Gospel Story Finder

I have been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints my whole life. My parents are strong examples of faith in my life. I never felt the need to do anything more to strengthen and nourish that foundation. I rode on the coattails of their testimonies until I graduated from BYU–Hawaii in 2002.

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, “Faith is strong when it has deep roots in personal experience [and] personal commitment to Jesus Christ... Our testimony will be tested and tried. Faith is not faith if never tested. Faith is not strong if never opposed.” [4] I did not know it then, but I was about to have some personal experiences that would test that foundation of faith and start my journey of personal recommitment to Jesus Christ.

My first job out of college was working at a hotel in Waikiki. I was paid $10 an hour with a college degree, which was barely enough to cover the cost for gas, to drive from Laie to Waikiki, five days a week. My husband and I got married later that same year. I quickly learned that, in hotels, there are many opportunities for movement and growth if I was willing to put in the time and effort. My focus shifted and I became more career driven. Hotels are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As my career in the hotel progressed, my schedule required me to work on Sundays. By that time, both of my sons had been born, so I justified it at first thinking, I am doing this for my family. As I reflect on this time, I can see that I chose to make the Lord less of a priority in my life. My priority was to move ahead in my career to provide for my family. I worked in hotels for 18 years. I left home before my kids woke up and returned home just in time to say goodnight. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoyed my work and loved the people I worked with. I met some amazing people and built lasting friendships. I worked in Human Resources, Property Rehab or Special Projects, and various leadership roles in Housekeeping. I learned about union contracts, code of conduct, benefits, project management, standards, policies, procedures, and managing teams ranging from 20 to 800 people. While it was great that my career was advancing, I also felt like a horrible mom. I missed out on so many things: sporting events, birthdays, holidays, and just being around when my kids needed me. I am forever grateful to my husband, my best friend, for taking everything on and being there for our kids. My father-in-law and mother-in-law played an integral role in supporting our family. Our kids also have five amazing aunties, or as my sister says, “mom-ties”. These wonderful people stepped up to fill in for me when I could not be there.

During COVID, I was temporarily laid off because the hotel had to close. This was another challenging time for our family. My husband started working a few months before I was laid off. He was able to work through COVID to provide for our family. I was home for nine months and had to navigate where I fit in my family’s schedule and routine. By then our sons were 14 and 16 years old. Having mommy home was great, but it was different from what they had been accustomed to. This also gave me time to re-evaluate my priorities. I decided to go back to my roots and focus on my foundation of faith and learning to strengthen me and my family. I enrolled in an online MBA program to start working on my master’s degree. I also focused on strengthening my relationship with my sons. Those nine months ended up being the recharge and realignment I needed. Eventually, the hotel reopened, and I was called to return to work. When I returned, I struggled feeling like I could not continue doing this because I needed to prioritize my family. My husband agreed, so I left the hotel. Even though I knew it was the right thing to do for my family, it was still difficult because I built so many great relationships over the years.

As it got late, everybody separated except Patrick and me. We left together in a jeepney. Still wondering why Patrick didn’t join in, I thought back to a day four years before, when we were 16. I remembered we were walking in the street near our school when I told him I wanted to be a priest someday.

“In our church you could already be a priest,” Patrick replied. “You just need to be ordained. Then when you turn 19, you can preach the gospel as a missionary.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, thinking he didn’t know much about the gospel. “How can a 19-year-old preach to people? Priests take a lot of time to study so they can preach.”

Patrick insisted that 19-year-olds in his church could preach. He told me that his church also has another book of scripture, and he gave me a copy. I browsed through it at home, and I felt something mysterious in that book. But I didn’t really care about it; I just stuck it in a box, where it lay for the next four years.

Now, as we rode in the jeepney after the party, I asked Patrick where he was going. “I’m meeting some friends. They’re elders—missionaries.” I remembered having seen them around. I asked Patrick if he would take me to the elders so I could ask them some questions about their church.

We met up with the missionaries at a store near their subdivision, and they greeted us by shaking our hands. It was very formal. But after they introduced themselves to me, I realized they seemed like any other guys. They wanted to set up an appointment to answer my questions.

“OK, I’ll just get your number so if I’m available, I will text you,” I replied. I wasn’t really planning to text them.

When I got home, I got the book Patrick had given me four years before—something about it made me curious. The next morning I texted the missionaries to teach me. They started with the Restoration of the gospel. It sounded so different, and I told myself, “Why do people want to restore things when they know that older generations are different than our generation now?”

After two discussions I decided not to pursue them anymore. When asked why, I replied, “I’m just not interested anymore.” One week passed. I sat staring at the Book of Mormon, pondering the message I had been taught. I started to read what the missionaries told me to in 3 Nephi 11. I read that Jesus went to another nation to show that He was the Savior and Messiah. In 3 Nephi 15, I recognized one passage that I had read before in the Bible, in John 10:16. It was something the missionaries hadn’t even taught me yet.

Tears fell down my face, and I found myself weeping in my room. I realized the love Jesus Christ has for us. He loves us so much that He gave His own life to save us from our sins. I didn’t hesitate to pray, asking to know if the Book of Mormon I was holding is true. Praying in my room, all alone, I suddenly felt that somebody was there listening to me.

My heart was softened by the impressions I had received. I stood up and said, “This is the true Church. I know that this is the Church that Jesus Christ restored.”

The day before my baptism, I repeated the process of praying. Again what I had heard and felt sunk into my heart, and I knew the Holy Ghost had revealed the truth to me. I knew the truth that Jesus is the Christ. I felt in my heart and mind that I desired to be baptized, believing that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ I could be cleansed.

Jesus Christ atoned for our sins, and this is the very reason I was converted. I know that He was the only one who has the power and the authority to rebuild His Church in our dispensation. Now as a missionary serving in the Philippines Cagayan de Oro Mission, I am doing the best I can to help people feel the great happiness I have now.

A young woman I know was a little frustrated with friends questioning her standards: “Why can’t you date before 16?” “Why don’t you drink?” When she prayed about how to handle this situation, this idea came to her mind: “I’m going to put a For the Strength of Youth booklet in my jeans pocket. When people question me about, for example, dating, I’ll give them the book and tell them to read the section on dating.”

It turned out to be a great idea! In three months she gave out 52 copies of For the Strength of Youth. And three new friends started attending church with her.

This young woman was bold in a friendly way and didn’t apologize for her standards. When youth live standards clearly and without apology, others will respect them and look to their example.Mary N. Cook, second counselor in the Young Women general presidency.

When President Kimball died, we were living in Arizona. President Kimball had been in our home. We had knelt with him in family prayer, and he had eaten bread and milk with us. We knew he was a prophet of God.
I wanted a witness of the Spirit that President Benson was God’s chosen prophet. I wanted to know more than that he was just a good person and next in line after President Kimball. The Lord was kind to me, and, after fasting and prayer, I received, by the Spirit, the witness that President Benson was indeed God’s chosen prophet for this time, with a special calling and a special message for our day.

“We’d like you to be our regular pitcher this year, David,” the coach said at the beginning of the baseball season. “But you’ll have to play on Sunday sometimes.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” David replied.
That night David said a special prayer and asked for help to have the courage to do what he knew was right.
The next day he told the coach he had decided not to play ball on Sunday. “I guess I’ll just have to be a relief pitcher,” he said.
Several weeks went by. David tried not to think about his team playing ball each Sunday while he went to church with his family.
One night after practice the coach called the boys together. “Even though David doesn’t feel he can play ball on Sundays,” he said, “I’d like him to be our regular pitcher. If you agree, we can have a relief pitcher for our Sunday games.”
There was a moment of silence. “How about it?” the coach asked the boys.
David could hardly breathe as he looked at his friends. They were quiet for only a minute, and then every team member enthusiastically approved the coach’s relief pitcher plan.

When Ellen awoke, she heard the cry of a newborn baby. Her feet swiftly pattered past the cabin doors until she came to the bedside of Elizabeth Hopkins. Wrapped in a blanket beside her lay the tiny baby. Ellen stared in wonder.
Little Demaris Hopkins grinned and announced, “He’s my brother!”
“Just imagine, Demaris, having a brother born in the middle of the ocean!” Ellen exclaimed.
Steven Hopkins, the baby’s father, patted Ellen on the head. “Guess what we’re going to name him! We’re going to call him Oceanus (Latin word for ocean).”
“Oh, my!” Ellen exclaimed and ran swiftly to tell her mother.

If there is one thing that Elder Erich Willi Kopischke has gained a testimony of, it is that the Lord knows what is best for individuals.
He recalls being a little disappointed when called to serve a full-time mission in his native Germany. “I wanted to learn a different language,” he says. But he soon came to love teaching his own people. And when he was assigned to the mission office for nine months as a secretary, he had to learn English.
Elder Kopischke came to realize that his mission had truly been the Lord’s plan for him, because it had prepared him.
“The Lord knows your mission in life—that is my greatest testimony,” he says. “He knows what is in store for you.”

My cousins came from New Mexico to visit us. We had a great time. When they went home, my grandma went with them. The next day Grandma got very sick. She had to go to the hospital because her kidneys were shutting down. My mom came to me and told me what was happening. She invited me to fast with the family. She explained why prayer with fasting is more powerful than prayer alone. It was easy because whenever I thought about food or water, I remembered what I was fasting for and forgot about food and water. Grandma started getting better as we were ending our fast. She finished her vacation and then came back home. I am grateful that we can fast.Austin J., age 8, Utah

I finished at BYU in the spring of 1955, at the end of the Winter Quarter (we had quarters then). I was not going into the Air Force for about three months so I looked around for something to do. I saw an ad in the paper that said they wanted people to work in the Lark Mine. I drove out there. The Lark Mine is underneath one of the mountains that surround the Kennecott Copper Mine. I was hired. I went into this mine, got on the little train with a bunch of other people who had hats with little lights on them and big heavy boots, and we went into the mountain for a long time. It must have been two, three, four miles. Then we got out and came to the shaft. The shaft had a little car in it that accommodated nine people if you scrunched up. It was on a cable, and it dropped you down that shaft at what seemed like a terrific rate of speed. We went down 4.000 feet below where we went into the mountain, and the car stopped—fortunately. We climbed out and onto another little train that took us out to what they called “the face,” where the mining was being done. We got our shovels, and we shoveled all the ore that was lying there into cars, and the cars left. We started drilling holes in the face, and, when we got that done, we sat down and had a little bite to eat. After lunch, we pushed dynamite, several sticks, into each one of the holes we had drilled, and someone who knew what he was doing came around and put fuses in all of the holes so that it would blow the middle out first and then the sides so that it would work properly. Then we lit the fuses, got on the train, and headed back for the tunnel. All the fuses were lit at the same time at all the various faces, and, when we got back to where we were to go up the shaft, we could hear the explosions.

Now, that’s not too important, I guess, except what I learned there. I met people there, men with five, six, seven, fourteen children, who were going every day into this black hole. I knew I was going to get out—into the Air Force, to fly a plane in the sun. But they, day after day, five days a week, year after year, suffered danger, unremitting toil, boredom, and for what? For those kids and that wife at home, to keep them out of the black hole.

That is sacrifice. Sacrifice is not paying your tithing or going to church on Sunday or filling a temple assignment, although those things are important. It’s being somewhere you’re needed, where you’ve got to serve when you’d rather be elsewhere or do something else. Don’t you think those men would just as soon have sat on a mountain top playing a guitar and singing a few happy songs and not worrying about where the next meal was coming from or whether Johnny could get braces on his teeth? How about the wives? What sacrifice were they making? Do you think women choose as the highest of all intellectual accomplishment to take a master’s degree in physics and go home and change a dirty diaper, cook a meal, sweep the floor, make the beds? You don’t think that’s sacrifice? Then you don’t know what sacrifice is.

May I share with you a teaching experience that President Tanner had with one of his daughters and her girlfriend. President Tanner said,

Let me relate a little story that I have told all over the Church. My daughter and her girl friend were at our house, and they were going to a party; then two young men came and called for them. I sat and talked to them about different things, and just before they were ready to leave, I said, “Now have a good time, kids.” But just as they were going out of the door, I stepped over to my daughter and said, “Now, behave yourself.”
And she said, “Well, Dad, make up your mind.”
Then I said to those young people so they could all hear me, “Have a good time, kids, the best time you will ever have in your lives, but the kind of time that tomorrow, next week, a month from now or a year from now, ten years from now, you can look back on tonight and say, ‘I had a good time’ and have nothing to regret or to be sorry about.” And I think they went out and had a good time. [N. Eldon Tanner, Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, p. 3]

One sister, shortly after moving to a new ward, suffered a devastating illness that left her nearly bedridden for almost two years. She describes how the sisters of her new ward, working through the Relief Society organization, blessed her life:
“A loving and sensitive Relief Society president visited often, and other sisters checked on me every day of the week. I forged bonds of friendship with each one as we shared feelings of the heart, discussed current affairs, laughed at the small indignities of illness, and generally enjoyed each other’s company. One sister quietly did my laundry, freshened my dogs’ food and water, and brought her grandchildren to visit. Another … made delicious custard for me when I could eat no other food. …
“I rarely was able to attend church during my illness, but I still felt right at home in the ward family” (JoAnn Jolley, Ensign, September 1994, 51–52).

Example is one of the most effective ways to teach righteous principles. President Thomas S. Monson recalls: “My own father, a printer, worked long and hard practically every day of his life. I’m certain that on the Sabbath he would have enjoyed just being at home. Rather, he visited elderly family members and brought cheer into their lives.
“One was his uncle, who was crippled by arthritis so severe that he could not walk or care for himself. On a Sunday afternoon Dad would say to me, ‘Come along, Tommy; let’s take Uncle Elias for a short drive.’ Boarding the old 1928 Oldsmobile, we would proceed to Eighth West, where, at the home of Uncle Elias, I would wait in the car while Dad went inside. Soon he would emerge from the house, carrying in his arms like a china doll his crippled uncle. I then would open the door and watch how tenderly and with such affection my father would place Uncle Elias in the front seat so he would have a fine view while I occupied the rear seat.
“The drive was brief and the conversation limited, but oh, what a legacy of love! Father never read to me from the Bible about the good Samaritan. Rather, he took me with him and Uncle Elias in that old 1928 Oldsmobile along the road to Jericho” (“Hallmarks of a Happy Home,” Ensign, November 1988, 71).

Two years ago we decided to have a reunion and honor Bruford Reynolds and other youth leaders who led us in Richards Ward between 1940 and 1950. The chapel was completely filled with men, former boys who had lived in the ward. We had raised money to buy some very nice gifts, which were presented to them, and using an opaque projector, we showed pictures of the boys and some of the activities during those years. We made a real fuss over Bruford Reynolds and the other great men.
Then we called for a response. Bruford Reynolds stood up, and with great tears dimming his eyes he said, “I think this is the greatest day of my life.” As I thought about that statement, I looked out across that group of deacons/Scouts grown tall. It included three men who had been stake presidents, two men who had been mission presidents, several men in stake presidencies, thirty-three men who had been bishops or counselors, and one who is a General Authority. Then I thought, maybe this is what life is all about, to be able to look back and see the young men you had influenced grow up and become leaders in the kingdom.

Second, I believe we have not prepared ourselves to be good messengers. The general membership of the Church seems to be in the same position I found myself in as a full-time missionary many years ago. At that time we were given little training to fulfill our responsibilities. As I arrived in the mission field, I was assigned a companion who was also new in the field. He was anxious to be about the work that he had been assigned and called to perform. He encouraged me almost immediately to go door-to-door tracting with him. I will never forget our first door approach. As we started toward the house, I turned to him and asked, “What do I do?” His reply astonished me. He said, “I don’t know. I have never tried this before.” How different is the training of our full-time missionaries we have serving today! We need to be more on a par with them if we are to fulfill our responsibilities as member missionaries.

Eleven-year-old Ted was excited. Today he and Benjamin, his 14-year-old brother, were going to take their dad’s fishing boat out on the ocean all by themselves.
Father worked as a fisherman, catching cod, haddock, halibut, and Dover sole. Every morning he took the family’s small wooden boat and rowed into the ocean near their home on the coast of England. When he returned, Mother would take the fish to Chester Market and sell them.
But today was different. Ted’s parents needed to take the family’s horse and wagon into town to get supplies, and Ted had volunteered to do the fishing while their parents were gone.
“Remember, stay close to the shore,” Mother said as Ted and Benjamin began to row the little boat out into the ocean. “Always stay close enough that you can see our house. We should be home about the same time you get finished.”
“And be careful with the nets,” Father added. “Don’t lose them.”
Ted knew how important the nets were. Without the nets, his family wouldn’t be able to catch any fish. And then they wouldn’t have any money to buy food and clothes. All the money the family had came from selling the fresh fish in the market.
After Benjamin rowed the boat a little way from the shore, Ted helped his brother put glass floats on the nets and throw them overboard. After waiting for a while, Ted and Benjamin used all their strength to pull the nets back into the boat. They removed the fish one by one until finally they had gathered and stacked all the cod, halibut, and other fish.
“Could you start pulling up the anchor rope?” Benjamin asked Ted. “Then we’ll go back to shore.”
Ted pulled up on the rope until he could see the anchor in the water below him. As he lifted the heavy anchor, his wet hands slipped. The anchor skidded off the side of the boat and back into the water, dragging all three tangled nets overboard. The weight of the anchor overcame the floats, and the nets began to sink.
Ted stuck out his hand to grab the nets, but Benjamin pushed his hand away. “Don’t! You’ll be pulled overboard by the weight of the anchor!”
Ted watched the three nets and the anchor disappear beneath the dark ocean water. There was nothing he could do to stop them.
When the anchor reached the end of the rope, Ted and Benjamin began pulling the rope back into the boat. But when the anchor finally came back to the surface, the nets were gone.
“Maybe they floated up somewhere else,” Benjamin said hopefully. But Ted couldn’t see the nets anywhere. He said a silent prayer that Heavenly Father would help them find the nets.
They rowed around looking. But no matter how far they rowed, they couldn’t find the nets. After a little while they saw their parents waiting for them on the shore. Ted knew Mother and Father would be worried because they had been out with the boat longer than usual.
When they got to shore, Ted saw the worried look on Mother’s face and began to cry.
“What’s wrong?” Mother asked.
“We lost all the nets,” Benjamin said. His voice was quiet. He told his parents what had happened.
While Benjamin and Ted loaded the fish onto a cart for Mother to take to market, Dad took the boat out to look for the nets. But a storm was coming and the sky was turning black. As the ocean became choppy, Father returned. He had not been able to find the nets.
That night Ted heard Mother and Father talking.
“We don’t have enough money to buy even one new net,” Mother said.
During family prayer, Father prayed for a special blessing: “Please help us find our lost nets.”
The next morning the whole family searched along the beach.
Then when the tide went out, Ted and Benjamin went with Father in the rowboat. They spent the whole morning looking for the nets, but they didn’t find anything. Ted could tell that Father was starting to lose hope.
Just then, Ted thought he saw something glimmering in the water near the horizon. It could be another spot of sea foam or floating seaweed.
Or it might be the nets.
“Let’s row over there,” Ted said, pointing to the glimmer. “It looks like there is something floating.”
“I see something too,” Benjamin said.
As the boat got closer, Ted saw green seaweed leaves. His heart sank. But then, mixed in with the shiny leaves, he saw a glass float.
“It’s one of the floats!” he cried out. “I think the nets are there too!”
As Father pulled the boat alongside the float, Benjamin and Ted pulled the heavy, wet nets into the boat. All three nets were there. And they were full of cod, haddock, halibut, and Dover sole!
They had so many fish that some were spilling over the sides and back into the ocean. There was not enough room for all the fish.
“If we hurry, we can still get these fish to Chester Market,” Father said. But before they rowed the boat to shore, they stopped to say a prayer. They thanked Heavenly Father for helping them find all three of the nets and enough fish to fill the boat.

Over 100 years ago, in the Samoan Islands of the Pacific Ocean, a young man named Tom Fanene was an important help during a life-and-death situation for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Tom lived in a village called Sauniatu, which had been founded by Latter-day Saints in the area as a place for them to gather and make a community. Just like Saints of God in other times and places, they experienced trials as well as miracles as they worked to build God’s kingdom together. One trial came in 1918, when an influenza pandemic reached the village.
As soon as the illness arrived, it was devastating, and it spread quickly. Nearly every one of the roughly 400 villagers was bedridden because of it. Only a couple of them were well enough to get around: an older man and 12-year-old Tom.
During the 1918 influenza epidemic, Tom exercised faith as he worked hard to care for the people of the village. “Every morning I went from house to house to feed and clean the people and to find out who had died,” he said.
He fetched buckets of water from a spring and brought water to every house. He climbed coconut trees, picked coconuts, husked them, and opened them to collect the juice to bring it to the sick. He also killed all of the chickens in the village to make soup for each family.
The 12-year-old Tom Fanene helped nurse his village to health during a pandemic.
Illustration by James Madsen
During this pandemic, around one-fourth of all of the people in Samoa died of influenza. Some of the people in Tom’s village died as well. Tom helped dig graves and bury more than 20 of them, including his own father, Elisala.
But thanks to Tom’s hard work and loving care, many people in his village survived. He made a big difference to those people and to the building up of the Lord’s kingdom in Samoa. He was “laying the foundation of a great work.”
The 1918 influenza pandemic hit them hard. But Tom helped many to survive. Children went back to school, and villagers again formed the Sauniatu Branch Band (above).

David Whitmer, in 1878, told Joseph F. Smith and Orson Pratt a story that includes three more visits, the fifteenth through seventeenth. He was traveling with Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith to Fayette, New York to finish the translation when “a very pleasant, nice-looking old man suddenly appeared by the side of our wagon and saluted us with, ‘good morning, it is very warm,’ at the same time wiping his face or forehead with his hand. We returned the greeting, and, by a sign from Joseph, I invited him to ride if he was going our way. But he said very pleasantly, ‘No, I am going to Cumorah.’ This name was something new to me, I did not know what Cumorah meant. We all gazed at him and at each other, and as I looked around inquiringly of Joseph, the old man instantly disappeared, so that I did not see him again.
“Joseph F. Smith: Did you notice his appearance?
“David Whitmer: I should think I did. He was … about one and one-half meters tall … ; he was dressed in a suit of brown woolen clothes, his hair and beard were white. I also remember that he had on his back a sort of backpack with something in [it] shaped like a book. It was the messenger who had the plates, who had taken them from Joseph just prior to our starting from Harmony. Soon after our arrival home, I saw something which led me to the belief that the plates were placed or concealed in my father’s barn. I frankly asked Joseph if my supposition was right, and he told me it was.” (Minutes of the School of the Prophets, Salt Lake Stake, 3 October 1883.)

President Otay, who was Brother Yefi’s branch president at that time, challenged him to pay tithing and prepare himself to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. A few months after the interview, on a rainy, wet day, Brother Yefi appeared and asked to speak with the president about paying his first tithing donation. President Otay invited him to come in, but Brother Yefi said that he had his tithing outside—three sacks of potatoes.
Imagine this brother’s faithfulness in keeping the Lord’s commandments! He had transported three sacks of potatoes by horseback, boat, bus, and then wagon to the church.
Listening to Brother Yefi testify of the law of tithing is a special experience. “Before leaving home to bring our tithing to the bishop,” he said, “I pray to Heavenly Father to bless me that I might be honest. I would not like to have the feeling that I have stolen what really belongs to Him.”
Brother Yefi testified that the Lord has greatly blessed his family for obeying the law of tithing. At the time he was baptized, he said, he had only the minimum of necessities to sustain his family—a team of oxen which he used to plow the earth, a horse, and a few goats and sheep. But, he said with great reverence, since learning the gospel and paying his tithing, “We have been greatly blessed. I have horses, goats, sheep, and nine milking cows that give us enough milk to feed our children and to make cheese to sell. And we sow and harvest our own wheat. We are very blessed!”

Remember, it isn’t sufficient to assume that when you teach, the boy is listening to what you say. Let me illustrate:
In what we call the west boardroom of the Church Administration Building, there hangs a lovely painting rendered by the artist Harry Anderson. The painting depicts Jesus sitting on a small stone wall with numerous children gathered around, knowing they are the object of His love. Each time I gaze at that painting, I think of the passage of scripture, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”
On one occasion I had given a priesthood blessing in that room to a small lad who was soon to undergo major surgery. I directed his attention and that of his parents to the painting of Jesus and the children. I then made a few remarks concerning the Savior and His never-failing love. I asked the boy if he had any questions. “Yes,” he replied seriously. “Brother Monson, how does a boy go about getting a little goat and a leash for it like that one in the painting?”
For a moment I was stunned by the unanticipated question, a little deflated concerning my teaching ability, but then I responded: “Jesus gives to you and me gifts far more important than a goat on a leash. He provides a road map to heaven. His teachings, His example, His love are far greater gifts than that offered by the world.”
“Come, follow me,” He invited. And we are wise when we follow Him!

A long line of cars and large trucks sped along the freeway through the steady rain, tires hissing on the wet pavement. Water squirting from under the wheels of the trucks formed a curtain behind each speeding colossus. Every time we passed one of those road giants, a streaming shower blocked our view.
Often, when a long line of cars was in front of us, we had to drive for minutes beside one of those enormous vehicles. Shivering with fear, my wife would look up at the monster that thundered along only a couple of meters away from us.
I grumbled to myself because we had left so late that I had to hurry in these dangerous weather conditions to arrive on time for our appointment.
Suddenly we heard a mysterious sound against the side of the car. It went “klack-klack-klack-klack,” sounding like the first four beats of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, of which the composer said, “That’s the way fate knocks at the door.” The sound repeated itself every so often.
I stopped the car in the emergency lane and inspected the tires and the body of the car. I could find nothing that could have caused this knocking sound, so we continued our trip. After several kilometers, we heard the same knocking sound. I stopped and inspected the car again. Nothing was to be found. But when I stopped a third time, I did discover something—a bump on one of the tires that slowly grew to the size of a coconut!
When the mechanic who came to change the tire inspected the inside of the tire, he whistled fearfully. Even though the tire had been new, it had a big tear in the canvas—a factory defect. “You couldn’t have driven another kilometer with this,” the man said. “The tire would have had a blowout.”
I shivered with the thought of what could have happened if we had had a blowout when we were driving next to one of those huge trucks. That day, I clearly felt the protecting power that we so often plead for in our daily prayers.
We are not wise people, just a simple couple striving to keep the covenants we made with Heavenly Father when we were married in the temple. We feel protected. Perhaps we are protected many more times than we even realize. Certainly, we believe that it was the hand of our Heavenly Father who saved us twice from misfortune.