Gospel Story Finder

On that November day in 1972 when I got on the bus to go to school, I had no idea this day was going to be one of the most important in my life.
I was 13 and an ordinary student. I mainly tried to have a good time at school, and I had many friends who were like I was. Óscar Italia was not like the other boys. He really did study and, as a result, was on the honor roll. But I didn’t know him well. He was a quiet fellow.
When I entered the classroom that day, he was wearing a button on his lapel that read, “I Care. What about You?” At that time the Church in our area had a program to help members share the gospel. They wore this button so when people asked about it, they could explain about family home evening and the family.
I asked Óscar, “What’s that?” He explained that he had been baptized three months before and was the only Latter-day Saint in his family.
During the breaks that day he noticed my interest and explained the plan of salvation, and he gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon. He read me the promise in Moroni 10:3–5 and told me that if I prayed, I would feel a burning in my heart that would confirm to me that the Book of Mormon was true. Óscar was a great member missionary, and I believed him.
The next morning, while my mother was doing her shopping at the neighborhood market, I decided to read the Book of Mormon. When I was almost finished with the first page, I had a desire to pray. I went to my room and knelt beside my bed. I had never prayed before, but I remembered I had to ask God in the name of Christ. I asked if the Book of Mormon was true, and I asked God to tell me if He existed. I expected to feel what my classmate had testified I would feel. After some minutes I heard my mother coming home and was afraid she would find me praying, so I stood up and got ready for school.
As I rode to school a real battle of ideas was going on in my head. “Is it true or not? Nothing happened,” I thought. I had a lot of doubts.
I can’t explain why, but no sooner had I stepped from the bus onto the sidewalk at school than the doubts disappeared, and I knew it was true. It was extremely simple.
Óscar came up to speak with me at the classroom door. I said, “I will be a member of your church.” He couldn’t believe it. A friend of mine was listening, and he told my other friends what was happening. Soon they were all around me, asking me why I was going to change religions. They told me I was crazy. I couldn’t answer their questions and started to cry. They finally went away, and I was left alone with Óscar. Suddenly I had an overwhelming feeling of joy. I had never felt anything like it before. It was the burning my friend had said I would feel, and it came as a confirmation of the decision I had made.
The next day Óscar brought me a button, and we wore them proudly.
Thirty years later I returned to my hometown to speak at a youth fireside. I had titled my remarks “How to Be a Hero” and had intended to analyze how Nephi, Abinadi, and Alma can become our heroes. While waiting to speak, however, I saw my friend Óscar and his mother among those in attendance. I remembered that wonderful day 30 years before and instead told the youth about my personal hero, Óscar Italia, a brave young man who had a determination to share the gospel, a young man who changed the course of my life.

Every time I attend my Church meetings, I feel a great desire to go every week, but for various reasons I don’t. I find plenty of excuses. I’m a carrier of HIV, and my life has gotten pretty complicated. It gets more complicated every day. But the article by Juli Housholder, “It’s Just Hair,” gave me the strength I needed to get organized and set some new goals.
The same thing happened to me that happened to Juli. I lost almost all my hair—in my case because of the strong medications I’ve had to take to keep me alive. But her testimony really woke me up, and now I’m getting back on the path. I had lost sight of my goal, which is to return to the presence of my Heavenly Father. I’m just now starting to realize that because of my illness I had forgotten the Lord.
Thanks for the testimonies you publish from members all across the world and for the talks by our leaders.Name withheld

A soft breeze was coming off the lake as a group of teenagers gathered on a stage under an outdoor pavilion. It was cool and quiet under the roof. Even though there weren’t any walls, the brightness of the sun and the noise of camp seemed to be shut out.
The group in the pavilion were a little disheveled. A few had socks sliding down into their shoes. Most were wearing oversized sweaters of all colors and descriptions. But they had two things in common. They were all wearing navy blue corduroy pants (knickers for the girls and regular full-length slacks for the boys). And they had come to make music.
Most of the group took their places on the risers set up on stage. They were the chorus. Others were unpacking instruments. They were the brass ensemble. With a tap of the conductor’s baton, everyone was ready, all eyes front. Then it started, soft at first, the music written down hundreds of years ago by a composer who wanted to used his talent to praise God. it was a religious selection that combined awe with worshipful rejoicing. As they sang and played, suddenly this group caught the spirit of the music. The joyful sounds shook the rafters. All at once a man who had written hundreds of years ago in Latin was being understood perfectly by modern-day teenagers.
As the last amen faded away, there was a hush. The chorus seemed to be waiting for applause, but there was none. The pavilion seats were empty. It was just a practice session. Still the chorus waited. The power of the music needed some acknowledgment. So they applauded themselves.

Recently a mission president talked with an 89-year-old investigator who kept putting off joining the Church. The mission president said, “Do you believe the gospel is true?” The investigator said, “I know it is true as well as you do.” The president said, “Do you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet?” The investigator said, “I also know that as well as you do.” The mission president said, “Then why don’t you get baptized?” The investigator said, “Don’t rush me. I’ll let you know when I am ready.” He is already 89. Think of the blessings he has already lost by procrastination.

In the summer of 2006, my husband was working as a truck driver. Because he was away from home for about two weeks at a time, the responsibility of paying the bills was primarily mine. His career was such that our income would fluctuate from month to month, so budgeting our finances was tricky.
That July his paycheck was smaller than usual and less than I had planned on. After I had deposited his check, I compared the amount in the bank to our list of expenses due. I concluded that if I paid everything, including our tithing, we would be about $30 short. We were full-tithe payers, having learned our lesson the hard way a few years before when we got behind in paying tithing. Skipping tithing this time was not an option.
I remembered hearing stories of people who wrote their tithing check first when money was tight and then received money by miraculous means. I usually wrote the checks in order of what needed to be mailed that day, so our tithing check was rarely the first one I wrote. But that day I decided I needed to write our tithing check first, knowing that the Lord would provide a way for us to pay our bills.
The following Monday I received word that a community class I’d signed my oldest son up for was canceled, and the $20 check I wrote the month before was being returned. When I balanced my checkbook, figuring back in that $20, I realized I had made a $23 mistake in calculations the week before. In addition, two days later we received a refund check of $36 from our pediatrician’s office for overpayment of a bill. Now, rather than being $30 short, we had almost $50 extra.
The Lord had fulfilled His promise in Malachi 3:8–12 that if we paid our tithing, He would pour out blessings. I know that it is because of our response to follow the Lord’s commandment to pay our tithes first that we were blessed.

For example, when I was presiding over the Florida Mission some twenty years ago, I received a letter from Sister Flavia Salazar Gomez in Santiago, the Dominican Republic. Originally from Mexico, where she had joined the Church when she was twelve, Flavia had married and moved with her husband to his native country. She believed she was the only Latter-day Saint within Dominican’s population of some five million people. She wrote that she had a year-old baby who had not been named or blessed by the priesthood. She added that she had cancer and doctors did not expect her to live very long. Demonstrating simple faith, she asked if a priesthood holder could travel to Santiago to bless both her and the baby.

Soon after receiving the letter, I had the opportunity to fly to that area. I met with an active Latter-day Saint family we knew of in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, Dale Valentine and his wife and children. Brother Valentine and I drove to Santiago, and then realized that we did not have Flavia’s street address with us. I told Brother Valentine to drive into the busy city and turn to the left. Then I told him to make a right turn and proceed toward the center of the city. After traveling several blocks, I said to Brother Valentine, “Go to the next corner; make a right turn; and after you turn, you will find an empty parking space.” He drove as I had directed, and we did find an empty parking space, which was most unusual in all the traffic. “Now what do we do?” he asked.

I said, “Let’s just start asking people.”

Brother Valentine went over to a man standing outside a residence and asked if he knew of a Flavia Salazar Gomez.

Surprised, the man said, “Yes, she’s my wife.”

We went into the home, and met with and interviewed Flavia. In the two years since she had left Mexico and her contact with the Church, she had faithfully kept the Word of Wisdom, and prayed every day.

We blessed the baby. Then I felt impressed that Flavia should be blessed that she should recover from her cancerous condition and become well.

Some six months later, I had the opportunity to meet again with Flavia and her husband. She was in good health; doctors had told her she was completely cured.

When this lovely young mother had needed a priesthood blessing she had exercised her faith, and had written to a mission president whom she did not know. The mission president had done what the Lord told him to do to answer her need. It was just that simple.

The metal cover on the door’s mail slot clattered as the mail was pushed through and landed on the floor of our apartment. One of the high points of our day had arrived, and my companion and I collided as we made haste to see what the mailman had brought. Not even Santa could compete with the excitement he inspired.
Four white envelopes lay scattered on the floor and my companion, having mastered the morning dash and beaten me to the door, scooped them up. “Let’s see,” she said slowly, holding them just out of my reach. “One for me. One for me. One for me, and, oh, one for you.”
One for me. Why did I insist on racing to the door for this kind of treatment? The handwriting on the envelope was familiar, and I knew it was from home. I tore it open as I walked to my bed and pulled out a card with a picture on the front of two tired sister missionaries soaking their feet. I opened it up and settled back on my bed to read. “Hang in there,” it said. “We love you! Mom and Dad.”
“Well, so much for news from home,” I thought and glanced over at my companion who was still on her first letter (a three-pager) and smiling slightly as she read. The other two letters waited patiently on her lap.
“I guess I’ll go finish making breakfast,” I said and walked toward the small kitchen. My companion nodded her head in acknowledgment that I had spoken and continued reading without a pause.
I had been in Finland four months. I pulled out a pan to mix our purro (porridge) in and sighed heavily. Because the mission was short on missionaries who had been in the field for very long, the president had had no choice but to make senior companions of fairly new missionaries. And I was one of them.
I remembered back a few weeks ago to the excitement I had felt at the prospect of leaving my first city to go on to a new area as a senior companion. I remembered even more clearly the sick feeling I had experienced as my new companion and I knocked on our first door, and I realized that neither of us understood the language very well; and I was in charge.
That’s what my parents’ card was in response to. I’d written home expressing, mildly, of course, the way I was feeling, and the card was their message of encouragement. No thought-provoking words of wisdom, no sage advice to ponder, not even a quotation from Richard L. Evans. How was I supposed to reach lofty new heights on the words “hang in there”?
I wondered if any other missionaries had parents who were so economical with words. I turned on the stove and began slowly stirring the purro.
The purro began to boil thickly, and its slow bubbling called my attention back to what I was doing. I turned off the stove and called to my companion.
Those four short months in Finland quickly turned into 16, and I found myself on my way home. As I look back now, I remember only vaguely the fear and inadequacy I felt in that new city as a new senior companion (although my journal could tell tales!). What I do remember is the fact that my companion and I hung in there.
We probably weren’t the most successful companionship to ever pack scriptures, pamphlets, filmstrips and a projector onto our bikes to hit the tracting trail, but we did hit it.
And in that city during some of the hardest times of my mission, I learned what it meant to pray, to really pray, and consequently to receive answers to prayers. I learned that we weren’t out there alone and that we could do what we had been called to do.
I hadn’t needed to receive a long discourse from my parents on the at merits of overcoming discouragement and pushing ahead. The card they sent was enough because it served as a reminder to me that sometimes half the battle is just enduring to the end.

Later Charles and his fiancée, Sarah Price, said good-bye to their families and went to Liverpool, a seaport from which most of the Latter-day Saint emigrants embarked. They were married on shipboard after they set sail for Nauvoo. Although the trip across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Equinox was long, the 572 Saints “arrived in full health and vigor, with not one soul lost, full of praise and thanksgiving to the God of Israel for his mercy in blessing them with a safe journey with no serious difficulty” (Journal of Charles Smith).
The company of Saints remained together on the second part of the trip, from New Orleans up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo. As their boat landed at Nauvoo on April 12, 1843, the Prophet Joseph was standing on the riverbank to welcome them! The next day he delivered an address to the new arrivals that was very comforting to them after their long journey.

One Sunday my granddaughter Diana, who is four years old, was sitting next to her father at church. Diana sat reverently, enjoying the comfort of her father’s arm holding her close to him. However, when the bishop stood up and announced the sacrament hymn, Diana gently lifted her father’s arm from her shoulder and placed it in his lap. Then she sat up straight and folded her arms. She looked over at her father and encouraged him to do the same.
Diana’s message to her father was perfectly clear. She was telling him to turn his complete and total attention to the Savior.

Tears filled my eyes as I ran down the steps of the ballet studio. I had just told my teacher that I would not be in the Cinderella production because of our upcoming family vacation. My teacher told me that if I wasn’t in the Cinderella production it might ruin my chances of being in the Nutcracker, the production that followed.
I was so discouraged when I got home that I went straight to my room and cried. I thought about ballet and all that it meant to me, but I considered quitting because of the many long hours and dedication it required. Then I started thinking about a recent Sunday School lesson. The teacher encouraged us to go to the scriptures when we are in need of comfort. So I got out my triple combination and looked in the index for gospel themes I thought could be related to ballet. “Talent” seemed to stand out the most. I looked up Doctrine and Covenants 82:3, which says: “For of him unto whom much is given much is required.” [D&C 82:3]
After thinking about the meaning of those words, I decided to continue to dedicate time to ballet. I felt comforted, for I knew I had made the right decision.
The following morning I called my ballet teacher and asked if I could still be in the Cinderella production. He said I could, even though I would miss a few rehearsals during my family vacation.
At age 13, I have learned that the scriptures really can help when you seek comfort.

In a business ethics class for my master’s program at the Schiller International University in Heidelberg, Germany, each student was asked to do a 20-minute oral presentation at the end of the semester. The professor asked me if I would talk about ethics from a Latter-day Saint perspective.
I was baptized at age 18 and was called to serve a mission in Brazil a year later. Since then I continued to share the gospel with many.
I knew it would be a challenge to discuss religious issues in the university environment, but I accepted the challenge. I decided to prepare a presentation covering information from Mormon.org.
My university has students from all over the world. My ethics class reflected that diversity, with 18 students from various nations.
The ethics presentations began with two students from India followed by a student from Myanmar. I was the last to present. I talked about “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” the Articles of Faith, and other gospel topics. For most of the students, it was the first time they had heard about the Church.
I concluded with my testimony of the gospel and the importance of doing what is right despite the pressure around us. Finally I gave everyone a Book of Mormon in his or her own language. After my presentation I was bombarded with all kinds of questions. My 20-minute presentation turned into an hour.
The next school day, a friend from India told me he was impressed with my presentation and had read part of the Book of Mormon already. His friend, also from India, asked for a copy as well. Later a friend from Myanmar told me she was happy to hear about the Church, especially the teachings about families and the law of chastity because she believed those principles. She promised to read the Book of Mormon.
My friends from Ghana thanked me for telling them about the Restoration, promising that they would try to see the temple in Accra. My friend from Liberia told me my message was an inspiration to him and gave him hope for the future.
I was pleased that the Spirit of the Lord had confirmed my message. We may not always witness the impact of our words, but I know my class presentation will produce fruit in the future. I hope that some of the people in that classroom will someday accept the gospel and become instruments in the Lord’s hands to spread the message of the Restoration to all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people (see D&C 133:37).

For example, the day two missionaries knocked on Jacques Faudin’s door in Nîmes, Jacques, then an 18-year-old student, seemed an unlikely candidate for membership in any church—he was an active Marxist-Leninist atheist. “I invited the missionaries in only so I could fight with them and try to convert them to atheism,” says Brother Faudin. “However, after two discussions, I was shaken. These missionaries had a strength I couldn’t define. I stopped fighting and began to doubt my atheism.”

This was the turning point for Jacques. He decided to find out if there was a God. Still skeptical when the missionaries gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, he decided to prove it wrong. After a constant two-week study, he had found no errors.

“I wanted a spiritual testimony,” says Brother Faudin. “In my heart I made a covenant with the Lord that if he would answer my prayers, I would give him my life. Soon I learned that Elder Howard W. Hunter, then of the Quorum of the Twelve, was coming to dedicate the chapel in Marseille. I went to the meeting fasting. When the missionaries introduced me to Elder Hunter, I handed him my program and asked if he would write something to me. He looked me right in the eyes, and then he wrote, ‘You will gain a testimony if you exercise faith and prayer.’ I took the program home and read his words many times. I continued to exercise my faith and to pray. Then one night, after fasting, I received my answer. I knew without any doubt that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon was true. I was baptized two days later on 27 July 1968.”

As promised, he has given his life to the Lord and has served in many important leadership positions.

When my father brought in the mail today, he said there was an article in the New Era he thought I should read. I read the coverline that said, “Eating Disorders, P. 36” and I gave him a glare. I then walked into my room and read the article. I’ve been warned for about six months by many people who think I have anorexia nervosa. When I read that article, I felt like my prayers had been answered. It seemed like Janet Thomas was writing it directly to me. I want to thank the New Era for publishing “Eating Disorders: A Deadly State of Mind” and Janet Thomas for writing it. The article really opened my eyes. I do not know how I will ever pay you back.
Name WithheldMinnesota

Following a church meeting, I was approached by a father whose only son had gone from being a promising, obedient youth to engaging in rebellion and sin in young manhood through the influence of friends.
Tenderly, the father recalled the son’s youth; the boy had been quiet, happy, and a hard worker on the family farm. It had always been the boy’s intention to honor the priesthood, including serving a mission. He had faithfully saved his money toward that goal. But the money was all gone now, along with his good intentions—washed away by a flood of drugs, alcohol, and immorality.
The faithful mother and father had tried every possible way to help their wayward son—loving, teaching, cajoling, praying, soliciting the help of priesthood leaders. But the son defiantly refused to listen or obey. “It’s my life!” he stormed at them. “I’ll do what I want. I’m the only one who gets hurt.” His response seemed like the foolish attitude of some of the children of Adam and Eve, our first parents, who carefully taught their children gospel truths, “[making] all things known unto their sons and their daughters.
“And Satan came among them, saying: I am also a son of God; and he commanded them, saying: Believe it not; and they believed it not, and they loved Satan more than God” (Moses 5:12–13).
The distraught, desperate father who had sought me out told of climbing a wooded hill and kneeling to pour out a grieving heart to Heavenly Father, asking why his son could not see the damage he was doing to himself and others. “Can’t he see his mother’s anguish or understand our pain?” he had asked. “Please, Heavenly Father, help our precious son in his moment of critical need.”
“What can we do?” this father asked me, tears sliding down his cheeks. “Has he gone too far to come back? Is there hope for him?”
The words of an angel directed to another rebellious son, Alma the Younger, came to my mind: “Behold, the Lord hath heard the prayers … of his servant, Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth” (Mosiah 27:14). I assured the grieving father before me that his prayers had surely been heard, too, and that after he had done all he could do, there were some things that he must leave in the hands of a loving Heavenly Father. I told him that to the faithful all things are indeed possible and that he must continue in hope, never giving up.
After hearing of this young man’s transformation, the father who had sought me out in anguish went away with renewed hope that one day his son would be touched by the Spirit to repent and return to the peace, happiness, and security found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Gratefully, the man expressed abiding faith in a loving, merciful Heavenly Father with whom all things are possible.

Margarette and her older brother, Wallace, were walking to school. Rain had made the ground very muddy. The children got stuck in the mud and could not move. They began to cry.
They looked up and saw the Prophet Joseph Smith coming toward them. He lifted both children out of the mud. Then he stooped and cleaned the mud from their shoes.
The Prophet Joseph Smith wiped the tears from their faces with his handkerchief. He spoke kind and cheering words to them.
Margarette and Wallace went on their way to school, rejoicing.

I remember vividly an experience I had as a passenger in a small two-propeller airplane. One of its engines suddenly burst open and caught on fire. The propeller of the flaming engine was starkly stilled. As we plummeted in a steep spiral dive toward the earth, I expected to die. Some of the passengers screamed in hysterical panic. Miraculously, the precipitous dive extinguished the flames. Then, by starting up the other engine, the pilot was able to stabilize the plane and bring us down safely.

Throughout that ordeal, though I “knew” death was coming, my paramount feeling was that I was not afraid to die. I remember a sense of returning home to meet ancestors for whom I had done temple work. I remember my deep sense of gratitude that my sweetheart and I had been sealed eternally to each other and to our children, born and reared in the covenant. I realized that our marriage in the temple was my most important accomplishment. Honors bestowed upon me by men could not approach the inner peace provided by sealings performed in the house of the Lord.

That harrowing experience consumed but a few minutes, yet my entire life flashed before my mind. Having had such rapid recall when facing death, I do not doubt the scriptural promise of “perfect remembrance” when facing judgment (Alma 5:18; see also Alma 11:43).

I love how President N. Eldon Tanner’s father taught him during family prayer. President Tanner said this:

“I remember one evening when we were kneeling in family prayer, my father said to the Lord, ‘Eldon did something today he shouldn’t have done; he’s sorry, and if you will forgive him, he won’t do it anymore.’

“That made me determined not to do it anymore—much more than a trouncing would have done.”7

I was able to go to the temple when I went on my mission to Cochabamba, Bolivia. I began preaching the gospel in October 2000. A few months later my companion and I visited the temple with the youth from the ward where we were serving. I took my disk and was able to provide 599 names for ordinance work.
While I served as witness, my companion baptized the young people on behalf of my ancestors. What great joy I felt. The Spirit was with me, testifying of the truthfulness of what we were doing. I could feel my ancestors’ happiness and gratitude.
But there were other ordinances that still needed to be done. Because there were so many names, I turned them over to the temple. But I kept the names of my great-grandparents and their children, and later that month my companion and I, with the help of other missionaries, performed the work for them.
I am grateful to my Heavenly Father because, although I was far from my country and perhaps thought that I would baptize only the living, I was also able to participate in the work of redeeming the dead.

When I was rushed to the emergency room with both of my lungs collapsed, I thought I was at the end of my life. I was not yet ready emotionally or spiritually for the end, but my body was giving up on me. It was hard for my family to see me in that condition, but they remained strong, and I was blessed to have survived.
My struggles did not end there. Since then, I’ve had to live my life with only one functioning lung and a curved spine. Every day is painful and difficult. I once thought that I would be better off dead rather than to continue suffering. I felt weak, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. I lost hope and confidence. I began to push away the people in my life who encouraged me. But my family never gave up on me. They loved and cared for me, and my friends continued to support me. Even so, I still felt that my future was not going to be as bright as I had imagined.
One night I found myself feeling so down. I decided I needed to read my patriarchal blessing. Tears came to my eyes the moment I read the first few lines, “Our Father in Heaven cares for you and loves you. He wants you to be happy in this life.”
In that moment, I realized that Heavenly Father really has a very bright future in store for me and wonderful blessings for me to anticipate as long as I follow the path He wants me to take.
Our Father in Heaven knew that we would all struggle, so He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer for us and to comfort us. That’s how vast Their love for us is. I may still struggle every day of my life here on earth, but I know that Their love will always be there for me and Their promises will be all fulfilled if I hold on and follow Them.

He also remembers the time his dad was seriously sick. Raúl’s mother thought he was going to die. She rode a bus to the missionaries’ house to ask them to give him a blessing. They weren’t home, so she left them a message. When they arrived several hours later, Raúl’s father was so sick he could hardly talk. The missionaries gave him a blessing—and within half an hour, he was up and feeling much better.