Gospel Story Finder

My best friend was born outside in the streets. Her mother was only 14. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she conceived her first child at the age of 13, making her mother a grandmother at age 27. She had her third child by the age of 19. After leaving her third boyfriend, she moved in with her mother, adding her three children to her mother’s six. My friend had the responsibility for nine children under the age of seven before she reached her twentieth birthday. As I looked at my friend’s life, I realized that I wanted something better for myself. I wanted a home and a family. I knew I had to leave the ghetto.

I loved Sister Stevens’s talk about the premature baby. Right before we came to visit America, my friend’s baby was born premature and we prayed really hard for him to live. I know Heavenly Father really does perform miracles and that He loves each of us.
Alaya P., age 6, Australia

As a young woman, I filled up pages in my journal about what I wanted my future husband to be like.
Pages. Multiple pages.
But when I got old enough to date seriously, I realized that dating can be an obstacle course. I caved and tried a dating app.
I soon discovered a common trap:
You swipe up on someone because you think they’re attractive, but you don’t know anything except that they’re possibly above average in height, looks, and salary (depending, of course, on how honest they are in their profile).

Yukio Fujitake and his wife, Junko, of Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan, were Buddhists until they were baptized into the Church in 1973. Since that time, they have served in the Ube Branch and have helped it grow. Brother Fujitake has served there as branch president, a member of the high council, and counselor in the stake mission presidency. Sister Fujitake has served as Relief Society president, Primary president, and young single adult program chairman.

When the Latter-day Saints were driven from Missouri by mobs, they built a city called Nauvoo on the banks of the Mississippi River. In poverty and living in the frontier, they still formed a university, “‘for the teaching of the arts, sciences and learned professions …’ [quoted in H. S. Salisbury, “History of Education in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Journal of History, July 1922, 269].
“The first academic year in Nauvoo was that of 1841–42. The university probably was among the first municipal universities in the United States [see Wendell O. Rich, Distinctive Teachings of the Restoration (1962), 10]. … The curriculum included languages (German, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew), mathematics, chemistry and geology, literature, and history. …
“… The charter of the University of the City of Nauvoo served as the foundation for the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah), established by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City in 1850. ‘Education,’ he once told this school’s Board of Regents, ‘is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life’ [see Milton Lynn Bennion, Mormonism and Education (1939), 115]” (in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 5 vols. [1992], 2:442–43).

Maggie loved things that matched. She wore her dark hair in two matching braids almost every day. Her purple backpack matched her purple notebook perfectly. And she carefully sorted her food into matching colors at lunchtime.
One day after lunch, Maggie walked out to the playground. She was about to join her friends when she saw someone sitting alone by the slide. It was a girl with long blonde hair.
Maggie sat down next to the girl. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Anna,” the girl whispered. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Maggie asked.
“No one will play with me,” Anna said, looking up sadly at Maggie.
Then Maggie saw that Anna had pretty green eyes. Maggie knew another girl who also had green eyes and blonde hair. The two girls would match perfectly!
“I know someone who can play with you!” Maggie told Anna.
“You do?” Anna asked with a hopeful smile.
“Yes! Sarah from my class.” Maggie pointed to a girl jumping rope. “See her over there? She would probably play with you.”
“Oh,” Anna said. Her face melted back into a frown.
Maggie didn’t know what to do next. “Well, I’ll see you later,” she said, standing up and walking over to her friends.
But Maggie couldn’t forget Anna’s sad eyes. That night at dinner, she told her family about what happened.
“She needed someone to play with?” Mom asked.
“Yeah,” Maggie said, “but she wouldn’t go ask Sarah to play, even though they both have blonde hair and green eyes.”
Dad looked over at Maggie. “Why didn’t you play with Anna?”
Maggie’s mouth fell open. “Because—because—Sarah and the girl matched!”
“Hmm,” Mom said as she wiped the baby’s face. “Do you remember what Jesus says about how we should treat other people?”
“We should love them?” Maggie said. Mom smiled and nodded.
“It doesn’t matter whether our body looks the same as someone else’s,” Dad said. “It doesn’t even really matter if they think the same way we do, or believe in the same things. The most important thing is that our actions match what Jesus taught.”
Maggie felt a warm tingling in her body, and she knew that Dad was right. “I’ll remember that,” she said.
The next day at recess, Maggie looked for Anna. She found her sitting alone by the sandbox.
“Hi,” Maggie said.
“Hello,” Anna said quietly.
“Do you want to come play with my friends and me?”
Now Anna looked up! Her green eyes sparkled brightly as a smile spread across her face.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really!” Maggie said, helping Anna stand.
This feels like a perfect match, Maggie thought as the two ran off to play.

When I was six years old, my family moved to the United States. We loaded everything we owned into a truck and drove to my grandmother’s house in Mesa, Arizona.
I remember standing on her porch with my father when a truck playing music came down the street.
“Dad, what’s that?” I asked. He explained that it was an ice-cream truck, and he gave me money to buy something. I ran over to the truck and said, “I want a paleta (frozen dessert on a stick). I had grown up in Mexico and spoke English and Spanish, but I didn’t know the English word for the thing I wanted. My father told me that I had to ask for a Popsicle.

“Ian is a good example of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ,” his bishop says. “He faithfully comes to church, and he doesn’t get upset. He has many friends here. He was excited to receive the priesthood and asked his father to buy him a white shirt so he could wear it when he passes the sacrament.”

Last year students at the LDS seminary in Magna, Utah, got a taste of the magic because they contributed one of the trees. It was their third year of participation, but judging by their enthusiasm, it was definitely not their last. In fact, all 800 seminary students would probably have gladly taken part, but the principal had to choose about three dozen to keep the project manageable. Under the direction of committee chairman Robyn Rydalch, the students chose “A Calico Carousel” as their theme and began making plans for decorating the tree that a local businessman agreed to donate.
One Saturday morning in November they met, with apple juice and donuts to lend them strength, and began handcrafting 150 ornaments for their seven-foot tree. They worked steadily, cutting and assembling the decorations, stuffing them, and sewing them shut.
“Last year we made the decorations out of cookie dough but had to redo half the ornaments,” one said.
“What happened? Somebody eat them?”
“Oh, no, we used a special recipe that baked super-hard.
Some were too brittle and broke.”
When asked if any other problems developed, Robyn laughed. “Well, last year half the flocking fell off the tree, but it still sold for $300.”
After the snowmen, stars, Santa Clauses, and gingerbread houses were completed, the time had come to prepare the tree for sale and exhibition. The tree, ornaments, and lights were trucked over to the Salt Palace. There everything was assembled on the tree.
A preview showing was held, with Bishop Victor L. Brown officially representing the Church. He paused for a time at the Magna seminary’s tree and admired the handiwork of the students.
Those who worked on the project admitted it was a lot of work (300 hours worth) with a lot of satisfaction. One said, “It makes Christmas neater because we’re a part of the giving.”

Let me just share with you a message that is very meaningful. It has to do with a brother who fell in love with a beautiful young lady, took her to the temple, was sealed to her for time and all eternity. And then he became careless, fell into serious transgression, and was excommunicated from the Church. A divorce followed. Later on, his former spouse applied for a cancellation of her temple sealing to him so that she could be sealed to another, and he was contacted to see if he consented to or objected to the cancellation. In reply, he wrote a longhand letter, of several pages, that began by saying:

“Yes, I do consent. Why? Because I want to see my former wife obtain the happiness that she’s entitled to.” For quite a few paragraphs he lauded the virtues of his former spouse. He then said, “Why did I do what I did to her and to our son? Only because I became careless, and listened to the voice of the tempter, and he took over.” He then said, “I do not feel I can ever be forgiven of what I have done to my wife and son.” He ended with the statement, “A brokenhearted man” and signed his name to it.

Years ago, when we were living in São Paulo, Brazil, a new home was being constructed next to ours. The workmen on the project were paid only a few cents an hour and worked from six in the morning to six in the evening. Yet they whistled and sang all day long. Sometimes it was more than we wanted to hear! But I never had the heart to tell them to tone it down.

As the process of ferrying the wagons across the river continued, messengers arrived from the east bringing news of historic importance. Ever since the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri, representatives for the Church had sought the assistance of federal officials in Washington. Until now, the answer had been that Mormon problems were a local affair that could not concern the national government. Now the government was at war with Mexico. Border disputes and counter claims to vast territories in the West had led to an American invasion of the disputed lands.
The Church’s spokesman in Washington, D.C., James C. Little, tried to get a government contract to haul supplies to the armies or to build structures of heavy timber to protect emigrants on the Oregon Trail from marauding Indians. Any such contract would supply needed funds which would assist the Mormon migration. Government officials decided, instead, to ask for five hundred Mormon volunteers for the Army of the West. According to this plan, the Mormon Battalion would march to Santa Fe (New Mexico) and then follow General Stephen W. Kearny’s overland expedition into California.
President Young responded positively to the request and encouraged enlistment. Some of the Saints thought the government was trying to punish them by separating the men from their families and leaving the families without the funds and help needed for their journey. But finally they were convinced that their service would assist the Saints in the migration. The military pay of the Battalion would help their families get west, and after a year’s service the soldiers would be discharged in California with permission to retain their guns and military clothing.
With personal encouragement from Brigham Young and the Twelve, more than the requested five hundred volunteers enlisted. On July 20, the group left Council Bluffs under Lt. Colonel James Allen, a non-Mormon career officer, who was succeeded by Lt. Colonel Philip St. George Cooke at Santa Fe (New Mexico). Most of the other officers were Latter-day Saints selected by Church leaders. President Young promised the soldiers that if they were faithful to their religious principles they would not have to fight. This promise was literally fulfilled, for before the men reached San Diego, California, the following January, other military forces had secured the Surrender of Upper California. The only “battle” fought by the Battalion was an exciting encounter with a herd of wild cattle who attacked the foot soldiers as they crossed the sandy valley of the lower Rio Grande River.
The willingness of the Saints to enlist in military service demonstrated Mormon loyalty to constituted government. Furthermore, the 3,267 kilometer march was one of the longest in recorded history, and the Mormons helped blaze a trail used by wagon trains and, eventually, a transcontinental railroad.
Not all of those who set out for California with the U.S. Army completed the arduous march. Several died on the way and about 150 men, sick and weak, left the company to spend the winter in Pueblo, Colorado. These men and most of the wives who had accompanied the Battalion to do the laundry, moved northward to Fort Laramie Wyoming early in 1847 and followed Brigham Young’s pioneer company into the Salt Lake Valley. A company of Saints from Mississippi, who also spent the winter in Colorado, were also part of that first group to reach the new Mormon homeland.

About a year later, my family was sealed in the Atlanta Georgia Temple. As we walked into the sealing room, the Spirit overwhelmed me. We knelt together as a family and were sealed together forever. This was the best day of all.

The Day the Goose Got Loose by Reeve Lindbergh When the goose got loose, she caused a riot on the farm: Hens went crazy, the ram went around butting things (and people!), the horses kicked up their heels, and the bull went on a rampage. Steven Kellogg’s illustrations make the story even funnier.

John was called to be an apostle in 1921, when he was forty-nine. At that time he was president of the University of Utah and had been president of Utah State University at Logan. He often said that from his earliest youth, education was his objective. John A. Widtsoe will always be remembered as one of the great men of the Church. In one of his books, In a Sunlit Land, he wrote:
“There was a real relish for learning in my soul. … The love of reading has been with me from my boyhood. To leave the routine of the day for a visit with great minds has ever been a delight. … I look with half envy upon the youth to whom the doors of new knowledge are being opened.”
The shoemaker in Trondheim, Norway, who repaired John’s shoes truly did give to John’s mother and her family something of far more value than soles for a worn pair of shoes. He was also instrumental in giving to the Church a great writer, educator, leader, and friend!

Let me share with you a modern-day miracle which occurred several years ago at Murray High School near Salt Lake City, where every person was a winner and not a loser was to be found.
A newspaper article highlighted the event. The article was entitled “Tears, Cheers and True Spirit: Students Elect 2 Disabled Girls to Murray Royalty.” The article began: “Ted and Ruth Eyre did what any parents would do.
“When their daughter, Shellie, became a finalist for Murray High School homecoming queen, they counseled her to be a good sport in case she didn’t win. They explained only one girl among the 10 candidates would be selected queen. …
“As student body officers crowned the school’s homecoming [royalty] in the school gym Thursday night, Shellie Eyre experienced, instead, inclusion. The 17-year-old senior, born with Down syndrome, was selected by fellow students as homecoming queen. … As Ted Eyre escorted his daughter onto the gym floor as the candidates were introduced, the gym erupted into deafening cheers and applause. They were greeted with a standing ovation.”
Similar standing ovations were extended to Shellie’s attendants, one of whom, April Perschon, has physical and mental disabilities resulting from a brain hemorrhage suffered when she was just 10 years old.
When the ovations had ceased, the school’s vice principal said, “‘Tonight … the students voted on inner beauty.’ … Obviously moved, parents, school administrators and students wept openly.”
Said one student, “I’m so happy, I cried when they came out. I think Murray High is so awesome to do this.”
I extend a heartfelt “thank you” to one and all who made this night one ever to be remembered. The Scottish poet James Barrie’s words seem appropriate: “God gave us memories, that we might have June roses in the December of our lives.”

“I made a friendship with a girl from Texas. She really had a cute accent. I always thought that Texas had the biggest of everything, but when she saw our mountains she just kept looking at them and saying, ‘Wow! I guess we’ve just got big hills in Texas.’”—Christine Sampson, Midvale, Utah

Said President Brigham Young: “There is no spirit but what was pure and holy when it came here from the celestial world. … He is the Father of our spirits; and if we could know, understand, and do His will, every soul would be prepared to return back into His presence. And when they get there, they would see that they had formerly lived there for ages, that they had previously been acquainted with every nook and corner, with the palaces, walks, and gardens; and they would embrace their Father, and He would embrace them and say, ‘My son, my daughter, I have you again;’ and the child would say, ‘O my Father, my Father, I am here again’” (in Journal of Discourses, 4:268).

Photographs from Getty Images
Wilma Rudolph: 2-time Olympian, 3 gold medals, polio survivor.
In 1960 Wilma Rudolph became a track and field legend. She was running for the United States in the Olympics, which were being televised for the first time. In spite of the intense pressure, Wilma ran so quickly she was proclaimed “the fastest woman in the world.” By the end of the Olympics, she had won not just one gold medal but three—the first American woman ever to do so.
Wilma’s incredible victory teaches us a powerful lesson about our true potential and identity. But her story is even more inspiring when you know how it began.
Wilma was born in Tennessee in 1940. She was the 20th of 22 children in her family. She was born prematurely and weighed under five pounds. In her early childhood she suffered from a slew of illnesses—pneumonia, scarlet fever, and then polio, which left her with limited use of her left leg. She required leg braces to stand. “My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would,” Wilma said. “I believed my mother.”1
When she was nine years old, Wilma determined to prove the doctors wrong. She took off her leg braces and began to walk, one slow step at a time. She fell, she got up and tried again, and again, and again. With grit, determination, and faith, Wilma continued to practice. Eventually, she even started to run. She ran a lot. And, after years of work, she ran fast—very fast. Fast enough to run in the 1956 Olympics and win a bronze medal at age 16. Then, four years later, she ran again to win those amazing three gold medals.
Winners of the women’s 100-meter race at the 1960 Rome, Italy, Olympics. Wilma Rudolph (center) is awarded the gold medal.
Photograph from Getty Images

My great-grandfather was a Pawnee Indian born in the mid-1800s in present-day Nebraska, USA. He was the first to carry the name Echo Hawk. Among the Pawnee, the hawk is a symbol of bravery. As the elders of the tribe watched my great-grandfather, they saw many deeds of bravery. They also noticed that he was quiet and reserved and did not speak about the courageous things he had done. The elders also heard about his brave deeds from others.
Elder Echo Hawk’s great-grandfather
“It is like an echo,” they said. “We will call him Echo Hawk because he is like the hawk whose deeds are echoed.”
As the elders of the tribe watched my great-grandfather, they saw many deeds of bravery. … [Yet] he was quiet and … did not speak About the … things he had done.