Gospel Story Finder

“Where did they get the old box anyway?”
“In Logan,” Elder Becket chided, “that’s an old box. Here it’s a treasure. They bought it from the Baptists. They had a special dinner to raise the money. Everybody donated food and then paid outlandish prices to eat it. All the money went for the piano. Someday, when the chapel’s built, they’ll have a new one, but right now they have to make do with that. The members are proud of their piano. Even though no one can play it and even though it might be out of tune, that’s one of the most important things in this whole building.”
“If it’s so important to them, why don’t they tune it?”
“No money. Right now they’re trying to raise money so they can start building their chapel. Every extra peso goes for that.”

The river is spread with wisps of morning mist, and a girl with golden hair lies in her sleeping bag, her head propped in her hands. She looks for a long time as the tide flows out. Dragonflies dart in and out of the mist and a light breeze mumbles in the tules across the river. The smell of rich earth, wet reeds, and slow water hangs over her like a summer incense. Above the drowsy hum of insects, a fish now and then makes an indolent plop somewhere, and the water is brown and silver in the morning.
After a while the girl lays her head down and dozes with the others.
With no alarm clocks to make the sun an enemy, the girls slept late that morning on the Sacramento River Delta, and when they awoke, they still felt like the inhabitants of a dream.
The dream began in Danville, California, where the Mia Maids and Laurels of the Danville Ward, along with their adult leaders, met one morning under cloudy skies to load suitcases, sleeping bags, water skis, and supplies into their cars. Later, as they rolled through the lion-colored hills of a California summer, the sun seared away the clouds and burned its seal of approval onto their horizon.
There was magic in that solar endorsement because from that moment the world’s rotation appeared to slow. The three-day adventure seemed to last weeks, and contrary to all previous experience, the more fun the girls had, the longer the days lasted. It was as if time were being poured from a cruse of sunshine that could never run dry.
When they arrived at Bethel Island, the girls poured out of the cars to inspect the small summerhouse that was to be their vacation home. Behind the house was a high levee, and they poured over that also to discover a stream whiskered with docks, the warm, brown tide flowing out. They were happy to learn that this stream was just part of an 1,100 mile spiderweb of interconnecting tidal waterways that they proceeded to christen collectively “The River.” During the next three days the river became the setting for a thousand watery adventures.
The most prevalent adventure was waterskiing. Some girls performed as if they were born on skis, others as if they were likely to die on them. Some cut graceful furrows with slalom skis. Others gouged furrows with their faces; but they kept trying, and eventually everyone got up. They skied and skied under the opulent sun till everyone was bright pink and then bright red. And even then they kept on skiing.
One day they took a trip to the Meadows, a gentle backwater slough where tall, shady trees line a sandy beach. The sky there was blue enough to swim in, and the trees stood out against the sun like negatives of themselves. They nosed the boat into shore alongside tall houseboats and jumped out for a lunch of submarine sandwiches. Afterwards they lazed and floated under the sun and went exploring in the boats through green corridors of smooth water.
They glided under a high railroad bridge where unknown urchins in cut-offs clung like spiders, leaping off now and then as if on filaments of silk.
They nosed up to tangled blackberry thickets that hung over the water, picking and eating the huge berries by the handfuls.
They played king of the hill atop a giant inner tube, splashing like dying stunt men into the white cushion of reflected clouds.
They frolicked like otters among patches of water lilies.
They stood rooted in air, earth, and water, groping with their toes for freshwater clams in the luxurious mud, water to their chests. They skittered frisbees along the shallows, swam with slow, lazy strokes in the deep, and napped on the cool sand of the shore, and when they had done everything once, they started all over again. After all, they had forever. They were Californians, and the sun was their birthright. It stood still for them as if they were so many Joshuas, as if the day, the summer, and their youth would never end.
Once, in the quiet shade of the bank, Bishop Alan P. Johnson could be seen in earnest conversation with a new girl in the ward, as intent as if she were the whole Church.
Late that afternoon they returned home, towing skiers all the way. It was a fitting exit, but by no means to be compared with their entrance that morning, when they had walked on the water—thanks to a sandbar right smack in the middle of the broad Sacramento River the girls had splashed along apparently on the surface of the waves.
They spent another day on a small sandy island in the middle of a channel, boating and sunning. Some of the beginners tried their hand at skiing and hit the water like naval artillery, kicking up fountains of water and flying skis.
“I know what you did wrong,” a helpful friend on the bank called to a casualty. “You forgot to close your eyes!”
She watched as her friend tried again, this time performing a beautiful belly flop and skipping on the water like a lopsided stone. “That was better!” the coach on the shore said. “She remembered to close her eyes that time.”
Another sadistic onlooker chimed in with a word of shouted advice: “Whatever happens, don’t let go!”
When they weren’t skiing or boating, some of the girls became artists, creating lofty-towered sand castles on the beach and then watching the tide lay seige to and finally overwhelm their ramparts.
On the way home that day the girls jumped out of the boat several hundred yards from their home dock and let the tide carry them in.
One day on the river the girls visited the town of Locke, constructed originally by the Chinese laborers who built the levees and now occupied by their descendants. Here the girls explored the streets of two-story, tic-tac-toe wooden houses and mysterious passageways that were neither streets nor alleys.
Meanwhile, back at the house, there was both work and resting to do in between the playing. Three times a day the girls cooked delicious meals and then handled the cleanup efficiently. One night when a Mia Maid was called to help with the dishes, she said quietly to a friend, “Actually, it’s not my turn, but I’ve got to get over the habit of complaining,” and she went to wash the dishes. When she was gone her friend sat in silence for a moment. Then she sighed and said, “I haven’t helped wash the dishes yet. I guess I should go help even though they didn’t assign me,” and she went. Soon an assembly-line sudsfest was underway, accompanied by a spirited medley of folk songs and so much all-purpose hilarity that several more unassigned girls joined in just for the fun of it.
One evening the group dined on mouth-watering fried catfish donated by a neighbor lady. Later that night they visited the good woman and sang her a song of appreciation. Not content to leave it at that, the girls used their talented toes the next day to find her a sackful of clams for fishbait.
At night the girls filled the bedrooms, the sun room, the sun deck, the combination kitchen-dining-living room, and spilled out over the levee onto the dock, where they slept with the gentle rocking of the waves and the murmur of the moving water. A few girls even slept in the boats that were moored to the dock. These outdoor dwellers were treated to a huge moon that rode above the tules and made the river into a highway of gold, not to mention the sun that rose each morning on a tide of cricket and bird songs to burn away the mist.
“Wow! Did you see that sunrise?” one ecstatic girl asked her sleepy companion after the sleeping bags had been put away.
“Yeah,” her more prosaic friend replied. “I woke up and took a look and said, ‘Well what do you know, there’s the sunrise,’ and then I went back to sleep.”
As with any group of Mormons totaling more than one, there were some meetings too. Their first night on the river the girls enjoyed a talent night that included readings, songs, and even some magic. The second night there was a family home evening in which the girls shared ideas on the importance of being a child of God. They expressed their love for the Savior and nodded quietly, as one young lady said, “Whenever you build a wall between yourself and another human being, you build a wall between yourself and Jesus Christ.”
There was plenty to do in spare moments: sleeping, fishing off the dock, writing letters, writing in journals, scripture study, gab sessions, sailing a little two-girl boat with a sail like another white cloud under the sky, and a lot more, including first aid treatments for sunburns. And sometimes they just dived off the dock or sat watching the tide flow in or out, ceaselessly, day and night.
At least as warming as the sun was the love these young women showed toward one another. Whenever a girl was seen standing shyly apart, a kindly arm would appear around her shoulders to draw her in, When there was disagreement, it was settled by discussion rather than argument. There were no cliques, no in-groups or out-groups, no social outcasts, no cruel jests or biting sarcasm. When it was mentioned to one of the girls that they seemed surprisingly free from backbiting, she said, “How can there be backbiting? We know that there shouldn’t be.”
Another girl explained, “I’m trying to learn how to love other people. I’m learning to do things for them, to stop thinking ‘want’ and start thinking ‘give’.”
Two of the girls in the very thick of the action on the three-day adventure were nonmembers, and they appeared to be loving every minute of it. That’s not surprising considering the missionary record of the Danville young people. Half the Laurel class consists of converts introduced to the gospel by the young people of the ward. The previous year there had been ten baptisms attributed to the efforts of the young men and women, and the work was going on. They talk openly to their friends about the Church, knowing what an important gift they have to offer.
“A lot of kids at school say they don’t know who they are,” one girl said. “Well, we know who we are!”
The last evening of their stay on the river, the girls had a testimony meeting. One of the girls brought a roll of tissue and set it in the center of the group in easy reach of anyone with leaky eyes. More than one needed it as they bore testimony of the gospel and their love for the Lord and one another. A nonmember girl stood with tears in her eyes to tell of her love for the Mormon girls and their leaders although she hadn’t yet gained a testimony of the gospel. A girl who had been in the ward only a week and in the Church only a few months told how she had come on the trip homesick for her old ward and fearing loneliness and rejection. But in three days she had come to feel she had known these girls all her life.
The next morning, as four girls debated the best way to get four suitcases, four sleeping bags, four pillows and four overnight bags into the trunk of one Volkswagen, the group took their leave of the river. They said good-bye to each other as if they were not to meet again for a long while, although they were merely taking a short drive back to the same city. But they were saying good-bye not so much to one another as to a wonderful experience that would soon pass from the full color of the present to the black and white of memory.
But the color hasn’t all faded yet. There is still a girl skiing at sundown, golden in the silver wake, flinging curtains of glittering spray as she leans into each turn. There are the girls in bright bathing suits singing Mormon Tabernacle Choir songs as passing boaters look at them and wonder. There are the bright orange life preservers as the girls float with the pull of the tide.
There is the duotone image of a young girl sitting on the sun-deck in a quiet moment, reading the Book of Mormon and thinking.
And above the images, the color, the splashing and laughter and sunshine and delicious river smells is the reality that is the foundation of all the joy these young people find in life. As one young lady said, “In my last interview the bishop asked me what I had learned this year. I think what I’ve learned this year is that without the gospel nothing else in this whole world really matters.”

In January of 1985, when I was employed as a part-time teacher in the Provo Missionary Training Center, I attended a small meeting for the teachers in our MTC zone. At the start of this meeting one of the teachers gave a spiritual thought. He was older than most of us, a graduate student, and married with a few small children. He shared with us the details of his struggle to raise his personal bar of righteousness as it pertained to Sabbath observance.

He spoke of his love of televised sports and of his habit of watching Sunday football games. With great emotion he told of how this habit had been highly detrimental to the spirit in his home; how he had let down his wife and toddler children who would rather have his undivided attention on this sacred day. He then lit up and told of how he had quit watching Sunday games three months earlier and of the great peace and joy he and his family had experienced in the ensuing months as he instead used the time in more uplifting activities--like reading to his children, playing appropriate games and going on walks together as a family, working on his church calling, and discussing goals and making plans with his wife. Then, likening his experience to a course in school, he said that his "final exam" was being held during the coming weekend--on Super Bowl Sunday--and how he was looking forward to passing this test with flying colors. Key to his success was a change in attitude, where he and his wife focused on engaging in the countless appropriate "DO's" of Sabbath observance rather than pining for a few worldly "DON'Ts." Through this experience he learned that keeping the Sabbath holy was not a burden, but a blessing, for truly, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."[7]

Many wrote to tell how the issue on the Savior helped clear up misunderstandings about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Barbara Mayes of Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, reported a comment from the woman who comes in to clean her home: “I have noticed many things that point to the idea that you believe in Jesus. How can that be? You two are Mormons. Are you Christians?” Sister Mayes gave her a copy of the March Ensign and they began a conversation. “As she reads, she continues to ask significant questions, and a closed heart has been opened,” said Sister Mayes.

The first day I saw Frances, I knew I’d found the right one. The Lord brought us together later, and I asked her to go out with me. I went to her home to call on her. She introduced me, and her father said, “‘Monson’—that’s a Swedish name, isn’t it?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Good.”

Then he went into another room and brought out a picture of two missionaries with their top hats and their copies of the Book of Mormon.

“Are you related to this Monson,” he said, “Elias Monson?”

I said, “Yes, he’s my grandfather’s brother. He too was a missionary in Sweden.”

Her father wept. He wept easily. He said, “He and his companion were the missionaries who taught the gospel to my mother and my father and all of my brothers and sisters and to me.” He kissed me on the cheek. And then her mother cried, and she kissed me on the other cheek. And then I looked around for Frances. She said, “I’ll go get my coat.”

The article “No Spoonful of Sugar” in the May 1988 New Era really disappointed me. It seemed to me that you accentuated the negative and eliminated the positive.
I am a nanny of eight months, and I am having a wonderful time. My testimony has grown along with my sense of responsibility. I know that there are some hard situations, but not all are bad.
My employees have treated me very well, and they help to work out any problems I might have. They even gave me a plane ticket home for Christmas.
I would not have missed this experience for anything. I really wish you had printed a few more positive examples.
I really enjoy reading the New Era articles and thought you would like to know how my nanny friends and I felt about the article.
Louann BishopNingham, Maryland

Another story about Joseph’s kind nature: The backstory is that Joseph was to be executed in Missouri, but a General Doniphan stepped in to stop the injustice. Joseph and his associates were then delivered to a General Moses Wilson with instructions to take them to Jackson County for execution. President George Albert Smith heard General Wilson talking about that experience some years later. He was telling some gentlemen about having Joseph Smith, a prisoner in chains, in his custody. General Wilson said, “He was a very remarkable man. I carried him into my house, a prisoner in chains and in less than two hours my wife loved him better than she did me.”

When I was a young man, my friends and I went to an amusement park, where we rode the flying saucer. It was shaped something like an upside-down plate that went round and round. Most of us tried to get to the middle so we wouldn’t be thrown off by the centrifugal force as the saucer picked up speed. Sometimes those on the edge would grab a friend who was closer to the middle, but that would pull them both completely off the saucer. I soon recognized that the centrifugal force was far less powerful in the middle. I was quite safe in the center even though the saucer was still spinning. But it was risky when someone on the fringe latched on to me. I learned that safety comes from staying close to the center.

His father died when Elder Oaks was eight years old. His mother then decided to leave her children in the care of their grandparents and go to Columbia University in New York City to get the additional education that she needed to support her children. “It was a very courageous thing for her to do,” said Elder Oaks. “But the loss of her husband and then the separation from her three children within a two-month period were too much, and Mother suffered a nervous breakdown.

“Mother was told that she would never recover, but through the blessings of the Lord, she did recover. She got a teaching position in Vernal, Utah, and later returned to New York City and finished her master’s degree at Columbia. When she recovered from her breakdown, she was stronger than ever. From her experience as a widow, she helped other women who had to raise their children alone. Mother also helped start adult education and senior citizen programs and did many other worthwhile things. She was a remarkable person and a very good mother.

David and Shauna Bond, parents of a formerly drug-abusing teenager, believe they were able to help their son end his drug abuse at an early stage in part because they were informed. Brother Bond was familiar with the signs of drug and alcohol abuse and recognized them in his son.
“When we discovered Mike was using drugs, I got anti-drug literature and told him he had to read it; then we would discuss it together,” says Brother Bond. “Mike thought he knew what it was all about, but he didn’t. Part of convincing him to stop was educating him to the dangers of drugs and letting him know that his parents were informed.”
Although there is, of course, no guaranteed treatment method, just as there is no guaranteed prevention, those three principles worked for Brother and Sister Bond. After recognizing their son’s problem, the Bonds acted firmly and without hesitation in a spirit of love. First, Brother Bond confronted Mike in a calm, loving way, telling him that any use of drugs in their home was unacceptable.
When Mike continued using drugs, the Bonds used every resource they could think of to get him off drugs and keep him off: They informed themselves about drugs; they communicated with school officials about Mike’s problem and asked them to report suspicious behavior; they searched for evidence of what Mike was using and who was supplying him; and they established rules for Mike and would not change them. All this was done with constant reassurance to Mike that the main reason they were willing to do so much was that they loved him so deeply.
“I just said, ‘Look, I love you too much to let this happen to you. You have a choice. I have a choice, too,’” says Brother Bond.
At one point, after Mike had said he wasn’t using drugs any more but his parents discovered otherwise, Brother Bond acted promptly and firmly.
“I asked Mike who was selling to him, and he wouldn’t tell me. I told him, ‘I’ll find out, and when I do, I’m going to prosecute him to the limit of the law. If it means I have to hire a detective to find out who’s supplying you, I’ll do it.’ I think Mike really heard that, and I don’t think he’s used drugs since then.”
Following through on a warning can be frightening for parents, who may fear alienating their already troubled child. Mike was furious at his parents for their intervention, and their relationship “definitely got worse,” says Brother Bond. But the temporary loss of communication was worth the end result: a drug-free son.

Our daughter, Lindsey, recently shared an experience she had with our six-year old grandson, Trevor. Trevor is at an age where his parents don't encourage taking toys to church. A few weeks ago on Fast Sunday, however, he took some paper and a crayon to draw with, but instead of pictures he chose to write his testimony. He wrote: "I know this church is true. I know to read the scriptures and say my prayers."

Then on the following Monday night they had their own family testimony meeting so he could read the testimony he had written , followed by three-year old Devin sharing his testimony, then Lindsey, and then her husband, John. She told us, “It was quick and simple, but something we should be doing more often. We also read scriptures. Trevor also took turns with us and did a great job.” His parents were helping him take his first step by writing his testimony, and then continuing forward and upward by sharing his testimony with his family and also hearing his parents’ testimonies.

When our children were little and we lived in San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina, we started the tradition of making Christmas doves. Previously we had been sending so many Christmas cards to friends and family that it started to become a strain on our budget. So, instead of purchasing expensive, preprinted cards, we decided to make our own in the shape of doves, spreading a message of peace at Christmastime. In the beginning, our doves were simple and made of white cardboard, but over the years they have been adorned with a variety of colors, Christmas messages, and scriptures about the birth of Christ. The children enjoyed making them. Although our children are all grown now, the tradition continues on.
Georgina Crisman,Black Creek (Spanish) Ward, Mississauga Ontario Stake

On a quiet morning last week I left my office in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and walked over to the Sao Paulo Temple site. There was a soft morning mist beginning to clear away. As I walked up the gentle rise in the street onto the site, I noted with great interest and pleasure brush being cleared away and the new pegs recently driven into the ground. These pegs in the ground mark the dimensions of a new temple soon to be erected for the glory of God and the endless blessing of his children in South America. This temple will be different from any other building now standing in South America.
As I stood where the entrance of the temple will be, I recalled how thirty-six years ago my companions and I landed by ship in Santos after twenty-one days at sea and went by train to Sao Paulo. There were other missionaries on the same vessel going to Argentina and Uruguay, which were the two other relatively new missions on the continent.
In all of South America there was but a mere handful of members of the Church, mostly emigrants from Europe, many of whom were converted in Europe. As I stood last week on this site where this new, special, multimillion-dollar building will stand, I recalled how difficult and unpromising the future of the Church appeared in South America thirty-six years ago. In all of our mission we had only three baptisms in one year, despite the conscientious labors of over seventy missionaries. We did not have the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, or the Book of Mormon translated into Portuguese. We held our meetings in rooms that were small and unfit for the lofty message we were trying to teach. We often had to sweep out these rooms before meeting to remove the empty bottles and trash from the revelry of the night before. It was always difficult and often discouraging.
In comparison, last year in South America there were over 8,000 convert baptisms. There are now twenty-two stakes and seventeen missions of the Church with over 152,000 members on that vast continent; and the work has only begun. Our great first generation of South American Regional Representatives and stake and mission presidents are men of affairs, including bankers, businessmen, factory owners, and professional men. They are men of great ability and faith.
I marveled at how through the Spirit of God this has all come about. Surely it is a fulfillment of what Jesus said to his early apostles: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 16:19.) Having seen it all from close range, I cannot doubt that this is the work of God.
Last week at the temple site, after much brooding and pondering, I stepped farther back to where the inner rooms of the temple will be. The morning mist had now cleared so that in the distance I could see part of the great city of Sao Paulo. I recalled how as a young missionary I presided over the work in that city, with thirteen missionaries and about 300 members. There are now four stakes of the Church and about 100 missionaries laboring in that city. There are also neighboring stakes in Campinas and Santos.
This great progress in South America has come about largely through the sacrifice and dedication of hundreds of missionaries and their families, as well as dedicated mission presidents from the United States and Canada. This is changing. In the Brazil Porto Alegre Mission there are now 136 missionaries of which fifty-eight, or 43 percent, are native-born Brazilians. All of the four mission presidents in Argentina are native South Americans. How can anyone who has seen what I have deny that this is the work of God.

I put myself through college without any help from my family or anyone else except the bank. I worked odd jobs every semester and each summer to get through college. I did many types of work including construction, delivering groceries, and digging graves at the cemetery by hand with pick and shovel. I also installed lawn sprinkler systems.
Soon after returning from my mission, I installed a sprinkler system for a Bernina Sewing machine distributor. The manager couldn’t afford to pay me in cash, so I took part of my compensation in trade. Upon completion of the project, I became the proud owner of a brand new Bernina sewing machine.
Long before I had a wife, I was preparing for my future wedding day. I knew that someday I would be married, and this fine sewing machine would make an excellent wedding gift for my then unknown bride whoever she may be. I moved and stored that sewing machine for three more years before I finally found her.
I finished college in Utah in the spring of 1973 in debt with several student loans and without a fulltime job. Nonetheless, later that summer, my sweetheart and I were married and sealed in the Salt Lake temple. Neither of our families had the financial resources to help much with our wedding reception. We rented the cultural hall at the institute of religion for all of fifty dollars. We had the smallest and simplest wedding cake you can imagine.
We couldn’t afford to provide dinner for our guests, so we served them sheet cake with a tiny cup of mixed nuts and sparkling punch. Our wedding invitations were not engraved but were printed on plain card stock by an eighty-year old member of my home ward who had been a printer in his younger years. He still had an old fashioned printing press at his shop.
I remember watching him set the type one letter at a time and then slide each blank card on and off the press every few seconds as it opened and closed. At his advanced age and with his failing eyesight, I worried that he might get his hand caught in the press. My fears were unfounded as the old pro confidently moved his hands in and out of the press in rhythm with the rotating crankshaft.
Some of the young ladies in our student ward didn’t believe Sheila was really engaged because we decided together that a diamond engagement ring would create unnecessary debt and would not be prudent. We settled on matching gold wedding bands instead. All together, we spent two or three hundred dollars for the whole affair.
I share this with you to point out that you don’t need a lot of resources to find your wife and begin your life together. You only need to follow your heart and move forward with a lot of love and faith. I assure you that your Heavenly Father will help you provide all that is required. He will provide every needful thing for those that love and obey Him.

Let me give you an example of how people might do the same things at different times. I have a student Phylicia who lives her life in fast forward--as fast her bishop would let her she was getting baptized and going on a mission. In fact, she listened to the missionaries, got baptized, went on a mission, met the love of her life, and got sealed in the temple in just four years. That's fast. In contrast, my mom listened to the missionaries for the first time when she first married my dad, before I was born. Then about twelve years later she, my sister, and I were baptized. Then she remarried to my stepdad. Then he got baptized. Then finally, nearly twenty years after she first heard the missionary discussions, they were sealed. Some of you might wish you were married tomorrow, or graduating tomorrow, or having babies, or getting your perfect job. But it might take you four years. Or twenty. What matters most is that you're living the gospel and trying to progress.

The next night after supper he went with Fitzie and some of his friends to play basketball in the school gym. They played for two hours.
Afterward they were all in the locker room. Kevin had already showered and was just putting on his shoes. The others were in various stages of getting dressed.
Suddenly the lights went out.
“Okay, who’s the clown?” Fitzie yelled. “Turn the lights back on!”
“I didn’t turn ’em off,” someone answered. “Where’s the light switch anyway? … Ow! My toe! … The switch doesn’t work.”
“There aren’t any lights anywhere in the building,” another voice added.
“Oh no,” Fitzie groaned, “another blackout. Do any of you guys have a lighter?”
“I do,” someone volunteered. “It’s in my shirt pocket if I can find it.” Kevin could make out a figure fumbling in a locker near him. “Here it is.”
A small glimmer of light shone in the otherwise dark room.
“Hurry up, you guys! I’m low on lighter fluid.” Kevin sat on the bench and watched unknown figures make use of the small light as they finished preparing to leave the room.
“Man, I never thought I’d be glad somebody had a cheap lighter,” a voice drawled.
“What do you mean, cheap lighter? It cost me two bucks.”
“Yeah, well it sure seems bright in here.”
Finally they were ready. “Kevin, what are you doing sitting there? Let’s get out of here.”
On Sunday Kevin went with Jenny to class, mainly to be with her. He had already discounted any possibility that their teacher could teach him anything, so he sat with his shoulders hunched over, his head down, wrestling with his problems.
It wasn’t until Sister Mattson called on him that he looked up. “Kevin,” she said, then read aloud from the manual, “this can best be seen by examining what the Savior said. Will you read Matthew, chapter 5, verses 14 through 16?” [Matt. 5:14–16]
Jenny loaned him her Bible and helped him find the reference. “‘Ye are the light of the world,’” Kevin began mechanically. “‘A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light …’” He stopped and stared at the words on the page.
“Yes, go on,” Sister Mattson urged.
“‘… and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.’”
“Kevin, there’s one more verse,” Jenny quietly prompted.
“‘Let your light so shine before men,’” he read slowly, “‘that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’”
“Yes, and what can we learn from this scripture?” Sister Mattson asked.
He didn’t say anything. He pictured the small light in the darkened locker room and the dim figures of people moving around, each attracted by the light and using it as their reference point.
“Jenny, do you know what we can learn from this scripture?” Sister Mattson asked, thinking that Kevin did not have an answer.
“We can learn a lot,” Kevin said quietly, almost to himself. “The first thing is that in order to be a light, we have to live the commandments. You have to set your standards. You can’t re-decide what to do every time someone asks you to do something wrong. You’ve got to make a mental list: This is what I will do. This is what I won’t do. You have to decide what your life is going to mean, or it won’t mean a thing.”
“Thank you,” Sister Mattson said. “Now we should get on with the rest of the lesson.”
Kevin interrupted. “The problem is, I keep thinking that if I didn’t live here, it would be easier. It doesn’t really matter where you live. What matters is that you set your standards once and for all. If you do that, you can be a light.”
“Yes, thank you, and now we’d better get on to Ephesians,” Sister Mattson said.
“You’ve got to be a light to the people around you. Do you know how much light one small lighter can throw in a completely dark room?”
“No,” Jenny replied.
“Enough. That’s the point. Enough for everyone in the room to find his way out of the darkness. And the darker it is, the more the light is noticed. And people who enjoy the light will come nearer to it. That’s how I can find friends who will help me live my standards! We can gather friends around us who will help us, and the light will get even brighter.”
Sister Mattson by now was just looking at both of them.
“Do you know what I’m going to do?” Kevin burst out. “I’m going to memorize jokes from my brother’s Boy’s Life magazine. It has some of the corniest jokes in the world. Every time I hear someone starting a dirty joke, I’m going to bombard him with corny jokes. And I’m going to have a party of my own, at my house, with kids from school and the missionaries. In a nice friendly way, they’re going to know I’m a Mormon.”
“Thank you, Kevin,” Sister Mattson broke in. Turning to Jenny, she asked confidentially, “Jenny, what did he say?”
Jenny put her hand on his arm and answered proudly, “He said that he’s going to be okay.”
“How nice,” Sister Mattson said. “Well, we’d better get on with the rest of the lesson.” She looked at the page of the manual, paused, and then shut the book.
“No. I think Kevin’s story can teach us the same thing. What were you saying about the light in the dark room?”

Nicole ministered to me by just being my friend. She gave me the Book of Mormon, and we started reading together in her car after school.
The Book of Mormon started to fill the holes in my life. But I still felt alone. I wasn’t a member of Nicole’s church, but I also wasn’t completely part of my parents’ religion, either.
Nicole kindly prompted me to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true. I had never prayed out loud, so I had no idea what I was supposed to say. But I just went outside and started talking. I asked God if Nicole’s church was the right church for me too. As soon as I finished my question, I felt chills through my whole body. I knew, somehow without a doubt, that the Book of Mormon is true and this Church was right for me.
I was 15 when I received this witness. For the next few years I believed, though my parents were not interested in the Church. But I wasn’t alone in my faith, because Nicole was still there supporting me.

My six-year-old sister, Emily, eats catsup sandwiches. Just bread and catsup. It looks gross. She walks around the house, talking to herself too. Sometimes she even crawls around barking and howling like a wolf. Mom says she has a vivid imagination. I think she’s just crazy.
Usually I try ignoring Emily, but that’s hard to do because we share a bedroom. My half is neat, and my clothes are put away. Emily always leaves her bottom drawer open, and her bed is lumpy. There are stuffed animals all over the place, and she talks to them. I shut the door and find a quiet place to read. That’s what I was doing when Mom made her big announcement. “I have a new job,” she said. “It’s only on Saturdays. I’m going to work at the ceramic shop.”
“Wow!” Emily exclaimed. “Can I come?”
Mom looked right at me with her serious look. I felt my whole stomach flop over.
“Margaret,” she said, “I’ll need you to keep an eye on Emily. It’ll only be until your dad gets home at noon.”
I blinked hard, then nodded reluctantly. Sometimes I hate being eleven.
That first Saturday, Emily woke me up at eight o’clock. “Mom just left,” she reported. “Want to play checkers? Want to play dress up? You can be the witch, and I’ll be the princess.”
“No,” I muttered. “Definitely not.”
“OK, you can be the princess. I’ll be the witch.”
“Forget it,” I said a little louder. “Emily, I just have to watch you. No one said I have to act out fairy tales.”
She shrugged. “I’m going to eat my breakfast.”
Dana called me at ten o’clock. She wanted to go bike riding.
“I’d have to bring Emily,” I told her, but she still wanted to go.
I had a long talk with Emily. “No making animal noises,” I said. “And absolutely no talking to pretend people when you’re with me—got it?”
Emily nodded.
We rode down to the library and picked out some new books. Emily wanted one on unicorns, but I helped her find a beginning mystery instead. I was starting to feel a little better about things. Maybe I could straighten crazy Emily out.
At lunchtime, I made us all normal peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Emily ate hers without saying a word. In fact, she hardly said anything all morning. Then Dad came home, and I left to play basketball. I walked Emily to school on my way. She had play practice.
On the next Saturday, Dana wanted me to come over to her house. She was helping her mom make cookies for a bake sale. She didn’t mind about Emily. That’s because Dana’s my very best friend.
I told Emily not to talk to the cookies or try any other funny stuff. She nodded. Then I found a clean red shirt.
“Here, put this on,” I said. She didn’t move for a minute; then she pulled off her old green one real slow. She wore it every Saturday, and I hated that shirt. Next, we smoothed out her bed and picked up the room.
Emily was pretty quiet at Dana’s. Even Dana noticed. “Are you OK?” she asked.
“I’m fine.” Emily didn’t even wiggle her eyebrows.
I smiled at her. She was shaping up, after all.
On Friday Emily burst into the house after school. Our school play was that night, and she had a small part. Not me. I’d melt if they made me get on a stage in front of a million people. “You’re going, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Of course,” I told her. “Dana and I are going together.”
The play was about Alice in Wonderland. Emily was a giant green caterpillar. Everyone laughed when she shouted out her lines. Then they clapped real hard for her.
“Your sister is soooo funny,” Dana giggled. “You must be laughing all the time at home.”
I kind of squirmed around in my chair, and I felt sort of sick.
Afterward, Emily came running up with her long tail bumping behind her. “Did you like it?” Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were laughing.
“You did great,” I said.
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
I nodded, and she smiled bigger than ever. Then I did some thinking about Emily and me.
The next day was Saturday. Emily didn’t wake me up. She was eating cornflakes and watching cartoons when I checked on her.
“What are we doing today?” she asked. She didn’t seem too excited.
I smiled. “Guess!”
“Are we going to Dana’s?” she sighed.
“Nope,” I said, pleased with myself. “I’m going to take you to the puppet theater at the library if you want to go.”
Emily exploded. “Hip, hip, hurray!” Then she froze in her tracks. “I’ll go change,” she said.
I eyed the green shirt. “You’re fine,” I said, “but don’t forget to make your bed.”
After the puppet show, we invited Dana over to our house for lunch. Before we ate, Emily put on the whole puppet show all over again. Dana laughed until her face was as red as Mom’s pickled beets. I even laughed too.
Then we ate lunch. My catsup sandwich tasted kind of zingy, but it was really good.

I remember holding my daughter Nikki in my arms for the first time. She looked beautiful and perfect. My heart and mind filled with loving dreams of nurturing her. I looked forward to sharing my love of books, music, and art. I would spare no effort to support her in developing her talents and abilities.
I could not have imagined at that time that she would never be able to read above a fourth-grade level; calculate beyond simple, single-digit arithmetic problems; or learn to drive a car. It was only after six difficult years of fears, frustrations, medical evaluation, and psychological testing that I learned Nikki was intellectually impaired.
Adjusting to having a child with a disability is a process, not an event. Ten percent of all children have a disability or a long-term chronic illness. Although it is a reasonably common experience, most parents are not prepared to hear, “Your child has a serious disability.” It takes some time to learn how to deal with the confusion, physical demands, behavioral challenges, extra expenses, and feelings of embarrassment and loneliness. If you have experienced or are still going through this process of adjustment, it is important for you to know that many of your responses and reactions are normal.
You may find it very difficult at first to assimilate the information that your child has a disability. You may need some time to understand what the diagnosis means. We all have images and stereotypes of children with intellectual impairment or mental illness. These diagnoses may not match what we see in our child, particularly if the child looks normal. It is helpful to learn about the disability. Find out as much as you can about your child’s diagnosis. Seek information from reliable sources, such as professional organizations that focus on the specific disability.
Denial is a psychological defense mechanism we utilize when we feel overwhelmed and unable to cope. In a way, denial can be a gift that allows us to accept the truth a little at a time and make it more bearable. Denial often comes from fear—fear due to uncertainty about the future or concern about the impact this child will have on other family members. Denial can lead to a frantic search for a cure. Parents may believe if they can only find the right doctor, the right medicine, the right program, or the right learning approach, then the child will be made “normal.” This process of searching is useful in the sense that it can help you locate resources that might help your child, yourself, and your family. Sooner or later, however, you have to confront the child’s limitations and accept your own inability to undo the disability. You must also release other people from that responsibility.
Acknowledging the reality of the disability may lead to feeling anxious. Anxiety is the body’s way of responding to fear and mobilizing resources. If a great beast were to come into your room, you would probably have an anxiety response. Your body would release adrenaline, and you would be prepared to fight, flee, or freeze. These are common responses when people are threatened in some way. As you begin to realize this child needs special care and protection, that anxious energy can mobilize your resources. Get information. Talk with other parents. Pray and talk with priesthood leaders. Seek help from professionals. Activity that reduces the feeling of powerlessness is a good way to use that energy. Self-care is also important in managing anxiety. Get adequate sleep, eat right, and take time for activities that help you relax and enjoy life. Parents need occasional respite from the heavy responsibility of caring for a child with a disability.
Belief in a just world sometimes produces unwarranted guilt. We want to believe that our world is predictable and controllable. This belief protects us from our fears. We convince ourselves that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people. This seems just. The downside of this belief is that when something does hurt us, we tend to feel we are somehow to blame. Comments by well-meaning but insensitive people can trigger these feelings. Comments such as “You must have needed this particular experience for your salvation” or can lead parents to have painful and unwarranted guilt. They start asking, “Why me? Am I so bad that I needed something this severe to shape me up? I wanted only to be a good parent.” Questions may also come from people who believe they can protect themselves from this same experience if they can only discover what you did “wrong.”
You will need to find your own spiritual meaning concerning painful events and not allow others to impose their answers as to why these things happened. It takes years to fully understand, and sometimes the answer doesn’t come in this life. Trust that Heavenly Father is a God of love and does not delight in punishing you. That way, you will be able to find more accurate meaning in the adversities you face.
Strong emotions result from losses. If you have a child with a disability, you may feel the loss of the child you thought you would be raising. You may also feel grief over the loss of what you may have envisioned as an ideal family. Indeed, you may have to reframe your definition of an ideal family.
When I was a young mother with four children, my husband was serving as a bishop. It felt wonderful to be part of my idea of an ideal Latter-day Saint family. But my husband died of cancer, and I was left to raise my children alone. I had to return to school, finish a degree, and work. I had to reframe what I perceived an ideal Latter-day Saint family to be. I later married a man with six children, and we became a blended family with ten children. Once again I had to reframe what I thought an ideal LDS family was.
Learning how to grieve and then go on with your life can build strength. When you can acknowledge and work through painful feelings, you develop emotional, spiritual, and psychological skills that can help you in other areas of your life. Your capacity for empathy can grow through a personal acquaintance with grief.
We need to make sense of what we perceive as injustice. Raising a child with a disability can give you a close view of the cruel side of life. Creating a new definition of what is fair and just, however, can reduce anger. For example, when my daughter was 10 years old, she attended a Sunday School party. She came home scraped and bleeding. One of the boys in the class had called her a “stupid retard” and pushed her down. I felt angry that my child was hurt. Angry feelings can be a message that something needs to be done. Anger can alert us to dangers, problems, and offenses that may need some correcting. We can make decisions, however, about how we act on those feelings. We can deal with anger in a constructive way.
My husband and I visited the boy’s family. We sat with the boy and his parents and calmly talked about what the word retarded meant. We asked the boy how he would feel if he were unable to do the things he enjoyed. This boy became one of our daughter’s strongest allies. That experience ultimately helped another person to grow. This seemed “fair.” Retaliation would not have produced justice. Although anger may come from experiences with injustice, we can turn them into good experiences for ourselves and others.
Children with disabilities have a harder time mastering routine behaviors and activities. Learning emotional skills is even more difficult. They experience more frustration than other children. If the disability affects brain functioning, the child will find it harder to think through problems rationally. My husband refers to behavior resulting from this difficulty as “the law of the universe”: If you cannot talk it out, you are going to act it out. In other words, what cannot be verbally expressed will be acted out in some way, even if it is just through having a stomachache. Often the child’s misbehavior is simply an attempt to cope with some other problem.
For example, when my daughter was 18, she would not go to bed and insisted on leaving her light on all night. She would get very angry and say, “I don’t want to go to bed because there are missionaries hiding in my dresser drawer.” I recognized this as clearly delusional.
Rather than being angry, I tried to understand. What would cause her to be so frightened? As I thought about it, I realized that many of her friends were getting married. She had attended bridal parties where they had received beautiful things they would put in their dresser drawers. They were getting married, leaving her, and were no longer available as her friends. She also longed to have those same experiences and had expressed concerns: “Will I ever marry? Will anyone ever love me? Will anyone ever give me a bridal party and beautiful things?” Her friends had married returned missionaries. She could see that returned missionaries were great husbands. Somehow, all of this went together. She was also poignantly and painfully aware that she lacked the skills and the ability to manage the demands of a marriage. She was unable to verbally express those conflicts or even fully understand them, so all we heard was a delusion about missionaries hiding in the drawer. Once I began to understand her inner experience, I was able to talk it through with her. We worked together to verbalize her conflicts and grieve the sorrow of not being able to marry. The problem behavior stopped, and she was able to sleep peacefully.
Parents sometimes find it difficult to identify the source of a disabled child’s misbehavior. Disabilities differ in the kinds of challenges they create. Children’s natural dispositions, strengths, and weaknesses vary. The circumstances surrounding incidents of misbehavior are unique to each family. These factors make it difficult, but if you can determine the meaning of the misbehavior, it becomes easier to know which problems need to be solved. Becoming angry and frustrated with the child is counterproductive because these reactions generally prevent parents from identifying the real source of the misbehavior.
One fairly common source of misbehavior is attention seeking. The child may be trying to get your attention because he or she is hungry, tired, scared, overstimulated, bored, frustrated, sick, or having an allergic response to food or the environment. If a child doesn’t have the skill to talk it out, he or she will act it out. This is particularly true for children who have disorders that compromise brain functioning, such as attention deficit disorder, intellectual impairment, bipolar mood disorder, or schizophrenia. The child may feel overwhelmed and may not be able to verbalize the distress. Parents need to be alert to what is going on in the child’s life that may cause him or her to seek attention.
Strategies that do not work in managing misbehavior include (1) making discipline rules and not enforcing them; (2) yelling—the child learns not to listen unless somebody yells; (3) insulting and name calling, which only shame the child; (4) withdrawing privileges that have no relationship to the misbehavior; and (5) physically or verbally abusing the child. These strategies usually increase misbehavior rather than help the child learn how to manage difficult situations and emotions.
Many blessings come from raising a child with a disability. I realize the important role Nikki has played in my personal and spiritual growth. The experience has brought me to my knees on many occasions because I needed further instruction from a wise Heavenly Father. It has opened my heart to truths I had desired to better understand. I do not yet have all the answers to “Why me?” or “Why her?” I do, however, have an increased understanding of many principles—an understanding that is priceless to me.
One of the most beautiful realizations is the knowledge that my child’s spirit is not disabled. I have become aware that she experiences a rich spiritual life. She is often the first in the family to feel the presence of the Holy Ghost on sacred occasions. She frequently shares spiritual insights that her limited intellectual abilities could not have generated.
When Nikki received her patriarchal blessing, she was told she had been given this special experience in mortality because of the greatness of her soul. She helps others learn compassion and understanding. I am grateful for all the good she has done for our family as well as for many others. Nikki teaches us that love, kindness, and charity are not just for the swift or the strong, but they are also for those who struggle. I have the firm hope of an eternal relationship with Nikki. I know that when she is finally healed of her disability, I will learn yet more from the greatness of her soul.

One who saw such a star and followed it was Boyd Hatch of Salt Lake City, Utah. Deprived of the use of his legs, faced with a lifetime in a wheelchair, Boyd could well have looked inward and, through sorrow for self, existed rather than lived. However, Brother Hatch looked not inward, but rather outward into the lives of others and upward into God’s own heaven; and the star of inspiration guided him not to one opportunity, but to literally hundreds. He organized Scout troops of handicapped boys. He taught them camping. He taught them swimming. He taught them basketball. He taught them faith. Some boys were downhearted and filled with self-pity and despair. To them he handed the torch of hope. Before them was his own personal example of struggle and accomplishment. With a courage which we shall never fully know or understand, these boys of many faiths overcame insurmountable odds and found themselves anew. Through it all, Boyd Hatch not only found joy, but by willingly and unselfishly giving of himself, he found Jesus.