Gospel Story Finder

A few years ago, we decided to bottle peaches for our grandpa for Christmas. We knew that he liked simple gifts and loved peaches. Mom helped us boil the peaches, peel them, and put them in jars. It was so much fun to bottle the peaches and learn something new. On Christmas, we went to our grandpa’s house and were excited to carry in the big box of peaches. He was so happy when he unwrapped the box and saw all of the peaches inside. He told us how proud he was of us for learning how to bottle peaches. Now we give him Christmas peaches every year.

One Sunday morning, as we were going to church, our son, Steven, who was about 6 years old at the time, noticed that some young people were playing soccer in our street. He said to himself, “I wonder why these people are playing soccer on Sunday while they should be attending church?” It was obvious our son knew that Sunday is a special day when we are required to do certain things, and therefore, we are expected to stay away from other things. Steven knew that Sunday is the day of the Lord and that we must keep it holy.

Sunbeams spray upon
dusty crimson cliffs,
climbing towards the Master.
At the humble feet of nature,
beneath the sparse shade
of penitent oaks,
a young boy skins knees
bent against rugged stone.
Though not a forest grove
of the youthful Joseph,
a question cuts his heart.
Peace strikes his mind,
without visionary glories,
but with the faith of
a youth’s earnest prayer.

G. Gordon Whyte of Moose Jaw was the first member of the Church in Saskatchewan. He was baptized in August 1923 and later moved to Regina. Whyte and John G. Allred preached in a street meeting in Regina where they placed 16 copies of the Book of Mormon.

I read the article in the August 2007 New Era called “Just a Little Violence.” I liked it a lot because usually I don’t take violence very seriously and ignore it in the movies I see. This article was inspiring to me because I realized violence is a bad thing and that we shouldn’t even pretend to be violent. I love the New Era and thank you for putting this article in.
Brett H., location not given

Jamaica’s Blue Marker Jamaica shared her markers with Russell—because the teacher asked her to. Then Russell scribbled all over the picture she had worked so hard on. So why did she give him her blue marker to keep?Juanita Havill3–6 years

“Mommy, Mommy, guess what! There’s a robin’s nest in the tree! I was looking for Mr. Squirrel, and I saw the nest, and there are blue eggs in it!”
“That’s exciting, Donnie,” Mommy said. “Let’s hope that Mr. Squirrel keeps away until the eggs hatch.”
“Mr. Squirrel wouldn’t hurt the eggs, would he?”
“Indeed he would,” Mommy said. “Squirrels eat birds’ eggs if they get a chance to.”
All morning Donnie sat in an upstairs window and watched the nest. He loved Mr. Squirrel, but he loved Mr. and Mrs. Robin too. He wanted to make sure that no harm came to their eggs.
At noontime Mommy came up and said, “It’s time for lunch.”
“May I eat here, Mommy? I have to watch for Mr. Squirrel so that he won’t eat the eggs. Please?”
“Don’t worry. Mrs. Robin is sitting on the eggs, and Mr. Robin is around somewhere, guarding his family.”
When Daddy came home, Donnie showed him the robins’ nest with the eggs in it. “Mrs. Robin just left to find some dinner,” Donnie explained. Then he shouted, “There’s Mr. Squirrel! I have to chase him away!”
“Wait, Donnie,” Daddy said. “That’s Mr. Robin’s job. He won’t let anything happen to his family if he can help it. Just watch now, and see what Mr. Robin will do.”
As Donnie watched, Mr. Squirrel streaked through the tree branches toward the nest. Suddenly Mr. Robin darted at Mr. Squirrel, pecking at his head. Mr. Robin circled Mr. Squirrel and pecked at him over and over, until Mr. Squirrel ran away.
When Mr. Squirrel finally stopped and sat on a branch of a nearby tree, he turned and chittered angrily at Mr. Robin. Mr. Robin flew to a branch between the nest and Mr. Squirrel and crossly clicked his beak back at Mr. Squirrel.
After a while Mr. Squirrel scurried up his own tree, and Mr. Robin flew away.
“Mr. Robin’s gone!” Donnie cried. “What if Mr. Squirrel comes back?”
“Mr. Robin hasn’t gone far,” Daddy said. “We may not see him, but he’s there somewhere, still watching over his family.”

The world ends on a dark Christmas Eve, walking in the rain. The world ends halfway across a wet street, with a car skidding suddenly around the corner in a drunken left turn.
Blazing headlights.
Then the impact …
I wish I’d told her how I loved her …
Dark.
I can’t move.
I can’t feel the wet or the cold. Just a floating feeling.
Is this what it’s like to die?
I didn’t tell her how I loved her …
I can barely hear the starchy voice somewhere above me, but the words pound into my brain like dull spikes hammered in by a sledge.
“His heart just won’t respond. That’s it. He won’t make it.”
The world jolts to a stop.
And ends.
For me …
I never told her …
Three minutes left—the time it takes for the brain to die after the heart stops beating.
Three minutes of dark life.
Three minutes’ worth of thinking left in my brain.
And then the end …
The end!
And I hadn’t even started to live!
Everything I’ve ever done was just a getting ready to live. A preparation.
But not the living.
Why didn’t I live?
I’m dying, and I’ve never lived …
Three minutes.
I’ve done things I wish I hadn’t. But the things I didn’t do …
And now it’s all over with.
All but three minutes.
Why didn’t I tell her how I loved her?
Why didn’t I do a lot of things? Things I wanted to do much more than any of the things I ever got around to doing …
Things that should have been easy.
Like saying, “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have done that.”
Or, “It takes courage for a man to stand up for what he believes in the way you do. I admire you for that, and I want you to know it.”
I could have spent more time with the people who meant the most to me. I wonder if any of them ever knew how much I loved them?
How could I expect them to?
I never let them know …
I could have.
I could have said, “I think you’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. I don’t want anything special from you … I just want to be your friend …”
Why didn’t I?
Maybe I didn’t feel worthy of them. Maybe I thought I had to go out and do something great before I had the right to be their friend.
Maybe I was a fool …
I wish I’d told her how I loved her …
I could have.
I could have talked to her before she went away. Maybe I could have stopped her.
I could have told her I loved her. I wonder if she knew?
I could have said, “I love you. I always have, and I always will …”
I wonder what she would have done, if I’d told her?
I could have written to her after she went away. Maybe she would have answered.
But I wasn’t sure …
I wish I’d tried.
When I was afraid to talk to her, I wish I’d talked to her anyway. When I was afraid to write to her, I wish I’d gone ahead and written.
I never had the time to write letters. I always had something else I had to get done first.
I wonder how long it would have taken me to get everything done that I thought I had to get done before I wrote my letters?
And I wonder how much time I saved by not writing the letters?
And I wonder what I did with all that time?
How many minutes’ worth of time would I have had to pay to write one letter to her?
And what did I end up paying for not writing it?
A lifetime?
I could have spared her thirty minutes sometime out of my success schedule. Or even twenty. Ten minutes would have been enough to let her know I still remembered her …
If I could just have one minute right now, with a pen in my hand!
A single minute!
One minute, out of my last three …
Sixty seconds would be long enough to say something; long enough to tell her how I love her …
FOOL!
I could have told her how I loved her!
Why didn’t I tell her?
Fear?
Shame?
Fear, maybe. But never shame. I was never ashamed of her, and I was never ashamed of my love for her.
And as long as I could remember I loved her, I was never ashamed of myself …
Fear?
Yes.
Maybe …
Yes, I think I was afraid …
Of what?
Something vague.
The vague fears were always the worst. I never knew what it was I was trying to fight.
Why didn’t I tell her?
Maybe she would have laughed at my love for her. I could never have taken the grief of that.
No, she was a gentle girl. She would never have done such a thing, even if she hadn’t loved me.
But she had friends who would have …
Some of her friends could be cruel, in the refined manner in which only aristocratic ladies could be cruel. Maybe she would have told them, and maybe they would have been cruel.
And maybe I was a fool …
She was the only girl I ever loved unconditionally. Maybe I loved her so much I was afraid to take the chance of telling her, for fear she’d have to tell me she didn’t love me in return.
Maybe I wanted to spare us both having to go through the finishing scene of a friendship.
As long as friendship hadn’t ended, there was some hope of love to come …
So I grasped blindly for her friendship as it existed, or at least as I thought it existed, not daring to do anything that might have destroyed it.
But a friendship doesn’t have to end suddenly. It can crawl to an end so slowly that you’re never sure just where the end of it was. You can’t pick out a point in time and say, “This was the last hour of our friendship.” All you know is that one day you look for it when you need it, and it just isn’t there anymore.
Maybe that’s what happened to her half of our friendship.
But not mine.
I’m at the last three minutes of my half …
No. I’ll still love her. That’s one thing death doesn’t have the power to change.
I wish I’d told her how I loved her …
I wonder if I’m in my last minute yet? I wish I could be sure …
My last minute!
What can you do with a minute?
What can’t you do with a minute?
There’s nothing in the world you can do that you can’t do a little of in a minute. …
* * *
The last minute must be running out.
The game is finished.
And it wasn’t a two-mile game …
The heart is dead. All used up. Like a candle sputtering out when the last drop of wax is burned away.
Still …
This heart carried me over a lot of miles …
It was a two-mile heart. The heart of the two-mile game …
Can it really be dead?
How can it be dead?
I don’t believe …
I don’t believe it can be dead!
Come on, you two-mile heart! You CAN‘T be dead!
I have things I haven’t finished yet. I have things I haven’t even begun …
Beat! You can!
Beat! You will!
BEAT! I feel it coming …
BEAT! Almost …
THERE!
It beat!
I FELT it beat!
Exhausted …
Relax …
The first two are the hardest …
Now …
Beat! Almost …
Again, with more will …
BEAT!
Nothing …
Was the first time only my imagination?
For her sake …
BEAT!
AGAIN!
I felt it beat again!
AGAIN! …
Again! …
Again …
Again …
The second mile …
The mile of meditation …
Relaxation …
And very soon I’ll tell her how I love her …
“Nurse …”
“Yes; how are you feeling now?” “Much better, thanks, Would you let me have a pen and paper, please? I’d like to write a Christmas letter.”
* * *
The first mile is finished. The second is yet to run.
The second mile …
A soft, golden path, winding through green grass and tall trees, and leading—
Somewhere …
To her?
We’ll see where it leads. It’s a two-mile game, and it isn’t finished yet.
And now …
Now I’ll tell her how I love her …

Many years ago I worked for a railroad in the central offices in Denver. I was in charge of what is called head-end traffic. That was in the days when nearly everyone rode passenger trains. One morning I received a call from my counterpart in Newark, New Jersey. He said, “Train number such-and-such has arrived, but it has no baggage car. Somewhere, 300 passengers have lost their baggage, and they are mad.”

I went immediately to work to find out where it may have gone. I found it had been properly loaded and properly trained in Oakland, California. It had been moved to our railroad in Salt Lake City, been carried to Denver, down to Pueblo, put on another line, and moved to St. Louis. There it was to be handled by another railroad which would take it to Newark, New Jersey. But some thoughtless switchman in the St. Louis yards moved a small piece of steel just three inches, a switch point, then pulled the lever to uncouple the car. We discovered that a baggage car that belonged in Newark, New Jersey, was in fact in New Orleans, Louisiana—1,500 miles from its destination. Just the three-inch movement of the switch in the St. Louis yard by a careless employee had started it on the wrong track, and the distance from its true destination increased dramatically. That is the way it is with our lives. Instead of following a steady course, we are pulled by some mistaken idea in another direction. The movement away from our original destination may be ever so small, but, if continued, that very small movement becomes a great gap and we find ourselves far from where we intended to go.

Self-reliance is not an event or a single achievement, it is a lifelong quest. It is something that we need to constantly be working on. We need to always do our best and especially be honest with our employer or customers. What does it mean to be honest with our employer? To me it means that during my work hours, I will do my job and not play games on my phone, for example. If I am selling tomatoes in the local market, I will always sell the best ones and not purposely put rotten tomatoes in the bottom of the package. What happens when we do play online games during work hours or put rotten tomatoes in a package? We may have a short-term benefit, but we will not progress in the long term. The Lord cannot bless us if we are not honest. A scripture that comes to my mind is found in 2 Nephi 9:28–29: “When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

“But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.”

Once when I was at a store, I looked inside the vending machine where the candy falls down and found a bag of fruit snacks. I didn’t want to steal it, and I didn’t want someone else to steal it. I decided to give it to a worker. When I explained what happened, she said I could keep it and take it home to share with my family. While we ate the fruit snacks, I felt good inside for choosing the right.

I was a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood when World War II exploded upon the world. I was ordained an elder when we were all marched away to war.
I had dreams of following an older brother, Leon, who at that time was flying B-24 bombers in the Battle of Britain. I volunteered for air force pilot training.
I failed the written test by one point. Then the sergeant remembered that there were several two-point questions, and if I got half right on two of them, I could pass.
Part of the test was multiple choice. One question was “What is ethylene glycol used for?” If I had not worked in my dad’s service station, I would not have known that it is used for automobile antifreeze. And so I passed, barely.
I prayed about the physical. It turned out to be fairly routine.
I ended up in the Orient, flying the same kind of bombers that my brother flew in England. My mission, as it turned out, was in teaching the gospel in Japan as a serviceman.
Perhaps the hardest challenge of war is living with uncertainties, not knowing how it will end or if we can go ahead with our lives.
I was issued a small serviceman’s Book of Mormon that would fit into my pocket. I carried it everywhere; I read it; and it became part of me. Things that had been a question became certain to me.
The certainties of the gospel, the truth, once you understand it, will see you through these difficult times.
It was four years before we could return to our lives. But I had learned and had a sure testimony that God is our Father, that we are His children, and that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

After my mission I struggled to find work. Eventually I received an interview. I knew the position would be a great opportunity, but I worried that I was not as skilled as some of the other applicants. My turn for the interview came, and I sat nervously in front of the manager. As I glanced at his table, I saw a paper with the questions he was asking applicants. My heart pounded. The questions appeared to use difficult terminology I didn’t know. If those questions were the basis of passing the interview, I would lose the job even before the interview started.
The manager grabbed the paper to ask me some “starting” questions. Suddenly he said, “Maybe I should first look at your CV [résumé].” He found my résumé and started asking about my previous work experience. When he read “full-time missionary,” he asked if I could tell him what I taught on my mission. I hadn’t expected that question at all.
I talked with him about prophets, the plan of salvation, and eternal families. His face brightened and he said, “One of these days I want you to come and meet my family.” Our discussion lasted almost an hour.
He apologized that my interview was taking so long and again grabbed the paper with the interview questions. My nervous feelings returned. He paused and then asked, “Do you have a place to stay here in Manila?” He didn’t wait for my response and said, “Well, you need to look for one. You’ll start tomorrow.”
It’s still a miracle to me that during an important job interview the focus wasn’t on my qualifications but instead on my missionary service. I’ll never forget how my serving a full-time mission helped me in my interview.

As a young boy, I went on a rafting trip on the Colorado River. A wonderful adviser said, “On this rapid, I want you to be the ‘tiller’ (the one who steers the raft).” The adviser, whom I admired because of his physical strength and spiritual integrity, took a much less significant position in the raft, handed me the oar, and said, “Now it’s your turn.”

We calculated how we would run the rapid, and then we ran it. I broke two paddles in the rapid, but with the help of a well-prepared crew, we met the challenge safely. I thought, There’s an adviser who understands. It was a remarkable example of a trusting priesthood adviser raising a young man’s potential for service. He was there to hand us the oar, not just steer for us. It helped me gain self-confidence.

To the person who wrote a Feedback letter titled “I wish I had a friend,” I want to say yes, you have a friend. Simply keep up those prayers. I grew up in wards where I was made fun of by other LDS youth. But I stayed in church. Now those days are long gone. No way would I ever want to leave the Church. It’s too wonderful. I love it. You do have a friend in Elder J. Gunter of the Tennessee Nashville Mission.

Maybe I have lived a pampered life, but I am just not used to being told that I am headed for Hades. Actually, it only happened once, but that was enough to shake me up a bit and spur some thought that has not left my mind even now.
It happened when I left school at BYU for a summer and went to Washington, D.C., to work in a government office. Another office employee was an exceptionally bright and articulate young man who not only worked full-time, but was also completing his studies in law school. He was not a member of the Church, but he had been surrounded by members for several years. He probably knew the technical points of the doctrine even better than I, and his knowledge of the Bible was superb. Had our conversations ever degenerated to the level of argument, his nimble lawyer’s mind and tongue would have left my inexperienced self stunned and breathless. To accomplish this, I think, was actually his desire, for he took great delight in asking questions designed to confuse and baffle me, and his attacks on the Church were well planned and skillfully executed. His intentions became clear when, after one long discussion, he commented, “I didn’t even succeed in making you cry, did I?”
To be honest, he did make me cry once, or at least I cried in his presence. But that was not at all because I was frustrated or beaten. That never seemed to be a problem, for the harder he attacked, the more I felt the Spirit behind me, reassuring me of the validity of my testimony and filling me with a calmness that erased any desire to fight back.
The tears came after one session in which he explained his primary objection to the Church. He felt that men are saved by grace. The Savior atoned for our sins, he believed, and all that is required of us is to believe in the Lord and accept him as our Savior. My friend said that he had a personal relationship with Christ; thus, nothing else was required of him to be saved. Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, he claimed bitterly, have no appreciation for Christ and what he did. Their belief in requirements other than faith, such as baptism and keeping the commandments, demeans the Savior’s atonement by implying that it is insufficient to save men. Mormons’ beliefs, he maintained, are nearly blasphemous. He could think of many adjectives to describe them, but Christian was definitely not on the list. And that, he told me, was why I was going to hell.
As I listened to this tirade, many possible responses ran through my mind. I could say that it was Christ who instituted the ordinance of baptism and was baptized himself. I could say that he himself was one who most consistently taught the keeping of the commandments. I could say that it was one of his own disciples who said that “faith without works is dead.” But I said none of these things. Instead, when my friend paused long enough to catch a breath, I simply looked at him and said, “The Savior is more important than anything else in my life.” And then I bore my testimony of Jesus Christ. I told him of my love for the Savior and of my knowledge of his love for me. I told him how the Savior’s atonement was the only thing that gave purpose to my life. I told him that Christ’s gospel was the one anchor I had to cling to when everything else seemed determined to beat me down. I told him that my whole life was centered around trying to live the Lord’s gospel and that I did have a personal testimony of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I am sure that I did not speak eloquently or impressively, but that is when the tears came.
When I had finished speaking, a surprising thing happened—my skillfully verbal friend was actually silent for several moments. When he spoke, his voice decreased in volume from its typical forte nearly to mezzo piano. “You are the first Mormon,” he said, “who has actually borne witness to me of Jesus Christ.”
We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ. It is his church. At our baptisms we covenanted “to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places, … even until death” (Mosiah 18:9). Then why is it that I could have a friend who had lived and worked and socialized among Latter-day Saints for several years and yet had never heard borne a testimony of Jesus Christ? My friend’s case may be unique, and I certainly hope that it is. But my experience with him has made me more aware of our sacred obligation to stand boldly and unashamedly as witnesses for our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

“I was able to gain my testimony by the help of two people—my father and my Heavenly Father. My earthly father got me to start attending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and my Heavenly Father gave me the understanding and the facts about the true Church that I was always looking for. All this helped me have a strong testimony.”
Michael McLeman, 16Isle-of-Lewis, Scotland

"The name Poelman is a Dutch name," Elder Poelman explained. "My paternal grandfather was born in Holland, and as a young man in his teens, he left Holland and went to South Africa. There he married my grandmother, a Scottish girl. She was working at the time as a governess for an English family living in South Africa. My grandparents had one child born in South Africa, then they went back to the British Isles. Another child was born in England, and then they moved to Glasgow, Scotland, where my father was born. It was to their home in Scotland that the missionaries came tracting, and my grandmother answered the door. They were on the third floor of a cold-water flat in the working-class section, and a man named A. Z. Richards was one of the missionaries. He stayed close to our family until he died, and I have always been very fond of him.

Although many of our experiences in the house of the Lord are too sacred to share publicly, some we can share. Forty years ago, while living in Florida, Kathy and I traveled to the temple in Atlanta, Georgia. On Wednesday night, May 9, 1984, as we completed a session in the temple, an ordinance worker approached me and asked if I had time to do just one preparatory initiatory ordinance. The name of the person I represented was unusual. His name was Eleazer Cercy.
The next day, the temple was full of Saints. As I prepared to perform my second endowment of the day, I was given the name of the person I would represent. Surprisingly, the name was the same individual from the night before, Eleazer Cercy. I felt the Spirit of the Lord as the endowment was completed. Later in the afternoon, still in the temple, Kathy saw an elderly family friend, Sister Dolly Fernandez, who now lived in Atlanta. With no male members of her family with her, she asked if I could possibly assist in the sealing of her father to her father’s parents. I was of course honored.
As I knelt at the end of the altar for this sacred ordinance, I heard once again the name that was now inscribed in my mind, her father, Eleazer Cercy. I fully believe that following this life, I will meet and embrace a man known in his mortal life as Eleazer Cercy.

When I was nine, my friends and I threw rocks at a wasp nest at school. My rock hit a window, and it broke! We all started running away, but I heard the Spirit tell me to go back and tell someone. I was really scared, but I went back to tell the people in the office what I had done. I felt good that I told the truth even when it was really hard.
Josh B., age 13, Utah, USA