Gospel Story Finder

Illustration by Tracy Walker
I was 14 years old when I experienced my first Christmas without snow. My family had just moved from the mountains of Utah to Texas, USA. To me, Texas felt too flat and hot. It was hard to feel the Christmas spirit when I had no friends at my new school and especially when there was no snow on the ground. I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere, so I often felt lonely and sad.
Despite my gloom, Christmas was only a week away, and I was depending on our Christmas family traditions to lift my spirits. The fun activities my family did together in past years always made me feel so happy. Traditions were a big part of how we celebrated Christmas, so I thought I had nothing to worry about. They were called traditions for a reason, so I knew they had to be kept.
The days leading up to Christmas crawled by slowly. We hadn’t done anything together as a family yet to celebrate, so I was feeling pretty defeated. When Christmas Eve finally arrived, I waited all day for something to happen—anything that would show me that our cherished family traditions could still be kept in our new home. I’m sure I could have spurred these treasured traditions on my own, but I didn’t want to. In a way, I was looking for a sign to show me that the Christmas spirit was still alive.
Day faded to night and I grew more and more upset. Tears welled up in my eyes as my family gathered together to say our evening prayers. My entire home felt cold and empty, even with all of us living inside it. Suddenly, my dad pierced the silence with one question.
“Would anyone like to receive a priesthood blessing?”
My heart skipped a beat. I had worried so much about whether or not we would be putting up Christmas lights or baking holiday cookies that I had forgotten about one very special tradition we did every Christmas Eve—we all received a priesthood blessing. Receiving a blessing from my dad in the past always gave me peace, but not everybody in my family enjoyed receiving one. Sometimes my siblings and my mom would say they didn’t feel like they needed one. I didn’t want to get my hopes up again if everyone else was going to turn it down.
But this time was different. My mom stood up and sat down on the chair my dad had brought out for us.
“I would like one,” she said softly.
We were all very surprised, but my dad didn’t even hesitate. He placed his hands on my mom’s head and began to speak. I could sense how tuned in my dad was to my mom’s feelings and personal struggles. He spoke words of comfort and peace to her during this time of change.
I suddenly felt a burning sensation within my chest—almost like someone had lit a match inside of me. I knew I was feeling the Holy Ghost, even though the burning in my chest wasn’t the way I had always felt the Spirit before. It was like Heavenly Father was speaking directly to me, and it wasn’t even my priesthood blessing!
As my father quietly said “amen” and I opened my tear-filled eyes, I realized that my whole family was crying. We had all heard the Spirit speak to us in a tender and loving way that everything was going to be OK. My mom and dad hugged, and I felt like the raincloud that had been hanging over my head for so long had finally given way to sunshine.
We may not have kept every tradition that year, but we always remembered how it felt to witness the power of God flow through my dad’s priesthood blessing. I will always remember how it changed my feelings of sadness to peace and joy. I also learned a valuable lesson about the power of the priesthood. When everything around you seems to be going the wrong way, a priesthood blessing can remind you of the Lord’s watchful and loving presence in your life.

You should also give everyone an opportunity to participate. Someone came to me once and said that he thought it inadvisable to use a certain girl in a dance festival because she was overweight, homely, and lacked coordination. But that girl was one of the most enthusiastic young girls in the show, and she desperately needed to participate in the festival. Needless to say, we left her in. After the festival she came up to talk to me. With tears in her eyes she said, “I just wanted to thank you and let you know how special it was for me to be in that dance festival. It has been the greatest experience in my whole life.” Enough said.

Perhaps a personal experience will help to illustrate the point. When I was a young resident physician at Boston Children’s Hospital, I worked long hours and traveled between the hospital and our home in Watertown, Massachusetts, mostly by bicycle since my wife and young family needed our car. One evening I was riding home after a long period in the hospital, feeling tired and hungry and at least a bit discouraged. I knew I needed to give my wife and four small children not only my time and energy when I got home but also a cheery attitude. I was, frankly, finding it hard to just keep pedaling.
My route would take me past a fried chicken shop, and I felt like I would be a lot less hungry and tired if I could pause for a piece of chicken on my way home. I knew they were running a sale on thighs or drumsticks for 29 cents each, but when I checked my wallet, all I had was one nickel. As I rode along, I told the Lord my situation and asked if, in His mercy, He could let me find a quarter on the side of the road. I told Him that I didn’t need this as a sign but that I would be really grateful if He felt to grant me this kind blessing.
I began watching the ground more intently but saw nothing. Trying to maintain a faith-filled but submissive attitude as I rode, I approached the store. Then, almost exactly across the street from the chicken place, I saw a quarter on the ground. With gratitude and relief, I picked it up, bought the chicken, savored every morsel, and rode happily home.
In His mercy, the God of heaven, the Creator and Ruler of all things everywhere, had heard a prayer about a very minor thing. One might well ask why He would concern Himself with something so small. I am led to believe that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that the things that are important to us become important to Him, just because He loves us. How much more would He want to help us with the big things that we ask, which are right (see 3 Nephi 18:20)?

Last month I described how my family and I constructed a 4,000-gallon pond in our backyard. Although all of the experts we consulted told us we should maintain it as a freshwater system, we were determined to convert it into one containing salt water. When we could see that our water system was operating properly, we ordered over a thousand pounds of synthetic sea salts from a company in Cleveland, Ohio, and added them to the water.
As you remember, we had previously stocked our pond with fifty black mollies we had purchased from a tropical fish store. Fortunately, these fish are able to live in both fresh and salt water, so they survived the conversion process. Of course the freshwater algae died, as did most of the aquatic insects that had begun to invade the water; but that was expected. Now with everything in order, we geared up for our first collecting trip that was designed to start our pond on its way to becoming a true marine ecosystem.
At this point, we feel that we have accomplished most of what we set out to do. In spite of all of the reasons everyone offered as to why we could not establish a salt water ecosystem in our backyard, we have done so.
In time, the data gathered will serve as a basis for science fair projects as well as for scientific articles that we will write on these subjects. We have even formed our own research corporation to study these and other aspects of the world around us and have embarked on a great family adventure that is truly a new frontier for our family. And more than ever before we appreciate our Heavenly Father’s plan for family associations.

Almost a year before, instead of looking forward to general conference and the holidays, I was figuring out how I would be able to take care of my family during the busy season ahead. I would have to plan all the upcoming activities and responsibilities around my radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Caring for myself while trying to maintain a normal life for my family and fulfill Church callings was difficult. I made it through cancer and everything else with Heavenly Father’s help.

“I shared a room with my sister. We liked to be together, but when were very young we argued about who was taking more than her share of the bed. One day we decided to settle the problem. We took a pen and drew a line right down the middle of the sheet. Mother didn’t like that solution and explained that we were not to mark on the sheets again. When we were older, our parents told us we could each have our own room. Dianne moved her things into another room, but it only lasted one night. We really preferred being together, so the next day she moved back.

I took my Friend to school to read during free time. My teacher asked me about it, and I told her it was a children’s magazine published by my church. I asked her if she would like to take it home and read it, and she said yes. She brought it back after the weekend and said she liked the magazine very much. She said it was full of good things. I told her that my parents get a magazine for adults full of good things for them. She said she would like one of those. I took her the special Ensign about Jesus Christ. It made me feel warm and sparkly inside to share something that I like so much with someone so special to me.
Emma G., age 9, Pennsylvania

Bishop Richard C. Edgley, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, told of an experience where his integrity was similarly tested:
“Some 30 years ago, while working in the corporate world, some business associates and I were passing through O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois. One of these men had just sold his company for tens of millions of dollars—in other words, he was not poor.
“As we were passing a newspaper vending machine, this individual put a quarter into the machine, opened the door to the stack of papers inside the machine, and began dispensing unpaid-for newspapers to each of us. When he handed me a newspaper, I put a quarter in the machine and, trying not to offend but to make a point, jokingly said, ‘Jim, for 25 cents I can maintain my integrity.’ ”1
Bishop Edgley could have easily walked away without paying for that newspaper. After all, 25 cents would have hardly made a difference to the publishers. But he knew it would make a difference to his integrity.

I had this message confirmed when I bore my testimony in the Sunday afternoon session of general conference in April of 2002. That morning I was told that Elder David B. Haight might not be able to participate in the conference. If that happened, I would have five minutes to bear my testimony. I prayed extra hard for Elder Haight that day! Sunday morning I watched him come into the Conference Center, and I started to relax—right up until the moment he exited during the congregational hymn. As I stood at the podium that afternoon, the teleprompter screen was blank! But the message that kept coming to my mind and heart was that women need to feel the Lord’s love in their lives daily. It was the message I knew I needed to convey that day, and it continues to be our message.

My English teacher has a habit of taking the Lord’s name in vain whenever there is a distraction in the class. One day I approached her privately after class and said, “I feel very uncomfortable when you say God’s name when someone disturbs you while you’re talking. Maybe you could use other words, but I feel very uncomfortable when people say His name that way around me.”
My English teacher thanked me for coming to talk to her, but she said she would have to think about it. After that week, she didn’t profane the Lord’s name for a long time, except once or twice when the word would just come out of her mouth, but I understood how hard it is not to make a mistake again when it is a habit. I realized how important it is to spend time with people to let them know what your standards are. Never be ashamed of doing what is right, because there’s always someone that stands on your side. I was so grateful to see this change in my English teacher. Not only does she not use the Lord’s name, but I realized that her attitude has changed, too.
As it says in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” I won’t ever feel ashamed of asking people to not misuse our Heavenly Father’s name, because it is sacred. We should always stand up for our standards, and for our Heavenly Father, because of the blessings and courage that He gives us.

We once had two beautiful long-haired kittens at our house. They lived in a Garden of Eden because of the way we pampered and spoiled them. They loved it—all that food and warmth and tender loving care. About the worst opposition they had to endure was being dressed up in doll clothes, which they didn’t seem to mind very much.
One Saturday morning the kittens, along with our children, were relaxing sleepily in front of the television, enjoying their nice life. As we turned off the television and began giving out assignments for Saturday morning housework, our eight-year-old daughter looked longingly at the still-purring pets. “I don’t want to do my work,” she declared. “I would rather be a kitten.”
There are days when we would “rather be a kitten,” but our first parents left the innocence and “nice life” of the Garden of Eden for one glorious reason—that they might find joy. (See 2 Ne. 2:25.) Not days of constant leisure. Not yawning and stretching and lounging in front of a television throughout eternity.
Opposition is a central part of mortal life. It may be the primary difference between what life would have been in the Garden and what it is in mortality. It is the difference between being green, untested, and inexperienced and becoming ripe, seasoned, tested, and having a mature understanding. How different from innocence, for if there is only innocence, there is little meaning.
When Father Lehi said there “must needs be … opposition in all things” (2 Ne. 2:11), he spoke not merely of the need for choice and agency, but of the way opposing forces combine to give meaning to righteous choices. Without the taste of bitter in our experience, we do not appreciate the taste of sweet. We are without context, without a frame of reference, and even the sweet things of life are without meaning and purpose. Mortality presents us with a “compound in one,” a deliberate mixing of righteousness and temptation, holiness and misery, without which there could be “no purpose in the end of [life’s] creation” (2 Ne. 2:11–12).
Some of life’s most difficult challenges can come when opposition appears in places where we don’t expect it—such as when we think we just finished with it. For example, frequently we must overcome great opposition as the price of admission to a promising opportunity: going on a mission or being married in the temple. Many Latter-day Saints are caught off guard when they discover opposition in what they thought would be a trouble-free environment. “Christianity without tears,” in the words of one writer, is the state that some of us hope for.
Eliza R. Snow addressed the lines of a provocative pioneer hymn to those who were coming to Zion in the belief that they were leaving the afflictions of the world behind. Her words are also appropriate for all of us who embark on new experiences in which we expect to find “a nice life.”
Think not when you gather to Zion,
Your troubles and trials are through,
That nothing but comfort and pleasure
Are waiting in Zion for you: …
Think not when you gather to Zion,
That all will be holy and pure;
That fraud and deception are banished,
And confidence wholly secure: …
Think not when you gather to Zion,
The prize and the victory won.
Think not that the warfare is ended,
The work of salvation is done.
No, no; for the great prince of darkness
A tenfold exertion will make, When he sees you go to the fountain,
Where freely the truth you may take.
(Hymns, 1948, number 21.)
There is opposition in Zion, because there is opposition in all things, even those experiences that seem to promise better times ahead. Consider the example of marriage. Many people assume that if they can just get married, all their problems will be solved. One new bride reportedly said to her mother on her wedding day, “Oh, Mom, I’m so happy! I’m at the end of my troubles.”
“Yes, dear,” replied the wise mother, “but which end?”
We vividly remember our own experience in marrying each other and having our first baby. After we became parents, we began to discover what Lehi had been talking about when he said that if Adam and Eve had remained in the Garden and had had no children, “they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery” (2 Ne. 2:23).
That scripture seems to say that if they had had no children, they would have known no misery. Only the parents of two-year-olds and teenagers can understand that! But it also says that without children and misery, they would have had no joy. How important is joy? Within two verses, Lehi tells us that “men are, that they might have [that very] joy” (2 Ne. 2:25; emphasis added).
In our case, here is what all that meant in a very down-to-earth sense. During her first pregnancy, Marie was sick—an odd way to be showered with joy. For part of each day for several months, she felt just terrible. It was morning sickness ad nauseum.
Then about four weeks before delivery she threatened to miscarry, which sent her to bed for several days, causing serious complications in the classes she was taking and those she was teaching. But when the big day finally came, even the hours of labor were worth it as she lay there in the hospital bed holding that beautiful baby boy.
Nothing could be more wonderful than this, she thought. Surely the world stops for such a beautiful baby.
The day after the baby was born, she was cuddling him happily in her hospital room when her doctor came in. A plain-spoken man, he looked at them and said cheerily, “How does it feel to have the easiest part over with?”
“Easiest part?”
“Why sure,” he replied. “It’s the next twenty years that are going to be tough.”
Now, more than twenty years later, we have discovered, right there among mortality’s thorns, the sweet fruit of having joy in our posterity. After all the diapers, the bruises, the washing, the cheering, the cleaning up, the pleading, the nail biting, the crying, the laughing, the pacing, and the praying, we understand. We feel about raising children the way Ammon felt about missionary work:
“And this is the account of Ammon and his brethren, their journeyings in the land of Nephi, their sufferings in the land, their sorrows, and their afflictions, and their incomprehensible joy” (Alma 28:8; emphasis added).
There, in Alma’s words, is Lehi’s paradoxical compound in one. There is a link between sorrow, affliction, and incomprehensible joy. Without opposition, “they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery” (2 Ne. 2:23).
Another area in which we sometimes experience opposition after “gathering to Zion” is in the development of our testimonies. Actually, most of the questions we face as our testimonies grow are signs that we are learning more, not less, about the truth.
I learned from the late Elder Theodore M. Burton of the Seventy a valuable insight about the growth of a testimony. He said that often when we first realize the gospel is true, the amount of spiritual truth we know could be symbolized by drawing and coloring in a tiny circle about the size of a pinhead.
As our understanding of the gospel progresses, the circle grows. When our knowledge develops to a certain point of maturity, the circle may be the size of a coin, many times bigger than our first little pinhead of knowledge. When we compare those two circles on a piece of paper, the tiny testimony and the larger testimony are surrounded by large areas of white, representing the unknown.
As our knowledge grows in relation to the unknown, something unexpected happens. The larger circle has a much broader circumference around the edge, which is in greater contact with the unknown. Thus, there are many more points at which questions can arise. But it is by the “growing pains” of dealing with that opposition that our knowledge and understanding increase geometrically, especially in the first few years of our experience in the Church.
One young member began having some questions about the gospel, questions that he encountered in his extended study of a particular subject. The more he studied, the more he found new questions to which there were inadequate answers. He became frustrated because he was determined to find a complete answer to every question that came up, but he was unable to do that.
He began thinking that if he couldn’t solve every puzzle he found, perhaps he was violating his integrity to remain active in the Church. At the same time, he loved the Church and had a deep and enduring faith in the reality of Jesus Christ.
After months of struggling, he decided to put aside his unresolved questions and exercise his faith. He would simply have a believing heart. His faith began to grow again, not so much from new information, but rather from new experiences with other people. He shared the gospel with a friend or two at work and accepted a teaching assignment in his ward. He found that his attempts to help others understand the gospel increased his own understanding. His renewed appreciation for the many knowns in his testimony soon outweighed his frustrations about the unknowns, and the joy he had earlier felt began coming back to him. Fortunately, he refused to give up when he met opposition. He learned through his struggles and grew stronger. The turning point for him came when he stopped being so concerned about his own troubles and began trying to help others with theirs.
We find in the life of President Spencer W. Kimball a further poignant illustration of that specialized kind of opposition that haunts us even when by all believable odds we should be beyond it.
President Kimball endured a lifelong struggle with opposition of many kinds. He experienced so many serious medical problems that he once wrote a poem to his “friend, pain.”
At one point, Brother Russell M. Nelson, then a practicing heart surgeon, was asked to examine President Kimball, who was then serving as President of the Quorum of the Twelve. President Kimball desperately needed open heart surgery, but because of President Kimball’s advanced age, Dr. Nelson told the First Presidency he could give no assurance that the surgery would be successful.
When the First Presidency told President Kimball they felt he should have the operation despite the risks, he told them his greatest fear was that he might emerge from the surgery in some partially incapacitated state, unable to do his work.
But he followed their counsel and submitted to the risky surgery. The Brethren gave Dr. Nelson a special blessing. During the surgery, which went flawlessly, Dr. Nelson received a strong spiritual impression that President Kimball would one day be President of the Church.
After that miraculously successful operation, President Kimball continued on, against the odds, raising his cancer-stricken voice like a beacon in the night. How we all loved him! How we prayed in gratitude that his life was spared so many times!
But he did not live happily ever after. For several years before his death, he was physically unable to speak to the Church or to go about his regular duties. That which he most had feared indeed came to pass—his failing health prevented him from carrying his full share of the load. How his heart must have ached! If someone as faithful as President Kimball continued to experience opposition at this stage of his life, it is not surprising that the rest of us must as well.
During President Kimball’s waning years, there was a special quality of love in the tender feelings of Church members for their modern prophet. There was an appreciative remembering of the days when the piercing quality of that unique voice sounded such a clear call at general conference, a kind of loving admiration for his courage, almost of that intimate kind felt only among members of the same family.
In all this, there was more than a trace of joy and insight for the members of the Church—we discovered the rich meaning that comes from having been together in combat, the kind of joy born of sheer gratitude for a friend who touched and changed one’s life. In such a personal and compassionate context, we found deeper meaning in reflecting on his counsel over the years about missions, cleanliness, repentance, the miracle of forgiveness, and universal access to the priesthood. We were happy and sad at the same time, full of hope yet full of sorrow. It was the compound in one, as God consecrated his sorrows for our gain.
In joining the Church, marrying, having children, serving a mission, or developing our testimonies, we must often overcome tremendous odds even to embark upon the experience. For that reason, it is only natural to believe that once we have won the right to the experience, we should live happily ever after. But such is not to be the case.
New experiences may surely lead toward living joyfully; but joy, like grace, comes only “after all we can do” (2 Ne. 25:23). Indeed, joy, like grace, usually comes in the midst of contrary experience, for it is a real part of life’s complex fabric. Joy is not an alternative to opposition, it is part of a compound that comes out of our coping with the challenges and conditions of mortality.

I dragged myself into the dark bedroom, tempted to collapse onto the bed and immediately drift to sleep. My eyes seemed to weigh me down, and my feet felt like lead. I wanted to crawl under my covers, but my desire for an answer to my prayer was greater. I knew I must once again approach the Lord.
I knelt at my bedside and silently pondered the things I was about to ask my Heavenly Father. Would He really answer me this time? Did I deserve to be answered? As I felt my faith wavering, I chose to focus my attention on the countless lessons I had learned in my life, instead of on my doubts. One scripture in particular stood out to me.
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6).
I wanted to know that Joseph Smith was a real prophet. I wanted to know for myself that he truly saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the Sacred Grove. As a Latter-day Saint, I felt a strong testimony of Joseph Smith was a vital part of my foundation in the Church. I mustered all the faith I could find within my soul by focusing on the times the Lord had shown His hand in my life. I began asking Heavenly Father to help me really know what I had only believed all my life.
I knew the only way for me to receive this knowledge was by the Holy Ghost telling me it was true. I wasn’t sure I had received that type of communication. How would I know the Holy Ghost was talking to me? Would I hear a voice? Would I feel a burning in my bosom like the scriptures say? I didn’t know, but I continued to pray. I sat silently and tried to listen for the whisperings of the Spirit. I didn’t hear a voice, and I didn’t feel anything unusual. Discouraged, I crawled into bed and fell asleep, telling myself I would get my answer tomorrow night.
The obnoxious beep of my alarm clock rang in my ear at 5:30 the next morning. I reluctantly got up and started getting ready for seminary. Before I knew it, I was pulling into the church parking lot.
As I walked into my classroom, my teacher was pulling a television into the center of the room. I quickly took a seat on a cold, folding chair near the back. I had obviously missed the introduction to the video we were about to watch. However, once the movie started to play, I recognized it quickly. It was “The First Vision,” produced by the Church. I had seen it a number of times and thought I understood all there was to learn from it. But as I watched Joseph’s experience in the grove, something incredible happened to me. A powerful, peaceful feeling rested on me and I knew it was the Holy Ghost. The Spirit began to testify that what I was seeing really happened. I knew that Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus.
I was surprised. I was not expecting my answer to come that morning. I thought it would come while I was praying. The Spirit spoke to me, and I knew this was the answer I had been asking for. I’m very grateful for the way Heavenly Father answered my prayer. I now have a strong testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I know if I exercise faith by reading the scriptures and praying, I can receive personal revelation through the Holy Ghost.

I was touched by the journey of one brother who asked himself, “When the Lord calls, will I hear?” I will call this fine brother David.
David converted to the Church some 30 years ago. He served a mission and then attended law school. While he was studying and working to support a young family, he came across some information about the Church that confused him. The more he read these negative materials, the more unsettled he became. Eventually he asked to have his name removed from the records of the Church.
From that time on, like Alma in his rebellious days, David spent a great deal of time debating with members of the Church, engaging in online conversations with the purpose of challenging their beliefs.
He was very good at this.
One of the members he debated with I will call Jacob. Jacob was always kind and respectful to David, but he was also firm in his defense of the Church.
Over the years, David and Jacob developed a mutual respect and friendship. What David did not know is that Jacob was praying for David and did so faithfully for more than a decade. He even placed his friend’s name for prayer in the temples of the Lord and hoped that David’s heart would be softened.
Over time, slowly, David did change. He began to remember with fondness the spiritual experiences he once had, and he remembered the happiness he had felt when he was a member of the Church.
Like Alma, David had not completely forgotten the gospel truths he had once embraced. And like Amulek, David felt the Lord reaching out to him. David was now a partner in a law firm—a prestigious job. He had developed a reputation as a critic of the Church, and he had too much pride to ask to be readmitted.
Nevertheless, he continued to feel the pull of the Shepherd.
He took to heart the scripture “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”13 He prayed, “Dear God, I want to be a Latter-day Saint again, but I have questions that need answers.”
He began to listen to the whisperings of the Spirit and to inspired answers of friends as he never had before. One after another, his doubts turned to faith, until finally he realized that, once again, he could feel a testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored Church.
At that point, he knew that he would be able to overcome his pride and do whatever it took to be accepted back into the Church.
Eventually, David entered the waters of baptism and then began counting down the days until he could have his blessings restored.
I am happy to report that this past summer, David’s blessings were restored to him. He is again fully participating in the Church and serving as a Gospel Doctrine teacher in his ward. He takes every opportunity to speak to others about his transformation, to heal the damage he caused, and to bear testimony of the gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ.

When the newly formed Lakeland Florida Stake issued the challenge to hold a Young Women basketball tournament, the Lake Wales Branch rose to the opportunity. But they had a problem. They didn’t have enough active girls in their Young Women program to fill the five positions on the playing floor. And having a couple of substitutes wouldn’t hurt.
The girls and coaches began asking friends and inactive members to join them. The girls were told that if they didn’t have fun, they didn’t have to stay. A team of eight was formed and practices began. Soon the girls learned the meaning of phrases like “set up” and “fast break” and learned to dribble without using both hands.
With determination and hard work, the Lake Wales Branch had a basketball team. At the stake tournament, their skills were challenged. It was the first time they had played together on an indoor court, and they had some trouble getting used to having confining walls.
At the end of the tournament, the Lake Wales team came out on top. They were the first Lakeland Stake champions. The experience of playing together and fellowshipping has made them winners.

When our children were young, we moved into a small house with a beautiful yard. On either side of the front door were two empty flowerbeds, and though my gardening experience was limited, I was excited to plant flowers there. I bought a gardening book and ordered plant and seed catalogs and studied them carefully.
Over the next few months I planned my garden, prepared the soil, and planted more than 200 bulbs. I knew it would be a few more months before I would see any results, but still I checked the garden often for growth. In early spring my flowers started to bloom, beginning with tiny purple irises and then daffodils. By the middle of spring my flower boxes were filled with a splendid display of tulips. I loved my garden, and I often sat on the front steps just to look at the flowers.
One afternoon our four-year-old daughter, Emily, had a friend over to play. Just before her friend’s mother came to pick her up, the girls struggled in through the kitchen door, their arms filled with heaps of tulips. “Look what we’ve brought you,” they said happily. They had picked nearly every bloom.
Tulips bloom only once a year. I was heartbroken—all that work, all that waiting. We filled my vases with flowers and sent the rest home with Emily’s friend. Later, as I complained to my mother about the disaster, she said, “Well, it’s a good thing you’re raising children and not flowers.”
I realized that I needed to change my perspective. I remembered the Primary song I had sung with my girls about gathering flowers:
Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you.
O mother, I give you my love with each flower.1
I saw the ruin of my garden, but two four-year-old girls saw a gesture of love.
Planting a flower garden had required patience, and stepping back and looking at this incident through my child’s eyes required even more patience. But learning patience as a mother draws me closer to the Lord.

Has one of your friends ever said or done something to hurt you? That happened to the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Not long after William W. Phelps joined the Church, he became one of the Prophet’s close friends. A well-educated man, he was appointed printer for the Church. He moved his family to Missouri and became a leader in the Church there.
Later, because of some faults he thought he saw in the Prophet Joseph, William left the Church. He became a bitter man and an enemy of the Prophet. He signed a certificate defending the actions of one of the enemies of the Church. Because of William’s and others’ actions, Joseph not only lost a loved and trusted friend, he and some of the other leaders of the Church were sent to prison! Joseph suffered for many miserable months in jail.
Two years later, William Phelps realized that what he had done was wrong. “I am as the prodigal son,” he wrote in a letter to the Prophet. “I know my situation, you know it, and God knows it, and I want to be saved if my friends will help me. … I have done wrong and I am sorry.”
He begged for Joseph’s forgiveness and asked to be received again as a member of the Church.
Joseph answered immediately with love and forgiveness. He wrote: “Believing your confession to be real, and your repentance genuine, I shall be happy once again to give you the right hand of fellowship, and rejoice over the returning prodigal. … ‘Come on, dear brother, since the war is past, / For friends at first, are friends again at last.’”*
In spite of the terrible things that William did to hurt the Prophet, Joseph forgave his friend, and William became a valiant servant of the Lord once more. He wrote the words to fifteen hymns; many of them were included in the first LDS hymnbook. One of them, “Praise to the Man,”† was written especially about his forgiving friend, the Prophet Joseph.
Sometimes our friends say things or do things that hurt us. We can forgive them, just as the Prophet Joseph forgave his friend. Joseph told William that he wanted to follow the example of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. He wanted to be as kind and forgiving as They are. We can do that, too. As we follow the example of Jesus Christ, we will be happy. We will be keeping our baptismal covenant, and we may be able to help our friends keep their covenants, just as the Prophet Joseph Smith helped his friend, William.

In the late 1850s many converts from Europe were struggling to reach the Great Salt Lake Valley. Many were so poor that they had to walk, pushing their meager belongings in handcarts.
Archer Walters, an English convert who was with one such company, recorded in his diary under July 2, 1856, this sentence: “Brother Parker’s little boy, age six, was lost, and the father went back to hunt him.”
The boy, Arthur, was next to the youngest of four children of Robert and Ann Parker. Three days earlier the company had hurriedly made camp in the face of a sudden thunderstorm. It was then that Arthur was missed. His parents had thought that he was playing along the way with the other children. Finally someone remembered that when they had stopped earlier in the day, the little boy had been seen settling down to rest under the shade of some brush.
For two days the company remained where they were, and all the men searched for him. Then on July 2, with no alternative, the company was ordered west.
Robert Parker, as the diary records, went back alone to search once more for his little son. As he was leaving camp, his wife pinned a bright shawl about his shoulders, with words such as these: “If you find him dead, wrap him in the shawl to bury him. If you find him alive, use this as a flag to signal us.”
With their three other little children, she took the handcart and struggled along with the company. At sundown on July 5 the Parker family saw a figure approaching from the east. Then, in the rays of the setting sun, they saw the glimmer of the bright red shawl! The mother’s prayers were answered.
On July 5 Archer Walters recorded: “Brother Parker came into camp with a little boy that had been lost. Great joy through the camp. The mother’s joy I cannot describe.”
We do not know all the details. A nameless woodsman had come upon the little boy and had cared for him until his father found him.
So here a story, commonplace in its day, ends—except for a question. How would you feel toward the woodsman had he saved your brother or your friend? Would there be an end to your gratitude?

I recently met a sister in Mexico who understands what it means to magnify her calling with faith. Marffissa Maldonado was called to teach a youth Sunday School class three years ago. She had 7 students attending when she was called, but she now has 20 who attend regularly. I asked her, in amazement, what she had done to bring about such an increase in numbers. She modestly said, “Oh, it wasn’t just me. All the class members helped.” Together, they saw the names of the less-actives on the roll and began to go out together and invite them to come back to church. They have also had a baptism because of their efforts.

Sister Maldonado set up a social media site just for her class members called “I Am a Child of God,” and she posts inspirational thoughts and scriptures several times a week. She regularly texts her students with assignments and encouragement. She feels it is important to communicate in the ways they best relate to, and it is working. She told me simply, “I love my students.” I could feel that love as she told me of their efforts, and her example reminded me of what one person of faith and action can accomplish in this work with the help of the Lord.

Recently, some members of my family determined it would be fun to bicycle from Bozeman, Montana, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the United States. This 225-mile journey would take us three days, and we would cross the Continental Divide on three occasions. We determined that traveling through the mountain passes with good weather would be a wonderful experience that would help us appreciate God’s creations.

After careful planning and preparation, two of my sons and my only daughter and I set out on the first day to cycle to our overnight stop in Big Sky, Montana. The morning was perfect, and we expected a delightful journey. However, as we traveled along, dark clouds gathered and brought rain, which eventually became sleet and hail and made us extremely cold and wet and miserable. As we concluded day one of our journey and reached our overnight destination, I was reminded that life can be just like that day. Fortunately, we had prepared for all types of weather conditions; had we not done so, it would have been difficult to complete our journey that first day. At each stage of life’s journey, we should set out full of hope and optimism, but we should be prepared nonetheless to face opposition or hardship at some point.

On a sunny spring day in 2017, the open house for the Paris France Temple was well underway when one of the tour guides was approached by a man with a sorrowful expression on his face. He said he lived next to the temple and admitted he had been an active opponent of its construction. He related that one day as he was gazing out of his apartment window, he watched a large crane lower a statue of Jesus from the heavens and softly place it on the temple grounds. The man declared that this experience completely changed his feelings toward our Church. He realized we were followers of Jesus Christ and begged our forgiveness for the previous harm he might have caused.