Gospel Story Finder

My mother didn’t get mad at me very often. She was a very patient and loving woman. But one day when I arrived home after school, she was particularly upset. You see, school had been out since the middle of the afternoon, and it was after 7:00 P.M. when I finally got home! She was very worried about me because she did not know where I was.
It wasn’t until I arrived home that I realized that I had forgotten to tell her where I was going. I quickly explained that after school I had walked the four or five blocks to the newspaper office downtown to ask for a job as a newspaper boy. I had seen other boys about my age, eight or nine years old, standing on street corners, selling newspapers, and that’s what I wanted to do. That very day they assigned me a street corner, and I was so excited to start selling newspapers that I completely forgot about how worried my mother would be. Mother forgave me, but I knew that I wouldn’t again make the mistake of not telling her where I was!

I am the fifth child in a family of nine kids. We’ve always gone to church on Sundays and had family night on Mondays. I was president of both the Beehive and Mia Maid classes. I guess I took my religion for granted. Nobody really asked me if I believed it, and I never really even asked myself.
That all changed one Sunday morning in March. My mother had risen early to warm our home with a brisk fire in our big rock fireplace. There was no other heat in the house, and Mother knew we’d get out of bed faster if we were warm.
My mother ignited the wood on the fireplace grate, and small flames started burning the kindling. My little brother and sister were lying on the couch in a big blanket.
A flame jumped onto the nozzle of a gasoline can that had been left on the hearth. My mother lunged to take the can outside but stumbled, and gasoline spilled across the room. Suddenly the curtains, walls, and furniture caught fire.
“Matthew! Mary! Fire!” My mother jumped toward her children, the flames of the fire building around her bathrobe.
Instantly the children roused. Older Matthew shielded our younger sister, and together they leapt through the flames, stumbling outside into the early morning rain.
My mother ran toward the back rooms, shouting for the rest of us. We older children awoke in a sleepy stupor. I remember feeling the heat on my face and hearing the crackle of burning wood. Thick smoke burned my lungs and eyes. We escaped through our bedroom windows, dropping onto the cold, wet grass with our bare feet.
Sirens broke the air as a fire truck arrived and firefighters surrounded the area. My mother counted as eight pajama-clad children emerged from the home coughing, crying, and wheezing. My stomach heaved when I heard her gasp, “We left the baby in there!” She tried desperately to get back inside.
One of the men held my mother back while she fought at his grip, her arms reaching toward the fire and her baby. As jets of water struck the house, a fireman climbed into the billowing smoke of the baby’s room. He returned within moments. He slumped to the grass, clutching my littlest sister. She wasn’t breathing.
I watched my mother weep inconsolably. We had lost our home, clothes, even our childhood pictures. But nothing compared to the emptiness of losing our baby. How could this have happened?
We buried my sister three days later. The funeral left me empty and cold. I returned to our blackened home that afternoon and kicked at the embers. Heavy tears slid down my chin, and I turned and ran toward a nearby field. Sorrow overwhelmed me, and I dropped to my knees. For the first time in my life, I prayed—I mean really prayed. I opened not only my mouth but also my heart. The words that followed were not repetitious or planned. My pain spilled out, and I cried, “I need to understand. Why did this happen?”
Something changed. My body started to warm from the inside out. It was more than the warmth of a physical touch. My soul awakened, and I felt comfort and love. It was as though Heavenly Father were saying, “I understand.”
I opened one eye toward heaven and said out loud, “Heavenly Father, is that you?”
Once again, I felt it. I stayed on my knees for a long time, clinging to the first peace I’d felt since the fire. Heavenly Father was there.
Eventually we rebuilt our home and our lives. I still miss my sister, but I am at peace. I know I will see her again.
Each one of us will have to go through trials that will tear at our hearts. There have been many times since that morning that I have again asked, “Heavenly Father, are you there?”
He answers in that quiet voice, and I know I am not alone.

Before joining the ward team, I didn’t know the other teammates very well, but as we played basketball together they quickly became my friends. In fact, all of Skip’s friends from church became my friends—the boys who played basketball and also the girls who were their age. I didn’t know how to dance, so after Mutual activities several of my new friends and I would go to someone’s basement and play old records while they taught me how to dance. I’m still not a good dancer, but they taught me enough so that I could impress Carolyn Lake, another Latter-day Saint girl. After my mission to the Gulf States, Carolyn agreed to marry me.

Last month I described how my family and I constructed a 4,000-gallon pond in our backyard. Although all of the experts we consulted told us we should maintain it as a freshwater system, we were determined to convert it into one containing salt water. When we could see that our water system was operating properly, we ordered over a thousand pounds of synthetic sea salts from a company in Cleveland, Ohio, and added them to the water.
As you remember, we had previously stocked our pond with fifty black mollies we had purchased from a tropical fish store. Fortunately, these fish are able to live in both fresh and salt water, so they survived the conversion process. Of course the freshwater algae died, as did most of the aquatic insects that had begun to invade the water; but that was expected. Now with everything in order, we geared up for our first collecting trip that was designed to start our pond on its way to becoming a true marine ecosystem.
At this point, we feel that we have accomplished most of what we set out to do. In spite of all of the reasons everyone offered as to why we could not establish a salt water ecosystem in our backyard, we have done so.
In time, the data gathered will serve as a basis for science fair projects as well as for scientific articles that we will write on these subjects. We have even formed our own research corporation to study these and other aspects of the world around us and have embarked on a great family adventure that is truly a new frontier for our family. And more than ever before we appreciate our Heavenly Father’s plan for family associations.

Stepping gingerly into the baptismal font, I felt a surge of peace flood my mind and heart. My bishop smiled and took my hand. At the threshold of baptism, I stood comfortably and intently awaiting my purpose.
In the font, I knew the rest of my life would be different. It would be a lot harder, but I realized that part of growing up is making choices that are right. As I leaned back into the water, I felt peace! I could hardly believe the joy. I had decided what I believed and took courage in my own conviction.

Years ago I taught a seminary class filled with some of the best and most successful students in the school. And because of who they were, they had a great influence in the lives of others. They were looked up to and admired by the other students. Sometimes, even without knowing it, they could create a social pressure among the other students in the school. The effect of this peer pressure—this attitude of one’s age group—was demonstrated to us one day in class. We all learned a sorry lesson that almost any of us can bend to peer pressure. Here’s how it happened.
I had read a magazine article on negative peer pressure. The article described an experiment I was tempted to try on my class of students. The experiment was designed to show, in a very convincing way, how powerful peer pressure can be. It didn’t really occur to me that the experiment might have some negative consequences.
In class the next morning I did as instructed in the experiment. On the chalkboard I drew a star, a circle, an oval, and a square. I told my class that for the class period, the objects on the board were to be identified as a star, a circle, an oval, and a triangle, even though the square was obviously a square. It was now to be called a triangle and nothing else! In a moment they would have an opportunity to convince an unsuspecting visitor that the square was actually a triangle.
Five of my most influential students were invited to sit on chairs at the front of the class. We had a football player, a young lady very involved in various school activities, the school student president, a top scholar, and a young man successful in everything he attempted. A sixth chair was left vacant for our visitor, a freshman, a student in his first year, who immediately recognized that he was among the “best” of the high school. My class students made him welcome, and he began to relax and enjoy himself in their company.
I invited him to take the vacant seat in front of the class. I explained that when it came his turn, he was to simply identify the objects drawn on the board. He agreed. The others smiled. The lesson began.
“Mr. Footballer, will you identify the objects on the board?” I asked.
In a deep, manly voice he said, “Star, circle, oval,” and then, coming to the square, he confidently said, “Triangle.”
Our visitor, forgetting himself, let out a laugh, but the rest of the people in the room were absolutely silent. He quickly searched the faces of those present for acknowledgement of Mr. Footballer’s obvious mental fumble, but my students were playing their parts. To them that square was nothing more than a triangle. Mr. Freshman had a bewildered expression.
I then turned to the young lady.
“Would you please identify the objects on the board?”
She enthusiastically replied, “Star, circle, oval, triangle.”
The freshman fidgeted in his seat.
The class remained silent. Twice more the question was asked. The student president and the successful young man answered as we had planned.
By now our visitor looked slightly ill and had that “may-I-please-be-dismissed” expression on his face.
The scholar responded to my question, “Star, circle, oval, triangle.”
Now it was the freshman’s turn. With each object his voice grew weaker, shakier, and less confident.
“Star … circle … oval …” Then silence.
We looked at him. He looked at us.
“What’s the last object?” I asked.
Silence.
“Come on, what is it?”
Then finally, quietly he spoke.
“Triangle.”
I thought we’d all break the tenseness of the moment with a good laugh. The experiment had worked. But instead there was silence.
I searched the students’ faces. They were all deep in thought. Some heads were bowed.
Then I realized something. Each one in the class knew how the embarrassed freshman felt. Each in a foolish moment, wanting so badly to be accepted or to be part of a group, had in his own way called a square a triangle, had committed a wrong when there should only have been a right. Even I could add my name to the list. And we all realized, especially me, that we had been unkind to put the freshman in such an awkward situation.
We spent the remainder of our class time sharing feelings and regrets, but more importantly sharing desires, hopes, and longings to be more courageous. Mr. Footballer put his arm around the freshman, and we all reassured him that we’d made the mistake of giving in to pressure before, too. By the end of the class he was accepted by his peers—not because he’d given in, but because we’d all come to see the importance of never surrendering, of calling a square a square despite the consequences.
When the bell rang, we left as a group, wiser, more hopeful, and with a greater resolve to stand for that which is right even though we were subject to the pressures of the world.

Picture this: You sit down to dinner and look around. Gasp! You’re alone at a table with a half dozen of your past and present school teachers. Sitting next to you is Mr. Randal, your fourth period science teacher, and he’s staring right at you. He wants to chat.
Cringing already? Hey, I am, and they aren’t even my teachers.
There’s just something about teachers that makes most of us nervous (even those of us who no longer have to face their pop quizzes and long-essay finals). In fact, they make us so uneasy that the majority of us go through our junior and senior high years without ever getting to know what our teachers are really like, and most of us never even get to say thank you for all they do.
Two groups of LDS youth in the Boston area are doing something to fix that problem. It’s June 1990, and these New England LDS students are inviting their school teachers to “Appreciation Nights” at their local ward houses. The youth are spending an evening eating with, getting to know, and then saluting their teachers. They hope the time together will straighten out some long-standing misconceptions.
The youth of Nashua, New Hampshire, invite me to watch them set up for the following evening’s teacher appreciation dinner, which sounds about as exciting as watching 18 holes of TV golf. But I put some thought into it: a group of kids who would give up a night of summer fun to set up tables and cook for their teachers can’t be all bad.
I’m right.
Dave Eberhard, 17, a tall guy wearing a little black hat that seems too small for his head, says he’s the master of ceremonies for the big night. He looks like he might be a wise guy, but talk to him for a minute and you’ll find he’s articulate and bright—full of positive energy.
He says this is Nashua’s second year in hosting an appreciation night. “Last year’s dinner changed my relationship with my teachers,” he says. “They had always seen me as a class clown, but after they saw I appreciated them they began to notice how hard I really was trying. They looked at me from a different perspective.”
Dave adds that he learned more about his teachers as well. “I found out more about what really goes on after they get out of school. It’s a one-on-one relationship, and it’s not really school related or church related. It’s just you and the teachers out on the night.”
And according to Dave, the teachers loved the attention. “Some actually cried,” he says.
Elizabeth Davis, 16, sits on the front porch of her Pepperell, Massachusetts, home, her blue-rimmed glasses and baggy sweatshirt set against an old New England backdrop—1990 meets 1790. Elizabeth is talking about teachers. She has definite opinions. She loves her teachers, enough to help organize her ward’s own teacher appreciation night.
“Teachers don’t get a lot of respect,” she says. “That really annoys me. Most of my friends don’t think of teachers as people who are there to help them learn so they can get a good job, do something with their lives. The kids can be really mean.”
But Elizabeth says most of her teachers will go out of their way to help a student in need. She says that one of her teachers goes to a student’s house if that student is sick, to teach the day’s lesson (another scary thought, but kind of nice).
“All I hope is that after this night our teachers say, ‘Wow, our students really think of us.’”
It’s Tuesday night in Nashua. Sixty teachers and their spouses begin arriving at the appreciation night. They’re talking with their students, and the youth are relaxing.
I stop 14-year-old Cyndie Munk and ask her how it’s going. Three or four of her teachers are already here. “The teachers are just so impressed that we want to honor them,” she says, grinning. She sees her vice principal walk in and waves in his direction. “He never gets to do anything,” she tells me. “I gave him his invitation and told him what it was for and he absolutely beamed. Every time I saw him around school he just started smiling, asking if he was still supposed to come.”
The meal is served and Dave, the MC, sits with one of his teachers—Mrs. Rogers. Dave looks uncomfortable, but he gets over it. They chat. It’s fun to watch.
After the meal the bishop gives a “rah-rah” education speech and then the youth hand out certificates of appreciation to their teachers. My hometown newspaper would have written, “And a good time was had by all.”
The teachers are filing out and Cyndie sums up the Nashua evening for me. “My teachers said they’ve never had anyone do anything like this for them,” she says. “But I think they work hard. They give up a lot of their own time for us. I think they deserved this.”
“Two years ago I wouldn’t have done this, invited my teachers,” Jason Hunter, 16, tells me at the Pepperell dinner on Friday. Two of his teachers are here. “I’ve learned some things, though. If I am responsible, if I get my homework done, my teachers treat me differently. I’m sure that if I were a teacher and had a student who wasn’t trying, I’d get mad. The past two years I’ve made an effort in class, and now I think my teachers like me. I make the extra effort to think of them, to say good-bye when class is over, or tell them when I’m interested in something.”
Jason’s friend, Mike Bruneau, joins him. Mike’s 15 and feels lucky to be one of eight LDS students in a high school of 1,200—many of the youth in this area are the only member in their school. Mike says he tries to set an example, do the right things at school, and show respect for his teachers.
“I invited my French teacher, who gave me a lot of help earlier this year,” Mike says. “She just kept saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ when I gave her the invitation. I think it really touched her to see that someone cared about the good job she was doing.”
The Pepperell youth take a different approach than at Nashua. The students choose to entertain their teachers with a play and music before they hand out certificates. The play, a comedy about a class who is given a robot teacher to substitute for a human teacher, is a big hit. “Super Teacher,” written by Rebecah Davis, 15, illustrates that for the students, there is no substitute for the individual technique, enthusiasm, and humor of their teachers.
Rebecah says that most of the kids in her ward were skeptical of the appreciation night idea, but the teachers were so excited when they received their invitations that the youth lost their anxiety. “We couldn’t believe how excited our teachers were,” she adds. “Nobody had ever done anything like this for them before.”
“This is what it’s all about,” one teacher says to me, leaning close like he’s sharing a secret. “Knowing that you made enough of a difference for someone to say thank you.”
He returns to a group of other teachers who are standing around, talking with their students. They are laughing about something I can’t hear, but I don’t move closer. There’s something happening there, something kind of nice.
Hints from the New England youth on hosting successful teacher appreciation nights:
Hold the event at a time of year when both teachers and students are not very busy. (Christmas or the end of the school year can be bad times.)
Get the support of your leaders and bishopric before organizing anything. They should have some good ideas, or at least be able to help with the planning.
Invite all your teachers, not just your favorites. If word gets around (and it probably will) that you didn’t invite certain teachers, their feelings could be hurt.
Eating with your teachers, instead of serving them, is a nice way to get to know each other.
Make your program short and focused on the goal of honoring your teachers. (Make them laugh or cry, but stick to the theme.)
Give your teachers a certificate or some other memento of the evening.

I might mention here an experience of a young couple. This young lady and her husband (they had two children, a tiny girl and a baby two weeks old) graduated from college, and he had a business opportunity in Salt Lake City. So they moved to Salt Lake City.
They, of course, were active in the Church, and Bishop Bowles—it was in the Belvedere Ward—called them in the first week they were there. The bishop said, “We’re building a new building, and we need all the help we can get. Are you willing to serve?” They both said they were. And he said, “Would you like to suggest where you’d like to serve?”
That’s a little unusual in the Church, but she was happy for that. She was a teacher. She said she’d like to teach in the Sunday School or in the Young Women. So the following Sunday she was sustained as second counselor in the presidency of the Relief Society! Now, she protested and used the word shocked, and this is a quote: “That organization is for my mother, not for me.” She said she had no experience, and, I quote again, “I have no desire to learn.”
Well, the bishop prevailed, as bishops will, and she answered the call. They held Relief Society in a dismal room in the basement of the chapel because of remodeling and construction. It was in the furnace room. While the furnace was on, it was terrible, and when the furnace was off, it was intolerable. Her children caught cold. On at least two occasions she went to the bishop and asked to be released. On both occasions the bishop said he’d think about it.
Finally, she was in a very serious automobile accident. After some period of treatment, she was recovering at home. Part of the injury was a terrible laceration of her face. This became infected, and they called a doctor one Sunday night. He made preparation for some further attention, but he said, “I think we can’t touch this surgically; it’s too close to the nerve in your face.” He gave her what attention he could and explained how grave the situation was.
It was as the doctor was leaving that Sunday night when the bishop appeared at the door, after a long, busy day, as Sundays will be for a bishop. He said, “I was just on my way home from some interviews and saw the light on and wondered if there was trouble here.” This woman was in agony. When the bishop said, “Is there anything we can do for you?” she answered from her pain and with tears, “Yes, bishop. Now will you release me from the Relief Society?” He said he would pray about it. And when the answer came back, it was, “Sister Spafford, I still don’t get the feeling that you should be released from the Relief Society.”
This great and lovely woman, who for many years presided over our Relief Society in the Church, was tested in those early days of her life. I think that something like that may come to many of us, most of us, when we’re being tested, as it were.

I was 20 years old and had spent most of my life as a member of my parents’ church. But for three years I had not gone to church because I was considering other religious and moral philosophies—although none of them felt right to me.
One day when I arrived at my parents’ house, my brother and my best friend were there. They said some young women had come to visit and had left a book with my brother. My brother had asked my best friend to be at the house when they came back. He wanted him to be the one to tell them not to come anymore.
But when the missionaries returned, my friend said, “Come back in three days because I want to hear the discussions.”
My brother was furious. I asked my friend what he had been thinking, and he just said, “Well, they are very beautiful, and they have a nice way of talking about Jesus Christ.”
“Well, I will get rid of them,” I replied arrogantly.
Two weeks went by without my being able to do so. They were now visiting my brother and my sister and many of my friends. They were surrounding me on all sides, and I didn’t even know who was responsible for what felt like an ambush.
The following week, my brother told me that two of my friends had already been baptized and that another was going to be baptized that Sunday. I agreed to go to church on Sunday just to see my friend’s baptism. “But this is crazy,” I said to myself.
That Sunday I finally met the two missionaries who had been giving me so many headaches. At the end of the baptismal service they came up to me, gave me a Book of Mormon, and invited me to hear the first discussion. On the inside I was resisting and shouting, “No!” But on the outside I was crying, and I said, “Yes,” to all their invitations.
A week later, there I was watching another of my friends be baptized. And on the following Sunday, my best friend and I also entered the waters of baptism.
Almost a month went by. I felt a need not just to believe, but to know for sure that these things were true. One Sunday morning I decided not to go to church but to go somewhere else and pray. I headed toward a hill about six miles (9 km) from the city. When I got there I found a place off the beaten path where I could be at peace. After almost an hour of reading the Book of Mormon, pondering, praying for an answer, and intending to stay there until I received one, something strange started happening. I felt a desire to go to church. My heart was beating rapidly. That was my answer.
Almost in spite of myself, I got on my bicycle, returned to the city, and got to the meetinghouse as quickly as I could. To my great surprise, the meetings were just starting.
Ever since then I have known that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ and that this is His Church. It’s a message I shared as a full-time missionary, trying to be the same kind of missionary as those sisters I couldn’t get rid of.

From Oregon:
“I set a date of just under two months and proceeded to ask for divine guidance in all of my daily prayers, and to fast for strength not to lose sight of my goal.
“My date came and went, with a few pangs of guilt. However, I received a message one week later that an old friend of mine that I had gone to school with wanted me to call. I gave him a call and invited him over that night. My friend went with me to pick up some pizza. As we drove into town, I told him that I was a member of the LDS church. He was interested, so I related some of the many blessings I had received. I then asked him to attend church with me that next Sunday, which he did.
“From the beginning, he accepted it all. We invited him to be baptized. He said he didn’t want to be rushed into anything. At this time, I was impressed to read to him from the Book of Mormon, using the words that Alma used at the waters of Mormon. As I read those verses from Mosiah 18 to him, I paused at each question that Alma asked and asked him if he were willing to do it also. He said yes to all of it. Then I read him verse 10 and asked him, ‘What have you against being baptized?’
“He looked at me and said, ‘You’re right, I have nothing to wait for.’ So the date was set, and I baptized and confirmed him a member of the Church.”

Have you ever had a school teacher who has made a real difference in your life? How about one you thought was especially funny, or smart, or nice? Youth in the Edgewood Ward, Kimball (Mesa, Arizona) East Stake thought long and hard about those questions and then invited 37 of their favorite school teachers to a special teacher appreciation dinner at their church building.
The young men and young women ate dinner with the teachers and then performed a dance number for them. Three of the students also gave short talks about the importance of teachers in their lives.
“The teachers here are remarkable,” said Mia Maid Brittney Riggs during the program. “Teacher starts with T, and so does the following: ‘Thank you, teachers.’”
Certificates of appreciation and a program highlighting the lives and achievements of the teachers were given to each teacher in attendance.
Now there’s a program that deserves an A for effort.

Shortly after my call to the Seventy, I was assigned to serve in England. Sister Rasband and I took our two youngest children, Shannon and Christian, with us. We quickly realized what a sacrifice it would be for them, particularly for Christian. He was 17 years old and looking forward to his senior year of high school with his friends and the athletic competitions, which he would now miss back home.
To help Shannon and Christian adjust to this new place, we decided to go to the Preston England Temple to perform baptisms for the dead. We had not done this in our busy lives back home. The minute we walked into the temple baptistry, everything changed.
After performing the baptisms, Christian put his hand on my shoulder and sincerely asked, “Dad, why haven’t we ever done this before?”
Preston England Temple baptistry
I learned an important lesson that day. The temple had changed our perspectives, brought us peace and joy, and spiritually lifted us more than any football tournament or basketball game ever could. If you have a chance to attend the temple, I encourage you to go as often as possible. Take your ancestors’ names and perform baptisms and confirmations for them. Your experiences in the temple will bring peace and joy to you and others here and in the life to come.

One young mother who shares her faith online has developed a loyal following. Stephanie Nielson started a blog, nieniedialogues.blogspot.com, where she chronicled her life as a stay-at-home mom. She continued updating her blog after she survived a plane crash in 2008 that left her visibly scarred but spiritually rededicated.
Stephanie shares the gospel on her blog through her posts and includes a large button with a link to LDS.org. She also offers visitors a free copy of her “favorite book”—the Book of Mormon—that she will send “anywhere in the world … anywhere!”

Many sisters’ acceptance letters were simple expressions of gratitude at the opportunity to serve, while others tell stories of incredible courage and faith. Julia Curtis’s husband died before he could fill his mission call. After her baby also died, she wrote to the First Presidency, saying, “I now am alone, ready and anxious to fill this mission and take my husband’s place.”15 Julia was called to serve in Colorado, and upon her return, she married one of the missionaries who had previously served in that mission.

I was not a member of the Church as a child. It wasn’t until I was an adult and a businessman that I was baptized.
My father was also a businessman. He was very worried when I joined the Church. He said, “You don’t drink alcohol anymore. That will be hard in meetings where everyone is drinking together.”
But I wasn’t worried. I decided that when someone offered me alcohol, I would say, “No, thank you.” Then I would order something else.
Years went by, and I did this many times. After a while, my coworkers noticed. If I was offered alcohol, they said, “Mathias doesn’t drink. Bring him something else.” More and more of them stopped ordering alcohol too. “I don’t want any either,” they said.
Once, some visitors came to a meeting. They were the only ones drinking alcohol.
They asked me, “Why isn’t anyone drinking alcohol? Are they all members of your church?”
“No,” I said.
I didn’t preach to my coworkers about the Word of Wisdom. I was just firm in my beliefs, and they noticed my example.

Claire and Sandra Hoey of Craigavon are members of the Portadown Ward. They talk about the walls that missionaries helped tumble for their family.
“The missionaries had been coming to our parents for a long time,” Sandra says. “But I never paid any attention. Then one night I was upstairs and I started listening. I got more interested in what they were saying. I decided it was time to see what it was all about.”
The discussions became more and more serious. The parents were baptized. An older brother was baptized. Then Sandra, then Claire.
After the baptisms, a friend “noticed that since I’ve joined the Church I’ve been happier,” Claire says. “She wanted to find out what it was that was making me happy.” Now the friend is taking the discussions in the Hoeys’ home. “I can remember asking the same questions, praying to resolve the same doubts,” Claire says. “It helps when I can tell her I’ve been through the same thing, and gained my own testimony.”

Youth are not the only ones who slip into crevasses.
A stake president recently told me that a respected member who had held Church leadership positions was enticed by some business friends to try the cocaine drug “crack.” The men were depressed. Their company was failing, and they succumbed to the evil enticement of illegal drugs.
He wasted $18,000 buying “crack,” lost his job, underwent a personality change, and finally was hospitalized. Through it all, his wife stayed by him. She found a job, and they began the struggle of putting his life back together. His Church friends helped him get another job.
His mind is seriously affected. He is still somewhat dependent on some drugs. The hope and prayer of his family is that he will be able to hold on to the lifeline.

This would be a fine place to end Kim and Neil’s story, but there’s more. The Kereszti’s son, Zsolt, was the only LDS single adult in Hungary, so Dr. Davis invited him to come to Salt Lake City and live with his family for a while. Since Zsolt had medical training, he could help Dr. Davis with his laser research.
So now the Davis’s missionary efforts resulted in a new big brother for the family. What’s it like to suddenly have a friend from Hungary move in?
“I remember the first day he came,” says Kim. “We couldn’t even pronounce his name. But since then, we’ve become really close. I go to early-morning seminary, and he takes me. He’s come to our school and spoken, he’s cooked us Hungarian dinners, he’s taught us a little of the Hungarian language, and we’ve done a lot of other special things together.”
“I was kind of shy at first,” says Neil, who was the oldest son in the house when Zsolt arrived. “We’d go out and play racquetball and Ping-Pong, and we all got used to each other. For coming from a family where he was the only child, he’s very patient with us.”
As for Zsolt, he was delighted to be accepted straight into the heart of a strong LDS family. He’s fascinated by their unity, by family prayer, scripture study, and home evening, and he’s amazed at their support of each other. The Davises are a musical family and play their various instruments together often. They’re also an athletic family and always attend each other’s games and meets.
“I’ve learned that I tremendously enjoy a big family,” Zsolt says. “It’s very educational for me to watch and learn how they handle everything. They set goals and motivate each other. I would like to have a family like this someday.”

I recently was standing at the luggage retrieval at the Salt Lake City International Airport when a woman came to me and asked my name. I recognized her as a former South Rich High School classmate from years ago. She had changed since I had last seen her. You all know how you feel at the old dreaded high school reunion. She had added some gray hair and a few wrinkles. (Of course, I hadn’t changed.) It was obvious that she was meeting her missionary child, who was returning from a mission. It surprised me. While she was yet in school, her family, who were not members of the Church, had moved into our small community. Her name was Alice Gomez. She was about the same age as me and my friends. I remembered that she was friendly and always polite but that she never did attend any of our Church meetings.
I said to her, “Alice, tell me your story. You are obviously now an active member of the Church, but you never joined while we were going to school.”
Her answer was condemning: “No one ever asked me!” Wow! Our quorum really dropped the ball on that one.
Recently reported to me was the story of a priests quorum in Jamaica that decided to help the missionaries with their work. So this quorum of young men went knocking on doors, trying to find appointments for the missionaries. They soon found more referrals than the missionaries could handle.
Members of a priests quorum in Kaysville, Utah, decided they would not lose one member of their quorum. The whole quorum would go to a less-active member’s home and have their Sunday lesson sitting around the less-active boy’s bed. Soon that young man joined his quorum in taking the Sunday lesson to another home.
As of the year 2003, there are more than 26,000 wards and branches in the Church, with approximately 78,000 deacons, teachers, and priests quorums. Talk about an army!
The contribution the quorums of the Aaronic Priesthood could make to the work of converting, retaining, and activating other members of their quorums is enormous.
If 16-year-old Mormon could be the commanding officer of a large military army, and if Jeremiah as a child could have words put in his mouth by the Almighty God, and if Timothy could be wise as he was, then each young man within the sound of my voice can rise to the challenge of his quorum responsibilities.
The responsibilities of the Aaronic Priesthood quorums are no less important than the responsibilities of elders quorums or high priests groups. Remember, they hold “the keys of the ministering of angels.” We need young men to stand up in their calling, knowing of their ordained right to act in the office to which they are appointed.
I testify that these Aaronic Priesthood quorums hold the holy priesthood of God. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Peter Jeppson took the gas pump hose out of his tank and with a quick twist of his wrist, secured the tank cap. It was late Saturday night, and he had stopped for gas on his way home after a double date. He was still thinking of his best friend’s news—a mission call. Peter, himself, would be sending in his own papers in just a few weeks.
As Peter pulled through an intersection into the traffic on the main highway leading into Boise, his car smashed head-on into another. On impact, the windshield of his car was knocked out and shattered on the street. The full gas tank located in the front of his rear-engined car burst.
Gas sloshed up the hood right through the open window catching me right in the eyes, covering me and the inside of the car completely. Somehow flames were ignited, and the car burst into a blazing inferno. It was then that some people who were passing by saw the accident and pulled over quickly. Three men were able to get close enough to my car to open the door. The flames were two times as high as the car. They couldn’t find me because the flames were so intense. They threw their coats in the open car door to cover the flames until they could see my hand. The three of them grabbed my hand and pulled me from the wreckage. They rolled me over and over to put out the fire.
Peter had borrowed his brother’s thick, Scottish wool sweater for his date that night. The trunk of his body and his arms down to the wrists, the areas covered by the sweater, were the only parts not burned. This sweater saved his life.