Gospel Story Finder

As a teenager, however, I started falling away after I moved to a new ward. I attended youth activities most weeks, but I kept to myself and didn’t participate much. I didn’t enjoy church on Sunday, but I attended off and on. I realized that I was not really converted to the gospel and its teachings. I didn’t have a testimony of my own.
As usual during one fast and testimony meeting, my mind wandered. I wasn’t really listening as ward members bore their testimonies, but I said amen at the end of each one. Then a sister went up to the pulpit and started bearing her testimony. When she mentioned cake, I looked up and started paying attention.
“I always speak to Heavenly Father, even when I’m baking a cake,” she said. “I say a little prayer that the cake will rise and come out well. I know He answers our prayers.”
I didn’t think much about that testimony until our car wouldn’t start when we needed to go to the store to get some food. At that moment I remembered the words of the sister. So, I went back to my bedroom to ask God to help us so that the car would start. I knelt and prayed. When I finished, I took the car keys and put them in the ignition. And then came the answer to my prayer—the sound of the car starting.
Because of that answer to a simple prayer, I went from almost falling away to continuing on a path that has helped me gain a personal testimony and become fully converted to the gospel. The words to my favorite Primary song, “I Feel My Savior’s Love,”1 became more than just words of a song. They became feelings that I really have.
I pray about everything now. And though the answer or the timing isn’t always what I desire, I still choose to hear Him as I remember Nephi’s words: “But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint” (2 Nephi 32:9).

The first real test of my young testimony came when I had to decide between going on a mission and playing basketball,” says Dean Reid Burgess. Brother Burgess had spent his freshman year playing basketball for the College of Southern Utah on scholarship.
It was 1965, the height of the war in Vietnam, and not every young man had the chance to serve a mission because of the United States military draft. But Brother Burgess had the chance and the choice. “It took a lot of prayer and a lot of fasting,” he says. “But I knew serving a mission was a real privilege, so I left school to serve.” While serving in the Brazilian Mission, Brother Burgess solidified his testimony of the restored gospel.
Upon returning home, he completed his education at Brigham Young University in business management and graduated in 1970. Some time later, he met Annette Christensen at a BYU student ward. “She was the Relief Society president, and I was the elders quorum president,” he says. “She was always busy serving in worthwhile and constructive ways.” They began dating and were later married in the Provo Utah Temple on 27 December 1973. They have five children and reside in Sandy, Utah.
Brother Burgess, 57, was born in Alpine, Utah, to Reid and Ethel King Burgess on 24 May 1946. He grew up working in the family-owned mercantile store and on their 20-acre (8-ha) farm. His parents taught him the value of family, hard work, and the principles of the gospel—the same values he has tried to teach his own children.
In 1997 Brother Burgess returned to Brazil, where he served as president of the Brazil Belo Horizonte East Mission. His other Church service includes counselor in stake presidencies, stake Young Men president, bishop, and high councilor; all told, he has served with the youth of the Church for more than 24 years.

As a boy of about 10, I didn’t feel like my prayers were really being answered. Finally I had enough courage to ask my father about it, and he explained that prayer was like a parachute that a pilot puts on when he flies an airplane. He doesn’t go up expecting to need to jump out of his airplane and use his parachute, but he puts it on every time so that when it’s really needed, he has it.
That was enough to help me in my young mind to continue my prayers and charge my spiritual battery. Also, as I watched my father use his priesthood, I gained courage and faith that I could someday do similar things. As time went on, I had experiences that taught me this principle was true. It has been important to continually charge that battery.

One Saturday afternoon, my father and my brother set out from our ranch to gather a load of wood. My father told my younger sister Elaine and me to look after the ranch and to do our chores during his absence.
He instructed me to go down to our lower field and bring in the milk cows so that they would be in the barn ready for milking when he returned.
I had intended to ride my horse to bring in the cows, but I discovered it had left the barn and was with the cows in the lower field. The only other horse was a big black one that my father had told me not to ride. But, being lazy and not wanting to walk all the way out to the field and back, I decided I’d ride the horse “just this once.” I saddled him up, climbed on, and then tried to pull Elaine up behind me. But the Lord must have been watching over her, and we couldn’t get the horse to stand still long enough for her to climb on.
Promising her a ride on my horse when I returned, I went to get the cows. On the return trip the horse got its legs tangled in some wire farmers use to bale hay for storage and, in its panic to get loose, threw me off.
I was knocked unconscious by the fall, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on my brother’s bed. Somehow I had walked back to the house, crossing through a number of fields and climbing over several fences. I had blood streaming down my face from a deep wound on the side of my head, and my left hand was bent back against my arm. I also had many scratches and cuts.
As I slowly realized the state I was in, Elaine came into the room crying. I asked her where she had been and she said, “I’ve been praying to Heavenly Father to tell Daddy to come home and take you to the doctor.”
My father said that at the same time this was happening, he was in the middle of cutting a piece of wood when he sensed that there was trouble at home. He stopped what he was doing and said to my brother, “Let’s go home. Something is wrong.” He arrived shortly after I regained consciousness.
I have always been so thankful for my sister and for her trusting and humble faith.

Peter recalls serving as his father’s companion as a new home teacher during a particularly busy period in his father’s life. Elder Christofferson was working as corporate counsel and serving as stake president, but he still made time for teaching his children. “I was inspired by my father’s faithfulness in being a great home teacher, despite his having limited time,” Peter recalls. “One of the sisters we visited was a shut-in. Father cared for her tenderly, making sure that she always had the sacrament and that her needs were met.”

One young girl became famous for keeping the lights burning during a terrible storm. Abbie Burgess and her family lived at Matinicus Rock, off the coast of Maine, where Abbie’s father was the lighthouse keeper. On January 19, 1856, Captain Burgess sailed to town to buy supplies. He needed to buy oil for the lamps, food for his family, and medicine for his ill wife. He left Abbie in charge of the lighthouse.

Captain Burgess only expected to be gone for a few hours, but soon after he left, a huge storm came up that lasted four weeks, and he couldn’t sail home. During all those weeks, while her younger sister cared for their mother, Abbie kept the lights burning. All night she stood guard to make sure that not one light went out. She often had to scrape the ice off the windows so that the light could shine through. In the morning she would eat breakfast and then go to bed. When her father finally returned, he told Abbie, “Every night I watched for the lights. Every night I saw them. Then I knew that you were all right.” Like many lighthouse keepers over the years, Abbie Burgess was a brave and dedicated keeper of the light.

Sacred hymns brought me peace even before I joined the Church. I was converted to the gospel long before I was actually baptized. My parents required me to wait until I was 18 years old and a legal adult. I appreciated their concern for me, but this was a difficult situation. I dreamed of having a Latter-day Saint family that studied the scriptures, held family home evening, and shared testimonies with each other. I wished my mother would ask me about my Young Women Personal Progress instead of ridiculing me for not drinking tea. I wished my father would understand that my desire to join God’s true Church was sincere, not fanatical. As I withstood the criticism, I realized that the tribulations were a test of my faith. Still, my heart was heavy.
Frustrated and exhausted, I attended stake conference just 43 days before I would turn 18. As I sat in the conference hall filled with friendly faces, I felt the Spirit instantly. Right then, I found my refuge. Between inspiring talks, the full-time missionaries sang “Love One Another” (Hymns, no. 308), first in English then in Chinese. I didn’t understand the English lyrics, and I hardly knew any of the missionaries, but I was deeply moved. The hymn seemed to describe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where members truly love and care about one another. When I was at church, I felt right at home; people loved and supported me.
Now I am a Church member and still face similar trials. However, when I feel down and lonely I sing hymns, and my heart is comforted. Hymns quench my thirsty heart and feed my hungry soul. They bring peace at times of weariness and give me courage to move forward. They make me realize that God knows who I am and that He loves me.
Wen Siuan Wei, Taiwan

Deep desire to be of service and to demonstrate love can even benefit the bishop. In Sacramento, California, while the bishop was away on vacation with his family, the youth committee determined to paint his house. These young people had the time of their lives working together and anticipating the pleasant surprise of the bishop when he returned. A real bond of love was established between the youth and their bishop with such meaningful service.

But Te Oranoa M., age 17, from New Zealand has a different take on things. "What inspires me about this scripture," she says, "is that it doesn't say they are lost forever."

What an incredible insight! And it's one that comes from personal experience. "I, myself, fell away from the Church," she says, "but I have been able to come back."

Te Oranoa grew up in the Church and talks about gaining her own testimony and even setting spiritual goals. "But that testimony grew cold," she says.

In some ways, she found common ground with Amulek, particularly in the way he described himself to the people of Ammonihah: "I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know" (Alma 10:6).

For Te Oranoa, that scripture hits close to home. "Just like Amulek, I knew all these spiritual things, and the Spirit was telling me to do certain things, but because I was being a bit stubborn and a bit prideful, I wouldn't do them. Afterward, my testimony kind of faded away."

In the end, Amulek's story would become more than merely familiar to Te Oranoa. It would also become a turning point on the road back.

Even during the time when her faith had grown cold, she could still remember sweet experiences from before. Te Oranoa never forgot how she'd felt when attending the temple with her youth group or going to a youth conference.

"There was a pattern," she says. "I'd feel really good when I came to church, but I didn't feel good when I missed church."

There finally came a day when Te Oranoa decided to see if she could connect with those good feelings again. The first thing she did was to read through recent general conference addresses.

An October 2016 general conference address, "Learn from Alma and Amulek," by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, woke something in Te Oranoa's soul. She recognized a lot of her own life and feelings as President Uchtdorf described how Amulek's faith had faded. She also remembered more strongly than ever the happiness she had enjoyed when her faith was stronger. Instantly, she wanted to make some changes.

"I was hoping to find something to reignite that fire of my testimony," she explains, "so I read President Uchtdorf's talk, and yes, I felt on fire!"

Te Oranoa's path back to faith hasn't always been easy, but there is a particular light at the end of the tunnel that keeps her going: the hope of an eternal family.

"Families can be together forever," she says. "That's my biggest dream, my biggest hope in life. Whenever I want to learn about something, or I find a doctrine hard to understand, I try and relate it back to eternal families. For example, why is Jesus Christ's Atonement important to me? For one thing, I need His Atonement in my life so I can be worthy to enter the temple and be sealed to my family for all eternity."

It's perhaps worth remembering that the people in Lehi's vision who fell away after tasting the fruit did, in fact, still taste it. They must have known of its goodness, even if only briefly. And they can discover it again. That's the hope Te Oranoa clings to, for herself and for others.

"You don't have to keep going down those forbidden paths for the rest of your life," she says. "You can turn back to the Lord whenever you want."

When we could find one, we set up camp next to a stream. One time when we did, Ed and I took off with the fishing pole to look for a deep hole in the nearly dry creek. We found a beautiful spot out of sight of camp but close enough that we could still hear the cries of Annie-I-over. There was a strict rule that no one got so far away that he couldn’t see or hear the camp.
When we got off alone together like this Ed tried to show me how to talk, and I learned to say a few new words. “Look at that frog,” he shouted and bounded across the mossy stones to grab it.
“Frog,” I said. “Frog.”
“What a beauty! Look how big he is. I wonder how far he can jump.”
We stayed until nearly dark testing his ability. By the time we heard Papa coming to get us, the frog’s record was six feet, measured with Ed’s feet.
“Papa, look at my pet,” Ed called as he came closer. “Can I keep him? Can I?”
“That’s a fine frog all right,” Papa said. “But you’d better leave him here. He’d only die if we took him with us.”
“I can take him in a bucket of water. He won’t die.”
“A bucket of water is not the same as a stream. This is his home.”
“Please, Papa.”
“No, Ed. Now put him down, and I’ll tell you a story on the way back.”
“What about?” Ed asked.
“About a frog.”
“A true story?”
“Absolutely.”
Papa’s stories were always worth whatever we had to give up to hear them. Ed put his pet down carefully in a sheltered spot by the stream and took hold of Papa’s other hand. Then the three of us began to walk toward camp.
“What’s the story?” Ed asked.
“How butter was discovered.”
“You said it was about a frog.”
“So it is. You see, a long time ago, a frog jumped into a bowl of cream that was left by a dairymaid to keep cool at the edge of a stream. All night long he paddled around trying to get out, and when the girl came the next morning to get the cream, it had turned to butter.”
“Was the frog still alive?”
“I don’t remember that, but since there was no cream to spread on the bread, the dairymaid used the butter. She was afraid she’d be scolded for being careless enough to leave the lid off the cream, but everyone said the new spread was better. ‘Betty’s better spread’ they called it and wanted her to make more.”
When we got back to the wagon Mama had a good hot supper ready. Afterward we had a campfire program and evening prayer. Then the children were put to bed, and soon the fiddle began its tune and the grown-ups were moving their feet in time to the music. We happily watched them from the place where we slept beneath the wagon.
The next morning was washday, which meant the clothes were put into a half-full water barrel with a bar of homemade lye soap and jostled clean as we rode along. When we stopped, they’d be rinsed, wrung out, and hung on ropes stretched between trees. It wouldn’t take long to dry them if there were a little breeze.
Washdays were always planned between two stops where there was plenty of water so we wouldn’t run short. And since it was an extra busy day for Mama we had to help more than usual. Before camp broke up she assigned the chores.
“Caroline, you take care of the chickens,” she said. “Make sure they get fed and watered and don’t let any of them get lost when you turn them out to run.
“Dora, I’ll need you to watch Frank and Georgie while I do the washing. And Ed, you can churn the butter.”
Just then I saw the look come into Ed’s eyes that meant he had an idea, and I knew what it was because I had it too. Although he didn’t need to, he jerked his head at me in a way that said come on. Grabbing a bar of soap and a towel, we ran off in the direction of the stream.
“Where are you two going?” Mama called, and Ed shouted, “To wash our hands.”
“You told a lie,” I accused.
“No, I didn’t. We’ll wash our hands.”
The frog hadn’t got warmed up enough to move around yet so he was still where we had left him.
Ed started to lather him with the soap, and he slipped away. He picked up the slick frog again and said, “Have to get him clean enough.”
After he’d washed and dried the frog, he put him inside his shirt. We stayed by the stream cutting willows until the camp was ready to leave and then ran and jumped in the back of the wagon.
Mama was riding up front with Papa, holding Frank on her lap, and Georgie was asleep in his wash-basket bed. Caroline was walking with her friends.
Ed plopped the frog into the butter churn, and we settled into the back of the wagon for a leisurely ride. We reached over the tailgate, dragging our willows in the dust to make patterned trails behind us.
Several times we peeked into the churn where the frog was still swimming around, but there was no sign of butter. Ed started to work on teaching me some new words, and we forgot about everything else.
At lunchtime Mama asked, “Did the butter come yet?”
“Not yet,” Ed said.
“Well, it will pretty soon,” she encouraged. “Even the bouncing wagon helps it along.”
Then Papa told her the frog story. “Now don’t go giving these children any crazy ideas. It would be just like Ed and Dora to try that out.” She looked at us. “AND DON’T YOU DARE!” she warned.
We were glad she didn’t check out the butter churn before the wagons started up again. We decided that as soon as it was safe, we’d get the frog out of the cream and churn the way we were supposed to. When we lifted the lid, there sat the frog on an island of butter it had made. We laughed and laughed, and Ed put the frog inside his shirt to keep him safe until later. He wasn’t going to turn him loose here where there was no water.
As soon as we stopped, we took off for the stream to release the frog, and no one but us ever did know how the butter was churned that day.

Gradually and painfully Peter became more stable. With his arms and legs tied up to prevent bleeding and his eyes bandaged, the doctor told him what had happened. In the accident, he had dislocated an arm and a leg; had broken three ribs, seven or eight fingers, and his jaw; had a serious concussion; had lost 50 percent of his skin; and had another 40 percent with first and second degree burns. But Peter had one big question. Since the gas splashed into his eyes, would he ever see again?
I could hear the doctor leaving. He hadn’t answered my big question. I got my arm swinging. I must have caught his attention because he came by me and asked, “What is it, Peter?” I could only say, “My eyes, my eyes, my eyes.” He just squeezed my arm and didn’t answer. He knew what I meant. There was just the unspoken answer that there was no chance I would see again. He started to weep a little, and I could tell that things were very serious.
Peter spent months in the hospital slowly recovering. In fact, he would spend one year as a full-time patient and many more months in and out of the hospital as he underwent dozens of operations. One of the first operations to be performed was to remove the scar tissue from his eyes. Following the operation, while he was in the recovery room, Peter knew that the moment of truth would come that following morning. Then the bandages would be removed and his eyes tested.
Awake and alone in the middle of the night, Peter thought about what was to come.
I couldn’t cope with the thought of that scene when my eyes would be uncovered. On the one hand, if I could see, what a grand moment it would be! But on the other hand, what if I were blind? All hope would be gone.
Awkwardly, because his hands were wrapped in bandages, Peter started to remove the wrappings from his eyes. He managed to maneuver a pan from beside the bed onto his chest. His plan was to reflect the light from his overhead bed lamp into his eyes. He flipped the switch, and the light exploded in his eyes. He could see. As his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, he lifted the shiny, metal pan once more.
There in all my excitement was this horrid face. Because my family had been told that I didn’t have a chance to live, they hadn’t told me about some other things. They hadn’t told me that I had lost one ear and all my eyelids and all my facial features. My nose was gone; all my mouth was gone. In my excitement to see, I hadn’t thought about what I would see. I couldn’t cope with it emotionally. I let out a big scream.
Now faced with new dilemmas, Peter spent all night with a sympathetic nurse asking her about what could be done. What plans had been made? What was going to happen to him once he got out of the hospital? What was it going to be like going to a store? What about going to a dance? What if he wanted to dance with a girl? What if he liked a girl? What if he wanted to give her a kiss? Abruptly, he started to laugh. The nurse wanted to know what was so funny.
Now here I was in the hospital remembering how silly I had been. Here I was having fought for my very life and having fought for everything I had, even though it didn’t look very good. In fact, it didn’t look good at all. Yet, I knew I could see. I took a little moment to say a prayer of thanks to my Father in Heaven because he had answered that prayer. There really had been no chance that I would see again. But I’ll never forget how silly I was about that blemish.

Friday, March 11, 2011, 2:46 p.m.; K?riyama, Japan; K?riyama chapel, second floor.
Fifteen missionaries in the middle of leadership training begin to practice teaching about Joseph Smith. As the message of hope and peace fills the room, the windows begin to rattle. The noise intensifies. What began as vibrations escalates to booming.
The building jerks side to side, and the movement increases in speed and magnitude until it becomes one continuous jolting motion. Standing and walking are nearly impossible. Some missionaries try to take cover under the tables—until the tables are thrown across the room. The building, the city, even the whole province reel in commotion as if the earth will burst open. One thought prevails in my mind: “Get the missionaries out of here!”
As mission president of the Japan Sendai Mission, I had been teaching the missionaries and members for months to “turn to the Lord” (Mosiah 7:33). Now, as I turned to Him for divine guidance, inspiration came quickly: “Open the door—create an escape route.” I knew that I must open the door before the ceiling collapsed, trapping us inside. So I rushed to the door and opened it. “Get out of here!” I shouted.
The missionaries staggered along the shifting, rocking, heaving floor toward the open door; then they headed down the stairwell and out of the church. Once outside, we felt safer, although we were not yet safe from the elements. The weather had turned bitter cold, and snow pelted our faces.
Across from the church, headstones in a Buddhist cemetery toppled over; the wall of the cemetery had turned to rubble. A large fissure zigzagged up all 12 stories of an apartment building behind the church. Large chunks of concrete facade had crumbled off the walls of an adjacent elementary school. Windows had blown out, and broken glass littered the ground. On the opposite side of the road, a blue tile roof lay in pieces. I gathered the 15 missionaries in the parking lot of the church, and we gave our Heavenly Father thanks for our protection and asked for His continued help.
Panic set in throughout the city. Afraid that they would go without food, people began buying everything in sight. Bread and milk sold out immediately, and within a few hours no bread could be found in the city. Lines miles long formed at the gas stations.
In contrast to the panic of the people on the streets, the missionaries were remarkably calm. We offered prayers of thanksgiving, and we felt a calm assurance that all would be well.
We could not leave the city—roads were damaged and freeways were closed, and no trains or buses were running. People who had waited hours in long lines to purchase gasoline were turned away. Government inspectors systematically entered each residence, condemning some and approving others for occupancy. So we stayed overnight at evacuation centers with numerous others who, like us, could not return to their homes.
The next day, Saturday, we began as usual with scripture study and prayer. That day we especially needed our Heavenly Father’s help. After scripture study, I organized the missionaries into groups. One group went to the church to help clean up and then worked with the branch president to repair members’ homes. One group visited the city inspectors to find out whether the missionary apartments were safe to enter. Another group checked to see if trains and buses were running. Several others stood in lines to obtain water while others searched for food. One companionship received a special assignment: find bread for the sacrament on Sunday. I worked throughout the day trying to contact all the missionaries in the mission.
That day we felt our Heavenly Father’s guidance in everything we did. The missionaries who stood in the line for water met two men with whom they shared the gospel. The missionaries shared their testimonies of God’s love and brought the two men to our testimony meeting in the evening and to church the next day.
The sisters who sought food for us soon learned that God was guiding their footsteps. Unable to find anything in the stores, they found food in places they usually would not consider, such as down deserted alleys and in small, one-room shops. We had been given our “daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).
At the end of the day we reported back to our Heavenly Father. We had not lost our focus. We were still “disciple[s] of Jesus Christ,” who were “called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life” (3 Nephi 5:13).
That evening we felt a greater need for the strength and power of our Heavenly Father. We needed His Spirit to be with us. So we had a testimony meeting at the chapel. The missionaries thanked the Lord for giving us our daily bread, and they recognized that we had been led, guided, directed, and protected. They knew that many others were not so fortunate and would not see another sunrise. We truly had been “troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we [had been] perplexed, but not in despair; … cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).
All the missionaries testified of the peace they felt. They testified that God had protected them and calmed their souls. They had faced the possibility of death but did not fear. They did not have the water, food, or heat needed to sustain them long-term, yet they were nourished with living water; they were fed by the word of God; they were warmed by the Spirit. Within our little band of missionaries, not one feared. Each missionary felt God’s strengthening power that night and felt closer to God than ever before.
As that day ended, we were grateful to be alive. We thanked the Lord for the help He had extended to us in very literal ways. We made assignments for our worship service the next day and left the chapel to join the dozens of other temporarily homeless people in the evacuation center.
But two elders were especially solemn. They had been asked to get the bread for the sacrament the next day and had not accomplished their assignment.
As we reached the evacuation center Saturday evening, the city employees welcomed us back. They apologized that they had given us little food (20 crackers) to eat the day before but then beamed as they handed us the next day’s rations: a bottle of water and eight slices of bread.
My elders looked at me as if to say, “How could the Lord bless us any more?”
God, who knows the fall of a sparrow, had reached out again, as if preserving our lives had not been enough. Our Heavenly Father made sure that we would be able to “always remember” His Son (D&C 20:77). We were closer to our Savior than we had ever been in our lives.
The missionaries gave a special prayer that night. They dropped to their knees to thank our Heavenly Father for another miracle in a series of special miracles. They understood the priority that God has placed on our covenant to always remember Jesus Christ, and they were grateful for the mercy and kindness of a loving God who lets us partake of the sacrament each week.
These missionaries now testified, with greater conviction than ever before, that God wants us to always remember His Son, Jesus Christ.
The 2011 T?hoku earthquake took place 70 kilometers (about 45 miles) off the Oshika Peninsula and registered at a 9.0 magnitude, one of the five most powerful earthquakes measured since modern record keeping began in 1900.1
All of the Sendai missionaries were accounted for within days of the earthquake.

Marny and Nancy attend early-morning seminary with one other student. It’s at 6:30 in the morning, and they have evolved a creative way of dealing with the early hour. They arrive at seminary with their hair undone, their makeup unapplied, wearing sweat suits or whatever else they can throw on. Then, after seminary, they both go to Nancy’s house, where they shower and dress for school.
Melissa attends a once-a-week seminary class, doing the rest of the work through home study. Both classes are taught by a Sister Babcock who is, by all accounts, a real ball of fire. She used to be a champion sprinter, and she still keeps things moving fast. “We never fall asleep in her lessons no matter how tired we are. She makes it so interesting, and she’s so enthusiastic. It gives you a real boost. We also have Mutual, and that helps. But I especially look forward to Sundays. Sunday is WOW! Supercharge! You come home from church a mile high! Getting together with LDS friends has the same effect. It’s like being in a desert and seeing water. ‘A Mormon! Talk to me!’”

Some of my friends have gone into Young Women, leaving me and another one of my friends behind. After the other girl turns 12, and when she leaves, I won’t have any of my friends in Primary with me. It makes me feel kind of sad and lonely.
I read the Friend from January 2017. On one page, it had mazes and pictures of people feeling different emotions like confusion and being afraid, with scriptures in the middle of each. I looked them up, and I prayed. Before I saw this, my heart was hurting a bit. But afterward, I felt peace and love from Heavenly Father. I have underlined those four verses, and I keep them with me in my heart.
Thank you for printing that. It made me feel loved and peaceful and that everything was going to be OK. I’m sure that the feeling has happened to others as well.
Robyn G., age 11, Utah, USA

Twenty years ago, I was named the new president and CEO of Deseret Book Company, which was facing stiff challenges. The company had been losing a lot of money and every part of its business was being disrupted. I knew nothing about turning a company around and was in way over my head.
A few months into my job, President Gordon B. Hinckley—who had appointed me to this position—called me to his office to ask how things were going. I described the problems I was uncovering and said, “President, I don’t think I’m smart enough to turn this company around. I wish I were smarter.” To which he instantly responded, “Sheri, I wish you were smarter too.” After he finished laughing, he said, “Are you smart enough to hire smart people?” I thought for a moment and said, “Yes, I can do that.” “Well, then, go hire the brains,” he said. “Hire people you trust who will make you smarter.”
In essence, President Hinckley was saying, “Sheri, you probably aren’t smart enough to turn Deseret Book around by yourself. But if you’ll hire smart people and listen to them, you can do it.”

The Mia Maids of the Academy Park Ward in Kearns, Utah, recently held a combined Young Women activity called a PJ’s party. The idea was to help the young women think about three important things to remember before going to bed each night: Prayer, Journal, Scriptures. Each girl wore a pair of pajama pants they had made the previous month. They put together folders with scripture-study and journal-writing suggestions, and then each girl painted a prayer rug to place by their beds.
“My prayer rug is inspirational,” says Holly, one of the Mia Maids. “Every night my prayer rug is there reminding me to say my prayer before getting into bed. It really has changed my praying habits.”
Photograph courtesy of the Academy Park Ward

Since early childhood, Hal’s deepest dreams were to be married and form a family. He thought about his future children so often that he’d already given them the collective nickname “The Redheads,” imagining them with red hair like his mother’s.
This dream finally moved toward fruition during his service as a counselor in the Boston District presidency, a Church calling Hal had while he was pursuing his graduate work at Harvard University following his undergraduate studies at the University of Utah. As a doctoral student in the summer of 1960, Hal represented the district presidency at a single-adult devotional held at the Cathedral of the Pines in southwest New Hampshire, USA, a natural outdoor amphitheater of note in the region. At the event he saw a young woman in a red and white dress and was impressed by the pure goodness she radiated. He thought, “That’s the best person I’ve ever seen. If I could be with her for the rest of my life, I could be every good thing I ever wanted to be.”
The young woman was Kathleen Johnson from Palo Alto, California, USA, who hadn’t intended to be in New England that summer but, at the insistence of her friend, had attended summer school with her at Harvard. Following that outdoor devotional, Hal arranged to meet Kathy at church one Sunday and was happy to hear she enjoyed playing tennis. Hal had been playing tennis several times a week with a college friend and was a good natural athlete, so he assumed a game of tennis would be an ideal first date and a way for him to make a terrific impression. What Kathleen didn’t tell him was that she had been the captain of her high school tennis team! “She cleaned me out,” Hal still grumbles about the match. This was the first of his future wife’s remarkable examples of living humbly and then helping her husband to do so.
Following their marriage and Hal’s eventual appointment to the faculty of the business school at Stanford University, late one night in December 1970, just a few months before Hal was released as the bishop of the student ward in Palo Alto, Kathy asked a question seemingly out of the blue. As Hal climbed into bed after a demanding day, she leaned over and asked, “Are you sure you’re doing what you ought to be doing with your career?”
Her question caught him by surprise. Everything in their life seemed perfect. The future seemed bright and clear, even down to the Eyring dream home that Hal had recently outlined in his journal. It would include such niceties as “a room for projects, large enough and rough enough to work on and store a kayak,” along with “at least five electrical outlets by the kitchen table” and “a shed or bathhouse retreat for writing.”
“What do you mean?” Hal asked his wife.
“Couldn’t you do studies for Neal Maxwell?” she suggested, referring to the Church’s new Commissioner of Education. At this, Hal was truly dumbfounded. He had only met Neal A. Maxwell once, and he knew that Kathleen had never met him at all. He tried to describe to her why such a career shift would not be a good fit for him, yet she insisted he at least pray over the matter. This he did immediately, dropping to kneel by the bed and offering a short prayer. When no answer came, Hal felt the matter decided and soon went to sleep.
The following morning, however, Hal received two distinct spiritual impressions that would forever alter the course of his career and his life. He captured both in his journal. First, “Don’t use your human judgment to eliminate opportunities presented to you: pray about them all with an open mind.” And second, “Do the tasks you are assigned in the Church and your profession as well as you can; they are preparation.”
The first impression came as something of a rebuke that Hal would forever thereafter live by. After having previously rejected three different job offers without praying over them, into his mind came the words, “Don’t you ever make that mistake again. You don’t know which end is up in your career.”
With this spiritual direction fresh in his mind, Hal was prepared when less than three weeks later, Commissioner Maxwell called to schedule a meeting with him in Salt Lake City. Brother Maxwell got right to the point. “I’d like to ask you to be the president of Ricks College,” he said. Hal replied that he would have to pray about it. He did and the terse answer he received was, “It’s my school.” The rest, as they say, is history. His service in the Church since then has been as exemplary as it has been conspicuous, moving on to serve as Deputy Commissioner of Education and then Commissioner (twice), followed by calls to the Presiding Bishopric, the Quorum of the Seventy, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and as a counselor to three Presidents of the Church.
Photograph with President Hinckley from Deseret News
But in a very real sense to Hal, no calling in the Church was more important for him than another: “The pressures at every stage of life can tempt us to reject or neglect calls to serve the Savior,” President Eyring has taught. “Some of those calls may seem unimportant, but my life, and my family, was changed for the better by my accepting a call to teach a deacons quorum. I felt the love of those deacons for the Savior and His love for them.”2

These words represent Elder Pratt’s declaration of the miraculous coming forth of a remarkable book. How he came in contact with the book is an interesting story.
In August 1830, as a lay preacher, Parley Parker Pratt was traveling from Ohio to eastern New York. At Newark, he met a Baptist deacon by the name of Hamlin, who told him “of a book, a strange book, a VERY STRANGE BOOK! … This book, he said, was supposed to have been originally written on plates either of gold or brass, by a branch of the tribes of Israel; and to have been discovered and translated by a young man near Palmyra, in the State of New York, by the aid of visions, or the ministry of angels. I asked him how or where the book was to be obtained. He promised to let me see it, at his house the next day. … Next morning I called at his house, where, for the first time, I saw the ‘BOOK OF MORMON’—that book of books … which was the principal means, in the hands of God, of directing the entire course of my future life.
“I opened it with eagerness, and read its title page. I then read the testimony of several witnesses in relation to the manner of its being found and translated. … I read all day; eating was a burden, I had no desire for food; sleep was a burden when the night came, for I preferred reading to sleep.
“As I read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists.” (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, third edition, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938, pages 36–37.)
Parley Pratt was then twenty-three years old. Reading the Book of Mormon affected him so profoundly that he was soon baptized into the Church and became one of its most effective and powerful advocates. In the course of his ministry he traveled from coast to coast across what is now the United States, into Canada, and to England; he opened the work in the isles of the Pacific and was the first Mormon elder to set foot on the soil of South America. In 1857, while serving a mission in Arkansas, he was killed by an assailant. He was buried in a rural area near the community of Alma, and today in that quiet place a large block of polished granite marks the site of his grave. Engraved in its surface are the words of another of his great and prophetic hymns, setting forth his vision of the work in which he was engaged:
The morning breaks; the shadows flee;
Lo, Zion’s standard is unfurled! …
The dawning of a brighter day
Majestic rises on the world.
The clouds of error disappear
Before the rays of truth divine; …
The glory bursting from afar
Wide o’er the nations soon will shine.
(Hymns, 269.)

Approximately five years ago I learned a great lesson while laboring as the new managing director of the Welfare Services Department of the Church. We were at a critical stage in the history of welfare. It was time to go through an agonizing reappraisal of the program in light of current world conditions. The specifics are irrelevant to this discussion except to say I was beside myself with worry and concern.

After praying for a solution, I had a terrific thought: “Glenn, you have access to the Quorum of the Twelve and to a member of the First Presidency.” What a resource! I called for appointments and met one-on-one with these great men. I poured out my concerns and added my feelings that we were at a stage where further revelation on the subject was necessary. Then I sat back with my yellow notepad and Cross pen and waited for pearls of wisdom.

I received a total of one pearl from all of those interviews: “Brother Pace, I commend you for your concern and conscientiousness in finding solutions to these weighty matters. I, too, have some deep concerns and anxieties, and you are absolutely right, we do need revelation. Now, go get it!”

Who, me? I was an employee of the Church, not a General Authority, but I had the responsibility to bring forth well thought-out recommendations to the Brethren that could be confirmed, modified, or rejected in the appropriate forums. It was my obligation and right to receive inspiration, but it came with intense, agonizing study, research, and meditation.

Less than a month ago, two missionaries visited a widowed lady who had expressed interest in the Church. She was ill and had been advised by her physician that a kidney was to be removed. The elders comforted the woman, heeded the whisperings of the Spirit, and pronounced a blessing. Another miracle happened. The operation was cancelled, and the missionaries began teaching their friend the gospel. A baptismal date has already been set. This particular woman will never forget the blessing and teachings of the elders. They will be held in cherished memory and regarded as “saviors of men.”