Gospel Story Finder

I remember a woman in my ward some years ago when I was a bishop. She and her husband were having marital problems. As they spoke with me, she began to tear down her husband in all the key areas that a man needs praise in order to respect himself. She talked of his inadequacy as a father, his inadequacies in marital relations, his inadequacy as a provider, and his inadequacies socially.

I asked her, “Why do you do this to a man you should love and sustain?”

She replied, “It’s much better to argue with someone you love because you know where you can hurt him the most.”

And she meant it.

Thomas Edison devoted ten years and all of his money to developing the nickel-alkaline storage battery at a time when he was almost penniless. Through that period of time, his record and film production was supporting the storage battery effort. Then one night the terrifying cry of fire echoed through the film plant. Spontaneous combustion had ignited some chemicals. Within moments all of the packing compounds, celluloid for records, film, and other flammable goods had gone up with a roar. Fire companies from eight towns arrived, but the fire and heat were so intense and the water pressure so low that the fire hoses had no effect. Edison was sixty-seven years old—no age to begin anew. His son Charles was frantic, wondering if he were safe, if his spirits were broken, and how he would handle a crisis such as this at his age. Charles saw his father running toward him. He spoke first.

He said, “Where’s your mother? Go get her. Tell her to get her friends. They’ll never see another fire like this as long as they live!”

At 5:30 the next morning, with the fire barely under control, he called his employees together and announced, “We’re rebuilding.” One man was told to lease all the machine shops in the area, another to obtain a wrecking crane from the Erie Railroad Company. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Oh, by the way. Anybody know where we can get some money?” (Paraphrased from Charles Edison, “My Most Unforgettable Character,” Reader’s Digest, December 1961, pp. 175–77.)

Virtually everything you now recognize as a Thomas Edison contribution to your life came after that disaster. Remember, “Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement— discouragement has a germ of its own.”

Fifth: "I was sick, and ye visited me." I'm sure we have all been sick at some point in our lives. And when you're feeling under the weather, who doesn't appreciate a reassuring visit from family or friends? I think of loneliness in this same category of need.

When I was in graduate school in Illinois, I was home teacher to a dear elderly sister in our ward, Zada Purrington. She lived alone in an assisted living center but made great efforts to come to church. We lived far from our own families and grandparents, so Zada became a kind of adopted grandparent for our young children. We loved to visit and spend time with her, even though she could barely hear us.

I know she was lonely and was often sick, but she was always happy to see us. I'm sure (I hope!) she appreciated our visits with three young girls in tow, and I know we certainly were greatly blessed by our association with her. This kind of service brings blessings in abundance to all involved.

I joined the Church at age 36, and at times I felt spiritually strong. Other times I just went through the motions. Between a hectic work schedule, my wife starting a new career, poor health, and other challenges, I began to struggle spiritually. I attended church and helped teach the deacons quorum, but that was all I could bring myself to do. I couldn’t find the strength to open my scriptures or kneel to pray.
I was still struggling when I left on a business trip to northern Chile. From the airport in Copiapó, we drove two hours to the site for a solar installation project in Chile’s Atacama Desert. I was surprised by how remote this region was, only red desert for miles and miles. The loneliness of the landscape was startling.
After being on site for about a week, we drove to the nearest town for supplies. There I saw a building that caught my eye. I asked the driver to pull over. The building had beautiful grounds that were surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. On the front of the building was a familiar sign, “La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días” or “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
“The Church is here?” I thought. I was amazed that the Church had made it to this remote part of the world. I took a picture of the meetinghouse and texted it to my wife. Her response had a profound effect on me: “Heavenly Father is aware of His people everywhere.”
This was a direct message for me from my Heavenly Father. In the stress of living day to day, I had forgotten, and needed to be reminded, that Heavenly Father loves all His children. He loves those Saints in that small and remote town in the middle of the desert, and He also loves me.
That night I knelt and thanked Heavenly Father for the blessings He had given me that day. Knowing that He loves me has helped me rebuild my spirituality, and it continues to strengthen me each day.

The Gift of the Holy Ghost
I turn now to something else I highly value about the restored gospel. It’s the fact that this Church has the authority to confer upon each of us, following our baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost. When the Nephite Twelve prayed for that which they most desired, the scripture says, “and they desired that the Holy Ghost should be given unto them.”[11] I know all who take their covenants seriously have that same desire. An experience I had one day interviewing a missionary during a mission tour confirms that truth. I had talked with the fine young elder for 10 or 15 minutes, asking him a series of questions about mission life and the experience he was having. When I was about finished, I asked him if he wanted to ask me any questions. He became very serious and said, “Brother Jensen, as we’ve talked together today and as I’ve answered your questions, have you felt the Spirit of the Lord? Do I have the Spirit?” I think in all my years of interviewing Latter-day Saints I’ve never had a better question posed to me. It told me volumes about that young elder and the deepest desires of his heart.
Interestingly, as we had talked together, I had received the distinct impression that this was a very genuine and good young man, and so I could honestly say to him that I had felt the Spirit. I could tell it was important for him to be reassured and I told him about the group of Lamanites who the Book of Mormon says “were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.”[12]
I want to assure all of you today that through proper priesthood authority this Church can validly confer upon us the Gift of the Holy Ghost. If we live worthily, we will be guided by that Spirit and be entitled to the comfort and spiritual gifts that it brings, including a firm testimony of the truth of the gospel. This will be the case even if we sometimes have doubts about our own spirituality and like the Lamanites, occasionally feel the Spirit and “know it not.”

I am acquainted with a family which came to America from Germany. The English language was difficult for them. They had but little by way of means, but each was blessed with the will to work and with a love of God.

Their third child was born, lived but two months, and then died. Father was a cabinetmaker and fashioned a beautiful casket for the body of his precious child. The day of the funeral was gloomy, thus reflecting the sadness they felt in their loss. As the family walked to the chapel, with Father carrying the tiny casket, a small number of friends had gathered. However, the chapel door was locked. The busy bishop had forgotten the funeral. Attempts to reach him were futile. Not knowing what to do, the father placed the casket under his arm and, with his family beside him, carried it home, walking in a drenching rain.

If the family were of a lesser character, they could have blamed the bishop and harbored ill feelings. When the bishop discovered the tragedy, he visited the family and apologized. With the hurt still evident in his expression, but with tears in his eyes, the father accepted the apology, and the two embraced in a spirit of understanding. No hidden wedge was left to cause further feelings of anger. Love and acceptance prevailed.

I’m almost always in my office on Tuesday and Thursday mornings by 6:00 a.m. Those are my Book of Mormon days. I came in, however, a little later on this particular Thursday because it was an exam day. I stopped by Winchell’s to get some doughnuts in hopes of sweetening the experience just a little. It was kind of a gray day. As I went into the doughnut shop, there were two lines. In the line to my right was a young man whom I recognized as a participant in our Wright Leadership Seminar program. We chatted: “How are you? How is school going?” You know, the usual conversation. There was an older man standing just in front of this student. I had not paid much attention but did notice the man fumbling through his pocket and counting his change. Looking up at the order board, he changed his order from a drink and a doughnut to a hot drink. I went about my business, ordered my doughnuts, and said goodbye to this young man as he went on his way. Shortly, I saw the clerk come from behind the counter and walk over to the man with his drink. She laid a doughnut on the table and said, “That young man has bought you a doughnut.”

I wish I’d thought of that. But I didn’t. It took a BYU student to think of that. I watched the student as he walked down the street toward school, and he never looked back. Not for credit. Not for admiration. He simply walked on, his BYU backpack flung across his shoulder and his physics book under his arm.

I would like to finish today by recounting an experience in early Church history having to do with Israel Barlow. He was one of those who went up the Mississippi River from Quincy and helped scout out the area that later became Nauvoo. He lived in Nauvoo and came west with the Saints as one of the early pioneers. In the early 1850s he was attending a general conference of the Church.

It was in that meeting that Israel Barlow heard his name mentioned from the pulpit. In those days, this was how the brethren were called on missions. Israel Barlow was called on a mission to Great Britain. He didn’t have to have an interview. He didn’t have to have a medical examination. He was called to go on a mission. He had a family and was just getting started in his new area, so it was no small sacrifice to answer the call from the presidency of the Church. But he had enough faith that this was what he knew he must do. His wife was supportive of him, but she asked him for one favor on his way to the mission field. Would he stop at their old farm in Nauvoo and find where they had buried their firstborn child and remove the grave to the Old Nauvoo Burial Ground? He said he would do this, and he made his way back across the Mississippi River and came up to Nauvoo.

He went to the farm and got the permission of the people who lived there to look for and move the grave. He said that at first he could not find it, but then he located it because his wife had planted ground cover around it. When he dug down, he felt that the grave was in such a condition that it could not be moved. According to his journal, he said to himself that he would leave it to the morning of the first resurrection and hoped that his wife would understand. As he turned away to continue his journey up the river and on to Great Britain, he turned back one more time just to be sure that he had made the right decision. He again felt that nothing more could be done, and as he turned away again he said that words came into his mind so clear that he knew he had not put them there. These words were, “Daddy, don’t leave me here!” He said he stopped and took the necessary time and effort to move the grave of his firstborn child to the Old Nauvoo Burial Ground.

After he had completed the work, he said that he spent some time by the grave feeling this bond between himself and his firstborn child before he left, not knowing if he would return. To our knowledge, he never did return to the site. (See Ora H. Barlow, The Israel Barlow Story and Mormon Mores [Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1968], pp. 300–308.)

“Okay, here are the trash bags,” the bishop said. “Let’s get to work.”
This year for our yearly stake service project we were cleaning up a middle school by our stake center. When we arrived at the school, we saw that the fairly small campus was covered in trash. The wind had blown piles of garbage along a chain link fence. The grass was yellow and dying in patches. Flowers and plants had been planted in an obvious effort to beautify the school, but they had not been maintained, and a field of weeds grew as high as my elbows. The paint in the bathrooms was peeling away from the walls, and spitballs covered the ceiling. I held my nose in disgust as I looked around.
I started picking up garbage along the fence. “This is gross,” I thought. “Why should I pick up someone else’s mess?” I turned to a girl who was working next to me and said, “I have never seen so much trash before. Yuck!”
After a few minutes of filling my trash bag, I thought, “It’s so hot out here. My back hurts, and my hands are getting dirty. I’m sure there are germs all over them! Maybe I can paint the bathroom instead. That would be easier, and I could get out of picking up trash.”
But there were enough volunteers painting already. I walked as slowly as I could back to the hot asphalt near the fence.
Then, as I looked around, I thought, “If this were my school I would be so happy to know that people were cleaning it. I wonder if the students will be surprised on Monday? I bet they’ve never seen this chain link fence completely free of trash.”
I began working harder, making sure I picked up every piece of garbage around the fence and all the trash stuck in the links. My dad mowed the field of elbow-high weeds, and I helped trim bushes and paint an exterior wall.
When we were finished, I looked back at the school and the clean area along the fence and thought, “These students will be so happy!” Then I thought of what I had accomplished and how I had changed. Alma was right: “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6).

I have, on occasion, received gifts of love like the gift Nephi received. I will share one experience from my time as a college student. I was starting a new program at a new University. I didn't know anyone. The program was hard. It took me too many hours of very hard work to even glimpse success. I remember one particular afternoon. The despair from failure and difficulty and loneliness was crushing me. The natural man was getting the upper hand.

My roommates were away and I knelt in my room and prayed. I prayed deeply because what I was doing was clearly not working. I also prayed for some sort of immediate relief because I felt so low. While I was praying the phone rang. We had no caller ID. Containing my emotion, I answered the phone. On the other end, I heard my angel mother say, "Alan, I was just thinking about you. How are you doing?" Somehow, God let her know my need and she responded in an instant. Her God-given, unconditional love swept over the miles and filled my heart with peace and confidence. Through her, Heavenly Father's love consumed the natural man I was battling.

Jenny jumped out of bed to the good smells of breakfast cooking. Mother must be feeling much better, she thought as she bounced down the stairs.
The January winds had carved a snowbank near the window, and as Jenny looked out, the lacy patterns of snowflakes appeared in the light of the kitchen. Mother greeted her with a cheery smile, and Jenny’s rosy-cheeked little brother sat in his high chair, demanding his cereal. Everything is back to normal, thought Jenny contentedly.
It had been a difficult December for the family. First, Jenny was down with the flu, then her little brother Clark, then Daddy, then the baby. Mother cared for all of them until one day she, too, was sick. Daddy took over, but he wasn’t feeling his best yet, either. So the holidays were almost forgotten. On Christmas Day there were some gifts from Santa and relatives, but the usual family gatherings and church parties passed while the family tried to get well.
Now the holidays were over, and today was the first day back to school after vacation. Jenny was eager to see her friends and teacher again.
As Clark came down the stairs, rubbing sleep from his eyes, Mother grew thoughtful. The happy expression on her face gradually changed, and she appeared sad. “What’s the matter, Mother?” asked Jenny as she ate her warm oatmeal with honey.
“Oh, I’m grateful that we’re all better now, that Daddy has returned to his job, and that you can go back to school, but I feel sad that the holidays passed us by.”
“You mean because we didn’t get a lot of presents this year?” asked Jenny.
“Not that, sweetheart,” Mother said. “I mean we didn’t give a lot of presents. Oh, we remembered our family, but we missed our special visits to our good neighbors—dear Sister Ruth, Mrs. Perkins, and Brother Billings down the road. I hope they had a nice holiday.”
Just then Jenny saw the school bus rounding the curve in the road. She quickly gathered her things, and ran to the door. “ ’Bye, Mother. I love you,” she yelled as she started for the bus, her boots making deep tracks in the snow.
At school Jenny kept busy at her assignments. Her teacher’s happy face reminded her of Mother, and Jenny remembered what Mother had said about the holidays passing them by. She kept thinking about it, even when she was playing with her friends at recess.
On the long ride home in the school bus, while Jenny gazed at rolling mounds of white that covered the farm and fields, Mother’s words were still on her mind. Then she thought, Why do we give Christmas gifts just in December? We could have our own Christmas in January! She was so excited at the idea that she could hardly wait to get home.
As she ran up the lane, Jenny could see Mother outside sweeping snow off their front steps. “Merry Christmas, Mother!” Jenny cried as she ran to greet her.
“What do you mean?” laughed Mother.
“I have the answer, Mother. We don’t have to miss the holidays, after all. We can have Christmas in January.”
Mother’s face brightened. Jenny could tell that she liked the idea.
When they went inside, Jenny smelled hot bread just out of the oven. As Mother gave her a big slice, Jenny said, “We could take something like this to give to Sister Ruth, Mrs. Perkins, and Brother Billings, just to show them we love them. You always say that we should keep Christmas in our hearts all year round.”
“You’re right,” said Mother, “but not just bread.” Her eyes twinkled as she went to the freezer and brought back a can of frozen orange juice.
Jenny was surprised. “We’re going to give them bread and orange juice?”
“Not orange juice,” Mother said. “Orange-Juice Jelly. At least, that’s its name. But we can call it January Jelly, OK?”
“OK!”
With Mother directing, Jenny added two cups of water to one box of pectin and stirred it in a pan. Mother put it on the stove, and when it had boiled for one minute, she added three and a half cups of sugar. She helped Jenny add three-fourth cup of frozen orange juice concentrate, and they let it simmer for two minutes.
In no time at all they were pouring the golden liquid into jars. As the sealing wax hardened, mother cut a piece of red ribbon to wrap around the top of each jar.
When Daddy came home, they bundled the boys up, stacked their gifts on the family sled, and started out.
As the family walked along with Daddy carrying the baby and Jenny pulling the sled, Mother began singing softly, “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful.” Jenny felt as if she would burst with joy. She knew that Mrs. Perkins, Brother Billings, and Sister Ruth would be happy to see them and would love the bread and January Jelly, and she couldn’t wait to surprise them.

Let me give you another example. Last time I talked here I gave you this example, but because a young woman came up to me after the talk and questioned me about it I want to repeat it tonight. A bishop in California called me just before general conference and said, “President Tanner, I have a young man here who is having real problems, and he would like to meet you because he thinks you can help him. He knows you are interested in young people and have had experience with them.”

I said, “If you bring him over I’ll be very happy to talk to him at conference time.” He brought him over and he was dressed as a hippie—every sign: hair, clothes, and everything. I said, “What is your problem?”

He said, “I’ll tell you. I’m a returned missionary. I filled a good mission, I believe. But when I came home something happened to cause me to get this rebellious feeling, and I went out determined that the Church wasn’t going to tell me what to do. I was going to choose my own life and live as I felt I would like to live and be free. And I became associated with these hippies. Today I’m a slave. I’m a drug addict. I am guilty of a felony. I am one who is evading the law.” We talked for some time. Then he said, “I have a wife and I have a child, and here I am in this condition. It isn’t what I wanted, it isn’t what I want, but I am in this situation.” We talked it over, and at my suggestion he agreed that he would disassociate himself from the group, that he would clean himself up, and go back and turn himself over to the law.

Just a few weeks later, I received a letter from him. It started out this way, “Dear President Tanner, I’m writing from behind prison walls.” Then he reviewed our conversation, and he said, “If your use of this letter would help anybody determine never to touch drugs or to associate with or become a part of any such group, please feel free to use it.”

Brethren, during my Aaronic Priesthood years I was a swineherd! Way back then, by means of a 4-H Club project involving purebred Duroc pigs, I became familiar with work! As proof that what follows is not merely swollen memory, may I, with Elder Nelson’s help, display very briefly this blanket of nearly 100 ribbons won by my prize pigs at various fairs over several years.
Up near Elder Nelson’s hand is a pink ribbon, won 60 years ago. It was the very first ribbon I ever won. I think the judge had a tender eye, and the pig wasn’t really so choice, but he knew I needed encouragement and hence the fourth prize. The purple ribbons were for champions that were exhibited later on!
Thank you, Elder Nelson.

During Christmastime on my mission, I was undergoing some health problems, and my companion was a new missionary. She was not happy and wanted to go home. We were walking 8 to 10 miles (13–16 km) every day, and both of us had painful blisters.
I soon became depressed and discouraged, believing that I was a bad missionary and that all of my companion’s problems were my fault. We were a miserable pair. I had been so excited about the upcoming holiday, but now I dreaded it. It loomed before me dark, cold, and lonely.
My district leader saw my struggles and offered this advice: “Keep your mind off the pain. Do whatever it takes to give your companion the Christmas spirit.” I trusted my district leader and knew he was right, so I determined that I would try to get the right spirit in both of our hearts.
I remember one dark, cold evening. We were walking down the road, and my companion began to cry. Immediately, I felt as if I had been swallowed by darkness, and I wanted to give up. But I remembered my promise and asked the Lord what I could do to help this sister. The answer that came was unexpected, but I acted promptly. I began to sing Christmas carols as loudly as I could. People kept staring at me, but I felt a strange lightness in my heart that couldn’t be subdued. My companion begged me to stop. But I told her I would not until she joined me. So she did, and we sang several songs. My companion smiled at me and seemed to enjoy the rest of the evening.
That experience was the start of an amazing holiday. It was still hard at times, but whenever the mood began to turn dismal, I threatened to start singing. That always seemed to lighten the mood.
I do not have a great singing voice, and I hate singing in front of people. But that night I was singing at the top of my lungs for all of the Bronx to hear. That Christmas I learned that we celebrate the birth of a Savior who lives today and still works for our salvation. He knows what each of us needs and how to give it to us. I will never forget the Christmas that He let me sing in His personal choir. It changed Christmas for me!
Christie Mobley served in the New York New York North Mission; she is a member of the Snowflake Seventh (YSA) Branch, Snowflake Arizona Stake.

After President Wilford Woodruff joined the Church he desired to serve a mission.
“I was but a Teacher,” he wrote, “and it is not a Teacher’s office to go abroad and preach. I dared not tell any of the authorities of the Church that I wanted to preach, lest they might think I was seeking for an office” (Leaves from My Journal, Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882, p. 8).
He prayed to the Lord, and without disclosing his desire to any others, he was ordained a priest and sent on a mission. They went to the Arkansas Territory.
He and his companion struggled through a hundred miles of alligator-infested swamps, wet, muddy, and tired. Brother Woodruff developed a sharp pain in his knee and could go no further. His companion left him sitting on a log and went home. Brother Woodruff knelt down in the mud and prayed for help. He was healed and continued his mission alone.
Three days later he arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, weary, hungry, and very muddy. He went to the largest inn and asked for something to eat and for a place to sleep, although he had no money to pay for either.
When the innkeeper found he was a preacher, he laughed and decided to have some fun with him. He offered Brother Woodruff a meal if he would preach to his friends.
A large audience of the rich and fashionable people of Memphis gathered and were quite amused by this mud-stained missionary.
None would sing or pray, so Brother Woodruff did both. He knelt before them and begged the Lord to give him His Spirit and to show him the hearts of the people. And the Spirit came! Brother Woodruff preached with great power. He was able to reveal the secret deeds of those who came to ridicule him.
When he was finished, no one laughed at this humble holder of the Aaronic Priesthood. Thereafter he was treated with kindness (see Leaves from My Journal, pp. 16–18).
He was under the guiding, protecting power of his Aaronic Priesthood. The same power can be with you as well.

You can’t help but like Andrea* when you meet her. She’s warm and friendly and fun, and she knows how to make you feel good about yourself.

But she wasn’t always like that.

For a long time, she carried around a dark and tragic secret that she could confess to no one. She cried a lot. She was usually depressed. She withdrew from people—wasn’t close to anyone, and didn’t have the self-confidence to excel in school or anything else. Andrea had been sexually abused when she was younger.

“I thought I had committed a terrible sin,” she said. “I thought it was too gross to tell anyone. I felt disgusting and totally worthless, until a very understanding bishop explained to me that it wasn’t my fault, that the Lord still loved me, and that I could get help.”

The help Andrea got, which included professional and spiritual counseling, is enabling her to put those traumatic experiences in the past and become emotionally and spiritually healthy again.

Going through these stages has helped Andrea begin to lead a happier, more fulfilling life. Others like her who have experienced sexual abuse can also begin to recover. It is important for them to realize that they have a right not to be abused, and that they need to get help if it happens. They need to know that they are not at fault, that they are not impure, nor are they any less chaste. And most of all, they need to know that Heavenly Father still loves them, has great hope for them, and has provided ways for them to recover.

I had dreamt of serving in Italy. Missions are about serving people, not about serving in areas. But I prayed that I would serve in Italy, specifically the city of Gaeta, where my father’s ancestors had lived since the 10th century.
After serving in Rome and Sicily, I received the glad news that I was being transferred to the area that included Gaeta. Before that transfer in early 2023, my companion and great friend Elder Jack Beck gave me a gift I will never forget. Elder Beck is a talented artist. From a small picture I had of my father, Elder Beck drew a beautiful portrait of him.
I looked at that portrait every day during personal study. It gave me strength to share the gospel.
As soon as I was assigned to Gaeta, I sought out my relatives. When I showed my father’s older brother the portrait, he wept. He hadn’t seen his brother for years and had no pictures of him.
I taught my uncle that one day he would see his brother again—not in a portrait but in person. I taught him that through the gospel, he could live with his brother again in love and peace with the Savior.
I saw great miracles in Gaeta as I shared with family members the good news that because Jesus Christ overcame death, loss of loved ones is only temporary (see Mosiah 16:8). I testify that through His atoning sacrifice, the Savior has made it possible for our families to be gathered eternally.

Shortly after I had started working in the safety office, Janine and I were attending a concert in the Hart building and I was truly enjoying the experience, but during a break in the performance, my mind started to wander a little about what would happen if we needed to evacuate this performance. So after looking around to find the nearest exit—which is often not the same one you came, in by the way—I turned to Janine and proceeded to explain to her that: “If we have to evacuate, we will use that exit door right over there, and if someone becomes unresponsive, I want you to go down these stairs right here and call 911 and grab the AED that is right above the phone.”
I hadn’t even had a chance to tell her about my whole plan when she looked back at me with a confused look on her face and asked, “What are you talking about!?” I quickly realized that having a plan is a good idea, but immediately sharing it with someone—especially in the middle of a concert—may not be the best idea. So we went back to enjoying the rest of the concert and sure enough, we didn’t even have to use my quickly conceived emergency plan. (Hopefully all of you listened to the announcement just before devotional started today and found your nearest exit.) I often think about that experience and wonder why it seemed so important to me in that moment to have an emergency plan and I have decided that, if not necessarily a normal thing to think about, having an emergency plan is always a good idea, no matter what situation I find myself in.

Many years ago, I was the bishop of a new ward in Potomac, Maryland. We had to meet in a school, so one of our first goals as a ward was to build a meetinghouse. Back then, each ward in the Church had to help pay for its meetinghouse, and we sent letters to all the adults in our ward, asking if they would make a donation. As a bishopric, we then decided that the entire ward should be involved, so we also sent letters to the children and teenagers.
The following Sunday, I sat on the stand in Junior Sunday School, which was the meeting children used to attend while their parents were in regular Sunday School. As the music played and the children walked in, one little boy, Jimmy Theurer, came up to me on the stand and placed a nickel in my hand. Our meetinghouse got its start with the contribution of that one little boy.
This experience helped me realize that it’s important for children to be a part of what we do in the Church. They can do many good things for the Church, and they can help and encourage their parents to do good things as well.

When I was 15 years old, I spotted two missionaries in front of a supermarket. One of them invited me to come to church. I wasn’t very interested, so I told them, “Maybe someday,” and walked away.
The next day, my aunt called and asked my mother to come to her house to hear a special message. My mother and I ran over and saw the same missionaries I had seen the day before sitting in my aunt’s house! My mother was interested by their message, and I started listening as well. However, when the missionaries asked me if I believed in a living prophet, I responded with a resolute no. One of the elders held up a picture of Thomas S. Monson and testified that President Monson was a prophet. They invited me to come to general conference the next day to decide for myself. Curious, I agreed to come.
The next day, we reached the chapel just as the opening prayer was finishing. As I walked into the room, I saw President Monson come onto the screen. He smiled and said, “My dear brothers and sisters, I greet you …”
As soon as President Monson opened his mouth, a strong feeling swept over me, confirming that he was a prophet of God. At the end of conference, I told the missionaries, “I want to be baptized.” I have since served a mission myself and have taught many others the wonderful truths of the restored gospel.
I know that God has blessed us by calling prophets again. God loves us and speaks to us through modern-day prophets.
Maicon B., São Paulo, Brazil