Gospel Story Finder

The summer after my junior year in high school, my friend Barbara found out that the Methodist church around the corner from my house was a Japanese congregation and that they held Saturday classes in Japanese culture for the elementary school children. Barbara, my sister Carol, and I thought it would be fun to learn to write those beautiful Japanese characters and to make a kimono, so we asked if we could enroll. We had fun using the brush and ink to make the strokes for ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, ga, gi, gu, ge, go. We learned to recognize and write our names and to sing the famous song “Sakura.”
We were just about finished with our kimonos when we learned that the church was having a bazaar, so we decided to go see the children perform their songs and display their calligraphy. While we sat waiting for the performance to start, we studied the program and found that we could recognize one or two Japanese words: the name of one of the songs, “Sakura,” and next to it our names—Barbara, Jean, and Carol. We looked at each other in dismay. How dare they put us on the program. We weren’t little children. We were not going to get up, three grown-up girls, and sing a silly little song in front of all those strangers.
We continued to fuss about it indignantly. I turned to the seven-year-old girl behind me just to verify that those were the symbols for our names. “Yes,” she smiled, and then she patted my arm and said, “Do it with grace.”
I turned in my seat much abashed to have been put in my place by a little child. I saw then that to get up and simply sing the song would be much less conspicuous than to sit and fuss and protest about our dignity and rights. And I understand now that to simply have done it would not have been enough. The child said, “Do it with grace.” I see that it is more than doing it and more than doing it well: it is something about attitude, willingness. It means being gracious, like a princess, like a queen.
Who did I think I was that I would disrupt and spoil their program? Who did I think they were, the little children and the old pastor and his bent little wife?

Mary Ann Weston, joined the Church at age 23 in Gloucestershire, England, having heard Wilford Woodruff sing, ‘Shall I for fear of feeble man, the Spirit’s course in me restrain?’ Shortly afterwards she married John Davis, but was made a widow within four months when John was kicked and beaten to death by an angry mob. Later, Mary married a widower with five children, and in 1856, eight months pregnant, she drove the first wagon into Utah’s Cache Valley.

I am very much aware that you and some of your peers are living that way now. For instance, a fifteen-year-old Korean boy took his weekly allowance and bought newspapers with it. Then he and some friends sold these on the streets of Seoul, Korea, to raise money to help a fellow student who did not have sufficient funds to stay in school. This young man also gave part of his lunch to this boy each day so that he would not go hungry. Why did he do these things? Because he had been studying the story of the Good Samaritan and didn’t just want to learn about the Good Samaritan but wanted to know what it felt like to be one by doing what a Good Samaritan would do. (See Luke 10:25–37.) He related these things to his father only after careful questioning by his father about his activities. He had done them without any thought of recognition.

I doubt very much that the bishop of this young man would have to worry about how he looked when he came to participate at the sacrament table or whether his heart and hands were clean and pure. I don’t think his father would have to worry about whether or not he was honest in his relationships with others, or whether or not he cheated at school.

It was very painful to face failures in my life, especially in my studies. In twelfth standard, I failed in my subjects again and again and again. It was too hard for me to bear. I almost gave up. But the Savior indeed helped me to stay strong and showed His bounteous mercy and grace to me, which helped me not to give up. Having a great hope in my heart, I took a different course and chose to do a diploma in mining engineering in which I was able to succeed. In fact, I was one of the toppers of my college in all six semesters of my 3-year course. It may sound magical, but it was a miracle. How did this happen? I testify that it was because of Christ’s grace that I received light in my life which helped me to have success in my education.

Another great lesson was learned when as a young man of eighteen I took a summer job with the U.S. Forest Service. One of our duties was to be part of a twenty-man fire crew that could be called out from time to time to fight wildfires. Earlier, a wildfire had claimed the lives of four firefighters when in a panic they failed to follow the direction of their crew boss and tried to outrun an unexpected and fierce advance of a fire. The shockwaves of that incident were felt all around the region, and rigorous training ensued. Following the command of the crew boss without question or hesitation was given particular emphasis.
We fought several fires that season, and then, late in August, our crew was called out to fight a wildfire in Southern California. This was a large fire that had many crews dispatched to fight it. Our crew, along with two other crews, was assigned a sector of the fire. It was a chaparral brush fire that had a tremendously fine fuel load of dried grasses and weeds in the understory. We were obliged to make a two-mile hike from the nearest road through the brush to where the fire was burning.
It was not a particularly intense blaze, and we were to build black line—a fire line right against the burning edge of the fire. As our three twenty-man crews, marching single file through the brush, approached the fire, the sector boss suddenly appeared on a nearby ridgeline. His urgent command was to become indelibly impressed upon my mind. His voice screamed through our radios, “She’s blowing up, she’s blowing up! Into the burn!”
My pulse raced and my heart sank as I watched the small campfire-type flames, fanned on by an intense wind shift, transform into a raging inferno racing directly toward us. The command “Into the burn!” meant that we would charge through the fire and into the area where the fire had consumed the fuel. My instinctive impulse was to turn and run, and I could see others considering that option. Our crew boss, without hesitation, reiterated the command “Into the burn!” and though it did not seem the intuitive thing to do, my training and my memory of the tragic earlier deaths compelled me to follow my leader through that wall of fire. On the other side we found a blackened moonscape where the fire could not return. With eyes and lungs burning from the heat in the whirling smoke and ash, we resorted to dancing on the top of hot rocks to protect our feet from the searing deep ash. We had made the right decision and were preserved.
After about thirty minutes the wind died down, and we were able to cross back out of the burn and begin our black line. That was an intense lesson that helped me to understand the importance of knowing in advance who you should trust and follow without hesitation, especially when the correct choice may be obscured by our own limited experience or instinctive bias.
That lesson was reinforced in my life just a few years ago when I was invited to participate in a grizzly bear study in Alaska, where we were to observe the response of grizzlies to the influences of smells, sounds, and colors that humans bring into the backcountry. Part of that experience was a safety training session that included instruction of what to do if approached or charged by a bear. If we were charged by a grizzly, the instruction we received was to turn and face the bear (do not run and invoke the predator/prey killing response), make yourself as big in posture as possible, and yell at the bear to go away. Well, I had been in Alaska before and had searched to see a bear with no such luck, so I wasn’t too concerned and took the training somewhat lightly.
Shortly after the training, the bear biologist who had trained us asked if I wanted to go with him to wade the river and count bears. Of course I couldn’t wait. We donned our chest waders and were off for a two-kilometer walk in a river. I couldn’t believe all the bears and how close we were and how much they didn’t seem to care. In that walk we counted over forty grizzly bears.
On our way back we got behind a mother bear and her three little cubs. She was going painfully slow, and I suggested we pass her. The biologist said that was only a good idea if I was tired of breathing. So we followed patiently behind the bears until we reached a place where the river made a great horseshoe bend and we had our chance to cut through on a brushy trail to get ahead of her. In our haste we apparently intruded on another bear that we hadn’t seen, and as I waddled down the path behind my guide, I heard the huff and paw pounding of a bear coming up behind us. I spun and saw a large bear coming upon us fast. The biologist, true to his training, faced the attack, taking up a firm stand—right behind me! As I turned to face the bear, armed only with my small can of bear mace, it dawned on me why they had invited this great big, juicy botanist to join the party. I mean, what bear in their right mind would choose a tofu–diet-burger biologist when they could have the super–double-deluxe meal of a tender and juicy botanist—and, yes, fries with that!
While turning to run seemed the prudent thing to do, I trusted and followed the instruction I had received. Facing the bear, in my deepest, most menacing voice I yelled repeatedly, “Go away, bear! Go away!” The bear pulled up just short of me, paused for an eternal moment, twisted her head back and forth, and finally turned and slipped away into the underbrush. As I regained my faculties, I realized that I had begun to breathe again. After checking to be sure that I still had all of my body parts and functions, I trundled off back to camp, following my biologist friend who was explaining that this charge “wasn’t really so bad!”

On a trip to the Orient it was my privilege to attend a sacrament meeting of the Naha Branch on the island of Okinawa. I was so impressed with the quality of the sacrament service and the reverence and dignity exhibited by the Aaronic Priesthood that when I was called to speak I asked one of the young men to join me at the pulpit. I asked him, “How do you feel knowing you hold the priesthood of God?” Not tall enough to see over the pulpit, he raised on his toes so he could see the congregation, then with deep emotion responded: “It’s the greatest honor of my life!”

Thenceforth, I continued to walk leisurely, convinced that only dogs would act they way I had just witnessed. I was certainly saddened, in spite of my surroundings, when at a distance before me I saw two men locked in physical combat. I intervened, and they stopped at a point when one of them pulled a long knife. My presence was properly timed to prevent the certain death of the other who was apparently without any defensive weapon except his hands. I inquired what was wrong, and they began accusing each other. As a lawyer, I advised them that whoever won the fight is not a winner in the true sense because not only would he be deprived of peace of mind but that the authorities would see to it that he went to jail to pay for his crime.
The cause of it all, I finally found out, was that one owed the other the measly sum of $10.00 which he could not pay at the moment but promised to do so in an uncertain future. The latter, obviously drunk, became fed up with promises and so decided to settle it his way on the assumption it would solve his problem. Naturally, I remarked that it is the duty of the courts to collect debts otherwise impossible of recovery and that to take somebody’s life is too high a price for such an insignificant amount.
I left these two men shaking hands in renewed friendship, as I volunteered to pay the debt in behalf of the debtor.
The course taken by these two men was surely less forgivable than that of the dogs. Dogs are not expected to exercise self-control. But many of us act like dogs if we don’t.

As we prepared to sing during a dedicatory session of the Concepción Chile Temple in 2018, all the members of the young adult choir I was conducting had the same goal: do the musical and spiritual work necessary to give God our best offering.
With the choir members, from two stakes in the city of Chillán, I dedicated myself to being as pure as I could be. I wanted to reflect the Light of Christ in my life. I wanted the offering we gave God in His holy house to be as perfect as possible. I knew that if we did our part, Heavenly Father would help us, and we would sing as He would have us sing.
During the dedication, we sang with our voices and our hearts. I think angels sang with us. The sound of the choir was perfect. We felt that the grace of God was with us and that He was pleased with our offering. That feeling stayed with me for a long time.
After the temple dedication, I felt spiritually nourished and at one with Heavenly Father. I felt a stronger connection with Him than I had ever experienced. That connection was so strong that I felt spiritually directed in what to ask for when I prayed (see 3 Nephi 19:24).
By the time of the temple dedication, I was five weeks pregnant. A few months later, I miscarried my baby. That was a terrible time. I felt so sad, especially when I learned that I might not be able to have more children.
But this difficult experience occurred at a time when I felt the most spiritually strong. I understood that I had been prepared for this moment by means of the offering we had rendered in the temple. The spiritual strength I had experienced helped me overcome this trial because Heavenly Father was with me and gave me peace.
A short time later, God blessed my husband and me with a miracle. We were overjoyed when our son, Arturo, received a little sister, Daniela.
I would not have been able to weather that experience without the close connection I had enjoyed with Heavenly Father. I knew that everything would be OK and in accordance with His will. Remembering these things still fills my heart with joy and gratitude.

My mother died when I was a young mother. I still needed her counsel and advice. After her cancer was diagnosed, she lived only six weeks. Initially, my concern was for my father. I felt grateful that Mom had not suffered long and that her death had been a sweet experience for us. But a few weeks later Mother’s Day and her birthday were coming, and I began to miss her terribly. I wanted her arms around me, and I wanted to know that she was all right. I wanted to tell her that I loved her and missed her.
One night as I was praying and crying (which I did often then), I felt comfort fill my body—suddenly and powerfully. The feeling restored me; it gave me peace. It did not last long physically, yet it was immensely comforting. I knew what it was—the Lord’s love encircling me and granting me peace and strength. But just as important, that moment has remained in my memory as a sweet gift to unwrap and remember when life is difficult.

Ramona Morreale of the Cannonville Ward, Escalante Utah Stake, writes of a special family home evening when she read from her journal: “I found entries about our children and humorous things they said and did when they were younger. Before long we were all laughing. Our children often ask to have a ‘journal’ lesson again. Sometimes we also read spiritual entries from an ancestor’s journal. This brings great joy and helps us get to know them.”

Rex: As long as we can pray, there will be miracles in our lives. Personally, I have been the beneficiary of these miracles on several occasions. Let me tell you about two of them, involving two separate people. A few of you have heard me talk about each of them. Fewer of you have heard both, and none has heard the connection between the two of them that occurred to me in a very powerful way as we were preparing this talk.

As some of you know, in late June of 1987, we made a sudden and emotionally devastating discovery that I had a very fast-acting form of lymphoma that was in its final stage at the time we discovered it. The day before I left to take my treatments at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, I asked for a blessing from my home teacher, Rodger Galland, and my next-door neighbor and stake president, our new BYU president, Merrill Bateman. A couple of sentences that President Bateman pronounced during the course of his sealing the anointing will remain with me through this life and the next. His words were unequivocal. He said, “This disease will not take your life at this time. The Lord yet has other things for you to do in this life in the Church and in government, and you will recover and do them.” It must have affected him as profoundly as it did me, because at a stake conference, while I was still at NIH and things were looking somewhat bleak, he told our entire stake how convinced he was that that blessing had come from the Lord and that I would live.

I want you to know that I had that same conviction. During my darkest hours at that hospital, when it seemed that nothing was going right, I would fall back on the words of that blessing and the surety with which my friend, my brother, and my ecclesiastical leader had pronounced them.

One of our beloved hymns expresses the plea “Thru cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me!”1 I was once on a plane as it approached a large storm. Looking out the window, I could see a dense blanket of clouds below us. The rays of the setting sun reflected off the clouds, causing them to shine with intense brightness. Soon, the plane descended through the heavy clouds, and we were suddenly enveloped in a thick darkness that completely blinded us to the intense light we had witnessed just moments earlier.2
Black clouds may also form in our lives, which can blind us to God’s light and even cause us to question if that light exists for us anymore. Some of those clouds are of depression, anxiety, and other forms of mental and emotional affliction. They can distort the way we perceive ourselves, others, and even God. They affect women and men of all ages in all corners of the world.
Likewise damaging is the desensitizing cloud of skepticism that can affect others who have not experienced these challenges. Like any part of the body, the brain is subject to illnesses, trauma, and chemical imbalances. When our minds are suffering, it is appropriate to seek help from God, from those around us, and from medical and mental health professionals.
“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and … each has a divine nature and destiny.”3 Like our Heavenly Parents and our Savior, we have a physical body4 and experience emotions.5
My dear sisters, it is normal to feel sad or worried once in a while. Sadness and anxiety are natural human emotions.6 However, if we are constantly sad and if our pain blocks our ability to feel the love of our Heavenly Father and His Son and the influence of the Holy Ghost, then we may be suffering from depression, anxiety, or another emotional condition.
My daughter once wrote: “There was a time … [when] I was extremely sad all of the time. I always thought that sadness was something to be ashamed of, and that it was a sign of weakness. So I kept my sadness to myself. … I felt completely worthless.”7
A friend described it this way: “Since my early childhood, I have faced a constant battle with feelings of hopelessness, darkness, loneliness, and fear and the sense that I am broken or defective. I did everything to hide my pain and to never give the impression that I was anything but thriving and strong.”8
My dear friends, it can happen to any of us—especially when, as believers in the plan of happiness, we place unnecessary burdens on ourselves by thinking we need to be perfect now. Such thoughts can be overwhelming. Achieving perfection is a process that will take place throughout our mortal life and beyond—and only through the grace of Jesus Christ.9
In contrast, when we open up about our emotional challenges, admitting we are not perfect, we give others permission to share their struggles. Together we realize there is hope and we do not have to suffer alone.10
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we have made a covenant with God that we “are willing to bear one another’s burdens” and “to mourn with those that mourn.”11 This may include becoming informed about emotional illnesses, finding resources that can help address these struggles, and ultimately bringing ourselves and others to Christ, who is the Master Healer.12 Even if we do not know how to relate to what others are going through, validating that their pain is real can be an important first step in finding understanding and healing.13
In some cases, the cause of depression or anxiety can be identified, while other times it may be harder to discern.14 Our brains may suffer because of stress15 or staggering fatigue,16 which can sometimes be improved through adjustments in diet, sleep, and exercise. Other times, therapy or medication under the direction of trained professionals may also be needed.
Untreated mental or emotional illness can lead to increased isolation, misunderstandings, broken relationships, self-harm, and even suicide. I know this firsthand, as my own father died by suicide many years ago. His death was shocking and heartbreaking for my family and me. It has taken me years to work through my grief, and it was only recently that I learned talking about suicide in appropriate ways actually helps to prevent it rather than encourage it.17 I have now openly discussed my father’s death with my children and witnessed the healing that the Savior can give on both sides of the veil.18
Sadly, many who suffer from severe depression distance themselves from their fellow Saints because they feel they do not fit some imaginary mold. We can help them know and feel that they do indeed belong with us. It is important to recognize that depression is not the result of weakness, nor is it usually the result of sin.19 It “thrives in secrecy but shrinks in empathy.”20 Together, we can break through the clouds of isolation and stigma so the burden of shame is lifted and miracles of healing can occur.
During His mortal ministry, Jesus Christ healed the sick and the afflicted, but each person had to exercise faith in Him and act to receive His healing. Some walked for long distances, others extended their hand to touch His garment, and others had to be carried to Him in order to be healed.21 When it comes to healing, don’t we all need Him desperately? “Are we not all beggars?”22
Let us follow the Savior’s path and increase our compassion, diminish our tendency to judge, and stop being the inspectors of the spirituality of others. Listening with love is one of the greatest gifts we can offer, and we may be able to help carry or lift the heavy clouds that suffocate our loved ones and friends23 so that, through our love, they can once again feel the Holy Ghost and perceive the light that emanates from Jesus Christ.
If you are constantly surrounded by a “mist of darkness,”24 turn to Heavenly Father. Nothing that you have experienced can change the eternal truth that you are His child and that He loves you.25 Remember that Christ is your Savior and Redeemer, and God is your Father. They understand. Picture Them close by you, listening and offering support.26 “[They] will console you in your afflictions.”27 Do all you can, and trust in the Lord’s atoning grace.
Your struggles do not define you, but they can refine you.28 Because of a “thorn in the flesh,”29 you may have the ability to feel more compassion toward others. As guided by the Holy Ghost, share your story in order to “succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.”30
For those of us currently struggling or supporting someone who is struggling, let us be willing to follow God’s commandments so we may always have His Spirit with us.31 Let us do the “small and simple things”32 that will give us spiritual strength. As President Russell M. Nelson said, “Nothing opens the heavens quite like the combination of increased purity, exact obedience, earnest seeking, daily feasting on the words of Christ in the Book of Mormon, and regular time committed to temple and family history work.”33
Let us all remember that our Savior, Jesus Christ, “[has taken] upon him [our] infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know … how to succor [us] according to [our] infirmities.”34 He came “to bind up the brokenhearted, … to comfort all that mourn; … to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”35
I testify to you that “thru cloud and sunshine” the Lord will abide with us, our “afflictions [can be] swallowed up in the joy of Christ,”36 and “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”37 I testify that Jesus Christ will return to the earth “with healing in his wings.”38 Ultimately, He “shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes; and there shall be no more … sorrow.”39 For all who will “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him,”40 the “sun shall no more go down; … for the Lord shall be [our] everlasting light, and the days of [our] mourning shall be ended.”41 In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

One day as I read my patriarchal blessing, I was impressed by a passage that described how I could help perform a marvelous work for my departed ancestors and others who were living. I thought, “How can this happen if I don’t know where to start?” Later I read in Doctrine and Covenants 82:8, 10:
“I give unto you a new commandment, that you may understand my will concerning you; …
“I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.”
I felt the Lord encouraging me, and I prayed for a path forward to find my family history records.
A few months later while in Shanghai, China, I met Shirley Wu, who was visiting from Taiwan. We soon became good friends. When she found out I was looking for my family’s genealogy, she encouraged me not to give up. She suggested that as a starting place, I should go to the local household records department in Taiwan to request old addresses. “Maybe something will come up,” she said.
I flew to Taiwan, hoping to find the record of my great-grandfather’s home, but unfortunately, it no longer existed. I also didn’t know his birthplace or the name of my ancestor who first came to Taiwan. Despite this setback, Shirley told me not to worry. “Just have faith,” she said. “God will help us, and your ancestors on the other side of the veil will help too.” A few days later, I returned to Shanghai, hoping and praying for a miracle.
One Sunday afternoon, Shirley sent me a picture of some genealogy records. She asked me if any of the names looked familiar.
I was astonished. The names of my ancestors were on the page! When I asked how she found them, she told me the following miraculous story:
I had been thinking about your genealogy for several weeks, and I felt that I should go to the address of your great-grandfather’s home to check the area.
After two hours on the high-speed train, I bussed to the city of Chi Kan, a place I had never been before. I fell asleep, and at the final stop the driver woke me up. I got off, looked around, and saw I was in a fishing village. I asked a young shop owner across the street for directions. He called a taxi for me and directed the driver to a place where an old man lived. When I arrived and asked that man where I could find the town’s genealogy record, he told me to walk a few blocks to a temple by the seashore.
At the temple, I saw a group of men having tea and chatting. They said that they were just starting an annual meeting of the Liu Shi family genealogy to prepare for a big conference in October. I explained that I was there to find family names for my friend.
“Usually no one is at this temple,” they said. “The door is locked except for the two to three hours when we hold the annual meeting. You are very lucky to meet us here.”
When I told the men I was looking for the name Liu Bei, they told me they had been collecting the Liu family genealogy for years and didn’t recall that name. One of the men kindly offered his genealogy records for me to take a look. They continued their meeting while I searched the records. After about 10–15 minutes, I shouted, “I found it!”
Shocked, they stopped talking and grabbed the book. I showed them the name, and they told me that it came from the family line of Mr. Liu Qiu Shan, who was attending their meeting that day. I purchased a copy of the genealogy book, which contained records going back 26 generations and 2,460 years of ancestors’ names on extended family lines.
Mr. Liu Qiu Shan later gave me a ride to the train station. He told me if I had come an hour earlier or the next day, I wouldn’t have found anyone or anything there. He said, “This place is always locked. It must be the ancestors’ blessing. It is truly a miracle.”
Shirley is my angel. She is full of Christ’s love and is always eager to help do God’s work. She is a great example of ministering to others. Her willingness to serve has brought great blessings and a miracle to hundreds of souls. I testify there are angels among us, but we need to have the desire to do the Lord’s errand in order to receive their help. President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) said: “Believe in yourself. Believe in your capacity to do great and good things. Believe that no mountain is so high that you cannot climb it. Believe that no storm is so great that you cannot weather it.”1 When we seek the Lord’s guidance, we will see His hand and the angels in our lives, and we will be able to accomplish what He has asked us to do.

One reader wrote about the difficulty—and necessity—of getting involved in more of the process: “One cold December night, I came to realize that until I believed the Lord and received his counsel through priesthood blessings and the scriptures, I could not progress. My emotional and spiritual health, as well as my eternal progression, hinged on this. I had to trust my Heavenly Father!

“How does a person learn to believe spiritual things that are so different from earthly experiences? After many hours of prayer and tears, I found the answer in Alma 32:27: ‘If ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.’

“When I read those words, I burst into tears. I did have a desire, and as I let it work in me, as the scripture promised, I found a place for a portion of his words. On my knees, I felt the Lord ‘take [my] stony heart’ and give me a ‘heart of flesh’ (Ezek. 11:19). In the months that followed, I could feel a change in me.”

Recently her grandfather was chosen to represent the Northern Ute tribe in the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic torch relay. When officials asked Frank, Stephanie’s grandpa, to suggest someone for him to pass the torch on to, Stephanie was the first to come to his mind. “She’s really involved in sports,” her grandpa told them, “and I know she’s in good shape. I know she can do it.”

Stephanie smiles. “He’s always taught me that girls can do anything guys can do.”

Stephanie is a soccer player for her high school, so she was in great shape to run the torch. She credits her grandfather with helping her succeed there too: “My grandpa has the best work ethic of anyone I know. This work ethic has helped me in my commitment to sports, to my religion, and to my personal goals.”

When Stephanie received the Olympic torch from her grandfather under the picturesque Delicate Arch in southern Utah’s Arches National Park, it seemed more symbolic than real. More important than giving her the torch is the legacy of love her grandfather and family have passed on. She wants to continue that legacy in her own family.

That’s what the Spann family is striving for. Just as Stephanie was prepared to accept the torch from her grandfather and run with it, she’s prepared to carry on her family’s tradition of love and togetherness. The Spanns are a great family trying their hardest. Stephanie knows if they continue doing their best, they will continue to be blessed.

César likes Oaxaca, but it is not his lifelong home. As an officer in the Mexican Air Force, Brother Arzate has been transferred all around the country, and César has attended eight different schools in four cities. “It’s a little hard at first, because no one knows me and so I don’t have any friends,” he admits. But then he quickly adds, “I pray to Heavenly Father and ask Him to help me make new friends and get good grades.” César loves his country and is proud of his father for helping to defend it.
César used to be rather shy, but Church activities have helped him to become more outgoing. Although friendly with everyone, he chooses close friends carefully. And these friendships last. He receives letters and telephone calls from all over Mexico. His best friends are his brother, Daniel (5), and his sister, Diana Gisela (2). His parents can leave them in his care with total confidence that he will keep them safe and happy. Even when the family goes on an outing, César pays attention to what the younger children are doing. He does this in a caring, not-at-all bossy way, and his little brother and sister love him dearly.

May I conclude with a heart-tugging account of one small boy, a Cub Scout whose love of Scouting brought him and those who knew him and loved him closer to God as he reached upward and stepped over the limits of mortality and entered the broad expanse of eternity, clad in the uniform he loved and wearing the honor he had won—in Scouting.
In October 1992, nine-year-old Jared Barney passed away as a result of brain cancer. He had, in his short life, endured multiple surgeries, along with radiation and chemotherapy treatments. His last surgery was August 9, 1992. A month after that, an MRI picked up six new tumors, two of which were already quite large.
The radiation and chemotherapy made Jared very ill. The surgeries were difficult, but he always bounced back very quickly. Although he suffered much pain, the Lord blessed and sustained him.
Jared had a special spirit that drew others to him. He never complained about how he felt or about having to be sick or about the treatments he had to have. When asked how he was doing, he always said, “Good,” no matter how he felt. He was ever known for his contagious smile. The Light of Christ was in his eyes.
May I quote from Jared’s mother, Olivia, who wrote concerning his last days: “Our many prayers were answered in behalf of our little son. We prayed that he would be able to walk, talk, and see until the end, and then that the Lord would take him quickly. He was able to do all of these things, and we are so thankful to the Lord for answering our prayers. Jared loved life so much, and we wanted him to be able to enjoy it fully until the end.
“Jared had earned some Cub Scout awards three weeks prior to his passing. He had earned his Bear badge, his Faith in God, a Gold Arrow Point, and two Silver Arrow Points. We know that he loved to get those awards. He was failing quickly, and he wouldn’t even let himself sleep until he could attend the pack meeting held on October 14, 1992, to achieve his awards. At the pack meeting, he raised his hand three times and told everyone how long he had waited for these awards and how happy he was to get them. When we returned home, he asked me to sew his badges on that very night. I did. Then he prayed that Heavenly Father would let him sleep because he was so tired. He said that three times. He went to sleep and never moved all night. From then on he slept most of the time until his passing.
“We buried him in his Cub Scout shirt with those long-awaited emblems sewn and pinned on the front. He had a beautiful service. Many were present, for he had made so many friends in the community through his example of courage and faith.”
Such was the influence of an inspired program in the life of a tiny boy and his family.

The crowd seemed to calm down suddenly as they focused their attention on the gymnastic arena. Everyone seemed to be watching the same girl—the one who had attracted their attention earlier in the balance beam competition. This time she was swinging on the uneven parallel bars.
The girl was Diane Ellingson, a typical-looking fifteen-year-old gymnast with a slim body, her hair in a blonde ponytail. But the crowd seemed to sense that there was more to her than her good looks.
Maybe they noticed her because of the confident way she performed her pirouettes during her floor routine. It could have been the spectacular twists and turns she executed when she flipped from the uneven parallel bars. It might have been her effortless leaps over the vault, but above all that, it was probably her genuine love for the crowd. They could feel it when she flashed them that winning smile at the end of a perfect routine.
Of course, even when her performance wasn’t quite so perfect there was still something about that smile. Even when she slipped and landed flat on her face at the end of a routine while being filmed on national television, she smiled and waved to the crowd until they applauded. In a competition on her eighteenth birthday she told the judges it was her birthday so they would ask the crowd to sing “Happy Birthday” to her. “I wasn’t embarrassed,” says Diane. “I would’ve let them sing it twice just for the attention.”
Even as a child, Diane loved to have an audience. Once when she was nine or ten years old she didn’t come home from school when she was supposed to, so her father went looking for her. He found her in the center of a circle of children, entertaining them with her tumbling tricks just for fun.
Diane’s sister Marie laughs at the memory of Diane as a child performer. “If you ever see our family photographs, she’s always out in front. She was just always a show-off. Dad would be photographing someone else and Diane would get in the picture somehow.”
The desire to perform fit perfectly into gymnastics, another of Diane’s lifelong loves. It was hard to convince her parents that gymnastics was a good thing for her, and even then she had to do something more.
“Our family had seven children and couldn’t afford to pay for Diane to have lessons. She went down to the gymnasium herself and told the coach that she’d do anything for them. So after practice sessions she’d clean the gymnasium—vacuuming mats, cleaning bathrooms, whatever, to pay for her lessons,” says Marie.
Diane’s love of the spotlight was quickly matched by her gymnastic ability, and the two made a championship combination. She started training when she was fourteen and a half years old, a late start by competitive standards, but within a year she was competing against the best in the country. She was the Junior Olympic National Champion in high school, and in college she led the University of Utah’s women’s gymnastics team to their first national victory.
After she was no longer eligible for college competition, she decided to go on a national professional tour. Diane knew her gymnastics career was mostly over, but she just wanted to hold on to the thrill of the spotlight and the fun of the sport for as long as she could.
During training for the tour Diane was practicing a vault she’d done thousands of times. She ran toward the vault just like she had done every other time. She jumped on the springboard like all the other times and flew up and over the vault—just like all the other times. But this time was different. This time she turned her body just a little too far. This time when she landed, she broke her neck. The accident put her in the hospital for almost six months and in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
That was on December 15, 1981. Diane spent that Christmas and the next five months in the hospital, trying to imagine her life without gymnastics. After so many years of loving the sport, it was difficult for Diane to adjust.
“I hated being in the hospital, and I felt like I was in prison,” says Diane. For one month of the five she was in the hospital, she was in traction and couldn’t move at all except when the nurses came in and turned her a few centimeters every two hours. Diane had no idea she’d be in the hospital for so long. “In fact, when I was first injured I thought for sure that in a month I’d be back on the tour. I thought, ‘If I have enough faith and believe in God and in myself, I’ll be okay.’ And I just knew it.”
Recovery wasn’t quite so easy though, and things seemed to get worse. “I was a horrible patient,” says Diane. “In the hospital I was really miserable because I was so restless. I was really impatient with people.” Finally Diane came to a turning point.
“One day I was in the depths of despair. I just felt like I couldn’t bear it anymore,” Diane says. She asked for a priesthood blessing. She knew the power to heal her was present, “but I only wanted that to happen if it was Heavenly Father’s will. I had this blessing and I felt the greatest sense of peace. It was like I knew that no matter what happened it would be okay. If I didn’t walk away from the hospital there would be a reason for it. I knew that I had always tried my best to live the gospel and do what I was supposed to do, so if anybody was worthy to have that blessing, I was. But from that point on I was a different person. I was totally comforted.”
Ironically, one of the biggest aids to her recovery was gymnastics. “I don’t know if I could’ve gotten up again if I hadn’t had that training in gymnastics,” she says. “I had a lot of serious injuries when I was a gymnast that I just had to deal with. It was always down, up, down, up in gymnastics and this was just one more down I had to get up from. Gymnastics taught me to get back up so I could be a champion again.”
On the day she finally realized she would never walk again, Diane made the decision to return to school to work for her degree. She was lying on her bed with all her scrapbooks filled with souvenirs and photos of her performances. Tears dripped down her face and splashed on the scrapbook pages. “I just realized right then that things weren’t going to get any better. As I lay there crying I thought, ‘I can either give up or get on with my life’ and that’s when I decided to go back to school and get my degree.”
Now Diane teaches a class full of seven-year-olds who are just the right height to look her in the eye. “The kids will do anything for her,” says Marie. “They just love her.”
Her students aren’t her only fans. Diane also gives fireside talks to teenagers who listen intently as she tells her story. And her message is one of hope and perseverance, without bitterness for what has happened.
Her personality hasn’t changed at all. Just listen to her speak and you’ll hear the exuberant, happy girl who used to charm arenas full of people. Now her charm is just aimed at another audience. Her voice seems to smile at every person in the room and her own laughter frequently interrupts her stories.
“I think telling my gymnastics stories and sharing my experiences opens up the communication between us. They soon forget that I’m in a wheelchair. When they do that, the youth can see that I’m just a regular person and we have a lot in common, even though, in a wheelchair, I look a lot different than they do,” Diane says.
Her main message is one for potential champions: don’t give up, no matter what happens. “When I was a young gymnast I met a girl, an athlete named Nancy Thies. Nancy was a member of the U.S. Olympic team and one of the finest gymnasts in the country. I have never forgotten some very important things that Nancy taught me. I remember the first thing she said was, ‘Don’t be afraid to lose.’ She said, ‘If you fall down and you stay down, you’re a quitter and a loser and you will never win. But if you get back up and you try one more time, it will be your turn to be the champion, so just don’t give up.’” Diane says she made a promise to herself that she would remember that advice and never give up, no matter how many times she fell.
Once she faced the hardest fall of her life, not giving up was difficult, especially because of her wheelchair. The entire time she was a gymnast, whether she was swinging high above the uneven parallel bars of just doing handstands for fun, her only fear was of being blind or paralyzed. “I had such uneasy feelings about wheelchairs that I would never talk to anybody in a wheelchair or go near a wheelchair. I would avoid people in wheelchairs. I was afraid that I’d end up in a wheelchair if I got too close to one. It was almost like having thought about it so much somehow prepared me for a wheelchair,” she says.
It was probably Diane’s unconquerable spirit that prepared her more than anything else. It’s a spirit that is evident in both her funny stories and her powerfully quiet testimony about the importance of an eternal perspective and God’s love for each of his children. It’s a spirit that Diane has always had. “I’ve never met anyone, except my father, who has a stronger testimony than she does,” says Marie. “There’s no doubt in her mind that what she’s doing is right and that the Church is true. She has always been a great example.”
The lights are turned down in the room as she finishes her message, and a slide show featuring Diane, the fun-lover and gymnast, lashes on the screen in time to some fast, contemporary music. When the presentation is over, young people surround her excitedly.
Diane says, “It makes me feel really good when people tell me they’re going to try harder after they’ve heard my talk. One girl came to me once and told me she’d heard me speak four different times. The first time, she decided not to commit suicide. The second time, she decided that she didn’t have to drop out of school. The third time, she made a goal to become one of the best students in her class, and the last time she was on her way to that goal.”
Diane just shrugs her shoulders and laughs a little when someone tells her she’s wonderful. She even looks a little embarrassed, which is rare for this experienced performer. “People always think, ‘You’re so amazing, you’re so incredible,’ but I’m not. People will say, ‘If that happened to me I could never handle the situation,’ and the thing I have to say is, ‘Either you handle the situation or you die.’ You have to take whatever life gives you and deal with it, even if you might not want to. You know, if somebody dies in your family, you have to live with it. If you break your neck you have to live with it, but you just learn and that’s what’s so great about time and the healing process. You don’t have to be miraculous.”
You just have to be as willing as Diane was to get up again, so that someday it will be your turn to be the champion. For Diane, the victory is especially sweet, because she has won back what she thought she’d lost.
She is a champion again.

The account of a homecoming as related by successful prison warden Kenyon J. Scudder brings to the surface tender feelings held in the heart:
A friend of his happened to be sitting in a railroad coach next to a young man who was obviously depressed. Finally the young man revealed that he was a paroled convict returning from a distant prison. His imprisonment had brought shame to his family, and they had neither visited him nor written often. He hoped, however, that this was only because they were too poor to travel and too uneducated to write. He hoped, despite the evidence, that they had forgiven him.
To make it easy for them, however, he had written to them asking that they put up a signal for him when the train passed their little farm on the outskirts of town. If his family had forgiven him, they were to put up a white ribbon in the big apple tree which stood near the tracks. If they didn’t want him to return, they were to do nothing, and he would remain on the train as it traveled onward.
As the train neared his hometown, the suspense became so great that he couldn’t bear to look out of his window. He exclaimed, “In just five minutes the engineer will sound the whistle indicating our approach to the long bend which opens into the valley I know as home. Will you watch for the apple tree at the side of the track?” His companion said he would; they exchanged places. The minutes seemed like hours, but then there came the shrill sound of the train whistle. The young man asked, “Can you see the tree? Is there a white ribbon?”
Came the reply, “I see the tree. I see not one white ribbon, but many. There is a white ribbon on every branch. Son, someone surely does love you.”
In that instant, all the bitterness that had poisoned a life was dispelled. “I felt as if I had witnessed a miracle,” the other man said. Indeed, he had witnessed a miracle. (See John Kord Lagemann, “Forgiveness: The Saving Grace,” The Reader’s Digest, Mar. 1961, pp. 41–42.)

Many of you have gone on full-time missions, and many of you are preparing to go out soon. Relying on the Spirit is the best preparation for missionary work. In 1974 two missionaries who were in Italy came and knocked at my door. My mother was alone at home that day and, before letting them in, she looked through the peep hole of our door on the seventh floor of the apartment building in which we lived. You see, the week before one of her friends had been attacked in her home while she was alone. Two young men had introduced themselves as employees of a utilities company, and the woman allowed them in the home to check the gas lines. They seized her, hit her in the forehead with a gun, fired a shot in the air to scare her, and robbed her of all her jewelry. My mother had gone to visit that friend in the hospital just a couple of days earlier. Now, she was not going to let those two young men with a foreign accent into the house, especially when no one else was there. She told them that she was the maid and that she was not allowed to let anyone in.

The two missionaries left, marked my address with a check, and went on to the next home. A few days later they happened in my neighborhood again, and the same scenario followed. My mother was home alone, and the missionaries were not permitted to enter. All you returned missionaries can relate to this experience, and I am sure that you remember how disappointed you were in similar situations. Well, as you know, after two or three unsuccessful tries, missionaries usually don’t go back to the same place. They look for friendlier people! Those two missionaries were later assigned to a different neighborhood and for awhile worked in another area of the town.

Some time went by, and one day my mother saw a missionary street board in the main square of our town. Her interest was immediately drawn by the pictures and the writings on the board, and she began talking to the missionaries. Suddenly it started to rain, one of those thick and abrupt rainstorms of central Italy that keep the country beautifully green but that also catch you by surprise. My mother ran away to take cover. She still had many questions in her mind but didn’t have the time to give her name or address to the missionaries.

The next day or so, the same first two missionaries happened—and I emphasize “happened’—into my neighborhood. They were still working in another part of town, but that day they decided to take a different way home. As they were walking down my street, one of the missionaries asked the other one if they should try that building on 71 Carducci Street again—on the seventh floor. His companion told him that it would be a waste of time; they had already tried three times! The first missionary then replied, “I don’t know why, but I know that we have to go back to that residence. I have no explanation, no reason—I just feel that we have to try again.”

So they went up the stairs, rang the doorbell, and waited outside for a little while. My mother was alone again, but that day, that time, she did open the door, and she let them in. That missionary is the reason why I am here today, why I began attending this church, why I was baptized, and why now I have been married in the temple for time and all eternity, with a beautiful family and eternal blessings awaiting me. That missionary listened to the Spirit, and he could hear the Spirit because he was ready to listen. My life is a miracle, a miracle made possible by the faith of another, and by the love of the Lord for me.