Gospel Story Finder

In high school, I had the chance to switch to a new school. I really wanted to switch, but I wasn’t sure if Heavenly Father wanted me to. When I didn’t get a clear confirmation, I started to overthink it. One day, I opened a chocolate candy, and the inside of the wrapper said, “You are exactly where you are supposed to be.” Was this my answer? Was Heavenly Father speaking to me through a chocolate wrapper? I didn’t think so.
When I still didn’t receive a clear answer, I finally made what I thought was the best choice and switched schools. But sometimes I still worried that maybe the chocolate wrapper had been a prompting that I’d ignored. Then one day, as I told my worries to a friend, I felt peace. That peace was my answer—but it only came after I’d made a choice and acted on it.

In February 1829 Joseph Smith Sr. came to visit his son. He was fully aware of all that had transpired: the vision of the Father and the Son to young Joseph, the promise spoken by the Lord “that the fullness of the Gospel should at some future time be made known” (History of the Church, 4:536), the appearances of the angel Moroni, the receipt of the gold plates, the work of translation, the loss of 116 pages of manuscript, and the taking away and return of the plates and the Urim and Thummim. On this occasion, the Prophet Joseph inquired of the Lord in behalf of his father and received section 4, which begins, “Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.” The translation of the Book of Mormon was part of and essential to the accomplishment of the Lord’s marvelous latter-day work.

Nami Chan, Taoyuan, Taiwan
My family and a lot of my extended family in Taiwan are Buddhist. When I was young, I remember helping prepare sacrifices for ancestors and multiple gods on Chinese New Year and other holidays. It was a family tradition for us, as well as a way to commemorate our ancestors and bring peace and prosperity to my family.
When some of my relatives joined a nondenominational Christian church, it had no impact on my family at first. But during the Ching Ming Festival, when you worship ancestors and burn incense at their graves, my Christian relatives refused to participate. They said that they were committed to following the Ten Commandments, particularly “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). My family had not discussed any other beliefs before, but from that day on, Christianity represented the destruction of traditions in my family’s eye and was seen in a negative light.
When I was attending a university, I met LDS missionaries on the street. Normally, I wouldn’t have been interested in what they had to say, but some experiences had readied my heart to receive their message. While meeting with them, I agreed to pray and read the Book of Mormon, and I began developing a personal testimony of what I was being taught. But, because of my parent’s feelings against Christianity, I didn’t want to tell them I wanted to be baptized. Many months after my first meeting with the missionaries, I finally told my parents that I wanted to get baptized and that I wanted to serve a mission. They were upset, but I knew I was making the right choice.
I don’t have any pioneer ancestry, but I do feel like I understand their sacrifice. It is difficult to give up some traditions and face opposition from family members. Even now, five years after I joined the Church, in which time I have served a mission, my family doesn’t completely support my decision, but they’ve come to accept it. Joining the Church has allowed me to honor my family in new ways, by doing family history and researching my ancestors. My testimony of Jesus Christ and His Atonement help me in resolving any conflict I may have with my family.

“A puppy?” I asked, excited. “Sister North wants to give us a puppy?”
“That’s what she said,” Mom assured me. “But we have to check with Dad when he gets home from work before we say we’ll take him.”
How can Dad say anything but yes? I wondered. We were finally living in a house. All the other times we’d asked him for a puppy, he had said, “Not while we’re in an apartment. A dog needs a yard to run in.” Now we had a yard, and we had the chance for a puppy. He just had to say yes.
When Dad came home that night, my three brothers and I jumped all over him, shouting, “Can we have it? Can we have the puppy from Sister North?”
“Whoa,” Dad said. “A puppy is a lot of responsibility. Who’s going to feed and water it?”
“We will,” we promised.
“I guess it’s about time we had a puppy.”
“Hurray!” we yelled.
That night Mom took a box to Sister North’s house. When she brought it home, squeaking noises were coming from it. Mom reached in and gently took out a brown and black puppy and placed him in my arms. He licked my hand and wagged his tail.
We tried calling him all kinds of names to see which one fit the best. “Why do we call him a dog?” I asked Mom.
“Because that’s what Heavenly Father told us to call him,” Malcolm answered.
“Not quite,” Mom said. “The Bible tells us that Heavenly Father had Adam name the animals. Let’s read it.”
I got the Bible off the shelf in the living room. Mom turned to Genesis 2:19 [Gen. 2:19] and read, “‘And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.’”
“Wow!” I said. “How did Adam think of all those names?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, “we’re having a hard time thinking of a name for just one animal.”
“Maybe the name book will help,” Mom suggested. She got the book she uses when we name new babies. After reading for a few minutes, she pointed to one and said, “Here’s one that fits him—Caleb.”
“What does it mean?” we asked.
“It means ‘as fearless as a dog,’” Mom said.
And that’s how Caleb got his name. About six weeks later, Caleb acted real tired all day. He hung his head. He didn’t wag his tail. While we were eating dinner, he got off his blanket in the kitchen and walked on shaking legs over to the table. Then he started to throw up. Dad put him back on his blanket, cleaned the floor, then called the vet. After he talked on the phone for a while, he wrapped Caleb up in a large towel and took him to the dog hospital.
Dad came home alone. “Caleb’s very sick,” he told us. “I had to leave him there so the vet can find out what’s wrong with him.”
“Is someone petting him there?” I asked.
“No,” Dad said, “they have him in a cage.”
I hated to think about our Christmas puppy in a cage with no one to hold him and talk softly to him when he cried. “Mom,” I asked, “does Heavenly Father love puppies?”
“I’m sure that he does, honey,” she said. “He must love everything that He created.”
“Then it’s OK if I pray for Caleb, isn’t it?”
“Remember when we talked about Adam naming the animals?” Mom asked.
I nodded.
“Well even before Heavenly Father created Adam, He planned that it would be man’s job to care for the animals. Let’s read it from the Bible.” I got it from the shelf, and she read Genesis 1:26 [Gen. 1:26]: “‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’”
“What’s dominion?”
“That’s a way of saying Heavenly Father gave Adam the job of seeing that all the animals were protected and taken care of. Heavenly Father wants us to have dominion over our animals too. I think it would make Him very happy to know that you love Caleb enough to pray for him.”
That night I asked Heavenly Father to help Caleb get well so that he could come home to the people who love him.
The next morning the vet said that we could visit Caleb in the afternoon. When we got there, a lady in a white coat took us into a little room, then brought Caleb in. He wagged his tail but didn’t even try to get up. They had shaved a patch of hair off one of his front legs. Dad said that that was so that they could put a special kind of needle called an IV into his veins and put fluid into them because he wouldn’t eat or drink anything. We held him and talked to him for about ten minutes. Then the lady came back and said that it was time for Caleb to go get his medicine. As soon as she picked him up, he started to whine. I could tell that he wanted to stay with us and not go back to that cage.
The next night Dad brought Caleb home. We were to shoot water into his mouth with a syringe and feed him little bits of food so that he wouldn’t need an IV anymore. But we could do even more—we could love him and pray for him.
That night Dad slept on the kitchen floor in a sleeping bag with Caleb next to him. The next morning we folded a blanket and placed it in the sunshine in the living room. Caleb spent hours sleeping in the sun. Every time the sun moved, we moved the blanket. When he woke up and cried, someone picked him up and loved him. Every morning and every night we prayed for him.
One morning when we woke up, Caleb was gone from his blanket. We found him in the kitchen, wandering around under the table. He was getting well enough to go exploring. Before long he was his old self again.
Now Caleb is a full-grown dog. He loves to play soccer. He can flip the ball up in the air with his nose. He jumps as high as my bike to get it when Dad kicks it to him. I think that we’re doing a pretty good job of having dominion over Caleb. And I think that Adam would have liked our dog.

President Joseph F. Smith (1838–1918) dedicated the site for the temple at Cardston, Alberta, Canada, on July 27, 1913. It was the old tabernacle square, originally given to the Church by Charles Ora Card, who founded the settlement in 1887, when the immigrant Saints first arrived. Then Elder David O. McKay (1873–1970) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles laid the cornerstone on September 19, 1915. President Heber J. Grant (1856–1945) dedicated the building on August 26, 1923.

Rehearsing wasn’t always easy. Brittany was cast in the “Burning of the Prophet Abinadi” scene. She played a page in King Noah’s court. It was an important part because she was responsible for handing fans to all of King Noah’s courtiers as they came onstage. But once she herself was onstage, she didn’t have much to do but stand beside King Noah’s throne. Rehearsals lasted up to three hours and sometimes were hot and boring, but she still wouldn’t trade being in the pageant for any other vacation.

Church Welfare and Self-Reliance employee Peniette Seru joined a group of Church members who visited a small village in Fiji’s south to deliver SolarBuddy lights to families.
She smiled as she recounted her experience distributing lights to young people who live in homes with no electricity. “One hundred and fifty other lights were donated to a children’s heart hospital (in Suva) to be given to children who come in from outer islands,” she said.

Elder Stout and I decided to have a prayer before going out again that Christmas Eve. We had arrived home from our last appointment, and I wasn’t exactly eager to step into the freezing-cold Italian air again. But my companion thought we still had time for the Christmas project we had been planning.
“Please guide us to those with no special place to go for Christmas,” we asked. “Please help us to cheer those who are experiencing sadness and loneliness during the holiday.”
I grudgingly rebuttoned the buttons I had so eagerly unbuttoned minutes before as Elder stout gathered up the Christmas gifts left over from what we had given our investigators—five Christmas candles decorated with paper holly and aluminum-foil bases. We had made them ourselves during the weeks before while practicing “Venite Fedeli” ( “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful”) to sing to those we found wandering around with no place to go on Christmas Eve.
We walked into the cold, deserted streets of Bolzano, and I apprehensively looked for someone to cheer up. I had been in Italy for only twenty days or so and, although I was enthusiastic about missionary work, I still found it hard to approach strangers and talk to them in a language I barely knew about things they didn’t seem interested in.
A man started walking in our direction, avoiding looking at us. We managed to stop and talk with him, lit and gave him one of our decorated candles, and sang to him.
As we sang, the faraway look in his eyes faded away. Not only a smile, but genuine warmth came to his face. I felt good. The man walked away with new vitality, and my attitude about our plans for the evening changed. It was going to be a good evening after all.
Then, walking toward the center of the city, we met a gray-haired old man. He was wearing a thick jacket and limping along with the help of a crutch under his left arm. Elder Stout recognized him as someone he had talked to before my arrival in Italy. We presented him a candle and sang our carol.
He was thrilled. “Won’t you come with me?” he asked in Italian marked by a strong German accent. “I’m on my way to church.” We agreed and proceeded into town slowly, keeping in step with his pace. As we walked, Elder Stout and the man continued talking.
As they conversed, I studied our companion and realized that, in spite of the incredibly low temperature, the hand supporting his body on the crutch was gloveless. “Please take this glove for your left hand,” I somehow forced out.
“No, no,” he replied. “Many years ago I spent the winter in Russia as a soldier with less than I’m wearing now. This is nothing compared to then.”
We neared the church and noticed a large group of people waiting outside. Our friend yelled out, “Hey, these Americans want to sing for you and give you a present!” This wasn’t exactly what we had planned to do, but we sang anyway and gave out one of the three remaining candles. Our friend stood off to the side and smiled.
The night was getting colder and colder, so when we finished, Elder Stout and I asked him to take a glove from one of us to protect his bare hand. Once again he explained that he had undergone winter in Russia many years ago and had suffered much worse.
Then a car stopped near the church, and a well-dressed woman and her young son stepped out. The boy was yelling, upset at the necessity of going to church on the night before his favorite day of the year. While the mother attempted to calm him down, our friend motioned us to them. As we followed his labored steps, he called out, “Hey, these American boys want to sing for you and give you a present!”
We knelt down eye-to-eye with the boy and made our presentation. As the boy, wide-eyed and silent, listened intently to our well-rehearsed carol, I could see our friend smiling and enjoying every minute. When we stood up to wish the mother a merry Christmas, we saw that she had been crying as we sang. She smiled at us, and, before we could say anything, our friend wished them a merry Christmas in a way that only Santa Claus could rival.
We echoed his wishes and turned back to tell our friend that we still had one more candle and planned to continue on until we found someone to give it to.
He looked at the ground and then turned back to us: “Well, it’s too crowded here anyway. Maybe I’ll go on with you to a smaller church.”
Happy to hear that we would still enjoy his refreshing company, we left to find another church. Our limping friend guided us through the quiet streets only to find the other chapel closed. As it got colder and colder, I kept remembering the hand of our friend, trying to sense what it would be like for my bare hand to remain frozen in one position, holding on to a crutch. We both offered our gloves, and again he refused.
As we walked away from the church, we saw two teenage girls walking dejectedly down the street. Within seconds, our friend was yelling, “Hey, these American boys want to sing for you and give you a present!” Remembering that we only had one candle left, not two, I became uneasy. But we lit the candle and gave it to one of them.
“What about the other girl?” our friend asked. After Elder Stout explained that we had just given away the last candle, our friend cried “Wait!” and started fumbling through his pockets. He finally found the candle we had given him and handed it to the other girl. Elder Stout and I sang our carol while our friend stood by smiling. The girls began smiling, too.
When they walked away, Elder Stout said, “Well, that’s the last of our candles. I guess it’s time to go home.” Our friend replied that he would accompany us as far as the other church. When we arrived, we wished one another a merry Christmas and went our separate ways.
Back in our apartment, Elder Stout and I knelt in prayer. We thanked the Lord for making it possible to touch a few hearts and shine a little light on saddened countenances. We also thanked him for the lesson that angels don’t always wear white flowing robes but come in all different sizes, colors, and nationalities. Some walk with crutches.

“Mom, my coat’s gone!” Brad said. It was time to go home from church, but Brad couldn’t find his coat on the rack.
“Are you sure that’s where you hung it up?” Mom asked.
“Yes. It was right here.” Brad’s coat was bright blue and red. It was hard to miss.
“Maybe it got moved. Let’s look around the building,” Dad said.
Mom, Dad, and Brad split up to check different rooms. They looked in the lost-and-found box, in the chapel, in Brad’s classroom, in the Primary room, and on every coat rack. They even looked in the bathrooms, but they didn’t find the coat.
“Somebody probably took it by accident. I’m sure they’ll return it next week as soon as they realize it isn’t theirs,” Dad said.
“In the meantime, you can wear your old coat,” Mom said.
Brad frowned. He didn’t like his old coat. It was thin, faded, and too small for him. He loved how his new red-and-blue coat made him look like a superhero.
Someone probably saw how cool my coat is and stole it, Brad thought. How could that happen at church? Everyone there was supposed to be honest. Brad wouldn’t let that robber get away with it. He had a plan. Next Sunday, he would watch carefully to see who was wearing his coat. Then he would snatch it back and yell, “Stop, thief!” They would be sorry they ever took it.
Brad could hardly wait for Sunday to carry out his plan. But the next Sunday was too warm for coats, and so was the next Sunday.
The Sunday after that, Brad looked around suspiciously at all the boys in Primary, wondering who stole his coat. Was it that tall boy? Or maybe it was a girl. He felt like he couldn’t trust anyone. Brad didn’t like that feeling.
After church Brad hurried around the building, watching families put on their coats. But he didn’t see his coat anywhere. He even checked the lost-and-found box again … but no coat. Where could it be?
On the way home, Brad thought of a new plan. He would pray. He knew Heavenly Father could find lost things. That night Brad prayed and said, “Heavenly Father, please tell me who took my coat. I want it back.”
Brad waited for the robber’s name or face to come to mind. But instead he started thinking about his friend Carl. Brad usually sat by Carl in Primary. They joked and laughed together a lot. But Carl hadn’t been to church in a few weeks. Brad missed him.
What if Carl had taken his coat? Maybe Carl was afraid to come to church now because he thought Brad wouldn’t be his friend anymore. Brad wanted Carl to come to church again. If Carl had taken his coat, Brad decided, he wouldn’t yell at him. He would forgive him.
Brad climbed into bed, feeling better.
The next Sunday in Primary, Carl wasn’t there, but a new boy was. He was wearing a red-and-blue-striped tie.
“Cool tie,” Brad said, sitting by the new boy. “It makes you look like a superhero.”
The boy smiled.
Brad smiled too. He wasn’t looking for robbers anymore. He was looking for friends.

I contacted people on the street and invited them to race me—if I won, they would agree to come to church. I ran in 77 races on my mission and never lost.

Brother Ashton Garcia of the Port of Spain Trinidad Stake shared his experience of preparing line upon line. He said, when his wife was serving as Relief Society president, she received personal revelation after reading the words of President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) to start a food storage.7 They learned valuable lessons of following the prophet, starting a kitchen garden, storing fruits and vegetables managing a budget and using resources wisely. He shared that “As we moved forward in faith and followed the Lord’s commandments, the Lord guided us with revelation line upon line on how to act and not be acted upon. We received peace from the Spirit by knowing we were prepared and keeping the commandments.”

Young Women from the Mesa Arizona North Stake decided to devote some of their time at girls’ camp to performing a service to others. For the three days they were at camp, the girls devoted some of their time each day to sewing teddy bears to be given to local fire departments. Firefighters can give the bears to children who have been in traumatic situations, to comfort them and keep them occupied.
Just one week after giving their phenomenal gift of 650 teddy bears (all sewn in patriotic red, white, and blue), the girls were able to see their gift in use. A local paper showed a picture of a child who had been involved in an accident. In his arms, he was holding a small bear, hugging it tightly around the neck.

In the month of May, my wife and I were in the historic city of Berlin. We boarded a taxi and asked that the driver take us to the Berlin Wall. When the driver failed to respond to the direction provided, again the desired destination was given. Still no movement. Then he turned toward us and, in halting English, explained, “I can’t. The wall is kaput—gone!” We drove to the Brandenburg Gate. We viewed its restoration. We gazed from West Berlin to East Berlin, now one Berlin, and reflected on the events which followed the wall’s demise: a new mission of the Church established in Poland, another in Hungary, yet another in Greece, and a mission reestablished in Czechoslovakia. And now, official recognition of our Leningrad Branch in the Soviet Union. Who, except the Lord Himself, could have foreseen these historic events? It was He who declared, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations” (Matt. 24:14). Surely the purposes of the Lord continue to unfold to our view if we but have eyes that truly see and hearts that know and feel.

1. When I don’t mind my parents
And want to have my way,
I soon feel very sorry
For things I do and say.
And so I ask forgiveness
To show I really care.
I talk to Heav’nly Father,
Who always hears my prayer.

My brothers and sisters, how grateful I am to be here with you in this historic Tabernacle today. Seventy-four years ago, my grandfather Lars Peter Oveson stood at this pulpit and bore his testimony as an invited stake president from Emery County, Utah.
Although he died when I was just a boy, my grandfather has always been one of my heroes. I have studied his journal, which recounts over and over again his willingness to answer the calls that came to him throughout his lifetime. He and his parents converted to the gospel in Denmark, immigrated to this country, and came across the plains to join the Saints in Utah. One of the calls that came to him required leaving his new, young wife for six months to work on the building of the St. George Temple. He left her and their young family again to serve a two-year mission in his native Denmark. Later, the calls of bishop and stake president necessitated their relocating and rebuilding their home and farm on three different occasions. Through all of these upheavals, he remained grateful, cheerful, and faithful to the principles of the gospel, leaving a great legacy of faith to those of us who bear his name.
As my grandfather so eloquently stated 74 years ago: “I rejoice to bear my testimony to the truthfulness of this work of the Lord to the world, for I know it is true; I know it is for the uplift and the advancement of the children of God, and I pray that the Lord will help … us that we may remain faithful and true, that we may be found valiant workers in the cause of righteousness and help to build up his kingdom upon the earth” (Lars Oveson, in Conference Report, Apr. 1925, 127). To these truths I add my own witness in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

As I sat by Esther, I watched storm clouds gather and snow begin to fall. My thoughts went back 35 years to when my grandmother had had her final stroke. Others had been frightened of the silent stranger who inhabited my grandmother’s frail body, but my mother had told us to hold her hand, to stroke it, and to talk to her.
“I think she can hear you, even if she can’t communicate,” my mother had said. “She needs to hear and feel your love. Talk to her, touch her, and let her know you love her.”
I hadn’t thought of my mother’s words for many years, but they came back as I talked to Esther, stroked her immobile hands, and filled the tiny room with my whispered prayers.

The Southport members of the Church, on Preston New Road, set themselves a one-week lockdown challenge to ‘index’ 400 names. Said local resident and volunteer, Mona Gibson (pictured), “I became involved with indexing some years ago when we were asked to help transcribe the 1911 Census by indexing all the information it held. This makes it so much easier for those searching for ancestors in order to build up their family history. Inputting names and information alphabetically onto the computer also helps build a safe digital record. It can help with easing the frustration of searching through pages of documents and maybe endless trips to cemeteries or having to rely on older family members who may no longer be able to remember specific details.”

Mona continued, “I love Indexing as it’s a way to serve the whole family history community, and I can do it all from the comfort of my own home, on my own computer. We managed to get almost 1,000 names indexed over the week of our challenge.”

When I was young, I had an experience with heavenly help and goals. There was a radio repair shop close to where I lived, and I got a job there to sweep out the shop. While there, I became fascinated with radio. The owner of the shop showed me how to do some basic radio repair, and my interest increased. I continued to learn more by reading books, and soon I discovered that I could be certified as a transmitter engineer if I took an exam. Now I was developing a goal.
I studied, took the exam, passed, and was licensed as a transmitter engineer while I was still in high school. When I got a little older, I became a radio announcer, which allowed me to introduce records and interview people. I kept that job all through high school and college. Even after I got married, that was my source of support for my family. It affected my life a great deal to have a goal and have heavenly help in pursuing that goal.

Prepare slips of paper with the following situations written on them: (1) Your little brother is having trouble with his math homework. You are good at math. (2) Your big sister thought you wrote in her schoolbook. She was angry at you but then learned you didn’t do it. Now she’s sorry. (3) You left your bike in the driveway. Dad is not happy about it. (4) You want to buy a candy bar but will not have enough money if you pay your tithing. (5) You see a mother pushing a stroller and trying to open a door. You are by the door. Place these slips of paper in a small container. Have the children sit in a circle. Pass a beanbag or other small item around as the pianist plays “Choose the Right Way” (Children’s Songbook, 160; The Friend, June 1995, 12). When the music stops, have the child holding the item take a slip of paper from the container. Read the situation; then ask and discuss, “What does Jesus Christ want you to do?”

The Bravest Dog Ever It was 30° below 0° F (-34° C) in Alaska, and a blizzard was raging. But if the sled dogs couldn’t get needed medicine to Nome, the people there would die. This beginning-to-read story is true.Natalie Standiford6–8 years