Gospel Story Finder

Richard is a good example of another approach. Born in the Church, Richard was not active until he was well into his teens. At that time a series of challenging events provided him with the opposition necessary to turn him toward the gospel. After a few weeks of reading and prayer, Richard had developed a testimony of Christ and the truth of the Book of Mormon. People remembered Richard because of his testimony and commitment to it.

Captain Simpson, who is also a flight paramedic, knows from his own experience how effective the bears can be with children. Twelve-year-old Nicole Wallace had to be flown by helicopter from one hospital to another. She was bleeding internally from a lacerated kidney and liver suffered in an automobile accident. She refused to let go of her bear at any time during the transfer from hospital to helicopter to hospital. She finally gave up the bear just before undergoing surgery.
Speaking about the accident, Nicole says, “The car was badly smashed, and the paramedics had to take out the back seat before they could lift me out of the rear window. When they put me in the ambulance, they gave me this cute little bear,” Nicole said. “It kept me from getting scared. I would hold on to it, so I wouldn’t hurt so bad. In the hospital it stayed right by me in my bed.”

Beautifully exemplifying the theme of our conferences was a talk given by Elder Boyd K. Packer on “the voice of warning.” He began by quoting from the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants, wherein the Lord said:
“The voice of warning shall be unto all people, by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days.
“And they shall go forth and none shall stay them, for I the Lord have commanded them.” (D&C 1:4–5.)
He then referred to the recent collapse of the Teton Dam in Idaho, and graphically described what happened on that occasion as houses, churches, and whole towns vanished. In all, 790 homes were destroyed, and 800 others were severely damaged, as were schools, churches, business houses, etc. About 7,800 people were in the immediate path of the flood, and farther down the valley another 25,000 or 30,000 were in danger. I quote:
“But what happened to the people that Saturday morning? There was a miracle! There were several deaths, but only six of them by drowning. How could such terrible destruction take place with such a little loss of life?
“The answer: they were warned. A number of them had been subjected to a restless, anxious feeling that morning, and so responded instantly when the warning came. They heeded the warning. Latter-day Saints pay attention to warnings. They have read the revelation which states:
“‘For this is a day of warning, and not a day of many words. For I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in the last days.’” (D&C 63:58.)
Elder Packer stated that by scientific calculations 5,300 lives might have been lost, but there were so few. And it was not a case of going upstairs onto the roof. The houses were completely washed away, and most of the people had miles to go to reach high ground. They were saved because they heeded a warning and then warned their neighbors.
He quoted again from the revelations: “And let those whom they have warned in their traveling call on the Lord, and ponder the warning in their hearts which they have received. … Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor.” (D&C 88:71, 81.)
Then he said: “That is how they were saved. Everyone, when warned, raised the voice of warning to his family and to his neighbors. … Do you think they were casual about it? That is not the way it happened. The warnings were shouted and screamed. Horns were honked. Every means was used to sound the warning. ‘Come out of the valley. A flood is coming!’
“Of the six drowned, one stood just below the dam and had no chance. The others either failed to heed the warning or went back to get something. Every man who was warned, warned his neighbor. There are chapter after chapter of miracles. The whole episode stands as a mighty miracle. And the whole disaster looms itself as a warning.”

I felt so different from everyone my age. Even if I was invited to hang out with friends and my parents encouraged me to go, I struggled to have fun because I felt guilty that my parents had so much to do at home. Other times I would have a hard time enjoying myself when Barbara was struggling with her health. Most of the time, I just wanted a friend to sit down with me and listen.

Sometimes I felt like no one understood what I was going through. But a few things helped remedy that loneliness. I decided I’d try to reach out to people who might be feeling similarly. When I did go to activities or church, I tried to include those who were sitting alone or who looked like they were having a bad day. As Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught, “Miracles occur when we care for each other as He would.” 1 And I saw miracles come into my life. I felt much more comfortable going to activities and was happier when I offered love to others.

It all started when the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra began outdoor summer performances at Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, a restored 1836 village. The first few years, all concertgoers sat on lawn chairs or blankets on the grass. Later, Symphony on the Prairie organizers offered reserved tables and chairs near the stage for a higher price. But who would set up a hundred tables and a thousand chairs twice a week? The symphony looked for a service group, and that’s where LDS Boy Scout troop 596 came in.

They are not alone. Scout leaders, families, and friends all lend a hand. “It’s a time to see friends and get to know new people,” says Emily Runyan, whose brother Chris is a Scout. “Those of us who aren’t in the troop can still be an example of service to others.”

Missy Wardwell feels that her work at Conner Prairie changed her attitude towards service. She used to feel it was a duty, “but I found this was fun because I chose to come. It was great to work on something important.”

People notice the unity between youth and adults in the Noblesville Ward. Jennifer Rasmussen attributes it to what happens when teachers and leaders labor alongside the youth. “Before,” Jennifer says, “you only saw them on Sunday. But working together is a bonding experience.”

Jennifer also points out the benefits for new or quiet kids in the ward. “These youth get to know people and become comfortable working together, whereas otherwise they might have taken years to open up. They get invited to stay and join us in other activities.”

Missy points out another benefit. “In the summer, sometimes school friends call and invite me to a party. I know what kind of party it will be. It’s security for me to have another place to go that is good and fun and social.”

The LDS youth finish and settle down on the hill with cool drinks and snacks. With their service comes a bonus—they can stay and hear the symphony concert for free. As the sun lingers near the edge of the concert shell, thousands of concertgoers arrive. Sometimes 10,000 people throng the grounds on a symphony night. After the sun goes down, the scattered lights of hundreds of tiny citronella candles flicker like caged fireflies.

“I never thought the kids would stay for the program,” says Rich Armstrong of the Scout committee. “I could see youth using lots of outdoor energy, but I didn’t expect them to be interested in symphony music.”

“I had never heard a symphony orchestra before,” says Brennan Wood. “But the more you hear symphony music, the more you understand it.”

Trent Wardwell agrees. “This has given me a better appreciation for what goes into producing symphony music. Hours before the concert, while we are putting up chairs and tables, the symphony workers have to set up their sound system and prepare the stage, just for a short, two-hour show.”

The concert is finished. A few fireworks light the sky over the orchestra shell, and the LDS youth scramble up from their places. Swarming down the hill, they start folding chairs, clearing tables, and carrying them back to storage. Now that it is cooler, demonstrations of strength take place. Austin Armstrong carries eight chairs at once. Brennan staggers under 13. Jamie Ketring and Jennifer tote one table between them, but Jon Foote hoists one above his head and carries it alone.

The final tarpaulin is tugged up and over a mountain of chairs. It is time to go home.

The thoughts of all the youth are echoed by Emily Runyan. “My main memory of summers is our work at Conner Prairie.”

Fourteen-year-old Ripsy Bandurian thought she was going to the LDS church with her English teacher in Yerevin, Armenia, to learn English from an American couple. But when she got there, she learned much more than their language.
“When I met the missionaries they said to me, ‘We love you. What is your name?’ That sounded good to me.”
Ripsy and her teacher, Sister Nara, ended up taking the discussions and attending church together. Sister Nara was soon baptized, but Ripsy had to wait for her parents’ permission. In the meantime, she read all the LDS literature she could get her hands on, and translated into Russian the discussions the missionaries were giving. Most of the people she translated for were baptized.
Finally, after more than a year, her parents gave her permission to be baptized. Ripsy says it was one of the happiest days of her life. Since then, she has continued translating in English, Armenian, and Russian. She gets the highest marks in school, is a leader in the local Young Women’s program, and helps her mother, who is a pediatrician, with sick children in the hospital. Ripsy would eventually like to be a doctor too.

Salote:
Two years after our son Esa died of lung cancer, our daughter Esalynn died of meningitis. In the temple, I felt a strong prompting to speak with a senior sister missionary there who also lost two children years earlier. She told me, “If you make your home a holy place, you can feel your children’s presence there.”
That has become our goal. Everything we do is to make our home a holy place. We want to feel them close.
We don’t know how to parent children beyond the veil. But if we do our best to live righteously, we believe they will feel our efforts. In our family devotionals, we welcome Esa and Esalynn by name.
In our home, even when we have a disagreement, we try to resolve it quickly. We want our home to stay a holy place as much as possible. As we’ve done so, we have all felt hope and healing and love.
Sakiusa:
The experience of losing Esa and Esalynn has ultimately brought our family closer together. We counsel together with our other children. We attend the temple as a family. We live our lives as simple as possible and choose gratitude every day. As we talk about what it means to be sealed as a family in the temple, that sealing becomes alive in us. And through all of this, we do feel the presence of our children.
One of the first things we did to make our home holier was to start reading the Book of Mormon daily. At first, we shared Book of Mormon stories with pictures for our younger children. Then we added videos. Now we’re reading more from the Book of Mormon. I can testify of the power of the Book of Mormon.

One of my haunting childhood memories begins with the howl of distant air-raid sirens that awaken me from sleep. Before long, another sound, the rattle and hum of propellers, gradually increases until it shakes the very air. Trained well by our mother, we children each grab our bag and run up the hill to a bomb shelter. As we hurry through the pitch-dark night, green and white flares drop from the sky to mark the targets for the bombers. Strangely enough, everyone calls these flares Christmas trees.
I am four years old, and I am a witness to a world at war.
Not far from where my family lived was the city of Dresden. Those who lived there witnessed perhaps a thousand times what I had seen. Massive firestorms, caused by thousands of tons of explosives, swept through Dresden, destroying more than 90 percent of the city and leaving little but rubble and ash in their wake.
In a very short time, the city once nicknamed the “Jewel Box” was no more. Erich Kästner, a German author, wrote of the destruction, “In a thousand years was her beauty built, in one night was it utterly destroyed.” During my childhood I could not imagine how the destruction of a war our own people had started could ever be overcome. The world around us appeared totally hopeless and without any future.
Last year I had the opportunity to return to Dresden. Seventy years after the war, it is, once again, a “Jewel Box” of a city. The ruins have been cleared, and the city is restored and even improved.
During my visit I saw the beautiful Lutheran church Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady. Originally built in the 1700s, it had been one of Dresden’s shining jewels, but the war reduced it to a pile of rubble. For many years it remained that way, until finally it was determined that the Frauenkirche would be rebuilt.
Stones from the destroyed church had been stored and cataloged and, when possible, were used in the reconstruction. Today you can see these fire-blackened stones pockmarking the outer walls. These “scars” are not only a reminder of the war history of this building but also a monument to hope—a magnificent symbol of man’s ability to create new life from ashes.
As I pondered the history of Dresden and marveled at the ingenuity and resolve of those who restored what had been so completely destroyed, I felt the sweet influence of the Holy Spirit. Surely, I thought, if man can take the ruins, rubble, and remains of a broken city and rebuild an awe-inspiring structure that rises toward the heavens, how much more capable is our Almighty Father to restore His children who have fallen, struggled, or become lost?

Elizabeth loved going to Primary every week. She loved singing Church songs and feeling the peaceful spirit there. She loved all her friends in Primary. But then her Primary class changed.
A new boy named Joseph moved in, and he seemed different from the other kids. His clothes were rumpled and dirty, and he didn’t seem to know when to talk and when to be quiet. He never raised his hand.
When Elizabeth talked to her mom about the new boy, her mom said that Joseph came from a “hard situation.” Elizabeth wasn’t really sure what that meant, but she noticed that Joseph’s family didn’t come to church with him.
A few weeks after Joseph started coming to Primary, the trouble started.
“Everyone sit down so we can begin class,” Sister Johnson said. All the kids started to take their seats, but when Joseph sat down, everyone moved away from him.
From then on, if Joseph sat on one side of the room, everyone hurried and moved to other side. It was like a game of musical chairs, where everyone tried to move as far away from Joseph as possible. Elizabeth had been taught to be kind, but even she began to play the musical chairs game. Sister Johnson told everyone to stay in their seats, but it was obvious—no one wanted to sit by Joseph.
Then one week at church, Joseph wasn’t there. Then another week, and another week passed, and Joseph still didn’t come.
Elizabeth wondered about Joseph and why he wasn’t coming to church anymore. She thought that maybe it was because of his “hard situation.” Or maybe he had moved away. But she just couldn’t get rid of an icky feeling that she had done something wrong. The more she thought, the more Elizabeth realized that their musical chairs game had been mean and wrong and that maybe it was the reason Joseph stopped coming to church.
One night after family prayer, Elizabeth gave her mom a hug and started to cry.
“Mom, I think I did something wrong. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
Elizabeth told her mom about how no one in her Primary class wanted to sit next to Joseph. She told her how they had all laughed and tried to get the farthest seat away from him and how she felt bad for being mean to him. Elizabeth and her mom talked about repentance and what she could do to feel better and make things right.
Mom said, “Joseph is a child of God. It doesn’t matter if he looks and acts different; Heavenly Father loves him. We should always treat others like they are valuable, because they truly are.”
Elizabeth promised herself that she would never treat anyone like that again. Even if it meant being less popular, she would treat everyone like a child of God.
One Sunday, Joseph finally returned to Primary. When the other kids started to giggle and race to find a seat away from Joseph, Elizabeth chose the seat right next to him.
“Hey, Joseph! What’s up?” she asked with a warm smile.
Go to “Family Night Fun” for an activity to go with this story.
For Elizabeth, the musical chairs game was over. Joseph would always have someone to sit by now.

Lugging a bucket of warm, foamy milk, I stepped from the barn and slammed the heavy door behind me. A chill wind blasted across the barnyard and tore at the buttons on my coat, almost snatching my cap away. Ducking my head into my collar, I pushed toward the house, possessed with an anxious longing to escape the late autumn’s icy breath. I glanced at the gray, forbidding sky and hoped it wouldn’t snow, at least not until Ma and Pa and the girls returned from Uncle Tommy’s.
I was almost to the house before I saw him. He was shuffling tiredly down the dirt lane that came from the highway to our farm. Squinting against the onslaught of the wind, I watched him approach, all the while loathing him for coming.
I didn’t know him, and yet he was familiar, not as a person but as a representative of the motley mob of defeated wanderers who had stopped at our door in the past. I recognized the slumped shoulders; the hollow cheeks; the sunken, searching eyes; the rumpled, ill-fitting clothing; the dusty shoes; and the apologetic reluctance—all of which characterized this singular breed. They were cast-off by-products of these lean Depression years of the 1930s. Their only crime had been misfortune and circumstances. Nevertheless, my own selfishness caused me to despise them.
“Hi, son,” he greeted me, a cautious humor in his voice. “This wouldn’t be the Lorenzo Platt place, would it?”
I glanced toward the empty house. No one would know, I told myself. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to lie, even to him. “Yeah, it is,” I mumbled.
“I wasn’t sure,” he said with a smile that revealed a chipped front tooth. “The barn wasn’t finished before, and the house wasn’t painted.”
“We did that last summer,” I replied tartly, trying to discourage conversation.
“Sure looks nice.” Uneasily he looked around, obviously stalling. I knew what he wanted. They were all the same. Pa had never needed more excuse than that they were hungry, discouraged, displaced, or cold. He had always brought them into the house, given them a chair by the stove, a place at the table, and a home for the night.
I had especially disliked these gaunt, faceless guests who intruded and disrupted our home. If Pa had been content to offer them a bowl of beans and a place on the front step to eat, I could have ignored their intrusion, but that wasn’t Pa’s way. When night fell, Pa didn’t send them off to the barn loft; he offered them a bed in the house, usually mine. I would sleep on the couch, always resenting the one who supplanted me.
“Why do we have to do it?” I had accused Pa one afternoon while we were stacking hay. “Why can’t they find their own place and their own food? We’ve got to work for ours. Let them work for theirs.”
Pa had picked up a fork full of hay and carried it to the corner of the stack and said gently, “Every night and morning when I pray, I thank the Lord we have work, that we can provide. We’re not rich, son. No one is these days, but we have sufficient. I wouldn’t trade places with any of those men. It isn’t their fault that the winds blew the land away and tore them from their farms. It isn’t their fault that these are hard times. No, son, I don’t condemn them. My heart aches for them, and as long as I have a single chicken, a meager cup of beans, or a crust of bread, those men won’t leave here hungry.
“But Pa,” I protested warmly, “you do all that for the folks in the ward, too. Whenever they need something, they always come to you. It just isn’t fair, even if you are the bishop. But I wouldn’t mind that, because they’re our folks, our neighbors, and our friends. But not those others.”
Pa didn’t listen. He continued to reach out to them, and they continued to come. Although they were complete strangers, they all seemed to know that here was home for the night.
As I stood in the cold wind eyeing this new stranger, this intruder, I was determined to send him away as I had wanted to do with the others.
The man stuffed his hands into his pockets, glanced at me, and then kicked at the dust with the toe of his battered boot. “Is your pa here, son?”
I shook my head. “He’s over at my Uncle Tommy’s helping out. My ma and sisters are with him. Uncle Tommy and Aunt Lacerne are both sick. Been that way for a week or so. Won’t be back till tomorrow afternoon. I’m here alone.”
I watched the spark of hope in his eyes flicker and then die. He glanced about the place. Like all the others, he was too proud to ask. I wasn’t about to extend an invitation, not today when the decision was completely mine.
“You can come back tomorrow,” I suggested with calloused indifference. “He’ll be back then.”
“I see,” the man mumbled, knowing what coming back tomorrow implied. He looked back down the long dusty lane to the highway then peered over my shoulder toward the house. There was a longing not easily concealed in his famished eyes. He turned toward the barn and then back at me. But there was no encouragement in my unflinching stare. This man represented the whole mob that had imposed upon me, crowded me at the kitchen table, and forced me from my bed. Sending him down the road was a vindictive retaliation against all of them.
“Well, I guess I’ll be on my way,” he said more to himself than to me.
As he turned to go, I said, “I’ll tell Pa you stopped.”
The man nodded his head and waved weakly. “You’ve got a nice place here,” he commented, motioning to the barn and house with his hand. “I’ve got a boy about your age watching after my place, too. What’s left of it. It’s not as big and nice as yours, but he’s got plenty to do. I sure hope he’s getting along. Well, tell your pa I stopped by. He won’t remember me, but he helped me once before.”
I didn’t watch him pass through the front gate and start down the lane. Not even I could do that. With as much indifference as I could muster, I stepped up on the porch, put the white pad in the strainer, and poured the milk in, listening to it drip into the clean bucket below.
Suddenly I thought of Pa. Just before he had climbed into the truck and driven over to Uncle Tommy’s, he had given me his last-minute instructions. Now his words flashed into my mind, and I couldn’t drive them out: “Son, I’ll trust you to watch after things. I wish I didn’t have to leave you alone this long, but we’ve got to help Uncle Tommy out. If we don’t get the rest of that corn in, his cattle aren’t going to have much this winter. I don’t know how good it is now. I know the frost got a lot of it. If you need anything, run over to Brother Ramsey’s place. I told him you’d be here alone.”
“Pa, I can do it,” I protested, hurt that he had deemed it necessary to speak with Brother Ramsey. I was 17 and felt capable of taking care of things for the three days.
“I know, Son. You can handle things as well as I can.”
His unconditional confidence mocked me now. A gnawing shame bore into my soul.
The last drops of milk pattered into the bucket. Without thinking I glanced up and gazed down the lane toward the departing figure, hunched and plodding against the wind. I don’t know why, but I thought of his son. It was strange that I had never considered that these wanderers could possibly have families, folks who cared, who wondered whether they were safe, had enough to eat or a place to lay their heads. Suddenly, so unexpectedly, he became a real person.
A horrifying vision leaped to my mind’s stage, a vision I could not close my eyes to. The man was transformed. He was no longer a stranger, a mere wanderer, tacitly begging for a place to stop for the night. He became Pa! And I was the selfish youth who had refused him even a corner in the barn. It was a shattering revelation, one that staggered me with its vividness, one that made me loathe the merciless boy who had sent him away.
Leaving the milk on the porch, I started down the lane on a run, impelled by an awful dread that this man would escape me in the cold, dreary dusk. The terrible realization of my heartless act haunted me.
“Hey, mister,” I gasped when I was still several yards away. The man stopped and turned around. “I didn’t ask you if you wanted to spend the night. You can you know.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to …” the man stammered.
“I’m not much of a cook,” I pressed, “but I can give you something and a place to stay.” He looked down the road as though debating. “It’s getting colder. There’ll be frost for sure tonight,” I pointed out.
To my relief he came back with me. Neither of us spoke as we returned to the house. I invited him in and stirred up the coals in the stove and insisted he pull up a chair to warm himself. I could tell he was cold through and through. He rubbed his hands together and reached out to the warmth, beckoning it to penetrate his chilled body.
“Ma left some lima beans,” I apologized, wishing Ma were there to fix something nice. “But there’s bread, and we’ve got lots of milk. I can’t fix anything like Ma, but it will fill you up.”
The man nodded, “Anything, son. Beans sound good.”
We ate supper in silence. I gave him three bowls of beans, a half loaf of Ma’s bread, and a quart of milk. He wouldn’t have eaten it all, but I insisted. I could see he was hungry, and I knew he wouldn’t ask for more.
“I didn’t mean to make a pig of myself,” he apologized.
“We don’t eat steaks and stuff, but what we’ve got we have plenty of, and you’re welcome to it.”
By the time the work was done, darkness had settled and there was nothing to do but go to bed. “Son,” he began, “if you’ve got a blanket I can go out to the barn and bed down. I’ll get up early in the morning and be on my way and won’t have to even bother you. You’ve been real good to me, son.”
“You can’t sleep out there. Pa never lets folks sleep out there, not when we’ve got plenty of room in the house. I’ll fix you up.”
“Then I can lay down by the stove,” he replied.
“No, Mister, we’ve got beds. Come in here.” I led him into my room. “I think there’s enough quilts. If you need more, we’ve got plenty.”
“Isn’t this your room, son?”
“Not tonight,” I explained simply.
The man seemed embarrassed and unsure of himself. “I appreciate all this, son. I stopped by here once before on my way to California looking for work. Your pa took me in, just like you’ve done.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “You know, there’s a lot of mean folks in this old world, folks that don’t care about anyone but themselves. Folks like that could turn a man sour on everybody. I know. When I was looking for work, sometimes I was bullied and cheated and sent on my way. I’d get real mad. All I was doing was trying to make enough to send back to my family and keep them going. But these other folks didn’t care. As soon as the fruit was picked or the cotton in, then they sent us on our way. It wasn’t my fault I was in hard times. I got to hating.”
He paused and looked down at his dry, calloused hands. “Then I remembered your pa. He didn’t make me eat on the front steps and sleep in the hay in a ditch like most folks. I was somebody to him.” He smiled wanly and brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. “I had to come back. You see, I’m on my way back to Arkansas to get my family. Going to take them out to California. But I had to stop here.”
I nodded my head and looked at the floor. For a moment there was a heavy silence. “Well,” I mumbled, “if you need anything, Mister, just call.”
“Son,” the stranger said just as I turned to go, “you got a good pa. You’re Mormon folks, aren’t you?” I nodded. Out of his coat pocket he pulled a worn copy of the Book of Mormon. “Your pa gave me this. I haven’t read it yet because I don’t read too good, but I’ve kept it with me. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about you Mormons, but I haven’t believed any of it.” He rubbed his rough, chapped hands over the book’s cover. “They said you weren’t Christians and such.” He wagged his head. “But I don’t believe them. How could I? I’ve met just one Christian man in my life. It was your pa. I’m going to get my boy to read me this book and maybe then I’ll find out why your pa’s so different.”
The next morning I was up early to milk. The stranger was up and dressed and ready to head down the road, but I said he couldn’t go until he’d had breakfast. I milked, and he went with me and helped me feed the stock and strain the milk. All the time he talked about his boy and his family. All the while I could picture Pa talking about Ma and the girls and me like that man talked about his folks. I shuddered to think I had almost sent him away.
After breakfast I put a loaf of bread in a brown paper sack and wrapped a chunk of cheese in wax paper and handed them to him. “I wish I could give you more,” I said.
“You’re just like your pa, son. Your pa can be proud of you,” he said hoarsely. With that he turned and started toward the front gate.
As I watched him start down the lane, it seemed his head was a little higher, his shoulders were not so stooped, and his step had more spring in it. I didn’t take my eyes off him until he reached the highway and walked over a little rise out of sight.
It was late afternoon when Ma and Pa and the girls came home. I was out in the barn cleaning the stable. Pa came out as soon as he took the things from the truck into the house.
“How’d things go, Son?”
“Good.” I leaned the fork against the wall. “A man came.”
“Who?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t ask. He was just passing through. Like the others.”
“You put him up, didn’t you?” There was an edge of panic in his voice as though he was worried that someone in need had come and he had not been there to help.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I did what I could.”
Pa sighed, then took a deep breath, obviously relieved.
“I didn’t finish cleaning out the pig pen, though. I ran out of time.”
There was no rebuke in Pa’s look or tone of voice. “There will be time for that. If you looked after the man, that’s all that matters for now.”
Suddenly I felt hot tears burning in my eyes. I didn’t even care that Pa saw me. I didn’t care that I was 17 and supposed to be grown up. I felt something inside me warm and reassuring, something that almost burst my soul. Pa put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me down on a bale of straw beside him. He didn’t say anything for a long time. We just sat there together, knowing what the other was feeling. I knew Pa’s eyes were filled with tears too, but I wasn’t ashamed. In a strange kind of way, I was proud we could shed tears together.
Finally he squeezed my shoulder tight and whispered, “Son, you’re a man now. You’ve proved it today.”
I swallowed hard, remembering the stranger, glad he had come. I offered a silent prayer that before nightfall he would find another man like Pa.

Years later when my childhood dreams of a mission were realized, I was called far away to New Zealand. There I first met the Maori people who have brought so much into my life by their simplicity, sincerity, and great faith.
One of my first assignments was to a Maori village called Judea, where the missionaries were helping in the construction of a small chapel. At that time I was trying to learn the Maori language. Each day I prayed to our Heavenly Father for help. And then one day I was surprised to be surrounded by Primary children. My prayer for help with the new language had been heard, and our Heavenly Father had inspired the branch president to send these children to help me. They followed me everywhere I went for weeks, talking to me in Maori. Their first lesson I shall remember forever:
Hei tito tito te ngeru me te whiro
Te kau peke runga te marama
Ka kata te kuri ki tana mahi pai
Ka oma te rihi me to punu.
The words sounded beautiful, but they were meaningless to a new missionary. I thought I was learning an old Maori war chant. What a surprise to me when I found out the children were teaching me “Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. …”
How grateful I shall always be to those children of New Zealand for the wonderful blessing they brought to their new missionary.

When I was about seven years old, my Primary president wanted to help the children be more reverent in our Primary. She made a large bulletin board shaped like a lamb. Whenever a child was reverent, she put a lamb-shaped sticker on the bulletin board next to his or her name. I really wanted one of those lamb stickers. So one day in Primary, I sat quietly with my arms folded and stared at the Primary president so she would notice me being reverent. A taller boy sat in front of me, so I slid down the bench so she could see me.
Then, as I sat there being reverent, the pianist started playing a sweet, quiet Primary song. As I listened, a peaceful feeling came over me, and tears started to come down my cheeks. I didn’t know why I felt so happy and peaceful inside.
After Primary I told my mom about what I had felt, and she told me that it was the Spirit. That day, I learned what the Spirit feels like. Whenever I need to make important decisions and need guidance from the Spirit, I remember how peaceful I felt that day, and I can recognize how the Spirit speaks to me.

In conclusion, let me tell you about a personal planning cycle I developed about the time that I was ending my formal education, with the hope that it will cause you to seriously reflect and plan the future. I was a little older than most when I graduated form college; a mission and World War II had slowed the process. I graduated from college just a few months before my twenty-seventh birthday. I was married, and the first child was on its way. Family responsibility has a special way of bringing a maturing process. I decided if I was to accomplish my life’s objective I needed to form a plan and review my performance regularly against the determined plan. My decision was that I would hold an annual review on each of my birthdays to evaluate my progress. On my twenty-seventh birthday my first plan was prepared. On my twenty-eighth birthday I made my first annual performance evaluation and plan revision. This I have carried out each year until the present. The plan includes the same ingredients we have discussed here tonight. First, a physical plan: it is near my birthday each year that I go to the doctor and have an annual physical examination. My plan includes some established goals for an active and restive pulse rate, a blood pressure reading, and a weight range. Annually I check my performance in my physical plan.

My physical plan also includes a financial plan. I wanted to have thirty years of accumulation where I could become financially independent. My plan at the end of those thirty years was to be in a position where I could call the shots, be flexible, do what I wanted to accomplish. I would be able to fill a second mission, or to devote my time to community service or education. Each year I would prepare a personal balance sheet to evaluate my progress toward achieving this objective.

Second, I would evaluate my relationships with my wife, my children, my friends, and my business associates. I was continually asking the question, “What kind of an influence in the world am I for teaching righteous principles?” I wanted to be balanced socially and emotionally.

Third, I established a study program to improve my mind. I would mark a calendar each year with my study objectives of how many chapters I would read each day in a 365-day year. I am afraid that in my early years I was moving too much toward the objectives of my professional life. Now my program has changed, because I have discovered the great value of the scriptures. My program now is to read two chapters in the scriptures first thing every morning. By so doing I can cover the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the New Testament each year.

Fourth, each year I gave myself a very careful temple worthiness interview. I would ask myself the questions, “Am I morally clean?” “Do I live the Word of Wisdom?” “Am I honest in paying my tithes and offerings?” “Am I regular in my attendance at my priesthood and sacrament meetings?” “Am I keeping my life in harmony with the principles of the gospel?” “Do I sustain my stake president?” “Do I sustain the prophet of the Lord?” “Is my testimony of the Lord and Savior vital, alive, and an active force in my life?” This process has had me focusing in a special way each year on what I wanted to accomplish within the time allotted to me in my mortal experience. Each year I would feel the thrill of accomplishment, but more strongly the determination to do better.

There are 1,200 students at Memorial High in Joplin, Missouri, and not one of them can match Ralph Green when it comes to making pizza.

Last year Ralph worked at a local pizza parlor to support his older sister through a semester at Brigham Young University.

This year, at 16, he is the only male enrolled in his school’s family foods and clothing construction classes. He has found the experience to be a good missionary tool in more ways than one. In the school paper he explained, “I am taking these courses because I want to learn to cook and sew. I want to learn because I am going on a two-year mission for my church.” The student paper went on to explain that at 19 Ralph plans to serve a mission wherever the Church sends him, and he wants to be able to fend for himself.

Although he cooks more pizza than anything else, fried chicken is his favorite dish. He’s been kidded a lot, but Ralph plans to take another sewing class next year.

Ralph is a member of the Springfield Missouri Stake.

A faithful Japanese sister and her husband visited our mission in Korea. She didn’t speak Korean and was limited in her ability to speak English, but she had a willing heart to use her unique gifts and helping hands to do the Lord’s work. That’s what disciples do! She taught our missionaries how to do a simple piece of origami—a mouth that could open and shut. She then used the few English words she knew to teach the missionaries to “open their mouths” to share the gospel—a lesson they will never forget, nor will I.

“Have any of you ever broken a bone?” Blake asked members of his priests quorum. He gave each person a chance to respond. Then he told the story about breaking his leg during the state high school cross-country championships and how his teammate Sean picked him up and carried him to the finish line.
“Just like Sean helped me to do something I couldn’t do for myself,” Blake explained, “the Savior has done something for each of us that we could not do for ourselves.”
Then he showed a video, “Mountains to Climb,” where President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency bears testimony of the Savior’s Atonement.

When I was 12 I started to question everything about the gospel. For a couple of years I struggled with my testimony. I never seemed to feel the Spirit. Many times in my personal prayers I begged my Father in Heaven in tears to let me feel the Spirit and know the Church was true. I was often disappointed.
Despite struggling, I got more involved with the scriptures and found one verse in the book of Ether that really helped me: “But he that believeth these things which I have spoken, him will I visit with the manifestations of my Spirit, and he shall know and bear record. For because of my Spirit he shall know that these things are true” (Ether 4:11).
Because of this scripture I began to trust the Lord and believe the gospel was true, trusting that He would confirm His words.
I don’t remember exactly when I first started to feel the Spirit. Instead I gradually became aware that I had felt the Spirit many times throughout my life and simply hadn’t recognized it.

As the mother of three preschoolers, Geri Brinley was trying to live the gospel and to rear her family in righteousness. But she didn’t think she had time to study the scriptures.
“What did Lehi’s journey to the promised land have to do with my problems?” she wondered. “Where was the chapter and verse in the Book of Mormon that tells how to toilet-train a stubborn two-year-old or get a four-year-old to pick up his toys? I was sure I had more relevant things to worry about than who was going to win the next Nephite-Lamanite war.”
Her answer came when she was called to be a Relief Society Spiritual Living teacher. As she studied the scriptures to prepare for her lessons, she found that they contained the answers to many questions. She began to look for scriptural answers to her questions about rearing children.
“I began reading the Book of Mormon with a purpose,” she recalls. “Whenever I discovered an example of parenting, I wrote down the reference with a brief note. When I finished, I organized the examples I’d discovered into principles taught and my applications of each principle.” The scriptures became a guide to rearing her children. (See “The Book of Mormon as a Guide to Parents,” Tambuli, August 1989, page 33.)

It was the day of my first race and I had come early to register and stretch out. I planned to run the 5K alone because I wasn’t very fast.
Then I saw the first counselor in the bishopric of my college ward, an experienced runner, among the gathering crowd. Just as he recognized me, the officials called all runners to the starting line. He asked if I was running with anyone. I said I wasn’t and admitted that, although I had been training for two months, all I hoped for was to finish the race. He offered to run with me and I accepted. I was delighted to have some company.
The gun sounded and we started off slowly. He was by my side the entire time. We talked about future races, the upcoming term in school, and his past races. He told me how he had used the “Boy Scout pace” to finish his first few races. He would run 50 steps, then walk 25 steps, until he could run the entire distance. It sounded strange to me, but since he was a much more experienced runner, I agreed as I got tired to finish the race this way.
As we rounded the final corner it was obvious that we were the last two runners. I sprinted to the finish line. But my running companion must have sensed my fear of being the last runner because he stayed behind. When we met after the race, he smiled and congratulated me on a good run.
I was touched that he was willing to take last place, so I wouldn’t have to. My ward leader taught me a lot about humility, service, and the pure love of Christ during that short race. Moroni’s words now have greater meaning for me when I read, “And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own. … Wherefore … if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth” (Moro. 7:45–46).

A quick shoulder fake to the right, and then with pistonlike force, his legs drove him down the left side of the foul lane. By now the opponent had recovered from his very slight disadvantage caused by the fake and with blinding speed had caught up sufficiently to block the shot. But there was no shot. It was a fake and then a pivot back to the left; a right-handed hook shot came off the glass into the net. The grueling tournament competition that had lasted all morning was over. Devin Durrant had just been victorious in the most prestigious high school one-on-one tournament in the nation. In so doing he had defeated, one at a time, five all-Americans.
There was little time to savor that victory in Louisville, Kentucky. In just a few more hours the big game between the United States all-stars and the Kentucky-Indiana all-stars would begin.
That evening as the game progressed through the first quarter, it was a see-saw battle all the way. But then, midway through the second half, the public address announcer shouted out in quick succession: “Devin Durrant with a jump shot.” “Durrant with a driving lay-in.” “A jump shot from the kid from Utah.” The United States all-stars now had the lead.
A few minutes later the game was over. As the excited crowd of 12,000 stood anxiously listening to the post-game announcement, the public address man shouted enthusiastically, “Tonight’s most valuable player is Devin Durrant.”
After Devin’s seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade years, we moved back to Utah. As we did, Devin left many choice memories in Kentucky. It was there that he formed the dream that he would be a star and someday, somehow, he would play in the Kentucky Derby basketball all-star game. The chances of ever doing that were minute, even if we stayed in Kentucky. But now that we had left Kentucky, the chances were a million to one, for no Utahn had ever been so honored.
After his graduation, Devin’s fondest dream to that time came true. He was asked to play in the McDonald’s high school all-American games, the third of which was a fulfillment of his dream—the Kentucky Derby Classic. I’ve never seen him more thrilled than he was at the news that he would return to his beloved Louisville.
Our family took the opportunity to return to our former home to see him play, and we rejoiced with him at the successes which I related earlier. The next day’s papers told the story of the boy from Utah, his dream, and how he had come home to Kentucky to make that dream come true.
A night later at a fireside, hundreds gathered and heard Devin explain his dream, his prayer, and his joy.