for her part, assures that “the Lord is the one who knows, He is the one who has the purpose in His hands.” Everything has been an experience to help her to understand life more clearly, to value people well, not to hurt anyone and to try to do what she can to help others. She considers that she truly has benefited greatly despite all this.
With great conviction, she says that she has never asked why, and that she does not feel unfortunate or sad about her health condition. In her own words: “God gives the wound and gives the cure. I do not know if the same gospel prepared me since I was a child to understand life in a different way from other people, because that is something that I am trying to understand a little bit, whether what happens to me is for myself or for others. I have seen that it has been reflected much more in other people than in myself.”
Yanet Gómez explains that her family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when she was 6 years old and two years later, she was baptized. Since then, she has served in various callings, including as the director couple of the For the Strength of Youth conference (FSY 2016 and 2017), among many others.
Less than three months after she was married, she was hospitalized for a thrombosis in her right leg, and, after several months in the hospital, her leg was in such a bad condition that the doctor determined that the only option to avoid further complications was to amputate it. At that moment, she felt desperate: “I was anguished, not because of myself, but because I felt it was unfair for my husband that when he was newly married, he had to go through having his wife in that situation.”
Asking the doctor for a day to think before the surgery, she wondered what they could do to find out if that was really the Lord’s will. She claims that something told her that she “had forgotten some things,” and she was inspired to ask her husband and her father to call some members of the Church to do a collective fast.
She was greatly surprised to see that many members joined this fast, and what surprised her even more was that she could see that the Lord performed a miracle. The next day, the doctor could not believe the great change in her condition, reversing his decision to do the surgery and allowing her to have her leg today, with no sign of the state it was in at that time.
It has not been the only moment of adversity in her life. She always dreamed of having a large family, but due to her health condition, she had already lost two pregnancies and her prognosis was that she might not be able to have children. However, during the dedication of the Santo Domingo Temple, she and her husband were able to greet Elder Richard G. Scott (1928-2015) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Upon learning of their nearly four years of marriage and their difficulty having children, he assured them with a very penetrating and serious look that they would have a child very soon.
Sister Gómez not only had that child, but she also had a second, and although in both cases they were born at six months of gestation, they were born healthy.
For her second pregnancy, the doctor recommended performing an abortion before she was four months along; she flatly refused. After prolonged hospitalizations, the child was born without signs of life and without responding to neonatal resuscitation. But her husband, who is a doctor, “began to breathe on him with his mouth and to give him heart massages and I heard him say, ‘let’s go champion, champion up,’ and after a long time the baby screamed. It was a miracle, it really was a miracle,” said Yanet.
In search of other professional opinions, in November 1999 she traveled to Utah at the invitation of her sister who lives there, to be evaluated by specialists from that state. Surprised, the doctors could not believe that she, with her health conditions, was alive. At the time, the doctors told her that she might not survive three months.
“I kind of made a deal with the Lord at that time, and He granted it to me. I told him, let’s do something Lord, take me when my children no longer need me, when they can fend for themselves, and when they can understand many things in life. It has really been like that, they were young then, and now the oldest is 24 years old and the other is 23, and I’m here,” she says.
“Looking and going back, I feel like it perhaps is one of the purposes for which I came to earth, to help other people to endure certain situations in their life, to carry it in a lighter way, with more love, as perhaps the Lord wants. This year I have really had a lot of time to think about why the Lord allows certain things in our lives.”
With joy, Sister Gómez says that the gospel has helped her in everything in her life and has been the greatest blessing she has ever had. She understands that it is through Him that she has been preparing herself, continuing to learn, practicing, perfecting herself, and edifying herself, affirming that everything she is and the knowledge she has obtained is due to the gospel.
She says that through the movie that the missionaries played in their early days in the Dominican Republic, Man’s Search for Happiness, she understood that one of the purposes in our life is to be happy. She then continued learning in seminary, and she has made happiness a priority in her life. Nothing that comes to her makes her depressed. “I try to be happy as much as I can, if I can, I try to help someone else to be happy too.”

As John started down the hill toward home, fog mixed with smoke rolled over him in smothering waves. The frightened ten-year-old boy sat down to try to light the lantern Mr. West had loaned him to use in just such an emergency, but the dampness blew out the flame of the matches. John stood up, pulled his oilskin coat tighter about him, and tried to see ahead through the fog and darkness of the late afternoon.
Earlier that day John’s mother had sent him with a basket of food to the home of an old shepherd who lived alone about three miles northeast of Milnthorpe, England, where John lived with his family. It was the first time Mother had ever let John go on this errand alone, and he was both proud and excited. But he had stayed at Mr. West’s home too long, and when a dark cloud blacked out the sun before a soft rain started, John jumped up quickly and said goodbye to his old friend.
Mr. West offered to walk back with the boy to Milnthorpe, but John shook his head. “This is my first trip alone,” he explained, “and my mother wouldn’t let me come alone again if you had to take me home.”
Now John wished that Mr. West were with him. He imagined all kinds of strange sounds and movements in the fog that closed in thick around him. He had no idea where he was. Suddenly he came to a big iron gate that marked the end of the road, and from beyond the gate came the frightening growl of a dog.
John was almost paralyzed with fright. Then he remembered that his mother had told him that God was always near, even though he might sometimes think that he was all alone.
John dropped down on his knees and asked for help. As he did so, all his fear left; and he was not surprised a few minutes later to hear a voice call out of the mist, “Johnny, I’ve come to take you home.” It was Mr. West!
The young boy was John Taylor, who became the third president of the Church. Although he lived to be eighty years old, he never forgot the quick answer to his prayer as a frightened boy on that lonesome foggy evening.

One day a boy stopped at my office and for several moments talked very negatively and critically about the Church, suggesting several reasons why the Church just couldn’t be the Lord’s Church. When asked to search deeply within himself, to examine his conscience concerning the matter as to whether or not the Church was the Lord’s, he replied after some reflective thought, “I feel it is the Lord’s Church.”

A lot of my friends and classmates who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would often ask me about the Church. After a while, I got tired of answering the same questions over and over, so I came up with a solution.
I love to make internet videos to entertain people. I do music videos, informational videos, and parodies. One day when I was thinking about what I would do for my next video, I decided to make a video that answered questions about the Church.
I grabbed my camera. Then, without writing down what I was going to say but remembering important scriptures I wanted to mention, I made the video. I had no idea what would happen. I just felt prompted to make the video. “And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1 Nephi 4:6).
Without worrying how my friends, classmates, and relatives—members of the Church or not—might respond, I uploaded it.
A few weeks after uploading the video, I started receiving feedback on my social media accounts. People I didn’t even know began commenting and thanking me for my video. Because of my video, one person even began taking the missionary discussions. Later, that person decided to get baptized.
Since I made the video, people I know who are not members of the Church seem to like me just the same—maybe even more. Several of them have even quit criticizing the Church. Others have stopped asking the same questions about the Church because now they have answers.