Gospel Story Finder

An eternal family. My family members and I are converts. My dad was baptized in 2000, and he had attended several temple preparation classes but was reluctant to go through the temple. Then my family accepted President Hinckley’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon, and I truly believe it prepared us spiritually so we would be able to receive the blessings of the temple. In October, a high councilor firmly but happily told my dad he needed to set a date to receive his endowment and to be sealed as a family. My dad agreed, and from then on everything fell into place. My dad went to the temple in late October, and we were sealed on November 19. We had been waiting years to enter the temple, but as we diligently read the Book of Mormon, the Lord prepared a way for us to enter His house and be sealed for eternity. Danielle Crane, Sandy, Utah, USA

“Wider, please.”
Lane was reluctant to show the tartar on his teeth to the cute, new dental assistant, but he had no choice. She pulled the overhead light closer. He admired her green eyes, all he could see of her face. The rest was hidden behind the surgical mask. He watched her gloved fingers juggle the little dental pick and mirror as she scraped at his teeth.
Lane was relieved to see that Rhonda, the regular assistant who had worked there for years, was not there. She was an older woman who had always been very nice to him, but she had a horrible case of dandruff and he could see the flakes all too clearly whenever she bent her head over his open mouth.
“You must be new,” he managed to say to the assistant. It was obvious, but it was all he could think of to say. “I’ve been coming to Dr. Hodges since I was a little boy, and I’ve never seen you here.”
“Mmmm,” she said, concentrating. “Just moved here. How often do you floss?”
“Uh, well, maybe a few times a month. I kind of forget to do it every day,” he admitted. Now he regretted being so lax with his flossing. He was probably not making a very good impression. He would have to hurry to change that. Once Dr. Hodges injected the anesthetic, his mouth would go numb. It would be impossible to impress her with a lopsided smile and garbled speech. He wondered how he could let her know that he had made the winning basket last year in the high school playoffs without seeming arrogant.
He missed his chance. The assistant squirted his mouth and suctioned the water out, dabbed his face with the paper bib pinned around his neck, then left. He heard his little brother Evan talking to her from the cubicle next to his. Evan would talk her leg off. Dad had predicted that Evan would grow up to be either a police negotiator or an auctioneer.
“Hey, my brother has to get his teeth fixed, and he already had a whole bunch of shots. I don’t think he cried. He’s getting a short haircut, and my mom and dad bought him a bunch of suits and ties.”
“Wow,” was all the assistant said, in a dull-sounding tone. She told Evan, “I’m putting some of this cleaning stuff on your teeth. It’s a little gritty, like sand, but it tastes like cherries. I’ll use this little tool and scrub your teeth with it, okay?”
“Oh, that’s like the cleanser I use on the bathtub on Saturday when I do my Saturday jobs. Except it tastes better.” There was a pause, and then Evan said, “Not that I ever ate cleanser. Yuck!”
It was quiet while the assistant scrubbed his teeth, but as soon as Evan’s mouth was free, Lane could hear him talking again.
Dr. Hodges came in. For a moment, Lane was distracted while the dentist examined his teeth and got ready to give him the anesthetic.
Lane could hear Evan as he continued to talk. “I’m getting baptized next Saturday. I’m eight, so I’m old enough because I mostly know how to tell right from wrong. Baptisms are in a big font like a warm swimming pool. I guess it’s like a bath for my spirit. Hey, you can come if you want. It’s at seven on Saturday night at Westbrook chapel, just a couple blocks from my house.”
Lane was thinking, Come up for air, buddy, even as his eyes squinted in pain as Dr. Hodges nestled the needle into the back of his mouth.
Evan kept talking. “My brother’s going on a mission. It’s for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some people call us Mormons because we have the Book of Mormon. It’s kind of like the Bible, but we read the Bible, too. Anyway, my brother will go to Argentina and baptize people there after he teaches them about the gospel. They put on white clothes and go under the water too. Nobody drowns,” he added.
Then Evan said, “He’ll be gone a long time. Two whole years. And nobody pays him. He usually doesn’t do things for free.” Lane could hear a smile in Evan’s voice when he said, “And I get his room.”
Dr. Hodges chuckled and said, “Your little brother’s quite a talker.” All Lane could say, with his mouth full of anesthetic, was, “Tell me about it.”
In the next cubicle, the assistant said, “Evan, we’re all done. If you want, you can wait for your brother here.”
“Okay,” Evan answered cheerfully. “I brought my Friend with me. Do you get the Friend?” Without waiting for her to answer, he continued, “I don’t think the dentist gets it because I didn’t see it with the magazines in the waiting room.”
Lane didn’t think the assistant understood Evan because she said, “Your friend, huh? What’s his name?”
Evan patiently explained, “No, the Friend isn’t a person; it’s a magazine for kids about my church. There are magazines for big people, too. You can look at mine and see what’s in it. There are stories and games. I was trying to find all the stuff hidden in this picture.”
Lane could hear the assistant putting instruments away and moving around in the cubicle. Lane’s attention quickly became focused on his own mouth as Dr. Hodges carefully drilled out his cavities and applied the fillings.
Evan was still talking. “My brother is going to explain about the Church on his mission to people like you who don’t know about it. You’d really like it. We learn about Jesus and how to be like him. I have my own Book of Mormon, but my grandma will give me a brand-new one with gold on the edges and my name on it when I get baptized. I think the dentist needs one in his waiting room. He can have my old one. I brought it to read the part about Jesus coming to America. My dad marked the place for me.”
Finally, the appointment was over. Lane tried one last time to talk to the assistant. “Sorry about my little brother,” he said, flashing his clean teeth in what he hoped was a brilliant smile, though he could feel only half his mouth curve upward. “He’s really a chatterbox.”
“No problem,” the girl said. “I think he’s cute.”
Lane refrained from asking what she thought of Evan’s older brother, though he was tempted. He hoped she thought he was cute, too.
She said, “Going to Argentina, huh?”
“Yes,” Lane said, quickly adding, “I’ll only be gone for two years. Do you plan to work here for a while?” She smiled and left to clean more teeth.
Evan picked out a toy dinosaur from the dentist’s treasure chest, then told Dr. Hodges, “I’m leaving you this book for your waiting room.” He held out his Book of Mormon to show him. “It doesn’t cost you anything.”
Dr. Hodges looked puzzled but nodded his consent and then went to attend to a patient.
On the way home, Evan suggested they stop at the store for some candy, but Lane said no. “You want to undo all the work we just had done? That’s how you get cavities! You keep it up and the only thing you’ll be able to eat will be soup.”
They rode in silence for a split second. “Is that how you got all your cavities?” Evan asked.
After the baptism, Evan changed into dry clothes and was talking to his grandpa when he looked to the back of the room and started waving furiously. “Hey! You came!”
Lane was startled to see Dr. Hodges standing near the back. Evan called out, “Hey, he’s my dentist!”
The boys and their parents made their way to Dr. Hodges and told him they were glad to see him. Dr. Hodges smiled at Evan and said, “You were right, Evan. You didn’t drown.”
To Evan’s parents, he said, “I hope you don’t mind my coming. My sister has been writing to me about the Book of Mormon, and she has been talking about getting baptized. Evan invited us to come to his baptism when he was at the office last week, and I wanted to see what your church was about. I’ve known your family for years, and I know you’re good people, but I didn’t realize you were Mormon until Evan brought in his Book of Mormon and told us about your church.”
He spoke to Evan again. “I hope you don’t mind that I took your Book of Mormon home with me. I’ve really enjoyed reading it.”
After they got home, Evan came into Lane’s room, where Lane was packing his suitcase. Lane had been quietly getting ready to go to the Missionary Training Center, thinking about Evan’s baptism. He was feeling ashamed. He had had plenty of opportunities to talk about the Church at the dentist’s office and didn’t. He was too busy hanging onto the last shred of his social life before leaving. He had thought it would be hard to be a missionary because he didn’t know what to say to people. But wasn’t missionary work just getting the word out and being happy about having the gospel, like Evan? It was that simple.
“Hey, buddy,” Lane said, hugging his little brother, “you are one terrific missionary. Think you might fit into my suitcase? I could be your junior companion.”

In the final years of young Brother Uchtdorf’s high level training as a pilot, he was flying solo with an instructor “on his wing” in another aircraft, directing his maneuvers and giving instruction. In one particular maneuver he was to represent an emergency landing by making an abrupt approach to the runway, requiring a sharp, steep embankment of the airplane before leveling out just in time to land. As young Dieter made the maneuver and attempted his steep, angular descent, the steering control of his airplane did not respond. He had, in airplane parlance, a “stuck stick.” The result would be a continuing roll of the airplane, leading to a crash landing upside down. “Bail out!” the instructor called. “Bail out!” But the man with “the courage of a bull,” as one of his Brethren described him, reversed the stick away from the extremity he had put it in and tried again to land. Once again the mechanism froze. “Bail out,” the stern command came again, this time with genuine concern in the instructor’s voice.

Determined that he be in charge of the aircraft, not the other way around, this future Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ wrestled physically with the steering, somehow breaking it free of the earlier resistance, made his sharp descent as prescribed in what was now not an imagined but very real emergency landing, and walked away grateful for divine help in times of need. “Man könnte sich darüber ärgern, aber man ist nicht verpflichtet dazu.” Such will be Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s determined and faithful service to the holy apostleship he now holds. He will give his all for the Lord Jesus Christ, His gospel, and His Church. In doing so he will lead untold legions of others on to new horizons.

My marriage was in crisis, and when the week of Christmas came, my children and I were alone in our home in Los Andes, Chile. It was the hardest week I had ever experienced. We had no money and nothing in the pantry.
I asked myself what kind of Christmas I could give my three young children. They had always had a Christmas dinner and a gift. How could I explain to them that Santa Claus, the old bearded visitor, was not going to come?
The worst of it was that we didn’t have anything to eat. My daughter Michelle went into the kitchen the day of Christmas Eve and couldn’t find anything. I was sitting in the living room thinking about Christmas when she came to me and said, “Why don’t we have a Christmas tree like all the neighbors, and why don’t we have any food?” I had no answer. I was worried, but I also had great faith that our Father in Heaven would not forsake us.
Suddenly I felt strength come into me. I gathered my children together and told them that the dinner and the tree were not necessary. We were going to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we were going to get to know the true spirit of Christmas.
During the day we cleaned our house and left it looking beautiful. In the evening we put on our best clothes and sat down at the table to read the scriptures. My children asked me what we were doing. I replied that this was what Jesus wanted from families, for them to draw near to Him. I explained that other years we had almost always been concerned about the dinner and the gifts; we had forgotten the true meaning of the day. They were content.
While we were finishing our scripture reading, someone knocked on the door. How surprised we were when the neighbors came in with a beautiful Christmas tree and with gifts for the children. A few minutes later they knocked on our door again with all kinds of food. They kept knocking on our door all that night.
My children are grown now, but they have never forgotten the miracle that took place in our hearts that Christmas.

When Michael was in junior high, his father, Calvin, suggested that he get involved in a sport. He wasn’t tall enough for basketball or big enough for football. He went out for track. “I wasn’t very good at it,” said Michael, “but I stuck with it because I thought it’d get better the next year.”
There’s the first clue. Stick with it.
Calvin would watch his son run. The only advice Michael remembers his dad giving was, “Pay attention to what your coach says, and work hard.”
Another clue. Listen to those who know best. And work hard.
It paid off. Michael became the second best man in the distances on the cross-country team. His best friend, Darrin, could always beat him.
Next clue. After you do the best you can, support those ahead of you.
At the end of his sophomore year, Michael decided to get involved in school government. He ran for junior class council. Yvonne, Michael’s mother, said, “He didn’t even tell us he was running. He just did it.”
The next year, Michael ran for student-body president even though someone else seemed more likely to win. He ran and was elected.
One more clue. Try, you never know what you can do until you try.
Throughout his school years, Michael had friends from different groups and with different interests. But there were certain things that Michael had decided and those decisions never changed. He was determined to never miss seminary. Even when he came back from a track meet late, he was there.
And he never let his friends influence him into breaking the commandments. How did his friends react? Michael said, “They sort of understand. They say, ‘This is Michael, and this is the Church he belongs to. And this is what he does.’”
Another point for our list. Stick to your standards.
After graduation Michael knew he wanted to prepare for his mission. His birthday was in December, so he decided to stay home from college and work to earn money for his mission. His dad helped Michael get a job with him working with a tugboat company. As the rookie, Michael got all the jobs no one else wanted—cleaning up, painting, picking up supplies.
Two more things Michael learned. Sometimes you have to put up with jobs you don’t like to earn the goal you do want—going on a mission. And as a bonus, Michael learned to take righteous pride in the kind of man his father is. Michael said, “Working around tugboats is a rough environment. There’s a lot of bad language. But Dad’s not different at work than he is at home. He always lives what he believes.”
Michael has followed the advice of his parents and his Church leaders and made some good choices. He gets a chance to help his younger sisters, Joleane and Elizabeth, and brother, Daniel, with the choices they are making. “He gives us advice,” said Elizabeth. “He tells us what movies to go to. He’s always been that way, telling us what we should do.”
Now Michael is serving his mission in Ukraine. He’ll be going places where they have never heard of the Church. How will he do? Michael knows how to stick with it, work hard, listen to those who know best, try, and keep his standards, which are now mission rules.
Cal Higgins had one more word of advice for his son before he left home—“Finish the race.”
And that’s the last piece of the puzzle. The scriptures phrase it a little differently, but the meaning is the same: Endure to the end. That’s the key to many of Michael’s accomplishments. After working and trying, listening and learning, then finish the race.

The panel discussions had everyone’s interest. All the participants were given slips of paper. They could write any question they wanted discussed without a name attached. They put all the questions into a hat and then the stake president, several bishops, and Young Women leaders would attempt to answer the questions as they were drawn at random. The panel did reserve the right to refer the question to someone more knowledgeable or simply not answer.
“All the questions were interesting,” said Jaran Rosaker, Oslo Third Ward. His friend, Tarjei Gylseth agreed, “And they gave good answers as well.”

I know from my own life that Eliza’s experience can be our own long after we leave childhood. In the early years of my career, I worked hard to secure a tenured professorship at Stanford University. I thought I had made a good life for myself and for my family. We lived close to my wife’s parents in very comfortable surroundings. By the world’s standards, I had achieved success. But I was given by the Church the chance to leave California and go to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. My lifetime professional objectives might have been a pavilion dividing me from a loving Father who knew better than I did what my future could hold. But I was blessed to know that whatever success I had in my career and family life to that point was a gift from God. And so, like a child, I knelt in prayer to ask what I should do. I was able to hear a quiet voice in my mind that said, “It’s my school.” There was no pavilion shielding me from God. In faith and humility, I submitted my will to His and felt His care and closeness.

As I neared the end of my missionary service in the Guatemala-El Salvador mission, my last area was in Santa Ana, El Salvador. The branch where I was serving was presided over by a humble and faithful man who was a tailor by trade. He and his wife earned a living by making dresses, pants, and suits. They spent their days using foot-powered, pedal sewing machines. Electric sewing machines were just too expensive – and I assure you when I was a missionary it was well after the discovery of electricity!

At the time, the closest temple was in Mesa, Arizona and each year the mission organized a bus trip so members could come to the temple – anticipating this was to be an once-in-a-lifetime experience. They came at great personal sacrifice. It would take years for them to save enough to make the trip. They traveled by bus day and night for five or six days to arrive in Mesa. They would spend four or five days in the temple – working day and night, doing as much temple work as they could. Then they would get back on the bus for five or six more days back to their homes.

One day we were visiting with the branch president. He told us he had nearly enough to bring his wife and small family – it seems to me he had 3 or 4 children – to the temple on the upcoming trip. He said, “I am very close to having all the money I need for the trip, and I will sell my sewing machines, if necessary to have enough.” I said, President, if you sell your sewing machines you’ll have no way to earn a living when you return. What will you do?” With faith and a smile, he said, “I will gladly sell my sewing machines and then I will find other ways to support my family when we return. I know the Lord will bless us if we make the sacrifice.”

I concluded my mission about two weeks before the annual temple trip. I traveled to Mesa and stayed with a friend from the mission and we were at a multistake center near the temple when these wonderful saints from Central America arrived. One by one we greeted them as they got off the bus. Finally, we saw this humble branch president, a smile filling his face, step off the bus with his wife and his children. He had saved enough – because he had sold every one his sewing machines to make the trip. Truly, this was a family who understood the importance of temple blessings and had their tent turned towards the temple.

My best friend was born outside in the streets. Her mother was only 14. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she conceived her first child at the age of 13, making her mother a grandmother at age 27. She had her third child by the age of 19. After leaving her third boyfriend, she moved in with her mother, adding her three children to her mother’s six. My friend had the responsibility for nine children under the age of seven before she reached her twentieth birthday. As I looked at my friend’s life, I realized that I wanted something better for myself. I wanted a home and a family. I knew I had to leave the ghetto.

President Nathan Eldon Tanner told us a story in the temple one day. He was just a young lad, and his father left him to tend their cow. He did not come from a wealthy family, and the cow was the most prized possession they had. It gave them sustenance and food. Father Tanner was going into town and asked Nathan Eldon if he’d take care of the cow. Nathan Eldon had all of his friends over and they proceeded to have a rodeo. They rode that cow and kicked it (I can see smiles on the faces of many young men from Idaho.) Fortunately, his father came back early. There’d been no time to milk the cow, time for the second milking was approaching, and things were getting serious for that animal. Father didn’t yell at Nathan Eldon; he didn’t strike him, but sat him on a fencepost and said, “Nathan Eldon, remember who you are. You’re a Tanner.” He then proceeded to give him a little bit of his heritage and told him what he expected of him and reminded him that he was a priesthood holder. Then he told the boy what President Tanner repeatedly tells us, “Remember who you are and act accordingly.”

The other account I will share—which most will also likely find amusing—occurred while he was serving as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. Although usually a strength, his dogged determination and almost complete focus on his work was also a cause for worry on occasion not only for his family but also for the top leadership of the Church. Let me again return to the account recorded by John Talmage:

In later years, James’ long hours of work, unrelieved by periods of recreation, were cause for real concern among family, friends, and associates. President Heber J. Grant [the president of the Church], for one, repeatedly urged Dr. Talmage to take up some form of sport, if only for its therapeutic value. Himself an enthusiastic golfer, President Grant tried to get his friend to try that sport, confident (as are all golfers) that if anyone were once thoroughly exposed to golf he would be captivated by its subtle but powerful attractions.

As President Grant’s urgings increased in frequency and intensity, so did Dr. Talmage’s demurrers on the grounds of lack of interest and lack of ability to master a complicated skill so late in life. President Grant was certain the skill could be mastered and that interest would automatically follow. Finally a compromise was reached, and a test agreed upon: James would give the game of golf an honest trial, and work at it until he was able to hit a drive which President Grant would rate as satisfactory, “a real golf shot.”

“If you hit just one really good drive, nature will do the rest,” President Grant assured his pupil-to-be. “You won’t be able to resist the game after that.”

It was agreed that James would make his own choice after he had acquired the skill to hit the specified shot. If he felt the fascination of the game, as President Grant was certain he would, he would take up golf and play with reasonable regularity. If, after giving the game a fair trial, James still felt no interest, President Grant would cease his efforts to get Dr. Talmage to play.

On an appointed day, the two, accompanied by a number of others of the General Authorities who played golf and who had joined the friendly argument on the side of President Grant, proceeded to Nibley Park for James’ first session in what was expected to be a series of lessons.

James removed his coat and was shown how to grip the club and take his stance at the ball. The coordinated movements involved in making a golf stroke were carefully explained and then demonstrated by President Grant and by others. Finally it came James’ turn to try it himself.

What followed astonished all those who watched, and probably James himself. Instead of missing the ball completely, or weakly pushing it a few feet along the grass, James somehow managed to strike the ball cleanly and with substantial force. It took off in a fine arc and with only a minimum amount of slice. Some who saw it described it later as “a truly magnificent drive,” which was probably a considerable exaggeration. However, there was consensus that the ball went close to 200 yards and stayed in the fairway. It was a drive that would have gladdened the heart of any golfer short of the expert class, and it bordered on the phenomenal for a novice.

The spectators were momentarily struck dumb, then burst into enthusiastic applause.

“Congratulations,” said President Grant, rushing forward, beaming, with outstretched hand. “That was a fine shot you will remember for the rest of your life.”

“You mean that was a fully satisfactory golf shot?” James asked, cautiously.

“It certainly was!” said President Grant.

“Then I have fulfilled my part of the agreement?”

“You have—and don’t you feel the thrill of excitement? Now you’ll be playing regularly. As a matter of fact, we can go into the clubhouse now and I will help you select a set of clubs.”

“Thank you,” said James, putting on his coat. “If I have carried out my part of the agreement, then I shall call on you to live up to yours. You promised that if I hit a satisfactory drive and did not feel the spontaneous desire to play, you would stop urging me to do so. Now I should like to get back to the office, where I have a great deal of work waiting.”

So far as is known, James never again struck a golf ball, or made the attempt. [The Talmage Story, 226–28; emphasis in original]

It is very clear that Brother Talmage was always absolutely supportive and obedient to the prophet on matters of doctrine, principle, and Church practice or procedure, but he did not consider his loyalty to the Brethren to extend to their love of golf!

Brother Talmage was his own man, but he was also a man of impeccable character. He decided to do what he considered was really important and deflected those things of lesser or no priority.

Even though I had been attending a preschool for three years to help me with my speech problems, when I started kindergarten, my family, friends, and schoolteachers still had a hard time understanding what I was saying. My parents were concerned. My family fasted for me, and my dad gave me a priesthood blessing. My speech didn’t improve overnight, but by the middle of the school year my teacher, my family, and my friends could understand me better. Heavenly Father blessed me and the people who worked with me. I could finally bear my testimony. I still have to take speech classes and work hard, but I know Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers.

When I was growing up, each summer from early July until early September, my family stayed at our cabin at Vivian Park in Provo Canyon in Utah.
One of my best friends during those carefree days in the canyon was Danny Larsen, whose family also owned a cabin at Vivian Park. Each day he and I roamed this boy’s paradise, fishing in the stream and the river, collecting rocks and other treasures, hiking, climbing, and simply enjoying each minute of each hour of each day.
One morning Danny and I decided we wanted to have a campfire that evening with all our canyon friends. We just needed to clear an area in a nearby field where we could all gather. The June grass which covered the field had become dry and prickly, making the field unsuitable for our purposes. We began to pull at the tall grass, planning to clear a large, circular area. We tugged and yanked with all our might, but all we could get were small handfuls of the stubborn weeds. We knew this task would take the entire day, and already our energy and enthusiasm were waning.
And then what I thought was the perfect solution came into my eight-year-old mind. I said to Danny, “All we need is to set these weeds on fire. We’ll just burn a circle in the weeds!” He readily agreed, and I ran to our cabin to get a few matches.
Lest any of you think that at the tender age of eight we were permitted to use matches, I want to make it clear that both Danny and I were forbidden to use them without adult supervision. Both of us had been warned repeatedly of the dangers of fire. However, I knew where my family kept the matches, and we needed to clear that field. Without so much as a second thought, I ran to our cabin and grabbed a few matchsticks, making certain no one was watching. I hid them quickly in one of my pockets.
Back to Danny I ran, excited that in my pocket I had the solution to our problem. I recall thinking that the fire would burn only as far as we wanted and then would somehow magically extinguish itself.
I struck a match on a rock and set the parched June grass ablaze. It ignited as though it had been drenched in gasoline. At first Danny and I were thrilled as we watched the weeds disappear, but it soon became apparent that the fire was not about to go out on its own. We panicked as we realized there was nothing we could do to stop it. The menacing flames began to follow the wild grass up the mountainside, endangering the pine trees and everything else in their path.
Finally we had no option but to run for help. Soon all available men and women at Vivian Park were dashing back and forth with wet burlap bags, beating at the flames in an attempt to extinguish them. After several hours the last remaining embers were smothered. The ages-old pine trees had been saved, as were the homes the flames would eventually have reached.
Danny and I learned several difficult but important lessons that day—not the least of which was the importance of obedience.

During my sophomore year in high school, we were studying the Book of Mormon in seminary. After we read Moroni 10:3–5 [Moro. 10:3–5], our seminary teacher challenged us to pray about the things we were studying. I really enjoyed learning about the Book of Mormon, so I took him up on his challenge.
That night I read Moroni’s promise again and got down on my knees to ask my Heavenly Father if this book was really true. I liked the stories, but I just wasn’t sure if the Book of Mormon was true or not.
First I got in tune with the Spirit and started my prayer. At one point in the prayer I asked Heavenly Father if the Book of Mormon was really true. All at once I experienced a strong, loving feeling in my bedroom, and I got warm all over. The next thing that happened really shocked me. It felt like someone wrapped his arms around me and gave me a big hug.
I later served a mission on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the New Mexico Albuquerque Mission. I wouldn’t have gone on a mission if it wasn’t for the answer I received that night. I know the things I prayed about are true, and I want to share that knowledge with others.

That is no way to listen to conference. I have since repented. I have grown to love general conference, I’m sure partly because of my mother’s love for the words of the living prophets. I remember listening to the sessions of a particular conference all alone in an apartment while I was in college. The Holy Ghost witnessed to my soul that Harold B. Lee, the President of the Church at that time, was truly a prophet of God. This happened before I went into the mission field, and I was excited to testify of a living prophet because I had come to know for myself. I have had that same witness about each of the prophets since that time.

In a discussion at a widely known theological seminary in the East, I was asked, “What is the Mormon understanding of God?” I struggled to testify. Then three of the most learned of their teachers, not with acrimony but with candor, said, “Let us explain why we cannot accept this. First of all, you people talk of God in terms that are human—all too human.” (That’s a phrase, incidentally, from Nietzsche.) “But the second problem is worse. You dare to say that man can become like God.” And they held up a hand and said, “Blasphemy.” Well, that hurts a little. I was led to ask two series of questions. (Mind you, I’m telling you the story. I’m not sure they would tell it the same way. I’ve had a chance to improve it in the interim.)

The first was a series of questions about the nature of Christ. “Was he a person?”
“Yes.”
“Did he live in a certain place and time?”
“Yes.”
“Was he embodied?”
“Yes.”
“Was he somewhere between five and seven feet in height?”
“Well, we hadn’t thought of it, but, yes, we suppose he was.”
“Was he resurrected with his physical body?”
“He was.”
“Does he now have that body?”
“Yes.”
“Will he always?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any reason we should not adore and honor and worship him for what he has now become?”
“No,” they said, “he is very God.”
“Yes,” I said, “what then of the Father?”
“Oh no, oh no.” And then they issued a kind of Platonic manifesto—the statement out of the traditional creeds which are, all due honor to them, more Greek than they are Hebrew. “No, no, the Father is ‘immaterial, incorporeal, beyond space, beyond time, unchanging, unembodied, etc.’”

Now, earlier they had berated me because Mormons, as you know, are credited—or blamed—for teaching, not trinitarianism, but tritheism—the idea of three distinct personages. And I couldn’t resist at that point saying, “Who has two Gods? You are the ones who are saying that there are two utterly unlike persons. The religious dilemma is how can I honor the Father and seek to become like him (for even the pronoun ‘him’ is not appropriate) without become unlike the Christ whom you say we can properly adore and worship and honor.” Well, the attack at that point was that I didn’t understand the Trinity. And I acknowledged that was true.

But now the second set of questions: “Why,” I dared to ask—and it’s a question any child can ask—“did God make us at all?” There’s an answer to that in their catechism. Basically, it is that God did so for his own pleasure and by his inscrutable will. Sometimes it is suggested that he did so that he might have creatures to honor and worship him—which, if we are stark in response, is not the most unselfish motive one could conceive. Sometimes it is said that he did so for our happiness. But because of the creeds it is impossible to say that God needed to do so, for God, in their view, is beyond need. And then the bold question I put was “You hold, don’t you, that God has and had all power, all knowledge, all anticipatory wisdom, and that he knew, therefore, exactly what he was about and could have done otherwise?”
“Yes,” they allowed, “he could.”
“Why then, since God could have created cocreators, did he choose to make us creatures? Why did God choose to make us his everlasting inferiors?”
At that point one of them said, “God’s very nature forbids that he should have peers.”
I replied, “That’s interesting. For us God’s very nature requires that he should have peers. Which God is more worthy of our love?”

Many years ago, while living in another part of the country, I became acquainted with a fine Latter-day Saint young man. He was a superior athlete, but he had never attended a cultural event. Living in the same community was a lovely young LDS sister. She spoke French as well as English. She played the violin. She presented herself as a refined daughter of God. One day the American Ballet Theatre came to our town. A group of us decided to attend, including this young man and young woman.

Now and then I glanced at the young man during the ballet. His eyes were riveted on the stage. Windows of new appreciation were opened. After the performance he approached me privately and said, in reference to the refined young sister, “Where have I been all of my life? This is what I want in my home. This is what I want as the mother of my children. Until now I thought only physical appearance mattered.” I gently reminded him that she would likely be drawn to one of refined nature, like herself, and it was time for him to look within.

A call to his high school principal’s office did not mean trouble for Kelter Stenzel Fittipaldi, of the Curitiba Brazil São Lourenço Stake. Kelter did not have the best grades in school, but his principal said he exhibited good behavior and good fellowship. He had been selected to represent his school. He would be going to Chile with the possibility of meeting the president of that country.

Besides the gifts the school had prepared for the Chilean president, Kelter and his mother wrapped a special gift in gold paper for him—a Book of Mormon. But only four out of the fifty high school delegates from various countries would actually get to meet the president. Kelter prayed he would be able to give his gift, and his prayers were answered. He was one of the four. “Of the gifts I presented to the President of Chile, the golden gift was the most precious of all,” he said.

Cesar began looking for the gospel without realizing it. Although he was already active in a church, Cesar became interested in other religions and started taking his first steps toward the restored gospel.
“I would read literature from other churches, and then I would pray to Father in Heaven, saying, ‘If this is the true church, send your servants to me and have them teach me.’”
Cesar started his search, he says, without thinking about the changes it would cause in his life. But not long after Cesar started praying for an answer, one came.
Cesar’s last name is Gaspar. Fortunate for him, his name followed Betty Garcia’s on the alphabetical seating charts for most of his junior high school classes. Since they sat next to each other most of the school day, they became friends, sometimes studying together after school.
“One day she mentioned that she was a member of the Church,” says Cesar. “I got very interested and started asking her what her beliefs were, what her principles were.”
Soon Cesar needed to know more. He followed Betty’s brother home from school one day. After building the courage to knock on the door, Cesar was invited into the house, and Betty and her family talked with him about what it means to be a Latter-day Saint.
But it was another name that gave him the desire to find the Garcia family’s house in the first place.
“When I was first learning about the Church, the thing that impressed me the most was its name. There was something very special to me about the fact that the Church had Jesus Christ in its name. That name has a very spiritual and good feeling.”
Soon Cesar had a copy of the Book of Mormon—compliments of the Garcia family—and lots of questions.
Attending sacrament meeting for the first time was strange for Cesar. It wasn’t anything like the meetings he was accustomed to.
“There was a man carrying the sacrament trays. He was very busy fixing the microphone and saying hello to everyone. There were so many people there that I wondered if they would all fit in the church! It seemed funny that the man fixing the microphone was the bishop.
“It was also a change to be in church for three hours; that seemed like a long time. I still remember that first Sunday School class. We talked about the birth of Jesus Christ, and I asked a lot of questions. After class, Betty’s brother, Isaac, helped me find the missionaries. I didn’t go to priesthood meeting that day; instead, I had my first discussion with the missionaries.”
That discussion led to more discussions during the week. By Thursday, the bishop had interviewed Cesar, and the following Sunday—exactly one week after his first attendance at Sunday meetings—Cesar was baptized.
“It was pretty fast,” Cesar admits, “but by that time I had already read the Book of Mormon. Before meeting the missionaries, I had also read Doctrines of Salvation, Truth Restored, and The Miracle of Forgiveness, and I had started Jesus the Christ. I felt ready.”
That was two years ago. Cesar is the only Church member in his family. It would be easy for him to miss church once in a while or to decide against attending seminary—especially since he almost always has to walk to get there! But he doesn’t even think about that. Instead, he thinks about the people who see what he does.
“I have to be an example to my family,” he says. “I try to be as perfect as I can because I know they’re watching me.”
As Cesar and any other convert knows, joining the Church can be a big change. “The Church is more than principles. It’s a way of life,” Cesar says. “Keeping the Word of Wisdom, blessing the food at every meal, praying morning and night, attending early-morning seminary—that was a big change! And there are other things, like studying the scriptures on my own and getting up early on Sundays for church.”
But after two years, Cesar seems comfortable with all those changes, so comfortable that he shares the gospel message with anyone who will listen.
“I try to be very careful about comments I make to my friends so that I can teach them about the Church without offending them,” he says.
Although he’s still relatively new in the gospel, you’d never know that Cesar hasn’t been a member all his life. He learns quickly and has a great desire to know the truth. But Cesar says that there’s another, more important reason he’s learned so much so fast.
“When I was reading the Book of Mormon before I joined the Church, I came to the part about Jesus Christ in America, and I knew it was true,” says Cesar. “At the time, I didn’t recognize the Holy Ghost, but I felt very peaceful. That moment was a new beginning in my life. I felt I could start over and do things in a different and better way.”
That strong prompting has translated into bold action. It’s the secret to Cesar’s great energy in living and sharing the gospel, despite obstacles and weaknesses that he, like all people, has to overcome. Cesar keeps a journal to remind himself of, and to eventually share with others, the reasons he lives the gospel. It helps him keep his spirits up when life is hard.
“Being an example and writing in my journal will help me leave a legacy. When my children and grandchildren read what I have written, they will know that being the only member of the Church in my family isn’t easy at all, and I have had to work very hard.”
They’ll know a lot of other things about him, too—that he loves his calling as a stake missionary; that he loves to be around other Church members, especially the young men and women in his ward and stake; and, most important, that he has a testimony.
“I’ve noticed that many people think I’m not old enough to know or to receive an answer about something important, like religion. But I have a testimony that no matter your age, if you have a sincere heart and if you ask, you will receive an answer for sure,” says Cesar.
Cesar hasn’t ever sung the lyrics “Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked” (“Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked,” Children’s Songbook, 214), but when he hears those words, he says with a smile, “That’s my song! I walk a lot.”
There are differences, of course, between Cesar and the pioneer children of old. Cesar walks through the busy streets of Guadalajara, not the open plains. And Cesar doesn’t gather fuel for the evening’s fire or feed livestock at the end of the day. But he, too, is a pioneer.
One day his children and grandchildren will talk about their ancestor, Cesar Gaspar, and how he loved to gather friends together and give them the wonderful gospel message. And they’ll talk about the fact that, even though he had to walk most of the places he wanted to go, he was always singing a song—even if you couldn’t hear it. It was a song not about walking but about how happy the gospel made him and how strong his testimony was. He may or may not have been a good singer, but it was a tune he loved to carry—and to share.

1 One spring evening in 1901, as eleven-year-old Herbert Barney was walking toward the corral, a spirited horse jumped the fence and landed on him, breaking many of his bones and causing a great deal of bleeding.
2 At that time, there were no doctors close enough to care for Herbert.
3 Because Herbert’s father, Arthur Barney, was president of the small Montana branch, General Authorities frequently came to visit at the Barney home. Two happened to arrive just after the accident.
4 The two General Authorities laid their hands on the unconscious boy’s head and gave him a priesthood blessing.
5 Then the boy was laid on a quilt and gently carried inside the house. When Herbert came to, he seemed to be better.
6 The next day was Sunday and Herbert’s twelfth birthday. He had been looking forward to being ordained a deacon, but his parents were worried about moving him. Herbert was so insistent that they carefully padded a rocking chair with quilts, propped him up in it, and carried him across the road to the small log house that served as their meetinghouse.
7 Herbert was blessed again that he would recover from the accident, and then he was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood.
8 That afternoon he was well enough to play outside, and he had no further problems from his severe accident.