Gospel Story Finder

First, in a basketball game when the outcome was in doubt, the coach sent me onto the playing floor right after the second half began. I took an in-bounds pass, dribbled the ball toward the key, and let the shot fly. Just as the ball left my fingertips, I realized why the opposing guards did not attempt to stop my drive: I was shooting for the wrong basket! I offered a silent prayer: “Please, Father, don’t let that ball go in.” The ball rimmed the hoop and fell out.

From the bleachers came the call: “We want Monson, we want Monson, we want Monson—out!” The coach obliged.

I never was a basketball star. What timing—to be a freshman at the University of Utah when All-Americans Arnie Ferrin and Vern Gardner dominated the boards.

Leadership involves delegation, or including others. One of the responsibilities for the youth committee in Washington was to choose “tent leaders” to lead small groups at the camp. Ali remembers this experience as a powerful one: “We had a meeting, and we did a lot of praying together and thinking, and we really tried to invite the Spirit to be with us and to guide us.”

As my junior year in high school was about to come to a close, going on a mission was not one of my great desires. I had been associating with the wrong kind of friends and had done some things that were not right.
My parents had always encouraged me to go on a mission, but I felt that my friends and the things I was doing were more important. This feeling kept me from planning on a mission. The thought which continually ran through my mind was, “There is no way the Lord would want someone like me as his representative.” This thought only discouraged me more.
On May 17th, my life changed. I was at a party with a club from our high school at a nearby boat dock. I had arrived early so I could help set up tables and unload the grills and food. About 20 minutes later, people started to come and began playing volleyball and throwing Frisbees. After a while the food was ready. The weather was starting to turn bad, and the wind was blowing fairly hard. While I was eating, some guys playing volleyball hit the ball into the river. Someone yelled at me to go get it. Why they shouted my name, I don’t know. Foolishly I hurried from the table, ran as fast as I could, and jumped into the river, clothes and all.
The wind was causing waves which pushed the ball further and further away from me, and I kept going after it. The water was getting cold, and my strength started to give out. Before long the ball was out of reach, and I couldn’t swim any longer. I started yelling for help as loud as I could, but if anyone had jumped in from the dock to save me, they could never have reached me in time.
Gradually, things became blurry, and I couldn’t hear. I felt myself sinking, and as soon as my head was underwater, I felt someone grasp my hand. I was lifted into a boat. I had no idea where the boat came from. I had not seen it previously, but it was there when I needed it. I was taken to the dock, where I became oriented again after about 10 minutes.
Two days later, I received a call from the owner of the boat. He said he was at his house trying to get his boat ready for a trip when he felt he should take it out for a test drive even though the wind was blowing and the river was rough. Why did he go? I hadn’t realized it at the time, but it was to save a future missionary.
My close call made me think. If I was saved from drowning in that river, there had to be some purpose in store for me. That thought stayed in my mind. Then one day as I sat gazing over the river that nearly claimed my life, it occurred to me—a mission! I wonder if I am supposed to fulfill a mission.
I soon received my patriarchal blessing, which said that I had been spared for a special mission. That confirmed the answer to my question.
I served in the Ohio Columbus Mission. I had never before had such a peaceful feeling about doing something right in my life. Yes, the Lord did want me as one of his representatives.
I realized you don’t have to wait for an experience such as the one I had to decide whether to go on a mission. Decide ahead of time and do everything in your power to be prepared when the time comes.
Missionary work is a great work. It is an experience we all should share.

At age 22, Jill married Olga Kozáková. Like Jirí, Olga had been introduced to the Church as a teenager by school friends who had heard the missionaries preaching. “When I attended the lectures,” she says, “I felt very, very warm in my heart, and I said ‘I’m at home!’” She was baptized in Prague six months after Jirí was baptized in Plzen.

Jirí and Olga met later at an outing of young people from various branches. Groups of Saints went on outings every July 24th to Priests Hill near Karlstejn Castle to commemorate Elder John A. Widtsoe’s dedicatory prayer there on 24 July 1929. At times the youth had programs and competitions or studied scriptures together. Jirí and Olga were married 24 April 1954—Jirí’s 22nd birthday and the fifth anniversary of his baptism.

Soon thereafter, Jirí was drafted into mandatory military service. Regarded as an enemy of the state because of his religious affiliation, he spent his two-year stint in a military labor brigade rather than as a soldier. Turning to the Lord for strength, he endured, returning to civilian life “in good health and strengthened in the faith.”

Developing self-reliance means exercising our agency to care for ourselves and our families and doing our best to find solutions to our own problems. Becoming more self-reliant gives us increased capacity to serve in our homes, the Church, and our communities. One of the best ways to teach these concepts is by example, as this member describes:
“For as long as I can remember, my mom has risen early each day to study the scriptures. I have seen how she has developed a spiritual strength that carries her through difficult times. She depends on her own relationship with Heavenly Father to be her support. Along with her spiritual strength, I’ve been impressed by her ability to care for our family. I’ve watched her budget, sacrifice her own wants, seek education, and show a lot of humility in ways that have allowed her to meet our family’s financial needs and still be at home with her children after school. I want the kind of strength that she has, and I’m so grateful for her example that teaches me how to get it.”

“Why do you have to miss practice today?” I asked Merlin after school. “Don’t you know how important our game against the Tigers is?”
“Yes, I know,” Merlin answered. “But I can’t help it. I can’t stay for practice. I have an appointment. I told the coach, and he said it was OK. I have to go now, or I’ll be late.”
“Merlin always has an appointment on Thursdays,” Bob complained as we changed into our basketball uniforms.
“Well, it isn’t going to be much of a practice without him,” I grumbled.
And it wasn’t. Merlin is the best player on our team. He can sink a basket better than the rest of us, and he never double dribbles when he runs down the court.
“You boys were clumsy today,” the coach told us after practice. “You have to get on the ball if you expect to beat the Tigers.”
I’ll bet he wishes Merlin had been here, I thought. Practice always goes better when Merlin plays with us.
“Maybe Merlin has a job. Or maybe Merlin’s sick and goes to the doctor every Thursday,” Bob said as we were eating a snack at my house.
“Bob,” I said, wiping cookie crumbs from my mouth, “I have a brilliant idea. We don’t have a practice next Thursday, so why don’t we follow Merlin and see where his appointment is?”
“But that’d be spying!”
“Well, it’s the only way we’re going to find out, isn’t it? Merlin’s sure not going to tell us.”
When Thursday finally came, Bob and I stood by the corner of the school building and watched Merlin get on his bike. We waited until he was a half-block away, then jumped on our bikes and followed him.
“Don’t go too fast,” Bob warned, “or he’ll see us.”
I felt like a detective following a criminal instead of a friend.
Bob and I shadowed Merlin for ten blocks, six of them uphill. “No wonder Merlin is in such good shape,” I told Bob, panting as we pedaled our bikes up yet another hill.
“Maybe this is all he does on Thursdays,” Bob said, puffing just as hard as I was.
Merlin finally stopped in front of the Westchester Nursing Home. He parked his bike and went in.
“I’m not going in there!” Bob told me.
“All right, all right!” I said irritably. I wasn’t mad at Bob, and I wasn’t mad at Merlin. I was mad at myself for spying on Merlin in the first place.
“What do you suppose he does in there?” Bob asked.
“Maybe his grandparents live there.”
“No. They all live in Texas. I know, because I heard his mother talking about them once.”
“Well, we might as well go home,” I said, starting to get on my bike.
“Wait!” Bob said in a loud whisper. “There’s Merlin!”
We hid behind a hedge as Merlin came out of the building and pushed a man in a wheelchair over to the shade of a large oak tree. The man gave Merlin a book, and Merlin sat down on the grass and began to read aloud.
Bob and I couldn’t hear what Merlin was reading, but the old man seemed to relax in his chair. Every now and then the man would smile. When he smiled, he looked a lot younger. After about twenty minutes, Merlin closed the book and stood up.
“We’d better get out of here,” I whispered.
“Too late,” Bob said. “He’s spotted us.”
“What are you guys doing here?” Merlin asked, coming over to the hedge we’d been hiding behind.
“Well … we …”
“Ah …”
“We were just curious about where you go every Thursday,” I finally managed to splutter.
Merlin hesitated, then said, “I never told you guys because I thought you might think it was sissy.”
“After that bike ride, no one would dare think you were a sissy,” I said. “My legs are still sore.”
“Going downhill will be easier.” Merlin laughed. “Come and meet my friend.”
Bob and I met Mr. Allen. He didn’t have any family and he couldn’t see very well and there was something wrong with his legs. Merlin read to him from the Bible or the Book of Mormon every Thursday.
Mr. Allen told us about playing center on his grade school basketball team the year it won first place in the city and about some other neat things he did when he was a kid. Bob and I really liked him.
It’s been three weeks since we first went to the nursing home. Our team beat the Tigers by twelve points, and the coach said the team is really shaping up. We never practice on Thursdays anymore because all the team members now have very important appointments.
Today, I’m going to be very careful riding up the hills. I’m taking flowers to my friend at the Westchester Nursing Home. Her name is Mrs. Olivia Martinez.

Genealogy has been one of the slowest programs of the Church in this area. Yet when the priesthood decided a month ago that this too could be changed and then staged a genealogical work kick-off dinner, the response was overwhelming.

Anyone who’s been a Boy Scout can tell you that becoming an Eagle is no simple task. But for Ryan Scholes, a member of the Basalt Ward, Firth Idaho Stake, becoming an Eagle Scout was an extra-special achievement.
Because Ryan has Down’s syndrome, earning merit badges, learning Scouting skills, and organizing his Eagle project were all more challenging than usual. Other members of his troop helped him with some of the more difficult tasks, but little by little, Ryan became a true Scouter on his own.
The day before Ryan turned 18, he completed his project of collecting more than 700 food items for needy families in his troop area. And, although it may have been a little harder for Ryan to achieve the rank of Eagle, he’s proud that in his troop he’s just “one of the boys.”

A deacons quorum president startled his adult leaders by asking a boy who hadn’t been coming to church to offer the prayer in quorum meeting. When asked afterward if it really was wise to ask a boy to pray who had only been in church the second time, he responded, “But I just spent three days this week teaching him how to pray.”

Recently, I visited with the family of a young mother who died while giving birth to her fifth child. I expected anguish but found hope and determination. Her husband cherished the time they had together. Their children understood the plan of salvation and knew they could be with their mother again, forever. She had never been too busy for those most dear to her. At her young age, this sister had served as a Relief Society president, always putting her marriage and family first.

As I visited with the mother of the deceased woman, she remarked that her highest priority was to raise her daughters to be righteous women. Even though her daughter’s life was cut short, this daughter created a tapestry of righteous gospel living in her home.

While David loved serving at D.I., his missionary efforts didn’t stop there. In the evenings, he went team teaching with the full-time missionaries, resulting in several baptisms, one where he was asked to perform the baptism.
“I figured if she had enough faith to ask me to baptize her, I had enough faith to find a way to do it,” remembers Elder Eves. And so on January 1, 2000, being strapped in his shower chair, Elder Eves said the baptismal prayer and lowered Robin Rasmussen into the water. No one will ever forget the spirit present that day.

That kind of harvest is being enjoyed throughout Brazil. It extends even to the far reaches of the Amazon. On a map, the Amazon River appears to slice off the top of South America in its 6,400 kilometer course from the Andes Mountains in the west to the Atlantic Ocean in the east. This great river, 145 kilometers wide at its mouth, is deep enough for ocean-going vessels to navigate upstream approximately 1,000 kilometers.
One of the many who rely on the river for a livelihood is Brother Honorato Bruce Rolim, a member of the Itaporanga Branch in the small Amazonian town of Itacoatiara. A fisherman, Brother Rolim was himself gathered into the gospel net when he invited the full-time missionaries into his home and then accepted the baptismal challenge. His wife, Nilza, a member of another church, was fearful of taking such a step.
“My friends warned me against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” she says. “They told me that if my husband joined the Church he would go to hell, and if I followed him, I would go there, too.”
But Brother Rolim had a strong testimony that the Church was true, and he wanted Nilza and their oldest boys to be baptized. So he made a plan. Itacoatiara is a town of relatively few motorized vehicles. Horse-drawn carts are fairly common, a bus circles the outskirts of the town, and bicycles are pedaled over bumpy or unfinished roads. But most people walk. It is a 3.2 kilometer walk to church from the Rolims’ home.
“I was sure my wife would never make the effort to go to church if she had to walk there for the first time,” he says. “But I felt that if I could get her to church just once, she would feel the Spirit. My plan was to hire a taxi to take her for that first visit.” It took more than three months to save the (U.S.) $7.00 taxi fare.
Nilza was impressed by her husband’s thoughtfulness. “Once I got to church, I felt at home,” she remembers. “I felt comfortable with the members. I learned more about the gospel that one morning than I had ever learned in all the time I had attended my own church.” Soon, she and two sons, Helio, 14, and Euciney, 8, were baptized. The third son, Honorato, was baptized when he came of age.
Like many Brazilian Saints, the Rolims gladly share their testimony of the gospel by inviting friends into their home to meet the missionaries. Their fellowshipping efforts have resulted in at least 35 baptisms.
“Brother and Sister Rolim are typical of the Brazilian Saints,” says Elder Matthew Connelly, a returned missionary who served in Itacoatiara. “They are eager to share the gospel. For example, a member family invited my companion and me to their home to meet with a few nonmember friends. We expected maybe two or three people, but the family had more than 20 people there for us to talk to.”

Elder Perry: We should never forget the value of partaking of the sacrament. I recall another experience I had in the military. I was part of a group that was able to stay together for a time. We held sacrament meeting every Sunday I was in the service. Sometimes the water came from a canteen cup and the bread was a biscuit from our K rations, but we partook of the sacrament. Friends who were separated from us, who did not have the opportunity to take the sacrament for a long time, seemed to be not as sure in their faith because of it.

5 The next day Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and others met at a certain place in Independence. They read scriptures and prayed. Then Joseph dedicated the place where the temple would one day be built. Shortly afterward a conference was held, during which many of the Saints were filled with the Holy Ghost. Joseph told them that God would bless them if they kept the commandments.

The Fletcher Family of the Rochdale Ward, Ashton Stake, completed a 12K walk and bike ride on behalf of the RBL and raised £900 for the poppy appeal. The purpose was to add support for the RBL, knowing that many of those who customarily volunteered could not do so because of COVID-19, and the physical presence had been significantly limited in places such as supermarkets.
Kevin said, “It was our way of recognising, teaching the why and remembering the great sacrifice of so many, supporting a worthy cause and engaging our children and grandchildren in serving others. We set off in stages with safe distancing in mind, there were no complaints, and everyone commented on how much they enjoyed the experience. Each received a medal after the trek as a reminder of the day.

After my friend asked me those questions, I finally understood what the true purpose of life is. I still believe that getting married and having children is central to Heavenly Father’s eternal plan for each of us, but I’ve realized it’s not the whole plan.
We’re here on this earth to grow, share truth, follow Jesus Christ, and ultimately return to Heavenly Father (see Alma 34:32).
So, with that in mind, I started to pray and ask God to help me find my purpose and my strengths. Prayer and my own efforts to try new hobbies and increase my faith revealed my purpose over time. I realized I had great faith in Jesus Christ. And part of my purpose and plan on earth is helping others develop and strengthen their faith in Him too. This truth has brought me great direction in my life and helped me focus on becoming who He wants me to be.

Wendy M. Mitosinka of the Bradshaw Ward, Prescott Arizona Stake, remembers one such lesson from her childhood: “My mother played our piano, and we sang and sang. When we sang ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd,’ I felt the Spirit strongly, and tears came to my eyes. The melody stayed with me, and later I learned to play it on my guitar. Today when things get rough, the hymns I learned as a child bring me peace and happiness.”

In the humid heat of a Thai morning, the newly ordained elder knelt on an old newspaper to protect his knees from the rough concrete floor of the hut. He was wearing a second-hand white shirt, an old tie, and sandals on his feet. Reverently, he broke bread and blessed it. Thach Khuong was not only grateful for the opportunity to participate in a sacrament service, but also for life itself. He had recently led his family through the dangers of war-ravaged Vietnam and Cambodia to the promise of freedom and safety in a United Nations refugee camp in Panat Nikom, Thailand.
When Brother Thach first arrived at the camp, he surprised Church welfare services missionary Elyce Jones by shaking her hand instead of giving her the traditional Cambodian bow of greeting. He told her that he was a member of the Church and that he held the Aaronic Priesthood. It was welcome news. Welfare services missionaries were assigned to teach refugees Western culture and English as a second language, but it was against United Nations’ policy for them to proselyte. However, with proper authority, refugee Church members were permitted to conduct Church affairs, including Sunday services.
At Brother Thach’s news, Sister Jones and other welfare services missionaries contacted Elder Marion D. Hanks of the First Quorum of the Seventy, then the Church executive administrator for Southeast Asia, and informed him that an Aaronic priesthood holder had arrived in the camp. Following a personal interview, Elder Hanks ordained Thach Khuong to the office of elder. “Brother Thach was our first priesthood holder in the camp,” says Sister Jones. “With his ordination, we were permitted to hold Sunday services.”

There’s a story told in Argentina that goes something like this: A pack of dogs is standing on a street corner, telling each other the woes and troubles they suffer in their lives as dogs. There is a large number of them, and the conversation is very loud. Suddenly the most observant one lets out a cry: “It’s the dog catcher!” Immediately animals scatter in every direction, as fast as they can go. About two blocks away, one of them stops and says, “Why am I running? I’m a cat!”
Although this story is usually told for children, I think it makes a great point for all of us. Many times we act like that cat—because of what others do or say we fail to exercise one of the greatest gifts God has given us, that of making choices.

I remember my father stretched out by the fireplace, reading the scriptures and other good books, and I would stretch out by his side. I remember the cards he would keep in his shirt pocket with quotes of the scriptures and Shakespeare and new words that he would memorize and learn. I remember the gospel questions and discussions at the dinner table. I remember the many times my father took me to visit the elderly—how we would stop by to pick up ice cream for one or a chicken dinner for another or his final handshake with some money enclosed. I remember the good feeling and the desire to be like him.