Gospel Story Finder

“If there is anything that qualifies me for this calling it is the testimony that I gained at age 18 while I prepared for a mission,” says Elder James Joseph Hamula. “I had a most remarkable experience where I received a strong witness of the divinity of the Lord and of His Church.”
Born on November 20, 1957, in Long Beach, California, USA, to Joseph and Joyce Hamula, Elder Hamula remembers reading the account of the First Vision. He read of how the young Joseph Smith wanted to know what was right, and felt that he too needed to go to the Lord in prayer. “So I knelt at my bedside and earnestly prayed to the heavens. And in response I got an answer that was as clear and as unmistakable as anything that I’ve experienced in life. I got up off my knees knowing that the Church was true.”
Elder Hamula has also served as a bishop, stake president, and Area Seventy. “All my experiences in the Church have been refinements of that singular experience as a young man of 18 preparing for my mission,” he says. “That was the foundation of it all.”

Years ago, a young girl confessed to my wife and me a very tragic period of her life. I won’t tell you about her life, but it was a tragic life, and I’ve never seen a girl with sadder eyes than this lovely girl of eighteen. And in trying to give her some comfort and hope for the future, I realized that we’re adding to our past; we’re building onto it each day we live. Life is not a rigid, fixed, quantitative kind of thing. It’s a growing, qualitative, whole thing. And the whole is greater than any of its parts, and gives meaning to its parts. My arm by itself hung on the wall is one thing; my arm as a part of my body and servant of my mind is another thing. An event in that girl’s past, or even ten events, were one thing at eighteen when she was in the depths of despair. And then she came into the fold, was baptized into the Church, found some faith in Christ, converted her husband, reared a fine family, and her life has been going like this ever since. This valley of failure in her life is one thing by itself; it’s another thing when it’s one dip in a long beautiful life. This idea makes life dynamic: it’s comforting and exciting to know that you can improve.

In 1907, after seven and a half years of work, the Vernal Tabernacle was completed and ready for dedication. A little seven-year-old named Porter Merrell was there, ready to attend the dedication with his parents. His father had worked as a carpenter on the tabernacle.
Approaching his 98th birthday, Brother Merrell remembers that day. “When it came time for the dedication, there were too many people to fit inside. They rounded up all of us kids about the ages from seven to ten and took us down to the east of the tabernacle. Before I left, I looked down from the balcony. All the ladies wore hats. They decorated their hats, and looking down it looked just like a flower garden.”
President Joseph F. Smith had made the long journey from Salt Lake City to dedicate the tabernacle. Brother Merrell was in the group of children chosen to greet the prophet as he arrived in their city. President Smith also visited every ward in the Uintah Stake. Porter was seated with the other children on the little chairs in front of the prophet. He still remembers what the prophet with the flowing snow-white beard said.
“He told us,” says Brother Merrell, “that he wanted us all to remember. The Spirit of the Lord was going to be poured out upon the world. There would be more development and more progress in the world during the next 30 to 40 years than there had been in the history of the world. He looked at us and said, ‘I want you little fellers to remember that and see if there won’t start to be progress.’”
Once again, 90 years later, Brother Merrell attended a dedication in the Vernal Tabernacle, only this time it was a temple, the house of the Lord.

Three stakes in New Zealand—the Harbour, Manurewa, and Manukau—joined together for a youth conference involving 175 youth.
The group, bound for Motutapu, meaning sacred island, departed in the Blue Boats from Princes Wharf. Casting off in early evening and facing overcast weather, they had a calm trip until they reached the island. Rain began to drizzle, and they trekked from the landing to camp between the sloping hills. Spirits were boosted as young enthusiasts who had attended camp the year before kept pace and sang songs as the group trudged on.
Reaching camp triumphant though footsore and drenched, the group was assigned accommodations in barracks that were once used as a military base.
The next days were spent enjoying the beauty of the setting and learning to sail or paddle the dinghy, Windsurfer, and canoes. Snorkeling in the bay and absailing (rappeling) down a cliff under the careful supervision of a trained instructor challenged individuals to face some of their fears.
The greatest physical challenge was the confidence course, with movable logs, rope bridges, and gigantic swings. The cheering on by friends and the chance to pitch in and help one another gave the young people the confidence to complete the course and go around again for another try.
Gospel workshops, dorm family home evenings including testimony meeting, and a sing-along added to the spiritual aspect of the conference.
On the last evening of the conference, a special “Aloha Night” was held. Each stake prepared a floor show for the evening featuring dances and songs from the cultures throughout the Pacific.
After cleaning up and packing, everyone gathered on the side of the hill, where certificates, both amusing and serious, were given out; witty skits were performed; and a special song saying, “Be a light, a shining light, for all the world to see. … I’ve found a friend, I’ve found a friend in you” was taught.
With those words lingering, they journeyed down to board the boat for home.

It was still dark in the hogan where the young Navajo boy lay sleeping on a bed of soft white sheepskins. He heard nothing until a firm hand shook him gently and the sound of his grandfather’s voice reached his ears.
“Wake up, Kee! You must hurry before the sun is up.” Kee opened his tired eyes slowly and stared up toward his grandfather’s wrinkled face. He did not want to get up so early, but it would not be good to show disrespect.
Without a word, he sat up and slipped a light woolen jacket over his plaid shirt and denim pants. As he pulled open the heavy wooden door, his grandfather handed him the familiar stick.
Kee peered out into the morning darkness, broken only by a thin, crooked line of light outlining the ridge of the mesa in the distance.
It is so very, very far away, he thought.
With a sudden jolt, the Indian boy darted from the hogan, running past the sheep corral and out across the barren land. He could barely see the clumps of sagebrush that he jumped over. As he ran faster and faster, his heart pounded loudly beneath his shirt. The cool morning wind parted his thick, black hair as he ran on and on, clutching the stick in his hand.
The mesa was getting clearer now as the sun began to rise above it. Kee was filled with awe as he viewed the beauty of the rising sun each morning. Calling on all his strength, he increased his speed. He must not stop now, it was still so far away. The muscles of Kee’s legs stretched and pulled as he ran harder and harder. His eyes stared straight ahead at the line of golden sunlight as it rose higher and higher above the red rock formations and then suddenly burst into the sky. A new day had come.
Panting hard, Kee slowed his pace and stopped. With a powerful jab, he thrust the stick deep into the earth as a witness of his strength. Only then did he allow his body to relax. He sank to the ground to rest.
As the young Navajo boy gazed at the towering red rocks glistening in the early morning sun, he could almost hear the words his grandfather had spoken so many times.
“Every morning you must run to meet the sun. Run as fast as you can until you can run no more, then plant a stick in Mother Earth. Your legs will become stronger and stronger until one day you will plant your stick at the foot of the mesa. Then you will be a man, my son.”
And so morning after morning Kee had run to greet the new day, and each time he inched closer to the horizon.
Will I ever become a man? wondered Kee as he eyed the distant formation. I’m sure I will never reach the mesa and I am tired of running. It is foolishness that the old man speaks.
“Tomorrow, I will only run and hide behind the sheep corral,” Kee said to himself as he strolled lazily back to the hogan.
As he neared his grandfather’s home, Kee sensed that something was wrong. Always before he had been greeted by the sight of the white-haired man waiting in the doorway and smoke curling from the center of the roof. Now the doorway was empty and the smokeless pipe atop the hogan meant no fire had been built. He rushed inside and quickly looked around the eight-sided room. It was empty and he became frightened.
Each summer Kee came to the isolated home of his aged grandfather to help with the sheep and to be taught the ways of his people. He did not always understand the things his grandfather said, but his heart was filled with love and respect for the old man.
Where can he be? wondered the boy as he stood frozen with fear to the hard-packed earth floor. Suddenly, a low muffled sound came from the other side of the log walls. Kee rushed outside and ran around to the back of the hogan. There, by the large pile of cedar wood, lay his grandfather with a look of pain across his face.
“I was getting firewood,” he whispered. “When I fell the big logs rolled onto my legs.”
Kee knew that the logs had to be moved to free his grandfather. He pulled on the logs but he could not move them.
“My arms are not strong enough!” Kee cried. “What can I do?” The old man looked into the eyes of the frightened boy.
“Your arms may not be strong, but your legs are very strong, my son,” he said. “Run as fast as you can to the home of Uncle Hosteen Begay. He will bring help.”
Kee ran faster than he had ever run before, and as the muscles stretched and pulled he felt great strength in his legs. Feeling fear for his grandfather’s safety, he pushed harder and harder, leaping over clusters of rabbit brush and dashing past the scattered juniper trees. His heart beat fast, but he did not tire nearly as easily as he had before.
In a shorter time than he thought possible, the boy had reached the distant hogan of Hosteen Begay and several uncles were on their way to care for his grandfather.
Kee stared out toward the colorful mesa and thought of the many sticks he had planted in his attempts to reach it.
“It is not foolishness that the old man speaks after all,” he declared. “Tomorrow I will gladly run to meet the sun!”

I want to share with you some of the great blessings the Book of Mormon can bring to us. The Book of Mormon can and does change lives. After our son John received his mission call to Japan, he said to me, “Dad, before I enter the Missionary Training Center, I am going to read the Book of Mormon twice.” I said to John, “That is quite a demanding goal.” I felt his resolve and made the decision to follow his example. I began reading early each morning. A few days later when I came home from work, John said to me, “I caught up with you today.” I asked, “What do you mean?” His response: “I caught up to where you are in the Book of Mormon. You left it open on your desk.” The next morning after my reading, I felt inspired to turn about 150 pages past where I was. I left my Book of Mormon open where he could not miss it and went to work. After a meeting that morning, I checked my voice mail. The very first message said, “Yeah, sure, Dad!”

Why this story? As I watched my son read from the Book of Mormon, I began to see a special change in his life as he prepared to enter the Missionary Training Center. That experience has anchored my son to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

On my third day in the hospital, my neurologist requested an MRV (magnetic resonance venography) of my spinal column and brain, looking for a tumor or blockage. At 4:00 a.m. two days after I woke up blind, I began a five-hour MRV. In preparation, my family planned to pray and fast for me that morning. My father, who slept by my side on a bench each night in my hospital room, gave me another blessing—the second of several blessings I received.

When a hospital technician asked if I wanted to listen to music during my test, I asked for songs from my favorite singer. The tech placed a set of rubber earphones into my ears and pinned my head down with a facial mesh to hold me in place. In the process, he bumped the headphones nearly out of my ears. I could barely hear any music as the MRV began.

The longer the procedure took, the hotter I felt inside the tubular imaging machine. After what seemed like forever, I was told I was doing great and to keep going a little longer. But I felt scared and distraught from the heat, loud sounds, and constraints holding me still.

In silent prayer, I cried out: “Heavenly Father, please comfort me. I’m so alone. I need Thy help. I need my family.”

Immediately, a soft piano chord echoed in my ears. It was from one of my favorite songs—one that my younger sister, Morgan, plays on the piano. I would not have expected to hear it from the loose earphones over the noise of the machine. It seemed like Morgan was with me, and I wasn’t alone. The noise went away. The heat went away. The claustrophobia went away.

I felt out of my body, like I was floating on a sea in space. I felt surrounded by God’s love and by my family’s love. Just like that, I was calm. It was 7:30 a.m., the time my family started fasting for me. The rest of the five-hour MRV passed in an instant, and then I heard, “You’re done.”

The love I felt from that experience left me in tears and eased the weariness I felt during the rest of my stay in the hospital. I didn’t know if my sight would return, but I knew that God was there and had heard my prayer. After four days in the hospital, I was released.

For the past couple of years, the lives of Latter-day Saint youth in Malaysia have been filled with a different kind of firsts—gospel firsts. The Ipoh Malaysia District was organized in 2003. And since then youth here have planned and participated in their first-ever youth conference and attended their district’s first seminary graduation. There are only three branches in the Ipoh Malaysia District, but the youth are determined to share their testimonies with others so they can help the Church grow. They hope they will one day belong to the first ward in western Malaysia.
“You don’t always get to be first in everything,” says Malvinder Singh, 16, who joined the Church in 1998. “But we are pioneers here.”
At a youth conference last year, the air was filled with cries of excitement as the teens experienced yet another first—baseball. Only two or three of the youth who attended the conference had ever played the game before, so they were given the assignment to explain the rules to the others.
“It was a brand-new experience to learn how to play baseball, since soccer and badminton are the sports we play here,” says Malvinder.
In addition to baseball, youth conference was filled with other fun games and activities. Although the youth enjoyed the activities, they say what they will remember most about the experience was the opportunity to meet people with similar beliefs and to draw courage from knowing they are not alone.
Ariana Dabier, a Mia Maid, says, “It was great to see so many Malaysian youth who are just like me—faced with similar trials and temptations—and yet they stand firm in their faith. I now know that no matter where I go on this earth, the gospel will be the same.”
Another gospel first the youth recently experienced was the opportunity to attend their district’s first seminary graduation ceremony. Three Malaysian youth—Kelvin Anand Kumar, Aun Luck Tan Ernest, and Hamish Steven Parsons—earned seminary diplomas.
Kelvin, who was baptized in 1999, attended seminary during the first four years he was a member of the Church. He says the knowledge he gained there increased his testimony. “I am glad I graduated from seminary,” he says. “Seminary helped me to make correct decisions and plan my education. Because of the things I learned in seminary, I know someday I will marry in the temple.”
The youth say the examples of Kelvin and other graduates encourage them to attend seminary faithfully. Attending seminary is difficult for Malaysian teens because studies and homework take up most of their free time. They go to school six days a week, and most students also study with a private teacher after school ends for the day.
Jaslinder Kaur, a Mia Maid in the Ipoh Second Branch, says most of her friends don’t understand her decision to attend seminary. “When I told my friend I was going to church early in the morning to learn more about our Heavenly Father and His Son, she told me I was crazy and my grades would drop,” she says. “But seminary helps me do well in school because I have sacrificed my time for our Father in Heaven. When I go to school, my mind is fully awake, and I can concentrate better on my studies.”
Malvinder Singh also says attending seminary has helped him succeed in school. Malaysian students must complete rigid testing twice during their school careers. Test results determine which colleges students can attend and which professions they can pursue. Although this year was an important exam year for Malvinder, he still chose to go to seminary. He says he knows Heavenly Father blessed him for this decision by helping him do well on his tests. “Faith is the most important thing I have learned in attending seminary,” he says.
Missionaries have been a permanent presence in western Malaysia only since 1980, so there aren’t many members there yet. In fact, only 1 in 12,015 people in Malaysia—or .01 percent of the population—belongs to the Church. Like the early pioneers, the young men and young women in Malaysia know that many of their peers have not had an opportunity to hear the gospel. These youth know they can help the Church grow when they share their testimonies with their friends.
The youth also know that before they will be prepared to share the gospel with others, they must work hard to develop testimonies of their own. Aun Luck Tan Ernest’s parents taught him the gospel when he was young, but he always knew he needed to find out for himself if the gospel was true.
“I wanted to learn more about Jesus Christ when I was baptized,” Ernest, 17, says. “I knew He was the Son of God when I first bore my testimony in sacrament meeting. It was the happiest moment in my life, and I am still trying my best to strengthen my faith and grow in my testimony of Christ.”
Ernest and the other youth in the Ipoh district know that their testimonies will grow as they are shared. There are approximately 10 young men and 10 young women in the Ipoh Second Branch, and when possible they share their testimonies in testimony meeting. Young Women president Liew Siew Ling Chris says, “Hearing their testimonies is the greatest blessing I have.”
Youth in western Malaysia have been blessed with many gospel firsts. Through experiences like youth conference and seminary, they have learned they are not alone in their beliefs. And now they are determined to develop lasting testimonies of their own and help spread the good tidings of the gospel throughout Malaysia.

When I was a very small boy, my father found a lamb all alone in the desert. The herd of sheep to which its mother belonged had moved on, and somehow the lamb got separated from its mother, and the shepherd must not have known that it was lost. Because it could not survive alone in the desert, my father picked it up and brought it home. To have left the lamb there would have meant certain death, either by falling prey to the coyotes or by starvation because it was so young that it still needed milk. My father gave the lamb to me and I became its shepherd.
For several weeks I warmed cow’s milk in a baby’s bottle and fed the lamb. We became fast friends. I named him Nigh—why I don’t remember. It began to grow. My lamb and I would play on the lawn. Sometimes we would lie together on the grass and I would lay my head on its soft, woolly side and look up at the blue sky and the white billowing clouds. I did not lock my lamb up during the day. It would not run away. It soon learned to eat grass. I could call my lamb from anywhere in the yard by just imitating as best I could the bleating sound of a sheep.
One night there came a terrible storm. I forgot to put my lamb in the barn that night as I should have done. I went to bed. My little friend was frightened in the storm and I could hear it bleating. I knew that I should help my pet, but wanted to stay safe, warm, and dry in my bed. I didn’t get up as I should have done. The next morning I went out to find my lamb dead. A dog had also heard its bleating cry and killed it. My young heart was broken. I had not been a good shepherd or steward of that which my father had entrusted to me. My father said, “Son, couldn’t I trust you to take care of just one lamb?” My father’s remark hurt me more than losing my woolly friend. I resolved that day, as a little boy, that I would try never again to neglect my stewardship as a shepherd if I were ever placed in that position again.
Not too many years thereafter I was called as a junior companion to a home teacher. There were times when it was so cold or stormy that I wanted to stay home and be comfortable, but in my mind’s ear I could hear my little lamb bleating, and I knew I needed to be a good shepherd and go with my senior companion. In all those many years, whenever I have had a desire to shirk my duties, there would come to me a remembrance of how sorry I was that night so many years ago when I had not been a good shepherd. I have not always done everything I should have, but I have tried.

Elder Llewellyn Harris had just arrived at a Zuni Indian village in New Mexico. It was 1878, and he was on his way to Mexico to preach the gospel. A few of the Zunis had already been baptized members of the Church, but many others wanted to be baptized as well.
A member of the tribe, Captain Lochee, invited Elder Harris to stay with his family. Three of Captain Lochee’s children were very sick with smallpox.
During the night, Elder Harris heard one of the children crying and gasping for breath. Captain Lochee told Elder Harris that his 12-year-old daughter was dying. Elder Harris’s journal tells what happened next: “The Spirit of the Lord moved upon me very strongly to administer to her, which I did. She revived and slept well the remainder of the night.”
Then Elder Harris blessed the two other sick children, and they also recovered.
The next morning, news of the healings spread throughout the village. Elder Harris was asked to visit 25 families who had members sick with smallpox. For four days, he visited 10 to 20 families a day and administered to their sick. Nearly everyone he blessed recovered.
But the disease spread so rapidly that Elder Harris wasn’t able to visit all the sick families. Early one morning, a Zuni woman took him to a house that had a large room. There he found sick people gathered from all over the village.
Elder Harris prayed that the Lord would strengthen him. He knew he would need help to administer to this many people. “I commenced, and as fast as I administered to them they were removed, but other sick ones were continually being brought in,” he wrote.
By the time Elder Harris blessed the last person, the sun had set. The man who acted as his interpreter had also stayed there all day. He asked Elder Harris if he knew how many people he had blessed. Elder Harris said he hadn’t kept count. The interpreter told Elder Harris he had counted 406 people.
Elder Harris wrote the following morning that his arms were so sore he could hardly move them. He took no credit for himself, but gave credit to the Lord for the miraculous healings.

I believe that many bright and special and valiant spirits have been saved for this challenging time. I’m thinking about one bright little boy called Timmy.
Timmy had only two pennies in his pocket when he approached the farmer and pointed to a tomato hanging lusciously from a vine.
“Give you two cents for it,” the boy offered.
“That kind brings a nickel,” the farmer told him.
“This one?” Timmy asked, pointing to a smaller, greener, and less tempting specimen. The farmer nodded agreement. “OK,” said Timmy, and sealed the deal by placing his two pennies in the farmer’s hand. “I’ll pick it up in about a week.”
You young men could learn from Timmy, who invested two cents in a tomato that would be worth five cents in the future. If you are willing to invest now, you young men will have opportunities to accomplish as much as any generation that has ever lived. For too many, however, the seed of faith falls among thorns, and the seed becomes unfruitful.

After boot camp and medical training, I was assigned to an air force base in Colorado, USA. One day, I received a letter from my oldest brother stationed in the Philippines. He had joined the air force about a year before I did. He told me that he had become a member of the Church, and he wanted me to meet with the missionaries. I immediately recalled the experience in boot camp with the brave airman. My wife and I met with the missionaries, and we were soon baptized.
A few months later, I had the missionaries visit my younger brother. He and his wife were also baptized. My brothers and I now have large families with grandchildren. We all love the Lord and His Church.

Illustration by Roger Motzkus
I stared out the window as I washed my hands in the kitchen sink. It was a very warm summer day and the birds were singing. The sun was bright and the grass was green. I could see the little dirt road that ran down the hill past our house to the fields, which were flooded again. This happened all the time when the water was let into the canal so the farmers could water.
I was just about to return to my afternoon hideout in my room when I got a sudden feeling that I should go play with my brothers. And even though I couldn’t hear them and I hadn’t seen them for hours, somehow I knew they were outside playing in the water.
Now, I really like my brothers. Blake was 5, and Morgan was almost 4. And even though I enjoyed spending time with them, I didn’t usually seek them out to play. But this time, I knew I needed to.
As I left the house, heading toward the flooded road and the ditch beyond, my main concern was that I didn’t want to get wet. A small children’s tricycle was sitting next to the road, so I used it like a scooter to begin my journey through the water.
The dirt road that led to the neighbor’s field ran on top of a culvert, a drainage pipe that carried water underneath the road and let the water out into the ditch on the other side. As I was making my way toward the culvert, I heard yelling and instantly knew I had to get there fast! Abandoning the tricycle, I ran through the water to the ditch. As the water drained through the culvert, it made a whirlpool. It was an impressive sight. But when I saw my brothers, I gasped.
Morgan had been sucked in! Blake was standing on one side of the culvert’s opening and Travis, our cousin who was the same age as Blake, was standing on the other side. The water was swirling around their legs and each of them was grasping one of Morgan’s hands. Only Morgan’s head and arms were above water. Only the desperate grips of two small boys were keeping him from being swept into the culvert.
Morgan went under the water. Blake and Travis pulled with all their might and were able to bring him up just far enough that his head came out of the water again. Thoughts of confusion and panic were rushing through my head. The one thing I remember thinking was that it was going to be hard to pull Morgan out of the water, like pulling your foot out of mud that’s halfway to your knees. But when I grabbed him and pulled, it was more like pulling a hot knife out of butter. He just slid out of the water.
The current from the whirlpool was so strong that it had pulled off Morgan’s shoes and socks. I bundled him up in the other boys’ shirts and laid him in a wagon and took him home.
After we got home and told Mom what happened, I went back down to the ditch to get Morgan’s stuff. What I saw there made my heart stop. On the other end of the culvert was a grate that had been welded on. It was there to keep anything other than water from leaving the culvert. The grate was full of garbage, and nothing bigger than a leaf was getting through. Had Morgan been pulled into the culvert, he wouldn’t have come out. He would have been stopped by that grate and drowned.
I know it was the Holy Ghost who gave me the impression to go play with my brothers that day, and it was because of the Holy Ghost that I knew where my brothers were. I’m thankful I have the Holy Ghost with me to help protect me and those I love. And I’m thankful I listened when I was inspired to go play with my brothers.

“When I was five, my father was called on a mission. My mother and we three children missed him very much during the two years he was gone, but I also know that the Lord blessed our family. One day my younger brother fell under a piece of moving farm equipment, a disc harrow. His head was seriously cut, and the doctor came to our home. While my brother lay on the kitchen table, the doctor sewed him up and told us that he wouldn’t live much longer. That was on Wednesday. When the doctor came to check my brother again on Saturday, we were playing at my uncle’s place. My brother was climbing around in the top of an apricot tree. The doctor took the bandages off my brother’s head and was amazed that the wound had healed. It was truly a miracle.”

Brother Brigham then took his horse and sleigh to Canada after his brother Joseph, a circuit-riding Methodist preacher and missionary, and “told him what I had experienced of the power of God.”28 Joseph and Phineas and their father actually joined the Church a week before Brigham did, having traveled again to the little Mormon branch in Columbia. But then the same humble elder who had first touched Brigham with his testimony traveled from Columbia to Mendon and baptized Brigham on April 15, 1832—in his own little millstream behind his carpentry shop. Brigham’s record of the event helps us understand some of the reasons for the powerful changes that immediately began to take place in him:
“Before my clothes were dry on my back he laid his hands on me and ordained me an Elder, at which I marvelled. According to the words of the Savior I felt a humble, child-like spirit, witnessing unto me that my sins were forgiven.”29

Once when Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. of the Seventy was a child, he and his sister were playing in a small boat on a river. At first their adventure was fun, but as the boat drifted farther from the shore, they realized they were floating toward dangerous waters downstream.
The children began calling for help. Their father heard them and raced to the boat to rescue them. He saved them, which was something they could not do for themselves. He did this because he loved them.

While I knew that God was there to help me and guide me, there was a whole list of people I’d turn to first before I would even think of turning to Him.

I realized this needed to change.

I knew how to change my relationship with God: love Him with all my heart, might, mind, and strength (see Doctrine and Covenants 59:5). But Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles helped me understand the why. He said: “The first great commandment of all eternity is to love God. … But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us. … That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life.”5

I started making God’s love the foundation of my daily life by talking to Him every day on the way to work. Though it started out awkward, it eventually grew into sharing the best parts of the day with Him, thanking Him, laughing with Him, and crying to Him. Praying changed from an obligation into something I knew would bring me closer to God.

I was one month shy of my 19th birthday when I arrived home filled with anticipation. There was an envelope with my name on it from Church headquarters waiting to be opened.
My heart jumped with excitement and anxiety when I read, “You are assigned to the Japan Fukuoka Mission.” I went back to work and announced the good news. I was going to Japan.
“Which mission?”
I could have pronounced Tokyo. I could have pronounced Osaka, but I couldn’t remember the name of the mission, and when I did, I didn’t know how to say it.
This plagued me over the next few weeks as I shared the good news with friends and family. A family friend who had just returned from his mission in Japan tried to help me memorize a short testimony in Japanese, but I just couldn’t do it.
My enthusiasm for missionary service was now accompanied with anxiety about learning the difficult Japanese language. Mentally, the hurdle was getting very high. My anxiety was turning into crippling fear, a constant companion.
It seemed this fear flew with me to the Brigham Young University—Hawaii campus, where the Missionary Training Center (MTC) for Asian languages was located. My fear was becoming a stumbling block. It loomed so large that it nearly consumed me.
I was getting up at 4:00 a.m. to try to get in hours of study before the regular 6:00 a.m. waking time. The adversary began to use one of his finely honed tools on me—comparison. Others were learning Japanese, and I was falling behind. I felt totally lost.
Let me go back to my time at the MTC in Hawaii. I recall that after completing nearly half my time at the MTC, something changed. I remember adjusting my study time each morning to include more time reading and studying the Book of Mormon rather than studying only Japanese.
I knew my mission assignment was from the Lord, and so I determined that I would do my best and put myself in the hands of the Lord.
I quit worrying about how well others were doing. I set goals for myself. And I started achieving them.
Fear and uncertainty subsided. Faith and hope filled their place. This resulted in the study of Japanese developing into a passion with great enjoyment. Ultimately, I have spent nine years of my life in Japan, for which I am so deeply grateful.

When Barbara Jinx Boquecosa, 18, of Mandaue, Philippines, and the rest of her family became less active, she noticed the difference in her life immediately. “When we stopped going to church, there was no peace in our home, and I really missed it,” she says. “I felt I was responsible to get us back active again, so I encouraged my family to go back.” That was more than a year ago, and since then, Barbara, her parents, and her two brothers and one sister have returned to full activity in the Mandaue Fourth Branch, Mandaue Stake. “It’s really a different feeling to be active in the Church. I can’t describe the happiness that I feel.”

Jimmy Stewart stars in “Mr. Krueger’s Christmas” this Christmas season, a television special produced by the Church and featuring the Tabernacle Choir. The half-hour program is directed by Kieth Merrill, the Mormon movie director who won an Oscar for “The Great American Cowboy.” Jimmy Stewart plays Mr. Kreuger, a widowed custodian preparing to spend a lonely Christmas by himself until he’s interrupted by Yuletide carolers.

“What made it impossible for me not to do this program was that I would have the privilege of directing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” said Mr. Stewart. “I’ve been an absolutely devoted fan of the Tabernacle Choir for many, many years. This is one of the greatest honors I’ve ever had.” To find out how Mr. Kreuger’s Christmas turns out, check your local television listings for December.