Gospel Story Finder

“OK, Jason,” Mom said as she tucked him into bed. “You’ve been extra quiet tonight. Is anything wrong?”
Jason looked up at her. “It’s about school,” he said. “I just wish recess was different.”
“Have you made any new friends?” Mom asked.
Their family had just moved, and Jason was finally starting to feel comfortable in his new third-grade class.
“A few,” he said. “But it’s the playground helper. She’s grouchy all the time! And some of the kids say mean things about her.”
“What do you think about that?” Mom said.
“Well, I don’t think she’s nice, but I also don’t like it when the kids talk like that about her,” Jason said. “It makes me feel bad inside, even when she doesn’t hear them.”
“Jason, do you remember how the Holy Ghost speaks to you?” Mom said.
Jason tapped his heart.
“That’s right,” Mom said. “He talks to you through feelings and thoughts.”
Jason loved the peaceful feeling of the Holy Ghost. But when the kids were mean to the playground helper, he didn’t feel peaceful at all.
“But the Holy Ghost makes me feel good,” he said.
Mom nodded. “That’s right, but He also tells us when something isn’t right, or when we need to fix something. When you feel bad or uncomfortable inside, it could be the Holy Ghost telling you that something is wrong and you need to do the right thing.” She smoothed his hair. “What do you think is the right thing to do?”
“Well, I know Jesus wants us to be kind to everyone,” Jason said thoughtfully. “I guess that means playground helpers too.”
“Yes, it does!” Mom said. “We are all children of Heavenly Father, so we should treat everyone nicely.”
“Well, what can I do?” Jason said, frowning. “If she wasn’t so grumpy, maybe everyone would be nicer to her.”
“We don’t always know why people act a certain way,” Mom said. “We don’t know what’s going on in her life. Maybe she’s doing the best she can.”
Jason thought about when they had first moved here. Everything was so different from his old home. He had tried not to show it, but at first he had been scared and sad. Maybe the playground helper felt that way too.
“But if I don’t know why she’s feeling bad, how can I help?” Jason asked.
“We don’t always have to know what’s wrong to cheer someone up,” Mom said.
Jason thought about what cheered him up. “I know! Can we make her some chocolate-chip cookies?”
Mom smiled. “That’s a great idea.”
Jason was getting excited. “And maybe we can make some extra cookies to give to the kids at recess too!” he said. “I could share cookies with everyone and talk about how we can brighten her day even more!”
“Even better,” Mom said. “I sure am proud of you, Jason.”
Jason smiled. He was glad he had the Holy Ghost to remind him to treat others like Jesus would treat them. Recess was going to get a whole lot sweeter.

One day I was working around our yard with my electric hedge clippers and long extension cord. I had done this often, each time reminding myself to be careful and avoid cutting things that I shouldn’t.
Suddenly the blades became jammed. Because I had not seen the power cord in the thicket where I was trimming, I had cut into the source of the electrical power that made the hedge clippers work.
Isn’t that one of life’s great lessons? I thought. Power, if misused, can cut into the very source of that power.

I thought that after I was baptized everything would be perfect and I would like Church meetings even more. However, it did not happen that way. Sometimes I didn’t want to go to church, and I started to miss meetings. One Sunday my mom, who is not a member, asked me why I wasn’t going, and I told her I found the meetings boring. The next week, she asked me to go to church. Even after I got there, I thought about returning home, but then I thought of sacrament meeting, partaking of the sacrament, and all the other good things I would miss out on if I left. I decided to stay.
I am glad my mom talked to me about going to church and encouraged me to attend.

Maria Edilene Romão had lost hope. She couldn’t find a job, she was a single mother, and she had several children to feed.
That’s when two members of her ward in Santa Catarina, Brazil, invited her to a self-reliance devotional. At the end of the devotional, Maria joined a group to help her find a job.
“For the first time in my life, I believed in a future where I could take care of my family,” she remembers. “I believed that the self-reliance group was going to help me change my life.”
It did.
During the next 12 weeks, Maria dedicated herself to her group, her studies, and her commitments. She worked with newfound energy toward her goals. She practiced job-interviewing techniques. Within two weeks, she secured a promising job interview. That interview landed her a job.
“My life is changed forever,” says Maria, who no longer struggles to feed her family. “Now I am happy, excited, patient, and hopeful. I believe that Heavenly Father lives and loves me. I know that when I exercise my faith in Jesus Christ, I am blessed.”

I would like to share a conversion story from my family history about another of my heroes. Her name is Agnes Hoggan, and she and her husband joined the Church in Scotland in 1861. Suffering great persecution in their homeland, they immigrated to America with their children. Several years later, Agnes became a widow with eight children to support and worked hard to keep them fed and clothed. Her 12-year-old daughter, Isabelle, was lucky enough to find employment as a servant to a wealthy, non-LDS family.

Isabelle lived in their large home and helped look after their younger children. In exchange for her services, a small wage was paid each week to her mother. Isabelle was soon accepted as a member of the family and began to enjoy many of the same privileges, such as taking dance lessons, wearing beautiful clothing, and attending the theater. This arrangement continued for four years, until the family for whom Isabelle worked was transferred to another state. They had grown so fond of Isabelle that they approached her mother, Agnes, and asked for permission to legally adopt her. They promised they would provide her with a good education, see that she married well, and make her an heir to their estate with their own children. They would also continue to make payments to Agnes.

This struggling widow and mother had a hard decision to make, but she did not hesitate for a moment. Listen to the words of her granddaughter, written many years later: “If her love had not compelled [her] to say no, she had an even better reason—she had come all the way from Scotland and had gone through tribulations and trials for the Gospel, and she did not intend, if humanly possible, to let a child of hers lose what she had come so far to gain.” The wealthy family used every possible argument, and Isabelle herself cried and begged to be allowed to go, but Agnes remained firm. As you can imagine, 16-year-old Isabelle felt as if her life was ruined.

Isabelle Hoggan is my great-grandmother, and I am most grateful for the testimony and conviction that burned so brightly in her mother’s heart, which did not allow her to trade her daughter’s membership in the Church for worldly promises. Today, hundreds of her descendants who enjoy the blessings of membership in the Church are the beneficiaries of Agnes’s deep-seated faith and conversion to the gospel.

My great-great-grandmother had a strong conviction that the gospel was more important for her children than all that the world had to offer in the way of wealth and comfort because she had sacrificed, endured, and lived the gospel. Her conversion came through living the principles of the gospel and sacrificing for them.

In a certain village in China there lived three lazy brothers who were well known for telling strange stories.

One day a rich merchant came to the village. He wanted to hire some men to carry his merchandise to the next village, but there was no one available except the three lazy brothers.

The merchant told the three brothers, “I will give you all of my merchandise if you can tell me stories so strange that I cannot believe them.” Then he added, “But if I can tell you a story so strange that you don’t believe it, you must become my servants.”

The three brothers were delighted at the merchant’s proposal. They thought it would be easy to win his merchandise with their own stories that nobody had ever believed.

The whole village was invited to the unusual story-telling contest, and the village headman was appointed to be chief judge.

The eldest brother told his story first. “When I was young,” he began, “I loved climbing trees. One day I climbed a tree so tall that I could not get down. I called, but no one came to my rescue. At last I jumped down and borrowed a ladder from my neighbor and climbed down from the tree safely.”

The three brothers expected the merchant to say the story could not be true, but he just nodded his head.

The second brother told his story. “One day I was fishing in a river, and for many hours there was not a single bite. I knew something was wrong. So I dove into the river, and to my surprise I found a large fish eating up all the other fishes. I was so angry that I caught the large fish. Then I made a fire under the water and had a delicious meal before coming up to the surface of the river.”

Again the merchant just nodded his head but said nothing.

The third brother began his story. “I was such a good runner that I could outrun any animal in the forest. If I wanted a deer for dinner, I had only to chase one until it was too tired to run anymore. One day I was chasing a fox up a hill when suddenly it ran into a bush and changed itself into a tiger. It turned to attack me, but before it could lift up its paws, I had run home.”

The merchant nodded his head again, which meant he believed all the stories to be true. Turning to the three brothers, he asked, “Do you still promise to be my servants if you don’t believe the story I’m going to tell?”

“Yes, we do,” they replied.

Then the merchant told his story. “I was once a farmer and had a strange tree on my farm. The tree had only a few barren branches but no leaves. One day I noticed that three fruits appeared on the branches. The fruits grew bigger and bigger until each was about the size of a barrel. I cut the fruits open and found a young man in each of them. I made them all work for me on the farm. But one day the young men ran away because they didn’t like the hard work.”

At this point the merchant pointed his finger at the three brothers and said, “I know you are the ones who ran away from my farm. I’m taking you back to the farm today.”

At once the three lazy brothers jumped up and cried, “No, no, we are not from your farm! We don’t believe your story!”

The merchant looked at them and smiled. “Have you forgotten your promise? You don’t believe my story; therefore you shall be my servants.”

The chief judge declared that the merchant had won the contest, and the three lazy brothers became servants of the merchant.

I serve as a Church-service missionary with the PathwayConnect program in the Kyiv Ukraine Stake. The leaders of the program decided to train all of us who lead in-person gatherings so that we could conduct them virtually. The very next day, the government announced quarantine measures in Kyiv.
I love the opportunity to gather together for PathwayConnect. And I love the opportunity to gather together to worship and sing together at home on Sundays. I am grateful for the assurance that where two or three gather in His name, He is there. No one knows how long we will be in quarantine in Kyiv, but we know that the Savior will hear our singing.
Kateryna Serdyuk, Kyiv, Ukraine

In our home we have what is now called the parable of the bicycle. It dates back to when my daughter Sarah, who was seven years old at the time, came in and said, “Dad, can I have a bike? I’m the only kid on the block who doesn’t have one.”

Well, I didn’t have the money then for a bike, so I stalled her. I said, “Sure, Sarah.”

She said, “How? When?”

I said, “You save all your pennies, and soon you’ll have enough for a bike.” And she went away.

A couple of weeks later I heard a “clink, clink” in Sarah’s bedroom. I asked, “Sarah, what are you doing?”

She came to me with a little jar, a slit cut in the lid, and a bunch of pennies in the bottom. She said, “You promised me that if I saved all my pennies, pretty soon I’d have enough for a bike. And, Daddy, I’ve saved every single one of them.”

My heart melted. My daughter was doing everything in her power to follow my instructions. I hadn’t actually lied to her. If she saved all of her pennies, she would eventually have enough for a bike, but by then she would want a car. I said, “Let’s go look at bikes.”

We went to every store in town. Finally we found it—the perfect bicycle. She was thrilled. Then she saw the price tag, and her face fell. She started to cry. “Oh, Dad, I’ll never have enough for a bicycle!”

So I said, “Sarah, how much do you have?”

She answered, “Sixty-one cents.”

“I’ll tell you what. You give me everything you’ve got and a hug and a kiss, and the bike is yours.” Then I drove home very slowly because she insisted on riding the bike home.

Illustration by Brad Teare
It was past her bedtime, but Mia wasn’t in bed. She was sitting on the floor of her room, thinking about something Sister Duval had read in Primary: “The time will come when no man or woman will be able to stand on borrowed light.”1
“A testimony is like a light inside of us,” Sister Duval had explained. “And each of needs one of our own. Then we can be strong when life is hard and Satan tempts us.”
Mia leaned her head against her bed. “I want a testimony that the gospel is true,” she thought. But how exactly did you get a testimony? She knew that praying was part of it.
“I’ll pray,” she decided. She would pray and wouldn’t stop until something happened to let her know the Church was true. She was ready to pray all night if she had to!
She got on her knees. “Dear Heavenly Father,” she whispered, “I want to know if the Church is true. I want to feel it in my heart and just know.”
Mia waited. She didn’t feel anything except for the soft feeling she usually felt when she prayed. What was she doing wrong? Where was her testimony?
She had been on her knees for what seemed like a long time when the door to her room opened a little and her dad peeked in.
“I saw the light under the door,” he said. “Are you up reading again?” Then he saw tears on Mia’s cheeks. He knelt down and put his arm around her. “What’s wrong?”
She was quiet for a minute. Then she asked, “Daddy, how do you get a testimony?”
Daddy hugged her tight. “That’s a good question. Wanting a testimony is one of the first steps.”
Mia felt the lump in her throat start to go away.
“Getting a testimony doesn’t usually happen with one prayer. And even when you have a testimony, you need to keep working on it.”
“But where does a testimony come from?” Mia asked.
“A testimony comes from the Holy Ghost,” Daddy said. “Have you ever felt warm and good during family home evening or at church?”
Mia thought about that. “When you gave me a special blessing before school started, I felt good.” She thought some more. “And I always feel warm inside when I hear President Monson talk in general conference. And when I’m nice to my friends or when I’m reading my scriptures, I feel good then too.”
Daddy smiled. “Those feelings are the Holy Ghost speaking to you. He gives you those feelings when you do something that’s right or when you hear something that’s true.”
“I feel warm and happy now,” Mia said. “Is that the Holy Ghost?”
Daddy hugged her again. “Yes. He’s telling you that the things we’re talking about are true. And that’s how you get a testimony.”
When Mia went to bed later, she didn’t think she had a whole testimony yet, but she still had that good, warm feeling that what Daddy told her was true. She knew this feeling was just the beginning.
Mia snuggled into her warm blanket and closed her eyes. Just before she drifted off to sleep, she whispered, “Thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for helping me have a testimony. And thank Thee for my daddy.”

As a new mission president in the fall of 2011, I was excited to be out among our missionaries. My wife, Emily, and I decided to do apartment inspections and visit every pair of missionaries in the mission.
As we traveled from Guatemala City to one of our more remote zones, known as Sololá, we learned that a demonstration was blocking the road in front of us. Demonstrations in Guatemala can take hours, and there is usually no way to get past them. But when we inquired about a possible detour, we learned of another route. That route, however, came with the following warnings:
It is not a great road.
Make sure you are not on the road after dark.
Bands of robbers frequent the road.
Like any zealous new mission president and wife, on Emily and I went. After driving a while, we came to a spot on a dirt road that looked like a steep drop-off in front of us. Emily joked that we should get the camera out and take pictures as we went over the edge.
Years earlier, when I was a young missionary in Guatemala, I had learned that a small branch dragged onto the road meant “proceed with caution.” It might even mean “stop.” I had seen a branch but failed to register what it meant.
A moment later, we found ourselves dangling off a 20-foot (6 m) ledge where a bridge had washed out. I managed to climb out my side, but Emily could not open her door. When she tried to climb over the seat and come out my door, the vehicle began to rock. Obviously, it was a very disconcerting moment.
Many thoughts ran through my mind. I could see the headlines: “New Mission President Drives over Embankment Where There Was No Bridge, Resulting in Severe Injury to Wife” or “New Mission President and Wife Missing after Being Robbed on a Road They Should Not Have Been Traveling on.”
Not knowing what to do, I paused outside the vehicle and pleaded with Heavenly Father, “Please help me in my moment of carelessness.” Can you believe that a large banana truck suddenly pulled up behind us? The driver and passengers saw us and came over to laugh and enjoy the predicament of the silly gringo. They pointed out the branch on the road. Literally, it was just a twig.
Then, to our miraculous blessing, they retrieved from their truck the only chain I saw in three years of service in Guatemala. Before they left, they cut down a tree and pulled it across the road. I think they wanted to make sure that the next North American to come by did not make the same mistake.

Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “During World War II, my widowed mother supported her three young children on a schoolteacher’s salary that was meager. When I became conscious that we went without some desirable things because we didn’t have enough money, I asked my mother why she paid so much of her salary as tithing. I have never forgotten her explanation: ‘Dallin, there might be some people who can get along without paying tithing, but we can’t. The Lord has chosen to take your father and leave me to raise you children. I cannot do that without the blessings of the Lord, and I obtain those blessings by paying an honest tithing. When I pay my tithing, I have the Lord’s promise that he will bless us, and we must have those blessings if we are to get along.’”

When Greg and Niki Christensen, from Kentucky, USA, read about the Abrahamic covenant in the scriptures with their three sons, they found it difficult to explain to them. They decided as a family that each of them would study the Abrahamic covenant on their own and then share what they found.
“We got some interesting comments,” Greg says. “Our eight-year-old learned that Abraham’s name used to be Abram. His name changed to Abraham because he made a promise to the Lord to turn from sin and to live a righteous life. I was really surprised that he was able to come up with that.”
They all learned something new and had a good discussion about what the Abrahamic covenant is and what it means for Latter-day Saints today.
“We used to just go around the room and take turns reading scripture verses for our family scripture study,” Niki says. “Come, Follow Me is geared more toward teaching by the Spirit. Now when we study together, I feel little nudges from the Spirit to take our discussions in a different direction based on our family’s needs.”
Using Come, Follow Me has not only helped their family be more engaged and interested in family gospel study, but it has also helped Greg and Niki minister to the spiritual needs of their children.
“Come, Follow Me helps me teach my children,” Niki says. “It also helps me handle different challenges I sometimes have with my children. I feel more in tune with the Spirit, I listen more closely, and I’ve received promptings on how I can help each child.”
Greg enjoys the longer gospel discussions that Come, Follow Me helps generate in the family. “Our sons are all different in where they are with their gospel knowledge,” he says. “Come, Follow Me has provided a way for us to help each of them learn based on their needs. Seeing them grow in their love for the gospel and watching them figure out how they can apply gospel knowledge in their lives has been a wonderful blessing.”

I can promise you that by sharing your time, effort, and ability you’ll leave yourself and others richer. This year I gave my mom a certificate for helping with the spring cleaning. After a full day of scouring walls, scrubbing floors, washing windows, and ironing curtains, I told her it would be much easier just to buy a nice present. “Yes,” she said, “but it wouldn’t be appreciated as much.” And I knew that it wouldn’t be my last “gift certificate” after all.

When I was a Beehive, one of my leaders really encouraged me to complete the Personal Progress value experiences. Soon I had finished one value and was looking forward to finishing them all.
But during my junior year of high school, I quit working on Personal Progress. I was going through one of the hardest times in my life, and I began to doubt a lot of things. I just didn’t see how Personal Progress could help me during my trials. But in the past, doing Personal Progress had helped me see my worth and keep me on the straight and narrow path, and I missed that.
As I started Personal Progress again, I realized I was also heading back to the place my Heavenly Father wanted me to be spiritually. Personal Progress helped me see the worth in myself and in others, finish reading the Book of Mormon, gain a testimony of the gospel, and grow closer to God.
Alexis T., California, USA

On the 22nd of February 2024 Chloe and Mandy Pritchard, twins, were set apart as full-time service missionaries by President Haji, Stake President of the Preston England Stake.
After a series of visits to the Preston England Temple, Sister Jessica Pritchard felt very strongly that she should serve a mission. Sister Chloe Pritchard had spent a lot of time helping and serving with the sister missionaries and felt a great desire to serve. When Sister Mandy Pritchard discovered the opportunity to serve a service mission she also desired to apply. Their mother went on to say, “I knew that they wanted to serve a mission, but I never expected them all to serve at the same time.”

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

Lily was also able to serve when she completed her Divine Nature value project. For this project, she decided to babysit for free so that a couple could attend the temple the day before their child with Down syndrome underwent a major medical procedure.
Lily’s mom took Lily to the family’s house and stayed with Lily while the parents were gone. “I was a little scared at first,” says Lily, “but then I started playing with the kids, and they were really nice.”
After Lily spent the evening playing with the children, she got them in their pajamas, helped them brush their teeth and hair, and read them a bedtime story. Lily’s mom sat back and read a book, letting Lily do her job. Through this experience, Lily learned about service and about caring for and interacting with others. “I felt happy after I babysat. I learned I could do something I hadn’t tried before.”

One time we were talking about the Savior’s Atonement, and I raised my hand. I just told how thanks to His Atonement, Jesus Christ not only frees us but can also help us become closer to Himself and to God. I talked about my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and how it has been strengthened as my understanding of the Atonement has grown. After class, a man came up to me and thanked me for my comments. He told me he had never thought about things the way I had said them and really appreciated my insight.

It is through the power of the priesthood that marriage and the family unit can extend into and continue throughout all eternity. The conscientious women of this Church wish to have such a righteous influence in abundance in their homes.

Just a few weeks ago, in a stake conference, one gracious mother joyously recounted a marvelous experience of being in one of the temples with her husband and with all of her children but one and being sealed together as husband and wife and family for time and all eternity. Her husband, newly involved in the priesthood, sat in the conference audience a few rows back. For a moment she seemed to forget all of the rest of us and spoke only to him. Over the pulpit, and through the loudspeaker, with over 1,000 people in tears watching and listening, she said, “John, the children and I don’t know how to tell you what you mean to us. Until you honored the priesthood, the greatest blessings of eternity would not open up for us. Now they have. We all love you very much and we thank you with all our hearts for what you have made possible for us.”

I remember a woman who constantly nagged her husband (an inactive elder) about not paying his tithing, saying again and again, “When you don’t pay your tithing, you deny me and the children the blessings that are associated with this commandment. … I want those blessings, even if you don’t.” She became so irate and her marriage became so disturbed over this issue that she went to the bishop trying to get his aid in forcing her husband to pay tithing. The bishop’s response was, “Overall your husband is basically a good and righteous man. If you sustain him in righteousness, even in his judgment not to pay tithing at this time, the Lord will sustain you, and you will be obeying God’s commandments and will not miss out on any of the blessings.” When the husband later learned of this bishop’s counsel, he was so moved and impressed that his Church activity increased and the marital relationship was much improved.