Gospel Story Finder

Recently Sister Gong and I saw covenant belonging at its tender best in a hospital room. A young father desperately needed a kidney transplant. His family had wept, fasted, and prayed for him to receive a kidney. When news came that a life-saving kidney had just become available, his wife quietly said, “I hope the other family is OK.” To belong by covenant is, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”13

Adriana bounced the ball to Selene. Boing! Selene caught the ball and bounced the ball back. Thud! Adriana didn’t catch the ball. Selene called Adriana a mean name. Adriana looked sad. “Please don’t say that,” Adriana said. “It hurts my feelings.” Adriana bounced the ball to Selene. “I’m sorry I called you a mean name,” Selene said. Selene bounced the ball back to Adriana. “I’m glad we can play ball together!” Selene said.

Nicole Davie and Luwana Qummou of Brisbane, Australia, built a bridge together. It wasn’t a massive stone-and-steel structure like the one that arches over the bay behind them as they stroll the waterfront of Brisbane’s business district; Nicole and Luwana built a bridge of trust and love.
While they were teenagers, Nicole met Luwana at Sunnybank High School. They became good friends and have known each other for five years, including the past two years as university students.
“If the full-time missionaries had come to my door, I’m not sure if I would have listened to them,” Luwana says. “But Nicole was my friend. We had lots of fun at school, and I vaguely remember her talking about the Church. It took years before I felt comfortable asking about her religion.”
That finally happened late in 1993. “The first time we had a spiritual talk, she just wanted to learn more,” Nicole says. “She had a lot of questions and was troubled by some things she’d heard from others. I said a prayer for her that night, and I think the Holy Ghost went to work on her.”
“The next day, as we talked again, everything I’d been upset about didn’t seem to matter anymore,” Luwana says. “I felt the Holy Spirit strongly. I felt calm and happy. I knew I needed to study the Church, so I took the missionary discussions and started reading the Book of Mormon. The feelings got stronger and stronger.”
Friendship became a bridge of trust between Nicole and Luwana, and helped Luwana build a bridge of faith linking her to her Heavenly Father. With that kind of path to understanding, it wasn’t long before Luwana was baptized and became an enthusiastic member of the Church.
Now, as Luwana looks out over the waterfront in Brisbane, she knows she is building more bridges—bridges to eternity. Soon she will be married to a returned missionary in the Sydney Temple, and she thanks Nicole for the knowledge that made that possible.
“We’re best friends,” Luwana says. “To know that she wanted to see me marry a worthy man in the temple, that she wanted me to have that happiness, that’s really wonderful.”

Several years ago I installed a stake president in England. In another calling, he is here in the audience today. He had an unusual sense of direction. He was like a mariner with a sextant who took his bearings from the stars. I met with him each time he came to conference and was impressed that he kept himself and his stake on course.

Fortunately for me, when it was time for his release, I was assigned to reorganize the stake. It was then that I discovered what that sextant was and how he adjusted it to check his position and get a bearing for himself and for his members.

He accepted his release, and said, “I was happy to accept the call to serve as stake president, and I am equally happy to accept my release. I did not serve just because I was under call. I served because I am under covenant. And I can keep my covenants quite as well as a home teacher as I can serving as stake president.”

Once I was arguing with my mom and felt pretty bad. So, I decided I would pray. Although I was in a bad mood and didn’t want to be spiritual, I knew praying would end up with me getting happy and less argumentative. So right there at the table, after my mom left, I started my prayer. “Dear Heavenly Father, I’ve come to you tonight because …”
No, I opened my eyes and unfolded my arms. That sounded weird. I tried my second attempt. “Heavenly Father, I need …”
That also sounded strange. Now that I think of it, the opening to my prayers had only one problem, and I am glad I tried again because I felt Satan urging me to stop and give up my prayer to ask Heavenly Father for help. “Dear Heavenly Father—”
Suddenly I had a prompting to say thank you! So I did, and all the many things I could thank my Father in Heaven for started spilling from my head. When I was done thanking Him, I then discussed the problem at hand. My prayer lasted 25 minutes. In the end I made sure to close in the name of Jesus Christ. After my prayer I felt a wonderful peace inside me, the warm spiritual feeling that I know our Heavenly Father and parents love me and that I am a child of God.

I saw the pageant in 2017, the evening before I sent my son on his mission. It was an amazing experience — all the struggles the early Saints from Britain must have endured, and hard decisions made in leaving to go to America, and for those who stayed behind. It was a wonderful spectacle. It brought me to tears. I loved it at the end when all the missionaries came out to join the cast on stage. It was a very powerful moment. In fact, it still sets me off crying just thinking about it! I had the opportunity to talk to one of the performers after, and she had experienced some of my own troubles. We had a lovely discussion that gave me hope to continue. That evening will always stay with me. Afterwards, we walked around the Preston Temple in the dark. Everything was illuminated and it was beautiful.

1. Stop playing with my china doll. You’ll break her!
Don’t be such a worry-wimp. My T. Rex is hungry and needs a snack.
3. I told you to stop! Suzie was my best doll, and I’ll never forgive you!
Good! I don’t want to be forgiven by a mean sister.
5. Being mad is just making me sadder, so I guess I will forgive you.
I’m sorry I broke your doll, Mandy. I’ll save my allowance and buy you a new one.
6. You’re not really a mean sister.
I know.

Anthony Antelope was so absentminded, he thought he was an anteater. That was because his last name began with ANT.
He became as angry as an alligator when he couldn’t catch any ants. He aimed at ants, but he wasn’t able to gather any amount of them. Although he was amazingly agile, as soon as he advanced against ants, he found those active insects absent.
Ambitious Anthony was not able to eat. His ant-catching acts always caused accidents. Afterwards, Anthony was usually ailing and always hungry!
In the afternoon Amy, the Angora cat, said, “Anthony, allow me to alert you that you are an authentic African antelope and absolutely no relation to any anteater.”
“I’ve always been an anteater,” replied Anthony. “I adore ants, but I can’t catch any. Aren’t you aware that I must appease my angry appetite with ants?”
“You should be ashamed, Anthony! You aren’t an anteater. I advise you that you are an admirable antelope,” answered Angora Amy. “My advice to you is to admit you aren’t an anteater. All the animals will stand aside to watch an active, alert antelope. No one stands aside for an antelope acting as an almost anteater.
“Instead of ants, which you admit you aren’t able to catch, try some grass. Other antlered antelopes eat huge amounts of grass and they are still alive,” added Amy.
Anthony accepted an ant-sized amount of grass from Amy. He apologized after eating it, and admitted that it tasted altogether different from how he thought grass would taste.
“It appears that my antelope appetite has been aroused for this food,” announced Anthony. “Thanks to you, Angora Amy, I am able to be an actual antelope and not an artificial anteater who found it awfully awkward obtaining ants.”
There are over 125 words beginning with A’s in this story. How many do you remember?

We can each be blessed and happy in our own lives if we keep our baptismal covenants and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Since we all make mistakes, the Holy Ghost will prompt us to repent. Eight-year-old Stacie Brook Peck of Payson, Utah, was taking part in a competition. A coach told her to tell the judges that she had sewn the letters on her costume herself, though she had not. She obeyed the coach but felt so bad about lying that she told her mom what had happened.

“Mom asked me if I wanted to find a judge and tell him about the lie. I thought about it a long time. I felt very sad and scared. I thought the judges would get mad at me. I thought my team would be mad because the judge would have to take points off our score. However, telling a lie felt so horrible that I said yes.

“We told my coach about my decision. She felt really bad that an eight-year-old girl had to remind her that honesty was more important than winning.

“My coach came with us. When we found a judge and told him about my lie, he said that he would do something about it. I never found out what the penalty was, but my team still won first place and I was glad of that. But mostly I was happy because I had made the right choice, even though it was very hard. I know that it was the Holy Ghost who helped me to choose the right. I also know that Heavenly Father has forgiven me, because whenever I think about what I did, instead of being embarrassed, I am happy that I chose the right. I feel good inside, and I want to always choose the right.”

We can learn a great deal from others. I had an older brother whom I worshiped. He played football in high school and was my hero. I would polish his football cleats before each game. I would wash his white shoelaces and press them. No one had better looking football cleats than my older brother. During the summer before I went to high school, he would take me out to the backyard. I would put on shoulder pads and a helmet, and he would try to run over me. I shouldn’t say try; he did. We would hit each other head on; I would tackle and he would carry the ball. Then after a while we would reverse the procedure and I would carry the ball and he would tackle. After doing this a few nights with him (he weighed about 185 pounds and I weighed 155 pounds), do you think I had any fear of those my own age? He suggested wind sprints to build up my speed and timing. He encouraged me to run long distances to build up my wind. We would do push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, etc. The interesting thing is that it was hard work, but I wanted to do it.

My friend Jorge reached across the table, offering me a sip from his glass of champagne. I was surprised by his offer. He knew I was a Latter-day Saint and drinking alcohol was against my beliefs. I politely shook my head, indicating that this time, like all previous times, I would pass.
He brought his hand to his forehead and exclaimed, “¡Pero es nuestra graduación!” (But it’s graduation night!)
Yes, it was graduation night. And in Ecuador, this was our night to celebrate. The evening had begun with a formal dinner for our entire families. A bottle of champagne had been placed in the center of each table, and well-mannered waiters had served an excellent meal. After dinner, those of us who had just graduated danced a waltz with our father or mother.
Eventually all the parents left, and only the graduates and our friends remained. It was around midnight when Jorge approached me and offered me some of his drink. Jorge felt that just this once wouldn’t do me any harm, especially considering the event was a once-in-a-lifetime occasion and everyone was expected to have a drink.
I simply replied, “I know it’s graduation night. That doesn’t matter.”
All through high school, I had been invited to drink and smoke, but I had always refused, explaining that my religion taught me drinking and smoking were harmful. My friends usually did not persist after the explanation, but I never knew how they really felt about my turning them down.
To my surprise, Jorge smiled, extended his right hand, and shook mine. All he said was “I really admire this about you,” and he walked away.
Later, while reflecting on what happened that night, I remembered the counsel President Gordon B. Hinckley has given us to “stand for something” (see “True to the Faith,” Liahona, Sept. 1996, 4). To Jorge and my other friends, I had stood for something. I realized that often we may think our efforts to do the right thing make us unpopular. While that may be true in some instances, for the most part, people take note and see Latter-day Saints as people who stand for something worthy of admiration.

The first things I noticed among the hustling paramedics and the wailing sirens that cold January morning in Utah were Esther’s hands. Her long, strong fingers, which had always been so busy serving others, were now cramped and motionless. My own hands reached out to warm hers, and her closed eyes fluttered open briefly. She looked around as though to identify who was near her.
“It’s okay, Esther,” I said, trying to comfort her as I straightened her nightgown and covered her with a blanket. “The doctors will find out what has happened to you.” I felt Esther relax; then we were both swept into the ambulance and rushed to the nearby hospital.
To say Esther was only a neighbor is like describing the sun as only a source of light. Esther’s hands had reached out to me when I was a teenager and had led me to the treasures in my junior high school library. For more than 40 years, her hands had dispensed knowledge and service throughout the neighborhood. She had hired and patiently taught many young people how to prune and care for her orchards, how to improve the neighborhood, and how to love their neighbors. She had reached out to old and new alike, and her hands had sewn the fabric of our block into a quilt of friendship that spread far beyond its physical boundaries.
All that busy winter, I had yearned to help someone. But I knew it was a futile desire. I was working full time in a very stressful job, and I was the harried mother of five very involved and very busy children, ages 5 to 25, including two who were getting married within weeks of each other. My family, work, Church and community responsibilities had strained my capacity to do more than survive each day. But something in the depths of my being kept calling out, wanting to help someone in some way.
Many mornings, as I checked off my accomplishments of the previous day and plotted my strategy for meeting the struggles of the dawning one, I had recalled the Lord’s admonition to “not run faster or labor more than you have strength,” (see D&C 10:4), and I had thought, “Maybe tomorrow I’ll find time to take dinner to someone or to take flowers to a sick friend.”
Service, to me, was a physical object one presented as a gift: it was homemade candy or doughnuts at Christmas, freshly baked bread for a new neighbor, or outgrown clothes for needy families. Now, as I sat at Esther’s bedside on a cold wintry day, Esther taught me that service was something else.
“Esther, squeeze my hand,” the doctor coaxed. “Come on, Esther, you can squeeze my hand.”
“I’m trying,” Esther answered, but her words collapsed into themselves, and her voice trailed off. The doctor shook his head, slipping his hand from Esther’s unmoving one.
“Esther, they are going to move you to another room now,” I explained as they wheeled her bed out of the emergency room. “It’s going to be all right.” Her frightened eyes searched mine for reassurance and then closed in peace.
Surprisingly, despite my fear for Esther, I felt an unusual sense of peace. For once in my harried, over-full life, I knew that I was where I was supposed to be. I wasn’t worried about my list of Saturday chores. I wasn’t concerned about my family. They knew I was with Esther, and their prayers were with me in that cramped, bare cubicle.
Morning edged into afternoon. I called Esther’s family in another state and told them of the situation. I served as a link between the hospital, Esther, and her family members, who were trying to cope with this emergency. And I talked to Esther.
As I sat by Esther, I watched storm clouds gather and snow begin to fall. My thoughts went back 35 years to when my grandmother had had her final stroke. Others had been frightened of the silent stranger who inhabited my grandmother’s frail body, but my mother had told us to hold her hand, to stroke it, and to talk to her.
“I think she can hear you, even if she can’t communicate,” my mother had said. “She needs to hear and feel your love. Talk to her, touch her, and let her know you love her.”
I hadn’t thought of my mother’s words for many years, but they came back as I talked to Esther, stroked her immobile hands, and filled the tiny room with my whispered prayers.
Too soon the room was crowded with Esther’s family, and I eased out of their way as they gathered around her. When they reached out to caress her still hands, stroke her hair, and talk to her, the urgent need that had held me captive all morning disappeared.
“She’s slipped into a deep coma,” the nurse explained to Esther’s loved ones. “Earlier she was trying to communicate, but now she’s unconscious and unaware.”
I stood at the doorway and took one last look at Esther’s inert hands. They were more relaxed now, but they remained open and reaching out to others. I dashed tears of appreciation from my eyes and thanked Esther for her last gift to me.

President David O. McKay was the ninth President of the Church. In his boyhood he desired to know, as Joseph Smith had known, of the reality of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. One day while herding cattle in the foothills near his home, he sought a testimony through prayer. He said:
“I dismounted, threw my reins over my horse’s head, and there under a serviceberry bush I prayed that God would declare to me the truth of his revelation to Joseph Smith” (quoted in New Era, Jan. 1972, p. 56).
He prayed fervently and sincerely with as much faith as he could find within him. When he finished his prayer, he waited for an answer. Nothing seemed to happen. Disappointed, he rode slowly on, saying to himself at the time, “No spiritual manifestation has come to me. If I am true to myself, I must say I am just the same ‘old boy’ that I was before I prayed” (p. 56).
A direct answer to this prayer was many years in coming. While serving a mission in Scotland, Elder McKay received a powerful spiritual manifestation. He later commented: “Never before had I experienced such an emotion. … It was a manifestation for which as a doubting youth I had secretly prayed most earnestly on hillside and in meadow. It was an assurance to me that sincere prayer is answered ‘sometime, somewhere’” (quoted in Francis M. Gibbons, David O. McKay [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1986], p. 50).

A few years ago, I knelt to pray for the first time in my life. Earlier that day, I had had my first meeting with the missionaries, and they shared the message of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and gifted me a Book of Mormon.
Presented with my first opportunity to ask my Heavenly Father any question at all, I didn’t ask if any of what I had heard or read was true. I also didn’t ask Him about the confusing and worrisome rumors I had heard about the Church from popular culture.
Instead, I begged Heavenly Father to bless me with the desire to know that what the missionaries were telling me was true.
And through that prayer, I was led to the truth—that the gospel and Church of Jesus Christ really had been restored to the earth again.

In 1993, after I had served as president of the Mexico Tuxtla Gutiérrez Mission, we traveled as a family to see my parents, who lived in northern Mexico. During the trip we talked about the joy of serving the Lord and seeing the change in people who had accepted the gospel during the three years we were in the mission. We were commenting about those people who were baptized, confirmed, and had received the priesthood and the ones we knew had entered the temple and were sealed as families for eternity.
My youngest son asked a question that made me reflect: “Dad, are you sealed to your parents?” I told him that because my father had been less active for many years, he and my mother were not sealed in the temple. To help him become active, I thought up a plan. It involved my children, and I explained to them how we would do it: Every Sunday my father would get up early to take my mother and sister to church, only to return home, wait for the services to end, then go back to pick them up. So I assigned my children to go with him and say, “Grandpa, would you do us a favor?” I knew his answer would be, “Whatever you want, my children.” Then they would ask him if he would go with them to church and stay with them so he could listen to their testimonies. It was the first Sunday of the month. I also knew my father would give any excuse not to go, so I planned to enter the room to help my children convince him.
The time soon came for executing the plan. My daughter, Susana, approached my father and asked him about the favor. Sure enough, my father told her he would do anything he could for them. Then came the invitation to go to church, and just as we had predicted, he used this excuse: “I can’t because I haven’t even showered.” That’s when my wife and I, who were hiding behind the door, shouted, “We’ll wait for you!”
When we realized he was not making a decision, my wife and I entered the room and, together with our children, began to insist, “Shower! Shower!” Then what we expected happened. My father came with us, he stayed for the services, listened to the testimonies of my children, his heart was softened, and from that Sunday on he never missed church. Months later, at the age of 78, he and my mother were sealed, and we, his children, were sealed to them.

A young college student found herself almost overwhelmed by personal and family difficulties. “It was a time of grief and loneliness,” she recalls. “Then, Lila, a young woman who served with me in a ward calling, began stopping by my apartment to visit with me. Again and again her visits came at the very moments when I felt nearest despair. Her friendship gave me the courage to go on—not only because it lifted me—but because it showed me that my Heavenly Father knew my need.”

Marta worked the pump handle one final time. Then she carried the grapefruit soda bottle full of water into the two-room house, located on the outskirts of a small coastal town in Uruguay. “The water’s awfully bitter today, Alicia,” Marta said, handing the bottle to her younger sister. “You’d better squeeze a lemon into it to freshen it.”
Alicia selected one of the wrinkled lemons from a bowl on the shelf, cut it in half, and the tingly aroma filled the room as she trickled the juice into the bottle of water. “We didn’t get any fresh bread today,” Alicia complained. “Can’t we buy some for dinner?”
“No, Alicia,” said Mama, turning slightly on her bed to face the girls. “The bread from yesterday will do fine if Marta toasts it, won’t it, Marta?”
“Yes, Mama.” Marta moved the kerosene burner they used for a stove into the middle of the room. “It’s getting dark, Mama, should I turn on the light?”
“Not yet, querida (dear). Wait until your father gets home.”
Marta cleared off the plank table that stood in the middle of the small room and began preparing supper. She mixed eggs and flour and shredded chard together. Alicia huddled close to the burner, warming her hands and watching Marta’s skillful hands pat the chard cakes into shape and place them into the frying pan to be warmed and browned. “Don’t fret so, Alicia, tomorrow we’ll go to the panadería (bakery) and buy the fresh crusty loaves you love.”
Alicia smiled at the thought of the large golden brown rolls the panadería baked fresh every morning. She glanced dreamily out the window just as her father entered the front gate. “Papa’s home!” she shouted gleefully.
Papa came into the house and gathered the girls into his arms and gave them each a kiss on the cheek. “And how have you been today? Have you taken good care of your mother?”
“They have been angels, as always,” Mama said as she took Papa’s hand.
Papa reached up and pulled the dangling string that turned on their only light. “And how is dinner coming?” he asked. “I’m very hungry!”
“It will be just a minute, Papa,” Marta said as she set out the plates and cups. Papa and the girls sat on the narrow bench and ate, facing the bed where Mama lay.
“When do you go to the doctor again?” Papa asked as he handed Mama her dinner plate.
“On Friday,” she replied. “It won’t be long now until the baby is ready to come.”
“This baby is having such problems in getting here that it will be all the stronger for having made it. But you must stay in bed as the doctor said,” Papa warned.
Just then someone clapped outside. Marta rose to go and welcome the visitor. “Wait, Marta,” her father said, “I’ll go. It’s starting to rain and I don’t want you to get wet.” He grabbed his jacket and held it over his head as he ran out to the front gate. “Hello, Omar!” he called. “Come in out of the storm.”
“No thank you, Daniel. I just came to tell you that the station manager called our house and left a message for you. He wants you to go back to work as soon as you can. Someone drove a car right through a railroad crossing barrier, and they need you to direct the traffic.”
Papa grimaced a little. “One day, Omar, we will get our own telephone and then you won’t have to be the one to always bring me the news.” Omar grinned, then hurried off down the muddy road toward his own home.
“Who was it?” Mama asked when Papa reentered the house.
“Omar. I have to go back to work.” He put on his jacket that was already shedding streams of rainwater and then topped it with a light plastic cape. “I’ll probably be all night. Keep the windows shut tight, Marta, and make certain that you stuff rags in the window jamb over Mama’s bed if the rain starts coming in.”
“Yes, Papa,” Marta answered. Papa kissed each one goodbye, grabbed an ancient umbrella from the corner of the room, and was gone.
Marta began heating water to wash the dishes, and Alicia sat on the bed next to her mother. “Can I do anything for you, Mama?”
“I’m fine, Alicia, but you could get me my medicine.”
Startled, Marta dropped a fork. “Oh, Mama!” she cried. “I meant to pick up your medicine, but I forgot.”
Mama looked out the window at the billowing black clouds. “It will have to wait until tomorrow then.”
“No, Mama. I’ll go and get the medicine now,” she insisted.
“It is dark and raining much too hard, Marta. Besides, it’s Tuesday, so only the pharmacy on the Avenida de Los Treinty y Tres (Avenue of the Thirty-three) will be open late. That is much too far for you to go on such a stormy night.”
How could I have forgotten something so important as Mama’s medicine? Marta agonized.
“Come here, querida,” Mama motioned to Marta and then enfolded her in her arms. “Don’t worry. You have had much to do while I’ve been in bed. It has been a lot to ask of a daughter who is only eleven years old.”
Marta left her mother’s embrace and quietly finished the dishes. Afterward she checked the window above her mother’s bed and found some rainwater seeping in. She got some rags and stuffed them into the cracks. Just as she finished her task, the light went out.
“It’s just as well,” said Mama. “It’s time for my two children to go to bed anyway.”
The girls kissed Mama goodnight, then went into the second room of the house where they slept. “Don’t worry, Marta,” said Alicia. “We’ll get the medicine first thing in the morning. Mama will be all right.”
Marta only nodded and then crept into bed. What if Mama gets sick because I forgot the medicine? she worried. And maybe even dies. After sleeping fitfully for several hours, Marta suddenly awoke. Someone was calling her name. It was Mama! Marta struggled out of the entangling blankets and ran into the next room. “What is it?” she asked, staring at the drawn white face of her mother.
“The baby. I need help, Marta,” Mama gasped.
Without taking time to think, Marta headed for the front door. At the same moment Alicia shuffled into the room and collided with her.
“Where are you going, Marta?”
“To Omar’s. He can telephone and get an ambulance for Mama. You stay here with her.” And Marta rushed out the door. She did not take time to put on her sandals and the road was a muddy mire. Every few steps Marta slipped and often fell, covering herself with a fresh coat of mud. Stray dogs whined at the wind from behind the bushes at the side of the road, but only once did one brave the rain and come far enough into the street for Marta to see his bared teeth as he gave a long throaty growl. But even this did not slow Marta’s pace.
It seemed as though it took much longer to get to Omar’s house than it usually did. When Marta finally reached the gate she clapped her hands loudly but no one came. She pushed through the gate and began pounding furiously on the door. Awakened by the racket, Omar opened the door and stared sleepily at the small mud elf before him.
“Call an ambulance for Mama. Quick!” Marta cried, tugging at his sleeve.
Omar reached down and wiped some of the mud from Marta’s face. “Marta! Come in.” The worried girl waited inside until Omar had called the hospital, and then she quickly slipped back out into the night.
Marta arrived home a few minutes before the ambulance came and sat on the bed holding her mother’s hand. “I’m sorry about the medicine, Mama. Please be all right.”
“Everything will be fine, Marta, you’ll see.” But then Mama started to moan again and could say no more.
Omar arrived at the same time as the ambulance. “I will go with your mother to the hospital,” he said. “When I know that she is being taken care of, I will go tell your father. Can you both be very brave and stay here alone?” Marta nodded and grasped Alicia’s cold hand more firmly.
After the ambulance left, the two girls huddled together on top of Mama’s bed and waited. It didn’t take long for Alicia to fall asleep. After Marta had tucked a quilt around her sister, she gently cried as she wondered about Mama. Finally her quiet tears and the sound of the wind lulled her to sleep.
It was late in the morning when Alicia woke at the sound of the door opening. “Oh, Papa! I’m so glad you’re home. How’s Mama?”
Marta stirred and smiled at the comforting sight of her father. But then lowered her eyes to the floor. “Oh, Papa, I have been so terrible. I didn’t get Mama’s medicine and that is why she got so sick.”
Papa sat down on the bed between the two girls and held them tightly. “Your Mama’s fine. Her suffering had nothing to do with your forgetting the medicine. The baby just decided to come a little sooner than we had expected. I’m proud of my two daughters and the way they helped out. I know it wasn’t an easy time for you. And now I have one more thing I would like you to do.”
“What’s that, Papa?” asked Marta.
“I would like you to help teach your new brother to be just as good and helpful as both of you are.”

John and Bonnie Newman, like many of you, are recipients of the spiritual blessings President Nelson promised. One Sunday, after attending church with their three young children, Bonnie said to John, who was not a member of the Church, “I cannot do this on my own. You need to decide whether you come to my church with us or you choose a church that we can go to together, but the children need to know that their dad loves God too.” The following Sunday and every Sunday after, John not only attended; he also served, playing the piano for many wards, branches, and Primaries over the years. I had the privilege of meeting with John in April 2015, and in that meeting, we discussed that the best way he could manifest his love for Bonnie was to take her to the temple, but that could not happen unless he was baptized.

After attending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 39 years, John was baptized in 2015. A year later, John and Bonnie were sealed in the Memphis Tennessee Temple, 20 years after she had received her own endowment. Their 47-year-old son, Robert, said of his dad, “Dad has really, really blossomed since he received the priesthood.” Bonnie added, “John has always been a happy and cheerful person, but receiving the ordinances and honoring his covenants has enhanced his gentleness.”

We all have heroes, particularly when we are young. I was born and grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States. The most famous sports teams near where we lived were headquartered in New York City. It was the home of three professional baseball teams in those faraway days: the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants, and the New York Yankees. Philadelphia was even closer to our home and was the home of the Athletics and the Phillies baseball teams. There were many potential baseball heroes for me on those teams.
Joe DiMaggio, who played for the New York Yankees, became my baseball hero. When my brothers and my friends played baseball on the school grounds next to our house, I tried to swing the bat the way I thought Joe DiMaggio did it. That was before the days of television (this is ancient history), so I only had pictures from newspapers to use to copy his swing.
When I was growing up, my father drove me to Yankee Stadium. That was the only time I saw Joe DiMaggio play. As if I am still there, in my mind I can see him swing the bat and see the white baseball fly straight into the stands at center field.
Now, my baseball skills never came close to those of my childhood hero. But the few times I hit a baseball well, I copied the level of his powerful swing as closely as I could.
When we choose heroes, we begin to copy, consciously or unconsciously, what we admire most in them.

“Hurry, Cathy,” Anne called over her shoulder. Her tennis shoes pounded along the side of the road, and her ponytail swished from side to side.
“I am hurrying!” Cathy yelled back, barely three steps behind her. Laughing, they turned away from the road and ran across the gravel parking lot of Mr. Parkins’s Plant Place. Breathing hard, they burst through the front door into the rich smells of potting soil and damp, growing things.
“Well, hello, girls.” Mr. Parkins had a smile in his voice as he looked up from the cash register. “Did you come to work?”
“Yes, please,” Anne said. “Today and tomorrow.”
In the early spring Mr. Parkins often paid the neighborhood children to help transplant seedlings. “Where is your cousin Emmy today?” he asked.
“She went to help Granny,” Cathy said.
“Well, come along.” Mr. Parkins led them through the back door and into one of the long, low greenhouses. “We’re working on the petunias right now. I need all the help I can get. Are you saving up for anything special?”
Anne and Cathy exchanged a secret smile. “Yes,” Cathy answered. “A Mother’s Day present for Mum.”
“I know where you could get her some nice bedding plants at a good price.” Mr. Parkins winked at them.
“So do we!” the girls said together.
At the end of the greenhouse, Mr. Parkins opened another door and led them into another greenhouse. There, long tables were covered with solid flats of young petunia plants. Allen, Tom, and Lance were already working and laughing loudly.
Mr. Parkins stayed only long enough to make sure that the girls knew what to do, and to check on the boys’ work. “I’m sure glad the five of you could come,” he said as he left.
The greenhouse smelled warm and damp. The potting soil was crumbly and moist on Anne’s fingers as she carefully separated the tiny plants. Cathy worked silently beside her, filling each of the tiny container compartments with soil and planting the seedlings. For a long time no one said anything.
Then Lance elbowed Allen and whispered something in his ear. Allen laughed loudly, then whispered in Tom’s ear. Tom snorted.
Anne’s fingers started to shake, and she felt slightly sick. They were doing it again. “I wish Emmy was here,” she whispered to Cathy.
Cathy nodded. “So do I.”
In the next few minutes, Lance stopped whispering and started saying nasty things out loud. Some of it Anne didn’t understand, but she knew that it wasn’t good because of the way it made her feel. Again she wished Emmy was here. Emmy would know what to do. She was as brave as Nephi.
Just last week, Anne and Emmy had been walking home from school with several other girls. The sun was shining, but they all walked with their hands in their pockets, moving quickly to keep warm. Then someone started singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” in a really silly way. Everyone laughed and joined in. The next song they sang even sillier, singing high and then low. It was fun until one girl started singing “I Am a Child of God” in the same way. It hadn’t felt funny to Anne anymore. It had given her the same sick feeling then as the bad talk in the greenhouse was giving her now.
But Emmy had known what to do.
“Hey, let’s not make fun of Church songs, OK?” she had said quietly. She made it sound friendly.
The other girls had looked surprised for a moment, but one said, “OK,” and started singing the song the right way.
But Anne wasn’t Emmy, and she didn’t know what to do. She was afraid that if she asked the boys to stop, they’d just get worse. Now they were using words that Anne knew were not right.
She looked over at Cathy. Her sister’s lips were pressed tightly together, and she looked as if she was going to cry.
“Shall we leave?” Anne whispered to her.
“But I want to buy something nice for Mum,” Cathy said quietly.
“Yeah. Me too.” They were silent for a few seconds, trying to not listen to the boys. “Besides,” Anne added, “Mr. Parkins said he needs all the help he can get.”
Cathy nodded and blinked as two tears slid down her cheeks. She tucked her chin down so that Lance, Allen, and Tom wouldn’t know that she was crying.
Anne moved closer to her. She was angry now. It was hard to remember to be gentle with the plants. If only Emmy was here! she thought. If only I knew what to do! Suddenly she had an idea.
Softly, almost too softly to hear, she started humming “A Child’s Prayer.” When Cathy heard the first few notes, she looked up at Anne in surprise. She smiled. By the end of the song, both of them were softly humming together.
The boys were still making ugly jokes, but Anne didn’t feel angry any more. She started humming “I Am a Child of God,” only just a little louder. By the end of that song, Lance was quieter, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Anne, feeling braver, gave him a big smile as she started singing “Nephi’s Courage” out loud. Cathy joined in, and their two voices echoed sweetly off the walls and ceiling, while the boys’ voices softened to silence.
Anne and Cathy were still singing one Primary song after another when Mr. Parkins poked his head in an hour later. “Sounds good, girls.” He came over to the long table. “Your work is good too. But it’s almost dark—you’d better get on home. I’m glad you’ll be coming back tomorrow—I can always use good, cheerful help.”
Rubbing the soil off their fingers, the children followed Mr. Parkins out of the greenhouses and into the early evening light. Lance, Allen, and Tom scooted past Anne and Cathy.
“Primary babies,” Lance hissed as he went past. Anne just smiled at him again.
The air was cooler now, and goosebumps dotted the girls’ arms, but they didn’t feel cold.
“I feel all warm and happy,” Cathy said, looking up at the pink sky.
“Me, too,” Anne said. “Race you home!”