Gospel Story Finder

All I can say is thank you very much. When I got my first issue of the New Era from a friend in America I knew nothing about the Church. But when I read “Something Grand in Grandby” (May 1989) I thought, “Well, there is something great in this church because they are happy when they work for others.” I liked that very much.
Then I read “How I Get Along with My Family” from the same issue. I found a lot of answers.
Now I am ready to be baptized, but I need to wait to turn 18 because my dad is against it. Some other issues of the magazine have helped me find the way to pass the time.
I am so happy to have the true church with real priesthood powers, real friends, and real love between the members. Thank you very much for lifting up my spirit and strengthening my testimony. Thanks for becoming my favorite magazine.
Mirek ProppeWarsaw, Poland

When I was a young missionary in Europe in the early 1970s, we began much of our teaching with an explanation of the Apostasy, because the divinity of Jesus Christ was widely accepted. When I returned as a mission president 20 years later, we began our conversations differently, because belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, who gave His life for our sins and rose the third day, had faded significantly.

There are a few lines of verse in which I have found great comfort. They tell of a mother and a message:
“Alone she waits by the window
For her lad of twenty-one.
Alone she had built her castles
In the future of her son.
“… Her dreaming is rudely shattered.
A gentle rap on the door—
‘A telegram, ma’am,’ he whispers,
And the lad moves on once more.
“Alone with the yellow missive.
Alone with the fear she had.
Alone with her cherished memories
And the tender thoughts of her lad.
“‘Killed in action—in line of duty.’
Blind went her eyes with pain.
A moan of mortal agony,
Then all became still again.
“‘O God! My God! Where were you
When my son was being slain?’
And scalding tears of bitterness
Drenched her cheeks like a summer rain.
“But a soft voice seemed to whisper
In the twilight’s afterglow:
‘I had a son—at Calvary
Two thousand years ago.’”
(Author unknown)

Other heroes bring the gospel message to people around the world. Canada has been blessed with such heroes throughout its history. Missionary work in what was then called British North America began soon after the Church was organized in 1830. During the next 15 years, missionaries labored successfully in Upper Canada and the Maritime Provinces. The Prophet Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Parley and Orson Pratt, and others visited and preached in Upper Canada during those early years. The harvest was rich: in a single missionary journey to Upper Canada in 1836, Parley P. Pratt baptized John Taylor, an English immigrant to Canada who became the third president of the Church; Joseph Fielding; and his sister Mary, who became the wife to the prophet’s brother Hyrum. Mary was also the mother of Joseph F. Smith, sixth president of the Church, and grandmother of Joseph Fielding Smith, the eleventh president of the Church.

Ward families are a refuge. I know a young family who lived in south Los Angeles during the violent summer of 1992. They could feel the heat from the fires as they sat terrified in their little apartment. Their families in Salt Lake City offered encouragement and their prayers. They could do no more at such a distance. It was a ward member who made arrangements for this family to get themselves and their baby out safely. They stayed with members until they could go back to their apartment. They were safe.

At Haun’s Mill, a heroic pioneer woman, Amanda Smith, learned by faith how to do something beyond her abilities and the scientific knowledge of her time. On that terrible day in 1838, as the firing ceased and the mobsters left, she returned to the mill and saw her eldest son, Willard, carrying his seven-year-old brother, Alma. She cried, “Oh! my Alma is dead!”

“No, mother,” he said, “I think Alma is not dead. But father and brother Sardius are [dead]!” But there was no time for tears now. Alma’s entire hipbone was shot away. Amanda later recalled:
“Flesh, hip bone, joint and all had been ploughed out. … We laid little Alma on a bed in our tent and I examined the wound. It was a ghastly sight. I knew not what to do. … Yet was I there, all that long, dreadful night, with my dead and my wounded, and none but God as our physician and help. ‘Oh my Heavenly Father,’ I cried, ‘what shall I do? Thou seest my poor wounded boy and knowest my inexperience. Oh, Heavenly Father, direct me what to do!’ And then I was directed as by a voice speaking to me.
“… Our fire was still smouldering. … I was directed to take … ashes and make a lye and put a cloth saturated with it right into the wound. … Again and again I saturated the cloth and put it into the hole … , and each time mashed flesh and splinters of bone came away with the cloth; and the wound became as white as chicken’s flesh.
“Having done as directed I again prayed to the Lord and was again instructed as distinctly as though a physician had been standing by speaking to me. Near by was a slippery-elm tree. From this I was told to make a … poultice and fill the wound with it. … The poultice was made, and the wound, which took fully a quarter of a yard of linen to cover, … was properly dressed. …
“I removed the wounded boy to a house … and dressed his hip; the Lord directing me as before. I was reminded that in my husband’s trunk there was a bottle of balsam. This I poured into the wound, greatly soothing Alma’s pain.
“‘Alma my child,’ I said, ‘you believe that the Lord made your hip?’
“‘Yes, mother.’
“‘Well, the Lord can make something there in the place of your hip, don’t you believe he can, Alma?’
“‘Do you think that the Lord can, mother?’ inquired the child, in his simplicity.
“‘Yes, my son,’ I replied, ‘he has showed it all to me in a vision.’
“Then I laid him comfortably on his face, and said: ‘Now you lay like that, and don’t move, and the Lord will make you another hip.’
“So Alma laid on his face for five weeks, until he was entirely recovered—a flexible gristle having grown in place of the missing joint and socket, which remains to this day a marvel to physicians. …
“It is now nearly forty years ago, but Alma has never been the least crippled during his life, and he has traveled quite a long period of the time as a missionary of the gospel and [is] a living miracle of the power of God.”
The treatment was unusual for that day and time, and unheard of now, but when we reach an extremity, like Sister Smith, we have to exercise our simple faith and listen to the Spirit as she did. Exercising our faith will make it stronger. As Alma taught:

A sister with Down syndrome testified at a legislative hearing in Utah to protect unborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome. She boldly stated that she and others like her had a right to live. Afterward, she stood and gestured to all the committee members and stated, “And I love all of you!”
Lisa Wilson testified at a Utah legislative hearing to protect unborn children with Down syndrome.
Photograph courtesy of Lisa Wilson’s family

One son bought a small home in a distant state. He showed me bricks on a corner of the foundation that were eroding away. He asked what he should do.
I did not know, but I asked, “Is there an older couple that lives close to you?”
“Yes,” he said, “across the street and down a few houses is a retired couple.”
“Why don’t you ask him to come over and look at that. He knows your climate.”
That was done, and he got the advice of an older man who had seen problems like that and many others. That is what adopted grandpas can do.

After the untimely death of Elder Bragg’s father, the couple returned to California to start his career in the banking industry (he completed his career as senior vice president of Bank of America) and to be close to Elder Bragg’s mother.

Margarette and her older brother, Wallace, were walking to school. Rain had made the ground very muddy. The children got stuck in the mud and could not move. They began to cry.
They looked up and saw the Prophet Joseph Smith coming toward them. He lifted both children out of the mud. Then he stooped and cleaned the mud from their shoes.
The Prophet Joseph Smith wiped the tears from their faces with his handkerchief. He spoke kind and cheering words to them.
Margarette and Wallace went on their way to school, rejoicing.

My father loved the Book of Mormon. I remember watching him read the Book of Mormon on Sunday afternoons. Before I went on my mission, I spent one summer doing construction work in Arizona. He suggested that I take my Book of Mormon with me. As I sat reading the Book of Mormon in a hogan in Arizona, I felt the Spirit very strongly.

Dad dumped some compost onto the soil.
“What are you doing, Dad?” Caleb asked.
“I’m getting the soil prepared for our garden.”
“Why do we need a garden?” Caleb asked. “Can’t we just buy food at the store?”
“Yes, but the prophets have counseled us to plant a garden, and I want to obey,” Dad said.
Dad and Caleb worked to prepare the soil. Finally, the garden was ready to plant.
On Saturday the whole family planted seeds in their garden. There were beans, corn, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and pumpkins.
Every morning, Caleb walked around the garden looking for weeds. Before picking each weed he asked Dad to make sure it wasn’t a seedling.
Then one day, Dad announced that the first plant had popped up. Caleb ran out to the garden. When he saw the tiny leaves peeking out of the ground, he couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“What’s the matter, Caleb?” Dad asked.
“I guess I just thought it would be bigger.”
“Don’t worry. It will grow,” Dad said.
Dad was right. Every day the plant grew a little bigger. Then more plants popped up. Soon the whole garden was filled with plants.
One morning Caleb noticed a plant growing right next to the yellow squash. It looked different than the squash plant.
“Hey, Dad, what’s this plant over here?”
Dad came over. “I don’t know. It doesn’t look like a squash. We’ll just have to wait and find out.”
Whenever Caleb was in the garden, he checked on the mystery plant. Before long, he noticed a green ball on the vine. Excitedly, he showed Dad.
“Looks like it might be some kind of melon,” Dad said. “That’s strange. We didn’t plant any melons.”
Each week the ball got bigger and bigger, and soon it started to turn a tan color.
“I think that’s a cantaloupe, Caleb,” Dad said one day. “It must have grown from some seeds that were in the compost.”
Caleb could hardly wait for the melon to grow. He loved cantaloupe.
Soon the garden was producing food for the family. Caleb enjoyed helping with the harvest. Mom bottled many of the fruits and vegetables, and they gave extras to neighbors.
“Caleb, would you go pick a yellow squash for dinner tonight?” Mom asked one evening.
“Sure, Mom!” Caleb ran to the garden. As he gently moved the cantaloupe so he could pick the biggest yellow squash, the cantaloupe fell off the vine. Caleb went to find Dad.
“Dad, I didn’t mean to, but the cantaloupe broke off the vine when I moved it,” Caleb said.
“That’s OK,” Dad said. “That probably means it’s ready to be picked.”
Caleb grinned. “Really? You mean it’s done?”
Dad laughed. “Let’s taste it and find out!”
Caleb brought the cantaloupe into the kitchen, and Dad cut off two slices.
“I guess this cantaloupe is one way Heavenly Father is blessing us for following the prophet,” Dad said.
Caleb looked at the colorful pile of produce on the counter that was waiting to be bottled. “Heavenly Father has blessed us a lot!” he said.
They both smiled as they took their first bite of cantaloupe. It was delicious!

A few months later, I received a letter from my family telling me they were waiting for my return. I never lost faith and hope that my whole family would become members of the Church, be sealed in the temple for all eternity, and be with our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, someday.
After returning from my mission, I began to see that dream come true. I was able to baptize my mother, who is now preparing to go to the temple. I see my family often, and we are closer than ever before.

It reminds me of the parable of the ten virgins. If you don’t have your lamp full, the time to turn to God is before the crisis. When disasters like this fire happen, that’s not the time to start filling your lamp. It’s like when you get in the car and ask your kids to put their seat belts on. Imagine them saying, “I don’t need a seatbelt. When I hear you screaming, then I’ll buckle up!” In a crisis they’d never have time.

“I’m the only LDS person on the swim team. When this program came along, it seemed natural to set a goal in swimming. I frequently set goals in competitive swimming. I decided I wanted to work hard and swim the 100-meter freestyle in 1:06. I had been doing a 1:09. I worked and worked. When we had invitationals, I was in a relay and I did a 1:06:91. This helped my feeling of individual worth.”
Shawna UlmerLong Beach California East Stake

His work in the Church has been just as active. Elder Ferrizo was baptized in 1963. In 1967, he was called as president of the Flores Branch. He then served as president of the Durazno District for nine years, and president of the Durazno Stake for nine more. Since 1989 he has served as a Regional Representative.

After graduating from high school, Gordon went to the University of Utah, just as the Great Depression struck the U.S. economy. Factories and businesses closed; many people lost their jobs. Despite limited finances, Gordon continued his university studies. He studied journalism, English, Greek, and Latin.

I also believe the Church can provide scaffolding for our professional lives. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we represent the Savior and His Church. For us, being as good as someone else from another church is not good enough. President George Albert Smith (1870–1951) taught this lesson when he said:
“Within the last year, I have had the privilege of meeting and conversing on the gospel with some men who live in this community [Salt Lake City], not members of our Church. One man had resided here for twenty years, a man whose life is above reproach, a good citizen, a splendid businessman, one who has kindly feelings towards our people. He told me that he had … come to the conclusion that we were just as good as our neighbors who are members of other churches; he could not see any difference in us.
“I want to say to you, my brethren and sisters, that is no compliment to me. If the gospel of Jesus Christ does not make me a better man, then I have not developed as I should, and if our neighbors not in this Church can live among us from year to year and see no evidence of the benefits that come from keeping the commandments of God in our lives, then there is need for reform in Israel.”5

In more than 165 countries of the world, our sisters are being instruments in the hands of God. I think of a ward in Brazil that has an influx of new members every week. The sisters in that Relief Society decided to set a goal to not let even one week pass without each newly baptized sister receiving a visit in her home and a copy of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” and the Relief Society Declaration. So far they haven’t lost any sisters to inactivity.

Recently, while driving in a city unknown to us, I inadvertently took a wrong turn, which led my wife and me onto an express highway for endless miles without being able to turn around again. We had received a kind invitation to a friend’s home and worried that we would now arrive much later than we were expected to.
While on this highway and desperately looking for a way out again, I blamed myself for not paying better attention to the navigation system. This experience caused me to think about how in our lives we sometimes make wrong decisions and how we must live with the consequences humbly and patiently until we are able to change our course again.