Gospel Story Finder

I recently met a young woman in the Philippines whose family became less active in the Church when she was only 7 years old, leaving her alone to walk a dangerous road to church week after week. She told how at age 14 she decided that she would stay true to her covenants so she would be worthy to raise her future family in a home “blessed by the strength of priesthood pow’r.” The best way to strengthen a home, current or future, is to keep covenants, promises we’ve made to each other and to God.

Richard Rancie, 14, Melbourne. Richard runs. Right now it’s competitive running (track), and his own neighborhood car wash business. Later, it may be in a political race. He wants to be Australia’s prime minister.
Richard doesn’t train or compete on Sunday. He gave up a place in the national cross-country championships because they were held on the Sabbath. He also took himself out of competition in the Victoria state championships in his best event, the 1,500 meter. Instead, he settled for competing in the 800 meter. “I didn’t expect to make the final,” he says, “but I won a bronze medal.” The great thing is, he doesn’t sound disappointed about missing out on the 1,500. He just feels blessed and compensated.

It was five o’clock in the morning when my husband and I, with two of our four children, left home in our small car. A fierce downpour pummeled the windshield, making it hard to see the road. But despite the weather, we were in a state of high excitement, for this was September 1983, and we were traveling to the dedication of the temple in Santiago, Chile.
My husband, a counselor in the bishopric, had received two tickets to attend dedicatory sessions in one of the large rooms inside the temple. Our older children, Igor and Perlita, ages 10 and 9, would see the services on closed-circuit television from a meetinghouse near the temple.
Brother Basualto, the other counselor in the bishopric, and his wife were traveling with us. They would sit with our children in the meetinghouse.
As we drove, Sister Basualto recounted a dream she had had the night before. “My husband and I were in the meetinghouse with your children, waiting for the session to start,” she told us. “Suddenly, one of the ushers came up and said, ‘Follow me. There are four extra seats in the temple.’ He took us into the temple and seated us right in front. It felt so real! When it was over, the General Authorities shook hands with the people. One of them spoke to your children.” As we listened to her, a peaceful feeling came over us. The rain continued to pour down.
We arrived at the temple, which stood stately and majestic in the storm. Shielding ourselves under a huge umbrella, we left our children and the Basualtos at the meetinghouse and hurried to our seats in the temple. The dedication was an extraordinary experience, with the Spirit gloriously in attendance. Even thinking about it today, I have a sweet and peaceful feeling. After the session was over, the members of the choir continued to sing with all their hearts in hymns of praise to the Lord.
My husband and I left the temple and went to the meetinghouse to join our children and friends. They were nowhere to be found. Quite concerned, we inquired if anyone had seen them. We were told, “Just before the session began, someone took them into the temple.” We looked back toward the temple and saw the four of them walking in the gardens.
Soon we were greeting one another excitedly. “Everything was just like my dream!” exclaimed Sister Basualto with tears in her eyes. How thrilled they had been to be seated inside the house of the Lord! Then they tenderly described how, at the conclusion, President Gordon B. Hinckley, then Second Counselor in the First Presidency, came up to our son Igor and spoke to him through an interpreter.
“How old are you, son?” President Hinckley asked.
“Ten,” said Igor.
“Will you promise me, here in the house of the Lord, that when the time comes you will serve a full-time mission, no matter what the obstacles?”
“Yes,” Igor replied in a quiet voice. “I promise.”
President Hinckley then turned to our daughter Perlita. “And you, my precious child, will you promise me that you will keep yourself clean and pure so that you can be married in the house of the Lord?”
She, too, shyly responded, “Yes.” We all wept as we thought of the marvelous events we had witnessed that day and of the beautiful promises the children had made.
Now, more than 10 years have passed. During that time, President Hinckley has become President of the Church, and my husband and I have watched both our children withstand the darts of the adversary. We have watched them stand firm and keep their childhood promises. Igor served as a missionary in the Chile Viña del Mar Mission. And his sister Perlita married a returned missionary in the beautiful Santiago Chile Temple—the same temple in which she and her brother had made special promises to a servant of the Lord and had witnessed a dream fulfilled.

Johanan carried his goatskin down to the well. After waiting for his turn, he very carefully filled the skin. Every drop was important in their dry country, especially now that the Roman soldiers blocked the gates of the city. He carried the heavy skin back to his home. As he passed the big olive tree that fed them, he poured a little of the water on the young seedling that was sheltered in its shade. Then he filled a small jug with water and walked to the city wall where his father was standing guard. He was proud that his father was chosen to be one of the watchmen. Johanan climbed the ladder and handed his father the jug.
It was hot on the wall, and Father smiled at him, then drank deeply. “Thank you. I was very thirsty.”
Johanan smiled back. He turned to look out over the wall. Before him camped the mighty armies of the Romans. He gazed with a horrible fascination at the men milling below. They were like ants swarming around the bottom of a gigantic anthill. And Jerusalem was the anthill! “Father,” he whispered, “what is going to happen to us?”
His father put his arm around him and pulled him away from the wall. “We will be fine. We have the Lord’s promise that if we watch and follow His warning, we will be saved.”
“But look, Father,” the boy argued, pointing to the men, “there are thousands of them. They have chariots and battering rams. What can we do?”
“Be prepared,” Father answered. “That’s what the Savior told us to do—be prepared.”
Johanan walked slowly back home. He always felt afraid after looking over the wall. It took all his faith to stop that fear. He stopped at the olive tree and sat beneath its shade. He looked at the seedling and wondered if he would see it bear fruit.
Sounds of shouting reached his ears. He saw a group of boys playing in the street. He longed to join them, but he knew that they didn’t want to play with him. He was a Christian, and they were not. Whenever he came close to where they played, they threw stones at him and taunted, “Where’s your Jesus now? Why doesn’t He save you from the Romans?”
Getting up, Johanan wandered into the house and looked for Grandmother. Her presence always soothed him. He sat beside her and watched her skillful fingers weave goat-hair yarn into cloth.
“Hello, Johanan.” She glanced down at his troubled face. “Did you take water to your father?”
He nodded.
“I see. What is it like to see all of Cestius Gallus’s men?”
“Terrible. Many soldiers are out there.”
“It will be all right,” she soothed. She continued her rhythmic weaving for a few moments, then stopped. “How long has it been since I told you about the time I saw the Savior?”
“Many months.”
“Then listen again.” After a pause, she quietly began her story. “When I was a small child, word reached us that a great man was coming to preach in our city. Soon a crowd of people gathered right below the temple.
“My parents thought that I was too young to be in such crowds, so they left me home with my brother, Jesse.”
Johanan nodded in understanding. His parents left him home with his little sisters on market day.
“Jesse wanted to go,” Grandmother continued, “so he swore me to secrecy and we walked toward the crowds. We wriggled our way through the people until we could see Him. We stood still, just staring at Him.”
“What was He like?” Johanan asked earnestly.
“He was like other men—He had two eyes and one nose—yet He was very different. I knew when I saw Him that He loved me and everyone there. I felt something special, a kind of reverence.”
Johanan sighed, “I wish I could have seen Him.”
Grandmother nodded. “One by one He took the children from the multitude and blessed them. Jesse and I walked forward. Soon His arms were around me, and He talked to me. I don’t remember what He said. I remember that I knew that He was the Savior.”
They sat quietly thinking for several minutes before Grandmother looked down at her weaving and picked up the shuttle again. “Don’t worry, my son. He told us what to do.”
Johanan, too, knew the prophecies. When the signs were right, they would leave their home and flee Jerusalem. He looked at the bags and goatskins stacked in the corner. His family was ready to leave whenever the time came.
That afternoon he was herding the goats into the corral when his father walked swiftly up the path, calling to him. “Come, Johanan! Hurry!”
Johanan ran toward his father.
Father gathered the family together. “It is time. I don’t understand why, but Gallus has removed his men from the walls. If we go quietly, I think that he will let us leave. You all know what to do,” Father said. “Now hurry.”
Johanan ran to all their Christian neighbors to make sure that they knew that it was time to leave.
People laden with bags and baskets began streaming out of their houses.
“Where are you going?” one man called out. “You’re not leaving? You cannot. The soldiers will kill you. It’s safer to stay here behind the walls.”
His father stopped and called to him, “Come with us. It’s the only safe thing to do!”
The neighbor waved his hand in disgust. “You Christians—you’re all crazy!”
“Please come!” Father pleaded again, but the man just turned his back.
Johanan remembered how hard his father had worked the past few months to warn everyone that the time to flee was close at hand. Few had listened to him.
“We can do no more,” Father now said sadly. He gathered the family together and joined the rest of the Saints as they poured out through the gates of the city.
They walked as rapidly as they could. Grandmother was having trouble keeping up, so they slowed their pace. It was growing dark by the time they climbed a small rise above Jerusalem. Stopping to rest, they turned to look at their city one last time. Johanan had thought he’d feel sadness to leave his home. Instead, he felt a great joy because his family was safe and all together.
As they watched, the armies of Gallus closed ranks and Jerusalem was encircled once again.
Silently the family turned and began to walk. Johanan stayed close to his grandmother in case she needed him. His heart felt very full. He felt his testimony of Jesus Christ growing. His family had been saved because they had listened to and believed His message.
Grandmother had seen and touched Him. Johanan knew, without seeing, that Jesus was the Christ. He knew because the Holy Ghost whispered it to him.

I read the story “Getting the Best of the Bully” (March 2010), and it has improved my life a lot. I was in a situation similar to the kid in the story, and every day I dreaded going to school, but I went anyway. I started being nicer to the bully, and the day after I started acting nicer, he did the same. He even stood up for me when somebody accused me of doing something I did not do.
Spencer H., Arizona

The Saints in the Longview-Kelso area of Washinton, some of them only a few short miles from the volcano, were probably hit hardest. Disposing of the ash was one of the least of their problems, even though they were inundated with it. Many of them faced the threat of flooding or mudslides ruining their homes, as well as the possibility of the natural dam of ash and logs that had built up, holding back Spirit Lake, wiping out the homes of the 50,000 people in the area.
“I went to bed really scared when only a foot more of water would have broken the dam,” said Devon Shaw, 12, deacons quorum president of the Kelso Ward. “We all did a lot of praying. When I woke up the next morning and learned that the water level was down, I knew that our Heavenly Father was watching over us.
“My dad was up on the mountain when the volcano blew up, and we were in Portland and were really worried about him. He called us the next afternoon to tell us he was okay. I was so thankful that my Heavenly Father protected by dad.”
Devon’s family was among the 25 families in the Kelso Ward that were evacuated to other ward members’ homes. Fortunately no Church members’ homes were destroyed.
“I was really scared when everything happened,” said Kathryn Pond, 13 of the Kelso Ward. “I knew that our house was high and dry, but I was afraid that we’d get wiped out too. The volcano is so big and can do so much damage, and we have no control over it. We really depended on our Heavenly Father to help us. No one in our ward was hurt. Some were in places where they could have been, but the Lord really helped us.”

Preceding the comforting revelation to Joseph and Oliver, the Prophet endured a poignant, painful experience that taught him to look to the Savior and not fear the opinions, pressures, and threats of men.
In June 1828 Joseph allowed Martin Harris to take the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript from Harmony, Pennsylvania, to show to family members in Palmyra, New York. After Martin failed to return as promised, an anxious Joseph traveled by stagecoach to his parents’ home in Manchester Township, New York. The Prophet immediately sent for Martin. When Martin arrived, he admitted that he did not have the manuscript or know where it was.
Joseph exclaimed: “Oh! My God, my God. … All is lost, is lost. What shall I do? I have sinned. It is I that tempted the wrath of God by asking him for that which I had no right to ask. … Of what rebuke am I not worthy from the angel of the Most High?”
The next day the Prophet returned to Harmony. Once there, he said, “I commenced humbling myself in mighty prayer before the Lord … that if possible I might obtain mercy at his hands and be forgiven of all that I had done which was contrary to his will.”2
After chastising Joseph for fearing man more than God, the Lord told him:
“Thou art Joseph, and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression, if thou art not aware thou wilt fall.
“But remember, God is merciful; therefore, repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work” (D&C 3:9–10).
“For a time, the Lord took the Urim and Thummim and the plates from Joseph. But these things were soon restored to him. ‘The angel was rejoiced when he gave me back the Urim and Thummim,’ the Prophet recalled, ‘and said that God was pleased with my faithfulness and humility, and loved me for my penitence and diligence in prayer, in the which I had performed my duty so well as to … be able to enter upon the work of translation again.’ As Joseph moved forward in the great work before him, he was now fortified by the sweet feelings of receiving the Lord’s forgiveness and a renewed determination to do His will.”3

Sunday, July 2, 1972, at the close of testimony meeting, he stood with the congregation of his home ward. Tears filled his eyes as he sang, with them “The Star Spangled Banner.”
In the afternoon there was a visit to family members.
And in the evening, as he sat in the home of a beloved daughter, his head bowed quietly forward, and he died.
There was no suffering. “He was here one minute, and gone the next. It was very peaceful,” the family reported.
So ended the mortal life of a prophet of God.
For President Joseph Fielding Smith it was an appropriate last day on earth: joyful worship with his brothers and sisters in the gospel; nourishing and enjoying the family circle; a quiet, happy acceptance of the Lord’s call to further service.
It had been that way all his life.
That quiet end seems, in fact, like a personal benediction, a final earthly blessing from his Maker in appreciation for a life lived, in every respect, as life should be lived.
Joseph Fielding Smith carried an unmatched heritage, and the responsibility that goes with it, when he entered this life on July 19, 1876. He was of the lineage of prophets. His great-great grandfather had the inspiration to record, “It has been borne in upon my soul that one of my descendants will promulgate a work to revolutionize the world of religious faith.” His great-grandfather, Joseph Smith, Sr., was the first to receive, and accept, the Prophet Joseph’s testimony, was one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon, was ordained first patriarch to the Church, died a martyr’s death from exposure in the expulsion from Missouri. Joseph Fielding Smith’s grandfather, Hyrum, stood constantly beside his brother Joseph; was a counselor in the First Presidency; was second patriarch to the Church; and died at Joseph’s side as together they sealed their testimony. His father, son not only of Hyrum but also of one of history’s most remarkable pioneer women, became sixth president of the Church, the first president to be born in the Church and spend his entire life under its influence. For eighteen years as president he led and built and loved the Church and its people.
This kind of blood flowed in the veins of President Joseph Fielding Smith. But others have had noble blood and have failed to honor it. As he so often said, each man must earn his own testimony; each man at the judgment will stand responsible for his own work.
It was Joseph Fielding Smith’s own testimony, his own devotion, that led to his call to the apostleship at age thirty-three and that sustained him through sixty years as an apostle and two and one-half as president and prophet of the Church.
It was his own gentle kindness and human warmth as well as firmness in the gospel that made him so loved in Europe during the first dark days of World War II and later in the Far East, South Pacific, South America, and wherever else he traveled, blessing the Saints, opening missions, and building the Church.
It was his own scholarship and hard work that produced twenty-four books of gospel interpretation and teaching and that brought him recognition as perhaps the leading gospel scholar of this dispensation.
It was his own profound commitment to genealogy and temple work that led, during his long service as president of the Genealogical Society, to the Church’s accumulation of the world’s greatest collection of genealogical records.
And it was his own receptiveness to the inspiration of the spirit that led him, as newly ordained president and prophet, to choose two great men as counselors through whom and with whom he led the Church in its most astonishing period of profound change and growth. Here was a ninety-three-year-old man ordained president of the Church, the oldest man ever so chosen. The outlook was for a short, quiet ministry without innovation or progress. Instead, the Church literally spurted ahead. Eighty-one stakes were organized during the two and one-half years of his ministry—compared to the ninety-eight years it took to organize the first hundred stakes. Even more impressive during those two and one-half years is the long list of far-reaching organizational and program changes that prepare the Church for more rapid growth in the future.
So Joseph Fielding Smith was his own man—and the Lord’s. But what sort of man was he, really?
The president of the United States, Richard Nixon, found his friendship a “profound experience” and called him a “devoted and inspirational leader.” So did countless others. And so he was. But what else was he, away from the pressure of his high office?
He was a man who loved his family with a depth only possible to one who fully understands the eternal nature of family ties. Because he loved them, he taught them, and because they loved him, they responded. All five of his sons served missions for the Church; all eleven of his children married in the temple.
He was a man who found joy in the company of children. On the last day of his life, a mother asked him to touch her infant; she remembers his happy, loving smile as he caressed the child. Last year as he left general conference, a little girl ducked under the ropes and ran to President Smith. He picked her up and held her close. Reproved later by her parents who feared she might have become lost in the crowd, the child replied, “I wasn’t lost; I was in the arms of the Prophet.”
He was a man of quick, gentle humor, much of it directed at himself; he never took himself too seriously. He referred to his typing as the “biblical system—seek and ye shall find.” He described the duets he so often sang with his late wife, the great contralto Jessie Evans Smith, as “do-its; I have to do it whether I want to or not.” His personal secretary and longtime associate, Brother D. Arthur Haycock, recalls how the students at BYU had seemed to enjoy a recent talk and duet so greatly some had tears in their eyes. To this President Smith quickly responded, “I can understand that. My singing is enough to make anybody cry.”
He was a man who respected—and cared for—the physical body as a tabernacle of the spirit. Because of that care, he spent not a single day in the hospital in all his ninety-six years.
He loved athletics, both as participant and spectator. He still played a respectable game of handball in his seventies and credited regular exercise for his excellent health and longevity. One of the warmest, most human memories of him goes back to a Saturday session of general conference when he slipped away during the closing song to watch his son play football at the University of Utah.
With all the tradition and continuity his longevity brought to the presiding councils of the Church, he was a modern man, attuned to the times. His personal zest for living never let him become old-fashioned—unless strict personal morality and steadfast devotion are old-fashioned. His life spanned the period from the ox cart to the jet plane and lunar landings—and, indeed, in his eighties, he took delight in an occasional ride in a National Guard jet fighter.
More than all else, he was a man of God—not only at the pulpit, but in the circle of his family or the privacy of his room. As President Harold B. Lee said of him, “He sought no honors of men. His purpose in life could well be penned in one sentence—his was an ‘eye single to the glory of God in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.’”
He was his father’s tenth child; a “tithing child.” He gave his life, as all honest tithes are given, joyfully, without reservation, fully, to the Lord.

“When I was 12,” says Loukia, “I went to church for the first time and was so happy, but then I realized that I was the only one my age. Now, two years later, we have so many young women that for the first time we were able to have Young Women Camp.” As they met together, she says, “I realized what it means to be a Latter-day Saint. When we live the gospel, a light surrounds us.”
...
“Loukia C., 15, bore her testimony for the first time at Young Women camp and was later baptized.”

“I can remember my first big fishing trip. I was ten years old. We went to Mackay, Idaho. My father taught me how to put the worm on the hook, and it was very distasteful to me. I kept thinking, Dad, why can’t you do this? I don’t want to do it. When I asked him, though, he said, ‘If you’re going to learn to fish, you have to learn to do everything.’ And so he made me put the worm on the hook. Then, when I caught my first fish, I didn’t know what to do with that wiggly, slippery thing. My father taught me how to clean the fish: I had to hold it in one hand and cut it open and clean out its entrails, which was a very unpleasant job for me. But I could see my father’s wisdom—without actually doing all that a task requires, we often don’t learn everything we need to know.

My little brother and sister, Michael and Abbie, are a handful. You just can’t get them to sit still. I should know—I’ve tried. Mom says I’m old enough to watch them when she goes out for errands. I’m glad Mom thinks I’m responsible, but I’m not sure I want to watch them on my own.
So today, when Mom went to the store and put me in charge, I was ready. I decided that in order to watch Michael and Abbie, I would need to get them to behave, and I knew just the way to do it.
“Who wants to play a game?” I asked.
They jumped up and down. “Ooh! Me! Me!”
“It’s a game I just invented. It’s called Baby Caterpillar. Do you want to pretend to be baby caterpillars?”
“Yes!” Michael yelled.
“Yay!” Abbie shouted.
I grinned. My brother and sister can never quietly agree to anything.
“To play this game, I need both of you to get a blanket,” I said.
They both ran to their bedrooms as fast as they could and brought back two blankets.
“OK, now just watch.”
They stood quietly and watched, which was a first for them.
First I laid down both blankets and had Abbie lie right in the middle of one and Michael in the middle of the other. Then I wrapped them each in a blanket cocoon up to their chins.
“Ta da!” I said. “You are now baby caterpillars!”
“Yay!” they shouted.
They wiggled around for a bit, and after a while they started talking to each other in their “caterpillar language.” Their smiling faces peeked over their blankets. I sat on the couch with a good book while they chattered to each other.
When I looked at my brother and sister, nestled in their little cocoons, I realized they weren’t so bad after all. In fact, now that I was spending time with them, I kind of liked them. I thought about how much fun we could have playing a board game together after they were done being baby caterpillars. I put my book down and started to think of other games we could all play the next time Mom left me in charge.

A passage from the novel Les misérables illustrates how priesthood holders can treat those individuals viewed as strangers. Jean Valjean had just been released as a prisoner. Exhausted by a long voyage and dying of hunger and thirst, he arrives in a small town seeking a place to find food and shelter for the night. When the news of his arrival spreads, one by one all the inhabitants close their doors to him. Not the hotel, not the inn, not even the prison would invite him in. He is rejected, driven away, banished. Finally, with no strength left, he collapses at the front door of the town’s bishop.
The good clergyman is entirely aware of Valjean’s background, but he invites the vagabond into his home with these compassionate words:
“‘This is not my house; it is the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. … What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me [your name], you had one which I knew.’
“[Valjean] opened his eyes in astonishment.
“‘Really? You knew what I was called?’
“‘Yes,’ replied the Bishop, ‘you are called my brother.’”7

In a previous general conference, Elder Benjamín De Hoyos spoke of such an event. He said:
“Some years ago while serving in the office of public affairs of the Church in Mexico, [a companion and I] were invited to participate in a radio talk show. … [One of the program directors] asked [us], ‘Why does the Church have such a long name? …’
“My companion and I smiled at such a magnificent question and then proceeded to explain that the name of the Church was not chosen by man. It was given by the Savior. … The program director immediately and respectfully responded, ‘We will thus repeat it with great pleasure.’”13

I remember many years ago, during a particularly trying period, I felt as though specific attacks were being made on my family, on my health, and on my integrity. I was fasting, praying, seeking counsel, and still feeling acute anxiety over how, when, and if the serious challenges would be resolved. The thing that brought the most relief during that difficult time was reviewing in my mind the words to the hymn “Be Still, My Soul.” I memorized all the verses and recited them at least once a day. The words that provided the most solace and comfort were:
Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;
With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In ev’ry change he faithful will remain. …
Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
I’ll never forget the blessing these words and the music were to me when they were sorely needed.

Listen to the experiences of those couples who have gone forth to serve.Quoting a few lines from a letter recently received in the Missionary Department from the president of the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, we read: “The Wilsons, who recently returned home, did an outstanding job in reactivating the membership. They were able to see two couples go to the temple, have eighteen baptisms, increase ward activity from an average of 136 to over 180 during just the year that they labored in the Nevada Ward. When they came into the mission field, they had just purchased a new truck. During their mission, they put 29,000 miles on the vehicle. This couple was truly dedicated to strengthening the Lord’s work in this area. Now they are retired, living in St. George, and would like to go on another mission in the near future.”

Recently I visited the Missionary Training Center at Provo, Utah, where missionaries who have been called to serve throughout the world are devotedly learning the fundamentals of the languages spoken by the people to whom they shall teach and testify.
Vaguely familiar to me were the conversations in Spanish, French, German, and Swedish. Totally foreign to me and perhaps to most of the missionaries were the sounds of Japanese, Chinese, and Finnish. One marvels at the devotion and total concentration of these young men and women as they grapple with the unfamiliar and learn the difficult.
I am told that on occasion when a missionary in training feels that the Spanish he is called upon to master appears overwhelming or just too hard to learn, he is placed during the luncheon break next to missionaries studying the complex languages of the Orient. He listens. Suddenly Spanish becomes not too overpowering, and he eagerly returns to his study.
There is one language, however, that is understood by each missionary: the language of the Spirit. It is not learned from textbooks written by men of letters, nor is it acquired through reading and memorization. The language of the Spirit comes to him who seeks with all his heart to know God and to keep His divine commandments. Proficiency in this language permits one to breach barriers, overcome obstacles, and touch the human heart.
The Apostle Paul, in his second epistle to the Corinthians, urges that we turn from the narrow confinement of the letter of the law and seek the open vista of opportunity which the Spirit provides. I love and cherish Paul’s statement: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” (2 Cor. 3:6.)
In a day of danger or a time of trial, such knowledge, such hope, such understanding bring comfort to the troubled mind and grieving heart. The entire message of the New Testament breathes a spirit of awakening to the human soul. Shadows of despair are dispelled by rays of hope, sorrow yields to joy, and the feeling of being lost in the crowd of life vanishes with the certain knowledge that our Heavenly Father is mindful of each of us.
The Savior provided assurance of this truth when He taught that even a sparrow shall not fall to the ground unnoticed by our Father. He then concluded the beautiful thought by saying, “Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:29–31.)
We live in a complex world with daily challenges. There is a tendency to feel detached—even isolated—from the Giver of every good gift. We worry that we walk alone.
From the bed of pain, from the pillow wet with the tears of loneliness, we are lifted heavenward by that divine assurance and precious promise, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” (Josh. 1:5.)
Such comfort is priceless as we journey along the pathway of mortality, with its many forks and turnings. Rarely is the assurance communicated by a flashing sign or a loud voice. Rather, the language of the Spirit is gentle, quiet, uplifting to the heart and soothing to the soul.
At times, the answers to our questions and the responses to our daily prayers come to us through silent promptings of the Spirit. As William Cowper wrote:
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm. …
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
(Hymns, no. 48.)
We watch. We wait. We listen for that still, small voice. When it speaks, wise men and women obey. We do not postpone following promptings of the Spirit.
To address such a sacred subject, may I refer not to the writings of others, but to the actual experiences of my life. I testify to their truth, for I lived them. I share with you today three cherished examples of what President David O. McKay identified as “heart petals”—the language of the Spirit, the promptings from a heavenly source.
First, the inspiration which attends a call to serve.
Second, the gratitude of God for a life well lived.
Third, the knowledge that we do not walk alone.
Every bishop can testify to the promptings which attend calls to serve in the Church. Frequently the call seems to be not so much for the benefit of those to be taught or led as for the person who is to teach or lead.
As a bishop, I worried about any members who were inactive, not attending, not serving. Such was my thought as I drove down the street where Ben and Emily lived. They were older—even in the twilight period of life. Aches and pains of advancing years caused them to withdraw from activity to the shelter of their home—isolated, detached, shut out from the mainstream of daily life and association.
I felt the unmistakable prompting to park my car and visit Ben and Emily, even though I was on the way to a meeting. It was a sunny weekday afternoon. I approached the door to their home and knocked. Emily answered. When she recognized me, her bishop, she exclaimed, “All day long I have waited for my phone to ring. It has been silent. I hoped that the postman would deliver a letter. He brought only bills. Bishop, how did you know today was my birthday?”
I answered, “God knows, Emily, for He loves you.”
In the quiet of the living room, I said to Ben and Emily, “I don’t know why I was directed here today, but our Heavenly Father knows. Let’s kneel in prayer and ask Him why.” This we did, and the answer came. Emily was asked to sing in the choir—even to provide a solo for the forthcoming ward conference. Ben was asked to speak to the Aaronic Priesthood young men and recount a special experience in his life when his safety was assured by responding to the promptings of the Spirit. She sang. He spoke. Hearts were gladdened by the return to activity of Ben and Emily. They rarely missed a sacrament meeting from that day to the time each was called home. The language of the Spirit had been spoken. It had been heard. It had been understood. Hearts were touched and lives saved.
For my second example I turn to the release of a stake president in Star Valley, Wyoming—even the late E. Francis Winters. He had served faithfully for the lengthy term of twenty-three years. Though modest by nature and circumstance, he had been a perpetual pillar of strength to everyone in the valley. On the day of the stake conference, the building was filled to overflowing. Each heart seemed to be saying a silent thank-you to this noble leader who had given so unselfishly of his life for the benefit of others.
As I stood to speak following the reorganization of the stake presidency, I was prompted to do something I had not done before, nor have I done so since. I stated how long Francis Winters had presided in the stake; then I asked all whom he had blessed or confirmed as children to stand and remain standing. Then I asked all those persons whom President Winters had ordained, set apart, personally counseled, or blessed to please stand. The outcome was electrifying. Every person in the audience rose to his feet. Tears flowed freely—tears which communicated better than could words the gratitude of tender hearts. I turned to President and Sister Winters and said, “We are witnesses today of the prompting of the Spirit. This vast throng reflects not only individual feelings but also the gratitude of God for a life well lived.” No person who was in the congregation that day will forget how he felt when he witnessed the language of the Spirit of the Lord.
Finally, I testify that we do not walk alone.
Stan, a dear friend of mine, was taken seriously ill and rendered partially paralyzed. He had been robust in health, athletic in build, and active in many pursuits. Now he was unable to walk or to stand. His wheelchair was his home. The finest of physicians had cared for him, and the prayers of family and friends had been offered in a spirit of hope and trust. Yet Stan continued to lie in the confinement of his bed at the university hospital. He despaired.
Late one afternoon I was swimming at the Deseret Gym, gazing at the ceiling while backstroking width after width. Silently, but ever so clearly, there came to my mind the thought: “Here you swim almost effortlessly, while your friend Stan languishes in his hospital bed, unable to move.” I felt the prompting: “Get to the hospital and give him a blessing.”
I ceased my swimming, dressed, and hurried to Stan’s room at the hospital. His bed was empty. A nurse said he was in his wheelchair at the swimming pool, preparing for therapy. I hurried to the area, and there was Stan, all alone, at the edge of the deeper portion of the pool. We greeted one another and returned to his room, where a priesthood blessing was provided.
Slowly but surely, strength and movement returned to Stan’s legs. First he could stand on faltering feet. Then he learned once again to walk—step by step. Today one would not know that Stan had lain so close to death and with no hope of recovery.
Frequently Stan speaks in Church meetings and tells of the goodness of the Lord to him. To some he reveals the dark thoughts of depression which engulfed him that afternoon as he sat in his wheelchair at the edge of the pool, sentenced, it seemed, to a life of despair. He tells how he pondered the alternative. It would be so easy to propel the hated wheelchair into the silent water of the deep pool. Life would then be over. But at that precise moment he saw me, his friend. That day Stan learned literally that we do not walk alone. I, too, learned a lesson that day: Never, never, never postpone following a prompting.
As we pursue the journey of life, let us learn the language of the Spirit. May we remember and respond to the Master’s gentle invitation: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.” (Rev. 3:20.) This is the language of the Spirit. He spoke it. He taught it. He lived it. May each of us do likewise, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Our Church members demonstrated the healing and pacifying power of love in their shipment of food and clothing to relieve the suffering of the German Saints just after World War II. U.S. President Harry S. Truman was amazed when President George Albert Smith told him the supplies would not be sold. “You don’t mean you are going to give it to them?” he exclaimed.

President Smith replied simply, “They are our brothers and sisters and are in distress” (in Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Jr., Spencer W. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977], p. 222).

A few months later, Elder Ezra Taft Benson saw a German member in tears as he ran his fingers through a container of cracked wheat and whispered, “Brother Benson, it is hard for me to believe that people who have never seen us could do so much for us” (in Sheri L. Dew, Ezra Taft Benson [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1987], p. 219).

Many years ago I accompanied a brother I home taught, Brother Schaaf, to the hospital to give his wife a priesthood blessing before her surgery. Sister Schaaf shared her hospital room with a woman named Annie Leddar, a long-term patient with terminal cancer who was not expected to live much longer.
I reached out to pull the dividing curtain between the two hospital beds before beginning the blessing, but I stopped. Not wanting to exclude Annie, I explained what we were about to do and asked if she would like to witness the blessing. She said she would like to watch. Her husband, who had passed away, had been a minister in another faith, and she was interested in what we believed. Brother Schaaf and I proceeded with the blessing while Annie listened.
A few days later, before Sister Schaaf went home from the hospital, Annie asked if she could receive a priesthood blessing as well. Brother Schaaf and I gladly returned to the hospital to give her a blessing. Annie was not cured of her cancer, but her health greatly improved.
She was interested in learning more about the gospel, so I asked the missionaries to stop by the hospital to teach her. She listened to the gospel message with an open heart and chose to be baptized. Every week after her baptism we came to the hospital to take Annie to church in her wheelchair.
Because Annie was ill, it was difficult for her to get around, but she soon found her own way to serve the Lord. We brought her a typewriter, and she spent hours every day in the hospital doing family history work. Annie lived three years longer than expected and prepared hundreds of family names for the temple before she passed away.
After Annie’s death, Sister Schaaf did proxy temple work for many of Annie’s female ancestors.
As far as I know, Annie was the only member of her family to join the Church. Her living family was never enthusiastic about her involvement with the Church, but I am sure many of her deceased family members were grateful for the vicarious work that was done for them.
We never know if people we meet are ready to receive the gospel. I am grateful that I was able to see a seed—planted in Annie’s heart after she witnessed a priesthood blessing—flourish and bless hundreds of Heavenly Father’s children.

Evan and I created a great “hut” down in the rocks and sand of Ash Creek. That was a small tributary to the Virgin River in southern Utah. It was the perfect place for catching little blue-bellied racing lizards. When it came to catching those, Evan and I had no peers. That was one thing we could do better than even my two older brothers.
I did not know until we were about ten years old that Evan had been born with a heart defect. He had asthma and often coughed and wheezed from that, but it did not interfere with our play. One reason I did not know that his health problems were serious was that he never once complained.
All along, his parents had been waiting for him to reach an age when he was strong enough to survive surgery. Finally, the doctors felt that they could wait no longer, so off to Salt Lake went Evan and his parents.
He wrote to me saying that he had taken an advance tour of the hospital to see everything, including the operating and recovery rooms. The doctors wanted him to see them in detail, so that when he awoke, he would not be frightened. To me, it seemed that he took that all in stride.
Several days later Evan underwent eight or ten hours of major surgery. Unbelievably to me, he died on the operating table.
I was crushed. I had prayed faithfully and fervently that he would survive. I thought my prayers had gone unanswered. Brokenhearted, I went back to our river hut one last time after the funeral. I stayed only long enough to push some of the rocks aside and destroy the fort that we had built. I guess I thought if I could destroy what represented Evan, I could destroy the horrible feelings of grief that I was experiencing.
Later I would learn that those feelings were normal. I loved Evan. I would miss him. That is a natural instinct, and there is nothing wrong with it.
I thought about Evan every day for a month or so. Then I began to get busy with other friends, and soon I was just thinking about him every now and then. After about ten years, I found that I would go months at a time and never think of the closeness that we had shared. I noticed, however, that when I started thinking about him, all of the good feelings that I had felt with him so many times would come rushing back into my mind and heart.

When missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started teaching his family, Isaac Kojo Botwe made it clear from the beginning that he was not interested.
“I would abandon them in the sitting room, go into the boys’ room, and smoke my dirty pipe,” he says, laughing as he recalls what followed. Soon he decided that he really ought to listen to what the missionaries were saying. Not long afterward, he decided that he needed to give up that “dirty pipe” and live the Word of Wisdom.
Elder Mark Owusu, one of the missionaries who taught him, remembers that Isaac Botwe had his children gather his pipes, his tobacco, and his coffee—and then he set fire to the lot of it!
Isaac, his wife, Frances, and their children of baptismal age came into the Church together in 1987. Today, Isaac is bishop of the Takoradi Ward, Cape Coast Ghana Stake. His family has an extensive history of service to the Church. So, too, does Mark Owusu, who has served in a variety of teaching and leadership positions since his mission.