Gospel Story Finder

Sometimes building character means knowing when to be a leader and when to be a follower. Putting together a play is no exception.
“This play has taught me a lot about working as a team,” says 17-year-old Libby Farnsworth. “I’m used to getting on the stage and being the center of attention, but this play is not a one-person show. You have to really allow the limelight to be on the person it’s supposed to be on.”
On stage, teamwork means remembering your own lines and helping others out when they forget theirs.
“Libby’s really great at feeding me lines. When I forget what to say next, she repeats the line before, to jog my memory. She’s saved me more than once,” says Geoff.

The Coventry Ward Primary children set a year-long goal with their families and Primary leaders to read the Book of Mormon and learn more about Jesus Christ. Each child got their own journal with pages from the Friend and places to write down their feelings and experiences. The Primary had Book of Mormon activities all year, like a Book of Mormon carnival!

Our whole extended family gathers at my grandparents’ house in Idaho, in a very rural area. We take a drive to the nearby mountains, have a cookout, admire nature, and see things how the pioneers saw them. We also watch the parade from downtown Salt Lake City on television and have family time. I personally like to consider what life would have been like for the pioneers and admire their amazing faith and courage.
Heather J.

Several years ago a friend of mine had a young daughter die in a tragic accident. Hopes and dreams were shattered. My friend felt unbearable sorrow. He began to question what he had been taught and what he had taught as a missionary. The mother of my friend wrote me a letter and asked if I would give him a blessing. As I laid my hands upon his head, I felt to tell him something that I had not thought about in exactly the same way before. The impression that came to me was: Faith is not only a feeling; it is a decision. He would need to choose faith.
My friend did not know everything, but he knew enough. He chose the road of faith and obedience. He got on his knees. His spiritual balance returned.
It has been several years since that event. A short time ago I received a letter from his son who is now serving a mission. It was full of conviction and testimony. As I read his beautiful letter, I saw how a father’s choice of faith in a very difficult time had deeply blessed the next generation.

Shauna Bart of Logan, Utah, loves to dance. She is so good that she received a “Special Distinguished Dancer” award in a Miss Utah Drill Team competition. But the thing that makes Shauna different is the fact that she is deaf.
Shauna loves to listen to music, although she only hears and feels the beat. She started taking dancing lessons as a child and enjoys dancing with a group so she doesn’t get ahead or behind the music.
During the last couple of years she has been working on developing her sign language skills since she already is an accomplished lip reader. She finds signing a tremendous help in communicating with her deaf friends, and it also provides her with a way to fully understand meetings and programs at church and at school. After the first sacrament meeting she attended with an interpreter, she said, “I didn’t realize sacrament meeting was so neat.”
Shauna has a strong testimony and has been an active member of the Logan 21st Ward, Logan Utah Cache Stake. She has taken part in meetings and programs, given talks, been in road shows, and participated at girls’ camp and at youth conferences.
Shauna’s goal is to attend college and major in special education. She hopes to work with deaf children someday.

The time I saw a weeping father, who had been activated, stand in our stake conference with his arms around two sons and say, “Where would we be without the Church?”

On my birthday one Sunday morning, my husband and I were getting ready for church when the phone rang. I answered, and the bishop said, “I know today is your birthday, but could you meet with me in my office in 30 minutes? I would like to talk with you.”
Curious, I hurried to church.
In his office, the bishop said to me, “Sister Cruz, I have a birthday present for you. The Lord is calling you to serve as Young Women president. Will you accept this calling?” I felt overwhelmed, but I accepted the calling. I was sustained and set apart that day.
When I returned home after church, I sat on my bed. The weight of responsibility hit me. I cried and felt inadequate for the work. What a responsibility to guide those young women! I was baptized when I was 22 and had never attended Young Women activities before. How could I be Young Women president?
I did the only thing I knew to do: I knelt and asked Heavenly Father for guidance in this new calling. At that moment I had an experience I will never forget. As I visualized each young woman, I understood that each was a daughter of Heavenly Father. Each needed a president who loved her and could help her understand that God loved her. In my mind I saw the names of all the less-active young women (whom I had never met), and I understood that they were also daughters of Heavenly Father and needed my attention. I felt each one’s potential.
The following months were not easy. I worked hard to get to know each young woman and to understand her needs. Together with the active young women, our presidency helped those who had been less active return to activity. I saw the hand of the Lord at work in many ways.
When I was released from my calling, I worried that perhaps I could have done more. Upon arriving home, I knelt and asked Heavenly Father if my service had been acceptable. I received a sweet feeling that He was pleased.
I thought back on that birthday when I could have turned down the calling because of all my other responsibilities. But I am the one who would have lost most by not accepting the calling. I would have lost the opportunity to learn humility, gain understanding, develop patience, and become an instrument in the Lord’s hands. But mostly I would have failed the Lord in the confidence He placed in me, and I would have failed to learn that the opportunity to serve is a gift.

From the time of his youth, Joseph understood that a great key to cultivating humility is to seek our Heavenly Father through sincere, heartfelt prayer. Daniel Tyler, an early Church member, recalled a time in Kirtland when many had turned against the Prophet. Brother Tyler, present in a meeting where the Prophet prayed with the congregation for the Lord’s help, described the experience in these words:
“I had heard men and women pray … , but never until then had I heard a man address his Maker as though He was present listening as a kind father would listen to the sorrows of a dutiful child. Joseph was at that time unlearned, but that prayer, which was to a considerable extent in behalf of those who accused him of having gone astray … , partook of the learning and eloquence of heaven. … It appeared to me as though, in case the vail were taken away, I could see the Lord standing facing His humblest of all servants I had ever seen.”9

“I hated being in the hospital, and I felt like I was in prison,” says Diane. For one month of the five she was in the hospital, she was in traction and couldn’t move at all except when the nurses came in and turned her a few centimeters every two hours. Diane had no idea she’d be in the hospital for so long. “In fact, when I was first injured I thought for sure that in a month I’d be back on the tour. I thought, ‘If I have enough faith and believe in God and in myself, I’ll be okay.’ And I just knew it.”

Recovery wasn’t quite so easy though, and things seemed to get worse. “I was a horrible patient,” says Diane. “In the hospital I was really miserable because I was so restless. I was really impatient with people.” Finally Diane came to a turning point.

“One day I was in the depths of despair. I just felt like I couldn’t bear it anymore,” Diane says. She asked for a priesthood blessing. She knew the power to heal her was present, “but I only wanted that to happen if it was Heavenly Father’s will. I had this blessing and I felt the greatest sense of peace. It was like I knew that no matter what happened it would be okay. If I didn’t walk away from the hospital there would be a reason for it. I knew that I had always tried my best to live the gospel and do what I was supposed to do, so if anybody was worthy to have that blessing, I was. But from that point on I was a different person. I was totally comforted.”

It was New Year’s Day, and a snowstorm had just blanketed the small mountain town of Estes Park, Colorado, where I lived. Filled with the excitement of the holiday season, my older brother, Roger, and I had gone outside to play in a field near our home. A little lake where we had played on the ice many times before now lay underneath a fresh mantle of snow, flat and absolutely flawless.
No one worried about the lake being unsafe at that time of year—we lived at such a high altitude that the cold weather generally insured that small lakes would be frozen. But as we were playing, Roger suddenly fell through a soft spot in the ice. I was only six years old, and I didn’t know what to do. I could see no sticks around to pull him out with; everything was covered by snow. His heavy clothing soon pulled him under the water.
I ran all the way home through the deep snow, over a mile, to get my father. We drove back to the lake, and he dove through the ice and somehow found my brother. He tried to revive him, but by that time Roger had drowned.
That experience left me with several feelings. First, I saw the strength of the gospel in my parents’ lives. We were the only members of the Church in our community. Everyone rallied around my parents to give them support and comfort, but I think that the whole community gained more comfort and understanding by watching how a knowledge of the gospel helped my family handle that very difficult situation.
Second, I learned about the purpose of this mortal experience. We come to earth to gain a body. Some of us are going to live on the earth a shorter time than others. When you’re literally side by side with your brother, and he goes through the ice and drowns and you don’t, it gives you a whole different way of thinking about life. It could have just as easily been me that drowned. But I’ve always felt that my brother’s mission here on earth had been completed and that he was just “called home” at an earlier age than most of us. But being the one who was allowed to remain, it was important to live as well as I could so that not only Heavenly Father but also my brother would be pleased with my actions.
Third, I learned a great deal from the courage exhibited by my father. He risked his life to break through that ice and dive underneath it to try to rescue his ten-year-old son. It was an immediate response; he did what he felt he needed to do. He showed great love, courage, and strength of character.

Suppose, for example, that your spouse says to you, “It really embarrasses me when you show affection for me in public.” If your answer is “That’s no reason to be embarrassed,” you are insensitive to her real message and failing to understand how she is feeling. Such an answer can cause frustration and possibly hostility; it certainly doesn’t lead to open communication.
A response like “Really? Why?” might be better. Instead of voicing disagreement, you are showing that you have understood her message—and you are opening the door for further discussion.

The Nauvoo Temple, dedicated in 1846, was the first Latter-day Saint temple to be topped by a “gilded angel.” When Colonel Thomas L. Kane, a friend and advocate of the Church, visited the Nauvoo Temple site in 1846, he observed the Saints who stayed behind to finish the temple after the rest of the Saints had fled west to escape persecution: “They had completed even the gilding of the angel and trumpet on the summit of its lofty spire,” he said.2

Klane Murphy received high compliments for his determination and courage from teammates after winning the 167-pound division of the Connecticut State Class L wrestling championship. Klane had been plagued with injuries including a severely cut hand and a broken nose.

Besides winning the championship, Klane also served as captain of the team.

Klane will be attending Brigham Young University on a four-year academic scholarship. He served as assistant to the president of the priests quorum in the New Canaan Second Ward, Yorktown New York Stake.

The first two days of the open house were set aside for state and local civic leaders, clergy of other faiths, business and education leaders, as well as for the media and the press. Several hundred accepted the invitation. It was my privilege, along with others, to welcome and speak to these guests and answer their questions.
Early in the morning on the first day, ignoring the rain, these invited guests stood in line to enter a house of the Lord. They quietly and reverently walked through the temple, gazing in amazement at the architectural beauty and appointments fitting a house of the Lord. They came to see for themselves what they had heard and read about.

When Gus turned 16 and got his driver’s license, he was able to see that smile more and more. As her condition worsened, Sister Miller was unable to drive. Gus happily volunteered to pick her up and take her to church. “Sometimes she couldn’t stay past the sacrament in sacrament meeting so I would take her home.” Now, other ward members pick up Sister Miller when she’s able to go to church. And when she wasn’t, guess who went to her house to take her the sacrament.
“Sometimes I went with my dad, and sometimes I went with the Young Men president or one of the guys from my quorum,” explains Gus. “It’s something I did that helped her out. I liked doing it.”

Often we mark the span of our lives by events that leave imprints on our minds and hearts. There are many such events in my life, one of which happened in 1989 when I heard a timeless sermon by President Ezra Taft Benson, “Beware of Pride.” In the introduction it was noted that this topic had been weighing heavily on President Benson’s soul for some time.
I have felt a similar burden during the past months. The promptings of the Holy Spirit have urged me to add my voice as another witness to President Benson’s message delivered 21 years ago.

My favorite page in the family-history coloring book is the family tree. I decided to cut out real pictures instead of coloring them in. My family tree I made hangs in my room so I can see it each day.
Sydney H., age 9, California, USA

And, of course, they like to have fun, too. Some of them got a chance one day when a New Era reporter and a Church photographer hit town wanting to see the countryside. Chile Osorno Mission president Lester Haymore graciously consented to serve as chauffeur, six seminary students agreed to be guides, and the trip to Los Saltos de Petrohué (Petrohué Falls) was underway.
The road lay through forests, past soaring mountains, and over rich upland meadows where cattle grazed. The group skirted Lake Llanquihue, largest lake in Chile and the home of slab-sided lunker trout. They rode through villages where oxen plodded and towns where automobiles rolled. In deep forests of green sunlight, hawks carved the sky overhead, and bird songs could be heard from the trees. Paced by guitar chords, the students sang as exuberantly as the birds.
Canta, canta, pajarito,
Canta, canta tu canción;
Canta, que la vida es triste
Y tu cantar me alegra el corazón.*
At Petrohué Falls, stone cliffs rose towering, precipice on precipice, like the edge of the world, and forests marched away to snow-crested volcanoes. The waters of the Petrohué River were an indescribable powder blue that taxed belief. This was no reflection of the sky, but the color of the water itself, a color to be found only in dreams and in Chile.
Through a thousand channels in the black volcanic rock, these menthol-blue waters frothed and roared downward into turquoise foam and delicious blue thunder. The rock walls below sent a sweet blue mist high in the air. The young men and women stood on a bridge over a fork of the falls, stung by the mist, shaken by the thunder, looking and looking and never getting enough of this magic river.
Their dark eyes filled with blue wonder; and with a hundred pauses for one last over-the-shoulder look, the students went back to their van and followed the Petrohué upstream to its source, Todos los Santos Lake. The same impossible blue as the river (varying to cold ultramarine in its depths), it stretched away to snow-capped mountains across the border in Argentina. Along its sides, towering mountains hunched down like shaggy green dragons taking long blue drinks.
Across a narrow arm of water, where the lake became the river, was a cabin. Behind it tall timber climbed the mountain to the sky. Before it rich alpine green ran down to the wind-rippled lake. On the shore was a pale blue rowboat with one oar dipped in sunlight. Just seeing the place brought thoughts of storybooks and enchanted forests, and a question. What would it be like to look out those windows every morning and see the Andes-topping sun warming the back of dragons—or to climb into the pale blue boat and row off between the deep blue sky and the soft blue waves?
Wrapped in the magic, the group walked along the black volcanic shore. Beyond, the white cones of Osorno Volcano wedged the sky. As they walked they threw volcanic rocks into the water, frolicked with a German shepherd that happened past, and sang the songs of Chile. Meanwhile, the sun curved down the sky, silvering the blue water and announcing that it was time to start for home. Reluctantly, they did.

“I’m not used to talking much,” Kim’s father began, “except to my cows. But I would like to say that I’m proud of my daughter. I don’t tell her that often, though. You see, I was raised in a very strict home. My mother died when I was younger than Kim, and though my father was a wonderful man, he believed that showing affection made you weak. I don’t remember that he ever hugged me in his life. I guess that’s why I feel awkward about showing affection to Kim. But I’d like to tell a little story that I hope will show that I do love her.

“Kim was born in the dead of winter, and she caught pneumonia when she was only two months old. I tried to do the household chores because her mother had to care for her constantly. One night it was particularly hard for her to breathe. I took my little girl in my arms and blessed her and prayed for her … as hard as I’ve ever prayed for anything. Then, because her mother was totally exhausted, I sat in the rocker next to the stove and put my baby on her stomach across my lap and rocked her all that night. The doctor came the next morning and said that my rocking her in that position had given Kim’s little lungs a good night’s rest and that he thought that she was going to pull through. So you see, my little girl is very special to me—she always has been, and she always will be.”

What these sources teach us is that repentance is essentially a six-step process. First, we must come to a recognition of our sin. Second, we must develop what Paul calls a “godly sorrow” for our sin. Third, we must completely abandon our sin. Fourth, we must confess our sin and make what restitution we can. Fifth, we must replace the negative action of the sin with the positive action of a recommitment to keep the commandments. And, sixth, we must receive a final forgiveness of our sin. Let me illustrate this process with a personal example.
When I was a freshman in high school, I developed the terrible habit of profanity. My friends used foul language and, while I resisted its allure at first, I finally became seduced by its strains as it ran filthily, though I imagined it trippingly, off the tongue. After about a year, just as I was turning 16, I developed, for a number of reasons, a deep sense that I had been committing a very serious sin. This sense, inspired, I am sure, by the Holy Ghost working on my conscience, seemed to almost envelop me totally with a dark sense of guilt, and I determined to repent and put this sin away from me forever. Thus, I had fulfilled the first two steps toward repentance by recognizing my sin and, then, by feeling a deep sense of sorrow because of it.
I started an intense program of deprofaning my language, concentrating on steps three, four, and five of the repentance process. I began avoiding my especially profane acquaintances in favor of others, mostly Church members, and developed other words to express myself. I slipped occasionally, of course, but eventually got to where I could avoid vocalizing the profanity altogether.
Then, after having successfully gotten the vile words out of my mouth, I went to work on getting them out of my mind. I prayed each morning for strength and reported my progress in my nightly prayers, always reiterating my desire to receive a forgiveness of my sin. I told my friends of my efforts and asked their forgiveness of my former language. They were understanding and helpful.
And finally, having mastered my tongue and my mind, I felt I had completed every step necessary to be forgiven short of the final one, which is the forgiveness itself. But I had to wait awhile for that last step to be accomplished, just like I had to wait for my dry-cleaned slacks. Then, one night, as I lay in bed after my prayers, the sweet sense of forgiveness I had been seeking came to me through the Spirit. I felt a great joy over my spiritual cleansing, far more profound that the relief I had felt over the physical cleaning of my favorite slacks.
Now, about 15 years later, it is sometimes hard for me to believe that I ever used such foul language. I remember, certainly, that I did, but not with the pain I had felt earlier, because I know that I have been forgiven and that I have kept my forgiveness in force by never having fallen back into that same sin.