Gospel Story Finder

My wife, Laura, and I were heartbroken when our first child, our four-month-old daughter, Cynthia Marie, died because of complications with spina bifida. This tragedy caused us, two grieving young parents, to search for a way to be with our daughter again someday. We were not members of the Church at the time.
One morning Laura poured out her heart to Heavenly Father, pleading, “Dear Father, I want to be with my daughter again someday, but I don’t know how. Please show me how.”
At that moment there was a knock on our door. Laura went to answer it with tears still streaming down her face. There stood two missionaries. Eventually, Laura and I both gained a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and were baptized.
Laura wanted to make sure that all our family members had the chance to receive the gospel. For the first 15 years after our baptism, Laura prepared names for the temple, and then we took them to the temple together. After a while Laura’s arthritis got so bad that I took the names to the temple unaccompanied.
Laura passed away three years ago after a long battle with arthritis. Searching for a way to be with our little girl has brought about the temple work of thousands of our beloved ancestors. We have experienced many miracles while doing family history research and temple work (see D&C 128:18, 22).
Norman Pierce, baptized with Laura Pierce in Louisiana, USA, in 1965

The next Sunday was fast Sunday. I had hoped to make a discreet entry, but when we arrived it seemed that everyone greeted us with a smile and a kind word. Many people welcomed me to the ward and asked if I was new. However, when I quietly passed along the sacrament tray without partaking, my three-year-old loudly asked, “Mom, aren’t you hungry?” Then my 11-year-old stood up to bear her testimony and said how happy she was that her mom had quit drinking beer and had started coming back to church. So much for quietly sneaking in!

When I was younger, I had trouble falling asleep each night. It was frustrating to be so tired and still not be able to rest.
I talked to my parents about my struggle, and they suggested I switch out my pillows, move my head to the other side of the bed, and not be near any electronic devices before bedtime. But even after following their advice, I still couldn’t sleep!
Then my dad gave me one more suggestion that changed everything. He said, “When you say your nighttime prayers, just talk to Heavenly Father.”
So night after night, I began talking to Heavenly Father about my day. I would start with when I woke up and talk about everything that happened until right when I was in my bed. I told Him about people I saw, blessings I was grateful for, how pretty it was outside, and things that made me feel happy. I also told Him about things that were sad, like if I hurt my leg or made a mistake.
I wasn’t able to fall asleep right away, but I noticed that my relationship with my Heavenly Father was strengthening. He listened to me. He understood my high points and my low ones. He helped me feel calm enough to eventually fall asleep each night.
I am so grateful I could talk to Heavenly Father during those sleepless nights. I know He loves me and helps me, even with small things like helping me sleep.
Alyssa B., 19, Virginia, USA

May I tell you another goal that I set when I was still a youngster.
I had heard all of my life about the Word of Wisdom and the blessings that could come into my life through living it. I had seen people chewing tobacco, and it was repulsive to me. I had seen men waste much time in “rolling their own” cigarettes. They would buy a sack of “Bull Durham” tobacco or some other brand and then some papers, and then they would stop numerous times in a day to fill the paper with tobacco and then roll it and then bend over the little end of it and then smoke it. It seemed foolish to me and seemed such a waste of time and energy. Later when the practice became more sophisticated, they bought their cigarettes readymade. I remember how repulsive it was to me when women began to smoke.
I remember as a boy going to the Fourth of July celebration on the streets of my little town and seeing some of the men as they took part in the horse racing as participator or as gambler, betting on the horses, and I noted that many of them had cigarettes in their lips and bottles in their pockets and some were ugly drunk and with their bleary eyes and coarse talk and cursing.
It took a little time to match the ponies and arrange the races, and almost invariably during this time there would be someone call out, “Fight! Fight!” and all the men and boys would gravitate to the fight area which was attended with blows and blood and curses and hatreds.
Again I was nauseated to think that men would so disgrace themselves, and again I made up my mind that while I would drink the pink lemonade on the Fourth of July and watch the horses run, that I never would drink liquor or swear or curse as did many of these fellows of this little town.
And I remember that without being pressured by anyone, I made up my mind while still a little boy that I would never break the Word of Wisdom. I knew where it was written and I knew in a general way what the Lord had said, and I knew that when the Lord said it, it was pleasing unto him for men to abstain from all these destructive elements and that the thing I wanted to do was to please my Heavenly Father. And so I made up my mind firmly and solidly that I would never touch those harmful things. Having made up my mind fully and unequivocably, I found it not too difficult to keep the promise to myself and to my Heavenly Father.
I remember once in later years when I was district governor of the Rotary Clubs of Arizona that I went to Nice, France, to the international convention. As a part of that celebration there was a sumptuous banquet for the district governors, and the large building was set for an elegant meal. When we came to our places, I noted that at every place there were seven goblets, along with numerous items of silverware and dishes; and everything was the best that Europe could furnish.
As the meal got underway, an army of waiters came to wait on us, seven waiters at each place, and they poured wine and liquor. Seven glass goblets were filled at every plate. The drinks were colorful. I was a long way from home; I knew many of the district governors; they knew me. But they probably did not know my religion nor of my stand on the Word of Wisdom. At any rate, the evil one seemed to whisper to me, “This is your chance. You are thousands of miles from home. There is no one here to watch you. No one will ever know if you drink the contents of those goblets. This is your chance!” And then a sweeter spirit seemed to whisper, “You have a covenant with yourself; you promised yourself you would never do it; and with your Heavenly Father you made a covenant, and you have gone these years without breaking it, and you would be stupid to break this covenant after all these years.” Suffice it to say that when I got up from the table an hour later, the seven goblets were still full of colorful material that had been poured into them but never touched an hour earlier.

Lisa was relatively young at when she joined the Church. She attended meetings with her friends and their families. One day her class got up to sing a special musical number in sacrament meeting. No one had told her anything about it. She’d never heard the song before, and she sat in agonized silence as the rest of her class smiled and sang from the pulpit.

After church, she asked why she hadn’t been included. She was informed that since her parents were not members and she lived several blocks away, they didn’t think anyone would bring her to rehearsals, so they hadn’t invited her to participate. Lisa was devastated, and her parents weren’t very impressed with the lack of compassion that was shown either.

In August 1989, the whole family went to the temple—father, mother, their eleven living children (one of their twelve children had died), and the husband and children of their oldest daughter—a total of nineteen family members. “We left home at 1:00 A.M., ” says Zulma. “The sun wasn’t up yet, and it was totally dark. And it was raining and was terribly muddy. We were drenched as we walked barefoot in the mud, carrying our shoes, our bags, and the little children, until we reached town. As we walked through the darkness, we sang hymns. I remember singing, ‘Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven.’” (See Hymns, 1985, number 27, verse 4.)
From town, they took a series of buses—joining with other groups of Church members along the way—and finally arrived at the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple at 6:00 the next morning. It had been a journey of twenty-nine hours.
“We entered the temple, received our endowment, and were sealed as a family,” says Sister Torales. “The temple was a spiritual, beautiful place. The Spirit bore witness to me that this really was the house of the Lord.” Their deceased daughter was sealed to them. And their oldest daughter and her husband and children were sealed as a family. Then they had to leave the temple and travel back home.
On their way back, they stopped in Encarnación and attended Church meetings with the branch members there. Then, for the last hour and a half of the trip back to their farm, they were again on foot in the mud—carrying their shoes and bags and children. “As we walked, we sang more than before because of our joy,” says Sister Torales. “We sang, ‘Count your many blessings!’” (See Hymns, 1985, number 241.)
Indeed, says President Torales, “we have many blessings.”

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.

During COVID-19 quarantine, Sunday could become too casual at home on our couches and in our comfy clothes. I wanted to do something to make sure Sunday was special. I decided to make my family our own sacrament tray as one of my spiritual goals for the new Children and Youth program.
First, I took a piece of wood and drilled holes in one half for cups. Then I carved out a tray on the other half for the bread. My abuelita helped me sand it until it was perfectly smooth. Then we attached a handle and sealed the wood.
The first Sunday we went to prepare the sacrament and couldn’t find the cups that fit the holes in the tray. We all looked for hours and hours for them. After a while I decided that with or without the perfect cups we were still going to partake of the sacrament. We weren’t going to let this stand in our way of keeping the Sabbath day holy.
That Sunday when we partook of the sacrament, it was with more stillness, intention, and reverence. I felt pleased with the goal I’d set and achieved. I know and could feel that my Heavenly Father was proud of me for my goal and the choices it involved.

A few years ago, my wife and I served as a resource to a little inner-city branch of the Church. Our meetings were held in one of the most troubled neighborhoods of a large eastern city.
One Sunday, right in the middle of the branch sacrament meeting, a woman walked in the door off the street. A homeless woman, she was wearing dirty, ragged clothes, and she was coughing, choking, and blowing her nose into a filthy handkerchief. In a loud, hoarse voice, she said, “I want to sing! I want to pray!” and walked right to the front row, sat down next to a member who was wearing a white blouse, leaned against her, and laid her head on her shoulder. The member immediately put her arms around this guest and held her in her arms throughout the remainder of the meeting.
It happened that the speaker had been talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan as the woman came in. As this woman coughed and choked, the speaker continued telling of the parable. As he came to the end of his talk and was quoting a relevant scripture, suddenly, in a loud voice, this homeless woman finished giving the verse that the speaker had begun.
In talking of this after sacrament meeting with the speaker, we thought it had probably been a long time since someone had affectionately put an arm around our visitor. We wondered what better illustration you could have of the parable of the Good Samaritan than what we had just seen, and we were reminded of the Savior’s words that preceded His telling of that parable, “Thou shalt love … thy neighbour as thyself” (Luke 10:27).

I have always been interested in animals and birds and when I was a little boy and the other children wanted to play cowboy, I wanted to go on safari to Africa and would pretend I was hunting the wild animals.

When I learned to read, I found books about birds and animals and came to know much about them. By the time I was in my teens I could identify most of the African animals. I could tell a klipspringer from an impala, or a gemsbok from wildebeest.

I always wanted to go to Africa and see the animals, and finally that opportunity came. Sister Packer and I were assigned to tour the South Africa Mission with President and Sister Howard Badger. We had a very strenuous schedule and had dedicated eight chapels in seven days, scattered across that broad continent.

President Badger was vague about the schedule for September 10th. (That happens to be my birthday.) We were in Rhodesia, planning, I thought, to return to Johannesburg, South Africa. But he had other plans, and we landed at Victoria Falls.

“There is a game reserve some distance from here,” he explained, “and I have rented a car, and tomorrow, your birthday, we are going to spend seeing the African animals.”

Now I might explain that the game reserves in Africa are unusual. The people are put in cages, and the animals are left to run free. That is, there are compounds where the park visitors check in at night and are locked behind high fences until after daylight they are allowed to drive about, but no one is allowed out of his car.

We arrived in the park in the late afternoon. By some mistake, there were not enough cabins for all the visitors, and they were all taken when we arrived. The head ranger indicated that they had a cabin in an isolated area about eight miles from the compound and we could spend the night there.

Because of a delay in getting our evening meal, it was long after dark when we left the compound. We found the turnoff and had gone up the narrow road just a short distance when the engine stalled. We found a flashlight and I stepped out to check under the hood, thinking that there must be a loose connection or something. As the light flashed on the dusty road, the first thing I saw was lion tracks!

Back in the car, we determined to content ourselves with spending the night there! Fortunately, however, an hour or two later we were rescued by the driver of a gas truck who had left the compound late because of a problem. We awakened the head ranger and in due time we were settled in our cabin. In the morning they brought us back to the compound.

We had no automobile, and without telephones there was no way to get a replacement until late in the day. We faced the disappointment of sitting around the compound all day. Our one day in the park was ruined and, for me, the dream of a lifetime was gone.

I talked with a young ranger, and he was surprised that I knew many of the African birds. Then he volunteered to rescue us.

“We are building a new lookout over a water hole about twenty miles from the compound,” he said. “It is not quite finished, but it is safe. I will take you out there with a lunch, and when your car comes late this afternoon we will bring it out to you. You may see as many animals, or even more, than if you were driving around.”

On the way to the lookout he volunteered to show us some lions. He turned off through the brush and before long located a group of seventeen lions all sprawled out asleep and drove right up among them.

We stopped at a water hole to watch the animals come to drink. It was very dry that season and there was not much water, really just muddy spots. When the elephants stepped into the soft mud the water would seep into the depression and the animals would drink from the elephant tracks.

The antelope, particularly, were very nervous. They would approach the mud hole, only to turn and run away in great fright. I could see there were no lions about and asked the guide why they didn’t drink. His answer, and this is the lesson, was “Crocodiles.”

I knew he must be joking and asked him seriously, “What is the problem?” The answer again: “Crocodiles.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “There are no crocodiles out there. Anyone can see that.”

I thought he was having some fun at the expense of his foreign game expert, and finally I asked him to tell us the truth. Now I remind you that I was not uninformed. I had read many books. Besides, anyone would know that you can’t hide a crocodile in an elephant track.

He could tell I did not believe him and determined, I suppose, to teach me a lesson. We drove to another location where the car was on an embankment above the muddy hole where we could look down. “There,” he said. “See for yourself.”

I couldn’t see anything except the mud, a little water, and the nervous animals in the distance. Then all at once I saw it!—a large crocodile, settled in the mud, waiting for some unsuspecting animal to get thirsty enough to come for a drink.

Suddenly I became a believer! When he could see I was willing to listen, he continued with the lesson. “There are crocodiles all over the park,” he said, “not just in the rivers. We don’t have any water without a crocodile somewhere near it, and you’d better count on it.”

The guide was kinder to me than I deserved. My “know-it-all” challenge to his first statement, “crocodiles,” might have brought an invitation, “Well, go out and see for yourself!”

I could see for myself that there were no crocodiles. I was so sure of myself I think I might have walked out just to see what was there. Such an arrogant approach could have been fatal! But he was patient enough to teach me.

At the beginning of my eighth-grade year, I went with my mom and brother to close and clean a laundromat that was located across the street from my school. There was a girls’ volleyball game going on. We were almost through cleaning when the game was finished, and people were all over the place. A few of the students had discovered some wet cement. They got all excited and wanted to scratch their initials in the cement. My friends wanted me to go with them to put our initials in the cement too. I had to check with my mom.
“Hey, Mom. There’s a new sidewalk out here and everybody’s putting their initials in the wet cement,” I said. “Can I go for a few minutes and do it too?”
“If everyone puts their initials in it, don’t you think it will ruin the sidewalk?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll just go see what’s going on.”
I took off before my mom could say anything more. By the time I got to the wet cement, there was quite a crowd. My friends wrote their names, and I was about to kneel down and put mine in too. Then I noticed a lot of bad words had been scratched in. Actually the whole sidewalk looked like a mess of words and drawings. Suddenly I didn’t feel good about writing my initials in the sidewalk, and I started to back away.
My buddies coaxed me to put my name in. They said it would be fun to look at years from now. They even called me chicken. But I didn’t scratch my name or my initials in that wet cement. And the next day I was glad.
During third period, our principal’s voice came over the intercom. He asked certain students to come to the office. One of my football buddies was in third period with me, and he was one of them. They were calling in students with names and initials from the sidewalk. The sidewalk was ruined. The city crew was going to tear it out and replace it that day. The students involved had to call their parents to come to school. They also had to help pay for the new section of walk—about $60 each.
I was so happy I hadn’t written anything in the wet cement. But I couldn’t believe what happened next. The girls on the volleyball team and the guys on the football team who’d written in the cement were suspended from their teams for the rest of the season. I was sick for them, but as bad as I felt for my friends, I was happy that I had backed away from the cement. I was glad when things got tense that I made the right choice.

Members in Hong Kong feel a special closeness to President Gordon B. Hinckley. They are well aware that he was instrumental in choosing the site of the Hong Kong Temple and was very specific about many of the unique aspects of the structure. They feel of his genuine love and concern for them. Speaking of the dedication of the Hong Kong Temple, President Hinckley said:
“To me that is a miracle. It is wonderful that we … have a temple of the Lord in the great realm of China wherein live one-fourth of the inhabitants of the earth.
“I have been going to Hong Kong since 1960 when I received an assignment from the Brethren for responsibility for the work in Asia. I almost weep every time I think of having a temple in the great Chinese realm. It will be a different kind of temple. I want to say that if I ever felt the inspiration of the Lord in my life, it was on the occasion of going over there to find a place to build a temple. And I think I can say that it became as clear to me as anything what should be done.”

One day it finally happened. Two young men stood at the front door of our little apartment.
“What is it?” I asked. After taking a quick look at them, I was ready to defend myself. No matter what it was, I wanted them to understand that I did not need anything and that I wanted to be left alone.
Then I took a second look at the two young men in front of me and found reason to question my first judgment. They were dressed with care. They were clean but not shiny or wealthy. Their eyes radiated dignity and peace. Their gestures were humble but not cheap. Their appearance represented politeness and readiness to listen, self-esteem, and willingness to respect my own right of privacy.
“We have an important message for you,” one of them said.
When I have tried to describe the appearance of the first missionaries at my door, I cannot help but say what they didn’t look like. They didn’t look like salesmen. Instead, they radiated something very different, something powerfully strong—the Spirit of the Lord. It became impossible for me to send them away.
Little did I know that from then on my life would never be the same—that I had already set my foot on a path that would eventually lead me toward becoming a member of the Lord’s Church.
I felt power and authority radiating from the missionaries during their visit to our home some thirty years ago. As I watch young members of the Church today, I think we have much reason to rejoice as we see many of them embracing this gift from Heavenly Father and standing firm in these days of challenge. I pray that we may all place our lives on the foundation of Christ through living close to the Spirit and following it always.

Illustrations by Ben Simonsen
A couple of months ago in Young Women, we had a lesson on service where we learned about Mosiah 2:17, which says, “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”
I felt the Spirit so strong all that day, so I prayed all week for opportunities to make a difference and do something that someone truly needed. That week at school I found out that one of my friends was feeling sad and lonely and having difficulties with her school friends. I knew this could be an opportunity to serve.
So my other two friends and I decided to get her a little gift, leave it on her doorstep, and run. Then the next day as I was scrolling through my News Feed on Facebook, I noticed a post from the young woman we’d given the gift to, and my heart leaped in my chest. It read, “To the people who left the bag and card, thank you so much. It feels so good to know that three people love me for who I am and have got my back no matter what.”
Though it might have been a small act of kindness, what we did meant so much, not only to the girl but also to my friends and me as well. I’ve learned that the best way to find happiness is to bring happiness to those who need it.

The account of a homecoming as related by successful prison warden Kenyon J. Scudder brings to the surface tender feelings held in the heart:
A friend of his happened to be sitting in a railroad coach next to a young man who was obviously depressed. Finally the young man revealed that he was a paroled convict returning from a distant prison. His imprisonment had brought shame to his family, and they had neither visited him nor written often. He hoped, however, that this was only because they were too poor to travel and too uneducated to write. He hoped, despite the evidence, that they had forgiven him.
To make it easy for them, however, he had written to them asking that they put up a signal for him when the train passed their little farm on the outskirts of town. If his family had forgiven him, they were to put up a white ribbon in the big apple tree which stood near the tracks. If they didn’t want him to return, they were to do nothing, and he would remain on the train as it traveled onward.
As the train neared his hometown, the suspense became so great that he couldn’t bear to look out of his window. He exclaimed, “In just five minutes the engineer will sound the whistle indicating our approach to the long bend which opens into the valley I know as home. Will you watch for the apple tree at the side of the track?” His companion said he would; they exchanged places. The minutes seemed like hours, but then there came the shrill sound of the train whistle. The young man asked, “Can you see the tree? Is there a white ribbon?”
Came the reply, “I see the tree. I see not one white ribbon, but many. There is a white ribbon on every branch. Son, someone surely does love you.”
In that instant, all the bitterness that had poisoned a life was dispelled. “I felt as if I had witnessed a miracle,” the other man said. Indeed, he had witnessed a miracle. (See John Kord Lagemann, “Forgiveness: The Saving Grace,” The Reader’s Digest, Mar. 1961, pp. 41–42.)

“I had a chance for a job at the beginning of the summer,” said one of the girls sitting on the grass at the main camp. She paused as the squeals from the canoe races drifted up from the waterfront. “I told them that if I couldn’t come to camp, I didn’t want the job. That’s what it means to me.”
Had it been worth it, you might be tempted to ask, and the answer, not from one voice but from 620, is a resounding yes!

When it was time for me to go on a mission, I was very excited to serve the Lord. Just before I was to leave, however, I found out that I had bone cancer. The chance of living long enough to serve a mission wasn’t very high. I had faith that the Lord would provide a way if he wanted me to go. My father gave me a blessing in which I was told that I would serve my mission in Mexico, serve in the Church all my life, and have a family. My right arm had to be amputated above the elbow, but my life was spared, and the promises I was given have all been fulfilled.

I was blessed with parents who, as devoted Church members, taught me many things about the gospel early in my life, including the importance of the gospel of work. They were both hard workers and tried to save what money they had. They did not spend much on themselves, but used it to bless their children. It was easy for me to learn to like work because I had parents who worked without complaining.
My father was a bookkeeper and my mother had her housework to do. My sisters and I each had our own chores, but there was still some time for us to play. As we grew older, there was more work to do and more responsibility. There were times when I did not want to work because I would rather play, but it was a healthy life for me both physically and spiritually.
We lived on a little farm and had some ducks, chickens, lambs, several cows, and quite a few pigs. It helped our family to produce some of the things we ate so that we did not have to buy everything at the store. There were small gardens to be weeded and watered and fruit trees to be pruned and fruit to be picked.
My parents wisely gave me another good reason for working hard. I was allowed to keep some of the money I earned from the sale of the animals and fruits. They also had me keep records for my 4-H project, which was raising pigs, so that I could tell how much money I was making or losing. This was a good experience for me in learning about what things cost.
Because my pigs were purebreds, I used to take them to county and state fairs and to livestock shows to exhibit them. The pigs had to be scrubbed clean before every show. But it was worth the extra work.
Each time I won first, second, or third prize and got a colored ribbon my parents would pin it on a white sheet until one day the sheet was full of them. It was a real thrill when I got my first purple champion ribbon.
As I look back on those years, it was good that I was kept busy and that work was something expected of me. I do not believe people can be happy unless they have work to do. One can really be more of a slave to idleness than to work. Work also keeps us humble and reminds us of how all our blessings come to us from our Heavenly Father.
Those who don’t like to work need to ask themselves this question: “If I do not work, whose responsibility is it to provide for me?” Heavenly Father has fairly said that the person who is idle should not eat the bread of the worker. In today’s world, however, many people think that others have a responsibility to take care of those who are idle or lazy. This is not what Jesus Christ teaches, however. We are to work and to share, but we must not be lazy and then expect others to share with us.
When we work we are less likely to waste things, and waste is a real problem in some families and countries. The person who is a hard worker is also more likely to share what he has with those who are truly poor and needy.
The gospel of work is a very important teaching of the Church. If we learn to work early in life we will be better individuals, better members of families, better neighbors, and better disciples of Jesus Christ, who Himself learned to work as a carpenter. I have seen the place in Nazareth where carpenters and tradesmen still work, I am told, much as they did when Jesus lived as a boy. Those carpenters’ shops and stalls are very humble, but there Jesus learned a great deal that helped Him do the special work He had to do.
Of course we should not work just for show. We work to provide the basic things we need in life—food, clothing, and shelter. We work to be happy. We work to serve our fellowmen.
We need to know how to work for another reason: even our Heavenly Father’s work is really work! There won’t be any lazy people in heaven. They would not be happy there anyway, because there will always be so much to do.
If we learn to work now, we will not only be happier in this world but in the world to come, for work is one way we can show our love for others.

After his baptism, Jorge had to forgo many social customs associated with his budding banking career. At first he was the target of teasing and jokes from co-workers who were curious to see how long he could go without a drink or a cigarette. But Jorge remained faithful to his covenants, and his critics eventually became his greatest protectors from those who tried to pressure him into disregarding the Word of Wisdom.

On 4 Dec 2020, Bishop Les Pointer of the Telford Ward, Newcastle-under-Lyme Stake, accepted an award on behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in recognition for its generous support of the Telford and Wrekin Interfaith Council. The award was presented by Raj Mehta, chair and founder of the Telford and Wrekin Interfaith Council, and a town councillor.
Since Bishop Pointer’s call in October 2017, he has led the ward members to work ever closer with the community and other local faith groups. He was invited to become a trustee of the Telford and Wrekin Interfaith Council in April 2020. Admittedly, before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was easier to serve the local community. Despite the pandemic, Ward members have been able to find appropriate and safe ways to continue serving the community throughout 2020. Bishop Pointer was also nominated for an Unsung Heroes Award from the Telford and Wrekin Borough Council, which he accepted on behalf of ward members.