Gospel Story Finder

“I forgot my sash!”
Erin looked across the dressing room to where a dark-haired girl named Dinah was frantically searching through her bag of dance costumes.
“I think I forgot to put it in,” Dinah moaned.
“Too bad,” Erin thought, pulling out her own carefully folded blue-satin sash—her favorite part of the costume. Mom had said that it brought out the blue of Erin’s eyes.
“What am I going to do?” Dinah was on the verge of tears. “There’s no time to go home and get it.”
Erin didn’t know Dinah very well. They lived in different towns and went to different wards and schools. But Erin could imagine how embarrassing it would feel to be the only dancer in the recital missing part of the costume. It would be hard to remember the dance steps if you thought everyone in the audience was staring at you and wondering why your costume was different.
Then Erin had an idea. She knew what she could do to help Dinah, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to do it. Erin silently prayed for strength to do the right thing. Then, with a sigh, she put the lovely blue sash back in her bag. “This is a group dance, not a solo,” she told herself.
Erin quickly explained her idea to the other dancers. She was relieved when they all agreed happily.
As the music began and they took the stage, their dance teacher, Mrs. Davis, gave them a quizzical look from the audience. The girls simply smiled at her and moved to the music. They performed the routine flawlessly.
Afterward, Mrs. Davis came backstage. “What happened to your costumes, girls?” she asked. “Weren’t you all supposed to be wearing blue sashes?”
“Well,” Dinah said, looking gratefully at Erin, “we decided we’d do better if we didn’t wear our sashes tonight.”
“I’m not sure why it made such a difference, but you were right,” Mrs. Davis said. “That was the best performance you’ve ever given. You girls were really together tonight, just like real dancers.”
“Just like real friends,” Dinah said.
The girls grinned, throwing their arms around each other’s shoulders in a group bow. Erin’s smile was the brightest of all. She had discovered that sometimes when you give something up, you find something better.

One young woman had an experience soon after President Hinckley’s fireside when she began to question her friendship with some people.
“As I approached this group of people that I called my friends and that I had spent half my life with, their aura seemed different, confusing, and unappealing. They were taking turns telling bad jokes and the spirit that I encountered there was one I did not want to be a part of. I hesitated to leave my friends and stayed for half a joke and then made up my mind to not be a part of this demeaning situation.”
She went on to explain that although it was difficult leaving her group of friends, it was well worth it.
“As I look back on that minute in time, that thought of walking away was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Now I find it to have been the single most important event in my life. I am now in a different crowd of people.
I think differently, and most importantly I act differently because of my change of friends.”

When I was 14 years old, on a beautiful August morning, Elder Prina and Elder Perkins knocked at our door. They began teaching our family about the true nature of God. In the visits that followed, they taught us how to pray. They also taught us about the Restoration and the plan of salvation. After the third or fourth visit, most of my family stopped listening to the missionaries, except for my 17-year-old sister, Dina, and me. We both felt the witness of the Holy Ghost in our hearts and received the spiritual confirmation that the message was true.
We bought a copy of the Book of Mormon and began reading it. Every day after school, we would race home to get to the book first. While the first one home was reading, the other one impatiently waited until mealtime, ate in a hurry, and then took her turn reading until bedtime. Such was the excitement we felt. We started attending church, and soon we asked to be baptized. Our father readily gave his permission, but our mother was hesitant, and it took one more month to persuade her to sign the permission slip. On the day of our baptism, she and the rest of our siblings went to church for the first time. She felt the Spirit. After hearing our testimonies, she went to the missionaries and asked them to start teaching her again. A few weeks later, Mother and our younger sister and brothers were baptized. My life changed forever, and the gospel of Jesus Christ became the compelling force in my life.

“As an investigator, I came across an old copy of the Book of Mormon that was yellowed and musty with age. Its jacket was stiff, as if it had never been touched,” says Janet Spear of South Glens Falls, New York. “But as I picked it up, I was filled with tremendous joy, and a peaceful feeling of relief washed over me. That day I began to read the Book of Mormon for the very first time. My soul was starving for spiritual food, and I began to feast upon the words.
“The passage cried out to me as I read Alma 13:27: ‘Cast off your sins, and [do] not procrastinate the day of your repentance.’ Driven to my knees, I poured out my soul in prayer. In my heart the Holy Spirit said, ‘This journey has ended. It’s time to begin another.’
“I arranged to have the missionaries teach me the gospel. It was wonderful. I had never known such joy! Since the day I was baptized, the Book of Mormon has been my constant companion. It encourages me, inspires me, and teaches me. Its words have shown me how to live, not simply to exist. I truly experienced a metamorphosis.”

Elder J. Richard Clarke shared this story to help us understand how we as under shepherds serve the Savior by meeting another’s needs.

A dear sister had been incapacitated for the past eight years – she could not walk or talk and was confined to bed. About six years ago, she and her husband were assigned a faithful home teacher. He asked if his wife could come over to their house every Sunday morning and stay with the invalid woman while her husband attended priesthood meeting. For six years, every Sunday, this home teacher would bring his wife over to stay with the invalid sister while her husband went to his meeting, and every Sunday, the home teacher’s wife would bring with her some baked goods or something special that she had made for this older couple.

Finally, this sister who had been ill passed away. When her daughter tried to express her deep love and appreciation to this loving home teacher and his wife for what they had done over the years, the wife said, “Oh, don’t thank us. It was our privilege to visit with your sweet mother. What am I going to do now? The hour and a half on Sunday morning will now be, for me, the loneliest hour and a half in the week” ("Love Extends beyond Convenience," Ensign, Nov. 1981, p. 81)

When I served as a mission president in this wonderful Hawaii Honolulu mission, I noted a significant problem that was eroding the work and determination of missionaries. Many families of the missionaries came to Hawaii for vacation and they often wanted to stop by to visit "their" missionary. Sometimes it took a month to get the missionary's mind back on his missionary work with the intensity that he had had before the visit.
I wrote a letter to the parents of the missionaries in the mission. I asked the parents not to plan a trip to Hawaii while their son or daughter was serving a full time mission here; and if they must come for vacation, please do not plan to see the missionary.
One day I got a phone call from a truly excellent missionary. It was obvious he was much distressed. He told me that during breakfast, there was a knock on the door of his apartment and to his shock, standing on the porch was his mother and his father... and his sibling brothers and sisters... and his girlfriend. They wanted to take him and his companion for a brief sightseeing trip and lunch. The missionary said: "mom, you can't be here!" She said, "Oh, I know. The mission president wrote me a letter about that, but he really didn't mean it, did he?"
"God will justify in committing a little sin," right? Consider the risk that mother incurs as she puts her foot on that slippery path downward. What does she teach her son? Consider the risk that she would invite her son and his companion to join her on that slippery path.

I sat alone at the edge of my bed, balancing my thick biology book as I attempted to study for the next day’s test. I slowly turned through the complicated chapter on cellular respiration, my jaw tight as I tried to concentrate. But it was useless.
I looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars clustered above my bed, dull in the light of my lamp, the sharp edges blurring as my eyes filled with tears. I had done a horrible job that evening trying out for the play. It had been my first attempt at high school theater. Although untrained in the arts of dancing, acting, and singing, I had undertaken the challenging musical tryouts at the urging of my friends. I hadn’t done well. My dancing on the first night and my singing audition seemed about average. But tonight had been the final test, the portion I had counted on for success—a memorized humorous monologue, performed in under a minute, before the critical eyes of the director and audition board. I had prepared for my monologue days in advance, writing and memorizing the script carefully until I was certain I could perform it even in my sleep. But when I had reached the school, I couldn’t think clearly. I was not only nervous but also tired and worried about my two difficult tests scheduled for the next day. I tried to remember my lines, those words that I knew so well, but they slipped from me in fragments and spilled out shaky and uncertain.
A hot tear brushed my lips, and I tried to muffle a sob. Nothing seemed to be going right the past few weeks. Between the recent cold distance of one of my closest friends, the stress of my difficult schedule, and the nagging doubts of applying to college, I was finding my senior year to be nearly impossible. And now, after the embarrassment of tonight’s audition, I didn’t know how I could study or even sleep. I shut my biology book and placed it on the floor, emotions roiling as I buried my head in my pillow.
Then I heard my door open and the concerned voice of my mother. “Do you need a blessing?” she asked softly. I looked up, tempted to send her away. My puffy red face, streaked by wetness, held the imprint of my pillow’s seams. But I knew, even as I pulled myself into a sitting position so that I could see both my parents in my doorway, that tonight a blessing was what I needed most of all. I nodded wordlessly, sniffing a bit as I stood and followed my parents across the hall into their room.
I’ve heard of blessings given by pioneers. And even in modern times I’ve heard of blessings for fire victims, children in comas, and people who are not expected to survive. I had a testimony of the priesthood before that night. I had been given my patriarchal blessing two years prior and knew of the unique truthfulness and love it contained. But as my father placed his hands on my head that evening, I could feel divine power in his phrases, in the gentle pressure of his hands. His blessing swept past my superficial wants into what I needed to hear most. And as he concluded, my heart sang at the power in those words, those simple, healing words that I knew were not his. My father couldn’t remember what he had said, but I could, and my dark tangle of stress and fears had loosened into a soft and gentle peace.
I smiled at my mother, grateful for her inspired suggestion. As I turned around and hugged my father, I could feel in the warmth of his arms an echo of the love of my Heavenly Father and His Son, both watching and caring for me more than anyone else ever could. I felt so grateful for that single modest blessing, those quietly powerful, comforting words. That night I slept deeply for the first time in weeks, unworried and sure of my future as a beloved daughter of God.

Heroes and Heroines Earlier I spoke of heroes and heroines. One of my many heroes was my Mission President, O. Layton Alldredge. President Alldredge was a great story teller and he always seemed to have a story to make a point or teach a principle. Following is one of his classic stories that he often told at mission conferences and later at our missionary reunions. I think the story’s application will be obvious as we consider “ Perfecting the Saints and Purifying Our Souls.”

Holding the Fort Going around the South Coast and on around the East Coast of Africa, you eventually come to the beautiful seaport of Mombassa, settled by the Portuguese way back when. It was the Portuguese as you know who first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. They built a fort there and named it Fort Gessel. They garrisoned it and then the fleet sailed back to Portugal. The Arab tribes held Zanzibar and other ports. The Arabs looked upon the Portuguese as intruders to their part of the world and they began to attack the Fort. A year went by and these defenders held out against their Arab attackers. Months of the second year passed and finally hope ran out and they ran up the white flag. The Arabs swarmed in and massacred every person in the Fort - every man, woman, and child - they killed them all. As fate would have it, the very next day the relief fleet Lisbon sailed into the Port - the very next day. So we learn from the story that many times all that we have to do to change things is to hold on one more day. Hold the Fort and be true to what is right.

In the book The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone describes Michelangelo’s first piece of sculptured marble, a bust. It was nearly completed when his professor walked over to look at it. He picked it up, examined it, then put it back on the workbench and without a word turned and walked away. As he did, he carelessly brushed against the bust with his arm. It fell to the floor, breaking into a thousand pieces, Michelangelo stood with his mouth open, aghast at what had happened. Then the professor looked back over his shoulder and said, “It wasn’t worthy of you.”

Had that little act not taken place, we may never have heard of Michelangelo. It is those who are terribly tough on us and who make us stretch beyond the limit of what we think we can stand that raise us.

And what about family service? The opportunities abound. In December 1999 our family had a unique experience. Between Christmas and New Year’s we were able to go to Belfast in northern Ireland to work on a house for Habitat for Humanity. It was a different kind of Christmas for us, but the privilege to be together and to work with both Catholic and Protestant families to help build Habitat houses was a unique opportunity. We saw how providing decent, safe, affordable housing could bridge the gap between different people and cultures, and it provided a common bond for our family through service and love. It was a Christmas we will never forget.

I was not feeling the Christmas spirit. It was December of my senior year in high school, and college applications and my final Laurel project loomed before me. I hoped to find a volunteer opportunity that would flesh out my college applications and double as my Laurel project. Luckily my student council adviser asked my friend Jessica and me if we would organize a school toy drive for a local charity.
I delegated most of the work to the project committee. I had them create a bulletin board featuring a large thermometer that indicated the number of toys donated. We thought that was enough advertising, and we spent each lunch period collecting donations. Students donated few toys, however, and the thermometer remained low.
Strangely, our adviser began setting aside some toys. When Jessica and I asked what she planned to do with them, she told us that a teacher at the school had recently been diagnosed with cancer. After struggling to teach while going through treatment, he had decided to take a leave from work. With the holidays approaching and medical bills piling up, his family wouldn’t have much of a Christmas. Our adviser suggested that we wrap the set-aside presents for them.
My heart was touched. I had been looking at my service project as a means to serve only myself, not others. I decided to triple our goal for donated toys and to start a monetary collection for the teacher and his family.
Jessica and I visited classrooms and championed our cause. The response was enormous. Teachers, staff, and students gave toys and money to help the family. We soon surpassed our toy goal, which amazed the charity. We also collected more than $1,000 for the family.
As we carefully wrapped the gifts we had collected and purchased, I realized that the testimony of service I was receiving was just as great as the gifts we were giving. I can’t express the thrill I felt as we secretly watched the family discover the gifts we had anonymously left on their porch.
A few months later, Jessica and I were asked to teach a seminar on service projects. We explained what we had done without mentioning the teacher’s name. A girl raised her hand and stood. Tears flowed as she spoke. The teacher was her uncle, and she described how much our service had meant to him. She said it was an answer to his prayers.
What a joy it was that holiday season to come together in heartfelt service and know we had made a difference.

Blanca Campo, a 17-year-old at the time, was one of the first piano students of Elder and Sister Heywood. She was unable to attend the regular weekday classes because she spent six days of the week in another town marketing products for the family business. So the Heywoods scheduled Sunday afternoon classes just for her.
Blanca purchased her own teclado so she could practice the hymns during her spare moments at market. After three weeks of practice, she was prepared to play in a Christmas sing-along with other new piano students.
Soon after, Blanca was called by her father, Bishop Rafael Campo, to serve as the Paguche Ward pianist. As he set her apart, Bishop Campo was impressed to call Blanca as a teacher of music for their ward. She still serves in this capacity, sharing her talents with her family and ward members.
When Blanca accompanied a stake youth choir later that summer, and she heard a recording of herself playing “Carry On,” she humbly smiled and exclaimed, “I can’t believe that I am the person playing that music!”

In my hand is a folded $100 bill. Over 25 years ago, my father put this in his wallet for emergencies, and there it was when he was killed in an automobile accident on the morning of my missionary farewell. One hundred dollars was a lot of money to me when I was 19, and it still is today. However, in all those years since my mother gave it to me, I’ve never been tempted to spend it.

This currency, folded by my father’s hand, has always been worth more to me as a symbol than anything I could purchase with it. To me, it is a symbol of things that are available to each one of us, regardless of our financial circumstances—things that are worth much more than material riches. This folded $100 bill is a symbol of the treasures of heaven.

I began today’s discourse with this $100 bill in hand. How often have I wished it had never come to me. The days immediately following my father’s untimely death were the darkest of my life. In the prayers before my mission, I pleaded with the Lord for primarily one thing: that my missionary service would be the instrument through which my father would return to the Church. And then, in an instant, on a morning in which he was not only going to attend church for the first time in many years but also send me on the Lord’s errand, he was gone. I miss him dearly. However, I am grateful for this trial of faith. In darkness, I found light. I witness that my earthly father lives and is continuing his eternal progression.

My father is a treasure in heaven.

All too soon the finale arrived. All of the performers rushed out onto the floor of the coliseum. A rainbow of talented youth whirled, and waved small green and gold flags, and danced their hearts out. They were answered with an ovation from those in attendance, but they were not quite through with the evening’s program. There was one more thing they wanted to do.
And there, standing before the capacity audience, the 2,000 colorfully costumed young dancers stood and sang from their hearts, “We thank thee, O God, for a prophet To guide us in these latter days.” As the hymn continued, the lights in the house were lowered, and a single spot shone on an elderly, white-haired gentleman in the audience. He rose to his feet and smiled his acknowledgment.
Then, with whoops and cheers, the dancers ran from the floor. The evening was over, and after several minutes of applause, the appreciative audience stood and started filing out. One nonmember remarked to his wife as they stepped out into the cool evening air, “I wonder who that gentleman in the spotlight was? Those young kids certainly seem to love him.” A festival participant who had hurried into the departing crowd to listen for comments and answer questions heard the statement and replied with quiet conviction, “He’s a prophet of God, sir.”

Harry de Leyer was late to the auction on that snowy day in 1956, and all of the good horses had already been sold. The few that remained were old and spent and had been bought by a company that would salvage them.
Harry, the riding master at a girls’ school in New York, was about to leave when one of these horses—an uncared-for gray gelding with ugly-looking wounds on its legs—caught his eye. The animal still bore the marks that had been made by a heavy work harness, evidence to the hard life he had led. But something about him captured Harry’s attention, so he offered $80 for him.
It was snowing when Harry’s children saw the horse for the first time, and because of the coat of snow on the horse’s back, the children named him “Snowman.”
Harry took good care of the horse, which turned out to be a gentle and reliable friend—a horse the girls liked to ride because he was steady and didn’t startle like some of the others. In fact, Snowman made such rapid improvement that a neighbor purchased him for twice what Harry had originally paid.
But Snowman kept disappearing from the neighbor’s pasture—sometimes ending up in adjoining potato fields, other times back at Harry’s. It appeared that the horse must have jumped over the fences between the properties, but that seemed impossible—Harry had never seen Snowman jump over anything much higher than a fallen log.
But eventually, the neighbor’s patience came to an end, and he insisted Harry take back the horse.
For years, Harry’s great dream had been to produce a champion jumping horse. He’d had moderate success in the past, but in order to compete at the highest levels, he knew he would have to buy a pedigreed horse that had been specifically bred to jump. And that kind of pedigree would cost far more than he could afford.
Snowman was already getting old—he was eight when Harry had purchased him—and he had been badly treated. But, apparently, Snowman wanted to jump, so Harry decided to see what the horse could do.
What Harry saw made him think that maybe his horse had a chance to compete.
In 1958, Harry entered Snowman in his first competition. Snowman stood among the beautifully bred champion horses, looking very much out of place. Other horse breeders called Snowman a “flea-bitten gray.”
But a wonderful, unbelievable thing happened that day.
Snowman won!
Harry continued to enter Snowman in other competitions, and Snowman continued to win.
Audiences cheered every time Snowman won an event. He became a symbol of how extraordinary an ordinary horse could be. He appeared on television. Stories and books were written about him.
As Snowman continued to win, one buyer offered $100,000 for the old plow horse, but Harry would not sell. In 1958 and 1959, Snowman was named “Horse of the Year.” Eventually, the gray gelding—who had once been marked for sale to a low bidder—was inducted into the show jumping Hall of Fame.
For many, Snowman was much more than a horse. He became an example of the hidden, untapped potential that lies within each of us.

My mother, my elder and my younger sisters all got baptized when I was on my mission. We lived with my mother for 10 years without my father’s love, and my sisters and I had our mother by our side all the time. I had all the love for my father despite the fact that he had distanced himself from us for 10 years. When I was on a mission, I knew I shouldn’t change the lives of others while my family perished, so I did everything I could to get back in touch with my father.
As I got in touch with my father, I knew I had a huge responsibility to introduce him to the missionaries. I attended his first meeting with the missionaries through a WhatsApp video call, but the first time, the missionaries and I faced a lot of criticism and backbiting. My father didn’t believe that there can be a true church of God in the world today. I asked my mission president for a favor to go to the temple. On my way to the temple, I prayed and fasted for my father.
Two months after I returned from my mission, on August 5 and 6, 2023, I was privileged to baptize and confirm my father and today we are all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through prayer, fasting and meditation in the holy house of the Lord. Today all the members of my family are with me, and we share the same faith and the same gospel of Christ.

Mom, we’ve been thinking about our Australian cousins, Max and Mindy. You said their mom is your second cousin.
What does that mean?
Miranda and I have the same great-grandparents. If we’d had the same grandparents, we’d be first cousins.
I’m getting a little confused.
Well, let’s look up our family tree on FamilySearch.org. That’ll make it easier.
At least you can’t fall out of this tree and break your arm.
So that’s how we’re related to Max and Mindy!
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world …
Mum, we’ve been wondering—
—how we’re related to our cousins Matt and Mandy …
When you start learning about family history, interesting things can happen!
At least you can’t fall out of this tree and break your arm.

She stood suddenly and walked into the house. Christian picked up the bundle of food she had brought him and began walking toward the city of Drammen. The elders had told him there were other Mormons there. Light, powder flakes of snow were falling silently on the road.
After several weeks on the road, Christian had used all his money, and he was forced to beg for food. At night he slept against fallen trees in the woods, curled up, pulling his coat tight against the cold. He felt more alone and cold than he ever had in his life. The loneliness bit at his insides even more than his hunger did.
At last he reached Drammen, but he found no success, no work, and no one knew of any Mormons or they were unwilling to help him find them. For days he wandered, knocking on doors, asking for work and direction. A blackness of despair grew inside him.
While he was looking for shelter against a growing snow storm one evening, he saw a small cottage on the edge of the woods just outside of Drammen. He decided to knock on one more door. He told the woman who answered that he was looking for work. She smiled and told Christian that her husband was not home at the moment and that Christian should come back later and talk to him. She offered him slices of bread and cheese. He took them, thanked her, turned, and walked back into the woods. In the fading daylight he found a snow-covered brush pile with a hollow inside and crawled into it. His nose and fingers were numb with the cold, and inside he felt lost, without hope. A complete lassitude came over him.
The woman reminded him of his own mother, and he longed to be home. He remembered how, on cold nights like this one, his father would sit next to the fire, smoking a long-stemmed pipe, telling stories of the old days when Odin and Thor thundered in the heavens and brave men fought the demons of the mist. His thoughts became unclear and dreamy as a drowsiness came over him. He knew it was the cold and that if he went to sleep he would freeze. For a while he accepted the hopelessness and began drifting into a comfortable, warm sleep.
Then he remembered his grandfather’s words.
“There are steps in life that can change your entire future and the future of entire generations. Take those steps carefully, Christian, in the direction you believe to be right, no matter how difficult they appear to be, and God will be with you.”
Christian crawled from under the shelter. The snow was falling heavily.
“Surely,” Christian said aloud, “if God is my Father, he can help me. I know he will.”
Christian knelt in the fresh snow and began praying.
In the darkness a short distance away, a figure watched and listened. When Christian stood from his prayers, the figure approached him.
A tall man, Moen Hotvedtvien, stood looking at the slender boy.
He extended his hand. A tear fell on his rough, carved face and mixed with moisture from melting snowflakes.
“I am Brother Hotvedtvien, and I am also a Mormon,” he said. He led Christian back to the house where the woman had given Christian bread and cheese. The house was warm.
The Hotvedtviens had no children of their own, and they took Christian in as their son. Moen was a carpenter and cabinetmaker; he taught Christian his trade.

After my parents were divorced, it was a hard time in my life. Going to church usually made me feel better, but it hurt me to hear talks on families because I didn’t believe I had one.
My mother was less active and remarried. My father was an atheist and lived with another woman. Both of them had children with their new partners, and I felt like a weight—an error—as if I didn’t count for anything.
So I began to pray, read the scriptures, meditate, and tried to keep going to church. But I couldn’t help but wonder: What would I do in the next life without my family sealed in the temple?
The answers didn’t come right away, but they did come. I looked up the definition of family and read scripture verses on the subject, and I started seeing the brighter side of things. Instead of thinking that I didn’t have a family, I learned that I could help bring God’s children into the Church as a missionary. I learned to exercise patience and to be a light. I tried to better myself. I also realized that without a family like mine, I may not have developed the faith that I have, and I wouldn’t value the law of chastity and the plan of salvation as I do now.
I’ve come to understand that I do have a family, and I am thankful for my new and larger family. It has been hard, but I don’t worry about what will happen to my family after death. I trust in God, and He knows why we aren’t sealed. He knows how much I love them and what’s best for me. We can’t understand everything, so it’s important to have faith in God to sustain us and help us know that everything will turn out OK.

Gage stared at the empty old bottle and turned it over in his hands. It was small and misty green, with a cork stopper in the top. Grandpa Russell had given it to him after his baptism.
“What is it?” Gage asked. “I know it’s a bottle—but there’s nothing in it.”
“Oh, it’s full,” Grandpa said.
Gage shook the bottle. “Well, it looks empty to me.”
Grandpa laughed. He pulled out the cork and held the little bottle near Gage’s ear. “Can you hear it?” he whispered.
“Hear what?” Gage whispered back.
Grandpa smiled. “Silence,” he said. Then he put the cork back in the bottle. “In today’s world, silence is pretty hard to find. It’s like medicine, and each drop is as precious as gold.”
Gage said thank you and took Grandpa’s strange gift home. But he didn’t think about it much.
A few weeks later, Gage’s uncle Vince passed away. After the funeral, lots of relatives crowded into the front room at Gage’s house to visit. Gage escaped to his bedroom and closed the door. He could hear the muffled voices of his parents and relatives down the hall.
Gage saw the old green bottle sitting on his desk and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands. Grandpa had said silence was like medicine. Gage needed to find some peace and comfort after Uncle Vince’s funeral.
Gage pulled the cork loose from the bottle and tipped it over his head, pretending to let a little silence pour out. He knew the bottle wasn’t really full of silence. But he knew he needed some quiet time to feel close to God.
He felt tears build up in his eyes. Uncle Vince wouldn’t be there anymore—no more silly jokes, no more wrestling with him. Gage’s heart hurt from missing him.
Then in the silence, Gage felt something warm grow in his heart and soften the pain. He remembered that Uncle Vince wasn’t gone forever; he had just moved on to the next world. Because of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation, everyone would live forever. Gage knew that someday he could see his Uncle Vince again.
As he held the bottle in his hands, Gage felt peaceful inside. He knew it was because of the Holy Ghost and not the bottle. The bottle had just reminded him to be quiet so he could feel the Holy Ghost. He corked the bottle and set it down.
Then he went back to the front room to be with his family. He could carry the peace and comfort of the Holy Ghost inside of him even outside his quiet room.