Gospel Story Finder

A few years ago Sister Jolley and I concluded an assignment where I presided over a mission in south Texas. Our missionaries there wholeheartedly embraced the “balanced effort” concept of missionary work, which includes finding, teaching, baptizing, and doing everything possible to retain new converts, and spending several hours each week working with less-active members. Our missionaries, like all missionaries throughout the world, were great kingdom builders.

When my wife and I returned to our home ward in Idaho, I was determined to practice what I preached in the mission field. I therefore asked the bishop to assign me as a home teacher to some of our wonderful families who were not enjoying the blessings of full activity in the Church. He quickly obliged by assigning me to six of these special families.

After several visits to one of these families, I challenged the father, who had been inactive for almost 40 years, to become fully active in the Church and to participate in the temple preparation classes. He responded, “These kinds of things are more than I can understand; they are way over my head.” I was troubled by his response and felt bad that he did not think he could embrace the gospel because it was too difficult to understand. But I knew that the truths of the gospel are for everyone and that everyone can understand them through earnest prayer and scripture study. So our next few home teaching visits were spent talking about the simple and beautiful things of the gospel.

With patience and persistence our visits became more enjoyable and more spiritual. We developed a genuine friendship. As time went on, it became apparent that he could and did understand the principles of the gospel. This made his wife very happy. They grew closer in their marriage. They are now attending church regularly, becoming good friends with all members, and preparing to go to the temple. We had similar experiences with other families. The Lord blesses us as well as these wonderful families when we put forth the extra effort to share these simple truths with them.

Tristan S., 17, served on the planning committee and was excited about the whole conference. But even with all that energy, he still felt a little unsure about the actual teaching experience.
“I was nervous,” Tristan says. For one thing, part of the goal with each visit was to stay and talk for at least 15 minutes. In other words, no showing up, sharing a scripture or two, and leaving within a few minutes. Sometimes 15 minutes can feel pretty long.
Tristan went with a younger companion to the home of a single man in his 30s. “We shared scriptures from Matthew about how Jesus Christ brings peace in our life,” Tristan says.
The man they were visiting added to the conversation right away as he shared his own insights and experiences. They sailed right past the 15-minute mark without noticing. By the time they reached 45 minutes, the man told them, “There’s something different about you guys.”
Tristan and his companion gave the man a card directing him to mormon.org, which he accepted gladly.
“It was an amazing experience,” Tristan says. “It’s something I’ll never forget.”

I first met Latter-day Saint missionaries at a train station when I was 19. I could tell that there was something special about these young women, and I felt an urge to talk to them. So I approached and asked what they were doing in Taiwan. They told me they were missionaries and began to talk about the gospel. Over the course of several meetings, I learned about Jesus Christ, His restored gospel, and the Book of Mormon. It was the last of these topics—the Book of Mormon—that caused me to join the Church.
I can still remember my experience praying about the book. After reading from it one night, I closed the book, knelt down, and asked my Heavenly Father if it were true. I felt a blanket of warmth surround me, something I had never felt in the Buddhist temples I had attended all my life. This feeling was different. I knew someone was listening. In that moment I went from believing the Church was true to knowing it was true, and I decided to be baptized.
The Book of Mormon has continued to bless my life since then. It blessed me when I served as a missionary.
It has also blessed me in my callings. While serving as an institute teacher, I learned that the Book of Mormon was written for our day.1 But in preparing my lessons, I found that statement is not only generally true, but it’s true for specific people in specific situations at specific times. For instance, sometimes as I prepared to teach, one of my student’s faces would come into my mind, and I would recognize something particular I needed to teach for that person’s benefit. Such promptings occurred frequently and were confirmed when a student would talk to me after class to let me know the lesson was exactly what he or she needed.
Finally, and perhaps most meaningfully, the Book of Mormon has guided my personal life. I remember turning to the scriptures when I was about to end a dating relationship. I felt a great deal of anguish. But a verse I read, 2 Nephi 10:20, spoke directly to my heart and gave me a calm feeling: “Now, my beloved brethren, seeing that our merciful God has given us so great knowledge concerning these things, let us remember him, and lay aside our sins, and not hang down our heads, for we are not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea.”
Remembering the Lord, as that verse suggests, gave me courage and hope. I could rely on the “great knowledge” of the gospel that God had given me, and I could be assured that I was not “cast off.” There were good things ahead.
It was a great blessing to believe the missionaries’ words as I investigated the Church. It is far greater to know the truthfulness of the gospel, particularly the validity of the Book of Mormon, for myself. I know that God lives and that He teaches us directly and personally through the scriptures.

It is reported that on one occasion when Sir Isaac Newton was thinking seriously concerning the nature of light, he cut a hole in a window blind and a ray of light entered his room. He held a triangular piece of glass in the range of the light, and there were reflected in great beauty all the colors of the rainbow. And for the first time man learned that all of the glorious colors of the universe are locked up in a ray of white light.

Illustration by Anastasia Suvorova
During a recent Christmas season, I hosted my four-year-old granddaughter at home. Her parents are far from the Church.
I took advantage of our time together to decorate my Christmas tree with her. As she looked at my Nativity, which I had already set up, a puzzled expression appeared on her face. So, I began to tell her in a simple way the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. I explained to her that baby Jesus would be the best man on earth, that He would become a great King, and that He would always help us.
I told her that because Mary and Joseph could not find a place to sleep, they had to stay in a stable with animals nearby. Again, she became perplexed.
As we spent the day together, every now and then she would approach the Nativity and move the figures. Without her noticing, I would check to see where she had moved them. Each time, she removed the figure of baby Jesus from the manger and moved the plastic hens and other animal figures away from the Nativity scene. I would put them back in their place, but then she would return to move them again.
That evening, after my granddaughter had gone to sleep, I found my little hens wedged inside nearby miniature cardboard houses, the other animals put out to graze, and baby Jesus again taken away from the manger. I finally understood.
After hearing the story of Jesus’s birth, my granddaughter thought that such a precious child should not remain in an uncomfortable and unhealthy place. I had spoken so highly of the Savior that she could not leave him in a manger surrounded by animals.
My little granddaughter reminded me that it is important to give our Savior a special place in our everyday lives. She also reminded me that we must not be like the innkeepers who had no room for Jesus’s family. Rather, we need to welcome Jesus into our homes and hearts as the Prince of Peace.

I love the story our prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, related about a conversation he had with his wife, Marjorie, on the eve of their wedding. He was anxious about the economic realities of their marriage. He had totaled his assets and realized that he had less than $150 and, even more alarming, that he made only $185 a month. Marjorie put his fears to rest. She replied that “she had hoped for a husband and now she found out she was getting $150 too. ‘This will work out wonderfully,’ she told him. ‘If you’ve got $150, we’re set.’” And, as you well know, they were.

The bunkbed mattress squeaked as Dinis rolled over. He had tossed and turned all night. But he just couldn’t sleep!
What if the missionaries were wrong? Dinis thought. What if this isn’t the true church after all? What if I’m on the wrong path? The questions kept bothering him.
Dinis’s family joined the Church two years earlier, when he was 10. When the missionaries first taught them, Dinis had felt right away that what they taught was true. Dinis and his family were some of the first people to join the Church in Portugal. Dinis was a pioneer!
But lately he had started worrying. What if getting baptized was not the right choice?
Dinis didn’t tell anyone he was worried. Not his brothers or his sister. Not even his parents. But tonight, it was all he could think about.
Dinis sighed. He looked down over the edge of the bed. His brothers were sound asleep on the bottom bunk. Dinis was alone.
He knew he needed to ask God if the Church was true. He knelt in the middle of his bed. He bowed his head and began to pray.
“Please, God,” Dinis said softly. “Let me know if Joseph Smith really saw you and Jesus.”
Dinis had prayed many times before. But this time was different. Dinis really needed to know. He prayed harder than ever for help.
“I don’t want to be wrong,” he whispered. “I just want to know what’s right.”
Then Dinis felt something. The feeling was strong and warm. It grew until he felt it all over his body. He felt like he might explode with joy!
Dinis knew the feeling was the Holy Ghost. God had answered his prayer! The missionaries were right. Joseph Smith really was a prophet. And getting baptized wasn’t just a good choice. It was the best choice.
Dinis lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. His worries were gone. He pulled his blanket close around him. Before he knew it, he was asleep.
As Dinis got older, he always remembered the night when he prayed in his bunkbed. He knew that he was on the right path as a member of Jesus Christ’s Church. And he knew that Heavenly Father would always hear his prayers.

A young man came to see me recently who had been called by the Lord to fill a mission. He was a fine young man—handsome, strong, sharp—but he said he didn’t want to go on his mission because there were other things that he would rather do. As we visited he told me that one thing he would rather do was drive a dune buggy. We talked about the relative merits of trading eternal life for a dune buggy; and he decided, perhaps, that was not exactly a fair exchange. I suggested to him that if he still wanted to drive a dune buggy after he had filled his mission, the Lord would probably let him do so, since the Lord always grants unto men “according to their desire.” (Alma 29:4.)

“This is the greatest!” Shilo exclaimed as she laced up her ice skates. The girls and boys she had invited to her birthday party glided across the ice. The clank of skate blades on the ice could be heard throughout the indoor rink.
“Be careful in there,” her mom said. “Have fun!”
“OK!” Shilo tottered toward the rink to join her friends. “Hey, Kari! Let’s go skate over there.” Shilo pointed to some of their friends, and they skated over to join the group. They all laughed and joked and raced around the rink. They were having a great time!
After a while, Shilo asked Kari, “Have you seen Brian? I haven’t seen him.”
“Me neither.”
“Wait, I see him over there sitting at that table.”
Shilo and Kari left the ice and joined Brian at the table. His brown eyes looked as if he had lost a puppy.
“What’s wrong, Brian?” they asked.
“Oh, nothing. They won’t give me any skates. They ran out of my size. And the guy won’t give me my money back.” He shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
Shilo’s mom overheard. “Come with me, Brian,” she said. “We’ll see if we can do something about that.” She smiled at him, trying to cheer him up.
The two girls went back to the skating rink. Time went by, but Shilo still didn’t see Brian out in the rink. She went back to see what was taking so long. When she got off the ice she saw her mother still talking to the man at the counter. Brian had resumed his position with his head on the table.
“Why aren’t you skating?” Shilo asked.
“They still don’t have my size, I guess.”
“What size do you wear?”
“Six.” Brian didn’t lift his head from the table.
“So do I! How about if you use my skates for a while? I need to rest my ankles. They’re beginning to hurt a little.”
Brian perked up. “Really?”
“Yeah. I can’t wear these things too long because I have weak ankles.” Shilo grinned as his face lit up.
“OK, but if you want them back just come and tell me and we can trade.”
“OK!”
Shilo took off her skates and gave them to Brian. He put them on and was quickly out on the ice. As Shilo watched Brian skate, she felt good inside. She knew she had done the right thing.

My father, who was raised in a farming village, was living in the city going to school when he met my mother. My mother was beginning her career as a professional opera singer. As they became acquainted, she introduced him to the Church. Although he had not been baptized yet, my parents married on February 18, 1967.
At the end of that year they were blessed with the arrival of my older brother. Eight months after his birth, the branch president received a revelation that the members should prepare to be led out of the country to a place where they could worship in freedom. In August 1968 the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, creating chaos at the borders and throughout the country. The branch members who had obediently prepared escaped to Vienna, Austria.
My grandmother, who left the country with my parents, wrote: “At night when everybody in the apartment house slept, we said good-bye to our home and quietly slipped away in fear that the baby might start crying. We had to do all this in secret because we had in our building three spies who worked for the secret police. We were blessed by the Lord. We escaped. When we left we knew we [would] never return, but we didn’t know where we would go from Vienna either. At this time we couldn’t worry about it. The Lord revealed to the branch president His promises to us if we stay faithful to Him.”
My grandmother, my parents, and two other families lived in the basement of the Böcklinstrasse church building in Vienna for over a month. During this month my father took the missionary discussions and was baptized. Many members of the three families found jobs, and they pooled their wages together until they were all able to immigrate to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Due to bad weather in Calgary, their plane landed in Edmonton on November 5, 1968.

When I was young, I would have to hurry home from school on Tuesday afternoons in order to get to Primary on time. It was held during the week then. I remember one particular teacher, Sister Rawlings. She helped our class learn the last five articles of faith so that we could recite them all. She also instilled in me a love for Scouting. On my twelfth birthday, I spent the afternoon passing off the Tenderfoot requirements so that I could be a Scout. Sister Rawlings had prepared me well, and I passed. She gave me a Boy Scout pocketknife that I treasured for years.

About four hours after arriving at the ward building, the three boys are in Melbourne, a central Florida city that Hurricane Jeanne hit hard. They’re part of a huge group of Latter-day Saints who arrived in the city to provide hurricane relief. As they’re getting their assignments from a local bishop who is steering the volunteer effort, they look around at the destruction. Trees are down, roof shingles are scattered, and debris is everywhere. The job looks overwhelming, especially after hearing that the young men’s assignment is to work on houses at a trailer park.
“It’s interesting to see what the hurricane has done,” says Jake. “We didn’t have much damage in Jacksonville. But to see these houses that had been blown apart, I realize that, wow, this was where somebody lived.”
As they begin to haul siding and insulation to the curb, they notice an older man standing amid the rubble that had been a portion of his house before it collapsed. “Just get rid of everything,” the man says. “None of it is worth saving.” The boys introduce themselves, and the man, named Leo, looks around. “You’re saying this isn’t going to cost me anything? Now who are you again?”
Well, since he asked, they’re Aaronic Priesthood holders, giving up a weekend to help people in need.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that there is always somebody worse off than you are,” says Travis. “It is sad to see what the hurricane did. I’m glad I can help.”
About a half-hour after they had arrived at Leo’s house, everything is cleared from what used to be the south side of his home. All the wet carpeting has been torn up, and the ruined furniture is piled on the curb. “I can’t believe it,” Leo says. “I didn’t know what to do. I could have never done all this, and you guys did in 30 minutes what would have taken me weeks.”
“That was a highlight,” says Austin as he walks away after shaking Leo’s hand. “He was so appreciative of what we did.”
“We didn’t need to get credit. But it was fun to meet Leo and see the look on his face and see how what we were doing was affecting him,” says Jake. “Maybe we left him with good feelings about the Church.”

A conversation some years ago with a friend was influential in my commitment to attend Relief Society. I had just stopped teaching school and was enjoying staying home. My friend asked, “If you don’t go back to work, won’t you be wasting all those years of education?”
My answers were not very convincing to her. “I know you,” she insisted. “You don’t like to cook or sew. You never even enjoyed tending children as a teenager the way the rest of us did. You are a good student and like to perform. You like to be out with people. You’ll be bored in a few years at home.”
“Well,” I replied with perhaps a little feeling of smugness, “I have Relief Society.”
“You can’t tell me that a meeting once a week will supply all your needs outside your home,” she protested.
Since then, I have discovered we both were right during that discussion. Being content at home has been more difficult for me than I anticipated. But belonging to an organization that encourages sisterhood and a desire to serve, encourages womanhood, develops talents, stimulates learning, and increases spirituality does make me happy. In fact, it keeps me singing.

I heard the testimony of a new mission president, Brother Salik, who is now presiding over the Brazil Rio de Janeiro Mission. He was born in Yugoslavia but moved into Austria at the end of World War II because of persecution. He said that the people almost starved to death but were saved by assistance under the Marshall Plan, in which food, clothing, and monetary assistance were provided by the United States after World War II to help those countries get on their feet. Brother Salik emigrated to Australia, and there two Mormon elders taught him the gospel and he joined the Church. He feels that he was saved by help from the United States.

Spiritual strength frequently comes through selfless service. Some years ago I visited what was then called the California Mission, where I interviewed a young missionary from Georgia. I recall saying to him, “Do you send a letter home to your parents every week?”
He replied, “Yes, Brother Monson.”
Then I asked, “Do you enjoy receiving letters from home?”
He didn’t answer. At length I inquired, “When was the last time you had a letter from home?”
With a quavering voice, he responded, “I’ve never had a letter from home. Father’s just a deacon, and Mother’s not a member of the Church. They pleaded with me not to come. They said that if I left on a mission, they would not be writing to me. What shall I do, Brother Monson?”
I offered a silent prayer to my Heavenly Father: “What should I tell this young servant of Thine, who has sacrificed everything to serve Thee?” And the inspiration came. I said, “Elder, you send a letter home to your mother and father every week of your mission. Tell them what you are doing. Tell them how much you love them and then bear your testimony to them.”
He asked, “Will they then write to me?”
I responded, “Then they will write to you.”
We parted and I went on my way. Months later I was attending a stake conference in Southern California, when a young missionary came up to me and said, “Brother Monson, do you remember me? I’m the missionary who had not received a letter from my mother or my father during my first nine months in the mission field. You told me, ‘Send a letter home every week, Elder, and your parents will write to you.’” Then he asked, “Do you remember that promise, Elder Monson?”
I remembered. I inquired, “Have you heard from your parents?”
He reached into his pocket and took out a sheaf of letters with an elastic band around them, took a letter from the top of the stack, and said, “Have I heard from my parents! Listen to this letter from my mother: ‘Son, we so much enjoy your letters. We’re proud of you, our missionary. Guess what? Dad has been ordained a priest. He’s preparing to baptize me. I’m meeting with the missionaries; and one year from now we want to come to California as you complete your mission, for we, with you, would like to become a forever family by entering the temple of the Lord.’” This young missionary asked, “Brother Monson, does Heavenly Father always answer prayers and fulfill Apostles’ promises?”
I replied, “When one has faith as you have demonstrated, our Heavenly Father hears such prayers and answers in His own way.”
Clean hands, a pure heart, and a willing mind had touched heaven. A blessing, heaven-sent, had answered the fervent prayer of a missionary’s humble heart.

As she lay in bed, Julia thought back to the twins’ baptisms. They had been asked to sing a duet for the baptismal program. Julia remembered how nervous they had looked when they first got up in front of everyone. But they’d squeezed each other’s hand for courage and sung “Love One Another” beautifully.
When Sister Jacobsen, the stake Primary president, called Julia a few weeks ago, it surprised her. “Your sisters did such a wonderful job that we wondered if you would prepare a song for us also,” Sister Jacobsen had asked.
Before giving Sister Jacobsen an answer, Julia thought about it for several days. Her sisters were a lot more outgoing than she was, and they had lots of friends. Julia had a couple of good friends, but she usually just sat quietly in Primary and at school activities and seldom shared what she was thinking.
Once, Julia had overheard her mother’s friend call her shy. Her mother had replied, “Oh, she’s not really shy—she’s just a good listener.” But from then on, Julia thought of herself as being shy.
Dad had told Julia that after baptism she would be given a special gift, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and it would bless her in many ways. It would even help her gain more confidence. He said that it was one of the greatest gifts he had ever received, and Julia wondered if she’d feel the same. She didn’t really understand how it worked, and wondered how it could help her with her shyness. But she knew that the Holy Ghost is also called the Comforter, and the name sounded like that of a good friend.
One night, after praying and receiving a good feeling, Julia told Sister Jacobsen that she would sing at the baptism. Every night for two weeks she practiced “I Know My Father Lives” with her dad, who would accompany her on the piano. She knew both verses by heart, and her dad even learned them too. It was fun to sing together before going to bed.
As Julia lay in the darkness, the words of the song went through her head. “I know my Father lives and loves me too. The Spirit whispers this to me and tells me it is true, And tells me it is true.” She loved how the song made her feel, and as she softly hummed it, she finally fell asleep.
After breakfast the next morning, Julia dressed quickly in her new white dress. Everyone was happy and excited for her and listened one last time as she sang “I Know My Father Lives” without one mistake.
After changing into her baptismal clothes at the church, Julia and her dad took their places at the front of the chapel. There were five other children being baptized that day, and Julia knew most of them from school. She was surprised to see how many friends, parents, and relatives filled the chapel. A sick feeling of nervousness suddenly swept over her as she thought about standing in front of everyone and singing. She wished she hadn’t accepted, after all.
Julia tried not to think about the song and listened to the talks being given and watched the video presentation about the promises she was making. All too soon Sister Jacobsen announced her name and the song she would sing. Nervously she stood at the podium and looked down at her dad, who smiled warmly at her from his place at the piano.
I can do it, she thought to herself. I’ll just pretend I’m singing in my living room, and I won’t look at the crowd.
“I know my Father lives and loves me too,” Julia sang in a shaky voice. As she continued, she glanced down at the people who filled the chapel. There were so many of them, all looking at her, and all at once her head felt hot and dizzy. The words stuck in her throat, and then she couldn’t remember where she was in the song. There was nothing to do but stop singing.
It seemed to her as if she stood there forever, crying in front of everyone, her hands covering her face. Julia had never been so scared, and she didn’t know what to do. She felt so alone, in spite of all the people there, and she wanted to run out of the church just to get away from everyone.
But the piano was still playing, and through her crying she could hear a man’s voice softly singing the words. It was her dad. He was singing the end of the first verse. Julia wanted to sing along with him, but she was crying too hard. He started the second verse in a clear, strong voice: “He sent me here to earth, by faith to live his plan. The Spirit whispers this to me and tells me that I can, And tells me that I can.”
By the end of the song, Julia had stopped crying and had her eyes on her dad. She realized that the song was over and that her singing of it had been a failure. Embarrassed and still sniffling, she walked to her seat and took her place on the front row. When her dad slipped in beside her, she couldn’t bear to look up at him. She had disappointed her whole family and ruined the entire program. Oh, why did I ever think I could do it? Julia wondered. I’m just too shy.
Julia felt her dad’s strong arms lift her onto his lap. As she slowly looked up at him, she saw that he didn’t look disappointed in her at all. In fact, he had a big smile on his face.
“Oh, Julia,” he whispered excitedly, “this is how I can explain to you exactly how the gift of the Holy Ghost works. When you stopped singing and started to cry, you felt scared and alone, didn’t you?”
Julia nodded, puzzled.
“Then I helped you by singing the rest of the song when you couldn’t finish it. Well, after you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, you need never feel alone again. When you are scared and don’t know what to do, if you listen very carefully, you will hear another voice coming through. Heavenly Father will send the Comforter to help you. He will help you make the right decisions. Most important, He will comfort you, if you just listen and keep the commandments. Julia, He will always be your friend.”
A warm feeling came over Julia as she placed her small hand inside her dad’s. She no longer felt embarrassed about not completing the song. For the first time she understood why the gift of the Holy Ghost was such a great gift. My own special Comforter, she thought happily.
“Maybe I am a little shy,” she whispered to her dad, “but I am a good listener.”

I have pleasant memories associated with the fall season of the year and the time of the harvest. After eight years of living in sunny California, we moved to New York, where I was again reminded of the more dramatic seasonal changes of a cooler climate.

One morning as I was walking down the street on the way to the train station, kicking through the leaves that had fallen on the walk overnight, I suddenly had the urge, the strongest urge, to bite into a beautiful crisp, red apple. The association of the rustle of the leaves and that taste of an apple just seemed to go together. I could hardly wait to arrive in the city and find a fruit stand to buy one. I was not disappointed; the falling leaves and a big, red apple were just as pleasant to enjoy as I remembered from my boyhood.

When 118 youth from Auckland, New Zealand, and their leaders planned a four-day temple conference to the Hamilton New Zealand Temple, they had a simple but impressive goal: to perform as many baptisms for the dead as possible during their stay.
They began preparing for the trip many months in advance. As part of the preparation, young men and young women researched names from their family histories that they could bring with them to the temple.
All their preparation paid off in a big way. The youth and their leaders had a spiritual feast from the moment they arrived to when they set their sights back home four days later—not to mention all the blessings that came before and after the event because of their devotion to family history and temple worthiness.
In order to spend as much time at the temple as they could, they wanted to stay near the temple instead of making the two-hour drive each direction every day. So for the whole temple conference, youth and leaders stayed in dorm rooms near the temple.
It wasn’t practical to have 62 young men and 56 young women all doing baptisms at once, so they decided instead to go to the temple in shifts. The youth were divided into five groups, and each group attended at least two shifts at the temple during the four days.
From the beginning, their goal was to complete as many baptisms as possible to help their ancestors. They succeeded rather spectacularly. The 118 youth performed baptisms and confirmations for 3,542 people, many of whom were their ancestors.

Now, lest you think I am immune to this, let me share an experience. This is the first iPod that my wife gave me. I felt like I was actually the last one in my family – or even on the earth – to get one. For many of the years I spent in the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City, I used public transportation to travel to and from work. A co-worker I associated closely with is now retired and serving a mission with her husband in Virginia. For the last several years before coming to Hawaii, she and I lived in the same area north of Salt Lake, so from time to time, we would end up on the same bus going home. One day, we had left separately for the elevators, but as I exited the building and was getting my iPod in place for the ride home, I ended up catching up to her. With my ear buds in place, she asked me if I ever had any quiet time. I told her that although the ear buds were there, often nothing was playing, and I just used them to send a signal to others that I didn’t want to have a conversation on the way home – and that actually did help me get some quiet time. However, I still reflected on her question. Just how much quiet time do I provide for myself, and how does this impact my responsiveness to the Spirit? Even now, if you visit my office, there will be music playing because I don’t like it to be “too quiet.” The same is true for you. How much “quiet time” do you provide yourself?

I remember the Sunday when I first learned about President Hinckley’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Two weeks before, as part of a challenge from my Young Women president, I had finished reading the Book of Mormon in 65 days—the approximate time it took Joseph Smith to translate it. It averaged out to be about nine pages per day, and I had struggled to finish it in time. Now here I was sitting in sacrament meeting, listening to a letter asking me to read it again.
I started to think: “I’m going to be so busy this year in school; I’m not going to have time to read more than one page a day. President Hinckley just wanted us to read it this year, and I already did that. I’m sure he would understand.” By the time the sacrament was over, I had rationalized my way out of the challenge.
It was fast and testimony meeting that Sunday, and many people talked about the blessings that come from scripture reading. “I’ll still read my scriptures regularly,” I thought to myself.
The next person to get up was a friend of mine. I listened complacently until he mentioned the Book of Mormon challenge.
“It’s going to be hard,” he said. “But the prophet asked us to do it, and whatever the prophet says, goes.”
Whatever the prophet says, goes. That statement hit me hard. What had I been thinking? It wasn’t just anyone who had asked us to read the Book of Mormon; it was a prophet, the Lord’s messenger. If an angel appeared to me, I would listen. This wasn’t any different. I was going to obey President Hinckley, no matter what it took.
I finished reading the Book of Mormon, and I know I made the right decision. I don’t have any spectacular stories to tell about reading it, but I know that the experience as a whole strengthened my testimony. I was really busy that year, and having a goal motivated me to read my scriptures every day.
“Whatever the prophet says, goes” has sort of become a motto for me. When I am tempted with things such as immodesty or inappropriate movies, I think back to that memorable fast and testimony meeting.
I’m glad I was paying attention that day. I’m also glad that my friend got up and bore his testimony and that the Spirit carried his words into my heart.