Gospel Story Finder

When I was a student in dental school, the financial outlook of our local economy was not very encouraging. Inflation dramatically decreased the value of currency from one day to the next.
I remember the year when I was to enroll in surgery practices; I needed to have all the necessary surgical equipment before enrolling that semester. My parents saved the needed funds. But one night something dramatic happened. We went to buy the equipment, only to discover that the amount of money we had to buy all the equipment now was sufficient to buy only a pair of surgical tweezers—and nothing else. We returned home with empty hands and with heavy hearts at the thought of my losing a semester of college. Suddenly, however, my mother said, “Taylor, come with me; let’s go out.”
We went downtown where there were many places that buy and sell jewelry. When we arrived at one store, my mother took out of her purse a small blue velvet bag containing a beautiful gold bracelet with an inscription that read, “To my dear daughter from your father.” It was a bracelet that my grandfather had given her on one of her birthdays. Then, before my eyes, she sold it.
When she received the money, she told me, “If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that you are going to be a dentist. Go and buy all the equipment you need.” Now, can you imagine what kind of student I became from that moment on? I wanted to be the best and finish my studies soon because I knew the high cost of the sacrifice she was making.
I learned that the sacrifices our loved ones make for us refresh us like cool water in the middle of the desert. Such sacrifice brings hope and motivation.

When I was five years old, I had the job of taking out the trash. In those days, a garbage truck didn’t come to pick up the trash. We had to burn it in the backyard in a cement box called an incinerator. My chores included burning the trash.

One day, I decided that I didn’t need to take the trash all the way outside to burn it, as my parents had taught me to do. I put it all into the kitchen wastebasket and burned it right there in the kitchen. Before I knew it, the kitchen cabinets were on fire! Fortunately my older brother came into the kitchen and yelled for my mother. The fire was quickly put out, with little damage to our house. That experience taught me to follow the guidance of my parents because they knew about dangers that I did not understand.

Carlos Aguero, of Mendoza, Argentina, was called to go to Paris, France for his mission. He had seldom been out of his own city. He knew no French. But like Nephi, he did not murmur and he went. When he arrived in France, he found that his mission president did not speak Spanish. In fact, none of the other missionaries spoke Spanish; they only spoke English and French. Elder Aguero could not speak English. All the zone conferences and instructions were given in English. All other speaking was in French. Carlos studied, he prayed, he cried, he pleaded with the Lord and asked for help from his mission president and his companions. It took months, but he learned French and English. He served an honorable mission. Now living in Mendoza, Argentina, he often uses his English in Church service and in his profession.

I learned about the power of such a vision when I joined my 12- and 13-year-old sons for a 50/20 competition. A 50/20 consists of walking 50 miles (80 km) in less than 20 hours. We started at 9:00 p.m. and walked all that night and most of the next day. It was an excruciating 19 hours, but we succeeded.
Upon returning home, we literally crawled into the house, where a wonderful wife and mother had prepared a lovely dinner, which we didn’t touch. My younger son collapsed, totally exhausted, on the couch, while my older son crawled downstairs to his bedroom.
After some painful rest of my own, I went to my younger son to make sure he was still alive.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Dad, that was the hardest thing I have ever done, and I never want to do it again.”
I wasn’t about to tell him that I would never do it again either. Instead, I told him how proud I was that he had accomplished such a hard thing. I knew it would prepare him for other hard things he would face in his future. With that thought, I said, “Son, let me make you this promise. When you go on your mission, you will never have to walk 50 miles in one day.”
“Good, Dad! Then I’m going.”
Those simple words filled my soul with gratitude and joy.
I then went downstairs to my oldest son. I lay by him—then touched him. “Son, are you all right?”
“Dad, that was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and I will never, ever do it again.” His eyes closed—then opened—and he said, “Unless my son wants me to.”
Tears came as I expressed how grateful I was for him. I told him I knew he was going to be a much better father than I was. My heart was full because at his young and tender age he already recognized that one of his most sacred priesthood duties was to be a father. He had no fear of that role and title—the very title that God Himself wants us to use when we speak to Him. I knew I had the responsibility to nurture the embers of fatherhood that were burning within my son.
These words of the Savior took on a much deeper meaning to me as a father:
“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for [whatsoever things He] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19).
“I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me” (John 8:28).
I love being a husband and father—married to a chosen daughter of heavenly parents. I love her. It is one of the most fulfilling parts of my life. My hope that night was that my five sons and their sister would always see in me the joy that comes from eternal marriage, fatherhood, and family.

Recently my husband and I made an unannounced visit to the home of a young couple with four small sons. They were all around the kitchen table, decorating cookies to give secretly to neighbors. The mother replenished the cookies and frosting and supplied a wide variety of leftover candy and sprinkles from past birthday parties and baking projects. The father sat with his sons—frosting, decorating, and being creative—sharing the fun and excitement over each treat. The love between them was strong. They enjoyed each other’s company. They were best friends. This wasn’t anything fancy, expensive, or complicated. It was simple. It was plain. It wasn’t terribly unusual, and I’m sure that they have done many of these kinds projects together before. But it worked. Such simple things build family unity, trust, and love.

Would you ever believe that the quiet, grandmotherly lady in your ward first kissed a boy on a dare? Or that the smiling, old grandpa who’s been in your ward forever once drove his car into the side of a barn because he forgot that he had to hit the brakes instead of yell “Whoa”?
It’s probably difficult to imagine that the seniors in your ward ever did such crazy things—especially when the only thing you know about them is what bench they usually sit on during sacrament meeting. But that’s not the case for the youth in the Dalton Gardens Ward, Coeur d‘Alene Idaho Stake. They know all about the lives of the ward’s elderly members. Of course, it hasn’t always been that way. It wasn’t until their ward’s “Family History Can Be Fun” night that they began to learn about the older people’s lives.
But ever since then, their hearts have been turning—not only toward their ward’s seniors, but also toward their ancestors and toward each other.
All this turning began when the Dalton Gardens Ward youth took Malachi’s prophecy to heart and became excited about family history work (see Mal. 4:5–6).
They did this by filling out pedigree charts, having classes on the importance of genealogy, visiting with their ward’s senior citizens, and organizing a ward activity in which they acted out episodes from the lives of the grandparents in their ward family.
And what’s been the outcome of all this excitement? For one thing, the ward’s generation gap has narrowed.
“Now when you go to church, you see a lot of the young people going up to the older people in the ward and saying hi and maybe walking them to class,” says Russell Isaacson, a 16-year-old priest. “Before we might have just walked by them because we didn’t really know them at all, but now we see them as our friends.”
Desiree Wallace, 15, interviewed Virginia Gjevres about her life. Desiree found out about Virginia’s first teddy bear and her longing for a dog. And she learned that while Virginia was growing up she was so accident prone that everyone called her Calamity Jane.
“I didn’t really know Sister Gjevres before I interviewed her. I had only seen her at church. But now I just have this love for her, and I want to adopt her as my grandma,” says Desiree, who doesn’t have any grandparents living nearby.
As connections were made between the youth and the elderly in the ward family, it caused some to reflect on the importance of forming eternal connections with their own ancestors.
“The grandparents just really seemed enthusiastic about us getting to know them better. They looked so happy,” says Cassie Gatten, 15. “So it made me realize that when we do genealogy work for our ancestors who have died that they’re probably really happy about that too.”
Interviewing the grandparents about their lives, writing the scripts, finding costumes, and then having rehearsals to make sure everything was just right took a lot of time. But the youth said the time spent was worth it when they saw everything and everyone come together on the night of the activity.
“Sometimes I didn’t really feel like it was worth all the time it took to put this activity together. But then when I saw the final night and the looks on the faces of the elderly as they watched incidents from their lives acted out before them and as they realized that the youth in the ward care about who they are, it all seemed worth it,” Cassie says. “It also made me want to live my life in a way so that if someone were to write a play about me when I am old I wouldn’t be embarrassed by it.”
After acting out scenes from Reny Sampert’s life, Kim Pearson, a 17-year-old Laurel, and her group sang Reny’s favorite song, “O My Father.”
“When we were singing ‘O My Father,’ Reny got tears in her eyes, and you could tell she was really touched,” Kim says.
“This activity brought us so much closer to the older people,” says Amber Isaacson, 15. “A lot of people in the ward are related, but there are families like mine who are not, so it’s just really neat to get to know them like the relatives do.”
Even though Amber and her brother Russell don’t have any relatives in the ward, in doing this activity Russell has realized how much some of the ward’s grandparents have contributed to his life.
“Talking with the elderly in our ward helped me to understand that they are actually a part of me because they helped form the Church here in Coeur d‘Alene. And just to look at it today and see how I’m involved and see the key part they have played in my life makes me grateful that I was able to get to know them better,” Russell explains.
Learning about the grandparents in the ward has also given Russell some understanding about the effects that trials can have in a person’s life.
“Talking with Frances Young and learning about the different trials she went through in her life helps me to see how things like that have made her the great person she is today,” Russell says. “It’s just interesting how different experiences can mold a person.”
Cassie says she learned a lot of new things about the people she interviewed too, even though they were her own grandparents.
“A lot of what I learned about them was a surprise to me,” she says. “But in learning about their youth, I realized where some of their characteristics came from.”
Cassie has also learned that it is only by understanding her heritage that she is able to understand herself.
“It made me really want to figure out where I came from,” she says. “We’re made up of all these people and we don’t even know what they are, so how can we know what we are?”
Whether they learned more about themselves, about their ancestors, or about the seniors in their ward, one thing is certain for the youth in the Dalton Gardens Ward—their hearts have been turned.
“Doing this brought us so much closer to the elderly,” Amber says. “The older people were excited to share their lives with the youth, and we were excited to know about their lives. Everyone wanted to do a really good job with the skits because they had become such good friends with the elderly that they wanted their skit to be the best.”
Everyone in the ward took part in the activity. The Primary children sang, the Relief Society prepared food, the youth performed, and the older members brought their heirlooms to put on display.
A few hours before the activity started, all of the heirlooms were dropped off at the church, making several large piles of mismatched items. By the time everyone arrived, just a few hours later, the piles of items from various families had been organized into an old-fashioned bedroom, kitchen, and living room. All the mismatched items had come together to form a perfect display. And this is the way the activity affected the Dalton Gardens Ward. There was a group of people—some old, some young, some related, some not—that have now come together so well that no one would know they weren’t all from the same family.

The young men and young women in Welland, Ontario, Canada, get excited about seminary. Winters in Welland are long and harsh, and during the greater part of the school year, going to seminary means a trek to the church in the dark and cold. Of course, teenagers in Welland are no different than teenagers anywhere else. Getting enough sleep is a paramount concern—something that can be a bit of a challenge when you get up for an early-morning class. But a few years ago, the Welland seminary students had a teacher who changed their lives, and their mumbling and grumbling about the early hour seemed to shrink, while their excitement about seminary seemed to grow.
Despite the fact that he had been ill with cystic fibrosis all his life, their teacher, Brother Ron Cunningham, wouldn’t have traded his calling as a seminary teacher for anything. In terms of his health, some days were better than others. But every day he taught seminary, he said, was a good day.
“He was our friend,” says James Burton, 17. “We all had such a good time, even though he was sick. He had such a great sense of humor, even about things that made him look silly. Sometimes, especially at the beginning of class before everyone was fully awake, he would fall asleep—while he was teaching.”
Because cystic fibrosis fills the lungs with fluid, breathing is difficult, causing extreme fatigue. Consequently, it seems that just about everyone has a favorite “Brother Cunningham fell asleep” story.
There were other ways he filled the seminary with laughter and fun, too. There were games and contests for scripture mastery, treats and stories to make lessons easier to understand.
“One year, Brother Cunningham brought an entire set of army men for us to use to reenact battles from the scriptures,” says Craig Dumoulin. “At first we thought it was crazy since none of us have played with toys like that since we were little, but it really did make it easier to understand. And it was a lot of fun.”
But Brother Cunningham taught his students much more than how to have a sense of humor. Make no mistake, the gospel was his life, and he wanted to help his students feel the same way.
“Because of his illness, he was pretty small physically,” says Matthew Glanfield, 18. “But I have never known such a spiritual giant.”
It was that spirit, that great feeling, that kept the students excited and happy about getting up before dawn to study. Even in the Toronto area’s brutal and icy winter. Even during exams when time was scarce. Even when it would have been easier to stay in bed and catch a few more minutes of sleep. Everyone knew that no matter how hard it was for them to get out of bed in the morning, it was harder for their teacher. If he could do it, they knew they could too.
The young men in the ward seemed especially responsive to his style of teaching. Although he didn’t fit the stereotype of macho strength and he was unable to participate in many athletic activities, the young men all say that he was exactly the kind of man—an honorable priesthood holder who was married in the temple—that they all aspire to be.
“There were a lot of things he couldn’t do, but he worked hard at the things he could do,” says Matthew. “He always told us that it was his number one wish for us to go on missions and be great missionaries. He couldn’t go on a mission because of his health, but he could contribute to the missionary effort by training others to share the gospel.”

When I started high school, my friends and I all had the same attitude about drinking and wild parties—we stayed away. But some of them were slowly enticed to experiment and would tease the rest of us for being so obedient. When we got to be juniors and seniors, several others had fallen into the same trap—they allowed “Monty” to get too close, thinking that he was their friend, when he really wanted only to destroy them.

I thought of times in my life when I allowed Satan to get closer to me than he should have. If I had jumped and run each time I saw the “very appearance of evil,” I could have saved myself a lot of grief. I thought of occasions when I, like the rat, rationalized my way through compromising situations, knowing initially the danger involved, but then slowly telling myself that I could handle it.

I can understand now why Satan is so often referred to as a serpent in the scriptures. Even though I still stumble sometimes, I am more alert to Satan’s method of attraction. I can see it coming and run before it’s too late.

First, an experience that I had as a youth which helped to teach me an important lesson. It occurred when I was quite young—to be more specific, a boy of 10 or 11. I was herding our flock of sheep in the mountains of northern Utah to the east of East Garland. My grandfather had entrusted me with the sheep as we were moving them up the mountain to the summer range. I had just watered them in a small mountain stream and bedded them down for a short rest before going on.
While they were settled, I went about to explore the terrain and check the route ahead. I was a couple of hundred yards up the canyon when I heard a sound that chilled me to the bone. Once you have heard a rattlesnake, a very poisonous reptile, you’ll never forget the sound.
Cautiously I moved toward that sound. To my surprise I observed not one but three rattlers just a few yards away. They were on a rocky knoll that had been warmed by the spring sun. While the sight of three rattlers in a bunch intrigued me, because you seldom see more than one at a time, it also concerned me since the sheep would need to pass this way.
Before long the sheep roused and started moving up the canyon. As they came closer, the snakes seemed to sense the intruders and slithered down the incline toward the creek.
Fearing the danger, I immediately turned my sheep up the hill away from the direction the snakes were moving. I was successful for a time, but then a couple of sheep broke away from the flock. As they did so, the entire flock seemed determined to follow those two errant old ewes, and there was no stopping them. You may have heard the characterization “They all followed like a bunch of sheep.” Well, that’s what happened here. To make matters worse, they were moving directly toward the location of the rattlers.
I had hoped that the natural instinct of the sheep would keep them at a safe distance. But some of the flock were pushed directly into the path of the snakes. And there was no escape for the unfortunate ones that sustained the strikes of those disturbed reptiles.
It was a sad young shepherd who had to report to his grandfather a short time later the loss of two of his prized ewes. The experience of that day provided a very forceful illustration to me of what can happen when the sheep ignore their shepherd.
I was there as the shepherd. I perceived the danger and was trying my best to protect my sheep. But as a few started to go in the wrong direction, others were determined to follow. Though only two of the flock were lost, it was a loss that need not have been.

One of the biggest blessings during my time of service has been learning the importance of acting on promptings when they are received. When the Spirit tells me to do something, I try to do it, no matter how small it may seem. For instance, I felt prompted to pray for rain while teaching a family for the first time. The little ranchero where I am serving has been in drought for several years and rarely sees rain, but the Spirit prompted me to ask for rain. That night, it rained. This made such a strong impression that the family asked us to return to continue to teach the gospel.

In October of 2018, President Nelson traveled to South America, where he met with the president of Peru. Then, just as he had done in Colombia, he gathered with a small group of young men and young women before addressing almost 6,000 in a member devotional broadcast throughout the country. [32]

When he asked for questions one brave young woman spoke up: “What do I do if I am the only member in my family?” she said.

Her question was filled with doubt — about her status in the Lord’s kingdom and her ability to move forward without the same level of religious support many youth her age enjoy.

But President Nelson did not hesitate. He looked her in the eyes and said, “You and I are just alike.”

At first, I didn’t understand what President Nelson meant by that response. He is a world-renowned heart surgeon in his 90s who had just met with the president of Peru. She was a young girl, wondering if she was seen by the Lord.

President Nelson spoke of his own youth, where he was the only active member of the Church in his family. He asked the young woman to let God prevail in her life. “Your family and your friends will see the light of the gospel reflected in you,” he said. [33]

Try to feel the heart of a young man, Nkosiyabo Eddie Lupahla, in Africa, writing about his friend.
“Two and a half years prior to my joining the Church in 1999, my good friend, Mbuti Yona, looked me up. We had been friends through grades 5 to 12, then [were] separated when we attended different [schools].
“Mbuti was baptized in April 1999, and four weeks later he visited me at home and introduced the gospel to me. Regardless of the rumors about the Church, I was impressed by the ‘fellow Saints’ who gave me a warm welcome on my first visit. It was this same Sunday that my friend introduced me to the missionaries. Arrangements were made to be taught. My friend was there for every discussion, and he kept inviting me to the activities. I really enjoyed being around people with the same values, interests, standards, and goals. It was during this same time period that I began attending institute [of religion]. It all seemed very natural: Thursday nights [5:30]—missionary discussion, followed by institute.
“I learned a lot in institute and especially enjoyed our class about how to achieve a celestial marriage. The first semester ended in May, shortly after I began attending, and I felt cheated. But I was fortunate enough to catch the second-semester class, Teachings of the Living Prophets. While in institute, I bought myself the four standard works and I continued to learn and grow in the Church line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. I was baptized September 17, 1999, by another friend I had made while attending institute.
“I am thankful for the institute program. It has not only shaped me, but it has also helped me qualify to become a missionary, which mission I started preparing for five months after my baptism. I have been blessed with many opportunities to serve and to teach prior to my mission.
“I am thankful for my friend. I hope he realizes what he has done for me. We have both served missions, I to South Africa Durban, he to South Africa Cape Town. All it takes is a friend to bring such a mighty change in one’s life.”

His mother did not have the means to go with the first group that left Nauvoo. She went later, and her son told of the time when she and her brother, also named Joseph Fielding, and the little boy Joseph, then a mere child, drove their wagons down to St. Joseph, Missouri, to buy provisions for the long journey ahead. On their return to Winter Quarters they camped for the night. During the night two of their oxen disappeared. Men with a herd of cattle were about three-quarters of a mile away. Joseph and his uncle searched all through the morning looking for their lost oxen. Exhausted and wet to the skin, they returned to their wagons to report their inability to find the oxen.

Joseph F. Smith recorded:
As I approached I saw my mother kneeling down in prayer. I halted for a moment and then drew gently near enough to hear her pleading with the Lord not to suffer us to be left in this helpless condition, but to lead us to recover our lost team, that we might continue our travels in safety. When she arose from her knees I was standing near by. The first expression I caught upon her precious face was a lovely smile, which, discouraged as I was, gave me renewed hope and assurance that I had not felt before. [In Preston Nibley, The Presidents of the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1974), 185]

His uncle told her that the oxen were lost and that there was no way to find them. They had searched everywhere. She replied that he and Joseph should eat their breakfast that she had prepared. She then began to walk in a new direction. Seeing her, the chief herdsman of the cattle rode up to her and said:

“Madam, I saw your oxen over yonder in that direction this morning about daybreak,” pointing in the opposite direction from that in which [she] was going. [In Nibley, Presidents, 186]

She totally disregarded him and continued to walk in the opposite direction from which he had directed her. She came directly to what she was looking for. There were her oxen down by a little stream fastened to a clump of willows.

That example of his mother’s tremendous faith became the rootstock of his own faith.

But one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from falling off of things was actually one that I learned from repeatedly falling off of my own foot.
Let me explain.
I spent years in ballet classes learning leaps, turns, stretches, and steps. But there was one thing that I just could not get, no matter how much I practiced: pirouettes. I had failed so many times to turn around in a full circle while balancing on my toes on one foot that I was convinced I just could not do it.
Then one day my teacher explained a valuable principle to the class. Whenever we would fall down in the middle of a pirouette, she would usually offer advice such as “Turn your head faster” or “Bring your other foot to your knee faster.” But this time she asked me, “Where are you falling?”
I was surprised. I thought it was pretty obvious. I was falling down.
My teacher asked again, “Which direction are you falling? Are you falling forward? backward? to the side?”
I said I usually fell forward.
“Then you’re probably looking down,” she explained. “Look up, and try again.”
I did as she said, but this time I fell backward.
“That’s good,” she said, smiling. “Just a little too much oomph the other way. Try again.”
I spun again, this time looking up, focusing in front of me so that I could keep my head centered over the rest of my body.
“Nicely done!” my teacher said when I successfully completed the turn.
She then gathered the rest of the class and explained to us why she had asked me where I was falling.
She said that our heads are actually very heavy, and they direct where we will go. She stood on one foot, looked down at the ground, and started to fall forward. Then she tried it again with her head tilted back, and she started to fall backward.
“So,” she said, “pay attention to where you’re falling. It has a lot to do with where your head is.”

In the spring of 1844, Parley P. Pratt and most of the other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were serving missions in the eastern United States. In June, Elder Pratt felt inspired to return to Nauvoo, Illinois. On the way, he heard that Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been martyred at Carthage, Illinois. “I felt so weighed down with sorrow and the powers of darkness that it was painful for me to converse or speak to any one.”*
He thought about his beloved friends who were now dead and of the many experiences they had shared, including time spent in prison together. Six years before, in November 1838, when the Saints had been driven from their homes in Missouri, fifty of their leaders, including Joseph Smith and Parley, had been arrested and jailed in Richmond, Missouri.
One night the men had been kept awake by the guards, who were vulgarly boasting about their cruel acts of violence against the Saints. It was midnight, and the imprisoned men had been listening to the guards’ filthy language for hours. Unwilling to tolerate the abusive language any longer, the Prophet Joseph rose to his feet and with a voice of thunder rebuked the guards and commanded them to be silent. Parley later wrote, “Dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains, at midnight, in a dungeon in an obscure village of Missouri.”
Now that great leader was gone. As Parley approached Nauvoo, he was worried. He didn’t know if Brigham Young, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, or any of the other members of the Quorum were there. What should he tell the people? Should he tell them to flee from Nauvoo? Or should they stay and complete the temple? Parley prayed to know what to do. “On a sudden the Spirit of God came upon me and filled my heart with joy and gladness indescribable. … The Spirit said unto me: ‘Go and say unto my people in Nauvoo, that they shall continue to pursue their daily duties and take care of themselves. … Exhort them that they continue to build the House of the Lord which I have commanded them to build in Nauvoo.’”
At Nauvoo Elder Pratt found that the people had already resumed work on the temple under the direction of John Taylor and Willard Richards, two other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who had been in jail with the Prophet when he was killed. The three men worked together to keep the people united and at peace until the return of President Young and the other members of the Quorum.

Jacob Spori, the first principal of the Bannock Stake Academy, which later became Ricks College, and now BYU-Idaho, invoked the image of a mighty oak tree when he prophesied concerning the academy: "The seeds we’re planting today will grow and become mighty oaks and their branches will run all over the earth."
Jacob Spori was a highly educated Swiss immigrant and served as principal of the academy from 1888 until 1891. The academy struggled financially in its early years. During one of those early years, Brother Spori applied his salary to the debt of the school and took an additional job with the railroad. The salary he made with the railroad was then used to pay the teachers at the academy. He was an example of sacrifice and service, and never lost sight of his vision for this place and students that attend. Jacob Spori was a “mighty oak.”

Years ago I took a young man to meet President Kimball. He said he had given up hope, that he didn’t believe there was a God anymore because his mother had passed away with cancer. He loved his mother, and he said to the president, “If there really was a God, he never would have let my mother suffer and die as she did.”

Then President Kimball, in that wonderful sweet way of his, put his hands on the shoulders of my nineteen-year-old friend and said, “My boy, your mother is all right. Sit down, and let’s talk about you.”

Then he taught him in a beautiful way. One of the things he taught that I shall never forget ties to this matter of strengthening your anchor chain. He said, “My boy, I’ve had a lot of health challenges. I had cancer of the throat. I’ve had my body opened from here to here with open-heart surgery in my mid-seventies. I’ve had all kinds of challenges healthwise.” Then he looked at my friend and at me and said, “And through my suffering I have come to know God.”

With the onset of World War II, gasoline rationing prevented the Eyring family from making the 17-mile (27-km) drive to the New Brunswick Branch for Sunday meetings. As a result, the family received permission to hold meetings in their home, in Princeton, New Jersey. Hal would joke that he never missed a Primary meeting there—an achievement that wasn’t too difficult considering that Primary was held only once in their home.
President Eyring often reflects on the beautiful spirit in the sacrament meetings held in this small branch, made up of his family and occasional visitors. He didn’t mind that his family were usually the only ones who attended or that he and his brothers constituted the branch’s entire Aaronic Priesthood. But as the boys began entering their teenage years, their mother was eager for the family to live among a larger concentration of Latter-day Saints.
In 1946 Henry was enjoying his success and work at Princeton. He had won numerous honorary doctorates and most major awards in chemistry. Given his diligent scientific work with world-renowned scientists, he had an excellent opportunity to be considered for a Nobel Prize.
At about this time Henry received a call from A. Ray Olpin, president of the University of Utah, inviting him to be the dean of the graduate school there and continue his research in chemistry. His wife, Mildred, left the decision up to Henry, but she reminded him of a promise he had made to her years earlier. Henry had promised to move his family closer to Church headquarters when the boys got older. When Henry turned down the offer, Mildred, who had grown up in Utah, asked him to pray about his decision and gave him a letter to read when he arrived at his laboratory.
Upon reading the letter, in which Mildred expressed her disappointment, and after praying and pondering, Henry called President Olpin, saying he would accept the position after all to build up the university’s science department. His apparent sacrifice in leaving Princeton turned out to be a blessing for him and his family. One such blessing was Hal’s willingness to follow his father’s example when he faced a similar crossroads years later.

Taylor seems to have a special “gift” for playing basketball and has been shooting hoops ever since he could walk. In 2001, he and his family moved to a town near Atlanta, Georgia, where they have been glad for the opportunity to share the gospel with many new friends and neighbors.
Since moving there, Taylor has had the opportunity to play on both a city and an all-star basketball league. He enjoyed playing on both teams but decided it would be more challenging to try out for the city Elite Basketball Team. Knowing that only twelve boys would make the team, he practiced hard. He was thrilled when he made the team. His parents were happy for him and were committed to his schedule of practicing two hours a day, three days a week for the next five months, when the season would be over.
Then his mom received a phone call from his new coach. He told her that one of the three practice days each week would be on Sunday and that attending all practices was mandatory. He knew that Taylor was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and said that he was sorry that one practice day was on Sunday. He knew that Taylor was one of the best players on the team and had been looking forward to being his coach. Even so, he would try to understand if the decision was made to not attend the practice and have to leave the team.
Taylor was heartbroken. He wanted very badly to play on the team. He had earned his position and felt it was unfair to have practices on Sundays. However, he was a baptized member of the Church and had covenanted with Heavenly Father to choose the right and keep the commandments. He knew that if he kept the Sabbath Day holy, Heavenly Father would bless him.
He decided to keep the Sabbath Day holy. His dad called the coach, and the coach was sorry but said that he understood.
Later that evening, Taylor’s dad received a phone call from the coach. The high school basketball coaches who oversee the city Elite Team were running the drills during Taylor’s tryouts. When they learned that Taylor was giving up his place on the team because of his religious beliefs, they decided to make an exception to the rule for him. They allowed Taylor to miss every Sunday practice and still be eligible to start in the games as the point guard.
Taylor was overcome with happiness—and gratitude, for he knew he had witnessed a miracle. He had set a wonderful example for his family, friends, coaches, and team. Best of all, he knows in his heart that he truly did make the right choice, whether he was on the team or not.

My mother and I received our patriarchal blessings together. I was 20, and Mother was 49. I will never forget that day—how the patriarch placed his hands on Mother’s head and told her how often her life had been spared through bouts of rheumatic fever, heart disease, and many other illnesses. He recounted her life, enumerating the times she had blessed others. He told her of things the Lord had in store for her and offered guidance as to what she needed to do. I knew my mother’s life, and I listened as this patriarch, who was not acquainted with her, described her life. This experience was a witness to me that God lives, that He loves us, and that He knows us individually. I felt the Lord’s love for my mother—and for me—on that memorable day.