Gospel Story Finder

During my investigation of the Church, my mom was against my joining. But Dad gave his consent to my baptism and sometimes sat with me during discussions. I’m very grateful to him for that. To all the Latter-day Saints out there whose parents are members, I want to say, “Count your many blessings.” When you don’t have a family to go to Church with on Sunday, or the privilege of experiencing the spiritual enlightenment that the family home evening program brings, or have the Melchizedek Priesthood in your home, you miss out on a lot of blessings. But one great blessing I do have is a father and mother and family who love me. Since I joined the Church we’ve drawn closer together than ever before.

by Barbara Steffensen
They filtered into the room as they always had on Sunday mornings—greeting friends and gathering together to visit and laugh a little before the meeting began. But this particular Sunday was different. On the Sunday of their ward conference, each of the young men and young women in the Blackfoot Idaho South Stake had brought an item to church—pictures, basketballs, scriptures. All the youth had been asked to bring one item related to their Church activity and to stand before the group and explain what kept them active in the Church.
To introduce the activity, the first to stand in each ward was stake Young Men president, Joe Dayle. Many snickered when he held up an empty beer can, but they listened to his words. “As I watched my friends get involved in these kinds of things, and the problems that came along with them, I gained a testimony of the Word of Wisdom. I knew it was true.”
Many aspects of Church activity were evident as each stood and shared feelings. A young woman holding a Personal Progress book told of her testimony of goal setting. Another, holding a basketball, shared her love for the sports program. A Scouting manual showed the importance the program held to a young deacon. Many brought their scriptures and told of their gratitude for them and for the seminary program which helped them learn and better understand God’s word. The power of family influences was represented by the many pictures brought of parents, grandparents, and brothers and sisters.
As each meeting in each ward progressed, the Spirit grew stronger. Testimonies were borne of the love felt for the Savior and the sacrifice he made.
In the fall, after all ward conferences were completed, a stake activation night was held as a culmination of the year’s program. Each young man and woman in the stake—active and inactive—was contacted and asked to write his or her testimony on a card. The theme for the night was “Let Your Testimony Soar.” That evening, hundreds of helium balloons with the testimony cards inside were filled and released.

He would almost certainly recall a defining experience from his missionary days. Young Elder Hinckley had dealt with poor health and intense opposition when he arrived in Preston. He wrote his father that he was wasting both time and money. A short letter came by return mail: “Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.” Says President Hinckley: “With my father’s letter in hand, I … got on my knees and made a pledge with the Lord. I covenanted that I would try to forget myself and lose myself in His service.
“That July day in 1933 was my day of decision. A new light came into my life and a new joy into my heart. The fog of England seemed to lift.”

In the Philippines, there are science high schools that have a strong focus on academics. Students in these schools take more subjects, spend more time in class, and have a lot of homework. This is the kind of environment I was in as a young woman.
I gave up many activities upon entering high school because I knew I would be spending so much time studying. I almost never attended Church activities and would occasionally miss church on Sundays because of school events. I also struggled to attend seminary.
One Saturday my seminary teacher told us how busy she was in her high school days. Despite her schedule, she managed to do her seminary assignments and study scripture mastery at the library. I decided to take up her challenge to do the same. I carried my scripture mastery cards with me all the time and reviewed them during my free time. I prayed for help to balance my seminary study with the demands of school. I memorized scriptures while commuting to school. I took the cards out while I chatted with my friends. During breaks and lunchtime, my friends enjoyed quizzing me on the mastery cards. And then some of them started bringing their scriptures and talking about activities at their churches. I felt the change in atmosphere around me, and school felt lighter and better.
My three younger sisters followed my lead, and now my family reaps the blessings of the scriptures in our home. Learning my scripture mastery verses was a very simple act, but more important than the memorized words, I learned the difference the scriptures could make in me and the people around me. I know that whatever challenge or trial we face, we will always find strength and guidance in the words of our loving Savior.

The gas shortage has a lot of people stalled these days, but Jeff Ricks, 19, of Rexburg, Idaho, is not one of them. He found his own solution to the problem by simply building a car that requires no gasoline.
Jeff’s electric car began as a 1959 sedan that he purchased for $20. He repaired the interior himself and sent the car to a local body shop for a paint job.
Then with the knowledge of electronics he possessed after a year of high school electronics, a semester of college electronics, and hours of research in the Ricks College library, Jeff set to work to equip his car with an electric motor. In the end he converted a generator into a traction motor because a surplus motor couldn’t be located. His family helped in the often frustrating search for the correct combination of electrical parts, and after much experimentation the first successful electric car in southeastern Idaho was born.
Jeff’s oil-free, gas-free, tune-up-free, pollution-free wonder is capable of traveling 30 miles at 30 miles-per-hour between rechargings. He estimates its present sale value at $3,000. “But it’s not for sale,” he is quick to add.
Jeff is an elder in the Rexburg Second Ward, Rexburg Idaho Stake.

Recently three generations of a family were grieving at the death of a five-year-old boy. He died accidentally while with his family on a vacation. I was granted the opportunity to watch once again how the Lord blesses the faithful with relief and the strength to endure.
I watched the way the Lord made their great burden lighter. I was with them as the Lord’s covenant servant—as you will be often in your life—“to mourn with those that mourn … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.”
Because I knew that was true, I was pleased and at peace when the grandparents invited me to meet with them and the parents of the little boy before the funeral.
I prayed to know how I could help the Lord comfort them. They sat down with me in our living room. I had warmed the room on a cold night with a small fire in the fireplace.
I had felt to tell them that I loved them. I told them that I had felt the Lord’s love for them. In just a few words I tried to tell them that I mourned for them but that only the Lord knew and could experience perfectly their pain and grief.
After saying those few words, I felt impressed to listen with love while they talked about their feelings.
In the hour we sat together, they spoke far more than I did. I could feel in their voices and see in their eyes that the Holy Ghost was touching them. In words of simple testimony, they spoke of what happened and how they felt. The Holy Ghost had already given them the peace that comes with the hope of eternal life, when their son, who died without sin, could be theirs forever.
When I gave them each a priesthood blessing, I gave thanks for the influence of the Holy Ghost that was there. The Comforter had come, bringing hope, courage, and increased strength for all of us.
That night, I saw demonstrated how the Lord works with us to lighten the loads of His people. You remember in the Book of Mormon when His people were nearly crushed by the burdens placed upon their backs by fierce taskmasters.
The father and the mother of the little boy bore witness of the Savior that evening in my living room. The Holy Ghost came, and all were comforted. The parents were strengthened. The burden of grief did not disappear, but they were made able to bear the sorrow. Their faith increased. And their strength will continue to grow as they ask for it and live for it.

I remember when I was assigned to give my first talk in church. I was given the liberty to choose my subject. I’ve always liked birds, so I thought of the Seagull Monument. In preparation, I went to Temple Square and looked at the monument. First I was attracted to all the coins in the water surrounding the monument. I wondered how they would be retrieved and who would retrieve them. I shall not confess any thought of taking them. Then I looked upward at the seagulls atop that monument. I tried in my boyish mind to imagine what it would be like to be a pioneer watching the first year’s growth of precious grain being devoured by crickets and then seeing those seagulls, with their lofty wings, descending upon the fields and eating the crickets. I loved the account. I sat down with a pencil in hand and wrote out a two-and-one-half-minute talk. I’ve never forgotten the seagulls. I’ve never forgotten the crickets. I’ve never forgotten my knees knocking together as I gave that talk. I’ve never forgotten the experience of letting some of my innermost feelings be expressed verbally at the pulpit. I would urge that we give the Aaronic Priesthood an opportunity to think, to reason, and to serve.

Because of his life-style, he says, “I felt condemned, and often asked God in all seriousness to help me to see what was right, and how to serve Him; telling Him I wanted to know positively, and not be deceived.” In his rough way, he felt that people living in his time were entitled to a prophet too; that it was not right “to leave them without anything but the Bible.”
He left Mexico in 1850 with a large trading company traveling to Salt Lake City. On the way, he was badly wounded by a gun accident, but managed to survive until his companions got him to the Latter-day Saint settlements near Provo, south of Salt Lake City.
In that day, the Saints were often ridiculed by travelers, but when he overheard some of his friends reading the Doctrine and Covenants and making fun of it, he thought of his prayer asking for modern revelation. He left his companions, moved in with a Latter-day Saint family, and began investigating the gospel as he recovered from his injury. “Everyone was kind and treated me with great confidence,” he remembered. “I listened to the elders preaching and soon concluded they were honest and knew it, or were deliberate liars and deceivers. I was determined, if possible, not to be fooled, therefore I commenced to watch very closely.” He was particularly impressed by the lack of bitterness that Latter-day Saints felt toward the Indians, in spite of recent battles.
When he learned about the Book of Mormon, “it seemed natural to me to believe it. I cannot remember ever questioning in my mind the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, or that Joseph Smith was a prophet. The question was: Are the Mormons sincere, and can I be one?” When he decided that he could be, he spoke to Isaac Morley, who had been one of the first converts to the Church in Ohio.
It was 27 January 1851, wintertime, and Brother Morley “was just going out to get a load of wood with his ax under his arm.” Remarking quietly, “I have been expecting this,” Brother Morley used the ax to chop through thick ice formed over the nearby lake—and Dan became a member of the Church.

President Harold B. Lee told of calling a patriarch. He and the stake president had gone to the man’s home. He had been out with his sons on the welfare farm all day and was tired and weary and covered with grime.
President Lee said, “I made him more weary when I told him what it was I had come for—that he was to be called as the patriarch to that stake.”
After the morning session of conference, where the man had borne a remarkable testimony, they went to a basement office.
The stake president’s wife was present and wrote to President Lee: “As you walked over to put your hands on [his] head, I thought to myself, He is a man with whom we socialize. We have gone on trips with him, to dances. … Now part of his responsibility is to declare the lineage from which each one has come in these blessings. He hasn’t been a student of ancient languages—how is he going to know?
“… You walked over and put your hands on his head, and a light came from behind you and went right through you and into him. And I thought to myself, Isn’t that a strange coincidence that the sunlight has come in just at that moment. And then I realized that there was [no window,] no sunlight. I was witnessing the answer to my question. … That light came from somewhere beyond Brother Lee and went through Brother Lee into this patriarch. Then I knew where he was going to get that information—by the revelations of Almighty God.”

One unforgettable day in the fall of 1856, a group of some 500 Latter-day Saint pioneers were steadily pulling their handcarts toward Zion, when they found themselves surrounded by buffalo. At first, the Saints viewed the buffalo as a blessing; they needed to add to their meat supply. But the large animals thundered through the ranks of the pioneers scattering their possessions and stampeding their cattle. Without the necessary firearms, the Saints were able to kill only two buffalo.
The battle between pioneer and buffalo was described in the diary of Joseph Benson Elder, a 21-year-old, who saw the event, but was too far away from the handcart company at the time to be of any help.
Joseph had been traveling with the company for only a short time. It had been earlier that year, just two day after he had been ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood, and a year after his baptism, that he had decided to help the Saints who were gathering to Zion, and to join them himself.
Through the summer of 1856, Joseph and several other young Latter-day Saint men were occupied with the hard and dangerous task of herding cattle, mules, horses, and oxen to meet the various emigrating groups who were making their way across America’s plains to Zion. It wasn’t until mid-August that Joseph Elder was assigned to the handcart group that was already on the way to Winter Quarters from Iowa City, where the emigrants from European mission fields had gotten off the train. Led by Captain James G. Willie, the company had waited for more than a month in Iowa City for their handcarts to be finished. Some of the leaders of the Church Emigration organization wondered if it wasn’t too late in the year for another group to head to Utah, but enthusiasm was high and they decided to go ahead.
On Saturday, August 17th, Joseph Elder wrote in his diary:
“We organized ourselves for the march to Salt Lake City, more than [1,600 kilometers] away. It was quite an interesting sight to see the carts roll out in their several divisions and to see the people in such good faith. Although the Plains had never been crossed by handcarts, they believed they could accomplish it.”
Joseph was assigned to drive one of the extra supply wagons and to help with the livestock that was taken along for food. The entire company included, by his estimate, “about 450 people, with about 120 handcarts and six supply wagons.” They were divided into groups of tens and hundreds.
As they left the area of Florence, Nebraska, or the Winter Quarters camp, there were three other handcart companies ahead of them on the trail, and the Martin Handcart Company was just a few days behind them. These 1856 companies were the first to try to cross the plains with only handcarts and tents. When the Willie Company left Winter Quarters, the three earliest groups were still four weeks away from Salt Lake City. No one had yet proven that a large group of men, women, and children, including the aged and sick, could walk to Zion. But they wanted to try, even if it was late in the year.
But as time passed, the pioneers faced serious problems. The handcarts for the Willie and Martin companies had been hastily made and breakdowns were frequent. Stopping for repairs meant that food supplies had to last longer, and that the pioneers would be traveling through the mountains later in the season.
Even though Joseph Elder was diligent in his assignment to hunt buffalo for the handcart company, the animals were not always available, and all provisions became scarce. Cattle and some oxen had been lost to the stampeding buffalo. Flour had to be rationed, and there was little other food left. Some of the Saints began to weaken with hunger. The company relied heavily on the promises they had that Church leaders in Salt Lake City would be sending supply wagons to meet them.
By September 26 the first three handcart companies reached the Salt Lake Valley, but the Willie Company was still far behind in mountainous country. Joseph Elder records that they reached Fort Laramie, Wyoming, about October 1. Every day from Fort Laramie on they were climbing higher into the mountains. On the day that they traveled twenty-five kilometers without water, they also gave out the last of their flour. They were still hundreds of kilometers from Salt Lake City with no word yet on when help might be coming with more food.
A major setback for the handcart company was an unusually early and heavy winter snow storm. The pioneers tried to shelter themselves from the storm, but their tents were useless in such bad weather. “It was very bad, because the people were weak, having been on small rations of food,” wrote Joseph. But, as the storm passed, a great shout arose from the camp. They caught sight of a wagon. Two men from Salt Lake City were bringing word that teams of horses and wagons and provisions were onto their way. “It was glorious news,” wrote Joseph, but news alone did not feed the hundred of hungry Saints or keep them warm in this hour of critical need.
“The next morning when we got up, the pioneers were hungry and cold. To rush them into the snow would be certain death to a great many of them, for we had not yet met the relief wagons, only the one wagon which passed us and went on the Martin Company.”
Joseph recorded in his diary that Captain Willie then decided to take Joseph with him to go in search of the relief wagons. The company would make a camp and try to shelter themselves as best they could. Each pioneer had been allowed a maximum of only eight kilograms of clothing and bedding to keep the handcart light. In the severe cold, it wasn’t enough. Many Saints were literally freezing.
“We started ahead in search of our brethren,” wrote Joseph, and they rode on old and tired mules for [eighteen kilometers] with the snow and bitter wind blowing in their faces all day. The next day they found a guidepost where they were directed to their rescuers, who had been delayed in the storm. “Great was their joy in seeing us for they had been searching for us for a long time.”
It was another day and a half of difficult traveling until Captain Willie and Joseph Elder could lead the rescuers back to the camp to help. They found the cold had taken a terrible toll.
Joseph recorded: “That was an awful day. Many can never forget the scenes they witnessed that day. Men, women and children weakened by cold and hunger, weeping, crying, and some even dying by the roadside. … Oh how my heart did quake and shudder at the awful scenes which surrounded me. The next morning we buried nine, all in one deep grave.”
The fate of the Willie Handcart Company would be remembered as one of the saddest trials of all those endured by Mormon pioneers. But with fresh supplies of food and clothing, the health of the group gradually improved and even the weather got better. “We continued a steady march and at last to our great joy we arrived at Great Salt Lake City on November 9, 1856.” But our of the 450 Saints who had started the trek, sixty-seven died along the way.
Just two weeks after the group’s arrival, Joseph heard Church President Brigham Young issue a call for volunteers to go out and help the 600 members of the Martin Handcart Company still in the mountains in deep snow.
Joseph left that day with the other volunteers.
In the mountains the snow was almost three meters deep, and the wagons couldn’t get through. The volunteers had to carry the supplies on their backs to the handcart company. With the others, Joseph helped set up a camp to prepare the members of the company for the final effort to reach Salt Lake City.
Finally, all the handcart pioneers were safely gathered to Zion, where they went about the business of starting new lives.
Joseph found employment teaching school and driving a carriage for Brigham Young. He soon met Margaret Joiner, a lovely young English convert who had come to Utah with a wagon train of pioneers. In time they were married and became the parents of seven children, only two of whom lived to adulthood. Joseph served a short mission in Illinois, and, in 1878, at the age of forty-three, he served a mission to Europe.
Joseph Benson Elder lived a long life filled with Church service, in which he found much satisfaction.

Back in Manchester, a young man named Oliver Cowdery was staying with Joseph’s parents. Oliver was a year younger than Joseph, and in the fall of 1828 he had begun teaching school about a mile south of the Smiths’ farm.
Teachers often boarded with the families of their students, and when Oliver heard rumors about Joseph and the gold plates, he asked if he could stay with the Smiths. At first he gleaned few details from the family. The stolen manuscript and local gossip had made them wary to the point of silence.15
But during the winter of 1828–29, as Oliver taught the Smith children, he earned the trust of his hosts. Around this time, Joseph Sr. had come back from a trip to Harmony with a revelation declaring that the Lord was about to begin a marvelous work.16 By then Oliver had proven to be a sincere seeker of truth, and Joseph’s parents opened up to him about their son’s divine calling.17
What they said captivated Oliver, and he longed to help with the translation. Like Joseph, Oliver was dissatisfied with modern churches and believed in a God of miracles who still revealed His will to people.18 But Joseph and the gold plates were far away, and Oliver did not know how he could help the work if he stayed in Manchester.
One spring day, as rain was falling hard against the Smiths’ roof, Oliver told the family he wanted to go to Harmony to help Joseph when the school term was over. Lucy and Joseph Sr. urged him to ask the Lord if his desires were right.19
Retiring to his bed, Oliver prayed privately to know if what he had heard about the gold plates was true. The Lord showed him a vision of the gold plates and Joseph’s efforts to translate them. A peaceful feeling rested over him, and he knew then that he should volunteer to be Joseph’s scribe.20
Oliver told no one about his prayer. But as soon as the school term ended, he and Joseph’s brother Samuel set out on foot for Harmony, more than 100 miles (160 km) away. The road was cold and muddy from spring rain, and Oliver had a frostbitten toe by the time he and Samuel arrived at Joseph and Emma’s door. Yet he was eager to meet the couple and see for himself how the Lord worked through the young prophet.21

Eli looked at the pile of homework his friend had dropped off after school. Eli had missed another week of school because of an ear infection.
That evening Eli’s parents came into his room. His mom sat on the side of Eli’s bed and took his hand. “Eli, the doctor thinks you need an operation,” she said.
“What kind of operation?”
“He wants to put tubes in your ears to keep you from getting more infections,” Mom said. “It won’t hurt, and you’ll be out of the hospital in a day.” She squeezed his hand.
Eli trusted his parents. But the idea of having an operation scared him. He thought about the story he had heard in Primary about Joseph Smith. When Joseph was seven years old, the bone in his leg became infected. The infection got worse until the doctor decided that he must remove part of the bone or Joseph might lose his leg or even die.
In Joseph Smith’s day, doctors gave people liquor to help numb the pain during an operation, but Joseph refused the liquor the doctor suggested he drink. And he refused to be tied to the bed. He said that if his father held him, he wouldn’t move. Joseph’s father held him tightly in his arms throughout the painful surgery. The operation was successful, and Joseph recovered.
Eli thought about Joseph’s courage and faith in his father. “Can I have a blessing, Dad?” he asked. Eli knew a priesthood blessing could help him. At the beginning of the school year, Eli’s father had given him a blessing.
“That’s a great idea,” his father said.
Eli’s mother folded her arms and bowed her head. Eli felt his father’s hands on his head. His father’s voice grew in confidence as he blessed Eli that he would not be scared and that he would recover completely.
When the blessing was over, Eli was no longer afraid. “I can have the operation now,” he said.
Three days later he went to the hospital and returned home the next day. The ear infections soon stopped, and Eli quickly made up the schoolwork he had missed.
Eli was grateful that he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that he could be blessed through the priesthood.

Last Sunday, Ruby and I attended a sacrament meeting of a ward here in central Salt Lake. The meeting was most interesting because in that ward there is some affluence as well as people who are living in halfway houses. Just before the testimony meeting, a young lady walked up to the bishop on the stand, holding a little baby in her arms, wanting the baby to receive a blessing. The bishop stepped down and took the little baby, and the baby was blessed.
Later on during the testimony meeting, a little seven-year-old boy, with his five-year-old sister by the hand, walked up to the pulpit. He helped fix a little stool there for her to stand on, his five-year-old sister, and he helped her as she bore her testimony. And as she would falter just a little, he would lean over and whisper in her ear, this little loving seven-year-old brother.
After she finished, he stood on the stool, and she stood watching him, and he bore his testimony. She had that sweet expression on her face as she watched him. He was her older brother, but you could see that family love and relationship with those two little children. He stepped down from the stool, took her by the hand, and they walked back down to take their seat.

Growing up in a small village in Côte d’Ivoire, Elder D. Martin Goury dreamed of becoming a clergyman and serving others.
In October 1992, while in London, England, learning English and getting an education, he met Latter-day Saint missionaries. The missionaries, one of whom was the only native French-speaking missionary in London, gave Elder Goury a copy of the Book of Mormon in French.
He started reading the book and soon received a witness of its truthfulness. When a new pair of missionaries came to his apartment a few months later, he joined the Church. “I remember being very happy,” he said.
His joy increased as the missionaries taught him about the priesthood. “They explained the meaning of the priesthood and how I could use that to serve other people. For me, that was my dream coming true,” Elder Goury said. “I was delighted.”

The faith of this family is personified by the faith of President Uchtdorf’s grandmother. She was standing in line for food following the end of World War II when an elderly single sister with no family of her own invited her to sacrament meeting. His grandmother and his parents accepted the invitation. They went to church, felt the Spirit, were uplifted by the kindness of the members, and were edified by the hymns of the Restoration. In 1947 Dieter’s parents were baptized in Zwickau; Dieter was baptized nearly two years later at the age of eight. The family’s commitment to the Church became strong and enduring.

Such was the case when, at age 17, Kevin competed in the Tenth International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland. He placed tenth out of 180 contestants from 37 countries and was the only American of 31 in the competition to receive an award. He was also honored as the youngest contestant ever in the history of the competition. All the other entrants were graduates of college or the equivalent, and the field of contestants included 22 graduates from New York’s Julliard School of Music.
To prepare for the competition, and to take advantage of an opportunity to study with a Polish professor named Ludwik Stefanski, Kevin and his mother moved to Poland for the summer before and the first semester of his senior year in high school.
“A lot of people in Poland had heard about the Mormons, but they really knew little about them,” Kevin said. “One time, though, there was a program on Polish television about Brigham Young leading the pioneers.
“Once when we were eating dinner, a man said, ‘Why did you stop eating your chicken? Are you Mormon?’ I got to explain to him that indeed I was Mormon, but that I had stopped eating my chicken because I was full. I got to teach many people a little bit about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many didn’t even know that Mormons are Christians.”
Kevin said he also feels that he was able to touch people through his performance on stage. “People have told me they can feel something different in my music. I hope it’s because I try to convey the Spirit through the things I play.” The Chopin Competition is extremely popular throughout the country, and Kevin became something of a hero to many of the young people. At one performance some young fans stood just in front of the stage for the entire performance because there weren’t enough seats.

Elder Kim B. Clark, Area Seventy and president of BYU–Idaho, recently related a story about a deacons quorum whose adviser was discussing prayer with them. Unexpectedly, the deacons quorum president raised his hand and said, “I would like to ask the quorum a question. How many of you would be willing to commit to praying morning and night every day this week?” All the quorum members raised their hands except one young man, who was not confident he could follow through with the challenge. The adviser sat back and watched as the quorum members taught and testified to their peer about prayer, helping him gain the confidence to accept the challenge.

When President N. Eldon Tanner presided over the West European Mission some years ago, his slogan was “Have a good time.” One day he said to a group of missionaries in Germany, “I would like you all to have a good time.” After the meeting, one of the missionaries came up to him and said: “President Tanner, I don’t think that it is quite fair for you to tell the missionaries to have a good time. You know, the only way they can have a good time is to do their work.” President Tanner said, “Well, go have a good time.”

“During the spring of 1972 I found myself in the dilemma of deciding to get married or to serve a two-year mission, After much consideration, prayer, visits to the bishop, and discussions with the girl I had chosen, I decided to serve my God. We concluded that if our union was meant to be, she would be there after my mission.
“Mission life seems to quicken the process of maturity. The young man grows into manhood, acquiring such qualities as self-discipline and the ability to work hard and enjoy his work. He learns how to budget finances effectively, how to really communicate with others, being mindful of their feelings, and how to reposition himself in others’ shoes and learn to love them despite their faults. He learns how to build confidence, character, and control, and most important in the case of marriage, he learns how to get along with a companion 24 hours a day. Aren’t these qualities that any good LDS girl would want in a husband? My mission has opened my eyes to many things I never before realized in regard to preparing for marriage.
Elder Jerry HattonCalifornia Sacramento Mission

In many ways Vani’s day is just beginning when school ends. She gets off the bus at 3:30 P.M. and walks a few blocks to her home. There is little time to relax. There’s homework to do, and there’s also cooking, cleaning, laundry, and dishes. Grandpa died two years ago, and Grandma can’t do the things she used to.
“I have to look after my grandma. I have to help her. I know it’s been pretty hard for her because she raised her own kids and then raised me,” Vani says.
“It’s been a challenge for me not to have parents,” she adds. “But being involved in the Church is a great help because it has provided me with so much. Right now I’m the secretary in the Primary, and I teach the CTR class.”
When Vani entered the Young Women program, she served as Beehive class president and then was first counselor in the Mia Maid class presidency. Later she served as Laurel class president. It’s obvious the gospel is a priority.
“Because I’ve been a leader, I feel a responsibility for the girls who have fallen from the Church,” she adds. She is thoughtful for a moment. She feels bad about once-active girls who no longer come out.
When Suluya is asked about her conversion, she gladly shares the details of her Christmas Eve baptism. She beams as she remembers that day. Suluya then mentions the death of her father a few years ago. He was 47.
“Although I’ve always wanted my family to join the Church, his death has encouraged me even more to help my mom and my sister get baptized. I’m trying so hard to get them to come to church with me,” she says.
When Suluya was baptized, her family didn’t attend the service. “But they understand now that I hold sacred the covenant I made with the Lord, and they respect my decision and support me me. Still, it’s hard to see families sitting together at church, and my family isn’t there. When you have something this good, you want to share it with your family.”
Suluya admits she was closer to her father than to her mother, but she says one good thing has come of his death. “It’s brought my sister and me closer to our mom. We’ve really gotten to know our mom better,” she explains.
Vani and Suluya are not far from leaving their teenage years behind. Life ahead will be full of changes. As they look back, they can’t help but wonder how things might have been different.
What if Vani had grown up in a two-parent home? What if Suluya’s entire family had joined the Church with her? What if life had been a little easier?
Neither thinks too much about these questions. They both look ahead, happy for what they have. Their life experiences have shaped them into who they are, and fortunately the gospel gives them an advantage. They know they are daughters of God. And they are happy.
Truly.