Gospel Story Finder

Family history research in the nineteenth century was very difficult. Records of baptisms, marriages and burials were kept in local churches and required permission from their vicars to be viewed. Census records were not available.
Missionaries then coming to Britain were often returning British converts, or their children. Their calling was not just to teach the living, but also to find details of their own ancestors.
One such Elder was James Leaing McMurrin, who arrived on UK shores in the spring of 1884 and was assigned to Glasgow. He was delighted by this, as Scotland was the home of his ancestors. He eagerly endeavoured to find them, but sadly had no success.
Six months into his mission he was reassigned to Ireland. On learning of this, his aunt gave him the address of one Hugh McMurrin, who lived in Ireland. The Elder determined to visit him if possible. However, the address was not within his assigned area.
Sometime later, he and his companion went out to visit a family of Church members but got lost. It was getting late, and upon enquiring at a house the direction to the town they were seeking, the occupants offered the elders a meal and a bed for the night. After learning Elder McMurrin’s name, the couple told him of a neighbour they had by the name of Hugh McMurrin.
Astonished, but delighted, Elder McMurrin visited him and found he was the Hugh McMurrin his aunt had told him about. He had moved from the address his aunt had given him. From this gentleman he received the addresses of other McMurrins, whom he visited and who gave him nearly one hundred and fifty names of his ancestors.
Back in Salt Lake City, Janet McMurrin was tending to her dying father. In a conversation about the spirit world, she asked him when he went beyond the veil to tell Grandfather McMurrin that the family were unable to find any of his genealogy to do work for in the temple. He agreed to deliver the message, and shortly thereafter died.
A little time later, about the time that Elder McMurrin was being transferred to Ireland, Janet had a dream in which her father appeared to her. He informed her that he had delivered her message and had now come to tell her that “42 Islington” would do all the rest. With this she awoke and wondered what he could have meant by 42 Islingto”. Members in England at the time would have been able to tell her, but she had to wait for Elder McMurrin’s letter telling her of his changed assignment, one given him by the British Mission President, whose office was at 42 Islington, Liverpool.
When we do all we can, the Lord will do the rest.
Sometime later, in May 1899, Elder McMurrin was serving as part of the presidency of the European Mission. He attended the Scottish Conference, where he met a young David O. McKay (1873–1970).
President McKay later recounts, “I had learned by intimate association with him that James McMurrin was pure gold; his faith in the Gospel implicit; that no truer man, no more loyal man to what he thought was right, ever lived; so when he turned to me and gave what I thought then was more of a caution than a promise, his words made an indelible impression upon me. Paraphrasing the words of the Saviour to Peter, he said, ‘Let me say to you Brother David, Satan hath desired you that he may sift you as wheat, but God is mindful of you.’ Then he added, ‘If you will keep the faith you will yet sit in the leading councils of the Church.’ …
“I know that this incident means but little to others, but to me it connotes so much that is intimately precious and so profoundly important as a milestone in my life that I cherish it as a sacred possession.”1

Susan flopped onto her bed. She lay back and looked at the poster on the ceiling of Meggen and her. Her mother had taken the picture of the two of them on their horses last summer and had surprised them with poster-size prints for Christmas.
Meggen had long, strawberry-blond hair that flowed over her shoulders. Susan’s own hair was black, curly, and cropped just below her ears. Meggen was thin and graceful. Susan was a little on the short side with round cheeks. Meggen had helped Susan’s family move into their new home. She had been riding her horse by their home when she saw the moving van and offered her help.
Meggen first introduced Susan to Pal, her palomino. Then she introduced her to the other children in the neighborhood. Sometimes Susan felt self-conscious around Meggen, who was exceptionally pretty. Today she had discovered that they differed in more than looks.
Closing her eyes, Susan relived every detail of their conversation as they walked home from school. Meggen wore her hair in a French braid down her back. Faded summer freckles framed her slender nose and brown eyes. …
“Are you entering the horse show in Middleton?” Meggen asked.
“No, I can’t this time—it’s on Sunday.”
“You go to church every Sunday,” Meggen complained. “It wouldn’t hurt to miss once. This is the biggest horse show of the year.”
“I know,” Susan replied wistfully, “but I want to be at church on Sunday.”
“What’s so exciting about church?”
“I don’t go to church because it’s exciting,” Susan tried to explain. “I go because … well, because I have a testimony.”
“What’s a testimony?”
Susan opened her mouth to answer and closed it again. “I don’t know how to explain it,” she admitted. …
Susan rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. “How do you explain what a testimony is?” she asked herself.
She knew that she had a testimony. Just last fast Sunday she had followed Sister Hawkins to the stand. As she waited her turn, she looked over the congregation. I hope Marianne or Jill comes up and sits with me, she thought.
Sister Hawkins’s voice broke as she spoke of the Atonement. Why does she always cry when she bears her testimony? Susan wondered.
“I know Jesus Christ is the Savior of us all,” Sister Hawkins testified. “When I miss my husband and others who have passed on, I pray to Heavenly Father for comfort, and through the Holy Ghost my heart is filled with the Savior’s love. Then I don’t feel lonely anymore.”
Susan felt peace filling her heart as she listened. Tears moistened her eyes. The words to a Primary song came into her mind. “I feel my Savior’s love In all the world around me.”*
She closed her eyes and thought of the mountains. Red and yellow patches covered their sides. She loved autumn. She especially liked the smell of the air. She often saddled Lightning and galloped up the mountain road, breathing deeply.
She imagined the Savior creating the mountains, filling the streams with crystal water, and planting the trees for her. The feeling inside her kept growing until a tear trickled down her right cheek. She wiped it away with her index finger as the chorus came to her: “He knows I will follow him, Give all my life to him. I feel my Savior’s love, The love he freely gives me.”
When she walked to the pulpit, for the first time she didn’t think about her friends or about how proud her parents would be. She offered a silent prayer before she spoke. Please, Heavenly Father, help me to feel my Savior’s love like Sister Hawkins does. She felt a sweet peace flow over her. Her prayer had been answered. Tears streamed down her face. All she could say was “I feel my Savior’s love too. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
Those feelings returned as she lay on her bed, remembering. She knew how a testimony felt, but how could she explain it to Meggen?
On the way to school Friday, Meggen’s eyes flashed with excitement. “You’ll never believe what Dad gave me at breakfast, Susan—a new saddle! You just have to stop by after school and see it.”
Even though Susan felt good about her decision not to enter the Middleton horse show, it was hard to hear Meggen talking about it. They had gone to every horse show together since Uncle Gordon had given her Lightning for her eighth birthday. They’d taken a 4-H horsemanship class together and had learned about grooming and riding. Both girls had collected a wallful of ribbons and a few trophies in the years that followed.
“I hope Pal wins the trophy again this year!” Susan exclaimed, and she meant it. But she wished even more that she could answer Meggen’s question. Please help me to explain to Meggen about testimonies, she pleaded silently. She had offered this prayer many times this past week—sometimes aloud on her knees in her bedroom, and always in her heart when she and Meggen were together.
A new idea slipped into Susan’s mind. “Do you remember when Pal won the trophy last year?”
Meggen nodded. “It was the most exciting day of my life!”
“And when you remember, do you still feel the excitement?”
“Sometimes I lie on my bed, holding the trophy and reliving every moment,” Meggen admitted. “I brushed Pal’s hair carefully and braided it with blue and yellow ribbons. I was so nervous, my hands shook when the judges came by. And I screamed when they announced I had won.”
Susan winced. “I remember that part. You screamed into my ear.” They laughed together. “Remembering is wonderful, isn’t it?”
Meggen nodded again. “I’ll always remember that day, no matter how long I live. I’ll probably tell the story over and over to my grandchildren.”
“And you’ll always have special feelings each time you do,” Susan assured her. “That’s what a testimony is like, Meggen—remembering, and having wonderful feelings when you do.”
“Remembering what?”
“Remembering that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love me.”
“Have you ever seen Heavenly Father and Jesus?” Meggen questioned seriously.
This is going to be the hard part, Susan thought. Heavenly Father, please help me, she prayed in her heart. “I haven’t seen Them with my eyes.”
“What other way is there to see someone?”
“Before we were born on earth, we were spirit children of Heavenly Father,” Susan explained. “So was Jesus. My spirit eyes saw Them. I don’t remember what They look like or what They said and did, but my spirit remembers. I don’t remember in pictures and words, but in feelings. I’ve felt Their love for me over and over in my heart. I know that what I’m learning in church is true, because I feel Their love when I’m there.”
They had reached the school grounds. Children were calling and chasing each other on bikes. “Do you really believe you have a spirit and a body?” Meggen asked.
“Yes, I do,” Susan said softly. “I know it’s true because I asked Heavenly Father if it was. And through the Holy Ghost, He answered me. I know that my spirit remembers places and people my body has never known. I’m learning to let my spirit teach my body.”
“Do you believe I was a spirit too?”
“Yes I do.”
“If that’s true,” Meggen reasoned, “then my spirit should be able to remember too.”
Susan nodded. “If you learn to listen, it will.”
“Will you teach me, Susan?”
Susan’s heart again filled with peace. She knew that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ loved Meggen even more than she did. “I can try,” she assured her friend, “but there are lots of other people to help you too. There are my parents and my Primary teacher. The missionaries can help too. Best of all, the Holy Ghost can help you. He’s a spirit, and He knows just how spirits remember.”
Meggen reached out and clasped Susan’s hand. “Do you feel that love now?” she whispered.
Susan nodded—she was too happy to speak right then. The school bell rang, and the girls broke into a run, still holding hands.

I remember the first time I swore. I was repeating a joke to some of my friends, and they all thought it was funny. It wasn’t like I was actually swearing, I thought. “I didn’t think you cussed,” one of my friends laughed. And I didn’t. At least not before then and, after that, not a lot. Not at first anyway.
Less than a year later, I was up there with the best of them—trading cutting remarks, swearing for effect, because people thought it was funny and acceptable, and hating myself more each time I did it. I knew it was wrong, but by that time it was a part of my speech pattern. My language got worse, and along with it went my character. I was in trouble at school and, although I still attended church most of the time, I stopped taking the sacrament.
I remember, too, the first time I tried to quit. A boy I liked at school told me he thought swear words were unladylike. So I promised myself I’d stop. And I did, for a while. Quitting was hard, especially since I had decided to quit for the wrong reasons. My resolve lasted about as long as a high school crush, and then I was back to my old ways.
Along with my unclean language came other bad habits and bad crowds. And when I finally decided to clean up my language, I was engulfed in other sins I needed to clear up. But this time I had decided to quit for the right reasons. Because I wanted to repent. I wanted to be clean in God’s sight, and not just to act ladylike.
Elder L. Tom Perry says if we reconstruct our sentences after we swear, minus the offending word, gradually our thought patterns and speech patterns will change (see New Era, Aug. 1986, 7). Substituting similar words that aren’t really swear words is nearly as bad because everyone knows what we meant to say. We need to replace the bad words or thoughts with something wholesome for this formula to work.
This was no short process. And it was hard—hard to regain control of my life and rebuild my testimony. Speech might seem like a small thing when there are so many other worse things we could be doing. My first offense seemed so innocent at the time. I realize now that the world tries to make sins—regardless of their size—look insignificant, but any sin offends the Spirit. And when the Spirit wasn’t with me, I wasn’t under God’s influence and I grew farther from Him.
Putting my decision into action brought the Spirit back into my life. I could again feel the Lord’s guiding influence, and He helped me with all the other problems in my life when I was sincerely trying.

A wonderful example of this philosophy was shared by Arthur Gordon many years ago in a national magazine. He wrote:
“When I was around thirteen and my brother ten, Father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunchtime there was a phone call; some urgent business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say [into the phone], ‘No, I won’t be down. It’ll have to wait.’
“When he came back to the table, Mother smiled. ‘The circus keeps coming back, you know.’
“ ‘I know,’ said Father. ‘But childhood doesn’t.’ ”

I was nervous. At our first family home evening, Dad had announced that each of us would be given an important calling in our family.
Now it was Monday again, and it was almost time for family home evening. What calling was I going to get? I know, I thought, Mom and Dad will call me to lead the music. Everybody said I did that well. Or maybe I’m going to be the one to pass out family home evening treats. That was an assignment I would be happy to accept.
Finally Mom called all of us in. It was her turn to conduct.
One by one everyone arrived: my sisters, Roxana and Dayana; my brothers, Bernie and Victorio; and Dad and Mom.
Dayana had the lesson, and it was really fun. She had lots of pictures and stories about family unity. Next it was time to write our weekly letters to my brother Rodolfo on his mission.
Then Dad announced the assignments. Dayana was assigned the music, Roxana got the refreshments, and Victorio and Bernie were chosen to be family home evening reverence leaders.
“What about me?” I asked patiently.
“Well, Adalis,” Dad said, “you are very responsible and you are a Valiant in Primary, so you are going to have a very important assignment. You are going to be the family prayer secretary!”
I was so excited! It was a new position, and I got it!
“From now on,” Mom explained, “family prayer will be at 7:00 p.m. Adalis, you’re in charge of seeing that everyone meets for prayer exactly on time.”
I have had this calling now for about two weeks. Getting everybody together isn’t easy. But when I think about Jesus and about all the times He taught about prayer, I like to imagine He would do the same thing. He would get everyone together as a family to pray—exactly on time!

It’s 8:30 on a brisk Monday morning at the Harvard Business School. A wind that blows in off the Charles River hustles red, orange, and yellow leaves as they chase each other around the ivy-laden brick buildings. Students of all colors and sizes hurry to their classes, the difficulty of the material they studied the night before imprinted on their faces.
Once inside the classroom they place their name cards in front of them, arrange their notes, and chatter nervously. Who will be called on to open class, they wonder, hoping against hope that it won’t be them.
“Mr. Fullmer,” barks the teacher. “I believe it is your lucky day. You will open, please.”
Greg Fullmer leans forward, fingers his notes and begins. He is prepared. He should be. He was up until 2:00 A.M. poring over the text. Greg has to stay up studying a little later than most students because he has so many additional responsibilities. Last year he was elected to serve as the Harvard Business School’s student body president—the first Latter-day Saint to hold that position. School officials and students alike say he is one of the best they’ve ever had—that he did more in the first two months he was in office than most presidents ever do in an entire year. The six-foot-two, broad-shouldered former BYU student body president finishes his statement, and a number of hands shoot up. The discussion has begun.
Fifteen years ago, if you had told that 12-year-old farm boy from Rexburg, Idaho, that he would someday be a student body president of one of the most prestigious schools in the country, he probably would have smiled. Not laughed, mind you, because he always did believe that if your desires are righteous and if you’re willing to pay the price, you can accomplish what you want to. No, he would have smiled because you had just given him a new goal to work toward.
But then again, at that point in Greg’s life, you probably would have laughed right out loud when you tried to picture him as the handsome Harvard student who has a number of major corporations trying to recruit him. Greg was short, overweight, asthmatic, and not exactly what you’d call an academic standout. And although he was good-natured and had a positive disposition, he was no angel either.
“He was always teasing his sister and doing something to get you aggravated,” his grandmother, Loah Anderson will tell you. “I laugh with him now about it though, and tell him that if I had ever caught him, he wouldn’t be where he is today.”
His grade school bus driver would agree. Not long ago, he stopped Greg in church and said “You know, Greg, you’ve restored my faith in the youth of today.”
“How’s that?” asked Greg, flattered but slightly puzzled.
“You used to be the rottenest kid I knew,” the bus driver replied. “I just hated to see you get on that bus. But now I know that if you can make it, anyone can.”
Greg really wasn’t a troublemaker. He just liked to interact with people, and he was naturally curious. “We’d take him to a cafe,” his grandmother says, “and the kid would be up and out in a second. He wouldn’t sit at the table. He’d be over with the hostess, talking to the waitresses; then he’d go back into the kitchen to see what was cooking.”
Through most of Greg’s teenage years, he was six to eight inches shorter than his sister—his younger sister. She is 14 months his junior. In junior high school, he got along well with the other kids, but no one took him that seriously. “I ran for student body president in junior high and suffered a miserable defeat,” he said. “I didn’t even make it into the primaries, and that really hurt.”
So what motivated Greg to keep trying? How did he finally end up in the top student leadership position at Harvard Business School?
Well, you could say it was faith. Faith in the Lord, faith in himself, and the faith that his family showed in him.
Greg didn’t come from what most people would call the ideal, stereotypical family background. But he’ll tell you it was ideal for him. His parents were divorced before he was two, and he, along with his mother and his sister, moved in with his grandparents. Instead of lamenting the fact that he comes from a “broken home,” Greg makes the best of it. “I always felt like I had to excel to make up for not having a dad, so actually, it was kind of good for me,” he says. Besides, “it was like having the love and support of three parents, not just two.” His mother had to work during the day but made sure that when she came home she spent plenty of quality time with her children.
From his mother, Greg learned to listen to people, to understand their needs, and to try to help them. This became one of his greatest assets as he served in various student-government positions. From his grandmother he learned that you can achieve almost anything you want in life if you’re willing to work hard. He attributes his greatest achievements to that conviction, including funding his mission with the money he earned by opening a number of weight control centers in various parts of the country. From his grandfather, Greg learned patience and wisdom. “He didn’t have a formal education, so he’d get up early every morning and read books,” Greg relates. “He’s one of the most intelligent people I know.” Under that inspiration, Greg went from being an average student in junior high to being class valedictorian at BYU.
When Greg was 12, his family went through another change. After much deliberation, his mother decided to remarry, and although there was occasional strain, Greg adapted quite well to his new father, brothers, and sisters.
While other boys were out playing little league baseball, Greg spent a lot of time working on the family farm, milking and feeding cows, cleaning out the milk tank, you name it. He doesn’t regret the time spent—it taught him to work hard. But he won’t tell you he loved it either, although he did have a number of ways to make the long, tedious hours go by faster. He took great pride in trying to do the best job he possibly could. If he was working with others, he would talk to them, laugh with them, joke with them, and get to know them better. And then, when he had a spare second, he would dream about what he would try to accomplish in the future.
“I wasn’t the most athletic kid in the school, I wasn’t the most intelligent, and I certainly wasn’t the best looking, so I decided I’d try to be the friendliest,” he said. “One way to feel good about yourself is to make other people feel good about themselves.”
Included in his dreams was a desire to be a student body president. He got over his miserable junior high defeat and decided that he would run when he got to high school. But just a short time before he was to announce his candidacy, his best friend told him he’d decided to run and asked Greg to be his campaign manager. Greg complied and helped him win, deciding that he could run for the office when he got to Ricks College.
But when Greg got to Ricks, he decided to sacrifice his political ambitions in favor of serving a mission in Indonesia. “I had a lot of misconceptions about the mission field,” he admits. “When you hear missionaries come back and say those were the best two years of their lives, you think it’s going to be all roses, but it’s not. It’s the hardest thing you could possibly do, and that’s what makes it great. I really learned to appreciate things I had to work for and sacrifice for. I learned to accept, appreciate, and love people who were different from me.”
When Greg returned from his mission, he finished up at Ricks, then went on to BYU. He never had satisfied his dream of becoming a student body president, but the thought of presiding over BYU’s 27,000 students seemed overly ambitious to him. His sister Kristie was convinced he could do it though. She helped him find a running mate, served as his campaign manager, and after a lot of hard work, Greg was elected by one of the biggest margins in BYU history.
“That really helped prepare me for where I am now,” Greg says. And actually, he is quite surprised to be in this position at Harvard. He’d already satisfied his goal of serving as a student body president, and knowing how many hours he’d put into the position at BYU, he didn’t think he could handle it at graduate school. After much prayer and a lot of requests from fellow students, however, Greg decided to give it a try. A lot of hard work went into that election too, and it paid off.
Even though Greg has won a multitude of other awards and titles, he feels that some of his greatest satisfaction comes when his accomplishments put him in a position to answer questions about the Church. “I’m constantly being questioned about our beliefs,” he says with a smile. “And I’m always happy to talk with anyone.”
And they’re usually happy to listen. Fellow students scrutinize Greg a little closer than they do other classmates. Not only is he their president, but he’s also one of a handful of LDS people they might know.
Tomorrow he’ll probably be walking Wall Street, but today, on the brisk Monday afternoon, his class discussions are finished and he walks over to one of the numerous meetings he has each week. Many students call out to him, greeting him by name. Some glance at him with a mischievous look in their eyes and call out, “Hi, LARRY!” That’s Greg’s first name, but he hates to be called that and they know it. On the first day of class this year, the student body gave him a standing ovation and shouted out, “Larry! Larry! Larry!” It’s impossible to take yourself too seriously with classmates like that.
Still, many of them ask him how he’s accomplished what he has. “My theory of success,” he tells them, “requires two things—that you work hard, and that you pray hard.” Greg slides into his seat at the head of a large conference table, and the other student body officers begin to file in. He is prepared. He should be. He was up until 2 A.M. making use of his theory of success.

William leaned his rake against the side of the house and plopped down on the grass. Raking the leaves was hard work, but he and his sisters, Chloé and Amelia, were finally done. Way up above the Alps mountains he could see a plane fly by. He wondered where it was going.
William loved his little town near the French-Swiss border. People from all over the world visited here. He thought about the places he wanted to go, the people he could meet, and the adventures he might have someday.
He was startled out of his daydream by whistling and the crunch, crunch, crunch of footsteps in the yard next door.
“Pat must be getting ready to rake his leaves,” William thought. “I’m sure glad we’re done with ours.”
“But if raking leaves was hard for three people, it must be really hard for one!” William thought. Pat’s wife, Pam, had just had surgery, so Pat would have to rake his leaves by himself.
Mum always said, “When we’re helping, we’re happy!” and William thought that probably meant helping Pat, even though they were already tired from raking their own leaves.
William looked over at Chloé and Amelia, who were building tiny twig houses in the grass. “Should we go help Pat?” he asked. “We can help him finish pretty fast.”
Chloé and Amelia agreed and followed William.
“Want some help?” Amelia asked as they walked around the bushes into Pat’s yard.
“I sure would! But you kids have been raking all afternoon. I bet you’re tired.”
“That’s OK,” William said. “We want to help. After all, when we’re helping, we’re happy!”
As they worked, Pat told the kids fun stories from his life. Pat was from India, but he had lived all over Asia and Africa.
After the leaves were bagged, William looked over and noticed the apples scattered around the two tall apple trees in Pat’s yard. Their work wasn’t quite done yet. William stooped down and started gathering apples. He sorted the rotten ones from the good ones as he went along. Chloé and Amelia ran over to put the apples in piles.
Pat rolled his old green wheelbarrow out from the shed. “Let’s put the rotten ones in here. Then you can take the good ones home with you.”
“That’s OK, Pat. We don’t need to take your apples,” William said.
“I want to give them to you,” Pat said. “After all, when I’m giving, I’m happy!”
That night during dinner, the children told Mum and Dad how much fun they’d had helping Pat and hearing his stories.
Suddenly William had an idea. “I know what we can do with the apples he gave us!” He jumped up and grabbed a copy of the Liahona from the bookshelf. “I think Pat and Pam would really like this,” William said, turning to a recipe for apple cake. “And like Pat said today, when we’re giving, we’re happy!”
“Let’s make a cake for our other neighbors too!” Chloé said.
William grinned. He thought about all the people he could meet and the exciting stories he could hear. And all that through just a bit of kindness. And a bit of cake.

Cicero said, “Control thyself.” I had the opportunity in World War II to bat against the immortal Bob Feller in a servicemen’s game. If you ever want a lesson in humility, bat against Feller. Bob Feller had a unique distinction as a sixteen-year-old boy. He could take a 9 1/2-inch, 5-ounce baseball and throw it from 60 feet 6 inches, 105 miles an hour.

Now that may not impress you, but you go to bat and you’re very impressed. To those of you who may not understand that velocity, a 9-inch baseball is the size of an aspirin tablet at 60 feet 6 inches, at 100 miles per hour. I submit to you, it makes a difference which side of the plate he throws it.

Bob Feller at age sixteen had a problem. He lacked control. He was a great athlete. He had tremendous capacity. He was born to succeed. He knew himself, but he hadn’t disciplined his great talent of speed, so that it was questionable as to whether he would stick in the majors.

But Bob Feller became the great athlete he was because he listened to wise counsel. He had great coaches, and one of them took him aside one day and said, “Bob, it really doesn’t matter whether you throw 105 miles an hour or 95. If you will take a little speed off your pitch and put the ball where it belongs, you will succeed!”

We call that control in baseball, and you little leaguers know how important control is to a pitcher. Bob listened and became the strike-out artist of his era.

In another occasion, a fried of mine, got a master's degree in information sytems. When she and her husband moved to a new town in the midwest where there were very few Mormons, she was asked by a neighbor to help the local library choose a new computer system. My friend told me she spent ten mintues consulting on the system, and hours explaining the beliefs of the church. Not only did she help serve her community, she was given missionary opportunities because of her degree. Your education, too, can give you a "greater influence . . . for good."

Often I have felt the priesthood power, power outside myself, moving through me to the person being blessed. I remember blessing a young mother who came seeking renewed strength to endure a difficult pregnancy. She had great faith, and as I blessed her as her bishop, I felt power streaming down my arms and through my fingers into the crown of her head. I felt it course through her body, even to the tips of her toes. It was a powerful, cleansing, rejuvenating force, almost electric in its energy, yet calm and soft and assuring. After the blessing, she arose, and with tears in her eyes said, “I felt that all the way to the tips of my toes.”

When we began dating, I learned how strongly Kathy felt about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Because of her devotion, our family has always tried hard to make Sunday a special day. We don’t watch TV on Sunday or go to sporting events. We listen to sacred music, write letters, and spend lots of time talking together. Our younger children liked to read stories from the Friend and from scripture readers. As a result, we have enjoyed a spirit of peace in our home on the Sabbath.

Benjamin Juarez, 12, faces different challenges in Brooklyn. He was born in California, lived briefly in Mexico, and now, while his father is studying to be a doctor, Benjamin and his three younger brothers do what every successful Brooklyn child does: adapt.
“You can’t live here the same as you do other places,” Benjamin says. “For your own safety, you have to keep your eyes wide open.” Once, at school, some bigger boys jumped him. He’s never let that happen again. “You have to be a little tough, just for safety.”
That’s another lesson of city life: everyone takes care of himself, and that extends to the gospel. “My friends in the ward live a long way from me,” Benjamin says. “We only see each other on Mutual nights, Sundays, and for Scout activities. So everybody has to have his own testimony. He just can’t depend on anyone else for it.”

In 1989, Jack Rushton was serving as president of the Irvine California Stake in the United States. During a family vacation on the California coast, Jack was bodysurfing when a wave swept him into a submerged rock, breaking his neck and severely injuring his spinal cord. Jack said later, “The instant I hit, I knew that I was paralyzed.”14 He could no longer talk or even breathe on his own.15

Family, friends, and stake members rallied around Brother Rushton and his wife, Jo Anne, and, among other things, remodeled a section of their home to accommodate Jack’s wheelchair. Jo Anne became Jack’s principal caregiver for the next 23 years. Referring to Book of Mormon accounts of how the Lord visited His people in their afflictions and made their burdens light,16 Jo Anne said, “I am often amazed at the lightness of heart I feel in caring for my husband.”17

An alteration to his respiration system restored Jack’s ability to speak, and within the year, Jack was called as Gospel Doctrine teacher and stake patriarch. When he would give a patriarchal blessing, another priesthood holder placed Brother Rushton’s hand on the head of the person receiving the blessing and supported his hand and arm during the blessing. Jack passed away on Christmas Day 2012, after 22 years of devoted service.

Once in an interview, Jack observed: “Problems will come into all of our lives; it’s part of just being here upon this earth. And some people think that religion or having faith in God will protect you from bad things. I don’t think that’s the point. I think the point is that if our faith is strong, that when bad things happen, which they will, we’ll be able to deal with them. … My faith never wavered, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have depressions. I think for the first time in my life, I was pushed to the limit, and literally there was nowhere to turn, and so I turned to the Lord, and to this day, I feel a spontaneity of joy.”18

My wife and I are retired senior citizens from Portsmouth, England. We’ve been married for 48 years and are Anglican Christians. Before a memorable trip to Canada, we had the impression that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were a bit pushy, overly religious, and determined to convert everyone not of their faith. However, a snowstorm in Canada began changing our impressions.
We were in a group of mainly older British tourists traveling through Banff, Canada; Yellowstone National Park; and the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately, the weather was not very kind to our group. After staying in Lethbridge, Canada, we awoke to find it had snowed in the night. Later that morning as we traveled toward the U.S. border, the rain turned to snow, and at the border we discovered the road was closed on the American side. There was nothing we could do but turn back. Five miles (8 km) down the road we encountered a jackknifed truck and trailer blocking the highway. We were unable to go forward and unable to go backward.
Stranded in our bus, we settled down to guessing games, a sing-along, and general fun, confident that help would arrive and that we would be safe in the bus until then. More than five hours later, help finally did arrive.
A Royal Canadian Police Mountie on a snowmobile found us, and a fire truck managed to carve a track in the snow, allowing the bus to turn around. Weary and hungry, we made our way to the nearest community and found ourselves pulling up to the church that several of the firefighters attended—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Coutts, Alberta, Canada.
The Anglican church we attend is 150 years old, with a small communal hall and limited facilities, so the thought of a church congregation taking in 40 strangers stranded in the snow didn’t seem feasible. But within an hour of our arrival, the women and young people of the ward had served up a full meal of jacket potatoes and chili.
We were particularly impressed when we discovered that our rescuers had pressing problems of their own. A young mum had had the power cut off to her home, but she left her younger children with a kind friend and came with her older children to help us. A counselor to the bishop gave us a tour of the building and took time to ensure that we were cared for before going to work that evening.
Before we went to bed, the youth of the Coutts Ward treated us to an impromptu performance of a play they had been rehearsing. And finally the central heating was turned up, and we were made comfortable for the night.
The next morning the roads had improved sufficiently for us to continue our journey. After the ward members prepared breakfast, we set out again on our enjoyable trip. But we remained overwhelmed by the hospitality shown by the Latter-day Saints. They willingly opened up their church and provided food, bedding, and, above all, friendship to stranded strangers.
Although we had believed Latter-day Saints to be somewhat pushy, we saw instead kind, caring people who demonstrate their beliefs in their day-to-day lives. Back in England, we keep our holiday fresh in our minds, and we thank God for our Latter-day Saint friends and Samaritans.

I try to be like Jesus Christ by helping other people. When I went to Kibben-Kuster School, some of the children in my class had special needs. I helped them by talking to them and giving them hugs when they felt left out—I even learned some sign language. One of the children got hurt at recess, and I went to him and took him to the nurse. Another child lost something she had brought to class, and I helped her to find it. Now I go to a different school, but I still remember my friends from Kibben-Kuster.

Long years ago I was touched by a story which illustrated love of neighbor between a small boy named Paul and a telephone operator he had never met. These were the days many will remember with nostalgia but which a new generation will never experience.
Paul related the story: “When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember that the shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but I used to listen with fascination when Mother would talk to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was ‘Information, Please,’ and there was nothing she did not know. ‘Information, Please’ could supply anybody’s number and the correct time.
“I learned that if I stood on a stool, I could reach the telephone. I called ‘Information, Please’ for all sorts of things. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my arithmetic, too.
“Then there was the time that Petey, our pet canary, died. I called ‘Information, Please’ and told her the sad story. She listened and then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. ‘Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up, on the bottom of the cage?’ I asked.
“She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, ‘Paul, always remember that there are other worlds in which to sing.’ Somehow I felt better.
“All this took place in a small town near Seattle. Then we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. ‘Information, Please’ belonged to that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying to call her. The memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
“Later, when I went west to college, my plane made a stop in Seattle,” Paul continued. “I called ‘Information, Please,’ and when, miraculously, I heard that familiar voice, I said to her, ‘I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?’
“‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls.’ I told her how often I had thought of her over the years, and I asked if I could call her again when I came back west.
“‘Please do,’ she said. ‘Just ask for Sally.’
“Only three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered, ‘Information,’ and I asked for Sally. ‘Are you a friend?’ the woman asked.
“‘Yes, a very old friend,’ I replied.
“‘Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally has only been working part-time the last few years because she was ill. She died five weeks ago.’ But before I could hang up, she said, ‘Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?’
“‘Yes,’ I responded.
“‘Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is—I’ll read it. Tell him I still say there are other worlds in which to sing. He’ll know what I mean.
“I thanked her and hung up,” said Paul. “I did know what Sally meant.”
Sally, the telephone operator, and Paul, the boy—the man—were in reality good Samaritans to each other.

The Deseret Morning News on Sunday, December 3, 2006, in an article entitled, “Church Work Enhanced Job Performance,” reported this interesting story which I will summarize for you: Conventional wisdom suggests that job performance would decline while one serves, for example, as a bishop of the Mormon Church. In fact, however, the reverse appears to be true. Although serving in a lay ecclesiastical position puts added strain on a person’s time, it can actually strengthen one’s ability as a leader in a secular position. One notable example, among many, is Jim Quigley who, while serving as a bishop, guided the Tri-State office of an international accounting firm through the 9/11 crisis. He was subsequently elected by the board of directors to be the new CEO of Deloitte and Touche USA. On more than one Sunday afternoon, while sitting in a Church office counting tithing receipts, Brother Quigley thought about other places he could be and other more leisurely activities he could be doing. But he never regretted his decision. Said he,

“Think about the people I compete with and what they were doing on Sundays and Tuesday nights. Think of the enormous advantage I had over them. I gave up sitting in front of the TV with a remote control and watching football on Sunday. But look at how much I learned during that time. It provides an enormous cumulative advantage in business… .”

From a leadership standpoint, serving in a noncompensated ecclesiastical role in the Mormon Church has a direct payoff in the corporate world. In Brother Quigley’s case, he went from leading a congregation of 500 Mormons to leading a firm with over 34,000 employees. “In some ways you can look at your congregation as a laboratory to learn management skills and techniques,” he said.

The Secret Agents of Love, or SAL Squad, started three years ago to accomplish an important mission: to unite the Bluffdale (Utah) Second Ward Young Women.
Not that all of the girls were inactive. They were just … bored. And they weren’t showing up for activities. One night, after another activity fizzled, some of the girls started talking to their leaders about what they could do.
“We were feeling pretty discouraged. Then someone mentioned this story about a girl who ran around doing things to make other people happy. All of a sudden, our attitudes changed. We realized that we could do the same thing,” said Marci Nielson, 18.
The first project was to deliver cookies. Cars honked. People yelled. Trucks pulled over at the sight of several girls wearing cone heads and army boots and riding on two-seated bicycles.
“We didn’t miss anyone. If they were at work, we went right up to the drive-up window of the restaurant, or to the produce section of the supermarket. I think it really made everyone feel good,” said Kristin Sherwood, 18.
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe that this is a service project. It helps to cheer up someone’s day in a really fun way,” said Katie Drury, 18.
All of the girls admit they’re having fun. But they also say that somewhere between the cookies, songs, and costumes, something is changing lives—especially theirs.
Kristin admits that before this Young Women activity started, she didn’t take the time to get to know the younger girls. “I would have missed out on some great friendships.”
The SAL Squad operates with two secret weapons—(1) everyone, girls and Young Women leaders alike, joins in, and (2) love. They say they don’t leave home without it.
“I’ll always remember the fun we’ve had,” says Janalyn Anderson, 18. “But my favorite memory will be of someone opening the door and looking at us like, ‘I’m important to you? You dressed up and did all this for me?’ It has changed lives. And all it took was love.”

My father, Conrad Jeppsen, served as a bishop for twenty-two years. He was also a great teacher, and he taught me many things. He taught me the principle of honesty. For example, I remember jumping up and down with joy when I found a dollar bill on the floor of a store. In those days, a dollar was really something. I would be wealthy! I grabbed it and said, “Look what I found!”
Dad said, “Is it yours?”
I said, “No, it isn’t mine.”
“If it isn’t yours, let’s take it to the clerk. Somebody will come back for it.”
I took the dollar to the clerk and learned a lesson. Since then, whenever I’ve found things, Father’s question has come to my mind: “Is it yours?”

A friend of mine once shared an experience he had on his mission in Brazil. He and his companion met a woman who forcefully declared that she was not interested in any religious message. A religious leader had once told her that her infant son who died could never be saved because he had not been baptized. The thought of that broke her heart. She told the missionaries that unless they had a better message, she wanted nothing to do with their religion.
Fortunately, they had a better message.
The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the salvation of little children can be summarized in a single verse of scripture: “All children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven” (Doctrine and Covenants 137:10).
Although this doctrine is clear, many people still have questions about or misunderstand this topic. Let’s shed some light on a few of the most common questions.
Many people assume that little children are saved simply because they are innocent. While little children certainly are innocent, the Book of Mormon teaches plainly that without the Atonement of Jesus Christ, even “little children … could not be saved,” because “in Adam, or by nature, they fall” (Mosiah 3:16).
Although they are innocent of any sin, little children would still be subject to physical and spiritual death brought by the Fall. As a result, without the Resurrection and Atonement of Jesus Christ, they would be eternally lost, as would the rest of us (see 2 Nephi 9:6–10).
Gratefully, the Book of Mormon clarifies that “the blood of Christ atoneth for” little children (Mosiah 3:16), and “the curse of Adam is taken from them” (Moroni 8:8). Because of the Savior’s Atonement, little children are free from the effects of the Fall of Adam and Eve, “for they are whole” (Moses 6:54).
Doctrine and Covenants 137:10 teaches that “all children … are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven.” The only condition is that they “die before they arrive at the years of accountability.” Elder Bruce R. McConkie (1915–85) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained: “Accountability does not burst full-bloom upon a child at any given moment in his life. Children become accountable gradually, over a number of years. Becoming accountable is a process. … There comes a time, however, when accountability is real and actual and sin is attributed in the lives of those who develop normally. It is eight years of age, the age of baptism.”1
In other words, accountability develops within children all along, but at eight years old they are sufficiently accountable to be baptized and are therefore sufficiently accountable for their own sins.
As any parent knows, however, this does not mean children are incapable of doing something they know is wrong. What it does mean is that they are not yet sufficiently responsible for these wrong choices.
Children have what might appropriately be called a “grace period,” when they are not responsible for their wrongdoings as they learn and grow into accountability. If they should die in that time, then they are saved by the grace of Christ without baptism or any other effort on their part (see Moroni 8).
President Joseph F. Smith (1838–1918) lost many children to early deaths. He was comforted by the doctrine that little children would be resurrected as little children and raised to maturity by their righteous parents after the Resurrection. President Smith once shared the following: “Joseph Smith taught the doctrine that the infant child that was laid away in death would come up in the resurrection as a child; and, pointing to the mother of a lifeless child, he said to her: ‘You will have the joy, the pleasure, and satisfaction of nurturing this child, after its resurrection, until it reaches the full stature of its spirit.’ There is restitution, there is growth, there is development, after the resurrection from death. I love this truth. It speaks volumes of happiness, of joy and gratitude to my soul. Thank the Lord he has revealed these principles to us.”2
Not only will little children reach full maturity; they will also reach full exaltation. Abinadi taught that “little children also have eternal life” (Mosiah 15:25). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “you shall have your children; for they shall have eternal life, for their debt is paid.”3
To obtain the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, those who are accountable must enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage (see Doctrine and Covenants 131:1–3). Little children who die will have this opportunity in the future. President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) explained: “The Lord will grant unto these children the privilege of all the sealing blessings which pertain to exaltation. … When they grow, after the resurrection, to the full maturity of the spirit, they will be entitled to all the blessings which they would have been entitled to had they been privileged to tarry here and receive them.”4
This question is difficult to answer, especially for those who have lost a child. Perhaps the best way to start to answer this question is with the words of Nephi, who testified, “I know that [God] loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Nephi 11:17).
We do not know all the reasons for every tragedy that happens in mortality, but we can rest assured that God loves us. Although we should not assume that tragedies are God’s will, His plan provides the way to overcome all tragedies.5 “Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot cure.”6
The Prophet Joseph Smith and his wife, Emma, had reason to ask why little children die—six of their children died. The Prophet said: “I have meditated upon the subject, and asked the question, why it is that infants, innocent children, are taken away from us, especially those that seem to be the most intelligent and interesting. The strongest reasons that present themselves to my mind are these: This world is a very wicked world. … The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again.”7
Another servant of the Lord, Elder McConkie, experienced the death of an infant granddaughter. At her funeral he said, “There are certain spirits who come into this life only to receive bodies; for reasons that we do not know, but which are known in the infinite wisdom of the Eternal Father, they do not need the testing, probationary experiences of mortality.”8
Forever and Ever, by Greg K. Olsen
Although nothing in this life can take away the feelings of loss a family experiences with the death of a child, we may find comfort in the doctrine that little children who die will be exalted. We know this because it has been revealed by our loving Father in Heaven and taught by His modern prophets and apostles.
These truths from latter-day revelation are some of the sweetest and most comforting truths of the gospel.