Gospel Story Finder

When I was in my late teens, I received a telephone call that would change my life—my eternal life.
A good sister from my ward called to invite me to perform a dance floor show number at a Mutual activity evening that was being held in a couple of weeks. Dancing was a hobby of mine, and I was studying ballroom dancing at a studio in Salt Lake City. I had never been to a youth MIA (Mutual Improvement Association) dance before, and I was excited to accept the invitation to perform.
My partner and I arrived on the appointed evening and were greeted enthusiastically. I was surprised to find that we were the only ones on the program. It was an exciting experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.
The following Sunday morning, I decided to go to church in our ward for the first time since I was ordained a deacon. At that time, none of my family was active. I found people who welcomed me warmly, and they demonstrated a genuine friendship and caring. These experiences started me on the road to activity and service in the Church that has been a joy to me throughout the years.
A group of brethren took me under their wings, and we became good friends. A wonderful returned missionary taught me the basics of the gospel and helped prepare me to serve a mission. During this same time I was asked to help teach dancing in the ward, which gave me a feeling of being needed, and it also gave me a responsibility.
The next 15 months flew by, filled with growth and happiness as I progressed. I soon received a call to serve a mission in Mexico. I quickly grew to love the language, the country, and its people. Sharing the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ gave me a foundation upon which to build the rest of my life.
That evening so long ago when I was invited to share my talent, the door opened to a wonderful new world of friends and activity in the Church. I am grateful for those who reached out with a warm hand of fellowship, invited me in, nurtured me, and blessed my life.

These profiles can have a profound influence for good. Two months ago a young man named Zac—a freshman in college—saw an ad for mormon.org on television in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He connected with the website and was intrigued by the profiles of Church members. At our website he found the link that informed him where he could attend church. The next Sunday, dressed in a white shirt and tie, he attended church, was introduced to members of the ward, and enjoyed all three hours of meetings. He was invited to a member’s home for dinner, followed by his first missionary lesson. In less than two weeks, he was baptized and confirmed as a member of the Church. Welcome, Zac! (He is listening.)

The earliest instance of which I have recollection of spiritual feelings was when I was about five years of age, a very small boy. I was crying from the pain of an earache. There were no wonder drugs at the time. That was 85 years ago. My mother prepared a bag of table salt and put it on the stove to warm. My father softly put his hands upon my head and gave me a blessing, rebuking the pain and the illness by authority of the holy priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ. He then took me tenderly in his arms and placed the bag of warm salt at my ear. The pain subsided and left. I fell asleep in my father’s secure embrace. As I was falling asleep, the words of his administration floated through my mind. That is the earliest remembrance I have of the exercise of the authority of the priesthood in the name of the Lord.

On one occasion President Joseph Fielding Smith was my teacher for two weeks on board ship traveling to South America. He was reading this very verse to me. Instead of stopping, however, with the word repent, he added, “if they would have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, etc., etc.”

“President,” I asked, “where are you reading? My scripture does not say that.”

He got that twinkle in those beautiful blue eyes and with a smile on his face said, “That is what it means; it is supposed to say that.” I now have a corrected version!

What is the gospel of repentance? Surely it is not just repentance, is it? Can you see what is beginning to develop?

What is the plan of mercy? Be thinking of another name for the plan of mercy as we continue.

Before he met the missionaries, Brother Dupont said, he had been like a wanderer in a drought-ravaged land. Then suddenly he stumbled into a lake of water. The gospel was rich and refreshing to him, and he could not drink his fill. In his exuberance to immerse himself in his new-found treasure, he could not understand why others did not want to savor the same message. This lack of communication spilled into his marriage. His wife didn’t understand what had changed her husband.
As we ate, she told us of the war years, when he was bedridden. She had managed to find food for both of them, even during shortages. She had nursed him daily. Even after the war, he had required her constant care for several years before he gained the strength to walk. Then he had spent more years training and rehabilitating himself while she supported the family. No sooner had he started working again than two Americans began talking religion with him. Then he joined their church—he was the only member in town, and they baptized him in the river—and more and more of his life belonged to his church, not to her. She felt deprived, then embarrassed when parishioners laughed at her, the wife of the town fanatic.
President Dupont repeated over and over again that the Church was true, that he knew it was true, and that he would do whatever he could to share it with his wife. “But,” he said, “she just won’t listen.”
“Can’t you see?” I said one night after they had been sharp with each other. “What you’re really saying is that you love each other. Sister Dupont, all these years you’ve been asking your husband to spend more time with you. That’s important and it’s right. And President Dupont, all you want to do is share with your wife the thing that’s most precious to you. Right?”
He nodded yes. I turned to Sister Dupont.
“Can’t you see that he wants to share the gospel with you because he loves you?”
She didn’t say anything, but you could tell she was thinking. We excused ourselves quietly and went home.
Elder Granville’s prayer that night was straightforward and concerned.
“Please, Heavenly Father, help the Duponts to understand each other. They’re both good people.”
“Amen,” I said. And it sounded so good that I said it again in a whisper.
We had teaching appointments elsewhere for the next two weeks, and then we had to go to Bordeaux for district conference. Although we stopped to see President Dupont on branch business a couple of times, it was almost a month before we were asked back to the Duponts’ home. President Dupont delivered the invitation.
“You won’t believe it,” he said. “My wife’s been reading Church books! And she’s asking questions—good, honest questions. I try to answer them, but I get too pushy. She really wants to talk to you again.”
If we hadn’t had another teaching appointment, we might have rushed over right then.
“C’est incroyable!” Sister Dupont said the next time we all sat in the kitchen. “It’s incredible. Or it’s stupid! A 14-year-old boy can’t talk to God. And the Bible. It’s complete. Why should we need any more scriptures than we already have? And the priesthood. My husband’s never been to divinity school. Why should he be able to hold the priesthood?”
Good questions, all right. How could we handle this? I could imagine Elder Granville thinking this was more like the Sister Dupont of old. Maybe the niceness had been too good to last.
“Sister Dupont,” Elder Granville’s calm voice interrupted my thoughts, “we can answer all those questions for you. But we can’t answer them all at the same time. We have a series of discussions that will answer them one at a time. Would you be interested in listening to those discussions?”
She said yes.
How about that! I said to myself. There’s hope for this junior companion yet!
I wouldn’t exactly say that Sister Dupont became a golden investigator. But she did become our friend. She listened intently to the first discussion. She even joined us as her husband kneeled in prayer. And she invited us to dinner again the following Sunday. It was while we were finishing a serving of the thin mashed potatoes the French call purée that Elder Granville told Sister Dupont a story.
“Did you ever hear about the missionary who was eating dinner and asked his companion to pass the butter? The butter was right in front of him, but he couldn’t see it because it was so close.”
“What?”
“Simple. It’s like you and the gospel. All these years your husband has had it right here in front of you, but you couldn’t see it because it was so close. You keep asking where the butter is when it’s right in front of your plate.”
It may not have been the strongest analogy, but Elder Granville was trying. When we got home that night, he brought me a copy of the Book of Mormon.
“Why don’t you sign this with me?” he said, turning to a dedication on the flyleaf. “It’s for Sister Dupont.”
I looked at what he’d written.
“Voici le beurre,” it said. “Here is the butter.”
During the next two months Sister Dupont read the book—at least, she read more than half of it. And she had two more discussions, and prayed, and was talking to her husband more and more. And he was seeming happier and happier all the time. That’s when my transfer letter came.
I was moving north to Brittany where I would finish my mission. Elder Granville would be getting his third senior. The letter had been delayed by postal strikes. I would have to catch the first train in the morning.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to leave, Elder Granville,” I said. “We’ve been working so well here. The branch president’s happy and excited again, and the members are working with him. We’ve got some inactives coming out to church and a couple of solid investigators. The Marcellas family is getting ready for baptism. I guess I’ll just have to leave it up to you.”
A knock at the door.
“President Dupont!” Elder Granville greeted the visitor. “Come in, come in.”
President Dupont looked at me.
“I heard about the transfer,” he said. “I know you’re leaving tomorrow. My wife wants you to come say good-bye.”
There was a lot of packing and farewelling to take care of, but I knew I had to visit his wife.
“Of course we’ll be by,” I said.
The living room was dark, illuminated by a single bare bulb as many French living rooms are. The wallpaper, however, was a bright combination of browns, yellows, and tans. Sister Dupont was seated on the orange couch, a tray of cookies and hot chocolate before her.
“Hello, elders,” she said. “Have a seat. What’s this about Elder Romney leaving?”
“I’m afraid that’s right. Tomorrow morning.”
“That means there will be a new missionary here, too.”
“That’s right. Elder Taylor. He’s from New York.”
“I guess I’ll have to get to know him, too.”
I could see the smile on President Dupont’s face.
“I hope you will,” I said.
“Will you write to us?”
“Of course I’ll keep in touch,” I promised. “Trust me.”
“If you can’t trust the elders, who can you trust?” she said.
I thought I might cry.
I did keep in touch, especially five months later when I got home from my mission. It was hard, and President Dupont wrote to me more than I wrote to him. But we did exchange photos (I still have a nice picture of the Duponts with their grandchildren on vacation on the Spanish coast), and Christmas cards, and news of our families. Whatever I sent, even a postcard, I always got letters back, scrawled out in President Dupont’s longhand. He would let me know when he heard from one of the elders, especially from Elder Granville. He always included greetings from his wife, but I never received anything written personally by her. Other missionaries told me that she remained friendly and supported her husband, but she never joined the Church. Every once in a while I would write to her personally and bear my testimony to her through the mail.
I’ve been home for several years now, and this week I received an unusual letter from France. The address was strange, the handwriting unfamiliar. I opened it before I got to my desk.
“Dear Elder Romney,” it began, “I’ve wanted to write to you many times over the years, but I always figured my husband kept us in contact with you. Now my husband is gone. I wanted to let you know so that you could tell the other missionaries. He loved them all so much. Let them know the Church members held a funeral for him.
“I remember much of what you both told me about life after death. Perhaps my husband is there waiting for me, as you said he would be. I never did understand all you tried to tell me, all that he wanted to share with me, but I know you both believed it was true. I’m living with my daughter and her family now. Please write to me if you will.”
You know I will, Sister Dupont. You know I will.

One memorable night a relative and I disagreed about a political issue. She briskly and thoroughly took my comments apart, proving me wrong within earshot of family members. I felt foolish and uninformed—and I probably was. That night as I knelt to pray, I hurried to explain to Heavenly Father how difficult this relative was! I talked on and on. Perhaps I paused in my complaining and the Holy Ghost had a chance to get my attention, because, to my surprise, I next heard myself say, “You probably want me to love her.” Love her? I prayed on, saying something like, “How can I love her? I don’t think I even like her. My heart is hard; my feelings are hurt. I can’t do it.”

Then, surely with help from the Spirit, I had a new thought as I said, “But You love her, Heavenly Father. Would You give me a portion of Your love for her—so I can love her too?” My hard feelings softened, my heart started to change, and I began to see this person differently. I began to sense her real value that Heavenly Father saw. Isaiah writes, “The Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.”

Over time the gap between us sweetly closed. But even if she had not accepted my changed heart, I had learned that Heavenly Father will help us love even those we may think are unlovable, if we plead for His aid. The Savior’s Atonement is a conduit for the constant flow of charity from our Father in Heaven. We must choose to abide in this love in order to have charity for all.

“Can we go to the park today, Mommy?” Judy shouted on her way to the kitchen.
But when she got to the kitchen, no one was there.
She heard noises in the family room, so she went to look. There on the floor was her two-year-old sister, Mandy. Mommy was bent over her, smiling.
“Come on, Mandy Pandy, you can do it,” Mommy said.
“Can we, Mommy?” Judy asked louder.
“What, dear?” Mommy said without looking up.
“Go to the park!”
“Judy, you know that today is Mandy’s therapy day.”
“But she always gets therapy. We never go to the park anymore,” Judy whined.
Mommy looked at her with a sad face. Judy went outside and sat on the front porch swing. She swung back and forth and thought about her mother’s sad look. She knew she had put it there, and she didn’t like it.
“Hi, Judy,” a cheerful voice called from the bottom step.
“Hi,” she mumbled to the therapist, Mrs. Bybee.
“Could I swing with you for a minute?”
Judy shrugged her shoulders.
Mrs. Bybee sat down, and soon the swing was smoother. “You look awfully sad on such a pretty day.”
“I wanted to go to the park, but we can’t because of Mandy’s therapy.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Ever since the doctor said that Mandy has cere-cere—”
“Cerebral palsy?”
“Yeah, cerebral palsy,” Judy said. “Now all Mommy and Daddy do is therapy with Mandy.”
“That’s not much fun for you, is it?” Mrs. Bybee asked understandingly.
Judy shook her head, then asked, “What’s cerebral palsy? After Mandy was born, Daddy told me, but I forgot.”
“It’s when damage to the brain makes it harder to use your muscles, usually in your arms, legs, and mouth,” Mrs. Bybee explained.
“How did Mandy get it?”
“She had a hard time being born, and oxygen didn’t reach her brain at first. That kept her brain from making her muscles work right.”
“Oh.”
Mrs. Bybee smiled at Judy. “You know what—I bet you would be a great therapist for Mandy.”
“Me?”
“Yes! Let’s go see.” She took Judy’s hand as they went into the house. “Hello, Mrs. Collins. Hello, Mandy,” she greeted them. Then she told Judy, “Let’s sit on the floor by your sister.”
Judy sat down and wiggled her pointer finger toward Mandy. Mandy tried to reach for the finger, but couldn’t touch it.
“That’s wonderful, Judy,” Mrs. Bybee told her. “Getting Mandy to reach for your finger is good therapy.”
Judy beamed. Then she looked puzzled. “But she couldn’t do it.”
“That’s why we do therapy,” Mrs. Bybee explained. “One of these days she will be able to do it. For Mandy, therapy is trying to get her to move—and you’re probably the best person to give her therapy right now.”
“Why is that?” Mommy asked the therapist.
“Big sisters have a lot of energy. And sometimes they can do things over and over again when moms and dads can’t.”
“Ga!” Mandy said.
Judy laid on her stomach, with her face only inches away from Mandy’s face and said, “Ga!” Mandy smiled. “Did you see that?” Judy said excitedly.
Mrs. Bybee nodded. “You’re her big sister, and she wants to do things for you. In fact, she might do more things for you than for me or your mother.”
Judy saw that Mommy had a happy face now. Judy looked back at Mandy, who was still watching her big sister.
“Judy, you can help Mandy by getting her favorite toys and trying to get her to reach for them. It’s good, too, to repeat whatever she says. She needs to make lots of sounds so that she can learn to talk,” Mrs. Bybee explained.
“But that’s playing,” Judy said.
Mrs. Bybee nodded. “Therapy is a lot like playing.”
“Do you think Mandy might enjoy going to the park?” Mommy asked.
“I think that’s a great idea,” the therapist said. “It would be good for her to see and feel different things, like sand and grass.”
“Yippee! We get to go to the park, Mandy Pandy!” Judy exclaimed happily. “Just wait until I show you the swings and all the other fun things there!”

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved sports, especially football. I played whenever I could, and I dreamed of competing someday for Argentina in the Olympics or the World Games.
My dreams were shattered one day when I was 15 years old. I had just visited my sick seminary teacher and was riding my bicycle home when two gangs in my neighborhood started shooting at each other. A stray bullet hit me in the back.
When I woke up in the hospital the next day, I learned that I was paralyzed from the waist down.
While I was healing, family and friends would ask me how I was doing. I could see that they all felt bad for me, so I would console them by saying I was OK. Comforting others helped me, but I knew I wouldn’t walk again and had to learn how to live with being paralyzed.
At the time, I had started going to seminary and was becoming active again in the Church. Seminary was the pillar that supported me in coming back and in not getting mad at Heavenly Father over what had happened to me.
In seminary our teacher taught us that when bad things happen, we shouldn’t ask, “Why did this happen to me?” She said the question we should ask is, “What can I learn from this?”
It was hard to keep going and to always be positive, but my seminary teacher’s question gave me a lot of strength. When I lost hope and when doubts filled my mind, I always returned to that question: “What can I learn?” That helped me get up every day, and it carried me when I felt like giving up.

My mother fought cancer for nearly 10 years. Treatments and surgeries and finally confinement to her bed were some of her trials.
I remember my father saying as he watched her take her last breath, “A little girl has gone home to rest.”
One of the speakers at her funeral was President Spencer W. Kimball. Among the tributes he paid, I remember one that went something like this: “Some of you may have thought that Mildred suffered so long and so much because of something she had done wrong that required the trials.” He then said, “No, it was that God just wanted her to be polished a little more.” I remember at the time thinking, “If a woman that good needed that much polishing, what is ahead for me?”

I chose to speak about hope today because I have learned a lot about it over the past several years. There were other serious health issues, other surgeries, and other miracles. However, our trudge up Rocky Ridge in the face of the icy winds of adversity began on the afternoon of February 1, 2006, when we received the shocking news from Kansas that our daughter Laycee was in a hospital in a coma. She died the next day. We will be eternally thankful for the rescue parties the Lord sent in the form of loving family and friends. Truly they fulfilled the admonition of Alma “to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9). We are especially thankful for the anonymous individual who allowed us to purchase a gravestone immediately after Laycee’s death. This brought a great deal of comfort.

It was months before I began to see color in a life that had become gray. I feared that I might forget how to laugh or that I might never feel genuinely happy again. A day still does not go by that I do not think about Laycee several times. She was too well loved to ever be forgotten. Gradually the road became less steep and rocky. However, real healing, for me, did not come until 18 months later, after I climbed one more section of our own Rocky Ridge.

To set the stage for this experience, I will start by telling you that I have kept a daily journal for years. Writing in my journal is somewhat therapeutic. I record my thoughts and feelings along with events in my life. I also need to tell you that my career has caused me to travel a considerable amount. These trips involved many airline carriers, both foreign and domestic, to nearly every continent in the world. During all of this traveling, I had never lost a bag until one trip about six months after Laycee’s death.

I was on a long trip that took me from Argentina to Chile to Ecuador, back to the U.S. through Miami, and then to Reno before I returned home to Provo. All of the bags made it through to Miami; however, somewhere between the nonstop flight from Miami to Reno, one bag was lost. I always put my journal in a carry-on bag so that it is with me at all times—I cherish my journals. However, for reasons that I cannot explain, I inadvertently packed it in a checked bag for the trip from Quito to Reno. As you might have guessed, my journal was in the checked bag that was lost. Against high odds, that bag was never recovered by the airline.

At the time it was lost, that volume of my journal included daily entries for the six months following Laycee’s death. I was devastated. The loss consumed me for months. “Why did this happen?” I wondered. After my experience with the aneurysm, I had firsthand knowledge that God is very much involved in the details of our lives. I knew that God knew where that bag was, but repeated prayers, often accompanied with fasting, did not bring it back.

Eventually I accepted the fact that the journal was not coming back and that there must be a reason for it. It wasn’t until a little over a year later, near the end of a sabbatical leave at the University of Iowa, that I learned the reason for the loss of my journal. I was telling my wise bishop, Val Sheffield, of the loss of the journal—pining over the experience again and wondering why.

He stopped me and said, “I know why. It’s because what you wrote following your daughter’s death wasn’t right. It didn’t accurately represent how you should respond to what happened.” He went on, “You need to write how you feel about her death looking back from the perspective you have now; it’s a more accurate one.”

I was stunned. He did not know that over the past year I had been engaged in diligent study, pondering, and prayer about faith and hope, but the Lord knew. I went back to my apartment and thought about that for most of the night. I did rewrite my feelings about Laycee’s death. It turned out to be a sacred and singular experience. Although I can’t recall what I originally wrote in my lost journal, I am confident that it contained much of bitterness and anger. I am now glad that it is gone.

As my wife and I journey on, the depth and vitality of our faith and hope in Christ grows. We believe Christ when He tells us He has the desire and power to save us. That steadfast faith is the bedrock of our bright hope that through our temple marriage we will realize our goal of an eternal family, which includes Laycee. We have an assurance that the struggles involved in getting back home will seem “but a small moment” (D&C 121:7). We have cleaved together in a way that perhaps is not possible without the extreme heat and pressure of adversity. We can see that good can come from adversity if we have a hope in Christ.

When I was eighteen, my dad, my grandpa, and I went together to receive our patriarchal blessings. That was a spiritual highlight of my life. My grandpa was promised that if he remained faithful, he’d inherit the celestial kingdom. He was in his seventies then, so I knew where he was going to be. My dad received a wonderful blessing, and I did too. My spiritual heritage has given me a desire to do what’s right and to honor our family name. There have been many times in my life when I’ve been tempted to do wrong and thoughts of my father’s and grandfather’s goodness have prompted me to make better decisions.

One summer I decided to read the Bible. I was worried that I would find it boring, but I tried to read it every morning.
For several years, a quote from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, had hung on the bulletin board over my desk: “Be strong and of good courage. You are truly royal spirit daughters of Almighty God. You are princesses, destined to become queens. Your own wondrous story has already begun” (“Your Happily Ever After,” Ensign, May 2010, 127). I love this quote and have it memorized.
One day I stumbled on the phrase “be strong and of a good courage” in Deuteronomy 31:6! Recognizing it from President Uchtdorf’s quote, I highlighted the verse. I finished Deuteronomy that day and felt satisfied.
The next morning I began reading Joshua. In chapter 1 it says, “Be strong and of a good courage” (Joshua 1:6). I marked this scripture, noting the coincidence in my scripture journal.
A moment later, I found the phrase “be strong and of a good courage” again in verses 9 and 18! To me, the repetition of this phrase was a connection between the Old Testament and today. It must be important if the Lord’s servants are still giving us the same counsel today.
As I continued to read the Old Testament, I found several more verses with that same phrase. These verses are spread out and keep me eager to read my scriptures in the hope that I might find more.
This simple experience helped me to be diligent about my scripture study. It made the Old Testament interesting to me. And it became my personal goal to always “be strong and of good courage.”

Toward the end of World War II, my father was drafted into the German army and sent to the western front, leaving my mother alone to care for our family. Though I was only three years old, I can still remember this time of fear and hunger. We lived in Czechoslovakia, and with every passing day the war came nearer and the danger grew greater.
Finally, during the cold winter of 1944, my mother decided to flee to Germany, where her parents were living. She bundled us up and somehow managed to get us on one of the last refugee trains heading west. Traveling during that time was dangerous. Everywhere we went, the sound of explosions, the stressed faces, and ever-present hunger reminded us that we were in a war zone.
Along the way the train stopped occasionally to get supplies. One night during one of these stops, my mother hurried out of the train to search for some food for her four children. When she returned, to her great horror, the train and her children were gone!
She was weighed down with worry; desperate prayers filled her heart. She frantically searched the large and dark train station, urgently crisscrossing the numerous tracks while hoping against hope that the train had not already departed.
Perhaps I will never know all that went through my mother’s heart and mind on that black night as she searched through a grim railroad station for her lost children. That she was terrified, I have no doubt. I am certain it crossed her mind that if she did not find this train, she might never see her children again. I know with certainty: her faith overcame her fear, and her hope overcame her despair. She was not a woman who would sit and bemoan tragedy. She moved. She put her faith and hope into action.
And so she ran from track to track and from train to train until she finally found our train. It had been moved to a remote area of the station. There, at last, she found her children again.
I have often thought about that night and what my mother must have endured. If I could go back in time and sit by her side, I would ask her how she managed to go on in the face of her fears. I would ask about faith and hope and how she overcame despair.
While that is impossible, perhaps today I could sit by your side and by the side of any who might feel discouraged, worried, or lonely. Today I would like to speak with you about the infinite power of hope.

When our only daughter, Lindsay, was young, she and I enjoyed watching movies together. One that we enjoyed and watched together many times was an animated film called Finding Nemo. In the movie, Nemo is caught by a scuba diver and ends up in a fish tank in a dentist’s office. His father, Marlin, is determined to find Nemo. Marlin meets a fish named Dory during his journey. They face obstacle after obstacle as they try to find Nemo. Whether the obstacle is big or small, Dory’s message to Marlin is the same: “Just keep swimming.”
Several years later Lindsay served a mission in Santiago, Chile. Missions are hard. Disappointments are many. Each week at the end of my email I wrote, “Just keep swimming. Love, Dad.”
When Lindsay was expecting her second child, she found out that her unborn baby had a hole in his heart and that he had Down syndrome. As I wrote to her during this very difficult time, I closed my emails, “Just keep swimming.”
Obstacles come into each of our lives, but to get through them and to get where we want to go, we must keep swimming.

Finally, let me share with you one more experience among the Saints of the Pacific that remains deeply and spiritually rooted in my soul. Some years ago I was a young counselor to a bishop in a new ward in American Samoa. We had 99 members, consisting of subsistence farmers, cannery workers, government employees, and their families. When the First Presidency announced in 1977 that a temple was going to be constructed in Samoa, there was joy and thanksgiving expressed by all of us. Going to the temple from American Samoa at that time required traveling either to Hawaii or New Zealand. This was a costly journey that was beyond the reach of many faithful Church members.

During this period of time members were encouraged to donate to a building fund to assist in the construction of temples. In this spirit, our bishopric asked the ward members to prayerfully consider what they could give. A date was set for families to gather to offer their donations. Later, as these donations were opened in private, our bishopric was humbled and touched by the faith and generosity of our wonderful ward members.

Knowing each family and their circumstances, I felt a deep and abiding sense of awe, respect, and humility. These were, in every way, modern-day widow’s mites given freely from their “want,” with a joy in the promised blessing of the construction of a holy temple of the Lord in Samoa. These families had consecrated all that they could to the Lord, with the faith that they would not be left wanting. Their gift manifested their widow’s hearts. All who gave did so willingly and joyfully because the widow’s heart within them could see with the eye of faith the great crowning blessings in store for their families and for all of the people of Samoa and American Samoa for generations to come. I know that their consecrated offerings, their widow’s mites, were known and accepted by the Lord.

BOOM! BOOM!
It was three o’clock in the morning, and the city was being bombed. One minute Grace had been asleep in her bed, and the next, Dad was telling everyone to get under cover. Now Grace was huddled under the kitchen table with her dad, mom, and younger brothers, Heber and Alvin. She could hear the rumble of explosions and glass shattering outside. It was so loud!
“What’s going to happen to us?” Grace asked Dad.
Dad stroked her hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “But let’s say a prayer.”
The Vlam family held each other close.
“Dear Heavenly Father,” Dad prayed, “please keep our family safe.”
After a while, the noise quieted down. There were no more explosions. They were safe!
Mom took Grace’s hand and smiled at her. “Remember when we were sealed in the temple?”
Grace nodded. When they had moved from Indonesia to Holland, they were able to stop in Utah and be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.
“Whatever happens, God will take care of our family,” Mom said.
The next day, Grace heard air-raid sirens when she was outside on the city plaza. She looked up and saw planes above her head, with little black things falling from them. She stood there, staring, her mouth wide open.
A man started shouting at her. “Run! Those are bombs!”
Grace raced home, her heart pounding as she finally made it safely through the front door.
A few days later, the Nazis—who were the government leaders of Germany—officially took over Holland. Sometimes they took people who had been military officers as prisoners. Because Dad had been an officer in the Dutch military, the Nazi officers watched him carefully.
“But that won’t happen to Dad,” Grace thought. “We’re members of the Church, and Dad is a leader in the mission presidency. God will protect him.”
After the bombings, the Vlam family had to leave their city. One day at her new school, Grace heard other students whispering.
“Some people were taken prisoner today!”
“Will they ever come back?”
Grace was scared. Was Dad OK? She ran home as fast she could. As she burst through the door, she saw Mom in the hallway.
“Is it true?” Grace asked. “Is Dad gone?”
Mom didn’t say anything, but Grace knew from Mom’s sad eyes that Dad had been taken away. He was a prisoner of war. Grace leaned against the wall. She was too afraid to even cry.
“What do we do now?” she thought.
At that moment, Grace heard a voice say, “You will see your father again.” The voice was calm and clear. Grace knew it was the voice of the Holy Ghost. It made her feel a little better.
She didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she did know that Heavenly Father would take care of her and her family.
To be continued …

Great! I thought sarcastically. I had to come up with a devotional for seminary on service, and I didn’t know any good stories to tell.
“What should I do?” I asked my mom when I got home from school and explained the situation.
“Well, your dad is going over to Grandma’s right now,” she answered. “Why don’t you go with him and ask Grandma for an idea.”
When we arrived at Grandma’s house, she greeted us with her usual smile.
“Do you have any good stories about service?” I asked. “I have to give the devotional in seminary tomorrow.”
“Stories?” Grandma said. “I have a bunch of them. Let me go get my binder.”
She returned, flipped the binder open and said, “Now, here’s one you could use. In fact, I feel like this one would be perfect.” She proceeded to recall the details of an experience she had had many years earlier.
“This happened during the Vietnam War, when we lived in Colorado Springs. Your grandpa, who was flying in Vietnam, was gone, and I was staying busy just trying to keep up with all the kids.
“I was singing in a chorus made up of officers’ wives at the Air Force Academy. During a break at one of the rehearsals, a friend told me about a service project she was doing for wounded servicemen who were recovering at the Fort Carson Army Hospital.”
Grandma explained how her friend would go regularly to read magazines and books to the servicemen. Some of them had birthdays coming up and she wanted to take cakes to them, but she was discouraged because she couldn’t find anyone to help her, and she couldn’t bake them all herself. Grandma volunteered immediately to help her bake some cakes.
The very next day her friend called and asked if she was really serious about helping and could she have one ready to go that afternoon.
Grandma told me, “I was pretty busy myself that day with family and Church responsibilities, but I felt like I should help. I made a chocolate cake from scratch and topped it with white frosting and chocolate swirls.” I knew exactly which cake she was talking about. She had made it before for family gatherings, and it was one of my favorites.
That afternoon Grandma’s friend came by to pick up the cake and take it to the hospital. Two hours later, she called and said, “I thought you would be interested in what happened with your cake. I took it to a 36-year-old sergeant, a veteran of many years in the army. He was recovering from wounds received in Vietnam. He looked like a typical, tough drill sergeant without a kind word in his vocabulary. When I took the cake into his room, handed it to him, and wished him a happy birthday, he looked up at me with a stunned expression on his face. Then the tears started rolling down his cheeks.”
The sergeant told Grandma’s friend that this was the first birthday cake he had ever had. Nobody had ever cared enough to bake him one.
As Grandma listened to her friend, she was amazed that one small act of service could have such an effect. Grandma closed the binder and said, “Tell your seminary class that I’m glad I took time to bake that cake.”
Seminary began as it usually did: we sang a hymn, recited the scripture-of-the-week, and said the prayer. Then I began telling Grandma’s story about service. As I spoke, I kept noticing my seminary teacher, Brother Olsen, in one of the desks on the back row. He looked really serious.
Great! I thought. I hope he’s not mad at me. Maybe this wasn’t what he had in mind when he asked me to do the devotional. I finished the story by saying, “I hope we can all take time to serve others like my grandma did, because we never know how much good one small act of service can do.” Then I quickly sat down in my desk.
My seminary teacher didn’t say anything. He just sat there in the back row. Everyone started looking at him.
“Man, I must have really blown it,” I thought.
Finally Brother Olsen spoke. “Lindsay, what is your grandma’s name?”
“Mary Lois Gunnell,” I answered. What was he going to do—call her and make sure I hadn’t made up the story?
Brother Olsen continued, “Do you know who that sergeant was? That was my sergeant while I was in the service myself, and I was very close to him.” Everyone in the class started whispering.
“No way!” said one of the boys. He thought we had planned this all out before.
“Really,” Brother Olsen said sincerely. “I knew him before he was wounded and after he recovered. He told me that same story himself and said how much that meant to him to have a stranger care enough to bake a birthday cake for him. He wanted to thank the woman, but never knew her name.” Brother Olsen looked right at me. “Lindsay, that cake wasn’t just a birthday cake. It was the beginning of a whole new life for my sergeant.”
I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t wait to tell Grandma.
“Class,” Brother Olsen continued, “I want you to know that Lindsay’s Grandma’s act of service literally changed that sergeant’s life. Before he was wounded, he was pretty mean. Every other word out of his mouth was a swear word. After he received that cake in the hospital in Colorado, he decided to change. He told me he was going to try harder to be a better person, and that’s just what he did.”
Until hearing about Brother Olsen’s sergeant, I never realized how much just one kind deed could affect another. My grandma sweetened a bitter man’s life with as simple a thing as a cake. Her story gives me hope that my small acts of service—a smile or a kind word—may also add richness to other people’s lives.

A few years ago I had another experience with finishing in another Spanish church. I was admiring a display of medieval Bibles at the cathedral in Burgos. One copy—as old as San Justo—stood out. Like most of the other artifacts on display, this Bible was a stunning example of artful calligraphy and brilliant illustrations. What caught my eye was the Bible’s final leaf, on which the copyist and the illustrator had drawn self-portraits. Their backs were curved and their hands withered from arthritis. The drawings told us that finishing this volume of scripture literally cost them their lives. Their “waiting” transformed imperfect bodies into this perfect book—their flesh made Word. They had lived out Paul’s promise: “Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ . . . , written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3; emphasis added). I think often of my medieval brothers. Their devotion inspires me. The perfection of their offering stands in contrast to the unfinished panel at San Justo—a reminder that, left alone, even my best efforts will always be incomplete.

Ethan gazed at the colorful video game covers that lined the shelves. His parents said he could pick one game for a birthday present, and there were so many to choose from! Ethan’s eyes jumped from a car racing game to an adventure game to a dance game. Finally, he picked up the racing game and took it to his dad.
“Did you find one you like?” Dad asked.
“I think I want this racing game,” Ethan said.
“Looks fun,” Dad said. “What is it rated?”
Ethan turned the cover over. He knew he could only play games with certain ratings. When he first got his computer, his parents talked to him about the importance of following their family’s rule about video game ratings. Ethan knew that a lot of games had bad stuff in them, and he wanted to be obedient.
Ethan found the rating on the cover and showed Dad. “It’s rated for everyone,” he said.
“Great,” Dad said. “Let’s go pay for it. Happy birthday, Ethan!”
“Thanks, Dad!” Ethan grinned, excited to get home and try out his new game.
A few days later, Ethan went to his friend Chase’s house to play. He and Chase were in the same Primary class, and they played together a lot. Ethan took along his new video game.
“Hi, Ethan,” Chase said when he answered the door. “Come on in. I got a new video game we can play!”
“I did too!” Ethan said, holding out his game.
The boys settled in front of the computer, and Chase put in his game. The title flashed across the screen, and so did the rating. Ethan froze. It was a rating that he wasn’t allowed to play.
Chase eagerly navigated through the menus with his controller and started the game. Ethan didn’t see anything bad yet. He clicked his own controller to move his character in the game. It was fun, but the longer he played, the more uncomfortable he felt. He still hadn’t seen anything bad, but he wanted to follow his family’s rule.
“Hey, Chase, I’m not allowed to play games with this rating,” Ethan spoke up.
“Oh, it’s OK,” Chase said. “There isn’t anything bad in it.”
“Are you sure?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah,” Chase said. “My family plays it. I think it was given the wrong rating.”
Just then, Chase’s mom stuck her head into the room. “Hi, boys,” she said. “Is everything OK?”
Ethan swallowed hard. “Hi, Sister Murphy,” he said. “It’s just that I’m not allowed to play video games with this rating.”
“I told him there wasn’t anything bad in it,” Chase said.
Chase’s mom waved her hand. “Don’t worry, Ethan,” she said. “I know a lot of the games with that rating aren’t good, but I’m sure your mom would let you play this one.” She smiled and then left the room.
Chase continued playing, but Ethan put down his controller. “Chase, how about we play the racing game I brought?” Ethan asked.
Chase shrugged and kept staring at the screen. “Nah, I’d rather play this.”
Ethan quietly got up and went to Chase’s room, where he found some toy racing cars to play with. They weren’t as fun as his video game, but Ethan felt good knowing he was following his family’s rule.

This Sunday I was sitting in Young Women listening to a lesson on revelations and how to get them.
Earlier that week I had been praying and asking Heavenly Father for help in being a better person and daughter. I expected a big wow feeling, but I never got one. I got thoughts in my head, saying, “Is that what Jesus would do?” or “Do this for your mom,” and I thought that was me thinking.
But in church I realized God doesn’t always give you a loud answer. Sitting there listening, I felt the Spirit so much—the biggest, warmest feeling ever. I almost started crying. I now know that God doesn’t talk to you loudly or publicly. Sometimes it is just a quiet answer in your mind that you should follow.