Gospel Story Finder

But the most important change for the future, agree Dominican members, has taken place in the home. After Rafael and Miledy Dilone’s family of five joined the Church “even the neighbors congratulated us because of the new closeness they saw in our family,” says Rafael, a high councilor who works as a shoemaker at home and enjoys spending the days near his family. For Miledy, her family’s baptism and a noticeable improvement in her marriage strengthened their family life: “We were such a crazy family before. Now we know how to love each other.”

The Kuang Kuang Hao, a special express train, sped through the countryside in Taiwan, passing scenes of quiet rivers, hills dotted with Chinese burial mounds, scattered villages, and endless waves of rice fields. As I stepped off the train in Miao Li, the cold winter wind hit me in the face.
Despite the cold, missionary routine in my new area soon became settled. I enjoyed being a senior companion and had a good junior companion. I was comfortable giving the missionary lessons and interacting with the people.
In our branch I met a member named Hu Chin Hsi, who looked like a scarecrow with wild, straggly hair. His eyes were bright but sunken, and his body was thin and straight. He talked with enthusiasm but stopped often to wheeze and cough because he had a chronic lung and respiratory disease. Despite his struggles, Brother Hu was a faithful member and the branch clerk.
One cold winter night we rode our bikes to visit Brother Hu. He lived on a hillside, where the winter wind blew. His home made of loosely nailed planks with a dirt floor was just large enough for one man to lie down and store a few things in. Brother Hu explained he was poor because the money he made as a tax assessor was spent on medicine to keep him alive, and any leftover money was spent on food.
As the rainy season became more severe, we knew Brother Hu needed more help to survive until spring. We collected two extra comforters, some clothing, and some money for food. Brother Hu was grateful for the gifts, and with tears in his eyes, he thanked us over and over.
Everything seemed fine until we noticed he had nothing to keep his hands warm. I thought we could buy him a pair of cloth gloves, but I knew these gloves didn’t last long and often came apart. Brother Hu needed something dependable, long-lasting, and warm.
I had a pair of leather, fur-lined gloves that were given to me by a companion who had completed his mission the previous summer. He told me the gloves were rare and that it would be impossible to find or buy such gloves in Taiwan. The moist, cold tropical air of Miao Li proved how valuable a gift those gloves were, and I guarded them everywhere I went. But now someone else needed them.
When Brother Hu needed blankets, clothes, and money for food, we shared. Now he needed gloves, and I was more than willing to buy him some cloth gloves but not give him mine. I rationalized that I had two more winters as a missionary on this island and needed warm gloves. I even bought a pair of cloth gloves to give Brother Hu, but I was uneasy and unhappy.
I contemplated my behavior and realized I was being selfish. If it didn’t cause me any hardship or sacrifice, I was willing to give. But a rare possession like my gloves was a harder test.
Though it seemed like such a sacrifice at the time, I gave Brother Hu my leather, fur-lined gloves. I took the cloth gloves, which caught on my bike and totally unraveled two days later. What lasted, though, is my memory of Hu Chin Hsi with his cough and wheeze and what I learned from giving to him.

Dressed in 19th century clothing, pushing and pulling handcarts, leaving home comforts and technology behind, a group of teenagers in Tasmania recently took part in a trek.
The purpose of the activity—organised by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—was to help each young person feel—even in small measure—what the early pioneers of their faith experienced when they travelled across the plains of North America.
A trek reminds members of the sacrifices and lessons learned by the Church’s 19th century converts as they travelled from America’s Midwest to the Salt Lake Valley. For these youth, it also helped them remember the history of the Church in Tasmania.
In 1854 the first members of the Church in Tasmania were baptized in a small creek in Glen Huon. During the trek the group stopped at the creek to acknowledge the sacrifices made by those who came before them.
Rachael Sayers, one of the trek organisers, described the experience this way: “Imagine this scenario: Over 80 teenagers gather together for four days, all having a desire to work together in groups that are not of their choice, walking over widely varied terrain, through mud and puddles, up and down rocky, slippery hills, working in unity, serving each other, giving their time, sweat, and energy, sharing their faith and testimonies, and without a comfortable place to sleep, without jealousies, without murmurings, without conflicts. Sounds hard to imagine, doesn’t it?”
One young participant, Emma, said, “I have a deeper appreciation for the strength of youth and what they can achieve when they are united and pushed out of their comfort zone.”
Preparations for the trek began six months in advance, and the number of hours dedicated in service for the youth was inspiring.
Tim Jack, a Church leader in the Hobart area, said, “It was wonderful to see it all come together, especially in the months leading up to the event.”
Youth walked uphill for long stretches and gave each other encouragement and were willing to step in and take their turn pushing or pulling the load to give each other a break.
Isabel, one of the youth participants, said, “I enjoyed just being with youth, as a whole group, and going through a challenge together. It was difficult, but it gave me a new experience, and it brought me closer to feeling the Spirit and knowing that we can do anything through Christ.”
Another organiser, Steve King, said, “It is difficult to describe the energy and teamwork that shone forth as the youth and leaders became one in purpose and moved out as a body to take on the arduous journey.”
Many times the group would stop to allow the handcarts to catch up, and a request would be made for those who were willing and able to help others. The youth did not have to be asked twice. They would jump at the chance to serve, to walk back up a rocky incline or back down a steep section of trail to help the lagging handcarts.
According to one youth leader, small miracles are not unusual on trek, as it is designed to build faith through sacrifice, courage, and sheer hard work. Those who participated in the Tasmania trek learned who they really are. They are modern-day pioneers facing challenges with determination, faith, and love.

Crocodiles, sharks, and sea snakes are strange things to mention as memories from childhood. But when Domingos Liao was growing up in Darwin, Australia, they were an everyday part of his life.
Domingos and his friends would ride their bikes to the mouth of Rapid Creek, where fresh water and sea water mix. They would wade across, dodging jellyfish adrift in the current, watching for sharks that wandered in from the sea, crocodiles buried in the mud, poisonous sea snakes, and stonefish with their venomous spikes. Despite the perils, they crossed the river again and again, lured by what they knew was on the other side.
“It was a land of promise,” Domingos remembers. “We could catch buckets of fish. The beaches were untouched and clean. There were green fields where nobody had been before.”
Today a bridge crosses the river. The open spaces have become a park, crisscrossed with jogging paths and frequented by university students. Still, Domingos likes to visit the river, to remember and to think.
His young life is full of memories. They begin on the island of Timor, several hundred miles north of Australia. His Chinese parents were working in the Portuguese colony there (Domingos is a Portuguese name) when it was invaded by Indonesia. The men fled to Portugal. Women and children escaped to Darwin. “My mother, myself, and some other relatives came on one of two boats that got away,” Domingos explains. “We were lucky to survive.”
Domingos’s father later joined them in Darwin. Thanks to hard work, the family prospered. Two more boys were born. Domingos learned English. He discovered sports—cricket, karate, tennis, soccer, handball, volleyball. He excelled in school, in music, and in art. He worked in his uncle’s restaurant.
One day his aunt, a newly baptized Latter-day Saint, introduced his family to the missionaries. Soon the Liaos joined the Church. “We were active for about a year,” Domingos says. “Then my parents stopped going. I kept on for a while; then I started to play cricket on Sundays. But my conscience kept nagging me that I should be in church.”
It was at this time that Domingos’s grandfather, who lived in Melbourne, suffered a stroke. He wasn’t expected to live. Domingos, 16, felt compelled to pray. “I told Heavenly Father if he would give Grandfather a chance, I would devote my life to the Church. But I didn’t just wait for him to recover. When we returned home, I returned to church. I’ve been taught that if you say something, you should do it.”
Grandpa did get better. And by the time he did, Domingos was going to church, not just to keep a promise, but because he truly believed it was the right thing to do.
By the time Domingos turned 18, his church activity began to irritate his father.
“Dad thought seminary was getting in the way of my schoolwork, so he banned me from getting up early to go. I wanted to honor him, so I quit going. But I still did seminary at home. Then he didn’t want that either, so I put that away.
“Then he’d find me reading my scriptures and think I hadn’t done my homework, even though my grades were good. One time he grabbed my scriptures and threw them in the rubbish bin. I had spent the last two years reading them and marking them, and they are really precious to me. The next morning I was able to get them back, but I had to give them to the branch president for safekeeping.”
It wasn’t long before Domingos’s father banned him from everything related to church activity—scripture study, Mutual activities, home teaching, and, finally, Sunday meetings.
“Even though I was 18 and legally my own person, my first reaction was to obey. Really. You want to obey your father because he is your father. But I knew I couldn’t break my promise to Heavenly Father by not attending church.
“Dad said if I went that Sunday, not to worry about coming back. So I packed my bags. My prayers were very sincere that night. The next morning, when he saw me dressed up, he was furious.”
Domingos left, but his parents came to the chapel and found him. They reached an agreement that he could attend every other Sunday. “I wasn’t happy with it, but it was better than nothing,” he says.
Then the next time he got ready for church, his father again told him if he went, never to return. “The second time was just as bad, probably worse. I’d been waiting to receive my patriarchal blessing, and the patriarch, who can only come about once a year, had come from far away. I got there for the appointment, but my father came at the same time. I had to go home and missed my blessing.”
The third time that his father confronted him in a similar way, Domingos left home and moved in with his grandmother. “Eventually my mum came and said my father was all right and he wouldn’t get angry again. So I came back.”
But in the meantime, he’d developed a desire to serve a full-time mission. “I prayed, and the answer was very certain that I should go when I turned 19. From then on my mind was made up—I just needed to prepare.”
If he would complete his first year of study, the University of the Northern Territory would agree to give him two years off to serve. But he’d have to carry an even harder class load for a few months before he left. “My coordinator actually encouraged me and said the mission would be a good experience,” Domingos says. He continued something he’d done since high school—telling fellow students about the steps of repentance and the plan of salvation.
He intensified his scripture study, memorizing many passages. “The scriptures brought me peace,” he says. “They reminded me of the things I should be doing.”
He joined the full-time missionaries when they gave discussions. He often bore his testimony. He kept a journal, writing in it every day. His Church leaders interviewed him, found him worthy, and sent in his missionary application.
Then one day, this time when he returned from church, his father kicked him out for the fourth time. “It was pretty final,” Domingos says. “He was not pleased with my plans for a mission and said if I went I wouldn’t be his son anymore.”
His branch president, Michael Kuhn, invited Domingos to live in his home until the mission call arrived.
Finished with his schoolwork, Domingos filled his days with prayer, with uplifting music, with Church activities, missionary work, and study of the scriptures. Sometimes he would read the scriptures all day long.
And then the letter came: “You are called to labor in the Hong Kong Mission.” Domingos returned home for a short time to try to make peace with his family before he left. “Mainly because they knew they could not change my mind, they yielded,” he says. Before he left, the family went out to dinner together and took lots of farewell photos.
Letters written from the Missionary Training Center and from the mission field reflect the joy that quickly followed:
—“At the airport I was able to meet one of the missionaries who taught me, Elder (Hoyt) Skabelund, and his wife and baby and parents. I am slowly learning Cantonese. The people in the MTC are wonderful.”
—“I’ve received two letters from my mother. Everything is going well at home. They are being blessed greatly and they know it! My family and relatives are now happy that I am serving a mission. Surely God is a God of miracles!”
—“I have done my first street display, talking to everyone who goes by. I have taught the six discussions in Cantonese.”
—“Now I have been transferred to Macau, a Portuguese colony neighbouring the coast of China. I am pretty lucky because not many missionaries get to serve here. We are teaching an investigator, and he will be baptized. I know that God called me here to do a special work.”
—“Every inconvenience was worth overcoming to read the Book of Mormon. Every insult was worth swallowing to keep the Sabbath holy. Every moment was worth waiting for to kneel in private prayer, every pain worth enduring to attend church. Every blow was worth taking, every torment worth suffering, every tear worth shedding to come on this mission.”
Today in Macau, Elder Liao looks out the window of his missionary apartment and sees a promised land.
“When I decided to go on a mission,” he says, “I knew there would be strong currents against me. I didn’t really know the dangers lurking in the water, what might try to sting me or to swallow me up. I was only thinking about making it. Now here I am, and I know that it’s worth it.”
And he’s eager to build a bridge to help others, including his family, to cross over to the other side.

Four deacons from four different wards in Salt Lake City and Orem, Utah, formed a 4 x 100-meter relay team and competed in the Hershey National Track and Field competitions in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The team members are Michael Campbell, Brian Crow, David Hooper, and Andrew Hurst.
The team set a new state record, beating the old record by nearly 2.5 seconds. As regional champions they were invited to the national championships, where they took second place.

Just a few days before the first conference session, a group of more than fifty people arrived at the Tahiti Papeete Mission office. Mission president Raymond Baudin was acquainted with the Saints from the various island groups of French Polynesia, but he did not know any of these people. He assumed that they were a group of nonmembers interested in attending the conference.
But they introduced themselves as Latter-day Saints from the little island of Taenga, located in the Tuamotu Archipelago. The mission president couldn’t believe it! Church leaders in Papeete had not thought that there were any Church members on Taenga. The people explained to President Baudin that nearly the entire population of Taenga was Latter-day Saint, and that every single Taengan had made the three-day voyage to Tahiti by schooner to see the prophet of the Lord!

One week my mother told me that it was my turn to give a talk in the next Primary. I was kind of scared because I didn’t know what to talk about. She asked me a question. Had I ever tried to be like Jesus?
Me, like Jesus? I tried to think, but all I could remember was how I’d made my brother cry. Then I’d spilled my cereal all over the floor. And I’d stepped on Abua’s tail (she’s my cat). I don’t think Jesus stepped on cats’ tails.
I could tell that Mom wanted me to say that I tried to be like Jesus at least some of the time, but the truth is the truth. I looked at the floor and said that I’d never tried to be like Jesus.
I thought Mom might be mad, but instead she lifted up my head and reminded me of the way I helped our neighbor, Mrs. Overholt, with her baby, Macy. Just thinking about Macy’s fluffy curls and the way she screams “Kee” when she sees our cat made me giggle. I like to play with her and give her rides in the wagon. And sometimes I let her play with my dolls, even though she puts them in her mouth.
My mother said that Jesus loves children, too.
Then Mom asked me where my jelly beans were. My jelly beans! I slipped my hand into my pocket, but all I could find was one. A red and yellow one. I told her that my friends Aaron and Jonah and I had eaten all the rest. Aaron likes the yellow ones with white speckles best. He says they taste just like popcorn at the movies.
My mother smiled and told me that Jesus shared with his friends, too. Bread and fishes, not jelly beans.
Then, when my mother hugged me and reminded me about last Sunday, a nice, tingly feeling spread across my chest. Last Sunday, after the sacrament was passed, she’d let me sit next to my baby-sitter. I always look over everyone’s heads until I find where she’s sitting. This time I sat on her lap and gave her lots of big hugs. After church, her mother told my mother how much they love me and how grateful they are for me. Her daughter had been feeling sad, and she said that my hugs really helped.
My mother said that Jesus helped people feel better, too.
I was being like Jesus sometimes, after all. When next Sunday comes, I’ll stand up in front of everyone and give my talk. Jesus gave talks, too.

I am indebted to a good friend of mine, Aldin Porter, for a story and I would like to share it with you. He shared it with me about two years ago. “No one in our Utah town knew where the Countess had come from; her carefully precise English indicated that she was not a native American. From the size of her house and staff we knew that she must be wealthy, but she never entertained and she made it clear that when she was at home she was completely inaccessible. Only when she stepped outdoors did she become at all a public figure—and then chiefly to the small fry of the town, who lived in awe of her. “The countess always carried a cane, not only for support, but as a means of chastising any youngster she thought needed disciplining. And at one time or another most of the kids in our neighborhood seemed to display that need. By running fast and staying alert, I had managed to keep out of her reach. But one day when I was about thirteen, as I was short-cutting through her hedge, she got close enough to rap my head with her stick. “‘Ouch!’ I yelled, jumping a couple of feet. “‘Young man, I want to talk to you,’ she said. I was expecting a lecture on the evils of trespassing, but as she looked at me, half smiling, she seemed to change her mind. “‘Don’t you live in that green house with the willow trees in the next block?’ “‘Yes, ma’am.’ … “‘Good. I’ve lost my gardener. Be at my house Thursday morning at seven, and don’t tell me you have something else to do; I’ve seen you slouching around on Thursdays.’ “When the Countess gave an order, it was carried out. I didn’t dare not come on that next Thursday. I went over the whole lawn three times with a mower before she was satisfied, and then she had me down on all fours looking for weeds until my knees were as green as the grass. She finally called me up to the porch. “‘Well, young man, how much do you want for your day’s work?’ “‘I don’t know. Fifty cents, maybe.’ “‘Is that what you figure you’re worth?” “‘Yes’m. About that.’ “‘Very well. Here’s the fifty cents you say you’re worth, and here’s the dollar and a half more that I’ve earned for you by pushing you. Now I’m going to tell you something about how you and I are going to work together. There are as many ways of mowing a lawn as there are people, and they may be worth anywhere from a penny to five dollars. Let’s say that a three-dollar job would be just what you have done today, except that you’d have to be something of a fool to spend that much time on a lawn. A five-dollar lawn is—well, it’s impossible, so we’ll forget about that. Now then, each week I’m going to pay you according to your own evaluation of your work.’ “I left with my two dollars, richer than I remembered being in my whole life, and determined that I would get four dollars out of her the next week. But I failed to reach even the three dollar mark. My will began to falter the second time around her yard. “‘Two dollars again, eh? That kind of job puts you right on the edge of being dismissed, young man.’ “‘Yes’m. But I’ll do better next week.’ “And somehow I did. The last time around the lawn I was exhausted, but I found I could spur myself on. In the exhilaration of that new feeling, I had no hesitation in asking the Countess for three dollars. “Each Thursday for the next four or five weeks, I varied between a three- and a three-and-a-half dollar job. The more I became more acquainted with her lawn, places where the ground was a little high or a little low, places where it needed to be clipped short or left long on the edges to make a more satisfying curve along the garden, the more I became aware of just what a four-dollar lawn would consist of. And each week I would resolve to do just that kind of a job. But by the time I had made my three dollar or three and-a-half dollar mark I was too tired to remember even having had the ambition to go beyond that. “‘You look like a good consistent $3.50 man,’ she would say as she handed me the money. “‘I guess so’ I would say, too happy at the sight of the money to remember that I had shot for something higher. “‘Well, don’t feel too bad,’ she would comfort me. ‘After all, there are only a handful of people in the world who could do a four-dollar job.’ “And her words were a comfort at first, but then, without my noticing what was happening, her comfort became an irritant that made me resolve to do that four-dollar job, even if it killed me. In the fever of my resolve, I could see myself expiring on her lawn, with the Countess leaning over me, handing me the four dollars with a tear in her eye, begging my forgiveness for having thought I couldn’t do it. “It was in the middle of such a fever, one Thursday night when I was trying to forget the day’s defeat and get some sleep, that the truth hit me so hard that I sat upright, half choking in my excitement. It was the five-dollar job I had to do, not the four-dollar one! I had to do the job that no one could do because it was impossible. “I was well acquainted with the difficulties ahead. I had the problem, for example, of doing something about the worm mounds in the lawn. The Countess might not even have noticed them yet, they were so small; but in my bare feet I knew about them and I had to do something about them. And I could go on trimming the garden edges with shears, but I knew that a five-dollar lawn demanded that I line up each edge exactly with a yard stick and then trim it precisely with the edger. And there were other problems that only I and my bare feet knew about. “I started the next Thursday by ironing out the worm mounds with a heavy roller. After two hours of that I was ready to give up for the day. Nine o’clock in the morning, and my will was already gone! It was only by accident that I discovered how to regain it. Sitting under a walnut tree for a few minutes after finishing the rolling, I fell asleep. When I woke up minutes later, the lawn looked so good and felt so good under my feet, I was anxious to get on with the job. “I followed this secret for the rest of the day, dozing for a few minutes every hour to regain my perspective and replenish my strength. Between naps, I mowed four times, two times lengthwise, two times across, until the lawn looked like a green velvet checkerboard. Then I dug around every tree, crumbling the big clods and smoothing the soil with my hands, then finished with the edger, meticulously lining up each stroke so that the effect would be perfectly symmetrical. And I carefully trimmed the grass between the flagstones of the front walk. The shears wore my fingers raw, but the walk never looked better. “Finally about eight o’clock that evening … it was all completed. I was so proud I didn’t even feel tired when I went up to her door. “‘Well, what is it today?’ she asked. “‘Five dollars,’ I said, trying for a little calm and sophistication. “‘Five dollars? You mean four dollars, don’t you? I told you that a five-dollar lawn job isn’t possible.’ “‘Yes it is. I just did it.’ “‘Well, young man, the first five-dollar lawn in history certainly deserves some looking around.’ “We walked about the lawn together in the light of evening, and even I was quite overcome by the impossibility of what I had done. “‘Young man,’ she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, ‘what on earth made you do such a crazy, wonderful thing?’ “I didn’t know why, but even if I had, I could not have explained it in the excitement of hearing that I had done it. “‘I think I know,’ she continued, ‘how you felt when this idea first came to you of caring for a lawn that I told you was impossible. It made you very happy when it first came, then a little frightened. Am I right?’ “She could see she was right by the startled look on my face. “‘I know how you felt, because the same thing happens to almost everyone. They feel this sudden burst in them of wanting to do some great thing. They feel a wonderful happiness, but then it passes because they have said, “No, I can’t do that. It’s impossible.” Whenever something in you says, “It’s impossible,” remember to take a careful look and see if it isn’t really God asking you to grow an inch, or a foot, or a mile, that you may come to a fuller life.’ … “Since that time, some 25 years ago, when I have felt myself at an end with nothing before me, suddenly, with the appearance of that word, ‘impossible,’ I have experienced the unexpected lift, the leap inside me, and known that the only possible way lay through the very middle of impossible.” (Richard Thurman, “The Countess and the Impossible,” Reader’s Digest, June 1958.)

We know a sweet young woman who is a convert to the Church. Her father is a Baptist minister. I spoke to a group of young adults and counseled them as President Kimball has asked that we do regarding temple marriage. Later in a testimony meeting, she said, “I am a convert to the Church. My father is a Baptist minister. It just about broke his heart when I joined the Mormon church. The only hope to which he could cling to salvage his ‘wayward’ daughter was to perform the wedding ceremony when I get married. Not only will he not be able to perform the ceremony, but he will not even be able to see me married. I love him and Mother dearly, but I must follow the prophet’s counsel to be married in the temple.”

World War II was a time of great spiritual turmoil for me. I had left my home in Brigham City, Utah, with only embers of a testimony, and I felt the need for something more. Virtually our whole senior class in a matter of weeks was on its way to the war zone. While stationed on the island of Ie Shima, just north of Okinawa, Japan, I struggled with doubt and uncertainty. I wanted a personal testimony of the gospel. I wanted to know!
During one sleepless night, I left my tent and entered a bunker which had been formed by lining up 50-gallon fuel drums filled with sand and placed one on top of the other to form an enclosure. There was no roof, and so I crawled in, looked up at the star-filled sky, and knelt to pray.
Almost mid-sentence it happened. I could not describe to you what happened if I were determined to do so. It is beyond my power of expression, but it is as clear today as it was that night more than 65 years ago. I knew it to be a very private, very individual manifestation. At last I knew for myself. I knew for a certainty, for it had been given to me. After some time, I crawled from that bunker and walked, or floated, back to my bed. I spent the rest of the night in a feeling of joy and awe.
Far from thinking I was someone special, I thought that if such a thing came to me, that it could come to anyone. I still believe that. In the years that have followed, I have come to understand that such an experience is at once a light to follow and a burden to carry.

In addition to having been privileged to perform the marriages of almost 40 couples in the Rexburg Temple, I have also had the opportunity to seal several couples who were married earlier in a civil ceremony. In some of those cases I also had the opportunity to seal their children to them. Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that I can think of nothing more beautiful than to see the tears streaming down the cheeks of a husband and a wife — a father and a mother — after they have now been sealed together with the same authority and the same blessings as those being married for the first time, to see their little ones brought in. These beautiful little children dressed in white who are then sealed to their parents, the same as if they had been born in the covenant. May I assure you, there is nothing more beautiful and meaningful.

Photograph by German Sittner
Beatriz S., 15, is originally from São Paulo, Brazil, but she recently moved to Curitiba with her family. Once she was there, she started having problems with hair loss. “I did all the tests, thinking it was a lack of vitamins, but it was stress. It was psychological,” Beatriz says.
She found herself in a new place with no friends and a strange new culture. But when she felt alone, she knew that she could always count on Heavenly Father.
“I set a goal to make friends in my stake and to control my stress, and I downloaded an app that helped me control my breathing,” she explains. The app helped her practice meditation, and she focused a lot on the scriptures in her meditation. The hair loss eventually stopped as she adjusted.
“Now, I can see that I’ve improved a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever get that anxious again, because I’ve learned to focus on Jesus Christ. I’ve learned that I just need to control my breathing and help people.”

After graduating from BYU in accounting, I applied to work for the Church. I didn’t get selected and began working for another firm in Utah. After a few months working for this new firm, they began laying off workers as the economy had softened a bit. My wife and I were thinking about purchasing a home, so before we took that step, I talked to my boss. I asked if he thought we should be prudent and wait a while to purchase a home since the company had been laying off workers. He said I didn’t need to worry since they weren’t expecting to have any more layoffs. We proceeded and purchased the home. The week the first payment was due, my boss called me into his office and indicated that he was sorry, but they had to lay me off of work. It was a Monday morning; I called my wife Sharon and told her I had good news and bad news. The good news, I would be home early. The bad news, I just lost my job. That same day, Sharon and I updated my resume and printed up some copies (no email at that time) and started to drop some off at nearby businesses. We were out most of the day, and when we got back to our home that evening, Sharon’s mother called. We had discussed that we wouldn’t tell her parents of our circumstance until we had a new job. Her mom had an ulcer at the time, and we didn’t want them to worry. Her mom asked where we had been that day; she had tried calling several times throughout the day and hadn’t been able to reach us (no cell phones at that time). Sharon replied, “Uh, uh, oh just out and about.” Her mom said that the Church had called to see if we were still interested in that job we had applied for earlier that year. Sharon, in tears, asked her mom, “Mom, do you know?” Her mom’s response: “Know what?” Sharon told her I had lost my job. Her mom’s classic response: “Oh, I guess you will want this phone number.” What a blessing! What makes this blessing even more of a tender mercy is this: I liked the job I had, and I think I was so full of pride that had the call come while I still had the job, I might not have been willing to change our script. What an incredible blessing it was for us to work for the Church for over 30 years in four countries. He writes a better script than we do.

Another story involves Ruth, a seminary student, who felt she had no occasion to exercise her free agency. At home she was a servant to her inactive and very demanding mother and stepfather. At school she had been placed in a specific seminary class without any choice on her own part. She decided to drop the seminary class as part of her decision to use her free agency. After two weeks away from the class, she returned—she had made a decision with her agency, and it was a decision she felt good about.

In the summer of 2016 I traveled for the first time to Dilley, Texas. You probably have never heard of Dilley. It is a small town with fewer than 4,000 residents about ninety miles away from the border with Mexico. Dilley is home to one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country. Reserved exclusively for women and children, the South Texas Family Residential Center, as it is called, can house more than 2,000 women and children behind its tall barbed-wire fences. Most of the women and children there have traveled to the United States fleeing violence in Central America and hoping to apply for asylum. Multinational gangs have been terrorizing communities in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala for several years. In the months leading up to my trip to Dilley, I had read stories in the newspapers of sexual violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, and torture.
I had been thinking, quite abstractly, about doing something to help these detained women and children for more than a year, but I was unsure of whether I was qualified to help, hesitant to travel so far from my home and family, and nervous about the emotional burden of listening to women tell stories of violence. In many ways I was paralyzed like I had been on the train to Salt Lake. I am grateful to a colleague and friend at the Law School, Professor Kif Augustine-Adams, who nudged me toward this opportunity to give of myself in a personal rather than an abstract way. She arranged for us to spend a week in Dilley helping the women and children there begin the first steps toward claiming asylum in the United States.
That week changed my life. In Dilley I met women who had endured unspeakable horrors in their home countries and who had left everything they knew to find safety for their families. Many of them had walked most of the way from Central America to the United States, often carrying infants. While we were at the detention center, my colleague and I met individually with women in visitation rooms. We listened to their stories and helped them prepare to tell those stories to an asylum officer.
I remember speaking to one woman whose husband had been killed by a gang. She struggled through her sobs to tell her story while her son slept in her arms. In that moment I loved that woman—my sister—personally. Her proximity to me helped me better understand her humanity and mine. And, suddenly, it was not just “okay” to be more than a thousand miles away from my comfortable home in Provo, spending a long and hot July day in an immigration detention center; it was exactly where I wanted to be.

Playing football for a major college seemed like nothing more than a remote possibility. In many ways, I was an average kicker and punter on our high school team in Converse, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio. But then during my junior year I had a few lucky breaks. At one game I kicked a 58-yard field goal. Later our team played the number two team in the nation, and we beat them by a score of 54 to 22. Recruiters were at that game, and I repeatedly kicked the ball out of the end zone. I guess they liked seeing that power in my leg because the offers started coming in by mail and the phone started to ring.
Five major colleges, including BYU, tried to recruit me. I was pretty excited because they were all prestigious schools. Visits to the different campuses were arranged, and the process of elimination began. My dad, who never missed a game I played in, encouraged me to be thorough in my investigations. I was not LDS, so Church membership did not entice me to BYU. However, all my life I had lived many of the same principles and values taught in the LDS faith but didn’t realize it. I knew nothing of their beliefs.
In high school I had many opportunities to drink and smoke and do a lot of other unwholesome things. It just didn’t make sense to me to participate. In fact, it seemed destructive. So I got very good at saying, “No thanks.” Sometimes I would even challenge my friends to give it up. Also, I could see the misery that immorality caused, and I wanted no part of it. I made a personal commitment to save sexual intimacy for marriage. It seemed the only right way. At times I felt pretty alone, but I held on to my personal beliefs.
My family was not religious, so I didn’t belong to a church. It was through evangelists on television that I first learned about prayer. It made sense to pray, so I did and it felt good to be able to talk to my Heavenly Father. I felt I had a friend I could talk to who understood how I felt.
When I visited the different campuses, the recruiters tried to show me a good time, and it always seemed to include drinking. When one took me to a bar, I said, “Please don’t offer me a drink, because I don’t drink.” I can remember thinking, “This is going to be just like high school with everyone trying to get me to be a part of a lifestyle I’m not interested in.”
Then BYU flew me in to visit their campus and meet the coaches. What a difference! The whole atmosphere was refreshing. People were genuinely friendly, and I was treated with courtesy and respect. I was not taken any place where people were drinking, and I was never even offered a drink. I couldn’t believe it, but it felt so good. The coaches were great, and their winning record was impressive. But then again, there were some impressive things about the other schools too.
When I returned to Texas I had narrowed it down to two colleges, BYU and one other. I decided to pray about which one would be right for me. After the prayer I knew it had to be BYU.
My freshman year at BYU was like coming home. I felt so comfortable with the required standards. I began to ask questions about the Church, and my teammates were eager to share without pressuring me. They encouraged me to read the Book of Mormon. Bob Stephens, an LDS team member, and I hit it off and became close friends.
One day Bob and I decided to take dates on a ride up the canyon. As the four of us drove up a steep hill, the car engine died. We tried and tried to get it started, and nothing seemed to work. It was an embarrassing situation until a policeman came along and asked if he could help. We asked him if he could take the girls back. They volunteered to go for help while we stayed with the car.
While we waited I thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask Bob some serious questions about the Church. Generally speaking, football players are not the most articulate people, and Bob is no exception. However, when he began to answer my questions he sounded like a scholar. He answered every question with authority and conviction. I was deeply impressed.
Then I noticed an unusual thing was happening. Though it was cold and I didn’t have a coat on, I noticed I was feeling warm. I thought it must be because my arms were folded, so I stretched them out across the back of the seat. But the warmth stayed. It was a comfortable feeling, difficult to describe.
When I was through asking questions, I said, “I think the car will start now, Bob.” And it did, with the first turn of the key. It blew me away. I thought, This must be the work of the Lord so that I could have this chance to talk seriously with Bob. It seemed like a little miracle to me.
After that I asked to see the missionaries and with every discussion the gospel logically unfolded. I had resisted reading the Book of Mormon before because in the past I found the Bible difficult to follow and understand. But as soon as I began to read the Book of Mormon, I understood it and even enjoyed reading it. The more I learned through study and prayer, the more I knew the Church is true. It all made sense.
I called my dad and told him about my desire to join the Church. He asked me to wait. “Come home for the summer and then decide,” he said. I have a great deal of respect for my dad, so I followed his advice. All summer long he challenged my beliefs. I found myself continually defending my newfound faith. Not once did I feel like backing down, but instead I became even stronger in my convictions.
At the end of the summer he said, “I can see you really do believe this new religion. I was just testing you to make sure your decision was your own and not based on the influence of others. Go ahead and get baptized. You have my blessings.”
In the fall when I returned to BYU I decided I wanted my dad to be there when I was baptized, so my baptismal date was arranged at a time when he would be in town to see one of our games. I’ll never forget my baptism. It was the happiest day of my life. Bob baptized me, and Coach LaVell Edwards confirmed me. And then, with tears running down his cheeks, my dad put his arm around me and said, “I’m really proud of you, son. I love you.”
My dream to play major college football for a winning team has come true. But even more important, I have found real happiness as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As a young man of nineteen, experiencing my first contact with Latter-day Saints, I sat ready to put one dollar in the collection plate during Sunday School opening exercises. I would show my Mormon hosts that I was not stingy. After all, I was only earning thirty-five cents an hour, so one dollar was no small contribution. But Sunday School came and went, and there was no collection plate.
And again at sacrament meeting that Sunday evening, where I had decided to double my contribution to two dollars, there was no collection. The explanation must be, I was sure, that you contributed at the door on your way out. With my hand in my pocket, I was ready—but I had to switch pockets because everyone wanted to shake my hand.
Once outside the building, I casually asked my hosts, “When do they take up the collection?”
They smiled and answered, “We don’t pass the collection plate in our church.”
“Never?” I asked.
“Never,” they replied.
“Great!” I thought. “This is my kind of church.” Obviously, it was time for me to learn about tithing.
I had been praying long and hard about religion. An unrelenting feeling of uneasiness had come over me—a feeling that was driving me to find spiritual relief. On the following Wednesday night the missionaries gave me the lesson on tithing, and I found the relief I was looking for. Never will I forget the comfort that flowed into my system when those two elders began to instruct me about tithing. From their very first word until their last amen, I knew it was true. The very next Sunday I paid my first tithing, although it was six months before I was baptized.

I grew up to the sound of my older brother practicing his French horn. Day after day, year after year, the sound of his horn emanated from our house. I could even hear it blocks away when I walked home from elementary school.
If challenged, I would surely have contended that my brother was the best French horn player there ever was. Nevertheless, his constant playing embarrassed me sometimes, and once I asked my mother to make him stop. He would even bring his French horn on vacation!
Years later my brother and I found ourselves at a music competition in northern California on the campus of a big university I’d never been to before. While there, my high school madrigal group earned a top ranking, which meant we got to do an encore performance later that day. We were given directions as to where and when to meet, and we all went on our way. Soon I found myself alone, standing in the middle of the campus looking at all the tall buildings. I couldn’t see anyone I knew, but I remembered what my mother had told me to do if I ever got lost: “Stay where you are.”
I stayed but was too shy to ask for directions; besides, I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t remember anything we’d been told about where or when to meet. But suddenly the thought occurred to me to ask Heavenly Father for help. I was not a member of the Church at the time, but I had attended church regularly with my Latter-day Saint friends and had been taught that Heavenly Father answers prayers.
So I stood there and silently prayed in my heart. Before I had even said amen, my ears perked up. Far off in the distance, ever so quietly, I heard a familiar sound—a sound I had heard most of my life. As I started walking in the direction of the music, it grew louder. Could it be my brother’s French horn? I was sure of it.
But then other French horns started playing. I hesitated. Did I really think I could tell which of all those horns was my brother’s? Every time I doubted, however, I heard his horn, as if beckoning to me. As I entered a building, climbed the stairs, and got closer to the music, I grew scared. The thought of opening the wrong door to find someone I didn’t know made my face turn red. When I reached the third floor, I listened one more time, made my decision, took a deep breath, and opened the door. There he was!

Material blessings are a part of the gospel if they are achieved in the proper way and for the right purpose. I am reminded of an experience of President Hugh B. Brown. As a young soldier in World War I, he was visiting an elderly friend in the hospital. This friend was a millionaire several times over who, at the age of eighty, was lying at death’s door. Neither his divorced wife nor any of his five children cared enough to come to the hospital to see him. As President Brown thought of the things his friend “had lost which money could not buy and noted his tragic situation and the depth of his misery,” he asked his friend how he would change the course of his life if he had it to live over again.
The old gentleman, who died a few days later, said: “‘As I think back over life the most important and valuable asset which I might have had but which I lost in the process of accumulating my millions, was the simple faith my mother had in God and in the immortality of the soul.
“‘… You asked me what is the most valuable thing in life. I cannot answer you in better words than those used by the poet.’” He asked President Brown to get a little book out of his briefcase from which he read a poem entitled “I’m an Alien.”
I’m an alien, to the faith my mother taught me.
I’m a stranger to the God that heard my mother when she cried.
I’m an alien to the comfort that, “Now I lay me,” brought me.
To the everlasting arms that held my father when he died.
When the great world came and called me, I deserted all to follow.
Never noting in my blindness I had slipped my hand from His.
Never dreaming in my dazedness that the bubble fame is hollow.
That the wealth of gold is tinsel, as I since have learned it is.
I have spent a lifetime seeking things I spurned when I found them,
I have fought and been rewarded in many a winning cause,
But I’d give it all, fame and fortune and the pleasures that surround them,
If I only had the faith that made my mother what she was.
“That was the dying testimony of a man who was born in the Church but had drifted far from it. That was the brokenhearted cry of a lonely man who could have anything money could buy, but who had lost the most important things of life in order to accumulate this world’s goods” (Continuing the Quest, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961, pp. 32–35; italics added).

Many years ago, Brigham Young told of an early missionary in the Church who was asked to share his testimony with a large group of people. According to President Young, this particular elder “never had been able to say that he knew Joseph [Smith] was a Prophet.” He would have preferred to just say a prayer and leave, but the circumstances made that impossible. So he started to speak, and “as soon as he got ‘Joseph’ out, ‘is a Prophet,’ was … next; and from that, his tongue was loosened, and he continued talking until near sun-down.”
President Young used this experience to teach that “the Lord pours out His Spirit upon a man, when he testifies that [which] the Lord gives him to testify of” (Millennial Star, supplement, 1853, 30).