Gospel Story Finder

I have Proximal Focal Femoral Deficiency (PFFD), which made one leg grow slower. My left leg was nine inches (23 cm) shorter than my right.
Doctors thought they might have to amputate my leg, but we found a doctor in Florida who could lengthen it. The “fixator” he attached made my bone grow a millimeter every day. Over the summer, my leg grew five inches (13 cm)! I got a blessing before one of my surgeries, and I know it helped.

The Lord said to his own, “O ye of little faith.” Aren’t we all? Once when far away from home, after three days of quite intense suffering, I finally admitted to my companion, Brother Harold B. Lee, that I was in distress. He gave me a sleeping pill he had, then knelt by my bed and blessed me. Though I had gone through three nights in pain and almost without sleep (it was then 3:00 A.M.), I was fast asleep moments after the blessing. I am now ashamed to confess that the next morning when I awakened, my first thought was of the potency of the pill. Then, as hours passed and I knew the effect of the pill must have passed, the distress did not return, and I fell on my knees in remorse to ask forgiveness of the Lord for having given credit to the medicine rather than to him. Months passed and still there was no return of pain or distress. I am ashamed, but I probably represent numerous people who have done likewise. O we of little faith! “Brother A. was not healed.” “Sister B. got well, but it was a long process.” “Brother C. would have gotten well anyway.”

The sun was just touching the water of the Great Salt Lake on a warm Sunday evening one August, when the radio speaker nestled snugly between windshield and handlebar of my police motorcycle crackled into life. “Motors 38 and 40,” said a female voice, “report of a noisy motorcycle in the neighborhood. Vicinity of Glendale Circle and Navajo Street. Complainant does not wish contact.”
I wrestled the radio mike from its clip and acknowledged the call. “Motors 38 and 40, 10–4.” My partner and I were on motorcycle patrol for the Salt Lake City Police Department. The cooler evening air felt good against my face as we picked up our pace, riding straight and tall, side by side, to answer this complaint. It had been a quiet day so far, for which I was grateful.
We soon arrived in the vicinity of the complaint and rode around several streets looking for the offending motorcycle. No such vehicle was seen, and I was just reaching for my mike to report GOA (gone on arrival) to the dispatcher, when around the corner came a new Harley Sportster. It was ridden by a handsome young man wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He was well groomed and tan, just the kind of a fellow who would attract a 16-year-old girl like the one who was riding behind. She was very pretty and obviously enjoying the ride, her arms wrapped tightly around the boy’s waist and her hair blowing in the breeze. I cringed as I noticed her bare legs and shorts, knowing what injury she might receive if an accident were to occur.
My partner and I pulled up near this young couple and the cycle, and I listened to the pipes. It certainly wasn’t too loud, but perhaps they had been cutting up a little too much around the neighborhood. I was sure this was probably the culprit and decided to stop them to advise them to be a little more cautious. I moved up, nearly alongside the other cycle, and beeped my horn. The young man looked around, saw the police uniform, and suddenly, without warning, screwed the throttle handle full on, and away they went at a high rate of speed. I was surprised and shocked, not expecting such a response. I quickly kicked my motor into a lower gear, and the chase began.
Around and around several streets we went, siren wailing and lights flashing. My partner dropped back to use the radio and give locations as I continued the pursuit. Out of the subdivision and onto California Avenue we went. This was a major street, long and straight, and speeds increased. Soon we found ourselves sliding and scraping around the corner and heading north on Redwood Road. This main highway was heavy with traffic. The sun was gone now, and most cars had their lights on. My young man turned off his lights to try to lose me. My wailing siren was causing traffic to pull to the right and into his path. I slowed a little, giving him room because I feared an accident might occur. He was really desperate now. I could see him turning, looking back to see how close I was, and turning again, trying to turn the throttle tighter to get more speed. Still I stayed with him.
As we approached another major intersection at North Temple, I saw something that I will never forget. This young man, as he went around the corner, suddenly turned quickly on the cycle seat, bringing his elbow back and into the side of the young girl behind him. His blow knocked her off the bike, landing her in the middle of the busy intersection. His motorcycle fishtailed as he lost his burdensome load, but he regained control and sped away without so much as a backward glance as she went skidding and sliding along the gravel and asphalt.
Of course, I stopped my pursuit to give first aid and call for help, and the young man made good his escape—for a while. What a tragic way for a fun afternoon ride to end. How disillusioned this young girl was as her newfound “friend” had sacrificed her so willingly to save himself. I suppose if my partner and I had not come along that day, he could have pretended to be a friend to this girl for a long time, and perhaps she might have been hurt in even more significant ways. The young man was caught and arrested several hours later. It was determined that he was AWOL (absent without leave) from the Marine Corps, and he was returned to them under military guard.

Recently, at the dedication of the Columbus Temple in Ohio, I had an interesting experience. My wife and daughter were with me. A granddaughter and her husband and children drove up from St. Louis.

As I sat in the celestial room, I thought of my great-grandfather, the first in my family to join the Church. I had recently visited his place of burial in Canada just to the north of the New York boundary line. He accepted the gospel when the first missionaries came there from Kirtland. His children were too young for baptism. He died at the young age of 38. Tradition has it that he was the victim of a smallpox epidemic that raged through that part of the country. I do not know of anything of significance that he did in the Church other than he kept the faith.

Then there was my grandfather, who was baptized in Nauvoo and who subsequently crossed the plains in the migration of our people. His young wife and his brother-in-law both died on the same day. He made rough coffins and buried them and picked up his infant child and carried her to this valley.

At the request of Brigham Young he built Cove Fort, was the first president of the stake in Fillmore, and did a thousand other things to move this work forward.

Then came my father. He came here to the BY Academy as a very young man and was taught by President Karl G. Maeser. He went east to school, and then he taught here in the business department until the Brethren asked him to move to Salt Lake City and take over responsibilities there. He became president of the largest stake in the Church with more than 15,000 members.

These three good men represent the three generations of my forebears who have been faithful in the Church. Reflecting on the lives of these three men while I was seated in the temple, I looked down at my daughter, at her daughter, who is my grandchild, and at her children, my great-grandchildren. I suddenly realized that I stood right in the middle of these seven generations—three before me and three after me.

In that sacred and hallowed house there passed through my mind a sense of the tremendous obligation that was mine to pass on all that I had received as an inheritance from my forebears to the generations who have now come after me.

I thought of an experience I had long, long ago. In the summer we lived on a farm. We had a little old tractor. There was a dead tree I wished to pull. I fastened one end of a chain to the tractor and the other end to the tree. As the tractor began to move, the tree shook a little, and then the chain broke.

I looked at that broken link and wondered how it could have given way. I went to the hardware store and bought a repair link. I put it together again, but it was an awkward and ugly connection. The chain was never, never the same.

As I sat in the celestial room of the temple pondering these things, I said to myself, “Never permit yourself to become a weak link in the chain of your generations.” It is so important that we pass on without a blemish our inheritance of body and brain and, if you please, faith and virtue untarnished to the generations who will come after us.

My dad had joined the Church in Utah in December 1991. When he came back to Nigeria, we went to church for the first time. I got baptized in January 1992 when I was nine years old. When I was 14, the prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), came to Nigeria at Port Harcourt. My family drove from Owerri to Port Harcourt. When we were driving back, the airport is along the Owerri road, we saw the prophet’s car. We told my father “Follow him”.
So, we followed the prophet to the airport. At the airport, they told the prophet some members had come to say goodbye. Nobody told us to come. We were just lucky to see the prophet on the way. While the prophet was shaking all our hands, he shook my hand and held my it and said, “Will you go on a mission?”
I said “Yes”.
The prophet said, “If you go on a mission, the Lord will bless you and your family.”
I was 14 years then and had not entered university. I got my first degree before going on a mission. I entered university life in Nigeria. University life was different and influenced me. Then the miracles began. After you get your degree, you are required to do a year of national youth service. When I was called to do my national service, I was called to Lagos. Normally, a lot of people pay money in bribes to the government to go to Lagos, but I didn’t pay anything. While I was in Lagos, I had a mighty change of heart and I prepared to go on a mission. From Lagos I was sent to Accra as a missionary. I met my wife and came back to Accra after my mission, and we got married in 2010.
I am from Nigeria; but I live in Ghana. In January 2023, I went to my village to participate in the presidential election. The Church is not there. One day a man and a woman came to visit me at my house. I am married to a Ghanaian, and they wanted to talk to me. While visiting with them, what came into my mind was the question, “what can I do for this family?” I felt like the best gift I could give this family was the gospel. I asked them if I could come to their home on Tuesday to teach them. As I was teaching them, they were responding positively. I focused on family and taught them the importance of family first. I then went to the house next door to teach their neighbors. I did not even start with my kindred. My kindred came to me later and were upset. They said to me, “how can you start a church and not even tell us?”
It was not my plan to do missionary work when I was there. I took my scriptures, but I did not even take a white shirt and tie.
As I was going around teaching the people of the village, there was a man who was baptized in 1982. He joined the Church in Lagos but when he came back to the village, the Church was not there. He became a pastor and used the Church’s Bible Dictionary and Topical Guide to teach. The people there thought he was a brilliant pastor. They didn’t know where he was getting his information from. Because he was technically a member, I focused on teaching his wife and daughter. The whole family got baptized. I was using my own money to hire a van to go to church in Umuahia, which was the closest place. The bishop and stake president were happy to receive us. My father even came from the city to the village to go to church with us.
I told my elder brother, who is a stake president in Owerri, what was going on. He said we fell under the Nigeria Enugu Mission. Eventually, we got permission to worship in my village. We decided to use my grandfather’s house to hold church in. My grandfather has passed away. When he was alive, white missionaries came to him and he said he would support the Church, this was back in the 90’s.
The people helped me move all the property and clean the house. The people cleaned the house as if they were members, but they were not yet baptized. The missionaries came and on the first Sunday, we had about 19 baptisms and later more, for a total of 39 baptisms. The stake president has applied for us to become a branch. My father came and bore his testimony and said he never thought the Church would be in his village.
The group still worships in my grandfather’s house. From my village, we now have two high councilmen called. There is someone enrolled in BYU Pathways. The Church is growing, and it makes me happy.

A few years later my parents came for a visit. While they were visiting, my father brought up some subjects we disagreed on that I didn’t want to discuss with him. He persisted, however, until I was close to losing my temper. I excused myself for a moment and went to my bedroom, where I knelt and prayed to Heavenly Father and asked Him for help in dealing with my father. The answer came in the form of a thought: the account of Nephi and the broken bow.
I turned to the story in 1 Nephi chapter 16. I thought about Nephi being humble enough to go to his father, who had murmured against the Lord, to ask where he should go to obtain food (see verse 23). With that thought, I felt prompted to go to my father and ask for his guidance as well as for a priesthood blessing.
When I returned to the living room and asked Dad for a blessing, his heart was touched and he began to cry. “Let me think about it,” he said.
Over the next few days he fasted and prayed. Then, before Dad and Mom left, he gave me a beautiful blessing.
After that experience, Dad began to turn his life around. On their way home from Kansas, my parents visited Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, USA, where my father had a powerful spiritual experience.
Before long, my parents became active and committed Latter-day Saints. Over the next several years, they served two missions together—one in Germany and one on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Dad was serving as a stake patriarch when he died in 1987.
The Lord knew that Dad was a good man. It was through the Book of Mormon that I received my answer, and it was through my acting on that prompting that Dad came to know he needed to be a leader for our family. This experience changed everything for us.

It was on Monday, 10 August 2020—around 8 p.m.—I was in a hurry to leave the office and rush home before the 9 p.m. curfew, which was set by the government as a safety measure to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
I changed into my riding gear: beginning at my feet, then my knee guards, my jacket, and then reflector straps. I grabbed my helmet and headed out of the office. My motorbike was all alone in the dimly lit parking lot. Everyone else had already gone home, I thought, “maybe they are having dinner with their families right now”. I put on my helmet and the gloves, sat astride my motorbike, and turn on the ignition—Oh, I loved the sound of that Suzuki engine. Off I went as I waved goodbye to the security guard.
Over the years I have been riding the same road to work—I have ridden it so long that I have memorized the entire route, the bumps, a corner, even where the potholes are. That night, time was not on my side so I figured I should rush to the supermarket next to my house before it closed so that I could grab something to eat. Down the hill I descended—I think I was doing 70 kph—when suddenly I saw a monkey in the middle of my lane. I wanted to swerve but there was an oncoming vehicle in the other lane, also in a hurry to get home before curfew. I stepped on the rear brakes and gently tried to slow the bike, but I lost control, went airborne, and landed on the tarmac—flat on my stomach. The bike made several rolls and slid off the road.
For a moment I couldn’t hear anything but a buzzing sound. I could not feel my body. I tried to raise my head, but it was too heavy. I thought to myself, “I am either dead or paralyzed.” A few moments later, I heard someone ask if I was okay, and another surprised voice declared, “It’s a lady rider!” I tried again to raise my head and managed to look up. But all I could see were pieces of my beautiful motorbike scattered over the tarmac.
These good Samaritans helped me up and took me on the side of the road. They asked me to sit, relax, and to confirm if I was feeling pain anywhere in my body. They picked up my motorbike and moved it off the road, and I could hear one of them saying, “From the look of the bike, the lady must be badly injured.”
I stood up and noticed I was not in pain. I could walk, I could talk, I could also move my hands without feeling any pain. I was perfectly fine.
It dawned on me that I miraculously had escaped any injuries—even worse, death. I sat back and asked myself “If I were to die today, am I prepared to meet my maker?” Well, the honest answer was, “No. I wasn’t.” That part scared me the most, not the idea of dying but the fact that I was not prepared.
As a Latter-day Saint, I remembered how many times I have been counseled by leaders of the Church to be ready at all times just like the five virgins described in Matthew 25:1–13. I realized I had put more focus on worldly things than on things eternal. “It was time to change all this,” I reckoned. “So, what do I need to do, Lord?” I asked.
Elder Kim B. Clark of the Seventy once said, “‘Look unto Jesus Christ in every thought. Doubt not. Fear not’. This is a call to trust the Lord completely, to surrender our will and to yield our hearts to Him and through His redeeming power to become like Him.”1
I determined that what I need to do is to offer a sincere prayer to the Lord, to repent of my sins every day, to feast on His word, to keep His commandments, to partake of the sacrament, to keep His Sabbath holy, and to worship in His holy temple as often as I can.
Since that day of the crash, I strive to do these simple acts of faith—following Elder Clark’s advice: “Look unto Jesus Christ in every thought. Doubt not. Fear not.” I testify I have felt the love of my Heavenly Father drawing me closer and closer to Him and I have felt the sanctifying influence of the Holy Ghost as the days go by.

As a young man, I had many questions about the Church. Some of my questions were sincere. Others were not and reflected the doubts of others.
I often discussed my questions with my mother. I am sure that she could sense that many of my questions were sincere and from my heart. I think she was a little disappointed in those questions that were less sincere and more argumentative. However, she never put me down for having questions. She would listen and try to answer them. When she sensed that she had said all that she could and that I still had questions, she would say something like this: “David, that is a good question. While you are searching and reading and praying for the answer, why don’t you do the things you know you should and not do the things you know you should not?” This became the pattern for my search for truth. Through study, prayer, and keeping the commandments, I found that there are answers to all of my important questions. I also found that for some questions, continuing faith, patience, and revelation are needed.2
Mom put the responsibility of developing faith and finding answers on me. She knew that the important answers would come from my seeking truth the way that Heavenly Father has prescribed. She knew that I needed to find the truth. She knew that I needed to be sincere in my questions and be willing to act on what I already knew to be true. She knew that I needed to study and pray and that I needed to develop greater patience as I sought answers from the Lord. Willingness to be patient is part of our search for truth and part of the Lord’s pattern of revealing truth.3
Over time I came to know that my mother was teaching me Heavenly Father’s pattern for seeking truth. Faith grew, answers began to come, and I accepted a mission call.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! A busy yellow bee landed on a flower by Andrea. She jumped up and hurried away. Andrea didn’t like bees. She moved to a different part of the garden to pull weeds by a leafy tomato plant.
The sun was warm on Andrea’s back. She could hear Mom close by in the rows of corn. Suddenly Andrea heard more buzzing. Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! She ran to find Mom.
“There are too many bees, Mommy!” she said. “I want to work in the garden without the bees.”
“We need the bees to make our garden grow,” Mom said. “Jesus created bees to pollinate the plants so we can have our favorite foods.”
“Without the bees we wouldn’t have our garden?” Andrea asked. She thought about all of her favorite plants. She liked pretty flowers. She liked to eat strawberries and tomatoes. She would be sad to live in a world without them.
“I’m glad Jesus made the plants,” Andrea said. “And I’m glad He made the bees too!”

I’ve told the story about the little baby nine months old who was born blind. The father came up with him one Sunday and said, “Brother Cowley, our baby hasn’t been blessed yet, we’d like you to bless him.” I said, “Why have you waited so long?” “Oh, we just didn’t get around to it.” …

I said, “All right, what’s the name?” So he told me the name, and I was just going to start when he said, “By the way, give him his vision when you give him a name. He was born blind.” It shocked me, but then said to myself, why not? Christ said to his disciples when he left them, “Greater things than I have done shall you do.” (See John 14:12.) I had faith in that father’s faith. After I gave that child its name, I finally got around to giving it its vision. That boy is about twelve years old now. The last time I was back there I was afraid to inquire about him. I was sure he had gone blind again. That’s the way my faith works sometimes. So I asked the branch president about him. And he said, “Brother Cowley, the worst thing you ever did was to bless that child to receive his vision. He’s the meanest kid in this neighborhood; always getting into mischief.” Boy I was thrilled about that kid getting into mischief!

One morning I said our family prayer. I asked that we could show Heavenly Father how kind we could be that day. Later I got upset with my brother and was sent to my room to calm down. When my mom came to talk to me, I told her I remembered what I had said in my prayer that morning and that I didn’t feel upset with my brother anymore. She said the Holy Ghost was helping me remember those words about being kind. I was able to make better choices the rest of the day. I’m grateful for prayer and for the Holy Ghost.
Maren E., age 5, Utah, USA

Now the second story, if I might delve back into a personal experience of my own as a child. I was baptized at the age of eight; and shortly after my baptism and my confirmation I started taking piano lessons. It was at the early part of the Depression, and shortly after I had completed my first year of lessons the Depression had its full impact on our family and we could not afford the lessons any longer. But that didn’t stop my activity in music, and I continued to practice. Like many of you who have taken first-year piano lessons and studied such an illustrious author of children’s books as John Thompson, I continued my work. Over at school they provided violin lessons free, and since the price was right I started taking violin lessons. After about six months or a year the teacher needed a violist in a student string quartet, and since I had a longer arm than the next fellow, I was transformed into a viola player—not a very good one, but there I was on the viola.
At home I started to do what many of us do who learn a little at the keyboard—I started to improvise. My hands wandered over the keys. Who hasn’t sat down at the family piano and struck a chord or made up a tune? It is a very common experience.
But I was persistent with the improvising idea, and finally after a month or two had improvised a little piece of music. I was elated with this and, in fact, took the trouble to write it down. I didn’t know that you could go to the music store and buy music manuscript paper with lines already printed that you could write your own notes on. So I took a ruler and barred my own five-line staffs. The lines weren’t very parallel and the result was pretty amateurish. It took a long time for me to figure out whether, in a given place in the music, it was a quarter note or a half note, whether it was G or F#, whether it was in 4/4 or 3/4 time, and whether I was playing in the key of C or G. But during the long laborious process, I finally arrived at notating this first “Opus 1, No. 1.”
I called my mother to the piano and I said, “Mother, I have composed a piece!” And what mother wouldn’t be happy at that announcement? She patted me on the head and said, “Well, how nice. Why don’t you play it for your teacher at school?” Well, my classroom teacher at school didn’t know very much about music, so she said, “Why don’t you play it for the class?” All of a sudden I became very famous in the third grade as a composer of a piano piece which I entitled “Brownie’s Ponies,” which shows my level of maturity at that time.
As a result of the recognition that had come from my third-grade class I decided, “Well, I’ll write another piece.” So I improvised for a few days or a week and took the trouble to notate the second piece. Then one after another of these things rolled off over a period of four years, until I had collected about ten of them. At age 12, I had ten pieces that I had written down, all for the piano.
Then it was that I made a startling discovery. I still hadn’t taken any more piano lessons, but I had worked on the violin and viola and continued to practice my piano to the degree one can as a 12-year-old without a teacher. I went back over my old piano books, and I made this horrifying discovery—that my “Opus 1, No. 1” wasn’t really mine after all, but it was page 25 of John Thompson’s children’s piano book, We’re in the Navy. I had subconsciously absorbed this page and thought it to be my own when I started to improvise. I went into the same patterns that my fingers had already been trained to follow. And without recognizing this relationship, I had assumed that this was my own work.
This is a horrifying discovery to a 12-year-old. It would be disturbing for anyone, but it was particularly devastating to me at that time. I thought my career as a composer was going to end in fraud. Did I dare reveal to anybody that I was a fake? I could have copied the piece directly from the page of John Thompson. Instead, it had taken me three months to write it down. I could have gone back to page 25 and copied it out in half a day! However, I did transpose it. There was one thing unique in my version—I changed it to a different key. But even that isn’t very difficult. So I went back and thought, “Where did the other nine pieces come from?”
So for the next hour or so I went through all the pieces I could possibly find. I found that “No. 2” had a little snatch of “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” in it, and “No. 3” had a little bit from somewhere else. As I got a little further along I found there was a snatch here, a touch there, and a fragment there, but I couldn’t find that any of the other nine were actually lifted totally from another source as “No. 1” was.
Rather than going back and blurting out my confession to my class, I started to think, “Well, what does it really mean to be original after all? Certainly ‘Opus 1, No. 1’ isn’t original and a lot of the others don’t seem to be too original. How do you become original as a composer?” After all, there are only 12 notes in a scale, and there must be a hundred million pieces that have been written in the last thousand years. If you actually made a computer analysis of the pieces that have been written you would find just about every possible combination has been used! How, then, do you become creative as a composer with the same 12 notes that everyone else is using?
I’m not sure that I have the answer to that question, but I would like to suggest that a similar question exists for us all in any of a thousand other fields. How does my contribution to the world mean anything or have any uniqueness? As I said, I don’t have the answer to that, but I would like to give just one thought which may approach a solution.
It seems to me that part of the genius of our creation is the fact that each one of us is different from the next one—that the Lord didn’t make two leaves exactly the same way, or two of anything. Even identical twins really have some significant differences in them. Each of us is a little universe all of our own. And after the stamp of our particular creation was made, the unique cast was discarded. Of course, we all have a pancreas, big toenails, eyelashes—but even here the stamp is different for each one. One of the tasks of this life is to find that difference and to express it—meaningfully. If we do that, then in some way our contribution to the world, to the Church, to the community, to our families, and to everyone else, is unique and original.
Our contribution may have some superficial similarities or even some significant similarities to the contributions of others. Much of our daily work is similar to the next person’s. Our food is similar; we all wear apparel that is similar to the next person’s; we drive similar kinds of cars; we live in similar kinds of homes. But may I suggest that because each of us is significantly different that that difference has meaning, and that meaning can be translated into some kind of service that is meaningful to those around us. Herein lies an element of creativity and originality that is meaningful.

I was in the middle of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Only minutes before, I had been surrounded by friends and teachers, but I was suddenly completely and utterly alone.
I immediately understood the danger I was in. A solitary 15-year-old American stood out like a sore thumb in the bustling palace museum. I had come to China with other high school classmates on a school-sponsored trip, and our teachers and guides had warned us numerous times about the possible dangers of touring a foreign country if we were not careful.
I walked around the area, pushing through crowds of tourists—Chinese and foreigner alike—and stood on my tiptoes trying to look for the matching red and white shirts that each member of our group wore. But I saw nothing. Somehow, my group had slipped away without me and I had no idea what direction they had gone in. I sat down and watched the entrances and exits. Ten minutes passed, then 30, then 45. No one from my group appeared.
Someone grabbed my hand. I looked up to see a short woman with slightly crazed eyes and long fingernails. She pulled at my hand. “Follow me,” she said in broken English. “Pretty girl, follow me.”
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Get back,” I yelled, pulling my hand back. Before she could grab it again, I raced through an exit and entered another section of the city.
I ran for a while until I was even more lost than before. I sat on a nearby step, away from the groups of people, and started to cry. I knew a few words of Chinese but certainly not enough to get directions back to our hotel, somewhere on the other side of the sprawling city of Beijing. And at this point, I was not even sure where an exit was.
Amid tears, I started to pray. I admitted that I had been foolish to wander from the group, even for a moment, and I pleaded with Heavenly Father to help me find a way back to my group.
I stood up and walked back in the general direction I had come from. I did not receive any immediate revelation—and I was unsure of what that revelation would sound or feel like even if I did receive it. I had felt the Spirit before, a warm feeling after serving someone or hearing a talk in church, but I had never felt anything specific, certainly not directions on where to go. I started walking forward uncertainly, continuing the prayer in my heart.
I finally reached a fork in the road. I started to go right when I heard a voice whisper, “Stay.”
The voice was so soft that I almost disregarded it completely as one of my own thoughts. But it contained a sureness that I certainly didn’t feel at the moment. “Sit on that bench,” the voice said. I looked up and saw a bench in the middle of the fork. I went over and sat down. Only three minutes later, a familiar white and red shirt appeared in the crowd and waved toward me. It was our tour guide for the day.
I jumped up from the bench I was sitting on. I was so happy I almost hugged the woman.
“We have been looking for you for an hour!” she said. “Where were you?”
As she led me back to my group, I explained to her where I had been, starting with my separation from the group and ending with my decision to sit down instead of going right at the fork in the road.
“You’re very lucky,” she said. “If you had gone right at that turn, it would have taken you in the opposite direction from the rest of the group. The city is so big, I would never have been able to find you.”
I left China a few weeks later, managing to not get lost again during the trip, but I have thought back many times to the moment when I heard the voice of the Spirit whisper to me. It was not the kind of prompting I had received before, but it is what the Lord knew I needed in order to avoid going down a wrong path. I also recognized how easy it would have been to ignore it if I had not been listening.
Since that day, I have heard the Spirit many times in many different ways, warning me of both physical and spiritual danger. Sometimes I have seen the consequences of following or disobeying that voice like I did that first day in the Forbidden City. More often, I haven’t been able to see the results. But I have learned that when I humble myself and am willing to listen, the Lord will help me recognize the Spirit’s promptings and He will guide me back to where I need to be. With Him, I am never alone.

Once at a Special Olympics baseball game, they adopted a team that was losing by an impossible margin. The team members had given up—until they found themselves with a real clown cheer-leading squad. “We’d find out the name of the guy up to bat and then we’d start yelling, ‘Come on, Charlie, you can do it. Come on, Fred!’ In that one inning they more than doubled their score. They still lost, because it was the last inning, but when they left there they were so excited that they were just in heaven.”

One ever remembers that Christmas day when giving replaced getting. In my life, this took place in my tenth year. As Christmas approached, I yearned as only a boy can yearn for an electric train. My desire was not to receive the economical and everywhere-to-be-found windup model train; rather, I wanted one that operated through the miracle of electricity. The times were those of economic depression; yet Mother and Dad, through some sacrifice, I am sure, presented to me on Christmas morning a beautiful electric train.

For hours I operated the transformer, watching the engine first pull its cars forward, then push them backward around the track. Mother entered the living room and said to me that she had purchased a windup train for Mrs. Hansen’s son Mark, who lived down the lane. I asked if I could see the train. The engine was short and blocky, not long and sleek like the expensive model I had received. However, I did take notice of an oil tanker car that was part of his inexpensive set. My train had no such car, and pangs of envy began to be felt. I put up such a fuss that Mother succumbed to my pleadings and handed me the oil tanker car. She said, “If you need it more than Mark, you take it.” I put it with my train set and felt pleased with the result.

Mother and I took the remaining cars and the engine down to Mark Hansen. The young boy was a year or two older than I. He had never anticipated such a gift and was thrilled beyond words. He wound the key in his engine, it not being electric like mine, and was overjoyed as the engine and two cars, plus a caboose, went around the track. Mother wisely asked, “What do you think of Mark’s train, Tommy?”

I felt a keen sense of guilt and became very much aware of my selfishness. I said to Mother, “Wait just a moment. I’ll be right back!”

As swiftly as my legs could carry me, I ran to our home, picked up the oil tanker car, plus an additional car from my train set, ran back down the lane to the Hansen home, and joyfully said to Mark, “We forgot to bring two cars that belong to your train.” Mark coupled the two extra cars to his set. I watched the engine make its labored way around the track and felt a supreme joy, difficult to describe and impossible to forget. The spirit of Christmas had filled my very soul.

One Saturday evening after returning from an FSY conference, I decided to go check out a job opportunity in the outskirts of town—a long distance from where I live. As I was trying to get back home afterwards, I stood by the roadside waiting for a bus, but none going in my direction came.
As I waited, I noticed a man nearby who also seemed to be looking for transportation. Just then, a cab driver slowed down in front of me. At first, I was hesitant. From the way he approached, it seemed he was offering a “drop,” which is what we call a private ride—and I wasn’t prepared to pay that much. So I told him I wasn’t looking for a drop, just a ride to the next bus stop. To my surprise, he agreed as though that was fine. Feeling it was OK, I got into the car. At that moment, I thought I was the only passenger in the car.
The man I had seen earlier then walked quickly toward the cab. He got into the back seat in a way that made it seem like we were friends traveling together, even though we were complete strangers. Still, I thought it was just him at the back seat and me in the front with the driver.
As we started driving, I began to feel pressure on my back—someone’s knee was pushing against my seat. At first, I ignored it. But when it happened again and again, I grew uncomfortable, so I turned around to see who it was. To my shock, there was another man sitting directly behind me—someone I had not realized was in the car at all. This startled me deeply, because when I got into the car earlier on, it looked completely empty.
This realization quickly gave way to deeper concern. Why had the driver stopped for me and acted as though the car was empty if someone was already inside? And why was the unknown man sitting directly behind me—hidden from my view as I entered—instead of behind the driver where I would have easily seen that someone was already in the cab? To keep me unsuspecting, the second man who joined after did not enter through the back door behind me—which would have revealed the hidden passenger—but quickly went around to the other side and entered behind the driver, making it appear as though he was the only passenger in the back seat. This meant there were two people in the back, not one, and the situation immediately felt wrong.
At that point, an overwhelming sense of fear came over me. The driver’s expression and the suspicious seating arrangement made me feel strongly that the three men were working together and possibly planning something bad. I could almost see it on the driver’s face that there was something sinister about their intentions.
Despite my fear, I remained calm and firmly told the driver to stop the car, and then he pulled over. I quickly got out, paid the fare, and walked away. He drove off without saying anything.
Reflecting on the situation, it became clearer to me that I had narrowly escaped danger. Whether it was kidnapping or robbery, I believe their plan was to lure me into a false sense of security. I realized that the hidden passenger, who kept pressing his knee against my seat, was in a way testing me—checking to see whether I was alert and attentive enough to notice. If I had not reacted, they might have assumed I was distracted and moved forward with their plan to attack me.
That day, I learned an important lesson: always be alert and attentive to your surroundings, no matter how ordinary the situation seems. I also learned that God, who loves us more than we can comprehend, often gives us clues or signs when danger is ahead. If we remain alert and sensitive to the Spirit, we can discern these warnings that will help us escape the dangers ahead and be safe.

On September 11, 2001, we awoke eager for an exciting day! We were foster parents to two little girls, and over the course of a year four-year-old Olivia and five-year-old Amber had entwined themselves around our family’s hearts. We decided to go before a judge to adopt them. Our excitement turned to solemness when we sat horrified watching the Twin Towers collapse, with the loss of thousands of innocent lives, yet we were offering a new life to these innocent little girls. It brought joy to all that day.

Three days later, we travelled to the Salt Lake City Temple where our two precious little girls were sealed to us for time and all eternity. Later, as we stood looking at a statue of Christ, Amber placed her little hand on the statue’s hand. The thought came to me that, although wicked people do unspeakable things to the innocent, the sacred covenants and sealing power of God in His holy temples is more powerful than any evil force and will bind us together with His love as families forever.

My mom took me shopping for school supplies. I found the prettiest and coolest backpack in the whole store. I was so excited to buy it! I looked at all the pretty girls on the front. They had cute faces and cool hair, but their outfits were not modest. I showed my mom the backpack. She asked, “Well, what do you think, Allee?”
In Primary we’re learning about baptism and what it means to belong to Jesus’s family. I know that Jesus would be embarrassed if I had a backpack like that. I told my mom that the backpack was really cute, but that I didn’t want to get it. So then I found another backpack that was modest and cute. I’m glad I chose the right.

I have been a member of the Church since I was 10 years old. I don’t think I really knew what I was doing at first. I’ve been through my ups and downs in life, but right now I’ve made up my mind about what I want in life. In the last few weeks I have experienced the pressures of life and the hurt and loneliness of death. Last December I remember discussing the importance of reading and studying the gospel with my brother, Scott Macy. Scott wasn’t really a blood relative, but we were close enough to be. That December he sent me a letter that has a message for all of us. He wrote, “I think it’s really neat that you want to study the gospel more. It has everything anybody needs. How does it feel to be one of those who want, and can get, what is right?”

Scott’s goal in life was to serve a mission. Even though he was too young for a full-time mission, he was a great missionary to his friends and to everyone around him. On August 1,1976, Scott left to serve a mission for the Lord, but not on this earth.
I have received the New Era for many years, and I have just recently become interested in it. Feedback has been interesting to me. It helps me grow and want to learn what makes people so happy. The articles hit close to home and make me realize that I don’t have it so hard after all. I’m very thankful that my father has ordered the New Era even though no one would read it. Now I look forward to getting it. Scott’s question is very valuable. Can you answer it? Well, I can. It’s great!
Name WithheldCanby, Oregon

One young woman from Haiti in the Caribbean showed her desire to be a disciple of Christ by inviting her friend who was not a member of the Church to come with her to an FSY conference. At first her friend’s father did not want to give his daughter permission to go. Church leaders explained about the positive experiences that awaited her and the wonderful young adult counselors who would be watching over her. The father gave permission for his daughter to attend, and after seeing the difference it made in her life, he also gave her permission to attend Church meetings and—six months later—be baptized.