Gospel Story Finder

It was a Tuesday afternoon in June while I was on internship with a civil engineering company in Lomé. I lived with my uncle and went to work every day, but one day I stayed at home because there was no work on that day. Whiles I was in the kitchen preparing a meal for myself at noon, I heard someone ring the doorbell, but I could not leave my omelette on the gas cooker because I might come back to find it burnt; the person rang the bell a couple more times, and then I assumed whoever it was had left. Five minutes later, it rang again, and I went to open it.
I saw two brothers neatly dressed in white shirts, ties, and name tags. I welcomed them into the house and apologized for the delay. They offered to help with the task I was engaged in. I usually do not welcome preachers, but that day, after opening the door, my mind was at ease.
The young missionaries introduced themselves, shared their message, and left me a booklet on the Restoration and a Book of Mormon, encouraging me to read it, meditate, and pray over it. They also shared their testimonies. After their departure, I locked myself up in my room and did exactly what they told me to, not knowing what was driving me. I spent all day reading and at about 6:00 p.m. that day, I called to book an appointment.
The next day, I had several questions for them to answer but after offering the prayer, my heart was at peace. I quit my internship to listen to their message three times a week for three weeks, and I was baptized in a new branch in my neighborhood.

It’s interesting, too, how we create, cumulatively, expectations in the lives of our grandchildren even when we are not aware of it. Some years ago, when our grandson Robbie was about five, we dropped by to see his family in Orem. He was asleep upstairs, and his mother called, “Robbie, Grandpa Neal is here!” A tired little voice floated downstairs saying, “Shall I bring my scriptures?”

Of course he was too young to read them, but he carried them, as so many do in the Church today in that fine new pattern!

Several years ago, my bishop asked me to help all the young people in our ward to read the entire Book of Mormon in a certain period of time. It was a glorious year as the young people read and reported. These young people learned that the Book of Mormon could help them conquer discouragement. It helped them conquer feelings of loneliness. It helped them conquer disobedience, anger, and lack of faith.

Norberto and his family were brought into the Church through an uncle they call “Ton Ton.” Ton Ton bought their family a subscription to the Church magazine in French in 1985. So when he visited the family in 1991, they already had an idea of what the Church was about. Ton Ton said, “The Church has now come to Madagascar. Let’s go find it.”

They found the meetinghouse, but the first time the family attended, Norberto’s father, Elie, couldn’t go. He still had responsibilities with the young men’s group in another church. Norberto’s mother, Esther, came home from that first meeting and told her husband, “We’ve found the right church.” Elie went with them the next week, and the entire family accepted the gospel. Norberto was a baby at the time. He was baptized when he turned eight, even though he was afraid to go under the water.

Tony’s family lived in a two-bedroom apartment right in the middle of the city. His parents slept in one bedroom, and Tony and his little sister, Linda, slept in the other.
In the front room was an alcove. It was sort of like a closet without a door. Tony wanted to sleep in the alcove by himself, but his papa and mamma said no.
“We need you to take care of your sister. When Linda is older and no longer afraid of trains going past at night and shaking the house, you can move to the alcove,” they told him. “But not until then.”
“When will that be?” Tony asked. But no one could give him an answer.
Then one day a letter came from Tony’s grandfather. He was coming to stay with them.
“Where will Grandfather sleep?” Tony asked.
“In the alcove,” Papa answered.
“But that’s where I want to sleep,” Tony said.
“I’m sorry,” Mamma answered, “but Grandfather is old, and he needs his rest.”
“But, Mamma,” Tony said, “you always tell me that I am a growing boy and need rest too!”
“Yes, you do, Tony,” she said. “But the alcove isn’t the only place you can get it.”
Tony was happy Grandfather was coming to stay, but it was hard not to be upset about having him sleep in the alcove.
The afternoon that Grandfather arrived he asked Tony to go for a walk with him to the candy store. On the way they saw some boys playing ball on a vacant lot.
“Looks like a good baseball game,” Grandfather said.
“Oh, yes,” Tony said.
“Don’t you play baseball?” Grandfather asked him.
“I play in front of our apartment,” Tony said. “Mamma doesn’t like me to come down here by myself.”
“Well, you’re not by yourself now,” Grandfather said. “Let’s stop and play for a while. I’ll play in the outfield.”
Tony looked up at his tall grandfather. “You will?”
“Of course. What position do you play?”
“I’m a catcher,” Tony said.
“Then let’s play,” Grandfather said.
Both of them joined the game. Grandfather made two nice catches in left field and Tony hit a double.
Finally Grandfather wiped his forehead with his big red handkerchief. “I’m ready to go to the candy store now,” he said, “if that’s all right with you, Tony.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “We’re ahead thirty-five to two, and our team can get along without us now!”
Grandfather and Tony said goodbye to their friends and walked down the block.
The door of the candy store opened when Grandfather pushed on it, and a little bell tinkled. Inside it smelled like a mixture of licorice and peppermint.
Grandfather picked out some chocolates for Mamma and a lollipop for Linda. He told Tony to choose whatever he wanted.
Tony chose a piece of bubble gum with a baseball card inside the wrapper. The gum was dusted with sugar and crackled as Tony started chewing.
Tony had a wonderful afternoon with his grandfather, but at dinner that night he couldn’t help thinking about the alcove again.
Then Tony began to think about his own father growing old. Tony wondered if he would ask Papa to live with him even if his family had only a small apartment and Tony’s son had to sleep in a room with his little sister.
Tony looked up at his father’s strong, warm dark face. Suddenly he was filled with love for Papa. It was almost a sad kind of love, and it made his throat feel large and lumpy.
He stood up and went around the table. “Papa,” he said, “when you’re old and alone, I want you to come live with me.”
After dinner Grandfather pushed his chair back from the table. “Tony,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about the alcove.”
Grandfather put his long legs out in front of him. “Do you think these long legs could fit in the alcove?”
Tony looked at Grandfather’s legs. He did not know what to say.
“I think I’d better sleep on the couch,” Grandfather suggested, “and I think you should sleep in the alcove.”
“But what about Linda?” Tony asked. “She’s afraid of trains, so she can’t sleep alone.”
Everyone looked at Linda.
“I’ll tell Linda a story every night at bedtime,” Grandfather said, “if she will promise not to listen to the trains. Okay, Linda?”
Linda looked at him. “Every single night?” she asked.
“I, won’t miss one night!” Grandfather promised.
“Will it be a special story?” Linda asked.
“I’ll tell you a very special story every night,” Grandfather promised.
Tony looked at Grandfather’s legs again. He could fit in the alcove, Tony thought. He just says he couldn’t.
Suddenly some of that love he felt for Papa filled Tony’s heart for Grandfather too.

At my baptism I received a set of scriptures. I was so excited. The black-bound books had my name engraved on them in bright gold letters. I proudly carried them to church every Sunday. Previously I had had only a Book of Mormon. Now I felt extra special carrying the other scriptures too.
As a new member of the Church, I decided I would read the Bible every day. But that only lasted about a week. I got confused with all the names and years in the first part of Genesis. So I tried just reading during the sacrament on Sundays. After a while I wasn’t thinking about Jesus anymore; I was just trying to piece together who was who in the Bible.
A year later, our family started reading the Book of Mormon together. When we finished the following year, I had forgotten almost everything we had read.
As I became older and could understand things better, I decided to read the Book of Mormon by myself.
I started okay, but soon began forgetting—or thinking I didn’t have enough time. When I did read, it went through my 11-year-old brain like water. I was just reading to read and was not really understanding what the book was saying.
Then, the summer right before I turned 12, I went to girls’ camp with my ward’s Young Women.
We had time each night for scripture study in our tents, and I decided I was going to read the scriptures every night I was there. I began with the first words of the first verse that almost everyone has memorized: “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents …” (1 Ne. 1:1).
It was so incredible. I don’t know how, but the scriptures started making more sense. I felt how hard it would be if Heavenly Father commanded my family to leave our home and go somewhere so far away. I had always known the story of how the Lord commanded Nephi to go get the brass plates, but those three nights at camp I could actually see a young man going to an evil man’s home, needing the plates.
I have read the scriptures every night since girls’ camp. I haven’t forgotten, and if I accidentally turn off the light before I read my scriptures, I am not able to sleep. After I finish reading the Book of Mormon, I plan on reading the Bible.
Now that I have learned to “liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Ne. 19:23), I hope others will learn from my experience and be able to enjoy reading the scriptures too.

Looking out over a sea of graduates in a commencement address at Brigham Young University–Hawaii in December 2005, President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, recounted the first time he came to Hawaii’s shores.
He was but a few years younger than most of the 250 graduates he addressed and was stationed on the island of Kauai as a bomber pilot in the midst of World War II. A number of friends and classmates had already become casualties of war, and he said that his family didn’t know where he would be going or what would become of him.
Yet when news came that the war was over, his joy was only temporary. He thought he was going home, but instead, he was assigned to Osaka as an operations officer.
“I asked the Lord why—why would He do this to me?” President Packer said. He had earned the necessary points. He was eligible to be released. He had kept his standards. But he was denied the thing he wanted most. Looking back now, he knows why.
“If I hadn’t gone to Osaka then, I wouldn’t be standing here now in this capacity,” President Packer said.
In his new post, he met and was involved with baptizing the first Japanese members of the Church after the war.
From this experience, President Packer said he learned to love his fellow man, and he learned to recognize revelation when it came to him. He learned the importance of receiving revelation again in his capacity as a seminary teacher, as a General Authority—called at age 37—and as an Apostle of the Lord.

I remember one time meeting a fine young married man who was not very large in stature. He was a professional jockey who had worked for some Latter-day Saint men who owned a large stable of fine racehorses. They taught him how to be a first-class jockey and chose him to ride a truly great horse that they owned. They also taught Johnny the gospel, and he joined the Church.
A year later, his bishop called him to go on a mission. Johnny said, “I can’t go. I’ve got to ride this special horse in the Kentucky Derby. I’m the only jockey who has ridden him.”
However, after some thought, Johnny went to his bosses and asked for their permission to go on a mission. They told him that they had a huge investment in him and couldn’t spare him to go on a mission because of the Derby and the other big races that were coming up. They were sure their horse would win the triple crown. However, neither of his Latter-day Saint bosses felt very good about their decision, so the next day they told him if he wanted to go on a mission, they wouldn’t stand in his way.
He went on his mission, and on the day of the Kentucky Derby, he went tracting in Canada while the horse he would have ridden won. It went on to win the triple crown. The other jockey earned over $200,000 while this fine young man taught the people of Canada the gospel. To me he is an outstanding hero.

The first lesson is that everyone makes mistakes. Not long ago I was with an eight-year-old girl on the day of her baptism. At the end of the day she said with all confidence, “I have been baptized for a whole day, and I haven’t sinned once!” But her perfect day did not last forever, and I am sure she is learning by now, like we all learn, that as hard as we try, we do not always avoid every bad situation, every wrong choice, or control ourselves as we should.

“In my darkest moments I was always guided to the words of hope and descriptions of a life filled with joy in my patriarchal blessing,” one member wrote. “Often I would plead with God to help me believe that those blessings could really come true for someone as pathetic as I felt I was. I literally clung to the blessings promised, hoping that I could be happy someday. My testimony grew as I saw the Lord fulfilling promised blessings in my life.”

One winter when I was 12, Christmas seemed to be coming too quickly for my family. I know that is hard to believe, especially coming from a 12-year-old, but my father had been out of work for two years and the holiday season was just magnifying the stress for my parents.
Then, on December 1, my family was surprised to find an enormous, red, elaborately decorated Christmas stocking hanging on our front door. Our family name was at the top, and a note was attached to it that said, “On the first day of Christmas, a giant Christmas to stocking to get you in the mood.” Naturally we were all bewildered about our secret friend, but we had no idea how he would change that Christmas for us.
The following evening, two large loaves of pumpkin bread magically appeared. They were devoured by our happy family of seven in just a few minutes. We kids decided that the third day wouldn’t pass without discovering who our secret pal was. But on that third day, just as the lookout checked the doorstep, he found a three-car gingerbread train waiting for him. We were baffled as to how it had been delivered without discovery. For the next nine days our house radiated excitement as we waited and watched for the day’s surprise. We received ornaments, dinner, and fruit, but the greatest gift came on the 12th day.
On our doorstep we found a 12-piece, handmade nativity scene, just perfect for keeping the Christmas spirit in our home. It was also a little confusing, however, because the note with this last present didn’t reveal our friend’s identity. It just told us thank you for making this holiday season one of the best. I couldn’t understand that note for a long time—not until I was able to give some service myself.

I still remember my anticipation. The night was warm. An uneven breeze puffed through open window screens but did little to cool the air or my excitement. My own room! My own room! The thought pulsed like a syncopated heartbeat.
Wayne, my oldest brother, was going on a mission, and I was inheriting his downstairs room. If someone had been offering me a gold mine, I could not have felt so rich.
I kicked my single sheet to the bed bottom and flip-flopped with pleasure. Just think, Wayne’s old room! I had always lived with my little brother, Chris. Even after moving to the new house, our room was upstairs, while Rog and Wayne each had their own separate rooms downstairs. Roger alone, Wayne alone, but Brad and Chris always lumped together like a compound word without so much as a hyphen.
It’s not that Chris wasn’t an A-number-one pal. He was always good at bed-to-bed spider jumps or deciphering the secret codes I thumped out on his headboard. It’s just that I was in seventh grade now. A man should have his own room.
“Hey, Brad,” Chris whispered. I hadn’t realized he was even awake. “I’m sure going to miss Wayne. Do you think he’s doing the right thing by leaving?” The wispy breeze stirred the patterned curtains I wouldn’t have to look at for two whole years. I took a final glance around. This upstairs room I would not miss. “Don’t worry, Chris,” I comforted. “Wayne is doing the right thing by leaving, all right.”
In the weeks that followed, my life began to change noticeably. I guess it had something to do with entering junior high school and starting to grow up. All I know is that those funny little marks on my face didn’t wash off, my moods cracked as often as my voice, and what self-image I managed to salvage was as shaky as a skinny kid on the high dive. And I became rebellious.
“Gross—I don’t want to take piano lessons any more!”
“But you’ve always liked piano. Just think how much piano may help you contribute on your mission.”
Everyone I met had the same advice.
“So what? I don’t care about grades.”
“You’ve always had good study habits. You need good grades for the future.”
Even then I knew they were right. These were sensitive years when I most needed the advice and instruction, but outwardly I rejected them.
“Cut your hair,” “Read the scriptures,” and on and on. “Be trustworthy,” “Be loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous …” “Why doesn’t everyone stop hassling me?” I’d complain.
“Go on a mission!” In family home evenings, quorum meetings, and bishop interviews, the message was the same: “Prepare while you’re young.”
Night after night I slumped slowly downstairs feeling pressured and picked on. “No one understands,” I’d moan to the blue plaster walls in Wayne’s old room, a room I was enjoying because my brother was out there “doing the right thing” on his mission. I needed that perspective—weekly letters, pictures, cassettes telling what he and his companions were busy doing , not loud lectures but quiet guides that shaped and influenced me.
Every transfer Wayne had found me in front of the big mission map Mom hung in the stairwell, trying to pinpoint where my big brother was now. You see, I was beginning to enjoy following Wayne.
I remembered Wayne playing the piano for family night, working in the garden, running, studying, and reading. I remembered his straight-A report card Dad would post on the refrigerator. I wondered if anyone had ever called him names or made fun of him. I wondered but finally realized that whether they did or didn’t, it had not changed Wayne’s actions. He chose what was right. He did what was best, regardless of what his friends in junior high might have thought or said.
Wayne never told me not to smoke, but I knew he hadn’t. He never wrote to say, “Don’t skip class, read dirty books, or yell at Mom and Dad,” but I knew he hadn’t. There were no flashy sermons or overbearing orations. Wayne was simply a quiet, constant example.
Exhortations are valuable. My parents’ direction is, and always has been, important. Respected Church leaders, teachers, and friends are heard. Their interest in my life is appreciated. Yet perhaps the one who reached me the most did it quietly, from half a world away while I lived in his old room.
Now, freshly back from my own mission, I am checking right back into Wayne’s old room. My upstairs room is now serving as half den and half toy box for visiting grandchildren. But I like it down here. The walls are the same blue. The wooden shelves and desk are the same ones that held my junior high books. Nothing has really changed except me. How can I ever repay Wayne for the subtle, positive influence he has had on me? How can I show my appreciation for so many who have guided me through their quiet examples? How can I thank Christ who gave the perfect example? What can I do?
“Oh, Brad,” my sister-in-law Moana calls. “Have you seen Janelle?” Mom had been tending my niece all morning.
From upstairs came Mom’s voice in answer, “Don’t worry, Moana, she’s here. Right here in Brad’s old room.”

What was the highlight of Kaonu Ly’s trip to Washington, D.C.? Kaonu and several other outstanding students from around the U.S. got to tour government agencies, visit historic sites, and participate in discussions of how government works. She also got to meet Senator Jesse Helms (shown here with Kaonu), the senator from Kaonu’s home state of North Carolina. And although Kaonu loved all of those things, she loved something else even more.
“A sight I will never forget was the Washington D.C. Temple. It was so sacredly beautiful. I felt so proud to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” she says.
Kaonu, who is a Laurel in the Albermarle Branch, Charlotte North Carolina South Stake, also used the trip as a missionary opportunity, sharing pamphlets about the Church and the Articles of Faith with the other youth she met.

“Abracadabra, toads in a pond,
Troubles now vanish by magical wand!”
Poof! Your previously disaster-zone-like bedroom is now instantly clean and tidy. Nice! Clearly, you scored a real treasure at the yard sale of the retired stage magician down the street. His old wand is going to make your life so much better.
Time to try it again!
Poof! This time, all the grades on your midterm report card transform into a solid line of A’s in sparkling golden ink.
Oh, yeah. You could get used to this.
There’s only one catch. All these magical alterations are changed in appearance only. Because, you know, your neighbor didn’t actually saw his assistant in half night after night. It’s smoke and mirrors. Illusion.
Your closet door bulges suspiciously for a moment before flinging open and spilling out everything that had moments earlier been on the floor. Drat. And those golden-inked A’s? They have no bearing whatsoever on your real grades.
Still want to keep waving that wand?

The summer wind rustled the long grass as it gusted across the vast, rolling plains of northern Montana, whistling by the gray, unpainted, weather-worn boards of the small house. The house sat almost alone out there in that great expanse of land with the mighty Missouri River gliding by in the middle of its journey to its rendezvous with the Mississippi. Occasionally one of the loose boards on the house would rattle a bit as a particularly strong gust would hit it, and the flapping could be heard inside.
It was Sunday, but except for a few rather puny creations of man, the great, sweeping plains and grass looked much as they had for many hundreds of Sundays, and other days of the week as well. There was a certain feeling of changelessness to this immense land.
Inside the lone, sparsely furnished house, propped up on the old chipped and rusted hospital bed to which he was confined, was old Pointing Iron, once a great warrior of the proud and magnificent Sioux nation. Now he was confined by age and frailty to this small, one-room wooden shack.
His eyes wandered around the walls of the room, not noticing the pasteboard that served not only as a covering for the walls but as the wallpaper as well. It was the same in most of the Indian homes on the reservation. Instead, he would let his gaze roam around the walls, stopping to gaze upon some old, faded picture or memento out of his past, and memories of long ago events would flood back into his alert mind. Pointing Iron didn’t know how old he was, nor did anyone else who knew him, but his memory went back to many of the happy times of his people. He had seen many snows in his lifetime.
Brother Pointing Iron hadn’t forgotten what day it was, and he looked forward with anticipation to the time when the sun would approach midday. As midday drew near, he reached out his once powerful arms and attempted to straighten the blanket and the worn quilt that covered his weakened body. Then his gnarled hands went up to the two straight braids of beautiful gray hair that hung well below his shoulders. It was important that they fall neatly in place and that his head be held proud and erect, however hard it might be to hold it there.
He waited now for what he knew was to come. Shortly there was a sharp knocking, and as the door creaked open, two young men in dark suits entered, glad to be sheltered from the wind.
Brother Pointing Iron anxiously reached out his hand and warmly shook the hands of the two missionaries who had come on a special errand to his humble home. Not many words were exchanged, as Pointing Iron could speak very little English and the elders knew almost nothing of the Sioux tongue, but there was a communion of the spirit that all of them felt.
The elders did, however, have a hymn book in the Sioux language, so while one of them selected some music, the other moved an old, rough, wooden chair, held together mostly by wire, into the center of the room. He then very carefully unfolded two clean, freshly pressed handkerchiefs and laid them on the seat of the chair. A small, clean plate was produced and placed on the handkerchiefs. On the plate he put a small morsel of bread and beside it a small glass of clear well water. Now all was in readiness for the meeting to begin.
The elder had opened the hymn book to page 25, and the three of them sang, as best they could, “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” after which one of the missionaries offered the invocation. Then the senior companion knelt and repeated the blessing on the bread. As the plate was handed to Brother Pointing Iron, his trembling hand reached out and picked up the small piece of bread, which represented to him the sacrificed body of his beloved Savior, and the tears flowed slowly down his wrinkled, weather-beaten cheeks.
After the water had been blessed and given to Pointing Iron, the elders once again opened the hymn book, and they all joined in singing, “Israel, Israel, God Is Calling.” Then the junior companion offered the benediction. The chair was cleared off and put back in its place by the wall, and the meeting was over. Once again Pointing Iron’s covenants had been renewed. The elders lingered, reluctant to leave that special spirit they felt so strongly in that old wooden shack on the Montana plains.
Finally they shook the hand of their loved brother and said their good-byes. They stepped once again out into the brisk prairie wind, but somehow the wind didn’t seem to be so much of a bother to them anymore.
This was a cherished weekly Sabbath day assignment and they gladly carried it out until the brave old warrior, Pointing Iron, left this mortal life and was placed to rest in the great old Indian cemetery at Chicken Hill.

One Sunday morning, we were sitting on the veranda when my oldest daughter, who was three years old, asked me a question that caught me by surprise. She saw some of her friends going to church in their nice clothes. “How come we don’t go to church?” she asked. At that time we weren’t attending church because my wife and I belonged to different churches and neither wanted to join the other’s church.
My daughter’s question really made me think. I was troubled because before I was married, I always went to church. That night I was inspired to kneel and seek divine guidance. I recall even saying that I would offer my life to serve the Lord.
A few days later, two young men knocked at our door and introduced themselves as messengers of the Lord. When I saw their calling cards, I remembered some things I knew about the Church. When I was young, I used to read western novels that talked about Mormon pioneers and settlements. I had also read about some members of the Church in American magazines. When we started talking about the doctrines of the Church, I was surprised to find that I already believed most of its teachings. I had read the Bible and knew that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost were three separate beings, and I felt that there must be prophets and revelation.
The elders continued to teach me for several months, but somehow I could not gain a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I had read the passages in the Book of Mormon that the missionaries marked for me, but I had trouble accepting their challenge to read the whole book.
I enjoyed having them in our home, but I had the feeling that they were getting discouraged with me. One day when they challenged me to read and pray, I felt that it would be the last challenge. I didn’t want to lose their visits, so I decided to read. This time before starting, I prayed with a real desire to know if the book was true. A miracle happened: instead of getting bored as usual, I was so interested that I couldn’t stop reading.
That night, after reading many chapters, I knew that this was the word of God. With a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon, it was then very easy for me to accept Joseph Smith as a prophet. When the missionaries returned and asked me if I wanted to be baptized, I said yes. I was baptized in November 1964. I felt the Spirit of the Lord so strongly during my baptism that I really felt reborn. Besides the covenant of baptism, I made a private covenant that I would serve the Lord all my life.
I am very grateful to be a member of the Church. I hope that you children of the Church will learn through prayer and study that the gospel and the Book of Mormon are true. My wife and I have eight children whom we have raised in the gospel. I am grateful that my oldest daughter, when she was a small child, asked me that important question. Because of her, I began to seek the truth and to serve the Lord and others. You can help your parents and families remember the Lord, as my daughter helped me.

Photographs by Clayton Chan
Ark loves spicy food. This is a fairly new discovery for him. Back in the Philippines, where he grew up, things tasted a lot less fiery.
But then his father got a job in Malaysia.
At that point, Ark met friends at church who came from all sorts of backgrounds, including a few from India.
“They eat really spicy food!” Ark C., age 14, says about his new friends. “This food is much spicier than I used to eat back home.”
Funny thing, though—Ark never knew what he was missing. Now he enjoys exploring a whole new culinary world.
Of course that’s not the only way Ark’s Church friends have changed his life for the better. “I was happy to move to Malaysia, but sad at the same time. It was all new friends, and it’s hard to talk to new friends.”
But the youth in his new branch helped him make that transition. As a bonus, he now knows a lot more about many different areas. “I’ve learned about different cultures,” he said. “The food is different, and so are the clothes. Their clothes are colorful, and it’s very interesting how they make them!”
There was one group of friends, however, that kept him going more than any other during and after the move: his family.
Ark loves spending time with his family, especially when they play card games. The game Uno is his particular favorite. The reason? “I always win,” he says with a laugh.
He also loves playing Monopoly with his parents and his younger brother, Leif. (His younger sister isn’t quite old enough to join yet.) There’s more going on in the games, however, than chucking dice and spending pretend money. “My parents teach me business strategies and money principles in the games. It’s really helpful advice for the future.”
His dad is a software developer, and his mom used to run her own business in the Philippines. They have a lot of skills to pass down. For his part, Ark is eager to learn everything he can from them. He’s got big plans for his career.
His favorite school subjects are biotech and engineering. Ark wants to become a biotechnician. With his sights set high, he takes every chance he can to learn something new.
Learning from his parents, though, wasn’t always Ark’s preferred source for education. Like his love of spicy food, this discovery of a valued resource came a bit later in his life.
“I used to be very stubborn,” Ark admits. “I didn’t really care about learning from my parents.”
He’d try to go it alone or to learn from his friends and schoolteachers only. Then he read something in the Book of Mormon that made a big difference in how he viewed things.
In Alma chapters 36 and 37, Alma gives advice to his son Helaman. Alma teaches Helaman about everything, from Alma’s own remarkable conversion story (which included three days of being unconscious after an angel told him he wasn’t exactly making the best life choices [see Alma 36:6–10]) to the dangers of secret combinations.
In the middle of it all, a single verse jumped off the page to Ark: “O, remember, my son, and learn wisdom in thy youth; yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God” (Alma 37:35).
Something clicked in Ark’s mind at those words. “My parents can teach me wisdom too,” he says. All at once he realized he had a wealth of information right in front of him. “Now I care a lot about their wisdom. They love me and can help me prepare for my future.”
They love me and can help me prepare for my future.
And their wisdom goes a lot further than business tips shared during board games.
One valuable lesson Ark’s parents have taught him is to not allow bad influences around him to trip him up. “Here at my school, a lot of kids want me to try coffee, tea, cigarettes, and so forth.”
This is a regular conversation topic at home. “I’ve had a lot of conversations with my parents about this. They repeat themselves a lot,” he jokes.
Still, all that repetition has paid off. Each time he’s asked to do something against his beliefs, Ark draws strength from what his parents have taught him.
Another lesson he’s taken to heart is how to dress. No, Ark didn’t need fashion advice from his parents in order to fit in better at school. In fact, he was doing a little too well in that department. “I used to dress in all the cool clothes,” Ark said. “I was trying to impress girls.”
His parents helped him see, though, that there were also some unintended consequences to dressing that way. “The clothes we wear can influence how other people think about you,” Ark explains. As he paid closer attention, Ark realized he didn’t like some of the ways people seemed to think of him when he dressed like he did before.
Now he chooses more conservative, modest—or, as he likes to call them, “nerdy”—clothes. He likes his new look and feels better spiritually about how he dresses. (Besides, Ark, nerds are cool! Indisputable fact.)
Ark loves where he lives, he loves his family, and he loves learning from his parents.
He also loves learning the gospel.
“I believe that Jesus Christ lives,” Ark says. “I believe our living prophet is President Russell M. Nelson and that through Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ restored His Church. I believe the gospel can help us through our lives and through any obstacles or trials we experience.”
No matter what incredible things Ark is going to learn in the future, he’s already learned some of the most important of all. Near the top of that list is this: spending time with family adds a lot of spice to life!

Illustration by Alex Nabaum
My father is a good man. But when you’re 12 and you find pornography hidden in a remote file folder on your father’s computer, your emotions get sliced open. I felt like it would be difficult to see him in the same way again.
Two years later, when I was 14, I was looking through the computer’s history files and again stumbled upon a few websites he had viewed and was forced to admit that maybe my father had a problem. I knew I had to talk to my mother.
She and I were driving together in the car when I blurted it out.
To my astonishment, she was not surprised.
She sighed. “Your father’s been struggling with this for a while now,” she said. “He’d told me he’d stopped, but I guess not.”
When we got home, I watched as she typed a letter to my father explaining what I had told her. After that, I tried to put it out of my mind again.
My father and I argued bitterly during my early teen years. I didn’t trust him, I didn’t like him, I didn’t respect him. I mistakenly thought, “Nobody else’s dad looks at pictures like that. He must be a bad person.”
It escalated when I was 15. Sometimes I would come into the room and glance at his computer screen and see that a pornography site was minimized to the task bar. He would pretend to have been playing a game of solitaire. I watched as my father didn’t take the sacrament, and I listened as my mother explained how my father had finally been convinced to go to the bishop. I felt burdened by humiliation.
What I didn’t realize at first, of course, was that these were incredibly wonderful steps on the path to full repentance. I later stumbled once or twice upon my father deep in fervent, aching prayer. This image is burned into my brain just as deeply as that file I’d found when I was 12.
At 16, the problem had not gone away. Once, I was doing homework late at night and overheard my mother sobbing and shouting at my father.
I crept back to my room, knowing from my father’s silence that he was suffering. I felt his remorse radiate through the house, as well as his sense of helplessness.
My brother and sister knew nothing about it, and I wanted it to stay that way. The only thing they knew was that sometimes, especially when Mommy wasn’t home, Daddy would come out of his room in an awful mood.
My father was trying. The bishop sent him to a support group for men with problems like his. I had learned to respect him again, learned how, on the good weeks when we read scriptures as a family every morning and he whistled hymns, to like and even love him again. I saw that there was much more to him than simply this ugly problem. I learned to let him ask me about school without turning it into an argument. I learned to pray for him.
Good men can do wrong things. My father gives a generous fast offering, he’s always willing to lend a helping hand, he serves in his Church calling readily, he never swears or speaks vulgarly, but most of all he wants to be better. He knows that what he’s done is wrong, and he is hopeful that he will change.
To anyone else in my situation: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and He will carry you through. He will carry you through not only if you’re the one who struggles under the burden of sin, but also if you are the one who stands by, watching as the one you love fights for salvation.

“We ended up living in Yuba City,” says Rachel W., 17, “and so I had to get up an hour earlier just to make it to seminary in the morning. Maybe it’s because of that little sacrifice to get there, but I’ve noticed that since the fire I love seminary even more. My day is always better and I like being with all the Paradise kids again. It’s amazing to see how everyone’s testimony has been strengthened after the fire.”

When my stake president first asked me if I would be willing to serve a service mission, my first thought was, “Yes!”
I trusted that the Lord had a work for me to do, and I believed that whatever He wanted me to do would bring me growth and happiness because He loved me and wanted what was best for me.
My second thought was, “What’s a service mission?”
My stake president explained what a service mission was as we met together in his office on that Sunday, but I didn’t really understand it or the importance of it until much later. At the time I even wondered if this calling meant there was something wrong with me, because I didn’t yet see the bigger purpose behind service missions.
I received my call to serve about a month before my mission actually started. This meant that I met my service mission leaders, attended a service mission conference in my area, and was even asked to lead companion study for the other two sisters in my area before I had been set apart.
I used the month between getting my call and giving my “farewell” talk (even though I didn’t go anywhere) to learn about service missions and the service missionaries around me.
At the service mission conference I attended, I learned that a lot of service missionaries, when they are first called, feel like they just weren’t good enough to serve a proselyting mission. I sheepishly recalled my own initial reaction to my call.
Ultimately, I realized that I wasn’t called to a service mission because I was inadequate, but because this was Heavenly Father’s direction for me. I wasn’t “less than” proselyting missionaries; rather, He needed me to help build His kingdom through other means of service. I received a strong testimony that all missions are important to Heavenly Father and important in His work, because all missionaries desire to serve Him and serve His children.
After learning about the other service missionaries in my area, meeting them, and hearing their stories, I knew they were wonderful, righteous servants of the Lord. I realized that even though some of us had felt a little sorry for ourselves at the beginning of our missions, we all came to the same conclusion: the Lord loves service missionaries and that we are right where He wants us to be, learning and growing while serving Him as His hands on the earth.