Gospel Story Finder

His childhood experiences seem to have been part of a divinely directed training process which would sensitize Thomas Monson to the condition of the poor for the rest of his life. When he later became bishop of that very Sixth-Seventh Ward into which he had been born and raised, he had 1,060 members, including some 85 widows and the largest welfare load in the Church.
Many may know that young Bishop Monson took a week of his personal vacation time every Christmas season to visit all of those eighty-five widows in his ward. Many may not know that for the first several years the gift he would take them was one of the hens raised by him in his own poultry sheds. And although it has been more than thirty years since he was released as their bishop, President Monson has taken a gift and visited every one of those widows every Christmas for as long as each has lived.
Furthermore, these sweet folks never seem to die until Brother Monson is back in town from his many assignments, enabling him to speak at their funerals. Perhaps no one in the present leadership of the Church has spoken at so many funerals—he once had three services in one day—and always very personal remarks are given for the sometimes ordinary and otherwise unknown souls that he has met and loved somewhere during his ministry.

A week ago I had an interesting experience. Without any official assignment, I attended a stake conference in a rural area of southeastern Utah. The stake president and his wife had invited Sister Hinckley and me to stay at their home. While he conducted his Saturday afternoon meeting, we rode about the stake, visiting a half-dozen little towns, in each of which there is a Church meetinghouse. We noted that the lawns were green and the buildings nicely kept, although they are small and some of them are old. We drove about and looked at the homes, modest in their appearance, but in almost every case there was neatness and beauty with flowers in bloom. Having a free Saturday and Sunday, I had wanted to make this trip simply to thank the people for their faith and faithfulness and to express my love to them. Most of them are farm folk who work hard for a small return. But they know a great truth. They know the law of the harvest—“Whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap.” (D&C 6:33.)

They know that you do not reap wheat after sowing oats. They know that you do not get a racehorse from a scrub mare. They know that if you are to build another great generation, you must work with vision and faith. You must dream and plan, serve and sacrifice, pray and labor. After being with these wonderful people for two days, Sister Hinckley observed, “These are the kind who constitute the glue that holds the Church together.”

The home where we stayed was not pretentious, but it was comfortable and clean and delightful. The husband, I believe, did not have a large income, but he knew how to spend it wisely, first paying his tithes and offerings and setting aside some in savings. His wife is a beautiful woman, the mother of six sons and one daughter. You need not look far to know that in that home there is love and respect one for another. There is appreciation and gratitude. Through the years they have known adversity—lean times and death-threatening sickness.

I repeat—I went among these people to express my gratitude and love. I felt a great overwhelming measure of love in return. Here in this stake of small rural wards, among people who made no pretense of sophistication, I found strength and faith and virtue. I found men whose hands were gnarled and whose skin was wrinkled with the sun’s heat of many summers—men in whose hearts there was a great capacity for love—love for the land and the sky above it, love for their wives and children, love for the Church and its eternal purposes, love for God and the Savior of all mankind.

I looked into the eyes of beautiful women—women of virtue and strength and capacity, older women who knew much of struggle and disappointment and pain, young women who knew much of purpose and goodness and art and learning. I looked into the eyes of children—beautiful and innocent and wonderful.

I do not wish to imply that I could not find such in cities and towns all over the world. Such people are to be found everywhere, but somehow there seemed so much larger a percentage of them among the folks whom we visited. Their feet were planted on the solid earth. They knew the meaning of work without respect to hours or season.

I also wanted to visit among them because I have met their sons and daughters in the mission field in many lands. These have been effective missionaries because they have learned to get up in the morning and get their chores done. They have been dedicated missionaries because when they were very young they learned to pray at their mothers’ knees and heard their fathers bear testimony of the truth of this great latter-day work. Not only have these sons and daughters gone on missions, but by dint of great sacrifice they have gone away to school and won places of honor across the nation as they serve in business and the professions.

One summer my father said that he had a big job for me and my brother, Clay, to do. Pointing to a nearby field with a bunch of lambs in it, Dad said that he’d share any money that we made from raising and selling them.
We were excited. There were about 350 lambs, and all we had to do was feed them. However, none of the lambs had mothers. To feed one or two baby lambs is easy, but to feed 350 of them was a real job. We made some long, V-shaped troughs out of boards, then got a tin washtub, ground up some grain, put it into the tub, and added milk to make a thin mash.
When we herded the lambs to the troughs, they just stood there looking at us. We tried pushing their noses down into the milky mash, and we tried wriggling our fingers in the mixture to get them to suck our fingers. Some of them would drink, but most of them ran away.
Many of the lambs were starving to death. The only way that we could be sure they were eating was to pick them up and feed them.
At night the coyotes would sit up on the hill and howl. The next morning we’d see the results of their night’s work, and we’d bury two or three more lambs.
Clay and I soon forgot about becoming rich. All we wanted to do was save our lambs. It really wasn’t too bad until I made a pet of one of the lambs and gave it a name. It was always under my feet, and it knew my voice. I loved that lamb. One morning it didn’t come when I called it. Later that day I found it under the willows by the creek. It was dead. With tears streaming down my face, I picked up my lamb and went to find my father. Looking up at Dad, I said, “Isn’t there someone who can help us feed our lambs?”
After a long moment he said, “Jayne, a long, time ago, Someone Else said almost those same words: ‘Feed my lambs. … Feed my sheep.’” (John 21:15–16.)
Many years later, while pondering Moses 1:39—“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of [all mankind]”—I remembered the summer of the lambs, and I sensed how the Savior must feel with so many lambs to feed, so many souls to save. And I knew in my heart that He needed my help.

We had a wonderful experience as part of our humanitarian projects.
Brother Eric Graffe, who assists us with our projects, told us about a drinking water problem on the island of Tahaa. We quickly set up a video conference with Madame Patricia Amaru, mayor of Tahaa.
To our astonishment, she began with a prayer. We then asked her what their priority needs are. With tears in her eyes, she confided: “You must be the answer to my prayers, because just yesterday we had an urgent problem. And I’m powerless to solve it.”
She went on to explain that the drinking water distribution network is outdated, making it difficult to supply water to a large part of the island.
So we headed off to Tahaa to see what was needed. As water is one of the priorities of humanitarian projects, we decided to put together a dossier that we would submit to the branch president. If successful, this substantial project will bless the lives of over 2,000 people.
Once we had finished visiting the facilities, Madame Amaru regretted leaving us, as she had to attend a meeting “with a young man from your church who is going on a mission”.
It was in fact a vigil during which the future missionary was to open his call letter. We asked her if it’s a member of her family. “No!” she replied. “But I go wherever I’m invited.”
“Then we’ll be delighted to accompany you!”
When we arrived, we found a branch filled with love for this young future missionary who had lost his mother a year earlier. What’s more, he’s the first missionary from this branch . . . in 40 years!
The branch president asked to the mayor and her husband to address a word. They both gave “parent” advice, encouraging him to be obedient and respectful, to remain humble, and especially not to stay there (Salt Lake City Mission) after the mission.
Before we left, we learned that this couple, who are very close to the people of their community, had recently attended the dedication of the meetinghouse. What’s more, during the seven-month construction period, they welcomed the entire branch into their home (not the municipality’s premises, but their own) for Sunday meetings!
It was with hearts overflowing with love and gratitude for such generous and humble people that we set sail again to leave them.
Unquestionably, we declare that our Heavenly Father watches over His children tenderly, that He sent us to Tahaa to serve them, and that the Church is the means by which this might be done.

Because Heavenly Father is merciful, a principle of compensation prevails. I have seen this in my own life. My grandson Joseph has autism. It has been heartbreaking for his mother and father to come to grips with the implications of this affliction.
They knew that Joseph would probably never be like other children. They understood what that would mean not only for Joseph but for the family as well. But what a joy he has been to us. Autistic children often have a difficult time showing emotion, but every time I’m with him, Joseph gives me a big hug. While there have been challenges, he has filled our lives with joy.
His parents have encouraged him to participate in sports. When he first started playing baseball, he was in the outfield. But I don’t think he grasped the need to run after loose balls. He thought of a much more efficient way to play the game. When a ball was hit in his direction, Joseph watched it go by and then pulled another baseball out of his pocket and threw that one to the pitcher.
Any reservations that his family may have had in raising Joseph, any sacrifices they have made have been compensated tenfold. Because of this choice spirit, his mother and father have learned much about children with disabilities. They have witnessed firsthand the generosity and compassion of family, neighbors, and friends. They have rejoiced together as Joseph has progressed. They have marveled at his goodness.

I converted to the Church as a young boy of 13. One summer day in 1971, my father took me to town for our haircut. While the barber was cutting my hair, suddenly two American ladies arrived at the barbershop. They were introduced by the barber to my father as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He told Father that they have a good doctrine that he can try investigating. At first, Father was hesitant to accept the invitation but he was finally persuaded to accept an appointment at home.
So we were taught the true gospel of Jesus Christ and were given a copy of the Book of Mormon. My parents read and pondered the sacred book. As they studied its contents, and they felt its power. They decided to be baptized with us their children.
Before becoming members of the true church, our mortal path seemed dark and hopeless, we had no knowledge of God’s plan, and we didn’t know about eternal life. Our motto was “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die,” but when we found the true church, our path became brighter with all the ordinances and the covenants we made with God.
Our baptism into the Church allowed us to enter the covenant path which will bring us back to God’s presence. If we continue pressing forward, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end, we will have eternal life. We can achieve this by making, keeping, and honoring our covenants at baptism and at the temple.

Have you ever met a ten-year-old school teacher? No? Well, meet Ellen Morgan, a pretty blond with a sunshiny smile. Ellen, along with her sisters Anna (12) and Claire (8), set up a summer “school” for children in their neighborhood.
Ellen lives in southern Idaho, right beside the Snake River near a place called Thousand Springs. It’s not easy to organize a neighborhood school when your nearest neighbor lives almost a mile away, but the Morgan sisters were determined to earn money for school clothes. Besides, teaching reading sounded like more fun than baby-sitting or doing yard work. They got busy in the old, one-room schoolhouse that their father fixed up on their property, and they sent out announcements that Thousand Springs Academy Summer School was about to begin.
Eight students came. Three days a week for six weeks Ellen and her sisters taught phonics, reading, arithmetic, and music. They also had nature walks, games, recess, and a nutritious snack every day. On the Fourth of July, the students put on a patriotic play for their families.
Teaching school comes naturally to Ellen. Her parents, Randall and DeAnna Morgan, used to be schoolteachers; now they make educational films. Her grandfather owned a business college, her grandmother and great-grandmother were teachers, and several aunts and uncles have taught school.
Ellen has four other brothers and sisters besides Anna and Claire: Jess (14), Bo (6), Laddie (3), and Jane (1). Everyone has inside and outside chores (Ellen takes care of the chickens), and there are many interesting things to do right on their own property. In summer they ride their horses, raft on the Snake River, wade in ditches, and swim in a nearby hot spring. In winter they cross-country ski, put on plays, and have cozy evenings reading aloud. It’s fun getting snowed-in, because that means having school and church at home.
When Thousand Springs Academy Summer School ended, the old schoolhouse was soon bustling again with the Morgan children’s latest project: the Thousand Springs Rural Community Library. Ellen and her older brother and sister collected hundreds of good books for young readers. When they have finished cataloguing the books, the library will be open two days a week, and it will have guest lecturers, story hours, and plays.

My childhood friend began to see changes in me week by week. I invited her to my missionary meetings. As she listened, she also felt the Holy Ghost and gained a testimony. When the COVID-19 crisis slowed down, my fiancé, now active in the Church, was finally able to come to Taiwan. We got married, and he baptized me. I was a new person.
Sister Canfield with Jin Hua, a lifelong friend who became interested in the Church through Sister Canfield’s conversion.

Karl was born in 1907. He lived with his parents and a brother in a small town near Berlin, Germany. As a teenager Karl became interested in languages and wanted to study English and French. At fifteen years old he went to work as an apprentice in a factory that made eyeglasses. When he was seventeen he met two Mormon missionaries. His interest in the English language led him to take the English classes offered by the missionaries. In exchange for them teaching him English, Karl had to listen to the missionaries preach the gospel.

Karl and his mother joined the Church on July 30, 1924. His father joined in August of that year, but his brother never joined the Church. In 1928 Karl received a mission call to the German-Austrian Mission. While serving in Basel, Switzerland, he met a young woman, Alma, and after his mission he returned to that area to work. They fell in love, but jobs were scarce, so Karl returned to his hometown to start a farm with his father. Alma followed, and in December 1930 they were married. In 1940 Karl was drafted into the German army, leaving behind his wife and young daughter.

Back in Europe Karl’s faith and prayers helped him endure hardships during the war. His constant prayer was that he would not kill anyone or be killed but be permitted to return to his family. He described his ordeal as experiencing all the plagues. He told of having so many lice in his uniform that when he had the chance to be near a fire, he put his coat in it to kill the pests. One of his colleagues tried that same method, but it did not go as well for him. Instead of killing the lice, the heat acted as an incubator, and the lice multiplied to an unbearable level.

In May 1945 Karl learned that the war was over, but while he was trying to reach his home, he was captured by Russian soldiers. They sent him to a prison camp in Siberia. Lack of food, demanding work, illness, and harsh treatment by the guards took their toll on Karl’s health. After eight weeks he was so sick that his heart started to fail. He was sent to see the camp doctor, who used a dirty needle to give him a shot. Within a short time Karl had a serious infection.

During his captivity he pled with the Lord to keep him alive and strong enough to return to his family. Karl promised the Lord he would serve him for the rest of his life to the best of his ability.

In October 1945 a rumor went around the camp that most of the sick inmates in the prison camp would be sent back to their countries. In November the medical staff made a list of all the men who were to be sent home immediately. Karl’s name was not on that list. He called on the Lord, asking for His help. He was desperate to go home because he knew he would not live much longer in the prison camp. He asked the doctor to look through the list again. It still was not there. The doctor started looking through the lists for other countries and finally found Karl’s name on the Hungarian list. The doctor corrected the error, and Karl was put on a train for home.

The trip took two weeks. There were train cars full of prisoners returning to their homes. The prisoners were not given much food, so the strongest men would hunt for food when the train stopped. If the guards caught them, they were shot. Besides the limited food supply, it was cold. Every morning the guards would come to each train car and ask if there were any dead. Every morning there would be ten to twelve men who had died during the night.

Eventually Karl returned home, ill and emaciated. His wife and his mother nursed him back to health. Karl survived the war but faced additional struggles as a Church member in East Germany. Through guidance by the Spirit and protection from the Lord, he and his family escaped East Germany and eventually were led to Utah. Karl kept his promise to the Lord. He dedicated his life to the gospel and professionally spent many years working in various employment opportunities in the Church.

Furthermore, I discovered that if gas is released from a balloon through a valve, it descends. But this was not all! I also heard from my friend many delightful stories about previous balloon flights. On one occasion, as the story goes, clouds developed unexpectedly during a flight, and the two men in the wicker basket had not the faintest idea over which part of the country they were sailing.
They decided to lower the balloon, and all of a sudden they saw a Dutchman walking on a lonely country road. When they were able to draw his attention, one of the men in the basket shouted: “Where are we?” And the lonely walker looked up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted back, “You are in a balloon.”
To make their urgent request for direction more clear, the man in the balloon cried vigorously, “Where are you?” And the man called back at the top of his voice, “I am on the ground!”
Discouraged, the balloonists unloaded some ballast and sailed again into the clouds, while one of them remarked: “The man down there must be a bureaucrat.” The statements he made were perfectly true, but totally useless!

My final evidence of God’s love for the individual comes from the experience of a family friend named Mary Ann.27 Mary Ann was raised in a devout Latter-day Saint family in Wisconsin and lived for the day when she could attend BYU and have strong Latter-day Saint friends. The time came when she received that acceptance letter and then found herself as a freshman at BYU.

During the first week in her Book of Mormon class, Mary Ann’s professor challenged the whole class to read the Book of Mormon for thirty straight days and promised that it would make a difference. Eagerly, she accepted his challenge and diligently read every day. As the challenge was drawing to a close, she began to get discouraged because no answers had come. Even though she had good roommates, they all were absorbed in their own challenges, and her dream of great Latter-day Saint friends was not what she had hoped for. To top it off, the weather had started to change, and the days were wet and gray.

On one particularly dreary morning, as Mary Ann left her apartment to walk across campus to her first class, it seemed as if the bottom was falling out from under her. She felt so discouraged that, as she walked among the sea of foreign faces, she began to silently pray. With tears in her eyes, she wondered if she could go on. She questioned why she had come to BYU since things were just not working out.

As she arrived at her first class, she took up her normal chair in the back of the room. It was a big general education class with at least 150 students in a theater-style room. As she prepared for the start of class, she looked up to see if the professor was already there. When she located him up front, she realized that he had been looking directly at her. Somewhat embarrassed, he looked back down at his notes and readied himself to begin speaking to the class. Then, in a spontaneous move, he left the podium platform and climbed the stairs to the aisle chair where she was seated.

The professor stopped in front of her and said, almost in a whisper, “I don’t know why, but I feel impressed to tell you that the Lord loves you deeply and that He knows you.”

He then smiled kindly and returned to the podium. It was the only time that semester that they interacted personally, but it was a game changer for this discouraged young lady from Wisconsin. The Lord was aware of her. She knew that He knew about her.

I wish that I knew the professor’s name so that I could acknowledge his identity before our university audience this morning.

President Kimball’s teachings capture Mary Ann’s experience rather succinctly. He said, “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.”28

When the question of going out with nonmembers arose, Heidi Grey, 17, had this to say, “Having tried it, I can look at both sides of the issue. It is hard to keep your standards when you’re going with boys oblivious to those ideals. They don’t know and can’t accept the high principles we have, and it makes life tough many times. But now I’m dating someone who is very strong in the Church and at last my head is above water. I can see where I want to be going.”

In the fifth grade this past school year, we have had to memorize the names of the fifty states of the United States and each of their capitals. We started after spring break and took tests every week. Each test included ten to fifteen new states, plus all the states we had studied the week before. The tests got longer and longer.
This was very hard for me. I had to study a lot before every test. Even then, I made mistakes. Sometimes I missed so many that I had to retake the test to pass.
One day, another boy in my class was retaking a test at the same time that I was. He finished, and the teacher told him that he could go out to recess. When he put his book in his desk, he saw that I was struggling with one of the capitals. He whispered the answer to me. I quickly wrote it down and handed the test in. My teacher hadn’t seen or heard anything, so she told me I could go out to recess, too.
I thought I would feel good, because I knew I had passed. Instead, I felt horrible. Recess was not fun. All I could think about was what I had done. I tried to think of a way to tell my teacher.
Later that afternoon, I waited until most of my classmates had left the room to go home. I walked up to my teacher’s desk and told her quietly that I had not been honest and would retake the test again the next day. She thanked me for being honest. Telling my teacher the truth was very hard for me, but I felt so much better after I did.
When my mom was tucking me into bed that night, I told her, too. I thought she would be angry, but she was glad that I had had the courage to admit what I had done and had taken steps to correct my behavior. We talked about how the Holy Ghost helps us to know right from wrong and decided that the Holy Ghost had helped me that day.

In 1878 my great-grandfather George F. Richards was 17 years of age. As was sometimes the case in those days, he had already been ordained an elder. One Sunday his mother was groaning in intense pain. As his father was not available, the bishop and several others were invited to give her a blessing, but no relief came. Accordingly, she turned to her son George and asked him to lay hands on her head. He wrote in his diary, “In the midst of my tears for my mother’s suffering and the task of performing an administration such as I had never yet done, I retired to another room where I wept and prayed.”

When he became composed, he laid his hands on her and gave her a very simple blessing. He later noted, “My mother ceased her groaning and received relief from her suffering while my hands were yet on her head.” He then recorded in his diary this most insightful observation. He said he had always felt that the reason his mother did not get relief from the bishop’s blessing was not because the Lord failed to honor the bishop’s blessing but because the Lord had reserved this blessing for a boy, to teach him a lesson that the priesthood in the boy is just as powerful as the priesthood in the man when exercised in righteousness.

Many years ago my family and I visited Arches National Park in Utah, USA. One of the most beautiful and famous arches in the park is Delicate Arch, and we decided to climb the mountain to reach it.
We started enthusiastically, but soon the others wanted to rest. I wanted to get there sooner, so I went on alone. Without paying attention to the path I should take, I began following a man who seemed to know where he was going.
The path became harder to climb. I was sure my family could not have made it. Suddenly I saw Delicate Arch, but to my surprise, I couldn’t reach it. The path I had taken didn’t lead to the arch.
I was frustrated and turned back. I waited impatiently until I met my group again. They told me they had followed the signs showing the right way and, with care and effort, had reached Delicate Arch. Unfortunately, I had taken the wrong way. What a lesson I learned!

Father was a commercial artist for a large advertising agency in New York City. On one occasion he was under tremendous stress to produce an advertising campaign. He had come home on a Friday evening and worked most of the night. Saturday morning, after a few hours working in the yard, he retired to his studio to create an advertising campaign for a new product. My sister and I found great delight in chasing each other round and round the dining room table, which was situated in a room directly over his head. He had told us to please stop at least twice, but to no avail. This time he came bounding up the steps and collared me. He sat me down and taught a great lesson. He did not yell or strike me even though he was very annoyed.
He explained the creative process, the spiritual process, if you will, and the need for quiet pondering and getting close to the Spirit for his creativity to function. Because he took time to explain and help me understand, I learned a lesson that has been put to use almost daily in my life.

One of the most powerful forces in the Church is and always has been its youth. They love their friends and are not afraid to ask them the Golden Questions. A young man from Charlottesville, Virginia, was baptized; he went home and said to his grandmother, “Grandma, you ought to be baptized.”

“I have been baptized in the Baptist church,” she said.

“Yes, but Grandma, you haven’t been baptized into the true church.”

She said, “Maybe I haven’t—who told you this?” The Mormon elders, he told her. She said, “Send them to me.” He did and his grandmother was taught the gospel and baptized.

When my wife was a young girl, her grandpa took the grandchildren with him to the farm to put powder on the potatoes to kill the bugs. It was fun doing it together. What’s more, they got to ride the old workhorse after they were finished.
It was fun to help get the cows into the barn so they could be milked. Although the children didn’t do much milking themselves, they watched and heard the milk splatter into the bucket. Sometimes a well-aimed squirt would fill the open mouth of a waiting cat. The children laughed even more when Grandpa squirted the warm milk toward their open mouths, and the giggles increased when he missed and splashed their faces.
The children helped harvest the corn and, when canning started, they helped the adults cut off kernels. Everyone had a feeling of accomplishment and they felt secure just knowing that they were adding to their year’s supply of food.
After the children had helped with the picking and pickling of cucumbers, they received a reward of some large ripe ones to cut open, hollow out, and sail as boats down the ditches.

Refer to any atlas and it will tell you that the high point in Idaho is Borah Peak at 12,662 feet. But you might have a difficult time convincing 47 youth and 23 adults from the American Fork (Utah) 19th Ward of that. For them, the high point is known simply as “The Ranch” on the Idaho border just outside the small town of Freedom, Wyoming.
During summer vacation, this group participated in a not-so-typical youth conference: five days of hard work. And many of them even knew in advance that it would be hard work, because they had done the same thing last year.
“Sure it’s lots of work,” said 16-year-old Shirley Frazier. “But it’s also lots of fun. We play when we work. It’s not every day you get to work side by side with members of your ward. A bond is established, and I feel closer to the members of my ward and to the Lord.”
How much work can 47 youth do on a ranch in five days? Plenty. For example, they built fences with wooden posts and barbed wire, and they built a small bridge across a creek. They tilled and weeded a garden. They even finished constructing a barn (where they would perform plays and skits). As if that weren’t enough, they also cleaned up an old farmhouse once inhabited by barn swallows and mice, built a retaining wall with rocks they had gathered in a field nearby, and planted flowers.
You’d think that would be enough to tire them out. But there was also time for the fun usually associated with youth conferences. They boated, they fished, they swam. They played baseball in a pasture, organized and participated in a lip-synch contest where they imitated singers from the ’50s to the ’80s, and enjoyed a hayride on a wagon pulled by a team of Clydesdale horses.
“I think this is great,” said Elizabeth Toomalatai, 18, who, although not LDS, participated in the youth conference. “People get together and work—and have fun—at the same time!” Elizabeth, whose brother served a mission and is currently attending BYU, says she came to The Ranch with some friends “to see how members of the Church get together.” She added, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Obviously, The Ranch isn’t your typical ranch. Sister Lou Cille Hamnett, who runs the place with her husband Von and her son Scott, tells about the dream she and her first husband, the late Neil Carlisle, shared when they purchased the property. Over the years, ward groups from the surrounding states clamored for the opportunity to have activities at the site.
“When you walk around here and the sandhill cranes are flying overhead and the Canadian geese are flying and the ducks are out there on the lake and it’s quiet, well, there’s no place like it,” Sister Hamnett said. “People are living such a rat race that they don’t stop to smell the roses, they don’t stop to feel, really, the reverence of the soil and the clean air. I think that’s what you get up here. There is a special spirit here.”
Because of that special spirit, even after Brother Carlisle passed away in 1985, Sister Hamnett wanted to keep The Ranch going. But she had her doubts about whether it could be maintained.
Then Bishop Blake Wride and the youth of the 19th Ward came to the rescue.
“They knew what a large responsibility the upkeep and improvement of The Ranch would be for me. So he got all of his kids together and suggested coming up for a service project. I thought, ‘Well, why not?’ But I thought I would probably be baby-sitting them. Instead, this group has just been marvelous. Neil always said that giving to others was the most important thing. I knew we were giving by having these church groups come up here, but now someone’s giving in return.”
Like the unique focus of the conference, The Ranch is also unique in its character. The young men and women are quick to point out some reasons why. For example, there is an outdoor eating place known as the “Chuckwagon,” located where cattle used to roam the fields. The building that is now the kitchen was a place of shelter where the cattle sought refuge from the hot, blistering sun, or the hard, cold Idaho winters. Sister Hamnett still laughs as she explains how they had to borrow a tractor and clean two feet of manure off the ground when the transformation from cattle lounge to Chuckwagon began. But the youth don’t mind the Chuckwagon’s past. In fact, as soon as they arrived Monday afternoon, they were scrubbing down tables, and sweeping and mopping the floor in preparation for some “good fixin’s.”
And if you take a walk up the hill above the lake to look at The Ranch, you’ll get a bird’s-eye view of the six sheep wagons. Built by Carlisle himself, they provide cozy sleeping quarters for some of the guests. The six wagons are arranged in a tight circle in a small meadow, as if part of an old western movie set. You’d almost expect a few cowboys in chaps to come walking out of one of them.
And the garden. Well, that’s where an 80-year-old barn stood, until the weight of winter snow on the roof caused the structure to buckle. Youth from the ward helped weed and till the ground where the barn used to be in preparation for planting flowers and vegetables.
“Here, weeding is fun,” said 17-year-old Lisa Patterson. “I think working together seems to make it more fun, especially because we’re giving service.”
Corey Wride, 17, agreed, and added, “I was surprised at how the adults passed responsibilities on to us.” Even with all that good food at the Chuckwagon ready to be eaten by hungry, hardworking teenagers, Corey’s favorite expression seemed to be, “Well, I’m ready to get back to work.”
One girl is proud of the fact that she helped build a fence in one day. She is thrilled by the fact that she was part of an almost all-girl work crew that built the fence. One of the boys overheard her comments, then said with curiosity, “What I don’t understand is why girls get so excited about hammering nails into wood.” His statement was quickly answered, “Because this is a time when girls get to do many things they normally don’t get to do. The leaders are really understanding and they let us try new things.”
Girls hammering nails to help build a fence isn’t the only unusual activity going on at The Ranch. Boys are also participating in tasks they normally don’t do at home. Says Sister Cheryl Edmund, one of the ward’s youth conference specialists: “Where else can you see boys sweeping the kitchen (the Chuckwagon) and doing dishes?” And she adds with a laugh, “In broad daylight!”
On one particular day at The Ranch a visitor might see girls gathering up scraps of discarded wood from the barn project and piling it in wheelbarrows. As they push them along to be dumped into a hole in the ground for the night’s anticipated dutch oven feast, they laugh, talk about the upcoming play in the recently completed barn, and generally just seem to enjoy the natural beauty of their surroundings and the work they are doing. Having dumped the wood, some of them jump into the wheelbarrows for unorganized races back to the scrap pile.
What’s the secret to enjoying hard work and service? Bishop Wride says, “It goes back to what Elder Victor L. Brown said about service and youth: ‘May we remember that they would rather serve than be served. Self-sacrifice brings out their finest characteristics.’
Not only have the youth learned to appreciate service at The Ranch; they have had fun at the same time. For example, Jeff Eastwood, 18, earned the distinction of being the first one thrown in the lake. With a smile on his face, he’ll tell you that he really jumped in. On the serious side, he said he’s learned an important lesson by participating in youth conference. Jeff said he is grateful that his parents attended, too. “I’ve learned to live with adults in a different environment. My parents are interacting with my friends, and I’ve learned to act the same way in front of my family as I do in front of my friends. I’m being myself.”
With so much to see and do at The Ranch, it’s hard to say what was the most memorable part of this youth conference. Perhaps it was Thursday evening’s spiritual activity. It began with an invitation after dinner to take a hayride to a meadow for homemade peach cobbler and whipped cream. It was a perfect day: billowy clouds in a beautiful blue sky. When the young men and women arrived at the meadow, they enjoyed running around in the knee-high grass. And the tall pine trees on the hills that circled the meadow were surpassed only by the spirit of togetherness shared by the youth and adult leaders. When they finished eating, everyone sang songs. Suddenly, three men dressed in white came walking down the hill. As previously planned by the adults, but unknown to the youth, these three men represented the Three Nephites (see 3 Ne. 28).
“It was breathtaking, watching those white figures walk down from the hill,” said Sharon Frazier. “At first, we were all quiet, not knowing what to think. And then we started to sing, ‘I am a Child of God’ as they came closer. They told us that we are a choice generation, and very special spirits reserved especially for this time period.”
The youth were split up in groups, each accompanied by one of the three guests. Each group discussed a beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount (see Matt. 5), then discussed a particular question. One of the questions was, “If you could change something, what would it be?” Norma Nerdin, 15, said, “I’m going to make my Church habits more steady. You know, things like prayer and scripture study. And I need to talk about my problems more. Everybody has difficulties. It’s important that we let others know when we are having a hard time.” Norma said that it was a moment she would remember forever.
Heather Baxter, 16, was in another group. Her question was, “What would make you happy?” “I would want to have a pure testimony,” she said. “If someone asked me if I knew the Church was true, I would be able to know for sure and answer them without having any doubts.
And that’s what it was all about at The Ranch: doing rather than just talking. The results were service rendered and lots of smiles, and a feeling that the high point of Idaho is really at a small ranch outside of Freedom.

In August 1989, the whole family went to the temple—father, mother, their eleven living children (one of their twelve children had died), and the husband and children of their oldest daughter—a total of nineteen family members. “We left home at 1:00 A.M., ” says Zulma. “The sun wasn’t up yet, and it was totally dark. And it was raining and was terribly muddy. We were drenched as we walked barefoot in the mud, carrying our shoes, our bags, and the little children, until we reached town. As we walked through the darkness, we sang hymns. I remember singing, ‘Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven.’” (See Hymns, 1985, number 27, verse 4.)
From town, they took a series of buses—joining with other groups of Church members along the way—and finally arrived at the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple at 6:00 the next morning. It had been a journey of twenty-nine hours.
“We entered the temple, received our endowment, and were sealed as a family,” says Sister Torales. “The temple was a spiritual, beautiful place. The Spirit bore witness to me that this really was the house of the Lord.” Their deceased daughter was sealed to them. And their oldest daughter and her husband and children were sealed as a family. Then they had to leave the temple and travel back home.
On their way back, they stopped in Encarnación and attended Church meetings with the branch members there. Then, for the last hour and a half of the trip back to their farm, they were again on foot in the mud—carrying their shoes and bags and children. “As we walked, we sang more than before because of our joy,” says Sister Torales. “We sang, ‘Count your many blessings!’” (See Hymns, 1985, number 241.)
Indeed, says President Torales, “we have many blessings.”