Gospel Story Finder

When Julio was 13, he was sexually abused by his uncle. Over time, he began to withdraw from his family and isolated himself. At times, he functioned as though nothing had happened, but occasionally he was flooded by emotion. He has always been able to manage life—even feeling intense happiness, like at the birth of his son. He also feels broken. His son is now approaching the same age when Julio was abused, and as Julio contemplates his son’s potential experiences, he is wrestling with thoughts and feelings about his own self-worth and eternal identity.

The abuse Julio endured at the hands of his uncle did not change Julio’s worth and worthiness. He never sinned but was sinned against. At times it can be hard to remember your worth and worthiness when you have been abused. Remember, you did not sin, your worth has never decreased, and you are worthy to continue on the covenant path.

As Julio began to trust in the Lord, He helped Julio realize that mortal experiences don’t change the love our Father in Heaven has for us. He is now learning to see how even though terrible things happened, they did not change his fundamental worth, eternal identity, or worthiness.

Our main purpose in life is to prepare to return to live with our Heavenly Father (see Alma 12:24). Trauma can cloud this purpose and prevent us from seeing who we are. Finding a specific purpose in our daily actions can help us move forward and even remember our main purpose in life. Julio began to move forward and find purpose in his daily actions when he realized he wanted to help his son.

Immediately following the news of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction, the G. family held a family council and decided to give the money they had saved for new furniture to the Church Humanitarian Fund instead. This brought light to the children’s eyes. Taylor, Nathan, and Zachary asked if they could donate their personal savings to the fund. Their parents agreed. However, after counting their savings, the children said they needed to do more and asked if they could set up a stand to sell lemonade and cookies. They were soon open for business. The three boys manned the stand on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., taking no breaks except (in shifts) to eat. They allowed themselves no lemonade or cookies. At the end of the first day, they were elated that they had made $67. They asked permission to open again after school, but were told no. “But there are more people who need help!” the children explained. Mother agreed, and they raised another $24. They were filled with gratitude and joy as they sealed their money in a donation envelope.

Thump! went the backpack on the living room end table. “Put your bag in your room, Petey!” Mother said as she rounded the corner, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. Her smile faded as she noticed Peter’s somber face. “Are you OK?”
“I guess so.” Peter shrugged as he hung his coat on a hook by the door.
“Then why the glum face? Did you have a fight with Justin?”
“Well, no … It’s just that whenever I ask him to come to Primary with me, he says he’s too busy or has stuff to do or something. Why can’t I make him come? Primary is so cool!”
“Let’s sit down a minute,” Mother said, heading for the couch. She tossed the towel onto the end table next to Peter’s backpack. “Do you remember the eleventh article of faith?” she asked when they were seated. “I think that’s one you’ve already learned.”
“Hmmm, let me think.”
“‘We claim the privilege …’” she started him off.
“Oh, yeah! I remember now. That’s the one that says ‘how, where, or what they may.’”
“That’s right! It says, ‘We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship …’”
“‘how, where, or what they may!’” Peter finished proudly.
“That’s very good, Petey. But do you know what it means?”
Peter began to fidget on the couch.
Mother smiled thoughtfully. “Let me see if I can help. Remember last week, when Dad was out of town and we had that snowstorm?”
“Do I ever! We had to shovel the walks and driveway before school. It was a lot of work. And then the neighbor kids wanted to walk through the snow, so they tromped across our lawn, instead! What a waste of time!” Peter shook his head, remembering the footprints across the front lawn.
“Well, no it wasn’t,” Mother corrected gently. “Because our walks were clear, it was easy to get the car out to take you to school.”
“OK, OK.” Peter’s nose wrinkled slightly. “I still don’t get what that has to do with the eleventh article of faith—or Justin.”
“Well, we worked hard to clear a path in the snow—that’s what we wanted to do. It was important to us. But the neighborhood children chose to walk in the snow, instead—because that’s what was important to them. Right?”
“Right,” Peter said. “So what?”
“Well, you want Justin to go to Primary on Sunday because it’s important to you, right?”
“Oh. I think I get it,” Peter said slowly. “Even though I choose to go to Primary, that doesn’t mean that Justin has to, right?”
Mother smiled. “That’s right. Heavenly Father has given us a very precious gift called agency. It is the right to choose and act for ourselves. We can’t force someone to follow the same path we choose to follow. However, while you need to let Justin have his agency, it’s also very good for you to love him and be his friend. You can keep showing Justin the ‘clear path’ that’s important to you. And maybe—just maybe—he’ll want to follow it one day.”
As Peter grabbed his backpack and headed up the stairs, he turned and smiled. “I’m glad I have my agency so I can choose to go to Primary.”

William Prabhudas of the Bangalore Second Branch works in a courthouse. He knows how heart wrenching it can be to see marriages torn apart. That’s one of the reasons he and his wife were so eager to find strength in the temple.
“Like most couples, sometimes we have small issues to work out,” he says. “But working them out is so much easier when we both have an eternal perspective.”
His wife, Sheela, says that going to the temple has helped not only her and her husband, but it has also helped their children: Celesta, age 13, and Doris, 7. “We were sealed as a family,” Sheela says. “It was a good feeling. We forgot the outside world, and it was like heaven for us. We talk about it all the time.”
“What a blessing to be sealed to my wife,” Brother Prabhudas says. “And then they brought our daughters in, dressed in white, to join us. It reminded me of cleanliness—cleanliness in our lives and in our homes. Cleanliness and the temple go hand in hand. When we are clean, the Lord promises—in His house of promises—to bless us.”
Celesta recalls that her family worked, planned, and saved for two years to be able to travel to the temple. But most of all, she remembers being in the temple with her parents and that her aunt and uncle and cousins were also there to see her family sealed. “Afterward, we all held hands together. We looked in the mirrors and thought about eternity,” she recalls. “It was beautiful. I knew I wanted to belong to my family forever.”

Scott Balloch of Bristol, England, was 18 years old when his parents ended their marriage. As a result, he feared the possibility of a divorce of his own someday—but he also learned important lessons from his parents’ experience.
“I was much less blasé about dating because of my parents’ divorce,” Brother Balloch says. “I took the commitment of marriage very seriously.”
Before he and his wife married, they talked about his concerns and they consistently prayed and read the scriptures.
“That had a massive impact,” Brother Balloch says. “It lessened contention, and a lot of our fears were taken away.
“Nephi taught us a good principle: ‘I will go and do’” (1 Ne. 3:7), he continues. “When we’re fearful, it can make us more reliant on Heavenly Father. He’s provided a way.” The Ballochs explain that they have been blessed for seeking to follow Heavenly Father’s commandments in their marriage.

When we “put on Christ,” it becomes possible either to resolve or to lay aside differences, disagreements, and disputes. A rather dramatic example of overcoming division is found in our Church history. Elder Brigham Henry Roberts (commonly known as B. H. Roberts), born in England in 1857, served as a member of the First Council of the Seventy—what we refer to today as the Presidency of the Seventy. Elder Roberts was an able and tireless defender of the restored gospel and of the Church in some of its most difficult times.

In 1895, however, Elder Roberts’s service in the Church was put in jeopardy by contention. B. H. had been appointed as a delegate to the convention that drafted a constitution for Utah when it became a state. Afterward, he decided to become a candidate for the United States Congress but did not notify or seek permission from the First Presidency. President Joseph F. Smith, a counselor in the First Presidency, censured B. H. for that failure in a general priesthood meeting. Elder Roberts lost the election and felt his defeat was due in large part to President Smith’s statements. He was critical of Church leaders in some political speeches and interviews. He withdrew from active Church service. In a lengthy meeting in the Salt Lake Temple with members of the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve, B. H. remained adamant in justifying himself. Later, “President [Wilford] Woodruff gave [Elder Roberts] three weeks to reconsider his position. If he remained unrepentant, they would release him from the Seventy.”

In a subsequent private meeting with Apostles Heber J. Grant and Francis Lyman, B. H. was initially unyielding, but love and the Holy Spirit ultimately prevailed. Tears came to his eyes. The two Apostles were able to respond to certain perceived slights and offenses that troubled B. H., and they left with a heartfelt plea for reconciliation. The next morning, after lengthy prayer, Elder Roberts sent a note to Elders Grant and Lyman that he was prepared to reunite with his brethren.

When he later met with the First Presidency, Elder Roberts said, “I went to the Lord and received light and instruction through His Spirit to submit to the authority of God.” Motivated by his love of God, B. H. Roberts remained a faithful and an able Church leader to the end of his life.

On February 4, 1976, at approximately 3:00 a.m., the country of Guatemala was devastated by an earthquake rated 7.5 on the Richter scale. Approximately 25,000 people were killed, most of them when the unreinforced adobe walls of their small homes fell on them in their sleep. The Church’s meetinghouse in the town of Patzicia was well built, not of adobe, but of reinforced concrete footings and reinforced cinder block walls. Painted white, it, like many of our church buildings, stood as a symbol of purity and truth and strength. Yet even though this meetinghouse appeared to be stable, it too was destroyed by the earthquake. Although the foundation was firm and the reinforced walls did not fall, the roof split down the middle, the full length of the building, and caved in. A missionary who had been sleeping on the stage was trapped beneath the fallen roof for more than five hours. Through a heroic rescue, the faith and prayers of many, and the miraculous fulfillment of priesthood blessings, the elder survived the earthquake and eventually stood again to preach the gospel.
Why, do you suppose, did that building made of excellent materials collapse? Careful examination later showed that the roof had not been anchored or tied adequately to the supporting walls. Because of this, the violent movements of the earthquake caused the roof to shift from the supporting walls and crash to the ground.

I feel privileged to be in Provo for the August 2017 commencement exercises of Brigham Young University. My dear wife, Diane, deeply wished that she could be here, but a long-planned family obligation prevented that. Diane and I met on this campus forty-six years ago. I had just returned from my mission to England and was resuming my studies here. Just a few weeks into the fall semester, I was asked by my mission president—who was still in England—to speak at his home ward in Bountiful. I had so recently returned from my mission that perhaps I was uncomfortable without a companion, so I called a young woman in my student ward whom I had seen but never met and asked her to accompany me. That first date turned into a courtship and then an engagement, and last month Diane and I celebrated our forty-fifth wedding anniversary. The year after our marriage we both received degrees from this institution—Diane while almost nine months pregnant. Coming back to where it all began is a profound privilege.

“I just don’t understand how you can believe in what you’ve never seen. I don’t know how to have that kind of faith.”
I was struck by my brother’s statement. We have a great relationship, and he was confiding in me about some challenges he was facing. He hadn’t been active in the Church for years, so I shared my desires for him to believe in something—anything, really—regarding a loving Heavenly Father and a higher purpose for mortality.
But his words caused me to reflect: Why do I believe in Christ and everything about the gospel when so much is intangible?
Going back to the conversation with my brother, I didn’t know if anything I could say would convince him of the truths I hold dear to my heart. But suddenly, I was reminded of the story of the Apostle Thomas. So I shared it with him.
Thomas was faithful to the Savior during His ministry but would not believe his Master had risen again until he saw Him face to face. When he felt the prints of the nails in His hands, he finally believed, and the Savior told him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29; emphasis added).
And then I bore my testimony: “I’ve overcome too many challenges in my life to not believe in a Heavenly Father who loves me and a Savior who has helped me find joy and peace through it all. I may not see Them personally, but I see Them through so many instances of goodness in the world. Life is hard, but faith in Them reminds me of who I am and what my purpose is, and I remember the blessings They have promised me. Every time I choose to have faith, I feel in my heart that They are with me, and that the gospel is true.”
We ended our conversation on a good note. I don’t know if he will choose to come back to the gospel any time soon, but I invited him to simply begin with a desire to believe.

Some young men march to the beat of a different drum. Because they may not enjoy physical activity, as most do, they are often isolated from the group. I remember one young man, not much of an athlete, who excelled on the stage. In our ward plays and roadshows, we could always count on a stellar performance from Mike.

Later in his youth he directed a theater-in-the-round production in the ward. Today he teaches drama in a great university and is a faithful member of the Church. How easily we could have lost him without that opportunity to be someone and to excel at something. Our cultural arts have been neglected in recent years, not intentionally, but when stakes and wards were given the liberty to choose their activities instead of being dictated to from Church headquarters—something made necessary by the worldwide growth of the Church—some took this as a signal that cultural arts were no longer to be promoted. The ward and stake activity committees are there to help our bishoprics, quorums, and Young Women classes carry out those cultural activities planned by the Bishopric Youth Committee: music, drama, speech, dance. These again are as broad as the interests of the youth and a valuable resource in promoting activity and brotherhood in the Aaronic Priesthood quorums.

From 2001 to 2003, E. Ankhbayar served in the Utah Salt Lake City South Mission. Now in his mid-20s, he is the young single adult leader in the Ulaanbaatar district.

He spoke no English when he received his mission call; two American missionaries read the letter to him. Now he manages the one-room distribution center in the Church offices in Ulaanbaatar, helping members obtain gospel materials available in Mongolian and materials in English for those who can use them. He says that as a missionary, he helped people learn about the gospel, and he is still doing the same.

Ankhbayar came into the Church in 1998 with the rest of his family—parents and younger brother. While his family was attending a Church meeting, he had two dreams that influenced him. In both he was fleeing from certain destruction when a bright, shining personage saved him. Ankhbayar’s parents told him later that this personage was undoubtedly the Savior and invited him to pray about the meaning of his dream. The answer he received led him to listen to the gospel.

Before they joined the Church, “my family was not close,” he says. Now “we talk to each other. I can feel my mother and father’s love.” In the mission field, Ankhbayar felt like Church members were family. He works now to share the gospel with friends so they too can enjoy this feeling.

One person with whom he has shared the gospel is his girlfriend, who was baptized and confirmed. If they should marry, they would face the dilemma many young Mongolian couples struggle with: where to live. Housing is scarce, and the cost is too high for many young marrieds. They may end up living with parents in a small apartment or perhaps in the traditional ger, the circular, one-room tentlike home of the Mongol nomads.

In an April 2000 general conference talk entitled “Your Eternal Voyage,” President Monson related one specific example from his childhood. He and his friends enjoyed playing baseball in the alleyway by their homes. There was one problem, though: a neighbor named Mrs. Shinas. If the ball went onto her property, her large dog would retrieve it and take it to Mrs. Shinas who would place it with all the other balls she had confiscated. In his own words he stated, “She was our nemesis, the destroyer of our fun—even the bane of our existence.” [6] There was some obvious suffering on both the part of the boys and Mrs. Shinas. One evening as he was watering his lawn, young Tommy noticed that Mrs. Shinas’ lawn was dry. He decided to take a few extra minutes and water her lawn. This service continued through the summer. When the fall came, he even cleaned up her leaves. During all this time he had not seen Mrs. Shinas. Early one evening, Mrs. Shinas opened her door and invited Tommy over for cookies and milk. She then presented him with a box filled with all the balls she had confiscated over the years. Let me finish the story in his own words:

The treasure, however, was not to be found in the gift but rather in her words. I saw for the first time a smile come across the face of Mrs. Shinas, and she said, “Tommy, I want you to have these baseballs, and I want to thank you for being kind to me.” I expressed my own gratitude to her and walked from her home a better boy than when I entered. No longer were we enemies. Now we were friends. [7]

Several months ago I left my country to go to one where I knew only my sister and her boyfriend. At church I felt like an outsider. Two or three months went by, and I felt the same feeling of loneliness until I decided to smile at others and ask, “How are you?” Each Sunday that went by, they were saying more to me than the simple “I’m fine.” It also helped to participate in seminary and Mutual and to work on Personal Progress with other young women. Now I feel comfortable at church, as if I were at home.
Vanessa B., age 17, La Vega, Dominican Republic

Those who follow the game of rugby know that the New Zealand All Blacks, a name given because of the color of their uniform, is the most celebrated rugby team ever. To be selected for the All Blacks in New Zealand would be comparable to playing for a football Super Bowl team or a World Cup soccer team.
In 1961, at age 18 and holding the Aaronic Priesthood, Sidney Going was becoming a star in New Zealand rugby. Because of his remarkable abilities, many thought he would be chosen the very next year for the national All Blacks rugby team.
At age 19, in this critical moment of his ascending rugby career, Sid declared that he would forgo rugby to serve a mission. Some called him crazy. Others called him foolish. They protested that his opportunity in rugby might never come again.
For Sid it was not what he was leaving behind—it was the opportunity and responsibility ahead. He had a priesthood duty to offer two years of his life to declare the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. Nothing—not even a chance to play on the national team, with all the acclaim it would bring—would deter him from that duty.
He was called by a prophet of God to serve in the Western Canadian Mission. Forty-eight years ago this month, 19-year-old Elder Sidney Going left New Zealand to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A mission instead of a place on the New Zealand All Blacks team? Sid responded, “The blessing of [bringing others] into the gospel far outweighs anything [you] will ever sacrifice.”

Wheels were set in motion when Sister Jennilyn Stoffers arrived in 2022 to serve in the Barbados Bridgetown Mission office. Her call to Barbados came as a last-minute surprise. For months, she had made preparations with Church leaders to serve in Ireland, where the wet and cold of northern Europe were more conducive to her health. She had her bags packed for Ireland until she read her mission call, sending her the other direction—to the heat and humidity of Barbados.
Sister Stoffers replaced her warm wools with breezy cottons and soon arrived in Barbados. “There was a lot of adapting,” she said of the weather, the Bajan dialect, the culture, the food—just about everything.
“It was easy to fall in love with the members and their pure faith in God,” she said. “Everyone should experience a fast and testimony meeting in Barbados. Members know the scriptures. They are strong in their faith. They face persecution from family and society. Many are the only members of the Church in their families.”
Before long, the branch president asked Sister Stoffers to teach a class on temple preparation and family history work, a subject that fires her imagination and devotion.
A spark was struck among several members. They lingered after meetings, huddling around the branch computer, where Sister Stoffers helped them discover the richness of family history work.
Margaret Haynes was among the first to taste the spirit of the work.
“Imagine how my ancestors are reacting,” she said in reflection. “One day I will meet them. I have always felt a special feeling of being watched over by them. It brings me joy to unite my family. I feel their yearning to make covenants.”
Enthusiasm spread, and more members joined in the weekly gatherings.
“They get after it,” Sister Stoffers said. “If they need permission to perform an ordinance or need data like a birth date, they call a relative right then. There’s no waiting for a more convenient time.”
The laws and culture in the Caribbean make researching family records a challenge. “Yet,” said Sister Stoffers, “members of the branch deal with the frustrations and have now submitted more than 500 ordinances to the temple.” And more are coming.

First, living the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jens of Denmark prays daily to live the gospel and notice promptings from the Holy Ghost. He has learned to act quickly when he feels directed by the Spirit.

Jens shared the following:
“We live in an idyllic, small, half-timbered house with a thatched roof, in the center of a cozy little village, close to the village pond.
“On this night with the most beautiful Danish summer weather imaginable, doors and windows were open, and everything breathed peace and quiet. Due to our gloriously bright and long summer nights, I had not been in a hurry to replace a burned-out light bulb in our utility room.
“Suddenly, I got a strong feeling that I had to replace it immediately! At the same time, I heard my wife, Mariann, call for me and the children to wash our hands because dinner was ready!
“I had been married long enough to know that this was not the time to start doing anything else than washing my hands, but I heard myself calling out to Mariann that I would just pop over to the store to buy a new light bulb. I felt a strong urge to leave immediately.
“The grocery store was only on the other side of the pond. We usually walked, but today I grabbed my bike. While riding past the pond, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small boy, about two years old, walking alone near the edge of the pond, very close to the water—suddenly he fell in! One minute he was there—and the next he was gone!
“No one had seen this happen but me. I threw my bike on the ground, ran, and jumped into the waist-high pond. The surface of the water immediately closed with duckweed, making it impossible to see through the water. Then I sensed a movement to one side. I put my arm in the water, got hold of a T-shirt, and pulled the little boy up. He started gasping, coughing, and crying. Soon afterward the boy was reunited with his parents.”

As Brother Jens prays each morning for help to recognize promptings from the Holy Ghost, even something as unusual as to immediately change a light bulb, he also prays that he can be used as a tool to bless God’s children. Jens lives the gospel by seeking divine direction each day, striving to be worthy, then doing his best to follow that direction when it comes.

As part of human nature, many of us often struggle to follow those who precede us. And I am no exception. As a senior missionary, I would often hear, “Sister Smith did this” or “Sister Brown did that” or “That’s not how the Wilsons did it.” Sometimes it’s good to know a different way of doing things. We can often learn a lot from each other.
But at times, these comparisons made me feel inadequate. I didn’t know how to be Sister Smith or Sister Brown. I only knew how to be me.
One evening we had the opportunity to go to a teaching appointment with the young missionaries. As we introduced ourselves to the mother and her rambunctious son, we mentioned that we replaced one of the previous senior couples who had served there. To this statement she replied, “Oh, then you have big shoes to fill!” After that, the elders proceeded with their lesson, and we had a really nice visit.
My husband and I served in the Trinidad Port of Spain Mission.
Photographs courtesy of the author
On our walk the following morning, I mentioned to my husband how this well-intended woman’s statement about having big shoes to fill made me feel. He reminded me that the Lord tells us in Doctrine and Covenants 46 that we all have different gifts “that all may be benefited” (verse 9; see also verse 11). He told me I didn’t have to walk in a previous missionary’s shoes because I had my own.
And then it hit me: I brought my own shoes! I had no need to fill the previous sister’s shoes. I just needed to fill my own.

On my mission, it sometimes felt like people’s hearts or doors would never open to the gospel. Especially during our hardest times, my mission companion and I would fast to bring hope and happiness into our work.
First, we would kneel in prayer, asking our Heavenly Father to help us be positive, take setbacks well, and recognize His hand in our lives and our work. We also prayed that by having more optimistic attitudes, we could better represent our Savior, Jesus Christ. Then later, when we felt tempted to fall back into negative attitudes, we would say a small prayer, asking Him to bless us with the perspective to find the good (or at least the funny) in any situation.
Although we didn’t always have more success after those fasts, we were able to feel the Spirit more and kick negative feelings to the curb—usually through plenty of jokes and laughter.

We were living in a small town in Georgia, USA, when my father died at just 55 years old. Most of our family lived in another state. Never had the 2,000 miles (3,200 km) between us felt greater than at that time.
My husband was the bishop and I the organist of our small ward. With all the emotions and stress of helping with funeral plans, I was feeling especially weary that Sunday when it came time for our sacrament meeting closing hymn: “God Be with You Till We Meet Again” (Hymns, no. 152).
Halfway through the second verse, my grief overcame me. Somehow I played through the end of that verse, but my hands were shaking and my eyes so full of tears that I had to stop with an entire verse left. I couldn’t stop crying.
A brief pause followed as the congregation realized the organ had stopped. But then ward members started singing a cappella. The singing wasn’t perfect. We were few, after all. But the Spirit made up the difference. Through my tears and embarrassment, I could feel the love of many as they sang.
God be with you till we meet again;
Keep love’s banner floating o’er you;
Smite death’s threat’ning wave before you.
God be with you till we meet again.
When the hymn ended, the music leader held me as I sobbed through the closing prayer. Several people then came up to the organ with tears in their eyes to say how sorry they were about my father.
Later, I told the music leader I would be playing the piano at the funeral. It probably seemed like a bad idea after what had just happened, but my dad so enjoyed hearing me play the piano. I wanted to play for him. I realized then how close he had felt during the closing hymn.
I am so thankful for the hymns. I testify that music can teach and comfort us in ways that words often cannot. As the First Presidency wrote in the preface to the hymnbook, “Hymns … comfort the weary, console the mourning, and inspire us to endure to the end.” I am also thankful for the love of a good ward when I was so far away from my own family. I know that my father and I will indeed meet again.

You and I have been blessed with the promise of such an inheritance. I owe much of my happiness in life to a man I never met in mortal life. He was an orphan who became one of my great-grandparents. He left me a priceless heritage of hope. Let me tell you some of the part he played in creating that inheritance for me.
His name was Heinrich Eyring. He was born into great wealth. His father, Edward, had a large estate in Coburg, in what is now Germany. His mother was Viscountess Charlotte Von Blomberg. Her father was the keeper of the lands of the king of Prussia.
Heinrich was Charlotte and Edward’s first son. Charlotte died at the age of 31, after the birth of her third child. Edward died soon thereafter, having lost all his property and wealth in a failed investment. He was only 40 years of age. He left three orphaned children.
Heinrich, my great-grandfather, had lost both of his parents and a great worldly inheritance. He was penniless. He recorded in his history that he felt his best hope lay in going to America. Although he had neither family nor friends there, he had a feeling of hope about going to America. He first went to New York City. Later he moved to St. Louis, Missouri.
In St. Louis one of his co-workers was a Latter-day Saint. From him he obtained a copy of a pamphlet written by Elder Parley P. Pratt. He read it and then studied every word he could obtain about the Latter-day Saints. He prayed to know if there really were angels that appeared to men, whether there was a living prophet, and whether he had found a true and revealed religion.
After two months of careful study and prayer, Heinrich had a dream in which he was told he was to be baptized. A man whose name and priesthood I hold in sacred memory, Elder William Brown, was to perform the ordinance. Heinrich was baptized in a pool of rainwater on March 11, 1855, at 7:30 in the morning.
I believe that Heinrich Eyring knew then that what I am teaching you today is true. He knew that the happiness of eternal life comes through family bonds which continue forever. Even when he had so recently found the Lord’s plan of happiness, he knew that his hope for eternal joy depended on the free choices of others to follow his example. His hope of eternal happiness depended on people not yet born.
As a part of our family’s inheritance of hope, he left a history to his descendants.
In that history I can feel his love for those of us who would follow him. In his words I feel his hope that his descendants might choose to follow him on the path back to our heavenly home. He knew it would not be one great choice to make to do so but many small choices. I quote from his history:
“From the time I first heard Elder Andrus speak … I have always attended the meeting of the Latter day Saints and the instances are very rare indeed, when I [have] failed to go to meeting, it being at the same time my duty to do so.
“I name this in my history that my children may imitate my example and never neglect this … important duty [to assemble] with the Saints.”
Heinrich knew that in sacrament meetings we could renew our promise to always remember the Savior and have His Spirit to be with us.
It was that Spirit that sustained him on the mission to which he was called only a few months after accepting the baptismal covenant. He left as his heritage his example of staying faithful to his mission for six years in what was then called the Indian Territories. To receive his release from his mission, he walked and joined a wagon train from Oklahoma to Salt Lake City, a distance of approximately 1,100 miles (1,770 km).
Soon thereafter he was called by the prophet of God to move to southern Utah. From there he answered another call to serve a mission in his native Germany. He then accepted the invitation of an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ to help build up the Latter-day Saint colonies in northern Mexico. From there he was called to Mexico City as a full-time missionary again. He honored those calls. He lies buried in a small cemetery in Colonia Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
I recite these facts not to claim greatness for him or for what he did or for his descendants. I recite those facts to honor him for the example of faith and hope that was in his heart.
He accepted those calls because of his faith that the resurrected Christ and our Heavenly Father had appeared to Joseph Smith in a grove of trees in the state of New York. He accepted them because he had faith that the priesthood keys in the Lord’s Church had been restored with the power to seal families forever, if only they had sufficient faith to keep their covenants.
Some of Heinrich Eyring’s descendants have seemed to wander. But many of his great-great-grandchildren go to temples of God at 6:00 in the morning to perform ordinances for ancestors they have never met. They go out of the heritage of hope he left. He left an inheritance that is being claimed by many of his descendants.