Gospel Story Finder

“When I was small and our leaders spoke to us of marriage, all the stories were happy ones,” says Ruth Silva. She realizes that “happily ever after” takes work, “but I feel that those stories were true. The largest blessing of being married in the temple is the happiness I feel in knowing that we are united as an eternal family.”
Her example helped her father enter the waters of baptism in 2008 and then take his family to the temple, where they were sealed a year later.

As I attended college and then medical school, I was continually drawn to Latter-day Saints. I watched them closely, and they rarely disappointed me. Finally, after several years, I decided that I was going to learn for myself what made them so different. I went to the public library and checked out every book I could find about the Mormons.
I found a copy of the Book of Mormon and began to read it. As soon as I read just a few chapters, I had the feeling that this was something special. After about six months of reading and studying, I realized that I needed to make some changes in my life. A voice inside me whispered that real faith requires action. If I wanted to experience what my LDS friends had, I knew I would have to act.
So I decided to be baptized. As soon as I made the decision, I felt the assurance of the Spirit. It was the best decision I ever made!
After I was baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost, I finally understood the source of that “Mormon confidence.” It comes from the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

My dad worked for over 30 years in professional scouting, so growing up, I spent a lot of time at summer camps, and I loved to go hiking with my dad. He knew the names of all the plants and trees. He made the woods come to life for me. I remember one such hike when I was still very young. We ran out of trail and into a huge boulder that hung on the edge of a steep ravine. The only way forward was down the face of that boulder, but I couldn’t manage it. My dad worked his way down and then stood below and told me to jump, promising he’d catch me.

Now I had no doubt my father loved me, but I remember hesitating. I knew he meant well, but it was a big rock, and it was a long way down. And I probably weighed more than he thought, and what if, best intentions aside, he couldn’t catch me? And so I pulled back. It took a lot of coaxing to get me to take that leap, and of course it all worked out, but it wasn’t easy.

I think sometimes I do the same thing with Christ. In life, the only way forward is to trust in Him. He has promised me that as imperfect as I may be, if I exercise faith in Him, I can trust Him to bring me home. But sometimes I pull back. “Maybe,” I reason, “He doesn’t really recognize how vast the distance is between where I am and where He is. He may not realize how heavy my burden actually is. What if I am simply not good enough?”

Our stake president was the final speaker. He talked of the importance of showing love in families and told the story of the last time he saw his father alive. His parents were at the bus stop to bid him farewell as he left for his mission. In parting he shook his father’s hand, hugged and kissed his mother, and turned to board the waiting bus. As he stepped aboard the bus, the Spirit prompted him to return to his father and say good-bye again. We listened raptly as he told us that he stepped off the bus and went to his father to embrace and kiss him one final time. His father did not live to see him again.
In concluding he bore testimony of the importance of showing love to one another in our families. We were all deeply touched and inspired by his message.

Finally, I testify that we do not walk alone.
Stan, a dear friend of mine, was taken seriously ill and rendered partially paralyzed. He had been robust in health, athletic in build, and active in many pursuits. Now he was unable to walk or to stand. His wheelchair was his home. The finest of physicians had cared for him, and the prayers of family and friends had been offered in a spirit of hope and trust. Yet Stan continued to lie in the confinement of his bed at the university hospital. He despaired.
Late one afternoon I was swimming at the Deseret Gym, gazing at the ceiling while backstroking width after width. Silently, but ever so clearly, there came to my mind the thought: “Here you swim almost effortlessly, while your friend Stan languishes in his hospital bed, unable to move.” I felt the prompting: “Get to the hospital and give him a blessing.”
I ceased my swimming, dressed, and hurried to Stan’s room at the hospital. His bed was empty. A nurse said he was in his wheelchair at the swimming pool, preparing for therapy. I hurried to the area, and there was Stan, all alone, at the edge of the deeper portion of the pool. We greeted one another and returned to his room, where a priesthood blessing was provided.
Slowly but surely, strength and movement returned to Stan’s legs. First he could stand on faltering feet. Then he learned once again to walk—step by step. Today one would not know that Stan had lain so close to death and with no hope of recovery.
Frequently Stan speaks in Church meetings and tells of the goodness of the Lord to him. To some he reveals the dark thoughts of depression which engulfed him that afternoon as he sat in his wheelchair at the edge of the pool, sentenced, it seemed, to a life of despair. He tells how he pondered the alternative. It would be so easy to propel the hated wheelchair into the silent water of the deep pool. Life would then be over. But at that precise moment he saw me, his friend. That day Stan learned literally that we do not walk alone. I, too, learned a lesson that day: Never, never, never postpone following a prompting.

My husband is a furniture maker. Although it has often been difficult to find employment in the Philippines, the Lord has blessed us.
One day when our finances were very low, my husband was working in a furniture shop making tables and chairs. I met him at work and told him we had nothing at home to eat. He told me to meet him at the market that evening when he got off work. He would ask his employer for an advance payment so we could buy some rice for dinner.
When we met that afternoon, he told me he had been advanced 50 pesos, just enough to help us get by. But when we tried to pay for the rice, he could not find the money in his pocket. We went back to the furniture shop to look for it, but nobody had seen the money. As we walked home without food or money, my husband was angry and frustrated. I tried to help him calm down, telling him to trust in the Lord. That night I prayed the Lord would help us find the money.
The next morning as my husband and daughter, Jennilyn, walked out the front door, Jennilyn saw something on the doorstep—it was the 50 pesos. I was overjoyed and grateful to Heavenly Father for making it possible for us to eat. I know if we do our part and then trust in Him, Heavenly Father will be merciful and show compassion to us.

Youth in Fargo, North Dakota, know how to live within their means. When their leaders announced they were going to have a stake-sponsored formal dance, they were excited. Then the leaders dropped the bomb: No one could spend more than five dollars on what they wore to the dance.
“When I heard we could only spend five dollars, I was a bit skeptical,” says Becky LaDuke, a Mia Maid. “But I found two great dresses at a thrift store, and it only cost me four dollars. I guess you don’t have to have a lot of money to have a good time, because I had a blast.”
People found different ways to adhere to the budget rule. Some borrowed clothes from friends, others remade thrift-store items, and a few wore things they already had in their closets. A couple of enterprising priests even secured a matching set of powder-blue tuxedos from the school’s drama department costume collection.
The dance was a huge success, proving that low-budget doesn’t have to mean no fun.

One night not too long ago, Joshua Mana, who would soon turn 18, was talking with his parents about the years their family spent in refugee camps.
“The camps are not where you would wish to live,” his father Fredrick said, “because of the hardship.”
The first camp was on the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The family, fleeing war and genocide to the west, lived there for two years. Shelter was poor, food scarce, and illness common.
“That is where your brother Patric died when he was just 11 years old,” Fredrick said. “We were sad in that place.”
The second camp was south across the border, in Zambia.
“That’s where you were born,” his mother Esperance said. “We named you Joshua, like the righteous prophet in the Bible. To me you will always be Joshua, a gift from God, because even in the camps God was with us.”
In the second camp, life was no easier. “Sometimes we were able to find jobs, but only as volunteers,” Fredrick explained. “Maybe they gave you food, maybe a little bit of money at the end of the month. But in a refugee camp, even that is a lot. With a few friends, we worked together, and some were able to leave for France, Canada, and other countries.” And Joshua’s family—his mother and father, two older sisters, and himself—were able to move to a one-room apartment in Lusaka, where they scraped by.
“We knew there was a resettlement program,” Esperance said. “But we had no hope. People will take your application, but if you don’t have money to give them, they just trash it. We were poor. We were desperate. All we could do was pray.”
Photograph from Getty Images
“In the second camp, life was no easier. … We were poor. We were desperate. All we could do was pray.”
A friend in France kept writing letters and making appeals on their behalf. Then one day, after four years of waiting, their names showed up on a list of those approved for resettlement. It was a miracle!
There was just one catch. “We would be going directly to Salt Lake City, Utah, USA,” Esperance said. “We knew a little about big cities like New York, but we didn’t know Salt Lake City. ‘Are you sure this is in the USA?’ we asked. ‘Yes, yes,’ the official said. ‘Somewhere in USA.’”
“We didn’t expect any help when we got to Utah,” Fredrick said. “But that’s not what happened.”
“The first person we met made us feel welcome,” Esperance recalled. “She came with her family to visit our apartment. They saw how we ate, how we slept, what we worried about. It was the first time someone was concerned about how they could help.”
“She and her husband were like parents to us,” Fredrick said. “They helped us learn about the customs of this new country. They helped us find work.”
“We could tell they were Christians, and we were Christians, too,” Esperance said. “We asked if we could learn about their Church.”
And learn they did. Soon they were meeting regularly with the missionaries. “Each teaching made sense to us, especially what they called the great plan of happiness,” Esperance said. “I cried and cried when they told us we could be together as a family in eternity, and that we would see Patric again. We knew it was true.”
Fredrick and Esperance were baptized and confirmed. Joshua was baptized when he turned eight. And Joshua and Patric have been sealed to their parents, giving them the opportunity to be together when this life is through. Other family members are still learning about the gospel.
As a member of the Church, Joshua was particularly impressed with a certain group of young adults. “At first, I wasn’t sure what an ‘RM’ was. But the more I watched returned missionaries, and whenever I spent time around one of them, I knew I wanted to be one too,” he recalls.
Year after year, the returned missionaries impressed him. When he came of age, Joshua met with his bishop, submitted his application, and waited to receive his mission call.
“The more I watched returned missionaries … I knew I wanted to be one too.”
That’s when, one Sunday, half a dozen refugees who are returned missionaries—and also friends with Joshua—gathered in the cultural hall after church to counsel with him.
One of them, Madelaine Lamah, who served in the New York New York South Mission, said her mission motto was “Forever Changed.” She reminded Joshua that joining the Church changed his family’s life and that he would be an instrument of change for others as he shared the gospel with them.
Jean-Pierre Benimana, who served in the California Los Angeles Mission, reminded Joshua that “the happiest people on earth are those who live the gospel of Jesus Christ with all their hearts.”
The returned missionaries were refugees from countries like Burundi and Rwanda, in Africa, and Burma, in Asia. They have served in places like Los Angeles, California, and Birmingham, Alabama, in the USA, and in western African countries like Benin and Côte d’Ivoire. They were blessed to receive the gospel, and they were equally blessed to share it. Now they explained to Joshua that he was about to become a part of that legacy.
A few weeks later, a big, white envelope arrived in the mail. Another group gathered, this time at Fredrick and Esperance’s home. The group included family, LDS friends and neighbors, and some friends from other faiths.
Joshua, dressed in a white shirt and tie, stood up, opened the envelope, and read, “Dear Elder Mana: You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Brazil Porto Alegre South Mission …”
There were cheers, tears, hugs, but most of all, joy. Then there was a brief moment for Elder Mana to speak.
He quoted a scripture he has learned to love: “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).
Then he shared his testimony: “The gospel has changed my life so much because it helps me to know that Father in Heaven has a plan for us, and if we follow His commandments we can go back to Him again one day. Every day I follow the Holy Ghost. He prompts me what to do, because there’s lots of work that Father in Heaven needs me to do to build His kingdom.
“Being a missionary is part of that, as well. My purpose in going on a mission is to bring people to Christ and give them the gospel.”
It’s a testimony he will share freely, and often, with the people of Brazil.

Kim and Neil Davis were getting nervous.
You see, they come from a very goal-oriented family with six children, and they always help each other accomplish the things they set out to do. When they set a goal as a family, there’s almost no stopping them.
That’s why they were getting anxious now. Time was growing short. They’d set a goal to introduce a new family to the gospel every six months, and here it was, the last week of that time period, and not one interested family had materialized.
They’d fulfilled this goal many times in the past. When the Davises had lived in Boston and Washington, D.C., they could introduce lots of families to the gospel. “Not only would we have them over for the missionary discussions,” says Kim, 16, the oldest daughter, “but we’d invite them to family home evenings, pumpkin carvings, have Easter egg coloring parties, and special Christmas programs.”
But now the family was back in Utah, and it wasn’t as easy finding non-LDS families to share the gospel with. The end of their six-month time frame was looming near, and they hadn’t found anyone. The Davises knew theirs was a righteous desire, so they had family prayers and fasted. The six children each asked for help in their individual prayers.
And then, on the last day of the sixth month, their prayers were answered.
“My dad is used to receiving foreign mail from doctors asking for copies of articles,” explains Kim. Her father, Dr. Kim Davis, has done research and been published in a number of medical journals. “So when he picked up the letter from Hungary, he didn’t think much of it, until he opened it and read what was inside.”
“We were so excited!” says Neil, age 13. The letter was from a family in Hungary. They had seen a television documentary about Utah on Hungarian national television, and it had mentioned the Mormons and some of their beliefs. What had impressed this family most was the idea that families could be together forever. They wanted to know more about a church which taught that, so the father, being a doctor, and the son, being a medical resident, pored over back medical journals until they found an address in Utah. It happened to be Dr. Davis’s. The Hungarian family asked if their letter could be forwarded to some information center.
There was no need for that. The Davises went immediately down to the distribution center and collected all the Church information they could find in Hungarian. They put it in a box, and shipped it to their newfound investigator family.
Then they went home and wrote their testimonies of the gospel. They put those in an envelope, along with pictures of their family, and sent them to the Keresztis as well.
The Keresztis were amazed when they received a big box so soon from the United States and eagerly began reading the material. They were even more amazed when they received the letter and found that such a large family could be so close and have such strong testimonies of the gospel. Though the Keresztis had only one child, which is quite common in Hungary, they felt just as strong about family unity and were ecstatic to find something to help them.
Soon the Davises and the Keresztis were exchanging letters and pictures frequently. “We grew very close,” says Kim. “When we got a letter from them, our whole family would pass it around, and we’d read it at family home evening. We were so excited to see how they were accepting the gospel in Hungary, and we couldn’t believe it was happening to us.”
In the meantime, the Davises contacted the mission president in Vienna, Austria. Through him, the Keresztis were able to have missionary discussions about once a month.
“When we got the letter saying they were going to be baptized in Vienna, Austria, it was really neat,” says Neil. “And when we got pictures taken after their baptism, that was great!”

Let me tell you of a season of my life when I came to appreciate, just a bit the blessings that come when we start seeking for eternal things of our own free will. This happened about 41 years ago, after I had returned from my mission. I found myself in the Army, having been given a choice between being drafted for a longer period or enlisting for a shorter one. I enlisted. Part of the time I was assigned to a company full of men who also entered the army by choice — only in their case it was a choice a judge gave them either to go into the army or go to prison. You can imagine having to deal with the hostilities of men who were offended by the sight of a barracks mate kneeling in prayer by his bed and carrying the scriptures around with him. And to top it off, part of the time I was extremely ill with a staff infection throughout my body. Yet I count my time in the Army as one of the great seasons of my life, even when the surrounding conditions got ugly. For I was caught up day and night in the scriptures. I would plan each weekend to leave the base when I could get off duty and absorb myself completely in what some people might think a very strange project. The project was to arrange the scriptures by topic according to a scheme I had worked out in my mind, beginning with the creation and the placing of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. No one had assigned me to do this or even suggested it. I did it because of my hunger to learn.

In those days we had no computers or even copy machines. If you wanted a copy of something, you typed it or wrote it out by hand. How was I to get copies of the many, many pages of scripture I wanted to arrange? I didn’t even have a typewriter. I purchased several paperback copies of the scriptures, cut the passages out that I wanted — with two copies I could get both sides of the page — and then pasted them on sheets in the desired order.

Where could I work on such a project? Each weekend that I could leave the base I rented an inexpensive hotel room, pushed the bed into a corner, stacked the other furniture on the bed, and laid out all the cut-up passages on the floor. I would work for hours, late at night and then early in the morning, stopping to go to Church.

It would be hard to describe the excitement I felt during these studious hours. The further I got into the project, the faster the insights came, and the more on fire I felt. I discovered that after I had studied for a while my appetite for spiritual things did not diminish, the way physical appetite does after we have eaten a certain amount. It grew. I hungered for the things of God more than ever before in my life. And I felt the Lord’s Spirit with me. It daily accompanied me into very difficult circumstances, guiding and protecting me.

My parents went on to serve faithfully in many ward and stake callings. They were in the Philippines for three years serving as mission leaders. They also served 18 months in a small branch in Darkhan, Mongolia, way up north, close to the Siberian border. My parents are tough people, but when the heat in their apartment would stop working and the temperature was 40 below zero, they were longing for the mild winters of Idaho. Whenever I would ask my mom how they were doing, she would always simply say, “Well, you don’t know how strong you are until you have to be strong!”

Another great example of the Lord’s power to refine us is in the story of Cory Ten Boom, written in the book The Hiding Place. Cory was living with her family in the Netherlands when the Nazis began their occupation in 1940. They witnessed the persecution of the Jews, and being faithful Christians, joined the Dutch Underground Resistance, which was believed to have saved as many as 30,000 Jews from Nazi persecution.

Eventually, Cory and her family were caught and ended up in a Nazi prison camp. As a result of the unspeakable atrocities they experienced there, Cory lost her father and sister.

When I was a teenager, reading this story for the first time, I was struck by this family’s courage and devotion to their faith. One of the things I most remember was in the preface, written by the authors who helped Corrie write her story. They asked her how she made sense of all the pain and atrocities she had experienced in her life. Remarkably, this was her response: “This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for a future that only He can see.” [2] Corrie Ten Boom knows what it means to be refined by the crucible of mortality.

“This will be the last time we meet here until next spring,” Betsy’s father said as they entered the meetinghouse. “For the next six months, until our building is finished, we’ll meet across town.”
Betsy knew all this. Work had already started on getting the meetinghouse in better condition. The grassy area out back where Betsy’s Achievement Days class used to go for activities had become a parking lot. Trailers and big trucks were parked there now.
The whole ward had been getting ready for this change. On Saturday, Betsy and other Primary children helped pack up everything in the Primary closets. Her father was moving desks and chairs from the family history center into storage units in the parking lot, and her mother was packing books and videos from the meetinghouse library.
Everyone else seemed to be happy as they worked, but Betsy felt sad. The building looked so empty! She missed looking at the picture on the wall in the Primary room of Jesus and the children, and she missed the hallway bulletin board with its photographs of the full-time missionaries. She even missed the cheery flower arrangement that was always on the table in the lobby.
Now the building no longer looked like the church Betsy remembered. It was plain and bare. Starting the next day, the ward members would not be allowed in the building until the work was done. After today everything will be different, Betsy thought.
“Will I still have Achievement Days?” she asked on the way home from church. She didn’t think she could stand going for six months without that. “And what about Primary activity days? Where will we have them?”
“These things have all been figured out,” her mother assured her. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to give up anything important. Things won’t be that different. You’ll see.”
Betsy wasn’t sure about that. Things looked very different when she walked into the rented building the next week. For one thing, the “chapel” was huge. It even had a balcony. And there was no organ and no choir seats. But still, there was her bishop sitting up on the stand, smiling at her. She felt good when she saw him.
She felt even better when he announced that it was time to bless and pass the sacrament. She had been afraid that they wouldn’t be able to have the sacrament there. The priests had to sit behind a folding table, and the deacons had to go single file up some stairs to get the trays, but it didn’t matter. The prayer had been exactly the same. She knew that the same priesthood was here, just as it had been in the other building, even though the walls were different.
After sacrament meeting, Betsy followed her friend Chelsea down two flights of stairs, through a long narrow hallway, and down three more stairs to get to the temporary Primary classroom. There was no carpet in the room, and sounds echoed. Sister Roberts, her teacher, asked them to be as quiet as possible as they sat in their chairs.
Through the thin walls, Betsy could hear the younger Primary children singing one of her favorite songs, “The Wise Man and the Foolish Man.”* The music made Betsy feel more comfortable in the tiny room. Primary hadn’t changed, either, even if the walls were different. They still sang the same songs.
Betsy looked around the room. There was a picture of the prophet and the Apostles on the chalkboard, and a picture of Jesus Christ. It reminded Betsy of the picture that had hung in the Primary room of their meetinghouse.
When the music stopped, Sister Roberts asked someone to give the opening prayer. Then she said, “Open your New Testament to Ephesians 2:19–20. Here Paul describes how the gospel is like a building.”
Betsy listened carefully. She wanted to hear if anything was said about their building.
But Sister Roberts didn’t mention walls. “Do you know what we call the thing that holds the whole building up?”
Brian raised his hand high. “I know,” he said with a smile. “My dad’s a builder. It’s called the foundation.”
“That’s right,” Sister Roberts said. “And what does this scripture say the foundation is?”
“Apostles and prophets,” Chelsea said.
Betsy looked at the picture of the Apostles and prophet on the chalkboard.
“And do you know what a cornerstone is, Brian?”
Brian shook his head.
“A cornerstone is a stone that connects the foundation with the rest of the building. They are the most important stones in the building. Who does the scripture say is the chief cornerstone?”
“It’s Jesus!” Betsy burst out, excited. She had just realized something important. “Sister Roberts, now I know why this building feels almost like our meetinghouse. Even though these walls are different, it doesn’t matter as long as the Church still has the same foundation and the same cornerstone.”
Sister Roberts smiled at Betsy. “You’re absolutely right!”

2. It isn’t always easy to get seven children to work in harmony around the home but when their dad can work with them the children just love it and “work” turns into “fun.” Part of this comes because he’s always telling them about the chores he had as a boy and how important it is to like to work.
As a family we plant a garden each spring. We all get involved in preparing the ground, planting the seeds, watering, hoeing, and pulling weeds. Then in the summer and fall each child experiences some part of harvesting the results—pulling radishes, picking berries or corn, digging potatoes, etc.
Neil is very alert for teaching opportunities and compares aspects of gardening to preparing for missions, life after death, the importance of getting proper care and training, destroying the enemy (weeds). Many lessons are taught from the simple things we do each day.

This past summer I went to Brazil with a humanitarian organization. The main goal was to build a classroom for a community in need. For two weeks I gave my all. I sifted sand, mixed concrete, and laid bricks to build the walls of the classroom. But what I received spiritually from this experience was far greater than anything I contributed physically.
Throughout the trip, one of my leaders, Scott, carried a positive energy that radiated to everyone around him. Scott constantly talked to people at our worksite and on the street about Jesus Christ. He invited people to church whenever he had the chance. Scott loved sharing the gospel through his words and actions.
One day I was invited to give a talk in a local ward’s sacrament meeting on the topic of sacrifice. I was hesitant at first because I’d never spoken outside my own ward, but I said yes. I’m so glad I did! My testimony of Jesus Christ and my faith in Him increased as a result. I now see the value of saying yes to service—no matter how small—and of following Jesus Christ and bringing others along with me—just as I saw Scott do.
Now I find myself thinking more about others and how I can help them. I talk to people more often about the gospel. I invite young men in my quorum whom I haven’t seen in a while to come to church and activities. And I bear my testimony whenever I can.
I’m grateful for my opportunities to follow and be more like Jesus Christ and to help others come unto Him. Now I’m even more excited to serve a mission! I love how I feel when I pour my whole self into service to others—which is what Christ does for us.
The author lives in Washington, USA.

In addition to attending the scheduled church meetings, Sister Eubank and Sister Harkness were able to visit some of the members in their homes. After their 28 virtual home visits, Sister Eubank stated “I have never gone ministering with WhatsApp before, but it gave me the chance to sit in homes where the evening meal was being prepared and children were studying with a lamp and speak heart to heart with a sister about her challenges and joys. I came away so uplifted from meeting these sisters in this intimate way. Many shared deeply personal and spiritual experiences around their conversions to the gospel of Jesus Christ or introduced me to their family with pride.”

Claudiana: At the height of my illness, my faith began to weaken. I thought Heavenly Father wasn’t listening to my prayers, and I wondered what I’d done to deserve this suffering. During one hospital exam, I was in so much pain that I thought I was going to die. In this moment I feared for my life and my future, but Gustavo grabbed me and reminded me of the things I used to teach him back when he was investigating the Church.
“Now is the time to put those teachings into practice,” he said. “You need to have faith.”
I thought of Ether 12:12: “For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.” Gustavo helped me believe in a miracle—without him, I may have lost hope. He reminded me of the eternal love and enabling power of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and that I was not beyond their promised blessings. I am forever grateful that he helped keep the fire of faith alive in me.
Gustavo not only supported (and continues to support) me spiritually, but he also supported me emotionally. When I was sick, people pitied me and felt sorry for me, but Gustavo didn’t. Of course, he listened to my worries and held me when I cried, but he also encouraged me, joked with me, and got me out of the house when I was depressed. Gustavo was a light to me during this dark time and helped instill a confidence in me that my illness had taken away.
If your significant other is struggling, do things that will lift them up. Show them that you care about them. Support them when they are happy and when they are sad. Help them to strengthen their relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Gustavo does these things. His optimism and love helped us build a relationship that withstood my illness.

The school bell rang as I finished copying the last spelling word from the board. I stuffed my books into my backpack. Kim, who sits between Eddie and me, left as Eddie rummaged around in his desk. Crumpled papers and books flew all over the floor.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“My spelling list for tomorrow’s test. My mom gets mad if I don’t bring it home. She says it’s the only way to keep making As, but it isn’t!”
I wish I always made As. I’m not very good at spelling. Dad helps me study every night, and I’d sure like to give him a 100 percent correct, A+ spelling test for Father’s Day, along with the shaving lotion I got him. He’d like that.
I laid my paper by my backpack and picked up a dirty, torn paper Eddie had stomped on. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He shoved it into his pocket.
Erasing the board, Miss Clark said, “You boys had better get going.”
I helped Eddie stuff books and papers back into his desk, and we left. He lives next door to me, so we usually walk home together.
“Want to play a video game?” he asked. “Mom bought me a new one.”
“I’d like to,” I said, “but I have to study for the spelling test tomorrow. I don’t make As like you do, no matter how hard I study.”
Eddie looked at me funny. “You sit next to Kim. She always gets 100 percent.”
I wondered what that had to do with anything. “You sit next to her, too.”
He smirked. “Yeah, that’s the point.” He marched in the house and slammed the door.
When I got home I headed into the kitchen and tossed my backpack on the table. “I have some heavy studying to do to get that 100 percent on my spelling test tomorrow,” I said.
“Have a snack first,” Mom said. She placed a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk on the table.
“Thanks, Mom.” I gobbled up the sandwich and washed it down with milk, then dug around in my backpack for the spelling list. I couldn’t find it.
I dumped everything in my backpack out on the table. “Mom!” I said. “I can’t find my spelling list.”
Mom searched through the books and leafed through my notebooks. The list wasn’t there. She knew how much I wanted to give Dad a 100 percent correct spelling paper for Father’s Day, so she looked again. No list.
“Where do you remember seeing it last?” she asked.
“I laid it on my desk by my backpack while I helped Eddie find his list. Then Miss Clark said we’d better hurry.”
“Then it’s probably still on your desk. But you can call Eddie and ask him to give you the words.”
On the phone, Eddie started telling me the words, but he said the paper had gotten so dirty and torn that he couldn’t read most of it. “I told you, don’t worry about it,” he said. “You sit next to Kim.”
I hung up the phone. I had something to worry about, all right. I had trouble spelling. What difference did it make to me if Kim was a genius?
I told Mom all the words I could remember, and she wrote them down for me. I tried my best, but I couldn’t think of all of them.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mom said. “Remember, in our family we love each other no matter what. We care about making good choices and doing the best we can.”
When Dad got home, he helped me study. When I could spell all the words I had, he said, “Try to sound out the others. The important thing is to do your best.”
The next day, when time came for the spelling test, I sharpened my pencil and put my pink eraser by my paper. I wanted that 100 percent so much my hand shook.
I knew the first five words. The next one I had to sound out. I glanced past Kim to Eddie, wondering if he was having trouble, too. He was craning his neck, staring at Kim’s paper—cheating! So that’s what Eddie meant about sitting next to Kim! I kept my eyes glued to my own paper, afraid the teacher would think I was cheating, too.
Suddenly Miss Clark swooped behind Eddie. Without a word, she picked up his paper, crumpled it up, and threw it in the wastebasket.
Dad wouldn’t want a paper I had cheated on. He’d be disappointed in me, and I’d feel rotten about myself.
My back hurt from sitting stiffly while I sounded out words, erased them, and sounded them out again until they looked right.
I closed my eyes. “Please, Heavenly Father, help me keep my eyes off Kim’s paper and do the best I can,” I prayed silently.
Miss Clark called out another word. I felt more relaxed and could think more clearly. I finished my test and handed it in.
We got our papers back before the end of class. I covered mine for a minute, afraid to look at my score. Then I saw “100% correct, A+!” written in red ink. I couldn’t wait to get home to show it to Mom.
On the test I wrote, “To the best dad in the world, who helps me with spelling, and teaches me to choose the right and to do the best I can.” Then I put it with the shaving lotion.
I could hardly wait for Father’s Day.

Let me share an experience about responding to prophetic words from the life of President Russell M. Nelson:
In 1979, five years before his call as a General Authority, Brother Nelson attended a meeting just prior to general conference. “President Spencer W. Kimball challenged all present to lengthen their stride in taking the gospel to the entire world. Among the countries President Kimball specifically mentioned was China, declaring, ‘We should be of service to the Chinese. We should learn their language. We should pray for them and help them.’”
At age 54, Brother Nelson had a feeling during the meeting that he should study the Mandarin language. Although a busy heart surgeon, he immediately secured the services of a tutor.
Not long after beginning his studies, Dr. Nelson, attending a convention, unexpectedly found himself sitting next to “a distinguished Chinese surgeon, Dr. Wu Yingkai. … Because [Brother Nelson] had been studying Mandarin, he began [a] conversation [with Dr. Wu].”
Dr. Nelson’s desire to follow the prophet led to Dr. Wu visiting Salt Lake City and Dr. Nelson traveling to China to give lectures and perform surgical operations.
His love for the Chinese people, and their love and respect for him, grew.
In February 1985, ten months after his call to the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Nelson received a surprise phone call from China pleading for Dr. Nelson to come to Beijing to operate on the failing heart of China’s most famous opera singer. With the encouragement of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Elder Nelson returned to China. The last surgical operation he ever performed was in the People’s Republic of China.
Just two years ago, in October 2015, President Russell M. Nelson was once again honored with an official declaration, naming him an “old friend of China.”
Then yesterday we heard the now 93-year-old President Russell M. Nelson speak of President Thomas S. Monson’s plea to “each of us [in last April’s conference] to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day.”
Just like he did as a busy heart surgeon, when he hired a Mandarin tutor, President Nelson immediately took the counsel of President Monson and applied it to his own life. More than just reading, he said that he “made lists of what the Book of Mormon is, what it affirms, what it refutes, what it fulfills, what it clarifies, and what it reveals.”
And then, interestingly, just this morning, as a second witness, President Henry B. Eyring also spoke of his response to President Monson’s admonition. Do you remember these words? “Like many of you, I heard the prophet’s words as the voice of the Lord to me. And, also like many of you, I decided to obey those words.”
May we see these as examples for our own lives.
I promise that as you hear the voice of the Lord to you in the teachings of this general conference, and then act on those promptings, you will feel heaven’s hand upon you, and your life and the lives of those around you will be blessed.

“You think you’re better than everyone else because you don’t swear,” Nikolai said at recess.
“That’s not true,” said Andrei.
“Then why won’t you say one swear word? Just one? It’s not going to kill you. Everybody else swears.”
Andrei shrugged. “I just don’t want to.”
Andrei knew swearing was wrong and makes the Holy Ghost leave. Andrei wanted the Holy Ghost with him. So he didn’t swear.
Andrei was new at school, and so far, Nikolai was the only one in his sixth-grade class who wanted to be his friend. But Nikolai bugged him about swearing every single day. And every day Andrei got a little more tired of saying no. Besides, Andrei was afraid that Nikolai would stop being his friend, and then he’d really be lonely.
“Just say one swear word,” Nikolai said after school. “Then I’ll leave you alone.”
Finally Andrei was so tired of being bothered that he said one swear word—one that wasn’t too bad.
Nikolai nodded. “Good, now you’re one of us.”
After that, Nikolai’s other friends talked to Andrei too. They ate lunch with him and played football with him at recess. But being in Nikolai’s group of friends was like walking into quicksand. The more Andrei hung out with them, the more he talked and acted like them. And they all swore. A lot. They laughed at and insulted each other. They said rude things about their teachers. They got mad and acted mean a lot. Slowly Andrei started feeling angry more often and found more and more reasons to swear.
One night when Mom and Dad were gone, Andrei and his older sister Katya got into an argument about what show to watch. Before Andrei even thought about it, a swear word jumped out of his mouth.
Katya looked shocked. “I’m telling Mom.”
Andrei ran to his bedroom and slammed the door. What was wrong with everyone? Why were they making him mad all the time? When his parents came home, Andrei cracked open his door and heard Katya say, “Mom, Andrei swore at me.”
“What?” Mom sounded surprised. “Andrei would never swear.”
Andrei closed the door and slumped down on his bed. He thought about how different he’d become since he started swearing. It had been a long time since he had felt the Holy Ghost.
Andrei knelt down by his bed and prayed. “Dear Heavenly Father, I’m so sorry I’ve been mean and angry. I’m sorry I started swearing. I’m going to do better.”
As Andrei prayed, a warm feeling filled his heart. For the first time since he started swearing, he felt really happy. He knew God loved him, and he could feel the Holy Ghost. He felt forgiven and knew he could change and become better.
After his prayer, he told Mom the truth and apologized to Katya. Andrei felt better after that. It felt good to repent.
The next day at school, Andrei didn’t eat lunch with Nikolai’s group. Instead he sat next to some kids he didn’t know. It would take time, but Andrei knew he would find friends who were good and happy and didn’t swear. Just like him.

Bishop Edgley: An experience I had with my Aaronic Priesthood quorum was on a Scout outing. We were sitting around a fire with my wonderful Scoutmaster, who was also the assistant deacons quorum adviser. A couple of guys who were not active in the Church were looking at some pornographic material.
The Scoutmaster stopped as he was talking to the Scouts and asked if he could have the magazine. He closed it and then told us how hurt he was, how troubled he was. Then he testified of the power of the priesthood when we honor it. He handed the magazine back, and that young man threw it in the fire.
That Scoutmaster taught us by the power of the Spirit about the priesthood. Of all the lessons I’ve had in quorums and chapels, I am still impressed by that experience.