Gospel Story Finder

A sister in the United States was gone from the Church for many years. Her story of coming back includes powerful lessons for parents and family members who anguish over loved ones who step away. She wrote:
“I could list a myriad of reasons for why I walked away from the Church, the gospel, and in a way, my family. But they really don’t matter. I didn’t make one big decision to leave the Church—I probably made a thousand choices. But one thing I have always known is that my parents did make one big decision, and they stuck to it. They decided to love me.
“I couldn’t possibly know how many tears have been shed, how many sleepless nights, nor how many heartfelt pleading words of prayer have been uttered on my behalf. They didn’t call me out on my sins; rather, they called out to me in my sinfulness. They didn’t make me feel unwelcome in their home and at family gatherings; any of those feelings were of my own doing. Instead, they continued to welcome me. They must have seen my light dim over time. But they knew that the person I was back then was just a shadow of who I was yet to become.
“Just as my path away from the Church was complex, so was my way back. But one thing that was not hard about coming back was the feeling of being back home where I belong.”

One of the most cherished relationships we developed was with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association. Without a building of their own, they have used our meetinghouse for several events and have become close friends of our members. A highlight was a youth evening where their young people met with ours to talk about our respective beliefs, share experiences and enjoy sports and games together. The unity and joy felt that evening were so powerful that we plan to make it a regular event.

The Hofmanns: Early First-Generation Members. In 1937 a German immigrant couple named Hofmann accepted the gospel and were baptized. Their son, Carlos Guillermo Hofmann, born a few months later, grew up as a Latter-day Saint. “We met in a small branch in those days,” he recalls. “I was raised with the beliefs of the Church. We always stayed on the pathway.”

Staying active in those days entailed meeting in homes and being the only Latter-day Saint in school, and then, as an adult, carrying heavy leadership responsibilities almost single-handedly.

After marrying, Carlos and his wife, Irma Scholz, made the needed sacrifices to raise their children in the Church. “I am grateful to my wife, who carried the responsibility while I was working and serving in Church callings,” Brother Hofmann says. “It seemed I was often away from the family, but the children never lacked. We were diligent in holding family home evening.” Today his children and grandchildren are strong and active in the Church.

While serving as president of the Canada Toronto Mission, I assisted several of my missionaries in teaching a prominent businessman. After our lesson, I invited him to pray and ask Heavenly Father if our message is true.
“I don’t know how to pray,” he said.
I told him that all he needed to do was kneel and simply ask Heavenly Father to confirm the truth to him.
“You can do that!” I encouraged him.
We knelt together and the man began his prayer. When he finished, he said, “What’s happening? I’ve never felt anything like this before.”
“That is the way Heavenly Father answers prayers,” I said. “You have asked, and He has answered.”

My sweetheart has done that. Through our many long years of postgraduate study, professional responsibilities, and a growing family, she did not complain. Recently I overheard a conversation she had with young mothers enduring similar stress. They asked her how she had managed with ten children and a husband whose time to help was so limited. Kindness was reflected in her reply: “Through our struggling years I didn’t expect much, so I was rarely disappointed.”
She is special. With her, it is easy to obey the scriptural injunction to “live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of [thy] life” (Eccl. 9:9).

Recently three generations of a family were grieving at the death of a five-year-old boy. He died accidentally while with his family on a vacation. I was granted the opportunity to watch once again how the Lord blesses the faithful with relief and the strength to endure.
I watched the way the Lord made their great burden lighter. I was with them as the Lord’s covenant servant—as you will be often in your life—“to mourn with those that mourn … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.”
Because I knew that was true, I was pleased and at peace when the grandparents invited me to meet with them and the parents of the little boy before the funeral.
I prayed to know how I could help the Lord comfort them. They sat down with me in our living room. I had warmed the room on a cold night with a small fire in the fireplace.
I had felt to tell them that I loved them. I told them that I had felt the Lord’s love for them. In just a few words I tried to tell them that I mourned for them but that only the Lord knew and could experience perfectly their pain and grief.
After saying those few words, I felt impressed to listen with love while they talked about their feelings.
In the hour we sat together, they spoke far more than I did. I could feel in their voices and see in their eyes that the Holy Ghost was touching them. In words of simple testimony, they spoke of what happened and how they felt. The Holy Ghost had already given them the peace that comes with the hope of eternal life, when their son, who died without sin, could be theirs forever.
When I gave them each a priesthood blessing, I gave thanks for the influence of the Holy Ghost that was there. The Comforter had come, bringing hope, courage, and increased strength for all of us.
That night, I saw demonstrated how the Lord works with us to lighten the loads of His people. You remember in the Book of Mormon when His people were nearly crushed by the burdens placed upon their backs by fierce taskmasters.
The father and the mother of the little boy bore witness of the Savior that evening in my living room. The Holy Ghost came, and all were comforted. The parents were strengthened. The burden of grief did not disappear, but they were made able to bear the sorrow. Their faith increased. And their strength will continue to grow as they ask for it and live for it.

During a school break when I was eight, my dad asked me if I wanted to do something to earn money for my mission. I thought it was a good idea, but I wasn’t sure what to do. After some thinking, we decided to make bread. That night, we made 20 loaves. We didn’t know if they would sell, but after we posted about it on social media, they all sold in one night!
I set a goal to keep making and selling bread. At first it was fun. But over time, to be honest, it didn’t feel as fun. It was hard! I had to wake up at six in the morning before school to make the dough. Then my mom helped bake it during the day. When I came home from school, I had to bag the loaves, deliver them, and clean the baking equipment.
I also had to talk to people I didn’t know very well. Sometimes I didn’t know what to say. That was one of the hardest parts. My parents explained that the point of this wasn’t just to earn money for my mission but also to learn to work hard and talk to people. I started to feel more comfortable. And after a while, I enjoyed doing that!
My bread business definitely taught me how to work! I know that what I learned from this goal will help me on my mission.

Marci’s Relief Society experience was positive from day one. Any doubts she had about leaving the secure nest of her Laurel class flew when, on her first day in Relief Society, she was spotlighted. Relief Society President Liz Douglas had contacted Marci’s mother and found out all sorts of fun, interesting things about her. Sister Douglas then presented a rose to Marci and presented Marci to the rest of the sisters in Relief Society. Everyone there welcomed Marci with open arms, and she immediately felt the strong bonds of sisterhood.

Berengere Caviale of the Nancy France Stake writes: “A few weeks ago, during an interview with one of the members of the stake presidency, I was given the challenge to hold regular family home evenings. Since I am single, I did not feel it was necessary to have family home evening, but I did commit to trying it as an experiment. The following week I put my commitment to the test, although I was somewhat skeptical. I began with a prayer and then sang a few hymns. From that moment I was able to feel the Spirit very strongly. Then I read a passage in the Bible about the life of Christ. I read it, wrote down some comments, and then decided to follow His example. I ended with several hymns, which lifted my spirit. During those 45 minutes of family home evening, I was able to hold on to a bit of heaven!”

Dieuveut Demosthène, 18, and Robenson Marcel Laroque Jean, 19, are the best of friends. And they intend to keep it that way. Forever.

“We were neighbors, and we played basketball together,” Robenson explains. “I joined the Church when I was 16, and after a while I suggested to Dieuveut that he should come too. I prayed a lot, and I persisted. Now look at him, a strong member of the Church. I’m proud of him.”

“Robenson invited me many times,” Dieuveut says, “and over time I accepted. He has always spoken with superb words, like he understands everything. So his invitation wasn’t worrisome; it was extraordinary. After a while I started having lessons with the missionaries, and I joined the Church when I was 17.”

That’s the ideal way for missionary work to be done—friends sharing the gospel with friends and giving referrals to the missionaries to teach them. “From me—one person in the Church—now we are two, and we continue the same work together,” Robenson says. As a result of their efforts, one of Dieuveut’s big brothers and another friend have also joined the Church. One became two, and two became four.

Rather, Dieuveut says, as people realize the happiness the gospel brings, the Church in Haiti will keep growing. “I am truly grateful to Robenson for sharing the gospel with me,” he says, “and that’s why I want to share the gospel with others. Last week I asked myself, in the past did I know what joy was? Because today, even if I don’t have everything materially that I want, I always feel at peace with myself. I have a great hope that I will be close to my Heavenly Father.”

“I’m already trying to be a missionary,” Robenson says. “Each day I carry my backpack with several copies of the Book of Mormon in it, just to share with others. Many of them know I’m a member of the Church, and I’m eager to share my testimony. To go on a full-time mission will be a great opportunity to serve God by serving His children. It is my great desire to go.”

Dieuveut says he often talks with returned missionaries. “They have told me how the Lord was able to bless people through the missionaries, and I would like to share in such blessings. They have told me how they lived in the mission field, how much they enjoyed it. Also, after their missions, they are worthy, good examples. I want to be like that.”

What will the future bring? “Heavenly Father has His plan for Haiti,” Dieuveut says. “He is giving members here the opportunity to become strong. It is Haitians teaching Haitians, and that will bless us.”

Robenson will soon receive his mission call, and he hopes it’s to Haiti. Dieuveut won’t be far behind and also hopes to serve in his native land. But whether they’re called to Haiti or to some other country, they know that they will make many more friends in the Church and that their own friendship will continue. Because when you’re friends in the gospel, you’re friends for eternity.

Five years later, looking back on the incomplete construction of the Nauvoo Temple, Joseph knew his journey’s end was near and that he was going “like a lamb to the slaughter,” yet he was “calm as a summer’s morning.” With assurances for his protection, he submitted to one more arrest. However, his trust was dishonored. On June 27, 1844, he and his brother Hyrum were savagely murdered in Carthage Jail.

After a recent mission tour in Indonesia when I visited the missionaries and the Saints on the island of Java, I had to catch an early morning flight to Singapore, and I checked out of the hotel at 6:00 A.M. In order to go to the airport, I, with my luggage, climbed into a taxi that was parked near the hotel entrance. I told the driver to go to the international airport, but alas, his car would not start. Apparently the battery was dead.
Well, what do you do in such a case?
Many thoughts crossed my mind. I calculated that it would probably cost me much time to unload my luggage and find another taxi, and it also occurred to me that the taxi driver was trying hard to make an honest living for his family and would be very disappointed if he could not make that lucrative half-hour trip to the airport.
I made the decision to do my morning exercises by pushing the taxi, leaving the Indonesian cab driver behind the steering wheel to start the car. However, he greatly overestimated the early morning physical power of a flying Dutchman and released the clutch of the car before I had been able to give the car adequate speed. As a result, it came to a sudden halt. But I gave it another try, and this time it worked. With a roaring motor the taxi moved forward. I flung open the door, jumped in, and we were on our way.
An hour and a half later when I boarded my flight, the air hostess who greeted me at the door of the plane said: “I am surprised to see you here! You are the gentleman who pushed the taxi in front of the Borobudur Hotel this morning.”
I confirmed that this was true, and she then told me that all the members of the plane crew had witnessed the scene from the airport limousine parked at a side door of the hotel. They had been waiting for their driver to bring one more piece of luggage. She said that on the way to the airport they had talked a lot about the incident and had wondered: “What makes this man tick? If he can afford to stay in the Borobudur Hotel, why would he take the trouble to push a taxicab at 6:00 A.M. in the morning?”
I thought, “This is my chance to do missionary work!” I took a name card out of my wallet, handed it over to her, and said, “We in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe in sound human relations.” What a great opening line for a missionary!
Well, to cut a long story short, the air hostess told me she was not actually a stewardess but was flight services instructor for Cathay Pacific Airways and had boarded this flight to evaluate the performance of some students she had taught in the cabin crew training school in Hong Kong. That enabled me to make another statement about the Church: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the largest educational institution in the world today. At least 2 million people teach one another on a weekly basis with divinely inspired lesson materials.” I further explained to her that a great deal of my time is spent in teaching missionaries and members of the Church in the nine missions of Southeast Asia.
She remarked: “Then you are maybe the man we are looking for—an experienced air traveler with the ability to teach our personnel involved in ticketing, reservations, check-in counter work, baggage claim area assisting, etc., how to get along well with customers.” I told her that I would gladly do it free of charge whenever they planned another initial or refresher course in Hong Kong and when these dates would not interfere with my other Church assignments. I thought then and there: “What a golden opportunity to use that beautiful book Spiritual Roots of Human Relations, written by Brother Stephen R. Covey of Brigham Young University, to let these people know what makes Mormons tick!”
After my return to Hong Kong, I was approached by the training manager of the airline, who had received a report from the flight services instructor. I made an appointment and spent a couple of hours with him in his office. He was greatly impressed by the work and the achievements of the Church.
I am sure I will have the opportunity to reach out to many souls in the future simply because of what the world observed when they saw the Church in action one early morning in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Camping is not my thing.
Which is why everyone who knew me was surprised when I, along with a good friend, signed up for a weekend camping trip to Colorado, USA, with a bunch of strangers for no reason other than that I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and feel a little more adventurous.
It was about 3 a.m. the first night when it started pouring rain. I stared up at the paper-thin walls of my tent, mentally begging them to keep me dry and sincerely regretting my decision to come. I spent the rest of the trip enjoying the views but mostly trying not to embarrass myself; I was less outdoorsy than most of the people I was traveling with, and I worried constantly that I would look incompetent.
On the final night of the trip, my friend and I ventured outside to try to enjoy the nature that we’d traveled so far to see. As we stood outside our tent, my friend surprised me with her astronomy knowledge, pointing out Taurus, the Pleiades, and Cassiopeia, tracing her finger along the sky as she told me stories about the clusters of stars. It was a beautiful, peaceful moment.
The longer we stood there, heads tipped back, the more I forgot about my own discomfort. Looking up at the vast, starry sky was humbling. For probably the first time during that trip, I was able to fully appreciate something beautiful instead of worrying about myself and getting caught up in my own silly pride.
I felt the difference between these two feelings on that camping trip. For the majority of the trip, I was self-absorbed, worried about how I looked and smelled and how comfortable I was. But there was a brief moment, during that evening under the stars, when I was able to look outside myself and realize that there is so much more to living in this miraculously beautiful world than what I was experiencing.
That night, I learned to look up when I wanted to stop thinking about myself, and that’s proven to be a pretty effective antidote to pride. As the famed Christian writer C. S. Lewis explained: “In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. … As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”3
That trip didn’t change my mind about camping—it’s still not my thing. But I’m grateful that I learned an important lesson about “walk[ing] humbly” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:12) that night, because it taught me something that I not only needed on that trip but will need for the rest of my life. It’s normal to struggle with pride—it’s an inherent part of our mortal experience. But acknowledging it in ourselves and working to overcome it by seeking humility can bring us closer to Christ and help us live happier lives.

One night for family home evening our parents gave us a lesson on how we should treat our bodies as temples. We learned about not letting unkind words leave our mouths. We also learned about how to take care of our bodies by eating nutritious foods as well as how to dress modestly.
At the end of the lesson, our parents helped us build models of temples out of sugar cubes, construction paper, straws, cotton, and glue. We used the pictures of the temples in the Friend to get ideas for our own temples. We had a fun night together as a family.Dillon and April Robertson, ages 8 and 5Los Banos, California

I had this message confirmed when I bore my testimony in the Sunday afternoon session of general conference in April of 2002. That morning I was told that Elder David B. Haight might not be able to participate in the conference. If that happened, I would have five minutes to bear my testimony. I prayed extra hard for Elder Haight that day! Sunday morning I watched him come into the Conference Center, and I started to relax—right up until the moment he exited during the congregational hymn. As I stood at the podium that afternoon, the teleprompter screen was blank! But the message that kept coming to my mind and heart was that women need to feel the Lord’s love in their lives daily. It was the message I knew I needed to convey that day, and it continues to be our message.

This story happened in the USA.
Five fluffy yellow chicks stared up at Clara. Peep, peep, peep!
Each spring Clara’s family bought baby chicks to care for. Today she got to help Dad take them home to live with their other chickens.
The road they were driving on was bumpy. But Clara held the box with the chicks steady in her lap. She gently petted one of them with the tip of her finger. It was so soft!
When Clara and Dad got home, they walked to the henhouse in the backyard. The henhouse was a little shed where all the hens lived and made their nests.
“Which hen should we put the chicks with?” Dad asked.
Clara looked around. One hen was moving straw into a mound. The straw would make a cozy nest for new chicks. Maybe she would be a good mother hen.
“This one,” Clara said, pointing to the hen.
Dad gently lifted a chick out of the box and put it next to the hen. The hen looked at the chick. She lifted her wing, and suddenly the chick disappeared!
“Where did it go? Is the chick OK?” Clara asked.
Dad nodded. “Look.”
The chick peeked its head out from beneath the hen’s feathers.
“Why did the hen do that?” Clara asked.
“To protect the chick,” Dad said. “She’ll keep it safe and warm under her wings.”
Clara helped Dad put the other chicks with their new mother hen. The hen lifted her wings to gather all of them close.
“You know, Jesus Christ talked about this in the scriptures,” Dad said.
“Really?” Clara asked. “What did He say?”
“I’ll show you.”
Clara and Dad went into the house. Dad got out his scriptures. Then he started to read.
“How oft will I gather you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if ye will repent and return unto me with full purpose of heart.”
Clara thought about each of the chicks under the hen’s feathers. “So Jesus gathers us like the hen brings the chicks under her wings?” Clara asked.
“That’s right,” Dad said. “He keeps us safe, just like the hen keeps her chicks safe. But He protects us from much more than the cold. He knows when we are hurt or sick or sad. He gives us peace and comfort. He cares for us.”
The next morning, Clara fed the hen and her new chicks. It made her think of the scripture Dad read. She smiled as she thought about Jesus. She knew He loved her and cared for her, like the hen cared for the chicks.
What did Clara learn about Jesus Christ?
Illustration by Assia Ieradi

Jill Read’s daughter would be a Laurel right now. She’d be learning to drive a car, going on her first date, and thinking ahead to high school graduation. But sadly, Sister Read’s baby girl lived only a short while before dying of sudden infant death syndrome more than 16 years ago.
When Sister Read was given the chance to hold her baby one last time, the baby’s tiny body was wrapped in two large, crisp hospital sheets. “I couldn’t feel her; I couldn’t see her,” says Sister Read.
Easing the pain of losing a child is difficult, if not impossible. But after hearing Sister Read tell her story during a youth conference meeting, and hearing another talk given by Kevin Capener, a young father who lost an infant son, the youth in the North Ogden Utah Ben Lomond Stake were eager to do anything they could to help. So, as a youth conference activity, they decided to “blanket” a local hospital with service.
The nearly 400 young people attending the conference spent an afternoon making more than 500 infant quilts to be given to parents whose newborn babies have died. After the parents have held their baby in the blanket for the last time, the blanket can be kept as a reminder to the parents.
“I hope that this blanket will be used, held, and cherished,” says Mark Miller, a priest. “I want [the parents] to know that there is someone out there who cares about them.”
In just a few short hours, the youth had a stack of quilts ready and waiting to be presented to a representative from Ogden’s McKay Dee Hospital.
It may seem a little thing, making tiny quilts for parents to use after the loss of a child. But sometimes the things people do aren’t measured by the size of their service, but rather, by the size of their hearts.

It’s a typically humid day in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, and sweat drips from Agung’s brow as he awaits his opponent’s serve. The badminton match is close, and the 15-year-old feels driven to win.
After a furious exchange, his opponent puts the shuttlecock hopelessly out of Agung’s reach. Unwilling to give up the point in such a close match, Agung dives for the shuttlecock but comes up short—and bleeding from sliding across the cement court.
It’s easy to see that he loves competitive badminton. But Agung doesn’t dream of becoming a professional badminton player. He’s not going to have to choose between serving the shuttlecock in the Olympics and serving a mission. By his own admission, he’s not particularly good at the sport.
So why does this small teen with the big smile try so hard? Hope.
“I believe I can get better,” he says.
Hope is the reason we do a lot of things. We exercise because we hope we can become stronger and healthier. We practice a musical instrument because we hope we can learn to play well. Agung practices badminton because he hopes he can improve.
“If I had no hope of getting any better and ever winning, it would be very easy to give up,” Agung says.
Hope is an essential element of the plan of salvation. Hope that we can be forgiven leads us to repent and try again after we fail to keep a commandment.
Two of Satan’s best weapons against us are doubt and discouragement. He wasn’t able to foil Heavenly Father’s plan by stopping the Atonement. But he can still try to foil the cleansing effects of the Atonement in our lives if he can steal our hope that we can be forgiven.
“Satan wants us to lose hope,” Agung says, “because when we give up, it leaves us far from Heavenly Father.”
However, when Satan succeeds in discouraging us, there are ways to find hope again.
When we need hope for the future, we can look to the past. Agung uses an example from school that has taught him this lesson. “I’ve seen that if I study hard, I can be successful on my exams,” he says. “Because of that experience, I have hope that if I practice hard, I can improve at badminton,” he says. “My experience gives me hope.”
When we need hope in Jesus Christ, we can find it in both our past experiences with the power of the Atonement (see Romans 5:4) and the experiences of others, including the experiences you might hear in sacrament meeting, a Sunday School lesson, the New Era, or the scriptures (see Jacob 4:4–6).
As we study the hopeful words of the prophets, pray for the spiritual gift of hope, and learn to recognize the Savior’s power in our lives, our faith in Him increases, as does our hope that He will help us in the future.1
Agung knows he will probably never be a professional athlete, but he knows that as long as he keeps trying, there is hope he can improve.
He has learned that the great power of hope is this: “As long as you never give up, there is hope,” he says.
In life, the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of hope. Because of the Atonement we can repent when we make a mistake. That also means that because of the Atonement, we have not failed our life’s test when we make a mistake unless we give up trying to repent and obey.
That’s why Agung continues to invite his father to church every Sunday. That’s why he tries to stand up for what’s right, even when his friends don’t. That’s why he makes the hour-long round-trip bike ride to the meetinghouse so often for seminary, Mutual, Sunday meetings, missionary preparation classes, and to help clean the building.
“It’s not easy to try to be like Jesus,” Agung says. “Sometimes I get discouraged, but I don’t give up. Because of His sacrifice for me, I have hope I can be better.”
Because of the Atonement there is hope. And because of hope, the Atonement can change our lives.

Elder Neil L. Andersen and his wife, Kathy, visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. They had a Church meeting outside under tents. Around the tents was a big fence. Elder Andersen could see children watching them from the other side of the fence. Kathy asked him, “Neil, do you think you might want to invite the children to come in?” Elder Andersen walked up to the man at the microphone. He asked the man to invite the children to come in and join them.
The children came running! They were all smiling and excited to be a part of the meeting.

In my office I have a little plaque that reads, “Above all else, brethren, let us think straight”—the last known words spoken by my grandfather Elder Melvin J. Ballard in mortality. As I understand the circumstances, Grandfather, after a very grueling experience of preaching the gospel all through the eastern part of the United States, drove his own car from New York to Salt Lake City. When he came into the driveway at his home, he collapsed and was rushed to the LDS Hospital and was found to have an acute case of leukemia. He never came out of the hospital. He went in and out of coma, but as I have had it told to me by my father, who was there, Grandfather pushed himself up on his elbows and looked into his hospital room as though he were addressing a congregation or a group and said with clarity, “And above all else, brethren, let us think straight.” I don’t go into my office any day of the week that I don’t see that, and I find that it helps me a little bit.