Gospel Story Finder

The story is told of a group of men who were talking about people who had influenced their lives and to whom they were grateful. One man thought of a high-school teacher who had introduced him to the poet Tennyson. He decided to write and thank her.
In time, written in a feeble scrawl, came this letter:
“My dear Willie:
“I can’t tell you how much your note meant to me. I am in my 80s, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely and like the last leaf lingering behind. You will be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years, and yours is the first note of appreciation I have ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning, and it cheered me as nothing has for years.”

Young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their Muslim friends in Queensland are helping an Australian charity to bring light into communities in Vanuatu impacted by energy poverty.
Last October, 186 young single adult volunteers, including friends from the Ahmadiyyah Muslim community, Church members and friends, gathered to assemble 1,000 solar lights.
The workers also wrote a greeting or message of encouragement on the instruction sheet that accompanies each light.
One volunteer said, “Not only are we building the lights, but we are also writing a letter to send with the lights, and it really makes it personal, and it really feels good to help others.”
Billie Murphy, SolarBuddy representative, said, “These lights will be used for children to study at nighttime and to move about their community safely and hopefully give them a really good opportunity as they move forward.”
Carl Maurer, self-reliance manager and Area Seventy, said, “I see this as an opportunity to relieve suffering, to increase the capacity for education to be a profile in somebody’s home, to offer better health opportunities in their homes, where they can become more self-reliant.”
Volunteers registered on JustServe, a free community service platform for building unity through community service, where the service project was posted.
The lights were purchased as a humanitarian project, by Latter-day Saint Charities, the service arm of the Church, from Solar Buddy, which is an Australian charity with the goal of ending energy poverty for all children.
After assembling the lights, which took about five minutes each, the young adults continued to mingle with games, activities, and, of course, food.
Carl Maurer said, “I hope that this will be a significant opportunity for families and individuals to see not just the light from the light, but see the Light of their lives, Jesus Christ.”

As the Saints moved west, they continued to build schools or academies in their settlements. But they were so eager to learn that they held classes in people’s houses, in tents, or even outside. President George A. Smith (1817–75), First Counselor in the First Presidency, recorded how the first settlers in Iron County, Utah, gathered around a campfire in the freezing temperatures of February to listen to his lecture on English grammar, passing around a grammar book among themselves because it was the only one they had.3

When I was 26 years old, I married Sidnei in the São Paulo Brazil Temple. While we were still dating, we tried to prepare ourselves spiritually and emotionally for the most significant event of our lives. We decided what type of marriage we wanted, we established goals together, and we shared our thoughts—our testimonies of the gospel, our wishes and worries, and our dreams. We also read together the counsel of the prophets on marriage. We did everything we could to prepare, wishing to provide happiness and security to each other and our future children. We asked the Lord to give us wisdom to live a happy life.

Help them recognize that healing is always possible. One of the most comforting things someone has ever said to me was, “You haven’t gone too far. You can’t go too far if you’re still here.” I think of that often now, especially when the lies in my mind tell me that I am too broken to heal.

When I was 17 my mother found out she had breast cancer. The shock overwhelmed my family and brought me to my knees in deep prayer. I cried for almost an hour, asking God why He would let this happen and if He would heal my mom. Relief began to come a few days later when our ward members, extended family, friends, and neighbors learned of the news. They rushed to our aid. Meals were brought in, kind words and deeds were exchanged, concern and sympathy given. The love we felt from them was deep.
But even though we received so much help, I fell into a deep depression. I didn’t care what happened to me. I stopped doing things I loved. I became lazy and careless with chores, schoolwork, and my Church calling. I saw my situation and the extra responsibility placed upon me as a great burden. I felt I could do everything myself and did not need anyone’s help.
Satan worked especially hard on me, telling me that I should feel burdened, that God wanted me to be unhappy, and that I wasn’t anything special. Sadly, for a while I believed it. I couldn’t see the bright side of anything. I did not see myself as a daughter of God. Confusion blinded me, and I couldn’t see my many blessings. I couldn’t even look in the mirror. I felt pain and heartache.
Thankfully, a close friend spent a lot of time helping me, and my siblings supported me as well. I became more open with my parents, who in turn became more open with me. But still I struggled.
My mom would often comfort me when I felt down. When I felt like all hope was gone, it was nice to have someone to talk to and help me out. She would come home in between treatments and iron our clothing, prepare meals, and offer us comfort and counsel. It amazed me how she could endure such trials and yet be so selfless.
When I discussed my depression with her one day, she told me that just because I cried and admitted I needed help, it did not make me weak. She was taking care of me when I should have taken care of her.
After one of her many surgeries, my mom was in the recovery room. At the time, I couldn’t help but think I needed my own recovery room. I had no idea where to start the healing process, but I had to do something.
So I started renewing my talents and abilities as well as developing new ones. I cooked and did the laundry. I took more walks to think. I sang solos. I played the clarinet and piano more and began playing better. I read more books. I started to listen to more uplifting music. I surrounded myself with advice from Church leaders and other valuable sources. I became closer to God and my Savior through personal prayer, fasting, and scripture study.
Still I felt like my peace was fleeting. It was hard when I wanted to be at peace on some days, and instead I would feel the sadness. The mood swings became even more difficult. It seemed my journey for peace had only begun.
Then I went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with my Young Women class. I thought about my problems while in the temple and while flipping through the pages of my scriptures. I found myself reading about the Savior in Isaiah 53:4, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”
A few minutes later, the confusion that had blinded me and caused me so much pain completely vanished. The Lord broke through the darkness and the despair of my heart and left the peace of the Spirit instead. I had a sense of clarity and happiness that I hadn’t felt for a long time. I saw how many blessings I had received and how much everyone had done for me and my family. I saw how close my family, friends, and I had become. I saw myself as a truly beautiful daughter of God.
There in the temple I found my recovery room.
Looking back on this experience, I realize that I now have more empathy and compassion for those less fortunate than I am. I know where to recover. The hardest year of my life became the best year of my life.

“But, Mom, I don’t want to go to church today!” Trevor complained. “I want to stay home and play outside. We get a vacation from school in the summer, so why can’t we take a vacation from church now too?”
Trevor’s mother smiled as she asked, “What do you think would happen if Heavenly Father took a summer vacation from watching over us and helping us? Besides, you have all the rest of the week to play outside.”
The next day Trevor did play outside. He played long and hard. Late in the afternoon, while he was racing his bike with his friends, he turned his head to see how far ahead of them he was. In that instant his bike hit a rock, and the next thing Trevor knew, he was in a hospital bed with a big cast on his left leg and a huge bandage on his head.
As Trevor lay there, his leg was held up by a chain and pulley. He couldn’t turn; he could only lie on his back. The doctors told him that he would have to lie that way for at least four weeks! His whole summer was ruined!
To just lie still in the big hospital bed was the hardest work that Trevor had ever done. His mom, dad, and sisters came to visit him every day. They brought books to read and tapes and games that he could play while lying down. This helped, but each day still seemed like forever.
When Sunday came, Trevor knew that his family would go to church and wouldn’t come to see him till late afternoon. Trevor colored in his new coloring book, then read some of his books. Nothing feels right. This is Sunday, and I would be in church if I were home. That would feel right, he told himself.
Trevor thought about his Primary class. They’re probably in Sharing Time right now, singing some of my favorite songs. Maybe they’ll play that Bible story gamethat Sister Hinton taught us last week. Trevor wondered what Sister Norman’s lesson would be about today. Last week it had been about “Forgiveness.” He really did like the lessons. Even though it was hard to sit still sometimes, Sister Norman could always tell when everyone needed to wiggle a little. She would have them play the wiggle game until they got all their wiggles out. The more Trevor thought about church, the more he wished that he could be there.
The next week wasn’t any easier for Trevor. He kept thinking about not being able to go to church on Sunday. After lying still for days and days, sitting for three hours didn’t seem quite so impossible anymore.
When Sunday came again, the morning seemed to get longer and longer. Trevor looked at the clock on the wall. Sharing Time is just getting over, and everyone will be going to their classes. I bet the lesson’s a good one, Trevor thought sadly.
About ten minutes later Sister Norman appeared in the doorway! “Hello, Trevor. May we come in?” she asked.
“Wow! Yes! Yes!” Trevor shouted happily.
Sister Norman was followed by the other four children in Trevor’s Primary class. Each child carried cards and letters that all the children in Primary had made for Trevor during Sharing Time.
After a few minutes of visiting, Sister Norman said, “Trevor, we all missed you so much that we decided that Primary wasn’t Primary without you, and we decided to bring Primary to you today.”
The children all sat down around the bed while Sister Norman gave her lesson on kindness to others.
All too soon the lesson was over, and it was time for Trevor’s class to go. Before she left, Sister Norman said, “Trevor, if it’s all right with you, till you’re well, we’d like to visit you each week and give you the Primary lesson, just like we have at the ward.”
“Oh,” Trevor said, “that would be just great! Thank you.”
After his class had left, Trevor thought, I’m glad that Primary doesn’t stop during the summer. And I’m especially glad that Heavenly Father doesn’t take a summer vacation!

Brother Brough was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 11, 1963, to Monte J. and Ada B. Brough. He spent his youth in Farmington, Utah, and Robertson, Wyoming. The family moved to Minnesota when Joseph’s father, who would later serve as a member of the Seventy, was called as a mission president. Joseph was a senior in high school when his father completed his service as a mission president. Instead of returning to high school, Joseph took the high school equivalency exam and went straight to Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

Hi, I’m Mei.
I found this picture in an old box. On the back, I saw the name Fumiko.
My mom said it was a picture of my great-great-grandma Fumiko. I wanted to find out more about her.
We looked back in the box and found an old letter Fumiko wrote and more pictures. It was fun to learn about her.
We went to FamilySearch.org and added Fumiko to our family tree. We put in her birthday and the date when she and her husband, Hiroshi, got married.
We also added Fumiko’s pictures. Now if the photos get lost or ruined, my family can always find a copy online.
Fumiko was never baptized when she was alive. but now I’m old enough to go to the temple to be baptized for her.
We made a copy of Fumiko’s name and information. Then we went to the temple and I got baptized for her!
When I got home, I wrote about it in my journal. Someday I hope to meet Great-Grandma Fumiko. I want to keep learning about her and about my whole family!

If you visit the Van Dam family, don’t be surprised if Robert (11), Joseph (7), Daniel (6), and Sarah (4) pull out a treasure chest and start showering you with strings of plastic beads in a rainbow of colors. Brian (8 months) will just grab a couple of fistfuls to play with. The necklaces are the spoils of February festival parades at which gobs of baubles are flung to the spectators. The festival is inherited from New Orleans’s French founders.

Elder Muren: The spirit of the gospel and the love members feel for one another is strong, regardless of their numbers in a country. An isolated member in Morocco needed some medicine that he didn’t think he could get in his country. But we found a member in the city of Casablanca, Morocco, an executive of a drug company that makes the product, who arranged to get it to him. It was a two-family welfare program—members helping members. That is part of the beauty of the gospel—it works, whether we have thousands of members in a country or just a handful.

Four hundred and fifty kilometers northwest of Udorn, in Chiang Mai, workers are installing a fountain in the manicured grounds of a spacious, modern home. Three children are busily watching. They are Atikun, 13, Punjaree, 8, and Nathanon, 6. Their mother, Datchanee Limsukhon, is the only member of the Church in the family. Her husband, a neurologist, does not object to her Church membership, but sometimes she has to adjust her Church participation to meet her family’s needs.
Sister Limsukhon’s first contact with the Church came when, as a young woman, she heard branch members singing in a rented hall in Bangkok. She liked what she heard and wanted to join “that church” so she could sing with the other members. She believed the missionary discussions, but her family initially refused permission for her to be baptized. “But I knew that I wanted to be baptized, and I was in November 1969.”
In January 1970, she returned to her home in Chiang Mai and earned a nursing degree from the local university. She then went to the Church’s Language Training Mission in Hawaii, where she taught Thai to the missionaries for four months before she was called on a mission herself. On completing her mission in Bangkok, she had the opportunity to go to the United States for additional nursing experience in Utah and Texas. She then went to England to marry her Thai fiance, who was studying there.
When her husband completed his schooling, they returned home to Chiang Mai, where he has been in practice ever since.
“Since I am the only Latter-day Saint in my family, the standards of the Church are most important to me,” says Sister Limsukhon. “I am committed to living them.”

Some years ago while serving in the office of public affairs of the Church in Mexico, we were invited to participate in a radio talk show. The purpose of the show was to describe and discuss the different religions of the world. Two of us were assigned to represent the Church in responding to questions that might be asked during this type of a program. After several commercial breaks, as they say in radio parlance, the program director made this comment: “We have with us this evening two elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” He paused and then asked, “Why does the Church have such a long name? Why don’t you use a shorter or more commercial name?”
My companion and I smiled at such a magnificent question and then proceeded to explain that the name of the Church was not chosen by man. It was given by the Savior through a prophet in these latter days: “For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (D&C 115:4). The program director immediately and respectfully responded, “We will thus repeat it with great pleasure.” Now, I cannot remember how many times he repeated the significant name of the Church, but I do remember the sweet spirit that was present when we explained not only the name of the Church but also how it makes reference to the members of the Church—the Latter-day Saints.

In Argentina, Relief Society leaders are trying to teach the importance of food storage. They wrote: “Unfortunately, most of the sisters [here] cannot afford to buy an extra kilo of sugar, or flour, or an extra liter of oil. However, they have been encouraged to save, even just a spoonful at a time.”

On a bright September day our youngest daughter, Erica, was in a serious car accident. She was flown to the hospital, and after hours of emergency surgery, we received the terrible news: our beautiful, vivacious, 17-year-old daughter had died.
The next few months were agony for us. We endured her birthday and Thanksgiving and braced ourselves for our first Christmas without her. People warned us that the holidays would be difficult, but no amount of warning could have prepared us.
Besides feeling overwhelming sorrow and despair, I was jealous of other families who were together and happily celebrating. I bitterly wondered, “Why us? Why weren’t we granted a miracle like the ones others speak about?”
At Christmas we celebrate the beginning of the Savior’s life on earth, but for me, His birth will now always be wrapped up with His suffering, death, and Resurrection—the Atonement. Because the Savior broke the bands of death, I know that Erica’s death will not be final. That is the miracle to be thankful for—the greatest miracle of all time.

Let me share an example of how this rippling begins and reverberates when one righteous Latter-day Saint woman acts upon her knowledge that Jesus is the Christ and the gospel has been restored.
In 1841, Dan Jones, a Welsh immigrant, was the captain of one of the smallest registered boats carrying people and freight on the upper Mississippi River. It seems more than coincidence to me that his boat was named the Ripple. Among his passengers were members of an obscure “new” church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
During his journeys Dan Jones began to hear criticisms of these “Mormons.” Because he had ferried many of them, he had talked with them and observed their behavior. He found them to be good people—kind, honest, and hardworking. The negative comments and writings about these people did not match up with what he had experienced in his dealings with them.
“Through a careful investigation of the accusations,” he later wrote, “I perceived clearly that it was impossible for them to be true, either because … they overstated the case or … contradicted themselves” (quoted in Ronald D. Dennis, “Dan Jones, Welshman,” Ensign, Apr. 1987, 50).
One significant event in particular propelled Dan Jones from a careful observer to an active investigator of the Church. He wrote this: “Purely by accident, there fell into my hands … a letter which [Emma Smith] had written. … I shall never forget the feelings which that … letter caused me to have. I perceived clearly that not only did [she] believe the New Testament, the same as I—professing the apostolic faith, and rejoicing in the midst of her tribulations at being worthy to suffer all … for a testimony of Jesus and the gospel—but also it contained better counsel, more wisdom, and showed a more … godly spirit than anything I had ever read!” (Ensign, Apr. 1987, 50, 52).
Inspired by Emma’s words and example, Dan Jones sought to learn more about this church. In 1843 he was baptized in the Mississippi River and became one of the most influential missionaries in the history of the Church, bringing hundreds of people to the gospel in his native Wales. In a very literal way, Emma Smith’s influence continues to ripple through generations. Who can say how many hundreds, even thousands of the descendants of those Dan Jones introduced to the gospel may be listening to this meeting at this very hour?

“Well, didn’t you always tell me that your sister gave you a hard time when she stayed with you, making you go to bed at the same time, even when it wasn’t a school night?”
Jason remembered the many times that Christine had watched him. “Yeah. Nine o’clock, even on weekends!” Then he remembered something else. “Nine o’clock without fail except for that night last year when we had the bad storm and the lights went out.”
Randy elbowed his friend. “She made you go to bed earlier, right?”
“Well, … no,” Jason admitted. He smiled a little. “Christine got out our sleeping bags and flashlights, made some sandwiches, and turned on her portable radio. We camped out in the living room.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah! It was neat!”

My father used to be a fisherman, and he worked hard. Sometimes he would go fishing long before dawn and not return home until after dusk. It didn’t matter how many hours or in what horrible weather he had to work; he remained dedicated to providing for us. I never heard him complain about how hard he had to work. That’s because his own comfort didn’t matter to him. He cared only about bringing a smile to his children’s faces. My father would ensure that we always had the necessities of life, so we never had to worry that we would go without.

We just started taking the New Era for our boys who recently became teenagers. As I sit down to read the New Era, I am always touched by the sweet spirit and have tears in my eyes so that it is difficult to finish reading the articles.
Each time, I think of Dana, a nonmember young woman who plays for our basketball team. She has such a sweet spirit that my heart is always drawn to want to share this special magazine with her. I am finally getting around to placing an order for her.
Carolyn Madigar

Without exception, every young woman in this group has entered that temple in Guatemala City to be sealed to her parents or to be baptized for the dead. A couple of years ago, the youth in the branch made the fifteen-hour bus trip to Guatemala City to do baptisms. “By being baptized for the dead, we give others the chance to repent and prepare for the Resurrection,” says Zoila Delvalle, 17. “Then it is up to them to accept it or not. In the temple, you feel the Spirit. You feel calm. You almost don’t want to leave. It makes you feel special. It’s beautiful.”