Gospel Story Finder

When Patrick was 19, he lost his father and brother-in-law in a tragic car accident in Saudi Arabia. “My world turned upside down with their loss,” he says. His father’s guiding hand, loving encouragement, and joyful view of the world were gone. Lost in grief and emptiness for a time, Patrick went home to England with his mother but eventually returned to work in Saudi Arabia.
“I had all sorts of valuable opportunities to learn and grow and see how businesses worked,” he says. He was especially grateful for “a wonderful boss who coached and guided me and became a dear friend. He was one of several father-type figures I’ve been blessed with since my father’s death.”

After a recent mission tour in Indonesia when I visited the missionaries and the Saints on the island of Java, I had to catch an early morning flight to Singapore, and I checked out of the hotel at 6:00 A.M. In order to go to the airport, I, with my luggage, climbed into a taxi that was parked near the hotel entrance. I told the driver to go to the international airport, but alas, his car would not start. Apparently the battery was dead.
Well, what do you do in such a case?
Many thoughts crossed my mind. I calculated that it would probably cost me much time to unload my luggage and find another taxi, and it also occurred to me that the taxi driver was trying hard to make an honest living for his family and would be very disappointed if he could not make that lucrative half-hour trip to the airport.
I made the decision to do my morning exercises by pushing the taxi, leaving the Indonesian cab driver behind the steering wheel to start the car. However, he greatly overestimated the early morning physical power of a flying Dutchman and released the clutch of the car before I had been able to give the car adequate speed. As a result, it came to a sudden halt. But I gave it another try, and this time it worked. With a roaring motor the taxi moved forward. I flung open the door, jumped in, and we were on our way.
An hour and a half later when I boarded my flight, the air hostess who greeted me at the door of the plane said: “I am surprised to see you here! You are the gentleman who pushed the taxi in front of the Borobudur Hotel this morning.”
I confirmed that this was true, and she then told me that all the members of the plane crew had witnessed the scene from the airport limousine parked at a side door of the hotel. They had been waiting for their driver to bring one more piece of luggage. She said that on the way to the airport they had talked a lot about the incident and had wondered: “What makes this man tick? If he can afford to stay in the Borobudur Hotel, why would he take the trouble to push a taxicab at 6:00 A.M. in the morning?”
I thought, “This is my chance to do missionary work!” I took a name card out of my wallet, handed it over to her, and said, “We in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe in sound human relations.” What a great opening line for a missionary!
Well, to cut a long story short, the air hostess told me she was not actually a stewardess but was flight services instructor for Cathay Pacific Airways and had boarded this flight to evaluate the performance of some students she had taught in the cabin crew training school in Hong Kong. That enabled me to make another statement about the Church: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the largest educational institution in the world today. At least 2 million people teach one another on a weekly basis with divinely inspired lesson materials.” I further explained to her that a great deal of my time is spent in teaching missionaries and members of the Church in the nine missions of Southeast Asia.
She remarked: “Then you are maybe the man we are looking for—an experienced air traveler with the ability to teach our personnel involved in ticketing, reservations, check-in counter work, baggage claim area assisting, etc., how to get along well with customers.” I told her that I would gladly do it free of charge whenever they planned another initial or refresher course in Hong Kong and when these dates would not interfere with my other Church assignments. I thought then and there: “What a golden opportunity to use that beautiful book Spiritual Roots of Human Relations, written by Brother Stephen R. Covey of Brigham Young University, to let these people know what makes Mormons tick!”
After my return to Hong Kong, I was approached by the training manager of the airline, who had received a report from the flight services instructor. I made an appointment and spent a couple of hours with him in his office. He was greatly impressed by the work and the achievements of the Church.
I am sure I will have the opportunity to reach out to many souls in the future simply because of what the world observed when they saw the Church in action one early morning in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Now another. A young man in Mexico City was approved to receive a loan of approximately $1,000 to make it possible for him to attend school to become a diesel mechanic. He has said: “My promise is to give my best in order to feel satisfied with my efforts. I know this program is valuable and important. Because of this, I am trying to take maximum advantage of this for the future. I will be able to serve and help the poor and help counsel my family members. I thank my Father in Heaven for this beautiful and inspired program.”

“Did I ever tell you about the Missouri snake?” Grandpa asked.
“No,” said Emily. She sat down on the cool grass to listen.
“One day, my brother Lee and I were out playing by a rock pile, when we saw a snake, a great big one. Mom had told us to stay away from snakes because one might be poisonous, and we were scared. Lee and I started throwing rocks at it. We threw so many that we moved nearly the whole rock pile!” he said.
“Did you kill the snake?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know,” Grandpa Charles laughed. “We never did get brave enough to go and see.”

At school we were given an assignment to find different words in magazines. My friend and I were looking through a magazine and came across an advertisement that showed a woman dressed immodestly. I knew I should tell our teacher, but my friend wanted to leave it in the magazine and ignore it. I decided to tell our teacher that the magazine she had given us had a bad picture in it. She said thank you, and put the advertisement in the trash. I’m glad I did the right thing, and that no one else had to see the bad picture.

I was born in Cambodia, where most people are Buddhists. After the Khmer Rouge regime killed so many people, many of the survivors didn’t understand why, if there was a God, He would let this happen to our people. At 14 years old, I wondered the same thing.
After the regime ended, several religions began taking hold in Cambodia. I was confused because the churches taught so many different things. My family remained Buddhists, but I wanted answers to the questions of my soul: where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going after this life?
One day as I returned from school, my aunt told me that two young men wearing white shirts and ties had come to her home talking about Jesus Christ. She was surprised because they spoke good Cambodian. I wanted to learn about Christ. I wanted to know who created us. I wondered, “Who is God? Is it Buddha, Jesus Christ, or some other god?”
My aunt and I accepted the missionaries. During the first discussion, we felt the Spirit telling us that what they said was true. They gave us a Book of Mormon and promised that if we read it, pondered it, and asked God with a sincere heart, having faith in Him, He would manifest the truth unto us. It made a lot of sense to me. I accepted the gospel, along with my aunt and her children. About a month later, we were all baptized and confirmed.

One Sunday morning, after drinking alcohol and kava with friends for most of the night, Siope ‘Akau‘ola of Tonga was returning home when he saw a family dressed in their Sunday best. They were laughing and talking as they walked together. Siope wondered what made them so happy, so he followed them to see where they were going.
Siope saw the family enter a Latter-day Saint Church building. He watched through the window as others arrived. Happiness radiated from their faces as families sat together and sang songs of worship.
Siope’s thoughts drifted to his wife, Liu. The love they had shared when first married was fading. Siope wanted to recapture that love. He hurried home and told his wife he had found the way to help their family succeed: they needed to join the Church.
That very day Siope went to the bishop’s home in his village. The bishop recognized Siope, having seen him drunk in the streets. As they talked, Siope could see doubt on the bishop’s face, but he was firm in his resolve; he boldly told the bishop he wanted to be baptized. The bishop paused, invited him in, and began teaching him the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Liu was reluctant at first but watched as her husband gradually changed for the better. Siope began spending more time with their children and showing more love for his wife and family through his actions. So Liu began taking the missionary lessons also, and soon they were both baptized.
As the one-year anniversary of their baptism drew near, the ‘Akau‘ola family contemplated the wonderful blessings of the temple. Siope said, “If the blessings of the temple are so much greater than those we have received from being baptized, imagine how wonderful temple blessings must be.” Despite their desire to be sealed, the temple in Tonga was undergoing renovations, so they would have to wait over a year or make an expensive trip to New Zealand or Fiji to attend the temple.
The family thought hard and prayed about what to do. They eventually decided to take out a small loan. While waiting for approval, the bank processing their loan was destroyed in a fire. All loans would be delayed until the following year.
Siope and Liu were feeling discouraged. They sat together in their small living room and prayed for a miracle. As they prayed and counseled together, the answer came: “I saw in my mind’s eye the family van smiling at us and knew this was the answer to our prayers,” Siope said. They were able to sell the van the next day and purchase airline tickets to Fiji for their family of five.
They arrived very late into Nadi, Fiji, with three tired children and a long drive ahead of them to the temple in Suva. Liu said, “I learned that the more we try to get closer to the Lord’s house the more Satan tries to get us to give up before we get the blessing.”
While sitting in the airport trying to decide what their next step would be, a woman helped them arrange lodging and a ride to Suva the next day for a fraction of the usual rates. They felt that God had sent an angel to help them.
They arrived at the temple the next day. “As we entered the temple I felt a peace and calm in my heart,” Liu said. “I have never seen clean and white in my life like in the temple. A thought came to my mind: If the temple is a house made by man and it is so beautiful, then how wonderful must the home be that Heavenly Father has promised us!”
Their experiences in the temple were life-changing for the family. Liu said, “The whole time we were in Fiji, I experienced the love of our Heavenly Father for us. When we choose to follow Him, He really takes good care of us.”
Wonderful blessings continued to come for the ‘Akau‘ola family after they returned home. Both Siope and Liu received college scholarships, earned teaching degrees, and were hired at Liahona High School.
While teaching, they became aware of children who needed a place to live. Sometimes by ones, more often by twos and threes, children began knocking on Siope and Liu’s door. And Siope and Liu took them in. Their small home now holds 20 people. They have five other “adopted” children who have since gone away to attend college or to serve missions.
Photograph courtesy of the authors
Siope and Liu know that these children will grow and blossom when they are given love and structure in their lives. Those who were not members of the Church have embraced the gospel and now have growing desires to serve missions. Siope and Liu call all the children under their care their children, and all the kids call Liu and Siope Mom and Dad. The ‘Akau‘olas know they’ve been richly blessed and are happy to share these blessings with others.

Once Joseph discovered that sharing his vision only turned his neighbors against him, he kept it mostly to himself, content with the knowledge God had given him.18 Later, after he moved away from New York, he tried to record his sacred experience in the woods. He described his yearning for forgiveness and the Savior’s warning to a world in need of repentance. He wrote the words out himself, in halting language, trying earnestly to capture the majesty of the moment.

In the years that followed, he recounted the vision more publicly, drawing on scribes who could help him better express what defied all description. He told of his desire to find the true church and described God the Father appearing first to introduce the Son. He wrote less about his own search for forgiveness and more about the Savior’s universal message of truth and the need for a restoration of the gospel.19

With each effort to record his experience, Joseph testified that the Lord had heard and answered his prayer. As a young man, he learned that the Savior’s church was no longer on the earth. But the Lord had promised to reveal more about His gospel in due time. So Joseph resolved to trust in God, stay true to the commandment he had received in the woods, and wait patiently for further direction.20

Scott ran home from the bus stop. It was Friday! He could have friends over, play games, and—best of all—spend time with Dad.
Dad had been working long hours lately. He left before Scott woke up and didn’t come home until after bedtime. But Dad always saved the weekends for family and church.
“Mom!” Scott called as he came through the door. “Can I invite Cayden to come over and play?” Mom had just put down the phone, and Scott stopped when he saw the serious expression on her face.
“First I need to talk to you,” Mom said. “There’s been another hurricane, this time in Louisiana, and Dad’s been asked to help with cleanup again.”
“Can I go with him?” Scott asked. Dad always came back from cleanup trips with interesting stories about serving and working. He had promised that when Scott got old enough he could come along.
Mom closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m glad you want to help,” she said. “But you still aren’t quite old enough, and your dad might not be able to go after all.”
What would keep Dad from going? Scott wondered. More work? Was he sick?
“Actually, whether or not Dad can go depends a lot on you,” Mom said. Scott’s eyebrows shot up.
“Why would it depend on me?” he asked.
“Remember how my foot has been hurting the past few days?” Mom asked. Scott nodded. He and his sisters had helped her with the ice packs and pillows she needed to help her foot feel better.
“Well, today I found out that it’s probably broken. I need to stay completely off of it while it heals.”
She paused for a minute, but Scott was already ahead of her. “So you need me and the others to help while Dad is gone? Like making meals and cleaning the house?”
Mom nodded.
“Will I be in charge?”
Mom smiled. “I’ll be in charge. But you’d be the head helper.” Her face looked serious again. “If it’s too much, Dad can stay home. I told him I thought you could handle it, but we wanted to ask you first. It would be your way of doing hurricane help, because if you help here, you’ll make it so he can help there.”
Now it was Scott’s turn to be serious. “Mom,” he said. “I can totally do this. You can count on me!”
Mom smiled and gave Scott a big hug.
On Saturday morning, Dad was already gone when Scott woke up. Mom called out advice as Scott made pancakes for his four younger siblings. Scott even made a car-shaped pancake for Michael. Later, for lunch, Scott made sandwiches.
“Do you want jelly or honey on your sandwich?” Scott asked Allison. She wanted jelly.
At dinner Scott asked Abigail to get the peas to go with the macaroni and cheese. “We have to be healthy and eat our vegetables,” he told her.
After each meal, everyone helped clear the table and wash the dishes. Scott swept the floor and made sure everyone played quietly so Mom could rest. That night he got everyone together for family prayers.
When Dad came home the next day, Scott and his siblings had a surprise for him. They had their own stories to share about working to help others.

We had barely arrived in our motel room when the phone rang. I knew it would be bad news about Jodi, my nine-month-old sister. She had been in a coma since birth and required round-the-clock monitoring and special tubal feedings. We had left Jodi temporarily at a care center so our family could take a much-needed vacation.
I answered the phone. My grandpa was on the line. His voice was firm: “Get your dad.”
Their conversation ended quickly. My fears were confirmed. Jodi had died.
The next day, after we had arrived home, I breathed a sigh of relief. The school bus was at the top of the street. My friends would be coming. At last I would have somebody my own age to share my pain.
However, as I stood in my driveway waiting for my friends, something strange happened. It was almost as if I had become invisible. I watched as my friends crossed to the other side of the street and continued talking with one another. They didn’t even look at me.
The next morning my friends didn’t pick me up as they usually did. “That’s understandable,” I thought. They probably knew I wasn’t going to school because of funeral planning. But they didn’t come the next day or the next or the next. They didn’t wait for me after school either.
During this time my family received lots of support from the Relief Society and other ward members. However, chicken casserole did little to soothe my 13-year-old aching heart. When I returned to Mutual, my adviser gave a lesson on life after death. I started crying. My adviser looked down and continued reading. My classmates stared ahead. I sobbed. How I wished somebody would have cried with me or put her arms around me.
Looking back on these events, I realize that my friends were not cruel and uncaring. They just didn’t know how to respond to my pain. They assumed that I wanted to be left alone to grieve and, since I was in mourning, I would not want to do anything fun.

A few years ago, our family gathered to discuss where we should spend our Christmas vacation within our country. Two of my children—both energetic and outgoing—wanted us to stay in a hotel in Kenema. My wife and I understood their excitement, but we also knew how that choice would affect our savings and limit our ability to extend help to needy family members. Kenema is where many of our extended relatives live and also a place where they value culture. Christmas has always been a time when we try to open our arms to those who may come to visit.
What started as a simple decision soon turned into repeated strain. The children who wanted the hotel stay felt misunderstood; the others felt opposed for thinking differently. Small communication has broken down here. Some days my wife and I felt indecisive, wondering whether we were failing as parents—especially because the conflict was beginning to overshadow the spirit of the holiday.
We prayed and counselled together, searching for a way to honour our children’s desires while also teaching the deeper principle of balancing personal enjoyment with charity. Eventually, we found a middle path: a simple Catholic guesthouse with enough room for all of us, affordable enough to preserve what we needed to bless others, yet still giving the children the feeling of being “away” for the holiday. It was not exactly what anyone originally wanted, but it was something that honoured everyone’s needs.
During that period of tension, I spent many moments on my dialogue. One day, as I prayed, a calm feeling settled over me. A thought entered my mind—gentle but clear. It reminded me of something President D. Todd Christofferson has taught that parents are called not merely to keep peace in the home but to lead their children toward higher principles—and that true discipleship often requires deliberate, loving correction, patient teaching, and choices that reflect eternal priorities rather than momentary desires.
He teaches that families grow stronger when parents guide with purpose, helping children learn to choose what builds faith, unity, and compassion—even when those choices require sacrifice.
Remembering that helped me breathe again. It reminded me that our role was not to please every wish but to guide our children toward Christlike balance—toward understanding that joy, charity, and family unity can and must coexist.
And as we moved forward with love and steady leadership, hearts softened. The arguments faded. And our family grew closer—not just because we found a place to stay but because we learned, together, what President Christofferson teaches so often: that true happiness in families comes when love, sacrifice, and discipleship walk hand in hand.
“Love them first. Teach them second.”
That night, instead of teaching them about obedience or respect, I gathered all of our family and expressed how much we loved them. I shared memories of my childhood, their kindness, and the joy they brought into our home. To my surprise, they softened. One of them began to appreciate sharing gifts and coordinating plans to assist when the opportunity arises. Our family grew stronger not by avoiding conflict but by facing it with love and the help of the Lord.

Mexico City, 1972: Those Saints came from the deserts. They came from the industrial cities of the north. They came from the small pellittos in the east and west. They came from the tropical coastlines down south in Central America. Throughout the summer those Saints had saved and borrowed and sold whatever they had to try to get together the two hundred pesos per person that was necessary for bus tickets. I’ll just use one illustration. Four busloads came from a very distant area. There was no money left over for food, but that didn’t matter. This group decided that they could fast for the three or four days of the conference. Most of the Saints arriving at the area general conference in Mexico City didn’t have two pesos (about sixteen cents American currency) for a cot, and so they spent those nights on hard floors. But, oh, what an inspiration it was to witness sixteen thousand members of the Church sustain President Harold B. Lee for the first time in a general conference as the President and the prophet, seer, and revelator of the Church! There were so many choice experiences that time will not permit me to relate all of them.

One weekend I woke up and was unable to hear in my left ear. I called an ear, nose, and throat doctor and made an appointment.
The doctor immediately sent me to an audiologist for a hearing test. I began to worry when I could not hear any of the test sounds in my left ear. At the end of the test, the audiologist concluded that I had sensorineural hearing loss, meaning a cranial nerve used in hearing was damaged.
I was shocked. I was only 26 years old and was already discussing the need for a hearing aid. One of my biggest passions is music. Would I still be able to play my instruments and sing?
The doctor prescribed a steroid to see if it would help, but he was positive my hearing loss was permanent.
My emotions soon got the better of me, and tears flooded my eyes. I was afraid of what the future would bring, and I was sad that I would never hear normally again.
That night my husband, Brian, suggested that he give me a priesthood blessing. I expected that the blessing would give me comfort and strength to deal with my hearing loss, but instead Brian promised in his blessing that my hearing would be fully restored. I couldn’t believe it.
“My husband must be mistaken,” I thought. The doctor had seen many cases like mine and said that my hearing would not return.
Afterward, I asked Brian if he thought the promised blessing was his will or the Lord’s. Brian told me he had felt a strong prompting to make the promise. I wasn’t convinced.
As I pondered my condition, I remembered a scripture in the book of Mark where Jesus tells a desperate father that “all things are possible to him that believeth.” The man responded, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:23–24). This was my plea to my Heavenly Father that night. I wanted to believe that I would be healed, but I was unsure. I lacked faith the Lord would help me in my crisis.
After my prayer I thought about a lesson I had taught the young women about the power of priesthood blessings. I had told the class to ask for blessings and that the Lord can heal the sick through blessings. How could I expect them to believe me if I lacked faith? I decided to put my trust in the Lord—He had not lied to me before.
Two weeks later, my hearing completely returned. The audiologist and doctor were shocked.
I will forever be grateful to Heavenly Father that my hearing was restored, but I am even more grateful for the lesson I learned. Even if it’s not always in the way we are promised in a blessing, I know the Lord will bless us if we put our faith and trust in Him.

I witnessed the righteousness and power of God in great glory, received through faithfulness to covenants and ordinances, in the life of a young Church member who was partially paralyzed in a horrific automobile accident. After this individual’s grueling months of recovery and adapting to a new lifestyle with restricted mobility, I met and talked with this stalwart soul. During our conversation I asked, “What has this experience helped you to learn?” The immediate response was, “I am not sad. I am not mad. And everything will be OK.”

Some young college students learned it when, as Relief Society members, they visited weekly with sisters in a local nursing home. The first weeks found many of the women in a resigned, even lethargic state. For the most part they had given up trying to do anything with their lives; they were simply waiting them out. But the girls continued to visit, some bringing short musical programs, others reading or helping them write letters. Gradually the women began to look forward to the weekly visits, and then, some of the vitality of these young Relief Society sisters carried on through the week. The girls nurtured every spark of interest. When they found that many of the women had been quilters, they got the necessary equipment for them and set it up. The women quickly finished one exciting quilt and were ready to start a second. A few chose to do other projects the students brought. The story continues to be one of activity and vitality. These young students brought new life and love; they were “mother” to the elderly sisters.

I recall attending the funeral of an older man who had taken his life. His wife had died years earlier, and as his health declined, he felt he had less and less of a reason to live. Gradually he found himself confined to the four walls of his home. A semi-invalid, he was unable to visit friends or go grocery shopping. His food was delivered to his door. He missed going to church, missed regular fellowship with other members of his priesthood quorum.
Although he wasn’t able to get about, the doctor assured him he could live many more years. “You neither smoke nor drink,” the doctor said. “You’ve taken good care of yourself. Other than the fact that you’re confined to your house and wheelchair, I give you a clean bill of health.”
While the doctor was trying to be encouraging, the man felt discouraged. This good brother felt his earthly life no longer had any value, and he wanted to join his beloved wife in the spirit world. The more he thought about death, the more appealing it became to him. He had been a faithful member of the Church all his life; he had served two missions and had been diligent in several leadership positions at different times in his life. But as he thought about the release he would find through death, his mind became confused. He obviously concluded that taking his own life would solve his problems.
I visited with the family after the funeral. As you might expect, they were greatly disturbed by what their father and grandfather had done. Their feelings ranged from grief to anger to guilt. “I should have noticed how depressed he was,” one daughter said. “Then I could have helped him and prevented this.”
One son spoke rather harshly. “I never thought my father was a stupid man. But what can you say about this? If he loved us, he would never have done such a thing!”
A comment by the youngest son captured the despair they all felt: “There is no hope for dad now, is there,” he said. It was more a statement than a question. “All the good things he did throughout his life don’t matter anymore. Now that he’s taken his life, he will be in the telestial kingdom throughout eternity.” Then he wept.

“Meet you at the graveyard.” That was the byword for the Pleasant Hill First Ward Young Men and Young Women, Walnut Creek California Stake, for their super service project. They met at the cemetery in Martinez, California, carrying rakes, hoes, and shovels that were put to good use during the next few hours. Some of the older volunteers started cataloguing the graves, too, to help with the genealogical records for the graveyard. The cemetery was the only one in the county during 1850 through 1870, so many of the pioneers who settled that part of the San Francisco Bay Area are buried there. Despite the rain, the group of 35 volunteers transformed the badly neglected cemetery into an orderly, well-cared-for place.

I'd like to share another example. There was a young mother that came in and confessed to having had an abortion three years previously. Her soul had been “racked with torment” for three years! It was not a fun experience for her to bare her soul, and go through the painful process of repentance. But, the same thing happened to her that happened to Alma the Younger. He said (as I quoted before) and this sister felt, “I could remember my pain no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!” (Alma 36:19-20).

This courageous young Mom shared later, that she had finally been able to sleep peacefully through the night, for the first time in three years! She did not forget the sin, but she was not “harrowed up by the memory” of her sins anymore! Young people, and us older ones, if we truly want happiness and joy in our lives, we must repent of our sins. It will not be “fun;” but it is essential to enjoying true happiness.

Mother poked her head around my opened bedroom door. “Well, your visitors are here. Are you ready?”
I nodded. “I’ll be right there.”
I quickly returned the journal to its drawer and turned to pick up the book I’d been reading a lot lately off of my bed. My mind raced back a few months to my eventful 16th birthday.
Under the tissue paper in that white box had been yet another book. This one had a midnight blue cover and one of the most peculiar titles I’d ever read. Brett had scrawled a message on the inside cover in his now strangely familiar handwriting:
This book was given to me by two amazing guys one day at the hospital during a particularly bad stay. It brought me a lot of comfort during my darkest hours, and now I’m not so scared to die anymore. If this book brought comfort to me to face death, then surely it should give you strength to face life.
According to what these two guys teach and what is found in this book, I will see you and all my family again someday. So, although our time together on earth was short, we’ll always have forever.
My heart was pounding after reading those words for about the millionth time. It had taken a lot of pleading and persuasion, but I’d finally convinced my parents to let me invite two special “visitors” to our house so that I could learn more about this book. My hands were shaking as I closed the cover, took a deep breath, and walked, clutching the book in my hands, down the hall to the living room.
The two young men in suits and ties stood up when I walked into the room. With huge smiles, they introduced themselves and shook my hand. My heart was still pounding as I nervously smiled back.
We all sat down, and then one of the young men asked if he could offer a prayer. I nodded, and as I did, my eyes found the laughing, smiling face in a picture standing where it always had been, on the top shelf of the bookcase in our living room. Only this time, I could swear the smile was bigger and happier than ever before.

Lyle Chamberlain, 17, of Oak City, Utah, has a special friend. Her name is Iris. She’s a little on the short and stocky side, but her brain works just like a computer. She likes to run around, but she gets into trouble if there are stairs.
Iris is Lyle’s robot, something Lyle has been working toward nearly all his life.
Lyle has always wanted to build a robot. When he was a five-year-old, in kindergarten, he saw a television show about prosthetics—artificial limbs. From that moment on, Lyle wanted to build something that would move and think on its own. He tried putting a tape recorder in a cardboard box. But it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t really a robot.
In second grade, when Lyle was playing at his friend’s house, he was introduced to an Atari computer and computer games. “When I told my dad how neat it was and that we should get games like that for our computer, he told me, jokingly, ‘People make those games. Why don’t you make your own?’”
Lyle remembers, even at age seven, being impressed. “It hadn’t occurred to me. Grandpa had given us an old computer, and there were these college programming books with it. I pulled all those out and started looking through them and started typing in program listings. I was amazed. The computer was doing what I told it to do.”
At that young age, Lyle started teaching himself to program. Shortly after, Lyle wrote a program for a game called Maze Craze. “It has a stick man running through a maze. The stick man painted everywhere he had been. You couldn’t get back because it was poison paint, and the walls would shock you if you touched them. If you stayed in one place too long, you died. It was way too hard. I couldn’t play it.”
Little by little Lyle was finding ways to teach himself the things he needed to learn. He struggled to glean information from books that were way above his level. His dad would bring books home for him. And he would try to imitate things he saw others had done. “I didn’t know you have to go through college and work for years and years. I think being naive helped me because I was looking at it as if these men were playing around too.”
His mother and dad, Lisa and Chuck, couldn’t help a great deal. They freely admit to being computer illiterate. Plus taking care of Lyle and his two sisters and four brothers occupied all their time.
Lisa says, “When Lyle would try to explain something he was working on, all I could say was, ‘That’s nice, dear.’” But, over the years, she helped Lyle overcome obstacles like finding ways to enter the regional science fair when his school didn’t hold a local fair.
Lyle still wanted a robot. “My parents wouldn’t buy me one. They wouldn’t buy one of those toys. I would have all these ideas, and Dad would say, ‘Write the plans down first.’” And he found ways for Lyle to earn money while they were building their house. “I dug fence post holes, hodded brick, planted trees, did stuff like that. Dad said, ‘I’ve got to hire somebody; I might as well hire you.’”
Then, while on a river running trip with his Scout troop, Lyle walked into a convenience store late at night and saw a magazine on the rack that had the headline “Build Your Own Robot.” “I bought it and read it all the way through while everyone slept. There were things I didn’t understand at all, but that was okay. That article was my main source of information.” Looking back, Lyle comments, “Pitiful, wasn’t it?”
Lyle started building robots. At first, nothing seemed to work right because, as he later found out, he didn’t know enough. Then he needed to learn how to build things carefully. Finally, he built a robot that worked. His goal was now to make it to the international science fair. But he lost. He took third in the state competition.
“I was extremely disappointed. I stood back and said, ‘Why, what happened? There’s a reason I only took third. There is a reason that this other project beat mine.’ I looked at it for a while. I decided I could keep better records. I could have a better paper. There should be no doubt in the judges’ minds that I built this. I needed to know everything about it. I’ve got to have a better presentation.” By the time Lyle finished analyzing why he lost, he was ready to go to work again.
Lyle’s next robot took him to the international science fair. Again, he was blown away by the competition. But that was okay. Here were people like him. They didn’t sit and waste time. They would get ideas and say, Let’s do it. He came to see what it would take to win the next year.
The next year, Iris was born. Lyle said, “I thought of a lot of things, but other people had tried them and they didn’t work. I was in over my head. But I’m always in over my head. I found out that there is another way to have a robot ‘see’ other than using big, huge, complex computers. It was to simplify things. All the robot needs to recognize is one object—the floor. Anything that’s not the floor must be an obstacle.”
This time, Lyle knew what he needed to do to succeed. He kept meticulous records. He perfected his presentation. And he made sure Iris was working at her best. He knew his information backward and forward.
While at the international competition in Louisville, Kentucky, disaster struck. Iris’s eye—the digital camera—was damaged in shipping. An hour before his presentation, Lyle had the camera apart, working on it. “As soon as something goes wrong, especially at the science fair, there is no time for sitting back and wondering. You have to do something and do it now. No sense getting angry. It’s a waste of time. When the eye broke, I started diagnosing it. How am I going to fix it? How am I going to change my display? That’s one thing my dad teaches. You can’t be a victim. It’s up to you to make sure things are going right for you. Is your teacher a jerk? It doesn’t matter. It’s up to you to get a grade. You can’t leave it up to somebody else or put the blame on somebody else.”
Lyle goes on, “In my high school, there is no science fair. So I found a teacher to sign the papers. There is no mentor. But there are books. You are never stuck. There’s always something you can try as long as you’re willing to work hard.”
This time Lyle and Iris took some honors. He won the prestigious U.S. Army Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. And he took second prize in the fair’s engineering division.
All those times when Lyle didn’t win, he was disappointed for a while. Then he started figuring out what he needed to do to improve. “When I’d lose, I’d say, ‘Now I know how bad I did,’” explained Lyle. “Now I know what I’ve got to do. What am I going to do different?”
So robots must be the most important things in Lyle’s life? Not even close. “Family for me is the biggest, most important thing in my life. It wasn’t always like that. But it’s my family, specifically my parents and extended family, that keep me centered.”
Lyle says he is not the kind of person who accepts things on faith very easily. “It took me a while to realize that the Spirit of the Lord is a substantial, real thing, not just a belief.”
When Lyle’s younger brother Skyler was being ordained a deacon, Lyle was gathered with his father, uncles, and cousins in a circle to help with the ordination. “I thought, What could be better than to spend eternity with these people? I would do anything for anybody in this circle. The Spirit was very strong. That’s when I started thinking, It’s real, it’s substantial, it’s God’s power, and it’s been here all along. The thing I see happening in the family, the spirit that can be there, is the most important thing to me. I’d drop robots right now if the choice was between them and my family. I’m playing with little toys that pale in comparison to that.”
Now Lyle can build robots. He has reached one of the goals he has had all his life. Of course, he always wants to build another one that’s bigger and better than the last. But robots are not number one. His goals have changed, have expanded, to take in eternal things. He hasn’t got it all figured out yet, but all those years of being in a little over his head have taught him a few things: keep trying, keep working hard, keep praying, and keep learning. The answers are out there. And the most important ones come through music, through the feelings of the heart, and through a still, small voice.
There are worlds to conquer, but Lyle has found that the only one that really matters is the one that starts at home and leads to eternity.