Gospel Story Finder

One Sunday, I was too sick to be around other people, but Mommy needed to bring my older siblings to church. While they went inside to church, we stayed in the car and read and did activities in the Friend. It made me happy even when I wasn’t feeling well enough to go to church.
Olivia R., age 6, Illinois, USA

But then Elder Wirthlin described an elderly couple who’d been married for many years. The wife grew unable to care for herself fully, including being able to paint her fingernails.

So the husband decided to paint them for her, simply because it made her smile. “That is an example of the pure love of Christ,” Elder Wirthlin declared.2

When my father brought in the mail today, he said there was an article in the New Era he thought I should read. I read the coverline that said, “Eating Disorders, P. 36” and I gave him a glare. I then walked into my room and read the article. I’ve been warned for about six months by many people who think I have anorexia nervosa. When I read that article, I felt like my prayers had been answered. It seemed like Janet Thomas was writing it directly to me. I want to thank the New Era for publishing “Eating Disorders: A Deadly State of Mind” and Janet Thomas for writing it. The article really opened my eyes. I do not know how I will ever pay you back.
Name WithheldMinnesota

One time, I was annoying my sisters. My mom sent me to time-out in my bedroom. That made me so angry that I threw a terrible fit.
While I was in my room, I decided to pray. I started thinking of my blessings and thanking Heavenly Father for them. As I did this, I started to feel peace in my heart. The angry feelings I had toward Mom went away. I know that the Holy Ghost helped me feel that way, and I have a testimony of prayer.
Jonah Leavitt, age 6West Linn, Oregon

And Bart knows that no stunning football victory, no league or world championship, could ever match the elation he felt in the mission field when, for example, one of his closest investigators finally saw the gospel light. “His wife and kids were already members,” Bart relates, “and he just didn’t want to make a commitment. We got to be really close, great friends. Then one night I asked him if he would be willing to pray to our Heavenly Father to find out if the Church was true. He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, and the whole family knelt down to pray with him. The Spirit came over us and everyone in the room felt it. I said, ‘Fred, do you know what you’re feeling?’ He couldn’t deny it. I said, ‘You know you want to be baptized,’ and he said, ‘Yes.’”

You’d have to have been me that day, lying on my bunk bed, before you could feel how I wanted a dog. I’d sneaked into the house and was lying there for about an hour before Mother knew. She stood in my bedroom doorway for a minute or so before she came over and lay down beside me and asked, “What’s the matter, son?”

Sometimes you can say, “Oh, nothing,” when Mother asks that. And other times you can’t. This was one of those other times. It was as if she had her arms around me and was looking into my eyes with all her might. Only she was just lying there beside me, waiting.

So I told her all about how I’d got into a fight up at Barney’s, and Tom and Scott said if I couldn’t play fair I could just go home. So I went. Talking about it to my mom made me cry. So while I was at it I told her what the real trouble was. “All this wouldn’t have happened,” I bawled, “if I only had a dog.”

Mother didn’t ask me whether or not I’d really been playing fair and what a dog had to do with it. She just lay there very still and listened. So I said some more. I told her that I hated school and that nobody liked me. I asked her how she would like to be seven years old and dumb and ugly and awkward and have people laugh at her when she used big words. I said I didn’t fit in this world anyplace, and God must have sent me to the wrong planet. The more I talked the more things I thought of. It was as wild and wonderful as any of my stories about Joey, and I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed howling so loud and feeling so miserable. Finally, I blurted out something I hadn’t really meant to say. “Besides,” I yelled, “There’s no such thing as Joey!”

Mother’s eyes filled with tears, and I was so sorry. I stopped crying right off and said quickly, “Please don’t tell Daddy—he’d be just sick.” That was a lucky thing to say because it made Mother smile right through her tears. And it struck me that this was the time to ask about a dog.

“Mother,” I said, wiping my eyes, “I’ll do anything in all my life if you’ll only get me a dog. I’ll do housecleaning forever. I’ll practice my piano lesson night and day. I’ll never ask for any more candy. I’ll do anything!” I was trying hard not to cry again because my mom never gives us what we bawl for. “I need a dog to love,” I whispered, “and most of all I need a dog to love me back.”

Mother started to explain once more about dogs in the city, and when she got to where she says that Tom and Scott had both wanted dogs, my mind was jumping with words, and I hoped the right ones would come out. And they did. They were magic words that changed everything.

“Mother,” I said, “I’m Rulon. And I’m a different kind of boy.”

She stopped right in the middle of what she was saying, and this time she did put her arms around me and looked into my eyes with all her might. She looked for so long I could hardly breathe. Then she said quietly, “Rulon, we will get you a dog.”

We got him the next day at a pet shop—a brown and white Pomeranian puppy, round and furry, with great, dark eyes and a waggly tail. You should have seen Tom and Scott when we brought him home.

“Spoiled kid! How come Rulon gets a dog?” they said almost together.

Mother seemed baffled for an answer, so I tried the words that had worked once before.

“Because I’m a different kind of boy,” I answered.

Their mouths dropped open. And they just stood there staring at me and my pup. Then Scott said to Tom, “He can say that again.” And they both snickered. So I did say it again.

“I’m a different kind of boy,” I sang out, “and Joey is a different kind of dog. He’s really mine. All mine. But you can pet him. And maybe when you say three times, ‘There’s such a thing as Joey’ he will be your dog too.”

They weren’t snickering anymore. They were laughing a real laugh, and I laughed too all the while they were saying, “There’s such a thing as Joey. There’s such a thing as Joey. There’s such a thing as Joey.”

Another time a man came to work on our house. My wife thanked him when he was done. “We’d like to give you a gift,” she said. She gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon.
The man became upset. He didn’t understand what we believe. He thought we didn’t believe in Jesus Christ.
Chris was brave and shared his testimony with the man. Chris said he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He said he believed in Jesus.

Sikeli Vuli laughs as he tries unsuccessfully to remember how many times he’s fallen in the river. Until not too long ago, an accidental swim was a fairly regular occurrence for those living in the small village of Navatuyaba, near Suva, Fiji.
That’s because if you needed to go to the city, school, or local store, you would have to cross the river that snakes slowly by the village, take a long walk to the nearest bridge (about two hours), or pay hard-earned and scarce cash for a bus ride.
“I have to cross the river many times a day,” says Sikeli, 13. “My friends live across the river.”
Crossing the river was by far the easiest choice, even if it meant using an unstable raft made of a few long bamboo poles lashed together. And if there were more than a couple of people waiting, it was faster to hold your schoolbooks and school uniform above your head and swim across in clothes that could get wet, because you’d probably fall off the raft anyway.
At least, that’s the way it was before the Church waded in and helped the members put a paddle to the problem. The Church provided a boat. You’d think it was an airplane, though, by the way the members’ spirits have been lifted.
“We’re grateful for the boat,” says Litiana Delai, 12. “It’s so much easier to get to the other side.”

A few years ago, I spoke with a young bishop who was spending hours each week counseling with members of his ward. He made a striking observation. The problems that members of his ward faced, he said, were those faced by Church members everywhere—issues such as how to establish a happy marriage; struggles with balancing work, family, and Church duties; challenges with the Word of Wisdom, with employment, or with pornography; or trouble gaining peace about a Church policy or historical question they didn’t understand.

His counsel to ward members very often included getting back to simple practices of faith, such as studying the Book of Mormon—as we were counseled by President Thomas S. Monson to do—paying tithing, and serving in the Church with devotion. Frequently, however, their response to him was one of skepticism: “I don’t agree with you, Bishop. We all know those are good things to do. We talk about those things all the time in the Church. But I’m not sure you’re understanding me. What does doing any of those things have to do with the issues I’m facing?”

It’s a fair question. Over time, that young bishop and I have observed that those who are deliberate about doing the “small and simple things”—obeying in seemingly little ways—are blessed with faith and strength that go far beyond the actual acts of obedience themselves and, in fact, may seem totally unrelated to them. It may seem hard to draw a connection between the basic daily acts of obedience and solutions to the big, complicated problems we face. But they are related. In my experience, getting the little daily habits of faith right is the single best way to fortify ourselves against the troubles of life, whatever they may be. Small acts of faith, even when they seem insignificant or entirely disconnected from the specific problems that vex us, bless us in all we do.

A few weeks ago while in Idaho reorganizing a stake presidency, I not only met some outstanding priesthood leaders and set three of them apart as a new stake presidency, but I also met a very special young lady I will not soon forget. The newly called presidency, one of whom was serving as a bishop at the time, asked if I could interview a prospective bishop so if he were cleared he could be installed the following Sunday after conference. The appointment was made. I sat in a private office with a well-groomed, attractive couple.
After a few words of greeting and introductions, I looked at her and said, “Tell me about your husband.” She hesitated and finally said, “Elder Ashton, I really don’t know him very well.” Since this was a most unusual response, I promptly said, “Please tell me about that.” She responded with, “We have only been married three weeks.”
This young couple, both in their early thirties, he an attorney and she a schoolteacher by profession, were still honeymooning, and their deep, newly found love for each other was most evident. When I said, “I want to talk to the two of you about your husband becoming a bishop,” she said, “Some nights ago I had a dream indicating Randy would be a bishop. I just hoped it wouldn’t come too soon.” She continued with, “Even though we are newlyweds [and incidentally, they told me the reason they had waited until their thirties to marry was because they had spent a long time finding each other] if you are impressed to call Randy to be a bishop, he will be a good one, and I will help him.”
What a beautiful attitude. What sustaining support. Her commitment to her husband, Church, and self was made long before I asked my questions. She had resolved to choose the good part, reminding me of the meaningful statement made about Mary in Luke 10:42: “One thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Hailey also assists those who are curious about the gospel. She remembers a bus ride when her teammates asked questions about the Church. She was thrilled to answer.
“I explained what a temple is and what we do there. I explained what a missionary is. I explained that following the standards in For Strength of Youth leads to blessings.”

After the ship landed in New York on June 6, Henry and Mary still had a long way to go. They travelled to Nebraska by boat and train, often riding in cattle cars. The bedding and equipment sent by their mother were not waiting for them in Nebraska, so on July 13 they set off in a Church wagon train with only the clothes on their backs.
To make matters worse, Henry lost his wooden clogs when he crossed the Platte River. Not wanting to wait for the rest of the wagon train to reach the river, Henry got up early and left by himself—something he knew he was not supposed to do. When he reached the river about noon, he was tired and fell asleep. When he woke up, he saw the last of the wagons pulling up on the other side of it.
He shouted, and William Henry Chipman, the captain of the company, told him to swim across the river. Taking off his heavy coat and wooden clogs so he could swim, Henry plunged into the water. When the current carried him downstream, Captain Chipman rode his horse into the water. Henry grabbed a stirrup and held on while the horse swam across.
He was safe, but he had to walk across the remaining plains barefoot. His feet became black, hard, and cracked from the journey; blood often oozed from the cracks. Sometimes at night Mary cried in sympathy as she pulled spines of prickly pear cactus from his feet.

Our family recently attended church in a nearby community. We enjoyed the meetings, but during the children’s activities in Primary, something happened that was interesting yet disturbing to me.
During singing time, the chorister innocently passed out a piece of candy to each child and instructed them, “This is a singing pill I’m passing out. After you all finish eating, you will be able to sing extra loud and pretty.”
It was very effective: singing time was a great success. But I worry about the subtle, unintentional lesson taught.

As usual, my alarm went off at 4:30 A.M. And as usual, I reached over and shut it off. I sat up in the dark and asked myself why I did this to myself every morning. After complaining about how stupid early-morning seminary was, I got up and got ready to go. My brother was already up.
As usual, we arrived five minutes late. I sat in the back row farthest from the teacher. Lately my testimony had been shrinking. Things had not been going right, and my grades had been going down. I thought that if I was living right, everything else in my life should be good too.
As I sat there, not listening to the lesson, I began to wonder if the Church was really true. The thought scared me. I was worried that the things I had been taught all my life were wrong. Right there in class, I started praying silently for help in finding out if the Church was true. By this time, I had stopped listening to the lesson being taught. Finally seminary was over, and I left the building with my brother.
We were getting into the car when I noticed a piece of paper on the windshield. At first I thought it was an advertisement. I opened the paper, and in big bold letters at the top it said, “In Which Shall We Believe?” I began reading. It was a list of verses from the Book of Mormon and quotations from other Church books and leaders that seemed to contradict each other. I realized that the paper was from another church that had a building down the street.
My brother and I took the paper home and went straight to our parents. They read through it. We talked for a few minutes about one of the statements, which they helped answer. Then they put the paper on the desk. We had to leave for school.
A couple of days later, I picked up the paper and began looking up each quotation. The paper was wrong. I found that the statements did not contradict each other. The people who had collected the quotations had printed only part of a scripture or part of a statement—only the parts that seemed to contradict one another. This made me remember what one of my Primary teachers had told me: “Read the scriptures as a whole and not a part.”
I knelt down beside my bed and prayed. I asked Heavenly Father if the Church was true and if what I was reading in the Book of Mormon was correct. I said amen and stayed on my knees for a few minutes and listened. When I got up, I felt energized. I felt terrific. I felt happy. I knew by how I felt that the Church and the Book of Mormon were true. That was my answer.
In a way, I am grateful to those people who were trying to tear down the Church. Because of them, I was motivated to find out for myself—and I found that what I had been taught really was true.

The team effort of these friends was tested in their last month of school when, with only a week’s notice, their club adviser asked them to organize a food drive, which they carried out with success.

Little by little, these faith-building experiences worked a mighty miracle in Fetauai’s own heart, and soon, he could no longer withstand his yearning to join the Church. “[It was] like the feeling you have while in a long journey without water and . . . food in a desert,” he says.
Fetauai immediately called the local bishop to organise his own baptism, and less than a week later, this well-known educator and minister was now a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The news was shocking, especially for parishioners in the church he left behind. “People talked about our conversion . . . with disbelief. [It was] the main topic in the street, the market and on public transport in those times!” Fetauai laughs. But the backlash was also fierce. “We had friends who turned into foes . . . in the village, [and] in our families.”
It was a difficult transition, but Fetauai now refers to those painful memories as the “forgotten experiences” because, he says, “after the raging storms against us calmly faded away, we finally saw the light of Christ, brighter than any other light shining into our lives.”
Fetauai was baptised in 2013, then sealed to his family for time and all eternity the year after. By 2016, he was a bishop, and in 2017 he was called to serve as president for the Savaii Samoa Pu’apu’a Stake.
On reflection, President Tiatia has one explanation for his eventful pathway to the true gospel of Christ. “Through all the challenges we faced and the decisions we made, we . . . review the beginning and finally say: ‘God is always at the helm of every soul.’”

You know from studying Church history that we have tried to live as one in a variety of settings. A story from one of those tries, in Orderville, Utah, gives us a clue as to why it is so hard.
Orderville was founded in 1870 and 1871 by people who wanted to live the united order; in 1875 they began the order. They built housing units in a square, with a common dining hall. They built a storehouse, shoe shop, bakery, blacksmith shop, tannery, schoolhouse, sheep shed, and woolen factory. They grew and made nearly everything they needed, from soap to trousers. They had carpenters, midwives, teachers, artists, and musicians. They produced enough surplus that they could sell it in neighboring towns for cash: with that they built up a capital fund to buy more land and equipment.
The population rose to seven hundred people. One hundred and fifty of them gave Orderville a special advantage: they had come to Orderville from the mission on the Muddy River, where they had nearly starved. When those who had been called to the Muddy were released, they were in near destitution. Twenty-four of those families went to Long Valley, founded Orderville, and pledged all they had to the Lord. They didn’t have much, but their poverty may have been their greatest contribution. Their having almost nothing provided a basis for future comparison that might have guaranteed gratitude: any food or clothing or housing that came to them in Orderville would be treasure compared to their privation on the Muddy mission.
But time passed, the railroad came, and a mining boom put cash in the hands of people in the neighboring towns. They could buy imported clothes, and they did. The people in Orderville were living better than they had in years, but the memory of poverty on the Muddy had faded. They now focused on what was in the next town. And so they felt old-fashioned and deprived.
One ingenious boy acted on the discontent he felt when he was denied a new pair of pants from the Orderville factory because his were not worn out yet. He secretly gathered the docked lambs’ tails from the spring crop. He sheared the wool from them and stored it in sacks. Then, when he was sent with a load of wool to sell in Nephi, he took his sacks along and exchanged them for a pair of store pants. He created a sensation when he wore the new-style pants to the next dance.
The president of the order asked him what he had done. The boy gave an honest answer. So they called him into a meeting and told him to bring the pants. They commended him for his initiative, pointed out that the pants really belonged to the order, and took them. But they told him this: the pants would be taken apart, used as a pattern, and henceforth Orderville pants would have the new store-bought style. And he would get the first pair.
That did not quite end the pants rebellion. Orders for new pants soon swamped the tailoring department. When the orders were denied because pants weren’t yet worn out, boys began slipping into the shed where the grinding wheel was housed. Soon, pants began to wear out quickly. The elders gave in, sent a load of wool out to trade for cloth, and the new-style pants were produced for everyone.
You know that isn’t a happy ending. There were many challenges Orderville faced in the ten years they lived the order there. One of them they never really conquered. It was the problem of not remembering. That is a problem we must solve, too.

I knew President Uchtdorf when I was serving as Area President in Europe. From the moment I met him, I recognized in him a man of immense spiritual depth and tremendous capability. I knew the Lord was mindful of him. Twenty-three years ago, I had the honor of extending to him the Lord’s calling to serve as a stake president in Frankfurt, Germany. As I have watched over the years, I have noticed that everything under his direction has succeeded. The Lord is with him.
When I think of President Uchtdorf, two words come to mind: Alles wohl—that’s German for “All is well.”

This month of indexing has been revealing for me and has given me more momentum on the idea of indexing, and I am grateful to all of you. It also allowed me to become aware of several other things, among others: patience, perseverance, unity, and that whatever happens, the work of our Heavenly Father will move forward with or without us. So, I prefer to be part of it because I know more than ever that it is His work, and I am confident in the continuation of this mission because God cannot lie, and the spirit of Elijah is what will help us resist the difficulties to come in the last days.

“One woman, as a teenager, put alcohol and drugs above the Lord. Her obsessions later ruined her marriage and were passed on to her children. In time, she realized she needed to change her life. She came back to the Church and eventually went to the temple. But the damage was already done. Her worship of graven images is reflected in the way her children are living their lives.”