Gospel Story Finder

“Roberto,” Mama called. “Time for dinner!” Roberto forgot all about the toy cars he was playing with and ran to the table. Papa and Carlos were already sitting in their places. Roberto could smell fideos, his favorite food. He climbed into his seat and reached for the steaming bowl of slippery noodles.
“Roberto, did you forget something?” Papa asked.
Roberto slid down and raced to the sink. He washed his hands and dried them quickly. Mama was just sitting down at the table when Roberto returned. He climbed up on the chair beside her and reached for the noodles again.
This time Mama stopped him. “Roberto, have you forgotten something?” Roberto looked around. Everyone’s arms were folded, and Carlos was bowing his head. Roberto folded his arms and bowed his head, too. Papa asked Carlos to pray.
Roberto heard Carlos thank Heavenly Father for the food, but then Roberto began to think about Mama’s yummy fideos and he didn’t listen to the rest of the prayer. As soon as Carlos said amen, Roberto grabbed the serving spoon. He piled the noodles on his plate until Mama took the spoon away.
“Eat that much,” she said. “Then if you’re still hungry, you can have more.”
When he finished all the noodles on his plate, Roberto wasn’t hungry at all. He couldn’t eat one more bite, not even when Mama brought out the flan she had made for dessert. He watched Carlos smile as he spooned the custard into his bowl. Roberto wished everyone would hurry and finish so he could go back to his toys.
At last Papa leaned back and smiled at Mama. “That was wonderful,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you, Mama,” Carlos said.
“May I be excused?” Roberto asked.
Roberto played until bedtime. Carlos helped him make buildings and houses out of blocks. They made tunnels to drive their toy cars under. They had almost finished making a city when Mama announced, “Bedtime.”
After Roberto and Carlos said their prayers, Papa told them a story. It was a story from the Bible about when Jesus Christ helped 10 men who were lepers. “Do you know what a leper is, Roberto?” Papa asked. Then he explained: “Lepers are people who are very sick—so sick that sometimes they have to go away and live by themselves. The Savior made the 10 lepers well again so they could go home and live with their families. But only one of the men remembered to say thank you.”
“Oh,” Roberto said. “Why?”
“I don’t know why they didn’t thank Jesus. What do you think, Carlos?” Papa asked.
Carlos thought for a moment. “I think they were so happy to go home they forgot all about it.”
Papa nodded. “And what do you think, Roberto?”
Roberto suddenly jumped out of his bed. “Just a minute,” he said. “I remembered something.” He ran downstairs.
Mama was putting away the dinner dishes. She was surprised to see Roberto. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
“I have to tell you something first. You made my favorite food for me, and I forgot to say thank you,” Roberto explained.
Mama smiled. “You’re welcome. I like to do things for you, especially when you remember to say thank you.”
Roberto ran back upstairs to his bedroom. Carlos was listening to Papa finish the story. “Thank you for playing with me today,” Roberto told Carlos. “And thank you, Papa, for telling me stories about Jesus.”
“You’re welcome,” Papa said and turned off the light. “Good night, Roberto. Good night, Carlos.”
But Roberto didn’t go right to sleep. He lay still and thought of the many things he was thankful for. He felt happy, and he wished he could give Heavenly Father a hug. At last he slipped out of bed and said another prayer. This time he really meant it when he thanked Heavenly Father for fideos, for Mama, Papa, and Carlos—and for helping him remember to say thank you.

When I was in eighth grade and stood six feet tall, Aunt Ruth, who was visiting us from Baltimore, said one evening, “Well, dear, perhaps you’ll be a high-fashion model. They’re all tall.” Then she looked at my bony knees and elbows that jutted out. “And extremely thin,” she added. That night my mother tried to comfort me.
“There are worse things than being tall,” she said. “If only you’d stand up straight. You’ve just got to stop slumping. You’d look so much better with good posture.” The look on her face added, “Please, please stop growing.”
“If only I could be as short as you are,” I often said to Angie, my older sister. Angie had only grown to be five feet nine inches, and she did look like a model. She was leading a normal life in college and had lots of dates. I was sure if I could only be her height, all my problems would be solved.
“Be proud of your height,” Angie would say. “It’s great to be tall!” But I didn’t listen.
By the time I started at Jackson High School, I stood six feet one inch. Everyday I walked to seventh period with Mary Beth Johnson who was under five feet tall. We caused stares and smiles. I slumped even more when I walked with her, but I didn’t think our height difference was a good reason to tell her I couldn’t walk with her anymore. That sounded so adolescent.
My only comfort at Jackson was that there were several tall basketball players I’d see in the hall once in a while. Whenever I’d see one, I’d try to move as close to him as possible without being conspicuous. It felt wonderful to be small for a change. Bret Price (six feet six inches) had a fourth period class right next to mine, and I often had the chance to walk right behind him to class. I didn’t really have a crush on him, it just made me feel great to walk behind him. One day I guess I was walking a little too closely, because when he stopped I almost bumped into him. In fact, I couldn’t have stopped much closer. Another two inches and there would have been a crash.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“S’okay,” he said.
The rest of the way to my history class, I walked several yards behind him. But, I wasn’t far enough behind him because I heard his friend Bill Wallops, the senior vice-president of the school, say, “That jolly green giant is still following you, Bret.”
“Yeah,” Scott Williams said, “you’d better watch out. She’s your size.” Bret turned to look at me, and I ducked my head and walked into history.
“Watch it, guys!” I heard him say. “She heard you.”
I slid into my seat in the back of the room and slumped down. Jolly green giant. My dark green outfit had always been my favorite. I thought it looked good with my light hair and brown eyes. Now I hated it. I hated myself. I hated being a giant, a jolly green giant. I’ll never wear this awful thing again, I thought. No, never! All my old inadequacies came back—not that they had ever left. I thought of all the names I’d been called in elementary school: Shorty, Shrimp, Skyscraper Susan. They all seemed to flood my mind at once, and I could feel my face getting warm. But, I wouldn’t cry. No, I wouldn’t.
It was a miserable 40 minutes, and I was sure that if Mr. Randolf called on me, my voice would sound choked, and then everyone would know I felt miserable. I tried to hide behind Will Smith, the boy who sat in front of me. That was hard to do because he was only five feet eight.
If the class saw me cry, I was sure it would be passed around the school. “The Jolly Green Giant cried in history class,” they’d say. Then the school clown would be an even bigger joke. I sat in class a few minutes after the bell, partly to copy down the assignment, but mostly to make sure I wouldn’t run into Bret and his friends again. After I was sure they would be way down the hall, I picked up my books and walked toward the back door of the classroom. I hurried faster when I saw Bret looking in the front door.
“Hey,” he called, “wait!” Had he been looking for me? “A little green man asked me to give this to you,” he said as he caught up with me.
“What is it?”
“Read it,” he said, his dark eyes smiling. He tucked a folded piece of paper into my hand. His large, warm hand that had shot all those winning baskets touched mine.
“Okay.” I must have looked puzzled. He hurried down the hall, and I stood staring after him, stunned. He had spoken to me.
What would the note say? Some other cruel joke about my height? Maybe I should throw it in the trash before I read it. I had, after all, been hurt enough. But curiosity made me take the note to the restroom where I opened it.
There were just three words scrawled on the paper in an easy masculine handwriting. I looked up into the mirror. Girls, all shorter than I, were around me, primping, humming, giggling, gossiping, and making faces as they combed their hair and applied their makeup. I looked back at the note and read it again. “Tall is terrific.”
“Tall is terrific,” I whispered. “Terrific, oh sure.” I looked in the mirror again. Me, terrific? The image smiling back at me was not really as bad as I had expected.
Had I perhaps filled out a little? Was I really a little prettier? I held my shoulders back. I did look better when I stood up straight. And yes, I was rather pretty. It was true I stood many inches taller than the rest of the chattering, giggling girls, but if tall was terrific, that didn’t matter.
I kept my shoulders pulled back and my back straight as I walked into the cafeteria to my regular lunch table where I always ate with my friend Cindy. Before I got to the table, however, I saw Bret Price sitting three tables away with all the “big men” of the school. He was looking right at me and smiling. Bret Price, star basketball player of Jackson, was smiling at me as if to say, “We have a secret. We know you’re terrific!”

Will Strickland flipped switches, turned dials, and moved levers on the lighted control panel: the metal robot sitting at the far end of the living room stood up and walked ponderously toward him. Will’s fingers moved rapidly among the controls as he piloted the robot in a slow circle about the room.
At last!
He finally had the robot perfected to the point where it could walk more than six steps without falling on its chrome steel skull.
He spoke into the microphone, and his voice echoed back to him from the small speaker inside the robot’s mouth. “Testing—testing—I’m a jolly good fellow today; I’ve decided to be a good robot and cooperate with the poor mortal who worked so hard to put me together.”
He switched the control panel off and walked over to the robot, pushing gently against it to test its balance in a standing position. Pretty solid. it was exactly his own height, five feet ten, but it outweighed him by six pounds; it had a little more metal in its system than he had.
He left the robot standing there and turned to the cubical metal frame that towered nearly to the ceiling, dominating the small living room. A steel skeleton, the same height as both Will and the robot but weighing only 127 pounds, hung suspended from the top of the frame by vertical bars that socketed into its shoulders, leaving its feet dangling six inches above the floor.
The “skeleton” was actually a new control unit he had designed to replace the conventional control panel. Even though the control panel worked, it was so complicated that the operator needed the skill and coordination of a jet pilot to evoke the most elementary motions in the robot. A small child could walk or pick up something in his hand without having to understand how his muscles worked in opposition to one another to provide balance and control. With the control skeleton, a man could operate a robot as easily as he could operate his own body, simply by strapping himself to the skeleton and doing whatever he wanted the robot to do; the robot would copy his motions, “reading” them electronically through the motions of the skeleton.
Since the only way he could make the robot walk was to walk himself, and since it would be next to useless to have a robot if he had to follow along behind it wherever it went, he had suspended the skeleton in the air so its feet wouldn’t touch the floor. This way the man and the skeleton would do their walking in the air, and leave the traveling to the robot. The robot could walk all over town while the man and the skeleton remained in this room, suspended from the overhead frame.
He had visions of a future filled with robots working on the surface of the moon, other planets, and interplanetary space, doing dangerous work that needed to be done, while the operators of the robots remained in safer areas.
But before all this could happen, he had to make the first one work.
He stepped inside the frame and pushed the button that lowered the skeleton until its feet touched the floor. Then he backed up to the skeleton and stepped on top of its flat feet, strapping them to his own as though he were putting on a pair of roller skates. He worked his way up his ankles, calves, and upper legs, fastening the straps; the right leg of the skeleton fit snugly against the right side of his own right leg, and the left leg fit similarly on the other side of his body. The shoulders of the skeleton rested on top of his own, and its arms came down just to the outside of his own. He slipped his hands into the metallic gauntlets at the ends of the arms and finished strapping in.
He pressed the suspension button and the vertical bars lifted him until his feet cleared the floor by six inches; then he switched on the power to the skeleton control unit and raised his right arm to shoulder height. The robot raised its right arm halfway to shoulder height and stopped.
He made a careful walking motion; the robot lurched forward and fell with a shattering crash.
“Blast!” Will growled.
“Blast!” the robot agreed.
He listened for a moment but heard no footsteps pounding up the stairwelt; that was one thing he could be thankful for. The tenants in the apartment just below his used to come scrambling up the stairs every time the robot fell.
They had not been very understanding about the cause of science; they were devout proponents of peace and quiet. They’d told him so several times, at the tops of their lungs.
Then one day he’d had the robot answer the door.
They hadn’t been back since.
He switched off the power, lowered his feet to the floor, and unstrapped from the skeleton. This was enough for one day’s work; the robot had walked consistently well under the control of the panel, and this was the most success he’d tasted since he’d begun this project. Now he knew that the remaining trouble had to be somewhere in the motion-translation unit of the control skeleton.
But that could wait till tomorrow. Friday night was no time to be working on a robot, especially when he had a date with Carol.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hello.” It was Carol’s voice.
“Hi, Carol; this is Will. What time shall I come by tonight?”
“Oh, it’s you. … Sorry, but I won’t be able to make it to the dance tonight. Something came up.”
He hesitated. “But Carol—we’ve had this date for three weeks.”
“Well, I just can’t go.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Something just came up.”
He swallowed, and his throat hurt. “As I recall, something came up last time, too.”
She laughed. “Did it? Shame on me. Well, I don’t really have time to talk to you now, Will; I have things to do. See you around campus sometime.”
The phone clicked in his ear.
He slammed it into the cradle.
This was the fifth time she’d done this to him!
“And by George, it’s the last!” He stalked into the bedroom and whipped his shirt off, ripping off the bottom button, which he had neglected to unbutton.
“I’m going to that dance stag! And as for Carol,” he slung his pants at the bed and missed, “She’s seen the last of me!”
He jerked on a clean pair of pants and a new shirt; he cinched his necktie ferociously, strangling himself, and coughed a couple of times before he could loosen it.
As he wrenched open the door of his apartment, he cast one last glance back at the robot, which was now sitting quietly in its usual chair, then he slammed the door splinteringly shut behind him.
There were several nice girls at the dance, but most of them had dates. He danced a few dances but didn’t meet any staglet girls who particularly impressed him.
In spite of every gram of will power he could muster, he always caught himself comparing them to Carol.
Then he saw a girl at the far end of the dance floor who, at first glance, compared favorably with Carol. He looked more closely.
Great Scott! It was Carol!
She was dancing with a tall, handsome fellow who looked sophisticated but stupid.
And she was enjoying herself.
When the music stopped, he strolled over to them, controlling himself every second. “May I have the next one?” he asked politely.
Carol turned a little pink.
The tall fellow stiffened. “Why don’t you get with it and go hustle your own date?”
Will stepped forward dangerously. “I thought I had one,” he explained, “until about an hour ago.” He glanced at Carol. “But something came up.”
“You’ll have to excuse us now, Will,” Carol said smoothly, “they’re starting to dance again. And you really shouldn’t be in the middle of the dance floor if you’re not going to dance.”
She danced away with her tall, dark hero.
Will stormed off the floor. “I’ll get even with you, baby, if it takes twenty years!”
He bolted out the exit and headed for home.
He thundered into his apartment and punched the door shut with a frustrated fist. He began to pace to and fro in front of the quietly seated robot.
Carol would break a date with him whenever, wherever, and however she felt like it. And that was usually whenever some good-looking goon came along and gave her the eye. If he were a handsome animal, it seemed to make no difference to Carol if he didn’t have the wits to tie his shoes.
Carol didn’t care. To her an empty head was as good as a full one, as long as it had a flashy covering. She was the flightiest girl he’d ever known.
Also the most beautiful. And certainly the most intelligent, except for her little mental problem concerning men.
In the beginning she’d given him the rush and totally overwhelmed him. Six weeks later she was finished with him and on to the next conquest, wastebasketting him like a used kleenex.
He discovered later, by personal observation, that three weeks was her usual toleration limit for any one fellow. Unfortunately, she was nice-looking enough that she never had any difficulty at all in snagging replacements for her rejects. Whenever she had a new one in the net, she just started breaking dates with her latest victim until he got the message and gave up.
But Will wouldn’t give up. He didn’t have much trouble getting the message, but giving up was not a part of his psychology, at least not after having come to know the real Carol. He was in love with that girl.
“I hate her!” he growled.
The robot sat silently in front of him, like a metal Mona Lisa. Uncontrollably he began to try to explain Carol to his mute companion.
“Inside I know she’s a wonderful, sensitive person. She’s just afraid of commitment. And she’s brilliant,” he added in ultimate defense. He’d discovered that almost by accident when he’d seen the grade point average on her semester report one day before she had hastily stuffed it into her purse. She seemed to consider her intelligence a deficit. And it was with most of the guys she dated.
Suddenly he stared at the robot as if he really saw him for the first time. He approached the uncooperative control unit with the pure light of fanaticism shining in his eyes.
“Now, sister, we’re going to see who’s boss! Now I’m really motivated!”
He worked all night. At six-thirty Saturday morning he strapped himself to the control skeleton for the fourth time and raised his right arm to shoulder height.
The robot’s right arm lifted to shoulder height!
He took one careful step forward. The robot did likewise!
He threw his fists to the heavens and shouted jubilantly!
The robot raised steel fists to the skies and cheered earnestly.
He walked the robot cautiously about the room, making sure of its balance with each stride. What a strange sensation, hanging from the frame and making walking motions but going nowhere, while a robot on the other side of the room did his walking for him.
Physically, he felt as though he were actually walking. The skeleton transmitted the force of his muscles to the robot, and the robot transmitted the forces acting on it back to the skeleton.
He sat the robot down on the davenport. His own legs actually moved upward, so that he appeared to be sitting on air, but he was really sitting supported by the legs of the control skeleton, which, in turn, were held up by the forces transmitted to them by the legs of the seated robot.
The skeleton had a system of wire muscles that duplicated the functions of the muscles in the human body, and these muscles were actually applying the forces necessary to hold up his legs. But they received their instructions electronically from the legs of the robot.
As long as no one shut off his electricity, he could sit there in the air until he starved to death. Which reminded him, he’d better not forget to pay his light bill before Tuesday.
He made the robot lie down on the davenport. His body stretched out horizontally in the air, lifted by the wire muscles of the vertical bars like a giant forearm being lifted by a flexing bicep.
When he closed his eyes, his body told him he was lying securely on the davenport—all of his body, all that is except his stomach, which remained stoutly unconvinced.
He brought himself and the robot to a standing position again, lowered the skeleton’s feet to the floor, and turned off the power.
“Whew!” He unstrapped. “Your body tells you one thing, and your eyes accuse your body of perjury. That’s what you’d call cognitive dissonance.”
It was now time to install the robot’s eyes and ears so he could pilot it at a distance. He hadn’t installed them before because he hadn’t wanted to take needless chances of smashing them in one of the robot’s crash landings.
By a quarter to eleven he had the miniaturized TV cameras placed inside the eye sockets and the little radio transmitters inside the ears. He strapped himself to the control skeleton and pulled the audio-visual helmet down over his head. The transistorized TVs in the inside of the helmet, one in front of each eye, gave him not only clear vision, but also three-dimensional depth of field. The twin radio receivers next to his ears gave him a normal sense of hearing from the robot.
When he turned on the power, the first thing he saw was Will Strickland dangling from the great frame like a living puppet. With the steel skeleton strapped to his body and the audio-visual helmet over his head, he looked like nothing the planet Earth could possibly have produced.
He laughed. “Will Strickland, Puppet-Man from Planet X.”
He walked around the frame, fascinated by seeing himself as he really was, from all angles. “O wad some pow’r the giftie gie us, to see oursil’s as ithers see us.”
He walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a volume of Thoreau. He opened it and, with some persistence, succeeded in turning the pages one at a time. He had the sensation of wearing thick gloves.
He put the book back on the shelf. Now that he was confident in his ability to control the robot in every way, he had only one need left to fulfill.
Sleep.
He parked the robot in its chair, switched off the power, and lowered himself to the floor. He unstrapped, walked wearily into the bedroom, and flopped onto the bed without undressing.
The next thing he knew, it was a little past four o’clock and he was hungry. He crawled out of bed, cooked and ate two hamburgers, and drank half a quart of milk.
Then he went to the supply closet and pulled out a box containing fleshy plastic. He began to form a face for the robot, a very handsome face, one that would catch Carol in mid-flight and cause her to abandon this week’s infatuation and teach her a lesson she’d never forget.
At a quarter after three Thursday afternoon he finished his work on the robot’s face. He was no sculptor, but he was a good design engineer, and he made the plastic face by taking careful measurements of faces in photographs and reproducing a nose from one, a mouth from another, and so on. The finished product was diabolically handsome.
Then he adjusted the voice box in the robot’s throat so that its voice was altered significantly from his own. If Carol recognized his voice, the game would be over fast.
He dressed the robot in his newest suit and tie, and inspected him for human credibility. He looked a great deal more human than some of the guys he’d seen hanging around on campus.
Twenty minutes later he piloted his cybernetic Cyrano through the door of the library. He noticed, with a mixture of pride and disgust, that the girls were paying much more attention to him than usual.
He was sure that Carol would be in the library, but he couldn’t see her anywhere. She usually sat at the table nearest the door, where she could keep her speculative eyes on all the males entering and where no male could possibly avoid being exposed to a full-length view of Carol Carter.
Carol believed in prime viewing areas.
Sometimes he wondered how he’d ever gotten mixed up with such a girl in the first place. And whenever he did, it never took him long to remember. She’d swooped down on him like a Golden Eagle, capturing him in something under four minutes.
He’d never had a chance. Somewhere in the third week of their whirlwind romance she had allowed him to catch a glimpse of her deeper thoughts, though most of the time she kept herself camouflaged behind the irrationality inherent to being a beautiful woman. But why he still loved her after all—
Splat!
Out of the stacks a blur of femininity had flashed, impacting solidly against his chest.
The robot toppled backwards!
He fought wildly for balance; a fall might knock out the audiovisual, maybe even the control unit—
He grasped desperately with both hands. His right hand caught the edge of the stacks and held; his left arm girdled the girl’s waist, bearing her several inches into the air.
She squeeled shrilly, breathlessly, in his left ear.
It was Carol!
It would be Carol. This was just another of her clever little tricks to meet a man. Hiding in the stacks and springing out on him like a leopard when he passed by.
The little ambusher …
He set her down gently.
“Ohhhh!” she gasped. “Excuse me.” She was still a little breathless, whether by nature or by design he couldn’t tell, and she stood very close to him, shining her sapphire eyes up into his.
That one never failed her; even as a robot he felt limp all over. He knew that if he had built an olfactory sense into the robot, he would now be mesmerized by her perfume, as well as all the rest.
And Carol didn’t need perfume, as long as she had all the rest.
She looked at him in rapt admiration. “My, but you’re strong.” She felt the arm that had so lately been locked about her waist. “Why, your arm is just like steel! Unbelievable!”
“I—uhhhh—lift weights.”
“You must!” She paused. “My name’s Carol. Carol Carter. What’s yours?”
“Cy,” he said, searching frantically for a last name. “Cy Burnett.”
“Cy Burnett,” she repeated. “How masculine. It fits you.” She appraised him for a few more seconds. Subconsciously she thought, Cybernet? How interesting. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, fairly new.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever seen you before. If I had, I surely would have remembered.” She flashed her eyes up into his and smiled. “Say, have you ever been to the sundial?”
“No.” Not as Cy, he hadn’t. As Will, he’d been there several times with Carol; it was her favorite setting for romance, and she always lured her prey there as soon as it was at all feasible. But her speed today, as far as he knew, broke all her previous records.
“Come on, then,” she urged. “It’s time you had the experience. It’s beautiful there in the late afternoon.”
“Do you go there often?”
She looked at him as though she weren’t sure whether to be embarrassed or not. She decided not to be. “Yes, it’s lovely there. Come on and I’ll show you.”
He followed her from the library.
Will was dismayed at his failure as a man and his success as a robot. There was one consolation; Carol Carter was going to be the one who got hurt this time.
The sundial was surrounded by flowers, trees, and bushes, with a little pond nearby. Carol sat down in the grass and motioned him down beside her.
It was a relief to sit down and rest; he’d been walking his robot now for forty-five minutes, nonstop.
“Mmmmmm,” breathed Carol. “Smell those flowers.”
He sniffed, smelled nothing, and remembered the robot wasn’t equipped to smell. “Yes,” he agreed. “Very nice.”
She chatted on and on for nearly an hour. Will wasn’t used to such long discussion periods with her; of late, they had been very brief and very no-nonsense. Remembering that he abruptly stood up. “Sorry to end this, but I’ve got to get some studying done.”
“That’s too bad,” she said in surprise, “just when we were getting so well acquainted.”
She lowered her lashes at him in a way that stopped his heart, lungs, and brain from their normal duties. “There’s a darling movie playing on campus” she purred. “Why don’t we go to it together Friday night, and we can continue getting better acquainted?”
First his pulse came back, then his breath, and finally about half the reasoning power of his brain. “That sounds interesting,” he said and glanced at his watch. “Ten till five. I’d really better get back to the library.” He was being an emotional man of iron.
She sighed. “I suppose so.”
“So long,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “See you around.”
“See you Friday night,” she reminded him. “Do you still have my phone number and address?” she called after him more urgently. “I put it in your left shirt pocket; it’s a little pink slip of paper.”
“It’s still there,” he assured her, patting his chrome steel chest, “right next to my heart.”
They had to walk to the movie Friday night. He didn’t trust Cy with the car yet. Besides, he couldn’t have Cy Burnett show up for a date driving Will Strickland’s car. He told Carol he couldn’t use the car because of technical problems.
She didn’t mind walking; she said the fresh air and exercise would be good for her. And before the evening was over, they had a date for the ballet on Saturday night.
They had a great Saturday night. When he took her home, she kissed him and made sure he remembered that they had a definite date for the following Friday night. He didn’t actually remember making the date with her, but he certainly remembered some broad hints she’d been throwing him throughout the evening.
He was gratified to see just how thoroughly infatuated she had become with Cy Burnett.
This meant that the time was now ripe for Phase Two.
The following Friday evening, Will had his speech well-rehearsed. At twenty minutes till seven, which was the time he was supposed to be at Carol’s house, he activated the robot’s speaker control and called her.
She picked up the phone in four seconds flat; he was timing her. “Hello.” Her voice was especially musical tonight; he almost relented in his plan.
Almost, but not quite. He’d made a definite commitment to himself.
“Hi, Carol; this is Cy.”
“I know,” she purred, “I’m ready now, so any time you come will be fine with me.”
He hated himself. “Sorry about this, Carol, but I won’t be able to make it tonight.”
“Ohhhh.” The disappointment in her voice gave him a sadistic thrill. “What happened, Cy?”
“Something came up.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Something just—came up? But—we had a date, Cy.” Her voice was shaky, as though she were about to cry.
He didn’t feel heroic.
But he forced himself to remember all the times she’d done this to him. “Well, something just came up.” This was an exact quotation from the last time she’d jilted him. He wondered if it would strike a familiar chord in her conscience.
He hoped so.
There was another long interval. “All right, Cy,” she said meekly. “Cy? There’s a wonderful play tomorrow night, Picnic in the Park. I’ve wanted to see it for ever so long. Would you like to … well, what I mean is, if you can’t make it tonight, and since we did have a date …”
Her voice trailed off pathetically.
“Sounds okay.” He was glad of a chance to relent a little without breaking his solemn vow. “See you tomorrow night, then.”
“Wonderful. Good night, Cy.”
“Good night, Carol.”
He spent the rest of the evening alone in his apartment, wishing he were with her.
All day Saturday he felt like a brute. A triumphant male brute, to be sure, but still a brute. His feelings alternated between righteous satisfaction and guilty anguish.
Well, she’d done it to him often enough; now they were even.
No, not exactly even.
He’d have to jilt her five or six more times to come anywhere close to being even. But once was enough to prove the point.
Or was it?
As the time drew near for their date that evening, he began to have second thoughts. Maybe two vigorous drops, back to back, would drive the point home a little deeper.
No, she’d suffered enough. She’d sounded almost ready to cry last night and had probably spent a pretty miserable night of it.
It reminded him of the night he’d gone through the time she’d stood him up on a theater date to go bowling with someone she’d met only that afternoon. He’d wandered through the darkest streets he could find, just walking and brooding until four in the morning, thinking thoughts of despair and hopelessness.
The hopelessness …
He stalked across the room to the phone. He owed her one more time.
He activated the robot’s speaker and dialed the phone.
“Hello? Cy?” She sounded several degrees less sure of herself tonight.
“Hi, Carol. Cy again. Look, I’m going to have to cancel out again tonight. I can’t go with you.”
“But, Cy!” Her voice was close to a wail. “We had a date! What’s the matter, Cy? Why do you keep breaking our dates like this?”
“Things just keep coming up.” His voice was cold and flat. “Well, I don’t have time to talk now; I have things to do. See you on campus sometime.”
She was crying when he hung up on her.
He deactivated the robotic voice, stood up, and threw the theater tickets into the wastebasket. “Now, Carol Carter, how funny do you think a broken date is when you’re the one left holding the broken pieces?”
He left the apartment and wandered aimlessly around the block a few times. He stopped on the corner to pet a big brown dog that came up to him, seeming to sense his forlornness. As he rubbed the dog gently behind the ears, he said, “I wonder why so many people have to be hurt themselves before they have any idea what it’s like?”
He wearily climbed the steps to his apartment and went inside.
What now?
The robot was a success, the control unit was a success, and his plan to hurt Carol was a success. But he didn’t feel like a success.
He just didn’t enjoy hurting people.
Sunday afternoon he made his decision. He would go to see Carol, apologize, and then drop out of her life for good. It was pointless to continue a useless charade.
He activated the robot’s voice and dialed her number.
“Hello …” Her voice was soft and subdued.
“Hello, Carol.”
“Cy!”
“I just wanted to apologize; is it all right if I come over for a little while? What I have to say won’t take long.”
“Sure, come on over, Cy.”
He was confident enough now in his handling of the robot that he didn’t hesitate to drive his car over to Carol’s. He parked two blocks away from her house, around the corner; he still couldn’t let her see Cy Burnett driving Will Strickland’s car.
Carol was sitting on the porch swing, waiting for him. She was wearing her summery blue blouse that matched her eyes and her feminine pink skirt that matched her lips.
It was going to be hard to forget her.
“Would you like to go for a walk, Cy? Or would you rather stay here.”
“This is fine.”
She took his hand. “Let’s go out in the back and see the flowers.” She led him around the corner of the house, and they sat in the grass under a big tree. There were flowers growing under all the trees, and a little green birdhouse hung from a limb overhead.
She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her.
“Cy … I really like you …”
Even after I stood you up two nights in a row? I wonder what you really like about me, besides my handsome steel-and-plastic face?
“What do you like about me?” he asked.
She looked shocked. “Why, I just like you. I don’t know why. Why do I like steak and hate lamb chops? It’s just the way I am.”
A good answer. Probably an honest one. And it’s my luck that Cy Burnett looks like steak to you, and Will Strickland looks like lamb chops.
“I really wish I knew what to do about you, Carol.”
She smiled, snuggling a little closer. “It shouldn’t be that hard to solve, Cy. Am I so much of a problem to you?”
If you only knew.
He held her hand gently, careful that his plastic-coated steel fingers caressed without crushing.
At ten-thirty in the evening Will walked home in a daze. Rather, Cy walked home, with Will piloting in a daze. At this point he hardly knew who he was.
He preferred being Cy.
It wasn’t until he was more than halfway home that he remembered he had driven his car to Carol’s place. He didn’t go back for it. He was in no condition to drive, either as a man or as a robot.
He tripped over a hump and nearly fell.
He wasn’t even in condition to walk.
He thoughtfully climbed the steps to his apartment, entered, and paced the floor for half an hour. Finally he went to bed without taking his clothes off.
At three in the morning he woke up and went to the bathroom to get a drink. He lifted the glass to his lips and poured the water into his mouth, but it didn’t go down; it was like drinking in a dream and still being thirsty. He looked into the mirror.
Great Scott! Cy!
“I’m still a robot!”
He went into the living room and found his mortal self still suspended from the great frame, dutifully operating the control skeleton. This meant that he’d sent the robot to bed and left himself hanging prone in that harness half the night.
Such was Carol Carter’s power over men and robots.
It was an exciting week. He spent his mornings and early afternoons as Will, and his late afternoons as Cy; he met Carol every afternoon at the sundial.
He couldn’t stop himself from making dates with her when he was with her; he couldn’t bring himself to break the dates once they were made; and he certainly couldn’t force himself to forget her, though he spent hours in the attempt.
He enjoyed their sundial dates as much as their evening dates; there was really more of an opportunity to talk to one another at the sundial than at a movie or play.
He enjoyed knowing Carol, and he knew her now better than he ever had before. And, almost unwillingly at first, he began confiding more and more of his own feelings to her. Somehow, in the guise of the robot, he wasn’t so afraid of being criticized. After all, Carol would never know when this was over that he, Will, had confided in her, so she couldn’t hurt him.
But after the week was over, in the stark light of a Monday morning, the world looked a little tarnished. Monday morning was a time for analysis.
Carol was extremely sweet to Cy. At present anyway. But what about next week, or the week after that; what would happen the first time another man came along?
The most logical solution was to send in the robot with a new face to take her away from Cy before someone else beat him to it. It was inevitable that she should scrap Cy in a week or two, and this way he would still have the pleasure of her companionship, even if under another identity.
If you can’t beat them, create them!
Wednesday afternoon he piloted his robot onto campus wearing a new face. He went straight to the library. He walked past her customary table near the door, but there was no sign of her.
He forged deeper into the library. Beyond the furthest reaches of the stacks he came upon her, sitting at a little table piled with books.
She was reading Thoreau.
He adjusted his tie and sat down beside her. She glanced up at him quickly, then went back to Thoreau.
He couldn’t believe it! This new face was even handsomer than Cy’s; at least he had thought so. He’d expected her to go out of her mind when she saw it. Maybe she hadn’t gotten a good look at it yet.
“Excuse me,” he said. “What’s that you’re reading?”
She looked up, taking a longer look this time. “Thoreau.” She went back to reading.
Amazing!
She sat reading studiously until nearly four o’clock, and then sprang up and headed for the door, carrying her books with her. He knew where she was going; she had a date with Cy at the sundial at a quarter after four.
He gave her half a minute’s head start and then followed her.
She was sitting in the grass by the sundial when he approached; she was still reading Thoreau. She looked up when he came near, probably expecting Cy, and when she saw he wasn’t, went back to her book.
“May I sit down?” he asked politely.
She looked up again, startled. “Well … I really don’t know what to say. To tell you the truth, I’m expecting a date in just a few minutes.”
“Oh. At the sundial? Unusual. Is this really a definite date, or just a tentative one? If it’s just tentative, maybe you’d like to join me at the cafeteria for a malt and hamburger.”
“Thank you for the offer. But this date is definite.”
His pulse did strange things. “He’s a lucky guy.”
She laughed. “Cy’s not lucky. He’s wonderful.”
He studied her face. “If he has a girl like you, maybe he is, at that. Tell me, are you going steady, or is there a chance of someone else getting a date in with you now and then?”
She looked more serious now. “You look like a very nice person, and I’ll tell you the truth. I’m in love with him. I can’t go out with someone else while I’m in love with him.”
“I see.” He stood up. “I appreciate your honesty. If all girls were as truthful as you’ve just been, there’d be fewer miserable men in this world.”
Before their next date, he painted his car, changing the color from white to blue, and put on new seat covers. He needn’t have worried. When Friday night came, he found that Carol paid a great deal more attention to Cy than to the car he was driving.
The weeks went by. Every week he put a new face on the robot and sent it out to take Carol away from Cy. And every week the new face failed.
Carol refused to move one degree from her chosen course. She was in love with Cy.
Together they created an enchanted courtship. They read Thoreau and Emerson together; they saw plays, musicals, and ballets together; they went to dances and good movies together. They spent hours studying together, either in the library, by the sundial, or at her house. They even climbed mountains together, a feat of real coordination for a cybernetic man-robot team like Will and Cy.
They did all the things together that Will had always dreamed of doing with Carol but had never succeeded in doing.
And now a robot was doing them with her.
The day before graduation Cy climbed the hill to the sundial to keep his last rendezvous with Carol. Tomorrow she graduated, and she wasn’t coming back next year; her parents would be coming in the morning to see her graduate and take her home with them for the summer.
And he was stuck here one more year for his master’s.
He could think of three possible ways the romance could end. If he revealed himself as Will, she’d have to accept him or reject him. If he didn’t, only the third alternative was left. He’d have to let her go without ever giving her a chance to make her choice.
If he could have believed that he had even the smallest chance with her, he’d have risked everything for it. But he just didn’t.
She had proven that to him too many times, in too many ways, for there to be any hope left now.
So he would just let her go quietly, remembering him only as Cy. He wanted to at least leave her that much; it was the only good she had ever accepted from him.
He reached the top of the hill and saw her waiting for him, sitting in the grass by the sundial. She waved and smiled when she saw him coming. “You’re early today.”
He smiled back. “You’re even earlier.”
“I didn’t have anything else to do. At least,” she added, “nothing I wanted to do as much.”
He sat down beside her. “Me too.” He put his arm around her and she leaned against him; they were content to be quiet together.
“Carol,” he said finally, “what do you really think of me?”
She looked up at him and stroked his hand. “What a question. I love you, Cy.”
He squeezed her shoulder gently. “I love you too, Carol.”
She looked at him earnestly. “Don’t you know this is my last day here, Cy? Don’t you know my parents are going to take me back with them tomorrow? Unless you want to give me a reason not to go …”
He looked deeply into her eyes. Is there any chance at all for me as Will? I’d give everything I have for just one chance, if it were really a chance at all.
But there’s nothing. Not a single ray of light.
Nevertheless …
He smashed his fist into the ground.
I love her.
He stood up. I didn’t design this robot to fail! And I wasn’t designed to fail either! Not even if she rejects me. Being rejected by another person isn’t failure; failure is not giving another person the chance to reject you—or accept you …
It’s her future too. I owe her this decision a lot more than I owe her a set of dead memories about a man she loved who didn’t love her enough to marry her. Rejecting Will won’t be as hard on her as thinking for the rest of her life that Cy rejected her. At least she’ll know she was the one who had the power to make the final choice.
And she’ll know who it really was who loved her.
He lifted her to her feet. “Come home with me, Carol. There’s something I have to show you.”
He opened the door of his apartment and let her in. The huge control frame was hidden in the bedroom now; he had dismantled it months ago and reassembled it in there in preparation for a visit from Carol, but this was the first time she had ever come.
They sat down on the davenport in the living room. She looked around at the electronics equipment on the shelves and tables. “Why, this is a regular little laboratory, Cy. What all do you do in here?”
“Electronics experiments mainly.”
“Really? I used to be interested in things like that when I was in high school. Show me one of your experiments, Cy.”
“That’s why I brought you here. To show you one of them.”
He paused. Then he put his arms around her and kissed her tenderly, as though it were their last.
She sensed it. “What’s wrong, Cy? You don’t have to leave me because of whatever it is that’s bothering you.”
“I won’t,” he promised. “I’ll marry you tomorrow if you still want me after tonight.” He sat quietly for a moment, gathering courage. How do you tell a girl she’s in love with a man who never was?
He couldn’t. All he could do was show her. He unbuttoned his shirt and exposed his chest. He tore away a broad strip of plastic flesh, revealing the steel underneath.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
He opened the plate in his chest and displayed the electronic circuitry inside.
She gasped. “Cy!” Her body trembled, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “You’re a robot?”
He nodded, unable to speak.
The tears streamed down her cheeks. “But you have a soul, Cy. You could never be what you’ve been to me if you didn’t have a soul.” She sobbed once, and caught her breath, hard. “Your mind … is it … electronic?”
He shook his head. “I have a human mind.”
“And all the rest is mechanical? Electrical?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at him for a moment, her eyes glittering with tears. “Cy, Do you really love me? Or was that just another part of the experiment? To see if you could make a girl fall in love with a robot?”
He laid his hand over hers. “I love you, Carol. Very much.”
She closed the plate in his chest and leaned her cheek against the cold steel. “I love you too, Cy. And I’m going to marry you.”
His mind staggered in disbelief! “You’d marry a robot? A chunk of steel and plastic?”
She locked her arms around his chest. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known. I want to marry you, Cy. Whatever you are. I’m in love with you, Cy.”
He was silent for a time. “Would you still love me if my mind were in another body? A human body?”
She kissed him. “I love you, Cy. Whether you’re a mind, a man, or a robot. I want to marry you.”
“Carol … Whatever happens in the next few minutes … always remember that I’ll go on loving you no matter what you may do or what your final choice may be. Because what happens now is up to you.”
He stood up and walked to the bedroom door. “My mind is in there.”
She caught her breath. “Is it … disembodied?”
“Would it make a difference?”
She was shaken but didn’t hesitate. “No.”
“It isn’t. I’m a man, Carol. And human enough to fall in love with you.”
“Who are you?” she gasped.
He looked at her keenly. “Does that make a difference?”
“No.” She came off the davenport. “But I have to know. Now!” She raced past him and flung open the bedroom door.
She started in amazement when she saw the gigantic control frame and the occupant suspended from it. But the audio-visual helmet hid the face.
She strode boldly forward and lifted the helmet.
The world jerked from here to there for Will. One instant he was seeing and hearing from Cy’s point of view; the next he was Will again, hanging in his harness. He turned off the control unit and lowered himself to the floor. Released from his control, the robot thundered to the floor.
“Will!”
She stood stunned, speechless.
She faltered backward a step, screaming hysterically. “Will Strickland! You phony! I never want to see you again!”
She stormed from the room, crying bitterly.
Will ripped himself loose from his bindings and plunged after her. “Carol! Wait!”
When he reached the door, he saw Carol kneeling beside Cy’s lifeless form, sobbing uncontrollably and stroking his metal fingers.
Will stood over her. “But Carol, I am Cy.”
She glared up at him. “No, you’re not! You’re nothing like him! Cy was kind and good and honest. He had the greatest soul I’ve ever known. And he was the only man I’ve ever loved. You were always so quiet, so hard to communicate with. Everything I said you seemed to be analyzing and criticizing. How could you be Cy?”
“I’m his soul, Carol. Everything he ever did or said—I was the soul of him.”
She raised a tearful face to him. “But you were just playing a role! You were only pretending to be someone you could never really be.”
He knelt beside her. “The name, the face, and the robot were deceptions. Everything else was real. I’m the same person as Will that I was as Cy. You just never bothered to know me as Will, and I never dared let you know me. That’s all. Everything Cy said to you was what I wanted to say to you. Everything Cy did with you was what I wanted to do with you—but you never gave me the chance.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes brimming with tears. “Will, oh, Will, I was the deceiver. You wore a different face, but you were the same person inside. I wore the same face, but I was a different person to you than I was to Cy.”
Her voice broke. “I’m not worthy of you, Will. Now that I know enough about you to love you, I can see that I’m just not worthy of you.”
He took her by the shoulders. “Did you say you love me?”
She nodded tearfully. “Of course I love you, Will. Is it too late now to tell you that I love you?”
He hugged her to his chest, rocking her gently to and fro. “It’s never too late to tell someone you love him. Not when I’m the one you’re telling.”
She kissed him then, for the first time, still kneeling there beside the fallen Cyrano de Cybernet.

When I was 11, at a regional conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, President Howard W. Hunter (1907–95) shook my hand and said, “You’re going to go on a mission and be a fine missionary someday.”
Most young men would have cherished those words forever. Not me. For the next 10 years I had no desire to serve a mission. I was more concerned with success in sports and my social life. I thought that giving up two years would throw all that away. During interviews with my branch and stake presidents, I would come up with excuses as to why I didn’t want to serve.
At 21, still with no desire to serve a mission, I visited my family in the United States, in Iowa. They had moved there the year before. While in Iowa I had the chance to go to the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple with the local singles branch. I wasn’t endowed, so I figured I’d perform baptisms for the dead.
Upon arriving at the temple, I discovered there was no baptismal session scheduled for the afternoon. I thought, “Great, what am I going to do for the next two and a half hours?”
I decided to go to the Mormon Trail Visitors’ Center across the street. After watching a 15-minute movie about the pioneers, I was greeted by two sister missionaries who were going to take me on my own personal tour. After learning a little bit about me, Sister Cusick asked why I hadn’t served a mission. The usual excuses came flying out. Sister Cusick then testified to me not only of the pioneers but also of missionary work.
After the tour I sat in the temple waiting room, thinking. Suddenly, my excuses for not serving a mission became a stupor of thought. The Spirit testified strongly that I should serve a mission. From the time I started talking to the sister missionaries, everything had changed inside me. The Spirit testified to my heart what I needed to do.
Months later I found out that the still, small voice had told Sister Cusick that I needed to have my own tour. She didn’t know why, but the Lord had plans for me.
I served in the California Ventura Mission—the greatest mission in the world—and built some wonderful friendships that I hope will last through the eternities. I didn’t believe President Hunter for 10 years, but he knew exactly what he was talking about.
My life changed completely, all because a sister missionary acted on the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Let me tell another story from my family. My mother didn't come from a very religious home. She married my dad when they were 19 and 20. My dad had stopped going to church when he was 14 and my mother was not a member of the Church. But in their neighborhood near their small apartment they became friends with another young couple who had both just joined the Church. Keith and Margaret Miller were on fire with the gospel and the scriptures. They loved to talk about how happy they were and what they were learning. They shared these things with my parents as they socialized and finally invited my parents to hear the missionaries.
My parents came into the gospel just before I was born. Keith and Margaret's encounter with the restored gospel and with the Savior created something that did not exist before—a desire on the part of their friends, my parents, to have religion and truth guide their family. It drastically changed my parents' trajectory. Now they have lived more than 50 years in the gospel. And their encounter with Jesus Christ and his gospel changed everything about my own life. How thankful I am that when Keith and Margaret felt joy, they expressed it by creating a friendship that hadn't existed before. They were creators of eternal friends.

“Well, Cory, based on what we’ve talked about, I would be pleased to recommend you for full-time service as a missionary,” my bishop said, nearing the end of the interview.
“So, I guess I’m pretty well on my way to the mission field after this,” I said. I was already picturing myself in an exotic land, saving lost souls. But the bishop interrupted my daydreams.
“Actually, there’s one more very important thing I wanted to talk about before we end this evening,” he said. “Far too often potential missionaries are so involved in checking off items on their ‘to do’ list that they don’t keep their temple ordinances in the right perspective.” I felt like the bishop was describing me as he went on, “For some missionaries, receiving their endowment is sandwiched between checking the dimensions of their luggage and hitting next weekend’s two-pant suit sale.” My bishop’s words made me realize that I needed to consider the temple with the importance it deserved.
During the rest of the interview he explained the sacred nature of the endowment. By going through the temple, he told me, I would be making sacred covenants with my Heavenly Father that go far beyond the mission and are essential to my exaltation. “Not only that,” he continued, “your temple experience will fill you with the desire to serve. You will want those you teach to receive the same blessings of the temple that you have received. The strength you’ll receive from your temple covenants will benefit you as a missionary, but they also have eternal significance.”
The bishop’s words weighed on me as I walked slowly home. I began to feel nervous. I had looked forward my whole life to the time when I would enter the temple, but now I was especially eager to be ready.
A few weeks later I received my mission call. With excitement I read the words “Brazil Porto Alegre North Mission.” I could hardly wait to be among the Brazilian people, sharing the message of the restored gospel. I shared the news of my call with my extended family, ward members, and friends. I also noticed how many people were just as eager to know when I would go through the temple. Many had words of advice to offer me on how I should prepare myself mentally and spiritually before entering the house of the Lord.
During the next few months I made sure to attend temple preparation classes. I read my scriptures and prayed for a continuing reassurance of my decision to receive my endowment. The Spirit comforted me again and again. I also read the pamphlet Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple, written to assist those preparing to attend the temple for the first time. I was so grateful for the statements about the reverence and peace that prevail in the temple. During this time of preparation I gained a much stronger testimony of the sacred nature of the Lord’s house and the work that is performed inside.
I will always remember the sight of the temple the day I arrived to receive my endowment. I was filled with deep respect and reverence. I was humbled by the thought that I would go inside and make sacred covenants with my Father in Heaven.
I had arrived dressed in my Sunday best, knowing that my outward appearance reflected my inward respect for the house of the Lord.
“Welcome to the temple,” I was greeted as I showed my recommend and walked inside. Everything about the temple was beautiful. It felt like a piece of heaven on earth, and the friendly temple workers seemed like angels.
I remained in awe at the Spirit I felt. While I didn’t immediately understand everything that was taking place, I did realize the importance of the covenants I was making. It was clear to me why my bishop had spoken of the temple the way he had. The endowment I was receiving would extend not only far beyond the two years of my mission but even into the eternities. More meaningful to me than any of the advice I had received from various people was a scripture I had read as part of my preparation, “And that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord’s house may feel thy power, and feel constrained to acknowledge that thou hast sanctified it, and that it is thy house, a place of thy holiness” (D&C 109:13). I knew that the temple was the Lord’s house, sanctified and holy. I went expecting to feel God’s love, and I did.
Throughout my mission I frequently reflected on my first temple experience. I was also thankful for having attended the temple each week at the MTC. The blessings of the temple fortified me and gave me strength through difficult times. I was filled with the desire to serve and bring others to a knowledge of God’s plan. I wanted everyone I taught to have the same opportunity to make covenants with Heavenly Father and receive a greater understanding of His infinite love.
I am grateful for having realized that the temple will be a part of me forever and not something to simply check off before leaving on my mission. Since returning home from my mission, I have made temple attendance a priority in my life. The temple is a place of clarity and renewal for me. It is a place of holiness where I can feel God’s love for me and for all His children.

In many ways, Ricardo has already begun his missionary service. “He was an example to me because he always went to church,” says Ricardo’s grandmother, Mavila Ruiz Cárdenas. For several years she had listened to the missionaries who came to visit with the family. And all the while Ricardo was there: sitting in and listening to the discussions, faithfully attending church each Sunday, even teaching his grandmother the hymns.
When he was eight years old and attending church by himself, he had not felt prepared for baptism. But, says Ricardo, “when my grandmother said she was ready to be baptized, then I was sure I was ready also.” So when Ricardo was 10, he and his grandmother were baptized on the same day.
No longer does Ricardo walk to church alone. Now every Sunday he puts on his shirt and tie, takes his grandmother by the hand, and they walk together. Who knows? In time, Ricardo will probably be leading others to church with him.

As a young Primary boy, I learned that Heber J. Grant was truly a great man. He served as president of the Church from 1918 to 1945 and was ordained an apostle at age 25. In general conference in April 2000, President James E. Faust used examples from President Grant’s life in his talk “The Power of Self-Mastery”:
Part of [President Grant’s] strength was his great determination for self-mastery. His father died when he was only a year old, and his widowed mother struggled to raise him. He was conscientious in helping her and trying to take care of her.1
President Faust quoted Roderick L. Cameron’s description of Heber J. Grant’s struggle to become proficient playing baseball:
When he was older and wanted to join a baseball team, he found the other fellows laughing at him and calling him a “sissy” because he could not throw the ball between the bases. His teammates teased him so much that one night he went home and made up his mind that he was going to play with the nine who would win the championship of the Territory of Utah. He purchased a baseball and practiced hour after hour, throwing at a neighbor’s old barn. Often his arm would ache so much he could hardly go to sleep at night. He kept on practicing, and kept on improving and advancing from one team to another until he finally did succeed in playing with the [team] who won the championship!2
Another instance of his self-mastery was his determination to have readable handwriting:
His penmanship was so poor that when two of his [friends] were looking at it one said to the other, “That writing looks like hen tracks.” “No,” said the other, “it looks as if lightning had struck an ink bottle.”3
Heber realized at that point that he could not be much good to an employer or society if he did not improve his penmanship. He practiced and worked at it persistently. Over the next few years he was offered lucrative jobs because of his superior penmanship, won first prize in a contest against professional penmen, and taught penmanship and bookkeeping at the University of Utah.
Another challenge for President Grant was singing:
When he was a small child . . . he could not carry a tune. When he was ten, a music instructor worked and worked with him, trying to teach him the simplest song and finally gave up in despair. At the age of twenty-six, when he was an apostle, he asked a Professor Sims if he could teach him how to sing. After listening to him, the professor replied, “Yes, you can learn to sing, but I would like to be forty miles away while you are doing it.”4
This only made him try harder.
President Grant once said, “I have practiced [the hymn “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow”] between three and four hundred times, and there are only four lines, and I cannot sing it yet.”5
Once, on a trip to Arizona with Elder Clawson and Elder Kimball, [President Grant] asked them if he could sing one hundred songs on the way. They thought he was joking and said, “Fine, go right ahead.” After the first forty, they assured him if he sang the other sixty they would both have a nervous breakdown. He sang the other sixty.6
President Faust concluded that “by practicing all of his life he made some improvement in singing but perhaps not as much as in baseball and penmanship, which he mastered.”7

The story is told of two outdoor enthusiasts who hired a bush plane to fly them to a remote lake for their annual fishing trip. Following a successful outing, the pilot returned to retrieve them. However, he quickly informed the fishermen that his small plane would not support them, their equipment, and the added weight of the fish they had caught. A second flight would be required.
Now, the sportsmen were not interested in paying for a second round-trip. So after a promise to pack tightly and a small bonus payment, the pilot reluctantly agreed to attempt the flight.
The fishermen grinned knowingly as the pilot forced the aircraft into the air. However, seconds later the plane stalled and crashed into a large, flat swampy area at the end of the lake.
The plane had stalled as it flew because of a well-known phenomenon called “ground effect.” Ground effect is created when air is compressed between the aircraft’s wings and the earth’s surface—when they are in close proximity. In this case, as the bush plane inched its way upward out of ground effect, it was required to fly on its own power, which it simply could not do.
Fortunately there were no serious injuries, and after regaining their senses, one of the fishermen asked the other, “What happened?” The second replied, “We crashed on takeoff—about a hundred yards (91 m) from where we ended up last year!”

Illustrated by Dilleen Marsh
WELCOME! I’m Sister Simon.Hi! I’m Ramón.Hello. I’m Cathlyn.I’m Mei Lin.Hi! I’m David.And I’m Joshua.
Cathlyn, we’ve waited till we were in this beautiful place to tell you some wonderful news.You’re going to be a big sister in December. I’m going to have a baby girl.
Oh.
Are those sad tears, Champ? What’s wrong?I guess you’ll enjoy having a perfect little daughter who isn’t defective.
Defective? Oh, darling, you’re the least defective person I know. You’re as strong as Esther and as kind as Ruth. The baby will be so blessed to … have you as a sister!Maybe she’ll be ashamed of a sister in a wheelchair.
Or maybe she’ll be proud of a sister who’s the best basketball player on the block.I guess I could teach her to hit the outside shot.Or to hit a fastball—or cook an omelet. But mostly I hope you can teach her to be as good a person as you are.

I started working a second job to earn money for my mission, but I wasn’t treated well, and it was coming at the expense of my schooling and happiness. When I fasted and prayed, the answer I got was to hand in my resignation immediately and that everything would be OK.
Now I’ve received multiple other work offers, including some for photography. I honestly believe that God is fulfilling His promise because I was obedient to His prompting.

For one of my value projects in the Personal Progress program, I decided to send a copy of the Book of Mormon to my grandparents, who are not members of the Church. I was very nervous about this because my grandparents had never seemed to like the Church very much, but I felt strongly that this was something I should do. I went through the Book of Mormon and marked the scriptures important to me. Then I wrote my testimony on the inside of the cover and fasted that they would accept my gift.
I was afraid their reaction would be negative, but they surprised me. One day while I was checking my e-mail, I found a message from them. They thanked me for sending the Book of Mormon to them and for the time I had taken to make it personal for them.
This experience taught me to have faith in the Lord and follow the promptings of the Spirit. We never know what the consequences of our actions will be, but if we trust in the Lord we will never regret it.

“I was just remembering something that happened to me when I was a little girl. My father took me to a carnival and bought me some cotton candy. It was pink and looked like the clouds at sunset. I just thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. When we got home, it was time for bed. I decided to save it so that every day I could have it and look at its beauty. I put it in a little box and put the cover on. The next morning when I woke up, I rushed to look at my beautiful treasure. There was just a lump of sugar and a sticky cardboard funnel. I cried because I thought someone had destroyed it. When I told my mother that I had wanted it to last forever, she said, ‘You can’t save cotton candy. If you want cotton candy forever, you have to make a little every day.’”

“Is Dad coming home tonight?” Benjamin asked. Dad worked as a sailor off the coast near their home in Denmark.
“No,” Mom said, “he will be home in four days.”
Dad had promised Benjamin that they could play football when he returned. Benjamin missed Dad.
“Before I go to bed tonight, I’ll pray that he will come home safely,” Benjamin thought.
Benjamin’s dad stood on the ship in the freezing rain, hurrying to finish his work before the evening meal. Feeling tired and cold, he thought of his family back at home.
Suddenly, an enormous wave rocked the ship. Supplies clattered to the floor as sailors shouted in confusion. The captain peered out into the darkness and couldn’t see Benjamin’s dad on the deck anymore.
“Man overboard!” he shouted.
Later that evening Benjamin watched Mom pile the dinner dishes in the sink. As she scrubbed she looked out the window into the garden. Trees swayed in the fierce wind. Benjamin saw the worried look on his mother’s face and felt worried, too. Would Dad be all right out in this storm?
Benjamin’s dad could hear the ship’s alarm ringing, but the sound grew quieter as the strong waves pushed him farther away from the ship. Sailors tossed life preservers into the water, hoping to save him, but they could not see him in the stormy darkness.
He tried to stay calm and keep his head above water. He found the flashlight clipped to his life jacket and pointed it toward the ship so the sailors could see where he was—but the light didn’t work.
On board the ship, the captain radioed for help. Soon a helicopter hovered over the ocean, shining a spotlight down onto the huge waves.
“We can’t find him,” the helicopter pilot radioed to the captain. The captain fought back tears, fearing the worst for his friend. “But we’ll try again,” the pilot decided. He was afraid the helicopter would run out of fuel, but he knew he was the lost sailor’s last hope.
Benjamin’s dad was getting colder and colder. His teeth rattled as he clutched the broken flashlight in his numb fingers.
Back home it was Benjamin’s bedtime. Mom listened as, kneeling by his bed, he prayed, “Dear Heavenly Father, please protect Dad and bring him home safely to Mom and me.”
Benjamin’s dad saw a helicopter flying low. He tried to wave his arm, but he was so tired and cold he could hardly move it.
Then a voice in his mind said, “Turn on the light.”
“But it doesn’t work,” he thought.
“Turn on the light,” the voice said again.
“Why should I?” he mumbled as his stiff fingers fumbled with the switch. “Either the lightbulb is burned out or the batteries are dead.”
The helicopter came closer and closer. When it was almost directly overhead, Benjamin’s dad pointed the flashlight toward the sky and flipped the switch.
Just then the pilot saw a flicker of light in the water below. “We’ve found him!” he cried into the radio. The sailors aboard the ship cheered. Within minutes Benjamin’s dad was hoisted up into the warmth and safety of the helicopter. Wrapped in a blanket, he listened to the engine vibrate, imagining it singing, “Home to Benjamin, home to Benjamin!”
After the helicopter landed and an ambulance took Benjamin’s dad to the hospital, the helicopter pilot walked back to where Benjamin’s dad had been resting. There on the floor lay the flashlight. Curious, he picked it up and opened it. Two very old, rusty batteries fell out.
“These batteries can’t work,” he thought. “But if I didn’t see this light out on the ocean, what did I see?”
“God must have watched over this sailor,” he said out loud to his copilot, who was standing beside him. They both nodded in silence.
Benjamin’s mom suddenly felt happy. The worried feeling went away.
Opening Benjamin’s door a crack, she peeked into his room and saw that he was sleeping soundly. Benjamin lay dreaming about the football game Dad had promised him. A warm feeling had assured him that Heavenly Father would answer his prayer and that Dad would be home soon.

Beth, Blondie, Freckles, Beauty, and Dolly went on a backpacking trip. But on their backs they carried Amy, Linda, Jennifer, Heidi, and Cherish.
Beth, Blondie, and crew are the four-legged, half-ton-with-mane-and-tail variety of backpackers; but even though they see the trail from a slightly different angle than their human cargo, they know the mountain trails as well as anyone. They know how to pick their way down a rocky trail because they hate to slip on the loose rocks. They remember the spots where they have stopped to camp for the night. They know how to work a little slack into the reins so they have a chance for a quick bite of succulent mountain grass. They know how good it feels to roll in the dust after their humans have removed the saddles and saddlebags. Even though they enjoy getting out on the mountain trails, they are only horses, more intent on their next mouthful of grass than the beauty of a panorama of rugged mountains, blue sky, and snow-fed lakes. Those beauties are left for their riders to enjoy.
And the beauties of the Tetons, a range of mountains slicing the border between Wyoming and Idaho, were not lost on the girls from the Idaho Falls Idaho East Stake. They chose to spend three days on horseback as their Summiteer trip. The Summiteer program is the adventure-laden fifth year of the Young Women camp certification program. Girls are encouraged to plan and carry out an activity themselves, using the things they have learned about organizing and camping during their four years of the Campcrafter program.
It was a gorgeous morning in August when the girls met to carpool to the mountains. In reviewing how the activity got started, Susan Butikofer, Summiteer leader for the stake, said that the girls wanted to go horseback riding or winter camping, both ambitious undertakings. She said the girls got together to make their decision. “I backed clear off,” said Susan. “If these girls are here after four years of Campcrafters, they want to be here. The leaders aren’t pulling them along anymore. At this age, these girls have so many things keeping them busy, they have to have a real desire, and some have made a real sacrifice to pursue their Summiteer.”
It took extra effort to arrange for the trip. Every girl who participated in the horseback Summiteer trip was working a summer job and had to arrange to take the time off without pay. Also they were inventive about the ways they came up with the fee to pay for the rental horses. One girl gathered earthworms to sell to a fisherman’s bait shop to earn the fee.
The first morning of the trip was spent saddling the horses and consolidating equipment into small bundles to be packed on the mules. Then everyone was assigned a mount. For the inexperienced, coming eye to eye with the animal she would be responsible to saddle, curry, hobble, and keep under control for the next three days was a daunting moment. But the horses knew what they were doing even if the girls didn’t and put up with the fumbling fingers, the jerking reins, and the indecisive directions given by their riders. The horses fell into line behind the lead horse regardless of the directions given by their riders as they headed up the trail. The girls were soon to learn who really was in charge on this trip and that they were just along for the ride.
It was a glorious summer day. The air at that mountain altitude was crystal clear. The sky was such an intense blue that it was a subject of debate whether it was closer to the color of robins’ eggs or more like a tropical sea. The meadows were alive with wild flowers, every color and kind—columbines, Indian paint brush, bluebells, purple lupine, buttercups. Although the valley was in the heat of summer, here in the mountains, it was spring. It was soon obvious that the horses needed little direction while on the trail. This made it easy for the girls to absorb the scenery with names as colorful as the places themselves—up Fox Creek, past Death Canyon, along the Teton Shelf, down the Sheep Steps, into Alaska Basin, and on the Skyline Trail.
As the trail climbed, the trees began to thin out. Tall stands of pine were separated by stretches of rocky meadows. Water seemed to gush from every crevice, and clear, cold streams joined together to form high-running creeks. With the sun, the flowers, the water, the scenery, and the good company, it was nearly as perfect a day in the mountains as it could be.
But there were saddle sores in paradise. At the end of the day’s ride, when at last the camp spot for the evening was selected, there were some mighty groans, some bent backs, and some crooked legs as the girls dismounted. But no matter how tired the girls were, the first concern was to take care of the horses. Saddles were removed, bridles carefully coiled, and hobbles attached. “Come on, come on, just move your other hoof over here.” Linda Garner, of the Idaho Falls 38th Ward, was talking out loud as she struggled to get her horse to put his front legs close enough together to fasten the hobbles, a small girl trying to coerce a large animal into cooperating.
After setting up camp and getting dinner started, it was time for a treat. Custom-made snow cones were just the thing to cool down and quench thirst. The crushed ice was gathered from the remnants of a nearby snowfield. Punch mix was prepared at double strength and poured over the snow. No machine could chop the ice more perfectly than nature had already done.
That evening a full moon rose over the mountains like a spotlight. It was so bright that the girls didn’t need flashlights to find their way around camp.
By the second day, the girls were old hands at preparing their horses for the day’s ride. Jennifer Goodell of the Idaho Falls 38th Ward saddled her horse and wandered up the hill from camp and sat down to watch the early-morning light play among the peaks. It was a time for a moment’s introspection as she absorbed the beauty of nature and the feeling of oneness with our Creator.
The second day offered some unexpected challenges. The group had to negotiate a section of steep loose shale, and there were mushy snowbanks that would be too dangerous to ride across. The girls walked down the trail, leading their horses across the snowbanks, staying uphill in case their horses started to slide. Everyone was careful and made it across safely.
By now, some of the inexperienced riders were feeling more comfortable on horseback. Cherish Haroldsen of the Idaho Falls 41st Ward had never been on a horse until this trip. She was given a gentle horse, and she soon got into the rhythm of trail riding. She just tied her reins to the saddle horn and let her horse find his own way. “I figure the horse knew where to put his feet better than I did,” Cherish said. “As long as another horse is in front of him, he does real good. But just try to make him do something the others aren’t doing. He’s like a teenager. He follows peer pressure.”
The group entered a beautiful basin where snow-fed lakes connected by small waterfalls descended like huge stairsteps. The trail faded and disappeared altogether as it led across flat, slick rock. By this time, the girls were gaining confidence and, instead of following the lead horse, they spread out in groups of twos or threes, picking their own ways across the rock. But they soon found that taking off on their own didn’t always work well. What looked like a good way to go often led to the edge of cliffs or into an impossible thicket of trees that forced them to turn back and retrace their routes.
A forest ranger had gone over the trail before and had marked the best way across the slick rock with small pyramids of stone. These markers, or cairns as they are called, were easy to spot and if followed led safely across the section where the trail was obliterated. The girls found they could not rely on their own instincts or observations to select a good path. They found they had to trust the one who had gone on before to show them the best way. The girls started talking about following the cairns. “This is like our leaders giving us lessons about how to live our lives,” said one. “Yes,” said another catching on to the symbolism, “it’s like learning to follow the prophet. By listening to him, we can follow the right trail even when we can’t see where it leads.”
On the final day, the girls were busy packing the mules and saddling their horses. Heidi Hicks, of the Coltman Second Ward, settled into the saddle and said, “It doesn’t hurt as bad this morning.” Indeed, the girls were becoming toughened to riding, but it was time to head home.
The downward trail was rough. It was very steep, eroded in spots, and had plenty of rocks to trip up even the most surefooted horse. But things went well. When a horse slipped, its rider hung on or slipped a foot out of the downhill stirrup in case a hasty dismount was called for. Horses and girls came through like troopers. Heidi summed up the feelings of many when she said, “If we had done that the first day, we would have been in tears.”
At the end of the trail, the horses were anxious to get back to the corral, and the girls were again thinking about the activities awaiting them in the valley. But the impact of the trip was not overlooked.
As one leader said at the last night’s campfire, “Many of you will be taken to faraway places to serve in the Lord’s kingdom. You’ll always remember these beautiful mountains and your home nearby. Bathe in the beauty, and pay attention to it.”
The Summiteer program is designed to allow girls to use what they have learned in Campcrafters in planning and carrying out their own activities. It is easy to draw parallels to life. Girls are taught correct principles about outdoor life and about living the gospel. They find that in both, if they follow the markers, the cairns along the trails, set out by wise leaders who have led the way, they can find the correct paths.

During this time I was blessed with so many people who would tell me about what they learned each Sunday at church. One of those people was Stephanie. She had been living in Italy when my uncle joined the Church, but she had returned to her home in the United States. My uncle thought it would be good for us to write to each other, so I added her as a friend on Facebook.

Even though we had never met in person, I will always be grateful to her for helping me build my faith and learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She wrote to me almost every Sunday and told me everything she learned in church and then would answer my questions. She was a great friend to me.

A dear friend told of the passing away of his atheistic father. As he bid good-bye to his family who had gathered around, he expressed no hope of any future, saying, “No, this is the end.”

Then, as the last moment came, he suddenly opened his eyes and said distinctly, “Mother, how good to see you! Sister, you look lovely. How beautiful it all is!” Then he died. What a surprise it must have been for him! I hope he was happy about it.

Joseph sat with a heavy heart, confused as to why he had been led to Nauvoo. His thoughts were soon interrupted by some passing townspeople talking about a meeting that everyone was invited to. A man named Brigham Young was to be the speaker.
Joseph stood up and asked a young woman about this meeting. She explained that the leader of the Church, Brigham Young, wanted to speak to everyone in town at the town hall. She pointed down the street to a large building.
The town hall was muggy from the afternoon heat and the large number of people packed into it. Joseph found a place near the back and sat down. A man stood at the pulpit and began to speak. Joseph knew this must be Brigham Young, for his burning heart told him that he was listening to a man of God.
Brigham Young began by thanking the people for coming. He then told them that he knew of their hardships and lack of money. But he said they must pay their tithing regularly so the temple could be finished, and that the temple should be their most important priority. He also told them that more food for the workers and more money for the building materials were desperately needed.
Joseph still had most of the $2,600 in the cans he had strapped around his waist—he had only spent a small amount to get to Nauvoo. As Brigham Young spoke of the need for money, the cans seemed to get heavier and heavier. But as the prophet spoke of the importance of the temple, Joseph’s heart became lighter and lighter. He knew why he had been guided to Nauvoo.
After the meeting, Joseph went straight to Brigham Young’s office and introduced himself. He told President Young about the missionaries, about the storm that almost drowned him, and about God leading him to Nauvoo.
Brigham Young then watched as Joseph unstrapped the belt from around his waist and rolled the gold-filled cans across the table. “I want to give myself and all I have to the kingdom of God,” Joseph said.
When Brigham Young opened the cans and saw what was inside, he was touched by Joseph’s sacrifice. The money would be enough to finish the temple. Brigham laid his hands on Joseph’s head and gave him a blessing. In the blessing he promised that Joseph and all his posterity would always have the things they needed if they remained faithful.
The temple was completed, and Joseph Toronto became part of Brigham Young’s family, later traveling with them to the Salt Lake Valley.

Jamie and Sara picked up rocks while Dan and Beth raked the new garden that Father had plowed for them. Then they marked the soil off in rows.
“The garden is ready!” they all shouted at once when they were finished.
Father held out a shoe box as everyone gathered around. “Since this is going to be your money-making project for the year, you must all plant your own seeds and tend your own part of the garden. You may choose two kinds of vegetables. Whatever you grow you can sell at our roadside stand down by the gate.”
Dan grabbed a packet of tomato seeds and one of pumpkin seeds out of the box. “I’m going to grow the best tomatoes and pumpkins in the whole county!” he declared.
Beth chose green beans and cucumbers. “I’ll make lots of money growing these. Everybody likes them.”
Sara reached for carrots and yellow summer squash. “These are easy to grow,” she said. “I’ll have lots of vegetables to sell.”
Jamie looked at the rest of the seed packets in the box for a long time. She wished that there were more seeds to choose from.
“Why don’t you grow beets and green onions,” Beth suggested.
Jamie shook her head. “I don’t like beets and green onions,” she protested. “And I want something that grows tall.”
“Hurry up and decide so that we can get our seeds planted,” Dan said impatiently.
“You like lettuce, Jamie,” Mother suggested.
“Lettuce is good,” Jamie agreed as she picked up the packet of lettuce seeds, “but it’s not tall.” Then she discovered a fat white packet that had been folded over at the top. Jamie picked it up and shook it. “What kind of seeds are these?”
“Sweet peas,” Mother answered. “I didn’t have room for them in my garden.”
“I like peas,” said Jamie. “Do they grow tall?”
“Yes, very tall,” Mother said, “but—“
Jamie grinned. “Then I’ll plant them.”
Beth laughed. “You can’t eat sweet peas,” she said. “They’re flowers, not vegetables.”
“But I want to grow them,” Jamie insisted.
Father shook his head and smiled. “Let Jamie plant them,” he said. “She can grow whatever she wants in her garden. But, Jamie, you’d better plant the seeds next to the wire fence so that they’ll have something to climb on as they grow.”
Dan and Beth and Sara rushed into the garden to plant their seeds. Jamie got down on her hands and knees by the fence and poked her finger into the soft dirt to make little round holes like Dad had shown her. Then she dropped a sweet pea seed into each hole. After she planted the lettuce seeds, she watered her whole plot. She could hardly wait for the seeds to sprout!
Just a few days later Jamie noticed slender green shoots poking up through the soil by the fence. She watered the little plants every day. The round green leaves began to unfold on her lettuce plants.
One day while Jamie was pulling up weeds, Dan stopped and looked at Jamie’s garden. “You’d better thin your lettuce plants,” he said, “or you won’t have big round heads of lettuce.” He squatted down beside Jamie to show her how. “Leave the biggest, strongest plant, and pull out all of the little lettuce plants around it,” he explained, clearing a space around two nice-looking lettuce plants. Then he stood up and went back to his own garden.
Jamie looked at the little plants Dan had pulled out. She couldn’t bear to pull up any more. They would all die. So she left the lettuce row and went to look at her sweet peas. They didn’t need thinning. They had already put out little green tendrils that curled around the wire fence.
As the weeks went by, everyone worked hard, weeding and watering their gardens. Beans hung like long green fingers from Beth’s plants. Shiny green cucumbers peeked from among the broad leaves of her cucumber vines. Sara’s carrot tops were tall and lacy. There were crooked yellow squash all along her row. Juicy red tomatoes began to appear among the green ones on Dan’s plants, and fat green pumpkins dotted his pumpkin patch. Jamie looked at her own garden. There were only two round heads of lettuce. The rest of the row was filled with tall scraggly plants. The sweet peas had grown to the top of the fence and were covered with flowers in a rainbow of colors. They were pretty, but there were no peas.
One morning at breakfast Dan announced, “Some of our vegetables are ready to pick. May we open the roadside stand today?”
“Yes,” Father said, “but don’t pick more than you can sell in a couple of hours. You can always pick more, and your vegetables will stay fresh that way. I’ll put up the sign for you.”
“But my peas aren’t ready to pick yet,” Jamie protested.
“Those flowers aren’t going to turn into peas,” Beth said and rushed out the door after Dan and Sara.
Tears welled up in Jamie’s eyes. “My garden is no good,” she said. “It’s only flowers, not food.”
“Flowers are like food in a way,” Mother said, “food for the soul. When we see and smell them, they make us happy. I think that that’s why Heavenly Father made flowers so beautiful.”
Jamie sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Then can I take some of my flowers down to the roadside stand too?” she asked.
“Of course,” Mother said. “Take these garden shears and cut the stems long enough to put the flowers in water to keep them fresh.”
Jamie hurried to the garden and filled a small bucket with the colorful flowers. Then she carried them to the roadside stand. “Have you sold lots of vegetables yet?” she asked as she divided the sweet peas into bunches and put them into jars with water in them.
Dan shook his head. “Lots of cars go by, but nobody stops.”
Jamie had just finished setting her flowers on the counter when a car pulled up and a lady got out.
“What lovely sweet peas!” she cried. She chose a bunch and held them to her nose. “My, those vegetables look nice and fresh too.” She bought something from everyone before she drove away.
More cars began to stop. Soon Dan and Beth and Sara had all gone back to the garden for more vegetables. There was only one bunch of sweet peas left when Beth came back with more beans.
“I’m glad that people like your flowers so much, Jamie,” Beth said. “Everybody who stops to buy them buys vegetables too. Better hurry and cut some more.”
Jamie grinned and ran back to the garden for more sweet peas.

One major hill we encountered came at about 11:55 a.m. on June 3, 2001. I had stood up to close our ward’s fast and testimony meeting when I felt a sharp pain and a tearing sensation followed by the gushing of blood in my left pelvis. The thought came to me quite distinctly: “I just ruptured my femoral artery. I am going to bleed to death in a few minutes.” I looked out over the congregation to my family, thinking that it might be the last time I would see them in this life. I debated whether I should say something but decided that I did not want to disrupt the spirit of the meeting. So, after announcing the closing hymn and prayer, I just sat down. Our sacrament meeting was last in the block schedule, and I knew that I had several interviews to conduct and other business that needed to be addressed after the meeting. I was still alive and decided to continue in my duties.

Nearly six hours later I finally took the time to go to the emergency room. I explained to the nurse at the reception desk that I thought I had ruptured my femoral artery at noon that day. She kind of chuckled and said, “No, you would be dead by now.” She asked me to describe the pain and thought it was probably a kidney stone.

We sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes. When we were finally taken back to an exam room and were able to see a doctor, I described the pain and said that I thought I had ruptured my femoral artery at about noon that day. He gave a little chuckle and said, “You would probably be dead if that were true.” He also indicated that he thought it was a kidney stone. He ordered a differential CAT scan to look for the stone.

A few minutes after the procedure, the doctor came back into the room and said, quite soberly, “There is a large pool of blood in your lower left abdomen.” I was rushed to another hospital and prepped for emergency vascular surgery. It turned out that I had actually ruptured my left iliac artery, which is larger than the femoral. The reason I did not bleed to death is that shortly after the aneurysm, a flap of inner arterial lining folded over, occluding the artery above the rupture. Experiences like this provide evidence for the truth that God knows each of us personally. We are cared for as individuals. He knows exactly how to succor us.