Gospel Story Finder

Ilnara Peixoto Marinho of Fortaleza, Brazil, had been sealed to her family in the temple. But for a long time the family had not been as active in church as they once were. Then one Sunday morning, Ilnara’s Young Women president showed up at her home, along with Sister Beck, who was in town and wanted to visit some young women. When Sister Beck asked Ilnara about her Personal Progress, Ilnara had to admit she had never worked on it at all. Then Sister Beck gave her a challenge. If she would find her book, finish one of the short experiences, and bring it to the fireside that night, Sister Beck would sign it off for her.

That day, Ilnara not only started working on Personal Progress; she also started helping turn her family’s life around. She began attending church. Then she and her sister began going with their mother. When Ilnara’s dad finally joined them, he was called to be in the bishopric. The whole family returned to the temple together. And it all started with Personal Progress.

Scarlet M., age 16, Cautín Province, Chile
When I joined the Church, I felt alone, though some of the youth made efforts to interact with me. I went to Mutual activities and got more involved in their conversations. I listened to them and gave my contribution. I smiled at them and showed genuine interest in them. My advice is to help your friend open up. Help her participate in any Church activity, and she will begin to enjoy the company of many friends.

Clara and her family had just been baptized. Clara liked getting up on Sunday and going to church together.
One Sunday the Primary president said there would be a Primary program soon. Clara wasn’t sure what a Primary program was. But she knew she wanted to be in it.
“Can you read a scripture and bear your testimony in the Primary program?” her teacher asked.
Clara nodded. She was excited! She wanted to learn as much as she could about the gospel. But she was nervous too. What if she made a mistake?
Clara practiced her part every night. She didn’t know all the words in the scripture yet.
“You’ll do great,” Mama said.
Clara wasn’t so sure. This was her first Primary program. All the other kids had done this before.
“Remember, if you do your best, Heavenly Father will do the rest,” Papa told her.
The night before the program, Clara prayed for help to do her best. She stayed on her knees and thought about her part. She felt good about it.
On Sunday morning Clara prayed that she wouldn’t be scared.
When it was her turn, Clara walked to the front. She messed up one of the words in the scripture. But then she remembered how good she’d felt after her prayer. She smiled and bore her testimony. She talked about how much she loved the Savior.
Clara smiled as she sat back down. She knew Heavenly Father didn’t care that she didn’t say everything perfectly. He cared what was in her heart.

Follow Your Mother
In my profession as a farmer and a rancher, I’ve had a front-row seat to observe how a mother’s natural affection manifests itself even in nature. Each spring we take a herd of cows and their new calves up along Idaho’s Snake River. …
… On one particularly hot spring day, I was helping with the roundup by riding at the back of the herd as it moved down the dusty road toward the corral. My job was to gather any calves that had wandered from the road. …
… After several hours of gathering up stray calves … , I yelled to the calves in frustration, “Just follow your mothers! They know where they’re going! They’ve been down this road before!” …
As soon as we got the herd into the corral, we noticed that three of the cows were pacing nervously at the gate. They could not find their calves and seemed to sense they were back on the road somewhere. …
… We found our lost calves taking a nap in the shade. Our approach startled them, and they resisted our efforts to round them up. They were frightened because we were not their mothers! The more we tried to push them toward the corral, the more stubborn they became. Finally I said to the cowboys, “I’m sorry. I know better than this. Let’s ride back and let their mothers out of the corral. The cows will come and get their calves, and the calves will follow their mothers.” I was right. The mother cows knew exactly where to go to find their calves, and they led them back to the corral, as I had expected.
Brothers and sisters, in a world where everyone is granted agency, some of our loved ones may stray for a season. But we can never give up. We must always go back for them—we must never stop trying.
Elder Bradley D. Foster of the Seventy

I have had hard times in real life too. In 2021, I tore my ACL in gymnastics. I was devastated and didn’t know what I was going to do.
I remember sitting in church before my surgery. Someone was speaking, but I wasn’t listening until they said one verse: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). That moment helped me because I knew I needed to pray and get close to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ so I could receive Their strength.

About six months before the end of the war, I was assigned to an outfit where incoming young people were trained on radar. We were stationed in the Harz Mountains, and I was about 17. One day we had to write a composition about Germany, and mine won. The officer had me stand in front of the whole outfit, and he said: “Congratulations for writing the best composition. I expect you to volunteer now to become an officer for the German Reich. We need people with your potential, and I expect your written application tonight.”

“I don’t have to wait until tonight,” I said. “I refuse.”
He got really furious and wanted to punish me. He said, “Tomorrow, I will ask you again, and the next day again.”
“Well, I’m not going,” I told him. I was not in tune with the spirit of national socialism. My father was a friend of the Jewish people, and we had always prayed for them in our home. I just wanted to get out of there with the others. He asked me what I wanted to do. “I want to go with the rest of the group,” I said. He told me if I didn’t want to volunteer I was ordered to stay behind and train the young people. There was no other choice.

Although I was forced to stay I felt very secure about it, like that was where I was supposed to be. All my friends were sent to Russia. Only one came back—all the others were killed.

In your quest to define yourselves, do not get caught up in comparisons with role models or body types that may seem to be macho or chic but in reality are not becoming to you as sons and daughters of our loving Heavenly Father. One 17-year-old girl became so obsessed about her figure that she began to skip meals and ended up with an eating disorder. When it became apparent to her father, he insisted that she eat a substantial meal. This confrontation ultimately brought her to her senses, and she wrote:
“All my life I had done things for everyone else. The grades, the manners, the awards—everything for them, nothing for me. This eating thing, this losing weight had become mine. It represented me and my choices, and now my dad was trying to take that away from me, too!
“As I lay in bed that night crying and feeling fat, I knew I needed help. I knew I was hurting people I loved.
“After staying up all night, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t my dad I hated. I hated ME! I realized that I wasn’t in control. For the first time in my life, I understood that this was my problem. I needed to take control of my life—not let the disease control it.
“Things didn’t change overnight. In fact, it was one long road to recovery. But slowly, with the help of friends and family, I began to heal. Now that I’m at my ideal weight, I have stopped weighing myself altogether. I no longer peruse fashion magazines, either—I may not be ‘in style,’ but I feel just right!”3

Later after the terrifying experience of a wartime Nazi concentration camp, she found herself face to face with one of the S.S. guards.

“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, [her sister] Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

“He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,’ he said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’

“His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

“I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

“And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself” (Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place, New York: Bantam Books, 1971, pp. 44–45, 238).

“We have some great nonmember neighbors, and we decided to invite them to dinner on a Monday night, and then we casually asked them if they would like to participate in our family home evening. We had a great time getting to know one another, and they were impressed by the spiritual quality of our evening and the closeness that such a night can bring to a family. Inviting nonmembers to share a family home evening with you can be great fun and can work as a great missionary tool.”

In late fall 1838, Hyrum and Mary Fielding Smith awaited the birth of their first child in the midst of escalating conflict between old Missouri settlers and large numbers of newly arrived Latter-day Saints. When violence erupted, the governor ordered the Latter-day Saints to leave the state or face “extermination.” Hundreds of Church members lost their property, and a number lost their lives. Several Church leaders—Hyrum, his brother the Prophet Joseph Smith, and others—were unjustly jailed. Years later President Smith would begin a sketch of his life with these words: “I was born in Far West, Caldwell Co. Missouri, 13 days after my Father was taken a prisoner by the mob.”4

During four long months, Hyrum and Joseph and others suffered in Liberty Jail. Mary Fielding Smith, who had just given birth to her “dear little Joseph F.,” struggled to care for her newborn and the five surviving children from Hyrum’s first marriage to Jerusha Barden Smith, who had died in 1837.

While Mary lay bedridden, ruffians attacked the Smith home, ransacking the family’s belongings and nearly smothering the infant Joseph F. with bedding they tossed aside. Mary and the children, aided by Mary’s sister Mercy Fielding Thompson, joined the Saints’ forced exodus from Missouri. Hyrum was finally reunited with his family on 22 April 1839 at Quincy, Illinois, and in June, the family moved up the Mississippi River to settle with other Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois.

One afternoon, Vereckei Krisztina, 16, was home alone. “I love to feel the Holy Ghost, to feel that this Church is true,” she says. “But that day, I wasn’t feeling it, and I missed it a lot.” She tried listening to Church music, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying. But for some reason, she still wasn’t feeling the Spirit.
“I went to visit my friend, Seres Brigitta,” she says. “I asked her to come and walk with me. As we walked, we talked about Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. Without thinking about it, I told her my testimony, and she told me hers. We sat on a city bench for two or three hours, sharing our testimonies with each other. As we sat there, with lots of people going by, we could imagine that God was looking at us and that He was proud of us because we were talking about Him. I felt the Holy Ghost and felt that my testimony had been strengthened. I was very happy after that.”

Sharing the gospel is about people, not numbers. So what happened in Immokalee, Florida, began just as it should have, when Junior Reyes invited one of his friends to come to church.
Little did he know what he was starting.
At the time, there were only two Aaronic Priesthood bearers in the Immokalee Branch: Junior and another young man named Jorge Caceres. Jorge was born in the Church but had become discouraged because for a long time he had been the only Aaronic Priesthood bearer in the branch. So Junior, a convert, was the only one who went to stake firesides.
“Every time I’d go, I’d see the other branches and all the youth in the stake, but from our branch, it would just be me,” Junior says. “Finally, I said, ‘Why am I the only one here from Immokalee? I’ve got to open my mouth.’
“The way I was raised, I was taught not to be scared,” he continues. “When I talk to my friends about Jesus Christ and the restored gospel, I’m not afraid; I’m happy. I know what I’m telling them can help them make their lives better.”
So Junior invited his friend Wedner Daly to come to church. “I said, ‘You learn a lot of things and you get a lot of blessings, and it’s worth it.’”
Wedner accepted.
“I didn’t think anything special about it at first,” Wedner says. “I thought it would be like other churches. But when I got there, it was the day that everybody shared their testimonies, so I got to feel the Spirit when I first came. That was different for me. I had never been to a church where people shared their testimonies and felt great about their church. That’s one of the reasons that I liked it.”
So Wedner invited his friend, Milsont Pierre. Milsont started coming to weeknight activities and then to Sunday meetings, and then the missionaries started teaching his family. He remembers vividly, “I felt the Spirit, over and over again, especially during the sacrament prayers. I knew this was the true Church.” Milsont and his three brothers were baptized and confirmed, as well as a cousin, a nephew, and four of Milsont’s friends.

by Elder Craig BarrOhio Columbus Mission
Every year there is a big celebration down in Elkins, West Virginia, called the Forest Festival. To take part in the festival missionaries in the past have set up a display about some aspect of the Church. This year we decided to really do a good job.
Our display consisted of a giant painting of the Washington D.C. Temple. In fact, it was 8-by-12 feet and was painted by an artist in the branch in Elkins. To go with the painting, we obtained a tent 20-by-40 feet from the Army Reserve Depot at Charleston, West Virginia. We set up the tent behind the painting and showed movies to festival visitors. We ran Man’s Search for Happiness, Meet the Mormons, and The New Landmark, a film on the Washington D.C. Temple. On each side of the entrance we placed a display board and pamphlets. These were centered on the family, the family home evening program, and temple work. Floodlights were also set up. There was a blue light in front of the painting to enhance the beauty of the temple and white lights on the side to offset the color and light the display boards. The title of our booth was Why Families and Why Temples?
For four days we had from two to four missionaries at the booth. The response that we received was tremendous. We were kept busy day and night. Many people stopped and commented on the painting, and many others asked for pamphlets and wanted to see the movies. Others requested to hear the missionary lessons or signed our guest register and asked us to come and see them after the festival was over.
The last day there was a parade, and the special guest was President Gerald R. Ford. He stopped and waved to us when he saw the painting of the temple.
We closed down the booth that same evening. When we reflected back over those hurried days, we could see what a great success the booth had been. We had received over 40 referrals and many other verbal referrals. We had come in contact with people who requested that the missionaries come to their homes. Now we are busy teaching and are very grateful for the response that we had. We are especially grateful to those who donated time and talents to help make the display a success.

I share a final example that mortality works.
My mother did not have an easy journey through mortality. She received no accolades or worldly honors and did not have educational opportunities beyond high school. She contracted polio as a child, resulting in a lifetime of pain and discomfort in her left leg. As an adult, she experienced many difficult and challenging physical and financial circumstances but was faithful to her covenants and loved the Lord.
When my mother was 55, my next older sister passed away, leaving an eight-month-old baby daughter, my niece, motherless. For various reasons, Mom ended up largely raising my niece for the next 17 years, often under very trying circumstances. Yet, notwithstanding these experiences, she happily and willingly served her family, neighbors, and ward members and served as an ordinance worker in the temple for many years. During the last several years of her life, Mom suffered from a form of dementia, was often confused, and was confined to a nursing facility. Regrettably, she was alone when she passed away unexpectedly.
Several months after her passing, I had a dream I have never forgotten. In my dream, I was sitting in my office at the Church Administration Building. Mom entered the office. I knew she had come from the spirit world. I will always remember the feelings I had. She did not say anything, but she radiated a spiritual beauty that I had never before experienced and which I have difficulty describing.
Her countenance and being were truly stunning! I remember saying to her, “Mother, you are so beautiful!,” referencing her spiritual power and beauty. She acknowledged me—again without speaking. I felt her love for me, and I knew then that she is happy and healed from her worldly cares and challenges and eagerly awaits “a glorious resurrection.” I know that for Mom, mortality worked—and that it works for us too.

Luis bounced up and down in the back seat and sang a silly song. “Please settle down, Luis,” Dad said. “I need to focus on driving.”
“I can’t settle down,” Luis said. “It’s just so awesome!”
Dad smiled. “I’m glad you’re excited to meet your new baby brother.”
When they got to the hospital, Luis raced to Mom’s room. He knew where it was because Mom had been there for five days already. She had to stay at the hospital because Baby Ian was sick, and Mom was a little bit sick too. Luis had asked to see Ian at least a bajillion times, but Mom always said, “Not yet.” She said that the doctors would decide when Ian was strong enough for a visitor.
Today the doctor had called. Today was the day!
When Luis walked into Mom’s hospital room, she was already holding Ian. Luis ran over to see his new baby brother. Ian was tiny. He looked way smaller than Luis’s baby cousins. And there was something different about his nose and ears. He looked like a little elf!
“Hi, honey,” Mom said. “Come wash your hands, and then you can hold the baby.”
Luis washed his hands with special soap. He climbed onto the hospital bed next to Mom. She leaned over to hand him the baby. Dad helped Luis put his hands in just the right place.
Luis looked down at Ian. “Hi, Ian,” he said. “I’m your brother, Luis. You’re going to sleep in my room, and I can show you all my toys, and we can play at the park.”
Baby Ian looked right at Luis. Luis thought he was the best baby ever.
When Luis’s arms got tired, Dad took a turn holding Ian. Mom held one of Luis’s hands and looked into his eyes.
“Luis,” she said. “Do you remember in Primary when you learned about the plan of salvation?”
Luis nodded. That had been a good day. Sister Lopez had a moon and a star and a big planet earth on sticks. Luis got to hold the sun.
“Do you remember how we lived in heaven before we came to earth and how we are going back to heaven when we die?”
Luis nodded again.
“Baby Ian is still very sick. And the doctor says that he won’t live very long. He is going to die soon and go back to heaven.”
Luis looked at Mom. He looked at Baby Ian in Dad’s arms. Then he frowned. His throat felt tight. “But I love him. I want him to stay here and share my room and play with me. Doesn’t he want to stay too?”
Mom put her arms around Luis. “Of course he wants to be with us. We’re his family. But he will see us again.”
“He will?”
Mom nodded. “Dad and I were married in the temple. We were promised that our family could be together forever. You and Ian will always be our children.”
“That means that Baby Ian will always be your brother,” Dad explained. “And you’ll see him again in heaven.”
Luis was sad. He felt kind of mad too. But he thought about meeting Baby Ian in heaven and smiled just a little. He reached out and rubbed Baby Ian’s soft hair. “We’ll be brothers in heaven? That’s awesome.”
Mom kissed Luis’s cheek. “It is awesome.”

I have had many such teachers since. One was a prophet of the Lord, Spencer W. Kimball. I was visiting from England for general conference and asked if I could see him. I was told that he was in his office and no one was with him. I knocked on the door and his familiar voice said “Come in.” I started to open the door, but before it was fully open, he was there already. I felt a sense of urgency and real caring. He took me by the arm, showed me round his office, then sat me down across the desk. “How is the work going in England?” he inquired. I gave a brief report, but he knew already; he was teaching me the principle of stewardship and accountability. Then he reached up to his bookshelves, took down a book, and handed it to me. “Have you read this?” he asked. He smiled, took a pen, opened the book and wrote a message, and then gave it to me. I shall always treasure that copy of The Life Story of Heber C. Kimball, the first missionary to England.

The power of a plain, unadorned testimony is always impressive to me. I recall a twelve-year-old boy standing in front of a large congregation to share his testimony. As he stood trembling in fear and emotion, his voice failed him. He stood speechless; our hearts went out to him. The creeping seconds dragged on, making the silence of the moment intense. Prayerfully we hoped that he might gain composure and the ability to express his testimony. After great uneasiness and anxiety peculiar to a young person in such a circumstance, he raised his bowed head and softly said, “Brothers and sisters, my testimony is too small.” He cleared his voice and sat down. His message had been given. I thought then, as I think now, what a timely observation. Whose testimony isn’t too small? Whose testimony doesn’t need to be added upon? After this one-sentence sermon, I acknowledged before the congregation that my testimony was too small also and I was going to give it a chance to grow by more frequent sharing. I had been taught by a plain, simple statement.

“Hold onto my basket,” Mother told Elizabeth as they left the bakery. “And take Charlotte’s hand.” Mother stopped suddenly. She had forgotten for a moment that Charlotte had died. “Hold on tight,” she said, her voice quavering. “I don’t want to lose you too.” Mother shifted baby Ellen on her hip and set off down the sidewalk.
Elizabeth followed, dutifully holding the basket’s handle. Usually she would have helped herself to a piece of warm bread, but today she wasn’t hungry.
On a street corner a man was holding up a book and talking loudly. “What’s he saying?” Elizabeth asked. “He has a strange way of speaking.”
“He’s not from England. I think he’s from America. He says that the elders of his church have authority to bless the sick and that those who are not appointed unto death will be healed.” Mother sighed. “If only we had known.”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure what all this meant. All she knew was that she was cold and tired and wanted to go home.
Later that night, Elizabeth’s father looked at her across the dinner table. “You haven’t said a word,” he said. “Are you feeling sad about Charlotte?”
Mother studied her daughter a moment and then jumped up in alarm. “Oh please, no!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on Elizabeth’s sweaty forehead. “It’s not sadness,” she told her husband. “It’s a fever. Run for the doctor. Quick!”
By the time the doctor arrived, Elizabeth was unconscious. He examined her and then turned sadly to her parents. “It’s scarlet fever,” he said.
“Can’t you do anything?” Mother pleaded. “We lost our daughter Charlotte to the fever already.”
The doctor pulled a small bottle of medicine from his bag. “Give her a dose if she awakens. But I won’t lie to you—she is already near death and will not regain consciousness. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
After the doctor left, Father pounded his fist on the table. “Why would a loving God take our children? I can’t believe they have already lived out their appointed times.”
Mother grabbed his arm. “Francis, go for the Mormon elders at once and ask them to come pray for our little girl.” Father hesitated, but Mother insisted. “I believe their words, Francis. If they bless her she will get well.”
Father found the elders and brought them home. One of them anointed Elizabeth’s head with oil. Both laid their hands on her head and the other one solemnly pronounced a blessing, promising Elizabeth that she would get well. He also promised that she would become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that she would go to Utah, and that she would live to become a mother in Israel. The fever immediately left Elizabeth’s body, and she fell into a peaceful sleep.
The next morning the doctor came with a death certificate. “Sorry to intrude,” he apologized, “but I need to fill this out on Elizabeth.”
“Please come in and join us,” Mother said happily. “We were just having bread and butter for breakfast. At Elizabeth’s request.”
The doctor could scarcely believe his eyes. There was Elizabeth, sitting up and eating. “That medicine worked wonders!” he declared. “This is a miracle!”
Father handed him the unopened medicine bottle. “A miracle, yes,” he said. “But not from the medicine. The Mormon elders blessed her.”
“Well,” the doctor said, “I don’t know anything about the Mormons, but I know that she was certainly dying last night. Good day to you all.”
When the doctor was gone, Elizabeth set down her bread. “What is a mother in Israel?” she asked.
Mother looked at her in surprise. “Did you hear the blessing?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied. “I couldn’t open my eyes or speak, but as soon as I felt hands on my head, I could hear every word.”
“Those were promises from God,” Father said.
“Promises to me?” Elizabeth asked, wide-eyed. “Will they really happen?”
“Yes,” Father said, looking at Mother. “I believe they really will.”

I would like to tell you about my experience of reading the Book of Mormon. I started reading the Book of Mormon on my own when President Hinckley asked us to. I really wanted to finish before Joseph Smith’s birthday. I got as far as 2 Nephi. I was really worried I wouldn’t finish. At Thanksgiving my grandpa let me take home his tapes of the Book of Mormon. I listened to 16 tapes and got to Ether 8. Grandpa was missing the last tape. I started reading again to try to finish. On Christmas morning I was surprised to get all the CDs of the Book of Mormon. I listened to the last two CDs on Christmas Day. I was so happy that I finished the Book of Mormon.

Excitedly Tommy called out to his father, “The creek has overflowed and the back wheels of the wagon are standing in the water!”
Tommy’s father was out of the wagon in an instant. When he saw the situation, he helped Tommy pull the bed out from under the wagon and then hitched up both teams of oxen to pull the wagon out of the water. The ground was so slippery the oxen could not get a foothold.
“We will have to build a corduroy road,” said Tommy’s father.
To do this, Tommy and his father cut down many trees. They trimmed off the limbs and laid the poles side by side, close to and in front of the wagon; then with willows they bound each log tightly to the next one so they would not roll. When this was finished, they packed tough grass and pine needles on top of the poles so the oxen’s hoofs could not slip into the cracks.
Finally they coaxed the frightened oxen up onto the corduroy road and hitched them to the wagon. Father spoke to the oxen in a soothing tone, “Steady now, pull together.”
The oxen did pull together. The heavy wagon wheels rolled out of the mud, onto the tough grass, over the corduroy road, and up onto the road that the Camp of Israel would be traveling that day.
Tommy shouted, “Hooray!” and he could see by the look on his mother’s face that she was proud of her two “men.”