Gospel Story Finder

I live in Vanuatu, a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. I was so excited to turn eight so that I could be baptized and confirmed.
But I was worried about getting baptized in the ocean in front of my house because the waves can get pretty big there. Those waves are fun to play in, but I wasn’t sure about being baptized in them. My mom and I went in the ocean by our house to see what it would be like, and I knew it would be OK.
We chose the day when I was to be baptized, and I was so excited. But then a cyclone came close to our island. We had to call the branch president and cancel my baptism.
Even though there was a little flooding from the cyclone, we were able to go to church that Sunday. The branch president announced that I would be baptized on Saturday.
On Saturday morning, the waves were really big, so I was kind of scared. We had a meeting at my house, and then we all walked down to the beach. I had asked my cousin Josh to baptize me.
Josh lifted me over the waves as we walked in, but as I was getting baptized, the waves were calm. I think that while Josh said the baptism prayer, Jesus calmed the water for me.
As we walked out of the ocean, the waters got rough again, but I didn’t mind because I was already soaked completely. I’m so glad that I turned eight and that I could follow Jesus’s example by being baptized. I know that Heavenly Father hears my prayers.

For a good part of my young life, I carried my gym bag in one hand and a cornet case in the other. There was always a conflict between my gym bag and my horn case. My mom kept promoting music, and I kept promoting athletics. Although I wanted to be a great athlete, I had only average abilities, so eventually the cornet prevailed. I studied the cornet for ten years, taking lessons every week. Music has been associated with a lot of my most spiritual moments in life: while singing hymns in the mission field, at family home evenings, and at sacrament meetings, and while attending musicals and concerts.

I have a brother who became a brigadier general in the Air Force. During World War II he was a bomber pilot and took part in some of the most dangerous and desperate raids in Europe. He returned to an assignment in Washington, D.C., about the time I finished pilot training in the same B-24 bombers and was heading for the Pacific. We had a day or two together in Washington before I left for overseas.
We talked of courage and of fear. I asked how he had held himself together in the face of all that he had endured.
He said, “I have a favorite hymn—‘Come, Come, Ye Saints,’ and when it was desperate, when there was little hope that we would return, I would keep that on my mind and it was as though the engines of the aircraft would sing back to me:
‘Come, come, ye saints,
No toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you
This journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.’”
—Hymns, no. 13
From this he clung to faith, the one essential ingredient to courage.

Sammy opened his eyes. It was a new day! He yawned. There was a yummy smell in the air.
Mmmm, Papa is making bread! Sammy thought.
Papa baked bread for the family every Saturday. Sammy liked to watch him take the crispy brown loaves out of the oven. Papa always gave Sammy the first slice.
But today isn’t Saturday, Sammy thought. Why is Papa baking?
Sammy decided to find out. He walked to the kitchen and asked Papa what was going on.
“Do you remember what the bishop asked us to do?” Papa asked.
Sammy nodded. “He asked us help other people. And I helped Sister Martin take her bag upstairs, remember?”
“You did a good job,” Papa said. “I decided to pray about how I could help someone. I had the idea that I could bake bread to share.”
Sammy looked in the oven window. He counted the loaves of bread.
“One … two … three … four. Who will you give the bread to?”
“That’s something I need your help with,” Papa said. “I thought one loaf could go to Sister Martin. And two loaves could go to the Miller family. Who do you think we could give the fourth loaf to?”
Sammy thought about it.
“What about Mr. Lee?” Sammy asked. Mr. Lee lived in their apartment building. He didn’t go outside very much. Mostly he just watched people from his window.
“That’s a great idea,” Papa said.
After the bread was done baking, Sammy helped Papa wrap the bread. Then Sammy got his wagon. They put the loaves inside.
“The bread wagon is ready to roll!” Sammy said.
Sammy helped Papa pull the wagon. Sammy’s heart felt nice and warm, just like the bread they were about to share!
See Come, Follow Me for Mosiah 18–24.

Sissy was crying again. She didn’t want to cry, but the warm, wet tears kept sliding down her cheeks. Ever since Pa had died last winter, she found herself crying almost every time she was alone.
Today she had run home from the little pioneer church and climbed into the hayloft. It was the Sunday before Easter, and her Primary lesson had been about the Resurrection. Sister Nelson had reminded the class that when people we love die, we can be comforted knowing that they will live again and that we can be with them at some future time. Sissy knew that Sister Nelson was speaking especially to her and was trying to be kind, but her teacher just didn’t understand! What good is it to think about resurrection when I need Pa right now? she thought.
Sissy had been very close to her father. Pa had always said that she was special. He called her his “own little angel right from heaven.” The tears rolled down her cheeks, and she cried, “Oh, Pa, why did you have to die? How can I ever be happy again?”
Her thoughts were interrupted by her brother Joe’s husky voice calling her from the barn door. “Sissy! Sissy, are you in here?”
“I’m coming, Joe,” Sissy said slowly as she dried her tears and began to climb down.
Joe stood at the bottom of the ladder; he lifted her off the rungs, swung her around, and gently set her down. “What’s the matter, Sis?” he asked as he bent his tall frame over and looked into her reddened eyes. “Has it been raining in the hayloft again?”
Sissy gave him a little smile and held his hand as they left the barn. She loved Joe. He was kind and gentle, like Pa, and Sissy knew he understood her sorrow and loneliness. She wondered if he still missed Pa too. She hadn’t thought about that before. Joe always seemed so strong and sure of everything.
“Joe,” Sissy said, stopping suddenly, “what do you do when you feel sad and lonely without Pa around?”
Joe walked slowly over to the cottonwood tree and sat down. Sissy sat down beside him. He was quiet for a moment and seemed to be studying the daffodils that Pa and Sissy had planted last spring. Then he looked up into Sissy’s eyes and spoke softly. “Missing Pa is natural and will probably last all our lives, Sissy. But when I’m sad, I try to get busy doing something that I know would make Pa happy. You see, I know that someday I’m going to see Pa again, and I want to be the kind of man he always wanted me to grow up to be. Somehow that seems to take my mind off my sad thoughts and put it on the happy thoughts of how proud I can make Pa when I see him again.”
Sissy thought about Joe’s words as he got up and headed toward the woodpile. She knew that Pa would be sad to think that the only thing she did when she thought of him was cry. Maybe if she tried Joe’s plan, it would work for her too. She wrinkled her forehead as she tried to think of something to do that would make Pa happy and proud of her.
In a minute Sissy was on her feet, running to catch up with Joe. “Joe,” she asked, filling her arms with kindling, “do you think we could take some daffodils over to Sister Harding this afternoon? I noticed she wasn’t at church today, so maybe she would like a little visit. We could take over some of those good molasses cookies too!”
Joe gave her a quick smile and a gentle squeeze and nodded his head. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time,” he said.
Later, as Sissy gathered the flowers, she found herself thinking about Pa and smiling for the first time in a long while. She could almost see Pa smiling too!

Everyone in Paul’s family has jobs to do on Thanksgiving Day. But when Paul’s sisters go to wake him up so that he can get started on his chores, Paul isn’t in his bed. Where’s Paul? To find out, start in the bedroom and follow each clue in order, then fill in the blanks of the last stanza with the first and last letters of each clue stanza and the first letter of the last stanza.
1 Annie and Chris went to wake Paul,
But he wasn’t in bed or out in the hall
Or in the closet with his yellow hedgehogs,
And his work clothes were gone, as well as his frogs.
2 “Look out the window and see if he’s there;
Search in each corner, under each chair.”
Then Annie told Chris, as she went out the door,
“If he’s not brushing his teeth, we’ll have to look more.”
3 Every inch of the bathroom was searched wall to wall,
But no trace of Paul could be found there at all.
“To the garden,” Chris said, we’ll quietly creep.
If he’s there, we will scare him. Now don’t make a peep.”
4 By the garden wall some flowers were missing—
In their place were Paul’s frogs, croaking and glistening!
Paul had picked flowers, his first chore done early.
His tracks led to the kitchen; they showed up quite clearly.
5 The vase in the kitchen held roses, one mum,
To place on the table when dinner would come.
Paul had left Mother without saying good-bye,
Taking some dishes from the cupboards up high.
6 Each dish was in place on the dining room table.
The napkins were folded—the best Paul was able.
Annie thought hard, then said, knitting her brow,
“Paul might be watching the TV by now.”
7 In his chair by the TV, Dad was quietly snoring,
The home team was losing; the game was quite boring.
“Who would watch this?” Annie asked with a grin,
“Perhaps Paul is playing a game in the den.”
8 Down in the den a warm fire had been built,
And on a card table puzzle pieces lay spilt.
The edge was all done, showing part of a zoo.
“He’s been here and gone. Now what shall we do?
9 “Will we ever find Paul?” Chris impatiently asked.
“Since his chores are all done, we could eat dinner at last.”
“Oh, I see him now,” Annie whispered real low.
“See him? He’s there—____________________________ _______________
Answer:

Another missionary had a bad back. He was in pain constantly. He did not know that I knew of his condition. He loved missionary work so much he had kept it a secret for fear that he might be released from his mission.

Once it was my friend’s birthday on Sunday. I was sad because I never get to go to my school friends’ birthday parties that are on Sunday. I really wanted to go, but I knew I should keep the Sabbath day holy. I didn’t go to the party, and I felt good inside.

On one occasion a Church leader was confronted by a grieving parent who wanted one of God’s commandments softened to accommodate a wayward child who had been disciplined by the Church. In his grief the parent had suggested that the Church leader was unchristian in denying the child the full benefits of membership in the Church.

The Church leader shared the sorrow of the parents and the child, but he remained loyal to the commandments of the Lord. In response to the accusation of not being a Christian, the leader said, “If I were to attempt to change the commandments, at that very moment I would no longer be following Christ’s teachings.”

His first job was sweeping out a radio repair shop. He became interested in radio.
Before he was 16, he obtained a radio operator’s license. He worked both as a radio announcer and engineer.

My grandpa always wanted to play the violin. But his violin sat unused and dusty on his shelf. Then he gave it to me, and it sat for years unused on my shelf. I never learned to play it.

When I was seven, I learned one of the greatest lessons of my life. We were studying the environment in school. We discussed pollution and ways we could help decrease its terrible effects on the world. We talked about the oceans and how, even in little ways, we could change some of the things we do at home to make the world safer for all creatures.
I was still pretty young then, but I really took what we had been learning to heart. To me, the environment is a very important thing. The more I learned about why we should conserve our natural resources, the more I wanted everyone else to know the same things and think they were just as important as I did. I became a seven-year-old warrior fighting in the everyday battle to save Mother Nature.
One day, I came home from school having just finished drinking a soda. We had a recycling bin, which we used regularly, and with my newfound enthusiasm for caring about the environment, I went straight to toss my empty bottle in.
“Stop,” my mom said over her shoulder. “Our recycling company doesn’t allow us to recycle green plastic.”
I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The recycling companies were supposed to be the heroes; why would they say we could recycle some things and not others? It didn’t make any sense to me. Disappointed, I dropped my bottle in the trash and headed back toward my room.
At that moment, I had an impression I’d never had before. Coming from a family that was not very religious, we had never had family prayer or even knew what prayer was, other than what we had seen on TV. But right then that was exactly what I felt I needed to do: get on my knees by my bed and pray about it. So I slipped into my room and, not really knowing how to begin, gave it a simple try.
“God,” I started quietly, “this is Ace. Thank you for the environment. Please let us recycle green plastic bottles in this area. It’s really important.” I closed with an “amen” and waited. I didn’t know what to expect. Although I wasn’t visited by angels or struck by lightning, I did feel something I had never felt before. As I sat there, I felt good. I felt like I wasn’t alone in the room anymore, although there clearly wasn’t any other person I could see. Something told me that what I had just done was right.
Life continued the same as it always had. In fact, by the next afternoon I had been so involved in usual things at school that I had mostly forgotten about the green bottle episode and the prayer.
When I got home, I went back to my room, but before long my mom called my name and asked me to come to the kitchen. When I did, I saw that she had a letter in her hand. She explained that it was from the recycling company stating that now we could recycle green plastics in addition to other things.
She handed me the letter. I looked it over, but I couldn’t believe it. The same feeling I had had the day before came rushing back to me. It was an answer.
That was an experience that has never left me. Every time I think about it, I’m still amazed that it could have happened at all. And it was this experience that, three years later, helped me to feel the truth of the gospel when the missionaries came knocking at our family’s door. It was the same feeling.

The first of November Christmas trees began to appear in department stores.
“Let’s decorate our tree!” cried Sandra.
“Let’s not,” said Mother. “It hasn’t even snowed yet.”
The middle of November the first flecks of snow fell.
“Let’s buy the tree,” Sandra urged. “Come on, everyone. It’s snowing. It’s time to decorate the tree.”
Daddy kneeled down so he could look his daughter right in the eyes. “Look, honey, there has to be lots of snow—real deep snow. When it snows so much that you must wear your boots, we will buy and decorate the tree.”
The first of December Mother could sweep the snow from the walk with a broom. It was just a little snow.
The middle of December it really began to snow. And it snowed and it snowed. The fence posts wore tall hats, and the red flag was almost hidden on the mailbox. Sandra’s older brother and sister got out the toboggan and searched for their mittens.
“I want to play in the snow too. Wait for me,” pleaded Sandra.
“Susan, Larry, wait for your sister,” Mother instructed. “Sandra, get your boots on.”
“Boots and snow? Boots and snow!” squealed Sandra. “Now can we buy our Christmas tree?”
“Yes,” said Mother, “we’ll talk to Daddy about it tonight.”
After supper Daddy agreed that it was time to get a tree but suggested that they wait until family night to buy it.
So on Monday night, Daddy, Mother, Sandra, Larry, and Susan all dressed in warm coats and cozy snow boots and got into the station wagon. They drove to the vacant lot near the school that was now filled with trees and chose a very big one.
“Now can we decorate it?” asked Sandra.
Daddy laughed. “Not until it’s set up. And I’m going to have to saw off some of the trunk first just to get it into our living room. Give me a little time and it’ll be ready.”
Even when the trunk was cut shorter, it was a close squeeze to stand the tree upright in the living room.
“Now?” asked Sandra.
“Yes, now,” answered Daddy. “You kids run up and get the boxes from the attic.”
There were lots of boxes. Dad opened one box and began stringing the lights.
Mother opened a box of large red glass balls and gently began hanging them.
Larry opened a box of assorted wooden toys and identified each one as he hung them—“Here’s a rocking horse. Here’s a soldier. Here’s a drum.”
“Look what I have!” shouted Susan as she held up beautiful strands of colored tinsel.
Sandra had peeked into each box and then stood very quietly, watching.
“Hey, why aren’t you helping, Sandra? Look, at last we’re decorating the tree just as you wanted,” said Daddy.
“Why the long face, Sandy, honey?” asked Mother.
“It’s not here,” said Sandra.
“What’s not here?”
“The decoration.”
“These are all decorations, dear. Here, you take this bell and hang it on the bottom branch. Maybe the kitty will play with it and not bother the rest of the decorations.”
“I don’t want the bell. I want the decoration.”
Susan said, “I think she’s looking for some special decoration. What color is it, Sandra?”
“White.”
“Here’s a white foam ball,” called her brother. “Is this it?”
“No.”
“This white star?” asked Mother.
“No.”
“Here, I’ll open the rest of the boxes and you search until you find it,” said Daddy. “You better hurry, though. We need you to help us get this big tree decorated before bedtime.”
While the others worked and worked, Sandra hunted and hunted.
Finally the tree was full of colored balls, small trinkets, streamers, lights, and topped with a glittering star. The boxes were empty. Everyone’s face was smiling except Sandra’s.
“It’s gone,” she whispered.
Mother brought in the family night treat of hot cocoa and yellow cheese on round crackers. “Here, now, let’s put on a happy face.”
Sandra shook her head.
Daddy picked her up and said, “Come with me to take these boxes back to the attic. I’ll let you ride piggyback.”
Sandra had to duck low as they left through the door. It almost made her laugh. She loved being high. Both she and Daddy had to crouch low so as not to hit the ceiling in the attic. But something did hit Sandra’s face.
“The decoration! The decoration! I found it!” Sandra shouted.
She took hold of a white paper chain hanging from the attic ceiling that she had made last year in primary. Daddy unhooked it for her, and she carried it very carefully down to the Christmas tree.
Sandra placed it around the bottom branches right above the bell.
“There,” she said, “now the tree is decorated.”

Oh, no! That word jumped off the page at me, and the awareness of everything else in the classroom setting faded away. Our excellent, but no-nonsense, speech teacher had just assigned reading parts to the class and handed out the script. Quickly scanning the first page, I screeched to a stop when I hit that word!
You see, I knew that Connie had been assigned to read that line. With few exceptions, almost any one in the class could have read that profane word without any personal concern. But I knew Connie. I knew of her high standards in every area of her life and of her integrity in maintaining those standards with no compromise. She just exemplified purity and freshness and happiness. Clean thoughts and language were carefully guarded. Now suddenly she was expected to violate that standard by a teacher who saw nothing wrong at all with such language. The script was already being read aloud, and I wondered what she would do. Then it was time for Connie’s part.
“Oh, PUMPKIN!” she thundered! The startled class suddenly broke out in good-natured laughter. Our teacher looked up quickly from her paper with a surprised expression and momentarily studied Connie. Slowly a smile was born and then grew into full bloom as she realized that Connie wasn’t after attention or just trying to be funny. But Connie simply continued reading her part as though nothing unusual had happened.

I’d grown up in the Congregational church, attending every Sunday. I’d never even stopped to think that there were other doctrines, other beliefs. One day in early spring my mother came home from work and we all sat down to dinner. Over dinner the conversation turned to the fact that the two dentists Mom worked for were Mormons. Nothing negative was said, but Mom and Dad explained that Mormonism was just another religion, like Congregationalism but with other beliefs. The subject of the Church wasn’t mentioned again for several weeks.
Over a period of several weeks, my parents became close friends with one of the two dentists that Mother worked with. Because of their close association with the Petersen family, my parents found that their family had something that we didn’t, something that we wanted. After careful thought, we concluded that that something was the Church.
The next Sunday, and for two months of Sundays after, we took on a tough schedule. We continued to attend our meetings at the Congregational church, which ended at 12:15 P.M. Immediately following, we raced across town to the LDS chapel, where we attended meetings from 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M.

Take responsibility for mistakes. I used to argue with my brother or attack his beliefs. When I was finally mature enough to realize I was in the wrong, I apologized, and my relationship with my brother has never been better. You never need to apologize for your beliefs, just for actions that are not in keeping with the gospel.

I answered the ring of my telephone one evening to hear a voice ask, “Are you related to an Elder Monson who years ago served in the New England Mission?”

I answered that such was not the case. The caller introduced himself as a Brother Leonardo Gambardella and then mentioned that an Elder Monson and an Elder Bonner called at his home long ago and bore their testimonies to him and his wife. They had listened but had done nothing further to apply their teachings. Subsequently they moved to California, where, some 13 years later, they again found the truth and were converted and baptized. Brother Gambardella then asked if there were any way he could reach the elders who first had visited with them, that he might express his profound gratitude for their testimonies, which had remained with him and his wife.

I checked the records. I located the elders, now married with families of their own. Can you imagine their surprise when I telephoned them and told them the good news—even the culmination of their early efforts? They instantly remembered the Gambardellas. I arranged a conference telephone call so they could personally extend their congratulations and welcome them into the Church. They did. There were tears, but they were tears of joy.

When Henry Marsh loses a race, it’s news. He made that kind of news twice last year, not at all in 1982, and once in 1981. One of the items of news he made last year simply involved getting overtaken at the finish line. That’s very very rare. The other news he made was even rarer. At the World Championship in Helsinki, Finland, he hit the barrier on the last water jump and went into the water, making not only news but a splash heard ’round the track world.

“Down” was a rather new dimension when Henry discovered it on the last water jump in Helsinki. He not only lost the race and his number one ranking, but came out of the water pit with painfully bruised ribs. There was no way he could run the following week in Berlin, Germany.

But he did. Although his ribs screamed at him to stop, he not only won the race in Berlin, but turned in an American and personal record of 8:12.37. But that’s not really news, is it?

The last story took place later that fall while a family was taking a pleasant, 3 1/2-mile hike to a beautiful lake in the Cascades. As they returned down the trail later that day, their young daughter started falling behind. They weren’t really too concerned as it was a good trail, it was still light, and they had been on similar hikes before. The parents continued down the trail, arriving at the road just a few minutes ahead of their daughter, so they thought. After waiting for more than an hour for her, they became concerned and started back up the trail in search. This started a search that would last three days and cost thousands of dollars and many man-hours.
The third illustration even more effectively points out the value of always carrying a whistle and being trained in its use. The little girl had wandered off the trail while picking flowers and had gotten lost in the process. After wandering around for many hours, she lay down beside a large tree where she remained in shock and exhaustion for two days while searchers walked all around the area looking for her. When she was finally found on the third day, she was only 100 yards from the trail!

Visit the Church’s Motion Picture Studio in Provo, Utah, where Center Street is taped, and immediately you sense it’s a show with creative flair.
“Take our set, for example. It was designed by five local teenagers,” Mike says. “They suggested things like the lighted tubes filled with bubbles. They planned it all out, then handed their ideas to the construction crew. It came off a lot like they imagined it.”