Gospel Story Finder

In May 1833, my fourth-great-grandfather Asahel Perry and some friends traveled from northern New York to Kirtland, Ohio. They weren’t members of the newly restored Church, but they wanted to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith. They arrived just in time to attend the first council held to discuss the building of the Kirtland Temple.
After beginning the council, the Prophet presented the business of building the temple. Then he called upon those present to express their feelings related to such a large undertaking. Most responded that the Church was too poor to tackle such a task. They proposed construction of a smaller, less-expensive building.
During the ensuing discussion, Grandpa Perry and his friends huddled, took out their money, and added it up. Did they have enough to pay for their return trip and contribute to the temple’s construction? A few minutes later, my grandfather approached Joseph Smith, pulled out a five-dollar gold coin, and presented it to the Prophet. (Such a coin today would be worth hundreds of dollars!)
Joseph stood before the council and held up the coin. Then, speaking energetically, he said that “the work had commenced and the House [of the Lord] would be built according to the pattern presented” by the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Perry family soon joined the Church in Kirtland, received their temple blessings a few years later in the Nauvoo Temple, and later crossed the plains to Utah.

Once there was a Quiet Queen. She was so quiet that people could not hear what she said. Everyone loved her, but because they did not know what she said, they just went their own way, doing as they pleased.
The Quiet Queen said in her tiny voice:
“Someone should plant gardens and raise chickens.”
But no one heard her except the mouse that sat on her shoulder.
The older people went right on rocking in their chairs.
The Quiet Queen said in her tiny voice:
“Someone should go to the mountains and open the water gates and let water flow down to us.”
But no one heard her except the mouse that sat on her shoulder.
The men just sat and looked at their fingernails.
The Quiet Queen said in her tiny voice:
“Someone should build a school for the children.”
But no one heard her except the mouse that sat on her shoulder.
The boys and girls just played games or sat and yawned.
The Quiet Queen said in her tiny voice:
“Someone should sew clothes for all the people to wear.”
But no one heard her except the mouse that sat on her shoulder.
All the women just sat and ate and grew fat.
The Quiet Queen said in her tiny voice:
“Someone should clean the streets of the kingdom.”
But no one heard her except the mouse that sat on her shoulder.
The street cleaners just sat around and stared.
And so the wells dried up.
And the food bins were empty.
And the children didn’t learn anything.
And the people’s clothes turned to rags.
And the streets were full of trash.
And it was very quiet in the land of the Quiet Queen.
One day the king of another kingdom rode through the land of the Quiet Queen.
The king was very disgusted. He rode straight up to the queen and told her so.
“I’ve never seen such a mess,” he said. “What is the matter with your kingdom anyway?”
And the Quiet Queen said in her tiny voice:
“I tell my people what to do, but they don’t do it.”
The king whispered,
“What?”
And the Quiet Queen said in her same tiny voice:
“I tell my people what to do, but they don’t do it.”
The king asked louder,
“What?”
And the Quiet Queen said the same thing again in the same tiny voice.
The king asked still louder, “What did you say? I can’t hear you. Speak up!”
So the queen took a big deep breath until her face
turned pink—
and then red—
and then purple—
and she opened her mouth as wide as it would go and shouted:
“I TELL MY PEOPLE WHAT TO DO, BUT THEY DON’T DO IT!”
The mouse was so surprised that he fell off the Quiet Queen’s shoulder.
The people were so surprised that they stopped what they were doing (and what they were not doing) and looked at the Quiet Queen.
The king smiled. “Now, my dear,” he said, “tell us what it is you want to have done. We shall all get together and do it.”
The Quiet Queen stepped forward, and with a loud voice she said:
“SOMEONE SHOULD PLANT GARDENS AND RAISE CHICKENS!”
The older people laid out rows of corn and wheat. They picked pears and peaches. They raised chickens and gathered eggs.
The Quiet Queen stepped forward, and with a loud voice she said:
“SOMEONE SHOULD GO TO THE MOUNTAINS AND OPEN THE WATER GATES AND LET WATER FLOW DOWN TO US!”
The men climbed the mountains. They opened the water gates, and the water flowed down into the valley.
The Quiet Queen stepped forward, and with a loud voice she said:
“SOMEONE SHOULD BUILD A SCHOOL FOR THE CHILDREN!”
The boys and girls started to work on the school. And the king helped.
The Quiet Queen stepped forward, and with a loud voice she said:
“SOMEONE SHOULD SEW CLOTHES FOR ALL THE PEOPLE TO WEAR!”
The women picked up needles and thread and pieces of cloth. They started to sew.
The Quiet Queen stepped forward, and with a loud voice she said:
“SOMEONE SHOULD CLEAN THE STREETS OF THE KINGDOM!”
The street cleaners went to work. They picked up trash. They swept away the dust and cobwebs. It was not quiet in the kingdom anymore.
And while all the old people
and the children
and the men and women
and the street cleaners
worked—they sang!
When they took time out for meals, they played games and danced and laughed.
When they finished their work each day, they sang around the fires in their neat warm little houses.
The Quiet Queen very quietly said to the king:
“Thank you.”
And she sang a song in her tiny voice that only the mouse on her shoulder could hear.
And the king smiled.

Perhaps one of your teenage children may ask to go with friends to a hard rock concert. If you say, “I do not want you to go because the music and conduct are not in keeping with gospel standards,” it could cause the child to feel defensive or put down. However, you might say, “Thanks for asking, but for some reason I feel uneasy about your going. What do you think may be causing me to feel this way?” Then your child has an opportunity to discuss gospel principles and applications without feeling personally judged. As a parent I have learned that when we give answers and statements of doctrine or principles without asking for input from our children, we remove the opportunity for them to discover gospel truths for themselves. We can best engage our children in gospel conversations that foster learning by sharing feelings and understandings with each other.

Jacob and Jennifer L., 8 and 6, Florida, help set up chairs in the Primary room on Sundays. They come early with their mother, who is the ward choir director. They like to help out in Primary and are happy helpers.

As you know, the Brethren used to announce in general conference the names of those who had been called on missions. Not only was this the way friends and neighbors learned of the call, more often than not it was the way the missionary learned of it as well. One such prospect was Eli H. Peirce. A railroad man by trade, he had not been very faithful in Church meetings, “even had my inclinations led in that direction, which I frankly confess they did not,” he admitted. His mind had been given totally to what he demurely calls “temporalities.” He said he had never read more than a few pages of scripture in his life, that he had spoken to only one public gathering (an effort which he says “was no credit to himself” or those who heard him), and he used the vernacular of the railroad and bar room with a finesse born of long practice. He bought cigars wholesale—a thousand at a time—and he regularly lost his paycheck playing pool. Then this classic understatement:
“Nature never endowed me with a superabundance of religious sentiment or veneration; my region of spirituality [was] not high, but below the average.”

Well, the Lord knew what Eli Peirce was, and he knew something else. He knew what I’m pleading for today. He knew what Eli Peirce could become. When the call came that October 5, 1875, Eli wasn’t even in the Tabernacle. He was out working on one of the railroad lines. A fellow employee, once he recovered from the shock of it all, ran out to telegraph the startling news. Brother Peirce writes, “At the very moment this intelligence was being flashed over the wires, I was sitting lazily thrown back in an office rocking chair, my feet on the desk, reading a novel and simultaneously sucking an old Dutch pipe, … just to vary the monotony of cigar smoking.” (To my friends in the English department, I would just hasten to add that the novel reading was probably a more serious transgression than the pipe smoking.)
He goes on: “As soon as I had been informed of what had taken place, I threw the novel in the waste basket, the pipe in a corner and started up town to buy [scripture]. Have never read a novel nor smoked a pipe from that hour. Sent in my resignation … to take effect at once, in order that I might have time for study and preparation.”
Then these stirring words: “Remarkable as it may seem, and has since appeared to me, a thought of disregarding the call, or of refusing to comply with the requirement, never once entered my mind. The only question I asked myself a thousand times … was: ‘How can I accomplish this mission? How can I, who am so shamefully ignorant and untaught in doctrine, do honor to God and justice to the souls of men, and merit the trust reposed in me by the Priesthood?’”

With such genuine humility fostering resolution rather than defeating it, Eli Peirce fulfilled a remarkable mission. His journal could appropriately close on a completely renovated life with this one line: “Throughout our entire mission we were greatly blessed.” But I add one experience to make the point.
During the course of his missionary service, Brother Peirce was called in to administer to the infant child of a branch president whom he knew and loved. Unfortunately the wife of the branch president had become embittered and now seriously objected to any religious activity within the home, including a blessing for this dying child. With the mother refusing to leave the bedside and the child too ill to move, this humble branch president with his missionary friend retired to a small upper room in the house to pray for the baby’s life. The mother, suspecting just such an act, sent one of the older children to observe and report back.
There in that secluded chamber, the two men knelt and prayed fervently until, in Brother Peirce’s own words, “we felt that the child would live and knew that our prayers had been heard.” Arising from their knees, they turned slowly only to see the young girl standing in the partially open doorway gazing intently into the room. She seemed, however, quite oblivious to the movements of the two men. She stood entranced for some seconds, her eyes immovable.
Then she said, “Papa, who was that … man in there?”
Her father said, “Brother Peirce.”
“No,” she said matter-of-factly, “I mean that other man.”
“There was no other, darling, except Brother Peirce and myself; we were praying for baby.”
“Oh, yes, there was;” the child insisted, “I saw him standing [above] you and Brother Pierce and he was all dressed in white.”

Now if God in his heavens will do that for a repentant, old, cigar-smoking, inactive, stern, swearing pool player, don’t you think he’ll do it for you? He will if your resolve is as deep and permanent as Eli Peirce’s. In this Church we ask for faith, not infallibility. (Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, 1884, pp. 407–13.)

Many years later, as a newly called stake president, I was worried about how I could make such important decisions about what was then called a disciplinary action. I decided that each time I convened a disciplinary council, I would be fasting. And each time, I could witness that revelation came with the Spirit testifying to us about the decision we were to make.

I never saw anyone dead before. I knew that Hans would be different, that he wouldn’t be able to talk to me. I wondered how I would feel when I saw him.
Mom held my hand, and we went into a beautiful room with lots of flowers. There was quiet music playing. The room was just for our family so that we could be alone with Hans.
Hans was lying in a casket. It looked like a little white bed. His eyes were closed. He looked different, but he looked nice.

It was a sweaty Sunday afternoon, and the chapel was stifling. My wife was wrestling with the children to keep them reverent, and I was wrestling with my eyelids to keep them open. We were both losing.
The speaker didn’t help me any in my fight against sacrament meeting slumber. He was a typical youth speaker, and he followed the pattern of most youth speakers in our ward—he read to us from a book.
As he mumbled on, my wife and I both surrendered: she took the children out to the foyer, and I fell asleep. Soon I was dozing comfortably.
Maybe I was too comfortable or maybe somebody poked me awake—it’s happened before. At any rate, my head slipped out of my hands and “thwap!” my forehead hit the bench in front of me.
I don’t normally have such headaches in sacrament meeting, but a dull speaker and a stuffy chapel almost always make me drowsy.

Let me conclude with an old Indian legend. Many years ago, Indian youths would go away in solitude to prepare for manhood. One such youth hiked into a beautiful valley. There he fasted, and on the third day he decided to test himself against the mountain. He put on his buffalo-hide shirt, threw his blanket over his shoulders, and set off to climb the peak.
When he reached the top, he could see forever, and his heart swelled with joy. Then he heard a rustle at his feet. Looking down, he saw a snake. Before he could move, the snake spoke: “I am about to die. It is too cold for me up here, and I am freezing. There is no food, and I am starving. Put me under your shirt and take me down to the valley.”
“Oh, no,” said the youth. “I know your kind. You are a rattlesnake. If I pick you up, you will bite me, and I will die.”
“Not so,” said the snake. “I will treat you differently. If you do this for me, you will be special. I will not harm you.”
The youth withstood for a while, but this was a very persuasive snake with beautiful markings. At last the youth tucked it under his shirt and carried it down to the valley. There he laid it gently on the grass. Suddenly, the snake coiled, rattled, and struck, biting him on the leg.
“But you promised—” cried the youth.
“You knew what I was when you picked me up,” said the snake as it slithered away. (From Iron Eyes Cody, “But You Promised,” Reader’s Digest, June 1989, p. 131.)

Next door he saw his friend, Patty, sitting on her new tricycle. She kept trying to push the pedals, but her feet slipped and the tricycle didn’t move.
Kevin remembered when he learned to ride his tricycle. At first he couldn’t make it go either. But now he played “traffic” every day with his friends. He could pedal as fast as anyone. He could even pedal backwards and around and around in circles.
“Keep trying, Patty,” he called.

I was still a deacon when our family moved to a large ward in Utah. It was the first time I had felt the power of a full quorum in the Aaronic Priesthood. In fact, it was the first time I saw one. And later it was the first time I felt the power and the blessing of a bishop presiding in a priests quorum.

The bishop called me to be his first assistant in the priests quorum. I remember that he taught the quorum himself—busy as he was, with other gifted men whom he could have called to teach us. He had the chairs in the classroom arranged in a circle. He had me sit in the chair next to him, to his right.

I could look over his shoulder as he taught. He looked down occasionally at the carefully typed notes in the little leather binder on one knee and at the well-worn and marked scriptures he had open on the other knee. I can remember the thrill as he recounted the stories of bravery from the book of Daniel and his testimony of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because his father was a bishop, young Harold witnessed Church welfare at work. “Then as now, the bishop was responsible for the care of those in need,” wrote President Gordon B. Hinckley, a longtime friend. “Bishop Lee ran his own storehouse, the commodities coming from his own pantry. In the night, the family would see him take a sack of flour, they knew not where, because confidences concerning those in trouble were to be strictly observed.”

As a young girl I saw commitment in my grandmother, who helped Grandpa homestead our farm on the Kansas prairie. Grandma’s life wasn’t easy. But do you know what I remember most about her? Her total joy in the gospel. She was never happier than when she was working on family history or teaching with her scriptures in hand.
To the world, my grandma was ordinary. But to me, she represents the unsung heroines of this era who lived up to their premortal promises and left a foundation of faith upon which we may build. Grandma wasn’t perfect, but she was a woman of God. Now it is for you and for me to carry forward the banner into this new century.

I used to feel terrible for not fulfilling my assignments at school, at work, and in the Church. One day I was thinking about how much and why I procrastinated, and I recognized that I was putting unimportant things ahead of the things that I should have been doing. I felt guilty all the time for not doing my best, and that was why I had feelings of unhappiness and depression.

As I meditated on my feelings of inadequacy, I tried to imagine myself as the daughter of God that I had been created to become. I pictured all the things I could do, and a feeling of love and peace came over my heart. I realized the importance of being a daughter of God and discovered that I was lacking confidence in myself and the determination to accomplish my goals. I knew that Heavenly Father loved me very much and wanted me to do better. I began to change, and now I know that nothing is impossible for me to do, if I will work at it.

We need to have confidence in ourselves, our potential, and our talents—and to value ourselves that way the Lord values each of us. If each one of us can catch the vision of our eternal potential, we will be motivated by that vision to do great things with our lives.

Rita David, 19Aguanambi Ward, Fortaleza StakeFortaleza, Brazil

I pray and ask Heavenly Father to help me be patient with my little sister. I play with her most of the day, but I do reserve a little personal time, when I write in my journal or do other things I like to do. These things help me be a better sister and friend.
Dacia C., age 8, Tennessee, USA

In April, the branch started a Young Women program. At first there was only one participant: me! Even when I didn’t go, the teacher would wait for me. That seemed strange, too. Why was she so patient? Why did she wait so long even when she wasn’t sure I’d show up?
About that time, the mission presidents changed and the Suzuki family came to Sapporo. There was a young lady in the family, Naomi, who was my age. We quickly became friends, since we were the only young women our age in the branch. She set a good example for me, and with her as a guide, I began to understand the patience of our teacher and the beauty of the gospel. Naomi’s example helped keep me going to church weekly and praying diligently. I was able to gain a small testimony and wanted from the bottom of my heart to be baptized.

President David O. McKay spoke to a group of Church officers on one occasion and provided counsel related to the power of the priesthood. He declared that while he was traveling on board a ship, another passenger approached him and asked if he were a leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When President McKay said that he was, the visitor asked what specific belief set apart the teachings of the Church from those of any other faith. President McKay told us that at first he thought to say that divine authority was the belief that made the Church different. Then he realized that there were others who believed in divine authority, such as the Catholics, the Coptics, and members of the Greek Orthodox Church. Divine authority by itself simply was not the complete answer to the question.
President McKay said that he then felt inspired to say: “That which differentiates the beliefs of my church from those of others is divine authority by direct revelation.”

Some time ago in New York City a fine-looking young man said to me, “It isn’t easy to be a Jew and a Mormon.” When this young man was baptized, his parents were so displeased they held a formal funeral. As far as they are concerned, their son is dead.

Many of us have had the opportunity of visiting Temple Square in Salt Lake City. On the west wall of the Temple are several items of interest. One of these is a representation of the constellation Ursa Major. Its symbolism was explained by President Harold B. Lee in an address given before a mission presidents seminar on Sunday, July 2, 1961. In introducing his talk President Lee explained that during the construction of the Salt Lake Temple, the architect, Truman O. Angell, had been asked by Brigham Young to write an article for the Millennial Star in hopes that this would help the Saints abroad sense the need for contributions to the building project. In his article Brother Angell described the symbolism of some of the exterior parts of the Temple. President Lee further described Brother Angell’s article by saying:
“There are the sunstones to represent the celestial, the moonstones, and the stars. Now you have all seen those, and there are other things there; but there is one other thing that he mentioned that has particular significance that I ask you to think about here. He said that on the west end of the Temple, underneath the tower or the battlements as they are referred to, just underneath the square of the Temple, there will be depicted the constellation which the astronomers would call Ursa Major—we call it the Dipper—where the pointers will be pointing to the North Star; that was to symbolize and suggest to the mind ‘that, through the Priesthood of God, the lost may find their way.’”

Once, I skipped a few days of class because I got into an art contest at my school. I missed a lot of lessons. When I came back, I struggled to understand our class discussions. My grades started falling.
Not understanding the lessons frustrated me, and I began questioning my self-worth. I felt like I wasn’t good enough because of my low scores, and I cried a lot. I didn’t know what to do.
Finally, I prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me accept and overcome my trials.
Right after I prayed, I got a text from my friend Shiella. “Hey, are you doing OK?” she asked. “How are you?”
I told Shiella I was struggling. She’s at a different school, but we’re in the same grade, so we take the same classes. She helped me understand the lessons I missed.
I knew Heavenly Father saw that I was hurting, and He sent Shiella to comfort me. It made me realize that Heavenly Father uses other people to show that He really cares about us.
This also taught me that I don’t need to be successful at all things. When we have challenges, Heavenly Father can help make us stronger. That doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us. I’ve learned that it’s better to try something and fail than to do nothing, because I can learn from failure. Now, I’m happy with my scores because Heavenly Father helped me overcome that trial.