Gospel Story Finder

Let me mention an experience that fits directly into this subject. I had the opportunity of serving a full-time mission in Tonga almost 30 years ago. I had two wonderful mission presidents. When I arrived, the first one said, “I’ve got just the place for you. It’s a small island several hundred miles from here. It is nearly seven miles around with about 700 people on it. There are no white people there, and no one speaks English. I want you to go up there and not come back until you know the discussions and know how to speak Tongan.”

Well, I went; and to put it mildly, there were lots of problems. I had a wonderful native companion. Despite the problems—or more correctly, because of the problems—there was a lot of growth. At one time we came close to literally starving to death because of a hurricane and a wrecked boat. On another occasion we were subject to some serious physical threats and actual abuse. At one time we went a little over four months without mail. Things have changed now. But we learned to live with the challenges at hand. We kept moving. Even though there were only 700 people in a very limited area, even though I didn’t know the language, we kept moving, we kept doing something. Sometimes we made mistakes. (Although, whenever there was the possibility of our doing something seriously wrong, the Lord let us know in no uncertain terms that it was wrong and we did not do it. I assure you that if you are striving to do the right, the Lord will let you know if you are starting to do something wrong. So listen!) I am sure there was even more good we could have done, but at least we never stopped. We kept going. We did something; and that’s important.

The facts are that when I left that little island after 13 months I was alive and well. I knew the discussions. I knew the language. Many souls had been baptized. I had been present when many infants had been born and when several people had died. I held some in my arms as they passed away. I learned quite a lot about life; but most important, I came away knowing at least three things (and we can all come away from our life’s experiences knowing these things):

1. I knew that God lived and that he had all knowledge and all power and that he was literally the Father of our spirits. I knew that he loved each of us personally and individually and that he especially watches over his missionaries.

2. I knew that Jesus Christ was his Son, our Savior and Redeemer, a real person, a true friend, one who gave his life for us, one who loves us and one whom we can love in a way that defies human comprehension, one through whom we can look forward to a glorious resurrection of our bodies and a forgiveness of our sins and an eventual opportunity to stand in the presence of our Father in Heaven cleansed and pure. I plead with you to love him with all your hearts. You will be a better person and you will be on the path of knowing your mission and calling in life. And that’s the third point.

3. I knew that God had a mission for me and for all men and all women. I didn’t know exactly what it was in every detail, and that didn’t matter. I knew where to start. I knew I had to live more closely in tune with him. I knew I had to do better. I knew the path, and that was the important thing. I knew I could trust him. I knew our purpose here was to fulfill our mission. I knew that he would, in his own way and according to his timing, let me know what other things he would have me do to fulfill this mission so I could receive the joy that comes therefrom. I have not been disappointed and neither will you.

Kristin: “The first time I felt totally alone—isolated by the fact that my husband is not a member of the Church—was the day our first baby was blessed. Shortly before the meeting began, the ward clerk handed me a small card to fill out. Most of the questions were routine, but one made my heart leap to my throat: Had my baby been ‘born in [the] covenant’?

“Suddenly all my faith, activity, and service in the Church seemed very inadequate. I had failed, it seemed—failed myself and my innocent child. I have never felt so empty as when I checked the small box that said ‘no.’”

The second tool is prayer. Here is a story about a child’s prayer.

Many years ago Saturdays were very hectic when we had four of our children playing soccer and going to many different fields. Usually my husband and I would divide and conquer, each taking some of the children. One particular morning was more chaotic than the usual flurry of getting kids up and dressed, soccer snacks prepared and everyone out the door on time for their respective games. One child came to me and said she couldn’t find her shoes. Instead of responding like one of those kind mothers you read about in the children’s magazine, The Friend, I snapped at her that she’d best find those shoes or she wouldn’t be playing. This sweet child went to her room and, believing God and His promises that He hears and answers prayers, she knelt in prayer, asking her Heavenly Father where her missing shoes could be found. He blessed her and told her where to look—in a place none of us would have thought of! How simple the faith of a child! The Lord said “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;” (Matthew 7:7) He also said, “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” (D&C 82:10) When we ask in faith, we receive. It may not be the answer we want and it may not be as quickly as we would prefer, but we will always receive.

At 5:30 A.M. on a chilly fall morning, 200 eager teens from the San Jose California South Stake arrived at the Camden chapel. Their mission: to turn a cultural hall full of saws, paint, brushes, sandpaper, and unfinished dollhouses into a room full of toys for the children’s waiting room in the Oakland Temple. Soon 400 hands were busy sewing, sanding, sawing, painting, gluing, cutting, quilting, and testing toy trains. After the work was completed, the stick horses, cars, trucks, and dolls were packed into real cars and trucks along with 200 helpers and they were all driven to the Oakland Temple. Said temple president Richard B. Sonne to the group, “I’m very impressed by what you’ve done. It will make many, many children happy.”

Illustrations by Arthur Lin
“Let’s get more sticks!” Callie said to Marco.
Marco looked at the sky. “I have to go home. It’s almost sunset.”
“But we haven’t finished our fort yet!” said Callie.
“Sorry!” Marco called out as he jogged toward the backyard gate. “I have to be home before the Sabbath!”
Callie sighed. There were great things about being Marco’s friend, and there were hard things. Well, mostly just one hard thing. The hard thing was that they didn’t have very much time to play together. Even though they were in the same grade at school, they weren’t in the same class. They didn’t have the same recess. Plus, they both spent the Sabbath with their families. In Marco’s church, the Sabbath was Saturday. It started at sunset on Friday night. For Callie, the Sabbath was Sunday.
And the good things? There were lots of them. One was that Callie never had to worry that Marco would swear, try to get her to do bad things, or watch things that weren’t good. He and his family went to a different church, but they believed a lot of the same things Callie did. Like they believed in keeping the Sabbath day holy, even though they had it on a different day.
Callie set down her armful of sticks and went inside.
“Did Marco go home?” Mom asked.
“Yeah,” Callie said, slumping into a kitchen chair. “We hardly ever get to play.”
“Maybe you two can get together Friday. It’s a school holiday,” said Mom.
“OK,” Callie said, cheering up. She would get everything ready so when Marco came over, they could start working on the fort right away.
During school later that week, Callie’s teacher made an announcement. The whole third grade was going to watch a movie together.
“Yes!” Callie said. She put her lunch box into her backpack and went into the common area between the classrooms.
Everyone found a place to sit on the floor, and the teachers turned off the lights. Callie got excited as the movie began. It was about some boys building a fort in the woods, just like she was building a fort with Marco! If we ever finish it, she thought. She shook her head and focused back on the screen.
But as the movie went on, Callie noticed that some of the words in it weren’t very nice. She started to feel more and more uncomfortable. She didn’t know what to do.
Just then, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Marco! He had crawled all the way through the crowd of students to talk to her.
“Callie, I don’t think we should be watching this,” he whispered. “I think we should go ask our teachers if we can read instead.”
Callie breathed a sigh of relief. It felt good to know someone else felt like she did. “Yeah. I don’t like this movie either.”
She and Marco stood up and tiptoed around their classmates until they reached their teachers. Marco went to his teacher, and Callie went to hers. She asked if she could read a book instead of watching the movie, and her teacher said yes.
As Callie went into her classroom to read, she saw Marco doing the same thing. He gave her a thumbs-up and a smile. Callie smiled back. Having a true friend was even better than having a finished fort.

I was called to a home in a little village in New Zealand one day. There the Relief Society sisters were preparing the body of one of our Saints. They had placed his body out in front of the big house, as they call it—the house where the people come to wail and weep and mourn over the dead—when in rushed the dead man’s brother.

He said, “Administer to him.”

The young natives said, “Why, you shouldn’t do that; he’s dead.”

“You do it!”

This same old man that I had had with me when his niece was ill was there. The younger native got down on his knees and anointed the dead man. Then this great old sage got down and blessed him and commanded him to arise. You should have seen the Relief Society sisters scatter.

He sat up and said, “Send for the elders; I don’t feel very well.”

Of course, all of that was just psychological effect on that dead man. Wonderful, isn’t it—this psychological effect business?

We told him he had just been administered to, and he said, “Oh, that was it.”

He said, “I was dead. I could feel life coming back into me just like a blanket unrolling.”

He outlived the brother who had come in and told us to administer to him.

One day Daniel’s cousin Tyler came over to play …
Don’t go near the thorn patch!
OK!
Hey, Tyler! Let’s kick the soccer ball around.
Oh, no! We’re not supposed to go near there.
I think I can reach it.
Ouch!
Hang on! I’m going to get some help!
Are you OK?
Yeah, but I wish I didn’t fall into the thorn patch!
Mom warned you about the thorn patch because we care about you and want you to be safe.
I know. Thanks for helping me.
What do you want to do now?
Let’s play in the treehouse—and stay away from the thorns!

It was while Hal was studying physics at the University of Utah that a conversation with his father marked one of those defining influences in his life. He asked his father for help with a complex mathematical problem. “My father was at a blackboard we kept in the basement,” Elder Eyring recalls. “Suddenly he stopped. ‘Hal,’ he said, ‘we were working this same kind of problem a week ago. You don’t seem to understand it any better now than you did then. Haven’t you been working on it?’”

A little chagrined, Hal admitted he had not. “You don’t understand,” his father went on. “When you walk down the street, when you’re in the shower, when you don’t have to be thinking about anything else, isn’t this what you think about?”

“When I told him no,” Elder Eyring concludes, “my father paused. It was really a very tender and poignant moment, because I knew how much he loved me and how much he wanted me to be a scientist. Then he said, ‘Hal, I think you’d better get out of physics. You ought to find something that you love so much that when you don’t have to think about anything, that’s what you think about.’”

The advice deeply impressed young Hal. He went on to finish his degree in physics, graduating not long after the end of the Korean War. During the war, the number of missionaries called from each ward had been greatly restricted. Further, by the time he graduated, Hal had already committed to a commission in the United States Air Force. So he entered the military without having served a full-time mission. But in a bishop’s blessing prior to his departure, Hal was promised that his military experience would be his mission.

That blessing proved to be prophetic, for though Hal was originally sent by the Air Force to the Sandia National Laboratories near Albuquerque, New Mexico, for temporary schooling, circumstances were such that he stayed on there for the full two years of his duty. Two weeks after his arrival, he was called as a district missionary in the Western States Mission. He served almost two years to the day in that calling.

It happened every Sunday in church. No matter how hard Jeremy tried, he always got the wiggle-waggles. He tried very hard to sit still during Primary. He kept his arms folded as long as he could and sang all the Primary songs. Jeremy listened to the lesson in his class and tried to answer questions. But sometimes, even when he tried his very hardest to sit still, they still came—those bothersome wiggle-waggles!
It usually happened toward the end of Primary and carried on through sacrament meeting. Jeremy would start to fidget, then he’d play with his tie. He’d rattle his papers from Primary, then twist around in his seat. He tried talking to his best friend, Thomas, but Thomas would put a finger to his lips to tell Jeremy to be quiet. Thomas never seemed to get the wiggle-waggles.
Sometimes Jeremy would untie his shoes. When the wiggle-waggles were really bad, he would slip off his shoes and kick his stocking feet back and forth.
“Sit still, Jeremy,” his Primary teacher whispered to him.
“Shhh, Jeremy, I want to listen to Sister Bernard,” Thomas said quietly when Jeremy tried to tell him about his new toy dump truck.
“Put your feet down,” his mother cautioned in sacrament meeting.
“Leave your shoes on, son,” his dad told him.
Jeremy tried to sit reverently and quietly. He really did! But he still had those wiggle-waggles every Sunday.
One night at family home evening, Jeremy’s mother brought up the wiggle-waggle problem.
“I try to sit still, Mom. I really do!” Jeremy exclaimed.
“It seems to me that we need to figure out a way to stop those wiggle-waggles from bothering Jeremy,” Dad said thoughtfully. “Let’s all think about it, and maybe we’ll come up with a solution.”
On Sunday morning, just before the family left for church, Jeremy’s mother gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. Then she said, “Jeremy, I want you to write down a sentence about your lesson in Primary, and a sentence about the talks that you hear in sacrament meeting. Do you think you could do that?”
Jeremy nodded enthusiastically.
“We’ll talk about what you wrote on your paper for family home evening,” his mother added.
All through Primary, Jeremy sat very still. He listened carefully to the talks and scripture and wrote down the scripture reference. Jeremy sang with his best voice during singing time, and even wrote down a verse to one of the Primary songs. Then he wrote a sentence about sharing time. Jeremy didn’t talk to Thomas once. During the walk to their class, Thomas commented on how reverent Jeremy was. During his Primary class, Jeremy quietly wrote down a sentence about the lesson. Before he knew it, Primary was over.
“I didn’t get the wiggle-waggles once!” Jeremy proudly reported to his parents as they sat down for sacrament meeting.
During the next hour, Jeremy tried very hard to sit quietly. But after a while, he started to feel the wiggle-waggles creeping up on him. He glanced down at his paper and read the words of the Primary song he had written down: “It shouldn’t be hard to sit very still and think about Jesus, his cross on the hill, and all that he suffered and did for me; it shouldn’t be hard to sit quietly.”*
Jeremy thought about the song. That was the secret! He should think about Jesus. Jeremy knew that Jesus would want him to sit quietly and listen.
Jeremy listened as Elder Vasquez, one of the missionaries serving in his ward, related an experience about a 10-year-old girl who had recently been baptized. He listened when Elder Brown, the other missionary, told the congregation that he was from England and had been on his mission for only three months. As Jeremy listened to the missionaries, he decided that he would like to be a missionary, too.
Jeremy was surprised when the closing hymn was announced. He looked down at his paper and noticed that he hadn’t written anything about the missionaries. He had been too busy listening to them! And the wiggle-waggles hadn’t bothered him once!
As they were leaving the church after sacrament meeting, Jeremy’s parents told him how happy they were that he’d been so reverent. Jeremy told them how the Primary song had taught him to think about Jesus and what He wanted him to do.
Just then, Sister Harper came up to Jeremy’s parents and said, “Jeremy is so quiet! I wish my Kerry would learn how to be quiet and reverent like Jeremy. She gets so wiggly!”
Jeremy’s mother winked at him.
“It looks like the wiggle-waggles found someone else to bother,” she said.
“Yes.” Jeremy smiled and held up his piece of paper. “And I know just what she can do to fix it!”

Hang Mormonads in your locker. Ginny Pettyjohn, 16, of the Sugar Hill Georgia Stake, says, “They remind me to always be good; plus they are a good influence on others when they see them.”
Last year Ginny’s locker was next to the locker of a guy known to drink a lot. He also liked to keep up on the latest Mormonads in Ginny’s locker. “One day a Mormonad about keeping the body and soul clean really seemed to intrigue him,” she says. “He kept looking at it but didn’t say anything.” The very next day he told Ginny a couple of his friends had come over the night before and asked him to go out drinking with them. But he thought about the Mormonad and decided not to go.

Before I left on that mission, President Anthon H. Lund, who was then a counselor in the First Presidency of the Church, talked to us missionaries, and he said, “The people will love you. … They will love you because of what you bring to them.” I did not understand that then, but before I left Holland, I went around saying good-bye to the Saints and the converts whom I had brought into the Church, and I shed a thousand tears, as compared to what I shed when I told my loved ones good-bye.

For instance, in Amsterdam I went into a home where I had been the first missionary there, and the mother, looking up into my face with tears rolling down her cheeks, said, “Brother Richards, it was hard to see my daughter leave for Zion a few months ago, but it’s much harder to see you go.” Then I thought I could understand what President Lund meant when he said, “They will love you.”

I went to tell a man good-bye. He stood erect in the uniform of his country. He got down on his knees and took my hand in his and hugged it and kissed it and bathed it with his tears. And then I thought I could understand what President Lund meant.

Now I have labored so much with the missionaries. I have been on four missions, and presided over two, and I have toured many missions. I love to hear those young men bear their testimonies. For instance, a young man in Oregon in our testimony meeting said there wasn’t a company in this world that could pay him a large enough salary to get him to leave his missionary work.

I received a letter here from a missionary from Idaho. He wrote this:
“There is no greater work than that of missionary work. … My life is dedicated to serving the Lord. My heart is overflowing as are the tears of joy that are now coming from my eyes. There is nothing so wonderful—nothing—as tasting the joy and success of missionary labors.”

After all the missionary service I have had, I wouldn’t want to raise a boy and not have him go on a mission, for his good and because I think we owe it to the world to share with them the truths of the gospel.

“Why have these great missionaries and others like them been willing to sacrifice … to answer the call to serve? It’s because they have a testimony of Jesus Christ. … And because they are faithful to their callings, thousands will revere their names throughout the eternities” (Ensign, Nov. 1995, 42).
—Elder Harold G. Hillamof the Quorum of the Seventy

At the age of 15 he was ordained an elder and called on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands. Much of the time he labored alone. He had no money. Concerning this discouraging time, he later said:
I was almost naked and entirely friendless, except [for] the friendship of a poor, benighted, degraded people. I felt as if I was so debased in my condition of poverty, lack of intelligence and knowledge, just a boy, that I hardly dared look a . . . man in the face.

While in that condition I dreamed [one night] that I was on a journey, and I was impressed that I ought to hurry—hurry with all my might, for fear I might be too late. I rushed on my way as fast as I possibly could, and I was only conscious of having just a little bundle, a handkerchief with a small bundle wrapped in it. . . . I came to a wonderful mansion. . . . It seemed too large, too great to have been made by hand, but I thought I knew that was my destination. As I passed towards it, as fast as I could, I saw a notice [that read], “Bath.” I turned aside quickly and went into the bath and washed myself clean. I opened up this little bundle that I had, and there was a pair of white, clean garments, . . . and I put them on. Then I rushed to what appeared to be a great opening, or door. I knocked and the door opened, and the man who stood there was the Prophet Joseph Smith. He looked at me a little reprovingly, and the first words he said [were]: “Joseph, you are late.” . . .

[I replied,] “Yes, but I am clean—I am clean!”

He clasped my hand and drew me in, then closed the great door. I felt his hand just as tangible as I ever felt the hand of man. I knew him, and when I entered I saw my father, and Brigham and Heber, and Willard, and other good men that I had known, standing in a row. . . . My mother was there. . . .

When I awoke that morning [alone, away up in the mountains of Hawaii] I was a man, although only a boy. There was not anything in the world that I feared. I could meet any man or woman or child and look them in the face, feeling in my soul that I was a man every whit. That vision, that manifestation and witness that I enjoyed at that time has made me what I am, if I am anything that is good, or clean, or upright before the Lord, if there is anything good in me. That has helped me out in every trial and through every difficulty. . . .

. . . I felt as if I had been lifted out of a slum, out of a despair, out of the wretched condition that I was in; and naked as I was, or as nearly as I was, I was not afraid of any . . . man . . . , and I have not been very much afraid of anybody else since that time. I know that that was a reality, to show me my duty, to teach me something, and to impress upon me something that I cannot forget. I hope it never can be banished from my mind. [GD, 542–43]

“I learned what it means to give. These people give when their wells are nearly dry. We were each given a loaf of bread at one home visit, and then a fourth loaf was divided up among the nine children and their mother. We were invited to a sister’s home to share the small birthday cake of her two-year-old son. His birthday wasn’t until the next day, but she knew we wouldn’t be there, and so it was cut especially for us. It was, perhaps, a small gesture, but it was a sacrifice on their part and a great lesson in giving.”
Cheri CarrWilton, California

I pressed a criss-cross design on the last ball of peanut butter cookie dough and placed it on the baking sheet. Another pan of cookies was ready for the oven. My girlfriend, Michelle, and I had eaten a dozen before carefully arranging a plate of the best-looking cookies. Ever since our Beehive lesson on giving service without being asked, Michelle and I had been motivated to give service to one of the widows in our ward. We chose Sister Andrews. She had been a widow for at least 20 years and had no children.
Michelle and I organized a plan. Once a month we would take something over to Sister Andrews. We didn’t let anyone know of our plans. After all we wanted to serve without being told. The cookies were our first gift. We jumped on our bikes, with me balancing the plate of cookies on the handlebars, and rode over to Sister Andrews’s tiny home.
When she answered the door, Sister Andrews was wearing a plain blue house dress with a crocheted collar. Proudly, I held out the plate.
“We brought you some peanut butter cookies,” I said.
“Oh, you girls are so sweet, but I can’t have any sugar on my diabetic diet. Why don’t you take these home and share them with your families.”
Surprised and a little confused, we stood wondering what to do next. There were plenty of cookies at home, and Michelle and I could not possibly eat one more ourselves. We left a little discouraged.
We tried to think of another idea. Flowers were a sure thing. All women love flowers, we thought. My mother’s rosebushes were in bloom. We picked red, yellow, and pink roses and placed them in a mason jar.
Again Michelle and I rode our bikes to Sister Andrews’s home. “We brought these for you,” Michelle said and held out the flowers.
“Thank you so much. They are beautiful. But I get hayfever, and I can’t have flowers inside the house,” was her reply. We visited with her for a few minutes and left.
Michelle and I were quite discouraged now. Flowers and treats were off the list. We decided Sister Andrews would like some fruit. We filled a bowl full of the prettiest ripe raspberries we could find. Pleased with our gift, we got on our bikes a third time and rode to Sister Andrews’s home.
“We brought you some fresh raspberries,” I said.
“My, they look delicious. I used to love eating raspberries when I was your age. I can’t eat them anymore. The seeds get caught under my dentures. Why don’t you girls eat them with your supper tonight,” she replied.
I couldn’t believe it. We had struck out. Finally, we told our parents of our failed attempts to offer service. They helped us learn a little more about Sister Andrews. She had a great talent for crocheting and loved to spend her time making items for her friends and neighbors such as baby afghans, hot pads, and slippers. She had a small income which limited how much she could crochet for others. Because of her poor circumstances, she hated to see things wasted. That’s why she turned down our gifts rather than just taking them and discarding them after we left.
Michelle and I pooled our baby-sitting money and went to the store and purchased skeins of yarn for Sister Andrews. This time our gift was perfect. She delightedly showed us some of the things she was working on. And we learned a valuable lesson about service. True service is not just giving what we choose to give, but giving what is really needed.

Exactly one year ago this week—January 15, 2009—US Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City and lifted quickly into the sky on what was expected to be an uneventful trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, along the eastern coast of the United States. The airplane captain was Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger. He had more than 19,000 hours of flying behind him, and he expected the next hour and a half would be very routine.

As the Airbus A320 climbed to 3,000 feet, the unexpected was suddenly right in front of him. A flock of mammoth Canadian geese with six-foot wingspans was directly in the path of the airplane. The large birds hit the plane. Worse still, the giant engines on the two wings, drawing air into their turbines with enormous force, drew in as well the geese in the path of the plane. There was a terrible grinding sound as the birds were sucked into the engines. Then, a deafening silence—the engines had stopped.

Captain Sullenberger immediately began determining how he could safely land the plane. He first considered returning to the airport, and then to a different airport not far away. The dangers and risks were enormous. He did not know how long he could glide the plane without engine power. He had only a moment to decide. Captain Sullenberger determined his best chance was to land the plane in the Hudson River, a river that runs close to New York City. In those few seconds all his training as an airline captain, all his judgment, his instincts, and his talents were brought to bear on the emergency landing ahead of him.

With skyscrapers outside the windows, the plane dropped quickly, flying only 900 feet above the George Washington Bridge. Then, with the plane flying as slowly as possible and with the wings perfectly straight across the water, he pulled the nose up and glided the belly of the plane onto the water. The plane, weighing 120 tons, skipped across the water and then safely stopped fully intact.

Winter weather was well below freezing, and the captain knew the plane would begin sinking. The passengers were quickly assisted out the emergency exits onto the wings. The plane’s life rafts were inflated, and boats from the shore moved quickly to rescue the passengers. The news was almost unbelievable. While a $60-million plane had been lost, Captain Sullenberger had landed safely, and all of the 154 passengers and crew were safe, as well as Captain Sullenberger.

There is a living God who loves us and is constantly nearby and available. Doubt need not be part of our lives. The reality of God’s influence is felt by all Church members who comply with divine laws. It can also be tangibly felt by nonmembers, when it is his will. This is evidenced by the following experience in the São Paulo Temple.

The temple was opened to the public during the month of September 1978 before being closed in preparation for the dedication. Among the many visitors who felt the influence of this special temple was a certain nonmember newspaper reporter.

During the tour he eventually arrived at the door of the celestial room. Those few people who were accompanying him saw him abruptly stop and bow his head. He remained in that position for some time, with his eyes closed and head bowed. Then he slowly moved his head from side to side and at the same time opened his eyes, as if to inquire by this gesture “Who is there?” or “Is anyone there?”

After some time his head was raised and his eyes opened. His expression indicated that he knew something holy was there, and those about him witnessed the tears streaming down his face. He had felt the beautiful influence of the Spirit found so often in the temples. He knew something good was there and felt joy inside. It was a real, tangible feeling.

Two young Hawaiians were credited with saving the lives of their friends in separate incidents. Ranceford K. Shea of the Waianae First Ward, Waipahu Hawaii Stake, received the Honor Medal for Lifesaving from the Boy Scouts of America for helping his friend, Max Miller, reach the safety of the beach after being knocked off a reef by a wave. The younger boy hit his head, and Ranceford pulled him to safety.

While on a class outing near Kualoa Beach Park, Leandra Arlyn K. Data of the Waipahu Ward, Waipahu Hawaii Stake, helped save the lives of several of her fellow classmates. The large group was following a reef to a nearby island when several got out of line and fell off into deeper water. Leandra was one in this group. She resisted panic and helped her friend who couldn’t swim to relax and float. Then after being picked up by a rescue boat, she helped pull others to safety. Even though her friend was carried away by a current, Leandra’s quick instructions saved her life. Her friend was found in good condition still floating like Leandra had taught her.

Our love can expand from a close circle of family to encompass not only our friends but ultimately our neighbors—and even enemies. One Church member serving in the American military in post–World War II Japan told of his struggle with bitterness toward the Japanese people. After being welcomed into a shrine of worship by Japanese townspeople, however, he found that “their spirits touched mine, and I felt an amazing change in my feelings toward them. My bitterness melted. … I thought about what had happened in that shrine and the amazing transformation I felt toward the people there.”11

Diana Vasquez didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to her father. She didn’t know she needed to. When she and her two brothers went to school on June 9, 2007, he seemed fine. But before she got home, he lay down to rest and didn’t wake up.
“It was so unexpected,” says Diana, who was 16 at the time. “At first I couldn’t accept it.”
But when tragedy strikes without warning, as it did in Diana’s family, suddenly things that really matter—like family—become more important.
Fortunately for Diana’s family, being united here and hereafter was something they were already working on. Pulling together when hard times could have pulled them apart has brought peace and happiness in this life and hope that they can be together in the next.
Less than a week before Diana’s father died, he taught a family home evening lesson on being united in keeping their covenants so they could be together forever. “Nobody has tomorrow guaranteed,” he said. “We need to be prepared so that if any one of us dies, we can still be together.”
Diana has learned how working together to keep gospel covenants can bring a family together, and she is grateful she learned before it was too late.
The last thing Diana’s father said to her as she left for school on the day he died was, “Te quiero mucho, Dianita.” (I love you very much, little Diana.)
Diana has confidence in the Lord’s promise that her family can be together again if they will continue to keep their covenants.
“I have seen how Heavenly Father has brought us closer together for following the Savior,” she says. “I have to believe He will also keep His promise that we can be together forever if we keep the commandments.
“I know our families can truly be eternal thanks to the divine plan.
“I know we can realize the eternal glory our Heavenly Father promises. Only by enduring to the end, putting our hearts into the things of God, and helping each other can we achieve our objective to be an eternal family.”

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. Three minutes later, the plane struck a flock of Canada geese and lost all engine power. Unable to reach any airport, pilot in command Chesley Sullenberger glided the plane to a water landing in the Hudson River. All 155 people aboard were rescued. This incident came to be known as the "Miracle on the Hudson."
Afterward, Sullenberger was asked what he had done that led to the rescue of everyone. He said: “One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education, and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."[1]
Chesley Sullenberger was a military fighter pilot before flying commercial planes for 29 years. He had spent tens of thousands of hours in the air.[2] The daily checklists he had followed, the simulators he had practiced in, all the little things that happened throughout his career prepared him so he could act appropriately when an emergency presented itself.