Gospel Story Finder

When I returned to Buenos Aires, my mother realized that I truly wanted to be baptized. Since I had a somewhat rebellious spirit, instead of opposing me, she very wisely took my side. And without even knowing it, she did my baptismal interview herself. Indeed, I believe that her interview was even more in-depth than those that our missionaries conduct. She told me, “If you want to be baptized, I will support you. But first I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want you to think very hard and answer me honestly. Do you commit to attend church absolutely every Sunday?”
I told her, “Yes, of course I’m going to do that.”
“Do you have any idea how long church is?”
“Yes, I know,” I said.
She replied, “Well, if you get baptized, I am going to make sure that you attend.” Then she asked me if I was truly willing to never drink alcohol or smoke.
I answered, “Yes, of course I am going to comply with that as well.”
To which she added, “If you get baptized, I am going to make sure that that is the case.” And she proceeded on in that way with almost every commandment.
My uncle had called my mother to tell her not to worry, that I would get over this soon. Four years later, when I received my call to serve in the Uruguay Montevideo Mission, my mother called my uncle to ask him exactly when I was going to get over all this. The truth is that from the time I was baptized, my mother was a happier mother.

Wayne Bennett, a junior high instructor in Ventura, California, noted that he has been turned down for house insurance because of his deafness. The former deaf missionary also told about a deaf friend who worked in a supermarket. “When the boss needed his attention, he would throw an orange at him. Finally, one day my friend, with a watermelon in his hand, went up to the man and said, ‘The next time you throw an orange at me, you get a watermelon in the head.’ The young man, who was six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds, had no further trouble.”

Kim Cloward, too, has a special family story. Her great-great-grandmother was a seamstress to the Queen of England, and she married one of the king’s horsemen. After joining the Church, the couple immigrated to America. Her abilities with a needle were well known in northern Utah where she tailored men’s suits and made moccasins and gloves. She taught her daughter to sew. The daughter, in turn, taught her daughter. “And now,” Kim commented, “my mother has taught me to sew, and I’ll sew for my family and ‘sew’ on and ‘sew’ on.” Her eyes twinkled as she waited for her seminary friends to catch the pun. Kim has won several national sewing contests and now better understands where her abilities and pride in tailoring come from.

Joseph Smith’s life was another great example of dedication and sacrifice. While in Liberty Jail the word of the Lord came to him: “… If thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; … if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” (D&C 122:7. Italics added.)

Here the Prophet was specifically told that these tribulations and sacrifices would be for his good, as undoubtedly the Liberty Jail experience was preparing him for coming events. In the end he and his brother Hyrum were called upon to be martyrs for the kingdom of God—another great story of sacrifice and blessing.

When we got married, my wife and I made a decision to keep the Sabbath day holy even though we were farmers. I remember a 1978 First Presidency Message by President Spencer W. Kimball. He talked of how he rejoiced when he saw machinery sitting idle in the fields on Sunday. He spoke of how keeping the Sabbath day holy was an expression of Latter-day Saints’ faith. (See “The Sabbath—a Delight,” Tambuli, July 1978, 1; Ensign, Jan. 1978, 2.)
At the time, we shared machinery with other farmers. When you are working with others, it’s difficult to say you won’t work on the Sabbath. So we got out of combined farming and stopped raising potatoes.

Six-year-old Coleman Verburg of Lehi, Utah, and his three-year-old brother, Cooper, are best friends, even though the two had a rocky start. When Coleman was just two years old, he accidentally knocked his newborn brother out of his baby bouncer on Cooper’s second day home from the hospital.
But things have changed a lot since then.
“Coleman is very patient with his brother,” his mom says. “He is a good example because he shares his toys so freely. Cooper loves his big brother. Coleman is his hero.”

This will be the first temple in Nicaragua.
In 2012 Elder Russell M. Nelson visited Nicaragua and urged the people to prepare for a temple. He said, “I promise you that when you are ready, the Lord will do His part so that you have a temple” (see Liahona, June 2012, 77).

When I’m able to find a place to sit down and open up the scriptures, I’m able to think about ways I can help others. I’ve had promptings to send texts to loved ones asking if they’re OK. It strengthens me to hear someone say they had a bad day but their day got better because of a message I sent to them. It softens my heart to know that I was able to listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost and help them.

While other boys were out playing little league baseball, Greg spent a lot of time working on the family farm, milking and feeding cows, cleaning out the milk tank, you name it. He doesn’t regret the time spent—it taught him to work hard. But he won’t tell you he loved it either, although he did have a number of ways to make the long, tedious hours go by faster. He took great pride in trying to do the best job he possibly could. If he was working with others, he would talk to them, laugh with them, joke with them, and get to know them better. And then, when he had a spare second, he would dream about what he would try to accomplish in the future.

There is a story about a young builder who had just gone into business for himself. A wealthy friend of his father came to him and said: “To get you started right, I am going to have you build a ranch house for me. Here are the plans. Don’t skimp on anything. I want the very finest materials used, and I want flawless workmanship. Forget the cost. Just send me the bills.”
The young builder became obsessed with the desire to enrich himself through this generous and unrestricted offer. Instead of employing top-grade labor and buying the finest materials, he shortchanged his benefactor in every way possible. Finally, the last secondhand nail was driven into the last flimsy wall, and the builder handed over the keys and bills, totaling over a hundred thousand dollars, to his father’s old friend. That gentleman wrote a check in full for the structure and then handed the keys back to the builder. “The home you have just built, my boy,” he said with a pleasant smile, “is my present to you. May you live in it in great happiness!”

One cold day years ago, two missionaries spent hours contacting people on the streets of Nagano, Japan. They talked to a few people, made even fewer teaching appointments, and saw all those appointments fall through.
At the end of this tough day, the missionaries met a young man, only 15 years old, who was interested in learning about the Church.
That young man was me.
I met one of the missionaries that day on my way home from school. He taught me about the First Vision and testified that it was true. I did not understand everything at the time, but I wanted to learn more.

An example of true love and inspired teaching was found in the life of the late James Collier, who had, through his personal efforts, reactivated a large number of brethren in the Bountiful, Utah, area. I was invited by Brother Collier to address those who had now been ordained elders and who, with their wives and families, had been to the Salt Lake Temple to receive those eternal covenants and blessings for which they had so earnestly strived.
At the banquet honoring this achievement, I could see and I could feel the love that Jim had for those whom he had taught and rescued. Unfortunately, Jim Collier at that time was afflicted with a terminal illness and had to persuade the doctors to allow him to leave the hospital to attend this final night of recognition. As he stood at the pulpit, a large smile came over his face. With tear-filled eyes, he expressed his love to the group. There wasn’t a dry eye to be found. Brother Collier quipped, “Everyone wants to go to the celestial kingdom, but no one wants to die to get there.” Lowering his voice, he continued, “I’m prepared to go, but I will be there waiting on the other side to greet each of you, my beloved friends.”
He returned to the hospital. His funeral service was held just a few weeks later.

Moving? Tomorrow? It can’t be time already, thought eleven-year-old Sarah as she folded the last of her mother’s dish towels and put them into a barrel. The family had been planning for the past few weeks to leave Kirtland, Ohio, for Missouri with some of the other Saints, but they didn’t know exactly what day they would leave. This morning Sarah’s father had come into the kitchen and told his family that tomorrow was moving day.

Just a month ago, when spring was in its glory throughout the Kirtland area, Father had told Sarah that she must do all that she could to help Mother get ready to move. However, Sarah had tried to convince herself that they wouldn’t have to do it. How can I leave Kirtland? she’d wondered. We’ve never lived anywhere else.

Kirtland was the place where Sarah and her brother John and sister, Laura, had all been born. Another brother, two years younger than Sarah, had even been buried in Kirtland shortly after he was born. It was the place where Sarah and her parents had been taught and baptized by Brother Sidney Rigdon. Brother Rigdon had been their minister when they had all belonged to the Campbellite Church, and the whole family had loved him. They had been glad to read the Book of Mormon when he had brought it to their home. It was only right that Brother Rigdon had baptized them when they were sure that the gospel was true.

Sarah had been excited about turning twelve in the fall and going with her best friend, Mary, to Sister Eliza Snow’s school for girls. But Sister Snow’s family and Mary’s family had already moved to Missouri, so there would be no school. She had hoped that someone else would teach the school once things settled down a little. But things hadn’t settled down.

The rest of that day and night went quickly. Suddenly it was daybreak and time to leave their home. When the wagon was packed, the whole family climbed aboard, with Father sitting on the front seat to drive the oxen he had bought only last week. John, looking very big for a seven-year-old, sat next to Father. Five-year-old Laura and Sarah sat in the back of the wagon with Mother. They all watched Kirtland grow smaller as they joined the other wagons leaving the city.

The first few weeks of the trip seemed especially long because of the slow pace of the oxen. John and Laura had been excited about the trek at first, but even they calmed down as time passed. One night Sarah was awakened by the low voice of her father. There was something in the sound of his voice that frightened her. She crawled out from under her blanket and drew back the wagon flap.

The worried look on Father’s face eased a little when he saw her. “Sarah, I need your help. Your mother has a high fever. Can you go to the river and fill the bucket with some water?”

Sarah was afraid. Mother had never been sick! She had always been the one to take care of others when they were ill. Quickly Sarah filled the bucket and returned to the wagon. All night long she and Father took turns wiping her mother’s face with damp cloths to keep her cool. Mother was too sick to say a word, and this really upset Sarah. By morning Sarah realized that she must take care of her brother and sister and fix whatever breakfast she could put together. She knew that she must remain calm so that John and Laura would not be frightened by Mother’s illness. Quietly she woke the children and told them what had happened.

“Will you go and get some small pieces of wood to start the fire, Laura?” she asked. “You’re really good at finding wood.” Turning to her little brother, she said, “John, if you can get some larger pieces, we can build a fire together.”

John crawled out from under his blanket and began to work without complaining. Sarah was amazed at how helpful her sister and brother were. They seemed to know exactly what to do.

Sarah cooked breakfast and quickly cleaned everything up. Mother didn’t seem much better, so Sarah stayed in the back of the wagon and put soothing, damp cloths on her mother’s face. Father had been able to fix a lid on a bucket so that the water didn’t spill with the wagon’s movement. Because the children helped so much, the family was able to keep up with the company.

Sarah spent every spare minute planning and cooking meals, keeping their clothes washed, and tending Mother. Laura and John gathered wood each night for cooking, and they helped in any other way they could. John found some empty wooden spools, and he and Laura were busy making a surprise for the family.

One morning Sarah awoke and realized that her family had been gone from Kirtland for six weeks! Mother was almost well, but she still let the children take care of things together. How proud she was of Sarah’s cooking and John and Laura’s fires.

“Do you know what’s happened to us, Sarah?” Mother said softly. “With the Lord’s help, we are relying on each other now. This is what we’re supposed to do. If I hadn’t been sick, you children would never have been able to show your father and me the many things you can do for our family.”

Before Sarah could reply, John and Laura climbed into the wagon holding something under a cloth. Father climbed in behind them and said, “I don’t know what these two are up to, but they made me stop everything to come and see what they’ve made.”

The children uncovered a checkerboard made from a weathered board, and a set of tiny checkers made from the spools John had found. Laura beamed and said, “John rubbed charcoal on some spools to make the black pieces, and I colored the other ones with some berries we found along the way. We thought everyone could take turns playing checkers.”

Sarah felt tears come to her eyes. She would miss Kirtland and its happy memories, but she was taking with her the best part of those memories—her family.

Winter had set in, and mounds of snow covered the hills and rounded the shapes of the trees. It was the kind of weather one would expect two days before Christmas in Sharon, Vermont.
About midnight the few farmhouses scattered among the hills were dark—except for the Smith’s where a lamp was still burning.
Even though it was Christmastime, a light that late at night was unusual. But something wonderful had happened on that twenty-third of December, 1805. A baby had been born.
The next day, a neighbor came to visit the Smiths. Alvin and Hyrum, the oldest of the children, saw him coming. They ran to meet him, shouting the news as they went, “We have a new baby!”
“It’s a boy! A boy!”
As they plowed through the snowdrifts surrounding the small frame home, they all had to laugh. Little sister Sophronia was watching from the window with her nose flattened against the glass. Father Smith opened the door to let them in and took the neighbor to see the baby, who was sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. “Well, what do you know,” he exclaimed, removing his hat, “a baby boy!”
“Yes,” Lucy said. “He’ll be named for his father. We’re going to call him Joseph.”
There weren’t any telephones, just neighbor folk to pass the word along. So when he left, the neighbor must have carried the news to the men and boys clustered around the stove at the village store. “Another boy for the Smiths,” he announced. “They can always use another hand on the farm,” a hand-warmer declared.
However, when Lucy stroked the soft baby hair, she imagined him not as a farmhand but as a leader and a mighty man. Then she smiled at her dreams. He looked like every other baby born to farm folk in the backwoods of Vermont. There was no reason to think he would be known outside the neighborhood.
Even in her wildest dreams Lucy could not have guessed that this small, new Joseph would run into hatred and yet would inspire such admiration that millions would follow him. And it would be said of him, “In all that he did he was manly and almost godlike.”
Yes, a baby had been born, and “the Lord had his eyes upon him.”

A few years back a youth sacrament meeting speaker invited those who weren’t sure they felt God’s love to pray and ask whether Heavenly Father loves them.
I took that invitation to heart. Unbeknownst to me, my older sister also decided to do it. We each prayed individually that night. Months later we shared our experiences with one another. I told her how some time after praying, I’d allowed my mind to wander, eventually recalling a poem I had read about the Savior’s love. I had been overwhelmed by the Spirit, and I had felt of the joy of both my Heavenly Father’s and Savior’s love for me. Tears of joy had crept to my eyes, and I had again folded my arms, this time in a prayer of gratitude.

After dinner they had a special family night. Dad showed them a black-and-white picture.
“This is Joseph Francis, your great-great-great grandpa,” Dad said. “He came to the United States with his family when he was 13 years old.”
Dad talked about how Joseph sailed from England and then worked in a factory to earn money to cross the plains. Benjamin couldn’t believe a boy who was just older than he was had done so many hard things.

Before she was 10 years old, Laura Córdova, now 15, prayed for a testimony. “I heard others say that the Book of Mormon and the Church were true,” she says. “So I prayed to know for myself. And the Lord gave me my testimony.”

As we cleaned I told Sister Wong about Topie. I told her about how I had sold him because we couldn’t afford to take him to California. I also told her about how I had earned the money to buy him two years ago when he was just a foal. I explained the voice commands I had taught him before he was old enough to be broken. I told her of the endless hours walking with him when he was sick with colic, and how he trembled when I put salve on his wounds after he tore himself on barbed wire.
I explained how hard it had been to pay my tithing when I was responsible for my horse financially. Yet somehow it had always worked out. The baby-sitting jobs had come, and I was able to keep the promise I had made to Mom and Dad that my horse wouldn’t burden the family financially. Now I had decided to sell my horse. I had decided to sell my beautiful friend rather than beg and cry to my parents and break my promise.

The gaunt figure came ambling up the rutted road leading to our slab-sided house on the hill. He was dressed in tattered pants and jacket, and his cap was nothing more than a bill, four heavy seams, and a button on top. His shoes consisted of shoestrings, bits of worn leather, and cardboard.
Poverty was not new to us. Dad worked on a public works program for the county, and we knew what it was to do without. Mom, however, always planted a garden, and it was the garden that helped us survive those long years of the Depression. We never went hungry.
The hobo’s look of uncertainty made me feel sad as I watched him come toward us. Bobby, my oldest brother, had already run to tell Mom, and my two younger brothers just stood there trying to decide whether this bundle of rags was a threat or just a curiosity. As for me, I was impressed that anyone so thin could climb the hill to our house.
Mom came out of the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. With the warmth of an angel, she greeted this stranger with all the dignity and pleasure that one would give a close friend. “You look kind of beat, young man,” she said. “Just step over to the well, and I’ll get you a pan of hot water so that you can wash up.” Pointing to the well, she went back to the house.
We were no different from any of our friends in the community; none of us had running water in our houses. My dad had dug the well years before when he had first built our house, and we took turns drawing water from the well for everything from drinking to bathing and washing clothes.
In a few minutes Mom was back carrying a wash pan, soap, towel, and Dad’s shaving cream and razor. “You’ll feel just like a million dollars, young man, if you get yourself shaved. After you’ve had a bite to eat, I’ll give you a haircut, seeing as how you could certainly use one.” With this declaration, she turned to the task of fixing him breakfast.
The four of us stood wide-eyed and watched the stranger as he washed and combed his hair. Then very carefully he shaved off his long beard with Dad’s razor, leaving his face tanned at the top and white at the bottom. We looked at each other and giggled, but never did he speak to us or we to him. Perhaps he was as puzzled by us as we were of him.
I was second to the oldest child, and the only girl, so I felt that perhaps I should take over the duties of hostess. The smell of hotcakes came drifting from the open door, and even though we had eaten, it was a heavenly smell. The stranger’s eyes shifted to the kitchen door and back to us. Digging my big toe into the dirt, I said, “My mom’s a really good cook. You’ll like her hotcakes.”
The man just nodded and said nothing. Shifting from one foot to the other, he gazed around the yard, taking in the picnic table that my dad had built and the old cookstove sitting in quiet dignity on cement blocks beside the well house.
“Why don’t you sit down,” I said, moving toward him cautiously. I wasn’t sure whether Mom intended for this bundle of rags to come into the house or not, but I felt that good manners forced me to say something.
Again he nodded. Moving to the table, he threw his long, thin legs over the seat and collapsed like a deflated inner tube.
With a flourish of pot holders and warming pan, Mom pushed open the screen door with her shoulder. She carried a stack of hotcakes, homemade syrup, and butter and set them on the table. She turned to me. “Sissy, run into the house and get this hungry young man a plate and a glass. And bring the pitcher of milk while you’re at it.” When I returned, she gave the table a last-minute check, then said, “Now, young man, you just dig right into these hotcakes, and you’ll feel better in no time.”
I have never seen food disappear so fast in my life! He was so hungry that it made me want to cry. I was thirteen years old, and I had never been hungry a day in my life. Most of the time our food was plain, but we always had plenty to eat.
As fast as the hotcakes were eaten, Mom put more onto his plate. I poured milk into his glass as fast as it vanished down his throat. At last he stood up and wiped his mouth with his ragged sleeve. “How can I thank you, ma’am?” he asked as he backed away from the table. “I’d be glad to chop some wood for you to pay for my meal—or whatever else you could find for me to do.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, young man, we’ll talk about that after I give you a haircut.” Mom smiled at him, then sailed into the house for her clippers and shears. Long hair was not something that she could abide on a man. It was an absolute sign of sinful neglect, and getting it cut neatly was your first step on the road to salvation, according to her. Mom was sure that the eleventh commandment was—or should have been—“Thou shalt be clean, with hair trimmed.” In no time at all, the young man was seated under the big old weeping willow tree, having his hair expertly cut.
There was something about my mom that made you feel right at home. She visited with the stranger, and in no time he was telling us who he was and where he’d come from, just as though he had known us all his life.
His name was Tad Bellows, and he was barely nineteen. He’d been raised in Missouri and had three brothers and four sisters, all younger than himself. His father had died when he was sixteen, and he’d left home, hoping to find work.
As Mom cut his hair, I saw this whole new person emerge. My mind remembered him as he had arrived, and matched it against this clean-cut young man. I wondered if his mother and brothers and sisters missed him. I wondered what it would be like to be a hobo, riding the rails among strangers—hungry, cold, and tired. I knew that some folks were hard on hoboes, thinking that they were just bums and having nothing to do with them. I quickly looked around at the home and family that I loved, and I silently thanked Heavenly Father for them.
“Just a minute, Tad,” Mom said as she shook out the old sheet she had put around him while cutting his hair. “I think that Dad has an extra cap you might as well have. The poor thing that you have has had its day.” She hurried into the house and returned with a cap and one of Dad’s old jackets.
Tad shuffled his feet in embarrassment but took the things that she handed him and headed for the woodpile. All morning we could hear him chopping away, and by noon we figured that he must have cut a stack high enough to build a fort.
At noon Mom called to Tad to eat lunch with us, and he did so gratefully, filling himself as though he had not eaten all those hotcakes just a few hours before.
My brothers and I were all blond and curly headed. We were each just two years apart in age, and during the summer Mom dressed us all in overalls, even me. They were easier to clean and much sturdier than dresses. We never wore shoes in the summer, except to church on Sundays or when we went berrying, so we must have looked funny to Tad. Our eyes never strayed from his face as we sat on the picnic bench, eating our sandwiches. Our blond curls and freckled faces shone in the sun, and our bare feet swung in perfect rhythm.
All of a sudden Tad winked at us and pulled a piece of green willow wood from his pocket. Placing it to his lips, he began to play. Soft at first, the melody floated across the yard and into the summer air as though seeking escape. Tad’s long thin fingers moved swiftly over the tiny holes, and the gentle melody grew and danced in the air like butterflies in flight. I wanted to sing along with its beauty, but the lump in my throat made it difficult.
We sat spellbound by the magic of it all, and when he lowered his arms, we clapped our hands and cried out with glee, urging him to play some more. Instead, he stood up quietly, tapped the simple flute gently in the palm of his hand, and stuffed it back into his ragged pocket. Looking at each of us in turn, he said, “I made it from one of God’s little miracles.”
He worked long into the afternoon, and we wondered what Dad would say when he came home to find half the backyard stacked with chopped wood. We each had our own chores to do before Dad came home from work, so the hours passed swiftly. It wasn’t until our stomachs began to tell us that it was time for dinner that we realized how silent it was in the backyard.
Hurrying around the stack of wood, and stumbling over each other, we were stunned to find that Tad was gone! But lying on the chopping block was a package of flower seeds and—wonder of wonders!—the magical little instrument that he had played for us. Written in a childlike scrawl on an old scrap of paper was, “Beauty has nothing to do with money. It is a gift of God!”

In April this year, Anita and I had the privilege of ministering to the Papua New Guinea missionaries with President and Sister Kinikini. We also attended the Rigo District conference on Sunday 30 April, where we met 23 couples and six senior service missionary sisters. One of the couples only joined the Church just over a year ago. All branches in the Rigo District have two to four senior missionary couples or senior service mission companions. Although limited in resources, they are not limited in their desire, faith, hope, charity, and love.