Gospel Story Finder

Teachers Camron Stewart (right) and James Decker of the Sigonella Branch painted the bus stop at the Navy Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy. With a little help from their youth leaders and a few of the boys’ friends who stopped by to help out, the bus stop looked great after the service project.
The young men had fun painting. Camron summed it up in these words: “It made me feel good, like I was making a difference in my community.”
Branch president Brian Stewart says this project, along with other activities the youth have recently participated in, has opened many doors for the young men to share their beliefs with friends and teachers at school.

Reese Jarvis, 16, Pima Arizona Stake: “The Spirit was so strong. I was singing as loud as I could. It’s just a really life-changing experience for me. On the last verse of ‘Come, Come, Ye Saints’ I started bawling. I thought, ‘This isn’t fair. I want to be tough.’ But it didn’t happen. I just couldn’t finish the song. You can’t explain the feelings you had.”

The midnight sun ruled the June evening in Sweden, where its fiery red and yellow spears still pierced the solemn blue sky. Children played, tumbling and jumping as though they had not walked three miles to the Lutheran seminary that day and had not spent two hours that evening raking in the hayfields. Suddenly their laughter was interrupted by the shouting of an older boy running toward them down the soggy road.
The small blond ones stood alert, staring at the intruder, who shouted again, “The Mormons are coming!” Expressions on young faces hardened, and little mouths lost their smiles and became straight lines. Bright blue eyes clouded.
The children ran up the nearby hill, picking up stones and sticks along the way. At the top of the hill they gathered in a group and looked out over the rolling meadowland. No one was in sight except the boy who had sounded the warning. They waited for him on the hill.
When the older boy reached the other children, he shouted commands: “Girls, stop crying. Go to your homes and take the little ones with you. Ask your fathers to come help us. Ja (yes)! The Mormons are coming!”
The boys began stacking stones in the furrows near the road. Girls and younger children ran across the fields toward their small wooden houses.
Hulda and Anna, the twins, and their younger brother, Gustav, had the farthest to go. Their house and land, located at the far north corner of the farmland near Hogbrun, West Vinåker, were rented from a wealthy landowner. Gustav fell down, but the girls pulled him up, paying no attention to his ripped trousers. As they neared the house, they could see their mother, Ingrid, a younger sister, Carolina, and baby sister, Maria, picking bouquets of tiny white-belled lilies of the valley.
“Mor (Mother)! Mor! The Mormons are coming! Shall we go to Farfar (Grandfather) Lars’s? They’ll eat us up and burn our house!”
The young woman frowned at Gustav’s skinned knees and tried to comfort him. She looked at her five children, whose father had died a year before from pneumonia. “If your far (father) were here, he would not be afraid of the Mormons. I do not fear them either. Those Mormons may be from the devil, but if they come here, I’ll use this devil’s pitchfork on them! Go into the house and say your prayers and go to bed.”
The children crawled into their beds, but they could not sleep. Their mother stood outdoors in the changing light of the midnight sun, resting her body against the house. She sighed and closed her eyes and thought of the approaching Mormons.
Farfar Lars hated the Mormons. He had warned, “Don’t ever shake hands with Mormon missionaries or they’ll get you.” But Ingrid had to admit that those Mormon hymns Britta Larsson had sung, while they were spinning during her last visit, were comforting.
Ingrid’s thoughts were interrupted by the bellowing of the family bull. She looked up and saw him tossing his head and pawing the ground in the middle of the road. Picking up a rope from the front yard, Ingrid hurried toward the road. She voiced her irritation under her breath and snatched up a dead limb lying close by. Holding the limb in front of her and moving slowly, step by step, she approached the bull. The bull, with lowered head, took a step toward her. Ingrid trembled for a moment then retreated a step, caught her foot in a hole, and fell to the ground.
Suddenly the bull charged, and the young woman rolled into the ditch for what little protection it provided. Miraculously, the snorting bull missed her and charged down the road, tossing clods of mud with his horns as he went.
The shaking woman lifted her head and watched the bull grow smaller in the distance. Then she stood up and dropped a rock she noticed was still clenched in her fist.
The sound of shouting was heard from down the road. That bull has met someone else, Ingrid decided. The shouts increased, and the frightened woman picked up her twill skirts with trembling hands, swallowed hard, and forced her feet to run along the rutted road. Just over a rise she saw two men chasing the bull. The big animal stopped suddenly and again began pawing the dirt. The woman’s lips formed some word, but the cry caught and could not escape. Her eyes widened in fear, and again Ingrid swallowed. Her chest heaved rapidly, begging for more air before she started to run again.
One man threw his coat over the bull’s head and tried holding him by the horns while the other young man, who had found an old rope, secured it around the bull’s neck. Leading him toward the woman, the man asked, “Is this your bull?” His hair was dark, and he walked lightly and talked with a strange accent.
“Yes,” she answered in airy gasps. “He broke … out … of the field … and … and … nearly gored me when I fell.”
“Let us help you take him back and mend your fence,” offered the other young man.
The bull kicked and began pulling his captor down the road, and the young man shouted and made play by mocking the bull. Terror again crept into the woman’s eyes, but when the young men began to laugh, she laughed with them.
After the bull was penned and the fence mended, Ingrid said, “May I make something for you to eat?”
The men’s eyes lighted up, but then one of them answered, “We have an appointment in the village and we’re already late.”
“At least let me give you some knäckebröd (hardtack) and smör (butter),” insisted the woman.
“Thank you,” came the warm reply.
Ingrid went into the small frame house and reached up to the rafters, where several months’ supply of knäckebröd hung, dry and crisp. She slipped two of the large, thin disks of rye bread from the pole and carefully buttered each one. Adjusting the braids in her hair, she returned to the waiting men.
“Here,” she said, smiling shyly. “May this satisfy your hunger. And if you come this way again, please stop by to say hello.”
“Thank you, we hope to return soon.”
Ingrid watched the men leave. As soon as they were a few feet from the cottage, they broke off large chunks of knäckebröd and ate hungrily.
Just then the woman thought to warn them. “Watch out for the Mormons! They’re coming this way, you know.”
The men stopped their eating and walked back quietly, “We are the Mormons,” one of them said gently.
“And I hope you still mean your invitation to stop on our way back,” added the other.
Ingrid looked into their kind eyes for a moment. “Yes, I do,” she said. “I would like my children to meet you.”

“My family loves to travel, so I have been to our church meetings in many different countries. Even though I don’t understand all they say, I can feel the Holy Ghost testifying to me that it is the Lord’s church. I am so thankful to Jesus. He is my Savior and Redeemer. I am thankful that the Lord restored the Church through Joseph Smith. I know this Church is true.”
Lauren Fredrickson, 14Brussels, Belgium

Finally, I testify that we do not walk alone.
Stan, a dear friend of mine, was taken seriously ill and rendered partially paralyzed. He had been robust in health, athletic in build, and active in many pursuits. Now he was unable to walk or to stand. His wheelchair was his home. The finest of physicians had cared for him, and the prayers of family and friends had been offered in a spirit of hope and trust. Yet Stan continued to lie in the confinement of his bed at the university hospital. He despaired.
Late one afternoon I was swimming at the Deseret Gym, gazing at the ceiling while backstroking width after width. Silently, but ever so clearly, there came to my mind the thought: “Here you swim almost effortlessly, while your friend Stan languishes in his hospital bed, unable to move.” I felt the prompting: “Get to the hospital and give him a blessing.”
I ceased my swimming, dressed, and hurried to Stan’s room at the hospital. His bed was empty. A nurse said he was in his wheelchair at the swimming pool, preparing for therapy. I hurried to the area, and there was Stan, all alone, at the edge of the deeper portion of the pool. We greeted one another and returned to his room, where a priesthood blessing was provided.
Slowly but surely, strength and movement returned to Stan’s legs. First he could stand on faltering feet. Then he learned once again to walk—step by step. Today one would not know that Stan had lain so close to death and with no hope of recovery.
Frequently Stan speaks in Church meetings and tells of the goodness of the Lord to him. To some he reveals the dark thoughts of depression which engulfed him that afternoon as he sat in his wheelchair at the edge of the pool, sentenced, it seemed, to a life of despair. He tells how he pondered the alternative. It would be so easy to propel the hated wheelchair into the silent water of the deep pool. Life would then be over. But at that precise moment he saw me, his friend. That day Stan learned literally that we do not walk alone. I, too, learned a lesson that day: Never, never, never postpone following a prompting.

After my family hiked to the top of a cliff, at night I couldn’t stop thinking about falling off! Then I decided to use my imagination to change the ending. I imagined myself spreading my arms and flying. It was fun! The scary thoughts stopped, and I went to sleep without worry.
Larry Hiller, writer of Matt and Mandy

Ruben follows Jesus Christ by sharing the gospel. One Sunday, the Primary president asked each child to give a Book of Mormon to someone. Ruben talked to his parents and listed people he could give one to. He chose to give a Book of Mormon to a security guard he met when his family moved to a new city. He was nervous, but he prayed to Heavenly Father for help.

Another time my friend caught me reading the Liahona magazine and asked me about the Church. I explained to her about repentance and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She was very interested, and I gave her the copy of the Liahona.

David, of Utah, USA, had some health concerns that forced him to finally retire at age 72. While he recovered, his wife, Sheila, continued serving as ward Relief Society president. When she was released, they talked with their bishop about other service opportunities, and the bishop suggested that David could use his experience as a human resources administrator and Sheila could use her background as an employment counselor to serve at a Church employment center.

They were soon called on a service mission. “We love it,” David says. “We both get to do things we know how to do, and we can serve at our own pace.”

My long road to become a doctor of medicine was only the beginning. After that came years of hospital work, research, specialty training, and certifying examinations. Then followed many years of teaching, service, and the challenges of the newly emerging field of open-heart surgery, all of which brought me to a profound reverence for the structure and function of the human body. I was convinced that its creation was divine.

As a young missionary, I was assigned to a group of seventeen small islands in the South Pacific. One day a member told us that if we would be at a certain harbor on a particular island when the sun set the next day, a family would meet us there and listen to the discussions.
What joy that news brought! It was like finding a piece of gold. I quickly found four other members who were experienced sailors who agreed to take me to this island the next day.
We made good progress for a few hours, but as the sun climbed higher and the boat got farther from land, the wind began to play out and soon quit altogether, leaving us bobbing aimlessly on a smooth ocean.
Time passed. The sun got higher, the sea calmer. Nothing moved. We soon realized that unless something changed, we would not arrive by sundown. I suggested that we pray and plead with the Lord to send some wind. I offered a prayer. When I finished, things seemed calmer than ever. We continued drifting.
I thought, “There is a family at the harbor that wants to hear the gospel. We are here in the middle of the ocean and want to teach them. The Lord controls the elements [weather]. All that stands between us and the family is a little wind. Why won’t He send it? It’s a righteous desire.”
As I was so wondering, I noticed [a] faithful older brother move to the rear of the boat. He unlashed the tiny lifeboat and carefully lowered it over the side.
He looked at me and softly said, “Get in. I am going to row you to shore, and we need to leave now to make it by sundown.”
I was dumbfounded [speechless]. It was miles to shore. The sun was hot, and this man was old.
The old man did not look up, rest, or talk, but hour after hour he rowed and rowed and rowed.
Just as the sun dipped into the ocean, the skiff [boat] touched the shore of the harbor. A family was waiting. The old man spoke for the first time in hours and said, “Go. Teach them the truth. I’ll wait here.”
I told the family, “When we exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can do things we could not otherwise do. When our hearts are determined to do right, the Lord gives us the power to do so.”
The family believed and eventually was baptized.

His courageous faith is also shown when he was called to serve one of his missions in England. After a difficult journey from Far West, Missouri, Elder Taylor arrived in New York with only one cent in his pocket. But he was not one to plead poverty, and in answer to questions if he had any money, he said he did. The next day, Elder Parley P. Pratt approached him:

“Brother Taylor, I hear you have plenty of money.”

“Yes, Brother Pratt, that’s true.”

“Well,” said Elder Pratt, “I am about to publish my Voice of Warning and Millennial Poems; I am very much in need of money, and if you could furnish me two or three hundred dollars I should be very much obliged.”

“Well, Brother Parley, you are welcome to anything I have, if it will be of service to you.” At that he put his hand in his pocket and gave Elder Pratt the penny.

They both laughed heartily, and then Elder Pratt said, “But I thought you gave it out that you had plenty of money.”

“Yes, and so I have,” replied Elder Taylor. “I am well clothed, you furnish me plenty to eat and drink and good lodging; with all these things and a penny over, as I owe nothing, is not that plenty?”

That evening, at a meeting of some of the Brethren who were preparing to go to England, Elder Pratt proposed that they assist Elder Taylor with means to pay his passage. Elder Taylor objected, saying that if they had anything, they should give it to Elder Pratt instead, because he had a family to support and needed money for publishing. Wilford Woodruff, a great man of faith himself, expressed regret at Elder Taylor’s position.

“Oh there will be no difficulty about that,” replied Elder Taylor. “Go and take passage for me on your vessel, and I will furnish you the means.”

Then—from various persons who were moved upon by the Spirit of the Lord—Elder Taylor received voluntary donations that were sufficient for him to pay not only his own passage, but also that of another elder. (See Roberts, pages 72–74.)

Instead of saying to your friends, “My religion is true, and yours isn’t,” share with them your testimony. Find a time when you and your friend are alone, and ask if you can share your testimony. I did that once with a close friend who is a Christian and is very faithful to her church. She thought it was great that I had a testimony. After that, we discussed what we believed, but it wasn’t an argument. However, when you come up and say, “Your church is not true,” you’ll be disrespectful to something that could be near to their heart. Friends don’t do that. You may disagree about points of doctrines with your friends, but a true friend will listen to your testimony and understand that the gospel is very important to you.
Amber P., 17, Utah

Lake Villa Second Ward
For an activity, the Primary children from the Lake Villa Second Ward, Buffalo Grove Illinois Stake, visited the Chicago Illinois Temple with their families. They took a tour of the temple grounds, and the Primary was given a picture of the temple. Each family had a photograph taken in front of the temple and was given their picture in a frame with the words “Families Are Forever.”

A young man once pleaded with me for help. He had become addicted to pornography, which he accessed via his home computer. It burdened him with such guilt that he could not feel good about attending church or participating in priesthood assignments. It adversely affected his social life. He was powerfully drawn to spend hour upon hour alone in front of the computer viewing that which he acknowledged brought only frustration and despair. It was as if he were chained by a master whose only purpose was to make him miserable.
He did not decide at once to become a slave to the computer screen. Rather, he decided at some earlier time that viewing destructive images “just this once” would not hurt and would satisfy a “curiosity.” Once became twice, and twice became several times, until a powerful addiction had lessened his power of choice. Only after he was enchained by his addiction did he recognize that he had willingly submitted to captivity.

I, too, weigh too much to serve a mission. Thank you for the story “Weighing In for a Mission” (Sept. 2006). It really helped me understand that it is possible to lose a whole lot of weight. I used to think, “If God wants me to serve a mission, He can take me the way I am.” But now I realize I was wrong, and I’m shooting to lose some serious weight. Thanks again for this wonderful article.Jeremy H., Oregon

In 1908 in a general conference, President Joseph F. Smith read section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants—the Word of Wisdom. Then he, both of his counselors, and the President of the Twelve all spoke to the same subject, the Word of Wisdom. Then a vote to accept it as binding upon the members of the Church was unanimously passed.

The three red brick buildings built on this lot were among the earliest brick buildings in the city. in 1845 the original owner sold them to Elias Smith, who converted them into a printing establishment and book and stationery store. Brother Smith was also appointed postmaster of Nauvoo and moved the post office into the complex. John Taylor (who became the third president of the Church) lived in the center building while serving as editor of the two Nauvoo newspapers—the Nauvoo Neighbor and the Times and Seasons. After the Saints left Nauvoo, the equipment was left in the buildings and used to print the post-Mormon Hancock Eagle, Nauvoo New Citizen, and Hancock Patriot. Before long, however, the buildings were left vacant and eventually deteriorated. In the middle of this century, the one building still standing was adapted into a church meetinghouse, and a new floor, new windows, plumbing, lights, heating system, and roof were put in.

Jiries scours the countryside looking for available wood, which is often stored in the bed of his old pickup truck. He notes, “I always look around for New Zealand native wood to recycle, and it breaks my heart to see it sold as firewood with the other exotic wood. Sometimes I have to buy the whole lot to save some pieces for my work.”

Her mother is the Relief Society president and the Primary president—and the only Primary teacher. Her dad, who retired from a company that makes luxury cars farther south, cuts the grass around the meetinghouse. One day the lawn mower just stopped on him and wouldn’t move. A few seconds later, a big tree crashed where he would have been mowing. Then the lawn mower started to work again! The Whites are sure that the Lord was protecting him.