Gospel Story Finder

When I was a boy, at Christmastime my mother put out a picture of the Savior knocking at a door. We weren’t members of the Church yet, and I always asked, “Why is Jesus knocking on the door? Who is on the other side?”
A few years later I discovered there was no handle on the outside of the door the Savior was knocking on. The person on the inside needed to open the door. Now I know who is on the other side of the door. We are! The Savior is knocking, and we all have to open the door and invite Him to come into our lives.

I recently spoke with a faithful man who shared with me the deepest feelings of his heart. In a meeting, I had just explained the difference between being called to the work and assigned to labor. This good brother shook my hand and with tears in his eyes said to me, “The things you helped me learn today have lifted a burden from my shoulders that I have carried for more than 30 years. As a young missionary, I was initially assigned to a field of labor in South America. But I was unable to obtain a visa, so my assignment was changed to the United States. All these years I have wondered why I was unable to serve in the place to which I had been called. Now I know I was called to the work and not to a place. I cannot tell you how much this understanding has helped me.”

My heart ached for this good man. As I have taught these basic principles throughout the world, countless individuals have expressed privately to me the same sentiment as the man I just described. I am addressing this subject today because not a single member of this Church should carry an unnecessary burden of misunderstanding, uncertainty, anguish, or guilt about an assignment to labor.

“Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye cannot go amiss.” As you ponder the words of this scripture and open your heart, I hope and pray you will invite the Holy Ghost to carry deep into your soul the understanding, the healing, and the restoring you may need.

My mother died in March, not from the arthritis that she had fought for several years but from pneumonia. I didn’t even know someone could get pneumonia that way. I mean she hardly ever left our home.
They say the hardest time to get through is the first Christmas after something like that happens. I guess that’s true. It’s like a complicated puzzle somebody gives you that you never wanted. You work on it hour after hour but never solve it. My thoughts keep going back to last Christmas—sorting through each detail, measuring each gesture, weighing every word. Lately I’ve been trying to remember what I gave her for Christmas, but I can’t. But I do remember what she gave me.
Arthritis is a slow disease. From day to day there doesn’t seem to be any change. I don’t even know exactly when it began, maybe four or five years ago. During that time it took my mother’s hands and deformed the joints, and bent her neck so she couldn’t hold her head erect, and weakened her knees so she couldn’t walk.
At first Dad and I had hope about getting her well. They’re doing lots of research, we thought, and any time they might find a cure. Besides, there were always people talking about a relative who ate sunflower seeds or drank goat’s milk and was cured.
“I wouldn’t mind being sick,” my mother would say, “if I could look pretty at the same time.” She was pretty once. Sometimes I look at my parents’ picture taken outside the Salt Lake Temple when they were married. My mother looks so young in the picture. My dad has dark hair and is still lean. Of course, now he’s lost most of his hair and put on a little weight around the belt.
There’s something strange about that picture. All over the temple grounds, except on the sidewalk where it’s been shoveled, there is newly fallen snow. But my mother in her white wedding gown is holding a large bunch of lilac blossoms in her arms. It must have been a late spring snowstorm that came after the lilacs had bloomed. I wish I had asked her about the lilacs.
After the disease started to win, my mother had Dad take down the mirror in the hall so she wouldn’t see herself when we wheeled her from the bedroom into the living room. She weighed less than 90 pounds.
My mother was a good musician. She was in charge of the ward choir as far back as I can remember. She also played piano in Primary. When anyone wanted a special number in sacrament meeting, they would call her up and she’d arrange it. Every Christmas she would get music together for a special presentation in church. But a year before she died, she had to ask to be released because of the arthritis.
Last year at this time I was a senior in high school. Kara Erickson and I went together to most of the ward activities. We weren’t really going steady, but in our ward there weren’t many others our age, and besides we liked each other.
One Wednesday near Christmas at Aaronic Priesthood and Young Women activity night, they turned the time over to Sister Robbins. She and her husband had just moved from Utah, where they had both been going to school.
“The bishop has asked me to be in charge of a special youth vocal number for the program before Christmas. What do you want to sing?”
There were a few groans from the Scouts.
“‘Silent Night,’” one of the Beehive girls said.
“That’s too slow,” someone else complained.
“Yea, something that doesn’t drag.”
“Christmas is such a happy time. Let’s do something with some life to it, like ‘Deck the Halls.’”
I got up and walked out into the hall and waited for them to finish singing so I could go to class. Somehow I felt depressed that they would have Christmas music without my mother there to help.
Later I drove Kara home.
There’s something you should know about Kara. She’s really beautiful and smart and everything, but in high school she didn’t get asked out as much as you’d expect. One day in early morning seminary when we were 16, we were talking about dating. She told the class that she had decided she wasn’t going to date nonmembers and she wasn’t going to kiss any guy until she was sure she loved him enough to marry him. Some of the kids in the class thought that was dumb about not kissing. But she wouldn’t change her mind.
There aren’t that many LDS guys in our small Montana town. By the time we were both seniors, I was the only one dating her, although we never decided to go steady.
After we had been dating for a long time, guys at school would come up to me and ask, “You mean you’ve never even kissed her once?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe it. That’s not normal.”
Of course, I would have liked to kiss her. But sometimes I wonder if we weren’t closer that way. I mean we talked a lot. And I began to see how lucky the guy would be who did marry her.
But that night I wasn’t very good company. We pulled up in front of her house and stopped.
“Steve, Sister Robbins was asking about you. Why didn’t you stay for the practice?”
“I didn’t feel like singing.”
“She really needs you; she only has two others singing bass.”
“I won’t sing.”
“She’s got some arrangements of things they did at BYU. She says it’s going to be the best ever.”
“It was the best when my mother led the singing.”
Another thing about Kara and me—we ended our dates with prayer. We didn’t tell anybody about that; they would have really laughed about that.
We got two weeks vacation from school for Christmas. At the same time the lady who stayed with my mother during the day asked for time off to visit her sister in Kansas. My dad asked me if I would stay home during the days of my vacation to help out my mother.
Each day of the vacation seemed much like the one before. When she woke up I would lift her out of bed into the wheelchair. I helped her wash up, getting the washcloth wet with warm water, putting soap on it, and handing it to her. When she was finished, I would rinse it out, let her get the soap off, and hand her a towel.
Eventually we got to the kitchen, and I fixed her something to eat. After breakfast I’d get her some aspirin and a Darvon. Then I wheeled her into the living room and turned on the TV. It didn’t really matter what was on. Just anything to take her mind off the pain. About 11:00 the mail came. At noon I fixed her lunch. In the afternoon she tried to walk. I’d stand beside her and hold onto her, and she’d put one foot a couple of inches in front of the other and slowly move forward. After going a couple of feet she’d be exhausted, and I would put her on the couch so she could rest.
Thursday before Christmas she had an appointment with the doctor. My dad came home from work early. He moved the car into the driveway, opening the right front door. Then he came inside and picked her up in his arms and carried her to the car.
As he began to slide her into the front seat, he stumbled a little. Her legs hit the door post.
“You clumsy!” she screamed at him. “Can’t you see you’re hurting me?”
On the way to the doctor my mother cried, first from the pain, and then because she’d said that to my dad. But he understood how it was for her.
When we got home after the appointment, Dad carried my mother into the bedroom and let her rest. Then he had to go back to work.
I turned on the TV. There was something secure about sitting there. It was as if I could plug my mind into it and let it guide me so I’d never have to remember my mother screaming with pain.
Later I went to our bookshelf and looked a long time at my parents’ wedding picture. I wondered what my dad would have done if somehow before the wedding he had been told that 20 years later that young girl beside him would turn brittle. And I wondered what disease might lay locked up inside Kara—or myself.
That night I had to get away, so I took Kara to the movies. The movie was as depressing as the day had been. After the movie I took her right home. As soon as the car stopped I opened the door and went around to the other side to let her out.
“Aren’t we going to pray together tonight?”
“Don’t ask that tonight. Just go inside.”
“Steve, please.”
“Okay,” I said harshly. “Will you offer it?”
She knew I felt rotten, and she was trying to help. “Could we kneel? We could go in the backyard by the trees.”
“Whatever you say,” I said angrily. We walked out into her backyard.
When we got to the place, isolated by some trees, she knelt down. I stood there looking at her, unable to make myself kneel down.
“I can’t, Kara. You go ahead.”
“Why can’t you pray?”
“God doesn’t listen to me anymore,” I said with bitterness.
“He loves you, Steve.”
“No, not me. The only thing I’ve ever asked him recently is that my mother would get better. Kara, she’s getting worse. But you go ahead. Don’t let me stop you. Pray for good health for your family. God listens to you.”
“Don’t say those things,” she said, hurt and disappointed.
“Well go ahead and pray if you want to pray!” I yelled at her.
She began to cry. After a few minutes that seemed a hundred years in which I couldn’t seem to force myself to move or help her, I finally broke loose and helped her to her feet. I took a tissue and wiped away the tears that I had caused.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you,” I said.
“I know. It’s not easy for you at home.”
We walked into the front yard. The Christmas tree lights glowed delicately from the living room window. I could see Kara’s mother busy sewing a dress.
“Merry Christmas,” I said grimly. “Are there really people on the earth who have a merry Christmas? I’m so afraid of Christmas this year. I wish I could take a pill and go to sleep and not wake up until January.”
“Steve, if you would sing with us Sunday, it would be good for you.”
“No, the words would choke me. My mother used to do so much in music that it’d haunt me. You go ahead. I’m sure it will be fine. Just don’t ask me to sing.”
Friday morning was the same as Thursday morning. The TV was showing a lot of movies about Christmas. I saw White Christmas with Bing Crosby three times that week.
In the afternoon my mother slept for about an hour. When she woke up, I got her a glass of milk with brewer’s yeast in it.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Three o’clock.”
“Can you change it to channel four?”
I got up and changed the channel. There was a documentary on fish farms in the South.
“Are you sure you’re on channel four? It’s supposed to be Search for Tomorrow.”
“It’s the right channel. Do you want me to leave it there?”
“If they say they’re going to show something at a certain time, why don’t they show it?”
“I don’t know. What do you want me to do?”
“Change over to channel seven,” she said.
“Do you want that?” I asked, looking at a program on French cooking.
“I don’t know what I want,” she said numbly. “Turn back to channel four, but turn the volume down so we’ll know if Search for Tomorrow comes on. Do you think I should take some aspirin? What time is it?”
“A little after three.”
“I guess I’ll wait so they’ll be still working when your dad comes home. Can you put me on the wheelchair and roll me out by the window?”
I pushed her next to our picture window. “Still no snow,” she said, looking out at the grays and browns. “It doesn’t seem much like Christmas, does it?”
“No.”
“A few years ago I’d be busy now getting ready for the musical program on Sunday. Do you remember when we sang parts from the Messiah? We invited the whole town. One year we had the Primary children sing the whole program. Once we even had a string quartet. I wonder if anyone in the ward remembers that.”
I said that they did, although people move in and out in our ward so fast that I doubted if very many people were still here that were here then.
“I’ve been away for so long. I don’t even know the people in the choir now. Have you met Sister Robbins? Kara’s mother told me she’s the choir leader now. I bet they’ll be singing this Sunday. Will you tell me how it goes?”
“I’m not going.”
“Steve, you’ve never missed before.”
“I’ll go to Livingston for church, but I’m not going to our ward. Don’t ask me to do it. I wish it were over.”
“What’s wrong?”
“When they sing, I’ll be sad that you’re not up there singing. In the talks someone will get up and say what great blessings he’s received. Well, we live the gospel, and you’re sick. Where are our blessings?”
“Steve, I’ve never heard you talk like that.”
“It’s just Christmas. I’ll be okay after it’s over.”
I know that really bothered her. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it. I guess if I had known she was going to die in a few months, I would have held my tongue. But I didn’t know that.
I sat down, turned up the TV, and tried to plug my mind into its security.
After a few minutes, during a commercial, I got up and rolled her back to her chair. I got her an aspirin, a Darvon pill, and a glass of water and then sat down and watched Lucy.
After Lucy there was the Brady Bunch.
“Steve, turn the TV off.”
I turned it off.
“Do you remember when we used to make special cookies for Christmas? Why don’t you and I make some now? We’ll surprise your dad when he comes home. It’ll be just like it used to be.”
I rolled her into the kitchen. She seemed excited about making the cookies. She told me what to do, helping me find the recipe, telling me where the cookie cutters were so we could make Christmas trees, Santa. Clauses, and stars. She said she’d cut out the shapes after we’d finished with the dough.
I started on the recipe, adding each ingredient as it was listed.
“A cup of sugar,” I read, going to the cupboard.
“That’s not enough.”
“It says one cup.”
“I changed the recipe. I put in more sugar.”
“How much more?”
“I can’t remember.”
“How about if I put in a cup and follow the recipe?”
“It won’t taste the same as it did on other Christmases.”
Nothing about this Christmas is going to be the same, I thought to myself.
After I finished mixing the cookie dough, I put down some waxed paper on the table and rolled the dough out.
My mother wanted to help with the cookies to please Dad. She picked up one of the cookie cutters and placed it on the dough and pressed. Although she made an indentation in the dough, she couldn’t seem to push hard enough to actually cut out the shape. She tried it again. I wanted to help her, but she wanted to do it herself so Dad would be proud.
Suddenly she just quit. “I can’t do it. I can’t do anything. There’s nothing I can do. I’m no good to anyone.”
I picked up the dough, ran with it to the disposal, and got rid of it.
I pushed her back to the living room. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t use her hands very well to stop them, and so they streamed down and fell from her face.
We turned on the TV and sat there silently watching a documentary on raising African violets. After that we watched Password.
“Steve, I don’t want to watch any more TV.” I turned it off.
“What is this disease doing to us?” she asked. “You asked where our blessings were. Don’t you know?”
“I want you to be well. That’s all I want. Why can’t God hear me?”
“I used to wonder that too. He hears us. But if he rewarded everyone who loved him with good health and everyone who disobeyed him with sickness, who wouldn’t follow him? But then there would be no free agency. The glory of the gospel is that even in pain we can maintain our faith. This is not going to defeat me. I’m going to fight it all the way. And someday I’ll walk.”
I looked at her weak legs, feeling she’d never walk, and said weakly, “Sure you will.”
“I will. If not here in this life then in the next. I’ve memorized a scripture. ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’
“I’ll see him. I’ll stand. I’ll walk again. Because of the Savior I’ll stand.”
She’d never talked to me like that before.
“Steve, when I dream in the night, I dream I’m walking. I’ll walk again. Your dad and I have been through the temple; we’ve tried to do the best we could. I want so much to stand someday beside your father and be with him in the celestial kingdom, not with this deformed body, but with a body that can stand tall and walk. That hope is one of my greatest blessings. Don’t you understand?”
I nodded my head.
“Can we have a prayer before your dad comes home so he won’t have to bear any more burden than he has already?”
“I can’t pray, Mom. I don’t even know what to ask for anymore.”
“Please, son, honor your priesthood.”
“Father in heaven, please help us get through Christmas with some happiness. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
My dad came home about 5:00. I helped him cook supper. After that we took out our plastic tree, assembled it, and put a few ornaments on it. We put our presents under the tree. Then we sat down and watched TV.
About 8:00 we heard some car doors slam, and in a minute our doorbell rang. My dad opened the door.
It was Sister Robbins, Kara, and a bunch of kids from church.
“Could I talk to your wife?” Sister Robbins asked.
“I’m sorry to bother you like this, but we need your help. We’re supposed to put on a part for the Christmas program Sunday, and I’m afraid I’ve gotten in over my head. The kids told me you used to do this all the time. I was wondering if you’d mind listening to us and giving your suggestions.”
They got around the piano and began to sing. When they finished, my mother gave some ideas to help it. We sang another song. You should have seen my mother. The body was deformed, the old pale robe hiding weak and spindly arms and legs. But her eyes came alive. She listened and helped with such enthusiasm. Before long she had us singing parts.
I’ve found out since then that Sister Robbins is really a good musician. I’m not sure she needed as much help as she said she did. That night she asked my mother about every little thing. My mother lit up. The more she helped, the more spirit came into her face.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Sister Robbins said at one point.
“Well, remember, I’ve had 20 years working on choirs.”
While they talked I went into the kitchen. Kara was talking to my dad while they both set out plates and glasses.
“Your dad says you’re becoming quite a help in the kitchen.”
“He’ll make somebody a fine husband,” my dad said with a grin. “After his mission, that is,” he added.
Kara set out a fresh batch of Christmas cookies she had made that afternoon. She had planned the whole thing with Sister Robbins. She was the way in which Heavenly Father answered my prayer.
We had cookies and milk. After that we sang more Christmas songs. My mother led us with nods of her head.
Of course, I sang with the choir that Sunday. My dad brought my mother to Church long enough to partake of the sacrament and listen to the musical numbers, and then the pain got too bad for her, and he had to take her home.
When I remember my mother, I can’t altogether forget the pain she had nor forget the savage way arthritis dealt with her. That’s a part of my life.
My thoughts often go back to the picture of her as a young bride holding those lilacs in the midst of all that snow. At the same time I remember her saying, “I’ll stand. I’ll walk again. Because of the Savior I’ll stand!”
That’s what she gave me for our last Christmas. Somehow I think that is what she would want me to remember.

In Ephraim’s mind the winter, the cold, the flutelike sound began to dissolve. It was summer, July. The sun burned hot and bright in the sky. There was the spicy, warm smell of hot sagebrush. A lizard with a gray body and bright blue sides sat motionless on a rock with only his transparent eyelids moving.
Sweat streaked Ephraim’s face. He had arrived in Salt Lake Valley a few weeks before and was building his first home. There was a strong frame of thick pine poles. Next to the frame, piles of yellow-brown adobe bricks were stacked neatly. They were good, strong bricks made from fine clay, the finest in the valley.
To help him build the walls, Ephraim had hired a bricklayer. They had finished laying the brick walls waist high when they heard the carriage coming. The lizard vanished beneath the rock.
Brigham Young leaned forward in his carriage. His shirt and trousers were gray with dust.
“Brother Hanks, how thick are you building the walls?”
“Eight inches, President Young.”
Brigham licked his lips, moved his eyes slowly over the building frame and partially finished walls, over the stacked pile of bricks, and then directly into Ephraim’s eyes. Ephraim felt their deep, blue embracing power. Brigham’s lip curled up and a broad smile spread across his face.
“Double that,” he said. “Make those walls 16 inches thick.”
Before Ephraim could ask questions President Young disappeared behind a cloud of dust. The dust settled slow in the still, hot air.
“Sixteen-inch walls,” the bricklayer exhaled. “That’s crazy. That’s twice as many bricks. We’d have to tear everything down, start over. We’d even have to build new frames. Most people only build six-inch walls. Sixteen inches is crazy.”
The bricklayer looked down at his hands and then took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It left a dark streak.
“You’re not going to do it are you, Eph?”
“Sixteen-inch walls,” Ephraim repeated the words. Silent, he watched the dust settle. The lizard came from under the rock and sat motionless in the sun. Ephraim tasted the hot air.
Sixteen-inch walls, why? He thought of the work already put into the house. It would take two more weeks just for brick with 16-inch walls. Was President Young just throwing advice out of the top of his hat?
Ephraim squatted down and drew a circle in the gray soil. The hot stillness was intense. He could hear the bricklayer’s breathing. Anger came into him suddenly. He took a handful of soil in a tight fist.
“No. I will not do it.”
His muscles tensed. The veins stuck out on his arms.
Then he relaxed his hand. The soil sifted through his fingers.
“Have I come this far for nothing? Nauvoo, the Mormon Battalion? I’ve followed him here. I won’t stop now.” He exhaled softly.
“Sixteen-inch walls,” Ephraim smiled and looked at the bricklayer. “Maybe President Young is just throwing advice out of the top of his hat, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. The Lord chose him to lead, and I’m gonna follow.”
A week after the house was finished, the rain came. After a month of no rain, it came in hard driving waves from fierce, black clouds. At first it pocked the earth with small craters, the dry soil unable to hold it, and the water rolled off, cutting little, growing furrows. Then the furrows snaked down and met with a hundred more furrows until the dry wash beds filled with angry, gray water. The floods came out of the canyons, newborn rivers, covering, fanning out, ripping, and tearing.
Then the rain stopped, and the sun sent warm, orange radials down from a rift in the clouds. Most of the new houses along the foothills were gone, clothing, furniture, everything not carried to high ground, lost beneath alluvials of mud and rock.
But in the orange glow the 16-inch walls still stood.

This was the first youth conference Chris Windham, 14, of the Nacogdoches Ward, Longview Texas Stake, had attended. He had fun at the dances, listened to the speakers, and filled up on good food. But his strongest memory might be when his group came to the final house as they installed their last smoke detector. It was Chris’s turn to talk to the homeowner and explain their purpose. Each group member had taken a turn being the one to handle the screwdriver, hold the ladder, or do the talking.
At this house, it was Chris’s turn to talk. He reached for a picture of Christ. It was supposed to have someone’s testimony written in the accompanying paper. But they had run short, and the paper was blank.
Chris handed the picture to the man they had just met. He said, “I don’t have a written testimony to give you with this picture of Christ.”
He paused. The adult leaders, who were standing behind him, glanced at each other. What was Chris going to do?
As Chris said later, the Spirit was urging him to tell this man what he believed. So, without hesitation, Chris bore his testimony with power and conviction to someone he had just met. “I know that Christ lived, and that He suffered and died for us. …”
As Chris spoke, tears sprang to the eyes of the man listening. He carefully held the picture of Christ, with head bowed, and listened to the words of a 14-year-old boy.
For a few days, the LDS youth in these two stakes didn’t feel so few in numbers. They were a force for good, and they pulled strength from being together. They bore their testimonies, in writing and in testimony meeting.
Melanie Paul, 16, Coushatta Branch, Shreveport Louisiana Stake, said about their written testimonies, “These are going to people who may change their lives. I stressed the influence of Jesus Christ in my life. They may never get another chance to hear a testimony from a member of the Church. When you start writing, you aren’t just saying empty phrases. It’s true.”
This group also wanted to take sides against a chorus of bad influences. “The advertising is all aimed at kids our age,” said John Daniels, 18, Queen City Ward, Shreveport Louisiana Stake, “encouraging us to smoke, to drink, to do other things. We need someone on the other side, warning us, telling us where we can go wrong and how to avoid it.”
The voice of warning against the vices of the world may not be as loud and strident as a smoke detector, but for those with ears to hear, it is just as compelling, a voice of warning that may save someone’s life eternally.

I was raised in a place where the Church was not well known—a town now called Berkh, in northern Mongolia. I am the middle child of three boys, and growing up, we were together all the time. When my older brother went to the city to go to school, I missed him a lot. Two years later he came home for his summer vacation. That summer our family went hunting for three months in the rocky hills. It was one of the best summer vacations of my life.
My brother started telling me about a church he had joined called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At that time I didn’t like Christian churches, so I didn’t pay much attention to what he was telling me.
One autumn day we arrived home from hunting to discover some visitors from the city. They were from the Church that my brother had been talking about. He returned to the city with them that night. Later we heard why he had left: he had received a mission call. He hadn’t even told us he had sent in his application! My older brother left for his mission to the United States of America soon after.
The next year, when I finished high school, I went to the city to attend a university. The family I stayed with turned out to be members of the Church. On Sunday morning they invited me to come to church with them. Since I’d heard a lot about this Church, I decided that I would try going once.
I ended up attending church many times. I couldn’t help but feel peaceful every time I was there. People there were nice, always shaking hands with me. The Church was different from what I had thought. Soon I started taking discussions from the missionaries. I met with the missionaries for almost two years.
I knew I wanted to be baptized, but my baptism had to be postponed because of my struggles with the Word of Wisdom. It was difficult for me, but eventually I was ready for baptism. I was fortunate to be baptized by my older brother, who had returned from his mission only months earlier. When I remember that moment now, I cry sometimes. It was the happiest moment of my life.
After I joined the Church, my brother talked about missionary work almost every day. He always encouraged me to go on a mission. With his help, I filled out my mission application. I will never forget how happy my older brother and I were then.
One evening my brother called me to come and meet with him after work. He wanted to talk with me about some things relating to my mission. We set a time to meet at the central square.
Around this time parliamentary elections were happening in Mongolia. When we met at the central square, citizens were holding a demonstration because of the election. Police were there, but the demonstration was getting violent and scary, escalating into a riot. A big building and several cars were on fire, and people were screaming. It was frightening.
My brother and I had met far away from the demonstration, but he was worried. He gave me money for a taxi and told me to go straight home. He told me that I would see him the next day. He planned to go back to his home, which was close to where he worked. The taxi arrived, and we said a quick good-bye before I drove away.
I soon found out that the government had closed all the roads because of the rioting. Unable to get to my home, which was in the outskirts of the city, I spent the night at work instead. Armored cars and armed soldiers were everywhere. The fighting worsened, and that night a state of emergency was called. It lasted for four days.
When the state of emergency ended, my brother-in-law came to pick me up. We got to his home to find all our relatives waiting there. They were all crying. I learned that my older brother had been shot as he was walking home.
My heart felt like it was going to burst. My brother died when he was 24 because of that demonstration. The days following my brother’s death were among the most horrible of my life.
It was during this difficult time that I received my mission call. After having been through my conversion, baptism, and mission paper preparation with my brother, I was left to open my mission call alone. To my surprise, I was called to serve in my own country.
Since I was alone, I knelt down right there and thanked my Heavenly Father in prayer. And I prayed for my brother. I cried and cried while I prayed. At this time, when there was so much hurt and loneliness in my heart, I felt the Spirit witness of the plan of salvation more deeply to me, and my faith was strengthened.
Left to right: Amarsanaa and his brothers, Dorjsuren and Amarsaikhan
Even though my brother was not there to open my mission call with me, I will always be grateful to him. I am also very grateful that God has given us the plan of salvation through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is the most amazing plan. If we follow this plan, we will feel peace in our hearts.
The scriptures tell us: “O how great the plan of our God! For … the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the body is restored to itself again, and all men become incorruptible, and immortal, and they are living souls” (2 Nephi 9:13).
I know that my brother is alive in the spirit world. This knowledge gives me the confidence I need to do well on my mission. I know he will be with me during the difficult times—and so will the Lord.

I had been serving with the U.S. Army in Vietnam for two years. Vietnam has two seasons, hot and dry and hot and wet. This morning was hot and wet, just as each previous day had been for the past several weeks. I was sitting in a shallow ditch, too tired to care about the mud oozing into my army boots or the stench of the blood stained water around my feet. Sweat was pouring down my brow, soaking my shirt. The oppressive heat made breathing laborious.
I had spent the past three weeks on patrol operations. Now, with those of my colleagues still alive, I was waiting by a loading zone for helicopters to take us back to base camp.
I thought of the past few days—of my friends who had died, of the pain of those who hadn’t, and of how tired I was of everything. We had had weeks of constant patrol, chasing enemy troops by day and praying at night that they wouldn’t come looking for us. But they always did.
I instinctively crouched deeper into the ditch as a bullet whined overhead. An enemy sniper had started shooting, so this was no time to be careless. Our guards were scanning the jungle, but they had not yet spotted the source of the rifle fire.
The roar of helicopters filled the air and three of them landed some ten meters behind me. Their machine guns opened up to keep the enemy occupied. Fresh troops, our replacements, scrambled off the helicopters and into the ditch as our wounded were loaded aboard. The entire exchange lasted only seconds, and then the helicopters were gone. The next flight would be for us. “Just a little longer,” I thought to myself as I tried to control the urge to stand up and stretch my cramped legs.
In the silence broken only by muffled conversation and occasional gunfire, I became aware of someone whistling a familiar tune. What was that song? It seemed to calm my fears and shut out the war. I listened intently and looked around to see a soldier sitting about a meter away. I couldn’t make out his name tag; he was another private from the company that had just arrived. He continued to whistle—and then I recognized the tune, “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.”
I quickly crawled over to him and asked if he was a Latter-day Saint and if he held the priesthood. He said yes, and my heart skipped a beat; I had not been in touch with another Church member since I had attended the Saigon Branch several months before. I asked if he was worthy to bless the sacrament, and he told me that he was.
It was the Sabbath; I knew that only because of the day and date feature on my watch. I had an army ration biscuit and a canteen of water, so I asked if he would help me with the sacrament. He nodded and we crawled out of the ditch—out of sight of the other soldiers—into the tall grass and bamboo.
I pulled from my pocket my serviceman’s copy of Principles of the Gospel that my bishop had given me when I had received my draft notice. I offered my helmet, upturned, for our table, and the soldier produced a clean white handkerchief for the sacrament cloth. Kneeling with my new companion in the mud, I unwrapped the biscuit and broke and blessed it. While I prayed, he watched the jungle with his rifle ready. We served each other. Then he laid down his weapon, took the canteen cup of water, and blessed it while I guarded him.
Never in my life has the bread of the sacrament tasted so sweet and the water so pure as it did that day, nor has my soul been so strengthened by the ordinance. We clasped hands, then quickly crawled back to the protection of the ditch. Immediately, the noise of the helicopters again filled the air, and I was up and running for the loading zone with my colleagues. I turned and looked back, my fear had left me. My brother-in-the-gospel smiled and waved. I climbed aboard the helicopter, and we were gone.
I never asked that soldier’s name, nor he mine, but in those brief moments we forged a bond to last throughout eternity. Another member of the Church had rescued my soul from the horror and despair of war. Partaking of the sacrament in the jungle had brought me closer to the Lord than I had ever been before.
Through a gospel ordinance, we had found peace.

I’d like to tell you about the time I and other family members crossed that Canadian-U.S. border with our dad and mom on our way back home, knowing for Dad it would be the last time. As we cleared customs, Dad raised up from his sick bed in the back of the car and commented, “This prairie has never looked so beautiful. It’s at it’s very best for my last inspection.”
During our brief stay in our old hometown, we sauntered haltingly down the gravel road past the tall cottonwood trees where the old school had been. Dad took the lead. “It was the old bell,” he said, and we all looked in the same direction, seeing it clearly in our mind’s eye. “The school bell kept us in line. There were two bells,” he went on. “A fifteen-minute bell would ring six times, giving ample warning before the final five-minute bell sounded a simple dingdong—and you’d better be there.” His weakened voice increased in intensity as he added, “It’s important to listen for the bell.”
As we mused together in silence for a time, I pondered the possibility of my own inner bell being silenced, if only for a moment, just a rest break maybe. In years since, rather than wishing to silence the bell within, I feel myself strain a little that I might hear it more clearly.
After our trip to Canada, Dad talked about going home on that final journey and we talked together of the border crossing. His body was less than 100 pounds, and his mortal journey was coming to a close. Dad talked about the sweetness and sacredness of these times and spoke of the nearness of the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, the gatekeeper. Life had presented plenty of struggles, and he had used them to prove himself worthy and to cleanse the soul. And he was ready for the border crossing.
That last day, Dad spoke of Addison, his younger brother who had gone on before him. I wonder if his brother, and maybe his mother and father, were standing at the window an hour before his expected arrival, anxious for his safe return home.
By midafternoon I had decided to sit with Dad. It seemed his eyes were open, yet he wasn’t seeing me. I took his hand in mine, a hand that had spanked me and blessed me and caressed me throughout my life. “Dad,” I whispered. He didn’t respond. “If you know I’m here, please squeeze my hand.” I wasn’t sure if there was a squeeze, but it didn’t seem like it. I bent over and put my cheek to his very bony cheek, with my hand on the other side of his face. I waited just a second, then straightened up. He looked at me just a moment, and in his eyes I saw complete peace. Joy, trust, confidence, and anticipation all mingled together in that look. He was ready for the border crossing and the gatekeeper, the Holy One of Israel. A tear escaped the corner of his eye. I pressed my cheek to his again. There are things we cannot find words or even sounds to express, but in that moment, I had some sense of what that final crossing might be and the ecstasy that we’ll never fully understand in this life.

I just knew that we were going to have a baby brother. After all, there were already five boys in our family—James, Joseph, Ammon, Adam, and me, Alex—so we were ready for another baby brother.
Every night for weeks we talked about Benjamin David—that’s what we were going to call the new baby. At night the five of us would lie in bed and talk about little Benjy.
“Alex, do you suppose he’ll be able to go fishing with us this summer?” James asked.
“Well,” I answered, “I don’t know about this summer. He won’t even be able to walk by then.”
“Then I’ll bring him back a big crawdad,” Ammon insisted, sitting up in bed. “He’ll want to play with something.”
I laughed. “Maybe we’d better wait awhile before we bring him any crawdads.”
“Yeah, they might bite his toe or something,” Adam said and giggled as he hugged his green blanket.
“We’ll have to teach him to ride a bike,” Joseph suggested, “so he’ll be able to ride down to the park with us.”
“I’ll let him ride with me for a while,” I volunteered.
“And we’ll teach him to wrestle,” James added.
“Why, Benjy will be the best wrestler around,” I bragged. “And he’ll play football and baseball just like a pro.”
Sometimes Dad stayed in our room after tucking us into bed and telling us good night. He listened while we talked and bragged about little Benjamin David. Dad didn’t say much at first. Then one night, just a little while before Mom went to the hospital, he asked, “What are you going to do if you get a little sister?”
Our talking stopped. “Oh, we’re not going to have a sister,” Ammon said. “We’ve already decided that. There are going to be ten boys in our family. If you and Mom want some sisters after that, it’s OK with us, but we need to get the ten boys first.”
Dad thought for a moment. “Sometimes Heavenly Father sends a girl,” he said quietly.
“A girl!” Joseph said. “We can’t have a girl. A girl can’t wrestle and play football and fish and race and ride to the park with us on our bikes. Besides,” he grumbled, punching his pillow, “girls are sissies.”
“Yeah,” James agreed. “And we’ve already told everybody that we’re going to have a brother. We’ve already picked out his name.”
“But if you do get a little sister—”
“Dad,” James cut in, trying to be patient, “we’ve already decided on a brother. Besides, what would we tell our friends?”
“Your friends have sisters,” Dad said.
“Yeah,” I said, “but we don’t want to be like them. We’re the only family around that has five boys in a row.”
“And we don’t want to mess things up with a sister,” James added. “Our family’s just for boys.”
“Your mom’s a girl,” Dad pointed out.
“Oh, it’s all right for moms to be girls,” Joseph said. “We’re not saying that Mom can’t stick around.”
“Yeah,” I chimed in, “Mom’s super, even if she is a girl; but a family only needs one mom, so we only need one girl, and Mom’s it.”
The next week Grandma Cluff came to stay with us, so we knew it was almost time for Benjamin David to show up. We were getting so excited that we could hardly go to sleep at night. Adam had already started sleeping in my bed. He was getting too big for the crib anyway, and we wanted the crib ready for Benjy.
Then one morning when we got up, Mom and Dad were gone. Grandma was in the kitchen fixing breakfast. She smiled at us and announced, “Your dad took your mom to the hospital last night.”
“Benjy’s here!” Adam squealed.
Grandma smiled again and dropped another slice of bacon into the frying pan. “I hope so,” she said. “We’ll know as soon as your dad comes home.”
It wasn’t five minutes later that we heard Dad’s car pull into the driveway and the car door close. All of us rushed to the door as Dad came in. He looked really sleepy, and he hadn’t shaved his whiskers, but he had a big smile on his face.
“Where’s Benjy?” Adam shouted, climbing into Dad’s arms. “I want to see Benjy.”
Dad laughed and gave him a squeeze.
“Where’s Mom?” Ammon pulled on Dad’s trousers until Dad lifted him up with Adam.
“How big is he?” Joseph asked.
“Does he look strong?” I wanted to know.
“Does he look like he’ll be a good wrestler?” James demanded.
Dad laughed again and walked into the kitchen, still carrying Adam and Ammon. He sat down at the table, and we all crowded around him so that we could hear all about Benjamin David.
“When can we see Benjy?” Joseph asked.
Dad looked around at us and held up a hand. “Hold on a minute,” he said, grinning. “Benjy didn’t come this time. Marni Nadine came instead,” Dad said proudly.
“Marni Nadine?” James asked, pushing away. “Why, we’ve never talked about any Marni Nadine.”
“And who wants to name a perfectly good baby brother Marni Nadine?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Joseph spoke up. “That’s a sissy name. Everybody would think he was a girl. Let’s just call him Benjamin anyway.”
“But you don’t have a baby brother,” Dad said. “You have a little sister.”
“A sister!” We stared at each other and then at Dad.
Dad gave a huge sigh. “Heavenly Father doesn’t always send what we expect, but whoever He sends is always very special. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a boy or a girl.”
“But why did He have to send a girl?” Ammon muttered, getting down from Dad’s lap. “Who’s going to play football with us?”
“And who’s going to go fishing with us?”
“And why have a girl right in the middle of ten boys?”
“Because,” Dad explained patiently, “a girl is what Heavenly Father wanted to send.” He thought for a minute. “This must be a very special baby girl. Not just everyone gets to have five big brothers.”
We didn’t say much after that. We ate our breakfast quietly while Dad and Grandma talked about Mom and Marni Nadine. I had never been more disappointed. All I could think of the rest of the day was that we had been cheated out of getting out baby brother.
The next morning, when Dad went to get Mom and Marni Nadine, we stayed home with Grandma. I tried to get the others to play football with me, but they just sat on the front steps and stared glumly down the street.
Adam was the first to see the car. He jumped up and rushed out to greet Mom and Dad. I guess he’d forgotten that Benjy wasn’t going to be in the car. Dad picked him up and carried him around to Mom’s side and opened the door. The rest of us crept around the car while Dad helped Mom out.
Mom smiled at each of us and hugged the bundle as she carried it into the house. Even though I was still disappointed that Benjamin David hadn’t come, I was curious to see what a baby sister would look like up close.
Mom sat down on the sofa, and we all pushed up close as she began peeling the covers back. Mom held up a little mouse of a girl with a round head and just a tiny bit of brown hair. Her eyes were shut tightly, her cheeks were soft and fat, and she was kind of red all over.
All of us just stared. Then Ammon went close and touched Marni on the cheek with his fingertips. He turned around and grinned. “She’s soft.” He touched her again. “Real soft.”
Mom looked at me. “Would you like to hold her, Alex?”
“I’ve never held a sister before,” I mumbled, backing away.
“Then I’ll hold her,” James volunteered.
“No, I’ll hold her,” I declared, pushing forward. “Just because I’ve never held a sister doesn’t mean that I don’t know how.”
I sat on the sofa next to Mom, and she laid Marni Nadine in my arms. My baby sister was so tiny and light that I hardly knew I was holding her. I was afraid to squeeze hard, because I didn’t want to break her.
“What do you think Alex?” Dad asked as Marni stretched and rubbed her fist against her cheeks. Her eyes cracked open a little, and then she closed them.
“She’s all right, I guess,” I mumbled. “She’s kind of cute—for a girl.”
“Girls are supposed to be cute,” Dad said.
“Then she’s not ‘kind of cute,’” James argued. “She’s the cutest sister in the whole world.”
“You’re right,” Joseph agreed. “If we’re going to have a sister, she’s not going to be just an ordinary sister. She’s going to be the cutest sister around.”
“Yeah, and besides,” I added, “there’s no reason why we can’t teach her to fish, ride a bike, and play football. Just because she’s a girl doesn’t mean that she has to sit around and do nothing. Our little sister will be able to do anything she wants, because we’ll help her. And remember what Dad said. Not just every sister gets to have five big brothers!”

Years later I read President Joseph F. Smith’s memory of a similar testimony and teaching by his widowed mother. In the April 1900 conference, President Smith shared this memory from his childhood:
“My mother was a widow, with a large family to provide for. One spring when we opened our potato pits she had her boys get a load of the best potatoes, and she took them to the tithing office; potatoes were scarce that season. I was a little boy at the time, and drove the team. When we drove up to the steps of the tithing office, ready to unload the potatoes, one of the clerks came out and said to my mother, ‘Widow Smith, it’s a shame that you should have to pay tithing.’ … He chided my mother for paying her tithing, called her anything but wise or prudent; and said there were others who were strong and able to work that were supported from the tithing office. My mother turned upon him and said: ‘William, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Would you deny me a blessing? If I did not pay my tithing, I should expect the Lord to withhold His blessings from me. I pay my tithing, not only because it is a law of God, but because I expect a blessing by doing it. By keeping this and other laws, I expect to prosper and to be able to provide for my family’” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1900, p. 48).

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

Another story of priesthood service was told a month ago in a ward sacrament meeting. Again, I was there. In this case, the seasoned Melchizedek Priesthood holder didn’t know as he spoke that he was describing exactly what the Lord desires to happen with strengthened priesthood quorums. Here is the gist of his account:
He and a home teaching companion were assigned to serve seven families. Almost all of them did not want visits. When the home teachers went to their apartments, they refused to answer the door. When they telephoned, they did not get an answer. When they left a message, the call was not returned. This senior companion finally resorted to a letter-writing ministry. He even began to use bright yellow envelopes in the hope of getting a response.
One of the seven families was a less-active single sister who had emigrated from Europe. She had two young children.
After many attempts to contact her, he received a text message. She abruptly informed him that she was too busy to meet with home teachers. She had two jobs and was in the military as well. Her primary job was that of a police officer, and her career goal was to become a detective and then return to her native country and continue her work there.
The home teacher never was able to visit with her in her home. He periodically texted her. Every month he sent a handwritten letter, supplemented with holiday cards for each child.
He received no response. But she knew who her home teachers were, how to contact them, and that they would persist in their priesthood service.
Then one day he received an urgent text from her. She desperately needed help. She did not know who the bishop was, but she did know her home teachers.
In a few days, she had to leave the state for a monthlong military training exercise. She could not take her children with her. Her mother, who was going to care for her children, had just flown to Europe to care for her husband, who had a medical emergency.
This less-active single sister had enough money to buy a ticket to Europe for her youngest child but not for her 12-year-old son, Eric. She asked her home teacher if he could find a good LDS family to take Eric into their home for the next 30 days!
The home teacher texted back that he would do his best. He then contacted his priesthood leaders. The bishop, who was the presiding high priest, gave him approval to approach members of the ward council, including the Relief Society president.
The Relief Society president quickly found four good LDS families, with children about Eric’s age, who would take him into their homes for a week at a time. Over the next month, these families fed Eric, found room for him in their already crowded apartments or small homes, took him on their previously planned summer family activities, brought him to church, included him in their family home evenings, and on and on.
The families with boys Eric’s age included him in their deacons quorum meetings and activities. During this 30-day period, Eric was in church every Sunday for the first time in his life.
After his mother came home from her training, Eric continued to attend church, usually with one of these four volunteer LDS families or others who had befriended him, including his mother’s visiting teachers. In time, he was ordained a deacon and began passing the sacrament regularly.
Now let us look into Eric’s future. We will not be surprised if he becomes a leader in the Church in his mother’s home country when his family returns there—all because of Saints who worked together in unity, under the direction of a bishop, to serve out of charity in their hearts and with the power of the Holy Ghost.

When I was a child, my family traveled to the Tokyo Japan Temple. The 12-hour car trip was long, but we were grateful for the time we got to spend together, and we spent the drive discussing our excitement about going to the temple.
At the time I wasn’t yet 12 years old, so I was only able to enter the temple lobby. But the sacred nature of that space filled my heart with the warmth of the Spirit.
I could have stayed in that lobby forever. So when it came time to return home, tears started streaming down my face. The temple quickly grew smaller and smaller in the distance as we drove away, and I already missed the strong Spirit I had felt inside.
I was determined to return one day. If the Spirit was that strong in the lobby, I couldn’t wait to experience what it felt like to actually go inside and perform ordinances. I wanted to do whatever I could to prepare to go inside someday.

I attended the Hamilton School. The bane of my first-grade teacher’s life was my friend Louie. He had what psychologists might call some kind of a fixation. He would sit in class and chew his tie until it became wet and stringy. The teacher would scold him. Louie eventually became a man of substance. I learned never to underestimate the potential of a boy to make something of his life, even if he chews his tie.

A couple of years later, I had the strong impression that I needed to improve my education, and I felt I should go to graduate school. When I started the application process, one of the first things I was asked was whether I had a bachelor’s degree. In that moment, my wife’s words came quickly to me: “You don’t know what the Lord has prepared for you, so you have to finish.” If I had not completed my bachelor’s degree, it would not have been possible for me to obtain my master’s degree.

At the family history library near his home, Josh Taylor was looking at microfilm of a census for Stephenson County in Illinois. He was looking for information about his great-great-great-great grandfather, George A. Stiles. It was seemingly needle-in-the-haystack time.
“It’s a fairly big county, and I wasn’t looking forward to looking through the entire thing,” admits 12-year-old Josh. “But I had prayed about it, and immediately page 261 came to my mind.” And there it was: information about his relative.
“Whenever a page number pops into my mind, I can tell if it’s going to have something in it or not because I feel this excitement. It’s hard to explain,” he says.

Emmanuel introduced his younger brother, Stephen Abu (their last names differ because of Ghanaian traditions in naming children), to the gospel while Stephen was visiting in Accra. After his baptism, Stephen returned to Abomosu, their isolated home village, and began to “organize” his own family, as he says, teaching them the gospel. His teaching extended to friends, and when missionaries were finally sent to the village, there was a group of people waiting to be baptized.
From that beginning came the Abomosu Ghana District, which now has more than 600 members. With two branches in the village, Latter-day Saints are a significant portion of the population. Two miles up the road, a new meetinghouse is under construction for the branch in Sankobenase.

I am acquainted with a family which came to America from Germany. The English language was difficult for them. They had but little by way of means, but each was blessed with the will to work and with a love of God.
Their third child was born, lived but two months, and then died. Father was a cabinetmaker and fashioned a beautiful casket for the body of his precious child. The day of the funeral was gloomy, thus reflecting the sadness they felt in their loss. As the family walked to the chapel, with Father carrying the tiny casket, a small number of friends had gathered. However, the chapel door was locked. The busy bishop had forgotten the funeral. Attempts to reach him were futile. Not knowing what to do, the father placed the casket under his arm and, with his family beside him, carried it home, walking in a drenching rain.
If the family were of a lesser character, they could have blamed the bishop and harbored ill feelings. When the bishop discovered the tragedy, he visited the family and apologized. With the hurt still evident in his expression, but with tears in his eyes, the father accepted the apology, and the two embraced in a spirit of understanding. No hidden wedge was left to cause further feelings of anger. Love and acceptance prevailed.

Fast-forward to more recent times, about two years ago. David Palmer, having spent several years teaching at the Safford High seminary, had recently become principal of the Thatcher High seminary. Brother Palmer had been playing rec league basketball, where he became acquainted with Brandon. Brandon learned that Brother Palmer’s son, Matthew, age 8 at the time, was about to have surgery to remove a lump in his jaw. Doctors feared it might be cancer.
“Brandon asked if he could visit my son after the surgery,” Brother Palmer explains. “When he visited, he gave him a note and said if Matt would let him know when he came to a game, he’d make a three-point basket and then point to him in the stands.” Sure enough, when the next Thatcher versus Safford basketball game rolled around, there was Matt in the stands with his father. On the first play, Brandon was open for three, sank the shot, and then turned and pointed to his young friend.
Brandon scored 30 points that night, with several baskets from beyond the arc. Each time he scored a three, he pointed at Matthew. That cemented Brandon as a hero to Matt.
That night in family prayer, Matt started asking Heavenly Father to guide Brandon to join the Church. The Palmer family had already been praying to find someone who would want to learn the gospel, and Matt was sure Brandon was an answer to that prayer.

Samuel Clement Onawo’s success story was written by Bishop Ashidike Cletus of Shasha Ward, Egbeda Stake in Lagos.
I met Samuel Clement Onawo when I was serving as the first counselor in the bishopric some years ago. That was in the Akowonjo Ward. He came into the chapel one morning with another friend. Both wanted to investigate the Church. He was reserved, humble, and very eager to honestly learn the gospel.
We had some wonderful experiences that made us feel he was a promising young man. Bishop Joseph Okoronkwo took a special interest in him. Samuel got baptized weeks later in 2010.
During one of our interactions with him, it was discovered that he could not read, hence we encouraged him to attend a literacy class, which he did vigorously. He gained tremendous knowledge from the literacy class. Some months later, he indicated an interest to serve a full-time mission. There was no money to pursue this noble cause, so he decided to do any menial or domestic job to save for his pre-mission requirements. He saved as much as he could and went on a mission in 2014.
As a returned missionary, his record was found in my unit and this time I had been called to serve as the bishop of the newly created Shasha Ward. On the 29th of May 2016, he was called as the ward mission leader. I have always used him as a reference point whenever I want to share a good story.
One day, he came to talk to me about a PEF [Perpetual Education Fund] loan. l was glad to have him ask for it because I knew he was going to meet up with the requirements before and after. I gave him my full support and he got the loan.
Today, he has graduated as an electrical engineer. I attended his graduation ceremony in December 2018. He is one of the best among those who took the loan, and Brother Adebayo of the PEF management in Nigeria has not had the occasion to seek repayment. His monthly repayment was always on time.
He feels he can afford to settle down for a family life and take responsibility because he has acquired skills and education. This has been achieved already. We all see him in my unit as a progressing young man with a profound spirit of gratitude.