Gospel Story Finder

Elder Norman Seibold leaned forward in his seat. He was anxious to hear what his mission president would say at the emergency meeting in Frankfurt, Germany.
In 1939, German soldiers were marching in the streets and it looked like war would break out at any moment. Elder Seibold knew that the First Presidency had ordered all missionaries to evacuate from Germany and Czechoslovakia. His mission president, President Wood, had told the missionaries to go to the Netherlands.
But now President Wood said there was a big problem. The Netherlands had just closed its border to people leaving Germany, and the missionaries needed to evacuate to Denmark instead. But since the telephone lines were clogged with emergency calls, President Wood couldn’t contact the missionaries throughout Germany to tell them about the change in plans.
Even if the mission president could contact the missionaries, there was another problem. The military would not allow anyone fleeing Germany to travel with more than 10 marks (about $2). The missionaries had already bought train tickets for the Netherlands and had spent most of their money to be obedient to the law. Now they wouldn’t have enough money to buy new train tickets for Denmark. They were stranded!
“Thirty-one missionaries are stranded between here and the border of the Netherlands with no way of contacting me,” President Wood said. “Someone needs to find them and bring them safely to Denmark.”
Elder Seibold volunteered.
President Wood gave the brave elder 500 marks and train tickets to Copenhagen, Denmark. His special assignment was to ride the railway lines between Frankfurt and the border of the Netherlands, searching for the stranded missionaries. The direction of the Spirit would be his only guide.
After four hours on the train, Elder Seibold reached Cologne, Germany. He felt impressed to get off the train there. The busy station was filled with thousands of people anxious to flee Germany. How could he find any missionaries in such an enormous crowd?
Elder Seibold climbed onto a baggage cart and whistled the hymn “Do What Is Right,” which was a well-known signal to gather missionaries. Eight missionaries in the station heard that whistle, and Elder Seibold sent them safely to Denmark.
At some stops, Elder Seibold stayed on the train. At others, he was prompted by the Spirit to get off and whistle for stranded elders. At every station, Elder Seibold risked that the military would find him and put him in jail for travelling with so much money.
At a station in one small village, Elder Seibold didn’t think he would find any missionaries. But the Spirit told him to get off the train and walk into town. He went inside a restaurant and found two elders who had just spent their last pennies on lemonade. Elder Seibold knew he had been guided there, just as surely as if someone had taken him by the hand.
Eventually Elder Seibold rescued 17 missionaries. The other 14 had reached the Netherlands before the border was closed, but Elder Seibold continued searching until he received a spiritual confirmation that his assignment was complete. Because Elder Seibold obeyed the promptings of the Spirit, all 31 missionaries were safe.

Many years ago when I was practicing law in California, a friend and client who was not a member of our faith came in to see me and with great enthusiasm showed me a letter he had received from an LDS bishop of a nearby ward. The bishop wrote that a member of his congregation, a former employee of my client, had taken materials from my client’s work site and had rationalized that they were surplus. But after becoming a committed Latter-day Saint and attempting to follow Jesus Christ, this employee recognized that what he had done was dishonest. Enclosed in the letter was a sum of money from the man to cover not only the cost of the materials but also interest. My client was impressed that the Church through lay leadership would assist this man in his effort to be reconciled to God.

Last Wednesday I was in Idaho and telephoned to Phoenix and learned that President Hinckley was trying to reach me. I called him that morning and made an appointment to see him Thursday afternoon. Wednesday afternoon I joined with other members of my family at the funeral of my mother, who had passed away here in Salt Lake City the previous Sunday at the age of ninety-five. She joined my father, who had preceded her twenty-two years ago, and my wife, who had joined him four years ago.
I am grateful for them. I have prayed since Thursday afternoon that a kind and loving Heavenly Father would let them who had been such an influence in bringing me to this position be aware of it. I am confident they were.
I promised President Hinckley on Thursday afternoon, and now tonight I would like to do so again to the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, and these other Brethren that I desire to dedicate my all and serve to whatever extent I am asked.

When Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi was a teenager, his seven-year-old sister, Kristen, contracted a bacteria that attacked her brain. Doctors said she wouldn’t survive.
Young Jeremy knelt beside his bed in the family’s home in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, and pleaded with the Lord to know why she had to die so young. His sister, however, received a priesthood blessing and lived.
This was a catalyst for 17-year-old Jeremy to “get himself right with God,” leading him to seriously read the Book of Mormon for the first time. Later he served as a full-time missionary in the Ohio Cleveland Mission.
Jeremy would return to his knees in heartfelt prayer years later as his wife, Amy, was in pre-term labor with their third child. “At that moment, I felt an overwhelming peace—a peace that can only be described as the loving arms of a Heavenly Father enveloping me with the warmth of the Holy Ghost,” he said.
That peace carried him through the brief time the baby lived and the months of grief that followed with another miscarriage. “We’re all tried in our way,” he said, “but we still ‘count it all joy’ [James 1:2] that the Savior has provided a way for us to have peace and happiness.”

A great burden to me during my growing-up years was the fact that my folks were not active in the Church. I sensed that I was missing out on many of the things that others were enjoying. The depression was on. Jobs were hard to get. Because of this, our family moved frequently. Though we had to do without many material things, that never seemed a hardship to me. But always there was the longing that my parents would feel the importance of church activity. I loved them dearly and it hurt to see what was happening in our home. The Word of Wisdom was not observed. There was not the closeness and solidarity that appeared to be in the homes of my friends. I craved that peaceful atmosphere that was lacking. Fortunately, each place we moved there were good people who would encourage me and welcome me. I came to know the importance of the Church and the gospel. It hurt so much on the day of my wedding when my parents were not able to enter the temple but remained outside while that special ceremony took place. I am happy to report that later, through the help of caring friends and my loving husband, my parents did become active and were able to enjoy those blessing they had missed for so many years.

Just recently my mother and I returned to the neighborhood where we had lived when I was baptized. The area is shabby and forlorn. The house where we lived looked so tiny and run down. A great feeling of sadness came over me, not because of the humble circumstances, but because I vividly remembered how I felt as a child, knowing I was missing blessings that could have been mine.

One of the wealthiest men in the Church today is Jon Huntsman. Many years ago, just after Jon and Karen were married and living in a small apartment in Los Angeles, they decided to donate to charity a certain amount of money every month. That amount of money represented a sizeable percentage of their meager monthly income. Brother Huntsman indicated in an interview that it was this decision, early in their marriage, that prepared them to be able to give when they had great wealth. They continue today to be major philanthropists, often in quiet and confidential ways.

Elder Pratt’s two former companions traveled on to Tahiti, where their teaching met with far less success. After a few months, Elder Rogers traveled west to a small group of islands and Elder Grouard sailed to the island of Anaa in the Tuamotus. Elder Rogers again met with little success and much opposition. When rumors finally reached him of the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, he began to fear for the safety of his family in Nauvoo, and he returned to America. He died during the exodus from Nauvoo.

I really liked the advent calendar (Dec. 2008) and focused a family home evening on it. My family and I started planning and decided on a task: my sister and I made homemade mincemeat pies and took them to an elderly woman in our neighborhood. That made her very happy, and we decided to visit her more often. My mum, sister, grandmother and I also sang the song “Little Baby” at our ward’s Christmas party.
Alice T., Scotland

“Rosie!” called Mama. “It is time for you and Heman to take Papa his dinner.”
We needed no second call, for this was one errand we delighted in doing. Mama filled a plate with hot food, covered it with a soup dish to keep in the warmth, wrapped it carefully in a large napkin, and placed it in a basket. Then she handed the basket to us with final instructions: “Carry it carefully, don’t play on the way, and hurry home after Papa has eaten.”
It was ten blocks from our home on East Third South to Salt Lake Temple Block where Papa worked as a stonecutter. But it didn’t seem that long to us as we talked of the fun we’d have while Papa ate his dinner. It was interesting to watch the huge granite blocks being brought in from the canyon quarry by ox-drawn wagons. While the wagons were unloaded, the oxen stood patiently switching at flies with their tails. After the rough blocks were cut and smoothed to the required shape and size, they were tilted and placed in rows like dominoes, leaving the sharp edges protruding like saw teeth. We enjoyed running back and forth on top of these stone dominoes in our bare feet. Shoes were saved for Sunday and for school.
Sometimes we would watch as skilled workmen cut sun, moon, and star designs into certain stones. Each held a small iron chisel in his left hand and a hard wooden mallet in his right, tapping gently so as not to chip out too much rock and spoil the pattern.
Today Papa had a special surprise for us. He said, “The men who are making the circular staircase (there was one in each corner of the building) say you may go up as far as it is completed, but you must be very quiet, because this is the Lord’s house.”
I took Heman’s hand, and together we climbed the huge stone steps—up, up, up until we were out of breath. It was easier going down. Then Papa took us into the carpenter shop where wood for the building was sawed. On the floor was a heap of clean sawdust and Papa told us that the foreman said it would be all right for us to take some home so Mama could show us how to make a pincushion. “Someday it will be a fine thing,” Papa said, “to have a pincushion made with temple sawdust.”
Eagerly we filled the basket with fragrant sawdust and hurried home. But Mama had no time right then to help with a pincushion. She was trying to finish the washing and ironing for Sister Young, who lived next door, and the baby was cross. I rocked the baby to sleep, then helped Mama prepare supper.
In the evening, after the dishes were washed and put away, Mama found a piece of strong, durable brown cloth on which she drew a large fig leaf. She showed me how to embroider green lines for veins and outline the edge with a blanket stitch. A matching piece for the back was sewed to the front, leaving a hole near the top to pour in the temple sawdust until the leaf would hold no more. Then we sewed the hole shut so none of the precious sawdust would be lost. When the pincushion was finished I proudly showed it to Papa for his approval, then placed it on top of Mama’s dresser with my other special treasures.
Sometime later Mama was called to Idaho to help with a new grandchild, leaving me to do the cooking and housekeeping. Heman helped Papa with outside chores, while our little sisters Aggie and Birdie played together under the trees. One morning I noticed how faded and worn Birdie’s hand-me-down dresses were and asked Papa for a quarter to buy material to make her a new dress. At McMaster’s Store I bought a piece of lovely pink gingham. Laying it on the floor, and using pins from the temple-sawdust cushion, I pinned one of Birdie’s old dresses to the cloth for a pattern, then cut around it carefully, and sewed the pieces together. Birdie looked as sweet as a rosebud when Papa came from work that evening.
When I was older I found work in a dressmaking shop, and learned how to make nice clothes for myself and for Mama and my little sisters too. Soon after this Jody, my childhood sweetheart, asked me to marry him. Looking closely at the temple-sawdust pincushion one day, I knew I wanted to be married in the temple. But after nearly forty years in building, the temple still was not completed, so Jody’s father solved the problem by giving us railroad tickets to Logan. On a beautiful June day we were married in the Logan Temple for time and all eternity.
The pincushion made from temple sawdust traveled with us to our home in Salt Lake City. It went with us wherever we lived. And it has been a reminder to each of our eight children that the temple is a sacred and important place. Papa was right. It has, indeed, been “a fine thing to have a pincushion made with temple sawdust.”

When I was about 12 years old, I lost a box that was a treasure to me. The missionaries used to give out cards that had their name and address on them. The cards had a picture of the temple on the front and the Articles of Faith on the back. I kept those cards in a small box. It was almost full with those mementos when I lost it. I looked everywhere—in every drawer, under my bed—everywhere. I asked my dad, my mom, my brothers, and my sister, but the box was lost.
Then I decided to pray. The scriptures say that when you ask with faith, you will receive an answer. I closed my bedroom door. First I looked under my bed, but nothing was there. Then I knelt down by my bed and prayed to Heavenly Father. I told Him, “My box is very important to me. Please help me find it.”
And then a thought came into my mind. A voice said, “Look under your bed again.”
I thought, “But I’ve looked there five times already.”
“Look there,” came the thought again.
So once again I looked, and the box was there, 20 centimeters from my knees. I opened it, and my treasures were there.
Since that day, prayer has been a wonderful tool for me, not only to find things that are lost, but to ask the Father for the things I need, the things that He knows are good for me. He always answers prayers when you ask with faith. The Spirit taught me to trust in our Father in Heaven. Every time you need His help, He will give you His help, if what you ask for is good for you.

A few months ago, I was standing in a hall when Elder Neil L. Andersen walked by. I had just been called as a new General Authority. Likely sensing my feelings of inadequacy, he smiled and said, “Well, there looks like a man who has no idea what he is doing.”
And I thought, “There is a true prophet and seer.”
Elder Andersen then whispered, “Don’t worry, Elder Shumway. It gets better—in five or six years.”

While I was visiting Buenos Aires, Argentina, I met Marianela, a frail, beautiful mother with two children, ages nine and twelve. All three had been baptized. Marianela was dealing with severe rheumatoid arthritis. She could only stand or lie down; she could not sit. At home she taught her children with what resources she had. She used both the scriptures and the Relief Society manual. I noticed those two books stacked neatly on her table. She wanted her children to keep the commandments and participate on Sunday and partake of the sacrament, so she accepted the invitation from the bishop’s wife to pick them up weekly. Marianela would ride to church lying down in the backseat of the car. It was her way of practicing obedience and aligning her heart with His. In Primary we sing the words “Keep the commandments! In this there is safety; in this there is peace.”19 There was peace in Marianela’s home.

The priest flipped on a recently installed electric light, and as the uncovered bulb swung gently from its cord I looked around the shadowy room it illuminated. The floors were concrete, and except for two ancient and sagging cabinets against the wall, all the room contained was an unsteady wooden table and chairs. As the priest opened the shuttered windows for us, we saw a mixture of wild shrubs and flowers and could hear a donkey braying somewhere close by.
My husband, George, who had spent many hours here on previous trips, looked around with a smile of enormous satisfaction and went with the priest to an adjoining room to get the record books. I was left alone in the room, trying to get used to what I was seeing.
So—we had really made it after all! I thought of how impossible a trip to Spain to do genealogical research had seemed in the first place, how much planning it had taken to assemble a clientele, the weeks of agonizing over finances, the prayers and tears over leaving the children, and the lists and lists of things to do.
George was soon back with the records, and with excitement showed me the heavy volumes filled with page after page of thick parchment where priests had been noting marriages, baptisms, and deaths since the 1500s. They were impressive, and I settled down to help George search them, hoping that his enthusiasm would sustain me.
Unfortunately, as the hours and days wore on, I found that what came so naturally to George didn’t to me. He could spend hour after hour studying over the pages, totally oblivious to his physical surroundings. But I found that I noticed—and responded to—every detail. The wooden chair became unbearable to sit in after a couple of hours, the shadows from the light bulb made it hard to read, and it was so cold that my back ached at night from shivering.
My reactions were both embarrassing and frustrating to me. George had always found genealogical research stimulating, and I had prayed that the experience would be just as exciting for me. But the long, cold, stiff hours seemed endless.
Finally it came time to start a new line in a different parish. Since this was a new family line for us, George searched through the marriage book while I worked on baptisms and births. Although I was looking for the children of three different couples, I found myself particularly intrigued by one family in the records. I began to feel like I knew the mother as I found the record of each of her children’s births. The spacing of her children was similar to mine, and I reminisced about my own pregnancies and the reactions of our children to each new baby. I had been away from home for two weeks now, and the memories of a home full of children’s noises, soggy kisses, and exuberant hugs were sweet to me.
Then George suggested that I work on death records for a while. Since I was still in the same period, the names I found were familiar to me, and I noted the deaths of several of the older family members. But I was not expecting so many younger deaths, and tears of sympathy filled my eyes when I recognized the name of one of my “friend’s” children who had died at the age of three. When I turned the page and found, eight days later, the death record of her six-year-old, my heart lurched and the tears spilled.
I thought again of my own little ones, exactly the same age—the feel of their little bodies nestled in my lap, the sound of their laughter and voices in the house. The distance of an ocean gave me compassion, and I continued to cry and empathize as I turned the pages.
But when I found the death of her husband six months’ time later, I was so upset I had to stop writing, and even George noticed my sobs. “I just can’t understand why she had to go through this,” I told him. “It doesn’t seem fair.”
And then suddenly a true understanding of phrases I had been hearing and saying my entire life came to me, and feelings and thoughts rushed together. “Dear friend,” I thought, “that’s why I’m here. Your suffering wasn’t without purpose; there is something I can do for you. Thanks to a loving Savior and a temple of God, I can help give you back your husband and your children. They can be yours forever now, just as I have mine.”
The tears kept running down my cheeks, but they were tears of peace and joy, a humble gratitude for temples and families and a chance to do something to help.
Since returning from Spain, going to the temple is a deeper experience for me. As I check the name pinned to my sleeve, I feel a respect for this woman. She coped with physical deprivations and a closeness with death that I have never had to experience. And although I am not able to share with her my hot water or shampoo, or the medicine I so nonchalantly give my sick children, I can share that which means the most to me, the blessings of the gospel.

Let me close with one last, lengthy lesson on perseverance.

On 28 July 1847, four days after his arrival in that valley, Brigham Young stood upon the spot where now rises the magnificent Salt Lake Temple and exclaimed to his companions: “Here [we will build] the Temple of our God!” (James H. Anderson, “The Salt Lake Temple,” Contributor [The Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations of Zion], no. 6, April 1893, p. 243).

Its grounds would cover an eighth of a square mile, and it would be built to stand through eternity. Who cares about the money or stone or timber or glass or gold they don’t have? So what that seeds are not even planted and the Saints are yet without homes? Why worry that crickets will soon be coming—and so will the United States Army?

They just marched forth and broke ground for the most massive, permanent, inspiring edifice they could conceive. And they would spend forty years of their lives trying to complete it.

The work seemed ill-fated from the start. The excavation for the basement required trenches twenty feet wide and sixteen feet deep, much of it through solid gravel. Just digging for the foundation alone required nine thousand man days of labor. Surely someone must have said, “A temple would be fine, but do we really need one this big?” But they kept on digging. Maybe they believed they were “laying the foundation of a great work.” In any case they worked on, “not weary in well-doing.”

And through it all Brigham Young had dreamed the dream and seen the vision. With the excavation complete and the cornerstone ceremony concluded, he said to the Saints assembled:

I do not like to prophesy much, . . . But I will venture to guess that this day, and the work we have performed on it, will long be remembered by this people, and be sounded as with a trumpet’s voice throughout the world. . . . Five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the spirit the Temple. [I stood] not ten feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a temple we should build. Why? Because it was [fully] represented before me. [Anderson, Contributor, p. 257–58]

But as Brigham Young also said, “We never began to build [any] temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring” (J.A. Widtsoe [ed.], Discourses of Brigham Young [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1973], p. 410). No sooner was the foundation work finished than Albert Sidney Johnston and his United States troops set out for the Salt Lake Valley intent on war with “the Mormons.” In response President Young made elaborate plans to evacuate and, if necessary, destroy the entire city behind them. But what to do about the temple whose massive excavation was already completed and its 8’ x 16’ foundational walls firmly in place? They did the only thing they could do—they filled it all back in again. Every shovelful. All that soil and gravel that had been so painstakingly removed with those nine thousand man days of labor was filled back in. When they finished, those acres looked like nothing more interesting than a field that had been plowed up and left unplanted.

When the Utah War threat had been removed, the Saints returned to their homes and painfully worked again at uncovering the foundation and removing the material from the excavated basement structure.

But then the apparent masochism of all this seemed most evident when not adobes or sandstone but massive granite boulders were selected for the basic construction material. And they were twenty miles away in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Furthermore the precise design and dimensions of every one of the thousands of stones to be used in that massive structure had to be marked out individually in the architect’s office and shaped accordingly. This was a suffocatingly slow process. Just to put one layer of the six hundred hand-sketched, individually squared, and precisely cut stones around the building took nearly three years. That progress was so slow that virtually no one walking by the temple block could ever see any progress at all.

And, of course, getting the stone from mountain to city center was a nightmare. A canal on which to convey the stone was begun and a great deal of labor and money expended on it, but it was finally aborted. Other means were tried, but oxen proved to be the only viable means of transportation. In the 1860s and ’70s always four and often six oxen in a team could be seen almost any working day of the year, toiling and tugging and struggling to pull from the quarry one monstrous block of granite, or at most two of medium size.

During that time, as if the United States Army hadn’t been enough, the Saints had plenty of other interruptions. The arrival of the railroad pulled almost all of the working force off the temple for nearly three years, and twice grasshopper invasions sent the workers into full-time summer combat with the pests. By mid-1871, fully two decades and untold misery after it had begun, the walls of the temple were barely visible above ground. Far more visible was the teamster’s route from Cottonwood, strewn with the wreckage of wagons—and dreams—unable to bear the load placed on them. The journals and histories of these teamsters are filled with accounts of broken axles, mud-mired animals, shattered sprockets, and shattered hopes. I do not have any evidence that these men swore, but surely they might have been seen turning a rather steely eye toward heaven. But they believed and kept pulling. And through all of this President Young seemed in no hurry. “The Temple will be built as soon as we are prepared to use it,” he said (Anderson,Contributor, p. 266). Indeed his vision was so lofty and his hope so broad that right in the middle of this staggering effort requiring virtually all that the Saints could seem to bear, he announced the construction of the St. George, Manti, and Logan Temples.

“Can you accomplish the work, you Latter-day Saints of these several counties?” he asked. And then in his own inimitable way he answered:

Yes; that is a question I can answer readily. You are perfectly able to do it. The question is, have you the necessary faith? Have you sufficient of the Spirit of God in your hearts to say, yes, by the help of God our Father we will erect these buildings to his name? . . . Go to now, with your might and with your means and finish this Temple. [Anderson,Contributor, p. 267]

So they squared their shoulders and stiffened their backs and went forward with their might. But when President Brigham Young died in 1877, the temple was still scarcely twenty feet above the ground. Ten years later, his successor, President John Taylor, and the temple’s original architect, Truman O. Angell, were dead as well. The side walls were just up to the square. And now the infamous Edmunds-Tucker Act had already been passed by Congress disincorporating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the effects of this law was to put the Church into receivership, whereby the U.S. marshall under a November court order seized this temple the Saints had now spent just under forty years of their lives dreaming of, working for, and praying fervently to enjoy. To all appearances, the still unfinished but increasingly magnificent structure was to be wrested at this last hour from its rightful owners and put into the hands of aliens and enemies, the very group who had often boasted that the Latter-day Saints would never be permitted to finish the building. It seemed those boasts were certain to be fulfilled. Schemes were immediately put forward to divert the intended use of the temple in ways that would desecrate its holy purpose and mock the staggering sacrifice of the Saints who had so faithfully tried to build it.

But God was with these modern children of Israel, as he always has been and always will be. They did all they could do and left the rest in his hands. And the Red Sea parted before them, and they walked through on firm, dry ground. On 6 April 1892, the Saints as a body were nearly delirious. Now, finally, here in their own valley with their own hands they had cut out of the mountains a granite monument that was to mark, after all they had gone through, the safety of the Saints and the permanence of Christ’s true church on earth for this one last dispensation. The central symbol of all that was the completed House of their God. The streets were literally jammed with people. Forty thousand of them fought their way on to the temple grounds. Ten thousand more, unable to gain entrance, scrambled to the tops of nearby buildings in hopes that some glimpse of the activities might be had. Inside the Tabernacle President Wilford Woodruff, visibly moved by the significance of the moment, said:

If there is any scene on the face of this earth that will attract the attention of the God of heaven and the heavenly host, it is the one before us today—the assembling of this people, the shout of ‘Hosanna!’ the laying of the topstone of this Temple in honor to our God. [Anderson, Contributor, p. 270]

Then, moving outside, he laid the capstone in place exactly at high noon.

In the writing of one who was there, “The scene that followed is beyond the power of language to describe.” Lorenzo Snow, beloved President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, came forward leading 40,000 Latter-day Saints in the Hosanna shout. Every hand held a handkerchief every eye was filled with tears. One said the very “ground seemed to tremble with the volume of the sound” which echoed off the tops of the mountains. “A grander or more imposing spectacle than this ceremony of laying the Temple capstone is not recorded in history” (Anderson, Contributor, p. 273). It was finally and forever finished.

One time we went to watch a couple of movies at somebody’s house. My friends and I picked out one movie that was fine, and they also picked out another movie I knew was inappropriate. I mentioned something about not wanting to watch it, but everyone went ahead and rented it anyway. Will noticed I was quiet as we were driving away from the rental place.
“Hey, Jacob, is it really bothering you that we got that other movie?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s OK. I’ll just leave for that movie.”
Will didn’t think it was OK. He turned the car around and drove back to where we got the movie. Will and I went back and exchanged the inappropriate movie for something better that everybody still wanted to watch. I was always glad to have friends who helped me live my standards.

A few years after I had been baptized, becoming better acquainted with some duties in the Church, I was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. My father, who had baptized me, had died in the meantime with a heart attack, so the bishop conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon me and ordained me to the office of a deacon. I remember that I had a wonderful feeling about that as he conferred the priesthood upon me, that I now had responsibilities and would be accountable for my actions and would have things to learn to do as I would progress through life. I did have a special feeling that I now was a little different, that I wouldn’t be exactly the same as friends who did not hold the priesthood or people that you would meet out in the world. I now had some responsibilities, things we would learn on Sundays in church as we would sit around the old coal stove down in the basement of the meetinghouse.

On Saturdays, we would clean out the church, fill the coal buckets with coal, and see that the building was ready for Sunday meetings. We had things to do in the lesser priesthood, in all the temporal affairs of the ward—collecting fast offerings and doing duties for the bishop. He and other leaders would teach us about the Aaronic Priesthood and the office of a deacon, then a teacher, and then, of course, a priest as we would advance in the priesthood. It seemed to me that I was developing an interesting understanding, a vision of the work to be done, and that I personally had some responsibility, even though I was just a young boy in a little country town. There was something very important about it.

“You want a ride home, Bryce?” Kendall asked as we left the Little League field. “I have my bike here. You can ride with me.”
“Sure. I’ll pedal partway, if you want.”
The field and bleachers were clearing fast because ours had been the last game. Kendall’s bike was chained to the back of the bleachers. A few feet away was another one, lying in the dirt. It was one of the nicest bikes I’d seen.
“I wonder whose bike that is,” I muttered.
“That’s Dusty’s,” Kendall grumbled, shaking his head disgustedly. “His dad bought it for him last month. Dusty just dumped it there before the game. I saw him leave with TJ. If I had a bike like that, I sure wouldn’t leave it lying around in the dirt like a pile of junk.”
I looked at the bike again. Its bright yellow-and-black paint was beautiful. Grabbing the handlebars, I hefted it to an upright position. For a moment I just admired it; then I swung my leg over and settled down on the seat.
I looked around. We were the only ones still there. I gripped the handlebars and hunched over, pretending to be flying down the road. I straightened up and told Kendall, “I’m going to ride it home.”
“Huh?”
“Dusty lives just a block from me. I’ll drop it by his place on my way home. He’ll thank me. Let’s go.”
Kendall and I had planned to go right home, but on the way, we passed the construction site of the new shopping center. Heavy equipment had been brought in for digging the footings. There were huge piles of dirt and sand everywhere. It was an awesome place to do dirt biking. The construction crew wasn’t around. …
We had meant to stay only five minutes or so, but once I got started, I couldn’t quit. “I’m going to try that big hill in the middle, where they’ve started digging the foundation,” I called to Kendall.
“You’ll kill yourself, it’s too steep.”
“I’ll make it easy on this bike!”
But from the top, it looked higher and steeper than it had from below. When I looked at Kendall, who stood at the bottom, gazing up anxiously, I almost chickened out. But I’d worked hard to get up there, and Kendall was watching, so I decided to give it a try.
“Watch out for that stack of rebar over to the side,” Kendall shouted.
Sucking in a deep breath, I pushed off. Immediately I wished I had left good enough alone. Dusty’s bike went down the hill as if shot from a gun. It was all I could do to stay on as the bike bounced and swerved down the rocky dirt.
A little past halfway down the hill, I lost my balance and took a tumble. I went in one direction; the bike went in another. Everything was a spinning, twisting blur. My flailing sprawl ended when I crashed against a rock at the bottom of the hill.
“Are you all right, Bryce?” Kendall was kneeling beside me, his face white.
I groaned and tried to sit up. A banging pain throbbed in my right knee. As I grimaced, my teeth ground on dirt and sand. I spit to clean out my mouth. “My leg’s killing me,” I moaned.
After I got up and walked around a bit, I felt better, even though my knee was still throbbing. I pulled up my pant leg and discovered a two-inch scrape. It was bleeding some, but it wasn’t too bad. “I think I’ll be OK,” I finally muttered. “Where’s Dusty’s bike?”
The bike was twisted on its side, next to the pile of iron rebar. As soon as I saw it, I knew that it was badly damaged. I pulled it up. The handlebars were bent at an angle.
Kendall and I were able to straighten the handlebars, but as we were doing it, we saw that two spokes were broken on the front wheel and its rim was crumpled. The tire had a small rip in the side. I had a sick feeling in my stomach.
“What are you going to do?” Kendall asked me.
I shook my head slowly, wishing that I had never seen Dusty’s bike. “Maybe we can fix it,” I said hopefully.
Kendall studied the front wheel more closely, then shook his head. “That thing’s totally wasted, Bryce.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have just left it lying there in the dirt,” I snapped, trying to blame Dusty for the accident instead of me. “He’s lucky somebody didn’t just steal it. I’m going to take it back to the ballpark. He can pick it up there—if he still wants it. Hey—he might even forget that he left it there.”
I didn’t tell anybody at home about my accident. I did my best not to limp. But every time I took a step and felt the pain, I remembered what I’d done to Dusty’s bike. I tried to rationalize that it was his own fault for leaving it there, but that didn’t get rid of the guilty feeling.
Before Primary the next day, I heard Dusty talking to some guys. “They trashed my bike,” he growled, hitting his clenched fist into the palm of his other hand.
“Well, why’d you leave it at the park in the first place?” Tyson asked.
“I forgot it—don’t you ever forget things?”
“I’d never forget my new bike. If I did, that would be the last time my dad ever got me anything.”
“Well, if I ever find out who did it,” Dusty muttered angrily, “I’m going to bust him in the nose.”
I looked at Kendall. He looked away and started down the hall for class. Ducking my head, I followed him.
I had a hard time thinking about the Primary lesson, and when sacrament meeting started, I tried to crowd thoughts of Dusty and his bike out of my mind. But as the priests were preparing the sacrament, I thought of a home evening lesson Mom had given. She’d talked about the sacrament and pointed out that we should always take it worthily. Taking it unworthily was mocking Jesus.
Until that Sunday, the sacrament was just something we did Sundays. It was just bread and water that the deacons brought around. But that morning I couldn’t help thinking of the broken bike, and I knew that I wasn’t worthy to take the sacrament. Not until I made things right with Dusty.
I swallowed hard and bowed my head, feeling horribly ashamed. Heavenly Father knew about the bike, and I knew that I couldn’t take the bread and water and renew my covenants with Him while pretending that I hadn’t taken and damaged Dusty’s bike.
When Mom handed me the bread tray, I started to reach for a piece. Then that sick feeling inside me welled up bigger than ever. I pulled my hand back. Without looking at Mom, I slowly shook my head and stared down at my hands. When the water came a few minutes later, I shook my head again.
It was funny that as soon as the sacrament was over and the deacons and the priests had gone to sit with their families, I felt better. I didn’t feel good about what I had done to Dusty’s bike, but I was glad that I’d had the courage not to mock Jesus by taking the sacrament just so that people wouldn’t look at me funny. I also realized that I was going to have to tell Dusty what had happened.
I walked home after the meeting, reaching the house before the rest of my family did. I didn’t wait to change my clothes—I headed straight for the garage, grabbed my bike, and pushed it over to Dusty’s.
My hand shook a little as I rang the doorbell. Sister Baker answered it. “Is Dusty around?” I rasped nervously.
“Sure, Bryce,” she said pleasantly. “Why don’t you come on in?”
“I need to talk to him out here.”
A moment later Dusty came bounding out. “What’s happening, man?”
“Hi, Dusty.” I turned and nodded toward my bike. “I brought you my bike.”
“Oh, you heard mine got trashed. I couldn’t believe that anybody would do that to somebody else’s bike.”
“Yeah,” I gulped, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “I thought you could use mine until yours gets fixed.”
For a moment he stared at me and then at my bike and then back at me. “You don’t have to do that, Bryce.” He sounded surprised and really sincere. “Shoot, that’s nice of you, though. Thanks a lot!”
I shook my head and looked at the ground. “No, Dusty, I’m not all that nice. I wish I was. You see, I”—I swallowed hard and wet my lips—“I’m the one that smashed up your new bike.”
I looked up. Dusty was staring at me. He wasn’t angry, just shocked. “I was going to bring it home to you. I saw it at the park and figured I’d ride it here—you know, as kind of a favor.” I was speaking fast and furiously, wanting to explain before he decided to bust me in the nose. “Then I came to where they’re building that new shopping center, and I started riding the dirt hills. I wasn’t trying to mess up your bike or anything.”
I told him everything. I even showed him the scrape on my knee to prove that I wasn’t lying. Dusty didn’t say much. He just listened. “That’s why I brought you my bike,” I said sadly. “I’ll pay for what it costs to fix up yours, but it’ll take me a little while to earn the money. That’s why I figured you needed another bike until then. It’s not as good as yours, but it’ll get you around. I’m sorry, Dusty. I hadn’t meant for things to end up this way.”
Dusty stepped over to my bike and walked around it, looking it over.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you still wanted to bust me in the nose,” I muttered.
He shrugged. “I’ve thought better about that.” He cuffed my arm. “I still think this is pretty nice of you. Most guys wouldn’t even have told me.”
“Well, I am sorry. And I’ll make up for it.”
I turned and started down his driveway, leaving my bike behind. “Hey, Bryce,” he called after me. I stopped and turned. “Do you want to play a little catch tomorrow after school?”
I hesitated and then smiled. “Sure. I’d like that.”
As I returned home, I was smiling, both inside and out. That deep down sick feeling was gone, and I knew that next Sunday I’d be able to take the sacrament—and I’d appreciate it.

2 Joseph F. never forgot one happy occasion when he sat on the knee of the Prophet Joseph Smith, brother of Hyrum. Joseph F. was only five years old and was playing on the bank of the Mississippi River when his father and his Uncle Joseph crossed the river on their way home to prepare to go to Carthage.
3 When they landed, little Joseph F. took his father’s hand, and they went with the Prophet to Hyrum’s house. There, while Hyrum was shaving, the Prophet took Joseph F. on his knee and said to his brother, “Hyrum, what’s the matter with Joseph; he seems so white?”
“Oh,” answered Hyrum, joking about the poverty of the family, “he lives on skim milk.”
4 Joseph F. always remembered the anguish he felt the last time he saw his father. He wrote, “Without getting off his horse, Father leaned over in his saddle and picked me up off the ground. He kissed me good-bye and put me down again, and I saw him ride away.” Several days passed before five-year-old Joseph F. and his mother, Mary Fielding Smith, had any news of Hyrum.
5 Then the tragic night came. Joseph F. later wrote, “I remember the night of the murder … when one of the brethren came from Carthage and knocked on Mother’s window after dark and, with a trembling voice, called to my mother, ‘Sister Smith, your husband has been killed.’”
6 Joseph F. always remembered the fear he felt that night as he lay in his bed listening to his mother crying.
7 Soon after Hyrum’s death, the family began making preparations to go west. With his father gone, Joseph F. assumed responsibility for helping his mother all he could. Not yet ten years of age, Joseph F. drove the oxen the entire distance from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley—over a thousand miles—in the summer of 1848.
8 This journey proved to be an extra hardship because the captain of their group was against Mary Fielding Smith and her family going on the arduous journey without a father to take care of their needs. He told Mary that she and her children would be a burden to the rest of the company. But Mary told the captain that she would ask no special favors, would make the trip without his help, and would even beat him to the valley! She kept her word, with much help from her young son, Joseph F., the future prophet.

We had gone up the canyon to study, but the mountain air and warm sunshine made it too relaxing to concentrate. So I just lay there in a kind of sleepy intoxication while Sarah continued her story. I rolled over to let the sun warm my face when I noticed two young boys climbing the mountain beside us—a trek that was pretty rough going. As the boys pulled themselves up by grasping branches and roots as anchors, rocks and earth under them slid down into the water. Sometimes the roots they grabbed pulled right out of the dirt, and they would slide down the face until they found something to grab onto. The small avalanche they created continued without them into the water below.
As we watched the boys with mild interest, Sarah proceeded to tell me about her best friend in high school. At least Sarah said this girl was her “best friend.” I didn’t know how that was decided. As the story went, this girl had been spending the weekend at Sarah’s, and one night they were up late talking. She told Sarah that although Sarah was fun for the first day or so, her charm soon wore off. Sarah, who was overweight and insecure, didn’t have many friends, and she had believed what this girl had told her.
I thought about this “best friend” and what her motives could possibly have been. Maybe she was annoyed with Sarah and just wanted to be mean. Maybe she was merely entertaining herself and didn’t realize that five years later, Sarah still believed that her charm quickly wore off like Cinderella’s gown.
Sarah had finished talking, and I looked over and saw the boys had finally made it to the top of the mountain. Self-satisfied, they happily scanned the world from their new vantage point and never noticed the scars they had left on the fragile mountainside.
I couldn’t help but notice the parallel between those boys and Sarah’s “best friend.” One remark had scarred Sarah enough, that years later she still expected to be rejected after people really got to know her.
Some time later, I was dealing with a socially clumsy guy who excelled at making a nuisance of himself. Steve had been wearing on my patience already, and when he made some comment that was obviously out of bounds, I turned and snapped at him. My snide remark brought laughter from the group around us, and I felt satisfied that I had made my point.
That night, I was reading in the Book of Mormon when I came across two scriptures that had profound meaning.
“And again I say unto you, is there one among you that doth make a mock of his brother, or that heapeth upon him persecutions?
“Wo unto such an one, for he is not prepared, and the time is at hand that he must repent or he cannot be saved!” (Alma 5:30–31).
I pondered Alma’s question. I remembered my comment to Steve, and I thought back to Sarah and the mountainside. Even though Steve was hard to deal with, he didn’t know any better. His awkwardness deserved love, not a confirmation of his insecurities. I realized that no matter how annoyed I was—or even how thoughtless—I will be held directly responsible for how I treat each of Heavenly Father’s children. Christ has promised that our interactions with each other are important. He said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40).
I know now I would rather have Heavenly Father refer to the service I rendered than to the injuries I compounded.

His voice was soft as he began. “Your mother and I first met at the fire station where I was a student firefighter, and she worked in the office. We began dating, and I realized she was different from the other young women I had dated before. I was a carefree young man who had been brought up in another church. But I hadn’t really paid too much attention to religion.
“I had very few values or goals at that time,” he continued, “and I really didn’t care.” He leaned forward and intently confided in me. “Kjersten, your mother set the most shining example of righteous living I had ever seen.” As he said this, a warm feeling swept over me.
My dad told me details concerning their marriage, my birth, and our family that I had never before heard. He told me the story of his conversion to the Church and how because they were first married civilly, they had to wait a year before they could be sealed in the temple. He also shared with me some of the adventures he and Mom went through in that first year of marriage. For the first time, pieces to a few little puzzles fell into place. I finally understood why my parents’ marriage and sealing dates are different and why they say that the first year of their marriage was the hardest they ever had.