Gospel Story Finder

We headed for Sister Campbell’s first. She was living by herself in a tiny farmhouse in the middle of an apple orchard. We rang the doorbell and waited.
“Treat or trick,” we yelled, when she answered the door.
“What?” asked Sister Campbell. “Oh, girls, I wasn’t expecting anyone clear out here. I’m sorry, I don’t have a scrap of candy. But you’re welcome to the apples.”
“That’s okay,” we told her. “We’re reverse trick-or-treating. We bring you the treat.” She laughed and invited us inside. She told us about the things she used to do at Halloween.
“Some of us played terrible pranks.” Jill and I looked at each other. “We knocked over an outhouse while a boy was in it.”
“Oh, no!” I laughed, though I didn’t mean to.
“I felt awful about it,” Sister Campbell said.
“What happened? Did the boy get even with you?”
Sister Campbell giggled. “I’ll say he did. He married me.”

I know exactly how you feel. A few months ago, my boyfriend and I did something wrong. After that, it seemed as if in every fireside the speaker was talking just to me. I felt like dirt. I knew I needed to tell my bishop, but I just couldn’t.
I tried to tell myself that if I just forgot about it and never did it again, the Lord would forget too. Last week I had an interview with my bishop to get my patriarchal blessing. I knew I had to tell him. I prayed before I went in. Then with a prayer in my heart, I took a deep breath and told him. Now I feel so much better! It was so hard to do. But I thank the Lord for giving me the courage to confess. Now I can complete my repentance, and I won’t have to carry that burden for the rest of my life.
Name withheld

I have gone far in my family history, and the more I have been doing, the more I am dreaming about my ancestors. Let me share only two dreams.
First: I will never forget the dream I had about two years ago, about my paternal great-uncle Steven. In that dream, I traveled to my hometown and wanted to come back. I got to the market square, where I wanted to get a car back to my base. Then I saw a car and entered it. When we moved, I looked through the car window, and I saw Uncle Steven running after the car and stopping it. When the car stopped, he entered at the back, where I sat and started pointing at my face and said, “What did I do to you? Why do you not want to help me the way you are helping others?”
When I woke up, I was confused, so I narrated the dream to one of my sons. He told me that the dream I had was about doing temple work for our ancestors. I told him that I didn’t know how I would do this one because I don’t know much about Uncle Steven and I don’t know how I can trust his lineage. We are not from the same village.
My son told me to pray to our Heavenly Father for direction on what to do. So I prayed. One day our most senior brother, my first cousin Emeka, who wasn’t a Christian (he was a traditional man), called me to discuss something. We talked on the phone, and when the discussion was finished, I seized the opportunity to ask him about our Uncle Steven. He acknowledged he knew things about him, and he sent the information that he had to me. I kept on asking him about many people. He sent me information he had for about 15 people. I handed that information to my son to be doing temple work for them.
Second: I had another dream when I traveled home again. I was coming out from my father’s compound, and somebody called my name. I looked on my right side, and I saw Emeka’s stepmother, Virginia, and our uncle’s wife, Regina, and also Emeka’s senior sister, Victoria. All are dead. Emeka’s stepmother was the one who called me. As I was going towards them, Emeka’s sister backed me away, telling them something. Then I heard Emeka’s stepmother saying, “No, no. She is the one helping us.” Our Uncle’s wife was supporting her, saying, “She is the one helping us.”
These experiences taught me how close we are to our dead and help me understand that it is I helping them.

Illustration by Stephen Sitton
Touchdown! The phrase seemed so familiar to me. I would hear it in my thoughts, dreams, and, most important, on the football field. I was what you would call a football fanatic. Nearly every inch of my wall donned a poster of something football-related. If you saw me at the park with my friends, I would be playing football. As I got bigger and stronger, so did my love for the game.
When I entered high school, my football career started to consume me. Mutual? Nah. I was lifting weights with my football buddies. Youth conference? A little bit. But I missed half of what many called a life-changing experience because I was set on training with the team. Family? We lived in the same house, but I felt that my team was my family.
Because of these choices, I started to stray. I would go through the motions to make my mom happy, but when I sat in sacrament meeting taking the holy emblems of our Savior’s atoning sacrifice, my mind just wasn’t in the right place. I had become a glory-obsessed athlete. My dream was to play in the big game under the Friday night lights.
During the summer, we had rigorous workouts—running in the 110-degree heat (43º C), lifting weights for hours, running up and down the bleachers, and overall just exhausting ourselves. Then my back began to hurt. Eventually the pain I brushed aside became something that required medical attention. I took medications, but they didn’t help, so it was suggested that I get an MRI scan. One week later I received a call from my doctor. I was hurt worse than I had thought. It was apparent that my football career was over, and I did nothing but mourn my loss.
I joined the swim team to stay in shape. I was the biggest person out there, at 6?3? (191 cm) and 215 pounds (98 kg). I was also by far the slowest swimmer. It was a humbling experience. While on the team, I had fun and met new people, but I still felt empty. I felt as if there were a part of my heart that would never be filled again. I talked with many people and heard their experiences, but they were all just stories to me. I was lost in the thoughts of my broken heart.
I attended seminary, but I would end up just going and sitting in class, sending text messages to my friends, complaining about everything from not playing football to being hungry. Then one day the seminary teacher told us to take out our hymnbooks for an activity. I flipped through the pages and came across “How Firm a Foundation” (Hymns, no. 85). I read through the fifth verse, which says:
When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design …
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
As I read this, I realized that God had allowed these trials to come in order to strengthen me. I went home and prayed and realized that I had been so foolish to forget God and forget how blessed I am, even without football. I had wonderful friends, a wonderful family, and, most important, faith in my Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It took me a long time to realize that with my faith fully set on God, putting Him before everything, I can never lose. After these experiences, I could walk out of sacrament meeting, cleansed through the sacrament and with my sights set on a mission, and look back at the end of my football career and ask myself, “Is this a loss or a win?” Sounds like an eternal victory to me.

The Cantos’ fifth child, Pedrito, was born in a clinic in Quevedo, high in the Andes Mountains near the equator. The boy seemed normal at first, but after two days his bowels had not yet purged their prenatal waste and he was screaming with pain.

His alarmed parents dared not wait even until morning to seek the advice of a specialist, for sudden death had already claimed two of their other children. At three months, Nancy Julema, their third child, had died of an unknown illness. Two years later, their fourth child, one-year-old Juan Carlos, had died of bronchial pneumonia in the arms of his mother on the way to medical help in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The heartbroken mother had gotten off the bus at the next town, but no bus or taxi driver would give her passage back home with the dead child. Finally, in desperation, she had pretended that the child was asleep and hitchhiked a ride part way on a gas truck and then on to Quevedo in a private car.

So, fearing the worst, Pedro Cantos wrapped his newborn son in a blanket, kissed his wife good-bye, and left by taxi for Guayaquil, 175 miles away. As the miles widened between them, the hearts of the parents were as one as they prayed for the life of this child.

When father and son finally arrived at the hospital, the doctors quickly diagnosed the problem as a congenital bowel obstruction, and they immediately made a surgical opening into the colon for drainage.

After three days Pedrito was out of immediate danger. His father returned home to Quevedo, borrowed some money to help pay for the treatment in Guayaquil, and sent his wife back to the hospital to be with their sick baby.

Nancy Cantos and her baby son remained in Guayaquil a month—a sorrowful month for the family. They were given little hope for Pedrito’s recovery, and they didn’t know how or where they could get more money for his care.
Although Pedrito finally grew well enough to come home, he remained ill and feverish. He cried out in pain, unable to sleep or eat. Only forced feedings kept him alive.
At three months, he suffered a severe heart attack. The Cantos then learned that their baby had a serious congenital heart defect. With open-heart surgery he might recover; without surgery he could not possibly live beyond age ten.
And he would always be ill.
Open-heart surgery! But that would cost thousands of dollars. It was impossible!
The saddened parents returned home with their baby. They faced a constant struggle to keep him alive. One day he would seem a bit better; the next day he would be worse again. They had to take him to Guayaquil every two or three weeks for medication and treatment—a financial hardship on their limited income.
In the meantime, they prayed constantly. And their answer came in a dream.
One night when Pedrito was almost ten months old, Nancy dreamed that she saw through her kitchen window—instead of the usual array of crowded buildings—a beautiful, spacious lawn extending as far as she could see. In the distance a man was digging in the earth. She approached him and asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m planting herbs to cure the illnesses of man,” he replied.
Then Nancy saw an unusual tree nearby. “What is the purpose of that tree?” she asked.
“The tree holds the cure for Pedrito’s illness,” replied the stranger.
“Tell me,” she asked eagerly, “how can I give the tree’s medicine to my child?”
Before the stranger could answer, Nancy saw a man in the distance, standing at the window of a house, looking at her. Immediately he and another man, both dressed in white, left the house and approached her.
Frightened, Nancy ran trembling into her own house and bolted the door. They came to her barred window, looked in at her, and asked, “Why are you afraid?”
“Because—because I’m here alone with my sick child.”
“But do you not know that bolted doors and barred windows cannot keep us out?” they asked kindly. “We were sent by God to help you because of your faith and your diligence in studying the Bible and seeking the word of God.”
Instantly they were inside the house, and Nancy woke up.
The dream remained vivid in Nancy’s thoughts, yet she told no one.
A week later, two missionaries knocked on the Cantos’s door. That evening they gave Nancy, Pedro, and their two older sons, Cesar and Fernando, the first discussion.
Before they left, the elders gave the family a Book of Mormon, after first marking for them the passages they had been discussing about Christ’s visit to America. They also felt inspired to underline the passages relating to Lehi’s dream about the tree of life—something they had never done before.
Later, as Nancy Cantos read the account of Lehi’s dream, she became excited. It was so similar to her own! She knew in her heart that this was the answer to their prayers.
Eagerly she read the passages to her husband and told him about her dream. He, too, believed this was their answer. “If we obey God’s commandments and hold to the iron rod, our baby will be healed,” he told his wife.
The Cantos could hardly wait for the next discussion.
One night when the elders came to the Cantos home, Pedrito was unusually ill. The elders felt prompted to discuss the principle of priesthood administrations. The family eagerly sought a blessing for Pedrito, who was so thin you could see the bones under his skin. Up until then, he had been unable to tolerate any food except milk. He could neither walk nor talk, and he rarely slept more than an hour or two at a time.
The elders administered to the child and left the house with a strong feeling that he would recover.
From that time on, Pedrito began to improve. The Cantos family were baptized, and the welfare services missionaries helped Sister Cantos get Pedrito started on solid foods. He began to gain weight, and for the first time in his life, he slept through the night. He also learned to walk and talk. The frequent, costly trips to Guayaquil were no longer necessary.
Then, suddenly, Pedrito became ill again. His temperature was dangerously high, and his parents took him back to Guayaquil. The doctors told them that he would have to remain in the hospital at least five days. They also told the Cantos that if Pedrito were to live, he would have to undergo open-heart surgery right away.
But to everyone’s surprise, Pedrito was well enough to leave the hospital the next day.
Back in Quevedo, the welfare services missionaries helped the Cantos apply for help with the cost of the surgery. The doctors told the Cantos that they would have to go to the United States or Brazil for the surgery. But a member of the Church, who had recently had a family member operated on for a similar problem, told them about another doctor—Dr. Oswald Bonilla, a heart specialist in nearby Quito.
Although his calendar was full for several months, Dr. Bonilla agreed to see Pedrito in two weeks. But complications kept Dr. Bonilla from seeing Pedrito immediately. Sister Cantos had been taking a tailoring class so that she could earn money to help pay some of their medical bills. As the day for the appointment with Dr. Bonilla approached, she learned that her final examination was scheduled for the same day.
Dr. Bonilla graciously postponed the appointment for another two weeks. This time, a bus strike kept them from meeting with him. Finally, after six weeks, they stood before Dr. Bonilla.
Electrocardiograms, x-rays, and many other tests revealed that Pedrito was too weak to endure surgery. “It will take at least eight or nine months to build him up sufficiently,” Dr. Bonilla told the worried parents. The doctor ordered another series of tests.
Three days later, just before Pedrito was taken in for the new tests, two young men in white shirts and dark suits told Dr. Bonilla, “We would like to give the child a blessing.”
“You have five minutes,” the doctor said, and he left the room.
Later that afternoon he whistled in amazement. The test results showed such a remarkable improvement in Pedrito that Dr. Bonilla decided to schedule the surgery immediately.
“It was worse than we thought,” Dr. Bonilla told the parents and the elders and sisters who had waited with them during the five anguish-filled hours of the surgery. “You keep praying, though, and Pedrito will live.”
Pedrito did live. He recovered rapidly. Soon he was running and playing like any other little boy. And Pedrito’s struggle for life has wrought other miracles. Dr. Bonilla and his assistant, Dr. Lopez, were touched by this display of faith and by the miracle they saw when the elders administered to Pedrito. They decided not to charge for the surgery.
Many of Sister Cantos’s family have accepted the gospel, and members of Brother Cantos’s family are anxiously waiting for the missionaries to come to a remote area where they live so that they, too, can be taught the gospel.

When my wife started taking classes, I noticed that we started having stimulating and insightful significant discussions of the scriptures and Church matters more frequently. In one particularly significant experience, we spoke quietly with each other in the temple after a session, and she shared with me an understanding she had of the endowment ceremony. The Spirit testified of the truthfulness of what she was saying. That shared moment was a precious one in our relationship.
Now, I don’t think her classes provided this new knowledge; rather, her increased self-confidence and increased range of interests sent her prayerfully thinking into an area that she had previously thought of as “beyond her.” As a result of her spiritual insights, she elevated and broadened my knowledge of an important eternal truth.

“Father and I would often drive from Provo out to the farm. Just over the Provo River bridge was a grocery store with a blackboard in front that was used for advertising. Across the top of the blackboard was scrawled the saying, ‘As we travel through life, let us live by the way.’ On our return to Provo, I would recite this statement. Father would chuckle as he caught the hint. We would stop the horse in front of the store, and he would buy me an ice-cream cone.”

I was young and inexperienced, so the impressions made by this unusual incident were especially deep. I was assigned as a missionary to a little-known island in the South Pacific in 1955. Coming from America, my first impressions were two—the natural beauty of these islands and the apparent poverty of the people.
Slowly I began to learn the native language, adjust to the native food, and fit into the unhurried pace of living. The heat seemed at times unbearable and the mosquitoes vicious, as though they preferred the taste of hinehina (white) blood.
As I became more acquainted with the islanders and their language, food, and customs, I became more fully aware of the real poverty (in relative terms) in which they lived. It seemed irreconcilable. Why should we have so much in America and they have so little here? I could not at that time perceive the great spiritual blessings they had.
One day gave way to another with little change in the village routine. It would rain fiercely and then the sun would shine just as intensely. The diet of fish and breadfruit was almost unchanged from day to day. The oneness and the unity of the sun and the sea, the lagoon, and the soft laughter of those beautiful brown-skinned people seemed to melt into a covering of quiet and peace.
Then one day excitement and change arrived! A strange boat was working its way into the harbor. Hurrah for something different! The whole island was soon down on the seashore looking at one of the most beautiful sailing yachts I have ever seen.
Quietly, as if in slow motion, a crewman threw an anchor into the waiting lagoon. It did not appear even to make a splash, as though to refrain from disturbing the beauty of the setting. It was nearly dusk. The light from the setting sun silhouetted that sleek shape, its sails furled against the backdrop of deep blue waters and emerald green islands. Golden shafts of color painted all around in unbelievably vivid hues, as though framing the whole picture for eternity.
Silently the crew rolled out deep red carpets on the freshly scrubbed deck, and then the master emerged in his crisp white “tropics” to survey the situation. By now there were canoes all around as curious islanders naturally wanted to be a part of this experience, this change.
My assignment was to a little flock of about 50 Church members, most of whom were caught up in the excitement. They soon brought back reports, and even though I was young and inexperienced, it did not take very long to realize what was happening.
The man was a millionaire from overseas, cruising the world. He wanted to trade for food and water, and he wanted girls. There was liquor on board and a real swinging time for those who would accept his invitation.
I counseled my little flock to stay away. Most did, but some did not. The wealthy adventurer stayed for a few days until he filled his wants. Then he announced he would leave before noon the following day. Some of the faithful members pleaded, “Could we not go out just before he leaves, just to see the boat?” I agreed that at 10:00 the next morning we would briefly look at the yacht.
When we got there, it was even more magnificent than I had pictured. Evidence of the previous night’s activities was still being cleared away, and preparations were being made to raise anchor and take sail. We spent a few moments in wonder and awe, astonished at the beauty of the deep mahogany paneling, the rich bronze fittings, the lustre of the freshly painted surfaces, and the gleaming white of the hull as it lapped quietly at the deep blue lagoon.
The owner, nearly sober, waved good-bye, and we returned to shore. As we pulled the dugout canoe onto the sandy beach, I turned again to see the white form move toward the horizon. I thought of the millionaire in his white “tropics,” having had his fill, comfortable with his well-stocked cupboards and expert crew, with his money and his power. He seemed to have everything he wanted.
Then I looked at the men who had brought me to shore: no shoes, shirts of rags, tattered valas tied with coconut sennit around their waists. I looked past them to the village. I saw the smoke from the morning’s cooking twisting lazily into the air, heard the monotonous sound of tapa being beaten, and felt the heaviness of the overhead sun as it filtered through the palm trees. I watched the men slowly walk to their gardens and heard the laughter of naked children as they chased the scrawny dogs.
Suddenly the oppressiveness of island life with so little opportunity for change struck me as being grossly unfair. I turned again to gaze at the yacht, now receding into the distance. The contrast was so great as to be almost unbelievable. My heart cried out, “Unfair! Unfair! These poor people—look at them—and you—look at you!”
I returned to the group, and we trudged up the shore to the village. Then one of the older men turned to me and said softly in his native tongue, “I am very sad. I feel very sorry.”
“Well,” I interrupted, “I am very sad, and I feel very sorry too. It just isn’t fair, is it?”
“No,” he continued, “it really isn’t fair. I feel so sorry for him, for he will never be happy.”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“You, you feel sorry for him? He won’t be happy? What are you talking about?”
My mind was groping to come to a sense of reality of what was being said. This man with nothing saying he was sorry for that man with everything! My immature mind was spinning, trying to interpret words, feelings, and relationships.
But he continued: “I feel so sorry for him. He will never be happy for he seeks only for his own pleasure, not to help others. Yet we know that happiness comes from helping others. All he will do is sail around the world seeking happiness, hoping others will bring happiness to him. But they cannot. He will never find it for he has not learned to help others. He has too much money, too many luxuries. Oh, I feel so sorry for him.”
I looked at the wrinkled brown body of the old man. His teeth were gone, his hair was white, and his skin was leather; but his eyes were soft, his voice quiet, and his countenance immaculate.
I can never forget his powerful words: “I feel sorry for him. He will never be happy. He hasn’t learned to help others.”
Years have passed, but occasionally, as I see proud people closed up in their sleek new cars or sense my own temporary unwillingness to help others, I close my eyes and see a beautiful yacht moving toward the horizon and turn and see an old man with a wrinkled brown body, white hair, and skin of leather and listen as his soft eyes penetrate mine and his toothless mouth moves and his spirit explains: “I feel very sorry. He will never be happy. He hasn’t learned to help others.”

Now, you young men, let’s carefully consider some examples from the lives of our prophets as they have spiritually prepared for the priesthood. President Joseph Fielding Smith shares with us his feelings in these words: “‘When I was a small boy, too young to hold the Aaronic Priesthood, my father placed a copy of the Book of Mormon in my hands with the request that I read it. I received this Nephite record with thanksgiving and applied myself to the task which had been assigned to me. There are certain passages that have been stamped upon my mind and I have never forgotten them.’ By the time he was ten years old he had read the Book of Mormon through not just once but twice. His brothers remembered of his hurrying to get through his chores as quickly as possible, and sometimes even leaving a ball game early, and secluding himself in the hayloft or in the shade of a tree to get back to his reading of the book.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., and John J. Stewart, The Life of Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1972, p. 57.)

Bobby boosted Priscilla up onto the rock, then scrambled up himself.
“Thanks,” said Priscilla, handing his fishing pole to him. It was the first time she had fished with her brother since they’d moved.
White, billowy clouds drifted across the turquoise sky, and the sun shone down warmly. The children’s blonde hair waved like golden wheat in the afternoon breeze. In the distance they heard the sound of a small engine approaching.
“Here comes the speeder!” exclaimed Bobby. “The passenger train won’t be far behind it.”
“What’s the speeder?” Priscilla asked.
“It’s a small self-propelled car that checks the track to make sure there aren’t any big rocks on it.”
“Do you mean that rocks sometimes slide down from those high mountains?” Priscilla asked, pointing to the cliffs towering behind them.
Bobby nodded. “Dad told me that a long time ago a huge rock slid onto the track, and the passenger train came barreling around the curve and smashed into it! Some of the crew and passengers on the train were killed, so ever since then the speeder checks the track before the passenger train comes through.”
“Well, how does the speeder tell the train that it’s safe to come through the canyon?”
“The man on the speeder contacts a dispatcher on his portable radio,” Bobby explained, “and the dispatcher gives the engineer a green signal along the track.”
“Oh,” Priscilla said, just as the motorized car came speeding around the bend about twenty-five yards from them. The children waved at the driver. He waved back and quickly sped out of view around the next turn.
Soon Bobby and Priscilla heard the train whistle, long and shrill, but still quite far away in the mountains. While they waited for the train to come by, they watched a tiny hummingbird. It flew over to the railroad track and then flew back near the children, hovering above them like a little helicopter. Then it nosedived toward the ground. At the last possible moment it pulled up and veered sharply left. Then it swooped straight up into the sky again.
Bobby laughed. “I think it was showing off for us, Priscilla.”
“Wasn’t it cute!” Priscilla squinted into the sun, trying to see where the tiny bird had flown.
The piercing blast of a train’s whistle filled the air, and the children could feel the ground beneath them tremble as the powerful diesel engine came into sight, pulling stainless steel passenger coaches that shone like silver in the sun.
Bobby spotted the engineer high in the engine’s cab, waving his gray cap at them.
Priscilla and Bobby waved at him, too, and at the passengers inside the coaches as the train thundered by.
The observation car with its high glass windows was the last to roll out of sight.
Priscilla smiled at her brother. “That was fun.”
Bobby smiled back. “Uh-huh. Are you ready to head home for supper?”
“Yes. I’m starved!”
As the days passed and spring turned into summer and summer into fall, the children went fishing at the lake beside the railroad track almost every afternoon. And each time the passenger train rushed by, they waved at the engineer. Sometimes they had a fish to hold up proudly.
One Wednesday afternoon in late October Bobby and Priscilla sat atop the rock, talking and fishing and waiting for the train to roar past. The rattling little speeder had just passed, and Bobby was telling Priscilla about his science experiment at school, when they heard cracking and grating noises behind them. They looked up to see a jumble of rocks sliding and crashing down the sheer cliffs.
Bobby grabbed Priscilla, and they crouched behind the rock and watched gigantic boulders thunder down the mountain, not fifty yards away. Except for the clouds of dust above the fallen rocks, it was all over in a minute or two.
Bobby waited till he was certain the slide was really over, then helped his sister up from behind the rock. Together they edged forward for a closer look.
After picking their way only a few feet, Bobby stopped and pointed. “Priscilla! The rocks are right on top of the tracks!” Bobby’s voice was high and scared. “The man on the speeder has already checked the track! He’ll have told the dispatcher that it’s safe for the train to come ahead. If that passenger train comes around the curve as fast as it usually does, it’ll derail! The crew and passengers could be killed! We have to warn the train to stop.”
Priscilla had already taken off. “Come on!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Run!”
“It’ll take a good half mile for the train to stop at that speed,” Bobby panted, catching up to her, “so we have to run as far as we can and then try to flag down the engineer with our arms!”
The children hurried on, careful not to trip over the ends of the railroad ties. As they rounded a curve in the track, they heard a long, faraway blast of the train’s whistle and ran a little faster.
Priscilla pressed her hand against her side. Soon she gasped, “Bobby, I can’t run anymore. My side hurts too much.”
Bobby helped her up the hill a few feet, safely away from the track. His own breath was coming in great gulps. “I’ll have to leave you here. Now, don’t go near the tracks, no matter what!”
Priscilla nodded, panting and clutching her side. “But what if the train doesn’t stop? What if the engineer thinks that you’re only fooling around?”
“I’m hoping that he’ll trust me because he’s seen us here every day.” Taking another big breath, Bobby scrambled back downhill to the track and pushed on, stride after stride, trying to ignore the pain in his legs and the cramp starting in his own side.
The train whistled, shrill and loud. It was getting closer.
Bobby tried to run harder, but his legs burned and he felt dizzy. He had never run so hard or so far in his life. He struggled to concentrate on every step he took beside the railroad track. He knew that if he tripped and rolled down the grassy slope, the train would go speeding by without anyone to warn it of the danger ahead.
He had barely rounded a curve when he felt the ground rumble beneath his feet. The big diesel engine thundered toward him, its headlight shining into Bobby’s face.
Moving just far enough to the side of the track to avoid getting hit, Bobby jumped up and down, waving his arms back and forth furiously, and screamed, “Stop! Stop!”
In the split second when the engine roared by, Bobby saw both the engineer and the fireman high in the engine’s cab. They had looked him straight in the eye, but had they understood? Would they stop the train in time?
As the coaches rushed by, Bobby fell to the ground, exhausted. But when he heard the hissing of air brakes and the grinding of wheels, he picked himself up off the ground and cheered and whooped. The engineer had trusted him! The train was stopping!
As fast as he could, Bobby limped back along the track. The cramp in his side was almost unbearable, but as he hobbled around the last bend, there was his little sister running toward him.
Bobby and Priscilla helped each other down the track until they could see the observation car and passenger coaches. People were jumping off the steps and running to the front of the train to find out what was wrong.
Farther up, around a bend, the children could see the big engine only feet from the rockslide. People were shouting back and forth above the roar of the engines.
Bobby and Priscilla stopped to rest by the first passenger coach they came to. A man with a kind, wrinkly face rushed over to them. They knew by the flat-crowned hat he wore that he was the conductor.
He shook their hands vigorously, hugged them, and told them that everything was all right.
Later, when Bobby and Priscilla were telling their dad what had happened, Bobby said, “And the conductor said that we were heroes, Dad.”
“Not only that,” Priscilla chimed in, “but he said that heroes can have free train rides whenever they want!”

When I found out I was going to be a part of a Face to Face event, the thing that excited me most was the opportunity to work with an Apostle.
I was nervous before the broadcast because I needed to say some things in Portuguese. I said to Elder Soares, “I’m worried my American accent is going to come through.” He replied with a smile and a wink, saying, “Max, accents are charming!”
I felt the Spirit so strongly when I heard him witness that the Savior lives and loves all of us individually.
Max A.

When I think of the phrase, “I live it,” I am reminded of a young woman I met named Karigan. She wrote: “I’ve been a member of the Church for a little over a year. … For me, when investigating, one sign that this was the true Church came because I felt I’d finally found a church that taught modesty and standards. I’ve seen with my own eyes what happens to people when they disregard commandments and choose the wrong path. I made up my mind, long ago, to live high moral standards. … I feel so blessed to have found the truth and to have been baptized. I am so happy.”

To the young missionaries tracting the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1995, the promise they had received from a member of the Area Presidency seemed odd: “If you work hard and are completely obedient, investigators will fall out of the trees to be baptized.” We found out about that promise a short time later.
My father was pruning one of the trees along the sidewalk in front of our home. As he was up in the tree pruning, he noticed two young men walking toward him on the street. As they passed under the tree, he called down to them in English.
My father didn’t really speak English, but he knew a few words, and he was curious. Who were these young men, and what were they doing in our neighborhood?
The missionaries stopped, wondering where the voice had come from. My father then climbed out of the tree to talk to them. Impressed by their message and manner, he invited them into his home.
My father’s previous experience with religion had left him troubled, but the message of the restored gospel spoke to his heart. He had lived through some tough times, and he knew he needed to change. He listened closely as the missionaries taught him, my mother, my grandmother, and me.
I was only 11 years old, but the truths they taught also resonated with me—and with my mother and grandmother. As a result, we were all baptized a few months later, in September 1995.
The seeds of faith that the missionaries planted in our hearts were soon nourished by fellowshipping from friends at church, additional gospel teaching, and good experiences with strong Church leaders. Because of the warm welcome we received, the seeds of our faith “fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold” (Luke 8:8).
The fruits of our faith that we enjoy today—nearly 25 years later—include a firm commitment to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, the blessings of the temple, and a full and happy life with a new generation of family members united for all eternity.
We will always be grateful for two faithful missionaries who put an inspired promise to the test.

Years ago my sweetheart, Kathleen, and I had the blessing of being in a meeting where two young missionaries were teaching a man in his neighbor’s home. They asked what the man was feeling when they taught him. They hardly had to ask because they knew that all in the room felt the power of the Holy Ghost.
The ward mission leader asked the man to set a baptismal date. The man resisted a little, and so some of us tried to help. We talked about what it might mean to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost. He asked what it was, and we said it is to have Him as your constant companion.
I guess because he was an engineer, he wanted to find out what “constant” meant. He said, “Well, do you feel it like this all the time?” And bless my sweetheart’s heart, because she said, “No. Life is life, and there are times when you feel it this way, but not always.” He liked that because he knew it was honest.
It became clear that the reason he resisted setting the baptismal date was that the Holy Ghost told him what that really meant, and he wasn’t sure he could make that large of a commitment. We persuaded him to show the Lord that he had faith.
His neighbor baptized him, and I conferred the gift of the Holy Ghost.
I knew if my engineer friend would go on doing what he was doing, he would have light upon light added to him. It is not a moment, nor is it just getting him established in the Church; it’s forever.

A couple of years ago a young brother came up to me after a concert and asked if I’d ever seen the kid in the back of the room watching the man up front play his guitar, wanting with all his might to just open up like that and let his feelings out. And then he told me that he was the kid, that it was destructive to his spirit and hurtful to his head to feel the constant pressure of those dammed-up feelings and emotions and ideas. I didn’t doubt his sincerity, but I thought it might be just one more case of never having really tried. I asked him what he was doing to develop his talent. “Well, I’m studying voice right now, and I’ve been playing classical guitar for five years.” Obviously the problem had to be something else.
I invited him to come out to my house in Alpine (a small town in Utah County) when he could, and we’d talk about it. (Incidentally, his desire to share his light so touched me that I wrote a song about him that night before I went to bed—a song that a lot of my artist friends relate to really well, because they, too, frequently feel those “dammed-up” pressures.)
Not long after, we spent the day together in Alpine. The main element in his problem turned out to be a fairly simple misunderstanding. He somehow had the idea that those phrases and images that roll so easily off the singer’s tongue roll just as easily from the writer’s mind. He had begun hundreds of verses on hundreds of days, but whenever a word or picture got stuck in the pen, he felt that he had failed and quit. I have a song about swimming in a river. I sang him the lines:
You can see the fishes dancin’
Dancin’ silver rings around you and me.
Then I told him how I spent an hour a day for about three days writing those two lines, singing the song over and over, getting to that empty place and trying to hear those two lines, filling that place with a dozen different images, finally finding that image and saying it a dozen different ways, then singing it again and again, testing it on my tongue, my ear, my sense of balance.
He asked what the green book on the piano was—a rhyming dictionary. The blue one—a Thesaurus. And the cassette recorder—a recorder to tape four or five notes at a time, playing them back, seeing if the structure sounded fresh and yet inevitable. What was written in the pile of music notebooks? Melodies that didn’t work. The other notebooks? Lyrics that didn’t work. The filing cabinet? Ideas for songs. He wrote me a letter recently from the mission field in South America. The letter was in rhyme—not a hit song lyric, but real feelings breathing on the page.

Recently, I read about Erik Weihenmayer, a 33-year-old man who dreamed of climbing Mount Everest, a feat that defies many of the world’s most expert climbers. In fact, nearly 90 percent of those who attempt the climb never reach the summit. Temperatures sink lower than 30 degrees below zero. Besides extreme cold, 100-mile-per-hour winds, deadly crevasses, and avalanches, the climber must overcome the challenges of high altitude, lack of oxygen, and perhaps unsanitary food and water. Since 1953, at least 165 climbers have died in the attempt to scale the 29,000-foot-high summit.

In spite of the risks, hundreds line up each year to make the ascent, Erik among them. But there is an important difference between Erik and every other climber who had attempted to ascend before: Erik is totally blind.

When Erik was 13 years of age, he lost his sight as a result of a hereditary disease of the retina. Although he could no longer do many of the things he wanted to, he was determined not to waste his life feeling depressed and useless. He then began to stretch his limits.

At age 16 he discovered rock climbing. By feeling the face of the rock, he found handholds and footholds that allowed him to climb. Sixteen years later, he began his ascent up Mount Everest. The story of his climb, as you might imagine, was filled with many harrowing and life-threatening challenges. But Erik eventually scaled the south summit and took his place with those who had gone before him, one of the few to stand on top of the highest mountain on the face of the earth.

When asked how he did it, Erik said, “I just kept thinking … keep your mind focused. Don’t let all that doubt and fear and frustration sort of get in the way.” Then, most importantly, he said, “Just take each day step by step.”

Yes, Erik conquered Everest by simply putting one foot in front of the other. And he continued to do this until he reached the top.

Like Erik, we may have obstacles that would hold us back. We may even make excuses why we can’t do what we want to do. Perhaps when we are tempted to justify our own lack of achievement, we can remember Erik, who, in spite of having lost his sight, accomplished what many thought was impossible simply by continuing to put one foot in front of the other.

The woodland was under a heavy shroud of cloud cover that weekend. Rain filtered through the air, and the cameramen waited patiently to expose their film. It rained, and they prayed. And it rained some more. If the filmmakers were unable to complete filming in that one week during the spring of 1975, the project would have to wait a year until the surroundings were right again. The season would soon change, and to add to the problems, the lead actor had to leave the following Friday. On Monday morning the crew awoke before dawn and began to set up all their equipment, thinking somehow they could compensate for the weather. But suddenly it stopped raining. When the sun came up, they beheld the loveliest mist they had ever seen. The tall, wet grasses sparkled, and the birds burst forth in song, and they knew they had been blessed with a beauty they could never have produced themselves.
That morning the Brigham Young University Department of Film Production began filming scenes for the First Vision. Stewart Petersen, who played the Prophet Joseph, walked through those tall grasses with thoughts of that other “beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty” (JS—H 1:14) when Joseph Smith humbly prayed for an answer to his question, “Which of all the churches should I join?”
The First Vision is a historical film commissioned by the Church for release as a teaching aid and missionary tool. The script follows Joseph Smith’s own account of the spring of 1820 in Palmyra, New York, when, after reading and pondering James 1:5, he decided to ask of God which church was true.
The singular beauty of that first morning was followed by a week of busy filming. By Thursday renewed bad weather set in—more clouds and more rain. By the end of the day there was still one important scene that needed to be put on film—and that scene had to be filmed in bright sunlight. It was the scene where Joseph runs toward his home on a bright sunny day. So Friday morning they set up an 18-foot scaffold for their cameras in the center of the field that lay between the grove and Joseph’s home. They offered another special prayer and waited. After what seemed like hours the clouds parted. The cameras rolled. Just before the scene ended, the clouds closed in again, and darkness prevailed. “That’s all we got,” said David Jacobs, producer-director, “but that was all we needed—it’s the scene that opens the film.”
In Joseph’s own account of the First Vision he tells of entering the grove and kneeling to supplicate the Lord. Suddenly he felt a literal darkness—“some power which entirely overcame me … the power of some actual being from the unseen world.” (JS—H 1:15–16.) How to handle the feeling of such an evil influence was hard to conceptualize and then transfer onto film. On the plane to New York the week before, David Jacobs had been studying some research material on a recently discovered account of the vision written by Joseph.
A couple of sentences jumped out at him as he read: Joseph said, “I heard a noise behind me like some one walking toward me. I strove again to pray, but could not; the noise of walking seemed to draw nearer. I sprang upon my feet and looked around, but saw no person or thing that was calculated to produce the noise of walking.” (As quoted in Dean Jesse, “Early Accounts of the First Vision,” BYU Studies, Spring 1969, p. 284.) “I knew instantly,” Dave said, “that this was how I wanted to get into the darkness scene. It was dramatic. It was true.”
But the most difficult scene was that portraying the Father and the Son. Whether to even show the divine vision was a major decision because of its sacred nature. Then one of the General Authorities mentioned to Jesse Stay (director of the Department of Film Production) that he felt that one of the most important messages of the First Vision was the fact that the Father and the Son were separate and distinct beings—contrary to the universal approach of the three-in-one Godhead. The decision was made: the Father and the Son are represented in the film.
Making a Church film such as the First Vision is different from any other filmmaking. Each of the workers involved—sound men, cameramen, actors, director, costume and makeup crew—all are devotedly intent on its success for unique and unselfish reasons. They know of the potential missionary impact and they know of the testimonies it could strengthen if the job is done right. Brother Jacobs said, “They’d laugh at me in ‘the industry’ for saying it, but I believe if a person is moved spiritually by the film, it’s because the Lord has blessed our efforts.”

One sentence in my patriarchal blessing thrilled me: “You will be called to preach the gospel in the world.” I had a lifelong desire to serve a mission, and so when I heard that sentence, I felt that I would have that opportunity.
When it was time for me to serve a mission, the United States was involved in a war and only a few young men were actually allowed to serve missions. The rest were expected to serve their country in the war if they were drafted.
At that time, all prospective missionaries were interviewed by General Authorities as well as by their local Church leaders. I went through the interview process, and because of that sentence in my patriarchal blessing, I thought I would be called on a mission. I was terribly disappointed when I was notified that I was required to serve my country instead.
I often thought about that sentence in my patriarchal blessing. When and how will I be called to preach the gospel? I asked myself. Today, of course, as a General Authority, I am preaching the gospel all over the world. I can see now how that promise is being fulfilled. But when I was younger, I often wondered.

A little over a year ago a couple came into my office carrying a little boy. The father said to me, “My wife and I have been fasting for two days, and we’ve brought our little boy up for a blessing. You are the one we’ve been sent to.”
I said, “What’s the matter with him?”
They said he was born blind, deaf, and dumb, no coordination of his muscles, couldn’t even crawl at the age of five years.
I said to myself, “This is it. ‘This kind cometh not out save by fasting and by prayer’ [see Matthew 17:21].” I had implicit faith in the fasting and the prayers of those parents. I blessed that child, and a few weeks later I received a letter: “Brother Cowley, we wish you could see our little boy now. He’s crawling. When we throw a ball across the floor he races after it on his hands and knees. He can see. When we clap our hands over his head he jumps. He can hear.”
Medical science had laid the burden down. God had taken over. …

Grandpa Reilly had never been to one of his grandsons’ missionary farewells before, but at Derek’s invitation he decided to come to this particular farewell—“Just to see what all the fuss is about,” he told his daughters. So when Derek began to speak at the end of the program, he grandfather watched from the fourth row.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank someone who has helped me in more ways than he’ll ever know,” Derek said. “That person is my grandpa Reilly. There isn’t much that I could do to repay him for his help, except to give him my most treasured possession: my testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel.”

Derek had to pause for a few moments because tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he could no longer trust himself to speak. He regained his composure, then cleared his throat and plunged on. “I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ and that by following its principles and ordinances, we and our loved ones will be able to return to Heavenly Father and live with him forever. I know of no other truth more simple or precious.”

Then Derek picked up a Book of Mormon. “Because of your advice, Grandpa, I’m going to be teaching the gospel to the Portuguese people. Before I leave, though, I challenge you to read this book. I’d like you to be my first investigator.” Derek noticed that his grandpa, too, was crying.

After the meeting, Grandpa Reilly confided to him, “For 20 years I’ve wanted someone to say that to me, but I was too stubborn to ask for myself. I’m just grateful that I have a grandson who will give me that chance.”

Derek baptized and confirmed his grandfather two weeks later, three days before he entered the Missionary Training Center. Two years later, when he came home from Portugal, he had the privilege of going through the Washington, D.C., temple with his family and seeing Grandpa sealed to Grandma Reilly for time and all eternity. After the ceremony, Grandpa looked over at Derek and smiled. “She approves,” he said, pointing upwards.