Gospel Story Finder

Anita said she felt fine, but I moved away from her bedside, knelt, and prayed.
Illustration by Katie Payne
I was single and self-employed when I was new in the Church, so I had days when I had extra time. On one of those days I called the Relief Society president and asked if anyone needed help that afternoon. She mentioned an elderly sister named Anita (name has been changed) who had recently come home from the hospital and was lonely. I had met Anita before and was happy to visit her.
I called and then went to her apartment. She asked me to make lunch for her, and afterward we had a great visit. She had a good sense of humor and loved to laugh and tell stories about her life.
After lunch she said she was tired and asked me to help her from her wheelchair to bed. Soon I had her tucked in. Suddenly, the still, small voice I had heard so much about spoke to me: “Get her to the hospital now!”
Anita hated hospitals and had just returned home. I asked her if she felt OK. She said she was fine but felt tired.
I moved away from her bedside and knelt. As soon as I started to pray, the voice repeated, “Get her to the hospital, and get her there now!”
I hesitated, asking myself, “What am I going to tell the doctor at the hospital?”
I called a friend, who also prayed and then told me to follow my prompting.
Anita was angry that I would even mention taking her to the hospital, but I called an ambulance anyway. When it arrived, two paramedics entered and took her vital signs. Without asking questions, they put her on a gurney and sped off in the ambulance.
I followed in my van. After arriving at the hospital, I sat and waited. Soon a doctor came out. He asked me, “She didn’t tell you that she had fallen before you came to her apartment, did she?”
“No,” I responded.
He told me that Anita had injured her spleen and was bleeding internally. Without immediate medical attention, he said, she might have died.
I felt a mixture of remorse and exultation—remorse that I had hesitated and exultation that ultimately I had listened to the Holy Ghost. Most of all, I felt grateful to know that the Lord had trusted me to help this injured sister and had inspired my Relief Society president to send me to her.
My own health has deteriorated since this experience, but the Lord still prompts me. I pray always for the strength to follow those promptings.

As we cleaned I told Sister Wong about Topie. I told her about how I had sold him because we couldn’t afford to take him to California. I also told her about how I had earned the money to buy him two years ago when he was just a foal. I explained the voice commands I had taught him before he was old enough to be broken. I told her of the endless hours walking with him when he was sick with colic, and how he trembled when I put salve on his wounds after he tore himself on barbed wire.
I explained how hard it had been to pay my tithing when I was responsible for my horse financially. Yet somehow it had always worked out. The baby-sitting jobs had come, and I was able to keep the promise I had made to Mom and Dad that my horse wouldn’t burden the family financially. Now I had decided to sell my horse. I had decided to sell my beautiful friend rather than beg and cry to my parents and break my promise.

Later in my youth, my brother and I slept in an unheated bedroom in the winter. People thought that was good for you. Before falling into a warm bed, we knelt to say our prayers. There were expressions of simple gratitude. They concluded in the name of Jesus. The distinctive title of Christ was not used very much when we prayed in those days.

I recall jumping into my bed after I had said amen, pulling the covers up around my neck, and thinking of what I had just done in speaking to my Father in Heaven in the name of His Son. I did not have great knowledge of the gospel. But there was some kind of lingering peace and security in communing with the heavens in and through the Lord Jesus.

In a touching letter I received just this week, a mother wrote of her Marine son who is serving for the second time in a Middle Eastern war. She says that at the time of his first deployment, “he came home on leave and asked me to go for a walk. … He had his arm around me and he told me about going to war. He … said, ‘Mom, I have to go so you and the family can be free, free to worship as you please. … And if it costs me my life, … then giving my life is worth it.’” He is now there again and has written to his family recently, saying, “I am proud to be here serving my nation and our way of life. … I feel a lot safer knowing our Heavenly Father is with me.”

One day Julie’s younger sister, Maddie, was feeling very sad. She was not having a good day. Julie wondered how she could help Maddie feel better. Then she had an idea!
Julie sat down next to her sister and asked Maddie to play a game with her. They would take turns telling something they were grateful for—something they could see, touch, hear, taste, or smell. At first it took Maddie a while to think of something. But after a few turns, it was easier, and she began to look happier. Soon Maddie forgot all about her worries, and Julie felt more cheerful too.

When I was almost 16 years old, that same bishop assigned me to temporarily replace a youth Sunday School teacher. When he extended that calling to me, I was scared and nervous. I felt that I didn’t know enough to teach. I thought, “How can I be a teacher in that class? It’s like the blind leading the blind.”
I remember that in one specific lesson I had to talk about the testimony of Jesus Christ. We were studying in the Book of Mormon about how we could have a testimony of the gospel. I felt in my heart that I knew this Church is true, that Jesus is the Christ. But I had never prayed about those things. I thought, “How in the world can I teach these youth that they have to pray and receive an answer when I’ve never prayed for an answer?”
Ever since I was born, I had been taught about faith in Jesus Christ. And when I became a member of the Church, I always had that warm feeling in my heart about Jesus Christ, about my Heavenly Father, and about the Church. I had never had any concerns about whether this was the true Church of Jesus Christ; I had never prayed about it because those feelings were so strong. But in preparation for that class that week, I decided that I should pray to receive a confirmation that the gospel is true.
I knelt down in my room, and I decided to pray with all my might to confirm in my heart that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ. I was not expecting a great manifestation or an angel or something. I didn’t know what to expect as an answer.
When I knelt down and asked the Lord if the gospel is true, there came to my heart a very sweet feeling, a small voice that confirmed to me the gospel is true and that I should continue in it. It was so strong that I could never say that I didn’t know. I could never disregard that answer. Even though it was a small voice, it was a very strong feeling in my heart.
I spent that whole day feeling so happy that I couldn’t think about anything bad. When kids at school would say bad things, I wouldn’t listen to them. It was like I was in heaven, contemplating that beautiful feeling in my heart.
The next Sunday, when I stood up in front of the class of young people, I could share my testimony and tell them that Heavenly Father would answer their prayers if they had faith. I read James 1:5, which is the same scripture Joseph Smith read regarding asking God for wisdom. But the next verse says that you have to ask in faith, “for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” (James 1:6). It also says that a person cannot expect to receive an answer if he or she has a heart that doesn’t trust when praying. And then I said to myself and to my little class that we should ask with real faith, looking for an answer, and then the Lord will answer.
From that time on my testimony gave me the conviction I needed to make good decisions, especially in moments when I faced challenges. All of us faced challenges in keeping the standards of the gospel, especially those, like me, who were the only Church members at their schools. But my testimony helped me to remember that even though I was pressured by my friends to do wrong things, I knew in my heart that I was following the true gospel of Jesus Christ. After that experience I could never reject that testimony.
That day made a big difference in my life. Afterward I continued preparing myself for a mission with the help of my wonderful bishop and my family. I served a mission, and when I came back, I went to school to get my degree. I married and started a family. And everything happened because of that prayer when I was only about 16 years old.
As I said, I always knew the gospel was true, but I had to ask and then share my own experience with other people. That helped me on my mission too, because when I invited people to pray, I could tell them my own experience, letting them know that I had done that before. I testified that they could get an answer if they would pray with faith.

Let me finish telling you about the missionaries in Mongolia. Because all the elders were expected to teach English, I became something of a teaching supervisor to help them provide the best classes possible. I would visit them in class, observe their teaching, and then give suggestions.
I never expected to have to supervise teachers on a mission. But the Lord needed someone who could help these elders do the job they needed to do in order to introduce the gospel to Mongolia. From one class I had taken in college, I knew enough to talk about the positive things they had done instead of focusing on the negative. I knew I had to build their confidence. Having these young men do a good job was so important to introducing the gospel to the Mongolian people.
Much later, when we had returned from the mission field and the missionaries I helped were pursuing their own educations, one elder e-mailed me and thanked me for the day I came to their class to watch him and his companion. The first thing I had asked them that day was to list all the things they had done right. They made their list, but what he remembers is that I came up with a long list of things they had done well. It changed his attitude. It gave him confidence. He had not done well in school before his mission, but now, because he felt he was a good teacher of English, he thought he could return to school and succeed. It wasn’t until he had graduated from college that he wrote the e-mail to thank me. I had no idea that I was helping him. But the Lord knew how to use that bit of knowledge I had learned in college to help one of His missionaries while on his mission and afterwards in his own education.

During my mission, I had the opportunity of teaching a Protestant minister. My companion and I taught him every week for six months. He attended meetings in our little branch, but he remained a minister teaching in his church. He had been invited many times to be baptized. He had studied, and I knew that the spirit had touched him often, but still he waited. Finally, one evening I reminded him that he knew that the Church was true, because of the inspiration of the Spirit, and that he had sufficient knowledge now to be baptized. Therefore, we would not be teaching him regularly until he was ready to accept the invitation to be baptized.
A short time later my companion, Elder Darwin Christensen, and I were on a streetcar going to a baptism with some converts. When the streetcar stopped, our investigator-minister got on, and upon seeing us, he asked, “Where are you going?” I told him that we were on our way to a baptism. He said urgently, “I have to talk to you Monday night.”
We rearranged our schedule and went to his home that Monday evening. He asked us some questions that were on his mind about the Church. Then, as though he couldn’t wait any longer, he said, “What do I need to do to be baptized?” He continued, “I am sure that you’ve been wondering why it has taken me so long to decide. I wanted to study everything so that I would have the correct answers and never be an embarrassment to the Church. This Wednesday night I am going to the directors of my church and announce to them that I’m leaving my position and joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
On Wednesday he resigned from his job as a minister, and on Saturday he was baptized a member of our Father in Heaven’s true Church. The next week I finished my mission. He was my last baptism.

About the last thing Cindie and I had expected to find on our evening stroll was a tombstone. But there it was, at the base of a large oak tree where the forest met the meadow, not a hundred yards from Bottlerock Road.
Quickly 11-year-old Cindie ran to the stone, knelt beside it, and began trying to make out the inscription. Together we pulled away the dry moss that obscured some of the lettering and read:
MARYANN DEMING
wife of Rufus Deming
died Jan. 5, 1855
in the 56th year of her age
Her eyes shining, my auburn-haired Cindie said, “Oh, dad, I can just see what happened. There were Mormon pioneers crossing the plains, and poor Maryann was killed in an Indian raid, and her husband and children were heartbroken, and they buried her here and sadly left her and went on to Utah. It was so tragic!”
“I don’t think so, Red. The Mormon pioneers didn’t pass through Lake County, California, in 1855 or any other time. More likely she and her family were here as part of the gold rush or to find a good farm or something like that. But I’m sure you’re right about her family being very sad when she died.”
“Well, we’ll just have to do her temple work for her. I just know that Heavenly Father led us to this spot so we could find Maryann’s tombstone and do her temple work for her.”
“I’m glad you thought of that, love. But we can’t do her temple work with just a tombstone inscription. We’d have to have her birth date and other information—and anyway, her work may already have been done.”
“But what if it hasn’t? Oh, dad, I can just see it now: One of her great-grandchildren has been looking for her records for just years and years, and they need her death date, and they’re praying that someone will find her tombstone and send in the information to the Genealogical Library, and give me your pen and paper.”
Well, I’ve never been one to deter an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good. We copied down the tombstone inscription so that it could be sent to the library in Salt Lake. Why not? My exuberant, fervent, firstborn might be right—maybe someone somewhere was looking for Maryann Deming.
When we got back to grandma and grandpa’s summer cabin, it was nearly dark. Cindie recounted our discovery of the tombstone and our plan to send the inscription to Salt Lake.
Cindie didn’t join the rest of us for our usual evening game of dominoes that night. She spent the entire evening at the kitchen table with the old portable typewriter, trying to get a letter to the Genealogical Library ready to go.
The next day was Sunday. Together with grandma and grandpa our family drove to the Lakeport Branch to attend our Sunday meetings and to enjoy a nice dinner and a leisurely drive.
On the way back to the vacation cabin grandpa took Bottlerock Road, and we were nearing home when Cindie cried out, “Grandpa! Stop the car! There’s a cemetery!”
Well, we stopped, and Cindie ran the hundred yards or so to a small cemetery atop a hill. She walked quickly from one stone to the next, peered intently at several inscriptions, and then ran back to the car. “It won’t take but a few minutes,” she announced. “If we divide up the cemetery, and if everyone helps, we can write down all of the inscriptions in 15 minutes! We’ll add these names onto the list with Maryann’s and send them all to Salt Lake!”
Now, I’m not one to discourage an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good, but we were dressed in our Sunday clothes, and the cemetery was dusty and overgrown with dry weeds, and we didn’t have enough pencils, and it was really hot. “Tell you what, Red. You’ve got a great idea, and I’m all for it—but let’s do it this evening, okay?”
As it turned out, Cindie couldn’t wait until evening. As soon as we got back to the cabin she put on her dust-and-dry-weeds ensemble and began organizing a cemetery safari. Everyone else opted for hammocks and shade, so old dad got elected to provide transportation. Besides, I try never to discourage an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good.
We took a couple of pencils and pads of paper and drove back to Mountaintop Cemetery. Working together, with one of us reading the inscriptions and the other writing, we finished the job in less than an hour. As we worked, I marveled at the unflagging enthusiasm of my tall redhead: It was a scorching day—there was no shade—dust and weeds were everywhere—we had nothing to drink—and yet she chattered continually and gave the impression that she was having the very time of her life.
That evening Cindie tried to type up the 85 new inscriptions so that they could be sent to the library in Salt Lake. At length her mom took pity on her and took over the typing chores.
I was enjoying my favorite Sunday evening activity: lying in a lounge chair, sipping lemonade, and looking up at the stars peeking through the pine trees. Cindie pulled a lounge chair over next to mine, helped herself to my lemonade, and thanked me for helping her with her cemetery project. “Oh, dad, I can just see it all,” she said quietly. “There are people somewhere who have been looking for those names for just years and years. I’m sure Heavenly Father guided us to take Bottlerock Road today so we could find that cemetery and copy down those names.”
“Could be, love. But it could also be that someone has already written down those inscriptions. They might already be in the library in Salt Lake.” It was several minutes later when Cindie broke the silence.
“Dad?”
“What, love?”
“Do you suppose there are other cemeteries around here?”
“Probably.”
“Like where?”
“Hard to say. There’s probably one down in the valley in Middletown. Why?”
“Oh, I was just thinking.” Well, that should have tipped me off, but somehow I completely missed it—until next morning at 5:30.
“Psst. Dad. Get up.”
“Hzmph?”
“Get up. It’s already light outside. We’ve got to get started before it gets hot.” There was urgency in my Cindie’s dark brown eyes.
“Hzmph? Frmms?”
“The cemetery in Middletown. I’ve got a jug of ice-water, and I’ve made a sack lunch—I mean sack breakfast—and I’ve got pencils and the note pads.”
“Prmp?” inquired mom.
“Hurry, dad,” implored my redhead. “And be quiet. We don’t want to wake anyone at this hour.”
Now that last statement was something I could believe in. But I’ve never been one to discourage an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good, so I got up and got dressed.
When we got to Middletown the thermometer by the bank displayed 6:15 A.M. and 80° F. Just outside of town on Highway 29, we found what looked like the largest cemetery in the Northern Hemisphere, with major portions overrun with poison oak and blackberry vines. In my mind I pictured the rest of the family sleeping in.
We soon discovered that it’s hard to keep track of which stones have been copied and which haven’t, so we drove back to town and bought a box of chalk at a variety store. The display at the bank now, showed 97° F.
It took until lunchtime to get through the poison-oak-and-berry-vine section of the cemetery. Page after page of notes had been taken, but we had made chalk marks on only a few dozen of the hundreds of tombstones. We had barely made a good beginning.
We took time out to go back to town for a hamburger and a milkshake, and then checked out the temperature again: 105° F. In my mind I could see the rest of the family enjoying a swim at the resort near the cabin.
It was nearly dark when we finished, and both Cindie and I were exhausted. We left Middletown and its heat and drove back up the mountain to the cabin in the cool, shady grove. My redhead slept as we drove and was too tired to even eat supper.
But the next morning she was up and at it. All through the morning, while other family members swam and hiked and picked berries, Cindie hunched over the old typewriter.
After lunch I offered to help Cindie with the typing, and she gratefully accepted. Together we worked our way through the pile of notes: typing, proofreading, rechecking. It was evening before we finished the last page.
Grandpa went with Cindie to the store near the resort to buy a binder for the completed project. When they returned, Cindie reported that she and grandpa had decided one thing was lacking—an index.
All through the evening Cindie and her grandpa worked on the index. Twenty-six pieces of notebook paper—one for each letter of the alphabet—were laid out on the table. Slowly, carefully, the names were written down and organized. As portions of the index were completed they were handed to mom, who typed them. It was midnight before the title page was completed and we all stumbled into bed. The next day we sent Cindie’s book to the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake.
A few weeks later, with summer vacation behind us, Cindie came home from school to discover an impressive-looking envelope in the mailbox. Excitedly, she called me at my work and read, “The Genealogical Society wishes to thank you for your 41-page booklet, Cemetery Inscriptions of Lake County, California. You have provided important information which we did not have in our collection—information which will no doubt be very useful to many of our patrons in the years ahead. We congratulate you, at age 11, on having your own author card in our card catalog.”
As she read the letter and chattered happily over the telephone, I thought to myself how important it is to never discourage an exuberant 11-year-old from doing something good.
Then Cindie spoke again: “Dad,” she said, “when do you want to start on Los Angeles County?”

A young woman in Michelle’s ward had made some bad decisions. She repented, but people in her ward and school judged her for her past mistakes. Wherever she went, the young woman’s reputation preceded her, and many people gossiped about things she had done and even things she hadn’t.
What do you think Michelle should do? What would you do if this young woman were your friend? What if you heard the rumors?
STOP IT!
Try This Michelle decided she would be the young woman’s friend no matter what people said about her. “I think people just need to give her a chance,” Michelle says. “I was lucky to get to know her, and she is such a lovely person. I think it’s unfair that people judge her before they even meet her. Once most people hear the rumors, they don’t even want to be her friend. I think people just have to stop spreading rumors.”

Mama Wong and Annie
Photograph courtesy of the author
After I was baptized in June 2002, I shared my faith with my mother. Though Mama Wong often attended church with me, she did not want to learn more.
At last, 10 years later, Mama Wong chose to be baptized. I was thrilled. Sadly, a few years later, she stopped strengthening her testimony and made excuses for not attending church.
I urged her to come to church, but that only caused contention. Eventually, I quit pushing her so that I wouldn’t harm our relationship.
During the October 2019 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson invited Church members to “design [our] own plan” to strengthen our testimony of the Restoration.1 As I thought about his invitation, I felt strongly that I should do something to make things better between Mama Wong and me.
For my New Year’s resolution, I committed myself to read the Book of Mormon with Mama Wong. Whenever she said her eyes hurt, I said, “You can just listen.” When she said she needed to do the dishes, I followed her to the kitchen and kept reading out loud.
It turns out that Mama Wong listened closely and remembered what I read. Over time, she chose to read on her own. Later she told me that an ordinary man could not have written the Book of Mormon. She had no doubt that the book is the word of God. For me, seeing her go from being uninterested to wanting to read and bear testimony of the Book of Mormon is a miracle.
After Mama Wong was baptized, I worried that she had joined the Church just for me. But now she has a testimony of her own. For years I tried to “fix” her, but all she needed was the simple, powerful word of God.
I’m thankful for a living prophet who always gives us timely guidance. If we act upon what he teaches, great blessings will follow. This experience showed me how much the Lord wants to bless us. All I did was read a few chapters to my mother from the Book of Mormon. Then the Lord took over!

An example of that happy, optimistic spirit is a 13-year-old girl I know named Elsa, whose family is moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1,800 miles (2,900 km) away from her friends. It’s not very easy when you are 13 to move to a new place. Elsa was understandably unsure about the move, so her dad gave her a blessing. At the very moment of the blessing, her mom’s phone chimed with a text. The young women who live in Louisiana had sent this picture with the caption “Please move into our ward!”10
These young women were optimistic they would like Elsa without even meeting her. Their enthusiasm created optimism in Elsa about the upcoming move and answered her prayer about whether everything would be all right.

“I was born in Layton, Utah,” Elder Sill stated. “Soon after my birth we moved onto a twenty-acre farm my father had a mile and a half north of Layton. There were several modest homes on the street where we lived, and I could never understand why it was called Easy Street, because we were all very poor and had to work very hard. My family’s house there had only two rooms: a little eight-foot by ten-foot bedroom for my parents and a room about fifteen feet long that served as the living quarters for the family. Attached to the house was a little lean-to where my brother, Russell, and I slept. It measured about six feet by eight feet. And in the wintertime, our bed was often covered with snow.
“My parents were wonderful. Even though we lived under hard circumstances, they never complained about our poverty. I was the fourth of ten children they had to care for. My father worked as a farmer, a schoolteacher, and a postmaster. However, he was disabled most of his adult life, which gave me the opportunity to partially pay him back for his earlier assistance to me.
“We lived two miles from our meetinghouse. I always walked to church, and I always attended church from the time I was eight years old. I had a kind of compulsion to go to church, which I did not then understand, inasmuch as no one—not Mother, Father, the bishop, or anybody—urged me to go.
“It was my job at home to make the fire each morning. My father would call to me from his room when it was time to make the fire. Because of the extreme cold in our plasterless house, which allowed the air to blow through the walls, and because there wasn’t time to completely dress, I became expert in making a fire in the shortest possible time. I would prepare the kindling, paper, and coal the night before. Then in the morning I would dump the ashes from the grate; take off the stove lids; put in the paper, kindling, and coal; light the match to the paper; put the lids back on; and see if I could get back into bed with my brother before I froze to death. Sometimes it was about an even race.
“I also helped with other chores, which included feeding the pigs, milking the cow, keeping the stable clean, and feeding the other animals. Unfortunately we frequently had little to feed the animals. During the summer I used to herd the cow out on the street, where she would eat the grass along the ditch bank at the side of the road. One of the great trials of my young life was that sometimes I had to herd her on Sunday. Otherwise, she would not get anything to eat, and she furnished a large part of our food supply. We also had a chicken coop with a few laying hens. My mother used the eggs to trade at the store for things we needed.
“One of my most vivid memories is of the irrigation reservoir that my father built. During the week we used to play in the reservoir. I got a couple of railroad ties and made a raft on which I could sail. Frequently we went swimming in the reservoir. One time the reservoir sprung a leak in its bank along the outlet pipe. It started as a little trickle but soon became a large stream. Before we could stop the leak, the water had washed away part of the dike that served as the bank of the reservoir. Several men from around the neighborhood tried to help by shoveling in dirt, throwing in rocks, and stacking sandbags, but they were unable to control the escaping water, which did a great deal of damage by washing away the crops that were below it. Many times after that I had a kind of nightmare dream about our farm being washed away.
“When I was older, my father permitted me to have a little bit of land of my own to cultivate. I planted raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, and all kinds of garden produce to supplement our food supply. I used to get a seed catalog every year, and I loved to look at those beautiful pictures of radishes, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, watermelons, cantaloupes, etc., and imagine what I could produce by putting a few seeds into the ground. I loved the soil, and I loved to see things grow.
“I think that I learned more on the farm that helped me to succeed in life than I did in any other place. It was while farming that I learned how to work consistently, joyfully, and to the best of my ability. I was motivated by my own enthusiasm, without any prompting from others.”
Elder Sill wishes to impart this message to the children of the world: “In our preexistence, we lived with God, who is our Teacher and our Eternal Heavenly Father. And by the quality of our lives there, we earned the right to be born and to live now.
“What a great time it is to grow up under the most favorable conditions that have ever been known upon our earth. Many of you will have all of the education you could possibly desire. The gospel has been restored in a fulness never before known so that the pathway to eternal life is now brilliantly lighted and perfectly marked. No one need get off that strait and narrow way leading to the celestial kingdom, except by his own choice. God, who is concerned about our destiny, will abundantly bless us if we will always remember to serve and to worship Him.
“The best success formula that I know of in the world is to keep the Lord’s commandments with no exceptions permitted. In the words of Dicken’s Tiny Tim, ‘God bless us, every one.’”

My bishop and I sat in his small, organized office. He peered at me through his clear glasses. “A patriarchal blessing is like a blessing from Heavenly Father. And as you go through life, little by little, more of your blessing will make sense.”
I got up from the small wooden chair and shook the bishop’s hand. He then gave me a patriarchal blessing recommend. I thanked him and left the office.
Lately I had been pondering some questions. Does Heavenly Father really love me? Does he really know who I am? Does he know me individually and love me for who I am, not just because I’m one of his daughters?
I would try to come up with as many answers as I possibly could. “God loves you because you’re his daughter,” my teachers would tell our class during Young Women lessons.
“You should feel special because you’re a child of God,” my Primary teachers had told me.
I knew those things were true. I knew he loved me. I knew I was a child of God, but would Heavenly Father be able to point me out among all of his children? Did he love me for my qualities, my personality?
I rode to the church house with my mother and walked briskly to that small office where the patriarch was waiting. He was an elderly man with a smile and soft, kind eyes.
He gave us a quick review of what a patriarchal blessing was and how sacred it was. He then put his hands on my head and began talking for my Heavenly Father.
I listened closely to every word he said. I felt the Spirit so strongly at times I couldn’t help crying. I received the answer my heart had wanted to hear: “I assure you your Heavenly Father knows you well and loves you.” The patriarch also mentioned several things only my Heavenly Father knew. I felt a complete feeling of love and caring.
I know now that my Heavenly Father loves me and knows me, just as he does each of you. He loves you for who you are.

No one knows when emergencies will strike. I am somewhat familiar with the case of a man who was highly successful in his profession. He lived in comfort. He built a large home. Then one day he was suddenly involved in a serious accident. Instantly, without warning, he almost lost his life. He was left a cripple. Destroyed was his earning power. He faced huge medical bills. He had other payments to make. He was helpless before his creditors. One moment he was rich, the next he was broke.

Since the beginnings of the Church, the Lord has spoken on this matter of debt. To Martin Harris through revelation He said: “Pay the debt thou hast contracted with the printer. Release thyself from bondage” (D&C 19:35).
President Heber J. Grant spoke repeatedly on this matter from this pulpit. He said: “If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means. And if there is any one thing that is grinding and discouraging and disheartening, it is to have debts and obligations that one cannot meet” (Gospel Standards, comp. G. Homer Durham [1941], 111).
We are carrying a message of self-reliance throughout the Church. Self-reliance cannot obtain when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others.
In managing the affairs of the Church, we have tried to set an example. We have, as a matter of policy, stringently followed the practice of setting aside each year a percentage of the income of the Church against a possible day of need.
I am grateful to be able to say that the Church in all its operations, in all its undertakings, in all of its departments, is able to function without borrowed money. If we cannot get along, we will curtail our programs. We will shrink expenditures to fit the income. We will not borrow.
One of the happiest days in the life of President Joseph F. Smith was the day the Church paid off its long-standing indebtedness.
What a wonderful feeling it is to be free of debt, to have a little money against a day of emergency put away where it can be retrieved when necessary.
President Faust would not tell you this himself. Perhaps I can tell it, and he can take it out on me afterward. He had a mortgage on his home drawing 4 percent interest. Many people would have told him he was foolish to pay off that mortgage when it carried so low a rate of interest. But the first opportunity he had to acquire some means, he and his wife determined they would pay off their mortgage. He has been free of debt since that day. That’s why he wears a smile on his face, and that’s why he whistles while he works.
I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.
This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe. May the Lord bless you, my beloved brethren, to set your houses in order. If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That’s all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable.

Another new missionary was so shy and bashful he could not look at me without blushing. I discovered he had been reared on a pig farm and was much more comfortable with pigs than with people. It was very difficult for him to talk to anyone, yet he had a burning desire to be a great missionary. Later, when we attended zone conference in the zone to which he was assigned, the missionary stood to bear his testimony: “President, I have discovered that becoming a missionary is like playing football.” He told of his leaving the farm to attend high school. As he registered for school, he noticed the football team practicing and decided he would like to play, but he didn’t have any football shoes or the money to buy any. Then he remembered that his cousin had been a football star at the school. He visited his cousin, asking whether he could borrow his shoes. His cousin gave him the shoes but warned, “Don’t you disgrace them.”

Our missionary got on the team. In the first game of the season, he found himself opposite a great, big, mean opponent. He took one look at that fearsome opponent, gulped, and said to himself, “‘I can’t knock him down! But my cousin could—and I’m wearing my cousin’s shoes.’ So I went ahead and knocked him down, and kept on knocking him down all through the game.”

What kind of a missionary do you think he became?

I clipped an article written by Jay Evensen from the Deseret Morning News. With his permission, I quote from it:
“How would you feel toward a teenager who decided to toss a 20-pound [9-kg] frozen turkey from a speeding car headlong into the windshield of the car you were driving? How would you feel after enduring six hours of surgery using metal plates and other hardware to piece your face together? …
“… The victim, Victoria Ruvolo, … was more interested in salvaging the life of her 19-year-old assailant [attacker], Ryan Cushing, than in … revenge. … She insisted on offering him a plea deal. Cushing could serve six months in the county jail and be on probation for five years if he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault.
“Had he been convicted of first-degree assault—the charge most fitting for the crime—he could have served 25 years in prison. …
“According to an account in the New York Post, Cushing … made his way to where Ruvolo sat in the courtroom and tearfully whispered an apology. ‘I’m so sorry for what I did to you.’
“Ruvolo then stood, and the victim and her assailant embraced, weeping. She stroked his head and patted his back as he sobbed, and witnesses … heard her say, ‘It’s OK. I just want you to make your life the best it can be.’”1
Who can feel anything but admiration for this woman? Somehow forgiveness, with love and tolerance, accomplishes miracles that can happen in no other way.

Tim moved closer to the glass aquarium to watch the red velvet swordtails chase each other. He had received the aquarium last week for his birthday. Each night Tim was responsible for feeding the fish and checking the filter that cleaned the tank to make sure it was working. This afternoon as he watched, all the fish swam over to the corner where he usually fed them and poked their mouths out of the water.
“You must be extra hungry today,” said Tim. “I’ll give you a little food to hold you until tonight.” The fish quickly took in the food.
That night Tim fed them again. And they ate most of that too. Whenever Tim saw them at the feeding corner, he gave them more food.
By the end of the week Tim noticed the tank had a bad odor. The water looked cloudy, and the swordtails didn’t swim around as much or as fast as they did before.
“Dad,” he called. “Come look at my fish.”
Dad put down his newspaper and looked at the aquarium with Tim. “Looks like the filter isn’t working, Tim,” said Dad. “The water isn’t getting clean.”
“No, Dad. The filter works. Look at the bubbles. I check it every night.”
“It’s bubbling all right,” replied Dad. “But something’s wrong.”
“What’s that black stuff at the bottom?” asked Tim.
His father examined the patches of black on the orange rock. Tim saw the fish in the feeding corner and got out the food.
“It’s not feeding time yet, Tim,” Dad said.
“I know. But I feed them whenever they come to their feeding corner. And they sure get hungry a lot.”
“Then I know what that black stuff is, Tim, and also what that strange odor is we’ve been smelling. You’ve been feeding the fish too often. When you give them food several times a day, they don’t clean it all up. That excess food is rotting and making your fish sick.”
Tim was sad. He had thought he was being extra nice to the fish, but he was really hurting them.
Dad continued, “Remember when you asked the other day why Heavenly Father doesn’t give us everything we pray for?”
Tim nodded his head.
“Here’s a good example,” his dad continued. “We’re a little like these fish, always asking for more. Our Heavenly Father knows what and how much of everything is good for us. At times He tells us no, or not yet, just like you’ll have to do to these fish when they keep coming up to the corner for more food than they need.”
“The man at the pet store told me how to clean out the tank,” said Tim.
“I’ll help you,” Dad said. “While you take out the rocks, I’ll get the bucket and siphon hose.”
Tim pushed up his sleeves and put his hand into the tank to take out the largest rock. “All right, you guys,” he said to the fish. “I’m sorry I made you sick. You’re not going to like the cure, but for your own good, I’m only going to feed you once a day from now on.”

How do you stand out in a field of very qualified students? That was the question facing Liberty Belleza, a native of Muntilupa City, Philippines.
Her hometown was conducting a search among the city’s 15 high schools to find the ten most outstanding students based on scholarship, talent, and extracurricular activities, and Liberty was a finalist.
Liberty, 17, a member of the Las Pinas Second Ward, Las Pinas Stake, was interviewed, given an IQ test, and asked to perform in the talent presentation segment. But it was in the interview portion, with a group of dignitaries as panelists, that Liberty did something surprising. Instead of talking about academics, she changed the focus.
“I introduced myself as a Latter-day Saint, and after that their questions were almost all related to our religion,” Liberty says. “I told them about the Book of Mormon, and I told them about the Word of Wisdom and the Young Women values.”
In the end, Liberty was one of the ten selected, and she is now a freshman at the University of Philippines. “It was a good experience for me, especially when I bore my testimony. It felt good to share the gospel,” she says.

Many years ago I attended a large gathering of Church members in the city of Berlin, Germany. A spirit of quiet reverence permeated the gathering as an organ prelude of hymns was played. I gazed at those who sat before me. There were mothers and fathers and relatively few children. The majority of those who sat on crowded benches were women about middle age—and alone.
Suddenly it dawned on me that perhaps these were widows, having lost their husbands during World War II. My curiosity demanded an answer to my unexpressed thought, so I asked the conducting officer to take a sort of standing roll call. When he asked all those who were widows to please arise, it seemed that half the vast throng stood. Their faces reflected the grim effect of war’s cruelty. Their hopes had been shattered, their lives altered, and their future had in a way been taken from them. Behind each countenance was a personal travail of tears. I addressed my remarks to them and to all who have loved, then lost, those most dear.
Though perhaps not so cruel and dramatic, yet equally poignant, are the lives described in the obituaries of our day and time when the uninvited enemy called death enters the stage of our mortal existence and snatches from our grasp a loving husband or precious wife and frequently, in the young exuberance of life, our children and grandchildren. Death shows no mercy. Death is no respecter of persons, but in its insidious way it visits all. At times it is after long-suffering and is a blessing; while in other instances those in the prime of life are taken by its grasp.
As of old, the heartbroken frequently and silently repeat the ancient question: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” “Why me; why now?” The words of a beautiful hymn provide a partial answer:
Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart, Searching my soul? …
He answers privately, Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind, Love without end.
The plight of the widow is a recurring theme through holy writ. Our hearts go out to the widow at Zarephath. Gone was her husband. Consumed was her scant supply of food. Starvation and death awaited. But then came God’s prophet with the seemingly brazen command that the widow woman should feed him. Her response is particularly touching: “As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
The reassuring words of Elijah penetrated her very being:
“Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.
“For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail. …
“And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah. …
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.”
Like the widow at Zarephath was the widow of Nain. The New Testament of our Lord records a moving and soul-stirring account of the Master’s tender regard for the grieving widow:
“And it came to pass … that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people.
“Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her.
“And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.
“And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.
“And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.”
What power, what tenderness, what compassion did our Master and Exemplar demonstrate. We, too, can bless if we will but follow His noble example. Opportunities are everywhere. Needed are eyes to see the pitiable plight, ears to hear the silent pleadings of a broken heart; yes, and a soul filled with compassion, that we might communicate not only eye to eye or voice to ear, but in the majestic style of the Savior, even heart to heart.
The word widow appears to have had a most significant meaning to our Lord. He cautioned His disciples to beware of the example of the scribes, who feigned righteousness by their long apparel and their lengthy prayers, but who devoured the houses of widows.
To the Nephites came the direct warning: “I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against … those that oppress … the widow.”
And to the Prophet Joseph Smith, He directed: “The storehouse shall be kept by the consecrations of the church; and widows and orphans shall be provided for, as also the poor.”
The widow’s home is generally not large or ornate. Frequently it is a modest one in size and humble in appearance. Often it is tucked away at the top of the stairs or the back of the hallway and consists of but one room. To such homes He sends you and me.
There may exist an actual need for food, clothing—even shelter. Such can be supplied. Almost always there remains the hope for that special hyacinth to feed the soul.
Go, gladden the lonely, the dreary;
Go, comfort the weeping, the weary;
Go, scatter kind deeds on your way;
Oh, make the world brighter today!
Let us remember that after the funeral flowers fade, the well wishes of friends become memories and the prayers offered and words spoken dim in the corridors of the mind. Those who grieve frequently find themselves alone. Missed are the laughter of children, the commotion of teenagers, and the tender, loving concern of a departed companion. The clock ticks more loudly, time passes more slowly, and four walls do indeed a prison make.
Hopefully, all of us may again hear the echo of words spoken by the Master, inspiring us to good deeds: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these … ye have done it unto me.”
The late Elder Richard L. Evans left for our contemplation and action this admonition:
“We who are younger should never become so blindly absorbed in our own pursuits as to forget that there are still with us those who will live in loneliness unless we let them share our lives as once they let us share theirs. …
“We cannot bring them back the morning hours of youth. But we can help them live in the warm glow of a sunset made more beautiful by our thoughtfulness, by our provision, and by our active and unfeigned love. Life in its fullness is a loving ministry of service from generation to generation. God grant that those who belong to us may never be left in loneliness.”
Long years ago a severe drought struck the Salt Lake Valley. The commodities at the storehouse on Welfare Square had not been their usual quality, nor were they found in abundance. Many products were missing, especially fresh fruit. As a young bishop, worrying about the needs of the many widows in my ward, I said a prayer one evening that is especially sacred to me. I pleaded that these widows, who were among the finest women I knew in mortality and whose needs were simple and conservative, had no resources on which they might rely.
The next morning I received a call from a ward member, a proprietor of a produce business situated in our ward. “Bishop,” he said, “I would like to send a semitrailer filled with oranges, grapefruit, and bananas to the bishops’ storehouse to be given to those in need. Could you make arrangements?” Could I make arrangements! The storehouse was alerted, and then each bishop was telephoned and the entire shipment distributed.
The wife of that generous businessman became a widow herself. I know the decision her husband and she made brought her sweet memories and comforting peace to her soul.
I express my sincere appreciation to one and all who are mindful of the widow. To the thoughtful neighbors who invite a widow to dinner and to that royal army of noble women, the visiting teachers of the Relief Society, I add, may God bless you for your kindness and your love unfeigned toward her who reaches out and touches vanished hands and listens to voices forever stilled. The words of the Prophet Joseph Smith describe their mission: “I attended by request, the Female Relief Society, whose object is the relief of the poor, the destitute, the widow and the orphan, and for the exercise of all benevolent purposes.”
Thank you to thoughtful and caring bishops who ensure that no widow’s cupboard is empty, no house unwarmed, no life unblessed. I admire the ward leaders who invite the widows to all social activities, often providing a young Aaronic Priesthood lad to be a special escort for the occasion.
Frequently the need of the widow is not one of food or shelter but of feeling a part of ongoing events. Elder H. Bryan Richards of the Seventy once brought to my office a sweet widow whose husband had passed away during a full-time mission they were serving. Elder Richards explained that her financial resources were adequate and that she desired to contribute to the Church’s General Missionary Fund the proceeds of two insurance policies on the life of her departed husband. I could not restrain my tears when she meekly advised me, “This is what I wish to do. It is what my missionary-minded husband would like.”
The gift was received and entered as a most substantial donation to missionary service. I saw the receipt made in her name, but I believe in my heart it was also recorded in heaven. I invited her and Elder Richards to follow me to the unoccupied First Presidency council room in the Church Administration Building. The room is beautiful and peaceful. I asked this sweet widow to sit in the chair usually occupied by our Church President. I felt he would not mind, for I knew his heart.
As she sat ever so humbly in the large leather chair, she gripped each armrest with a hand and declared, “This is one of the happiest days of my life.” It was also such for Elder Richards and for me.
I never travel to work along busy Seventh East in Salt Lake City but what I see in my mind’s eye a thoughtful daughter, afflicted with arthritis and carrying in her hand a plate of warm food to her aged mother who lived across the busy thoroughfare. She has now gone home to that mother who preceded her in passing. But her lesson was not lost on her daughters, who delight their widowed father by cleaning his house each week, inviting him to dinners in their homes, and sharing with him the laughter of good times together, leaving in that widower’s heart a prayer of gratitude for his children, the light of his life. Fathers experience loneliness as well as mothers.
One evening at Christmastime, my wife and I visited a nursing home in Salt Lake City. We looked in vain for a 95-year-old widow, whose memory had become clouded and who could not speak a word. An attendant led us in our search, and we found Nell in the dining room. She had eaten her meal; she was sitting silently, staring into space. She did not show us any sign of recognition. As I reached to take her hand, she withdrew it. I noticed that she held firmly to a Christmas greeting card. The attendant smiled and said, “I don’t know who sent that card, but she will not lay it aside. She doesn’t speak but pats the card and holds it to her lips and kisses it.” I recognized the card. It was one my wife, Frances, had sent to Nell the week before.
We left more filled with the Christmas spirit than when we entered. We kept to ourselves the mystery of that special card and the life it had gladdened and the heart it had touched. Heaven was nearby.
We need not wait for Christmas; we need not postpone till Thanksgiving Day our response to the Savior’s tender admonition: “Go, and do thou likewise.”
As we follow in His footsteps, as we ponder His thoughts and His deeds, as we keep His commandments, we will be blessed. The grieving widow, the fatherless child, and the lonely of heart everywhere will be gladdened, comforted, and sustained through our service, and we will experience a deeper understanding of the words recorded in the Epistle of James: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”