Gospel Story Finder

“Ro-sie!” called Mama. “It is time for you and Heman to take Papa his dinner.”
We needed no second call, for this was one errand we delighted in doing. Mama filled a plate with hot food, covered it with a soup dish to keep in the warmth, wrapped it carefully in a large napkin, and placed it in a basket. Then she handed the basket to us with final instructions: “Carry it carefully, don’t play on the way, and hurry home after Papa has eaten.”
It was ten blocks from our home on East Third South to Salt Lake Temple Block where Papa worked as a stonecutter. But it didn’t seem that long to us as we talked of the fun we’d have while Papa ate his dinner. It was interesting to watch the huge granite blocks being brought in from the canyon quarry by ox-drawn wagons. While the wagons were unloaded, the oxen stood patiently switching at flies with their tails. After the rough blocks were cut and smoothed to the required shape and size, they were tilted and placed in rows like dominoes, leaving the sharp edges protruding like saw teeth. We enjoyed running back and forth on top of these stone dominoes in our bare feet. Shoes were saved for Sunday and for school.
Sometimes we would watch as skilled workmen cut sun, moon, and star designs into certain stones. Each held a small iron chisel in his left hand and a hard wooden mallet in his right, tapping gently so as not to chip out too much rock and spoil the pattern.
Today Papa had a special surprise for us. He said, “The men who are making the circular staircase (there was one in each corner of the building) say you may go up as far as it is completed, but you must be very quiet, because this is the Lord’s house.”
I took Heman’s hand, and together we climbed the huge stone steps—up, up, up until we were out of breath. It was easier going down. Then Papa took us into the carpenter shop where wood for the building was sawed. On the floor was a heap of clean sawdust and Papa told us that the foreman said it would be all right for us to take some home so Mama could show us how to make a pincushion. “Someday it will be a fine thing,” Papa said, “to have a pincushion made with temple sawdust.”
Eagerly we filled the basket with fragrant sawdust and hurried home. But Mama had no time right then to help with a pincushion. She was trying to finish the washing and ironing for Sister Young, who lived next door, and the baby was cross. I rocked the baby to sleep, then helped Mama prepare supper.
In the evening, after the dishes were washed and put away, Mama found a piece of sturdy brown cloth on which she drew a large fig leaf. She showed me how to embroider green lines for veins and outline the edge with a blanket stitch. A matching piece for the back was sewed to the front, leaving a hole near the top to pour in the temple sawdust until the leaf would hold no more. Then we sewed the hole shut so none of the precious sawdust would be lost. When the pincushion was finished I proudly showed it to Papa for his approval, then placed it on top of Mama’s bureau with my other special treasures.

Sister Braithwaite relates one experience that was “a special spiritual awakening” for her. “One year there was a young man on a motorcycle going through town during pageant time, and he stopped to ask what was going on. I told him and asked him if he knew anything about the Mormon church. He said, ‘Not a thing,’ so I invited him to stay with my family and watch the pageant. At first he said ‘No, I’m too grubby,’ but I told him he could shower and get cleaned up, and he agreed. He did watch the pageant and slept on our lawn in a sleeping bag that night. Well, we didn’t hear from him again for a year and a half. Then we got a letter from him in the mission field.” She pauses to blink back tears. “You know, I could just see the light of Christ in his eyes. That’s what this pageant is all about. And just recently, another lady and I were in Provo making some purchases for the pageant. A man in the shop heard who we were and walked up to us and said, ‘I owe the conversion of my son-in-law to the Mormon Miracle Pageant.’”

Let me share with you a personal experience. After the turmoil of the Second World War, my family ended up in Russian-occupied East Germany. We had fled from Czechoslovakia before the Russian front and lost everything during this terrible war. In the town of Zwickau, East Germany, my family learned about the restored gospel and joined the Church. At that time I was only six years old and the youngest of four children. The Church made an indescribable difference in our then very difficult lives. Even in these trying times, with extreme financial hardship, we were a happy family because of the Church.
Later, as a 10-year-old boy, I attended fourth grade and had to learn Russian as my first foreign language. Initially it was quite difficult, but as time went on I seemed to manage all right.
When I turned 11, we had to leave East Germany overnight because of the political beliefs of my father. He was seen as a dissenter by the Communist government, and his life was endangered. We were refugees again and had lost everything for the second time.
Now I was going to school in West Germany, and the Russian language was not appreciated there at all. We were in the American-occupied part of Germany, and in school I had to learn English. Somehow I could not learn it. To learn Russian was difficult, but English was impossible. I even thought my mouth was not made for speaking English. My teachers had a hard time with me. My parents were desperate. And I knew English was not my language.
I agonized through those school years, helped and encouraged by kind and understanding English teachers, but I just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t my thing!
At this time, my dream in life was to become a pilot. Almost daily I rode my bicycle to the airport. I could picture myself in the cockpit of an airliner or even in a military jet fighter. This was definitely my thing!
I eventually learned that to become a pilot, I needed to speak English. Suddenly, the resisting condition of my mouth changed. I was able to learn the language. Why? Because of a strong motive!
Our motives and thoughts ultimately influence our actions. Jesus repeatedly emphasized the power of good thoughts and proper motives: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not” (D&C 6:36).
In Proverbs we read, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).
From young Joseph Smith we can also learn that the right motive was crucial for the success of his mission. When the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph and instructed him about the coming forth of the gold plates, Moroni repeated over and over again that Joseph’s motives must be true.
Joseph said Moroni taught that “Satan would try to tempt me. … I must have no other object in view in getting the plates but to glorify God, and must not be influenced by any other motive than that of building his kingdom; otherwise I could not get them” (JS—H 1:46).
What a great lesson in doing things for the right reason.

Young people desiring to serve missions often face many challenges. This was the case for six missionaries who were not able to attain visas and travel to one of the numerous missionary training centers found in the Americas.
Four of them, Thierry Birocher, Rosylove Charles, Jennyfer Augustin, and Landy Dorce had been living in Santo Domingo and were called to serve in the Dominican Republic. The other two, Rosebelle Fanfan and Marie Jacques were living in Port-au-prince, Haiti and had received their calls to Boston, Massachusetts but were reassigned to the Dominican Republic due to visa complications.
With six missionaries not able to travel to an MTC and prepare properly for their missions, the Caribbean Area Presidency was led to resolve this problem by creating a temporary, mini-missionary training center located in the Caribbean Area offices. The three sister missionaries living in the Dominican Republic moved out of their homes and into the temple patron housing, located next to the Santo Domingo Temple.
Elder Birocher moved in with the office elders of the Santo Domingo East Mission, and Sisters Fanfan and Jacques left their homes in Haiti and participated in the mini-MTC from the Haiti, Port-au-Prince mission offices.
Although housed in various Church offices in Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince, the six missionaries received their training virtually from the Mexico City Missionary Training Center through two amazing instructors, Gregory Jeaboin and Josue Derival.
On weekends, each missionary was assigned to a companionship of full-time missionaries to live and work with. This experience gave them real-life missionary opportunities and grew their enthusiasm for the work that they would soon be doing.

It was the 1970s, and my father, Horacio Lacayo, was a poor 13-year-old boy. One day his mother was angry with him and told him he would never amount to anything. He was upset and knew he had to do better. He decided he would make some changes.
Not long after that he met two missionaries, and they began telling him about the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Horacio had a great desire to learn more and to be baptized, but when he told his father, his father was angry. He said they already had a religion and he would never allow him to be a member of another church.
So Horacio asked his sister Maria to talk to their father for him. He often listened to her advice. After Horacio told Maria about the Church and explained that he wanted to be baptized, she agreed to help. She took the permission form to their father and told him firmly, “Signing this paper is the best thing you can do for your son.”
His father eventually gave his permission, and Horacio was baptized. But soon his father began to regret his decision and forbade Horacio to go to church. When Horacio begged him to reconsider, his father angrily told him to leave their home and never come back. So Horacio went to live with his aunt.
One night about a year later, Horacio dreamed that his father was very sick and was calling for him. The next morning before going to church, he told his aunt about his dream. She assured him it was just a dream and he should not worry about it.
When he returned home from church, his aunt was upset. She said, “I don’t know how you knew, but your dad has been hurt in an accident. He is calling for you.” When Horacio went to see his father, his father apologized for what he had done and said he would no longer oppose Horacio’s Church activity.
Eventually many of Horacio’s family members and friends joined the Church. Today Horacio, his wife, Aida, and their four sons are active Church members. Two sons are serving missions, and one just returned from a mission.
How was Horacio able to keep his faith as a boy? He never forgot that the Lord was at his side and that He would not let him down. My father never gave up.
I know the Lord will strengthen us in our spiritual battles, just as He did my father, Horacio Lacayo.

The school bell rang as I finished copying the last spelling word from the board. I stuffed my books into my backpack. Kim, who sits between Eddie and me, left as Eddie rummaged around in his desk. Crumpled papers and books flew all over the floor.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“My spelling list for tomorrow’s test. My mom gets mad if I don’t bring it home. She says it’s the only way to keep making As, but it isn’t!”
I wish I always made As. I’m not very good at spelling. Dad helps me study every night, and I’d sure like to give him a 100 percent correct, A+ spelling test for Father’s Day, along with the shaving lotion I got him. He’d like that.
I laid my paper by my backpack and picked up a dirty, torn paper Eddie had stomped on. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He shoved it into his pocket.
Erasing the board, Miss Clark said, “You boys had better get going.”
I helped Eddie stuff books and papers back into his desk, and we left. He lives next door to me, so we usually walk home together.
“Want to play a video game?” he asked. “Mom bought me a new one.”
“I’d like to,” I said, “but I have to study for the spelling test tomorrow. I don’t make As like you do, no matter how hard I study.”
Eddie looked at me funny. “You sit next to Kim. She always gets 100 percent.”
I wondered what that had to do with anything. “You sit next to her, too.”
He smirked. “Yeah, that’s the point.” He marched in the house and slammed the door.
When I got home I headed into the kitchen and tossed my backpack on the table. “I have some heavy studying to do to get that 100 percent on my spelling test tomorrow,” I said.
“Have a snack first,” Mom said. She placed a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk on the table.
“Thanks, Mom.” I gobbled up the sandwich and washed it down with milk, then dug around in my backpack for the spelling list. I couldn’t find it.
I dumped everything in my backpack out on the table. “Mom!” I said. “I can’t find my spelling list.”
Mom searched through the books and leafed through my notebooks. The list wasn’t there. She knew how much I wanted to give Dad a 100 percent correct spelling paper for Father’s Day, so she looked again. No list.
“Where do you remember seeing it last?” she asked.
“I laid it on my desk by my backpack while I helped Eddie find his list. Then Miss Clark said we’d better hurry.”
“Then it’s probably still on your desk. But you can call Eddie and ask him to give you the words.”
On the phone, Eddie started telling me the words, but he said the paper had gotten so dirty and torn that he couldn’t read most of it. “I told you, don’t worry about it,” he said. “You sit next to Kim.”
I hung up the phone. I had something to worry about, all right. I had trouble spelling. What difference did it make to me if Kim was a genius?
I told Mom all the words I could remember, and she wrote them down for me. I tried my best, but I couldn’t think of all of them.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mom said. “Remember, in our family we love each other no matter what. We care about making good choices and doing the best we can.”
When Dad got home, he helped me study. When I could spell all the words I had, he said, “Try to sound out the others. The important thing is to do your best.”
The next day, when time came for the spelling test, I sharpened my pencil and put my pink eraser by my paper. I wanted that 100 percent so much my hand shook.
I knew the first five words. The next one I had to sound out. I glanced past Kim to Eddie, wondering if he was having trouble, too. He was craning his neck, staring at Kim’s paper—cheating! So that’s what Eddie meant about sitting next to Kim! I kept my eyes glued to my own paper, afraid the teacher would think I was cheating, too.
Suddenly Miss Clark swooped behind Eddie. Without a word, she picked up his paper, crumpled it up, and threw it in the wastebasket.
Dad wouldn’t want a paper I had cheated on. He’d be disappointed in me, and I’d feel rotten about myself.
My back hurt from sitting stiffly while I sounded out words, erased them, and sounded them out again until they looked right.
I closed my eyes. “Please, Heavenly Father, help me keep my eyes off Kim’s paper and do the best I can,” I prayed silently.
Miss Clark called out another word. I felt more relaxed and could think more clearly. I finished my test and handed it in.
We got our papers back before the end of class. I covered mine for a minute, afraid to look at my score. Then I saw “100% correct, A+!” written in red ink. I couldn’t wait to get home to show it to Mom.
On the test I wrote, “To the best dad in the world, who helps me with spelling, and teaches me to choose the right and to do the best I can.” Then I put it with the shaving lotion.
I could hardly wait for Father’s Day.

Someone was laughing. How could anyone laugh at a time like this? I looked up. Uncle Al, Grandma’s younger brother, was telling stories about her.
“Me and Annie got dancing so fast,” he was saying, “that she fell right off Aunt Lizzie’s porch and broke her arm. Aunt Lizzie was mortified, not because Annie broke her arm, but because she was doing that awful dance, the Charleston.”
Charleston? I thought. Grandma didn’t look like the Charleston type. Around our house, we always heard her “whatever happened to the waltz” sermon.
The next speaker took his time getting to the podium. He was close to a hundred years old. He had been Grandma’s bishop when she was first married and was still her bishop when she sent her first son on a mission. Even now, everyone still called him Bishop Jensen.
“I loved Annie when she was a teenager,” he said hoarsely, his brown hands trembling. Then he chuckled. “Oh, she wasn’t my girlfriend, mind you. She had pluck. When it was haying time, she’d offer to help us and everyone else in the valley. And I remember the day she came racing over to our house on that chestnut horse. She wanted us to be the first to see the saddle she won at the rodeo.”
Grandma had won a saddle? I shook my head incredulously. Maybe old Bishop Jensen wasn’t remembering quite right.
I left the funeral feeling as if I had forgotten something. One sentence by the last speaker had caught me, as if Grandma were speaking to me. But now his words were gone from my mind. It’s no use anyway, I thought. There’s nothing I can do for Grandma now. I can never wipe away last Saturday at the corral.
“I never knew Grandma had a chestnut horse,” I said to Dad as we drove to the cemetery.
“I think I only heard her talk about that horse once,” he said.
“And the saddle?” I asked.
“That was news to me. With me being the youngest of seven boys, I guess she was tired of telling the same stories by the time I came along.”
Several horses were dozing against the pasture fence as we turned into the cemetery. A stylish palomino raised its head. It looked like the horse owned by that blonde down in Glenville.
“You better not let her beat you at the barrels,” Grandma had said.
There is something I can do for Grandma, I thought. I can beat the rodeo queen in the barrel racing competition.
I was next. Ginger knew it too. She kept prancing sideways and tugging on the reins.
“Easy, girl. Don’t get all worked up before we get out there.”
The afternoon was warm. Sweat was already seeping from under Ginger’s saddle blanket. The reins felt sticky in my fingers.
The crowd roared as last year’s rodeo queen zoomed out for her turn at the barrels. I could see her blonde braids streaming behind her. She zipped sleekly around the first barrel and bolted for the next.
This blonde and I were the last two barrel racers. The other competitors’ times had been mediocre, so I felt Ginger and I still had a chance.
The rodeo queen circled the second barrel without a hitch. Uneasily, I eyed the last barrel. Maybe she would tip it over and get disqualified.
I could see the girl and her horse lean together around the third barrel. It was too close. The barrel rocked wildly. But it didn’t go over. At least it might have knocked a couple of seconds off her time. The crowd thundered as she spurted toward the finish.
I’ll show them, I thought, as I positioned Ginger for a run into the arena. But I was scared.
I charged out. The flag dropped at the starting line as Ginger and I flashed past. I hadn’t thought of Grandma until that very second. Suddenly I had a feeling that beating this rodeo queen was not what Grandma had in mind.
Ginger’s black mane flew in my face as I reined her low around the right barrel. She veered around it smooth and tight—just like a pro. I didn’t feel as much like a pro. I was slightly off balance and bumpy as we raced down the arena to the far barrel. Ginger went a little wide on this barrel, but we were still on target.
Now for the last barrel. I was in her rhythm again, so my confidence rose. “Dig, Ginger, dig,” I whispered, leaning over her neck.
She flicked her ear back briefly. I felt the tremble before blastoff.
Then we were hurtling toward the last barrel. Too fast. I tried to check her, but we were already swerving steeply around the barrel. I was off balance, askew in my stirrups. Ginger was sliding. Too far. We were falling. In slow motion, we were crashing into the barrel. Grandma’s sad gray eyes flashed before me. “You can do it,” she was saying.
“I’m sorry, Grandma. I thought I could beat her.”
I was falling.
“I was never too good with words,” said Grandma. “But you are.”
“No, my words hurt you.”
Falling. Falling.
“It’s okay,” whispered Grandma. “I know you can write it.”
“Write what?” I muttered.
Then I hit the barrel.
When I came to, I was deep in rodeo arena dirt, and Ginger’s hot breath was in my face. But I knew what I needed to do.
A cowboy was leaning over me. “Write what?” he said.
“Did I say something?” I asked.
“You keep saying you need to write something.”
I rolled to my feet. “That’s right. I do need to write it.”
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m just fine.”
I started by interviewing Grandma’s seven sons. They each gave me a different view of Grandma’s life.
“Mom was the only widow I knew who could get seven kids ready for church and still be five minutes early,” said Uncle Orvil.
“Mom would feed every hobo who’d come along the tracks,” said Uncle Russ. “I was scared of them and would hide behind her skirts. But she wasn’t scared. She’d just put them to work chopping wood.”
“I remember Mom telling me that she wanted to be Annie Oakley when she was little,” said Uncle Rolfe, “so she took her stick horse and ran away. She was gone for most of the day. Half the county was looking for her. They finally found her fast asleep in a pasture full of unbroken mustangs.”
“Long before anyone had heard of family home evening, Mom had what she called family time once a week,” said Uncle Matt. “There was no getting around it. We had to be there.”
None of my uncles knew much about the chestnut horse or the rodeo saddle.
“Mom kept pretty silent on some things,” said Sid, my oldest uncle. “All I know is that she didn’t have that horse very long.”
He motioned to several boxes of scrapbooks and letters. “But you might find something there. You’re welcome to take them home with you.”
Digging through the scrapbooks, I finally found a small picture of Grandma on her chestnut horse. “Me and Flash, 1930” was scrawled on the back. I was surprised how much Grandma looked like me sitting on that horse. Straight brown hair and freckles.
When my great-uncle Al came to town, I asked him, “Do you know any other stories about Grandma besides the ones you told at the funeral?”
“Oh, I’m chock-full of tales about my sister,” he said. “I remember her first date with your Grandpa.”
Date? It had never occurred to me that someone would actually remember Grandma going on a date.
“To be honest, I remember her second date better. It was almost the last. Her first date was kind of normal. She came home with this goofy smile on her face and walked past me like I didn’t exist. But on her second date, she came home scratching like a hen in the barnyard. I thought she must have fleas. She kept yelling, ‘I can’t stand it,’ all the while yanking at her clothes and peeling down her socks. Come to find out, Harry’s old Plymouth also served as a truck. He’d forgotten to take the chicken feed sacks out in time for his date. Harry and Annie got covered with chicken mites. They were scratching like a couple of dogs all night and didn’t dare say a word to each other. Luckily, chicken mites would rather be on chickens than people, so Annie got over it quick. But it took a few weeks for her and Harry to get back together.”
Uncle Al and my dad were laughing so hard tears were running down their cheeks. Suddenly I remembered the words from the funeral. “Whoever does Annie’s life story is in for a few laughs.”
Uncle Al knew a little more about her chestnut horse. “Oh, yes, how she loved that little mare. Annie’s dream was to become a trick rider and ride in rodeos and wild west shows.”
“A trick rider?”
“Yep, she got pretty good at it too, considering she didn’t have that horse very long. I did watch her fall a few times in the pasture.”
“Did she barrel race too?”
“Oh, no, that was before the days of barrel racing,” he said. “But she did enter some sort of horsemanship event at the rodeo. Maybe you’ve heard about the saddle she won?”
I nodded.
Uncle Al shook his head. “It’s too bad about that saddle. I don’t think she ever got to use it.”
“She didn’t?” I said.
“Nope. She sold Flash right after that.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I have my suspicions. But the person who might know is my brother Bill.”
I hugged my notebook as I entered the rest home. Uncle Bill, Grandma’s next oldest brother, always made me a little nervous. He tended to get confused when he talked. But today he seemed sharp.
“Why did Annie sell her horse?” he repeated, leaning forward in his wheelchair. “Well, the Depression was coming on. I told her it didn’t matter; I could earn the money myself. But she had already made up her mind. Maybe you know how bullheaded she could be. She wanted to do her part for my mission. She said she couldn’t stand watching Flash eat hay in the barn while I might be hungry in England.”
“And she sold her new rodeo saddle too?” I said.
“Well, I don’t recollect that she did,” replied Uncle Bill, scratching the top of his head. “I think she kept that saddle a long time, hoping to buy another horse so she could be a trick rider. Then later on she hoped to have a daughter to give it to. To be honest, I don’t know what happened to that saddle.”
I had almost completed Grandma’s history by the time I found out what happened to her prize saddle. I ran across a letter from Bishop Jensen in the box of papers Uncle Sid had given me.
“Dear Annie: I know how you like your gifts to be anonymous. But I just wanted to tell you how thrilled the Hansens are with your saddle. They were afraid of paralysis after the accident, but now their little Marie seems determined to put that saddle on a horse. I knew you wanted your saddle to go to a girl who loves horses, and there’s no doubt Marie loves horses.”
I finished Grandma’s history and made copies for my family. Everyone was thrilled, including Bishop Jensen, who turned 100 years old the day I gave him his copy.
By the way, I never did beat that sassy blonde from Glenville in the barrels. She got married that summer and moved away. But the next year, I shortened my stirrups a notch like Grandma said and won second place. First place went to Rebecca Williams, who happened to be “little” Marie Hansen’s daughter.
Grandma’s saddle deserved to win first.

I had been on my mission in Taiwan only a few months when Sister Newton was preparing to return home. Several sisters were visiting with her on the eve of her departure, and someone asked, “What’s the most important thing you’ve learned on your mission?” After a moment’s reflection, Sister Newton replied, “I’ve learned about the joy of serving the Lord. If I’m called to be the light-bulb changer when I go home, I’m going to do it to the very best of my ability!”

Some years ago while visiting the Australia Mission, I accompanied the mission president on a flight to Darwin to break ground for that city’s first Latter-day Saint chapel. We stopped for refueling at the small mining community of Mt. Isa. There we were met at the terminal by a mother and her two children of Primary age. She introduced herself as Judith Louden and mentioned that she and her two children were the only members of the Church in the town. Her husband, Richard, was not a member. We held a brief meeting, where I discussed the importance of holding a home Primary session each week. I promised to send from Church headquarters the home Primary materials to assist them. There was a commitment to pray, to meet, to persevere in faith.

Upon returning to Salt Lake City, I enlisted the help of then-President LaVern Parmley, and the home Primary materials were sent, along with a subscription to the Children’s Friend.

Years later, while attending the stake conference of the Brisbane Australia Stake, I happened to mention in a priesthood session the plight of this faithful woman and her children. I said, “Someday I hope to learn if that home Primary succeeded and meet the nonmember husband and father of that choice family.” One of the brethren in the meeting stood and said, “Brother Monson, I am Richard Louden, the husband of that good woman and the father of those precious children. Prayer and Primary brought me into the Church.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I really love my mom. And I know that she loves me. But she does things differently than other moms.
My friends Ben and Cory think that she’s cool, but they don’t know what it’s like to have a mom like mine. She does a lot of normal mom stuff, like baking oatmeal cookies and mending my pants if I slide too hard into second base. But sometimes she’s not normal at all.
See, she doesn’t ever get mad at me. Well, hardly ever. Even when I do something wrong or bad, she doesn’t often get angry with me. That’s why the guys say that I’m lucky.
But I didn’t feel so lucky last week. Now that it’s summer vacation, the guys and I go to the park almost every day. Thursday morning, just as I was eating a banana for breakfast, Mom said, “Jamie, I’d like you to clean up your room before you leave. And don’t forget to put your dirty clothes into the hamper.”
I could tell by her “I’m-serious-about-this” look that I wouldn’t be able to change her mind, so I slam-dunked the banana peel into the garbage pail and took the stairs two at a time to my room.
I could see out my window that the sun was shining and that it was already a great day outside. It was too nice a day to be inside cleaning my room. So I quickly made my bed, sort of, and put away most of my books and almost all the pieces of the model that I was building. There were some clothes on the floor under my nightstand, but I figured that Mom wouldn’t notice if I left them there just this once.
I raced down the stairs and called, “All done, Mom. I’ll be at the park.” And before I could hear her answer, I was out the door.
Mom didn’t say anything about my room when I came home for lunch, and she didn’t say anything on Friday, either. At soccer practice I asked Cory what his mom would do if he didn’t clean his room when she told him to.
“Oh, my mom likes things really neat,” Cory replied. “She’d probably finish cleaning it up and tell me later what I did wrong.”
“My mom’s always worried about my room being clean,” Ben put in. “I don’t know what the big deal is about being neat.”
I told the guys how Mom hadn’t even said anything about my leaving my room a little messy, and Cory said, “You sure are lucky, Jamie!”
But Saturday morning when I woke up early to get ready for the big soccer game, I couldn’t find my uniform. I went to the kitchen where Mom was making pancakes and said, “Mom, where’s my uniform?”
I knew that I was in trouble when she smiled at me and feigned innocence.
“What uniform?” she asked.
“My soccer uniform,” I said. “The game starts in thirty minutes!”
“Oh, could that be the dirty outfit crumpled up by your bed?”
I ran upstairs, and sure enough, there was my uniform. It was wrinkled and muddy and had ketchup stains from a messy hot dog on the front. I took it down to Mom.
“Why didn’t you wash it, Mom?” I demanded. “You knew I had a game today!”
“Well, I asked you to put your dirty clothes into the hamper,” she answered. “If your uniform had been there, it would be ready to wear.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I put on a T-shirt and jeans and left for the game. I sure felt dumb being the only player without a uniform, and the guys teased me about it too.
On the way home, I realized that it really was my fault that my uniform wasn’t washed. I guess it is important to put things away so they’ll be ready when you need them. And I guess I’m old enough to take care of my own things.
When I got home, Mom was folding clothes in the basement and asked me how the game went.
“We won,” I said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t pick up my clothes.”
“I know you are,” she said, giving me a hug. “A lesson lived is a lesson learned.”
See, that’s the kind of thing my mom says all the time. I still think it’d be easier if my mom was a normal mom, but I guess the guys are right. I am pretty lucky.

Several years ago another one of my students accepted my invitation to come and meet with the missionaries. The missionaries, during the second discussion, just did a marvelous job. And at the end of the discussion they bore their testimonies to Sunil, and then I bore mine and my wife Christine bore her testimony, and then I called on one of the missionaries to give the closing prayer, and our 11 year old son Spencer had been sitting over on the piano bench listening to the discussion. He raised his hand and stood up and he said, Dad, could you wait a minute? I have something to say. And I still remember that beautiful clear look in Spencer’s eyes as he looked at Sunil and he said, Sunil, “I am only an 11-year-old boy, but I want you to know that I know that the things that the missionaries taught you today are true. I know that God lives and that you are His son.” And he closed his testimony in the name of Jesus Christ. As Spence bore that testimony, that beautiful spirit came into the room again, and I started to cry, right there in front of my student. The next day Sunil sent me an email and he thanked me for arranging the missionaries to teach and he complimented them on how clear the lessons were, and he said, “But you know, when your son Spencer stood up and said those things, I felt something come into the room. Is that what you mean when you say the Spirit of God?” I thought to myself, ‘I’d pay a million dollars to give my son an experience half that good.’ It really has been a wonderful decision we made to be missionaries.

My parents traditionally introduced something to each of their children on their first birthday. Even though I cannot remember this event in my own life, I watched it repeated in the lives of my two brothers and was struck by the insight I have gained through this little exercise. We have often referred to it in our family gatherings. It was just a simple demonstration that the whole family participated in. This demonstration consisted of the following:

On the child’s first birthday, my parents would sit their child in one corner of the living room. Then they would set out four items for the toddler to choose from: a baby bottle, a bank, a toy, and a Bible. We would all sit back and watch as the toddler made his choice from those four items.

Each item represented different values each of us might have—our four basic needs in mortality. Family tradition held that whichever item the baby chose, it would become their focus in life.

Now let me report on how valued this tradition has turned out to be. In our family there were three older sisters. Then came, in order, Tom, Ted, and Bob. What were our results? Tom clutched the bank and selected accounting and finance for his chosen profession. Ted grabbed the Bible and is almost always seen with a book in his hand. He became a lawyer.

Bob was different. Bob crawled over to the four items, sat himself down on the Bible, then picked up the baby bottle in one hand and held the toy in the other and placed the bank between his knees. He was the balanced member of the family. He used his skills in negotiating parts contracts for Boeing.

These four objects are representative of the different values that each of you graduates might have in your lives—your priorities and how you might understand how to find balance throughout mortality.

Let me share an experience about responding to prophetic words from the life of President Russell M. Nelson:
In 1979, five years before his call as a General Authority, Brother Nelson attended a meeting just prior to general conference. “President Spencer W. Kimball challenged all present to lengthen their stride in taking the gospel to the entire world. Among the countries President Kimball specifically mentioned was China, declaring, ‘We should be of service to the Chinese. We should learn their language. We should pray for them and help them.’”
At age 54, Brother Nelson had a feeling during the meeting that he should study the Mandarin language. Although a busy heart surgeon, he immediately secured the services of a tutor.
Not long after beginning his studies, Dr. Nelson, attending a convention, unexpectedly found himself sitting next to “a distinguished Chinese surgeon, Dr. Wu Yingkai. … Because [Brother Nelson] had been studying Mandarin, he began [a] conversation [with Dr. Wu].”
Dr. Nelson’s desire to follow the prophet led to Dr. Wu visiting Salt Lake City and Dr. Nelson traveling to China to give lectures and perform surgical operations.
His love for the Chinese people, and their love and respect for him, grew.
In February 1985, ten months after his call to the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Nelson received a surprise phone call from China pleading for Dr. Nelson to come to Beijing to operate on the failing heart of China’s most famous opera singer. With the encouragement of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Elder Nelson returned to China. The last surgical operation he ever performed was in the People’s Republic of China.
Just two years ago, in October 2015, President Russell M. Nelson was once again honored with an official declaration, naming him an “old friend of China.”

I grew up in a house on the corner of Main Street in a small Idaho town. Often during the summer we would spend our afternoons and evenings in the front yard, playing on the grass or visiting with our neighbors.
One afternoon while we were playing in the yard, my youngest sister, who was only two years old, bolted out into the street. At the same moment, a truck with a couple of teenage boys from down the street screeched around the corner. My dad acted quickly and pulled my little sister out of the truck’s path. The boys in the truck shouted unkind and inappropriate words as they sped down the street.
I was angry, to say the least. I remember thinking someone should go down to the boys’ house and put them in their place. My sister could have been hurt or killed by their careless, dangerous driving.
I was glad when I saw my mother walking down the street, and I followed her. I was certain that the boys were going to be in big trouble. When we got to the house, the boy who had been driving answered the door. He was angry and defensive. He asked what we wanted and, to my surprise, my mother began to apologize. She said she was sorry that she had allowed her daughter to be so close to the street and told him she would watch my sister more carefully in the future.
Immediately the boy’s countenance changed. He apologized for driving so fast and for putting my sister in danger. He vowed to be more careful as he drove. After the short conversation, we returned home.
I still have never seen such an immediate change come over someone as it did over that boy that afternoon. We lived in that house for 11 more years, and in that time I never again saw the boy drive carelessly around the corner. As Proverbs 15:1 teaches, “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” I imagine the outcome of the situation would have been very different if my mom would have approached angrily. Instead, two hearts were changed by the soft words of my mother.

Last year we had a serious problem regarding a great many obscene telephone calls that we were receiving. I thought the caller would get tired of making such calls, but he didn’t. Upon inquiring around the neighborhood I learned that a number of other women were receiving the same calls. I investigated the situation and discovered that the person making the telephone calls was a teenage boy who lived up the street. The next time he telephoned, I addressed him by name, telling him that was the last obscene call he was going to make. By this time, of course, my feelings against this person were very strong. In my mind he was clearly and simply one of the nuisances in life like mosquitoes that had no right to exist but did anyway.
After a long debate with myself, I went to talk to his mother. It was obvious that he needed help, and it would not be possible for him to get it unless his parents understood what he was doing. I told the boy’s mother all about her son’s telephone calls. She was surprised but took the news very well and was very grateful to me for coming to her.
“I’ve been concerned about Jack for a long time,” she said. “He’s under such tremendous pressure from his father. He’s not allowed to have even a minute of free time, it seems. On the weekends he has these long, long lists of chores to do, and they’re never quite done well enough. ‘You missed a spot in the hedge, Jack,’ his father says, or ‘You didn’t get all the weeds.’ It seems like his responsibilities never end. Last weekend his father made him type a letter over four times, finding something different each time. If Jack isn’t home when his father comes in, he’ll say, ‘Where’s Jack? Is he doing his homework?’ And if he’s out playing in the neighborhood, he’ll go and call for him to come home. Sometimes when Jack will come in he’ll ask, ‘Is father here?’ and I know he’s really asking, ‘Am I going to have to do something?’ If his father isn’t at home, he’ll relax a little bit. But it doesn’t last. Jack has developed a nervous twitch. And I know all this pressure has something to do with the obscene telephone calls.”
Again the tremor of conscience. Again the breaking down of my first perception, allowing me to see inside the problem. I knew Jack’s secret, at least a little bit about the ache inside him that made him do sad, sad things. And I wanted to help him, encourage him, instead of slapping him like a mosquito. He did deserve to live after all.

A young woman walked slowly across the campus, deep in thought. She was at the beginning of her last semester of college. She had started to think seriously about serving a mission, but she had also been looking for a job. Just that morning she had received a very nice job offer. As she walked, she pondered what to do.
The young woman fasted and prayed to know if she should serve a mission or should take the job offer. Somewhat to her surprise, the mission did not feel right to her. Without a lot of specific guidance, she decided to take the job. Three months later she met the man who would become her husband.

A-Pui’s face was bruised and swollen. He had three teeth missing and a bandage on his chin. Four days before Fast Sunday, he fell off a bicycle. But during the meeting he stood and bore his testimony that he knew that God lives and answers prayers. His beautiful spirit touched the hearts of many others that day.
Even before A-Pui joined the Church, he was always eager to help the missionaries in Hong Kong. His older brother and two older sisters were baptized first and then A-Pui became a member.
Now A-Pui and his brother and sisters have accepted the challenge of helping their parents learn more about the gospel so that they too might become members of the Church. The missionaries in Hong Kong feel sure they will be successful!

While working on the pioneer film 17 Miracles, my team and I created several scenes to convey this threat of wolves. We brought in a wolf trainer, and one day he left his wolves in a trailer while we looked for some good places to shoot scenes in the heavily wooded outdoor studio. Even though they are “trained” wolves, they are still wolves and can be very aggressive. They have natural instincts to attack and kill.

We returned a couple of hours later and were amazed to see a deer standing less than 15 feet from the trailer. Her ears were out, her eyes alert, and she was staring at the trailer. She seemed mesmerized.

Normally when you see a deer in that wooded area, the deer sees you, bounds off, and disappears within seconds. This time, not so. The deer was so focused on that wolf-harboring trailer that she didn’t even notice us until we were about 15 feet away. She finally noticed our presence and then seemed to come out of her trance and ran off. I asked the trainer if he’d ever seen anything like that before. He hadn’t, and he couldn’t explain it.

The next morning when the trainer approached his trailer to begin the day’s work, to his astonishment he saw close to 15 deer standing in a circle, all the way around the trailer. Like the first deer, they too were transfixed and stared intently at the trailer. Their circle grew smaller and smaller as they each continued to move closer to the trailer. The trainer could hear the wolves inside, pawing and clawing away as they seemed to be saying in wolf language, “Let me at ’em!”

Again the trainer moved very close to the deer before they became aware of him and ran into the nearby woods.

School was even more wonderful than I had imagined. I got to see Lucy every day, and we could share secrets at recess or trade sandwiches and cookies during the lunch hour. The rest of the time there were plenty of girls for a game of hopscotch, jacks, or jump rope.
The school was only one room that could be divided into two when a big partition was let down from the ceiling. The first four grades met in one half of the room with the new teacher Miss Foster, and the older classes met in the other half with the principal Mr. Stern. Stern was a good name for him too. I seldom saw him smile, and he was very strict and sometimes cruel in his punishment. Although I was two grades behind Ed, I was in the same section of the room with him, and since we were seated alphabetically, I sat next to him.
I learned to read rather easily after my games with the ABC’s and that opened new doors of adventure. I found that if I studied and knew the answers, there were no cracked knuckles or no standing in the corner. Once I learned something, it stayed in my memory for a long time and that was very handy for examinations.
My favorite subject was grammar, and I especially liked to diagram sentences. It was fun to draw lines like shelves in the air for the words to be put away in just the right place, some sitting on top, others hanging down below, and some sliding down a slanty line to another word on a line below that. Sometimes the diagrams covered half a page and looked like a neat design, with the words all filed away where they belonged—subjects and predicates and modifiers of simple, complex, or compound sentences.
The boys thought it was fun to pull pranks on the teacher, so Miss Foster was in the habit of shaking out her handkerchief with a loud snap when she took it from the top drawer of her desk to make sure there were no stinkbugs or caterpillars hidden in it. One day when she opened the drawer, a kangaroo rat leaped out in front of her face. She was so startled she screamed and jumped back, upsetting her chair and knocking her off her feet. She fell over backward and sprawled on the floor.
Mr. Stern came in fuming from around the other side of the partition, demanding to know what on earth was going on. He tried his best to find out who was guilty of putting the rat in the drawer, but no one would tell, so he made the whole class practice penmanship during recess as a punishment. We wrote: “I will not play pranks on the teacher” over and over in our best handwriting.
One Saturday, soon after school started, Sister Williamsen left Lucy at our place to play while she and Mama went to the store. We were practicing for the circus we had been planning, and Lucy was learning how to ride standing on Bessie’s back so we could be twin riders. Ed was trying to do flips in the haystack, and Georgie was clowning around with Spot. Frank came out of the barn carrying his whip and a cat in each arm.
“Why don’t you do what I tell you?” he scolded. “I’m only going to give you one more chance!”
He put each kitten on one of the steps in his lion taming cage. “Now stay there!” he shouted and cracked his whip. Both cats streaked off through the fence and right in front of Bessie’s nose. The horse reared, and Lucy flew off and hit a fence pole.
“Now look what you’ve done,” I shouted at Frank and ran over to help Lucy get up.
She was lying there still and white, with a red stream of blood trickling down her face. Ed and Frank came running over to see. I was scared, but just then she opened her eyes. “You hit your head,” I told her. “But it’s going to be all right. Let me look at it.”
I found a deep cut on her scalp and tried to stop the bleeding by pushing it together. “It has to be sewed up,” I said. “Go get Papa, Ed. He’s down in the field somewhere. And hurry, she’s bleeding badly.”
Ed jumped on Bessie and galloped off to find Papa.
“Frank,” I said urgently, “go into the house and get the needle and thread and scissors, and a match.”
“You aren’t going to stitch it are you?” he asked fearfully.
“Of course not, but we need to have it all ready for Papa when he gets here.”
He came back with a darning needle and cotton thread.
“Not that kind, dummy! The curved needle and the black silk thread Papa uses on the animals.”
While he was gone I clipped the hair away from the cut. The blood was still oozing out though not as fast as at first. Lucy was pale and silent.
I pinched the wound together, and when Frank came back I instructed him how to sterilize the needle with the match and put the thread through it.
In a little while Ed galloped up. “I can’t find Papa anyplace,” he reported. “He’s not in the corn patch or the garden. Where else shall I look?”
“Maybe he’s fixing the fence. Keep looking, and hurry.”
He was gone a long time and my fingers were cramping from holding the cut together. But every time I released the pressure, it bled some more. Finally I decided I would have to sew it up myself.
“Will it hurt?” Lucy wanted to know.
“Don’t know,” I told her. “Haven’t ever been sewed up. Probably will sting a little.”
I was finishing the last stitch when Papa and Ed rode up. Papa jumped quickly from his horse. “What’s the trouble here?” he asked and took a look at Lucy’s head. “Why it’s stitched up already,” he marveled, examining my work.
“Couldn’t have done a better job myself. You’ll be as good as new,” he told Lucy. “Now why don’t you girls go over by the house and play something quiet until your mamas get home?”
We were sitting on the back steps, cutting out dancing paper dolls holding hands when Mama and Sister Williamsen drove up.
“Get your hat and come along, Lucy,” her mama called from the wagon. “We need to hurry home and get some supper for your daddy.”
“OK,” Lucy said, folding her dolls back together and standing up.
“What’s that white spot on your head?” Sister Williamsen asked.
“Oh, that’s just where I cut off some hair before I sewed her up,” I explained.
“See,” Lucy said and showed her mother the spot.
All the pink had gone out of Sister Williamsen’s face, and I could hear a little gasp and see her lean against Mama.
“Papa says she’ll be as good as new,” I assured her. “It won’t leave hardly any scar at all.”
“Run get Sister Williamsen a drink of water, please, Dora,” Mama directed. “She’s had a shock.” Then she helped her out of the wagon and into a chair on the porch. In a little while she quit shaking and took another look at Lucy’s head. “She could have bled to death if you hadn’t known what to do.”
“Papa would’ve done it, but we couldn’t find him,” I replied.
“You did just fine,” Sister Williamsen said. “And I’m mighty grateful.”
Lucy wore a wide ribbon around her head until her hair grew out. She always had one to match her dress, and I almost wished I had had my head stitched up so I could have pretty hair ribbons like that.
A few weeks later I thought I was going to have a chance to wear ribbons, but it didn’t work out that way after all.
One day I was having a quarrel with Caroline, and she screamed her usual taunt, “You make me sick! You think you’re so smart with that curly hair. I’ll fix you once and for all!” And she grabbed the scissors and cut off one of my long ringlets.
Mama was horrified, and she punished Caroline severely. I didn’t really care too much. Now, I thought, I’ll get to wear a ribbon like Lucy does. The only trouble was, the bare spot was right on the crown of my head. And there’s no way a ribbon will stay tied around there unless it goes under your chin, and that looks pretty silly. In the end, Mama had to cut all my hair short to match.
I was glad to have my hair cut, except when I thought about being a great circus lady riding my horse standing up. Then I was sorry I didn’t have long hair to fly out behind me.
(To be continued.)

My favorite thing to receive in the mail is the Friend. Every month I read the whole thing. Last spring my third-grade teacher said it was important to read your favorite books and magazines again because you notice and learn things you missed the first time. In the garage I found a file cabinet with Friend magazines dating back to before 1980, when my oldest sister was born. I pulled out a stack and began to read them every day during my snack time.
This summer I was reading issues from 1993, the year I was born, when I recognized a story I had heard before. My dad had borne his testimony in sacrament meeting the month before and had told a story about some ancestors from his family history. I showed the story to him. It was the same story! (“Faithful Elizabeth” by Jenny Hale Pulsipher, August 1993). I felt that the Friend was really my magazine and that now I had two reasons for 1993 to be my favorite year!
I have read over 20 years’ worth of Friend magazines, many of them more than once, and I still look forward to each one every month.Cedar Ben Nye, age 9Wexford, Pennsylvania