Gospel Story Finder

Respect their space. Sometimes, no matter what you do, the gift of friendship won’t be returned. One girl complained that she was always the one to call and invite her friends to do something. They never called to invite her out. Finally, she decided it was time to seek out additional friends. By pursuing a one-sided friendship, she was setting herself up for hurt feelings.

Brooke P. of California, USA, could feel her resolve wavering—it would be so much easier to blend in with her teammates. The other girls were pressuring her to dress like them for practices and games.
Brooke had already decided that she wanted to be modest, but she didn’t know what that meant for playing her sport. Would it be OK to dress like her teammates just during sporting events?
“I decided to do some research,” Brooke says. “I looked through For the Strength of Youth, the scriptures, Church talks—everything I could get my hands on. Nothing seemed to describe my exact situation and give me specific enough advice. But I knew that Heavenly Father knew me and that He knew what would be modest.”
So Brooke took action again. “I decided to get down on my knees and pray,” she says. As she prayed, she expressed her desire to obey the commandments and then asked whether it would be OK for her to dress like her teammates for their practices and games.
After her prayer, Brooke felt impressed that she should not alter her clothing choices to satisfy her peers. Although her decision was unpopular, Brooke found confidence and peace knowing that her choice was pleasing to Heavenly Father.

The time I saw a weeping father, who had been activated, stand in our stake conference with his arms around two sons and say, “Where would we be without the Church?”

Just two days after the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young and his associates hiked Ensign Peak. Atop that peak they unfurled a banner—a yellow bandana tied to a walking stick, which symbolized an ensign or standard to the nations. The Saints were to be the light, the standard. Last April, atop Ensign Peak, we three women also unfurled a banner which we made from a walking stick and a gold Peruvian shawl. It was our ensign, our standard to the nations—our banner calling for a return to virtue.

As mission president, I attended a mission Relief Society conference. Our mission Relief Society president, a relatively recent convert, announced something of a course correction. Some local societies had strayed, and she invited them to conform more closely to the direction set by the general presidency of the Relief Society.
One sister in the congregation stood and defiantly told her that they were not willing to follow her counsel, saying they were an exception. A bit flustered, she turned to me for help. I didn’t know what to do. I was not interested in facing a fierce woman. So I motioned for her to proceed. Then came the revelation!
This lovely Relief Society president, small and somewhat handicapped physically, said with gentle firmness: “Dear sister, we’d like not to take care of the exception first. We will take care of the rule first, and then we will see to the exceptions.” The course correction was accepted.

On a rainy Saturday morning prior to a Kolwezi district conference in 2013, President Ellie Monga, Counselor in the Lubumbashi Democratic Republic of the Congo Mission and Elder Jeffrey Wright, the mission finance secretary, welcomed two strangers at the mission office. Their clothes were muddy, and they were exhausted. They arrived pushing a single, beat-up bicycle and carrying a parcel that was wrapped in a torn and dirty plastic.
President Monga and Elder Wright inquired about their journey and learned that these two tired pilgrims, Brothers Yumba Muzimba Paul and Muba Wa Umbalo Delphin, had arrived from Kinkondja, a city located 600 kilometers (375 miles) north of Kolwezi. They had departed eight days earlier as part of a larger group that was traveling to attend the district conference. En route, most of the group fell sick and decided to return to their homes—but these two brothers were determined to complete the journey by themselves, taking turns between pedaling the bicycle and riding on the back. They said that they had travelled the last three days continuously through the night without stopping and without food—and after a tire went flat, they pushed the bicycle through the rain along the muddy roads. Their bicycle was broken, and these brothers had no money for tools or parts. They had not eaten for three days. They did not know how they would fund a return to their homes.
Brother Paul and Brother Delphin explained that they represented the roughly 60 Saints living in the Kinkondja area and had come to bring tithing from those Saints and to attend the district conference. This came as a surprise to President Monga and Elder Wright as there was no officially organized Kinkondja branch of the Church. Elder Wright recorded in his journal, “It was my honor to receive [the tithing envelopes]. It was my honor to process them.” Elder Wright continued, “I have never felt like I had handled such sacred money before in my whole lifetime.”

When young children go to school for the first time, their parents give them a paper horn with candy in it. The candy is shared with the other children to help make the first day at school a happy one.

As I prepared this message, I asked for guidance to know what message our Heavenly Father would want me to share. The calming and assuring words spoken by the Lord to the Prophet Joseph Smith came to my mind: “Be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours … , and the riches of eternity are yours” (D&C 78:18).

I remember one evening years ago, while attending a Sunday School party, I looked at the clock, and it was past the time I was told to be home. Just then a knock came on the door. I was horrified—my dad had come after me. I felt humiliated in front of my friends. I thought I wanted to die. I was not pleasant with my dad; disobedience never makes one pleasant.
A few years later, my friends and I were driving home from a dance across an Indian reservation, ten miles from any shelter. It was 40 degrees below zero, and the windchill continued to lower the temperature. A few miles farther into the blizzard, we discovered that there was no heat in the car. Then the car froze up and would not run. We came to a slow stop. We watched the snow swirling in front of us only until the windows quickly froze over. We were quiet and sober as we contemplated our fate—our lives were in danger. The silence was broken as a friend in the backseat asked, “How long do you think it will be before your dad will get here?”
Why do you think they thought my dad would come? One time I had thought I wanted to die because he had come after me. This time we lived because my dad came through the blizzard to save my life and the lives of my friends. This time I was pleasant with my dad—pleasant and very grateful.

Many years after that experience, when I was approaching age nineteen, my bishop, A. Palmer Holt, asked me to serve a mission. I told him that I couldn’t go. When he asked me why, I said, “I can’t go out and teach the gospel because my testimony isn’t strong enough. I like what I hear at church, but I don’t think that I could tell people to join if I don’t know for myself that it’s true.”
Bishop Holt did not criticize my lack of faith. He simply asked, “How long are you going to stay in this condition? Are you just going to continue because of your parents’ or your friends’ testimonies, or are you going to find out for yourself? You have to pay the price. I suggest that you pray about it and spend time seriously studying the scriptures.
The bishop’s counsel gave me much to think about. I had been attending the University of Utah at the time, but I didn’t register for the next quarter of school. Instead, I stayed home and for the first time made an honest attempt to truly study the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants. I prayed to Heavenly Father often, asking Him to bless me with a testimony.
About two months went by, and nothing happened. Then one Sunday I came late to testimony meeting and slipped quietly into the chapel to sit on the back row. As I listened to the ward members bearing their testimonies, I remember one sister in particular saying she knew that the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I thought, I wish I could say that.
Suddenly I found myself on my feet, expressing my feelings about the gospel and saying that I knew it was true. I felt as though I were on fire. There was no doubt in my mind about the gospel’s truthfulness.
That testimony meeting was a turning point for me. It was an overwhelming experience, and ever since that day, I have known that Jesus is the Christ and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His Church upon the earth today.
I know that the promise given in Moroni 10:4–5 [Moro. 10:4–5] is true, that if you pay the price by spending time studying the scriptures and praying sincerely to Heavenly Father, you can receive a witness of the Holy Ghost. It happened to me, and my testimony has remained firm ever since.
Soon after that meeting, I was in Denmark, preaching the gospel as a missionary. It was wonderful to be able to promise people that if they would read the Book of Mormon and pray with sincere hearts, the Holy Ghost would witness to them of the truthfulness of the gospel. For me, that witness has returned again and again. I have learned that the Spirit comes in different ways. I had felt the Spirit before my experience in testimony meeting, but I simply hadn’t recognized it.

A few months later, Joseph and his family moved to Hiram, Ohio, so he and Sidney Rigdon could have a quiet place to work on the inspired revision of the Bible.
Joseph and his family lived in Hiram for one year.

When our daughter Emi was 15, she made a decision. One morning I noticed her Book of Mormon opened to Alma, chapter 48. She had marked the verses that describe Captain Moroni: “Moroni was a strong and a mighty man; he was a man of a perfect understanding. … Yea, and he was a man who was firm in the faith of Christ” (Alma 48:11, 13).

In the margin she had written, “I want to marry a man like Moroni.” Seven years later, she did! Emi gained her vision for her future husband as she read the scriptures and listened to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. She also came to know and understand the Savior and His “great plan of happiness” (Alma 42:8).

The prophets counsel us to study the scriptures daily. So I decided to read my scriptures every night, remembering my Sunday School teachers who assured me I would feel closer to Heavenly Father if I did. Sadly, the only thing I found myself closer to was sleep! I was following the guidance of the prophets and still not feeling this “closeness” or really learning anything. I decided it was one of those things that come with age, like a fondness for liver and spinach. So I was content to continue with my nightly readings, convinced that one day all of the promised blessings would surface.
Finally, after continuing this ritual for several months, something did happen. It wasn’t a revelation, but a realization. I was reading the words on the page, but I wasn’t thinking about them. I was preoccupied with other things. The prophets don’t tell us to glance at or skim the scriptures; they tell us to study them. I guess I thought by having my scriptures open, I might learn something via some sixth sense.
I have continued my habit, but I’ve added a new twist. Now I think about what I read. I can’t believe all the time I’ve worried about problems when the answers were on the pages in front of me. There are so many beautiful stories and messages in the scriptures.
Now that I’ve finally learned to appreciate and gain knowledge from the scriptures, does that mean I’m finally getting old? Nah, I still don’t like liver and spinach.

Frieda,* a young adult member of the Church in Europe, faces just such a moment of decision. She says she wants to be married in the temple someday, but she is contemplating moving in with her nonmember boyfriend. She plans to repent and return to Church activity after a few years and marry someone else in the temple, but for now, she says, she just wants to have a good time.

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Fort Laramie sighted; met Mississippi Mormons who had wintered in Pueblo (12 miles)
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Finished crossing Platte River; 17 Saints from Pueblo joined company (8.5 miles)

Prison Warden Kenyon J. Scudder has told this story:
He happened to be sitting in a railroad coach next to a young man who was obviously depressed. Finally the man revealed that he was a convict returning from a distant prison. His imprisonment had brought shame on his family, and they had neither visited him nor written often. He hoped, however, that this was only because they were too poor to travel and too uneducated to write. He hoped, despite the evidence, that they had forgiven him.
To make it easy for them, however, he had written them to put up a signal for him when the train passed their little farm on the outskirts of town. If his family had forgiven him and felt that he could rebuild his life in his own home and own town, they were to put a white ribbon in the upper branch of the apple tree located in the lower pasture near the railroad tracks. If, however, they felt it would be best for him to rebuild his life in a new environment, in a new city, they were to do nothing, and he would remain on the train.
As the train neared his home town, the suspense became so great he couldn’t bear to look out of his window. His companion changed places with him and said he would watch for the apple tree. In a minute, he put his hand on the young convict’s arm. “I can see the tree,” he said.
The young man then asked, “Does it contain a white ribbon?”
The reply, “Not one white ribbon, but a white ribbon on every branch!”
In that instant, all the bitterness that had poisoned a life was dispelled. Warden Scudder said to the young man, “I feel as if I have witnessed a miracle.”
The young man responded, “Perhaps you have.”

And then there’s Natalia Yereskovska. As a 15-year-old exchange student, she left Cherkassy, Ukraine (south of Kiev), for Sleepy Hollow, Illinois (northwest of Chicago). She gave her LDS hosts quite a shock when, on the way home from the airport, she said, “I know God sent me to you.”
She had been praying to be placed with a religious family, “so I could find my spiritual life.” When she read the profile sheet of the Bruce B. and Jean Bingham family, she saw that they didn’t smoke and that they attended church regularly. But she also felt something, a witness that she should listen to the Binghams and follow their example. Natalia spent the next year participating in family prayer, home evening, Young Women, sacrament meetings, and Sunday School.
Her sensitivity to the Spirit grew. She found answers she’d been seeking for years. She took the missionary discussions. She fasted and prayed and received an answer that she should join the Church. Fearful that her parents would never approve, she gathered her courage, made her request, and received permission. She was baptized on January 7, 1996. But soon she faced concern of another kind. She must return to Cherkassy, a town of 350,000, where she would be the only Latter-day Saint.
“I was scared,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine going where there is no church, where I wouldn’t be able to go to meetings or take the sacrament. But on the flight home I remembered what Brother Bingham told me: ‘No matter where you are, you can be a light.’ That gave me some comfort.”
After spending two Sundays studying scriptures, praying, and singing hymns by herself, Natalia heard of an LDS youth conference in Kiev. She went, and there she met President Wilfried M. Voge of the Ukraine Kiev Mission. Together they mapped out the required steps for the Church to be recognized in Cherkassy. The process started with getting signatures on a petition inviting missionaries to come. But the request had to come from adults.
Natalia made friends with a university professor who once stayed with an LDS family in Wisconsin. He agreed to help, prepared an official letter of invitation, got a group of business students to agree to listen to the missionaries, and even arranged a meeting with the mayor of a small town nearby. After Natalia explained about Church standards, the head counselor of her school also signed the petition and requested that missionaries speak to the entire school!
In September 1996, the first missionaries came. In October, Church meetings were held. In January, the first convert was baptized. Then another in February. Then families. Additional missionaries were assigned. Young Women, Relief Society, Sunday School, and Primary were organized. Picnics and service projects were held. Men were ordained to the priesthood. A branch president was called. Natalia led one of her lifelong friends to the Church, and even the professor’s wife was baptized! In short, the branch kept growing and growing. Today, if you visit the Cherkassy Branch and ask for Natalia, five members will turn and say, “Yes?”
When Natalia first thought about establishing the gospel in her hometown, she was nervous. But President Voge said, “Heavenly Father will support you.” That kind of faith has paved the way for others.

“Well, it all started when my brother and I went with our father to a cattle auction thirty miles from home. We went by horseback and only planned to be gone a few days, but my father soon realized we’d need to be away longer. He was afraid that Mother would worry, so he asked me to head home the next day.
“I told him that I’d go but was nervous about going alone. He put his strong, work-worn hands on my shoulders and said, ‘Jonathan, you can use a compass as well as any man I know. You’ll be just fine.’
“Early the next day I started homeward, and by the time I made camp that night, I felt foolish about being so nervous. I was more than halfway home, and nothing had gone wrong.
“The following morning, as I got ready to leave, I thought about the delicious homemade rolls my mother baked every Thursday. I could imagine the steam rising from them as she took them out of the oven. I was so busy thinking about those rolls that I didn’t notice how large and gray the clouds were getting. It wasn’t until a sharp wind blew through my jacket that I realized I was heading right into a storm.
“The longer I rode, the bigger and blacker the clouds became, until it looked like I could reach up and touch them. When the storm broke, it wasn’t too bad. I figured if it didn’t get any worse, I’d make it home with no problem, and I started to relax.
“Just then, a loud roar sounded in my ears, and sheets of ice and snow hit me so hard I was nearly swept out of my saddle. I knew that if my horse and I were going to survive, I had to get us to safety quickly, The problem was that I didn’t know how to do it. We were in the middle of nowhere, and the snow was coming down so hard I could barely see my horse’s head.
“That’s when I started using my second compass, Jeff. The one that’s in here.” he tapped his chest. “I’d tried using it before, but not like I tried then. This was an emergency, and I needed the Lord’s help right away.”
A cold shiver passed through me as I asked Granddad what he did next.
“I reined in my horse, bowed my head, and offered a heartfelt prayer. I asked the Lord to spare my life and to help me find a way out of the storm.
“We moved forward again, straining against the icy wind until my horse refused to go any farther. I got down, took the reins in my hands, and began walking. Five steps later, I ran into a fence.
“I felt impressed to find out where it led, so I tied my horse to a fence post and walked until I came to a shed. Working my way around to the front, I opened the door and found a small herd of sheep. Generally I don’t care for the smell of sheep, and bunking down with them sure wasn’t what I had in mind when I prayed. But I knew that the Lord had answered my prayer, and I was truly grateful.
“Going back for my horse, I led him into the shed and made him as comfortable as possible. Then I waded right into the middle of those sheep. Fortunately someone had just put a new batch of straw down, and it was dry and warm.”
Laughing, I asked Granddad if he thought the sheep minded him climbing into the middle of them.
“They weren’t exactly pleased about it. In fact, they made it real hard for me to wedge my way in,” Granddad said with a chuckle. “But I kept pushing and pulling, and pretty soon I had enough room to lie down.”
“How long did you stay there? Were you able to keep warm? Did you go to sleep? Did—”
“Whoa, Jeff,” Granddad said. “Give me a chance to answer. I’m not sure how long I was there. I slept so soundly that I didn’t wake up until the sheep started moving around the next morning.
“Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I jumped up, thanked them for keeping me warm, and led my horse out of the shed. Three hours later I arrived home, safe and sound.”

The Persian marketplace looked like a giant circus of brightly colored tents. It sounded like one too. Jonas Hanway had come to Persia to buy wool to carry back to England in his ships. But before he could begin trading with the wool merchants, a royal parade stopped everything.
“Make way for the Prince of Persia!” a courtier announced.
As the prince passed, the people bowed low as was their custom. But Jonas did not. He wanted to see everything that was happening. Four strong men were carrying the prince in a velvet-draped sedan chair. They held him on their shoulders high above the heads of the people. Over the prince’s head another servant held a strange shade to keep the sun away.
“What a wonderful idea!” exclaimed Jonas. He soon learned that the prince’s shade was called an umbrella.
How helpful it would be if everyone in Persia had an umbrella of his own, Jonas thought.
Soon Jonas had a number of umbrellas made to shield the sun’s rays from the heads of common persons. But when the prince heard about it, he ordered Jonas to come to the palace.
“You must stop making umbrellas,” commanded the prince. “I forbid it. Only princes and kings may carry an umbrella in Persia. It is a sign of royalty.”
The prince shook his finger angrily at Jonas and shouted even louder, “This is the way it has always been in Persia and this is the way it will stay. Take your umbrellas and go home!”
Jonas returned to his home in England, stored the umbrellas in his attic, and became so busy that he forgot about the prince.
Then one day as Jonas was leaving his home it began to rain. In minutes all the covered chairs and horse-drawn coaches were taken. Jonas was left wet and cold on his doorstep.
In those days riding in a covered chair called a sedan was an easy way to travel. Two or four men carried the chair between them on two long poles. When it rained everyone jumped in a sedan chair to keep dry.
All the people riding in chairs reminded Jonas of the Prince of Persia.
If an umbrella can keep the sun off the prince of Persia, maybe it will keep the rain off me! he thought.
Jonas ran to his attic and found an umbrella. Holding it over his head, he walked down the street.
“Look at that crazy man!” cried the children as he passed. Few Englishmen had ever seen an umbrella before.
Jonas carried his umbrella every time it rained. He gave umbrellas to his friends to carry too.
The chair men became angry. They tried to run over Jonas and some threw rocks at him.
But the people liked Jonas Hanway’s strange new idea. It was not long before many people in England were carrying umbrellas. And as the new idea spread to other parts of the world, the umbrella became known everywhere as man’s best friend—when it rains!

How has your testimony been strengthened through working with your sister? I have definitely seen the hand of God in the transformation of my sister from a sickly child. Seeing color in her face, watching her develop a love for running, and watching her feel well has been so miraculous. I know that could have been accomplished only with the help of God. My testimony of the love of God for each of us has grown immensely.