Gospel Story Finder

One morning at four o’clock my little grandson awakened me and said, “Grandpa, I throwed up.” I was pleased that he had come to me—not to his mother or father or grandmother, but to me.
I went with him to the bedroom where he and his brother had been sleeping. It was a mess. I gave two little boys a shower, then reclothed, and relocated them. They were both staggering around sleepily.
Afterward I lay in my bed, smiling. It had been an experience full of good cheer and appreciation.
Several days later, at the breakfast table, my grandson said, between mouthfuls of cereal, “Grandpa, I think you are the greatest man in the whole world.”
I said, “Well, certainly one of the best looking, but maybe not the greatest.” But he didn’t laugh. He said, “And the goodest.”
That little fellow was overgenerous to me, but he understood something very important, something the Savior taught: In serving and being served, we really do learn to love each other.

I once met with a woman who was suffering from depression, low self-esteem, who continually made poor decisions in her life and she was miserable. As a child, she had been sexually abused for a number of years and she never quite got her life off the ground. I remember how sad I was when I heard her life story. After she left my office, I fell upon my knees and cried to the Lord, asking Him to heal her and make her happier.

At a subsequent session, I shared with her a talk given by the Apostle, Elder Richard G. Scott, in which he said: "I solemnly testify that when another's acts of violence, perversion, or incest hurt you terribly, against your will, you are not responsible and you must not feel guilty. You may be left scarred by abuse, but those scars need not be permanent. In the eternal plan, in the Lord's timetable, those injuries can be made right as you do your part."

Her part, she decided after much pondering, was to live the gospel principles. Then she read in 3 Nephi 12:43-44, [slide 3]"And behold it is written also, that thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy; But behold I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you."

This woman realized that she had been filled with feelings of hate, shame, worthlessness and guilt. [end slide 3][slide 4, blank] She realized that what was important was not the past in itself but how she was responding to the past. She realized that she did not have to see life in such a discolored, dysfunctional way and continue in the same pattern.. She began the process of changing her thoughts, softening her heart, trusting again, finding value in herself, understanding her great worth as a child of God and understanding the depth of love that the Savior had for her.

As her level of spirituality increased, she allowed the great Atonement to heal her. In time, she became a changed person, happier, more cheerful, more loving, more confident. She had listened to the counsel of an Apostle and the scriptures and then she had taken positive action. This woman has done remarkable things with her life since then for she let the Lord into her heart and now, her life is a fulfilling one.

A few years ago, a Presbyterian minister moved into my community wanting to serve all her neighbors, not just her church congregation. As she reached out in our predominantly LDS neighborhood with friendliness, offers to help, and invitations to neighborhood parties, ward members began participating in her congregation’s service projects; together, she and neighbors of various faiths held a fundraiser that significantly helped an LDS family with dire medical expenses.
Apostle Orson F. Whitney (1855–1931) stated, “God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of his great and marvelous work. … It is too vast, too arduous, for any one people.”3 Great things can be accomplished when good people band together. Our neighborhood minister’s efforts led to the formation of a community interfaith committee that, along with our stake Relief Society, put on a women’s conference supplying hygiene kits and books to refugee agencies. These interfaith connections then enabled stake members to help a congregation feed a large refugee gathering and to step in when another church needed additional volunteers at a homeless shelter.

Some time ago, while serving as bishop of a YSA ward here on campus, I was helping a young lady with some questions she was dealing with. I used Lehi’s vision of the tree of life in chapter 8 of 1 Nephi as a reference to help her with some of her concerns. When we finished, she wondered out loud how come she was never taught to use the stories in the Book of Mormon in current, real-life challenges. She said her family read from the book often and that she had attended seminary and her Young Women’s classes and that she had a testimony of the Book of Mormon and knew it is true, but she had never realized its potential to be used in her everyday life. So, I wondered if others have the same concern. Let me walk through some ideas that may help you understand what I mean.

While serving in a stake presidency, I met with a sister who was going through a very difficult time. As I considered what I might say to help her, to my surprise, she asked if she could share some verses from the book of Isaiah. “The book of Isaiah?” I thought. I was astonished as she shared verse after verse of powerful words that helped her to know the Lord was mindful of her and He would be with her during this trial. After she left, I made a personal commitment to come to know the writings of this ancient prophet. To this day, I worry less about cultural nuances and linguistic triffles and focus on hearing the Savior’s voice in Isaiah. I dig deeply until I find Him. Jesus himself told the Nephites, “Great are the words of Isaiah.”[13]

A treasured memory for them both was when they heard Elder LeGrand Richards, who was the visiting General Authority, speak at their first stake conference. My Father said he spoke about eternal marriage and about telling your wife you love her every day. My Mother said she was so impressed with the power with which he spoke.
They have been faithful members, raising six children, including five sons who served missions, and they are now seeing their grandchildren serve. And yes, my Father still tells my Mum that he loves her every day!

“One of the most significant moments of my life came at my daughter-in-law’s funeral. I learned a lesson in faith from our son. He stood with his aching, empty arms reaching out to the coffin of his young wife and said, ‘This isn’t the way I thought it was going to be. But it’s all right because God’s principles suffice.’”
“He took the principles of the gospel and applied them. They work! They always do! That is the key to getting over whatever challenge or disappointment we meet in this life. It you do things the Lord’s way, whatever way it comes out is all right.
“The secret of getting through life is coming to know our Father in Heaven and his Son. If you don’t know the Lord and feel his power and influence, if you don’t feel the promptings of the Spirit, if you don’t know the Lord is your friend, then everything else is like building your house on sand. You don’t have a sure foundation. When trouble comes you don’t really understand who Christ is and whom he represents and you don’t understand what he is trying to do for you.”
And how do you arrive at this sacred knowledge?
“You pray all of the time. I have profound respect for the Savior and our Heavenly Father and want to be close to them, but I have tried to train myself not to get cozy or think they are on my level or put myself on theirs. When I get in a tight situation, there is a mental bending and bowing of my head as I seek God’s will, because I know how important it is to have his Spirit with me. I can honestly say that the worst mistakes I make are when I go charging off on my own, or lean on the arm of flesh, or get to feeling confident in my own experience or wisdom. Fortunately, the Lord is very patient with us while we learn, isn’t he?
“With the knowledge we have, we may mourn, but we need never despair. We have a little loved one in Seattle. 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 is magic in stargazing and 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 can’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?”

Carolyn not only serves her family but helps them serve their neighbors. Three years ago there was a drought in New Jersey. When rain finally came, it came in the form of Hurricane Floyd. Suddenly there was too much water. The Foxes could not leave their neighborhood because all the roads to it were flooded. Their whole neighborhood was without power for four days.
Their home didn’t get flooded, but nearly every other house in their area had seven to eight feet of water in its basement. “The stream in our backyard turned into a river. For a while the children sailed down it on their boogie boards,” Sister Fox said. “But they soon gave that up and went and helped people.”
The Foxes own a large pump and spent the next four days pumping out basements. It was a marvelous experience for them. They got to know their neighbors, and their neighbors got to know them. While Dad ran the pump, Carolyn, Katie, Adam, and David swam around the basements trying to save some of the families’ possessions.
“Our children came to realize that possessions aren’t very important,” Sister Fox said. “If the families were OK, everything else would be OK. It unified the whole neighborhood, and all our neighbors found out we are members of the Church.”

At the same time that I was caring for Mary, I had another patient whom I will call Jane. She was 42 years old. Like Mary, she had cancer that could not be cured. Soon after she learned she had a terminal disease, she left home, moved into a local hotel, and followed a life-style in exact opposition to gospel teachings. She visited the bars and drank heavily, and she tried narcotics. In her own words, she was “trying everything before she died.” She died screaming in pain, cursing God.

Natalie thinks that it’s great to be sixteen and to go on dates. But I’m only seven, and I went on a date! Your girl-friend Melissa took me to a movie. She said that you wouldn’t mind. When we got home, Kelly’s car was at our house. I saw her outside with Mom, but Melissa didn’t. I told Melissa that I’d buy her an ice-cream cone, and we walked to the ice-cream store. That was a close call! I think that having girl-friends is hard work!

They met the Fosters the next night. During their meeting, Scott continually pushed for commitments from them, but they just grinned and asked if he’d like some more cake.

As they drove home that night, Scott dropped a bombshell.

“If they don’t accept some challenges the next time we meet with them, then we drop ’em.”

“Just like that? We’ve been working with them for six months.”

“Maybe they’re just deadwood. We’re out here to baptize.”

“Give ’em some time.”

“I don’t have time.”

The next time they met with the Fosters, Scott challenged them to prepare for baptism.

They accepted the challenge. Two weeks later they were baptized.

I share the following experience with permission. A husband and father in my ward requested an interview with me. He confessed that he was struggling with an addiction to pornography. He desperately wanted to put his destructive behavior behind him, but he had not been able to do so. He began to pour out his heart, explaining how the roots of this terrible habit were in his childhood. But in the middle of this outpouring he stopped abruptly and said, seeming to be almost angry, “No! I will not make excuses. What I am doing is wrong. It is evil, and nothing can justify it.” He cut himself short, and then he went on to express concern that there were two sides to him. He told me of his feelings and worries that he himself might actually be evil.

I told this good brother, this beloved spirit child of our Heavenly Father, that, yes, he needed to repent and overcome, but that he also needed to quit tearing himself down. He needed to remember who he is—a son of God! “You are where you are,” I told him. “Accept and acknowledge that. But you must also acknowledge and accept who you are.” It was important that he not leave room for justifying his behavior—that he not rationalize or convince himself that somehow his actions were not destructive or contrary to the principles of righteousness. But at the same time, if he would not allow himself room to understand the roots of his problem, how could he hope to overcome it? If he allowed himself no room for understanding, no kindness, no mercy, how could he truly know and remember who he is and why he is here? And without this, how could he develop the determination to undertake and persevere in the difficult but vital task of overcoming?

Like many who become caught up in Satan’s snares, this good brother had heard Lucifer’s whispered lies, and in his guilt and shame he had begun to believe them. Satan would have us believe that when we do wrong, it is over—that we have irrevocably forfeited our promised blessings. “What you have done is too sinful, too ugly for you to ever be fully restored to your full potential,” he might whisper. “After all, you are a returned missionary, you have made sacred temple covenants, you are a husband and father, or you are a wife and mother, and look what you have done!” In this way he would have us become caught up not only in a web of destructive sin but also in a self-reinforcing cycle of denying who we really are and why we are really here. That cycle results in self-loathing and discouragement and ultimately in the inability to move forward.

Is it not emblematic of his essential deceitfulness that the very being who tries to chain you into soul-destroying patterns then whispers to you that you are worthless because you have done the very things that he has urged you to do?

I did my best to encourage this good brother, to give him hope. I promised him that the Atonement of the Savior was still available to him, as it is available to each of us. I promised him that his full potential as a child of God was still available to him if he would repent. I asked him to work toward remembering who he is, to learn to understand and love and eventually even forgive himself.

Some of his Church privileges were suspended for a time—with the sole intent of helping him to heal. I asked him to meet with a therapist who could help him understand his weakness and why, from his childhood, it had become so consuming. Together we formulated goals and plans that would, with faith and prayer, help him to eventually understand and overcome and move forward on the path to returning to his Father in Heaven—renewed and cleansed and healed.

Over time I saw the light of hope return to this brother’s eyes. The process was not easy, and he was not perfect in his efforts at first, but he found immediate peace and joy in the process of moving forward! After months of learning and struggling and progressing, the day came when his temple recommend was returned to him. And we rejoiced together.

Some weeks later, I had a vivid dream. My three boys had climbed to the top of a cliff. As they stepped to the edge, I felt powerless to keep them safe. Any of them could make a choice at any moment that would lead to a deadly fall. I cried out to God in fear.
I awoke with my heart pounding. I rolled out of bed to pray that Heavenly Father would protect my sons—not from a physical fall but from a spiritual one that now felt just as real.
The Spirit prompted me to open the Pearl of Great Price. His guidance took me on a spiritual journey through the story of Enoch (see Moses 7:21–67). As I read, I realized that our Heavenly Father watches us make choices that could lead us over the ledge toward spiritual death. With my dream fresh in my mind, I now had a better understanding of how hard it must be for Him to watch us make such choices (see Moses 7:28).
But I realized I could not ask God to keep my boys from falling without asking Him to take away the agency He had given them. For a brief second, I understood the draw of Lucifer’s promise that he would save everyone, including our loved ones (see Moses 4:1). But Satan’s promise was deception because it would “destroy the agency of man” (Moses 4:3). And Heavenly Father knew that if we were to become like Him, we must be able to choose to obey Him (see Moses 7:32–33).
I was stunned as I considered our Father’s unwavering commitment to our agency in spite of what it must have cost Him personally (see Moses 7:37). But where did that leave me? Was I really powerless to do anything to help them?
As my own soul ached for my children (see Moses 7:41), the Spirit whispered to me to lift up my heart and be glad (see Moses 7:44). I kept reading and was struck by the following words: “I am Messiah, the King of Zion, the Rock of Heaven, which is broad as eternity; whoso cometh in at the gate and climbeth up by me shall never fall”1 (Moses 7:53; emphasis added).
This climb was what I had just dreamed about! This promise of safety is what I had just prayed for. When I looked at our mortal journey as a climb, I realized my boys were going to slip and fall. We all do. I did. That’s why I wanted to protect them; I was afraid that if they fell off the rock, they might be so hurt that they wouldn’t want to get back up.
But as the Spirit continued to teach me, I realized that the experiences I’d had in turning back to the Savior after my falls had changed me. They created in me an appreciation for what Jesus Christ had done for me. It’s what bound me to Him now. That experience is invaluable, but it is only possible when we are free to choose to turn to Him again if we have chosen to turn away.
I now understood that I couldn’t keep my boys from making choices that would lead to a fall. But I could help them learn to recognize good choices, and I could teach them whom to turn to, not only when they made bad choices but in all things.
Nephi’s metaphor of a path helped me know how I could help my boys learn to turn to Him: “Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:20; see also verse 19).
Whether we are talking about clinging to an iron rod or to a climbing rope, the safety I wanted to provide my boys is found in being connected to the Savior by relying upon His word. Instilling in them a love for the scriptures and the teachings of living prophets can give them what they need to press forward—or upward—even if they slip and fall.

As if being a kid isn’t bad enough. I had to grow up next door to the girl with the All-American teeth. Allison (“two ls”) Adamson had the straightest, whitest teeth in the history of orthodontistry. Adults always commented on this. You could count on them to say, “Doesn’t the Adamson girl have lovely teeth?” every time they got together.
As for me, I was more interested in the fact that Allison took tap, tumbling, ballet, baton, and hula lessons after school. She also played the piano and collected dolls from different countries. Best of all, she had her own dog—a white poodle named Hercules. Me, I just had a goldfish named Ralph. You can probably see already how things were for me growing up next door to someone like Allison Adamson.
Because we were neighbors who happened to be LDS, Allison and I ended up doing things together all the time. During the summer we went to the pool with Allison’s mom, and during the winter we watched cartoons after school together. This made everyone think, of course, that we were best friends, and we were. Sort of.
The problem was that underneath all my smiles I was jealous of Allison. I wanted all the pretty girl things she had that my parents couldn’t buy for me so badly that my chest literally hurt at times. I wanted her dolls, her canopy bed with the foamy pink bedspread, her play makeup case with the play makeup. I can remember sitting in her white wicker rocker one day and telling her I’d trade my shoebox of Bazooka bubble gum wrappers for one of her bendable Barbies. She wasn’t interested, of course.
Our eighth birthdays were coming up in April, and one day on the way home from school Allison asked who was going to baptize me.
I hadn’t thought about it much. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “Who’s going to baptize you?”
“My dad,” she said proudly.
“Well I guess my dad will baptize me, too, then,” I told her. I’d never seen anyone baptized—I’m the oldest in my family—but I figured my dad could probably do it if someone showed him how.
Allison looked at me with wide disbelieving blue eyes. “But he can’t!” she exclaimed.
This was news to me. “Why?” I wanted to know.
“Because my mom says he can’t. My mom says he isn’t worthy.”
I didn’t know what the word worthy meant, but I didn’t like Allison’s tone.
“Yes he is too worthy,” I said.
“No he’s not.”
“Yes he is.”
Allison stopped and stared at me the way our third-grade teacher always stared at stupid Stewart Lufgren. “Your dad is not worthy, Brenda, because he doesn’t go to church and he smokes. I know he smokes because I can smell it when I go to your house.” She wrinkled her little button nose in distaste. “Don’t you know anything?”
My throat suddenly felt very tight. Blood was pounding in my ears. “I hate you, Allison Adamson,” I said finally. Then I turned and ran home.
Our house is so busy with people that no one noticed how miserable I was at first. At dinner, though, Mom squinted her eyes at me and said across the table, “Are you okay, Brenda honey?”
I nodded yes.
She came into my bedroom that night before I fell asleep. “Did something happen to you at school today, Brenda? You can tell me about it if you want to.”
“No, nothing happened,” I answered, as tonelessly as a telephone operator.
Mom just sat there on the foot of my bed for a minute. Then she said, “Do you want to talk to Daddy?” Sometimes I told him things I wouldn’t tell anybody else. But this time I shook my head. Hard.
“No!”
I lay awake in bed for a long time that night watching shadows skip across my wall. Yessir, Allison had it all—extra money for Weekly Reader paperbacks, a locket with pictures inside, a father who could baptize her.
That was the first time I realized that my dad was different. I mean I always knew he didn’t go to church, but that hadn’t added up to anything—you think your father is just like everybody else’s dad when you’re a kid. But Allison had opened my eyes. The day we were baptized, Allison, looking like she had just stepped out of a fairy tale in her long white gown, was taken into the font by her smiling father. I was baptized by my Uncle Bill. Dad sat in the congregation looking uncomfortable in a suit. His rough brown worker’s hands were folded in his lap.
Things changed some between my father and me after that. Not that you could tell by looking at us—he still teased and tickled me and called me Sport and I still begged him to take me to baseball games. For sure we loved each other. But I didn’t tell him private things anymore. And then, too, I started noticing all the ways he wasn’t worthy. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help myself.
If things changed between my father and me then, they changed even more between Allison and me. By the time we were freshmen in high school, we had pretty much gone our separate ways. Allison went from honors class to honors class while I wore an Army jacket and hung around the library with this nice but weird group of kids who all wanted to be science fiction writers when they grew up. Although she thought my friends were bad enough, it was the Army jacket that really got to Allison. “Only our boys in the armed forces should wear khaki,” she used to say.
And now this year, the girl with the all-American teeth and I are taking early-morning seminary together. There are two teachers—Brother Marshall and Brother Phillips. Brother Marshall is Mormondom’s answer to Robert Redford. All jawbone and blond hair, Brother Marshall is gorgeous. He also lettered in about a million sports when he was in college, so you can see he’s athletic, too. Besides this he’s young, nice, smart, and very funny. All the kids love him. Brother Phillips, on the other hand, is old enough to have fought in World War II. He’s small and stooped, just like a little gnome, and when he talks he whispers.
Funny thing, though, I like Brother Phillips best. I like the way he listens carefully to your questions, then thinks for a while before he answers. And lots of times he’ll answer, “I don’t know.” This drives Allison crazy. “If he wants to teach seminary then he should know,” she says. Maybe he should. I can’t say. I just like the way he seems so thoughtful about things.
The reason I’m even telling you all this is that I have a problem. I’m not talking about your typical teenager problems—losing books, being ambushed by a gang of pimples the night before a dance, dropping lunch trays. No. This one is a red-alert problem. Next Tuesday morning, I have to check into the hospital for a series of tests. They say I’ve got a tumor of some sort.
Frankly, I’m scared.
I thought some sort of blessing might help. I don’t mean a blessing that promises I’ll get better or anything like that. Just one that makes me feel like I’m not going through this alone. I thought maybe I’d ask Brother Phillips if he’d give me one: there’s something fatherly about him.
I feel pretty silly, actually, standing here at Brother Phillips’s office door. This is not the sort of thing I usually do. But I want a blessing.
I knock.
“Come in, come in.” Brother Phillips opens his door and greets me. When he smiles, his cheeks turn into small apples.
“How are you, Brenda?” he says.
“Okay,” I reply, looking around his office. It’s the first time I’ve ever been inside. It’s filled with books and old family pictures of people who look like characters on Leave It to Beaver reruns. His children, I think, must be all grown up and gone away by now. Did they ever ask him for blessings?
“What can I do for you?” he asks after inviting me to sit down.
Now that I’m here, I feel really stupid. I don’t know how to ask him for what I want.
“Well,” I begin, “I’m going into the hospital Tuesday morning.”
Brother Phillips draws his bristle brush brows together in concern. Encouraged by his silent sympathy, I go on. “Anyway, I want to know if you would mind giving me a blessing or something. It doesn’t have to be long or fancy.”
Brother Phillips looks at me for a moment, then presses his fingertips together and leans back in his swivel chair.
“I could do that,” he says slowly.
I wait. He doesn’t move.
“Brenda,” he says finally, “have you asked your father to give you a blessing?”
This is certainly a ball of the curved variety. I’m taken totally by surprise. “Well, no,” I confess.
“I see.” Pause. “Do you think perhaps you ought to go to him before you come to me?”
I can’t believe this. Brother Phillips knows that my father isn’t active in the Church.
“I don’t know,” I begin to stammer. “I guess I just thought that—” The memory of Allison, her perfect little mouth forming the words not worthy, jumps up like a puppet before my eyes, and with it the same old feelings of shame and rage return for an encore. “My father can’t give me a blessing!” I blurt out.
Brother Phillips shrugs. “Well, maybe not a formal blessing. But every parent has a prayer for his child. Go home, Brenda. Ask your father to tell you what’s in his heart for you. I know your father. He’s a good man.”
I leave feeling embarrassed, even a little angry that I didn’t get what I came for. All the same, though, I feel oddly comforted. Brother Phillips’s words “I know your father” play reel-to-reel through my mind.
Yes. And I know my father, too. I’ve lived with him for 16 years. I’ve seen him talk silly to the babies, play Candyland with my brothers without looking bored, scream at me to stay away from a live wire. I think he’s the kind of man who would have a prayer for his children.
Allison is standing at the bus stop looking perfect. I’ll say this for all those baton lessons—they sure gave Allison good posture.
“Hi, Allison,” I say, joining her.
“Hi, Brenda.”
We don’t say anything for a minute. Then she says, “I’m really sorry that you have to go to the hospital.” I can tell by looking at her face that she does feel bad. I smile at her.
“Me too.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
I think about this for a minute. Then I shake my head.
She drops her voice so none of the other kids will hear. “I’ll say a prayer for you, at least.”
“Yes,” I say slowly. “A prayer would be nice.”

It’s sometimes tough to be a teenager in Iceland for the same reasons that it’s hard in other countries. It’s the time when you have to make lots of decisions about how you want to live your life. Ulfar explains, “This is a hard age. Everyone is saying, ‘Hey, come get a drink. Have a cigarette.’ Everybody, even your friends, are going out drinking. They asked two or three times, but I just kept saying no and changed the subject. They leave me alone about it now.”

The following day the American Explorers and Ecuadorian Rovers set up a joint camp on a beach near Salinas, Ecuador, where they learned of one another’s camping methods. The beach was part of an equatorial desert where it rains only once every three years. They had an ocean at their tent doorways but no water to use other than what they brought with them.
Religious services were held Sunday morning. Catholic Mass was celebrated by an Ecuadorian Scout leader who was also a priest, and another Ecuadorian Scouter—a Protestant minister—held services for Scouts of various protestant denominations. I conducted religious services for the Mormon Explorers.
“It was a humbling experience,” reports Dean Norris, an LDS Explorer. “We knelt together under a tower in an army obstacle course, and Brother Kovalenko administered the sacrament to us and then talked about our responsibilities as living examples of our priesthood and religion.”

When I started reading “When Thou Art Converted” in the March New Era, it sounded strangely familiar. I suddenly realized that the author was the same Elder Young who taught me the discussions while I worked for the Forest Service last summer in Swan Valley, Idaho.
My job and the Teton Dam disaster made for a really interesting summer, but the sincerity and care with which Elder Young taught me left the most memorable and cherished impression. He ended his mission before I finished the discussions, so I never really had the chance to thank him for the wonderful way he helped change my life and open up new horizons. I only wish he could have been there for my early-morning baptism in the Snake River so he could have witnessed one of the happiest fruits of his labors.
Carol KounanisWest Lafayette, Indiana

Brother Pace met his future wife, Anne Marie Langeland, while the two were second-grade classmates in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Later, while attending different high schools in the city, they reconnected during a combined seminary activity. They wrote each other for the next few years as she accompanied her family to Norway, where her father presided over the Norway Oslo Mission, and while Brother Pace served in the Spain Madrid Mission. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on November 21, 1978, and are the parents of seven children.

Church leaders were assigned by the First Presidency of the Church to reorganise the stake presidency. They had prayed and received impressions to their hearts and minds (See Doctrine and Covenants 8:2) that Kumaitotoya, who was then serving as a bishop, was the man the Lord had chosen.
Kaumaititoya received authority to lead the stake as Church leaders placed their hands on his head and blessed him in the same manner as the disciples were in the Biblical account found in John 15.
Elder David A. Bednar, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, taught that the priesthood is the authority to act in the name of Jesus Christ. He said, “Because Christ is not here with us, His priesthood is needed to teach His doctrine and to perform the ordinances of salvation. Priesthood authority is given to worthy male members of the Church and is received ‘by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof’ (Articles of Faith 1:5). Theological training or reading the Bible does not convey priesthood authority; rather, it comes from God according to the pattern He has established.”1
The call in 2013 came as a surprise to 45-year-old Solomone Kaumaititoya. It was not something for which he sought or to which he aspired. In fact, it caused him deep introspection and feelings of inadequacy. He would continue in his full-time career as an airline purser to financially support his family.
Kaumaititoya prayed fervently, asking, “Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say?” He also wondered, “How can I still do my job and be a stake president?”
The answers came to Kaumaitotoya in the form of scriptures and dreams that penetrated his heart deeply.
The words found in Moses 1:39, “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man,” left an impression upon Kaumaititoya. He said, “This was a call to do the Lord’s work. It wasn’t about me.”
Dreams came to President Kaumaititoya every few days when he was first called. He was shown some of the events that would happen in the stake. He said, “I knew what to do because I had seen it in a dream.”
He found that his life experiences had also prepared him in ways he couldn’t foresee. President Kaumaititoya had a very difficult childhood. As a young teenager, he climbed a hill one day to pray and to ask God why he had to go through such hard things.
He recalled, “I was really angry with God. I couldn’t understand why the Lord would let me go through such hard things. I was asking Him why?”
Kaumaititoya didn’t understand, at first, the answer that came on the hill that day: “For your experience.”
As he served, he made sense of what “for your experience” meant, when a teary congregant walked into his office to seek his ecclesiastical counsel about a similar family situation. Afterwards, it dawned on Kaumaititoya what the answer to his boyhood prayer meant. His path and his challenges had prepared him to minister to and serve people with understanding and love.
Lavinia Kaumaitotoya voiced her gratitude for her husband’s opportunity to serve. She said, “I have seen my husband grow and change to become a more spiritual, loving father and husband. I have seen him coming to know the Saviour.”
Latter-day Saints believe that callings or invitations to accept responsibilities or offices in the Church, are opportunities for growth and refinement. Serving the Lord and others in these volunteer roles increases love for God and for His children. It is a blessing to sacrifice time and energy for the Lord and to be called by Him to do His work.
Nine years ago, when Lavinia and Solomone Kaumaitotoya learned that it was time for a new stake president to be called, they fasted and prayed. They called upon the Lord to bless those seeking inspiration to know who the Lord wanted to lead their stake. They prayed that their stake would be blessed.
Almost as a bookend, the Kaumaitotoya’s again fasted and prayed the week before the stake conference when Solomone would be released as stake president, offering prayers of gratitude, and seeking blessings for the new stake president.
Solomone Kaumaitotoya declared, “President Adrian Yee has the authority to lead the stake now, and I sustain him. I’m ready to do whatever the Lord wants me to do.”

“Personal Progress helps me become a better person and develop qualities and values that will be helpful when working with other people, looking for an eternal companion, raising a family, and fulfilling Church callings. One of my most special experiences with Personal Progress happened when I was working on my Good Works project.
“To complete the project, I served candies and drinks at a transportation business in Salt Lake City. This business shipped big pieces of the buildings that were destroyed in the September 11 attacks to California. The pieces were to be melted and shaped into a memorial for the firemen and officers who died while helping others.
“It was amazing how many people came to see the pieces of the buildings. People cried and stayed for hours. The pieces had been signed by people who had been to Ground Zero in New York City. I was touched by the people’s signatures and notes to loved ones on the metal. They wrote notes of encouragement to keep going, to live life to the fullest, and to always remember. Realizing how deeply the terrorist attacks had affected people’s lives gave me an appreciation and love for what I have.
“After finishing my Good Works project, I was even more determined to finish my Personal Progress.”Cassie Holbrook, 16Oak Woods Ward, Kaysville Utah Crestwood Stake