Gospel Story Finder

Since I was little, my dad always encouraged me and my siblings to study at Brigham Young University–Hawaii. However, one day during my mission in 2016, I received an impression to go to BYU–Idaho. After returning from my mission, I prepared for the English proficiency exam as part of the school application. My test results fell short, and I was not admitted to BYU–Idaho. However, as an international student from Taiwan, I was admitted to BYU–Hawaii.
During my time as a student in Hawaii, I continued to prepare to transfer to Idaho. This question always came to me: “Why wasn’t I accepted to BYU–Idaho if I received the prompting to go there?” It seemed like the answer would never come.
To my relief, after two years of schooling in Hawaii, I was accepted to BYU–Idaho in the fall of 2019. I was very excited to go. While attending BYU–Idaho, I pondered greatly about God’s purpose for me being there. The schoolwork wasn’t easy during the first couple semesters. However, I learned to strive by relying on God as I accomplished many hard trials and tasks. I learned that “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
The following year, I met my husband during his first week at BYU–Idaho. We became good friends, and it soon dawned on us that we loved each other and wanted to marry. Only then did I realize the most significant reason for the delay in being accepted to BYU–Idaho: meeting my husband.
I graduated from BYU–Idaho in 2023 and am studying in the Master of Music program at Michigan State University. Looking back, I notice all the blessings I’ve been given and, most importantly, what kind of person I have become. From my struggles in being an international student in two different environments, I’ve learned to respect other cultures, to become more independent, and to trust God in my trials. Sometimes we may not know God’s plan for us in the face of trials, but I know that if we trust and have faith in Him, everything will make sense in the end—and we will become better because of it.

A home teaching visit is also more likely to be successful if an appointment is made in advance. To illustrate this point, let me share with you an experience I had some years ago. At that time the Missionary Executive Committee was comprised of Spencer W. Kimball, Gordon B. Hinckley, and Thomas S. Monson. One evening Brother and Sister Hinckley hosted a dinner in their home for the committee members and our wives. We had just finished a lovely meal when there was a knock at the door. President Hinckley opened the door and found one of his home teachers standing there. The home teacher said, “I know I didn’t make an appointment to come, and I don’t have with me my companion, but I felt I should come tonight. I didn’t know you would be entertaining company.”

President Hinckley graciously invited the home teacher to come in and sit down and to instruct three Apostles and our wives concerning our duty as members. With a bit of trepidation, the home teacher did his best. President Hinckley thanked him for coming, after which he made a hurried exit.

Within a few years after Sandra Edwards of Kingston, Tennessee, was baptized, she was divorced, lost her mother to a stroke, and then lost her son in a tragic automobile accident. During these crises, the members of her branch were her lifeline. They helped her move, tended her children, brought food to her home, and gave her encouragement, love, and help. “Never once was there a critical word,” she says. “Never once did I feel left out, ashamed, lonely, unwanted, or unappreciated.”

In another case, a young brother was reactivated as the result of the establishment of the outreach initiative to bring into activity young single adults ages 18 to 30. On the first night of activities in one of our Church buildings, this brother was the only nonmissionary attending, but within a few weeks, he had brought about 30 people to family home evening and other activities.
This brother is a Web site designer—he and a partner started their own Web design business. He currently lives with two nonmembers, both of whom work at his Web design company. He is very bold about sharing his testimony. One of his coworkers previously had studied Christian theology, and this brother referred him to the missionaries working in the young single adult program. Now his coworker is a regular attendee of the activities, and this reactivated brother assists the missionaries as they teach him by adding his testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel to theirs.

One night Moisés came home late from Papá’s shop. Mamá was sitting at the table. She looked worried.
“Is everything OK?” Moisés asked.
Mamá sighed. “Yes, we will be all right.” She gave Moisés a tired smile. “Money is tight this month. I’m worried that we can’t afford to pay tithing.”
Moisés remembered what the missionaries taught them about tithing. They said it was giving 10 percent of your money to God to help do His work.
Mamá put some pesos in an envelope and sealed it closed. “This is sacred money,” she said. “We need to pay our tithing.”
Moisés thought about the pesos he had earned at the car shop. He pulled them out of his pocket. “Can I pay my tithing too?”
Mamá smiled. “Of course you can.”
After that Moisés always paid his tithing. Sometimes it was hard. But Moisés had faith. He was a pioneer! He kept paying his tithing, and his family always had enough. Moisés was grateful for the ways Heavenly Father blessed him for being obedient.

To attend Johns Hopkins University, the Renlunds moved to Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to being a busy doctor and a young husband and father, Dale was called to be the bishop of the Baltimore Ward.
A year after moving to Baltimore, the Renlunds faced a severe trial: Sister Renlund was diagnosed with cancer. She had to have two surgeries and nine months of chemotherapy. Struggling to take care of Ruth and their daughter, Elder Renlund recalled, “I was hurting, and it seemed as if my prayers wouldn’t go heavenward.”
One time when he brought Ruth home from the hospital, she was weak, but they wanted to pray together. He asked Sister Renlund if she would pray. “Her first words were, ‘Our Father in Heaven, we thank Thee for priesthood power that makes it so that no matter what happens, we can be together forever.’”
In that moment he felt a special closeness to his wife and to God. “What I’d previously understood about eternal families in my mind, I now understood in my heart,” he said. “Ruth’s illness changed the course of our lives.”

Sandra
Photograph by Cindy Smith
Like many young women in Uganda, Sandra walks more than a mile to church, helps clean the meetinghouse on Fridays, and attends seminary on Saturdays. During the week, she rises before 5:00 a.m. to read schoolbooks, and then she walks to school, returning home after 6:00 p.m. She missed a year of school because of financial difficulties but faces her challenges with a positive attitude: “The gospel has really helped me to stay steadfast and immovable.”
Sandra is the only Church member in her home, but her parents support her Church service, such as helping when the ward cleaned the grounds of a local orphanage. Her family sees how the gospel has helped her be strong, even when facing unresolved problems. Reflecting on the source of that strength, Sandra says, “When I go to church, I feel like I am putting on the armor of God” (see Ephesians 6:11–17).
A more recent convert, Susan, loves the Church. Originally from South Sudan, her family fled hardships and was blessed to receive the missionaries in Uganda. As a refugee, she found peace and protection in the gospel. On Sundays she would bring her younger siblings to church, as well as up to 10 other children who are not Church members. After the unexpected death of a family member, she returned to South Sudan, where she waits for the Church to be established in her area. Both Susan and Sandra face challenges, but they rely on God and enjoy the fruits of living the gospel of Jesus Christ (see Alma 32:6–8, 43).

In August of this year, the Aaronic Priesthood young men of our ward had the assignment to administer the sacrament to the residents of a local rest home. I went along with them in case they needed some assistance. Naturally, they didn’t. Everything was under control. But as a result of my attendance there, I had a great experience. After the meeting, the branch president came to me and asked: “Would you happen to be related to Billy E. Dunn?”
I said, “Yes, sir. He’s my father.”
He then said: “Your dad was one of my favorite missionary companions. We served on the mission board together. And I’ll never forget when President Murphy sent us out in the mission’s old Model A Ford to tour the island. …” And he went on reminiscing for some time, telling me of his missionary experiences with my father in Hawaii fifty years ago. By the way he spoke, the light in his eye, and the smile on his face, it was as though he lived those cherished experiences only yesterday.

I rolled over and threw back my sheets. Why wasn’t I asleep yet? The house had been dark for hours while I was still lying here, wide awake. I gave up on sleeping and walked over to my window. From here I could easily see the city stretching out from my house to the desert, and the desert stretching out from the city to the horizon.
From the windowsill, I looked over the city. This was the first time I’d watched it so closely, and though it was dark, I seemed to see it more clearly than ever before. I could trace streetlights shining along roads and traffic lights signaling at intersections. Lights glowed from houses, blazed from signs, and flickered from cars.
As I stared at the city I was amazed by it all: by all the life happening under those lights, by the civilization symbolized by those lights, by the progress that had created those lights. Except when using candles or fires, our ancestors had to go to bed when the sun went down. But we have harnessed energy to light our streets, power our ovens, run our TVs and telephones and toasters. What could be more miraculous?
Even as I thought about those triumphs, I looked out past where the city ended in darkened mesas and extinct volcanoes and then up to the sky, where millions of stars twinkled and sparkled and glittered in the heavens. Starlight came from billions of miles away and was hundreds or even thousands of years old. It didn’t need to be turned on or transmitted by wires. And it was more beautiful than any lights display could ever be.
The city lights, which took thousands of us to create, didn’t begin to compare with what Heavenly Father had made. Thinking about the vastness of what I was seeing, I expected to feel myself drop to insignificance. Instead I had a feeling that I was Heavenly Father’s daughter. He knew I was sitting in a little bedroom looking at the sky and thinking about Him. And I knew that even though He created so many worlds and galaxies, He cared about me.
I stayed by the window for a long time. When I got back to bed, I was filled more with feelings than thoughts: feelings of amazement and love, excitement and peace.

Perhaps you will remember the story of Corrie ten Boom, a fifty-year-old spinster who became a militant heroine of the anti-Nazi underground during World War II. The book is called The Hiding Place. It describes “an extraordinary adventure in Christian courage.” Certainly I found it to be just that.

I would like to share with you two examples of how love worked in her life to help her do good when she had been extremely ill used.

The first time was when she was a young woman in Holland. She was very much in love and had thought her love was returned. But then one day the young man came to her door with another young woman. He wanted to introduce Corrie to his fiancée. The family rallied around to help her face this crisis. After the young couple left, Corrie fled to her bedroom where she lay sobbing. Then she writes:

Later, I heard father’s footsteps coming up the stairs. For a moment I was a little girl again waiting for him to tuck the blankets tight. But this was a hurt that no blanket could shut out, and suddenly I was afraid of what father would say. . . . Of course he did not say the false, idle words.

“Corrie,” he began instead, “Do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain.

“There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel. . . . Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.”

Later, after the terrifying experiences of a wartime Nazi concentration camp, she found herself face to face with one of the S.S. guards.

It was at a church service in Munich. He was the man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time.

And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, her sister Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulien,” he said. “To think that as you say, he has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? “Jesus,” I prayed, “forgive me and help me to forgive him.”

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. “Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.”

As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on his. When he tells us to love our enemies, he gives, along with the command, love itself. [Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Reveil Co., 1972), pp. 44-45, 238]

A few years ago, the company for which I worked transferred me and my family to Southern California. A few weeks before we moved, Arnold, a neighbor, told me a story that I will never forget.
One Saturday afternoon he saw our three-year-old son, Lawrence, in front of his house. Lawrence was down on his hands and knees searching for something in the gravel and along the sidewalk. When Arnold came outside to get the paper, he asked Lawrence what he was looking for. Lawrence told him that he had lost a nickel. Then Arnold went back inside his house to read the newspaper.
Several hours later when he looked outside again, Lawrence was still out there. It was beginning to get dark. Lawrence had taken off his shoes so he could rub his bare feet around with the hope that he could feel the nickel that had somehow escaped his sight.
Our neighbor went outside to offer his sympathy and then suggested, “Maybe you should go home and come back tomorrow when it’s lighter.”
Lawrence picked up his shoes, came home, and told his mother and me that he had lost his nickel. Later that evening when Lawrence went to bed his mother comforted him, “Maybe you can find your nickel tomorrow.”
The next morning when Arnold went to get the Sunday newspaper, Lawrence was in his pajamas searching in the grass.
“My, but you are up early this morning,” Arnold said. “Are you still looking for your lost nickel?”
Lawrence nodded his head and kept on looking.
A short time later, Lawrence came into the house and came to our bedroom and shook his mother. “I found my nickel,” he told her, his voice full of pleasure.
Hardly being awake, his mother answered sleepily, “Fine, Lawrence, go back to bed.”
I made the same kind of suggestion to him and he went downstairs to his own room.
Not long afterward the older boys and I got up and went to priesthood meeting. When we came home, Lawrence and the rest of the family were all ready to go to Sunday School. When we walked through the front door of the chapel, we met Arnold.
“Well, Lawrence, you must have found your nickel,” he said.
“Yes, it was my tithing saves,” Lawrence replied.
Arnold said he was humbled by a three-year-old boy who had taken a great deal of time to look for a nickel—not just to have his nickel but because it belonged to the Lord.
On the day we were ready to move, Arnold and his wife came to tell us good-bye and give us a package. I’ll never forget my feeling when we unwrapped the package and found inside a framed picture of a nickel pasted on a piece of white cardboard. Underneath the coin these words were written: The Lord’s Nickel.

I would like to share an example of a brief but significant incident in which a positive cultural influence affected attitudes immediately as well as for decades to follow. This incident occurred at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The episode occurred in the emergency room. Three individuals were involved; I was just an observer. The three were a patient named Ben, a resident named Dr. Cohen, and a new intern, Dr. Jones. Ben was well known to the medical staff. He was an alcoholic and had been admitted numerous times for alcohol-related diseases. He was a kind, pleasant man. He was courteous and considerate of the medical staff. He was well liked. But once again Ben was in the emergency room, this time with alcohol-induced pancreatitis (or inflammation of the pancreas) severe enough to be admitted.

Dr. Cohen was the resident taking care of Ben in the emergency room. Dr. Cohen was a resident who the other interns and residents admired and looked up to. He was brilliant, hardworking, and exemplary in every way. He had made the determination that Ben needed to be admitted.

The intern next up in rotation was Dr. Jones, the new intern. Dr. Jones had gone to a prestigious medical school, was brilliant in her own right, and was just beginning her own postgraduate education. The training for interns was brutally hard, high pressured, and associated with constant sleep deprivation. That probably led to the response Dr. Jones had to this, her fifth admission of the night. She vocally and loudly bemoaned the fact that she would have to take several hours now to care for Ben, who had in fact brought on his own plight. She made her feelings clear to Dr. Cohen.

Dr. Cohen’s reprimand to her was concise, spoken in almost a whisper: “Dr. Jones, you became a physician to care for people and work to heal them. You didn’t become a physician to judge them. If you don’t understand the difference, you have no right to train at this institution.”

Chagrined, Dr. Jones provided Ben great care on that and subsequent hospitalizations. Ben has since passed, and both Dr. Jones and Dr. Cohen went on to exemplary, compassionate, and successful careers, but the lesson lingered.

The training culture at Johns Hopkins was that physicians would provide great care in a nonjudgmental way. Those new to the institution needed to learn this culture because it was not “natural” or inherent in trainees right out of medical school. Dr. Cohen had already internalized this culture and in this brief but significant moment taught Dr. Jones a proper attitude toward those who were to be helped and healed. Having overheard the conversation, the point was not lost on me. It had taken years for this culture to become ingrained. But it also needed to be conveyed. That is what Dr. Cohen did.

I really haven’t had much to do with the military. I seemed to live in the in-between times when there wasn’t war. I was thirty-five years of age when the Second World War broke out. Back in Boston, while I was attending a wool auction, they called for all people who were under thirty-six years of age to register. I was thirty-five. I went into an old building, a historical building, called Faniel Hall, in Boston. It’s called the cradle of liberty because it is said that that’s where the meeting was held that resulted in the Boston Tea Party. I remember going to that building, and when I heard and found out what its reputation was, a thrill went down my spine as I thought back on the tremendous sacrifices that our forebears gave in connection with the establishment of this country.

From the sheds come rustlings and flutterings and soft cooing sounds. Jeff opens the door of one shed and you quickly step inside. In the half-light, winged shapes blur through the air at the sudden disturbance, then settle back into their boxlike perches.
Pigeons. But not the ordinary kind. Among them are Jeff’s West of England tumblers, named for their place of origin and for a midflight maneuver they perform. Beautiful, with amber eyes and feather-duster feet, these birds are champions and have won national awards for their owner.
Raising pigeons is not Jeff’s whole life, then. It’s a hobby, one he began with his dad’s help when he was about seven years old. At first they were just pets to him. But then he became more serious about raising birds for competition and got some West of England tumblers. When he was ten, a young bird he had raised was judged champion of all breeds at the two-state Oklahoma-Arkansas fair, and Jeff came home with a two-foot-tall trophy. When he was 11, Jeff went with his parents to the national show in Peoria, Illinois. There, competing among thousands of entries, against breeders far older and more experienced, Jeff took first place in his category with one of his birds. He was by far the youngest national winner ever. Another trophy and stories in the hometown papers.
You find yourself wondering how all of this fits together—school, priesthood, basketball, pigeons. Then you remember something Jeff’s dad told you:
The judges at competitions have a list of standards that they compare each bird against. They look at things like coloring, markings, the way the wings lie, the length of the muffs on the feet, etc. “Jeff has a copy of those standards,” says his father, James Vines, “and I’ve tried to teach him what to look for. He’s picked it up very well, compares his birds to the standard, and keeps the birds with the qualities he wants passed along to their offspring. Jeff has brought them a long way in a brief time.” In other words, Jeff has learned to recognize the ideal and to work toward it.

I also had to make decisions about music beyond what I had in my own collection. One day when I was in school, a classmate started playing a bad song. I didn’t feel good about the song, so I asked him to change it, which he did. I know that each of us can have the same courage in those situations. And at times when people may not change the music for us, we still have another option: we can go somewhere else.

When a service opportunity came up at the Food Bank of Mexico, three young women (including myself), one young man from our youth group, and 10 others decided to participate.
At first, I had no idea what we were going to do. But soon people at the food bank explained that we were going to separate perishable and non-perishable foods into grocery bags to make food packages for people in need. Our group divided the tasks, and then we started packing. We worked quickly as a team and put together more than 500 grocery bags!
From this experience I learned that even if we don’t have many resources ourselves, we can still help others who have even less. Little by little, we can all help in different ways. I know that we are blessed when we serve.
I really liked serving at the food bank. If I were given the opportunity to do it again, of course I would! It was great to be able to serve others. If you have the opportunity to serve, do it! And do it with all your heart and good cheer.

A man lying on a mattress in the aisle. The rest of the story: When I moved into a new ward, I was surprised to see a brother on a moveable hospital bed in the chapel. This man had many disabilities and was only able to attend church in this way. I quickly realized this was typical for this ward, and I adapted quickly. His being there was not irreverent but, in fact, quite the opposite. After all, didn’t the Savior heal a man who had been lowered down on his bed by his friends into a crowded house? (see Luke 5:18–20).

Through our alumni campaign—we call it RISE—we have begun collecting the stories of more than 6,700 of our former students. Here is just one of them.
Arizona graduate Duane Oakes initially struggled to find his place at BYU. With only a few friends and no family nearby, he was contemplating returning home when he met a student-government advisor who told him he wasn’t going anywhere because she was going to mentor him. As he was helped, he discovered that he had a passion for helping other students and became involved. Through an educational career he has devoted himself to keeping the legacy going of the things he learned at BYU. He stayed involved.
Now Duane serves on the faculty of Mesa Community College and directs the Center for Community and Civic Engagement. He and his wife now lead the Arizona BYU Alumni Chapter in Phoenix. We love his story. We would love to hear your stories, and we invite you to share them at rise.byu.edu.

Game night is going to be epic! Sam will never know what hit him! I’ve been practicing!
Sam, are you OK? You don’t usually use words like that?
Losing just makes me so mad sometimes!
I know. We’ve been friends a long time.
That’s how I know you don’t normally talk like that. I don’t think it’s the real you, you know?
You’re right. Thanks for looking out for me.
Anytime! But I’m still gonna cream you in this game!

The missionary journey took great physical courage as well as faith. While jumping onto a ferryboat in New York, Brigham slipped and fell against an iron ring on the deck, severely dislocating his shoulder:
“I directed brothers Kimball and Hedlock to lay hold of my body, and Brother Pratt to take hold of my hand and pull, putting his foot against my side, while I guided the bone with my right hand back to its place. … When I came to a fire I fainted, and was not able to dress myself for several days.27