Gospel Story Finder

An incident from my own life demonstrates this principle. One day I returned home from work. It had been a particularly difficult day, and I felt the burdens of the world. I was extremely fatigued, emotionally and physically. I had not been home long when I felt impressions of the still small voice that I should go to the home of a woman that I had visit-taught for a number of years. She had been inactive for many years. Many times I would try to visit her, but I was often unsuccessful in my attempts. On the few occasions when I was able to visit her, I came to know that she had a strong belief in a Heavenly Father but had been offended many years previously and had difficulty with some of the teachings of the Church. When I felt impressed that I should go to her home, my first response was, “Not tonight. I am so tired. It can wait until tomorrow.” But, as is often the case, the impressions continued to come more strongly. Finally I drove to her home, thinking, “Why am I doing this? She probably won’t answer the door.” I knocked on the door, and soon the door opened. I could tell she was extremely distraught. She invited me in. Her first words were, “How did you know to come?”

I responded that the promptings had been there. For the next several hours we talked about her desperate family situation, her suicidal feelings, and her sense of hopelessness. I prayed that I might know how to comfort her as the Savior would do. The words came, the promptings came, and I began to see a calm come to her. That night forever changed my relationship with her and forever changed my relationship with the Savior. Now I never have trouble getting into her home or making contact with her. I no longer question the Spirit’s promptings when they come, for I recognize them more clearly. We have had many opportunities for gospel conversation.

What did I learn about the Savior that night? I learned that He loved this dear sister regardless of her current standing in the Church. I learned how He comforted as I listened to the promptings I received as I talked with her. Did I know my Savior better after that night? Yes! I learned the Savior trusted me enough to let me participate as He met her needs. I was part of how He “succored” her (see Mosiah 4:16). It was through the listening and the acting that I was able to participate in the Savior’s plan to bless another person’s life. I knew with great assurance that the Savior loves people who are struggling—and it made it easier to believe that He loves me when I struggle as well.

Let me refer to and sort of paraphrase “The Parable of the Defective Battery,” written by Elder James E. Talmage. (See Albert L. Zobell, Jr., The Parable of James E. Talmage, Deseret Book Company, 1973, pp. 7–12.) He said that in order to carry out a certain laboratory experiment he needed a powerful primary electric current. He asked his assistant to prepare a battery consisting of a dozen cells of simple type. His assistant followed the usual procedure. He prepared twelve jars containing acid solution, in which were immersed a pair of plates, one of carbon and one of zinc. The cells were then connected “in series.” This should have resulted in the series giving out strength equal to the total force. It was discovered, however, that he had not given sufficient attention to details—those seeming trifles that make or mar perfection.

Elder Talmage said he was disappointed when he tried to use the battery because it was not functioning as it should. As he inspected it he found that the cells were not all working alike; some of them were intensely active, and the liquid seemed to be like boiling water because of the escaping gases. Its current was very weak. The energy from it was practically used up in overcoming its own internal resistance, and it had no power.

He took the battery apart and made an individual examination of each cell. The first eight cells proved to be in good condition. The ninth, however, was seriously at fault. This cell was set aside and the others tested and found to be good. It was plain to see that number nine cell was the cause of the trouble. It was the one, too, that had been fuming and fussing more than the others. Leaving it out, he hooked up the other eleven and found them to form a good, strong current, ample to operate an electric receiver or to fire a blast on the opposite side of the globe.

Later he began to inspect the rejected unit and found that it had short-circuited itself through its foaming and fuming. The acid had destroyed the insulation in some parts, and the current was wholly used up in destructive corrosion within the jar. It had violated the law of right action. It had corrupted itself in its defective state. It was not only worthless as a working unit, but an unproductive member in a community of cells. It was worse than worthless in that it caused an effective resistance in the operation of the other clean and serviceable units.

He did not destroy the unit, however. He thought there was a possibility of restoring it to some usefulness. He searched its innermost parts and with knife and file removed the corroded crustment. He baptized it in a cleansing bath and set it up again and tried it out. Gradually it developed energy until it came to work almost as well as the other cells. However, he continued to watch the cell with special care, not trusting it as fully as he had before it had defiled itself.

Elder Talmage said this was an actual experience, but he called it a parable and said how much we are like the voltaic cell. There are men who are loud and demonstrative, even offensive in their abnormal activity. Yet what do they accomplish in effective labor? Their energy is wholly consumed in overcoming the internal resistance of their defective selves.

There are others who do but sleep and dream. They are slothful, dormant, and, as judged by the standard of utility, dead. There are men who labor so quietly as scarcely to reveal the fact that they are hard at work. Through their earnest devotion they greatly influence the lives of those with whom they associate. The unclean cell, however, was much like the sinner. Unfitness was the direct effect of internal disorder, self-corruption. Such a defection in men we call sin, which is essentially the breaking of the law. They, in association with others who are clean, able, and willing, are an obstruction to the current, and the efficiency of the whole is lessened, if not entirely neutralized, by a single defective unit.

Let me tell you one other quick story. President Shumway mentioned that I was a stake president for nine years. During that time I was also the president of General Mills, so I had access to the corporate airplane. Believe me, the only way to fly is on a corporate airplane. You can't imagine as I stand in line for Hawaiian Air, how much I miss that corporate airplane.

Anyway, I was away on assignment in California on Saturday and needed to be back for a ward conference we were having Sunday morning. So Saturday night I jumped in the plane. We were flying back. We were about two hours outside of Minneapolis and the pilot got on the intercom and said, "I'm sorry, we can't go to Minneapolis, it's fogged in." I ran the four feet up to the cockpit and said, "I can't go any place else but Minneapolis." He said, "We're going to Des Moines, that's the airport that is open." I said, " I can't possibly go to Des Moines, I've got to be in Minneapolis tomorrow morning."

Usually, if you are the president of the company the corporate pilot does what you ask him to do, except if it's unsafe. And he said, "I'm sorry I cannot take you to Minneapolis, it's unsafe, we're going to Des Moines." And I said, "Is there any place closer that we can go?" Thinking I could rent a car and drive. And he brought the things up on his screen and he said, "Well, maybe we can get into Rochester, Minnesota." And I said, "Great, I can rent a car in Rochester and drive to Minneapolis, that would be just perfect."

So we're going through the darkness, and I'm looking out the window and I can't see anything. It is pitch black the clouds are so thick. And we're going down and going down. Usually when you land at an airport you see lights and other sorts of things. It's just pitch black. I see nothing. All of a sudden we slammed down on the runway. We drove over to the terminal. I went into the woman who was working there and said, "Can you give me the phone numbers of the car rental companies, I need to rent a car." She said, "I'm sorry, they're all closed. This is a relatively small town, they close at nine o'clock." I said, "Oh, I'm sure somebody's open, just hand me the list." She handed me the list and I dialed every number and sure enough, they were closed. Nobody was open. I thought, "What can I do?"

Not being fit like all of you here, who I see perform at the Polynesian Cultural Center, I knew I couldn't run or even walk to Minneapolis. So I went off into a little room and I bowed my head and I said, "Heavenly Father, I have done everything I can do. If it is important for me to be in that ward conference tomorrow, I need help, because I'm out of options."

As soon as I said that little prayer, I stood up and one of the pilots came running down the hallway. He said, "You're not going to believe this, but just was a fluke," we would call it inspiration, "We decided to call the Minneapolis airport one last time. They said the wind had come up and blown some of the clouds away, if we take off right now, we can land." We ran to the plane, jumped in, and twenty minutes later we started our descent into Minneapolis. You could look out and see the stars in the sky, it was absolutely clear. We landed, I drove home, it was no problem.

The next day in ward conference I was telling that little story as a way of indicating how grateful I was to be there. One of the members of that ward came up to me after and said, "Do you want to know the rest of that story?" I said, "I'd love to." He said, "I work at the airport, I was there last night. We were fogged in for hours. No planes were going in and out. All of a sudden a little wind came up, the airport was clear for 30 minutes, two private planes landed, one of which was yours, and then the clouds came back together and the airport was closed the rest of the night."

There is a God in heaven, who loves us. We all have clouds in our lives. We all face challenges that seem insurmountable. We all have obstacles to overcome. When we have done all that we can do, the Lord will blow away the clouds in your life, just as He blew away the clouds, that night, in mine.

After learning about the new Fulfilling My Duty to God booklet in a fireside last year, Aleks Miller—deacons quorum president of a ward in the Vancouver British Columbia Stake—was eager to get started. He and his father set up a schedule to meet each Sunday to work on a section of the booklet together.
“My dad and I, every week, sit down and look through a section of the book,” says Aleks. “We start with a prayer, and then we learn the stuff and read the scriptures. We answer the questions in the section and then write down how we can implement what we’ve learned.” Aleks often shares with his mother what he and his father are working on. “I talked with my mom about the sacrament and the meaning of the sacrament prayers and wrote down some ideas about how I, as a deacon, could help make the sacrament more meaningful for her.”
After only a few weeks of these Duty-to-God-with-Dad meetings, Aleks noticed it was making a difference in his life. “It makes me feel really good,” he says. Sitting down with his father is not always the first thing Aleks wants to do on a Sunday afternoon, “but once we start learning and reading together, I’m a lot happier and I feel better about doing it.”
Aleks has set new goals and is gaining a greater understanding of the gospel as he studies and learns with his father. “One of the sections in Fulfilling My Duty to God suggested we study five topics in For the Strength of Youth and then write down a goal for each one so that you can do better,” explains Aleks. “I chose honesty. So one of my goals was to let my parents know when I do something wrong instead of just keeping it to myself.”
Another topic Aleks chose was education. “My goal was to go an entire month in school with no messing around in class and finishing all my work so I wouldn’t have any homework. It’s going pretty well, and now I have a lot of extra time.”
Now Aleks is encouraging all the deacons in his quorum to work on fulfilling their duty to God. And he offers the same advice to any other young men who are thinking about opening their booklets and getting down to work: “Just do it,” he says. “If you can’t seem to get started on your own, do it like I do and ask your dad to do it with you.”

President Thomas S. Monson explained the gift of the Atonement by telling the story of a young boy who wanted to buy a bicycle.
Every year, the police department of a big city held an auction to sell all the lost or stolen bikes that had been found during the year. One year, almost 100 bikes were being sold. As the auctioneer started the auction, he noticed an 11-year-old boy sitting near the front of the room.
“One dollar!” the boy called out as the first bike went up for bid. But the bidding went much higher, and the bike was sold to someone else. “One dollar,” the boy repeated hopefully each time a bike came up. But each bike was sold for much more money than the boy had. The auctioneer watched as the boy tried over and over to buy a bike.
Finally, just one bike was left. The bidding went to eight dollars. Suddenly the auctioneer spoke up. “Sold to that boy over there for nine dollars!” he said. He took eight dollars from his own pocket and asked the boy for his one dollar.
The boy gave the auctioneer his dollar’s worth of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. He took his new bike and started to leave. Then he parked his bike, gratefully threw his arms around the auctioneer’s neck, and cried.

Jacquie Simonet of Nancy returned home one evening in 1969 and found his wife, Suzanne, weeping. A copy of L’Etoile, the Church’s French magazine, was in her lap. “I have been reading about eternal marriage,” she said softly to him. “We can never have these blessings unless you are baptized.”

Jacquie had attended church with his wife for four years and had listened to the missionary discussions twice. “I had not been baptized because I smoked,” he says. “My heart was touched as I talked to my wife that night, and I realized that I already knew the gospel was true. I love my wife, and I knew that I wanted to be with her for eternity. So I threw away my cigarettes and never smoked again.” Jacquie was baptized, and the following year the Simonets were sealed in the Swiss Temple. Today he serves as the president of the Bordeaux France Stake.

The Simonets reared five sons, a niece, and a nephew. Now grown, these children live in Paris, Thoiry, Bordeaux, and the United States, and nearly all are rearing a third generation in the gospel. The nephew, Christian Soulé, is a counselor in the Paris Stake presidency.

When I was 30 years old, I began working for a retail group in France. One day the company president, a good man of another faith, called me into his office. His question startled me: “I just learned you are a priest in your church. Is that true?”
I replied, “Yes, that is correct. I hold the priesthood.”
Visibly intrigued by my response, he further inquired, “But did you study at a theological seminary?”
“Of course,” I answered, “between the ages of 14 and 18, and I studied seminary lessons nearly every day!” He almost fell off his chair.
To my great surprise, several weeks later he called me back to his office to offer me a managing director position in one of the group’s companies. I was astonished and expressed my concern that I was too young and inexperienced to hold such an important responsibility. With a benevolent smile, he said, “That may be true, but it doesn’t matter. I know your principles, and I know what you’ve learned in your church. I need you.”
He was right about what I had learned in the Church. The years that followed were challenging, and I don’t know if I could have had any success without the experience I acquired by serving in the Church from the time I was a young man.

During Christmas, I was going home teaching and I had a prompting to take my violin and play a Christmas carol for our families. I played for the first two families, but I didn’t see why I had had the prompting. Then we went to the last family (who were less active), and that was when I knew. I played for them and could see that they were moved; the Spirit was there. They started taking the missionary lessons.Martin Perez, 18Midland Second Ward, Odessa Texas Stake

On the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, Samuel’s ward Primary visited a nursing home. “We’ll each adopt a grandma or grandpa,” Sister Myers, the Primary president, said as the children gathered inside the building.
Five-year-old Samuel stayed close by his mother who was a Primary teacher. He looked around and was a little afraid. Some of the people were in wheelchairs. Others used walkers or crutches. One lady had tubes coming out of her nose.
“I’m scared,” he whispered to his mother.
“I know this can be a little scary,” his mother said. “Try to remember that all of these people are children of Heavenly Father, just like you. The only difference is that the people who live here are older.”
“A lot older,” Samuel said.
He felt better when the children started singing “I Am a Child of God.” That was his favorite song. The Primary chorister then led them in singing “When Grandpa Comes,” “A Happy Family,” and “Mother Dear.”
The grandmas and grandpas all clapped.
“We’re going to make valentines now,” Sister Myers said. She assigned each child a “grandma” or a “grandpa.”
Samuel discovered that his adopted grandfather was in a wheelchair. Samuel stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Samuel.”
“My name is Jackson Gaither,” the man said as he shook Samuel’s hand.
Mr. Gaither tried to cut the valentine from the red paper, but he couldn’t make the scissors open and close. “My hands don’t work so good any more,” he said.
“That’s all right,” Samuel whispered. Then he helped Mr. Gaither finish cutting out the heart. They wrote their names by each other and glued glitter all around their names.
Samuel held up his hands and looked at them. They were covered with glitter.
Mr. Gaither’s hands were also covered with glitter. He looked at Samuel and smiled. “Looks like we’re wearing as much glitter as that valentine.”
“I like glitter,” Samuel said.
“Me too,” Mr. Gaither said. He looked at the wrinkles in the heart from where he’d tried to cut it out. “It has a few wrinkles,” he said and winked at Samuel. “I guess that’s all right since I have some wrinkles too.”
Samuel winked back. Then he gave his adopted grandpa a big hug before he left.
“I wasn’t afraid of Mr. Gaither,” Samuel told his mother. “I remembered what you told me. He’s just a child of God with wrinkles.”

Several years ago while visiting a dear friend, I saw that he looked unusually discouraged. He is a school teacher, and his wife does not work outside the home. With nine children, they have had rather limited financial resources.
I asked him how he was. He hesitated, not wanting to talk about his troubles. But finally, with tears in his eyes, he told me his worries about his family. One of his sons had dropped out of high school and had moved out of their home; he now spent his time drinking, chewing tobacco, and partying with his friends. My friend’s eighteen-year-old daughter had transgressed and planned to marry outside the temple. His sixteen-year-old son had a serious drug and alcohol problem. My friend’s oldest son was on a mission, but the costs of the sixteen-year-old’s drug treatment were jeopardizing missionary funds and the family’s financial stability.
My friend told me he felt guilty and unworthy. Because of all the strain on the family, he and his wife were blaming each other for their children’s problems, and their marriage was under a great deal of stress. It was obvious that he was struggling, wondering why all these things were happening to his family when he had tried to live the gospel.
Like Lehi, my friend also came to the end of his own personal “wilderness.” His children have returned to the faith of their parents and are trying to pattern their lives after Christ’s. The struggle wasn’t easy, but they have all endured it well.

The Bollbachs extended a special invitation to Church President Harold B. Lee to visit the gallery. Instead, President Lee invited the Bollbachs to visit him at his office. Brother Bollbach fondly recalls the visit. He had created a wood carving of a wild horse jumping over a log to give to President Lee.
“We stood in his office,” Brother Bollbach remembers, “and after a short visit, he shook our hands. As I was leaving, he said to me, ‘I give you my blessing. Peace will be with you.’ I have never lost the peace President Lee promised me. I have always felt it in my heart to this day.”

It was a hot day. I was excited and a little nervous. Today was a big day for me and other members of the Royal Canadian Military Force. It was the day of the endurance test.
We’d heard a lot about this test. It was tough. Sixty-pound packs would be strapped on our backs; then we would have to run five miles without stopping! And that wasn’t all. Next, we would have to turn around and walk/run five more miles back to camp.
But I was in good shape. I had been a starter on the high school basketball team. I also enjoyed many other sports. I had grown up active and healthy. But the best thing that I had done to prepare for this big test was to obey the Word of Wisdom.
The officers conducting the test signaled the beginning of the run, and we were off. Several men dropped out before we had gone two miles. As I ran on, I saw many of my friends quit. Some even passed out. They all had to be taken back to camp in a truck. But I was determined to do my best. I was tired, but I ran on.
When I reached the five-mile mark, I was exhausted. Sweat dripped down my face and drenched my clothes. Then I had to turn around and head back to camp. Even though those of us remaining were allowed to walk occasionally, it was arduous!
I had always tried to do what was right. I tried to listen to and obey my parents and Primary teachers as I grew up. They taught me that smoking, drinking, and drugs would hurt my body, and I believed them. (See D&C 89.)
I know that the Lord blessed me with the health and strength to pass that test because I kept the Word of Wisdom. Obeying the Word of Wisdom—and all the Lord’s commandments—is important for everyone. If we are obedient, the Lord will bless us.

Young Spencer Kimball spent many hours helping his father on the family farm. He tramped hay, planted seeds, weeded the garden, and painted the barn and house.
And every day young Spencer milked the cows. There were no milking machines in those days, and it took him quite a while to finish this chore.
3. Spencer liked to learn. He decided to use his “milking time” to memorize many of his favorite scriptures. Neighbors often joked about those cows being the most spiritual cows in the area!
4. He memorized hymns the same way. He copied the words from Church hymns onto small pieces of paper and sang to the cows while he milked them.
5. Spencer W. Kimball learned at a young age to be dedicated to the gospel and to seek after righteousness. He was well prepared to become the twelfth President of the Church.

I can’t give this talk without mentioning one more person in who has really seen me through in my life and that person is my husband. When we got married, he got a full time teaching job, but I was still in school, so because I had a longer commute, he would come home from work and do all the cooking as well. As he mentioned earlier, I was in a serious car accident during graduate school. Following that accident, he had to continue all of his own responsibilities, but also take care of me, and take on all of the household responsibilities. He even taught one of my classes. When our kids came along, he took equal interest in them, and there has been no task required of him that he is unwilling to do. He supports me in my desires for work and artistic development, and I could not do the work on campus in all that I do without his help. He follows a lifelong pattern of service to me and the rest of our family.

At the unofficial 1906 games in Athens, Greece, an Austrian weightlifter, Josef Steinbach, was booed by the partisan crowd because it was alleged he was a professional. The frustrated Austrian left the stadium, allowing the Greek in second place to win the event. The flag was run up, the crowd cheered. Then Steinbach reentered the stadium, walked up to the weight the winner had lifted with great effort, and with ease hoisted it three times over his head.

Photo illustration by Allan Davey
“Write down all of your talents, and pick one to tell us about,” Sister Jensen said to our Laurel class. I proudly explained that volleyball was my greatest talent and that our next season—my last year of volleyball—was going to be the best one yet.
“Talents come in many forms. Some are spiritual gifts,” Sister Jensen taught. “I think that Heavenly Father has blessed me to be able to love everyone around me.”
Sister Jensen radiated love everywhere she went and shared her testimony in everyday conversations. Her love was genuine, kind, and Christlike. She had become more than a Young Women leader to me—she felt like a second mother, a sister, or a best friend during my high school years. We went to concerts together, went shopping together, and made strawberry jam together. She brought me homemade pudding when I got my wisdom teeth pulled, and she liked to visit me at the snow-cone shack where I worked. She worked at my school, so she went to all my volleyball games too.
A few months later, near the end of summer vacation, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. to the phone ringing. My mom answered and then came to my bedroom. “The Jensens were in a car accident coming home from their family reunion,” she said. “The car rolled off the freeway, and Sister Jensen didn’t make it.”
My heart sank. “This isn’t real,” I thought. “She texted me earlier today. How could she be gone now?”
I felt shocked, confused, and sad all at the same time. After a few minutes, the tears came, and my mom held me while I cried. Sleep was impossible, so I lay there with my thoughts and tears for the rest of the night.
In the coming weeks, I dropped into a sadness I’d never felt before. Volleyball wasn’t a priority, and I no longer looked forward to starting the school year. Everything I was so excited about before was now buried by sadness. “I feel completely overwhelmed with grief,” I wrote in my journal one night. “I can’t stop crying and I’m always tired.”
The night before the first day of school, I lay in bed crying and thinking about Sister Jensen’s death. I was sick of being sad, and I realized that I needed help to overcome the pain. I needed to pray.
“Please help me understand why she died and how I can cope with this,” I prayed.
I knelt there in silence, wondering if He would answer. After a few minutes, my mind started making connections between everything that had happened. My heart felt warm and my mind felt elevated. I realized that these thoughts weren’t my own; the Spirit was teaching me.
The plan of salvation—the flow chart I’d been taught since Primary—was real. Sister Jensen was born, she experienced happiness, she endured trials, she shared her love, and now she was in the spirit world. Her spirit still existed, and I would see her again. I realized that this plan, the plan of happiness, was designed to help us return to our Heavenly Father, to our families, and to our friends. In that moment, I wanted more than anything to live righteously so I could see her again.
During those first few weeks of school, I focused on trying to develop Sister Jensen’s talent of loving everyone. As I concentrated on loving other people, my pain began to slowly subside and I felt happier. I learned that we can show our love for others in many ways—by listening to them, by smiling at them, by taking them a treat, or by complimenting them. These are the small things that Sister Jensen did for me, so the best way to keep her memory alive was to spread her kind of love.
Although Sister Jensen died, I will always feel her love. As I strive each day to show a little more love for other people, I’m living the kind of life she did—and taking one step closer to seeing her again.

It’s a beautiful sound when all the members of the London Ward in Winnipeg, Canada, sing hymns with the organ music in their chapel. Thirteen-year-old Marvin Cardona is the organist. Anywhere there’s music in the London Ward, you’ll most likely find one of the youth from the ward providing the accompaniment.
It’s strange to think that only a few months ago the members in this ward would either sing without accompaniment in their meetings or play the Church-produced tapes of the hymns as they sang.
Everyone prefers having the young people in the ward play the hymns now. Andrew Cardona, 17, says, “Everyone actually sings in time now. Sometimes we were off a few beats [from the tape]. You feel the Spirit more now.” Jackie Famini, 13, agrees. “It’s nice to have someone play the piano instead of listening to the tapes.”
When the London Ward was split from another ward, there was no one left in the ward boundaries who could play the organ or the piano well enough to accompany the congregation. That’s where Elder and Sister Heap entered the scene. They are a missionary couple who realized that once they left the ward, there would be no one who could play the piano. So they decided to teach music lessons to anyone who was interested.
Almost all the youth in the ward signed up. “I heard about all the other people taking lessons, and I was interested because I wanted to play the piano,” says Sherri Cardona, 15. “So I asked Sister Heap, and she said yes.” Sherri now rotates with other girls in the ward to play the keyboard for Young Women opening exercises.

I wrote Elder Featherstone's quote in my scriptures because at the time I read it, I was working in a refugee camp in Thailand. How could I have ever imagined while growing up in the small town of Chino Valley, Arizona, that I would someday find myself working in a refugee camp in Southeast Asia?
I received my first mission call to Indonesia, but the week before entering the MTC, my call was changed to the Philippines because of visa problems. I served in the Philippines a year before being transferred to Thailand to work in the refugee camp.
At that time, refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were fleeing the war in their countries. The Church volunteered to assist the United Nations; sister missionaries were called from several missions in Asia to work in the refugee camp. We were assigned to teach cultural orientation and English.
Working in a refugee camp, along with other missionary experiences, proved to be life changing for me. First, these experiences became the basis of a life-long professional career that has brought me many blessings and opportunities, both teaching English and working in international development.
Second, the experiences in the camp became significant spiritual experiences. I will share a couple of them with you.
Shortly before Christmas in 1981, Elder Marion D. Hanks, who was presiding over the Asia Area at that time, came to visit us in the camp. He had told us that we would have one of the best Christmases of our lives as we served the refugees. He read to us what he called the TRUE Christmas story….I have written in my scriptures, "The Christmas story." You know this scripture—when Christ comes in his glory, He will put His sheep on His right hand and say to them:
35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matthew 25:35-40).
When Christmas Day arrived, the sister missionaries assigned to the camp put on a Christmas program for five different groups of refugees—Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Hmong, and Yao.
In the Vietnamese section, as we portrayed the manger scene and were singing "Away in a Manager," a young mother near the front, walked up and presented her young baby in place of the rolled up towel we were using for the new born Jesus. For the entire song, the small and beautiful Asian baby looked up at the sister representing Mary and a sweet and quiet spirit came over the large group. The Spirit of Christ came that Christmas day to the Phanat Nikom refugee camp. How blessed we were as missionaries to have followed Him to that place at that time—to have a blessed Christmas Day.

The Young Women of the Niagara Falls Ward, Buffalo New York Stake, comforted some of their peers with quilted comforters, handmade. They made a dozen quilts in all, and also contributed personal items like shampoo, washcloths, towels, and deodorant to put into kits.
They then delivered the kits to teenagers in a home for those with no place to live or unsuitable family situations, the Compass House, in Buffalo. “The project was a lot of work, but it was worth every minute of it,” they said.

Those unexpected telephone calls continued to influence his life. Three years later, shortly before he was to be released as president of the France-Switzerland Mission, there was another telephone call, this time from President Marion G. Romney. Elder Didier was called as a regional representative and at the same time appointed area manager in translation and distribution of Church materials for all of Europe.
Then, in October 1975 while he was attending conference in Salt Lake City, Elder Didier received a telephone call that President Spencer W. Kimball wanted to see him. He was called to be a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy that was to be organized.
“There are some things you plan for the future, certain things you imagine will happen to you. But when that calling of General Authority comes, you close the door and say, ‘Now I am in the hands of the Lord 100 percent. I’ll do what he asks me to do.’”