Gospel Story Finder

That is precisely the pattern chosen by President Spencer W. Kimball. In 1972, Elder Kimball, then a member of the Council of the Twelve, knew that his mortal life was slipping away because of heart disease. He obtained competent medical counsel and prayerfully consulted with the Lord and with his file leaders in the Church. Elder and Sister Kimball and the First Presidency carefully weighed available alternatives. Then President Harold B. Lee, speaking for the First Presidency, counseled Elder Kimball. With great conviction, President Lee said: “Spencer, you have been called! You are not to die! You must do everything you need to do to care for yourself and continue to live” (“Spencer W. Kimball: Man of Faith,” Ensign, Dec. 1985, p. 40).
President Kimball chose to have an operation performed upon his heart that was known to carry a high risk. He was blessed with a successful result. He lived thirteen more years, eventually to succeed President Lee as President of the Church.

One late night I was going home by bus. I was tired, but the bus driver was attentive and awake. Then I noticed how treacherous some of the roads were. There was no shoulder, just the opposite lane on one side and a huge cliff on the other. Any deviation from the road could cause either a serious accident with oncoming traffic or a tragic plummet off the cliff.
I noticed that the driver never went out of the highway lines—never once veering to the potential harm of either side. I started to think about how much our lives are like this situation.
My bus driver knew that diverting from his lane could have harmful outcomes, and because of that, he would not deviate from his path. Having a similar mindset about worldly temptations and distractions can help us to avoid situations that could put ourselves or others in spiritual jeopardy.

One day my father, who was bishop of our ward, left my brother and me to do some work. We thought he would be gone for a long time doing his church work. But he returned sooner than we had expected and found us riding calves.
When he called us over, I will never forget how he looked at me and said, “My boy, I thought I could depend on you!”
That was a great lesson, a severe punishment, to me. I decided then that neither he nor anyone else would ever have reason to say that again to me as long as I lived.

“You can’t have two best friends,” Cob Colt said.
“You have to pick between us,” Sorrel said.
Pinto shook his spotted head. “I like both of you. You’re both my best friends.”
The three young horses cropped grass in the warm meadow until their bellies were full. Cob Colt twitched his black tail and looked around at the older horses. It was all very well to eat until you were full, but then what could you do? He thought it would be fun to splatter through the mud puddle and swim in the brook. But that wouldn’t take all day. What else could he do? He thought and thought, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Sorrel twitched her red-brown ears. She heard birds singing in the walnut tree in the middle of the meadow. She stopped chewing and watched the birds chase each other in and out of the branches. We could do that, she thought. We could play tag and hide behind the older horses. She knew that that would be fun, but it would not be a whole day of fun. What else could she do? She thought and thought, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Pinto looked along the fence. Near the driveway was a pile of raked leaves and windfall apples. Windfall apples were sweet and juicy to eat, but Pinto wasn’t hungry—he had just filled his belly with grass. He needed to play before he got hungry again. His mind was so full of windfall apples, though, that he couldn’t think of a game to play.
Cob Colt thought, I can prove I am Pinto’s best friend.I’ll tell him my idea. He’ll like it so much that I’ll be his best friend. So Cob Colt told Pinto, “Let’s splatter through the mud puddle and swim in the brook.”
“That’s a great idea!” Pinto exclaimed.
Cob Colt shook his black mane and waggled his black tail happily. “I’m Pinto’s best friend,” he said. “I thought of what to do.”
Sorrel wasn’t happy at first, but she followed Pinto and Cob Colt to the mud puddles. When she began to splatter mud, she had to admit that Cob Colt’s idea was a good one.
Soon the three horses were covered in mud, then clean again after swimming in the brook.
“Now what shall we do?” Cob Colt asked.
“I’m hungry now,” Pinto said. “Let’s go eat the windfall apples by the fence.”
The three horses galloped across the meadow and feasted on the sweet, juicy apples until they were full. But the day was not yet over. The sun still shone brightly. What could they do now?
Sorrel remembered her idea. “Why don’t we play tag and hide behind the bigger, older horses?”
Sorrel stood behind the walnut tree while the others hid in the meadow. She counted slowly to twenty-five. Then she began to look. It was hard to find a little horse hiding behind a big one. You had to creep around the meadow quietly until you came up right behind them.
Cob Colt wasn’t happy at first, but he ran behind Old Gray. It was hard to stand perfectly still. If the big horse moved, he had to move with it, and that was lots of fun. He had to admit that Sorrel’s idea was a good one.
Pinto, Cob Colt, and Sorrel played tag until the sun set.
“This has been a wonderful day,” Cob Colt said. “I liked playing tag and eating windfall apples.”
“I liked splattering mud and eating windfall apples,” Sorrel said.
“Now do you understand?” Pinto asked them. “We had three good things to do today.”
Cob Colt nodded. “If Sorrel wasn’t here, we would only have splattered mud and eaten. We would have been bored all afternoon.”
Sorrel said, “And if Cob Colt wasn’t here, we would only have eaten and played tag. We would have been bored all morning.”
“That’s why I’m glad I have two best friends,” Pinto said.
Pinto, Cob Colt, and Sorrel ate their dinner under the stars. Each of them was glad that on the next day, there would be two best friends to share it with.

I too was questioned by my friends, classmates, and even my teachers in school about our standards. They said that our Church standards are so strict. Instead of arguing with them, I asked for their time to share with them all about our Church standards. I simply showed them that I am very happy and comfortable living with our standards. I also did not use our standards as an excuse to miss some school activities. Instead, I suggested some ideas for the school activities to follow our Church standards. I also shared with them the advantages of following those standards.
Ailyn L., 19, Davao, Philippines

Sally Randall of Nauvoo, Illinois, whose 14-year-old son died, found great comfort in the promise of eternal families. After her husband was baptized for their son, she wrote to her relatives: “What a glorious thing it is that we … can be baptized for all of our dead [ancestors] and save them as far back as we can get any knowledge of them.” Then she asked her relatives to send her information on their ancestors, saying, “I intend to do what I can to save [our family].”4

Rebecca’s best friend, Cindy, lived just down the street. They played together all the time. They played with the same dolls and rode on the same bikes and even liked to dress alike.
One day, Cindy came over to play. She was carrying a big plastic bag.
“I brought you some clothes I grew out of,” Cindy said. “I thought you might like them.”
“Thanks!” Rebecca said. “Now I can really dress like you.”
Later that evening, after Cindy had gone home, Rebecca’s mom came into her room and sat on the bed.
“Let’s try out those new clothes you got,” Mom said.
Rebecca squealed with excitement and dumped out the bag of clothes. She went through the clothes one by one. First, she held up a pink dress.
“What a pretty dress,” Mom said. “That will fit you perfectly.” She hung the dress in the closet.
Next they looked at a pair of blue pants.
“Hmm, they look a little small,” Mom said. “Let’s give those to your younger sister.”
Then Rebecca picked up a blue tank top.
“This is so cute,” Rebecca said, holding it up. “Can I wear it?”
“It’s a cute color,” Mom said, “but I don’t think you should wear it.”
“Why not?” Rebecca asked. “It will be great to wear this summer.”
“It’s not modest,” Mom said.
Rebecca thought for a moment. “What does it mean to be modest?” she asked.
“Being modest means dressing in a way that shows Heavenly Father we respect our bodies,” Mom said.
“But, Mom, it’s so cute. And Cindy used to wear it!” Rebecca said.
Mom patted Rebecca on the shoulder and said, “I’ll let you decide what to do with it.”
Rebecca sighed. She knew it was important to listen to her mom, but she really liked the shirt. So when her mom left the room, Rebecca hid the tank top in her drawer underneath some other clothes. She thought maybe she could wear it one day when Mom wasn’t home.
A few weeks later when Rebecca was cleaning out her dresser, she found the blue tank top.
She pulled it out. Once again, she saw how cute it was. But she remembered what her mom had said and decided that she would rather show respect for her body than wear something immodest.
She went to talk to her mom. “Mom, remember that tank top Cindy gave me?” Rebecca asked as she held it out. “Well, I kept it hidden in my drawer. But I decided I don’t want to wear it. I would rather please Heavenly Father.”
Mom smiled and gave Rebecca a hug. “I’m glad you chose the right,” she said.

In the late 1820s, Brigham Young, as yet untouched by the restored gospel, was a somewhat discouraged young man. He found himself disapproving of much of what he saw in the world and wondering if he had a work yet to do. His loving brother, Phineas, gave Brigham prescient counsel: “Hang on, for I know the Lord is agoing to do some thing for us.” (Sermon of Heber C. Kimball in minutes, 8 Jan. 1845, Brigham Young Papers, Historical Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) What then happened is Moses-like history!

Ten-year-old Olivia curled upon her side and tried to go back to sleep, even though she knew that it would be impossible. After all, it was Christmas, 1843. Well, just barely, Olivia thought as she counted the twelve chimes that echoed softly from her mother’s clock.
Last Christmas, she’d lived far away in Leek, England. Then Grandpa Rushton had listened to the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “These men speak the truth,” he’d said. Three months later, Olivia and her entire family were baptized along with Grandpa and Grandma.
Leaving England to join the Saints in America had been a very hard decision. Would Grandpa be able to sell his silk business? What would Papa do? Would Baby James get sick and die like Mama’s other baby? And what about Grandma Lettice? Olivia would have been terrified to leave her home if she were blind like Grandma.
After a lot of prayer and asking the Lord, Papa knew that they needed to follow the counsel of the Prophet Joseph Smith and join the Saints in Zion.
And now it was Christmas, even though Christmas in Nauvoo was very different from Christmas in England. There, everyone enjoyed crackling Yule logs, the singing of carols, and the exchanging of presents. In Nauvoo, many people didn’t celebrate the day at all. Mama said that it was because of their religious customs before they joined the Church. But that didn’t seem like a very good reason to Olivia. If only we could have Christmas like we did in England! she thought with a sigh.
Just then, she heard muffled voices by the front door. Olivia slid out of bed and tiptoed across the cold floor. “Mama?”
Her mother and father were bundled up!
“Where are you going, Mama?”
“What are you doing up, Olivia?” Mama whispered. “You should be in bed.”
“I couldn’t sleep—and then I heard you.”
“Well, go back to bed,” Mama said. “Grandma Lettice asked us to go singing with her.”
“Singing? Now? May I come, too?”
“It’s cold outside,” Papa said.
“I don’t mind,” Olivia replied. “Please?”
Mama and Papa exchanged glances. “Well, all right,” Papa said. “But you’ll have to dress quickly. We don’t want to be late.”
Olivia changed into her warmest clothes, then followed her parents into the chilly darkness. The cold stung her face like an angry slap, and her breath turned into puffy clouds. “Where are we going?” she asked. “Are we going to sing a song I know?”
“You’ll see,” Mama said.
Just as she was wondering how much farther she’d have to walk, she saw her aunts and uncles, Grandma Lettice, and several neighbors gathered together outside the Mansion House at the corner of Main and Water Streets.
The Prophet’s house! Olivia caught her breath. Are we going to sing to the Prophet? she wondered.
“All right, everyone,” Grandma Lettice whispered. “Just as we rehearsed it.”
For a split second, Olivia wondered if it had been a mistake to come—she hadn’t rehearsed anything. But in only two notes, Olivia realized that she did know the song. It was one of the songs in Sister Smith’s new hymnal. She took a deep breath and sang with the rest of the carolers.
“Mortals, awake! with angels join,
And chant the solemn lay;
Love, joy and gratitude combine
To hail th’ auspicious day.”*
Soon lights flickered to life, and windows of the Mansion House opened. The Prophet Joseph Smith, his family, and all of his boarders looked out.
“Who’s singing?” someone asked.
“How lovely,” whispered another.
“Are there angels outside?”
Although Olivia wasn’t an angel, she certainly felt like one as a wave of warmth spread from the top of her head to the very tips of her toes. How happy the Prophet looks, she thought.
When they’d finished, Olivia was certain that she saw tears in the Prophet’s eyes as he thanked them for their beautiful serenade and blessed them in the name of the Lord.
“Merry Christmas,” Olivia called as the singers left. She decided that she didn’t want to be back in England, after all. She belonged here with her family, the restored Church, and the Lord’s prophet. She couldn’t think of a better Christmas gift.

The story of two equally fine young men will illustrate the PEF’s impact. They have recently served missions in a less-advantaged country. Both of these elders served obediently. But when one returned home, he enjoyed the means to attend a great university, thanks to parents who have saved enough through self-reliance and provident living to pay for his education. He would not even have to work during school. The other missionary, equally worthy and obedient, returned home to face the same poverty from whence he came.

Anguished at the situation, the returned missionary from better financial circumstances sent a letter to the PEF office. Following inner promptings, he took the money his parents provided for a year of college, donated it to the PEF, and found a job to earn his own way through school that year. Clearly he sought to become one with the Savior by becoming one with his brother. (See D&C 38:25–27.)

Danny clutched his new sailboat tightly as he walked with his mother toward the pond in the park. Today he was going to sail his boat for the first time. Carefully he set it on the water. Then, holding onto a long string attached to the boat, he watched as a breeze caught the sail and moved the boat across the water.
On the other side of the pond, another boy was also watching the sailboat. Danny felt proud when he saw his sailboat skimming easily across the pond, and he wondered if the other boy wished that he had a sailboat too.
Before Danny realized it, the string attached to the boat slipped from his hand. He looked at his boat getting farther and farther from him. “Mom! Mom! My boat’s getting away!” he shouted.
“Don’t worry,” Mother said. “The wind will probably blow it back to where you can reach it.”
Danny waited, but the breeze stopped, and the sailboat just sat in the middle of the pond.
Suddenly the boy on the other side of the pond picked up some rocks and began throwing them into the water near the boat.
Danny ran to the water’s edge and yelled. “Stop it! Stop it! You’re going to sink my boat!”
The boy ignored Danny and kept throwing rocks.
Danny’s eyes filled with tears as he watched his new boat moving wildly up and down in the splashing water. “Oh, Mother, I hate that boy. I hate him!” he cried.
Suddenly Danny realized that his boat was getting closer to the opposite shore. Finally the boy reached out with a stick and pulled the boat to him.
“Now he’s going to steal my boat!” Danny wailed.
The boy picked up the boat and ran around the pond. To Danny’s surprise, the boy handed him the sailboat.
“Hi. My name’s Bobby. I thought I could get your boat back for you by throwing rocks into the water and making the water ripple to move your boat.”
Danny felt his face get hot. He was sorry he had shouted at the boy, and he felt ashamed for saying he hated Bobby.
Danny smiled at the other boy and said, “Thanks, Bobby. Would you like a turn at sailing my boat? I just got it yesterday.”

This verse also helped me make a difficult decision. My friend and I had been inseparable for five years. We played sports together, went on trips together, and hung out every weekend. But she began hanging out with an older group of friends who I didn’t want to be around. In the end she made me choose between having her as a friend or sticking to my beliefs regarding the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity. I was devastated. I never knew that standing up for what I believed could be so hard. But I chose to make new friends, always keeping in mind Heavenly Father’s promise to Joseph Smith that everything would work out all right.

As soon as my colleague saw his car’s broken window, he felt sick. The feeling came not merely from knowing he would have to replace the window, but more from fear that years of work might be lost. In a moment his fear was confirmed; someone had stolen his briefcase.
Arriving later than expected for a speaking engagement in a large city, this professor had parked on a small side street some distance from the lecture hall. To avoid carrying his heavily loaded attaché case, he had removed his lecture notes and left the battered case on the car seat. Because it looked so worn and contained little of material value, he had thought it would be safe. Unfortunately, he was wrong.
I was touched later when he shared his disappointment and sorrow at the loss. That old briefcase contained the results of hundreds of kilometers of travel, the work of a few thousand dollars in grant money, the product of months of careful research, analysis, study, pondering, and writing. The book-length paper in the briefcase had no material value to anyone else. But what the thief probably threw away in disgust was a valuable part of another human being’s life.

In the humid heat of a Thai morning, the newly ordained elder knelt on an old newspaper to protect his knees from the rough concrete floor of the hut. He was wearing a second-hand white shirt, an old tie, and sandals on his feet. Reverently, he broke bread and blessed it. Thach Khuong was not only grateful for the opportunity to participate in a sacrament service, but also for life itself. He had recently led his family through the dangers of war-ravaged Vietnam and Cambodia to the promise of freedom and safety in a United Nations refugee camp in Panat Nikom, Thailand.
When Brother Thach first arrived at the camp, he surprised Church welfare services missionary Elyce Jones by shaking her hand instead of giving her the traditional Cambodian bow of greeting. He told her that he was a member of the Church and that he held the Aaronic Priesthood. It was welcome news. Welfare services missionaries were assigned to teach refugees Western culture and English as a second language, but it was against United Nations’ policy for them to proselyte. However, with proper authority, refugee Church members were permitted to conduct Church affairs, including Sunday services.
At Brother Thach’s news, Sister Jones and other welfare services missionaries contacted Elder Marion D. Hanks of the First Quorum of the Seventy, then the Church executive administrator for Southeast Asia, and informed him that an Aaronic priesthood holder had arrived in the camp. Following a personal interview, Elder Hanks ordained Thach Khuong to the office of elder. “Brother Thach was our first priesthood holder in the camp,” says Sister Jones. “With his ordination, we were permitted to hold Sunday services.”
Brother Thach had joined the Church in 1971 while on a South Vietnamese air force training assignment in the United States. He made Latter-day Saint friends, attended Church meetings, accepted the missionary discussions, and was baptized. On his return to Vietnam some nine months later, his suitcase containing his copy of the scriptures was stolen. At the time, he was not aware of any Church organization in Vietnam, although a branch did exist in the capital city. But he did receive a twelve-month gift subscription to the Ensign, the English-language Church magazine. Reading and rereading the twelve copies of the magazine sustained him spiritually during the next ten years. When the government changed in Vietnam and “foreign” printed materials were viewed with suspicion by the authorities, he cherished his copies of the Ensign even more and hid them for safe-keeping.
When he left Vietnam and arrived in the refugee camp, he wrote to the Ensign and asked that his letter be forwarded to an old Latter-day Saint friend in the United States. The friend was traced. He began corresponding with Brother Thach and sponsored his immigration to the United States.
Thach Khuong is only one of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees who attempt to escape Indochina in order to live a better life. Many fail. Many die.
Many pay large amounts of money to be transported in small, overcrowded boats that often are in disrepair, hoping that some friendly vessel will come to their rescue before ocean storms, pirates, starvation, or dehydration overcome them.
Others, like Brother Thach, risk capture and death by traveling from Vietnam in the south, northward through Cambodia to neutral Thailand. With Brother Thach was his wife, Minhdan, three-year-old daughter, Minhvan, and a nephew, eight-year-old Khaivien. Brother Thach says, “Khaivien’s father was unable to pay the price to get his wife and six children out of Vietnam. He asked me to take the boy. Even though it meant giving up their oldest son, he and his wife felt that at least one of their children should have a chance at freedom.”
The journey through Cambodia was arranged with the help of a “guide” who charged Brother Thach one and one half taels of gold, approximately equivalent to his entire earnings for eighteen months. Brother Thach worked hard to save the money, accumulating the funds secretly so as not to arouse the suspicions of the authorities. Finally prepared, after selling the family’s meager possessions to relatives and friends, the group left on a moonless night in March, 1981, praying that they would be successful in their venture.
Brother Thach knows that their prayers were answered. Although they were Vietnamese citizens, he and his wife shared a Cambodian heritage and assumed the identity of Cambodians for their journey. “We were not always successful,” he recalls. “For instance, my wife dressed like a Cambodian woman, but one day we were questioned by someone who wondered why her sarong looked Vietnamese and not Cambodian. Even though the two countries have the same cultural background there is a difference in the style of sarong and in the way that it is worn. We gave some excuse or other, and we were allowed to go on our way.”
They were stopped several times by soldiers, but each time a small miracle occurred and they were free to continue. “One time,” says Brother Thach, “we were stopped at a checkpoint where there were two soldiers on guard; one of them Cambodian and the other Vietnamese. For some reason the Vietnamese soldier turned away and didn’t talk to us. The Cambodian soldier asked to see our identification papers. I decided to tell him the truth—where we were from and where we were going. He let us go. I’m sure we would have been detained had the Vietnamese soldier challenged us.”
The family also escaped other potential dangers—being attacked by robbers or getting caught in military skirmishes—as they made their way by overloaded and ancient buses, bicycles, ox-drawn cart, and railroad train to Batdambang south of the Thai-Cambodian border.
The train carrying them had to make frequent stops while repairs were made to railroad tracks damaged by land mines. Brother Thach explains, “To clear the tracks, the train crew would unhook the locomotive from the passenger cars and use it to push ahead a weighted freight car to set off any unexploded mines. Then they would repair the track. This took so long to do each time that all of us on the train were afraid we would be stranded without food.”
Brother Thach says that at one repair stop, “I left the train and prayed that the Lord would help me find food for my family. They had not had anything substantial to eat for some time. After walking for about two kilometers I came to a village. I went to a house at the edge of the village and asked a lady if I could buy some food from her. She cooked a pan of rice, packed it in a banana leaf, added a pinch of salt, and gave it to me.” He paid her and took the rice back to his wife and the two hungry children, not forgetting to thank the Lord.
The family finally arrived at the refugee camp in Batdambang, but because it was located in Cambodia, Brother Thach requested that they be transferred to safer refuge at Panat Nikom, Thailand, where they arrived in May, two months after leaving Vietnam. From Thailand, they relocated to the United States where Minhdan Thach was baptized. She now serves as a Relief Society counselor in the Taylorsville 40th (Vietnamese) Branch, Taylorsville Utah Central Stake. Brother Thach, second counselor in the branch elders quorum presidency, is now an electronic test technician with a national engineering and research company with a manufacturing plant and offices in Utah.

When I was nine, I moved away and no longer got to spend time in the garage with Grandpa. A few years later the distance multiplied when my grandparents were called to serve a mission in Hawaii. However, it was truly a blessing. My grandpa finally got the chance to serve the Lord as a missionary. Growing up in such a large family meant that money was limited, and a full-time mission wasn’t possible for him when he was young. While my grandpa had the desire to serve, a full-time mission involved a great deal of sacrifice. I had always wanted to serve a mission, and seeing my grandparents serve and the blessings that came from their service bolstered my desire. When my grandpa came back, the garage was waiting for him. The sounds of power tools and metal once again reverberated through the walls.

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki
Matt, I’ve asked you a thousand times to not play with my tools.
I didn’t Daddy.
My hammer’s gone and you’ve taken it before.
Not this time. I promise!
I’m sorry that you’ve chosen to lie to me, Matt. You’d better go to your room until you’re ready to tell the truth.
But, Daddy!
No “but, Daddies.” Go to your room!
Here’s your hammer back, dear. I just needed to hang a picture.
I’m sorry, Matt. I shouldn’t have accused you unless I was sure. Will you forgive me?
Sure. Can I play now?
I wish I were that good at forgiving.

Although he was a school teacher, my father raised animals and cared for a large garden and fruit orchard. In the summertime, it was a rule that we worked in the mornings in the garden or orchard; in the afternoons, we could play.
My father had a way of making our work pleasant. He could turn any chore into a game. He knew that we loved to play baseball. One day he told us to pick up fallen apples in the orchard and feed them to the pigs. We didn’t particularly enjoy that job. So he placed boards in the form of a man on the back of the pigpen. Then he stepped off the distance from the board form to a pitcher’s mound. From that point, we threw the gathered apples at the pretended man just as a baseball pitcher would in a game. Of course, the apples crashed against the board and split into pieces, and the pigs had a feast.

Photograph courtesy of Dane W.
In high school, I struggled with a lot of anxiety and depression, so I ended up dropping out. For about five years, I distanced myself from the Church and from family. About that time, I also started using drugs and alcohol to cope with how alone I felt.
It was a pretty dark time.
At one point, my mom learned about BYU–Pathway Worldwide and started encouraging me to join. An education was something I had always wanted, but my previous experiences with school had crushed my confidence.
I dismissed my mom’s offer at first, but within that week, I looked up BYU–Pathway online. It seemed like a pretty good fit for me. Despite my doubts, I decided to go for it. At the same time, I started working to align my life with the gospel again.
When I first started my courses, I felt awkward and out of place. I hadn’t been active in the Church for years, but the people in my classes were from all walks of life and showed me I didn’t need to be perfect to be there.
Soon I began to feel more of the Spirit and like things were heading in the right direction. Before, I had felt like I was failing at everything in life. But for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was progressing both academically and spiritually.
Feeling the Spirit through my education helped me get back in tune with my testimony and brought clarity to my mind. Because I knew Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were with me, I had the confidence to do things I didn’t think I could do before when I was surrounded by darkness. After everything I had been through, I’d never felt that getting an education was within my reach—BYU–Pathway changed that for me and helped me have faith in myself and in Jesus Christ again.
Dane W., Utah, USA

When I was 14 years old, on a beautiful August morning, Elder Prina and Elder Perkins knocked at our door. They began teaching our family about the true nature of God. In the visits that followed, they taught us how to pray. They also taught us about the Restoration and the plan of salvation. After the third or fourth visit, most of my family stopped listening to the missionaries, except for my 17-year-old sister, Dina, and me. We both felt the witness of the Holy Ghost in our hearts and received the spiritual confirmation that the message was true.
We bought a copy of the Book of Mormon and began reading it. Every day after school, we would race home to get to the book first. While the first one home was reading, the other one impatiently waited until mealtime, ate in a hurry, and then took her turn reading until bedtime. Such was the excitement we felt. We started attending church, and soon we asked to be baptized. Our father readily gave his permission, but our mother was hesitant, and it took one more month to persuade her to sign the permission slip. On the day of our baptism, she and the rest of our siblings went to church for the first time. She felt the Spirit. After hearing our testimonies, she went to the missionaries and asked them to start teaching her again. A few weeks later, Mother and our younger sister and brothers were baptized. My life changed forever, and the gospel of Jesus Christ became the compelling force in my life.

I also told this young brother that one day I asked my mother what she feels at the end of each year of institute when she does not receive a certificate: “Mom, don’t you feel bad when they don’t award you a certificate?” I told my young friend that I was surprised by her answer when she said, “My son, know that what I receive in these institute of religion classes is more important to me than the certificate.” And then she added, “Some young people come to institute just to get a certificate, but they forget what is important. I would rather lack a certificate than the knowledge of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.” I thanked my mother for her inspired words.