Gospel Story Finder

Our missionary district went caroling to our investigators for Christmas (and we made and delivered cookies too). When we finished singing at one house, which we thought would be the last house, a woman two or three houses down started clapping and said, “Encore! Encore!”
We were tired, and our voices could no longer be considered harmonious, but we went and sang two songs for her. It was the best performance of the night. She was truly touched and told us no one had caroled at her house for many years. A week later we went back, and because of what she felt when we sang, she agreed to listen to the discussions.
I know that we can influence more people than we ever realize if we’ll just open our mouths and let the Spirit guide us.
Elder Justin Cooper is serving full time in the Georgia Atlanta Mission.

Six priests from Long Beach Seventh Ward, California, representing over 80 percent of their quorum, received their Duty to God awards and became licensed scuba divers during last year. Scott Taylor, Steve Burt, Lee Johnson, Jim Daniels, Jeff Burt, and Daril Johnson received training and experience through their Explorer post that enabled them to pass the requirements for scuba divers’ licenses. As a result they have been bringing home lobsters, crab, and other delicacies from the southern California coast.

Let me share with you, brethren, a touching experience that illustrates this assurance.

Brother Edwin Q. Cannon, Jr., was a missionary to Germany in 1938, where he loved the people and served faithfully. At the conclusion of his mission, he returned home to Salt Lake City. He married and commenced his own business.

Forty years passed by. One day Brother Cannon came to my office and said he had been pruning his missionary slides. Among those slides he had kept since his mission were several which he could not specifically identify. Every time he had planned to discard those few slides, he had been impressed to keep them, although he was at a loss as to why. They were photographs taken by Brother Cannon during his mission when he served in Stettin, Germany, and were of a family—a mother, a father, a small girl, a small boy. Brother Cannon knew their surname was Berndt but could remember nothing more about them. He indicated that he understood there was a Berndt who was a Regional Representative in Germany, and he thought, although the possibility was remote, that this Berndt might have some connection with the Berndts who had lived in Stettin and who were depicted in the photographs. Before disposing of the slides, he thought he would check with me.

I told Brother Cannon I was leaving shortly for Berlin, where I anticipated that I would see Dieter Berndt, the Regional Representative, and that I would show the slides to him to see if there were any relationship and if he wanted them. There was a possibility I would also see Brother Berndt’s sister, who was married to Dietmar Matern, a stake president in Hamburg.

The Lord didn’t even let me get to Berlin before His purposes were accomplished. I was in Zurich, Switzerland, boarding the flight to Berlin, when who should also board the plane but Dieter Berndt. He sat next to me, and I told him I had some old slides of people named Berndt from Stettin. I handed them to him and asked if he could identify those shown in the photographs. As he looked at them carefully he began to weep. He said, “Our family lived in Stettin during the war. My father was killed when an Allied bomb struck the plant where he worked. Not long afterward, the Russians invaded Poland and the area of Stettin. My mother took my sister and me and fled from the advancing enemy. Everything had to be left behind, including any photographs we had. Brother Monson, I am the little boy pictured in these slides, and my sister is the little girl. The man and the woman are our dear parents. Until today, I have had no photographs of our childhood in Stettin or of my father.”

Wiping away my own tears, I told Brother Berndt the slides were his. He placed them carefully and lovingly in his briefcase.

At the next general conference, when Dieter Berndt, Regional Representative, visited Salt Lake City, he paid a visit to Brother and Sister Edwin Cannon, Jr., that he might express in person his own gratitude for the inspiration that came to Brother Cannon to retain these precious slides and that he followed that inspiration in keeping them for forty years.

“Economically, our family had its ups and downs. Like many Americans, we did well during the 1920s. My father started making lots of money in real estate, in addition to his other businesses. For a few years we were actually wealthy. But then came the Depression.
“No one who’s lived through it can ever forget. My father lost all his money, and we almost lost our house. I remember asking my sister, who was a couple of years older, whether we’d have to move out and how we’d find somewhere else to live. I was only six or seven at the time, but the anxiety I felt about the future is still vivid in my mind. Bad times are indelible—they stay with you forever.” (Lee Iacocca and William Novak, Iacocca: An Autobiography, New York: Bantam Books, 1984, p. 7.)

We are also told that while science deals with experiment, religion deals with faith—and faith is supposed to be an intellectual process unknown to the scientist. This is obviously not true. Galileo (1564–1642), the great Italian astronomer and physicist who is often called the founder of experimental science, is a good example of a scientist who had faith. He invented telescopes that could see farther than had been seen before. His first important observations in astronomy concerned the moon. He discovered that the moon was not a smooth sphere shining by its own light; rather, its surface was marked with mountains and valleys, and its light was only reflected light. Galileo agreed with the theory of Copernicus that the earth moves around the sun, rather than the earth being the center of the universe with everything turning around it.
These observations did not agree with the teachings of Aristotle and of the Catholic Church, so Galileo was dragged before the Inquisition, forced to endure a long trial, and punished. But he never lost faith in his finding. I believe that his confident belief in the things he had discovered was the same mental process in religion we would call faith. He stood by his beliefs even when he was treated cruelly.

One Sunday when I was twelve years old, I was sitting on the front row with the deacons at the missionary farewell of President Benjamin J. Bowering. In his talk, President Bowering said, “There has never been a time in my life when I have not known that the gospel is true.” The minute I heard him say that, I realized that I felt the same way. At that moment, the stirrings of the Spirit and the strength of my testimony became evident to me, and those feelings have stayed with me all my life. Because of that talk, I recognized what I had—a testimony of the gospel.

When I served as president of the Canadian Mission, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, there was a devoted family history worker in the mission by the name of Myrtle Barnum. Oh, she was faithful in this sacred work. She had accumulated a lot of data on the St. Lawrence River area. She had come to the end of her line. She did not know where she might turn. She studied. She searched. She prayed. But she never gave up. And though she was frustrated for month after weary month because of her apparent inability to find that which was needed, she never lost hope.
One day she was walking by a secondhand store and felt compelled to go inside. Looking up and down the shelves, she noticed a set of books which drew her attention. Why, she will never be able to testify other than that the Lord was able to inspire her. The title of those two books: Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte, volumes 1 and 2. They sound like novels. She reached up and took those two dusty volumes down from the shelf, and as she opened them, she was amazed. These books were not novels. These books were genealogical records of all of the people that had lived near the Bay of Quinte from the time records could be maintained. She hurriedly searched through page after page, and there she found the information which opened up her family history lines once again, that her research might continue.
An elders quorum in that area raised the considerable sum needed so that she might buy those two books. They were sent to Church headquarters in Salt Lake City, and I received a letter indicating that these same books had been the means of opening up the lines of connecting heritages for thousands of names of those who had gone beyond the veil. A large number of people rejoiced to learn of this treasure trove which connected to their family lines, including President Henry D. Moyle, then a member of the First Presidency. One of his grandfathers had come from that very area. All this came about because a faith-filled servant of the Lord had refused to give up, refused to be discouraged, refused to say, “There is nothing that I as an individual can do.”

Sister Darcee Benge, a missionary in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission, wrote us about how she learned that her prayers were being answered. She wrote, “I have always believed that God was there, but like you, I felt that he had never answered my prayers. It wasn’t until later that I realized he had been answering my prayers all along. When I prayed about big decisions in my life like college and a mission, I was waiting for a force through my body and a voice saying, ‘Yes, do this!’ That never happened to me. As the days went by, situations would arise that encouraged me and made my decisions easier to make. When the time came to make a final decision, I felt good about what I was doing, and it seemed like a good idea. I have had many prayers answered in this way. I just didn’t realize it until later. Another thing I have to remember is that what I want isn’t always what God wants for me. I have to trust in his ways.”

It was a blistering 115 degrees F (46?C) outside, typical for a summer day out on the farm in Brawley, California. I kicked the tire of the huge water truck that had broken down for the third time in four days. I relied on my summer job to pay for entertainment, school clothes, and eventually college. Despite the heat, I hated having to cut a day’s work short, but it looked like I was going to have to do so again.
David, a member of our ward and a family friend, walked over from the mill to take a look at the truck. Venting my frustrations to him, I was tempted to say a word I had heard others use when they were annoyed. The moment before I actually said it, the thought crossed my mind that I shouldn’t because I knew it was a bad word. But in an instant, I brushed it off, thinking no one would ever find out. I said the word, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
Looking up, David told me he and Dad would fix the truck when they could. In the meantime, I found other work to do for the rest of the day.
Hopping into Dad’s truck at the end of the day, we began the drive home. Not too long after getting on the road, Dad looked over at me and mentioned that David had told him about my reaction to the truck breaking down, swear word and all. “David said he never expected to hear something like that come out of my daughter’s mouth,” Dad said. “He respects you too much, honey.”
I hung my head, and the tears came quickly. I had lowered myself in the eyes of people whose opinions I cared about. But most of all, I felt disappointed in myself and knew God did too. I realized that was why saying the word hadn’t made me feel any better.
I made a promise never to say that word again or anything else that would not please God, not because I didn’t want to make my dad and David ashamed of me but because it was the right thing to do. Integrity, I learned, is the way you act when you think no one is looking.

I can’t wait to be a deacon. Ever since I was little, I’ve watched with envy as the older boys passed the sacrament. It’s an important job, and they always seem to know just where to go when they pass the sacrament. Now it’s my turn. My twelfth birthday is this week, and I’ve been learning about the priesthood in Blazer class. I’ve been dreaming about passing the sacrament myself. I wonder if I’ll get to pass it to the bishop.
My Blazer teacher told us that we would be interviewed by the bishop before we could be ordained. This would be my second interview—he had already interviewed me when I was going to get baptized. But I’ve lived half my life again since then!
I like my bishop. I see him every Sunday, and he knows my name. Sometimes he says hello. But I still worried about that interview. Did I know enough to be a deacon? Would he ask me about things I keep secret? Could I share my secrets with him? If I did, would he keep them secret?
Friday after dinner the bishop’s secretary called and said the bishop wanted to see me after my Blazer class on Sunday. I said OK, but I was nervous. In my mind I went over everything I thought that he might ask me. I began to remember all the things that happened this year. Some of them I wished hadn’t happened.
Sunday after class I headed for the bishop’s office. What a busy place! I thought. Everybody wants to see him. I think I’ll go home and come another day.
But he saw me. “Hello there, Bobby,” he called. “Come in and sit down, please. Excuse me just one moment.” He stepped out into the hall to talk to someone about something. I wondered what they were talking about. I looked around his office. He had a big chair and a desk, a picture of the Savior, and a picture of President Benson. I saw the scriptures on his desk. They sure were well worn. I wondered what it would be like to be a bishop.
The door opened, and the bishop came back in and sat next to me. He shook my hand. “Thank you for coming to see me,” he said. “You’re almost twelve, the age when we normally confer the Aaronic Priesthood and ordain boys as deacons. I’ve talked with your father, and he also felt that you and I should have this interview. Tell me what you know and how you feel about the priesthood.”
Oh no, I thought. What shall I tell him? He probably knows everything about the priesthood. I started by telling him some things from Blazer class and some things my mother had taught me. He didn’t interrupt, and once I got started, my nervousness went away.
When I finished, he said, “Very good. I can see that you’ve been paying attention and that you understand some important principles. There are some scriptures about the priesthood that I’d like to share with you. They’re some of my favorites.”
He turned first to section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants [D&C 20]. We read from it and talked about the duties of a deacon. Then we read from section 84 [D&C 84] and talked about the covenant of the Aaronic Priesthood. After that, he turned to what he said was his favorite scripture—section 121. We read from verse 34 to the end of the section [D&C 121:34–46]. He helped me understand what the promise in verses 45 and 46 meant. [D&C 121:45–46]
Then he looked me right in the eyes and asked if I was paying tithing. I thought about how hard it had been to start. I was sure happy that I could say I was a full-tithe payer. I told him how good I felt when I paid my tithing.
Next he asked me if I ever smoked or drank alcoholic beverages or took drugs. I remembered the time my friends and I had tried a cigarette, and I didn’t want to say anything. I hadn’t even told my parents. I knew it was wrong when I’d done it, and I still felt bad about it. Something inside me said, “Speak up,” but I just couldn’t. My silence must have told the bishop I was wrestling with something, because he talked to me about keeping secrets. He called it “confidentiality.” He said that he would keep anything I told him a secret unless I gave him permission to share it with my parents. Then he waited.
It seemed like a long time while I figured out what words to use. I told him about smoking and how ashamed it made me feel. We talked about how it had happened and what I should do to repent. I didn’t tell him who I’d done it with, and he didn’t ask me to. He said that his knowing their names had nothing to do with my worthiness to receive the priesthood. We discussed the help my parents could give me, and I decided to tell them. A calm feeling came over me. I guess that’s what happens when you do something that you know is right.
When the bishop asked me if I was morally clean, I didn’t know what he meant, so I asked him. He explained about keeping my mind and body clean. We talked about how to do that. He explained that if I lived righteously, the power of the priesthood would always be with me.
He asked me to kneel with him and say a prayer, so I did. It was a short one. Then he prayed. He asked Heavenly Father to bless me, and that made me feel good. I knew that my bishop liked me.
I can hardly wait to tell Mom and Dad about my interview. They’ll be happy for me and will help me be a good, worthy bearer of the priesthood. Just think—next Sunday I’ll be presented in sacrament meeting by the bishop to be sustained to receive the Aaronic Priesthood and to be ordained a deacon. And the week after that, I’ll pass the sacrament. I’m going to be reverent when I do and try to set a good example. Maybe some younger boys will be looking up to me.

At 92 years old, Sister Marie Giles is a shining example of unwavering faith, commitment and service.
During the lockdown, she has sewn scrub bags and masks, knitted hats for Syrian refugees, baby hats and blankets for Poole Maternity Unit and gloves for the homeless. She has also contributed food for Hope for Food, a local organisation which serves the vulnerable and homeless in the community. She has made meals for the missionaries, cakes, pickles, jams and lemon curd for ward members and for those to whom she ministers.
Sister Giles also cares for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She has recently organised a temple week for her family who are spread out over three continents. Realising that they can’t presently attend the temple, she has arranged for a week of daily temple/family history activities. This will start with a virtual fireside to introduce and motivate all the members of the family, including of course, the young great-grandchildren.
Sister Giles joined the Church, against the wishes of her family who initially disowned her, after being tracted by the missionaries 62 years ago.
Since then, she has served as branch and district Primary president, as a stake Relief Society president, as a stake Young Women president, in the mission Relief Society presidency, as a Relief Society teacher, as a chorister, as a Sunday School teacher, as a visiting teacher and ministering sister, as a family history consultant and for the last thirty years as a temple worker.
Neither age, a recent diagnosis of illness nor current COVID conditions have halted Sister Marie’s determination to serve as she always has.
What an inspirational example of a continuing life of service.

One day while I was ministering to a sister in our ward, she told me she read the Book of Mormon every year. She also testified of the great blessings that this undertaking had brought her. I am grateful to that sister for her example.
Before that visit, I had read the Book of Mormon cover to cover only once, though I always studied it when preparing for teaching assignments. After my visit, I decided to follow this sister’s example. I began again with 1 Nephi and read to the end. She was right! I was blessed in many ways I recognized and, I’m sure, in other ways I did not recognize.

Sometimes grown-ups come to visit Myriam’s school. They walk around and look at the tapestries that Myriam and the other children are making, but they are not allowed to give advice about what the children should weave. This is what makes the Wissa Wassef School unusual. Professor Ramses Wissa Wassef believes that every person is a natural artist but that by the time most people grow up they have learned not to be artists.
The professor set up his school in Myriam’s quiet little village to prove his idea. He provided looms for several children, ranging in ages from six to eleven, and taught them how to string the looms and how to weave. Then he told them to make up their own designs. He did not allow them to follow patterns or to copy someone else’s work. Grown-ups were not allowed to criticize the things the children made. An artist once asked one of the children how she could weave without first drawing what she was going to weave. The girl replied, “I can’t draw; I can only weave.”
Myriam and the other children have proved that they can produce works of art. People have bought the tapestries to hang in their homes, museums, and art galleries, so the children are paid for their work.

President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) once described the experience of a young divorced “mother of seven children then ranging in ages from 7 to 16. She said that one evening she went across the street to deliver something to a neighbor.” These are her words as he recalled them:
“As I turned around to walk back home, I could see my house lighted up. I could hear echoes of my children as I had walked out of the door a few minutes earlier. They were saying: ‘Mom, what are we going to have for dinner?’ ‘Can you take me to the library?’ ‘I have to get some poster paper tonight.’ Tired and weary, I looked at that house and saw the light on in each of the rooms. I thought of all of those children who were home waiting for me to come and meet their needs. My burdens felt heavier than I could bear.
“I remember looking through tears toward the sky, and I said, ‘Dear Father, I just can’t do it tonight. I’m too tired. I can’t face it. I can’t go home and take care of all those children alone. Could I just come to You and stay with You for just one night? …’
“I didn’t really hear the words of reply, but I heard them in my mind. The answer was: ‘No, little one, you can’t come to me now. … But I can come to you.’”
“I can come to you.” He came to her, and He will come to you and me, just as the Savior came to the woman at the well where she labored and toiled through her days (see John 4:3–42). He encouraged her, taught her, declared His messiahship to her, and loved her when perhaps she didn’t love herself. To the woman at the well, to the young mother of seven, to you and me, Jesus Christ stands ready to provide relief. I testify that we can receive relief through our covenant bond with a loving God.

It happened in the life of Sister Abie Turay, who lives in Sierra Leone. A civil war began in 1991. It ravaged the country for years. Sierra Leone was already one of the poorest countries in the world. “During the war, it was unclear who [controlled] the country—banks … closed, government offices were shuttered, police forces [were ineffective against rebel forces], … and there was chaos, killing and sorrow. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives and more than two million people were forced from their homes to avoid the slaughter.”
Even in such times, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew.
One of the first branches was organized in the city where Sister Turay lived. Her husband was the first branch president. He served as a district president during the civil war.
“When guests visit Sister Turay’s home [now], she loves to show them two [treasures] from the war: a blue-and-white-striped shirt [she got] from a bale of used clothing [given by members of the Church] and a blanket, now worn and riddled with holes.”
She says, “This shirt is the first … clothing I [received]. … I used to wear it to go to work—it was so good. [It made me feel so beautiful.] I didn’t have other clothes.
“During the war, this blanket kept us warm, me and my children. When the rebels [would] come to attack us, this is the only thing I [could] lay [my] hands on [as we fled to the bush to hide]. So we [would] take the blanket with us. It would keep us warm and keep the mosquitos away from us.”
“Sister Turay speaks of her gratitude for a mission president who would make his way into the war-torn country with [money] in his pocket.” Those funds, from the fast-offering donations of people like you, allowed the Saints to buy food that most Sierra Leoneans could not afford.
Sister Turay, speaking of those who were generous enough to donate for them to survive, says, “When I think [of] the people who did this … I feel that [they were] sent by God, because ordinary human beings made this kind gesture for [us].”
A visitor from the United States sat with Abie not long ago. During his time with her, he found his eyes “drawn to a set of scriptures that were on the table.” He could tell that they were a treasure, “well-marked with notes in the columns. The pages were [worn;] some were torn. The cover was detached from the binding.”
He held the scriptures in his “hand and gently turned the pages. As [he did, he found a] yellow copy of a tithing donation slip. [He] could see that, in a country where [a dollar was worth its] weight in gold, Abie Turay had paid one dollar as her tithing, one dollar to the missionary fund, and one dollar as a fast offering for those who, in her words, were ‘truly poor.’”
The visitor closed Sister Turay’s scriptures and thought, as he stood with this faithful African mother, that he was on sacred ground.

I grew up on a farm outside of town. One evening, my parents were away at church meetings, and I was left in charge. One of my younger brothers ran into the house and told me the garage was on fire. The garage was only a few feet away from our house.
The one side of the garage where my father had been repairing a tractor was on fire, and flames had reached the car on the other side. I told my brothers to get far away from the garage so they wouldn’t be hurt. Then I grabbed a broom and started beating out the fire.
One of my brothers came to help, but he suddenly caught on fire and started to run. I yelled at him to stop and roll, but he just kept running. I chased after him and pulled him down to put out the flames. The thought came to me to have him stand in the canal near our home. I told him to do that while I put out the rest of the fire.
I know I had Heavenly Father’s help in knowing what I needed to do to put out the fire that day. The doctors said that if I hadn’t told my brother to stand in the cold water of the canal, he would have needed surgery from the burns. Instead he healed so well that there was only one small scar on his foot. It was a miracle.
I know that Heavenly Father listens to our prayers and that He watches over us. He stands ready to help us when we pray, listen, and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Many years ago, President David O. McKay told of a beautiful experience he had while sailing on a boat toward Samoa. After falling asleep, he “beheld in vision something infinitely sublime. In the distance,” he said, “I beheld a beautiful white city. … Trees with luscious fruit … and flowers in perfect bloom abounded everywhere. … A great concourse of people [was] approaching the city. Each one wore a white flowing robe. … Instantly my attention … centered upon their leader, and though I could see only the profile of his features … , I recognized him at once as my Savior! The … radiance of his countenance [was] glorious. … [The] peace about him … was divine!”
President McKay continues, “The city … was his … the City Eternal; and the people following him were to abide there in peace and eternal happiness.”
President McKay wondered, “Who [are] they? [Who are these people?]”
He explains what happened next:
“As if the Savior read my thoughts, he answered by pointing to [words in] a semicircle that … appeared above [the people], … written in gold … :
“‘These Are They Who Have Overcome the World—
“Who Have Truly Been Born Again!’”1

Even though Father was deaf, he understood his daughter Alice. She pronounced her words carefully and looked right at him so he could read her lips easily. So Father kept her with him whenever he could. When he was doing business, she helped him understand what other people said. When he was working on the farm, Alice was good company.
Alice and Father tended grapevines and peach orchards, harvested honey from beehives, and cut ice from the pond. Alice gathered eggs from their chickens. Whatever they cut or gathered or harvested, Father and Alice took one-tenth to the tithing office.
They didn’t pay their tithing with money, most of the time. If they harvested thirty bushels of peaches, three bushels went to the Church. If ten jars of honey came from the beehives, one jar went for tithing. It was the same with grapes and eggs and whatever else they had. Even chickens and cows sometimes went along to the tithing office in the farm wagon!
One Monday morning early in the summer, Alice and Father were mending a fence where the farm bordered the roadside. Alice heard the thudding sound of horses’ hooves on the dirt road and the rumbling of a farm wagon. She looked up and saw Brother Johnson driving with children in the back. Father looked up too.
“Good morning, Brother Ashdown!” Brother Johnson called. “My peas are ready for harvest. I’m paying the children twenty-five cents a bushel to pick them. Does Alice want to come?”
Father looked down at Alice.
“He wants me to pick peas for a quarter a bushel,” Alice repeated. “May I go?”
Father nodded. Alice climbed into Brother Johnson’s wagon. Father waved and smiled as she rode away.
Alice worked hard all day long and picked two full bushels of peas. Before she left at the end of the day, Brother Johnson dropped two shiny quarters into her hand. Fifty cents could easily buy enough candy to last a month, or ribbons in every color of the rainbow for Alice’s hair, or maybe even a toy! She ran all the way home and bounded into the kitchen where the family was just sitting down around the table for supper.
“Look!” she said. “Fifty cents of my very own!”
“Those are good earnings for a day, Alice, for a girl your size,” Mother said. “Now please wash up before you sit down and eat.” Alice obeyed, then settled in for a plate of stew, new potatoes, and sweet green peas from the family’s garden.
“I’m pleased you’re a hard worker, Alice,” Father said from across the table. “Do you want to pay your tithing on that money?”
Alice nodded yes.
“You’ll owe five cents tithing then. Should I give you change?”
Alice looked at the two coins next to her plate. Five cents less and she wouldn’t have two quarters anymore—only one quarter and two dimes. Five cents suddenly seemed like a lot of money.
“Maybe you’ll make some more money in a day or two,” Father said. “I believe Doctor Stringham has a field of peas that needs picking.”
“Think about it overnight, Alice,” Mother suggested. “You need to decide if you want to pay tithing.”
Lying in bed that night, Alice tossed and turned. She wanted to do the right thing. But it seemed so hard to let go of five whole cents. She thought about her last trip to the tithing office with Father. On their way home, Alice and Father had met a man Father knew, Mr. Singer, who wasn’t a member of the Church.
“Alice, ask your father for me where he’s been today,” Mr. Singer instructed. Alice did.
“We’ve been down to the tithing office,” Father said.
“Well, William,” Mr. Singer said, “you’re surely devoted to that Church. I’m always amazed to see you going by my place on your way to meeting every Sunday. Especially when you can’t even hear what’s being said.”
Alice gulped and repeated Mr. Singer’s words slowly to Father. She worried that his feelings would be hurt, but she knew it was important to let him know exactly what was being said.
Father straightened his back and looked hard at Mr. Singer. “Well, I do sometimes understand what’s said, but even if I don’t, I get the spirit of the meeting by being there. And I teach my children that we’re a Latter-day Saint family that goes to our meetings every Sunday. Same with taking Alice down to the tithing office. You have to teach children by example.”
Mr. Singer nodded. “You’re a good man, William Ashdown,” he said. “You take care now!”
As Alice lay in bed and remembered what Father had told Mr. Singer, she thought about all the other times she’d gone to the tithing office with Father. She always felt warm inside when she heard him say, “That’s a full tithe.” She knew it was one way he showed how much he believed in the gospel. She remembered Mother telling her that if they paid tithing, the Lord would open the windows of heaven and send down more blessings than they had room to receive. She thought about how the grapes and peaches and eggs all went to help people who needed food. And she knew her own five cents would help someone too.
Alice crept out of bed quietly and made her way downstairs where Father and Mother were sitting.
“Father, I want to pay my tithing. Will you figure the change for me?” Alice asked.
“I certainly will, Alice,” Father said.
Alice traded Father one quarter for two dimes and a nickel. She put the nickel in the pocket of her pinafore that she would wear on Sunday so she could give it to the bishop. But before then, she picked peas for Doctor Stringham. Alice earned forty-five more cents to keep—and another nickel for her tithing!

In our family we have tried to hold early-morning scripture study. But we were often frustrated when one son complained and had to be coaxed out of bed. When he finally came, he would often put his head right down on the table. Years later, while serving his mission, he wrote home in a letter: “Thank you for teaching me the scriptures. I want you to know that all those times I acted like I was sleeping, I was really listening with my eyes closed.”

It has been 400 years since the publication of the King James Bible, with significant contributions from William Tyndale, a great hero in my eyes.
The clergy did not want the Bible published in common English. They hounded Tyndale from place to place. He said to them, “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou.”1
Tyndale was betrayed and confined to a dark, freezing prison in Brussels for over a year. His clothing was in rags. He begged his captors for his coat and cap and a candle, saying, “It is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark.”2 These were denied him. Eventually, he was taken from prison and before a large crowd was strangled and burned at the stake. But William Tyndale’s work and martyr’s death were not in vain.