Gospel Story Finder

A woman I’ll call Megan shared a poignant experience she had shortly after her husband announced his desire for a divorce. Recalling one Sunday when she was sitting in sacrament meeting, Megan said, “I hadn’t anticipated how awkward and painful it would be to sit there in church, pretending that everything was OK when inside my heart was breaking and my stomach was churning. The thoughts in my mind seemed to be on a continual loop of pleadings with the Lord: ‘What am I going to do? How can I be a single parent and provide the kind of life I want for my kids?’”

On that occasion Megan’s answer came in the closing hymn—“How Firm a Foundation.”11 As she heard the lyrics “As thy days may demand, so thy succor shall be,” her heart felt peace. To succor means to “run to support; … to help or relieve when in difficulty, want or distress; to assist and deliver from suffering.”12 Megan realized that even in her circumstances, she could turn to Christ and He would come to her aid. When we go through excruciating trials, even to the point of feeling abandoned by God, Christ will empathize with and succor us because He has experienced that very feeling.

The fresh mountain air cooled my lungs as I laced up my boots. Next to me, my horse whinnied impatiently.
“I know, girl. I’m coming,” I said soothingly, as I stroked her reddish-brown mane.
I finished fastening the saddle, mounted, and was off. As I rode up the mountain, I thought of all the troubles that were weighing on my mind. I was a junior in high school—worried about friends, sports, final exams, and where to apply for college. Hundreds of thoughts swirled around in my brain. There were simply too many problems; I would never be able to solve them all. That’s really why I had come to the mountains. I needed to escape for a while.
After a time, I arrived at my favorite spot—a small out-of-the-way clearing that overlooks a mountain valley. I stopped my horse and said a small prayer in my heart.
“Heavenly Father,” I prayed, “I am so tired and so overwhelmed. Please give me some comfort. I just need a little peace.”
The answer came almost immediately. “Look up.”
As I raised my eyes, I was met with a scene of such astonishing beauty that I could scarcely breathe. All of my problems seemed to melt away as I soaked up the view. The farms in the valley were laid out like squares in a patchwork quilt, and on that day in May many of the fields had come to life in brilliant shades of green. What struck me most, however, was not the green. Throughout the fields of green were generous smatterings of the most vibrant yellow I had ever seen. The effect was mesmerizing, and it sparked my curiosity because I knew that there weren’t any local crops of that color.
I rode faster on the way down, eager to get to the valley floor and discover the source of that captivating yellow. When I reached the fields, I was astonished to find that the beauty that had so enchanted me didn’t come from anything exotic. The fields were filled with simple, unassuming dandelions.
I picked one small dandelion and brought it close to my nose. It was amazing to me how much difference perspective had made. From high above, I was quite taken in by the beauty of something that most people on the valley floor would call a weed. I would never have recognized its worth if I had not been prompted to look up and find the beauty in it.
I realized that I sometimes treat people the way most people treat the dandelion I held in my hand. I decide that they aren’t really worth my notice, without pausing to get to know them better or to think of how greatly the Lord values them. God knew that the dandelion was beautiful in its simplicity, even when most people couldn’t see it.
It occurred to me that I was much like the dandelion. Small and imperfect—but important and cherished in the eyes of my Heavenly Father. Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1926–2004) once said that “sometimes with smudges on our cheeks, dirt on our hands, and shoes untied, stammeringly but smilingly we present God with a dandelion—as if it were an orchid or a rose! If for now the dandelion is the best we have to offer, He receives it, knowing what we may later place on the altar” (That Ye May Believe [1992], 100).
Since that day I have never looked at a dandelion the same way. When I look at those little yellow flowers, I don’t see something to be stomped on, plucked up, or sneered at. I see effortless charm and loveliness. I will be forever grateful for the lesson I learned on that day—never judge someone or something until you have tried to see them from the Lord’s point of view, because the Lord, from His perspective high above mine, has a far better view and can much more easily judge the worth of flowers and of souls.

The next few weeks were busy ones. School started again, and then my eighth birthday came along almost before I realized it. After my baptism and confirmation, a few things began to change. I started getting up a little earlier each morning to read the Book of Mormon before I went to school. That was hard because I hate getting up in the morning, but I was determined to make it all the way through that book.
I also started fasting each month on fast Sunday. There aren’t many things I like to do more than eat, so I forgot sometimes; but even so, I started noticing a difference in how I felt about testimony meeting.
I began paying more attention to what each speaker was saying, and that made the meeting a lot more interesting. I found out that Sister Johnson had joined the Church when she was twenty-six years old. I thought she’d been a member all her life! And I loved it when Brother Badger bore his testimony. He had exciting stories to tell about his life and about miracles he had witnessed.
I finished the Book of Mormon early the next summer. There were great stories and teachings in it, and I was happy that I’d reached my goal. But Moroni had written in the last chapter that if you read the Book of Mormon and want to know if it’s true, you should ponder it in your heart and pray to Heavenly Father about it. He promised that if you do that with faith in Jesus Christ and with a sincere heart, the Holy Ghost will help you know that it’s true. I decided to try it out for myself.
The rest of that week I prayed every morning and night. Sometimes I even said a quick prayer in my mind when I was at school, but I never saw a vision or even heard a voice that told me the Book of Mormon was true. I felt like giving up, but I really wanted to know, so I just kept on praying.
The next fast Sunday, I fasted to know if the Book of Mormon was true. I spent a lot of time on my knees, and I reread some of my favorite parts. It was amazing how seldom I thought about food.
Testimony meeting was going along great that day. I was even happy for Molly Prentiss when she went up and bore her testimony. Then Brother Badger went to the front to speak. His quiet voice trembled as he spoke of his great love for the scriptures and how he knew of the truth of the gospel.
As he spoke, a strange feeling started in a little spot in my chest. It got warmer and bigger until my whole body was filled with glowing, tingly warmth. When he finished, that warmth seemed to make me want to go right to the pulpit. As I stood to bear my testimony, a few words came right from my soul: “I know that the Book of Mormon is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

As I nervously waited to board my flight from Boston to Salt Lake City—my first airplane ride alone—my parents repeated for the zillionth time their last request.
“Don’t forget to visit Grandpa,” they said. “He’d really love it.”
“Okay,” I promised, though silently I finished it with “if I feel like it.”
I was flying out to begin my freshman year at Brigham Young University. Dad thought the trip would be an excellent opportunity for me to drop in on his dad in Salt Lake City, but I was worried enough about my own survival far from home.
I remembered Grandpa as a kind old man who always had time for his grandchildren. After chatting a little he would take us outside to swing on his swings, eat his raspberries, and gaze over the fence at his one big cow.
But seeing Grandpa now would mean doing adult things, like socializing and asking questions. Dad wouldn’t be there to do most of the talking, like he usually did. The whole idea of visiting him was making me uncomfortable.
At the airport in Salt Lake City I was met by two teenage cousins from Mom’s side of the family. They weren’t related to Grandpa Lythgoe and didn’t know about the promise I had made to my parents. How easy it would be to keep quiet and let them drive me straight to BYU.
But as we drove I thought, not only of the promise, but also how lonely Grandpa must be since Grandma died two years before. He could probably use a visit right now, especially from a grandson he didn’t see very often. So despite my fears, I asked my cousins to stop.
With Dad we would always walk in Grandpa’s back door without knocking, but this time we approached the seldom-used front door. Back doors seem reserved for people you know, and I was beginning to realize I scarcely knew him.
Grandpa came to the door, and we knew he was happy to see us. He was closing fast on his 90th birthday and looked feeble, but he was still Grandpa. The house felt empty without Grandma, but what seemed the most different was me. With Dad 2,500 miles away, I was suddenly the adult in charge of conversation, and everything I said must have sounded a bit forced.
Of course Grandpa asked me what I planned to study at BYU, and I also told him what the rest of the family was up to, but we soon ran out of things to say. I decided we should hit the road again.
A month later the rest of my family flew out for a week to help Grandpa celebrate his birthday, but a few days before the party I got a phone call. Grandpa had died the night before.
As I hung up the phone, it suddenly became clear to me how important that short visit had been a month before. I hadn’t said anything earth-shattering, and maybe part of the reason I had gone was to please my parents, but I was happy and relieved I hadn’t passed up my last chance to see Grandpa alive. I often think of Grandpa and something I later heard my mission president say: “Be glad that you did; don’t wish that you had.”

When I was five years old, I became very ill. It turned out that I had polio, a disease that was completely unknown to the small-town doctor. I lay for several weeks on a World War I army cot in our front room beside a coal stove. Afterward, I could not walk. I remember very clearly sliding around on the linoleum floor and pulling myself up on chairs, learning to walk again. I was more fortunate than some. A friend walked with crutches and steel leg braces all of his life.
As I moved into school, I found that my muscles were weak. I was very self-conscious. I knew that I could never be an athlete.
It did not help a lot when I read about the man who went to a doctor to find a cure for his inferiority complex. After a careful examination, the doctor told him, “You don’t have a complex. You really are inferior!”
With that for encouragement, I set about through life and determined to compensate in other ways.
I found hope in my patriarchal blessing. The patriarch, whom I had never met before, confirmed to me that patriarchs do have prophetic insight. He said that I had a desire to come to earth life and was willing to meet the tests that would accompany life in a mortal body. He said that I had been given a body of such physical proportion and fitness to enable my spirit to function through it unhampered by physical impediment. That encouraged me.

I began to see changes occurring in my students as they demonstrated a belief in themselves, completing Elder Bednar’s first step, offering yourself. Their regular attendance created a support system among each other which demonstrated their love for each other. I witnessed the third step, loyalty, from sister Isabel Morel who came every week to support her niece and a friend. Although sister Morel had never played piano during our class, I somehow felt that she knew how to play.
The following week, Sister Morel explained that she knew how to play the piano and she felt prompted to offer her assistance and would be interested in assisting with the class if I needed her. She was another answer to my prayers. Her willingness to act, by offering to share her talent, selflessly serve and love her niece and her friend, were all steps taken towards being more fully converted to our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ.

I recently noticed my tendency to use electronics during church and youth activities. It had become a habit. Anytime I saw my phone, I immediately had to grab it and check to see if I had any new notifications or text messages. The solution? Hiding my phone from myself. Whether it was in a bag, under a chair, or even with a friend—if I couldn’t see my phone, I wouldn’t be tempted to use it.
Taryn M., 15, Florida, USA

Subhash and Roselyn Dass and their sons, Amit and Anand, wanted to travel to the temple to be sealed, but they couldn’t seem to save enough money. When Brother Dass was called as a bishop, he felt strongly that he needed to receive the endowment. The family had enough money for one plane ticket to Tonga, so Sister Dass encouraged her husband to go alone. “No,” he said. “We must all go together. The Lord will provide a way.”
The family fasted for the next two Sundays. At the end of the second week, Bishop Dass’ employer offered to lend him the money for all four plane tickets. “Going to the temple was the most beautiful experience we’ve had,” says Bishop Dass. “We know now that if we seek the kingdom of God first, the Lord will do the rest.”

Although we were much better off now, there still wasn’t enough food or clothing to go around. It was still cold, it was still stormy, and I still had no shoes. Our company found a ravine that we later named Martin’s Ravine, and we set up camp there. For three days there was a terrible blizzard. It was so cold! Even after the storm ended, we had to wait several days before we could travel over the fresh snow. Although there were now wagons and horses, I walked every step of the way. Only those who had frozen feet got to ride.
We camped at Fort Bridger for a few days of rest. More help came at that time. We kept right on traveling. We reached Salt Lake City on November 30, 1856, eleven months after we had left our home in England. Of the 576 people who had started with our company, about 150 of them had died and were buried along the trail, including my father.

I always tell my granddaughter that tithing is the best money I ever spend.
It was nearly 60 years ago when I got into the tithing habit. I had gone to Chicago to find a job after graduating from college. I had in my pocket the money I’d earned from a summer job. It wasn’t much, but since I would be staying with friends and since the cost of living in 1941 was low, I thought I would have enough money to support myself until I could earn more.
The first Sunday I attended church in the Chicago area, one of the speakers talked convincingly about the importance of paying tithing and bore his testimony about the blessings of keeping that commandment. Although I had been raised in the Church, I had never paid or even thought of paying tithing. But that changed during that sacrament meeting. When it was over, I calculated how much money I had made during the summer and figured the tithing I owed on it. With almost all the cash I had, I paid my tithing debt. I had barely enough left for bus and train fare, and I didn’t have a job yet.
When I had left my family in another state, I had been sure I could make it on my own without financial help from my parents. Now I wasn’t so confident.
Finally, with only a few coins left, I stopped in a department store and used some free stationery to write my parents a letter asking for help. The letter would probably take three days to be delivered. Could I hold out that long? I wondered.
The next day I received a call from a company that needed some temporary help. (It later turned into a full-time job.) Gleefully I called my dad to tell him, “Never mind! I don’t need any money.”
Since that time I have always had what I need when I pay my tithing. And that is why I say to my granddaughter, “Paying tithing is the best money I ever spend. It buys me peace of mind.”

Watch out for Apii’s feet!
With one well-placed kick, she could knock you over.

But Apii’s feet are only dangerous when she’s competing. In everyday life, Tereapii Rota, 16, of Tokorua, New Zealand, is a bright girl who serves her school as the representative to the board of trustees. But in her free time, she and her brother are trained by their father in the fine art of defense. She is so good at it that she won the junior women’s national championship in Tae Kwon Do. She was surprised by her success since it was the first time she had seriously competed.

Apii is the oldest of six children, and she and her ten-year-old brother are the most serious about training with their father. They belong to a sports club, but Apii often trains with the boys because there aren’t many women good enough to challenge her.
Although Apii is good at a rather unusual sport, her best friends are the other Laurels in her ward. “The four of us Laurels are very close. We do everything together. It’s good to have great friends,” says Apii. “We have heaps of laughs. We don’t see everything as real serious.”
Laughing a little at life has made it easier for Apii and her friends to resist the temptations that come to 16-year-olds. “I suppose the hardest thing about being 16,” says Apii, “is saying no to other people. Someone asks you to a birthday party or on a trip. Mom and Dad know what’s likely to happen. So you just have to say no. Then these people try to talk you into it. You still have to say no.” But Apii and her friends have so much fun without doing anything against the standards of the Church that it is easier for them to resist being talked into going to parties they know they shouldn’t go to.
The fact that Apii is alive is part of the reason her family joined the Church. When she was eight, she was desperately ill with asthma. Missionaries gave her a blessing, and she was healed literally moments later. “I was really weak,” says Apii. “I hadn’t been able to eat or drink. As soon as the missionaries said amen I was all right. I opened my eyes and asked for something to drink. Everybody sort of laughed they were so relieved.”
Apii has plans to go to university and study business.
In the meantime, watch out for Apii’s flying feet.

In September of 1840, Joseph Smith, Sr. gathered his family around him. This venerable patriarch was dying and wanted to leave his blessing on his beloved wife and children. Hyrum, the eldest living son, asked his father to intercede with heaven when he arrived there so the enemies of the Church “may not have so much power” over the Latter-day Saints. Father Smith then laid his hands upon Hyrum’s head and blessed him to have “peace … sufficient … to accomplish the work which God has given you to do.” Knowing of Hyrum’s lifelong faithfulness, he concluded this last blessing with the promise that Hyrum would “be as firm as the pillars of heaven unto the end of [his] days.”

In the fall of 1847, Oliver Cowdery was living with his wife, Elizabeth Ann, and their daughter Maria Louise in a small town in Wisconsin Territory, nearly five hundred miles from Winter Quarters. He was forty-one years old and practicing law with his older brother. Almost two decades had passed since Oliver had served as Joseph Smith’s scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon. He still believed in the restored gospel, yet for the last nine years he had been living apart from the Saints.1
Phineas Young, Brigham Young’s older brother, was married to Oliver’s younger sister Lucy, and the two men were close friends and often exchanged letters. Phineas frequently let Oliver know he still had a place in the Church.2
Other old friends reached out to Oliver as well. Sam Brannan, Oliver’s former apprentice in the Kirtland printing office, had invited him to sail with the Saints on the Brooklyn. William Phelps, who had once briefly left the Church himself after falling out with Joseph Smith, likewise invited Oliver to go west. “If you believe that we are Israel,” William wrote, “come on and go with us, and we will do you good.”3
But Oliver’s resentment ran deep. He believed that Thomas Marsh, Sidney Rigdon, and other Church leaders had turned Joseph and the high council against him in Missouri. And he feared that his disaffection from the Church had hurt his reputation among the Saints. He wanted them to remember the good things he had done, especially his part in the translation of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the priesthood.4
“I have been sensitive on this subject,” he once wrote to Phineas. “You would be, under the circumstances, had you stood in the presence of John with our departed brother Joseph, to receive the lesser priesthood, and in the presence of Peter, to receive the greater.”5
Oliver also was unsure if the Quorum of the Twelve had authority to preside over the Church. He respected Brigham Young and the other apostles he knew, but he did not have a witness that they were called of God to lead the Saints. For now, he believed the Church was in a dormant state, awaiting a leader.
In July, around the time the advance company entered the Salt Lake Valley, former apostle William McLellin had visited Oliver. William wanted to start a new church in Missouri based on the restored gospel, and he hoped that Oliver would join him. The visit prompted Oliver to write his wife’s brother David Whitmer, a fellow witness of the Book of Mormon. Oliver knew William was planning to visit David as well, and he wanted to know what David thought about William and his work.6
David wrote back six weeks later, noting that William had indeed visited him. “We have established, or commenced to establish, the church of Christ again,” David announced, “and it is the will of God that you be one of my counselors in the presidency of the church.”7
Oliver considered the offer. Forming a new church presidency with David and William in Missouri would give him another chance to preach the restored gospel. But was it the same gospel he had embraced in 1829? And did David and William have authority from God to establish a new church?8

I remember the smile of Sister Ruby Haight. She was the wife of Elder David B. Haight, who was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. As a young man he served as the president of the Palo Alto stake in California. He prayed over, and worried about, the girls in the Mia Maid class in his own ward.

So President Haight was inspired to ask the bishop to call Ruby Haight to teach those young girls. He knew she would be a witness of God who would lift, comfort, and love the girls in that class.

Sister Haight was at least 30 years older than the girls she taught. Yet 40 years after she taught them, each time she would meet my wife, who had been one of the girls in her class, she would put out her hand, smile, and say to Kathy, “Oh! My Mia Maid.” I saw more than her smile. I felt her deep love for a sister she still cared for as if she were her own daughter. Her smile and warm greeting came from seeing that a sister and daughter of God was still on the covenant path home.

Since both Jacob and Jeff are living at home, they have been able to serve as home teachers with their father. They have also helped in the ward nursery and in the ward library. And they are also able to bless the sacrament regularly. “Jacob and Jeff take about three minutes longer to say the prayers,” Bishop Nye observes, “but they are so sincere that the spirituality is augmented immeasurably.” With tears in his eyes, their father talks about the example older brother Jeremy set by walking Jacob and Jeff through their sacrament assignments as deacons until they understood how to pass, as teachers until they understood how to prepare, and as priests until they were comfortable saying the prayers and distributing the trays.
Just as Jacob and Jeff have looked to older brothers as an example, they are now passing on that same legacy of priesthood service to their younger brother, Jesse, 19, now serving in the New York Utica Mission, and their youngest brother Jason, 17, who is also preparing for a full-time mission.
“Without Jacob and Jeff, I wouldn’t be who I am,” Jesse says. “They prove that there’s something good out there for every person to do.”

For the first time, a Boy Scout troop has been allowed to hike in the People’s Republic of China. The Hong Kong troop of 25 Scouts and their leaders consisted of young men originally from all over the United States. Three of the Scouts and two of their fathers are LDS. They were accompanied on their hike by 25 students from the Guang Dong Foreign Language Normal School.
When the Scouts applied for permission to take the hike in China, the Chinese government in the southern province of Canton was very much in favor and viewed it as a people-to-people exchange.
The exciting day finally arrived. After a double check of all the packs, everyone boarded the blue bus for the long dusty trip to Guangzhou (Canton). After a short ceremony and exchange of gifts with the Chinese students who were to accompany them, the group started their hike. “People lined up along the street as if we were in a parade,” said Joseph Spallino, a 12-year-old Star Scout. Out in the countryside, villagers stared wide-eyed at the boys and their leaders. Many had never seen a foreigner so close, especially ones so young and looking strangely like beasts of burden. The boys hiked along raised walkways surrounding rice paddies. One farmer became so engrossed in watching the group that he forgot to guide his water buffalo and plowed a curved furrow.
In the evening after dinner the group gathered around the campfire to sing songs and talk. The Chinese students were very curious about the Scout’s western way of life.
After three grueling days, the young men finished their 50 miles, yet they felt they had traveled even farther in understanding and appreciating the Chinese culture.

The young missionary had spent the morning scrubbing the floors of the mission home, washing and ironing his shirts, and mending his socks. Then, since it was preparation day, he had decided to visit the university library. Finding nothing of particular interest in the book stacks, he pulled out his own copy of the Doctrine and Covenants and began reading section 76—Joseph Smith’s vision of heaven.
He became so absorbed in the Prophet’s description that he didn’t notice the passing of time, and it was night when he finally left the library. As he walked across the spacious lawn toward the streetcar, he looked up into the heavens: “There was no moon, but the sky was clear. … The Southern Cross and other brilliant stars, visible in the Southern Hemisphere, shone with unusual grandeur. As I gazed in wonder, I seemed to see beyond the stars the things I had been reading about. I could not then and I have not been able since to recall walking across the lawn.”
Retelling this experience in 1965, President Romney said: “Since that Saturday evening in Sydney, Australia, forty-three years ago, I have never been content to view life through the lens which reveals only the narrow span between mortal birth and death. I cannot remember of having made, during the intervening years, a single voluntary major decision or judgment without testing it by my knowledge of revealed truth.” (Address delivered at Brigham Young University, 27 May 1965, p. 20.)

Are the young women of the West Terrace Ward, Spokane Washington West Stake, caught in a time warp? Do they spend all of their time at thrift stores and estate sales? Hardly. But these girls recently took time to present a retro fashion show to residents at a retirement home in their community.
Playing “dress up” gave them a chance to reminisce with their senior friends about the good old days, and have some fun in the process.

There are abundant examples of successful youth leadership occurring minute by minute all over the world. Let me give you just one example.
I met Matt Andersen, a teachers quorum president whose father was serving as a mission president in Mexico. When Matt was set apart as the quorum president, he was the only member of the teachers quorum attending church in his ward. Young president Matt Andersen was learning a new language so he could be an effective missionary. Going forward with faith, courage, and confidence gained at home and in the deacons quorum, he determined to use his keys of presidency to bless the members of his quorum and their families. He immediately asked for a list of quorum members from the ward clerk, practiced his Spanish, and with a prayer in his heart called the one boy who was listed with a telephone number. He said, “¡Omar: Tú, Iglesia, Hoy!” Or in English, “Omar! You, Church, Today!” Just the basic message!
The miracle is that Omar came to church that day, and soon thereafter so did his mother and sister. Our young quorum president, Matt Andersen, then invited the bishop to drive him, translate, and together visit two other boys whose names were on the list but without telephone numbers. His keys of presidency, the ministering of angels, and the powers of heaven combined. The result was that these two boys also came to church and formed the new teachers quorum presidency. Other boys and their families also returned to the blessings of the gospel and the priesthood.

Jenay watched as Mommy set the freshly baked white cake on the kitchen table. Tonight was Christmas Eve, when her family would celebrate Jesus’s birth.
Jenay liked going caroling with her family, baking gingerbread men, and decorating the tree. But remembering Jesus’s birthday was her favorite thing to do at Christmas.
Can I help you put the icing on the cake?
We need to let it cool first.
Jenay helped Mommy clean off the counters and wash the dishes.
Do you think the cake is cool now?
I think it’s just about right.
Mommy and Jenay spread fluffy white icing on the cake.
After dinner Daddy asked the family to gather in the living room.
Even though we know that Jesus was born in the spring, we like to celebrate His birthday at this time of year.
Mommy read the story of Jesus’s birth from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Then Daddy bore his testimony of Jesus’s Atonement and Resurrection.
One by one, the family members opened their presents to Jesus and read what they had written on a slip of paper. With Mommy’s help, Jenay had written, “Be more reverent at church.”
I’m proud of each of you. All of your gifts show your love for Jesus Christ.
Mommy cut the cake and served it on fancy dishes. Jenay took a bite of cake and smiled.
I love Jesus, and I know He loves me.
A sweet feeling of peace settled over her like a cozy warm quilt.