Gospel Story Finder

Daniel C., age 12, Zulia, Venezuela, reads the Friend in Spanish. He likes to give the magazine to his friends!

A large plaque hung above the pulpit of the meetinghouse I attended between the ages of six and ten. Written on it were the words of Joshua: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve; … but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). I decided I wanted to serve the Lord.

We play a game during conference. We add a sticker to a piece of paper every time we hear the name of Christ. Our papers end up full of stickers!

One day at the hotel restaurant, another cook, for inappropriate reasons, tried to get dates with some of the waitresses there. He was mad because the waitresses, who were Latter-day Saints, refused to go out with him.
Remembering the missionaries I had met in Milan, I told the cook that the waitresses had a right to turn him down.
“So, are you a Mormon too?” he asked.
Because I liked the principles the missionaries had taught me and because I felt justified in defending the waitresses, I replied, “Yes.”
The next time the cook saw the waitresses, he told them I was a Latter-day Saint. They were excited. When we gathered for lunch, they began asking me questions about the Church in Milan. I told them about the city and that I had met the missionaries there. When our lunch arrived, I reached for a glass of wine on the table.
“What are you doing drinking wine?” one of the waitresses asked.
“Is there something wrong with that?” I said.
“Are you even active?” another one asked.
“In what sense?” I said.
“How were you dressed the day you were baptized?” they asked.
“I don’t remember,” I told them. “I was only a month old.”
They were extremely mad because they thought I was making fun of them. I assured them I wasn’t. I admitted that I wasn’t a member of the Church, but I told them that I liked the Book of Mormon and the gospel principles I had learned. Then I asked how I could learn more about their church.
The waitresses soon introduced me to the missionaries. They could hardly believe it when I finished the discussions and got baptized.

I recall one experience that we had with Jean when we went camping. Immediately after I stopped the car, Jean got out and began sweeping the camping area. Our children just couldn’t believe it, but she continued until she had swept over all the area, until all the loose dirt and pine needles were in a neat pile. But she didn’t stop there: she came over and knelt down by the children and spent the next few minutes talking to them about the principle of cleanliness—that when you are camping or living outdoors cleanliness becomes a very important thing, and that by taking a few steps you can make life livable. And the amazing thing was that they listened. We were just grateful that we were in the Rockies of Colorado and not the sands of New Mexico. I always wondered how deep she would have gone to find solid ground.

May 15, 1829 While Joseph and Oliver Cowdery were praying in the woods near Harmony, John the Baptist appeared to them and restored the Aaronic Priesthood. Joseph and Oliver baptized each other in the Susquehanna River. Later in May or in June, Peter, James, and John appeared to them and restored the Melchizedek Priesthood. Monuments commemorating these events in the Restoration can be found near the town of Oakland, Pennsylvania.

Julie was only seven, and lonely, when her mother died, and she went to live with her mother’s sister and brother in their old country home. Aunt Cordelia, who taught in the school there, was strict, but Julie grew to appreciate her aunt’s kindness and understanding.
Girls especially will be able to relate to Julie, who had many of the problems that girls growing up have wherever they live. The author tells about them with quiet humor and sympathy in this absorbing and beautifully written book, which was the 1967 Newbery Medal winner.

The following example gives some ideas of how Julie may respond to her friend Zach.

Julie, my preacher talked about the Trinity last Sunday. He said that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are one. But when you’ve talked about God before, you seemed to believe differently. Can you explain it to me?

I know the members of the Godhead are three different Beings. But what if Zach asks me how They’re different? This answer could really make a difference, but I don’t know if I can explain it well. What should I do?

Well, Zach, They are three different Beings. We refer to Them as the Godhead, and They each have different roles. We know God the Father is literally the Father of our spirits—a loving Father—and we are His children. …

But there’s more to it than that. I don’t have time to explain it all before the bell rings, but if you’d like, we can talk about it at lunch tomorrow.

Sure. I’d like to know what you believe.

Where should I begin? I want to follow the Spirit as I find my answers. I’ll start with a prayer to ask Heavenly Father for help.

I guess I should start with what I know:
I remember my Young Women teacher talked about the roles of the Godhead. She said …

The First Vision shows that the Father and Son are separate Beings.
Dad shared a quote from Joseph Smith about this once. I should ask him about it.

I should see what the scriptures say about it. I’m sure the Topical Guide lists some verses about the roles of the Godhead. And there may be scripture mastery verses too.

I remember some conference talks lately about each member of the Godhead. I’ll have to look them up. … I wonder what else I’ll find at LDS.org. …

Hey, this talk looks helpful, too! … And True to the Faith even has a section on the Godhead.

This article reminds me of the time I first knew Heavenly Father was aware of me as His child. I really felt the Spirit testify that God is my Father. I could share those feelings with Zach.

Wow—I’ve learned a lot. I’m so grateful for the help from the Spirit. I’ll pray again before talking to Zach.

Hey, Zach! I’ve thought a lot about your question from yesterday. I’d love to talk about it a little more if you’d like to.

Yeah, sure. That would be great.

Well, in our Church, we believe …

David loved serving at D.I., but his missionary efforts didn’t stop there. In the evenings, he team taught with full-time missionaries. These efforts resulted in several conversions, including one young woman who asked him to perform the baptism.
“I figured if she had enough faith to ask me to baptize her, I had enough faith to find a way to do it,” remembers Elder Eves. And so on 1 January 2000, Elder Eves sat in his shower chair in the font, said the baptismal prayer, and lowered Robin Rasmussen into the water. No one will ever forget the spirit present that day.

We had been struggling with our family scripture study. Getting our children to pay attention was difficult, so we tried this technique as a family. My husband and I took turns reading general conference talks out loud to the family, and when we got to a scripture, we called it out. When our children found it, everyone marked it and then one of them read it. As we did so, our kids were poised on the edge of their seats, scriptures and pencils in hand. When we ended, they said, “Oh, please, can’t we do just one more scripture?” We finished our scripture study by singing a hymn. As we got ready to sing the closing song, we showed our children how they could look up scriptures in the back of the hymnbook. They found one of the scriptures we had marked, and we sang a song that reinforced the gospel principle we had studied. It was truly meaningful scripture study!
Donna Macurdy Nielson, Virginia, USA

When I was young, sacrament meeting was a separate meeting held in the evening. I remember one Sabbath day when I kept the commandment to gather with my family and the Saints for sacrament meeting. It was dark and cold outside. I remember feeling light and warmth in the chapel that evening. We took the sacrament, promising to always remember the Savior and keep His commandments.
At the end of the meeting we sang the hymn “Abide with Me; ’Tis Eventide” (Hymns, no. 165). Part of that hymn says, “O Savior, stay this night with me.”
I felt the Savior’s love and closeness that evening. And I felt the comfort of the Holy Ghost.

In a 25 May 1999 ceremony, President Gordon B. Hinckley broke ground for the 100th temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This temple is especially significant because it’s being built in the very birthplace of the Restoration—Palmyra, New York—where the First Vision occurred. The building of the 100th temple is also significant because it marks 100 years of a striking expansion in temple building and temple work.

When he was twenty-eight, Jacob married Magdelena Roschi, a lovely, cultured girl from his own village. Life was now a joyful experience for the young man, who was the principal of the high school he had attended. He was also honored by holding all of his late father’s offices, including auditor, assessor, and treasurer of Canton Bern, the second largest county in Switzerland.
In the late 1870’s, however, Jacob’s life took a drastic change. He heard the gospel, accepted it, and immediately faced persecution. He was forced to resign his position as principal, and was relieved of his county offices. But the worst shock came when Jacob’s father-in-law took Jacob’s wife and four small children from him.
Jacob felt that he should go to Zion, and in 1879 he emigrated to Logan, Utah. He led a lonely but diversified life for the next five years. He studied English and Church history, worked in sawmills, and laid track for the railroad. His sister in Switzerland, Anna Clara, forwarded his letters so he could keep in touch with his wife and children.
Those first years in America were difficult for Jacob. His daughter, Elizabeth Stowell, tells that he had a hard time adjusting to his new life and was often discouraged. But he never regretted having accepted the gospel.

A few days ago, my profession as a B-747 captain took me home on a flight from Dallas, Texas, to Frankfurt, Germany. It was a moonless night over the North Atlantic, and myriads of stars covered the sky. As I contemplated this awesome sight from the cockpit, my thoughts went to the many miracles I have seen in my life.
That dark night over the North Atlantic, safely directing our big jet to its destination, we had to be extremely careful and precise in creating the navigational basis by entering the geographic coordinates into the navigational reference system. It had to be true and valid because it was the foundation for all future decisions. In 1979, a flight started in New Zealand on wrong coordinates and crashed into Mount Erebus at the South Pole.

The Lord preserved me in my years on the earth. When I was two, I had amoebas in my stomach. These microscopic animals in my stomach made holes in my intestines. The doctors said that I didn’t have a chance to live, but I got well and was all right.

Through ministering, I have learned to know, love, listen to, and comfort my sisters, and they have also given me their support. As we minister to others, we show the Savior’s love and become friends who help others move forward on the covenant path. One sister shared how, through her ministering, she helped one of her sisters prepare to be sealed to her deceased husband. That’s a true friend—someone who cares not only about temporal welfare but also about the spiritual.

A young father recently learned of the passing of his extraordinary second-grade teacher. In memory of her, he wrote: “Of all the feelings and experiences I remember, the feeling most prevalent in my mind is ‘comfort.’ She may have taught me spelling, grammar, and math, but far more importantly she taught me to love being a child. In her classroom, it was OK to spell a word wrong here and there; ‘We’ll work on it,’ she’d say. It was OK to spill or tear or smudge; ‘We’ll fix it and we’ll clean it up,’ she would respond. It was OK to try, OK to stretch, OK to dream, and OK to enjoy those pleasures that come from the insignificant things that only children find exciting.”

In November 1988, thirty-five of the poorest families were chosen to learn to manage family poultry yards. Each of the families received two hens and a rooster. After one year, the families that were patient enough not to eat their poultry right away had over thirty hens that could be sold to buy rice, medicine, books, and clothes. This is the start of self-reliance.

One was Erroll Bennett, one of the top soccer players in Tahiti, whom Eli read about one day on his mission. When Brother Bennett joined the Church, he decided to withdraw from his team because he chose not to play on the Sabbath. When Eli read the story and saw how dedicated Brother Bennett was to the gospel, he was impressed. He says, “I knew I wanted to be a man like that, with that kind of commitment and dedication to what I knew was right.”

Following a curiosity—like going to see how hand-blown glass is made—could end up becoming a rewarding new hobby for you. And hobbies are good for mental health!