Gospel Story Finder

Now, let me mention a powerful example of taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ by bearing testimony of Him through actions.

Last August, I accompanied Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt to the open house of the Feather River California Temple in Yuba City. There I had the blessing of guiding groups on a tour of the temple. One of these groups included a member of the Church, Virgil Atkinson, and seven friends of other faiths. Toward the end of the visit, in a temple sealing room, Brother Atkinson was emotional as he expressed his love for his friends who had come to the temple that day. Almost immediately after he had done so, a woman in the group stood up and said, “We all love Virgil. He has never imposed his faith on us. But he is not shy about it either. He just lives what he believes.”

Over the years, Brother Atkinson’s Christlike living served as a powerful testimony to his friends. His example is strong evidence that he has taken upon himself the name of Christ.

My senior couple friends, such moments should be in the making for many of you. Consider the story told by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles about what a senior couple serving in Chile was able to do. The parent of one of the young elders died. The mission president was far enough away that he couldn’t get to the missionary quickly.
“But there was a sweet [mature] missionary couple serving in the area,” Elder Holland says. “They came and sat with that missionary and tenderly cared for and comforted him until the mission president could make personal contact. We had great young missionaries in our missions, but no young single missionary could have done for that elder what that couple was able to do.”1
Their skill at that moment was simply to convey compassion in a time of need. They weren’t concerned about speaking any language other than the language of Christlike love. They weren’t worried about missing a grandchild’s birthday or a baby blessing, as important as those events may be. They were concerned about being where the Lord could use them to bless the life of one of His children. And because they were willing, He was able to let them represent Him.

These brethren are not alone in their commitment to serve. I am reminded of a sister in Peru who has been called by her bishop to be a “Special Proxy” at the Lima Temple. Her day begins at 3:00 A.M. and she begins her trek to the temple at 4:00 A.M. She has to take three different buses to arrive. The cost of bus transportation uses up over one-third of her monthly income, which is meager. During a bus strike in Lima, she still came, and once arrived in the back of a ton-and-a-half truck headed in the direction of the temple. What marvelous devotion to service!

I recall hearing a man telling of how he came into the Church. He said:
“I had a date with a lovely young woman. When I called for her, I noticed on the table a copy of the Book of Mormon. I had never heard of it before. I began to read. I became interested. I got a copy of the book and read it through.
“I had only the traditional idea of God and Jesus Christ. I had never given serious thought to the matter. But as I read this book there came into my mind light and understanding of eternal truths, and into my heart a testimony that God is our Eternal Father, and that Jesus is our Savior.”

When she was 12 years old, her sense of security found deeper roots. While sitting in testimony meeting, she suddenly felt a strong desire to express her feelings about the Savior. “I stood up, and my love for Jesus just came gushing out,” Sister Wixom recalls. Her mother helped her understand that it was the Holy Ghost who had prompted her feelings.
“I had never known the Holy Ghost was so powerful and so real,” Sister Wixom says. Years later the Holy Ghost gave her an overwhelming feeling of peace while she was praying about one of her children. Her hope now is that parents and Primary leaders and teachers can help children learn to hear the whisperings of the Holy Ghost.

The selection of a site for the New Zealand Temple illustrates this point. President Wendell B. Mendenhall of the San Joaquin Stake was assigned by President David O. McKay to investigate possible temple sites in the lands of the South Seas. He investigated potential locations in Auckland, New Zealand, where the mission headquarters are located but felt no satisfaction.
“Then one day I felt I should go to Hamilton to visit the college. While in the car on the way, the whole thing came to me in an instant: The temple should be there by the college. The Church facilities for construction were already there, and that was the center of the population of the mission. Then, in my mind, I could see the area even before I arrived, and I could envision the hill where the temple should stand. As soon as I arrived at the college and drove over the top of the hill, my vision was confirmed. In my heart I felt that the Lord had especially made this hill for his temple, everything about it was so majestic and beautiful.” (Allie Howe, “A Temple in the South Pacific,” Improvement Era, Nov. 1955, p. 811.)

One of my daughters-in-law spent many years feeling that God had placed a pavilion over her. She was a young mother of three who longed for more children. After two miscarriages, her prayers of pleading grew anguished. As more barren years passed, she felt tempted to anger. When her youngest went off to school, the emptiness of her house seemed to mock her focus on motherhood—so did the unplanned and even unwanted pregnancies of acquaintances. She felt as committed and consecrated as Mary, who declared, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” But although she spoke these words in her heart, she could hear nothing in reply.

Hoping to lift her spirits, her husband invited her to join him on a business trip to California. While he attended meetings, she walked along the beautiful, empty beach. Her heart ready to burst, she prayed aloud. For the first time, she asked not for another child but for a divine errand. “Heavenly Father,” she cried, “I will give you all of my time; please show me how to fill it.” She expressed her willingness to take her family wherever they might be required to go. That prayer produced an unexpected feeling of peace. It did not satisfy her mind’s craving for certainty, but for the first time in years, it calmed her heart.

The prayer removed the pavilion and opened the windows of heaven. Within two weeks she learned that she was expecting a child. The new baby was just one year old when a mission call came to my son and my daughter-in-law. Having promised to go and do anything, anywhere, she put fear aside and took her children overseas. In the mission field she had another child—on a missionary transfer day.

One hundred miles to the east, Wilford Woodruff stood on the deck of a riverboat on the Mississippi River, gazing at the Nauvoo temple through a spyglass. When he had last seen the temple, its walls were still unfinished. Now it had a roof, gleaming windows, and a majestic tower topped with a weather vane shaped like an angel.16 Portions of the temple had already been dedicated for ordinance work, and soon the building would be finished and ready to be fully dedicated to the Lord.

Wilford’s voyage home from Britain had been treacherous. Hard winds and waves had battered the ship to and fro. Wilford had held on, seasick and miserable. “Any man that would sell a farm and go to sea for a living,” he had groaned at the time, “has a different taste from mine.”17

Phebe had set sail from England first, taking their children Susan and Joseph on board a ship filled with Saints who were emigrating to the United States. Wilford had remained in Liverpool a little longer to settle some financial matters, transfer the leadership of the Church to the new mission president, and solicit donations to finish construction on the temple.18

“The building of the temple of God is of equal interest to every truehearted Saint, wherever his lot may be cast,” he had reminded Church members.19 Although the temple would have to be abandoned soon after its completion, Saints on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean were determined to finish it in obedience to the Lord’s commandment to the Church in 1841.

“I grant unto you a sufficient time to build a house unto me,” the Lord had declared through Joseph Smith, “and if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.”20

Even though many British Saints were impoverished, Wilford had encouraged them to donate what they could to help pay for the temple, promising blessings for their sacrifice. They had given generously, and Wilford was grateful for their consecration.21

Upon arriving in the United States, Wilford picked up his daughter Phebe Amelia in Maine and traveled south to visit his parents, whom he persuaded to go west with him.22

After disembarking at Nauvoo, Wilford reunited with his wife and met with Orson Hyde, the presiding apostle in the city, who had little good news to report. Among the Saints still in Nauvoo were some who felt restless and abandoned. A few were even questioning the Twelve’s claim to leadership in the Church. Among them were Wilford’s sister and brother-in-law, Eunice and Dwight Webster.23

The news grieved Wilford for days. He had taught and baptized Eunice and Dwight a decade earlier. Recently, they had been drawn to a man named James Strang, who claimed that Joseph Smith had secretly appointed him to be his successor. Strang’s claim was false, but his charisma had won over some Saints in Nauvoo, including former apostles John Page and William Smith, the prophet Joseph’s younger brother.24

On April 18, Wilford became incensed when he learned that Dwight and Eunice were trying to convince his parents to follow Strang rather than go west. Wilford called his family together and denounced the false prophet. He then left to load his wagons.

“I have much to do,” he wrote in his journal, “and little time to do it.”25
That spring, workers raced to finish the temple before its public dedication on May 1. They installed a brick floor around the baptismal font, fitted decorative woodwork into place, and painted the walls. The work proceeded all day and often into the night. Since the Church had little money to pay the laborers, many of them sacrificed part of their wages to ensure the temple was ready to dedicate to the Lord.26
Two days before the dedication, workers finished painting the first-floor assembly hall. The next day, they swept the dust and debris out of the large room and prepared for the service. The workers were not able to put finishing touches on every room, but they knew that would not keep the Lord from accepting the temple. Confident they had fulfilled God’s command, they painted the words “The Lord has beheld our sacrifice” above the pulpits along the east wall of the assembly hall.27
Conscious of the debt they owed the workers, Church leaders announced that the first session of the dedication would be a charitable event. Those who attended were asked to contribute a dollar to help pay the impoverished laborers.
On the morning of May 1, fourteen-year-old Elvira Stevens left her camp west of the Mississippi and crossed the river to attend the dedication. An orphan whose parents had died soon after the family moved to Nauvoo, Elvira now lived with her married sister. Since no one else in her camp could join her for the dedication, she went alone.
Knowing that it might be years before another temple was built in the West, the apostles had administered the endowment to some young single people, including Elvira. Now, three months later, she climbed the steps to the temple doors once more, contributed her dollar, and found a seat in the assembly hall.28
The session opened with singing from a choir. Orson Hyde then offered the dedicatory prayer. “Grant that Thy Spirit shall dwell here,” he pleaded, “and may all feel a sacred influence on their hearts that His hand has helped this work.”29
Elvira felt heavenly power in the room. After the session, she returned to her camp, but she came back for the next session two days later, hoping to feel the same power again. Orson Hyde and Wilford Woodruff gave sermons on temple work, priesthood, and the resurrection. Before closing the meeting, Wilford praised the Saints for finishing the temple even though they would have to abandon it.
“Thousands of the Saints have received their endowment in it, and the light will not go out,” he said. “This is glory enough for building the temple.”
After the session, Elvira returned to her camp, crossing the river one last time.30 Saints in Nauvoo, meanwhile, spent the rest of the day and night packing up and removing chairs, tables, and other furnishings until the temple was empty and left in the hands of the Lord.31

This past summer my wife and I had two of our young grandsons staying with us while their parents participated in a pioneer trek activity in their stake. Our daughter wanted to be sure that the boys practiced the piano while away from home. She knew that a few days with the grandparents makes it a little easier to forget about practicing. One afternoon I decided to sit with my 13-year-old grandson, Andrew, and listen to him play.
This boy is full of energy and loves the outdoors. He could easily spend all of his time hunting and fishing. While he was practicing the piano, I could tell that he would rather be fishing on a nearby river. I listened as he pounded out each chord of a familiar song. Every note he played had the same emphasis and meter, making it difficult to clearly identify the melody. I sat beside him on the bench and explained the importance of applying just a little more pressure on the melody keys and a little less on those notes that accompany the melody. We talked about the piano being more than just a mechanical miracle. It can be an extension of his own voice and feelings and become a wonderful instrument of communication. Just as a person talks and moves smoothly from one word to another, so should the melody flow as we move from one note to another.
We laughed together as he tried again and again. His dimpled-cheek smile increased as the familiar melody began to emerge from what was previously a wild set of sounds. The message became clear: “I am a child of God, and he has sent me here.”1 I asked Andrew if he could feel the difference in the message. He responded, “Yes, Grandpa, I can feel it!”

Shortly after my mission, while a student at Brigham Young University, I received a phone call from my dad. He told me that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and that although his chances of survival were not good, he was determined to be healed and return to his normal life activities. That phone call was a sobering moment for me. My dad had been my bishop, my friend, and my adviser. As my mother, my siblings, and I contemplated the future, it appeared bleak. My younger brother, Dave, was serving a mission in New York and participated long-distance in these difficult family events.
The medical providers of the day suggested surgery to try and curtail the spread of the cancer. Our family earnestly fasted and prayed for a miracle. I felt that we had sufficient faith that my father could be healed. Just prior to the surgery, my older brother, Norm, and I gave my dad a blessing. With all the faith we could muster, we prayed that he would be healed.
The surgery was scheduled to last many hours, but after just a short time, the doctor came to the waiting room to meet with our family. He told us that as they began the surgery, they could see that the cancer had spread throughout my father’s body. Based upon what they observed, my father had just a few months to live. We were devastated.
As my father awakened from the surgery, he was anxious to learn if the procedure had been successful. We shared with him the grim news.
We continued to fast and pray for a miracle. As my father’s health quickly declined, we began to pray that he could be free of pain. Eventually, as his condition worsened, we asked the Lord to allow him to pass quickly. Just a few months after the surgery, as predicted by the surgeon, my father did pass away.
Much love and care were poured out upon our family by ward members and family friends. We had a beautiful funeral that honored the life of my father. As time passed, however, and we experienced the pain of my father’s absence, I began to wonder why my father had not been healed. I wondered if my faith was not strong enough. Why did some families receive a miracle, but our family did not? I had learned on my mission to turn to the scriptures for answers, so I began to search the scriptures.
But here is the greater lesson I learned. I had mistakenly believed that the Savior’s healing power had not worked for my family. As I now look back with more mature eyes and experience, I see that the Savior’s healing power was evident in the lives of each of my family members. I was so focused on a physical healing that I failed to see the miracles that had occurred. The Lord strengthened and lifted my mother beyond her capacity through this difficult trial, and she led a long and productive life. She had a remarkable positive influence on her children and grandchildren. The Lord blessed me and my siblings with love, unity, faith, and resilience that became an important part of our lives and continues today.
But what about my dad? As with all who will repent, he was spiritually healed as he sought and received the blessings available because of the Savior’s Atonement. He received a remission of his sins and now awaits the miracle of the Resurrection. The Apostle Paul taught, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” You see, I was saying to the Savior, “We brought my dad to You to be healed,” and it is now clear to me that the Savior did heal him. The balm of Gilead worked for the Nielson family—not in the way that we had supposed, but in an even more significant way that has blessed and continues to bless our lives.

When Blanca’s husband and mother became sick and unable to care for themselves, she had to leave her job to care for them full-time. By turning to the Lord, Blanca has found strength beyond her own.
Cody Bell, photographer
Our family’s most difficult trials came when my husband became very sick. He spent four months in intensive care. Those were months of anguish! My husband was unable to care for himself when we left the hospital. At the same time, my mother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and had to completely stay in the bed.
I had a stable job as a licensed nurse, and I took care of my husband and my mother at the same time. I became discouraged with both of them in bed. There were many nights without sleep because I would have to do everything for them. They were like two babies. With caring for them and working at the same time, I felt like I was working double. I could not take care of them as I should, so I had to leave my work.
I consider these to be the most difficult days of my life. It was difficult for me to go from being self-sufficient to empty-handed. I began to worry about finances. I didn’t know what to do to cover all our expenses. I started thinking of what I could do. I asked the Lord to help me work once again and still care for my family.
I talked with my son and he suggested that I make and sell empanadas. I was scared since I did not know how to do this, but I had something in my favor. I had attended several self-reliance courses from the Church. One of the courses I liked was the “Starting and Growing My Business” course. As I attended, I sensed what was ahead of me. The Lord sent this course to me after I asked Him for help. I asked Him for a job, and He provided me with an opportunity.
I worked until late at night to get the business started. It took a year to get it fully running. I started selling empanadas to friends and neighbors, and I began to think that I could give myself entirely to this job, so I could take care for family. We were happy when the time came to open a nice family business. Our happiness, however, was short-lived.
I started to feel sick myself. I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with breast cancer. I underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and everything else to fight the disease. When everything came down, I had to abandon my long-awaited family business. Between my treatment and care of my helpless mother and my husband, I did not have the physical capacity to run the business.
Over time, my husband’s health slowly improved, and my mother has since passed away. Now, I dedicate myself to my treatment.
I do not get tired of praying and asking the Lord for strength to continue forward. I pray to Him at all times. What my family has gone through has helped me realize that the Lord has walked with me through it all. He gives me the opportunity to rise up again. It is incredible the great amount of strength the Lord gives me.
I never ask myself, “Why me?” I have always thought there was a reason for it. I trust the Lord and accept what He sends me. He has supported me as I have passed through very difficult times, and I have been strengthened.
Blanca attended several of the Church’s self-reliance courses to help provide a living for her and her family. She is grateful for what she learned. “The Lord sent this course to me after I asked Him for help,” she said.
Twenty-three years after she and her husband, Anibal, joined the Church, Blanca says, “Since my baptism, I have felt that I am in the right place, in the true Church.”
Blanca is grateful to see her husband’s health improve. She is also grateful for the opportunity she had to care for her mother, who has since passed away.
Blanca says she could not have made it through her challenges on her own. “The Lord has walked with me through it all,” she says. “It is incredible the great amount of strength the Lord gives me.”

Several weeks after I was baptized, I had the privilege of receiving a witness of the Holy Ghost once again, stronger than before. One morning at about 3:00 A.M., I sat up in bed with tears streaming down my face. The Holy Ghost was bearing such a powerful witness to me of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and of the Church that I felt like saying, “Please, Lord, no more, no more. I know it’s true.”

“I remember the bombings, and I remember soldiers occupying our country,” Elder Didier recalled. “But I especially remember the scarcity of food. We grew up without many of the basic foods that most children have today. During five long years, only once did I have an orange to eat. It was a Christmas present at school. I took it home, and my mother peeled it carefully so that we could all have a piece.”

I am writing to thank you for the New Era, which I have found to be spiritually uplifting, and to share with you my little miracle. At a point in my life when I had become totally inactive and thought that life was no longer worth living, I started to receive the New Era. I don’t know who paid for the subscription, but I will be eternally grateful because it helped to bring about the turning point in my life. I am now back on the right road, and I know that life is worth living. I have a lot of steps to climb and a lot of praying and learning to do, but I know that my Heavenly Father is beside me all the way.
Terri WhittingPerth, Australia

It was then she looked up, and instead of seeing two young men in suitcoats and on bikes turn out of the alley, only one was coming. His white shirt was missing its usual tie, and his bike and coat were gone. With head down and hands jammed hard in his pockets, clenched in fists of frustration, he was kicking rocks and old cans as he stomped toward her. She could see that he was talking to himself, and as the distance narrowed, she caught snatches of the angry words he was saying.

She sat and listened as he began having a mental battle with himself. First he’d mumble a scripture on patience, or brotherly love, or humility, then a quick comeback on patience being gone, and brotherly love destroyed by this or that, and humility nonexistent. The more he talked, the more the scriptures began to win until he was murmuring only pieces of scriptures and phrases of hymns that she had never heard before.

There had been a disagreement of some sorts; that was obvious. By the time he had reached the spot where she sat staring in the chrysanthemums, he had slowed and stopped. He stood looking at his scuffed shoes, totally unaware of her presence, his mind frantically searching for what to do. Pride said go, but love said stop. The hardness of his brow softened, the firmness around his mouth that had kept his gritted teeth solidly in place weakened, and she could see his eyes fill with tears. She became very conscious of her position and wished she were one of her beautiful little flowers blowing in the breeze.

Then from the alley a voice boomed: “Elder, wait! I—I’m sorry!” The young man near her slowly turned and looked where his partner was standing in his stocking feet.

For what seemed enough time to plant and harvest a section of wheat, the air remained empty of human sounds or movement. Then Elder Scuffed Shoes looked at her and, in a rather husky voice, asked if he could please have a flower. “A flower of forgiveness,” he had muttered. Mutely she clipped one for him and watched as he retraced his steps until he stood in front of the other. They were too far off for her to hear what was said, but she saw the flower exchange hands and watched as they walked back to their apartment in the alley, each with an arm around the other’s shoulder.

She had sat there in the flowers trying to figure out how one young man could know so much about love and have such an abundance of it, while another lay lifeless on a mortician’s table because of his gross lack of it. Both had been searching for what life really was. One had found it; the other hadn’t. Why? She couldn’t answer her own question. Finally she got up and left to prepare for a funeral many miles away. Even as she left, she knew she had to find the answer to “Why?” when she returned.

When I was about eight years old, I attended Lafayette School, which was very close to Temple Square. One day at lunchtime, my mother took me out for lunch at the Lion House, which is a house where President Brigham Young used to live. While we were there, she noticed President Heber J. Grant eating lunch. Taking me over, she introduced me to him, and he shook my hand. I knew he was different from other men. Since that time, I have shaken hands with the next eight Presidents of the Church. Each time, I could feel the honor and dignity of the prophet.

As soon as the snow started to fall that day in January, I began listening for Jeremy. He was due back around 3:00 P.M., and I knew there wasn’t much chance of his plane being early. But every time I heard footsteps in the hall, I found myself watching for his head to poke through the door of our dorm room.
It wasn’t a question of missing him, although I guess I did. I can easily survive ten days without that skinny intellectual. The problem was, I was curious. Had his father shot him or not?
Jeremy was my roommate. The first day I walked into the dark cell that passes for our dorm room, Jeremy was sitting at his desk listening to classical music and reading a chemistry text as if it were a light novel. I hate classical music.
I walked in and set my luggage down on one of the two beds—the one that didn’t have crackers spilled on it. “Hi,” I said, holding out my hand across the narrow room. “I’m Paul Jones. I guess we’re roommates.”
“Jeremy Kahn,” he said, taking my hand and crushing it in fragile-looking fingers that felt like steel cables. I have milked cows all my life. Consequently, I have strong hands. I squeezed back hard to teach him a lesson—and made no impression whatsoever. I retrieved my mangled hand, and he smiled.
“I guess you’ve heard about my abnormality,” he said.
I checked him out for signs of leprosy, but he seemed pretty much intact.
“I’m Jewish,” he said.
“Oh, I should have known,” I said. “You look Jewish. But believe me, we Mormons have the greatest respect for the Jewish people. In fact—”
“What do you mean I look Jewish. He was frowning now.
“Oh, well, you know, Curly hair, dark eyes …”
“Go ahead, why not say it—‘big nose!’”
“Well, you do have a big nose.”
“So, do all Christians have small noses? Yours is no beauty.”
“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry if I offended you. There’s nothing wrong with looking Jewish.”
“There’s no such thing as looking Jewish,” he said. “I have Jewish friends with straight blond hair and blue eyes and pug noses.”
“So you look more Jewish than they do. You should be proud of it.”
He slammed down his chemistry book on the desk. “Stereotypes! You’re full of stereotypes. All you Mormons are!”
“Hey, watch it; that’s a stereotype!”
He looked at me for a moment as if deciding whether he should laugh or throw his book at me. Then he laughed. “I should warn you,” he said. “I’m going to be a problem.”
“Why are you going to be a problem?” I said. “Are you a genius or something? Do you practice black magic? You don’t look like much of a problem to me.”
“Actually I’m only a near-genius,” he said, “but I’m going to be a problem because you’re going to try to convert me to Mormonism, and I’m not going to convert.”
I held up my hands as if in shock and looked as innocent as I could. “Me try to convert you? Whatever gave you such a wild idea?”
“Because I’ve already had one guy in here mumbling something about the stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph. The dorm mother had to tell me that she was of the tribe of Ephraim before she would give me my sheets. And then a guy with a Bible surgically attached to his right hand came in and informed me that I would never be happy until I accepted Christ as my Savior. And I’ve only been here a half hour!”
“The gospel is very precious to us Mormons,” I said. “We feel that we should share it with others.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “And a Jew would make a really fine trophy, wouldn’t he? You could have my head mounted and hung over your desk. And another endangered species bites the dust.”
“You’re being a little oversensitive, aren’t you?” I said, beginning to unpack.
“Yeah? Well, I guess you don’t know much about Jews, do you? Or about being a minority.”
“Look, buddy,” I said, “I’ll admit I’ve never known much about Jews. Or Buddhists. Or nuclear technology. But that doesn’t mean any of them is bad. And while we’re on the subject, I might add that every human being is a minority of one. Nobody else knows your heart, your mind, your fears, or your hopes because they’re yours alone. So let’s not be Jew and Mormon this year. Let’s be me and you. We’ll never really know what it would be like to be each other, but we can compare.”
When I finished he began to applaud. “Bravo!” he said, with his already-familiar sarcastic smile. “Where do I send my 25 cents for additional copies?”
I was just about to get mad then, but he held up a skinny hand, and his face broke into a real smile. “Shalom, Paul,” he said. “The fact is, I liked your speech, and I accept the Jones doctrine of co-existence. I think we can be friends.”
Just then I noticed an old tennis shoe on my side of the room, “What’s that?” I said.
Jeremy observed it carefully. “It appears to be my tennis shoe,”
“Well what’s it doing on my side of the room?”
He sighed and picked it up. “Just my luck,” he said. “Ten thousand roommates to choose from, and I get Felix Unger.”
When I came back from the bathroom a few minutes later, he had made my bed. I thanked him, never suspecting that he had short-sheeted it.
That night as I sat on my innocent-looking bed, I pondered my fate. Jeremy had not really been as different as I had expected. I hadn’t seen him wear a skull cap, and there was no menorah in sight. He’d eaten everything on his plate at dinner and had spoken English all day. I knew there were different kinds of Judaism as there are different kinds of Christianity, and I assumed that whatever kind he was, he knew what he was doing. We didn’t talk about religion at all that day, though we were together a lot, buying books and eating in the cafeteria and reading countless bulletin boards. But as I sat on my bed exhausted just before midnight, I realized we’d reached a moment of truth. How do you pray under scrutiny?
I decided I’d better get used to it and slid off the bed to my knees. My head sagged to the mattress in its usual way as I took my usual deep breath and started my nightly mumble in the mind. But I felt eyes burning holes in my back. I wondered why Jeremy’s eyes could chastise me so painfully while knowing for all my 18 years that “angels above us are silent notes taking” had never made me bat an eye. I straightened up and began again.
It was a longer than usual prayer because there was a lot more to discuss here than there’d ever been back home. Then I got up with aching knees and sat on the bed to wind my alarm clock. Somewhere down the hall a door slammed as heavy feet tore past our door. There were voices coming from every direction. I guess it’s true that dorms just get going at midnight.
“That was a long prayer,” Jeremy said. “Did you really memorize all that?”
“We don’t memorize our prayers,” I said. “We just pray from the heart.”
“Makes sense,” he admitted. “That way you know you’re on the right page.”
With that mountain crossed, I threw back my covers and thrust my feet as far as they’d go into the bed—which was all of about 30 inches.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jeremy said. “I thought Mormons slept kneeling.”
Much later I was scoring a lay-up for the Boston Celtics in overtime when something woke me up. I forced my eyes open wide enough to see Jeremy sitting on his bed in a warm-up suit, tying up his jogging shoes.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m putting on my prayer suit, can’t you see?”
“You’re what?”
“Look, Jones, you commune with the infinite by praying. I do it by jogging.”
I squinted at the clock. “It’s 5:45 A.M.,” I said.
“I know,” he said, going to the door. “I overslept.”
As the weeks went by, Jeremy and I discovered that we got along pretty well. For my part, once I got used to his dirty socks and used Bic pens being scattered on my side of the room, his 5:30 jogging schedule, and his devotion to classical music, I kind of liked the guy. Occasionally I had to challenge him to a game of one-on-one basketball to put him in his place, and it didn’t hurt my opinion of him that he could dribble behind his back and had a sweet jump shot from the top of the key. (Of course, he couldn’t afford to miss because I could outrebound him ten to one.) We talked (and argued) about a lot of things together, but the one thing we never talked about was his family. That surprised me because I had always heard that Jewish families were very close. I also made it a point not to preach religion to him, not yet anyway, knowing how he felt.
It was during general conference in October that things changed. During the Sunday morning session, which I was listening to on the radio in our room, he looked at me and asked, “Who are those guys you’re listening to?”
I explained General Authorities in about two sentences. He nodded and said, “That one talking now sounds just like my dad. If he were a General Authority, all he’d talk about is how Judaism’s dying out because of the rebellious young generation.”
“Does he really think it is?”
“He knows it is. In fact, it took me months to get him to say I could come to school here. He went crazy when we first talked about it. Said I’d turned my back on my heritage.”
That gave me a chance to bring up something I’d always wondered about. “Why did you come to school here?”
He laughed. “Because it was as far away from my father as I could get. I love him, but I needed to get away from him before he swallowed me up.”
Then I cleared my throat and really walked out on thin ice. “Jeremy, what do you think about your religion?”
He sat down and thought for a moment.
“I am a Jew,” he said. “Millions of people have suffered and died so that I could say that, and I’m not going to forget. I will always be a Jew. I’m more proud than I can say of being Jewish. But I’m talking about culture and tradition and heritage. When it comes to religion, well, I think it’s a good religion, like all the others. But bits and pieces of other religions I’ve run into make a lot of sense too. It seems to me that if dad would dare let me study religions and make my own decision, if Judaism is the only truth, I’d find out and be a better Jew. And if not … well, I don’t know, I’ve never considered that possibility. And then there’s Christ. It’s strange, but I find myself wishing it were true about him. It must be very comforting to believe in someone who loves you that much, even …” He was quiet for a moment. “And then there on the radio, all those men are saying stuff about faith and charity and morality, and it’s good stuff. Can’t some of it be right too? Of course, you think it is, and millions of others too, but my dad wouldn’t even listen. He’d condemn it in a minute. He misses a lot that way, I think.”
“Well, he’s not alone in that.”
“But if he’s wrong? What then? And if he’s right, what will become of all your little old men on the radio?”
I didn’t think I could say anything as effective as keeping my mouth shut, so I just sat back and let him think. In a minute he continued.
“It’s been bothering me for a while. I love my dad, and I love my heritage. For centuries my people have looked for a Messiah, and you Christians say he’s come. It would be so nice to surrender and stop looking. You Mormons paint such an attractive picture—eternal life after death with those we love, eternal progress. It would be nice to believe, easy almost. But we Jews have never taken the easy way. I’d rather stay out in the cold than come into a warmth that is only wishful thinking. My heart is divided in two. How am I supposed to put it back together?” He shifted his position at the desk. “Can you turn the radio up a bit? I guess I need to listen.”
Jeremy seemed to go into hiding during the next three days. He’d slip into our room late at night, sleep till around 6:00, and be gone again. I never saw him in his jogging outfit anymore, and he quit playing practical jokes. That worried me the most. If he wasn’t putting honey on the toilet seat or smearing shaving cream on the phone, he just wasn’t happy. Life had really gotten dull without all that. I assumed he was studying for midterms. He was premed, and his organic chemistry book alone weighed more than my mom’s Volkswagen. I thought I glimpsed him a couple of times going into the library, and once I was sure I saw him at the fourth floor reference desk, but by the time I got close, he had disappeared into a corner somewhere. I didn’t talk to him for almost a week until one day I came home from a ward football game to find him sitting on his bed reading a worn-looking paperback copy of the Book of Mormon. He jumped up, grabbed his sweater off the floor, and turned to leave.
“Hey, don’t leave,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you all week. Is something wrong?”
He turned slowly from the half-opened door. “Yes,” he said bitterly. “Something is wrong. Everything is wrong! You and your Nephi and your little old men have ruined my life! I had a good life. I had a close family, a promising career, and not a complication in sight. And then you and your crummy Church came along and destroyed it all. Your stupid Book of Mormon is true and you know it! And you know what that all means, don’t you? Your whole crummy Church is true! Now I’ll have to get baptized and start being a Mormon. Don’t smile, Jones; it’s not funny. My dad’s going to kill me and then disown me. I’ll have no family or future or anything else. Sure, your family is forever. Now mine won’t even be for this life. It’s all your fault! What am I going to do?” He stared for almost a full minute at my speechless bewilderment. Then he flung the door open the rest of the way and was gone, the Book of Mormon clutched tightly like a life preserver in a drowning man’s hand.
A few weeks later I watched the water in the font close briefly over Jeremy’s head and open up again as he emerged grinning in his wet, white clothes. A few days after that I listened as he bore his first testimony from the stand.
Jeremy went home at Christmas to break the news to his family. He hadn’t known how to put it in a letter, and he couldn’t say it over the phone. So it was going to happen face to face, like David faced Goliath.
“But not till I’ve slept in my own bed once, and seen my nephews and my little sister, and had a chance to gather my valuables,” he said. “Because the minute it’s out, my dad is going to throw me out of the house.”
“Have a little faith, Jeremy. Think of the pioneers and all they went through.”
“I’m not going to have to think about it. I’m going to know how they felt because when my dad’s through with me, I’ll have to cross the plains on foot myself, if I can cross them at all. Do you know what disown means? Do you realize this will be the last time I’ll ever see my mother?”
I laughed. “Don’t overdramatize. You know it’s not true. Your dad might be a bit shocked, but he’ll get over it.”
“You don’t know my dad at all. He’s going to kill me. He keeps loaded guns in the house for just that purpose.”
“Would you shut up and get on the plane.”
“Take a good look at me. You’ll never see me alive again.”
And so I waited anxiously as 3:00 approached on the day of his return. I was excited to hear his story and anxious to find out how he stood with the father he both loved and feared. I wore a trail in the carpet as I paced and finally went out to shoot some baskets to pass the time. I returned at about 4:00, hoping he would be there.
He was. I grabbed him from behind as he bent over a drawer stuffing socks in a corner. He whirled in surprise and threw one arm around my neck in a wrestling hold. We went down and struggled on the floor until I knew I was beat.
“Uncle!” I choked, just before he pinned me.
Then he talked about skiing in New England and his friend Bernie at MIT and his nephew’s latest invention. I only heard half because I was listening beyond it all for something more. Finally I interrupted.
“And your dad, how was he?” Jeremy didn’t bat an eye. “Fine, he didn’t feel real good, because he always gets a cold about this time of year, but he was better toward the end and even went skating with us at Central Park. Did I tell you I saw my old girl friend? She’s married to a guy she …” He slowed down under my steady gaze and finally stopped.
“I didn’t tell them.”
The clock ticked. A girl laughed in the lounge far down the hall and around the corner. Jeremy’s eyes were trained on his shoes.
“Well, it’s your decision. But …”
“At least I’m still part of my family.”
“Are you really? You’re really part of a lie. They think you’re something you’re not.”
“If it makes them happy, why worry about it? Let them go on.”
“Go on living a religion you know isn’t the whole truth? Go on living without the blessings you could show them how to receive?”
He sighed. “I couldn’t. My mom would love me anyway because she’s my mom. And my sister and brothers would at least try to understand. But my father … you don’t know how he gets. He used to beat me. He used to have this belt. I love him, but he’s got this awful temper, and in his eyes, I’ve done worse than murder. I’ve betrayed him and my family and their God.”
My silence was deafening. He looked steadily at me. “I wanted to tell him,” he said. “But … you don’t know my father.”
I returned his steady gaze. “No, Jeremy, you don’t know my Father.”
“Your father?”
“My Heavenly Father.”
The snow piled against the window silently while we sat facing each other. I finally stood and left the room. I tried to watch the TV in the lounge for a while, but the silence of the still mostly empty halls bothered me. I wandered outside without my coat to the snack bar and idly ate a hamburger. I wandered up on campus until I realized how cold I was and how wet the snow had become. I tramped back to the dorm in the darkness, half expecting Jeremy to be gone. The light was off in our room, but I paused outside the door, thinking I heard a voice. I tried to discern who was speaking. The voice was too low to really hear, so I finally turned the knob and slid into the room. As my eyes adjusted to the dusk inside, I saw him just replacing the telephone in its cradle.
I couldn’t believe it. He was crying! He turned quickly away to hide his tears and then walked to the window.
“That was dad.”
There was a long pause, then, “I told him.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked his back.
He thrust his hands into his pockets. “He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he said he didn’t know who I was and hung up. All I heard was the dial tone.”
The snow still fell as he stared at it.
“I listened to that dial tone for a long time. Finally a recording came on and said, ‘Please hang up.’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Suddenly he whirled and pounded his desk top so hard it rattled. “Why did I ever think I could make him understand? I’ve always been afraid of him. Now I’m not afraid; it just hurts. I didn’t know anything could hurt like this.”
School started again, and Jeremy got a job shoveling snow and doing winter maintenance on the lawn sprinklers. His parents never called anymore, and even though his mother still wrote sometimes, there was no word from his dad. Jeremy buried himself in his calculus and chemistry and, in general, wasn’t much fun anymore. They came around with a sign-up sheet for basketball intramurals, and we couldn’t get Jeremy to sign.
So I played alone.
It got suddenly warm in February for about a week. Jeremy was out maintaining sprinklers while I sat on the window ledge one day, hoping I wouldn’t be noticed as I drank in the warming air, pretending to read a history book. The mailman went past. I dragged myself inside again with a sigh and got ready for my only afternoon class. On the way out, I halfheartedly checked the mail.
The letter was unmistakably from Jeremy’s dad. The first. I laid it conspicuously on his pillow and hurried out.
When I ran into Jeremy in the cafeteria several hours later, I managed a casual “How’s your dad?”
“Okay.” He stirred his mashed potatoes.
“I saw he sent you a letter.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, is he still mad? What did he say?”
“Just asked how school was, said if I didn’t make it to med school he’d kill me, and said everybody’s fine at home. Just like nothing happened.”
“That’s all?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Basically.”
“Did he say anything about the Church?”
He shook his head.
“Well, at least he wrote.”
“Yes, he will always love me because I’m his son, not because he thinks I deserve to be loved.” He buttered a roll and went on, talking around a mouthful of peas. “It’s not enough that he has cooled down to the point where he’ll write to me again. I want more than that. I want to be able to talk to him again, to teach him the gospel.”
“Who says you can’t?”
“What I like about you, Jones, is how you avoid the facts.”
“You obviously don’t know him as well as you think. You never expected a letter, did you?”
“I sent him a Book of Mormon. He didn’t even mention it.”
“And he won’t. Until he believes it.”
“He’d have to read it first.”
“Maybe he is.”
“Ha!”
Three weeks followed with three letters. The night of the fourth letter, Jeremy showed up to play basketball with the ward team, and he was grinning. As we sat on the bench waiting to play, we finally got to talk.
“Did you see I got another letter? It was pretty much the normal I-am-fine, how-are-you stuff for the most part, but at the end he got down to business. He told me he has thought a lot about my ‘betrayal’ and thinks he understands.
“He says that the whole thing turns on the Messiah. As far as he’s concerned when the true Messiah comes, he can make whatever changes he wants, because his changes won’t reject Judaism but perfect it. The trick is to tell the true Messiah from the false ones.”
“That’s very profound,” I said. “Of course it is. It’s the same thing I told him in my last letter. Anyway, he says that although I’ve made a fool of myself, it took courage for me to become a Mormon knowing how he felt about it. In fact he compared it to Moses leaving Pharaoh’s court and David facing Goliath. I humbly agree with him.”
“Before you start writing a second book of Psalms,” I said, “ask yourself if David left his dirty socks on the floor.”
He ignored me and went on. “He says that when I get home this spring we’ll examine the evidence and argue it out man to man. Right now he’s reading the Book of Mormon so he can really tear it to shreds. Good luck, dad. Oh, and there was a P.S. too. He says that if I’m going to be a Mormon, I’d better be the best Mormon there is because I’m Solomon Kahn’s son and his honor is at stake.” He laughed. “I have a feeling that by the time I become a priest my first assignment may be to baptize my own dad. And then who knows? How do you think I’d look in a dark suit?”
I stifled a nasty remark about his looks in anything.
He bounced a basketball on the floor for a few moments and then looked at me. “You were right, Jones. I didn’t know either of my fathers very well. I thought it was all up to me.”
The whistle blew, and we ran onto the floor before I had time to answer.

Many years ago, I traveled on a small plane with a newly certified pilot at the controls. At the end of our flight, we were cleared to land. But as we neared the ground, I heard an alarm in the cockpit warn the pilot to “pull up.” The pilot looked to the more experienced copilot, who pointed in a downward direction, away from the runway, and said, “Now!”
Our plane rapidly moved to the left and down, then climbed back to an appropriate altitude, reentered the landing pattern, and arrived safely at our destination. We later learned that another aircraft had been cleared for takeoff. Had we followed the instructions of the alarm, we would have veered into, rather than away from, the oncoming plane. This experience taught me two important lessons: First, at critical moments in our lives, we will hear multiple voices competing for our attention. And second, it is vital that we listen to the right ones.

I close with another example of a family relationship. At a stake conference in the Midwest about 10 years ago, I met a sister who told me that her nonmember husband had been accompanying her to church for 12 years but had never joined the Church. What should she do? she asked. I counseled her to keep doing all the right things and to be patient and kind with her husband.

About a month later she wrote me as follows: “Well, I thought that the 12 years was a good show of patience, but I didn’t know if I was being very kind about it. So, I practiced real hard for over a month, and he got baptized.”

Kindness is powerful, especially in a family setting. Her letter continued, “I am even trying to be kinder now because we are working on a temple sealing this year!”

Six years later she wrote me another letter: “My husband was [just] called and set apart as the bishop [of our ward].”2

Jeremy rocked the porch swing while his sister, Meg, fanned herself with one hand. “It’s hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk,” she said.
Jeremy shrugged. “Mom and Dad still want us to find a summer job. If we don’t, they’ll find one for us.”
Both children looked glum. Their parents’ job ideas tended to be long on service, short on cash.
“Baby-sitting?” Meg suggested.
“And be stuck all summer with someone’s kids? I don’t think so. How about yard work?”
“And be stuck all summer with someone’s yard? I don’t think so,” Meg mimicked. She paused, her eyes growing large. “That’s it! We’ll combine the two ideas!”
“Too much sun, Sis?”
She ignored him. “Remember last year when we got back from vacation? The tomatoes were dead, and the grass was knee-high.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So let’s start a yard-sitting business for people on vacation! We’d only have to spend a couple of weeks on any one yard, and we’d probably only have one or two yards at a time. We could work in the early morning, when it’s cooler, and spend the afternoons at the movies. Mom and Dad will go for it. You know how they like ‘initiative.’ Besides, this will keep us too busy for those service projects they always plan.”
“Like working in the soup kitchen,” Jeremy said.
“Or cleaning litter out of the park.”
“Or delivering meals to the elderly.”
Finally! An excuse to get out of being nice. They hurried inside.
“What a wonderful idea,” their mother said.
“Shows a lot of initiative,” their father agreed, “but. …”
Meg looked at Jeremy. “But what?”
Their parents consulted in whispers for a few moments.
“You can set up your yard-sitting business,” their father finally said. “But we hope you’ll also help someone, unpaid. We’ve always planned service projects for you, but we think that at eleven and twelve years of age, you’re ready to come up with one on your own.”
“I hate helping other people,” Meg said. “It’s just a lot of hard work for nothing.”
“Not if you do it right,” Mother insisted.
“They’re always trying to teach us great moral lessons,” Meg said later. “Still, I suppose we could find some really quick thing we could do to satisfy them.”
The next day they made posters advertising their yard-sitting service.
To their amazement, the phone was soon ringing. It seemed everyone had vacations planned and wanted someone to take in the mail, mow the lawn, and keep the garden watered.
“This is a gold mine!” Jeremy said.
Meg looked at their schedule. “We can still get everything done in the morning, if we push it. We’ll make a fortune!”
Their parents’ request that they come up with a service project completely slipped their minds.
It was hard work, but profitable. Sitting on the porch, Meg and Jeremy rattled the change in their pockets and smiled.
“Maybe we could expand,” Jeremy suggested.
“I thought you didn’t like work.”
Jeremy grinned. “Nope, but I like money. Besides, lots of yards around here could use a little extra work. Look at Mrs. Mahoney’s for example.”
Mrs. Mahoney lived only a few doors away.
“Yeah,” Meg agreed. “The grass is high, and the hedge is overgrown. She has planted a garden, but it hasn’t been weeded, and I think she’s expecting dandelions to inherit the earth!”
“It’s an eyesore,” Jeremy agreed, “but that’s life, I guess. She may be getting too old to take good care of her yard. She can’t afford to pay us, though, so it’s not our problem.”
“Maybe the neighborhood could help,” Meg offered.
Jeremy laughed. “She’d never accept charity. Last Thanksgiving we practically had to force that pie on her. There’s no way she’d ever let someone else clean up her yard.”
They dropped the subject, but Meg couldn’t get Mrs. Mahoney’s yard out of her mind.
The next morning Jeremy was surprised to see Meg up already, when he went down to breakfast. Her shoes were damp, and the knees of her jeans were dirty.
“What’ve you been doing?” he asked.
“Nothing much,” she replied. But as they passed Mrs. Mahoney’s yard, Jeremy noticed the garden had recently been weeded.
During the next week the dandelions began to disappear from Mrs. Mahoney’s lawn. Jeremy didn’t say anything. At first he was afraid Meg would rope him into it. Then he got a little peeved when she didn’t even try.
Finally, one morning, he got up earlier than usual. When Meg headed out the door, gardening tools in hand, he was waiting.
“So, what are you doing today?” he asked, falling into step beside her.
Meg hesitated. “I’m weeding the garden again, and starting to trim the hedge.”
“Mrs. Mahoney must have noticed what you’re doing,” Jeremy said. “What about when she catches you?”
“She doesn’t get up until ten o’clock. I’m long gone by then.”
“Give me the hedge clippers,” Jeremy said gruffly. “I don’t want us to be late to our first job this morning.”
Meg smiled.
Over the next few weeks, Mrs. Mahoney’s yard bloomed. She woke up earlier and earlier, hoping to catch sight of the mysterious gardeners. Finally one morning she heard low voices outside her window and quickly flung it open. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
Two open-mouthed faces stared at her.
“This is trespassing,” Mrs. Mahoney said firmly. “Besides, you know how I feel about charity. I appreciate what you’ve done, and I’ll find a way to pay you, but I wish you’d stop. I’ve never owed anyone in my life, and I don’t intend to start now.”
Meg tried to speak, but Jeremy beat her to the punch.
“Charity?” he said. “Charity? I don’t like charity, either. That’s why we’re sneaking around like this. We didn’t want to admit that we owed you something.”
“You owe me?”
“Sure,” Jeremy said. “You know about our yard-sitting business?”
Mrs. Mahoney nodded. “I’ve seen the posters.”
“Well, our parents told us we had to do one yard free, or we couldn’t open the business. Your yard is perfect. It’s close, and it’s small. But we were afraid you wouldn’t understand.”
Mrs. Mahoney looked doubtful, but finally smiled. “Well, if you need my yard, it’s yours for the summer,” she finally said, “but only if you’re sure it’s not a bother.”
“It isn’t,” Jeremy said, surprised to find that it was true. “We really like doing it. Besides, it’s good for business.”
Meg grinned. “Thank heavens we got that settled. Now we can mow the lawn without worrying about waking you up!”
They all laughed.
September came, and school began again. The yard-sitting business closed. Still, Meg and Jeremy found time to rake Mrs. Mahoney’s leaves. In the winter they shoveled her walks.
Their parents watched and smiled.
“See?” their father said. “Helping others is great, if you do it the right way.”
“We’re not ‘helping others,’” Jeremy and Meg insisted. “We’re doing a favor for a friend.”
“Exactly!” their parents said together.