Gospel Story Finder

Clare couldn’t stand the quiet at dinner. Why wasn’t anyone talking about him? Did they think about him every minute, as she did? Clare got a terrible feeling she was going to cry and there was nothing she could do about it. It seemed impossible to fill up the hole someone left when they died.
“Clare, why don’t you go upstairs until you feel better,” her mother suggested.
“Yeah, Clare,” her brother said. “You’re not the only one who feels bad.”
“Well, you don’t act like you even care.”
“Oh, Clare,” Aunt Nettie sighed. Her eyes looked sad, twisted by wrinkles that tried to close them up.
Clare was glad to get away from the table. She lay down on her bed and tried to picture herself walking with her grandpa, the way they had every summer night after dinner. He would walk fast, talking all the time. And then he’d sing, loud schmaltzy songs that embarrassed Clare but gave her a secret pleasure. They’d pass a neighbor’s house here and there, and watch the lights come on as darkness came down through the trees. By the time they’d get home, stars would be out and crickets would be singing all over.
“In the city, a light in the window gets lost,” Grandpa would say. “But in the country, it really means something. Every light looks important, like a bright star that dropped down to rest among the trees.”
Aunt Nettie opened the door a crack. “Clare,” she said, “I’ve got a job I want you to help me with.”
“What is it?” Clare sat up, realizing she had been asleep.
“I want you to help me cut up your grandpa’s shirts.” Nettie turned on the light. “For a quilt I’ve been wanting to make.”
“I don’t want to cut up his shirts.” Clare grabbed for the box under Nettie’s arm. “Why can’t we just leave them? Put them away somewhere?”
Nettie was silent for a moment. “I’d like you to help me make a quilt,” she said, sitting down on the bed. “That’s something you and I could do together this summer.”
“I don’t think so. Thanks anyway, Aunt Nettie.”
The next day Clare was drawn to the guest room by the quiet, methodical slice of scissors. Seeing Nettie there made it seem like Grandpa might walk in at any moment. They had always come to visit together. Nettie was cutting up a blue striped shirt. Clare had to smile, remembering Grandpa in that shirt, sneaking her a piece of candy after Nettie had said, “Absolutely not!”
“Sit down,” Nettie invited. The floor on either side of her was piled with long strips of fabric, light colors on one side, dark colors on the other.
“All those shirts,” Clare sighed, seating herself on the floor by one of the piles. She tried to picture Grandpa in every one of them at once. A blue work shirt seemed alive with his long, tanned hands as they searched the shadows of his garden, his whole face smiling when he brought up the first carrots and tossed them to Clare.
On a moleskin shirt, she could imagine flecks of sawdust as Grandpa bent to his workbench, sanding a birdhouse and testing the finish with his palm, over and over. Clare sniffed the limp sleeve, delighted to find a trace of that fresh wood smell. But she mostly felt sad watching those shirts come away from the scissors in long ribbons of blue, white, brown.
“A quilt is a wonderful thing, Clare.” Nettie stopped cutting. Then her head bent to work again. “There’s a story in every one. Somebody put in every stitch, and they thought a thought for every one of those stitches—sometimes humming, sometimes laughing or crying, sometimes just dreaming. There,” she said, the last shirt slipping through her fingers. “Tomorrow we set to piecing.”
Clare found Nettie at work early the next morning. “What are those for?” Clare asked, noticing a new pile of small yellow squares.
“They go in the center of each block. That’s how the pattern goes.” Nettie picked up a yellow square and stitched it to a blue strip. Then another strip went on, and another. The block grew. Nettie rocked and stitched. Her old alarm clock ticked.
Grandpa would never have chosen yellow, Clare thought. It would get dirty too fast. Grandpa had worked hard. He was the only man Clare knew who could wear down a shovel.
As the days went by, the piles of strips became a little smaller. First there were five blocks, then ten.
“Set them together and see how they look,” Nettie said one morning, handing the finished blocks to Clare.
Clare played with the blocks. They were kind of like a puzzle. As the colored strips came together, they raced across the blocks like railroad tracks. Clare and Grandpa had walked along the tracks a lot, collecting things. He collected anything he came across—rocks, songs, lighted windows, even people. Grandpa had a friend wherever he went.
Nettie held up a strip for Clare to examine. “Now that was your grandpa’s favorite shirt,” she said, laughing. “He always thought he looked so fine in that shirt. ‘Nettie,’ he’d say, ‘it’s a crime for anyone to look as handsome as I do.’”
Clare laughed. “Some of these work shirts are pretty faded,” she said, fingering the fabric. “They might not look very good.”
“Won’t matter,” Nettie said flatly. “That’s one reason I chose this pattern. Every little piece doesn’t matter. It’s how they all work together that makes the quilt come alive.”
Aunt Nettie was always wanting to teach you a lesson. Grandpa had just talked for fun, about everything.
“What pattern is it?” Clare asked. She knew Nettie was waiting with the answer.
“Log cabin,” Nettie said. “There’s a name for every pattern and a reason for the name. Look at the way those strips go round and round. Don’t they remind you of a log cabin? It’s had that name for a long, long time. The men built the cabins, but it must’ve been the women who made them warm inside. With their quilts,” Nettie added. She smiled at Clare’s arrangement of blocks. “There, that’s not so hard, is it?”
“I guess not,” Clare said. She tried to picture the finished quilt. “But I’ll leave the stitching to you, Aunt Nettie.”
One day when the strips were nearly gone, Nettie called Clare.
“Ninety-nine blocks and one to go,” she announced. “That one’s for you to do.”
“Oh, Aunt Nettie,” Clare complained. “It will look so much better if you do it.”
“Nonsense,” Nettie said, handing Clare a spool of thread. “You’re going to put in one block of this quilt, Clare, if it kills us both. Your grandpa would’ve been proud of you.”
Clare tried to follow Nettie’s instructions. Her stitches looked big and wobbly, but the block did grow. It took her most of the afternoon to finish, with Nettie rocking patiently all the time.
Clare’s brother poked his head in. “The little homemaker,” he said. “What a sweet picture.”
“You look out, buster,” Nettie said, shaking her scissors, “or I’ll set you to piecing with her. You wouldn’t be the first man to make a quilt. Your grandpa put in a stitch or two in his day!”
“He did?” Clare laughed with her brother. “Imagine Grandpa quilting!”
“You bet he did,” Nettie went on. “He’d sit and work with me at night sometimes. But you should have seen how fast he could get it put away if he heard someone coming up the drive!”
They all laughed.
“Finished,” Clare said. “Block one hundred. It’s a good thing I didn’t do them all. I’d have been a hundred before they got finished!”
“Look at all those yellow squares,” Nettie said, laying out the blocks. “Do you like it?”
“I guess so, sure,” Clare said. “But why did you choose yellow?”
“I told you there’s a reason and a name for every quilt,” Nettie said slowly. “Well, in the log cabin quilt, a red square in the middle of each block stands for the hearth.”
“I think Grandpa would have liked red better,” Clare said.
“Maybe,” Nettie nodded. “But this isn’t his quilt; it’s yours. And a yellow square stands for the light in the window.” She smiled. “I loved him for a long time too, Clare. He was always saying things like that.”
Clare felt warm and somehow lighter. It was as if the sadness had been pushed back a little. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to finish that quilt. She wanted to wrap up in it, to smell it and feel it all around her. She wanted to keep it forever, with its hundred lights and Grandpa smiling through the window of every one. “Aunt Nettie,” she said, “if I practice, could I help you join the blocks?”

In September our first granddaughter was married in the Salt Lake Temple. All of the aunts and uncles (and some of the older cousins) came together for the sealing. You have heard it said before, but I want to say it again: Nothing compares to the joy of being surrounded by your family in a sealing room. At times like these, when earth communes with heaven, all material concerns, worries, and pressures vanish. You realize just how priceless an eternal family unit can be.

Late that afternoon the whole family gathered to help prepare for the reception and take family photos. All of the family worked together decorating for the special event. Joy and excitement filled the room! As a wife, mother, and grandmother, I stood back watching the love, respect, and unity in our family, and my heart filled with deep joy and appreciation for the blessings of family.

We all tasted a bit of heaven that day. Everything that you take with you into the next life is everything that money cannot buy. Covenants that seal husbands and wives, parents and children, are of inestimable worth. Love that spans the generations and binds hearts together is nothing less than divine.

In a devotional address at BYU, Elder David A. Bednar offered this tribute to his dear wife:
"Before attending her sacrament meetings, Sister Bednar frequently prays for the spiritual eyes to see those who have a need. Often as she observes the brothers and sisters and children in the congregation, she will feel a spiritual nudge to visit with or make a phone call to a particular person. And when Sister Bednar receives such an impression, she promptly responds and obeys. It often is the case that as soon as the 'amen' is spoken in the benediction, she will talk with a teenager or hug a sister or, upon returning home, immediately pick up the phone and make a call. As long as I have known Sister Bednar, people have marveled at her capacity to discern and respond to their needs. Often they will ask her, 'How did you know?' The spiritual gift of being quick to observe has enabled her to see and to act promptly and has been a great blessing in the lives of many people."7

I am filled with emotion when I see my wife read the Book of Mormon every day. As she does so, I can feel her testimony just by seeing the joy in her countenance as she reads over the passages that testify of the mission of the Savior.
How wise are the words of our Savior: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”
Inspired by this, I asked my grandchild Raquel, who had recently learned how to read, “What would you say about setting a goal to read the Book of Mormon?”
Her answer was “But, Grandpa, it’s so hard. It’s a big book.”
Then I asked her to read me a page. I took out a stopwatch and timed her. I said, “You took only three minutes, and the Spanish version of the Book of Mormon has 642 pages, so you need 1,926 minutes.”
This could have scared her even more, so I divided that number by 60 minutes and told her she would need only 32 hours to read it—less than a day and a half!
Then she said to me, “That’s so easy, Grandpa.”
In the end, Raquel, her brother, Esteban, and our other grandchildren took more time than this because this is a book which needs to be read with a spirit of prayer and meditation.

In the Republic of Ireland, 18-year-old Andrea Stapleton of Barnhown, Araglen, County Cork, is the only LDS student at a Christian Brothers School. She’s also one of only two girls attending school there.

“It was awful at first,” Andrea recalls. “The boys would fire paper pellets and make fun if I got anything wrong, but things are easier now. There are no girls’ sports taught here and not much opportunity for church discussion. However, I do aim to be a good example of a true Latter-day Saint at all times. My parents and seminary have taught me how to behave.”

The second example comes from a letter I received from a student.

My whole life I have believed very strongly in the Church, but being here at BYU–Idaho has strengthened my testimony immensely. I had an experience a couple of weeks ago that helped me realize just how much of a privilege it is to be here.

I recently attended an outdoor dance. Just before the dance was to begin, my friends and I were sitting on the grounds eating pizza. I took my wallet out of my pocket to show my friends some pictures, and then I forgot to put my wallet back as we got up and left for the dance.

Later that evening I realized what had happened, and I asked my RA if I could go out to look for the wallet. He gave me permission, and I proceeded toward what I thought should be the location of my wallet. I quickly realized that my wallet was no longer there. I knelt down right there in the grass and began to pray to my Father in Heaven to help me find my wallet.

I then returned to my dorm room with a very optimistic attitude. I walked into my room fully expecting the wallet to be sitting right there, but it wasn't. So I proceeded to check my telephone messages. And there was a message from the "Lost and Found" saying that someone had returned my wallet and I could pick it up any time.

I am so grateful to be here at a university where I can trust my fellow students. I love looking at the person in front of me in a classroom and knowing that he or she believes in what I believe. At any other university I probably would never have seen my wallet again, but here at BYU–Idaho it is different. I never found out who the person was who returned my wallet, but I have thanked him or her many times in my prayers. I have thanked them for helping me to have a spiritual experience, one that I will never forget.

I always tell my granddaughter that tithing is the best money I ever spend.
It was nearly 60 years ago when I got into the tithing habit. I had gone to Chicago to find a job after graduating from college. I had in my pocket the money I’d earned from a summer job. It wasn’t much, but since I would be staying with friends and since the cost of living in 1941 was low, I thought I would have enough money to support myself until I could earn more.
The first Sunday I attended church in the Chicago area, one of the speakers talked convincingly about the importance of paying tithing and bore his testimony about the blessings of keeping that commandment. Although I had been raised in the Church, I had never paid or even thought of paying tithing. But that changed during that sacrament meeting. When it was over, I calculated how much money I had made during the summer and figured the tithing I owed on it. With almost all the cash I had, I paid my tithing debt. I had barely enough left for bus and train fare, and I didn’t have a job yet.
When I had left my family in another state, I had been sure I could make it on my own without financial help from my parents. Now I wasn’t so confident.
Finally, with only a few coins left, I stopped in a department store and used some free stationery to write my parents a letter asking for help. The letter would probably take three days to be delivered. Could I hold out that long? I wondered.
The next day I received a call from a company that needed some temporary help. (It later turned into a full-time job.) Gleefully I called my dad to tell him, “Never mind! I don’t need any money.”
Since that time I have always had what I need when I pay my tithing. And that is why I say to my granddaughter, “Paying tithing is the best money I ever spend. It buys me peace of mind.”

When John Batty was eight years old, his family was taught the gospel by two missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was 1854, and the Battys lived in Pilley, Yorkshire, England.
A few years later, George and Encora Batty and their children joined the Church and applied for passage on a ship sailing from Liverpool to New York City. They were going to Utah to be with the Saints.
A few months before leaving England, eleven-year-old John was skipping up a dirt path toward his home. As he went along the hard-packed trail, he noticed a large apple orchard in a nearby field. He could see that the trees were covered with ripe, red apples. His mouth watered, and he decided to take an apple from the nearest tree.
There was only one problem. The trees did not belong to John, and his father and mother had taught him that being honest was the best way to live. “Never take anything that does not belong to you,” his father had told him many times.
Ignoring his parents’ teachings, John quickly climbed a tree next to the path and picked three large apples. Placing one in each of his pants pockets and one in his mouth, he quickly slid down the tree trunk and raced up the road toward home. Before he got there, he had eaten all three apples and his stomach had begun to ache.
“What gave you a stomachache?” his mother asked.
“I don’t know,” John replied, being dishonest again. He knew that if he told his mother about the apples, she would ask where he got them.
John was tucked into bed to sleep off his illness. As he lay on his straw tick mattress that night, he made a promise to himself: He would work and save enough money to pay for those three apples. And he would tell the owner of the orchard that he had climbed the tree and stolen them.
Before he could keep his promise, however, his family sailed for America. John thought about those stolen apples every day during the long weeks it took to sail across the Atlantic Ocean.
From New York, his family went by boat, stagecoach, covered wagon, and foot to Council Bluffs, Nebraska. There they bought a handcart and piled their belongings in it for the long walk to Utah. Young John Batty walked and helped push the cart all the way. He wore out the only pair of shoes that he owned.
When the Battys arrived in Salt Lake City in September of 1857, President Brigham Young asked them to move on to southern Utah to live among the Indians in a small settlement called Toquerville at “the head of the Ash Creek.”
Barefoot, young John Batty walked the three hundred miles to Toquerville. Every day he thought about the stolen fruit. His conscience was so hurt that he could not even eat an apple.
Thirty years later, long after he was grown up and married, John Batty was called on a mission. He was asked to return to England to preach the gospel to his former friends and family living in the Yorkshire and Nottingham areas of England.
Upon his arrival in Liverpool, John made his way by train back to Pilley. Walking along a path toward the edge of town, he passed the same orchard from which he had stolen the apples as a boy. Standing among the trees was a very old, stooped, white-haired man.
John called out to him, “Do you own this orchard?”
“Yes,” the man replied.
“Have you owned it for a long time?”
“Fifty years.”
Here was John’s chance to repent of stealing those apples. “Sir,” he said, “I used to live nearby when I was just a boy. One day before my family sailed for America, I climbed one of those trees and stole three apples from you. I have been sorry ever since. I would like to ask your forgiveness and also pay you for them.”
“Certainly,” the man said, “but they will cost you three times as much as they cost clear back then.”
“That is fair,” John replied with a smile.
With only a little change in his pocket, John paid for the three stolen apples and bought another one to eat. In his journal that night, he wrote, “That was the sweetest apple I ever tasted!”

It was hard for the youth of the Jonesboro Arkansas Ward to leave the residents of the local Children’s Colony when their service project was over. It was the first time many of the LDS youth had contact with the mentally or physically impaired, and their evening of games touched them in ways they’d never felt before.
They played basketball, softball, croquet and other games with the residents of the children’s home, and decided that it was one of the best activities they’d ever had. Many outside community members were also impressed with the efforts of the LDS youth. Now that they have had a taste of this kind of service, you can bet they’ll be back for more.

Walking into my Young Women class on Sunday, I felt alone. My family had just moved across the country to a small town. We knew no one in our new area; all our relatives lived thousands of kilometers away.
Looking for a place to sit, I saw a chair on the second row by the wall. As I sat down, I noticed everyone except me had someone to sit by. I kept telling myself things would change after I had some time to make friends. But no matter how many times I tried to convince myself, I still felt very alone.
Halfway through the lesson, I noticed a painting of Jesus Christ on the wall next to me. At that moment I realized I wasn’t alone. It was as if the Savior had been sitting next to me the whole time.
It took a while to get used to living in our new town and to find new friends. At times I did feel alone, but I always remembered that Sunday when I noticed the painting of the Savior and realized I was never alone. Jesus Christ will always be my friend.

President Ezra Taft Benson had a similar experience while serving as a missionary in South Shields, England, in 1923. He states:
“We fasted and prayed sincerely that we would say only those things that would touch the hearts of the investigators, then went to the sacrament meeting. My companion had planned to talk on the first principles of the gospel. I had prepared to talk on the apostasy.
“The hall was filled, and there was a wonderful spirit in the meeting. My companion spoke first and gave an inspirational message. I followed and talked with a freedom I had never experienced before in my life. When I sat down, I realized that I had not mentioned the apostasy. I had talked on the Prophet Joseph Smith and borne my witness of his divine mission and of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. After the meeting ended, several nonmembers came forward and said, ‘Tonight we received a witness that your church is true. We are ready for baptism’” (Ensign, July 1987, pages 8–9).

Some time ago, I received a copy of the April 1997 De Ster (Dutch). As usual, I took a break from my daily chores to start reading this magazine. The cover of the children’s section caught my eye. It portrayed Jesus Christ with a little girl. Although I’m a grown woman and the mother of two children, I desired at that moment to be that little girl—safe in the Savior’s arms.
I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind the entire day. I wanted to put my arms around my own children and let them know I love them. I felt good knowing that they trust me, but it was even better knowing that they trust the Lord.
As I prayed at the close of the day, for a brief moment I felt as if His arms were indeed around me. Inside I felt at peace.
Annelies Prent-Pellis,Dordrecht Branch, Rotterdam Netherlands Stake

I was baptized in May 2016. My first year of seminary started later that year. I was skeptical at first, and I wasn’t ready to get up early, but I was prompted to go. I was still a little unsure about recognizing the voice of the Spirit, but being in seminary has helped me recognize that voice. Through the Spirit, I’m able to know the scriptures are true. I know that the Spirit prompts me to highlight scriptures with meaning and that there’s always a reason. The scriptures guide me when I’m lost, and they teach me. Whenever I’m having a bad day, I can open them up and make my day better.
Shelby L., 16, Montana, USA

One bishop taught his new deacons quorum presidency these duties. So the young presidency began to talk about what that might look like in their quorum and in their ward. They decided they should start visiting elderly ward members to see what they needed and then do that.
Among those they served was Alan, a rough, often profane, and sometimes hostile neighbor. Alan’s wife, Wanda, became a member of the Church, but Alan was, as we say, something of a piece of work.
Still, the deacons went to work, comically ignoring his insults, while they shoveled snow and took out trash. Deacons can be hard to hate, and Alan eventually began to love them. At some point they invited him to church.
“I don’t like church,” he responded.
“Well, you like us,” they said. “So come with us. You can just come to our quorum meeting if you want.”
And with the bishop’s approval, he came—and he kept coming.
The deacons became teachers, and as they continued to serve him, he taught them to work on cars and to build things. By the time these deacons-turned-teachers became priests, Alan was calling them “my boys.”
They were earnestly preparing for missions and asked him if they could practice missionary lessons with him. He swore that he would never listen and never believe, but, yeah, they could practice at his house.
And then Alan got sick. And he softened.
And one day in quorum meeting, he tenderly asked them to pray for him to quit smoking, and so they did. But then they followed him home and confiscated all of his tobacco stash.
As his failing health put Alan into hospitals and rehab centers, “his boys” served him, quietly exuding powers of priesthood and of love unfeigned (see Doctrine and Covenants 121:41).
The miracle continued when Alan asked to be baptized—but then he passed away before it could happen. At his request, his deacons-turned-priests were the pallbearers and the speakers at his funeral, where they—fittingly—warned, expounded, exhorted, taught, and invited all to Christ.
And later, in the temple, it was one of “Alan’s boys” who baptized that erstwhile deacons quorum president in proxy for Alan.
Everything John the Baptist said to do, they did. They did what deacons, teachers, and priests do all over this Church and all over this world.

I once sat in the Provo Tabernacle and heard a man from Hawaii tell a story that is deeply embedded in my mind. He may be the biggest liar in the world—I don’t know. I just know that this is what he said. He said, “I own some land in Hawaii, and I have dedicated part of that land as tithing—the best tenth part. About fifteen years ago [and I know this is true], there was a huge tidal wave that originated up in Alaska, swept down through the Pacific Basin, and killed many people. I was in Hawaii working on my property at that time. I didn’t think much about the weather; it was a nice day. Suddenly I heard my wife drive up behind me in our old rattletrap truck. She said, ‘We must leave immediately.’

“I said, ‘Why?’

“She said, ‘I just heard over the radio that there’s a huge tidal wave coming this way and we just have time to get away.’ I looked out to the ocean, and sure enough, I could see it. I don’t know how tall it really was. It looked as if it were three hundred feet tall—a wall of solid water coming right toward me with a tremendous roar.”

Then he told me how he reacted. In the telling of what he did, he made me analyze what I would do, because this man knew who he was and what powers he could command. I wondered if that was the same conclusion I would have come to, or if I’d have seen myself as just another puny man of the twentieth century—about to be overcome by the population explosion and pollution and the decay of the government and all those other problems that preoccupy our conversation—and therefore I would have gotten in the truck and run away. That may not have been such a bad choice, except that this man knew who he was and what he was about. He said, “I don’t know why I did this, but I said to my wife, ‘Get in the truck and leave.’

“She said, ‘No, no, you must come.’

“But I repeated, ‘Get in the truck and leave.’

“She got in the truck and left. I went up and I stood on the tenth part that I had consecrated to the Lord. I don’t know why. I really don’t think that land is any more sacred than any other; I just felt better there. I stood on that particular piece of consecrated land, and I raised my hands forward and out at shoulder level.”

I thought, “Why would he raise his hands like that? We don’t do that in the Church.” I wondered if maybe he’d recently seen Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. But apparently it made him feel better to raise his hands like that, and in every move and every choice he was making, he was revealing the kind of person he saw when he looked in the mirror. He said, “I raised my hands like this and said these words: ‘In the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood which I hold, I command these waters to part.’ You can come right now and look at my property and see the destruction that happened here and the destruction that happened there, but my land was preserved.” What interested me was that he knew who he was—uncreate intelligence, a potential father of gods who had kept his first estate and was living in the last days, an incipient priest and king.

Sam Stewart builds temples. Their spires do not rise majestically above busy freeways or green hilltops, but above the floor of the Stewart family room in Henderson, Nevada. Their walls are not hewn from fine granite but cut from plain brown cardboard boxes. Yet these knee-high models somehow capture the majesty of real temples.
Sam (11) hopes to design real temples someday. Architects (people who design buildings) must have an artistic flair, and Sam does. His mom first discovered his talent when he was just three years old. She walked into his room and was astonished to see pictures of dinosaurs all over the walls. On the one hand, she didn’t feel that bedroom walls were quite the right place for drawing dinosaurs. On the other hand, they were drawn so well! She suggested that Sam use paper next time, but the already-hatched reptiles were left to roam the walls.
Cardboard replaced paper as the young artist’s favorite surface when he was nine years old. The family was reading about putting on the whole armor of God (see Eph. 6:13–17). There were cardboard boxes lying around because the Stewarts were sending packages to Sam’s brothers who were on missions. The boxes and the armor collided in Sam’s mind, and he began constructing a cardboard “shield of faith.” After he finished it, he shaped a “sword of the Spirit” out of wood.
About this time, Sam began to feel a strong attachment to the nearby Las Vegas Nevada Temple. At first he appreciated it simply because it was beautiful. But as he learned more about the purpose of temples, he came to love it for the blessings it brings to people’s lives. This interest soon grew to include all the temples of the Church. Sam began filling a binder with pictures of the world’s temples and a file with diagrams and information about their design, history, and construction. By the time he had filled the binder, he knew that he wanted to build temples of stone someday. In the meantime, he would build temples of cardboard.
With boxes, a pair of scissors, a hot-glue gun, and a ruler, he created a faithful scale model of the Las Vegas Temple. It was astonishingly good. No one taught him how to build cardboard temples. He invented the craft as he went along.
Next came his version of the historic Nauvoo Illinois Temple, which was then being rebuilt. The family read all they could find about the project as Sam raised his cardboard walls. He drew the sunstones and other carvings onto the surface with a pen. The Manti Temple and the Preston England Temple followed. Then Sam started working on his masterpiece—the Salt Lake Temple, crafted in far greater detail than the others. This project has taken a year so far and is not yet finished. Once it’s completed, he plans to build models of the Montevideo Uruguay Temple and the Portland Oregon Temple.
Sam doesn’t just build temples; he studies them, too. He learned so much about the stone carvings on the Nauvoo Temple that his dad invited him to explain their meaning to the temple preparation class he teaches. Sam has also given family home evening lessons on temple architecture to several families in the ward.
He is not shy about sharing his love of temples with his friends from other religions. They like to watch him build, and as he works he quizzes them about temple facts. By now they know all the answers.
Working on temples doesn’t fill all of Sam’s time. He is an excellent student who studies hard because he knows that to be an architect he must be good at math and get good grades. He enjoys sports, including skiing, baseball, and soccer. He especially loves the outdoors and the beauties of nature. He is always eager to visit his family’s cabin in the mountains of Utah.
Families and temples just seem to go together, and Sam loves his family even more than he loves temples. His brothers, Willie and John, who are twins serving missions in Uruguay and England respectively, are role models for him. He is especially close to his sister, Lea, a student at BYU. Five years ago Lea suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident, and she now uses a wheelchair. Sam often paints with her and plays wheelchair basketball with her when she is home on vacation. “Sam’s very sensitive to the feelings of others,” Lea says. “Since I’ve been in the wheelchair, he’s always there to help.”
“Sam wants to understand things spiritually,” his dad comments. “He prays. He reads the scriptures. He asks a lot of difficult questions—the kind that parents don’t always know how to answer. He’s made me a better person just being around him.”
His mom adds, “He has a clear vision of what’s right and wrong, and he’s strong in doing what’s right. He wants to make people happy. If I’m down, he knows it, and he’ll cheer me up.”
This builder of temples is also helping to build a happy family.

As I arrived at the hospital, the young doctor who was attending me did what he could. But I had expanded so much, almost twice as big like a blister, that it was very difficult to tell if I was lying on my back or my stomach. And with all that, he tried to find some life signs and couldn’t. He declared me legally dead. He covered me with a sheet and took me back down to the entrance to the emergency care center. And there I was left on a cot. A nurse walked by. She was just beside the cot when my arm jerked slightly under the sheet. She became quite alarmed. They gathered all their resources and took me back up to intensive care.
Seven weeks of excruciating pain followed. Peter was given no chance to live. Teams of nurses and doctors had to relieve each other. Gradually Peter approached the threshold of consciousness.
I could hear them talking. It was like a fantasy because of all the pain. It was like a cloud around my mind. I heard the doctor say to my mother, “There is no chance that Peter will live.” When I heard him say this, I became very angry. I wanted to get up and hit the doctor. I remember trying to get off the bed, but I was tied down. I’ll never forget that feeling when the doctor said, “I don’t know how he has survived this long. There’s no chance that he’ll live.”
I remember thinking as I was slipping into a coma that I felt like I was dying. This happened many, many times, only I couldn’t remember the other times. I could only remember the time I was going through. As I was slipping away, I was so mad at the doctor that I said, I’ll prove to you I’m not going to die. I’ll keep living.”
The pain was so severe that I made a commitment to myself that before I gave up I would count to ten. I would see if I could make it to ten before I died. I’d get to five or six and feel myself slipping, and I’d say, “I’ve got to get to ten.”

For yet others, a testimony of the Book of Mormon comes more slowly, after much study and prayer. I have a friend who read the Book of Mormon searching to know if it was true. He applied the invitation in Moroni to ask God with a sincere heart, with real intent and faith in Christ, if the Book of Mormon is true.6 But he did not immediately get the promised spiritual answer. However, one day as he was deep in thought, driving down the road, the Spirit testified to him of the truth of the Book of Mormon. So happy and overwhelmed was he that he rolled down the car window and yelled, to no one in particular and yet to all the world, “It’s true!”

Mitch Davis: It is so good to be here with my lovely bride, who I also met and courted on this hallowed campus.

Several years ago I had a very dramatic experience regarding trusting the Lord. I was backpacking with my 10-year-old son, two of his friends, and our faithful dog, Pluto, when we were hit by lightning.

We were hiking above timberline when a sudden storm blew in. We pitched our tent, and I put the boys inside their sleeping bags to keep them warm. I started fixing dinner on our little camp stove. Then, suddenly, I was gone.

Although I have no recollection of the lightning hitting me, the boys tell me that it blasted through our tent’s roof and hit me square in the chest and that I flew backward and landed on the floor unconscious with my eyes open but rolled back into my head.

The bulk of the strike passed through my chest and into the dog sitting behind me, killing him. The rest of the lightning curled down my right arm and struck the boy seated next to me, then danced wickedly about the tent, burning holes in sleeping bags and striking the two other boys.

But I knew nothing about this. In my mind, at least, I ceased to exist.

After some time I became aware of myself again. I began to be able to hear, although I could not see or move any part of my body. As if from a great distance I could hear the three boys screaming. I heard my son cry out, “Dad, please don’t die!” One of the boys leaned over and gave me a single puff of artificial respiration. The other promised God he would never do another bad thing in his entire life if Brother Davis would just wake up.

But I couldn’t wake up. I could only lie there, helpless, wondering what in the world had happened to me.

Then I became aware of something else—a dark presence I can only describe as impending death. I felt myself starting to leave mortality and realized my only hope was divine intervention. I fought with every fiber of my being to call on Heavenly Father.

Then a most interesting thing happened. Before I could call on Father, He called on me. Through the unmistakably clear voice of the Spirit, He encouraged me with these simple words: “You served a valiant mission. Ask in confidence.”

Heavenly Father knew I needed extra faith at that moment. He knew I had faith in Him but lacked faith in myself as a worthy recipient of the miracle I so desperately needed. So he sent me that encouraging message: “You served a valiant mission. Ask in confidence.”

I exerted every ounce of faith I had in a fervent, frenzied prayer. Heavenly Father responded by immediately freeing me from death’s grip. I regained consciousness and the strength, several hours later, to hike off the mountain with my boy, his friends, and the body of our dog.

I do not tell you this story for the sake of mere drama, nor to boast about my personal missionary prowess. I assure you I was no more valiant than most missionaries. I tell you this story because of the significance of the Lord’s choice of words to me: When my life literally hung in the balance, all that mattered were my two years of obscure service in the villages of Argentina.

How grateful I was I had decided to go on a mission and that I had worked hard once I got there! I remembered the words of my great BYU stake president, Robert K. Thomas: “If you’re almost worthy, almost willing to make the sacrifice, you’ll almost get the blessing.” I wondered what the Lord would have said to me on that mountain had I almost decided to serve a mission.

Both of these sisters know firsthand the religious confusion and uncertainty some of their investigators are feeling. Sister Pálinkás Bernadett is from Dunaújváros, a factory city built by Joseph Stalin as a model Communist city. For many years, there were no churches at all in the city. “My parents are not believers in God,” she says. “But somehow I felt close to Him and felt that He loved me.
“I often thought about what I was doing here on earth, what the purpose of life was, why I was born here in Hungary and not somewhere else, and why now and not earlier or later. Something was missing in my life, but I didn’t know exactly what.”
When Bernadett was almost 20, two American missionaries came into the store where she sold office supplies. “My co-workers and I could tell from the very first that these young men were different from others,” she remembers. “There was something shining from their eyes that made me very curious as to who they were and what they were doing here in Hungary. I felt that they could show me something that I didn’t know—something that I needed to know.”
Bernadett and a co-worker arranged to hear the first discussion. Although her friend soon lost interest, Bernadett attended sacrament meeting alone the following Sunday and was baptized a month later, on 22 August 1992. A year and a half later, she became a full-time missionary. None of her family has yet been baptized.
Bernadett’s parents are not happy with either decision—to be baptized or to serve a mission. “It hurts them because they don’t understand what I’m doing and why, even though I’ve tried to explain it to them. When I decided to be a missionary, my first goal was to somehow bring my parents closer to the Church. Now I recognize that each person has to personally walk the road to get to God, and it takes some people longer than others. I write to my parents every week and pray for them always.”