Gospel Story Finder

In the service at the time of the Korean War, I flew jet fighter planes on various missions. In our unit we had a motto: “Return with Honor.” That slogan helped us to fly our planes with the greatest possible accuracy and dedicated effort and gave us the determination to return to our home base with a sense of fulfillment after having accomplished our mission. Our motto also reminded us that if we did our very best and did not return, we could return to our Heavenly Father with honor.

Besides improving as a swimmer, I’d also made friends with a teammate named Mike Vavernec. Mike had recently joined the Church, and we were preparing to serve missions. Together we made it our personal quest to obtain a spiritual witness of the truthfulness of the gospel. We began a daily reading of the Book of Mormon. It was the first time I’d read the entire book.
Somewhere in the Words of Mormon I felt it first—an overwhelming feeling that seemed to explode in my heart and radiate through each limb. This was the witness I had searched for.
We did not stop there. We had read where Nephi had gone to the mountains to talk with God. So one day Mike and I packed our things and hiked deep into the Olympic Mountain Range simply to pray.
That year we heard the whisperings of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. We received answers to our prayers. Never at any time in my life have I felt so close to Heavenly Father.
Today I look back on that year with reverence. I lost a swim meet, but I gained so much more. I had been blessed.

Maria stirred her scrambled eggs around and around with her fork. “Mom,” she asked, “do we have to go to church next Sunday?”
Mother looked surprised. “Why, of course!” she declared. “We always go to church on Sunday.”
Maria continued to play with her food. Finally her mother asked, “Are you still worried about your talk?”
Maria nodded. She and two other children had been asked to give talks in Primary. Because it was the week of the Mormon Pioneer celebration, the topic of the talks was to be “pioneers in my family.” Maria and her mother had been members of the Church for only a few years.
Mother had told Maria that her Primary teacher probably didn’t realize this. She suggested that Maria talk about the early Mormon pioneers instead. Maria had followed her mother’s advice, but she felt uneasy about it because she wasn’t really following the assigned topic.
Maria finished her breakfast and hurried to school, but all day long she worried about her talk. It seemed forever until the three o’clock bell rang. When she came home, the apartment was empty. Mother wouldn’t be home from work until six o’clock, so Maria fixed herself a snack and thought about her talk. Finally she decided that since she couldn’t talk about pioneers in her family, she simply wouldn’t give a talk at all. Maria was sure Sister Robinson would understand. Besides, Jason and Nancy would still be speaking.
When her Primary teacher answered the phone, Maria explained why she couldn’t give the talk. Instead of agreeing with Maria, Sister Robinson said, “I gave the assignment to you, Maria, for a very special reason. Why don’t you ask your mother if you can come over to my house after dinner, and we’ll talk about it.”
Later that evening Maria went to Sister Robinson’s house. When she returned home, she had a talk all ready for Sunday.
After the opening exercises in Primary on Sunday, Jason stood up and told about his ancestors who had left Norway in 1860 and sailed to America. They had been persecuted in their homeland because they were Mormons.
Nancy read excerpts from her great-grandmother’s diary. It told how she had traveled west in a covered wagon and settled in the Salt Lake Valley.
When Maria walked up in front of the class, her knees were wobbly because she had never given a talk in church before. She was grateful for her notes, because suddenly she had forgotten everything she was supposed to say. Finally, after a quick look at her notebook, Maria began: “Five years ago my mother and I were living in Germany, where I was born. I was in kindergarten then, and my mother was in medical school, studying to become a doctor. My father had just died. The following year my mother graduated, and she had the opportunity to do her internship in Baltimore, Maryland. That’s how we came to the United States.
“On the plane coming over, we sat next to two young men who said they were Mormon missionaries. They had spent two years in Germany preaching the gospel. My mother and I had never met a Mormon before, and we thought they were very brave to leave their homes for such a long time.
“After we had been living in Baltimore for about six months, my mother found out that a doctor she was working with was a Latter-day Saint. She told him about the two missionaries she had met and how impressed she had been by them. The doctor invited us to his home later on, and we began to attend church with him and his family. After a few months my mother was baptized. When I turned eight, I was baptized too.”
Maria paused and looked out over the room. “When Sister Robinson asked me to talk about pioneers in my family, I told her we didn’t have any. I thought pioneers were only people who lived a long time ago, like Nancy’s great-grandmother. Then Sister Robinson asked me to look up the word pioneer in the dictionary. I did, and it said that a pioneer is a person who goes before others and prepares the way for them. So, because my mother and I are the first Latter-day Saints in our family, we are pioneers!
“It’s a great responsibility to be a pioneer, because it’s up to us to set the example for our descendants. But I know that if I stay faithful to the Church, maybe a hundred years from now another girl will stand up in Primary and tell about how her great-grandmother Maria came from Germany with her mother and joined the Church.”
When Primary was over, several people came over and told Maria how much they enjoyed her talk. One sister said that she, too, was a convert but that until Maria’s talk she had never thought of herself as being a pioneer.
When Maria left church, she knew that this was one Pioneer Day that she would always remember.

The lion leaped. “Oh Lord, my God!”
The scent of murder brought a chill to the summer air.
“Oh, Joseph, what did they do to you?”

The first time Zack Clark of Phoenix, Arizona, played the cello, magic happened. His fingers pressed awkwardly upon the neck of the instrument as he pulled the bow across the strings. He was nine then and the notes he played were simple. But as the cello replied in its raspy baritone, Zack’s heart resonated to the sound. He had played with toy instruments as a child, but his sister Maegan played a real cello, and when he followed her example, it unlocked an inner symphony, a melody so complex and sweet he yearned to hear it again and to share it with others.
He quickly learned, however, that the notes of such a symphony do not migrate from the mind to the fingers without hard work. Under the guidance of a teacher who saw his potential, Zack was soon devoting four to seven hours each day to practice, immersing himself in a demanding discipline. He became principal cellist of school orchestras, the Metropolitan Youth Symphony, and the Phoenix Symphony Guild Youth Orchestra. At 14 he was named All-State cellist and performed solo at Arizona State University. He was invited to the World Cello Conference and was principal chair at major music camps including Brevard and Tanglewood. With his high school orchestra, he played at Carnegie Hall in New York City. At 18 he was selected principal cellist for the National High School Honors Orchestra. He auditioned for and received instruction from some of the best cellists in the world.

Tommy turned over on the straw mattress in the bottom of the wagon box and pulled the patchwork quilt close around his ears. Any other morning the bugle would have blown and he would have been up, but the brethren had decided to stay in Garden Grove, and as a result he could stay in bed this one morning.
But the bugle blew crystal clear after all, right into Tommy’s wagon box. Quickly he put on his shoes, grabbed his coat, and jumped out of the wagon. He met Father coming out of the tent.
“What’s the matter?” Tommy asked.
“I don’t know,” replied his father. “Let’s find out.”
Together they went over to the big bonfire where Brigham Young was waiting for the men of the camp to gather. When they had all arrived, he began. “Today is the twenty-fifth of April and the ground is in condition to plow. We can plant grain now, and by fall there will be a good harvest. If we’re not still here, the Saints coming after us will be able to harvest it. Those who are sick can stay here until they are better. Those who do not have enough food and clothing to go further can stay here until they get what they need. The Saints who come after us can use our houses until they are able to go on.”
He paused and the men were quiet, waiting for him to continue. “I have divided our camp into groups. One hundred will cut logs, 48 will build houses, 10 will build fences, 12 are to dig wells, and 10 will build bridges. The rest, numbering 175, will clear the land of brush, make some wooden plows, and then plant grain.”
As soon as President Young had finished speaking, Tommy ran and told his mother about the new plan. “It’s a wonderful way to help each other,” she said. “Many of our friends in Nauvoo would start out west if they knew there was someplace along the way where they could get food and rest if they were sick.”
“Maybe all our friends would come if they knew this,” said Tommy wistfully, as he remembered the good times with the other boys back in Nauvoo.
“How can we let them know that there will be a house here for them?” asked Betsy.
“I think the brethren will let them know,” Mother answered.
Just then Father came into camp, all excited about his assignment. “I’m going to build houses,” he said, “and Tommy, you’re going to help me!”
“Hooray!” said Tommy. And Tommy’s mother smiled as her two men walked off together.
The weeks that followed were busy ones. Every morning the camp was awakened by the bugle. Everyone started to work as soon as breakfast was over and the morning prayers were said. Within two weeks it was as if the little village, with all its houses, fences, bridges, and wells, had been there for a long time. Around it were acres and acres of land that had been plowed and leveled and planted into wheat. Tommy and Betsy liked to imagine the pies and cakes they might have at harvest time. It had been a long time since they had tasted even a piece of bread made out of real flour instead of cornmeal. They were so tired of corn that sometimes they went to bed hungry rather than eat it.
Tommy was proud of the houses he helped build. They were made of logs stacked one on the other. His job was to fill the cracks between the logs with mud and grass. It was a happy day when Tommy and Betsy moved with their father and mother into one of these houses. There was a fireplace at one end of a large room. Father made a table and some benches for the center of the room and a rough bed frame for one corner. Betsy and her mother made a rope spring by weaving a long, thin rope over the bed rails from front to back and from head to foot until the spring was woven into three-inch squares.
“It makes the bed soft and jiggly,” said Betsy when she sat on it.
“It’s better than sleeping on hard boards,” said Tommy, as he thought of his bed in the wagon box.
When everything was in place, Betsy looked around at her new home. A fire was burning in the fireplace, a pot pie was simmering on the hearth, and a clean cloth was on the table, which had been set for supper. “It’s a beautiful home,” she said. “I hope we can live in it for a long time.”
But Tommy and Betsy only lived in their house for three weeks. On June 1 Father told them, “We must leave in the morning for Council Bluffs. President Young wants us to go there to build houses and plant crops as we have done here.”
Tommy and Betsy looked sad. Mother tried to comfort them, saying, “It doesn’t really matter where we live as long as we’re together. It’s the love that people have for each other that makes a home, not the place they live in. The important thing now is that we show our Heavenly Father how much we love him by doing what he wants us to do.”
When everything was packed and the family was ready to leave the next morning, they sat down for their last meal. Suddenly there was the sound of wagons—many of them. “It must be a wagon train coming to join us,” said Father. And instead of eating, the family went out on the road to greet the newcomers.
Tommy saw some friends in one of the wagons. “Eliza, Elija,” he called. The newcomers turned and shouted for joy and, jumping out of the wagon, ran to meet Betsy and Tommy.
Father invited Eliza and Elija’s family to supper. Mother made a bed so their mother could lie down. Betsy was glad that she and her mother had made the rope springs so the bed would be more comfortable.
That night, before settling down in their wagon-box bed, Tommy said, “I’m glad Eliza and Elija are going to live in our house.”
“I am too,” said Betsy. “It is good they have such a nice house to come home to.”

One such opportunity was a moment, a couple of years ago in Ladysmith, in KwaZulu Natal Province, in the Republic of South Africa with Elder Kevin S. Hamilton, then President of the Africa Southeast Area.
After a training session with Elder Hamilton, as a young returning missionary whose family does not share my faith, amidst my anxiety as to how to stay strong, I asked, “President, what should I do to retain my membership in the Church?”
Elder Hamilton looked at me in the eyes, placed his arm around my shoulder and said, “What do you usually tell your new converts?”
I responded, “President, I encourage them to continually come to Church to partake of the sacrament, to pray often, to prepare to go to the temple, to do home visiting (ministering), and to magnify their callings when given one.”
He replied, “Elder, then go home and do those things. Your faith will be strengthened as you continually do them”.

Our relationship with Deity is something we need to work on constantly. President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) once observed: “I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, edited by Edward L. Kimball [1982], 135).

One day each of us will finish our earthly journey. Twenty-five years ago, just days before my mother-in-law, Martha Williams, died of cancer, she received a small check in the mail. She immediately asked my wife, Kathy, for her checkbook to pay her tithing. As her mother was so weakened that she could scarcely write, Kathy asked if she could write the check for her. Her mother responded, “No, Kathy. I want to do it myself.” And then she quietly added, “I want to be right before the Lord.” One of the final things Kathy did for her mother was to hand her tithing envelope to her bishop.

I remember another occasion when I was in Australia on a mission. I went up to visit the Jenolan Caves—very wonderful, spectacular caves. And as we walked through them, the guide said, “If some of you will get out and stand on that rock over there and sing a song, it will demonstrate the capacity of this cave.”
Well, the Spirit said to me, “Go over there and sing ‘O, My Father.’ I hesitated, and the crowd walked on. I lost the opportunity. I never felt good about that. The only thing that ever made me feel the Lord had forgiven me was when I heard President McKay say, “I was inspired one time to do a certain thing when I was in the mission field, and I didn’t do it.” He said, “I have always been sorry since.” He said, “Never fail to respond to the whisperings of the Spirit. Live so you can receive it, and then have the courage to do as it instructs.”

“For me, praying before studying and writing down ideas that come to my mind really help me personalize and understand the scriptures. I have a little journal where I write my thoughts as I read. It helps me to understand and love the scriptures.”
Lindsay C., 16, Oregon, USA

Once I did something terrible to him without meaning to. He was coming up the stairs, steadying himself with his hand on the wall. When he got to the door at the top, his hand poked through where the door hinge is. I didn’t see him, and I slammed the door on his finger. He screamed and screamed. Mother and Father rushed him to the hospital because the end of his finger was badly cut and he needed stitches to close the wound. I felt awful. But when he came back home, he gave me a hug, so I knew that he still loved me. He was really brave and hardly ever cried about his finger, and he wasn’t even two years old! I felt very proud of him.

Joseph Smith, the Prophet, was tried as few other men have been tried. From that day when he testified to the world that he had been blessed by a personal visitation from God, our Heavenly Father, and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, all the evil forces of the adversary seem to have been turned loose upon him.
Slandered, maligned, tarred and feathered, unjustly cast into prisons, subjected to inhuman treatment and humiliation, his soul was deeply tried.
There were times when Joseph wondered if the Lord as well as his friends had deserted him. From the very depths of his anguished soul he cried out: “O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?” He then pointed out the wrongs and unlawful oppressions inflicted upon the Saints. Then came this comforting assurance from the Lord: “My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

“And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.

“Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.” (D&C 121:1, 7–9.)
Joseph Smith was true, faithful, and unwavering to the trust placed in him. His associates were proud to declare to the world: “Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. … He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood. …” (D&C 135:3.)
Joseph Smith truly was tested, tried, and not found wanting. He measured up to every requirement expected of him.

“I’d like to consider myself a professional in the smiling business. I know what it takes to make people smile. It didn’t take much to make my basketball teammate smile when I yelled, ‘You got it, Marty!’ from across the gym. It took a bit more to make one of the customers I was working with at my grocery store smile after they told me they were having a bad day. But talking with them a bit and joking about the cold weather quickly set those eyes sparkling. I think most people are searching for a reason to smile. Sometimes, though, in this tricky world, it’s a bit difficult to find a reason for a moment of happiness. Isn’t it wonderful that we get an opportunity to be the reason to smile? I think it is. Even if I’m not an artist or a child prodigy; even if I’m not written about in history books; and even if no one else remembers me but the little girl who was so excited because I liked the color of her shirt, I still have my smile. And I’m more than happy to pass it on. Why don’t you do the same?”
Allie V., Nebraska, USA

Sometimes, when the Jets are traveling, it’s a bit difficult to find chapels for Sunday services, so the family has received special permission to hold their own sacrament services. With each boy bearing the priesthood, all the ordinances can be taken care of. “Besides,” laughs Leroy, “the people in our home ward are probably happy to see us gone on fast Sundays. When the whole family bears their testimonies, there isn’t much time left for anyone else.”

A note of warning:
There was a young lady named Perkins,
Who was hooked on the habit of gherkins.
One day on a spree
She ate 93
And pickled her internal workin’s.
Anonymous

“Dad,” Ashley said to her father as she snuggled up to him on the couch and watched her favorite cartoon show, “Adam says you don’t like cartoons.”
“I like watching cartoons when I’m with you,” Dad told her.
“Then you do like cartoons?” the six-year-old girl asked.
“No, not really,” he confessed. “But sometimes you do things you don’t really like, because it makes someone you love happy.”
Ashley was happy with Dad’s explanation. She snuggled up closer, and they continued to watch cartoons.
Early the next morning, Ashley said to Adam, “Do you know why Dad watches cartoons even though he doesn’t like them? Because he loves me.”
“So does Chester!” joked Adam, holding his pet gerbil in front of Ashley’s face. “Here—give him a kiss!”
Ashley screamed, running to her mother’s arms.
“Stop teasing your sister,” Mom scolded Adam. “You know that she’s afraid of Chester.”
“Aw, he won’t hurt her,” Adam griped. “He’s as tame as a pussycat.”
“Speaking of pussycats,” Mom warned, “you had better watch out that Scratchy doesn’t get him. You left Chester’s cage door open—again.”
“Aw, that old cat couldn’t catch a cold.”
“Just remember to put Chester back into his cage—and make sure the door is closed.”
“OK.”
Later in the day, Adam burst into the living room as Ashley helped Mom dust the furniture.
“Guess what, Ashley? Dad loves me, too. He’s taking me to a soccer game. And he loves soccer, so we’ll really have a great time!”
Ashley kissed her father good-bye and frowned at her brother as they hooted and hollered out the front door on their way to the soccer game.
“That’s enough dusting,” Mom said. “I’m going to the basement to do the laundry. Why don’t you go to your room and play?”
Ashley slowly crept past Adam’s room, hoping she wouldn’t run into Chester on the loose. Her brother was becoming forgetful again. Three times last week he’d left Chester’s cage door open. And three times he had had to rescue his gerbil from Scratchy.
As she peeked into Adam’s room, she saw Scratchy pawing behind Chester’s cage. The old cat’s back was all hunched up. His hair was standing on end.
“What’s the matter, Scratchy?” Ashley asked. But the cat ignored her.
Ashley peeked behind the gerbil’s cage, then jumped back and screamed. It was Chester. He was out of his cage again. She shouted for her mother. But with the washer running, her mother couldn’t hear her cries.
Scratchy’s sharp claws were getting closer and closer to Chester. Chester was shaking and squeaking. Ashley didn’t know what to do.
“Shoo, shoo,” she said, chasing Scratchy out of her brother’s room.
Now she was alone with the gerbil in Adam’s room. Ashley leaned over the cage to look again. Chester was still there. Still shaking. Still squeaking.
Ashley was frightened. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes tightly, and reached behind the cage.
“I can’t do this!” she cried, pulling her hand back. “I just can’t stand the thought of touching Chester.”
Then she remembered her father’s words: “Sometimes you do things you don’t really like, because it makes someone you love happy.”
Adam would be happy if Chester were inside his cage, Ashley thought, and not inside Scratchy.
Once again she took a long, deep breath, closed her eyes tightly, and reached behind the cage. She felt Chester’s warm, soft body. But instead of pulling her hand back, she grasped the frightened gerbil and gently put him into his cage, slamming the door shut behind him.
Shaking a little, she lay on her brother’s bed and gave a big sigh of relief.
Moments, later, she heard her father and brother quarreling. That was a fast soccer game, she thought.
“Why are you in my room?” Adam demanded as he charged into his room.
Without waiting for an answer, Adam turned to Chester’s cage and turned to Dad, who was standing in the doorway. “See, Dad, we missed the soccer game for nothing. I didn’t forget to close the door to Chester’s cage.”
“Yes, you did!” Ashley exclaimed. “I put Chester back in his cage, and I closed the door!”
“But I thought you were afraid of Chester. I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I am afraid of him. And I don’t like him. But”—she looked her brother in the eye and smiled—“I do love you, Adam.”

Intellectually: To improve myself intellectually, I decided to continue my education by going for my master’s degree and a certificate course in BYU-Pathway Worldwide. This was a 12-month goal. Today I have earned a master of science in mathematics/statistics, a certificate with BYU-Pathway. Presently, I am undergoing my doctorate degree program.

One day I brought the Friend to school. My friend asked what I was reading. I explained about the Friend and told her that it teaches about Jesus Christ. I offered her a Book of Mormon, gave her a copy of the Friend, and invited her to activity days. I know that if we teach people about the gospel while we are young, we’ll be better off when we’re older.

Glen Hoelscher, from St. Lawrence, Texas, recently returned from a mission to Tacoma, Washington. Glen, shown here with his mom, Doris, and his dad, David, grew up on a farm, and he and his father devised an unusual way of financing Glen’s work for the Lord. They used some of their farm land to grow watermelons specifically for the purpose of paying for Glen’s mission, figuring they’d have to sell eight melons for each day that Glen served.
Their efforts proved “fruitful,” and Glen was blessed with a bumper crop—one of the best he and his dad have ever had.