Gospel Story Finder

When I was baptized, I was very excited to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At the same time, I remember being extremely anxious about joining a church where I didn’t know anyone besides the missionaries who had taken their time to teach me about the restored Church and the Book of Mormon. I was living in Austria at the time. I got to know a few members in the Church but at that time I had not really made strong connections with anyone. My first Sunday as a new convert was truly blessed as the young missionary who had convinced to come to church sat by my side translating what was being said as my German was still poor. The sacrament meeting left me with so much peace in my heart as I felt an understanding of the message of the day. I was introduced to Sister Toni who smiled and sat next to me during Sunday School and Relief Society meetings.
After church she invited me to her home for lunch and I met with the rest of her family. This family became my first friends in the church, they always picked me up for church activities. Through them I began to know more and more about the gospel and every Sunday I looked forward to going to church. Other Church members were equally friendly.

I’m grateful for the bishop’s encouragement and belief in my daughter’s ability to be able to settle down in a sacrament meeting. He didn’t judge me for not being able to get my daughter to be reverent all the time. I will never forget the day he assigned me to give a talk on the responsibility of a mother. I felt it was a role I had fallen very short on, but my bishop didn’t. On Mother’s Day, the bishop, knowing that I often had to leave church early, ran after me to ensure that he personally handed me my Mother’s Day card and gift. That deeply touched my heart.

Once when I was playing soccer goalie at school, I missed the ball. Someone yelled, “You’re such a bad goalie!” I didn’t feel very good after I heard that. I ran into one of the bathroom stalls and started crying. After I said a prayer, I felt much better and went back to playing soccer. I’m glad I can remember that special day when I felt the Holy Ghost help me for the first time.
Alli S., age 6, Lima, Peru

Yellowman family
“People like being included. They just need to be invited.”
The home of Tom and Gina Yellowman, in Kirtland, New Mexico, is a place where friends and neighbors gather regularly for dinners. “But there’s a catch,” Gina says as she, her son, and her daughter prepare fry bread in the kitchen. “You can only come if you bring someone from your ward who hasn’t been attending church or someone, member or not, who needs a friend.”
She explains: “We kept meeting people who felt isolated. So we decided to have a barbecue where they could get to know others. For example, my niece came. She’s a high school volleyball coach, and a couple of her players and their families came too. Two of the girls on the team hadn’t realized before that they are both members of the Church.
“And there are people who live across the river on the reservation, but they didn’t know each other. When they came here, they figured out, ‘Hey, we’re neighbors,’ and now they have friends nearby who share the same standards, people they can turn to for help or just to borrow a potato because they live far from the grocery store. That was our goal—to bring people together so they can support each other.”

I shall never forget one night almost four decades ago. My bride, Patricia, and I had been married for two years. We lived in a small duplex on Oahu’s north shore. I was an army infantry officer assigned to a unit at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Our brigade had been ordered to war in Vietnam. My plane was scheduled for departure after midnight, and a good Latter-day Saint friend had agreed to take me to the airfield at 11:00 p.m.
All through that long evening, Pat and I sat on the sofa in our tiny living room with our fingers intertwined, watching the hands of the clock approach the fateful hour and listening to the soft lapping of the surf against the shore. The ticking of the clock seemed a metronome of mortality in painful contrast to the muffled rushing of the eternal sea. At last the hour of parting arrived. Inside the doorway to our little home, I clutched my bride to my bosom and kissed her one last time, and then I was gone. As I closed the door, I wondered if I had seen my sweetheart for the last time in mortality. It was truly night.
My friend and I drove silently in the darkness through the sugar cane and pineapple fields of Oahu. My heart felt as though it would break. Then as we passed Schofield, an unseen infantry unit on night maneuvers fired a flare. Its brilliance momentarily lit the inky darkness and seemed to ignite a spiritual flame in the blackness that invested my soul. My thoughts were drawn away from this saddest of days to the very happiest: back to that beautiful December day when Pat and I had entered the holy temple and there were sealed to each other, not just for this life only but for all eternity. I thought of the eternal covenants we had made. Like the sunrise, it dawned on me that no matter what happened in the uncertain future just ahead, Pat would always be mine. When I reached the air base, I telephoned her. In the spirit of a renewed hope and peace born of faith and understanding, we talked and laughed softly before once more bidding each other good-bye. It was only midnight, but for me the sun was already rising.

Alba Lucia Fonseca, a Church member from the United States, saw material online that raised concerns about her religious beliefs, and she went through a rapid loss of faith. At first, she cast out the seed of faith with her doubts, but then she began talking with a caring and knowledgeable member and realized that her unbelief also raised questions.

“My understanding of gospel concepts and of Church history wasn’t nearly as comprehensive as I had assumed,” she explains. “That humbled me and helped me realize that I still had so much to learn and that faith isn’t arriving at having all questions answered.” Alba realized that other “worthwhile things in life—such as family, education, career—involve risk, sacrifice, uncertainty, and lifelong effort. I came back to the Church and can affirm that maintaining faith is also very much worth this kind of effort.”

Not all of Kevin’s helpful plans turn out quite so well. Once, he made a birthday cake with two packages of cake mix. The cake overflowed its pan and cooked in a pile on the bottom of the oven. What a mess! Kevin and his family still chuckle over that mistake. “I haven’t made a cake since,” he admits. But he does volunteer to cook other things for the family—especially hot dogs and ravioli—and he feeds Belle twice a week.

Every morning, all the girls gather for a flag-raising ceremony, then engage in games. This morning, there are clouds overhead and the mountain winds blow cold. The girls make a semicircle in front of the flags. As the sun gradually blossoms over the mountain peaks, everyone stands quietly for the opening prayer. The sounds of birds and crickets lightly pepper the soft whisper of the wind. This is a special morning, because Brother Christian Euvrard, a regional leader in the area, is speaking to the girls. He talks about the Young Women program as a guide for planning the future. When he finishes, he picks up a stick and breaks it as a symbol that the ceremony is over. Now it is time for games. And that’s when something unusual begins to happen.
As the girls join together in various groups, one of the groups appears isolated from the others. It is a small group of American girls whose parents work or are stationed temporarily in Italy. They don’t speak Italian, and they are not familiar with some of the everyday customs that come naturally to the Italian girls. They feel awkward. The Italian girls huddle together, then walk over to the Americans and tell them about an experience they had at a Church-sponsored event in Florence last year. “One of the members of our group did not speak Italian, so we decided to go through a whole day without speaking, using only hand signs. When the day ended, we all felt much closer to each other.” Soon both Americans and Italians are talking and singing together. It is a beginning.
The American girls’ Young Women leader, Linda Black, still lives in Verona, Italy. She wrote to us that several of the American girls became close friends with some of the Italian girls and have continued to write to them.
Annalisa Brandonisio, from Venice, wrote us, “Even though our language and customs were different, I felt united to the American group because of the strong influence of the Spirit of the Lord that was with us.”

In a stake in Chile the young women did this at camp by keeping a book of each other’s virtuous qualities. Each day they got better acquainted and wrote down the intrinsic good they were learning about each person there. At the end of the camp, they shared their thoughts, helping each person to see more of the divinity within herself. Their leader said, “We were literally basking in this wonderful spirit of kindness and goodwill. I can honestly say that I never heard a word of complaint from the girls! They were flourishing in a sweet spirit of mutual acceptance that is not often present among teenage girls. There was no competition, no contention. Our camp had become a little bit of heaven” (personal correspondence). The girls recognized and reaffirmed the divine natures of each other, and the Spirit filled the camp as these virtuous thoughts were expressed.

A New Dawn(Deseret Book $7.95)Jack Weyland

In his delightful way, Jack Weyland brings another unforgettable character to life in his new novel. Dawn a prize-winning, eccentric graduate student and physicist, finds answers to problems that even Einstein couldn’t solve. But the harassment of news-hungry reporters sends her fleeing for cover. She hides behind a new identity at Brigham Young University, where she falls in love, finds a new faith and learns to cook spaghetti.

I feel honored to follow Sister Parkin. Her service and teachings as well as those of her counselors have blessed all of us. About this same hour 18 1/2 years ago, I was standing near this pulpit waiting for the congregational singing to end, when I was to step forward and give my first general conference address. My anxiety at that moment must have been obvious. Elder L. Tom Perry, who was standing behind me, leaned forward, and in his positive and enthusiastic way, whispered in my ear. “Relax,” he said, “we haven’t lost anyone at that pulpit in years!”
Those encouraging words and the few minutes that followed in which I spoke for the first time to a worldwide audience of Latter-day Saints constitute a treasured memory for me. Like all of you, I am constantly accumulating a reservoir of memories which, when recalled, make up a very useful and often enjoyable part of my consciousness. And, despite resolutions I made as a young man never to weary others with reminiscing when I grew older, I now take great pleasure in sharing my own memories at almost every possible occasion. Today, however, I wish to speak of a more profound role of memory and remembering in the gospel of Jesus Christ than the passive recall and enjoyment of information.
If we pay close attention to the uses of the word remember in the holy scriptures, we will recognize that remembering in the way God intends is a fundamental and saving principle of the gospel. This is so because prophetic admonitions to remember are frequently calls to action: to listen, to see, to do, to obey, to repent. When we remember in God’s way, we overcome our human tendency simply to gird for the battle of life and actually engage in the battle itself, doing all in our power to resist temptation and avoid sinning.
King Benjamin called for such active remembering from his people:
“And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.
“But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.”
Realizing the vital role remembering is to play in our lives, what else ought we to remember? In response, assembled as we are today to remember and rededicate this historic Tabernacle, I suggest that the history of the Church of Jesus Christ and its people deserves our remembrance. The scriptures give the Church’s history high priority. In fact, much of scripture is Church history. On the very day the Church was organized, God commanded Joseph Smith, “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you.” Joseph acted on this command by appointing Oliver Cowdery, the second elder in the Church and his chief assistant, as the first Church historian. We keep records to help us remember, and a record of the Church’s rise and progress has been kept from Oliver Cowdery’s time to the present day. This extraordinary historical record reminds us that God has again opened the heavens and revealed truths that call our generation to action.
Of all that has been collected, preserved, and written by historians over those many years, nothing exemplifies the importance and power of the Church’s history more than Joseph Smith’s simple and honest story of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appearing to him in what our history books now call the First Vision. In words that generations of missionaries have committed to memory and shared with seekers of truth the world over, Joseph describes the miraculous way in which he received an answer to his question posed in prayer of which Church is right:
“I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
“… When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”
Hear him, Joseph did! And millions have heard or read and believed his account and have embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ he helped restore. I believe Joseph Smith and know he was a true prophet of God. Remembering his experience of the First Vision never fails to stir my soul to greater commitment and action.
No one has greater appreciation for the value of the Church’s history than President Gordon B. Hinckley. We love his delightful sense of humor, but his sense of history is equally keen. Inspiring stories and anecdotes from our past punctuate his writings and sermons. As our living prophet, he consciously emphasizes the past and the future to help us live more righteously in the present. Because of his teachings, we understand that remembering enables us to see God’s hand in our past, just as prophecy and faith assure us of God’s hand in our future. President Hinckley reminds us how members of the early Church faced their challenges so we, through the grace of God, can more faithfully face our own. By keeping our past alive, he connects us to the people, places, and events that make up our spiritual heritage and, in so doing, motivates us to greater service, faith, and kindness.
In an exemplary way President Hinckley also openly shares from his own personal and family histories. Scores of discouraged new missionaries have been comforted to learn that early in his own mission, President Hinckley was also discouraged and admitted as much to his father. He even courageously shared his father’s brief response: “Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.” Over 70 years later, we are all witnesses to how earnestly President Hinckley took that counsel to heart. His sterling character and prophetic wisdom provide persuasive proof for the benefits of remembering the Church’s history as well as our own.
There is much more to say about memory and remembering in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We often speak of remembering our sacred covenants and God’s commandments and of remembering and performing saving ordinances for our deceased ancestors. Most importantly, we speak of the need to remember our Savior Jesus Christ and not just when convenient, but always, as He asks. We witness always to remember Him as we partake of the sacrament. In return, we are promised His Spirit will always be with us. Interestingly, this is the same Spirit sent by our Heavenly Father to “bring all things to [our] remembrance.” Thus, by worthily receiving the sacrament, we are blessed by the Spirit to enter into a wonderfully beneficial circle of remembering, returning again and again in our thinking and devotion to Christ and His Atonement.
Coming unto Christ and being perfected in Him is, I believe, the ultimate purpose of all remembering. Therefore, I pray that God will bless us always to remember, especially His perfect Son, and perish not. I gratefully testify of Christ’s divinity and saving power. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

The Best Christmas Present of All Mr. Merriweather took Buster in when he had been abandoned. They loved each other. When Mr. Merriweather had to go to the hospital, his grandchildren took the little dog to their house. But he didn’t understand and ran away home. The children found him and took him to their home again. Can you guess what his Christmas present—the best of all—was?Linda Jennings4–7 years

The summer I was 15, a new family with teenage daughters moved into the ward. While my family was considered “goody-goody,” this family, though they were active, was definitely not goody-goody. The teenage girls always seemed to be having fun, and I felt awkward and left out when I was around them. But when it was time for girls’ camp that summer, I, of all people, was assigned to their cabin. I was determined to prove that I was not as goody-two-shoes as I seemed.
The campground where we had girls’ camp was used by other groups throughout the summer. On the rafters of the cabins, some of them had written their names and the year they were at camp. We were on the top bunks, reading some of the names, when one of the girls said, “We should put our names up there too.”
“Sure!” I agreed.
“No way you would do that,” said the other girl.
“Sure, I would,” I said. I decided that one more name wouldn’t really be noticeable. I also noted that the other girls thought it would be something on the edge—a thing they might do, but not something a straight arrow like me would do.
We pulled out some markers and began. The other girls wrote their names in small letters and with little flourish. I, however, wrote my name, the date, and “Girls’ Camp” in 5-inch-high flowing script with a decorative flower finish. The other girls were impressed, and we went to bed. I thought no more of it.
Others did, however. During cabin inspections, our decorations were discovered, and we were given bleach, water, and sandpaper to try to repair the damage we had done. I couldn’t erase my ink, which had penetrated the rough wood beams. After the fruitless scrubbing, the other girls were dismissed, and I got a lecture.
I heard how my actions would hurt the Church’s reputation. I heard how disappointed the leaders were that I would do something like that. “We wouldn’t expect it of you,” I heard over and over. And every evening, my name glared at me from the rafter overhead, shaming me in brilliant blue.
I was allowed to stay at camp and eventually stopped hearing about my transgression. But I heard more once I got home. The camp staff had called my parents.
My mom didn’t get angry, but her disappointment was deep. She asked why I did it. I explained how I felt left out and how I wanted to do something to show I could walk on the edge.
After talking to my mom I realized that I had done to my family and to myself the same thing I had done to the Church. By plastering my name where it shouldn’t have been in an act of vandalism, I had demeaned my parents’ good name.
I also realized that when I pursue popularity at the expense of respect, I am in danger of dishonoring the name of Christ or giving others the impression that I don’t belong to His family.
Since this experience I have often thought what a blessing it will be if, at the end of this life, we can give a good report to our Savior when He asks what we have done with His name. None of us will want to admit that we sold our good name for social acceptance or that we gave it up for a questionable video, for a girlfriend or boyfriend, for a bottle of beer, or for the laughter of friends. I know we will want to say that we have preserved our name by standing for truth and righteousness at all times—when it’s easy and fun and even when it’s not.
What’s in a name? As I realized that summer at girls’ camp, it can be quite a lot. When I think of my name blaring bright blue to future generations of campers, I remember the blessing and responsibility of carrying a good name, both for my mortal family and for the Church and family of Christ.

At this critical point in her life, Minerva had two experiences that took her out of the art world. The first experience crystallized her desire for life with a family—specifically, for life with Herman. In a testimony meeting she was listening to a sister speak on the joys of marriage and motherhood. “I thought of all the men I had met in my search for ‘the right one,’” wrote Minerva later. At that moment, she realized that “back on the Idaho desert, herding his cattle and branding his calves was a man more nearly meant for me than anyone else in the world” (unpublished autobiographical sketch, 1937, transcription from handwritten manuscript). Never one to doubt her own judgment, Minerva returned home to Idaho and married Herman.
The other experience helped her to strengthen her feeling that she had a mission as an artist and that she should place her art in the service of her faith. Minerva later recorded how Robert Henri, one of her renowned teachers, asked her, shortly before she left New York, whether any artist had ever told the “great Mormon story.”
“Not to my liking,’ I answered. ‘Good Heavens, girl, what an opportunity. You do it. You’re the one. That’s your birthright. You’ll do it well.’
“I felt that I had been commissioned” (unpublished manuscript, 1947).

I know a brother in Brazil who joined the Church as a 16-year-old, the only member in his family. When it was time for his mission, his parents objected. He heard nothing from them during his mission and returned home to his bishop’s house. The story, however, has a happy ending, as he now has a beautiful family and works as a dental surgeon, and his parents wish he could interest his brothers in the Church.

It just took a little imagination and a good idea and Patricia Louderback ended up a winner. A member of the Moanalua Ward, Honolulu Hawaii West Stake, Pat was a top contributor to her state health fair. Pat won trophies for her poster urging drinking parents to “Go Home to Your Family” and another emphasizing “Alcohol Doesn’t Make Your Problems Go Away. It Adds to Them.” George R. Ariyoshi, Governor of Hawaii, presented the awards to Pat.
After graduating from Moanalua High School next year, Pat hopes to enroll as a sociology major at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho.

The Holy Ghost recently helped Camila make an important decision about her standards. “I wanted to dance in a presentation,” she says, “but the costumes all the girls were wearing were short skirts. I talked with my mother, and she said to pray about it and choose the right. I thought a lot about it and talked with my dance teacher. She said I could wear a longer skirt, and my grandmother made me one. As I danced I felt happy, and I felt the Holy Ghost with me. I was the only girl wearing a longer skirt, but nobody made fun of me. Some of my friends said they were learning from me.”

Charles’s favorite time of the year was firefly season.
On firefly nights, he ran barefoot over his grassy yard, pausing only long enough to listen to the cheerful greeting of crickets.
Sometimes when he reached toward a twinkling light, his hand would come back empty. Then, far beyond his fingertips, a star would wink at him. Charles only laughed at his mistake. He kept running and reaching out toward flittering lights.
Most of the time he guessed right: the light would belong to a firefly, not a star. At those times, Charles gently closed his hand, being careful not to crush the firefly or damage its wings. He put dozens of fireflies in a large glass jar with a lid with holes in it. After he watched their glorious light show—accompanied by the crickets’ songs—for a while, he unscrewed the lid and watched the fireflies crawl to the rim of the jar and fly away.
He would much rather run beneath the stars on those firefly evenings than sit inside the house. If his mother had been home during the evenings, she would have been catching fireflies with him. But she worked at the hospital until late each night. The only other person in Charles’s house each evening was his sitter. He had invited her several times to catch fireflies with him.
“Catch fireflies?” she had said. “I’m too old for that. Besides, my favorite TV show is on.”
So Charles always chased fireflies by himself.
Until one night.
Charles was chasing an especially tricky firefly through the yard. Just when he was positive that it wouldn’t escape him, it turned off its light and blended with the evening blackness. Then, a few feet away, it lit up again as if to say, “Fooled you! Here I am!” Charles chased it, grabbed, missed. Chased, grabbed, and missed again.
“Got it!” boomed a familiar voice.
Charles knew at once that it was Brother Ralph, Mom’s and his home teacher. Brother Ralph lived down the street and frequently stopped by to ask about his day. Charles always enjoyed talking with him.
Brother Ralph held out his open hand, palm up. A dot of light walked across it and lit the palm’s wrinkles like a moon lights a rock-strewn valley. “Here,” he said.
Charles reached for the light. He lifted it from Brother Ralph’s hand and dropped it into his jar with the rest of the light-show cast.
“Quite a collection,” Brother Ralph said as he bent over the jar.
“Yes,” Charles said proudly. “I want to catch a lot more, though.”
“Mind if I help? I’ve always been pretty good at catching fireflies.”
“Sure. I’d like you to help.”
The two of them scurried around Charles’s big yard. Charles was the faster of the two, one hand carrying his jar, the other hand reaching out toward dots of light. Brother Ralph moved more slowly, but his hands snatched fireflies from the sky as deftly as a magician plucks quarters from behind someone’s ear.
When the jar was brimming with neon flickerings, Charles and Brother Ralph sat on the front porch and listened to the crickets’ summer concert. They sat silently and watched the fireflies and the stars.
Before the time came for Charles to go inside, they opened the jar together, allowing the fireflies to sprinkle into the freedom of the night sky.
“It’s quite a sight,” Brother Ralph said.
“Yes,” Charles agreed, “it is.”
For several nights after that, Brother Ralph returned to catch fireflies with Charles. They always sat on Charles’ front steps and listened to nature’s concert while enjoying the firefly light show.
One night Brother Ralph did not come. Charles waited in his yard until the sitter’s television program ended and she called him in for bed.
His mother told him the news the next day: Brother Ralph had died in his sleep during the night.
“Did he hurt a lot?” Charles asked.
“No, dear,” his mother said. “Brother Ralph died peacefully.”
Later, during a twinkling firefly evening, as Brother Ralph’s house sat empty and dark, Charles walked to Brother Ralph’s front door.
He knelt and placed a jar of fireflies on the front step. “These are for you, Brother Ralph.”
He unscrewed the jar’s lid so that the fireflies, whenever they wished, could fly from the jar and mingle with the stars above Brother Ralph’s house. Maybe they would let Brother Ralph know how much Charles missed him.

His contribution to the Reader’s Digest, where he casts himself as the sailor, reads in part:
“The Right Time at Home:
“One evening in Albany, New York, I asked a sailor what time it was. He pulled out a huge watch and replied, ‘It’s 7:20.’ I knew it was later. ‘Your watch has stopped, hasn’t it?’ I asked.
“‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m still on Mountain Standard Time. I’m from southern Utah. When I joined the Navy, Pa gave me this watch. He said it’d help me remember home.
“‘When my watch says 5 a.m. I know Dad is rollin’ out to milk the cows. And any night when it says 7:30 I know the whole family’s around a well-spread table, and Dad’s thankin’ God for what’s on it and askin’ Him to watch over me … ,’ he concluded. ‘I can find out what time it is where I am easy enough. What I want to know is what time it is in Utah.’”

There is one sport that everyone in Brazil loves—soccer. And there is no bigger soccer event than the World Cup. So when Fabiana Silva, a member of the Brasil Ward, Vitória da Conquista Brazil Stake, won a contest and got to attend the 1998 World Cup in France, she was thrilled! But she had no idea it would become a missionary opportunity.
The other contest winners couldn’t help noticing Fabiana’s standards as they attended soccer game after soccer game, and Brazil headed to the final game against France. They respected her modest dress, her positive attitude, and her clean language. That respect turned to disbelief, though, when she told them she would not be attending the championship because it was going to be held on Sunday.
Despite pressure and even ridicule from the group, Fabiana stood firm. Sunday found her reading scriptures in her hotel room because she didn’t know where to find a local chapel. Brazil lost; the group went home.
A few weeks later Fabiana was surprised to receive a letter from Fábio Fan, another contest winner from across the country. He told her he was impressed by her standards and that he was investigating the Church. Later he sent another letter—he had been baptized. Fábio then helped bring members of his family into the Church and served a mission.
Fabiana also served a mission, to Campinas, Brazil, where she was well prepared because she had already learned that “the most effective tract we will carry will be the goodness of our own lives and example.”1