Gospel Story Finder

When I was 17, my friend July invited me to go to seminary in her ward in Lima, Peru. I had a passing interest in the Old Testament, so I agreed to go.
My friend’s aunt, Sister Rosa de Arriaga, was the seminary teacher, and each day she started class by asking someone to pray. As I kept attending I not only gained a greater love for the scriptures, but I also learned to pray. Then one day Sister Rosa asked me to lead the class in prayer. The experience was unbelievable. My bosom began to burn, and a feeling of warmth radiated throughout my whole body. I felt like crying.
One Saturday I decided to attend a youth conference. I met a lot of young people and had a great time at the activity. When I showed up for a meeting later that afternoon in jeans and sneakers, I was surprised to see others wearing suits and ties. I felt uncomfortable, but one of the men smiled and signaled for me to come in. As I listened during the meeting, everything seemed very familiar to me.
Afterward, I went to Sister Rosa’s house to tell her what had happened. Sister Rosa’s son told me with a smile, “You won’t be able to dress like that tomorrow at the Sunday session.”
The next day, I walked into the meeting wearing a tie for the first time in my life. I was impressed by the orderliness of the meeting and the friendliness others showed me. Once again I felt that warm feeling in my chest, and the feeling continued throughout the entire meeting. When the choir sang I felt like crying. It was such a wonderful feeling that I wanted to have it all the time.
One month after my first seminary class, the missionaries began teaching me the discussions, and on 28 April 1996 I was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My mom and sisters were baptized six months later and my dad one month after that. On 31 January 1998 my whole family was sealed in the Lima Peru Temple.
Later I served full time in the Perú Lima North Mission. After my mission I taught in the Perú Missionary Training Center for three years. Wearing a tie—which had once seemed so unusual—became an everyday occurrence.
I will always be grateful to my friend July and to my seminary teacher, Sister Rosa, for their role in helping this chain of blessings come to me and my family.

Princess Academy,* by Shannon Hale. Miri is surprised when all of the eligible young maidens are sent to be trained to compete for the hand of the prince. Miri’s family and her ancestors have always worked in the stone quarries in their tiny mountain village. Now she has the chance to become a queen!

Scripture study was a welcome break for Angel, even if her friends didn’t understand why she would take time away from her school classes to bother with religion. “A lot of them think it’s strange that I spend time with my church. Most of my classmates don’t have any religious beliefs,” says Angel, who was the only Church member in the Taipei First Girls’ School student body of 4,000-plus. “Some students will discuss religion with me, but most of the time they just think being LDS is strange because it takes me away from my schoolwork.”
One of those classmates is a friend Angel invited to church one Sunday. Angel says her friend had a generally positive experience at church. She even told Angel afterward that she felt religion was good and that she might think about becoming religious herself—after she graduates from the university. “She just didn’t think she had the time for church,” Angel adds.

I have seen President David O. McKay with tears in his eyes. I have seen President Joseph Fielding Smith and President Harold B. Lee and President Spencer W. Kimball in tears. All of us can become discouraged. But when I think of discouragement, I sometimes think of a news article I once read:
“If you sometimes get discouraged, consider this fellow. He dropped out of grade school. Operated a country store. Went bankrupt. Took 15 years to pay off his bills. Took a wife. Unhappy marriage. Ran for U.S. House of Representatives. Lost twice. Ran for U.S. Senate. Lost twice. Delivered speech that became a classic. Audience indifferent. Attacked daily by the press and despised by half the country. Despite all this, imagine how many people all over the world have been inspired by this awkward, rumpled, brooding man who signed his name simply, A. Lincoln.” (Wall Street Journal).

One morning when I was serving as a young missionary in Beaumont, Texas, my companion became ill and needed to rest. Following the counsel of our mission president for such situations, I pulled a chair up by the open window in our fourth-story apartment and began to read in the Book of Mormon.
Soon I became immersed in the scriptures, and after a time I came to Alma chapter 29, verses 1 and 2:
“O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!
“Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.”
As I pondered on Alma’s words, they became deeply personal. My companion and I had knocked on hundreds of doors in Beaumont, offering to share our message, but with limited success. In my mind’s eye, I began to imagine what it might be like if I were an angel and could cry repentance with a voice to shake the earth. I looked out the window at the people coming and going on the street below. I imagined what it would be like if I were standing there shining like an angel, with my hands raised, speaking with a voice of thunder. I envisioned the buildings shaking and people falling to the earth. Under the circumstances I imagined, they might have a sudden desire to listen to what I had to say!
But then I read the next verse: “But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me” (v. 3).
I was humbled to realize the Lord loves all His children and has a plan for His work. My job was to do my part.
I was also humbled to realize something else. In that moment, I knew that what I was reading was not fiction—it was real. Quietly and peacefully while I was reading, I had been filled with light and with the realization that this Alma was an actual person, that he had lived, and that he too had deeply desired to share the gospel message with others.
If you had asked me in that moment, “Do you know this is true?” I would have replied, “Absolutely!” At that point, it became clear to me that I was receiving a spiritual witness of the truth of the Book of Mormon.
As I have read back over my journal entry to understand and learn more from the experience I had as a missionary, I have realized that although I had read in the Book of Mormon before, what happened in Beaumont that morning was different because I was different. As inexperienced as I was, at least on that occasion I was sincerely trying to seek and to feel, and my intent was to act in faith on what I learned. I know now that such witnesses are available to each of us on a regular basis if we will receive them.

On your mark, get set, go!
And the winner is …
… Nathan!
You get to go to the Provincial Track Meet! You’ll race against the fastest kids in British Columbia.
No way! I can’t wait.
Later that week …
Your coach just sent over the schedule for the meet.
Oh no … the meet is on Sunday!
Should I go? What if this is my only chance? I might not make it again next year.
Sorry, Coach. I don’t do races on Sunday. I want to keep the Sabbath day holy.
I’m glad I put Christ first. I know I made the right choice.

Of Swedish ancestry, Frances, with her native poise and graciousness, was easily integrated into the Monson clan at the Terrace. And at Tom’s first meeting with her parents, he acquired preferred status when it was learned that his great uncle, Elias Monson, had helped convert the Johnson family in Sweden. Tears filled the eyes of Franz and Hildur Johnson as they embraced their future son-in-law. Although the incident was tinged with mild embarrassment for Frances, who hardly anticipated such a reception for her young boyfriend, she and Tom reflected later that the relationship of their Swedish ancestors may have portended more than mere coincidence.

I remember how excited one young woman was when she found out I was a Mormon. She had visited a world’s fair and had been very impressed by all the young people who were eager to explain our church to her. She wanted to know what it is in our church that gets our young people so excited. She said, “I thought religion was something for the old, when you don’t have anything better to do. What is it that makes you all look so happy?”

The New Era really inspires me. When I get down in the dumps, all I have to do is pick up the New Era and start reading it, and by the time I finish, I’m in one of my best moods. I think it would be difficult for anybody to pick up an issue of the New Era, begin to read it, and then claim it was not interesting! The first Monday after we get the New Era we read the General Authority’s Message for family home evening, and it starts our family home evening off really great!
Kathy BucklesFremont, Missouri

A couple of years ago, a young man I’ll call John came to my office shortly after he had returned from his mission.
“Elder Clarke, I need help,” he said to me with great concern. “I loved my mission. It changed me. However, I am losing some of those sacred and special feelings that I felt in the mission field. What can I do to feel like I felt in the mission field?”
I have seen this happen many times. What he was asking was, “What can I do to be happy, feel the Holy Ghost, and be close to the Savior?” This is a question we all should ask every day.
On that afternoon in my office, we turned to James 1:27 and read, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
Next we read Alma 34:28: “If ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.”
Then we reviewed the story in the Gospel of John in which Peter and other disciples had gone fishing and caught nothing but then were told by the Savior to move their net to the other side of the boat and caught 153 fish. After they had eaten, Peter and the Savior talked. The Savior knew He was instructing this soon-to-be prophet and president of the Church for one of the last times.
“Lovest thou me?” the Savior asked.
Peter answered, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”
Then the Savior said, “Feed my lambs.”
The Savior asked the same question two more times and then instructed: “Feed my sheep” (see John 21:3–17).
Peter was really being instructed to practice pure religion, or to care for the people.
I told John that if he would practice pure religion, he would be happy and feel as he had felt on his mission. Likewise, if you want to be happy, feel the Holy Ghost, and grow closer to the Savior, then practice pure religion. From the scriptures above we learn four key practices that can be defined as pure religion.
John went back to college and acted upon what we had discussed. Later he sent me an email in which he shared his experience reading inspirational stories from the Church magazines to elderly people at an assisted-care facility.
“Many individuals felt a great amount of love and support from the Savior as the Spirit testified of simple truths and testimonies,” he wrote. “I had never known I was capable of feeling such love from and for strangers with whom I had little connection. But I felt the Savior’s love for them, for those kind souls. It appeared clear to me that I would meet these individuals—now riddled by dementia and physical ailments—on the other side. I would see their husbands and wives, who have been looking over them from the other side of the veil. I felt very much the presence of my grandfather—whom I had never met—as I sat with my grandmother, and his spirit strengthened me and supported me. I knew he was thankful for my simple visit.”
He continued: “Who knew that I could find such tender mercies? It seems so meaningless to come home after something like that and just turn on the TV or tune out in some other way. It has changed me to realize that these tender experiences are available at all moments of the day as we, as Saints, strive to focus and help others in some way.”

Not long after their arrival in the Valley, which Zina described as “a thousand miles from anywhere,” she started a school because she saw many children running around without anything to do. She had forty-five “scholars,” who found that their teacher taught them more than book learning. Sister Young wanted her students to live good lives. People who knew Sister Young usually called her “Aunt Zina” because she was so loving and kind. She was often referred to as an “angel of mercy” because she nursed the sick and delivered hundreds of babies.

We have done some unusual things, too. We had two priests who just couldn’t seem to overcome the allure of bed on Sunday morning. They had great difficulty in coming to priesthood meeting. We decided that, if they wouldn’t come to priesthood meeting, then we would take priesthood meeting to them. After deciding which of the two young men to visit first, we left the meetinghouse and went to the first home.
I want you to know, brethren, that I was really concerned about how the father of that home would feel about all of us being at his house at 8:00 a.m. In fact, as we were waiting at the door, I was thinking that it sure would have been wise if I had called him the night before and told him what we were going to do.
The father answered the door, and we explained our purpose. Brethren, he couldn’t have been more gracious. As we climbed the stairs, we found our brother sleeping as only a young man can sleep. I will never forget how totally surprised he was when he awoke to find us all around his bed. Well, we had a great meeting, complete with business, a lesson, and some concluding thoughts on activation.
We decided we had hit upon a rather effective activation technique. We also decided to use it next week on the other young man. During the week the word about what we were going to do got out. Next Sunday, for the first time since I had been the bishop, 100 percent of our quorum members were at priesthood meeting. I can report to you that one of these young men is presently serving a full-time mission and the other will soon be serving.

She was young and beautiful—young enough to be largely unaware of the grace that unfolded with bashful uncertainty as the days passed. But in the third month of her 17th year, she died, cut down by a rare disease.
He was 18 and her friend. They never really dated. He had kissed her once at her 16th birthday party in front of her mother and everybody. He had done it as a joke, so that no one could accuse her of being “sweet 16 and never been kissed.” But she had always seemed too young for him to consider her seriously.
They both lived in a small town in Montana. To the east was prairie, and to the west a range of mountains.
Because of the few LDS students in the high school, Dave and Cathy attended early morning seminary. Each morning at 5:00, he jabbed at the buzzing alarm clock, struggled out of bed, showered, dressed, ate a hurried breakfast, and drove to her home to pick her up. She often kept him waiting, but finally she would rush out—a book, a purse, a piece of toast in one hand, a hair brush and a coat in the other.
One evening in April, her mother phoned Dave to say, “Cathy won’t be going to school tomorrow, so you won’t need to pick her up for seminary. She isn’t feeling well.”
That was the beginning.
Dave graduated from high school in May, was ordained an elder in June, and began working in a clothing store in order to earn money for his mission. Each day after work he visited her. On the days when she was feeling better, he found her in the backyard.
Her backyard had once been mostly lawn. But through the years the vegetable garden had been enlarged until now there was left only a small strip of lawn in front of the patio. Even with the threat of losing all the lawn to the needed vegetables, her mother always insisted that a patch of flowers be preserved.
One day when he came, Cathy was lying on the lawn, her chin propped up by her two hands, intently studying the determined efforts of several bees that were working the flower garden. Dave paused at the gate and quietly watched her. She wore a pair of Levis and a western-style shirt. Since he had visited her last, her long hair had been cut into a more practical summer style.
When he finally went through the gate, she turned and sat up.
“I wish I could spend all day watching flowers grow,” he teased.
She stood up and came over.
“Who cut your hair?” he asked.
“My mother. Do you like it?”
“I like it fine.”
They walked together, inspecting the long straight rows of beets, lettuce, and tomatoes.
“Did you have a date last night?” she asked.
“Yes, with Karen. We played miniature golf.”
“Do you like her?”
“I don’t know. She’s okay. It’s hard to get involved with anyone when I know I’m going on a mission in four months. Maybe she’ll write to me.”
He picked a small flower for her from a bush that clung to the trellis by the house.
“Will you write to me?”
“What do you want, a fan club? ‘Dear Elder Dave, you are so great! All us girls at home are just sighing our lives away until you return.’ Is that right?”
“It’ll do,” he grinned. “And I’ll write each of you a mimeographed letter. ‘Dear Sister Friend, We baptized 500 last week. I’m trying to remain the humble self that you’ve all grown to love. I hope that none of you are dating while I’m away.’”
“Is that the way it’s going to be?” she asked.
“I guess not,” Dave replied.
“Dave,” she said, suddenly serious. “You will be a good missionary, won’t you? You’ll remember the Savior and represent him properly?”
“I hope so,” he answered.
They sat on the lawn chairs on the patio.
“I was sitting here this morning,” she said, “looking at the flowers in the garden. I remembered what the Savior said: ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ Where’s that found in the Bible?”
“I thought I was finished with scripture chasing when I graduated from seminary,” he teased.
“Okay, I won’t press you. Anyway, that’s not my question. I had a picture in my mind while I was thinking. I want to tell you about it.”
She held the flower he had given her in both hands and studied it carefully.
“It’s early morning,” she began. “There are mists still hanging over the Sea of Galilee. A lone man walks along a path leading away from a small fishing village. It’s the Savior. He walks up the slope away from the water. As he walks, he comes upon a patch of wild flowers. He kneels down to get a closer look. He reaches out and touches the petals. He bends over to examine the insides of the blossom. My question is, what does he see?”
“A flower.”
“Is that all? Just a flower?”
“What else could he see?”
“Jesus was given the responsibility by Heavenly Father to create this earth. At one time, he knew the purpose of every feature of that flower. Did he remember all of those details? Or did his great mind understand the function of each part of the flower just by careful observation? That’s my question.”
“I can’t answer that.”
“I know, neither can I. But I don’t believe that he ever considered anything to be common. I think he valued the beauty of every sunset, each view of the Sea of Galilee—in sunshine or in rain. I believe that he was sensitive to beauty. When he said, ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow,’ I believe that he had considered those lilies in greater detail than most of us ever will.”
Her father, home from work, came through the gate and began to pull some weeds from the garden. He was a quiet man who took pride in straight, neat rows of vegetables. Often when he worked, he whistled a tune with no recognizable melody.
He picked half a dozen strawberries, washed them off with the hose, and brought them over for Dave and Cathy to sample.
“They’re coming along nicely, aren’t they?” he asked.
In June Cathy spent a week out of town undergoing tests at a university medical center. When she returned, she didn’t look any better, and her parents were strangely evasive when asked what the specialists had found.
As the summer passed, Dave could see that she was slowly getting worse. Often when he came, she was in bed. Sometimes he only stayed a minute because she looked tired. But she enjoyed seeing him, and some days she felt good enough to talk.
“Dave,” she said on one of his visits, “I found a scripture for your mission.” She reached for the triple combination on the table by her bed, and, finding the place, read aloud: “‘Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of your God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.’ (D&C 4:2.) How’s that?” she asked.
“You’re determined to make me a good missionary, aren’t you?” he asked.
“There’s so much to be done. I wish I were going to be around to help.”
He looked up, trying to read her face.
“I know what’s happening. I’m dying.”
“No, you’re not.”
“We traveled a thousand miles to see a team of doctors. After two days, we came home. My parents never say anything about the results. They won’t talk about it. Now my dad asked me about taking a vacation to California. He wants to cash in his life insurance to get the money so we can all fly down. We’ve never gone on a big vacation like that before. When my parents come into my room, they’re both so cheerful. But yesterday I heard my mother in her room crying. And the worst part is that we can’t talk about it. We spend 20 minutes talking about the weather, clinging to the topic as if it were a life raft.”
Just then her mother came in the room with another vase of flowers. Cathy’s bedroom was filled with potted plants and cut flowers given to her by friends. Her mother picked up two vases of old flowers and left the room.
Cathy continued, “Dave, I need you to talk to. I can’t talk to my parents yet. I need to tell someone how I feel so I can define it in my mind and see the limits of my fear and measure it. There must be boundaries to it.”
They talked for a long time. Mainly he listened as she tried to find out if she could face her future.
“I know that none of us can be guaranteed a long life and that Heavenly Father won’t deny me any blessings. But I don’t want to leave this earth. I like it here.”
Before he left, she asked, “Will you give me a priesthood blessing?”
“Shouldn’t your dad do that?”
“He’s already administered to me. I need a priesthood blessing so that I can face it and so that my parents and I can talk.”
“I can have the bishop come over,” he said weakly.
“No, you’ve got all the priesthood you need. I want you to give me a blessing.”
“I’ve never given a priesthood blessing.”
“It doesn’t need to be today,” she said.
“Do you mind if I talk to your dad and the bishop about it? If they approve, I’ll be glad to.”
Sunday afternoon he arrived prepared. He had spent two days in reading. He had talked to Cathy’s father and the bishop and asked for their help and counsel. They had encouraged him to respond to Cathy’s special request. He had fasted and prayed since Saturday morning.
When he came, she was waiting for him, sitting in a chair in her bedroom.
He stood behind her. The room was silent except for the outdoor sounds coming through the open window. He placed his hands lightly on her head, touching the silky texture of her hair. Closing his eyes, he paused and then began, “Catherine Edmonds, by the power of the Melchizedek Priesthood which I hold, I place my hands on your head to give you a priesthood blessing …” The words seemed to flow easily and naturally. He blessed her that she would be comforted and that she would be able to talk openly to her parents about her condition.
When it was over, they both felt peaceful. He helped her into bed, sat down in the chair, held her hand, and talked with her until she fell asleep.
Monday afternoon when he came again, she was lying outside in a recliner. Her father was building a screened-in room with a covered roof so that she could spend more time outside.
“Daddy,” she asked, “could we move those potted plants from my room out here? I’d like them planted in the garden with the other flowers.”
“I don’t see why not,” her father answered. “Are you getting tired of them in your room?”
“No, I just want them to be here in the sun.”
The next day when Dave arrived, her plants had already been transferred to the garden.
“Don’t they look good?” she asked him. “I’ve been watching them all day. The bees have been visiting them. Out here they have the sun and the warm soil. I’m glad they’re out here. Look at all they’d miss if they were still cooped up in the house.”
Saturday he worked in the morning, but he took the afternoon off so he could be with her. They sat together in the enclosed patio.
In the late afternoon, dark clouds, which had been building to the west of them all day, finally moved in.
Her father gently asked, “Don’t you want to come inside? It looks like rain.”
“No, I like it out here. Let me watch the rain.”
The summer storm struck with fury. The large drops were driven almost sideways by the wind.
Then the hail came. At first it was just one or two scattered, marble-sized stones striking the grass and bouncing back. But as the storm approached, the crashing of the hail on the green fiberglass roof of the patio sounded like hundreds of cannon rounds.
In a few minutes it was over. The lawn was covered with a layer of white.
Her father stood up and walked out into the garden. Standing in the light rain, he silently observed the damage. He picked up a broken stem from a tomato plant, examined it, and then let it drop back to the ground. He slowly made his way to the flower garden. The flowers had been flattened to the ground.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have moved these plants out here,” he said. “They would have been safe inside.”
She stood up and, with some difficulty, went to her father.
“No, Daddy. I wanted them here in the garden. They were safe inside, but out here, even though it was only for a few days, they’ve had the warm sun and the bees and the gentle summer wind at night. I’m not sorry we brought them here. It was worth the chance just to have them in the garden—even for a short time.”
Somehow they both realized that now they were talking about more than flowers. He held his daughter close to him while she repeated softly, “Daddy, it’s going to be all right.”
The next day she told Dave that she and her parents had finally talked about the future.
Two weeks later she was admitted to the hospital.
Three weeks later she died.
Some who attended the funeral may have wondered why, instead of the customary wreath of flowers on the casket, the family placed there a bouquet of flowers from their garden—flowers that had endured the hail and yet lived on.

“I’m the Wishgiver,” Kaitlyn sang.
Jeremy jumped from his bed and stood at the door of his room. That’s all he needed—his little sister messing with his stuff.
“Look, Jeremy! Look!”
Kaitlyn spun in circles, almost tripping over the cape that swirled around her ankles.
The costume didn’t look all that great. Just a big T-shirt that used to be his and that Mom had sewn a big W on, and an old beach towel with two corners tied in a knot in front. “Looks good,” Jeremy said, forcing a smile.
“Make a wish.” Swirling her cape again, Kaitlyn moved closer to his room.
Closing his door behind him, Jeremy led the lively Wishgiver to the family room. “I wish to see you rehearse your part in the play as our family home evening activity tonight,” he chuckled good-naturedly.
After that, every day Kaitlyn bounced around in her costume. Mom laughed, “You’re going to wear your costume out before the play.” Then she hugged Kaitlyn and played the Wishgiver game.
Jeremy holed up in his room. It was hard to pretend, even for Kaitlyn, in a superhero who could make wishes come true. He was glad that she realized that it was only make-believe and didn’t pretend Dad was alive, or something like that.
At last the play was only three days away. Jeremy, Kaitlyn, and Mom sat at the kitchen table, eating breakfast.
Jeremy swallowed a bite of toast. “I’m supposed to take treats to the soccer party Saturday.”
“Are brownies OK?” Mom asked. “We’ll make them Friday—I have to work Saturday.” She turned to Kaitlyn. “Honey, I’m sorry, but I can’t come to your play.”
Kaitlyn plunked her spoon into her cereal bowl. Milk sloshed over its sides. “You’re not coming?”
Mom took Kaitlyn’s face in her hands. “I tried, honey, but I can’t get another nurse to take my shift.”
“But it’s my play!”
Jeremy focused on his banana. He peeled the skin back, picking off bits that were left behind.
Kaitlyn’s lip quivered. Mom hugged her. “Mrs. Santangelo will take you. She’s really looking forward to seeing your play.”
“But you’re my mommy. Mrs. Santangelo’s not the same. She’s not my family. Jeremy, can’t you come?”
Jeremy wadded the banana peel. “I have a party that day.”
“You can’t come, either?”
Jeremy didn’t look up from the squished peel. He knew how Kaitlyn was feeling. Not too many weeks ago, at his soccer game, he’d felt the same way.
Most of the kids had dads there. Mom was OK. She cheered and knew the rules. But she couldn’t come to the final game. She’d had to work then too. Even so, before the game, he’d searched the sidelines. No Mom.
He’d played well—each time he kicked the ball, he’d think of Mom not being there and the ball would sail far. He’d scored three goals, and the score was 5–4 in favor of the opponents when he got the ball again in the final minutes. He dribbled it down the field, evaded the defense, and aimed at the goal. The ball bounded toward the goal, hit the corner of the post, and went … outside.
“I lost the game,” Jeremy moaned. Knowing that no one was there waiting for him in the bleachers, but still hoping, he trudged off the field.
The game had been days ago, and as Jeremy cleared his dishes from the table, he wanted to forget about how awful and alone he’d felt. He tried not to notice that Kaitlyn had started to cry.
For the next three days, Kaitlyn didn’t dress in the Wishgiver costume, and no one played the Wishgiver game. Even if it was dumb, Jeremy missed it. “Hey, Kaitlyn,” he coaxed, “put on your costume. I have a wish for you.”
“It’s just a costume,” Kaitlyn muttered. “The Wishgiver can’t really make things happen.”
The day of the play, Mom hustled Kaitlyn into the car to take her to the Santangelo’s. Kaitlyn was quiet, all the bubble gone. Mom didn’t say much, either. As she opened the car door, she turned to Jeremy. “The brownies are on the kitchen table. Be careful crossing the highway. And have a good time at the party.”
Jeremy watched Mom climb into the car. The party. It was just a dumb old party—a bunch of guys horsing around and … “Hey, Mom, wait up!” He raced to the car. “Do you think Mrs. Santangelo would mind if I came?”
Mom turned off the engine and looked into his eyes. Her own eyes were kind of misty. “But your party. … You don’t want to miss that.”
“The guys’ll just mess around. I can get there after the play in plenty of time for the food. Do we have time to drop the brownies off?”
He raced into the house, grabbed his treats, then raced back out to the car and piled into the back seat next to Kaitlyn. For the first time in three days, she smiled—a big smile, big enough to show her missing teeth. “You’re coming to my play!”
“I’ve nothing better to do—no big deal.”
Kaitlyn giggled and snuggled as close to him as the seat belt would allow.
At the play, Jeremy sat between Mrs. Santangelo and some big guy, probably some kid’s dad. There weren’t many kids there. At his party he’d be with lots of them, all his friends.
For a bunch of little kids, the play wasn’t bad. The parents clapped and clapped. Then all the actors came in front of the curtain and told not what they wished for but what they were thankful for.
When it was Kaitlyn’s turn, Jeremy squirmed in his seat. She scared easily. She stood in front of the footlights, squinting into the glare. Scrunching her eyebrows, she searched the audience. “I’m thankful for … I’m thankful for my brother.”
Jeremy sat tall. The guy next to him didn’t seem so big.
The kids rushed off the stage, and in the push, Kaitlyn tripped and fell, tearing her precious cape. Jeremy helped her up.
She smiled up at him, her eyes gleaming. “Did you like it?”
“Yeah, it was good.”
“Do you have to go to your party now?”
She looked so tiny and alone with her missing teeth and her torn cape.
“Nah—it looks like they have good food here. I’ll hang around.”
Maybe you don’t have to be a Wishgiver to make wishes come true.

When we entered into the holy temple, we were excited and felt that this is the place where God dwells. The Holy Spirit guided us through the temple sessions and the temple workers helped us select the white temple clothing. My pants were too long and when I was busy tying my white tie somebody was folding my pants. When I looked down, I was surprised to see that it was the temple president. That was indeed a great act of humility.

Jessie stopped at a flower shop on her way home from school and asked the price of a dozen long-stemmed roses—the kind Dad had always given Mom on special occasions before he died. Jessie looked at the two dollars and seventy-three cents in her coin purse. She couldn’t even afford the sweetheart roses that the florist suggested as a less expensive alternative. Mother’s Day was only three days away, and there was no way that Jessie could earn enough money before Sunday to buy the flowers that she hoped would make her mother smile again.
As Jessie walked home from the florist’s, she passed the site of a new housing development. But even all the fascinating construction equipment couldn’t get her mind off the flowers. Then she noticed that near the foundation of what had once been a house were a number of lilac bushes about to fall victim to a hungry bulldozer parked nearby.
A few years before, Jessie had mowed a neighbor’s lawn in exchange for a bouquet of lilacs. Jessie had given the flowers to her mom. What was it Mom had said? Then Jessie remembered: “Heaven must smell like this. I wish we had a lilac bush of our own.” That was it! She could give Mom something that she had always wanted, it wouldn’t cost a cent, and a lilac bush would last lots longer than cut flowers.
Jessie hurried home and returned with some small garden tools for digging up the bush. When she got back to the housing development, she began searching for a healthy, sturdy bush that wasn’t too large to move. Finding one, Jessie worked until her hands ached and started to blister and sweat poured down her face. But the ground was too hard.
In desperation she hurried home and came back with a quickly scribbled note: “Please save this lilac bush. I want to transplant it for my mother.” Feeling helpless, she stuck the note onto one of the bush’s branches, then headed for home.
After school the next day, Jessie raced to the construction site. She stared delightedly at what she saw. Although the bulldozer had leveled the remainder of the land, her chosen bush stood unharmed. As Jessie let out a whoop of joy, two workmen came up. “You must be the one who wrote the note. We saw how hard you had tried to dig around the bush, so we loosened the ground around it a bit and left it for you.”
Jessie thanked the workmen, then ran home and returned with a wagon and a spade. This time the broken ground easily yielded the bush. She pulled it home in the wagon, wet it down with the hose, and hid it behind the garage.
Late Saturday night Jessie planted the bush in the backyard. Later, when Mother was fixing breakfast before church, she happened to glance out the window. Then she looked again.
“Where did that lilac bush come from?”
When Jessie had finished telling her mother how she had gotten the bush, Mother smiled and said, “Thank you, Jessie. If you had spent a fortune, you couldn’t have given me anything that would have pleased me more.”
“I just hope that it will grow—that I planted it right,” Jessie said.
Mother put her arms around Jessie and, still smiling, said, “Don’t worry. You planted it just right. Long after you’ve grown up and left home, I’ll see that lilac bush whenever I look out the window and I’ll remember that you planted it with love.”

Those walls are very significant to me. My grandfather John F. Anderson, a skilled stonemason from Aberdeen, Scotland, was called to dress the white granite stone for this holy temple. In 1915 at the laying of the cornerstone, he had the honor of acting as the chief mason under the supervision of Elder David O. McKay. In 1923, before the temple was dedicated, my grandfather laid the very last stone. Then, in his journal he recorded, “It was not the capstone, but a small stone at the front gate entrance.”

Elder Nelson joked about the fact that the first 9 of his 10 children were all girls. “It was like a girls’ dormitory until our one and only son came along. Poor boy—he didn’t know who his real mother was for his first two years.”

In 1898 David O. McKay (1873–1970), who later became the ninth President of the Church, was a homesick missionary in Scotland. He had been in the city of Stirling only a few weeks and was discouraged. He and his companion spent one morning walking around Stirling Castle. On the way back into town they noticed an unfinished building. “Over the front door,” President McKay later explained, “was a stone arch, something unusual in a residence, and what was still more unusual, I could see from the sidewalk that there was an inscription chiseled in that arch.
“I said to my companion: ‘That’s unusual! I am going to see what the inscription is.’ When I approached near enough, this message came to me, not only in stone, but as if it came from One in whose service we were engaged:
“‘Whate’er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part’” (in Conference Report, October 1956, 91).
The message the young elder received that morning was to act his part well as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was also a message President McKay lived and taught throughout a lifetime of service.

There’s a certain surfer in southern California who’s giving the sport a loftier reputation. His name is Jimmy Zimmerman, and it’s well known that this surf team captain is an active priest in the Huntington Beach Fourth Ward.
Jimmy’s coach, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, said that “Zimmerman symbolizes surfing’s future. He’s popular, intelligent, and he’s a young man who doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke.”
Jimmy manages to fit in surf practice every morning at 6:15, after early-morning seminary. But that doesn’t make him too tired to get top grades in honors classes, be elected Homecoming king, and to teach the gospel to his friends. He recently had the privilege of baptizing one of them.