Gospel Story Finder

Just last year I decided to see how many residential dwellings were still standing from the period between 1950 and 1955 when I served as bishop of that same area. I drove slowly around each of the blocks that once comprised the ward. I was surprised to observe in my search that of all the houses and apartment buildings where our 1,080 members had lived, only three dwellings were still standing. At one of those houses, the grass was overgrown, the trees unpruned, and I found no one was living there. Of the other two houses remaining, one was boarded up and unoccupied, and the other housed some sort of a modest business office.
I parked my car, turned off the ignition, and just sat there for a long while. I could picture in my mind each house, each apartment building, each member who lived there. While the homes and the buildings were gone, the memories were still very vivid concerning the families who resided in each dwelling. I thought of the words of the author James Barrie, who wrote that God gave us memories that we might have June roses in the December of our lives.2 How grateful I was for the opportunity to serve in that assignment. Such can be the blessing of each of us if we put forth in our assignments our very best efforts.

Two couples who have immigrated to New Zealand from Brazil and Tonga say the BYU-Pathway Worldwide program helped them improve their language, knowledge, and job skills, opening doors to a better life and new hope for their families’ futures.
Andressa Develis and her husband, Andre, of Birkenhead, and Mosese and Ralueri Unga of Totara Vale, are two examples of how BYU-Pathway benefits working individuals and couples. They say the ability to tailor the learning experience to student needs is a significant advantage of this online education program.
The Develis’ moved from Brazil to New Zealand in 2018, a year after they married. Andressa’s English was limited to a few phrases like “good morning” and “thank you.” Fortunately, Andre had more exposure to English due to his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, helping them settle in their new environment.
Andressa said, “I was raised by my grandparents in a small town in Brazil, and we were really poor. Public universities are reserved for the best students, and I was just an average student, so I didn’t get that opportunity.”
She found an affordable nursing course but wasn’t interested in it—she just wanted to further her education. After graduating, Andressa and Andre decided to move to New Zealand for greater opportunities.
Upon arriving, Andressa looked for ways to improve her English. She attended language classes and worked for several families tending their children, which helped her English progress significantly. “Language immersion is key!” she said.
Yearning for more professional growth, Andressa was accepted into the BYU-Pathway program in 2020, where she completed her general proficiencies in English and mathematics before earning a teaching English as a foreign language certification under the professional studies degree, which opened many opportunities for her.
“That’s what I love about BYU-Pathway. It’s a pathway to marketable skills,” she said. “It’s a flexible pathway to a bachelor’s degree, and you can work and achieve certificates along the way.”
After completing her certificate, Andressa took online courses in communications through Ensign College and completed a certificate in social media marketing. She knew she was on the right pathway when she helped with the social media efforts for Auckland’s Light the World giving machine in December 2023.
“Social media can be quite a challenging space, but I think it can be used in positive ways,” she said. “That experience helped me see how I could make a positive difference in others’ lives.”
“BYU-Pathway has blessed me with a constant drive to seek better opportunities,” Andressa said. “That’s a lesson I will carry with me the rest of my life.”

In Dennis’s ward the young men study Preach My Gospel each week. They have become like a team, working closely with the full-time missionaries and bringing friends to Sunday meetings and other activities, including basketball and football games during the week. The priests have baptized friends and others they helped teach with the missionaries. Over several years, this team of young men has strengthened the whole ward, and four of them, including Dennis, received calls to the Kenya Nairobi Mission.
They have followed the counsel of Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to “become missionaries long before you submit your mission papers.”3 They did so by working together as a quorum, a team better than any other.

As you know, President Monson absolutely loves Canada. He considers himself part Canadian. The Canadian Saints consider him to be their own, too. This was very evident in May 2010, when he traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia to dedicate the temple there. The night before the dedication, a youth cultural celebration was held in a local ice hockey arena. This gathering began as a regular Church meeting with song and prayer.

Instead of singing the hymn on the program, President Monson directed that the congregation sing the national anthem, "O, Canada!" The crowd, including some 2,000 youth, erupted into cheers! As he got up to speak, President Monson gently touched the lapel pin on his suit coat and the Canadian Maple Leaf flag began to flash red and white! The arena went wild! The youth had made two huge cards for him with their greetings. When he held one of them up to show his appreciation, once again total pandemonium from the youth!

Three weeks later, in the town of Central, Arizona, situated between Pima and Thatcher, in Spencer W. Kimball country, President Monson dedicated a new temple, The Gila Valley Arizona Temple. You've probably seen the YouTube segment of him stopping on the desert highway to greet a group of members standing by the road with "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" signs held high in the air. He got out of the car and chatted with the members along the roadside in 90+ degree weather, seemingly unconcerned about the pressing demands on his weekend schedule! That evening during the cultural celebration, held at the outdoor stadium grounds of the College of Eastern Arizona, he marveled at the beautiful program of dancing and song.

If you haven't read, or are reading, To the Rescue-A Biography of Thomas S. Monson, I highly encourage you to get a hold of a copy and start coming to know the Lord's prophet. President Monson reaches out to the unheralded, the downtrodden, the depressed, the physically disabled, the aged and the lonely. His sensitivity radar is always on high alert for anyone who would not normally be singled out.

He loved the evening. A highlight of the pageantry was the segment on President Spencer W. Kimball. President Monson noted that the concept of the "smaller temple" was enthusiastically promoted by President Kimball. There was a strong spiritual connection that night with President Spencer W. Kimball. The next day, after the three dedicatory sessions, as he was leaving the temple, President Monson asked his security team, "Which way do we go?" As soon as they pointed the way to where his car was waiting in the parking lot, he turned around and headed in the completely opposite direction to go greet the throngs lined up behind the roped-off areas, waiting to catch a glimpse, or perhaps even shake the hand of the Lord's prophet! Thirty minutes later he got into the car and was off to the airport. Lives were touched, many tears shed, because the Lord's prophet tarried a bit longer among the people, in no hurry to catch the plane home.

I was reared as a Quaker, in the Society of Friends. Some branches of my family had been in the Society from its very beginnings in the mid-seventeenth century. Some suffered years of imprisonment for their faith. (Incidentally, I had to join the Mormon Church and do genealogy to find that out.)
As a Quaker, my father had a testimony against war, and so during the first world war he became a farmhand and we lived for a while in a little village that felt resentment against us because their men of military age were at the war. The boys used to torment my younger sister and me, and because of this I could not go to the village school—my mother and father taught me at home.
We were taught to be against dancing, the cinema, alcohol, and betting and gambling (including speculating on the stock exchange). As a result I learned that we were not of the world, and that we had enjoyments other than the world’s enjoyments. I interpreted that, as a child might well do, as looking down on people (I must have been a prig).
But Quaker meetings also taught me something of the Holy Spirit. Quakers believe in the inner light, and in my early teens I learned how it felt to be compelled from within to get up and speak, no matter how much one struggled against it.
However, I became dissatisfied with Quakerism. My family was poor, and I felt the condescension of members who were prosperous tradespeople and professionals. There were few working-class members of the Society of Friends. I was especially sensitive because the Society supported my widowed mother. I felt that there were class distinctions among the Friends.
Quakers shared a spirit, but to me it seemed too vague a spirit. It led to humane action, but the action seemed to me not vigorous enough. Their God had no body, parts, and passions. They lacked dogma, something firm I could depend on to help answer my own and others’ questionings. When I went to Cambridge in 1928, I found a generation trying to make the experience of literature and the other arts a substitute for religion. The text was Arnold’s statement that “religion has attached itself to the fact, and now the fact is failing it; but for poetry the idea is everything.” The little book that most characteristically enshrines this view is I. A. Richards’s Science and Poetry. The view was, however, an essentially individualistic one; it lacked the force to make a group cohere. There was a group—around Leavis’s periodical Scrutiny—that had a good deal of influence and effectively enforced the relationship of art and morality; but we were at sea, and though we could learn about winds and tides, there was no anchor aboard, and we had no destination.
At this point, I should like to say a few words about three important writers and their attitudes toward religion: William Butler Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, and T. S. Eliot.
Yeats used myths and images as a box of magical toys, and we cannot take his use seriously. However, he did show us a way of seeing the whole world and the whole of history in terms of images; and though he was not serious about it, we can be for our own serious purposes.
Lawrence had a disturbed life. He was restless because he could never find what he wanted, and he would not face his illness until the last. But he taught something of the sanctity and tenderness of the right relationship between man and woman in marriage, idealized from his own not very satisfactory experience. And he had a profound instinct about the need for a patriarchal community (his own family was very matriarchal) and for the priesthood. There are strong but dark shadowings of this in Aaron’s Rod, Kangaroo, and The Plumed Serpent.
Eliot was a sensitive and truthful seeker. He taught the value of exactitude in religious experience: “The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life,” meaning that dogma is better than vague, liberal goodwill. And he well understood the step to conversion: “The awful daring of a moment’s surrender … costing not less than everything.” But his Christianity, with its royalism and Anglo-Catholicism, was a kind of seventeenth-century pastiche. His social outlook was limited and led him into snobbery (see Notes Towards a Definition of Culture). And his conversion liberated him in some ways and desiccated him in others.
At one time I investigated the Anglican Church. I attended a village church for some years. While I appreciated the hymns and the ritual, I could not join; there was nothing to join—no community of the church, no true social group, no force. The upper class tended to go to morning service and the lower class to evening service.
Like Eliot, they were pretending in a mock world, with—like him—some seventeenth-century pastiche as well as some Victorian pastiche dear to their own hearts.
After I had left Cambridge, there came to that university, as to others, the wave of Marxist thought characteristic of the thirties. Marxists deny God, but devout Communists—among whom were some of my friends—taught me something of faith: that faith must issue in energy, force, determination, organization. Faith is not content to leave things as they are, but wishes to change them for the better, both inside and outside oneself.
The quality of my friends’ faith may have been very good, but its object was deception. The Stalin trials, the Russo-German Pact of 1939, and the suppression of Hungary in 1956 were fatal blows to faith. Nothing was left but disillusion—or else self-deception—for idealistic Marxists. They found themselves in a wasteland; they knew the kind of bitter disappointment that Wordsworth experienced in the French Revolution. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive”; but it was just being alive and young, the excitement of animal spirits, no more. History has only savage answers to those who do not believe it to be a process of incarnation.
In the fifties, I lived for seven years in Islamic countries in Persia and Pakistan. Islam resembles Mormonism and Judaism in legislating for the organization of the whole community. The original social function of polygamy in Islam—that of providing status for spinsters and widows—helps an outsider to understand, sympathize with, and ultimately, as a member, accept the historical and eternal function of polygamy in the Latter-day Saint Church.
But Allah is remote, arbitrary, and all spirit to the Muslims. His ways are not to be understood by man, but are accepted with resignation. That he could have a body is blasphemy. History is not a process of incarnation to the Mohammedan, good historians though some of them once were. And the drive has irretrievably gone out of Islam.
I have had some experience with other religions: Hinduism, with its admirable regard for the family but its vague superstitions and continued social prejudice; and Buddhism, which in its proper form is a matter of intense spiritual discipline, has no place for a personal God, and advocates the absorption of human personality into the infinite, not its intensification through eternity. Each world religion has fatal flaws; each has in it something that points us toward and prepares us for acceptance of our Church.
So I was ready for the truth when, in 1966, my second cousin—now my wife—stopped at my door in the course of a genealogical hunt, introduced herself, and within a day or so had borne her testimony. She and the ever-ready missionaries told me what I was prepared to hear, though I had heard none of it before.
I had my difficulties as I began to relate the gospel to the world around us. But the more I learned of the gospel, the more I realized that it was wholly true, whereas much learned explanation was partial and uncertain. Facts we must accept, and know that our faith is never ultimately incompatible with them; interpretations remain a matter of continued discussion—a good scientist will always agree, too, that science does not promulgate immutable laws, but presents temporary explanations. The immutable laws remain those revealed for governing conduct, not the transient explanations of physical fact.
But all difficulties of this kind are resolved by the determination to enter the Church and accept it as a whole—all of it. It belongs together, and conversion is a matter not of choosing what you like and ignoring the rest, but of wholehearted, whole-minded acceptance.
Once we have been converted and have laid down at Christ’s feet whatever talents and tools we may possess, we find ourselves able to take them up again and use them for the Church in his name and in the light of his countenance.
I know that God lives. I have always known it. But I now know that he has a body, parts, and passions, for we are made in his image, and we may become like him. He lives in and through history. His Son was incarnate man and has now the flesh and bone that we too shall inherit after the resurrection. This is profoundly satisfying dogma.
I know that the Church is true. Its social organization and utter indifference to class distinctions vouch for this at the superficial level. But this organization could not be maintained were it not for the urge behind, the religious drive. I do not believe with Jonathan Swift that religion is just a good means of keeping society in order.
I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He speaks to me, a stylistician, in his own prose as a transparently sincere and matter-of-fact writer.
I know, therefore, that the Book of Mormon is an inspired translation and that the Doctrine and Covenants is revelation. They are quite different from Joseph Smith’s prose and significantly different from the Bible and from each other. They are unique. They could not have been invented by a man of Joseph Smith’s knowledge and training.
I know that there is a prophet upon the earth today, for there has to be succession and continuity. If Joseph Smith was a true prophet, then he had to be succeeded to maintain the revelation. As our prophet is sustained by our Father, so is he sustained by ourselves. Our Father blesses him, and through him the whole of the Church; and therefore we continue to accept and sustain him.
I believe in the work for the dead. The hearts of the fathers and the children may and must be turned to one another. The family goes back through history. It is not simply our nearest and dearest that are our concern, but our furthest and dearest. We want to learn as much as we can about them. I therefore believe in temple work. And only through regular temple work can a marriage be sanctified and become an eternal partnership on this earth.
I have come from the outside wilderness home. I carry with me throughout the day the sense of prayer. The whole world is sanctified unto the Most High, and “everything that lives is holy.”

Your personal experiences will also greatly influence and even completely change your perception of beauty. As a college student I remember a time when I was introduced to a young lady that at first impression I thought was rather funny looking. Her face was very round, and she had white, not blond but white hair. Her eyebrows, and eyelashes were white. Her complexion was very light also, and she really didn’t wear much makeup. In fact, the only features that really showed up much were her dark eyes. My very first impression of her was that she looked like a snowman! Now, this is kind of mean, but I tell you about it not because of my first impression, but because of what happened over the next few months. As I became more acquainted with this young lady, I began to see her qualities of kindness, of gentleness, and graciousness. She was in every sense a lovely person. But what was the most surprising to me was that she became very beautiful to look at also. I could no longer see the little snowman anymore, even when I looked for it. Something had changed. And it wasn’t her hair color, or her makeup, or the shape of her face.

I always wanted to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I knew my parents had testimonies because they had read the book and prayed about it. Having never read all of the Book of Mormon, I couldn’t say the same.
I had started attending church when I was small. My faith grew, and I was baptized as an adolescent. I had read several parts of the Book of Mormon that contained beautiful and interesting things, and I had heard the testimonies of my parents and others who said the book was true. But I knew I needed to obtain my own testimony.
In seminary, I set a goal to pay attention to what I was being taught and to spend more time studying the scriptures. During my last year in seminary, we read the Book of Mormon. I started to pray more, to read more, and to pay closer attention. I took careful notes in my seminary notebook.
Eventually, there came into my heart the simple but profound witness of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. I felt in my heart that this knowledge was something precious.

Fourth President of the Church
As a missionary in England, Wilford Woodruff was blessed for his obedience. He recorded: “I asked the Lord what He wanted of me. He merely said, ‘Go to the south.’ I got into the stage and rode eighty miles. The first man’s house I stopped at was John Benbow’s in Herefordshire. In half an hour after I entered the house I knew exactly why the Lord had sent me. There was a people there who had been praying for the ancient order of things. They were waiting for the Gospel as it was taught by Christ and His Apostles. The consequence was, the first thirty days after I got there I baptized six hundred of those people. In eight month’s labor in that country I brought eighteen hundred into the Church. Why? Because there was a people prepared for the Gospel, and the Lord had sent me there to do that work” (Deseret Weekly, 7 November 1896, 643; quoted in Howard W. Hunter, “Developing Spirituality,” Ensign, May 1979, 24).

I attended many general conference sessions in the Tabernacle, always being edified and inspired by the words of the Brethren. Then, in October of 1963, President David O. McKay invited me to his office and extended to me a call to serve as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He asked that I keep this sacred call confidential, revealing it to no one except my wife, and that I be present for general conference in the Tabernacle the next day, when my name would be read aloud.
The following morning I came into the Tabernacle not knowing exactly where to sit. Being a member of the Priesthood Home Teaching Committee, I determined that I would be seated among the members of that committee. I noticed a friend of mine by the name of Hugh Smith, who was also a member of the Priesthood Home Teaching Committee. He motioned for me to sit by him. I couldn’t say a thing to him about my call, but I sat down.
During the session, the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were sustained and, of course, my name was read. I believe the walk from the audience to the stand was the longest walk of my life.
It has been nearly 44 years since that conference. Until the year 2000, when the Conference Center was dedicated, it was my privilege to deliver 101 general conference messages from the pulpit in this building, not including those given at general auxiliary conferences and other meetings held here. My remarks today bring the total to 102. I have had many spiritual experiences over the years as I have stood here.
During the message I delivered at general conference in October 1975, I felt prompted to direct my remarks to a little girl with long blonde hair who was seated in the balcony of this building. I called the attention of the audience to her and felt a freedom of expression which testified to me that this small girl needed the message I had in mind concerning the faith of another young lady.
At the conclusion of the session, I returned to my office and found waiting for me a young child by the name of Misti White, together with her grandparents and an aunt. As I greeted them, I recognized Misti as the one in the balcony to whom I had directed my remarks. I learned that as her eighth birthday approached, she was in a quandary concerning whether or not to be baptized. She felt she would like to be baptized, and her grandparents, with whom she lived, wanted her to be baptized, but her less-active mother suggested she wait until she was 18 years of age to make the decision. Misti had told her grandparents, “If we go to conference in Salt Lake City, maybe Heavenly Father will let me know what I should do.”
Misti and her grandparents and her aunt had traveled from California to Salt Lake City for conference and were able to obtain seats in the Tabernacle for the Saturday afternoon session. This was where they were seated when my attention was drawn to Misti and my decision made to speak to her.
As we continued our visit after the session, Misti’s grandmother said to me, “I think Misti has something she would like to tell you.” This sweet young girl said, “Brother Monson, while you were speaking in conference, you answered my question. I want to be baptized!”
The family returned to California, and Misti was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Through all the years since, Misti has remained true and faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fourteen years ago, it was my privilege to perform her temple marriage to a fine young man, and together they are rearing five beautiful children, with another one on the way.
My brothers and sisters, I feel privileged to be standing once again at the Tabernacle pulpit in this building which holds for me such wonderful memories. The Tabernacle is a part of my life—a part which I cherish.
I have been honored and pleased during my lifetime to raise my arm to the square in sustaining nine Church Presidents as their names have been read. This morning I joined you in sustaining once again our beloved prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley. It is a joy and a privilege to serve by his side, along with President Faust.
As this building is rededicated today, may we pledge to rededicate our lives to the work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who so willingly died that we might live. May we follow in His footsteps each day, I pray humbly in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Within the next week several of our Church friends and acquaintances who had heard about our success asked us if we planned to have other groups for the lessons. We said yes, and invited them and their nonmember friends to attend. Several accepted.
This time we invited all of the remaining nonmember and part-member couples on our list. Again, about two-thirds accepted. We also visited the homes of the couples who had attended those first groups but had chosen not to be baptized. We simply told them we were having two other groups over for the discussions and invited them to attend again. To our great surprise, they all agreed to come. This time the groups consisted of about twenty-five people each, and the Spirit was even stronger.
Elder Chadwick and Elder Stoddard were better at leading the discussions, and our answers to questions were generally clearer. We were also more sensitive to the Spirit in our prayers. Several members who attended later told us they had not really known what a testimony was until they experienced the teachings and the Spirit in those meetings. To our continued surprise, about two-thirds of those who attended gained testimonies and were baptized, along with some of their children who were taught separately by the elders.

For Camber Page, 17, of Macclenny, Florida, writing her testimony was a spiritual experience. She’s borne her testimony in church before, but, she says, “I get nervous, and I don’t get to say what I am really feeling.” But when she wrote her testimony, she says, “The Spirit was just coming out of me. I had time to think about it. I was able to write it down without getting up and crying and getting all emotional and shaking. I didn’t know I had believed in so much until I started writing it down. I thought, Gosh, my testimony’s stronger than I thought it was.”

And as I thought about that, I remembered something that had happened when I was much younger. My little boy Lexon, fifteen years ago, was slithering around the floor in his diaper while I was lying on the couch. He came paddling across the floor (I was serving on President Lewis’s high council at the time, as a matter of fact) and crawled up to me. His hot little breath raked the side of my face, and then he stood up to put his cheek against mine. I pretended to be asleep, but he lifted one eyelid. He looked inside, and then he let it fall back. Just learning to talk, he cupped his little mouth against my ear and gently whispered, “Hello, in there.” I thought, isn’t it interesting that he would say, “Hello, in there”? He knew that I wasn’t really outside. I wasn’t in my hands or in my feet or even in my eyeballs. He knew that there was some inner dimension, a part of me that he was trying to reach—the same part I was trying to discover in the mirrors. You see, we all want to learn who we are and what we’re about.

Darla’s mittens and boots had barely dried when she sat down on the rug to put them back on. She could hardly wait to go sledding again!
Sledding in the park with her friends was Darla’s favorite thing about winter. The round, snowy hills were perfect for sledding.
But now that Darla and her friends were getting older, they wanted to try the bigger hills at the park instead. They were ready for The Hill. It was the biggest, slipperiest hill in the whole park. And for Darla, it was also off-limits.
“I’ve already heard of at least two kids getting hurt on that hill this year,” Mom said when Darla asked to go sledding on The Hill. “That’s why one of our family rules is that we don’t sled on it.”
When The Hill got icy, sleds got harder to control. Kids crashed into the fence at the bottom and got hurt.
“But, Mom, by the time you get to the bottom, you’re going so slow you can just roll off before you get to the fence,” Darla said.
But Mom wasn’t changing her mind.
Darla headed outside to meet up with her friends.
“Let’s go down The Hill!” Sasha said.
Darla’s stomach squirmed. “How about we just stay on the small hills?” she said. “My mom says I can’t go down that one.”
“Why not? The other hills are too boring,” said Emily. She started toward The Hill. “Come on.”
Darla looked up at The Hill. It really did look fun. And she’d be careful! But then she looked down at the fence at the bottom. Darla sighed. She knew Mom wanted her to be safe.
Sasha and Emily were already walking to The Hill. “I guess I’d better head home,” Darla called after them.
“OK,” Sasha called back. “But you’re missing out!”
Maybe she was missing out, Darla thought as she dragged her sled home.
“What happened?” Mom asked when Darla walked back inside.
“Sasha and Emily wanted to sled down The Hill,” she said with a frown. “I told them I couldn’t, and I asked them to stay on the smaller hills. But they still went, so I came home.”
Mom hugged Darla. “Thanks for being obedient,” she said. “I bet that was hard.”
Darla’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I was really excited to go sledding.”
“I know,” Mom said. “Obeying family rules isn’t always easy, but I’m really proud of you for choosing the right. I bet you were listening to the Holy Ghost.”
Darla nodded. She did feel good about her choice, even though it was hard.
Mom’s words helped warm her up inside. And that reminded her. “How about some hot chocolate? Maybe we can invite Sasha and Emily over for some when they get back!”

A sister in France who joined the Church was approached by her former minister who asked her how she could possibly have done such a thing. Her response was beautiful and reassuring. It shows us how important our collective commitment is to serve others. She said that at least once every month leaders or members of the Church would visit her. They looked after her spiritual and temporal needs. She told her former minister that since she had been baptized as a baby, the only time she had been visited by anyone from her former church was this day, and that visit was only to inquire about her membership.

Six-year-old Catherine sang as she followed Joseph and his plow down the long brown furrows, dropping yellow kernels of corn into the newly turned soil.
Joseph called over his shoulder, “If Alvin doesn’t get back with some money, all that corn will go to the land agents. And from what I hear, they won’t share it with a cutworm or a crow or anything else.”
Catherine had heard her father talk about land agents, but she wasn’t sure just what they were. “What are land agents, Joseph?” she asked.
Her brother pulled the ox to a halt and explained, “They’re men who sell property. If there is a drought or your crops don’t sell and you can’t pay the mortgage money, they come and take the farm back.” Then he paused for a moment, remembering his father’s dawn-to-dark labor when they’d first cleared the land of trees to plant crops.
The whole family had helped tap the thousand sugar maple trees in the spring. Joseph also remembered the split-wood chairs and baskets and the straw brooms his father had made to sell to help pay for the farm. His father had even worked for other farmers to earn money. But still there wasn’t enough.
Catherine brought her brother back from his recollecting. “Are they going to take our farm, Joseph?”
“It looks like it, unless we can raise some more money. We’ve all helped. But it hasn’t been enough.” Joseph sighed as he slapped the reins against the rump of the ox. “I wish I could do something more.”
“You’ve been helping to clear trees and plowing and planting the corn and pumpkins. That’s a big help.
“Sure. But we need money. And we need it right away.”
Catherine let out a deep breath and sat down on the broken black earth. “Will we have to let the land agents take our farm?” she asked.
“ If we can’t pay all the mortgage money, we will. And the law supports them. But it just doesn’t seem right after we’ve spent two years clearing trees from 24 hectares of land and planting crops and building a four-room log house besides. They’d only turn around and sell it again for a lot of money, and we wouldn’t get anything for all the improvements we’ve made.”
Catherine understood now why some folks said the land agents were really land robbers.
Young Joseph looked into the open window of the house. His mother was just lifting the lid on the cooking pot in the fireplace. She left the stew sputtering against the pot lid as she called to her family, “Supper’s ready!”
Later after supper, Joseph’s father, as always, felt for his spectacles. When his hand found the lower right-hand pocket of his vest, that was the signal for a reading from the Bible and for family prayer.
That night the family had an extra long prayer. Father Smith thanked Heavenly Father for his “mercy which endureth forever.” Then he pleaded for help in somehow obtaining the money that was needed. When all members of the family had added their amen, they sang the usual hymn:
The song was interrupted by a loud knock. Mr. Smith opened the door and invited a neighbor from down the road to come in.
“Thank you, Joseph. I came to ask if you’d let me hire one of your boys for a few days. I need to dig a well.”
Alvin was away working and young Joseph knew his father needed Hyrum to help cut trees. “I could do it, sir,” he said eagerly.
His father smiled. “Joseph’s able. He’ll give you a good day’s work for a day’s pay.”
“I know your boys are good workers. They’ve worked alongside their father until they’re better than most men. That’s why I’m here. Young Joseph will be fine.”
Joseph was so happy that he had to take a big breath to keep from shouting out loud: “The Lord is surely opening up the way. We will get the money we need. I’m sure of it.” He was so sure that he wasn’t a bit surprised when Alvin arrived home a few days later with the money he had earned. Just the same, it was a tense moment when the whole family gathered to count their savings. Is it enough? they wondered.
Joseph held his breath as the money was counted. It was enough; they had enough. Tears and laughter mingled as they realized that Alvin’s earnings added to what Joseph and the others had been able to raise would save their farm!

“When we left Germany, the country was in the midst of skyrocketing inflation; a million marks wouldn’t even buy a loaf of bread. Upon arriving in America, we found it in the throes of the Depression. My father’s professional skills as a tool and die maker were in short demand, and he couldn’t find work. My mother, however, was able to find housework. Because she was an extremely good cook, she also was able to get a job with a German salad-making company. She worked hard just to put food on the table for us. Then Dad got a job as a maintenance man, and I helped him during much of my growing-up years. We would go early in the morning to about fourteen or fifteen different buildings and shovel coal into the furnaces.
“Because we had to work hard, we developed strength. My brother and I participated in basketball, baseball, football, tennis, table tennis, and swimming and became quite good. Our classmates began to accept us more readily. Our family still enjoys sports together.
“My father was the oldest of eleven children, and he was the only one who accepted the gospel. Some of our children who have gone on missions to Germany have testified to my relatives, but none of them have yet accepted the gospel.
“I was born in a land that is now behind the Iron Curtain. Probably one of my choicest experiences was to be at the dedication ceremony of the Freiberg Temple. The temple is very near the place where I was born. It was a soul-stirring experience to see my own people waving white handkerchiefs to President Gordon B. Hinckley and Elder Thomas S. Monson as the bus pulled away at the conclusion of the dedication.
“My suggestion to children is this: Live each day so that the Holy Ghost will be your constant companion. Serving the Savior will bring abundant blessings to you, and family ties will be made stronger and homes will be more heavenly. Sustain your leaders and follow their counsel.”

In my own lifetime I have been a witness to the miracle of the restored gospel. When I was a young girl my family moved to São Paulo, Brazil, where my father had been called to preside over the Brazilian Mission. It was an exciting time for me and a great place to grow up. A favorite game for my brothers and me was to dress up and pretend to be missionaries. We spent hours scribbling our own missionary pamphlets and “preaching” and “transferring” all over the yard. For five years the nightly conversations around our dinner table centered on missionary work, and I listened intently to stories of faith told by missionaries. Even at that age I knew I was part of a great work.
There were only about 3,000 members of the Church in Brazil when we arrived there. I remember being in a very small Primary with a few other children, singing the same five songs every week, as those were the only ones translated into Portuguese. Two of my favorite songs were “A Luz Divina,” or “The Light Divine” (Hymns, no. 305), and something about a bunny in the middle of the woods (see “The Little Rabbit,” Children’s Friend, June 1955, 257).
In many ways our experience was similar to the early pioneers. We had no hymnbooks or pictures or lesson manuals sent from the headquarters of the Church. Everything that was needed to teach the gospel in Portuguese was written and printed in our mission home. All of us, even the children, were pressed into service to help assemble mission newsletters and lessons. No one shipped the Church to us. The prophet did not send us stake presidents or bishops. He did not send Relief Society presidents or youth programs. The Church in Brazil was made from the same material that the pioneers started with. The material to build the Church was in the people.
During our years in Brazil, we saw great growth come to the Church. Thousands became Latter-day Saints. Soon the mission was divided, districts and branches were organized, and new chapels were built. The new members were enthusiastic, and they grew in faith and became more experienced in the manner of the gospel.
A lot of years passed, and then last year I returned to Brazil to attend the rededication of the São Paulo temple. At that time I learned that there were 187 stakes in Brazil. There are now 26 missions, 4 temples, and almost 1 million members. Imagine my surprise when I walked into a stadium filled with over 60,000 members who had gathered to hear President Gordon B. Hinckley and celebrate the temple dedication. To me it was a miracle to see thousands of youth dancing and singing together. As I watched that joyful celebration, I kept saying to myself, “This is amazing! This is a miracle! How did this miracle happen?”
I marveled all that night at what I had seen. Then, the next morning at the temple dedication, I had a reunion with my Primary teacher, Sister Gloria Silveira. That was when I knew how the miracle had come about. As a new convert with no prior Church experience, Sister Silveira had come to Primary prepared to share her simple testimony and teach me the Articles of Faith in Portuguese. She and her husband, Humberto, are still faithful. They have served in many Church callings over the years, and they are still serving. When I saw Sister Silveira, I realized that the Church in Brazil had grown because of her and thousands like her. She and Brother Silveira represent people everywhere who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel. They have grown in knowledge and skill, and they have served in the Church (see D&C 88:80). They have shared the gospel with friends (see D&C 30:5). They work in the temple (see D&C 138:48). They taught their five children correct principles (see D&C 68:28). Of their 43 descendants, 15 have served full-time missions. Their grandchildren are now marrying in the temple, and their great-grandchildren are the fourth generation of Silveiras who are part of the marvelous work that was started by Joseph Smith. Because of them, faith has increased in the earth. They are an example of the miracle the Lord spoke about when He said that His gospel would be proclaimed by the weak and the simple (see D&C 1:23) and that by small and simple means great things are brought to pass (see 1 Nephi 16:29).

When one young woman read this statement, she decided she didn’t want to walk even close to the line of immodesty. Immediately she removed anything in her wardrobe that wasn’t consistent with being a representative of the Savior. She said, “I would be smart if I didn’t even try on anything in stores that I knew I shouldn’t wear. Why be tempted?” The principle of representation helped her make that firm resolve.

May 26, 1853 I went to Fourchu, a place 6 or 7 miles from Gabarouse. On my way along the beach I saw a large duck on the waves, picking among the kelp. This was a desolate place, no houses for 6 or 7 miles. The Spirit said to me, “You are going among strangers. No Saints there. Take the bird with you.” So I sat down right where the wave broke and the bird floated straight towards me, picking among the kelp and sea weed. When it got close to the shore it put its head under its wing, so I jumped and caught it. It was lively enough then and tried to get away. So when I got to Fourchu (6) I went to a house, asked if that was Mr. Cann’s. They said yes. I told them I had come over from Gabarouse to preach the Gospel to them. I had forgotten the duck. I then happened to notice them looking at it. Says I, “Here is a bird. I saw it out on the water and I thought I would bring it along, that it might be good to eat.” Says he, “Is it hurt?” “No, Sir.” I handed it to him. Heexamined it very close and said it was all right. It was cooked. We ate it. It was fat and good. A few came in. We had a meeting. The sectarian minister had poisoned the minds of the people, but Mr. Cann and family treated me very kindly … and spoke favorably to others of me.

One Sunday in October, I was assigned to give an important part in a program at church. But in October everyone in my family had to work hard to harvest the rice in my father’s rice fields. That included working on the Sabbath day.
I prayed to Heavenly Father, and the Spirit planted a thought in my mind. I could try to finish the harvest before Sunday. I would get up early and work every morning before school. Then every afternoon I would work after school until dark.
But by Saturday night only half of the harvest was done. I went to bed discouraged that I had not accomplished my goal. Sunday morning I awoke early to go to the fields. My father came to my room and, with a gentle smile, asked why I wasn’t going to church. My heart was full of joy. I could go to church and keep the Sabbath day holy!