Gospel Story Finder

In July 1993, Alla, Alex, and I were sealed as a family in the Stockholm Sweden Temple. As we knelt at the temple altar, surrounded by friends, including Reid and Donna Johnson, the temple president and matron, the warmth of our initial conversion came to us again. We had been like cold, wet, miserable, lost kittens; but in the Church we had found shelter, warmth, and nourishment. The gospel had helped us open our frozen hearts and closed eyes and begin to see truth and to love.
We spent a week at the temple doing proxy work, including the work for Alla’s deceased grandparents, and we discovered we have a lot of work yet to do in the temple. The happiness we feel as members of Christ’s Church has not peaked. The longer we serve in the Church, the more happiness we seem to experience. It has been an unexpected and wonderful surprise to know true joy.

I used to work at a camp where I helped campers rappel (or abseil) down a 100-foot cliff, a difficult and terrifying task for some. Most of them struggle with it for one reason: they lack trust. When rappelling, you need to trust your partners, the gear, the rope, the belay, and the carabineer. But most importantly, you need to trust yourself—or nothing can be accomplished.
Many people who approach the cliff come with wide eyes and shaking hands. But before they can scramble away in fear, I look at them and say, “Everything will be OK. I know you can do this. And I’m holding you up the whole way.” And when they make it to the ground, everyone cheers and hugs them, celebrating that they were able to conquer their fears.

Before my family first began investigating the Church, I had barely turned 12 and was thoroughly enjoying life as a sixth grader. I didn’t have any major problems or concerns. My family was in transition. My father was struggling to keep his small private school operating, and my two younger sisters were busy being kids. My mother was just adjusting to her new job as the manager of a dental office.
I’d grown up in the Congregational church, attending every Sunday. I’d never even stopped to think that there were other doctrines, other beliefs. One day in early spring my mother came home from work and we all sat down to dinner. Over dinner the conversation turned to the fact that the two dentists Mom worked for were Mormons. Nothing negative was said, but Mom and Dad explained that Mormonism was just another religion, like Congregationalism but with other beliefs. The subject of the Church wasn’t mentioned again for several weeks.
Over a period of several weeks, my parents became close friends with one of the two dentists that Mother worked with. Because of their close association with the Petersen family, my parents found that their family had something that we didn’t, something that we wanted. After careful thought, we concluded that that something was the Church.
The next Sunday, and for two months of Sundays after, we took on a tough schedule. We continued to attend our meetings at the Congregational church, which ended at 12:15 P.M. Immediately following, we raced across town to the LDS chapel, where we attended meetings from 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M.
I remember the first LDS sacrament meeting I ever attended. It was a fast Sunday, and testimonies were borne. I remember sitting and listening to people say that they knew that the Church was true. Even at the age of 12, I could feel the Spirit manifest that we needed to find out more about the Church.
Two weeks later the stake missionaries, Sister Hoer and Sister Gibson, came to our home. They taught us about the plan of salvation and the First Vision. They came four times, and after the fourth discussion offered us the challenge of baptism. We told them that we would pray about it and call them with an answer.
That night I prayed my first real prayer. Upon my knees, I pleaded with Heavenly Father to help me know if the Church was really true. The missionaries had explained to us how Heavenly Father answers prayers, so when the answer came I recognized it. Heavenly Father wanted me to be baptized.
My mother and sisters had similar experiences. My father, however, needed an extra boost, and that boost came, but not for several weeks.
Following a tradition at his school, my father took his students on a trip that year. Funds were low so my father drew a circle around the state of Colorado. He asked his students where they wanted to go within that circle. Salt Lake City was selected.
While on that trip, my father and a few of his students toured Temple Square. It was in the north visitors’ center that the much needed answer came.
The tour group had come through the visitors’ center to the last area, a film depicting Joseph Smith and the First Vision. The guide, an elderly man, turned off the lights and pushed the button. The curtains opened but nothing happened. He tried again and achieved the same results. Discouraged he turned the lights back on and said, “If you don’t mind, I would like to bear my testimony.” He did, and it was just what my father needed to make up his mind. My father asked if anything technical had ever gone wrong before. Nothing had, and it continued to run flawlessly after. I believe it was a miracle.
From his hotel room, my father called to tell us of his decision. We immediately called the missionaries and set the date for our baptism.
We gathered in the chapel, all clothed in white. One by one we went into the font and were baptized by Brother Petersen. I remember coming out of the water feeling pure, clean, renewed.
We gathered again in the chapel and our family sang “The Love of God,” and Sister Runnels sang “Where Love Is.” Never before has music so touched my heart.
We were confirmed by Brother Brown, and this began our life in the Church.
Now, five years later, I look back upon that special time in our lives. I can’t help but wonder what life would be like without the Church. I am sure it couldn’t compare to the joy we’ve found.

Some people thought the girls were a little off their rockers, but five Beehive girls from the South Cottonwood Tenth Ward, Salt Lake South Cottonwood Stake, decided to help raise money for the Cambodians by staging a rockathon. After getting pledges from friends (paid according to the number of hours rocked), the girls mounted their rockers, made sure they were well stocked with food and blankets, and kept rocking for 24 hours straight. Their mothers took turns staying with the girls, supplying encouragement and meals. At the end of the rockathon, the Beehives had raised $150, which they donated to the Utah Cambodian Fund—and they found that they’d grown to be even closer friends than before!

During my mission, I had the opportunity of teaching a Protestant minister. My companion and I taught him every week for six months. He attended meetings in our little branch, but he remained a minister teaching in his church. He had been invited many times to be baptized. He had studied, and I knew that the spirit had touched him often, but still he waited. Finally, one evening I reminded him that he knew that the Church was true, because of the inspiration of the Spirit, and that he had sufficient knowledge now to be baptized. Therefore, we would not be teaching him regularly until he was ready to accept the invitation to be baptized.
A short time later my companion, Elder Darwin Christensen, and I were on a streetcar going to a baptism with some converts. When the streetcar stopped, our investigator-minister got on, and upon seeing us, he asked, “Where are you going?” I told him that we were on our way to a baptism. He said urgently, “I have to talk to you Monday night.”
We rearranged our schedule and went to his home that Monday evening. He asked us some questions that were on his mind about the Church. Then, as though he couldn’t wait any longer, he said, “What do I need to do to be baptized?” He continued, “I am sure that you’ve been wondering why it has taken me so long to decide. I wanted to study everything so that I would have the correct answers and never be an embarrassment to the Church. This Wednesday night I am going to the directors of my church and announce to them that I’m leaving my position and joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
On Wednesday he resigned from his job as a minister, and on Saturday he was baptized a member of our Father in Heaven’s true Church. The next week I finished my mission. He was my last baptism.

Allow me to share two experiences from my recent interactions with the young men of the Church that have taught me about leading and following.
Recently my wife and I attended a sacrament meeting away from our home ward. Just before the meeting started, a young man approached me and asked if I would help pass the sacrament. I said, “I’d be happy to.”
I took my seat with the other deacons and asked one who was sitting next to me, “What is my assignment?” He told me I was to start passing at the back of the chapel in the middle section and that he would be on the other side of the same section, and together we would work our way to the front.
I said, “I haven’t done this for a long time.”
He replied, “That’s OK. You’ll be fine. I felt the same way when I started.”
Later the youngest deacon in the quorum, ordained only weeks earlier, gave a talk in sacrament meeting. After the meeting, the other deacons rallied around him to tell him how proud they were of their fellow quorum member.
As I visited with them that day, I found out that each week, members of all the Aaronic Priesthood quorums in that ward reach out to other young men and invite them to be part of their quorums.
These young men were all great leaders. And they clearly had some wonderful behind-the-scenes Melchizedek Priesthood holders, parents, and others who mentored them in their duties. Caring adults like these see young men not just as they are but as they can become. When they talk to or about the young men, they do not dwell on their shortcomings. Instead, they emphasize the great leadership qualities they are demonstrating.

Joyce Baggerly of Provo, Utah, considers herself a member of the Lord’s kingdom on earth who happens to be single. “Being single in a mostly married church has never been a problem for me,” she says. “I would rather be married, but I’m not, so I do the best I can with what I have.”
When she moves into a new ward, she finds the executive secretary and requests an appointment with the bishop, and she makes sure the membership clerk requests her records.
“I introduce myself to the Relief Society president and request a visiting teaching assignment. The first fast Sunday, I bear my testimony of Jesus Christ and express how much I love the Savior. I attend every activity the ward has,” she says. “On the rare occasion when I come home from a meeting where I feel ignored, I say a prayer that I might be able to go again with the same cheerful countenance I usually have on Sunday and that I can keep that smile until I am accepted.”

I testify that conversion is a process. I am sure that the missionaries were praying and fasting for the change of my mind, because as soon as we started to attend the meetings, I began criticizing many temporal things at the meetinghouse, such as the crooked pictures on the walls. The branch president, a fine and wise man, appointed me as the “pictures supervisor,” this being my first calling in the Church. Incidentally, I have never seen that position in the handbooks, but it served me very well to start my involvement in the service of the Lord.

Let’s start at the beginning.
“I’ve been helping my dad build things my whole life,” she says. “I got used to power tools and construction, and I just really grew to love it. So, when I was 16 years old, I decided that I wanted to start my own construction business.”
“My dad has taught me to put things together, from two boards to a whole house,” Sarah says.
Sarah first remodeled a house one year over the summer. She loved it so much that she took on another remodeling project the next year. Eventually, she decided to tackle an even bigger project—a “spec” house, or a house that she and her team of subcontractors would build from foundation to finish, hopefully to sell at a profit.
Demolition day! Sarah takes a hammer to a bathroom in one of her projects.
Starting a business was no easy project, especially because Sarah was still busy with high school and cross country running.
Sarah started her own construction company when she was 16 years old.
“I learned so much,” she says. “I had to use a checkbook to pay people, which I’d never done before. I had to become comfortable talking to strangers who were my subcontractors. I’ve also learned how to deal with the stress of running a company, which was not always fun. There’s always the worry that you won’t make the money needed to break even when selling a house.”
But despite the worries and stresses that come with running a business, Sarah never had to face her big dreams alone.
“It always worked out, and I know that’s because of the Lord,” she says. “This business thing wasn’t possible without Him. He helped me through the bad days, the hard work, everything.”

“I shared this story with some of our new elders just last week when I was driving them to their first assignment. I turned to Elder Bobby Yazzie in the seat next to mine and asked, ‘Did you ever happen to meet Elder Descheenie?’ A smile came on his face, and his eyes filled with tears. ‘President,’ he said, ‘He is the one that found me, taught me, and baptized me. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here today. I’m the only one in my entire family who is a member of the Church.’
“It’s hard to explain the thrill I felt when he told me this. Only a short two years before, Bobby had never heard of the Church, and here he was riding beside me: intelligent, handsome, clear-eyed, and anxious to go forth and share his testimony among his people. Bobby had only been out for a short time when he had his first baptisms, his own grandfather and grandmother, and since then many more.”

Time passed. Brother Andelin passed away. Then on a cold December morning, our priests quorum arrived at a little house on the edge of the ward boundaries. The name on the mailbox read Andelin. At the door, leaning against a cane was a small woman with thinning white hair and a warm smile.
Our adviser introduced us to Sister Andelin as we brought in the small Christmas tree we were giving her. She made sure to learn our names as she talked to us. Sister Andelin hadn’t been able to come to church for several years, and though she didn’t recognize most of us, she knew our families.
“How’s your mother?” she asked me.
I gave the usual response. “Fine.”
“My husband used to be your home teacher when you first joined the Church. Do you remember that?”
After telling her I did, I reminded her about the board and the seesaw. She held her hands together and smiled at me as if picturing the entire thing in her mind. “You know, he was always doing good things like that for people. And now look at you,” she said, taking hold of my hand. “Passing on the good that you were taught. That’s how I get along now; all the love my husband spread around this ward just keeps flowing back to me.”
I realized that Brother Andelin took care of the widows and the fatherless as the Lord directed. But more than that, Brother Andelin passed on a spirit of giving that outlasted both him and that old teeter-totter.

Ifoni had a solid testimony reinforced by some rather miraculous events in his childhood. At eight, while he was playing at sword fighting with a very real and very sharp machete, Ifoni’s eye was cut and damaged. The doctor said he would never see with that eye again. His father and his bishop gave him a priesthood blessing, asking, if it was the Lord’s will, that his eye be healed. Three months later, sight returned to his eye, even though the scar remains. He was also nearly electrocuted when electricity was first brought to his family’s village. Again he was given a priesthood blessing, and his life was preserved. Now, as a teen, he has no doubts about the power of the priesthood. “When I received the Aaronic Priesthood,” Ifoni says, “my mother encouraged me to stay faithful to the Lord’s power. It’s so important to stay clean and be worthy of the Aaronic Priesthood.”

Three weeks ago I was at a stake conference in the lovely little mountain community of Prescott, Arizona. Following the delightful events of that weekend a sister silently slipped me a note as she and others came by to shake hands and say good-bye. With some hesitation I share a portion of it with you this morning. Please focus on the doctrine this sister teaches, not the participants in the exchange.
“Dear Elder Holland, thank you for the testimony you bore in this conference of the Savior and His love. Forty-one years ago I prayed earnestly to the Lord and told Him I wished I had lived on earth when the Apostles walked upon it, when there had been a true Church, and when Christ’s voice was still heard. Within a year of that prayer Heavenly Father sent two LDS missionaries to me, and I found that all those hopes could be realized. Perhaps some hour when you are tired or troubled, this note will help you remember why hearing your voice and shaking your hand is so important to me and to millions just like me. Your sister in love and gratitude, Gloria Clements.”

In addition to missionary work, helping less-active Latter-day Saints to reestablish their testimonies and return to full activity is an ongoing challenge. In the Ponce First Branch, leaders took an aggressive approach. They drew upon all interested members to help them in a kind of “activation battalion.” “Everyone gathered at the chapel on a designated evening,” says Miguel Alvarado Sr., president of the Ponce First Branch. “Leaders passed out cards with the names and addresses of less-active members to pairs of branch members. Everyone had only a few people to visit. At the end of two hours, members met back at the chapel to report on their visits. This proved to be an efficient means of locating less-active members and reestablishing contact. Follow-up on this initial activity has helped revitalize our branch.”

I was 11 years old when I learned about the Church. From the moment I first entered the meetinghouse, I felt a beautiful spirit. I continued to attend for several months, during which time I turned 12 and started the Personal Progress program in Young Women. Two months later, on August 14, 1994, I was baptized.
It was surprising to the ward members to see a girl of 12 baptized by herself, without her parents. How did this happen? I asked my father if I could be baptized. He replied, “You’re an intelligent young woman, and you will know what decision to make.” I had already made the decision in my heart that I would never again be without the beautiful feeling I had when I heard the true gospel.

The humbling experiences of the last year of my marriage were particularly difficult. Learning about my spouse’s infidelity, opening my private life to my bishop and stake president, dealing with my husband’s decision to leave, beginning divorce proceedings, and watching my children suffer because their father was no longer in the home were only the beginning of what seemed to be wave after wave of challenges. I also lost the close relationship I had enjoyed with my in-laws; had to seek financial assistance from my family, ward, and state; agonized over an injury to one of my daughters; endured a cancer scare of my own; recovered from a serious car accident; struggled to complete my bachelor’s degree; and suffered job-search disappointments. By the end of that year, I was stripped of pride. I felt unencumbered before the Lord—humbled by a “sense of [my] nothingness” (Mosiah 4:5) and by a complete dependence on Him as my only anchor in a sea of change.
Yet instead of feeling despondent, I saw my state as an opportunity for Heavenly Father to work His will in my life. I began to understand the relationship between adversity and spiritual refinement. During my troubles, I frequently asked myself, What would Heavenly Father want me to do in this situation? I sought specific answers through prayer, scripture study, pondering, and temple attendance. Through this process of seeking and receiving divine guidance, I acquired increased patience and deeper trust in Heavenly Father.

President Monson recalls an act of priesthood service that changed his life.
I recall the time when I was ordained a deacon. Our bishopric stressed the sacred responsibility which was ours to pass the sacrament. Emphasized were proper dress, a dignified bearing, and the importance of being clean inside and out. As we were taught the procedure in passing the sacrament, we were told how we should assist Louis McDonald, a brother in our ward who was afflicted with a palsied condition, that he might have the opportunity to partake of the sacred emblems.
How I remember being assigned to pass the sacrament to the row where Brother McDonald sat. I was fearful and hesitant as I approached this wonderful brother, and then I saw his smile and the eager expression of gratitude that showed his desire to partake. Holding the tray in my left hand, I took a small piece of bread and pressed it to his lips. The water was later served in the same way. I felt I was on holy ground. And indeed I was. The privilege to pass the sacrament to Brother McDonald made better deacons of us all.

Today it was raining, and I had nothing to do. My friend came to play with me. “Let’s build things with blocks,” she said.
I built a brown rocket ship that would fly to the moon. She built a red house with windows and doors that would open.
“My rocket ship can fly up to the moon,” I said. “When it blasts off, it might make a terrible noise that could break your house.”
“Please don’t break my house,” my friend said. “The mother is cooking blueberry pancakes, and all the children love blueberry pancakes. They would never get to eat them.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll make something else, instead.”
I built a yellow backhoe with a long shovel tail. She built a little yard with trees and a white picket fence around her house.
“My backhoe could plow up a garden in your backyard,” I offered.
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said. “Then birds could find more worms for their babies and we could plant flowers and vegetables.”
“All right!” I said. “I’ll build something else too.”
I built a blue robot holding a big purple box. She built a blue school with desks for children to sit at.
“My robot has a big box,” I said. “It has lots of books and paper and pencils in it.”
“Oh, could she teach in my school?” she asked. “The children want to learn to spell cat.”
“I can spell cat,” I said. “C-a-t.”
“I know,” she said. “All the children in my school need to learn to spell like you can, and to read and to count.”
“Good,” I said. “My robot will help teach in your school while I build something else.”
I built a dinosaur with orange eyes and a green nose and a gray tail. She built a pink candy store. It had real black licorice sticks and red lollipops inside.
“My dinosaur is very hungry,” I said. “It’s going to eat up all the candy in your store.”
“Please don’t let it do that,” she said. “Then there would be no lollipops for all the good children.”
“Am I a good children?” I asked.
“You are a very good child,” she said.
I changed my dinosaur into a tiny mouse, then ran to give my friend a giant hug. “May I have one of your lollipops, Grandma?”
And she gave me one.

In 1870 my mother’s brother, Mons Andersen, came over there to our home as a Mormon missionary. He brought local elders there, and they held meetings in our home. By that means Mother and Father were converted to the Church. Soon after, they decided to move to Utah. But it was not so with me. I was going to the parson’s school, and there we had tests to see what we knew about the Bible. The elders found fault with the explanation of the passages of scripture which I was quoting, so instead of me being converted, it made me rather bitter against Mormonism.
Then the time came when my parents sold our home and were going to Utah. But I had gotten bitter and did not want to go with them. So when they saw I did not want to go, they offered lots of inducement. Then I wanted to stay more than ever. I did not realize our home was sold and that there was no home for me to fall back on. The people who bought our home had moved in, and we had to stay with our neighbor the last night. I finally consented to go with them as far as Christiania (now called Oslo), the capital of Norway, a distance of about 90 miles. So on June 18, 1872, we left our home and started to go to Utah.
Now I must tell a little of what happened there. You remember that was as far as I had promised to go with them. From the station there we were taken to the headquarters of the Mormon mission in Norway, at Osterhausgaten No. 27. While we were there, they held a meeting in that hall, and my parents wanted me to go into the meeting. But I wouldn’t go in. You remember I said before that I was bitter. There was a lady there who saw that I did not go in. She said, “If it was my boy, I would whip him till the blood ran down into the heels of his shoes.” I heard her say it, but I thought she would have to be a good runner to catch me because I was a fast runner.
Now this is how they got me to go farther. They knew what I had said before I left home in Ringsaker, and my sister Agnete had said that if I didn’t go, she wouldn’t go any farther either. Father went out to a hat store and bought my brother Mathias and myself each a nice brown hat and gave them to us. He said nothing but looked sorrowful. When I saw my parents looked sorrowful, I remembered what I had read in the Bible: “Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God gavest thee.” I consented to go with them. Then they cheered up, and I have never regretted it.

Towards the end of the school year, Karen invited me to a Gold and Green Ball, I had no idea what that was. I had never been to a dance in a church, and I had to dress in a suit! I was amazed to see a gymnasium in a church building.
But what went on in the gym surprised me even more. Adults and teenagers were talking, laughing, and even dancing together. My friends had always thought it was childish to like your parents. All over the nation there was an uproar about communication breakdown between parents and their children. But these people all seemed to be friends, regardless of age.
I asked Karen about it. She said it was because of the Church. As she took me on a tour of the building, I pondered what she had said. By the time I went home that night, I felt these people were unique, they were choice in some way I didn’t fully understand. They had a lot to be proud of.