Gospel Story Finder

Conversion didn’t come overnight for Elder Wakolo, and over the first eight years of the couple’s marriage, he met with many missionaries. “I completed the [missionary] discussions four times in eight years,” he said. “I have 24 missionaries.” It was a simple question from one of those missionaries about the name of the Church that changed his mind about baptism. “The Church needs to be named after its owner,” he said. “That was it for me.”

Now, in 2018, after four years, Heavenly Father blessed us to enter His house, this time it was Taipei Taiwan Temple.
I was doing the temple work for my uncle who had died of cancer. When I was doing the baptism for him, I was listening to the blessings which he would receive through this temple ordinance. I was so happy and I recognized what the temple president told me in 2014.
I got my answer. It has taken me four years to understand by visiting the temple for the second time.

Winnie flung her fifth-grade math book across the buckling boards of the front porch and hunkered down, peering into the deep recesses of the crawl space beneath the weathered frame house.
“Here, Barney. Come here, boy,” she called.
From the dusty darkness a black and tan hound lazily emerged. Winnie sat down on the bottom step as Barney stretched out at her feet. She stroked his long silky ears.
“Barney, do you know what happened to me in school today? Miss Benson asked the class which South American country is long and skinny and famous for its farm products, and Arthur Mosely yelled out, ‘Winnie Wainwright,’ and the class burst out laughing. Barney, I could have crawled right under my desk and died! Well, Arthur Mosely won’t get the best of me anymore! I’m going to see that he gets what he deserves!”
Later, when Winnie’s dad came in from the barn, she had steaming potato soup ready for supper.
“Hey, Punkin, how’s my girl?” asked Mr. Wainwright.
“Oh, I’m OK, I guess,” she muttered.
Dad hugged the tall thin girl and said, “Let me wash up for supper, and we’ll talk about it.”
Ever since Mother had died of cancer two years ago, Dad had tried to be a special friend as well as a father to Winnie.
They sat at the table and bowed their heads as Dad said a prayer and blessed the food: “Dear Heavenly Father, we give Thee thanks for our home, this food, and Thy love. Help us to live in such a way that we’ll bring honor to Thy name. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
When they raised their heads, Dad asked, “Now, Punkin, what’s troubling you?”
“I’m tired of Arthur Mosely making fun of me, that’s what. And I’m fixing to teach him a thing or two!”
“Now, hold on, Winnie,” Dad admonished. “You know it’s not right to be revengeful. Arthur will get what’s coming to him one of these days, and you won’t have to lift a finger.”
“Well, I already have a plan, Dad. The day after tomorrow Miss Benson is having her annual geography contest. The person with the best score will win a globe that revolves on a stand. Oh, Dad, wouldn’t it be nice to have a globe of my own?”
“Yes, Winnie, that would be nice,” replied Dad. “How stiff is the competition?”
“Well,” said Winnie, “that’s where Arthur comes in. He’s the best geography student because his dad is in the service. Arthur’s lived in Germany and Japan, and he knows a lot about geography. But I’m going to beat him!” she declared.
“Well, just do your best, dear, and do it for the right reasons,” cautioned Dad.
At school the next day Winnie took advantage of every available minute to study. When she got home, she looked at the map of the world in her geography book. It looked like a big jigsaw puzzle.
“If all those pieces were jumbled up in a box, I couldn’t put them together in a million years,” Winnie grumbled. Then she thought of Arthur. “Well, I’ll do it—one way or another!”
Winnie grabbed her geography workbook, tore out the world map, taped it to a sheet of notebook paper, and placed it in her book bag. She’d beat Arthur even if she had to cheat!
As Winnie read her Bible that night, she came to Luke 18:14: “For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
With her Bible still open, Winnie closed her eyes and prayed, “Dear Heavenly Father, does abased mean that Arthur Mosely is going to be brought down a notch or two, and does exalted mean that I’m going to finally get a little honor? Well, Heavenly Father, I’m going to help You do just that! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” Winnie shut the Bible, turned out the light, and went to sleep.
In class the next day Miss Benson finally said, “All right, students, clear your desks and get ready for the geography test.”
Winnie’s heart pounded, and her hands were moist.
The first question was to list the states on the eastern seaboard of the United States. That was easy. Number two asked for the countries that bordered Vietnam. Winnie thought and thought, but she just couldn’t picture Vietnam in her mind. I’ll have to use my map, Winnie thought. She stared at the test. As she reached for her notebook paper with the map on the back, she remembered the words of Dad’s prayer, “Help us to … bring honor to Thy name.”
Winnie stared blankly at the test for a minute. Then she lifted her head, straightened her shoulders, and breathed a sigh of relief. She left number two blank and proceeded to answer all the questions she could without the use of the map. Her hands became dry and steady, and her breathing slowed to normal.
When Winnie went to bed that evening, she said her nightly prayers. “Thank you, Heavenly Father, for helping me not to cheat on the test. If I had cheated, we’d both have been disappointed in me, and Dad would have been disappointed too. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
The next day Winnie watched Miss Benson award the prizes to the winners. Even when Arthur Mosely was presented with the globe, Winnie knew that in the things that really mattered she was a winner.

Sister Sheldon is the greatest Primary president ever! She is energetic and funny. When she stands up to do sharing time, we all chant, “It’s Sheldon sharing time” with jazz hands and smiles. She loves it!
Early in 2015 Sister Sheldon discovered that she had cancer again, for the fifth time! She explained to all of us what cancer is and what it does. She told us that she might miss church sometimes and she would probably lose her hair. She asked us to fast and pray to help make the cancer go away.
During this time, our Primary did the helping hands challenge, where we cut out paper hands and wrote on them an act of service we did. Sister Ashby, in the Primary presidency, had the idea to make a helping hands quilt for Sister Sheldon. We all wanted her to know that we love her, so the whole Primary traced hands and hearts, and the activity day girls used them to make a quilt. We sewed, ironed, and poured all of our love into it. Some of us even tied strings on our fingers to remember Sister Sheldon.
We gave the quilt to Sister Sheldon. She took it to her chemotherapy sessions and felt our love.
The best part was when Sister Sheldon bore her testimony to the entire Primary. She told us how special we were to her and that she loved us. She knew we were a big part of why she made it through chemo again. Even though I was scared that she might not make it, I just knew she would. Today Sister Sheldon is cancer free!

Ray Wilson and his wife, Terry.
Photographs by Richard M. Romney
You could say Ray Wilson has ink in his blood. His mother ran a small-town newspaper in Paradise, California, called the Ridge Gazette. Starting at age 14, Ray became the printer. His sister, Kathy, sold ads and helped run the paper. The Gazette started as a weekly, became a daily for a time, and then returned to a weekly.
After their mother died, Ray and Kathy sold the paper and started a printshop. Three years later they were doing well enough to purchase the building where their business was located.
“We grew from there,” Ray says. He continued to run the printing equipment, and Kathy, always friendly and helpful, took good care of customers and accounts.
“We were doing reasonably well,” Kathy says, “not getting rich, but surviving.” They loved living in the town where they were born and raised and knew almost all of their clients personally.
Ruins of the Wilsons’ printing business.
That idyllic life ended abruptly on November 8, 2018, when a wildfire raced through Paradise, destroying almost everything.
“Our extended family lost six buildings in one day—Kathy’s house, our house, our business, and my wife, Terry, and her brothers lost three rental units,” Ray says. “We went from being OK to being homeless in less than 24 hours.”
“My brothers and I had rentals,” Terry says, smiling. “Now we just have property.”
And they also have one other thing, thanks to following a principle of self-reliance—insurance. That has helped, at least in part, to recover what they lost.
Ray, Terry, and Kathy had always operated their business and personal finances according to gospel principles. They knew about paying tithing and other offerings first, living within a budget, having an emergency fund, and getting out of debt. But insurance?
“I know that self-reliance teaches us to get out of debt and have savings and insurance,” Ray says. “I don’t know that having insurance is a spiritual principle as much as a temporal one, but it sure makes things a lot easier once you need it. It’s definitely been a blessing.”
So has the compassion of those around them.
“There’s another printshop in Chico [about 22 miles (35 km) away] that ordered a lot of banners and posters from us, so we were on a friendly basis with them,” Kathy says. “After the fire, they told us that if we needed anything, they’d be happy to help. They did jobs for us at cost so that we could meet our commitments and keep our customers. They also knew a lady who ran a printshop in Chico who wanted to retire, so they got us in contact with her, and it all just worked out.”
Ray’s sister Kathy joins him at their new shop in Chico, California, where hope is growing again.
Using insurance-settlement money, they were able to purchase the shop in Chico, and now their business is growing again. They have the previous owner’s client base, “and a lot of our customers from Paradise are finding us again,” Kathy says. Fortunately, they also have clients all over the United States. “I just finished boxing up some books,” Ray says. “They’re shipping out today to Portland, Oregon.”
When tragedy strikes, Kathy says, “you can’t just sit and cry about something you have no control over. You have to figure out a way to get around it. So that’s how we’ve done things. We find reassurance in knowing that the Lord is mindful of us, and we do our best to take care of ourselves.”
“I figured I wasn’t ready to just sit and do nothing,” Ray says. “So we prayed, asked God for help, and went to work.”
“That’s what’s impressed me about these two,” Terry says. “I’m at home, overwhelmed with all the paperwork and the loose ends that are still out there, even with insurance and other support. But Ray and Kathy get up every day and get going. They find a way to make it work. I think for me, just knowing that we’ve done what we can and that we’re doing our part—keeping covenants and commandments—brings us peace and confidence. You feel confident that there’s a way to move forward with faith.”

Shortly after I was called to serve as a stake president in 1987, I talked with a good friend who recently had been released as a stake president. During our conversation I asked him what he would teach me about becoming an effective stake president. His answer to my question had a profound impact upon my subsequent service and ministry.
My friend indicated he had been called to serve as a temple worker soon after his release. He then said: “I wish I had been a temple worker before I was a stake president. If I had served in the temple before my call to serve as a stake president, I would have been a very different stake president.”
I was intrigued by his answer and asked him to explain further. He responded: “I believe I was a good stake president. The programs in our stake ran well, and our statistics were above average. But serving in the temple has expanded my vision. If I were called today to serve as a stake president, my primary focus would be on worthiness to receive and honor temple covenants. I would strive to make temple preparation the center of all that we did. I would do a better job of shepherding the Saints to the house of the Lord.”
That brief conversation with my friend helped me as a stake president to teach relentlessly about and testify of the eternal importance of temple ordinances, temple covenants, and temple worship. The deepest desire of our presidency was for every member of the stake to receive the blessings of the temple, to be worthy of and to use frequently a temple recommend.

The name of Asael Smith connotes honesty and responsibility. He in turn was the son of Samuel Smith, an influential man in Topsfield, Massachusetts, who exercised local leadership through the Revolutionary War. Samuel’s oldest son (another Samuel) had priority of inheritance of his father’s land, so Asael, the second son, learned a trade and purchased a farm in Derryfield (now Manchester), New Hampshire. There he was town clerk for seven years, and his handwriting can be easily seen in the microfilm of his town record book, which includes the personal notations of the births of most of his children. Asael faced crossroads at the death of his father, taking the path of personal sacrifice. Everyone ultimately faces such crossroads, and many apparent sacrifices are disguised opportunities for personal development through serving others. In Asael’s case, his brother came from Massachusetts to explain that the obligations against his father’s estate exceeded the assets, so he recommended settling the debts on a percentage basis. But Asael said simply that he would not allow his father’s name to go down as that of an insolvent debtor. So he and his brother exchanged farms, and Asael moved to Topsfield to attempt the impossible. The postwar depression decreed minimal profits on farming, but for seven years he applied his total resources to supporting his large family and reducing the debts of his father. Finally he sold the land to satisfy every creditor, and moved to Vermont with just about $100, enough to buy timbered land there and start over in a log cabin.

Sally Randall of Nauvoo, Illinois, whose 14-year-old son died, found great comfort in the promise of eternal families. After her husband was baptized for their son, she wrote to her relatives: “What a glorious thing it is that we … can be baptized for all of our dead [ancestors] and save them as far back as we can get any knowledge of them.” Then she asked her relatives to send her information on their ancestors, saying, “I intend to do what I can to save [our family].”4

This is a good question. There are a number of such episodes in my life, but I will describe only one that occurred when I was 14 or 15 years old. It was an event that burned into my soul the importance of controlling the "natural man" in all of us. It was an experience in which I learned that a single impulsive action or "letting it all hang out" could easily have devastating, even eternal consequences.

I was standing in front of our home in St. John's Arizona talking with two friends, when my 10 year old little brother, Nick, threw a rock that struck me in the back of the head. Enraged, I took after him, breathing out threats as I ran. But Nick eluded me, jumped into one of Dad's old cars, locked the doors and rolled up the windows.

Blood began to trickle down my neck. "You had better open the door," I yelled, "or you are going to get it."

Far from being terrified, Nick began to taunt me through the window with that exaggerated mockery of "You can't get me, eh, eh, eh." We children would sometimes practice that on one another. Perhaps Nick felt he was entitled to a little fun he had seen his older siblings have.

Conquered and frustrated, I could not abide Nick's teasing and laughter. In a burst of anger I doubled up my fist and punched the glass with a force that shattered it into a spray of shards. There was no shatter proof glass in those days.

As I withdrew my fist I pulled my arm across the jagged, razor sharp shards still clinging to the window frame. The result was a deep gash that severed all the blood vessels in my arm.

The sight of so much blood and ragged flesh was profoundly sobering to me. Indeed, despite the pain and shock, I had clarity of mind and instant regret. I saw immediately the cause and effect of my stupid behavior.

Apparently, a piece of glass caused a slight wound on Nick's forehead. He began to scream bloody murder. I walked over and leaned on one of the several elm trees that lined the irrigation ditch by our house. The blood flow eased a bit as I tried to apply pressure on my upper arm.

Hearing Nick's scream, Mom came flying out of the house to find him more frightened than hurt. When she saw my condition, she did not try to conceal her panic. She put me in the back seat of our family Studebaker and took off for the hospital in Springville, 30 miles away. She made it in less than 24 minutes.

Those 24 minutes in a speeding car and the two hours on the operating table gave me ample time to reflect on the enormity of what happened. It was my first full recognition of what self-defeating behavior entails, when in a moment of passion one can damage body and soul forever. Never mind that Nick could have been blinded by shattering glass, or that Mom could have rolled the car in her mad dash to the hospital. I learned my lesson. It was imprinted indelibly on my consciousness. It's ever with me.

So now, whenever I feel a numbing sensation in my forearm, or whenever a child stares at the still very visible scar and asks, "What happened to you? Does it hurt? Ooh that's ugly," I am reminded again that calm self control is one of the great virtues in this world.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Rowe Moyle. John was a convert to the Church who left his home in England and traveled to the Salt Lake Valley as part of a handcart company. He built a home for his family in a small town a valley away from Salt Lake City. John was an accomplished stonecutter and, because of this skill, was asked to work on the Salt Lake Temple.
Every Monday John left home at two o’clock in the morning and walked six hours in order to be at his post on time. On Friday he would leave his work at five o’clock in the evening and walk almost until midnight before arriving home. He did this year after year.
One day, while he was doing his chores at home, a cow kicked him in the leg, causing a compound fracture. With limited medical resources, the only option was to amputate the broken leg. So John’s family and friends strapped him onto a door and, with a bucksaw, cut off his leg a few inches from the knee.
In spite of the crude surgery, the leg started to heal. Once John could sit up in bed, he began carving a wooden leg with an ingenious joint that served as an ankle to an artificial foot. Walking on this device was extremely painful, but John did not give up, building up his endurance until he could make the 22-mile (35-km) journey to the Salt Lake Temple each week, where he continued his work.
His hands carved the words “Holiness to the Lord” that stand today as a golden marker to all who visit the Salt Lake Temple.
John did not do this for the praise of man. Neither did he shirk his duty, even though he had every reason to do so. He knew what the Lord expected him to do.
Years later, John’s grandson Henry D. Moyle was called as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and, eventually, served in the First Presidency of the Church. President Moyle’s service in these callings was honorable, but his grandfather John’s service, though somewhat less public, is just as pleasing to the Lord. John’s character, his legacy of sacrifice, serves as a banner of faithfulness and an ensign of duty to his family and to the Church. John Rowe Moyle understood the meaning of “lift where you stand.”

The third wolf is the excessive individualism that has spawned today’s contractual attitudes. A seven-year old girl came home from school crying, “Mom, don’t I belong to you? Our teacher said today that nobody belongs to anybody—children don’t belong to parents, husbands don’t belong to wives. I am yours, aren’t I, Mom?” Her mother held her close and whispered, “Of course you’re mine—and I’m yours, too.” Surely marriage partners must respect one another’s individual identity, and family members are neither slaves nor inanimate objects. But this teacher’s fear, shared today by many, is that the bonds of kinship and marriage are not valuable ties that bind but are, instead, sheer bondage. Ours is the age of the (decline) of belonging.

One husband was invited to reflection and experienced a major wake-up call when he listened to a portion of an audiotape recording of my therapy session with his wife. She had offered the tape to him because in the session she was able to articulate some of her core beliefs: The belief that he did not see her as equal to him. The belief that nothing she had contributed to their marriage had made a difference to him.

He telephoned me in deep grief—a deep grief born of a deeper understanding of his wife’s pain.

“I never knew,” he said. “I never knew I caused her this much pain.”

His voice is a voice of authority in her life. His words can heal her pain or induce more pain.

Several years ago, President Henry B. Eyring foresaw what could happen at BYU. He shared with me in a very sacred setting that there would eventually be a spiritual quality on this campus that we previously thought only possible in the very strongest areas of the Church of Jesus Christ. He said that this would happen only as we turn to the Savior and let the Savior change us.
As President Reese described earlier today, our exit survey measures whether BYU positively impacts students’ faith in Jesus Christ.38 Looking at this data from the last three years, the aggregate response has increased from 78 percent to 87 percent—a nearly ten-point gain. Of course this is only one measure of the spiritual strength of the university. But as someone who tracks institutional data closely across the Church Educational System, this is remarkable progress. It is an outward expression of the spiritual quality that President Eyring believed was possible.

Still another teacher taught me that the ultimate discovery in growing up is the discovery of oneself, when one comes face-to-face with his own limitations and, simultaneously, has his eyes opened to his talents.
Ellis “Red” Wade helped me make this discovery. He tested my manual skills (and his patience) by having me construct a piano stool and hall tree in a year of shop work. I labored endlessly. Nothing would fit together or vaguely resemble the paper sketches. It was apparent that building things with my hands was not one of my endowments. When I took my handiwork home, Mother positioned my hall tree behind a door where it served a purpose without being seen. My dad, I think, used the piano stool in milking the cow.
Fortunately, Mr. Wade could see I possessed physical skills and coordination. He taught me to respect my body and to strive toward athletic goals. He, and later Coach Staples, transfused me with the desire to strive for excellence in various forms of competition. This was not done in a lopsided fashion. They were always advocates of balance between physical and mental pursuits. I thank them for helping me follow this inspired direction: “Let no man despise thy youth; … Neglect not the gift that is in thee … Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all” (1 Tim. 4:12, 14–15).

Jude Okekearu was baptised on 28 September 2024. He is from the Ibo tribe in southeastern Nigeria, who are renowned for being educated and hard-working. Jude worked in a bank, but was made redundant when it downsized its workforce. He then gained employment as a hotel manager, but at greatly reduced wages. The opportunity presented itself to come to the United Kingdom doing care work. It was a chance for a new start. He now lives in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, sharing a flat with other Nigerians.

I have a sister, Olivia Eson, in my ward (Ekpoma First Ward) who I wish to write about. Sister Olivia hardly has the chance to come to chapel cleaning every Saturday morning because of her tight class schedule at school, but unfailing, she always serves her time every Sunday immediately after closing from sacrament meeting by cleaning the chapel, which becomes dirty after Sunday services.
She goes to get soap, water and other cleaning materials and goes to work to keep the toilets clean.
Sister Olivia says: “I find joy in serving my Heavenly Father by keeping the Lord’s house clean since I can’t come every Saturday, but on a Sunday morning after sacrament meetings, this is one way I choose to do my part”.

It was that kind of sharing that brought the gospel to the Butty family. Sisters Sandhya and Sudha Butty and their mother and father can hardly stop smiling—they are so eager to tell about how they were introduced to the Church.
“We joined the Church as a family,” Sandhya explains. “We had been looking for the right church for a long time. We knew we needed to be baptized. Then one day our father saw two elders. Their name tags said, ‘The Church of Jesus Christ,’ and he knew he had to speak with them.”
Discussions began in earnest. “We learned that, to do the will of the Father, Jesus Christ suffered for us, accomplished the Atonement, and made it possible for us to return to Heavenly Father by following Him,” Sudha says. With that testimony solidly in place, joining the Church seemed like sailing home through friendly seas, and the Buttys have rejoiced in their decision ever since.

As I have traveled far and wide throughout the world fulfilling the responsibilities of my calling, I have come to know many things—not the least of which is that sadness and suffering are universal. I cannot begin to measure all of the heartache and sorrow I have witnessed as I have visited with those who are dealing with grief, experiencing illness, facing divorce, struggling with a wayward son or daughter, or suffering the consequences of sin. The list could go on and on, for there are countless problems which can befall us. To single out one example is difficult, and yet whenever I think of challenges, my thoughts turn to Brother Brems, one of my boyhood Sunday School teachers. He was a faithful member of the Church, a man with a heart of gold. He and his wife, Sadie, had eight children, many of whom were the same ages as those in our family.
After Frances and I were married and moved from the ward, we saw Brother and Sister Brems and members of their family at weddings and funerals, as well as at ward reunions.
In 1968, Brother Brems lost his wife, Sadie. Two of his eight children also passed away as the years went by.
One day nearly 13 years ago, Brother Brems’s oldest granddaughter telephoned me. She explained that her grandfather had reached his 105th birthday. She said, “He lives in a small care center but meets with his entire family each Sunday, where he delivers a gospel lesson.” She continued, “This past Sunday, Grandpa announced to us, ‘My dears, I am going to die this week. Will you please call Tommy Monson. He will know what to do.’”
I visited Brother Brems the very next evening. I had not seen him for a while. I could not speak to him, for he had lost his hearing. I could not write a message for him to read, because he had lost his sight. I was told that the family communicated with him by taking the finger of his right hand and then tracing on the palm of his left hand the name of the person visiting. Any message had to be conveyed in this same way. I followed the procedure by taking his finger and spelling T-O-M-M-Y M-O-N-S-O-N, the name by which he had always known me. Brother Brems became excited and, taking my hands, placed them on his head. I knew his desire was to receive a priesthood blessing. The driver who had taken me to the care center joined me as we placed our hands on the head of Brother Brems and provided the desired blessing. Afterward, tears streamed from his sightless eyes. He grasped our hands in gratitude. Although he had not heard the blessing we had given him, the Spirit was strong, and I believe he was inspired to know we had provided the blessing which he needed. This sweet man could no longer see. He could no longer hear. He was confined night and day to a small room in a care center. And yet the smile on his face and the words he spoke touched my heart. “Thank you,” he said. “My Heavenly Father has been so good to me.”
Within a week, just as Brother Brems had predicted, he passed away. Never did he dwell on what he was lacking; rather, he was always deeply grateful for his many blessings.

Jon Fuller is watching the horseshoeing demonstration when we catch up with him. He first heard about his Mormon Battalion ancestor in a general priesthood meeting talk. Jon was impressed with the story of a John Barnet Cole, who helped rescue a stranded handcart company and who had seen in a dream the woman he would marry. When he repeated the story to his mother, she told him that John Cole was his ancestor. Now, he is learning that his forefather was even more impressive than he had imagined. Jon sums it up: “He was pretty brave!”

A group of young members of the Church with recommends were going to the Salt Lake Temple to be baptized for the dead. One of them was hesitant because she felt that she didn’t really understand what temples were about. Her teacher said, “If you don’t feel that you’re ready for this experience, maybe you’d be willing to help a young lady in a wheelchair. Would you go with her, help her dress, help her into the font, and take care of her?” The girl said that she would.
In helping the young lady in the wheelchair, whom she hadn’t even known before, this girl became close to the Spirit of the Lord. She was so touched that she asked for the privilege of doing baptisms herself.