Gospel Story Finder

What has helped your testimony grow stronger? Recently I had an experience that made my testimony grow and helped me realize that my Heavenly Father really does know me and love me. I was in a scary situation with my younger brother, and we prayed that the Holy Ghost would tell my mom to come and get us. She received a strong impression to come right away. When she showed up a few minutes later, we were so relieved and grateful that Heavenly Father answers prayers.

Friends. Why can’t we all be friends? Today I was walking about Winter Quarters with Mariah Jewett and Leticia Harwood. Oh, how I have wanted to be Mariah’s friend! She is pretty and clever, and she plans dances for which her father plays the fiddle. I love to dance. She promised to invite me to the next one.
While walking, we saw a family arrive in an overflowing open wagon. I love to see more Saints joining us. Tucked in among the household goods was a girl who looked to be about our age. “How exciting! Let’s go welcome her,” I said.
“Wait,” Mariah said. “Don’t go near her. She’s probably got vermin. Look at her dress. Did you ever see anything so ugly?”
I was anxious about the vermin, so I stared impolitely. Her dress wasn’t ugly, only very plain. Just then the girl saw us watching, and she smiled shyly. Was she feeling as I had felt when we finally joined the other Saints? Was she heartsick at losing friends, and hoping to find new ones?
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Let’s go be friendly.”
“Hazel!” Mariah’s voice stopped me. “If you mingle with that riffraff, I shall be forced to exclude you from my list of associates.”
I am ashamed that I hesitated, thinking of having fun with Mariah at the dance. Then I remembered the great and spacious building in the Book of Mormon, and I knew where I wanted to be.
“So be it, Mariah,” I said, and I left her. Even in the midst of the Saints, life has trials.

With it comes the right and the authority to govern in the Church of Christ. I recall the experiences I had long ago when I was a member of the Council of the Twelve. I attended a stake conference where the president was a man of wealth and affluence. He was very successful by the standards of the world. He lived in a magnificent home. He met me at the airport in a beautiful car. We had lunch at a first-class restaurant. And yet he was humble in his office, anxious to learn, and ever willing to do the right thing in administering the affairs of his stake.
I subsequently went to another conference. The president met me in a car that had seen many seasons. We stopped at a fast-food place for a bite to eat. His home was extremely modest—neat and clean and quiet but not richly furnished. He was a carpenter by trade. He had none of the fancy things of the world. He, too, was a wonderful stake president doing his duty in a remarkable way. He was excellent in every respect.
Such is the wonder of this priesthood. Wealth is not a factor. Education is not a factor. The honors of men are not a factor. The controlling factor is acceptability unto the Lord.
All of the Authorities who are here tonight could testify that in the reorganization of stakes they have had remarkable and inspiring experiences. I recall being assigned to reorganize a stake about 40 years ago. The president had suddenly died. The Brethren asked me to go down and speak at the funeral and reorganize the stake. I had never done this before. I was new as a General Authority. I was to be all alone.
When I arrived, I was taken to another town, where I participated in the funeral service. I asked all of the stake officers and the bishops to remain after the service and announced that a reorganization of the stake would take place the next evening.
I asked the mission president to sit with me as I interviewed the brethren, none of whom I knew. We interviewed late into the evening. I soon discovered there were problems in the stake. There were divisive feelings. When we were all through, I said to the mission president, “I am not satisfied. Are there not others?” He said, “I know of only one man whom we have not interviewed. He moved here rather recently on a transfer in his company. He is the second counselor in a bishopric. I do not know him well. He resides in another city.”
I said, “Let’s go see him.” We drove and went to the hotel where I would be staying for the night. Here I was, having interviewed all of these brethren and having not found one that I considered worthy to preside and having scheduled the reorganization for the next evening.
We arrived late at the hotel. I called the man; a sleepy voice answered the phone. I said that I wished to see him that evening. I apologized for calling him so late. He said, “I’ve just gone to bed, but I’ll put on my clothes and come.”
He came to the hotel. The conversation that followed was most interesting. He was a graduate of BYU in petroleum geology. He worked for a big oil company. He had served elsewhere in positions of responsibility in the Church. He knew the program of the Church. He had served a mission. He knew the gospel. He was mature in the Church. And the territory for which he was responsible as an employee of the oil company was exactly the same as the territory of the stake. I told him we would telephone him in the morning and excused him.
The mission president went on his way, and I went to bed.
At about three o’clock the next morning I awoke. Doubts began to flood my mind. This man was almost a total stranger to the people of the stake. I got out of bed and got on my knees and pleaded with the Lord for direction. I did not hear a voice, but I had a very distinct impression that said, “I told you who should be stake president. Why do you continue to ask?”
Ashamed of myself for troubling the Lord again, I went to bed and fell asleep. I phoned the man early the next morning and issued to him a call to serve as president of the stake. I asked him to select counselors.
That evening when people gathered for the meeting, there was much speculation as to who would be the stake president, but no one even thought of this man. When I announced his name, people looked at one another for a clue to discovering who he was. I had him come to the stand. I announced his counselors and had them come to the stand.
Even though they did not know him, the people sustained him. Things began to happen in that stake. The people had known for a long time that they needed a stake center, but they had been uncertain and argumentative as to where it should go. He went to work and within 18 months had a beautiful new stake center ready for dedication. He unified the stake. He traveled up and down, meeting the people and extending his love to them. That stake, which had grown tired, came to life and literally bubbled with new enthusiasm. It stands as a shining star in the large constellation of stakes in this Church.
Brethren, I can testify to you that revelation from the Lord is made manifest in the naming of a stake president. I once spoke in this meeting on bishops, and tonight I wish to say a few words about stake presidents.

Sometimes commandments may seem difficult to follow, but Heavenly Father has promised that He will always provide a way for us to obey. Like Nephi, young adults who are determined to be faithful can turn to Heavenly Father to find the strength and ability to be obedient. Duncan Purser of England tells how this happened for him:

“Tithing is a commandment with set boundaries: we pay 10 percent of what we earn. But with fast offerings we are given a greater degree of flexibility in our obedience.

“While I was saving for university tuition, the idea of paying a fast offering was a challenge for me. I really struggled on fast Sunday, trying to decide whether I should pay and how much constituted a ‘generous’ offering. I would turn to prayer, and not only did I always feel prompted to pay fast offerings but I also felt an increased desire to do so.

“I know that the Lord blesses those who keep this commandment, and as I obey, I am never without the necessities of life. As we live the gospel, keep the commandments, and realize that we are examples to everyone around us, our desire to become better will increase, and the Lord will show us what to do.

“The Lord has given us standards for our benefit. We can choose to what degree we live these standards and whether or not our obedience will change us. In my experience, I have seen blessings come as I follow the promptings of the Spirit.”

For Naea Bennett, that is both a great blessing and a big problem. Everyone in Tahiti knows the story of his father, Erroll Bennett. As a young man, Erroll was the best soccer player in Tahiti, maybe the best player in the South Pacific. He was taught about the Church and wanted to be baptized. The missionaries taught Erroll about keeping the Sabbath day holy, but all of Erroll’s soccer games were on Sunday. He felt that if he and his wife were to be baptized then he would have to five up playing soccer. He felt that if he committed his life to the Lord, then he would have to follow the Lord’s instructions to keep the Sabbath day reserved for spiritual matters.
Erroll Bennett’s decision did not go unnoticed. After all, soccer was by far the most popular sport in Tahiti, and he was the star of the top team. He had pressure from his extended family, from his teammates, and from those who ran organized sports. But once Erroll was baptized and told his team that he wouldn’t be playing on Sunday anymore, sports officials began to make changes to make it possible for Erroll to continue playing. They rearranged sports schedules, moving the Sunday games to nights during the week. It turned out that his teammates appreciated having Sundays off to spend with their families too, and the team performed even better with their star player able to play. Erroll became the most prolific scorer on the team. Because the best team in Tahiti would not play on Sunday, the finals for the Tahiti Cup were changed to Saturday. Even the finals of the Pacific games were changed. One man who made a stand changed the sports habits of a nation.
That man, Erroll Bennett, now the stake president of the Pirae Tahiti Stake, is Naea’s father. And because of his father, Naea does not have to play on Sunday. He has not had to make the hard choice his father made. Neither do the other 11 Mormons on Naea’s team. Nor do Naea’s sisters have any Sunday basketball games. Everyone in Tahiti knows not to even bother asking if a Mormon will play on Sunday.
How does Naea feel about the decision his father made? “I’m very proud of him,” Naea says. “It was a good decision. It is known in all of Polynesia.”

One day the two of us were riding from Salt Lake City to Morgan, Utah, in a small old truck on a narrow road. It was a big adventure for me, a little boy who had never been on a trip in an automobile before nor traveled very far from home.
My brother had explained to me that we would be traveling quite fast and that it would be dangerous if a tire should blow out. Lincoln had me hold tightly to his arm, instructing me that if a tire should blow out, he would try to keep the steering wheel steady. He asked me to help him by holding on to his arm with all of my strength.
The next hour, as we drove along the road and up the canyon to Morgan, was one of the most exciting times of my life. It was the first time that I ever remember feeling really necessary—really important. We didn’t have a flat tire, but my wonderful big brother had made his little brother feel needed.
I have since traveled to many places around the world, but I remember that trip with my brother and the lesson he taught me as well as I remember any travel adventure.

It was the last of February in 1923, and the wintry wind rustled the curtains as it forced itself through a crack in my frozen window sill. Poking my head out from under the heavy feather tick quilt, I watched my breath turn into a misty, cold fog.
Last night we had finished the last of the potatoes, and Mom had told us that there wasn’t any more flour to make bread and that we’d have no more to eat until noon today. All we had left in our food storage were carrots and bottled tomatoes, so I knew it was going to be a long day.
I heard muffled voices. That meant that Mom and Dad were up and that a fire would be going in the kitchen stove. That’s the only room we could afford to heat this winter. At least I could get warm. I shivered once, pushed the heavy quilt aside, jumped into my clothes, and made a dash for the stairs. It took no more than a few seconds to reach the warm kitchen, but I was shaking from the cold before I got there.
“Well, good morning, sleepyhead. It’s already ten o’clock,” Mom greeted me, smiling. She always smiled, even when things weren’t going well. This had been one of those not-going-well winters. Dad had only been able to work a month since last November, and he’d earned only thirty dollars all winter.
My three brothers and two sisters were already nestled around the small potbellied stove. I was so cold that I wanted to hug the stove, but I settled for huddling near it and holding my hands out to its warmth. Mom and Dad were sitting across from each other at the wooden table, talking quietly.
“No, we’re going to pay it,” I heard Dad say in a low voice. “It’s not ours, and it isn’t right that we use it.”
“But, Ray, the children,” Mom said pleadingly.
“The Lord will provide, Sarah,” Dad said reassuringly. “We have to trust Him.”
I stood and looked over Dad’s shoulder. On the table were three dollars—enough to buy flour, potatoes, and even a little meat!
“Wow!” I blurted out. “With all that money we can eat again! We won’t have to eat those crummy canned tomatoes today.”
That was a mistake.
“Son, that’s tithing money,” Dad said. “It’s not ours; it’s the Lord’s. I planned to give it to the bishop long ago, but it slipped into the lining of my jacket, and I didn’t find it until this morning. I’ve been worrying about how to replace it, but now I can take it to the bishop today.”
“But, Dad!” I protested.
That was a mistake too. I got the lecture of my life on tithing. I’d heard it all before, but I got the whole sermon about how the Lord requires a tenth of our earnings, how it’s not really ours, and how if we pay the Lord first, He’ll provide for us. But my stomach just wouldn’t let me forget what that three dollars could buy and how that food would taste. I tried to reason with my father: “The Lord loves us doesn’t He, Dad?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t want us to starve to death, does He?”
Dad didn’t respond, so I gathered courage and continued. “Wouldn’t He understand if we used the tithing money this time? We could pay it back when you get more work.”
Dad looked at me for what seemed like hours. Finally he said, “Son, the Lord will provide. Three dollars won’t buy very much food, but it will provide a lot of blessings.” That was it. No more arguments. The tithing would be paid.
There were a few silent minutes before Dad got up, put on his coat, and handed me mine. “Thomas,” he said, “I’d like you to go with me to see Bishop Rawlings.”
The winter wind bit into my face as we trudged to Bishop Rawlings’s house. We walked in silence except for the occasional growling of my stomach. I knew Dad was trying to teach me something, but my stomach wasn’t cooperating.
When we reached the small white frame house, we were greeted cordially by the bishop. I felt the warm glow of a fire as we stepped inside the house. Dad and the bishop talked for a minute, then tears welled up in my eyes as I watched Dad give him the three dollars.
Sister Rawlings appeared in the kitchen doorway with bread dough on her hands. “Brother Brown,” she said, “could you wait for a loaf of this bread I’m baking? It’s a new recipe, and I’m anxious to see if your family likes it as much as we do.”
“Thank you, Sister Rawlings,” Dad said. “We need to get right home now, because Sarah will have dinner waiting. But if you’d like, Thomas will be glad to run back for it later.”
The cold wind stung even harder as we headed for home and the tomato-and-carrot dinner. A loaf of bread was not my idea of the Lord’s providing. As if he knew what I was thinking, Dad stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. His other hand wiped the tears from my eyes. “Thomas, the Lord will provide,” he said.
Dad was right, I knew. And though it’s hard to trust in the Lord when your stomach’s empty, I decided to give Him a chance. I walked with my shoulders straight and told myself, The Lord will provide!
We were passing Harland’s Market, about three blocks from home, when we met Mr. Gates. “Ray,” he said, greeting my father. “I’m glad to see you.”
Dad and Mr. Gates spoke for a bit about old times; then Mr. Gates said, “Ray, here’s the ten dollars I owe you.” I watched as he handed my father a shiny ten-dollar gold piece!
“What’s this for, Lee?”
“Three years ago, when I was in need, you gave me ten dollars,” Mr. Gates said. “Now I can pay you back.”
I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation. All I could do was stare at the ten-dollar gold piece that Dad was holding.
When Mr. Gates finally left, Dad placed the shiny coin in the palm of my hand. “Would you like to do some shopping before we go home?” he asked, smiling. “I guess Heavenly Father thinks we should have something more than carrots and canned tomatoes for dinner. What do you think?”
My stomach rumbled happily as we turned into Harland’s Market.

Sitting on the stand of the St. George (Utah) Tabernacle, waiting for her performance to begin, Sheena Rosander couldn’t help remembering the year before when she had been waiting to perform at a high school talent show.
“It was one of the only times I really had the jitters before a performance,” says Sheena. “I followed a rock group and knew immediately that the classical song I loved to play on the piano wasn’t really what kids wanted to hear. I depend so much on the Spirit to help me play, and that Spirit just wasn’t there.”
But this night, things were different. Thankfully, the Spirit was in abundance as her six functioning fingers flew over the keyboard of the grand piano creating music, the kind that brings a lump to the throat.
Sheena Rosander, 18, from Hurricane, Utah, was born with what some people consider a disability. But to Sheena, having only a partial thumb and no fingers on her left hand is a gift. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have all 10 fingers, like how much easier keyboarding would be,” says Sheena. “But I usually just find a way to go around it. My mom wanted me to peel potatoes, and I was really struggling with that potato peeler. So I decided when I have my own family I’ll just have baked potatoes. There’s always a way to do things.”
And that’s pretty much how Sheena has been able to enjoy her favorite activities, like playing and teaching tennis, playing the violin, teaching piano lessons, and competing at performing-arts festivals.
In fact, she’s used her good attitude as a springboard to propel her into positive social situations. On her first day of kindergarten, when Sheena proudly displayed her hand at “show and tell,” one child told her it looked like a Cabbage Patch doll’s hand. Delighted, she added several Cabbage Patch dolls to her already thriving collection. Her favorite had red hair and blue eyes, just like Sheena.
That kind of confidence comes naturally. Even before she was born, her mother, Toni, decided all her children would learn to play piano. Sheena began lessons at age five.
“She was determined to play the piano,” recalls her teacher, Tammy Drake. “Her hand was never an obstacle. She would compensate with her right hand to achieve a full sound. Then one day, she began playing with her left hand, using her thumb and pinky stub. Sheena has shown all of us a new kind of courage and determination. Some listeners never even know about her hand. She plays beautifully.”

But a new love was waiting in the wings, and at 12 years of age, Kent was to have his eyes snatched from the delightful snake-harboring ground to the wide, blue, eagle-bearing sky.
One day on a camping trip Kent’s Scoutmaster pointed at a dead cottonwood tree and said, “Hey, guys, there are two eagles!” The two golden eagles perched on skeletal limbs burned their image into an unexposed surface of Kent’s brain and filled his life’s appointment book all in an instant. He came. He saw. He was conquered.
But finding eagles isn’t all that easy until you learn where to look, and it was two years before Kent was able to make a house call. One rainy afternoon in early May he stepped onto a tiny protruding ledge that overhung more than 150 feet of sheer emptiness. As he peered over the edge, the sun burst through the rain clouds, spotlighting the golden hackles of a female eagle on her nest about ten yards down. Seeing Kent, she soared silently away but left behind two eaglets who sat cheeping at him in a blaze of downy sunshine.
Kent says of that instant: “At that moment I was so inspired by the beauty and majesty of the eagles that I felt more alive myself. The air smelled fresher, and the stream far below sparkled more brightly than before. I had simply opened my eyes and had really seen and felt what was around me.”
From eagles Kent’s love spread to all raptors (birds of prey). The fierce independence and aristocratic bearing of these aerial hunters caught his imagination and sent him out during every spare moment to follow their flight and study their habits.
He went to the library too, hunting these feathered sky-riders among the quiet stacks of books. He learned, both from books and experience (he doesn’t believe a book until he has proved it in nature) about the different raptors—where they nested, where they hunted, how they hunted, what their prey was, how they mated, and even how they flew. Before long he could see a bird silhouetted gnat-small on the horizon and name it by its flight pattern. Every time he saw a bird or visited a nest, he took careful scientific notes of everything he observed. He has several PhD dissertations lying unwritten in his notebooks.
During his junior year in high school, Kent dropped out of football and basketball to allow more time for raptor study. He traveled miles and miles searching out nests and roosting areas. He developed the climbing ability of a mountain goat and the stamina of a mustang. Leaving home Friday night after school or well before dawn Saturday morning, getting home well after dark Saturday night, and spending much of the time in between climbing steep mountains at a brisk trot, he found many raptor nests and gradually became a legitimate expert in the field. Weekdays after school also found him in the hills as often as possible.
One of his most rewarding experiences came one winter after a month-long search when he found the winter roosting grounds of bald eagles from Canada and Alaska. “I stood alone in two feet of snow near the bottom of an isolated canyon in west-central Utah, my eyes searching the sky for signs of life. Suddenly, as if by magic, they came, one by one, in pairs, and in small groups. Bald eagles dropped from the tall pine trees to the south and were gradually caught up in thermal drafts of air. Slowly circling higher and higher, traveling on wings of up to eight feet in length, they drifted west in a steady stream of traffic across the sky.”
That summer he carried back-breaking loads of wood and canvas up a towering mountain in order to build a blind from which to observe these eagles during the coming winter. When the snows were deep on the mountain a few months later, he spent hours watching them up close. “I have often crawled out of a warm bed at 3:00 A.M. and hiked up tall mountains through three feet of snow in the dark. Then I have sat cramped and numbed in a dark blind until mid-afternoon. By that time I have begun to wonder what is wrong with me. Suddenly, only 30 feet away and halfway up a scraggly old pine tree, a beautiful bald eagle has landed, and I wonder no longer.”
Kent interrupted his eagle watching to accept a mission call to the Kentucky Louisville Mission, but on his return he was on the road again checking nests.
Kent, like other students of raptors, is especially interested in the predators’ nesting behavior because this is the cycle that stands between the species and extinction.
There is also the mystery of the eternal interplay between the flight and the nest, freedom and responsibility. “An eagle’s freedom is exciting. They can leave the ground any time they want and ride the wind, and yet, like people, they’re tied down with responsibilities. When an eagle has eggs, she’s on the nest for 45 days, and she may leave it for only an hour a day. Eagles must follow their food supply too. They have certain laws they have to live within, but when they get up there and ride that wind, there’s not much that can touch them.”
In Utah, golden eagles begin their courtship flights in January or February, lay eggs from late February through March, and then incubate them from 42 to 45 days, after which the eaglets stay in the nest for from eight to ten weeks before taking to their wings. Kent warns that anyone interested in eagles should simply stay away from the nests during egg laying and incubation because during that period adult eagles are most prone to abandon the nest. Whenever a human being approaches her nest, the female eagle will invariably leave it until he is gone, and even if she returns, exposure to heat or cold can easily destroy the eggs. After the eaglets have hatched, the nest can be safely visited for very short periods of time, but after the eaglets are about seven weeks old, there is serious danger of frightening them off the nest before they are able to fly.
First flight is as breathtaking an experience for eagles as it is for people, and the proud lords of the skyways start out as bumbling, incompetent aviators. They too often crash and break a wing on the first flight and become easy prey to starvation or some four-legged predator. Kent once saw a ten-week-old eagle make its first flight and remembers: “He hopped off the nest as if he knew what he was doing, but all of a sudden he was speeding down toward the opposite cliff and losing altitude fast. You could see the shock in his eyes. His wings were spread out, his primary and secondary feathers flapping back and forth in the breeze. His head was moving back and forth watching the ground and looking back up at the nest—looking everywhere at once. He looked as if he was wondering what he had gotten himself into, whether he had really blown it, but you could also feel his exhilaration and the thrill of his first flight. He dropped down to the mouth of the canyon and hit an updraft that just pushed him right up out of sight. I found him the next day sitting on a tree unhurt.”
Kent realized from day one that it would be unthinkable to put an eagle in a cage like his childhood pet lizards, so he found another way of capturing the wild, free beauty of these magnificent creatures—photography. He seldom goes anywhere without his camera and his 400, 150, and 50 mm lenses. Over the years he has accumulated a fine collection of raptor slides and has organized them into several slide shows guaranteed to make you sad you were not born an eagle. He presents these shows to many groups and enjoys sharing them with people in rest homes and with handicapped children. It is his way of giving wings to people who are the most earthbound.
“I love eagles,” he says, “but people are the most important part of that love. It wouldn’t mean a thing to me if I went out there and filmed all those great things and didn’t have anybody to share it with.”
In photographing raptors, Kent has developed a skill that few people share. If you don’t believe it, go out sometime and photograph a bird moving in and out of focus at eye-blurring speed across blue sky, white clouds, black mountainsides, and blazing patches of snow, all in a few seconds. You’ll be very lucky even to find the thing in your telephoto lens, much less focus it and get the right exposure.
Kent’s delight in all living things has never faded. He still can’t pass up a lizard without stopping and watching. A porcupine is still a miracle. A turtle is still a masterpiece. A raven or a meadowlark is still breathtaking, and snakes still make him shiver as good as they make most of us shiver bad. There are no commonplace animals for Kent; they all bring him joy just by being. It is significant that on the gun rack in his pickup he has hung only a pair of binoculars.
But in spite of his reverence for all things, those binoculars are filled mostly with raptors right now, and Kent has been repaid for his thousands of hours of work with some heart-thumping experiences—a squadron of bald eagles on a winter day, the soaring rise of a Swainson’s hawk, the screaming dive of a prairie falcon, the puppet-like unreality of baby owls. And speaking of owls, he had the privilege of being knocked backwards off a 30-foot cliff by a frightened great horned owl and of having his face bloodied by the fierce attack of another not-at-all frightened member of the species.
He especially remembers one top-of-the-world moment on a peak high in a remote canyon. The granite walls were so buffeted by a tree-toppling wind that day that he had to lie flat to avoid being blown away like a leaf. A golden eagle came floating down onto the highest point on the peak, sorting out the changing, punishing wind with his wings, and somehow keeping an even keel. He stood there a moment looking regally around at the whole world lying beneath his talons as if inspecting his kingdom. “He only touched down for a few seconds, and then he simply opened his wings and turned them back into the wind. He shot up and out of sight like a rocket without ever flapping a wing.”
No one but Kent can say how many hours of sleep or basketball games or TV shows that experience was worth to him, but he isn’t complaining.
There is another aspect to Kent’s studies beyond the intellectual and aesthetic. Living with these magnificent birds has strengthened his testimony of his Creator. One winter day he took an atheist friend to a canyon where he knew there would be eagles. As they stood in the snow watching some 50 bald eagles soar above them, Kent looked at his open-mouthed friend and said quietly, “That didn’t just happen by accident.”
“Boy, I know it!” his friend said, his voice small with awe.
If anybody wants to know why eagles are worth saving, maybe that’s why.

As you exercise your agency, remember, you are not alone. In addition to a kind and wise Heavenly Father, there are others who are praying for you to make wise choices. As a youth, when I would go out on a date or with my friends, I would always check in with my parents when I came home. Usually I would just knock on their door, open it and say, “I’m home,” and then go to bed. One night I came home from a date, knocked as usual, and then opened the door. As I did so, the light from the hall fell on my angel mother on her knees in prayer. And as I saw her there, I knew whom she was praying for. I have never forgotten that experience. And the knowledge that my mother still prays for me today bears me up and reminds me who I am and that I am not alone.

Another faithful family is that of Edwina Swartzberg, first counselor in the Sandton South Africa Stake Relief Society, a third-generation Latter-day Saint. Her explanations about Church temples to her future husband, Isaac, who was reared in an Orthodox Jewish home, assisted in his conversion. He had puzzled why the Lord, who, scripturally, always spoke to his people in temples, no longer had one on Earth. He recognized, too, prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament, especially in Psalm 22, and things fell into place for him. The Swartzbergs were later sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. They live in Pretoria where Brother Swartzberg is Church legal advisor and area director of Church public communications.

Brother Dadson began spending more time with his family, including getting them up at 5 A.M. for prayer and scripture study. The effect on the family was impressive.
“People would tell me what a remarkable change for good they had noticed in my children,” he recalls. His brother and sister also noticed and soon joined the Church. Kwamena Dadson is now president of the Cape Coast Branch, and his sister Elizabeth Kwaw is a Relief Society president.

Malo e lelei! I’m Lui, and I shine my light by sharing what I have with others.
I live on a big island in Tonga. I have six sisters and four brothers, and I live close to the Nuku’alofa Tonga Temple.
We have many beautiful plants and animals on our island. I’m in class four at the Ocean of Light Primary School, and science is my favorite subject.
My father grows crops, so we have plenty to eat. But many widows (women whose husbands have died) and other families don’t have their own crops. So my parents take them some of ours. I like going along to help!
The widows we visit use coconut husks to make fires to cook their food. When we take food to them, I always remind my parents to take coconut husks too. I help load the husks into the van and unload them when we get to the widows’ houses.
Heavenly Father gives me great blessings when I help others—not blessings of money but blessings of wisdom and knowledge. I always want to help and share what I have with others.

Some few years ago, before the completion of a temple in South Africa, while attending a district conference in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia, I met the district president, Reginald J. Nield. He and his wife and lovely daughters met me as I entered the chapel. They explained to me that they had been saving their means and had been preparing for the day when they could journey to the temple of the Lord. But, oh, the temple was so far away.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the four lovely daughters asked me questions about the temple: “What is the temple like? All we have seen is a picture.” “How will we feel when we enter the temple?” “What will we remember most?” For about an hour I had the opportunity to talk to four girls about the house of the Lord. As I departed for the airport, they waved to me, and the youngest girl said, “We’ll see you in the temple!”

One year later I had the opportunity to greet the Nield family in the Salt Lake Temple. In a peaceful sealing room I had the privilege to unite for eternity, as well as for time, Brother and Sister Nield. The doors were then opened, and those beautiful daughters, each of them dressed in spotless white, entered the room. They embraced mother, then father. Tears were in their eyes, and gratitude was in their hearts. We were next to heaven. Well could each one say, “Now we are a family for eternity.”

Every year the Coopers love to see the Christmas lights in the town square.
Oooh! Wow! Sigh “Beautiful!”
Walking back to the car …
I love the lights that—
Watch out! Looks like there’s a puddle ahead.
Whoa! That’s actually a big hole! Without this light, one of us could have been hurt!
Home again.
Christmas lights make me feel happy and peaceful.
Light helps keep us safe too.
I think those are some of the reasons Jesus is called the Light of the World.
May the true Light of Christmas shine brightly in your life—now and always!
Love from the Cooper family and your friends at the Friend.

In the summer of 2001, Sister Oaks and I were in Manaus, Brazil. I spoke to about 100 missionaries in that great city on the Amazon. As I stood to speak, I was prompted to put aside some notes I usually use on such occasions and substitute some thoughts on the importance of timing—some of the scriptures and principles I have been discussing here.
I reminded the missionaries that some of our most important plans cannot be brought to pass without the agency and actions of others. A missionary cannot baptize five persons this month without the agency and action of five other persons. A missionary can plan and work and do all within his or her power, but the desired result will depend upon the additional agency and action of others.
Consequently, a missionary’s goals ought to be based upon the missionary’s personal agency and action, not upon the agency or action of others. But this is not the time to elaborate on what I told the missionaries about goals. Instead I will share some other applications of the principle of timing, giving illustrations from our personal lives.
Because of things over which we have no control, we cannot plan and bring to pass everything we desire in our lives. Many important things will occur in our lives that we have not planned, and not all of them will be welcome. Even our most righteous desires may elude us or come in different ways or at different times than we have sought to plan.
For example, we cannot be sure that we will marry as soon as we desire. A marriage that is timely in our view may be our blessing or it may not. My wife Kristen is an example. She did not marry until many years after her mission and her graduation.
The timing of marriage is perhaps the best example of an extremely important event in our lives that is almost impossible to plan. Like other important mortal events that depend on the agency of others or the will and timing of the Lord, marriage cannot be anticipated or planned with certainty. We can and should work for and pray for our righteous desires, but despite this, many will remain single well beyond their desired time for marriage.
So what should be done in the meantime? Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares us for whatever life brings. This kind of faith prepares us to deal with life’s opportunities—to take advantage of those that are received and to persist through the disappointments of those that are lost. In the exercise of that faith, we should commit ourselves to the priorities and standards we will follow on matters we do not control and persist faithfully in those commitments, whatever happens to us because of the agency of others or the timing of the Lord. When we do this, we will have a constancy in our lives that will give us direction and peace. Whatever the circumstances beyond our control, our commitments and standards can be constant.
The commitments and service of adult singles can anchor them through the difficult years of waiting for the right time and the right person. Their commitments and service can also inspire and strengthen others. Wise are those who make this commitment: I will put the Lord first in my life, and I will keep His commandments. The performance of that commitment is within everyone’s control. We can fulfill that commitment without regard to what others decide to do, and that commitment will anchor us no matter what timing the Lord directs for the most important events in our lives.
Do you see the difference between committing to what you will do, in contrast with trying to plan that you will be married by the time you graduate or that you will earn at least X amount of dollars on your first job?
If we have faith in God and if we are committed to the fundamentals of keeping His commandments and putting Him first in our lives, we do not need to plan every single event—even every important event—and we should not feel rejected or depressed if some things—even some very important things—do not happen at the time we had planned or hoped or prayed.
Commit yourself to put the Lord first in your life, keep His commandments, and do what the Lord’s servants ask you to do. Then your feet are on the pathway to eternal life. Then it does not matter whether you are called to be a bishop or a Relief Society president, whether you are married or single, or whether you die tomorrow. You do not know what will happen. Do your best on what is fundamental and personal and then trust in the Lord and His timing.
Life has some strange turns. I will share some personal experiences that illustrate this.
When I was a young man I thought I would serve a mission. I graduated from high school in June 1950. Thousands of miles away, one week after that high school graduation, a North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel, and our country was at war. I was 17 years old, but as a member of the Utah National Guard, I was soon under orders to prepare for mobilization and active service. Suddenly, for me and for many other young men of my generation, the full-time mission we had planned or hoped for was not to be.
Another example: After I served as president of Brigham Young University for nine years, I was released. A few months later the governor of the state of Utah appointed me to a 10-year term on the supreme court of the state. I was then 48 years old. My wife June and I tried to plan the rest of our lives. We wanted to serve the full-time mission neither of us had been privileged to serve. We planned that I would serve 20 years on the state supreme court. Then, at the end of two 10-year terms, when I would be nearly 69 years old, I would retire from the supreme court and we would submit our missionary papers and serve a mission as a couple.
I had my 69th birthday two years ago and was vividly reminded of that important plan. If things had gone as we planned, I would have submitted papers to serve a mission with my wife June.
Four years after we made that plan I was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles—something we never dreamed would happen. Realizing then that the Lord had different plans and different timing than we had assumed, I resigned as a justice of the supreme court. But this was not the end of the important differences. When I was 66, my wife June died of cancer. Two years later I married Kristen McMain, the eternal companion who now stands at my side.
How fundamentally different my life is than I had sought to plan! My professional life has changed. My personal life has changed. But the commitment I made to the Lord—to put Him first in my life and to be ready for whatever He would have me do—has carried me through these changes of eternal importance.
Faith and trust in the Lord give us the strength to accept and persist, whatever happens in our lives. I did not know why I received a “no” answer to my prayers for the recovery of my wife of many years, but the Lord gave me a witness that this was His will, and He gave me the strength to accept it. Two years after her death, I met the wonderful woman who is now my wife for eternity. And I know that this also was the will of the Lord.

Adam couldn’t wait for the school bus to come. His family was driving him crazy. His little brother, Aaron, constantly bugged him to play. Mom said, “You’re lucky to have a little brother who loves you, Adam. Some children don’t have anybody at all.”
Phooey!
His baby sister always wanted him to pick her up and hold her. Mom said he had the magic touch and that no one could make her smile like he could.
Phooey!
His Mom fussed over him as he left for school and even kissed him good-bye every morning on the front porch, where all the kids waiting for the school bus could see!
Phooey!
He couldn’t wait to get to school and have fun with his friends.
He climbed on the bus and looked for his best friend, Daryl. Daryl got on at the stop before and always saved him a seat. But today Daryl was sitting by Priscilla! Adam had to sit by a big kid he didn’t know.
When he was getting off the bus, he caught his new, red jacket on the door handle and tore the sleeve. “Oh, no!” he groaned—he’d had the jacket for only two days. Mom was going to be upset!
He’d brought two cookies for his teacher, Mrs. Magelby, but when he walked into the room, a substitute teacher was there. Discouraged, he shoved the cookies back into his backpack.
At lunchtime, he waved to his friend Carrie across the cafeteria. But she didn’t wave back. He hoped she just hadn’t seen him. Then he dropped his cake and stepped on it. Yuck!
Things continued to go badly. He was picked next to last for the soccer team during gym. Then his socks wouldn’t stay up.
On the way home it rained.
What an awful day! Adam thought to himself as he trudged up the walk to his house. Nothing has gone right. Nobody likes me. He wanted to cry.
He sighed a big sigh and opened the door.
It smelled steamy and delicious when he walked into the house. All right! he thought. It’s a chili day! Mom liked to make chili when it was rainy and cold outside.
“Hi, Adam!” Aaron came bounding down the hall and threw his arms around his brother. “Want to see the neat tent I made on the bunk beds?”
“Hi, honey, I’m glad you’re home,” Mom called. She kissed him and ruffled his hair as he walked into the kitchen. This time it felt nice, not embarrassing.
His baby sister smiled happily and wriggled with joy when he picked her up.
“Come play with me, Adam,” said Aaron, dancing circles around his brother.
Adam started to feel warm inside.
“All right, just for a little while. Hey, Aaron, I have something for you.” Adam pulled the cookies out of his backpack.
“Wow, are those for me? Thanks, Adam—you’re the greatest!”
“You’re lucky to have a big brother who loves you, Aaron,” Mom said. “Some children don’t have anybody at all.”
The two brothers looked at each other and tried not to laugh. Mom said that at least a hundred times a day. But suddenly Adam did feel lucky—blessed, really. All the things that had happened at school didn’t seem so awful anymore. It was good to be home.

There was a time when the large pharmaceutical company he worked for kept giving him more and more responsibilities, and that meant more and more travel. It got to the point that he was home only three days a month. Then all of a sudden, we learned that he had resigned from his longtime job and promising career opportunities.
I remember that at our next family council meeting he said we would need to tighten our belts for the next few months while he looked for a new job. We asked him why he had resigned, and his response will stay with us forever: “You all are growing up to be teenagers already, and that’s a very important time in your lives. I never would like a time to come when you would tell me, ‘Where were you when we needed you?’” He put his family first.

When I was a young girl, my mother, Lovina Anderson Low, told me, “You can be anything in life you want to be, Elaine, if you work for it.” She was right. Because of a heart ailment, she wasn’t well for a good deal of my growing-up years. By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I was taking care of the home—doing the washing, baking bread, and doing quite a bit of the cooking. Mother taught me the pattern for managing seasonal things: I canned fruits and vegetables in the summer, and I helped my father put carrots and potatoes in the storage pit in the fall. Sometimes I felt like I was asked to do too much, but I learned to do what had to be done.

President George Albert Smith, after an experience with the spirit world, described the part of that world he saw:
“One day … I lost consciousness of my surroundings and thought I had passed to the other side. I found myself standing with my back to a large and beautiful lake, facing a great forest of trees. There was no one in sight, and there was no boat upon the lake or any other visible means to indicate how I might have arrived there. I realized, or seemed to realize, that I had finished my work in mortality and had gone home. I began to look around, to see if I could not find someone. There was no evidence of anyone’s living there, just those great, beautiful trees in front of me and the wonderful lake behind me.
“I began to explore, and soon I found a trail through the woods which seemed to have been used very little, and which was almost obscured by grass.” President Smith followed the trail and after some time met his grandfather, with whom he conversed. (Improvement Era, March 1947, p. 139.)