Gospel Story Finder

Lori:
No two days were the same on our mission. Some days we were out in the bush, knee-deep in water or mud. Other days were spent in the mission office. With Public Affairs missionaries, we visited the Ministry of Cults and Religion. In Cambodia, the term “cult” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The official religion is Buddhism—everything else is considered a cult. We visited the Ministry to help set the precedent that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a good organization and can be trusted.
We developed a good rapport with them, and they were quick to call for help. They’d call and say, “We’ve had a flood, and we need food for 200 families who have been displaced.” They knew they could rely on the Church to get stuff to where it was needed fast and supplement the things they didn’t have.

When I was 11, my family had to leave East Germany. We moved to Frankfurt, West Germany. I attended the Frankfurt Branch, which was not as big as the one in Zwickau. The Frankfurt meetinghouse was small, and we had classes in the basement. The missionaries taught us important gospel principles.
One missionary, Elder Stringham, impressed me very much with his lessons on the Pearl of Great Price, especially where Moses is being taught that he is a son of God (see Moses 1:3–4). Elder Stringham also taught me the scripture that says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). This gave me comfort and courage, because at that time the future looked bleak in Germany. The city of Frankfurt was in ruins with bombed-out buildings. That teaching has stayed with me throughout my life. It taught me that I need to be on the Lord’s side. I cannot afford not to be on the Lord’s side.

Another time—it was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, about 1943—I went to priesthood meeting. There was a large framed board. It had the pictures of all the young men serving in the military. Priests who had been at the sacrament table a few months earlier were now in the war. Each week it would be updated. Those who were killed in action had a gold star by their picture; those who had been wounded, a red star; and those missing in action, a white star. Every week, as a 12-year-old deacon, I checked to see who had been killed or wounded.

In quorum meeting that morning, the member of the bishopric said, “This Thursday is Thanksgiving. We ought to all have family prayer in our homes.” Then he said, “Let’s put on the blackboard the things we are grateful for.” We did, and he said, “Include these things in your Thanksgiving prayer.” I got sick to my stomach, as we never had a prayer or blessing.

That night at 6:30 we went to sacrament meeting. At the end of the meeting, the bishop stood up and was very tender. He told about the young men from our ward who had been killed and wounded. He talked about our liberty, our freedom, our flag, and this great country, and our blessings. Then he said, “I’d hope every single family would kneel and have family prayer on Thanksgiving Day and thank God for His blessings.”

My heart ached. I thought, “How can we have family prayer?” I wanted to be obedient. I hardly slept all Sunday night. I wanted to have a prayer for Thanksgiving. I even thought I would say it if someone asked me, but I was too shy to volunteer. I worried all day Monday, and all day Tuesday, and Wednesday at school.

Dad did not come home on Wednesday until early in the morning. Thursday we all got up. There were five boys and two sisters. We skipped breakfast so we would have a real appetite for Thanksgiving dinner. To work up an appetite, we went to a nearby field and dug a hole six feet deep and six feet wide. We made a trench to it as a hideout. I remember with every shovelful of dirt, I thought, “Please, Heavenly Father, let us have a prayer.”

Finally at 2:30, my mother called us to come and eat. We cleaned up and sat at the table. Somehow Mom had managed to have a turkey with all the trimmings. She put all the food on the table, including the turkey. I thought my heart would burst. Time was running out. I looked at my father, then my mother. I thought, “Please, now, someone, anyone, please can’t we have a prayer.” I was almost panicky; then all of a sudden everyone started to eat. I had worked hard all morning and afternoon to work up an appetite, but I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t want to eat. I wanted to pray more than anything else in this world, and it was too late.

Material blessings are a part of the gospel if they are achieved in the proper way and for the right purpose. I am reminded of an experience of President Hugh B. Brown. As a young soldier in World War I, he was visiting an elderly friend in the hospital. This friend was a millionaire several times over who, at the age of eighty, was lying at death’s door. Neither his divorced wife nor any of his five children cared enough to come to the hospital to see him. As President Brown thought of the things his friend “had lost which money could not buy and noted his tragic situation and the depth of his misery,” he asked his friend how he would change the course of his life if he had it to live over again.
The old gentleman, who died a few days later, said: “‘As I think back over life the most important and valuable asset which I might have had but which I lost in the process of accumulating my millions, was the simple faith my mother had in God and in the immortality of the soul.
“‘… You asked me what is the most valuable thing in life. I cannot answer you in better words than those used by the poet.’” He asked President Brown to get a little book out of his briefcase from which he read a poem entitled “I’m an Alien.”
I’m an alien, to the faith my mother taught me.
I’m a stranger to the God that heard my mother when she cried.
I’m an alien to the comfort that, “Now I lay me,” brought me.
To the everlasting arms that held my father when he died.
When the great world came and called me, I deserted all to follow.
Never noting in my blindness I had slipped my hand from His.
Never dreaming in my dazedness that the bubble fame is hollow.
That the wealth of gold is tinsel, as I since have learned it is.
I have spent a lifetime seeking things I spurned when I found them,
I have fought and been rewarded in many a winning cause,
But I’d give it all, fame and fortune and the pleasures that surround them,
If I only had the faith that made my mother what she was.
“That was the dying testimony of a man who was born in the Church but had drifted far from it. That was the brokenhearted cry of a lonely man who could have anything money could buy, but who had lost the most important things of life in order to accumulate this world’s goods” (Continuing the Quest, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961, pp. 32–35; italics added).

“I didn’t take Young Women very seriously for a while as a teenager. But one day I saw my mom (who was a Young Women leader) working on projects for the youth program. I remember feeling so inspired by her example to progress spiritually, so I tried to change my attitude.
“I started truly learning what the gospel of Jesus Christ meant for my life. Over the years, I felt a witness that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. Even when life was hard as I was figuring out my life after my teenage years, as I kept holding onto those things I knew were true as a young woman, I had so many spiritual experiences that have made my testimony what it is today.”
Sundae I., Misamis Oriental, Philippines

Many years ago, before I was called to the Quorum of the Twelve, I had the opportunity to address a business convention in Dallas, Texas—known as “the city of churches.” After the convention I took a sightseeing bus ride about the city’s suburbs. As we would pass the beautiful churches, our driver would comment, “On the left you see the Methodist church,” or “There on the right is the Catholic cathedral.” As we passed a beautiful red brick building situated upon a hill, the driver informed us, “That building is where the Mormons meet.”

A lady’s voice from the rear of the bus asked, “Driver, can you tell us something about the Mormons?” The driver pulled the bus over to the side of the road, turned around in his seat, and replied, “Lady, all I know about the Mormons is that they meet in that red brick building. Is there anyone on this bus who knows anything about the Mormons?”

I gazed at the expression on each person’s face for some sign of recognition, some desire to comment. I found nothing—not a sign. Then I realized the truth of the statement “When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past.” For the next 15 minutes I had the privilege of giving, as Peter declared, “a reason [for] the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). At that time I developed a much greater appreciation concerning the matter of preparation.

When I found out that a little girl in my ward named Courtney had cancer, I wanted to help her. I have a little brother the same age as Courtney, and I knew I would be sad if my brother was going through what she is. So I found a way to raise some money for her treatments!
My Three Little Pigs
I had three pigs—Oreo, Lightning, and Rosie. I took care of them since they were babies. I loved giving them marshmallows, taking them for walks on leashes, and spending time with them. I was planning to sell one of my pigs at the county fair to help save up for my goal to become a veterinarian.
I Wanted to Help
Just before the county fair, I found out that Courtney was sick with cancer. My neighborhood decided to have a garage sale to raise money for her treatments. When I saw everyone else working so hard, I wanted to do my part, but I didn’t have any money to give.
The Day of the Fair
I decided to use the money from selling my pig at the fair to help Courtney. When the day of the fair came, I was a little sad because at first my pig wasn’t raising much money. But when people at the fair heard that the money was for Courtney, they wanted to pitch in.
We Helped
I got to give the money from my pig to the garage sale fundraiser. By the end of the fundraiser, we had helped raise a lot of money for Courtney’s treatments.
Courtney’s Courage
Courtney is done with cancer treatments, but she goes back for tests to make sure she’s still healthy. Her hair is growing back, and she loves having more energy. She always has a good attitude and a smile. Courtney and her family are grateful for how much Heavenly Father has blessed them.

After I had been living in Fairfield, Ohio, for about a year, the Nielson family moved into our neighborhood. It wasn’t long until Brett Nielson and I became best friends. One day he asked me to go to his church for a dinner. My parents said it was OK.
When we arrived at the Church, he showed me around the building. Later we saw a movie called Meet the Mormons, and he asked if I’d like to join the Mormon Church. I said I might, and when I got home I told my mom that I wanted to be a Mormon when I grew up.
My mom thought she’d better see what her son was getting into. So she went to see Sister Nielson, and asked her if she had any books about the Mormons. Sister Nielson gave Mom some books and pamphlets to read.
Pretty soon the missionaries gave us the discussions and we were baptized. Dad was baptized a year later and this year we were sealed together as a family for time and all eternity.
Even though we have since moved to St. Clairsville, Ohio, Brett and I are just like brothers. We plan to go to Brigham Young University together. I know that when you bring the gospel to someone, you grow closer to that person.

When Elder Kimball served his mission it was still customary for missionaries to travel without “purse or scrip” (D&C 84:78), relying on the hospitality and goodwill of friends and strangers alike.
"I went on one trip [in Virginia] with a young elder, and I say it with a good deal of pride, six hundred miles, without purse and without scrip and without friends. No man had ever heard the voice of a ‘Mormon’ elder where we traveled. We left a trail behind us, a trail that other elders have traveled, and at no time during that three months did I sleep outdoors, but I came mighty near it a lot of times. I thought the Lord had surely forsaken us, at times, but when it came to the last test, someone’s heart was softened, and they fed us and they gave us a bed so we had no use for money" (in Conference Report, Apr. 1921, p. 179).

When I was a teenager, I developed faith that marriage could be a wonderful and eternal experience. It was difficult for me to always believe, however, because the examples of marriage I had growing up were not strong ones, and I kept a fear of marriage in my heart. But I determined that failure and unhappiness didn’t have to be the rule and that Heavenly Father would help me know how to have a happy marriage.
When I was 26 years old, I married Sidnei in the São Paulo Brazil Temple. While we were still dating, we tried to prepare ourselves spiritually and emotionally for the most significant event of our lives. We decided what type of marriage we wanted, we established goals together, and we shared our thoughts—our testimonies of the gospel, our wishes and worries, and our dreams. We also read together the counsel of the prophets on marriage. We did everything we could to prepare, wishing to provide happiness and security to each other and our future children. We asked the Lord to give us wisdom to live a happy life.
Now we have been married for 18 years. During these years, we have continued to learn from the precepts of the gospel, the counsel of our leaders, and, of course, the Spirit. Some of the things we have done to have a strong, happy marriage are:
Pray together every day. When we pray at night, we thank Heavenly Father for our marriage, for the love we have for each other, and we ask that our feelings will be strengthened and that we can become strong individually in the face of the designs of the adversary, who works to destroy families.
Ask for forgiveness. We work to never allow pride to keep us from asking for forgiveness or admitting we are wrong. Love and unity are more important than who is right or who is wrong.
Never speak evil of each other. It is obvious that neither of us is perfect, but we don’t say bad things about each other, and when we’re with others, we speak positively about each other.
Defend the institution of marriage. Whenever we have a chance—and especially if we are around people who are criticizing the institution of marriage—we stand up for families and what we believe in.
Talk a lot and listen. We stop what we are doing to really listen when the other person is talking.
Treat each other with love and consideration. We do not insult, accuse, or criticize each other.
Continue to seek help and counsel about marriage from the scriptures and the words of modern prophets. We do not know everything. We are imperfect and prone to forgetting and making mistakes. We prefer not to wait for problems to afflict us, but instead we work to build a strong marriage before a situation can hurt us.
These things have been instrumental in strengthening the relationship between my husband and me. I know that if we share our lives and our feelings with Heavenly Father and seek counsel from Him, the Holy Ghost will inspire us and we will be able to become an eternal family, overcoming all difficult times. We also know that Heavenly Father will help us as we seek to know and do His will.

The fourteen-month-old son of a doctor became very ill. During the course of his treatment many consultants were brought in, but their contributions resulted only in a symptomatic approach to the disease. The result was that the child’s condition steadily worsened. His temperature was 104 degrees and the family had entirely given up hope for his recovery; his death was expected momentarily. At this point, a number of miraculous things happened. On their own and without a previous appointment, the bishop and his counselors came to visit the family. At the request of the family, they administered to the child. Almost immediately following the blessing, an intern, who was a friend of the family, stepped into the room and said, “Why not give him a transfusion?” The intern was a universal blood donor, and blood was taken from him immediately and given to the child. The child’s temperature dropped from 104 degrees to normal and remained at normal throughout his hospital stay. This is a case where medical aid had essentially failed; and on the basis of what medicine could offer, the child’s life had been despaired. The priesthood came into the picture, and the administration was followed by additional medical steps that previously had not been projected. The child’s life was saved. Today he has matured and has a lovely wife and family.

When I was president of the Southern States Mission, we converted a lovely schoolteacher down in Florida. And at the close of one of our conferences she came up to me and said, “President Richards, I’m going to get married. What do you think of that?”
“Oh,” I said, “I think it’s wonderful. Do I know him?”
“No.”
I said, “Is he a member of the Church?”
“No.” I didn’t dare tell her that she couldn’t marry out of the Church down there, because I didn’t know where she could find a man in the Church except our Mormon elders, and we had hands-off signs hanging all over them.
I said, “You’re a beautiful, sweet, clean Mormon girl, and you could never be happy with an unclean man. In your association with him you’ll know whether he’s clean or not and whether he’d take advantage of you if you’d permit him. He must be a prayerful man because, as wicked as the world is today, I wouldn’t trust any man to be true to his wife and children if he doesn’t believe that there is a God and that someday he will have to answer to him for his life here upon the earth. Your young man must be willing to let you raise your children in the Church because, knowing as you do that the God of heaven has restored his truth to the earth, you would be a very unhappy woman if you had children and couldn’t teach them the gospel. If he measures up, let me know when he joins the Church.” I didn’t see her for about four months, when we had another conference. Her train was late, and after the meeting she came along the aisle. I could see she was headed for me, so I went down and said, “Name, please?”
“Oh, I’m still Miss So-and-so.”
I said, “What became of the marriage?”
“He didn’t come up to your specifications.” Well, that’s the way you should judge, before you get married, that you’re laying the right kind of foundation.

A young man stood in the dim morning light, snow dusting his shoulders. He held a formidable snowball in his hand and shrank against the wall like a TV detective.
“You’ve got five minutes,” he bawled, “and then I’m coming in after you!”
Before the deadline, girls started spilling into the cold, breathing white columns as they crunched to breakfast with the young men waiting outside for them.
The Laurels and priests from Pocatello, Idaho, had arrived in West Yellowstone, Montana, to find themselves in a Christmas-card city that lay under seven feet of snow. Snowmobiles outnumbered cars on the city streets, and even tall people had to look up to see the tops of drifts. The young people were in town to make a 50-mile, round-trip snowmobile journey to Old Faithful.
They gathered around a line of snow-covered snowmobiles and, like medieval warriors, started helping each other suit up in their thermal armor—goggles, helmets, fur caps, stocking caps, and ear muffs; fur coats, leather coats, and ski-tagged parkas; ski masks, scarves, and knitted mufflers; quilted jump suits, ski pants, levis, and bib overalls; mittens, ski gloves, dress gloves, and snowmobiling gauntlets; hiking boots, snowmobiling boots, moon boots, and waffle stompers; and a flurry of other odds and ends in a rainbow of colors. When they were finally ready to face the potentially sub-zero weather, they looked like the first wave of a Martian invasion. And in a brief moment of silence as they admired the science fiction effect, a female voice wailed, “My earring’s stuck in my muffler!”
It was not the kind of morning they had dreamed about. Instead of a burning blue sky and sparkling drifts there was the gray pall of a snowstorm; and the shiver down their backs wasn’t excitement, it was wet snow. But the group brought its own sunshine, and their happy laughter made it clear that weather could not spoil the trip. When they gathered in the snow for prayer and thanked the Lord for the beautiful day, it was obvious that they really meant it.
Their guide explained safety rules and gave a few instructions on the operation of the machines. Then with the twanging of taut pull-cords, the engines roared to life, and the adventure began.
They skimmed along the road that carries caravans of tourist cars in the summer, but now it was under many feet of packed snow. Flying through the thick of the storm, they all soon became white statues, and from a distance their headlights looked like a string of pale torches winding through the mountains of some other century.
The veil of snow gave the world an aspect not only of timelessness but of placelessness; all sharp edges were blurred, and the landscape had the unreal quality of a Monet painting. Forests of dark trees became horizontal sweeps of vertical shadows, and mountain peaks dim vacancies of an uncertain distance.
The road ran along the Firehole River where swans floated and complacent elk fed along the shore as if all alone in the world. Upstream the river narrowed into a deep gorge, and snowmobilers wound along the side of it, slicing through a universe of clean white powder and feeling like explorers on some other world.
They stopped by a waterfall that plummeted from precipice to precipice and sent white spray up into the white snow. It was more like a vision than a view, and the young men and women were one moment boisterous with the exuberance of it and the next moment silent with an overwhelming sense of awe.
Miles of snow and scenery later, there were buffalo. They materialized out of the great, shaggy-gray shadows, too beautiful to be true. Later there were more of them in a broad, open meadow, and beyond the immense white of the meadow, the dark line of another forest, like a landscape from Dr. Zhivago.
They left the river and turned their runners down narrow, powdery lanes between tall evergreens, past boiling mud pots and geysers steaming in the snow—on to Old Faithful.
There was time then for lunch and some much-needed rest in the visitors’ center at Old Faithful. “Why are we so tired if we’ve been sitting down?” asked one young man as he sprawled on a bench, his snow gear scattered around him on the floor.
The deep snow outside and a little free time were too great a temptation, and soon a mammoth snow battle was in progress. Peace wasn’t fully restored until it was time for Old Faithful to blow. It turned out to be a subdued spectacle, a next-to-invisible shaft of blue-gray steam against the blue-gray sky. But the contrast to a summer eruption only made the wonder of the situation more intense. It was strange to stand in winter where so many thousands of people had stood in the summer, strange because they now stood high above the ground on a platform of snow in the heart of a kingdom that until a few years ago was inaccessible in the wintertime. It was like being able to visit the far side of the moon.
Going home there was time for a stop at some mud pots, some more close-up wildlife study, and a lot more snow. Almost everybody ran out of gas, and some snowmobiles broke down, but there was a mechanic bringing up the rear with fuel and spare parts, so no one had to winter it out.
In a sort of farewell gesture the sun broke through for a while down the home stretch and displayed a silver river, with silver rushes, silver swans, and a snow-silver forest beyond.
By the time the machines were parked, everyone was cold, wet, tired, sore, and limp. Mascara had run down over cheek bones, noses were red, and hair was plastered to foreheads. These young Mormons were beautiful.
What had they learned from the experience? Only what they already knew—that they were friends, in spite of the fact that they came from two arch-rival Pocatello high schools, that God’s works are beautiful, that doing wholesome things with good people is fun—but it was good to learn it all again.

Sister Kirts, a professional hairdresser, met a family who had come to her salon for haircuts. They were donating their hair as their family’s Christmas project. From them she got the information about donating hair and did a little research. A minimum of 10 inches of hair was needed, bound in a ponytail. Especially needed was fine, light colored hair that would be more appropriate for children’s wigs.
With some hesitation, Sister Kirts presented the idea to the girls in her ward. It wouldn’t help Jessica directly, but the donation of their hair would help other girls and boys. At first, the thought was stunning. Ten inches! That was so much. “They were petrified at first,” said Sister Kirts. “I didn’t want to pressure them. But later that day, the phone just started ringing. And, one at a time, the girls called and said, ‘I’m in.’ I couldn’t believe that they would do it.”
The word spread through the ward. Even two little girls from Primary joined the Young Women in donating their hair. The local newspaper and a television station covered the event because so many girls were donating their hair at the same time. And at Christmastime, people could not help but compare this event to O. Henry’s story “Gift of the Magi,” about a young couple who each gives up the thing they value most to buy a gift for the other. In the story, the young wife sells her long hair to buy a chain for her husband’s heirloom watch. He, in turn, sells the watch to buy combs for his wife’s beautiful hair.
After the young women’s story aired on the news and was printed in the newspaper, the salon offered to cut the hair of anyone who wanted to donate it. Dozens of people responded. “Teenagers have so much power for good or for bad,” said Sister Kirts. “For these people who came to donate their hair, their biggest reason was that if an 18-year-old girl can do this, I can too.”
Rachael Ward, another of the Young Women in the Redondo First Ward, was a little frightened to go back to school after Christmas vacation with her new short hair. “It was awful waiting for that day. Everyone noticed my hair, even people I didn’t know before. A lot of people looked at me differently. They said it made them realize that people really do good deeds for each other. It’s not just a story on television. That made me feel good.”
Rachael’s friend Brittanie Streetmaker also donated her hair. “I was nervous, but now whenever I look in the mirror, I think of a little girl who will be so happy to have a cute styled wig. My friends ask me if I miss my hair, and I say I do, but I don’t regret it for a second.”
Editor’s note: Jessica is home from the hospital. She still suffers from partial paralysis and is continuing treatment for aplastic anemia. She loves the way the girls sacrificed to help others.

“I’m hungry,” Becky grumbled as she plodded along behind the wagon.
“Me, too!” Jonathan said. “Do you think Pa would mind if we stopped to pick some berries?”
Becky shook her head. “We’d better not. Pa says that if we don’t keep up with the rest of the wagons, we won’t be able to get down the mountain.”
“I wish Ma were here.” Jonathan’s eyes filled with tears. “She’d find us something to eat.”
From the front of the wagon came the sound of music, and Jonathan perked up a little. “Jacob’s hungry, too,” he said. “He always plays that harmonica when his stomach growls.”
Laughing, they hurried along. Sure enough, Jacob Brewster was tapping his foot and playing as hard as he could. With one hand he guided the oxen; with the other he played “Old Dan Tucker” on his mouth organ.
Jacob Brewster was seventeen years old and an orphan. He had asked to join the wagon train in North Platte, and Pa had offered him meals and a place on their wagon if Jacob would help with the oxen.
Soon the signal came to stop, and Becky made a thin gruel from a small handful of cornmeal sweetened with a few drops of carefully hoarded molasses. Pa cut each of them a small piece of hardtack, and they dipped the pieces of tough biscuit into the gruel.
“Brother Snow says that we’re almost there,” Pa said. “He thinks that we’ll make it in the next two days.”
Jonathan jumped up and down. “Really, Pa? Does he really mean it?” Pa just smiled and nodded.
The noon meal over, Becky and Jacob quickly repacked the wagon and stomped out the small campfire.
Just after the family had left Omaha, Nebraska, Becky’s mother had taken a bad fall from the wagon. Within a week she had died. Now fifteen-year-old Becky had to fix all the meals, take care of the wagon, and help young Jonathan get over their mother’s death. It wasn’t easy when she still missed Ma terribly herself.
Hurriedly Becky filled the water cans from the small stream. With a gentle touch she watered the lilac slips that her mother had so carefully tended. In her mind she could hear her mother’s sweet voice tell Pa: “Why, it won’t be home without lilacs around the door! Don’t you worry, Becky and I will take care of them.”
“Time to go, Becky.” Pa’s shout broke into her reverie.
“I’m ready, Pa. Jonathan, why don’t you ride for a while.” She helped her seven-year-old brother into the back of the wagon, knowing that in a little while he would be asleep.
The trail up the mountain grew steeper, and the pace began to slow. Anxiously Becky watched the darkening sky. A thunderstorm is one thing that we don’t need today, she thought.
The huge clouds grew darker. The slight breeze gusted fiercely, then became a stiff wind. From the north came the first flashes of lightning.
“Becky! We’ll have to lighten the load if we want to get up this mountain.” Pa’s words were all but lost in the wind. “Wake Jonathan and unload everything that we can possibly leave behind.”
“Yes, Pa.” Becky hurried to obey.
Out went the extra washtub and the small chest of linens that her mother had so carefully packed for Becky’s hope chest. Jonathan tearfully dumped his precious rock collection, and Becky resolutely removed the extra bedrolls and cooking pots.
What a loss! she thought as she carefully set the pots on the ground. We’ll never be able to replace them.
“What about these?” Jonathan asked.
Becky turned to see the bucket of lilac slips in the young boy’s hand. “No, not those, Jon!” she cried. “I promised Mama that we’d plant those by our new home.”
Pa put his arm around Becky’s slight shoulders and gave her a hug. “Yes,” he said. “The lilacs stay.”
The sky became an angry black, and the thunder rolled from mountain to mountain.
“We’ll have to pull off and stop, Brother Webster,” Jacob called. “The trail will turn into a slippery mud slide as soon as the rain hits.”
Looking around, Jacob spied a level clearing off to the left of the trail and guided the wagon over to it. The other wagons followed.
As if on signal, the rain began. Great, heavy drops splattered here and there at first, then came down in a torrent. The north wind blew the rain in sheets, the thunder roared, and the lightning blazed continually across the sky.
Inside the wagon the four shivered as they listened to the storm. Jonathan’s eyes were round with fear, and Becky held him close. They could hear trees being split by the lightning, and the wagons creaking with the wind.
Suddenly the tether holding the oxen snapped. The freed animals took off, heading for the meadow below. Pa and Jacob leapt from the wagon. “Stay here with Jonathan, Becky!” Pa called. “Jacob, you go straight down, and I’ll circle around behind them.”
The men disappeared into the driving rain. Becky and Jonathan anxiously waited. Finally the rain began to lessen, and the thunder grew more distant. When Becky peered from the wagon, she saw limbs strewn like kindling and several trees completely uprooted. Although most of the other wagons had weathered the storm well, some of the smaller ones had lost canvas. There was no sign of Pa or Jacob.
Night was approaching, and Jonathan was hungry. “When’s Pa coming, Becky?”
“He’ll be here soon. Don’t worry.” Becky tried to sound calm, but inside she trembled at the thought of a night alone. There were other wagons nearby, but those folks had troubles of their own, and Becky knew that Pa would want her to stay put.
She gave Jonathan some beef jerky and tried to bed him down for the long night ahead. It was chilly in the wagon with its damp canvas, and Becky wished that she still had the discarded bedrolls. Finally she managed to get Jonathan to sleep.
Overhead the stars gleamed brightly. All traces of the thunderclouds were gone. Samuel Walker came over to check on them and, when he found them alone, wanted to take them back to his wagon.
“No, thank you, Brother Walker,” Becky said bravely. “Pa told us to stay here. He’d be worried sick if he came back and we were gone.”
Around midnight Jacob returned, leading one of the oxen. “I had a terrible time getting up the mountain in the mud,” he said weakly. “Where’s your father?”
“He hasn’t come back yet. Oh, Jacob, do you think he’s all right?”
Jacob could see the worry in Becky’s face. “He probably holed up when it got dark,” he said consolingly. Then he added as he slumped wearily onto the wagon floor, “Be sure to wake me when he comes.”
Morning brought no sign of Pa. Search groups were hastily organized, with Jacob leading the main one. “We’ll find him,” he said, patting Becky gently on the arm. He gave Jonathan a loving hug and was on his way.
At midmorning Jonathan spotted the first searchers returning. “Here they come, Becky. Do you see Pa?”
Becky squinted into the bright sunlight and carefully scanned each group as it appeared. The men were downcast and returning slowly. Suddenly she spotted Brother Snow’s brown mare being led by Jacob. Across the saddle, like a huge rag doll, lay the form of a man.
“No! Oh no!” she cried and broke into a run with Jonathan right behind her.
“Pa, Pa,” Becky moaned. “Oh, Jacob, how did it happen?”
Jacob’s eyes were red with grief. “Lightning.” He held Becky close. “At least it was quick.”
Becky gazed at the still form, then quietly slipped to the ground in tears.
Pa was buried near the edge of the small clearing. Becky planted two of the precious lilac slips near the makeshift marker, just as they had planted two on Ma’s grave a few weeks earlier.
Becky stood in the mountain sunshine with Jacob and Jonathan as the simple service was completed. Tears streamed down her face as she held Jonathan’s hand. Jacob’s hand under her elbow steadied her. “Oh, Jacob,” she murmured. “What will I ever do? How can we manage without Pa?”
“Don’t you worry, Becky. I’ll take care of both of you.”
The rest of the afternoon was spent repairing the damage wrought by the summer storm. Wheels were mended and canvases tightened. Bedrolls were laid out in the sun to dry.
About dusk one of the scouts arrived leading the other ox. “Found him a good three miles up the trail,” he said.
Jacob gratefully tethered the animal next to its mate. Women from other wagons prepared a dinner from their own precious food stores for the grieving trio.
As Becky helped Jonathan prepare for bed, she watched Jacob bank the fire and check the wagon. We’ll arrive in the valley the day after tomorrow, she thought. She didn’t know what the future would bring, but she didn’t fear. She had faith that Heavenly Father would watch over Jonathan and her. As she carefully watered the remaining lilacs, she thought, Soon we’ll have a home, and these lilacs will remind us of Mama and Papa. She pulled her shawl tighter around her slim shoulders and went to sit with Jacob in the glow of the dying campfire.

One day when I was about nine or 10 my brother and I discovered a well on Grandma Buckingham's place. It was merely a cement circular wall of about three feet high around this big black hole in the ground. So we started to through rocks into the well but we did not hear an immediate splash! It would take a long time and then we would hear this faint and distant splash. We could not believe our ears! So we did it a couple of more times, the bottom of this well was very, very deep and we had a hard time estimating just how far away it was. The depth of this well was at the limits of our comprehension. So it has been with the principles of grace and mercy that emanates from the atonement of Jesus Christ.

In 2 Nephi 25:23: "...for we know that it is by the grace that we are saved, after all we can do." In 2 Nephi 10:24: "That is only in and through the grace of God that year are saved." In Alma 34:16: "And this mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption." These are deep doctrines and are at the limits of my understanding. Yet when I have reached the edge of my emotional and spiritual strength, when I just couldn't keep going on, when I was fatigued beyond my own understanding, and the well of my resolve had dried up. When I had walked up to the wall that was my limit in combating my personal problems, I received grace and mercy through Jesus Christ. I know what mercy and grace taste like, and it comes from the deep, deep well of ever flowing charity.

Soon the corn was growing in straight green rows. We’d weeded out the suckers and weaker plants, leaving only the sturdiest stalks. Papa pulled three white crayons from his pocket and handed one each to Caroline, Ed, and me.

“I want you to draw a line around the bottom of each cornstalk, so the ants don’t crawl up. They won’t cross that line,” he said and showed us what he meant.

“Will the ants hurt the corn?” I wanted to know.

“No, but the aphids will, and where there are ants there are aphids.”

“Why?”

“The ants milk the aphids like we do cows. They need each other.”

“Do we have to do all the corn?” Ed asked.

“Every plant,” Papa said. “If you each do ten rows a day, it will soon be done. That will help keep the worms out too.”

“Ten rows?” Ed complained. “That’s impossible.”

“OK, eight then,” Papa compromised. “Now get to work.”

Every minute Papa could spare from working in the fields he spent fixing up the house. He added on until we had a front room, kitchen, bedroom, and back porch. He dug out underneath the house to make a cellar to store our food and coal for winter.

Occasionally Papa got a job laying brick for a fireplace chimney, and once he received a horse in trade for his work. It was a gentle, broad-backed creature named Bessie, who would carry as many children as could climb on. When she got tired she would walk under the low limbs of the Early Harvest apple tree and sweep the laughing riders off onto the ground. Ed could leap onto her back with a quick, smooth movement that I envied. I always seemed to get stuck lying across her back on my stomach, unable to wiggle around to swing one leg over and sit upright. Ed usually had to give me a shove that threatened to push me off.

One day I had an idea as I sat on the barn roof watching Ed ride Bessie around the yard. “Bring her over here,” I called. “I want to try something.”

Ed rode over. “OK, here we are,” he said. “Come on down.”

“Back her up under the sliding board,” I said.

Ed could see my idea at once and did as I asked. It was not more than two inches from the end of the board to the horse’s back, and I slid easily from one to the other. After that I always mounted Bessie the same way, and before long she backed herself close to the board as soon as anyone was on the barn roof. She learned to lower her head so we could slide down the board onto her back, over her head, and onto the ground in one quick swoop. We called that game the Bessie Bounce, and it was one of our favorites.

One time Bessie got tangled up in some barbwire and had deep, bleeding cuts on both hind legs when we found her.

Papa came out of the house with a curved needle and some black silk thread.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“To sew her up—like you do a tear in your dress,” he explained and showed me how to take a stitch, tie a knot, cut the thread, and take another stitch.

Quickly the wound was pulled together and Papa washed off the blood.

“It’ll soon be good as new,” he assured us.

After that, whenever an animal had a bad cut, I ran to get the curved needle and thread for Papa and watched while he sewed it up.

Mama, Caroline, and I were busy bottling the produce from the garden. Papa had wrapped the stems of the chard in gunnysacks to keep them white, and we bottled the leaves in one half-gallon jar and the stems in another. It was like having two different vegetables.

We were washing the boiler in the yard after finishing the chard when Papa came in from the garden with a bushel basket full of cucumbers for pickles.

“I picked them just the right size for dills,” he said.

We ran clean water into the boiler and he dumped them in for me to wash, while Caroline went after the crock and some salt to make the brine.

“Be sure you rub them all over until you get all those little black prickles off,” Mama told me.

When Caroline came back she filled the crock half full of water. “How much salt do you want put in?” she asked.

“Enough to float an egg.”

As soon as the egg was floating, I slipped the smooth green “torpedoes” into their briny bath until the crock was full. Mama put a dinner plate upside down on the top and weighted it with a brick to keep the pickles submerged. “They have to soak a week in the brine, then in clear water to soak the salt out,” she explained.

“Why put them in salt in the first place if you only have to get it out later?” I wanted to know.

“It makes them keep better,” she said.

“What do you do next?”

“Soak them in alum water so they’ll be crisp. Then we put them down in the pickle barrel in alternating layers of cukes, dill heads, and grape leaves. Then cover it all with a vinegar brine.”

“Are they ready to eat then?”

“No, they have to cure for about a month first.”

After the big barrel was full of dill pickles we made some sweet ones from tiny cukes and a sugar syrup and kept them in the crock. We bottled bread and butter pickles, mustard pickles, piccalilli, and relish.

When the cucumbers were big and fat and yellow we cut them open, hollowed them out, and made boats to float down the irrigation ditches. I thought pickle season was over, but Mama knew one more kind—ripe cucumber pickles.

The corn was ready next. No vegetable was so deliciously sweet as corn on the cob popped into boiling water as soon as it was picked and husked. The eight-row variety we grew had the kernels spaced just right to bite off easily—four sections with two rows in each.

I loved to walk down the whispering rows with Papa to pick the corn. If the ear felt full and hard and the silk was frizzled brown on the top, it was ready. Papa would grab it firmly and crack it off with a quick, downward jerk.

Sometimes there was a little baby corn with long pink or green hair as smooth as silk growing next to its mama. Once in a great while there were twin corn babies. I always saved these little dolls and made cradles for them to hang in the tree where they rocked in the breeze.

When the corn patch was at its peak of production, Papa carried basket after basket into the shade by the house. There the boys pulled off the husks and put the cobs in a pan for Mama, who was waiting on the back porch with a sharp knife to slice off the kernels.

The chickens always came running and flipped up their feather duster behinds as their heads went down to peck up the corn worms or any discarded kernels they could find. Later they would have a feast cleaning off the cobs when Mama had finished with them.

Caroline put the sliced-off corn into dripper pans, heated it for a while in the oven, and then spread the steaming kernels on flour sacks to finish drying in the sun. Flies swarmed around the fragrant sheets but couldn’t get through the layer of gauze that had been put on top for protection. After several hot days, with an occasional stirring, the hard, dry corn was hung in cloth bags from nails in the rafters so the mice couldn’t get at it.

The husks were dried and saved to be used later for filling mattresses and quilts.

At last the watermelons were ripe. I’ll never forget the crisp, cracking sound when the knife bit into the green shell and spread open the luscious fruit, colored like a rosebud and speckled with flat and shiny black seeds, just right for spitting target practice. Watermelon was the best thing of all at the farm. My face was always sticky from being buried in a piece. We didn’t have to bottle, dry, or preserve watermelons. They were just for enjoying while they were fresh—and they were certainly that!

When my family and I started attending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I felt in my heart that my mom had guided us there.
Mom had died unexpectedly on Christmas Day two years before. She was an incredibly faithful and humble follower of Jesus Christ, but she had never learned about the restored gospel. After 11 months of learning about the Church, my husband, Navid, my daughter, Katie, and I were baptized on Christmas Day. What had once been a day of sadness because of my mother’s passing would now be a day of happiness for our family because of our new life in the gospel.
Many people attended our baptism. I was shocked to see over 100 people there at 10:00 a.m. on Christmas morning! We couldn’t have felt more loved.

“My older brother, Ron, has always been an inspiration to me. I recall one evening when he came home from a Church youth meeting and announced to the family that his teacher had told him that he had to gain his own testimony and receive his own witness and to not rely on that of others. He said—almost prophetically—‘I’m going to gain that personal witness and testimony, no matter how long it takes or what the cost.’
“Ron began reading and studying the scriptures and fasting and praying. One morning a short time later, he was suddenly stricken by a paralysis. He could not move his body and his right side was in terrible pain. He was barely able to whisper to Dad that he wanted a blessing. No sooner had Dad finished blessing his son than Ron was miraculously cured! My brother uncoiled his tense body, straightened up, and was free of pain.
“When he was later examined by a doctor, the diagnosis was that he had had what appeared to be a ruptured appendix but that no trace of damaged tissue was found in his body. Later, my brother told me that during this experience he received his special witness that the Book of Mormon and the gospel were true. He wanted me to know, however, that he had received this knowledge before Dad had blessed him before his healing. He truly had shown faith before the miracle.

When I was in nursing school we completed our study of death and dying by spending time with terminally ill patients in hospital. The assignment consisted of an entire eight-hour shift with that patient filling their psychological as well as physical needs. I can’t express how reluctant I was to face such a patient. I really felt I wouldn’t be able to do it. I even thought of telephoning the school to say I was sick, but my class grade depended upon completion of this assignment.
I felt very inadequate that day as I stepped onto the elevator of the hospital. A constant prayer had been in my heart and mind all through the night and was answered in part as the elevator ascended.
“Don’t be afraid,” the voice whispered.
I doubted back, “But what will I say? How do I talk of death to someone who isn’t a Latter-day Saint?” My mind continued, “I’m the only Latter-day Saint in my whole class … in the whole school. Some of the hospitals I work in don’t have a Latter-day Saint in them on the staff or as a patient.”
Once on the fourth floor, I looked at my patient’s medical chart. This was not our usual routine as we were to assess our patient personally before we ever went to their chart; it was part of the learning exercise. However, something told me to look at her chart before I entered the room. Everything checked out. “Eve Crisp. Terminal cancer—final phase.” But there in the corner under religious affiliation were the letters “LDS.”
Quickly I slipped into her darkened room. Her eyes dimmed by months of suffering brightened a bit as I took her hand in mine and introduced myself as Sister Cain.
We visited easily as I met her physical needs. I learned that my patient still had several children at home. She was only forty-seven years old. She spoke of the Church and a time that she had traveled to attend a general conference. It was one of her fondest memories. I mentioned the upcoming April conference broadcast that would be broadcast the following Sunday morning. She smiled.
Often during the day she would respond to the cries of a little boy down the hall who had been badly burned by saying, “Poor thing, he must be suffering so.” Her sympathy and compassion seemed overwhelming for one suffering so much herself. I marveled at her. The time came all too soon for me to leave. Before I left, I straightened her pillow and reached for her signal light on the bed sheet. As I placed it in her hand she held on to mine and answered the question I was unable to ask.
“The Lord is perfect. His plan for me is perfect and I know he loves me.”
I embraced her and moved silently out into the corridor. I took a deep breath before returning to the main desk to write a note on her chart. The note read: “Please see to it that Mrs. Crisp’s television is tuned to the LDS general conference on Sunday morning at six o’clock.” I then went to a report meeting and bore my testimony to a class of nonmembers that I could only hope would appreciate my remarks.
The following Monday, my supervising instructor called me from my class work into her office. Sister Crisp I was told had died that Sunday morning shortly after the television show she had been watching had ended. I shed tears for her that I would shed for no one else. She had taught me so much—“The Lord is perfect; his plan is perfect and I know he loves me.”