Gospel Story Finder

In September 2001, I was teaching a course on Islam and the Gospel at BYU in Provo. As was usually the case with this course, there were a handful of Muslim students enrolled. A few days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, a meeting was called for Muslim and Middle Eastern students and others associated with them. This was, in part, to allow for the administration and concerned faculty to show support and give counsel and for students to talk about their experiences and perhaps express their concerns. I attended. At one point students were instructed to what to do if confronted by someone who showed anger or wanted to argue. They were also told what to do if they received any threats by emails, letters, phone calls, etc. After a bit of a discussion on these matters, a Muslim student raised his hand and, while grateful for the concern being shown, said essentially, “Of all places, there’s no place we would feel safer than at BYU.”

I submit that this could be the ideal towards which we strive in how we speak about and treat those of other faiths. Wouldn’t it be good if those of other faiths could have full confidence that their beliefs and practices would be respected, spoken of fairly, knowledgeably, and charitably, and that they themselves would feel safeguarded and valued among the Latter-day Saints?

Though Sig had never denied the existence of God or committed grave sins, religion was not a significant part of his life. But he couldn’t accept the philosophies of his atheistic and agnostic friends. Once, Sig had pressed one of the agnostics with the question, “If you were to join any church, which one would it be?” The man answered, “I would become a Mormon,” and cited the goodness of the Latter-day Saints as his reason.
In fact, it was the good example of the only Latter-day Saint he had ever known—“an example of a good man”—that persuaded Sig Verano to listen to the Latter-day Saint missionaries for the first time. What they taught sounded like the truth to him. The Word of Wisdom made enough of an impression that the young mechanic gave up his cigarettes and liquor and began to pray on his own. Nevertheless, it wasn’t easy for him to go to church because he had long since broken the habit of attendance. Soon, he stopped listening to the missionary lessons.
But the Verano children enjoyed Primary, which then was held one afternoon a week. Sig or Ana would drive them to the chapel for the meeting. One afternoon, the car wouldn’t start. “Well, it isn’t my fault,” Sig told them. “I guess you won’t be able to go.”
Back in the house, six-year-old Edison wouldn’t give up. “Let’s pray,” he pleaded. So they knelt in prayer, then went back out to the car. To Sig Verano’s surprise, it started immediately.
After this experience, the Veranos attended Church meetings for a time, but quit after a few weeks. During this period there were several “coincidences” that helped to keep the Church in their thoughts. Sig’s mother-in-law, visiting from Colombia, spoke favorably of the clean-cut young American missionaries whose meetinghouse was near her home. An old friend from Colombia, now a sailor in the merchant marine, came for a visit. At dinnertime, he asked if he could say a blessing on the food—and Sig Verano recognized from his prayer that he was a Latter-day Saint. The friend, a convert who studied the scriptures ardently during his long voyages, bore his testimony to the Veranos, not knowing they had been investigating the Church.
Earlier, Sig Verano had told one pair of missionaries that they could come to visit as friends, but not as teachers. Before one of them went home at the end of his mission, he and his companion stopped by to visit and to invite the Veranos to meet his parents at a small farewell gathering hosted by friends. The Veranos were so impressed with the loving Latter-day Saints they met that they began taking the missionary lessons again.
But Ana Verano, faithful to the traditions of her forefathers’ church, became stubborn when she realized her husband was serious about joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She felt she didn’t need to be baptized again. So they reached an agreement: since the children liked the Church, he would take them there after his baptism. She would continue to go to her church.
But repeatedly during the week preceding Sig’s baptism, Ana dreamed of the Savior’s baptism by John in the River Jordan. She concluded that it was an indication, meant just for her, of the right thing to do.
Sigifredo and Ana were baptized in January of 1974. Their son Edison was baptized later that year, after his eighth birthday.
The Veranos’ struggles with faithfulness were not yet over, however, and neither was the loving work of others in fellowshipping them.
A fine home teacher, George Baker, helped keep them active in the Church, Brother Verano recalls. Unused to attending church meetings three times a day, beginning with priesthood at seven A.M., Brother Verano was ready to quit. The early meetings were difficult because he was working from midnight to six A.M. But Brother Baker, who could not go himself, arranged for someone to drive the Veranos to ward meetings, and kept them coming.
The Veranos’ spirituality grew as they faithfully attended meetings and obeyed gospel principles.
He was called as president of his stake’s Spanish-speaking branch, created in 1978, and was made bishop when, after five years, it became a ward.
The creation of that branch was a blessing also for Ana Verano. What little English she knew had made it difficult for her to participate in an English-speaking ward. In the Spanish-speaking branch, she could hold callings and grow in service as her husband had.
“My real testimony has come through working in the Church,” Brother Verano says. “Constant service is one of the things that strengthens one’s testimony.”
The first Spanish-speaking ward in their stake was divided shortly after its creation, and Sig was called to the high council. He now serves as stake executive secretary for the three Spanish-speaking wards in the Los Angeles California North Hollywood Stake. Ana serves in the stake’s English-language name extraction program.
Among the vocational courses Sig Verano completed in his wide-ranging studies was one in real estate sales. It led to a profitable new career—and to further strengthening of his testimony.
His sales career didn’t begin well. He was fired after only one week when the owner of the real estate agency learned the new salesman’s religion following Brother Verano’s refusal to work on Sunday.
“The gospel is so important in our lives that Sunday is empty if we can’t go to Church meetings,” he explains. But the owner of the real estate company said that the Mormons put too much time into Church service to be successful. Go work for a small agency where the owner will not care so much about sales success, he told Sig Verano.
Brother Verano took the dismissal as a challenge. He found a job with a larger agency, and, working only part-time in 1979, was its top salesman. He has consistently refused to work on Sundays; as branch president and bishop, he also devoted part of his Saturdays to Church service. Yet for several years he has been among the company’s top five salespeople.
In Church service, Brother Verano says humbly, he has gained knowledge that the Lord lives, that through him we can be redeemed, and that he has placed prophets on earth to help guide us. Those who only tentatively believe that the gospel is true can come to know of its truth with certainty as he has—by testing it in obedience and in service to others.
“When I was baptized into the Church,” he reflects, “I believed. But now I know.”

Instead, I joined a neighborhood team with lots of friends. We had a great time the first year and were successful, but the second year the team struggled and sometimes lost focus on the game. I became frustrated. I put my best effort into every game, but we almost always lost.
After one very bad game, Coach Hashem, whose team was doing well, approached me on the football field. He asked me how things were going. I said, “Not so good.” I told him I missed my old teammates. Hashem coached with a great deal of skill and always seemed to get the most from his players.
“How would you like to be a guest player for our team when we go to the next tournament?” Hashem asked.
“I would really like that!” I responded excitedly.
“Great!” Hashem said, smiling. “I need to ask you one question though. Can you play on Sundays?” My stomach muscles tightened. I suddenly felt sick. I remembered what had happened that last time this question had been asked.
I looked at my mom. I looked at my dad. They too waited for my answer. I looked at Hashem.
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t play on Sundays,” I said. “Will that make a difference?”
Hashem stood there for a moment. He had seen the expression of hope on my face fade quickly as I had answered his question.
“No, that’s OK,” Hashem responded. “We probably won’t get to the Sunday finals. We’d love to have you play with us.”
Soon I started practicing with Hashem’s team. The team played with a great deal of intensity, and they welcomed me back. I loved playing with them.
We didn’t win all of our games at the tournament, but we all tried our hardest, and we had a good time. Soon I became a permanent member of Hashem’s team. Though they knew I didn’t play on Sundays, they still appreciated me for what I added to the team on the other game days.

A mother and father were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. They named her Karen. The mother and father loved Karen very much. They believed that the most important thing they could do to teach Karen to be happy was help her gain a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Every morning and evening Karen’s mother and father helped her pray, and after a few years Karen was able to pray all by herself.
They taught her about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and Their love for her. Her parents told her scripture stories, and even though Karen couldn’t understand everything they said, she felt warm and happy inside as she listened. They taught her to love and be kind to others, to be honest, to take care of her body, and to live the law of tithing.
Her parents also took Karen to church. She liked Primary and listened closely to her teachers as they, too, taught her about the gospel and about how important it was to obey the commandments. All these things helped her testimony grow.
When Karen turned eight years old, she was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She received the gift of the Holy Ghost—a sweet, comforting spirit that also testified that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ lived and that the Church was true. The Holy Ghost also helped her to know what was right.
Karen loved family home evening. Her family often bore their testimonies to each other and told one another how much they loved each other and the gospel. As her parents listened to Karen, they were happy to know that her testimony was growing. And Karen was grateful for all the people who had helped her gain her testimony.

It was my experience as a small boy to come under the influence of such a teacher. In our Sunday School class, she taught us concerning the Creation of the world, the Fall of Adam, and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
One Sunday morning she announced sadly to us the death of a classmate’s mother. We had missed Billy that morning but knew not the reason for his absence. The lesson featured the theme, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Midway through the lesson, our teacher closed the manual and asked, “How much money do we have in our class party fund?”
Depression days prompted a proud answer: “Four dollars and seventy-five cents.”
Then she suggested, “Billy’s family is hard-pressed and grief-stricken. What would you think of the possibility of visiting the family members this morning and giving to them your fund?”
Ever shall I remember the tiny band walking those three city blocks, entering Billy’s home, greeting him, his brother, sisters, and father. Tears glistened in the eyes of all as the white envelope containing our precious party fund passed from the hand of our teacher to the hand of a grief-stricken father. We fairly skipped our way back to the chapel. Our hearts were lighter than they had ever been, our joy more full, our understanding more profound. A God-inspired teacher had taught her boys and girls an eternal lesson of divine truth: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Brothers, sisters, and friends, in 2013 my wife, Laurel, and I were called to serve as mission leaders in the Czech/Slovak Mission. Our four children served with us. We were blessed as a family with brilliant missionaries and by the remarkable Czech and Slovak Saints. We love them.
As our family entered the mission field, something Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught went with us. In a talk titled “The Great Commandment,” Elder Wirthlin asked, “Do you love the Lord?” His counsel to those of us who would answer yes was simple and profound: “Spend time with Him. Meditate on His words. Take His yoke upon you. Seek to understand and obey.” Elder Wirthlin then promised transformative blessings to those willing to give time and place to Jesus Christ.
We took Elder Wirthlin’s counsel and promise to heart. Together with our missionaries, we spent extended time with Jesus, studying Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John from the New Testament and 3 Nephi from the Book of Mormon. At the end of every missionary meeting, we found ourselves back in what we referred to as the “Five Gospels,” reading, discussing, considering, and learning about Jesus.
For me, for Laurel, and for our missionaries, spending time with Jesus in the scriptures changed everything. We gained a deeper appreciation for who He was and what was important to Him. Together we considered how He taught, what He taught, the ways He showed love, what He did to bless and serve, His miracles, how He responded to betrayal, what He did with difficult human emotions, His titles and names, how He listened, how He resolved conflict, the world He lived in, His parables, how He encouraged unity and kindness, His capacity to forgive and to heal, His sermons, His prayers, His atoning sacrifice, His Resurrection, His gospel.
We often felt like the “[short] of stature” Zacchaeus running to climb a sycamore tree as Jesus passed through Jericho because, as Luke described it, we “sought to see Jesus who he was.” It was not Jesus as we wanted or wished Him to be, but rather Jesus as He really was and is. Just as Elder Wirthlin had promised, we learned in a very real way that “the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of transformation. It takes us as men and women of the earth and refines us into men and women for the eternities.”
Those were special days. We came to believe that “with God nothing shall be impossible.” Sacred afternoons in Prague, Bratislava, or Brno, experiencing the power and reality of Jesus, continue to resonate in all of our lives.

For the two years of their missions, these athletes just about gave up basketball. Most of them did not touch a basketball for more than a few hours during the entire time they served. Now, these basketball-playing returned missionaries won’t lie and say they stepped right back onto the court and played as well as ever. On the contrary, BYU’s Bob Capener, who served in Chile and was a star guard last year, said, “Even though you don’t really lose your skills, you’re not ready to play right when you get back. I came to school to play about a month after I returned, and I almost died. I was out of shape and couldn’t breathe. But in time, with the habits and discipline that I gained on my mission, I was in better shape than I ever was before.”

Our plane landed safely. We observed that there were three or four hundred people at the airstrip. President Strong’s son, Bert, also a stake president, was there and was very delighted to see us back safe. We asked Bert why so many people had collected at the airstrip that evening. He informed us that three Mexicans had gone in a two-motor plane across the jungles and mountains to the Usumacinta River that morning about the time we had flown there. They had not returned and the people of Tuxtla were out waiting for them. Some months later Gareth Lowe wrote informing us that the Mexican plane and its occupants had hit a mountain, and all were killed.

I came through Denver some years ago, and a stake president asked me if I would interview a man whom he had placed under some sanctions. It seems that this brother would attend fast and testimony meeting, and as soon as testimony time came he would arise and take the entire period, every Sunday. No one else could say a word. He consistently preached what he called his four basic “doctrines.” (I call them ideas.) First, he said, divorce is not approved of God; therefore the Lord does not recognize divorce. Second, he said, meat should not be eaten—not at all, none! Third, he said, polygamy was not ordained of God. Fourth, he said it was an angel of the devil, not an angel of the Lord, who told Nephi to slay Laban. They could not deter him. He believed the gospel, yes, and he requested a temple recommend, but they couldn’t issue the temple recommend because he had problems with his basic beliefs. They had forbidden him to speak in testimony meeting, but he did the same thing in priesthood meeting. As soon as a question came up, he immediately jumped up and took the whole time, preaching these doctrines. So they were having membership attendance problems at all the meetings where he was present.
Since he had had sanctions placed upon him, he felt his rights had been violated and he was appealing to the President of the Church. When I came through they asked me if would interview him. I did. It was a most interesting interview. He had much scripture to back up these particular points. I said, “Where did you get these ideas?”
He said, “The Holy Ghost gave them to me.”
I said, “How did he give them to you?”
He said, “Well, he came to me, and I talked with him.”
I said, “Did you see him?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “What did he look like?”
He said, “He looked like lightning.”
I said, “He looked like lightning? Was it sheet lightning, or snake lightning?” That made him a little angry. I tried to kid him a little bit because I couldn’t believe he was really serious about this!
He said, “He looked like lightning.”
I asked, “Was this in the daytime or nighttime?”
He said, “The nighttime.”
I said, “Were there any thunderstorms in the area?” Once again, he didn’t appreciate my implication. I could see he was serious about what he was talking about. He went through the scriptures to educate me that these were true doctrines and that the Holy Ghost had called him on a mission to preach these four things. I said, “Well, have you ever had any other experiences like this?”
He said, “Yes, when they dedicated the chapel here (the stake center), I saw the Father and the Son and my grandfather standing above the pulpit.”
I said, “Well now, your grandfather was in some pretty high-class company, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was, as a matter of fact.”
Well, this man had good reasons for all of his beliefs. When he started to tell me about divorce I was impressed to ask him, “Have you ever been divorced?”
And he said yes, he had, and it was wrong. He knew it was wrong; therefore it was not ordained of the Lord.
“What about eating meat?” I said. “The revelation says that it should be sparingly.”
He said, “That’s right, but if you’d ever eaten any meat, and then you didn’t eat any meat for five years, that would be sparingly. Then if you didn’t eat it for another five years, that’s even more sparingly. If you never ate it for the rest of your life, that would still be sparingly. So, if you’ve ever had a bit of meat, from then on you shouldn’t eat meat at all.”
When he came to polygamy, I said, “Well, we don’t practice that, you know. It’s not authorized at the moment, so you don’t have to worry about that.” But he was sure it never had been authorized.
His fourth point, the idea that an angel of the devil had told Nephi to slay Laban, came from the fact that the Lord had said, “Thou shalt not kill.” There was nothing that could be done to deter this man. No way could we do it. So I told him, “You follow your priesthood leader.” He wrote then to the President of the Church, who had me write a letter to this brother and tell him in writing essentially what I’d already told him in person. Subsequently he wound up excommunicated from the Church. The problem was that what he was teaching was not consistent with the word of God, even though he could find scriptures that seemed to substantiate it.

At the unofficial 1906 games in Athens, Greece, an Austrian weightlifter, Josef Steinbach, was booed by the partisan crowd because it was alleged he was a professional. The frustrated Austrian left the stadium, allowing the Greek in second place to win the event. The flag was run up, the crowd cheered. Then Steinbach reentered the stadium, walked up to the weight the winner had lifted with great effort, and with ease hoisted it three times over his head.

Brother Tony Wong was assigned to speak during a stake priesthood meeting. “I think the stake presidency wanted me to talk about whether emigration was right or wrong. But I didn’t know,” he says. He read books, checked references, and prepared for two weeks, but the night before the meeting, he still had no idea what he was going to say.
“I decided I’d better do something, so I knelt down and prayed. Then I opened up the scriptures.”
Again, the answer and comfort were found in Ether: “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God” (Ether 12:4).
“The reason for emigrating is looking for a better world,” Brother Wong explains. “People think it will be safer, nicer, or happier somewhere else. This scripture made me realize something. When I talked at that priesthood meeting, I didn’t talk about emigration—I talked about belief in God and Jesus Christ.
“If you ask me if I am going to emigrate, I’ll tell you no. People are worrying and fearing, but we’re forgetting that we have the gospel, we have the Helper. The gospel offers hope and the assurance that Heavenly Father knows what is going on and that he is in charge.”

Several years ago I was on a consulting assignment to provide three weeks of professional engineering training in London. I was traveling with carry-ons, two large suitcases, and several boxes of workshop materials. As I was making arrangements to get on London’s underground transportation that would take me from the airport to my hotel, I heard a message that unattended luggage would be seized and individuals detained for questioning. I knew that I could not get off the train without leaving pieces of my luggage unattended. I began to pray and ask the Lord for help. Not long before my stop, I was amazed to see two young men dressed in suits with our Church’s missionary name tags get on the large train with its several passenger cars and sit down next to me! I was further amazed to discover that they were getting off at my stop! As you can imagine, I offered a silent prayer of gratitude. My anxiety in this situation may seem trivial compared to the anxiety and stress that we live in today, but it was a testimony of the Lord’s awareness of my plight and His willingness to help. I am certain that He is anxious to help each of us in our “peaceable walk with the children of men.”

I was one of 12 high school students selected from Fairfield College in Hamilton, New Zealand, to participate in a program called Project K. The first part involved a three-week wilderness adventure, including canoeing, exploring caves, rock climbing, mountain biking, and sleeping and cooking our meals in all sorts of conditions. We spent most of our days in torrential rain and cold.
Sometimes spirits were low, and there were tears of frustration. We learned about teamwork and endurance. We encouraged each other through the challenges that came to us every day. One person chose to go home—it was just too much.
Halfway through the adventure, we got to write a letter home. As I wrote my letter, the tears welled up as I expressed my love and appreciation to my family. I realized just how much I missed the simple things in life like family prayers, scripture reading, family home evening, seminary, and attending church. I was saddened because I couldn’t picture my baby sister’s face in my mind.
I was thankful that I’d brought my pocket-sized Book of Mormon with me. I would sit inside my bivouac and read by flashlight. Everyone was pretty tired after each day, and they’d just go to sleep. After a day or so, more of my companions became curious about what I was reading. They became interested when I told them about the stripling warriors, Nephi and Laban, Ammon, and especially Nephi and his broken bow. Everyone could relate to the challenges of the wilderness.
By the end of our adventure, every night before sleeping, all 12 of us would huddle under my bivouac and listen as I read from the Book of Mormon. I know that the prophets of old were able to speak to us all on those cold, dark, rainy nights. I know that I gained strength to endure the difficult challenges during that time. I never felt the need to cry or to quit. I owe that to prayer and my pocket-sized Book of Mormon.

The first example occurred while I was working in the scholarships office. We needed to hire a student employee to fill a significant and urgent need. When all interviews were completed, our supervisor closed the process with a prayer. He asked Heavenly Father to let us know which of the students we should hire, and to do so quickly. After the prayer, my colleagues and I looked at each other surprised, and wondered if it was okay to put a time limit on when we could receive an answer. As we were leaving, one of the students who had been interviewed stopped by to see if we had made a decision. We told her we had just concluded the interview process and didn’t have a decision yet but would call her and let her know.

A co-worker was going out of town and left a little early for the day. While driving in the car with her husband, she recounted the events that had transpired. He stated, “It looks like you have your answer.” She called the office, and we all had one those aha moments. The young lady was offered the job, which she accepted. It turned out she needed us as much as we needed her.

As young missionaries in the missionary training center in Brazil, we had a day assigned to go, as companionships, into the streets of São Paulo to invite people to hear the missionary lessons. After a few hours we came back to the MTC and held a testimony meeting.
Many spoke of promptings they received to go to a specific street or approach a certain person. These experiences sounded marvelous to me. However, because I had no similar experience, I felt that perhaps I was not good enough, or prepared enough, to be a missionary.
Feeling discouraged, I sought help from MTC leadership. They helped me understand that God is willing to give us instructions through the Holy Ghost, and while my experience may not be the same as those of others, I still needed to qualify for the Spirit’s direction. Just like a radio that needs to be tuned to a specific station, or a smartphone that needs to be connected to the internet, we must be both in tune and connected in order to receive what the Holy Ghost communicates to us.
At the MTC, I learned that I needed to be ready to receive whatever the Lord wanted to send me, in His time and His way. I learned that interference can cause us to be so distracted that we will not be able to identify when the Lord is talking to us or to listen carefully to the message He would have us hear.

We don’t know whether any children actually went along on the late-night caroling party. But the grandma in the story—Lettice Rushton—was a real person, and she and some of her family and neighbors actually did sing for the Prophet Joseph Smith on Christmas morning, 1843.
The mother of 10 children, Lettice Rushton became blind from cataracts five years before she was baptized. She was one of thousands of British converts who listened eagerly to the missionaries and immigrated with their families to Nauvoo to join the Saints.
The Prophet Joseph Smith recorded that at 1:00 on Christmas morning, 1843, Lettice Rushton and her family and neighbors gathered under his window and began singing, “which caused a thrill of pleasure to run through my soul.” The music so moved him that he “felt to thank … Heavenly Father for their visit, and blessed them in the name of the Lord.” (See History of the Church, 6:134.)

Four-thirty in the morning seems awfully early to some people, but not to Alisa Jan Blackburn, a Laurel in the Bowie Ward, Suitland Maryland Stake. She got up at that hour every school day, without fail, for the past four years, achieving 100 percent attendance at her 5:30 A.M. seminary class.
Alisa says that setting goals and sticking with a plan is what helped her achieve four years of perfect attendance. It also helped her earn her Young Women Recognition award. It didn’t hurt in her position of co-chair of the stake youth committee, either. Alisa is currently attending Ricks College.

He slept a while because of the pills. The bishop stopped by to see him, but saw him asleep, and said he’d come back later.
When the old man woke up, he was embarrassed that he’d fallen asleep. But I said it was okay; I didn’t mind, and it would make him get better fast.
“Jamie, you been here too long. Your folks’ll be worrying about you.”
“It’s okay. They know I’m here.”
He turned his head so he could see outside. “What day is it?”
“June 13.”
“June 13. Now starting in a few days, I’d try an Adams with a number 14 hook. You got enough flies? If you need any, you know where they are.”
All of a sudden he seemed to get some strength, and he leaned forward. “Now, you keep visiting them families, you hear? The Johnsons are coming along fine, but you ask the bishop to get the Scoutmaster over there to get their boy Brad in Scouting.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard, and there was an urgency to his voice. “Jamie, you keep yourself clean so you can marry a pure and beautiful LDS girl in the temple when the time comes. And get ready to go on your mission. You need to read the scriptures more than you do.”
“I will.”
He still was holding onto my hand. “Jamie, once on my mission I went and saw the changing of the guards … Jamie …”
Before he could finish, a nurse stuck her head into the room. “I’m sorry but visiting hours are over.”
He released his grip. “You’d better go, Jamie. Come back tomorrow if you can.”
The next day when I got home from my softball game, my mom told me he had died that afternoon.
I walked over to his place and down the path to the fishing spot on the river where we used to go, and sat down on a rock. The river takes a bend just upstream from that point, and there was a hole where the eddy currents curled around in slow lazy loops, and there, he told me, the fish stayed when they were feeding on a hatch of flies coming down the river. The spot was hard to find because of the growth of trees on both sides, and most people who fished it probably got their line tangled in the fallen branches that lay in the water. But he told me where to stand and how to cast so you avoided the hidden traps.
My thoughts were interrupted by a trout jumping clear of the water for a fly. And then, for a moment, I could hear in my mind the old man say, “Don’t whip the water, just let it slide down nice and easy. You’re supposed to make the fish think a fly is landing on the water and not that a tree has fallen into the river. Use the Royal Coachman now, Jamie. How come you’ve never read the Book of Mormon? I want you to read it, and in three months I want you to tell Brother Johnson about it and bear your testimony.”
I sat there for a couple of hours thinking about him, until finally it was too dark and I got up and walked back down the path to my home.

John Taylor stayed with the Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum Smith, and Elder Willard Richards at Carthage Jail. John sang to help comfort the prisoners.
John: “A poor wayfaring Man of griefHath often crossed me on my way …”*
After John had sung it once, the Prophet Joseph asked him to sing it again.
Joseph: Sing that song again, will you, John?
John: I do not feel like singing.
Hyrum: Yes, please sing that song again.
Joseph: You’ll feel better once you begin, and so will I.
John: “A poor wayfaring Man of griefHath often crossed me on my way …”
Then a mob of men with painted faces and guns stormed up the stairs to the room where the Prophet and the other prisoners were staying.
Mobster: The Mormon Prophet is up here!!
Elder Richards tried to keep the mob out of the room with a hickory cane, but could not. The mob killed Hyrum. Then Joseph ran to the window and was shot by more members of the mob from below.
Elder Taylor was shot five times. One of the bullets was stopped by the watch in his vest pocket. That saved his life.
Later, he wrote this about Joseph Smith.
John: “Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.”**

The second story has to do with an experience I had after I finished graduate school and was working as a full-time member of the Harvard Business School faculty. There I learned how to teach by the case method. And I also learned about a market for corporate executive education that I had no idea existed. I remember sitting in my office at Harvard one afternoon and receiving a phone call from a senior professor by the name of Jay Lorsch. "Doug," Jay said. "I am calling you because of an emergency. "We're teaching a group of executives out in Cincinnati tomorrow, and the fellow who was supposed to do it has become terribly sick with food poisoning. I wonder if you can help out." "Jay," I said. "I'd be happy to help out if I can. What's the case?" [I knew there had to be a case.] "You'll be teaching a case on competition in the jet engine business." "And who are the executives?" "They are all middle managers at General Electric's jet engine business in Evendale, Ohio." "Wait a minute, Jay," I said. "You want me to teach a case about the jet engine business, about which I know nothing, to a bunch of people who are experts in the business?" "That's right," he said. "When do I get the case?" I asked. "We can bring it right over. You can prepare it on the plane tonight when you fly out there." Well, I did it. And it went really well. That teaching experience really taught me how powerful the case method was. It was like walking a tight rope without a net, but what a great learning experience it was!

I learned how to perform in that very unique marketplace: a marketplace that only a couple of years before I had no idea even existed. I learned that as a teacher I did not have to have all the answers. In fact, I was more effective if I didn't. My role was to be the concept leader, and to ask the questions. I discovered the power of questions, and learned that I could help people get better answers by helping them ask better questions.

This discovery opened up another new door of opportunity for me. A few years later some other Harvard professors and I decided we enjoyed this type of teaching so much we would try to make a business out of it. In 1987 we co-founded the Center for Executive Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts, dedicated to helping companies build strategic capability through customized executive education. The 20 years that I spent as managing partner for CED provided deeply rewarding work for me and my partners, and I think for our clients as well. And I discovered it by accident!