Gospel Story Finder

One Sunday morning, the Elders Quorum in our ward held a special testimony meeting characterized by spiritual warmth and personal openness. During that meeting, a fellow law student related a boyhood experience that had occurred just after he had been ordained a deacon. He lived on a farm and had been promised that a calf about to be born would be his very own to raise. One summer morning when his parents were away, he was working in the barn when the expectant cow began to calve prematurely. He watched in great amazement as the little calf was born; and then, without warning, the mother suddenly rolled over the little calf. He could see that she was trying to kill it. In his heart he cried out to the Lord for help. Not thinking about how much more the cow weighed than he did, he pushed on her with all his strength and somehow moved her away. He picked up the lifeless body of the calf in his arms and, brokenhearted, the tears running down his cheeks, he looked at it, wondering what had happened and what he could do. Then he remembered, he told us, that he now held the Priesthood and had every right to pray for additional help. And so he prayed from the depths of his boyish, believing heart. Before long the little animal began breathing again, and he knew that his prayer had been heard.

After relating the story, the tears welled up in his eyes and he said to us, "Brethren, I tell you that story because I don't know that I would do now what I did then. I think I might not expect the Lord's help in that kind of situation. I am not sure that I would believe now, even if I relived that experience, that the calf's survival was anything more than a coincidence. I don't understand what has happened to me since that incident, but I sense that something has gone a little bit wrong."

“Just look at you, Matthew—you’re growing like a weed,” Uncle Clinton said. “Pretty soon you’ll be as big as I am.”
Giggling, I spread out my fingers. “I’m only six, and I won’t be as big as you are for a long, long time because you must be a hundred.”
Uncle Clinton threw back his head and laughed.
Grandpa laughed too. Uncle Clinton and Grandpa grow the best dry-farm watermelons out on Coal Pitts. Grandpa made a pond out there, but whenever my brother Raymond—he’s four—and I come visiting in the summer, all we ever see in it is dried-up mud. Grandpa promised us that if the pond ever has enough water in it to float a duck, we can take Luckus and Luella with us to Coal Pitts.
Luckus is a he duck, and Luella is a she duck. When Grandpa turns the canal water onto his irrigated farm in LaVerkin, Raymond and I climb right into the ditch with our ducks and have a splashing good time.
One hot afternoon, big clouds appeared from nowhere and got right down to the business of raining. Raymond and I were excited. We watched through the window, and Grandpa recited, “The lightning flashed and the thunder roared and the little pig lay down and snored.”
The storm passed by LaVerkin, and the sky above Coal Pitts got purplish black.
Grandpa said, “It looks like Coal Pitts is getting a regular gully washer. We might get some water in the pond.”
The next day, when Grandpa figured that the dirt road was dry enough, he said, “Let’s take a little run out to Coal Pitts.”
“Oh boy!” I exclaimed. “Can Luckus and Luella go too? Can they?”
“You’re sort of a funny duck yourself,” Grandpa laughed.
“I’m a boy, Grandpa. Luckus and Luella are ducks.”
“Really?” he teased. “OK, let’s round up the boys and the ducks.”
While Grandma packed a lunch, Grandpa put Luckus and Luella into a wooden crate and set it in the back of the pickup. Just then Aunt Lillian drove up and asked Grandpa if we were going to the dry farm. She said that Uncle Clinton had forgotten his lunch bucket and asked us to take it to him. Grandpa put it beside the crate in the pickup. Grandma brought out the picnic basket, and we all got into the truck and went chugging up the hill.
The rainstorm had filled Grandpa’s pond plumb full. We turned Luckus and Luella loose, and they skimmed over to that water as happy as if they were floating right into heaven. Raymond and I started to go after them.
“Hold it, you fellows,” Grandpa said. “Don’t you want to come with me to take Uncle Clinton his lunch bucket? He’ll be wondering where it is.”
“I think I’ll stay and pick us some roasting ears,” Grandma said. “There’s a fine row of corn alongside our own melon patch.”
Uncle Clinton was mighty glad to see his lunch bucket. He was picking a load of melons to take to town. He wasn’t starving, because he was full of melon, but he said that a piece of fried chicken would be mighty tasty too.
Grandpa was just getting back into the pickup when Uncle Clinton said, “Before you go, I’d like you to see my golden honey melons.”
We followed him up the hillside toward the cedars. He took out his pocketknife and speared a dark green watermelon. It popped open to the touch. The inside of that melon wasn’t red like all the rest, but a bright gold—almost an orange color. He cut a slice for each of us. Mmmm! How juicy and sweet it was!
When Grandpa finally left, I talked him into letting Raymond and me walk back.
“Go ahead and explore if you want to,” Grandpa said. “You know the way back to the pond.”
Uncle Clinton sliced off another piece of melon for each of us. We ate until we were as full as toads; then we went exploring. We had barely gone around the first bend, when a jackrabbit ran in front of us and we took off after him up a little gully that twisted and turned. Then we lost sight of him. After that we played hide-and-seek in some tall bushes that were loaded with yellow flowers—rabbit brush, Grandma calls them. We decided to pick some for Grandma and became so interested that we wandered all over the gully. Finally we climbed to the top of it, where we expected to see Grandpa’s pickup and his melon patch. But all we could see were more hills and gullies.
We just stood and stared, trying to decide which way to go. Raymond thought that we should go back. I thought that we should go ahead, so I coaxed him to go over the next little hill with me. When we got there, we saw the same thing—more gullies and hills.
Raymond started to cry. I wanted to cry, too, but I knew that it would only make him cry harder. If I was as big as Uncle Clinton said, I’d better think of something. Raymond was beginning to really howl, and I had to say something. So I said, “Don’t cry, Raymond. Maybe a helicopter will fly over and see us.”
Then a really good idea popped into my head: Heavenly Father knows where we are. He can see us all the time. I looked up, and my voice choked a little when I said, “Heavenly Father, we’re lost. Please help us find the way back to Grandpa’s melon patch.”
At that very minute I heard the sweetest sound. Looking up again, I said, “Thanks a lot, Heavenly Father.” Then I turned and said, “Raymond, quit crying and listen.”
He snuffled a couple of times quieting down; then we both heard it! Prettier than any songbird’s song came “Quack, quack, quack.”
We ran toward the sound. We had to go down one more little dip and over one more rise. But from the top of it, we could see Grandpa in his watermelon patch and Grandma shucking corn next to it. The quacking and splashing became louder and happier, and we ran through the rocks and brush like a couple of lizards.
“It’s about time you two showed up,” Grandma said, pushing back the hair from her face. “Your grandpa and I have about starved waiting for you so that we could unpack the lunch basket.”
Luckus and Luella had waddled out of the pond at the sight of us. I was real hungry, but before I could eat, I just had to hug a couple of ducks.

Nathan ate his breakfast and smiled. Mother kept thanking Heavenly Father. She thanked Him for morning, for sunshine, for a blue sky.
“Mother, you thanked Heavenly Father three times!” he giggled.
“Three times? No wonder I’m happy. Thanking Heavenly Father for His gifts makes me very happy!”
Nathan stared at Mother. Her eyes sparkled; her lips curved up. She was happy! “I want to be happy, too!” he cried.
“Thank Heavenly Father, and you will be happy!” Mother told him.
“OK.” Nathan thanked Heavenly Father for the birds he heard chirping in the bush near the kitchen window. He smiled. Mother was right! Thanking Heavenly Father did make him happy!
The rest of the morning he thanked Heavenly Father for many things: the backyard with the swing in it; the apple tree that had pretty white blossoms now, and later would have good apples; Grandma’s dog, Lady; kittens and fish; the moon and stars; his playmates, Tom and Chris; and his new bike. Nathan was very, very happy!
At noon Mother said, “Lunchtime, happy Nathan!”
Nathan laughed. He was happy! He was hungry, too. And when he bowed his head to thank Heavenly Father for the good food, Nathan also said, “And I thank Thee for making me happy!”

Hans Eduardo Nieto, a nine-year-old boy living in Guayaquil, Ecuador, has been a missionary since he was born.
Hans’s family is made up of Hans and his mother. When he was born, his mother was not a member of the Church. But the family she worked for as a housemaid were Latter-day Saints. They asked if they could take the baby to church to receive a blessing.
Although Hans’s mother didn’t want to go, she allowed them to take her baby for the blessing. Hans has attended church ever since. Wherever he and his mother lived, she found members to take him to church.

Another of you wrote, “I love being a mother. I love teaching my children the gospel. I substituted in Relief Society one week and got to give the lesson on family scripture study. This is something close to my heart, something I can’t imagine family life without. After the lesson, a sister came up to me and said, ‘I can’t believe all you do. I don’t have the patience.’ But she sings and takes music lessons. At times I’ve envied people who could sing well or play an instrument, because I love music.
“After my conversation with her I felt that although I had not been blessed with great musical ability, Heavenly Father had blessed me with a love of motherhood and that this indeed was a gift and a talent for which I am grateful.”

“I have been inspired by the temple all my life,” says Caitlen Christensen, 16, of the Rockledge Ward in the Cocoa Florida Stake. “When I was younger the Salt Lake Temple was being updated. I was upset because I was unable to see it up close. All I wanted was to touch it. We asked a missionary there and got permission to get close enough to touch it. I had no idea why this was so important to me then; now I know. I know that Christ dwells in the temples and the action of me touching it gave me the feeling that I was touching Christ himself, like the woman who knew she would be healed if she just touched His robe.
“This picture I took was a big testimony builder for me. Every time I look at it, it reminds me of my purpose in life and that Christ knows and loves me. It also reminds me of my goal of an eternal marriage in the temple.”

A true story from the USA.
The freezing wind howled, and snow swirled around the handcart. Jane pulled her thin blanket tighter around her shoulders. Her feet felt numb, but she kept walking. They were on their way to Salt Lake City, Utah.
Jane and her family had learned about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England. When the prophet asked Church members to come to Utah, her family saved every bit of money they could to make the journey. They sailed across the ocean. Now they were traveling by handcart across the plains. They had walked for several months, and they were running out of food.
Tears slid down Jane’s cheeks. “I’m so hungry,” she told her older brother Thomas. “I don’t think I can walk another step!”
Thomas cut a piece of loose rawhide from the wheel of the cart. “Here, chew on this,” he said. “It will be OK.”
“Thank you,” Jane whispered as she chewed on the tough leathery piece.
Soon it was time to camp for the night. Some of the men left to hunt for buffalo. Jane hoped they would find some. Her stomach felt so empty. While they waited, Jane and her family huddled around a small fire, tired, hungry, and cold.
“Let’s say a prayer,” Jane said.
The family knelt together, and Mother prayed. “Father in Heaven, we have no food for supper. Please help us.”
Jane and her brothers and sisters sat quietly for a moment. Then Mother sat up straighter.
“What is it?” Thomas asked.
“I just remembered something.” Mother hurried to the handcart and opened the family trunk. Then she pulled out a small metal box and opened it. Inside were two very hard biscuits. They were left over from their ocean voyage months before.
Jane felt excitement bubble up inside her. They did have food! “We can break them into smaller pieces to share,” she said.
But when they tried, the biscuits were too hard to even break in half.
“Let’s try this,” Mother said. She put the biscuits in the Dutch oven and poured a little water on them. Then she set the lid on and put the heavy pot over the coals.
Jane and her family prayed again. She thought of the story of Jesus Christ in the scriptures, when He fed the five thousand with only a few loaves and fishes. She knew Heavenly Father could help them too.
After a little while, Mother slowly opened the pot. It was filled to the brim with food! There was plenty to feed their whole family.
Jane hugged her mother tightly. “It’s a miracle!”
About Jane Rowley
She was eight years old when she traveled to Utah.
She traveled in the Willie handcart company and walked 1,300 miles (2,092 km) to get to Salt Lake City.
The prophet Brigham Young sent a rescue team to help them.
Illustrations by Simini Blocker

The first principle that I will share is to enthusiastically and righteously continue your quest for knowledge. Two of my heroes in this category are Hans Sloane and Paul Cox. Many years ago, I was visiting London with my family. We stayed in a flat in Sloane Square. There is a statue of Sir Hans Sloane in the center of the square. As a young man in the mid-1600s, Hans Sloane became a physician and then developed a strong interest in botany. The 17th century physician used herbal remedies. Medications were primarily herbal and not based on chemistry as they are today.

In 1687 Sloane accompanied the Duke of Albemarle to Jamaica as his personal physician. He catalogued the flora and fauna of Jamaica and identified about 800 new species of plants.

In Jamaica Sloane noticed that the people drank cocoa, which he found “nauseous.” Sloane experimented with making medicines acceptable to children by mixing them with milk and honey. He mixed the cocoa with milk and sugar and found that it was delicious. Sloane became wealthy when he sold his recipe for milk chocolate.

What is most interesting to me is that Sloane used much of that money to collect botanical and other specimens with which he had become intrigued as a young physician. He bought people’s collected specimens from all over the world and he put together an enormous collection. When he died, he made provision for his collection to become the property of the British nation. That was the beginning of the British Museum.[3]

The second example is Paul Cox. He is still living and is an active member of the Church. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University in Botany and achieved other post graduate degrees. He is a long-time friend of your president, John Tanner since they were both professors at BYU. He served a mission in Samoa and later lived with his family on Savai’i in Samoa for many years. One of his focuses was ethnomedicine where he studied some of the plants that had been used by generations of Samoan mothers to treat health issues. With a co-author, he wrote Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany.[4] He has made several breakthroughs in treating diseases. While he has done many things in his exceptional career, the one I wish to mention occurred many years ago. Paul and a Samoan chief, Fuiono Senio, conducted ethnobotanical research in the village of Falealupo, Western Samoa. In an account by Julie Walker in BYU Magazine, she reports, “The village had reluctantly licensed its forest to a logging company to raise funds to build a school, because, says Cox, ‘They felt they had to choose between their children and their forest, which was a terrible, terrible decision for them.’ When he learned of the transaction with the logging company, Cox told the chiefs he would personally pay to build the school if they would stop the logging of the rain forest.”[5] He did build the school with the help of businessmen who had connections with Samoa.[6] Brother Cox has received many honors and awards including the Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots environmental heroes.

Sloane and Cox represent a continuing quest for knowledge to bless mankind.

A young mother knelt beside her three-year-old and listened to his heartfelt bedtime prayer. As he gave thanks for his big brother, for snow, for clouds, and for pizza, she tried to remember the last time she had thanked the Lord for such things. She realized that, although she always thanked our Heavenly Father for health, family, and the gospel, she had forgotten to remember the plain, the ordinary, the simple blessings of her own life. When she began expressing daily gratitude for all these blessings, she saw the world with new eyes. She found that grief and hardship became easier to bear and that she was spiritually nourished (see Lisa Ray Turner, Ensign, July 1992, pages 51–52).

One day President Monson received a phone call from a woman he did not know. She explained that her father, Bernardo Salas, was dying of cancer and that his great desire was to meet President Monson before he died. She left an address and asked if the prophet would consider visiting her father.

According to President Monson, as he left the office that night, he felt impressed to visit Brother Salas in his home. In rather heavy traffic and with dimming lights, President Monson several times missed the street where Brother Salas lived. After offering a silent prayer, he felt impressed to turn around and attempt to find the home driving from the opposite direction. As he approached the street, he noticed a street sign lying on the ground and a tiny residence some distance from the main road. Driving into the lane, he was greeted by a small girl who ushered him into the house. President Monson speaks tenderly of the blessing he shared with Brother Salas and of his opportunity to minister to the Salas family.

In President Monson’s own words he shares how he felt upon leaving the Salas home:

As I drove homeward, I reflected on the special spirit we had felt. I experienced, as well, as I have many times before, a sense of gratitude that my Heavenly Father had answered another person’s prayer through me.

Too often I have failed to express gratitude for the faith and goodness of such people in my life. President James E. Faust stood at this pulpit 13 years ago and said, “As a small boy … , I remember my grandmother … cooking our delicious meals on a hot woodstove. When the wood box next to the stove became empty, Grandmother would silently … go out to refill it from the pile of cedar wood outside, and bring the heavily laden box back into the house. I was so insensitive … [that] I sat there and let my beloved grandmother refill [that] box.” Then, his voice choking with emotion, he said, “I feel ashamed of myself and have regretted my omission for all of my life. I hope someday to ask for her forgiveness.”3
If a man as perfect as I felt President Faust was can acknowledge his youthful oversight, I can do no less than make a similar admission and pay a long-overdue tribute of my own today.
When I was called to serve a mission back before the dawn of time, there was no equalization of missionary costs. Each had to bear the full expense of the mission to which he or she was sent. Some missions were very expensive, and as it turned out, mine was one of those.
When I was called to serve a mission back before the dawn of time, there was no equalization of missionary costs. Each had to bear the full expense of the mission to which he or she was sent. Some missions were very expensive, and as it turned out, mine was one of those.
As we encourage missionaries to do, I had saved money and sold personal belongings to pay my own way as best I could. I thought I had enough money, but I wasn’t sure how it would be in the final months of my mission. With that question on my mind, I nevertheless blissfully left my family for the greatest experience anyone could hope to have. I loved my mission as I am sure no young man has ever loved one before or since.
Then I returned home just as my parents were called to serve a mission of their own. What would I do now? How in the world could I pay for a college education? How could I possibly pay for board and room? And how could I realize the great dream of my heart, to marry the breathtakingly perfect Patricia Terry? I don’t mind admitting that I was discouraged and frightened.
Hesitantly I went to the local bank and asked the manager, a family friend, how much was in my account. He looked surprised and said, “Why, Jeff, it’s all in your account. Didn’t they tell you? Your parents wanted to do what little they could to help you get started when you got home. They didn’t withdraw a cent during your mission. I supposed that you knew.”
Well, I didn’t know. What I do know is that my dad, a self-educated accountant, a “bookkeeper” as they were called in our little town, with very few clients, probably never wore a new suit or a new shirt or a new pair of shoes for two years so his son could have all of those for his mission. Furthermore, what I did not know but then came to know was that my mother, who had never worked out of the home in her married life, took a job at a local department store so that my mission expenses could be met. And not one word of that was ever conveyed to me on my mission. Not a single word was said regarding any of it. How many fathers in this Church have done exactly what my father did? And how many mothers, in these difficult economic times, are still doing what my mother did?
My father has been gone for 34 years, so like President Faust, I will have to wait to fully thank him on the other side. But my sweet mother, who turns 95 next week, is happily watching this broadcast today at her home in St. George, so it’s not too late to thank her. To you, Mom and Dad, and to all the moms and dads and families and faithful people everywhere, I thank you for sacrificing for your children (and for other people’s children!), for wanting so much to give them advantages you never had, for wanting so much to give them the happiest life you could provide.

It’s not often that a brother and sister compete in team roping, yet team roping is only the beginning of the Janice-Brent team. Just last fall, serving the governor of Utah, his wife, and other judges a meal consisting of garlic lamb steaks, baked potatoes, tossed green salad, carrots, a melon-ball appetizer, braided yeast bread, and a raspberry cream dessert was—yes, the Janice-Brent team.
Adorned with aprons and hats, and reminded by 3-by-5 cards printed with such phrases as “Put plates in oven to heat,” “Cut green peppers,” “Set fruit on table,” “Change aprons,” and “Call guests,” the efficient team won first place in the state 4-H contest and a trip to Denver, Colorado.

President Russell M. Nelson taught that we should “learn to listen, and listen to learn from one another.”3 As you listen with the intent of learning about others, you will be in a better position to understand their needs and hear promptings about how you can care for those around you as the Savior would.

A story from Elder Holland illustrates the power of listening:
“My friend Troy Russell pulled his pickup truck slowly out of his garage. … He felt his back tire roll over a bump. … He got out only to find his precious nine-year-old son, Austen, lying face down on the pavement. … Austen was gone.
“Unable to sleep, unable to find peace, Troy was inconsolable. … But into that agonizing breach came … John Manning. …
“I frankly don’t know on what schedule John and his junior companion made visits to the Russell home. … What I do know is that last spring Brother Manning reached down and picked Troy Russell up off the tragedy of that driveway just as if he were picking up little Austen himself. Like the … brother in the gospel he was supposed to be, John simply took over the priesthood care and keeping of Troy Russell. He started by saying, ‘Troy, Austen wants you back on your feet—including on the basketball court—so I will be here every morning at 5:15 a.m. Be ready. …’
“‘I didn’t want to go,’ Troy told me later, ‘because I had always taken Austen with me. … But John insisted, so I went. From that first day back, we talked—or rather I talked and John listened. … At first it was difficult, but over time I realized I had found my strength in the form of [John Manning], who loved me and listened to me until the sun finally rose again on my life.’”4

President Tandiman, a retired government official, was working in a law office in 1970 when he met Latter-day Saint attorneys applying for government recognition of the Church. At their invitation, he accepted the missionary discussions. He was affected by the conduct of the missionaries and their teachings and the fellowshipping he received. “These made a deep impression upon me, an impression that stayed with me and helped me remain active in those early years of my membership,” he says. President Tandiman’s wife and six children also accepted the gospel, and he baptized them. His daughter is now married and has a daughter of her own. Four sons have served missions in Indonesia, and a fifth son is looking forward to a mission call.

One year after his baptism, Brother Tandiman was called as president of the Djakarta Branch, then later as the West Java District president.

On top of my desk sits a bright blue beanbag. On each side is a yellow sun. The beanbag sits there to remind me of a personal miracle I call “Sunbeam love.”
It began with a call to teach Primary a few months after I returned to Church activity. My past struggles had led to renewed spiritual commitments, and I was eager to serve.
My first day teaching a group of Sunbeams convinced me I was far from ready. As I met the children, I was shocked at how far down I had to look to find the tops of their little heads. Their faces looked up at me apprehensively.
For an introduction I had planned a beanbag game—with an oversized beanbag I had made myself. With the first toss, I knew immediately I had overestimated the size of these children. The throw sent a wide-eyed girl sailing backwards as she bravely absorbed the bag’s impact.
At home that night, I pleaded with Heavenly Father for help. How do I relate to such tiny, tender beings? Suddenly my vision focused on a picture on my wall. It was a portrait of Jesus Christ holding a small child. I studied the expression of love depicted in Christ’s eyes. How much He must love children! How He desires to reassure them of His love! I then realized with perfect clarity that this was exactly what the Savior wanted me to do: to love them in a way that would reassure them of His love.
It was a simple answer. But to me, it seemed I had been asked to perform a miracle. Six painful years as a stepparent, followed by a divorce, had left my heart numb—especially to the idea of loving someone else’s children. Throughout the night I struggled to reconcile the conflict in my heart. It was only after hours of praying that the Spirit convinced me I could change.
From that Sunday forth, a personal miracle began to unfold. Each week during Primary, I was guided by the Spirit in the art of loving. And throughout the year, I was loved in return. There were excited waves across the chapel during sacrament meeting, shouted greetings from grocery store aisles, and gifts of oddly shaped cookies.
Panic set in as the year concluded and my glorious row of Sunbeams graduated. My heart ached wildly for my little friends. Feeling abandoned, I sat numbly, surrounded by eight tiny strangers.
Then came the introductory beanbag game. As I picked up the worn, oversized bag, I paused, remembering a similar Sunday a year before. How overwhelmed I had felt then! And how far I had come! The memories attending this familiar beanbag fueled me with hope. As I met each pair of bright eyes, I saw their pleading looks, “Please love me, too.”
And so I did.

In celebrating the organization of the Young Ladies’ Retrenchment Association, the predecessor to the Young Women organization, the Provo Utah Edgemont South Stake held a program using the theme “Apples and Aprons.”
The theme came from the girls’ service activity that involved making aprons for missionary work. Each ward selected a different color of checked gingham, and each girl used her own pattern to make an apron with a pocket. Placed in the pocket was the girl’s written testimony along with her photograph and address. The aprons were sent to the missions presided over by members of the stake. They went to Denmark, Mexico, Argentina, and California.
The girls wore their aprons to the get-together, where they participated in activities that were common 116 years ago when Brigham Young organized the Retrenchment Association. These included a spelling bee, a cake walk, and jumping rope. Refreshments were also typical of that earlier time: milk, homemade bread, jam, honey butter, and apples. Raquel Lambert, one of the stake Young Women, said of the experience, “It encouraged us to be proud of our heritage, spread the seeds of our religion, and make new friends.”

Another trait that characterizes Brother Rivera is his love of the scriptures. In addition to the Word of Wisdom, it is the scriptures to which he attributes his added vitality and energy in life. “I try to read the scriptures every day,” he says. “Even with my many years, I still have a lot to learn, so I continue to study, to wrap myself in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to be a little better every day.”
Héctor says he sees his father reading the scriptures constantly. “In the morning when I wake up I find him reading the Book of Mormon, the Church magazines, and other Church books. Then when I go to bed at night, I see him in his room again, reading the same things. Every time I see this I marvel. When I saw how much he loved the scriptures, I began to read the Book of Mormon myself.”

Gary and Jennifer Tucker had a dream. They both wanted an eternal family. But Jennifer had almost lost hope. The path to achieving that dream leads through the temple, something for which Gary wasn’t ready.
In the past few years, 22 members of the Three Forks Ward have taken the temple-preparation class, and 14 of them began attending the temple regularly to perform baptisms for the dead. Then, upon finishing the class, 13 of those 14 received their own endowments. Some of them were single or widowed, but others, like Gary and Jennifer Tucker, were sealed as a family.
Gary joined the Church in 1992, a couple of months before he and Jennifer were married. She was already a member. But working long hours and associating with the wrong friends made it hard for Gary to stay active in the Church, even with his wife’s support. He says he spent many years “chewin’ and cussin.’”
When their daughter, Cody, was born, Sister Tucker tried to raise her in the gospel by taking her to church, even though Brother Tucker didn’t want any Church materials at home. Although he encouraged his family to attend church, he didn’t attend. When Cody turned eight, she was baptized by a missionary, not by her father. Brother Tucker says, “I’m very happy I was there, but that’s a huge regret—watching instead of participating in it.”
In the following years, fellowshipping helped Gary return to Church activity. Jennifer would invite ward members or the missionaries over for dinner, knowing that would give them a chance to talk with Gary. He is grateful to those members and missionaries for being a good influence on him.
Dale Price, for example, home taught Jennifer’s mother and got to know Gary and Jennifer that way. When Brother Price visited with Brother Tucker, they didn’t talk about the gospel at first. They talked about a common interest: hunting. The Prices also sat with the Tuckers at ward activities, brought them food from their food storage when Brother Tucker was out of work, and gave them honey produced by their own honeybees. Honey is the Tuckers’ favorite topping on toast. That little gift, as Brother Price describes it, was “to sweeten the relationship.”
Counsel from their stake president also helped the Tuckers. President David Heap asked stake members to do “seven small and simple things”: (1) Read the scriptures personally every day; (2) read the scriptures at least five days a week as a family; (3) have personal prayer every morning and night; (4) have family prayer every morning and night; (5) attend church every Sunday as a family; (6) hold family home evening every Monday night; and (7) attend the temple every month.
Gary could see that these things would help his family be closer—something he very much desired—so the Tuckers began having family prayer, scripture study, and home evening. These efforts helped prepare Gary to be receptive to his bishop’s invitation to prepare to go to the temple.
In January 2006 the Tuckers were attending a fireside at the bishop’s home. Bishop Baczuk pulled Gary aside and talked to him about the temple. Right there, Gary gave the bishop his can of chewing tobacco so it wouldn’t continue to be a temptation to him. He had many questions for the bishop then and in subsequent interviews. The bishop emphasized living the covenants that Gary had made at baptism so he could be worthy of the Spirit.
The Tuckers began taking the temple-preparation class, and Jennifer began attending the temple with her ward each month to perform baptisms for the dead. Gary was working on becoming worthy to go. Their daughter, Cody, who was 11 then, was excited to be able to go to the temple soon to perform baptisms. By the time she turned 12, Gary was able to go to the temple with her. It was the first time either of them had been in the temple.
Cody says, “It was wonderful. It’s very peaceful there. My dad went, so that was even a bigger deal.” Gary says he felt “unbelievable peace and joy that first time.”
The next Sunday in the temple-preparation class, Gary was a different person. “A light had gone on,” says Sister Elna Scoffield, who has taught the class for several years. Gary stayed after class to ask questions. He had felt the Spirit at the temple and wanted to return—not just to perform baptisms but to receive his endowment and to have his family sealed to him.
The next month the Tuckers again attended the temple with the bishop and other ward members.
In the weeks before Brother and Sister Tucker received their endowments and were sealed, they felt the adversary’s opposition. Gary was making progress, but he still had doubts about his worthiness to be in the temple. Their dream of an eternal family was close, but it felt just out of reach. The Tuckers knew they had to pray together more often, asking for strength. “We always received it in the form of calming peace and reassurance that all things are in the Lord’s hands,” says Sister Tucker. “Even up to the time we walked inside the temple, His calming Spirit was with our whole family.”
After Gary and Jennifer received their endowments, they knelt in the sealing room with their children, Cody and Garrett, dressed in white. When six-year-old Garrett saw his mom crying, he reached up to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Gary and Cody were crying for joy too. Even the sealer was emotional.
The Tuckers say their family now enjoys stronger relationships and better communication. Gary says, “We are happier. My wife and I are closer, and our children see that.” Gary feels like he’s a better example to his family members who are not members of the Church, and he hopes that other families in his ward will want the same blessings that the Lord has given the Tuckers through the temple.

There were two outs, and I was up at bat. It was late in the game, and the score was close. We needed a run, but I was a very average second baseman. Trying to fake confidence, I nervously stepped to the plate.
“Strike one!” “Strike two!” The next pitch was fast and outside, but I wanted to hit it so badly I swung anyway. I heard a “crack” and watched my line drive sail over the third baseman’s head. I dropped my bat and ran, the first base coach waving me on to second. Adrenaline pumping, I rounded the base and saw the third base coach signal me to hold up. I had a stand-up double.
I was excited, but believe it or not, the hit wasn’t the most memorable part of the game. What I remember most is that my head coach called time out, left the dugout, and ran across the field. He hurried to second base with a huge smile on his face. “Good job! That’s how to hit!” He gave me a high five, then ran back to the dugout. The ump yelled “batter up,” and the game went on.
I think we won, but to be truthful, I don’t remember for sure. What I do remember is the coach’s compliment. It made me want to do better. I’ve noticed such moments don’t usually take much effort and don’t require a lot of time, but their effects last and last.

They might, however, have been less impressed had they ventured out of the heart of the city into the residential area. For all of its bustle, the little city of 20,000 Saints and gentiles was still a country town. Neat brick or plastered adobe houses set well back in fenced lots lined the streets. Each lot included space for a garden, fruit trees, shrubs, chicken houses, and a barn for a horse and buggy and, in many cases, a cow. Loose livestock wandering the city streets was a chronic nuisance; in the midst of April conference that year, a cow was found prostrate on North Temple Street in the 18th Ward area. After two days, the Deseret News editor reported that “the cow … has gone the way of all cows, at last, but did not go quite far enough to please the good people of that immediate neighborhood. The present state of weather will soon render the carrion a disagreeable source of annoyance and complaint.” (DN, April 10.)

No one seemed to take the matter of bovine intruders too seriously until a cow lumbered in at the front door of a local restaurant and became stuck between the tables, unable to move forward and unwilling to move backward. At this point, the city council passed an ordinance declaring that after June 7, 1880, all cows found running at large would be impounded by the city. (DN, June 4.)

Eventually, this solved the problem, though for a time indignant cow owners simply kept their animals penned until the marshall had made his rounds at night, then turned them loose to forage at will. (DN, June 11.)