Gospel Story Finder

I think it important that we get acquainted with Him. I wonder if I should tell a story. Sometimes I have been accused of doing that. I can’t help it. I’m like a man having fits. When a man has fits he knows he is going to have one—he feels it coming on and he has it. When I feel a story coming on, the only possible thing for me to do is to tell it. This story has to do with an experience of my own.

An Aura of Awful Blackness

It has been indicated that I was asked to come down from Canada at a time when I was drilling oil wells, a time when I thought I was almost a millionaire, a time when it looked like nothing could save me from becoming a millionaire. I didn’t want to be saved from the down-drag of money, but I had, at that time, a sort of feeling that I wanted to know whether it was right for me to pursue the course I was taking.

I awoke one morning at about three o’clock—mornings come early up there in the summertime. I was in a little cottage up in the Canadian Rockies. I was worried and bothered. I got out of my bed, dressed, and went up into the mountains, far back in the hills, remembering that the Savior often went to the mountains for His communications with His Father.

When I got up in the mountains on top of a peak, I was all alone. I removed my hat, and in a loud voice I said, “Oh, God, are you there? You know that I am about to be a millionaire, or I think I am. Father, if this is not to be good for me or my family, don’t allow it to happen. If it is going to rob my family of their faith, don’t allow it to happen.” I talked to Him as a man would talk to another man. I didn’t seem to get an answer. I stayed up there for some time.

I drove that evening back to Edmonton, and upon arriving I said to Sister Brown, “I think I’ll not want any supper tonight. I think I’ll go in the back bedroom and sleep. You had better stay in the other room, because I fear I am going to have a wakeful night.”

I went into that bedroom and closed the door, and I was conscious of a blackness such as I had never known. There was something in that room that made me feel very sincerely that I would like to be rubbed out—that I would like to cease to be. I didn’t think of suicide, but I did think seriously that if there were any way that I could be washed out, that would be the best thing that could happen to me.

I spent the night in that attitude, in that aura of awful blackness. Early in the morning Sister Brown came in—she had heard me walking the floor. When she closed the door, she said, “My goodness, my dear! What’s in this room?”

I said, “The devil is in this room, and he is trying to destroy me.”

Deliverance and Peace

Together we knelt at the bedside and prayed for guidance and deliverance. We didn’t seem to get it. The next morning I went down to my office in the city. It was Saturday. I knew no one would be there, and I wanted to be alone. I knelt by my cot and pleaded to God for deliverance, for that awful blackness was still on my soul. And it seemed to me that the sun came up. I obtained peace of soul and serenity of spirit.

I phoned Sister Brown and told her, “Every­thing is all right. I don’t know what happened, but it’s all right.”

A Call from the Prophet

That night I was taking a bath. The telephone rang. Sister Brown came to the door and said, “Salt Lake is calling.”

I said, “Who in the dickens wants to talk to me at this time of night?” It was 10:30. I went to the phone.

When I said hello I heard a voice that said, “This is David O. McKay calling.”

I said, “Yes, President McKay.”

“The Lord wants you to give the balance of your life to the Church. Tomorrow will be the closing session of conference. Can you get here in time for the afternoon session?”

I told him I couldn’t, as there were no planes flying. He said, “Come as soon as you can.”

You know, I didn’t think to ask him what there was in it. That’s what I would do in an ordinary business deal.

I hung up, and that night—this was the night following the night of blackness in our lives—Sister Brown and I spent another wakeful night, but it was a night of bliss. Not that we were looking for position, but to think that the God of heaven would reach out l,200 miles and touch a man on the shoulder and say, “Come,” and to think that I would be that man was almost more than I could understand!

I told the president when I came down thirty days later about this experience, and he said, “As far as I know, every man who is called into the General Authorities has to wrestle with the devil.” You have to have a lot of courage if you come out victorious.

A few years passed, and a pair of young missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to our home. With my wife and our five children (the other three lived with their mother), I began to hear the discussions, attend church, and get acquainted with the members and their beliefs. After several months we made the wise decision to join the Church, and 17 years have now gone by.

The Prophet Joseph Smith was our neighbor. We lived next to him on the corner of Main and Parley streets. He came to our house quite often for short visits.

One day my older brother, Wallace, and I were on our way to school. It had been raining the previous day and the ground was very muddy, especially along the street on which the building known as Joseph’s brick store was. Wallace and I both got stuck fast in the mud and could not get out. And, childlike, we began to cry. Looking up, I beheld the loving friend of children, the Prophet Joseph, coming toward us. He soon had us on higher and drier ground. Then he stooped down and cleaned the mud from our little heavy-laden shoes, took his handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped our tearstained faces. He spoke kind and cheering words to us and sent us on our way to school rejoicing. You can see why Wallace and I loved him.

Experience 1: While attending BYU-Idaho shortly after my mission, one of my friends from high school was killed in an airplane crash. As I walked through the Manwaring Center shortly after learning of the accident, I happened to see another friend, the younger brother of the one who had died. As I approached him to express my sympathy and condolences, I struggled to control my emotions. Seeing this, my friend simply smiled and said, “It’s okay,” and wrapped me in a bear hug. In an effort to express compassion, I was in turn touched by the heroic compassion of my friend who saw beyond his own greater pain and comforted me in mine. He didn’t have to, but he did anyway, and it made a difference.

One day, while teaching at the institute of religion adjacent to the University of Utah, I was troubled when one person whispered to another all through the opening prayer. The guilty parties were not hard to spot because they continued whispering all through the class. I kept glaring at them, hoping that they would take the hint, but they didn’t seem to notice. Several times during the hour, I was tempted to ask them to take their conversation outside if they felt it was so urgent—but fortunately something kept me from giving vent to my feelings.

After the class, one of them came to me and apologized that she hadn’t explained to me before class that her friend was deaf. The friend could read lips, but since I was discussing—as I often do—with my back to the class, writing at the chalkboard and talking over my shoulder, my student had been “translating” for her friend, telling her what I was saying. To this day I am thankful that both of us were spared the embarrassment that might have occurred had I given vent to a judgment made without knowing the facts.

Luke loved playing foursquare with his new friends from kindergarten.
Britton bounced the red ball to him.
“Hey guys, listen to this,” Britton said. Then he said a word Luke had never heard. It sounded ugly. Luke didn’t feel good when he heard it.
“Say it, Luke,” Britton said. “It will be funny!”
Luke stood there holding the ball. He didn’t know what to do.
“Come on,” said Sean. “My brother and his friends say that word. They all think it’s funny. Say it!”
Luke looked at Tiffany. What could he do? Luke knew it would be wrong to say the word.
Then he had an idea. He could use words to make people feel good inside instead of bad. His grinned. He thought of the silliest word he could.
“Zugga-bugga-zoo!” Luke said. It worked! His friends laughed so hard they sat right down on the ground.
“That other word doesn’t sound funny,” Luke said. “Let’s make up silly words instead!”
“Flazzle-razzle!” Tiffany said. Luke laughed. They all made up funny words until recess ended.
After school Luke walked home with Mom and told her about recess.
“How did you know it was a bad word?” Mom asked.
“I didn’t feel happy when I heard it.”
“I’m so proud of you!” Mom said. “You listened to the Holy Ghost tell you not to say that word. Then you used your talent of making people laugh to help you choose the right!”
Luke hadn’t thought about that. He smiled.
“Hey, I have a good word for you,” Mom said. “It starts with L.”
“Luke!”
“That’s good, but I’m thinking of someone who shows other people the way. Like the game, Follow the …”
“Leader!”
“Right! You were a leader with your good example. You were a leader with laughter.”
Luke hugged Mom. Then they raced back home. They laughed the whole way.

When I was 16, my seemingly healthy, vigorous 41-year-old father dropped dead while water skiing. As you can imagine, this was a shocking event in my life and caused me much anguish. Why did this happen? This event was cause for considerable reflection and much prayer as I struggled to set my own course. A few months later, standing on the newly grown grass over his grave at the Ogden, Utah, cemetery, I decided several important matters:
One, that I would always keep the Word of Wisdom.
Two, that I would serve a mission.
Three, that I would always make him proud that I was his son.
Four, that I would strive to be successful as he was.
Five, that I would always be active in the Church.
Six, that I would marry someone in the temple as fine as my mother.
These were simple yet life-defining decisions. They were as indelible as the words carved on my father’s headstone, for my resolve was, in effect, carved in stone—unalterable and resolute. I had “decided to decide.”

At one point I was traveling in rural Uganda to meet the organizer of a women’s co-op. It was raining hard and the streets were not paved. By the time we arrived at the house, my friend Kristyn and I were muddy. I really hesitated though to take off my shoes to enter the house. They were fairly expensive walking sandals; I had bought them specifically because I knew I would be walking a lot in Africa that summer. With some anxiety I left them on the front porch.

When I stepped in the house I was astonished to see a paper on the refrigerator that read “As Sisters in Zion.” Kristyn and I actually starting singing, and then a lilting voice joined us from the other room. I then noticed a picture of the First Presidency of the Church on the wall. We were in this little slice of heaven. Our new friend greeted us with a very traditional and gracious Ugandan greeting: “You are welcome.” And we responded by saying “thank you,” which is the opposite of what we do in the United States. This woman was in the Mukono Ward, and her husband was the bishop. She told us her story and we met her kids. It was a glorious hour.

When we exited the house, my shoes were gone. I will admit that my soul sank. All those lovely feelings fled. Then from around the corner of the house came a neighbor holding my clean shoes. It must have taken her the whole hour to remove the caked-on mud. She simply said, “You are welcome.” I felt the love of God and the goodness of people. Those shoes mattered to me right then only because they had given me the experience of seeing the kindness of strangers and realizing again that any hard thing I have done really has come through the help of God and others.

The second story is a personal one. Shortly after I was baptized at age eight, I started taking piano lessons. I had completed my first year of lessons when the Depression had its full impact on our family and we could not afford the lessons any longer. But I continued to practice the piano.

Not only did I practice the pieces in my piano book; I also began to make up my own little songs. It took me a month or two to improvise my first little piece of music. I was elated with this; in fact I took the trouble to write it down. I called my creation “Opus 1, No. 1.”

My mother thought it was nice and said, “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.

As a result of the recognition I decided to write another piece. So I improvised for a few days and wrote down my second piece. After four years, I had written down about ten pieces, all for the piano.

Then, when I was twelve, I made a startling discovery. Looking back through one of my old piano lesson books, I discovered that my “Opus 1, No. 1” wasn’t really mine after all, It was page 25 of the book. I had subconsciously absorbed this piece and thought it to be my own work.

I was devastated. I thought my career as a composer was going to end in fraud. There was one thing unique in my version—I had changed it to a different key. But even that isn’t very difficult. I began to wonder where the other nine pieces had come from.

For an hour or so I went through all my music books, I found that my “No. 2” had a little piece of “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” in it, and “No. 3” had a little bit of another piece. But none of the last nine was actually taken totally from another source, as “No. 1” was. As I had practiced my skill, I had become more original, more creative.

My brother and I never used to get along. Then one day when I was on a vacation, he gave me a call to check on me. From then on, we both got along. All it took was one nice gesture at the right time. We talked about it later, and we just agreed that we both had stopped making an effort not to be rude. Discussing it helped strengthen our friendship, and though it took time, once we realized it took effort from both of us, we began becoming much closer.
Megan G., 19, Virginia

The two missionaries serving in the Philippines San Fernando Mission are walking side by side, making their way up the stairs. This is no easy trick, and going up and down stairs is not an afterthought. Elder Dominador Sabit III takes his companion, Elder Michelangelo Benigno, by the arm and they begin their ascent. Elder Benigno struggles, and Elder Sabit patiently helps his companion along. It’s slow going, but there’s no other way. Elder Benigno suffers from Guillain Barre syndrome, a muscle disorder that he contracted when he was three. For as long as he can remember, his legs have never worked right. The braces he wears on both legs help him maneuver, but they’re made of iron and are plenty heavy.

Elder Benigno shows similar enthusiasm. He remembers the day his mission call came. “I was so happy I was almost jumping. I wish I could jump,” he says smiling.

Preparing to serve a mission had always been a part of Elder Benigno’s life. He had read the standard works by the time he was 11. “I could just watch my playmates chasing around while I was sitting down observing them,” he says. “That is why I read. I just focused on the books I read, and it helped me a lot.” Before leaving on his mission, Elder Benigno taught the youth in his ward about missionary service as Young Men president.

“I told myself, if I didn’t have this disability, I wouldn’t serve as an inspiration to others. I want to serve as an example to the young men in my home ward and to the people that I am teaching on my mission,” he adds.

From age 8 to age 18, I reflected a lot about getting baptized. But it took me a long time because I had a lot of things I needed to change in my life, even though I tried to live good principles.
At the age of 18, I met the missionaries in Cayo’s home. The missionaries taught me the lessons to prepare me for baptism. They helped me, and their message touched my heart. During this time, my mother and my little sister were introduced to the missionaries. They were baptized a few months before I was. I was baptized on March 10, 2007.
It took the time that it took, more than 10 years, but finally he was baptized.
“It’s interesting to see how the Lord does things,” Cayo says. It took more than 10 years for Anthony to be baptized, but in that time, Anthony gained a strong testimony.

The young people of the valley have learned that in the clash of values and ideas, everyone can win. Instead of being weakened by the world around them, they can help strengthen others. Take Kelly Adams, for example. Kelly loves popular music. He joined several record and tape clubs, and became the local teen expert. The other kids caught on and started having him DJ their dances. But Kelly wouldn’t listen to junk, and he wouldn’t play music that taught garbage. So when he DJ’s a dance, nobody else listens to junk either, because he won’t play it. It’s had an effect on the musical tastes of both the LDS and non-LDS youth. Everybody won.

I used to share my testimony ever since I was small growing up, but it was like a routine for me to share it every fast and testimony Sunday. I knew all the commandments that I should keep, but it never really had great meaning in my life. Then I fasted and prayed about Joseph Smith and about whether he was indeed a prophet of God and translated the Book of Mormon. After much fasting and prayer, the Spirit confirmed in my heart that all these things were true. Now I’ve earned a testimony of my own and it is no longer a borrowed testimony.
Meradani R., 20, Fiji

In many ways Vani’s day is just beginning when school ends. She gets off the bus at 3:30 P.M. and walks a few blocks to her home. There is little time to relax. There’s homework to do, and there’s also cooking, cleaning, laundry, and dishes. Grandpa died two years ago, and Grandma can’t do the things she used to.
“I have to look after my grandma. I have to help her. I know it’s been pretty hard for her because she raised her own kids and then raised me,” Vani says.
“It’s been a challenge for me not to have parents,” she adds. “But being involved in the Church is a great help because it has provided me with so much. Right now I’m the secretary in the Primary, and I teach the CTR class.”
When Vani entered the Young Women program, she served as Beehive class president and then was first counselor in the Mia Maid class presidency. Later she served as Laurel class president. It’s obvious the gospel is a priority.
“Because I’ve been a leader, I feel a responsibility for the girls who have fallen from the Church,” she adds. She is thoughtful for a moment. She feels bad about once-active girls who no longer come out.
When Suluya is asked about her conversion, she gladly shares the details of her Christmas Eve baptism. She beams as she remembers that day. Suluya then mentions the death of her father a few years ago. He was 47.
“Although I’ve always wanted my family to join the Church, his death has encouraged me even more to help my mom and my sister get baptized. I’m trying so hard to get them to come to church with me,” she says.
When Suluya was baptized, her family didn’t attend the service. “But they understand now that I hold sacred the covenant I made with the Lord, and they respect my decision and support me me. Still, it’s hard to see families sitting together at church, and my family isn’t there. When you have something this good, you want to share it with your family.”
Suluya admits she was closer to her father than to her mother, but she says one good thing has come of his death. “It’s brought my sister and me closer to our mom. We’ve really gotten to know our mom better,” she explains.
Vani and Suluya are not far from leaving their teenage years behind. Life ahead will be full of changes. As they look back, they can’t help but wonder how things might have been different.
What if Vani had grown up in a two-parent home? What if Suluya’s entire family had joined the Church with her? What if life had been a little easier?
Neither thinks too much about these questions. They both look ahead, happy for what they have. Their life experiences have shaped them into who they are, and fortunately the gospel gives them an advantage. They know they are daughters of God. And they are happy.
Truly.

Chauncey was a demon for self-improvement. To make time for study, he rigged up an electric alarm system that aroused him in the morning around 5:00 or 5:30. Then he would usually work out for about 15 minutes swinging Indian clubs. He was especially motivated to go through these exercises in the cold winter months: getting the circulation stimulated helped to compensate for the two hours he was studying without heat. On January 10 the following scene occurred:
“This morning at 6:30 I was awakened very suddenly by my electric clock and bells. I made one jump and landed out of bed on the floor. Then my understanding was clear and I, knowing that if I did not in a minute shut my electric bells off from the strong current that the batteries would be run down and the neighbors would turn out thinking there was a fire, I jumped spryly in the direction of my electric clock, but I had barely got started toward it in the blind darkness than I ran against some living thing and turned a somersault the air and fell all in a heap, and the noise of the gong sounded louder and louder. After I got my understanding, I made another attempt, shutting off the electric current and lighting the lamp looking for the person that I had fallen over. It was a chair.”

Dad was sitting on the front lawn, cleaning his bicycle. “Can I help you, Dad?” Michael asked.
“No thank you, Son—it’s too messy. Go ask your mother if you can help her.”
Mom was in back of the garage, painting a bookshelf.
“Can I help you, Mom?”
“No thank you, honey—this paint is sticky,” Mom said. “Go ask Mary if you can help her.”
His sister was in the kitchen, baking cookies.
“Can I help you, Mary?”
“No thank you, Michael—this oven is hot.”
Michael walked sadly out of the kitchen. “There’s no one I can help,” he said.
Just then the baby cried.
“The baby’s crying, and I can’t leave this to get her,” Dad called to Mom.
“I’m too messy to get the baby,” Mom called to Mary.
“I have to take the cookies out of the oven right now, or they’ll burn. I can’t get the baby either,” Mary called back to Mom and Dad.
Dad cleaned the bicycle grease off his hands and went to get the baby. Mom cleaned the paint off her hands and went to get the baby. Mary took the cookies out of the oven and went to get the baby. When they opened the door to the baby’s room, they saw her laughing and playing in her crib.
“I helped her,” Michael said proudly. “I sang a little song and shared my toys with her.”
The baby laughed, waving a toy car up and down.

Kimberly, a mother of children approaching baptism age, remembers walking into the bishop’s office for her baptismal interview when she was eight years old. “I was so nervous!” Kimberly says.
Now she tries to ensure that her children don’t face feelings of panic. She and her husband talk to their children about bishop interviews and ask them questions about baptism in an interview-like setting. These interviews do more than familiarize children with the interview process—they also encourage the children to think deeply about what the covenant of baptism means to them.

During the BYU centennial celebration in 1975, I worked in the administration of the university. One of my responsibilities was to organize and manage a march from the old lower campus (now the Provo City Library) to a centennial convocation to be held in this building. President Spencer W. Kimball and his wife, Camilla, led the parade. We organized the march because, in the early days of this institution, Karl G. Maeser took the students on Founders Day to old buildings where classes had once been held and then marched behind class banners to the newer location where the academy’s classes were then being taught.

The reenactment of Maeser’s march was a people parade. We left the lower campus, came across 800 North, and then marched up Temple Hill. I maneuvered among the vehicles and participants so that when we got to the Maeser Building, I could watch the parade as it rounded the hill and headed north.

While standing there watching President Kimball and President Dallin H. Oaks and alumni from the various years go by, I felt the presence of the past presidents of BYU. I had the distinct feeling that Karl G. Maeser and other presidents and notables who pioneered BYU’s progress all seemed to be present there on the lawn between the Maeser Building and what was then the President’s Home. I did not see them, but I keenly felt their presence. It seemed to me that they were being allowed to view the celebration of the very existence of the university they had individually done so much to shape. Their efforts, sacrifices, and achievements were indeed being recognized as the university reached its 100-year mark.

May 20. Billy asked me if I wanted to go with him on his paper route after school. The other guys wanted me to play ball. So did I, but something inside me said that going with Billy was more important.
We rode our bikes. I helped carry some of the papers in a sack. Afterward, Billy bought me a soda pop. Then we went across the street and lay on the grass in the park. After a while he asked me why I wanted to be his friend, why I liked to do stuff with him. I didn’t know what to say. Finally I told him, “I guess I just like you, that’s all.”
He looked sad. “Is it because you feel sorry for me because I’m … different? Some people make fun of me because I can’t do things like other people. And some are nice because they feel sorry for me.”
I told him that I get mad when other people treat him unkindly and that at first maybe that was why I wanted to be nice. “But after a while, I started liking you because you’re you,” I said. “I like how you sound when you laugh. It makes me feel happy inside. And I like how you treat other living things. Even little things. Like the pollywogs in the creek behind the school last week. You felt bad because the sun was drying up the little ponds of water, so you put the tadpoles in that applesauce jar and moved them farther up the creek where it was deeper. Most people aren’t that kind,” I told him. “You remind me of Jesus.” His eyes got full of tears, and he didn’t say anything. He just tapped me on the arm with his fist and kept looking the other way.
June 7. Billy’s mother called me and asked if I wanted to come over and have dinner with them tonight. Billy was too shy to ask, she said, and wanted her to ask me. (Mom and Dad said it would be fine.) She also said that Billy can’t stop talking about me, that the past few weeks he’s been happier than she can ever remember. “He thinks the world of you,” she said, and she thanked me for being so good to him.
I could tell that she was crying, because her voice started breaking up. I told her that it was easy to like Billy because he was so good. I didn’t tell her, but I had been starting to feel happier inside myself than I had in a long time, and I was already happy. Dad says, “When we open our hearts to others, like Jesus did, we feel a whole different kind of joy.”
June 18. Today Billy and I saved a wild bird. A big kid named Donny, who lives close to Billy’s place, caught it and was going to hurt it. We started yelling at him, and it made him jump and the bird got away. He pushed us down, but we felt so good on the inside that it made what he did to us on the outside kind of not matter.
July 11. Our family got back this morning from a three-day trip to Buck’s Lake. I called Billy to see if we could get together, maybe go to a Saturday matinee or hike in the hills or something. His mother said he could not play … because he’d died two days ago. She began to cry, and Billy’s father got on the phone. He told me that Billy had seen a neighbor’s puppy in the street, and when he ran out to carry it to where it would be safe, he’d been hit by a car. It wasn’t the driver’s fault, Billy’s dad said. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just happened. I asked Dad if he could give me a blessing of comfort. I guess I’m having a hard time dealing with it.
July 12. I didn’t go to Billy’s funeral today. I just couldn’t. His parents said that they understood. I know that after we die, we will see our loved ones again, and, I believe, our close friends, too. But right now I miss him so bad! We were like brothers. I guess we are brothers. Spirit brothers. And blood brothers. I know we’re spirit brothers because we are all Heavenly Father’s children. And I know we’re blood brothers because we sat under the old fig tree in the field one day and made a pact.
Maybe we can play together in the next life. There might be creeks with tadpoles, but in heaven I’m sure there will always be enough water. Maybe a fence to sit on. And clouds to watch go by.
I know Billy’s happy where he is because he was always more of heaven than of earth. But right now I miss him so much! I will never forget him. Not ever. My mom says I will always have the memories, and so, in a sense, he will always be with me. Memories are eternal, she says, like our spirits. I guess I will always hear his laughter, then. I like that.
July 14. Billy’s parents came over today. They told me how much they appreciated what I did for him. They said that I had made the last part of his life happy and meaningful. “You were a gift from God to him,” they said. I couldn’t say anything back because it’s hard to cry and talk at the same time.
After a while, I told them that Billy was a gift from God to me. That he taught me by the way he lived the things Jesus teaches us. About loving. And caring. And showing kindness to all living things.
July 25. I checked on the tadpoles in the creek today. That’s what Billy would have done. They are doing fine. And so am I.