Gospel Story Finder

Stacy was thrilled to be with her family at the Nauvoo Illinois Temple open house. “I must remember everything I see,” she reminded herself. Grandma had not been able to come with them, but she had asked Stacy to pay close attention and tell her all about it later.
Stacy studied the beautiful paintings of Jesus Christ on the walls and the carved wooden handrails on the stairs. Even though many people were visiting the temple, she felt a deep peace, as if she were all alone. “I’ll tell Grandma about the peaceful feeling,” she thought.
After visiting the temple, Stacy and her family walked around Nauvoo, admiring some of the other buildings.
Suddenly Stacy realized that she was not with her family anymore. She searched all through a tall brick building, but they weren’t there. She felt a lump growing in her throat. She walked down the street as two fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
Then she remembered that Daddy had parked their car near the temple. “If I go to the temple, my family can find me,” she realized. She looked right and left but could not find the temple. Then she heard a voice in her mind. “Look up.” She obeyed the voice and saw the tall white temple spire with the angel Moroni on top. When she reached the temple, she found her family looking for her.
As she happily hugged her mother, Stacy said, “I’ll tell Grandma about the pictures of Jesus and the peaceful feeling. But first I’ll tell her that if you get lost, you should look up so you can find your way to the temple.”

In 1962, Elder Harold B. Lee, then a member of the Council of the Twelve, used a very practical modern example of that principle. “It is sometimes very interesting to get the reaction of people,” he observed. “I recall when President McKay announced to the Church that the First Council of Seventy were being ordained high priests in order to extend their usefulness and to give them authority to act when no other General Authority could be present. I went down to Phoenix, Arizona, and I found a Seventy who was very much disturbed. He said to me, ‘Didn’t the Prophet Joseph Smith say that this was contrary to the order of heaven to name high priests as presidents of the First Council of Seventy when they were named in the beginning?’
“And I said, ‘Well, I had understood that he did, but had you ever thought that what was contrary to the order of heaven in 1840 might not be contrary to the order of heaven in 1960?’ You see, he had not thought of that. He … was following a dead prophet, and he was forgetting that there is a living prophet today. Hence the importance of our stressing the word ‘living.’” (“The Place of the Living Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,” address given to Seminary and Institute Faculty at BYU on July, 1964.)

One night my elementary school principal came to our house for a meeting. After the meeting I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon. She told me she didn’t have one, but she would like one.
Three weeks later I went to a missionary fireside. The missionaries gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon to give to a nonmember friend. I didn’t know who to give it to. Then the Holy Ghost whispered to me the name of my principal.
I told my dad I wanted to take the Book of Mormon to her. I marked one of my 7. Dad took me to her house after the fireside, and I gave it to her.
A month later, when the missionaries came to our house for dinner, they asked me if I knew anyone they could visit. I told them about the nice lady I had given the Book of Mormon to.
The next time the missionaries came to dinner, they said they had visited her and they had a feeling that someday she would join the Church!

That summer I went to Japan to stay with the family of our foreign exchange student for five weeks. During my stay, I went four weeks without going to church. Finally, in the very last week, we stopped by the Tokyo Japan Temple to take pictures. In a strange country where the language and customs were so foreign to me, it was the most comforting feeling to finally be in a familiar place. The Spirit there was so strong.
That Sunday we found a ward building, and I attended church. It was amazing to experience sacrament meeting and Sunday School in Japanese, but what hit me most was when I went to Young Women. Seeing those few Japanese girls rise and say the theme, I realized that the gospel was just as strong halfway across the world as it was at home. I knew that many of these members didn’t have the support from friends and family that I did, but they still believed. Again, I felt at home.

I share a final example that mortality works.
My mother did not have an easy journey through mortality. She received no accolades or worldly honors and did not have educational opportunities beyond high school. She contracted polio as a child, resulting in a lifetime of pain and discomfort in her left leg. As an adult, she experienced many difficult and challenging physical and financial circumstances but was faithful to her covenants and loved the Lord.
When my mother was 55, my next older sister passed away, leaving an eight-month-old baby daughter, my niece, motherless. For various reasons, Mom ended up largely raising my niece for the next 17 years, often under very trying circumstances. Yet, notwithstanding these experiences, she happily and willingly served her family, neighbors, and ward members and served as an ordinance worker in the temple for many years. During the last several years of her life, Mom suffered from a form of dementia, was often confused, and was confined to a nursing facility. Regrettably, she was alone when she passed away unexpectedly.
Several months after her passing, I had a dream I have never forgotten. In my dream, I was sitting in my office at the Church Administration Building. Mom entered the office. I knew she had come from the spirit world. I will always remember the feelings I had. She did not say anything, but she radiated a spiritual beauty that I had never before experienced and which I have difficulty describing.
Her countenance and being were truly stunning! I remember saying to her, “Mother, you are so beautiful!,” referencing her spiritual power and beauty. She acknowledged me—again without speaking. I felt her love for me, and I knew then that she is happy and healed from her worldly cares and challenges and eagerly awaits “a glorious resurrection.” I know that for Mom, mortality worked—and that it works for us too.

Much of my early testimony was formed through music. I adored bouncing up in “Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam”. I popped along to “Popcorn Popping”. I could perform “Book of Mormon Stories” in my sleep. But it wasn’t just fun. I distinctly remember learning “Love Is Spoken Here”, and becoming emotional as we sang it in Primary. Music hadn’t affected me like that before—I didn’t understand how I could be crying whilst being happy. It wasn’t just the lyrics—the melody itself, the voices of all my friends—it shocked me.
I realised that these songs had power. As I’ve gotten older, I still often turn to these songs when I’m in need. The second verse of “How Firm A Foundation” has been my companion through any scary experience, even if it was just venturing downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water.
“Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed, / For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.”1
Singing these lines has always brought me comfort. I truly feel Heavenly Father’s presence in those moments. The effect wouldn’t be the same if I just spoke the words—the act of singing aloud, a musical prayer, brings me the most comfort.
As an adult, music still plays a part in my testimony. I was lucky enough to see a concert of Rob Gardner’s Lamb of God a few years ago, as my sister Lauren was part of the choir. Individual performers, a choir, and an orchestra come together to recount the Saviour’s last days on earth. In the song “Gethsemane”, a narrator tells of the Saviour entering the garden of Gethsemane. The choir sings in Aramaic as the music swells. Of course, the effect of this cannot be accurately portrayed in writing—it is absolutely beautiful and brought me to tears. Now, when I think of Him, suffering so much in that garden, I hear that music. He suffered for us, out of the purest love. It is beautiful and mournful, awe inspiring and heartbreaking. “Gethsemane” helped me tap into those emotions at a slightly deeper level, as I tried to empathise with what our dear Saviour went through.
Music is another tool we can use to help strengthen our faith. It helps us to understand things in a different way, and sometimes in a deeper way. I feel spiritually enriched when I am able to listen to such music—for a brief moment, I am able to truly cast other things aside and just reflect on the gospel. It’s a blessing that I often forget I can use.
In October 1936, President J. Reuben Clark stated “We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer.”2
As I teach my daughter those same Primary hymns I enjoyed years ago, I am happy to know that they can be a guide and a comfort to her. They certainly have for me. I am truly grateful for all the ways Heavenly Father has provided to bring us closer to Him, and to feel His presence in our daily lives.

On the first and second of November 1831, a conference was held at Hiram, Ohio, when it was decided that the revelations should be compiled and published. On the first day of the conference the Lord gave approval to the plan by giving a revelation He called His “preface unto the book of my commandments, which I have given them to publish unto you, O inhabitants of the earth” (D&C 1:6).

During the course of the conference there was not perfect harmony among the brethren. A few criticized the language found in the revelations. They forgot that the Lord uses men as instruments as they are available, through whom He communicates, just as an author when writing makes use of whatever pen, paper, or ink he may be able to obtain to produce his work. Some of the brethren did not fully realize that divine revelation is independent from university study, and they were wavering in their faith. In answer to this inquiry, the Lord issued a challenge:

Now, seek ye out of the Book of Commandments, even the least that is among them, and appoint him that is the most wise among you;
Or, if there be any among you that shall make one like unto it, then ye are justified in saying that ye do not know that they are true;
But if ye cannot make one like unto it, ye are under condemnation if ye do not bear record that they are true. [D&C 67:6–8]

William E. McLellin accepted the offer and undertook to initiate the revelations of the Lord. His efforts to produce a revelation were witnessed with great interest by the elders assembled, and when they were aware of his complete failure, all doubts concerning the revelations of God vanished. They were then willing to testify to the truth and signed a document containing their testimonies and witnesses to the truthfulness of the book.

More than 2,500 Mexican Latter-day Saints gathered on 25 June 1989 for the creation of the Tecalco Mexico Stake, about thirty miles south of Mexico City. It was the one-hundredth stake organized in that country. Among the members of the new stake was Fidencia García de Rojas—at age 106 the oldest Church member in Mexico. The Church in Mexico had passed yet another historic milestone during the eighty-eight years that Fidencia had been a member.
When Sister Fidencia died a month and a half later, President Felipe Hernández Luis of the Tecalco stake commented that those attending the funeral were part of another historic moment—the death of a Mexican pioneer.
Sister Fidencia began attending Latter-day Saint church meetings sometime between 1889 and 1901. During that period, the Church had closed the Mexican Mission. As a result, Church leaders in Mexico had little direction from Church headquarters, and many units deviated from standard doctrines and practices. During this time, Sister Fidencia and her family—not yet members of the Church—attended the Tecalco Branch.
When President Ammon M. Tenney came to Tecalco in 1901 to reestablish the branch after the mission reopened, the leader of the branch, Julian Rojas, was initially unwilling to relinquish control. Brother Rojas finally relented, and President Tenney rebaptized him and seventy-five others on August 18. One month later, President Tenney baptized Fidencia, her parents, and her grandparents. From that day on, Sister Fidencia dedicated her life to serving the Lord.
She recalled that after the Tecalco Branch was again in contact with Church headquarters, people began joining the Church. The first full-time missionaries soon arrived, and Fidencia’s parents built an extra room onto their house for the missionaries to live in. As membership grew, Sister Fidencia was among the group of members and missionaries who worked hard to buy a building lot for a Latter-day Saint chapel. She also helped missionaries in nearby Ozumba with their room, clothes, and food, and she worked at the Mexican mission home.
During her time at the mission home, the American missionaries taught Sister Fidencia to sing hymns in Spanish and English. She later joined the legendary Tecalco Choir and sang with the choir until just a few years before her death.
In 1910, Mexico entered a civil war that lasted, off and on, through the 1930s. In August 1913, American missionaries had to leave the country, and Mexican leaders were once again left to themselves. But the Church was well established by then, and the civil war did not seriously impede Mexican Saints from administering the Church. They did so for more than four years.
Sister Fidencia witnessed an even greater disruption of the Church in Mexico in 1936, when a large body of members known as the Third Convention broke away from the main body of Mexican Saints.
By 1942, however, Arwell L. Pierce, newly called president of the Mexican Mission, had begun working to resolve misunderstandings. And in 1946, President George Albert Smith, eighth President of the Church, presided over a reunification conference in Mexico City. During the conference, more than twelve hundred Third Conventionists returned to the Church. Sister Fidencia attended the conference and visited with President Smith in her home. Hers was the first home President Smith visited when the traveled to Tecalco.
Other milestones for the Church in Mexico began to occur more rapidly as Sister Fidencia grew older. Together with family and other Church members, she made several trips to the Arizona Temple over the years to do temple work for herself and her family. In 1972 she attended the Mexico City area conference. And in 1983 she attended the dedication of the Mexico City Temple. During these years she remained dedicated to her family, to missionary work, and to her Church callings, two of which were particularly important to her.
As a Primary teacher, Sister Fidencia loved to teach children the gospel through stories, especially Old Testament stories. She gave her students a love of the scriptures, which she read daily. And she often recited from memory facts and stories from the lives of all of the latter-day prophets. She taught many of her own grandchildren in that calling.
As a visiting teacher, Sister Fidencia completed forty consecutive years of 100-percent visiting teaching. In February 1978, she received commendation for this accomplishment from Relief Society and mission leaders, who expressed appreciation for her service and compassion.
Sister Fidencia’s posterity remembers her for an even greater accomplishment: bringing five generations of their family into the Church. She and her first husband, Aniceto Rojas, the son of Julian Rojas of the early Tecalco Branch, had six children, two of whom survived to have children and grandchildren of their own. She and her second husband, Manuel Rosas, had three children.
Sister Fidencia survived both of her husbands and lived to see many grandchildren and great-grandchildren serve missions. Many of her descendants have served and continue to serve faithfully as leaders among the Mexican Saints.
To her family, the most precious gift Grandmother Fidencia left was the gospel of Jesus Christ. For her fellow Saints, Sister Fidencia’s many years of humble service left a legacy that spanned almost an entire century—a century during which Church members in Mexico struggled, overcame, and finally flourished.

Since 1999, I have been privileged to participate in 4 Hosanna Shouts through broadcasts. Three were for temples: Winter Quarters, Palmyra, and Nauvoo. Those were special occasions which I shall not soon forget. The Spirit was strong--and unique--at each dedicatory service. And to stand in chapels with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Saints to give the Shout was, wow, tremendous.
But I would like to bring to remembrance the fourth time: the day the Hosanna Shout was given for the new Conference Center. Some of you may have been at the Conference Center that day. I was not. I was watching that session of General Conference at the home of a friend. It surprised us that a Hosanna Shout would be done on network television, and you may recall how the Prophet asked the media to treat the event with dignity and respect.
Lidia and I stood in her living room and participated in that joyous event. I remember that the camera panned out across the 20,000 Saints gathered in the Conference Center, and that was certainly impressive. But my thoughts were turned to the many thousands of homes around the country--around the world--where one or two, or even a half-dozen, faithful Saints were standing in front of their television sets to given the Hosanna Shout. They, too, were a part of the congregation of Israel. About then the tears started flowing. I was wanting to shout with my whole soul, and there I was--overcome by the Spirit, eyes watering and voice croaking.

“I never asked God for anything that He didn’t then give me,” my wife, Deborah, said. This statement still astonishes me even though I was with her throughout its fulfillment. And it probably astonishes all those who know of Deborah’s seven-year struggle with systemic lupus, her two-year fight with breast cancer, and her eventual death on September 19, 1990. But those who are amazed and astonished may not understand priesthood blessings or their fulfillment. It was with difficulty that I learned for myself what it means to hold the priesthood and to exercise it to bless others.
Although my parents were both active in the Church and faithful to its precepts, I don’t remember the priesthood being a specific spiritual influence in my childhood. I don’t recall being sick enough to need a blessing and have no memory of priesthood blessings administered to others in my family.
This lack of emphasis on priesthood blessings carried over into my own family when I married and my wife and I had children. I gave priesthood blessings if someone was seriously ill or was having an operation. I also gave my wife a few blessings for emotional help, but those occasions were rare.
Giving a blessing was always a positive experience for me. But a lack of understanding and a shortage of self-confidence limited my exercise of this priesthood function. I struggled to know the words to say, unsure if what came into my mind was really what God wanted.
This situation changed little when my wife discovered she was suffering from systemic lupus. Those years of battling a disease of exhaustion and discomfort were aided by only occasional priesthood blessings. My wife was aware of my uneasiness about giving blessings and seldom asked for the additional spiritual help she may have desired.
In March 1989, when the doctor announced that my wife had cancer, our lives were altered. Because of the exotic nature of her cancer, it had eluded physicians for two years. By the time it was finally diagnosed, it had spread and her chance for recovery had significantly diminished. Knowing we were in a struggle we could not win on our own, we further opened our lives to spiritual help. Our ward fasted for Deborah, and we gratefully accepted the care of the Relief Society. Her battle became one fought by many. A friend who had endured the same chemotherapy my wife was about to receive confided that during the most difficult periods of the treatment, he had requested and received priesthood blessings. He advised us to do the same—to seek spiritual help in order to tolerate the effects of the treatments.
The chemotherapy was difficult. My wife experienced all the expected reactions. She was sick for several days after a treatment. She spent most days in bed, and eating was a chore. But little by little we learned how to confront each challenge as well as possible.
During this difficult period, my wife, as our friend had advised, called on me for priesthood blessings. I gave her a blessing to help ease the anxiety she experienced the first week of chemo. Through a priesthood blessing, the fear accompanying an operation—though not completely eliminated—decreased. Long periods of vomiting stopped and sleep replaced restless nights as I laid my hands on her head and blessed her. These blessings gave us promises of help and comfort, intermingled with glimpses of the future. They filled us with warmth and joy.
I wish I could say that giving blessings became easier for me then, but I can’t. I gave the requested blessings, but my difficulty in exercising the priesthood persisted. I never mentioned my discomfort to my wife, but she could sense my reluctance. However, these were difficult trials, and she knew she was entitled to help and I was the conduit through which she could receive it. So when she needed help, she asked.
Before giving any blessing, I knew what I wanted to bless her with: I wanted more than anything to bless her to be healed. And she wanted that too. But that blessing never came. What did come were blessings of comfort, which didn’t take the trial away but made it easier to bear.
Slowly I began to understand better how the priesthood and priesthood blessings work. Giving blessings wasn’t a tool to get what I wanted but rather a way to receive needed help. I learned to trust in the Lord and His will instead of what I thought needed to be done. I gained confidence that the words that came to my mind were indeed the words God wanted me to say. And while giving blessings has never become easy for me, I have learned to trust in the feelings I have while giving blessings.
After Deborah completed her treatments, we began the difficult phase of waiting to see if the drugs had been effective. We enjoyed this time free of doctor’s appointments, tests, and treatments. However, in the back of our minds was the fear that some cancer had been able to survive the onslaught of the poisonous anticancer drugs and was reestablishing itself.
Little by little, small physical signs convinced us of our greatest fear: the treatments had not been successful. The doctors were upbeat, but we knew it was a matter of time.
The last six months of Deborah’s life were incredibly calm. After one last procedure failed, we decided to discontinue the treatments and to go home and enjoy what time was left. Some may not believe that it was a wonderful few months, but it was the best time of my life.
During this period some concerned friends and family suggested that we needed to be more assertive with the Lord in our battle to save her life. They told me that I had the priesthood and should use it to cure her. Though I understood their feelings, these friends didn’t understand what was happening. There was nothing I wanted more than to promise Deborah life, but those words never came while I was giving her a blessing. There was little she would have desired more than to have a blessing of health, but she never felt she should ask. We both believed in miracles but also recognized our limited perspective on an experience that fits into an eternal plan.
What did happen was a greater miracle. In the blessings, she was never promised life but was given the indisputable assurance that what was happening was God’s will. She was not promised ease but was given help to endure the difficult times. She was not allowed to stay and raise our children but was assured of eternal bonds. She passed away with only limited pain and discomfort, with her family at her side.
I know that God does exist and deeply cares for us. He provides us with comfort and assistance when we need strength and understanding. Though life is difficult, the Lord has promised to help us through our trials, and one way help comes is through priesthood blessings. Knowing this, my wife was able to say, “I never asked God for anything that He didn’t then give me.”

In the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, Denmark, the original Christus statue is on display. The Christus shows our Savior looking down with His arms open and inviting. It is said that when the Christus was being created that the creator was struggling with how to portray the arms of our Savior and even considered having the arms folded. During this time, he was working with a clay model of the Christus and had the arms of our Savior above His head. He went to bed that night and the clay arms slumped into the position that we now know. When the creator saw the position of the arms, he left them and finished the Christus statue. [18] I testify that the scriptures teach us of the divine attributes of our Savior and Heavenly Father. Thus, when the scriptures state They will encircle us with eternal love, the only way the Christus would be correct is to have our Savior’s arms outstretched and inviting, because folded or held above the head would not allow Him to encircle us in His loving arms. I see the Christus as our Savior inviting all of us to come unto Him and be encircled in His loving arms of peace and safety.

Allow me to illustrate with a personal experience. When I was a young child, I was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Perhaps many of you are also converts and can identify with my story. Our family lived in a small trailer. A neighbor family, the Kimballs, belonged to the local LDS ward.

The mother of that household, Betty Kimball, invited my younger sister and me to attend Primary with her two daughters. My mother granted permission. For more than a year, we attended Primary at the chapel in a nearby town, Valpariso, Florida. Betty Kimball always drove us there and brought us home. Betty Kimball reached out. It proved to be an unexpected benefit in my life. We moved away from that area and so did the Kimballs. We lost contact.

More than fifteen years later, when some members encouraged me to listen to the missionaries, I knew something of what they spoke. Betty Kimball's kindness to reach out to the poor and needy-a nonmember child-had prepared me.

We are encouraged to warn our neighbor. [D&C 88:81] A testimony of the gospel should not be offensive in its delivery, but should be delivered in a kind and loving manner. What could be more tender than taking a child to Primary?

In 1992 two sister missionaries in Zagreb, Croatia, were returning to their apartment one evening. Their last teaching appointment had been some distance away, and it was getting dark. Several men on the trolley made crude comments and became rather menacing. Feeling threatened, the sisters got off the trolley at the next stop just as the doors closed so no one could follow them. Having avoided that problem, they realized they were in a place unknown to either of them. As they turned to look for help, they saw a woman. The missionaries explained that they were lost and asked the woman if she could direct them. She knew where they could find another trolley to take them home and invited them to follow her. On the way they had to pass a bar with patrons sitting along the sidewalk in the gathering darkness. These men also appeared threatening. Nevertheless, the two young women had the distinct impression that the men could not see them. They walked by, apparently invisible to those who might have had a mind to harm them. When the sisters and their guide reached the stop, the trolley they needed was just arriving. They turned to thank the woman, but she was nowhere to be seen.
These missionaries were furnished a guide and other blessings to protect them physically. As you become converted, you will have comparable protections to keep you from temptation and deliver you from evil. Sometimes evil will not find you. Sometimes you will be protected when evil is made invisible to you. Even when you must confront it directly, you will do so with faith, not fear.

When my husband announced to his mother that he was going to marry me, a rather tall blonde, she replied, “She’s a lovely girl, but isn’t she a little short?”
We have laughed about that since. I suppose there had to be some shortcomings in a girl who was to take over the number-one spot in her son’s life—he with the straight A’s and straightened teeth. She had sacrificed for him by selling her cows and their cream, her sheep and their shearing, to put him through medical school—and he had turned out to be her idea of an ideal man.
But, luckily for me, she didn’t require that he marry an ideal girl. She accepted me and loved me immediately and unconditionally for everything I was—and for some things I wasn’t. That’s why I lovingly referred to her not as my “mother-in-law,” but as my “mother-in-love.”

My great-grandparents buried a child on the trail from Far West, when they were driven to Nauvoo, and another at Winter Quarters, when they were driven west.

Another great-grandmother, a teenager, was pushing a handcart along the south banks of the Platte River. They sang:
We’ll find the place which God for us prepared,
Far away in the West,
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the Saints will be blessed.

Across the river they could see the sun glinting on the weapons of the soldiers of the army.

In St. Louis my great-grandmother bought a little enameled pin of the American flag. She wore it on her dress for the rest of her life.

Recently, I went through something really hard. My father and mother are separated, and my mother works abroad. I grew up with my grandmother—she’s the one who introduced me to the gospel and the Church. But this year, she passed away unexpectedly.
She was the last person I ever thought would die. Sometimes I thought I would die before her because she was so healthy! She never showed weakness and was always strong in front of me. I never imagined my life without her.
After she passed away, I sometimes wished I could die too. I had thoughts about ending my own life. But soon I went to a stake youth activity where we had a lesson about the plan of salvation.
I knew about the plan of salvation, but maybe my understanding of it was a bit clouded because of what happened to my grandmother. As I listened, I thought, “I’ve forgotten the blessings of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for me.”
I realized that Jesus Christ died to save me. I shouldn’t end my life because of troubles I am having. The plan of happiness gives me hope that I can see my grandmother again someday, because life doesn’t end when we die. I need to keep following the Savior so I can see her again.
Understanding the plan of salvation, especially the Savior’s Atonement, helped me overcome my thoughts of suicide. It helps me feel peace in living. It gives me hope that I can meet my grandmother on the other side of the veil again someday.

After I was asked to give this devotional, I thought back to when I was a university student. I didn’t go to BYU. I attended the rival university up north near where I grew up, and I was studying to be a teacher. I was living at home and commuting to campus, which meant that sometimes I rode the bus. At the time, I was not going to church regularly. My parents didn’t attend. My mother, who grew up in Norway, wasn’t a member, and my father had not gone to church since he had returned from World War II. But I had gone to Primary as a child, and those Primary songs had made a lasting impression. As I grew into adulthood, I returned to church.

One particular day as I was sitting in the back of an almost empty bus, something very unusual happened. I felt as if someone tapped me on the shoulder and forcefully said, “Go on a mission!”

My first thought was “What?” and then, “I can’t go on a mission!”

The thought had never entered my mind. Back then, young women did not often serve missions, and taking time off from my education had not occurred to me. My nonmember mother was not happy about the idea. There were four children in our family, and when most of us eventually served missions, she would grumble to her friends, “I tell them not to go, but they rebel.”

I did follow that prompting, and I was called to serve in Taiwan, which meant that I needed to learn Mandarin Chinese. I had heard that missionaries were able to miraculously learn languages because they received the gift of tongues, so I wasn’t very worried, but I had no idea how much time and effort would be required to make that gift of tongues manifest.

After I arrived in Taiwan, I felt that I was in a strange, foreign place where I couldn’t understand anyone and they couldn’t understand me. I wondered if I would ever become an effective missionary. How would I communicate with the people of Taiwan if I couldn’t learn the language?

Over time I became despondent and depressed. To keep my spirits up, I remember singing Primary songs and hymns to myself whenever I rode my bike to appointments. I worked hard, kept the commandments, and tried my best, but not much happened. As time went on, I became more and more disheartened. I thought about my experience on the bus and wondered if someone had made a mistake sending me to Taiwan.

After I had been serving for about six months, the mission was split, and I was called to be a senior companion. I couldn’t believe that this had happened! Up to that point, my senior companion was doing almost all the talking and teaching. I was too afraid to say much, even after I had memorized many discussions, which was what missionaries did back then.

After I became a senior companion, I had to speak up and actually use my language to communicate, and this meant that I made many mistakes. But as I actively used the language to talk with people, it slowly began to stick. Little by little, as I did my part and Heavenly Father did His part, I began to understand people, and they began to understand me. I felt God working through me despite my weaknesses and mistakes because the work needed to get done and my junior companion and I were all He had at that moment in that small town in Taiwan.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell has said, “‘Mighty’ changing . . . is mighty hard work”2—and I could add that it can take a mighty long time. I didn’t expect my mission experience to be so hard. I didn’t expect the discouragement. I didn’t expect the feelings of incompetence. I expected a pillar of light and an instant gift of tongues; instead, I got many small rays over time.

My mother ended up becoming my greatest supporter, despite her opposition to my mission. She wrote every week and shared her experiences of moving to America as a young woman and eventually learning English in spite of being very homesick and discouraged. She told me that my consistent efforts to use Chinese would eventually pay off. I don’t know what I would have done without my mother’s encouragement.

Peter, a young priest, wrote of an experience that taught him that priesthood power is very real. A young convert in his ward in Ontario, Canada, was sustained as a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, and Peter was asked to be the “voice” in the ordination. Peter wrote, “I had never laid my hands on anybody’s head before, and I felt so inadequate. But then the Spirit reassured me that it would be fine for me to do it. …

“The young man to be ordained sat down in the chair, and I stood directly behind him. [Our Young Men president] guided me through the ordinance prayer and I repeated every word he said. After we had finished the ordination and said, ‘… and we wish to pronounce a blessing on your head at this time …’ [the Young Men president] looked at me and indicated that I was on my own.

“At that point, the priesthood entirely changed its meaning for me. It was no longer just a title, but the actual authority to act in God’s name, and I was giving that authority to someone else. I paused and waited for the Spirit to whisper to me what I was to say. It is difficult for me to describe the feelings I had that day during the blessing, but I can say that I now have a stronger testimony that the power of the priesthood is real.”

One day a fisherman named Kupe, his friend Ngahue, and their families set out in large canoes from a land called Hawaiki. One legend says they were following a giant octopus that had been stealing their fishing bait. After sailing into unknown waters for many weeks, Kupe’s wife sighted what appeared to be a long, low white cloud. She called, “He ao! He ao!” (“A cloud! A cloud!”) Kupe called the land they were nearing Aotearoa, which means Land of the Long White Cloud.
This is the Maori legend of how the Polynesian people first discovered New Zealand about A.D. 900. Kupe and his companions did not remain in Aotearoa, but returned to Hawaiki to tell of their discovery.

When I returned to the Czech Republic from Utah, I was the only member of the Church not just in my town, Chrastava (population 8,000), but also in Liberec (population 120,000), a city about six miles (10 km) from Chrastava. I worked as a hotel receptionist and taught English in a private high school. I was desperately seeking to find my new place at home. I was close to giving up. Nevertheless, I continued to kneel every night and pray for a miracle that would bring me out of my despair. I also tried really hard to stay away from my old habits and friends.
Finally my prayers were answered. The missionaries came to Liberec, where I was teaching. (I later learned that Brother Hodson had contacted the mission president for the Czech Republic and told him about me. Now there is a growing branch of about 40 Latter-day Saints in my hometown.)