Gospel Story Finder

Dan’s thoughts turned to a story a favorite bishop had told him, something which had happened on another Christmas Eve many years ago. His bishop had been a soldier in basic training. It had looked as though there might be no Christmas leave—had looked as though Private Benjamin Clark would have to spend Christmas at Fort Ord, California, far from his friends and loved ones in Idaho.
And then at the last minute had come the welcome orders: Seven days’ Christmas leave, effective immediately.
It had been too late for Ben to make plane reservations—too late to catch a bus out of Monterey. It had been too late to ride with the LDS guys from Charlie Company—too late to do anything but walk to the highway and stick out one thumb.
A trucker named “Red” with a load of California produce had picked up Ben and carried him east into Nevada. He had joined his baritone voice with Red’s Irish tenor, and they had sung up all the Christmas songs either of them had known.
And then at Winnemucca he had stood in the cold for so long, waiting for a ride north on US 95 toward Boise. In the best of times there wasn’t much traffic on that stretch of road—and on a late Christmas Eve night, well …
But at last a pair of headlights had appeared, had slowed, had pulled to a stop, had picked him up. Thank goodness they had been going his way and said they could take him almost all the way to Boise.
Dan recalled how the bishop had described what came next: It was not until he and his duffel bag were in the back seat and the car had been moving that the young soldier realized the three young men in the front seat were drunk—and getting drunker. They had offered Ben a drink from their bottle and had been offended when he declined.
The young soldier in the back seat had become alarmed. The driver had been much too drunk; the car had been going much too fast; the car radio had been much too loud. A feeling of darkness, of foreboding had filled Ben’s mind as he considered his situation.
Finally, he had said it: “Please! Stop the car! I want to get out!”
The reply had been loud laughter from the front seat. “You said you were going to Boise,” they had reminded him. “Well, hang on, soldier boy, ’cause we ain’t stopping for nobody and nothing until we hit Nampa.”
For several fearful miles Ben had listened to the sound of the tires on the highway, the loud music on the radio, the reckless talk and the loud laughter from the front seat. He had endured the strong smell of cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey all around him.
With each mile, he had feared more for his life. In his fear, he had turned to prayer. “Heavenly Father, I’m in an awful mess, and I don’t see how I can get out of it. Please help me. Please protect me and preserve my life. Heavenly Father, I’m afraid, and I really need thy help. …”
Dan could recall his bishop’s very words: “And then had come a very quiet, very peaceful prompting telling me to get down on the floor and put my duffel bag over me.”
He had done so immediately. In the narrow space between the front seat and the back, Ben had hunched down, had wedged himself in tightly, had pulled the weight of the duffel bag over onto his back. Then he had put his forehead on the floor and his hands over his head.
A few minutes later the end of the world came. There had been the sound of screaming tires, the wild swerving of the car out of control—and the jolting, jarring, jamming impact of two high-speed vehicles fusing into one pile of scrap iron in the desert.
Much later, the young Latter-day Saint soldier had regained consciousness. He had found himself in a black world where he could move neither arms nor legs nor head. There had seemed to be no up nor down, no left nor right, nothing to help orient him. Nothing had stirred within the dead car—except for the smells of gasoline and of vomited whiskey—of sudden death in what had been a front seat.
Perhaps an hour had passed before a big diesel rig had pulled to a stop at the remote accident site. Two truckers had radioed for help, surmised that no one in either car could have survived such total destruction.
But the highway patrol had discovered otherwise. Along with the dead couple in one car and the three dead teenage boys in the other, they had found and then rescued Private Benjamin Clark.
“Young man,” one trooper had said, “you aren’t too good at picking folks to ride with, but I figure someone up there knows your name, rank, and serial number. I hope you do something good with your life, because you owe Him one. Only God could have brought you through this night with not one scratch on your body.”

One morning, a friend of mine who is a lifeguard on the Gold Coast was sitting on his lookout carefully watching the people swimming between the flags when a boy came running up the beach. His father had been swimming just down the beach with another young son on his shoulders. The father had suffered a heart attack, and both went down. They were 200 meters from the flags. The lifeguards did everything humanly possible, but by the time they got there, both father and son had drowned.

Warmed by the medicine man’s healing fire inside the earthen lodge, Little Wind’s all-day vigil is over. For the valiant heart of the old buffalo—injured in a senseless and shameful slaughter two days before—is still beating.
Curled against the shaggy warmth of the great beast, the exhausted boy dreams of the sky people, then sleeps …
The first long, frosted slivers of light pierced the night sky over the tablelands. Ten Days Walking stepped out of his tepee, pulled a buffalo robe around him, and headed toward the earthen lodge. He entered quietly and stood for a long moment in the little bit of night still hiding inside, his eyes upon Little Wind, his son, who lay asleep with his head pillowed against the old buffalo. The ancient beast’s sides no longer rose and fell with a steady cadence.
Ten Days Walking stepped closer and put his ear to the animal’s side, but there was no heartbeat.
Little Wind stirred, then awoke. The look on his father’s face told him all he feared to know. His dark eyes widened and studied the creature beside him, then his vision was blurred by a thin veil of tears. “He only sleeps, Father.” Little Wind whispered with wishful uncertainty.
“It is the long sleep, my son,” Ten Days Walking uttered with reverent matter-of-factness. “The Great Spirit has called it home.”
“But I prayed so hard. It cannot be!” Little Wind buried his face in the old creature’s soft fur and wept.
Ten Days Walking sat down beside the boy and leaned back against the still warm bison. Gently and slowly he ran his large hand through Little Wind’s long hair, then he spoke. “Was it not this great one’s time, small warrior?” he asked. “No man or beast can remain on this earth place beyond his given time. This old four-legged had fathered countless of its kind and given much majesty and dignity to Mother Earth. Would it not perhaps be wrong now, maybe even selfish, to deny it its blessed rest?”
Little Wind could not—even in his pain—deny the simple wisdom of his father’s words. He nodded through his tears and snuggled himself against the big warrior who enclosed him in his great robe.
For a long while Little Wind watched the new light grow brighter in the lodge, spilling down through the hole in the center of the thatched roof and shedding its glow on the old buffalo. Then he muttered softly, “Grandfather says that life is like a blossom and that death is like the flower unfolding. What does he mean, Father?”
Ten Days Walking smiled knowingly. “Red Owl Watching means that to become like the Great Spirit, we must first become like a little child, like a … blossom … that opens into its greater self in the brighter light of heaven.”
Little Wind looked confused. Ten Days Walking’s smile broadened and he went on. “What your grandfather means is that he is anxious to leave his earth lodge and enter the great lodge of your Father and mine and to share in the wondrous things that await every valiant warrior who has served his Creator well.”
Little Wind didn’t know if he felt better because of his father’s strong arms around him or because of his wise counsel. Maybe it was both. Whatever it was, it was something to cling to every time his eyes returned to the old buffalo or to the lodge where his Grandfather, Red Owl Watching, lay in a long illness. “Will Grandfather die soon also?” he wondered out loud.
Ten Days Walking held his smile. There was a sadness in his voice at the thought of the old man’s leaving, but also the sound of hope. “Yes, it will very soon be his time. But as time rushes by like wind over a bird’s wing, my son, we will soon be together again. It is all part of a very wise plan.”
It was Little Wind’s unusual compassion and regard for the buffalo that caused his father to give the old four-legged special consideration. A great scaffold was prepared and its body carried on a litter to the sacred burial grounds that stood on the high jagged cliffs above the village. It was the first time such a thing had been done for any but a Sioux in the history of their people.
Little Wind climbed the steep trail in the icy November wind to the top of the butte to pay final tribute to the old buffalo. He watched as the mighty beast was hoisted up onto the scaffold, covered with furs, and secured with rope. Little Wind’s mother and little sister, Night Fawn, along with a few other village women, heaped brambles at the base of the scaffold to keep away wild animals. Then Ten Days Walking and the others left Little Wind alone to express his mourning.
When the sun had made its journey across the heavens, Little Wind turned from the wind-lashed scaffold and descended the darkened mesa to the village below.
In the days and weeks that followed, driving prairie rains beat unmercifully upon the little Sioux lodges. Winds howled and thunder boomed like the white soldiers’ cannons. Little Wind sat huddled in his family’s tepee, listening to the strange, wonderful stories spun by his grandfather from within the immense warm hides of his sickbed. The stories were of great battles fought and fine prizes won long, long ago.
Then one day came the great white silence. Little Wind pushed back the door flap and gazed upon it, wide-eyed. Winter had come in all its chilly white grandness.
The boy pulled his fur wrappings tightly about himself and stepped out, marveling at this shivering white Eden. Nothing stirred, and there was not a single footprint or track in sight. Mine will be the very first! he thought as he moved forward across the crusted snow.
The sun had just begun to rise above the huge white cliffs and had sprayed a silvery glow of near-blinding brightness over the valley mist. Suddenly his breathless wonderment was broken by the frightened whinnying of the village horses. He looked through the misty light toward the corral at the far end of the lodges. Vague, ghostly shapes moved stealthily among the ponies. They were the shapes of warriors warmly dressed against the weather … but not of his tribe!
Little Wind dashed quickly and silently into the tepee and shook his father from his sleep. “Father!” he cried in a loud whisper. “There are strangers in our village!”
Ten Days Walking sprang to his feet, grabbed a buffalo horn club and shield hanging next to his war medicine bundle, and bolted outside. He shouted an alarm to the other sleeping villagers.
Red Owl Watching strained up onto an elbow. “Young Shoshones,” he uttered in a raspy, unworried voice. “They come to take our horses, not to take scalps.” He arched his neck and gazed up at Little Wind, who stood tensely by the door. “It is the way of things. It is honorable to take ponies from an enemy tribe and return triumphant to your village. It shows much courage and brings dignity to any young warrior.”
Little Wind’s mother looked harshly at the old warrior in the ermine blanket. “We cannot let our horses be taken just so some young Shoshone brave can paint victory marks on his leggings, old man! Without our ponies we will—”
Red Owl Watching chuckled and placed a quivery, reassuring hand on Laughing Water’s arm, then beamed at Little Wind. “It is also honorable for a young Sioux brave to disgrace a Shoshone brave.”
“How is this done, Grandfather?” Little Wind questioned.
The ancient Indian broke into a toothless grin. “Simply by keeping him from stealing a Sioux pony.”
“And how is that best done?” Little Wind pressed eagerly.
“It is best done quickly!” was the reply.
Little Wind was gone in the shake of a pony’s tail. Laughing Water argued with motherly concern, “He’s still a boy, old man!”
Again Red Owl Watching softly patted the woman’s arm. “Yes. But do boys learn to become men just by listening to tales of valor, or must they at some point take part in those deeds that lift them beyond themselves to that high, noble place of manhood?”
Laughing Water twisted her face. Can I never win an argument with this old one? she wondered. “Must you always be so wise?” she asked aloud.
The toothless grin once again returned to the old face. “Old age does have its rewards, good mother.” Then the two peered outside through the hide flap where the village was alive with warmly outfitted combatants. The warriors were dashing in and out in a ragged pattern, waving stone clubs and feathered lances. But as Red Owl Watching had testified, there was no noticeable desire to inflict grave injury upon each other. They were just taking coup—the touching or striking of an armed enemy with a lance or any other object and getting away unscratched. It was a deed far more noble than taking a scalp or inflicting a fatal injury.
Ten Days Walking had jumped atop the corral fence and had leaped onto a mounted Shoshone, wrestling man and animal to the ground. The enemy’s horse whirled about wild-eyed, then crashed into and broke a section of fence. Eighteen of the tribe’s twenty-two fine ponies, spooked by all the excited hoots and frenzied activity, plunged through the opening in the crude fence and disappeared into the mist. And with the fading sound of exiting, pounding hooves filling his concerned ears, Ten Days Walking quickly whacked his foe with his shield and sent him sprawling among the four remaining ponies. One of them, the warrior chief’s great buffalo runner, whirled by instinct toward the grounded Shoshone and nickered defiantly. The frightened Shoshone scrambled to his feet and ran off. Ten Days Walking hooted victoriously and gestured tribute to his war-horse. Then he plunged back into the fray.
At the same time, Little Wind darted in a low run through the tinseled fog, scooped up a broken lance, and leaped onto the back of an enemy brave who had pinned down a Sioux tribesman. Holding both ends of the lance in his hands, Little Wind quickly looped it over the Shoshone’s head and pressed it tightly against his throat. The Indian abandoned his grip, yelled angrily, and toppled over backward onto Little Wind, his wolf headdress falling off in the process. Before the startled would-be horse thief could get a fair look at his boy attacker, Little Wind had vanished with his prize, the wolf headdress, into the frozen brushwood.
By now the whole village was swarming with armed Sioux men, and even some of the women were wielding bone clubs and whatever else they could come up with. And the small band of hapless Shoshones, seeing themselves hopelessly outnumbered, reluctantly mounted their ponies and fled in shame, rubbing their wounds and suffering the sting of injured pride.
Joyous shouts burst forth in splendid unison from every lodge in the little community. But there was still an important matter to be attended to—recovering the tribe’s eighteen ponies. They would have to be found quickly before they were adopted by another tribe or before gathering clouds ushered in another storm.
Ten Days Walking sprang onto his buffalo runner and hastily instructed three braves nearby to get the three remaining horses and assist him in the hunt. Then he glanced at Little Wind with a flash of pride that seemed to lift the boy ten feet off the ground. After all, was it not he who first warned the village of the presence of an enemy tribe? And was not that a Shoshone headdress hanging from his belt?
The boy watched his father’s horse plunge away into the frigid whiteness. Then he started back toward his tepee, anxious to share the story of his first coup with his mother, grandfather, and little sister. But he had only gone a few steps when someone pulled at his arm. It was Yellow Fox, a village boy. “Your pony is gone too,” he said excitedly. “I saw it run away when the Shoshones first came!”
“My father will find it, with the others,” Little Wind responded confidently.
“He’ll not find your pony!” Yellow Fox insisted. “I saw your horse go toward the high rock county. Your father and the others rode off in another direction. They’ll not find your pony. But maybe a Shoshone will.”
Little Wind gazed anxiously toward the great mountains veiled in glacial mist. His pony had been given to him as a gift by his father before the big hunt. It was priceless to him. He had to find it before the next storm or he might never see it again. If he hurried, he could be back before his mother even knew he was gone. If he waited for his father to return with the horses, it might be too late. I’m well dressed against the weather in this big otter coat Mother made me, he assured himself. Besides, my pony probably hasn’t gone very far.
Little Wind pulled his wrappings snugly around him, gave a quick glance toward his tepee, and hurried off in the direction of the hoofprints in the snow.
What Little Wind did not know was that a new storm was gathering just beyond the mesas. Hidden behind the fog, it crouched like some huge, nameless beast ready to lunge across the sky and engulf anyone or anything careless enough to leave the fires of home.

When the Millers gathered for dinner Saturday night, they were surprised to see flowers on the table and the best dishes set at each place. Dinner was especially nice, and when Mom brought out a fancy cake for dessert, Billie Jo wondered who was having a birthday.
Dad took a piece of cake. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.
“I don’t really know,” Mom said. “I just felt like celebrating. Maybe it’s the happy feeling we’ve had in this house all week without any fights. Or maybe I was remembering our family home evening and wanted to be prepared in case Jesus decided to come for dinner tonight.”
Everyone laughed, but when they bowed their heads for family prayer that night, they all felt in their hearts as if Jesus really had come to visit their home that week.

During my high school years, I played football and had a good friend named Ryan. I frequently offered him rides home from practice. Early one morning in February of 2003, my senior year, I was at school getting help from my math teacher. A girl walked in the door and announced the death of my friend Ryan. I was astonished and almost didn’t believe the words I had just heard. A good friend of mine, whom I had just talked to a week before, was now dead.
I made the decision to miss school the next week and attend the funeral services. Upon arriving, I noticed that the building was very beautiful and bore the logo of the church to which it belonged—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The moment I walked in the door, I felt something different: a sense of peace, joy, and happiness—feelings that are not typically experienced at a funeral. As the services progressed, I noticed a new vocabulary, one that I had never before heard. The words gospel and Atonement entered into my mind for the first time. It was something new and unheard-of but, oddly enough, familiar. I listened attentively as Ryan’s mom spoke, and tears came to my eyes. Something was telling me that this “plan of salvation,” which she was speaking about, was true. I felt that the people in this chapel had something in their lives that I did not, and for some reason, I felt a desire to get it.
Now, I was not completely oblivious to Mormons. I grew up in Mesa, Arizona, where members of the Church come in great abundance. I knew two things for sure: first, many of my friends were members of the Church, and second, Church members believed in something called the Book of Mormon. I had a newfound desire to get my hands on this book and to find out what this religion was all about.
In March of 2003, one of my good friends, Bret, invited me to help with his Eagle Scout project. After school the next day we drove in his truck with another friend of ours, Camden, to where the project would be. Inspired by the Spirit, Bret directed Camden to a Book of Mormon situated in a holder in the passenger-side door. He told him to open to a verse he had recently read in the Book of Alma. My interest was sparked, and for the first time, I saw the book I wanted so very badly. However, I was too scared to say anything right then. Upon returning that evening, I worked up the confidence to ask Bret for the book. He happily gave it to me and told me to read it. That night I read nine chapters. From the moment I picked up the book, I fell in love with its message.
The next evening, I was sitting in Bret’s living room with his family and two young men dressed in dark suits, both of whom were named “Elder.” I learned these were missionaries for Bret’s church. We watched Finding Faith in Christ. I will admit that I cried during the movie and loved every bit of the lesson. I decided to continue investigating and to come to church. I eventually finished the lessons and accepted everything the elders taught me about being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.
One night as I was kneeling in prayer after reading a portion of the Book of Mormon, I specifically asked if what I was learning was true. Overwhelming feelings of peace and joy came into my heart. I was feeling the Spirit, and it was answering my prayers. After that time, I knew without a doubt that the Book of Mormon was true. I felt it in my heart and had the knowledge given to me in my mind.
With this new knowledge, I knew what my next step would be. I was baptized on May 3, 2003. The following day, I was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I will always remember my baptism, the Spirit I felt, and the covenants I made with my Heavenly Father.
My first year as a member of the Church was a long and difficult one, but also full of rewards. Being the only member in your family isn’t the easiest thing, and I also received much persecution from old friends. In May of 2004, I received the Melchizedek Priesthood and a call to serve in the Virginia Richmond Mission, speaking Spanish. I left my nonmember family in July of 2004, not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into or just what it was that I was leaving behind.
During the beginning months of my mission, I heard many things from many friends about the progress of my parents in the Church. They had been attending church off and on and had allowed the missionaries to come by every so often. I was always excited to hear news. Then one Saturday morning my mission president told me he had just spoken with my stake president about my parents. My parents had decided to join the Church. The gospel had now changed their lives for the better, just as it had mine only two years before.
I am so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and for the opportunity I had to serve Him as a missionary. I now understand more fully the plan of salvation. I know that this is the gospel and Church of Jesus Christ. Upon returning from my mission in July of 2006 I was overjoyed to enter the Mesa temple with my parents, where we were sealed as a family for time and all eternity. It’s a day I could hardly have imagined just a few years earlier.

Monday at school, I looked at the other kids. They had better clothes and shoes than I did, so I couldn’t offer them mine. Anyway, I didn’t have any extras. Everyone had a lunch, so I couldn’t share my sandwich. I was afraid that the whole week would be like this and that I’d have to tell Sister Brimley that I hadn’t found anyone to help.
At afternoon recess, the spring sun warmed my back. There must have been a hundred birds singing among the tiny yellow-green leaves on the big tree in the playground. I forgot about giving and Mrs. Brimley, took a jump rope, and walked towards Maria. Maria just moved here last week, and she doesn’t speak English very well. She mostly stands by herself on the playground.
“Maria, want to jump? Like this.” I jumped a few times. Maria’s dark eyes sparkled, and the shadow of a smile tickled her bronze face. She nodded. As I swung the rope over my head, she jumped in with me. We were laughing together by the end of recess.
When the bell rang to go home, Mrs. Hansen, our teacher, put her arm around me and whispered, “Sara, thank you for playing with Maria today. That’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh since she came.”
Suddenly I understood that this was what Sister Brimley meant when she said for me to give of myself. I really did have something to give! I determined right then and there to find someone every day to share with.

Listening among the television audience to his very first talk as a General Authority was President Faust’s widowed mother; she wept with joy over the call that had come to her son. Not only was there fine parental training, but important training was given, too, by pioneer and convert grandparents. For instance, Grandmother Faust told young Jim stories of her having heard Brigham Young speak in the Tabernacle. Decades earlier, President Faust’s great-grandfather, a young German emigrant going through Utah on his way to the California gold rush, met a young lady in Fillmore. He was so attracted to her that he later panned just enough gold to pay for a wedding ring and then hastened back to marry her and later join the Church!

Erik Fagergren sloshes along one of the dirt-turned-to-mud roads that crisscross the San Rafael Valley between his home in Patagonia, Arizona, and the United States/Mexico border. The rain has filled the usually dry washes that cross the road into ponds and filled streams and gullies into raging rivers. The four-wheel-drive Suburban plows through one of the small ponds, the exhaust pipe belching bubbles, and the tires churning muddy water.
Erik points through the rain-streaked windshield at the Patagonia Mountains that jut out of the desert. It was in those mountains that Erik led his dad, bishop, and three other Scouts on a 50-mile hike for his Backpacking merit badge.
Impaling the storm clouds to the east are the Huachuca Mountains. On a lake in these mountains, Erik earned his Rowing and Canoeing merit badges.
The road Erik is bumping along passes old film sets where the musical Oklahoma and many western movies were filmed. It is also the road Erik pedaled for 50 miles to finish his Cycling merit badge. Some of the other cycling trips he took for this merit badge took him on the highway that leads north out of Patagonia to Sanoita.
Traveling south on the highway out of Patagonia is Nogales, Arizona, where Erik attended church and Scout meetings. Being active in the Church and Scouting for so many years, and living 30 minutes from the church, means putting in a lot of miles—especially when there are six brothers and sisters in the family. The vehicle that has taken them to most of their meetings and activities has traveled more than 500,000 miles—the equivalent of about 20 times around the earth or just a little farther than to the moon and back.
But the Fagergren family’s dedication to Scouting has done more than rack up miles on the family car. Erik says the standards of Scouting reinforce the standards he has learned in church.
Erik’s decision to follow his family’s legacy in Scouting earned him the title of Outstanding Eagle Scout of the Year, a national award given by the Sons of the American Revolution. The award came with a check for $5,000—money Erik says will help pay for his mission. But his passion for Scouting has earned him something more valuable than mission money; it has helped him learn values that make good missionaries.
Erik’s love of Scouting and his goal to earn his Eagle Award came in part from his dad and two older brothers who were also Eagle Scouts. Their examples helped Erik get involved in Scouting earlier than most people. Before he turned 12, his dad was the Scoutmaster and his brothers were active in Scouting. Although he wasn’t officially a Scout, Erik went camping with his dad and the troops and anxiously anticipated the day he would wear a uniform.
“I couldn’t wait until I turned 12 so I could actually start earning my merit badges and ranks,” Erik says. When he turned 12, he began walking in the footsteps of his dad and older brothers toward his Eagle Award. Along with the merit badges and rank advancements, Erik learned important values.
The Scout slogan is “Do a good turn daily,” and service is a value that Erik has tried to internalize. During high school, Erik donated time at a farm for injured animals. The owners of the farm were getting old, and their health kept them from working as much as they wanted. So every day after school, Erik would spend time feeding the animals and doing other chores on the farm.
Erik has served in many leadership roles in Church and school. He has served in quorum leadership as a deacon, teacher, and priest. As the only priesthood-holding student in his school, he set an example by living up to Church standards.
When it was time for Erik’s Eagle project, he found plenty of people willing to help. “I always went out helping the other guys with their projects, and they helped me in return,” he says.
The cemetery in Patagonia sits on a hill and overlooks the town. Although it is still used, the cemetery doesn’t receive continual maintenance, and many of the headstones were buried, and weeds and trash had covered others. For his Eagle project, Erik, with the help of his family, ward members, and friends from the community, cleaned the cemetery.
But when he earned his Eagle Award, Erik didn’t stop Scouting. “When I got my Eagle, I had about 60 merit badges, about half of the possible badges. My Scoutmaster would always joke around, ‘So when are you going to finish them all?’” Although it was just a joke, Erik started to wonder if it really could be done. “I started out just wishing. Then I was talking to my dad and he said, ‘Maybe you should try,’ so I just started working on it.”
Three weeks before his 18th birthday, Erik earned his Bugling merit badge. That brought the total number to 119, all that were available.
“Through doing the merit badges, it helped me choose what I want to go into as a career. There is such a variety of merit badges. By doing each one and researching each field, I learned about what I would do in each job,” Erik says. Inspired by the Engineering and Computers merit badges, Erik now studies mechanical engineering as a freshman at the University of Arizona.
As well as directing him in his career choice, Scouting helped Erik decide what kind of person he wants to be. He says Scouting teaches values, such as those in the Scout Law. “I haven’t forgotten it,” Erik says. “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent,” he quotes it without hesitation.
Everybody who knows Erik comments on his high standards, and they often use words from the Scout Law to describe him. Erik believes these standards have helped him fulfill his priesthood responsibilities and prepare for a mission. “Keeping the standards of the Church and Scouting, I was prepared to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood,” Erik says. “When you learn values, they help no matter what situation you are in.”
When Erik turns 19, he plans to serve a mission, something he has looked forward to for a long time. Although he still has to wait a year, Erik says since he has been ordained an elder, he already has many of the responsibilities of a missionary; he just isn’t set apart to do it full-time. “Being an elder means you are in the service of your fellow beings,” Erik says. “I’m responsible to let people know the truth of the gospel.”
Until Erik is called as a full-time missionary, the skills he learned in Scouting will keep him busy exploring caves, rafting rivers, and biking trails in the Sonora Desert. Once he goes on a mission the climbing ropes, backpack, bike, and raft will have to be put away. But the values he learned will stay with him and help him share the gospel as someone who is striving to live it.

“Unity Among All His People” declares the sign carried by the Young Women of the Bismarck North Dakota Ward. Dressed in their Native American “fancy shawls,” they are marching in the International Powwow and Bismarck Folkfest Parade ahead of a grand float, complete with a large headdress. The Bismarck Young Women have become a fixture in the parade over the last several years, and their float has won multiple first-prize honors. Much of this success is thanks to the guidance and inspiration of Sister Marilyn One Feather, who started the unity float.
Sister One Feather wanted the float project to promote unity. She invited the Young Women to be involved in building and decorating the float, which encouraged a spirit of friendship among the girls. Speaking of the experience, Mia Maid Barbara Gietzen said, “It builds faith. It takes a lot of faith to get these things together.”
During the parade, Mia Maids Jenna Byzewski and Mindy Bowen, who both have Native American ancestry, participated in traditional dances alongside the float with several other Native American youth from the community. This kind of collaboration and interaction will, Sister One Feather hopes, foster a greater spirit of fellowship within the community at large.
The float brought the Young Women together as a group and taught them the value of unity—within the Church and the community. “Having unity in your life is really important,” says Beehive Becky Gietzen. “Everybody—not just the people you hang around with, but everybody—should be a part of the group. You try not to leave anybody out.”

“Tell me about this picture, Mom,” Jeff asked. He had pulled a picture out of the large red velvet photo album that had been his great-grandma’s. “Who is the little boy? I’ve never seen him before. The little girl looks like you.”
Mother sighed. “It’s a picture of my cousin Kenny and me. Kenny was my best friend too. We both loved the early spring, when buds began to form on brown branches, green grass peeked out from patches of melting snow, and the river roared through the farm with spring runoff. Kenny was deaf and couldn’t hear it, but he could feel the spring sun warm his back as he played with Bridget, his huge pet sheep who was about to have baby lambs.
“We were both five. We talked to each other with our own made-up sign language. I loved playing with his large collection of farm toys, and he was always willing to share them.
“On that beautiful spring afternoon, the snow had been totally replaced by a carpet of green grass, and the creek had calmed from a roar to a strong, pleasant chuckle. Our mothers decided to let us go fishing.
“I was eager to try out my new bamboo fishing pole. A real fishing pole. Always before I had used a thick stick, like the one Kenny was still using.
“We sat side by side on our little perch, not moving so that we wouldn’t scare the fish. I threw my line into the creek, just the way my mother had shown me, being careful not to get it tangled. Kenny just sat there with his stick-pole, a sad expression on his face. Oh no! I thought. He wants a new pole too.
“Soon he motioned to me in our own private language that he wanted to use my new fishing pole. I shrugged him away, pretending not to understand. He tried again, more insistent this time. I looked away, pointedly ignoring him. Frustrated, he tried to pull the pole out of my hands.
“I pried his fingers off my pole and pushed him away. I wanted to tell him, ‘Just let me use it first for a little while. I’ll let you try it if you’ll only wait until I’m ready.’ But I didn’t know how.
“He was hurt and turned away. I reached over to pinch him, angry because he wouldn’t let me enjoy my new pole even for a moment.
“I looked up to see my mother taking our picture. My face burned with shame. I felt small and little and mean. I didn’t feel like fishing anymore.
“Handing my precious new pole to Kenny, I left to go play with Bridget. I loved to put my fingers deep into her soft wool. I looked back to see that Kenny was offering me his thick stick and motioning for me to come back and sit by him, but I ignored him.
“We had a picnic that day on the vast green lawn, with fancy little sandwiches cut in the shape of hearts, pink lemonade, and Aunt Dorothy’s angel food cake. We laughed when Bridget tried to steal a nibble.
“That was the last time I ever got to play with Kenny. Our mothers had planned this special day for us because Kenny was going into the hospital to have surgery, which the doctors hoped would help his ears.
“But something went wrong. Kenny died. My mother said that Kenny went to live with Jesus. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t stay right here with us.
“I missed him terribly. His mother put away all his farm toys and never got them out again. I wanted to play with them because then I could pretend that he was playing with me.
“Mom’s pictures came back from being developed, and the pinch was in that picture! Mom had the picture made big and ordered several copies so that Grandma and all my aunts and uncles could have a picture of Kenny.
“I have always felt sad about that mean pinch. Every time I see that picture of Kenny and me fishing, it makes me feel bad.”
Jeff looked up at his mother’s sad face. “Don’t you remember what you told me when I said I hated Jared because he teased me? You told me that learning to get along was just like taking piano lessons. It takes practice, and sometimes you stumble.
“And when I was learning to ride my bike, Daddy held on to me as long as he could, then ran beside me to try to keep me from falling. Sometimes I fell anyway. You said learning to be like Jesus Christ was something like that, only His hand is always there for us when we reach for it.
“Mama, I think from now on when you look at this picture of the pinch, it should remind you of Jesus Christ instead of making you feel sad.”
Mother gave Jeff a big hug and kiss. “Thank you, Jeff. From now on, when I look at this picture, it will make me happy. I will think of the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.”

I share with you an incident or two from the early life of President Marion G. Romney, best told in his own words:
“I’m a Mexican by birth. I was born in Colonia Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. My parents happened to be down there at the time. I was raised there until I was about fifteen years old. During the last two or three of those years, the Madero Revolution was in progress. The rebels and the federalists were chasing each other through the country; each taking everything we colonists had, by way of arms and ammunition and by way of supplies. Finally we were forced to leave. I came out of Mexico with the Mormon refugees in 1912.
“I remember I had a very thrilling experience on the way from where we lived to the railroad station about [13 kilometers] south of Colonia Juárez. We went in a wagon. … I was riding with my mother and her seven children and my uncle (her brother) and his family of about five or six children. … We had one trunk—that was all we were able to bring. I was seated on the trunk in the back of the wagon. … The Mexican rebel army was coming up the valley from the railroad station towards our town. They were not in formation. They were riding their saddle horses. Their guns were in the scabbards. Two of them stopped us and searched us. They said they were looking for guns. We didn’t have any guns or ammunition. They did find [20 pesos] on my uncle. … They took that and then waved us on. They went up the road about as far as from here to the back of this room, stopped, turned around, drew their guns from their scabbards, and pointed them down the road at me. As I looked up the barrels of those guns, they looked like cannons to me. They didn’t pull their triggers, however, as evidenced by the fact that I am here to tell the story. That was a very thrilling experience! One of my maturing experiences.
“The rebels blew up the railroad track after the train we were on passed over it. Later, Father and the rest of the men came out to El Paso, Texas, on horseback. We never returned nor did we recover any of our property while my father lived.
“Father and I went to work to earn a living for his large family. There were no welfare programs then. We had a difficult time making a living” (To Him That Asketh in the Spirit, Salt Lake Institute of Religion Devotional [18 October 1974] 2–3).
After he was married and his family was started, President Romney worked full time at the post office in order to provide for his family while he went through law school. In those difficult conditions his marks were high and his scholarship excellent; he was later admitted to the Order of the Coif, which admits only the most distinguished scholars. He practiced law and became a bishop, a stake president, one of the first Assistants to the Twelve, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, and a member of the First Presidency. He demonstrated his great love and compassion for people through his many years of guidance in the welfare program of the Church.

On my street lives a little boy known as the Sidewalk King. This little boy cruises the neighborhood on his black and gold plastic racing tricycle, living in his own world of make-believe and heroic deeds. One of his favorite things to do is to back that little vehicle up against his house and then—gathering up all the power and energy at his command—shoot dangerously out onto the street. Then, pulling handlebars around hard, he pedals back again. Nearby neighbors can’t help but hear him.
His parents, understanding more than he does about the dangers involved, have warned him and pleaded with him. Not long ago, his father found it necessary to give his young son a strong chastising to help him understand how dangerous it is to ride out in the street. As he ran into the house he sobbed to his parents, “You just want to ruin all my fun.”
To the mind of a four-year-old, that is exactly what it appeared. But, oh, how wrong he was. His parents weren’t trying to ruin his fun; they were trying to keep him from harm, perhaps even death. Freedom to him was largely doing what he wanted without restraint and interference.
I know of another little boy who came home from school one day long ago to find a rented piano in the house. “What’s this piano here for?” he asked his mother.
“It’s for you,” she replied.
“For me?” he asked. “Why for me?”
“Because,” she said, “you are going to take piano lessons.”
He said he didn’t want to take piano lessons. But she had already arranged for a teacher.
Well, this little boy began to miss a few lessons. One day his mother asked, “How was your piano lesson?”
He said, “Fine. I’m doing pretty well.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. “I just talked to your teacher, and she hasn’t seen you for a while.” He had been caught. He didn’t know what the punishment would be, but he knew it would be bad. Then his mother said, “Just for that, you may not take piano lessons.”
He tried to look punished, but inside he was very happy with her decision. Mother, he thought, you have hit on the perfect punishment. I hope you use it often. Within his heart he felt that he had just been liberated. He was free from practice, free from lessons, free from discipline, routine, and regimentation—free from all that seemed to limit his freedom.
When he grew to be a man, he was sitting one day in a church meeting during which a woman was to sing a solo. When her time to perform came, she walked up to the podium and announced, “My accompanist could not come today. I need someone to accompany me.” Looking over the congregation, she saw a man who used to teach piano. “Will you accompany me?” she asked him. The man came forward, and she handed him the music.
As he watched this happen, my friend who had avoided music lessons thought, What would I have done if she had asked me? If she had asked me, I would have been free to do only one thing: to say no. Suddenly, he realized that what he had assumed to be one of the great liberating moments of his life—when his mother said, “You may not take lessons any more”—was in fact a moment of bondage, not freedom. As he sat in that church meeting, he might as well have been handcuffed, for he could not have played the piano if he had wanted to. The other man was free; he could choose to play or not to play. Ultimately, then, freedom is more a matter of capacity and ability than of permission.
Too often, we believe the myth that we are free to do whatever we want to do. True, most of us are free to develop any ability or skill we choose; but until we develop them, we remain in bondage to our own lack of capacity. Even in lands of great political freedom, I fear that many of us live in bondage. Misunderstanding the principle of freedom, we lead lives of limited capacity and, thus, diminished choice. We tell ourselves that the only mason we are not doing certain positive, productive things is that we don’t want to. If we don’t play the piano, for example, we like to think it’s because we don’t want to. Actually, we don’t play because we are not free to. Remember, if we are only free to choose one thing—that is, not to play—we are not really free.

Elder Tyler Dawson and I were asked to reopen the area of Katlehong, south of Johannesburg, in 1994. South Africa was undergoing political and social changes, and it was a period of great uncertainty and violence.
The missionaries had been pulled out of Katlehong for safety reasons a few years before, and we were asked to return and assist the members as possible.
There were some rules though. We lived in a neighborhood outside of our area, and we were not allowed in Katlehong at night, nor were we allowed to walk from home to home; instead, we were only allowed to drive to and from member and investigator homes. We were to phone the police each morning to ask whether it would be safe for us to enter our area. It rarely was safe, and the police would often encourage us to stay away.
Being new to the area, we asked a young man who was the branch president’s son to show us where the members lived. He was reluctant to join us and asked for time to think about it. He later contacted us and agreed to assist us, so we arranged to pick him up from school.
We drove to the agreed spot and he came out from behind a tree, dived in through the back door of the car, and lay down in the footwell. Elder Dawson and I looked at each other somewhat confused and I offered the front seat so that he could have a better view of where we were driving, but he insisted that he was comfortable. Occasionally he would lift his head and direct us as needed. Sometimes he would join us in a member’s home, but at other homes he would stay in the car. We did not press him on this and were just grateful for his help. In this way we got to meet the members of Katlehong. We dropped the young man off at home after a few hours.
I was transferred out of the area but through a series of coincidences happened to pass through a few months later and was able to visit the branch on a Sunday when this young man who had shown us around was giving a talk. I now understand that Heavenly Father wanted me to learn a few things. The young man spoke humbly and sincerely of the experience he had of being asked to show the missionaries around and said that when he was first asked he was very worried because he knew that if he was recognized he could be killed, but he trusted that God would watch over and protect him, and he had faith that he needed to do the Lord’s work, and so he had agreed.
I sat in the congregation astonished at what I had heard. For me he had just been a kid with a bad attitude. That day I began to understand what we had really asked of him and the courage it took for him to answer.

A recent nationwide survey found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans “believe that miracles still occur today as [they did] in ancient times.” A third of those surveyed said they had “experienced or witnessed a divine healing.”4 Many Latter-day Saints have experienced the power of faith in healing the sick. We also hear examples of this among people of faith in other churches. A Texas newspaperman described such a miracle. When a five-year-old girl breathed with difficulty and became feverish, her parents rushed her to the hospital. By the time she arrived there, her kidneys and lungs had shut down, her fever was 107 degrees, and her body was bright red and covered with purple lesions. The doctors said she was dying of toxic shock syndrome, cause unknown. As word spread to family and friends, God-fearing people began praying for her, and a special prayer service was held in their Protestant congregation in Waco, Texas. Miraculously, she suddenly returned from the brink of death and was released from the hospital in a little over a week. Her grandfather wrote, “She is living proof that God does answer prayers and work miracles.”5

Three years later I joined the Church, and two years after that I went on a mission to the Central States Mission. Halfway through my mission, Elder Spencer W. Kimball came to visit and it was our privilege to hear from him at a missionary conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Toward the end of his talk he spoke to us upon the subject of love—love between parents and children—and exhorted us young missionaries to be sure to write our parents and tell them how much we loved and appreciated them.
The guilt of my last hours with my father swept over me, and as the closing song was sung and the benediction offered, I began to cry. As the people began to leave the room, my crying grew into bitter tears and uncontrollable sobbings. My hands and feet grew numb and I became oblivious to everything around me. My companion, my district leader, the mission president—each came back into the room and tried to comfort me, but to no avail.
Then I became aware of someone’s arms around me, of a gentle cheek pressed against my own, of kind words softly spoken. Elder Kimball was embracing me with the same love and affection with which I now embrace my own small children. As I began to regain control of myself, he spoke words of comfort and reassurance. Later, upon his return to Salt Lake City, he would send me a copy of a talk he had given that would give me further comfort. I do not remember what was said that afternoon as I sat alone with Elder Kimball. His words have long since escaped my memory. But I will always remember his sincere show of love and deep concern for a young missionary whom he had never before seen, his cheek against my own, and his warm, loving embrace.

Some mothers, some fathers, some children, some families are called upon to bear a heavy burden here in mortality. Such a family was the Borgstrom family in northern Utah. The time was World War II. Fierce battles raged in various parts of the world.
Tragically, the Borgstroms lost four of their five sons who were serving in the armed forces. Within a six-month period, all four sons gave their lives—each in a different part of the world.
Following the war, the bodies of the four Borgstrom brothers were brought home to Tremonton, and an appropriate service was conducted, filling the Garland Utah Tabernacle. General Mark Clark attended the service. He later spoke with tenderness these words: “I flew to Garland the morning of June 26. Met with the family, including among others the mother, father, and two remaining sons, … one a lad in his teens. I had never met a more stoic family group.
“As the four flag-draped coffins were lined up in front of us in the church, and as I sat by these brave parents, I was deeply impressed by their understanding, by their faith, and their pride in these magnificent sons who had made the supreme sacrifice for principles which had been instilled in them by noble parents since childhood.
“During the luncheon period, Mrs. Borgstrom turned to me and said in a low voice, ‘Are you going to take my young one?’ I answered in a whisper that as long as I remained in command of the army on the West Coast, if her boy were called I would do my best to have him assigned to duty at home.
“In the middle of this whispered conversation with the mother, the father suddenly leaned forward and said to Mrs. Borgstrom: ‘Mother, I have overheard your conversation with the general about our youngest. We know that if and when his country needs him, he will go.’
“I could hardly contain my emotions. Here were parents with four sons lying dead from wounds received in battle and yet were ready to make the last sacrifice if their country required it.”
It is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that touched home and heart that ever-to-be-remembered day.

For example, when my daughter was 18, she would not go to bed and insisted on leaving her light on all night. She would get very angry and say, “I don’t want to go to bed because there are missionaries hiding in my dresser drawer.” I recognized this as clearly delusional.
Rather than being angry, I tried to understand. What would cause her to be so frightened? As I thought about it, I realized that many of her friends were getting married. She had attended bridal parties where they had received beautiful things they would put in their dresser drawers. They were getting married, leaving her, and were no longer available as her friends. She also longed to have those same experiences and had expressed concerns: “Will I ever marry? Will anyone ever love me? Will anyone ever give me a bridal party and beautiful things?” Her friends had married returned missionaries. She could see that returned missionaries were great husbands. Somehow, all of this went together. She was also poignantly and painfully aware that she lacked the skills and the ability to manage the demands of a marriage. She was unable to verbally express those conflicts or even fully understand them, so all we heard was a delusion about missionaries hiding in the drawer. Once I began to understand her inner experience, I was able to talk it through with her. We worked together to verbalize her conflicts and grieve the sorrow of not being able to marry. The problem behavior stopped, and she was able to sleep peacefully.

Indeed, sometime not long after 9/11, a missionary asked me in all honesty and full of faith, “Elder Holland, are these the last days?” I saw the earnestness in his face and some of the fear in his eyes. I said, “Yes, Elder, we are in the last days, but there is really nothing new about that. The promised Second Coming of the Savior began with the First Vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1820. We can be certain that we are in the last days—years and years of them.” I gave him a friendly shake of the hand and sent him on his way. He smiled, seemed more reassured to put all this in some context, and held his head a little higher as he left me.
I hasten to say that I do know what this young man was really asking. What he really meant was “Will I finish my mission? Is there any point in getting an education? Can I hope for a marriage? Do I have a future? Is there any happiness ahead for me?” And I say to you what I said to him, “Yes, certainly—to all those questions.”

The first, Brent, grew up attending church and hearing daily sermonettes in his home on gospel subjects. In spite of this, he was deeply unhappy. He felt that he was fenced in by commandments and restrictions, supposedly imposed by God to dictate what he should not do, what he was forbidden to enjoy, and even what he must not think. Only a motivation to succeed, to have status in others’ eyes, kept him going in the Church. But “doing the right thing for the wrong reasons” brought him no happiness. He didn’t feel free.
He therefore began to seek happiness outside the Church. He discovered the “new morality” and became convinced that any suppression of or restriction upon his physical urges was wrong, that every commandment was a curse on life, that subscribing to religious and moral prescriptions was a way of hating one’s own body and the desires that affect it.
Tragically, supposing that all Church members obeyed the commandments for the same reasons he once did—out of selfishness or fear—he called them hypocritical and unloving. He told me that abandoning himself in total response to every physical desire was bringing him the first happiness he had ever known. Yet, even as he told me this, it was clear that his first exciting taste of what appeared to him to be freedom would turn bitter on his tongue. And I have learned since that, though it provided a momentary titillation of his senses, it is bringing him no peace. On the contrary, though he has tried to escape the guilt of disobeying the commandments by pretending that they are foolishness, that guilt is returning now to haunt him as never before.
What happened to Brent? Why did he leave the Church in order to find love, honesty, freedom, and happiness, the very blessings that others find in the Church? I think the answer is this: Even though Brent heard constant sermonizing in church and at home, he apparently never experienced much of the Spirit of God or tasted the joys of the gospel. Though bludgeoned all his life with words, he hadn’t felt the love and warmth that are fruits of the gospel. The words were merely meant to describe it. The words without the experiences were meaningless. Hence, when finally he encountered a way of life that promised to remove the restrictions that had condemned him and that he hoped would sweep away his guilt, his life in the Church seemed like a dingy black-and-white movie—the lamp of the projector being nearly burnt out—when compared with the technicolor of this alluring new way of life. The only version of the gospel he could compare to the luridly colorful worldliness that enticed him was pale and meaningless. Given these alternatives, how else could he have chosen?
Brent had never really tasted of the gospel; he had only heard descriptions of it. A man can learn all there is to know about water, that it is composed of molecules made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen bonded together by a certain kind of chemical bond, and so on; but no matter how much he knows about it, unless he drinks of it he will die. So with Brent: he has never tasted the waters of life. And now he is headed on a collision course toward certain disaster, tragically, not knowing that he is.

When the Kaysville Utah East Stake youth committee decided to stage a musical in honor of the Bicentennial, they didn’t expect the play’s nonmember author to fly from New York for the production. But nothing could have given them any more cause for enthusiasm and potential stage fright.
The young people voted to put on Tall Tom Jefferson, complete with youth orchestra. After writing to request the musical score, they were told there was no complete orchestration available to them. One of the adult leaders decided to call the New York publishing company. She soon found out she was talking to the play’s author, Ruth Roberts. Mrs. Roberts was told the production would be staged by a Church group, and her interest in Mormons and Utah increased. Of course, she was invited to attend the Kaysville performances and see Utah. Mrs. Roberts offered to lend the group the score used by a professional orchestra in England, but added she thought the arrangement much too difficult for high school-age players.
Within days, over 1,000 pages of music—23 pounds—reached Kaysville, and with them came a letter from Mrs. Roberts accepting the group’s invitation to attend their production. The young people would get the opportunity to show her their acting and musical finesse.
Meanwhile the cast was getting ready to introduce Jefferson and his friends to their friends. With more than 150 cast members, making the costumes kept wives, mothers, and sisters busy with their needles. The chorus found the orchestration and choral books to be in different keys with syncopated tempos. A major transposition overhaul put the two in step with each other and the cast.
On opening night Mrs. Roberts was there; and the local high school gym was full of hoop skirts, three-corner hats, waistcoats, and frilly petticoats, along with anxious moms and dads and restless little brothers. But it didn’t take very long before everyone settled down to enjoy an evening of early American history a lot less painful than anyone could recall it ever having been before.