Gospel Story Finder

“I like to be different and do things that no one else has done,” Cheryl Brooks says of her latest accomplishment. Instead of completing just 28 Personal Progress goals while she was a Mia Maid in the Highland (Utah) 14th Ward, Cheryl decided to do every single experience listed—115 in all!
“There were times when I wondered if Cheryl hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew,” says her mother, “but that just made her more determined.”
Because of her tremendous effort, Cheryl has gained a greater appreciation for her family history and has learned to rely on Heavenly Father to help her accomplish what she wants.
“I feel like I’ve done something worthwhile, and it taught me so much about the gospel,” says Cheryl.

As a young teenager, David continued to work on the farm and later attended the University of Utah, graduating in 1897. During his years at college he played football, played piano for a dance band, and was elected president of his senior class. He had made his professional plans as graduation drew near, but shortly before receiving his diploma he received a letter from President Wilford Woodruff, calling him to serve a mission in Great Britain. It was a major decision—and he struggled with it, as must many young men and women today. He decided to set aside his plans and accept the call.
His first months in the Scottish conference, where his father had served years earlier, were not easy, as is the case for many missionaries. He describes this discouraging time and its resultant renewal of his commitment to the Lord in these words:
“I was homesick and a little discouraged on this day. …
“I had just left school. I loved school and I loved young people. I loved youth. And then to go over there and feel … [people’s] prejudice [against the Church] gave me the blues.
“As [my companion and I] were coming back into town, I saw on my right an unfinished dwelling, over the front door of which was a stone on which there was a carving. That was most unusual, so I said to Elder Johnston, ‘I’m going to see what that is.’ I was half way up the graveled walk when there came to my eyesight a striking motto as follows, carved in stone: ‘Whate’er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part.’
“I repeated it to Elder Johnston as we walked in to town to find a place for our lodgings before we began our work. We walked quietly, but I said to myself, or the Spirit within me, ‘You are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More than that, you are here as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. You accepted the responsibility as a representative of the Church.’ …
“That afternoon, by the time we found our lodgings, I accepted the message given to me on that stone, and from that moment we tried to do our part as missionaries in Scotland.”

What is more amazing than seeing a child smile for the first time?
Nothing, as Devan Griner found out personally when he served as a youth volunteer on a two-week mission with Operation Smile to Vietnam. There he helped very young patients overcome their fears about doctors as they waited for their turns to have cleft palates or other facial deformities repaired. Devan also started a Smile Club in Skyline High School in his hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Devan is the first to tell that he is not the only LDS teen working long and hard for Operation Smile. When he was elected to serve on the national youth council, he met Amanda Fairbourne, also on the national council, who is a member of the Church from Plymouth, Minnesota.
The chapter Devan helped organize at his high school is also not the first in Utah. The Bountiful High School chapter was organized first, but the members unselfishly helped him get a chapter going at his high school.
But sometimes that’s what it takes to be an everyday hero, not the person who is doing the most, or even the one who is doing it first, just the one who is doing all he can to serve in a good cause. And Devan is doing just that. He persuaded his school to donate the proceeds from their annual Millions of Pennies charity drive to Operation Smile. Because Operation Smile was such a good cause, the school responded with unprecedented enthusiasm. The thought of putting a smile on a child’s face was enough to melt the toughest hearts. Their donation became the biggest youth chapter donation ever received at the national headquarters.
Operation Smile started 15 years ago when a plastic surgeon and his wife, who also served as his nurse, went to the Philippines and donated their time to repairing cleft palates for several weeks. So many children were turned away that they were determined to come again. And they did, this time bringing other volunteer doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologists.
The good work spread. Soon doctors from all over the United States were donating their time on surgical teams visiting countries where cosmetic surgery to repair deformities was too expensive or nonexistent.
Teenagers wanted to get involved. They started forming clubs to raise money for the supplies the doctors and nurses needed to take with them. The surgeons and medical personnel donated their time, airlines often donated the flight tickets, but money was still needed to fly all the equipment needed to set up operating rooms in countries around the world. The surgical teams would sometimes operate 16 hours a day, each doctor handling as many as 30 little patients. “That’s the cool thing,” says Devan. “In a matter of 30 minutes in cleft palate surgery, a child’s life is changed forever. Before, the kids have big huge holes. Sometimes they wear bandannas because they feel disgraced. They often aren’t allowed to attend school, and some are even abandoned by their parents. A 30-minute operation changes that.”
Devan got his club involved in fund-raising. His friends and fellow club officers Travis Nilsson, Jared Ellsworth, and Ruth Ann Romney were soon as enthusiastic as Devan about seeing healthy smiles on the faces of children. The Skyline Club used video presentations and plenty of talk to spread the word. Also, Devan was trained to be one of two youth volunteers to go on a mission with one of the surgical teams. Sent to Vietnam, Devan was not entirely prepared for what he would see.
“I met a kid about 14 who had a bad burn contracture. A contracture is when the scar pulls as it heals. He fell on a lamp when he was six months old. His burn was on his face and neck, and it pulled his head to the side and pulled his eye down. It kind of surprised me. I didn’t know how to react.
“I was juggling for the kids and blowing bubbles to entertain them as they waited for their turn in surgery. Every time I looked at him, he was watching me. He liked the bubbles. His chin was pulled down so far by the scar that he couldn’t bring his lips together enough to blow bubbles. I gave him the bubble wand, and he started making huge bubbles, putting on a show for everyone. It kind of hit me. He looks horrible, but inside he was great. I could tell he was trying to smile because he was having fun.
“I saw him after his operation. The surgeons released the burn scar and removed a lot of scar tissue. His eye went back to normal. His mouth came back up. He had some skin grafts. After the operation, I went over and shook his hand. He could actually smile. It was cool.”
Devan, Travis, Jared, Ruth and the rest of the club members have learned what it means to lose a little bit of themselves in the service of others. They have come to appreciate the blessings of their own lives and the good things that they sometimes take for granted.
It’s enough to make you smile.
After each child goes through surgery, he or she is given a Smile bag or Smile doll that has been made and donated by various organizations to help in the efforts to brighten the lives of children.
The Young Women of Logan First Ward, Logan Utah Stake (below), made 139 hand puppets which they donated to Operation Smile. The puppets were sent with a surgical team to the Philippines, where they were used to entertain the children and help them feel at ease prior to surgery. Dayna Conger, a Laurel whose brother is serving a mission in the Philippines, said, “This project was a lot of fun. It made me feel more connected to my brother and the people he is serving.”

As it turned out, we only had time for three more children. Our fourth child is Natalie. Since birth, her nickname has been Sunshine, and for good reason. She was born with strong mothering instincts. Natalie became like a second mom to our youngest two children just by her nature—it couldn’t be stopped. Because of that, the younger three came to be known as the “junior patrol,” in contrast to the older three, who I guess were the “senior patrol,” though they never used the term themselves. Natalie led Mandy and Benjamin in everything—club meetings, adventures, shows, chores—and they loved it. Talk about belonging! They felt it.

One night Angie and I were tired and sitting at the dinner table talking, and Natalie was doing the dishes because it was her turn. Exhausted, Angie turned to Natalie and, without thinking, asked, “Natalie, after you finish the dishes, will you put your kids to bed?”

Natalie was stunned, and then we all three started laughing together—well at least Angie and I were laughing. I am not sure Natalie was laughing, because of course they were not Natalie’s kids; they were ours. Oh how we love Natalie—the sunshine of our lives!

They never told us any of this in the Missionary Training Center,” was all I could think of as I followed my companion down a dismal Düsseldorf side street, shuffling my frozen feet through the dirty snow as I went.
Less than a week before, I had left the Missionary Training Center after two intense but glorious months filled with grammar and vocabulary, discussions and scriptures, and a growing recognition of the workings of the Spirit. Still ringing in my ears were countless stories from teachers and General Authorities of the immeasurable joy that awaited me in the mission field and of the way lives would change because of the message I carried.
As I tracted that day I felt betrayed. The only changed life I could see was my own: changed from the comfort of Arizona sunshine to the misery of a German winter and from the freedom of my pre-mission existence to a life-style of exhausting physical work and infinite restrictions.
I wondered where all the joy could be as we climbed endless staircases to talk to people who didn’t want to talk to us. I wondered too, how the truth could possibly make a difference in the lives of those who shut their doors before hearing a complete sentence. Most of all I wondered where the promised Spirit was: the Spirit that softened the hearts of men like Alma and Saul, that guided missionaries like Ammon and Aaron to proclaim the right words to the right people, and that gave messengers like Abinadi and Samuel the Lamanite the strength of conviction and love for the people to carry on despite all persecution and rejection.
I felt no love for the people, no joy in the work, and no Spirit to comfort or inspire me. All I felt was an unfamiliar bitterness, and an aloneness I never knew existed.
As I trudged along, fighting back tears, I turned my thoughts to home, hoping to ease my desperation for even a second. In that frustrated, confused moment, a single picture unfolded in my mind. I saw my parents kneeling at their bedside, heads bowed and brows furrowed in prayer. Their words were for me. “Dear Father, bless our daughter. Keep her from discouragement and lead her in thy paths.”
As that picture faded, a hundred others tumbled one after the other into its place—pictures of six brothers and a sister; of relatives, friends, and ward members all bowed in prayer for me. I glanced at my watch and realized that it was early morning at home and that those earnest prayers were being said right then. And I knew, with undeniable clarity, that they were being answered right then as a feeling of love and warmth dissolved every negative emotion from my soul. I sensed a powerful, glowing triangle, linking home and heaven and me.
I knew then, with a witness that comes only from the Spirit I had sought, that I was a part of a work not my own, but that of a wise and loving Father who sent his Son to show me the way. “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Snow still falls and doors still shut, but weekly letters bring a renewed assurance as I read “You are in our prayers,” for I know that each of those prayers ascends to the Source of all love and distills daily upon every servant in His vineyard.

When we were transferred in 1989 from the Germany Hamburg Mission to East Germany to preside over the Dresden mission, the time was not convenient for our family. Our children had just adapted to their new school in Hamburg and now had to become acquainted with the socialistic school system in East Germany. One child could not even come with us because she needed to finish school in the West. However, we have learned from this experience that what seemed to be hard for us in the beginning eventually turned into a great blessing for all of us. The Lord had His own way to take care of our challenges.

The Russian guard lifted the gate blocking the way from the old pre-World War II Russian military hospital to the main road. The girls and their leaders drove through the gate in silence. They had all been excited for the service project, but none of them had imagined how thankful they would be feeling after the project was over.
The young women of the Berlin Servicemen’s Ward in Berlin, Germany, had just spent the afternoon with thirty-two Russian children who had been exposed to radiation during the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion. The children had been sent to Beelitz, which was part of the former East Germany, for thirty days of treatment, and then another group of children would be sent in.
The girls had played with hula hoops with the children. They bounced foam rubber balls on a parachute, and then, in another game, they tried to clear all the balls from one side of a room to the other before the whistle blew. Before they left, the girls gave each child a little bag of fruit, a stick of gum, and a small present which contained a notebook, pen, and three colored pencils.
Once they were on the main road, the silence broke. But the car wasn’t filled with the loud noises of happiness that usually accompany groups of girls. The voices were hushed, and everyone was feeling tender about what they had just experienced.
They had gone to uplift the ailing children. But much to their surprise, the children had done the same for them.
The children sang songs, danced, and even put on a skit of “Cinderella” for the girls. Although they couldn’t understand the children, that didn’t slow things down. Seventeen-year-old Elisabeth Farnsworth says, “The language barrier didn’t matter because we were able to communicate through our spirits.”
When the children finished their program, they asked the young women to sing for them. “As we stood to sing ‘I Am a Child of God’ to these children, who didn’t understand English, tears came to my eyes,” says Elisabeth. “I received the feeling that what we sang was true and that, even though we speak a different language and come from different countries, we all are children of the same Heavenly Father who knows what each of us needs. He does love each of his children. These children were away from their families, and they needed to know that they were loved.” The Lord had provided that love through the young women.
“I learned a lesson that will certainly stay with me through the rest of my life,” says Tina Dorny, 17. She made friends with an eight-year-old boy named Sascha, who clung to a piece of a toy train track the entire time the girls were there. “For just a moment, Sascha taught me to find happiness in the little things we are given and not to be so caught up in the world that we forget each other.”
The children as well as the doctors and nurses were delighted with the visit and asked the girls to please come again. So they made arrangements to come the following Friday, only this time they would bring food, clothing, and copies of the Book of Mormon in Russian. The project turned out to be such a success that the young women of the stake have continued visiting the Russian children each month, and will do so as long as the children are receiving treatment in Beelitz.
Each of the girls left the hospital that afternoon having felt the Spirit in some way. Elisabeth wasn’t the only one to say, “While I was serving, I felt the Spirit as strongly as I have ever felt it.”
The car turned; the girls could see their own meetinghouse in the distance. Spontaneously, they began singing “Because I Have Been Given Much” (Hymns, number 219). They now understood what King Benjamin meant when he said, “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).

I have always been interested in the background of President Eldon Tanner. At this University some years ago, President Tanner recalled his humble and difficult beginnings. Speaking of his parents, he said,
When they arrived in Southern Alberta, Father had no money, and he had to sell his team in order to finance. But the thing I have always been pleased about was that Father never thought of calling on the government. He went and worked for his neighbor, and he broke horses so they would have horses to use. He lived in a dugout on a homestead where I lived the first part of my life. He often said, “I bet ten dollars against a quarter section of land of the Dominion Government that I could make a go of it. I nearly succeeded.” He also said, “You know, when I came to this country [referring to Canada] I didn’t have a rag on my back; now I am all rags.”
[President Tanner continues,] We lived after that in a little hamlet. I don’t suppose this would be of interest to you, but in that little hamlet we didn’t even have a telephone. We didn’t have a daily paper; we didn’t have a weekly paper—regularly. We had no running water—hot or cold water. So you can imagine other things we didn’t have! We had no central heating, you can be sure of that. In fact, I often wondered if we had any heating in the house. [President Nathan Eldon Tanner, “My Experiences and Observations,” speech given at Brigham Young University, May 17, 1966]
From these difficult beginnings came the giant we know as Nathan Eldon Tanner. He was a speaker of the Alberta Legislature, Minister of Mines and Lands in the province, president of the Trans-Canadian Pipeline, branch president, bishop, stake president, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, apostle, and counselor to four Presidents of the Church.

GEELONG—Anthony George, 17, lives in this seaside town southwest of Melbourne. “I actually got my testimony from attending the temple,” he says. “Before I started going to the temple, I didn’t really have much of a testimony. I just went along with everyone.” Then, a few weeks before his third trip to the temple, Anthony’s Sunday School teacher told the class that everyone needs a testimony. “So I started thinking about that.”
At the Sydney Temple a few weeks later, Anthony was in the font. “I had already been baptized a few times, and they said the baptismal prayer and I was baptized again. I just had this really good feeling like the person was grateful for what I had done for him. I just felt that this was the right thing, and that going to church was the right thing.” Everything just came together “like a jigsaw puzzle the Spirit put together for me.”

A lovely lady who has since passed away visited with me one day and unexpectedly recounted some regrets. She spoke of an incident which had taken place many years earlier and involved a neighboring farmer, once a good friend but with whom she and her husband had disagreed on multiple occasions. One day the farmer asked if he could take a shortcut across her property to reach his own acreage. At this point she paused in her narrative to me and, with a tremor in her voice, said, “Brother Monson, I didn’t let him cross our property then or ever but required him to take the long way around on foot to reach his property. I was wrong, and I regret it. He’s gone now, but oh, I wish I could say to him, ‘I’m so sorry.’ How I wish I had a second chance to be kind.”

The other experience that led me to speak of diligence to you tonight was watching a man near the end of his priesthood service in this life. He had been a bishop twice. His first call as a bishop, years before I met him, had been when he was young. Now he was old, released for the second time as a bishop. His increasing physical limitations made any priesthood service very difficult.
Yet he had a plan to act in diligence. He sat every Sunday he could get to church near the row nearest the door where most of the people would enter for the sacrament meeting. He got there early to be sure a seat was vacant. Each person arriving could see his look of love and welcome, just as they did when he sat on the stand as their bishop. His influence warmed and lifted us because we knew something of the price he paid to serve. His task as a bishop was finished; his priesthood service did not end.

After decades of living where members of the Church are a minority, my husband and I moved into a neighborhood in Rexburg, Idaho, USA, that contained only two nonmember families. It was our good fortune to live next to one of them.
The father was mowing his lawn the first time we drove into our driveway. My husband and I crossed our lawn to get acquainted. As I put out my hand, I asked, “So what brought your family to Rexburg?”
He replied, “My job—and we searched specifically for a town that needed to be introduced to Christ.”
I felt as though a bucket of cold water had been thrown in my face, but I smiled. I determined at that moment that no matter what our new neighbor said or did, we would become the best neighbors the family ever had. We would try to respond in every interaction with them in a kind, loving, and reasonable way, as the Savior would.
The following eight years brought many shared activities between our families. The mother was invited to and attended Relief Society activities. She invited me and many of our Latter-day Saint neighbors to a Christian women’s retreat sponsored by her church. My husband and I were invited to their children’s dance and piano recitals. Their family was included in neighborhood cookouts and parties. And we received calls from their older children when they needed rides home from work and couldn’t reach their parents.
The parents worried that their children might begin to like Latter-day Saints too much, so they didn’t let their sons join our ward Scouting program. But our home was considered a safe place, where they let their children play when our grandchildren visited.
Every time our neighbors tried to help us see “the error of our ways,” we reminded them that we had the utmost respect for their beliefs and the way they lived and nurtured their children. We then added that we expected the same respect for our beliefs, which also centered on the Savior’s teachings.
When the mother tried to make our differences into a deep, uncrossable chasm by claiming that Latter-day Saints believed in a “different Jesus,” I reminded her that we both believed He is divine and the beloved Son of God. Eventually she and I enjoyed a warm and friendly relationship.
Their family moved without joining the Church. But if they can say, “We lived among Mormons; they are good and respectful people with sincere hearts,” then I feel we succeeded in being good neighbors and in helping them become more open and fair in their assessment of Latter-day Saints.

Keeping a journal is not easy. We often tell ourselves that we are too busy or too tired or that our lives aren’t exciting enough to write about. I realized a few years ago that journal-keeping wasn’t meant to be hard and that I could grow to love it.
I began by writing one thing a day. It didn’t matter if it was really long or exciting; I just wrote whatever was on my mind or whatever had happened that day. It has already blessed my life.
One day someone in my family was struggling and I wasn’t sure what to say to her, but then I was prompted to read her one of my journal entries. I was able to share a little piece of me that I had recorded in that little black journal, and I saw the way that it helped lighten her heart. (See lds.org/go/rememberNE10.)
I guarantee if you will start by writing one thing down a day, it will bless your life. No matter how small or how big, writing down the blessings in your life can help you to remember them.
Gentry W., Utah, USA

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the terrible events that occurred in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, when terrorists hijacked four airplanes in an attempt to rob America of its safety and security. On September 11, 2001, Sister Bateman and I were scheduled to give the first devotional of the school year. We awoke early to prepare for the day. During the morning we turned on the television to listen to the news. It was not long before the cameras shifted to New York and the north tower of the World Trade Center, which had just been hit. The announcer noted that an airplane had crashed into the tower, puncturing the building just below the 100th floor. They were uncertain as to whether it was an accident or a deliberate act. A short time later, while the cameras were still focused on the twin towers, another plane came into view headed for the second tower. What followed was an unbelievable sight. United Flight 175 continued its course, crashing into the south tower. At that point it was apparent that the acts were deliberate, the planes had been hijacked, hundreds of lives had been taken, and thousands were now in danger. The floors that had been hit became drenched with airplane fuel, and soon the towers were raging infernos in the upper reaches of the buildings. All of us watching feared for the lives of those who were on the upper floors. Little did we understand what was about to happen. Within an hour the blazing heat generated by the fireball melted the steel infrastructure, bringing the south tower crashing to the ground. The north tower followed 29 minutes later.

As Sister Bateman and I watched, we became concerned about the students at BYU. It did not seem appropriate to move forward with the regular devotional, but we felt a strong need to gather the BYU community together to briefly discuss the events and then counsel together regarding the challenges that lay ahead. In the special devotional one year ago, we indicated that there was no reason to fear for our lives or the lives of loved ones unless they were in the planes or at the sites of impact.

Not long after I was ordained a deacon, my bishop, Leon Walker, asked me into his office to give me an assignment. He handed me a bright key, the key to the chapel, and charged me with responsibility to help look after the building. I considered myself one of the most fortunate boys in the world to have an assignment from my priesthood president. I thought this would not be a difficult task. My home was just a one-minute bicycle ride away from the building. But I soon learned what I suppose all bishops know, and that is that everybody in the ward seems to have a key to the building. As soon as I had the building locked up on an evening, someone came along behind me and opened a door. As soon as I had opened a Primary classroom, some diligent soul was there behind me to lock it up again. I could hardly stay on top of that job.
But I began to learn then, as I have come to understand since, that any call, any service in our Lord’s cause sanctifies us. Whether it is performed in the glare of the public eye or in a quiet corner known only to God is of no consequence. What matters is that we do serve, for by serving we keep our covenants with Deity, and in those covenants is the promise of salvation.

I had only lived in Tokyo, Japan, a little while. It takes an hour for me to get home from school on the bus. One day a friend said that if we got off at the first bus stop, he knew the way to my house and would guide me home. I believed him. So I got off the bus at the first stop, thinking that he would get off, too. But he tricked me. He didn’t get off, and I was alone.
I tried to remember the way to my house. I started to walk, but I came to a fork in the road, and I didn’t know which way to go. I felt very bad and scared. I said a prayer. I told Heavenly Father that I had made a mistake, and I asked Him to help me get home. I felt better, and He helped me choose the right way to go. I got home safely and was grateful that He helped me. I learned that He really listens to our prayers and helps us solve problems.
Ian Robert Evans, age 7Tokyo, Japan

We in Relief Society commonly hold focus groups as we travel. These are informal gatherings that allow us to hear from our sisters throughout the world. We generally sit in a circle and let our sisters tell us what is on their minds and in their hearts. One of our single general board members recently reported the following episode. A sister about the same age as our board member said, “These single women. I am convinced they simply do not want the responsibilities of children. They don’t get married because they take all their satisfaction from a paycheck.”
I know well what is in the heart of this board member. No one could want a husband and family more than she. She went up to our sister after the meeting and said, “On behalf of the single women of the Church, I want you to know I’d do anything to have your two children, and I do not take satisfaction from my paycheck.” Giving no response, the other sister turned away and started talking to someone else.
My single friend was wounded and angry. She fumed, “Elaine, what our sister said was so untrue. She must never have talked to a single woman if she thinks that. Why do we make false accusations about each other?”
It’s a good question, isn’t it? In fact, it’s a lot like Alma’s question about the “wickedness and infidelity” of the Zoramites. My friend asked the kind of question that each of us might profitably ask when obvious insensitivity and unkindness inflict pain. Why do we do things like that? I believe that as members of the Church we do not intend to inflict pain on others. I think generally our forays into “them and us” talk and action come because of poor vision.
In some cases we simply are blind to the feelings of brothers and sisters close to us because we do not share their experience. A woman recently wrote me: As a single adult I feel I have been forgotten. Perhaps you are thinking that I should be more
faithful, that by trusting in the Lord I will overcome this feeling of being left out and not being cared about. Deep down inside there is a need in me that is not being filled. When I have spoken with those in leadership positions I am . . . forgotten as soon as I have left the room because they are at a loss. I don’t think it is intentional. I think they are in a quandary.
Sometimes when we’re in a quandary, we don’t know what to say or do, so we turn away. Lots of times that is the most hurtful thing we can do. A friend of mine says, “Disagree with me. Speak to me curtly. But don’t ignore me.” I feel the same way. When I talk with someone else, I can learn. I won’t always fully understand. I may not always completely agree. But I will always learn. Sisters and brothers, let us learn from each other by opening our eyes to other perspectives and people.

Janean spent the day working with Lottie Dayton, putting size labels on clothing and hanging apparel on racks.
“If I weren’t here today, I’d just be sitting home, or maybe riding my horse,” Janean said. “This is more important—it’s more important to serve the Lord than to serve yourself. That’s what Christmas is all about, helping others. We had to put priorities in order. Sure, it was hard to squeeze everything in, especially when we were trying to do Christmas shopping of our own. But we were excited to come down here, and she’s so sweet …”
Her voice trailed off as she looked over at Sister Dayton, who was still hanging things on the rack as she softly hummed “Where Love Is.”
As young and old labored amid clothing baling machines, steam tunnels (used to remove wrinkles from clothing), label racks, and sorting tables, the workshop did turn out some Christmas magic after all. By the end of each shift, there were no young and old, no handicapped and nonhandicapped, just friends, co-workers, and fellow Saints.
The same spirit prevailed at a Christmas party ten days later.
“We brought all the workers to the stake center,” Nan Brian of the Uintah First Ward explained. “When they got there, we gave each one an ornament with his name and the name of one of the kids in the stake who had worked with him printed on it. Then we did all we could to make them realize we are their friends.”
That included a program of carols, stories, a visit from Santa Claus, and of course, the true story of the birth of Christ as recorded in the scriptures.
As the workers were escorted home and the youth of the Weber Stake returned to their final holiday preparations, there was a warmth and a glow about both groups. Some had learned that others still cared, and some had learned that caring is the solid foundation of December’s glorious celebration.

Now, fast forward to several years ago and consider three young men who also answered a call from the prophet at approximately the same age of 19 years and came to the Missionary Training Center as missionaries. For some reason they couldn’t quite grasp why they were there and immediately started having problems. As their branch president, I received reports that they were causing problems in their classes and doing other inappropriate things. Although they were companions, I met with each of them individually, discussed these problems, and challenged them to remember who they were and who they represented and, if nothing else, to simply look at the Savior’s name on their badges on a regular basis as a reminder. A week later I received a report that things had not improved. So on a Sunday I met with them again and went over what was and wasn’t appropriate. That same day they went back to their room and played what turned out to be a very inappropriate prank on another missionary, which led to more serious consequences. At this point, the decision from Church headquarters in Salt Lake City was that they apparently were not ready to be representatives of the Church and needed to go home.

In both cases, three young men had answered a call, but each set chose to take different routes. What was the difference? Two of the words that come to mind are agency and perspective.

Permit me to illustrate this point. A young man of faith practiced diligently and became a championship swimmer. He excelled to the point that scholarship offers from many universities were extended. One by one he turned them aside. His father asked, “Son, why won’t you accept one of these free-ride scholarships?”
“I can’t,” the boy answered. “I’m going on a mission, and it would not be honest for me to accept it and then drop it before the year is gone.”
Angrily the father shouted, “How foolish can you be! You are throwing away an opportunity of a lifetime.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” the boy added respectfully, “but I take seriously what the Lord said about his coming again, and when he does, I don’t want to be found in the swimming pool practicing the backstroke.”