Gospel Story Finder

At a church service I attended in a care center, after the wheelchair-bound residents received the sacrament, a young woman your age played a solo on her violin. The elderly sisters were so appreciative. They declared aloud their gratitude with comments such as “Beautiful,” “Wonderful,” “I love you.” Such distractions did not deter the violinist; rather, they enabled her to reach new heights in her performance.

That day she said to me: “I have never played better in my life. Something seemed to lift me beyond myself and my own abilities. I felt the inspiration of my Heavenly Father’s love.”

I reminded her, “When you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God.”

She nodded her acknowledgement, carefully placed her violin in its case, and, with tears of joy coursing down her cheeks, returned to her seat.

“Look, [Mom] !” [Becky] said. “There are [two] [birds] in the grocery store.” “Yes,” [Mom] said. “There are [two] [birds] . [I] wonder how they got inside the store.” [Becky] helped [Mom] put [apples] in the [cart] while she looked at the [birds] . Then [Becky] helped [Mom] put [bananas] in the [cart] as she kept her [eyes] on the [birds] . When [Becky] put the [oranges] in the [cart] , she [saw] the [birds] take flight. She watched as the [birds] flew back [and] forth. “The [birds] are tired,” [Becky] said. “How [can] we help them?” Then she remembered a story she had heard about a [bird] that got lost in the [tabernacle] . People tried opening all the [doors] [and] chasing the [bird] out with a [net] . But the [bird] would [not] fly out any of the [doors] . Finally, a man named John said a [prayer] . Heavenly Father answered John’s [prayer] [and] helped him know what [to] do. “Turn off all the [lights] ,” John said. “[And] close all the [doors] except [one].” Then the [bird] flew out the [door] . [Becky] ran [to] a woman who worked at the store [and] told her about the [bird] in the [tabernacle] . “Thank [you],” the woman said. “What a good idea.” [Becky] smiled. [Becky] was glad she could help Heavenly Father’s [birds] [too] .

Then one day his old tutor Rodriguez appeared. Disapproving of the way Simón was living, he persuaded the young man to go with him on a walking tour of Italy. They carried their own packs, slept in haystacks, and talked as they roamed the country in the fresh air and sunshine.
They stopped to rest one afternoon on a beautiful green hillside overlooking Rome. Fired by Rodriquez’ ideas and remembering the humiliating experience of being mistreated by the police in Madrid, Simón suddenly arose, stretched out his arms, and solemnly declared, “On my life and honor I promise most faithfully not to rest until I have freed America of her tyrants!” The rest of Simón Bolívar’s life was dedicated to keeping this promise.

After the play, it was time to eat. And there’s no better place than a pioneer town for an old-fashioned barbecue followed by a square dance. A cowpoke in a big black hat manned the grill and fed the crowd; then everyone paraded to the grandstand for some do-si-dos and Virginia reels. Along the way, many of the volunteers (who had now changed work clothes for pioneer duds) stopped to explore the shops and museums. Even though most of the shops weren’t manned yet (the tourist season was still a month or two away), the artifacts and architecture were interesting.
The square dance continued until desert winds whipped up a dust storm that flipped the record from the turntable and sent the crowd scurrying for cover. When the breeze softened, however, and the fury turned to a mild rain, the dancing continued despite the weather.
“There are a lot more people at Young Adult activities than there were in my Mutual class, and I haven’t known most of them all my life, like I have the kids in my Mutual class,” 17-year-old Gregg Tunney of the Ninth Ward commented. “It’s challenging to try to meet everyone, but it’s a great opportunity to make new friends.”
“Now that I’m in college, I can look back at my first experiences with the Young Adult program and see what a difference it made for me,” Reuben said. “It helped me adjust to a new time in my life by giving me an anchor in the storm. It helped me look at life in a new way, to be more aware of the spiritual side, to get ready to go on a mission. A lot of kids come out of high school worried about their future. One of the best things to help them sort it all out is to get involved with Young Adults.”
The fellowshipping, it seemed, had gone well. When a heavier rain finally halted the dance, a large portion of the volunteers regrouped at a local seminary teacher’s home just to relax, and the group included both brand-new and seasoned Young Adults.
The evening began with guitar playing and song singing, shifted to story telling, then evolved into a discussion of the day’s activities. Then the mood became even more serious, and an impromptu testimony meeting began. Each person wanted a turn to express gratitude, not just for a fun day’s activities, but for the fellowship of the gospel. Each person in turn stood and bore testimony of Jesus Christ, of the fact that he lives, and of a desire to serve him and love him.
“They spoke of Christ as if they knew him, because they do,” the seminary teacher, Brother Kent Rappleye, said.
“What a wonderful way to end a day of service,” said Trudy Ivie, 17, of the 31st Ward. “I can see a lot of things I need to do to get closer to my Father in Heaven. And I believe activity in Young Adults will help me.
“I made a lot of friends today through the freedom and friendliness they shared. Doing a lot of things together helped—the seriousness with the fun, the work with the play, the service. Each one at the right time. Seeing people under different conditions, then sitting down and talking with them, made you feel like part of a great big family.”
There were many successes that day in Phoenix. Pioneer Arizona put on a new face for tourists. A couple of people initiated or renewed interest in the Church. But also important was the warmth of friendship felt by new graduates from high school and seminary as they continued the rough transition from adolescence to adulthood. They knew they had found a place where they belonged.

When I was in my last year of Primary, a wonderful older lady named Marth Christensen was our teacher. She helped us learn the Articles of Faith. To this day I still know the Articles of Faith because of what I learned in Primary. We visited Sister Christensen’s home often. It was always a wonderful experience to be there. She taught us cooking skills, and we made cookies and candy. Sometimes we took the treats we had made to somebody who was homebound. The examples of wonderful teachers taught me to serve.

While deaths at any time are heartbreaking, the timings of deaths during the crisis of 1918-1920 were sometimes tragic in themselves. In February 1919, John Diston, a native of Sunderland, was faithfully discharged from the British Royal Navy and rushed home to be with his young wife, Beatrice, in Portsmouth. The couple had only been married six months and many of the family were sick with influenza and pneumonia. John finally made it home to Beatrice’s bedside, but he only had five hours with her before she passed away. As they prepared for the funeral, other family members continued to struggle with illness. On the day of Beatrice’s funeral, her adopted brother, George, also passed away. The double tragedy was hard to bear. Of Beatrice’s seven siblings, only one survived to old age.17

“I’ve been known to spit when I speak,” he began. “So those of you in the front row are like the people at Sea World who sit in the splash zone!” I smiled at this clever attention getter given by the last speaker of the day in the “Introduction to Persuasion” speech class that I teach at Oregon State University. What I didn’t know was that the real attention getter was yet to come.
Teaching college students the art of persuasive speech is always a challenge for me. Although arguing comes easily for most students, constructing reasoned arguments is another matter. Analytical skills must be drilled and re-drilled. This, their final speech, was to be a polished culmination of the skills they had rigorously studied during the quarter. The assignment was to persuade their classmates to perform some action.
It had been a good day. The arguments had been strong and the issues relevant, and now one of the most promising persuaders in the class, Phil Sanchez, had just engaged our interest with his good humor. Phil was a newly returned missionary from my ward, and I looked forward to what he had to say.
But I was momentarily stunned by his bold delivery as he said, “One of my heroes is a man named Joseph Smith. Shortly before his death he said: ‘I have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward all men. I shall die innocent.’”
The attention of the class was abruptly captured, as was mine. I was seized with a sense of panic. I now felt powerfully protective of the things Phil was about to cast before this crowd of self-proclaimed nonbelievers.
In an attempt to give credence to critical thinking, I often goaded the students into frank discussions about a variety of controversial topics to allow them to test the waters of opposition. Conflict was no stranger to this group. As a result, everyone’s personal values, beliefs, and attitudes had been hung out for all to see. We had a snowboarder who pushed the limits of authority, admitted to drug use, and approached life as a party he was hosting. We had our so-called punk with spiked orange hair and body piercings. We had several students who openly opposed religion and any belief in God. We had a born-again Christian, and, of course, Phil and I were both members of the Church. It was a wonderful and diverse group of students who had developed a remarkable affection for each other, despite their vast differences.
Involuntarily, I stole a glance around the room, fully expecting to see a smirk or a hint of hostility. I wondered briefly if Phil had listened to my lecture on audience analysis. I was certain he had opened a gate through which a flood of cheap shots could flow.
Just then he dipped his long arms into a big box and announced that he had a gift for everyone. He called each student in the class by name and presented each one with a copy of the Book of Mormon. On the inside cover, he had written personalized messages to each of his classmates. To one he wrote, “Check out Helaman, chapter seven. You remind me of Samuel the Lamanite because of your individualism and courage. I think you will enjoy getting to know him.”
After all of the 19 students had their books, Phil asked them to read with him about Lehi and his family. They then turned to successive scriptural passages that were already neatly marked and followed along as Phil moved them through the key components of his message. I continued my surveillance of the youthful faces and noticed a visible transformation taking place. As I watched this class reverently turn to Alma, then 3rd Nephi, then Moroni, and eagerly and respectfully read along, I felt their willing collaboration as their spirits were touched. Phil gave his personal witness to this precious gift and glowed as he told of his joy in being a missionary. He closed by having them read Moroni’s promise that they could also know the truth. He then issued a stirring and sincere challenge for them to read the book.
Our routine was for each speech to be immediately critiqued by pre-assigned peers. On this day, the two assigned to give verbal criticisms had been particularly brutal with their comments in the past. As I called for the first critique, I warily wondered what words Ty, our wise-cracking “skater dude” would choose to describe his experience. He simply said, “This is the first time in my whole life I found myself believing something just because the person who was saying it believed it so much.”
The second student, Josh, had previously told the class on several occasions about his run-ins with religion in general and with various clergymen. I nearly shuddered as I asked for his response. Without a trace of defiance, Josh offered a lopsided grin and said how great he thought it was that Phil had taken the time to personalize the books and give them as gifts. He then vowed to read his book, openly admitting that this was the first time he had ever received a religious message without any feelings of malice or disdain and without wanting to argue back.
Then the time was up. The class was over. Nineteen students stowed their new copies of the Book of Mormon in their backpacks and quietly—almost reverently—filed out of the room.
The courage, testimony, sincerity, and good will of a young returned missionary had invited the Spirit, the best kind of persuasion there is.

Eight years later, on Christmas Day of 1843, the Prophet recorded another memorable Christmas. The celebration began quite early in the morning when carolers serenaded the Prophet’s home around 1:00 A.M. This surprise visit made the Prophet very happy; he recorded that the singing “caused a thrill of pleasure to run through [his] soul” (History of the Church, 6:134).
The day continued with a large party. That afternoon Joseph and Emma hosted about 50 couples for dinner, and Joseph recorded the following about the gathering:
“Monday, December 25—A large party supped at my house, and spent the evening in music, dancing, &c., in a most cheerful and friendly manner” (History of the Church, 6:134).

Every morning my brother and I share the job of emptying the dishwasher. One morning while my brother was busy, I unloaded the entire dishwasher by myself. He was surprised and grateful that I did his job for him. The next morning my brother put away my pile of clean laundry while he was putting his away. I decided to keep the circle of service going and did his dishes job again. We are continuing to serve each other.
Andrew S., age 7, California

My dad coaches a high school baseball team. I am the batboy. I travel with the team on their baseball trips. Sometimes when our team players struck out or didn’t play well, they would swear. This made me feel bad inside. I told them not to swear. They stopped swearing. Even though I am young, I was able to be an example to others who are big. I know this makes my Savior happy.
Toby S., age 8, Utah, USA

Thirty-eight years ago this month, Dean and I, then newlyweds, traveled to New Mexico to visit my parents. While there, my father took us on a day trip into the mountains in the northern part of the state. In the afternoon, we encountered a car stranded on the roadside with a flat tire. The driver told my father that his spare was also flat and he needed a ride to the nearest town to get the tire fixed. My father, seeing the man’s family inside the car, said to him, “You’ll never be able to get to town and back before dark. But listen, you have the same size wheel as mine. Take my spare, and the next time you come to Albuquerque, bring it back to me.”
The stranger, shocked by the offer, said, “But you don’t even know me.”
Daddy’s response, typical for him, was, “You’re an honest man, aren’t you? You’ll bring the tire back.”
A few weeks later I asked my dad about the spare tire. He told me that it had been returned.

In recent years another man built his cabin by a falcon cliff not far downriver from George’s crumbling home. He was a loud man, exploiting nature, cutting down trees with a noisy power saw, and keeping a pack of howling sled dogs chained up at the base of the cliff. He also operated a large, creaking fish-wheel right in front of the rocks where the river runs deep and the salmon swim up. No falcons nested on the cliffs after this man built his cabin, nor have they returned now that he is gone. It will take nature some years yet to repair the scar he left.

In the summer of 2011, the Wundram family was ready to move from Guatemala to the United States so that Carlos Wundram, a doctor, could pursue advanced studies.
“When we were ready to go,” he recalls, “something stopped me.” His wife, Adriana, experienced the same feelings, so together they prayed and received a confirmation in their hearts that they should not go.
They canceled their plans—and were left wondering what God had in mind for them. Four months later they would find out.
Carlos had been a member of the Church since he was 14 but had dropped out of activity around the time he began his university studies at age 21.
Adriana, although not a member herself, had long wanted to marry a Latter-day Saint. A good friend of hers, a Church member, had married a returned missionary who was tender, loving, and attentive. Adriana wanted a husband like that.
When they first started going out, Adriana and Carlos did not talk of his religion, but he demonstrated many of the qualities of her friend’s husband. He did not act superior to her. After they got married and had children, she appreciated that he bathed the babies and changed diapers!
As their three children began to grow up, “we began to think that we should get closer to God,” Carlos says. They did not find what they were looking for in the Christian church they attended for a time, but the feelings that they needed to get nearer to God persisted.
After canceling their plans to move to the United States, the Wundrams decided to make some improvements to their home, including buying new windows. They immediately liked the man who came to do the installation, José Mena. One day a discussion with him touched on religion. He said he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Carlos replied that he was also but had not attended for some time.
The next time Brother Mena came to work on the windows, he brought a Book of Mormon and a copy of the Liahona for each family member. Reading the magazine, Carlos began to experience familiar spiritual feelings. Then Brother Mena invited them to attend the Quetzaltenango Guatemala Temple open house.
When they entered the temple, the Wundram children began to ask, “Dad, what can we do to be members of this Church?” As they left, their youngest son, Rodrigo, age 10, lingered behind and, with the help of his mother, filled out a card requesting a visit from the missionaries.
The family met with the missionaries. “I did not want to pressure my family to be baptized,” Carlos says. “But they really felt the Spirit for themselves.”
Adriana and the children were baptized in December 2011, a few days before the dedication of the Quetzaltenango Temple. “The great blessing that God gave me is that I baptized them,” Carlos says. Just over one year later, the family was sealed in the temple, a joyous occasion for all of them.

When Israel and Elizabeth Haven Barlow left Nauvoo, Illinois, for the Salt Lake Valley in 1848, they left behind a baby boy buried in a small Nauvoo cemetery. Little James Nathaniel Barlow, their first child, had died shortly after birth in May 1841.
With their departure for the Salt Lake Valley, Israel and Elizabeth likely never expected to gaze again upon their son’s grave. But when Israel was called on a mission to England a few years later, he passed through Nauvoo as he traveled east. At Elizabeth’s request, he stopped to locate their son’s grave and move his remains to the main cemetery, east of town.
After a day of fruitless searching, Israel sought help from the local caretaker. The next day, they found the grave, located next to James’s cousin Mary. Tragically, the coffins were decayed and broken. In a letter to his wife, Israel wrote, “I therefore turned away and concluded that I would leave them there till the future.”
He had not walked far from the grave when he heard a voice. Recalling the experience, he wrote, “It was not audible, but so distinct to my mind that I could not gainsay it: ‘Daddy, do not leave me here.’” Israel returned to the grave, concluding to remove his little boy after all. “I felt a very peculiar calm and peace of mind which before I did not feel. … This much I will say: that I never was more conscious of any duty done in my life.”
On September 2, 1853, Israel Barlow and the caretaker moved the bodies of James and Mary to Nauvoo’s main cemetery, marking the place with “stones at the head and foot of the graves.”
Israel told Elizabeth that as he lingered at the graveside, “I felt a desire to dedicate myself and all that I might call mine into the hands of the Lord, that I might be counted worthy to come forth with [James] in the morning of the First Resurrection.”
After Israel Barlow bade one last farewell to his little boy, he wrote to his wife, “The thoughts of absenting myself far away, never more in life to return to [James’s] grave, wrung the last thread of affection I bore till it was broken with tears on his grave.”
I imagine that more tears—tears of joy this time—were shed on December 4, 1889. On that day, little James Nathaniel Barlow was sealed to his parents in the Logan Utah Temple. By then, Israel had passed away, so others stood as proxy for him and James.

When I was 11, my family had to leave East Germany. We moved to Frankfurt, West Germany. I attended the Frankfurt Branch, which was not as big as the one in Zwickau. The Frankfurt meetinghouse was small, and we had classes in the basement. The missionaries taught us important gospel principles.
One missionary, Elder Stringham, impressed me very much with his lessons on the Pearl of Great Price, especially where Moses is being taught that he is a son of God (see Moses 1:3–4). Elder Stringham also taught me the scripture that says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). This gave me comfort and courage, because at that time the future looked bleak in Germany. The city of Frankfurt was in ruins with bombed-out buildings. That teaching has stayed with me throughout my life. It taught me that I need to be on the Lord’s side. I cannot afford not to be on the Lord’s side.

Tobogganing was a great sport in my younger days, and the foothills above our house offered unlimited slopes for our favorite sport. Our only trouble was that we didn’t have a toboggan large enough to hold more than one person.
One day when I was about ten years old, two of my friends asked me if I would go with them to an abandoned shack high on the hill. Its sides were made of corrugated iron, but they just hung loose, flapping in the breeze. With one end turned up, what a perfect toboggan a piece of that shack would make!
I hurried home after school to get a hammer. The only one I could find belonged to my father’s dental laboratory equipment. Father was not at home, so I took the hammer and went with my friends.
The snow was quite deep that winter and the days were short. We stayed longer than we had planned, and it began to get dark before we finished making our toboggan.
Finally we decided we better hurry home before it was too dark to see. There was no trail on the hill, and the snow came up above our knees. We started running down, jumping through the deep snow.
My hands were cold and half numb. All of a sudden I felt Father’s hammer slip through my fingers and fly into the snow behind me. I called to my friends to wait. They stopped to see what the trouble was, but soon they became impatient and insisted on going on.
I went back in my tracks to try and find the hammer, but it hadn’t even left a mark in the snow. I looked around frantically.
It was really getting dark now, and I was alone up on the hill in the deep snow. I knew I shouldn’t have taken my father’s hammer without his permission, for he needed the tool in his work. Now it was lost and I couldn’t find it!
As I sat in the snow, I was so sad and cold and lonely that I felt just like crying. Then I remembered how I had been taught that when I needed help, I could pray to our Heavenly Father—no matter where I was. I needed help, so I put my face in my hands and prayed with all my heart.
As I opened my eyes and rolled sideways to get up, my hand went down deep in the snow and touched something hard. I took hold of it and pulled it up through the snow. It was Father’s hammer!
I thanked our Heavenly Father for answering my prayer. Then I jumped up and hurried as fast as I could to overtake the other boys who were way ahead of me.
As I overtook them, I realized I had learned something of special importance that day—that we are never alone and that our prayers are heard and answered.

You can’t be timid for long as a missionary. Street meetings were a very popular form of our missionary work. We’d set up a stand in the marketplace or town square, sing a few hymns, then bear our testimonies and answer questions.
The second day I was in England, I attended my first street meeting at Hyde Park in London. Six missionaries and our mission president, Selvoy J. Boyer, were there. President Boyer called on two missionaries to speak, and I was one of them.
On my way up to the stand, he said to me, “Elder Ballard, you preach the gospel.” I quickly picked the principle of baptism and said everything I knew about it in about thirty seconds. That was a good experience because it made me realize very quickly how much I did not know. I realized that I had a lot of studying to do.

Norm was our patriarch, not in age as much as in patience and insight. He was a tall, lanky guy who was always the first with a practical joke or a one-liner, but also the type who seemed to know when understanding and empathy were in order. Perhaps Norm’s kindness was made even more apparent as it contrasted with the rough, seasoned construction workers we worked alongside—men who used four-letter words to replace any and every adjective possible, men who spent their paychecks on beer and little else. Three of us steered clear of the regulars, but Norm made an extra effort to spend at least a few minutes every day working in their group.
One morning, before we made our way down the twisting trench, Norm pulled a Book of Mormon out of his lunch box and walked over to one of the regulars.
“Don’t be stupid,” snapped the powerfully built construction worker as he pushed the book back at Norm. Norm took a short, nervous step back.
“Put the thing in my truck,” the man said in a hushed voice. “And put it under the seat so the guys don’t see it and give me a hard time.”
Norm walked over to the vehicle and called back to the man who was now surrounded by several of his fellow workers. “Hey, nice stereo. Mind if I have a closer look?”
“Yeah, sure,” the man called back.
Norm slipped the Book of Mormon under the driver’s seat, and we began our daily walk to the job site.
Norm answered our queries by telling us that he had struck up several conversations with the man while they worked. During one talk he discovered the man’s grandmother was an American Indian. “I listened to the stories his grandmother told him,” said Norm, “like the one where the continent is covered in darkness for three days [see 1 Ne. 19:10]. I told him, ‘Boy, do I have a book for you!’”
I felt disturbed. I knew I would have let these individuals miss out on the blessings of the gospel simply because they appeared rough on the outside. I knew Norm did not approach these men because he wanted to show off to us; he knew the joy of the gospel, and he wanted these men to share that spiritual wealth.
After Norm told his story we were quiet for a long time, walking and thinking of the blessings we enjoyed and wondering how we could walk closer to our brothers. With the time we had left on the job, we brought the other men into our work group and involved them in our water fights and our harmless practical jokes on the bosses and on each other. But perhaps most important, we let these men know what we believed and how we lived our lives. And from then on, as we walked to and from the job site, we did so together, the regulars and the Mormons—side by side.

Every year it’s the same just before the football game between Ridgewood and Central High, the two high schools in town. Each school does everything it can to fire up for the big game. On Thursday night there’s a big pep rally in the parking lot where the symbol of the opposing team is burned in effigy.
Another tradition, one which is not appreciated by school officials, also takes place during the week. A group of students go to the opposing high school and leave their mark. One year a group from Central painted Ridgewood’s sidewalk with a large C for Central Cougars. The next year Central High was broken into and an old car painted with Ridgewood colors was driven onto the gym floor at night, and then the wheels were removed. It was not until noon that authorities finally removed the car.
Unfortunately in some people’s minds it’s more than just a game. Since most students attending Central are of Mexican heritage, and most at Ridgewood are white, sometimes the cross-town rivalry is just an excuse to promote racial prejudice.
For as long as anyone can remember, it’s always been the same.
Jason Miller played the trombone in Ridgewood High’s marching band. On Thursday night he attended the pep rally because the band had to play for it. Afterwards he went home and watched TV for a while, but then decided that he’d better start studying for an algebra test. It was then that he realized he’d left his algebra book in the band room at school. He’d have to go back to the school and get it before the janitors locked up for the night.
He drove to Ridgewood High, parked, got out, and walked to the door.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” a voice called out.
Jason stopped. Two large guys stepped out from the shadows. “What are you doing here?” one asked.
“I’m in the band,” Jason said. “I left my algebra book in the rehearsal room, and I’ve got a test tomorrow.”
“I’ve never seen you before. How do I know you aren’t from Central and have come here to make trouble.”
“I’ve got my activity card here.”
“Let me see it.” Jason showed him his card. “All right, go ahead, but you better be telling the truth, because if you’re not, and we catch you messing around …”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“All right, you can go.”
Just then there was the sound of shouting from the other side of the building. “There are people inside with cans of paint!” someone yelled.
The two self-appointed guards ran inside the building.
Jason walked up to the third floor where the band room was. He could hear people yelling back and forth and the sound of running. “There they go!” someone shouted.
Because Jason was a section leader, he had a key to the rehearsal room. He went inside and began searching for his algebra book.
Suddenly a girl ran into the room. She was dark-eyed, with black hair and olive skin. She was breathing hard from running. “Hide me, okay?” she asked.
She’s from Central, he thought to himself. “You can’t stay here. I’m going home now, and I’ve got to lock up.”
“Just let me stay here until they’ve gone.”
One of the student guards barged in, saw the girl, and yelled out into the hall. “I’ve got one!” He turned to the girl. “Where’d your friends go, huh?”
“They all got away.”
Two guys rushed in the room.
Jason looked at the clock. If he didn’t start studying soon, he’d end up not doing well on the test tomorrow. “Can you all go someplace else? I’ve got to close up now, and I can’t let you stay in here because there’s thousands of dollars of musical instruments and …”
“Hey, cool it. We’ll be out of here in a minute. First we have to decide what to do with our prisoner.”
“I think we should make her clean up the mess where she and her friends painted on the wall.”
“I don’t want to sit around and watch some chickie clean walls.”
“Let me go, okay?” the girl said. “C’mon, a joke’s a joke.”
“I think we should keep her our prisoner and make her wish she’d never come here tonight,” the one in charge said.
The smile on the girl’s face vanished.
“Yeah, let’s teach her a lesson she won’t ever forget,” another said.
Jason could see the girl was getting scared.
“Let’s take her for a ride in my car.”
The girl’s lip started to quiver. “Please let me go.”
“No way. Hey, I just thought of something. I’ve got some handcuffs in my car.”
“Good, go get ‘em.”
The girl made a break for it, but they caught her and held her. “Let me go!” she cried out.
“You’re not going anywhere. Go get the handcuffs like I said.”
When Jason began speaking, he realized how thin his voice was compared to the others. “I think you should let her go.”
“Hey, geek, who asked your opinion? Look, just walk away from here and go home and forget you ever saw any of this.”
He’d never stood up to anyone before, and these guys were big and mean. But he had to say something. “I can’t let you hurt her.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t, that’s all. Can’t you see you’re scaring her.”
“You think we care? Look, whatever happens to her is her own fault. She was the one who broke in. She’s got to be punished.”
“What are you going to do with her?”
“I don’t know. But it’ll be so bad she’ll never come back here again, that’s for sure.”
The girl had the look of a trapped animal. She kept trying to free herself, but it was no use.
Jason looked at the girl. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
The ring leader shoved him backwards. “What are you going to do to stop us?”
Jason didn’t know. They were all so much bigger than he was.
The handcuffs arrived. Two of them held her while the other put the handcuffs on the girl.
Jason saw the phone on the band director’s desk. He went to it and picked it up and started to dial.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling the police.”
One of them grabbed the phone from his hand. “Let’s take both of them with us. Handcuff Twinkle Toes to the girl too.”
A few minutes later Jason and the girl sat in the back seat of an old beat-up car, a guard on each side of them. Jason could hear the terrified shallow breathing of the girl. He leaned over. “Don’t worry. They’re not going to hurt you.”
She reached out and grabbed his hand and held it tightly.
Fifteen minutes later the car left the highway and started down a nearly abandoned road which led to a place called Crescent Ridge where people went target shooting. No more than a dozen vehicles used the road in a year’s time.
“Let’s all think of things we can do to our prisoner when we get to the end of this road,” the driver said. They each took their turn describing various forms of cruelty. The girl held on tightly to Jason’s hand.
Suddenly the car stopped. “Let Twinkle Toes out here. We’ll take the girl on with us alone.”
“No,” the girl pleaded.
“He’s still handcuffed to the girl,” the one next to Jason said.
“Well, undo them, stupid.”
“I can’t see anything. How about turning on the dome light?”
“It doesn’t work. Get in front of the headlights.”
Jason and the girl were pushed out in front of the car. One of them took the key to the handcuffs from his pocket and waved it in Jason’s face. “You’re lucky we’re letting you go—you’re luckier than she’s gonna be.”
With his free hand Jason hit the hand holding the key. The key flipped into the air and landed somewhere off the road. In the soft sand at night it would be nearly impossible to find.
“He just threw away the key!”
The driver got out of the car. “What’s wrong with you anyway?” He shoved Jason backwards. Because they were bound together by handcuffs, he and the girl both fell down to the ground.
“Now what do we do?”
“Hey, they’re both such great friends. Let’s just leave ‘em here. Let ‘em try walking back in the dark. It’ll serve ‘em right. I’m tired of this anyway.”
They got in the car and drove away.
The girl was quiet for a minute and then she started sobbing. Jason kept saying it was all right now.
After a while she calmed down. “Maybe we’d better start walking toward the highway,” he said.
“Okay.”
At first their progress was slow because it was hard to see, but eventually their eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“Why did you help me?”
“I don’t know. I just did.”
“You must have had a reason.”
“It’s the way I was raised.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was taught a guy should protect the girl he’s with.”
“You weren’t exactly with me.”
“No, not exactly.”
“Who taught you that about girls?”
“The church I go to teaches that. I’m a priest.”
She snickered.
“You’re no priest.”
“In my church I am.”
“What church is that?”
“The Mormon church.”
“You a priest? In my church a priest looks like a priest. I’m Catholic.”
“Well, I bet that’s a nice church too.”
“I go every Sunday,” she said.
“No kidding? Me too.”
“I don’t want you to think my church says it’s okay to do vandalism.”
“I don’t.”
“I just don’t want you going around saying we do that.”
“I won’t.”
“People do things like that though. Sometimes when I go in a store, salespeople stare at me like I came to shoplift. Maybe one time they caught one of us shoplifting, and now they think we all do that. That’s wrong.”
Jason paused. “When I was nine years old, I got a bike for my birthday. Two days later it was stolen. The police found it on Del Marco Street, all smashed up. After that I figured every Mexican kid was the one who’d stolen my bike.”
“Hey, it wasn’t me, okay?” she teased.
They started laughing.
“What’s it like to be … like you are?” he asked.
“It’s great on our side of town. It’s only when we cross over we get hassled.”
“Sometimes I wish my skin was dark like yours.”
“Why?”
“I can’t ever get a tan. I’m either white or sunburned. When I go swimming my stomach looks like the underbelly of a dead fish.”
She started laughing.
“You’re very funny, but in a nice way. What’s your name?”
“Jason Miller.”
“That’s a good name. It kind of fits you.”
“What’s yours?”
“Rita Sanchez.”
“Rita’s a nice name too.”
They walked for a time without talking and then she said, “This is so strange.”
“What is?”
“Me taking a walk with a guy named Jason Miller.”
“I know what you mean.”
“If we saw each other on the street, I never would have talked to you,” she said.
“I wouldn’t have talked to you either. But it has nothing to do with prejudice. I don’t talk to many girls anyway.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Bashful I guess.”
“You shouldn’t be bashful. You’ve got more to offer than most guys.”
“Me? What’ve I got to offer?”
“You’re a nice guy. There aren’t many nice guys around anymore.”
“Maybe I could see you once a week and you could pump me up by saying things like that to me.”
She paused. “Sure. On what side of town would we meet?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could talk on the phone.”
She nodded her head. “Sure. Except I should tell you I’m going with someone. He doesn’t like Anglos, and he doesn’t like me talking with other guys. His name is John.”
“Is John big?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it. Big John. And mean too, right?”
“To others, but not to me.”
“Big and mean, huh?” Jason paused.
“Maybe if you just send me a letter once in a while.”
She laughed.
“You’re so funny.”
“Nobody else laughs at what I say.”
“I can’t believe you were willing to get yourself beat up just to try to protect me. I wish my parents could meet you. I know they’d like to thank you too. Maybe we could have you over for dinner sometime.” She paused. “Would you come if we asked you?”
“Sure. I love Mexican food.” He paused. “I’ve got a question. When ever I go out to eat, I always get Mexican food because it’s different from what my mom fixes most of the time. So I was wondering, well, like if you go out to eat, do you ever order mashed potatoes, canned peas, and roast beef?”
She looked at him strangely and then started laughing again.
“I didn’t think it was that funny,” he said, pleased that she appreciated him.
“Why do our two schools hate each other so much?” she asked.
He thought about it for a minute. “I guess because we don’t know each other.”
“It’s not right to hate an entire school, is it?”
“No. Especially if there are people like you at Central.”
“And people like you at Ridgewood.” She paused. “Jason, you know what? I’m really sorry I broke in. I was brought up better than that.”
“I know. I can tell you’re basically a good person.”
“We ought to try to change the way things are,” she said.
“How?”
“I don’t know. Like if I could talk to the kids in my school and you could talk to the ones in your school. And we could tell them it’s not right to hate somebody just because of the color of their skin.”
“Sure, why not? I could ask to speak to the band sometime and tell them that.” He paused. “It might make a difference.”
There was a prolonged silence.
“Do you really think it would make any difference?” she asked.
He sighed. “No, not really. I guess everybody’s got to find it out for themselves. Like we did tonight.”
They made it to the highway. Across the street was a truck stop. They would have to cross the highway and walk inside and ask to use their phone. He knew people would stare and make jokes at their expense. After they phoned, her parents would come and her father would use a hacksaw to free them and then they would be separated and it would never be the same for them again.
“Looks like we made it,” he said quietly.
“Thanks for being such a good person.” She looked at him and smiled. “You’d make a good Catholic. You could even become a priest.”
He smiled. “Hey, you forget, I already am a priest.”
“Father Jason,” she teased.
“They don’t call me that.”
“What do they call you?”
“Mostly just Jason.” He paused. “Well, sometimes they call me brother.”
“Then I will call you brother too,” she said.
They walked across the highway to the glaring lights of the truck stop.

Listen to the example of a young woman who wrote: “Right now in my family we are going through a tough time. I have been given the opportunity to fill my mother’s role. Sometimes I have to not participate in activities after school so I can care for my brother. Sometimes I have to not go out with my friends so that I can cook dinner or go grocery shopping.” Then she adds, “Because of this responsibility, I have learned a great deal about being a mother, growing up and taking responsibility, not only for myself but for others.”