Gospel Story Finder

From the day when father first brought home his truck, Clément was admiringly by his side. There was a wonder to all that chrome and steel, the thrill of thunder roaring under the hood. Clément wanted to climb in the cab, fire up the engine, shift the gears and roll through mile after mile of freedom. Whenever he could, he rode with his father, and he dreamed of the day when he would have his own rig and a route like his father’s to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Now, however, there was a competing dream. Not a barrier, not even a detour. A different road, but a good one.
“The prophet said it,” Mother would begin the conversation, like a dozen others already held in the kitchen. “All young men should serve a mission. You’re a young man. You should serve a mission.”
“But the openings in the military won’t wait. Or I could take that job working on cars. Or I could drive with Papa …”
“And those are better ways to spend the next two years?”
Clément would review his options, again and again and again. The chances for work were exciting, all that he’d hoped for. But the mission? It was a better thing.
He prayed. He spoke to the branch president, then the district president. He submitted his papers. One by one the obstacles to serving disappeared.
The job with cars would wait. He couldn’t get a license to drive a big rig for at least two years. He had signed a preliminary agreement with the military, but turned it down the same day his call to the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission arrived in the mail.
Then Christine thought of another day, just last October. It was overcast, gray, cool. The heavy air smelled of rain. Papa and Clément were up early, as usual on a Monday. The big diesel engine was already throbbing, mildly vibrating the entire house.
Clément stuffed the compartment behind the cab with blankets, canned pudding, instant soup, snack food. He ran inside to get some tapes, his earphones, and a tape player.
Then he thought again, and laid them aside. This was his last trip to Mechanicsburg for two years. He and father would be talking all the way there, talking about his mission.

Mother Lucy later shared her experiences with a neighbor, Sally Bradford Parker, who wrote: “I asked her if she saw the plates. She said no, it was not for her to see them, but she hefted and handled them and I believed all she said for I lived by her eight months and she was one of the best of women.” Though she never saw the plates uncovered, Lucy was certain of their authenticity and the validity of their translation. She remembered being visited by a deacon from one of the local churches who asked to see the plates. When she refused to produce the record, he asked her to stop talking to others about it. Lucy replied, “If you should … burn me at the stake, I would declare that Joseph has got that record.”

Shortly after my parents were baptized in Ponta Grossa, Brazil, their bishop called them into his office for an interview and taught them about the importance of paying tithing. As he taught about the principle of tithing, the bishop also referred to the blessings of living this commandment as stated in Malachi 3:8–12. We read:
“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
“Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
“And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
“And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.”
My parents went home that day from church pondering about these verses from Malachi. Their initial reaction was not to pay their tithing, as they were recently married with a young and growing family. Life was difficult and they still had a very limited knowledge of the gospel. My father, having a very strong personality and being very rational, was not willing to pay tithing, because in his mind they could not afford to pay ten percent of their income to the Church, but the promise from the prophet Malachi where the Lord says, “bring ye all tithes . . . and prove me . . . if I will not open you the windows of heaven” stayed in his mind. After counseling together, they decided to give it a chance and to do exactly as we are instructed to do in Malachi.
They started paying tithing out of obedience to the commandments, but over time they gained a strong testimony of the promises made in Malachi. They could see in their lives how the Lord opened the windows of heaven for them. I grew up listening to my father saying that we could not afford not to pay an honest tithing.

From this point forward, I began to experience mixed emotions about becoming a member of the Church. I was concerned about my father’s opinion and his reaction to my decision.
During the sixth discussion, I received the message that I had an incoming call from my father. The phone rang. I picked it up, and it was indeed my dad.
He said, “Your mother informed me you’ve made a decision to join the Latter-day Saints.”
I said yes.
He said, “I’m here to prevent that from happening.”
And I said, “You know what, Dad? I love you and you’ll always be my dad. You’ve done a great job with me. But I’m 22. I’m a man now, and these decisions are for my family and my future. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me and will continue to do for me, but this is my decision. I’m going to do it, and I know the Lord wants me to do this.”
My dad wasn’t very happy when he hung up the phone. Immediately I got on my knees and asked the Lord to help me see and understand that what I was going to do was correct. I was thousands of kilometers from home. I was all alone, and nothing was going right. Only when I was with the missionaries did I feel good. At that moment the Spirit testified to me that it was the Lord’s will and that the Lord wanted me to be baptized. A very clear voice said, “You are to do the Lord’s will. You are to follow His example.” Then I knew. I never looked back after that. I was baptized on 12 October 1995.

Once when traveling with Elder and Sister Russell M. Nelson, we left our hotel in Bombay, India, to catch a plane for Karachi, Pakistan, and then on to Islamabad. When we got to the chaotic airport, our flight had been canceled. Impatiently, I said to the man at the airline counter, “What do you expect us to do, just give up and go back to the hotel?” He said with great dignity, “Sir, you never go back to the hotel.” We rummaged about the airport, found a flight, kept the appointment in Islamabad, and even had a night’s sleep. Sometimes life is like that: we are left to press forward and endure frustrated expectations—refusing to “go back to the hotel”! Otherwise, such “give-up-itis” will affect all seasons of life. Besides, the Lord knows how many miles we have to go “before [we] sleep”! (“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”).

Soon after graduating from Brigham Young University–Hawaii, KaYan Danise Mok returned home to Hong Kong and received a calling as Young Women president. While she adjusted to being home, starting a career, and continuing with graduate studies, she prayed earnestly for inspiration to help the young women she worked with develop testimonies to prepare them for the future.
One Sunday while she was teaching about eternal perspective, Sister Mok recognized a prompting to read the Book of Mormon with a particular young woman, who happened to be the only one at church that day.
“My counselor and I responded quickly by setting goals to complete the Book of Mormon as a team with the young woman,” Sister Mok says. “She accepted the challenge without hesitation since we would be completing the goal together.”
Since that time, Sister Mok, her counselor, and this young woman have set up a “buddy system” on Facebook and via text messages to remind each other of the reading and to share with each other what they are learning.
Sister Mok says she saw evidence of remarkable change in this young woman’s life stemming from her scripture study. And as Sister Mok read the scriptures on her daily commute on the train, she too found blessings for herself. “I also felt the Spirit and received answers to my prayers as I continued to move forward in life,” she says.
“In my experience, some youth worry and feel unsure about whether they can receive a testimony and have spiritual experiences as others have,” she continues. “By working together, we assure them with our action that this works and that we’re there to support them every step of the way.”

One young man changed forever my feelings about the value of that gift, and what it means to be a child of promise. Bob Allen was an undergraduate at Stanford University when I was his bishop. He left his schooling to serve a mission in Japan. He came back to school, took up his studies, and lived in a world of too many demands and too little time.
One day I was sitting at my desk in the graduate school of business at Stanford. I looked up and saw two people. I remember that their faces seemed to shine. Suddenly, Bob Allen stepped between them and, smiling as broadly as they were, said, “These are two new bishops from Japan.” They could speak little English, but I could tell they loved Bob Allen and, because of something he must have told them, they loved me. I thought then, as I have many times since, how remarkable it was that he had found time to spend days with those young men from Japan.
I spoke in a sacrament meeting in Tokyo ten years later. The person who had introduced me mentioned that I had been at Stanford. Two young people, a couple, rushed to me after the meeting and said, “Did you know Bob Allen? We love him.”
Later I was in Tokyo again. Of all the excellent presentations made to me, one seemed most remarkable. I asked to see the man who had made it. He was introduced and then said, “We have met before, at Stanford University.” He was the young man, now older, who had stood with his fellow bishop in my office door. He told me about his life, and the life of the other man, now a great leader in Japan. In that moment, I learned again, in my heart as well as my head, what it means to have a royal inheritance of time, and how a child of promise, who believes the promises, can invest it to produce returns for eternity.

During our last stake conference, something momentous happened for me. Our stake president asked us to read a scripture in Mosiah that was near a verse I had highlighted on the previous page. I felt prompted to turn the page back and read what I had marked:
“I pray that ye should awake to a remembrance of the awful situation of those that have fallen into transgression.
“And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it” (Mosiah 2:40–41).
The last sentence struck me. I realized I had never really received a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Since I had grown up in an LDS family, I just took for granted that it was all true and believed what people had told me. But I didn’t have that knowledge for myself. I lacked a surety that this is the true Church, that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and that President Thomas S. Monson does receive revelation from God. But the sentence, “O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it,” made me realize it couldn’t be this way forever. I needed to find out for myself if this really was the truth. So I began to pray.
“Dear Heavenly Father, I. …”
But I didn’t get any further. I felt the Spirit so strongly within me it brought tears to my eyes. It was actually burning in my bosom, and I choked on the words. I have never felt anything so compelling and real. I had finally experienced personal revelation that the Book of Mormon was true, and I knew it. Suddenly the Spirit brought back to my memory Moroni 10:4:
“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
I began again. “Heavenly Father, I need to gain my own testimony of the truth of this book, and of this Church. I ask you, in the name of Jesus Christ, are these things true?” And once again, the Spirit confirmed truth. It was so powerful. I knew there could only be one answer, and I knew it as surely as I know 2+2=4.
The Book of Mormon is true. Joseph Smith actually was a prophet, and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ did appear to him in the Sacred Grove. President Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet, and he does receive divine guidance to lead this Church, a Church I now know for sure is true. I hope all people take the advice Moroni gave us and pray in the name of Christ, with a sincere heart, real intent, and faith, and ask if these things are true. I know the answer will be “Yes. Yes, it is.” I hope we all will “remember, remember that these things are true, for the Lord God hath spoken it.”

As I began talking to you tonight, I was remembering the family I grew up in. In closing, let me tell you something else I remember about that family. When I was only nine years old, our one-day-old baby brother died. We were so sad and disappointed and crying so hard. And do you know what our father did? He gathered us together, and we knelt in family prayer. He thanked Heavenly Father for this little baby that we’d had such a short time, and then he asked the Lord to bless this little baby, David, who was now in heaven. Daddy asked Heavenly Father to bless our mom, who was very sick. Mother regained her health, and we’ve all tried to live so that we can be reunited as a family with David one day. I always pray for David. He will always be my brother. We are an eternal family because our parents were married in the temple. You can give your children that same gift, the blessing of belonging to an eternal family. It is the most priceless gift you could ever provide for them. Plan to do it. Prepare to do it. Live worthy of it. May He bless you to do so, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I don’t know what it was about Kathryn. No one really disliked her, but no one liked her, either. She sat quietly at her desk and did her schoolwork. She always got the highest score, but no one competed with her. It was like she wasn’t even part of the class—or the world for that matter.
When the bell rang for recess, most of us bolted for the door, nearly knocking the books from our desks. Not Kathryn. She sat still until everyone was out the door, and then she walked slowly behind.
I remember one day Mr. Ekhert, our fifth-grade teacher, called to her from the pitching mound. “Come on, Kathryn. Come play!”
I heard the boys moan, and I guess she heard them, too. She shook her head and wrapped her legs around the legs of the bench.
She’d played kickball with us before. Whenever anyone pitched the ball, she held out her hands and muttered, “Slow. No bounces.” No matter how fast or bouncy the boys pitched, she’d run toward the red rubber ball, swing her leg, and kick as hard as she could. She always missed. We’d groan, and large red splotches would burn her cheeks.
One day, in the middle of the year, Mr. Ekhert called roll like he always did. “Kathryn? Oh, that’s right.” He paused and marked something in his book. Then with a serious expression he looked up from his roll and said, “Class, do you know where Kathryn is?”
No one answered.
“Does anyone know where she’s been for the past week?”
I shrugged my shoulders and glanced at the other kids, who also seemed unconcerned.
Mr. Ekhert sighed. “She’s quite sick.” He peered at us over his wire-rimmed glasses. “I wonder if there is something any of you can do for her.”
I watched everyone slouch down in their seats, like I did. I thought if I shrunk somehow, maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty.
“Where has she been?” I wondered. “The hospital?” I felt ashamed that I hadn’t even noticed she was gone.
That day as I rode the bus home, I didn’t talk to my friends or even argue with the boy kicking the back of my seat. I stared out the window and thought about Kathryn. I didn’t know why she was so different. I didn’t even know why exactly no one talked to her. She was smart and nice. But she wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t funny; she never laughed at any jokes. She wasn’t good at any sports, but she wasn’t mean, either. I thought about Kathryn for a long time. When I tried to put her out of my mind, I kept seeing her face. “Maybe I should do something for her,” I thought.
That afternoon, my friend Kami and I rode our bikes to the store. As I gazed into the glass-covered candy counter, I saw a box of bracelets I’d never noticed before.
“Look at those.” I nudged Kami with my elbow. She shrugged, but I felt warm inside and knew I needed to buy one of those bracelets for Kathryn.
I counted the change in my pocket. I had exactly enough for the bracelet and a few pieces of candy. I plunked my money down on the counter, and the clerk put the bracelet and candy into a paper bag for me.
On the way home, I didn’t eat a single piece of candy, and when Kami asked for one, I said no. It felt strange, buying a present for someone I hardly knew. All evening I kept looking at the paper bag until finally I went to the closet and found a box to wrap it in.
The next day I felt like butterflies were flying around the back of my throat. I could hardly speak to anyone. When the three-o’clock bell rang, I threw my backpack on my shoulder and walked down the street past the buses. I followed the map my mom had drawn for me until I arrived at the right house. I swallowed and walked up the stairs to the front door.
“Hello,” an older woman said, opening the door.
“Is Kathryn here?” I held the package behind my back.
The woman stared at me in surprise. She pulled the door open and motioned for me to come in, not saying a word.
I don’t remember what her house looked like or any other details—I only remember the stunned look in Kathryn’s eyes as I walked through her bedroom door.
“Hi,” I said, pulling the package from behind my back. I handed it to her.
She took it but didn’t say anything. She opened the card I had written and then ripped a little hole in the package. I felt uncomfortable watching her open it, like I was intruding. She pulled the bracelet out and held it up to the lamp. Then she popped a piece of the candy into her mouth.
“Thank you.”
I stepped back and said, “I hope you feel better soon. See you at school.” Nervously I tripped out of her bedroom and left.
As I walked back to school, my throat felt swollen. I thought about Kathryn and about the look on her mother’s face when I came to the door. I don’t think anyone had ever gone to her house before.
I stood on the steps in front of the school and watched the late bus come around the corner. I did not know why I kept thinking about Kathryn. I didn’t even know if she would want to be my friend when she came back to school. I didn’t know what to think.
Suddenly, I imagined a smile spread across Kathryn’s face. Goose bumps popped out all over my skin, and I felt warm inside. I hoped I could become Kathryn’s friend when she came back to school. And I hoped maybe others would reach out to her, too. But no matter what happened, I knew I had done the right thing, and I knew that Heavenly Father knew it. He had helped me help Kathryn, and I would never regret it.

Brad’s approach to football illustrates this attitude. The summer before his sophomore year he had the man who makes his artificial legs throw together a makeshift kicking leg out of a wooden block on the end of an old “fishing leg,” a sort of plastic peg leg that Brad uses for swimming and showering. He then hit the practice field with an armful of footballs, his family, and half the neighborhood kids to help retrieve balls. Then he kicked and kicked and kicked and kicked, and when the kids had become tired of it and gone home, he kicked some more while his father held for him. He kicked, and learned to allow for wind, and kicked, and got his timing down, and kicked some more. Even with the ad-libbed leg, his aim was deadly.

That fall he was suited up and kicking field goals and PAT’s for the sophomore team, with a brand-new, made-to-order kicking leg. This year, as a junior, he was the starting place kicker for both the varsity and junior varsity teams.

“He’s a real competitor,” his football coach says. “He’s always emotionally ready to play. He’s a hard worker, and he has a good positive attitude. Those things are important for any position.”

Brad’s entry into the football scene wasn’t an easy one. He had to miss several games his sophomore year because of a rule dispute about artificial limbs, and he had to earn his assignment in the face of some talented competition.

“The kids on the team don’t look at Brad as someone who’s handicapped; they just think of him as a valuable player,” his coach emphasizes. “He’s the best kicker on the team. He had to compete with another very fine kicker for the position, and Brad just plain beat him out. He’s the best kicker I’ve had in my years of coaching. I’ve always made it clear to Brad that he’s got to make the team on his own. He’s not going to play just because he’s handicapped. He’s got to be the best, and he is the best.”

In the following months, Robert struggled to find and keep work due to uncertain economic conditions. He considered emigrating with his family. In January 1855, his mind was set: “I have been six weeks out of work, and we expect to emigrate this season for we are heartily sick of this land.” A month later, Robert was still out of work. The Hazen family, now resolved to emigrate and sold their furniture. They looked forward to “Gather with God’s people this year”. However, they still didn’t have enough money. Robert had been without work for over three months; what could they do to pay for passage to the United States of America?
The difference was made up by Robert’s elderly mother-in-law, also a member of the Church, who sold her house and joined them on the journey to Zion. On 25 March 1855, a small group of the Newcastle Saints set off for Liverpool on the first step of their journey. Ultimately, Robert and his family arrived safely in the United States of America and eventually made their way to join the Saints in Utah.

They’ll tell you about the area’s religious climate and how it once turned chilly. Ideologically speaking, Welch and Pineville are located somewhere near the buckle of the Bible Belt. There’s a church on almost every block. Families can trace their membership in one congregation or another back for generations. These devout neighbors have sometimes had a little trouble accepting the Christian credentials of the Latter-day Saints.
A couple of years ago an anti-Mormon group sprang up in the area, preaching against the Church over the radio and in local congregations. The members responded with an unusual tactic—love. Instead of arguing, they showed increased friendship for their detractors. Instead of boycotting the businesses of these people, they went out of their way to patronize them. They prayed sincerely for the members of the group, both in meetings and privately. They came to dearly love their critics, because the branch had never been more united. As for the opposition group, it melted away without a trace, and some of the Church’s bitterest enemies became its friends.

Once when I was five or six years old I woke up in the middle of the night. I was having an asthma attack and I couldn’t breathe at all! My mom said she would have to take me to the emergency room, and I was terrified. While she was getting our coats, I called out, “Heavenly Father, please help me!” When my mom came back to my room, I was lying on my bed, breathing slowly. We went to the emergency room where I had a treatment. I missed a day of school, but soon I felt as well as if nothing had happened. I know that Heavenly Father listened to me and answered my prayer.Marissa E., age 10, California

After serving for a time in Salzburg, I was transferred to Zürich, Switzerland. While I was there, Brother Julius Billeter, a member of the Church, approached me. He was a professional genealogist, and he told me he had seen quite a few Wirthlin names in his work. He offered to research my family lines. I wrote home, and my father thought it was a wonderful opportunity, so we hired him to begin.
A year later he handed me a book. It was 36 centimeters long, 46 centimeters wide, and weighed 6.2 kilograms. It was filled with nearly 6,000 names of my ancestors. It was a priceless volume that I treasured. Just before my missionary release, I packed the precious book in a steamer trunk along with some of my other possessions and shipped it home. I prayed that it would arrive safely and that the precious family history would not be lost.
I arrived home before the trunk. Weeks passed. Still no trunk. I began to worry that the irreplaceable book had been lost. Six months after I had arrived in Salt Lake City, I received a call from the Union Pacific depot. A trunk had arrived for me. I rushed down to retrieve it, but when I saw it, my heart sank. The lock on the trunk had been broken.
I pried up the lid, and when I looked inside, my heart fell further. Everything had been soaked with seawater. What is more, I could tell someone had rifled through my belongings. Some things were missing.
I gingerly removed the layers of clothing, searching for my precious book. When I reached it, my heart overflowed with joy. Not only was it there, but the papers were completely dry! I know the book was preserved through divine intervention.

I have seen that same heart in the Saints of the Pacific. In a small village on one of these islands, an older man and his wife accepted the invitation of the missionaries to sincerely ask the Lord if the lessons they were being taught were true. In this process, they also considered the consequences of the commitments that they would need to make if the answer that they received led to their accepting the restored gospel. They fasted and prayed to know the truthfulness of the Church and the veracity of the Book of Mormon. The answer to their prayers came in the form of a sweet but ringing affirmation: “Yes! It is true!”

Having received this witness, they chose to be baptized. This was not a choice without personal cost. Their decision and baptism carried with them a high price. They lost employment, they sacrificed social standing, important friendships dissolved, and the support, love, and respect of family were withdrawn. They now walked to church each Sunday, exchanging awkward glances with friends and neighbors who were walking in the opposite direction.

In these difficult circumstances, this good brother was asked how he felt about their decision to join the Church. His simple and unwavering reply was “It is true, isn’t it? Our choice was clear.”

These two newly converted Saints truly had the heart of the widow. They, like the widow, “cast in all” that they could give, knowingly giving of their “want.” As a product of their believing hearts and enduring faith during those hard times, their burdens were lightened. They were aided and surrounded by supportive and ministering Church members, and they were personally strengthened by their service in Church callings.

After they cast in their “all,” the greatest day came when they were sealed in the temple as an eternal family. Like He did the converts under Alma’s leadership, “the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.”2 Such is the heart of the widow exemplified in this wonderful couple.

In 1991, when my work contract in Germany expired, I returned home to Mozambique. My country was at war, and the Church was not yet established there. Still, I was happy in the hope that one day the Church would come to my homeland and I could be baptized. Whenever anyone would invite me to attend a church, I would tell them I already had one.
“Which one?” they would ask.
“It doesn’t exist here,” I would answer. “But it will come.” Of that I was certain.
It was eight years before I found the Church again, but during all those years, I had a guide. When I left Germany, the branch president there subscribed to A Liahona (Portuguese) for me. Each month for eight years, A Liahona came to me. And each month for eight years, it encouraged me and gave me hope. Whenever I read it, I felt as if I were with other Latter-day Saints. The magazine oriented me, filled me with great emotion, brought humble words to me, and fed my spirit. Often in the Questions and Answers section, I found answers to my own questions. For eight years, A Liahona guided me.

Sometimes you wonder, “Do I really have much power to encourage others to serve?” You have more power than you think. Let me give you an example. Several years ago I had a stake conference assignment in a small mining town.

As I visited with the stake president prior to leaving, he said, “Do you have time to visit with a young man? This young man is a good young man. He always planned on going on a mission. But just recently he said he isn’t going. We’ve talked to him, and we can’t seem to make any difference. Would you talk to him?” I said I’d be happy to.

The young man had grown up active in the Church, but he had seen his father in and out of work in the mines. Just before this young man turned 19, he had a job in a store. The manager was so impressed with him that he said, “If you’ll take this job right now, I’ll make you the assistant manager, and in a couple of years you’ll be the manager.”

“I was planning on going on a mission,” he said.

The manager said, “Well, you can do whatever you want, but you’ll lose this job. I need you right now.”

Well, he thought about it. He had a girlfriend named Jill. And he thought, “I really love Jill. If I get this job, I won’t have to work at the mine. We can get a house. We can get married and have a family.” So he made up his mind that he wasn’t going on a mission because he had this tremendous opportunity.

He talked to his father, and his father did everything he could to persuade him to go on a mission. He couldn’t persuade him. The father asked his son to talk to the bishop. The bishop couldn’t persuade him. The stake president couldn’t persuade him. I talked to him, and I couldn’t persuade him. He was determined to work at this store.

Finally, when it became evident that he wasn’t going to go, his father said, “Well, what are your plans?”

“I’m going to marry Jill.”

“What does Jill have to say about it?”

“Well, I haven’t talked to her yet.”

“How do you know she’ll even marry you?”

He had just assumed that she would.

His dad told him, “You’d better talk to Jill.”

So he explained to Jill about this great job and how he would make good money. Finally, he said, “You know, with this job we can buy a house. We can start a family.”

Jill asked, “Are you proposing to me?”

“Well, yeah, I guess so.”

“What about your mission?”

“I’ve already told you that if I go on a mission, I’ll lose this job. If I lose the job, we won’t have the income. We won’t be able to get married. We won’t be able to have a home.”

Now, remember, four priesthood brethren—father, bishop, stake president, and General Authority—couldn’t sway him.

Jill looked at him and said, “No mission, no Jill.”

He was in the bishop’s office the next day filling out his papers to go on his mission.

He served a mission, and while he was serving, Jill married someone else. But he had been out on his mission long enough that he had gained a solid testimony.

When this elder came home after serving a wonderful mission, he went to his folks and said, “I’ve decided I’m going to go on to college.”

They almost fainted and said, “No one in our family has gone to college. How can you do that?”

“I don’t know, but I talked to my mission president, and he said he thought it was a good idea and, if it was right, the Lord would prepare the way.” And the Lord did prepare a way. He was a smart young man. He eventually became a dentist, married a wonderful woman, and they raised a great family.

Now the sequel to this story is that not very many years after he had started his dental practice in a different area—guess what happened? They closed the mine, in effect, closing the town. And the store that was such a big thing to him years earlier closed. It couldn’t stay in business.

What if he had followed the dictates of man or just his own feelings? He might have married Jill, and they would have had a mortgage they couldn’t have paid and a house they couldn’t have sold.

This story took place in Jamaica.
Dashanel helped her older brother take the nut bread out of the oven. It smelled so good!
Then she heard a knock at the door. “The missionaries are here!” her sister called.
Dashanel ran to the door. She loved it when the missionaries came. She always had a good feeling when they visited. Sometimes they brought games for her and her siblings to play.
“Tyrell made nut bread again!” Dashanel said. Her brother liked to make food for the missionaries.
“I can’t wait to try some,” Elder Colas said. He and Elder Yusaki came inside and sat down on the floor. Dashanel, her brother and sister, and Mom sat across from them.
“What are we going to do for the lesson today?” Dashanel asked.
Elder Yusaki pulled out a stack of cups. “We’re going to build a faith tower. Each of these cups represents something we can do to build our faith in Jesus Christ.”
Elder Yusaki started to stack the cups into a tower. Dashanel saw that the cups had words like “prayer,” “scripture study,” and “church” written on them.
“These are all things you’ve asked us to do as a family,” she said.
“That’s right,” Elder Colas said. “When you do these things, you are building your faith in Jesus Christ.”
Dashanel and her siblings took turns building their own towers with the cups while they listened to the lesson.
After the missionaries left, Dashanel thought about what they’d taught. She wanted her faith in Christ to be tall and strong, just like the tower she built.
As the months passed, Dashanel learned more and more about the gospel from the missionaries. She started going to church with her family. She pictured her tower of faith growing taller and taller.
One day after the missionaries left, Dashanel talked to Mom. “Can I get baptized?” she asked.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” asked Mom.
“Yes,” Dashanel said. “I want to follow Jesus.”
“OK,” Mom said. “If you want to, you can be baptized.”
Dashanel’s brother and sister chose to be baptized too. Mom said she didn’t feel ready to get baptized yet.
On the day of their baptism, Dashanel and her siblings dressed in white clothes. They each waited patiently to be baptized.
When it was Dashanel’s turn, Elder Yusaki helped her into the water. Then he said the words of the baptism prayer and lowered her under the water. When Dashanel came back up, she couldn’t stop smiling! She felt happy and clean. She never wanted to forget this feeling.
Dashanel kept doing things to build her faith in Jesus Christ. She read the scriptures with her family. She prayed to Heavenly Father. She did kind things for others. And she remembered how she felt when she was baptized. She wanted Mom to have that feeling too.
“Mom, why don’t you get baptized?” Dashanel asked one day.
Mom was quiet for a minute. “You have set a good example for me. Now I need to set an example for you,” she said. “I want to be baptized too.”
On the day of Mom’s baptism, Dashanel was so happy. When Mom came up from the water, everyone was smiling. Now Dashanel’s whole family could build their towers of faith together.
Illustrations by Alyssa Tallent

I have related before my experience with a friend who took me to his ranch. He unlocked the door of a large new automobile, slid behind the wheel, and said proudly, “How do you like my new car?” We rode in luxurious comfort into the rural areas to a beautiful new landscaped home, and he said with no little pride, “This is my home.”

He drove to a grassy hill. The sun was setting behind the distant hills. He surveyed his vast domain. Pointing to the north, he asked, “Do you see that clump of trees over there?” I could plainly discern them in the fading day.

He pointed to the east. “Do you see the lake shimmering in the sunset?” It too was visible.

“Now, the bluff that’s on the south.” We turned about to scan the distance. He identified barns, silos, the ranch house to the west. With a wide sweeping gesture, he boasted, “From the clump of trees, to the lake, to the bluff, and to the ranch buildings and all between—all this is mine. And the dark specks in the meadow—those cattle also are mine.”

And then I asked from whom he obtained it. The chain of ownership of his property went back to land given by governments. His attorney had assured him he had an unencumbered title.

“From whom did the government get it?” I asked. “What was paid for it?” There came into my mind the declaration of the Psalmist, boldly restated by Paul: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” (1 Cor. 10:26).

And then I asked, “Did ownership come from God, Creator of the earth and the owner thereof? Did he get paid? Was it sold or leased or given to you? If a gift, from whom? If a sale, with what exchange or currency? If a lease, do you make proper accounting?”

And then I asked, “What was the price? With what treasures did you buy this farm?”

“Money!”

Where did you get the money?”

“From my toil, my sweat, my labor, and my strength.”

And then I asked, “Where did you get your strength to toil, your power to labor, your glands to sweat?”

He spoke of food.

“Where did the food originate?”

“From sun and atmosphere and soil and water.”

“And who brought those elements here?”

I quoted the Psalmist:

“Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary” (Ps. 68:9).

“If the land is not yours, then what accounting do you make to your landlord for his bounties? The scripture says: ‘Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s’ (see Matt. 22:21). What percentage of your increase do you pay Caesar? And what percent to God?

“Do you believe the Bible? Do you accept the command of the Lord through the prophet Malachi? Do you believe Moses’ words to Pharaoh that the earth is the Lord’s?” (Ex. 9:29).

I said again: “I seem to find no place in holy writ where God has said, ‘I give you ownership of this land unconditionally.’

“I cannot find such scripture, but I do find this from Psalms:

‘Those that wait upon the Lord, … shall inherit the earth’ (Ps. 37:9).

“And I remember that our Creator covenanted in the council in heaven with us all: ‘[And] we will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell’ (Abr. 3:24).

“It seems more like a lease on which a rental is exacted than like a simple ownership.

“This does not seem to convey the earth but only the use and contents which are given to men on condition that they live all of the commandments of God.”

But my friend continued to mumble, “Mine—mine,” as if to convince himself against the surer knowledge that he was at best a recreant renter.

That was long years ago. I later saw him lying in his death among luxurious furnishings in a palatial home. His had been a vast estate. And I closed his eyes. I spoke at his funeral, and I followed the cortege from the good piece of earth he had claimed to his grave, a tiny, oblong area the length of a tall man, the width of a heavy one.

Later I saw that same estate, yellow in grain, green in lucerne, white in cotton, seemingly unmindful of him who had claimed it.