Gospel Story Finder

Betsy picked up her teddy bear and hugged him. “Yum, Yum,” she said, “time for bed.” She dressed Yum Yum in a polka-dot nightshirt and put him beside her pillow. “OK, Mommy,” Betsy called. “I’m ready.”
Mommy came in while Betsy said her prayers, then tucked her into bed. “Sweet dreams,” she said as she turned off the light.
“I want the light on, Mommy,” Betsy pleaded.
“But, darling, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll be right there in the living room. Daddy too.”
“But Yum Yum likes the light.”
“All right, honey.” Mom smiled at her and turned the light back on.
Two minutes later all the lights in the house went off. Betsy screamed and clutched Yum Yum. Then she heard Daddy’s voice.
“It’s all right, Betsy,” he said. “Mommy and I are right here.” He scooped her out of bed and carried her to a chair by the window. “Look,” he said, “the lights are out all over town.”
“I’m scared,” Betsy said.
“You weren’t frightened a minute ago when the lights were on, were you?” Daddy asked.
“No, Daddy.”
“Then don’t be frightened now, Betsy. Look out the window and tell me what you see.”
“All I see is the moon and the stars.”
“That’s right,” Daddy said. “And they’re always there. I think that they are God’s way of saying that He’s always there. That’s why we don’t have to be afraid of the dark. Do you understand?”
“I think so, Daddy, but I’m not sure that Yum Yum does,” Betsy said.
Mommy said, “Do you remember the song we sang at Christmas—‘Silent night! Holy night!’? Well, a special star shone that night because it was a special night. I think that all nights are silent and holy, so when we see the stars and the moon, we don’t have to be afraid, because we know that Heavenly Father is watching over us. Now, are you ready to go back to bed?”
“Yes, Mommy. And Yum Yum is too. We aren’t afraid of the dark anymore.”

The small conversational correctives matter so much. If we have that quality, we will appreciate what General Robert E. Lee reportedly did on one occasion. Asked for his opinion of a military colleague, Lee replied candidly but generously, after which the questioner said, in effect, “Well, he doesn’t speak so highly of you.” General Lee replied, “Sir, you have asked me for my opinion of him, not his opinion of me.” Lee had, as one writer described another leader, “furnished his mind . . . with fixed principles” (Walter Bagehot, “Memoir of the Right Honourable James Wilson,” The Works of Walter Bagehot, ed. Forrest Morgan [Hartford, Connecticut: Travelers Insurance, 1889], 3:384). If you and I can process life’s tactical situations through a mind furnished with fixed principles, integrity is the result.

Many years ago, I went to work in a new company as Executive Vice President. This company was somewhat troubled, and somewhat disorganized. Reporting to me were six Vice Presidents, and the first time I called a meeting with those six, I arrived two minutes before nine a.m., to find only one sitting there. We talked for a few minutes, and then another other came in. They straggled in one after the other, the last one arriving more than 20 minutes late.

When they were all there, I said: "Gentlemen, I called this meeting for 9 o' clock. Only one of you was here on time. Each of you who arrived late, was guilty of gross discourtesy towards those who were here on time. Is your time more valuable than ours?" You could have heard a pin drop. After all, I would be the determining factor as to whether they got a raise or not. To the best of my recollection, none of them were ever late again.

After Halloween, people’s attitudes toward me changed, and questions about my faith evolved into peers asking me for advice about their own lives. To my surprise, friends and acquaintances who had gotten over the initial shock of learning that I do not drink, smoke, or do drugs and that I am waiting to have sex until I’m married turned to me for guidance specifically on those topics.

I found myself reassuring friends who were feeling pressured into having sex that they had the power to choose, encouraging some to go to the school counselor to talk about mental health and addiction concerns, and even consoling someone who made a mistake that would likely lead to expulsion. I was baffled by the way many of my peers could transition from mocking me to seeking my advice.

Over time, I understood that being completely confident, open, and vulnerable about who I was drew others to me who were seeking a judgment-free space and a listening ear.

I am grateful for two of the many important lessons I learned that year. The first is that healthy laughter can dissolve apprehension and contention and is an excellent way to unify people. The second is that choosing to be confident in who you are brings remarkable opportunities to help others that would have never come otherwise.

There were many times when I wanted to hide my religion and be known for something else. But having a sense of humor and vulnerability about who I am allowed people to get to know me as Matteo, not just someone with different beliefs.

I was always the only Church member at my school. Sometimes classmates made fun of me for my beliefs, and at first I was a little uncomfortable. But I knew that they didn’t have the gospel knowledge I had been blessed with, and remembering that made me grateful to be a Church member instead of being embarrassed.
One time one of my teachers teased me about the Church, and I told him, “It’s not funny. This is something that I really believe.” After that he didn’t tease me anymore. When my classmates saw that I stood up for my principles, they respected me and even elected me as the class president. I learned that I would never regret standing up for my beliefs.

Tomorrow, February 8, is the 26th anniversary of my first date with my wife, Jennifer. We were set up on a blind date by some mutual friends. When I went to pick her up, she answered the door in a horrendous polyester outfit . . . and I am being kind. She had bought the outfit on a previous date for $2 at Savers, and I think she overpaid. The pants were almost a fluorescent turquoise and the top was striped with a mix of colors that should never go together. She was testing me to see if I had a sense of humor. Gratefully, she did change her outfit before we left her apartment.

We dated for sixteen months before we were married. Well, to be truthful, we dated off and on for sixteen months because there were a couple of break-ups. My wife is the very best person that I know, and I know some really good people. As amazing as she is, I never had a choir of angels descend from heaven and sing to me that she was “the one.” We dated, we talked, we went to firesides together, we studied together, we went skiing, and we met each other’s families. Over time, the accumulation of small and quiet reassurances made me realize that she was someone that made me think my highest thoughts, aspire to my noblest deeds, and made me wish that I was better than I was. And I just really loved her, too. That is what I hoped for in a wife.

Do I feel that there was heavenly guidance in us being together? Absolutely. Was there some singular earth-shattering manifestation of that? No.

The confirmation from the Holy Ghost to sincere inquiries about life decisions is usually a process and rarely an event. Pay attention to those small and simple spiritual reassurances that often come over a period of time.

One day at my high school, we had an assembly about the negative effects of drunk driving and drinking alcohol in general. After a brief introduction, the speaker paused and scanned the auditorium. He said, “If you’ve never once tasted alcohol, stand up.”
Laughter bounced off the walls as people whispered jokes to each other. Their laughs were cut short when they noticed a few people were actually standing. Out of nearly four hundred students, seven were standing, including me.
As I felt my classmates’ eyes on me, my face grew hot and I shifted from foot to foot. But then, something I had often repeated in Young Women came into my mind:
“We will stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (see Mosiah 18:9).
With a soft yet powerful whispering from the Spirit, I straightened my back and stood tall. I was no longer embarrassed.
I stood for something.
Charlene J., Arizona, USA

Kisiah enjoyed the giving machine too! Her family chose “Go Caroling” as a service project. They started by visiting a handful of ward members. Then, as they saw the grateful tears and broad smiles of those they visited, Kisiah’s family kept deciding to visit just one more house. And then another. “We wanted to spend the whole night out, but we had to cut it short because people need sleep!” she says.

Marie: It’s surprising how easily others will be influenced by a positive example. At my high school graduation some of my friends were trying to talk me into going to a party where there would be a lot of drinking. I told them, “No, I’ve made a commitment in my life,” and explained to them why I wouldn’t go. Afterwards, their response surprised me. They said, “You know, you’re right; let’s do something else instead.”
Through this experience I learned that it is important that we don’t give the impression to others that we think we are better than they are, but that we convey to them instead, “We accept you as you are, even though we don’t agree with everything you do. We love and respect you and would like you to love and respect us also.”

Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve– a Church officer with whom you may be somewhat familiar on this campus!– tells of a returned missionary who had been dating a special young woman. He cared for her a great deal and was seriously considering making a proposal of marriage to her. This was at a time when President Gordon B. Hinckley had counseled the members of the Relief Society to wear only one set of earrings. This young man waited patiently for awhile, said Elder Bednar, for this young woman to remove the extra set of earrings that she wore. But it did not happen. For this, and other reasons, with heavy heart he stopped dating her.

In relating this experience, Elder Bednar said,

"I presume that some of you . . . may believe the young man was too judgmental or that basing an eternally important decision, even in part, upon such a supposedly minor issue is silly or fanatical. Perhaps you are bothered because the example focuses upon a young woman who failed to respond to prophetic counsel instead of upon a young man. [But, may I just point out to you that] the issue was not earrings!"[10]

When I was young, I had an experience that helped me relate to the blind man described in John 9. The man was blind from birth. The disciples asked Jesus, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
“Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:2–3; emphasis added).
Jesus anointed the blind man’s eyes with clay and instructed him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The man did as instructed and “came seeing” (John 9:7).
There were witnesses to this miracle who could not comprehend it. They took the man to the Pharisees, who questioned him about it repeatedly. The man finally told the Pharisees, “If this man were not of God, he could do nothing” (John 9:33). For this statement, he was cast out.
Then a great blessing occurred—an even greater blessing than having his sight restored. Jesus, having heard that they had cast the man out, found him and allowed him to declare his belief: “He said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him” (John 9:38).
I was 11 years old when the “works of God were made manifest” in me. In the fifth grade, I developed warts on my hands. Both hands were covered with the ugly virus sufficiently enough to earn me the nickname “warthog” among my classmates. Needless to say, it affected my self-esteem and social life.
When my family moved from Utah to Idaho the following summer, I dreaded the thought of going to a new school. In my old class, I took plenty of teasing, but I also had two good friends who stood by me. This new place offered no such assurance.
I began to search for ways to rid myself of my burden. With my mother’s help, we tried over-the-counter remedies and even some home remedies, but the warts remained. Money was limited, so seeing the doctor for such a nonemergency was out of the question. I began feeling like there would be no end to this malady.
Towards the end of summer, it occurred to me to ask Heavenly Father for help. My family had been active in the Church for about two years, and I had been taught about the power of fasting accompanied by prayer, but I had never before taken the opportunity to do this.
Over two weeks I fasted every few days. I remember how hard it was to pass up my mom’s homemade cherry pie, but I believed the outcome of my fast would be equal to my faith and sacrifice. I prayed earnestly in our backyard, where I could speak aloud and not be interrupted. At the end of the two-week period, my warts were gone. Every one of them had shrunk away.
When school started a couple of weeks later, I felt a new confidence. This confidence came, in part, from having healed hands that I did not have to hide, but more so from an internal seed that had sprouted to life.
I had gained personal knowledge of a great truth—that I was a daughter of Heavenly Father, the true and living God. I knew that He loved me and that He heard and answered my prayers. Just as the man in the scriptures, the works of God had been made manifest in me, on a physical and a spiritual level.
A few years later, when I was a senior in high school, my philosophy teacher asked each of us to justify our belief in God. He asked us to “prove” God’s existence. I shared this experience with my class and testified not only of God’s existence but of His love for us. After the bell rang, my teacher pulled me aside and asked me to consider that perhaps it was the power of positive thinking, rather than God, that had caused my warts to disappear. I did not hesitate in my response to him that I knew of a surety the source of this miracle.
Perhaps someday I too will be allowed the blessing of kneeling before my Healer and proclaiming, “Lord, I believe.”

Let me close by briefly relating an experience that occurred a few years ago, again in the islands. It will demonstrate the universality of the basic premise with which we began: That all people do have a mission and can perform it, no matter where they are or under what circumstances they may live, be it here in the United States or on a small island in the Pacific. As I conclude with that story and testimony, let us reevaluate our lives and make sure that we are doing with them what the Lord would have us do.
Years ago, as a young missionary, I was impressed by an older island couple who always seemed to be helping the missionaries and others. Every time I went to their home I would find them reading the scriptures, fixing a meal for a missionary, tending a neighbor’s child, preparing a Relief Society lesson, or rendering some sort of service. They were not blessed with children of their own, but they were always helping so-called “outcast” children.
I was soon moved to another area and left for home without ever returning to that area. I often wondered about that couple who had so impressed me. I was sure that the Lord would bless them.
Years later I was again in the area and a messenger came and asked if I would visit a certain widow named Luisa. Upon inquiring, I realized that it was the family I had wondered about all these years. Her husband had obviously passed away; and as the messenger gave me the address I realized that she still lived in the same old house where she had lived those many years before. Of course we made arrangements to visit her.
It was late afternoon when we drove up to the home. I was surprised to realize that hardly anything had changed; it was a neat and clean home, but a very humble one. As I walked up to the house I noticed her waiting by the open door. She held her hand out in a slightly waving fashion, and I realized she had gone blind. As I took her in my arms, I realized also that she had not long to stay in this life, for I felt nothing but the frailest body of skin and bones.
As we sat and visited, she talked about her desire to help the “poor” people. I suggested that she might need some help herself rather than giving help. She kindly informed me that she was rich and had nothing to worry about. I was a little confused and began to inquire. I found that they had often saved money to pay their airfare to the temple, only to end up lending it to someone else who needed it more. When all the facts came out I asked, “Luisa, how can you say you don’t have anything to worry about? You have no husband, you have no children, you’re blind, you are in poor health, you live in a poor home, you haven’t been to the temple. How can you say that you are rich?”
She stopped all of my questions by quietly informing me that she was rich because she knew that the Lord was pleased with her life. She said, “I know that I will be with my husband soon. I know that the Lord will bless us with a family. I know that I have not done all that I should, but I know that the Lord is pleased with what I have done.”
I cannot express fully what happened at that time. However, I would like you to listen to the seventh verse of the sixth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, wherein the Lord says, “Seek not for riches but for wisdom, and behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you [even the discovering of your mission and calling], and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich.” You see, Luisa had taken the time to discover her mission and calling in life and had done whatever was necessary to fulfill it.

I stammered and stuttered during my growing-up years. In school, I would never be involved in anything that required more than a minimum of speaking. My parents sent me to speech teachers and therapists, but they couldn’t correct my problem. However, just before my father became ill, I received my patriarchal blessing. It said, in part, “Lloyd, you have problems. Know this—the Lord loves you and wants you to be happy. I bless you that you shall go out into the world and preach the gospel with force to a waiting world.” Because of this blessing, I accepted a call to the Southern States Mission.
The first month of my mission was terrible. I had never administered the sacrament or given a talk. My companion had me talk to one lady at her door, and I stuttered and stammered terribly. After a month of not making any improvement, I prayed, “Lord, now is the time. If I don’t have relief from this affliction, the mission president will send me home. Lord, it has to be now!”
Gradually I was able to speak more fluently. After six months I went back to some elderly sisters that we had taught, and I really gave them and some others what I thought was my best talk. Afterward, with tears in their eyes, some of them came up to me and said, “The Lord has really blessed you.” After that experience, I learned about the real power of prayer.

At 5:30 A.M. on a chilly fall morning, 200 eager teens from the San Jose California South Stake arrived at the Camden chapel. Their mission: to turn a cultural hall full of saws, paint, brushes, sandpaper, and unfinished dollhouses into a room full of toys for the children’s waiting room in the Oakland Temple. Soon 400 hands were busy sewing, sanding, sawing, painting, gluing, cutting, quilting, and testing toy trains. After the work was completed, the stick horses, cars, trucks, and dolls were packed into real cars and trucks along with 200 helpers and they were all driven to the Oakland Temple. Said temple president Richard B. Sonne to the group, “I’m very impressed by what you’ve done. It will make many, many children happy.”

When I was a young mother with my first baby, my husband was still in college. We both worked part time to make ends meet.
Looking forward to a day off work, I had planned to watch an old movie on television. This was before DVDs or streaming services.
The movie would begin at the perfect time—10:00 a.m.—when our son would be napping. It starred Cary Grant, one of my favorite American movie stars.
The night before my anticipated day off, the ward Relief Society president called. A sister in our ward had suffered a mild stroke and needed care the next day until her son returned from work.
“I would do this myself, but I have company,” the Relief Society president said. She explained that she had no one else to ask and offered to watch our son while I cared for the sister. I reluctantly agreed.
The next morning, I dropped off our son and went to visit the sister. Her name was Louise, and I felt a sudden rush of affection for her. She was old enough to be my grandmother, who had recently died.
I helped Louise dress and then prepared her breakfast. She eased into a chair and turned on the television. Soon it was 10:00 a.m. As she flipped through the channels with the remote, she said, “This television has nothing to offer.”
I hesitated and then said, “There’s a Cary Grant movie on channel 11.”
“Really?” she asked. “I love Cary Grant!”
We watched the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterward, she shared things about her life when she was my age. She told me about her son, and I told her about mine. She talked about the Church and how she missed it.
When her son returned, I promised to return. I told the Relief Society president to call me first if Louise ever needed anyone.
Sometime during the next two weeks, Louise suffered another stroke and passed away before I had a chance to see her again. We had shared only nine hours and a movie, but she became a dear friend. I think of her often.
I am thankful I didn’t lose the chance to help a sister who needed me—and whom I needed, though I didn’t realize it.

After working in department stores selling men’s clothing for several years, I became quite proficient at coordinating shirts and ties with the suits I sold. It was rewarding to pick the perfect assortment, and my customers were usually pleased with the choices I presented them.
However, in one particular store, the suits were in an area illuminated with fluorescent lighting while the shirts and ties were displayed in another area under incandescent bulbs. This difference in lighting proved to be quite challenging.
It often happened that after a customer had decided upon a suit or two, I’d go select an array of shirts and ties that I thought would work well. But once the shirts and ties were moved from one section to the other and placed next to the suits, the result was surprising—the colors “changed” in the new light and did not match at all.
Taking a suit to the area that displayed the shirts and ties worked better. But even with this approach, customers often became confused, noticing that the suits we had in hand didn’t look like the ones they had just selected. A suit that looked olive green under the fluorescent lighting now appeared gray, taupe, or brown when viewed under incandescent lights. Black, charcoal, and navy suits underwent similar transformations.
More often than not, I had to solve the problem by taking customers out a nearby door to look at their selections in the daylight. By seeing with the light of the sun, we could quickly discern true colors and make appropriate choices.

Soon after I was sustained last October, I traveled to Pakistan on an assignment and, while there, met the magnificent and dedicated Saints in that country. They are few in number but large in spirit. Shortly after returning home, I received the following note from Brother Shakeel Arshad, a dear member I had met on my visit: “Thank you, Elder … Rasband, for coming to Pakistan. I want to tell you that we … Church members … sustain you and love you. [We are] so lucky that you were here and we heard from you. It was just a golden day in my family’s life that we met an Apostle.”
Meeting Saints like Brother Arshad was an overwhelming and humbling experience and, using his words, “a golden day” for me as well.
Shakeel Arshad, my friend in Pakistan, sent his support to me, his brother and friend. So have many of you. When we reach out to lift one another, we prove those powerful words: “[No one] goes his way alone.”

The call of duty came to John E. Page when the Prophet Joseph Smith extended to him a call to serve as a missionary. John E. Page “murmured” and responded, “Brother Joseph, I can’t go on a mission to Canada. I don’t even have a coat to wear.”

The Prophet Joseph removed his own coat, handed it to Brother Page, and said, “Here, take this and the Lord will bless you.” John E. Page went on that mission to Canada and, during a two-year period, walked five thousand miles and baptized six hundred people. (See Andrew Jenson, “John E. Page,” The Historical Record, 5:57.)

Clara Holbrook from Filmore, Utah, served as a missionary in London from 1899 to 1901. Letters written home while serving there shed light on the use of Number 36:
“At 8 o’clock every Thursday night we hold meetings in the hall at 36. On Sunday morning we meet in some Park and Sunday afternoon at 2.30 and 6.30 at Clerkenwell [Town] Hall.”
She also paints an interesting picture of street meetings held at the time:
“At my first street meeting I wanted to laugh. It seemed so funny for two or three of us to stop right in the middle of a little side street; to sing, pray and speak to the few open-mouthed passers by who stood listening a few minutes then passed on only to be replaced by others. Some listen intently from the beginning to the close of the meeting which lasts about an hour. At both meetings we had a fair audience, respectful and good listeners. The noise of the street is so great at times, the speaker can scarcely be heard.”
Then in one letter home, she writes:
“Sometimes I feel very far away from those I love …but then comes the consoling thought that I am called of God to carry the glorious light of the gospel to souls that are in comparative darkness. My heart is full of gratitude for the testimony I have to the truthfulness of the gospel. I could sing with all my heart ‘I’ll praise the Lord while I am young, and in my early days Devote the music of my tongue to my Redeemer’s praise.’”
Her experiences in London had revealed to her the extent of her blessings and of her testimony. Number 36 was clearly not just a home to the London Conference, but also a training ground for the young missionaries who served there in the 1890s.

First, some background. During the dedication of the Mexico City Temple, I had one of those singular experiences that readjusts the course of a life. It occurred during the eighth dedicatory session, where many of the men and women leaders of Mexico and Central America were present. When unexpectedly asked to speak, I attempted to convey the strong impressions that poured into my heart. I spoke of those beyond the veil who, in fulfillment of prophecy, had served, suffered, and given greatly to form the foundation which permitted the opening of a new era of the work.
I expressed a feeling to plead in behalf of former prophets who had prepared and protected the sacred records of the Book of Mormon. I sensed that they were saddened as they see us walk from place to place with an unopened Book of Mormon under our arm or see it kept in homes where it gathers dust and is not read, pondered, nor its contents applied.
The Book of Mormon was prepared by divine assignment for the blessing and enlightenment of all those who receive it.
As I spoke, I realized in my heart that all the efforts that I had expended for six years in trying to help those beloved leaders overcome the effects of false traditions and learn to apply the teachings of the Lord would have been better directed had I strongly encouraged them to ponder and apply the teachings of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon contains messages that were divinely placed there to show how to correct the influence of false tradition and how to receive a fulness of life. It teaches how to resolve the problems and challenges that we face today that were foreseen by the Lord. In that book he has provided the way to correct the serious errors of life, but this guidance is of no value if it remains locked in a closed book.
I witnessed that it is not sufficient that we should treasure the Book of Mormon, nor that we testify that it is of God. We must know its truths, incorporate them into our lives, and share them with others. I felt an overwhelming love for the people and an urgent desire that all would comprehend the value of the Book of Mormon.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Ezra Taft Benson, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve, invited me to join him in a private room in the temple. He asked me to be seated, drew his chair close to mine, looked penetratingly into my eyes, and with an earnestness that I will never forget, witnessed of his profound conviction that every member of the Church must learn to use the Book of Mormon as the Lord intended.
As he spoke I knew that the Lord had inspired him to have those feelings. I had a witness borne to my heart that he was speaking the will of the Lord.
The influence of these two friends, President Benson and the Book of Mormon, has comforted and sustained me in times of intense need. I would share them with you in your hour of need.