Gospel Story Finder

Mary Jane took a deep breath and smiled as she hurried along the muddy path on the way home from school. It was springtime in the year 1852, and a soft, cool breeze was blowing over the Irish Sea.
She was remembering that warm feeling when a gust of wind blew a strand of her long black hair across her face. Mary Jane pushed it back. “I wish I had a pretty blue ribbon to tie my hair back,” she thought.
Just then, Mary Jane almost stepped in a puddle on the path. As she started to walk around it, she saw something bright in the water. She stopped and looked closely. It looked like a coin.
Finding a long stick, Mary Jane carefully raked out the coin. And it was a valuable one. “Lucky me!” she thought. “What should I buy with it?” Then the wind reminded her. “A long blue ribbon,” she thought. “That is what I will buy.” Slipping the coin into her pocket, she hurried home.
When she opened the front door, Mary Jane saw that the missionaries were visiting her family. The younger children were sitting quietly, and a reverent feeling filled the room. Mary Jane’s family loved the missionaries, who had come all the way to Ireland to bring them the gospel. Father said the missionaries came without purse or scrip. That meant they came without money and with only the clothes they were wearing. Today they had brought good news. Some other families in the village were going to join the Church!
Mary Jane’s father invited the elders to stay for supper. As they gathered around the table, everyone was smiling. Mary Jane liked to hear the elders ask for a blessing on the food. It gave her a “Sunday feeling.”
After dinner, Mama served dessert in the parlor. She had baked a cake and made candy frosting. As one of the elders sat down and stretched out his long legs with his shoes turned upward, Mary Jane and her father looked at each other in surprise. The soles of the elder’s shoes were worn through with large holes.
Father went to the kitchen, and Mary Jane followed him. Father reached to the top shelf of the cupboard where they kept money. But as he looked at the coins in his hand, he had a sad face. It was not enough to buy a new pair of shoes for the elder.
Mary Jane reached her hand into her pocket and placed her coin in Father’s hand. “Now is there enough?” she asked softly.
Father looked surprised. He was silent for a long moment. Then in a husky voice he answered, “Yes, dear. That is just right.” Father put his arm around Mary Jane, and she had the same warm feeling she had felt at her baptism.

And Bart knows that no stunning football victory, no league or world championship, could ever match the elation he felt in the mission field when, for example, one of his closest investigators finally saw the gospel light. “His wife and kids were already members,” Bart relates, “and he just didn’t want to make a commitment. We got to be really close, great friends. Then one night I asked him if he would be willing to pray to our Heavenly Father to find out if the Church was true. He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, and the whole family knelt down to pray with him. The Spirit came over us and everyone in the room felt it. I said, ‘Fred, do you know what you’re feeling?’ He couldn’t deny it. I said, ‘You know you want to be baptized,’ and he said, ‘Yes.’”

The reason? Instead of being sponsored by a local high school, this prom is being held at the Grand Blanc Michigan Stake Center and is sponsored by five stakes in the area.
While there is a lot of good in the whole idea of going to a prom where everyone is dressed up, using their best manners, and learning how to dance properly, what isn’t so great is what many proms sponsored by the public schools have become.
The solution: put on your own prom, but with Church standards as the guide.
Five stakes in Michigan got together and went all out to plan and pull off the best prom ever, where LDS teens didn’t have to worry about anything but who they wanted to dance with next.
The stake prom used plenty of volunteers including adult leaders and the youth committees from all the stakes to decorate, fix food, and even act as photographers and coat-check attendants. Volunteers also manned the doors as security, patrolled parked cars in the parking lot, and created and distributed party favors. And, of course, because it was held at the stake center, there was no location rental fee.
At the end of the night, the teens in Michigan went home with some nice dance photos, a few treats to eat in the car, and memories of a fun evening. This prom was a night to remember, not a night to regret.
Faran Clark of the Lansing Holt Ward said, “A lot more people came than in past multi-stake dances. I guess it’s about dressing up and having a nice night out. You get to primp and look nice.”
And, as her friend Andrea Brown of the Lansing Owosso Ward added, “It’s a good chance for us to realize that we can have fun together and still keep our standards.”

Sabrina, age 18, remembers the sister missionaries coming to home evening when she was 10. “They taught me simply but firmly that God reveals truth through prayer,” she says. “They said I needed to kneel down and ask Heavenly Father in humility to give me a testimony. ‘Me kneel down?’ I thought to myself. A few days later, Mom wanted to go for a walk with my sisters and me. Even though the sun was shining and I wanted to go with them, something stopped me. I knew it was the perfect time to pray. I knelt down in the dining room. I pleaded with Heavenly Father to let me know if the Book of Mormon was true. I asked Him if the principles I was taught in church were true. Five minutes went by. After I ended my prayer I remained on my knees. Suddenly a ray of light illuminated my face. I could not understand this, because the house was dark. But there was a small window in the kitchen without a curtain, and the light was coming from there.

“I felt so happy. I realized my Father had answered my prayer in this way. Now I have a testimony of all these things, and I know they are true. I know prayer has tremendous power.”

Brother Michael Kagle took a convoy of trucks loaded with equipment from his own company to Mississippi. Many employees, who are not of our faith, volunteered to go with him every weekend to give assistance in the storm-stricken areas. Walkie-talkies were used for communication along the way. Mike’s high priests group leader, while driving along with them in his pickup truck, said he had white knuckles from driving so fast. Trying to slow the convoy down, he got on the walkie-talkie and said, “Gentlemen, do you realize we are going 80 miles per hour?” One of the truck drivers came on and said, “Well, you have to understand that’s all these big trucks will do. We can’t go any faster.” Hundreds of letters of gratitude have been received. One woman, a nurse from Mississippi, wrote: “I was speechless. Had God answered my prayers so quickly? Tears immediately began to roll down my cheeks as men in hard hats and boots, with chain saws of all shapes and sizes, appeared out of the debris. It was absolutely, unequivocally, one of the most supreme sacrifices that has ever happened to me personally.”

Shortly after the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, a young man named David Cannon brought his wife, Wilhelmina, to southern Utah to help start a settlement. Wilhelmina, or “Willie” as she was called, was not at all happy. She hated the hot, dry desert, and cried constantly. She pleaded with her husband to take her back east, where plants and trees grew more easily and the weather was more moderate.
“Everything is so ugly here,” she complained. “If you can show me just one beautiful thing in this place, I will make myself content and stop complaining.”
David went up into the mountains and returned with a beautiful three-petaled blossom with delicate colors. Willie honestly admitted to both David and herself that it was indeed a thing of beauty. She never again complained but went to work with her husband to make a productive farm and lovely home in the St. George area, where they lived for many years.
Amazingly, the same kind of plant that inspired one discouraged pioneer with its blossom, saved the lives of countless others with its nutritious roots. It was the sego lily.

When Newel Knight informed his wife, Lydia, that the Saints would have to leave Nauvoo and move yet again, she responded with tenacious faith, saying, “Well, there’s nothing to discuss. Our place is with the Kingdom of God. Let us at once set about making preparations to leave.” Brother Knight had moved his family several times already as many of the Saints had moved from New York to Ohio to Missouri and to Illinois. Lydia Knight’s devoted submission to what she knew was God’s will typifies powerfully the faith of those heroic early Saints. With their faith in mind, the words of a familiar hymn take on added meaning:
Faith of our fathers, living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword;
Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy
Whene’er we hear that glorious word.
Faith of our fathers, holy faith,
We will be true to thee till death!
Though winter’s chill was not yet past, heightened fears of mob attacks and swirling rumors of government intervention compelled President Young to set things in motion to get the Saints under way. He directed the first company of pioneer families to leave Nauvoo on February 4, 1846, a cold winter day. They drove their laden wagons and their livestock down Parley Street—a street that became known as the “Street of Tears”—to a landing where they were ferried across the river to Iowa. Chunks of ice floating in the river crunched against the sides of the flatboats and barges that carried the wagons across the Mississippi. A few weeks later, temperatures dropped even further and wagons could cross the river more easily over a bridge of ice.
Sister Wirthlin and I visited Nauvoo in early March this year. The weather was bitterly cold. As we stood in the chilling wind, looking out across the broad expanse of the Mississippi, we felt a deeper sense of appreciation and gratitude for those Saints as they left their beloved city. We wondered how they ever survived. What a sacrifice to leave behind so much for the uncertain future that lay ahead! No wonder so many tears were shed as the fleeing pioneers drove their wagons rumbling down Parley Street to cross the river with no hope of ever returning to their “City Beautiful.”
Once across the river, they camped temporarily at Sugar Creek before starting their trek west toward the Rocky Mountains. The journey, which historian H. H. Bancroft described as a migration without “parallel in the world’s history,” had begun.
When President Brigham Young joined the departing pioneers at their campsite in Iowa on February 15, 1846, the Lord revealed to him to begin organizing a modern “Camp of Israel.” On the first of March the advance company began its push westward across Iowa. Hardships caused by cold, snow, rain, mud, sickness, hunger, and death challenged the faith of these hardy pioneers. But they were determined to follow their leaders and to do, no matter the cost, what they believed fervently to be the will of God. Their faith was challenged, and for some it faltered in especially difficult times. But it did not fail them. Many were sustained by the assurances they had received in temple ordinances performed in the Nauvoo Temple.
One of the more difficult hardships endured by many of the sisters was delivering their babies under harsh, extreme conditions along the trail. Eliza R. Snow wrote that as the pioneers “journeyed onward, mothers gave birth to offspring under almost every variety of circumstances imaginable, except those to which they had been accustomed; some in tents, others in wagons—in rainstorms and in snowstorms.” Sister Snow went on to record in her journal that she “heard of one birth which occurred under the rude shelter of a hut, the sides of which were formed of blankets fastened to poles stuck in the ground, with a bark roof through which the rain was dripping. Kind sisters stood holding dishes to catch the water … , thus protecting the [little one] and its mother from a showerbath [on its entrance to] the stage of human life.”
What a sacrifice these good sisters made! Some mothers lost their own lives in childbirth. Many babies did not survive. My wife’s grandmother, Elizabeth Riter, was born at Winter Quarters in the back of a covered wagon during a rainstorm. Fortunately, both the mother and the newborn infant survived. With great love for the woman who gave life to her, Elizabeth often lovingly recounted how an umbrella was held over her mother throughout the ordeal to shield her from the water leaking through the wagon’s cover.
Let us never forget the faith of our fathers and the selfless sacrifice of our mothers, those pioneering Saints who set such an inspiring example of obedience. Let us remember them as we strive to be valiant servants in our work to “invite all to come unto Christ” and “be perfected in him.”

Based on this knowledge of the Lord’s mercy and power, my husband, children, and I chose this family motto: “It will all work out.” Yet how can we say those words to one another when deep troubles come and answers aren’t readily available?

When our delightful, worthy, 21-year-old daughter, Georgia, was hospitalized in critical condition following a bike accident, our family said, “It will all work out.” As I flew immediately from our mission in Brazil to Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, to be with her, I clung to our family motto. However, our lovely daughter passed into the spirit world just hours before my plane landed. With grief and shock running through our family like a current, how could we look at one another and still say, “It will all work out”?

Following Georgia’s mortal death, our feelings were raw, we struggled, and still today we have moments of great sorrow, but we hold to the understanding that no one ever really dies. Despite our anguish when Georgia’s physical body stopped functioning, we had faith that she went right on living as a spirit, and we believe we will live with her eternally if we adhere to our temple covenants. Faith in our Redeemer and His Resurrection, faith in His priesthood power, and faith in eternal sealings let us state our motto with conviction.

“With the knowledge we have, we may mourn, but we need never despair. We have a little granddaughter in Seattle, Washington. There the daily rain keeps the sun and stars alike hidden much of the time, so she hasn’t really seen stars. We think there are lessons to learn from them; they are brighter in winter’s night, you know. I explained this to this little girl when we stood on a clear night looking into heaven. I smiled at her wonderment at first seeing stars crowd the nighttime.
“‘Are they there every time it gets dark, even if I don’t see them?’ she asked. I assured her they were, even behind the clouds.
“‘Then darkness isn’t so bad, is it? If you know the stars are there.’
“It has application to life, doesn’t it?”

Kendall Bean is a concert pianist who has been playing since the age of four. During high school he frequently performed with the high school orchestra and appeared as soloist in performances of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto and Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. He appeared in the Northern California Junior Bach Festival two years in a row, and in 1971 soloed in the Tabernacle with the Mormon Youth Symphony as the winner in the MIA Young Artists Festival. During 1974 he held a solo recital at BYU, won the Wakefield Award for piano performance, and appeared in the Stellar Student-Temple Hill Organ Recital Series.

Kendall had a lot going for him, and it is understandable that he had second thoughts about leaving it behind. While he was at the Mission Training Center, he found himself worrying that the Lord wouldn’t want him to pursue music after his mission. He wondered if he would have to live a completely different life-style, and if so, what his friends would think.

Kendall was fortunate to be writing to a friend who was very encouraging and supportive. “She told me that now wasn’t the time to worry about such things, and in essence, that it was only a tool of the adversary to keep me from the work I was supposed to do. She wrote that if I would serve the Lord with all my might, mind, and strength at this time in my life, when the time came to make these important decisions, I would be entitled to his help and assistance.”

As it turned out, Kendall’s worries were unfounded. The Lord didn’t want him to give up music; to the contrary, Kendall and other missionaries with musical ability were able to use their talents as a missionary tool. Proselyting activities in his mission included open houses and recitals to which many nonmembers came.

Kendall and others were amazed to find that they could practice adequately for these recitals in only an hour or two during free time while the others were playing basketball. “I found that the Lord preserved this talent for me throughout those two years, and it was there for the asking when I needed it. No one in normal life in his right mind would even have considered doing a recital with that little preparation, but when we give our all for the Lord, we can do marvelous things.”

The year after Kendall returned home, he soloed with the Utah Symphony and took second place in the Utah State Fair piano competition and in the State of Utah at the Utah Music Teachers Association competitions. (Incidentally, the person who took first place in both instances was Mack Wilberg, another returned missionary.) Kendall is presently director of the Young Adult Stake Choir in El Cerrito, California. He has received a scholarship for graduate study in music at the University of Texas at Austin.

I remember visiting South Vietnam some years ago. I talked individually with two or three hundred men—men who had waded through the blood and heat of battle, but men who were virtuous in their lives. I remember one of them, a boy who had just come down from the Rock Pile near the Demilitarized Zone, who said in response to a question on morality: “Not on your life—I couldn’t do that. I want to be worthy of a great girl some day.”

“Invite Mr. Wood* to seminary.” The thought popped into my mind as soon as I heard the announcement, and I immediately thought it was crazy. Why would I invite my music teacher to come to seminary at 5:30 in the morning?
The seminary president had just told our class that we would be having a teacher appreciation day. We were challenged to invite some of our schoolteachers to join us for a morning of seminary where we would thank them for their service. The entire week after hearing this announcement, I thought about inviting Mr. Wood. Every time I went to seminary or saw him in music class, the thought came back: “Invite Mr. Wood to seminary.” After several days of this, I couldn’t ignore the thought any longer.
One morning as all the students in music class were getting out their instruments, I put my trombone aside and approached Mr. Wood. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking, but when I opened my mouth to extend the invitation, I felt comfort.
To my surprise, Mr. Wood said that he would come! He was curious about why I went to seminary every morning before school and wanted to learn more. After giving him all the details, I walked away full of joy.
During this experience, I didn’t feel a burning in the bosom (see D&C 9:8). But I did feel the Holy Ghost. The recurring thought to invite Mr. Wood (see D&C 128:1), the comfort I felt when I invited him (see John 14:26), and the joy I felt after I invited him (see Galatians 5:22) all came from the Spirit. But if I had been looking only for a burning in the bosom, I might not have recognized when the Holy Ghost was prompting me.

Every summer I get to go all by myself for one week to visit my grandma and grandpa. One day when I was there, Grandma, a friend of hers, and I went to the store. Grandma ordered coffee for herself and her friend (they are not members of the Church) and hot chocolate for me. When the lady put the first cup on the counter, Grandma told me it was the hot chocolate and to take it. I took it and went outside to a table. Something kept telling me, “Don’t drink it, don’t drink it.” I thought, Why? I’m thirsty! So I opened the lid and saw that it was coffee. I knew it was the Holy Ghost warning me. I’m so glad I was baptized and have the gift of the Holy Ghost to help me!

It was during this difficult time that I received my mission call. After having been through my conversion, baptism, and mission paper preparation with my brother, I was left to open my mission call alone. To my surprise, I was called to serve in my own country.
Since I was alone, I knelt down right there and thanked my Heavenly Father in prayer. And I prayed for my brother. I cried and cried while I prayed. At this time, when there was so much hurt and loneliness in my heart, I felt the Spirit witness of the plan of salvation more deeply to me, and my faith was strengthened.
Even though my brother was not there to open my mission call with me, I will always be grateful to him. I am also very grateful that God has given us the plan of salvation through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is the most amazing plan. If we follow this plan, we will feel peace in our hearts.

Now I like a little story that President Grant used to tell about the love that converts have for their missionaries. He told about a couple who came here from one of the Scandinavian countries. They hadn’t been taught much about the gospel. All they knew was that it was true. And so the bishop went to this couple and taught them the law of tithing. They paid their tithing. Then later the bishop went to them and taught them about the fast offering. They paid their fast offering. And then the bishop went to them again to get a donation to help build a ward meetinghouse. They thought that ought to come out of the tithing, but before the bishop got through with them, they paid their donation on the meetinghouse.
Then the bishop went to the father to get his son to go on a mission. Now I can hear President Grant standing here, saying, “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The man said, “He’s our only child. His mother will miss him. We can’t let him go.” Then the bishop countered, “Brother So-and-So, who do you love in this world more than anyone else outside of your own relatives?” And he thought for a few minutes. He said, “I guess I love that young man who came up to the land of the midnight sun and taught me the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Then the bishop countered, “Brother So-and-So, how would you like someone to love your boy just like that?” The man said, “Bishop, you win again; take him. I’ll pay for his mission.”

You remember the little story President Grant used to tell about the Scandinavian brother who was converted and came over to America. He hadn’t been taught too much about the Church. So the bishop went to him to teach him the law of tithing. He finally agreed to pay his tithing. Then the bishop wanted some fast offering. He agreed to the fast offering. Then they wanted to build a chapel. The man thought that ought to come out of the tithing, but before the bishop got through with him, he had paid his donation for the chapel. Then the bishop went to him to ask his son to go on a mission. He said, “That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” Then this bishop said, “Brother So-and-so, whom do you love in this world more than anyone else, aside from your own family?” He thought a minute and said, “I guess I love that Mormon elder who came up to the Land of the Midnight Sun and taught me the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Then the bishop said, “Brother So-and-so, how would you like somebody to love your boy just like you love that missionary?” He said, “Bishop, you win again. Take him.”
You just cannot get away from it.

One son bought a small home in a distant state. He showed me bricks on a corner of the foundation that were eroding away. He asked what he should do.
I did not know, but I asked, “Is there an older couple that lives close to you?”
“Yes,” he said, “across the street and down a few houses is a retired couple.”
“Why don’t you ask him to come over and look at that. He knows your climate.”
That was done, and he got the advice of an older man who had seen problems like that and many others. That is what adopted grandpas can do.

One of the guidelines in For the Strength of Youth states: “Through your dress and appearance, you can show the Lord that you know how precious your body is. You can show that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ.”
After studying these words, one young woman realized that perhaps some of her clothes were not completely modest. Through prayer and study of the scriptures, she was reminded that she was a disciple of Jesus Christ and that, as His representative, she needed to make some changes. She didn’t want to have anything in her wardrobe that was a temptation, so she went through her closet and drawers and got rid of anything that wasn’t modest. She said, “I would be smart if I didn’t even try on anything in stores that I knew I shouldn’t wear. Why be tempted?” That firm resolve showed the Lord that she respected her body, and she drove down a deep stake for modesty.

I thought other youth would be interested in hearing about the Punta Arenas Branch, southernmost branch of the Church in the world, I believe. When Isaiah said, “… utter it even to the end of the earth,” he must have been referring to Punta Arenas, Chile! We’re on the Straights of Magellan, facing Tierra del Fuego. The wildlife and beauty of the Patagonia is outstanding: sharp green mountains, grazed by guanacos; blue waters filled with trout and salmon; and birdlife ranging from parrots to ostriches, ducks, swans, flamingos, and an occasional penguin.
Our branch is at the tender age of four years and has a membership of two hundred Saints. Jaime, our MIA president, and Carlos, an MIA officer, both youth, have been working all year to save enough money to cover their traveling expenses to the international youth conference to be held in Arica, Chile, at the northern end of the country. It’s been a long, hard job, involving window cleaning, cakes sales, and cleaning houses, but they have finally made it. That’s what it means to be a Latter-day Saint down here.
Elder Gary WeldChile Mission

Out of personal experience, I know the efficacy and power of prayer. When I was a young missionary in Northern England in 1922, the opposition to the Church became very intense. The opposition became so strong that the mission president asked that we discontinue all street meetings, and in some cases tracting was discontinued.

My companion and I had been invited to travel over to South Shields to speak in the sacrament meeting. In the invitation they said, “We feel sure we can fill the little chapel. Many of the people over here do not believe the falsehoods printed about us. If you’ll come, we’re sure that we’ll have a great meeting.” We accepted.

We fasted and prayed sincerely and went to the meeting. My companion had planned to talk on the first principles. I had studied much in preparation for a talk on the apostasy. There was a wonderful spirit in the meeting. My companion spoke first and gave an inspirational message. I responded and talked with a freedom I had never experienced before in my life. When I sat down, I then realized that I had not mentioned the apostasy. I had talked on the Prophet Joseph Smith and borne my witness of his divine mission and to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. After the meeting had ended, several people came forward, some of them being nonmembers, and said, “Tonight we received a witness that the gospel is true as you elders teach it. We are now ready for baptism.”

This was an answer to our fasting and prayers, for we prayed to say only those things which would touch the hearts of the friends and investigators.