Gospel Story Finder

“Now let’s walk over to the campanile,” Mother suggested.
“What’s a campanile?” asked Mary Ann.
“A campanile is a bell tower that is built separate from a church,” replied Mother. “The bell in this campanile is the Nauvoo bell. It was made in England, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, and hung in the Nauvoo Temple. It was carried across the plains by oxcart. The Relief Society sisters had the campanile built to protect the bell.”
Mother and the children walked past the Assembly Hall with its colorful stained glass windows and its many quaint spires reaching up toward the blue sky.
They stopped to look at the beautiful Sea Gull Monument. Around the base of the monument was a pool of clear water and eight fountains that sent sparkling water spraying into the air, curving umbrella-fashion and splashing back into the pool.
“Right over here is a statue of a handcart family,” Mother told the children as they walked away from the Seagull Monument.
Mark said he thought the father looked strong but tired.
“The mother looks strong too,” said Mary Ann, “but I think she looks worried. Maybe she’s afraid her children will get too tired in the hot sun.”
“It took brave boys and girls to walk across the plains,” said Mother. “But all of the pioneers loved our Heavenly Father and His gospel, so they pushed on and on until they arrived in Salt Lake City. We should always remember our pioneers and be proud of them.”
Past the Bureau of Information, Mark wanted to stop and look at a real pioneer cabin. He caught up with Mary Ann and Mother, who had circled back and were looking up at the beautiful white granite temple with its rounded windows and majestic spires.
They also paused to look at the statues of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Patriarch Hyrum Smith.
“I’m glad we could come to Temple Square,” said Mary Ann. “It’s even more beautiful than I imagined.”
By now the sun had set and it was beginning to get dark. Although everyone was tired, they had a special quiet feeling of happiness because of the wonderful things they had seen and learned that day on Temple Square.

I thank my wife, Harriet, for her witness and testimony of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. May I share with you the conversion story of my wife’s family many years ago?

One Sunday when I was a teenager attending the Frankfurt Branch in Germany, the missionaries brought a young mother and her two beautiful daughters to our Church meetings. I still remember the impressions I had when I saw those two young girls walking into our chapel—especially about the older daughter. She was about 13 years old, and with her large brown eyes and beautiful black hair, she immediately caught my attention. I thought, “These missionaries are doing a really great job!” Little did I know that this young lady would much later bless my life forever.

But I’m getting ahead of the story. Let me go back and start with how this young family met the missionaries.

In the fall of 1954 two missionaries were inside of an apartment house ringing the doorbells in the city of Frankfurt. Gradually they began working their way up the floors without any success. Finally they rang the bell of the last door on the fourth floor. It was opened by young Harriet, who immediately asked her mother to invite them in. Sister Reich initially hesitated, but after some additional pleading by Harriet, Elder Gary Jenkins from California and his companion were invited in.

These two missionaries were truly guided by the Spirit, not only where to go but also what to say. After briefly explaining who they were and what the message was they wanted to share, the missionaries left a Book of Mormon with the mother, asked her to read the marked scriptures, and departed with a prayer and a blessing.

Two days later they returned. This time the missionaries received a friendly welcome and were invited in quickly. When they asked Sister Reich if she had read the marked scriptures in the Book of Mormon, Sister Reich answered without hesitation, “I read the whole book, and I feel that it is true.”

Sister Carmen Reich was only 36 at the time, a widow with two daughters. Only eight months before, she had lost her husband, a renowned musician, to cancer. After his unexpected death, the family struggled with a number of unanswered questions—Is there a purpose in life? Is there anything after death; and if so, what? Why are we born? Did we live before this life?

Let me make it clear that Sister Reich was a religious person. She loved to read, and the Bible was one of her favorite books. She believed firmly that Jesus is the Christ, and as a family they tried to follow His teachings. They were good, honest people, and even the loss of their husband and father could not take away their feeling of family.

However, when Sister Carmen Reich read the Book of Mormon, book-end to book-end, in two days, she felt something she had never before experienced. By her own account, it was “the spirit of revelation.”

She said she could “feel pure intelligence” flowing into her, giving her “sudden strokes of ideas” about the “things of the Spirit of God.” These ideas related to her special circumstances. As the missionaries taught her the plan of salvation and the other doctrines of the Restoration, she continued to “grow into the principle of [personal] revelation” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 132). All the good things she had learned in her Lutheran faith received a new and deeper meaning, and all of a sudden life itself had a totally different and divine eternal perspective.

It was not that she felt any enmity for what she had believed for so many years. But when she heard the message of the Restoration, a door was opened into a world flooded with light and filled with love and hope. Looking back, she described her experience this way: It was as if something of great importance had been lifeless and inert but was now resurrected to life, beauty, and activity.

Let me finish the story of Sister Reich, my dear mother-in-law. She represents in many ways the multitude of converts who are coming into the Church every day from other religions, both Christian and non-Christian, and even from no religion at all. What characterizes them all is that they are willing and pure enough to believe when God speaks.

Sister Reich was baptized on November 7, 1954. In December, only a few weeks after her baptism, the missionary who baptized her asked that she write her testimony down. Elder Jenkins wanted to use her testimony to help others feel the true spirit of conversion. Fortunately, he kept her handwritten original for more than 40 years and then returned it to my mother-in-law as a very special and loving gift. Carmen Reich, my dear mother-in-law, passed away in 2000 at age 83.

Let me read to you parts of her written testimony. It shows what she, with her background, with her needs and desires at the time she met the missionaries, saw as the key points of the Restoration. This is the English translation of her handwritten testimony:

“Special characteristics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that are not present in other religious communities include, above all:

“Modern revelation given through the Prophet Joseph Smith.

“Sacred priesthood authority as in the time of Christ, with a living prophet today.

“Next, the Book of Mormon in its clear and pure language, with all its instructions and promises for the Church of Jesus Christ—truly a second witness with the Bible that Jesus Christ lives.

“Faith in a personal God—that is, God the Father; and God the Son Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost, who facilitates prayer and guides us personally.

“Belief in a premortal life, the pre-existence. Knowledge of the purpose of our earthly life, and of our life after death, is extremely valuable for us to have and is especially interesting and informative. The plan of salvation is so clearly laid out in the restored gospel that our lives receive new meaning and direction.

“The Word of Wisdom. The Church has given us the Word of Wisdom as a guide to help us realize our desire to keep our body and spirit healthy and improve them. This is our goal because we know that we will take our body up again after death in the same form.

“Temple work, with its many sacred ordinances enabling families to be together forever. This doctrine, totally new to me, was given through revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith.”

These escapes started at an early age.
One morning in my eleventh year my brother, my cousin, I, and a fourth boy were standing on the rim of Salt Lake’s City Creek Canyon.
The fourth boy had a mail-order 22-caliber pistol with a broken trigger spring. He had stretched an elastic band across the hammer and under the trigger guard to act as a spring to fire the weapon.
He was showing us how Buffalo Bill shot, by raising the gun high and then bringing it down slowly, releasing the hammer when it was level. Suddenly I felt my left hand go numb. Looking down, I saw a red stain on the white sleeve of my left arm at the biceps level. The stain got larger. I yelled, “I’m shot,” and ran for home.
The bullet had pierced my arm and passed completely through it without touching bones or arteries. I had been on the extreme left of the group, the boy with the gun on the extreme right. The bullet passed in front of my chest on the level of my heart and must have been very close to the skin as it passed. Otherwise it could not have hit my left arm. If that gun had been turned one-fourth of an inch farther to the left, I wouldn’t be here now!
I have since thought about what it was that protected me. I am not one to say that I am a man marked for protection, but I believe I was protected that time.

Once, when President George Albert Smith was seriously ill, he lost consciousness and thought he had died. He found himself standing near a beautiful lake. Soon he began following a trail through the woods, and after a time he saw a man, whom he recognized as his grandfather, coming toward him.
“I remember how happy I was to see him coming,” President Smith said. “I had been given his name and had always been proud of it.
“When Grandfather came within a few feet of me, … he looked at me very earnestly and said:
“‘I would like to know what you have done with my name.’
“Everything I had ever done passed before me as though it were a flying picture on a screen—everything I had done. … I smiled and looked at my grandfather and said:
“‘I have never done anything with your name of which you need be ashamed.’
“He stepped forward and took me in his arms” (Improvement Era, March 1947, page 139).

Let’s go back 60 years. The minutes of the Wandamere Ward of the Grant Stake for June 4, 1944, indicate the sacrament was administered by my friends Ward Jackson, Arthur Hicks, and me to a congregation of 141. Then it was off to war. In May of 1945, I was blessing the sacrament again—but in a foxhole on Okinawa for a congregation of only one—myself!

The training of my youth took over without fanfare—something only partially appreciated by me then—including abstaining from coffee in those same circumstances when water was scarce and highly chlorinated.
I do not know what lies ahead of you young men, but my advice would be to fasten your seat belts and hold on firmly to your principles!

One who received and welcomed the gift of peace was Joseph Millett, an early missionary to the Maritime Provinces of Canada, who learned, while there and in his later experiences in life, of the need to rely on heavenly help. An experience which he recalled in his journal is a beautiful illustration of simple yet profound faith:

“One of my children came in, said that Brother Newton Hall’s folks were out of bread. Had none that day. I put … our flour in [a] sack to send up to Brother Hall’s. Just then Brother Hall came in. Says I, ‘Brother Hall, how are you [fixed] for flour.’ ‘Brother Millett, we have none.’ ‘Well, Brother Hall, there is some in that sack. I have divided [it] and was going to send it to you. Your children told mine that you were out.’ Brother Hall began to cry. Said he had tried others. Could not get any. Went to the cedars and prayed to the Lord and the Lord told him to go to Joseph Millett. ‘Well, Brother Hall, you needn’t bring this back if the Lord sent you for it. You don’t owe me for it.’ You can’t tell how good it made me feel to know that the Lord knew that there was such a person as Joseph Millett.”

Prayer brought the gift of peace to Newton Hall and to Joseph Millett.

During my sophomore year in high school, I volunteered as part of the technical crew to produce my high school’s annual musical. The experience became one of my favorite memories of the year, because it was fun and I learned so much doing it. I also loved working with the people I met.
But the most important thing I learned was not something I had expected.
In order for the tech crew to communicate quietly with each other, we used radio headsets. We also used them to tell jokes, have conversations, even to sing to each other to entertain ourselves during the long rehearsals.
But the first time we used the headsets wasn’t actually so comfortable for me. At first I was having a blast. Then some people started gossiping about the actors rehearsing onstage. I tried to ignore the snide comments and rude remarks, but as the conversation developed, the gossip grew crueler and more offensive.
I felt sick hearing some of the comments, but I was afraid to stand up against my new friends. I wish I had, because as I tolerated their jokes, I was eventually tempted to laugh and make my own comments. I began to rationalize why it would have been fine. Nobody but the tech crew would have heard me, and I wanted to fit in with the people around me.
As hard as it was, I knew that backbiting about those onstage wasn’t right, and I chose not to gossip.
After the rehearsal we learned that everything we had said over the headsets had been broadcast backstage. All 60 or so of the cast members had heard us talking. Some were angry, upset, or embarrassed. No one was impressed.
Later, while I was talking with one of my friends about what had happened, she said, “Everyone knows you’d never say anything like that.” Her comment shocked me, and I realized the significance of the choice I had made. If I had chosen to join in with the gossip, what would that have said about me? What would that have said about the Church?
I’m grateful for the choice I made in that dark, little theater, even when I thought others wouldn’t know, because it has opened blessings of friendship, peace, and confidence that I would have lost had I chosen to gossip.

During my high school years my name began to appear each spring in the Bay Area sports pages. A newspaper columnist wrote that I might be the best high school middle-distance prospect in the last ten years in northern California. Letters from college track coaches began arriving. It was exciting.
Late one Saturday afternoon near the end of my sophomore year, I found my father sitting in his chair upstairs, reading.
“I’m going to a party tonight,” I said nonchalantly.
“That’s nice. Some of your friends from church?”
“No. New friends. Guys from school.”
“I see.” He continued reading.
“They’re some very popular kids.”
“Oh.” He laid his book down. “How long have they been paying attention to you?”
“Since track season, I guess.”
“Maybe they saw you in math class handing in your homework and thought, He’s someone we need to get to know.”
“Maybe.”
“It wouldn’t be that they saw your name in the paper, I’m sure. What are Chuck and Ricky doing tonight? And the guys from church?”
“The church guys are going to a stake dance. Chuck and Ricky were talking about going to a Giants game. Ricky’s dad is going.”
“Oh. How long have you known Ricky and Chuck and the guys at church?”
“Chuck and Ricky, all my life. The guys at church, seven or eight years.”
“Before anyone knew you could run fast, right?”
“Right.”
“You have fun with your new friends tonight. Remember priesthood at nine tomorrow.” He picked up his book. He was leaving the decision to me.
I made two phone calls. One to my new friends who had invited me to the party, a gathering at which I could easily guess what would be going on. The second call was to a friend from church, to see if he would pick me up for the dance.
My senior year in high school came, and my life and the lives of my friends and family were again changing. I had less than a year left in our blue house. Chuck talked about joining the military after graduation, while Ricky hoped to play professional baseball.
Paula had married the year before, to a guy who reminded me of the tall missionary from Massachusetts a decade earlier. In November, she and her husband came from school to our home for Thanksgiving. Paula handed my mother a jar of peanut butter with pink and blue ribbons tied around it. Mother looked sharply at her, and Paula nodded. Then Mom burst into tears. It seemed that my mother had craved peanut butter when she was expecting me. Paula’s present was her way of announcing that a new arrival would be born to the family in the spring.
I took my college entrance exams, filled out applications, and sorted through the letters offering track scholarships. A mission was only two years away. I took a part-time job at a restaurant to help save money for it.
Mom was doing great and Dad landed a promotion at work, one that took him off the dock and into an office. He was almost 50, and I was happy to know that his days of heavy physical labor were over.
On the track, my times kept improving. I hadn’t lost a race in two years, but my streak was in jeopardy. At an invitational meet in Sacramento, I was going to race the top runners from California, including Michael Banks, a senior from Los Angeles.
I had never met him but knew his reputation. On Mondays at practice my coach kept me apprised of Michael Bank’s achievements. “You were good on Friday, Tom. But Banks was two seconds faster.”
“Tomorrow’s the big race?” my father asked innocently the night before the meet.
“It is. I’ve never been so nervous about a race in my life.”
“You run in a circle four times; then it’s over. What’s so tough about that?” he kidded. “You’ll do fine, Tom. I’ll leave work and drive up to see you.”
My father was a stake clerk and went to a meeting of the stake presidency that night. I was asleep when he got home, yet he had already left for work when I arose just after six.
“Couldn’t Dad sleep?” I asked my mother at breakfast.
“No. He met with the stake president last night. He has something to tell you, but I’ll let him do so in his own way.”
I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to tell me, and I didn’t think of it again. Michael Banks and his fearsome times were crowding out everything else.
“Good luck. We’ll be there to watch and we’ll be proud of you whether you win or not.” She kissed me on the cheek, and I left for a half-day of school before driving to Sacramento with my coach.
Almost 11 hours later I stood at the starting line in the fifth lane. A half-dozen other boys stretched and shook their arms, preparing for the race. Tension was thick, a very real presence. My stomach was wound tight and I felt a little sick. Michael Banks stood two lanes away, looking confident, hands on his hips, staring down the track. We had met in the tunnel on the way to the track. He nodded in my direction and I murmured hello. That was all.
My coach gave me a few last-minute instructions. “Take the lead early in the fourth lap. If you don’t, Banks will out kick you down the stretch. You have the better stamina, but you can’t match his kick. Good luck, Tom. You’ll give it your best, I know.”
We were called to our marks. I scanned the crowd, but I couldn’t see my parents. I tried to block the worry from my mind. Concentrate, I must concentrate, I repeated softly. Your parents are in the stands. Don’t worry. The starter raised his pistol, and it cracked into the air. Arms and legs rushed, and there was a jostling of elbows as we started around the first corner. I began talking to myself in my mind.
How do I feel? Legs are tight, relax. Who’s on my shoulder? Don’t get boxed in. Breathe, breathe, relax. Keep your arm motion smooth. Glide, not too fast. Where’s Banks?
Glide, glide. Move outside when you can. Was that Banks in the lead? No. Maybe neither of us will win. Wouldn’t that be something. Don’t make your move yet. Do I have enough left in me to even make a move? You’ll die by the fourth lap. Remember what the coach said.
The second lap was nearing an end. My head hurt and I could taste blood in my mouth. I guessed I was in fifth place. My legs were rubbery. I didn’t have much.
Maintain, just maintain. Let your mouth go slack. Glide a lap … Oh, what’s the use? You don’t have it today, Tom. Banks has this one.
My pace slowed a bit. I was on the inside lane. I turned my head slightly and saw a familiar face, hands cupped to his mouth, standing on the infield. It was my father.
Quick strides brought me within hearing range. What was he shouting?
“Tommy … !”
Yes, Father.
“… Paula—you’re an uncle.”
What? An uncle? A boy or a girl? Get this race over, Rosa. You’re an uncle!
I forced my arms to pump faster. I moved to the outside and fought past two runners. Third place now and Banks clearly in the lead.
Paula, she isn’t due for two more weeks. But … But … a new baby in the family!
My pace quickened. I took over second place. Only Michael Banks loomed ahead. My lungs burned and my legs ached. Still, I managed to pull even with him. In unison, Michael Banks and I ran, leaving the others behind. We came around the bend again. There was my dad, shouting jubilantly.
“Tommy …”
The crowd was going berserk as Banks and I matched strides. Could I hear my father? I drew nearer and heard only two words: “You will!”
I will … I will … Now!
I moved inches ahead with a half-lap to go. Now! My fists rammed forward; my legs pounded the track. The lead grew to a foot, then a yard. I heard Michael Banks’ strained breathing behind me. Never had a race been so hard for me.
A baby!—Paula was a mom. My mom was a grandmother. And my father, a grandfather, who somehow made his way to the infield because he knew I needed to hear him.
I rounded the last corner, now in a dead sprint, my chest heaving.
Remember Banks’ kick. Don’t hold anything back. Pump your arms, run on your toes.
The tape loomed ahead. I frantically ran toward it. A few yards away, I stumbled, fought to keep my balance, and broke across the finish line. Michael Banks whisked in behind me. I turned and we threw our arms around each other. “Great race, man,” he gasped. “You ran inspired.”
“You’ll never know,” I panted.
I walked to the grassy infield. I knew that I should keep moving, but my legs refused. I sat down, then leaned back. I looked up into the clear, blue sky. A face filled it, the face of my father.
Some boys, they say things about their fathers. They say they aren’t friends, that there is too much of a difference for them to understand each other. They say they don’t know if their fathers love them. I feel an emptiness for those boys and their fathers. When thousands were shouting in a very tough race, it was my father’s voice that I listened for and heard.
On the way home, my parents told me why they were late. They got a phone call from Paula’s husband just as they were leaving. When they arrived at the stadium, the race had just started. One look told Father that I was struggling. Before he stopped to think about it, he was at the edge of the stands heading to the infield. He said he thought it was the only chance for me to know he was there.
“What a day,” he sighed. “And I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I suppose that’s what happens when the stake president asks you to serve as the bishop.”
He said it so casually that the impact didn’t hit me for a few seconds. My dad was going to be the bishop of our ward!
I went off to school that fall. I was on the track team, and though I was not a star that year, I ran straight and hard. When I came home that summer, I had an interview with my bishop to begin the work of serving a mission. It didn’t take place in a bishop’s office, but in a blue, two-story home in south San Francisco. I sat on the edge of a bed, and the bishop pulled close his favorite old chair. He seemed a little hesitant. His eyes were wet.
“Tom, you are a Rosa,” he began. “And you are a Latter-day Saint.”
“Yes.”
“If you honor your family, you will honor your church. If you honor your church, you will honor your family.”
“I understand that.”
After asking me the normal missionary interview questions, he concluded, “You will do good. You will be a fine missionary.”
Then he told me to go help Mom in the kitchen. I looked back at him as I left. His hair was mostly gray now, and his arms were not as thickly muscled as before. He sat in his chair and stared out the window at ten thousand sparkling lights on the hillside across the bay from our home. I wondered if he knew how proud I was to be his son and how much it meant to me to share his good name. I walked downstairs realizing that all those years I had been running, my father had been growing, and I would never lack for someone to look up to.

I had been excited to turn 12 so that I could go to the stake firesides. But when I was old enough, I never wanted to go. My parents told me that I would know the right thing to do. That made me feel like a jerk because I did know what I should do; I just didn’t want to do it. But I finally decided to go to a fireside, and am I glad I did. On that night, I learned the Church is true.
The speaker told many stories that made everyone laugh and cry. Then he asked his daughter to sing. She had a beautiful voice. But at the end of the program, he showed pictures of the Savior and talked about how he did many kind things. I was so touched by the Spirit that my doubts completely left me.

“Come on, Fynn. It’s time to go!” Johan said.
Fynn’s brother, Johan, was waiting impatiently at the front door. He didn’t want to be late for school.
Fynn frowned. He didn’t want to go to school. His family had just moved to a new house. It was his first year at school, and he hadn’t made any friends at school yet. He missed his old friends.
“I’m scared!” Fynn said, running to his mother. “Why do I have to go to school?”
Fynn’s mother gave him a hug. “It’s going to be OK. Let’s say a prayer,” she said. “There’s always time to pray.”
They knelt down and asked Heavenly Father to help Fynn. Then Fynn and his brother went to school. The day went a little better.
Every morning after that, Fynn knelt down and said a prayer asking Heavenly Father for help.
Slowly, things got better. Fynn made a friend, and he wasn’t scared anymore. After a while, Fynn started liking school.
One day Fynn and his brother were walking to school, and Fynn felt happy. He noticed the sun shining. He thought about all the fun things he was learning. Suddenly, he stopped walking.
“I forgot something!” he said to Johan. Fynn ran back to their house.
His mother looked worried when he ran inside.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I forgot to pray!” Fynn said. He knelt down. He wanted to thank Heavenly Father for helping him.
After ending his prayer, he gave his mom a hug. “There’s always time to pray!” he said.
Fynn smiled. His mom smiled. And as Fynn ran to catch up with his brother, he thought maybe Heavenly Father was smiling too.

We establish the Church in the hearts of our brothers and sisters when we minister properly. One day, while serving as the Lubumbashi Stake president, the Spirit of the Lord prompted me to call a friend from the Lubumbashi Second Ward. I had these promptings all day long, and I finally resolved to call him as I arrived at work. Here is what happened: He shouted, “President, I am surprised that you call me at this very moment! I have just had a discussion with a Protestant pastor who appeared to be convincing me! Your phone call has fortified me; this is a proof that we are in the true Church of the Lord.” I answered him: “My brother, we are members of the Church of the Lord; it is His Church, we need to stand fast in spite of all hardships we may be experiencing in life. We are from the Church of the Lord, no one can separate us from His love, and no one can change that.”
This phone call helped my brother to stand firm with an increasing faith in the Lord, since he had only been a member of the Church for two years.

The court case was troubling for Portuguese labor judge Artur Manuel Ventura de Carvalho. An employer was being prosecuted because he did not pay the legal adult wage to a young man working for him.
But the young man, though in his late twenties, was mentally handicapped and he could not do as much work as the other employees. The employer would have to let the young man go if he had to pay him more, although he was sympathetic to the young man’s responsibility in supporting his mother.
The decision required by federal laws seemed plain. “My difficulty was that I felt something was not right in this case,” says soft-spoken Brother Carvalho. “I prayed, and suddenly the answer came.” He declared that although the young man was legally of age to receive the required minimum wage, his mental age and work capacity did not justify the adult pay level. Therefore, the employer did not have to meet the demands of the law. The young man kept his job, and the grateful employer even raised his wage a bit to help the man better support his mother.
Brother Carvalho has come to accept the fact that if he is in tune with the Spirit, he may receive direction in his thinking.
“When I have a difficult decision, I pray to the Lord, and I receive help in a special way,” he says.
There was, for example, one very complex legal case in which “I had no idea how to decide. I knew the law, but I was confused,” he recalls. He prayed about it, and one particular point of law which clarified the matter stood out in his mind. Later, an attorney mentioned that it seemed remarkable the judge had so clearly seen that point. But, Brother Carvalho says, “I am absolutely certain that I received guidance from the Lord.”

Once home, we found that Abby seemed to respond more than the neurosurgeon had predicted. However, it wasn’t long before her head began to enlarge rapidly, and the neurosurgeon had to install a small tube device to drain excess fluid. He felt it was unnecessary surgery, but for us to stand by and do nothing would have meant watching her suffer a slow, agonizing death. We couldn’t have borne that. She had a heart murmur, and we despaired that she might not make it through the surgery, but we felt we had no alternative.
Abby withstood the operation valiantly, and we marveled. What kept her alive? Eventually her appetite improved and she began to gain weight.
I noticed almost immediately when she came home again that she could hear, and we were very encouraged. But it soon proved more of a problem than a blessing. She reacted violently to the slightest sound. More than once I walked into her room and spoke softly to her, only to have her turn purple with her screaming. She had no way of relating to the different noises around her, and they terrified her.
That was the beginning of the hardest summer of our lives. Abby Ruth was up all night long, night after night, crying until Randy and I thought we would lose our minds. Many times she screamed all night until 5:00 or 6:00 A.M., then finally went to sleep. By 10:30 or 11:00 A.M., I had to force myself to go check her. What if she was dead? What would I do? I knew that how I reacted to such a situation would deeply affect my other two daughters, and the pressure became more than I could handle.
Finally, I had reached the point where a complete breakdown for me was not far off. Near the end of September we made an appointment with the chief of staff at the state training school for the handicapped, hoping to get some kind of help.
The staff at the state school were very receptive. At last we found people who really understood what we had been going through. They offered to take her, to give us one week’s rest.
At the end of that week, the same pattern began again. She cried constantly, day and night, and many were the times that we stood next to her crib or held her and cried right along with her. I felt so helpless, and I could see no end in sight. “What kind of life is this?” I asked myself. My two older children were beginning to suffer from neglect, and so was my marriage.
Another major decision had to be made, but Randy and I disagreed. He felt that placing Abby at the state school would be the same as deserting her. I looked on it as our only chance to return to a normal life and continue with our family; it would be impossible for me to go on giving her the twenty-four-hour care that she needed.
I couldn’t help but feel that I had failed her, though, and in my grief I turned to Heavenly Father. He knew the whole story, but I repeated it all to him on my knees late one night. I prayed longer and more earnestly that night than ever before. When I was finally finished, I crawled into bed and, feeling completely drained, leaned back against my pillow, staring into the darkness that surrounded me.
It was then that I received my answer. It came clearly and distinctly, a soothing response to my prayers and heartache. Not only should we place Abby Ruth in the state training school, we need not worry about her. She would understand why we made the decision to place her in the school.
Perhaps other parents in a similar situation would have received different direction. I only know that our answer came from Heavenly Father, and we trusted that He knew our situation and had inspired us to act appropriately.
On 1 November 1980, Abby became a permanent resident at the state training school. We’ve never regretted having her home with us as long as we did. Because of that, she became an integral part of our family.

Sister Kearon and I have a particular sensitivity and great compassion for Israel and Elizabeth. Our first child, a boy named Sean, died during heart surgery when he was just three weeks old. This was an earth-shattering loss for us. At the time, we wondered if we could survive. We buried him in a painfully small grave in England. Fifteen years later, our family was asked to move from our home in the United Kingdom to serve full time in the Church, and we left that little grave behind.
We didn’t lose our baby on the trek west, and we didn’t suffer the incomprehensible hardships of the Barlows, but we have the beginning of an understanding of what they went through. Our baby boy’s grave is very far away, yet like the Barlows, we have abiding faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the eternal nature of our family through the holy sealing covenant.

When I was rushed to the emergency room with both of my lungs collapsed, I thought I was at the end of my life. I was not yet ready emotionally or spiritually for the end, but my body was giving up on me. It was hard for my family to see me in that condition, but they remained strong, and I was blessed to have survived.
My struggles did not end there. Since then, I’ve had to live my life with only one functioning lung and a curved spine. Every day is painful and difficult. I once thought that I would be better off dead rather than to continue suffering. I felt weak, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. I lost hope and confidence. I began to push away the people in my life who encouraged me. But my family never gave up on me. They loved and cared for me, and my friends continued to support me. Even so, I still felt that my future was not going to be as bright as I had imagined.
One night I found myself feeling so down. I decided I needed to read my patriarchal blessing. Tears came to my eyes the moment I read the first few lines, “Our Father in Heaven cares for you and loves you. He wants you to be happy in this life.”
In that moment, I realized that Heavenly Father really has a very bright future in store for me and wonderful blessings for me to anticipate as long as I follow the path He wants me to take.
Our Father in Heaven knew that we would all struggle, so He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer for us and to comfort us. That’s how vast Their love for us is. I may still struggle every day of my life here on earth, but I know that Their love will always be there for me and Their promises will be all fulfilled if I hold on and follow Them.

One of your friends has use of the family car. In a few minutes it is packed with six young people, all active in the Church. Merely riding around doesn’t seem to furnish enough excitement or challenge. Someone suggests that it would be a good Halloween trick to harass a local restaurant owner. Two of them enter the restaurant while the others wait in the car. Suddenly they come running out with a pizza—unpaid for. They scamper into the car and a getaway is attempted. There is that grizzly bear again. Wouldn’t it be easier for you to cast the fingerlings into the bushes than to utter a silent prayer for sufficient courage to speak up and put a stop to the whole affair?

When severe storms and typhoons devastated southern India in October 2009, young men and young adults from the Hyderabad and Bangalore India Districts sprang into action to help relieve the suffering of those affected by the floods.
According to President Prasada Gudey of the Hyderabad India District, “Our young men did a wonderful work in delivering food and water to those in need. The goods had been donated and had arrived in the province, but the government was not able to deliver them to the thousands of victims in more than 200 refugee camps. Our members stood out with their Mormon Helping Hands vests as they carried out their efficient work in getting the food and water to everyone.”

Do you remember President Nelson playing the song “Hope of Israel” on the piano in the worldwide Youth Music Festival on March 17, 2021? Calling us the Lord’s youth battalion, he invited us to let the Spirit guide us as we help to gather Israel in these latter days.
Probably like many of you, I wondered what I as a 15-year-old could do to follow the prophet’s invitation, especially in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.
A year earlier, President Nelson had also invited the world to #HearHim, meaning to listen to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. I knew the Book of Mormon was another testament of Jesus Christ. The idea came to me to help people hear the Lord’s voice by sharing the Book of Mormon in a new way: as a podcast recorded by teenagers.
“I thought it would be cool to hear the book read by everyday teens like you and me.”
In addition to the professionally produced recordings of the Book of Mormon available from the Church, I thought it would be cool to hear the book read by everyday teens like you and me, the way we experience it. We don’t always read perfectly, and not everyone knows how to pronounce every word correctly. But that’s OK because none of us is perfect anyway. I actually kind of like the imperfections in some of the recordings—it makes me feel like I’m listening to one of my friends reading.
The project took a lot of work. It turns out that requesting, editing, assembling, publishing, and hosting a podcast with recordings from 250 different people is quite a big job. The result is a recording of the entire text of the Book of Mormon featuring readers from 15 U.S. states and 10 countries from around the world. The recordings can be heard on the website www.teensreadthebook.com and on all major podcast listening platforms under Teens Read the Book.
McKay (center in the yellow shirt) gathers with other youth who helped with the podcast. They enjoyed the chance to talk about the podcast and reflect on the blessing it was to work on it.
I love hearing the variety of voices and accents of youth who sent in recordings. Knowing their voices would be heard around the world, many readers worked very hard to get their recordings just right. Some, like Thomas from New Zealand (who read 3 Nephi 20) or José from Peru (who read 3 Nephi 23), practiced for hours or days before recording. A group of 10 youth from South Korea faced the challenge of English not being their first language. Their solution was to work together, each recording a few verses at a time and stitching them together into what became 2 Nephi 28 and 29.
My goal when I started the project was to help people feel the Spirit and come closer to Jesus Christ. Seeing youth, most of whom I don’t know, respond to my invitation showed me how deeply they felt about the Book of Mormon. Their words have now been downloaded and listened to thousands of times. They are helping people feel the Spirit of God.
One returned missionary wrote me saying that in recent months he had “been praying for a new way to read [the Book of Mormon] or a fresh way to study. This project has been an answer to my prayers.”
I am grateful to those who contributed to this project and for the way I felt the Lord’s help doing it. I am honored to be part of the Lord’s youth battalion, standing alongside others who love the Book of Mormon. I have also learned that when we respond to invitations from the Lord’s prophet, the Spirit will guide our efforts.
For myself, I know the Book of Mormon can help us feel the Spirit and draw closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Some of the happiest times of my life have been when I’ve consistently read from the Book of Mormon. I hope all of us in the Lord’s youth battalion will hear the Lord’s voice and feel His strength through the words of the Book of Mormon.
The author lives in California, USA.

The Smith family and others in their area were given opportunities to heft the ancient record and feel its individual plates at the Smith family home in Manchester Township, New York. Joseph’s younger brother William, age 16 in 1827, had a vivid memory of witnessing the plates, which he later shared in a sermon: “When the plates were brought in they were wrapped up in a tow frock. My father then put them into a pillow case. Father said, ‘What, Joseph, can we not see them?’ [Joseph responded,] ‘No. … I was forbidden to show them until they are translated, but you can feel them.’ We handled them and could tell what they were. … Could tell whether they were round or square. Could raise the leaves this way (raising a few leaves of the Bible before him). One could easily tell that they were not a stone, hewn out to deceive, or even a block of wood.”

On another occasion, William provided further information: “I could tell they were plates of some kind and that they were fastened together by rings running through the back.” He also wrote that in addition to feeling the individual plates and rings, he had hefted the entire artifact: “I was permitted to lift them. … They weighed about 60 pounds according to the best of my judgment.”

After retirement my wife and I were living a comfortable life. We enjoyed working in the temple, fulfilling ward and stake assignments, and visiting our children, grandchildren, and widowed mothers. It seemed that things couldn’t have been better.
But something began stirring within us. The time had come to seriously consider serving a mission, and we knew it. We soon decided to serve but felt we should make a list of things that needed doing before we turned in our missionary application forms. We dutifully made the list and began whittling it down.
Two months passed, and we discovered our to-do list had only become longer. “No problem,” we thought. “We’ll just put more effort into making it shrink.” But it didn’t. We came to realize that although the stirrings to serve a mission were still in us, our fear of the unknown was causing us to add to our list faster than we could complete the tasks on it.
One morning shortly after our most recent review of our to-do list, I was studying Jesus the Christ by Elder James E. Talmage (1862–1933). One passage touched me profoundly: “Excuses are easy to find; they spring up as readily and plentifully as weeds by the wayside. When the Samaritan came along and saw the wretched state of the wounded man, he had no excuse for he wanted none” (3rd ed. [1916], 431–32).
With considerable emotion I hurried into the kitchen and shared these words with my wife. They had a significant impact on her as well. There was no question about our next move.
We immediately shredded our to-do list, or what we now laughingly call our excuse list, and initiated the process necessary to be called as missionaries.
Once we did this, things fell together quickly for us, and soon we found ourselves enjoying our lives even more as we served in the Singapore Mission. Our assignment was to train new leaders in Church branches, first in Sri Lanka and then in Malaysia. We discovered that our family back home could get along just fine without us, and we soon realized how badly we were needed as senior missionaries.
Two nights before we returned from our mission, the members of the two branches we had been working with in Malaysia invited us to what turned out to be a surprise farewell party. We will never forget stepping outside the Church meetinghouse to be encircled by the local members, each holding a homemade Chinese lantern as they sang to us in Chinese “God Be with You Till We Meet Again” (Hymns, no. 152). To this day I cannot share that experience without crying. How grateful we are that we didn’t let our excuse list—our fears—keep us from a priceless experience.