Gospel Story Finder

Organ music was playing softly as Johnny followed his dad, mom, and little sister into the chapel. He stuck his hands into his pockets, resisting the urge to give his friend Kevin a friendly poke as he walked past. Johnny had learned from an earlier experience that this was not the time or place for greeting a friend that way.
His family quietly filed into the fifth row, where they customarily sat. As Johnny sat there, he ran his fingers along the crease of his new pants. It was hard to pay attention to the man at the stand. He was just talking to the grown-ups, anyway.
Johnny began thinking about his birthday. Soon he would be eight years old. In three weeks he would be baptized. He had talked to Dad about it last night.
“When you have been baptized, Johnny,” Dad had told him, “all the things you do wrong will be your responsibility.” Dad talked to him about how the Holy Ghost would help him make good decisions so that he would do the right things.
Dad also talked to him about the importance of the sacrament and the reverent feelings he should have. “Now that you’re old enough to be a member of the Church, you’re also old enough to try to be more reverent at church and to know about the blessings of the sacrament. It’s important for your thoughts to be reverent too. The sacrament helps remind us of the promises we make at baptism.”
Johnny didn’t understand how his thoughts could be reverent. His teacher had talked about being reverent during sacrament meeting, and she seemed to think that Johnny knew just how to do it. Maybe it means just being quiet, Johnny decided. I’ll try sitting here as quietly as I can and see if I feel different while the sacrament is being passed.
He sat thee quietly for a while, his legs dangling over the seat of the pew. Then his toes started to feel funny. He began swinging his legs back and forth. He swung them harder and harder until he was making a kicking sound against the bottom of the bench.
“Shh!” his mom whispered. “Johnny, be reverent!”
Johnny thought he was being reverent—he hadn’t been talking. I guess being reverent means you don’t kick your feet—even if your toes feel funny, he decided.
Johnny sat very quietly. He was trying to feel reverent during the sacrament, but all he felt was tired from sitting on that big, hard pew. He saw Brother Willey sitting in front of him. He was an older man with large glasses. The glasses had thick lenses. If Johnny wiggled up onto the edge of his seat and Brother Willey held his head just right, Johnny could look right through his glasses. They made everything look funny. Ricky, Johnny’s friend, looked fuzzy, as if he were underwater. Johnny moved around so he could see how Brother Willey’s glasses made other things look.
“Stop wiggling, Johnny. Be reverent,” his mom whipered.
Johnny had forgotten about being reverent. He slid back against the hard bench. He tried to get comfortable so that he could sit quietly and be reverent.
Then he noticed a man with a mustache sitting next to his Primary teacher. As Johnny watched, the man fell asleep. Then the most remarkable thing happened. Each time the man breathed out, his mustache wiggled, just like the wind was blowing it. Johnny had never seen anything quite like it. The longer he watched, the funnier it looked to him. All of a sudden, the man made a long, soft, whistling noise. His whole mustache looked like it jumped. Johnny started to giggle.
“Shh! Don’t giggle, Johnny! Try to be reverent.”
Johnny turned the other way so that the couldn’t see the sleeping man. As he turned, he noticed the speaker standing at the microphone. It’s Brother Curtis, our home teacher, Johnny thought. He listened to Brother Curtis.
Brother Curtis was talking about when the Savior died. Johnny remembered the picture that his Primary teacher had shown the class of Jesus hanging on a cross. There were nails through his hands and feet, and blood—
Blood! That reminded Johnny of the day the previous week when he was trying to ride his new bike. He had fallen from it onto a sharp rock and cut his knee. Blood had streamed down his leg and onto his pants. Boy, it sure hurt! Johnny thought, pulling up his pant leg. His knee still looked pretty bad, even with a bandage on it.
Johnny sat very quietly. He thought about how it would feel to have someone pound a nail through his hand. Why would Jesus let those men hurt him like that? he wondered.
“I know the Savior suffered, bled, and died because he loves us so much,” Brother Curtis was saying. “And when we partake of the sacrament, we promise to always remember him.”
Jesus really must hve loved me to die for me, Johnny thought. When I ate the bread and drank the water during the sacrament, it was in remembrance of his body and blood. Suddenly it was almost as if Jesus was sitting there beside him on the pew. Is this the reverent feeling that Mom, Dad, and my teacher were talking about? Johnny remembered a song he liked to sing in Primary:
This is God’s house, and he is here today.
He hears each song of praise and listens when we pray
(Children’s Songbook, page 30).
When Sister Watene offered the closing prayer, Johnny folded his arms and bowed his head and listened carefully.
Next week, he promised himself, after adding his amen with the other members’, I’m going to be reverent all during sacrament meeting. I won’t talk, or wiggle, or giggle, or kick my feet. And during the sacrament, I’ll think about Jesus and try to feel him close to me again.

I arrived home late one winter night after conducting many interviews as bishop. I was exhausted. Work had been stressful for weeks, and family and Church responsibilities made me feel stretched beyond my limits.
That evening, I had to fix my car so I could get to work the next morning. As I put on my coveralls, I changed roles from bishop to mechanic. I lay on the cold garage floor underneath the car and began working. Why did I have to be freezing, exhausted, and busting my knuckles after I had already worked so hard that day? I was losing my patience and began a whining, pleading prayer to Heavenly Father.
“Is it possible You could help me a little?” I said. “I’m trying my best to be a good father, husband, and bishop and to live the commandments. Wouldn’t I serve better if I could get some rest? Please help me get this done so I can go to bed.”
Suddenly, three clear, distinct words came boldly to my mind: “This is it!”
“What?” I responded.
The words came again: “This is it!”
Understanding began to fill my mind and heart when the words came a third time: “This is it!” These words carried a message to my spirit. “It” was mortal life, and I was experiencing a moment of growth designed to help me become what Heavenly Father wants me to become. It was as if the Spirit said to me, “Did you expect this earthly journey not to have struggles?” When I arose from that freezing concrete floor, I was not the same.

However, there was one incident that changed the entire course of my life. One Saturday night I took the family car, and a companion and I went to a movie. Afterwards I drove to a local drive-in for a malt. In the parking lot we met three of my schoolmates. They were acting so jovial that I should have guessed something was not just right. It was Saturday night, and I wanted to be a good sport, so when they invited us to go for a ride with them, I agreed. My companion and I climbed in their back seat, and we all headed for the canyon.
Before long the driver was gunning the car up the narrow, windy road with reckless abandon, and I could see that they had all been drinking. There were times when I wanted to caution him to slow down, but I didn’t want to appear to be chicken.
We went several miles up the canyon, then turned around to come back. I learned the true meaning of fear as the driver began taking hairpin curves at an unsafe speed. Then it happened. The car flew off the road at high speed and struck a concrete abutment. As the car flipped over on its side and then onto its roof, we skidded down the road in a mixed-up bundle of humanity.
As I watched the sparks flying from the roof of the car, I reviewed my life—down to the last wasted opportunity and foolish act. I prayed too. I don’t remember what I prayed for, but it must have been a prayer of desperation, a plea for life and a chance to change. After skidding down the road for several hundred feet, the car came to a jarring stop against a large cottonwood tree that stood above the river.
Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt. Suddenly sober, the driver and his companions began concocting a story to make the accident look less incriminating. It was agreed that the driver had swerved off the road to avoid hitting a deer. To my shame, I agreed to this lie, and later that night I told it to my parents. They believed their son.
The next day dad insisted we go to the scene of the accident. When he saw where the car had struck the abutment, he knew at once that the story of the deer was pure fiction. Back home, dad sat me down across the table from him. He was very serious.
“Son,” he said in a voice that was touched with emotion, “the night of the accident your mother and I kneeled at your bedside and your mother asked the Lord to protect you and your companions. She said she had a feeling you needed help.”
It took him a few moments to control his emotions; then he continued. “Today we thank God for preserving your life, and we have come to the conclusion that he has a mission for you. This could have been a day of sadness for us; instead, it is a day of rejoicing. Our family is still together, but only by the grace of God.”
I went into my room and lay on the bed. “Okay, dad, okay,” I thought, only this time I thought it with love and appreciation. “You have put something into my heart that was never there before—an understanding of your love and the love of my Heavenly Father.” I spent that night riding upside down, watching the sparks fly up from the road, and feeling the closeness of death. I was glad when morning came with its warm sunshine.

Our last daughter left for college this past month, and the eighteen years of daily living with her were suddenly over. Where had they gone? What minute, what hour, what day or night had swallowed up all those joyous, giggling, growing-up years? The first night she was away, I slipped into her bedroom, looked at her record player, and thought of all those times I had mechanically said, “Would you turn down the music!” And I thought, too, how often in the days ahead we’d be longing to hear the music. Thank God she and her parents have many wonderful memories to savor in the years ahead.

In September 1975, just after the United Nations declaration of a decade for women, a reporter was interviewing me about Latter-day Saint women. “Can you hold the priesthood?” she asked. “Do you feel Mormon women need to be liberated?” I was confused, awkward, and unsure of my answers. After she left I thought about the questions she asked and decided to find answers for myself.
Today I wish I could speak with that reporter again. I would like to tell her that I know the gospel is true and that joy comes from following a plan where women and men have unique responsibilities. Married or single, rich or poor, in the marketplace or at home, a woman finds joy by following the Lord’s commandments and bringing refinement and beauty into the world. Knowing this is true, why should we heedlessly try to follow the teachings of men?

Imagine that you go to a high school where all the kids are one or two feet taller than you. Everything would be out of proportion; everything would seem a little too big for you. How would you do in such a setting? How would you fit in?
Just ask Jake Cram, age 17, who at 3 feet 11 inches (119 cm) tall is a bit on the short side. But what he lacks in height he makes up for with an unusually large testimony and positive outlook on life.
Jake was born with dextrocardia, a rare condition causing his heart to be on the right side of his chest and his growth to be stunted. He also has other heart problems and has had to undergo three open-heart surgeries.
“In middle school, everyone was starting to get taller while I was still the size of a first grader,” says Jake, a member of the Riverton Utah South Stake.
Being shorter than others his age hasn’t been easy for Jake. “I’ve had trouble fitting in. Talking and hanging out like other kids is hard,” Jake says. “Plus, I can’t play sports at the level of everyone else.”
As others have outgrown him, “Jake has become a little less social,” explains his mom, Kim. “He was upset about not being able to grow, especially when it came to playing sports. Jake is so talented and easily picks up skills, but he hasn’t been able to use them.”
So when the high school football coach asked Jake to be the water boy for the team, Jake jumped at the chance. “I’ve always liked football. There was never any doubt that I would say yes. I was pretty excited,” says Jake.
Jake is happy to be part of the team, and his positive influence also lifts the spirits of those around him.
Riley Davis plays center on the football team and is one of Jake’s longtime friends. He says the players “were all sophomores coming into the school and didn’t have too many friends. But when Jake joined the team, everybody wanted to be his friend, and then we all started being friends together.”
Another player on the team, Sheen Beard, found Jake to be a tremendous help to him. Injured before the season began, Sheen was unable to play on the team and became a water boy alongside Jake. Jake helped him not only with water and equipment but also by easing the ache of being unable to play. Sheen says, “It turned out well; we worked as a team. He made it fun and had a really good attitude the whole time.”
Having a really good attitude is key for Jake. “It makes a difference if you are positive instead of negative. I always try to be positive,” Jake explains. “Even with everything I’ve had to go through and all of my circumstances, I am still a happy kid because of my attitude.”
And Jake has been through a lot. Along with being shorter than average and having open-heart surgeries, Jake has had to make some major decisions about his life. “I had to decide on whether to have a heart transplant or not,” he says. “I felt like I was doing pretty good most of the time, and I have chosen not to have it done.”
When doctors presented the various options to Jake and his parents, one of which was a heart transplant, Jake’s positive outlook helped him make the decision that he didn’t need a transplant right now. This realization might not have come to him if he were seeing his life negatively. “It feels like I made the right decision,” Jake says.
Through his trials Jake has also developed a strong testimony of the gospel and the power of priesthood blessings. “I’ve had a lot of blessings, and if it weren’t for the priesthood, I wouldn’t be here,” Jake says.
“Usually before surgeries or when I get really sick, my dad gives me one,” Jake explains about priesthood blessings. “One particular blessing I had was given last year before going into the hospital. My dad gave me a blessing, and I know that I felt a lot better afterward.”
Jake also has a strong testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the gospel. “The gospel has helped me to stay positive and to try and make the best of what I have. To go through my life without worrying a lot is my goal.”
So far Jake is succeeding.
“He is always a good friend,” Riley says with a smile. “He isn’t one to hold a grudge and is always in a good mood. If you ever need a friend, there is Jake.”
“Jake has never allowed his problems to affect his life too much,” his mother says. “Of course, he couldn’t do it alone. Joining the football team has made it a lot easier for him and for us, as parents.”
Jake and his parents are especially grateful to Coach Mike Miller for giving Jake such a tremendous opportunity. “This new opportunity gave Jake something to look forward to at a time when he really needed it,” his mom says.
“Jake also receives help from his good friend Riley,” she says. “He has always been the one to go out of his way to do things with him.”
While Jake has a good time on the football field or learning in school, he feels most comfortable at home. This might be because he doesn’t feel quite as short there. “We are all pretty short,” Jake jokes.
Over the years, Jake has developed a strong relationship with his family. He often goes golfing with his dad and thinks his mom is pretty cool. Jake also has a fun bond with his siblings. He loves and cares for each of them. He was even able to baptize his younger brother, Aaron. “It was a great experience,” Jake says. “If he had been much bigger, though, I don’t know if I would have been able to.”
The love and care is mutual from his family. His mother says, “We are so grateful for him. He relies on the Spirit, and he is able to recognize all the blessings in his life.”
Jake plans to continue living a positive lifestyle. “I hope I never have to go through with a heart transplant,” he says, “but if I do I’ll accept it and move on.”
In the meantime, Jake hopes to carry on with his life: going to school, working, spending time with his brother and sisters, golfing with his dad, getting together with his friends, and going through the challenges of being a teenager. “Someday I hope to go on some kind of mission, whether it be full time or service,” Jake says with a grin. “Either way I’ll be positive about it.”

During her campaign for student-body president, Sue introduced a theme, “Seek for the highest that is in you.” As high school students will do, some started making fun of the theme. But Sue persevered, using the theme for all the activities throughout the year, and the silliness died down. The principal of Mt. Si, Scott Menard, said, “There are always those who will take something positive and try to undermine it. Sue was able to overcome that just by her good-naturedness and by not taking herself too seriously or getting defensive when people would put the theme down. She kept it through every assembly. She didn’t allow the focus to wander, and it became the accepted motto for the students that year.”

“In Primary Melissa and I aren’t in the same class, but sometimes our teachers let us sit together during opening exercises and Sharing Time. I like Primary. One of my favorite lessons that I learned in Primary was from a talk that one of our leaders gave. She said that once when she was little and had gone out trick-or-treating, some teenagers took her bag of candy away from her. Her brother saw how sad she was and gave her his bag of candy. I thought that was a good lesson.” And it’s a lesson that Marnie Payne lives by.

Three years ago Sister Peterson and I had the chance to return back to Japan, where I had served my mission as a young man. We went back with another couple, and he, too, had served in Japan. One day we were in the main Tokyo train station. I am guessing that those of you from Japan have been in Tokyo Eki many times. It is a very large and busy place, and each day literally millions of people pass through on their commute to and from work or school. On this particular day we were looking for a native Japanese sister missionary, Sister Ishikawa, who had served with our friend those many years earlier. We knew which platform she would be on, but I had never seen her or even seen a picture of her. We scanned the crowd, and then, in the middle of tens of thousands of people, and about 150 feet away, I saw her. She had not yet spotted us, but even at that distance, surrounded by thousands of other Japanese people, it was very evident that she was Sister Ishikawa. The light emanating from her eyes was so obvious and the glow of her countenance so radiant that she was impossible to miss.

The best illustration is a great real-life example. Wilfried Vanie, his seven siblings, and his mother joined the Church in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, when he was six years old. He was baptized at eight. His father, the main provider in the family, died when Wilfried was eleven.

Though saddened by the family situation, Wilfried decided to continue in school, with his mother’s encouragement and with Church support. He graduated from secondary school and served a full-time mission in the Ghana Cape Coast Mission, where he learned English. After his mission, he went on to the university and obtained a diploma in accounting and finance. Though it was hard to obtain employment in this field, he found work in the tourism and hospitality industry.

He started as a waiter in a five-star hotel, but his passion to improve pushed him to learn more until he became a bilingual receptionist there. When a new hotel opened, he was hired as the night auditor. Later, he enrolled in BYU–Pathway Worldwide and is currently studying a course to obtain a certificate in hospitality and tourism management. His desire is to one day become the manager of a high-end hotel. Wilfried can provide for his eternal companion and two children, as well as help his mother and his siblings. He currently serves in the Church as a member of the stake high council.

With funding approved by the Europe Central Area presidency, Church humanitarian resources, missionaries, and members in Romania provided immediate relief to flood victims. Members from 4 of the 22 branches in Romania, along with 18 full-time missionaries, lined up in a meetinghouse in Bucharest to assemble more than 3,000 hygiene kits and food packets. These packets, with blankets, bread, and bottled water, were delivered to the Spantov, Chiselet, and Manasterea villages along the Danube River.
This was believed to be the largest emergency relief project undertaken by the Church in Romania, said humanitarian country directors Steven and Kristine Johnston.
Many of the more than 3,000 flood victims expressed gratitude for the Church’s humanitarian donation. One woman told missionaries, “Another church brought us little crosses, but the Mormons brought us food.”
Another flood victim told President John Ashby of the Romania Bucharest Mission, “I didn’t know what I was going to eat tonight. All I have are the clothes on my back.”
“I think [members having the opportunity to serve] was the most gratifying aspect of this project. We hope all the members here know that their Church is truly concerned with the less fortunate and follows the Lord’s admonition to care for the poor and needy,” Elder Johnston said. “The comfort provided by Church members and missionaries made a big difference to many people, both to the recipients and to those providing the service.”

“Brother Jacobs told us about the actual people the play was based on. They left their family behind in Armenia because they knew the Church was true. They decided to come to Utah. After they left, their family was killed. It makes you realize how important this play is. It gives you an appreciation for what people went through,” says 16-year-old Shae Dunkley.
Armenia of the 1890s may seem an unlikely place to find a missionary story, but the play “And They Shall Be Gathered,” written by Martin Kelly, is exactly that. Based on the true conversion story of husband and wife Arzuman and Akaby Tavoian, the play explores not only gospel principles but the love of a family as well.
Arzuman and Akaby (named Sarkis and Arick in the play) learn about the gospel individually, and each decides to be baptized—without telling the other person. (Because of their common last name, the missionaries are unaware that they are married.) When they discover they are both members of this new religion, they realize they must leave the country and go to Utah in order to fully live and practice their faith.
Just as they are preparing to leave, another young family member is killed in an accident. The family is severely saddened by the death and doesn’t understand why he was taken so young. Sarkis and Arick are able to leave with their family the gospel message of hope and the knowledge of life after death.
They then bid their family a fond but teary farewell and set out for Utah.
Sadly, Sarkis and Arick never hear from their family again. It is assumed that they were killed by invading Turks just after Sarkis and Arick left the country.

In 1981, as a 19-year-old missionary in the Florida Tallahassee Mission, my first transfer sent me to serve in the Macclenny Ward in Baker County to the west of Jacksonville. The area had been closed for a period of time before my companion and I were assigned to reopen it. For several days while we looked for suitable lodgings, we were houseguests of Bishop Kenneth Alligood and his family.

As a lover of books, I have been wont to peruse the bookshelves of almost any home or office I am in when it would not be impolite to do so. On the Alligoods’ bookshelves I found one paperback and five hardback volumes from the Harper and Row Basic Reading Program, the very books used when I attended the Dworshak Elementary School from first to sixth grades. Seeing the volumes brought back fond memories of school and especially of my first-grader pleasure in taking each of the paperback volumes home after the class had completed it and excitedly reading each to my parents. My excitement and pleasure came because mine was a reading family, and now I too had become a reader.

I must have commented to the Alligoods about the volumes and of my fond memories of them and what they represented to me. Sister Alligood explained that she had acquired them after she learned that the local school district intended to discard them. After slightly more than three months’ service in Macclenny, older sister missionaries were to replace my companion and me. The Alligoods, like most Florida Saints, enjoyed both having the missionaries in their home and feeding them well. We dined with them shortly before being transferred from Macclenny. While we were at their home, Sister Alligood pulled the Harper and Row Basic Reading volumes off her bookshelf and gave them to me as a parting gift. Whether her action was impulsive or not, I do not know. I demurred, but she insisted, and I have the books to this day. They now bring back good memories not only of my elementary school days but also of the day and the manner of my receiving them. That evening, along with the books, Sister Alligood gave me the gospel gift of unselfishness—of placing the happiness of another above one’s own desires.

I wish every adult leader in the Church could have been in attendance to share the spirit of that testimony meeting. With deep emotion, one lovely girl spoke of her reaction when it was discovered that her father had cancer. How she prayed and prayed that he be healed, then came to the realization that her prayers were selfish—that our loving Father in heaven was in control and that she should submit to his will. She evidenced a very mature outlook on life, something that some of us as adults never experience in a lifetime of living.

When I was a boy, I was my mother’s most difficult young child to raise. I had an overabundance of energy. My mother tells me that her greatest fear was that I would not live to see adulthood. I was just too active.
I remember as a young boy sitting in one particular sacrament meeting with our family. My mother had just received a new set of scriptures. This new set combined the entire standard works into one bound edition, and in the very center was lined paper for note-taking.
During the meeting, I asked if I could hold her scriptures. With the hope of promoting my reverence, she handed them down the pew. As I perused her scriptures, I noticed that she had written a personal goal in the note section. To provide context for her goal, I must tell you that I am the second of six children and my name is Brett. My mother had written, in red, just one goal: “Patience with Brett!”
As further evidence to help you understand the challenge my parents faced in raising our family, let me tell you about our family scripture reading. Each morning, my mother read the Book of Mormon to us during breakfast. During this time, my older brother, Dave, and I would sit quietly but irreverently. To be completely honest, we weren’t listening. We were reading the print on the cereal boxes.
Finally, one morning, I decided to square up with my mother. I exclaimed, “Mom, why are you doing this to us? Why are you reading the Book of Mormon every morning?” I then made a statement that I am embarrassed to admit to. In fact, I can’t believe I actually said it. I told her, “Mom, I am not listening!”
Her loving response was a defining moment in my life. She said, “Son, I was at a meeting where President Marion G. Romney taught about the blessings of scripture reading. During this meeting, I received a promise that if I would read the Book of Mormon to my children every day, I would not lose them.” She then looked me straight in the eyes and, with absolute determination, said, “And I will not lose you!”
Her words pierced my heart. Notwithstanding my imperfections, I was worth saving! She taught me the eternal truth that I am a son of a loving Heavenly Father. I learned that no matter what the circumstance, I was worth it. This was a perfect moment for an imperfect little boy.

As I surveyed the elderly people assembled for the nursing home sacrament meeting, I was worried. Several patients appeared to be asleep. One woman cried over and over, “I want to go home.” Most of those who were awake stared vaguely through clouded eyes. I wondered why the young men and young women of our ward had come to present this sacrament meeting. Other than giving these elderly Church members the opportunity to partake of the sacrament, why did we bother?
One of the young men conducted the service. It would be like any other sacrament meeting, with an opening hymn, an opening prayer, a sacrament hymn, the passing of the sacrament, speakers, and a closing hymn.
As we sang “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” I noticed one frail sister who, until this moment, had remained perfectly still, staring off into space. Now she sang every word from memory. When the sacrament was passed, almost every patient partook. I began to realize that the patients knew what was going on.
Following the sacrament, Shawna, the Laurel president, spoke on enduring to the end. I wondered how her words would affect people who had endured more than we could possibly imagine.
I was distracted from my thoughts by a very real presence in the room. I felt the Spirit as strongly as I’ve ever felt it before. Then I noticed that nearly all of the elderly brothers and sisters had their eyes focused on Shawna. The Spirit had linked us together as brothers and sisters, children of our Heavenly Father.
A scripture came to my mind: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Cor. 13:13).
There may have been many reasons for that sacrament meeting, but the greatest of them was charity, the pure love of Christ.

When business meetings brought me to my childhood hometown of Mansfield, Massachusetts, I looked up the Web page of my old middle school. At the end of a list of current faculty members was Mrs. Christine Pfeil, my eighth-grade English teacher who was a truly influential person in my life.
When I was in eighth grade, difficulties at home left me angry and distracted from school responsibilities. Other teachers didn’t pay attention to my altered attitude and slipping grades, but Mrs. Pfeil took a personal interest. She would never accept less than my best. Often she would write on my assignments, “You can do better—try again.” Grudgingly, I would redo the assignment, thinking, “OK, you want something better? I’ll give you something better!” In her class, I felt intelligent and appreciated. When I left Qualters Middle School after eighth grade, I knew I could succeed scholastically because of Mrs. Pfeil’s belief in me.
As I looked at her name on the Web page that day, it suddenly seemed overwhelmingly important to tell her as soon as possible how she had influenced my life. I determined to find her, so at noon the next day, I excused myself from a business meeting and sped to Qualters.
I had just tried her locked classroom door when I saw Mrs. Pfeil walking down the hallway. “Carl Nelson!” she exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you in 25 years! What are you doing here?”
Impelled to deliver my message, I began abruptly. “I feel I need to tell you personally how important you were in my life. In eighth grade I was going through difficult times, but you expected my best. Precious few demanded that much from me then. As far as I can tell, your faith in me was the major reason I began trusting in my own abilities. I don’t know what my life would have been like without a teacher like you.”
As I spoke, Mrs. Pfeil’s eyes became wet. “I have to tell you a story,” she said. “I have always wanted to be a writer, even though I felt God wanted me to teach. Last night I was feeling hurt that I had never received any appreciation for my work. I told God that unless I received some thanks the very next day, I was going to retire from teaching and work on my writing. And now here you come after all this time to thank me on this particular day—this blessing is almost too much!”
Mrs. Pfeil and I were unable to talk longer. Her students began arriving, and I left, humbled that Heavenly Father let me share in helping one of His children. Reflecting upon my brief experience with Mrs. Pfeil, I remained impressed that no matter who we are or what church we belong to, our loving Father works in our lives to answer our prayers.

When I was 11, my family had to leave East Germany. We moved to Frankfurt, West Germany. Until my father could find a job like he had before, he and my mother operated a laundry to make a living, and I was the laundry delivery boy. I saw some shiny red bicycles, and I wished I could have one to make my deliveries. But I needed a heavy-duty bicycle to pull the cart with the laundry on it. I rode around pulling that heavy laundry cart before school and after school. It was hard to see the other children play, especially during the winter months. But everybody in our family had to work hard, and I knew I was an important part of the family business. I felt needed and valued.

The next week, Cleiton again invited me to go to church. I couldn’t because I had another obligation. I could see the sadness in his face when I told him I didn’t know if I could go.

However, on Sunday morning I awoke with a desire to go to church. I got up at 6:50, which was difficult for me, and I got ready and waited for Cleiton to walk by. He was surprised when he saw me dressed and waiting. That Sunday the bishop taught about the priesthood. I felt the Spirit strongly and had the impression that I should take the missionary lessons. By the end of the Aaronic Priesthood meeting, I knew that I was going to be baptized.

When church ended, I told Cleiton, “I want to be baptized!”

He thought I was joking. But then he said, “If I call the elders, will you meet with them?” I answered yes.

I was taught by great elders. When I heard the message of the Restoration, I had an even greater confirmation that I should be baptized. But I wanted to know for myself the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The elders marked Moroni 10:3–5 in my Book of Mormon and invited me to pray and ask God if it is true.

The next evening I remembered that I had not yet read the Book of Mormon. As I began to read, I felt a very strong spirit. I prayed, and before I was finished, I knew that the Book of Mormon is true. I am grateful to God for having answered my prayer. I was baptized in July 2006.

I later served as a missionary in the Brazil Cuiabá Mission, and my friend Cleiton served in the Brazil Santa Maria Mission. We did what Cleiton did for me: invite people to come unto Christ and help them receive the restored gospel through exercising faith in Jesus Christ, repenting, being baptized, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. This truly is the way to salvation.

Let us always invite our friends and relatives to learn of this gospel, for the Savior invited everyone when He said, “Come unto me” (Matthew 11:28). I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ and that now is the time to invite everyone to come unto Him.

Hard work and faithful, diligent service has always been a part of Elder and Sister Mutombo’s life together. Heartache and adversity have been as well. Four of the Mutombo’s first six children died while infants. The youngest died at one week old, the oldest died of sudden infant death, at 9 months old. In the face of the heartbreak of losing four children, Thierry and Nathalie’s faith in God and love for each other was undeterred. Today, they have six living children, Jason, Blessing, Ariel, Marvel, Harvest, and Ruby. Ruby, their tenth child and third daughter, was born while the Mutombos led the Maryland Baltimore mission. Despite the challenges they have faced, they are happy, cheerful, faithful people.