Gospel Story Finder

“Seemingly out of nowhere, this civilization sprang up sometime around 600 B.C.” Professor Terry’s words crackled like lightning on the girl sitting seven rows back in his History of the American Southwest class. She usually dozed during this period, but for the first time in her five weeks of junior college, Robin was totally awake. There! He was writing the date on the board—600 B.C. The figures looked like neon lights on a dark landscape. She looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. No, they all appeared completely nonchalant. I must be the only Mormon in the room, she thought. Her attention returned to Professor Terry who paced in front of his desk as he described various artifacts and their possible functions. “I wonder if he could be a member,” she thought, as the lecture drifted farther and farther from the subject of the appearance of the mysterious civilization. “Why wasn’t I paying more attention?” she continued, making a mental note to do better. When the bell announced the end of class, Robin gathered up her books and made her way to the front of the room where the instructor was marking some lecture notes.
“Professor Terry?”
He looked up, gave her a quick smile, and said, “Yes?”
“Is it just a coincidence that the date you’ve written there is the same one that figures so prominently in the Book of Mormon?” she began, gesturing toward the date still written on the board. “And the way that culture just sprang up out of nowhere. …”
The professor’s amicable expression dissolved instantly.
“Here we go again,” he said impatiently. “You Mormons try to explain all this in terms of another culture.”
“But sir, the date … I mean, it’s such a coincidence. …”
“I know, Nephites and Lamanites and all that. You people just refuse to acknowledge that the American Indians could have developed such an advanced culture without outside help, without inheriting it from somewhere else. It’s a racist notion!” He bristled with annoyance now. “Something tells me he’s not a Mormon,” Robin thought.
“Yes, uh, well, do you know of any more books I could read on the subject?” she asked in her most ingratiating tone. She knew she probably wouldn’t get around to reading them, but she thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway. She was right. Professor Terry smiled condescendingly and wrote down some titles on a piece of paper.
“Here,” he said, handing the paper to her. “Now you’re a nice Mormon girl, and I certainly wouldn’t want to change that.”
“Thank you.” Robin turned and left the room. “I suppose I should have told him that I know the Church is true,” she thought, “but how could I with him going on and on like that? I think maybe I’ll look up some of those books that support the Book of Mormon with real evidence. Professor Terry doesn’t even know there is any evidence. Then the next time this happens, I’ll be prepared.”
That evening, Robin was resting in front of the television when her mother got home from Primary. “I guess I’d better go help her with supper,” she thought, when she heard pots and pans being rattled in the kitchen.
Just then her mother’s voice called above the noise, “Robbie, honey, did you have a chance to type those papers for me? I have to take them with me in the morning.”
“Oh, I forgot, Mom. I’ll do it after supper, okay?” It seemed like there was always something waiting to be done.
Later that night Robin lay down on her bed and started reading a novel for her English class. Halfway through the third chapter, her eyes began to close. She closed the book, switched off the lamp, and succumbed to her sleepiness. Then a faint tap, tap, tapping intruded on her oblivious slumber. She raised her head. There it was again. Tap, tap, tap. The typewriter! Oh no! Her mother was typing the forgotten papers. “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry,” she thought to herself. “I’ll remember next time.” She buried her head in her pillow but couldn’t escape the typewriter keys that hammered her conscience senseless.
Midterm exams came up very quickly. Professor Terry handed out the freshly mimeographed pages that still smelled faintly of ink. Robin took hers a little apprehensively and started on the first section. These questions were multiple choice, and she was sure of most of the answers, so she felt confident as she turned to the second page. At the top was an essay question that stopped her cold: Describe the possible origins of the American Indian, basing your answer on presently known facts. “Oh no,” she thought, “I forgot all about researching this.”
As she sat there, stunned, all of Professor Terry’s evidence and opinions kept running through her head. She could not think of one fact to support her own belief. The clock showed five minutes had passed, and still Robin debated. “If I don’t hurry up, I won’t get to the end of the test,” she thought. “Besides, if I show his viewpoint, Professor Terry will see that I really do know the material and that I can answer his way if necessary. After all, he knows very well what I really believe.”
Robin wrote a whole page, including everything from parallel evolution to the Bering Strait theory. With relief, she moved on to the rest of the exam, completing the last question as the bell rang. “Boy, what you have to go through to get a grade,” she thought, and she dropped her exam on the table with the rest.
Monday afternoon, a week later, Robin got to class a little early. Professor Terry had said that he would probably pass back the midterms today, and she was anxious to see how he had reacted to hers. As the other students came in and took their seats, she thought how few of them she really knew. “This isn’t like high school,” she mused. “There doesn’t seem to be much time to get to know people once you’re in college.” Just then the professor entered the room, carrying the stack of examinations.
“Good afternoon,” he said, placing the papers on the desk. “I am quite encouraged after correcting your exams because, on the whole, they’re quite good. Of course, some are better than others.” The class laughed nervously. “I would like to read a few of the better responses to the essay question.” As he began reading, Robin heard his words with disbelief. They were her own. Professor Terry’s voice resounded through the lecture hall. She wanted to stop him, but she couldn’t move. “Out of all of those papers, why mine?” she thought. She sat motionless and watched as 42 people listened to the wrong answer.

I bear witness this day that we have been instructed by an inspired prophet of the Lord. I also know President Kimball loves each of us, and he loves particularly one of your sons whom I met recently in Korea.
We had stopped at an Army post exchange. Soldiers were milling around, and one of them recognized our Latter-day Saint chaplain. He came over to us with a cigarette partially hidden in his hand. When the chaplain introduced me as “one of the General Authorities,” he was so startled he nearly burned his hand trying to get rid of the cigarette. I put my arm around him and told him we were at the base for a brief meeting with our Church members, and hoped that he would attend. He made several excuses, but I said, “We will be honored if you come to our meeting. The Church cares about you. Come and join us. We’re your friends.” I think he could feel that I meant it. Before our meeting had ended that evening, he slipped in and joined us.

Carrie Laub, in Hebron, remembered when she and her mother went out to the watermelon patch and enjoyed a watermelon. Her father ate with them and then went to work, but her mother stayed with her and continued eating. In a few minutes her father came back and said, “You still eating?” and the mother replied, “I am going to eat enough so in the winter when they are all gone, I won’t wish I had eaten some more when I had a chance.”

Architecture and the dental profession constitute an unlikely combination, but this unorthodox blending of occupations makes life interesting indeed for Jacinto Lambino Ledesma, a 37-year old Tarlaqueño from Paniqui, who holds a degree in Architecture (MLQ University, Class of 1966).
If one visits a dentist and sits snugly on a dental chair that somehow eases the fear and pain commonly associated with the ministrations of a dentist, there is a good chance that the patient is sitting on a functional Ledesma dental chair that has been designed with a lot of psychological factors thrown in.
He cannot fill a cavity or fit a dental brace and yet his name is now a by-word in the dental profession in this country, with about 500 satisfied practitioners and users of the Ledesma chair endorsing the product of a Mormon’s ingenuity.
Not one to sit on his laurels, Bro. Ledesma forged on by inventing the first hydraulic dental chair and unit with X-Ray, panoramic light and switchboard, earning the privilege to display his invention in the National Science Development Board pavilion during the last National Inventors Week.
Bro. Ledesma is married to Julieta Villanueva Bulan with whom he was sealed at the Salt Lake City Temple (see companion article, back page of this issue: Vignette). They have four children: Judith Marie 10, Joseph Jude 7, Jesus James 6, and Jerome John 5. It is interesting to note that the first names of all members of the family begin with the letter J, reflecting a partiality for the tenth letter of the alphabet which he cannot yet explain to this day.
His first contact with missionaries is a story by itself. Brother Jay, as he is fondly called, had just been from a religious mini-course which was then the fad in the early 70’s, and it was this opportunity to be inquisitive about Jesus Christ that led him to seek spiritual enlightenment. He found it when two missionaries (Elders Gleave and Johnson) knocked on his door before Christmas of 1971.
The first question the senior Elder asked was “Do you want to know more about Jesus Christ?”—a question which he coincidentally was asking himself a few minutes before the Elders came into his life. It was as if God directed the two Elders to knock on the door at a very precise and opportune moment.
On February 12, 1972, or two and a half months after that inspiring meeting, Bro. Ledesma was baptized by Elders Adrian Pulfer and Bartolomew Birkett at the Buendia chapel.
And life has never been the same ever since for the architect turned equipment manufacturer-inventor—and Mormon missionary, whose secret formula for success, as featured in the August 27, 1977 issue of Focus (a nationally circulated weekly magazine), is the belief that challenges in life can be met and surmounted with strong faith in God and self-discipline, coupled with self-confidence and a spirit of unselfishness—the use of one’s endowments to help others find fulfillment in their lives.

I was five years old when our grandmother died back in 1892. We children stayed upstairs while all the neighbors gathered in the parlor below for the funeral.
“My little sister and I pressed our noses against the windowpane, and we saw horses and carriages and wagons up and down the whole lane.
“Then we saw the two black velvet horses come, pulling the shiny black hearse toward the house. The horses had gold fringes on their necks, and the high-wheeled hearse had windows on the sides with gold drapes and gold fringes.
“The horses walked slowly, and they looked sad. I was sad too because we loved our grandmother and I didn’t understand, but I did know she would not be in our house anymore.
“My mama cried, and her sister, Aunt Emily, came, and she held her little baby and cried. I felt sorry for them, but I didn’t cry.
“Mama told me grandmother was old and needed to rest, so I didn’t cry.
“It was two weeks afterward that I did cry. Just a few days after the funeral, Aunt Emily’s little baby took pneumonia. Maybe because she had been moved from her own house over in Emporia. We tiptoed around the house, my little sister Becca and I. We tiptoed, and we didn’t ask for anything. But the little baby died.
“We were back upstairs, and the carriages were again up and down the lane. This time a little white hearse came, drawn by two little white ponies.
“Now,” continued our grandmother, as the tape circled around her words. “Now we have sealed them all in the temple of the Lord, and they are together again. They didn’t know while they were on this earth that they could be together. Missionaries never came to our countryside homes.”

Last year, Lyndsey Payzant and her mom, of the Rancho Cucamonga California Stake, searched in vain for a modest dress at a department store near their home in Alta Loma. After being approached by a store manager to see if they were finding what they needed, Lindsey and her mom explained that they were having trouble finding modest clothing in the store.

The store manager was interested in what they had to say and helped set up a meeting with Lyndsey, her mom, and the store’s managers and buyers. Having read about some forward-thinking Kansas young women, Lyndsey went to her Young Women group for help on what to propose at the meeting (see New Era, Jan. 2001, 28).

The meeting was a success, and Lyndsey was invited to help put on a fashion show of appropriate and modest clothing. Lyndsey got to pick most of the clothes, and she already has plans to meet with the store’s designers to have a spring fashion show as well. Strike one up for modesty … again!

When Glyn Piercy, a priest in the Dayton Ohio East Stake, decided to carve a stairway in a hillside for his Eagle Scout project, his whole stake got into the act. More than 60 young people showed up the day of the project to take on “the hill,” which is part of the Sugar Bush Trail, located in the Ohio Narrows Reserve. At the end of the day of the project, the stairway was nearly complete. And the youth, although they were tired and a little bit dirty, had a product they could be proud of.

I will begin with Ruth May Fox, who was a Young Women general president many years ago. She served in that calling until she was 84 years old. Sister Fox was born in England, and when she was 13, she walked almost every step to the Salt Lake Valley with a group of pioneers. Her mother died when she was a baby, so she spent the first dozen years of her life living with a number of different families. She must have been a difficult child to manage, because her grandmother called her a “bad maid” and refused to take care of her.
Eventually, Ruth married and had 12 children. She shared her firm testimony with her children and taught gospel lessons while she worked beside them, but she admitted that her older children sometimes received harsh discipline because she had a quick temper and she did not always “count [to] ten” when she was provoked. She worked hard to master this weakness and came to be known for her kind heart and service to others.
Sister Fox lived to be 104 years old. In her long life she experienced great joys and difficult trials, and she taught that “life brings some hard lessons. The sturdiest plants are not grown under glass, and strength of character is not derived from the avoidance of problems.”
Last year I climbed Independence Rock in Wyoming to find where Sister Fox had carved her name at age 13 when she was on her journey to the Salt Lake Valley. The weather from the last 140 years has almost erased it, but I was able to just make out “Ruth May 1867.” I wanted to know more about this great leader and disciple of Jesus Christ who worked all her life to improve herself and whose motto was “the Kingdom of God or nothing”!
Sister Fox said that the gospel was her “mantle of protection against temptation, [her] consolation in sorrow, [her] joy and glory throughout all [her] days, and [her] hope of eternal life.” She took as her motto “the Kingdom of God or nothing” because she knew that by embracing the gospel with her whole heart, she could receive the promise the Savior gave to us all: “Whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled; and if he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world.”

Howard R. Driggs tells of an incident in the life of the poet Longfellow that illustrates the concept I would like to stress:
“It happened that, while the poet, at over eighty years of age, was still teaching at Harvard, one of his appreciative students asked him, ‘How do you keep so perennially young, Professor Longfellow? We never get tired of your classes. You always have something new and interesting to give.’
“‘I’ve never had that question put to me before,’ returned the poet. Then, looking out of the window, he said, ‘Do you see those two apple trees in the yard?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Do you observe any difference between the blossoms on the older tree and those on the younger one?’
“‘No,’ replied the student, ‘they look just alike to me.’
“‘How do you account for the fact that the old apple tree flowers out as beautifully as does the young one?’ persisted the teacher.
“‘I can’t explain it.’
“‘Let me tell you the secret. That old tree managed last year to grow enough wood to put forth its new blossoms. Blossoms, you know, always come on the new wood.’
“‘Oh, I see,’ said the young man, ‘to keep young one must keep growing.’
“‘Yes,’ came the quiet response” (in Especially for Mormons, comp. Stan and Sharon Miller, Provo, Utah: Kellirae Arts, 1978, 4:2–3).

Matt wasn’t alone at the fire. All of the youth and youth leaders of the Orem (Utah) Fourth Ward were there, each alone with his or her thoughts on the last night of the river trip.
Joseph Free, the Young Men president, was glad for the calming effect of the flames. He tugged at his jacket, amazed at how quickly mountain air can turn cool, and he breathed in deeply.
“It’s been a great week. But somehow, on a youth trip, there’s always one more last-minute thing. Have we all got life preservers? Check. Make sure the ranger knows we’re here to do the service project. Check. Prepare a talk for the fireside. Check. Remember to delegate. Check.”
Now the only checking left to do was to make sure everybody got home safely.
“I think the kids have had fun,” Joe Free thought, looking at the group. “But have they learned anything? Has it been worth it?”
Some sparks shot up.
At the far side of the circle he saw his son.
“I think he’s making some important decisions,” Brother Free thought. He looked at his son again and was proud.
“It’s been worth it,” he said.

“I was excited for my 12th birthday,” says McKell C., 12. “My family had plans to go to the temple that day. But the morning before, my mom woke me.”
“Get up!” Mom said in a frantic voice. “We have to get up!”
“Mom told me there was a fire coming, that we needed to pack our things and get out,” McKell says. “We evacuate a lot. We thought we’d be coming back soon, so no one really packed anything. But the Holy Ghost definitely knew that we weren’t. He prompted me to grab some of my special stuff. We stayed at my grandparents’ cabin that night.
“The next day, we still went to the temple. I was really excited. I have always wanted to go to the temple. That day, everyone was on their phones texting each other to know what was happening and to make sure people got out alive. There was a lot of stress.
“Right as we walked in the temple, my dad got a text from someone saying, ‘Sorry, we just drove by your house and it’s gone.’
“The Holy Ghost definitely helped me that day. I had a happy, relieved feeling in the temple. My cousin baptized me, and when I came out of the baptismal font, my jumpsuit was super heavy, but I actually felt really light. I forgot about how my house had burned down.
“Today, if something bad happens, I know that when I go into the temple, it’s easier for me to move forward. It strengthens me every time.”

Once, as I sat by my father’s bedside through the night, he talked about his childhood. He spoke of the love of his parents in difficult times and of the love of his Heavenly Father and the Savior. I knew he was dying of cancer, so it did not surprise me that at times he mixed up his feelings for his Heavenly Father with the love and kindness of his earthly father. My father had often said that when he prayed, he thought he could see in his mind the smile of Heavenly Father.
His parents had taught him by example to pray as if he spoke to God and that God would answer him in love. He needed that example to the end. When the pain became intense, we found him in the morning on his knees by the bed. He had been too weak to get back into bed. He told us he had been praying to ask his Heavenly Father why he had to suffer so much when he had always tried to be good. He said a kindly answer came: “God needs brave sons.”
And so he soldiered on to the end, trusting that God loved him, listened to him, and would lift him up. He was blessed to have known early and to never forget that a loving God is as close as a prayer.

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

Jesse A. Udall tells this story of President Kimball’s childhood:
“For years he had a record of perfect attendance at Sunday School and Primary. One Monday he was in the field tramping hay for his older brothers when the meetinghouse bell rang for Primary.
“‘I’ve got to go to Primary,’ he timidly suggested.
“‘You can’t go today; we need you,’ they said.
“‘Well, Father would let me go, if he were here,’ the boy countered.
“‘Father isn’t here,’ they said, ‘and you are not going.’
“The piles of hay came pouring up, literally covering Spencer, but finally he had caught up; sliding noiselessly from the back of the wagon, he was halfway to the meetinghouse before his absence was noticed, and his perfect record remained unbroken.” (“The Apostle from Arizona,” Improvement Era, October 1943, p. 591.)

Wherever we may be, our Heavenly Father can hear and answer the prayer offered in faith. This is especially true in the mission fields throughout the world. While presiding over the Canadian Mission, under the direction of President David O. McKay (1873–1970), Sister Monson and I had the opportunity of serving with some of the finest young men and women in all this world. The very lives of these young missionaries exemplified faith and prayer.

There sat in my office one day a newly arrived missionary. He was bright, strong, happy, and grateful to be a missionary. He was filled with enthusiasm and a desire to serve. As I spoke with him, I said, “Elder, I imagine that your father and mother wholeheartedly support you in your mission call.” He lowered his head and replied, “Well, not quite. You see, President, my father is not a member of the Church. He doesn’t believe as we believe, so he cannot fully appreciate the importance of my assignment.”

Without hesitating and prompted by a Source not my own, I said to him, “Elder, if you will honestly and diligently serve God in proclaiming His message, your father will join the Church before your mission is concluded.” He clasped my hand in a vise-like grip, the tears welled up in his eyes and began to roll forth down his cheeks, and he declared, “To see my father accept the truth would be the greatest blessing that could come into my life.”

This young man did not sit idly by hoping and wishing that the promise would be fulfilled, but rather he followed the sage advice that has been given of old: “Pray as though everything depended upon God. Work as though everything depended upon you.” Such was the missionary service of this young man.

At every missionary conference I would seek him out before the meetings and ask, “Elder, how’s Dad progressing?”

His reply would invariably be, “No progress, President, but I know the Lord will fulfill the promise given to me through you as my mission president.” The days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, and finally, just two weeks before we ourselves left the mission field to return home, I received a letter from the father of this missionary. That father wrote:

“Dear Brother Monson:

“I wish to thank you so much for taking such good care of my son who recently completed a mission in Canada. He has been an inspiration to us.

“My son was promised when he left on his mission that I would become a member of the Church before his return. This promise was, I believe, made to him by you, unknown to me.

“I am happy to report that I was baptized into the Church one week before he completed his mission and am at present time athletic director of the MIA and have a teaching assignment.

“My son is now attending BYU, and his younger brother was also recently baptized and confirmed a member of the Church.

“May I again thank you for all the kindness and love bestowed upon my son by his brothers in the mission field during the past two years.

“Yours very truly, a grateful father.”

The humble prayer of faith had once again been answered.

They all said it. My mom said it. My dad said it. My teachers at church said it. My friends said it. And they said it over and over again. Joseph Smith is a prophet, they said. This Church is true, they said. The only true church on the face of the earth. But I wasn’t so sure that I could say it with my whole heart.
I wanted to know if they were right. I had always been told that if I wanted a testimony I had to pray and ask God for the truth. I prayed, but I felt nothing. As part of my daily prayers, I asked for a confirmation, a sure knowledge and testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the Church was true. I still felt the same. I continued praying daily, asking for a witness of the truth. God chose not to answer my prayers right away. But I continued seeking.
One day I was playing hymns on the piano and singing to myself. I turned to “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer” (Hymns, no. 26). I had sung it many times before. This time, I paid closer attention to the words, and they meant more to me than they ever had. “Oh, how lovely was the morning!” I sang. “Radiant beamed the sun above. Bees were humming, sweet birds singing, Music ringing thru the grove, When within the shady woodland Joseph sought the God of love.”
I imagined in my mind, Joseph Smith walking into a grove of trees on a beautiful spring day. “Humbly kneeling, sweet appealing—’Twas the boy’s first uttered prayer.” I pictured Joseph in my mind, praying to his Father with all his heart.
When I reached the third verse, the words affected me powerfully. “Suddenly a light descended, Brighter far than noon-day sun.” Just as that sudden light, brighter than the sun, enlightened the understanding of the boy Joseph, it enlightened mine. Peace filled me as I continued to sing. “And a shining glorious pillar O’er him fell, around him shone, While appeared two heav’nly beings, God the Father and the Son.”
With joy in my heart I sang, “‘Joseph, this is my Beloved; Hear him!’ Oh, how sweet the word! Joseph’s humble prayer was answered, And he listened to the Lord.”
Joseph’s humble prayer was answered, and so was mine that day. I didn’t have a vision as Joseph did, but I could feel that the Church was true. It was something I had never felt before: a peace, a joy, a surety that Joseph Smith was a prophet and had restored the Church of Jesus Christ. I have felt that peaceful assurance many times since then. I know God lives. He hears and answers our prayers. This is His true Church. And Joseph Smith was a true prophet.

Immediately following the organization of the Church, missionary efforts pressed forward. Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jr., were called to take the gospel to the Lamanites. A great desire was expressed by two recent converts to accompany them. So Ziba Peterson and Parley P. Pratt were also commissioned to make this first distant missionary journey. The first extended mission was one that was destined to influence the Church for many years as it proceeded after conference held in September of 1830. The mission of these four men caused them to travel on foot for more than 1,500 miles to the West. Parley P. Pratt had previously lived in the vicinity of Kirtland, Ohio, where he had been commissioned a minister for the Campbellite faith. One of his first acts on this missionary journey was to return to Kirtland. There he sought out Sidney Rigdon, his former pastor, and preached the gospel to him. He received it, and his congregation was also receptive to the message which they brought. By the time they left they had a thriving branch of twenty members, who were, in succeeding weeks, able to bring into the Church practically all of that religious group.

It was during this period of professional uncertainty that I met the woman who would become my wife. I fell ill with malaria while visiting a friend in Mamfe for a festival, and his sister, with immense kindness, nursed me back to health. We grew close, and she eventually became pregnant with our first daughter, Miracle. We would have four children together before formally marrying in 2014, a process involving the traditional payment of a bride price, which she faithfully helped me save for over time.

I grew up in Sacramento, California. At age 12, my mother felt impressed to move our family to Burley, Idaho, where cowboys are real and where we learned to work hard on a small orchard.

When I was 16, turning 17, I moved from my home in Burley to San Francisco to attend art school, with the hopes of eventually working for Disney. It was there that I realized, in a deep and personal way, that what I wanted in my life more than anyone or anything else was my Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ.

I remember reading this scripture as I was searching for Their comfort and peace: “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” [26]

I knew They knew where I was. And that They loved me and would be with me.

And I began counseling with the Lord and asking Him where He wanted to me to go, what He wanted me to do. The answer was not to stay in San Francisco. After some tearful nights and heartfelt prayers, I followed the prompting to attend Ricks College. I loved and embraced my experience here, even when the icy wind froze my tears to the side of my face.

Though I had gone to San Francisco for an education and an exciting career, I gained something infinitely more valuable—a deeper knowledge of who I was as a daughter of a loving and attentive Father in Heaven. That Jesus Christ is my personal Savior and Redeemer and that He lived. And that my life would work out if I put my trust in God. My roots of faith grew deeply that season as I stepped into what felt like a new, wide, and rich plot of earth.

Olmedo Roldán, 18, sees missionary work as a natural result of friendship. “A few days after I was baptized,” he says, “I read in the Liahona about a young man who helped the full-time missionaries even though he had just been baptized. So the next day I helped the missionaries too! And I loved it. Now the bishop has called me to serve as a ward missionary, and I’m preparing to serve a full-time mission. It was through missionary work that we found the Church. A lot of people need the Church and are looking for it. We can help them find it.”