Gospel Story Finder

Another angel sent to help me was the Young Men president, Marco Antônio Fusco. He was also assigned to be my senior home teaching companion. Despite my lack of experience and different appearance, he gave me assignments to teach in our priests quorum meetings and home teaching visits. He gave me the chance to act and to learn and not just be an observer of the gospel. He trusted me, more than I trusted myself.
Thanks to all these angels, and many others I encountered during those important early years, I received enough strength to remain on the covenant path as I gained a spiritual witness of the truth.

“I can’t believe people go to work this early,” someone says, watching the lonely headlights of a car appear and then quietly disappear down the streets of the still-sleeping town. It is dark, early-morning dark, in the church parking lot. The coolness of the early hour inspires thoughts of sleep and warm beds rather than the day of work ahead, but work is what everyone has come out to do. After all, this is no ordinary Saturday morning; it is the beginning of the second annual Wood Run.
In the lumberjack country of Oregon or the thick pine forests of Washington, a project to cut and stack timber would raise no eyebrows. But when youth from Kanab, Utah, decide to hold an annual Wood Run, eyebrows are raised. The surrounding countryside poses some problems. The sage-covered flatlands, dry gulleys, and beautiful but barren red bluffs that characterize the small southern Utah community make it easy to wonder how far you would have to travel to find lumber, especially enough to satisfy this eager group.
The Wood Run originated when the Young Women of the Kanab Second Ward said they could stack and haul more wood than the Young Men could. And just one year ago, in the first official Wood Run, they proved it.
This year, as they stand waiting in the church parking lot, the young men say things will be different.
As the last cars pull in and the sun begins to rise, the dark shapes in the parking lot take on identity, and a spirit of competition begins to whisper through the crowd. In the new light the Laurel and Beehive advisers look around and confer.
“Do they have more people than we do?”
“I think so.”
“We’re outnumbered!”
“Well,” concludes Charlene Swapp, Beehive adviser, “there are more boys this year, but we’ll still beat them.”
The girls seem to agree. “Are we going to whop ’em?” asks the Young Women’s president, Jo Anne Goodfellow. “Yeah!” comes the resounding chorus from a group of enthusiastic young women.
The men are not in agreement, however. Loral Linton, teachers quorum adviser, stands by, listening to the boasts with a knowing smile on his face. “We’ll get even this year,” he says smugly.
This attitude seems to prevail among the young men and has resulted in a slight alteration of the event’s original name. Among themselves the event has become known as the Revenge of the Wood Run.
Soon everyone in the parking lot has piled into cars and trucks to head for the Kaibab National Forest to make good their claims of victory.
“That’s where we’re going,” someone says, pointing to a smooth, flat-topped hill of purplish hue that rises in the distance across the border into Arizona. “That’s the Kaibab.”
“That’s the Kaibab?”
The words of a lifelong resident, a man who homesteaded his own land out here and really knows the area, come to mind. “Kaibab is Indian for mountain lying down,’” he’d said, looking off in that direction and adjusting his cowboy hat.
Well, the Indians were right.
From this distance the level swell on the horizon hardly resembles the picture that the word mountain conjures up. Where are the jagged cliffs, the snow-capped peaks, the single vertical summit rising up to pierce the clouds?
It’s hard to believe that this level mountain stretches out to form the towering north and south rims of the Grand Canyon. And harder still to believe that it provides enough wood to keep one of the largest sawmills in Utah and Arizona in business.
But as the caravan of cars and trucks works its way closer to the Kaibab, the sage-covered plains give way, almost imperceptibly at first, to hills sprinkled with pine. The caravan climbs higher, and the air becomes cooler. Sparse pine becomes forest. Suddenly you’re a believer.
After bumping over dusty dirt roads, the caravan stops, and everyone climbs out. Instructions are brief. “Women stack on the right side of the road and men on the left. Three chain saws to a team. The winner is whoever stacks and loads the most wood onto the trucks before lunch.” Within minutes chain saws are buzzing, chips of wood and sawdust fly, and the strong scent of freshly cut pine fills the air.
“This is all waste wood that loggers have left piled up,” says Bishop Jack Frost, referring to the large, unkempt piles of wood and brush that are being cut into with a vengeance.
The young women have quickly formed a log-passing brigade, and from what looks like just a pile of brush come the beginnings of what will soon be a healthy-sized stack of clean, much-needed wood. According to Bishop Frost, the cutting and stacking are just the beginning of the project. Once the wood is taken home, it must be split and then delivered throughout the winter to those that need it for fuel.
Last year Mary Jo Morrison and her daughter Jodi received some wood from the project. “Normally, we would have had to buy the wood,” says Mary Jo. “I was very appreciative. It was not just logs, either. The wood was cut, and split, and ready to burn. I work full-time, but this year Jodi is able to go up and help. Those kids work hard.”
“It gives you a good feeling to be doing something for people who can’t go up and chop the wood themselves,” says Jodi, a first-year Beehive.
Although much of this year’s Wood Run still lies ahead, for now everyone seems intent on gathering as much wood as they can. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best service project I’ve ever been on,” says Bishop Frost. “The kids all get a sense of usefulness out of it. They feel like they’ve accomplished something. And they have. It’s hard work to gather this much wood.”
Nobody would argue with him on that point. Across the road and farther up from where the girls are working, the young men are diving into their pile of wood in a less organized but equally effective manner. As soon as the chain saw has rendered a log into chopping size blocks, the blocks are thrown onto a pile and then loaded onto a truck.
Echoing the bishop’s feelings, Chad Goodfellow, teachers quorum president, says that the Wood Run is a better service project than most he’s been on. “There’s a lot done here. This is an activity, but it also does some good for everybody else.” He’s right. By the time the project is over, nearly everyone in the ward will have had the opportunity to take part in helping others.
And their help doesn’t go unappreciated. “I’m a widow, and usually I’ve bought my wood,” says Nedra Baughman, who received some wood last year. She was surprised one day to find a truck and some of the youth from the ward in front of her home. “There they were, two unloading the wood, some splitting it and others stacking it,” she says. “I was overwhelmed. It makes you feel humble and very grateful.”
With this kind of response awaiting their work, the workers find the day goes quickly.
Before long the trucks begin to fill with wood, and lookouts are sent to spy on the opposing team. Extra sweatshirts or jackets are laid aside or tied around waists as the morning’s cool edge melts into afternoon.
The log-passing brigade formed by the young women continues to function but at a slightly slower pace—slow enough, anyway, to allow a good sawdust fight and accommodate plenty of laughter and talking.
“It’s very hard work,” says Shelley Allen, a Mia Maid and veteran worker from the previous year, “but it’s fun when you’re all working together. And when you take the wood to people’s houses, they like it. That’s the neat part.”
Jamie Leavitt, Beehive president, shakes some clinging bits of sawdust from her hair and agrees that delivering the wood to people who need it really does make all the hard work worthwhile.
Of course, hard work or not, none of the young men is so tired that he can resist climbing the sides of the huge diesel truck to scale the mountain of wood it holds and shout claims of victory to those below.
The deadline that seemed years away while the workers were standing sleepily in the cool morning dark at the church parking lot has arrived. It is time to declare a winner.
The noisy crowd gathers. Dusty gloves are dropped to the ground and then joined for a rest by their equally dusty wearers. Examining the cuts and scrapes on her uncovered arms, one young woman suggests that the winners be determined by comparing the number of scratches on the arms of the opposing teams. Seeing the dirt embedded in the young women’s shirts and ground into the knees of their jeans, someone else suggests the winners be judged by the amount of dirt they’ve accumulated. If dirt is the criterion, the young women are certainly the day’s winners!
Although some claim the wood got heavier as the day wore on and some reactions to getting up so early were not always positive, the young people feel good about the work they’ve done.
“This has really been fun,” says Andy Compas, first assistant in the priests quorum. “Last year I got to deliver the wood, but I didn’t get to come out here.” For Andy, as for most of the youth, the real magic of the project is in the delivery of the wood. “Just to see their faces when we took it to them,” he says of the year before. “They couldn’t tell us how much they appreciated it.”
For Dan Allen, who operated a chain saw, the day’s experience is nothing new. He works for a logging company, so the cutting, stacking, and hauling of the wood are all part of a normal day’s work to him. The difference seems to lie in giving up an otherwise free day to help someone else. “It’s a lot more fun to cut and stack wood when you’re doing it as a service for someone else,” he says.
Most of the day’s work is done now, and everyone takes advantage of the free time to relax. Well, almost everyone.
What may prove to be the toughest job of the day is still waiting. It belongs to Bishop Frost, who must judge the work and come up with a winning team. Both sides feel they’ve won.
“I don’t know if you dare judge,” counsels one adviser. But drawing on the wisdom and the example of Solomon, the bishop thinks it over and makes his decision.
In an odd twist guaranteed to satisfy both teams, the bishop declares the young men to be the official winners, but before any cheers can be raised, the bishop gives the young women the honor of having worked the hardest. It seems to work.
Lunch is cleared away, jackets and gloves are retrieved from tree stumps, and everyone gathers for one last picture by the side of the huge diesel truck. The edge of competition so evident earlier that morning in the church parking lot has faded. They are friends.
After all, everyone here knows what the real meaning of the project is. They know it goes beyond the difficulty of rising early, stacking wood, and loading trucks. They know it even goes beyond the momentary thrill of victory. The work may give a sense of accomplishment and the competition may provide some fun, but everyone who participates knows it is the giving that makes it all worthwhile.

Earlier this year Elder Douglas L. Callister and I were in Kiev, capital city of Ukraine. We were there to create the first stake in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We were pleased to note that the Kiev Ukraine District was well prepared to become a stake—fully organized and ready to take its place among the stakes of Zion. There we also met with the missionaries, among whom were several stalwart senior couples. We listened attentively to their expressions.
We remember the account of Elder Rudi and Sister Eva Hegewald, who grew up in what was then known as East Germany. Speaking with a slight and sweet German accent, they recounted the difficult days of World War II and the subsequent Soviet occupation. They spoke of their many deprivations. Finding the Lord’s true Church and later immigrating to America were counted as treasured blessings. The ensuing years brought them five healthy children, along with spiritual and financial increase. They felt that serving a mission would be a good way for them to show gratitude to the Lord. They expressed a deep desire to serve in Eastern Europe. Their call came to serve in the Ukraine Kiev Mission. Elder and Sister Hegewald write: “Now, close to the end of our mission in the land of our former enemy, we are thankful for the opportunity to teach and love the Ukrainian people. As we have served the Lord, our souls have been healed and our family has become more united. We have had a truly remarkable and satisfying experience and have seen many small miracles.”

The completion of the St. George Temple also reconfirmed the hope and desires of the Saints for finishing the “Great Temple” in the Salt Lake Valley. Lucy B. Young, a wife of Brigham Young, was called to serve in the St. George Temple to administer to the living and the dead. An official Church periodical stated, “How many times the sick and suffering have come … to [the] temple, and at once Sister Young would be called to take the afflicted one under immediate charge.” One sister who had not walked for a dozen years “was brought, and under the cheering faith of Sister Young she went through the day’s ordinance and was perfectly healed of her affliction.” Spiritual experiences such as this, coupled with their desire to fulfill biblical prophecy, impelled the Saints to complete the Salt Lake Temple.

Johanna trudged beside the wagon train lumbering westward along the dusty trail. “Why do I have to walk all the way?” she grumbled to herself. But she already knew the answer: The wagons were loaded with precious supplies to help the Saints begin a new life in the West. There was no room for riders.
The burlap sack tied to Johanna’s waist dragged on the ground, so she hitched it up. By nightfall she would have loaded the bag with buffalo chips and small sticks to make a warm fire on the cold prairie. The late summer sun shone warm on her back. It soothed her grumbles.
Johanna began to hum a little tune. The same tune echoed from behind her. It’s that Barney Biegland! Why does he always have to copy me! Johanna turned and stuck her tongue out at him. Crosser than ever, she stopped watching where she was stepping and tripped. Her knees and elbows smacked the ground hard, and she began to cry.
Barney bent to help her up.
“Leave me alone!” Johanna yelled, wrenching away.
“I was just trying to help.”
As Johanna picked herself up, she spotted an Indian sandal! Her eyes scanned the area, and she found its mate. She picked them up and fit them over her thin-soled shoes. They probably belonged to a member of a roving band of Indians, she decided. How soft they felt—like walking on air. She turned and looked at the dusty line of oxen and covered wagons as they plodded across the parched prairie. As she watched, the words Captain Rice had spoken ten days before in Council Bluffs, Iowa, came back to her:
“Twenty miles a day to reach Salt Lake by October conference, and that’s none too soon.” Johanna started walking again with her new-found sandals on.
As the sun sank below the horizon, the wagons formed a circle for the night. The younger men were assigned to herd the oxen, and Barney was one of them. The three cows in the company were milked, and the precious milk was distributed to the sick and to the young children. One cow belonged to Johanna’s family.
Johanna dumped her day’s fuel near the fire, where her mother already had the salt pork out. Johanna helped mix flour and water into dough for ashcakes. She patted the dough into thin cakes and laid them on the hot rocks around the fire. When they were baked, she picked the cakes off the rocks and brushed the ashes off. They tasted flat but were warm.
Johanna thought of the comfortable farmhouse her family had left in Denmark. Meals of roast duck, turkey, cheeses, pancakes, and potatoes had filled the family’s big table. Loaves of hot bread had decorated its center, and she could almost taste the warm butter and honey dripping off a big slice of bread—almost, but not quite. She felt sorry for herself as she munched the flavorless ashcake.
Still, Johanna was not sorry that the Latter-day Saint missionaries had taught her family the gospel. And she was not sorry that her parents had decided to join other Latter-day Saints in the valleys of the western mountains. It was an adventure to travel to a new home. But she did hate the dusty trail and the dull food. The thing she hated most, though, was the walking—over a thousand miles, one step at a time, day after day.
Soon it was time for the nightly song and prayer. Captain Rice gave the scripture: “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way” [Ex. 13:21]. The Israelites at least had a cloud to lead them, Johanna thought. Exhausted, she sank into her bed in the back of the wagon.
Johanna was startled from a deep sleep by the piercing shouts of “Fire! Fire!” She quickly dressed and peeked out the back of the wagon. Smoke blackened the western horizon. “Leave the bedclothes. I’ll take care of them,” her mother said. “Help your father find the oxen and cow.”
The animals had grazed farther out on the plain than usual, and the men were having a hard time getting the fire-frightened animals back to the wagons.
Running to find her father, Johanna saw him in the distance, driving the oxen. As she ran toward him, he called, “Johanna, lead the oxen back to camp. I must look for the cow. She’s too valuable to lose.”
Johanna found a switch and touched it to the flanks of the oxen as she had done many times before. The smoke was becoming more pungent. When a waft of smoky wind passed over them, the frightened oxen stopped, and even though Johanna switched them harder, they wouldn’t move. Johanna looked around desperately for help. She could hear the crackling of fire now.
Barney came up behind Johanna, leading another team. “Pull the rope of the lead ox!” he called.
As she bent to pick up the rope, Johanna was pulled to the dusty earth. The lead ox had stepped on her skirt!
“Don’t move,” Barney commanded as he hurried over to her. “Watch the ox. When I get him to move, pull away.” Johanna waited anxiously while Barney calmed the ox and got it to step forward, off her skirt.
“Hurry,” Barney told her as he got the oxen to move toward camp and went back to his own team.
Soon Father was at Johanna’s side with the cow. His smile comforted her. As they reached the camp, they heard the call to prayer. In the prayer circle, Johanna slipped her hand into her mother’s.
The captain spoke. “There is no chance for the oxen to escape the fast-moving prairie fire. We must ask the Lord for guidance.”
As a fervent amen was said by all, the captain stood on a wagon tongue and pointed at the sky. “Brothers and Sisters, we have not come this far to be destroyed. That tiny cloud will be our deliverance.”
Johanna looked up into the smoke-blackened sky, and the small cloud began to grow in size. Even as the fire roared across the plain and its heat waves reached up to the clouds and distorted the horizon, the cloud became bigger and heavy with rain. Lightning, brighter than the flames of the fire, lit up the sky. The roar of the fire drummed in Johanna’s ears; the thunder answered back.
The single cloud suddenly became many clouds, all spilling rain onto the fire below. The earth hissed, and steam billowed upward. Johanna looked heavenward. The rain washed the tears and dust from her face.
Then, as quickly as the clouds had appeared, they disappeared. But the fire was out! Blue prairie sky surrounded the wagon train. A thankful group of pioneers knelt again in the circle of their wagons to thank their Father in Heaven.
Later that morning Johanna skipped ahead of the wagon train with the other children. She looked down at her muddy feet squishing in the wet prairie soil. I would ordinarily be grumbling about this, she thought. She smiled and started humming a tune.
Barney appeared at her side. “You sound cheerful,” he said.
“Thanks for helping me with the oxen,” Johanna said shyly.
She put the Indian sandals on again, and they felt even lighter than ever on her feet. Johanna, wondering if the Israelite children had had dirty feet like hers, was sure that they were as grateful for their cloud as she was for the one that Father in Heaven had sent today.

Seven years later I too was preparing to serve a mission. I remember the night my call letter came, and I had all the family gathered around. Everyone had made their guesses as to where I would go. We all thought that I for sure would go to Temple Square. When I actually read my call, I was absolutely shocked! I thought, “Do they know that I am a girl!?” I knew that there were girls serving in India when my brother was on a mission, but they were Indian girls! I had no idea that they sent foreign sisters there and I wondered if I was the first one? Later I learned that I am the first sister from Australia to serve in India.

Another shock was how soon they wanted me to be prepared and ready to leave. I had just eight weeks from the time I received my call to the time I had to report to the Provo MTC. I quickly applied for my overseas Indian citizenship. It normally takes 6-8 weeks or more to arrive which meant that it would have come on the day I was supposed to leave. I knew there was a reason I was to leave so soon so I just put my faith and trust in the Lord that everything would work out. I ended up getting my visa in just five weeks! That is just one of the miracles I saw as I prepared for my mission. It was a crazy whirlwind getting ready for my mission, but it was a testimony to me that the India New Delhi Mission was where I needed to be.

Just one day before Elder McConkie’s talk, I had received my call to the Presiding Bishopric. One day after his address, on Easter morning, at 5:00 A.M., I was writing my remarks to be delivered that afternoon. As I reflected on Elder McConkie’s beautiful oration, I was overcome with the knowledge of my weaknesses and inadequacies. However, as I began to comprehend what had taken place in my own life, self-doubt was replaced with peace, confidence, and eternal joy. I wept.
I wrote the words which seem appropriate to repeat at this time: “I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I love the transformation his atonement has wrought in me. … I once was in darkness, and now see light. I once lost all of my confidence, and now know all things are possible in the Lord. I once felt shame and now am ‘filled … with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.’ (2 Ne. 4:21.) ‘I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.’” (2 Ne. 1:15.) (General Conference, April 1985.)
I feel the same way now as I did on that Easter Sunday. That knowledge brings tears.

“After keeping record of my time spent on social media for the first week, I was a little shocked at the amount of time I spent on my phone. It was definitely a good idea for me to use some of that time for the Book of Mormon, especially because diligently reading scriptures is not one of my strengths.
“Ironically, one of the first days I read my scriptures in the morning was a terrible day. However, I knew that reading scriptures would only improve my life, so I kept reading.
“I think the greatest impact from reading every day was that I felt much more in tune with the Spirit. I was able to make decisions much easier. I felt more love for the people around me and an increased desire to serve. When I read my scriptures in the morning, the day went so much better. When I read at night, I slept well. I would strongly recommend that everyone try this. What a difference it makes!”
Bryn C., 18, Utah, USA

I was almost 13 when my family moved to Pendleton, Oregon, which was a big town to me with about 6,000 people in it. My dad ran the agricultural experimental station for Oregon State University. It was 168 acres in size, and it was fenced all the way around. I had a job hoeing the weeds from under the fence, and initially I hated that job.
One afternoon I was hoeing weeds with a friend named Arlen Jenkins. I was complaining and moaning and groaning about the hard work, but he looked at me and said, “You know, you really need to consider that if we weren’t doing this, we might be doing something worse.” That was his attitude. He was always happy doing any type of work because he knew he could be doing something worse. I have tried to reflect that attitude in every job I have had since that time.

My mom and I seemed to drift apart after I joined the Church. She didn’t accept my new beliefs and resented me for leaving the church she had raised me in. I had prayed about what to do to help us become close again.
One Sunday, someone spoke about the need to let the people we love know how much they mean to us. The speaker suggested that we not only express it verbally, but also seal it with a hug and a kiss. I couldn’t remember my family ever hugging, kissing, or expressing our love for one another. Everyone just sort of assumed they were loved and hoped they were right.
That day, I decided I would give it a try. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was a bit scary. But I did it. I told my mom how much I loved her, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and hugged her. It was as though the balm of Gilead had somehow healed the cankering that was coming between us.
That act, inspired by prayer, seems to have had an effect on the entire family. Now when any relatives leave our home, they do so with a hug and a kiss. It gets quite interesting when a lot of family members are present, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Elder Andersen explained how he felt when he was called to The Quorum of The Twelve Apostles. He said when he first sat in the seat that Elder Ulisses Soares now occupies, he looked up the row at the other 11 Apostles and the First Presidency, and feelings of personal inadequacy overwhelmed him. When I heard Elder Andersen say that, I sat up straight in my chair because I knew that what he had just said—and what he was going to say next—was specifically for me.
Elder Andersen said he struggled with this issue for a while and then it came: He heard the voice of the Lord say, “Neil, you did not put yourself there. I did, because I love you, and I know you can change, and I know you can help with my work.”

Recently, I spoke with a Laurel from the United States. I quote from her email:
“This past year some of my friends on Facebook began posting their position on marriage. Many favored same-sex marriage, and several LDS youth indicated they ‘liked’ the postings. I made no comment.
“I decided to declare my belief in traditional marriage in a thoughtful way.
“With my profile picture, I added the caption ‘I believe in marriage between a man and a woman.’ Almost instantly I started receiving messages. ‘You are selfish.’ ‘You are judgmental.’ One compared me to a slave owner. And I received this post from a great friend who is a strong member of the Church: ‘You need to catch up with the times. Things are changing and so should you.’
“I did not fight back,” she said, “but I did not take my statement down.”
She concludes: “Sometimes, as President Monson said, ‘You have to stand alone.’ Hopefully as youth, we will stand together in being true to God and to the teachings of His living prophets.”11

Some years ago, I prayed for the words to defend motherhood when I received an anonymous phone call.
The caller asked, “Are you Neill Marriott, the mother of a big family?”
I answered happily, “Yes!” expecting to hear her say something like, “Well, that’s good!”
But no! I’ll never forget her reply as her voice crackled over the phone: “I am highly offended that you would bring children onto this overcrowded planet!”
“Oh,” I sputtered, “I see how you feel.”
She snapped, “No—you don’t!”
I then whimpered, “Well, maybe I don’t.”
She started on a rant about my foolish choice to be a mother. As she went on, I began to pray for help, and a gentle thought came to mind: “What would the Lord say to her?” I then felt I was standing on solid ground and gained courage at the thought of Jesus Christ.
I replied, “I am glad to be a mother, and I promise you I will do everything in my power to nurture my children in such a way that they will make the world a better place.”
She replied, “Well, I hope you do!” and hung up.
It wasn’t a big thing—after all, I was standing safely in my own kitchen! But in my own small way, I was able to speak in defense of family, mothers, and nurturers because of two things: (1) I understood and believed God’s doctrine of the family, and (2) I prayed for words to convey these truths.

When I arrived in Rochester, New York, to serve my mission, the other missionaries in my group and I were taken directly from the airport to the Sacred Grove. Here, said my mission president, we were to “check in” with the Lord.
Although it was summer, the grove was surprisingly empty. I wandered through the grove and found a spot that seemed right. I began to think about what I was doing there. The mission president hadn’t told us exactly what “checking in” meant but left us to determine it on our own.
I thought of how I was a missionary facing two years of telling people that, not far from where they live, in a grove of trees, the gospel of Jesus Christ had been restored. Could I rely on my testimony of what had happened to convincingly teach others that God himself had spoken to a young man and reestablished his gospel in this last dispensation?
Despite my feelings of insecurity, I knew that it was important to share the testimony I had gained of the restored gospel. As I knelt in the grove that day, I felt the Spirit whispering to me, telling me that I could testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that I could teach others that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ had appeared to young Joseph in this grove of trees. The impressions I felt gave me strength to go forward for the next two years.
To remember my experience, and the place where I knelt, I found a stone and placed it where I had knelt so that I would know this spot when I returned. During the next two years, I was blessed with several opportunities to return to the grove to teach discussions, to reflect on spiritual matters, and to have periodic “check-ins” with the Lord. Each time I visited the grove, I would add another stone and ponder over my previous visits and impressions. By the end of two years, the stone I had first placed to remember that place had grown to a small pile, and my testimony had solidified.
“Checking out” was a moving and sacred experience to me. Had I done what was expected? Had I served an honorable mission? Pondering these questions was a very soul-searching experience for me—the ultimate job evaluation. The Spirit again whispered to me, and I departed from that place, which had become like an old friend to me, ready for the next phase in my life. I will never forget those experiences in the Sacred Grove.

Once when Grandma and Grandpa Wakefield were visiting us from Minnesota, we watched some eggs that were hatching on the wall of our house. Right beside the egg case a spider had built a nest; and whenever a small mantis came out, the spider would dash over and bite him, spin him up in a web like a mummy, and pull him over to his nest. I wanted to squash that spider, but Grandpa said that spiders need to live too.

I was flying to Iowa a year ago and sat down by the side of a young college student who had been going to Utah State University. I asked him how he liked it and he said, “I just love it.” I asked him why, and he said it was because of the people there. I got his name and address and asked him if it would be okay for two young missionaries to come by to see him. Six months later, I got a letter from the missionaries saying that they were baptizing him, his three brothers and sisters, and his parents that week.

Mapleton, Utah, where I grew up, was a little farming community. My father was not a farmer; he worked building highways. Our neighbor, Bishop Oscar Whiting, did have a farm, and because my father and mother wanted their children to learn the value of work, they said to him, “If you will put our sons to work on your farm, we will pay you to pay them.”
Our good bishop said, “No, it isn’t necessary for you to pay us; but we’ll put them to work, and we’ll pay them.” So as a boy, from as early as I can remember (I was about seven or eight years old then), I learned to work.
In the summertime we harvested the hay on the Whitings’ farm. Tractors were just coming out then, but the Whitings couldn’t afford one, so they used wagons pulled by horses to do the farm work. My first job, at 15 cents an hour, was to stomp around on top of a load of hay in the wagon (we called it “tromping hay”) to settle it so that it wouldn’t fall out when we took it from the field to the barn, and so that more could be loaded onto the wagon.
Primary was held during the week in those days, and every Monday at three o’clock in the afternoon, Bishop Whiting would say, “Jay, your work is finished for the day; off to Primary.”
In those days, too, the Church did not have a family home evening program like we have today, but my family did have family nights. One of my fondest memories is of sitting on Dad’s lap during family night as he read us stories from the Book of Mormon. It was the beginning of my testimony of the Book of Mormon, and my love for my father and mother grew as well.
After we spent this time together, we played games like Hide the Thimble, and Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button. We played basketball, too. In the winter, when it was too cold to play outside, we’d bend a metal coat hanger into a circle and wedge it above a door. As a ball, we’d use some wadded up stockings. Of course, we couldn’t dribble the ball, but we could shoot it at the hanger-basket, and we could pass it to each other. We loved playing together.
The fifth article of faith had a special meaning to me as a boy, not because it was preached to me, but because our family lived its principles. It says, “We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.” Mother and Father were loyal to, supported, and loved their leaders. When priesthood leaders asked us to serve, we did, believing that the calls came through them from God.
I remember my missionary farewell. Being the proud young man that I was, when it was Dad’s turn to speak, I thought that he was going to say something about me—what a good missionary I’d be, what a good boy I’d been. But Dad did not say one thing about me. He stood at the pulpit and gave one of the strongest, most powerful testimonies about tithing that I have ever heard. It wasn’t until about halfway through my mission, as I was thinking about his talk, that it dawned on me: Dad had been trying to tell me, “I don’t know how we’re going to support you, Jay, because I don’t have work some seasons of the year. But I have faith that if we pay our tithing, we’ll be able to do it.” And they did. Our priesthood leaders have told us to pay our tithing and to do missionary work, and if we faithfully follow their counsel, we will be blessed.
I encourage each of you children to join your family in family prayer, to join your family in scripture study, to join your family in going to church. I don’t think that anything had a greater impact on me as I was growing up than doing these three things. Just as they strengthened me, they can strengthen you spiritually and help you make important decisions throughout your life.

While deaths at any time are heartbreaking, the timings of deaths during the crisis of 1918-1920 were sometimes tragic in themselves. In February 1919, John Diston, a native of Sunderland, was faithfully discharged from the British Royal Navy and rushed home to be with his young wife, Beatrice, in Portsmouth. The couple had only been married six months and many of the family were sick with influenza and pneumonia. John finally made it home to Beatrice’s bedside, but he only had five hours with her before she passed away. As they prepared for the funeral, other family members continued to struggle with illness. On the day of Beatrice’s funeral, her adopted brother, George, also passed away. The double tragedy was hard to bear. Of Beatrice’s seven siblings, only one survived to old age.17

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to try to read a restaurant menu when you’re blind? How about going through a buffet line in a wheelchair? Joel Williams of the Carrollwood Second Ward did, and decided to do something about it for his Eagle Scout project.
He arranged a special day when teams would visit restaurants in the Tampa, Florida, area, and use a checklist to see how disability-friendly they were. He’d already gotten permission from the participating restaurant managers, of course.
Before the teams went out, however, he set up an “Insight Cafe” in the meetinghouse and assigned each team member a disability with which they would attempt to enjoy a restaurant meal.
When the project was complete, Joel compiled a “Guide to Dining Accessibility,” which is available to the public. It lists restaurants and the handicaps they can accommodate. This was one Eagle project that not only helped the community, but gave tremendous insight to those who participated.

The letters written and the money earned by Arnold and the other men in Pueblo, Colorado, were carried to their families by another of my great-grandfathers, Thomas Woolsey.
Thomas was a courier for Company E. He went with the women and children and the sick battalion members to Pueblo in the first and second detachment groups. After reaching Pueblo the second time, he was asked, along with John Tippets, to carry messages and money from the battalion to Winter Quarters, Nebraska. They left Pueblo in December and traveled alone, making their own trail as they went.
On their 600-mile (965-km), 52-day journey, Thomas and John nearly froze and starved to death while being lost most of the time. At one point they were captured and almost killed and scalped by a group of Pawnee Indians, but thanks to the timely mercy of Chief Setchmalin, they were released unharmed. They finally arrived at Winter Quarters exhausted on the night of February 15, 1847.
Thomas’s adventures carrying mail and escorting people for the battalion served him well as a member of Brigham Young’s 1847 pioneer company. At Fort Laramie, President Young sent him to Pueblo to help the remaining Saints travel to the Salt Lake Valley. He remained devoted to the gospel for the rest of his life. He showed me that commitment takes courage, but when we give our all to God, He’ll protect us and use us to help others on their way.