Gospel Story Finder

The Persian marketplace looked like a giant circus of brightly colored tents. It sounded like one too. Jonas Hanway had come to Persia to buy wool to carry back to England in his ships. But before he could begin trading with the wool merchants, a royal parade stopped everything.
“Make way for the Prince of Persia!” a courtier announced.
As the prince passed, the people bowed low as was their custom. But Jonas did not. He wanted to see everything that was happening. Four strong men were carrying the prince in a velvet-draped sedan chair. They held him on their shoulders high above the heads of the people. Over the prince’s head another servant held a strange shade to keep the sun away.
“What a wonderful idea!” exclaimed Jonas. He soon learned that the prince’s shade was called an umbrella.
How helpful it would be if everyone in Persia had an umbrella of his own, Jonas thought.
Soon Jonas had a number of umbrellas made to shield the sun’s rays from the heads of common persons. But when the prince heard about it, he ordered Jonas to come to the palace.
“You must stop making umbrellas,” commanded the prince. “I forbid it. Only princes and kings may carry an umbrella in Persia. It is a sign of royalty.”
The prince shook his finger angrily at Jonas and shouted even louder, “This is the way it has always been in Persia and this is the way it will stay. Take your umbrellas and go home!”
Jonas returned to his home in England, stored the umbrellas in his attic, and became so busy that he forgot about the prince.
Then one day as Jonas was leaving his home it began to rain. In minutes all the covered chairs and horse-drawn coaches were taken. Jonas was left wet and cold on his doorstep.
In those days riding in a covered chair called a sedan was an easy way to travel. Two or four men carried the chair between them on two long poles. When it rained everyone jumped in a sedan chair to keep dry.
All the people riding in chairs reminded Jonas of the Prince of Persia.
If an umbrella can keep the sun off the prince of Persia, maybe it will keep the rain off me! he thought.
Jonas ran to his attic and found an umbrella. Holding it over his head, he walked down the street.
“Look at that crazy man!” cried the children as he passed. Few Englishmen had ever seen an umbrella before.
Jonas carried his umbrella every time it rained. He gave umbrellas to his friends to carry too.
The chair men became angry. They tried to run over Jonas and some threw rocks at him.
But the people liked Jonas Hanway’s strange new idea. It was not long before many people in England were carrying umbrellas. And as the new idea spread to other parts of the world, the umbrella became known everywhere as man’s best friend—when it rains!

In the summer after I graduated from high school, I left for China to teach English to young children in a boarding school. It was the first time I would be so far away from home.
As I first started teaching, all I could think about was missing my family. I was ready to leave my current adventure and go back to my comfort zone. Then, through prayer and scripture study, I started to gain a deeper appreciation for the gospel. I became more grateful for my family and for the Lord’s blessings in my life. I began to realize how much Heavenly Father loved me.
Suddenly my problems weren’t as big. I didn’t miss my family as much, and I wanted more than ever to see the students as Christ sees them. I began to realize what Christ said about children being pure of heart. They loved me, even with all my faults.
As I loved them with all of my heart, teaching became a little easier. I began to see all of their talents and wonderful qualities. My patience level was higher. For the first time I realized what they and I must mean to my Heavenly Father. I had more love for my students than I had even thought possible. I gained a deeper love for my family and all those around me. Loving the students made it easy to understand what they needed me to teach them, and my love for them made me a better person.

The next week during play rehearsal, while the children playing Dorothy and the other lead characters were practicing their lines, Paige painted scenery with the rest of the munchkins and the flying monkeys. She turned to the girl next to her. “Could you pass the green, please, Trisha?”
“Sure.” Trisha set the paint can between them, and the girls dipped their brushes into it together. Trisha sighed as she gazed toward the stage where the other children were practicing.
“Did you want to be Dorothy, too?” Paige asked.
Trisha shook her head. “I wanted to be the Wicked Witch of the West. I would have scared everyone with my cackle.” She cackled wickedly, and Paige laughed.
“That was super! I can’t believe Mrs. Mullen didn’t choose you for the witch after hearing your cackle.”
“I didn’t do it at the audition. I didn’t even try out for the witch. I overheard Sylvie talking about how much she wanted to be the witch, so I decided not to compete against her.”
“Wow, that was nice!”
Trisha shrugged. “It’s what I think Jesus would have wanted me to do. In my church we learn to ask ourselves, ‘What might Jesus want us to do?’ and try to do it.”

I first heard the name Joseph Smith during the summer after my sophomore year in high school. I had attended a conference with a group of teenage girls, and we were returning from Galveston to our homes in El Paso, Texas. It was a long bus ride, and I think more to preserve our chaperones’ sanity than to give us an educational experience, we stopped in San Antonio, where the HemisFair, an event akin to the world’s fair, was being held. The adults turned us loose for several hours to visit the various pavilions, and my group of six soon found its way to one entitled “Man’s Search for Happiness.” When we discovered we had accidentally stumbled into a religious presentation, we tried to exit the side door—but those clever missionaries had locked it! We were stuck, so we feigned attention until the audience moved into the next room and we could escape through some unlocked doors. When we boarded the bus later that afternoon for what was still a long ride home, I noticed that the only piece of reading material I had managed to hold onto—not coincidentally, I believe now—during our dash through the fair was a pamphlet with Joseph Smith’s picture on the front. I read through it, motivated only by a need to pass the time, and mentally categorized it as “curious.

The following spring, in my American history class, I was searching for an engaging topic for a term paper. It was a time when newspaper headlines spoke of civil rights and of legally atoning for past injustices. I would have preferred to do a paper on current events and discrimination against groups the majority labeled as “different,” but it was a history class. As I looked at a time line of the 1800s in one of the reference books, the persecutions against the Mormons captured my attention. I chose to take an objective (which turned out to be far more sympathetic) look back at the events that forced this peculiar religious group westward. The name Joseph Smith turned up again as I researched the topic in history books and encyclopedias.

Over the years when someone has asked about my conversion, I have not typically included these previous two experiences. My story usually began with the events that immediately preceded my hearing the missionary lessons. I think I had discounted these two experiences because of my resistance to the message in the first instance and my factual, even sterile, approach in the second. I feel differently today. I am convinced that these incidents provided background for my later acceptance of the gospel. They were an introduction to the concept of a recent prophet and a factual placement of events in time. Without this context I feel I would not have been sufficiently primed to accept, relatively quickly, the missionaries’ message about what God revealed to a 14-year-old boy in the spring of 1820. I believe these were preparatory steps, and the Lord, knowing me, was customizing my instruction.

For about two years prior to that evening when I sat in my living room and listened to the missionaries present the first discussion, I had been on a “spiritual quest.” I had grown up in a family that valued Christian ideals such as honesty, fair treatment of others, and kindness, but I did not have a spiritual dimension in my life, and I longed for one. I felt a growing need, an urgency, really, to fix my mind and heart on the divine, so I began to study about and visit different churches. I approached each new introduction to the members of a congregation and the denomination’s beliefs and doctrine optimistically. I didn’t understand it completely at the time, but I had a two-part screening system in place: First I would try to take a spiritual reading, a check of how I was feeling, early in the visit; then I would turn to the doctrinal aspects and ask questions about the true purpose of life, the hereafter, and how these affected the way one lived now. None of the churches I visited passed even the first part of my test, and I was getting discouraged.

Now back to that evening in 1970: After a brief discussion of the Apostasy, the missionaries reverently explained the Restoration brought about through the Prophet Joseph Smith. They presented in some detail that curious story I had quickly read about in the pamphlet two years earlier. I felt my initial optimism that this church could be my spiritual destination slip away, and doubts crowded into my mind. Did they actually believe that God had appeared to someone just last century? And to a boy younger than I was rather than to a wise, aged prophet? While I formed my questions, the missionaries moved on to a flannel-board presentation with circles and lines that depicted the plan of salvation. Before long I felt that their explanation was somehow familiar to me, and they had my full attention. I was certain that they were speaking the truth in this part of their presentation, and I felt some hope return. As the missionaries were leaving, they scheduled our next appointment, handed me a copy of The Joseph Smith Story, and asked me to commit to read it carefully and pray about it. I agreed to do so.

Later that night, my roller coaster of emotions hit a low point. As I thought back on all I had heard and felt during the evening and weighed the positives and negatives in my mind, I believed that I would cancel the next appointment I had set. But first I decided to keep my promise to the missionaries. After I had read the Prophet’s narrative of the First Vision and beyond, I offered up an awkward, short prayer. Sleep came quickly, so I was not left to ponder the message for long. The next morning, as I knelt again in prayer, I found that the Spirit had eased my doubts about Joseph Smith’s account and confirmed the truths of which he testified. I kept the appointment with the sister missionaries, and that decision has made all the difference in my life. But for Joseph, I would not have found my spiritual home in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

I received a most interesting letter from a mother a few months ago reporting to me her service hours to her community as a Bicentennial commitment. A portion of her letter read as follows: “I went to a P.T.A. meeting at the beginning of the school year and learned that my sixth-grade daughter was assigned to read a certain book in school. I felt impressed that I should read it to see if it was desirable for children. As I read it, I found it highly undesirable for sixth-graders. It contained profanity, violence, disrespect for adults, especially parents, and was generally gloomy and depressing, with nothing of love and beauty and goodness. I discussed the book with the principal of the school and told him of my concerns. He suggested that I read the whole series of books before condemning them, and if I still felt the same way I could write my objections in a letter and give them to him, giving specific examples of objectionable materials.
“I complied with his suggestion and continued to read the other books and found them also unfit for our children. I felt compelled to write my letter even before I had finished the last in the series.
“I was gratified to receive a call later from the assistant superintendent of this school district, asking me to come to his office. He told me it was not their policy to have books in their basic reading curriculum with profanity in them and that they would immediately remove those books from their school district. He said they were highly embarrassed that someone should have to point out to them the objectionable nature of the books, and that they would see that those persons responsible for reviewing the books in the future did a more thorough job.”

Even during my darkest times, I have always felt peace in my trials through the Holy Ghost. But that changed when I underwent treatment for chronic pain that left me bedridden for two months.
The pain lessened after my treatment ended, but I began to struggle with depression. At the same time, it seemed to me that I had lost my ability to feel the Spirit.
For six months, I felt abandoned and desperately longed to feel the Spirit again. My healing was long and painful, which seemed even more daunting without the Spirit.
I met with my bishop, who explained that depression sometimes masks the Spirit so that we cannot feel it. His counsel comforted me, and a priesthood blessing from my husband gave me added strength as I waited hopefully to feel the Holy Ghost again.
General conference had always been a source of spiritual strength for me, but during the opening session of the April 2019 general conference, I felt nothing. That changed during the next session when a combined choir from Brigham Young University sang “Jesus, Once of Humble Birth.”1
The lyrics and the imagery of Jesus Christ as a lamb softened my heart. I realized that a wall of anger, depression, and false feelings of abandonment had masked my ability to feel the Spirit. A fortress of darkness had surrounded me, making it impossible for the Spirit to enter my heart. When the choir sang the second verse, that fortress began to crumble.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles followed the hymn with his talk “Behold the Lamb of God.”2 With the added power of his words, a love for the Savior and Heavenly Father washed over me.
Many impediments can hinder us from feeling the Spirit, but we can work through these barriers with help from Heavenly Father and His Son. Jesus Christ perfectly understands my struggles. Out of love for us and His Father, “He groaned in blood and tears.”3
Heavenly Father knows what will bring us comfort, and He knows when to bless us for our greatest spiritual growth.

Whatever she does, she will do it well because she sticks to a task until it is done right. This quality has pulled her through some tough challenges. Clara was diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech. This means that although she knew what she wanted to say, the signals became scrambled somehow between her brain and her mouth so she couldn’t speak clearly. Clara has spent countless hours learning how to move her jaw, lips, and tongue to make sounds properly and blend those sounds into words. This has been very hard work, but with her parents’ help, she has practiced relentlessly and continues to do so. She now speaks well, though some words still require a great effort.

Well, I suppose I might take just another minute to tell you about Dean Rymer. I was on a flight from Australia to New Zealand, and I noticed that my seat companion was a minister from the Anglican Church, the Church of England. I introduced myself and told him what I was doing in New Zealand, and he asked me, “How does it feel to be a member of one of the fastest-growing churches in the world? “ He had been hearing things.

I said, “It’s a wonderful feeling, and I’d like to tell you about it.”

“Well, we have some problems in our church with the youth,” he said. “What do you do about the youth in your Church? We hardly have any young people coming, and we’d like to do something to stimulate them.”

I spent the next half-hour telling him about young men coming to pass the sacrament as deacons, groomed appropriately and representing the Lord as they should, and about how they had to be worthy to act in the name of the Lord. I told him about the older brothers of these deacons, young men sitting at the priest’s table, and about how they came properly groomed and administered the sacrament for the congregation. He was impressed; he was taking notes during all of this.

Then he said, “You know, I have another problem. I can’t get around to all my congregation. And not only that, but they’re mostly women—very few men in my congregation.” I told him about the Melchizedek Priesthood, and about home teaching. I told him about this army of men going out, hopefully into each home every month. “Oh,” he said, “that would be great help! I wish I had something like that. I wish I had some home teachers.” Then I told him about visiting teaching and the Relief Society, and he was almost over-whelmed.

Then he went on to ask me about our buildings; he was concerned about some buildings that they were having to close because they were losing members of the congregation. And I told him that we had approximately six hundred buildings under construction, that we had another five hundred buildings on the drawing board for next year, and that there were another five or six hundred buildings for the year after that. Then I told him about the law of tithing, and told him that every one of these buildings would be dedicated on the day that it was finished and used; that we did not have one penny of debt—not one commercial loan on any piece of physical property in this Church—and he could not believe what he was hearing. And again he was taking notes and writing very rapidly.

Then we talked about tithing. That is how we do it: because we believe what Malachi said—“Will a man rob God?”—and we believe that the windows of heaven will be opened for those who do what the Lord has asked them to do (see Malachi 3:8–10). Then we talked about welfare, and again he could not believe it when I told him about fast offerings and about the way our people fast two meals and give the equivalent cash to the bishop on the fast and testimony Sunday, and still he was writing.

After two hours and twenty minutes of flying we finally landed at Auckland Airport. He was writing all the time, and his final comment to me was, “Elder Simpson, these have been two of the most fruitful hours of my life. We’re going to have a seminar of all the ministers of the Church of England in Auckland in just a few months’ time, and I’m hopeful that you will be able to come and tell them exactly what you have told me.” Well, unfortunately, I have been released in the meantime; but Elder Loren C. Dunn is waiting. I have made arrangements for him to meet Dean Rymer, and Dean Rymer is anxious to extend that invitation to Elder Dunn. And I can promise you that Elder Dunn will finish the job and Dean Rymer will never be the same again.

I should also tell you this: The Sunday following this conversation on the airplane, I heard from one of our good Church members converted from the Church of England that one of her good friends from the Anglican Church came over and said, “You can’t guess what happened in church today. I was at the cathedral and Dean Rymer spent the whole hour talking about the Mormon Church. He told us this and that, and then he concluded his comments by saying, ‘Now, brothers and sisters, I don’t intend to convert you all to the Mormon Church; all I’m doing here today is letting you know that if you live more like the Mormons you’re going to be better people.’” Now, that is a pretty good endorsement, and we accept that! I know that Dean Rymer is a good man and I know that the Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

Elder Anderson returned from the mission field in May 1914. It didn’t take long for him to find a new companion. Norma Ettie Peterson was the daughter of Hugo D. E. Peterson, editor of a Salt Lake newspaper for Swedish immigrants, the Utah Posten. “She was blonde and I was dark, and I thought she was the prettiest girl in the city,” says Elder Anderson, who courted her, swimming and dancing, at the old Saltair resort near the Great Salt Lake. They were married 11 November 1915, in the Salt Lake Temple. Salt Lakers were impressed by the striking couple: Norma Anderson, with her brilliant platinum-blond hair and dark eyes; and Joseph, his handsome black mustache reminding people, much to his delight, of British movie star Ronald Colman.

While I was serving as the Presiding Bishop, a good sister brought her son to my office to be interviewed for his mission. At that time she had a son in the mission field in Europe and a daughter in another mission field. She looked rather poorly clad, and I said: “Why don’t you wait until your other son comes home before sending this boy?” Her answer was: “Bishop, if you will see that my son gets a call, I will see that he gets the money to keep him in the mission field.”

While I was a bishop in California, I used to admire a good mother who worked in a bakery shop in her clean, white uniform year after year while she kept three of her sons in the mission field. One of them later became president of a mission, and the other two are active in the Church.

We have many wonderful members in the Church who are contributing toward the support of missionaries in the field when they do not have sons and daughters of their own to send. Many have also contributed to the missionary fund at Church headquarters to help young people in foreign countries who are not financially able so that they can fill missions, as well as our boys and girls here in the United States.

I have a number of friends who I know are doing that consistently. One good sister, a widow, has kept many missionaries in the field. I have a relative who aims to keep ten in the mission field all the time, but he daren’t tell his wife about it. I have always felt badly, because she should be able to share that great joy with him.

I talked along this line some time ago in a conference. Following the conference, I received a letter from a schoolteacher enclosing sufficient money for a month’s keep for a missionary and indicating that she would send a like amount each month for two years to keep a missionary in the field.

I was thrilled recently in interviewing a young man for his mission in California to learn that his parents are both Catholics, and yet they were putting up the money for their son’s mission.

In 1971 I wrote an article on missionary work and received a letter from a fourteen-year-old girl from Los Angeles in which she said: “Brother Richards, I want to go on a mission.” I wrote and told her she couldn’t expect to go on a full-time mission at the age of fourteen but that there was plenty of missionary work she could do right at home, that there were so many nonmembers there that if she would invite one of her nonmember friends and his parents to go to Church with her, they could there meet the missionaries and then be taught the gospel.

A few weeks later I received a letter from this girl’s mother, who is president of the Aaronic Priesthood YWMIA in her ward, thanking me for the letter I wrote to her daughter and saying that the daughter had followed my advice. She got one of the families to go to church with her, and they had later set their baptismal date.

Experiences such as this can be related all over the world, for this is God’s restored truth to the earth, never to be thrown down nor given to another people but to prepare the way for the second coming of Jesus when he will reign upon the earth for a thousand years, as the scriptures declare.

The answer has to be in that room. Maybe I missed a false wall, Jackson thought.

“How do you spell kiwi, Jackson?”

“Uh, what, Miss Grouder?”

“Kiwi. How do you spell it? We’ve been talking about the spelling test for the past 10 minutes. Where have you been?”

“Trying to rescue the princess of Mendoza,” Chester whispered from his seat behind Jackson.

Jackson felt his face getting hot. He had no idea how to spell kiwi.

Miss Grouder sighed as she gave Jackson’s spelling test back to him. He had spelled most of the words wrong.

On the way home, Jackson crumpled the spelling test and stuffed it into the bottom of his backpack. Chester ran up behind him. “Do you want to come to my house and play soccer?”

“No,” Jackson replied. “I think I’ve figured out how to rescue the princess. Do you want to come watch?”

“Sit there and watch you play?” asked Chester. “No thanks! Seems like all you think about lately is video games.” Chester turned the corner toward his own house.

At home, Jackson turned on the computer and started the video game. I’ll play one game, he thought, and then I’ll get going on my homework.

Two hours later his mother called, “Time to eat, Jackson. We have to hurry or we’ll miss the start of the movie.”

“Coming, Mendoz—uh, Mom.” If I can just get past this guard, he thought. His hand deftly moved the joystick back and forth. Too late. The figure on the screen toppled over. No fair! I’ll play just one more. I know I can do it.

Suddenly the house seemed awfully quiet. Jackson grabbed his jacket and ran to the front door. His family was gone. There was a note on the table: “Gone to the movie. Wish you had come. Home by 8:00. Call Grandpa if you need anything.”

It’s all the guard’s fault! Jackson thought angrily as he stomped to his bedroom. His unfinished homework was on his bed. Beside it lay his scriptures. He hadn’t read them all week. And there was the family home evening manual. He was supposed to give the lesson next Monday. But he didn’t feel like doing any of those things tonight.

Good thing it’s Friday, Jackson thought as he headed back to the computer. I’ll catch up on everything tomorrow.

But he didn’t catch up the next day—or the next. And it wasn’t long before the sound of the piano interrupted Jackson’s concentration on his latest attempt to rescue the princess. It was his sister playing the opening hymn for family home evening.

Family home evening! He had intended to prepare the lesson on Sunday, but he had gotten closer to rescuing the princess than ever before. Now it was too late to prepare.

Jackson grabbed his scriptures and ran to home evening. He would fake it. After all, they often read a scripture and talked about it so long they never got to the lesson. He would make sure they did that tonight.

“And help us apply the lesson to our lives,” his little brother said as he finished the opening prayer.

Jackson opened his scriptures to where he had last read. “Dad, could you read a scripture for us?” he asked. “How about Ether 12:27?”

His father read: “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”

“What do you think that means?” Jackson asked.

“Well,” said his father thoughtfully, “I think it means that we are given weakness to help us be humble. If we acknowledge our weakness and ask Heavenly Father to help us overcome it, it will become a strength to us.”

Mom raised her hand. “Soap operas were my weakness. Some days I didn’t do anything but watch my shows. The television was like a magnet, drawing me to it. It wasn’t until I admitted I had a problem that I figured out a solution.” Then she told how she had prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help her give up those shows.

Jackson squirmed in his chair. This wasn’t going quite like he wanted it to. He began to think about how much time he spent playing video games.

“When I worked at the candy shop,” his older sister began, “I practically ate my paycheck each week in candy. I prayed about it, then decided to set a candy quota for each day. If I stuck to my quota, I rewarded myself by putting the money I would have spent on candy toward a new pair of jeans. Some days I didn’t make it, but gradually I ate less candy.”

Jackson thanked everyone for their participation and bore his testimony that while we all have weaknesses, we can overcome them with Heavenly Father’s help. In fact, those weaknesses can even become our strengths.

After the closing prayer Jackson went to turn on the computer. Maybe a video game would help him forget the growing uneasiness inside him.

But he couldn’t ignore the feeling he had. Did he really have a problem with video games? He didn’t spend much time with Chester or his other friends anymore. He had gotten a bad grade on a spelling test for the first time. He hadn’t read the scriptures all week. And he had missed the family movie. He knew it was time to apply tonight’s lesson to his own life.

Jackson turned away from the computer and went to his bedroom. He flopped down on his bed and opened his scriptures to Ether. The princess would have to wait. Right now he had some reading and thinking to do.

Last year, my wife received devastating news. Her mother and father were both diagnosed with cancer. A few months later, my own father underwent surgery, and my wife was diagnosed with two breast cysts that could have been cancerous. Thankfully, the results after surgery showed no cancer. Then, our daughter had appendicitis. All of this happened within six months, and none of them had ever had surgery before. At around the same time, I received a new church calling that required extensive travel and time, and my new job kept me working late most nights.
To cope with these challenges, I knew only the Savior could help me through. I tried to draw closer to Him by spending more time studying the scriptures, listening to General Conference talks during my commute, and worshipping in the temple. I chose not to be consumed by worry, but to think celestial and rely on the power of the covenants I had made in the temple. This brought me peace. The Savior has promised, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

One Sunday morning some 30 years ago, while I was serving in a stake presidency, we received a telephone call from one of our faithful bishops. He explained that his ward had grown so rapidly that he could no longer provide a meaningful calling to all worthy members. His plea to us was that we divide the ward. While waiting for such approval, we decided as a stake presidency that we would visit the ward and call all these wonderful, worthy brothers and sisters to be stake missionaries.

About the third person I visited was a young female student attending the local university. After chatting for a few moments, I issued the call to serve as a missionary. There was silence for a few moments. Then she said, “President, don’t you know that I am not active in the Church?”

After a few moments of silence on my part, I said, “No, I did not know you were not active.”

She answered, “I have not been active in the Church for years.” Then she said, “Don’t you know that when you have been inactive, it’s not all that easy to come back?”

I responded, “No. Your ward starts at 9:00 a.m. You come into the chapel, and you are with us.”

She answered, “No, it is not that easy. You worry about a lot of things. You worry if someone will greet you or if you will sit alone and unnoticed during the meetings. And you worry about whether you will be accepted and who your new friends will be.”

With tears rolling down her cheeks, she continued, “I know that my mother and father have been praying for me for years to bring me back into the Church.” Then after a moment of silence, she said, “For the last three months I have been praying to find the courage, the strength, and the way to come back into activity.” Then she asked, “President, do you suppose this calling could be an answer to those prayers?”

My eyes started to water as I responded, “I believe the Lord has answered your prayers.”

She not only accepted the call; she became a fine missionary. And I’m certain she brought much joy not only to herself but also to her parents and probably other family members.

The mouths of “woman-driver” jokesters have been sealed, for the time being at least, by 16-year-old April Clark, an LDS student from Chico, California, who was selected by a panel, including Governor Ronald Reagan, to attend the National Youth Conference on Highway Safety held in Scottsdale, Arizona.
April was first selected to represent her high school at a conference with Governor Reagan in Los Angeles last January, where youth driving was discussed. On the basis of her performance there, and in consideration of her essay on alcoholism and driving, she was chosen to attend the national conference. There April joined with other youths from across the nation in voicing opinions on the implementation of safe driving practices.
April is a member of the Chico Second Ward in the Chico California Stake and is the pianist in her high school orchestra.

On the operating table under a bright light and surrounded by a jungle of glittering equipment is a sixty-year-old man who is being covered with special green drapes that leave a long, rectangular opening squarely over the middle of his chest and another opening over his left leg.
Dr. Russell M. Nelson joins seven other members of the surgical team in the room: the senior resident in surgery; a surgical nurse; an anesthesiologist; a heart-lung machine specialist; a computer specialist; and two other nurses, one of whom is in charge of the operating room. I stand slightly apart from them, an observer, scrubbed and wearing sanitized clothing.
Having taken their positions, they begin their work with an alacrity that is somewhat chilling to a newcomer. The senior resident, in one deft stroke, makes a foot-long incision the length of the sternum, following quickly with a cauterizing tool that seals off the numerous small blood vessels that have begun to bleed into the wound.
Meanwhile, Dr. Nelson is making an incision in the left leg to locate a vein that will be removed. This is to be a quadruple coronary arterial bypass operation—in other words, surgery to bypass obstructions in four arteries that feed the patient’s heart muscle. The vein being taken from the thigh will be used for the bypass grafts. There is a snipping of scissors and more cauterizing. I make an unscheduled exit to the hallway for a breath of fresh air and a reassessment of my determination to continue with this assignment.
Then comes the whirring sound of an electric saw. Re-entering the room, I am stationed at the head of the operating table, where in full view before me I see that the patient’s sternum has been sawed through longitudinally and an ingenious retractor has been placed in the cleft. Several cranks on a short lever spread the retractor apart—and there, between the patient’s spread ribs, is his beating heart.
Soft music is playing quietly over the intercom. The surgeon’s eyes reveal no amazement, no sense of drama—only deliberate concentration. My weak-in-the-knees feeling soon leaves as the procedure takes on a magnetic fascination.
After more than an hour of painstaking labor, four grafts have been connected to the aorta. Suddenly the blood pressure drops, much to everyone’s surprise. Making true diagnosis immediately, Dr. Nelson points to a clamp that should have been left on one of the many tubes at this critical point in the procedure. It is quickly replaced—a small mistake, but one that could have been costly.
“I still love you,” he says to the team member responsible for the oversight. There is a nod of appreciation. Then Dr. Nelson adds with a wry tone, “Sometimes I love you more than other times …”
And there are smiling eyes all around. He is clearly the one in control of this operation. He keeps the atmosphere light enough so that all the team members remain relaxed. But there is also an unspoken demand for constant concentration.
Dr. Nelson later comments: “It’s a matter of extreme self-discipline. A life is totally dependent on the whole surgical team. So you’ve got to stay just as calm and relaxed and sharp as you ever were.”
Four hours have now elapsed, and things are just about wrapped up. The heart-lung machine has been disengaged and the heart gently shocked into activity with electrodes; the grafts, now fairly bulging with a new blood supply for the heart muscle, have been checked for leaks. The heart is doing well on its own, and the patient is stable. Thoughts now turn to the patient’s worried family, and one of the nurses reaches for a telephone: “We’re off the pump, we’ve done four grafts, and Dr. Nelson will be down in about 45 minutes.”

When I first came to general conference, I was shocked to witness protesters shouting rude things at my hosts, whom I was growing to love. I thought I would walk over in my clerical collar and just make it clear to them that these are nice people: “You know these are lovely people. Why are you so cross?” The reaction was a baptism of fire into what the United States understands as freedom of speech; in the United Kingdom, it would have been called hate speech. But, nonetheless, it was embarrassing to hear some of what they said—but I felt that I could look my hosts in the eye and stand with you as you were ridiculed.

My whole life I had heard about the importance of getting a patriarchal blessing. So when I turned 17, I started thinking about getting mine.
To me, it was kind of frightening. What if I didn’t hear anything I wanted to hear? What if there were no great promises for me? I worried about being prepared enough.
I decided that I needed to have faith and that all would be well. I prayed many times, was interviewed by my bishop, and set up an appointment with the stake patriarch to receive my blessing. Then I waited, while trying to prepare spiritually for this important date.
On the day I was to receive my blessing, I fasted all day. I thought I would have this super spiritual day, but Satan was working on me and I had a bad day at school. I was a wreck. I came home after school and paced the floor. I thought back to a fireside when a man and woman in our ward whom I admire told us how to prepare, suggesting that we pray for specific things we want to know.
I went into my room, knelt beside my bed, and prayed that Heavenly Father would tell me what he knew was best for me to hear. I asked that he take away my fears and calm my worried heart.
Everything turned out fine. In fact, it was a personal miracle. It seemed that the patriarch knew me so completely, even better than I knew myself. I knew he was speaking for Heavenly Father, and when he spoke, I felt the assurance that Heavenly Father did know me. He heard my prayers. He knew my name.
After the patriarch had finished speaking, I felt so good about myself. Nothing has ever given me such an awesome and indescribable feeling before.
Now I know why Church leaders are always emphasizing the value of a patriarchal blessing. When we learn the worth of something and pay the price to obtain it, we begin to better understand its value. For me, my blessing and the experience of receiving it was one of the best experiences of my life. I know that my patriarchal blessing will continue to guide me to fulfill its promises.

There are many ways in which we can misuse our opportunities. Some time ago I read a tender story written by Louise Dickinson Rich which vividly illustrates this truth. She wrote:
“My grandmother had an enemy named Mrs. Wilcox. Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox moved, as brides, into next-door houses on the main street of the tiny town in which they were to live out their lives. I don’t know what started the war between them—and I don’t think that by the time I came along, over thirty years later, they remembered themselves what started it. This was no polite sparring match; this was total war. …
“Nothing in town escaped repercussion. The 300-year-old church, which had lived through the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Spanish War, almost went down when Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox fought the Battle of the Ladies’ Aid. Grandma won that engagement, but it was a hollow victory. Mrs. Wilcox, since she couldn’t be president, resigned [from the Aid] in a huff. What’s the fun of running a thing if you can’t force your enemy to eat crow? Mrs. Wilcox won the Battle of the Public Library, getting her niece, Gertrude, appointed librarian instead of Aunt Phyllis. The day Gertrude took over was the day Grandma stopped reading library books. They became ‘filthy germy things’ overnight. The Battle of the High School was a draw. The principal got a better job and left before Mrs. Wilcox succeeded in having him ousted or Grandma in having him given life tenure of office.
“When as children we visited my grandmother, part of the fun was making faces at Mrs. Wilcox’s grandchildren. One banner day we put a snake into the Wilcox rain barrel. My grandmother made token protests, but we sensed tacit sympathy.
“Don’t think for a minute that this was a one-sided campaign. Mrs. Wilcox had grandchildren, too. Grandma didn’t get off scot free. Never a windy washday went by that the clothesline didn’t mysteriously break, with the clothes falling in the dirt.
“I don’t know how Grandma could have borne her troubles so long if it hadn’t been for the household page of her daily Boston newspaper. This household page was a wonderful institution. Besides the usual cooking hints and cleaning advice, it had a department composed of letters from readers to each other. The idea was that if you had a problem—or even only some steam to blow off—you wrote a letter to the paper, signing some fancy name like Arbutus. That was Grandma’s pen name. Then some of the other ladies who had the same problem wrote back and told you what they had done about it, signing themselves One Who Knows or Xanthippe or whatever. Very often, the problem disposed of, you kept on for years writing to each other through the column of the paper, telling each other about your children and your canning and your new dining-room suite. That’s what happened to Grandma. She and a woman called Sea Gull corresponded for a quarter of a century. Sea Gull was Grandma’s true friend.
“When I was about sixteen, Mrs. Wilcox died. In a small town, no matter how much you have hated your next-door neighbor, it is only common decency to run over and see what practical service you can do the bereaved. Grandma, neat in a percale apron to show that she meant what she said about being put to work, crossed the lawn to the Wilcox house, where the Wilcox daughters set her to cleaning the already-immaculate front parlor for the funeral. And there on the parlor table in the place of honor was a huge scrapbook; and in the scrapbook, pasted neatly in parallel columns were Grandma’s letters to Sea Gull over the years and Sea Gull’s letters to her. Though neither woman had known it, Grandma’s worst enemy had been her best friend. That was the only time I remember seeing my grandmother cry. I didn’t know then exactly what she was crying about, but I do now. She was crying for all the wasted years which could never be salvaged.”

Another time, we had a pop quiz in school. I hadn’t studied. Nobody had studied—the teacher had surprised us. Everybody started cheating on the quiz. I’m not going to lie—I really wanted to cheat. But something told me, “You have to sit down and do the best with what you know.” It was a soft voice. I was stressed, and the voice soothed my heart. So I didn’t look to the left, and I didn’t look to the right. I answered what I knew. In the end I was the only one who got a high score. I’m glad I listened to the Holy Ghost.

Years later, while attending Sunday School, I learned about patriarchal blessings and felt an urgent need to receive one. The patriarch, Joseph William “Billy” Johnson, was a respected disciple in the Church community and was among Ghana’s first converts. I traveled two hours to request my blessing and returned a month later with an open heart to receive it.
During the blessing, I was overwhelmed as the patriarch spoke personal insights that resonated deeply within me, revealing a connection to my life that only God could know. I felt His love and assurance that I had a purpose. Each subsequent reading of my blessing emphasized God’s intimate knowledge of me and the divine work I was meant to accomplish.
I came to realize that God is deeply interested in our lives, that we are His children (see Romans 8:16) and have a divine purpose. This realization inspired me to keep my patriarchal blessing at the forefront of my mind, reminding me of the commandments and promises associated with it. My patriarchal blessing motivated my decision to serve a mission. This experience profoundly transformed my life, and I witnessed the blessings that the patriarch pronounced upon me materialize throughout my service.