Gospel Story Finder

Another of the great blessings of my life has been to feel the closeness of heaven during those moments when I sit at the bedside of people as they pass away. Early one morning some years ago, I entered the hospital room of a faithful Latter-day Saint widow who had cancer. Two of her daughters were sitting with her. As I went to her bedside, I quickly discovered that she was no longer suffering, because she had just died.

In that moment of death, the room was filled with peace. Her daughters had a sweet sadness, but their hearts were filled with faith. They knew that their mother was not gone but had returned home.23 Even in our moments of deepest grief, in the moments when time stands still and life seems so unfair, we can find comfort in our Savior because He suffered as well.24 It was a privilege for me to be in that room.

As a new employee with LDS Humanitarian Services, Sharon Eubank witnessed misery, sadness, and grief that made it hard for her to function. Through prayer, she came to understand that although she could help the Lord take care of His children, she was not in charge of that sorrow. “Jesus Christ is in charge. He will bear this burden. They are His people, and He hears and answers their prayers.” That answer changed her ability to reach out and serve.

“Don’t forget, though, that developing our creative talents is not an easy task. Sometimes I catch myself rationalizing about my lack of talents by saying, ‘All have not every gift given unto them’ (D&C 46:11). For example, when we work closely with translators and interpreters, it’s easy to say to them, ‘How fortunate you are to have the gift of tongues.’ On one occasion the direct answer to me was, ‘My gift of tongues was received after thousands of hours of study and after overcoming many moments of failure and discouragement’” (“Every Good Gift,” New Era, August 1983, 6–7).

Ivan speaks with great conviction of an experience he had as an 11-year-old. “I had just joined the Church. We were celebrating someone’s birthday at the chapel when all the lights went out. Someone whispered to me, ‘Why don’t you say a prayer, Ivan?’ I knelt down and said, ‘Heavenly Father, please let the lights come back on so we can continue.’ And the lights came back on.
“Children have incredible faith. Now I’m trying to have that same childlike faith. My life went dark. But I have prayed and believed with everything I have, and the lights are back on.”

In the April 2015 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson taught us that “the Sabbath is a delight.” He also explained how he personally had come to understand a basic principle about honoring the Sabbath day:
“How do we hallow the Sabbath day? In my much younger years, I studied the work of others who had compiled lists of things to do and things not to do on the Sabbath. It wasn’t until later that I learned from the scriptures that my conduct and my attitude on the Sabbath constituted a sign between me and my Heavenly Father. With that understanding, I no longer needed lists of dos and don’ts. When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, ‘What sign do I want to give to God?’ That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear.”

Somehow we need to instill in our hearts the powerful testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ like unto that of our pioneer forefathers. Remember when Nauvoo fell in September of 1846 and the unbearable conditions of the Saints in the poor camps. When word reached Winter Quarters, Brigham Young immediately called the brethren together. After explaining the situation and reminding them of the covenant made in the Nauvoo Temple that no one who wanted to come, no matter how poor, would be left behind, he gave them this remarkable challenge:
“Now is the time for labor,” he said. “Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord, burn in your hearts, like flame unquenchable” (Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 28 Sept. 1846, 5; emphasis added). Within a few days, in spite of near-destitute conditions at Winter Quarters, many wagons were rolling eastward to rescue the Saints in the poor camps along the Mississippi River.
We often hear of the suffering and the sacrifice those early Saints endured, and we ask ourselves, How did they do it? What was it that gave them such strength? Part of the answer lies in President Young’s powerful words. Those early Latter-day Saints had made covenants with God, and those covenants burned like unquenchable fire in their hearts.

“President Boyd K. Packer once explained how our mind is like a stage [see Oct. 1973 general conference]. There is only enough room for one thing to be playing on the stage at a time. If you feel unclean thoughts, try thinking about holy things! They can replace whatever was on your stage. What helps me is singing Primary songs. I either think about them or quietly whisper them.”
Alyssa F., 17, Washington, USA

Eleven-year-old Christine hurried out of the gas station. She knew she needed to be fast—her family was waiting. She threaded her way through the aisles and out the doors. She stopped.
They were gone!
At the gas pump where her family’s beige van had been was a small red sports car. Her stomach flipped. “Where are they?” she asked herself, trying not to panic.
She scanned all of the parking spaces. No van and no family. She walked around to the other side of the gas station to check the gasoline pumps there. Several 18-wheeler trucks were filling up with diesel fuel. “The van would be hard to miss,” she thought. “A beige 15-passenger van pulling a trailer isn’t going to just disappear.”
She looked toward the highway. A green car followed by a blue minivan zoomed past. Other cars hurried on to their destinations. Still no sign of her family’s van.
Only ten minutes before, Christine had jumped out of the van at the gas station. Dad had been filling it up with gas, her younger brothers had been trying to clean its almost-too-tall windows, and Mom had been coming back from taking three-year-old Mark to the rest room. Mom had told everyone that if they needed to use the rest room, they’d better do it now.
Her family was driving to Utah for a family reunion, and they had only started their two-day drive that morning. Christine knew that the next time they’d stop would be for lunch, so she had run inside to use the rest room.
She walked around the gas station once more, hoping to see them. Vehicles of all sizes were coming and going, but none of them looked like her family’s van.
Feeling very alone, she walked to the back of the gas station and saw a covered deck and several picnic tables. She slowly climbed the steps to the deck and sat down. From here she could see all the highway traffic.
Fear crept into her heart as she watched people coming and going. “I hope nothing is wrong with them,” she thought. “I hope that they miss me soon.”
A small rainstorm passed by. She moved to a different corner of the picnic area so that she wouldn’t get wet.
She bowed her head and whispered, “Dear Heavenly Father, please bless my family to come back and get me. Please bless that they are OK. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
When Christine looked up, the rainstorm had cleared and the sun was out. Her fear and loneliness left, and she felt that her family would be back for her soon.
After walking around the gas station again to see if she had missed seeing them return, she went back to the deck, sat down, and waited. Remembering the feeling that she had felt after praying, she stopped fretting.
Soon, a beige 15-passenger van pulling a trailer came down the highway. God had answered her prayer.
She ran to the front of the gas station to meet her family. They pulled up, and she jumped into the van to the welcoming chorus of her brothers and sisters.
Mom turned sideways in the front seat to give her a hug. “I’m so glad you’re OK. When we realized you had been left behind, we were so worried!”
“Well, I’m OK. I said a prayer that you would come back,” Christine replied.
“I’m glad you remembered to pray,” Mom said. “From now on we’ll be more careful to not leave anyone behind.”
Christine looked out the window as the gas station gradually disappeared. Silently she thanked Heavenly Father for bringing her family back to get her.

Brother Ridd said his family’s work ethic has been a blessing in his life. So have mentors and priesthood leaders who have sometimes nudged him along the gospel path. While many of his classmates from high school accepted mission calls at age 19, Randall opted to enroll in college and enlist in the army. He later took a job as an X-ray technician while continuing his studies at the University of Utah. A few wise men were bold enough to tell him that his place was in the mission field. He followed their direction and put in his application to serve. Soon he was sharing the gospel in the Mexico North Mission. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I had not served a mission,” he says.

Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke at the G20 Interfaith Forum held in Bologna, Italy. (The G20 nations make up the world’s 20 largest economies.) “When religion is given the freedom to flourish, believers everywhere perform simple and sometimes heroic acts of service,” Elder Rasband said. At the same forum, Sister Eubank spoke about the effects of hunger and malnutrition on childhood poverty. “Change can only … be accomplished by personal relationships of trust,” she said.

I pushed open the door to the shelter for abused women where I volunteer on Saturday mornings. They needed me to work in the donation room again.
I trudged down the steps to the basement, dreading the mess that seemed to materialize week after week. As usual I had a long morning ahead of me. Piles of women’s and children’s clothing littered the floor, waiting for me to organize them.
Why do I keep coming here every week? I asked myself. It just wasn’t as fun as when my best friend used to come with me. She had moved, and now I was reluctantly coming alone. I started plowing through the donations and organizing the usable items. I worked for about half an hour and was starting to see some appearance of order when I heard the basement door open.
I stood up, expecting another volunteer. Instead, a mother and her little girl stood at the open door. Slowly they walked down the steps. This woman and her daughter had left the man in their lives because he was abusing them. They had left in the middle of the night, and the girl didn’t have anything to wear. The woman looked tired. The child, about four years old, wore a faded, flower-print flannel nightgown. Her white-blonde hair fell in wispy tangles around her face.
After figuring out the girl’s size, finding a T-shirt and a pair of shorts was easy, but I knew that finding shoes would be a problem. The clothing was organized according to size and type. The shoes, however, were merely thrown into a large cardboard box. Discouraged, I dragged the box to the middle of the room and dumped the contents on the floor. The mother and I sat next to the pile and started sifting through the shoes. I finally found a shoe that looked about the right size. The little girl loved the shoe because, not only did it fit, but it was her favorite color—pink!
I started searching again, hoping to find the matching shoe. As I pawed through the huge pile, I began to realize the other shoe might not be in the box. As the mother began to realize the same thing, she started trying to find a different pair of shoes. I continued to look for the match, clinging to the unlikely possibility that it was hidden somewhere in the pile.
The mother found a pair of dirty red sneakers and began to coax her daughter into wearing them, but she had little success. The child had nothing: no home, no father, no toys, not even her own clothes. She seemed to need something of her own, and she had apparently decided on this pair of pink tennis shoes. To give up the only thing she had in this new place was too much for her, and the tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
Now I had to find that other shoe. Every week I came here feeling useless. What could I really do for the women I met? I couldn’t give them new husbands, new houses, new jobs, or new lives. I felt humbled by their bravery. They took their children and walked away from everything in their lives to escape abuse. If only I could find that matching pink sneaker. This little girl, who had known more sorrow in her four years than I had in my seventeen, could be a princess, at least for a while.
I went into a frenzy searching through the shoes and decided, finally, to put them back into the box one by one. I tossed a green pump towards the box, but it missed. I had to stand up to retrieve it, and as I dangled it above the box, I looked inside. There was a glimpse of pink. I dropped the pump and dug my hand down frantically. It closed around a small tennis shoe.
Is it possible I could have left some shoes in the box when I turned it over? I prayed silently that this was the shoe I needed and lifted my hand out. Yes, it was a pink tennis shoe, but was it the match? I did not dare tell the little girl I might have found it. Instead, I quietly picked up the other shoe and compared the two. It was a match! I felt like a little kid. I wanted to yell, “Look! Look what I found!” at the top of my lungs. Instead, I quietly handed the shoes to the mother, who was still trying to dry her daughter’s tears. She held the shoes and looked up at me.
“Thank you. Thank you. You can’t know how much this means to her,” she said softly.
But I did know. I finally understood. I had been coming here in search of a way to help people, and I had been frustrated with the realization that I could not change these women’s lives. I had no control over their situations, but I understood at that moment why I was there. It didn’t matter that morning that I couldn’t give the woman a job, or a house, or a husband.
What mattered was that I helped a little girl find a pink shoe.

On an early Monday morning, a group of willing volunteers gathered to help clean the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple. Assignments were given, and as several volunteers and I followed our assigned supervisor, we quickly realized she was leading us to the celestial room.
When we entered the room, we immediately noticed that the huge, tiered chandelier which normally hung high above our heads had been lowered near the floor. Our responsibility was to clean it. This was no small task, since the chandelier consisted of thousands of individual crystals! Each person was given white gloves, and we were shown how to remove the dust by carefully rubbing every crystal one by one between our gloved fingers. The delicate process was very labor intensive, but we enthusiastically went to work.
Several hours later, the newly cleaned chandelier sparkled radiantly! After admiring its beauty, we began cleaning the smaller chandeliers in the celestial room.
Suddenly something astonishing happened! The morning sun rose over the eastern mountaintop, and its bright rays shone directly through the large round window in the celestial room at the perfect angle to illuminate the magnificent chandelier. Each shiny crystal caught the sunlight, and innumerable prisms of light spontaneously scattered everywhere! Brilliant rainbows streamed across the floor, ceiling, furniture, walls, and the people, and some beams even danced through the air! We were catching rainbows in our hands! It was spectacular!
I have often pondered on that unforgettable moment and have come to understand more clearly that the light makes all the difference! Like the crystals, when we receive the light of the Son and reflect it outward, His light is magnified, and the joyful effects are astonishing!

But the boys did their part too. “We recruited everybody to be in the troop,” said Brother Steurer’s son Rodney, 14. His brother Geoffrey, 13, and another Scout, Mark Choate, 15, said that soon their friends Michael Bradfield and Neil Hammock were part of the troop, and of course they asked lots of questions about the Church. Now both Mike and Neil are not only Scouts, but also members of the deacons and teachers quorums, both serving in leadership positions.

Reading the scriptures is hard for Shellee because of the vocabulary. She doesn’t recognize words from having heard them in conversation; she has to learn each word individually by looking it up. Words like nevertheless are hard enough to understand when you’ve heard other people use them. How is a deaf person to understand it without help?
Shellee’s seminary teacher is helping to solve this problem with drawings. She has her students draw pictures in their scriptures that go along with the stories so they can have a better idea of what is going on. “It helps a lot,” Shellee says.

He was too young to remember when they had crossed the plains in the covered wagon to Utah. Louisa remembered, though.

“Mother and Father packed our clothes, quilts, pots and pans, dishes, food, and everything else they could into the wagon. I put in my doll and helped with some of the smaller things. Father hitched the oxen to the wagon and we started on our long journey. I’d never seen oxen before. They looked like big brown cows to me.”

“What about the sea gulls, Louisa?” Thomas didn’t like to hear about the hard times they had traveling to their new home in the mountains.

“When we first came to Utah, I helped Father and Mother plant the seeds in the ground. It took Father two days to break the hard ground before we could plant the seeds. All day we worked and dropped a seed at a time on the ground.”

“Where was I?” asked Thomas.

“You wouldn’t remember because you were only a baby then and had just learned to walk,” Louisa answered quietly. “Anyway, when the new plants were just coming up, about this high,” Louisa measured with her fingers, “some crickets came and began eating them. More and more crickets came.”

“What are crickets?”

“Thomas, you know what crickets are. They are those shiny black bugs. They scrape their wings together to make a squeaky sound at night,” Louisa answered.

“Oh. Tell me about the sea gulls.”

Louisa began her story again. “Everyone got sticks and shovels and whatever they could find and began beating the crickets. But more crickets came. Finally, the people gave up. They couldn’t kill all the crickets. They were going to eat up all the food we planted.”

“When did the sea gulls come?” Thomas asked.

“Father and Mother and the rest of the people prayed to our Heavenly Father that the crops would be saved from the hungry crickets. And it wasn’t long until we were surprised to hear a noise in the sky. I looked up and saw sea gulls. At first they looked like more crickets. I hadn’t seen any sea gulls here before, although I used to watch them on the ocean before we came west in the wagon.”

“The sea gulls came to the ground and ate up the crickets,” Louisa continued. “No one had really noticed them in the valley before. Some people say they were here all the time. But I think Heavenly Father sent them to us when the people prayed. What do you think, Thomas?”

The faithful widowed mother who raised us had no confusion about the eternal nature of the family. She always honored the position of our deceased father. She made him a presence in our home. She spoke of the eternal duration of their temple marriage. She often reminded us of what our father would like us to do so we could realize the Savior’s promise that we could be a family forever.
I recall an experience that shows the effect of her teachings. Just before Christmas one year, our bishop asked me, as a deacon, to help him deliver Christmas baskets to the widows of the ward. I carried a basket to each door with his greetings. When he drove me home, there was one basket remaining. He handed it to me and said it was for my mother. As he drove away, I stood in the falling snow wondering why there was a basket for my mother. She never referred to herself as a widow, and it had never occurred to me that she was. To a 12-year-old boy, she wasn’t a widow. She had a husband, and we had a father. He was just away for a while.

“When I was baptized in Ammon, a strong feeling of having my sins literally washed away came over me, and I knew that from then on I needed to be more careful in my thoughts and actions.

I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but in college I decided that I didn’t need the Church anymore. I began a shallow, selfish search for “truth” in other places. Finding no answers that brought me peace or joy, I fell into a deep spiritual darkness. I felt that I would never be happy again.
However, I could still see that I had been happier when I was active in the Church. I began to go through the motions of Church activity, hoping to find some deliverance from the gloom that controlled my life. But my halfhearted efforts did not accomplish much. I focused on my studies, hoping they would distract me from the emptiness I felt. This helped temporarily, but it provided no real answer.
After stumbling around and realizing I was going nowhere, I decided to take a break from school and to travel. I had saved a little money but not enough to last very long. Before leaving, I resolved to exercise some real faith and pay tithing on my modest savings. This wasn’t easy. I would be far from home, and soon I would be broke. Still, I hoped there was a God, and I knew that I would need His help.
I wrote a check for my tithing, sent it to my bishop, packed my Book of Mormon, and set off. Almost immediately I felt the warmth of the Spirit. I was amazed to feel my doubt and sorrow replaced with understanding and optimism. From Idaho to Washington, D.C., members of the Church reached out to me and, more important, helped me to develop faith and righteous desires. It seemed like home was all around me.
After a short time, I knew I would be cutting my travels short—not for lack of money but because a much better journey awaited me. Returning home, I met with my bishop and stake president. With their help, I was soon serving the Lord as a missionary.
Now each time I pay my tithing or meet with Church leaders, I remember the “beginning” of my true conversion. Since then I have experienced ups and downs, but I have worked to remain spiritually strong. I will always be grateful for Heavenly Father’s accepting my meager offering of faith and extending His loving arm to me.

Thank you so much for the Question and Answer section in the February 1997 issue. My boyfriend just left on his mission, and I was having a hard time thinking about what to write to him. I wanted to tell him all about everything that was happening at home but knew that might make him homesick. I knew that I had to write something, though, because mail means a lot to missionaries. After reading the readers’ and magazine’s response to the question, I now know what to write.
Emma E. KingsLakeview, Oregon

I remember a couple who promised themselves that when they were married they would get their lives in order and go to the temple and have their marriage eternalized. They loved each other very much, and they had some faith in the strength of the marriage covenant made under the binding power of the priesthood. But there were some reasons, they felt, why they could not attend diligently to these matters.

Time passed. Children came. The couple became active in community affairs. The man loved his family. The wife, Jennie, grew more lovely. Motherhood made her beautiful. Family cares expanded her vision and enlarged her soul, and she appealed to her husband many times, saying, “Let’s go to the bishop and receive a recommend for the temple.” But he declined.

As time passed, there came a conflict between her Sabbath services and his Sabbath interests. Finally, she felt that it was more peaceful to be with her husband on Sunday. Thus, they did little church work, and as their children entered the teenage years, they also began to enjoy the carefree and leisurely activities of their parents.

One sad day it all came to an end. The family was off on a Sunday picnic and activity. There was an automobile accident and Jennie and one of the couple’s children died.

After the funeral, this man found life limited and lonely. The house seemed empty without his wife. His days were barren and life seemed desolate. Although he devoted himself to his work and to his remaining children, his suffering did not cease. His thoughts were constantly of Jennie, his companion. Neither comfort nor peace came upon him, and he remembered that he had obtained no priesthood sealing that could hold him to Jennie and Jennie to him throughout eternity. His tears and deep pain and anxiety went unrelieved.

Then one night, there came a dream. But unlike other dreams which faded into oblivion, this one stayed with him powerfully all day. It seemed to him that he was in a different locality looking through a wide, open gate, where the central figures were a woman and a young girl.

Suddenly, he became conscious of their identity and he felt a warm glow. Jennie was even more lovely that before. Then to his great joy, his loved ones saw him. They beckoned him to come through the gate. They seemed so anxious to be with him. But it was clear to him that it was his effort that was needed. He tried to move in his dream, but he seemed to have no power. Then, as he struggled even harder, the great gates began to close.

Both he and Jennie knew that he must urgently act. He looked again at Jennie, a final glimpse. He saw the terror in her face as she realized that the gates might close without her dear husband inside.

It was then that he awakened. He felt that he would give his life, give anything he possessed if he could be with his wife and with his dear children, if he could have the full blessings of those who receive eternal life and all that it means.

Was it only a dream? Had he missed one of life’s greatest opportunities—or was there still time if he acted quickly before the cares and tares of the world again crowded in and choked out his righteous desires?

Jennie’s husband had come to recognize deeply the meaning of these parables. He would have sold everything he had for the peaceful assurance that he and Jennie would be together forever. Happily, he knew exactly what he needed to do and how he needed to live thereafter in order to bring it about. However, there are others of our brothers and sisters in need of these temple and other Church blessings who need our assistance to obtain the promises of the Lord.