Gospel Story Finder

I was still sitting on the porch thinking when Katie and Shauna came running around the house. “Come and play catch with us,” they called.
We threw the ball back and forth to each other, and then Katie threw one that was too high for me. Running backward to catch it, I slipped and fell on my backside in a clump of Mom’s blue irises. Mom came out of the shed just then with a pair of clippers to cut a bouquet. I looked at the smashed flowers and was just starting to speak, when something inside of me seemed to say, “No, Janna Lynn, you’re not going to say Katie made you do it.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I ran backward and fell.”
“Yes, I know. I saw you,” she replied.
“And you’re not mad at me?”
“Of course not.”
The way she laughed, I almost felt good about sitting on her flowers.
“Just look at all those irises that you didn’t sit on,” she said. “A daughter who tells the truth is more important than a whole yard full of flowers!”
Goodness! That must have been the Holy Ghost prompting me to tell the truth, I thought. And He’s helping me to learn what a great feeling you have when you know you’ve done the right thing. I could hardly wait to tell Cindy.

My name is Ginger Lyn and I’ve always loved Christmas, but last year was the best one we’ve ever had.
It all started on Thanksgiving Day as our family knelt in prayer to give thanks for our blessings. We were all so happy that we talked about some of the things we could do to help others have that same happy feeling.
Together we came up with many ideas, but the best one of all was our plan for Christmas Day. What we like most is our large family, and the happiness the gospel brings to us. We decided to share both these blessings as our gift to others.
The Salt Lake Temple is only a short drive from our home, and going there was part of our plan. We decided that on Christmas Day, after opening our gifts and eating breakfast, we would clean up the house, fix a big dinner, and then go to the templegrounds and find someone to spend Christmas with us. Before going down to the Visitors Center on Temple Square to find our unknown guests, we would set the table with candles and our best silver and crystal, lay a fire in the fireplace all ready to light, and turn on the Christmas tree lights.
We pasted a picture of our family inside the cover of some copies of the Book of Mormon, wrote a message under each picture, and signed our names. These books were to be given to our dinner guests as we sat around the fire and talked in the evening.
We were excited about our plan, and we knew the Lord would help us. In all our family prayers from Thanksgiving until Christmas, we asked Him to prepare for us someone in need of our love who would be ready to hear the gospel.
Christmas Day finally came and we were all excited. It took us a lot longer to cook the dinner and clean the house than we thought it would. Because of this we arrived at the Visitors Center later than we had planned. We were afraid everyone would have eaten by then and we wouldn’t find anyone to share Christmas dinner with us. We talked with a number of people and invited several of them to our home. Some said they had already eaten and others looked a little puzzled and said, “No, thank you.” But we just kept asking because we knew that our Heavenly Father had prepared somebody for us. And sure enough, He had!
We found a father and mother from Michigan and their seventeen-year-old son. They were surprised at our invitation, but said they were very hungry and were just going to look in the phone book to find a place to eat. The father and mother had been to the Visitors Center before on another vacation, and on this visit they wanted their son to learn a little bit about the Latter-day Saint people. The father said, “There isn’t a better way for us to learn about your church and lifestyle than to go right into one of your homes. We’d be delighted to come!”
We also invited two young women who were on vacation from Australia to our home. They seemed excited too. They said they hadn’t eaten dinner and would enjoy being with a family at Christmastime.
We had a wonderful time on that Christmas night, eating and talking and answering questions about the Church. Before we said good-bye to our guests they thanked us over and over again. The Michigan family said they would always remember their Christmas dinner with us as a highlight of their trip, and before they left they took a picture of us around the Christmas tree.
The girls from Australia were a little teary as we gave them each a copy of the Book of Mormon with our picture inside the cover.
After the visitors had left, our family gathered in the kitchen to do the dishes. We agreed that the real spirit of Christmas had touched each one of us and that it had been the best Christmas ever. We learned, too, that we don’t have to wait for Christmas to have a Christ-like feeling—all we have to do is share the gospel with others and it can be Christmas every day of the year!

Stacy was thrilled to be with her family at the Nauvoo Illinois Temple open house. “I must remember everything I see,” she reminded herself. Grandma had not been able to come with them, but she had asked Stacy to pay close attention and tell her all about it later.
Stacy studied the beautiful paintings of Jesus Christ on the walls and the carved wooden handrails on the stairs. Even though many people were visiting the temple, she felt a deep peace, as if she were all alone. “I’ll tell Grandma about the peaceful feeling,” she thought.
After visiting the temple, Stacy and her family walked around Nauvoo, admiring some of the other buildings.
Suddenly Stacy realized that she was not with her family anymore. She searched all through a tall brick building, but they weren’t there. She felt a lump growing in her throat. She walked down the street as two fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
Then she remembered that Daddy had parked their car near the temple. “If I go to the temple, my family can find me,” she realized. She looked right and left but could not find the temple. Then she heard a voice in her mind. “Look up.” She obeyed the voice and saw the tall white temple spire with the angel Moroni on top. When she reached the temple, she found her family looking for her.
As she happily hugged her mother, Stacy said, “I’ll tell Grandma about the pictures of Jesus and the peaceful feeling. But first I’ll tell her that if you get lost, you should look up so you can find your way to the temple.”

A year after her baptism, Erika received her mission call to Hungary. “I was happy to be called to serve my own people in my own language. But I worried whether I was worthy to be the first Hungarian citizen to serve in Hungary and if I would be able to give the people what they needed. I prayed about it and felt many special feelings that night. I knew that God loved me and my family. I felt very close to God.”

Poverty defined Heber’s growing years but not negatively. Having little money was a challenge that never deterred him. Wanting to learn to pitch a baseball but not having enough money for a ball, Heber earned the money by shining boots for his mother’s boarders. Later he longed to attend the Salt Lake Theatre; instead of feeling sorry that he had no money to buy tickets, he obtained a job as a water carrier for theater patrons and was thus allowed to watch the plays.6

“There it is,” I whispered to Randy as we watched the magpie glide through the air and land in the poplar trees just this side of Jed Franklin’s place. We clutched our rocks and glared at the shiny black bird with the white tips on its tail and wings. Dad had said that he didn’t like magpies eating our vegetables, so Randy and I had chased it out of the garden. Chasing magpies was lots more fun than weeding.
“Do you think we ought to follow it over there, Russell?” Randy asked.
I thought about going back to the garden to finish weeding. I scratched my head. “Dad said that if they’re not chased miles away, they just come back.”
Randy swallowed. “But it’s on Mr. Franklin’s place now.”
I shuddered just a little. Jed Franklin was the meanest man I knew. He lived alone on a little run-down farm just down the road from us.
“I figure we can sneak over there through the trees without him seeing us,” I whispered.
Before Randy could answer, I started down the dirt lane toward the Franklin place. I heard Randy scramble after me. The magpie was still in the poplar tree when we got there. We each threw a rock.
“We didn’t throw close enough to it,” I muttered as I watched the magpie fly away, then perch itself right on top of Mr. Franklin’s new light pole. “We can chase it a lot farther away for sure from there,” I said excitedly.
“But, Russell,” Randy gasped, “we can’t go into Mr. Franklin’s yard!”
I stared ahead and suddenly grinned. “He’s not even there. His pickup’s gone.”
A few moments later Randy and I were hunched down by the corner of Mr. Franklin’s barn, looking almost straight up at the magpie. “Aim good,” I said.
I don’t know which rock went where. All I know is that we shattered Mr. Franklin’s new light! Glass flew everywhere.
We sprinted for home—past the poplar trees, across the dirt lane, and to the garden, where we should have been all afternoon. We grabbed our hoes and started chopping weeds as fast as we could. Even when we were finished, we kept looking for weeds where there weren’t any. And every few minutes we glanced toward the Franklin place.
It was almost suppertime when we heard Jed Franklin’s old pickup rumble down the road past our place to his. We didn’t dare stay in the garden after that. We put our hoes away and went into the house.
That night after we’d gone to bed and should have been sleeping, I lay on my pillow with my eyes wide open and a thousand things going through my mind. When I’d said my prayer that night, the words didn’t go anyplace. They just stayed in the room with me. “Are you awake?” I whispered to Randy, who was on the bottom bunk.
Randy kicked his covers back and muttered, “Yes. I can’t go to sleep. I keep thinking.”
“We didn’t mean to do it,” I argued. “It was an accident.”
“I know,” Randy came back, “but Mr. Franklin still lost his light.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” I muttered.
The next morning, Randy and I were helping Dad fix a sagging barn door, when Mr. Franklin pulled up in his pickup. I took a step backward, bumping Randy and spilling a sack of nails on the ground. Mr. Franklin leaned out of his pickup and glared at us. “Well, they’ve done it again,” he snapped.
Dad straightened up. “Who did what?” Dad asked.
Mr. Franklin stared at Randy and me. I gulped, wondering how he’d found out. “They broke my new light,” he growled. “It hasn’t been in a week, and they knocked it out yesterday while I was away.”
“Who did it?” Dad asked.
I got ready to turn and run. I just knew Mr. Franklin was going to jab a finger at Randy and me and bellow, “They did!”
“Kids!” Mr. Franklin snorted. “Probably those kids on the three-wheelers. They’re always racing through my yard and driving up into the hills. They leave gates open, tear things up, and scare my stock. Now they’ve gone and knocked my light out. If I ever get my hands on them … !”
“Those guys on the three-wheelers sure saved us,” I muttered after Mr. Franklin had left and Dad had gone into the barn. “And we didn’t even have to lie or anything,” I said, smiling, but still feeling dark and sick inside. I kept thinking of something Mom had told us once. She had said that you could tell a huge lie just by being quiet when you knew the truth.
“Why does Mr. Franklin have to be such a mean old guy?” I asked Dad when he came back.
Dad thought for a moment, then answered, “Oh, he’s not mean. Just lonely.”
“He sure seems mean to me,” Randy said, “always running around with that ugly frown.”
Dad scratched his head. “Sometimes Jed looks mean and angry with everyone because nobody ever seems very nice to him.”
After we had finished the door, Randy and I sat in the barn and talked.
“I wish we hadn’t done it,” Randy said.
I nodded. “We ought to pay him for the light.”
Randy gasped. “But then we’d have to tell him we broke it in the first place.”
“Well, maybe we could work for him. We wouldn’t tell him why, and that way we could pay for the light without him even knowing it.”
It was the best idea we had had. We hated to hoe corn, but we knew Mr. Franklin had a little patch that needed hoeing, so we headed for it. The sun was hot, bugs buzzed around us, sweat trickled down the sides of our faces, our backs ached, and I even wore a blister on my hand. But for the first time since Randy and I had broken the light, I felt good because we were making up for what we had broken.
“What are you kids doing?” a voice boomed out at us as we were finishing the last two rows.
We whipped around, and there stood Mr. Franklin leaning against a fence post.
I gulped and licked my lips, “We’ve been hoeing your corn.”
“Why?”
“The corn needed hoeing,” Randy said.
“We wanted to,” I added. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind.” He almost smiled. “Mighty fine work.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn brown wallet. “I guess you boys could use a little spending money.”
“We didn’t do it for money,” I burst out.
Mr. Franklin looked at me, then at Randy, who was nodding in agreement.
“But I’d like to pay,” Mr. Franklin said, counting out some money. “I don’t remember any kids ever helping me before. Sometimes kids come over and knock my lights and windows out, but this is the first time any showed up to help.” He held the money out. “I insist that you take it.”
We couldn’t make ourselves tell him about the light, so we took the money and headed for home, feeling worse than we’d felt before we hoed the corn.
“Why don’t we feel good, Russell?” Randy asked me. “I thought you were supposed to feel good after you did something good. I just feel rotten.”
“I guess it’s because we did something good just to cover up something bad.”
For a long time we stayed in the barn, thinking. We both knew that there was only one thing we could do to make us feel better, but we were both scared to do it.
“I’m going back,” I finally announced.
“Going back!” Randy gasped.
“I’m giving the money back.”
“But what will you tell him?”
I took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll just tell him the truth. That’s what we should have done to start with.”
It was hard going back to Mr. Franklin’s place, one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life. I would rather have hoed a dozen fields of corn than explain what we had done to his light.
We found him by his old pickup. The hood was up, and he was hunched over the engine, banging and tugging with a wrench. His hands were greasy, his face was red, and he was chewing hard on a soggy toothpick.
As soon as he looked up and saw us, I pulled the money from my pocket and set it on the fender of the pickup. Then I stepped back and looked directly at him. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Randy was doing the same.
Mr. Franklin looked at the money. “What’s this for?” he demanded gruffly.
I swallowed hard and looked down at the ground. I watched a tiny ant tug and pull at a piece of straw that was ten times bigger than it was, “We didn’t hoe the corn for money,” I explained in a raspy whisper. “We did it to pay for your light.”
“My light?” He straightened up and wiped his hands on his pants.
My heart was hammering so hard in my chest that I thought it was going to burst. I opened my mouth to answer, but I didn’t have any breath to speak. I sucked in some air. “The kids on the three-wheelers didn’t break your light,” I wheezed. “We did.”
“But we didn’t mean to,” Randy got out. “We weren’t trying to be mean or anything. We were just trying to chase away that old magpie.”
“Did your dad make you come over here?” Mr. Franklin asked.
We shook our heads. “We’re sorry,” I mumbled. “That’s why we wanted to hoe your corn. To make things right.”
For a long time he just stared at us without saying anything. I could feel little drops of sweat trickle down my back. And a fat, pesky fly kept buzzing around my head, but I didn’t slap at it or anything.
Finally he took his toothpick from his mouth, flipped it into the dirt, and said, “Thanks, boys.” He even sounded nice. “I appreciate what you’ve done. Telling me about the light is more important than hoeing my corn.” He actually smiled. “Everybody makes mistakes, but only those who are really grown-up take the blame for them and make up for them.”
When Randy and I finally left the Franklin place, that dark, ugly feeling inside us was gone. I knew that that night I wouldn’t have any trouble saying my prayers or going to sleep.

Let me tell you a story that I heard recently in Mexico. In Torreón I was driven about in the fine automobile that belonged to the man of whom I speak. His name is David Castañeda.

Thirty years ago he, his wife, Tomasa, and their children lived on a dry little run-down ranch near Torreón. They owned 30 chickens, 2 pigs, and 1 thin horse. The chickens provided a few eggs to sustain them and the means whereby to earn an occasional peso. They walked in poverty. Then the missionaries called on them. Sister Castañeda said, “The elders took the blinders from our eyes and brought light into our lives. We knew nothing of Jesus Christ. We knew nothing of God until they came.”

She had two years of schooling, her husband none. The elders taught them, and they were eventually baptized. They moved into the little town of Bermejillo. They were fortuitously led into the junk business, buying wrecked automobiles. This led to association with insurance companies and others. They gradually built a prosperous business in which the father and his five sons worked. With simple faith they paid their tithing. They put their trust in the Lord. They lived the gospel. They served wherever called to do so. Four of their sons and three of their daughters filled missions. The youngest son is presently serving in Oaxaca. They have now built a very substantial business and have been prospered therein. They have been taunted by their critics. Their answer is a testimony of the power of the Lord in their lives.

Some 200 of their family and friends have joined the Church due to their influence. Over 30 sons and daughters of family and friends have served missions. They donated the land on which a chapel now stands.

The children, now grown to maturity, and the parents take turns going to Mexico City each month, there to work in the temple. They stand as a living testimony of the great power of this work of the Lord to lift and change people. They are typical of thousands upon thousands throughout the world who experience the miracle of Mormonism as a testimony of the divinity of the work comes into their lives.

Recently I had an experience on an airplane which illustrates this point. Sitting by a stranger, I asked him what his business was. After responding, he asked me what mine was. This led to my asking him if he believed he lived before birth and would live beyond death. He didn’t know. He imagined that he might have existed before birth and that he might live beyond the grave, but as to form and nature he had no idea.
I then reviewed to him the gospel plan as concisely as I could, explaining who we are, and where we came from, and where we are going, and why we are here.
“Marvelous,” he responded, “that would give a person a purpose in living, an objective in life.”
Precisely. That is exactly what it is meant to do. The covenants we enter into here in mortality are to help us attain our objective of eternal life, which is explained in, and made possible by, the new and everlasting covenant of the gospel.

I had this principle vividly impressed upon me one day a long time ago. I was living back in Virginia at the time, and one beautiful fall day I drove out into the country to pick up some walnuts. There were sixteen Stop signs between my home and the very, very heavily wooded lane where I turned in to get those walnuts. I stopped fifteen times. The last Stop sign was way out in the country. I could see in both directions. There were no other cars in sight. I thought to myself: “Why should I stop? Stop signs are to protect people, but I am the only one around. So why stop?” So I didn’t! I wasn’t speeding. I just went through at the speed limit. When I reached the heavily wooded lane, I found I couldn’t see around the corner. It’s that way back there in Virginia. So I slowed down and turned in. Just as I did, there was another car coming out of the lane, and because we couldn’t see each other, we ran together at about five miles per hour. It wasn’t a hard impact and the cars weren’t severely damaged. As I recall, it only cost me $168 to replace my grill and headlights.
Now, that accident had to be perfectly timed. Of course, if I had stopped at the last Stop sign, it would never have happened. I said, “Lord, I get the message. You really didn’t have to go this far, but I do understand.” In fact, I stopped sixteen times on the way home with the front end of my car beat up.

I had a similar experience as a young boy on my grandparents’ farm. They taught me about tithing with examples of one egg or one bushel of peaches out of ten. Years later I used those same kinds of examples to try to teach the principles of tithing to our own children.

Parents are always looking for better ways to teach, and the results of their efforts are sometimes unexpected. Attempting to teach tithing to our young son, I explained the principle of a tenth and how it would apply to the eggs gathered in a chicken farm and the young calves or horses born in a breeding herd. When I finished what I was sure was a clear explanation, I wanted to test whether our seven-year-old had understood. I asked him to imagine that he was a farmer with a harvest of eggs and young animals. I supplied the figures and then asked our little boy what he would give to the bishop as tithing. He thought deeply for a moment and then said, “I would give him a very old horse.”

We obviously had some further conversations on the principle of tithing, and I am proud of the way he and his brother and sisters learned and practiced that principle. But I have often thought of that little boy’s words as I have observed how some adult Church members relate to the law of tithing. I think we still have some whose attitude and performance consist of giving the bishop something like “a very old horse.”

I saw holiness in the countenance of Evangeline, a 13-year-old girl in Ghana. One of the ways she keeps her covenants is by magnifying her calling as the Beehive class president. She humbly explained that she goes to the homes of her friends, the less-active young women, to ask their parents to allow them to come to church. The parents tell her that it is difficult because on Sunday the children must do household chores. So Evangeline goes and helps with the chores, and by her efforts her friends are often permitted to come to church.

A man in Ecuador met some missionaries on the street near his home and invited them in. They left tracts, pamphlets, and a copy of the Book of Mormon. He read them and liked them and later said of the missionaries:
“I liked their teachings. They taught me things my own church had never taught. I realized I had to live the commandments they told me about. The Word of Wisdom has given me a new life. I know it is of the Lord not to use tobacco, tea, coffee, or liquor. When the elders were teaching me, I knew I had to live it if I were to have a good life. The elders told me to pray about it; then they had to teach me how to pray.”

In Finland a woman, lost and lonely following the death of her husband, was found by missionaries who answered some of her questions. She said:
“I was amazed at their answers. They talked about a reunion with my husband. We had had a wonderful marriage, and I just couldn’t think that it would end just like that. My minister had given me no answers, but those young missionaries told me a beautiful concept of eternal life. I listened in tears and wanted to hear more.”
She studied and read the Book of Mormon, received a testimony, and was baptized.
A convert in England tells his story. Bitter over the death of an infant who had died without baptism and was therefore denied burial in the church cemetery, he was ready for the missionaries his wife had invited to his home. His first question was about the Church’s teaching on infant baptism.
The elders cited a passage from the Book of Mormon which teaches that infants are incapable of sin and that they have no need of baptism because they are saved.
Then he made this comment: “It was the kind of doctrine Christ would teach. I simply couldn’t see how a loving God could feel any other way about children. Then the elders gave me a lesson in obtaining a witness to gain a testimony. I put it to the test, prayed, and received a witness. I felt the burning in my bosom just as the scriptures described. I knew it was true.”
He made this further comment: “One of the most joyous principles to me is celestial marriage. I feel that if people could understand this and really love their husband or wife, they would join the Church on this alone. It’s a wonderful principle.”
Finally, I will deal briefly with the conversion of a Protestant minister, who after much tribulation and persecution by ministers and friends when he decided to convert, gave the following testimony:
“I have written this in order to show that as in the Bible, when a man finds a ‘pearl of great price,’ he will sell all that he has if necessary in order to obtain it [see Matt. 13:46]. I have found that peace and truth within the Mormon church for which I had been seeking for over twelve years.
“I have not quite completed my first reading of the Book of Mormon, but already the riches of its truths as set down by the Prophet Joseph Smith have become a vital part of our family’s spiritual life. No man could have written this book except through the power of God. We accept the test of hatred through which we have passed as God’s test of our sincerity in our seeking.
“My prayer is that others will not continue to willfully blind their eyes, refusing even to read the Book of Mormon in order to learn. No man can read this book and not have his life changed. I have not overnight become an expert on the Mormon faith, but I am an eager student and am not afraid to learn what the Holy Spirit would teach through those to whom He has given the authority.
“My personal tragedy as a Protestant minister was that I wasted a good deal of valuable time trying to keep going an organization and institution which no longer, with any stretch of imagination, can be shown to be doing Christ’s work.”
May I invite you all to study the scriptures, wherein are found the words of eternal life and the way to exaltation.
Jesus said, “This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
This is so important, that he gave his life for us that we may be resurrected, and he gave us the plan of life and salvation by which this may be accomplished. Read the Bible and the Book of Mormon, which testify of the things which I have told you this day.
If you are searching for happiness in this life and eternal life with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ hereafter, then I would exhort all of you to find the way, the truth, and the life, which is in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I want to talk to you young men about this priesthood and tell you a story or two from our family experience. Several years ago our sons would spend their time during the summer on their grandfather’s ranch. Twelve years ago one of our sons had a horse. It had been given to him when it was born. It had been running with a wild herd of horses on the ranch. It was now two years old, time that it could be broken to ride. Early one summer we went to the ranch. It took all day to get the horses into the corral. Finally we had my son’s horse in a chute and put a heavy halter on it. We put a big rope on it and tied it to a big post. “Now the horse must stay there for two or three days,” I told him, “until it quits fighting the rope, until it becomes calm.” We worked with it during the morning, and then we went in to eat. He hurried with his meal and then went out to his horse. He was 14. He loved that horse.
Just as we finished the meal, I heard a noise, and I heard him shout. I knew what had happened. He had untied the horse. I had told him not to, but he was going to work with it. In order to hold the horse, he had wrapped the rope around his wrist. As I came out the door, I saw that horse run by. My son was running after it with great big steps, pulled by the horse; and then he fell. If the horse had turned right, it would have gone out the gate into the mountains. It turned left and was cornered by two fences. While it was trying to find its way out, I got the rope off my boy’s wrist and the end of the rope around the post. He was bruised but not badly hurt.
In a little while we had the horse tied up again, and we sat down for a father and son lesson. I said to him this: “My boy, if you are ever going to control that horse, you will have to use something besides your muscles. The horse is bigger than you are; it is stronger than you are. Someday you can ride that horse, but it will have to be trained. You cannot train it with your muscles. It is bigger than you are; it is stronger than you are; and it is wild.”
Two years later we went to the ranch in the spring. This horse had been running all winter with the herd. We went to find it. We found the herd of horses down by the river. I knew if we went too close, they would run. So this boy and his sister took a bucket with some oats and walked quietly to the edge of the meadow. The horses began to move away slowly. Then he whistled, and his horse came out of the herd and trotted up to my boy. We had learned a great lesson. Much had happened in those two years. He had used more than his muscles.
After the experience when he had untied his horse, he was frightened. He had disobeyed, and he said, “Dad, what should we do?” And I said, “This is the way we will do it. And one day that horse will run up to you.” He had been prepared and had learned a great lesson.
The Aaronic Priesthood is the preparatory priesthood. It is the lesser priesthood. Preparatory for what? It is to prepare young men to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. It is to prepare young men for life. It is to train them to be leaders. It is to train them in obedience. It is to train them to get control of things that are bigger than they are. It is to show them how to use more than their muscles.
Now, when you are ordained a deacon at age twelve, you join a quorum. Oh, what a marvelous blessing it is to belong to a quorum! All of your life you will belong to a quorum: the deacons quorum with twelve members, the teachers with twenty-four members, the priests quorum with forty-eight members. Then if you are faithful and worthy, you will be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood or the higher priesthood. But we are talking to the boys of the Aaronic Priesthood. The Aaronic Priesthood is to prepare us for the Melchizedek Priesthood. We are to learn how to do things in the same way we will do them when we hold the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Let me tell you about this boy again. Now he is married. He has graduated with a degree in engineering, and he has left to go away to a big city. He and his wife were nervous—a new job, a new home, away from the family.
He told me these two experiences. He worked in a large room with a lot of engineers. After he had been there for two months, he was getting things ready so that he could leave his work on time. We had taught him to arrive at work a little early and to stay a little after time, to do a little extra. But this day he wanted to get away right on time. One of the other engineers asked him where he was going.
“What are you in such a hurry for?”
“Well, we are going to a dinner tonight.”
“What kind of a dinner?”
“It’s a quorum dinner. We are taking our wives to a special dinner and social.”
The other engineer shook his head. “I don’t understand you. I’ve been here two years; I don’t know anybody yet. My wife and I are still just by ourselves. You’ve been here for two months. Already you’ve been invited to dinner.”
The next experience. One day one of the engineers asked if my son would help him move. “We found a better apartment. Saturday we are going to move. I need some help. Will you help me?” Our son said, “Yes, I’ll be glad to.” And then his wife made some bread for them and prepared a meal. He helped them move. Then he said this: “Dad, I’ve been thinking about that. He hardly knows me. I hardly knew who he was.” And he said, “If I’m the one who was the closest to him, the one he would dare to ask help him move, he doesn’t have anybody.” And he said, “Look what I have.”
When he and his wife arrived in the new city, they went to Church. He went to his quorum; he belonged the day he walked in. A quorum—to sustain one another, to help one another. A quorum of the priesthood. You boys of the Aaronic Priesthood can begin to prepare now. You’ve trained to help others—to gather the fast offerings; to take care of other assignments, the sacrament, home teaching; to get you trained to help others. Why? You belong to a quorum. A quorum. The word quorum is a marvelous word. In the Church, the worth of quorums has never yet fully been realized.

Phineas lent his copy of the Book of Mormon to his father, who thought it “the greatest work he had ever seen,” then to his sister Fanny, who declared it “a revelation.” Fanny passed it on to Brigham, who was more reserved:

“When the Book of Mormon was first printed, it came to my hands in two or three weeks afterwards. Did I believe, on the first intimation of it? … ‘Hold on,’ says I. … The mantle of my traditions was over me, to that degree, … it was almost impossible for me to see at all; though I had beheld, all my life, that the traditions of the people was all the religion they had, I had got a mantle for myself. Says I, ‘Wait a little while; what is the doctrine of the book, and of the revelations the Lord has given? Let me apply my heart to them;’ and after I had done this, I considered it my right to know for myself, as much as any man on earth.
“I examined the matter studiously for two years before I made up my mind to receive that book. … I wished time sufficient to prove all things for myself.”23

On another, later occasion Brigham further explained this reserve:

“Upon the first opportunity I read the Book of Mormon, and then sought to become acquainted with the people who professed to believe it. … I watched to see whether good common sense was manifest; and if they had that, I wanted them to present it in accordance with the Scriptures. … when I had ripened everything in my mind, I drank it in, and not till then.”24

“Examine,” “prove all things for myself,” “good common sense,” “ripened”—all certainly good, rational approaches, and characteristic of Brigham with his down-to-earth Yankee skepticism and his well-learned wariness of religious extremes. But just as characteristic, though more hidden perhaps, was his need and desire to “apply his heart” to these new and attractive teachings, and after about a year and a half, that is how he was finally moved to action. He was visited by a group of Mormon missionaries from Columbia, Pennsylvania, one of whom sat him down and bore his testimony to him:
“When I saw a man without eloquence, or talents for public speaking, who could only say, ‘I know, by the power of the Holy Ghost, that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of the Lord,’ the Holy Ghost proceeding from that individual illuminated my understanding, and light, glory and immortality were before me. I was encircled by them, filled with them, and I knew for myself that the testimony of the man was true. … My own judgment, natural endowments, and education bowed to this simple, but mighty testimony. … It filled my system with light, and my soul with joy.”25

Tien was the only one in his group that spoke Siamese, the Thai language. He was able to communicate their desire to seek freedom in Thailand. They were put into a refugee camp but eventually lost track of each other. Tien spent a total of two years in three different refugee camps. He volunteered to work in the kitchen, where he could get enough to eat and also receive extra water for showers. While carrying out his kitchen duties, he noticed that whenever he offered coffee or tea to certain young ladies, they always politely refused. He was very curious about this practice, so one day he asked if something was wrong with his drinks. They explained that they were Mormons and did not drink coffee or tea for religious reasons.
Missionaries were not allowed to give formal lessons in the camps. They were there to teach the refugees how to speak English and otherwise prepare for life once they left the refugee camp. But from their mealtime discussions, the missionaries left Tien with an interest in the gospel and a card with a Utah address saying to get in touch when he left the camp.
One day a U.N. official came to visit the camp and said there were too many unattached children in camp under the age of 18. He said if there were any who would like to go to America, applications were being taken. Tien, who was willing to go anywhere, quickly applied. He was asked if he had a preference of a place to live in America. He showed the missionary card with a Utah address and said he heard the place on the card was nice. His papers went first to New York and then to Utah, where a sponsor was located. After arriving, he found a home with foster parents, Gary C. and Shawna Smith and later with Macoy and Marjorie McMurray. Tien was baptized after missionaries in Salt Lake completed the work begun in the refugee camp through the Spirit and the unselfish Christian service of the missionaries.
Tien is now a senior at Olympus High School in Salt Lake City. His parents are still in Laos, unable to join him in America. He plans to serve a mission as soon as he graduates in June. He feels that his finding a life-saving gas can along the Mekong River and then finding the missionaries in the refugee camp are more than mere coincidence. His visa does not allow him to travel out of this country, so he hopes to do missionary work among Vietnamese people living in America.

Young women in the Mansfield Ward, Arlington Texas Stake, worked countless hours to produce this stained glass nativity scene. After the work was completed, the nativity was displayed in their ward meetinghouse so that the whole ward could enjoy it. Martha Kate Downey, a nonmember in the area, helped the girls produce the beautiful work. In return, they gave her the gift of a Book of Mormon with their testimonies written inside the front cover.

In his hometown there was a theater that only showed X-rated movies. People had tried to close it down but had never succeeded.
One time in priesthood meeting, the priests’ adviser asked if they had ever thought about going to any of the movies at that theater.
“Troy, how about you?”
“I guess I’ve thought about it, but I’d never go.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just my luck you’d drive by just as I was going into it,” he said, only half joking.
“Is that the only reason you don’t go?”
“No. I don’t go because I know it’s not good to have that stuff in your mind.”

In 1899 there was not enough water in southern Utah. For more than two years there had been no rain. The streams and wells around the town of St. George had dried up. There was no water for the crops, so the plants died. The cattle died too. Many people began moving away.
Nell was a little girl living in St. George at that time. Her father told her their family would have to move away soon.
In June, Nell and her mother went to a Church conference in St. George. President Lorenzo Snow, the prophet at that time, was going to speak. Nell’s father stayed home to pack for their move. Nell listened carefully to what the prophet said. After the conference, she hurried home. She told her father that President Snow had promised if the people would pay their tithing and plant crops, it would rain and they would have food for the coming year.
Nell’s father explained that their family couldn’t survive another year if the crops didn’t grow. Nell reminded him that her grandfather had talked about how the people in his day were blessed by doing exactly what President Brigham Young (1801–77) asked them to do. Grandfather had promised Nell that if she followed the living prophet, she would be blessed too. Nell believed her grandfather, and she offered to give her father her own savings to help pay their family’s tithing.
The next morning, Nell saw her father plowing the fields, getting ready to plant. Her family stayed in St. George and did exactly what the prophet asked them to do. During the hot, dry weeks that followed, the people of St. George paid their tithing, planted their fields, prayed, and watched the cloudless sky for rain. They were grateful when two months after the conference, it began to rain. The crops grew in abundance that year!

One day I had a spiritual prompting that I should invite my best friend from school to a devotional. I wanted to ignore the prompting, but I finally sent her a text the day before. As we sat together at the devotional, I was nervous. But when the meeting was over, she had a big smile on her face. It was a reminder to me that God knows His children better than I do and that I should always follow promptings to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Eliza, Minnesota, USA

Wong Yun Tai remembers the warm September evening in 1984 when her life changed. The Wong family live on the 21st floor of the Wu Yuet House, a government housing project in the Tuen Mun area of Hong Kong’s New Territories. That evening, 15-year-old Wong Yun Tai, who goes by the English name Belle, was eating dinner when a knock came at her door. Two strangers wearing white shirts, ties, and curious black name tags were at the door. They talked to her through the metal gate that remained locked even though the door was open.
Belle was busy eating, so she told her two visitors to come back in an hour. “I was interested in religion, and I really wanted to know what was true. I was just like Joseph Smith. I really wanted to know which church was God’s true church,” recalls Belle.
When the missionaries returned, she listened politely to their message. Afterward, they gave her a Book of Mormon to read, said a prayer, and then left. It was a simple meeting, but it had a powerful effect on Belle. “When I prayed, I had a very unique, good feeling in my heart,” she says.
A month later, Belle was baptized. Then the real work began. Belle, the second oldest child of Wong Hong Tsuen and Wong Leung Nan Ho, wanted her parents and brothers and sisters to experience the same gospel joy that had become such an important part of her life. She began sharing what she had learned.
Now, more than a decade later, she’s still sharing. Since those humble beginnings, seven of the eight Wong children have joined the Church, as have Mom and Dad. Belle served a mission in Hong Kong. So did two younger sisters, Angela and May.