Gospel Story Finder

Hugh Nibley was an advisor for my master of arts thesis. Once, when I was in his office to get feedback on a draft chapter, his phone rang. He picked it up, listened for a while, then, before hanging up, said, “You ought to do your own research.” Refusing to “set [himself] up for a light unto the world,”24 he fended off would-be “Nibley groupies.” Rather, he urged his students not just to do their own research but also and especially to do their own critical thinking. To that end God made every intelligence “independent . . . to act for itself.”25

For five weeks in May and June of 1861, their ship, the Monarch of the Sea, sailed across the Atlantic. When it finally docked in New York harbor, little boats took the Latter-day Saint immigrants ashore. They all stayed overnight in a giant hall called Castle Gardens.
That night while the children tried to sleep on the floor of the building, Alma Elizabeth’s brother August discovered some sacks of brown sugar right next to him. One had a small hole in it and was spilling its contents. Alma Elizabeth and August had tasted no sugar or candy during the ocean voyage. So August found a spoon. Soon they had had a grand feast. But by morning they were sick!
Alma Elizabeth, with her family and the other Saints, took a long train trip to Iowa. There they joined wagon trains going to Utah. She walked the entire way, except when she got into a wagon to cross a deep river.
Alma Elizabeth’s father had trouble walking. In Sweden he had been a concert violinist and an orchestra director. Then rheumatism crippled him. Slowly he learned to use his hands and feet again, but it was difficult and painful. Elizabeth’s father was unable to keep up with the wagon train, and he insisted that his family go on ahead, promising to catch up with them.
Her father struggled on until he spotted a light. It was a camp of soldiers on their way to the Civil War. One soldier spoke Swedish. When they learned that Alma Elizabeth’s father was a musician, they found a violin and he played it for them. In the morning they took him on horseback and caught up with the wagon train.
When Alma Elizabeth’s family reached Utah they settled in Mount Pleasant. As a pioneer she worked hard. She learned how to card and spin wool, weave carpets, milk cows, knit and crochet, make gloves out of buckskin, weave hats out of braided straw, stack hay, and bundle wheat.
One time she collected wheat left in the fields after the harvest and sold it for $10. With some of the money, she bought ten yards of calico for her first party dress.
The day Alma Elizabeth turned eight years old she saw some elders baptizing people in a nearby creek. Her folks did not know about the baptismal service, so she ran home to tell them. With their permission she, too, was baptized in the creek. Afterward she walked to the meetinghouse to be confirmed. But after the confirmation, she felt very tired and fell sound asleep on a seldom-used church bench where people could not see her. When the meeting ended everyone went home. Alma Elizabeth’s family became concerned about her long absence, and they sent her big sister Helen to search for her. She found Alma Elizabeth still asleep in the now empty meetinghouse.
On a hot July day when Alma Elizabeth was ten years old, she went to a ward meeting. The people felt very discouraged because their crops needed rain. President Brigham Young came to the meeting, and she listened carefully when he rose to his feet and spoke. He promised the people that if they would listen to his words, the Lord would open the heavens and send the rains.
The words hardly left the prophet’s lips when Alma Elizabeth noticed the gathering clouds. Soon they filled the sky, and rain poured down in torrents. On that day she received a great testimony of the gospel that she remembered all her life.

I will share with you another story, that of Melanie and how she was assisted by her family during a storm.

Melanie stared straight ahead. The storm was getting worse. She watched the windshield wipers go back and forth. “Poor Grandpa,” thought the girl. “He looks worried. He hates driving in this kind of weather.” Melanie was worried, too. She’d never been out in a storm this bad. She closed her eyes and tried to forget it. But just then she was thrown forward. The car jerked to a halt.

“Grandpa, are you all right?” she cried.

“No, Melanie,” he said in a weak voice. “We need help. I think I’m very sick.”

The girl looked at her grandfather. His face was very pale. She could tell he was in pain.

“Grandpa, what is it?”

The old man said slowly, “My chest aches something awful. I need a doctor. Please, child, open my collar.”

Melanie leaned over and unbuttoned her grandfather’s shirt. Tears ran down her face.

“No time for crying,” he said softly. “Too much to do. I got us to the side of the road. I can’t go any further. You’ve got to drive the car.”

“But I don’t know how!” cried the girl.

“I know,” said her grandfather. “I’ll tell you exactly what to do. We’ll take it step by step.” [The scriptures call it “line upon line” (Isaiah 28:10).]

Melanie thought of all the times she had dreamed about driving. She’d always thought it would be easy and fun. But not now. Melanie helped her grandfather move to the right side. Then she climbed over him and in behind the steering wheel.

“Open your window. You’ll have to fix the side-view mirror. Check the rearview mirror. Okay, now start the car. Now put your left foot on the brake, hold it down, and shift into drive. You are doing fine. Put your foot on the gas pedal very gently, and don’t worry,” he added. “We’ll be fine.”

Grandpa leaned over toward the steering wheel and pushed a button under it and then fell back into his seat. Melanie took her foot off the brake and pressed down on the gas pedal. The car started forward. She held onto the wheel and steered as best she could.

“Why are those lights flashing on the dashboard?” she wondered. “Is something wrong with the engine?”

There was so much to remember, so much to figure out. She brushed the tears out of her eyes. Melanie could see a car coming down the road. It was headed straight for her. Just in time the other car veered out of the way and stopped.

“Is everything okay?” yelled the other driver.

“No!” Melanie shouted as she rolled the window down. Melanie did as the men told her and brought the car to a halt as the other car pulled up behind her. Within half an hour, Melanie, her grandpa, and the man who had helped them were at the emergency room of the hospital.

“How did you know something was wrong when you saw our car?” questioned Melanie.

“I saw your lights flashing,” he replied.

“But how did they go on?” asked Melanie.

The man replied, “Most cars have a button under the steering wheel for the flasher lights. Maybe you hit it by mistake.”

Melanie smiled, “No, I didn’t, but I know who turned them on. [Author unknown]”

So one day in November of 2000, we had just come back from our mission, and a friend of mine, who had been the visitor center director in Palmyra, and I were running Senator Hatch’s reelection for the senate and we were just finishing. I thought, This is it, I’m through, I am going to be with the grand kids and play golf, enjoy life. Retail business 43 years, six days a week, early and late. I got a call from Don Staheli, secretary to President Hinckley and he said, “Brother Mac, President Hinckley would like to see you.” I said, “Okay, when?”
“Could you come over now?” We had an office over in the Key Bank building, just kind of kitty-corner across the street and down, and I said, “Okay.”
“Well, why don’t you come over now.”
“Okay.” Well, he wasn’t asking Sister Christensen to come. Our two youngest boys had run the store in the ZCMI Center. Since we came back from our mission, our boys (we have fours sons and a son-in-law that run our business) and they said, “Dad, if you’ll just stay out of the stores, we’ll send you and mom money.” So I wasn’t involved in the stores, but I thought President may want to tell me how good these two young men were. They maybe had pressed his suit or done something nice for President Hinckley. So I go over and go in the outer office, and Brother Staheli takes me right in to see the president, and I had known the president for a long time, and he said, “Mac, sit down.” So I sit down. And he said, “Mac, we are calling you to be president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.” Sometimes you know there might be a calling coming - I had no idea. Especially president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I said, “President, I’m a monotone!” And he kind of looked at me, in only the way he can, and said, “Mac, we’re not calling you to sing.” I said, “President, who do I report to?”
“You report to me.” President Hinckley had been and is the advisor to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square for over thirty years. Thirty years. And then he told me what a magnificent calling this was, how fortunate I was, what great people I had to work with. The choir has two music directors, they have two managers, they have a senior secretary and a part time secretary, they have three organists and two part time organists, and forty volunteers, 360 members of the choir and about 140 orchestra members. He told me the things that he wanted to see happen and the things to watch for, things that you would never think that he would even say. And who do I report to? I report to the president. If there is something that we need to get an approval, you go over and you see him, you call up and make an appointment and you’re there.

“I found one!” Elmeda called as she held up a piece of broken glass. It caught the sunlight and cast patterns on the melting snow. “Look how it shines!”
“It will make our temple shine too,” her older brother Briant said, tugging on her braid. “Now see what else you can find!”
It was 1836, and the Saints in Kirtland were building a temple. Father split wood for roof shingles while Mother cooked meals for the workers. Elmeda loved seeing the temple’s tall walls and red roof standing above the trees.
But the temple wasn’t finished yet. Brother Millet, a stone mason, had invented a new type of plaster to cover the walls. Elmeda remembered when Father told her about it.
“This won’t be ordinary plaster,” he had said as he pulled her onto his knee. “Brother Millet wants to put bits of broken glass and pottery in the plaster to make our temple shine.”
“Will we have to break your wedding dishes?” Elmeda had asked Mother. Elmeda’s family had brought those dishes all the way from New York after joining the Church.
Mother laughed. “No, darling. Brother Millet only needs broken pottery to make the plaster. Just look outside!”
“The garbage pile!” Elmeda said. Every household had a small garbage pile in the yard. That’s where people threw away old, broken items—including bits of pottery and glass.
“We will need everyone’s help,” her father had continued. “Briant, Brother Millet needs boys to tend fires to warm the plaster. Elmeda, we need children to gather old crockery and glass for the plaster. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Elmeda had whispered. She was only six, but she wanted to help build the temple!
So here she was, holding a piece of glass to catch the sunlight. She was glad the snow had melted this morning so she could search their yard! She dropped the piece of glass in her pile and bent down to gather another.
This piece was half buried in mud. She gently dug around the pottery shard and pried it loose. It glittered in her palm. Elmeda smiled. She held another piece for the temple walls.
Briant knelt and admired her find. “Nice work, Elmeda,” he said. “We’ll have our temple soon!”
Briant was right. The Kirtland Temple was dedicated that spring. After the dedication, Elmeda lined up with the other children and marched to the temple. Her braids swung from side to side as she craned her neck to see the shining walls. She was glad that she had helped build the house of the Lord.

When I was a young girl, my family had a huge furnace in the living room, which made heat by burning coal. Every day one of us had the responsibility of going out to the coal shed behind our house and bringing back a bucket of coal. Then the small bits of coal were poured into one end of the furnace. Throughout the day the bits of coal slowly fed the fire.
Our coal shed held about five tons of coal, and, depending on how cold the weather was, we’d use a ton or a ton and a half every month in the winter. Anytime our coal shed became low, we knew that it was time to call the coal man to deliver more.
One year, however, we did not have enough money to pay for coal, so we didn’t order any. The weather had not yet gotten very cold, and we decided that we could keep warm by wearing our coats around the house during the day and by sleeping under a lot of blankets at night. I still remember how odd it seemed to be able to see our breath inside the house as we talked to one another.
Wearing our coats in the house worked well until the weather suddenly turned really cold. One morning, when we were wondering what we should do, we heard a familiar sound. The coal truck was coming down our street. Everyone looked out the window as it pulled into our yard and began filling up our shed with rich, dark coal.
My mother quickly ran outside to explain that she had not ordered any coal and could not afford the fuel that the man was shoveling into our little shed.
The man just smiled and said, “I know,” and continued to fill our shed with five tons of coal—enough to last the rest of the winter. Then he drove away without saying another word.
Fast offerings had paid for the coal that day. Even now, whenever I see a bit of coal, I remember that others had fasted so that we might be warm that winter.

One hot August day some years ago, there occurred a tragedy in Salt Lake County. It was reported in the local and national press. Five beautiful little girls—so young, so vibrant, so loving—hiding away, as children often do in their games of hide-and-seek, entered the trunk of a parent’s car. The trunk lid was pulled shut, they were unable to escape, and all perished from heat exhaustion.
The entire community was so kind, so thoughtful, so caring in the passing of those five little girls. Flowers, food, calls, visits, and prayers were shared with their families.
On the Sunday after the devastating event occurred, long lines of automobiles filled with grieving occupants drove ever so slowly past the home that was the scene of the accident. Sister Monson and I wished to be among those who expressed condolences in this way. As we drove by, we felt we were on holy ground. We literally crept along at a snail’s pace along the street. It was as though we could visualize a traffic sign reading, “Please drive slowly; children at play.” Tears filled our eyes and compassion flowed from our hearts. In two of the three families involved, the deceased children were all the children they had.
Frequently death comes as an intruder. It is an enemy that suddenly appears in the midst of life’s feast, putting out its lights and gaiety. It visits the aged as they walk on faltering feet. Its summons is heard by those who have scarcely reached midway in life’s journey, and often it hushes the laughter of little children.
At the funeral services for the five little angels, I counseled: “There is one phrase which should be erased from your thinking and from the words you speak aloud. It is the phrase ‘If only.’ It is counterproductive and is not conducive to the spirit of healing and of peace. Rather, recall the words of Proverbs: ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.’“
Before the closing of the caskets, I noted that each child held a favorite toy, a soft gift to cuddle. I reflected on the words of the poet Eugene Field:
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamt of the pretty toys.
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue,—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue
Since he kissed them and put them there.
The little toy dog and the soldier fair may wonder, but God in His infinite mercy has not left grieving loved ones to wonder. He has provided truth. He will inspire an upward reach, and His outstretched arms will embrace you. Jesus promises to one and all who grieve, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”

Now, around the fire in Whitehorse after a Sunday of worship and a delicious meal with the Whitehorse Saints, we were reliving the experience one more time before starting home the next morning. As the fire died away, the chill went unnoticed in the warmth of the Spirit. A theme of priesthood and prayer threaded the testimonies.
“The last day as we were rushing to meet the train, we stopped at a rock outcropping to rest, and Brother Woolley asked me to say a prayer. As I knelt upon the earth, tears streamed down my face and an overwhelming feeling of sweet humility filled my being. I felt an overpowering desire to always be close to my Heavenly Father and live so I would please him. The words poured from my mouth and I prayed publicly for the first time in my life by the Spirit. I was prompted to ask for strength and that we might make the train on time. We did. I also asked for a special blessing upon the girls behind us. It was incredible, but they reached the station only 15 minutes to a half hour behind us. I’m so very thankful I had this camping experience and the opportunity to rely so heavily on the Lord.”

On that first Sunday of the member-missionary class, our teacher asked us to commit to the Lord to give away one copy of the Book of Mormon during the next week and each following week. Even though I was still fearful at the time, I did accept the challenge. By the middle of the week it was clear to me whom I should share a copy with.
We had hired an older man to do some work for us. From his very first day, I felt he was an honest man of good character. On the morning of his last day with us, I prayed to Heavenly Father and received a confirmation that this individual should receive a copy of the Book of Mormon. I also prayed for guidance from the Holy Ghost on how to approach the man—and for the confidence I needed to talk to him about the book. I prepared a Book of Mormon with my testimony and anxiously awaited our visit.
That evening, when he finished working, I invited the man to sit down, offered him a glass of water, and asked, “Has anyone ever told you why Mormons are called ‘Mormons’?” (This was an approach we had learned in the member-missionary class.)
When he said no, I asked, “Would you be offended if I offered to tell you?”
“No, go right ahead,” he answered.
After a friendly fifteen-minute talk about the Book of Mormon, I offered him my prepared copy and asked if he would read it. I promised him that if he read it prayerfully he would know, as I did, that it is true. He said he would do it. We then parted, still friends. He wasn’t offended, and I didn’t feel that I had been aggressive.

The smell of freshly cooked bacon filled the cabin where the sisters of our young single adult ward had gathered for a Relief Society overnighter. As I lay in bed trying to wake up from a short night’s sleep, I heard the sisters begin to gather in the kitchen for breakfast. I heard their familiar voices laughing, talking, and then laughing some more. As I listened to the happy noise, I felt a surge of love for these amazing women. I smiled as I thought to myself, “This is the sound of Relief Society.”
I then reflected on all the other wonderful sounds that remind me of Relief Society: a sister sharing her heartfelt testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, the voices of many sisters blending as we sing hymns together, a tender visiting teaching lesson, the hum of a sewing machine as we participate together in a service project, and the tears we shed as we share one another’s sorrows. These are just some of the many wonderful sounds that remind me of the Lord’s organization for women.
But that morning in the cabin, as I lay there listening to my sisters laughing and talking, I realized what was my favorite sound of all: the sound of righteous women rejoicing together, loving each other, and celebrating our common sisterhood as daughters of a loving Heavenly Father. To me, that is truly the sound of Relief Society.

One young couple acknowledged that they should go to the temple, but they weren’t yet willing to attend the temple preparation seminars. They did allow their home teachers to come by weekly to teach them, however. Now the young man says, “I wasn’t rebellious. But I didn’t quite understand the gospel.” At one point he commented to his home teachers: “I know you have families and are busy. We appreciate your coming. We need your teaching.”

A common thread runs through these successes, as well as the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of others that could be shared. The basic idea is that we don’t teach the family everything we’d like them to hear; rather, we start by teaching them what they’re ready and able to hear.

The distinction is a critical one. If we teach beyond a family’s capacity to hear and accept, we might well create a negative situation. The family may become defensive, tune us out, or ask us to stop teaching. The message doesn’t get through, the Spirit has no opportunity to testify to the hearts of the people, and the opportunity is lost.

A Home-Concealed Woman. The title in the book catalog drew my eye again and again—A Home-Concealed Woman. Was it the story of my life? I checked the book out of the library. It was a diary kept by a woman living in the southern United States in the early 1900s. It was a warm and cozy record of her busy life as she bore and reared a large family, loved her husband, entertained friends, and cared for her aging parents. She was a kindred spirit, a good woman, hard-working, kind, observant of the beauties of nature. Her writings were similar to some of my own—filled with joy at her children’s small accomplishments, worry over teeth and earaches, delight at the first blossoms of spring. But she called herself a “home-concealed woman.” She had an obvious talent for writing but never much time to develop it. The physical circle of her life was small—hardly extending to the nearest village.
Did I see myself as a “home-concealed woman”? I wondered. Yes, I am a stay-at-home woman; but do the walls and roof of my home take on the aspects of a bushel basket over the candle of my personal light?
In the twenty-five years that I have been married, the place of woman in society has been the subject of much debate and confusion. As a young college graduate, I was refused a teaching job because I was pregnant—a strictly enforced district policy. In those days pregnant women and most other women, whether they had children or not, were expected by society to be concealed in their homes! A few years later, stay-at-home women were ridiculed in the popular press. Housework was supposed to be beneath the dignity and attention of the up-and-coming woman. (They forgot that it still had to be done by someone whether she, or he, was up-and-coming or not.) And a few years after that, there seemed to be no choice left. Nearly every woman I know now must work either full- or part-time—either outside or inside her home. For many, it is an economic necessity.
Does working outside the home release a woman from concealment? Maybe, if she is on television. But most often the women I know who work must maintain a carefully controlled schedule and limit their activities severely in order to do their jobs and care for their homes and families. They seem to be concealed within a tight world bounded by the realities of time and energy.
I still wondered what it was about the word concealed that had caught my attention. Did it have something to do with the fact that often when I meet new people they ask a few polite questions about our children and then turn with obvious interest to discussions of my husband’s work and hobbies? Yes, at times like that I do feel concealed and want to cry, “Look again! There is a person here—not just the wife of someone and the mother of someone else, but an individual with her own interests and talents. I read books, I have opinions, sometimes I am even witty—take a chance; get to know ME!” To those who know me well and with whom I am not shy, I am not a “concealed” person.
If my home is not a bushel basket over my light, then what is it? Is it a room—and I a candle set upon the mantel to give light to that room and to all who come within my circle of illumination? Perhaps the word concealed appealed to a bit of unfortunate pride within me—a desire to be a city on a hill, rather than just a candle in a room. I’m afraid that might have something to do with it.
And yet I know that the Lord has given me a light and that it is just the right light for the room in which I dwell—my home, family, neighborhood, and ward. I know that the work I have to do is important and that no one else can illuminate the space around me. I feel sure, most of the time, that the Lord approves the priorities I have set and the way I am tending my own little light. I also know that it takes all my best efforts, talents, and energy to keep that light glowing. And I know that I am part of the city set upon a hill, as is every other member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
There can be only a very few people in the world at a time who have such bright candles that they light up whole cities, or the whole world. Brigham Young was one of those people, and we often credit him with moving the Church to the West and settling Utah and other states. But he did not actually do any of that by himself. To be sure, he did provide inspiration and guidance, but it was the thousands of people with little candles who actually plowed the ground, built the cabins and temples, baked the bread, washed the clothes, built the towns, composed the songs, wrote the stories, taught the children, harvested the crops, and did all the other work that went into settling the West. Without all those little lights, Brigham Young’s dream never could have become a reality.
President Joseph F. Smith said, “After all, to do well those things which God ordained to be the common lot of man-kind, is the truest greatness. To be a successful father or a successful mother is greater than to be a successful general or a successful statesman” (Gospel Doctrine, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1939, page 285).
I know all these things, but sometimes I still feel “concealed,” and I think it is not the adulation of the world that would change that feeling. I remember the time when, as the young mother of four very small children and the wife of a very busy husband, I felt not just concealed, but buried by my home. I vividly remember standing at the ironing board in a room cluttered with toys and children, watching general conference on television. As President Harold B. Lee spoke, he seemed to be talking directly to me, and the Spirit entered my heart that day to remind me that I was a daughter of God and beloved of Him. Tears splashed on the iron as I felt His love surround me—a feeling I had forgotten.
Later I realized that I had become too busy with my little family for scripture study and going to the temple. Most of my time at church was spent in the hall with fussy babies, rather than worshiping. I had thought that reading the scriptures years earlier as a missionary would carry me through the rest of my life. I felt “concealed”—cut off from the Lord, but I was not. He was there, but I had failed to look up and see Him and receive His help and blessing. Now I know that no matter how small and insignificant my life may appear to the world, it doesn’t matter—as long as I am not concealed from the Lord.
So am I a “home-concealed woman”? No, I am a woman lighting a room, which is my home—sharing my light with others who come into my circle of illumination. Does my home and the work I do there conceal my talents? Does it keep me from reaching my potential? Not unless I choose to let that happen. Being a homemaker, mother, and wife is no more concealing of the real me than being a teacher, factory worker, nurse, or lawyer could be.
No, I am not a “home-concealed woman.” I am a “home-enhanced woman,” a “home-challenged woman.” But, most important, I am a loved daughter of Heavenly Father, who never loses sight of me.

The night before my football team’s first practice of the season, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. All my life I’d wanted to play little league football. I’d saved up my money over the summer so I could pay for it myself, and now at age 14, I was finally going to fulfill my dream.
But during the practice the next day, something really surprised me. It wasn’t how hard my coaches made our team work or how hard they pushed us—I was expecting that. No, I was shocked at the filthy and vulgar language all the players and coaches were using. At first I tried to ignore it and not let it bother me, but after a while it started to have an effect on me. I found myself thinking those words and—even worse—repeating them under stress. I prayed to my Heavenly Father and asked Him to help me be strong. I felt that I needed to be an example to my teammates and my coaches. Then I promised myself and God that I wouldn’t swear.
Later in the season, my team was preparing to play our rivals. Right before the game, my coach gave us a pep talk. Our whole team was really motivated, and my coach had us gather to say a cheer. He told us the cheer, and unfortunately it contained swear words. I didn’t have much time to make a decision, but I remembered the promise I’d made to myself and to Heavenly Father. An idea came to my mind to say the cheer, but when the swear word came up, I would just replace it with a different, appropriate word.
During the cheer, the player next to me noticed what I said, and after the cheer he started to make fun of me. He went up to the coach and said, “Harsh is Mormon, and he’s not man enough to swear. He’s too churchy!” I thought the coach would get mad at me or start to make fun of me as well, but instead he stood up for me and told my teammate, “Hey, leave Harsh alone. He has a lot of heart and can show you up anytime on the football field!”
I was surprised. I thought my coach would respect me if I swore like everyone else. But he actually respected me more because I was true to my standards and set an example for him and the rest of the team.
I don’t know how big of an impact my example had on my teammates and coaches, but I realized later how much that experience strengthened me. Now, four years later, it’s easier for me to stand up for what I believe in, no matter what situations I find myself in. I also realized that when we make a decision to obey the commandments, we are not alone—the Holy Ghost will help and support us through our trials.

“I was walking several steps ahead of grandpa [President Lorenzo Snow] when he stopped me, saying … ‘It was right here that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me at the time of the death of President Woodruff. … He stood right here, about one meter above the floor. It looked as though He stood on a plate of solid gold.’
“Grandpa told me what a glorious personage the Savior is and described His hands, feet, countenance and beautiful White Robes, all of which were of such a glory of whiteness and brightness that he could hardly gaze upon Him.
“Then grandpa said … ‘I want you to remember that this is the testimony of your grandfather, that he told you with his own lips that he actually saw the Savior here in the Temple and talked with Him face to face’” (Allie Young Pond, personal journal).

Let me close with an example of how one whose light was burning bright affected others and turned what was a haunted place, at least for one person, into a holy place. It comes from an article written by Rick Reilly, who in my opinion is one of the best sportswriters of our time. It was written in the fall of 2012. Because he writes so well, I will quote extensively from his version of the story:

In the scrub-brush desert town of Queen Creek, Ariz., high school bullies were throwing trash at sophomore Chy Johnson. Calling her “stupid.” Pushing her in the halls. [Making it, I would say, a haunted place.]

Chy’s brain works at only a third-grade level because of a genetic birth defect, but she knew enough to feel hate.

“She’d come home every night at the start of the school year crying and upset,” says her mom, Liz Johnson. “That permanent smile she had, that gleam in her eye, that was all gone.”

Her mom says she tried to talk to teachers and administrators and got nowhere. So she tried a whole new path—the starting quarterback of the undefeated football team. After all, senior Carson Jones had once escorted Chy to the Special Olympics.

“Just keep your ear to the ground,” Liz wrote to Carson on his Facebook page. “Maybe get me some names?”

But Carson Jones did something better than that. Instead of ratting other kids out, he decided to take one in — Chy.

He started asking her to eat at the cool kids’ lunch table with him and his teammates. “I just thought that if they saw her with us every day, maybe they’d start treating her better,” Carson says. . . .

It got better. Starting running back Tucker Workman made sure somebody was walking between classes with Chy. In classes, cornerback Colton Moore made sure she sat in the row right behind the team.

Just step back a second. In some schools, it’s the football players doing the bullying. At Queen Creek, they’re stopping it. And not with fists—with straight-up love for a kid most teenage football players wouldn’t even notice, much less hang out with. . . .

It’s working.

“I was parking my car yesterday, and I saw a couple of the guys talking to her and being nice,” says offensive lineman Bryce Oakes. “I think it’s making a difference around here.”

And the best thing is? The football players didn’t tell anybody.

“I didn’t know about any of this until three weeks ago,” says Carson’s mom, Rondalee, who’s raising four boys and a daughter by herself. “He finally showed me an article they wrote here locally. I said, ‘Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you tell me this?’”

All of a sudden, Chy started coming home as her bubbly self again. When her mom asked why she was so happy, she said, “I’m eating lunch with my boys!” . . .

I get emailed stories like this a lot, but most of the time they don’t pan out. They turn out to be half true, or true for the first week but not the second. But when I walked into the Queen Creek High School cafeteria Tuesday, unannounced, there was 4-foot-high Chy with 11 senior football players, eating her lunch around the most packed lunch table you’ve ever seen, grinning like it was Christmas morning. . . .

“I thank Carson every chance I see him,” says Chy’s mom. “He’s an amazing young man. He’s going to go far in life.”

Nobody knows how far Chy Johnson will go in life. The life expectancy of those afflicted with her disease, microcephaly, is only 25–30 years. But her sophomore year, so far, has been unforgettable. [I might say it has been turned from a haunted place into a holy place.] . . .

But what about next year, when Carson probably will be on his Mormon mission and all of Chy’s boys will have graduated?

Not to worry. Carson has a little brother on the team, Curtis, who’s in Chy’s class.

“Mom,” he announced at the dinner table the other night, “I got this.”

Lucky girl.30

Spring came late that year, and by May it was still cool and rainy. One night Brother Hanson had an artery burst in his chest. He died before any of us had the chance to even see him.
Our whole troop attended the funeral. We sat together on the bench in our Scout uniforms. Troops from the community were there, too—in fact, one whole side of the chapel was a sea of Scouts.
Afterward, my family took me out to the gravesite. My mom kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye like she was worried. I stood silently and stared at the coffin lying above that deep, empty hole.
“Would you like to stay a little longer, Philip?” she asked before she left for the car.
I nodded. I stood until I was the last person left. The rain dripped into my eyes and dribbled down the back of my collar, but I hardly noticed. It seemed to me that the earth was grieving for what it had lost, for what we had all lost.
I kicked at the dark sodden ground with my toe. It was good dirt, and very solid. I knew that that would have pleased him. I whispered my last and only good-bye, then turned for the car and home.

When Ulisses Soares was a young man, one of his friends invited him to a costume party. It sounded like a lot of fun.
“But as soon as I arrived, I saw people doing bad things that were against what I had been taught,” Elder Soares recalls. “I asked myself, ‘How could I have put myself in this situation?’ I knew better.”
Elder Soares had received a ride to the party from some friends and had no way of getting home until after the party ended. He quickly said a prayer.
“I said, Lord, help me. I made a mistake,” he remembers. “As soon as I had finished, He guided me. I found a way out of the home and stayed outside during the whole party.”
The next day at church, he says, “I was able to worthily partake of the sacrament even though all kinds of bad things were happening around me the night before.”
That experience was one of several in his youth that taught Elder Soares the importance of holding tight to the iron rod.

I can remember one day at recess we had the whole second grade playing a lively game of Red Rover. The boy I liked more than any other boy in the whole class was it. He stood surveying the situation for a moment, and then he called, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Gay on over.” I took off running as fast as I could. I had to try to make it over to the other side without his catching me. I ran faster than I have ever run before; I guess I learned at an early age to play hard-to-get. This boy came really close, but I ran from one side of the field to the other without being tagged. Success! Unfortunately, I was running too quickly to stop, and I ran right into a barbed-wire fence. It is important that in our lives we do our best and work our hardest to achieve our goals, but we must be certain that the outcome leads us to where we want to be. Our goals must be directed to the future, to happiness, and to perfection. “Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 144:15).

Recognizing the consistent comfort and guidance of the Holy Ghost has always been one of the most tender evidences of God’s love for me. I’ve always felt profound gratitude for the personal guidance I receive from the Holy Ghost. Because of my illness, I had to relearn to do the most simple tasks, and going through that process meant learning to listen in new, important ways. The Holy Ghost helped me with everything from not eating too fast or taking too big a bite when I was relearning to eat to learning whether to push my limit or back off when relearning how to sit or stand up.
The Holy Ghost also taught me to focus on my caregivers rather than my own pain and discomfort. I was regularly prompted to say, “Tell me your story.” The Holy Ghost taught me of the heroism of these hardworking, overworked angels and instructed me to testify to them of God’s love for them and to acknowledge their nobility. Focusing on something besides my own miserable condition was important training to think of others before myself when my personal needs were so huge.
God’s love is evident in the lessons learned in each of our personalized curriculums and His unfailing companionship through them.
The most important lesson I learned was to praise Him: to acknowledge unceasingly that He is good; that He has all knowledge, love, light, and power; and that His perfect plan has power to save His children. I rejoice in being a part of it.
Praise is more than gratitude. It implies trust, a sense of God’s love for us personally, and an acknowledgement of His consistent comfort and guidance. Praise saved me from despair.
Elder Christofferson concludes his talk: “In the end, it is the blessing of a close and abiding relationship with the Father and the Son that we seek. It makes all the difference and is everlastingly worth the cost.”4
Francis Webster, a survivor of the Martin handcart company, expressed it perfectly: “The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay.”5 I am a witness: it is a privilege indeed.
The image of praise in the hymn “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” expresses my joy that God is my Father, that Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer, and that the Holy Ghost is my teacher and testator—that these three are indeed my truest, most unfailing and faithful Friends.
Finish then, thy new creation; true and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee.
Changed from glory into glory, till in heav’n we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.”6
This beautiful hymn is referencing Revelation 4:10–11:
“The [faithful] fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou has created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”
We receive those crowns by virtue of the perfect obedience and generosity of Jesus Christ. He shared His earned inheritance with us, who could never earn it without Him. How fitting that we should cast those crowns at His feet, in eternal praise for His goodness and the goodness of our great Father, who would allow that perfect Son to suffer all our hard things with us so that He could share celestial glory with us.
I was spared to witness that I’ve learned these things by the power of the Holy Ghost. For this priceless knowledge, I praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The author lives in Utah.

Miracles are brought about through fasting and sincere prayer. In 1850 Lorenzo Snow, who later became president of the Church, labored in Italy as a missionary, trying to open that country to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was somewhat shy and self-conscious, but spiritually, he was a giant. One family who had befriended him had a critically ill child. In fact, Elder Snow realized that only through sincere fasting, mighty prayer, unswerving faith, and through the power of the priesthood could that three-year-old child be saved. He knew how much the healing of this boy would mean to the people in this small Italian village.
Climbing with his companion to a place of seclusion on the foothills of the Alps just above the village, in the spirit of fasting and prayer, he earnestly petitioned and pleaded with the Lord for six long, anxious hours for the privilege of using divine power to heal that little boy. Finally, the answer came; the reply was yes, he would be granted the privilege.
As a humble servant of the Lord, he walked down the mountainside with perfect faith that the dying child’s life would be spared. The boy was then given a blessing and a promise that he would live. A few hours later when Elder Snow and his companion returned to the home, they found that the child was greatly improved and was well on the way to recovery. Elder Snow realized that his fasting and prayer had reached the throne of a benevolent Heavenly Father. He remarked to the grateful parents: “The God of heaven has done this for you.” (See Eliza R. Snow, Biography of Lorenzo Snow, pp. 128–29.)