Gospel Story Finder

Walking home from school was usually not very exciting. Sometimes I thought about my math homework, sometimes I thought about what we did in gym class, and sometimes I walked without thinking about much at all.
But this day was different. My mind was racing. Ahead of me I could see two of the guys I sometimes played with—Josh and Marcus—making snowballs and pointing at me.
“Hey, David, come here!” Josh yelled, laughing. “We want to show you something.”
Marcus laughed too.
Josh and Marcus were both a year older than me, and they could throw hard. I knew it was only a matter of time before they would start hurling snowballs my way. Even though they were usually nice to me, I thought maybe they had even packed ice into the snowballs.
I started to think of ways I could stop their attack.
Run across the street to avoid them? No, they would make fun of me and call me names.
Run as fast as I could past them? No, they were faster than me and would catch up to me in no time.
Mount a snowball attack of my own? Not a good idea, considering there were two of them and only one of me. They also had the advantage of being at the top of the hill, and I had no place where I could take cover at the bottom.
I decided to do the only thing that made sense—walk calmly past them and wait for the snowballs to fly.
As I neared the hill, a thought came to my mind. I remembered Samuel the Lamanite, who preached the gospel while standing on a wall. When the people didn’t like what he was saying, they threw rocks and shot arrows at him.
I knew the Lord protected Samuel from the rocks and arrows. Perhaps He could make the snowballs miss me.
I said a prayer in my mind, asking Heavenly Father that the snowballs would not hit me. I knew I needed to be brave and not doubt—just like Samuel. As I reached the hill, I felt confident that I wouldn’t get hurt.
Just as I expected, the snowballs began to fly. A couple of snowballs whizzed past my head so close that I could feel the breeze as they zoomed by. Some of the snowballs flew past my arms, and a few landed right at my feet, but none of them hit me. Not one!
The boys kept throwing until I was out of range, but I knew I was safe. The rest of my walk home was not very exciting—and I couldn’t have been happier about it. I had been protected like Samuel the Lamanite. I knew that praying and exercising faith in the Lord had blessed me.

May I share an additional experience I had as a bishop. I noted one Sunday morning that Richard, one of our priests who seldom attended, was again missing from priesthood meeting. I left the quorum in the care of the adviser and visited Richard’s home. His mother said he was working at a local garage servicing automobiles. I drove to the garage in search of Richard and looked everywhere but could not find him. Suddenly, I had the inspiration to gaze down into the old-fashioned grease pit situated at the side of the building. From the darkness I could see two shining eyes. I heard Richard say, “You found me, Bishop! I’ll come up.” As Richard and I visited, I told him how much we missed him and needed him. I elicited a commitment from him to attend his meetings.

His activity improved dramatically. He and his family eventually moved away, but two years later I received an invitation to speak in Richard’s ward before he left on a mission. In his remarks that day, Richard said that the turning point in his life was when his bishop found him hiding in a grease pit and helped him to return to activity.

When we got home I invited my best friend on the team, Rosa, to go to church with me. She enjoyed the meetings and felt peaceful there. After that, Rosa came to church almost every week. It was so wonderful to see the gospel touch her life.
About a month later I received an unexpected phone call from a young man on the men’s cross-country team, Brendan. He told me that he had taken the missionary lessons and was getting baptized in a week! I was so happy and thrilled for him. Both Rosa and I attended Brendan’s baptism. Rosa also took the missionary lessons and later chose to be baptized.

Some fine carpenters from Norway who arrived and settled in Manti were given the assignment of building the roof for the temple. They had never built a roof structure before, but they had experience as shipbuilders. They didn’t know how they would design a roof. Then the thought came to them: “Why don’t we just build a ship? Then, because a well-built ship is solid and secure, if we turn the plans upside down, we’ll have a secure roof.” They set about to plan to construct a ship, and when it was completed, they turned the plan upside down and it became the plan for the roof of the Manti Temple.

It seems that every class has its black sheep, and my seminary class was no exception. One boy was a total loser in every sense of the word. At least it seemed that way.
He was scrawny and combed his greasy black hair straight down so that it covered his eyes and hid him from the world. Mockingly, I compared him to an ostrich who buried his head in the sand so he couldn’t be seen by others. He always sat at the back of the room, never voluntarily participating in any discussion. Friends were out of the question. He was a loner. I feel ashamed to say it, but I figured he couldn’t do much of anything, and I know many of the other students felt the same way. I was extremely surprised when he won the championship scripture chase award. I smugly thought that he just had more time to study because he wasn’t involved in anything else. The night of our seminary closing social proved how wrong my opinion of him was.
That evening remains indelibly engraved upon my mind. I arrived early at the church—a miracle in itself—and found him already there. Again I rationalized that his promptness resulted from a lack of having anything else to do. I greeted him with a perfunctory hello, then hurried to help the other “more friendly” kids set up chairs. Besides, I knew how he would react if I tried to start a conversation with him. First, his head would drop until his eyes became firmly attached to his switching feet. His shaking hands would nervously jiggle his car keys, showing how uncomfortable he felt. He always tensed up whenever I came near. Instinctively, I decided to avoid that awkward experience.
Then the time came for the party to begin. I was trying to round up the deafening herd of kids when I saw my teacher peek into the chapel. A smile of pure delight appeared on his face, like the expression one would find on the countenance of a miner at the discovery of gold. Indeed, a hidden treasure had been found.
Beautiful music floated out through the chapel doors—not just notes but feelings. The person playing the piano had been blessed with outstanding musical abilities. I looked in, expecting to see an adult practicing for a performance. Instead I was shocked to see that the piano player was the quiet boy who I had thought couldn’t do anything. One by one, the entire class crept into the chapel while he continued to play complete compositions—from memory—of Bach, Beethoven, and others. Painfully, my conscience reminded me of my critical judgment of him. I had pronounced him a nobody, simply because he was different from me. I felt superior to him. What a joke! Humbled, I realized he must have numerous other talents to which my abilities couldn’t even be compared. What a mistake it had been to think of him as a zero.
Someone coughed. Immediately, he glanced down, catching us like a bunch of kids with our hands in his cookie jar. We were devouring his musical treats without permission. Instantaneously, he flushed crimson, not from anger as I expected, but from embarrassment. He closed the lid of his music box and slowly left the stand. Thick compliments coated the air as he walked down the aisle and out of the chapel. Still red, he mumbled a humble thanks, not wanting any more of that sticky attention.
The seminary party went on to be a success with everyone laughing, joking, and acting crazy. (I should say acting normal.) That is everyone except me. Somehow that small incident changed me in a very big way.

Brother Thomas Rice recently stood up in a fast and testimony meeting and said, “I am the richest man in the world and it is all because of a young girl in our neighborhood who invited our daughter to go to Primary with her. On many Saturday mornings this girl even came to our home and helped rouse Becky from her bed and then helped her to get ready for Primary.
“A short time after Becky started attending Primary, two missionaries visited our home and presented the discussions to our family. We had been active in another church when we lived in Pennsylvania, but after moving to Ohio we had not found a Church we wanted to attend.
“During our meetings with the missionaries, the gospel plan unraveled before our eyes and soon we had a testimony of its truthfulness.
“Whenever I see that young girl who first invited our Becky to Primary, I want to put my arms around her and tell her how much we love and thank her for making possible our membership in the Church. Our family has realized many rich blessings through temple marriage, missionary service, and calls to serve in positions in the ward and stake.”

I have always had a difficult time wading into a lake or river slowly. It is just like cutting your finger off a little bit at a time! I would rather have one giant breathtaking shock than the dozens of painful ones that come from slowly wading into the river.
A few years back I was at a Young Men’s camp in Canada. At that time, local Church members furnished all of our instructors and youth leaders and ran the camp with wonderful members of the Church.
During the week I was there, the staff organized a “Polar Bear” club. In order to qualify you had to swim at 6:00 A.M. four mornings in a row in the cold Elbow River. It had snowed eight inches at an elevation 1,000 feet higher than our camp. Of course the staff thought I ought to join the club.
At 6:00 A.M., down to the river we went. I filled my lungs with all the air they could hold so I could not suck in anything else when the shock of the cold water caused me to catch my breath. I dove in, and it was ice cold. I swam to the middle of the river where it was almost chest deep.
In a moment a stake president dove in and came up right beside me. After the shock of cold, he asked, “Did I have my glasses on?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Did you?” He said he thought he had.
“Swim over to the bank and see.”
In a moment he came back and said, “I did have them on.”
The Elbow River was flowing about 10 to 12 miles an hour. I imagined it would have carried his glasses down the river toward Calgary.
Here was a stake president who had spent his own money to drive from western Canada to Calgary, had brought his whole family with him in an older wood-paneled station wagon. He had all the gasoline, lodging, and meal expenses coming, and the training fees. I knew it must have been a terrific financial strain on him. I was certain he could not afford $200 or $300 for a new pair of glasses.
I walked upstream about 20 or 30 feet. I offered a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help me find his glasses. Mind you, it was 6:00 A.M., the water was cold and clear but flowing relatively fast. I lay down on my back and floated downstream. I had an impression and stopped. I looked down in the water and thought I could see something glistening on the bottom of the river. I dove down and came up with the stake president’s glasses and handed them to this great man.
I have thought of this incident many times since. I believe it was an experience that taught me to see more clearly how much the Lord loves those who, like this stake president, do their best to serve him. He who knows when the sparrow falls also knows when his children are in need of even the smallest things. (See Matt. 10:29–31.)

Seventy-five miles of backpacking beauty in the high Cascades and not a worry in the world! The immediate future seemed to hold nothing but blue skies and bluebirds for our Scout troop.
We were counting on an unforgettable experience, and we got it. With only a half hour of trail behind us, we were hit with a downpour that soon turned the steep trail into a slippery tightrope. For six days it rained, and for six days we slogged and slipped along that trail, and the experience kept getting more unforgettable with every step.
It was especially memorable for: The boy who slipped into a swift river and was being dragged by the current to a probable death when his head lodged between two tree branches just long enough for us to save him. The boy who slipped and slashed his forearm badly. The two of us who twisted our knees. The two boys who sprained their ankles. The boy who suffered second-degree burns when boiling water was spilled on him. The two boys who developed bad colds. The boy who contracted a serious case of diarrhea. The three boys who developed hypothermia—a dangerous lowering of the body temperature—especially one of them who came very near death as a result.
We started out expecting blue-birds—and maybe a few bruises and blisters if we were unlucky. When the bluebirds flew away and the brickbats started flying, we were very grateful that we had some first aid supplies and knew how to use them. If that boy with hypothermia had died, the hike would now be unforgettable in a way I don’t like to think about.
That hike in the high Cascades was the most accident-laden trip I had suffered through in my ten years of backpacking. It was the exception rather than the rule, and yet every year groups face much worse first aid challenges in the out-of-doors. I don’t want to scare off any would-be campers, but I want to emphasize that we must prepare for the worst case and not the best. I am constantly running into youth groups in the wilderness who aren’t even prepared to fix a blister—let alone deal with a serious accident. Such groups are simply courting tragedy.

How do we prepare our children to make and keep sacred covenants as they enter and progress along the covenant path? Teaching children to keep simple promises when they are young will empower them to keep holy covenants later in life.

Let me share a simple example: In family home evening, a father asked, “How are we getting along as a family?” Five-year-old Lizzie complained that her big brother, Kevin, was teasing her too much and hurting her feelings. Kevin reluctantly admitted that Lizzie was right. Kevin’s mother asked him what he could do to get along better with his sister. Kevin thought and decided he would promise Lizzie that he would go one whole day without teasing her.

At the end of the next day as everyone gathered for family prayer, Kevin’s dad asked Kevin how he had done. Kevin’s response was “Dad, I kept my promise!” Lizzie happily agreed, and the family congratulated Kevin.

Kevin’s mother then suggested that if he could keep his promise for one day, why couldn’t he do it for two days? Kevin agreed to try it again. Two days passed, Kevin was successful in keeping his promise, and Lizzie was even more thankful! When his father asked why he was keeping his promises so well, Kevin said, “I kept my promise because I said I would.”

A succession of small, successfully kept promises leads to integrity. The consistent practice of promise keeping is spiritual preparation for children to receive their first covenant of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, wherein they covenant to serve God and keep His commandments.15 Promises and covenants are inseparable.

Being prompted to go on a mission wasn’t the first time Chris asked for and received the Lord’s guidance in his life. He was 16, had just split from a skating partner, and was having a hard time. “My dad gave me a blessing, and he told me the Spirit would be with me and would comfort me,” he says.
After the blessing, Chris was prompted to read D&C 58. Verses two through seven have made a big difference in his life. “I thought they were written exactly for me,” he says. “Everything in those verses has come to pass in my life and is still coming to pass. Those verses have given me so much comfort.”
Trying to obey the counsel he received in D&C 58, Chris is serving a mission when the Lord asked him to, and he is ready to bear testimony of the Savior and the gospel in the Baltic states. He knows he will have more difficulties than toe picks and changing partners there, but he also knows that when he asks for guidance, the Lord will answer.

My name is Ben. I used to be the best trumpet player in our school band. Did you notice that I said “used to be”? When Bradley moved here from Centerville last month, everyone went gaga over how wonderful he was on the trumpet.
Mr. Gerhardt, the band director, still let me play the first-chair trumpet part, but I could see that my days as the band’s top-dog trumpet player were fast becoming history.
Today during band practice, Mr. Gerhardt announced, “Next week we’ll have tryouts for All-County Honor Band. Only first-chair players are eligible.”
I let out a sigh of relief. That meant me! Dad had said that if I made All-County Honor Band, he and Mom would buy me that new trumpet I wanted. That old, beat-up one I played now had probably been around since the fall of Jericho!
Then I nearly fell off my chair at Mr. Gerhardt’s next words: “Since Bradley was a first-chair player in Centerville before he moved here, I’m going to let him try out, too.”
I groaned. It looked like my free evenings were a thing of the past. I was going to have to actually practice my Honor Band music for the tryouts. I glared at Bradley. But he was too busy putting his trumpet away to notice.
I didn’t get much sympathy from my folks at dinner that night. “It isn’t fair!” I complained. “Mr. Gerhardt’s going to let the new guy in school try out for the Honor Band.”
Dad looked at me kind of funny. “So that’s why you’ve suddenly started practicing again!”
“He’s only been here a month,” I said. “Shouldn’t there be a rule about outsiders not being eligible for a year or so?”
“Would you want to represent your school if you knew you were second-best?” Dad has a habit of answering my questions with questions of his own. Usually hard ones, too, like that one. “It makes you think,” he always says. It gives me a headache! is what I think when he does it.
Now I had to practice my trumpet instead of play video games after school. And even if I practice an hour a day, that might not be enough to beat Bradley out of the Honor Band spot.
All the next week I practiced until my lips hurt where the mouthpiece pressed against them. The tryout music was getting all crumpled from being taken out of my trumpet case so many times. Finally I just stopped taking the music out—I had it memorized, anyway, by then.
During band practice on Wednesday, Mr. Gerhardt had our whole band try to play the Honor Band music. Boy, was it hard! Most of the other kids just stumbled around, losing their places, playing wrong notes. If it hadn’t been for Bradley and me, the music would have been a total disaster.
Since Bradley and I seemed to be keeping the music going on the right track, Mr. Gerhardt let us keep playing. I noticed that Bradley didn’t look at the music any more than I did.
He must have practiced a lot, too, I thought with satisfaction. Then I groaned. If he was practicing more, I would have to practice more, too, unless I wanted to give up on my dream of playing in the All-County Honor Band on my new trumpet. That dream was getting dimmer by the day, but I wasn’t ready just yet to give up on it!
When Mr. Gerhardt finally stopped the band, Bradley turned to me with a big grin on his face. “Hey, you’re pretty good! Want to come over to my house tonight? We could practice some great duets I brought from my last school.”
“Uh …” Bradley wasn’t supposed to be friendly! Didn’t he know that we were bitter rivals for Honor Band?
“I sure miss my old trumpet partner from Centerville,” Bradley said with a sigh. “We used to play duets together almost every day after school.”
I looked down in embarrassment.
“I guess you have something else planned,” Bradley said. “Maybe we can get together another time.”
I thought about how I was going to practice an hour a day, just to beat this guy out of Honor Band. Then I thought how much fun it would be to play duets with someone as good as he was. I was having a hard time remembering that he was supposed to be my rival, not my friend!
“Some other time,” I said as coolly as I could, turning away. But I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, like maybe I hadn’t handled the situation exactly right.
The tryouts for Honor Band were Friday afternoon. When it was time for the trumpets, Bradley played first. He played it so perfectly that even I had to applaud when he finished.
I didn’t do so bad, either, I thought to myself after I played. All those hours of practice have really paid off. The whole band waited nervously to hear whom the band director would choose.
When Mr. Gerhardt cleared his throat, everyone stopped breathing. I looked sideways at Bradley. He was looking down at the floor. I wondered if he was praying.
“It’s a hard choice to make,” Mr. Gerhardt began.
So, who is it? I muttered under my breath. Don’t make speeches—just tell us who won!
“A band is like a team,” he continued. “And a team is only as good as its individual players. That’s why we help each other, just as Bradley and Ben have been doing.”
I didn’t remember helping anyone except myself.
“They set an example, and they helped the newer members with their parts. I only wish I could choose both of them!”
Oh-oh! I thought. Here it comes! I held my breath.
“I have chosen Bradley to represent our school at the All-County Honor Band this year!”
You could hear the whooshing of thirty breaths being let out at once. Then the room got quiet as Bradley stood up and faced Mr. Gerhardt and the band.
“Thank you,” he said, “but I’m a newcomer here. I don’t deserve to be your representative.” He pointed at me. “Ben’s the one you should have!”
Suddenly I remembered Dad’s question. This time I already knew the answer. I stood up and faced the band. “Mr. Gerhardt made the right choice,” I said firmly. “The reason I wasn’t chosen was that Bradley played better than I did.” I felt my face redden, but I gripped my battered trumpet harder and went on, “I’m proud of our band, and I wouldn’t want the second-best player—me—to represent it.”
It was hard to tell Mom and Dad that I’d lost to Bradley, but I told them what he’d tried to do, too, and that felt good.
The next day, I poked Bradley and grinned at him. “How about us getting together after school today to play some duets? But watch out—next year we might have a different guy in Honor Band—one with a brand new trumpet!”

An act of service on the part of my neighbors taught me a memorable lesson on the importance of identifying others’ needs and helping to meet them.
As a single mother of three children, I had learned to be rather self-reliant in caring for my family. However, in the spring of 1989, changes in my circumstances brought new challenges. My older son, a returned missionary, was married and serving far away as a United States Navy officer. My daughter and younger son were preparing to leave within two weeks of each other for missionary service. For the first time, I would be alone.
Well, I would not be completely alone—there was Mischa, our large, beautiful Samoyed dog. One of the children took her for a walk every day, but now that they would all be gone, this task would become mine. The problem was, I was scheduled to undergo surgery for bone spurs in my heel, and walking would be extremely painful for at least several weeks.
During one of the last walks my younger son took with Mischa before leaving for the Missionary Training Center, he was stopped by our neighbor. The man said he would walk our dog every day until one of the children returned home.
The first evening our neighbor came to walk Mischa, she would not go with him because he was a stranger. So he stayed and just played with her for about 15 minutes. He came the next night to play with her and make friends, but she still refused to go for a walk. Finally on the third night, she was willing to go, and soon she was waiting impatiently for her new friend each night.
Long after my foot had healed from the surgery and I could have taken over the responsibility, my neighbor continued to walk Mischa. When a night job kept him busy three nights a week, his wife took over. For a year and a half until my daughter returned, these wonderful neighbors walked my dog for at least one hour every night except for three nights when they apologetically took a brief vacation out of town. That totaled more than 547 hours of service!
I am convinced my neighbors were in touch with the Spirit, and I am grateful they identified my need and responded to it. It was not something I would have asked them to do. But given my responsibilities at that time, no other service would have been of greater help to me. Following Alma’s admonition “to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light” (Mosiah 18:8), these neighbors set an example of loving service that will always remain with me.

After my family and I moved to a new state, I prayed constantly to find friends with whom I could talk about the gospel. As I prayed, I felt comforted, and a few months later I made some incredible friends. I can count on their support, and they have helped me to develop an even greater love for the gospel. I know that friends are important and they can make it easier for us to live the gospel.
Sarah P., 16, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

One particular conversation has been a great blessing to me in my spiritual progress and will continue to be forever. When I finished my mission, I had an exit interview with my mission president. He talked about the changes that would come into my life when I went home. He told me that if I wanted to stay active, I needed to always have a calling, and if I didn’t have one, I should talk to my bishop. The other piece of counsel he gave me was even more emphatic. He said that if I wasn’t going to marry in the temple, I should not get married at all.
I followed his advice to the letter, and every time I was tempted to marry out of the temple, I remembered his words. They gave me the strength I needed to hold to my decision to marry in the temple.
Generally speaking, returned missionaries struggle because we want to get married soon. It is even more difficult when members of our wards and branches ask us why we’re not married yet. Time goes by, and if we aren’t married, we often hear conversations that are hurtful and may make us bitter.
But I’m grateful to my mission president, who gave me the wise counsel to marry only in the temple, because now I’m reaping the fruit of it. Ten years went by after my mission before I met my eternal companion. We were married in the Caracas Venezuela Temple in 2000, and it was a beautiful experience. While I waited, nothing could stop me from trusting the words of the Lord’s servant.
I now have the good fortune to be the mother of a little girl, and I’m glad I was able to give her the blessing of being born in the covenant. When I look at her, I see the impact of the conversation I had with my mission president.

But Te Oranoa M., age 17, from New Zealand has a different take on things. “What inspires me about this scripture,” she says, “is that it doesn’t say they are lost forever.”

What an incredible insight! And it’s one that comes from personal experience. “I, myself, fell away from the Church,” she says, “but I have been able to come back.”

Te Oranoa grew up in the Church and talks about gaining her own testimony and even setting spiritual goals. “But that testimony grew cold,” she says.

In some ways, she found common ground with Amulek, particularly in the way he described himself to the people of Ammonihah: “I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know” (Alma 10:6).

For Te Oranoa, that scripture hits close to home. “Just like Amulek, I knew all these spiritual things, and the Spirit was telling me to do certain things, but because I was being a bit stubborn and a bit prideful, I wouldn’t do them. Afterward, my testimony kind of faded away.”

In the end, Amulek’s story would become more than merely familiar to Te Oranoa. It would also become a turning point on the road back.

Even during the time when her faith had grown cold, she could still remember sweet experiences from before. Te Oranoa never forgot how she’d felt when attending the temple with her youth group or going to a youth conference.

“There was a pattern,” she says. “I’d feel really good when I came to church, but I didn’t feel good when I missed church.”

There finally came a day when Te Oranoa decided to see if she could connect with those good feelings again. The first thing she did was to read through recent general conference addresses.

An October 2016 general conference address, “Learn from Alma and Amulek,” by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, woke something in Te Oranoa’s soul. She recognized a lot of her own life and feelings as President Uchtdorf described how Amulek’s faith had faded. She also remembered more strongly than ever the happiness she had enjoyed when her faith was stronger. Instantly, she wanted to make some changes.

“I was hoping to find something to reignite that fire of my testimony,” she explains, “so I read President Uchtdorf’s talk, and yes, I felt on fire!”

Te Oranoa’s path back to faith hasn’t always been easy, but there is a particular light at the end of the tunnel that keeps her going: the hope of an eternal family.

“Families can be together forever,” she says. “That’s my biggest dream, my biggest hope in life. Whenever I want to learn about something, or I find a doctrine hard to understand, I try and relate it back to eternal families. For example, why is Jesus Christ’s Atonement important to me? For one thing, I need His Atonement in my life so I can be worthy to enter the temple and be sealed to my family for all eternity.”

It’s perhaps worth remembering that the people in Lehi’s vision who fell away after tasting the fruit did, in fact, still taste it. They must have known of its goodness, even if only briefly. And they can discover it again. That’s the hope Te Oranoa clings to, for herself and for others.

“You don’t have to keep going down those forbidden paths for the rest of your life,” she says. “You can turn back to the Lord whenever you want.”

As the time for me to serve a mission approached, I decided that I really needed to know for myself whether or not the Church was true. During this time, I had many discussions about religion with a close friend. Woody is an atheist and is very good at expressing his views in a logical and reasonable way. He is an intelligent person and someone I look up to, so I value and respect his opinions.
Before I met Woody I thought I had a strong testimony, but soon I wasn’t so sure. Woody’s views of atheism became more and more reasonable to me. Fortunately, there was always something in the back of my mind that wouldn’t let me give myself over completely to Woody’s way of thinking.
Finally one night just before my 19th birthday, after a lot of thought and prayer, I knelt down and asked Heavenly Father if the Church was true. I didn’t seem to receive any answer. I started wondering how I was really supposed to know. I had always been taught that the answers to our questions can be found in the scriptures, so I looked up the word know in the Topical Guide. The guide led me to Alma 5:46, where Alma explains that before he found the truth he had to fast and pray for many days—and he was a prophet of God! I read more and found that I couldn’t just fast and pray, but that I also needed to live in a way that would allow me to feel the Spirit.
Fast Sunday came, and I decided to fast for the ability to recognize the Spirit’s promptings. In that fast and testimony meeting, I received my answer. As I listened to the testimonies, a feeling flowed over my body and filled my soul with joy. I knew I had received my answer that the Church was true. When I got home, I went to my room, sat down on my bed, and thought to myself, “It is true! I really got an answer.” I received the same feeling again, a confirmation from the Holy Ghost. I knew the gospel was true! I never wanted that feeling to go away.
From then on, I knew that Heavenly Father answers prayers. I also knew he wanted me to serve a mission so I could share my knowledge and testimony of Jesus Christ with others.

Nine-year-old Carrie held her dad’s strong hand tightly as they walked through the bleating sheep in the paddock (enclosed area). Ewes, watching their playful lambs, stamped their feet protectively as father and daughter pushed through the milling flock to the sheep shed. Old Jake, his face weathered by the Montana summer sun and winter cold, met them at the door. He was holding a new lamb.
“We have a bad one this time, boss. I gave him his first feeding, but he’s got a crooked set of hind legs and can’t seem to get up on them at all.”
Dad took the squirming lamb gently and carefully examined its twisted legs.
“What do you think, boss?” Jake asked. “He won’t be able to suck from his mother, so he’ll be just another bummer (orphan) lamb—and a mighty poor one at that.”
Dad put the lamb down in the new straw and watched the determined baby struggle to get up. Its forelegs were strong.
Carrie knelt beside it and stroked its wiry, short wool, hardly warm enough to keep it alive without a mother in the cold April nights. Its huge, soft eyes turned to her, and with a loud bleat it again struggled to get to its feet. Instead, it fell, the deformed legs useless. “Daddy, you wouldn’t really kill this lamb, would you?”
Dad studied the lamb, then Jake, then Carrie for a long time. Finally he asked Jake, “Do you think he’s pretty healthy otherwise?”
“Seems to be. He took the bottle OK.”
“Please, Daddy,” Carrie pleaded, “if he can take the bottle, can’t I feed him with the other bummer lambs?”
“That’s a big responsibility,” Dad said. “Raising a bummer is hard enough when they can fend for themselves and go to the pasture for grass when they’re bigger. You’d have to be not only his mother but also his back legs.”
The lamb continued to bleat and struggle to get up. Carrie hugged it. “But could I try? I promise to get up early to feed him before school. And as soon as I get home, I’ll take care of him again.”
Jake laughed, “Well, you can’t beat that for loving. But you’re forgetting the feeding during the day and at least one in the middle of the night. And how are you going to keep this little fellow warm?”
Carrie looked up at the old sheepherder. “You’d help me, wouldn’t you?” she pleaded. “I could help extra by feeding the ewes after school for you.”
“It looks like she’s as determined to keep that lamb as he is to get up and walk,” Dad said to Jake. He turned to Carrie. “Yes, you can keep this lamb. He will be your special responsibility. Jake and I will help you, but you will have to ask us.”
Joyfully Carrie picked up the lamb and followed Dad outside.
Soon Carrie faced the problems of her little lamb. It couldn’t be put in with the other bummer lambs for fear that they would trample it. She not only had to put up a pen for it outside, but she also had to put it in a big box in the sunroom at night to keep it warm. It couldn’t move about by itself, so she needed to move it often and change its straw frequently to keep it clean and warm. Like all the other bummer lambs, it had to be fed at six in the morning and again in the evening, as well as by Jake while she was in school. And she had to get up at night to check on and feed the hungry baby. No matter how sleepy she was, she had to clean out the bottles so that no sour milk would cause sickness. Besides, as she had promised, she helped Jake with the ewes.
One night at supper, Carrie, especially tired, slumped in her chair and blurted, “It’s just too hard.”
“What’s too hard?” Mom asked.
“It’s too hard to take care of my lamb. And he’ll never run and play with the other lambs. He’ll always be different.”
“Did you want to help him?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want all his problems,” Carrie faltered.
“Have you asked your father for his help? I know he said that he’d help you if you asked him.”
Carrie did ask for help. She and her dad made a better pen for the lamb outside. They also fixed up an old wagon for her to haul the growing lamb around in. They found that with some grain and a few hours in the pasture each day, it needed fewer bottle feedings.
Whenever the lamb, affectionately named Little Lamb, heard Carrie’s voice, he bleated happily to her and wriggled all over in excitement. Despite his unusable back legs, he started to pull forward on his forelegs, and when she held him, he nuzzled her lovingly and shook his head playfully.
Spring slipped into summer. The lambs spent more and more time in the pasture. With his strong forelegs, Little Lamb joined the others, pulling himself forward slowly but determinedly.
Watching the little flock of orphans one evening, Carrie and Dad laughed to see the strong bummers leap over Little Lamb and circle back around him, including him in a playful game of tag.
“Well, Carrie, it seems that your lamb is doing wonderfully,” Dad observed. “Thank you for taking such good care of him.”
“Oh, Dad, I couldn’t have done it without you!”
The next morning, Carrie ran out with her bucket of bottles as usual, calling “Lambie, lambie, lambie,” and hearing a chorus of noisy, appreciative blatting in return. Just as they recognized her call, she knew their voices. But one was missing—Little Lamb’s.
She ran to the lamb pen. He was gone! Frantically she looked in the pasture, in the driveway. No Little Lamb. She ran to the house, calling, “Dad! Mom! Jake! Have you seen Little Lamb?”
Soon the entire family was involved in the hunt.
It was Jake who discovered that the pasture gate had been left open. Somehow, Little Lamb had pulled himself to the creek flowing past the house. Jake found him lying lifeless near the water.
Carrying the lamb, he slowly walked back to the house. “I’m sorry, Carrie. He’s gone.”
“Oh, no!” she sobbed, reaching for the lamb. “He can’t be. I tried my best to take care of him. I loved him even with his bad legs. Dad, Jake, can’t you do something?” Dad gathered Carrie and the lamb into his arms, cradling them silently for a few moments as Carrie continued to sob. “Why did he have to die? Why?”
Finally Dad spoke. “I don’t know why this lamb died, but I do know that he lived for a special reason. He was born too deformed to stay with his mother. But he lived to give you love, to help you know that all life is good, even though it may be different. He lived so that you could learn the joy that comes from caring for someone else, for putting the needs of someone else above your own. Maybe you won’t understand all that right now, but I hope you’ll understand that the love you have for Little Lamb is good and that your memories of him should be happy ones.”

But the gospel is best understood in the familiarity and clarity of one’s native tongue. Eric Gemmell, who served in the Slovenia Ljubljana Mission from 2001 to 2003, saw firsthand what a difference it makes for members and investigators to have the Book of Mormon in their first language. He served the first 18 months of his mission before the Book of Mormon was available in Slovenian.
The work was difficult. The first branch of the Church had been established only a decade before. Slovenia had recently gained independence and was in the process of phasing out the former state language of Serbo-Croatian. The missionaries carried copies of the Book of Mormon in Serbo-Croatian and English, which most young people had studied in school. But more often than not, people declined the book because they could not understand either language. Eric remembers how hollow it felt to bear testimony to people of the greatness and importance of the Book of Mormon—and then to have to tell them that he didn’t have a copy in their language.
Six months before Eric went home, the first shipment of copies of the Slovenian Book of Mormon arrived. The branch held a meeting where each member and missionary received a copy. “There was a special spirit in the air,” Eric remembers. He recorded in his journal how it felt to hold such a precious, long-awaited book. “It was like holding the golden plates themselves,” he wrote. After the meeting, the missionaries took the remaining books to use for missionary work. Eric and his companion were so thrilled that when they got to their apartment, they opened the boxes, spread the books out, and took pictures to remember the event. They could hardly wait to share the books with people. With the Slovenian Book of Mormon in hand, not only did the missionaries have more success approaching people, but they also had a way to reinvigorate the testimonies of less-active members who hadn’t been to church in years.
In the last six months of his mission, Eric watched the testimonies of the Slovenian members blossom. “Once they got the Book of Mormon in their native language,” he says, “they really understood it. It sunk deep into their hearts.” Before, speakers and teachers in Church meetings had to read scriptures in Serbo-Croatian and have someone translate and explain some of the words. “It felt like we were limping along on borrowed words from another language,” Eric remembers. When the members started reading the Book of Mormon in their native language, “their understanding of the gospel increased immediately,” Eric says.

Don’t just take our word for it. Last year in a small town in Utah, young men in a teachers quorum visited the youth activities website (lds.org/youth/activities) to find ideas for an activity. One in particular caught their attention: “Seven Days of Service.”

These young men decided to do something even bigger: they would provide service each day for an entire week to anyone in the ward who requested it. When 19 families signed up, the young men were a little surprised and perhaps even a little overwhelmed. How would they be able to do so much service in such a short time? But they had made a commitment, so they decided to serve all of the families.

In just one week, they gave over 250 hours of combined service, doing such projects as moving a huge pile of rocks, digging a sandbox, cleaning out gutters, and stacking wood. And it changed the young men too. (See a video at lds.org/go/serviceNE1.)

They felt awed by the strength they felt and the blessings they received. They described feeling united as a quorum and receiving divine help to do homework and other responsibilities. Now, when their ward needs service, the teachers quorum responds enthusiastically. They didn’t just serve for a week—they try to serve every day.

The youth of the Bountiful Utah Central Stake were planning a youth conference for the first week in June. They were planning some exciting events right in their own area. They planned a day at a water slide, an evening barbecue, a day of workshops, a dance, and more. It was going to be great fun. But the week before their youth conference, mud slides and floodwaters had inundated dozens of homes in Bountiful. It didn’t seem quite right to be planning an activity when so many people needed help. The youth decided to cancel their youth conference and offer their time and strength in helping their neighbors.
Julie Merrill, Lisa and Lori Dearden, Michelle Reading, Jim Summers, Bob Foster, Betsy Ann Wiscombe, and Adam Birmingham and nearly 100 percent of the youth in their wards turned out dressed in old clothes and with shovels over their shoulders to be assigned a home to help clean. This group was shown to a home where mud had filled the bottom level.
At first the group gingerly waded into the mud careful not to get too much on their clothes, but as bucket after bucket was filled and lifted in a bucket brigade out of the house, they didn’t hesitate to get dirty. As the group was working, one boy called out, “I know a song we should sing. We should sing, ‘Give Said the Little Stream.’” His suggestion was met with groans. The heavy mud started to take its toll on young muscles, but their good spirits won out. Someone missed the bucket with a shovelful of mud. Another retaliated, and soon everyone was yelling to stop the mud fight, but since everyone was already covered, it did little damage.
The youth went back the next day and the next until the home they were working on was as clean as they could get it and ready for reconstruction work.
How did they feel about shoveling mud instead of having fun at their youth conference? Julie Merrill said, “It was nice to help other people. I was worn out, but I felt like I was helping. I didn’t really mind the change of plans.” Lori Dearden actually preferred the change of plans. “I’m still a Beehive so I couldn’t go to some of the joint activities at the youth conference, so I didn’t mind the change of plans. It was hard work, but we were really excited to finally see the floor. We left it really clean with all the walls washed down. It felt good to help.”