Gospel Story Finder

Patch Crowe, 22, says he was born “with music inside.” As a toddler, he would wander around the house babbling songs before he could even talk. As a teen, he was part of a Nashville, Tennessee, USA, boy band, Beyond 5. The group disbanded in 2014 when members started preparing to serve full-time missions.
Recently returned from serving in the Scotland/Ireland Mission, Patch has released his first single, married his sweetheart, and is developing musical projects to inspire every listener.
“I believe Heavenly Father allows us to experience music to enhance our lives. Music makes you feel alive.”

Several years ago I was visiting with a friend—Dale Andersen—from Mesa, Arizona. At the time Dale was serving as a stake president in Mesa, and he shared a personal experience with me that, with his permission, I’d like to share with you this morning. He said:

I was preparing for our stake conference and having a bit of a stupor of thought on what I should share with the members of my stake. On the Friday night prior to conference I had a most peculiar dream—one of those dreams that was as real as any experience I have ever had while awake.

I dreamed I was at a family reunion with my entire family—my wife, my children, and my grandchildren. We were all gathered in the backyard of our home and enjoying a wonderful spring afternoon together.

And then I saw a most amazing and beautiful sight. It was a flock of blackbirds—but not an ordinary flock of blackbirds. This was one of those flocks that must have had tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of birds, all flying gracefully in perfect unison.

The birds would dart one direction, and then, as if cued by their leader, they’d immediately dart the other direction. Not a bird missed a beat. I stood there with my family—eyes transfixed. It was beautiful and captivating.

President Andersen continued:

As we watched this spectacle, the birds came closer and closer to us. It was all very exciting to see. And as we watched, we noticed the birds were pairing off two by two, and it appeared as though they were landing in the yards of all of the homes in my neighborhood. I thought this was rather peculiar. And then, as they got closer to my own backyard, the scene began to come into focus, and I realized in an instant that these were not blackbirds after all. These were dark, evil spirits!

Immediately I panicked and yelled to my family to run into the house and to lock the doors and windows. I was frantically trying to make sure all the members of my family were accounted for and safe—my sweetheart, my children, and their children. We ran through the house slamming the windows and shutting the doors and locking them tight. I gathered everyone together in our family room, where we would be safe, but then, as I turned around, there they were. I found myself standing between these two terribly evil beings and my precious family.

President Andersen said:

A window had been left ajar in the basement, and they had found their way into our home.

You know and I know that the adversary and his evil spirits are descending upon our families and trying to find their way into our homes, our apartments, and our dorms. At first they appear to be beautiful, enticing, and captivating—even to the point that, if we are not careful, our families will stand right in their path gazing upon them as though we were extending an open invitation to them to enter our homes.

Six-year-old Catherine sang as she followed Joseph and his plow down the long brown furrows, dropping yellow kernels of corn into the newly turned soil:
One for the cutworm,
One for the crow,
One to rot, and
One to grow.
Joseph called over his shoulder, “If Alvin doesn’t get back with some money, all that corn will go to the land agents. And from what I hear, they’re not about to share it with a cutworm or a crow or anything else.”
Catherine had heard her father talk about land agents, but she wasn’t sure just what they were. “What are land agents, Joseph?” she asked.
Her brother pulled the ox to a halt and explained, “They’re men who sell property. If there is a drought or your crops don’t sell and you can’t pay the mortgage money, they come and take the farm back.” Then he paused for a moment, remembering his father’s dawn-to-dark labor when they’d first cleared the land of trees to plant crops.
The whole family had helped tap the thousand sugar maple trees in the spring. Joseph also remembered the split-wood chairs and baskets and the straw brooms his father had made to sell to help pay for the farm. His father had even hired out as a hand for other farmers to bring in precious money. But still there wasn’t enough.
Catherine brought her brother back from his recollecting. “Are they going to take our farm, Joseph?”
“It looks like it, unless we can raise some more money. Alvin is still out on his job as a carpenter’s helper with a crew that’s building log houses, and Mother has been selling a lot of her painted oilcloth covers.”
“I’ve helped Mother sell cakes and gingerbread and root beer on public days,” Catherine said, beaming.
“Well, we’ve all helped. But it hasn’t been enough.” Joseph sighed as he slapped the reins against the rump of the ox. “I wish I could do something more.”
“You’ve been helping to clear trees and plowing and planting the corn and pumpkins. That’s a big help.”
“Sure. But we need money. And we need it right away.”
Catherine let out a deep breath and sat down on the broken black earth. “Will we have to let the land agents take our farm?” she asked.
“If we can’t pay all the mortgage money, we will. And the law backs them up. But it just doesn’t seem right after we’ve spent two years clearing trees from sixty acres of land and planting crops and building a four-room log house besides. They’d only turn around and sell it again for a heap of money, and we wouldn’t get a penny for all the improvements we’ve made.”
Catherine understood now why some folks said the land agents were really land robbers. The thought was still in her mind when a large black crow flew down and began to scratch for the newly planted corn. Her frustration erupted. Skirts flying, she chased after the bird, shaking her fist.
“Get out of here you old domineker!” she yelled as the bird flapped off in panic. “I won’t let you take our corn!”
Young Joseph had to laugh at the sight of her, and his laughter skipped across the clearing into the open window of the house. His mother was just lifting the lid on the cooking pot in the fireplace when she heard it. She smiled and felt a sudden sense of relief. How she wished she could stir some of it into the venison stew. They needed all the laughter they could get these days.
She left the stew sputtering against the pot lid as she called to her family. “Supper’s on!”
Later after supper, Joseph’s father, as always, felt for his spectacles. When his hand found the lower right-hand pocket of his vest, that was the signal for a reading from the Bible and for family prayer.
That night the family had an extra long prayer. Father Smith thanked Heavenly Father for His “mercy which endureth forever.” Then he pleaded for help in somehow obtaining the money that was needed. When all members of the family had added their amen, they sang the usual hymn:
Another day has passed and gone,
We lay our garments by—
The song was interrupted by a loud knock. Mr. Smith opened the door and invited a neighbor from down the road to come in.
“Much obliged, Joe. I came to ask if you’d let me hire one of your boys for a few days. I need to dig a well.”
Alvin was away working and young Joseph knew his father needed Hyrum to help cut trees. “I could do it, sir,” he said eagerly.
His father smiled. “Joseph’s able. He’ll give you a good day’s work for a day’s pay.”
“I know your boys are good workers. They’ve worked alongside their pa until they’re better than most men. That’s why I’m here. Young Joseph will be fine.”
Joseph was so happy that he had to take a big breath to keep from shouting out loud: The Lord is surely opening up the way. Things are going to work out. I’m sure of it. He was so sure that he wasn’t a bit surprised when Alvin arrived home a few days later with the money he had earned. Just the same, it was a tense moment when the whole family gathered to count their savings. Is it enough? they wondered.
Joseph held his breath as the cash was totaled. It was enough; they’d made it. Tears and laughter mingled as they realized that Alvin’s earnings added to what Joseph and the others had been able to raise would save their farm!
(To be continued.)

When my brother and I were young, we loved to visit our grandmother. She lived about 15 minutes away from our house, so we visited her frequently. Many times when we arrived at her house, she would be on the telephone. A neighbor called nearly every day just to talk. We never could understand why Grandma spent all that time talking on the phone with a neighbor. So we told her to tell her neighbor she was busy. Grandma would finish the call, smile, and then turn her attention to us.

Sixty or more years later, I realize that Grandma wasn’t being bothered by her neighbor’s frequent calls. Rather, these two widows were supporting each other—talking together when others didn’t have the same time or interest just to visit.

When you first talk to Danny Ray, an 18-year-old elder in the Fredericton Ward of the Saint John New Brunswick Stake, he’ll tell you he’s “into a lot of things.” He’ll talk about his first year at the University of New Brunswick, his preparation for a mission, and how he serves as a stake missionary and doubles as a Primary teacher, instructing the Sunbeams.
And then he mentions his interest in bats. Whoa!
Danny’s made a hobby of making friends with numerous little brown bats, the species indigenous to his area of eastern Canada.
“Each bat can eat 600 mosquitoes in an hour,” he proudly states. “We have a lot of insects where we live.” The way Danny looks at it, the bats provide a public service by ridding the neighborhood of the pesky insect.
So enamored of bats is Danny that he’s been known to let the nocturnal mammal fly around his room—with his mother’s blessing. “Mom’s fine with it,” he says.
So chances are that wherever Danny serves his mission, he’ll find a bat or two before he’s through.

One day, the sisters brought us uma surpresa—a surprise that would help me and my sister and brother know the Book of Mormon was true. It was a storybook with colored pictures telling the stories of the prophets in the Book of Mormon. “This is my chance to know if it’s true or not,” I thought to myself. I wanted to read it right away.
After the sisters left that night, I got ready for bed and started reading the storybook. Then I remembered that the sisters told me to pray before I read it. I knelt down to say my prayers and I asked Heavenly Father to help me know that the Book of Mormon is true. I said if I could stay awake until I finished reading the book, I would know that it was true. Then I started reading and was excited about the big trip Lehi and his family took across the waters in the barca [ship], and the wars between the people in the land. I liked reading about the 2,000 jovens guerreiros—the young warriors who fought for their families. I wished I was one of them. Before I knew it, I was finished with the book. And I wasn’t even tired.
Then I knew that the Book of Mormon was true and that everything the sisters taught was right. But the greatest thing to know was that Heavenly Father loved me so much he answered my prayer. Now I knew that if I obeyed his commandments he would answer my prayers. I was ready to be baptized.
Mother and I prepared for our baptisms. My brother and sister were too young to be baptized but they couldn’t wait until it was their turn. When the Elder baptized me and I came out of the water, I was proud and excited to be a new member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—a name I would never forget.

Years ago I attended a stake conference in California at which the wife of the stake president shared this story: She had been born considerably after the other children in the family, and her father was unusually protective of her. When a suitor would stop by to pick her up for a date, the father would look him over very carefully and then say: “Do you want to date my princess? Go home and wash your car and shine your shoes. Then I will give my permission.” I sometimes wonder if our Heavenly Father whispers the same when we date His precious daughters. The Book of Mormon speaks of a people who “did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely.”25

Perhaps you remember the story told by President N. Eldon Tanner. A young fellow came to him and said, “I made an agreement with a man that requires me to make certain payments each year. I am in arrears, and I can’t make those payments, for if I do, it is going to cause me to lose my home. What shall I do?”
President Tanner looked at him and said, “Keep your agreement.”
“Even if it costs me my home?” the man asked.
President Tanner replied, “I am not talking about your home. I am talking about your agreement; and I think your wife would rather have a husband who would keep his word, meet his obligations, keep his pledges or his covenants, and have to rent a home, than to have a home with a husband who will not keep his covenants and his pledges.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1966, p. 99.)

At times the performance of duty, the response to a divine call, or the reaction to a spiritual prompting are not overwhelming. On occasion, however, the duty to respond is downright overpowering. I experienced such a situation prior to the general conference of April 1966. That’s 35 years ago, but I remember it vividly.
I had received my assignment to speak at one of the conference sessions and had prepared and committed to memory a message entitled “Meeting Your Goliath.” This was based on the account of the famous battle waged by David and Goliath of olden times.
Then I received a telephone call from President David O. McKay. The conversation went about like this: “Brother Monson, this is President McKay calling. How are you?”
I took a deep breath and answered, “Oh, I’m fine, President, and looking forward to conference.”
“That’s why I’m calling, Brother Monson. The Saturday morning session will be rebroadcast on Sunday as our Easter message to the world. I will be speaking to an Easter theme and would like you to join me and speak during that important session to that type of theme.”
“Of course, President. I will be happy to do so.”
That’s when the extent of this brief conversation really dawned on me. All of a sudden “Meeting Your Goliath” didn’t quite measure up to an Easter message. I knew I must begin to prepare all over again. There was so little time. Indeed, my “Goliath” stood before me.
That night I cleared the kitchen table and placed my typewriter on the tabletop along with a ream of bond paper, with a trusty wastepaper basket by my side to hold all the false starts that accompany such an assignment of preparation. I began at about 7:00 P.M. and had not written a satisfactory line by 1:00 A.M. The wastebasket was filled, but my mind certainly was not. What was I to do? The clock was running—indeed, it was racing. I paused to pray.
Soon thereafter there came to my mind the sadness of my neighbors Mark and Wilma Shumway in the recent loss of their youngest child. I thought to myself, Perhaps I could speak directly to them and peripherally to all others, for who hasn’t lost a dear one and had occasion to grieve? My fingers raced over the typewriter keyboard but could barely keep up with my thoughts.
As the first dim light of morning peered through our kitchen window, I had finished the message. The task remained to learn it and then deliver it to the world. Rarely have I struggled so hard to fill a prophetic assignment. However, Heavenly Father had heard my prayer. I shall never forget the experience.

When President Hinckley was two years old, he became severely ill with whooping cough. The doctor told his mother that he needed good clean air to breathe. His parents bought a farm outside of Salt Lake City, and the family moved there during summer months. While there, young Gordon learned to work hard pruning trees, weeding gardens, and caring for animals. He learned that you could only harvest food after you had planted and cared for it. He learned that Heavenly Father blesses us, but He expects us to do the work first.

That same high school choir once traveled to California, USA, to compete in a music festival. I became ill just before departure, and my sore throat meant that I wouldn’t be able to sing with my choir in the festival—or if I did, I would sing poorly, accompanied by pain. I asked my father for a priesthood blessing and spent the next day praying for recovery.

Perhaps I didn’t fully understand then, as I sang “Amazing Grace” with a fully mended throat at the festival, that I was singing about the very power that had healed me just the day before. The Savior’s Atonement had blessed me that day; His grace was the source of my healing.

A short time after returning from his mission, Elder Alvarado stopped by the local Church distribution center in Puerto Rico to pick up a few items. The employee who assisted him was Cari Lu Rios, a fellow Ponce resident. They knew each other vaguely from past Church activities.
The young returned missionary was immediately smitten. “When I looked into her eyes, I knew she would be my wife.”
The feeling was not mutual, said Sister Alvarado, laughing—at least not initially.
But they had fun with one another. Soon they were spending most of their time together and realized they had become a couple. They married in the Washington D.C. Temple six days before Christmas in 1992.

Antonella and Mariana loved going to church each week. But now they couldn’t go to church in person because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They had Primary class online, but it just wasn’t the same.
Antonella and Mariana missed going to Primary in person. A year ago, their family had moved from Chile to Canada. The pandemic made it hard to make new friends. They missed being able to learn about scripture stories with the other kids. And they missed having lessons in Spanish like they did in Chile.
One day, after having church at home, Antonella and Mariana looked online for something to help them study Come, Follow Me.
“I wish we could find more videos in Spanish,” Antonella said. She thought for a moment. Then she had a great idea. “We could make our own videos for Come, Follow Me every week.”
“Yeah, and we could do them in Spanish!” said Mariana. “Then we could share them with other kids too.”
Mamá and Papá said they could help. The whole family was excited!
First the family read the scriptures for the week’s lesson. The girls planned what they would talk about. Then they started to make the videos. Antonella and Mariana took turns recording themselves as they talked about stories in the Book of Mormon. At the end of each video, one of them shared something they learned from the lesson. Then Mamá and Papá helped them make the video to post online.
At first, they didn’t always know what to say. But reading the scriptures and learning more about the lessons helped them.
One Sunday, Antonella and Mariana sat in front of the computer for their Primary class. This week’s lesson was about the stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon. “Why did the stripling warriors go to fight?” their teacher asked.
Mariana unmuted their microphone. “I know!” she said. She and Antonella had made a video about that story last week. “Their fathers promised God that they wouldn’t fight, so the sons went instead.”
Antonella nodded. “And their mothers taught them that if they had faith, God would keep them safe.” She smiled at Mariana. It was fun to study the scriptures together.
That night at dinner, Mamá asked, “How was Primary?”
“Good!” Antonella said. “Making the videos has helped me learn a lot more about the scriptures.”
“Me too!” said Mariana. “I can answer a lot of the questions in Primary. And we know the scripture stories better.”
“I’m glad the videos have helped you,” said Papá. “I think they’ve helped a lot of other people too!”
“That’s right,” said Mamá. “Sharing what you’ve learned and how you feel about the gospel is a great way to serve!”
Mariana smiled. “I like that we can serve this way,” she said. Then she turned to Antonella. “Let’s start planning next week’s video!”
This story took place in Canada.

It was mentioned that we should listen to our wives. They have qualities that we don’t have. In many cases womanly intuition should be listened to. When we were preparing to come down, my wife said, “Now, were we supposed to get anything in to the paper?”

I said, “No, they said they have all the information they need.”

She said, “I’ll bet they get it wrong.”

Sure enough, when we opened up the Church News, they had shorted us two children. For your information, we have a little Jennie Marie and a Viki Ann who came after Thomas, who was mentioned in the paper. I told Jean that I would set the record straight.

But I can’t say in words my appreciation for my wife and my children. Maybe just this: that I love her—I always have, and I always will and our children also.

I received my witness not from study but from the Spirit when I was standing by a fence in Fayette, New York, outside the Peter Whitmer farmhouse. That ground is sacred to me, much like the mount for Moses—“for the place where thou standest is holy ground” (Acts 7:33). The Church was established there in 1830, in the middle of nowhere, as the world gauges place. There I received from the Spirit of God the confirmation “that Joseph was and is a prophet of God.” I remember thinking at first, “I know that. Everybody knows that.”
Then the words came a second time: “Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God. Someday you will need to know that.”
It was like the description in Jacob: “I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word . . . ; wherefore, I could not be shaken” (Jacob 7:5).
Someday is here for every one of us. The world needs our firm testimony of Joseph and the Restoration—right now.

When I was president of the Southern States Mission, we converted a lovely schoolteacher down in Florida. And at the close of one of our conferences she came up to me and said, “President Richards, I’m going to get married. What do you think of that?”
“Oh,” I said, “I think it’s wonderful. Do I know him?”
“No.”
I said, “Is he a member of the Church?”
“No.” I didn’t dare tell her that she couldn’t marry out of the Church down there, because I didn’t know where she could find a man in the Church except our Mormon elders, and we had hands-off signs hanging all over them.
I said, “You’re a beautiful, sweet, clean Mormon girl, and you could never be happy with an unclean man. In your association with him you’ll know whether he’s clean or not and whether he’d take advantage of you if you’d permit him. He must be a prayerful man because, as wicked as the world is today, I wouldn’t trust any man to be true to his wife and children if he doesn’t believe that there is a God and that someday he will have to answer to him for his life here upon the earth. Your young man must be willing to let you raise your children in the Church because, knowing as you do that the God of heaven has restored his truth to the earth, you would be a very unhappy woman if you had children and couldn’t teach them the gospel. If he measures up, let me know when he joins the Church.” I didn’t see her for about four months, when we had another conference. Her train was late, and after the meeting she came along the aisle. I could see she was headed for me, so I went down and said, “Name, please?”
“Oh, I’m still Miss So-and-so.”
I said, “What became of the marriage?”
“He didn’t come up to your specifications.” Well, that’s the way you should judge, before you get married, that you’re laying the right kind of foundation.

Brethren and sisters, I know that this welfare program is inspired of God. I have witnessed with my own eyes the ravages of hunger and destitution as, under the direction of the president of the Church, I spent a year in war-torn Europe at the close of World War II, without my family, distributing food, clothing, and bedding to our needy members. I have looked into the sunken eyes of Saints, in almost the last stages of starvation. I have seen faithful mothers carrying their children, three and four years of age, who were unable to walk because of malnutrition. I have seen a hungry woman turn down food for a spool of thread. I have seen grown men weep as they ran their hands through the wheat and beans sent to them from Zion—America.

Thanks be to God for a prophet, for this inspired program, and for Saints who so managed their stewardship that they could provide for their own and still share with others. What a marvelous way to become a savior on Mount Zion!

As a young man I was given a very strong written admonition to prove myself a faithful and obedient son so that as I grew older and whenever I needed counsel and advice, I should go to my parents, though they be “bowed in years,” to receive from them wisdom, comfort, and guidance. My father passed away over 20 years ago, having been a great and exemplary source of wisdom for me all the days of my life, and we just laid my 101-year-old mother to rest beside her eternal companion last Monday. In her 100th year, she affirmed her lifelong testimony in these words: “The gospel is a way of life; it is part of the plan to help us avoid bitterness. More than ever, I believe that this life is good but that the next life is better” (in “Growing Old Graciously: Lessons from a Centenarian,” Religious Educator 5, no. 1 [2004], 11).
My mother often told me that she prayed for me and for our family every day. As she came closer and closer to the veil, her prayers were especially fervent and meaningful to me. Both of my parents, as well as my dear parents-in-law, endured or are enduring to the end in righteous paths, leaving a legacy of faithful dedication for all their posterity to follow.

Some time ago I went into a flower shop and started talking to the owner about the plants he was selling, and we exchanged ideas about the different ways of growing them. After that, each time I worked in that area, I would go into this shop and talk to the owner about his work and mine, until little by little I began to talk to him about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I started by talking about God and sharing what I felt about Him. Diego, the owner of the flower business, told me he didn’t believe in Jesus Christ; he just believed in an entity who had the power to create all things. This surprised me, and I told him I wanted to give him something that was very important to me—the Book of Mormon. I also told him I wanted to introduce him to the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Diego agreed. I set up the appointment, and later the missionaries went to his business. After he had received three discussions, he invited the missionaries to his home.
At this time my work area changed, but one day I happened to run into the missionaries who were teaching Diego. I asked about him and tried to find out what kind of progress he was making. They told me he was going to be baptized, but they didn’t know when. A week later I learned that Diego’s family had been baptized, except for his daughter Carla. I was happy to hear about their decision. My contact had borne fruit.
Two weeks later at a stake meeting, I heard about a convert named Diego Páez who had recently been baptized and who was very enthusiastic about the Church. Later the mission president told me they were going to confirm him on Sunday.
The following Sunday I went to Diego’s ward and saw him sitting with his family on one of the pews. I sat down next to him, and he smiled and said, “Thank you, Daniel.”
When Diego sat in the chair where the elders quorum president would confirm him a member of the Church, I was invited to join the circle. I did so, and when the elders quorum president said the words “Receive the Holy Ghost,” I too could feel the influence of the Spirit. My heart beat hard, and peace completely overwhelmed me.
I had never felt such joy. When Diego stood up, I embraced him. Tears sprang from my eyes. I felt strengthened, as described in Doctrine and Covenants 50:22: “Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together.”
As for Diego’s daughter Carla, she was baptized the following week by her father. The Páez family has continued to progress. Milagros, who was three years old at the time of the baptisms, kneels down and says prayers with her parents, asking Heavenly Father to bless her family. Diego and his wife, Gabriela, work to share the gospel with others.
There must be a lot of Páez families all over the world—just waiting for someone to bring the light of truth to their lives. What a joy it is to share what we feel for the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be able to help others feel the way we do.

One day in math, a young woman I’ve known since last year wanted to hear me swear, just to see how the teacher reacted. I told her I do not use inappropriate language, but she kept pressuring me. At first I was tempted to use her words against her, but when my hand touched the familiar heart around my neck, I knew I couldn’t fall into temptation. Instead, I told her that no matter how hard she tries, I would be true to my standards. As I talked, she seemed amazed that I stood up for what I believe in. She left me alone after that.