Gospel Story Finder

The group entered a beautiful basin where snow-fed lakes connected by small waterfalls descended like huge stairsteps. The trail faded and disappeared altogether as it led across flat, slick rock. By this time, the girls were gaining confidence and, instead of following the lead horse, they spread out in groups of twos or threes, picking their own ways across the rock. But they soon found that taking off on their own didn’t always work well. What looked like a good way to go often led to the edge of cliffs or into an impossible thicket of trees that forced them to turn back and retrace their routes.
A forest ranger had gone over the trail before and had marked the best way across the slick rock with small pyramids of stone. These markers, or cairns as they are called, were easy to spot and if followed led safely across the section where the trail was obliterated. The girls found they could not rely on their own instincts or observations to select a good path. They found they had to trust the one who had gone on before to show them the best way. The girls started talking about following the cairns. “This is like our leaders giving us lessons about how to live our lives,” said one. “Yes,” said another catching on to the symbolism, “it’s like learning to follow the prophet. By listening to him, we can follow the right trail even when we can’t see where it leads.”

“You can do it! You can do it!” fellow Scouts shouted as a 14-year-old comrade strained to complete one more pull-up within the time limit. Every muscle in his face grimaced with the effort; sweat glistened on his face and neck. As he brought his chin near the bar, his forearms and biceps started shaking—but he made his tenth try successful just as the whistle blew. Amid cheers, he dropped to the ground and the next patrol member hoisted himself into place.
The timed pull-up event was just one in a series of physical challenges Scouts faced as they moved from station to station during three days of competition. Broad jumping, rope climbing, push-ups, sit-ups, an obstacle course, three-legged bucket race, slingshot marksmanship, aquatics, frisbee golf, and travois building and racing (carrying an “injured” passenger), along with other races and relays, tested the athletic ability of individuals and patrols.

The Robinsons, a Mormon family, had just moved into a small non-Mormon community. Rumors were flying as the eyebrows went up and the tongues wagged. Even the young people were speculating, and one stated, “They don’t smoke or drink; in fact, they don’t do anything normal people do!”

By the time the curtains closed at the end of the original musical production “An Example of Love,” written and produced by the Bountiful Utah Stake Young Men and Young Women, most of the attitudes in the fictional community were changed and two people were baptized. The audience thundered its approval.

The show was developed around President McKay’s statement “Every member a missionary” and was based on the scripture “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). The story depicted a Mormon family who moved into an area where little was known of the life-style of Church members. The reaction of the neighbors was amusing as they learned about food storage containers that doubled as furniture, about a son away on a mission (they suspected he was a spy), and about eight children in the family.

Debbie dashed out of the school as soon as the bell rang. She was dimly aware of her name being called, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t face Jill and Kelly after her latest fiasco. Debbie hurried across the school yard without looking back, her blond curls bouncing crazily as she ran. And she didn’t stop running until she had reached home and slammed the front door behind her.
“Hi, Debbie,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Could you please come and help me, honey? I’m running late, and I have a million things to do.”
Debbie hesitated. She didn’t want to refuse, but first she had to calm down and get her thoughts in order. “I’ll just change and be right down,” she called back, racing up the stairs.
She flung herself facedown on her bed, burying her burning cheeks in the cool bedspread. Her ears still rang with the teacher’s gently teasing voice: “Honestly, Debbie, does my lesson go in one ear and straight out the other?”
“Math!” Debbie groaned. “I just can’t understand it.” Prickly tears stung her eyes again. She had felt humiliated, and she was certain that the entire class was laughing at her, and not at the teacher’s remark. I may as well give up. I’m never going to pass math, she though, and cried harder into her pillow.
Debbie heard her older brother, Mark, arrive home. It’s easy for him, she thought. He breezes through math. I’m the only dummy in this house.
Splashing, her face with cool water, Debbie examined her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “I don’t look stupid. In fact, I look pretty normal,” she murmured miserably, brushing her hair. “You wouldn’t know by looking at me that I can’t do anything right.”
In the kitchen no one noticed that there was anything wrong with Debbie as she peeled some vegetables and mixed a meat loaf while her mother sorted laundry into loads.
“How are you, short stuff?” Mark inquired good-naturedly, using his habitual nickname for her.
“In three years time, I’ll be taller than you, stringbean,” she replied, her gloom beginning to lift.
After the blessing on the food, Dad asked Mark and Debbie his usual question: “How was school today?”
Debbie was expecting the question, but she hadn’t planned on bursting into tears. She blurted out the whole story, adding, “I’m sorry, Dad. I really have done my best, but it just isn’t good enough!” Excusing herself from the table, she fled to her room again. Her head was whirling and buzzing in complete confusion.
They’ll be having a family council now to decide how they can help me, Debbie though when she’d calmed down a bit. I guess most families have one member who’s having problems. She heard movement below, but it was a half-hour’s anxious wait before she heard anyone climb the stairs. Her father softly rapped at her door and said, “Please come downstairs, Debbie. We need to talk with you.”
After Dad left, Debbie reluctantly descended the stairs, unsure of the reception she would get. She got what she’d never expected to get—a round of applause!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dad announced as she timidly walked into the dining room, “our guest of honor for this family home evening is Miss Debbie Hayden.”
Around the table sat her brother, her parents, their neighbor Mrs. Craske, and Debbie’s friends Jill and Kelly. At the head of the table was a seat reserved for Debbie, and her father guided her to it. “Our first speaker,” he continued, “will be our new neighbor, Mrs. Craske.”
In a daze, Debbie heard herself praised and thanked for her help while the Craske family was moving in—for looking after their little boys, for helping to unpack cartons, for running errands. “And,” Mrs. Craske concluded, “for being a truly thoughtful, unselfish young lady.”
Next Jill and Kelly stood up. They had come to tell Debbie how much they appreciated her for helping them with their English projects. They praised her for her pitching ability on their class softball team. And finally they thanked her for her loyal friendship. Debbie’s cheeks flushed scarlet with embarrassment, but she felt a rush of pleasure at the same time.
“My turn!” Mark declared. “I want to tell everybody what a good sport Debbie is. I tease her all the time, and yet she’s always ready to help me out by mending my ripped football shirts or by cleaning up after me before Mom sees the mess I’ve made. She’s a pretty good sister, and I’m glad she’s around.”
“Coming from Mark, praise like that is equal to getting a Nobel Prize,” Father teased.
Mother stood up. “Honey, I don’t think I could manage without your help,” she stated, squeezing Debbie’s hand. “Just tonight you cooked the supper—and you make better meat loaf than I do. I can always rely on you, and lots of times I don’t even have to ask because you’re already there to lend me a hand. I don’t always tell you how grateful I am for your help. From now on, I promise that will change.”
Debbie knew what her mother meant about taking people for granted. She couldn’t remember the last time she had shown her own appreciation to her family and friends. She resolved to tell them all tonight—and regularly in the future.
Her father took Debbie’s arm and gently urged her to stand beside him. “We didn’t realize you were feeling so upset about math,” he began. “But you’re bright and do well in your other subjects. You’ve let your worries about math get out of perspective, Debbie, and you’ve overlooked all the things that you do well. Each one of us here wants you to know that you’re a thoughtful, loyal person. We’re all proud of you. All anyone expects of you is for you to try to do your very best.”
Dad’s right, Debbie thought later as she lay in her bed, waiting for sleep to come. It’s a question of perspective. I can do some things well. And I’ll still work hard on my math—without letting it get me down.

While on a leadership training assignment to Brazil, I had the opportunity to visit a Primary nursery class. Approximately eight children were seated around a table with their teacher. I watched in awe as these little ones, two and three years old, sat for a few brief moments focused in rapt attention on a picture the teacher was holding of the Savior with the children. I heard her tell them how He loves children and how He loves each one of them. She taught them that Heavenly Father loves them too. I watched them listen, and I felt that they were understanding much more than I might have thought possible. They were hearing her words and feeling her love. In the beauty and simplicity of those few moments, those children were being taught the answer to life’s most important question, “Who am I?” In their pure, childlike faith, their spirits were receptive to the truths they were being taught. That experience will be repeated for them in their nursery class Sunday after Sunday. These are significant teaching moments in the lives of young children at a time when they are ready to learn.

When 21-year-old Gisela Silva moved with her family from Mendoza, Argentina, to the nation’s southernmost city of Ushuaia, she wondered whether she’d left behind her chances of marrying in the temple. Mendoza, after all, has a stake filled with wards of Latter-day Saints, while isolated Ushuaia—located on the island of Tierra del Fuego—has only about 600 members attending three small branches.
“My parents had married in the temple, and I wanted this blessing for myself—to marry a faithful member of the Church, someone with whom I could form an eternal family,” she recalls. “But when I arrived in Ushuaia, there were so few young adults here that I wondered whether that would happen.”
Lucas Romano had the same concerns as Gisela. During his mission to Uruguay, his family had moved to Ushuaia. When he joined them after completing his mission, he quickly noticed that young single adult men outnumbered young single adult women. He was determined, nevertheless, to obey the counsel of local leaders to date only members of the Church.
That counsel became easier to follow after Lucas met Gisela at church and she enrolled in English classes at a school where he teaches. He began walking her home after class, and they soon began dating. As they prayed individually about their growing relationship, they say that confirmation came “line upon line, precept upon precept” (2 Nephi 28:30; D&C 98:12).
In April 2005, Lucas and Gisela married civilly, as required by Argentine law, and then were sealed in the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple. Their sealing was significant for the young Church membership in Ushuaia: it was the first of 17 temple marriages in less than four years.

It was a spring day in Helsinki, Finland. The sun was shining brightly, and the snow was melting fast. For hours I had been working with my boys, Juha, eight, and Hannu, six, to keep melting snow from flooding our cellar. The nearby drain that should have handled the pooling water was still frozen solid.
As my husband left for work that morning, he told us to make sure we kept the water out of the cellar. We worked hard until the afternoon, when it was time to leave for Primary. (At that time Primary was held on a weekday.) I told my boys, however, that they would have to miss Primary in order to help stop the water from getting into the cellar. Besides, my husband wasn’t a member of the Church, and he would not understand how important Primary was to our sons.
In unison, Juha and Hannu assured me that if we went to Primary, Heavenly Father would see to it that the water wouldn’t reach the cellar. I looked back and forth from the pooling water to the faith-filled faces of my sons. Part of me said, “You cannot go because no power can stop the water from flooding the cellar.” I appealed to Heavenly Father with a prayer in my heart. Then I made a difficult decision.
“We are going to Primary now!” I declared as I threw down the buckets. No matter what happened, I was not going to injure my children’s faith.
The boys had a wonderful time at Primary. But as we drove home afterward, the closer we got to our house, the more my fears grew. Reaching the yard, the boys ran quickly to the cellar door. Looking down, they cried out, “Mother, what did we tell you?” I hurried over. I will never forget the sight that greeted my eyes. The area was completely dry, as if it had been mopped. There were no signs of water anywhere. Even now, 40 years later, it is hard for me to believe what I saw.
The glow in my boys’ eyes reflected joy and trust in Heavenly Father. Joy—and gratitude—filled my heart too!
No power in the world can beat childlike faith. The scriptures say that if we believe and doubt not, we can move a mountain (see Matthew 17:20). That day the power of my children’s faith stopped a flood.

Later I remarried and moved to a new ward, where I was called as the Relief Society president. One day while I was cleaning my house, I had the distinct impression to visit a less-active sister who had recently lost her husband. I brushed away the thought, thinking that I needed to do other things that day. I’m embarrassed to say I received the same impression two more times before I finally acted on it.
When I arrived at the sister’s house that evening, it was dark. I rang the doorbell and waited. I knocked loudly and waited some more.
As I turned to leave, the porch light came on, and the door slowly opened. The sister hesitantly poked her head through the opening. I will never forget what she asked: “How did you know to come?” She told me she had spent the whole day crying and felt that she couldn’t go on without her husband.
We talked for a couple of hours that night. I don’t remember much of what we said, but I do remember telling her, “I truly know what you are going through.” I assured her that time was her friend and that the Lord would watch over her. As we talked, I noticed that the grief-stricken look on her face had been replaced with an expression of peace.
At the end of our conversation, I gave her a heartfelt hug. I felt so thankful that I had been prompted to visit her. I knew that our loving Heavenly Father had allowed me to help Him help this sweet sister in her time of need.

George Q. Cannon was born in Liverpool, England, January 11, 1827. When he was thirteen years old, he and two other children in the family were baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through the efforts of his uncle, Elder John Taylor, then a young missionary serving in England. George’s parents had been baptized some months before. In 1842 George, with his family, sailed to America to join the Saints in Nauvoo. While traveling aboard ship, his mother died, and two years later his father died while on a business trip. However, all the children made it across the plains to Utah.

Today I asked Father to teach me to chop and split wood. He replied that Mother would not have wanted me to do a man’s work. That is true. Mother always wanted me to be a lady. But Father has too much to do. He can get no man to help with the farm and no woman to help in the house because we are Mormons. I explained that I keep running out of wood for the range, and if we want hot meals, I must learn to handle an ax.
So he taught me. It is harder than it appears, and tonight my hands are blistered badly. I intend to wear my second-best Sunday gloves tomorrow when I chop.

Years ago, I arrived home from work and was startled to see white paint splattered everywhere—on the ground, the garage door, and our red-brick house. I inspected the scene more closely and discovered the paint was still wet. A trail of paint led toward the backyard, and so I followed it. There, I found my five-year-old son with a paintbrush in his hand, chasing our dog. Our beautiful black Labrador was splattered almost half white!
“What are you doing?” I asked in an animated voice.
My son stopped, looked at me, looked at the dog, looked at the paintbrush dripping with paint, and said, “I just want him to look like the black-spotted dogs in the movie—you know, the one with 101 Dalmatians.”
I loved our dog. I thought he was perfect, but that day my son had a different idea.
In the first story, our young son had a beautiful dog as a pet; notwithstanding, he grabbed a gallon of paint and, with paintbrush in hand, determined to create his own imagined reality.

A true story of faith to become self-reliant that I find inspiring concerns a brother that I will call Didier (not his real name). Didier served in the Nigeria Calabar Mission at the time that I served there as mission president. When he completed his mission, Didier was serving as a zone leader. He was an obedient, quietly determined, and hard-working missionary. Both of Didier’s parents had passed away when he was young. At that point, he was taken into the custody of his maternal uncle, who raised him and introduced him to the Church. But before Didier completed his mission, his uncle was overcome by a terminal illness and passed away. Didier’s circumstances appeared bleak and desperate.

Returning home, and without any able members of his immediate family to turn to for help, Didier decided that he would continue to put his trust in the Lord who had sustained him up to that point. He decided to find out what he could do to move forward in his life. Through prayer, he got the impression to study what people who were self-reliant in his hometown were doing to sustain themselves. For several weeks, he walked the streets moving from shop to shop, observing the business that was going on, and how people were coming and going.

He reached the conclusion that he would likely live a reasonably good life as an electronics technician repairing TVs, radios, and other electronic equipment. The problem was that he had no skills, no money, and he did not know where to begin. Again, through prayer, he got the impression to ask the owner of one electronics repair shop, how he could get practical training to work as a technician. The man told Didier he could train him for about two years at a fee.

Excited, he contacted his ward self-reliance specialist and asked to be considered for a Perpetual Education Fund loan so he could get the money to pay the shop owner and obtain the training he believed would help him earn enough to meet his temporal needs. Then came his major disappointment. The specialist explained to him that PEF loans were only given for recognized training institutions, and loan money could only be paid directly to the bank account of the training institution. The shop owner was not a registered training institution and did not have a bank account. Didier was at a dead end.

But Didier had observed the goings on at the shop long enough to know that this was a good business if he would work hard. Moreover, he was drawn to the work and admired how a non-functioning TV could suddenly be brought back to life. In this moment of intense discouragement and apparent hopelessness, he again turned to the Lord in prayer. The impression came to go back to the shop owner, explain to him his situation, and offer to enter into an apprenticeship contract that he would pay for after he had completed his training and started working. He did not know how the shop owner would respond, but he decided to try. After deep reflection, the shop owner accepted his proposal on the condition that Didier provide a character reference, which he gladly did.

Two years later, Didier—now with his wife, another returned missionary, at his side—completed his practical apprenticeship as an electronics repair technician. He developed a strong relationship of trust with his trainer, who also became his mentor. Didier was a good student and an asset to the shop. The shop owner offered to hire him as an employee, which Didier gladly accepted. This gave him the opportunity to immediately start paying what he owed for his apprenticeship.

A year later, Didier felt that he knew enough to start his own business. With what he had saved from his employment earnings, he rented a small shed in another part of town. As he had become known to several good clients while working with his trainer and mentor, his business picked up steadily. After two years, he had saved enough money to buy a 40-foot container which was going for a bargain. He rented a plot where he placed the container and moved his repair shop to the new premises. In another year, he bought the plot on which his repair shop stood.

Didier was now his own man, feeling in full control of his life, and deeply grateful to the Lord for sustaining him as he waded through uncertain territory in his life.

My hope and invitation is that despite the gloom of the past 18 months, and of anything else the world might throw at you to try to destroy your hope, you will not let go of your faith. I hope that you will draw inspiration from the experience of Didier, a young man whom I came to know and who, under conditions that could have allowed despair to rule his life, decided to trust in the Lord and to go forward despite the overwhelming weight of his discouragements. Today, Didier serves as a stake high counsellor, and he and his family stand independent. He is confident that if he does his part, the Lord will see him through any challenge that he may face.

In May 2020, Lyn participated in the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment, a family history project that invites individuals to spend at least a few minutes every day connecting with their family, past and present, for 21 consecutive days. Recently she shared her experience with the project in Church News.
Lyn enjoyed the project so much she joined the social media/invitation team and is assisting people to see the benefits of the experiment in Australia and around the world.

Sometimes the tables are reversed. A dear and cherished young friend, Wendy Bennion of Salt Lake City, was such an example. Just the day before yesterday, she quietly departed mortality and returned “to that God who gave [her] life” (Alma 40:11). She had struggled for over five long years in her battle with cancer. Ever cheerful, always reaching out to help others, never losing faith, she had a contagious smile that attracted others to her as a magnet attracts metal shavings. While Wendy was ill and in pain, a friend of hers, feeling downcast with her own situation, visited her. Nancy, Wendy’s mother, knowing Wendy was in extreme pain, felt that perhaps the friend had stayed too long. She asked Wendy, after the friend had left, why she had allowed her to stay so long when she herself was in so much pain. Wendy’s response: “What I was doing for my friend was a lot more important than the pain I was having. If I can help her, then the pain is worth it.” Wendy’s attitude was reminiscent of Him who bore the sorrows of the world, who patiently suffered excruciating pain and disappointment, but who, with silent step of His sandaled feet, passed by a man who was blind from birth, restoring his sight. He approached the grieving widow of Nain and raised her son from the dead. He trudged up Calvary’s steep slope, carrying His own cruel cross, undistracted by the constant jeers and taunting that accompanied His every step. For He had an appointment with divine destiny. In a very real way He visits us, each one, with His teachings. He brings cheer and inspires goodness. He gave His precious life that the grave would be deprived of its victory, that death would lose its sting, that life eternal would be our gift.

And let’s be sure that our reaching out is not marked with any feelings of superiority. I will always remember the first time I went subbing for Santa. We had collected a number of toys, small Christmas trees, and baskets of fruit. Being high school seniors, we felt we finally understood the importance of giving at Christmas.
We went into one particular dark and dingy home. Several broken chairs were the only furniture. There was no food on the shelves. The children obviously would not have had any toys for Christmas had we not been there. I looked around the darkened living room, and there sat a television set. I thought to myself, “Why are we giving gifts at Christmas when these folks have spent their money on a television?”
After subbing for Santa that night, I went home and asked my father, “Dad, why would those people have a television set when they didn’t even have food or furniture?”
My father looked at me as if I really needed to understand. He said, “Hugh, that is all those people have. Perhaps for an hour or two a day it gives them some of the happiness you feel with your family and friends so much of the time.”
I think I grew up a little that Christmas. At least I was never again critical of what other people did when it came to those types of decisions.

You will find examples of them around the world—like Lisa. Lisa, age eleven, lives in England. She came home from school one day feeling very excited. She had been asked to read a part in the school devotional assembly the following morning. She said to her mother, “But some of the words are wrong.” Her mother discovered that one paragraph referred to God and the Holy Ghost as being one and the same person. Lisa and her mother decided to write a letter to Lisa’s teacher explaining that this paragraph was contrary to Lisa’s belief, and that she would feel much happier leaving it out.
The next afternoon her mother waited anxiously for Lisa to return home from school. She came home with a big, bright smile on her face. Not only had the teacher let her leave the paragraph out, but she had asked for more information about the Church. In addition, the teacher asked Lisa to present an assembly about the Church. All this came about because Lisa lived up to the covenant she had made and was willing to witness to the world her own beliefs.

On one particular day I was a passenger on a supply flight to a research station near the emperor penguin rookery. When we landed, the dazzling brilliance of the snowfield about us seemed to belie the nineteen days of frozen horror suffered by the three men of Robert Falcon Scott’s party as they crossed this area in 1911. Determined to collect the first specimens of the emperor penguins’ eggs, produced only in midwinter, they had struggled on in total darkness, suffering temperatures of more than 109 degrees below freezing, pulling their supplies by hand and clad in insufficient clothing. After they had reached the penguin rookery on the farthest tip of the island, their primitive shelter was destroyed by the hurricane force of a winter blizzard, which can reach velocities of more than two hundred miles per hour along this coastline.
A few days later the very helicopter that had taken us to the rookery crashed into the mountains, killing two scientists. We were flying in the same area in another helicopter and so were able to help rescue the survivors.

Several years ago in a temple in Central America, the wife of one of our now-emeritus General Authorities assisted a father, a mother, and their children in receiving eternal covenants in the sealing room, where the temple mirrors are located. As they concluded and faced those mirrors, she noticed there was a face in the mirror that was not in the room. She inquired of the mother and learned that a daughter had passed away and accordingly was not physically present. The deceased daughter was then included by proxy in the sacred ordinance.27 Never underestimate the assistance provided in temples from the other side of the veil.

Some of my best reading has been done on Sunday, not to mention the piles of studies that I did because I played on Saturday. During my last year at college, I decided, to my own amazement, to abolish Sunday study. And I did—to the last degree. I still played on Saturday, but when Sunday arrived, I could not study, so I didn’t worry about tests and papers. I did just as well in school, and my mind was renewed and refreshed, a vital part of the Sabbath.

Photographs by Richard M. Romney and courtesy of Angel Zhong
Watching Angel Zhong gracefully glide through a floor routine, spin perfectly on the uneven bars, and pirouette, leap, flip, and handspring effortlessly on the balance beam, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have predicted that this 18-year-old champion gymnast would grow up to have poor health.
“I was born in China,” Angel explains. “There was a one-child policy at the time, and girls were not always wanted. When I was born, the doctors said I would have health problems. They recommended that my life be terminated.” Angel’s parents were repulsed by such a suggestion and rushed their firstborn child to the safety of their home. The doctor’s ominous prediction proved false. Angel grew up strong and healthy. When she was six, her family emigrated to Canada. Today, Angel has one younger brother and three younger sisters.
Angel’s family has supported her since before she was born.
When Angel was eight years old, she was introduced to gymnastics. “I had always loved sports. I had tried swimming, soccer, kung fu, skating, and ballet,” she says. But she felt none of those sports were challenging enough to interest her.
At her first gymnastics class, however, she was presented with a variety of feats that seemed physically impossible. Her interest was piqued, and from that point on she was drawn to the gym like a magnet. Angel had finally found a sport that matched both her energy and her athletic abilities. “I wanted to excel in gymnastics,” she says. “I knew God gave me an amazing gift. He gave me a healthy body and the talent to do gymnastics. So, I set my goals high and worked toward them with intensity.”
Two of Angel’s favorite stories in the scriptures are Esther in the Old Testament and Abinadi in the Book of Mormon. “They had so much courage,” she says. “Someday I hope to be like them.” Examine Angel’s life, however, and you’ll find that the choices she has already made reveal that she doesn’t have to wait for someday to be like them. She is already like them.
In the early days of her gymnastics training, Angel decided she would honor the Sabbath day by not practicing, training, or competing on Sundays. In gymnastics, such a commitment is considered at least unconventional if not downright crazy. Many important competitions are scheduled on Sundays, and gymnasts rarely take a day off from training—they’re afraid they’ll lose their edge.
Angel’s parents were proud of her decision to honor the Sabbath day. However, many others in Angel’s life were not so thrilled, particularly her teammates and coaches. They didn’t understand why she would forego important parts of her gymnastics career just to go to church. “You have your whole life to go to church,” they’d say, “but you only have a few years for gymnastics.”
“I often felt persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” Angel says (see Matthew 5:10). People ridiculed her and laughed at her. Her friends talked about her behind her back. Coaches refused to spend as much time training her as they did other athletes. She even changed from a prominent to a less-recognized club at one point to alleviate pressure about practicing and competing on Sundays.
The blessings of keeping the Sabbath day holy certainly weren’t obvious right away, and sometimes it was a struggle for Angel to keep her commitment. “It was heartbreaking for me to see my friends bring their medals and team uniforms to the gym and know that I could have had a chance for those things too,” she says. “I missed many opportunities that would have helped me gain national team status. I even missed a trial to go to the Canada Winter Games, which is like a mini version of the Olympics.”
Angel loves spending time with her friends on Sunday.
Yet, over time Angel has learned to recognize the many ways keeping the Sabbath day holy has benefitted her. For example, because she was active in Church both on Sundays and for weekday Young Women and Mutual activities, she developed friendships she wouldn’t have had otherwise.
“Most of my good friends are from church and my leaders have been wonderfully supportive,” she says. “Young Women was a safe haven for me. It strengthened me spiritually and I look forward to the time I spend with my ward family every week.” Angel has served as Laurel class president, received her Young Women Recognition and Honor Bee, and attended early morning seminary.
As she observes the Sabbath day, Angel also noticed that her physical body benefitted by having a day of rest. Her athletic abilities weren’t diminished by the day off. In fact, during high school, even though she trained one day less than her teammates, she remained as strong in the sport as others.
From the beginning of her gymnastics training, Angel’s dream has been to represent Canada in the Olympics. Even though she didn’t compete on Sundays, she was still able to achieve success in other important competitions held on different days. She was named the Canadian champion on floor exercises and the western Canadian all-around champion. And even though a knee injury eliminated her chance of trying out for the Canadian team for the Rio 2016 Games in Brazil, she still has her sights set on the 2020 games in Tokyo.
Angel also noticed that as she kept the Sabbath day holy, she was able to get more done during the week. For example, many of her teammates struggled to keep up their grades. Angel not only earned straight A’s with a perfect 4.0 GPA, but she also advanced her studies by taking online courses during the summertime. It was those online studies and her stellar GPA that helped Angel achieve one of her other goals—to earn a gymnastics scholarship to Brigham Young University. And she did so a year earlier than planned! At BYU she plans to major in neuroscience with a minor in family studies. Eventually she plans to go to medical school to become a neurosurgeon.
Angel feels grateful for team members who support her standards.
“I’m proud of my identity as a Latter-day Saint,” Angel says. “The Church has blessed my life in every way possible. It has given me the strength, courage, and faith to accomplish my life’s journey but to still have balance in my life.”
She beams when she says, “On days when I feel like giving up, I turn to my Savior. He never fails to comfort me. He always carries me through my trials. Knowing that He and Heavenly Father want me to succeed has given me the inclination and desire to accomplish difficult goals in my life.”
It’s also allowed her to share the example of a balanced life with her three younger sisters. They’re all gymnasts, too. And all of them know that when you keep the Sabbath day holy, there are blessings all around.