Gospel Story Finder

And there are schools there. Schools that feature superlative female basketball players. The winning tradition has become a legacy that many of the little girls in town dream of joining. “I’ve always wanted to be on the team,” says Gaylene “Gidget” Gallagher, an energetic guard. “I’ve been trying to learn how to play since I was little. When the coaches finally started us in a program, I spent all my time in the gym.”

Packets of seeds in bundles were scattered all over the floor. Mixed in were Bibles, copies of the Book of Mormon, and hymnbooks in Russian. The girls of the Bountiful Hills Ward, Bountiful Utah Central Stake, were busy packing both plant seeds and seeds of the restored gospel into boxes ready to make the trip to Armenia. With food scarce, Armenians are turning to small gardens to supplement their family’s diet. With religious freedom so new, copies of scriptures are hard to come by.
Amy Poulton, the Young Women president of the Bountiful Hills Ward, can look back and see how a series of small miracles led to the girls in her ward being able to help new Church members in Armenia. Seeds just happened to be on sale at an incredibly low price right when they needed to buy 6,500 packets. A person was found who could take the seeds and books personally to Armenia with him. The little branch in Yerevan, Armenia, became real people to them as they began to correspond.
Their own copies of the scriptures became more precious as the Young Women thought about the girls their age who are just learning about the truths of the gospel. “Reading the scriptures has changed my outlook on things. I don’t take things for granted, especially after doing this project,” said Heather Bodily, 18. “I think it’s exciting to see people opening their minds and listening to the gospel. The seed is planted. Now it just needs to mature and grow.”
As the girls in the Bountiful Hills Ward looked at pictures of the Armenian branch Young Women with their flags of value colors displayed and a picture of Christ on the wall, they felt a connection. These girls are like them. They love the Lord and his gospel too.
“Now when I read the scriptures, the message jumps out at me and says this is for you. They are talking directly to me” said Jennifer Petersen, 18. And somewhere around the world, some other girls are thinking the same thing.

Twenty years ago I attended a sacrament meeting where the children responded to the theme “I Belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” These boys and girls demonstrated they were in training for service to the Lord and to others. The music was beautiful, the recitations skillfully rendered, and the spirit heaven-sent. One of my grandsons, who was 11 years old at that time, had spoken of the First Vision as he presented his part on the program. Afterward, as he came to his parents and grandparents, I said to him, “Tommy, I think you are almost ready to be a missionary.”

He replied, “Not yet. I still have a lot to learn.”

Through the years that followed, Tommy did learn, thanks to his parents and to teachers and advisers at church, who were dedicated and conscientious. When he was old enough, he was called to serve a mission. He did so in a most honorable fashion.

Two years later, at 16, Jim joined my seminary class. He soon started dropping by my home after school, along with several other of my students. They would come for a swim, a haircut, advice, conversation, and, of course, food. I tried to serve up what each of them needed. In group dynamics, Jim was still the quiet one. He had graduated to making short statements, but they were usually succinct one-liners. He wasted no words. He was, however, a comfortable, undemanding kid to have around; and he was well liked by everyone. I came to know him better by observation than by communication.
San Diego is a Navy city, and many of the families in our ward were in the Navy. Jim’s dad was transferred to Okinawa later that year. Jim struggled with the idea of a move so far away but decided to move overseas with his family.
Jim didn’t write very much, though I wrote to him. One day, however, the mail brought a beautiful cloisonne bracelet for me. There was no card, just a return address: Jim’s. His parents also wrote to us occasionally, so I knew what Jim was up to. I twice received job recommendation requests, so I knew he was working as a lifeguard at the base pool.
During the next year, I was surprised one day to find Jim standing on my doorstep. He had flown military standby, along with his sister, to visit friends on the mainland. Most of his friends were in school or were working so he spent quite a bit of time at my house—usually by playing quietly with my boys, building Lego structures. He seemed to feel comfortable in my home.
We talked about Okinawa and his experiences there. Again, he would simply answer my questions. I asked of future plans, and he said he wasn’t sure what he was going to do after high school graduation. After a few days, he flew back to Okinawa.
Jim popped up again after he graduated, on his way to Brigham Young University. He showed up a few times more as he traveled from Utah to California, and sometimes to the Far East. I came to expect his unannounced visits. However, I was surprised by the physical changes as he grew and matured into a handsome young man.

My name is Erika Z., and I live in the city of San Salvador in El Salvador, and I love to prepare names for temple ordinances.
The Relief Society sisters in my branch asked if I could learn to index names using the FamilySearch program. I wanted to help. My mother also wanted me to help, so we began learning how to index together.
When I first started, it took me a whole day to index nine names. But now after working hard and practicing, I can index 300 names in a day.
After finishing my homework, I spend time indexing names. For me, indexing is as fun as playing or watching TV. But I know that it has a greater purpose.
I know that Heavenly Father blessed me with the opportunity to help prepare names for temple ordinances for more than 2,000 Salvadorian ancestors in the spirit world.

I would also like to thank you for the June 1991 issue on families. After reading it, I now have a good relationship with my mom. Before, we would fight all the time. You really care about the youth in the world.

Around midnight many of the area youth met in the Cleveland Second Ward chapel where they spent the night sorting the 17,000-plus tickets into the appropriate geographical areas to expedite missionary work. Another below-freezing Ohio dawn was approaching before they had finished the task.

Thanksgiving morning I awoke to the usual rattle of milk pans. Grabbing my shoes and stockings, I raced barefoot to the warmth of the kitchen stove. Papa was straining the milk. “Where’s Mama?” I asked.
“She coughed all night” he said, “so I told her to stay in bed and you’d get breakfast ready.” He set the pans of milk in the pantry and went out to tend the cows.
“Oh, no,” I wailed aloud, “Mama can’t be sick on Thanksgiving Day!”
Helplessly I regarded the old cookstove. In bright, shiny letters across the oven door was written FROM KALAMAZOO DIRECT TO YOU. Such good things had come from that oven, I remembered, especially at holidays. For the first time in my memory there had been no bustle of baking the day before Thanksgiving. Mama wasn’t up to it, and Grandma had gone to Moccasin to spend a few days with Uncle Fred and Aunt LaVern. She had said that the family was too big now for all of us to be together on Thanksgiving. To top that off, we got a sad little note from my two oldest sisters, Annie and Kate, who were away at school, saying they couldn’t find a way home from Cedar City.
Mildred, just older than I, was helping Sister Cripps. What a situation! There would be no plum pudding bobbing up and down in its little cotton sack in the boiling kettle, and there would be no row of pies cooling on the pantry shelf.
The fire crackled and steam spouted from the copper teakettle, reminding me that I had better stop feeling sorry for myself and get busy.
Absolutely the only thing I’d ever cooked was mush. I had had no reason to learn to cook, what with Grandma, Mama, and my three older sisters around. Mama had the gift of making something out of nothing, especially when company unexpectedly appeared. My sisters had all learned to cook because they often worked out for people, and then there was Grandma. She lived next door to us, but did her cooking on our stove. She used to run the Isom Hotel at Virgin during the oil boom, and she delighted in cooking for big crowds.
As I poured the boiling water into the mush pot and stirred in the cracked wheat, I thought of other Thanksgivings. Last year when Grandma was taking flaky crusted pies out of the oven with a towel, her thumb accidentally touched the hot tin pan and she dropped a currant pie upside down on the kitchen floor. Steaming red juice trickled across the clean linoleum, and I thought it was a disaster until Grandma said, “You youngsters can have that pie.” She wasn’t one to waste anything. I remember my aunts saying that Grandma was so saving that if a mosquito lit in the molasses, she’d lick its legs before turning it loose. Maybe so, but no pie ever tasted so good as the one she dropped.
Thanksgiving meant lots of relatives. Three years ago everybody in Hurricane had Thanksgiving dinner together in the little wooden meetinghouse before it was torn down. The grown-ups ate first because “children must learn their proper place and respect their elders.” It was one of the rare times that it snowed in Hurricane. While the grown-ups ate, we scraped enough snow together for a snowman; then it was our turn to eat. Politely we sat at the long, wonderful table. I had never seen so many kinds of scrumptious food in my whole life. And what fun it was to eat with playmates and cousins while even the men, wearing happy faces and big aprons, served us.
Stirring the mush smooth, I put on the lid. My little sisters were giggling in their room and singing “Over the River and Through the Woods.” That got to me. Slipping into my coat, I ran to the barn where Papa was pitching hay into the manger.
“Papa, aren’t we going to have any Thanksgiving?” I cried.
“I guess it’s up to you,” he replied, ramming the pitchfork into the hay and climbing down from the loft.
“Me!” I said aghast.
He patted my shoulder. “You’re almost twelve, aren’t you?”
“Eleven,” I corrected.
He took my hand and we walked to the house together. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll put these nice white beans Mama set to soak in this big kettle, like this. Then we’ll put in a piece of fresh pork.” Stepping outside, he brought in a flour sack of meat that had been hanging on the shady side of the house and cut off a hunk for the bean pot. “Now for a little salt, then the lid, and we’ll slide it on the back of the stove. You keep the fire going and the beans will be ready for dinner.”
“But Papa! It’s Thanksgiving! Are beans all we’ll have?”
“With plenty of brown bread and butter and fruit, nothing could be better.”
Grandma always said Papa was a very practical man, and I knew it was true.
Mama ate breakfast with us, then went back to bed. Papa went to fix the corral gate. My little sisters, Edith and LaPriel, did the dishes while I tidied up the house. I looked at the pictures of pilgrims and turkeys that they had colored with crayons and pasted in the front window. Of course we’d never had a turkey, because we didn’t raise them. We ate what we grew. Papa had butchered the pig and Mama had bottled sausage, but she hadn’t rendered out the lard yet.
Quietly I slipped into Mama’s room. Feeling my presence, she opened her eyes.
“Mama, I wish I knew how to make something special for dinner,” I said.
She patted my hand. “The first step to becoming a good cook is to want to. Run down to Aunt Mary’s house and borrow half a cup of lard and I’ll teach you how to make a cake with sugar in it.”
“Sugar!” I exclaimed. Usually we had molasses cakes.
I flew to Aunt Mary’s with my tin cup and she filled it with fresh, creamy white lard. Then I ran all the way home.
“You might want to write this down for the first time,” Mama said, “but in no time at all you’ll be cooking from memory.”
The good cooks I knew gloried in the fact that their recipes were in their heads. We didn’t even own a cookbook.
“We’ll start with two cups of flour.”
I wrote it down.
“Now remember this rule: For each cup of flour, you use one teaspoon of baking powder. Then add a good pinch of salt.”
“How much is a good pinch?”
“About half a teaspoon. You’ll get used to that. Sift these together. In a separate bowl put half as much sugar as flour. How much would that be?”
“One cup,” I replied.
“Now add half as much lard as sugar.”
“One-half cup lard,” I said out loud as I wrote.
“Cream these together. I’m sure you know how to do that because you’ve watched me. Now, since the chickens aren’t laying too well, we’ll use just one egg today. Another rule you might remember is to use the same amount of milk as sugar. This is basic,” she explained.
“From these simple rules you can make many kinds of cake. I’ll leave it to your imagination. You can add a teaspoon of lemon or vanilla extract or a teaspoon of nutmeg—whichever you like.” After explaining how to alternately mix in the flour and milk she said, “Now run along and have fun making your first cake.”
I kept popping back into her room with questions, but finally the cake was in the oven.
“If you’ve kept just enough fire to keep the beans bubbling gently, your cake should be done in half an hour,” she said.
Anxiously I watched the fire and the clock. An angel must have sat on my shoulder because the cake browned just right, springing back to my touch as Mama had said it should.
Remembering Grandma’s cake topping, I ran down to the cellar for a glass of plum jelly and spread it on the cake as it cooled. Cream on the pans of last night’s milk for tomorrow’s churning reminded me of what else Grandma would do if she were here. I ladled some into a bowl for whipping.
Down the cellar once more, I scanned the shining store of bottled fruit. Himalaya berries! Today we would open a two-quart bottle of them! Sweet pomegranates in a basket on the dirt floor caught my eye. Some of them were already splitting, exposing ruby red seeds. I selected the biggest one.
Edith and LaPriel had caught the excitement of the day. They kept the woodbox filled, put the best white cloth on the table in the living room, and even fixed a bouquet of pink chrysanthemums they had rooted out from under the yellow leaves beneath the cherry trees.
Papa came in and scrubbed up. Mama came downstairs and said she felt much better. The table with its flowers and the cut glass bowl of berries and the bread, butter, and beans looked like Thanksgiving. We bowed our heads and Papa thanked Heavenly Father for the bounties of the earth and for a couple of hundred other things; then he blessed the food. He had just barely said, “Amen,” when the brakes to Ether Wood’s freight truck squealed outside our front gate. Ether is the Good Samaritan of our town who always remembers students who are away from home.
Annie and Kate burst in through the front door at the very moment that Mildred opened the kitchen door, announcing that Sister Cripps didn’t need her anymore. My heart almost popped the buttons off my dress. I wanted to laugh and to cry. Everybody hugged everybody else. We put on three extra plates and, chattering like sparrows, passed the beans.
When it came time, I brought out the cake. Like jewels, pomegranate seeds sparkled from the whipped-cream topping. It looked so pretty everyone gasped.
“I made it myself. Mama told me how,” I explained.
Papa said it was fit for a king and Mama said it was perfect and everyone else said I should try one again soon. I looked at the happy faces of my family around the table.
“My goodness!” I exclaimed, “This isn’t a pitiful Thanksgiving after all!”

In 1956, after returning home from several years in Washington, D.C., and having declined several attractive offers there, I received an offer to work at the University of Utah. My wife said I should take it. She said presciently, “I feel if you go there, maybe you will have some influence on students.” I replied impatiently, “I’ll be typing news releases, not working with students.” The subsequent opportunities included being a bishop of a student ward, dean of students, and teaching hundreds of fine students in political science. It wasn’t status that mattered, of course, but being stretched and being given opportunities to serve.

The setting for my final example of one who persevered and ultimately prevailed, despite overwhelmingly difficult circumstances, begins in East Prussia following World War II.
In about March 1946, less than a year after the end of the war, Ezra Taft Benson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, accompanied by Frederick W. Babbel, was assigned a special postwar tour of Europe for the express purpose of meeting with the Saints, assessing their needs, and providing assistance to them. Elder Benson and Brother Babbel later recounted, from a testimony they heard, the experience of a Church member who found herself in an area no longer controlled by the government under which she had resided.
She and her husband had lived an idyllic life in East Prussia. Then had come the second great world war within their lifetimes. Her beloved young husband was killed during the final days of the frightful battles in their homeland, leaving her alone to care for their four children.
The occupying forces determined that the Germans in East Prussia must go to Western Germany to seek a new home. The woman was German, and so it was necessary for her to go. The journey was over a thousand miles (1,600 km), and she had no way to accomplish it but on foot. She was allowed to take only such bare necessities as she could load into her small wooden-wheeled wagon. Besides her children and these meager possessions, she took with her a strong faith in God and in the gospel as revealed to the latter-day prophet Joseph Smith.
She and the children began the journey in late summer. Having neither food nor money among her few possessions, she was forced to gather a daily subsistence from the fields and forests along the way. She was constantly faced with dangers from panic-stricken refugees and plundering troops.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks to months, the temperatures dropped below freezing. Each day, she stumbled over the frozen ground, her smallest child—a baby—in her arms. Her three other children struggled along behind her, with the oldest—seven years old—pulling the tiny wooden wagon containing their belongings. Ragged and torn burlap was wrapped around their feet, providing the only protection for them, since their shoes had long since disintegrated. Their thin, tattered jackets covered their thin, tattered clothing, providing their only protection against the cold.
Soon the snows came, and the days and nights became a nightmare. In the evenings she and the children would try to find some kind of shelter—a barn or a shed—and would huddle together for warmth, with a few thin blankets from the wagon on top of them.
She constantly struggled to force from her mind overwhelming fears that they would perish before reaching their destination.
And then one morning the unthinkable happened. As she awakened, she felt a chill in her heart. The tiny form of her three-year-old daughter was cold and still, and she realized that death had claimed the child. Though overwhelmed with grief, she knew that she must take the other children and travel on. First, however, she used the only implement she had—a tablespoon—to dig a grave in the frozen ground for her tiny, precious child.
Death, however, was to be her companion again and again on the journey. Her seven-year-old son died, either from starvation or from freezing or both. Again her only shovel was the tablespoon, and again she dug hour after hour to lay his mortal remains gently into the earth. Next, her five-year-old son died, and again she used her tablespoon as a shovel.
Her despair was all consuming. She had only her tiny baby daughter left, and the poor thing was failing. Finally, as she was reaching the end of her journey, the baby died in her arms. The spoon was gone now, so hour after hour she dug a grave in the frozen earth with her bare fingers. Her grief became unbearable. How could she possibly be kneeling in the snow at the graveside of her last child? She had lost her husband and all her children. She had given up her earthly goods, her home, and even her homeland.
In this moment of overwhelming sorrow and complete bewilderment, she felt her heart would literally break. In despair she contemplated how she might end her own life, as so many of her fellow countrymen were doing. How easy it would be to jump off a nearby bridge, she thought, or to throw herself in front of an oncoming train.
And then, as these thoughts assailed her, something within her said, “Get down on your knees and pray.” She ignored the prompting until she could resist it no longer. She knelt and prayed more fervently than she had in her entire life:
“Dear Heavenly Father, I do not know how I can go on. I have nothing left—except my faith in Thee. I feel, Father, amidst the desolation of my soul, an overwhelming gratitude for the atoning sacrifice of Thy Son, Jesus Christ. I cannot express adequately my love for Him. I know that because He suffered and died, I shall live again with my family; that because He broke the chains of death, I shall see my children again and will have the joy of raising them. Though I do not at this moment wish to live, I will do so, that we may be reunited as a family and return—together—to Thee.”
When she finally reached her destination of Karlsruhe, Germany, she was emaciated. Brother Babbel said that her face was a purple-gray, her eyes red and swollen, her joints protruding. She was literally in the advanced stages of starvation. In a Church meeting shortly thereafter, she bore a glorious testimony, stating that of all the ailing people in her saddened land, she was one of the happiest because she knew that God lived, that Jesus is the Christ, and that He died and was resurrected so that we might live again. She testified that she knew if she continued faithful and true to the end, she would be reunited with those she had lost and would be saved in the celestial kingdom of God.8

Jenny buried her face in her hands. All she wanted was to go home, but Amy and Mandy were so interested in the movie that Jenny didn’t know what to say. This was the worst night she could remember.
Jenny had been looking forward to a fun evening when she arrived at Amy’s birthday party. When she walked in, she found Amy and Mandy looking at a magazine.
“Hi, Jenny!” Amy said. “Come read with us!”
Jenny sat down and looked over Mandy’s shoulder. Immediately she saw a picture she knew she shouldn’t look at. Amy and Mandy giggled. Jenny stared at the floor. She didn’t know what to say. Amy and Mandy were two of the most popular girls in school, and Jenny wanted them to like her.
Finally Amy put down the magazine. “Let’s play a game!” she said.
Jenny was relieved. Now she could have some fun.
Amy pulled out a word game. Jenny was excited. “I play this game with my family all the time,” she said. “It’s one of my favorites.”
Jenny put together her word: “listen.” She smiled at her friends. “Look! It has six letters! I’ve never been able to make such a long word in this game before!”
Then Mandy put down her word. It was a naughty word Jenny’s family didn’t use. Mandy and Amy giggled. Jenny couldn’t decide if she should ask them to stop. She kept making regular words, but Mandy and Amy kept making bad words. The more they giggled, the worse Jenny felt.
Jenny was relieved when Amy’s parents came in to check on them. With grown-ups around, Jenny was sure no one would say bad words or look at bad pictures.
“Are you ready for the movie?” Amy’s parents asked.
Jenny sat on the couch with Amy and Mandy to watch the movie, but this wasn’t like movies Jenny watched at home. The movie bothered her. Should she say something? Should she leave? Jenny didn’t know what to say. So she just sat there feeling worse and worse.
When Jenny’s mom came to pick her up, Jenny almost ran to the car.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asked as Jenny buckled her seatbelt and started crying.
“I feel so yucky!” Jenny said. She told Mom all about the party.
Mom’s face was serious. “Jenny, I’m so sorry that happened. If you are ever in a bad situation, remember that you can always call Dad or me to come get you.”
Jenny nodded. “I know,” she said. “I should have called.”
When they got home, Jenny went to her room and tried to act like everything was fine, but all she could think about was the bad things she’d seen. How could she forget them?
A while later she heard a knock on her door. It was Mom and Dad.
“I hear you had a bad night,” Dad said.
“I feel so yucky inside,” Jenny said.
“How do you think you can feel clean again?” Dad asked.
Jenny thought about it. “Will you pray with me?” she asked.
“Of course,” Dad said.
Mom and Dad knelt by Jenny. Jenny prayed that she wouldn’t feel yucky anymore and asked to be forgiven for staying around things she knew she shouldn’t.
Jenny finished her prayer. She felt better. The yucky feeling was gone. She felt different from how she had been feeling all night. The Holy Ghost was helping her feel happy again. Jenny decided this was the way she wanted to feel all the time—no matter what.

When I was 13 years old, my family lived on property in Granger, Utah, and every Saturday morning, my brother and I would get up early to start our chores. On one particular Saturday, my chore was to mow the lawn. We had a pretty big yard, so I had to get up extra early to get everything done before it got too hot.
As I was putting the lawn mower away in the shed after I’d finished, I heard the door to the back of our home close. I looked up and saw my father motion for me to come over and sit with him on the back porch steps of our home. We sat shoulder to shoulder, admiring the beautiful sunrise, as I waited for him to speak to me.
After a while he asked me, “Son, tell me about what you want to do in your life. What are your goals? What are your thoughts about the future?”
I told him my goals and dreams, including things like amazing sporting accomplishments and becoming an attorney. When I finished, he said, “That’s wonderful. You can accomplish anything in this life with our Heavenly Father’s help.”
Then he said, “Son, there is something that I would like to talk to you about, and I want you to know that I have prayed about what I’m going to share with you now. And I have prayed that the message I will give to you will be imprinted on your soul.
“What I am going to say to you will greatly affect how you deal with the challenges and the heartaches you will certainly face in your life. And it will come to influence how you face the successes that you have in your life more than anything else that I know to say to you.”
He paused, and I curiously waited to find out what this amazing piece of advice would be.
“Protect the private times of your life,” he said. “You know those moments of your life when you think, ‘There’s no one else around, nobody else knows what I’m doing, and nothing that I’m going to do during this moment will have any negative effect on anyone else’? You know those times?
“What you do in those moments, during these private times of your life, will determine the level of confidence you will have before God and men. It will determine your ability to concentrate and focus on difficult and complex challenges in your life more than anything else I could teach you. And it will have more to do with how you grow and raise your own family and how you strive to draw near to our Heavenly Father than anything else I could say to you. Son, protect the private times of your life.”
I listened carefully to that advice. And just like he said, that moment became locked in my mind and in my heart. Those words are forever imprinted on my soul.
“You know those moments of your life when you think, ‘There’s no one else around, nobody else knows what I’m doing, and nothing that I’m going to do during this moment will have any negative effect on anyone else’?”

When my husband and I had been married for less than a month, he had to attend basic military training. I was not allowed to accompany him, so for the six months he was gone I stayed in Provo, Utah, and worked. This was not my idea of a married life—my husband almost 2,000 kilometers away and unable to come home for even a visit. I was a very unhappy bride.
One night during this time, I was awakened from a deep sleep by a voice which came into my mind. As I listened to what was being said, I realized that my great-great-grandfather was speaking to me. I lay there for a moment, listening and thinking. My great-great-grandfather was telling me to have his family sealed to him. He had lived in the United States in the mid-1800s. Due to the American Civil War and the economic conditions prior to the war, my great-great-grandfather George Wilkie had been away from his beloved wife and four sons a great deal. Eventually he died while serving his country in the Civil War.
My ancestors were not Latter-day Saints and did not have the blessings of the gospel. Now, in the middle of the night, here was my great-great-grandfather Wilkie saying to me, “Terry Lynn, please have my family sealed to me. I want to be with them through eternity. Please have our temple work done! You are now away from your husband—imagine that for eternity. It is awful! I want to be sealed to my wife.” Then, as suddenly as it had come, the voice was gone. At first, I thought I must be imagining things, and I lay there and thought about my great-great-grandparents. I decided I should do their genealogy and would start the work when I had the time. Then I began to fall asleep again. I was startled when the voice returned and said much the same thing, only this time urging me to have the work done soon. I decided to do something about it the next day. Apparently, however, my grandfather knew I would probably be distracted the next day, because he spoke to me yet a third time, and told me to do something NOW!
I could not quite believe what was happening, but in the middle of the night I got up and began working on genealogy. I sorted through miscellaneous papers and records and found the information I needed to begin. I then wrote letters requesting birth, marriage, and death certificates. When I had done all that I could do at that time, I finally went back to bed.
I worked on genealogy a lot during the six months my husband was gone. Eventually, I was able to go to the temple with my cousin and have my great-great grandparents sealed. I can testify that I felt their presence there in the temple and knew that, at last, they could be truly happy and together eternally.

President Lee took seriously and personally the goal to bring the light of the gospel to all. Marjorie Pay Hinckley, wife of President Gordon B. Hinckley, remembers an occasion when she and her husband were with President and Sister Lee in England: “It had been a full day: two sessions of a conference and a fireside at night. When we got back to the hotel about 9:30, we were bone-weary and hungry. We went into the hotel dining room to get a little something to eat. The day was over—we could relax. At least, that is what I thought. The next thing I knew, the waitress had her pencil poised to write down our order. President Lee looked up at her and said, ‘What church do you belong to?’ The day was not over for him. He had embarked on a proselyting exercise. Before the meal was over he had learned all about this young woman. She had lost her husband and was lonely and afraid. She had promised to see the missionaries and learn more. It was a beautiful thing to see the president of the Church practice what he had been preaching all that day.”

These Young Women in the Hunter (Utah) 27th Ward found a great way to start their mornings during summer vacation. For 53 days they met together to read the Book of Mormon aloud. By reading ten pages each day, they finished reading the Book of Mormon by the time school started again.

Of all the requirements Rocco has fulfilled to earn his various awards, he points to one in particular as most valuable for his personal growth: “Reading the Book of Mormon,” Rocco says without hesitation. “That was the biggest and most rewarding challenge.”

“I had read the Book of Mormon once already, a year or so ago, but I was just reading to get it done,” Rocco explains. “When I started reading it again, I really wanted to learn and gain a testimony of it.” He approached reading the Book of Mormon in a completely different way his second time through. “Every time I read now, I pray before to ask Heavenly Father’s Spirit to be with me as I read.”

Rocco’s already begun on his next big project—to more actively share his testimony with others as he prepares to serve a full-time mission. His Scouting experiences and earning the Duty to God Award have helped him in his personal development and in becoming a missionary. “To spread the gospel, I needed to know what is in the Book of Mormon, and I needed to know that it is true,” he says. “After reading the Book of Mormon for the second time, I received a testimony of it.”

Now that he has received his call to serve as a full-time missionary, the testimony Elder du Plessis has built is proving much more useful than the rope-and-log bridge he built for his Springbok construction project. However, some of the backwoodsman skills he learned as a Scout may come in handy as he serves in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi.

Before joining the ward team, I didn’t know the other teammates very well, but as we played basketball together they quickly became my friends. In fact, all of Skip’s friends from church became my friends—the boys who played basketball and also the girls who were their age. I didn’t know how to dance, so after Mutual activities several of my new friends and I would go to someone’s basement and play old records while they taught me how to dance. I’m still not a good dancer, but they taught me enough so that I could impress Carolyn Lake, another Latter-day Saint girl. After my mission to the Gulf States, Carolyn agreed to marry me.

Although some of the rules of good etiquette change over the years, there are some that will likely always endure simply because of their practicality and effectiveness. Do you know what they are—and why they are important? Priest adviser Steve Stewart from the Monument Park 12th Ward, Salt Lake Monument Park Stake, decided his quorum should be able to answer “Yes!” to both questions. Remembering his feelings of inadequacy at a dinner at the home of his mission president, he wanted to give his quorum the opportunity to learn, discuss, and practice some of the more universal aspects of etiquette.
“It was New Year’s Day and I was serving as a missionary in the Central Atlantic States Mission,” he recalled. “The mission president and his wife had invited some of us over for dinner. It was delicious, but my enjoyment of it was hampered some when I realized I lacked knowledge of formal etiquette. For example, I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to stand or even when it was appropriate to take my napkin. It’s not that the procedures were difficult, they were just unfamiliar to me.”

David Kovalenko lives in Panama where it’s warm all year round. He enjoys not having cold winters because he can go swimming anytime, and tropical plants like bananas and coconuts grow in his backyard.
David decides to pick some green coconuts like the native Panamanians do. The milky water inside green coconuts is a favorite drink that tastes a little like soda pop and is called cocoa frio.
It is very hard to climb a coconut palm because there are no branches to hold onto. It’s almost as hard as climbing a flagpole at school. By the time David reaches the leaves and the coconuts, he is tired and the coconuts are hard to knock loose.
The coconut is covered by a thick husk that David has to remove before he can get to the nut. At least he does not have to worry about them bruising when they hit the ground. David’s father helps him plant a sharpened stick in the ground with its point facing up. Then David hits the coconut on the pointed end of the stick many times to crack open the husk.
It is hard work and David’s sister Kanya helps when David gets tired. Kanya is wearing a native costume called a mola. It was made by the Cuna Indians who lived on the San Blas Islands a few miles off the coast of Panama.
Piece by piece David and Kanya pry the coconut husk away. Working on the coconut has made them very thirsty. At last they crack the top off the nut and have a nice cold drink of cocoa frio!

In March of 2003, one of my good friends, Bret, invited me to help with his Eagle Scout project. After school the next day we drove in his truck with another friend of ours, Camden, to where the project would be. Inspired by the Spirit, Bret directed Camden to a Book of Mormon situated in a holder in the passenger-side door. He told him to open to a verse he had recently read in the Book of Alma. My interest was sparked, and for the first time, I saw the book I wanted so very badly. However, I was too scared to say anything right then. Upon returning that evening, I worked up the confidence to ask Bret for the book. He happily gave it to me and told me to read it. That night I read nine chapters. From the moment I picked up the book, I fell in love with its message.