Gospel Story Finder

Massa Moseray (in white blouse) is a single parent and the breadwinner for seven dependents all living in Kissy Stake. Massa returned from her full-time mission just at the end of the Sierra Leone civil war. Due to this circumstance, there were very limited opportunities for her development. Massa was recommended by her stake leadership to join the Start My Business pilot group. She was able to raise SLL 180,000 during the group’s pilot activity which was used as seed money for her business.

Rachelle pulled her shoelaces as tightly as they could go. Last Friday, her laces had come undone, and she had tripped with her lunch tray. Now as she stretched them with all her might, she silently hoped that she wouldn’t be embarrassed again.
Pop! Rachelle fell back on her bed, holding a broken shoelace in her hand. She didn’t want to cry, and the tears that started in her eyes only made her mad. Taking the shoelace, she hurried to the kitchen and held it out for Dad to see.
“Oh no!” Dad frowned. “I don’t think we have any more. We’ll just have to tie it together and hope it holds that way.”
Rachelle threw the lace on the floor and angrily stamped her foot. “All the bad things happen to me!”
Dad chuckled. “Sometimes it does seem that way.”
Rachelle didn’t see how her father could laugh. Now she would probably trip with her lunch tray again. If she did, everyone would think she was really weird. “It’s not fair. Why am I the only one with bad luck? Why don’t I get to have blessings?”
This time when Dad answered her, he was more serious. “I know that sometimes life seems to have a lot of troubles. But I think that if you don’t see the blessings in your life, it’s because you’re not looking for them.”
“I looked,” Rachelle argued. “There aren’t any there.”
“Honey,” Dad gently scolded. “There are blessings everywhere. Really, you have more than you imagine.”
Rachelle rolled her eyes as she sat at the breakfast table. She watched Dad finish spreading butter on her toast and stir her orange juice again. Usually by now, he was getting ready for work. Today he was helping Mom, instead.
“Was Mom up all night with the baby again?” Rachelle quietly asked.
Dad nodded. “Now, there’s a blessing we all enjoy; however, he just doesn’t enjoy sleeping at night like the rest of us.”
When they had finished eating, Dad helped Rachelle read out of the Book of Mormon. They knelt together for prayers, and then Dad helped her put on a jacket and her backpack. When she turned around to give him a kiss good-bye, he held her face in his hands and said, “Rachelle, I want you to do something for me today.”
“Sure, Dad. What?”
“Look around you all day long and try really hard to find blessings the Lord has given you. Write them down in your notebook and share them with us tonight during family home evening.”
“That sounds like a school assignment.”
“In a way it is,” Dad answered. “Just as you sometimes do schoolwork at home, this time I want you to do home work at school.”
Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Rachelle promised that she would. “But don’t be surprised if my paper is blank,” she called over her shoulder as she left the house. She heard her dad chuckling as he closed the door behind her.
When Rachelle was joined by her friends Misty and Stormi, she almost completely forgot about her assignment. But she remembered it when Misty grumped that they lived just too near their school to not be included on the bus route. It seemed like the walk to school was always too long.
“You see,” Rachelle announced her thoughts out loud, “of course I have to walk to school! I’m just one of those people who don’t get any blessings. This is going to be one of the easiest assignments I’ve ever had.”
Misty and Stormi looked at each other, but neither of them said anything. Whatever was bothering Rachelle would most likely be forgotten by lunchtime.
In a way, they were right. By noon, Rachelle had not written anything on her paper for family home evening. She was happily eating her green salad and chatting with Misty and Stormi in between bites, when a loud noise and a lot of laughing caught her attention. At the front of the lunchroom, where everyone could see, stood the new boy. His hair was a mess as usual, his clothes looked dirty, and even though his face was turning red, his ears and neck looked like someone forgot to remind him to scrub them.
All the kids in the lunchroom were pointing and laughing at him because he had dropped his tray.
“Wow!” Rachelle exclaimed. “I sure am glad that wasn’t me.” She remembered how worried she had been that she would drop her tray. But the shoelace Dad had fixed had held just fine, and she hadn’t tripped. “I’d better write that down.” She took a piece of notebook paper from her pocket. “I didn’t drop my tray, and my shoelace stayed together.”
The new boy walked quickly to a seat in the lunchroom. He passed Rachelle’s table on the way. She noticed something else about him. He didn’t have any shoelaces.
“I guess I ought to write that, too,” she mumbled to herself. “I have shoelaces.”
“What on earth are you doing?” Stormi asked.
“Oh, it’s just an assignment my dad gave me today,” Rachelle explained. “I have to write down all my blessings.”
“Why?” Misty wondered.
Rachelle shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it might be because my dad doesn’t think I’m grateful or something.”
“Uh-huh.” Stormi nodded. “My dad does stuff like that to me, too.”
“So you wrote stuff you have that the new boy doesn’t?” Misty guessed.
Rachelle nodded.
“Isn’t he in our ward?” Stormi asked.
Rachelle and Misty shrugged.
“I heard my mom say that his only family is his grandma,” Stormi told them. “Mom said that they moved their trailer house here last week. I guess they move a lot.”
“Does he have any brothers or sisters?” Rachelle asked.
Stormi shook her head. “There are just him and his grandma.”
Rachelle wrote, “I have a house to live in” and “I have a baby brother” and “I have a mom who takes good care of me” and “I have a dad.” She looked over to the table where the new boy was hungrily eating. He didn’t seem to notice that no one was sitting by him, and some kids were making rude faces at him. He ate his food as if it were a feast for a king. Rachelle wrote, “I have a nice school lunch” and “I have good friends.” She was quiet as she looked at her paper. The list had gotten really long in just a short time.
“Come on, Rachelle,” Misty called. She and Stormi were standing by the table, ready to scrape their trays and go outside.
“Um, I’ll come in a minute.” Rachelle was glad her friends left without saying anything else. A lump was forming in her throat. How could she have complained about anything? She was probably one of the most blessed girls in the whole world. Rachelle felt really ashamed for her grumpiness that morning. She found where she had written, “I have a dad” on her paper and added “who puts up with my complaining.”
That night in family home evening when Dad asked for her paper, she unfolded it and tried to read. But the lump started to form in her throat again.
Dad smiled understandingly. “I can tell by the look on Rachelle’s face that she has done her assignment very well.”
Rachelle nodded and turned her paper over so her parents could see. “It’s a lot more than I thought I would have,” she admitted.
Mom held a small sack out for Rachelle to take and said, “Rachelle, Dad told me you needed new shoelaces, so I managed to get to the store to buy some for you today.”
Taking the laces out of the sack, she asked, “Mom, would it be OK if I gave these to someone else?”
Mom and Dad looked in surprise at each other, and Dad asked, “Who?”
“There’s a new boy in our ward who doesn’t even have any broken laces to tie together.”
Mom nodded. “I think I know who you mean. That’s a wonderful idea, Rachelle.”
“The idea is really Dad’s,” Rachelle told her mother. “He wanted me to see that I have all kinds of blessings and shouldn’t complain.”
Dad picked up Rachelle’s paper and wrote something down.
“What are you writing on my paper?”
“I’m just adding something that you missed.” Dad handed her the paper.
Rachelle read, “I have a giving heart.”

“Remember the time you stopped the airplane on the runway?” I asked. Grandfather’s eyes lit up and so I continued to go back with him to a day when I was 14 years old. Grandmother had decided that she and Grandpa would take me to Salt Lake City for April conference to celebrate my birthday. She had called for airplane reservations, but as usual, she was late. As we arrived at the airport, I panicked to see our plane starting its takeoff. Although she was tiny in size, Grandmother never had a minute’s hesitation about giving Grandfather orders. This time was no different. She turned to him and ordered, “Ed, get out there and stop that plane!”
I couldn’t believe what was happening. Grandfather knew it would do no good to argue, so he just muttered a few words under his breath and crawled out of the car. He opened the large silver gate leading to the runway, and the next thing I knew, he was running alongside the plane waving his arms.
As we boarded the plane, my face was red with embarrassment, but Grandmother just ushered us to our places in her usual matter-of-fact way. As I recalled the episode with Grandfather, I started laughing, and although he couldn’t speak or laugh, his eyes spilled merriment. Once again we were sharing.

When I was sixteen years old, I came home early from one of my first dates as my parents had asked me to. I saw the Book of Mormon on my bed stand, and since I was still wide awake, I decided to read it.
I had read bits of the Book of Mormon before, but I had never read it all the way through. That night I got into the book so deeply that when dawn came, I was reading the final chapters of Moroni!
When I finished the Book of Mormon, I wanted to test Moroni’s promise and ask Heavenly Father if it were true. I knelt next to my bed and prayed. That day I received a powerful witness from the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true.
The following Monday at school, one of my friends who was not a member of the Church came up to me. He gave me a piece of paper and told me that it was a list of fifty facts proving that the Book of Mormon was false. I told him, “You’re too late. I can’t explain the ‘facts’ on your list, but none of them could convince me that the Book of Mormon is not true. I have received a witness from the Holy Ghost.”
I kept the list. As the years went by, modern research helped me to understand better the culture and times of the Book of Mormon. The things in the Book of Mormon that historians once thought were false have since been proven true. One by one, I was able to cross off all fifty items on the list. From this experience, I learned that a testimony can’t come in the same way that you learn other things. A testimony of the Book of Mormon can come only through the Holy Ghost.

This first inspiring story is about Mahatma Gandhi, whose approach to leadership was based on the belief that every individual has the potential to be a leader, and that true leadership comes from serving others. He believed that leaders should be humble, compassionate, and willing to sacrifice their own interests for the good of others.

One experience of Gandhi’s effective leadership was his Salt March in 1930.[8] The British had imposed a tax on salt, which had a devastating impact on the poor in India. Gandhi decided to lead a peaceful protest against the tax by walking 240 miles—which is the distance from Rexburg to Salt Lake City—from his religious retreat to the sea, where he and his followers would collect salt from the beach.

The Salt March became a powerful symbol of resistance against colonial rule and inspired millions of people around the world to join the fight for India’s independence. Gandhi’s leadership during the Salt March was characterized by his courageous commitment to nonviolence, his willingness to take personal risks, and his ability to inspire and mobilize others to join him in the struggle for justice. Gandhi’s legacy as an effective leader continues to inspire people today, reminding us of the power of leadership that is grounded in service, humility, and commitment.

When it comes to life-shaping events, Aarika can point to one that happened nine years ago. It was the day her mother was killed by a drunk driver. “I remember her very well, and I had a really close relationship with her even at a young age,” she says of her mom. “My dad always tells me how my mom would want me to be a strong member of the Church.” This is an interesting statement since Aarika’s dad, Jamie, when he first said that, wasn’t a member himself.
“I want to be good because my mom was a convert to the Church, and my dad finally joined, too, after my mom died. People helped bring my mom into the Church, and I saw how people helped my dad. I think that’s another reason why I try to tell people about the gospel.”
“After my mom died,” she continues, “the gospel was there at the perfect moment in my life. I have realized that I can still feel close to my mom and that she is here. I know I will see her again someday.”
A month before her visit to the Los Angeles Temple grounds, Aarika and her brother were sealed to their parents.
“I have seen how the Church changed my life and has made negative things into positive things. I have such a testimony of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, and I feel like I have a really close relationship with them,” she says. “I’ve had moments in my life where I’ve felt the Holy Ghost to where I’m just in tears. I love my friends so much that I want them to feel that, to feel that comfort, and to feel the love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for them.”

I would like to relate the experience of an ancestor of my wife, Jeanene. Her name is Sarah DeArmon Pea Rich. Her commentary shows the impact that the temple can have in our lives. When she was 31 years old, she received a calling from Brigham Young to work in the Nauvoo Temple, where all the ordinances possible were performed before the Saints had to abandon that temple. This is what she wrote:
“Many were the blessings we had received in the house of the Lord, which has caused us joy and comfort in the midst of all our sorrows and enabled us to have faith in God, knowing He would guide us and sustain us in the unknown journey that lay before us. For if it had not been for the faith and knowledge that was bestowed upon us in that temple by the influence and help of the Spirit of the Lord, our journey would have been like one taking a leap in the dark. To start out on such a journey in the winter as it were and in our state of poverty, it would seem like walking into the jaws of death. But we had faith in our Heavenly Father, and we put our trust in Him, feeling that we were His chosen people and had embraced His gospel, and instead of sorrow, we felt to rejoice that the day of our deliverance had come.”

We must have been a pathetic sight—me in my Hawaiian loose-fitting dress with wilted flower necklaces still around my neck, and three blurry-eyed, very tired children, the oldest one barely five. It was 2:30 A.M., and the huge San Francisco airport was nearly empty. I felt totally lost and so alone.
I approached a man at one of the service counters and asked how far it was to town. He told me that the last bus was just about to leave, and if I hurried, I might still be able to catch it. He helped me with our luggage, and stopped the bus just as it prepared to leave. I didn’t even have time to thank him before we were whisked away.
The station at the end of the line was dark and closed, and as the other passengers on the bus quickly scattered into the night, the empty bus pulled out to wherever it was going, and left me with three small children, four suitcases, and two small trunks, standing on a sidewalk somewhere in San Francisco.
I was beginning to show signs of panic when a custodian came out of the bus station, locking the door behind him. I asked him if there was some place I could use a telephone to call a cab, or if he knew of a hotel nearby. Blessedly, he knew of a clean little hotel about six blocks away, and he offered to obtain a furniture dolly from the building to take my luggage to the hotel. By 4 A.M. with the children in bed, I sank into an exhausted sleep.

Illustrations by Sal Velluto and Eugenio Mattozzi
By November 1833 most of the Latter-day Saints in Jackson County, Missouri, had been persecuted and driven from their homes.
In 1834 the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to organize a group of Latter-day Saints to march from Kirtland, Ohio, to Jackson County, Missouri. The group was called Zion’s Camp.
I need as many men as will come. We’ll march to Jackson County and recover the land that was taken from us.
Over 200 people walked more than 900 miles (1,450 km). They often didn’t have enough food or water. Some men chose to quarrel and criticize the Prophet.
I’m tired of marching so far. We deserve better food.
I didn’t think this would be so hard.
I miss my wife and children.
One day, when crossing a swamp, one of the wagons got stuck.
It won’t move.
I can’t do this anymore. I’m going home.
Don’t give up, men. Grab this rope and pull.
Some days later, after the men were weary from ferrying a stream, they found a nice place to camp. They felt happy for the first time in a long time.
Men, I feel impressed to travel on a little farther. Follow me.
We have been traveling all day and are hungry and tired.
You can go on, but we’ll stay here.
Joseph and a faithful group of men traveled on about seven more miles (11 km).
I’ll follow where you lead, Joseph.
Thank you, Brigham.
Maybe we should follow Joseph.
All right. Let’s go.
Later, the men of Zion’s Camp received a report.
There was a mob of men organized to come upon us that night, right where we had decided to camp the first time.
How grateful I am for a prophet.

Edison kicked the ground. All the other boys were talking and setting up tents. But he didn’t know anyone.
Edison’s family had stopped going to church a little while after they moved to Spain. But then the boys from the ward came over and invited him to come on the camping trip. Camping had sounded fun, but now Edison wasn’t sure he wanted to be here after all. He felt like he didn’t belong.
Two boys, Diego and Juan, walked up to Edison. “Do you want to share our tent?” Diego asked.
Edison let out a breath and smiled. “Sure.”
“Cool!” said Juan. “And then we can go swimming.”
The boys set up their tent and ran to the river. The water was cold, but now Edison was having so much fun he hardly noticed. After lunch, the boys and leaders went on a hike. They got back just as the sun started to set, so they helped set up a campfire.
“What’s your family like?” Juan asked.
Edison dropped a pile of twigs by the fire. “My parents are pretty cool. And my sister is my best friend. We moved here from Ecuador.”
Diego and Juan looked at each other with big smiles.
“We’re from Ecuador too!” Juan said.
Diego unzipped his jacket to show his T-shirt. It had the symbol for Ecuador’s soccer team on it!
“Wow!” Edison said. “So what do you miss most about Ecuador?”
Diego and Juan laughed. “The food!” they both shouted.
The boys kept talking about what they missed about Ecuador and what they liked about living in Spain. Edison liked how easy it was to talk to Diego and Juan.
Then one of the leaders, Brother Cisneros, stood up. “Hey, everyone! We want to end the night with a testimony meeting.”
One by one, boys and leaders stood up and shared their testimonies. Their words made Edison’s heart feel like it was wrapped in a warm blanket.
Diego stood up. “I know the Church is true. I know that God is my Father and that Jesus Christ is my Savior.”
The warm feeling grew stronger. I want to know that too, Edison thought.
When Edison got home from the trip, Diego’s words stayed in his mind. He wished he could go to church and learn about Jesus with Diego and Juan.
That night at dinner, Papá asked, “How was the camping trip?”
“It was great!” Edison said. “We swam and hiked and built a fire. I even made two friends who are from Ecuador too!”
“That’s great! We’ll have to invite them over,” Mamá said.
Edison paused. “Could we start going to church again?”
Mamá and Papá didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then Mamá cleared her throat. “If you want to go, that’s fine,” she said. “But Papá and I aren’t going to go.”
Edison slumped in his chair. He didn’t want to go to church alone. Maybe he should stay home with his family.
Then Edison remembered the warm feeling from the testimony meeting. Even if his family didn’t want to go to church, Edison wanted to go.
Besides, he wouldn’t be alone. Edison smiled as he ate his dinner. Then he picked up the phone. He knew some friends he could go to church with!
This story took place in Spain.

Many years ago I learned something very important from President Henry B. Eyring. He determined as a young father to ponder every night how the Lord’s hand was blessing his life. Here are his words:
I wrote down a few lines every day for years. . . . Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch [my wife and me] or our children . . . today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.

Mariah Atkin is a great example of listening to the Holy Ghost. Mariah loves the animals Heavenly Father has given us to enjoy. One day Mariah’s rabbit, Licorice, had babies. For some reason, Licorice didn’t know how to be a good mother. She didn’t keep her babies warm or let them nurse. Mariah tried everything she could think of to help the babies, but four of them died.
Mariah was so upset that she ran to a private spot in the yard and started to cry. Then she began to pray, asking Heavenly Father to please bless the babies that were still alive. Mariah went back and found the tiny babies huddled together, trying to stay warm.
A thought came into Mariah’s mind: “Take Licorice out of her cage, place a towel over her face and front paws, and hold the babies up to nurse.”
Mariah felt that the thought was from the Holy Ghost, and she was careful to obey. It worked! Mariah helped the babies nurse for three weeks, twice during the day and once in the middle of the night. They are now healthy bunnies with wonderful homes.
Mariah has learned that Heavenly Father loves everything and knows what is happening in our lives. He hears our prayers and helps us make a difference for good when we listen to the Holy Ghost.

I felt relaxed and unhurried as I drove home. Then, all of a sudden, I heard the repeated blaring of a car horn.
Illustration by Richard Mia
I was driving home from a young-adult meeting on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I felt relaxed and unhurried as I thought about the messages I had heard about developing our potential as children of God. I asked myself what I could do to develop the potential that is in me.
My route home took me through a narrow, two-way stretch of road. A long line of cars came from the opposite direction, but no one was behind me. Then, all of a sudden, I heard the repeated blaring of a car horn. There was now a driver behind me. He flicked his headlights on and off and yelled at me to get out of the way. It appeared he wanted to drive faster.
I thought that this person needed to learn patience and respect for others, so I slowed down. As we went past a number of streets, he kept blowing his horn and flicking his lights. He then turned off the road and stopped. I looked in my rearview mirror to see his reaction at not being able to go faster. I felt good about having taught him a lesson.
Suddenly, the driver jumped out of his car and opened the passenger door. A woman emerged quickly with a baby in her arms. I looked to see where they were going. In the distance, I saw the lighted letters: “Hospital Emergency Room.”
“What have I done?” I asked myself. I arrived home, fell to my knees, and with tears in my eyes, I asked God to forgive me.
That day I learned that the actions of those around us can be motivated by things we cannot always see or understand. Today, when I see someone act in a way I judge to be wrong, I prefer to think that I do not quite understand what they are going through. I try to show the love and compassion that Jesus Christ has asked us to have toward others and to focus on understanding and helping those around me.
How can I develop my potential as a child of God? I can respond to the actions of others with love and understanding. Doing so has enabled me to feel more of the Savior’s love in my own life and enables others to feel my love for them.

When I returned home I felt much different inside. I was beginning to feel hope and was learning to pray for guidance and forgiveness. True repentance didn’t take place overnight; it took many months before I felt I had been forgiven. I made a decision to start attending church again, the most difficult part of which was finding the courage to actually walk to the doors and go in.
I become overwhelmed as I think of the meaning of the Savior’s Atonement: “Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me enough to die for me!” (“I Stand All Amazed,” Hymns, number 193). It is also wonderful that two sister missionaries came into my life when they did and shared with me their love and example. I was filled with joy to have one of them be my escort when I finally attended the temple to receive my endowment.
Following years of wandering, I had come home at last.

My Grandfather Rose was very ill with heart problems. To help my grandmother with his care, our family decided that we would take turns sleeping at my grandparents’ house to help out. My mother and my aunts went over most often, but one weekend I asked if I could spend the night.
I was reclining in a chair next to my grandfather’s bed. He was sleeping well that night, which was unusual. I was just falling asleep myself when my granddad rolled over and said, “Carl, shape up.” Then he rolled back over and went back to sleep.
I didn’t know what he meant. I wasn’t a bad kid. But I wasn’t able to fall asleep the rest of the night. I stayed up thinking about what my granddad meant by telling me to “shape up.”
I thought about his words for the next few days, trying to figure out what I needed to shape up in my life. A few days later, I went again to my grandparents’ home to rub my grandfather’s back. I finished that and sat down to talk to my grandma. She said, “Carl, Granddad prays that you will gain the desire to serve a mission for the Lord.”
Later that night I was working at my gymnastics exercises. I heard my coach yelling at me to concentrate. I was so caught up thinking about the conversation that I had with my grandma and the decision I had to make that it was hard for me to work out. I was torn between a college scholarship for gymnastics and a mission.
As I was lying in bed later that night, I thought back to my granddad saying, “Carl, shape up.” I thought about whether my priorities were where they should be. They weren’t. I realized that my number-one priority was gymnastics, not the Lord and his work. I finally figured out what my granddad meant. He meant that I needed to shape up my soul and my mind. The only way to do that was to start going to seminary and church.
Not long after I began to “shape up,” I read the Book of Mormon for the first time in my life. As I did, I took the prophet Moroni’s advice and prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Through these exercises, I not only gained the desire to serve a mission, but I also found the light and life of the world, Jesus Christ.

In the spring of 1844, Parley P. Pratt and most of the other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were serving missions in the eastern United States. In June, Elder Pratt felt inspired to return to Nauvoo, Illinois. On the way, he heard that Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been martyred at Carthage, Illinois. “I felt so weighed down with sorrow and the powers of darkness that it was painful for me to converse or speak to any one.”*
He thought about his beloved friends who were now dead and of the many experiences they had shared, including time spent in prison together. Six years before, in November 1838, when the Saints had been driven from their homes in Missouri, fifty of their leaders, including Joseph Smith and Parley, had been arrested and jailed in Richmond, Missouri.
One night the men had been kept awake by the guards, who were vulgarly boasting about their cruel acts of violence against the Saints. It was midnight, and the imprisoned men had been listening to the guards’ filthy language for hours. Unwilling to tolerate the abusive language any longer, the Prophet Joseph rose to his feet and with a voice of thunder rebuked the guards and commanded them to be silent. Parley later wrote, “Dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains, at midnight, in a dungeon in an obscure village of Missouri.”
Now that great leader was gone. As Parley approached Nauvoo, he was worried. He didn’t know if Brigham Young, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, or any of the other members of the Quorum were there. What should he tell the people? Should he tell them to flee from Nauvoo? Or should they stay and complete the temple? Parley prayed to know what to do. “On a sudden the Spirit of God came upon me and filled my heart with joy and gladness indescribable. … The Spirit said unto me: ‘Go and say unto my people in Nauvoo, that they shall continue to pursue their daily duties and take care of themselves. … Exhort them that they continue to build the House of the Lord which I have commanded them to build in Nauvoo.’”
At Nauvoo Elder Pratt found that the people had already resumed work on the temple under the direction of John Taylor and Willard Richards, two other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who had been in jail with the Prophet when he was killed. The three men worked together to keep the people united and at peace until the return of President Young and the other members of the Quorum.

“Today is the happiest morning in this year. Today is the first [day of] morning seminary,” wrote a Church member in Russia. “How and when [did this thought] originate about daily morning seminary? I remember there was a lesson for our CES teachers that mentioned about the daily seminary program in the United States and Europe and that got stuck in my mind. At that lesson I felt the power of the Holy Ghost which brought a thought unto me that we should have seminary here. Then I felt that the Lord endows everything for this job: possibility, strength and help. We have to have just willingness to accept such a gift.
“After that meeting I felt great inspiration. Some mothers got frightened a little with the idea because children will have to get up early in the morning and in school, they are overloaded, and some finish the school this year and will be entering higher educational institutions. But fathers, who have the priesthood, completely supported me, having said that daily studying of the scriptures is so needed for youth, will teach them discipline, and also will help them gain the Holy Ghost which during the day time and school lessons will help to withstand the temptations of Satan” (comments from Maria Rupysheva, Vyborg, Russia, fall 1996).

Our son, Spencer, has tried to learn to fast since his baptism nearly two years ago. We have not made him feel he must fast at this young age. He may not fast as long as we do on some Sundays. In fast and testimony meeting some time ago, he whispered to me, “I think I’ll go up and bear my testimony.” I smiled and nodded my approval. His sincere testimony touched me. He was feeling something. So did I.

It was the day before my football team’s first practice of the season. That night I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I had saved up my money over the summer so I could pay all the fees myself. And now, at the age of 14, I was finally going to fulfill my dream.
During practice the next day, something really surprised me. It wasn’t how hard my coaches pushed us—I was expecting that. No, I was shocked at the filthy, vulgar language all the players and coaches were using. At first I tried to ignore it and not let it bother me, but after awhile it started to take its toll.
I found myself thinking those words, and even worse, repeating them when I was stressed. I prayed to my Heavenly Father and asked Him to help me be strong. Then, I made a promise to myself and to the Lord that I wouldn’t swear.
Later in the season we played a game against our biggest rivals. Right before the game started, our coach gathered us together to say a cheer. He told us the cheer that he wanted us to say, and unfortunately it required us to say a swear word. I remembered the promise that I made to myself and to Heavenly Father. I decided to say the cheer except for the swear word. I would just replace it with a more appropriate word.
When the cheer was over, the player next to me noticed what I had said and started to make fun of me. He went up to the coach and said, “Harsh is Mormon, and he’s not man enough to swear. He’s too churchy!”
I thought the coach would get mad at me or start to make fun of me as well, but instead he stood up for me and told my teammate, “Hey, leave Harsh alone. He has a lot of heart and can show you up on the football field any time!”
I was surprised. I thought my coach would respect me if I swore like everyone else. But actually, he respected me more because I was true to my standards.
I don’t know how big of an impact my example had on my teammates and coaches, but I realized later how strong that experience made me. Now, a few years later, it is easier for me to stand up for what I believe. I also realize that when we make a decision to obey the commandments, we are not alone. The Holy Ghost will help and support us through our trials.

I recall a friend of mine going through a time in his life that shook him to the very core of his being and caused him and his family much heartache and soul searching. He had been raised in a strong member family, his parents had held responsible positions within the Church, but for much of his life he had felt that he had been "living a lie", as he described it, trying to be something he really wasn't. While his actions indicated full activity in the gospel—regular church attendance, full time mission, church service and even temple marriage— his thoughts became more and more focused on worldly pleasures. Over a period of several years, he gradually succumbed to these thoughts, convinced that they represented who he really was and began to act upon them.

My friend ended up isolating himself from his family and losing his membership in the Church and along with it, his self worth. Fortunately, he had a very loyal and faithful wife who stood by him and prayed for his well being constantly, even though she had personally suffered greatly from his actions. He soon realized that his worldly pursuits had robbed him of what was most dear, that made him truly happy, not just in a fleeting, superficial way as his current temporal pursuits did, but in a deep meaningful way. He desperately wanted back what he had lost, far more than the temporal pleasures he was indulging in. Thus began his long journey back into the light.

I am pleased to inform you that my friend did hold fast to the process of repentance and has once again achieved full fellowship. His gratitude and respect for his wife has grown immeasurably as she never faltered and never gave up on him. He then shared a very important insight with me from his experience and that is our actions, if we persist in them, can and will shape our thoughts. As he persisted in doing the right things, he found that his thoughts began to fall right into line. It did not happen overnight, but it did happen. His troubles began the day he ceased doing the right things.