Gospel Story Finder

“My desire from the first was to be able to help other people, to bless Heavenly Father’s children, to be prepared in case of an accident,” Céline says. Her Personal Progress program helped her refine that desire. “I set the goal to learn first aid before I turned 19,” she says. She met her goal and found she wanted to share what she was learning.

“I didn’t think of it as a talent until I got into it and saw that it comes quite naturally to me,” she continues. “Before, I had asked myself, ‘What can I do to help others?’ For me, first aid is a way of doing that.”

Not only does she help by being trained herself; she is also training others. She has taught first aid at Mutual activities, youth conferences, and girls’ camps. She also volunteers at a small Red Cross center in the basement of a local housing complex. There she teaches cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), answers the phone, and attends to cuts and bruises of neighborhood children. They come to her as much for a hug as for a bandage.

When the call came to be a mission president, there was no question about his accepting it. But none of the family realized how profound would be the change it would bring in their lives. Becoming a mission president required him to give up a good job, and his daughters were concerned about that. As the time neared for him to be released, in July of 1981, one of them asked him several times where he planned to work afterward. He had no answer, except that he was not worrying about it.

Then, on 16 March 1981, there was a telephone call from President Spencer W. Kimball in Salt Lake City. The prophet asked how things were in the mission, and asked about the welfare of Elder Abrea and his family. But “I didn’t think he had called me just to see how I was,” Elder Abrea says, smiling. Then President Kimball issued the call to the First Quorum of the Seventy, as well as to the presidency of the temple that was to be built in Buenos Aires. He talked to Sister Abrea and called her to be the first matron of that temple.

Suddenly, everything about the Abreas’ life had changed. Elder Abrea remembers that President Kimball told him on the telephone that day, “You will never finish your mission. This mission is for the rest of your life.” He was sustained a member of the quorum 4 April 1981, and moved easily into full-time service as a way of life.

How does a man who is so dedicated relax? “My only hobby is to work in the Church,” Elder Abrea replies. When there is an opportunity, he enjoys watching soccer, a game he used to play on high school and university teams. (Claudia notes that he also used to make a creditable contribution as a member of Church basketball teams.) “I like to read. I like to talk to people. I like to be with people.”

Elder Abrea undoubtedly has the opportunity to be with many people as temple president. The Buenos Aires urban area includes approximately eleven million residents, more than a third of Argentina’s population. His wife and daughters recall the pleasure of living in Salt Lake City, a “small city” where most people they meet are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It is time for more Argentines to become Latter-day Saints, Elder Abrea says. Many are better prepared than ever before to hear the gospel message because of the growth of the Church and the building of the temple in their country. Sister Abrea notes that the Church has become well enough established in Argentina for its influence to be felt over decades; her nephew represents the fourth generation of Church members in his family. Elder Abrea says Church growth has accelerated in his native country during the past fifteen or twenty years.

“The Church has the great respect of the government and the people. They respect the members. They don’t know the doctrine, but they can see how the Mormon people act, how they live. I think that example of the people of the Church is the best proselyting tool we have.”

In fact, he says, people throughout South America are now much more prepared to hear and accept the gospel. “I think the hand of the Lord is at this moment on those countries. We have more missionaries working. More local members of the Church are doing missionary work.” Handling rapid growth is one of the Church’s biggest challenges in South America. But that very growth makes Latter-day Saints more visible and gives them more influence.

When he was fifteen, reflects Elder Abrea, “the only temple I heard about was in Salt Lake City. I couldn’t imagine a temple in my country.” But the House of the Lord that is there now is a symbol of the progress being made in Argentina, and throughout South America. So, too, he says, are the rising attendance figures; in some areas, there is a 75 percent activity rate for Melchizedek priesthood holders.

“I am a witness of the latter-day miracles,” Elder Abrea affirms. “We need to look at what the Church is doing with the eyes of faith. There are so many miracles being done in South America.” Members who look beyond the routine affairs of the organization will see the hand of God at work.

He speaks quietly, but firmly. He is back in South America to work. With Elder Abrea, and South Americans like him, laboring under the Lord’s direction, one expects that the Church will continue to experience many more miracles of growth and spirituality.

I applied for a classical piano competition a few months ago. I knew it would likely be on a Sunday, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I started practicing three months before the competition, and it took a lot of time and effort to get ready.
A month before the competition, a seminary lesson on the Ten Commandments made me think about whether or not competing on a Sunday was a good idea. I wanted to push away the thought, because I’d already paid the application fee of TWD$1,400 (about US$50)—not to mention that I’d spent so much time practicing. I asked my seminary teacher if going to a piano competition would be breaking the Sabbath. He told me that was between God and me. But he bore his testimony that keeping the Sabbath day holy would be a blessing. I thought about it, and I really didn’t want to have to forfeit the competition.
Each day, I read a general conference article. I had just finished one talk and was about to put down the articles, but the next article caught my eye: “Stand in Holy Places” by President Thomas S. Monson (Ensign, Nov. 2011, 82). When I began reading it, I hadn’t been thinking at all about my piano competition, nor was I expecting an answer from the talk. But as I read, it was as if Heavenly Father were chastising me. President Monson’s words hit me hard:
“The Ten Commandments are just that—commandments. They are not suggestions. They are every bit as requisite today as they were when God gave them to the children of Israel” (83).
Then as I continued, I found:
“His constancy is something on which we can rely, an anchor to which we can hold fast and be safe, lest we be swept away into uncharted waters.
“… There is nothing which can bring more joy into our lives or more peace to our souls than the Spirit which can come to us as we follow the Savior and keep the commandments” (83).
I knew then what my Heavenly Father expected of me. I said a prayer and told Him that if it were necessary, I would forfeit the competition, even if I didn’t get a refund. I prayed that I wouldn’t have to forfeit if it were possible, that there might be a way for me to still compete, but that I would keep the Sabbath day holy no matter what.
At the end of the day, I told my piano teacher I couldn’t compete on a Sunday. She was surprisingly understanding. She said the competitions were divided by area and that I could try to transfer to an area that competed on a different day. I made a call the next day and successfully transferred to compete in Tainan, Taiwan, where the competition was held on Saturday.
I am so grateful that I made the decision to obey my Heavenly Father’s commandments. God not only wanted me to keep the Sabbath day holy, but He cared that the piano competition mattered a lot to me. Because I was willing to obey, my testimony of God’s love for me and of the blessings that come from obeying His commandments has been strengthened. I know that when we do our best to do what He asks, God will provide the rest.

A couple of years passed, and Frances moved into our ward. Truthfully, it wasn’t exactly “our” ward since I wasn’t a member yet, but I thought of it that way. By this time I had two little girls, and I could see how the Church auxiliaries were blessing their lives. Come rain or come shine, Frances, my new visiting teacher, visited me with a lesson, a laugh, a story, or a helping hand. I recall when Frances came one hectic afternoon. Seeing that I couldn’t sit and talk, Frances stirred my culinary concoctions on the stove while I tended to my daughters’ needs.
Years passed and I moved. As much as I hated to leave my Church friends, I soon found another group of sisters with strong testimonies and big hearts in the Relief Society in “my” new ward. A Relief Society teacher gave us a decorated to-do list and encouraged us to write “Be kind” at the top of our lists each day. The sisters sitting beside me and I thought it was a grand idea, especially since it supported the Relief Society motto “Charity never faileth” (Moroni 7:46).
Then I read a story about a pioneer woman. When that woman was a child, the prophet asked her family to help settle a Latter-day Saint community in a remote area. Tragedy befell when one of her siblings died. Her mother was distraught, and deep sadness permeated the family.
One day this little girl was looking out the window. As far as she could see, a blanket of snow surrounded the family’s modest home. As the little girl stared at the horizon, she saw two people trudging toward the house. On they came, slowly making their way, and suddenly the child realized who they were—they were her mother’s visiting teachers.
That story inspired me. I was baptized in May 1983. It is an honor to be a visiting teacher myself. I love associating with so many women who exemplify the “virtuous woman” whose “price is far above rubies” (Proverbs 31:10). It is wonderful to be with women who are also striving to be kind, to love one another, and to bring others unto Christ.

After I concluded my studies, my wife, Alessandra, and I moved from the USA, where we had studied, back to our home country of Brazil. We were starting our adult lives, and I was seeking employment. It was a difficult period of our lives as we did not have a lot of resources, but we were doing our best to be spiritually and materially self-reliant. During this time, I saw an opportunity for a job with a company that I admired a lot. I knew that I did not have the required professional experience; however, during the interview, I was prompted to talk about the two years that I served as a full-time missionary for the Church. As I spoke about my mission, I found myself sharing the plan of salvation and the word of wisdom, amongst other things. It was a very easy and natural conversation.
I like to run, and I would participate in running groups where we would train and run together. Many times people would ask me why I would not train with them on Sundays or participate in races that took place on Sundays. I would always answer by saying that Sunday was the day that I went to Church with my family. This answer often triggered a follow up question: Which church do you go to? As I answered the second question, a third question would almost always follow that would allow me to share our basic beliefs.
When I had those experiences, I never thought much about them until I read the Lord’s counsel to Peter Whitmer in Doctrine and Covenants 30:5: “Behold, I say unto you, Peter, that you shall take your journey with your brother Oliver; for the time has come that it is expedient in me that you shall open your mouth to declare my gospel; therefore, fear not, but give heed unto the words and advice of your brother, which he shall give you.”
This invitation to open my mouth to declare the gospel had a personal impact on me. It was as if I were reading: “Behold, I say unto you, Ciro, that you shall open your mouth to declare my gospel”. I then realized that in the above experiences I was proclaiming the gospel as commanded in the scriptures.
Often, when we think about missionary work, we think about inviting our friends to come to our homes with the goal to have full-time missionaries there to teach the gospel to them. This is great, and we should continue doing it. But what I was doing during those two experiences is also missionary work. I was sharing the gospel in a normal and natural way. This is what we are called to do: to love, share, and invite people to come unto Christ in a normal and natural way.
We usually have the expectation that missionary work should bring immediate results. We cannot measure our success in proclaiming the gospel by the number of people who eventually join the Church through our efforts. We never know the impact and reach of our words and testimonies. For example, the two experiences that I mentioned have not resulted in baptisms up to now. But I am happy that I opened my mouth and proclaimed the gospel, and I continue to talk about the gospel with others. Sometimes the seeds that we are planting will take a long time to grow and to bear fruits. At other times it will happen faster. Our responsibility is to do our best in opening our mouths and in helping people feel the love of God.
To illustrate this, we can look at the conversion of Parley P. Pratt. When he came across the Book of Mormon, he was almost immediately converted and baptized. In contrast, it took Brigham Young two years of studying the gospel before he was baptised. Therefore, it is so important for us to love, share and invite. Even when people do not immediately act upon our invitations, we continue to love, share and invite as the Saviour Jesus Christ has taught us.
In Matthew 4:19 we read the following: “And he saith unto them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This is the same invitation that the Saviour Jesus Christ is extending to each one of us: to follow Him and share His message.
So what do we share? In 2 Nephi 25:26 we read: “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.” We talk of Christ. In the above verse we could replace ‘our children’ to ‘our friends’: “that [our friends] may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins”.
We should do this in a normal and natural way. People will want to know more about the Saviour and His gospel because they know us. Missionary work is not an event or an activity; it is part of who we are as we live the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“I also helped with other chores, which included feeding the pigs, milking the cow, keeping the stable clean, and feeding the other animals. Unfortunately we frequently had little to feed the animals. During the summer I used to herd the cow out on the street, where she would eat the grass along the ditch bank at the side of the road. One of the great trials of my young life was that sometimes I had to herd her on Sunday. Otherwise, she would not get anything to eat, and she furnished a large part of our food supply. We also had a chicken coop with a few laying hens. My mother used the eggs to trade at the store for things we needed.

Alexandra Gilbert felt a similar reassurance when she met President Gordon B. Hinckley at the dedication of the temple. The 14-year-old from the city of Alma says: “He wasn’t the President of the Church at the time, but now he is. He was going up the steps to go into the temple, and he paused and shook my hand and we chatted for just a moment. He’s very likable. I didn’t understand a lot, because he spoke only English to me. But I had a wonderful feeling about him. I’ll always remember meeting him, and I’ll remember that we have a living prophet.”

I am the only member of the Church in my class at school. One day I had a substitute teacher, and she asked a question about a Christian religion in a different country. I thought the answer was Mormons, so I answered her question. She told me that she wanted to know a Christian religion because she thought that Mormons were not Christians. I told her that Mormons are Christians because we believe in Jesus Christ. I had just been baptized, and I knew that I believed in Jesus Christ. Our church is His Church. I bore my testimony of the Savior to my whole class. Many people have asked me questions about my religion since that day, and I have been able to be a missionary and share the gospel because I stood up for my beliefs.
Tate M., age 8, Virginia, USA

José Humberto González Garza, 69, a member of the Campestre Ward, serves as patriarch in the Monterrey México Roma Stake and has seen patriarchal blessings change lives. He remembers an older woman who was promised she would be able to serve in the temple. She thought it could not happen because of her age and the distance to a temple. But a temple was later built nearby, and she found joy in serving.

“I feel so satisfied doing my duty,” Brother González says. Because he is partially blind, he uses a cane to help him get around. He also uses a hearing aid. And at times he feels he can’t do as much as he used to. But, he says, “when my children ask me, ‘Are you giving blessings, Dad?’ I tell them, ‘No, I’m receiving blessings.’”

When I was a young mother, I found a recipe in the April 1980 Friend for Bunny Buns. They looked fun to make, so I tried them. This recipe has become a part of our Easter tradition in our family. I am the oldest of 11 children, and we have all made this recipe almost every Easter for the last 30 years. The recipe has traveled to places like India, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela as family members have served missions. Thank you for not only feeding us spiritually over the years with the wonderful Friend, but for feeding our physical appetites as well.

The bell rang. It was late at night. We did not expect anyone that evening, and I was wondering who it could be. I opened the door, and to my amazement, there stood the two missionaries who were teaching in the neighborhood.
The elders asked quickly if my boys were available so they could ask them a question. They were not. This was the time for them to be in bed for they were only 14 and 15 years old. The missionaries looked at each other, and the senior, obviously gathering his courage, asked me if I would talk to my boys and tell them to behave well at school because they were teaching one of the boys’ schoolmates. It was important that they, the missionaries, be able to tell their young investigator that my boys were members of the Church and then ask her if she had noticed any difference! What a terrible thing it might have been if my boys had not been behaving well! I promised the missionaries that I would forward the message and discuss the challenge with my boys.
The elders left, reassured, and as I closed the door, a scripture came flashing through my mind. I had used it often in the past years in meeting with the missionaries. “Go forth … that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls.” (Alma 17:11.)

A package of sponges plopped onto the floor as Janis dug deeper into the closet. Then an old boot tumbled out. “Aha!” she said, grabbing at something, “here’s the broom!” But when she brought it out into the light, Janis saw that it was only half a broom. The straw part was missing. “Mom! Where’s the rest of the broom? I can’t be a witch without a broom!”
“You mean that old broom? I let your brother have it.”
Janis frowned. Why does he want it? she wondered.
“What am I going to do?” she moaned, walking into the kitchen. She sank into a chair and cupped her chin in her hands.
“Mom!” came a shout. “Where’s the black crepe pap—”
Janis whirled as her twin brother skidded to a stop in mid-sentence.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were here,” he said.
“But I know that you need black crepe paper,” she declared smugly. She’d used most of the black paper for her cape and hat. The remaining pieces were tucked under her bed.
“I don’t need it. Forget it!” Jack said irritably, and he turned and left the room.
“All this secrecy!” Mom said as she rinsed some dishes.
“There’s a prize for the best costume,” Janis explained. “And I don’t want anyone to know what I’m doing. But I still need a whole broom. Don’t we have another one?”
“That is the other one. I can’t let you take the good one, Janis, because I need it when I clean. How about a mop?”
“Mom! Witches never ride mops!”
“It was just a suggestion,” Mom said.
Janis went back to the closet and took the sorrowful-looking broom into her room. She was placing it in the corner when she heard footsteps. “Jack! No fair sneaking around.”
“I’m looking for something, not sneaking.”
“For black crepe paper?” she teased.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
It was true, she would like to know. But if she found out about Jack’s costume, it would only be fair that he knew about hers. And he won’t, she decided, not until Halloween.
During the next few days Janis worked on her costume. She made long string hair by gluing strands of Mom’s knitting yarn onto her witch’s hat. And she painted pieces of cutout cardboard silver and used them as buckles for her black shoes.
Trying on her costume, she thought, I look just like a witch—except for the broomstick! She glanced sadly at her strawless broom.
“I wish I could think of something to use for a broom,” she said, showing her costume to her mother.
“I like your costume, dear,” Mom said. “You managed all the other parts of the outfit. Maybe you can still figure out a way to get a proper broom.”
Janis’s dark eyes stared at the artificial flower centerpiece her mother was arranging. It looks real if I don’t look very close. It even has fake weeds that remind me of—“Mom! That’s it. Your flowers!” she shouted.
“Flowers?” Mom asked. “A bouquet for a witch?”
“No, for my broomstick.”
With Mom’s help Janis tied some skinny yellow weeds onto the bottom of the broom handle with a piece of twine. Not bad, she thought when they were through, but I still wonder what Jack used the straw from the broom for.
The night of the Halloween party she found out. She was dressed and waiting for Jack to come out of his room when he walked down the hallway. He had on patched overalls and Mom’s funny fishing cap. A bird was perched on his scarecrow shoulder.
“A navy blue crow?” Janis asked, pointing to the strange-looking bird.
“You used all the black crepe paper, Witch Janis,” Jack said, tapping Janis’s tall hat.
Her gaze fell to the cuffs of his flannel shirt. Bits of yellow straw! “So that’s what happened to the broom!” she declared.
“What’s that stuff on the bottom of your broom?” he asked.
Janis told him about the dried flowers.
“I could’ve used them,” Jack said. “Then you would’ve had a regular broom.”
“And I hid the leftover crepe paper under my bed. There was enough to make a black crow,” Janis admitted.
“But you wanted your costumes to be big secrets,” Mom reminded them.
“Next year let’s tell each other about our costumes. Then we can help each other,” suggested Jack.
Janis looked at her brother and smiled. Even though the Halloween secrets had been fun, she was sure it would be more fun to plan their costumes together. “I think that’s a great idea,” she agreed.

We were packing for a short trip to the mountains of northern New Mexico, and I was loading the last of the children and supplies into the car. My wife appeared at the door and said cheerfully, “Well, we’re all set!” As she was pulling the locked door closed, I realized I didn’t have my keys! I yelled quickly, “DON‘T SHUT THAT … door.” Too late.
In an instant I was irritated. I said to my wife, implying she was to blame, “My keys are in the house!”
Fortunately, a forgotten open window allowed us access to the house without the loss of much time, and my feelings dissipated. I “forgave” my wife for having caused me emotional pain.
Later, as I thought of the experience, I realized I had found it convenient to blame my wife because it was a way of justifying my own failure. By my hostile feelings I could make it appear that she was the guilty one and that I was a helpless victim.
The truth is that my irritation was not due to her behavior at all. It was, instead, the product of my own unwillingness to accept the responsibility of my actions, and obviously, she hadn’t needed my forgiveness—but I certainly needed hers.
The real issue was my need to repent of the feelings I had. Had she been in some kind of transgression, then the solution to the problem would have been for her to repent and me to forgive. In this case, however, only my repentance was necessary to restore us to oneness. I understood also that my repentance, my giving up of my feelings of resentment, would have been necessary whether she had been guilty of anything or not. I saw that I could not be both unrepentant (or unforgiving) and compassionate at the same time. These are two incompatible attitudes.

One situation featured the Donald Mabey family. Brother Mabey had moved his family from Salt Lake City to North Bay, Ontario, because of a business transfer by his company. Don was an elder in the Church but had been less than fully active in priesthood callings. He was about thirty-five years of age at the time and had a lovely family. The North Bay Branch was a struggling unit desperately in need of priesthood leadership. When I attended that branch and recognized this fact, I held an interview with Brother Mabey and said to him, “I am calling you to serve in the presidency of the North Bay Branch.”

He replied, “I can’t do it.”

I asked, “Why?”

He answered, “I have never done it before.”

“That’s no hindrance,” I responded. I took fresh hope from Don’s name, Mabey, and the words of a once-popular ballad, “Please don’t say no—say maybe.”

Brother Mabey said yes. Today he is a high priest living here in the West. All of his family members have entered temple doors and have received temple blessings.

All these experiences were a fulfillment of a blessing I had received before leaving on my mission that said I would bring many people into the Church who would become great leaders. But now I was facing a transfer that I was not excited about, completely unaware of what was in store for me in my new area. The transfer was to Agoura Hills, California. I believed my mission president was an inspired man, but why Agoura Hills? The area was very affluent but very low in baptisms. You could count on one hand the baptisms in that area for the past several years. I had been one of the top baptizers in the mission for several months, but now all that would probably change. Then I remembered the words from a song that was sung at my farewell: “I will go where you want me to go, dear Lord.” So I went.
It is every convert’s dream to find the missionaries who baptized him and let them know about the change they brought to his life with the gospel. I also had that dream, especially because so many members of my family had been baptized after the elders left our area. I was now serving a successful mission. I had a sister attending Ricks College, another sister on a scholarship at BYU, and a brother and a sister both preparing to go on missions. I had lost track of the elders who had converted me. I wanted to find them and let them know how many lives they had touched.
My second Sunday in Agoura Hills, just before sacrament meeting started, a man in the ward came up to me and asked me about myself. I told him I was from Wyoming, and he said they had sent a son on a mission to Wyoming. A sensation of electricity ran through my body, but I knew it was not likely that this was one of the elders that I knew. So I asked, “What mission? The Colorado, Utah, or Montana mission?”
He said his son had served in the Billings Montana Mission, and when I asked him if he had ever been in Lander, Wyoming, where I was converted, the man answered yes again. I asked him a few dates and names and soon discovered that the man I was talking with was the father of one of the elders who had converted me. I said, “Your son is one of the elders responsible for bringing me and my family into the Church.” The man immediately introduced his wife, and tears filled her eyes as she realized that she was seeing a direct result of the sacrifices she and her family had made to send their son on a mission. Brother Miller introduced me to other members of the ward, and every time he told them who I was he choked up. I sat in sacrament meeting with tears streaming down my face as I thought of the mysterious ways the Lord had worked in my life. Who could have predicted that Elder Miller would come to my home and I would go to his almost nine years later?
I was able to see Elder Miller again, and he looked the same except for the three little daughters clinging to his leg. I finally had the chance to tell him thank you. He too was overcome with emotion as he told me what a feeling of satisfaction he had, seeing someone he had taught having as much success in the gospel as my family and I were.

“The Church plays an important role in my life,” David says. “Participating in seminary helped build my testimony growing up.” Arising at 6:00 A.M. daily, David attended early-morning seminary for four years. His mother, who has taught seminary for 13 years, taught his older brothers with him.

“My brothers set good examples and uplift me,” says David. The Brown brothers wrestle and tease each other, as brothers do, but their teamwork is apparent. They care for each other and desire to see one another succeed. One by one, his three older brothers have left to serve missions: Bryce to Oklahoma, USA; Gary to London, England; and Paul to Leeds, England. As each brother graduated from seminary and left to serve a mission, the class became smaller. By his final year of seminary, David was the only student in his mother’s class. However, he didn’t mind. He continued to strengthen his testimony by studying the scriptures.

In 1995 I saw this joy personified as I accompanied the missionaries in Santiago, Chile, to visit some of their converts. At the Basuare home, eight-year-old twin boys, Nicolas and Ignacio, met us at the door, dressed in white shirts and ties, just like missionaries. Their father had been baptized three weeks earlier, and the following week he baptized his wife and sons. We talked of their conversion. They shared their feelings of love for the missionaries and the joy they were experiencing in living the gospel and keeping the commandments.
I asked Nicolas if he would like to be a missionary when he grew up. He answered yes, and we shook hands on the promise that he would prepare for the day. Then I asked Ignacio the same question. He hesitated and replied, “I’m not sure I can make that promise. I’m only eight years old.”
I persisted, “Nicolas made the promise. Wouldn’t you like to do the same?”
He still hesitated and said, “I don’t know if I could be ready.” I could see I had taken on more than I could manage, so I said, “Perhaps you had better talk this over with your father.”
He went to his father, who took him in his arms and said, “Ignacio, Jesus was a missionary. He walked the streets like Elder Sheets and his companion and made the people happy by teaching them to keep the commandments. Wouldn’t you like to be like Jesus?”
“Yes, Papi, I would.”
“Do you think if we work together, you can be ready to be a missionary when you are 19 years old?”
“I think so.”
“Wouldn’t you like to make the promise to Elder Mickelsen that you will do that?” He came to me, and we shook hands to confirm the promise. I marveled that this young father, a convert of just three weeks, could be so sensitive in helping his family follow the Savior and how he emulated the missionaries in teaching his son.

As these young people are converted to the gospel, they help one another remain strong. Last summer, Klein Kinga, 19, and another young member of the Church found employment away from home. “There weren’t any other Church members around—just the two of us and the world,” she says. “We had a lot of adversity. When we came home in the evenings, we always prayed together, read together from the Book of Mormon, and waited for the letters we received from our Church friends here in Dunaújváros. These things helped us endure that difficult time.”

Perhaps the largest challenge for Vaea, however, was getting to the temple to be sealed. He and his girlfriend had decided to get married, and they both wanted to get married in the temple. But the closest temple at the time was in New Zealand, and the cost of getting there was tremendous.
“For a whole year we fasted together every Tuesday to find a way to make it to the temple. She was still living on an island in the north; I was in Ha‘apai. It was difficult. But then two businessmen heard our story, and they felt inspired to help. They actually paid for our trip. They said that if we truly wanted to be married in the temple, they would provide the way. I did not have any property or even a job so I could pay them back, but they did not want anything. It was a tremendous blessing.”

“It can’t be done. It won’t work.” That’s what everyone said. But when 17-year-old Tanya Fisher took a courageous stand against an embarrassing “eyesore” in her community of Laramie, Wyoming, she made it work.
A huge retaining wall (100 feet long and 22 feet high) covered with graffiti stood at the intersection of two of the busiest streets in the city. Many efforts had been made by the city council to eradicate the graffiti. They had tried painting over it with white wash. But that encouraged youthful street artists to write on it again. Then the city council spent lots of money to have large streetlights installed hoping to deter the activity. All that did was give the artists more light to work by. It seemed to be a losing battle.
One day Tanya and her mother were chatting at the kitchen table when Tanya came up with the idea to paint a giant mural on that embarrassing retaining wall. She thought it would be a great project for the student council of Laramie High School. An ambitious idea was born that day, but to bring it to full maturity took a lot of time and energy.
Tanya fought opposition everywhere, especially with her peers. They said it wouldn’t work, that graffiti would cover the drawings immediately. But Tanya didn’t give up. During the summer of 1988 Tanya visited Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her family. She contacted the Anti-Graffiti Network there and gathered more information. She took pictures of a wall that had been partially painted with a mural. Interestingly enough, there was graffiti all over the unpainted part of the wall. But the mural was left untouched. This gave her hope.
After much research Tanya’s first step was to present her idea to the student council at Laramie High School. It took a written proposal and some tall talking, but she finally won their support. The second step was to get the city council’s approval. Surprisingly, she was met with enthusiasm by both the council and the mayor, and the project took hold in the summer of 1989. It had taken more than a year to get to this point.
Ryan Fulton, a counselor at Laramie High School who became the sponsor of the project, said of Tanya, “That girl ramrodded the project and spent her time researching possibilities from other walls in other cities. She wasn’t afraid to present her ideas to the city council. That’s something for a high school student.”
The theme of the mural represents the three educational institutions of the community: Laramie High School, Wyoming Technical Institute, and the University of Wyoming. It was decided that there would be no advertising involved and neither the names of the schools nor the artists would appear anywhere in the drawings. Logos of the institutions are depicted in a kind of “new wave” art according to Tanya.
With about a dozen students from the high school and another dozen from the tech school, Tanya launched her project. John Kearnes, a Wyoming Tech student, was very helpful in the design and drawing of the mural.
Tanya had already met many challenges, but as the project began she found there were many more ahead. While the paint was still wet, rain washed away the first base coat. Hail ruined the surface in places another time. Tanya described the problems with the size of the wall. “There are 29 sections, only four where you can really stand. To get to the rest of it, we had to tie ropes around our waists and hang down the wall while we put in the measurements, did the sketching and the painting.” Over 600 man-hours were spent on this project. And Tanya personally contributed 87 hours. She also used this as her Young Women values project in the Laramie First Ward, Laramie Wyoming Stake.
Tanya’s mother Darlene Fisher, says, “Months have gone by and the wall is still fine. The whole city is proud of it. My husband (Monte Fisher) and I overhear people talking about the wall, and they don’t know we’re the parents of the girl who spearheaded the project. It makes us feel so good.”
What about upkeep on this huge project? The senior class of Laramie High School has formed a committee from the student council to provide maintenance on the wall. And the city council donates the paint.
Tanya said, “Everyone said it can’t work. But I said ‘Yes it can. If it can work in Boston and Chicago, it can work in a small town like Laramie.’” And it did! One young, determined girl, with a sense of community commitment, proved it.