Gospel Story Finder

Four years later, in 2002, my father and one of my sisters died just a week apart. I carried on, serving as a district missionary until I received my full-time mission call in July 2004 to serve in the South Africa Durban Mission. I was in the mission field just a few months when my brother called my mission president, informing him that my mother had died and had already been buried. Can you picture how it feels to lose such a mother? Four months later another sister died.
As a missionary, I had been teaching people about the restored gospel. Because of my testimony, I never worried about my losses. I had peace of mind and hope that in due time I would see my parents and sisters again. On the way home from my mission in July 2006, I went to the Johannesburg South Africa Temple and was baptized on behalf of my male family members who had passed on, and I had baptisms performed for my sisters who had died.

“My father sustained a ruptured pancreas in a freak car accident when I was about ten. For some time there was a question as to whether he would live or not. When the doctors gathered our family together to explain the situation, Mother said, ‘He’s had a blessing, and he’s going to be all right.’ I remember that as a very strengthening spiritual experience because we all knew that Mom was right. In eight to ten weeks Dad was completely healed. During Dad’s hospitalization I remember that I went to the hospital several times, and Dad told me to set a good example for the rest of the family.

“I can remember well my dad talking about his mission in the Eastern States and his father serving a mission to Sweden and my great-grandfather joining the Church and doing missionary work in Sweden. I knew that if a mission was right for my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, it must be right for me.

“My message to you children of the Church is this: Strive to be obedient to gospel teachings and the counsel and example of your parents, your bishop, and your leaders. It is most important that you attend your church meetings, keep the Sabbath holy, pay your tithing, prepare for a mission, and do whatever your parents ask you in righteousness to do. Choosing to do the right things will bring you closer to your Heavenly Father and make you feel good about yourself.”

All through school, I had had the same group of friends. But one year, a new student started at our school, and unlike me, he was popular. But I still somehow became his friend. In the months following, we became closer until we were best friends.
I was in the habit of going to seminary immediately after school. One day he asked me where I went every day. I decided to explain all about the Church, but from the look on his face, I realized this wasn’t the best way to talk to him. So I stopped talking so insistently.
A few months later the elders were coming over to my house at the same time some friends and I were meeting there to do homework. This friend was one of them, so I asked the elders to talk a little about the Church. He was interested in what they were saying. He realized that some things in my life were different from what he and other friends were doing, and he wanted to find out why. He started coming to church, Mutual, and seminary, and he saw that all my Church friends were like me, with the same principles. Soon he decided to be baptized.
At his baptism, the bishop asked him to bear his testimony. He stood and said: “I am here today thanks to a friend and how different he was from other people. I hope that everyone will see the differences in all of you too.”

On Pierrefond Avenue, Eddy Shackelford had what we called a hockey player’s name.
I told him that if he ever got to the National Hockey League I’d pick him right out on the ice because there’d be no room for a number on his sweater, just the letters of his last name.
But we all agreed, it was a hockey player’s name if there ever was one.
And we all agreed Eddy was bound for great things. Of the dozen kids my age who met daily to play ice or street hockey, Eddy was without doubt the best player. He was taller and stronger than the rest of us, but it was more than that—he was a leader. And he was my best friend.
During one game Eddy told me he would not go if another team, other than the “Habs,” drafted him out of junior hockey. (The “Habs” was a nickname for the Montreal Canadiens, a French abbreviation for “Inhabitants.”) If we had grown up in Philadelphia, or in New York, or anyplace else in the world, it would have been different, but when you’re 12 and living in Montreal, your dream is to play for the “Habs.”
“I wouldn’t go to Buffalo,” I replied one day. “Or Chicago. I might go to Toronto or Detroit though. They need help and I’d get to play a lot.”
I knew Eddy thought I was a traitor to even suggest such a thing, but he muttered only, “Not me.”
Each day, before sides were picked, we knew Eddy’s team would be the “Habs.”
“You can be Boston,” Eddy might say if the Bruins were having a good season. And he got away with it. On a street in the heart of Montreal, with an inbred passion burning in each of us for the “home” team, there was never an argument.
In winter Eddy’s dad would flood a vacant lot and let us play until it was too dark to see the black puck against the ice. The games would last through bitter cold and through heavy snow that teemed by the streetlights and built up in piles outside our playing area. In summer we moved our games to the middle of the street, batting a tennis ball into flimsy nylon netting. Windows would break and ankles would twist, but otherwise little changed the flow of events on Pierrefond Avenue.
What did eventually happen left most of us wondering for some time. Only lately have I come to fully understand what Eddy went through the summer he turned 13.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not going to be no Mormon,” Eddy said to me one Saturday as we sat on the bank of the St. Lawrence River.
“Why would you have to be a Mormon?” I was stunned. We all knew about the Mormons—I had seen them knocking on doors in our neighborhood. My vicar told us they were an abomination and to not answer the door. My dad said they had many wives and were simply misled. On Pierrefond Avenue, we all knew about the Mormons.
“I thought everyone had heard. My Mum let them in the other day,” said Eddy. “Now she wants me and my dad to go to their church. I told her no way. My dad said no and he said if he sees those Mormon guys he’ll run them off. My mum still says she’s going tomorrow though.”
“You think she’ll go?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I just know I’m not going.”
Eddy’s dad was as strong willed as his son. Mr. Shackelford served in the military for many years before going to work for the Canadian Pacific Railroad as a brakeman. Most adults on our avenue looked up to the senior Shackelford, a tall, dark man with high, heavy shoulders and not a trace of a belly. I didn’t know him very well, but I feared him.
I didn’t know a lot about Eddy’s mum either. She was just a regular mum. She was born into a French family and married Eddy’s dad when she was still quite young. His mum liked to sing a lot and was nice to me when I went around.
“Bonjour Monsieur,” she would sing to me as I came in the door of their house.
“Bonjour Madam,” I would say back, grinning from ear to ear with embarrassment.
“Just tell her to stop it,” Eddy would say. “She’s teasing us because she thinks we act too old for our ages.”
After Eddy’s news I left him on the banks of the river. Later, my dad told me he saw two guys in suits going up the Shackelford’s walk that day. “Those Mormons are in for a rude surprise,” he said, adding that Mr. Shackelford was home.
I didn’t see Eddy on Sunday. But, being summer break, he was out again for street hockey on Monday morning. Within minutes our sticks were clicking on the concrete road as we battled out the previous years’ Stanley Cup matchup. But something was wrong. No one would pass to Eddy.
“Can Mormons still play hockey?” one of the boys playing goal finally called out. Eddy took it, even though the others laughed and added comments of their own. “Sure they can,” the boy called again. “They just have to pray before every period.” Eddy threw down his stick and charged the goalie.
We let them fight it out, but it was no contest. Eddy was the toughest kid on the street.
After a few moments I pulled Eddy off the sprawling goalie. I don’t know if the others had been jealous of Eddy all along, or if Eddy had hurt them by doing something that was against the grain of our quiet street. All that was clear to me at the time was Eddy would never again hold as high a place on Pierrefond.
“You went to their church, didn’t you?” I asked Eddy.
He didn’t answer. For a long time he looked around the group, then without speaking walked off toward his house.
I visited Eddy that night and Mr. Shackelford answered the door. He looked down at me and smiled. “I’m glad you came,” he said letting me in.
“Glad to be here,” I said. A dumb thing to say. My nerves got the best of me. He just laughed.
“Ed, one of those kids is here,” he called upstairs. “Want me to beat him up for you?” He looked at me menacingly for what seemed like an hour. My eyes widened and I began to sweat. Then he laughed again, winked at me, and went into the other room.
“I thought your dad was mad at me,” I said to Eddy as he came down the stairs. “He was just kidding though. He’s all right.”
“Yeah, he’s okay sometimes.” There was an awkward silence, and I watched as Eddy rocked from leg to leg. “You come to give me a hard time?”
“No.” Then I started rocking with Eddy. “So you a Mormon now?”
“No,” said Eddy. “We just went to church, that’s all.”
“We still gonna be friends?”
“Sure. I’d be your friend even if I was a Mormon. That’s for good.”
“We were sure your dad would scare those guys off yesterday,” I said.
“He was going to, but since my mum let them in my dad gave them five minutes to talk. It was a lot longer than five minutes, but Dad just sat there not saying a word until they were done. Then this one missionary, that’s what they’re called, asked if there were any questions and my dad started to get up but he couldn’t or something.” Eddy fell quiet for a time, looking down at his feet.
“Well, what happened?” I asked.
“My dad cried.”
“He cried?”
“Yep. You won’t tell anyone will you?”
“No way. Who’d believe me?” I said.
“Then my dad asked if he could go to church too, just to see what it was like. So I asked if I could go as well.
“And the missionaries started to cry, but it’s not like they’re wimps though. Then one of them said a prayer and it was real … you know, peaceful. And they said that was the Spirit.”
Eddy and I talked for some a time about the missionaries and his time at church. I could feel the excitement in his voice, an excitement that in the following years led me and many others to investigate the LDS faith. Like Eddy, I felt the Spirit testify of its truth and was baptized.
But outside, on the street, Eddy had become “The Mormon kid,” a title he could not seem to shake. The boys on the avenue no longer looked up to Eddy as their hero. Even though he was still a leader and a great hockey player, he had taken a path they did not understand.
It’s been six years since Eddy’s mum first invited the missionaries into their home. A few nights ago Eddy and I sat together as a bus carried us from a game in Sherbrooke. It was the last game of our junior hockey season. For Eddy it was the last game for two years. This morning he left on a mission.
As I sat on the bus I thought about the choice Eddy had made when he was 13 and the choice he just made. In the weeks following his baptism he endured the scorn and ridicule of the Pierrefond gang, but he never faltered in his conviction to the truth. One day this spring our coach said Eddy had a chance to be invited to the “Habs” camp, but Eddy just smiled and said a polite, “Not me.”
As we traveled in the darkness I looked over at Eddy. He was lost in thought. Though I did not know what to say to him, I knew we were friends. Outside the world was waiting for Eddy, but at that moment I was happy he was next to me—I was sitting beside Eddy Shackelford, and he was still my hero.

When I was six years old, my parents divorced. Though I continued to live with my mom, my dad was still present in my life after the separation. I stayed at his house on weekends and for one day in the middle of the week.
Despite his efforts to be a good father, when I was seven, he betrayed my trust in a very serious way. This breach of trust marked the beginning of a growing distance between us. When he called the house, I would avoid answering the phone. When I was older, I demanded that I be able to choose when I went to stay at my dad’s house, rather than be forced to go when the custody order mandated me.
When I was in high school, visits gradually became a lot less frequent. I saw him only two or three times a month. When I went to college, the space between calls grew, until I would talk to him about once a semester. My relationship with my dad had become more of a formality than a true parent-child connection.
During my second year of college, I decided to talk to him about the incident from my childhood that I felt had damaged our relationship so many years ago. I hoped for closure, forgiveness, and a chance to start over. I e-mailed him my thoughts and waited for a reply.
Some time later I received his e-mail in reply. Before I read my father’s response, I prayed and asked Heavenly Father that His Spirit be with me as I read the e-mail. This was such an important moment in my life—I was about to see what my dad had to say and what direction our relationship would take. I was scared and felt very alone.
Indeed I was alone, sitting in my room with my computer. I needed support. I continued to pray to Heavenly Father and felt His Spirit. At last I had the courage to read.
My dad replied with a very short e-mail in which he denied any memory of what I was saying and said that it was a really bad time for him to discuss our past.
The way he dismissed something that was so important to me and didn’t seem to want any sort of reconciliation hurt me deeply. I felt deserted by my father, racked with grief over the troubled relationship we had had for more than a decade.
As I sat in my chair sobbing, I felt the Spirit around me. I had never felt my Heavenly Father’s presence so strongly. I literally felt “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15). I felt reassured and loved as I sat crying.
My relationship with my earthly father may have been lacking, but my Heavenly Father was with me. His presence is strong in my life. I know He loves me, cares for me, and will always want a relationship with me. I know that He is my Father. And He is not going anywhere.

I still have a picture of the green chairs Elder Pistone and Elder Morasco sat in while they taught my family in our home in Argentina. They taught with so much spiritual power that my 10-year-old sister and I (age 9) would run to touch the chairs after they left, hoping that power would rub off on us.
I soon learned that the power didn’t come from the chairs but from having a covenant relationship with God and Jesus Christ.

Approximately 18 months ago, in the fall of 2017, my 64-year-old brother Mike informed me that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He also told me that he had received a priesthood blessing from his home teacher and that he had met with his bishop. He later texted me a picture of the Oakland California Temple taken from the hospital where he was receiving treatment, with the caption “Look what I can see from my hospital room.”
I was as surprised by his comments about home teachers, priesthood blessings, bishops, and temples as I was about the cancer. You see, Mike, a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, hadn’t regularly attended church for close to 50 years.
As a family, we were almost as intrigued with his spiritual progress as we were with his progress in fighting the cancer, largely because of his now frequent questions about the Book of Mormon, the sealing power, and life after death. As the months passed and the cancer spread, a need for additional and more specialized treatment eventually brought Mike to Utah and the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
Shortly after his arrival, Mike was visited by John Holbrook, the ward mission leader of the ward that served the care facility where he was now living. John commented that “it was obvious to me that Mike was a son of God” and that they quickly developed a bond and a friendship, which led to John becoming Mike’s de facto ministering brother. There was an immediate invitation to have the missionaries visit, which my brother politely declined, but a month into their friendship, John asked again, explaining to Mike, “I think you’d enjoy hearing the gospel message.” This time the invitation was accepted, leading to meetings with the missionaries, as well as visits with Bishop Jon Sharp, whose conversations eventually led to Mike receiving his patriarchal blessing, 57 years after his baptism.
In early December of last year, following months of procedures, Mike decided to stop the cancer treatments, which were causing severe side effects, and to just let nature take its course. We were informed by his doctor that Mike had approximately three months to live. In the meantime, the gospel questions continued—as did the visits and support of his local priesthood leaders. On our visits with Mike, we often saw an open copy of the Book of Mormon on the bedstand as we discussed the Restoration of the gospel, priesthood keys, temple ordinances, and the eternal nature of man.
By mid-December, with his patriarchal blessing in hand, Mike actually appeared to be gaining strength, and his prognosis of at least another three months seemed likely. We even made plans for him to join us for Christmas, for New Year’s, and beyond. On December 16, I received an unexpected call from Bishop Sharp, who informed me that he and the stake president had interviewed Mike, had found him worthy to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, and asked when I would be available to participate. The ordinance was scheduled for that Friday, December 21.
When the day arrived, my wife, Carol, and I arrived at the care facility and were immediately met in the hallway near his room and informed that Mike had no pulse. We entered the room to find the patriarch, his bishop, and his stake president already waiting—and then Mike opened his eyes. He recognized me and acknowledged that he could hear me and was ready to receive the priesthood. Fifty years after Mike had been ordained a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, I had the privilege, assisted by his local leaders, to confer the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordain my brother to the office of elder. Five hours later, Mike passed away, crossing the veil to meet our parents as a holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood.
In response to that invitation from a prophet of God, remarkable efforts to minister to the one are taking place all over the world, in both coordinated efforts, as members faithfully fulfill their ministering assignments, as well as in what I’ll call “impromptu” ministering, as so many demonstrate Christlike love in response to unexpected opportunities. In our own family, we witnessed, up close, this type of ministering.
John, who was Mike’s friend, ministering brother, and a former mission president, used to tell his missionaries that “if someone is on a list that says ‘not interested,’ don’t give up. People change.” He then told us, “Mike changed mightily.” John was first a friend, providing frequent encouragement and support—but his ministering didn’t stop at friendly visits. John knew that a minister is more than a friend and that friendship is magnified as we minister.
Knowing that he would soon die, my brother Mike commented, “It’s amazing how pancreatic cancer can make you focus on what’s most important.” Thanks to wonderful men and women who saw a need, did not judge, and ministered like the Savior, it wasn’t too late for Mike. For some, change may come sooner; for others, perhaps beyond the veil. However, we must remember that it is never too late and no one has ever wandered so far from the path that he or she is beyond the reach of the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ, which is limitless in its duration and scope.

When 23-year-old Spencer Moroni Teuiau received his mission call, he couldn’t stop smiling. After four years of delays waiting for dental procedures to be completed, this young man from the island of Raiatea received his call on his birthday. He remembers reading aloud phrases from the letter: “minister of the restored gospel,” “advocate and effective messenger of the truth,” “ambassador of the Savior,” and thinking, “Wow! With all my weaknesses I’m going to have to trust in the Lord.”
But that is something he is used to doing. Moroni grew up in the Church. He is the third of six children to serve a full-time mission, and he recalls “dreaming about serving a mission ever since I was a little boy.” He remembers memorizing missionary scriptures during his four years of seminary and listening to returned missionaries talk about their missions. But he also remembers dental examinations, adjustments, and years of wearing an apparatus. “There were times when I almost gave up,” he says. However, with the encouragement of his family and his own perseverance, he kept hope alive. Today he is faithfully serving in the Tahiti Papeete Mission.

Two years ago, while visiting Santiago, Chile, I was very much impressed by Daniel Olate, a young man who often accompanied the missionaries. I asked him to write to me, and with his permission I will read to you part of his recent e-mail: “I just turned 16, and Sunday I was ordained to the office of a priest. That same day I baptized a friend; her name is Carolina. I taught her the gospel, and she regularly attended church and even received her Personal Progress award, but her parents would not allow her to be baptized until they got to know and trust me. She wanted me to baptize her, so we had to wait for a month until Sunday, when I turned 16. I feel so good to have helped such a good person to be baptized, and I feel happy that I was the one who baptized her.”

Nellie’s father died on October 22, 1856, from hunger and exposure to the cold. Five days later her mother died too. Graves could be dug only in the snow because the early winter had frozen the ground. Nellie and Maggie wearily and sadly walked on alone. They watched as more of the company died and the weather’s cold fierceness strengthened.
One day as Nellie and her sister made their way at the head of the group, two men appeared and motioned for them to come closer. At first the girls refused but soon decided that the men meant no harm. The men gave Nellie some money and instructed her to buy something to put on her feet at the trappers’ trading post they were nearing. Nellie gratefully accepted the money and the chance to cover her bare feet, which had long since grown numb with cold.
In Salt Lake City, President Brigham Young had called for volunteers to meet the handcart company on the plains. When the volunteers finally reached the company, near Laramie, Wyoming, they found the pitiful group nearly buried by the snow. Nellie’s feet were badly frozen. The rescue party gathered her and the remaining members of the company into their wagons and returned to Salt Lake, arriving on November 30.
Nearly everyone in the handcart company had endured painfully frozen feet, hands, and ears and had witnessed the deaths of family members and friends. The doctor had to amputate Nellie’s feet. There was no skin to cushion the bone, so she was left with throbbing sores that never healed.
Nellie and her sister eventually moved south from the Salt Lake Valley to Cedar City. Here Nellie married William Unthank and reared their six children. With a leather apron slid under her damaged legs, Nellie crawled about their small home on her knees, keeping it spotless.
Nellie willingly worked at whatever she could to help provide for her family. Along with other jobs, she took in other people’s clothes to wash, and made articles to sell to add to the family income. If anyone offered food or assistance, she insisted on repaying the favor. As a way of showing gratitude, she gathered her children once a year to clean the church meetinghouse. While the boys carried water, the girls washed windows, and Nellie scrubbed the floors.
William carved wooden “cup feet” for Nellie, but they only irritated her never-healing stumps. Later, through donations, wooden legs were given to Nellie, but these she only wore on special occasions, because they added to her constant pain.
Despite poverty and pain, Nellie rarely complained. She had come to know her Heavenly Father in her sufferings. From the shoes provided for her bare feet, the carriage sent when she couldn’t go on, help given to her through a lifetime of affliction, Nellie Pucell Unthank knew she could count on the Lord.

Joseph’s mother stayed in the Nauvoo area rather than going west, for her remaining family was there, including three daughters. “Here in this city lay my dead,” she explained in an impromptu 1845 talk, “my husband and my children.”12 But her interest remained lively in the work of the western Saints. Enoch Tripp visited her in 1855, the year before her death. They had been close friends when he taught school in Nauvoo. Finding her very feeble. Enoch stepped to her bedside and identified himself: “She arose in her bed and, placing her arms around my neck, kissed me, exclaiming, ‘I can now die in peace, since I have beheld your face from the vallies of the mountains.’” After inquiring after her Utah friends, she remarked that she was on the verge of meeting “with her beloved ones beyond the veil.” As he left, Enoch received a “farewell blessing from this great mother in Israel.”13

Years ago, President Boyd K. Packer told of a herd of deer that, because of heavy snowfall, was trapped outside its natural habitat and faced possible starvation. Some well-meaning people, in an effort to save the deer, dumped truckloads of hay around the area—it wasn’t what deer would normally eat, but they hoped it would at least get the deer through the winter. Sadly, most of the deer were later found dead. They had eaten the hay, but it did not nourish them, and they starved to death with their stomachs full.2

It was my second day as a missionary in Denmark. My companion and I had planned exchanges in which we would do home teaching with some of the members in the ward. I went with two brothers; one was an elder, and the other a priest.
As we headed off, I asked, “Where are we going first?”
“We’re going to visit a sick member and give her a blessing,” one of them replied.
I didn’t think much about his answer until I realized that I would be part of the blessing. Fear immediately struck me. Although I had given blessings before, I was still struggling with the Danish language, and I knew I didn’t know the words needed to give an anointing or a blessing. I quickly scanned the missionary handbook, looking for the section on how to give a blessing in Danish, but with no luck.
Soon we were at the home of an older sister. I could tell she was sick by her constant coughing. I still didn’t know what to say, but this sweet sister, probably seeing how scared I was, said to me, “You can do it in English.”
I was very relieved, and the fear and panic inside of me left. I did the anointing in English, and the other brother did the sealing in Danish. The Spirit of the Lord was very strong, and we could all feel it.
The blessing had an immediate effect, and the sister we blessed was well enough to come to church that Sunday. During the course of my mission, I was able to give blessings to other people, but I will never forget that first blessing I was able to be a part of as a missionary. It gave me a strong testimony that no matter what language we speak, the power of the priesthood is the same.
[illustration] Illustration by Sam Lawlor

“Look! Look what you’ve done!” Akiko shouted at her little brother. She held up the broken Japanese semi (cicada) cage Tadomi had accidentally broken. “I’ll have to build this one all over again,” she said, gathering the bamboo pieces into a pile. She held up the other cage that was unbroken to hear the sharp chirp of the semi inside. “I’m going to show Mr. Ohashi this one,” she told Tadomi.
“May I come along? I could carry the cage for you,” Tadomi offered eagerly.
“No, thank you. I can carry it myself. I don’t want this one broken too,” said Akiko. She turned and skipped down the lane, admiring the pink cherry blossoms as she passed. Stopping for a moment, she picked up a few pink petals from the ground and added them to her semi cage.
Soon Akiko arrived at Mr. Ohashi’s outdoor fish market where she saw him hanging up a line of dried fish out in front. He still had a big box of fish left to hang up.
“Hello, Akiko. What do you have there?” asked Mr. Ohashi.
Akiko held up her bamboo cage with the chirping semi inside. “Listen,” she said as she held the cage up to Mr. Ohashi’s ear.
“Your semi sings beautifully. That’s a nicely built cage too,” he said.
“Thank you, Mr. Ohashi,” said Akiko.
“Would you like to help me display the rest of the fish? You can hand them to me out of the crate,” said Mr. Ohashi.
Akiko set her cage down and took a stack of dried fish out of the box. As she held them under her arm, two long pieces fell out of the stack into a muddy puddle.
“Oh! Look what I’ve done,” cried Akiko, close to tears. She tried to pick up the two dirty pieces of fish.
“It’s OK, Akiko. I know you didn’t mean to,” comforted Mr. Ohashi, patting her shoulder gently. “How about helping me finish?” he asked.
Akiko was surprised that he still wanted her help after what she had done. While she helped Mr. Ohashi hang up the rest of his fish, she thought about how she had acted with Tadomi.
“Come again soon,” called Mr. Ohashi, as Akiko handed him the last fish.
When she arrived home she saw Tadomi, looking very unhappy, rolling a small red ball back and forth near their doorstep. “Tadomi, can you help me rebuild the cage?” Akiko invited. “I know it was just an accident that you broke it.”
Tadomi looked surprised. “Do you really want me to help?” he asked.
“Of course I do, silly. I need you to hand me the bamboo pieces.”
So Tadomi began to hand Akiko the pieces she needed as she worked. Soon the cage was half finished. As Tadomi was waiting for Akiko to ask for the next piece, he rolled some long pieces back and forth. He did it faster and faster on the stone path. Then, without meaning to, Tadomi snapped the bunch in half.
“Oh, no! Akiko, I didn’t—” Tadomi began, trying to explain.
“I know you didn’t mean to do it,” Akiko said understandingly.
Tadomi’s face brightened. Then they both laughed and went into the house to get more bamboo for the cage.

Want to have a ball? The Mission Viejo California Stake did and decided to recreate Nauvoo of the 1840s as the setting. A likeness of Joseph Smith’s Mansion House was erected, along with the Nauvoo Temple, the Times and Seasons print shop, a gun shop, and various lampposts, street signs, trees, and shrubs. During that time period, the Prophet Joseph Smith owned a half-interest in a riverboat called the Maid of Iowa, which was often used to bring guests to Nauvoo for social affairs, so a stage-size “riverboat” was built for the ball. After some dancing, the ball participants were addressed by a master of ceremonies in his Nauvoo Legion uniform. He announced that the Maid of Iowa was about to dock, bringing the belles for the ball. Then each young woman stepped off the boat, curtsied, received a bouquet of baby carnations, and continued down another ramp to stand on the steps of the “temple,” where the arriving belles sang a song. Their fathers then claimed them for a dance, and they all enjoyed a delightful evening of music and fun in their imaginary Nauvoo.

Shortly after Marco was released as bishop, the pandemic struck. Brother Peña lost his job, and the family was plunged into a new round of emotional and financial crisis. Following the counsel of Church leaders and the revised handbook, 13 the Peñas’ elders quorum president took the lead in seeking inspired ways to support them. Counseling with the new bishop, the elders quorum president felt prompted to assign Marco to help Brother Peña.
The important relationship of trust was already there. And with the assignment, given under the authority of priesthood keys, Marco could rely on receiving the revelation he would need to help. 14
“Some would call it ironic that I was asked to help Brother Peña after spending so much time with them as bishop,” Marco said. “But this assignment has been a choice experience for me. It is an assignment from the Lord to help do His work. I am grateful to be able to help lift not only the Peñas’ burdens but the bishop’s as well.”

The first time Kirby Orme of the St. Charles Second Ward really talked to Brandy Easton, he told her the story of Helaman and the 2,000 warriors.
Interesting, she thought, but strange timing. For one thing, she didn’t know Kirby well. For another, she and some friends had just stopped by.
“Somebody asked him about the Book of Mormon,” Brandy says. “And he told us his favorite story. You can’t help but be drawn into it. I was really impressed with that.”
Brandy wanted to hear more. And she liked Kirby’s family. There was something different about them.
“They were so close and they did so many things together. I wanted that for me,” she says softly.
A short time later, Brandy heard some anti-Mormon statements. She went to the Ormes to ask if the things she had heard were true. They gave her a Book of Mormon and bore their testimonies. Kirby’s younger brother Jared also answered a lot of questions over the phone.
“Something was guiding me on. I knew I was doing something right for the first time in a long, long time,” Brandy explains. The Ormes could sense the Holy Ghost at work.
“I knew she was feeling the Spirit,” Jared says. “I knew she would be fine.”
Brandy started taking the discussions. “My parents raised me with strong values, so much of what I was learning was already familiar.” But some things “didn’t make sense at first. I would go home crying, go in my room and pray, trying to understand.”
Finally one night she re-read Moroni 10:4–5 [Moro. 10:4–5]. “I felt calm, though the world seemed in a whirl. The promise came true—the Lord told me the Book of Mormon is true.”
Brandy told her parents she wanted to be baptized. “They said if I felt it was right, I could be. I told them I knew it was right. Before, when I made a mistake, I’d think, oh well, that’s life. Now I try to be an example to others.”
And her example has helped bring one of her best friends, Brandee Carter, into the Church. But that’s another story.

While swimming in Provo River, the teenage Tom Monson saw a crowd of vacationers shouting frantically that a member of their group had fallen into the river and was likely to drown in the whirlpools toward which she was being swept. At just that moment, she thrashed her way into Tom’s view. He swam to her side, took her in tow, and made his way to the bank.
“They were very generous in their gratitude and credited me with saving her life,” Brother Monson would later report. “But I think I just happened to be in the right place at the right time in order to give help.”

Picture with me a little six-year-old orphan girl traveling across the plains of America. Her name is Elsie Ann. Her mother died when she was two. Her father remarried, and so for a time she had a stepmother. Then her father died at Winter Quarters when she was five. Her stepmother remarried and moved away, leaving this little orphan behind with Peter and Selina Robison, who were related to her stepmother. Elsie Ann left Winter Quarters with the Robisons in July of 1849 to come west. As she watched Selina care for her 10-month-old baby girl, she no doubt ached for the love of her own mother. Sometimes she would even ask, “Where is my mother?”

My heart goes out to this little girl when I think of her facing her uncertain future with no blood relatives to comfort and help her. Elsie Ann was my great-grandmother, and only recently did we find out who her mother really was. For years we thought Elsie Ann was Jane Robison’s daughter. Careful research discovered her true parentage, and after all these years Elsie Ann now has been sealed to her father, John Akerley, and her mother, Mary Moore.

The Monterrey México Temple stands prominently on a hill next to a major highway. It is impossible to pass without noting the majesty of the building and its setting. When Román and Norma Rodríguez first passed the temple, there were signs announcing an open house. Feeling drawn to it, they stopped and went in with their family.

Originally married in a civil ceremony as required by law, they were, after 15 years and three children, involved in planning the impressive church wedding they had never had. But during their visit to the Monterrey temple, they felt something they had never felt before. There was a peace and joy Román could not explain. Norma felt it too. They agreed that they had to learn more about the teachings of the church that had built this temple, so they left their names and a request for the missionaries to visit.

“I remember when we were preparing for that other wedding,” Sister Rodríguez says. “I kept wondering if we were doing the right thing. I prayed to the Lord to help me, and I feel my prayer was answered as we learned about eternal marriage.”

On 15 May 2003, just one year and eight days after their baptism, Brother and Sister Rodríguez and their daughter and two sons returned to the house of the Lord for the kind of wedding they really wanted—their eternal sealing as a family. They are members of the Santo Domingo Ward, San Nicolás México Stake, where he is elders quorum president and she is visiting teaching supervisor. Their children—Vanessa, 14; Román, 11; and Omar, 9—enjoy Primary, the youth programs, and the other activities available in their ward.

Both Brother and Sister Rodríguez tell of spiritual experiences that reconfirm the wisdom of their decision to become members of the Church. Before, Brother Rodríguez says, they were running after the common things of life. Now they see with real depth and spiritual clarity. “I feel like our life is beginning to come together,” he says.