Gospel Story Finder

Recently a stake president shared with me a tender story demonstrating the power of the council system in building up the Church. He said that both the Relief Society and the priesthood had been working with a family in their stake but had failed to make progress with the parents. Primary leaders found the answer. Permission was given by the parents for their young daughter to attend Primary. Their one condition was that she had to want to go badly enough to get there on her own. Rides to church could not be provided. Because she had to go through a rough part of town, the ward council saw to it that someone would drive along beside her as she rode an old bicycle to church. Through summer heat, through rain and even snow, she persisted in going to church. One young man, who with his family was assigned to escort her on a snowy morning, was so touched as he watched the commitment of this little girl pedaling through the snow and cold that he decided to serve a full-time mission, citing this experience as the turning point in his life. At Christmastime, a family in the ward gave this faithful little girl a new 10-speed bicycle. This so touched the parents that they too began attending church. In May 1999 this young girl was baptized. What made the baptism even more special was that it was performed by the newest priest in the ward, her recently activated father.

Illustration by Paul Mann
For a while I was a student assistant in the library at my high school. At a certain hour I would usually see the special education class come in. One of the girls in that class, Stephanie, often went to a certain area to read books. She seemed very sweet and friendly.
One day some other students were in the lounge area of the library, and Stephanie tried to talk to them. These students started making fun of her, calling her names and making rude comments to her face about her disability.
As I watched from the library desk, I thought, “Oh, dear. That’s just wrong.” Not seeing an adult around at the moment, I walked over to them and said, “Hey, cut it out.” Then they turned their ridicule to me, so I took Stephanie to the other side of the library, where we sat and talked together for a while.
After that, I didn’t have another chance to talk to Stephanie again. The end of the school year came, and life moved on.
A year later, the sister missionaries invited me to go with them to an appointment. When the day came, I went to the address at the scheduled time, but the sister missionaries weren’t there yet. I called them to make sure I was at the right place, and they told me they were running late from their last appointment but would be there in a few minutes, so I might as well just go to the house and introduce myself. I stepped up to the door and rang the doorbell. A woman answered. She was very nice and courteous.
Then I saw a young woman come around the corner. When she saw me, she ran up to me and hugged me. At first I thought, “She looks so familiar.” She asked, “How are you doing?!” As she went on saying kind and friendly things to me, I just looked at her, trying to figure out who she was. And then it clicked—she was the girl from a year ago in the library. It was Stephanie.
At that moment I thought, “What if I hadn’t helped her that day and then showed up here at her door to try to teach her the gospel? If I had looked on while they were making fun of her, if I hadn’t stepped in and been kind to her, why would she listen to me trying to teach her the gospel?”
Her sweet reaction meant a lot to me. I thanked Heavenly Father for giving me the strength to do the right thing.
When the sister missionaries came, the lesson went very well. We visited Stephanie twice a week after that. She loved learning about the gospel and was baptized within a short time. She really enjoys being active in the Church. I often pick her up to take her to church and to firesides or other activities. Though her mother isn’t interested in the Church, she’s very supportive of Stephanie’s activity.
Through this experience I realized that it’s so important to know that people are always watching. You never know when you’ll have a chance to make an impression on someone and plant a seed. It’s so important to stick up for what you know to be true at all times, even when it may not necessarily seem like the easiest thing to do.

It is Sunday evening, and the home of Abilio and María Elena Samaniego in Asunción, Paraguay, is alive with the sounds of family. The three unmarried children are there, along with the three married children and their families. Now dinner is over, and the adults visit while the grandchildren play. This morning was the homecoming of a missionary son, so this evening is a time of reminiscing, laughing, teasing.
It’s no surprise that the focus of the conversation tonight is on Church and family, because it was the Church’s emphasis on families that attracted Brother Samaniego nearly twenty years ago. “I saw how much the missionaries loved my family,” he recalls. “They showed me how to love my children. My heart was softened, and I accepted their message.” The family was baptized in 1974. Brother Samaniego learned to be a patriarch in his home. Now, he is also a stake patriarch.
Family members reminisce about how the Church has blessed their lives. As they talk, a blanket of love descends upon them. Tears and testimony flow freely.
They recall the years when they lived five kilometers from the nearest branch. “Since there were eight of us, it cost too much for bus fare,” remembers their oldest daughter, Yenny, who is now the mother of four children and the wife of stake president Gregorio Figueredo. “So we all had to walk—two hours each way. We made that trip every Saturday for Primary and Mutual. And since Sunday meetings were held both morning and afternoon, we would make the round trip twice—a total of twenty kilometers. When it was really hot, we would sometimes take our lunch and sit under a tree between meetings. From the day we were baptized, I don’t remember that we ever missed a meeting.” Now, all six children and their families are faithful and active in the Church.
The boys remember getting dressed in white shirts and ties when they were as young as seven or eight and going out to teach with the full-time missionaries. Several family members, including fifteen-year-old Carolín, have served stake missions. Now, all three Samaniego sons have completed full-time missions.
The girls recall their mother encouraging them to date members of the Church, even though there didn’t seem to be many young LDS men around. “Surely there is a mother somewhere who is preparing a special young man for you,” their mother would tell them. Now, all three of the children who are married were married in the temple.
Sister Samaniego reflects upon her years teaching early-morning seminary. “We would get up each morning at 5:00. While I was teaching the class, my husband prepared breakfast for the family and all the students. Then everyone would leave in time to get to school by 7:00 A.M.” Before Sister Samaniego was released as seminary teacher, she had taught all six of her own children. She also taught them all in Primary, Sunday School, and Mutual. Currently, she is ward Relief Society president.
Someone pulls out a scrapbook with photographs showing the Samaniegos and other “pioneer families” building their chapel. And they talk about how the Church in Paraguay has become more respected because of the examples of members.
The hour is late, but no one wants to leave. Memories lead to more memories, and now several conversations are going on at once. “I am very fortunate,” says Brother Samaniego quietly. “My heart rejoices tonight as I see and listen to my children and their families. ‘Man is that he might have joy.’ That is what I feel today!”

Over the last nine years I have observed hundreds of young men receive the Melchizedek priesthood and go on missions. I always listened carefully to the testimonies of these young men as they received the higher priesthood or left for missions. I was particularly listening to hear if they had a testimony of the living God and the atonement of Jesus Christ. I frequently heard things like, “I am thankful for my family or for my friends who are always there for me. Or, I know the church is true and that President Hinckley is a prophet.” While these things were all appropriate, to me the telling point was if they understood their relationship to God and Jesus Christ and had somehow personalized that knowledge. During this same period of time I have heard literally hundreds of young men and women report their missions. How gratifying it was to have almost 100% of them say they knew God lived and they knew that Jesus Christ had died for their sins. One young man left a lasting impression on me when summarizing his mission he simply said, “I did it for Christ”. The spirit told me that he knew why it was important to do things like serve a mission.

Wouldn’t you get a little nervous if your high school counselor suddenly and unexpectedly called you into the office?
You would especially be nervous if you were Richard Aballay, a senior at a Catholic seminary in New York City. Richard had seen the commercials about the Mormon church on TV, had contacted the missionaries, and was baptized. But he hadn’t yet mentioned his baptism to anyone at the school, where boys prepare to become Catholic priests.
“How are you doing in your subjects?” the counselor began politely on that fateful day in late October.
“Fine,” said Richard, cautiously.
Then the counselor jumped to his real concern. “Are you affiliated with another church?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
“Why?”
“I have come to know the Savior better in this church. I know this church is doing more for me. It is the church of God.”
As the counselor began to lecture, warning Richard that being a member of a different church was grounds for dismissal, Richard thought how easy it would be to say he had made it all up. Then he could finish his senior year in peace.
“But I couldn’t do that,” Richard said later. “You can’t deny the truth when you have it.”
By the next day it was official: Richard had to leave.
The following week was torment, Richard said. But with much prayer, his family was able to find space for him in another good school.
“From that experience,” Richard says, “I have learned that the Lord will never abandon me.”
In fact, the experience gave Richard the chance to tell more people about the gospel, since his classmates wanted to know why he would leave school for his new beliefs.
Being dismissed from school is not the only challenge Richard has faced. He grew up in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. It is not an easy place to live.
“I know for a fact that if it weren’t for the gospel, I would probably have gone into something crazy,” he says. “The inner city is hard. But I know the greatest blessing in my life has been the priesthood.
“Ever since I was first ordained a deacon, I noticed a great change. I just felt that the Lord was with me. And I had a confidence—I could walk into my school where kids were doing bad things, and I could say no. It helps keep me straight. I’m always saying to myself, ‘I want to honor the priesthood.’”
The gospel has helped him in other ways, too. One is that since he joined the Church, Richard has been able to overcome a speech impediment. Before receiving the Holy Ghost, “I could not say a word in public,” Richard says. After his confirmation, he was able to bless the sacrament, give talks in church, and take roles in two road shows. “Like it says in Ether 12:27—my weakness became a strength,” he says. Richard used to go to parties a lot. But after the last one, he says, “I saw things there, and I didn’t feel right. For some reason I knew I didn’t belong.”
He left the party and vowed to become more involved in service, schoolwork, studying the scriptures, and listening to good music—and to not watch so much television.
“It was hard,” he says. “I wanted to keep up with things going on outside. I didn’t want to be a social hermit. But I felt that if I was going to go on a mission, and if I was going to get married in the temple, and if I was going to receive callings, I had to be worthy.”
Many of his friends think this is a strange road to take. They also think it strange that he decided to accept a call to serve as a full-time missionary in the Paraguay Asunción Mission. And Richard agrees with them.
“As I look at it, the life-style one lives as a disciple of Christ—as a member of the Church—is a strange one from the rest of the world. God doesn’t work or think in the same ways man does, and he doesn’t want us to act and think the way the rest of the world does. So because the Lord works in ways that seem strange to the world, we appear to be a strange and peculiar people. But I’m proud of being strange! I don’t think there’s anything strange with it.
“The truth is, now that I’m on the other side, I think the life-style that other people live is strange. I want to make their life-style one that I know will be better for them—and that would be bringing them to Christ.”
The Apostle Paul invited all to be “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints” (Eph. 2:19). Richard Aballay extends the same invitation to the strangers of the world. In doing so, the boy from the Bronx has become a man.

Illustrated by Mike Eagle
The McKay family loved music and learned to play instruments. President McKay’s son Lawrence played the violin beautifully.
President McKay: What a beautiful song.
Years later, when Lawrence became a husband and a father, he sold the violin to help make ends meet.
Lawrence: Mildred and I need the money, Father, but how I hated to give up my violin! Playing it often comforted me when I was far from home.
President McKay didn’t hesitate to solve the problem.
President McKay: I understand my son recently sold you this violin. I’m here to buy it back—I prize it too greatly to let it leave our family.
President McKay composed a poem about how much he valued his son’s musical talent and the memories they had made playing music together. A few months later, he put the violin and poem in the mail.
Lawrence: Look, Mildred, a package from my father. What do you think it is?
When Lawrence recognized his beloved violin, tears streamed down his face. He played all of his favorite songs late into the night and vowed never to part with his father’s precious gift again.

I have a hero. She does not know that I think of her as a hero. I have met her only once, but the impression she left on me was lasting. After meeting her I inquired about her of the missionaries, her stake president, and the mission president, and I found even more reasons to respect her. She is Sister Ye Hui Hua of the Tainan Taiwan Stake. I met her when I was visiting Tainan for a stake conference. She was tending the grounds of the meetinghouse. I was drawn to the obvious happiness that enveloped her as she worked. As we spoke she shared her testimony and her gratitude for her many blessings. I left our only encounter carrying the radiance of her joyful spirit and pondering my relative ingratitude for my blessings. She obviously did not have much in the way of material things, but she was as peaceful and cheerful as anyone I had ever met. When I asked others about her, I found out the rest of her story.
As a young adult she had a great desire to attend university but knew the financial burden would be too heavy for her parents. Instead she worked and gave her income to her father, whom she dearly loved and who was a good and righteous man. After she married and in answer to her prayers, the missionaries visited her and her family and they joined the Church. Her husband, however, suffered from lingering health problems and passed away, leaving Sister Ye with three children and little means of support. Following her husband’s death, Sister Ye had to work several jobs to support her family. She managed to save a little every day so her children could serve missions. All three of her children have now served missions; two served in Taiwan and one in the Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission. After returning from his mission, one of her sons became ill and passed away.
As missionaries spoke with Sister Ye at my request, she commented: “I can’t think of any reason why I would have these trials, but I have faith that it is according to God’s great wisdom. I have come to have a very deep appreciation and understanding of Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation. I believe that only when we keep God’s commandments can we understand His will for us. I thank God daily for allowing me to be here. When I have trials, I remember the pain of others. If someone is sick or has a need, I pray about what I can do to help, and the Lord leads me to know what I can do.”
The missionaries often see Sister Ye—“Ye Mama,” as they fondly call her—trimming the bushes or cleaning around the meetinghouse. They say that she is every missionary’s “second mother” and that she is as thoughtful of them as if they were her own children.
I will long carry a mental picture of a beaming Sister Ye on the grounds of the Tainan meetinghouse, garden tools in hand, sharing with me her gratitude for her blessings—Sister Ye, who has lost opportunities for education and material benefits, who has suffered the loss of those close to her, and who has repeatedly sacrificed for her children and others. What principles of faith separate Sister Ye from those who, when met with the trials of this life, “curse God, and die” (Job 2:9)?

That’s when I really got to know my Mormon friend, Walt. When everybody else was partying, he and I would find something better to do. Walt made it easy for me to be good because I knew he didn’t drink or smoke, so I never felt any pressure to either.
Walt didn’t swear, and he was always correcting me when I did. He was polite and well mannered (most of the time), and when I was around him, I felt I should try to act a little better myself. He was a serious athlete, as I was, but he also took his studies just as seriously. He studies hard and got good grades (something I did only occasionally). Being friends with Walt didn’t make me perfect, but it showed me how I could improve.
Of course, Walt also put a little friendly peer pressure on me about his church. “Hey, Chris,” he’d say, “you might as well be a Mormon—you don’t drink, smoke, or use drugs. You’re practically a Mormon anyway.” As we became better friends, we talked about his church a lot, and I started to meet other Latter-day Saint youth.
One of them was Walt’s girlfriend, Liz. She was an attractive, cheerful Mormon girl whom I used to tease unmercifully. Liz was the perfect lady, and as we got to know each other better, her good influence began to change me. I stopped swearing. And, most important of all, I became interested in the Church.
It wasn’t easy for me, a Catholic, to consider changing my religion, but good friends like Walt and Liz made it easier for me to investigate the Church. Liz encouraged me to seek out the truth and to do what was right. And when I had gained a testimony, she and Walt gave me the strength and courage I needed to go through with my decision to get baptized.
I know much has been said about how bad peer pressure can be, and it can be very bad. But when I look back on the friends I’ve enjoyed associating with, I’d say that peer pressure can be very good too. My friends have helped me to become a better person than I would have been without them.

“Just look at you, Matthew—you’re growing like a weed,” Uncle Clinton said. “Pretty soon you’ll be as big as I am.”
Giggling, I spread out my fingers. “I’m only six, and I won’t be as big as you are for a long, long time because you must be a hundred.”
Uncle Clinton threw back his head and laughed.
Grandpa laughed too. Uncle Clinton and Grandpa grow the best dry-farm watermelons out on Coal Pitts. Grandpa made a pond out there, but whenever my brother Raymond—he’s four—and I come visiting in the summer, all we ever see in it is dried-up mud. Grandpa promised us that if the pond ever has enough water in it to float a duck, we can take Luckus and Luella with us to Coal Pitts.
Luckus is a he duck, and Luella is a she duck. When Grandpa turns the canal water onto his irrigated farm in LaVerkin, Raymond and I climb right into the ditch with our ducks and have a splashing good time.
One hot afternoon, big clouds appeared from nowhere and got right down to the business of raining. Raymond and I were excited. We watched through the window, and Grandpa recited, “The lightning flashed and the thunder roared and the little pig lay down and snored.”
The storm passed by LaVerkin, and the sky above Coal Pitts got purplish black.
Grandpa said, “It looks like Coal Pitts is getting a regular gully washer. We might get some water in the pond.”
The next day, when Grandpa figured that the dirt road was dry enough, he said, “Let’s take a little run out to Coal Pitts.”
“Oh boy!” I exclaimed. “Can Luckus and Luella go too? Can they?”
“You’re sort of a funny duck yourself,” Grandpa laughed.
“I’m a boy, Grandpa. Luckus and Luella are ducks.”
“Really?” he teased. “OK, let’s round up the boys and the ducks.”
While Grandma packed a lunch, Grandpa put Luckus and Luella into a wooden crate and set it in the back of the pickup. Just then Aunt Lillian drove up and asked Grandpa if we were going to the dry farm. She said that Uncle Clinton had forgotten his lunch bucket and asked us to take it to him. Grandpa put it beside the crate in the pickup. Grandma brought out the picnic basket, and we all got into the truck and went chugging up the hill.
The rainstorm had filled Grandpa’s pond plumb full. We turned Luckus and Luella loose, and they skimmed over to that water as happy as if they were floating right into heaven. Raymond and I started to go after them.
“Hold it, you fellows,” Grandpa said. “Don’t you want to come with me to take Uncle Clinton his lunch bucket? He’ll be wondering where it is.”
“I think I’ll stay and pick us some roasting ears,” Grandma said. “There’s a fine row of corn alongside our own melon patch.”
Uncle Clinton was mighty glad to see his lunch bucket. He was picking a load of melons to take to town. He wasn’t starving, because he was full of melon, but he said that a piece of fried chicken would be mighty tasty too.
Grandpa was just getting back into the pickup when Uncle Clinton said, “Before you go, I’d like you to see my golden honey melons.”
We followed him up the hillside toward the cedars. He took out his pocketknife and speared a dark green watermelon. It popped open to the touch. The inside of that melon wasn’t red like all the rest, but a bright gold—almost an orange color. He cut a slice for each of us. Mmmm! How juicy and sweet it was!
When Grandpa finally left, I talked him into letting Raymond and me walk back.
“Go ahead and explore if you want to,” Grandpa said. “You know the way back to the pond.”
Uncle Clinton sliced off another piece of melon for each of us. We ate until we were as full as toads; then we went exploring. We had barely gone around the first bend, when a jackrabbit ran in front of us and we took off after him up a little gully that twisted and turned. Then we lost sight of him. After that we played hide-and-seek in some tall bushes that were loaded with yellow flowers—rabbit brush, Grandma calls them. We decided to pick some for Grandma and became so interested that we wandered all over the gully. Finally we climbed to the top of it, where we expected to see Grandpa’s pickup and his melon patch. But all we could see were more hills and gullies.
We just stood and stared, trying to decide which way to go. Raymond thought that we should go back. I thought that we should go ahead, so I coaxed him to go over the next little hill with me. When we got there, we saw the same thing—more gullies and hills.
Raymond started to cry. I wanted to cry, too, but I knew that it would only make him cry harder. If I was as big as Uncle Clinton said, I’d better think of something. Raymond was beginning to really howl, and I had to say something. So I said, “Don’t cry, Raymond. Maybe a helicopter will fly over and see us.”
Then a really good idea popped into my head: Heavenly Father knows where we are. He can see us all the time. I looked up, and my voice choked a little when I said, “Heavenly Father, we’re lost. Please help us find the way back to Grandpa’s melon patch.”
At that very minute I heard the sweetest sound. Looking up again, I said, “Thanks a lot, Heavenly Father.” Then I turned and said, “Raymond, quit crying and listen.”
He snuffled a couple of times quieting down; then we both heard it! Prettier than any songbird’s song came “Quack, quack, quack.”
We ran toward the sound. We had to go down one more little dip and over one more rise. But from the top of it, we could see Grandpa in his watermelon patch and Grandma shucking corn next to it. The quacking and splashing became louder and happier, and we ran through the rocks and brush like a couple of lizards.
“It’s about time you two showed up,” Grandma said, pushing back the hair from her face. “Your grandpa and I have about starved waiting for you so that we could unpack the lunch basket.”
Luckus and Luella had waddled out of the pond at the sight of us. I was real hungry, but before I could eat, I just had to hug a couple of ducks.

Several months ago our dog, Barclay, who is usually well behaved, began to show a different side of his personality. One evening after dinner, we didn't clean up very well and he seized the moment. All seventy pounds jumped onto the table for a glorious feast—a pile of chicken bones lying in a puddle of Shoyu-flavored grease that was just too much to resist. When my wife, Stacy, discovered him lying on top of the table eating out of the Pyrex dish she was rather surprised.
We laughed this one off but a day or two later it happened again. At lunch, Barclay was sitting up tall, staring at the sliding glass door that looks onto the back porch. I was curious. Stacy reported how he had managed to open the door of the pantry and raid the package of marshmallows on the bottom shelf. This time, however, his behavior was rewarded with scraps of a different kind. Scolded, contrite, and forlorn, he seemed to be learning the lesson of a lifetime. Perhaps he was having a moment of self-reflection.
Brothers and Sisters, I am not a dog-psychologist, but I accept that each of us, from time to time, has a moment of truth. Shakespeare captured this well in the famous line from Julius Caesar: "The eye sees not itself But by reflection, by some other things." Like Barclay seeing himself in the glass, the mirror from which we examine ourselves is the gospel.

The night was very dark. The children cuddled close to their parents. The hand of tiny Thorvald squeezed his father’s and pretty little Astra clung to Ibine. Anthon looked down at Thor and remembered his own childhood. He remembered the cows he had herded, the wooden shoes he had worn in winter, his own sister who died in a terrible blizzard too far from home to get help. He remembered the worried look of his father who couldn’t support his family of nine during the mid-1800s war with Germany. He remembered working from 2:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night on a farm in order to help. He remembered crying in bed at night. “I wondered what I was sent on this earth for. I couldn’t see what good I was doing. All I could see ahead was endless work to no real worthwhile end.”
The frigid cold gripped Anton’s face, and he wondered if the children or Ibine were uncomfortable. The chilling breeze made him think of glacier ice, and he remembered learning that ice-age glaciers had left his Denmark an undulating flatland well suited to farming and agriculture. He was grateful that at least a few years of formal education were mandatory—that his country believed in the virtues of learning and working. He saw ships’ masts in the harbor poking above the fields.
He and his family were nearing the place where they would be baptized. A sick feeling of loneliness hit him in his stomach. “My homeland, my forefathers, all that has been good to me—am I giving up their trust in me for a far-fetched religion sprouted in a distant; new country?”
Then he and his little family turned the corner of the last block. They could see the ice-covered water clearly. Anthon felt the whitened wool next to his skin. He had been ordered to wear it constantly since his illness. His illness! Yes, he remembered the birth of his testimony. He had been healed after 12 months of life and death struggle with pneumonia. The elders had said that with faith and a special blessing called administration he could be healed. He had submitted to their counsel and believed. Shortly after, Anthon had resolutely cleared away the dark clouds that had been gathering around his search for truth. He told the ministers of the other churches that he could not serve two masters. (See Matt. 6:24.) They had been good neighborhood friends, but with his decision to join the Mormons, that friendship ended—the ministers gave him up as a lost soul.
Every member of the Mormon church who lived in Aalborg was there on the seashore, some holding lanterns. It was a small but cheery group. They sang hymns and smiled. But Anthon was still quiet. He looked into the faces of his beautiful children and wondered if he was doing what was right for them. He knew he would have to find a private school for them because the prejudice in the public schools against the few Mormon children was too much for such young children to bear.
The singing was over. A prayer was given to open the meeting. The missionaries asked a blessing on Brother and Sister Jensen that as they were baptized they would not fall ill from the freezing temperatures. A hole was chopped in the ice. The sacred ordinance was performed for both Anthon and his wife, Ibine. The two new members were welcomed with hugs and handshakes and sent quickly home to their warm fireplace. It was then that Anthon noticed something special—something unexpected. On their way home he found himself walking, almost skipping, with lightened step—his wife and children smiling at him all the way. The heavy burdens of worry had been lifted. He knew he had done the right thing, and above all he knew now that there was something important for him to do in life.
“I went to my former friend and minister the next day to bear him my testimony. I was so happy that I felt I could convert the whole world, and I wanted to,” he later recorded. “I wanted everyone to feel the peace and the joy that came from my baptism. And the most wonderful thing of all, I had an assurance that greater joys and greater knowledge were yet in store—not only for me but for my beautiful family.”

Recently, I spoke with Merrie Miss girls about kind people in their lives.
Kate and Laura were best friends. The two of them also included others in their circle of friends. This group of girls planned a party, inviting all in the group except Kate. Laura, after becoming aware of what had happened, simply told the others that she would not be able to accept their invitation unless Kate was included. The kind, loyal act of a friend who followed God’s plan prevented pain and sorrow.

When I was single, it seemed like engaged girls with sparkly diamond rings loved to show them off so everyone would know how much their husband paid for them. It’s like in the film Johnny Lingo, where islanders are shocked when Johnny buys his wife with eight cows instead of the typical three or four. I couldn’t wait until I got the chance to wave around an “eight cow” ring of my own.

But if you judge me by the plain, thin, silver-colored ring I currently wear, you’d think my husband was a cheapskate. Actually my husband worked for months so I could have a beautiful ring. Unfortunately, it was an uninsured beautiful eight-cow ring … and I flushed it down the toilet.

We’d only been married for two weeks, and I’d already formed the habit of carefully pulling off my ring and placing it safely in a little box above the sink each time I washed my hands. I didn’t want to run the risk of tainting my ring’s sparkle with soap scum buildup. As I pulled it off one Saturday morning, the pressure built, and it popped right off my knuckle. I watched in disbelief as my lovely ring sailed straight for the toilet and hit the open bowl dead center, just as it finished flushing.

I screamed. I cried. I tried to jump in after it, but grown women just don’t fit in toilet bowls no matter how desperate the circumstances. My poor husband took the toilet apart for me, stuck his whole arm down the sludge hole, and felt around for the ring. We called every person in town that had anything to do with the sewer system and pleaded our case.

“Lady, your line is connected to the largest high pressure pipe in the city. Your ring is long gone,” I was told. In one swift swirl of water, my ring was gone forever.

Over the next few days, I became understandably depressed. My marriage preparation classes hadn’t covered crises of the flushing variety. I worried I’d ruined my chances for a happy marital relationship. After all, my husband had insisted on buying me a nice ring because the sacrifice it would take for him to be able to buy it would represent his love for me. Now I’d flushed the symbol of his love down the toilet.

I was telling my husband for the 42nd time how oafish I was and how sorry I was that he’d worked so hard for something I’d clumsily lost. He took me by the shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Please stop, Arianne. I don’t care about the ring. I didn’t do all that work for some sparkly rock. I did it for you, and I’d do it all over again a hundred times if you wanted me to. You’re worth more than all the diamonds in the world. I love you.”

My husband’s comforting words and warm embrace that day made me realize how silly I’d been acting. The ring was gone, but everything it symbolized still exists.

So even though I still punish the toilet with a hard kick from time to time, I’ve learned to focus on what’s most important. And that’s not how much my husband spent on me but how much he loves me. My husband insists he’ll get me a new ring someday. But I’m not sure I want one. Every time I look at my thin little ring, I remember what real love is. It doesn’t sparkle, it can’t be shown off, and thank goodness, it can’t be flushed down a toilet.

One mother from Illinois, USA, shared how she made time to talk with her children:
“When our children were small, I got into the habit of watching a few favorite television programs. … Unfortunately, the programs came on at the same time the children went to bed.
“… At one point I realized I had put my programs at the top of my list and my children farther down. For a while I tried reading bedtime stories with the TV set on, but I knew in my heart it wasn’t the best way. As I pondered about the days and weeks I had lost to my TV habit, I began to feel guilty and decided to change. It took a while to convince myself that I could really turn off the TV.
“After about two weeks of leaving the television off, I felt a burden somehow lifted. I realized I felt better, even cleaner somehow, and I knew I had made the right choice.”2

PETER: At the age of ten, Joyce was sitting on a bus going home. From the bus, she could see a Chinese Temple with the burning of incense still visible from afar. The bus then stopped at an Indian temple that has a huge Roman Catholic Church as its peaceful neighbor. At the next stop, a Malay Mosque can be seen with its devout followers humbly kneeling on their knees, praying and the sound of Koran recitation can be heard over the loud speaker. When the bus turn the corner, a Methodist Church was insight, and it suddenly dawned on Joyce that Singapore was indeed a country of religious freedom. She then started to contemplate which religion she should commit herself into. Her parents were traditional Chinese praying to many idols. Joyce remembered one particular black-faced angry looking Chinese god dressed like a warrior holding a spear poised for an attack. She shuttered at the thought of worshipping such a scary god.

Then, a face appeared in her mind's eye, and she recognized it to be that of Jesus Christ. It seemed right at that time for her to become a Christian. So, she started going from one church to another desiring to find out how she could become totally committed to Jesus and live his gospel. She asked many gospel questions, but they were left unsatisfactorily answered. Later, she met the missionaries who told her that she was a child of a loving God, and that she did not have to believe what they said but to ask God himself if their message was true. Joyce was intrigued, could God literally answer every sincere prayer? She decided to try. And Heavenly Father did answer the questions of a twelve-year-old girl. When Joyce first stepped into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a powerful feeling came over her, and she knew that she was home, she did not have to go elsewhere to search for the truth. Later, when Joyce was attending an early morning seminary class, the Holy Spirit again overwhelmed her entire being, and she gained a spiritual witness that an important part of her life's mission was to share the gospel with her Chinese fellowmen in China when it would be officially opened for the restored gospel.

A Broadway star had a colorful way of expressing his opinion about the place of pride in his work. He had been hired to be the lead in a production of Fiddler on the Roof with a cast of college students. I was asked to give a prayer with the cast on opening night. The Broadway veteran, who had played the part hundreds of times, stood at the back of a ring of students gathered around me just before the curtain was to go up. He looked puzzled.

As I recall now, I prayed about the way you might have done. I pleaded with God that the members of the cast would be lifted above their natural abilities, that the stage equipment would function well, that the hearts of the audience would be softened, and that they would be touched. I can’t remember much else of the prayer, but I can remember what happened just after I said “Amen.”

The Broadway star jumped into the air, landed on the stage with the sound of an explosion coming from his heavy boots, slapped his hands to his sides, and then thrust them into the air and shouted, “Okay, now let’s go for it!” If the audience heard his bellow, and I can’t imagine that they didn’t, they must have expected the cast to come charging through the curtain out into the audience bent on some kind of mayhem.

I can only assume that he was determined to counteract the terrible mistake he had just witnessed. The last thing on earth he wanted was to go on a stage with a bunch of amateur actors who had been infected with humility.

“Hey Trista, are you still aiming for that celestial kingdom you told me about?” my cousin asked.
I was unprepared for her question, and I stammered for a moment while I tried to decide what it was she was talking about. Then I remembered. Last summer, during my family’s visit to California, my cousin and I had been talking late into the night, when somehow we got to discussing the Church. My cousin is not a member and knew very little about our Church, so when she asked me to tell her about it, I gladly agreed. I told her what I could: the Joseph Smith story, our beliefs, my dreams, and my fears—including my goal of reaching the celestial kingdom. I bore my testimony to her, and told her I knew the gospel was true. I told her how I wanted to live forever with a chosen companion, and to have my family with me. She listened carefully and asked me a lot of questions which I answered as best I could. We went to sleep that night, she was thinking about the things I had told her, and I was feeling rather pleased with my missionary work.
Now seven months later, I was amazed that she remembered what I had told her.
“Well are you?” She was looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.
I swallowed hard and stared out my window at the falling snow, watching each individual snowflake merge with millions of others. If only life were that simple.
“Am I still reaching for the celestial kingdom?” I asked myself. I thought back over the last few months and knew I hadn’t been trying very hard. My school grades weren’t as high as they should have been, my best friend wasn’t my best friend anymore, family relationships were not as good as they could have been, and most important of all, I was gradually becoming less active in the Church. As I sat there, I took a new look at my life and realized how empty it had been. I turned and looked at my cousin and said quietly but firmly, with my eyes full of tears, “Yes, I am.”
Oh how thankful I am to have a Father in Heaven who loves me enough to remind me of my goals. With his help I can reach the celestial kingdom. And when I doubt myself, I just remember those three words, “Yes, I am,” and I know that my Father in Heaven is with me.

Let me attempt to tie together everything I have said by telling you about one man. He knocked on the door of our hotel in Hyderabad, having heard we were coming. The room was getting crowded. Two other men had arrived a few minutes before. They had come 600 km in an ancient bus from their home in Andhra Predesh in South India, riding all night, because they had heard that some Church leaders were going to be in Hyderabad. I was talking with the two brothers when the third man arrived. He brought with him his son. He is a professor, his son a lawyer. They had found a tract through someone who had known about the Church and had obtained a copy of the Book of Mormon. Now this man and his sons, all professionals, are ready and anxious to join the Church, pleading for that privilege. We have no one there to teach them; we are not permitted in that great land to have any missionaries presently, and so we were unable to baptize them. I am confident that we will find ways to help them. We are pleading with the Lord, and we are seeking answers, and there will be ways; but for now these people are coming singly or in groups with the same message, pleading for baptism. We must find a way. This is what this man desired. He had written a document in which he acknowledged that he had need of repentance and declared that he had sorely repented.

He declared his convictions about the Lord Jesus Christ and the Prophet Joseph Smith and the priesthood and the kingdom and the gospel plan. His Book of Mormon was marked on every page, annotated on every page with cross-references to the Bible and to the Doctrine and Covenants. I read one of his annotations and tried to explain, in tenderness of heart, why we needed to have a chance to help teach them, because he had misread a scripture and had written an incorrect doctrine in his margin. His answer to that was to hand me this document in which he was pleading for baptism. He had two references to the scriptures, both of which happened to be loved passages, favorites of mine. But consider what he was saying (he’s been waiting many months): “I know I must not ask for the priesthood, but what must I do to become acceptable to the Lord and to be received by baptism?” These are the two verses. I read from Isaiah 30:

And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him . . . .

. . . Thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.

And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:

And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. [Isaiah 30:18–21]

The other reference he handed me was to section 108 of the Doctrine and Covenants, in which the Lord comforts his servant, Lyman Sherman, with these words:

Your sins are forgiven you, because you have obeyed my voice in coming up hither this morning to receive counsel of him whom I have appointed.

Brother Samuels had come 100 miles.

Therefore, let your soul be at rest concerning your spiritual standing, and resist no more my voice.

And arise up and be more careful henceforth in observing your vows, which you have made and do make, and you shall be blessed with exceeding great blessings.

Wait patiently until the solemn assembly shall be called of my servants, then you shall be remembered with the first of mine elders, and receive right by ordination with the rest of mine elders whom I have chosen.

Behold, this is the promise of the Father unto you if you continue faithful.

And it shall be fulfilled unto you in that day that you shall have right to preach my gospel wheresoever I shall send you, from henceforth from that time. [D&C 108:1–6]

Then a beautiful verse about strengthening the brethren.

We went to a meeting in a little schoolhouse, and all testified, each in turn. One of the brothers stood, dressed in his Indian white, and bore as sweet a testimony as I expect to hear on this earth. He is a young teacher with two college degrees. He concluded: “We don’t demand; we ask. What must we do to be worthy to receive baptism?” Then his brother stood. I was a little worried about his brother because he is a preacher, and he might be thought to be a little less well grounded in some ways. I will quote verbatim what he said, quietly, humbly, tearfully:

The child is father to the man. If we are not worthy to be members of God’s kingdom, are our little children not acceptable to him? It is for them we plead.

This process is illustrated rather well in the development of the Welfare Program of the Church. This program was not revealed full blown to the prophet or even to the Brethren in the presiding councils of the Church. Rather the need for such a program became evident to these leaders. Through inspiration they selected the individuals who would be instrumental in developing the program. After a rather long prayerful period of counseling together and experimenting with various forms of a possible program, a final proposal was prepared and brought before the presiding councils of the Church. William E. Berrett has given us one account of the results. He says he was in the first meeting in which the Welfare Program was announced to the members of the Church in 1936.

President Grant related that individuals had asked him whether he had been talking to Heavenly Beings, whether the Lord had given him a vision. His answer was, “No, I have not talked to angels; I have not had a vision.” And he recounted that the word of the Lord on such matters was already given. A plan was worked out in accordance to earlier revelations . . . President Grant said that . . . he went before the Lord in prayer to ask him if the plan was acceptable, and he got the feeling from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet that the Lord was pleased. [“Teaching by the Spirit,” BYU, 27 June 1966]

“ZZZZZ …” Eight-year-old Jason faked a snore, then burst into giggles. Lying in his bed, he pulled the blanket over his eyes and pretended to sleep. Across the dark room, his six-year-old brother snuggled into his pillow, then let out a long, dreamy sigh before he started to laugh as well. “Shh!” Jason whispered, pulling the blanket off his head. “We’re supposed to be sleeping!”
“I’m sleeping. I’m sleeping!” his brother whispered back. Both boys giggled again, then pulled the sheets up under their chins, squeezed their eyes shut, and lay as stiff as possible while they waited.
In the next room, their sister also waited, pretending to sleep. Down the hall, their brother waited, pretending to sleep. Even their mom, they knew, was lying in her dark bedroom, curled up under her covers, pretending to sleep.
A floorboard creaked in the shadowy hallway. Dad was somewhere nearby. Any moment now they would hear the signal. Jason listened intently, hardly breathing as he tried to guess where Dad might be standing at that moment. He was definitely coming closer. Any second now …
“BEEEEEP!” A screech blared throughout the house. Jason dropped to the floor and crawled toward the door on his hands and knees.
“Go, go, go!” his brother yelled, bumping into Jason’s side. “We have to get out!”
“Fire!” Jason shouted, crawling into the hallway. “Everyone out!”
“Everyone out!” Mom called. “Stay low!”
Dad joined them on the floor as they crawled down the hallway, into the kitchen, and out the back door. Once outside, they stood up and ran to the maple tree.
“Are we safe?” Dad asked. “Is everyone here?”
“We all made it,” Mom said, counting heads.
Dad looked at his stopwatch. “That was our best time yet,” he said. “Now everyone back to bed—for real this time.”
The next morning, as the family gathered for breakfast, Jason thought about the fire drill. “I’m glad we have an escape plan,” he said. “I feel safer with a fire alarm in our house.”
“Me too,” Mom agreed. “Having an alarm helps keep us safe—as long as we respond quickly when we hear it go off.”