Gospel Story Finder

Our uncle Logan is on a mission. He said that miracles happen when you open your mouth and talk about the gospel as best you can. We gave away 10 copies of the Book of Mormon in one week by opening our mouths to people we met as we ran errands with our mom. Several people thanked us for the book and told us they were going to read it! Now we keep copies of the Book of Mormon in our van so we can keep being missionaries.
Eliza and Lucy B., ages 7 and 6, Virginia

In my office I have a little plaque that reads, “Above all else, brethren, let us think straight”—the last known words spoken by my grandfather Elder Melvin J. Ballard in mortality. As I understand the circumstances, Grandfather, after a very grueling experience of preaching the gospel all through the eastern part of the United States, drove his own car from New York to Salt Lake City. When he came into the driveway at his home, he collapsed and was rushed to the LDS Hospital and was found to have an acute case of leukemia. He never came out of the hospital. He went in and out of coma, but as I have had it told to me by my father, who was there, Grandfather pushed himself up on his elbows and looked into his hospital room as though he were addressing a congregation or a group and said with clarity, “And above all else, brethren, let us think straight.” I don’t go into my office any day of the week that I don’t see that, and I find that it helps me a little bit.

It has become easy to shock people. I remember once a lady asked my mom, “Are all these kids yours?” We just looked at her and said, “Of course not, lady. She checks us out of the library.” I admit that being in a large family can cause a little bit of commotion. People always stop and stare or look at us funny. Maybe it’s because there are so many of us, or maybe it’s because the colors of skin don’t seem to mix or match.

Indexing has brought a simplicity and ease to family history work. “In the past if you were looking for relatives, you had to wind through microfilm. When you found a family member you were looking for, you might be able to find connecting names. So you would rewind and wind the microfilm again and again,” says József Szabadkai, an indexer in Hungary.
Batches from countries around the world are being provided for indexing as records from those countries are acquired by FamilySearch. Brother Szabadkai is from Hungary, but he began indexing records in English and Afrikaans until records from his own country were available. “It was one of the happiest moments when the first Hungarian batch was announced in the beginning of 2011,” says Brother Szabadkai. “Many Hungarian members—young and old—have registered and become ‘maniac’ indexers since that time.” Brother Szabadkai’s enthusiasm stems from the hope that many of his own ancestors will be found as these records are transcribed. “As we build up this fantastic database, we will be able to find more of our family names, saving time and helping our ancestors receive their saving ordinances faster.”

I had just moved into a new house, and I felt really shy about going to a new school. When I arrived at school, I saw an older girl picking on a little girl about my age because she walked differently. I ran over and said, “Stop picking on her!”
The older girl said, “Leave me alone!” and I said, “No, you leave her alone!”
The unkind girl ran away. The other girl and I are still friends.

Lacey thought back to a time just before Kylee had left for school. They were having fun on the front porch eating ice cream and talking, but Lacey couldn’t stop scratching a mosquito bite on her arm. It itched so much!
“Don’t scratch it,” Kylee warned. “The more you scratch it, the worse it gets.”
“But I have to scratch it!” Lacey complained. “It itches too much. It’s driving me crazy!”
“You don’t have to scratch it,” Kylee said. She licked her ice cream cone and smiled. “You may not be able to control whether or not you have a mosquito bite, but you can control how much you scratch it.”

Henry B. Eyring
(58) Young Henry B. Eyring is blessed as he accompanies his bishop on visits to members in need.

All of us may have been at one time or other confused as to just who our true friends are. For example, some years ago in my medical office I had occasion to examine a young man approximately the same age as you young men of the Aaronic Priesthood. After several tests, I found myself amazed. He was an alcoholic!
He told me he had begun having alcoholic drinks at a very early age due to the encouragement of his so-called “friends.” I wondered to myself, Are “friends” who encourage us to break the Word of Wisdom really true friends? Phrases like “Just try it once” or “Everybody does it” are all too commonly used. Would true friends pressure us that way?

Does it bother them to be left out of some parties? Melanie says, “I don’t want to go to parties where they will be drinking. It doesn’t bother me if they don’t ask me because I don’t want to be there anyway. There was a party at school, but I didn’t show up because I found out the purpose of the party was to get drunk. The next day at school, they asked me why I didn’t come. I just said I didn’t want to.”

Among my earliest memories is climbing onto a kitchen chair to watch my grandmother iron her temple clothes. When I asked why she went to the temple, she told me, “To learn about Jesus.” A warm feeling filled me. I knew I would someday enter the temple to learn about Jesus Christ as she did.

Imagine a 17-year-old boy walking through a school. He passes by two young women he knows. Each young woman hands him a piece of paper. The first hands him an envelope with a heart-shaped sticker on it, and the second hands him a flyer with an image of a red cross on it. Without reading either one, he starts thinking about asking the first girl to a dance and giving the second girl a donation for recent flood victims. He has a different reaction to the images because each one holds a different meaning for him; in other words, they are symbols.

Best Little Wingman, by Janet Allen, illustrated by Jim Postier. On a snowy night, Janny has a special job to do to help her father. They go out together in his snowplow, and a daddy and a daughter do a good night’s work.

On June 15, 1987, as a member of the area presidency based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I flew to Asunción where I met with John J. Whetten, president of the Paraguay Asunción Mission. With a few other brethren, we loaded two small trucks with a pedal sewing machine, cloth to make shirts and dresses, rice, beans, salt, and a few other necessities. We also carried with us a copy of Gospel Principles, newly translated into Nivaclé. (The Nivaclé Indians do not speak Paraguay’s predominant languages of Spanish or Guarani, but their own dialect.)
From Asunción, we traveled about 480 kilometers to the city of Filadelfia, a drive of seven hours on a good road. The next day, we traveled the 250 kilometers to Mistolar going about 15 to 25 kilometers per hour over an extremely rutted, dusty road. Even a sprinkle of rain would have turned the road to mud, preventing us from reaching the settlement. This shorter section of our journey took almost nine hours.
When we arrived at Mistolar, we were warmly welcomed by mostly women and children. I asked where some of the men were and was told they were hunting. When I asked what the men were hunting the sisters said, “Anything.” (Some of the men walk the twenty-kilometer round trip to the river to fish.) The settlement’s surviving livestock included three sheep, a few chickens, a couple of goats and a scrawny dog. With little nourishing food or clothing saved from the floods, these Saints shivered in the 20 (C) degree winter weather of June. At night, their stick-and-reed homes offered little protection from freezing temperatures of 0 to 5 (C) degrees. The other eleven months of the year are extremely hot—often over 48 (C) degrees.
But in spite of all of the hardships they had endured for months, the Mistolar Saints were without one single complaint. There wasn’t one sad face. Not once did they do anything but smile.
They offered to kill one of the sheep for a meal that afternoon and we politely declined. Nevertheless, they insisted. We ate sparingly of the meat, knowing they would use anything we left.
I asked the young president of the Mistolar Branch, “Do you have any sick among your members?” (The people in this land die at an early age. Statistically, of 200 Nivaclé, only eleven will die of old age; the rest will die of disease.) He looked at me, paused, and said, “I don’t think so; let me ask the other brethren.” A few minutes later after conversing with two of the brethren, he said, “My brethren told me, ‘Of course we have no sick.’” He added, by way of simple explanation, “There are thirty-nine of us who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. We watch over and bless our people.”
I asked, “Do you have any members who are not quite as active as the rest?” He said, “Elder Brewerton, of course not. We have accepted the Lord through baptism. We are all true Saints, totally active in our worship of the Lord.”
For the evening meeting, I asked the branch president to find some members to pray. One sister talked to the Lord in very a personal manner saying, “Father we have lost our beautiful chapel, we have lost our clothing, we no longer have homes, we have no food to eat, we don’t have any materials to build anything, we have to walk ten kilometers to get a drink of dirty river water and we don’t have a bucket. But we desire to express to you our gratitude for our good health, for our happiness, and for our Church membership. Father, we want you to know that under any conditions we will be true, strong and faithful to the covenants we made to thee when we were baptized.”
We visitors were very humbled by their example of faith. During the meeting, we dedicated their land to the Lord. We visited each family site and saw where they would plant their gardens when the rains would come.

Every time I get a treat,
I have to share with little Pete.
Whenever I go out to play,
Mom says, “Take Pete along, OK?”
When I play race cars in my room,
Pete grabs my cars and yells, “Vroom! Vroom!”
The last two years on my birthday,
Pete blew out my candles, cheered, “Hurray!”
When I come home each day from school,
Pete’s by the window on a stool.
And if there is a storm outside,
Pete grabs my legs and tries to hide.
Every time Pete goes to bed,
He asks for a story I’ve already read.
And every time I think of Pete,
I smile and think, He’s pretty neat!

I want to especially thank this missionary choir. I had an experience I think they may be interested in, and you may find it interesting also. Many years ago I had a desperate call from the head of the missionary training center. He said, “President Monson, I have a missionary who is going home. Nothing can prevent him from quitting.”
I replied, “Well, that’s not singular. It’s happened before. What’s his problem?”
He said, “He’s been called to a Spanish-speaking mission, and he’s absolutely certain he cannot learn Spanish.”
I said, “I have a suggestion for you. Tomorrow morning have him attend a class learning Japanese. And then have him report to you at 12:00 noon.”
The next morning he phoned at 10:00! He said, “The young man is here with me now, and he wants me to know he’s absolutely certain he can learn Spanish.”
When there’s a will, there’s a way.

The power and influence one person can have is enormous. It was one Sarah Ann Meeks who paid what seemed to be her ultimate sacrifice as she stood alone on the doorstep of her home in far-off England nearly a century and a half ago. Her father met her there with a small bundle containing a few of her belongings and with these words, “You join that church and you must never set foot in my home again.” Unfortunately that was the last she saw of her family.

Alone? Very much alone! She could have bowed to that impossible, heart-wrenching rejection. But no—she loved the Lord. She had been touched by the Spirit and knew that the gospel of Jesus Christ had been restored to the earth in its fulness. She knew that she must stand as a witness to the truthfulness of this message. She knew that she could make a difference.

From that one stalwart woman has sprung a progeny of faithful Latter-day Saints difficult to number. Literally hundreds of her descendants have stood as witnesses all around the world testifying to the reality of the Restoration of the gospel—the same message she embraced as she stood alone. As one of those descendants I bear solemn testimony to all the world that God the Eternal Father lives, that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and that leading The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today is a living and loving prophet of God, serving with all the meaning that sacred title implies.

(President of the Church from 1945 to 1951)
Christmastime at the Smith home was filled with fun and service. On Christmas Eve family members hung stockings in front of the fireplace to collect presents. As a joke, President George Albert Smith always hung a huge stocking instead of a regular sock. On Christmas day President Smith took his children to visit people who might be feeling lonely or forgotten. Once he and his daughter Emily visited an elderly woman who lived alone. The woman was so happy to have visitors that she cried. She said she was grateful that someone had thought of her on Christmas.

They finally decided to each contribute some poems into a collection to be sent to an editor. The poems were accepted for publication, but the girls had to pay the printing expense. Only two copies were bought at that time, but these same two copies would be worth a fortune today.
Before the poems were sent off, the girls had a decision to make—what names to attach to their work. Women’s writing was not regarded highly then, so they desired to choose names that were neither feminine nor masculine. Each chose a name using her first initial. Anne chose Acton, Emily, Ellis; and Charlotte, Currer. They wanted the last name to begin with B and finally decided upon Bell.

The temple is very beautiful on the outside—it has many flowers. But when I was sealed to my family, I saw that it is even more beautiful inside.
Nicolas M., age 5, Colombia

“The United States Post Office dead-letter department receives annually thousands and thousands of children’s pre-Christmas letters addressed to Santa Claus asking for things. After it was all over one year, a single, solitary letter thanking Santa Claus was received. Could this be one of the problems of this troubled world; that people think only of getting—not giving? Of receiving—and not even expressing their gratitude for that which they do receive?”
—Elder Thomas S. Monson