Gospel Story Finder

My university days were not all easy. As I neared the time for graduation, I seemed to have a mountain of work to complete before the specified time, and I worried that I would miss the deadline. Over the years of college training I had been earnest in my prayers and had constantly asked that the Lord would bless and guide me. But I was not aware of any special help received, even though I had made good progress. One Sunday, about a week before graduation, my wife and I were visiting a young couple who were our close friends. (You see, I didn’t study on Sunday, because I thought that during my school years that would be the same as working.) My friend asked me if I was ready for graduation. I told him that my work was still incomplete and that there was some doubt whether I could complete it.
“Oh,” he said, “you’ll make it all right. Let’s look in the newspaper. They just published the list of graduates.” He began by reading the names of those who would graduate with honors, and he included my name.
Of course, I knew he was only teasing, and I laughed as I said, “You can’t fool me with your jokes.”
Then he said, “Well, isn’t this your address?” and he read that.
I said, “Let me see the paper.”
As I read my name among those who were to receive honors, my eyes filled with tears and an inward light filled my whole being with understanding. As clearly as in a vision I saw how, over the years, in quiet, unseen ways, God had been listening to my prayers and had overshadowed me with his blessed influence to bring me through triumphant!

Sister Kainessie, serving in the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission, talked about the early start to online MTC classes. “I have to ride my bike, and also I have to get up around 6:00 because they said we should be at the chapel around 6:30 for us to prepare to get our breakfast.”
Kainessie said, “The MTC grew me in a way that I learned how to teach and also how to approach my interested members. Even when I went into the field, I did not find it difficult.”

When my sister Janalee and I built our cabin, we decided it would be a hunter’s cabin. We found a big rock up on a hill and leaned some branches up against it and covered the two openings with old gunnysacks. We could go in and sit real quiet, and no one would ever know we were there.
We built our cabin because we wanted to catch a cougar. We knew there were cougars in the mountains because our neighbor, Brother Poole, caught one. He keeps its pelt on the floor in his house and says it’s a rug, but he doesn’t ever let anybody walk on it.
Ever since seeing that old cougar skin, though, I wanted to catch my own cougar, and Janalee said she would help. Dad made me the neatest flipper—that’s what most people I know call a slingshot—and I have my own BB gun. I can shoot that BB gun better than anyone. Well, almost anyone. Janalee is probably just a little better, but she keeps quiet about it.
My sister can shoot straighter, play ball better, and run faster than me or any of my friends. Since I don’t have a brother to do things with, it sure is nice to have a sister like Janalee.
Well, one morning Janalee and I took my BB gun and flipper and headed up to our cabin to hunt cougars.
“Do you really think we’ll catch a cougar, Jonathan?” Janalee asked as we puffed up the mountain.
“Brother Poole did,” I said. “If he can, we sure can.”
“It’ll be nice to have a pet cougar to take care of.”
“A pet?” I grunted. “He isn’t going to be any pet. We’re going to make him into a rug like Brother Poole’s.”
“A rug? What good’s an old rug that nobody can walk on? A pet would be lots better.”
“Whoever heard of a pet cougar?” I said, rolling my eyes. “But before we catch any cougars, we need to practice hunting smaller things.”
We crawled into our little cabin and rested for a minute and ate some oatmeal cookies Mom had given to us.
“What are we going to hunt first?” Janalee asked as she picked the raisins out of her oatmeal cookie and dropped them on the ground. She doesn’t like raisins.
“There are some magpies in those maple trees behind us,” I said. “Maybe we should try shooting them.”
Just then my friend Joe poked his head in and grinned. “What’re you doing?”
“We’re going to go hunting,” Janalee told him. “Want to come?”
“Sure. I even have my flipper.”
I handed the BB gun to Janalee, saying, “You take this.”
Joe and I filled our pockets with rocks. We could hear those old magpies talking a mile a minute. We started sneaking through the bushes and trees so that we could take those noisy old birds by surprise.
“There’s one,” Janalee whispered. “Isn’t he pretty? He has such a beautiful long tail and such shiny black feathers.”
“OK, Jonathan,” Joe said, “let’s kill it.”
“Kill it!” Janalee cried out, jumping up and scaring the magpie away. “Why do you want to kill it? It hasn’t done anything to anybody.”
“Now look what you’ve done,” Joe growled.
“What’d you think we were going to do with it?” I asked. “That’s what hunters do—kill birds and cougars and things.”
“Well, that’s dumb,” Janalee said, putting her hands on her hips. “What good’s a dead magpie?”
“What good’s a live magpie?” Joe asked. “My dad says they’re no good at all.”
“Well, I think they’re pretty. That’s a good enough reason not to kill them. Besides, the prophet has asked us not to shoot the little birds.”
“Oh, brother!” Joe muttered. “Why’d you bring her along? Girls don’t know anything about hunting, Jonathan. Maybe she ought to go back to the cabin so she won’t get hurt.”
I looked at Janalee and then at Joe and then down at the ground. “Maybe Janalee’s right,” I said. “We don’t have to kill the magpies. There are other things.”
“You too?” Joe groaned. “I’m not hunting with a girl. Girls can’t shoot.”
There was an old tin can lying on the ground. I picked it up and set it on a fallen tree trunk. “Back up a few steps,” I called to Joe and Janalee. They moved backward. “Now, let’s see which one of you can knock the can off the tree trunk.”
Joe snickered. “She’ll miss it a mile.” He put a rock into his flipper, pulled back hard, chewed on his tongue a little, aimed, and let the rock fly. It came close, but it didn’t hit the can. “Let’s see you come that close,” Joe challenged Janalee.
Janalee didn’t say anything. She got my flipper, looked around until she found a round, smooth rock, then went back to where Joe was standing. She tucked the rock inside the flipper’s leather pouch, pulled back, aimed, and let the rock fly. It hit the can and knocked it off the tree trunk.
“Lucky shot,” Joe muttered, his face all red.
“Do it again, then,” I said. And they did. In fact, they did it three more times. Janalee didn’t miss once. Joe nicked the can on his second shot, but he didn’t knock it off.
“Do you want to try the BB gun?” I asked.
Joe glared at me and shook his head. “I guess she can stay,” he mumbled. “But let’s get to hunting. We’re just wasting time here.”
We started tromping through the trees, and just past a clump of cedar trees we spied a skunk. Right behind it were three baby skunks. I’d seen skunks before, but not a family of them. Joe and I reached for our flippers.
“Which one shall we shoot,” Joe whispered.
“How about the big one?” I whispered back, loading my flipper.
“The big one?” Janalee gasped, grabbing my shoulder. “That’s the mom!”
“Do you want us to kill one of the babies then?” I asked, shaking off her hand.
“I don’t want you to kill any of them.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, brother!” Joe grumped. “I bet she thinks they’re pretty.”
I looked at Janalee; she had her hands on her hips again. I looked at the skunks. A couple of them were sniffing around in some weeds. They really were kind of pretty.
“What’s the use of hunting if you can’t kill something once in a while?” Joe asked.
“We can watch them,” Janalee said. “That’s lots more fun.”
So we sat and watched the skunks for a while. I didn’t tell Janalee, but it really was kind of fun watching those babies follow their mom and play around in the weeds. And when they finally ambled off, I was glad we hadn’t hurt them.
“Let’s go back to the cabin for a while,” I said. “I still have two oatmeal cookies. We can split them and plan our next hunt.”
“If we want to have a real hunt,” Joe grumbled, “we’d better split with your sister.”
Just as we got to the cabin, we saw a squirrel scrambling out the other side. It had been eating the raisins Janalee had picked out of her cookie.
“Let’s get it.” Joe mouthed the words. He looked at Janalee and groaned, “Oh, boy.”
The squirrel scampered over to a pile of rocks, sat up on its hind legs, and watched us.
“Now you scared it away,” Janalee said, shaking her finger at Joe.
“So? You wouldn’t have let us kill it anyway,” he said.
“Of course not. Who’d want to hurt a little squirrel?”
“I could still get it from here,” Joe said to me. “It’s just sitting there.”
I looked at Janalee.
“Give me a cookie,” she said.
I handed her one, and she crumbled it onto a rock a few feet from us. Then she said, “Let’s go back in the bushes and watch.”
Joe grumbled, but he went with us. We’d hardly gotten settled before the squirrel scampered over to the rock and started eating the cookie crumbs.
Just then Zeke, Brother Arnold’s dog, bounded into sight. That squirrel saw the dog, dropped to all fours, and made a mad scramble for the rocks, with Zeke right behind it.
I just sat there staring, but Janalee didn’t. She grabbed my flipper and a rock, took aim, and let the rock fly. It made a beeline for Zeke’s behind. He let out a yelp and tore out of there.
“No old dog is going to hurt our animals!” Janalee yelled.
“Some hunters we are,” Joe moaned. “We can’t shoot at birds or skunks or squirrels, and when a good hunting dog comes around, we chase him off. I’ve never heard of hunters like that.”
“Well, we’re not ordinary hunters,” Janalee said, handing the flipper back to me.
“What kind of hunters are we?” I asked.
Janalee said, “We’ll make this an animal preserve. We’ll protect the animals, like policemen, making sure nobody or nothing hurts them. And we’ll bring food to them. That’s the kind of hunters we’ll be.”
Joe frowned. Finally he said, “If we’re policemen, who’s going to be the captain?”
“Whoever will protect the animals and birds and treat them right,” Janalee told him.
Joe picked up a rock and tossed it at a bushy cedar. “I can do that.”
“Then you can be the captain of our preserve,” Janalee told him, beaming.
“Really?” When Janalee and I nodded, he said, “All right then. You two go home and get some bread crumbs, and I’ll get some lettuce and things from Mom. Meet me back here as soon as you can. We can’t leave this place unprotected very long. Zeke might be back.”
“What about my cougar?” I wanted to know.
Janalee grinned. “Well, if he’ll behave himself, we’ll let him come too. We might even be able to find a piece of meat for him.”
As we headed down the mountain, I was glad I had a sister like Janalee. She’s as good as a brother any day.

One of these members was a sister from the beautiful island of Okinawa. The story of her journey to the Hawaii Temple is remarkable. Two decades earlier, she had been married in a traditional arranged Buddhist wedding. Just a few months later, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, thrusting the United States into a conflict with Japan. In the wake of battles such as Midway and Iwo Jima, the tides of war pushed the Japanese forces back to the shores of her island home, Okinawa, the last line of defense standing against the Allied forces before the heartlands of Japan.
For a harrowing three months in 1945, the Battle of Okinawa raged. A flotilla of 1,300 American warships encircled and bombarded the island. Military and civilian casualties were enormous. Today a solemn monument in Okinawa lists more than 240,000 known names of people who perished in the battle.
In a desperate attempt to escape the onslaught, this Okinawan woman, her husband, and their two small children sought refuge in a mountain cave. They endured unspeakable misery through the ensuing weeks and months.
One desperate night amidst the battle, with her family near starvation and her husband unconscious, she contemplated ending their suffering with a hand grenade, which the authorities had supplied to her and others for that purpose. However, as she prepared to do so, a profoundly spiritual experience unfolded that gave her a tangible sense of the reality of God and His love for her, which gave her the strength to carry on. In the following days, she revived her husband and fed her family with weeds, honey from a wild beehive, and creatures caught in a nearby stream. Remarkably, they endured six months in the cave until local villagers informed them that the battle had ended.

In Minas Gerais, the Uberaba Brazil Stake visited the 10 nursing homes located in their city. President Erick Maximo was very excited with the project and pleased with the members of the stake. “In the day reserved for them, our children gave a real gift to their neighbors; they gave of themselves in a moment of closeness and love between generations,” he said.

During this time, letters arrived in camp from Sam Brannan, who was now sailing for California on the Brooklyn. Among the letters was the contract promising a safe exodus for the Saints in exchange for land in the West. Brigham read the contract carefully with the apostles. If they did not sign it, Sam’s letters suggested, the president of the United States could order the Saints to disarm and cease gathering together.6

Brigham was unconvinced. As wary as he was of the government, he had already decided to try working with it rather than against it. Shortly before leaving Nauvoo, in fact, he had instructed Jesse Little, the new presiding elder in the eastern states, to lobby for the Church and accept any honorable offer from the federal government to assist the Saints’ exodus. Brigham and the apostles quickly perceived that the contract was nothing more than an elaborate scheme designed to favor the men who had drafted it. Rather than sign the agreement, the apostles decided to trust in God and look to Him for protection.7

Yet, thanks to divine providence, an ember of hope for Koreans began to grow in New York, USA. Syngman Rhee, president of Korea, sent Kim Ho Jik, director of the Suwon Agricultural Experimentation Station, to the United States to learn how to improve nutrition in the Korean diet. Ho Jik chose Cornell University, which had an excellent graduate study program in nutrition. In 1949 he started to pursue a doctoral degree—as well as attend various church meetings around Ithaca, New York, to find the “true church.”1
Ho Jik made friends with a man named Oliver Wayman. Unlike Ho Jik’s other acquaintances, Oliver did not drink or smoke and never swore. He also never worked on Sundays. One day Ho Jik asked Oliver, “What makes you live that way?” In answer to that question, Oliver gave him a book titled The Articles of Faith by Elder James E. Talmage (1862–1933) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Ho Jik read The Articles of Faith within a week and then read the Book of Mormon. He believed both books and told Oliver the Book of Mormon was “more complete and easier to understand than the Bible.”2 Ho Jik accepted the gospel message like dry ground receiving long-awaited rains. His faith grew day by day. He started to receive the missionary lessons and decided to be baptized.
On July 29, 1951, 46-year-old Kim Ho Jik was baptized in the Susquehanna River—he wanted to be baptized near where the Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized over 100 years before. When he was coming out of the water, he heard a clear voice saying, “Feed my sheep.” That impression led him to devote the rest of his life to helping the gospel take root in Korea.

“Three. Two. One. Blastoff!” Kimber Gabryszak was thrust back into her seat as the space shuttle simulator took off. As mission specialist on this flight, she later “repaired” the Hubble telescope.
The space camp in Huntsville, Alabama, sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is for students in the seventh through ninth grades. The camp is a long way from Kimber’s home on the banks of the Yentna River in Alaska. Kimber, 14, lives in a two-story wooden lodge, the Yentna River Station, built by her father and mother. The lodge is only 70 air miles from Anchorage, but there are no roads to be found here—only trees, water, moose, and bear. Visitors come by boat, plane, or snow machine—depending on the season and the height of the river. That’s why the Gabryszaks don’t leave their bush paradise very often. Kimber, who has lived here since she was 15 months old, manages to get to Willow, the closest “town,” about every two months. She visits with friends and goes to the movies.
So why and how did Kimber get in a space simulator? Kimber wants to be an astronaut. The oldest of six children, she is mostly self-taught through the state’s home-study curriculum. When the chance to go to space camp came, she worked hard, saving money and soliciting sponsors. “I needed to see if I really want to be an astronaut,” she says. “I love science. I want to work on a space station.” One of her prized possessions is the light blue space uniform she brought back from camp.
In Alaska, Kimber’s typical day starts at 7:30 A.M., with the family’s animals. “If they don’t eat, we don’t eat,” she says. So the 17 chickens, ten chicks, two cats, four dogs, goldfish, guinea pig, and goat are tended to. After breakfast, there is firewood to split, snow to shovel, the lodge to clean, and younger children to look after. When Kimber begins home-study seminary, her day will begin 90 minutes earlier.
At night, the Gabryszaks have prayer and scripture reading. They just finished the Book of Mormon and have started it again. On Sundays, the family gathers for a meeting where they sing hymns, accompanied by Kimber on the recorder. She’ll read and study her own lesson, and then help her two younger sisters and brother with Primary lessons.
One of the highlights of her summer is going to girls’ camp with members of the Wasilla Stake. “Sometimes it’s hard not to be part of a class,” she adds. “I went to seminary in town one morning. It was neat. Everyone was friends and they were doing neat things with the scriptures. Here, there’s no one my age to do that with.”
For now, Kimber is content to write to friends she’s met along the way. She has pen pals as far away as the British Isles, and writes regularly to a Jewish boy she met at space camp. He’s interested in the Young Men and Young Women programs, and often asks questions about the Church in his letters. Kimber also sent a Book of Mormon to another friend in Wyoming.
Life is good for Kimber. She is surrounded by a family she loves and by the great Alaskan outdoors. Although college, a mission, and temple marriage—and her dream of becoming an astronaut—may eventually pull her away, at the Yentna River Station, Kimber has already learned the most important thing of all: “I love Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. They take care of me.”

Haven, a 14-year-old from Utah, USA, decided to celebrate being a young woman in the Church by serving others.
“It started as a small idea,” she says. “My uncle went to Bangladesh on a humanitarian trip and learned about difficult things the people there were experiencing. I wanted to help them—so I looked on the JustServe app and got the idea to make homemade kits for the refugees there.”
Haven collected donations at her school, created a GoFundMe page, and even took out neighbors’ garbage cans to help raise money for the kits. “I take out about 22 garbage cans and 11 recycle cans every Monday and Tuesday,” she says. “I normally use the money I earn for my choir program and to save for a mission, but I decided to use my funds that month to help buy supplies instead.”
Haven then went out and bought all the materials she needed for the kits, including socks, gloves, scarfs, and hats. She assembled each kit and also got in contact with the director of Lifting Hands International to coordinate the delivery of the kits in Bangladesh.
“Putting the kits together took up the most time in my project. But every time I put a piece into the kit, I knew that it would go to someone in need and that they would be blessed for a long time by it.”
By the end of her project, Haven felt her confidence build in her ability to serve. “I learned from this how much help I can be if I try my hardest. I also felt compassion for the people I was helping, which helped me feel closer to the Savior and feel some of what He feels for us.”
As we celebrate the anniversary of the Young Women organization, each of us can remember that we are examples of Christ. Like Haven, we can be a big help to others when we try our hardest to serve as He would.

After my family and I moved to a new state, I prayed constantly to find friends with whom I could talk about the gospel. As I prayed, I felt comforted, and a few months later I made some incredible friends. I can count on their support, and they have helped me to develop an even greater love for the gospel. I know that friends are important and they can make it easier for us to live the gospel.
Sarah P., age 16, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The time I saw a weeping father, who had been activated, stand in our stake conference with his arms around two sons and say, “Where would we be without the Church?”

Some people are reluctant to read the scriptures, but once they get a taste, they get excited. Henry said, “My companion and I were teaching a lady, and she never would do the reading in the Book of Mormon that we asked her to do for our next appointment. Finally, we decided we would spend a half-hour reading with her. We started in 3 Nephi, chapter 11 [3 Ne. 11], and read about the appearance of the Savior to the Nephites. After that she always read the Book of Mormon because she found out how great it was.”

In one of our conversations, I asked her, “What is your secret? How do you share the gospel with others?”

She told me, “It is very simple. Every day before I leave my house, I pray, asking Heavenly Father to direct me to someone who needs the gospel in their life. I sometimes take a Book of Mormon to share with them or pass-along cards from the missionaries—and when I start talking to someone, I simply ask them if they have heard about the Church.”

Susana also said, “Other times I just smile while I am waiting for the train. One day a man looked at me and said, ‘What are you smiling about?’ He kind of caught me off guard.

“I replied, ‘I’m smiling because I’m happy!’

“He then said, ‘And what are you so happy about?’

“I answered, ‘I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that makes me happy. Have you heard about it?’”

When he said no, she gave him a pass-along card and invited him to attend the upcoming Sunday services. The following Sunday, she greeted him at the door.

A senior sister serving at a visitors’ center said, “When my husband passed away, I wasn’t sure what to do with my time. Now I have things to do, places to go, people to see. I’ve got people depending on me.”

In 2011, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave approval for the first-ever British Pageant. During an audition for a role in the pageant, Matt P., 12, from Lincolnshire, England, met a man who had faith in these servants of the Lord. Because of his testimony of the Apostles, the man told Matt, “I know this pageant is the work of God.” The man then explained that because of that knowledge, he wanted members and nonmembers from South Wales to attend the pageant and learn more about the restored gospel, so he booked and paid for three buses to take them.
“At that time, five months before the pageant,” Matt explained, “no one knew how the pageant would turn out.” The cast was made up of people who aren’t professional actors, and it took a true leap of faith to believe that the cast could put together a professional production with just a few weeks of practice. However, the man Matt talked with knew that the messages of truth in the pageant would touch the audience’s hearts—and he wanted others to have a chance to attend.
“His faith, above all other spiritual experiences at the pageant, touched me the most,” said Matt. “I never learned his name, but if I could, I would like to tell him thank you.” It was a moment that showed how you can find many ways to help others receive messages of the gospel—messages of truth.

During my world literature class one day, I felt the Spirit prompt me to leave and go to the restroom. I was in the middle of taking a test, and since it was only the second day of school, I didn’t want to make a bad impression on my teacher. But the longer I sat there, the more I felt I needed to leave. So I got a pass to go to the restroom. Several girls were there, including my friend Kelsey. As I was washing my hands, I saw a girl about my age with tear-stained eyes standing in the corner. No one seemed to notice her.
I smiled at her, and all of a sudden I could feel exactly what was wrong. "Is everything okay?" I asked.
The girl gave no answer. I knew immediately what to say, almost as if the Spirit were there saying it. "You’re new, aren’t you?" I asked.
Almost instantly she sobbed and nodded but still didn’t say anything. The Spirit told me she was having a hard time making friends. "Are you having a hard time making friends here?" I asked.
Then she spoke with relief that someone actually cared enough to notice her. My friend Kelsey and I quickly introduced ourselves, and Kelsey invited the girl to sit with her at lunch.
This made me realize the truth of the scripture, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" (John 14:18). The Lord always knows when we need Him, but sometimes it’s through other people that He comforts us.

“Here, kitty, kitty! Here, kitty, kitty!” Brandon called over and over again. Mother went to the back door. “Brandon, it’s getting dark now. Come inside.”
“But, Mommy, one of the kittens is missing from the box!” Brandon ran to the porch. “See?” he said. “One, two, three, four, five. They’re all here except Mandy.”
“But how can you tell which one is missing?” asked Daddy, joining them on the porch. “They all look alike.”
“Oh, no,” said Brandon. “They are all the same color, but each one is a little different from the others, and I know that Mandy is the missing one.”
“But you should come inside now,” said Daddy. “The kitten will be all right. She’ll probably come back during the night. I’ll check later to see if she’s here.”
“But I can’t go to bed until I find her,” insisted Brandon. “If I were missing, wouldn’t you worry about me?”
“Of course, we would!” said Daddy. “I’ll tell you what—let’s get the flashlight and look for the kitten together.”
They searched under the back porch, under the bushes, and everywhere else that they thought a frightened kitten might hide. But they couldn’t find Mandy anywhere.
“It’s getting very late,” said Daddy. “We really should go back in.”
“Wait, Daddy. Listen! Did you hear that?”
Daddy stopped and listened.
“I hear Mandy crying. Do you hear her, Daddy?”
Sure enough, there was a faint “Mew! Mew!” coming from somewhere.
“Up, Daddy—shine the light up.”
Daddy shone the flashlight above them, and there was the tiny kitten on a limb of the mulberry tree.
Daddy called, “Here, kitty, kitty! Here, Mandy!”
But the kitten only cried louder. “Mew! Mew!”
“I’ll climb up and get her,” Brandon offered. “I climb this tree all the time.”
While Daddy held the flashlight, Brandon climbed to the limb where the kitten was. But she pulled away.
“She’s very frightened,” said Daddy. “She needs to know that she can trust you.”
Brandon slowly stretched out his hand as he said softly, “Here, Mandy.”
When Mandy didn’t move, Brandon patted Mandy’s head. “Here, Mandy,” he said again. Then very slowly he slipped his hand under Mandy’s chest and lifted her to his shoulder. She clung tightly to his jacket as he climbed back down.
Later, when Mandy was safely back in the box on the porch and Daddy was tucking Brandon into bed, Daddy said, “You know, this reminds me of a story about Jesus.”

It happened every Sunday in church. No matter how hard Jeremy tried, he always got the wiggle-waggles. He tried very hard to sit still during Primary. He kept his arms folded as long as he could and sang all the Primary songs. Jeremy listened to the lesson in his class and tried to answer questions. But sometimes, even when he tried his very hardest to sit still, they still came—those bothersome wiggle-waggles!
It usually happened toward the end of Primary and carried on through sacrament meeting. Jeremy would start to fidget, then he’d play with his tie. He’d rattle his papers from Primary, then twist around in his seat. He tried talking to his best friend, Thomas, but Thomas would put a finger to his lips to tell Jeremy to be quiet. Thomas never seemed to get the wiggle-waggles.
Sometimes Jeremy would untie his shoes. When the wiggle-waggles were really bad, he would slip off his shoes and kick his stocking feet back and forth.
“Sit still, Jeremy,” his Primary teacher whispered to him.
“Shhh, Jeremy, I want to listen to Sister Bernard,” Thomas said quietly when Jeremy tried to tell him about his new toy dump truck.
“Put your feet down,” his mother cautioned in sacrament meeting.
“Leave your shoes on, son,” his dad told him.
Jeremy tried to sit reverently and quietly. He really did! But he still had those wiggle-waggles every Sunday.
One night at family home evening, Jeremy’s mother brought up the wiggle-waggle problem.
“I try to sit still, Mom. I really do!” Jeremy exclaimed.
“It seems to me that we need to figure out a way to stop those wiggle-waggles from bothering Jeremy,” Dad said thoughtfully. “Let’s all think about it, and maybe we’ll come up with a solution.”
On Sunday morning, just before the family left for church, Jeremy’s mother gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. Then she said, “Jeremy, I want you to write down a sentence about your lesson in Primary, and a sentence about the talks that you hear in sacrament meeting. Do you think you could do that?”
Jeremy nodded enthusiastically.
“We’ll talk about what you wrote on your paper for family home evening,” his mother added.
All through Primary, Jeremy sat very still. He listened carefully to the talks and scripture and wrote down the scripture reference. Jeremy sang with his best voice during singing time, and even wrote down a verse to one of the Primary songs. Then he wrote a sentence about sharing time. Jeremy didn’t talk to Thomas once. During the walk to their class, Thomas commented on how reverent Jeremy was. During his Primary class, Jeremy quietly wrote down a sentence about the lesson. Before he knew it, Primary was over.
“I didn’t get the wiggle-waggles once!” Jeremy proudly reported to his parents as they sat down for sacrament meeting.
During the next hour, Jeremy tried very hard to sit quietly. But after a while, he started to feel the wiggle-waggles creeping up on him. He glanced down at his paper and read the words of the Primary song he had written down: “It shouldn’t be hard to sit very still and think about Jesus, his cross on the hill, and all that he suffered and did for me; it shouldn’t be hard to sit quietly.”*
Jeremy thought about the song. That was the secret! He should think about Jesus. Jeremy knew that Jesus would want him to sit quietly and listen.
Jeremy listened as Elder Vasquez, one of the missionaries serving in his ward, related an experience about a 10-year-old girl who had recently been baptized. He listened when Elder Brown, the other missionary, told the congregation that he was from England and had been on his mission for only three months. As Jeremy listened to the missionaries, he decided that he would like to be a missionary, too.
Jeremy was surprised when the closing hymn was announced. He looked down at his paper and noticed that he hadn’t written anything about the missionaries. He had been too busy listening to them! And the wiggle-waggles hadn’t bothered him once!
As they were leaving the church after sacrament meeting, Jeremy’s parents told him how happy they were that he’d been so reverent. Jeremy told them how the Primary song had taught him to think about Jesus and what He wanted him to do.
Just then, Sister Harper came up to Jeremy’s parents and said, “Jeremy is so quiet! I wish my Kerry would learn how to be quiet and reverent like Jeremy. She gets so wiggly!”
Jeremy’s mother winked at him.
“It looks like the wiggle-waggles found someone else to bother,” she said.
“Yes.” Jeremy smiled and held up his piece of paper. “And I know just what she can do to fix it!”

At 18, Wellington, New Zealand’s, Tony Fitisemanu can hardly wait for his next birthday, when he’ll finally be able to serve an official mission. He’s been doing missionary work for years now—going out with the full-time missionaries and talking to his friends at school about the gospel.
“I especially like to talk about the plan of salvation,” says Tony, “because my friends are always asking, ‘Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going?’ Because I go to seminary, I’ve learned how to show them the answers in the scriptures. If I don’t know the answers to all their questions, I ask my parents.”
Tony, his parents, and his five brothers and sisters moved to New Zealand from Samoa eight years ago, and have introduced a number of their friends to the Church. Several have been baptized. Their family is very close, but there’s always room for others to join in and feel right at home.

I sit at the sewing machine and feed thread onto seams of flannel. Child-print patterns in soft colors decorate the tops, and coordinating colors form the backs of the baby receiving blankets I’m sewing.
Our ward Relief Society assembles newborn kits for poverty and disaster areas. I’m an amateur seamstress, but I’m committed to participate. I enjoy choosing fabric for the project and cutting out blanket-sized squares.
I put right sides of the fabric together, sew around the edges, and leave an area open to turn the blanket right side out. Then I stitch along the edges, clip the corners, turn the blanket so that the colorful sides are on the outside, and stitch up the open area.
I sew along the top of the edges to reinforce the seams. I ease the fabric into place and take off at a brisk pace. As I rush to finish so I can resume household duties, a thought strikes me: “What if I were sewing this blanket for baby Jesus?”
With that thought, I slow down and take great care to straighten the seams. But even with care, the stitching doesn’t run straight.
Next I sew a 10-inch (25 cm) square in the center to secure the front to the back. I make a heavy paper template, center it on the blanket, and lightly mark around it. I put the fabric in place, ease down the needle, and carefully sew.
When I’m done, I clip the threads and pull out the finished blanket. It isn’t square—it’s a cross between a trapezoid and a parallelogram.
I set the blanket aside, pull out fresh flannel, and start again—taking greater pains for this gift worthy of Deity. But even with the extra effort, the results are only slightly better. Each blanket I sew is imperfect.
I feel that I can’t take any of the blankets to the collection site, at least not this year. I’ll keep practicing, and perhaps someday I can make a contribution.
Then another thought floats through my mind: “If you wait until your sewing is perfect, the Christ child will be in Egypt.”
I understand. The opportunity for service would be gone. The Savior accepts our offerings when we use our best efforts, imperfect though they may be. I know that a newborn, wrapped in a soft, clean blanket, would not refuse to sleep because the corners aren’t square.
As I contemplate whether my efforts will make a dent in worldwide needs, Christ’s counsel comes to mind: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).
So I continue sewing blankets, working to make them as attractive as I can. I know there is a need now, not some vague time in the future when I can sew them perfectly.