Gospel Story Finder

One day I was conducting a therapy session with an adolescent who had recently put her own life at risk by engaging in dangerous behavior. I had previously worked with her parents and was trying to assess her perception and understanding of her family’s relationships. When I asked about her parents’ marriage, she looked me in the eye and without hesitation replied, “My parents don’t like each other.”
I asked how she knew that, since her parents had repeatedly told me that they never had conflict and had expressed certainty that their children were unaware of their marital distress. It was an assertion I heard regularly from many couples as a marriage and family therapist.
“You can just tell,” she answered. She explained that she never stopped worrying about the potential collapse of her family. She tearfully revealed that it was making her physically sick and that she was struggling to sleep and to attend school. “I think about it all the time,” she said.
My heart broke as I sat across from her and considered the all-too-familiar scenario. I knew her parents both loved her and wanted to do anything to help her, and yet I worried that they underestimated the degree to which their difficult marriage was hurting her and their other children.
The family proclamation states that “husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.”1 Sometimes I worry that the “for their children” part crowds out the “for each other” part.

When we grew older, I had another test of being a pioneer. I had many friends, and a lot of them didn’t know Jenny. Although they were never rude, I always felt torn between Jenny and my other friends. It was hard and definitely a conscious effort, but I decided to help them get to know her. In time my other friends felt more comfortable with Jenny.
To this day, I am still friends with Jenny. She goes to my same high school, and I see her almost every day. I truly feel proud to walk around the halls with her.

Several years ago our sons would spend their time during the summer on their grandfather’s ranch. Twelve years ago one of our sons had a horse. It had been given to him when it was born. It had been running with a wild herd of horses on the ranch. It was now two years old, time that it could be broken to ride. Early one summer we went to the ranch. It took all day to get the horses into the corral. Finally we had my son’s horse in a chute and put a heavy halter on it. We put a big rope on it and tied it to a big post. “Now the horse must stay there for two or three days,” I told him, “until it quits fighting the rope, until it becomes calm.” We worked with it during the morning, and then we went in to eat. He hurried with his meal and then went out to his horse. He was 14. He loved that horse.
Just as we finished the meal, I heard a noise, and I heard him shout. I knew what had happened. He had untied the horse. I had told him not to, but he was going to work with it. In order to hold the horse, he had wrapped the rope around his wrist. As I came out the door, I saw that horse run by. My son was running after it with great big steps, pulled by the horse; and then he fell. If the horse had turned right, it would have gone out the gate into the mountains. It turned left and was cornered by two fences. While it was trying to find its way out, I got the rope off my boy’s wrist and the end of the rope around the post. He was bruised but not badly hurt.
In a little while we had the horse tied up again, and we sat down for a father and son lesson. I said to him this: “My boy, if you are ever going to control that horse, you will have to use something besides your muscles. The horse is bigger than you are; it is stronger than you are. Someday you can ride that horse, but it will have to be trained. You cannot train it with your muscles. It is bigger than you are; it is stronger than you are; and it is wild.”
Two years later we went to the ranch in the spring. This horse had been running all winter with the herd. We went to find it. We found the herd of horses down by the river. I knew if we went too close, they would run. So this boy and his sister took a bucket with some oats and walked quietly to the edge of the meadow. The horses began to move away slowly. Then he whistled, and his horse came out of the herd and trotted up to my boy. We had learned a great lesson. Much had happened in those two years. He had used more than his muscles.
After the experience when he had untied his horse, he was frightened. He had disobeyed, and he said, “Dad, what should we do?” And I said, “This is the way we will do it. And one day that horse will run up to you.” He had been prepared and had learned a great lesson.

Let me share with you two contrasting responses: One patient was a 36-year-old woman; I’ll use the name Mary. When we operated on her, we found cancer spread throughout her entire abdominal cavity. When I faced Mary the next morning, she asked soberly, “I have cancer, don’t I?” My reluctant response was, “Yes, you have cancer.” Her next question was, “How long do I have to live?” I explained that it was impossible to set an exact time. She hoped I wouldn’t misunderstand her question. She was not afraid to die, she said.
Mary was at peace with her Father in heaven because she had just completed a special course for senior Aaronic Priesthood bearers. It was called “Project Temple.” She spoke of her husband and her teenage daughter who had not been active in the Church until the three of them had attended the “Project Temple” meetings. At the conclusion of the experience, the bishop had assured them that in six months they could go to the temple if they would do the things they knew they should. Mary’s plea was to stay alive for that six months so she could go to the temple and be sealed to her family. “If I can stay alive that long, then I will die without complaining,” she would tell me. Mary stayed alive for that six months. During her entire stay in the hospital, she was cheerful and seemingly without pain, even though her body was filled with a disease that ordinarily is extremely painful and requires large amounts of narcotics. Mary needed none, and she literally folded her arms and died—without a complaint.

As a young girl I often went with friends to pick cherries in the summer for a local farmer. I remember one hot day in July when we had eaten our sack lunches under a tree. Being very weary, we decided not to go back to work in the afternoon but instead to strike for higher wages. We felt a sudden power and adulthood as we sat in the shade on our overturned buckets.
I was eager to report to my family later in the day about our mature negotiations with the farmer. My mother, who was normally very gentle, surprised me by expressing great disappointment. She was extremely upset that we had inconvenienced that farmer when he had a crop in need of picking.
I never did learn whether I was worth more than three cents a pound, but I learned a permanent lesson—in our family we valued service and the needs of others more than power and money. Since that time it has been reassuring for me to learn that many great people I know work for much less money than they are worth because service is a greater value to them than money. Whatever career or profession you pursue, consider the value of service.

Because I live in Shanghai, China, I had the opportunity to go with a school group to Sichuan Province in southwestern China to help build houses for victims of the earthquake that devastated the area a few years ago. We worked hard laying bricks, shoveling mortar, pushing wheelbarrows full of bricks, and handing bricks down “assembly lines” of people. By the second day my back ached, and my gloves were filled with holes. However, the trip was an unforgettable experience for me and strengthened my testimony of my own and each person’s individual worth, one of the Young Women values.
As I worked hard each day, I noticed that my belief in my own worth grew. I felt good about myself because I was doing things to improve the living situation of those less fortunate than I am.
We also had the opportunity to visit a school in the area. When we arrived, a crowd of cute little children came running toward us. When I saw all these wonderful little children, I recognized their individual worth also. They are all beautiful children of God, and I felt strongly that He loves and knows each of them.
Near the end of my trip we had the chance to go to a resort, where we were going to eat lunch. When we got there, however, we found that it had been destroyed in the earthquake. It was the worst destruction I have ever seen. It made me want to cry. The ceilings and walls of the buildings were caved in, the trees nearby had fallen, and there was rubble everywhere. A huge boulder had rolled down the mountain and crashed into the side of one building, causing the ceiling and the wall to cave in. There was a single shoe lying on one of the doorsteps.
As I thought about this and the fact that people had been killed in this disaster, I struggled to understand how Heavenly Father would let this happen. Didn’t He love them? Then I thought back to what we had discussed in Young Women class and realized that yes, He did love them. He knew and loved them each individually. Those who died that day were all children of God. Initially, it made me even sadder thinking about that. But then I realized that these people were in the spirit world and they could return to Heavenly Father again. This thought comforted me and gave me a feeling of peace.
I know that I am a child of God, with great individual worth. We are all children of our Heavenly Father, who knows us personally. He loves us with a love that is deeper and stronger than any of us could ever imagine. This understanding was planted deeply in my heart as I worked with and served among the people who had suffered so terribly in the Sichuan earthquake.

After Grandma and Seth finished their waffles, she told him a story. “When Grandpa and I started thinking about going on a mission, I was concerned about you. I prayed that Heavenly Father would help you to understand our feelings. Then at general conference, Elder Robert D. Hales said if we serve a mission, our families will be blessed.
“Grandpa and I want those blessings for you, Seth. We also want to show you that it’s important to follow the prophet. We want you to share this special time with us and be happy.”

Six months before my twenty-first birthday, my life was anything but hard. I had just finished my nursing prerequisites and had applied to the nursing program at the University of Utah; I had a super part-time job selling cosmetics for ZCMI, which included an hourly wage plus commission; I was seriously dating a young man and thinking I would be engaged in the not-too-distant future; and all was well with the world. And then my bishop, who just happened to be known as the “mission bishop” by the youth in our ward, called me in for an interview. My first thought was the obvious: he is going to ask me to go on a mission! And, sure enough, during the interview he encouraged me to put in my papers and go out and serve the Lord.

A mission was never part of my life’s master plan, so I decided that I was not going to even consider the bishop’s suggestion, nor was I even going to ask in prayer if that was what I needed to do. I didn’t share this interview/request from the bishop with anyone—not my parents, not my closest friends, not anyone. I knew better than anyone else what course my life should take, and I didn’t need anyone’s help or advice!

Now, for those of you who have big grins on your faces and for others of you who are quietly chuckling to yourselves, you can see where all of this is headed—and you’re absolutely right! When the other shoe finally dropped—and it did drop—it dropped with a loud bang! A mere few weeks after that initial interview, the young man I was dating stopped calling me without any explanation; the new manager where I was working decided she wanted everyone in that department to be full-time, and, since I was in school full-time and was not able to change my school schedule, I was moved to a less desirable area of the store and was no longer earning a commission from my sales; I was informed that I was not accepted into the nursing program; and the list went on and on. In a matter of months I felt like the whole world had come to an end.

President Era Taft Benson taught: “God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble” (“Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, 6).
Obviously I was not going to humble myself, so the Lord chose to do it for me.

It was at that moment in my life that I knew I needed to approach my Heavenly Father in prayer to plead for His forgiveness and ask what He would have me do. And I knew the minute that I asked, without a doubt, that I needed to serve a mission. By the way, from the moment the bishop asked me to serve a mission, I knew what it was that I was supposed to do, but I didn’t want to pray about it because I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to ignore the answer and do what I thought was best for me. If I didn’t ask, then I could simply go on as I had been and not have to worry about making dramatic changes to my master plan for my life. What I have since come to realize is that the real master plan for my life was, and is, really in the hands of the Master.

The time between when the bishop first interviewed me to the time when I entered the MTC here in Provo was a little over seven months. I served a full-time welfare service mission to the Asunción Paraguay Mission, speaking Spanish. Little did I realize what the Lord had in store for me in the future because I had been willing to replace my plan with His and to serve Him in the way that He intended.

This good woman had never had a ride on a train. Her family were all married and she was on a little, rocky farm, all alone. She wanted to have a ride on a train before she passed on. Her children also wanted her to have that experience, and so it was decided she would take a trip to a distant town and visit some relatives during the holidays. When the time arrived, she came down to Boise all aflutter with excitement. When the train pulled in, her excitement increased. Soon the conductor waved his hand and called, “All aboard.” The old lady got on the train and took her seat. Then the conductor came down the aisle picking up tickets, and she said, “Conductor, I don’t know much about railway trains. Now, I knew what you meant when you called, ‘All aboard,’ but I didn’t know what you meant when you waved your hand.”
The conductor, a rather rough sort of fellow, said, “Oh, that was just my signal for the engineer to get the h— out of here.” It answered her question, but she didn’t like it, and as the conductor went on picking up tickets his conscience began to smite him. He thought that was not a very gentlemanly way to speak to a lovely old lady. So when he finished the car, he went back and began to apologize, but she just waved her hand.

One day I went for a stroll with my two daughters, aged three and four. We walked by beautiful homes and gardens with flowers of spectacular colors. We saw tall trees with disorderly wildflowers clustered around them, which were lovely, too.
Then the girls saw some dandelions that were blooming like small bright suns. They each picked one. To their disappointment, the yellow blossoms soon withered into grey shadows.
“Why did you pick them?” I asked, thinking it was time for a lesson.
“Because they were so pretty!” both cried.
“Are they pretty now?”
“No,” answered my older daughter. “Throw them away!”
I explained that it’s best to admire nature without interfering. When living things are rooted up, they weaken and die. The girls understood.
They returned to their play, while I thought about those little flowers. I remembered the less-active people at church whose testimonies didn’t receive the nurturing necessary to survive difficult times. How easy it is, I thought, if our testimonies are not rooted in faith and constantly nourished, for them to wither and die.
Suddenly my heart trembled as I recognized in this humble analogy the answer to a problem that had been troubling me.
My husband had stopped going to church, and I had been contemplating becoming less active myself, just to avoid conflict. It would, I reasoned, be only “temporary.” I had been praying, trying to know the right thing to do. Now Heavenly Father had given me the answer.
That night when my husband came home, I told him about our outing and about the dandelions. I told him that if I did truly love him—and he knew that I did—it was due, in great part, to the attention and care I received at church. It was because each Sunday I was in the Lord’s garden, being fed by his Spirit and by the love of my brothers and sisters. It was because I was watered every day as I read the scriptures. All of these things helped to make me the person that loved him. They made me the person that he loved.
He smiled and gave me a kiss as a token of peace. And I gave thanks for the message I had received that day—in the form of two dandelions.

Ethan has also felt the power of the Holy Ghost, which has strengthened his testimony. Ethan, who is the eldest of four siblings, tells of a time when his youngest sister was baptized. “We were living here in Pennsylvania when she was baptized, and we drove up to the Susquehanna River, where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized,” Ethan says. “My sister was baptized in that place. That experience reaffirmed what I knew—that baptism is the only way to return to Heavenly Father. It is the gate to eternal life.”

The notebook describes projects, such as making homemade bread and delivering it to nonmembers living near the meetinghouse along with a card that read, “Merry Christmas from your neighbor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” The bread was delivered by caroling seminary students. “The surprise and joy of most of the people was great,” Sabina said. “We invited the people to our meetings, too. We contacted 37 families in this way.” Many of the families responded by sending gifts of chocolate, nuts, oranges, and cookies, along with thank-you notes, to the seminary group. “This helps pave the way for the missionaries,” Sabina said.

Another time, my uncle, who was only three years older than I was, put me in a baby carriage and took me for a walk around the house. In front of the house was a road, and on the other side of the road was an irrigation canal. When he took me across the road, the carriage slid into the canal. It was empty at that time, but my uncle couldn’t get us out. My mother felt concern for me and began to call me. Then she looked for me in the house but couldn’t find me. She felt prompted to look on the road and in the canal. She found us and got us out of the canal just before the water started to come through the canal. Had she not listened to the Spirit, my uncle and I would have drowned.

Of course, love conquers fear not just in missionary work but in all aspects of life. When young Gordon B. Hinckley and Marjorie Pay were engaged to be married, Gordon began to worry about the economic realities of marriage during the depression-ridden 1930s. He called his fiancée and said they needed to talk. They agreed to meet over lunch.

“I think you should know,” he told her, “that I only have $150 to my name.” He added that he only made $185 a month.

Marjorie put his fears to rest with her unexpected, optimistic response: “Oh, that will work out just fine; if you’ve got $150, we’re set!”

Reflecting on her thoughts that day, Marjorie said, “I had hoped for a husband and now I was getting $150 too!” Sister Hinckley’s love and faith empowered her to “fear not” as they started their lives together—a marriage that would become nearly seven decades of love and faith and service.

Some years ago I enjoyed a stake conference assignment as a junior companion to Elder LeGrand Richards, who had, under the influence of this directing Spirit, reorganized a stake presidency. We were driving home; he was very pensive. After a rather long period of silence, I asked him if there was something he would like to teach me. Quietly he said, “We have too many in the Church who deny the spirit of prophecy and of revelation.” That was it—he said no more about it. As I reminisced about the calling of the new stake president that day, it occurred to me then that this Church could not function for even one day without the spirit of prophecy and revelation.

Reality: Dr. DuPont likes to tell the story of the time he was visiting with an executive of one of America’s largest breweries. During their discussion, the two men were talking about one of the company’s beer-making operations and the topic of the factory’s employee cafeteria came up. The conversation went like this:
Beer company executive: “We used to serve beer in our cafeteria to the employees on their lunch hours and breaks, but we don’t anymore.”
Dr. DuPont: “Why did you stop?”
Beer company executive: “Why do you think?”
Ask Rob Lane if substance abuse can hurt you, and he’s got evidence it can.
The 18-year-old freshman from the University Second Ward, Rincon Arizona Stake, is part of a research team at the University of Arizona Medical Center studying how alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine abuse influences cells, antibodies, and the immune system.
“It isn’t a question of whether abuse harms you,” Rob says. “It’s a question of how quickly and how extensively.”
Lee Murphy, one of two returned missionaries who work with Rob, states the case even more dramatically. “We test laboratory rats over a period of six to eight weeks. In that time, 60 percent of the animals subjected to cocaine and alcohol will die. It’s like they’re in a trap. When they’re on a drug, their behavior changes severely if they don’t get the drug. But if they continue to get it, chances are it will kill them.”
Chad McRae, the other returned missionary, and Gail Crawford, another LDS student working in the lab, help Rob summarize data. As their computers analyze screen after screen of statistics Rob says, “Isn’t it obvious? Don’t abuse drugs. Once you start down that road, you may never recover.”
Rob, Lee, Chad, and Gail are only students, and their work is in support of a lot of others with more expertise. But ask any one of them what research has taught them about the Word of Wisdom, and their answer is quick and sure: “It’s true.”

I had an uncle by the name of Orlando Fowler who was called on a mission in 1921 to go to Japan. He served about two years and became ill and then he passed away when he was in Japan. My grandfather dug his grave. It took them 30 days to bring him home on a boat. My grandmother was broken hearted. I've always wanted to follow after his example and to learn more about him. Well, whenever we as grandchildren or great grandchildren would receive mission calls, my grandmother would always say, "Not Japan!"

One day, one of her great grandsons whose name happened to be Londo received a mission call to Japan. Londo served his mission in Japan. While he was in Japan he met some individuals who had been taught by my uncle Orlando. Those people came over to Salt Lake City and my grandmother had the opportunity of meeting them. Oh! It just made her heart rejoice to know that the work that her son had done in Japan had brought people to the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Some time before I was called as a General Authority, I faced a personal economic challenge that persisted for several years. It ebbed and flowed in seriousness and urgency, but it never went away. At times this challenge threatened the welfare of my family, and I thought we might be facing financial ruin. I prayed for some miraculous intervention to deliver us. Although I offered that prayer many times with great sincerity and earnest desire, the answer in the end was no. Finally, I learned to pray as the Savior did: “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). I sought the Lord’s help with each tiny step along the way to a final resolution.
There were times when I had exhausted all my resources, when I had nowhere and no one to turn to for help to meet the exigency before me. With no other recourse, more than once I fell down before my Heavenly Father, begging in tears for His help. And He did help. Sometimes it was nothing more than a sense of peace, a feeling of assurance that things would work out. I might not see how or what the path would be, but He gave me to know that, directly or indirectly, He would open a way. Circumstances might change, a new and helpful idea might come to mind, some unanticipated income or other resource might appear at just the right time. Somehow there was a resolution.
Though I suffered then, I am grateful now that there was not a quick solution to my problem. The fact that I was forced to turn to God for help almost daily over an extended period of years taught me how to truly pray and get answers to prayer and taught me in a practical way to have faith in God. I came to know my Savior and my Heavenly Father in a way and to a degree that might not have happened otherwise or that might have taken me much longer. I learned that daily bread is a precious commodity. I learned that manna today could be as real as the physical manna of biblical history. I learned to trust in the Lord with all my heart. I learned to walk with Him day by day.

In 2020, my husband and I were looking for money to bring our two sons, Aaron and Moses, back home. They had just completed their studies in Bangalore (India), but our efforts to raise money to bring them home proved to be unsuccessful. So, we decided to leave this matter in the hands of our Lord.
In the course of that very year, the COVID-19 pandemic was rampant in Bangalore, with an increasing rate of infection. We were very worried about our two sons.
On a certain Wednesday evening, after saying my prayer, I felt impressed to hold a fast. I asked my two sons to abide in prayer while I was fasting. I said to them, “My sons, tonight we are going to ask for a miracle that will put the adversary to shame, just as Pharaoh was put to shame as he watched the Israelites go through the Red Sea on dry ground. At midnight, we will wake up, buckle-up, and start praying.” I simply told my husband to wake me up at 11 p.m. under the pretext that I had some work to do. That very night, I read the scriptures, poured my soul in much prayer, and reflected upon our Heavenly Father’s wonders. On the following day, the Lord attended to our request by sending someone to purchase our plot of land. We had been looking for a buyer for the past twelve months to raise funds for the transportation for our sons. Our miracle had happened!

I had great pleasure in training a well-bred colt. He had a good disposition, a clean, well-rounded eye, was well proportioned, and all in all, a choice animal. Under the saddle he was as willing, responsive, and cooperative as a horse could be. He and my dog Scotty were real companions. I liked the way he would go up to something of which he was afraid. He had confidence that if he would do as I bade him, he would not be injured.

But my horse Dandy resented restraint. He was ill contented when tied and would nibble at the tie rope until he was free. He would not run away; he just wanted to be free. Thinking other horses felt the same, he would proceed to untie their ropes. He hated to be confined in the pasture, and if he could find a place in the fence where there was only smooth wire, he would paw the wire carefully with his feet until he could step over to freedom. More than once my neighbors were kind enough to put him back in the field. He learned even to push open the gate. Though he often did damage that was provoking and sometimes expensive, I admired his intelligence and ingenuity.

But his curiosity and desire to explore the neighborhood led him and me into trouble. Once on the highway he was hit by an automobile, resulting in a demolished machine, injury to the horse, and slight, though not serious, injury to the driver.

Recovering from that, and still impelled with a feeling of wanderlust, he inspected the fence throughout the entire boundary. He found even the gates wired. So for a while we thought we had Dandy secure in the pasture.

One day, however, somebody left the gate unwired. Detecting this, Dandy unlatched it, took another horse with him, and together they visited the neighbor’s field. They went to an old house used for storage. Dandy’s curiosity prompted him to push open the door. There was a sack of grain. What a find! Yes, and what a tragedy! The grain was poison bait for rodents! In a few minutes Dandy and the other horse were in spasmodic pain, and shortly both were dead.

How like Dandy are many of you young people! You are not bad; you do not even intend to do wrong; but you are impulsive, full of life, full of curiosity, and long to do something. You too are restless under restraint, but if left to wander without direction, you all too frequently find yourselves in the environment of temptation and too often are entangled in the snares of evil.