Gospel Story Finder

With a start, I awoke and listened. It was still dark so I knew it wasn’t the breakfast call that had awakened me. I nudged my older brother. “Ben, wake up. Something strange is happening.”
Ben pushed a sleep-fogged head out of the covers and listened. “I don’t hear anything, Shrimp. Go back to sleep.”
“That’s just it,” I insisted. “There aren’t any sounds!”
Ben listened again and then he smiled. “It’s probably snowing. It’s sure cold enough for it.” His blond head disappeared under the comforter.
The first real snow this year, I thought. Maybe there’s enough for sledding on the hill. As soon as I heard Mama lighting the kitchen stove, I threw on my clothes to keep the bed warmth in and ran downstairs to the heat below.
“What brings you down without a third call and a few threats thrown in?” asked Mama.
“It snowed!” I almost shouted the news.
“It certainly did—almost two feet,” Mama said. Then Ben and the little ones came clattering in, and the kitchen became a cheery waking-up place with the smell of bacon frying and everyone talking about what to do in the snow.
“Whoa,” said Mama, moving Wyn by the shoulders to his seat at the table. “This is a school day. You’d better eat and get out of here. It will take you longer to get to the bus stop in these drifts.”
“Oh, please, let us stay home,” we chorused.
“Sorry, fellows. Only Libby stays, since she has a cold.”
Outdoors I flopped on my back in the glistening snow. “Look, I’m an angel,” I called, flapping my arms and legs to leave an angel print.
“That’s about as close as you’ll ever come to being an angel,” yelled Ben, as he pelted me with snowballs. Seeing me down, Wyn and Jon joined in. I was laughing and trying to get up when the school bus horn blared. “We’ll be skinned for sure if we miss it. Run!” cried Ben.
All day at school the class was noisy. At two o’clock our teacher announced that school would be dismissed early. She laughed as we all plunged for the coatroom.
“Let’s not wait for the bus, Ben,” I suggested. “We’re out a whole hour early so let’s walk.”
“Can’t. We’d be late and then we’d catch it.”
“Not if we cut cross-country.” Turning to Jon and Wyn I called, “Last one over the fence is a scrungy turtle.” Over they climbed and then Ben followed, just like I knew he would.
“Good thing Libby’s not with us,” Jon said, knee-deep in the snow. “She couldn’t keep up in these drifts.”
“That gives me an idea. Poor Libby’s been in all day with her cold. Why don’t we roll a couple of balls and surprise her with a gigantic snowman?” I suggested. Ben thought it would take too long, but Wyn and Jon wanted to.
It was fun racing two and two, pushing the snowballs. But soon Ben and Jon got ahead as our snowballs grew bigger and harder to push. “It must be getting late,” said Ben, looking at the lowering sky.
“Maybe it’s just darker because it’s started to snow again,” I ventured.
“Either way, we’d better leave one ball. We’ll make good time with the four of us on one.”
It was really dark when we reached our lane. Ahead we could see headlights and from the sound we guessed it was Papa’s truck. Around the corner it came and caught the four of us and our giant snowball full in the headlights. The truck skidded to a stop. Papa came flying out of the cab. “Your mother has called half the county, trying to locate you!” he shouted. “As a last resort I was on my way to town to round up a search party. We figured you’d freeze if you stayed out in this all night. Now here I find you, playing with a snowball!” He waved an arm at the back of the truck and we piled in, leaving the giant snowball behind.
When we reached home, Papa said, “You get into the house fast and think of something nice to say to your mother, to make up for all the worry you’ve caused. If you’re lucky, she may heat up some supper for you.”
When we went into the kitchen, she seemed more glad to see us than anything else. After supper Papa ordered us up to bed. I was thinking we were getting off easy when he boomed, “All except Ben.” As usual, the ideas from my shrimpy-red head got us into trouble, but it was Ben who got the blame. He’s the oldest and Papa always says he’s responsible.
I went straight to bed, but I meant to stay awake until Ben came up. Next thing I knew Mama was calling, “Breakfast!”
Ben stirred. “Gosh, Ben. I’m sorry,” I began. “What happened after we came to bed?”
“It wasn’t too bad, Shrimp. Wait and see.”
Nothing was said at breakfast. Then we all piled into the truck to ride to the bus stop. Libby was going, too, and Papa said he didn’t want her starting the day all wet.
Before we reached the end of the lane the truck stopped. From the cab we could hear Libby squealing and Papa’s deep laugh. We all hung out the back to see. By the side of the road stood the gigantic snowman we had planned for Libby!
I looked at Ben. He grinned and then explained. “When I told Papa why we were late, he said it had been a dumb thing to do. He left me squirming for a few minutes and then said, ‘Well, get some warm clothes on. If we’re going to finish that snowman, we’d better get started now that it’s stopped snowing.’”
By the truck lights they had finished him off to be a giant, taller even than Papa. He was a proper snowman, too, with rock eyes, a carrot nose, and a hat borrowed from our old horse.
“The snowman won’t mind that his hat has slits for ears,” said Libby, her eyes shining with pleasure.
“I’m sure he won’t,” Papa said. And we looked at each other and winked.

I would like to start by sharing an experience from the life of President Joseph F. Smith, sixth President of the Church: Joseph F. Smith was raised in a single-parent home. His father, Hyrum, was martyred at Carthage Jail with the Prophet Joseph Smith. Little Joseph F. was only six years old at the time.

Years later, at the age of 19, Joseph F. Smith was returning home from a mission with a group of other missionaries. His wagon-train journey took him through a dangerous area where enemies of the Church had vowed to kill the Mormons.

I quote now from a biography of President Smith:
“One day after the little company of wagons had . . . made their camp, a company of drunken men rode into the camp on horseback, cursing and swearing and threatening to kill any ‘Mormons’ that came within their path. . . . Some of the brethren when they heard them coming had cautiously gone into the brush down the creek, out of sight. . . . Joseph F. was a little distance from the camp gathering wood for the fire when these men rode up. When he saw them, he said, his first thought was to do what the other brethren had done, and seek shelter in the trees and in flight. Then the thought came to him, ‘Why should I run from these fellows?’ With that thought in mind he boldly marched up with his arms full of wood to the campfire. As he was about to deposit his wood, one of the ruffians, still with his pistols in his hands and pointing at the youthful Elder, and cursing as only a drunken rascal can, declaring that it was his duty to exterminate every ‘Mormon’ he should meet, demanded in a loud, angry voice, ‘Are you a “Mormon”?’

“Without a moment of hesitation and looking the ruffian in the eye, Joseph F. Smith boldly answered, ‘Yes, siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through.’

“The answer was given boldly and without any sign of fear, which completely disarmed the belligerent man, and in his bewilderment, he grasped the missionary by the hand and said: ‘Well, you are the —— —— pleasantest man I ever met! Shake, young fellow, I am glad to see a man that stands up for his convictions.’

“Joseph F. [Smith] said in later years that he fully expected to receive the charge from this man’s pistols, but he could take no other course even though it seemed that his death was to be the result.”

My mom first got baptized into the Church with our younger brother. My elder brother and I were in another church. Our father was a reverend in a different church. My father’s background was Muslim. Our grandfather was an Imam. My father grew up as a Christian because he was not brought up by his parents. Our mother, too, was a Christian. She wanted us to be baptized with her and our younger brother. She was trying her level best to convert us, but I told her “Mom, you be ready to be joining that church, but we are not ready to come along with you.”
One day, her inspired bishop called her for an interview and asked her if she was ready to go to the temple. She gladly accepted and told him yes; she was ready. The day came when she went to the temple. While she was there, she asked Heavenly Father to help her in the conversion of her family. That was the biggest and most important thing to her, and she asked for it with a sincere heart.
When she returned back home, something happened. She started talking to us about the Church and helped us to understand one or two things at a time. She helped us clear up misunderstandings. Slowly, a change came into our hearts. We gradually started learning about the Church. One day she invited me to sacrament meeting. I accepted and went with her.
That first day I attended was the best day of my life. The things I saw that they did, the way it was organized, the love and affection, the welcome of the bishop, the love that members showed to me, it all made me stay. The missionaries started teaching me. They only taught me for two weeks because I was very eager, very very eager to join the Church because of the things I saw. I was taught and baptized. After I was baptized, I kept going to Church and partaking of the sacrament and made sure to do that every week to renew my covenants with my Heavenly Father. I remain active and true to my covenants.
As told to Sister Stacy Wursten on 23 February 2023 at the Accra Ghana MTC.

When the doctor released Tracy’s father from the hospital, it was to send him home to die. The cancer had been discovered too late and was too widespread for there to be much that could be done.
It wasn’t entirely for his father’s benefit that he wasn’t told he was terminal; his mother needed some time to deal with it before she approached her husband.
Tracy, then 18 years old, numbly endured the last few weeks of high school. During graduation exercises and the dance afterwards, it was as if there were a shell around him preventing entrance to any shared student happiness.
Then it was summer, and he worked on a state highway department survey crew, which left him his weekends free—to wait.
His three older brothers and their wives each took turns flying into town on weekends, spending a day or two with their father before returning to their jobs in faraway places.
One day his father called him into his room. It was dimly lit and smelled of pain; the bedside stand groaned with glasses and bottles of pills.
“Have I ever lied to you?” his father asked.
“No.”
“Then don’t lie to me. Am I dying?”
Tracy felt his throat clamp shut. He tried to remember the hopeful platitudes about “being up in no time” that his brothers and their wives had tossed around so easily. But it was no use.
“Am I dying of cancer?” his father again asked.
“Yes,” Tracy answered.
His father sighed and said quietly, “That’s what I thought.”
Over the next few weeks, his father made all the necessary preparations—calling in a lawyer to complete the will and other financial matters, and picking out a reasonably priced casket and a lot for his burial.
Then he lay back and patiently waited to die. But death, like sleep, does not always come when invited.
He even seemed to improve a little.
One warm summer day in July, he looked out his bedroom window and said, “I want to go fishing.”
Of course, it was impossible; that was what his mother said; that is what the older brothers and their wives said; that is what the neighbors said.
The doctor said, “If he feels up to it and somebody can go along to do most of the work, why not?”
Tracy was put in charge of taking his father for one last trip into the mountains. After a flurry of planning and buying groceries and stocking up on pills and reading his mother’s never-ending list of how to care for his father, finally one Saturday morning, Tracy stepped inside the small camping trailer to make his last check before getting his father.
For all the years I was growing up, he thought as he looked at the worn path in the cracking linoleum floor of the camper, this has been dad’s church.
For as long as he could remember, his father had been inactive in the Church. Long ago someone in the Church had offended him—about what and by whom no one could now remember. But it had been enough to keep him out of church, except to watch his sons perform, for 20 years.
For all the years that Tracy had been alive, his father treated Sunday as his day. “I work hard six days a week. At least one day I ought to be able to do what I want to do.” And that was fishing in the spring and summer, hunting in the fall, and home shop and carpentry in the winter.
Tracy drove and his father sat in the front seat and silently watched the twisting mountain stream beside the road.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful it is up here,” his father said, looking strangely out of place in the now-too-large sweater his mother had insisted he wear. “I know this country as well as anyone. Every road, every peak, each turn in the river—I know it all. See that place where the river goes under the railroad bridge? Right down there on that point is a good place to fish. You can see that the water’s swift, so you need about eight split shot weights two feet from the hook. You do that, and I’ll guarantee you two or three nice brown trout.”
“You make it sound easy, dad, but it never is when I try it.”
“Well, I’ve spent the last 20 years fishing this river. I should’ve learned something. You know, I should write down all the good places for you. Somebody ought to benefit from all I’ve learned about this river.”
They drove in silence for several miles as his dad studied the river and the condition of every fishing hole.
Tracy had never learned to like fishing. When he was little and had gone with his father, he was always being told to be quiet and to quit throwing rocks in the water, and then after he got bigger, he was constantly being scolded for not keeping enough tension on the line, or not keeping his rod up when reeling in.
He wasn’t sure if his father knew that he didn’t care at all about fishing.
“We should’ve come out here more often, just father and son.”
“Mom never would’ve let me come on Sundays.”
“No, she was very strong on that.”
“But we could’ve come on Saturdays, dad.”
“Sure, we could’ve done that,” his father said wistfully, “if I’d ever had an assistant manager I could trust to leave the store with. You know Saturday was our busiest day.”
“I know; that’s what you always used to say.”
We’re strangers, Tracy thought as he drove. I know less about my own father than I do our milkman. And what does he really know about me?
By 11:00 they were at the lake. They discovered that the campsite, which for years had been his father’s favorite, was still vacant. It was the last one along the road to the lake and sat up on a hill, giving a good view of the lake and mountains.
After lunch his father took his pills and lay down for a nap.
About 3:00 he woke up. “I feel terrific!” he announced happily. “This mountain air has done more for me than all the doctors in the world. Let’s go fishing!”
First Tracy carried down two lawn chairs, next the fishing equipment, and after that a sunshade that his mother had made him promise he’d set up for his dad. After everything was set up, he escorted his father down the trail to the lake.
Not much happened until 5:30. Tracy by then had given up and was sitting looking at a girl across the lake dive from a cliff.
Suddenly his father shouted and his rod bent over sharply. At the same time a hundred feet out into the lake, a large trout jumped out of the water, shaking its head back and forth in an attempt to shake off the hook. Back into the water it made its run. The reel, set to release at a certain tension, hummed as new line fed into the water.
“He must be 20 pounds!” his father yelled excitedly.
It was a long seesaw battle. When the fish let up, the slow, steady reeling brought it closer to shore. A couple of times it was within 20 feet of them before it powered its way back into deeper waters.
“Dad, I can see it now. It’s huge.”
Finally it was over.
“Get the net, Tracy. Careful now.”
Tracy stood near the water and waited for the fish to get close enough, then dipped the long-handled net into the water and pulled the exhausted fish into the air, causing it to frantically writhe.
“It’s beautiful,” his father said reverently.
Tracy picked up the large knife and prepared to strike the fish sharply on the head with the handle to put it out of its suffering. That was something his father had taught him.
“Don’t kill him!” his father cried out. “I don’t want to keep him.”
“No?”
“I want him to stay alive. He belongs in these waters. He fought too bravely to die. Can you remove the hook very easily?”
Tracy grabbed the fish by the gills and looked to see where the hook had lodged. It was deep in its throat.
“He swallowed the hook, dad. I can’t get the hook out without killing him.”
“Then cut the line and put him back in the water. Quickly now.”
He took his knife and cut the line a few inches from the fish’s mouth, then gently lowered it into the water. For a second or two, it just lay still; then sensing freedom, it shot away from them into the deep.
Tracy looked back at his father wondering why he let loose the largest fish they’d ever seen in the lake.
“He’s free now, isn’t he? Free to move through these waters. He can go places we’ll never see. I’m glad we didn’t keep it, aren’t you?”
Since anything else after that fish would be anticlimactic, they quit and packed everything back to the trailer.
“How’d you like to go to California with me for a few weeks this summer?” his dad asked, the excitement of catching the fish still bubbling over. “There’s a hospital there where they treat people with diseases like mine. We could drive down there. They claim they can cure people even worse off than me.”
His father was as positive as Tracy had seen him for years.
“We can fight back, can’t we? We don’t have to just sit and accept defeat, do we? We’ll leave in a week or two, just you and me. And when I’m all cured, we’ll have mom fly down and meet us. We’ll show her all of California—take a little vacation, just the three of us. Maybe we’ll even go down to Mexico and Central America and take a boat through the Panama Canal. How does that sound?”
Even as Tracy cooked supper, his father talked about visiting Mexico. He cooked hamburgers and opened a can of pork and beans. His father took the pills and then they had their meal.
Thick clouds had moved in during the late afternoon, and by 7:00 they were in the middle of a violent thunderstorm. Looking out, Tracy watched the wind drive sheets of rain across the lake in sporadic patterns. Several times lightning crashed around them.
His father, suddenly looking much older, his forehead drenched with sweat, went to bed after taking his pills. Tracy stayed up until 10:00 reading a western paperback.
At 11:00 his father woke up coughing and lost his supper.
Tracy got out of bed and turned on his flashlight. His father was sitting up, his body hunchbacked with pain.
Tracy got a pan of water and a towel and began to clean up the mess on the floor.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” his father repeated over and over again. “It must’ve been the pills.”
Tracy finished with the floor and then took a wash cloth and cleaned up his father as best as he could. They got him out of his sweat-soaked pajamas and into a pair of old pants and a shirt.
At first his father was afraid of taking any more pain pills that night. As the night progressed, he sat on the edge of the bed and rocked back and forth, his head down, his teeth clenched, fighting against the pain of his cancer.
Finally, at 1:00, unable to stand it any longer, willing to risk throwing up again, his father asked for a slice of bread and his pills.
“Does the fish hurt tonight?” his father asked after taking his last pill.
“I don’t know, dad. It’s only a fish.”
“It’s out there swimming around with the hook digging in with each breath.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“Do you think it’s grateful to me for sparing its life, or is it cursing me for allowing it to continue to suffer?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Every time it tries to eat, every time it swallows, the hook will be there, tearing at it. Maybe it’d be better off dead. Maybe we should’ve let it die.”
“Dad, please, you’ve got to sleep.”
“Maybe it’s already dead; maybe it’s floating belly up in the water.”
His father stood up and walked to the window to look out at the lake. The rain had turned to a steady drizzle.
“It’s so hard to know what we should’ve done—so hard to play God even for a fish.”
Tracy lay back in bed, hoping his father would soon go back to his bed and rest, but he remained standing there by the window looking out into the blackness of the night.
Tracy must have fallen asleep, but a few minutes later, he heard the door shut and his father walk out into the darkness.
He jumped out of bed, got dressed, and ran out.
A few minutes later, he found his father standing on a dock at the lake, flashlight in hand, shining the light across the surface of the water.
“Dad, what are you doing down here?”
“I want to know if the fish is dead.”
Suddenly Tracy was terrified. He knew he couldn’t forcibly move him up to the trailer. He was too big.
“Dad, please go back inside. It’s raining.”
“I know it’s raining,” his father said, shining his light in progressively more distant patterns across the water.
“You know mom would be mad if she knew you were out here in the rain. Please go back.”
Finally satisfied, his father turned around to face Tracy. “He’s not belly up. He must still be alive. We can go back now.”
Tracy put his arm around his father’s waist and helped him up the trail.
“Do you ever pray about me?” his father asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“What do you pray about?”
“That you’ll get better.”
“Don’t pray for that anymore. Pray that God’s will be done. We’ve got to trust him to know what’d be best. You and I can’t even figure out that for a fish.”
Back in the trailer, his father slept the remainder of the night.
When Tracy woke up, he discovered a gray, dull, rainy day. His father woke up at 10:00. Tracy fixed them both some hot cereal and his father a cup of instant coffee.
“This is Sunday, isn’t it?” his father asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s the first Sunday I ever recall you missing church. I shouldn’t have come up here with you. Especially with this weather. We’re not going to get much fishing today, are we? Of course, fishing is sometimes very good when it rains—if you want to.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“I’ve been thinking about what I said yesterday—about going to California. It’d take all our savings if we went. One thing’s for sure, the insurance’d never pay for it. And if it didn’t work out, if the treatment is no good, then where would your mother be without any money?”
Tracy ached inside as he realized that California was his father’s last hope for recovery, and that it had slipped away.
“I guess I’ll never see the Panama Canal, will I?” his father said, looking up from his cup. “Well, we’ll just have to make the best of what we’ve got here while we can.”
Tracy, still drying the pan he’d cooked the cereal in, looked away as the tears fell.
“I’ve got some money set aside for your mission and part of your schooling, but if there’s anything else you need from me, let’s talk about it now, before we head back home.”
Tracy knew what he wanted but didn’t know if he dared to ask his father. He knew it wasn’t what his father expected him to say.
“Dad, I want a father’s blessing.”
His father sadly shook his head. “You know I can’t give you that. I’m not an elder. Why do you want that?”
“All my life I’ve been ordained and given priesthood blessings by other men, sometimes by men I don’t even know, but what I wanted was for you to do that, my own father.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it meant so much to you.”
“I used to think that if I tried hard to be the best kind of boy that you’d see what the Church was like and become active again. Dad, I never did any of the things that other guys in school were doing. Why didn’t that make you love the Church?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t even notice, did you? You took it all for granted. And now it’s too late. Dad, I want a father’s blessing.”
“I can’t do it. If you want a priesthood blessing, you’ll have to see the bishop or the home teachers.”
“They’re not my father. You are.”
“I can’t do it. I don’t hold the Melchizedek Priesthood.”
“Dad, you can give me a father’s blessing even if you don’t hold the priesthood, but if it makes you uncomfortable, just put your hands on my head and say a prayer,” Tracy pleaded.
“No, I can’t. Please don’t ask me. I don’t know how. God wouldn’t hear anything I say anyway.”
“I’d hear it. Doesn’t that matter to you? Please, this may be my only chance to receive a father’s blessing.”
His father sat on the kitchen chair and looked out the window for a long time.
“Please, dad.”
“What do I do?”
“Stay in the chair, and I’ll kneel down so you can put your hands on my head.”
Tracy kneeled down in front of his father.
“What do I say?”
“Just say a prayer.”
He felt the big hands of his father rest gently on his head.
“God,” he began slowly, “Tracy wanted me to do this. I don’t have the right priesthood, but he thought if I just said a prayer.” He paused for several seconds and then began again. “He’s been a good boy, always has been. No thanks to me, I guess. I should’ve been a better example for him, but there was always enough food on the table, and I taught him about honesty and about work. When he’s given a job to do, he does it. There’s a lot of people, even Mormons, who can’t finish a job.”
Tracy knew there were tears streaming down his face, but he didn’t care about that.
“I wasn’t everything I should’ve been, I guess you know that, but I think he’s turned out okay—well, better than okay. I think he’s the most wonderful boy a father could have. God, you better take care of him. He’s going to need that, because I’m dying. You’d better help him—that’s all I can say.”
Suddenly all the ache that had been locked inside Tracy was spilling out.
“Maybe he could remember,” his father continued with a strange calmness, “the good things I did as a father and not dwell on my failings. And maybe when he’s a father, he won’t be too busy to take his son out and play a little catch in the backyard. I used to do that, you know. And maybe he won’t be too eager to look down on people in the Church who drink coffee or have a beer now and then. Instead, maybe he’ll try to help them, and not be like those who sniff their noses when somebody who smokes goes to church.”
His father paused and then began again. “I want him to go on a mission, but only if he works hard. And I’d like him to be married in the temple. I never was, but I think it’d be a nice way to start a marriage. You’d better bless him. He’s a good boy, and I love him.” There was a long pause. “I guess I’m through. Tracy, how do I end it?”
Tracy told him, and his father ended the prayer.
Tracy wiped the tears away on his sleeve and stood up.
“Was it okay?” his father asked. Tracy silently nodded his head, unwilling to trust his voice to explain what it meant to him. Then he reached out and threw his arms around his father and hugged him.
“It wasn’t so bad. I just hope it takes,” his father said with a slight smile through the tears.
The rain continued through lunch.
After lunch, his father suggested that they head home, because if they left then, they could go as a family to sacrament meeting.
They went for the next three Sundays, and then the pain became too much, and they had the home teachers help Tracy with the sacrament each week for the family in their home until the Saturday before Labor Day, when his father died.

Illustrations by Elise Black
The front door closed behind Thomas with a swoosh and a click as he hurried to check the family calendar.
“I was right!” he called loudly. “It is my turn to teach the lesson in family home evening.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “Honey, I’m so sorry we didn’t plan your lesson last night! I thought it was my turn to teach.”
Thomas shook his head. “Don’t worry, Mom. I know what to do.” Normally she helped him prepare the day before. But he was 10 years old now. He could plan a lesson by himself.
Mom smiled and raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure? You don’t need any help?”
“Yup, I’ve got this.”
Later that night Thomas pulled out his copy of the Friend. He opened it to an article he’d read called “The Ten Commandments Teach Me to Love God and His Children” (Sept. 2012). As Thomas read it out loud to his family, he noticed Mom looking very proud of him.
After the lesson it was time for the activity on the next page. Thomas had already cut out the labels that read, “Honoring God,” “Respecting Parents and Family,” and “Respecting Others.”
As part of the activity, they took turns sharing examples of how they’d kept commandments the past week.
“I said my prayers last night,” said his big sister Ella.
“What group do we think that falls in?” asked Thomas. After discussing, they picked “Honoring God.”
After the lesson Ella served some tasty cookies she’d baked. Then they delivered some of the extras to friends.
Thomas felt so happy he could help out. That was one of his favorite family home evenings ever!

While waiting for our clients to arrive for the river trip, I spent several days lumberjacking in the jungle. We worked beside a beautiful river, and the scenery was breathtaking. Each evening the silhouette of the jungle treescape against the purple and orange sunset was reflected in the calmness of the river. After a rainstorm the river was rainbow-colored, and on a clear day it was the green of the jungle, reflecting splashes of white from the orchids that grew everywhere. The wildlife was incredibly plentiful and varied. Red howler monkeys boomed in the distance. Rainbow clouds of brilliant-hued toucans flew overhead. Yard-wide turtles sunned themselves on logs, and otters played in the river.
Of course, there were also piranha in the river, and as I worked felling trees I had to keep one eye out for killer bees, giant ants, bush flies, and deadly fer-de-lance snakes. One day while I was doing all that, a huge tree (about 100 feet tall) fell right on top of me, knocking me out. The last thing I remember was looking up at the blue sky and seeing a large shadow coming down at me, turning the day into night. Everything around me was smashed, but I was hit only by one of the smaller limbs and hardly touched otherwise. Everyone thought I was dead for sure. The Indian workers hacked their way to me and pulled me out semiconscious. When I fully awoke, I thanked the Lord for watching over me. Then I went back to watching for killer bees and venomous snakes.

As Gladys Monson lay in Salt Lake City’s St. Mark’s Hospital on Sunday, 21 August 1927 with her first son, her husband, G. Spencer Monson, told her a new bishop had been installed in the Sixth-Seventh Ward of the Pioneer Stake that day. The mother’s response, “I have a new bishop for you,” proved to be prophetic. On 7 May 1950 this son, Thomas Spencer Monson, was sustained as bishop of this ward. Not yet 23 years old, the son, named for his father and his maternal grandfather, Thomas Sharp Condie, was perhaps the youngest bishop in the Church. And the ward, numbering more than 1,000 members, including 85 widows, had the largest welfare responsibility in the Church.

When children have been prepared and feel loved, they sometimes respond the way our five year-old grandson did to his mom when the two of them sat up to the bar eating breakfast together. He looked up at his mom and said: "I get distracted from eating when I sit by you Mommy, because I love you so much!'
The way we show we love them is to hug them and tell them. It's by making our homes a happy, safe, secure, fun, and welcoming place to be. It's done when we teach by our example how we talk about others, how we respond in a crisis, how we handle difficulty; by how we dress, speak, and conduct our lives. Love is shown by establishing consistency and constancy in the life of our children.[12]

One summer when I was 16, I remember sitting down and writing in my journal all the qualities I wanted in a future husband—testimony, good looks, sense of humor, money, education. I thought these were all good qualities. But when my oldest daughter, Becky, was 16, she came to me and asked, “What is the most important quality to look for in a husband?” By then I had been married for many years. I knew the answer to that question. I believe the most important quality we can possess is integrity. How I love the value of integrity!

Each year the program varies from guest speakers to lessons given by family members. One year Grandma Jones gave each family a small book on the Prophet to read prior to the party. They then took turns expressing their feelings about the Prophet and bearing testimonies of the Savior. That was the year one of their less-active sons expressed his love and gratitude to each family member and began coming back to church.

I’m Carolyn Neave of Brisbane. As one of my Laurel projects, I decided to get very involved in missionary work. My friend Elizabeth Smith and I set up dates with the sister missionaries and went tracting with them.
The first day was hot, but spiritually uplifting. Working with these wonderful servants of the Lord I learned not only what it means to be a missionary, but also how to cope when a member of your own family goes on a mission.
My big brother Sean left for his mission to Adelaide in November, and by being close to the missionaries in our ward, I was able to know that my brother is in good hands—the Lord’s. Although I miss not having him around, I know he’s doing what’s right, and he knows I love him.
I also learned that missionary work doesn’t bless you only if you bring souls unto Christ, but it blesses you for trying.

As a new convert and student at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, Elder Chi Hong (Sam) Wong gained much more than an education—he gained a sure knowledge that there is a God who knows “the details of our lives.”
A year later, on July 9, 1983, he married Carol. They moved to Laie, Hawaii, USA, so he could attend school. Because he was on a student visa, Elder Wong could work only 20 hours a week. “We had to really exercise our faith and prayers,” he said of what it took to sustain his family.
He worked hard to earn a scholarship, then he took as many credit hours as the university would allow. “It wasn’t easy,” he recalls. “Once we had that experience we knew we could always rely on the power of heaven.”
The Wongs were sealed in the Laie Hawaii Temple on August 9, 1984, and their first child was born; three more children would eventually join the family. “Those years were very special, very sacred,” Elder Wong said.

Last April, Sister Rasband and I had the honor of joining our beloved prophet and Sister Nelson for the rededication of the Manti Utah Temple.

President Nelson surprised everyone when he entered the room. Only a very few of us knew he was coming. In his presence, I immediately felt the light and prophetic mantle he carries. The look of joy on the faces of the people personally seeing the prophet will stay with me forever.

In the prayer of rededication, President Nelson petitioned the Lord that His holy house would essentially hold up all who entered the temple, “that they may receive sacred blessings and remain worthy and faithful to their covenants … that this may be a house of peace, a house of comfort, and a house of personal revelation for all who enter these doors worthily.”

Before the service, we stood outside in the sun with President and Sister Nelson to view the beautiful setting. President Nelson’s ancestral ties to the area run deep. His eight great-grandparents settled in the valleys surrounding the temple, as did some of mine. My great-grandfather Andrew Anderson served on the construction crew of early pioneers who labored 11 years to complete the Manti Temple, the third in the Rocky Mountains.

As we stood with President Nelson, we had the opportunity to hold up and support the prophet of God in celebration of the rededication of the Lord’s holy house. It was a day I will never forget.

“We build temples to honor the Lord,” President Nelson said that sacred day. “They are built for worship and not for show. We make sacred covenants of eternal significance inside these sacred walls.” We are gathering Israel.

The last story is about Christina (not her real name), who had been baptized and sealed to her family when she was a young girl, but somewhere along the way the family stopped living the gospel. Now she was in her late teens, and she had been making some wrong choices and was very unhappy.
One day I gave her a Personal Progress book and said, “This book will help you incorporate qualities of Christ in your life so you can make the changes you desire. I invite you to begin to work in your book today and then bring it with you to the youth fireside tonight and share with me what you have learned.” That night she said with tears in her eyes, “Today I started my personal progress.” She has written to me a few times since that day. She began going back to Sunday meetings, Mutual, and seminary. In a couple of weeks her sister and mother attended church with her. Later the father joined them, and now the entire family has been back to the temple together.

Whitman wrote: “The ice storm [that winter] wasn’t generally destructive. True, a few wires came down, and there was a sudden jump in accidents along the highway. … Normally, the big walnut tree could easily have borne the weight that formed on its spreading limbs. It was the iron wedge in its heart that caused the damage.

“The story of the iron wedge began years ago when the white-haired farmer [who now inhabited the property on which the tree stood] was a lad on his father’s homestead. The sawmill had then only recently been moved from the valley, and the settlers were still finding tools and odd pieces of equipment scattered about. …

“On this particular day, [the lad found] a faller’s wedge—wide, flat, and heavy, a foot or more long, and splayed from mighty poundings. [A faller’s wedge, used to help fell a tree, is inserted in a cut made by a saw and then struck with a sledgehammer to widen the cut.] … Because he was already late for dinner, the lad laid the wedge … between the limbs of the young walnut tree his father had planted near the front gate. He would take the wedge to the shed right after dinner, or sometime when he was going that way.

“He truly meant to, but he never did. [The wedge] was there between the limbs, a little tight, when he attained his manhood. It was there, now firmly gripped, when he married and took over his father’s farm. It was half grown over on the day the threshing crew ate dinner under the tree. … Grown in and healed over, the wedge was still in the tree the winter the ice storm came.

“In the chill silence of that wintry night, … one of the three major limbs split away from the trunk and crashed to the ground. This so unbalanced the remainder of the top that it, too, split apart and went down. When the storm was over, not a twig of the once-proud tree remained.

“Early the next morning, the farmer went out to mourn his loss. …

“Then, his eyes caught sight of something in the splintered ruin. ‘The wedge,’ he muttered reproachfully. ‘The wedge I found in the south pasture.’ A glance told him why the tree had fallen. Growing, edge-up in the trunk, the wedge had prevented the limb fibers from knitting together as they should.”

Stakes in the Ogden, Utah area performed a service that not only delighted thousands of visitors to Temple Square in Salt Lake City during the Christmas season, but brought joy to dozens of children in Israel. The Young Women made stuffed dolls dressed in the native costumes of nations throughout the world. The dolls were tied with wide red ribbons to Christmas trees in both the North and South Visitors’ Centers on Temple Square. Each girl researched the country her doll was to represent and tried to make the costume look as authentic as possible. She then attached a note with her name and address to the doll.
After Christmas, the dolls were transported to Israel where they were given to Arab orphans in Bethlehem. When the first doll was delivered, a small girl wearing glasses named Ikhlass received it. She clung to her new doll throughout the day, taking it with her as she played, ate, and slept.

The Lord taught the Nephites, “Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up” (3 Ne. 18:24). An example of the light of the Lord touching someone who needed it desperately came when I called upon a very close friend shortly after the death of his eternal companion. I asked him, “What can I now do to help?” He answered, “Help my son to understand.” You see, this son loved his mother very much. When he saw her suffer month after month, he began to feel that the prayers and the priesthood blessings went unanswered. This caused his faith in our Heavenly Father to waver, and he lost the light of the Lord in his life.
The words rang in my ears: “Help my son to understand.” I asked myself, “How? What can I do?” Finally, I invited him to come to Church headquarters to talk with me. When he arrived and we went to the lunchroom, a most unusual circumstance unfolded while we were eating. During our visit, many General Authorities came by our table and greeted us. He shook hands with eight of the Twelve Apostles. Never before or since have I seen that many members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the lunchroom at one time.
As we were leaving the Church offices, another unusual thing happened. We caught a glimpse of President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), and my young friend asked, “Does President Kimball ever talk to someone like me?” Circumstances that would rarely happen again placed us with President Kimball for a few minutes. The short time with him was unforgettably impressive. His instructions were eternal, and his love for this young man was unquestionable. My friend’s heart and mine were touched deeply during those few minutes.
President Kimball’s final statement to this young man, after he gave him a loving embrace, impressed my friend very much. He said, “My boy, when you come home from your mission, you will understand more fully the things we have been talking about.” That day a prophet of God reached out as I suppose only a prophet can. Through him, the Savior touched the life of my friend and turned him toward the light of the Lord.
As we returned to the parking area, I put my arm around him and said, “I know that your mother knows you are here today. Because of her love and devotion to the Lord and her great love for you, I am sure our Heavenly Father has allowed her influence to be felt here today.” Tears flowed, attitudes changed, directions became clear, and commitments were made.
What a thrill it was to report a few months later to President Kimball that this fine young man was serving faithfully and diligently as a full-time missionary!

I will forever be grateful for a person who had the eyes to see a young, somewhat immature, recently returned missionary sophomore as something more than just a struggling first-generation college student. Having recently returned from my service in the Taiwan Taipei Mission in 1992 and while taking my first real statistics and mathematics classes, I found myself inside the office of our unofficial department advisor, Shauna Kuykendall. Shauna had an abundance of the gift to see the best in each individual with whom she came in contact. I remember talking with Shauna about classes in which I struggled, tests that went badly, and doubts about my abilities. Shauna kept telling me that she could see me someday becoming a faculty member at BYU. I remember thinking that was impossible! Faculty members were smart—and that wasn’t me. Despite my protests, Shauna confidently reiterated what she saw in me. And I could tell that she meant it.

All of us sometimes need someone with a bolder vision for our future than we have for ourselves. And we also all need to reciprocate that blessing—to cultivate the gift about which President Monson spoke of seeing in others and helping others see what they might yet become!

This missionary ticks all the usual boxes—he wears a white shirt and tie, has his scriptures at the ready, and possesses a natural faith in God. But something else makes Elder Gavin Chambers stand out from the crowd.
Chambers is a 206 centimetre (6-foot 9-inch) all-American volleyball player! From Corona, California, he’s traded in his volleyball togs for the threads of a full time missionary.
Elder Chambers has been serving in the Papatoetoe area of the New Zealand Auckland Mission, where he recently began training a junior missionary companion, Elder Bryce Jacobson “I really look up to Elder Chambers,” says Elder Jacobson, clearly referring to him as a senior companion. But at his height, being looked up to is something Chambers is used to.
He was always tall. “By the time I was 13, I was already 182 cm (six feet). But my real growth spurt didn’t begin until my sophomore year in high school.” He reached his full height by his senior year, and, as with most tall kids, it was assumed he would play basketball. That was not to be.
“I never really liked basketball,” he noted. “The other kids and the coaches always kind of made fun of me, telling me I couldn’t jump.”
His mother urged him, instead, to try a local recreation league volleyball team. “I had never had so much fun in any sport before,” Chambers says. “I was hooked! Even though I wasn’t very good, I went home and told Mom that volleyball was the sport for me!”
Great club coaching helped him find his footing in the game, and because of his prodigious height, they made him a middle blocker. Finally, the burden of being tall began to pay-off. After a season of club volleyball, he was anxious to join his high school team and test his new skills. But disaster struck in his very first scrimmage.
“I jumped and extended myself to try and block a ball, and when I came down, I landed on the foot of the guy on the other side of the net and broke my ankle,” Chambers recounted. “I had to wear a boot everywhere after that and I didn’t get to play at all my freshman season.”
“It was frustrating to have made progress in this new sport I really liked, then lose that whole season.”
But from the ashes of that setback rose the phoenix of an all-star career. Over the next three years, Chambers became a feared opponent on the court, drawing the attention of college volleyball teams throughout the US. He turned down scholarships offered by top schools—Stanford and UCLA among them—in favour of what he truly wanted: to play for the nationally-ranked Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah (USA).
Chambers’ youth career culminated in the summer of 2022, with the victory of his Orange Coast Volleyball Club at the under-18 national club volleyball championship. Chambers was named first-team all-American by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. The kid who couldn’t jump had proven all of those early naysayers wrong.
“After that tournament . . . I took a couple of weeks and kind of basked in the excitement of it all—I wore my gold medal . . . and enjoyed the recognition,” Chambers says. “But then I knew it was time to move on with my life.”
That meant accepting his call to serve as a missionary for the Church. With his newly found fame, one might think it was difficult to walk away from volleyball, but Chambers had already made that decision as a 12-year-old. He wanted to serve the Lord by inviting others to come unto Christ. Going on a mission was the right thing to do.
“Sure, it was hard to stop playing volleyball . . . but I had prayed about this decision, and I felt confident that the plan Heavenly Father had for me was to serve a mission right after high school.”
He says deciding early in his life made it much easier to manage all of the other things that could have acted as roadblocks to missionary service. “You want to make sure that you pray about that decision, too, because you may have ideas about what you want to do with your life, but your plan and the one Heavenly Father has for you may be different.”
Because of a visa issue for New Zealand, Chambers began his missionary service in the West Virginia Charleston Mission. There, he saw people in severe economic distress, but Chambers found them to be humble, just searching for spiritual guidance in their lives.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer.
The situation in New Zealand is a lot different, but people here are also searching for answers to life’s questions. “We’re making friends everywhere we go, talking to people and sharing God’s plan of happiness with them,” he continues. “The work is hard, and we get rejected . . . , but we have tremendous faith that we’ll find people who are looking for a spiritual change in their lives,” he said. “When they’re ready to listen we’re going to be there, to answer their questions and help them learn what to do.”
“As I look back now, I can see how the Lord answered my prayers, and helped me find that perfect time to serve,” Elder Chambers says. “By doing things the Lord’s way, I was able to receive an offer to play at a college that would allow me to serve a mission and live my volleyball dream afterwards.”

My husband’s great-grandfather Henry Clegg Jr. was a finisher. He joined the Church with his family when the first LDS missionaries went to Preston, England. Henry had a view of his destination in his mind as he and his wife, Hannah, and their two young boys immigrated to Utah. Henry left his older parents, who were too feeble to make such a long and arduous journey, knowing he would never see them again.
While crossing the plains, Hannah contracted cholera and died. She was laid to rest in an unmarked grave. The company then moved on, and at 6:00 in the evening, Henry’s youngest son also died. Henry retraced his steps to Hannah’s grave, placed his young son in his wife’s arms, and reburied the two of them together. Henry then had to return to the wagon train, now five miles away. Suffering from cholera himself, Henry described his condition as being at death’s door while realizing he still had 1,000 miles to walk. Amazingly he continued forward, putting one foot in front of the other. He stopped writing in his journal for several weeks after losing his dear Hannah and little son. I was struck with the words he used when he did start writing again: “Still moving.”
When he finally reached the gathering place of the Saints, he began a new family. He kept the faith. He continued his story. Most remarkably, his heartache over the burial of his sweetheart and son gave birth to our family’s legacy of moving forward, of finishing.
Henry Clegg was still moving forward to live among the faithful Saints, to take his place, to raise a righteous family, to serve his neighbor. He had that picture in his mind even when his heart was breaking. I heard a Primary child from Ghana answer the question “What does it mean to choose the right every day?” with, “It means to follow the Lord and Savior every day and do your best even when it is hard.” This modern pioneer boy knew President Hinckley’s admonition. He knew about keeping commandments every day. He understood that his own story would unfold simply by putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.