Gospel Story Finder

Upon his honorable discharge from the Mormon Battalion, John sold his horse and bought passage on a ship to San Francisco, California. Arriving there, he found a small community of Saints who helped him find work as a laborer for two dollars per day. After several months, John started east to join the main body of the Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. Near Sacramento he learned that some of the other members of the battalion were working at a place called Sutter’s Mill when gold was discovered there. Thus John became a prospector. He recorded in his journal that he was washing between $25 and $60 of gold each day—a real fortune compared to his wage as a laborer.
Yet, when the call came from Brigham Young for battalion members to proceed directly to Salt Lake City, John and his partners immediately abandoned their lucrative careers as prospectors and started the arduous trek through the Sierra Nevada mountain range to the Salt Lake Valley. Once there, John was given a piece of land outside the city, which he energetically began to improve into a beautiful irrigated farm.

A few years ago, when I was serving as an Area Seventy in Brazil, my family and I were on vacation in the beautiful city of Florianópolis. On Sunday, as usual, we went to the closest church that we could find. My wife and I and our oldest daughter attended a Sunday School class where they were discussing our personal testimony of the gospel.
At some point in the lesson, the teacher asked the class members if they would share a powerful spiritual experience they had while developing their testimony of the Church. While some brothers and sisters were sharing their stories, I mentally reviewed my own experiences as a convert for something I could share with them, but I could not think of anything very remarkable in my process of gaining a testimony.
While I was thinking and listening to the others’ experiences, I realized that the teacher expected me to participate. She was listening to the other members, and she let me know that she was waiting for my great experience to be shared. After all, I was an Area Seventy, and I should have something impressive to share. Feeling that the time was passing and she was waiting for me, I tried harder to find something that would fit in this category of a powerful event, but I was not able to think of anything, to the disappointment of the teacher. For all I wanted to help, I could not meet her expectation.
Fortunately that was a fast Sunday, and during sacrament meeting, I took the opportunity to express my testimony to the congregation and especially to that sister and her Sunday School class. It was not a remarkable experience that I had to share but a sincere testimony that I have about the truths of the restored gospel.

Thus the Lord, by revelation, brings inspiration into one’s mind as though a voice were speaking. As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) gave this testimony: “I have a believing heart because of a simple testimony that came when I was a child, I think maybe I was around ten—maybe eleven—years of age. I was with my father out on a farm away from our home, trying to spend the day busying myself until father was ready to go home. Over the fence from our place were some tumbledown sheds which had attracted a curious boy, adventurous as I was. I started to climb through the fence and I heard a voice as clearly as you are hearing mine—’Don’t go over there!’ calling me by name. I turned to look at father to see if he were talking to me, but he was way up at the other end of the field. There was no person in sight. I realized then, as a child, that there were persons beyond my sight and I had heard a voice. And when I [hear] and read these stories of the Prophet Joseph Smith, I, too, know what it means to hear a voice because I’ve heard from an unseen speaker” (Divine Revelation, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [15 October 1952], 5).

The donkeys and carts were becoming more numerous along the roadside now as the bus approached their ancient family village. Yung Fai looked across the aisle at Wai Fung sitting in her mother’s lap next to the window. In her excitement, she was squeezing the window railing with her bony fingers.
Yung Fai pondered to himself, I’ve never been inside her church again since that night of the typhoon. But it’s not because she hasn’t tried. She’s even taught me some of her songs. Why does she think more of me than I think of myself?
When Lily knocked at the low brick building Yung Fai vaguely remembered as his home, a gray-haired man opened the door. His mouth opened in a toothless grin. He greeted each family member in the usual reserved Chinese manner, taking their hands warmly in his. But, when Wai Fung was placed in his arms, he held her tight and tears came to his eyes.
“Do you remember the songs you used to sing for me?” he asked.
“Oh yes, Papa,” exclaimed Wai Fung.
After she had sung many of his favorite Chinese melodies, her father was silent. Yung Fai watched him fumble under the bed and pull out a big book. “I’ve been reading the Bible. You wrote and told me you had joined a Christian church, so I decided to find out what was in their book. Are there Christian songs you can sing?”
Wai Fung smiled exuberantly. Then Yung Fai saw her motioning to him with her eyes. “Papa,” she said, “I also taught Yung Fai to sing with me. Maybe we could both sing for you.”
At first, Yung Fai looked down shyly. Then the words of the song came more strongly to his lips, “O my Father, thou that dwellest …”
When the last note had faded, their father was nodding serenely. Yung Fai felt himself nodding too. The words the old man now spoke seemed to be coming from his own mouth. “Your words are good. They are true.”
Suddenly, Yung Fai felt as if he and his father were someplace else. Dressed in white, they were standing in a pool of water.
Yung Fai’s mind returned to the little room where his gray-haired father sat on a stool before him and Wai Fung sat close beside him. He groped for his sister’s hand, wanting to open her eyes to his experience. But, when he gazed down at her dark, tranquil eyes, he sensed she had seen his vision long ago and was now only sharing it with him.

Years later I thought of that moment again. My wife and I were being taught by the missionaries. The missionaries asked me, “Do you believe that you can become like God?” I had never thought about it. But I thought, If Heavenly Father is actually my Father, He would want the best for me, like my dad did. He would want me to be able to become like Him. So I said to the missionaries, “Yes, I believe I can be like my Heavenly Father.”
The moment I answered, I knew what I said was true.

A Young Women teacher I know taught the Laurels in a very remote area with few Church members. The slim prospects for eternal companions discouraged her girls terribly. She taught them to cultivate a vision of their future home and marriage, urging them to pray actively for their future companions, who were surely alive somewhere. She taught them to live worthy of such a dream, every day, every night. All six of her Laurels ultimately found and married righteous young men in the temple.

Seventh, avoid spiritual manipulation
When I was a freshman at BYU, a young man told me that it had been revealed to him that we were to be married. We had never even been on a date! I was confused! I called home and cried to my dad, “Do I have to marry him?” My dad simply asked, “Do you love him?” A big fat “no!” flew from my mouth. “Then why would you marry him?”

It is inappropriate to impose our own revelation upon others. In my meetings with apostles and prophets, I never heard them say, “God told me” or “The Spirit said to me.” I refer to these types of expressions as spiritual manipulation. They suggest that we are the only ones entitled to inspiration, leaving others to wonder about their own ability to understand the Spirit.

That’s what I was able to do with a friend, someone whom I considered to be the most beautiful, confident, and intelligent young woman I knew. We’d been friends for years, but it wasn’t until high school that I discovered she had an eating disorder. One day during a psychology class, we had an entire lesson on eating disorders—why and how people become consumed by them. During this lesson my friend was unusually quiet and looked uncomfortable. That’s when I first began to suspect her “internal dispute,” as we later referred to it.
After that class, I began to notice that my friend’s normal behaviors were not so normal—things like her lack of appetite, her comments about how she looked fat, or the constant facade of perfection she was trying to keep up. I became really scared for her and decided to fast and pray for her—I didn’t know what else to do.
Eventually, the Spirit told me I needed to talk to her with great love. I did the best I could and fasted and prayed that I would know what to say to her. When I finally talked with her about my suspicion of an eating disorder, we both cried as she admitted to having one. She told me she knew she was struggling and didn’t know how to help herself—or if she even wanted to change. I was so surprised that she didn’t deny having an eating disorder. The Spirit was definitely with us during that conversation. With the assistance of parents and counselors, we found help for her. And through those efforts, she’s now healthy again.
Helping her rediscover her worth was one of the best things I’ve ever had the opportunity to do. I knew she has great worth. She is an extremely special person—she just forgot how much worth she has. I wanted her to see herself the way Christ sees her, and along the way she showed me that I needed to do the same for myself.

The year before my mission, the bishop called me into his office and extended a call for me to teach the seven-year-old Primary children. I accepted the call, excited to teach. At the same time, I also had a good job at a local supermarket.
Not long after I was hired, the manager and assistant manager of the supermarket informed me that I would have to work on Sundays. The manager said, “I am not going to schedule around the Mormons or anyone else.” To keep my job, I would have to give up my calling and break the Lord’s commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. My manager wouldn’t discuss it any further.
I explained the situation to my bishop. I wasn’t sure I would go on a mission. But if I did go, I would need a job to earn the money to pay for it. However, I also wanted to keep the Sabbath day holy, attend church, and teach Primary. After a long discussion with the bishop, I decided to quit my job. Not long after that, I found a job that gave me Sundays off. I kept my calling, and for the next several months I helped the children prepare for baptism.
One day I was looking at the missionary discussions, and it suddenly became clear to me why it had been so important for me to teach Primary. The discussions taught about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, the First Vision, faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost—the same principles I had been teaching my Primary class. I decided to pray about a mission. I was soon called as a full-time missionary.
Some people might wonder why I quit my job, especially when someone else could have easily taught that Primary class. But giving up my job in order to keep the Sabbath day holy and teach Primary helped me prepare for my mission and resulted in great blessings for me.

LaRae is Gene’s wife and the mother of two teenage children. She usually gets very tired before the day is over but on her perfect day she felt very invigorated. She was able to accomplish many of the things she wanted to do. “But,” she added, “by trying to keep a day perfect, I realized some of the habits I had gotten into. For instance, I would suddenly get mad at Gene for some silly, insignificant reason. It was just a habit with me. Now I’m working on correcting it.”

“Here you go, Tam? (Dad),” Tom said softly. Tom’s father slowly sat up on his sleeping mat. Tom helped him sip some fresh coconut juice.
Tam? and the rest of Tom’s family had been sick for days. Almost everyone else in the village was sick too. A pandemic had come to the island—the Spanish flu.
Tom walked outside. He was one of the only people who was well enough to take care of the others. And many families needed help.
I need more coconut juice, Tom thought. He climbed up a tall coconut tree. When he got to the top, he picked some coconuts and tossed them to the ground.
As he climbed down, Tom thought about the people in his village. It was scary to see so many of them sick.
Tom knew God had helped them then. And he knew God would help them now.
Tom cut the coconuts open. The sweet smell of coconut juice made him feel a little better. He walked to the next house in the village to share some juice with his neighbors. Then he went to the next house. And the next.
Weeks passed. Each day Tom worked hard to take care of everyone. He caught chickens so he could make warm soup to share. He carried buckets of water from the spring for people to drink.
Some of the people in the village died. Tam? died too. It was really hard for Tom. The whole village was sad. But through it all, Tom remembered that God loved him and would help him.
Tom didn’t stop helping people. And after a while, people started to get better!
Eventually the flu pandemic ended. People stopped getting sick. Tom and Ailama were even able to go to school again. Tom always missed Tam?. But he knew someday he would see his dad again. And he knew that Heavenly Father would always be there to help him.

2:06 p.m. The missionaries jump on another bus, this time to El Casco, the historic quarter of Toledo, Spain. They stop by an investigator’s business to invite him to an activity that night.
“You can get lost in here really quick if you aren’t paying attention,” Elder Ward says of the maze of narrow streets lined with buildings that seem to lean over those walking below.

7:45 p.m. Two buses later the elders make it to the activity they had planned with the sister missionaries who work in the same city, Sister Kathleen Bonifay and Sister Brittany Hofman.
The people they were expecting to come didn’t. “That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Elder Ward says. But after a little footwork, the missionaries are able to gather a handful of other investigators living nearby. After a hymn and a video, you can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost as the missionaries bear testimony of the Book of Mormon as another witness of Jesus Christ. The activity is a success.
“The Lord takes care of you when you put forth your best planning and best effort,” says Sister Bonifay.

I have a friend, Brother George Goff, who attributes his conversion and continued growth in the Church to this kind of friendshipping and fellowshipping. Let me read a part of his story.

When my wife, Linda, and I moved to Waco, Texas, in 1969, I could feel something unusual was going to happen. We were active Southern Baptists and had a conservative life-style. When we attended our first company party, we felt a little uneasy, but soon identified with some people who felt as we did. When Leo Weidner entered, the group started to ask him jokingly if he had brought his own root beer again. It soon became apparent that he didn’t need alcohol to have a good time. I was impressed with his jovial spirit and the next day asked him about his religious beliefs. He immediately told me he was a Latter-day Saint and invited us to his ward to a missionary meeting on the Book of Mormon.

As soon as I heard the Joseph Smith story and saw his picture in the grove, I knew the Church was true. I bore my testimony to family and friends and they expressed how disturbed they were with my “odd behavior.”

Brother Weidner gave us constant attention and soon introduced us to a new couple who had joined the home office. This couple, Del and Vergie Rogers, became a tremendous force in our conversion. They became our friends and discovered our individual needs. Although the Spirit had touched me, I still had an unquenchable desire to know doctrine. They supplied full-time missionaries, standard works, missionary seminars, and everything possible to help us gain this knowledge.

Linda made it apparent that she really wasn’t interested in changing churches. Vergie Rogers told us later that she decided to “just become Linda’s good friend and not mention religion anymore.” Through this friendship she found that Linda had a great interest in genealogy and food storage. Linda even became so enthusiastic that we bought a full year’s supply of food before we joined the Church.

Because Texas was our home and there were few Latter-day Saints in our area, these three people had tough resistance in convincing us to make a religious change. They fellowshipped us constantly for a year before we were baptized. Almost every week we were invited to their homes for dinner or ice cream, or we were invited to movies, Church socials, and Church meetings. They were so sincerely interested in us that we really couldn’t feel intimidated. At our baptism and afterwards we had total evidence of the sincerity of these Saints:
1. A former mission president (Sanford Eliason) traveled 120 miles to speak at our baptism.
2. The new mission president (Carlos E. Asay) wrote a letter of congratulations and gave us constant encouragement after our baptism.
3. Del and Vergie Rogers traveled 1,400 miles to attend the Los Angeles Temple with us a year after our baptism.
4. Recently Leo Weidner told me how he considered me as a brother and has really proved it by being close when I needed a helping hand.
Everyone who fellowshipped us has shown as much help and friendship over the last seven years as they did before our baptism.

Although the Spirit moved with us quickly, we could have never had the strength to face the adversity of leaving family beliefs and old friendships without these new friends. No material goods ever replace the true and sincere friend. And these friendships have survived even though hundreds of miles now separate all of us.

Then I met our bishop, a large rancher who seemed too gentle for his intimidating stature. In my first interview with him he asked me to pray. I refused. I knew how to pray, but I couldn’t because I believed God wouldn’t listen to a sinner. The bishop seemed to understand, although I didn’t see how he could because I was sure he had never sinned in his life. But he didn’t condemn me. He seemed to consider me of equal value to all the “saints” in our ward. Feeling so accepted, I continued to attend.
The next couple of months were filled with something I had never felt before. I came to realize that it was the Spirit of the Lord trying to tell me that everything I was hearing and feeling was true. I don’t think I had a testimony at that time. I only knew that I loved my schoolmate and her funny ideas. I loved my Young Women adviser because she loved me. I loved my bishop because he didn’t condemn me. I loved the feeling I had when I was with these people, and I wanted to have that feeling always in my life.

Ernest Sibanda met two Mormon missionaries on bicycles—Elder Black and Elder Kaelin—in December 1978. They left a Book of Mormon with him. Before their visit, Ernest had already spent many years studying religion. In fact, he had been a teacher for his church for nine years and a pastor for three years.
The night Ernest received his copy of the Book of Mormon he stayed up until 2:00 in the morning reading enthusiastically. He couldn’t wait to meet the missionaries the following day. Ernest told them that he had learned more from Joseph Smith about Jesus Christ than all the ministers he had ever met. Ernest was baptized shortly thereafter, followed by his wife and children a few weeks later.
Of his baptism day, he wrote, “I felt very free. I felt released from every evil. I found there was love in me for my family. I found there was love within me for the Church.”2
Ernest Sibanda proved to be a great strength to the Church. He served as Sunday School president, branch clerk, and second counselor in a branch presidency. He also fulfilled an assignment from the South Africa mission president to translate hymns from English to Shona.

Refugee camps are temporary settlements for people who are forced to leave their home because of war or other reasons. They’re meant to offer safety, and this one did so, but life for Muriel and her family was still a long way from easy.
“We were grateful to be away from the war,” Muriel says. “And the people who ran the camp did the best they could to help us, but there wasn’t enough.”
Not enough food, not enough shelter, not enough medicine—not enough of anything.
“Insects would bite us at night,” she remembers. “And we would be without food for days at a time. There was also a lot of disease in the camp.”
The refugee settlement camp today.
Photograph from Getty Images
Muriel and her family were not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time, but they were devoted and practicing Christians. They had rock-solid faith in God and in His Son, Jesus Christ. “My parents kept telling me that I can always pray and fast.”
So that’s what she did. As a child in a refugee camp, at an age when many kids are learning to read and write, Muriel was praying every day for survival. She prayed for food. She prayed for safety. She prayed for the strength and courage to keep going.
And she saw God work miracles in their lives.
“God got us away from the war,” she says, “so I knew I could trust Him. Whenever we needed Him the most, like when we had nothing to eat for so long, He always blessed us. He worked small miracles that built up my faith in Him.”

In early 1965, I was assigned to attend stake conferences and to hold other meetings throughout the South Pacific area. This was my first visit to that part of the world, and it was a time never to be forgotten. Much that was spiritual in nature occurred during this assignment as I met with leaders, members, and missionaries.
On the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21, we were in Brisbane, Australia, to hold regular conference sessions of the Brisbane Stake. During meetings on Saturday, I was introduced to the district president from an adjoining area. As I shook his hand, I had a strong impression that I needed to speak with him and to provide counsel, and so I asked him if he would accompany me to the Sunday morning session the following day so that this could be accomplished.
Following the Sunday session, we had an opportunity to visit together. We talked of his many responsibilities as district president. As we did so, I felt impressed to offer him specific suggestions concerning missionary work and how he and his members could help the full-time missionaries in their labors in his area. I later learned that this man had been praying for guidance in this regard. To him our visit was a special witness that his prayers were heard and answered. This was a seemingly unremarkable meeting but one which I am convinced was guided by the Spirit and which made a difference in that district president’s life and administration, in the lives of his members, and in the success of the missionaries there.

At the bottom of the brassy afternoon sky an immense herd of buffalo grazed peacefully on the wind-tossed prairie grass that rolled toward the edge of the earth like a giant ocean wave.
A great bull buffalo lifted its massive head and gazed contentedly at the seemingly endless stretch of unblemished grandness. After a moment, the big head shifted toward a faint rumbling beyond the sandstone tableland.
The rumbling continued, and the great beast snorted uneasily, its round dark eyes settling on the buttes strewn across the huge yellow plains. Are the thick dark blasts of smoke rising behind them a racing prairie fire? he worried.
Now a number of feeding heads lifted and joined the big one’s stiffened gaze as the rumbling grew louder. The huffing black smoke boldly befouled the copper heavens. Calves pressed close to their mothers’ bulky, shaggy sides for safety. Young adults hoofed about, tossing their heads and snorting reckless challenges. And the aged ones, ill at ease, breathed cautioning grunts and waited faithfully on the big bull, whose heart-pounding curiosity held him fast. One ancient beast with a chipped horn and ghostly blue eyes stomped to and fro, trying to get the lead animal to hearken to the wisdom of retreat, but the goliath bison seemed rooted to the earth.
Suddenly an awesome, wood-burning monster with a boiler stack lunged out from behind the mesa, spitting darkness at the sun and roaring loudly.
Then, just as the big bull bellowed a warning to retreat, a dozen rifle barrels were thrust out the windows of the chugging steel creature. Gunfire erupted like the sound of a deadly drumroll … and several buffalo fell.
Almost as quickly as it had appeared, the locomotive was snaking its way across the sea of grass, leaving in its path a dirty sky and a sprawling sadness.
The big buffalo lay motionless a long while amidst his dead and dying companions, finally straining to sniff one last time the little purple flowers that had softened his fall. Then he seemed to give himself up to the heavens.
The October afternoon was overtaken by lengthening mesa shadows that stretched over the fallen buffalo like a giant mourning veil. And across it all, the undying wind hymned reverently, sounding like a chorus of lamenting angels.
Along the downward edge of the plateau that stood stark against a blood-red sundown sky moved the hurried gray shadows of prairie wolves. Their hungry cries blended with nature’s sorry song.
The old buffalo’s ghostly blue eyes rounded with terror as the wolves began to move toward him among the dead and the dying. He could almost feel their hot breath. He tried to lift himself up, but the pain was too intense, so he rested quietly among the scent of sweet flowers, waiting for the hungry grays to end his suffering.
A small Sioux hunting party plodded along in the blowing waves of yellow, moonlit grass. Suddenly one of the Sioux, Ten Days Walking, pulled his buffalo runner to a stop and solemnly listened. His pony jerked, but he pulled it back.
Ten Days Walking heard the sound of excited wolves, feasting. He glanced quickly at the small boy warrior who pulled his pony up beside him. It was Little Wind, his ten-year-old son, who relished being with his father more than anything else. In fact, these two Sioux were as inseparable as prairie earth and sky, their feelings running as close as the great buffalo themselves.
Little Wind continued to watch his father, his proud, tired eyes taking in—as they so often did—the horizontal smears of paint on the man’s muscled arms, lines that signified successful horse raids and noble battles won with enemy tribes. This had been the boy’s first hunt, and all the excitement had taken its toll on him. They, and the half-dozen other Indians, had been hunting buffalo for nearly a week. But Little Wind was determined to be strong like his father. He would not show his weariness by complaining.
Little Wind threw back his shoulders, followed his father’s hawk-eyed stare across the wide expanse of grass, and remembered his ailing grandfather’s wise counsel: “Each of us, my child, to be at one with manhood and dignity, must in his turn be strong. He must rise above himself … like an eagle … to the high, noble place of honor. For the best part of any of us, little one, is found in deeds that take us beyond ourselves and make of us the men we are to be.”
Ten Days Walking yelled above the rising wind and plunged his horse forward. Little Wind quickly nudged his moccasined feet into his pony’s flank and bolted after him, followed closely by the other braves who exchanged excited, curious glances.
The feeding wolves retreated reluctantly as the band of Sioux poured out of the darkness, hooting wildly and waving their spears and bows. The snarling animals seemed to dissolve in the growing darkness.
Little Wind could still hear some of them ripping and clawing and tearing at the carcasses. He slipped off his pony and walked among the carcasses. He stumbled over something in the dark … and it moved. It was the old buffalo with the cracked horn and the haunting blue eyes. Little Wind touched its deep carpet of matted fur. There was blood on his hand. It moved again! The boy jumped to his feet. “Father!” he shouted. “This old four-legged still lives!”
Ten Days Walking came to where Little Wind stood and hunkered down beside the ancient creature. He shook his head gloomily. “This one is very old, my son.” He gestured toward the deep wounds. “Its spirit anxiously awaits its journey to the green fields beyond the stars. Mother Earth offers only much pain now. Let this old four-legged be. The Great Spirit calls it home.”
Tears glowed in Little Wind’s big dark eyes. “No, Father,” he humbly objected.
Ten Days Walking looked surprised. “Do you think you know more than your father about such things?”
Little Wind could not swallow his feelings, so he meekly answered, “Was it not you, Father, who said that a man should not limit his compassion to one of his own kind?”
The Big Sioux warrior put his hand on the boy’s small shoulder and spoke softly but firmly. “Would it not be more compassionate to give this old one back to the Great Spirit? There is so little life left in him. And he suffers so.”
After a silence, Ten Days Walking drew his large bone-handled skinning knife and prepared to end the animal’s misery. But Little Wind placed his hand on his father’s arm and pleaded, “Grandfather suffers. He is very old. There is little life left in him too. But do you not go to the high mountains to pray for him every day?”
Ten Days Walking stared deeply at his small son, his dusky eyes misting with heartfelt admiration. The boy seemed suddenly far beyond his years. Little Wind’s three-day fast and sacrifice on the hilltop to purify himself in order to become fit for God’s use before leaving on the hunt now showed itself in the boy’s touching wisdom and uncommon humanity. “Such kindness,” Ten Days Walking uttered, “will one day return itself upon you, my son, whether this old four-legged brother lives or dies. And this is because of the goodness of your heart.”
Ten Days Walking instructed six of his braves to load the old buffalo onto a travois and secure it with rawhide thongs. After all had been taken from the field of death that could be carried, the party of Sioux rode off under a predawn sky. They glanced back sadly at the leavings of meat that could not be toted, but offered it up to their hungry brothers, the wolves, that crept back on the shadows of the hunters’ disappearance.
Little Wind was barely aware of the grand welcome he and his father and the other braves received two days later upon their return to the village. Nor was he aware of the fires that were lit or the prayers of gratitude that were chanted in the smoke of sacred pipes, nor even of the many buffalo paunches (stomach linings) that boiled welcome broth on that cold autumn night. He was much too busy assisting the village holy man work medicine over the old buffalo. They were all quartered in a kind of earthen lodge constructed in the manner of a dome-shaped sweathouse. Here healing vapors could work upon the afflictions of the huge beast.
All the next day Little Wind remained inside the lodge with the old buffalo. His mother, Laughing Water, periodically sent his little sister, Night Fawn, to the earthen lodge with servings of broth, pemmican, and jerky.
Ten Days Walking emerged from a purification lodge when the sun had all but completed its journey across the sky. He had entered the lodge early that morning to bathe in the smoke of sweet grass in order to cleanse himself of the evil that his growing bitterness toward his white brothers had implanted in his heart and mind. He removed a wreath of sage from his head, brushed a veil of sweat from his eyes, and peered through the windy haze of evening fires toward the earthen lodge.
The wind swept across the wintering landscape and moaned about the little hut like a dying thing, pulling at the buffalo hide door and splintering the fragile patch of light inside. Such a long, uncertain vigil for a boy so small, thought Ten Days Walking. He moved off through a maze of huge meat drying racks, taking time out of his concerns to smile at a group of playing children. He paused to better secure a rawhide rope about a pony that was picketed to pegs outside his tepee; then before disappearing inside, he looked back toward the earthen lodge in the icy blast. His heart welled up with a matchless love and reverence and a hope that the Great Spirit would either let death soon take its course or let a small boy’s prayers be answered.
Little Wind’s sore red eyes watched with fixed interest as the medicine man drew a hot coal from the fire with a small forked stick, lit a twisted piece of grass, and cleansed his hands in the smoke. He then applied healing herbs to the buffalo’s wounds.
Little Wind’s eyes followed the smoke from the fire as it lifted through the hole in the top of the lodge toward the land of the Sky People above, and somewhere within that smoke a boy’s continuing prayer ascended with it, a plea that the Great One would consider one of his lesser but noble creations and sustain its life.
The holy man rose to go, then he paused and regarded the boy. “Our work is done, small one. What is left to be done is the Great Spirit’s to do.”
Little Wind pulled his blanket up about him and put another piece of wood on the smoldering fire. The flames licked higher and burned back the edges of night. He would not leave the old buffalo—not yet. He would stay a little longer. Just a little longer.
The boy brushed his hand gently across the massive bulk that slowly rose and fell, his exhausted gaze settling on the shadows that danced giddily on the walls like memories, memories that rose and fell like the sides of the old buffalo and stole him away …
He had been only five the night his people shuffled their feet around the big village fire, making happy shadows that stomped about in the great circle under the moon. Merrily they chanted their thanks to the Great One beyond the stars for the coming of his little sister, Night Fawn, to Mother Earth.
The kindly fire and the remembrance of happy chantings disrupted his stubborn vigil, and he rested his head on the old buffalo’s soft, warm side. He listened for a long moment to the steady throb of its great heart, beating like a distant drum in the land of the Sky People beyond the wind and the night and an old four-legged’s earthly pain.
Suddenly he felt a stir beneath his cheek. The buffalo had moved. Its great body trembled, and a deep breath sighed through its nostrils.
Little Wind lifted his head. The old buffalo’s blue eyes opened and looked at him, no longer clouded with pain but clear and calm.
The boy smiled through his tears as the buffalo slowly struggled to its feet.
The holy man returned to the lodge and stood quietly in the doorway with Ten Days Walking and Laughing Water and Night Fawn.
Outside, the night wind moved gently across the prairie, and the stars glimmered like fire holes in the robe of the Great Spirit.
The old buffalo turned its head toward Little Wind once more, then walked out into the moonlit darkness, as if following a path known only to the spirits.
Little Wind watched until the great shape vanished among the shadows. Then he bowed his head and gave thanks.
Ten Days Walking put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Your prayers have been heard, my son.”
“And the Great Spirit has shown us,” said the holy man, “that even the weakest life may be renewed when met with compassion.”
Little Wind looked up at the sky and whispered a prayer of his own, his heart full and still.
And in the quiet of the night, the village slept.

My friend kept asking me about the Church. I phoned her and told her more. Then I taught her how to pray. She said she’s been doing it. I’m trying to invite her to church, but she is busy.
Then one day, I decided that she learned so much that I would give her a CTR necklace and a copy of the Book of Mormon.
She has been reading the Book of Mormon, and I hope she joins the Church.
Kennedy McLeod, age 10Phoenix, Arizona

The warm sun came through Aaron’s bedroom window. “Today is going to be a good day,” Aaron thought. “I’m going to see Grandma and Grandpa.”
Grandma and Grandpa lived just down the road, and he usually visited them after breakfast. It was the best way to start the day. Aaron jumped out of bed.
After breakfast and chores, Mom smiled and said that he could go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. As he went, the late morning sun felt good on his back. The sand squished under his shoes. It made him laugh. “This is going to be a good day,” he said out loud.
He saw a shiny black rock with a stripe down the middle. “I bet Grandpa would like to see this.” Aaron slipped the rock into his pocket.
He checked the pine tree just outside Grandma’s back door. The robin was sitting on her nest. “I think she has eggs.” Aaron climbed the fence. Standing on tiptoes and stretching his neck as far as he could, he thought he saw something blue in the nest. “I’m going to tell Grandpa!” He slid down and ran to the kitchen door.
Grandpa thought he was right about the eggs. “Pretty soon there will be little birds,” he said. Grandma had made applesauce cookies. They were really good! Grandma and Grandpa both liked his rock.
On the way home, Aaron noticed that the lilac bush was covered with purple flowers. This was such a great day!
That night as Aaron got ready for bed, he thought about everything that had happened. He said his prayers, thanking Heavenly Father. “Thank Thee for the beautiful flowers, the warm sun, the sand, and the robin’s eggs. Thank Thee for Grandma and Grandpa. Thank Thee for this whole great day! Oh, and Heavenly Father, I love Thee.”
As Aaron climbed into bed, he remembered something his Primary teacher had said. When we feel love for Heavenly Father, that feeling is called reverence. Aaron fell asleep feeling very reverent.