Gospel Story Finder

When I was 14 years old, two missionaries knocked at our door. They began teaching my family about the true nature of God. In the visits that followed, they taught us how to pray. They also taught us about the Restoration and the plan of salvation. After the third or fourth visit, most of my family stopped listening to the missionaries, except for my 17-year-old sister, Dina, and me. We both felt the witness of the Holy Ghost in our hearts and received the spiritual confirmation that the message was true.
My sister and I obtained a copy of the Book of Mormon and began reading it. Every day after school, we raced home to get to the book first. While the first one home was reading, the other one impatiently waited until mealtime, ate in a hurry, and then took her turn reading until bedtime. Such was the excitement we felt.
We started attending church, and soon we asked to be baptized. Our father gave his permission, but our mother was hesitant. It took one more month before she signed the permission slip. On the day of our baptism, the rest of our family went to church for the first time. Mother felt the Spirit. After hearing our testimonies, she asked the missionaries to start teaching her again. A few weeks later, Mother and our younger sister and brothers were baptized.

Elder Kelly R. Johnson remembers well the day he was called as a bishop at age 31. That same day he was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy—a condition in which the muscles on one side of the face become paralyzed or weakened.
It was a challenging time, not only because of the discomfort and embarrassment caused by the condition but also because of his many new responsibilities. But that difficult time became a blessing.
“Not knowing what the long-term situation would be, I developed a compassion for individuals that has been with me through the rest of my life,” he said. “I really learned that people go through tough and sad things they can’t control that impact their abilities, feelings, and confidence.”

The first branch of the Church in Scotland was established in Paisley. Early convert Andrew Sprowl was baptised there in May 1841. Two months later he was called as a missionary in the Paisley Branch. His journal is replete with baptisms and confirmations, many of them being his own relatives. He made this entry in his journal dated 24th March 1847:
“The place where we immerse in the water of baptism is only large enough to admit the administrator and the candidate. The spot where we immerse is only about two feet of a waterfall over which the water leaps into the place where we perform the baptisms. It is fairly secluded by trees all around a gently rising hill just above. In this place, the greatest number of the Saints have come into this branch and have been baptised here.
This place seems to be hallowed by the frequent baptisms that have been performed, joy and peace rests upon this place. The Spirit of the Lord is here when we come together to obey the voice of the Redeemer, Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God.
The name of this beautiful scenic place is the Meikleriggs Burn.”
This is the only known written description of this baptismal site. Between February and May 1840 the first eighty convert baptisms were performed here and it was continuously used up to at least 1847. I knew the burn, but Paisley has grown a great deal over the years and it seemed as if the burn was now underground.

Frequently the need of the widow is not one of food or shelter but of feeling a part of ongoing events. President Bryan Richards of Salt Lake City, now serving as a mission president, brought to my office a sweet widow whose husband had passed away during a full-time mission they were serving. President Richards explained that her financial resources were adequate and that she desired to contribute to the Church’s General Missionary Fund the proceeds of two insurance policies on the life of her departed husband. I could not restrain my tears when she meekly advised me, “This is what I wish to do. It is what my missionary-minded husband would like.”
The gift was received and entered as a most substantial donation to missionary service. I saw the receipt made in her name, but I believe in my heart it was also recorded in heaven. I invited her and President Richards to follow me to the unoccupied First Presidency Council room in the Church Administration Building. The room is beautiful and peaceful. I asked this sweet widow to sit in the chair usually occupied by our church President. I felt he would not mind, for I knew his heart. As she sat ever so humbly in the large leather chair, she gripped each armrest with a hand and declared, “This is one of the happiest days of my life.” It was also such for President Richards and for me.

At age fifteen, Susana Fernandez-Rebollos Herrero of Madrid, Spain, is a champion. Competing against sixty-two female participants in the national fencing championships, she won the title as the best female fencer in Spain in her age group.
Her victory was a result of long hours of training and sacrifices. After discovering the sport when she was eleven years old, she read a story in the Liahona about LDS athletes. Inspired by the article, she set a goal to become a champion in fencing and, with encouragement of her family and friends, has done just that, winning many medals and cups along the way.
Susana was too young to participate in the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992, but she is preparing for the next Olympics.

Four years ago, he was preparing to submit his mission papers. Then one day while he was lifting weights, his world collapsed. A blood clot in his brain caused him to have a major stroke. His doctors doubted that he would live. The part of his brain that controlled his muscles was severely damaged. He could not move. He could not speak or even breathe on his own.

His ward fasted and prayed for him, and Fernando lived. Eventually he came home from the hospital, but he was still unable to move or speak. His parents, Vilmar and Noeli Gaertner, and his therapists worked tirelessly with him. Fernando grew closer to Heavenly Father as he depended on Him to get through each day. Life was now very serious for Fernando, and he took nothing for granted, especially the gospel. While Fernando worked hard at recovering physically, he also studied the gospel. He learned patience and faith as each new ability took months to develop. After much effort, he was able to sit in a wheelchair. The first time he was able to attend church, tears filled Fernando’s and the ward members’ eyes.

Then in January 1999, the Lindon 17th Ward, Lindon Utah Stake, was created. The new ward members didn’t talk much to Fernando. He was just beginning to speak again, and his words were not clear and came very slowly.
The leaders of the new ward, however, felt very strongly that President Gordon B. Hinckley’s directive that new members of the Church need “a friend, a responsibility, and nurturing with ‘the good word of God’ (Moro. 6:4)”* applied to all the members of their newly formed ward—including Fernando. He was called to be the Primary greeter. That calling has been a great blessing in his life and in the lives of the children in his ward.
Fernando welcomes each child and adult to Primary. “The first time he was there,” said Sister Terris, a counselor in the Primary, “the Spirit was so strong that I had tears in my eyes. He was so excited about his calling!”
That first Sunday Fernando struggled to speak and shake hands with everyone. But each week, his arms and hands grew a little stronger and his speech became a little clearer.
“Even though the little kids don’t always understand him,” Tasha Hansen (11) said, “they feel his spirit and pay attention. You really feel it.”
“He’s nice,” Britton Green (6) added. “He always gets so excited when he sees us.”
“And he knows my name,” Cade Terris (7) said.
“The calling as a greeter let me get to know the little children,” Fernando pointed out. “They are the greatest! Then I got to know their parents. They are all my friends now.”
The children are very comfortable around Fernando because they know that he loves them. Once, the Primary chorister asked him to hold up a poster for a song. Fernando tried, but he did not have the strength to do it. One by one, the children came up and encircled him so that he could rest the chart in his lap and they could still see it.
As they came to know him better, the children wanted to help him recover. They wanted to help him fulfill his desire to serve the Lord with all his heart. They wanted him to be able to serve a mission, which he still hopes to do one day.
“The children are always there to help me. I’m learning to speak better because they are always speaking to me,” he said.
“At first, sometimes I would know what he was going to say and answer him before he finished,” Tasha Hansen said. “But I don’t do that now because I know that he needs to practice talking.”
“Once I walked into Primary and he gave me a special handshake,” Jake Green (9) said. “Now he does it with all the boys.” The children created other new handshakes to help Fernando strengthen all the different muscles in his hands.
One Sunday, when Fernando entered the Primary room dressed as Abinadi, the children suddenly quieted down. Knowing how hard it is for him to speak, they know that each word is important.
Now Fernando has also been called to help teach two classes of eleven- and twelve-year-olds. “He’s getting really good at talking,” said Tori Hansen (11).
But Fernando isn’t the only one with new responsibilities in his ward. Families and individuals, including Primary children, have been asked to help with his therapy. They listen to him read, play with him to exercise his muscles, and talk with him. Or they may take him walking.
Jake Green enjoys playing Chinese checkers with him, “but Fernando always wins. He’s too good!”
“It’s quite a sight when we take Fernando walking,” the Terris family laughs. “We squeeze everyone and everything into the car—his wheelchair, his walker, Fernando, and, of course, all of our family. Then we drive to the place where we walk.”
Once the Green family was walking with Fernando by the Provo River. He stood by a fence and threw a stone into the water. It gave him such pleasure to at last be able to stand balanced against the fence and throw a rock, that Britton and Jake picked up several more stones for him to throw.
“We feel good when we help him,” Jake explained.
“The first time I saw him walk with his walker was really special,” Sammy Whirley (7) said. “We have also tried flying kites. We still need to work on that.”
Shayly Terris (11) was asked to read with him and help him practice pronouncing words. “He asked me questions, and I got to know him better. After we finished reading, my mom and I went to help him get back into bed, and he fell and hit his head. He just said, ‘Shhhh, don’t tell Mom.’ He never complains!”
“He helps me look at other people in wheelchairs differently,” Eddie Terris (14) said. “They really can do a lot of things!”
Meagan Hansen (15) remembered the first time her family took him walking at the track. “There is a chain that prevents people from driving cars onto the track. My Dad asked Fernando, ‘How do you get over that?’ ‘I jump,’ he answered. Dad gave him a look, and Fernando said, ‘Seriously.’ So we wheeled him up to the chain and waited to see what he would do. He just lifted the chain up and rolled under it.”
Conner Hansen (8) said, “Sometimes I think my problems are really bad, but when I look at Fernando’s problems, I don’t complain.”
The Hansens add, “No matter what comes up, we don’t miss walking with Fernando. He’s amazing! He helps us keep an eternal perspective. It’s the best thing we do each month.”
Fernando works hard every single day to improve. “I always believed I would get better. I just take it one day at a time.”
“In time he will get better,” Talmage Hansen (11) declared. “He believes it, and so do I.”
Having so many friends in the ward who love and help him, and knowing that he is an invaluable influence in their lives, has helped Fernando continue trying. His strong spirit and testimony have spiritually strengthened those who have helped him strengthen his physical body.
Fernando may have to wait to serve a full-time mission, but he is touching the lives of the Primary children in his ward right now by his example of faith, patience, and trust in the Lord. And they are touching his with their patience, love, and service. “I hope that the children know that they really can help others,” he said.

I was nervous, but I remembered a story about President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) when he received a mission call to England. He was preparing to leave in the midst of economic pressures and concerns that troubled him. Just before he left, his father handed him a card with five written words: “Be not afraid, only believe” (Mark 5:36). I also remembered the words of my bishop: “Have faith. God will provide.” These words gave me courage and strength to move forward.

As he was growing up, Douglas L. Callister often accompanied his father and grandfather as they fulfilled Church assignments such as visiting members, presiding at meetings, or speaking at firesides. “They wanted their posterity to see them in the context of honoring the priesthood,” says Elder Callister, “and as we drove to and from their assignments, they would always share their experience and testimony with me.”
That caring tutelage has played an important role in preparing Elder Callister to serve in the Second Quorum of the Seventy. “A life-altering experience for me,” says Elder Callister, “was that training that came from those generations of family members who were willing to teach me.” Elder Callister continues to teach his own posterity just as his own father and grandfather taught him.

We recently hosted in this hall a convention of many officers of a part of the United States military forces. They were holding a conference here in Salt Lake City and wished to hear the Tabernacle Choir.
They came on a beautiful Sunday morning. I was asked to speak to them briefly, and I told them of this Tabernacle and its construction. The choir, accompanied by the 23rd Army Band, then presented a brief concert. As they concluded the concert, the Choir sang with mounting crescendo the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. …
His truth is marching on.
[Hymns, 1985, no. 60]
I looked about the hall and saw seasoned veterans of war with tears running down their cheeks. For many it was a great, moving experience. This building has a spirit, a quality unique and wonderful.

When their friends or family members play sports, Stephen’s and Richard’s participation is limited. But the two boys don’t see themselves as handicapped. They always give everything their best shot.
For example, when Richard (whose reflexes are better than Stephen’s) got a skateboard, Stephen wanted to ride it too. He didn’t give up until he had learned to balance and roll slowly down the street.
“He’s got real stick-to-itiveness,” Brother Frustaci says. “Neither of them gives up.”

When times were tough, I learned to take time to feel joy in the little moments—the gifts—that are given to us. When my son cannot help but give me a kiss, I am grateful. When I watched my son ride the bus without anyone to sit with, I was blessed to have this scripture come into my mind: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up” (D&C 84:88). I knew that Brad was not alone and never will be.

Steve Young is one of the most gifted young men that I have ever known. He is fast, strong, big, handsome, … and rich. It is easy for us to look at Steve and say, “With all those attributes, you ought to be great.” However, it is more than his physical attributes that have made him great; it is the way he thinks! When Steve was a junior and was starting his first season as our quarterback, we had one of the greatest opportunities presented to us in our football program at BYU. We were scheduled to play Herschel Walker and the University of Georgia, the defending national champions. We worked very hard and felt we had a chance to beat them if we played our very best and did not make mistakes.
Before 82,000 fans, and on a “rainy day in Georgia,” Steve threw five interceptions in the first half of the game—more than he would normally throw in five games! In spite of the interceptions and two missed field goal attempts, we were still tied 7–7 at halftime.
Going into the dressing room, I thought to myself that I must talk to Steve and assure him that everything would be fine. The rain, the crowd, the tipped balls, etc.—I had all the excuses ready for throwing five interceptions in one half. I started explaining this to Steve and before I could finish, Steve stopped me, looked at me as if I was crazy, and said, “Hey coach, there’s no problem. I can hardly wait to get back out there. We’re going to win.” I found myself thinking, “What do you mean there’s no problem, you dummy. You have just thrown five interceptions!” It’s the way he thinks. That’s what has made him what he is and enabled him to accomplish what he has done. As you know, this was just the start of a career that would see him become one of the finest quarterbacks to play the game of college football.

Several years ago, President Russell M. Nelson invited the young adults of the Church “to increase their testimony” and “learn all they can about Jesus Christ.” He asked them to spend some time each week “to study everything Jesus said and did as recorded in the standard works” using the scripture citations under the heading Jesus Christ in the Topical Guide or Guide to the Scriptures.

At that time, President Nelson had already “read and underlined every verse cited about Jesus Christ, as listed under the main heading and the 57 subtitles in the Topical Guide.” He studied over 2,200 scriptures! It took him six weeks to complete the task. When President Nelson’s wife Wendy asked him what impact studying all those scriptures had on him, he said, “I am a different man!”

His acquaintance with the Church began in 1962, when Mensah was introduced to the Church by an English woman named Lilian Emily Clark. After reading about Dr. Mensah’s appeal for support in a local magazine, she wanted to help. Emily never joined the Church, but she did have Church literature and books she was no longer using that had been given to her by sister missionaries while she lived in Cornwall, England.
Acclaimed as a “highly spiritual man who could heal people’s ailments with prayers”1 Mensah soon persuaded others to join him in organizing the Church. In Ghana, however, building up a congregation presented a financial challenge for Mensah’s group. He prayed in faith but had no success. The kind of assistance needed was not forthcoming from the Church. God had another plan for this small group.
In 1964, Joseph William Billy Johnson joined Mensah’s group. Johnson was a captain of the Army of Jesus in the Aladura Church, a position equivalent to the calling of an elders quorum president in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That year, an associate gave him some Church tracts. After reading them, Johnson began sharing the gospel with others and he wrote to Church headquarters. “He received from President David O. McKay [1873-1970] encouragement to continue studying the scriptures and to be patient and faithful until missionaries could be sent to Africa.”2
How these two religious leaders came to agreement to work together organizing such an unfamiliar church is linked to a miraculous event.
Six months before meeting with Johnson, Mensah had a dream that someone named Johnson would be able to help establish the Church. Mensah became aware of Johnson through his brother, Isaac Mensah, after Johnson had given him financial assistance through his position of captain. After Mensah’s dream, he invited Johnson to meet with him in his home.
According to Johnson, Mensah “asked me to pray with him so that the Lord might sustain the LDS Mission in Ghana because he had been facing trials since he started the work.”3 While praying, Johnson had a vision in which he saw an unfamiliar book—the Book of Mormon. When he asked about the book, Mensah pulled out a Book of Mormon from under the bed in the room where they had prayed.
As Johnson recognized the book in his vision, they both experienced a rich outpouring of the Spirit of God. Johnson accepted a gift of a Book of Mormon and the invitation to help build the Church while receiving continuing revelation that what he was doing was truly the Lord’s will.
Despite achieving success in growing their congregation while waiting on the Church to be officially recognized in Ghana, problems within the leadership threatened the church because Mensah continued to teach protestant doctrine while Johnson did not. Johnson, wanting to teach the gospel as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, found most of their church members agreed with him.
Seeing the leadership begin to sway towards Johnson, Mensah demanded he should leave and “never come to the church again.”4 When Johnson left, most of the congregation followed him and Mensah joined with a Pentecostal group. They temporarily reunited to keep the converts together and in 1969 Johnson left to establish his own congregation of converts in Cape Coast.
On June 8, 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball (1894-1987) extended priesthood ordination to all worthy males regardless of race. On December 9, 1978, Johnson, Mensah, and other pioneers were baptized into the Church. The next day the Cape Coast Branch was organized with J.W.B. Johnson as branch president.

What’s wrong?
I heard Miguel and Julia talking about me.
They said I was annoying. And they don’t want to be my friend anymore.
I’m really sorry.
You know, they’re just missing out! I always have fun with you.
Seriously! You even make chores fun somehow. You have the best jokes! And the best ideas. And you’re nice to everyone.
OK, OK. You don’t have to say all that.
Hey, I’m just telling the truth.
Thanks, Paolo. You always know what to say. I feel a lot better.
Illustrations by Katie McDee

The door burst open. Cold winter air rushed into the hall with Billy. Mike, his older brother, crowded in behind, followed by Mom and Dad.
“Grandma! We’re here for dinner!” Billy shouted. He hurried into the kitchen, smelling spicy pumpkin pie, roasted turkey, and sage dressing.
Grandma smiled. “It’ll take a while to get dinner on the table, boys,” she said. “You’ll find crayons and paper on the hall table. How about a picture?”
At the table, Mike began coloring, but Billy peered into the living room. It was full of porcelain figurines, an old sugar bowl, and other treasures. Grandma called them heirlooms. Each had its own pioneer story.
Billy’s gaze fastened on a small mirror on a shelf. Billy loved the mirror most because its story was his favorite.
It had come across the plains with Great-Great-Great-Great Grandma in a covered wagon. She was a little girl then—Billy’s age now. At the end of long days, she cried because her feet hurt from walking and her face hurt from sunburn. Sometimes she saw Indians and was frightened.
The girl’s mother would hand her the little mirror. “Look at yourself in the mirror,” she would say gently. “Heavenly Father will take care of His child.” And the little girl would be comforted, say her prayers, and go to sleep.
Billy turned away from the living room and was reaching for a red crayon when the big oval mirror at the end of the hall caught his eye. He forgot about the crayon, walked to the mirror, and stretched as tall as he could.
“What are you doing?” Mike asked.
“Trying to see a child of God.”
“Too short, huh?” Mike said. Under the mirror, a low shelf held Grandma’s prized Boston fern. “I’ll give you a boost up to the shelf.”
With Mike’s arms around him, Billy kicked his feet in search of the shelf. He found the shelf, but knocked the fern to the floor. Black dirt spilled all over the carpet. The fern was smashed and broken, its bare roots sticking into the air.
Suddenly the shelf gave way. Billy bumped heads with Mike as he fell, then landed facedown in the dirt.
“What will we do?” Billy whispered, pushing himself up.
“Sometimes the cat gets on the shelf,” Mike said. “Maybe Grandma will think the cat did it.”
“But it wouldn’t be the truth,” Billy said. “We did it, so we should tell.”
“OK, but let’s wait until after dinner.”
“Wash up and come to dinner, boys,” Mom called.
When the two boys sat down at the table, Grandpa said the blessing. Everybody started to eat, but the food tasted like rubber in Billy’s mouth.
“Is something wrong?” Dad asked.
“I don’t like peas very much,” Billy mumbled.
Dad frowned. “How did you get the bump on your forehead?”
“Excuse me,” Billy mumbled, and fled to the bathroom.
Mom and Dad followed him. “Are you sick?” Mom asked.
Billy shook his head. “I stood on Grandma’s shelf. It broke. When I fell, Mike and I bumped heads. I just wanted to see a child of God in the big mirror.” Billy’s chest heaved. “Grandma’s fern is ruined. I feel awful—not at all like a child of God.”
“I helped him get on the shelf,” Mike said in a soft voice from behind Mom and Dad. “We didn’t know it would break. I don’t feel like a child of God either.”
“We thought maybe you’d think the cat did it,” Billy said. “We decided to tell the truth after dinner.”
“Well, now,” Grandma said, joining them. “No matter what you do, you are always a child of God. But I’m glad that you chose to tell the truth.”
Grandpa looked at the bent brackets that had held the shelf to the wall. “I reckon this can be fixed,” he said. “Grandma’s fern can be repotted. It looks pretty bedraggled, but it’ll likely grow out again.”
Grandma put the broken fern into the pot. “Even if it doesn’t grow, I can get a new plant,” she said. “But I could never replace these two children of God.”
“Look,” Dad said, holding Billy up to the mirror. “See the child who was tempted to blame the cat, but didn’t? How about giving him a smile?”
Billy managed a weak smile.
Back at the table, Billy noticed that everything—even the peas—now tasted delicious.
After dinner, Billy held the little mirror as Grandma told the story of how it had comforted the girl who was his long-ago grandma.
When the story was finished, all of them took a turn telling something each was thankful for. Billy looked into the little mirror and said, “I’m thankful to be a child of God.”

Cautiously, I chose my first goal. It wasn’t a very great thing, but it was a persistent problem. I didn’t enjoy attending church. So, morning and night, I would pray: “Lord, bless me to feel about our worship services just the way thou do. Help me to find in them the things that you would find. Help me to participate in the ways that you would.” And unbelievable things began to happen. Sunday became a day filled with light; I found myself hungry to greet the other members of the Church, to share my testimony with them, to learn from the teachers, to express in song the feelings I had no words for, and to partake of the emblems of our Savior’s sacrifice with humility and gratitude. Sunday became a Sabbath. Attending Church did not mean that I had suppressed my desire to rest, read, study, ski, or play. Now it was an expression of righteous, loving desires.
That simple experience made another scripture acquire new meaning. The doctrines of the priesthood had indeed begun to distill upon my soul; as I felt the companionship of the Holy Ghost, spontaneously keeping the Sabbath day holy, “without compulsory mean,” its blessings flowed to me (see D&C 121:45–46). As this astonishing experience progressed, my faith grew and I began to have real hope that from now on my challenges could become changes.

Alma Richards stands in the Stockholm stadium at the 1912 Olympic Games.
Alma Richards’s eyes hurt as he peered at the high jump bar. It was the third day of the 1912 Olympics. The sun over Stockholm’s new brown-brick stadium was unbearably bright, irritating an eye infection that had plagued Alma for weeks. When he was not jumping, he wore an old, droopy hat to shade his eyes. But now that his turn had come again, he stepped to the side of the field and tossed his hat into the grass.4
As Alma prepared to jump, his mind raced. There he was, representing his country at the greatest athletic competition in the world. Yet he felt weak, as if the whole world were resting on his shoulders. He thought of Utah, his family, and his hometown. He thought of BYU and the Saints. Bowing his head, he silently asked God to give him strength. “If it is right that I should win,” he prayed, “I will do my best to set a good example all the days of my life.”5
Raising his head, he felt his weakness slip away. He threw his shoulders back, walked up to the starting line, and crouched into position. He then skipped forward in a burst of energy and leapt into the air, tucking his knees beneath his chin. His body barreled forward and sailed over the bar with inches to spare.
After returning from the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, Alma Richards was honored in a parade.
On the sidelines, Hans Liesche suddenly looked nervous as he warmed up for his jump. Alma ran in circles to keep his legs limber. If Hans cleared the bar, as Alma was sure he would, the bar would be raised even higher, and Alma would have to jump again.
When Hans launched into his first jump, he fell on the bar and sent it crashing to the ground. Frustrated, he returned to the field and made a second jump. Once again, he knocked the bar off its pegs.
Alma could see that his competitor was losing composure. Just as Hans squared up for his final attempt, a pistol fired nearby, signaling the start of a race. Hans waited for the runners to cross the finish line and then prepared to jump. Before he could, though, a band began playing, and he refused to start. Finally, after nine minutes, an official prodded him to hurry along. With nothing left to do but jump, Hans bounded forward and threw himself into the air.
Once again, he failed to clear the bar.6
Joy washed over Alma. The competition was over. He had won the gold medal and set an Olympic record. Hans came over and heartily congratulated him. Others soon joined in the praise. “You have put Utah on the map,” one man said.
James Sullivan, an official on the American Olympic team, was especially impressed with Alma’s coolness under pressure and wholesome lifestyle. “I wish we had a hundred clean fellows like you on our team,” he said.7
Within days, newspapers across the United States praised Alma’s victory, crediting his success in part to his religion. “They call the winner of the great jump ‘the Mormon giant,’ and he deserves the title,” one reporter wrote. “He is a self-made athlete, and his winning of world renown comes after years of endeavor and a determination inherited from the men who established the Mormon religion and made the desert blossom.”8
One of Alma’s friends, meanwhile, teased him about praying before his winning jump. “I wish you wouldn’t laugh,” Alma quietly responded. “I prayed to the Lord to give me strength to go over that bar, and I went over.”9

During this time I was blessed with so many people who would tell me about what they learned each Sunday at church. One of those people was Stephanie. She’d been living in Italy when my uncle joined the Church, but she had returned to her home in the United States. My uncle thought it would be good for us to write to each other, so I added her as a friend on Facebook.
Even though we’d never met in person, I will always be grateful to her for helping me build my faith and learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She wrote to me almost every Sunday and told me everything she learned in church and then would answer my questions. She was a great friend to me.

When Bret May was a high school freshman in Salmon, Idaho, one of his summer jobs was doing maintenance for a mobile home park. He never imagined he was beginning to discover what he wanted to do for a career. “Mostly I did upkeep work,” he says, “but I loved it when I got a chance to do landscaping.”
Other jobs followed, including a lawn-mowing business with his brother, Clint, and work with landscaping crews as he finished high school. Then he enrolled at Ricks College, a Church-sponsored school in Rexburg, Idaho, which offered a two-year degree in landscaping.
“Following my first year of schooling, I went on an occupational internship and spent about three months working for a landscape contractor in southern Utah. I gained some practical experience at that point; then after my internship I went on a mission, not knowing whether my career ideas would change.
“I was called to the Arizona Phoenix Mission, and after I’d been there about six months, I knew I was going to stick with landscaping. Every place I went, especially when I saw the beautiful homes and surroundings in Scottsdale, I just knew that’s what I wanted to do.
“But I also had a goal that I wanted to operate my own landscape installation company. When I returned from my mission, I got a little impatient. I didn’t want to go for a four-year degree, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time working for someone else. So I got my two-year degree, then set myself up so I could work for several different contractors for short periods of time, so I could get a variety of experience.” Bret realized his dream of starting his own landscaping business. Today you’ll find him in St. George, Utah, where he’s still spending his days outdoors, “creating additional living space outside people’s homes.”
If you’re trying to decide what career you want to follow, Bret suggests working for as many people as you can, with the attitude that “I’m here to work hard, and I’m here to learn.” Then, he says, “apply what you learn, and pick a program that can give you the training you need.”