Gospel Story Finder

Roberto frowned. This was only his second time at Primary since he had moved from Chile to America, and already his teacher was telling the class she loved him.
How can she say such a thing? Roberto wondered. She does not even know me. And besides, why should anyone love a chubby boy who doesn’t have nice clothes to wear? Tears threatened to fill his eyes as he thought of the many relatives and friends he had left behind in South America. He had been so lonely since his father had died. He and his mother had come to Utah so that she could learn English and attend Brigham Young University.
“I have made each of you a special valentine,” Sister Porter said, handing each child a shiny foil heart on which she had written “I love you.” Roberto took his but shrugged off the hug his teacher tried to give him. Later, when he got home, he tore up the card and threw it in the garbage.
All that week, Roberto felt very sad. During class, he looked out the window and daydreamed about moving back to Chile. He was never going to fit in here.
On Thursday afternoon, Roberto walked home from school. He forgot all about locking the door behind him when he saw a note from his mother taped to the refrigerator: “I’m taking a test. I’ll be back at 5:30. Read the Friends Sister Porter dropped off for you.”
After fixing himself a snack, Roberto began to leaf through the magazines.
First he looked at the pictures. Then he started to read a few stories. After a while he noticed that the sad and lonely feelings were starting to go away.
Then he remembered the unkind things some children had said on the school bus that morning when they thought that he couldn’t hear. One of the children had been in his Primary class! Hurt and anger began to build up inside him again until he looked down at the magazine in his hands. There was a picture of the Savior with little children all around Him. Roberto was surprised to find tears of happiness in his eyes. It was almost as if a voice was saying to him, “Jesus loves you, Roberto.”
A feeling of warmth and love surrounded him, and he knew somehow that the Savior truly did know him and love him. He was filled with hope and an overwhelming assurance that in time he would have many friends in his new school and ward.
Roberto thought back to Sunday and how Sister Porter must have felt when he pulled away from her hug. I will make her a valentine, he decided, jumping up and gathering paper and crayons. Then he remembered the new colored markers his mother had bought for her college classes. They were on top of the highest shelf in the kitchen, and he climbed onto the counter to get them.
Stretching as far as he could, he couldn’t quite reach them. He jumped just a little but lost his balance and fell. Twisting awkwardly, he plunged to the floor and heard an ugly cracking noise as he landed on his left arm.
Never had he felt such pain! His arm felt as if it was on fire. He knew that he should telephone his mother, but as soon as he tried to stand, waves of nausea and dizziness washed over him, forcing him back to the floor.
The clock on the wall read ten to four. Swallowing back the tears, Roberto began a silent prayer, asking Heavenly Father to send someone to help. As he worked up his courage to crawl to the phone, a car pulled into the driveway. His mother! Heavenly Father had sent her home early! But then he heard a knock, and after several moments, a familiar voice called his name.
“Help me!” Roberto yelled. “I’m hurt!”
The door opened and Sister Porter looked in. “What happened?” she asked, hurrying to his side.
“My arm—I think I broke it.” Roberto was embarrassed by his tears, but his teacher didn’t say anything about them as she gently helped him up and made him as comfortable as possible on the couch in the living room.
“Where’s your mother?” she asked him then. “Your arm will need to be X-rayed.” After leaving a message at the university for his mother, Sister Porter sat beside him. “I see you’ve been reading the magazines I sent over. Did you find any stories you really liked?”
Roberto felt a little shy, but talking helped keep his mind off the pain. “I read a lot of the stories, but the best part was finding this picture of Jesus with the little children. I have never seen it before.”
Sister Porter studied the picture, and a very peaceful look came to her face. “I think that this is a special picture, too, Roberto. Whenever I look at it, I feel how much love Jesus has for all children.”
Roberto found himself telling his teacher about his feelings on Sunday and all during the week. Then, somewhat sheepishly, he admitted that he had torn up the valentine he had received in class. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I was going to use my mom’s special markers to make you a valentine. They were up high, and when I climbed up to get them, I fell.”
Sister Porter smiled as she gently patted his cheek. “Crayons will do fine.”
Just then Roberto’s mother came in. “Roberto! Oh Roberto!” She knelt beside him, very tenderly feeling the large lump on his arm. “It must be broken. We will go to the hospital right away.” She looked at Sister Porter with worry and pleading in her eyes. “There will be many insurance papers. My English is not very good. …”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Sister Porter said. “I’ll call my children and have them fix supper. I’ll go with you to the hospital and help you with the papers.”
That evening was a long one. Many people were waiting in the emergency room, and it seemed forever before a nurse called Roberto’s name and he was examined and X-rayed. Never having had a cast before, Roberto felt a bit nervous. But Sister Porter stayed with him the whole time, entertaining him with a story about the time her oldest son had fallen from the backyard swing set and had broken his wrist.
Roberto lay on the examining table after the cast was applied. He was surprised to see that it was almost nine o’clock. “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked his teacher. “Doesn’t your family need you?”
“They’ll be fine,” Sister Porter said, producing a granola bar from the depths of her purse. “Feel up to sharing this?”
They ate and talked while they waited for Roberto’s mother. Sister Porter had found a Spanish-speaking nurse to help his mother fill out the insurance forms.
“Do you know why I came to your house this afternoon?” Sister Porter asked.
Roberto shook his head.
“I was on my way home from running errands, and I felt prompted to stop my van. I think you must have been praying for help. Were you?”
“I was! I asked Heavenly Father to send someone. I am very glad He sent you.” Roberto smiled at his teacher.
Sister Porter asked to borrow a red marking pen from one of the nurses passing by.
“What do you need a marker for?” Roberto asked.
Sister Porter winked and uncapped the pen. “In this country, we have a tradition,” she said. “If someone gets a cast, we write nice messages on it. May I be the first to write on yours?”
Roberto nodded, curious and pleased.
Sister Porter drew a large red heart, then wrote I • U in the middle of it. She grinned mischievously. “This one you can’t rip up and throw away!”
“Don’t worry,” Roberto said, his eyes twinkling. “Today I have learned that you really do love me!”

“Not long ago I interviewed a young man who desired to fill a mission, but he had been guilty of some very serious transgressions during his teen years. He was a member of an active Latter-day Saint family, and he himself had been an actively participating member of the Church, even during the time of his transgressions. Ultimately he had gone to his bishop and confessed his wrongdoings. Now, for more than a year, his life had been free of the earlier difficulties, and he was anxious to serve a mission.
“As we talked about his situation and the decisions he had made earlier in his life that led to his questionable standing in the Church, he said, ‘Oh, I knew that what I was doing was wrong, and I was sure that one day I would put things back in order and go on a mission.’
“While I was pleased with this young man’s desire to reorder his life and serve the Lord as a missionary, I was troubled by the apparent premeditated, calculated way in which he had allowed himself to move off the proper course to engage in some destructive, immoral behavior, and then, almost as if he were following a timetable set by himself, he had begun to reconstruct his resolve to be obedient.”

“Saturday’s activity will be a daddy-daughter cooking class,” Sister Marshall announced.
A wave of excited murmurs rolled through our Primary group. I suppose every girl was imagining bubbling desserts, fun games, and two whole hours with her dad. Every girl but me, that is. I didn’t have a dad—not even a shared-visitation dad like the ones some girls at school talked about. Instead of excitement, an anxious knot twisted in my stomach. I felt my face flush hot with emotion, and I clenched my teeth, fighting to force back tears.
Sister Marshall must have noticed my reaction. Once the meeting was over, she gently placed her hand on my shoulder. “Feel free to bring your mom, Tess.” She meant well, but those simple words were enough to set my tears free. I dropped my head so she wouldn’t notice and turned away.
“It’s OK,” I told myself. “You don’t have to go to that silly activity anyway.” But I knew it was a lie. I would have given anything to be part of a family that didn’t need special instructions from Sister Marshall—a family like the others that I saw dotting the rows of the chapel every Sunday. But my dad had left my mom and me when I was just a baby. We hadn’t heard from him in years, and I knew there was no way he was going to magically reappear just in time for Saturday’s activity.
“Get over it!” I ordered myself for at least the hundredth time since our baptism three years before. Our family was so much stronger now that we had a testimony of Heavenly Father’s plan, and I was grateful for all the gospel had given us. Still, it hadn’t been easy stepping into a group of friends who had been together since they were little—sharing baptisms, Primary activities, ward socials. I was the new girl, and although the others really tried to make me feel included, I still felt that I was different. I sometimes felt like a puzzle with one center piece missing.
“How was class?” Mom asked cheerfully as we drove home. She was a different person since our baptism—happier and more confident.
“Great,” I fibbed. Probably better not to worry her about the cooking class. After all, there was nothing she could do about it.
The week passed quickly. Schoolwork, chores, and friends kept me busy and allowed me to forget about Saturday’s activity. That is, until the phone rang Friday night.
“It’s for you,” my sister said, holding out the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Tess. This is Brother Erickson.” Brother Erickson was our home teacher. He owned an ice-cream shop in town and sometimes brought containers of mint chip or cherry chocolate to our house. He often made me laugh with his twinkling eyes and quick smile. But I couldn’t imagine why he would be calling me.
His voice was cheerful and strong. “I was wondering if you’d let me join you at the cooking class tomorrow.”
I held my breath and peeked into the kitchen where my mom was washing the dinner dishes. I smiled at the mounds of bubbles clinging to her arms. “She couldn’t have told him,” I thought. “She didn’t even know.” I wondered if Sister Marshall had called him.
“I read about it in the bulletin last Sunday,” he continued. “It sounds like fun.”
“Oh yeah, the bulletin.”
“So? Think you can handle toting an old man like me around your party?”
“You don’t have to—” I started.
“I want to!” Then he was silent for a moment. “Please.”
“Well, OK.” To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure it would be OK. I mean, I didn’t know him that well. But my new excitement for going to the activity outweighed any doubt.
Saturday came, and when Mom dropped me off at the church, Brother Erickson was waiting for me in a bright red apron. His smile eased my worries as we joined the other fathers and daughters. We had a blast learning how to make cherry cobbler and homemade whipping cream in our crowded meetinghouse kitchen. He never once made me feel like he was doing me a favor or just fulfilling his calling.
When Mom came to pick me up, Brother Erickson gave me a big high five. “Thanks for letting me come. I had a great time!” I knew that he really meant it.
Years passed, and Brother Erickson remained our home teacher. In addition to his visits, he invited my family over for many game nights at his house. He joined me at more father-daughter activities and gave me my first real job at his ice-cream store when I turned 16.
After college when I was getting married in the Los Angeles California Temple, I asked Brother Erickson to serve as a witness. When I walked into the sealing room, I saw him sitting in the chair typically reserved for the father of the bride. He smiled his silly smile at me, and I knew that he was exactly where he should be. After all, he was no ordinary home teacher. He had become my very close friend.

God expresses His love for us by helping us to progress and reach our potential. Perhaps a simple story will illustrate this point. A young boy could not get a computer to work properly. Soon he became discouraged. His temper grew short, and he threatened to destroy the computer. His wise father decided to help and took his son to a local computer store to get an instruction manual. After all, who would know more about a computer than the person or company that created it? By working within the guidelines given in the instruction book, the boy soon enjoyed the full potential of his computer.

But just like the pioneers, I had to adapt to the place where I had arrived. It was a world unknown to me—wonderful, but unknown. The way people dressed, the way they talked, the way they acted were all new to me. I didn’t always understand the meanings of the phrases commonly used in the Church. For example, when talking to people who had been members for longer than I had, they might talk about someone whom they described as a “powerful member,” meaning someone who was righteous and a good example to others. My idea of power was different. These things were common knowledge to the rest of them, but I had to learn them.
This period of transition from investigator to active member was not easy. Fortunately, like the pioneers, I was never alone. Sandro and other understanding members were always close by to answer my questions, simple as they were, and to guide me on the path I had undertaken. My leaders were concerned enough to see that I remained worthy and received the priesthood, and later I was able to serve as a counselor to the bishop. My teachers always took care to see that I was nourished by the good word of God. I realize now that through these good people, the Lord helped me stay strong in the Church.

An example of this is Brad Hall. It seemed that he had everything going for him to be happy and successful. He was an outstanding missionary and was in the last few weeks of his time in Argentina. One night he and his companion heard a noise in their apartment complex. They got up and found an armed burglar. In the course of events, a shot was fired and Elder Hall was struck. In an instant, he became a paraplegic—paralyzed from the waist down, and has since been confined to a wheelchair. He came back to Ricks the next year and made the difficult adjustment to life on campus during the winter, in a wheelchair.

In the spring, when awards where made, Elder Hall was among the top scholars. He proved that you can overcome many difficulties and learn to cope with those you can’t change.

“My favorite babysitter was my grandaunt Bertha Irvine, my grandmother’s older sister. She was a personal secretary to Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, Heber J. Grant, and George Albert Smith. Sometimes I went to her office in the Church Administration Building and sat at her feet while she worked. Or I would play outside and climb on the building and around its big pillars. We’ve had twelve prophets, and I’ve known and shaken hands with six of them. I never even dreamed that I would ever have an office in that very building, but I serve today with a number of men who knew Aunt Bertha well: President Kimball, President Benson, and President Hinckley. She worked with Elder Joseph Anderson for years in the office of our wonderful prophets.
“My experiences with Sunday School and Primary teachers were important to me as I was growing up. I remember the little red chairs we used to sit in and how church was always an exciting and pleasant place to go. I looked forward to summer Primary, when we would make things out of wood and out of paper. I loved that. As I think back and remember Sister Condie and Sister Anderson and Sister Barnes and some of the other lovely teachers I had, I can remember them more clearly than I can my school teachers. I won a copy of Huckleberry Finn because I had the best attendance record. I still have that book. I appreciate the teacher who gave it to me.
“I had a great experience when I graduated from Primary. Back in those days we each had a green bandalo. I had lost mine. I looked everywhere, including under my bed and through everything in the closet. Finally my mother said, ‘Why don’t you pray about it. Ask Heavenly Father to help you find it.’ So I went to my room and prayed. Even as I was praying, a voice seemed to say, ‘In the dresser, caught underneath the drawer.’ The dresser was in the hall because there wasn’t enough room in my tiny bedroom. When I pulled out the drawer and reached up inside, there it was, caught on a silver! That was the first direct answer to prayer that I can remember receiving. I was proud that I could wear my bandalo when I stood next to Bishop Rulon Sperry as he nominated me to graduate from Primary and to be ordained to the office of a deacon.
“Many summers my family went to Cedar City and stayed on my uncle’s farm. There was no electricity or water in the house, so we carried buckets of water into the house from outside. I experienced farm life as it really was in those days. Now my assignment is with the people in that very same area. It is special to go there—it’s like going home. Some of the people there remember my uncle and aunt and other families I knew.
“A special message that I give to all the children in the world is this: First, love Jesus. He especially loves children, and if children can learn to love Him, then when they are older, they will continue to love Him and understand Him. I think that little children sometimes understand Jesus better than older people do because children forgive so quickly and love so easily.
“Second, live the commandments. The people I know who are truly happy are those who live the commandments. Whatever Heavenly Father wants us to do—such as paying our tithing and going to church and being nice to our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers—that’s what we should do.
“Third, obey Church leaders. When I was a Primary boy, my parents would always talk about our wonderful bishop, Bishop Sperry. When I was a deacon, my bishop was Rex C. Reeve, Sr., a man with whom I serve today. I have always loved those men. When I don’t have a Church assignment on Sunday, which isn’t very often, I attend my own ward. My bishop there is Ole Johnson, and I love him today just as I loved Bishop Sperry and Bishop Reeve when I was young. If we love our Church leaders and obey what they tell us to do, then we’ll never make serious mistakes.”

I share with you an incident or two from the early life of President Marion G. Romney, best told in his own words:
“I’m a Mexican by birth. I was born in Colonia Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. My parents happened to be down there at the time. I was raised there until I was about fifteen years old. During the last two or three of those years, the Madero Revolution was in progress. The rebels and the federalists were chasing each other through the country; each taking everything we colonists had, by way of arms and ammunition and by way of supplies. Finally we were forced to leave. I came out of Mexico with the Mormon refugees in 1912.
“I remember I had a very thrilling experience on the way from where we lived to the railroad station about [13 kilometers] south of Colonia Juárez. We went in a wagon. … I was riding with my mother and her seven children and my uncle (her brother) and his family of about five or six children. … We had one trunk—that was all we were able to bring. I was seated on the trunk in the back of the wagon. … The Mexican rebel army was coming up the valley from the railroad station towards our town. They were not in formation. They were riding their saddle horses. Their guns were in the scabbards. Two of them stopped us and searched us. They said they were looking for guns. We didn’t have any guns or ammunition. They did find [20 pesos] on my uncle. … They took that and then waved us on. They went up the road about as far as from here to the back of this room, stopped, turned around, drew their guns from their scabbards, and pointed them down the road at me. As I looked up the barrels of those guns, they looked like cannons to me. They didn’t pull their triggers, however, as evidenced by the fact that I am here to tell the story. That was a very thrilling experience! One of my maturing experiences.
“The rebels blew up the railroad track after the train we were on passed over it. Later, Father and the rest of the men came out to El Paso, Texas, on horseback. We never returned nor did we recover any of our property while my father lived.
“Father and I went to work to earn a living for his large family. There were no welfare programs then. We had a difficult time making a living” (To Him That Asketh in the Spirit, Salt Lake Institute of Religion Devotional [18 October 1974] 2–3).
After he was married and his family was started, President Romney worked full time at the post office in order to provide for his family while he went through law school. In those difficult conditions his marks were high and his scholarship excellent; he was later admitted to the Order of the Coif, which admits only the most distinguished scholars. He practiced law and became a bishop, a stake president, one of the first Assistants to the Twelve, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, and a member of the First Presidency. He demonstrated his great love and compassion for people through his many years of guidance in the welfare program of the Church.

We were visiting some friends this past summer. A very young son with a new tricycle was disturbed because his parents were giving us their attention and all of us were ignoring him. He rode his trike as fast as his little legs could pedal, calling, “Look at me!” The inevitable happened as he looked at us instead of where he was going. He rode directly into a lawn chair. To try to stem the tears and take his mind off the hurt, his mother said, “That naughty chair hurt you. Let’s spank the chair.”
I suppose her response momentarily distracted the boy, but the mother was letting her son blame something else for the accident rather than himself.

One night I went with my friends to a youth activity at the local ice rink. Around and around we went on the cold, slippery ice. I was feeling pretty confident and carefree, and I was glad I had gone to the activity.
My mind wandered as I glided along—this was my mistake! It only took one regrettable second for my feet to twist together like a pretzel, and down I went, smashing my face into the ice. Embarrassed, I collected myself and headed for the side of the rink to assess the damage. I quickly realized that my two front teeth were dangling by the roots.
My ward family stepped into place. Brother Kearns called my parents, but by the time they arrived, my ward family was already making arrangements. Brother Bryson comforted me as he helped me into the car to go see a dentist. It felt just like my family had been with me the whole time. They had taken care of everything, and my mom and dad were grateful.

In Nepal, students must pass 10th-grade exams to continue in school. Failing the exams ends their education. “One of my teachers,” Preeti says, “wanted me to come on the Sabbath to a study session for the exam. I explained that I could not; I had to go to church.”
“Is that necessary?” he asked.
“Yes,” Preeti answered. “I have a teaching responsibility.” She later passed her “iron gate,” her name for these rigorous tests. “I prayed that whatever I had learned, Heavenly Father would help me remember,” she says.

It was June 12, 1895, the most important day of David Scott’s life he thought. It was his twelfth birthday and Mr. Ragan, an engineer, had promised to let him ride the train all the way to Benton, over sixty miles away. He had been in the cab of Mr. Ragan’s locomotive many times, but switching or creeping out of the rail yards wasn’t really riding on a train—not like today!
Tiptoeing downstairs, David slipped out the backdoor and into the misty chill of the morning air. If he could finish his chores early enough, maybe he could hitch a ride into town on one of the farm wagons going to market.
Hurrying to the woodpile, he carried two big armloads of kindling into the kitchen and placed them in the woodbox beside his mother’s black cookstove. As he entered the barn old Bessie, the black cow, bawled in complaint as he poured cracked corn into a pan to carry to the chicken yard. The barn cats tumbled about his feet, then followed him to the door, mewing. Like Bessie, they seemed surprised that he wasn’t milking first, but this was no ordinary morning.
By the time he finished the milking and had carried the pail of warm, sudsy milk to the springhouse, his mother had breakfast ready and a lunch packed for him. Racing down the lane, he heard Mr. Jule’s wagon coming over the steep hill. “Hop on, David,” Mr. Jule shouted as he saw the tall blond youth standing beside the roadside mailbox. After tossing his jacket and lunch into the back of the moving wagon, David leaped in, held on to the swaying side, and eased himself down, legs swinging as they traveled over the deep yellow ruts of the dirt road. I’ll make it in plenty of time, he thought happily.
At the depot he swung down from the wagon bed and thanked Mr. Jule for the ride.
“Are you ready for the big trip, David?” Mr. Ragan asked, leaping down from the cab of the steam-hissing locomotive. Such a giant of a man, David thought. He moves as easily as a cat.
“I sure am,” David answered, his face flushed with excitement. Then, stroking one of the big wheels, David asked, “Can I help you and Mr. Ellis check her over and oil her, Mr. Ragan?”
“Sure, I guess you can. My fireman will probably appreciate a little help—won’t you, Ellis?” Reaching up into the cab, Mr. Ellis handed down a large copper oilcan with a long spout. “But mind you do a good job,” he told David.
Grinning, the stationmaster said, “He ought to know how to do it, as many times as he’s watched. He heads straight here from school every afternoon. I don’t think that boy’s missed meeting the 4 P.M. train from Benton once in two years.” Turning, the stationmaster walked back into the depot with the engineer following.
Later as he perched on a box and leaned out the engineer’s window of the speeding train, David watched an approaching water tower. A moment ago it had only been a dark speck in the distance. He couldn’t believe they had already reached it. Such speed! It was almost like flying. If only I can be an engineer when I grow up, he thought, and by then trains will probably travel even faster.
Of course, it was a lot more complicated than David had thought when he first decided he’d be an engineer. You had to be pretty smart to know about all the levers and gauges and the air brakes that Mr. Ragan handled so easily. Then there were hand, flag, and lamp signals and the block signals and semaphores that tell the engineer to stop or to move ahead. These all had to be learned, besides the fixed signals along the track that told him the proper speed to maintain, the approach of a station crossing, and the whistle posts to let the engineer know when to start blowing a warning whistle. David sighed and wondered how long it had taken Mr. Ragan to learn everything.
“An engineer talks with his whistle,” Mr. Ragan had told him. “It’s like a code. Two long toots means to release brakes and one short toot means to stop. The whistle tells my crew exactly what to do—hop back on the train, protect front of train, or protect rear of train. Each series of short and long toots means something. And a number of short toots is an alarm for persons or livestock on the track.”
Eyes burning from the wind, David drew his head back inside and glanced across the cab at Mr. Ellis, the fireman. The gray-haired man seemed asleep, all scrunched down in his seat, swaying with the motion of the train. No, he looked sick! Tugging on Mr. Ragan’s jacket sleeve, David pointed at the slumped fireman.
“Can you shovel coal into that boiler, David?” Mr. Ragan shouted into his ear, above the deafening noise of the engine. “We’ve got to highball this train into Benton and get Ellis to a doctor. He looks mighty sick to me.”
Hastily David grabbed the shovel and began to toss coal into the cylindrical box of steel with its furnace at one end and smokebox at the other. “I wish we had Locomotive 999,” David mumbled, thinking of the engine that had broken all records by traveling 100 miles per hour two years before. Sweat streamed down his face as he stopped to toss more coal onto the searing fire. He had to keep it blazing to keep plenty of steam up for Mr. Ragan.
Numb with fatigue when the train finally came to a stop, David watched as the men lifted Mr. Ellis down from the locomotive and laid him on the Benton station platform. His face looked so pale that David wondered if he were still alive.
“Just leave him there a minute, boys,” the young doctor said, kneeling beside Mr. Ellis and taking a bottle from his open bag. Pouring some liquid onto a wad of cotton, he passed it back and forth under the nose of the unconscious man. Coughing, Mr. Ellis turned his head away and opened his eyes.
“How is he, doctor?” Mr. Ragan asked after a few moments. “Will he be all right?”
“Yes, I think he’ll be fine. There’s a nasty lump on the side of his head though. He must have hit it while he was firing the boiler. May be a concussion. It’s a good thing you got him here so fast. I’ll want to keep an eye on him today so you’ll have to send for another fireman for your trip back.”
“I have one,” Mr. Ragan said, smiling at David. “That is, if this young man thinks he can still handle that shovel half as well as he did coming in. What do you say, David?”
“Sure. Sure, I can, sir. Soon as I get her oiled,” David answered proudly, teeth gleaming through a layer of coal dust.
“Wait a minute,” protested Mr. Ellis, as the men started to help him into a wagon. “That boy’s a born railroader if I ever saw one, but he needs to borrow my red bandanna handkerchief to keep the sweat from running down his backbone, and my cap, too. Firing’s hot work.”
Turning to the engineer, he said, “Ragan, I predict this lad will be through school and ready to fire for you about the time I’m ready to retire. With a couple of years of study, he’ll make a first-rate engineer and have a locomotive of his own.”
Then shaking the boy’s hand, the firemen smiled. “Thanks a lot, son,” he said. And the men all grinned as David awkwardly knotted the big handkerchief around his neck and placed the high-crowned billed cap on his head.

A little while ago my family and I moved to Kentucky. I was really upset because I was leaving all my friends and extended family behind. Kentucky was very different from what I was used to. The first time we went to church, I saw that there weren’t very many people there. When I realized how small my branch was, I decided that instead of thinking bad about it, I would do something about it.
The next day, my mom and I went to the store. Before we left the house, I grabbed a stack of pass-along cards. When we got to the store, I got a candy bar and went to check out. The cashier scanned the candy, then handed it to me. I handed it back. She looked confused and said, “You just paid for this, ma’am.”
I said, “I know, but I’m giving this to you as a gift.” Then I put a pass-along card with the candy. She smiled and thanked me. She looked at the back of the pass-along card, where I had written, “Everyone is a child of God.” I walked away with happiness, knowing that even if she didn’t join the Church, I still did something good.
Later that day, I remembered that I left the rest of the pass-along cards by the cash register! The next time we went to the store, I went to ask if they were still there. Then I saw something, and I stopped in my steps. About five of the cash registers had pass-along cards that said, “Everyone is a child of God.” The cashier had passed them out! I felt so happy because of what I did.

Many years ago, I traveled on a small plane with a newly certified pilot at the controls. At the end of our flight, we were cleared to land. But as we neared the ground, I heard an alarm in the cockpit warn the pilot to “pull up.” The pilot looked to the more experienced copilot, who pointed in a downward direction, away from the runway, and said, “Now!”
Our plane rapidly moved to the left and down, then climbed back to an appropriate altitude, reentered the landing pattern, and arrived safely at our destination. We later learned that another aircraft had been cleared for takeoff. Had we followed the instructions of the alarm, we would have veered into, rather than away from, the oncoming plane. This experience taught me two important lessons: First, at critical moments in our lives, we will hear multiple voices competing for our attention. And second, it is vital that we listen to the right ones.

Let me conclude with an account of two men who are heroes to me. Their acts of courage were not performed on a national scale but rather in a peaceful place known as Midway, Utah.

Long years ago Roy Kohler and Grant Remund served together in Church capacities. They were the best of friends. They were tillers of the soil and dairymen. Then a misunderstanding arose which became somewhat of a rift between them.

Later, when Roy Kohler became grievously ill with cancer and had but a limited time to live, my wife, Frances, and I visited Roy and his wife, and I gave him a blessing. As we talked afterward, Brother Kohler said, “Let me tell you about one of the sweetest experiences I have had during my life.” He then recounted to me his misunderstanding with Grant Remund and the ensuing estrangement. His comment was “We were sort of on the outs with each other.”

“Then,” continued Roy, “I had just put up our hay for the winter to come when one night, as a result of spontaneous combustion, the hay caught fire, burning the hay, the barn, and everything in it right to the ground. I was devastated,” said Roy. “I didn’t know what in the world I would do. The night was dark, except for the dying embers of the fire. Then I saw coming toward me from the road, in the direction of Grant Remund’s place, the lights of tractors and heavy equipment. As the ‘rescue party’ turned in our drive and met me amidst my tears, Grant said, ‘Roy, you’ve got quite a mess to clean up. My boys and I are here. Let’s get to it.’” Together they plunged to the task at hand. Gone forever was the hidden wedge which had separated them for a short time. They worked throughout the night and into the next day, with many others in the community joining in.

Roy Kohler and Grant Remund have passed away. Their sons have served together in the same ward bishopric. I truly treasure the friendship of these two wonderful families.

Eighteen years ago, my wife and I received a phone call from President James E. Faust, then Second Counselor in the First Presidency. He called us to serve as mission president and companion in Portugal. He told us that we had only six weeks before we started the mission. Although we felt unprepared and inadequate, we accepted the call. Our most important concern at the time was to obtain the visas required to serve in that country because, according to past experience, we knew the process took six to eight months to complete.
President Faust then asked if we had faith that the Lord would perform a miracle and that we would be able to solve the visa problem faster. Our answer was a big yes, and we started making the arrangements immediately. We prepared the documents required for the visas, took our three young children, and went to the consulate as fast as we could. A very nice lady met with us there. In reviewing our papers and getting acquainted with what we were going to do in Portugal, she turned to us and asked, “Are you really going to help the people of my country?” We firmly answered yes and explained that we would represent Jesus Christ and testify of Him and His divine mission in the world. We returned there four weeks later, received our visas, and landed in the mission field within the six weeks, as a prophet of the Lord had asked us to do.

Some point the accusing finger at the sinner or the unfortunate and in derision say, “He has brought his condition upon himself.” Others exclaim, “Oh, he will never change. He has always been a bad one.” A few see beyond the outward appearance and recognize the true worth of a human soul. When they do, miracles occur. The downtrodden, the discouraged, the helpless become “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” (Eph. 2:19.) True love can alter human lives and change human nature.
This truth was stated so beautifully on the stage in My Fair Lady. Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl, spoke to one for whom she cared and who later was to lift her from such mediocre status: “You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.” (Adapted from Pygmalion, in The Complete Plays of Bernard Shaw, p. 260.)
Eliza Doolittle was but expressing the profound truth: When we treat people merely as they are, they will remain as they are. When we treat them as if they were what they should be, they will become what they should be. (Adapted from a quotation by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.)
In reality, it was the Redeemer who best taught this principle. Jesus changed men. He changed their habits and opinions and ambitions. He changed their tempers, dispositions, and natures. He changed their hearts. He lifted! He loved! He forgave! He redeemed! Do we have the will to follow?
Prison warden Kenyon J. Scudder has related this experience: A friend of his happened to be sitting in a railroad coach next to a young man who was obviously depressed. Finally the man revealed that he was a paroled convict returning from a distant prison. His imprisonment had brought shame to his family, and they had neither visited him nor written often. He hoped, however, that this was only because they were too poor to travel and too uneducated to write. He hoped, despite the evidence, that they had forgiven him.
To make it easy for them, however, he had written them to put up a signal for him when the train passed their little farm on the outskirts of town. If his family had forgiven him, they were to put a white ribbon in the big apple tree which stood near the tracks. If they didn’t want him to return, they were to do nothing, and he would remain on the train as it traveled west.
As the train neared his home town, the suspense became so great he couldn’t bear to look out of his window. He exclaimed, “In just five minutes the engineer will sound the whistle, indicating our approach to the long bend which opens into the valley I know as home. Will you watch for the apple tree at the side of the track?” His companion changed places with him and said he would. The minutes seemed like hours, but then there came the shrill sound of the train whistle. The young man asked, “Can you see the tree? Is there a white ribbon?”
Came the reply: “I see the tree. I see not one white ribbon, but many. There must be a white ribbon on every branch. Son, someone surely does love you.”
In that instant he stood cleansed by Christ.
His friend said, “I felt as if I had witnessed a miracle.”
Indeed, he had witnessed a miracle appropriately described by the third verse of a favorite Christmas carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”:
“How silently, how silently, The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts The blessings of his heaven.
“No ear may hear his coming; But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still, The dear Christ enters in.”

Lya Luna Becnel doesn’t just slice fruit or arrange food. To watch her in a kitchen is to watch an artist in action.
She chooses the plate the way a painter selects a canvas. She wraps several flavors of Mediterranean olives in carefully selected slices of dry sausage, and does the same with salad greens. She places four types of cheese in the foreground, with an oriental ladle holding a sauce made of fruit and mustard. As her personal signature, she adds an apple, carefully cut and sculpted into the shape of a swan. The swan is a symbol with deep meaning to her.
When Lya was a young girl growing up in Tehuacan, Mexico, she saw a food magazine that inspired her. “On the front cover was a beautiful white swan carved from jicama (an edible root) and on the back was an exquisite turkey made from pieces of watermelon and other fruit,” she says. “I can still remember the artistry of those sculptures. The image of them stayed in my mind, and a voice inside me said, ‘Someday, you will make one of those.’” It wasn’t until years later, in a professional cooking class, that Lya was trained to carve a swan exactly like the one she had seen so long before.
Today, Lya is fulfilling her lifelong dream to serve others (literally) by preparing beautiful, nutritious food. In Europe and the U.S. she counsels cooks about the quality of their meals, prepares fancy dinners at gourmet restaurants and in people’s homes, and also teaches cooking and nutrition classes. She is known for the excellent food she prepares and the way she presents it. “Food is art,” she says. “Having it look good is part of having it taste good.”
But getting where she wanted to be has not been, shall we say, a piece of cake.
“My parents wanted me to be a doctor,” she says. After counseling with them and praying, she finally agreed she would study nutrition. That would allow her to be around food and yet still be involved in a medically related field. After college, she began work as a nutritionist in Mexico City. She loved the working environment and the people, but she still longed to be a chef. After giving the job a fair chance, she counseled with her parents again and mapped out a new plan.
“I prayed to Heavenly Father and asked Him to guide me,” she says. “Then I did all the research I could about culinary schools.” She saved money, studied English as a second language, then enrolled in a cooking school in London, England. That opened up the opportunity for her to also have apprenticeships—if she would work without pay. She did and gained experience as well as forming friendships with several of the top chefs in the world.
“Working without pay was hard,” she says. “I had to cater private dinners on the side to pay my way through school.” She also found a job at a restaurant equipment company in France, preparing meals and demonstrating professional ovens. For a year and a half, between school and work and various apprenticeships in two countries, her days were filled with long, hard work. “I had to pay the rent, and I had to pay for transportation, but I always had food because I was always allowed to eat in the restaurants.”
She also kept her standards high. “Living the Word of Wisdom was less of a challenge than some people might think,” she says. “For example, when people invited me to have a glass of wine, which is a big part of the restaurant business, I explained that I don’t drink alcohol. They respected that. And when people would party or suggest immoral activities, I would explain that my standards were different. We were colleagues at work, but I didn’t hang out with them in places that would bring me down.”
Lya and her husband, who is also a chef, offer this advice about careers: “Find something you love doing and that you’ll want to do for your entire life. Set goals and work hard, then pray, be humble, and follow your heart.”

When I was about 14 years old, the Church celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Sunday School. I was one of 500 Sunday School students invited to sing in a choir for the Sunday School conference, which was held in the Tabernacle as part of general conference in April 1949. President George Albert Smith, President of the Church during that conference, showed the congregation a time capsule dealing with the event and containing items related to the history of the Sunday School. It contained a form of phonograph record made in the 1940s.
During the meeting, it was announced that the box would be opened in 50 years. I remember, as a boy in the choir in that meeting, thinking how I would love to be in attendance when that box was opened fifty years later. In 1999, I was in Salt Lake City, Utah, for general conference. During the training for the General Authorities, we were invited to attend a meeting at which that box was to be opened for the first time after fifty years of being sealed! It was exciting as a boy and as a man to have been part of those two milestones in the history of the Sunday School.

Some years ago, President Roy A. Welker of the German-Austrian Mission, one of the outstanding mission presidents of the Church, needed to assign a missionary to labor in Salzburg, Austria, to solve a problem in the branch there. Eight new missionaries were soon to arrive in the mission. He prayed that one of them would have the proper visa and currency to labor in Austria. He continued to pray and waited two weeks for an answer. The night before the eight arrived, the Spirit of the Lord whispered to the president the name of the missionary who should be assigned to Salzburg. The one whose name he received was the one who had the proper credentials to go to Austria. I was that elder.

The president’s patience not only helped solve a problem in the branch, but it also blessed me and our family in a way that I never could have foreseen. Shortly after I arrived in Salzburg, that part of the German-Austrian Mission was changed into the Swiss-Austrian Mission. Later, I was transferred to Zurich, Switzerland, where I met Brother Julius Billeter, a warm and friendly member who was a genealogist. He was acquainted with the genealogical records of my progenitors. He researched the names of 6,000 of my ancestors for whom temple work later was completed.