Gospel Story Finder

It was family home evening, and everybody had a part to do. Mom was conducting. Dad was giving the lesson. The kids were in charge of prayer, music, and activity—except for Thomas. This week it was Thomas’s turn to bear his testimony, and he was feeling kind of embarrassed.
Thomas had shared his testimony before, but it had been a long time, and he couldn’t quite remember what he was supposed to say. So when the opening song was over and the prayer had been said, Thomas frowned.
“It’s your turn,” Mom reminded him.
Thomas looked out the window at their evergreen tree, wishing somehow it could tell him what to do.
Dad sat down next to Thomas and asked him what was wrong.
“I don’t know what a testimony is,” Thomas said quietly.
“Well, I can help you,” Dad said. “It’s telling us some of the things you know are true or things you believe. You could talk about how you like reading scriptures. That always helps you feel the Spirit.”
But Thomas wasn’t feeling ready. Everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to do something. He shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t know what it is.”
Dad patted Thomas’s arm. “It’s OK. You can do it another time.”
Later that evening Thomas sat in bed holding his Book of Mormon. Dad was right—reading the scriptures always did make him feel better. He tried to read a chapter a day, but the chapters were starting to get really long. He opened his scriptures to 1 Nephi 17.
“That’s a long one!” Thomas whispered. He said a little prayer to Heavenly Father asking for help. Then he was amazed at how quickly the time passed.
Just before Thomas turned out his light, Dad came in to say good night.
“Guess what, Dad?”
“What’s that, buddy?”
“I haven’t read my scriptures for a whole week because the chapters were getting too long. But tonight I wanted to, so I said a prayer, and Heavenly Father helped me. I read the whole thing, and it felt like only five minutes. Prayer is a good thing.”
“Thomas, do you know what you just said?” Dad asked with a smile. “You shared your testimony!”
“Really?” Thomas asked. “What do you mean?”
“When you talked about prayer and how it helped you—that’s a testimony of prayer.”
Thomas’s mouth dropped open in surprise. He thought about all the times people had taught him about testimony. He realized he had shared a testimony!
Thomas felt so good he felt like laughing. He gave Dad a hug.
“Wow, I did it!” Thomas said. “Dad, can I bear my testimony next week in family home evening? I know it’s not my turn, but I want to talk about prayer.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” Dad said.
As Dad left the room, Thomas thought about all that had happened that day. He was grateful for family, scriptures, prayer, and many other things. Right then, he was most grateful for a testimony. He knew how to share one and what it meant.

The Lord’s light helped Shelly Ann Scoffield face a frightening trial in her young life, but she faced it with great faith and love for Heavenly Father. One day Shelly began to feel sick. She saw a doctor, who determined that there was something seriously wrong. Shelly said: “I was scared. I had huge masses on my lungs, and the doctor began to say things like cancer and chemotherapy and radiation.” But Shelly didn’t give in to her fears. True to her training in Personal Progress, she got busy and set a long list of goals to accomplish while she couldn’t go to school because of her treatments. She busied herself with accomplishing good things. She was mindful of her blessings, including a father with the priesthood who had administered to her, a wonderful family, super friends, and great doctors. “Best of all,” Shelly said, “I have a testimony of my Heavenly Father, that He loves me and will help me through this struggle.”

Shelly recorded her thoughts for her young women friends, and I would like to share with you some of what she said:

“I want you girls to know that now is the time to grow close to your Heavenly Father. Work to show Him you can do all that you promised you would do. I am trying. I am learning more now than I have ever in my life known about the gospel. I know that Heavenly Father is with me. When I’m feeling pain and sorrow, He is too, and He just wants me and every one of you, when you’re feeling those things, to get down on your knees and pray for His help, because He is so willing. He loves you so much. I pray that throughout your life, throughout your struggles, that you’ll learn from them and stay close to Him and have faith. Gain a testimony and stay true to what is right.”

Shelly Scoffield passed away November 3, 1998, strong in the faith.

Brother Williams brings in the garbage cans for 28 of his neighbors. “We need to follow the Savior’s example and do good to people,” he says.
Photographs by Richard M. Romney
Every Wednesday, 81-year-old Ken Williams wears the same shirt and hat. Both the shirt and hat depict a well-known character, Oscar, who lives in a garbage can. That Oscar is known as a lovable grouch. Ken is just known as lovable.
Ken waits inside his front door and listens. He’s waiting for the sound of the garbage truck. Sounds are important to Ken because he’s legally blind. Couple that with the fact that he has undergone 14 years of chemotherapy, and yet he’s still willing to get out and help his neighbors—28 of them, in fact.
Ken is affectionately known by all of his neighbors up and down the street. He’s the man who brings in the garbage cans.
“We see the garbage truck pass,” says a neighbor, Laura Willes, “and the next thing we see is Ken, walking down the sidewalk with his white cane, going from house to house and pulling in the cans.”
“It keeps our community looking good,” says Ken’s wife, De Ann. “But it also keeps the roads clear. I don’t know if a fire truck could get down the street without knocking all of the cans out of the way.”
Laura says Ken’s trash can patrol also provides reassurance to people who have to be away from their homes, “so that it’s not obvious when no one is home.”
So how does Ken manage to move the cans around while walking with a cane? “The cane is more for stability than anything else,” he says, “and when I lean on the garbage can, that gives me stability too.” With the help of a special contact lens, he can see well enough out of one eye to find his way around. When there’s snow on the ground, he won’t go where he might slip and fall.
“If there’s a day when he can’t bring in the cans,” De Ann says, “I alert the neighbors.”
Ken didn’t start out by doing all of the cans up and down the street. It’s a role he grew into. “After the garbage truck would go by, he would go out to the houses right around us and push the cans back off the street,” De Ann explains. “It evolved slowly. He did one more house and then one more, until it has reached what it is today.”
And the Oscar nickname? “That came from our daughter, Collette,” De Ann says. “And it stuck.”
Ken has made friends with longtime residents and new move-ins, with grandparents, children, and grandchildren. “It’s funny how many people know him as Oscar,” Laura says.
Why does Ken repeatedly perform this small act of service? His answer is profound. “We need to follow the Savior’s example and do good to people. That’s what I try to do. It lets them know they have the opportunity to do good to other people too.”
Ken has, in fact, spent a lifetime helping others. As a consultant in the automotive business, he worked with dealerships to improve their operations. As a Church member, he has accepted callings and shared the gospel, “not by preaching to my neighbors but by showing them the joy that comes from following the Savior.”
De Ann recalls, “When Ken was in chemo, the nurses and one of the doctors told me he helped a lot of other patients get through their chemo, mostly because of his personality. He didn’t even know he was doing anything special; he was just being Ken.”
Ken is still dealing with four types of cancer, but he stopped receiving chemo four years ago. “The oncologist says Ken is a walking miracle,” De Ann says.
Every Wednesday, you’ll see him in his Oscar outfit, waiting for the truck to pass so he can help his neighbors. “I didn’t just decide to go and bring in the garbage cans,” Ken says. “I decided it was one of the few things I could still do. And as long as I can serve my neighbors, I’ll keep serving.”
The author lives in Utah, USA.

The challenges that face us and our families as disciples of Christ are somewhat different than those of Joshua’s Israelites. Let me illustrate with an experience. Our family lived for many years in the state of Florida. Because Florida has a high concentration of sand, lawns there are planted with a large broadleaf grass we call Saint Augustine. A formidable enemy of a Florida lawn is a small, brown insect called a mole cricket.
One evening as my neighbor and I stood on the front steps, he noticed a little bug crossing my sidewalk. “You better spray your lawn,” he warned. “There goes a mole cricket.” I had sprayed the lawn with insecticide not too many weeks previously, and I hardly felt that I had the time or money to do it again so soon.
In the light of the next morning, I examined my lawn closely. It was lush and beautifully green. I looked down into the grass to see if I could see any of the little bugs. I could see none. I remember thinking, “Well, maybe that little mole cricket was just passing through my yard on the way to my neighbor’s yard.”
I watched my lawn for more than a week, looking for signs of invaders, but none was evident. I congratulated myself that I had not overreacted to my neighbor’s warning.
The story, however, has a sad ending. I came out the front door one morning, about 10 days after the conversation with my neighbor. Shockingly, as if it had happened overnight, brown spots covered my lawn. I ran to the garden store, bought the insecticide, and sprayed immediately, but it was too late. The lawn was ruined, and to return it to its former state required a new crop of sod, long hours of work, and large expense.
My neighbor’s warning was central to my lawn’s welfare. He saw things I could not see. He knew something I did not know. He knew that mole crickets live underground and are active only at night, making my daytime examinations ineffective. He knew that mole crickets did not eat the leaves of the grass but rather found nourishment in the roots. He knew that these little inch-long creatures could eat a lot of roots before I would ever see the effect above the ground. I paid a dear price for my smug independence.

I have never before read such a profitable and edifying publication as the Liahona (Spanish). I’m a young person who has never really cared to read. And when I started to read the magazine, I didn’t think I would find anything that would motivate me to search the scriptures and help me understand the message of the Lord Jesus Christ. But as I read the January 2000 issue, the talk “The Faith of a Sparrow: Faith and Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ” by Elder H. Bruce Stucki of the Seventy had a real impact on my life—so much so that I have continued to study the scriptures.
Thanks to our Heavenly Father and His missionaries, I have found the truth, and I am going to be baptized. Thank you for preparing missionaries to teach people like me.
Alexi Antonio López López,Oriental Ward, San Miguel El Salvador Stake
Note: Brother López was baptized on 18 March 2000, shortly after this letter was written.

President David O. McKay was brought to tears while seeing the diverse group of students gathered at the elementary school in Laie back in 1921.
That was powerful but as he remembered that experience, he added, “but more impressive than that [flag raising ceremony] was our assembly in the old chapel that stood by. There we met as members of The Church of Jesus Christ—Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, all the races represented on this island. There we met as one, members of the Church, the restored Church of Christ. What an example in this little place of the purposes of our Father in Heaven to unite all peoples by the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

As a young girl, my grandmother, Chasty Olsen Harris, had a similar experience. She was tending some children who were playing in a dry riverbed near their home in Castle Dale, Utah. Suddenly she heard a voice that called her by name and directed her to get the children out of the riverbed and up on the bank. It was a clear day, and there was no sign of rain. She saw no reason to heed the voice and continued to play. The voice spoke to her again, urgently. This time she heeded the warning. Quickly gathering the children, she made a run for the bank. Just as they reached it, an enormous wall of water, originating with a cloudburst in the mountains many miles away, swept down the canyon and roared across where the children had played. Except for this impelling revelation, she and the children would have been lost.

My wife, Everjoyce, and I are from the small town of Mutare, on the eastern border of Zimbabwe. Soon after we were baptized and confirmed, we became excited about doing missionary work. We read that “the field is white already to harvest” (D&C 33:7), and even though we didn’t know a lot about how to be missionaries, we decided we needed to “thrust in [our] sickles, and reap with all [our] might, mind, and strength.”
We were members of the newly created Dangamvura Branch located in one of the townships of Mutare. At that time, 1991, the branch had 25 members. Soon we were called as branch missionaries. We learned a lot from a senior missionary couple serving in our area. One suggestion they made was that we set goals.
We wanted to share the gospel with everyone, so we set the goal of sharing it with 100 people during the first year we were branch missionaries. Maybe we were naïve, but it seemed realistic to us. We trusted that the Lord would help us.
By singing hymns at Church meetings, we discovered that we had a hidden talent for music. We decided to use our talents, so we started singing for—and with—people who showed interest in the gospel as we met to teach them. The Spirit accompanied us as we sang sacred music, and He touched the hearts of those we were teaching. So did the message of the restored gospel. We encouraged everyone to join our branch choir, and many did, whether they were Latter-day Saints or not. As more people learned about the gospel, many entered the waters of baptism.
As we continued our missionary efforts, we continued to fast and pray for the families who had joined the Church. We felt that others in the community were witnessing these families’ righteous examples. We received more and more invitations to teach families, and our teaching pool filled with prospective members.
As a result of learning and living the gospel, newly baptized couples became closer and more loving. Parents were able to leave behind traditions that were not compatible with gospel culture. They abstained from alcohol and tobacco. They taught their children correct principles. Many who had been overly absorbed in worldly things in the past were now able to accept callings in the Church. They became a blessing to their branch and their community. The hand of the Lord brought a mighty change to their lives.
With the Lord’s help, we ended up sharing the gospel with many more than our original goal. Because we were willing to look for ways we could reach out to others, we were able to witness a mighty change in the lives of many in our whole community.

What do you picture in your mind when you think of Wyoming? If you are driving through this part of the United States, you will not see a lot of big cities. Instead, you will see a big, beautiful sky, prairie, lots of rocky mountains, and antelope darting through the vast landscape.
But if you are driving near Independence Rock, Wyoming, during the summer, you may notice on the horizon something a little unusual—a line of handcart pioneers walking along a dry, dusty Wyoming trail. On closer examination, these “pioneers,” even though they are dressed in the style of the 1850s, are really very modern teens and their leaders. Despite the intense heat, the young men have on long trousers and long-sleeved shirts. Many of them are also wearing hats to keep the sun off their faces. The young women are in equivalent attire—long dresses, aprons, and sunbonnets.
In our day of automobiles and airplanes, it’s hard to imagine why these people have chosen to haul their food, water, and other supplies in wooden handcarts. But there they are. These young people have chosen to take time off from their summer jobs and other activities to give up the comforts of their homes and to walk as far as 30 miles under the hot Wyoming sun—all for one reason. They think it’s worth it just to have a taste of what some pioneers went through in the early days of the Church.
In 1855, Brigham Young counseled converts who were unable to outfit themselves with teams and wagons to walk the 1,300 miles across the plains pulling handcarts rather than delay, wait, and work to earn enough to buy expensive wagons. In all, 10 handcart companies traveled this way, 8 of which were very successful and had few casualties. However, two handcart companies, led by James G. Willie and Edward Martin, experienced suffering and heartache as they left too late in the year and ran into unexpectedly early snowstorms. Both companies were in grave danger of not surviving. The Willie Company was a few days ahead of the other company and was rescued first by wagons sent from Salt Lake City. Those in the company were frostbitten and starved. Sixty-eight of 404 in the company died.
The Martin Handcart Company, however, was forced by the storm to stop in a small valley on the side of a mountain with very little shelter. After wading through deep snow up to this point, the pioneers stopped in a cove, formed by rock outcroppings. Trees provided protection and fuel. There they waited for help and supplies from Salt Lake City. In just five days, 56 of the 145 total who died in the crossing perished. But thanks to heroic rescue efforts of Church members sent by Brigham Young, the majority, 431 of the Martin handcart pioneers, survived the trip.
Today the Mormon Handcart Visitors’ Center, near Martin’s Cove, is a reminder of not only the ill-fated handcart companies but also a tribute to the many pioneers who traveled with handcarts across the plains. Each summer hundreds of visitors come to learn more about these people, many of whom left their homes and relatives behind, bringing little more than the clothes on their backs. The pioneers sacrificed much in order to bring themselves and their families across the plains to Utah where they could live in peace, without persecution.
While some Church members today have direct pioneer ancestry, many do not. Yet all of us are indebted to the pioneers who helped establish the Church in its early days, and their sacrifices are part of every member’s heritage.
This debt is part of the reason the youth of many area stakes come to Martin’s Cove to walk miles through the hot desert dressed as pioneers, pulling their camping equipment and food in handcarts.
For many teens from the Pueblo Colorado Stake, for example, walking where the pioneers walked helped them realize the dedication and sacrifice of the early pioneers. Hearing the stories of the pioneers and the experiences they went through helped strengthen the testimonies of those who walked just a small part of the trail.
Other groups walking the trail at the same time had similar experiences. Christine Johnson from Orem, Utah, reflected upon the experience of the Saints as they traveled: “I wonder what they would have thought when they were looking around and saw just miles and miles of nothing.”
Adam Pinegar, also from Orem, said his trek gave him a feel for how difficult it was for the handcart pioneers. Although it was tough, Adam said he would do it again. “It was worth it. I thought of my ancestors who actually came across with the Martin Company. They suffered so much to get to the Salt Lake valley, so I could live where I do and have the gospel.”
Erin Woodward’s sixth great-grandfather walked across the plains. Erin, from Westminster, Colorado, thought of this grandfather and his family as she participated in the trek with her stake.
“Now I feel like the silliest girl in the whole world,” she said. “I mean, I have been so into my materialistic things. Seriously, I have a curling iron in my pocket. I even have makeup and everything. I feel horrible because the real pioneers didn’t live as well as I do. Before this I never really understood how blessed I am.”
These young men and women walk through the desert with a backdrop of significant Church history sites—Devil’s Gate, Independence Rock, and Martin’s Cove.
For many, Martin’s Cove is a sacred spot. It is beautiful, with many trees. The feeling is peaceful and calm. The pioneers camped on one side of the cove and buried their dead in shallow snow graves on the other. As the youth walk through the area, they take off their hats and whisper out of respect for those who died.
Tiffany Campbell from the Pueblo stake said the cove made her think a lot about those people and their determination to get to the Salt Lake valley.
The teens from Christine’s Orem ward walked to the cove last, after they had already walked the majority of their trek. “Once we got up there it hit us that this was really the place where they couldn’t go anymore, where they had to stop, and where so many died. It was amazing to be up there after doing the rest of our trek. It was kind of quiet and peaceful and spiritual.”
As their journey was ending, Stephanie Stewart, also from Pueblo, described what she learned from the miles and miles of walking: “I am going home with a better understanding of how hard it was and what the pioneers did so that we could be free of persecution.”
Many other youth echoed her feelings: “I just think it is really neat to see what they did and what they gained from it,” said Michael King from Roy, Utah. “Of course we can get a little taste of it, you know, but we cannot fully understand.”
After visiting Martin’s Cove, these young people freely admit they cannot completely comprehend what the early handcart pioneers went through. But their reenactment experience has changed their attitudes. They know they face storms of another kind in modern life. But learning to survive is a lesson that was taught by those who have suffered before us. These modern teens also learned that we can all follow the example of faith and determination set by the pioneers. The handcart companies passed their tests. Now it’s our turn.

We saw an Ethiopian man who was perhaps 80 years old stumble into the feeding station camp with a desperate, beaten look on his face.
He was obviously starving to death. However, on the way to the feeding station, he had passed a deserted village and had heard the cry of a baby. He searched until he found the baby sitting on the ground next to his dead mother. In spite of this man’s emaciated condition, he picked up the baby and carried him in his arms for 25 miles to the feeding station. The man had a look of glassy-eyed bewilderment, but his first words were not “I’m hungry” or “Help me.” They were “What can be done for this baby I found?”
I feel that the members of our church should be doing all we can to alleviate suffering. I am thrilled with the fact that our full-time missionaries now devote several hours of their week to community service. When followed properly, this program does not detract from the primary goal of missionaries, but enhances that goal.

Let me explain a hard lesson I learned during the third year of our mission. Very unexpectedly, Heber was rushed to the local hospital in Richmond, British Columbia with what the doctors diagnosed as a life-threatening condition. A virus was attacking the valves of his heart. As he was wheeled into a hospital room on a gurney, I followed close behind praying every step of the way. There in the room was a very sick man sitting on the edge of the other bed. He looked emaciated. His eyes appeared to be crossed, his mouth was drooping, and his gown was off his shoulder revealing dark tattoos down both arms. I immediately turned my back. I didn’t like the feeling I had. He looked to me like a man who had made a lot of wrong choices. My thoughts told me I didn’t want to be in that room with him.
As soon as Heber was settled with medication that relieved the pain and put him to sleep, I took a seat in a folding chair and began pouring out my heart pleading with the Lord for my husband’s complete recovery. In my anguish I thought I heard the words, “You reach out to others and I’ll take care of you.” I immediately reflected on our total commitment to the missionaries, the members, the nonmembers, the investigators, and asked myself, “what more can I do?” Again the whisperings of the spirit, “you reach out to others and I’ll take care of you.”
I found myself turning to look again at the old man with the tattoos. Could he possibly be one of the “others” I wondered? I was prompted to get him a drink in a little paper cup. He thanked me and seemed appreciative. Later I took him a second drink. This time I had the Book of Mormon in my hand. He asked me about the book. When I told him it was the Book of Mormon he stumbled over his words admitting that he used to be a Mormon and asked if he could borrow it when I was through. When I handed the book to the patient he reached for it like a hungry man would reach for food, maybe remembering that it contained the bread of life.
I went back to my chair and found myself praying for the old man. When the night nurse came in he said to her in his muffled voice, “get the big chair at the end of the hall.” The nurse explained, “Oh Mr. Kapp is much too sick. He will not be getting up tonight.” The man insisted. “Get the big chair.” The nurse wheeled in the big chair and he said pointing to me, “it’s for her.” Can you believe that in his hour of struggle he was thinking of my comfort? I went once more to get him a drink of water, the only thing I could think to do in appreciation for his kindness. This time when I returned to the big chair he had arranged for my comfort, things were different. Not with the brother in the bed close by, but within me. He looked different than before. His eyes looked very tired but not crossed, and his speech was slow, but not slurred. And in an amazing way I realized that the tattoos, which had been so offensive to me, were not the ones on his arms but the ones in my heart.
During the long night I continued praying for Heber and also my new friend. In the process, I experienced a healing. Not physical, but spiritual. In the morning the curtain that had been drawn around the patient’s bed was opened and the bed was empty. He had passed away during the night. I realized in soberness that one of his last acts was for my comfort. Into my mind came the words of Elder Maxwell, “Empathy at a time of agony is part of divinity.” I realized then that this brother’s concern for me, was more Christ like than my first judgment of him. I asked myself, “why did I just loan him the book, why didn’t I offer to read to him?” But that opportunity was gone. I felt a love for this man, my brother, who had concern for my comfort when he was in need himself.
I related this experience to a group of sisters in the northern part of the province. When the closing prayer was given by someone who had been labeled, “less active,” she closed in a tone of deep emotion with these words, “Oh God, help us to love one another and look past each other’s tattoos.”

Over the nineteen years of our marriage, nine beautiful children have blessed our home, along with many financial and occupational disappointments for my husband Craig, failing health for me, and increasing responsibilities outside the home competing for our limited time. During the years, as the stress increased, I found myself saying or thinking, “Maybe we aren’t really right for each other.”
I had also noticed that when Craig and I got a night out together, we really didn’t have much in common. For instance, he’d want to see a movie, and I’d want to go to the temple. He’d want to watch a soccer game or something like that, and I’d want to go to a dance or a concert.
I must have expressed my frustration, because one day Craig found himself repeating my statement, “Maybe we aren’t really right for each other.” Hearing himself say this out loud bothered him, for he spent the next few days praying and fasting about our marriage relationship and the frustrations we were feeling.
Then one evening he said, “You and I are like the basic colors—red, yellow, and blue. Between the two of us we have everything necessary to make a successful marriage and an eternal family. Together, we lack nothing. Just as it takes all three basic colors to make all the other colors, you and I, with Heavenly Father’s help, have the ability to blend our qualities to make a happy, eternal marriage.”
As I thought about that, I saw our differences from a new perspective. In our family, Craig is the one who radiates love. I’ve sometimes been jealous of that ability because I wanted to do that, too. I have a lot of love in me, but my love doesn’t always seem to come out graciously. Once, when I told Craig that I felt sad about not being able to express my love well, he replied, “But you bring spirituality into our family. You love to read the scriptures and listen to general conference, and you’re always eager to share what you have learned.” Suddenly I realized that Craig and I were helping each other and our children: he showed me how to give love, and I shared with him what I had learned from the scriptures and prophets.

I had been a committed member of another church, but then I started studying its teachings about purgatory. This idea teaches that the soul, after physical death, is admitted to a place similar to prison, where it must be purified before going to paradise.
As I thought about suffering souls in purgatory, I reflected on my own spiritual future and my relationship with Jesus Christ. I began praying, “What must I do to escape purgatory? I want to go to paradise.”
The first thing that came to my mind was to live the Ten Commandments. I felt that if I did, the Lord’s grace would allow me to avoid purgatory. I committed to keep the commandments and began an intense period of fasting, praying, studying the scriptures, and meditating.
During this time, I felt prompted to ask an unusual question of a doctor at the clinic where I worked as chief accountant.
“Dr. Thibaut,” I said, “is the Lord Jesus Christ in your church?”
He stated that he belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From that point on, the Spirit guided our discussion. I asked him about the differences between his church and mine. He told me about the Book of Mormon. As we continued our conversation, joy filled my heart. I felt that I was receiving answers to my prayers.
Two days later the missionaries gave me a Book of Mormon, which I read and studied with them. I found it wonderful to learn new things from the scriptures. I started obeying the Word of Wisdom.
When I realized I had lost interest in my church, where I had been so involved, I wondered what was happening. I prayed and asked God about this new path. When I did, I felt more convinced of the truth I had found. I decided to join the Church, even though I knew I would face persecution.
Persecution did come, but the Lord strengthened me. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the answer to my sincere prayer: “I want to go to paradise.” I know I can go there after I die if I remain faithful to the commandments of God.

The balloons made their journeys, and much like the parable in the scriptures, some seeds fell on fertile ground. A message written by Laura West in the Salt Lake Cottonwood Height Stake was found by one who desperately needed her encouragement. Laura had written, in part, “Keep your hopes up and rise like the balloon. Always have faith in Christ and Christ will have faith in you.” Her balloon was found only a couple of miles from where it was released. The man who found it wrote to Laura that he was a member of the Church but had fallen away 18 years earlier while he was in his teens. He told of his struggle to be reunited with his wife and children and the decision he made to come back to the Church. He wrote, “I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon and praying since Sunday night (the day after I got your letter). I went to the bishop of my ward that night and told him I knew it was time for me to straighten out my life. … If only you could feel the peace and tranquility that has come to me since I began the reading and prayer. It’s truly like the difference between night and day. To top off my own feelings that I’m on the right track, I picked up your letter. You said you hoped your letter would brighten my day. It not only brightened my day, it was a godsend! I will remember your letter forever.” He signed it “Your friend you’ve never met” and his name.

In the hospital one day I was wheeled out of the operating room by an attendant who stumbled, and there issued from his angry lips vicious cursing with a combination of the names of the Savior. Even half-conscious, I recoiled and implored: “Please! Please! That is my Lord whose names you revile.”
There was a deathly silence; then a subdued voice whispered, “I am sorry.” He had forgotten for the moment that the Lord had forcefully commanded all his people, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain” (Ex. 20:7).

One day I went for a stroll with my two daughters, aged three and four. We walked by beautiful homes and gardens with flowers of spectacular colors. We saw tall trees with disorderly wildflowers clustered around them, which were lovely, too.
Then the girls saw some dandelions that were blooming like small bright suns. They each picked one. To their disappointment, the yellow blossoms soon withered into grey shadows.
“Why did you pick them?” I asked, thinking it was time for a lesson.
“Because they were so pretty!” both cried.
“Are they pretty now?”
“No,” answered my older daughter. “Throw them away!”
I explained that it’s best to admire nature without interfering. When living things are rooted up, they weaken and die. The girls understood.
They returned to their play, while I thought about those little flowers. I remembered the less-active people at church whose testimonies didn’t receive the nurturing necessary to survive difficult times. How easy it is, I thought, if our testimonies are not rooted in faith and constantly nourished, for them to wither and die.
Suddenly my heart trembled as I recognized in this humble analogy the answer to a problem that had been troubling me.
My husband had stopped going to church, and I had been contemplating becoming less active myself, just to avoid conflict. It would, I reasoned, be only “temporary.” I had been praying, trying to know the right thing to do. Now Heavenly Father had given me the answer.
That night when my husband came home, I told him about our outing and about the dandelions. I told him that if I did truly love him—and he knew that I did—it was due, in great part, to the attention and care I received at church. It was because each Sunday I was in the Lord’s garden, being fed by his Spirit and by the love of my brothers and sisters. It was because I was watered every day as I read the scriptures. All of these things helped to make me the person that loved him. They made me the person that he loved.
He smiled and gave me a kiss as a token of peace. And I gave thanks for the message I had received that day—in the form of two dandelions.

This was the environment in which my father grew up. In a similar situation, my father was not able to finish high school, but had learned from his father to always do his best. He worked as a driver and later as a salesman for an insurance company. He would always work hard to meet sales goals and receive higher commissions. Through his hard work, he was able to provide a good living for our family. However, I know there are two other aspects of my father’s life that helped him to become self-reliant: my father always paid an honest tithe, and he always put God first in his life. I remember reading the scriptures and praying together as a family, getting up early in the morning to go to seminary, attending church together with my brother and sisters, handing our tithing envelope to the bishop. Through these small and simple experiences my father was teaching us the importance of being not only temporarily self-reliant, but also spiritually self-reliant.

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.

Sometimes we may be a little fearful of sharing our testimonies, perhaps because we do not wish to offend or to be criticized. President Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency, tells of a time when he faced the choice of bearing testimony or remaining silent. On an airplane flight, an off-duty flight attendant sat next to him reading a copy of A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. President Monson discovered that she was not a member of the Church. He recalls:
“I wondered silently, Should I be forward and say more about the Church? The words of the Apostle Peter crossed my mind: ‘Be ready always to give an answer to every [one] that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you’ [1 Pet. 3:15]. I decided that now was the time for me to share my testimony with her.”
This woman later joined the Church and thanked President Monson for sharing his testimony (see Ensign, May 1995, page 50).

Earlier in the day, we had taken about a dozen reporters and members of the media through the temple. Each had come to cover the temple open house as part of his or her work obligations and had a busy morning setting up cameras and microphones and testing equipment for a media event to follow. So initially they entered the temple out of a sense of duty, with mild curiosity and perhaps a little skepticism as to why they should take the time when they had so much else to do. However, as we progressed from room to room, the curiosity gave way to respect and to a feeling of profound reverence and peace. Before entering the celestial room, we invited them to take time to consider their personal feelings about God and, if they wished, to meditate or pray. To our amazement, almost every member of that group of worldly professionals then sat in the celestial room with heads bowed. A beautiful feeling came over all present. We felt impressed to share our personal testimonies of how wonderful it is to come to the temple and to leave outside the cares and worries of the world as we focus on the Savior and feel the presence of His Spirit.