Gospel Story Finder

At the rear of the sun-drenched chapel, behind the last row of chairs, a man squats on the floor happily bottle-feeding a baby. It’s not his baby. He’s just “borrowed” it from its mother. It gives her a chance to concentrate on the Gospel Doctrine lesson and gives him the pleasure of cradling a baby in his arms.
The man is Wisit Khanakam, president of the Chiang Mai District, Thailand, and the loving care he gives the baby is typical of the loving care he gives the five hundred members in the three branches he serves.
The members know that President Khanakam lives the gospel principles he teaches. In his home the day before, he said, “If there is one thing that helps me and my family stay active in the Church, it is living the gospel. That’s not just praying, not just studying the scriptures, not just serving in a calling, but applying all the gospel principles to our daily lives.
“For example, the Church teaches us how to build love and unity in the family—mother and father and the children helping each other. Just like today,” he says, “my wife had to go to work this afternoon. I had to work in the morning, but I came home in the afternoon to care for our two children, do some laundry, and wash the dishes.”
As he speaks, his seven-year-old daughter, Wisuchalak (nicknamed Buang), sleepily walks into the room from an afternoon nap. Seeing her father is busy, she turns on the television. Although she chooses a children’s program, it contains some rather frightening animation. Her father walks over to her, puts his arm around her, quietly explains that the program really isn’t suitable for her to watch, and successfully encourages her to go outside and play with her eight-year-old brother, Wisoodthiporn, or Ben. “We call him Ben after King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon,” explains President Khanakam.
“There are many things to do in the home,” he says. “It is the activities we do together as a family that help build our testimonies and strengthen us spiritually. For example, my wife is very good at preserving the oranges and mangoes we grow. We get the children involved in gathering the fruit and preparing it for storage. We also work together to keep family records—individual journals, as well as a family history.”
Teachers by profession, President and Sister Khanakam used family prayer and their training to help their son overcome what appeared to be a learning disability. “His teachers said he was very slow intellectually, and so we first thought of providing him with a tutor at home. But then we prayed about the problem, and we realized that the best teachers for our son were his mother and father. Our decision, based on the answer to our prayers, is turning out well. Ben is happy that his mother and father understand his needs and want to help him. As we help him with his school work, he is improving and learning faster. And it gives us the opportunity to grow closer together.”
The closeness of the family now is in contrast to the separation that employment forced upon Brother and Sister Khanakam after they were married in 1981. “A month after our marriage, we were sealed in the Tokyo Temple. When we came home, I returned to Chiang Mai, where I had a good-paying teacher’s position, and my wife returned to her family home in Mahasarakham 830 kilometers away. We lived that way for about a year. But the full-time missionaries would keep asking me, ‘Wisit, do you have the faith the Lord will bless you if you keep your temple covenants? You need to be with your wife.’
“So I quit my job in Chiang Mai and found one in Mahasarakham. I was earning less than half what I had made in Chiang Mai. That’s when we learned to apply welfare principles in our family. We learned how to budget our income, to work with our hands, and to raise a family in the gospel.
“I was called as president of the Mahasarakham branch, and my wife was called as Relief Society president. I was the only male member in the branch. It took a couple of years for the membership to grow. Now they have a chapel of their own—not because of anything we did, but because of the love and unity that the people there have.”
Before moving to Mahasarakham, Brother Khanakam served as Chiang Mai District President, a calling he received again when he returned to Chiang Mai three years ago to teach at the local high school.
The Khanakams live in a house outside the city of Chiang Mai on family property that contains fruit trees and about three acres of rice paddy. “We hire some people to grow the rice and then give the crop to my mother.”
His relationship with his mother is greatly improved from the days twenty years ago when he first made contact with Latter-day Saint missionaries.
He was introduced by a friend to the English language classes the missionaries presented. That led to the discussions and an invitation to attend Church.
“I attended the investigators’ class. What I heard there made little sense to me at first. I was an active Buddhist in a family of active Buddhists. But the name of Jesus touched my heart. I remember as a boy hearing Protestant missionaries talk of Jesus and Christianity. My parents and relatives did not like Christians and they said harsh things about them and about Jesus. I couldn’t help but wonder about this man Jesus. What happened to him? Why did my family talk only of bad things about him?
“So when the missionaries talked to me of Jesus, I decided to invite them to my cousin’s home where I was living while going to school. He and his family listened to some of the discussions, but then stopped.
“I continued with the discussions and with attending church, and I finally gained a testimony.
“I was baptized when I was eighteen years old.
“When I told my mother that I had been baptized, she became very upset, and she cut me from the family. I was the ‘baby’ in the family, with three older brothers and an older sister. From that time on, I suffered a great deal of persecution from my family, and I left home.
“Knowing of my situation, the branch president wisely counseled me that if I loved God I would want to obey his commandments and show love and respect for my parents. The Lord would bless me, the president said, if I would return home and be an example of Christian living to my family.
“When I went home, my mother said, ‘What do you need? A mattress, pillows, or anything? I’ll give them to you, but you can’t stay here with us.’
“But I told her I loved her and my father and my brothers and my sister, and I wanted to stay. The family was very upset, and no one would talk to me. But apart from going to school, I stayed home and worked very hard doing whatever I could around the house, or around the property.
“When I completed high school I wanted to go to the university. My mother said, ‘Tell me you are not a Mormon and I will let you go to the university. If you tell me you are a Mormon, you will never go to school.’ I said, ‘Mother, I am a Mormon.’ ‘That’s enough,’ she said.
“I didn’t even try to take the entrance examination.”
Instead, Brother Khanakam studied at the English Language Center in Chiang Mai, and eventually he successfully applied for a position with an American professor studying in Thailand. Later, with his mother’s approval, he attended the university in Bangkok for almost four years.
“Although my father died at this time, the university was a good experience for me. But I always made sure that the campus activities would not interfere with my church attendance. My friends urged me to serve a mission. Although I didn’t have a personal testimony of being a missionary, I encouraged others to go.
“After the university, I taught in public schools to earn some money and then decided I would go on a mission. When I told my mother, she was very, very angry with me. She contacted her attorney and had me cut from her will. She told me, ‘Choose what you want: your family or your church.’ I told her I wanted to serve a mission for the Lord. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but you’ll get no support from the family.’”
Brother Khanakam served in the Thailand Bangkok Mission, where he had “many good experiences.” One of these experiences involved his mother and his sister. They were visiting in Bangkok, and Brother Khanakam invited them to a fireside where Elder Jacob de Jager of the Seventy was speaking.
“I was asked to be his interpreter. I knelt with him and prayed for my family. In his talk, Elder de Jager made some complimentary comments about my family. I looked at my mother, and she was crying. Even my sister, who had been so opposed to my joining the Church that she almost shot me, was crying, too. After the fireside my mother said if there was anything she could do to support me on my mission I was to let her know. I know that she was touched that day by the Spirit.
“My relationship with my family is good now. They love me, and they love my wife and children. My mother lives in a house close to us.”
While on his mission, Brother Khanakam first met a newly called lady missionary, Sumamaan Srisarakham. Three years after his mission, he made contact with her again through a mutual friend, and they began a correspondence. When they started talking of marriage, Sister Srisarakham prayed for guidance and felt as though “the Savior’s hand was on my head confirming my decision to marry and have a family.”
Currently, Sister Khanakam serves as the district Relief Society president and teaches a Primary class in the Chiang Mai Branch.
“What we do within the four walls of our home is most important to us and to those we can influence for good,” says President Khanakam. “For example, a neighboring couple has been taking the missionary discussions and now permits their son to attend church with us. This has come about because they liked what they saw in us as a family. As a family, as Latter-day Saints everywhere, we can perfect our lives through living the gospel.”

Christmas was a happy and sad occasion because Mama was too wrapped up in herself to pay much attention to holidays. And Daddy was often overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a home, us children, our sick mother, and his job. Yet even though he didn’t have enough money to buy us presents, he always brought us a nice tree the day before Christmas, and he made sure that on Christmas morning we had the biggest oranges and apples and the best candy and nuts in town in our stockings. Our uncles and aunts made sure that we had toys until we got into junior high school. I remember how excited I was when I was seven to find a beautiful walking doll and a carriage for me under the tree. In my excitement, I didn’t notice that my older brothers had received only one basketball between them to share.
One time just before Easter, my Primary teacher brought a large box to class. We were only eight, and we were very curious to see its contents. When class was over, the teacher reached into the box and gave each of us a tiny Easter basket filled with jelly beans and candy eggs. In my eyes, the beautiful basket was also filled with love. This same kind teacher gave me an angel figurine when I graduated from seminary. I still get a warm feeling whenever I see that little angel inside my china closet. It represented to me the hugs that I so desperately needed but seldom received.
My grandmother, a spiritual giant to me, taught me how to pray. She spent her winters with a daughter who lived a hundred miles away, so I saw her only in the summers. Sometimes I got to stay with her. I loved to climb between her sparkling white sheets and lay my head on her freshly ironed pillowcases. Her home was a house of order and love. And her homemade bread and Potawatomi plum jam was like a king’s dinner to me. She always kept a tin box of lemon drops and mints.
After biking to her house one day, I couldn’t find her in the kitchen, so I went into her bedroom. Through the window I noticed her out in her garden. Passing her dresser, I saw a new box of chocolates that someone had given her for Mother’s Day. The temptation was too great. I opened the box, picked out several pieces, and shoved them into my pocket before running outside to see Grandma.
The next day Grandma called and asked me to come over to her house. When I arrived, we visited for a while, then she offered me a chocolate. I cried and she cried, then we talked about what it means to be honest and about how disappointed Heavenly Father is when we steal. Grandma taught me other lessons that afternoon that helped strengthen my spirituality. She was the first one I called when I received my mission call. She died while I was in the mission home, and she was buried the day I arrived in New Zealand. I will always cherish the comfort and strength that she was to me.
When people are mentally ill, they sometimes have religious delusions, or strange ideas. Mama was either very religious—we said family prayers together three times a day—or she wouldn’t have anything at all to do with the Church. Because half of our small rural ward were relatives, the whole congregation knew about Mama’s illness. She never went to Church, but it was important to her that Daddy and the rest of us attend.
One year a girl moved into our ward whose parents smoked and drank. We became friends, and went everywhere together. Her name was Elaine, and she became active in the Church. Although her parents were inactive, they were very kind to me and welcomed me into their home. When we were in junior high school, Elaine became very popular. Some of the girls wanted to crowd me out of Elaine’s circle of friends, but she wouldn’t let them. Then one day our friendship crashed. I was without my best friend for two horrible years. It was especially hard for me because Mama was very ill then.
Mama’s family had taught me to love music, and two songs were very special to me: “I’ll Walk with God” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” When the loneliness at school and the rejection at home got to be too much for me, I would go walking in the wheat fields and sing them. As I sang, I was filled with hope and courage, and I could feel the Spirit of the Lord giving me guidance and comfort.
At the end of ninth grade, Mama started taking a medication that helped her to feel better. By the time I graduated from high school, she started getting out into the community a little, and life was easier for all of us.
I feel that the Lord helped me develop a compassion for other people’s feelings because of the experiences that I had because of my mother. I grew up to love the Lord and depend on Him. And I never felt that I was alone, because I knew that He was always there when I needed Him.

In 2018, at the age of 42, Thierry commenced service as president of the Maryland Baltimore Mission. His diligence in learning English while serving as a full-time missionary was now a necessity in his new responsibility. Thierry and Nathalie experienced miracles as mission leaders. On one occasion, in a tender and timely mercy, Thierry had a vivid dream. In the dream, he saw the footsteps of Jesus. He approached the footsteps and placed his foot inside one. It fit perfectly. He realized, that as a servant of God, he was following in the footsteps of Jesus.

Youth Voices: Why We Need to Stop It!
The New Era asked some youth how they felt when they heard President Uchtdorf’s talk and why they think it’s important to “stop it!” Here is what one young woman says:
“I love [President Uchtdorf’s] talk! It inspired me to stop gossiping and judging people. It truly had an impact on my life. This talk convinced me to talk to my group of friends about how we should stop with all the hate towards others. They took my words and put them into action. We have often found ourselves having a better day just because we were nice to someone. It was an amazing life lesson.”
Taylor L., 14, Utah

The events that led up to his martyrdom, at least for our purposes today, began on the 10th of June, 1844, with an ordinance passed by the Nauvoo City Council to abate a newspaper press called the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper hostile to the Saints. Hence, it was defined, under the City’s Charter, as a “nuisance.” The declaration that this paper was a nuisance and the subsequent order to destroy it was done because of the libelous and slanderous character of the paper which had, as its avowed purpose, the destruction of Nauvoo and the driving of the Saints therefrom”[3]

Joseph Smith, mayor of Nauvoo, was given charge by the Council to abate the nuisance. He immediately “ordered the Marshal to destroy it without delay…”[4] On Monday, June 17, 1844, Joseph Smith and others were arrested for the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor press. They appeared before a Justice Wells and “after a long and close examination” by him, were discharged.[5]

This did not satisfy the enemies of Joseph, and mob activity intensified. The day that Joseph and others were dismissed by Justice Wells, June 17, 1844), he received a report from Stephen Markham that a mob could be expected to make an immediate attack upon the citizens and city of Nauvoo. The mobs intent, he reported, was the extermination of the Latter-day Saints.[6]

In response, and again acting as mayor, Joseph called out the Nauvoo Legion, a military body, to “take such measures as shall be necessary to preserve the peace” of Nauvoo and its residents. The following day, June 18, 1844, and as deciphered from the local newspapers around them, Joseph declared:

No one was to enter or leave the city without proper orders. These actions, while prudent given the circumstances, seemed to further incite the ire and unrest of the mob. On Thursday, June 20, 1844, Joseph, seeming to understand the dire circumstances that lie ahead, sent correspondence to the ten apostles who were absent on missions to come home immediately.[8] The other two apostles, John Taylor and Willard Richards, were already with Joseph.

On Saturday, June 22, 1844, Illinois Governor Thomas Ford, in letter demanded that Joseph and others come to Carthage to stand trial again for the Expositor affair. He threatened a calling out of the militia, comprised primarily of men anxious for the destruction of the Saints, if his demands were not met.[9]

Offering his defense, Joseph responded to the letter the day it was received.[10] His response was personally delivered to the governor by John Taylor. Brother Taylor was poorly received and treated by the governor and reported back to Joseph that the governor was surrounded by “some of the vilest and most unprincipled men in creation.”[11] In hearing of this report, Joseph counseled with his brother Hyrum and asked, “What shall we do?”[12]

By and by the prophet made a decision to cross the Mississippi River with Hyrum and begin traveling west. Joseph told the people “there is no doubt they will come here (Nauvoo) and search for us. Let them search; they will not harm you in person or property, and not even a hair of your head.”[13] With that prophetic statement, Joseph and Hyrum said goodbye to their families and crossed the Mississippi by boat.

On Sunday, June 23, 1844, early in the morning, a posse, sent by the governor, arrived in Nauvoo to arrest Joseph and Hyrum. They did not find them. They leave the city with a man by the name of Yates left behind to keep watch. This Yates mentioned to one of the brethren that Governor Ford was intent on getting Joseph and Hyrum even if it meant guarding the city for three years.[14] This frightened the Saints.

Emma Smith sent a message to Joseph asking him to return. In addition, Reynolds Cahoon, Lorenzo D. Wasson, and Hiram Kimball accused Joseph of cowardice for wishing to leave the people. Said they, “Like the fable, when the wolves came the shepherd ran from the flock, and left the sheep to be devoured.” How hurtful this must have been for Joseph to hear. His response, “If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of none to myself.”[15]

Joseph again counseled with his brother Hyrum, “What shall we do?” Hyrum’s reply, “Let us go back and give ourselves up, and see the thing out.” Joseph pondered this and said, “If you go back I will go with you, but we shall be butchered.”[16] Joseph and Hyrum returned to Nauvoo and prepared for their journey to Carthage.

On Monday, June 24, 1844, Joseph and Hyrum, after taking care of matters of business and after preparing the people for their departure, traveled to Carthage, Illinois. En route, Joseph made his prophetic declaration:

They arrived at the Hamilton House, a guesthouse and tavern in Carthage, just before midnight. On the morning of Tuesday, June 25, 1844, Joseph and Hyrum voluntarily surrendered themselves to the constable at Carthage. They were arrested for treason against the state of Illinois because they called out the Nauvoo Legion.[18] They were taken to the Carthage Jail. Every attempt was made to solicit help from those in authority to protect Joseph and Hyrum but to no avail.

On Thursday, June 27, 1844, those who were with Joseph and Hyrum are removed from the jail. Ultimately, only four men remain:

It was hot and muggy on the afternoon of June 27, 1844. The men confined in the Carthage Jail had their coats off. John Taylor wrote of the scene in the jail cell: “All of us felt unusually…languid, with a remarkable depression of spirits. In consonance with those feelings I sang a song, that had lately been introduced into Nauvoo, entitled, ‘A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.’ After a lapse of some time, Brother Hyrum requested me again to sing that song. I replied, ‘Brother Hyrum, I do not feel like singing,’ when he remarked, ‘Oh, never mind; commence singing, and you will get the spirit of it.’ At his request I did so.”[19]

Following the hymn, Joseph was conversing with the guard, Hyrum had just finished reading excerpts from Josephus’ “Antiquities of the Jews” and was visiting with Willard Richards when there was a rustling at the outer door of the jail, and a cry of “Surrender!” The discharge of firearms followed. Willard Richards glanced out the window and saw about a hundred armed men around the door. It is recorded that what I now describe to you occupied no more than two or three minutes’ time.

Some of the mob rushed up the stairs, past the guard, and began the work of death, while others fired through the open windows of the jail. Immediately, the men inside the jail sprang to the door in an attempt to brace themselves against it and block entry of the mob. Guns continued to be fired and one ball came through the door. Joseph, John Taylor, and Willard Richards sprang to the left of the door for safety, all the while trying to knock aside the guns as they were being inserted through thru the door.

In the same instance, Hyrum retreated back remaining in front of the door when a ball came through the door and struck him in the left side of his nose, and he fell on his back on the floor, crying, as he fell: “I am a dead man.” As he fell, another ball from the outside entered his left side, and passed through his body. Another ball from the door grazed his breast, and entered his head by the throat; subsequently, a fourth ball entered his left leg. He never moved afterwards.

Joseph fell to Hyrum. John Taylor records, “I shall never forget the deep feeling of sympathy and regard manifested in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum, and, leaning over him, exclaimed, ‘Oh! My poor, dear brother Hyrum!’”

A shower of balls was pouring into the room. John Taylor did his best to parry the guns at the door until at length, he found the exercise futile and he attempted to jump out the window, where a ball fired from within struck him on his left thigh. He fell forward to the windowsill, when another ball fired from outside struck his watch and threw him back into the room. This watch recorded the time of the martyrdom: 5:16:26 p.m.

After John Taylor fell back into the room, he was hit by two more balls, one of them injuring his left wrist and the other entering at the side of the bone just below the left knee. He rolled for cover under the bed. While he lay there, he was fired upon several times from the stairway; one ball struck him on the left hip, which tore the flesh in a shocking manner.

Joseph, seeing that there was no safety in the room, and no doubt thinking that it would save the lives of his brethren in the room if he could get out, turned calmly from the door, and sprang into the window. He was now in full view of the mob firing at him from below. Instantly, two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without. He fell outward into the hands of his murderers, exclaiming, “O Lord, my God!”

Dr. Richards’ escape was miraculous; he being a very large man, and in the midst of a shower of balls, yet he stood unscathed, with the exception of a ball which grazed the tip end of the lower part of his left ear. His escape fulfilled literally a prophecy which Joseph made over a year previously, that the time would come when balls would fly around him like hail, and he should see his friends fall on the right and on the left, but that there should not be a hole in his garment.[20]

I was the only member of the Church in my high school, and some of the other students began to ridicule my standards and test my resolve to keep them. I played on my high school all-star soccer team. My teammates usually used bad words, but they accepted the fact that I spoke according to the teachings of the Church. And when a disagreement started during a game, they knew that my position would be that of peacemaker. They tested me with liquor, with immorality, and with other temptations. But when they discovered that I was really serious about my commitments, they respected me.

Every Sunday in a small town in Argentina, a group of people met under a tree to read the scriptures and learn about the gospel. Some of the people were members of the Church. But many of them hadn’t been baptized, and they really wanted to be!
They had a problem, though. They lived far away from other towns. No Church leaders had come to visit their town for some time.
Then they heard that some missionaries were in a town about four hours away. They all gave money so one man could buy a bus ticket to the town where the missionaries were. When he got there, he waited at the bus station. He thought that would be the best place to find the missionaries.
After a few hours, he saw two young men. They were the missionaries! He told them about the people in his town. So the missionaries and the mission president planned a trip to meet these people.
On the day that the mission president and the missionaries came, many people gathered together to meet them. Now those who hadn’t been baptized yet could get baptized. After teaching them the lessons, they were ready!
The closest river was very far away, so they pumped water from a well and filled up a portable swimming pool. It took three hours to fill the pool! In all, 27 women, men, and children got baptized that day. They were filled with joy!

Just think what it would be like to help people enjoy some of your favorite Christmas customs for the first time. That’s what the young women of the Rockford First Ward, Rockford Illinois Stake, did recently, when they sponsored a party for five Vietnamese families celebrating their first Christmas in the United States.
In preparation, the girls had collected gifts from Church and community members to give to the families. Local stores even donated products after reading about the project in the paper.
On the day of the event, they decorated the cultural hall and made refreshments. At the party itself they sang Christmas carols; played Pictionary, which helped the families with their English; and had a visit from Santa—for the first time in some of their lives.
The Vietnamese participants commented that Christmas could have been a very lonely time for them, but the Young Women helped make it better.

Another motivation came when the ward sponsored a program called “Something Great in ’78,” and Allan decided to make a stained glass window as his “Something Great” project. (Each ward member was to choose a personal project to be accomplished during the year.) “We had a big dinner and everyone displayed their projects. My window was one of the displays,” he says. Now the window hangs in his room, filtering the sunlight as it enters.

When I first began working on the Joseph Smith Papers Project 11 years ago, I had a strong testimony of Joseph Smith as the Prophet of the Restoration. However, Joseph seemed almost like a mythic figure to me—someone who was so much more spiritually advanced that I had a hard time relating to him. He received marvelous visitations from heavenly beings, including our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ. I, on the other hand, sometimes had a hard time feeling God’s love.
Because I’ve spent the last 11 years immersed in Joseph Smith’s life—reading his journals, his letters, his discourses—I’ve come to know him on a much more personal level. And I’ve realized that he was a human just like me. Yes, he was a prophet of God and received magnificent revelations, visions, and visitations. But he still had to overcome challenges just like the rest of us.
Those of us living today reside in a world highly unlike that of Joseph Smith and the early Saints. And yet our problems are not totally different. We all have difficulties because of the human experience: sickness, death, betrayal, discouragement, and just plain hard days. Joseph too had moments when God seemed far away and when he wondered if the Lord was aware of his and the Saints’ situations. He faced the deaths of loved ones and suffered from sicknesses and trials, but he met them with a resolute faith that God was with him and that there were “good things to come.”1
The following two examples from Joseph Smith’s life highlight how he navigated the human condition and how studying his life and the experiences of the early Saints has helped me face my own trials.
All of us at some point will face heartache because of death and disease. Joseph and Emma Smith were no different. Their first child died shortly after birth, and Emma’s next pregnancy (with twins) also ended in the babies’ deaths. Joseph and Emma then adopted newborn twins whose mother, Julia Clapp Murdock, had died in childbirth. Eleven months later, in March 1832, young Joseph—one of the twins—died after a mob attack on the Prophet Joseph exposed the baby, who was suffering from measles, to the cold night air.2
The deaths of his children gave Joseph empathy for others who experienced the loss of loved ones. Just a few days after his son’s death, the Prophet traveled to Missouri to fulfill a commandment the Lord had given him to counsel with the Saints there. On his way back from the trip, Joseph was delayed after Newel K. Whitney, his traveling companion, suffered a broken leg in an accident. The two had to stay in the small town of Greenville, Indiana, for a few weeks until Newel was well enough to travel.3
As Joseph languished in Greenville, he heard that his niece Mary—the two-year-old daughter of Hyrum Smith—had just died. The death was devastating to Hyrum and his wife Jerusha.4
When Joseph heard the news, he wrote a letter to Emma—who was still mourning the loss of the baby Joseph. “I was grieved to hear that Hyrum had lost his little child,” Joseph wrote. “I think we can in some degree sympathize with him.” Of course Joseph and Emma could sympathize, having lost four of their own children. Joseph then continued, “But we all must be reconciled to our lots and say the will of the Lord be done.”5 To make sense of the death, Joseph put his trust in the Lord.
I’ve thought about this experience as I’ve dealt with the deaths of family members, ward members, and friends. Even the Prophet Joseph, who had experienced the glorious vision of the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms about six weeks before little Joseph’s death (see Doctrine and Covenants 76), was pained at his son’s passing. He knew that he would see baby Joseph and his three other children again, yet their deaths still hurt. Being a prophet did not take away pain or preclude Joseph from experiencing the difficulties of mortality. But trusting in God and His plan mitigated some of the hurt.
In 1833, Joseph Smith and the rest of the Church faced a crushing setback when mobs drove the Saints from the city of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri. With many of the Saints cold, hungry, and homeless, Church leaders needed divine help more than ever. Yet as Joseph contemplated the situation, he found himself unable to obtain direction. After the initial violence in July 1833, Joseph wrote to the Saints in Missouri: “I verily know that he [the Lord] will speedily deliver Zion, for I have his immutable covenant that this shall be the case. But God is pleased to keep it hid from mine eyes the means how exactly the thing will be done.”6
C. C. A. Christensen (1831–1912), Saints Driven from Jackson County, Missouri, c. 1878, tempera on muslin, 77 1/4 x 113 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of the grandchildren of C. C. A. Christensen, 1970.
After the Saints had been driven out of the county in November, Joseph petitioned the Lord again for answers to two specific questions: “why God hath suffered so great calamity to come upon Zion” and “by what means he will return her back to her inheritance.” But Joseph still could not get direction. “The Lord has kept [the answers] hid from my eyes,” he told Edward Partridge, the bishop in Missouri. “They are not plainly shewn unto me.” Instead, God gave Joseph a reassuring prompting: “Be still, and know that I am God.”7
On December 16, 1833, Joseph finally received his answers through a revelation (see Doctrine and Covenants 101). The first part of that revelation explained why the Lord allowed the Saints to be expelled from Jackson County—the first question Joseph had asked God. The second part was a parable about a nobleman who loses his land to his enemies and asks the strength of his house to take back the land. That was the answer to Joseph’s second question. The Lord also repeated His earlier words of comfort: “Be still and know that I am God” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:16).
Each of us will have moments in our lives when we feel like God isn’t answering our prayers. He might feel distant, and we may question whether He is aware of what’s going on. I have had those moments and have wondered when an answer would come. It has been comforting for me to read that even Joseph Smith, the great Prophet of the Restoration, had moments where he too had to struggle for answers—where God did not show him everything at once. That gives me courage to keep moving in faith, knowing that when the time is right, I will receive my answer.
The Prophet Joseph Smith was a remarkable person. He remains one of my heroes. He had to suffer through the trials of life, just as I do. He had to face death, disease, and discouragement. Yet he persevered with a faith in God and Jesus Christ that enabled him to overcome his difficulties.
The courage that I feel when I read of his strength, of Emma’s strength, and of the strength of the early members of the Church gives me hope that I can conquer my challenges as well. For me, that is one of the greatest reasons to study Church history: so that my faith can be fortified by looking to the examples of those who have gone before.

Genuine gratitude was expressed by the writer of a letter received some time ago at Church headquarters. No return address was shown, no name, but the postmark was from Portland, Oregon:
“To the Office of the First Presidency:
“Salt Lake City showed me Christian hospitality once during my wandering years.
“On a cross-country journey by bus to California, I stepped down in the terminal in Salt Lake City, sick and trembling from aggravated loss of sleep caused by a lack of necessary medication. In my headlong flight from a bad situation in Boston, I had completely forgotten my supply.
“In the Temple Square Hotel restaurant, I sat dejectedly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple approach my table. ‘Are you all right, young man?’ the woman asked. I raised up, crying and a bit shaken, related my story and the predicament I was in then. They listened carefully and patiently to my nearly incoherent ramblings, and then they took charge. They spoke with the restaurant manager, then told me I could have all I wanted to eat there for five days. They took me next door to the hotel desk and got me a room for five days. Then they drove me to a clinic and saw that I was provided with the medications I needed—truly my basic lifeline to sanity and comfort.
“While I was recuperating and building my strength, I made it a point to attend the daily Tabernacle organ recitals. The celestial voicing of that instrument from the faintest intonation to the mighty full organ is the most sublime sonority of my acquaintance. I have acquired albums and tapes of the Tabernacle organ and the choir which I can rely upon anytime to soothe and buttress a sagging spirit.
“On my last day at the hotel, before I resumed my journey, I turned in my key; and there was a message for me from that couple: ‘Repay us by showing gentle kindness to some other troubled soul along your road.’ That was my habit, but I determined to be more keenly on the lookout for someone who needed a lift in life.
“I wish you well. I don’t know if these are indeed the ‘latter days’ spoken of in the scriptures, but I do know that two members of your church were saints to me in my desperate hours of need. I just thought you might like to know.”
What an example of caring compassion.

The next part of Annapurna’s dream came true when at last she was baptized. There was no branch in Chandigarh, so the Muralas made the five-hour journey to New Delhi for the baptism. Ironically, now that Annapurna was free to go to church, the nearest branch was far away. “Before I was baptized, the church was very near my house, just on the corner at the end of the road, and I didn’t have the opportunity to go,” she says. “Now the church was five hours away, so we could go only once a month.” Then Annapurna became pregnant, and the five-hour trip was too taxing for her.
But then came another miracle, in the form of two Latter-day Saint families. “God takes care of you,” explains Santosh. A British couple, Brother and Sister Beer, came to Chandigarh, where Brother Beer worked in highway construction. Sister Beer taught institute classes to the Muralas, and the Beers held family home evening with the Muralas every week. A Korean family, the Moons, also moved to Chandigarh, where Brother Moon worked for a construction company. Every Sunday for two years, this little group of Latter-day Saints met at the Moons’ home for sacrament meeting. Shortly after Santosh finished his residency in Chandigarh, the Beers and the Moons moved away too.
In New Delhi, where Santosh is receiving specialized training in heart surgery, there are two branches of the Church. Now Annapurna’s knowledge about the Church is catching up with her knowledge of the gospel. She has learned how to sing hymns and conduct meetings.

In 1928, 83-year-old Thomas Biesinger was called to return to Czechoslovakia for a short mission. In Prague he visited police and government officials, requesting permission to preach. Finding no opposition, he reported that the way was open.

When Elder Biesinger was released, no one was sent to replace him. Sister Frantiska Vesela Brodilova wrote to President Heber J. Grant, asking him to send missionaries (see “Czechoslovakia Was Her Mission,” Liahona, September 1995, 26–27). Her request was answered with the arrival of Arthur Gaeth, a tall, energetic young man. His journalistic bent and booming voice enabled him, within 10 days, to arrange for two 10-minute radio talks to be read in Czech, to speak on German radio, to lecture at a German adult-education institution, and to write an article for a German-language newspaper.

“Set a goal; then eliminate anything that stands in the way of achieving it.” I read the words on the poster and cringed. It was impossible to make it through class without looking at the clock—which meant looking at the poster right next to it, too. And I didn’t want to see that dumb poster.
I turned away from it to focus my thoughts on Dennis. We had been dating for a while, and I couldn’t imagine loving anyone else. The problem was that he wasn’t a member of the Church, and I had set a goal a long time ago to be married in the temple. According to the poster, I needed to eliminate Dennis! I pushed the thought of breaking up with him out of my head. Maybe I could convert him.
At lunch I decided to give it a try. I steered our conversation in a more serious direction, then gathered my courage and began sharing my beliefs, including temple marriage for eternity. Dennis liked the idea. I could feel the Spirit, so I bore my testimony.
Dennis was thoughtful. Finally he replied, “I know that if you know your church is true, then I will know it is true, too, someday.”
I was ecstatic! If Dennis joined the Church that would solve all my problems. I began by inviting him to church the next Sunday. He really wanted to come, but his family already had plans. He had equally good excuses for not coming the next two Sundays as well, and I understood.
As I lay in bed one night thinking about my situation, the words from that poster at school came into my head. “Set a goal; then eliminate anything that stands in the way of achieving it.” Converting Dennis was going to be a bigger challenge than I had thought. What if he never joined the Church? Or what if he joined but was not really converted? My only other choice was to break up with him. The thought turned my stomach cold. I didn’t have that kind of courage. It would be like breaking my leg.
My heart ached, knowing that keeping Dennis meant I would have to change my goal. I thought of my possible future—attending church alone; raising children with someone who didn’t live the Word of Wisdom; calling my home teachers, not my husband, when a priesthood blessing was needed. And what about eternity? Celestial marriage was a requirement to achieve exaltation with Heavenly Father; this was what I knew I had the potential to achieve. And I was going to give it all up for Dennis, because I didn’t have the courage to spend my earthly life without him?
I had to break up with Dennis.
I was shocked at myself for considering it. But then suddenly the sweetest, most reassuring peace filled me from head to toe. Heavenly Father was speaking to me through the Holy Ghost. Tears came to my eyes. I had to break up with Dennis, and I could do it. Heavenly Father would give me the courage.
The next day during lunch my heart began to pound. I’ll do it tomorrow, I told myself. I could feel my cheeks getting hot.
“What’s wrong?” Dennis asked.
I took a deep breath then blurted, “I have to break up with you!”
Dennis froze. He looked shocked.
“I can’t marry you. I have to break up—now.”
Tears came quickly to his eyes. “But I want you to teach me about your church,” he said.
I swallowed my own tears. “I want to teach you too, but I want to teach you when I know you will join because you know it is true and not because of me.”
I said a silent prayer that he would understand. After a moment of agonizing silence, he asked, “Will you date me again if I join your church someday?”
“Of course!” I nearly sprang out of my chair with joy.
“Promise you won’t forget to teach me,” he said.
I promised.
For weeks my heart throbbed in pain. Every time I saw Dennis I prayed for the strength not to change my mind. We both survived, and our lives took different directions. I never dated a nonmember again, for fear of having to repeat such a painful experience.
Several years later, on summer break from college, I saw Dennis and remembered my promise. Even though I didn’t feel the same way about him anymore and had no intention of ever marrying him, a promise was a promise. I called him up that night and invited him to church. I wasn’t really surprised to hear that he still wasn’t interested.
As I hung up the phone, how grateful I was to my Heavenly Father for giving me the help and the strength I needed to get myself back on the path where I belonged. And how thankful I was for that poster in my class that pointed me in the right direction. Maybe that poster wasn’t so dumb after all.

I previously mentioned pornography. It easily becomes an addiction of the worst kind. Let me read to you from a letter I received from a victim:
“I would like to share something with you that I have not been able to share with anyone else. I am a 35-year-old male. For most of my adult life I have been addicted to pornography. I am very ashamed to admit this, … but for the most part, my addiction is as real as that of an alcoholic or a drug addict. …
“The main reason for my writing is to tell you that the Church can’t do enough to counsel the members to avoid pornography. I was first introduced to this material as a child. I was molested by an older male cousin, and pornography was used to attract my interest. I am convinced that this exposure at an early age to sex and pornography is at the root of my addiction today.
“I think it is ironic that those who support the business of pornography say that it is a matter of freedom of expression. I have no freedom. I have lost my free agency because I have been unable to overcome this. It is a trap for me, and I can’t seem to get out of it. Please, please, please plead with the brethren of the Church not only to avoid but eliminate the sources of pornographic material in their lives. Besides the obvious things like books and magazines, they need to turn off cable movie channels in their homes. I know many who have these services and claim that they are able to screen the bad things out, but this is not true. …
“Pornography and perversion have become so commonplace in our lives that the sources of this material are everywhere. I have found pornographic magazines by the roadside and in dumps. We need to talk to our children and explain how evil these things are and encourage them to avoid looking at them when they come across them. …
“Finally, President Hinckley, please pray for me and others in the Church who may be like me to have the courage and strength to overcome this terrible affliction.
“I am unable to sign my name, and I hope that you will understand.”

Marny and Nancy attend early-morning seminary with one other student. It’s at 6:30 in the morning, and they have evolved a creative way of dealing with the early hour. They arrive at seminary with their hair undone, their makeup unapplied, wearing sweat suits or whatever else they can throw on. Then, after seminary, they both go to Nancy’s house, where they shower and dress for school.
Melissa attends a once-a-week seminary class, doing the rest of the work through home study. Both classes are taught by a Sister Babcock who is, by all accounts, a real ball of fire. She used to be a champion sprinter, and she still keeps things moving fast. “We never fall asleep in her lessons no matter how tired we are. She makes it so interesting, and she’s so enthusiastic. It gives you a real boost. We also have Mutual, and that helps. But I especially look forward to Sundays. Sunday is WOW! Supercharge! You come home from church a mile high! Getting together with LDS friends has the same effect. It’s like being in a desert and seeing water. ‘A Mormon! Talk to me!’”

Thank you for the New Era! My LDS friend often brought it to school, and although I had strong religious convictions different from hers, it’s spiritual quality, coupled with its clean humor, impressed me deeply. I am now being taught by two marvelous missionaries, and although I am experiencing difficulty at home, I eventually hope to be baptized. The youth in Burnley are a happy and lively crowd, and their strong testimonies build up my own.
Caroline M. BrammerBurnley, Lancaster, England

On Brother Wayman’s last day at Cornell, he was saying good-bye to friends when Kim Ho Jik approached him. Brother Wayman felt impelled to ask the Korean why he had decided to leave his homeland and family to study in the United States. The Korean scholar responded that he needed the new knowledge in nutrition available at Cornell for the benefit of his people.
Then, Brother Wayman recalls:
“I bore my testimony … and told him that it was my opinion that the Lord had moved upon him to come to America … in order that he might receive the gospel and take it back to his people in preparation for a great missionary work to be done there. … I informed him … that if he refused to do the work the Lord had for him … another would be raised up in his place.”
Brother Wayman never saw Kim ho Jik again, but he left New York “sure that the Spirit which touched me when I bore my testimony to him touched him at the same time. I could see a change in his expression.”

Lorne C. Campbell, a priest in the Como Ward, Southern River Stake, Western Australia, has a major past, present, and future in theatre. He began dance, drama, and music lessons when he was just five. By 14 he was composing his own songs, choreographing production numbers, and teaching. At 16 he wrote and produced a full length musical play, and now, at 18, Lorne is on a Rotary Exchange Scholarship to Belgium, where he attends the multilingual Athenee Royale.
All this, and Lorne never missed a beat in Primary, priesthood, or Young Men. He plans on furthering his studies at the University of Western Australia and on serving a mission. It looks like Lorne is making all the world his stage.

Nephi stated that he had “been born of goodly parents” (1 Ne. 1:1). I echo his same words, for I too was born of goodly parents—a father who was a faithful Latter-day Saint who honored his priesthood and a loving mother who died when I was a young child, leaving my father with six children. My father remarried a widow with nine children, thus giving me in all five brothers and nine sisters. I am grateful for my second mother, who loved me as one of her own and who was an example to me. I thank my Father in Heaven for all of my brothers and sisters, who have loved and supported me and who also love the gospel and the Lord. It has now been 54 years since the Lunt-Taylor family was joined together, and even though our parents are gone, we feel unity and love for each other. I also have felt the love and support of grandparents, uncles and aunts, and other relatives.