Gospel Story Finder

While most quorum members are still in bed, David is up checking over his agenda for presidency meeting and preparing to conduct the quorum meeting.
Shortly before time for priesthood meeting, he calls some of his deacons to remind them of assignments or invite them to the meeting.
David’s father calls the family together for family prayer before he and David leave for priesthood meeting.
David knows that he must set an example in personal grooming as in all other ways. Before leaving for the chapel, he checks his appearance in the hall mirror.
This is a special day. It is the first day the Brampton Ward is meeting in phase one of its new meetinghouse. David and the other deacons have helped in its construction. Now they will help with the landscaping and the construction of phase two. They will always help to keep it clean and its atmosphere reverent.
David welcomes the deacons and adult leaders to the deacons quorum meetings, discusses business, and makes assignments. Then he listens intently as his adviser teaches the lesson.
After quorum meeting, he meets with his counselors, Randy Sookhoo and Terry DeGouw and his secretary, Kingsley Anderson, in quorum presidency meeting. They complete their three-month calendar, and David assigns responsibility for the activation of quorum members. They also plan a strawberry-picking party.
In Sunday School David serves as bishop’s messenger and passes the sacrament. Afterward he takes an active part in his Sunday School class discussion.
After lunch David and his father work on their talks. David’s father is a high councilor, and he and David are speaking at a ward in Toronto this afternoon.
David talks on the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood. His father talks on the importance of families. Everyone listens intently as David speaks. He has prepared well and speaks fluently.
Back home, the family relaxes after dinner by playing a scripture-study game. David does well because he studies his scriptures daily.
Before getting ready for bed, David records his day’s activities and insights in his journal.
Sunday is a special day for a deacons quorum president, but throughout the entire week, David will try to help his deacons. He says, “I feel that if I don’t do my job I’m going to be in real trouble, because the Church needs good deacons to make it strong.”

The next year we enrolled in junior high school. But the building could not accommodate all the students, so our class of the seventh grade was sent back to the Hamilton School.

We were insulted. We were furious. We’d spent six unhappy years in that building, and we felt we deserved something better. The boys of the class all met after school. We decided we wouldn’t tolerate this kind of treatment. We were determined we’d go on strike.

The next day we did not show up. But we had no place to go. We couldn’t stay home because our mothers would ask questions. We didn’t think of going downtown to a show. We had no money for that. We didn’t think of going to the park. We were afraid we might be seen by Mr. Clayton, the truant officer. We didn’t think of going out behind the school fence and telling shady stories because we didn’t know any. We’d never heard of such things as drugs or anything of the kind. We just wandered about and wasted the day.

The next morning, the principal, Mr. Stearns, was at the front door of the school to greet us. His demeanor matched his name. He said some pretty straightforward things and then told us that we could not come back to school until we brought a note from our parents. That was my first experience with a lockout. Striking, he said, was not the way to settle a problem. We were expected to be responsible citizens, and if we had a complaint, we could come to the principal’s office and discuss it.

There was only one thing to do, and that was to go home and get the note.

I remember walking sheepishly into the house. My mother asked what was wrong. I told her. I said that I needed a note. She wrote a note. It was very brief. It was the most stinging rebuke she ever gave me. It read as follows:

“Dear Mr. Stearns,
“Please excuse Gordon’s absence yesterday. His action was simply an impulse to follow the crowd.”
She signed it and handed it to me.

I walked back over to school and got there about the same time a few other boys did. We all handed our notes to Mr. Stearns. I do not know whether he read them, but I have never forgotten my mother’s note. Though I had been an active party to the action we had taken, I resolved then and there that I would never do anything on the basis of simply following the crowd. I determined then and there that I would make my own decisions on the basis of their merits and my standards and not be pushed in one direction or another by those around me.

That decision has blessed my life many times, sometimes in very uncomfortable circumstances. It has kept me from doing some things which, if indulged in, could at worst have resulted in serious injury and trouble, and at the best would have cost me my self-respect.

For Camber Page, 17, of Macclenny, Florida, writing her testimony was a spiritual experience. She’s borne her testimony in church before, but, she says, “I get nervous, and I don’t get to say what I am really feeling.” But when she wrote her testimony, she says, “The Spirit was just coming out of me. I had time to think about it. I was able to write it down without getting up and crying and getting all emotional and shaking. I didn’t know I had believed in so much until I started writing it down. I thought, Gosh, my testimony’s stronger than I thought it was.”

For some of the youth, the mere mention of the word genealogy used to conjure up images of endlessly searching through dusty manuscripts that led nowhere.

“I wasn’t too excited at first,” says Tyson Thacker, 15. The term family history seems more inviting, but still there are challenges.

“I just wondered how I would find names,” adds Tyson’s sister Miriam, a Laurel. “I knew a lot of work had already been done in our family.”

But with four young people in the program and lots of help from their mother, they had plenty of support. And support was needed when they didn’t find any names from February until July, despite lots of looking.

Things were getting pretty discouraging until one night when three of the Thacker youth and their mother ventured down to the library again.

“We were all looking on different films and would say to each other, ‘Go look here and go look over there,’” says Sister Thacker. “Everyone was running around getting names and checking them. We accomplished much more than one person could have done alone, and that was the night we finally found someone! It’s hard to describe how exciting that was. After that it seemed like everything opened up and we just kept finding names.”

For Tino, missionary service took an unexpected turn. Deferment of their mandatory military obligation is not allowed for Portuguese missionaries, and Tino was called into his country’s air force. He still remembers the counsel of R. Perry Ficklin, then president of the Portugal Lisbon Mission, who explained that Elder Moreira’s missionary service wasn’t over, that he was only being “transferred to another area—more difficult.” Tino went on to teach and baptize a number of people in the air force.

David dove off the boat ramp into the deep, green water, down and down, looking for the happiness he’d always found when swimming in the pond. The pond was on his grandfather’s land, and he was staying with his grandparents, at least for now. He burst through the surface and gulped down the warm June air. The cows, which had followed him to the pond, looked startled at his sudden appearance from under the water, as if they hadn’t seen him do this a thousand times before. They were lined up on the wooden ramp like a row of animal bathing beauties on a diving board.
David chuckled at them and rolled over onto his back, remembering how it was when he was only five and his mother was teaching him to swim. He had clung to her, scared but excited, until she finally went under the water and he went under with her, holding his breath for the first time. When they came up, he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t stop.
“What’s so funny?” she’d demanded. “You—your hair was going straight up!” It was the first of many days spent at the pond, giggling and splashing and laughing.
That summer his grandmother had planted yellow willows along the banks. Now they had grown up tall, just like David. On one side of the pond, his grandfather had given the willows a haircut, cutting their weeping branches off evenly six feet above the dusty path. On the other side, the willows were long and trailing, their leafy tips dipping into the green water. David caught some of these with his toes as he floated by on his back. He pulled them along with him for a little while, shaking the leaves higher up on the tree. He hadn’t found what he was looking for; he knew that he wouldn’t now. Even the combination of the warm sun and the cool water wasn’t enough to make him happy again.
Still floating, he looked straight up into the open sky and squinted at a passing bird. He could hear his grandfather working with his hoe. Even though he was eleven years old, his grandfather still stayed close by when he was swimming. He wondered how much longer he and Dad would stay with Grandpa. They had come to the farm as soon as school was out for the summer, because Dad knew it was David’s favorite place.
When his mother was still alive, the pond was the best place in the world. But Mom had died in the spring, and he missed her so much that his head ached from it. He wanted a whole family with a father and a mother. The sky suddenly blurred as if he were under water again. He desperately wanted to feel better, but he didn’t know how.
“Shoo, you moos!” He waved his arms. “Go on, move!” The cows lumbered off, settling down under the willows. He climbed onto the ramp and lay there, making a wet silhouette on the boards, and thought of his mother. She had been the only member of the Church in the family. He had gone to Primary, and Dad had listened to the missionary discussions, but neither he nor his dad had been baptized.
After she died, Dad talked with him about joining the Church. “Davy, I’ve decided to be baptized. I’d like you to be baptized with me, but you are old enough to decide for yourself.”
“I’ve already decided. I don’t want to be baptized with you.” David turned away so he wouldn’t see the disappointment in his father’s face. He didn’t know then—or now—exactly why he answered the way he did. He wasn’t sure of anything.
“All right,” Dad had said, “but will you think and pray about it while we’re at Grandpa’s? You know that if you’re baptized, we can go to the temple next summer and be sealed together as a family.”
David knew about the temple. He had learned about it in Primary, but all that he cared about now was that Mom was gone, that she wouldn’t swim and laugh with him again.
Dad was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a Saturday afternoon, and the smile on his face as he came up out of the water was one of a very few that David saw anymore.
He was still thinking about that rare smile, when a bee buzzed close to his ear. He sat up. His swim trunks were nearly dry, and the planks of the boat ramp were getting hot in the sun. He remembered Grandpa telling him the story of building the boat ramp on the little pond.
“When Grandma and I were first married and bought this farm, Davy, there was no ramp, just a pond. Grandma said that she wanted to swim but that she wasn’t going to get her feet muddy getting out of the water—you know your grandma. So I went up to the lake to see how it was done, then came back and built Grandma the boat ramp.”
“Is that when the neighbors started to tease you?”
“Yes.” Grandpa laughed, remembering. “They wanted to know when I was going to bring my yacht up to our watering hole. But it didn’t matter. I loved your grandma so much that I would do anything for her. I still do.”
Now Grandpa’s words repeated themselves inside his head: “I loved your grandma so much that I would do anything for her.” Did Dad love Mom that much? He thought about his father’s plan to go to the temple next summer. Yes, he loved her enough to study and pray about the Church and then be baptized. What about me? he wondered. Do I love Mom that much?
The tune to a Primary song came into his head. Its last few words floated like a whisper into his heart: “A family is forever.”
He bowed his head and put his hands in his lap, praying for the first time since Mom died. “Heavenly Father, please help me to know what to do. Please help me to feel better. Please help me!”
Suddenly he was warm all over, with a feeling that started somewhere near his heart and spread out to his fingers and toes. He felt reassured and relieved, just as he had when he was learning to swim and felt Mom’s arms around him. There was something else too. He knew the gospel was true, and he wanted to be baptized and go to the temple the next summer with Dad. He would tell him tonight.
All at once he jumped up and took a joyful flying leap off Grandma’s boat ramp, making a gigantic splash in the pond. He rose quickly to the surface, breaking through the water with a grin on his face. The cows looked at him in surprise, as if they had never seen him do it before.

It was during sixth grade that Syndi’s interest in science was piqued by school experiments. “We did stuff like grow crystals and turn eggs to rubber in vinegar,” she recalls. “I loved it.” In seventh grade her experiments became a tad more sophisticated. She built a direct current motor as part of an assigned science project.
“Dad was terrified I was going to electrocute myself,” she says with a grin. “I didn’t, but I have come close. See.” Syndi thrusts out her hand to show a tiny scar.
Her mother said, “I had no idea Syndi had all this potential. In seventh and eighth grades, she just exploded.”
But it was in ninth grade where Syndi began leaping tall buildings and winning awards faster than a speeding bullet. Her solar tracker alone won four first-place awards—one at the Utah State Science Fair and three at the International Science Fair in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was invited to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory for a week; the Solar Energy Research Institute for four days; the Colorado School of Mines, Energy, and Minerals Field Institute for six days; the Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California, for four days; and most recently the World Energy Congress Conference in Montreal for eight days. Her trips were all paid for by the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, or other government agencies.
Representatives from 93 nations attended the conference in Montreal to which youth were invited. Of the approximately 80 young people in attendance from countries around the world, Syndi was one of only a handful of girls. She also had the distinction of being the youngest in attendance.
“It was great,” she says with excitement, “except I don’t speak French, and they kept serving me wine. Someone finally told me to turn my glass upside down, and I wouldn’t be served.”
According to Syndi, she’s learned far more in the past year than just biotechnology, hydropower, and fossil energy. “I’ve learned a whole lot about everything!”
She returns from each conference ten to fifteen pounds heavier. Not from junk food, but from the reams of printed material she lugs home. “Boxes of it,” says Wanda. “And she really reads it.”
She also enjoys discussing each conference with her father, who is still one step ahead. The other day she and her dad had a heated discussion about the ozone layer while pushing Wanda through the grocery store in her wheelchair.
And it’s her mother who has introduced Syndi to another world—art and literature. Syndi has taken to it just as she has with science. She has won awards at her high school for her poetry.
If it’s not global monitoring Syndi’s batting around, it might be Nephi and the brass plates. Religion seems to crop up wherever she is. After her first few trips she decided there were two things she couldn’t leave home without—her Book of Mormon and Church pamphlets.
“The people I’ve met seem to respect my beliefs,” says Syndi, “and no one has tried to pressure me to do things I don’t believe in. Many have made an effort not to swear around me. One night I stayed up really late explaining the Church.”
Dedicated to the gospel, Syndi has read the Old Testament, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants. She has also read the Book of Mormon three times and the New Testament twice.
Syndi wishes more girls would join her in the math and science arena. Only a small percentage of the nation’s students are going into the technological fields, a fact which has not escaped the notice of many large corporations and government agencies concerned about the nation’s future.
“I know the things I enjoy don’t appeal to everyone,” says Syndi. “But there are girls who are being stopped or who are stopping themselves simply because they’re girls, and that’s not right. I’ve never worried that boys would like me less because I’m good at math and science, but I know a lot of girls do. I have a friend who loves chemistry but can’t handle competing with men. I wish girls would realize there’s a lot they could contribute to the field and that being smart in math and science doesn’t make them less appealing. I think it makes them more so because guys can communicate with them better.”
In addition, women often have a different perspective than men, according to Syndi, therefore their voices need to be heard more. “In Montreal, for example, I noticed during a debate that the men tended to hold the economy above ecology and women vice versa. But I think that’s beginning to change.”
With so much sizzle at such a young age, will Syndi burn out?
“Definitely not!” she says. “Every year it gets more interesting and exciting.” Her mother says that when Syndi gets home from a seminar, she’s literally dancing around the room because she is so excited by what she is learning.
Her long-range goals (not necessarily in order) are to earn an engineering degree at Cal Tech on scholarship, be married in the temple, raise a family, and improve the world’s energy outlook.
“I think I can make a difference,” she says simply.

Fifty-two years ago, I baptized a promising and wonderful young man in London, England. He was gifted and educated. He was sincere and prayerful. My companion and I taught him over a long period of time. We both left to return home after he had been baptized.

Our convert was a shy and sensitive young man. While still in the infancy of his membership, he was criticized for a small mistake that he had made in the responsibility he carried in the branch.

When the young man left the meeting that night, he never returned. He had been hurt and wounded by the thoughtless remark of a man his senior who should have known better.

I tried to keep track of this new convert through correspondence. But World War II came along. He entered the military service. After the war he married, and a while later his wife passed away, bringing a greater tragedy into his life. He rose in his vocation to become an executive of recognized capacity in the business world of England. He might have made a tremendous contribution to the Church, but an ugly scar remained from that wound suffered in a branch meeting many years earlier.

Eventually, I learned of his whereabouts. He had remarried and was retired and living in Europe. I visited him once. I write to him and send him books and other materials. He writes to me, and we are friends. My companion, with whom I taught this good man, has passed away. I have done everything I know how to do to try to revive our friend’s faith. Thus far, it has been fruitless.

I occasionally reflect on the remarkable way in which we found him. I reflect on the many hours we spent teaching him. I reflect on the struggle he had within himself to make the right decision to be baptized. I reflect on his joy in having found the Church. And then I reflect on his loss. It need never have happened. It should never have happened.

The blessings that have come to our family from doing this work have been incalculable. Missionary work has brought the Spirit of God into our home and our hearts. About four years ago, for example, we invited one of Clayton’s former students, Sunil, to take the missionary discussions in our home. The missionaries did a wonderful job, and at the close of the discussion they both testified of the truths they had taught us. We both bore our testimonies, and Clayton asked one of the missionaries to close with prayer. Just then our son Spencer raised his hand. “Dad, can I say something?” He then rose to his feet and, looking at Sunil with the purest gaze, said, “Sunil, I’m only 11 years old. But I want you to know that the things the missionaries have told you tonight are true. I know that God lives. I know that you and I are His sons and that Joseph Smith was truly a prophet of God.” As he shared his feelings, a sweet, powerful spirit came into the room.
The next day Sunil sent an e-mail saying that while he had appreciated the clear explanation of our beliefs that the missionaries and we had provided during the discussion, “when your son stood and said those words, I felt something inside that I have never felt before. This must be what you mean when you speak of the Spirit of God.”

The puppy was slobbering all over my clothes and nibbling my hands with his sharp baby teeth as we sat alone outside in the dark. The disorder and disarray of my home and the piles of dirty dishes and laundry made me want to run screaming into the night. I felt crushed by the burden of my general household tasks.
Then my calling as Relief Society president, never far from my attention, came to mind. I thought of all the sisters I needed to encourage, the tasks I needed to do, the meetings I needed to organize, the lessons I needed to teach, the interviews I needed to have.
Then I thought of each of my five children. They needed me to teach them, to guide them, to help them gain faith and strength.
I remembered our exchange student and her needs. I was still learning how to develop a friendship with her and was finding it hard to bridge the cultural divide and find a common ground.
Then I considered my husband and how little time I had been able to give him lately. I could see he was struggling and needed me too.
I didn’t know how to fit it all in. I couldn’t take all these heavy burdens anymore. My strength was spent.
I pleaded with my Father in Heaven for help with all I was carrying.
The soft response came. “What would you have me take away?”
It shot through my heart like lightning.
“Take away?”
I did the mental math. My house, despite the disorder, was mine. I was so grateful for it. I had painted its walls, built shelves, and made it a home. I would hate to have it taken away. I would keep that burden with a grateful heart.
I reviewed my calling as Relief Society president. It was heavy and took much of my time, but it was helping me grow. I had learned so much, and I loved the sisters so deeply now. I wanted to learn more, and I knew I had promised to serve the Lord willingly. I would gratefully keep this burden too.
Next, thoughts of each of my precious children penetrated my heart. I love being a mother. I am so grateful I could bring these wonderful spirits into the world and watch them grow and develop. They each have a permanent place in my heart. I want them all with me on this journey of learning and growing and loving. What heartache I would feel to lose any of them.
Even though developing a relationship with our exchange student was sometimes a struggle, she was teaching me about a new culture, and I was enjoying the experience. I could see how loved and valued she was to our family. She was becoming as dear to me as my own children, and I wanted her in my life. She needed to stay.
My dear husband was my helpmeet through it all. He encouraged me and helped me carry the heavy load. I couldn’t imagine life without him by my side. What a blessing he was.
The puppy crawled about at my feet. He was my newest burden. He had come to us very sick and with a broken leg. We had prayed as a family for him to be healed. Slowly, he had gotten better, and now I watched him happily attempt to stand and to crawl. He stumbled a bit still, and I knew I would need to spend many hours helping him walk and run. He was the most obvious thing to give up, but I loved this little bundle of slobber too. Cheerfully I would accept this burden as well.
I felt humbled. With a new perspective, each of the burdens fit well into my heart. I did not want any to be taken away. I bowed in gratitude to my Father in Heaven for this lesson. I told Him I wanted to keep what I had been given and I thanked Him.
My steps were lighter and my future felt brighter as I carried the puppy inside that night. While my burdens had not been lifted, I had been shown what I had forgotten: each of these “burdens” was actually a blessing and evidence of God’s love for me. I also knew that I did not have to carry them alone—as I turned to Him, the Savior would strengthen me and offer me His rest (see Matthew 11:28–30).
The author lives in Idaho.

Some years ago in our meetinghouse in Darmstadt, Germany, a group of brethren was asked to move a grand piano from the chapel to the adjoining cultural hall, where it was needed for a musical event. None were professional movers, and the task of getting that gravity-friendly instrument through the chapel and into the cultural hall seemed nearly impossible. Everybody knew that this task required not only physical strength but also careful coordination. There were plenty of ideas, but not one could keep the piano balanced correctly. They repositioned the brethren by strength, height, and age over and over again—nothing worked.
As they stood around the piano, uncertain of what to do next, a good friend of mine, Brother Hanno Luschin, spoke up. He said, “Brethren, stand close together and lift where you stand.”
It seemed too simple. Nevertheless, each lifted where he stood, and the piano rose from the ground and moved into the cultural hall as if on its own power. That was the answer to the challenge. They merely needed to stand close together and lift where they stood.

I had a similar experience as a young boy on my grandparents’ farm. They taught me about tithing with examples of one egg or one bushel of peaches out of ten. Years later I used those same kinds of examples to try to teach the principles of tithing to our own children.

Parents are always looking for better ways to teach, and the results of their efforts are sometimes unexpected. Attempting to teach tithing to our young son, I explained the principle of a tenth and how it would apply to the eggs gathered in a chicken farm and the young calves or horses born in a breeding herd. When I finished what I was sure was a clear explanation, I wanted to test whether our seven-year-old had understood. I asked him to imagine that he was a farmer with a harvest of eggs and young animals. I supplied the figures and then asked our little boy what he would give to the bishop as tithing. He thought deeply for a moment and then said, “I would give him a very old horse.”

We obviously had some further conversations on the principle of tithing, and I am proud of the way he and his brother and sisters learned and practiced that principle. But I have often thought of that little boy’s words as I have observed how some adult Church members relate to the law of tithing. I think we still have some whose attitude and performance consist of giving the bishop something like “a very old horse.”

Corrie ten Boom, a devout Dutch Christian woman, found such healing despite having been interned in concentration camps during World War II. She suffered greatly, but unlike her beloved sister Betsie, who perished in one of the camps, Corrie survived.
After the war she often spoke publicly of her experiences and of healing and forgiveness. On one occasion a former Nazi guard who had been part of Corrie’s own grievous confinement in Ravensbrück, Germany, approached her, rejoicing at her message of Christ’s forgiveness and love.
“‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,’ he said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’
“His hand was thrust out to shake mine,” Corrie recalled. “And I, who had preached so often … the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. … Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
“I tried to smile, [and] I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
“And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
Corrie ten Boom was made whole.

Dan is trying very hard to follow the example that Jesus Christ has set for us. Last year he was baptized because he knew that that was what Jesus wanted him to do. And he was baptized in the Jordan River, where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist (see Mark 1:4–11).
DeAnna, Dan’s mom, said that he worked very hard to prepare himself for baptism by learning more about the gospel and by studying the scriptures every night. “He is a wonderful example to his younger brothers,” she said. “They want to be baptized, too, when they reach the age of accountability, eight years of age.”

When it seems that events conspire to prevent us from going to the temple, we can remember Jesus Christ’s assurance: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). As we persevere and attend the temple despite stumbling blocks, we’ll have the Savior’s help to overcome the world in which we live. One time as my husband and I were preparing to leave for the temple, one problem after another cropped up. Finally, as we were nearly out the door, we had a strained “marital moment.” As the two of us walked silently to the car, we could hear our oldest daughter reassure her sister, “Don’t worry; they always come home happy from the temple.” And she was right!

Michie Eguchi came to Hawaii from Japan in the early 1900s and brought with her a silk Japanese scroll. Her granddaughter Kanani Casey served a mission in Japan and later discovered that her grandmother’s scroll traced her family’s ancestry back almost a thousand years.
In 2013, Kanani’s house burned to the ground. She and her family lost nearly everything in the fire. They had stored their genealogy in plastic tubs underneath their bed. After the fire, they went back to the house, only to find a mountain of ash and soot.
“The only thing that I really hoped to find was the copy of the scroll with its translations and history,” Kanani said. “I was reassured that all the temple work had already been done for my Japanese ancestors, but the copy of the scroll was so precious to me.”
As Kanani and her husband, Billy, waded through the ashes, they eventually found a blue plastic bag. Inside the bag, they found the copy of the scroll, along with translations and a family history book, amazingly still intact. The scroll was just a little burned around the edges, but it was the only thing in their bedroom that survived.
Kanani feels the Lord preserved the scroll “for the benefit of my posterity as a testament of his love for us and to show the importance of doing family history and temple work” (in Christensen, Stories of the Temple in L??ie, Hawai?i, 172–74).

Illustrations by David Habben
At the end of my eighth grade year, I was so excited to try out for my junior high’s cheerleading squad. I remember watching the ninth-grade cheerleaders, hoping that I might be one of them the following year. I was excited when I realized a lot of my friends would be trying out too. After tryouts, I was thrilled to find out I had made the squad.
Throughout the summer, we learned chants, stunts, and a dance that we’d be performing throughout the year at games and assemblies. I asked my mother to download the song we were dancing to so I could practice at home. After she did, she was concerned that it was suggestive and inappropriate. I quickly explained that the music we were using at school had been edited and that the bad words were taken out. Then my mom explained that just removing the bad words from a song doesn’t remove the meaning. She helped me understand what kind of message I would be sending about myself if I were to dance to this kind of music.
The next day, I brought some wholesome music, hoping the coach would be open to changing the song because it was not appropriate for us. No one really liked my idea, and I chose to sit out while the rest of the squad continued to rehearse to the inappropriate song.
I was disappointed that I was the only one who seemed to be bothered by our squad’s choice of song, and I knew that by choosing to sit out, I would most likely be sitting out the entire year. This was very hard for me because I really wanted to feel like a part of the cheer squad. I knew this was the only dance we would be performing and that I would not get to be a part of the halftime performances.
I realized I would need to rely on the Lord to get me through this trial. I had not made the popular decision. I was very discouraged as young women I trusted as friends began gossiping about me, sharing unkind text messages with one another, and turning their backs on me. There were times I would show up and my teammates would ignore me and pretend I wasn’t there, but even this was better than the times we would sit in a circle while everyone openly talked about me. I struggled with the idea of having to suffer through this for the entire year. I am proud to say I never second-guessed my choice. I did, however, wonder why the right thing didn’t feel better. Why was I being punished for making the right choice?
In church when we talked about standing for truth and righteousness, I often pictured how glorious it would feel to make the right choice and have others happily follow. I thought of how wonderful it would feel to be a righteous leader. This experience helped me understand how difficult it truly is to stand up against your peers and those you respect—and how lonely it can be to stand alone.
As youth in the Church, we are going to have to make unpopular decisions. I know that by taking a stand for things that are virtuous and true, we will not only bless our own lives but the lives of those around us as well. In Joshua 1:9 we read, “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” The Lord loves us and is there to help us make the decisions that will define whom we will become.
I am grateful I was given the opportunity to stand up for what I believe in. I was grateful that I had the courage to stand alone among my peers. I was grateful to experience that the Lord does help us find the strength to do what is right. I could feel in my heart that He was proud of me. Deep down I knew I was a righteous leader, even if no one else followed.

Whether it be the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, carolers, hot cider, evergreens, turkeys, snow, presents or just that special smell in the air, something at Christmas forces the hearts of people all over the world to turn and reflect on what it is they are grateful for. For me it is a special Christmas in 1986.
In July of that same year, I had been in a diving accident while on vacation with my family at Lake Powell in southern Utah. After I was life-flighted to the nearest hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado, the doctors diagnosed my injury. The damage was severe and permanent. I had broken my neck and was paralyzed from the chest down. I lost complete control of my legs and partial control of my arms. I could no longer walk, stand, comb my own hair, or feed myself. I could barely breathe or speak.
I remember the first night I was in the hospital. I was scared. I had what seemed to be a thousand doctors and nurses who would come and examine me and then go into the corner and talk about it in private. They took X-rays, gave me shots, and brought me waivers to sign and explained my injury to me. All this, while I came in and out of consciousness.
A few days later, while I was getting my daily medication, I pulled my nurse aside. I told her that although I was aware that my injury required a long hospital stay, I needed to know how long, and I also needed to know when I could go home.
The nurse turned to me solemnly and said, “Well, Jason, if you work hard, maybe you’ll get to go home before Christmas.”
Christmas! I thought. You’ve got to be kidding! That’s six months from now! I can’t stay here for six months! Besides, what’s this maybe stuff? I’ve got to be home for Christmas.
It was then I decided that no matter what the cost, I would be home for Christmas. Little did I know that achieving this goal would mean hours and hours of therapy and days and days of work.
The months that followed were filled with sweat, blood, and tears. I sweat during physical therapy where I spent days trying to lift an ounce and weeks trying to sit up again. I bled when I was given a tracheotomy to help me breathe, and traction to support my neck. And I cried myself to sleep, wondering if I would live through the night. The only thing that made it all worth it was that I was working for something. I was working to go home. All I wanted was to go home, and I knew that the only way to get there was to get well.
There were many times I wanted to give up, days when I just didn’t think I could lift another weight, or even have the strength to push myself back to my room. Frustrated, I would convince myself that the task was too difficult, that I couldn’t work anymore, and that it was impossible anyway. I would think about all of the hours that I had yet to work, and how bad my body ached now. I would be discouraged that the progress seemed slow and the routine repetitious. I looked around me, and it didn’t seem that anyone else was all riled up about getting out, and so I wondered what I was all excited about. But then, I would think of home.
I would remember the smell of my mother’s kitchen, the family around the table eating treats after Dad’s family home evening lesson. I would remember my sister laughing at everything her brothers said, and family prayer around the downstairs couch.
It was then that I would pray for the strength and the power to continue to work. Heavenly Father answered my prayers and gave me the motivation to fight another day and regain the power to go home.
Finally, I was discharged. I would be home for Christmas.
In many ways, this Christmas was just like any other Christmas. My little brothers woke up at 4:30 A.M. to see if Santa had come yet. When they found that he had, they waited outside of my parents’ room anticipating the glorious time when Mom and Dad would say it was okay to open the gifts. Finally, the go-ahead was given. The boys scrambled downstairs to the tree. The boys got their action figures, my sister got clothes, and I received the stereo I had hoped for.
With the festivities over, my Dad took a moment to gather us all together. He began to talk about the importance of Christmas while we sat amidst the piles of wrapping paper and boxes. We were more concerned with the spoils of the day than what Dad was talking about, until he asked each child to take a minute to talk about the favorite gift they had received that day.
The frivolity that once filled the room was instantly replaced with a quiet somberness. As Dad went around to my brothers and sister, each of them, who had earlier been so concerned with their physical gifts, answered with the same response. They said, “Our best present is to have Jason home again.”
With tears in my eyes, I had to agree. It felt great to be home.
It was a Christmas to remember, and as I begin to reflect on what made it so special, I realize that although still very ill, I felt a kind of health that I had not felt for some time—the health that comes with a grateful heart. I was grateful to be home.

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the Diala ward in the Kolwezi Stake. I would like to share my testimony dating back to my years of secondary school when I admired a young couple who apparently lived in happiness. After beginning my university studies, I made the decision to get married before completing them, and today I’m blessed with a happy family.
The motivation behind this decision is based on the belief that the best place to nurture light and truth is in our home. The family is regarded as the Lord’s workshop where we learn and live the gospel. Each family member has a sacred duty to help strengthen others spiritually. Eternal families and homes filled with the Spirit don’t just happen by chance! They require substantial efforts, time, and the participation of each member.
Although each home is unique, it is essential that everyone seeks the truth to help make a difference. Today, my greatest joy is that my family and I have been sealed in the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple for time and for all eternity. We express our gratitude to God, our Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, for the blessings bestowed upon us. Our marriage is a success, and we strongly believe that anything can happen except separation. The Mutobola family remains grateful and united.

My father taught me a significant lesson when I was young. He sensed that I was becoming too enamored with temporal things. When I had money, I immediately spent it—almost always on myself.
One afternoon he took me to purchase some new shoes. On the second floor of the department store, he invited me to look out the window with him.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“Buildings, sky, people” was my response.
“How many?”
“A lot!”
He then pulled this coin from his pocket. As he handed it to me, he asked, “What is this?”
I immediately knew: “A silver dollar!”
Drawing on his knowledge of chemistry, he said, “If you melt that silver dollar and mix it with the right ingredients, you would have silver nitrate. If we coated this window with silver nitrate, what would you see?”
I had no idea, so he escorted me to a full-length mirror and asked, “Now what do you see?”
“I see me.”
“No,” he replied, “what you see is silver reflecting you. If you focus on the silver, all you will see is yourself, and like a veil, it will keep you from seeing clearly the eternal destiny Heavenly Father has prepared just for you.”
“Larry,” he continued, “‘seek not the things of this world but seek … first … the kingdom of God, and to establish [His] righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you’” (Joseph Smith Translation, Matthew 6:38 [in Matthew 6:33, footnote a]).
He told me to keep the dollar and never lose it. Each time I looked at it, I was to think about the eternal destiny that Heavenly Father has for me.
I loved my father and how he taught. I wanted to be like him. He planted in my heart the desire to be a good father, and my deepest hope is that I am living up to his example.