Gospel Story Finder

After I got thinking about it, I realized that I had my own devo date almost 30 years ago while attending BYU. I asked a girl with whom I had been on several dates to go to devotional with me. I don’t remember anything about the date, but I do remember that as we were walking back across campus after devotional, we had an interesting conversation. My daughter also told me that this specific conversation is what is known as a DTR—a “define the relationship” conversation. Now, I didn’t know what a DTR was, and I wasn’t the one to start it. It certainly wasn’t a very long conversation. In fact, it was very one sided. It went something like this: “I wish you wouldn’t hold my hand in public. People might think we’re dating and not ask me out.” I said, “Okay,” and that was that.
Now, I shared this experience with you because I think I was a good example of someone who didn’t understand where he stood in a relationship. The DTR I had was needful for me to have a correct understanding of where I stood with this young woman. It was a little hard on my ego, but it was necessary for me to be able to put the relationship into proper perspective.
Honestly, I think it’s a good thing to have an occasional DTR.

I have a photograph of my dad and me. It was taken at my Eagle Scout court of honor the summer before last. It is the last picture taken of my father before he became a quadriplegic. The court of honor was on a Saturday night. My father and I stood next to each other, his arm around me, while my mom pressed the button capturing us on film.
The next week I went to the beach with my parents, two younger sisters, and my friend Matt. Loaded down with baskets and blankets we journeyed to the beach. We found a good spot where there were not too many people around. My friend and I dropped everything and made a mad dash for the ocean. The water was warm, and the sky was clear. The waves did not look at all threatening. Everything was fine. We were swimming, body surfing the waves, and having seaweed fights. We were walking back to find our spot when I saw my dad go into the water. I decided to go back in and join him for a little body surfing.
We were standing next to each other, talking and waiting for the next wave. When it came, we both took it. My friend Matt was off somewhere swimming. I pulled out of it before it got too shallow. “Dad, did you have a good ride?” No answer. I looked around and I could not see him. I thought he was under the water and was going to grab my legs or something. Then I saw him. “Dad! Dad!” He was floating on his stomach, only his shorts and back visible.
I fought through the water to get to him. I remember thinking that he had to be all right because nothing like this could happen to us. I reached him and struggled to turn him over onto his back so he could breathe. This whole time I had been yelling, “Dad! Dad!” over and over again. I got him turned over and as his eyes met mine, my whole body shook with fear. There was no expression on is face, but I saw terror and panic in his eyes. At that moment a wave struck us, sending me reeling and tearing him from my arms. I fought back to the surface, but my father was not in sight. I started screaming, “Matt, help me find my dad! Find my dad! Help me find my dad!” I knew we had to find him before another wave came. I knew his life was in our hands.
I had no feeling at this time. I just knew we had to find him. We spotted his swimming suit a little ways off. We struggled through the water to reach him. I could see a wave coming and I felt like I was in some dream where people are chasing you but your feet are stuck to the ground. We reached him just before a wave hit us. Turning him over, we each grabbed under an arm and began to drag him in. This whole time we had been yelling for help. Two men appeared and then a lifeguard, and they helped us drag him onto the shore. I noticed that he was very white and that his lips were blue. His eyes were open and focused right on me. The lifeguard kept asking him to blink if he heard him, but his eyes just stared into mine.
All of a sudden my stomach just dropped. I had this wrenching feeling and I felt sick. I have never been so scared. I knew he must have a broken neck or back. He had some blood on his forehead so I guessed it must be his neck. We got him onto the shore, and before I knew it we were surrounded by lifeguards. They backed me off and began to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
My mother had no idea of what was happening. I told Matt to run and get her. I did not want to leave my dad. I was walking around in a circle, sick with fear. I saw one of the lifeguards put her ear to his chest. They began to do CPR. They began to pound on his chest. I lost it. I knew he was dead. I knew that his heart had stopped. I started hollering, “No way, this can’t be happening! No way! No way!” A lifeguard came up to me and said, “You’re not going to help him by getting mad.” I knew he was right, but my staying calm would not help him either. Nothing I could do was going to help him.
By this time there was a huge crowd of people and more kept coming. I saw my mom running towards me. She did not know what had happened, but seeing all the people gathered she imagined the worst.
She was right; it was the worst. I ran to meet her. She was in hysterics, yelling at me to tell her what was wrong. Through the crowd she could see the lifeguards giving him CPR. She tried to go to him, but I held her back. She grabbed me and began sobbing.
A lifeguard came to us to tell us what was happening. By now the paramedics had arrived, and I saw them pull out electric shock devices, the kind you see in movies. He was dead, and they were trying to shock him back into life. All the strength went out of me and I almost fell to the ground. I could not watch anymore. I turned away. My mom still clung to me. She was talking and crying, but I couldn’t understand her.
One of the lifeguards came over to tell us that they got his heart beating. I felt no relief from this. By this time they had a tube in his mouth giving him oxygen because he was not breathing on his own. People were coming up to my mom and asking her if they could pray for him. I wanted to comfort her and act old and mature and tell her everything was going to be all right. But the only thing I could do was hold her and let her cry.
He lay there on the beach for about an hour with the lifeguards working on him. He was still unconscious, and his heart was very unstable. They slowly put him into the ambulance, and my mom got in also. I remember just standing there watching it drive away, wondering what our life was going to be like from then on.
He did have a broken neck and a severed spinal cord. The cord was severed so high that not only was he totally paralyzed from the neck down, but he was also unable to breathe on his own. At first some doctors told us that he would never be able to talk again or even come home to live. However, after six long, difficult months in a rehabilitation center, he was able to come home. Because of special equipment, he can breathe, talk, and even control a powered wheelchair. By sipping and puffing, he can make his chair do anything he wants.
He has been home for ten months now. It is great to be a family again. However, all of our lives have been affected by what has happened. We, as a family, are maintaining all of his care. I have had to assume many responsibilities. I do many things for him that he used to be able to do on his own.
Through all of this my dad has had the best attitude. He never seems mad or discouraged about what has happened, and he never complains about it. He just accepts it and lives his life to the best of his ability. He has been the ultimate example to me. If he can cope with this without getting discouraged and complaining, then it seems to me that all my problems are nothing.
My dad has accomplished many things in his life. At the time of his injury, he was president of our stake. I’m sure that it is a great comfort to him now that he has done so many things. This teaches me not to waste away a moment of my life. You never know what is going to happen to you. Also, before his accident, I was never sure what I was going to do with my life. Now, with all of the care I have rendered to him, I feel that I would like to become a doctor. This terrible accident has, in fact, affected me in a positive way.
I have another photograph of me and my dad. It was taken last summer outside in our front yard. I am standing next to him with my arm around him, and he is sitting in his wheelchair. As I compare the two pictures I can see the difference. It is not that he is in a wheelchair. Others probably couldn’t see the change, but to me, we are not the same people who were in a similar picture a year before. There has been a physical change, but the true change has occurred within. I deeply sense it whenever I look at the last photograph.

One of the greatest testimony-building experiences in my life came early in my mission. At the Missionary Training Center, I had finished reading the Book of Mormon, and I took the challenge given in Moroni 10:3–5 to pray about the Book of Mormon. As I prayed, I expected an overpowering revelation of the truthfulness of the book, but nothing came.
When it was time for me to fly to South Africa, still nothing had come. A few weeks into my service, I hadn’t yet received an answer to those prayers. I was getting discouraged.
One night, my companion and I had an appointment to teach the first discussion to a preacher. He accepted everything we said until we taught about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. As a new missionary, I didn’t know what to do, but I felt prompted to simply testify. As I bore to him my simple testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, the Spirit touched my heart. I was filled with a sense of peace as I shared with this man a knowledge that I didn’t know I had.
That was an answer to my weeks of prayers. Up to that point I had believed that the Book of Mormon contained God’s word, but now I can say that I know that it is true; it is “another testament of Jesus Christ.”

Judy always seemed to be angry, but Raybell remembered one day last summer when she wasn’t. Raybell’s yellow kitten had disappeared. She had searched everywhere around their farm and finally had walked down the road calling it. Raybell was afraid a coyote had come down from the hills and eaten it. Tears were falling as she walked along the road. Suddenly she looked up, and through the blur of her tears, she saw Judy running across the field toward her with the yellow kitten in her arms. She held the kitten out to her. “Is this yours?”
Raybell gathered the soft kitten into her arms. It purred and rubbed its nose against her cheek. “Yes. Where did you find it?”
“When I cut through the field I heard a loud meow, and there it was, between the rows of wheat. I thought maybe it was yours.”
“Thanks for bringing her to me.” Raybell smiled, and Judy smiled back.

When I turned 21, I wanted to serve a mission. My great-grandmother, Margarita Sippo de Lallana, supported my decision even though that meant she would be alone. She had reared me since I was small, and I was concerned about who would care for her while I served.
We had been baptized in 1978, when I was 11 and my great-grandmother was 73. We soon quit attending our meetings, but concerned brothers and sisters from the Church came looking for us.
I became active again, and ward members looked forward to my ordination. “We’re going to have a deacon!” they would say excitedly. At that time our ward had no Aaronic Priesthood holders. I became the president of the deacons quorum because there weren’t any other deacons. I wondered why they would give me such a calling, but I came to understand that ward leaders were training me in priesthood responsibilities. As a result, I tried to be faithful.
My grandmother, however, remained less active, attending meetings only occasionally. But she supported my decision to serve because she knew in her heart the gospel is true.
When I turned in my missionary papers in 1990, most full-time missionaries called from Córdoba served in the Argentina Buenos Aires North or South Missions. I was sure I would be called to one of those two missions and not be too far away from my great-grandmother.
Later, when my stake president called, he told me that I needed a passport because I was going to Colombia instead! Despite my ongoing concerns, my great-grandmother encouraged me to go. Just before I left, she promised that she would return to church the very next Sunday and go to the temple before I returned. This was difficult to believe but made it easier for me to leave her.
While I was on my mission, she did exactly what she had promised. Although in her 80s, she not only attended all of her meetings but also arrived on time. And she prepared for and went to the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple.
After a 12-hour, all-night bus ride returning from that first trip to the temple, my great-grandmother arrived at our ward meetinghouse on Sunday morning at 8:30, shortly before Church meetings began. Our stake president, Rúben Spitale, told her, “Let me take you home so you can rest.”
“No,” she replied. “I’m going to church.” And she did.
After I returned from my mission, we attended the temple together three times before she passed away in 2000. Because of my mission, we were both blessed. Had I stayed home, I’m confident none of these blessings would have occurred.

It was almost Christmas, and the year had been hard for my family. My dad’s job was not going well. At night I could hear my parents talk about Christmas and how they didn’t know what to do. They knew that they could tell us that we would have to go without giving presents to each other, but they didn’t know what they could do about Santa, because most of the kids were still young. I was 13 years old and the oldest of six. At nights I would lie in my bed and try to think of a way that I could help my family to have a good Christmas.
One night I had the idea that I could earn some money, buy gifts for my brothers and sisters, lay them out on Christmas Eve, and say that they were from Santa. The next day, I walked around my neighborhood asking people if there was any work that needed to be done so I could earn some money. For a couple weeks before Christmas, I worked to earn the money I needed.
Two days before Christmas Eve, a friend who was old enough to drive took me to the store so I could finish some Christmas shopping.
As I was walking down the aisles in the store, I was getting excited looking for things that I knew my brothers and sisters would like. Every present was chosen with much love, and I couldn’t wait for them to open these gifts. Spending all the money I earned, I took the gifts home and hid them in my room until Christmas Eve.
When Christmas Eve came, all of my brothers and sisters were excited. After having our Christmas dinner, we got ready for bed and laid our stockings out for Santa to fill. Going downstairs to my room, I set my alarm so I could wake up in the night to lay out the gifts I had bought. I knew that my mom and dad would be setting things up and going to bed late, so I tried to get as much sleep as I could so I wouldn’t be tired for Christmas day.
That night, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t go to sleep. I hoped my parents would go to bed soon. After waiting a few hours, I got all the gifts that I bought and snuck upstairs. A warm feeling came over me as I set out the gifts. I couldn’t wait for morning to come. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night because I was so filled with excitement and love.
When morning came, we all ran upstairs to wake up Mom and Dad and to see what Santa had brought. Watching my brothers’ and sisters’ faces as they opened the gifts that I bought them was the best part of my day. When mom and dad realized there were other gifts, they started to cry.
I will never forget that Christmas and the feeling I felt. It was worth working hard to prepare for that day.

By the time the sun began to sparkle on the Bear River and warm the cattle on the Wyoming ranch, Minerva Teichert had been up for some time. There was breakfast to cook for her husband Herman, the five children, and a few ranch workers. Every morning there were milk bottles for the dairy that would take several hours to clean and sterilize. In addition, there were chickens to feed, clothes to wash and mend, a garden to weed. By the time the household began to quiet down for the evening, she had cooked two more meals and finished a variety of other chores that life on a ranch in the 1930s demanded.
But still Minerva’s day was not complete. It never was until she had picked up her brush and her “palette”—a long piece of wood dabbed with oil paints—and spent a few precious moments at her canvas.
Minerva was “filled and thrilled,” she said, by the heroism of the pioneers, too enchanted by the strong beauty of the American Indian, too captivated by the glory of animals in unfettered motion, to take her subjects lightly. From childhood, the faith of the prophets had flowed in her veins. And all her life, her love for the beautiful and the heroic drove her to paint and give it expression on canvas. This she did with bold strokes, in a style uniquely hers.
Last year, for the one-hundredth anniversary of her birth, the Museum of Church History and Art featured a collection of Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert’s work. In past years, her paintings have appeared in Church magazines and manuals, but widespread recognition of Sister Teichert’s importance as an artist has been slow in coming. The show included a selection of her forty-plus-piece Book of Mormon mural series, murals chronicling the Latter-day Saint pioneer trek and the settling of the American West, portraits, still-life floral paintings, and work from her student days.
Minerva Kohlhepp was just four when her mother, a strong and creative woman, gave her a set of watercolors. From that moment, the child considered herself an artist. Everywhere she went, young Minerva carried a sketchpad and charcoal or pencil.
Born on 28 August 1888 in North Ogden, Utah, Minerva was the second of ten Kohlhepp children. Most of her early years were spent on her family’s Idaho homestead. The Kohlhepp family was poor financially, and with no school nearby, Minerva had little formal education as a small child. But each night her father gathered the children around to read the scriptures or classics of literature.
Minerva left home for the first time at age fourteen to work as a nursemaid for a wealthy Idaho family in San Francisco. There she saw museum art for the first time and attended classes at the Mark Hopkins Art School. But it was not until she had graduated from high school back home and taught school for several years that she was able to pursue any serious training in art.
By age nineteen, she had saved enough money to go to Chicago, Illinois, where she studied at the Chicago Art Institute under the great John Vanderpoel. Several times during her three-year course she had to go home to earn more money by working in the fields or in the classroom. But Minerva always returned to her studies. With characteristic confidence, Minerva once confronted Mr. Vanderpoel, asking why he criticized her work so harshly when so many classmates were doing much poorer work. She later recalled, “I shall never forget the disappointment on the man’s face when he answered in a choked voice, ‘Can it be possible you do not understand; those other students are not worth it, they will eventually leave school, but you—ah, there is no end’” (“Miss Kohlhepp’s Own Story,” Pocatello, Idaho, 1917).
By 1912, she had finished her course at the Art Institute and returned west to earn more money. During this period she was courted by two young men—calling off a wedding with one wealthy suitor when she learned that he didn’t want to be married in a Mormon church. The other young man, not a Church member either (she knew no Latter-day Saint young men), was Herman Teichert. Herman was a gentle cowboy whose favorite activity was chasing wild horses on the desert by moonlight. In April 1915, however, she left Herman behind, telling him to marry someone else, and went to the Art Students’ League in New York City.
At the time, the League was one of the most important art centers in the world. Minerva paid for the privilege of studying there in a variety of ways, including sketching cadavers for medical schools and performing rope tricks and Indian dances.
At this critical point in her life, Minerva had two experiences that took her out of the art world. The first experience crystallized her desire for life with a family—specifically, for life with Herman. In a testimony meeting she was listening to a sister speak on the joys of marriage and motherhood. “I thought of all the men I had met in my search for ‘the right one,’” wrote Minerva later. At that moment, she realized that “back on the Idaho desert, herding his cattle and branding his calves was a man more nearly meant for me than anyone else in the world” (unpublished autobiographical sketch, 1937, transcription from handwritten manuscript). Never one to doubt her own judgment, Minerva returned home to Idaho and married Herman.
The other experience helped her to strengthen her feeling that she had a mission as an artist and that she should place her art in the service of her faith. Minerva later recorded how Robert Henri, one of her renowned teachers, asked her, shortly before she left New York, whether any artist had ever told the “great Mormon story.”
“Not to my liking,’ I answered. ‘Good Heavens, girl, what an opportunity. You do it. You’re the one. That’s your birthright. You’ll do it well.’
“I felt that I had been commissioned” (unpublished manuscript, 1947).
Minerva Teichert spent the rest of her life, and her enormous vitality, answering these two callings—one to love and serve her family, the other to tell the story of her people and her faith through her art.
When Herman returned from serving in France during World War I, he and Minerva moved to the old Teichert family homestead in Idaho. Minerva loved this place, but they were eventually forced to leave by the construction of a new reservoir. They made their new home on a cattle ranch at Cokeville, Wyoming. Minerva painted scenes of the Idaho countryside around their old home in a frieze for the living room of their new home. For more than forty years, this room was both Minerva’s studio and the center of the Teichert household. She cooked meals on a wood-burning stove, occasionally adding a touch to a painting as she cooked. Every night while the family ate supper, she read to them—literature, history, and the scriptures.
In that same living room she developed a strong, original style as she painted hundreds of murals, portraits, and other works. The conditions were far from ideal for painting. The room was too small to spread out her larger murals. She sometimes had to fold the canvas, painting one section at a time. To see her murals in perspective, she would look through the small end of a pair of binoculars. Distractions were constant. But somehow Minerva persisted. “I must paint,” she once explained (unpublished manuscript, 1947).
Minerva’s spiritual life was guided by dreams and by an increasing ability to rely on the Lord. As a young mother, she turned down an opportunity to study in London, England, with her great teacher Robert Henri when she dreamed of a daughter who would soon be born to her. Laurie, the only Teichert daughter, was born with the next year or so. In the same way, Minerva saw future daughters-in-law in dreams before she met them. She trusted implicitly what she felt the Lord had told her and taught her children and grandchildren to rely on His guidance.
One of the highlights of her spiritual life was Herman’s baptism in 1933. He had supported her Church participation and paid tithing for years. Minerva and Herman were later sealed in the Logan Temple.
Minerva Teichert’s mission in art had two crowning points. One was the completion of the Book of Mormon mural series. She had felt that having the series published by the Church would be the ultimate fulfillment of her mission as an artist. When she could interest no one in publishing the paintings, she was devastated and eventually donated them to Brigham Young University.
But if the reception of the Book of Mormon murals was one of her life’s greatest disappointments, her commission to paint murals in the world room in the Manti Temple was one of its great satisfactions. In 1947, at the age of fifty-nine, Minerva Teichert and an assistant completed the murals in just a few months, a remarkable example of her almost unimaginable vitality.
By her death in 1976 at the age of eighty-seven, Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert had created perhaps as many as a thousand pieces of art. “Eternity seems very real to me,” she wrote in 1937. Then, expressing her eternal wish: “I want … to be able to paint after I leave here. Even though I should come back nine times I still would not have exhausted my supply of subjects and one life time is far too short but may be a schooling for the next.

When I was a boy growing up in Denmark, my friends and I liked to play tag. But one day we grew tired of playing the same old game, so we sat down and tried to think of something new and exciting to do.
“Let’s go to the harbor,” one friend suggested. “We can look at the boats and watch the fishermen.”
We all liked that idea, so we hopped on our bikes. Sure enough, there was a lot more action there! Sailors washed their boats while other fishermen cleaned and sold fish. Until the fish were sold, they were kept alive in well boxes—floating crates with small holes to allow water to flow in and out. The boxes bobbed between the boats and bumped into each other as the waves rushed in.
It wasn’t long before we were bored of just watching.
“Let’s play tag,” a friend suggested.
“Again?” another boy groaned.
My friend pointed to the well boxes with a sly grin. “Out there.”
Soon we were all leaping from box to box, which was much more exciting than playing tag at home. The slippery boxes jostled with each incoming wave. One time I fell off and landed with a splash. Sputtering seawater, I pulled myself back onto a crate and leaped onto another one. My foot broke right through it! Fish nibbled at my toes. It tickled, and I shrieked in laughter.
“Hey, you boys!” a gruff voice called. I looked up to see an angry fisherman coming toward us. “Get away from those well boxes before you break them. If you don’t get out of here, I’ll tell your parents!”
We scrambled back to shore, took off our wet socks and tied them to our bicycle handlebars, and took off. Our clothes dried in the wind as we pedaled home.
My clothes may have dried, but the smell of fish gave me away. When I walked in the door, Mother took one sniff and asked what had happened.
“I went to the harbor with my friends. I was playing on a well box, and I slipped and fell in the water,” I admitted.
To my surprise, Mother’s eyes filled with tears. “Jens, you must never play there again. Think of what could have happened! You could have been hurt or even drowned.” She hugged me tight. “I would be so sad, Jens. What would I do without you? You must promise never to play there again.” I gave Mother my word.
But a few weeks later, my friends came over and invited me to go with them to the harbor. Remembering the fun we’d had last time, I got on my bike and followed them. I forgot all about the promise I had made to my mother.
“You’re it!” A friend tagged me and jumped onto a bobbing well box.
I was about to chase him when suddenly I saw my mother’s face, just as if she were right in front of me, her eyes filled with tears. My heart stopped. I had broken my promise!
“I have to go home now,” I called to my friends.
“What?” one of them whined. “Why? We just got here.”
“I have to go home,” I repeated, climbing onto my bike.
My friends complained and tried to coax me into staying, but I wouldn’t listen. One by one, they all headed for home, too.
I put my bike away as quietly as possible and went to my room. I felt sick with shame that I had gone where I had promised Mother I would not go.
After a while Mother came into my room. “I can tell something is bothering you, Jens. What’s wrong?”
Lowering my head, I said quietly, “I went to the harbor with my friends today. I forgot that I had promised you I wouldn’t. But as soon as I got there, I remembered. I came right home. So did my friends. Mother, I’m sorry I forgot!”
When I looked up, Mother was beaming. “Jens! I’m so happy you remembered. Because you did, you set an example for your friends and none of you were hurt.”
A while later she brought me a glass of milk and a piece of freshly baked cake. Mother made the best cake in the whole world. I was grateful for the warm treat—but more grateful for the warmth of remembering to do right.

A crafted red and pink paper heart frame holds a picture of the entire family dressed in white. In April 1993, the Richards family was sealed in the St. George temple. It was Mom and Dad’s tenth wedding anniversary. “It made for a special day,” Mom said. Emily says she remembers that everything in the temple was white and that she felt nice inside. “The children didn’t want to leave,” Mom said. They loved the beautiful chandeliers and the pictures of Jesus Christ inside the temple.
The family had driven for five days to get to St. George. Why did they travel so far to be sealed? On a previous vacation they had driven into St. George, and the city was covered with a thick layer of gray fog. They couldn’t see anything except the white glow of the temple. This experience made them want to return to St. George to be sealed there.
They stopped at four other temples on that trip. “Each time we visited a temple grounds, we felt a family togetherness,” Mom said. On the way home, they stopped and ate at a hotel. The hotel employees were so impressed with the children’s polite behavior and kind manner that they gave the entire family free dessert.

I saw that a few years ago in a deacons quorum where I had been called to teach the lessons. A few of the deacons failed to come to the quorum meetings from time to time. I knew that the teaching in that quorum—and in every quorum—was the charge of the president, who had keys. He was to sit in council with all of them. And so I have made a habit of seeking the counsel of the one with the charge from God by asking him, “What do you think I should teach? What should I try to accomplish?”
I learned to follow his counsel because I knew God had given him responsibility for the teaching of his quorum members. I knew one Sunday that God had honored the charge to a young quorum president. I was teaching the deacons. I noticed an empty chair. There was a recording device sitting on the chair, and I could see that it was running. After the class, a boy sitting next to the empty chair picked up the recorder. As he started to leave the room, I asked him why he had recorded our discussion. He smiled and said that another deacon had told him that he wouldn’t be in the quorum that day. He was taking the recorder to his friend at home so that he could listen to our lesson.
I had trusted in the responsibility given to a young quorum president, so help from heaven came. The Spirit came to touch the members in that room and sent one of them to a friend to try to strengthen his faith and lead him to repentance. The deacon carrying the recorder had learned according to the covenants, and he reached out to help his friend and fellow member in the quorum.

My grandmother, Isabelle Bawden Bangerter, was known to be a woman of great faith. She acquired her faith as a child and worked to increase it all her life. She taught Relief Society for many years, and among Relief Society sisters she was known as a theologian, a woman who knew the gospel well and could teach it from the scriptures. She was still studying the scriptures when she died at the age of 97. Grandma Bangerter was a woman who was confident in her eternal roles and responsibilities. When I was a young mother, I asked her if it was possible to rear a righteous posterity in a world filled with wickedness. She raised herself up, and pointing at me, she emphatically said, “Yes! You must! That is why you are here!” Her teaching inspired me to become more intentional about my responsibilities and to approach life with greater faith. It is possible to have that kind of direct and inspired teaching every week in Relief Society.

I know from my own life that Eliza’s experience can be our own long after we leave childhood. In the early years of my career, I worked hard to secure a tenured professorship at Stanford University. I thought I had made a good life for myself and for my family. We lived close to my wife’s parents in very comfortable surroundings. By the world’s standards, I had achieved success. But I was given by the Church the chance to leave California and go to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. My lifetime professional objectives might have been a pavilion dividing me from a loving Father who knew better than I did what my future could hold. But I was blessed to know that whatever success I had in my career and family life to that point was a gift from God. And so, like a child, I knelt in prayer to ask what I should do. I was able to hear a quiet voice in my mind that said, “It’s my school.” There was no pavilion shielding me from God. In faith and humility, I submitted my will to His and felt His care and closeness.

Pam Carpenter must be a storybook princess. She is pretty, petite, and always smiling. She reigns over a huge kingdom complete with castles, lakes, islands, ships, and spaceships. And she is entertained by flights of fantasy from Peter Pan, rides with Alice in Wonderland and her friends and Captain Nemo, and pirate cruises. Her special friends include Dumbo, Goofy, Donald Duck, Chip and Dale, Mickey Mouse, and hosts of other delightful storybook characters.
Unlike most other storybook princesses, Pam works very hard at being a princess. She always looks nice, is always on the alert for people who need her special help, and graciously welcomes thousands of visitors to her kingdom each day. Such royal responsibilities seem to belong quite naturally to Pam Carpenter, a young Latter-day Saint convert from Orlando, Florida. This pretty young lady possesses a delightful combination of charm, wit, and an encyclopedic knowledge of her kingdom, and she is a person who loves helping others.
No wonder she was chosen to be the official ambassador for Walt Disney World in Florida, chosen for her special responsibilities from the more than 13,000 employees at Disney World. Because many people try out for this position, applying for it involved a series of taxing tests and interviews.
“I really wanted this, but it is so much more than just a job,” said Pam. “During the year you are an ambassador, you have to devote most of your time to it. I always come in early and stay late, and travel much of the time.
“I knew I wanted the job and felt I had something to offer and so I tried out four different years. At first I thought that if I had to try out more than once then maybe I should forget it. But then I realized that was my false pride talking, not me. I finally realized that I did not get the position to begin with because I was not ready for it—I did not know enough about what I was doing.
“The first time I tried out I felt knew all there was to know about Disney. I walked into that room and there were five managers there for the first interview. I was so scared I could hardly talk to them—my voice kind of squeaked out, I gave them all the wrong answers, and I didn’t say anything I wanted to say. I am basically a shy person, and I knew I would have to work harder at being able to get up and speak to groups and being able to present my thoughts in a clear way. So I studied and learned all the facts I could about Disney World. I learned how many acres there are in Bay Lake, how many beams were laid beneath the contemporary hotel, and how many leaves are growing on the Swiss Family tree house. And I tried to develop my poise. I transferred into tour guiding, and this helped me in talking to people and becoming more outgoing.
“I prepared in every way that I could, and then I gave it my big try. Now I am so glad that I did not give up earlier because I have had so many great experiences and met so many wonderful people. After I became ambassador, I even joined Toastmasters International where I learned more about addressing large audiences,” she added.
During the early part of her reign, Pam investigated and joined the Church.
“I had dated a Mormon, and was interested in his great family life. His family members are wonderful together, and I enjoyed spending time with them. I could see they had the key to something important that I wanted in my life. The gospel helps me to appreciate all the people I meet, but it really showed me the importance of the family unit. I love my own family even more since I joined the Church.
“I really feel that I was introduced to the Church for a reason. Meeting other Mormons reading, and talking to the missionaries all felt so right to me. I agreed with everything they taught me. It seemed so natural for me to be baptized. To me it was a very simple process; it wasn’t a big ‘do I or don’t I’ situation. I was learning things I already believed in before I ever heard of the Church. I hadn’t picked up any bad habits to overcome, so I feel like a very natural Mormon.”
Being an example for the Church comes naturally for Pam because of her experience as an ambassador. She was told when she became an ambassador that she represented all 13,000 employees and the whole Disney organization. She was chosen because she was the kind of person that her employer felt good about representing their image.
“To me there is a very specific tie-in between my job and the Church. For Disney I represent the clean, wholesome, all-American look. This is almost more of an attitude than a fashion style. You can’t really look one way and feel the other way inside. Clean, wholesome goodness is something that will never go out of style. That is one of the reasons there are strict dress codes for all of the employees here. We do not even allow men in the park without their shirts and women have to be in modest clothing. I think all young Latter-day Saints ought to try and set this kind of an example. We should be on our toes and demonstrate by the way we look and act what the gospel can do for our lives. It just is not that much trouble to be well-groomed. Combing your hair, dressing cleanly and neatly, and being generally pleasant is the kind of example I think we all should set. What a powerful influence we would be on the world if all members of the Church would be this way. And as long as I am ambassador here, it is expected that I be this kind of good example. I was always taught at home that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right, and that is one reason I got this position in the first place. It is also one of the reasons I am having such a good year as an ambassador. I am sure not planning on changing my outlook after I leave,” she said.
Of course, Pam’s duties include more than walking around Disney World in a clean uniform. She travels widely in the U.S. and Canada, appears on many television shows and radio interviews, gives VIP tours through her kingdom, and in the company of Mickey and some of her other fantastic friends appears at children’s hospitals and schools for handicapped children.
“We take the Magic Kingdom to people who can’t get out to see it on their own. This is the most exciting and fulfilling part of my ambassador duties. There is a special warmth associated with our hospital visits because we know that many of the people we visit will never come to Disney World in person. You should see the delighted children’s faces when Mickey and the other characters walk into a hospital ward. It puts a very bright spot in the normal daily hospital routine where everything is sort of gray and white. I’ve seen patients smile who the nurses say hadn’t smiled for months. One little girl had been in a coma, and when she came out of it, they could get no response from her. She just lay there. We walked in, and she said, ‘Mickey Mouse.’ Then she smiled. The nurses thought this was incredible because they hadn’t got any kind of a response out of her for months,” Pam said.
In addition to heads of state, royalty, and entertainment and movie stars, Pam was able to show President and Sister Kimball through the Magic Kingdom.
“At the time I had only been a member of the Church for a few months, and I felt honored. I enjoyed being in the presence of this warm, wonderful, great man. Meeting President and Sister Kimball was a tremendous privilege for me because I realize how few people, some who have been in the Church all their lives, ever get this opportunity.
“I’ve had other great experiences this year as well. I met Great Britain’s Queen Mother in Toronto and many other special people who have taught me important things about life. On one of our programs in Washington, D.C., there was a young singer who was blind. He told how when he was young his parents thought he should be sheltered and kept apart from the rest of the world, so they fenced him into the backyard. He didn’t go to school; he didn’t have any friends. He was totally shut away. Yet he had learned to sing, and here he was on this program with national political figures and entertainers. This young man gave us all goosebumps with his singing. He sang ‘The Impossible Dream’ and showed us that being blind doesn’t need to be such a bad thing after all,” she said.
Pam’s work at hospitals and children’s schools has given her a special interest in the handicapped. She is learning sign language and now regularly assists the visitors to Disney World who are hearing impaired.
“I’ve been able to sign for our arts festival and recently at the Ohio and Pennsylvania schools for the deaf. You can’t imagine how excited these kids are when they learn that I am from Disney World and that I can communicate with them in sign language,” Pam said.
Before she got her job, Pam never realized how demanding or fulfilling the life of a storybook princess could be, but to her the rewards are more than worth the effort, for her job and her joys are in bringing happiness and laughter to others.
“Life is wonderful for me. I am having such a great year.* I joined the Church and I like doing all of the Church things—being around Mormons, attending meetings, and especially going to family home evenings. I love helping others, and get a special joy out of helping handicapped people. These experiences make me humble and give me a great appreciation for the things that I have, including the great privilege it is to be able to help make other people happy,” Pam said.

Mary Carmen said, “I first learned about the Church when two missionaries came tracting through our block. We were very active in another church, but we couldn’t feel the Spirit of the Lord the way we can feel it now. The day before the missionaries came, my mother had been praying that the gospel might enter our home more fully, but she certainly didn’t expect it to be delivered by two Mormon missionaries! I know that the Church is true. I have no doubts. I feel I am the happiest person in the world. I love every person here today because I know that you are all my brothers and sisters. I want the whole world to be happy.”

Today I received the December New Era, and it was a blessing and inspiration in my life. The article “The Christmas Present” was especially close to my heart because four years ago I too spent Christmas day in a hospital bed. I had sustained a badly broken back and serious internal injuries as the result of a car accident. As I read this article, I was reading about myself because the emotions expressed were the same ones I was feeling then—loneliness and depression. But thanks to a beautiful family and a lot of wonderful people in the Anaheim California Stake, it was a beautiful Christmas. My back was completely healed, and my heart is full tonight as I thank you for sharing this article. I especially want to thank Brother Dearden for “forcing” me to relive that Christmas four years ago and remember again how greatly I am blessed.
Shelley SheltonEl Paso, Texas

The patient was tall, good-looking, and dressed in white, and he looked into my eyes without uttering a word. I had come to pick up his prescription so I could go buy his medication.
Just then a nurse, also dressed in white, appeared and held out a piece of paper to me. It seemed to be a medical history.
“Is this his file number?” I asked.
She did not reply but merely turned the sheet over. There on the back was a number: 12.830.
This incident would not be remarkable in any way if it were not for the fact that this particular patient had died more than a year before, on 7 April 1990. He was my younger brother, Carlos Hugo, and I was only dreaming.
I awoke at 4:00 A.M. and immediately wrote down the number. That same day I got up early and told my daughter Ana about the dream. I showed her the number, and she said it looked like a date, not a number on a medical file. A light went on in my mind. This dream had to have something to do with the family history information I was looking for on my paternal grandmother. For 10 years I had tried to find my father’s birth certificate. With no success, I had turned my efforts toward locating information on his mother.
When I had the dream, I had intended to return to the historical archives in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, to see if researchers had found any information that might be useful to me. I had asked them to search the years between 1925 and 1932. But before going to the archives, I felt a strong prompting to visit the Godoy Cruz cemetery.
By 8:00 A.M. that same morning, I was asking Mr. Paz, an employee at the cemetery, if he would do me the favor of using that date to look through his records for any information on the death of my grandmother, Margarita Flores. As he leafed through the old worn books, I prayed silently and fervently.
Suddenly I heard him say, “Well, are you ever lucky! This is where your grandmother is buried.” He wrote out a document so stating, signed it, affixed a seal to it, and then kindly went with me to sector H, where I saw a small brass plate that read, “Margarita Flores. Died 12/8/1930”—the same date I had seen in my dream.
I was not yet born when my grandmother died. But more than 60 years after her death, I was able to find the place where she was buried.
I next went to the archives to see if they had found anything relating to my grandmother. “Negative,” said the man who waited on me. I handed him the certificate Mr. Paz had given me at the cemetery, and five minutes later I was holding a photocopy of my grandmother’s death certificate in my hands. Using this information, I was eventually able to locate my father’s birth certificate and the names of my great-grandparents.
In His infinite mercy, our loving Heavenly Father had made it possible for necessary information to be communicated to me. I immediately sent all the data I had obtained to the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple so that vicarious ordinances could be performed.
I know I have much more to do. But I also know that when our minds and hearts are willing and when we make the effort, we receive help from heaven. One day there will be a glorious resurrection, and with all my being I desire to find myself united with my loved ones.

Adult leaders of the youth in the Hong Kong China Stake asked the youth council to choose their own service project. After the youth looked into their community’s needs, they decided to teach children from low-income families at a local school. Around 125 youth taught over 80 schoolchildren about developing talents, making healthy food, holding family gatherings, and creating true friendships.
“This was not just a one-time influence,” said Anita Shum, stake Young Women president. “What the youth have done with the kids could have a lasting effect.” She added that the youth now have good memories and experiences that will bless them forever.

I will forever remember a missionary who was sent to our mission to be a great trial to his mission president and help me learn patience. He was nearly 27 years of age and came to the mission with much of the wrong kind of experiences in life and I am convinced that he was sent on a mission by wonderful priesthood leaders as a 'last hope strategy' to save his soul. He did not like North Americans, His President, Mission Rules, nor talks in Zone Conference about obedience. The Chile Area Presidency had challenged us as Mission Presidents to help our Latin missionaries learn English. You can only image .. (no you probably can't) how he felt about that. He challenged every bit of counsel I gave. Though in our many many interviews, he promised to try to be better and more compliant to do things the LORD'S WAY, within a few weeks he failed in his resolve and returned to his OWN WAY. After many visits with him and invitations to 'have a mighty change in his heart' -- (or any kind of change for the better). In time, I received permission and advice from the Area Presidency to send him home at anytime the Spirit dictated that I should. I counseled with his Stake President (in one of those 'other kind' of telephone calls) and we agreed that this missionary was likely only a 'telephone call away' from going home at some point in the future.

However our LOVE for him, The Lords Love for him, and I am sure that the answers to the prayers of his aging and faithful parents prevented me from doing so four or five times during the first 15 months of his mission.

However, one day while LOVE was still in my heart, PATIENCE ran out!!! After learning from his zone leader of something he had done, I turned to the missionary serving as my secretary and with some emotion (I confess) I asked him to purchase an airline ticket, that the moment had arrived this missionary would be going home. I instructed that I had already conducted all the interviews with this missionary that I intended to have, that I had warned him of the consequences of his actions so many times, that I had done all I could. I requested that he return home, without honor, on the next plane.

To my Assistants I turned and instructed them to go find him (if they could), inform him, help him get packed, and make sure he was at the airport on time to meet his flight. As the office staff left my office, there was a "still" and a profound silence in the office corridor as they moved around shuffling papers and doing what was necessary to do what I had asked. Few words were spoken among them and a kind of 'thick' silence prevailed.

A few long quiet minutes passed and then one of my assistants (who had just recently been called to serve as my assistant and would normally continue in that assignment for two to four more months), meekly and humbly approached the door of my office asking me if he could talk to me alone for a minute.

Certainly I said.

He stood quiet for a few precious moments not knowing how to say what he wanted to say and then reverently said "Presidente, por favor -- Please don't send him home!" With a tear now in his eye he once again begged, "please don't send him home. We just can't let him go home like this. Going home like this will ruin his life. You know what will happen if he goes home like this. Presidente, I will do anything you tell me to do but I am respectfully asking you to release me as your assistant (remember he's just begun his time as service as my assistant). Please release me and let me be his companion and let us try again, and again, and even again, if necessary.

No, I shall never forget the image of this humble latin missionary standing one day in a mission office in Santiago Chile (at about noon) with the LOVE of CHRIST in his brown eyes pleading for the chance to LIFT and serve his undeserving and six years older associate. I just will never forget that image -- nor the feelings I felt that day.

After a kneeling prayer together, followed by continued personal soul searching, and seeking the advice of the Area Presidency -- a few hours later the will of the Lord dictated that I release my assistant and continue on with an effort to LIFT our confused associate. The process of his going home was aborted. We made the necessary changes, and Elder Ramirez went out to serve his new companion.

In the days, weeks, then months that followed the missionary CHANGED. I can't tell you for sure how -- but His younger companion, the Spirit, and love changed and lifted him. It was one of those miracles you always hope for. He changed. In time he was trusted enough to become a trainer. He finished his mission. He expressed almost weekly, verbally and in writing, his love and gratitude for me and my companion Sister Christensen. He spoke of Jesus Christ and the atonement in his interviews. Our love for him changed and expanded too. And this missionary who once had an extreme dislike for North Americans. Stood to share his final testimony with nearly one hundred missionaries (75% North American) by expressing his love for them. He thanked them for their patience and expressed his love for the Lord and his mission. It was simple and undiluted and he gave it in English). A few weeks after his return home, I was in attendance at area meetings, where his stake president sought me out to inform me that this "Several-times-almost-sent-home-without-honor-and-then- finally-Honorably-Released-Returned-Missionary" had been called to the High Council in his stake in Southern Chile and was serving excellently and enthusiastically. He has since been married and sealed in the temple.

I am thankful for LIFTERS!

For example, in my high school days I chose not to study on Sundays. I would study until midnight on Saturday and then ask my mom to wake me up early on Monday morning. I kept the Sabbath day holy. Sometimes I felt a little uncomfortable because I knew that my classmates were spending the whole day studying. In Korea, getting into a good university is a serious goal. But even if I had a test on Monday, I did not study on Sunday. Because I had one day fewer to study, I really had to focus my attention. I think I made better use of my study time because of this focus. In the end I was one of the top students in my high school, and I got into one of the most prestigious universities in Korea.

I had one student come to my office. I knew him personally. He had a very difficult problem He was trying to decide should he or should he not marry. I asked him, “You’ve come for counsel?”
“Yes, indeed,” he said.
“Are you going to follow it when I give it to you?” I asked. That was a surprise to him.
Finally he consented—“Yes.”
I happened to know his father—a patriarch in the Church, as wonderful a man as there is. I said, “This is my counsel. Go home this weekend. Talk to your father, get him in a bedroom or some private place, tell him your dilemma, ask him for his counsel, and do what he tells you to do. That is my counsel.”