Gospel Story Finder

When Ofelia Trejo de Cárdenas was called to teach young adults in her Mexico City ward, she felt that having a close relationship with each of her Sunday School students would increase her ability to teach and strengthen them.
“If I don’t have a close relationship with my students and if they don’t feel my love, they may not believe me when I’m teaching a class or bearing my testimony,” she says. “They may feel that I’m just a Sunday School teacher.”
But how could Sister Cárdenas develop such a relationship if she taught only once every two weeks? She found the answer through technology. Using the mobile phone application WhatsApp, she and her students were soon connecting daily through text and voice messages. Now, every day before the next Sunday School lesson, a class volunteer sends to other class members a verse of scripture from that next lesson with a related personal thought. After reading the verse and the thought, class members respond with their own thoughts.
“When they read the scripture, they send a happy face so I know they have read or studied the scripture and that they have thought about it,” says Sister Cárdenas. When it’s time for the next Sunday lesson, the students are prepared to participate.
This daily connection recently blessed one young adult whose parents are not active in the Church.
“I love it when I see him come to church because I know that to get there, he had to go through several challenges,” says Sister Cárdenas. “I’m sure that the scriptures and thoughts his classmates have sent out and the scriptures and thoughts he has sent out when it was his turn have strengthened him a lot.”
Sister Cárdenas says ministering through the scriptures doesn’t stop with her Sunday lesson and her class’s daily scriptural connection.
“My preparation includes praying for my students,” she says. “I think of them not only on Sunday but every day of the week as well. Each of them has specific and different needs. Each is a child of God. I think about them while I’m preparing my lessons.”
And when she teaches, she listens—both to her students and to the Holy Ghost.
“The teacher is the Spirit,” which she often hears in the voices of her students. “I have to pay attention because what they say is the revelation that the Spirit is giving to them.”

Sister Melbourne was grouchy. There was no other way to describe her. Just the other day I heard her telling the bishop that children took too much time in testimony meeting. I walked out of the chapel feeling very angry.
My anger didn’t last long, however. It was December, and Christmas was in the air. Excitement filled me right up to the top of my head. I couldn’t help but smile and laugh. My family began singing Christmas carols on the way home from church, just to let some of the excitement out.
After dinner Mom and Dad called us together. We all knew what we were going to discuss. Every year, we choose a family in our ward, and we secretly take gifts and food to their house. It is one of our favorite traditions.
When we were all together, Dad said, “It’s time we decide on a family to help this year. Does anyone have a suggestion?”
When none of us said anything, Dad looked at Mom. “Maybe Mom has a suggestion. Sometimes she notices things the rest of us miss.”
Mom smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do know of someone who needs our help. We have always chosen a family with children, but this year I think we should help Sister Melbourne.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! “But, Mom,” I protested, “she’s not poor or sick, and she’s really grouchy. She doesn’t even like kids. I think we should choose someone else.”
“I agree with April,” said my older sister, Beth. “She really is grouchy. It wouldn’t be any fun doing something for her. She might even kick our gifts off her porch. Besides, she seems to have plenty of money.”
I looked at Beth gratefully. Peter spoke up. “She’s always telling me to ‘shush,’ even when I’m being quiet.”
Lynn and Josh didn’t say anything. They were too small to know Sister Melbourne.
“I know Sister Melbourne has enough money to take care of herself,” Mom said. “And I know she isn’t very pleasant to be around, but that’s exactly why I think she needs our help.”
I wasn’t convinced, but I listened as Mom continued, “Sister Melbourne has had an unhappy life. She was divorced before she moved here. She has three children who are married. They have children of their own, but they never come to see her or let her get to know her grandchildren. Perhaps she has done something to make them want to stay away. I don’t know about that, but I do know she is very lonely and unhappy. I think she needs someone to let her know she is loved. April, you weren’t quite right when you said she isn’t poor.”
“You mean she’s poor in love?” I asked.
“Yes, and sometimes it’s much more painful to be poor in love than it is to be poor in money.”
We were all quiet for a few minutes. Then Dad said, “Let’s take a vote. How many of you would like to share Christmas with Sister Melbourne this year?”
Slowly Beth’s hand went up. Lynn and Josh raised theirs. Then Peter raised his. Looking around at everyone, I reluctantly raised mine.
Mom said instead of buying gifts for Sister Melbourne from the store, we should make them. All the next week we cut out paper decorations, strung popcorn and cranberries, and made cookies and candy. We bought apples and oranges to go with the things we had made.
It was Dad’s job to get a box just the right size for our gifts and to decorate it. We carefully arranged everything inside the box and put on the lid. Dad added a huge bow on top.
We gathered around the kitchen table to have a prayer and make our final plans. In the prayer, Dad asked Heavenly Father to soften Sister Melbourne’s heart and help her receive our gift in the spirit of love with which we were giving it. I was comforted by those words, because I remembered that Beth had said Sister Melbourne might kick our gift off the porch. I had visions of cookies, candy, paper decorations, apples, oranges, and strings of popcorn and cranberries strewn all over the ground.
We put on our coats and piled into the car. Since the box was pretty big, we decided Dad would carry it to the porch. After he returned to the car, it would be my job to ring the doorbell and run before Sister Melbourne opened her door.
I could feel my heart pounding with excitement as Dad parked down the street from her house. “April and I will walk to Sister Melbourne’s house,” he said. “The rest of you must be very quiet so you don’t attract attention.” He lifted the box out of the car and motioned for me to follow him.
“Dad,” I said, “I’m afraid Sister Melbourne will catch me and get mad.”
“She’ll never catch you!” He grinned at me. “You’re the fastest runner in our family. But if you’re worried, I’ll wait for you behind those bushes on the far side of her yard. When she’s inside again, we’ll go back to the car together.”
“I’d like that,” I said, smiling gratefully.
Dad carefully set the box on the porch. I waited until he was hidden behind the bushes. Then I ran up the steps, rang the doorbell, and flew across the yard to the bushes, where I crouched down next to Dad. “Good work,” Dad whispered.
The door opened, sending a ray of light across the snow. Sister Melbourne didn’t see the box at first, but as she was about to close the door, she saw it and stopped. She stood there for a second. Then she bent down and read her name on the top. She lifted the lid, and once again she was very still. Finally she picked up the box and looked around the yard. She was smiling, but there were tears running down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she called out. “Thank you, whoever you are.”
Dad and I were quiet for a few moments after she went inside and closed the door. I whispered, “I think she really liked our present, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think she really did.”
The next Sunday as we were coming home from church, we began singing Christmas carols again. When we passed Sister Melbourne’s house, I saw our decorations in her front window, and the popcorn and cranberry strings were on a Christmas tree that hadn’t been there the week before. “I think Sister Melbourne’s getting richer,” I said.
Mom stopped singing long enough to give me a hug and say, “So are we.”

Recently Tyler received his own set of scriptures. He asks his father to read the scriptures to him every night, even though his family also reads the scriptures together each morning. One day he took his new Doctrine and Covenants over to a friend’s house to show it to him. Tyler asked his friend, “Where’s yours?” His friend, a nonmember, said, “I don’t have one of those books.” Tyler replied, “Maybe you can get one. These are important covenants.”

I remember as a deacon watching the priests as they would officiate at the sacrament table. One priest by the name of Barry had a lovely voice and would read the sacrament prayers with clear diction—as though he were competing in a speech contest. The other members of the ward, particularly the older sisters, would compliment him on his “golden voice.” I think he became a bit proud. Jack, another priest in the ward, was hearing impaired, which caused his speech to be unnatural in its sound. We deacons would twitter at times when Jack would bless the emblems. How we dared to do so is beyond me, for Jack had hands like a bear and could have crushed any one of us.

On one occasion Barry, with the beautiful voice, and Jack, with the awkward delivery, were assigned together at the sacrament table. The hymn was sung; the two priests broke the bread. Barry knelt to pray, and we closed our eyes. But nothing happened. Soon we deacons opened our eyes to see what was causing the delay. I shall ever remember the picture of Barry frantically searching the table for the little white card on which were printed the sacrament prayers. It was nowhere to be found. What to do? Barry’s face turned pink and then crimson as the congregation began to look in his direction.

Then Jack, with that bearlike hand, reached up and gently tugged Barry back onto the bench. He himself then knelt on the little footstool and began to pray: “O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it. …” He continued the prayer, and the bread was passed. Jack also blessed the water, and it was passed. What respect we deacons gained that day for Jack who, though handicapped in speech, had memorized the sacred prayers! Barry, too, had a new appreciation for Jack. A lasting bond of friendship had been established.

That is illustrated by this experience of a brother-in-law of my wife, Kristen, when he was in junior high school here in Utah about fifty years ago.

In his class there was a boy who was very different in dress and demeanor and sometimes in words and actions. He was easy to ridicule. Junior high school was difficult for him, especially because trouble from a large bully made his life miserable. The bully and his group would taunt him and verbally tease him and regularly beat him up against his locker.

On the last day of school, everyone was in the gym playing games and talking. This boy was playing a game of chess by himself—he had a board and chess pieces, and he would move from one side of the board to another and was happily playing alone. When the bully saw this, he went over and hit the chessboard, scattering the pieces all over the gym. Suddenly the gym went totally silent. Everyone had their eyes fixed on the bully, the victim, and the scattered chess pieces.

Kristen’s brother-in-law could not stand it. He said he didn’t care if the bully punched him out. He stood up, walked over, and began picking up chess pieces off the floor. And here is what makes this example great. Immediately, many in the crowd did the same—uniting to protect the victim.

Thirty years later, a well-dressed executive boarding an airplane approached my brother-in-law, who had recognized this man as the boy who had been taunted in the gym so long ago. “Thanks, Holbrook,” he said. “Thanks for being a friend.”

When Kristen shared that experience in a recent talk, she added:

We have among us some who are hurting. We may not be aware of their struggles, but we can make all the difference by our attention, by standing up and bearing testimony, and by listening to the promptings to make a visit or a phone call or get out of bed when we don’t feel like it. I promise if you stand up and serve, it will touch lives in an eternal way that you can only begin to comprehend now.

Sometimes the tables are reversed. A dear and cherished young friend, Wendy Bennion of Salt Lake City, was such an example. Just the day before yesterday, she quietly departed mortality and returned “to that God who gave [her] life” (Alma 40:11). She had struggled for over five long years in her battle with cancer. Ever cheerful, always reaching out to help others, never losing faith, she had a contagious smile that attracted others to her as a magnet attracts metal shavings. While Wendy was ill and in pain, a friend of hers, feeling downcast with her own situation, visited her. Nancy, Wendy’s mother, knowing Wendy was in extreme pain, felt that perhaps the friend had stayed too long. She asked Wendy, after the friend had left, why she had allowed her to stay so long when she herself was in so much pain. Wendy’s response: “What I was doing for my friend was a lot more important than the pain I was having. If I can help her, then the pain is worth it.” Wendy’s attitude was reminiscent of Him who bore the sorrows of the world, who patiently suffered excruciating pain and disappointment, but who, with silent step of His sandaled feet, passed by a man who was blind from birth, restoring his sight. He approached the grieving widow of Nain and raised her son from the dead. He trudged up Calvary’s steep slope, carrying His own cruel cross, undistracted by the constant jeers and taunting that accompanied His every step. For He had an appointment with divine destiny. In a very real way He visits us, each one, with His teachings. He brings cheer and inspires goodness. He gave His precious life that the grave would be deprived of its victory, that death would lose its sting, that life eternal would be our gift.

They were the last two on the bus, and with luck there were two seats left. One was by a middle-aged Latin. His suit suggested a businessman. But Elder O’Neal stared at the man’s obvious mismatch of green pants and a blue striped jacket. The other seat, much farther back, was by a teenage girl in her school uniform, a wrinkled, white blouse and a green and red plaid skirt.
“I’ll take that one,” Elder Everritt said, pointing to the seat by the businessman. “You take the other one, elder. And remember, arm’s length.” Elder O’Neal stared at him for a moment and then started down the aisle, wending his way through the obstacle course of sacks, boxes, and chickens.
Kevin sat down beside the girl who watched him until their eyes met. Then blushing, she quickly turned away to stare out the window. The seat in front of them was so close that it didn’t leave room for Kevin’s legs. So he sat with his feet out in the aisle.
“What is your name?” The girl next to him had touched him on the shoulder.
“What?” he asked, not sure if he should look at her.
“What is your name?” she asked again.
She spoke with a strong Spanish accent. He smiled.
“No,” he said in English, “you have to accent the next to last word. Like this. What is your name?”
“A-lane,” she said answering him. He didn’t understand until she wrote Helen with her finger on the back of the seat in front of them. “What is your name?” she asked once again.
“Kevin O’Neal, Elder Kevin O’Neal,” he said correcting himself. “How’d you get an English name like Helen?” he asked her.
She stared back at him with the same look he’d given the man at the bus station. He realized that, like the shoeshine boy, she only knew one phrase in English.
“Speak to the Latins in their own language,” his Missionary Training Center teacher had said. “You can’t imagine how much they love it when a North American takes the time and effort to learn their language.”
“Okay,” Kevin thought. “I’ll try speaking to her in Spanish.” The girl had already turned to look out the window when he tapped on her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he said in Spanish. “I speak a little bit of Spanish.” The girl turned back to him with a smile. Kevin quickly turned to see if Elder Everritt was watching. But Elder Everritt was busy talking to two women in front of him. One was a middle-aged woman who could be the businessman’s wife. The other was much older, with steel-gray hair and deep wrinkles in her dark brown face. If Elder Everritt was talking to those women, it should be okay to talk to the girl. “How did you get an English name like Helen?” he asked in his best Spanish.
“Oh, my name isn’t Helen,” she said pronouncing Helen wrong again. “It’s Elena. That’s Spanish for Helen, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. Her Spanish was spoken at a normal rate, which seemed rapid to him, hard to understand.
“What’s your name again?” Elena asked. “I didn’t understand you when you spoke in English.” Seeing his difficulty in understanding, she had slowed down, pronouncing each word more clearly.
“Elder Kevin O’Neal,” he said answering her question.
“Aldare, that’s a funny name.”
“It’s not a name. It’s a …” He couldn’t think of the word so he said, “My name is Kevin, really.”
“Kaybeen. I like your name. Do you like mine?”
He wasn’t sure if he should answer that. “Yes,” he said out of habit.
“What are you doing in my country?”
“I don’t know,” he said, amazed at his inability to say anything intelligent. Elena looked at him puzzled.
“Why don’t you know? I don’t understand.”
“Really, I’m a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he said, repeating the line he’d memorized at the Missionary Training Center. “He is my companion,” he said pointing at Elder Everritt who was busy talking to the businessman again.
“That’s neat,” she said. “What do missionaries do?”
He didn’t know how to answer that.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to answer, she asked, “Do you like my country?”
“No,” he said and was sorry.
“Why not?” Elena asked with a frown.
“It is so … it is very …” How do you say strange in Spanish? he asked himself. “It is very different,” he said at last.
“What’s so different about it?” Elena asked.
Kevin knew he’d never be able to explain that. “I don’t know,” he said staring down the aisle. Elder Everritt turned around and waved. He was mouthing something, but O’Neal didn’t understand. Elder Everritt pointed at the businessman and then at Kevin. Kevin shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know what Elder Everritt wanted. Elder Everritt gave up and turned back to the businessman.
“I’ll bet your father sent you,” Elena said staring at the businessman. “To get rid of you. All fathers are alike. Mine doesn’t like me.”
“That’s not true,” Kevin said.
“How do you know? You don’t know my father.”
“I know my father.”
“What’s your father like?” Elena asked.
“He saved my life once.”
“How? Did he do a brave thing?”
“Yes,” Kevin said. “He did a brave thing. He told me I couldn’t go to a party.”
Elena was confused. “But that’s mean,” she said. “Tell me how he saved your life.”
“Let me tell you something else first,” Kevin said. “He asked me not to have certain friends, not to say profane words, not to rebel, not to do this or that. Is that like your father?”
“Yes,” Elena said. “He’s very mean to me.”
“He told me not to go to a party with my friends. He said he loved me, but I didn’t believe him. And I hated him.”
“You were right to hate him,” Elena said. “That was very mean.”
“No, I was wrong. Very wrong,” Kevin said strongly. “He really did love me.”
“I don’t understand,” Elena said. “He didn’t let you go to a party. How is that love?”
“At the party somebody put … put something in the drink. What do you call it?”
“¿Alcohol?” she asked.
“No, that was the drink,” he said feeling ashamed.
“¿Veneno?” she asked.
He didn’t understand that word, so he said, “No, it makes you crazy.” Then in English he said, “Drugs.”
“Oh, drogas,” Elena said starting to understand.
“Three of my friends died in a car,” he told her. “If my father had let me go, I would be dead also. Now do you understand how I know he loves me?”
“Yes,” Elena said. “He let you hate him in order to save you.”
“If my father asks me not to do certain things because he loves me, then why do you think your father asks you not to do them?” Kevin was amazed; the words were coming much more easily now. It was as if he were speaking in his own language.
“Maybe because he loves me,” Elena said answering his question. “Are you really sure?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Kevin said. “And at the same time, tell him you love him.”
The bus stopped. It had reached its destination and was backing into its stall. The passengers began to stand up and get off the bus. Elena stood up and slid past him.
“I don’t know if what you say will work,” she said, “but I’ll try it anyway.” She smiled at him. “You know? Now I know what you missionaries are doing in my country.” Then she was gone.
As Elena left, Kevin said to himself, “So do I now. So do I.”

Perhaps I can do this more quickly by referring to an interview I had in London, England, in 1939, just before the outbreak of the war. I had met a very prominent English gentleman, a member of the House of Commons, formerly one of the justices of the supreme court of England. In my conversations with this gentleman on various subjects—“vexations of the soul,” he called them—we talked about business, law, politics, international relations, and war, and we frequently discussed religion.

He called me on the phone one day and asked if I would meet him at his office and explain some phases of the gospel. He said, “I think there is going to be a war. If there is, you will have to return to America and we may not meet again.” His statement regarding the imminence of war and the possibility that we would not meet again proved to be prophetic.

When I went to his office he said he was intrigued by some things I had told him. He asked me to prepare a brief on Mormonism.

I may say to you students that a brief is a statement of law and facts that lawyers like President Wilkinson prepare when they are going into court to argue a case.

He asked me to prepare a brief on Mormonism and discuss it with him as I would discuss a legal problem. He said, “You have told me that you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. You have said to me that you believe that God the Father and Jesus of Nazareth appeared to Joseph Smith. I cannot understand how a barrister and solicitor from Canada, a man trained in logic and evidence, could accept such absurd statements. What you tell me about Joseph Smith seems fantastic, but I think you should take three days at least to prepare a brief and permit me to examine it and question you on it.”

I suggested that we proceed at once and have an examination for discovery, which is, briefly, a meeting of the opposing sides in a lawsuit where the plaintiff and defendant, with their attorneys, meet to examine each other’s claims and see if they can find some area of agreement, thus saving the time of the court later on.

I said perhaps we could see whether we had some common ground from which we could discuss my “fantastic ideas.” He agreed to that quite readily.

I can only give you, in the few minutes at my disposal, a condensed and abbreviated synopsis of the three-hour conversation that followed. In the interest of time I shall resort to the question-and-answer method, rather than narration.

I began by asking, “May I proceed, sir, on the assumption that you are a Christian?”

“I am.”

“I assume you believe in the Bible—the Old and New Testaments?”

“I do!”

“Do you believe in prayer?”

“I do!”

“You say that my belief that God spoke to a man in this age is fantastic and absurd?”

“To me it is.”

“Do you believe that God ever did speak to anyone?”

“Certainly, all through the Bible we have evidence of that.”

“Did He speak to Adam?”

“Yes.”

“To Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and on through the prophets?”

“I believe He spoke to each of them.”

“Do you believe that contact between God and man ceased when Jesus appeared on the earth?”

“No, such communication reached its climax, its apex, at that time.”

“Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God?”

“He was.”

“Do you believe, sir, that after Jesus was resurrected, a certain lawyer—who was also a tentmaker by the name of Saul of Tarsus—when on his way to Damascus talked with Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified, resurrected, and had ascended into heaven?”

“I do.”

“Whose voice did Saul hear?”

“It was the voice of Jesus Christ, for He so introduced Himself.”

“Then, my Lord—that is the way we address judges in the British Commonwealth—I am submitting to you in all seriousness that it was standard procedure in Bible times for God to talk to man.”

“I think I will admit that, but it stopped shortly after the first century of the Christian era.”

“Why do you think it stopped?”

“I can’t say.”

“You think that God hasn’t spoken since then?”

“I am sure He hasn’t.”

“There must be a reason. Can you give me a reason?”

“I do not know.”

“May I suggest some possible reasons? Perhaps God does not speak to man anymore because He cannot. He has lost the power.”

He said, “Of course that would be blasphemous.”

“Well, then, if you don’t accept that, perhaps He doesn’t speak to men because He doesn’t love us anymore and He is no longer interested in the affairs of men.”

“No,” he said, “God loves all men, and He is no respecter of persons.”

“Well, then, if He could speak, and if He loves us, then the only other possible answer, as I see it, is that we don’t need Him. We have made such rapid strides in science and we are so well educated that we don’t need God anymore.”

And then he said—and his voice trembled as he thought of impending war—“Mr. Brown, there never was a time in the history of the world when the voice of God was needed as it is needed now. Perhaps you can tell me why He doesn’t speak.”

My answer was: “He does speak, He has spoken; but men need faith to hear Him.”

Then we proceeded to prepare what I may call a “profile of a prophet.”

Perhaps you students would like to amplify what I must condense today and draw your own standard or definition of a prophet and see whether Joseph Smith measures up.

We agreed between us that the following characteristics should distinguish a man who claims to be a prophet:
1. He will boldly claim that God had spoken to him.
2. Any man so claiming would be a dignified man with a dignified message—no table jumping, no whisperings from the dead, no clairvoyance, but an intelligent statement of truth.
3. Any man claiming to be a prophet of God would declare his message without any fear and without making any weak concessions to public opinion.
4. If he were speaking for God he could not make concessions, although what he taught would be new and contrary to the accepted teachings of the day. A prophet bears witness to what he has seen and heard and seldom tries to make a case by argument. His message and not himself is important.
5. Such a man would speak in the name of the Lord, saying, “Thus said the Lord,” as did Moses, Joshua, and others.
6. Such a man would predict future events in the name of the Lord, and they would come to pass, as did those predicted by Isaiah and Ezekiel.
7. He would have not only an important message for his time but often a message for all future time, such as Daniel, Jeremiah, and others had.
8. He would have courage and faith enough to endure persecution and to give his life, if need be, for the cause he espoused, such as Peter, James, Paul, and others did.
9. Such a man would denounce wickedness fearlessly. He would generally be rejected or persecuted by the people of his time, but later generations and descendants of his persecutors would build monuments in his honor.
10. He would be able to do superhuman things—things that no man could do without God’s help. The consequence or result of his message and work would be convincing evidence of his prophetic calling: “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20).
11. His teachings would be in strict conformity with scripture, and his words and his writings would become scripture. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21).

Now I have given but an outline that you can fill in and amplify and then measure and judge the Prophet Joseph Smith by the work and stature of other prophets.

I said to my friend, “My Lord, I cannot understand your saying to me that my claims are fantastic. Nor can I understand why Christians who claim to believe in Christ would persecute and put to death a man whose whole purpose was to prove the truth of the things they themselves were declaring; namely, that Jesus was the Christ. I could understand their persecuting Joseph if he had said, ‘I am Christ,’ or if he had said, ‘There is no Christ,’ or if he had said someone else is Christ. Then Christians believing in Christ would be justified in opposing him.

“But what he said was, ‘He whom ye claim to serve, declare I unto you,’ paraphrasing what Paul said in Athens: ‘Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you’ (Acts 17:23). Joseph said to the Christians of his day, ‘You claim to believe in Jesus Christ. I testify that I saw Him and I talked with Him. He is the Son of God. Why persecute me for that?’

“When Joseph came out of the woods, he had at least four fundamental truths, and he announced them to the world: first, that the Father and the Son are separate and distinct individuals; second, that the canon of scripture is not complete; third, that man was created in the bodily image of God; and fourth, the channel between earth and heaven is open and revelation is continuous.”

Perhaps some of you are wondering how the judge reacted to our discussion. He listened intently; he asked some very pointed and searching questions; and, at the end of the period, he said, “Mr. Brown, I wonder if your people appreciate the import of your message. Do you?” He said, “If what you have told me is true, it is the greatest message that has come to this earth since the angels announced the birth of Christ.”

This was a judge speaking—a great statesman, an intelligent man. He threw out the challenge: “Do you appreciate the import of what you say?” He added, “I wish it were true. I hope it may be true. God knows it ought to be true. I would to God,” he said, and he wept as he said it, “that some man could appear on earth and authoritatively say, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’”

As I intimated, we did not meet again.

Like many people who pursue unusual careers, Shawn was concerned at one time with the question of whether or not his career would conflict with his feelings about the Church.
“After I had been in college three years, I wanted to rodeo for a while, and I was worried about the apparent contrast of ideals in my two worlds—the Church and the rodeo. I worried and prayed about it and spent time thinking it over. Then I realized the right answer for me was very simple. I knew the Church was true, and as long as I did the right thing and lived my religion, I couldn’t be doing wrong. I was then at peace with myself, and the Church has turned out to be one of my biggest assets on the rodeo circuit. I have been the subject of a lot of publicity because I am different. Writers casually mention that I am a Mormon cowboy and then go on to explain some of our beliefs. There are a lot of good Catholics and Methodists and other religions represented on the circuit, but their religions never seem to be mentioned.”

Advent calendars are also an important part of the Christmas celebration at the Edwards’ house. Each family member makes one, usually on a family night late in November. Friends are often invited over to help.
“It’s an old tradition in our family,” explained Jeraldine Edwards, mother of the 12 children. “When my husband was a graduate student at Harvard and we were poor, we saw the advent calendars in the store. We had three little children then and couldn’t afford to buy a calendar. So we got construction paper, cut out the windows for the calendar, and let the children cut out the little pictures to paste behind them. As the children grew older, they wanted to make their own, and so it grew to be a tradition.”

As a brand-new chemistry graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, my faculty advisor, Dr. Charlie Perrin, gave me the relatively easy task of replicating the experiments of a student who was leaving our lab. The results from that project were going to be published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, which is a top journal in my field.

When I finished the experiments, my results were the opposite of the original findings. I repeated the experiments several times, but each time the results didn’t match. I began to panic. My failure to replicate felt like evidence that I was terrible in the lab. I took my results to my advisor, and he was surprised. He suggested a series of modified molecules on which I could repeat similar experiments.

I worked hard. I purified materials. I read literature techniques. I did a mountain of experiments. I talked about ideas with my favorite friend in chemistry, Julie, and at the end of a long day I would come home and worry out loud to my husband, Dan. In the end, what we learned is that the original results were inaccurate. Eventually we published a paper in the same journal, retracting the first claims and proposing a new conclusion. In fact, the title changed from the original “Symmetries of Hydrogen Bonds” to “Asymmetry of Hydrogen Bonds.”

Charlie Perrin became one of my heroes. He valued learning truth over protecting his reputation. Every time I entered his office with new ideas or new results, he welcomed them. He felt that even an unexpected or “wrong” result taught us something.

I learned so much from this experience—including that ice cream soothes my soul after a long day—that has shaped me over the years. I learned that experiments help us gain truth, that we can become stronger from struggles, that meaningful results require a lot of time and effort, and that working with others is essential.

When Shawn was 15, he and a friend attended a prestigious national basketball camp with 120 of the best high school players in the United States. A new friend talking with the two Utah players had some pretty wild misconceptions about Mormons.
“He asked me, ‘There are Mormons where you’re from, right? Do you see them? Do you live by them?’
“I answered him,” says Shawn. “Yeah, we go to school with them. We see them all the time. Mormons are like you and me. They are normal people. They look like us. They dress like us. They act like us. They talk like us.
“He didn’t believe me until I said, ‘I can prove to you that Mormons are just normal people.’ He said, ‘How?’ I said, ‘We’re both Mormons.’ It really shook him up. A few days later, that kid started asking more about the Church and our ideals. He couldn’t believe we wouldn’t have sex until after we were married, and that we wouldn’t drink and stuff. It was a heavy-duty discussion for 15-year-olds.
“I ended up bearing my testimony to him. That is the best missionary tool in the world. I just couldn’t find a way of explaining everything I knew. But I knew it was true. It was an excellent feeling to know something is really true.”

“All the Latter-day Saints in New Jersey at that time comprised only one district,” Bishop Eyring related. “And New Jersey had a very large number of people. There were very few branches, and the Church had not yet built a single building there.

“Before World War II our branch met in a hotel. My memories of Sunday School classes are of rented hotel rooms, where we sat on the bed. During the war, from the time I was eight until I was twelve or thirteen, church was held in our home because gas was rationed. Mother was the pianist and the chorister. Father was the branch president. The dining room table was both the speakers’ rostrum and the sacrament table. Usually about ten to twelve people would attend. To me, the Church couldn’t have been more lovely. The relationships I felt at church in my home are what I want to have again with Heavenly Father.”

I recently was able to do one of my most favorite things: hold a new grandchild. I love it because that is something I know how to do, and I do it so well. I visited our youngest child, Tricia, her husband, Jeff, and their first child, Emily. It was so exciting to see this new mother and father discover the wonder of their creation. It never ceases to amaze me that it takes four years of schooling to be able to teach children in elementary school, eight years to put your fingers in someone’s mouth to fill a tooth, but to be a mother or a father—the most important responsibility you will ever have in this earth life and in the eternities—it takes nine months, with no classes. Make a plan for your future family.

I made a plan. I decided that when I had children and put them to bed at night, my children would stay in their beds and not continually get up; and that is exactly what happened. What a pathetic plan. I hope you will make a better plan than I did. Decide what you will teach your children and how you will love them. Then commit to your plan with all of your heart, might, mind, and soul.

When I think of accumulating things and the difference it makes, I think of the experience I had in Bacolod, on the Negros Island in the Philippines.

We were being driven to stake conference by President Ruiz. He had borrowed a car so we would have transportation. When we drove up to the little chapel there in Bacolod, there was no one around. I said, “President, maybe the conference is at another time.” He replied, “No, they’re all inside.” We drove into the parking lot—ours was the only car there. We got out of the car and walked into the chapel. It was packed to capacity and people were standing on the sides. The meeting commenced and the great stake president, President Villerette, stood. He looked at his people and tears began to stream down his face. He said, “I’m hungry. My wife and my children are hungry. All we have to eat is a little bowl of rice each day.” Then he said, “But you, my brothers and sisters, are hungry, too. And I promise you that if you will live and keep the commandments of the Lord that this will pass, and one day again we will have our stomachs full and be able to enjoy the blessings of our country.”

Have you ever been in a place where there is no light? When I was a college student, my friends and I hiked into a cave near Logan, Utah. We were prepared with food and water and, most importantly, flashlights. We hiked about a mile into the mountain, and at the end of our hike in the cave, in a somewhat open chamber, we sat down to eat a snack and drink some water. At one point, we wanted to see what it would be like to be in the dark, so we turned off all of the lights. I will not forget the feeling of being in complete darkness. You could not see your hand if you held it an inch from your face. You lose all sense of direction. You cannot tell left from right or up from down. You can't tell where you are from where you have been. You do not dare to move for fear of running into something or falling, and you can feel helpless. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find your way out of the cave without light. I cannot imagine physically walking in complete darkness.

Thankfully, we do not have to walk in complete spiritual darkness. When my friends and I emerged from the cave on our little spelunking adventure, it was about 10 p.m. It was dark outside but not nearly as dark as in the cave. It is amazing how much light the moon and stars give us. In our lives we do not need to walk in darkness. We have all been given the light of Christ to help illuminate our way. We also have the gift of the Holy Ghost to guide and direct us.

In a recent Sunday Relief Society meeting, I listened to a young mother share part of her journey of conversion. She had grown up in the Church, with parents who taught her the gospel. She attended Primary, Young Women, and seminary. She loved to learn and discover truths. Her constant quest was to know why. Elder Russell M. Nelson has said, “The Lord can only teach an inquiring mind.”4 And this young woman was teachable.

After high school she attended a university, was sealed in the temple to a returned missionary, and was blessed with beautiful children.

With the spirit of inquiry, this mother continued to ask questions. But as the questions grew harder, so did the answers. And sometimes there were no answers—or no answers that brought peace. Eventually, as she sought to find answers, more and more questions arose, and she began to question some of the very foundations of her faith.

During this confusing time, some of those around her said, “Just lean on my faith.” But she thought, “I can’t. You don’t understand; you’re not grappling with these issues.” She explained, “I was willing to extend courtesy to those without doubts if they would extend courtesy to me.” And many did.

She said, “My parents knew my heart and allowed me space. They chose to love me while I was trying to figure it out for myself.” Likewise, this young mother’s bishop often met with her and spoke of his confidence in her.

Ward members also did not hesitate to give love, and she felt included. Her ward was not a place to put on a perfect face; it was a place of nurture.

“It was interesting,” she remembers. “During this time I felt a real connection to my grandparents who had died. They were pulling for me and urging me to keep trying. I felt they were saying, ‘Focus on what you know.’”

In spite of her substantial support system, she became less active. She said, “I did not separate myself from the Church because of bad behavior, spiritual apathy, looking for an excuse not to live the commandments, or searching for an easy out. I felt I needed the answer to the question ‘What do I really believe?’”

About this time she read a book of the writings of Mother Teresa, who had shared similar feelings. In a 1953 letter, Mother Teresa wrote: “Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself—for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work.’ Ask Our Lord to give me courage.”

Archbishop Périer responded: “God guides you, dear Mother; you are not so much in the dark as you think. The path to be followed may not always be clear at once. Pray for light; do not decide too quickly, listen to what others have to say, consider their reasons. You will always find something to help you. … Guided by faith, by prayer, and by reason with a right intention, you have enough.”5

My friend thought if Mother Teresa could live her religion without all the answers and without a feeling of clarity in all things, maybe she could too. She could take one simple step forward in faith—and then another. She could focus on the truths she did believe and let those truths fill her mind and heart.

As she reflected back, she said, “My testimony had become like a pile of ashes. It had all burned down. All that remained was Jesus Christ.” She continued, “But He does not leave you when you have questions. When anyone tries to keep the commandments, the door is wide open. Prayer and scripture study became incredibly important.”

Her first step to rebuild her faith was to start with basic gospel truths. She bought a Primary songbook and began reading the words of the songs. They were treasures to her. She prayed for faith to lift the heaviness she felt.

She learned that when she came up against a statement that caused her to doubt, she “could stop, look at the whole picture, and make the gospel personal.” She said, “I would ask, ‘Is this the right path for me and my family?’ Sometimes I would ask myself, ‘What do I want for my children?’ I realized I want them to have temple marriages. That’s when belief came back to my heart.”

Though she had questions about how the Book of Mormon came to be, she could not deny the truths she knew in the Book of Mormon. She had focused on studying the New Testament to better understand the Savior. “But eventually,” she said, “I found myself back in the Book of Mormon because I loved what I felt when reading about Jesus Christ and His Atonement.”

She concluded, “You have to have your own spiritual experiences with the truths in that book,” and she was having them. She explained, “I read in Mosiah and felt completely directed: ‘Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things … ; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.’7”

About this time a call came to serve as Primary pianist. “It was safe,” she said. “I wanted to have my children in Primary, and now I could be with them. And I wasn’t ready to teach yet.” As she served, she continued to feel from those around her the invitation “Come; we want you, whatever stage you are at, and we will meet you there. Give us whatever you have to offer.”

Playing the Primary songs, she often thought to herself, “Here are truths I love. I can still bear testimony. I will just say those things that I know and trust. It may not be a perfect offering of knowledge, but it will be my offering. What I focus on expands inside of me. It is beautiful to get back to the essence of the gospel and feel clarity.”

On that Sunday morning, as I listened to this young sister share the story of her journey, I was reminded that “it is upon the rock of our Redeemer” that we all must build our foundation.8 I was also reminded of the counsel of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: “Hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes.”9

Artur Tomaszewski could defend himself if the need arose. After all, he was the national jujitsu champion in his native Poland at age 17. But he believes the wisest course is always to seek peace first. That is what he was doing, in a way, when he won his greatest battle—the struggle to find truth.
As a young boy, Artur had studied the Bible and formed questions about his relationship to God and about God’s true Church. No one had answers to satisfy him. Finally, he prayed to God to show him which church was true.
Does this story sound familiar?
Both the answer Artur received and the way it came surprised him.
As a youth, he says, “I liked to study about different religions.” His study convinced him that the Church of Jesus Christ ought to be on the earth. Yet he could not find one that seemed to meet biblical criteria. He was even tempted at one point to wonder if God really existed, but the faith that lived inside him overcame that doubt. He knew that if anyone could provide answers, it would be God. There came a time when he was 18 that Artur prayed, specifically asking to be led to the true Church.
Not long afterward, while he was visiting at the home of his aunt, he saw a dusty book sitting on a shelf. It was titled the Book of Mormon. His aunt had received it from some sister missionaries, then had laid it aside and forgotten it.
Artur picked it up and put it back down three times, struggling over whether to read it. No, he would not; he believed only in the Bible. But this book said it was another testament of Jesus Christ. No, this Joseph Smith story at the beginning was too fantastic. But what if it was true? No, the story in the first 20 pages of the book was simply foreign to all he knew.
Still, what he had read stayed with him all week long. When he returned to his aunt’s house, planning to resume reading where he had left off, the book was gone!
It would be some time before Artur received his own copy of the Book of Mormon.
He introduced himself to missionaries on the street in Katowice. When they did not call him immediately as promised (this is a mistake Elder Tomaszewski the missionary does not make now), he decided to seek them out on a Sunday morning at the meetinghouse address on a flyer they had given him.
It happened to be a fast Sunday, and as members bore their testimonies, Artur felt the same feeling of peace and surety that had stayed with him after his first reading in the Book of Mormon. The feeling was so strong that he wanted to stand and bear his own testimony that the book was true, but he did not know if this would be permitted.
When the missionaries finally gave him his own copy of the Book of Mormon, they asked him solemnly if he would promise to read it and pray for an answer about its truthfulness. Artur laughed. He already knew he could get an answer from God.
He read and he prayed. The answer that came was so strong it seemed to be not only a feeling, but also “like light to my eyes,” giving great clarity to the truths he already knew from the Bible. He laughed out loud once more, wondering if the answer about the Church of Jesus Christ could really be this “clear and simple.” He had thought it might be some complicated thing. He prayed again to be sure and received the same strong answer, assuring him that God’s truths are plain, not complicated.
“When I found out it was true, I went home full of joy,” he recalls. But no one wanted to share the joy. His mother and two younger brothers were not interested. His father was antagonistic. After Artur’s baptism in 2002, he had almost no support from friends and acquaintances either, except within his branch.
Religious tradition is very strong in Poland. No one could understand why he wanted to leave the dominant faith. Still, he says, his parents’ teaching and example were very valuable in preparing him to find the truth. “I’m grateful they did what they knew how to do in teaching me.”
Being alone in living the gospel did not break down his faith. When he determined to serve a mission, he was willing to give up the jujitsu practices and competitions he loved—something that had been part of his life from childhood—to work and save money for a mission. Jujitsu, he says, was an art form for him. “I felt like a painter painting a picture when I practiced.” But working left him no time to practice.
Before leaving his hometown of Mystowice to serve as a missionary, Elder Tomaszewski left a challenge for his younger brother Patryk, who was also deeply involved in jujitsu. “If you want to find out why I’m doing this, why I’m giving up my sport, read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.”
Elder Tomaszewski says some of the qualities developed through the discipline of jujitsu have been helpful in the mission field: patience, humility, and the capacity for hard work.
What does he like most about missionary work?
“Often when I’m really tired, when I feel like I don’t have any strength left and maybe I’m lacking a little in faith, we knock on a door and find someone,” he says. Finding someone who wants to listen sometimes makes him so excited he can’t sleep.
And what has been his best day as a missionary?
The day he learned that his younger brother had taken his challenge to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Patryk Tomaszewski also received a testimony. He was baptized in August 2004.
Now there are two Tomaszewskis to share the joy of the gospel.

Illustration by David Malan
A year after becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I sent in my papers to serve as a full-time missionary. My family was totally against me serving a mission and thought that I should get my master’s degree instead. I had recently finished my bachelor’s degree, and it was always my dream to get a master’s degree when I finished. My professors were willing to help me as well because I was a good student.
As I prepared to leave for my mission, life became very difficult financially for my family. My oldest brother lost his job. A short time later the company where my father had worked for many years began to fail economically, and he was laid off. My father ended up using all of his government benefits to help my grandmother, and one night I saw him crying because he didn’t know how to support the family.
At the time, I was receiving a university scholarship that was about equal to half of a minimum wage salary. When I received my payments, I would always pay my tithing first. But when I received my most recent payment after my father lost his job, my mother asked me not to give money to the Church because we needed it at home. I told her about tithing and its importance and showed her the promise the Lord gave in Malachi 3:10. Although she wasn’t happy, I paid my tithing and I knew that it was right.
While I continued my mission preparation, I entered a competition at a local university just to see how I would do. I passed and was offered a position where I could earn almost the same amount of money that my father had earned in his job. It would be enough to take care of my family until my father could retire. My family hoped that I would take the job.
I prayed a lot, and the Lord responded that I needed to go out to the mission field. I trusted Him and accepted my call to the Brazil Santa Maria Mission. The Lord blessed my family while I was gone on my mission. I know the windows of heaven were opened (see Malachi 3:10). My father and brother found work again, and the family was able to raise dairy cows for more income.
My testimony of Jesus Christ and His work has grown, and seeing the joy on the faces and the change in the hearts of those I served is something very valuable to me. No amount of money is equal to the blessing of seeing families prepare to go to the temple and be sealed.

“Let me tell you a story,” Sister Lee said with a twinkle in her eye. “When I was about your age, we used to have junior Sunday School on Sunday mornings, then we went home for lunch and returned to church later in the evening for sacrament meeting.”
“How weird!” Steven exclaimed, making a funny face.
“It does seem odd now, but then it was just the way we did things. During junior Sunday School, we took the sacrament. We sat in our classes instead of with our families.
“One day, I was sitting on the end of our row. When the deacon passed the sacrament to me, I looked up and realized how terribly big he was. I had never taken the sacrament tray from the deacon before. Usually I sat in the middle of my class, and one of the other children would pass it to me. I started to cry. I was very shy and afraid to take the sacrament from the deacon. Some of the children in the other classes noticed me crying and turned around to find out what was wrong. That just made everything worse. I was so embarrassed that I hid my face behind my teacher’s arm.”
“You were embarrassed to take the sacrament?” Austin asked.
“I was afraid of the big deacon,” Sister Lee explained. “My teacher thought I must not like the deacon, so she asked another one to come over and give me the sacrament. When I peeked out from behind her arm and saw another deacon, I cried harder.”
“Did you ever take the sacrament?” Steven asked.
“My teacher took it for me and held it in her hand until no one was watching. Then she quietly handed it to me. Each Sunday after that, she would always ask if I wanted her help.”