Gospel Story Finder

Megan, 18; Ethan, 19; and Romy, 17, also have something else in common: They all sing in their ward choir in Florida, USA. And recently the choir gave them an even greater opportunity to share their love for music by participating in an Interfaith Music Festival.
And one of the things all the faith groups have in common is music. The Interfaith Music Festival would be a great opportunity for believers to unite in praising God. The ward choir would be one of about half a dozen groups representing congregations throughout the city.
“There was a bell choir, a vocal duet, a large choir, a small choir, a flute-and-piano duet, and so forth,” Megan explains. “Every group was asked to do two numbers.”
Megan continues, “We wanted to make sure that what we sang would let people know that we believe in Jesus Christ and also that we believe in Heavenly Father. We wanted to create a feeling of worship.”
The choir decided on two numbers they had previously performed, “Great Things and Small Things,” by Steven Kapp Perry, and “Sacraments and Symbols,” by Janice Kapp Perry, Steven Kapp Perry, and Lynne Perry Christofferson.
“The first song is upbeat. It offers the assurance that through God, you can do anything, whether it’s relatively minor or very significant,” Ethan says. “The second song has a deep reverence. It’s almost like a chant, and it creates a real feeling of worship.”
As they prepared to sing, Ethan used a method he has used before. “I try to prioritize becoming immersed in the song,” he says. “I find that when I’m able to pay attention to the meaning of the song, I’m able to enjoy it better. Of course I make sure I can sing it properly, but I find that it’s easier for me to do that when I’m in tune with the message that it’s trying to convey. I like to put an emphasis on spiritual preparation.”
“We still had to sing in sacrament meeting and practice for other things, too,” Megan says. “But we knew the importance of the interfaith event, so we made sure the pieces were ready. We worked hard on them.”
For the second number, the 14-member choir shrunk down to a double quartet. “We would rehearse on Tuesdays, before Young Men and Young Women,” Megan says. “It made me think of the song for a whole week, for a whole month, really. I don’t usually do this, but I found the song on YouTube and kept playing it over and over. I wanted to improve. I wanted us to sing so well that we would touch other people.”
Ethan, Megan, and Romy agree that all the rehearsing had an added benefit. “When you repeat songs over and over,” Romy says, “the messages of the songs stay in your mind and in your heart.”
The choir performs at the Interfaith Music Festival.
That presence in their minds and hearts was clearly evident as the choir members sang. “Both songs were just beautiful,” Romy says. “The audience got real quiet and everyone felt the Spirit as those songs were being sung. We all felt united.”
“The first song has always been a happy song for me,” Megan says. “I feel like it had that impact on people at the festival. I had a fun time singing it and I hope they all enjoyed it as well. And the second song, the voices blended so well. I think everyone who listened to it felt a spirit of respect and awe for God.”
At the end of the evening, Megan continues, “We were able to talk with participants and audience members. I know people were asking our choir director about the songs we sang—’What kind of music was that?’ or ‘Where did you find that arrangement?’ We were able to interact with each other and talk about the music we all shared. I felt like I was able to understand them more through their songs, and that they understood us better because of ours. Music is like a window to your soul.”

When I taught seminary many years ago in Arizona, I showed a Church film to the students entitled And Should We Die. The movie is based on a true story about Latter-day Saints in Mexico who were persecuted for their religious beliefs by Zapatista rebels during the Mexican civil war shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. The movie focuses primarily on two LDS fathers, the branch president and his first counselor, who were imprisoned and sentenced to death. They were told they would be spared the firing squad if they would denounce their Mormon beliefs. Because they refused to do so, the two men, President Rafael Monroy and Brother Vicente Morales, were executed in front of their families and branch members on 17 July 1915.

My students were deeply affected by the movie; many were even in tears. In this setting I asked my sobered high school students—whose minds only minutes before had been on such things as proms, football games, cool cars, hot guys, and what they were going to do for fun on the weekend—“Would you be willing to lay down your life rather than denounce your faith and testimony of the restored gospel?” The question was designed to get the students to appreciate the sacrifices others had made for the gospel’s sake. It was also meant to stimulate self-examination of their convictions and commitments to the Lord. I didn’t expect anyone to answer. And, at first, only an outspoken macho young man on the back row said anything. He boldly declared, “Yeah, I’d be willing to die for the Lord.” I wasn’t sure that he was serious, because he was rarely serious about anything. However, this time he seemed very sincere. After a moment or two of dead silence, others began earnestly and in hushed tones (rare in a high school seminary class) to declare their willingness to die for the cause of the Master. A young woman with tears streaming down her face sweetly stated that she, too, would be willing to die for her beliefs, “because Jesus suffered and died for me.” It was one of the most remarkable occasions in my teaching career.

The moment I shall never forget, however, came after the bell rang to end our class. As the students were filing out of the classroom, one young man turned back to me and quietly asked, “Brother Top, would you die for him?” I hadn’t been expecting that, so a moment or two of silence passed that seemed like an eternity. I was so flustered I didn’t really know quite how to answer. Before I could answer, he turned and left the building. I have thought of that moment many times since. I have replayed it over and over in my mind, each time giving a response that I thought would adequately and profoundly declare my devotion to the Lord and his kingdom. Yet the young man never got an answer from me. I know what I should have said and what I wanted to say. But what would I really say—and more important, what would I do—when my life and soul depended on the answer?

Now, more than two decades since my seminary teaching days in Arizona, I still think of that lone student asking me as he was exiting my seminary class, “Brother Top, would you die for Christ?” I believe I now know the answer: “Only if I am daily living for him.” It is those daily acts of conviction, conversion, and consecration—the degree to which I am living for him—that will determine whether or not I could really die for him.

Hans Eduardo Nieto, a nine-year-old boy living in Guayaquil, Ecuador, has been a missionary since he was born.
Hans’s family is made up of Hans and his mother. When he was born, his mother was not a member of the Church. But the family she worked for as a housemaid were Latter-day Saints. They asked if they could take the baby to church to receive a blessing.
Although Hans’s mother didn’t want to go, she allowed them to take her baby for the blessing. Hans has attended church ever since. Wherever he and his mother lived, she found members to take him to church.

December was spent meeting people, primarily through asking about rooms to rent, even if they did not need one. “We made a good many friends,” they reported.
In January 1884 they began to hold small meetings in homes, mainly at the home of a widow named Mahrburg. But then “the adversary began to wake up,” said Elder Biesinger, and their contacts started to shun them. Mrs. Mahrburg was warned by the police that if she permitted Mormons to hold another meeting in her house she would be prosecuted and the missionaries arrested. But police activity did not prevent the two elders from holding a baptismal service in the Simmering Canal on February 2 for P. Chalewa, a native of Poland, and Josephine Jellinek, an Austrian. This brought Church membership in Austria to three, Elder Hammer having baptized Paul Haslinger of Lambach on November 25 before joining Elder Biesinger.

For Robert, 15 July 1853 was an exciting day; he had completed his apprenticeship and was free to marry the woman he had been courting for several years, Mary Ann Bainbridge. On 29 August, the couple were married in a registry office, before then being married again by Elder Thomas Squires.
“A day never to be forgotten… only thing I felt was deficient [sic], namely, my father and mother, and they knew nothing of it.”
Robert’s family soon found out about the marriage and although his father was happy for him, his mother continued to fret. But a far worse concern was about to grip the family.
Late summer of 1853 saw an epidemic of cholera sweep across the town. In six weeks, more than 1,500 inhabitants died, and now Robert was ill.4 On 8 September, he felt so unwell that he requested a fellow priesthood holder to administer to him. Then, although ill himself, Robert continued to serve others, by visiting and blessing those who were afflicted. Robert recorded:
“In the morning at 6 o’clock, Sister Sutherland knocked me up to lay hands upon her son who was taken ill. I went and administered to him and before I came away, he got out of bed and had his breakfast.”
Robert recovered and returned to full health. As time wore on, Robert continued to worry about his wider family, both temporally and spiritually. “May I do not descend to where they are, but may they ascend to where I am, and all of us go on rejoicing in our journey to Celestial Glory.” Sadly, soon after expressing these thoughts, his mother died; but good followed with the birth of his daughter in September 1854.
In the following months, Robert struggled to find and keep work due to uncertain economic conditions. He considered emigrating with his family. In January 1855, his mind was set: “I have been six weeks out of work, and we expect to emigrate this season for we are heartily sick of this land.” A month later, Robert was still out of work. The Hazen family, now resolved to emigrate and sold their furniture. They looked forward to “Gather with God’s people this year”. However, they still didn’t have enough money. Robert had been without work for over three months; what could they do to pay for passage to the United States of America?
The difference was made up by Robert’s elderly mother-in-law, also a member of the Church, who sold her house and joined them on the journey to Zion. On 25 March 1855, a small group of the Newcastle Saints set off for Liverpool on the first step of their journey. Ultimately, Robert and his family arrived safely in the United States of America and eventually made their way to join the Saints in Utah.
Robert continued to valiantly stand for truth and remained committed to it throughout his life. It was the harsh and sad realities of life in Newcastle that encouraged the Hazens, and many other British Latter-day Saints, to leave the land of their birth and seek Zion with the prospect of living with the main body of the Saints. Robert was just one of tens of thousands of converts who would make their way to America and pioneered the West.

I visited a ward in the Altiplano of Bolivia. It is a very poor area. The people speak Spanish and Quechua, but most of them do not know how to read either language because they have never had the opportunity to learn. After the meeting, I talked with an eleven-year-old boy. On the wall of the building were pictures of the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. This young boy pointed to each of the Brethren and named every one of them. Then he said to me, “Will you please tell President Benson that I am reading the Book of Mormon?” He was learning to read by reading the Book of Mormon. I said to him, “Let me see if you really know how to read by reading 1 Nephi 3:7.” [1 Ne. 3:7] He turned to it quickly and said, “I can read it, but I don’t need to because I know that scripture by heart.” He then recited it perfectly.

“We have a distant relative in Warsaw and so we informed him of the choir’s coming,” said Charlene VanWagenen Gale. “After the concert, with a picture of him in hand, I looked for him until I found him. At his home that evening, we talked of the gospel—modern revelation, the Restoration, the Word of Wisdom. On occasion, tears would stream down his wife’s face. After we discussed Apostles and prophets, in the midst of our conversation, he asked, ‘Are you an Apostle?’ ‘No, I’m a disciple,’ I said, and explained the difference. ‘But you speak with such conviction,’ he said. ‘I only speak what I know,’ I replied. He said, ‘I want to know why I feel the way I feel when you speak.’ I talked to him about the Holy Ghost and then asked him, ‘Would you like to visit the missionaries to learn more?’ The answer was yes.”

Abby is a girl in the latter days. She learned about Jesus Christ from her parents. Abby’s neighbors didn’t know about Jesus Christ’s Church.
One day Abby’s brother got called as a missionary. He was going far away to teach people about Jesus.
Abby told her neighbors about her brother’s mission call. When they heard her brother was going so far away, they were amazed. They asked what missionaries teach.
Abby’s family knew that this was the time to share the gospel. Abby and her mother invited their neighbors to meet the missionaries, who could answer their questions.
Some of Abby’s neighbors decided to meet the missionaries. Abby listened as the missionaries taught about Jesus Christ. She felt the joy of sharing the gospel.

The summer after Mother came home was wonderful. Primary was grand! We had Primary on weekday mornings. One week we made little dolls out of stockings. Then we made them little leather dresses. We cut fringe into the bottom of the dresses and added beading. Then we braided hair. We also embroidered faces for them. We made them little beds out of cardboard and yarn.
Primary was the beginning of my testimony. I learned the gospel there and felt the Spirit through good music. I remember the leaders who taught us the songs with so much energy. Singing was fun! I don’t remember anybody telling me what I was feeling, but it was the Spirit. That’s the kind of power that good music has.

One day while studying for my seminary class, I had a beautiful and distinct impression. As I was reading over the lesson for the next day, I saw the face of a friend from school and had the strong feeling that I should share my testimony with her.
Despite the clarity of this impression, I was afraid. I was worried that my friend might reject me, particularly because she didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who would be interested in joining the Church.
I thought back to a talk by Sister Mary N. Cook of the Young Women general presidency in which she challenged us to work hard and be valiant.1 I wanted to be like this, so I wrote this girl a letter and testified of the truthfulness of the Church and of my love for the Book of Mormon. The next day I slipped a copy of the Book of Mormon, together with my letter, into her bag.
To my surprise, my friend was very receptive to the gospel. Starting that day, she would tell me about what she had learned in her study of the Book of Mormon. A few weeks later, I introduced her to the missionaries. Almost immediately, she received a confirmation from the Holy Ghost that what she was learning was true. The missionaries and I cried as she told us of her feelings. My friend was soon baptized, and her parents were amazed to see the changes that had occurred in her.
I am so happy I was able to overcome my fears and help bring the gospel into her life.

Finally, let me share a beautiful example of uniting families for eternity. Lydia from Kharkiv, Ukraine, first learned about the temple from the missionaries. Immediately, Lydia felt a fervent desire to attend the temple, and after her baptism, she began preparation to receive a temple recommend.

Lydia attended the Freiberg Germany Temple to receive her endowment and then spent several days doing proxy work there. Following the dedication of the Kyiv Ukraine Temple, Lydia attended the temple more frequently. She and her husband, Anatoly, were eternally sealed there and later called to serve as temple missionaries. Together they have found more than 15,000 names of ancestors and have worked to provide temple ordinances for them.

When asked about her feelings regarding temple work, Lydia says, “What did I receive in the temple? I have made new covenants with God. My testimony has been strengthened. I have learned to receive personal revelation. I am able to perform saving ordinances for my deceased ancestors. And I can love and serve other people.” She concluded with this very true statement: “The Lord wants to see us in the temple often.”

Meet Esther (left) from the Calabar Nigeria South Stake. After taking the gathering place baking class, she has become self-employed. She opened her own home-based business where she makes her own products and distributes them to various outlets. She wraps each of her items for individual sale and supplies over 10 establishments. Her business is growing every day under the name “Esther, Snacks and Chops.”

At Christmastime in 1996, I was serving a mission in southern Spain. My companion, Sister Noel,* was filled with enthusiasm and had a gift for loving everyone. Many times I saw the love of Christ reflected in her countenance.
Sister Noel and I were working with all our hearts in a little Andalusian town where the members loved us and seemed happy to have missionaries in their midst. It was a special time, and we could feel the spirit of Christmas in the streets and from the people of the ward. Sister Noel and I had both received little Christmas gifts from our families, friends, and home wards, so we had lots of goodies.
Almost everyone we knew seemed happy, except the Fernández family. The father was out of work and had no money to buy gifts for the children. When my companion learned about their situation, she felt we needed to help them in some way. Together we started talking about how we could help.
With the assistance of a member of the ward, we gathered together the goodies our families had sent. With the money we had received, we bought toys for the children.
The Fernández family was thrilled and astonished. But the little miracle did not end there. Thanks to this small act of service, my companion and I were also blessed with greater feelings of love for all the members.
Because of my companion, I learned that it is better to give than to receive. It gave me great joy to give something to a family who needed it more than I did. I’ll always be thankful for Sister Noel, who taught me that every day can be Christmas when we share the love of the Savior with others.

The “prison temple” involved a time of obscurity, adversity, irony, and testimony. W. W. Phelps had briefly faltered, being part of the betrayals that had placed Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. Joseph was, at the time, indignant over Brother Phelps’ failures. Yet later on, Joseph was generous. The next year, 1840, when W. W. Phelps pled for readmission into the Church, Joseph Smith, who pledged from jail to act later “in the spirit of generosity,” wrote a powerful and redemptive letter, the closing lines of which were, “Come on, dear brother, since the war is past, For friends at first, are friends again at last” (HC 4:164; see also pp. 162–63).

No wonder a grateful Brother Phelps, soon after Joseph’s June 1844 martyrdom, wrote the text “Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah” (Hymns, 1985, no. 27).

One family stands out in my mind. My friend had been the recipient and observer of kindly acts of service by her neighbor. Tenderly and efficiently she saw her care for the sick, notice the shy, cheer the downhearted.

One day, while she was attending a lecture, a mother sitting near her rose hurriedly to take a child out who had become ill. As my friend went to see if she might be of assistance, there was another woman there already. Her manner of helping was quiet and quick, knowing just what to do, and it reminded my friend so much of her neighbor that she finally asked if, by chance, she knew her neighbor, only to find that they were sisters. In that family they had learned the meaning of service. By its selfless nature, service within a family increases spirituality and strengthens bonds of love.

A crafted red and pink paper heart frame holds a picture of the entire family dressed in white. In April 1993, the Richards family was sealed in the St. George temple. It was Mom and Dad’s tenth wedding anniversary. “It made for a special day,” Mom said. Emily says she remembers that everything in the temple was white and that she felt nice inside. “The children didn’t want to leave,” Mom said. They loved the beautiful chandeliers and the pictures of Jesus Christ inside the temple.
The family had driven for five days to get to St. George. Why did they travel so far to be sealed? On a previous vacation they had driven into St. George, and the city was covered with a thick layer of gray fog. They couldn’t see anything except the white glow of the temple. This experience made them want to return to St. George to be sealed there.
They stopped at four other temples on that trip. “Each time we visited a temple grounds, we felt a family togetherness,” Mom said. On the way home, they stopped and ate at a hotel. The hotel employees were so impressed with the children’s polite behavior and kind manner that they gave the entire family free dessert.

Whenever the family of Joseph Smith, Sr., saw their father feel for the eyeglasses he carried in his vest pocket they knew it was time for the evening devotional; by custom, each day in their home ended with song, prayer, and Bible reading. Father Smith conducted, read from the Bible, and prayed. However, shortly after the initial visits of Moroni to the young Prophet Joseph in September 1823, these family gatherings took on according to the Prophet’s mother an exceptional aspect. She wrote:
“From this time forth, Joseph continued to receive instructions from the Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening, for the purpose of listening while he [told us] of the same. I presume our family presented an aspect as [unusual] as any that ever lived upon the face of the earth—all seated in a circle, father, mother, sons, and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of age. …
“During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals [reports] that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them.”

Elder Hugh B. Brown of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1883–1975) once shared such a lesson he learned while pruning a currant bush on a farm in Canada.

As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, he came across a currant bush that had grown over six feet high and was yielding no berries. Therefore, he pruned it back drastically, leaving only small, teardrop-shaped stumps. The sight made it appear as if the currant bush were crying, and Elder Brown thought he heard the bush say:

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. … I thought you were the gardener here.”

Elder Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. But someday, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to think back and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”

Many years ago, on my first visit to the village of Sauniatu in Samoa, my wife and I met with a large gathering of small children—nearly 200 in number. At the conclusion of our messages to these shy yet beautiful youngsters, I suggested to the native Samoan teacher that we go forward with the closing exercises.
As he announced the final hymn, I suddenly felt compelled to greet personally each of these children. My watch revealed that the time was too short for such a privilege, for we were scheduled on a flight out of the country, so I discounted the impression. Before the benediction was to be spoken, I again felt that I should shake the hand of each child. I made the desire known to the instructor, who displayed a broad and beautiful Samoan smile. In Samoan, he announced this to the children. They beamed their approval.
The instructor then revealed to me the reason for his and their joy. He said, “When we learned that a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was to visit us here in Samoa, so far away from Church headquarters, I told the children if they would earnestly and sincerely pray and exert faith like the Bible accounts of old, that the Apostle would visit our tiny village at Sauniatu and through their faith he would be impressed to greet each child with a personal handclasp.”
Tears could not be restrained as the precious boys and girls walked shyly by and whispered softly to us the sweet Samoan greeting “talofa lava.” A profound expression of faith had been evidenced.

How those words touched me! It had been 15 years ago that the Book of Mormon became an integral part of David’s life. I had read it to him as he lay in bed, at life’s edge.
“What are you reading, Mommy?” David asked in the faintest whisper of a sound. His delicate face closely matched the color of the snowy pillowcase. Deep red drops of blood, descending from a bottle suspended above, provided a vivid contrast as they dropped through a tube into his motionless white arm.
“The Book of Mormon,” I replied. It helped me through the endless hours of watching my son fight a seemingly insurmountable battle. It was supposed to be minor surgery to correct a small health problem, but the whole procedure had become a nightmare. Face to face with the fragile quality of mortality, I groped for an anchor with eternity.
“Read it to me,” David said.
“But you wouldn’t understand it, David,” I told him. “You’re too young. Later, when you’re well and at home, I’ll read you some stories from the Book of Mormon.”
Again the whispered words, urgent this time. “Please read it to me, Mommy.”
Not knowing what else to do, and not wishing to further upset him, I began in First Nephi: “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, …” I intended to read a few lines while he drifted off to sleep, and then continue my silent reading. Every time I thought he was asleep, my voice quieted and quit. Then, from the hospital bed, again and again, I heard, “Read it to me.”
And so I read it to him. I read all during the hospital stay, and then at home, where he lay attached to two tubes that drained fluids from his body into bags, one on each leg. Doctors had discovered a congenital defect that gave him only part of one kidney.
I did not read stories from the Book of Mormon. I read from the book itself. One morning, after David’s two sisters had gone to school and his two little brothers were sleeping, we sat together reading as usual. I stopped and looked down at him. “David, do you understand this?”
His blue eyes looked thoughtfully into mine. “Not all. But some of it.”
When I continued reading he stopped me and said, “Mother, kneel down.” Startled by the request, I simply knelt, feeling his small body at my side. Then, totally trusting, he said, “Now pray for me. Pray that I will understand the Book of Mormon.”
By the time we finished the book, David had turned five and was able to recognize and read many of the words on his own. Eventually he read alone. His health improved and, by the time he was baptized, he had read the whole thing by himself more than once. By the time he was ordained a deacon, he was eagerly preparing for a mission.