Gospel Story Finder

1. A few years ago we decided to keep a written record of some of the strengths and weaknesses of our children and hold a personal interview with each child every two or three months.
Their father prepared a folder with each child’s name on it. Inside on the left side are sheets of paper with the title “Weaknesses.” On the right side are sheets of paper entitled “Strengths.”
During the interview, which is a very special time alone with each child, we discuss the two areas. Under the date, we write how all three of us see any problems that exist, specifically list jobs well done and record attitudes improved during the past few weeks. The children are free to express to us any feelings they have regarding our home, other family members, their friends, or their personal concerns. And we respond as parents.

When he was twenty-four years old, John had the opportunity to migrate to Canada to join his family, who had moved there two years before.
Before John’s ship left the English Channel, however, there was a horrible storm. Many people on the ship got sick as the storm tossed the ship from side to side.
Ships all around John’s were being destroyed by the storm, and the officers and crew of his ship prepared for the worst.
But John wasn’t worried. He even walked calmly around the deck at midnight during the raging storm! He knew that he had a work to do in Canada, and he trusted Heavenly Father to protect him so that he could do that work.

When I returned from my mission, I met a beautiful young woman with long black hair down to her waist. She had beautiful, big honey eyes and a contagious smile. She captivated me from the first moment I saw her.
My wife had set the goal to get married in the temple, although back then the nearest temple required a trip of over 4,000 miles (6,400 km).
Our civil marriage ceremony was both happy and sad, for we were married with an expiration date. The officer pronounced the words “And now I declare you husband and wife,” but immediately after, he said, “until death do you part.”
So with sacrifice we set out to purchase a one-way ticket to the Mesa Arizona Temple.
In the temple, as we were kneeling down at the altar, an authorized servant pronounced the words I longed for, which declared us husband and wife for time and for all eternity.
A friend took us to Sunday School. During the meeting he stood up and introduced us to the class. As the meeting came to a close, a brother approached me and shook my hand, leaving a 20-dollar bill in it. Soon after, another brother reached out to me as well, and to my surprise, he also left a bill in my hand. I quickly looked for my wife, who was across the room, and shouted, “Blanquy, shake hands with everyone!”
Soon we had gathered enough money to return to Guatemala.

Once during a study session, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I asked in a friendly way if my classmates could change the subject. When they refused, I left. I had to do this at every break. Later, they did show some consideration and even some interest. I told them what the Church means to me. Now my classmates do not discuss inappropriate subjects in my presence.
Berendina Jantje Wachtmeester,Apeldoorn Ward, Apeldoorn Netherlands Stake

My friend Tammy stopped attending church when she was just 15 years old. Around the corner from Tammy lived a young man who also decided in his mid-teens that he didn’t want to be part of the Church. They both developed habits that took them further away from Church activity. Eventually, they married and began to raise a family.
Tammy loved her husband and her two daughters very much, but deep in her heart bubbled a longing to go back to the life she had known as a child. She faintly remembered feeling her Heavenly Father’s Spirit and influence with her, and she missed Him. Reluctant to share these thoughts with her husband for fear he would not approve, she kept them hidden. She wanted to come back, but she just didn’t know how to begin. Let’s listen to her own words as she tells the ripple effect of two wonderful visiting teachers who “[drew] water [from] the wells of salvation” and shared it with Tammy.
[Video transcript of Tammy Clayton]
I’m grateful to this day for my visiting teachers because they loved me and they didn’t judge me. They really made me feel as though I really was important and that I did have a place in the Church.
They’d come over to my home and we would sit and we’d visit. After a while, they’d ask me if I wanted a lesson, and they would leave me a message each month.
And when they came every month, it made me feel as if I really did matter and as though they really did care about me and as though they really loved me and appreciated me.
Through their visiting and coming to see us, I decided that it was time for me to go back to church. I guess I just really didn’t know how to come back, and by their coming and reaching out to me, they provided a way that I could return.
We need to realize that the Lord loves us no matter who we are, and my visiting teachers helped me see that this was right.
Now my husband and I have been sealed in the temple.

It was the Savior’s healing power that I felt most throughout my reading of the Book of Mormon. Verse after verse testifies of His grace, mercy, compassion, and infinite love. As I read about Jesus Christ, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for His sacrifice. One of the greatest miracles I experienced while reading was the feeling of complete forgiveness for a series of poor choices made years ago. I felt as though the Savior was speaking directly to me as I read. In my heart I felt the words, It’s time to move on. Christ literally provided the healing I needed.

In 1971, I was assigned to stake conferences in Western Samoa, including the organization of a new stake on Upolu island. After interviews we chartered a small plane to Savai‘i island to hold a stake conference there. The plane landed on a grassy field at Faala and was to return the next afternoon to take us back to Upolu island.
The day we were to return from Savai‘i, it was raining. Knowing the plane could not land on the wet field, we drove to the west end of the island, where there was a runway of sorts atop a coral break. We waited until dark, but no plane arrived. Finally, we learned by radio that there was a storm, and the plane could not take off. We radioed back that we would come by boat. Someone was to meet us at Mulifanua.
As we pulled out of port on Savai‘i, the captain of the 40-foot (12 m) boat asked the mission president if he had a flashlight. Fortunately, he did and made a present of it to the captain. We made the 13-mile (21 km) crossing to Upolu island on very rough seas. None of us realized that a ferocious tropical storm had hit the island, and we were heading straight into it.
We arrived in the harbor at Mulifanua. There was one narrow passage we were to go through along the reef. A light on the hill above the beach and a second lower light marked the narrow passage. When a boat was maneuvered so that the two lights were one above the other, the boat would be lined up properly to pass through the dangerous rocks that lined the passage.
But that night there was only one light. Two elders were waiting on the landing to meet us, but the crossing took much longer than usual. After watching for hours for signs of our boat, the elders tired and fell asleep, neglecting to turn on the second light, the lower light. As a result, the passage through the reef was not clear.
The captain maneuvered the boat as best he could toward the one upper light on shore while a crewman held the borrowed flashlight over the bow, searching for rocks ahead. We could hear the breakers crashing over the reef. When we were close enough to see them with the flashlight, the captain frantically shouted reverse and backed away to try again to locate the passage.
After many attempts, he knew it would be impossible to find the passage. All we could do was try to reach the harbor at Apia 40 miles (64 km) away. We were helpless against the ferocious power of the elements. I do not remember ever being where it was so dark.
We made no progress for the first hour, even though the engine was at full throttle. The boat would struggle up a mountainous wave and then pause in exhaustion at the top of the crest with the propellers out of the water. The vibration of the propellers would shake the boat almost to pieces before it slid down the other side.
We were lying spread-eagled on the cover of the cargo hold, holding on with our hands on one side and with our toes locked on the other to keep from being washed overboard. Brother Mark Littleford lost hold and was thrown against the low iron rail. His head was cut, but the rail kept him from being washed away.
Eventually, we moved ahead and near daylight finally pulled into the harbor at Apia. Boats were lashed to one another for safety. They were several deep at the pier. We crawled across them, trying not to disturb those sleeping on deck. We made our way to Pesega, dried our clothing, and headed for Vailuutai to organize the new stake.
I do not know who had been waiting for us at the beach at Mulifanua. I refused to let them tell me. But it is true that without that lower light, we all might have been lost.

Fifteen-year-old Ashley Clarke of Slidell remembers that reading the Book of Mormon calmed her nerves and brought relief from the uncertainty of living in an evacuation area. So did writing in her journal. “It gave me something productive to do instead of getting annoyed,” she says.

Elder Holland said the Church in Africa is thriving even in the face of challenges. As an example, he said, “While there was a raging civil war in Côte d’Ivoire [Ivory Coast], the Latter-day Saints … just kept coming to the temple. It’s a great tribute to them. I stand in awe.”13

The prospect of two years without warm sand and blue-green waves ahead of me sent me surfing with my friend Gaven. At the end of the summer I’d be leaving for my mission in Iceland.
As Gaven and I carried our surfboards down a steep slope, we saw that an offshore wind was shaping six-foot waves into smooth, hollow barrels, beautiful to surfers’ eyes.
At the foot of the hills, cliffs dropped 50 feet down onto a narrow beach. We followed an eroded gully down the bluffs and easily climbed the last ten feet to the sand. Leashing our surfboards to our legs, we paddled out through kelp beds to the distant surf line.
I got in some of the best surfing of my life that day. The air and water sparkled clear and warm, and salt spray felt fresh on our faces. Seabirds wheeled and cried constantly, and the rides were long, fast, and perfect. Gaven and I stayed until after sunset.
As the twilight began to fade, my friend caught a last ride to shore. I looked at the horizon, which promised yet another set of extra-large waves, and waited for one more. I was rewarded by a last long, pounding ride.
I began the long paddle back, but a current pulled against me, and light faded to almost nothing. I finally reached the cliff’s base and discovered that the tide had risen much higher than I’d expected and now covered the beach. Waves rolled in and crashed directly against the cliff I had to climb. At first I shrank from the foaming water and tried in vain to discover an easier way; then I finally got up the courage to try.
The climb up was nothing like climbing down had been that afternoon. Then the cliff had been dry and high above the surf. Now it was slick as sushi, and white water roiled around me as I climbed.
Just short of the safety of the gully, I could go no farther. One last handhold lay just above my right hand, but I couldn’t reach it. That hand held my heavy surfboard, which a leash still attached to my leg. If I dropped it to the water, the waves would catch it and pull me off the rock. I needed my left hand to hold me in place. I was truly stuck.
Gaven, who had already reached the cliff top, suddenly appeared above me. For a moment, my foolish pride told me not to accept the hand he offered. “I’ve come so far on my own,” I thought. “I can make it myself.” But then I gratefully handed him the surfboard that burdened me, and with my right hand freed, I grasped the last handhold and reached the top.

A good friend of mine, C. Ray VanLeuven, lived in Vernal, Utah, as a teenager. He worked for his uncle and grandfather on a farm. In addition to the farm, they owned a good deal of land on Diamond Mountain, 30 miles northeast of Vernal. This land had been plowed but needed to be disked. It was determined that if the tractor was kept going around the clock, day and night, for two weeks except Sunday, the project could be completed.
Ray, then age 14, and his friend Larry, age 15, were given that assignment. They were told the uncle would pick them up the following Saturday. For the next six days they were to run the tractor day and night, only stopping long enough for gas. The boys took turns, four hours on and four hours off around the clock. During their off time they would try to sleep.
On about the third day, a U bolt that attached the disk to the hydraulic system of the tractor broke. The boys didn’t know what to do. It was 30 miles back to the farm, and they didn’t know if their uncle was there or in Vernal. They had been entrusted to do a job, and after thinking about it they decided that they could lose as much as two days’ work if they tried to find him. The boys began to look for an alternative, and at a nearby corral they found some bailing wire. They discovered that if they looped 30 to 40 strands through the holes where the U bolt had been it would last eight to ten hours until the wire broke. By using all the bailing wire they could find and even taking a fence apart and using its wire, they were able to keep going until the uncle came to pick them up on Saturday.
Ray VanLeuven was trustworthy, and by his actions he had proven it to all who knew him.

A while ago, this letter from England arrived at the New Era offices. Jacqueline, the girl who wrote to her friend, thought the letter might also help others.
Dear Claire,
Before I started to write this letter, I prayed I would be able to write things that will help us both. About two years ago, I saw myself facing a problem I still haven’t cured.
It began one day when I looked in the mirror and instead of thinking, “You look all right,” I thought, “Oh my, Jackie, you are so fat!”
I decided to go on a diet. I cut out sweets, cakes, fatty foods, and breakfasts. By cutting those out, you don’t get much of a choice in the school canteen.
I lost weight. But instead of thinking, “You’re getting thinner,” I thought, “You’re still fat.”
I remembered when I was a little girl and feeling sickish, I would stick my fingers down my throat hoping I would throw up. So I decided to do that. Each time after eating, I would go into the bathroom and make myself sick. This went on for quite a long time without anyone knowing, at least that is what I thought. I remember saying to my sister Louise, “Look at me. I’m so fat!” She would say, “Don’t be silly. You’re getting skinny. If you keep going on about your weight, you have got a problem.”
One day I was so convinced I was fat I decided to eat only two ice poles (Popsicles) a day or just one orange. Many days I would go up to my room and cry because I was fat. I would pray to Heavenly Father to make me thin.
I rang my friend Andrea and remember crying on the phone to her saying I was so fat. And she would say, “No you are not. You are skinny.” I almost lost another friend because of it.
I used to sit in the bath and feel fat and then go and make myself sick. I would bother all my family by saying I was fat. But really, by this time I was losing a lot of weight. I remember excusing myself from school and going to the toilets. But as I had had only one orange that day nothing much would come up. Since the beginning of it all, I had been throwing my packed lunches away.
My sisters Lynne and Louise kept telling me I was insane. I cried and cried with my friend Andrea. And my friend Julia wouldn’t visit because she knew I would just talk about my weight. I could never understand that they thought I was skinny.
This went on for months and months. My dad got furious with me for not eating. One day I went upstairs to the bathroom to make myself sick when I heard my mother ringing the doctor’s office. I ran out, and she said, “I heardyou, Jackie. I am making an appointment for you.” I said I wouldn’t keep it.
One day at church our Relief Society president said, “Jackie, I’d like to speak to you after sacrament meeting.” Thinking nothing of it, I said yes. She took me into a vacant room and told me all the Relief Society sisters were worried about me. I didn’t realize at first what she meant. Then she said, “Jackie, what I am about to say to you is because I love you. We all love you.” She looked worried, but continued, “You have anorexia nervosa, Jackie. Tell me the truth. Do you make yourself vomit?”
I paused, then answered, “Yes.”
“Do you do it a lot?” she said.
“Yes,” I answered truthfully. By this time I was crying. She told me the Relief Society and Young Women presidencies were worried because I was becoming so thin. She told me she had spoken to my mother, who said it might help if someone outside the family would speak to me.
Well, I told her everything. I hadn’t heard much about anorexia, except that Karen Carpenter had died because of it.
Then I went home and cried. By this time I weighed 7 stone (98 lbs.). I should have weighed 9 1/2 stone (133 lbs.).
The Relief Society president’s words did not stop me. I still didn’t eat. My hip bones were sticking out, which looked awful as I am tall. I thought I had more to lose. My dad tried to shame me out of it, but that made me do it more. My mother took me to the doctor, but I wouldn’t listen. By this time even my monthly cycle was disrupted.
One night I was in bed crying, but this night was different. My father was working, and I went into Mum’s bedroom. She knew why I was crying. I told her everything, and she cuddled me and said she would help me. But the one thing that stopped me starving myself was when she said, “Would Heavenly Father want you to do this to yourself?” That made me stop and think.
One day at school, I went to the toilets to make myself sick. Before doing it, I looked up and thought, “No, my Heavenly Father has given me this body, and I am trying to destroy it.” I walked out of the toilets and back to my classroom.
I am so grateful to my mother for what she said. It made me face my problem and listen to my doctors. I am still conscious of my weight. I still sometimes make myself sick. I still have this problem and am not over it completely.
Claire, I am writing this because I know you have the same problem. I know exactly how you feel. You think no one understands, but I do. I love you. If you’ll help me, I’ll help you.
Much love, Jacqueline

I wanted to thank you for all the help this magazine has given me. It seems that you write this magazine especially for me, as each month the solutions to my problems arrive in the mail. I know the Lord often answers my prayers through the New Era. I was baptized about four years ago and since that time had never read any Church magazines. I thought ordering Church magazines was a waste of time, but a few months ago I decided to just do it. I love them so much that now I’m keeping an archive of New Era magazines and other Church magazines so I can refer to them any time I have a problem. What a shame I didn’t order them earlier!Evelyn S., Victoria, Australia

Bees use these same “tubes” to get nectar out of flowers. When our mother was in high school, she went to Germany one year and brought back some hollyhock seeds. She planted them in Grandpa’s garden; and now the bees get nectar out of the giant blossoms every year.

Such a project is ongoing on the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati.
Tamana Natanaera, the local self-reliance manager for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was tasked with finding members with gardening experience and a passion for growing things.
Working with local leaders, Tamana helped to identify seven qualified members whom he refers to as “champions.”
Each champion was given the equipment to set up a nursery tailored to fit in his or her available space.
A simple greenhouse was supplied to hold and protect seedling trays, as well as to offer shade as needed. Seeds were provided for growing nutritious produce such as cucumber, eggplant, capsicum, cabbage, tomato, watermelon, papaya and rock melon.
A watering system is a particular necessity in Kiribati. Although the 33 islands that comprise Kiribati stretch across 3.5 million square kilometres of ocean water, fresh water is very scarce.
The champions were thus each provided with a watering system composed of a small solar pump to draw water from a well, a water tank with a stand, and a piping system.
Tamana Natanaera noted that the water system given to the champions is a big help as it greatly improves their ability to produce more.
With these necessary tools, the champion gardeners are able to do their part. For two years now, they have been planting the seeds in the small trays and nurturing them.
When the seedlings are ready to be transplanted into a garden, the champions begin sharing them with neighbours and friends. They may ask their church leaders to announce to their congregation that seedlings are available. They may also give the seedlings to coworkers or to neighbours in their communities who are interested in growing their own produce.
The Church will provide seeds to the champions for one more year and at the end of that period, the gardeners should be capable of producing their own seeds to maintain growing and sharing the seedlings. The program will continue to bless many people in Kiribati communities.
This project is not just an example of growing seedlings, but also of growing self-reliance, community spirit and neighbourly friendships. Underpinning all of this is a growing faith—among many participants—in He who created all things, and who cares for His children, one by one.

Sister Thirsly Motolwana from the Cape Town Gugulethu Branch says that when she heard the news, “I felt like a baby, jumping for joy!” A member of the Church for the past 24 years, Sister Motolwana, too, had been praying for this moment since Elder Andersen’s visit.
“I thought, wow, it took three years of prayers, but it has happened! It’s so exciting to know that prayers do get answered, no matter when.”
She says she and her fellow members can start preparing now for the blessings of a local temple. “If we read more scriptures and understand more about the temple, it will help us prepare,” she says. “We need to be fasting more so that we can be equipped with the Spirit.”

I roped one of my older brothers into going with me so I wouldn’t have to sit alone. I don’t remember the meeting at all. I just remember thinking, “Everybody must be looking at me and saying, ‘Look, Gretchen is at church. I wonder why.’ ” I was so uncomfortable by the end of the meeting that I planned a quick escape as soon as the closing prayer ended.
That’s when something happened that changed my life forever. Four girls I remembered from Primary ran up and surrounded me. They were so happy to see me at church, and I felt their sincerity. They asked if I would come back later that night to a youth fireside. I agreed and then left for home.

I remember a brass plaque I had on the wall in my room when I was much younger. It depicted a tramp going over the top of a fence. A piece out of the seat of his pants was missing. A bulldog was in close pursuit with the missing piece of pants in his teeth. The verse read:
“’Tis easy enough to be pleasant
When life goes by with a song,
But the man worthwhile
Is the man who can smile
When everything goes dead wrong.”

Todd and I went to the temple early today. It was snowing, and the temple looked so beautiful surrounded in white. We had a wonderful time. Todd was able to baptize and confirm me in behalf of others. I love him even more when I see him in white and watch him using the priesthood.

I know I don’t fully understand everything about it yet, but the temple is where you go to learn, and it is a place of peace. I don’t feel nervous about what I don’t understand. I just feel the Spirit, which makes me excited to go to the temple and make more covenants with the Lord and become closer to Him.

In 1937 my wife and I were touring in Europe. In France I sat at a banquet table of the Rotary International Convention in a fashionable hotel. The large, spacious banquet room held hundreds of people. The many waiters moved about the tables, and at every place besides plenteous silver utensils, line napkins, and fancy serving dishes were seven wine glasses. No one was watching me. The temptation nudged me: Shall I drink it or at least sip it? No one who cares will know. Here was quite a temptation. Shall I or shall I not?

Then the thought came: But I made a firm resolution when a boy that I would never touch the forbidden things. I had already lived a third of a century firm and resolute. I would not break my record now.