Gospel Story Finder

I invited a friend to play at my house one day. When her dad came to pick her up, he said that they were from Hermosillo, Mexico. My mom told him, “My brother went on a mission there.” He asked, “Are you Mormon?” When she answered yes, he said, “We are Mormon too.” We invited them to church, but they didn’t come at first. We kept inviting them and visiting them until at last they came. My friend went to class with me. Finally the family became members of our ward, and my friend attends my Primary class. The best part was that I got to see her get baptized a year ago. I felt very happy for her. I like being a missionary and helping my neighbors.

Later, I offered to assist two members of a family that lived nearby who were struggling. They accepted my help and became part of my household.
I didn’t have the financial means, however, to support us. So I had to work harder than ever, supporting three people instead of one. It was a big lifestyle change.
To navigate that change, I knew I needed to follow my mother’s words and hold tight to the iron rod. Holding on to the iron rod includes remembering the Savior and studying the word of God. I needed to set a good example, communicate more with God, and study the scriptures every day. So, we started studying the scriptures together. Soon, the Spirit became abundant in our home.
The most fulfilling and wonderful times of my life have come from holding to the iron rod. I have also learned that “as you hold on to the iron rod, you will walk hand in hand with Jesus Christ. He will be guiding you, and He will be teaching you.”

In February 2016, the full-time missionaries began visiting us. At first Pat thought they were coming over to help on the farm. When we accepted an invitation for them to teach us, he thought the lessons were just for the children.
As the missionaries were preparing to teach us their first lesson, Pat went out to work on the tractor. After about 20 minutes, I could see that they—two sisters and two elders—were deflated. At that moment, I felt that I should get Pat and ask him to come listen for a couple of minutes.
Later the missionaries told me that they had been praying that that’s what I would do. They knew that Pat needed to hear what they were teaching.
After the missionaries had taught us for several weeks, Jesse, Bo, and Frank wanted to be baptized. Pat thought that was great, but he felt that he was “beyond salvation.” That was before he met Von and Glenda Memory and heard Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speak during general conference.
When we saw Brother Memory at church, I recognized him from when I was a child. He was now serving as the ward mission leader. Pat introduced himself, telling Brother Memory that he really wanted the Church for our children.
“That sounds good,” Brother Memory said with a twinkle in his eye. “We’ll do it for the children.”
A few weeks later, after a lesson from the missionaries on the plan of salvation, Brother Memory said, “Boys, we’re going to talk about your baptism.” Then he added, “And then we’re going to talk about your dad’s baptism.”
Pat said OK, but his doubts about his readiness and worthiness persisted until general conference that April.
“You may be afraid, angry, grieving, or tortured by doubt,” Elder Uchtdorf said in his talk. “But just as the Good Shepherd finds His lost sheep, if you will only lift up your heart to the Savior of the world, He will find you.”1
Pat said: “Before then, it hadn’t occurred to me that I really could be a part of this, that I was worthy of salvation. But after listening to Elder Uchtdorf, it hit me that it wasn’t too late for me. I actually have a shot to get to heaven. I had never felt anything like that. From then on I knew. This is the Savior’s Church. We found it. I got baptized and received the priesthood. A week later I baptized my boys. When our girls were old enough, I baptized them.”
A year later, we were sealed in the Birmingham Alabama Temple.

One such example is the Faanunus from the Vava’u North Stake. Neither of the Faanunus had ever touched a computer but after some instruction, they spent an hour adding photo memories to their family history website. It was clear that Brother Faanunu was proud of his newfound talent in navigating the site. The Faanunus were able to add pictures of each of their children and their recently born grandchild.

The many Beehive and Mia Maid girls in this audience remind me of this little anecdote written by a sister who was preparing for a Young Women activity. She said: “My 5-year-old daughter asked me how many ‘Honeyhives’ I had. After a little discussion, I determined she was talking about Beehives. I counted the young women who were Beehives and told her. She had made a paper airplane for each young woman, and proceeded to count out the appropriate number of airplanes.
“When she was finished, she still had a few paper airplanes left. After a moment of thought, she asked, ‘How many Mermaids do you have?’”

We also had family traditions. The experiences gained from these family traditions taught us basic principles. One fun tradition we practiced in our family had a lasting impression on us. When the children in the family reached the age of one, they were placed at one end of a room and the family at the other end. Where the family was gathered, four objects were placed on the floor: a baby’s milk bottle, a toy, a small savings bank, and the scriptures. The child was then encouraged to crawl to the objects and select one of them.

I selected the bank and turned out to be a financial executive. My brother Ted selected the scriptures, was a great lover of books all his life, and became a lawyer. My brother Bob was the well-rounded member of the family. He crawled up and sat on the scriptures, picked up the bank and placed it right at his feet, and put the bottle in his mouth with one hand and held the toy in the other hand. He became an accountant. He lived a well-balanced life.

A Handcart Story It was decided that the Martin Handcart Company, with help from the rescue party and some wagons, should move on to find a sheltered place where firewood was procurable. Loaded with the sick and dying, the wagons were to move along the Sweetwater and cross to a depression later to be known as Martin’s Cove, about two and one-half miles from Devil’s Gate. The handcarts moved on November third and reached the river, filled with floating ice. To cross would require more courage and fortitude, it seemed, than human nature could muster. Women shrank back and men wept. Some pushed through, but many were unequal to the ordeal. “Three eighteen-year-old boys belonging to the relief party came to the rescue; and to the astonishment of all who saw, carried nearly every member of the ill-fated handcart company across the snow-bound, ice filled stream. The strain was so terrible, and the exposure so great, that in later years all three boys died from the effect of it. When Brigham Young heard of the heroic act, he wept like a child, and later declared publicly, “That act alone will insure C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant, and David P. Kimball everlasting salvation in the Celestial Kingdom of God, worlds without end.” ( Hafen and Hafen, Handcarts to Zion, pp. 132-133), (Solomon F. Kimball, Improvement Era, Feb. 1914. P. 288.)

I was nervous. At our first family home evening, Dad had announced that each of us would be given an important calling in our family.
Now it was Monday again, and it was almost time for family home evening. What calling was I going to get? I know, I thought, Mom and Dad will call me to lead the music. Everybody said I did that well. Or maybe I’m going to be the one to pass out family home evening treats. That was an assignment I would be happy to accept.
Finally Mom called all of us in. It was her turn to conduct.
One by one everyone arrived: my sisters, Roxana and Dayana; my brothers, Bernie and Victorio; and Dad and Mom.
Dayana had the lesson, and it was really fun. She had lots of pictures and stories about family unity. Next it was time to write our weekly letters to my brother Rodolfo on his mission.
Then Dad announced the assignments. Dayana was assigned the music, Roxana got the refreshments, and Victorio and Bernie were chosen to be family home evening reverence leaders.
“What about me?” I asked patiently.
“Well, Adalis,” Dad said, “you are very responsible and you are a Valiant in Primary, so you are going to have a very important assignment. You are going to be the family prayer secretary!”
I was so excited! It was a new position, and I got it!
“From now on,” Mom explained, “family prayer will be at 7:00 p.m. Adalis, you’re in charge of seeing that everyone meets for prayer exactly on time.”
I have had this calling now for about two weeks. Getting everybody together isn’t easy. But when I think about Jesus and about all the times He taught about prayer, I like to imagine He would do the same thing. He would get everyone together as a family to pray—exactly on time!

Elder Godoy in October General Conference made a very important reference to an experience that he had concerning the gospel and learning. He tells of a time frame at the end of the eighties that was very important for him, his wife, and their four children. He was living in Sao Paulo, Brazil, working for a good company. He had finished his degree and had just been released from serving as bishop. He felt that life was good and everything that it needed to be. One day, an old friend came to visit. Let me quote the words of Elder Godoy:

“At the conclusion of his visit, he made a comment and asked a question that unsettled my convictions. He said, ‘Carlos, everything seems to be going well for you, your family, your career, and your service in the Church, but—‘ and then came the question, ‘if you continue to live as you are living, will the blessings promised in your patriarchal blessing be fulfilled?’

“I had never thought about my patriarchal blessing in this way. I read it from time to time but never with the intent of looking toward the blessings promised in the future and evaluating how I was living in the present.

“After his visit, I turned my attention to my patriarchal blessing, wondering, ‘If we continue to live as we are living, will the promised blessings be fulfilled?’ After some pondering, I had the feeling that some changes were necessary, particularly in relation to my education and profession.”

He then told of how he would have to seek additional education. He would have to leave his job, sell everything he had, and come to the United States. The TOEFL and GMAT tests became his major goals. Three years of preparation were required. He came to understand that as a child of God, he could succeed in learning and acquiring more education. He was successful and completed his education and returned to his native land. Elder Godoy was blessed by an increased perception of the importance of learning. He developed a vision for his efforts in gaining learning and education.

When our youngest daughter, Berkeley, was little, I started using reading glasses?the kind that zoom in and magnify everything. One day, as we sat together reading a book, I looked at her with love but also sadness because, suddenly, she seemed more grown up. I thought, “Where has the time gone? She’s so big!”
As I lifted my reading glasses to wipe away a tear, I realized, “Oh wait—she’s not bigger; it’s just these glasses! Never mind!”

Another story about my mother had an even greater impact on me. It shaped how I resolved to live my life.
When I was a priest, my assignment one Sunday was to bless the sacrament in Sunday School. In those days, we took the sacrament during Sunday School in the morning, and then returned for sacrament meeting in the evening.
I had a 1946 Chevy coupe that I had made into a hot rod, and I wanted to compete in some races that were being held that Sunday. I knew that my parents would not approve, so I said nothing. I am ashamed to say it, but I left church and went to the drag races. I raced one time and lost.
When I returned home, my mother was standing at the kitchen sink, finishing up the dinner dishes. I could see tears on her cheeks. I asked, “Mom, what’s the matter?”
She turned and asked, “Son, where have we failed as parents that you feel you can violate the Lord’s holy day?”
I couldn’t bear it! My dear mother was taking the blame and burden for my wrongdoing.
That moment helped me understand more about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that someone else was willing to bear the burden of my wrong choice. I began to understand how the Savior could do that for me because I saw my mother do it in this instance.

We must understand that our having an additional purpose for education will not be welcomed by many educators. It may even be opposed by them and others and even by government regulators. Here I remind us of BYU’s experience nearly fifty years ago when challenged by what has come to be known generally as Title IX.

A 1972 act of Congress forbade discrimination “on the basis of sex . . . under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”13 But the proposed administrative regulations expanded that direction by asserting federal control over all programs or activities of any educational institution receiving such assistance.14

Alarmed that this would immediately extend federal control over all institutional decisions that specified differences between men and women—even possibly forbidding separate dormitories for men and women—BYU immediately challenged the breadth of the proposed regulations. Testifying before a congressional subcommittee in 1975, I expressed our support for the overall nondiscrimination objectives of Title IX but protested that the proposed regulations went too far in carrying federal control beyond the authorizing act of Congress into impermissible conflicts with the independence of private colleges and the religious freedom of Church-related institutions.15

Before 1975 ended, we had attracted significant institutional and media support for our position. In less than a year, our focused objections prevailed. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) scaled back its formal enforcement of Title IX. The effect on BYU is summarized in this 1976 letter from the director of HEW’s Office for Civil Rights: “BYU’s Code of Honor, which is derived from religious tenets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, provides for evenhanded treatment of the sexes.”16 The letter further stated that

in those few instances where evenhanded treatment of employees and students would conflict with the religious tenets [of the Church under several cited sections of the regulations] . . . , BYU is granted an exemption from those requirements.17

President Kimball’s second-century address commissioned us “to break with the educational establishment” when necessary “to find gospel ways to help mankind.” Where would BYU and other Church-related colleges and universities be today if BYU had not dared to resist the government’s 1974 proposal to significantly expand its control over private higher education?

President Kimball affirmed our efforts in these words from his second-century address:

We want you to keep free as a university—free of government control, not only for the sake of the university and the Church but also for the sake of our government. Our government, state and federal, and our people are best served by free colleges and universities, not by institutions that are compliant out of fears over funding.18

When I was a young man living in a city called Namur in Belgium, there was a large river separating it from an adjacent city on the other side of the river. At that time, only one bridge connected the two cities. It had been built and rebuilt over the remnants of a bridge built centuries before by the Roman conquerors. It had become too narrow for the traffic, and there were too many small arches to allow the passage of large boats and barges. A new bridge was necessary, wider and with only one arch. The work to establish the foundations soon started on both sides of the river. Rapidly, two huge metallic arms began to stretch from each side with the aim to meet together in the middle of the river. I was fascinated by the engineering and rode my bicycle almost every day to watch the progress of the work. Finally the day came when the centerpiece, a cornerstone made of steel, was going to link the two arms together. Crowds were now watching with me the delicate operation, the final step that would join the two arms together and permit crossing the bridge for the first time. When it took place, people applauded, workers embraced; the obstacle of the river had been conquered and overcome.

“If those clouds get any darker, I’ll need a light to work by,” grunted the older man who worked alongside Lao Moy. He was placing a low-power explosive into a crack in a mammoth-size granite boulder.
Twelve-year-old Lao Moy wiped the rock dust from his eyes and squinted into the wintry heavens. The sharp wind that knifed down through the cottonwood canyons of the Wasatch Mountains cooled the sweat on his face. He thought of the high winds he and his father Chen had experienced on the clipper ship that had brought them to America from their ancestral home in China seven years ago.
Lao Moy’s father had been a fisherman on a sampan in Canton when a terrible wharf fire took the lives of Mother, Grandfather, and his baby sister Sze. Then the lure of gold in a strange, far-off land called America tempted Chen in the summer of 1855 to leave China for the goldfields of California. Perhaps, he thought, I can do better by Lao Moy there.
But Lao Moy was to discover at a very young age, along with his father, that the Lord makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. What little gold Chen was able to earn as a mine worker was stolen by his rough, bad-tempered employers. Then had come that awful night when a half-dozen drunken men had broken down their shanty door and killed him.
Lao Moy stared at the cloud shadows drifting across the canyon walls like a vulture’s wing. He gritted his teeth and his eyes filled with tears. The bitter memory of his father’s death lodged once again in the depths of his heart.
The immigrant’s youthful eyes shifted to Mosiah Twiggs, the big, bearded Mormon who had rescued him that fateful night. Waves of love and gratitude rolled up the shores of Lao Moy’s sore heart and washed away his tears.
Mosiah, too, had been ensnared by dreams of gold, so he left the Salt Lake Valley settlement in ’49 to fall prey to the same misfortune that had beset so many others—empty pockets and broken dreams.
After his father’s death, Lao Moy had agreed without misgivings to return with Mosiah to Salt Lake City, feeling a loyalty to the soft-spoken stranger who had risked his life to save someone he didn’t even know.
It had been a hazardous journey by wagon from the goldfields of California to the Salt Lake Valley, and they had encountered countless perils. But Mosiah’s promise that the God of Israel would protect them had planted the seeds of a testimony in the boy’s heart. Lao Moy wondered about this man who dutifully paid 10 percent of his earnings to his church for tithing.
Yet standing in the way of Lao Moy’s spiritual progress was that old bitterness born in the goldfields. It crouched like a great beast over his peace and challenged his moments of newfound joy. He had long wished to rid himself of it, to strike out against it, but something or someone always seemed to stand in the way.
Mosiah gazed curiously in the direction of the boy’s unbroken stare. “Autumn leaves die beautifully, don’t they, Lao Moy?” he said, his face lifted into the leaf-spattered wind.
“Yes,” answered Lao Moy, his hurtful thoughts suddenly scattered by his guardian’s grand vision. Autumn was indeed a beautiful time of year, especially in the canyons. Lao Moy’s eyes raced up the huge, yellow red chasms with renewed excitement. He loved these mountains. Mosiah had told him many times about them. How the erosion of long ages had cut deep canyons. How huge glaciers, descending with unyielding power, had broken loose and carried countless boulders, many of goliath size, down the immense mountain furrows. It was these isolated blocks, called erratics, that provided the supply of building stones for the Salt Lake Temple.
In these canyons, Mosiah, Lao Moy, and many other faithful Saints worked tirelessly to divide the boulders with hand drills, wedges, and low-power explosives. The rough blocks were then transported by oxteam—four yoke required for each block—and every trip was a difficult three- or four-day journey to the temple site some twenty miles away.
Mosiah touched Lao Moy’s shoulder and brought him out of his reverie. “I’m going to set off the blast, Lao Moy,” he cautioned, and then shouted a warning to the nearby workers. Mosiah lit the fuse and sprinted with Lao Moy for cover.
Two other workmen held a team of oxen. One of them was fourteen-year-old Corey Atwood. Corey, a tough, stout boy, had long taken pleasure in cruelly funning Lao Moy because of his broken English, his long queue (braid), and his quiet and obedient ways. It was often Corey who kept Lao Moy’s bitterness alive, but the Chinese boy had held it all inside, even when the troublesome Corey had once grabbed Lao Moy’s queue and threatened to cut it off with a knife.
The blast erupted like the sound of cannon fire over a Virginia cottonfield, and the big piece of granite split in two. Cheers went up, and Mosiah scrambled up the rocks to view his accomplishment. Lao Moy started up, too, but was soon held fast by Corey, who held onto his queue.
“What’s the matter, Lao Moy,” he chuckled, “somebody got your tail?”
Suddenly something exploded inside Lao Moy with no less force than Mosiah’s dynamite blast. He turned and struck Corey in the face so hard that the big boy was lifted off his feet and thrown backward in front of the team of oxen. The wide-eyed Atwood looked as surprised as Lao Moy. He wiped at the blood on his mouth and started to lift himself up when a clap of thunder suddenly boomed. As the already spooked oxen lurched forward, Lao Moy sprang for Corey and rolled him out of the path of pounding hooves and grinding wheels.
For a long moment the two boys just lay there, staring at each other. Finally, a smile broke across Corey’s dusty, blood-smeared face. Lao Moy smiled back, and all the old bitterness in his heart seemed to melt away like ice in a summer sun. A new peaceful feeling assured him it would not return.
Lao Moy was forty-five years old when the Salt Lake Temple was finally dedicated on April 6, 1893; Mosiah, seventy-six; and Corey Atwood, forty-seven. Corey sat close beside Lao Moy as President Wilford Woodruff offered the dedicatory prayer. A friendship had grown between them, a friendship as strong as the temple granite they had helped to cut. And like that granite, it would last forever.

Last year in my kindergarten class, there was a boy named Ben* who liked to push, shove, and call people names. I don’t know why he did the things he did. It was hard for me to like him because of how he treated people, especially my friends and me. He did mean things almost every day.
One day, right before recess, something happened that changed things. Ben was playing with a boy named Andrew,* and they accidentally spilled a bunch of corn kernels and dried beans on the classroom floor. The teacher told them that they needed to pick up every one before they could go to recess.
I felt sorry for them and didn’t want them to miss recess, so I offered to help clean up the mess. Once I started helping, two of my friends came along and helped too. We all worked together and were able to finish in time to go to recess. The next day, I noticed that Ben was nicer to my friends and me. And from then on, he was more of a friend.
I’m glad that I helped Ben. I think I did what Jesus would have wanted me to do. Even though Ben had often been mean to me before, I felt good inside while I was helping him. I know the feeling I had was the Spirit telling me that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father knew of my love for Them because I was helping someone else.

Last July, 25 youth of the Bentonville First Ward, Rogers Arkansas Stake, got together to take the 48-hour Book of Mormon challenge. The goal was to read the entire book in two days. They started at 7:00 a.m. on Friday morning, taking turns reading for the entire group. At 11:00 p.m. the youth split up by classes and quorums to spend the night in members’ homes. Then the whole group got back together at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday for breakfast and to begin reading again. At 5:30 p.m. the group completed the challenge by reading aloud together the last three verses, Moroni 10:32–34.
Throughout the two days, the youth welcomed guest readers, or “prophets,” who came to reenact their parts in the Book of Mormon. There were visits from King Benjamin, Ammon, and Samuel the Lamanite.
Everyone had a list of scripture mastery verses, and whoever called out “scripture mastery” first when the group came to a scripture mastery verse was rewarded with a candy bar. Then the entire group would recite the scripture together.
“The Spirit I felt throughout the reading amazed me,” said Kara Barnes, 16. “The thing I loved most was how it all made sense. Everything fell perfectly into place. I love the Book of Mormon. The Spirit it brings is just wonderful.”
“What impressed me the most was the many times the Nephites and Lamanites switched off in righteousness,” said Carl Monson, 14. “It showed how the missionary work went through the whole land.”

But it is perhaps Phil who is busiest of all. Besides “splitting” with the full-time missionaries, serving as ward organist, assistant to the president of the priests quorum, and seminary class representative to the stake, he also organizes dances for Super Saturdays and studies seminary lessons. He organized his own dance band at school, with 15 singers and six musicians, and he plays in the school band. He helped organize a blood drive and is president of the school chorus. He has won the John Phillip Sousa Award, the National Choral Association and National Band Association awards, and the U.S. Marine Corps Award, all for musical excellence. But one of his biggest thrills was being elected student-body president.

“I ran because I wanted to help the school,” he said. “There was a problem with drugs, and I wanted to help people get out of that and give them something better.” As a result of his campaign, Gowanda Central High now has a class about drugs and alcoholism that not only educates students but refers those with problems to counselors and agencies who can help.

While my friend and I were riding scooters around the neighborhood, he accidentally tripped over a rock, fell off his scooter, and landed on his back. Luckily we were by another friend’s house, so I helped my hurt friend over there and rang the doorbell. Steven came to the door and said, “What’s wrong, William?”
“Well, Michael here fell off his scooter and landed on his back,” I answered. I asked if his mom was home and he said yes. So I took Michael inside.
Steven’s mom looked at his back. She said that it was only a bruise. In five minutes he felt much better. I know that Jesus would help His friends too.

I attended church and seminary, but my family later fell away. I had friends at church and went to seminary and Mutual to be with them. I didn’t care about the gospel or the teachings and thought church was generally boring. My life grew troubled as I began to engage in activities such as shoplifting and vandalism. My father became abusive, and I thought about suicide.

However, suicide was never an option. I couldn’t do that to my mother, whom I loved deeply. So I was left to find an answer. I looked around and saw my friends from church. The one thing they had that I didn’t was a testimony. So at the age of 16, four years after my baptism, I sat down to read the Book of Mormon for the first time.

It was difficult, and it took me nearly two years. As I read in 3 Nephi about the Savior’s visit to the Nephites after His Resurrection, where He blesses their children and angels descend from heaven and encircle them, it was as though I stood among the Nephites and saw with my own eyes that miraculous event. The Holy Ghost bore witness of that great moment.

I could not read any more, as my eyes blurred with tears. When I regained my composure, I continued reading. A few more weeks passed, and I finished the book, knelt, and prayed to know if it was true. But I got no answer.

Days passed with me kneeling regularly and pleading to know if the book was true, if the Church was true, but still I got no answer. Despairing, weeks after I’d finished reading, I knelt one more time and asked, “Heavenly Father, is the Book of Mormon true?” The answer that came was not what I expected: “I have already told you. You know it is.”

I had gained my testimony weeks before, when I read about Christ blessing the children. I knew that this Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the kingdom of God on earth, restored by a prophet and led by a prophet, as in days of old.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Book of Mormon saved my life, but it would be more accurate to say the restored gospel saved me and continues to renew me and nourish me each day. It is my most precious possession.

“I wasn’t really enjoying it, and I was having a hard time with the sport,” he remembers. “I was just trying to push through it, and I could not do it anymore. I said, ‘Lord, what do I do?’”
Chris got the first part of his answer when he went to talk to his bishop, who encouraged him to pray about his plan to delay his mission. “His advice kind of went in one ear and out the other,” Chris admits. “But my life got to the point where I really did have to ask, and I really did have to listen.”
The second part of Chris’s answer came during a sacrament meeting. As he listened to his Young Men president talk about his own mission call, the Spirit told him, “‘Chris, you need to serve a mission when you’re 19, or you’re going to have a tough life.’ The message was so clear I actually turned around to see if someone was there,” he says. “The feeling came back 10 times stronger, and I knew I had to go on a mission.”
That night Chris called his partner and coaches to give them the news. When he had first started training with them, he told them that a mission was a possibility. But none of them had expected him to go—at least not yet. Although they were disappointed, Chris says, “They’ve been very supportive of me and my mission, and I give them credit for that.”
His call to the Baltic States Mission, Russian speaking, was exciting for Chris, especially since he knows speaking Russian will help him if he still wants to return to ice dancing after his mission. (Many of the competitors and coaches speak Russian.) He also wants to be a coach eventually. But for now, he says, “I just want to try to bring people to a knowledge of the gospel.”