Gospel Story Finder

I looked down at my lap. No matter how I tugged at my skirt, it didn’t cover my knees. It just wasn’t fair! I almost never got a store-bought dress. It was a summery green fabric, and when I wore it my eyes looked more green than their normal gray-blue. It fit perfectly too. And it was modern, without being weird.
Beverly had a new outfit that made my eyes blink. It was an orange and purple skirt and top with matching tights in a big, wild, diamond pattern. Beverly always wore the latest styles. When I’d worn my new green dress the week before, she had complimented me for the first time.
It was hard to be me. It was bad enough to wear glasses as thick as a sugar bowl, to be as skinny as a pencil, and have a huge mouth full of oversized teeth. Beverly had long blonde hair, long eyelashes, and no glasses, either. Next to Beverly, I felt ugly and awkward. One way to make up the difference was with fashionable clothes.
Finding that green dress was amazing. Buying it had been a miracle. Mom had taken down the hem, and it was perfect. Now, one laundry day later, my chance to be noticed was over.
My mother came into the room. “What’s the matter?” she asked. I guess my tear-misted glasses gave me away.
“Look at this dress!” I wailed. “It shrank in the wash!”
Mom understood how much that dress meant to me. “Oh, Linda,” she said softly. “I promise I followed the washing directions on the tag.” But she could see as I did that it had shrunk just enough to be too short.
We talked it over, but there wasn’t a happy solution. The hem had already been lengthened as far as it could go. Mom and Dad were immovable on their rule: girls in our family covered their knees. Mom cried with me as we took the dress to the thrift store box in the garage.
I moped for several days. It seemed so unfair that my parents could ruin my life by something as silly as a rule about knees. I had never been a rebel. I knew my parents loved me, so I had trusted them to be sensible. Until now.
I was troubled. I realized that this was a major decision: I could continue to follow my parents’ rules or I could choose not to. There were ways to rebel. I saw girls at school sometimes roll up their skirts at the waist to make them shorter. It was up to me.
One day in church, our class talked about Joseph Smith’s First Vision. As the teacher read about Joseph’s decision to ask God which church to join, I realized that I was in a similar situation. I needed to know for myself if my parents’ dress standards were right or if they were too strict. Like Joseph, I decided I could simply ask Heavenly Father.
I thought about it for several days. I remembered the process I had gone through when I’d prayed about being baptized. The answer had come because I had been ready to receive it. I decided to fast and pray. Because this was an important decision, I knew it would probably take more than one day’s effort to learn the answer. I talked to my parents about my plan.
“I’ll fast with you,” Mom offered.
Dad gave me a clue. “Linda,” he said, “if you want a testimony of a certain principle, practice living it.”
I tried to do everything I could so that I would be able to hear that still, small voice. Meanwhile, I practiced keeping the standard that my parents required.
Heavenly Father answered my prayers through my feelings and in my mind. One day, as I was getting ready for church, I realized that I knew what Heavenly Father wanted me to do. Through the prompting of the Holy Ghost, I knew that Heavenly Father expects me to dress modestly. Just like Joseph Smith, I knew that I had received an answer and that I could not deny it. The knowledge was like a warm, peaceful understanding that filled me from head to toe. I wondered how I could have ever felt sorry for myself for living a righteous standard. I felt that Heavenly Father was pleased with me. Nothing else mattered as much as that.
“I’m lucky to be me,” I thought. I didn’t need to be like Beverly or anybody else. What a relief!
I had friends, but I was never really popular. I learned how to be happy without being popular. That’s how I know it can be done. Never again was I an invisible nobody. Heavenly Father helped me become beautiful in my own way.

His house key is in the lock. He’s home from work and about to step inside. In the kitchen, real life is scattered all around. The baby is crying. The three-year-old just poured milk—not in a glass but all over the counter. The seven-year-old needs some daddy attention. And dinner isn’t ready.
With a deadline at work tomorrow, a head buzzing from rush-hour traffic, and a Church meeting tonight, he’s hoping she will greet him with some relief.
Hearing him come in, she is glad a relief party has arrived! But when she sees his face fall as he looks around, she defends herself: “Look—I work all day too. I’ve been with these kids nonstop, and I really need a break. Will you please fix this macaroni and cheese and help with the kids?”
In the heat of her request, his hope evaporates into exasperation, and he is about to react.
At this crossroads of their busy day, these two have some choices. Will they use this moment to practice being the kind of companion each has covenanted to become? Or will each one default to past conditioning—familial and cultural? Certain attitudes and ideas have crept into the very air they breathe, challenging them as they try to work with each other rather than against each other.
That couple we saw at the kitchen threshold share a commitment to the promise of eternal family unity. But equal partnerships are not made in heaven—they are made on earth, one choice at a time, one conversation at a time, one threshold crossing at a time. And getting there is hard work—like patiently working through differing assumptions about who was bringing relief to whom that night or any of thousands of nights like it.
As milk drips from the counter, she holds a box of macaroni and cheese in her hand, he faces a deadline and a meeting, and both feel the pull of weariness on their faces. How would people in a covenant, balanced relationship handle such a moment, and how could the next few moments help create an equal partnership?
Young wife, do you see in him someone who has worked all day to bring sustenance to your table? Young husband, do you see in her someone who has worked all day to make nourishment of that sustenance? Can you both see beyond the doing of the day and remember the inestimable worth of the being to whom you are married?

Like Viktor, Kira Gulko learned of Heavenly Father’s love for each of His children when she learned about the Church. But the decision to be baptized didn’t come easily to Kira. At first when her parents decided to join the Church, Kira remembers, “I questioned their sanity.” Fortunately, instead of criticizing or rebelling, she decided to find out for herself if their new religion was true.
“We weren’t practicing Jews,” explains Kira, “but we were of Jewish origin. In our family, talking about Jesus Christ was forbidden. But when perestroika began, allowing greater freedom to look at new ideas, my parents started to explore different religions and philosophies. My mother was president of the international friendship club at the school where she teaches English. She found a letter from a teacher in Riverton, Utah, who was looking for pen pals. My mother’s class responded, and in return they got a big box of maybe 100 letters. Many of the students mentioned they were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; my mother didn’t know what that was.
“Then we were passing by the bridge near our house, and we saw a notice inviting people to attend The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! My parents decided to go, first so Mom could answer her students’ questions, but also because they were looking for another religion themselves.
“That was in October 1991. After that, the missionaries started coming to our apartment. Soon my parents understood that Jesus Christ is their Savior. They also loved the doctrine of eternal families. We have a wonderful family, and that was an important principle to us. They also went to a baptism and felt the Spirit. In December they decided to be baptized themselves.
“I listened to all of the discussions, but I couldn’t understand why my parents decided to join the Church. I was afraid they were crazy, that something had happened to their minds. But as I read the Book of Mormon, my testimony of its truthfulness grew stronger and stronger. The key to my conversion was that I came to realize I am truly loved by my Heavenly Father. I could feel this big love that’s around me and see it in my parents and in the members of the Church. That’s why I was baptized in February 1992. I knew it was right.”
Since then, Kira has helped bring her friend Lena into the Church and has watched three of her four grandparents embrace the gospel. She has seen her mother help with the translation of the Book of Mormon into Ukrainian and has witnessed her father serve as a district president. And Kira has served as a Relief Society president, contributing her own time and talents to the growth of the Church.

Sister Tanner: It was true for me in seventh grade. I was honest, going against what a popular group of girls wanted me to do. Because of that, I didn’t have friends and I was sad, but I had confidence that what I had done was right. And I’m sure that’s what sustained me through a period of time. I knew I could face whom I really needed to face—my Heavenly Father and my family. But even that knowledge doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

The bishop asked me later if I knew when I visited the old man that Sunday afternoon. I guess I did.
“Jamie, come in. And you got Mark with you too. Come on in.”
We stood in front of him as he lay in the hospital bed. “Mark, crank me up so I can get a good look at you both.” Mark looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Down at the foot of the bed, you see a big handle there? Looks like they took it from a Model T, don’t it?” Mark finally found it. “You turn that a few times and I’ll be able to see something besides the ceiling.” Mark turned the handle and the upper end of the bed began to rise. “Not too much. I don’t want to be bent double. There, that’s fine.”
“Jamie, it’s good to see you.” He put out his hand for me to shake. I knew he was pretty sick because his grip was so weak.
“I got permission from the bishop for Mark and me to come and give you the sacrament.”
“I’d be pleased to take it, boys.” We closed the door to the hall, and I took a small slice of my mom’s homemade bread and put it on a paper plate. Mark filled a paper cup with water. I took the bread and carefully broke it and then knelt down and read the prayer. Afterwards I held the plate while he reached down and guided a piece to his mouth. Then Mark knelt down and blessed the water and handed him the cup. He spilled a little of it, but mostly he did fine. When he finished, he had tears in his eyes. “Thank you, boys.”
Mark sat around for a few minutes and then said he had to go home. He didn’t know the old man like I did.
The old man and I sat around and talked a little and watched the afternoon shadow move across the floor.
He was very old. His face was tough as if the wind and sun had carved out the soft flesh and left only the leathery surface. For 60 years he had farmed in the valley until his children had grown up and left, his wife had died, and he was alone with his garden, a plug horse named Blaze, and the Church.
I guess he’d always been in our ward, but kind of in the background. But I remember he used to bear his testimony nearly every month, and whenever Dad took me to the welfare farm for a work party, he would always be there.
When I turned 14 and was called to go home teaching, I was assigned to be his companion. He didn’t have a car and I didn’t drive then, so I rode my bike over to his place, now just a little way out of town since things had grown so much since he first moved there.
His living room had a round kitchen table with four chairs around it, with a shaggy throw rug on the floor and a reading lamp that hung from the high ceiling. Lying on the table were a large copy of the Book of Mormon and a Bible.
He shuffled over to the reading lamp and switched it on. Once he told me a horse had kicked him and left him with a limp. He stood there looking at me and then reached in his back pocket and pulled out a large handkerchief and wiped his nose.
“Jamie, we got to have a word of prayer.” He grabbed the edge of the table for support and lowered himself to a kneeling position with his hands folded on the seat of the chair. Then he looked up at me and said, “You kneel, don’t you?”
I knelt down.
“Father in heaven,” he began, “Jamie and me come to ask thee to help us as we go as home teachers into the homes of thy Saints.” It was a long prayer, and my knees were soon aching, so I tried to shift my weight around to get a better position, but by the time I found it, he had finished.
“Jamie, help me up.”
I reached down and put my arm under his elbow and pulled. He was a big man, and it was a struggle to get him on his feet.
He walked over to the window and looked out.
“Come over here. Do you see the place over there by the big tree, and the place next to it down the road? On the way here, do you remember seeing the place with the ‘Rhubarb for Sale’ sign nailed to the fence?” I nodded my head. “The Lord’s given us stewardship over those families. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes sir.”
“What does it mean?”
“Well, we have to visit them once a month.”
He rubbed one hand over his stubble beard. “Is that what you think it means?”
“I think so.”
“You got a long way to go, son.”
The nurse came in and gave him some pills. He didn’t look very good. But when he talked, and you forgot about the chalky grayness of his face and his short, quick breaths, he was the same.
“Did you go fishing yesterday?”
“No, I’m waiting for you to get out so we can go together.”
He looked out the window for a long time, and I thought he hadn’t heard me. But after a few minutes he turned to me.
“Jamie, you better learn to tie your own flies. I can’t furnish you with free equipment your whole life.”
“I will.”
“I would have taught you before, but you were such a slow learner at fishing. I thought I’d better wait.”
The first time he offered to take me fishing behind his place, I brought the stuff my friends and I used when we fished from the old country bridge.
“What kind of a rig you call that?” He looked at my large lead sinker and a treble hook with a wad of dried-up cheese stuck to it. “Here, let me see that. You’re not supposed to club the fish to death.” He took the sinker from the line. “And what’s this?” he said, pointing to the cheese. “You bring your lunch?”
“I usually use worms or cheese for bait.”
He shook his head. “I’ll teach you to fly fish. Then you’ll know something about fishing.”
He stepped a little ways into the river so he could get a free swing with his fly rod. “Look over there, just in front of the boulder.” He whipped the fly line back and forth a couple of times to let out line, and then cast. The fly landed gently on the water and glided into the swirling water downstream from the boulder. Suddenly the water boiled as a German Brown rose up and took the fly. He carefully fought it to his side and then reached down and swished it up in his net. “You think you can learn to do that?” he said as he reached down into the net and pulled out the trout and dropped him gently back into the water.
Nearly every weekday afternoon that summer I’d go over to his place with my rod, and we’d walk across his field to the river. He taught me how to cast a fly rod, and where to stand, and what kind of flies to use for each part of the summer. “You got to find out what they’re feeding on, Jamie. That’s the secret.”
He slept a while because of the pills. The bishop stopped by to see him, but saw him asleep, and said he’d come back later.
The second month that we went home teaching, Brother Johnson had just bought a new horse. And so we walked out to the corral and took a look.
“Mort, how much you pay for that mare?”
“About a thousand dollars. Why?”
“She’s a fine horse. How come you spent so much money for her?”
“She’s got a good line.” Then he stopped and looked at the old man. “Why are you asking me a question like that? You been around horses most of your life.”
“I never had a horse worth a thousand bucks. What will you do with her, sell her to the glue factory?”
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“Yep, I know that.” He looked at the mare for a while and then turned to Brother Johnson and said, “Mort, how long did your dad serve as a bishop?”
“About ten years, I guess. Why?”
“You come from a good line, Mort. As far as the Lord is concerned, you’re registered stock. But you’re no good to the Lord the way you are now. It’d be less of a waste to sell that horse to the rendering plant as for you to keep away from church any longer. The Lord wants you back in harness, Mort.”
Brother Johnson took the toothpick out of his mouth and dropped it on the ground. “You may be right,” he said simply.
When the old man woke up, he was embarrassed that he’d fallen asleep. But I said it was okay; I didn’t mind, and it would make him get better fast.
“Jamie, you been here too long. Your folks’ll be worrying about you.”
“It’s okay. They know I’m here.”
He turned his head so he could see outside. “What day is it?”
“June 13.”
“June 13. Now starting in a few days, I’d try an Adams with a number 14 hook. You got enough flies? If you need any, you know where they are.”
All of a sudden he seemed to get some strength, and he leaned forward. “Now, you keep visiting them families, you hear? The Johnsons are coming along fine, but you ask the bishop to get the Scoutmaster over there to get their boy Brad in Scouting.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard, and there was an urgency to his voice. “Jamie, you keep yourself clean so you can marry a pure and beautiful LDS girl in the temple when the time comes. And get ready to go on your mission. You need to read the scriptures more than you do.”
“I will.”
He still was holding onto my hand. “Jamie, once on my mission I went and saw the changing of the guards … Jamie …”
Before he could finish, a nurse stuck her head into the room. “I’m sorry but visiting hours are over.”
He released his grip. “You’d better go, Jamie. Come back tomorrow if you can.”
The next day when I got home from my softball game, my mom told me he had died that afternoon.
I walked over to his place and down the path to the fishing spot on the river where we used to go, and sat down on a rock. The river takes a bend just upstream from that point, and there was a hole where the eddy currents curled around in slow lazy loops, and there, he told me, the fish stayed when they were feeding on a hatch of flies coming down the river. The spot was hard to find because of the growth of trees on both sides, and most people who fished it probably got their line tangled in the fallen branches that lay in the water. But he told me where to stand and how to cast so you avoided the hidden traps.
My thoughts were interrupted by a trout jumping clear of the water for a fly. And then, for a moment, I could hear in my mind the old man say, “Don’t whip the water, just let it slide down nice and easy. You’re supposed to make the fish think a fly is landing on the water and not that a tree has fallen into the river. Use the Royal Coachman now, Jamie. How come you’ve never read the Book of Mormon? I want you to read it, and in three months I want you to tell Brother Johnson about it and bear your testimony.”
I sat there for a couple of hours thinking about him, until finally it was too dark and I got up and walked back down the path to my home.

During the Vietnam War, we held a series of special meetings for members of the Church called into military service. After such a meeting in Chicago, I was standing next to President Harold B. Lee when a fine young Latter-day Saint told President Lee that he was on leave to visit his home and then had orders to Vietnam. He asked President Lee to give him a blessing.

Much to my surprise, President Lee said, “Your father should give you the blessing.”

Very disappointed, the boy said, “My father wouldn’t know how to give a blessing.”

President Lee answered, “Go home, my boy, and tell your father that you are going away to war and want to receive a father’s blessing from him. If he does not know how, tell him that you will sit on a chair. He can stand behind you and put his hands on your head and say whatever comes.”

This young soldier went away sorrowing.

About two years later I met him again. I do not recall where. He reminded me of that experience and said, “I did as I was told to do. I explained to my father that I would sit on the chair and that he should put his hands on my head. The power of the priesthood filled both of us. That was a strength and protection in those perilous months of battle.”

“How many of you would like to have a ‘perfect day’?” the bishop asked the congregation. Many members raised their hands—some high, some low. A few kept their hands in their laps.
“That’s fine,” the bishop nodded. “Larry,” he asked one of the ward members, “would you like to have a ‘perfect day’? Would you please come up here to the stand? George and Ruth? Paul? Matthew and Joan? John and Helen? Ben and Carol?”
He called their names slowly, pausing briefly between each one. Many hands fell back into their owners’ laps; only a few remained held high.
“Is there a widow who would like to live a ‘perfect day’?” the bishop asked. There was a moment of silence as he looked over the congregation. “Grace, how about you?”
When those whose names he had called had reached the stand, he turned to them. “Which day would you like to be your perfect day? Tuesday? … Thursday?”
The disbelief and the embarrassed smiles on their faces showed that none of them had really expected to have to make a real commitment. Some nodded their heads yes. Others stood motionless. After several seconds, someone suggested Thursday because it would give them more time to prepare.
Smiling, the bishop said, “That’s fine. Thursday you will have a ‘perfect day.’ And since we do not have any speakers planned for sacrament meeting next Sunday, we’d like you to report your ‘perfect day’ to us.”
He turned back to the congregation. “Is there anyone else who would like to have a ‘perfect day’?” James, a teachers quorum member with a happy smile, raised his hand. He was included.
The bishop then told the congregation, “Your responsibility as ward members is to pray that they accomplish their assignment.”
How does one live to make a day perfect? That question passed through the minds of those who had accepted the bishop’s challenge. Throughout the week, whenever ward members got together, the subject of the bishop’s “perfect day” challenge came up. We were eager to hear the reports.
Sunday finally came.
After hearing the reports of those who had accepted the “perfect day” assignment, I asked the bishop why he had issued the challenge.
“I’ve always thought about living a ‘perfect day,’” he said. “But we have so many outside influences and pressures in a regular day that we can seldom focus on the spiritual and idealistic. And we often speak about the impossibility of living a ‘perfect day’ or a perfect life. But I had a strong feeling that the time was right for the ward members to try.
“I think we discovered that we can make things a little more perfect regardless of our circumstances. None of the ward members involved in this assignment had to make an investment in money, but they did have to make an investment in time, and give of themselves.
“Many of us in the ward, not just those who had committed themselves to the challenge, also tried to live a ‘perfect day.’ As a result, we became more aware of the challenges involved in perfecting ourselves and tried harder to live worthy to have the Lord’s Spirit be with us.”
Though the bishop’s “perfect day” challenge did not cause instant changes in our lives, it helped us along the road to perfection—something we all hope to achieve.

“My brothers and I were Boy Scouts. We couldn’t afford to buy sleeping bags, so Mother went to a flour mill and brought some empty flour sacks home. She heated water and bleached the sacks in a tub, then dried them and sewed them into the shape of sleeping bags. Then she built a fire and dyed the sacks green. Over another fire she prepared a mixture of paraffin and other things to waterproof the sleeping bags, and she made a woolen quilt to put inside each one. She made those bags fifty years ago, and only last summer she made a new cover for mine, which still has the original quilt!”

Permit me two illustrations. In the Transylvanian Alps of Romania, a man, with his wife and two children, was baptized into the Church. He became the leader of his branch; however, due to economic and family pressures, he became inactive for a time. Upon his return to activity, he reported that as he had stepped out of the water at the time of his baptism, someone whispered in his ear, “I love you.” No one had ever told him that before. His recollection of that expression of love, and the loving and charitable acts and expressions of members of his branch, brought him back.

Tyler’s entry into the world of power soccer, which is a sport for people who use powered wheelchairs, is also a story of family service. There was no nearby team for Tyler to play on until an Eagle Scout project by his oldest brother, Matt, 20, made it a reality for him a couple of years ago. Matt organized their town’s power soccer team, which participates in a league with teams from other cities. Their father coached the team, and Matt was an assistant coach until he left on his full-time mission. Now Tyler and other power wheelchair users in their area can participate in an activity that helps them develop skills and character—all because one young man found a way to do something for his brother.

Even though Corey was constantly busy with his academic studies and activities such as debate and drama, he made the choice to attend early morning seminary. He knew he would have to give up something, and that something was swimming. By then he knew he wanted to focus on academics, and that made dropping swimming much easier. Seminary, on the other hand, was too valuable. Corey says, “I’ve known all my life that I would take seminary. It is very helpful in understanding the scriptures. If you study the scriptures every day, you come to a better understanding of what they are all about.”

Frederick the shoemaker liked to make shoes. He liked to make dancing slippers for young ladies and work shoes for farmers. He liked to make school shoes for children. And he liked to make house shoes for their mothers. But most of all he liked to make hunting boots for young gentlemen.
As he carefully stitched each boot, Frederick would say to his wife, “Someday I will make myself a pair of boots like these.”
But the young shoemaker never even had enough money to make new shoes for himself, much less a pair of hunting boots. Once in a while, however, he made himself a new pair of shoelaces out of leftover scraps to wear in his old shoes.
“A shoemaker should have more than new shoelaces,” he said one day. “A shoemaker should have a new pair of hunting boots!”
“But how can we afford them?” asked his wife. “With the little money we have, we must buy food to eat, candles to light the house at night, and new leather to make more shoes to sell.”
“I know. But only shoelaces! It isn’t right.” He sighed, then worked in silence for a few minutes. “Maybe,” he said at last, “maybe if I’m careful, I can save a wee bit of money here and there. And then maybe someday I can have more than just new shoelaces.”
And so Frederick saved two small coins from every pair of shoes he sold. He began burning one candle on his workbench at night instead of his usual two candles. He saved even more by drinking two glasses of milk a day instead of his usual three glasses.
At last Frederick had saved enough money to buy leather for a pair of hunting boots for himself. At night, by the light of his candle, he stitched and sewed. Finally the boots were finished. “These are the most handsome boots I have ever made,” he said to his wife. He put on the new boots and tucked his old shoes into the back of his closet.
The shoemaker loved his new boots. He wore them around the shop every day, and he wore them hunting on Saturdays. As a matter of fact, he wore them for years and years.
At last they wore out. Frederick turned the boots over and over in his hands. I think there might be enough good leather here to make some work shoes, he thought.
So he cut and snipped, and he stitched and sewed, until at last his work shoes were finished.
Frederick was almost as proud of his new work shoes as he had been of his boots. He wore them around the shop every day, and he wore them to church on Sundays. As a matter of fact, he wore them for years and years.
At last they, too, wore out. Frederick turned the work shoes over and over in his hands. I think there might be enough good leather here to make some house slippers, he thought. So he cut and snipped, and he stitched and sewed, until at last his house slippers were finished.
The shoemaker was almost as proud of his new slippers as he had been of his boots and his work shoes. He wore them in the shop all day, and he wore them while he sat in front of his fire at night. As a matter of fact, he wore them for years and years.
At last they, too, wore out. Frederick turned the slippers over and over in his hands. I think there might be just enough good leather here to make one more thing, he thought. So he cut and snipped, until at last a pair of shoelaces was finished.
Then he reached way back into his closet and pulled out his old shoes. He cleaned and polished them and put in the new shoelaces. The shoemaker was happy with these new shoelaces because he remembered the handsome hunting boots and the sturdy work shoes and the comfortable house slippers they had once been.
And he wore those shoelaces forever.

For the first 12 years of my life, my father didn’t go to church. He and my mother had been married in the temple, but he had stopped going to church after that. My mother and I prayed for him, and almost every Sunday morning we went to the edge of his bed and said, “Please get up and go to church with us.” He was never upset or unkind to us about it, but he always had something else to do.

I was an only child until I was 12 years old. Then my mother was able to have another child, a little sister. The Sunday came to take her to church to be blessed. My mother said to my father, “Your little daughter is going to be blessed today.” I said, “Dad, please come with us to church. You can’t miss it.” A little while later, he came out of the bedroom dressed in a suit, a white shirt, and a tie.

We went to church and sat on the second row in the chapel. After the opening hymn and prayer, the bishop picked up my little sister and took her to the front of the chapel to be blessed. I sat close to my father on his left side, and during the blessing I felt his arm begin to quiver. I looked up, and tears were running down his cheeks. After the blessing, I asked him, “What’s wrong?” He said, “I’ll never let this happen again.” I asked him what he meant. He answered, “I’ll never let another man do what I ought to do.”

Three or four weeks later, our bishop called my father to be a counselor in the bishopric. A year and a half later, he was called to be a member of the stake presidency.

Heavenly Father answers prayers, and people can change. Be patient. The Spirit can help people you love to change bad habits.

My freshman year at Brigham Young University was lonely, and as the time passed, it did not get any better. My roommate was very popular, especially with the girls, and that just made things worse. One night, I had had enough. I needed to find out if anyone cared. So I left and went to a place where I knew I could find out. I went to a little spot just above the Provo Temple. It was sunset and the lights of the temple and the city were just beginning to come on. I found myself deep in prayer. I fervently asked my Father in Heaven to let me know that he cared, that he loved me, and that I was his son. The answer I received is one that I will never forget. His Spirit touched mine and let me know that he loved me. He encircled me about in his arms of love, and touched me with his spiritual hands.

After this, my fiancé sent the missionaries to teach me. I told them I already knew the restored gospel was true and that I understood what the Holy Ghost feels like. But I was concerned that it would be difficult for me to give up smoking and drinking coffee and tea.
I began to attend church, read the Book of Mormon, and meet with the sister missionaries three or four times a week. Eventually, the Holy Ghost helped me stop smoking and drinking coffee and tea.

I was serving as district Relief Society president in 1969 and felt I should make a special effort to keep in contact with the sisters who lived long distances from the meetinghouses.
One of these sisters lived one and one-half hours’ drive from my home and an hour from the nearest chapel. She was diabetic, and a recent stroke had left her partially paralyzed.
I had arranged to visit this sister on a scheduled Monday holiday. Fast Sunday preceded this holiday, and when we came home from church and broke our fast, I felt an urge to visit her immediately. My husband felt I’d have more time for a proper visit the next day, but I kept feeling that we should not wait. Finally, my husband said, “All right, let’s go.”
We arrived at her home just after six o’clock in the evening. We knocked and got no answer. The house seemed deserted.
We knocked and called through the mail slot in the door and were on the point of leaving when I recalled my friend had said, “When you come to see me, just open the door and come in.” I asked my husband what he thought we should do, and he said, “Try opening the door.”
It opened. I called her name and heard a faint reply. We found her lying in a pool of water on the kitchen floor. The cane she used to support herself with had slipped, and she’d dropped a kettle of water she was carrying and had fallen to the floor herself. Once she was down, she couldn’t get up again.
My husband and I got her up and onto the couch she used as a bed, then my husband went for a doctor. The doctor had been trying to get her to go into a care center for the elderly, and when he came to see her she finally agreed. She realized just how near her accident had been to a disaster.
She told me she had prayed the Lord would send someone to help her, and I’ve always been grateful I was listening to the promptings of the Spirit that fast day. If we had waited until the next day to visit her, we would have been too late.

I had a friend in the fourth grade named Victor. I’d sometimes spend the night at his house, but it was different than at other friend’s homes. Victor had not only learned to love himself, but he had learned to love others.
I remember one time when we were at both ends of a flight of stairs in his house playing catch with a soft ball. He was at the top, and I was at the bottom. I would have to tell him when I was going to throw the ball to him and where it was going. My friend Victor was blind.
We played for quite some time, laughing and having a lot of fun. The ball would hit him in the head or the shoulder, and we’d laugh and laugh. Once I said, “Okay, it’s coming right now.” Both his hands flew out just at the right time, and he caught the ball. We were both so excited, we just couldn’t believe it.
Time went by, and for a while we had a lot of our classes together. But they became fewer. By the time we reached junior high school, I didn’t see him very much because he was in special classes.
Then student body elections came up, and Victor wanted to run for president. The day came when everyone who was trying for an office gave speeches. It was finally Victor’s turn. This was his chance, and I hoped so much he would make it. A woman whispered something in his ear. Was it a vote of confidence or directions on how to get to the podium?
Victor finished his speech and walked back to his chair. The crowd cheered for him so loudly it nearly knocked him over. He didn’t promise world peace or anything. He just spoke with great confidence. A few days later, the election results were announced. Victor had won! I was so happy I cried for him.
Sometimes I would go home at night and ask Heavenly Father if he would let Victor have my eyes, if only for one day, just so my great friend, our president, could walk down the halls at school without getting smashed into and knocked around. But I guess Heavenly Father knew Victor was doing all right because Victor never once let his blindness stop him.
As a member of the Church, I have sometimes let the things I can see get in the way. I’ve let them stop me from doing what I should do. Victor taught me this great principle: It’s not the things you look at in life—it’s your attitude, or how you look at them, that counts. I was so blind that Heavenly Father had a blind friend teach me to see.

When I was 17 years old, it was time for me to prepare to serve a mission. I had my interviews with my bishop, and in one of them he asked me if I had a testimony of the restored Church of the Savior Jesus Christ.
I began to meditate and simply shared with him the things that I had heard from the other members of the ward when they shared their testimonies. Then I realized that I had never prayed for myself to know if the gospel was true. I was born in the covenant, but when it came time to prepare for my mission, I realized that I was simply active in the Church out of custom or tradition.
I made it a goal to study The Book of Mormon every day and to pray to my Father to find out if it was true. Time passed, and I didn’t feel any answer until I got to the last chapter of the Book of Moroni, verses 3 through 5, which say:
“Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
“And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:3–5).
I was concerned because I had already finished the whole book and didn’t feel like I had received any response. In my neighborhood there was so much noise that the windows in my room were vibrating, I knelt down and prayed the most sincere prayer I have ever prayed in my life, and I begged my Heavenly Father to help me know if the Book of Mormon was true and if the Prophet Joseph Smith was a true prophet and if this was His Church.
With tears in my eyes and a very warm feeling in my chest, I felt how everything around me fell silent, and I heard the voice of the Spirit testifying to me that it was true. Since that day, I am a totally different person, and I have a solid and firm testimony thanks to my Heavenly Father.

A note from a sister in her ward comforted Raihau Gariki of Tahiti, who was called as a Relief Society teacher just one month after turning 18. She was nervous to teach “mothers and grandmothers, women who already knew so much, had faced many trials, and experienced a lot of things.” After her first lesson, she received “a note full of love” from a woman in the class. This note bolstered her confidence—she pasted it in her journal to help her through hard times.

Recently, the Young Women organization of the Wilton Ward, Elk Grove California Stake, decided to join forces with the Relief Society sisters in their ward and learn to crochet items for those in need and for patrons of the Sacramento California Temple.
The project helped the young women develop in three different areas: they learned a new skill, they got to know some of the Relief Society sisters better, and some of them even extended the activity into one of their Personal Progress projects.
“I had a lot of fun learning to crochet with my friends,” said Stephany Mayer. “Since then I’ve been able to make gifts for Relief Society sisters and babies in the ward. I have also learned to make other crochet items like sweaters and tablecloths.”