Gospel Story Finder

It was a beautiful sunny morning and I was at my friend's house racing matchbox cars on his plastic racetracks. My friend's older sister burst into the room and said that she had just heard over the radio the Teton Dam broke and we needed to leave. Of course we did not believe her so we ran into the other room to listen to the radio. At the age of 7, I did not even know what it meant for a dam to break. I knew it must be bad. I started to get scared. I panicked. I did not know what to do.

I called my Mom! She was working at my grandparents store here in town. She had not heard the news so she turned on the radio to confirm what I had told her. She stood in disbelief as she heard for herself that the Teton Dam had broken and the water was headed our way. She immediately told me to go to my grandparents' home on 5th West, which was just around the corner from where I was playing. She was on her way to pick me up.

We ran to my grandparents' house. When my mom arrived she started gathering anything that seemed important to save and take with us.

My friend's parents came over to pick him up and, like children do, I wanted to go with them. I pestered my mom to let me go until she finally gave in.

I went with my friend and instead of seeking the safety provided on the hill here at BYU-Idaho, which was Ricks College at the time, we drove to their grocery store on Main Street. They had a few sandbags placed around the outside of the building thinking that the water would only be a few feet deep.

Once in the store, we sought protection by finding higher ground as we climbed the steps to the offices located upstairs in the loft. We could see out the big bay windows in the front of the store on to Main Street. We thought we were prepared and ready!

As we waited for the water to hit, it was just like a scene out of a movie. I felt as if everything was in slow motion. It was quiet. No traffic--a ghost town. I remember looking out the windows of the store and seeing a huge whirlwind of dirt and garbage blow past the store. I wondered if the person on the radio got it wrong. Maybe it was a tornado, not a flood. At the age of 7, I really did not understand the difference. Then all of the sudden the slow motion gave way to a thunderous explosion as a raging wall of water crashed into the building with such force that I will never forget it.

The floodwater did not disperse along the way through town as one would think. It appeared to come down Main Street as a wall from the east covering the big bay windows, one at a time, until we were left in darkness.

We did not know how much water there was and had no way of knowing how deep it would be. The water immediately began to rush in. Someone had a light and we could see the floodwater lifting all the items in the store. We ran to the steps that led up to the loft and started to count one-by-one as the water submerged each step. It appeared that the whole building would be engulfed by floodwater.

Then things became even worse. We started to hear loud explosions outside of the building in the distance. The sounds grew closer. It sounded like they were coming from the back of the building. The flood water had picked up huge logs from the local lumber yard and smashed them through the back end of the building like a battering ram. This caused the walls to break and collapse.

As the water kept rising with no end in sight, the darkest coldest feeling came over me, one that I will never forget. I thought my life was going to end. There was no escape from the floodwater. How would we make it out alive? We were trapped. The only thing I could think of was that I was in trouble. I needed help. We did not have cell phones, and the floodwater had taken out the phone lines and electricity
I really, really wanted to call my Mom now.
I was beyond scared and panicked. I was in darkness.I was not with my family.I was not safe.I felt alone.

Being surrounded and filled with this darkness, with no options, I was not sure what to do. I was ready to give up. Then the thought came into my mind: PRAY!
I walked over to the corner of the offices by myself and in the dark knelt down and offered up the words of my heart.

"Heavenly Father, please let me live. I want to live. I want to be with my family. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I immediately felt the peace and comfort of the Holy Ghost. I had the feeling that everything would be OK. I knew that my loving Heavenly Father heard and answered my simple and heart-felt prayer. My loneliness and thoughts of despair were instantly replaced with love. I no longer feared my life would be taken.

I remember walking back to the steps and seeing the water finally stop rising. There were only 5 steps left until the top. I knew my prayer had been answered. I felt the "peace" the Savior promised His disciples as described in John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."[1] I testify this promise is true. I walked over and fell asleep until later that day we were rescued by the National Guard.

I was taken to the Manwaring Center here on campus, and I sat on a stool at the information desk. With all the confusion no one really knew what to do with me. I sat there for a while until one of my relatives, Brenda Sutton, walked by, recognized me, and helped me find my family. I was so grateful for her and so thankful to be back with them.

We later learned the force of the water washed a tractor tire and a dead cow into the store. The tire and cow together became wedged between the wall and an interior support post beneath the room we were in. They were the only thing that prevented the floor we were standing on from collapsing.[2] I believe this was an answer to my prayer.

When the flood hit, no one knew how terrible it was going to be. At the time of the collapse, the water in the reservoir was 270 feet deep at the dam and the reservoir stretched close to seventeen miles; it emptied in less than 6 hours.[3][4] Almost 40 years ago, on the Saturday morning of June 5, 1976, I personally learned the power of prayer.

When I finished high school in the late 1970s, the Dutch economy was in turmoil. Unemployment rates were high. All in all, things looked pretty dismal. It was difficult for graduates to decide what to do next.
My father was serving as branch president. Now and then he discussed with me the possibility of serving a full-time mission. Of course, that would be a wonderful thing to do. I had been looking forward to that my whole life.
But I didn’t see how serving a mission could help me provide for my future family. Since childhood I had always had a great desire to one day find the love of my life and to build our family together.
I was 17 at the time, and not knowing what to do next, I started my next level of education. But after several weeks I found that this field of study was not going to make me happy. I had questions about whether it would even provide me with a stable job. I thought about quitting school.
My parents were not happy about this. They told me I could only quit school if I had a job. They probably thought that I would never find one because of the financial crisis. I spent all afternoon on my bicycle, going from one business to the next. Finally a company hired me to work in their warehouse.
Even though I took this temporary position, I had a plan. I was going to be a policeman. Working for the government would be a stable way to provide for my future family and everything would work out.
I remember the day that I went to take the exams to get into the police school. I took the train early in the morning and spent all day doing all kinds of tests. At the end of the day I was called into the office. They told me I passed all the exams and they would love to have me, but because I was 17, I was too young. They told me to try again in a year.
My world was shattered, and all the way home I was thinking, “What next?” At home my dad listened to my frustration and offered to give me a blessing. I expected that the Lord was going to tell me that everything would work out and I would be admitted to the police academy in a miraculous way. Instead the Lord told me that if I would choose to put Him first, I would always have bread on my table and the means to take care of my future family.
In response to my prayers, I received the answer that, for me, putting the Lord first meant serving a full-time mission. I had always intended to do that but had not seen how one step would lead to another. Now I knew that serving a mission was what I was going to do, and I wanted to do it as soon as possible.
Back then, the cost for a mission was 10,000 guilders in old Dutch currency, or about a year’s wages. I carried on working in the warehouse and by the summer of 1981, I had my 10,000 guilders. I had also turned 18. My father, the branch president, told me I was too young for a mission, as did the district president and mission president. At that time, you needed to be 19. But on my 18th birthday I went to the doctor and the dentist all by myself and had them fill in their parts of my missionary application.
Somehow, I managed to get my leaders to interview me and submit my application. Then we waited. I didn’t know that my father, as branch president, had received a letter. The application was returned to him with the notification that I was too young. But he hadn’t wanted to share that with me yet, so he carried it around in his suit pocket for weeks without letting me know. Fortunately, in the meantime he had received another notification. It said that in some situations the Brethren were willing to let young men go earlier when they were well prepared. Soon I was called to serve and was assigned to the England London East Mission. My mission became the blessing of a lifetime.
Three months after I returned from my mission, I did meet the love of my life. A year later we were married and sealed in the London England Temple. The economy was still not in good shape, but I have always been able to have a job and provide for my family. There has always been bread on the table and a roof over our head.

While the formal classroom may be intimidating at times, some of the most effective teaching takes place other than in the chapel or the classroom. Well do I remember that some years ago, members holding the Aaronic Priesthood would eagerly look forward to an annual outing commemorating the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. By the busload the young men of our stake journeyed 90 miles (145 km) north to the Clarkston Cemetery, where we viewed the grave of Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. While surrounding the beautiful granite shaft which marks the grave, a high councilor would present background concerning the life of Martin Harris, read from the Book of Mormon his testimony, and then bear his own witness to the truth. The young men listened with rapt attention, touched the granite marker, and pondered the words they had heard and the feelings they had felt.
At a park in Logan, lunch was enjoyed. The group of young men would then lie down on the lawn at the Logan temple and gaze upward at its lofty spires. Often beautiful white clouds would hurry past the spires, moved along by a gentle breeze. The purpose of temples was taught. Covenants and promises became much more than words. The desire to be worthy to enter those temple doors entered those youthful hearts. Heaven was very close. Learning what we should learn was assured.

Let me give you an example of that if I may:

My parents were divorced when I was one year old. My father, for not the best of reasons, left the family. That caused certain concerns, certain problems, certain challenges for my mother, my two sisters, and myself.

If you were age fourteen and you were me and you prayed, “Father in Heaven, help me be at peace and forgive my father for having left his family,” that’s a good prayer; that’s a good desire—I received no answer.

At eighteen, you’re praying, “Father in Heaven, help me be at peace and find solace, and comfort, and forgiveness about this particular episode.”

My father had very little to do with us as we were growing up. One day a year he would take us to Lagoon in Utah. That was my only contact with my father, growing up. I got married. I’m praying. I had two daughters, two sons. Now I’m over thirty years of age.

One day I was preparing to give a talk on parenting. Now my mother was an absolute saint. I can’t imagine a boy being given a greater mother than the mother I was given; and everybody who knows my mother would agree with that. I was thinking, as I was preparing to talk about how to raise children, that I would talk about my mother. But the Spirit seemed to say, “You need to talk, and you need to think about your father.” I wondered, “What do I say about my father? I hardly know my father. I was not raised with him; I had no contact with my father.”

Just at that moment as I’m pondering about my father, my two sons—I had two at the time, my third son wasn’t born yet—they were about six and two years of age; they came in and they stood in front of me where I was sitting in the family room; they just stood there in front of me staring at me, the older brother standing behind his younger brother. I looked at those two boys and the Spirit just washed my brain with memories of things I had done with those boys. Simple things, nothing important: Trick-or-treating, carving Halloween pumpkins, Christmas mornings, blowing out birthday candles, looking at turtles at the pond, piggyback rides, listening to their Primary talks, listening to their prayers, bedtime stories, the first puppy, catching a fish in the same fishing hole I caught my first fish in.

Nothing critical, nothing important. Just the everyday memories that I as a father had shared with those boys in six years of my being a father. As I was thinking of those things, the Lord said, “Now Mike, life has carved a holding place in your heart, and I will give you the answer”; and this is what He said: “Now that you are a father, now that you know a father’s joys and love, would you be the son who lost his father? Or the father who lost his son?”

Do you understand what the Lord was saying to me? I began to weep. I just sobbed. I grabbed those two boys and I just hugged them, sobbing—not for me—for my father. Because I knew the tragedy of his life greater than he knew it. I knew what he missed. I knew that it was a greater tragedy for him to have missed all those wonderful things with his family, than it was for me, as a son, to have missed them with a father.

My wife came in, she said, “For heaven’s sake Mike, what’s the matter?” I was sobbing, clinging to my boys. I said, “I can’t talk about it now.” I went up to the bathroom and just cried and cried, cried myself dry—for my father.

God always had an answer. But why didn’t He give it to me at age fourteen, or eighteen, or when I was married, or when I was the father of two daughters? It had to be when I was the father of boys and had shared enough life with those boys to comprehend the answer that God would give. The easiest thing in the world for me to forgive was my father for having left the family. But it took life to create the space for God to put the answer.

When my husband’s salary was suddenly reduced by 30 percent several years ago, I began to think of ways I could help my family meet our expenses.
I had often organized birthday parties—including dressing up as a clown, providing games, and performing puppet shows—for my two children, and relatives had asked me why I didn’t turn this into a job for other people’s celebrations. Now seemed like a great time to turn their suggestion into action.
I began putting up posters at local businesses. Shortly thereafter Jazmín the Clown had her first job.
It wasn’t a smooth start, however. For the first six months, most of the parties I received requests for were held on Sunday. Everyone, it seemed, needed a clown on the Sabbath! While I had promised the Lord I would never work on the Sabbath, it was discouraging to have to reject work when I needed it so much.
On one occasion I received an offer from the city government to help at the celebration for the Day of the Child, which was to be held on Sunday. The officials offered to pay me well, but I couldn’t break my promise. Some of my friends told me I would never be successful if I didn’t accept work on the Sabbath, but I knew I couldn’t disappoint the Lord. In the face of such opposition, I tried to focus on the promises He has made to those who honor the Sabbath (see D&C 59:9–13).
In time, circumstances began to improve. Now, some years later, I have lots of work on Saturdays and weekdays. I have even been able to persuade some of my clients to change their parties from Sunday to Saturday.
Initially, I wondered if I would be successful when it seemed that so many people treated Sunday like any other day of the week. But now I understand that when we show the Lord we are willing to keep His commandments and do our part, He will provide a way for us to do so.

When children have been prepared and feel loved, they sometimes respond the way our five year-old grandson did to his mom when the two of them sat up to the bar eating breakfast together. He looked up at his mom and said: "I get distracted from eating when I sit by you Mommy, because I love you so much!'
The way we show we love them is to hug them and tell them. It's by making our homes a happy, safe, secure, fun, and welcoming place to be. It's done when we teach by our example how we talk about others, how we respond in a crisis, how we handle difficulty; by how we dress, speak, and conduct our lives. Love is shown by establishing consistency and constancy in the life of our children.[12]

I was baptized when I was ten years old, but in my early teenage years, I became inactive in the Church. I had many problems and I didn’t think there were any solutions. But, because my mother was the Church magazine representative, we always had many copies of the Church magazine at home, and I never stopped reading the Liahona (Spanish).
Articles like President Spencer W. Kimball’s “Absolute Truth” and Elder Boyd K. Packer’s “Candle of the Lord” helped me decide to return to the Church and change my life to be more like Christ.
I am now serving a mission in my homeland of Mexico and my friend is preparing for a mission. None of this would have happened if I had not continued to read the Liahona while I was not active in the Church. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for the Church’s publications.

When obstacles stand in her way Tania works to overcome them. “This past year was a challenge for me to go to seminary,” she says. “My ward did not have seminary classes because there were not enough students. I was the only one.” She was finally able to find a stake home study seminary class. She says participating this year was a lot harder than her first year, but it was definitely worth the effort.

The apple went spinning to the ground. Clint was getting pretty good with his homemade slingshot. He had made it from a strong Y-shaped stick and a thick rubber band and had been practicing with it all day. Now his aim was good enough to knock an apple right out of a tree.
He saw a car coming down the road and wondered if he could hit a moving target as small as a taillight on a car. He closed one eye, pulled the rock back to his ear, and let it go. Crack! The sound of breaking plastic and glass was followed by the tinkle of pieces of glass and plastic hitting the pavement. Clint gasped. He’d actually hit the taillight of that car!
In a panic, he dropped his slingshot and scooted up the apple tree, hiding among the leaves. The car screeched to a stop, and a man jumped out. He walked around to look at his broken light, then glared straight at Clint’s hiding place.
“I know you’re up there!” he bellowed. “I saw you. You’d better get down here before I call the police!”
Clint didn’t move. He recognized the man. It was Brother Ernest, who always complained about how noisy the kids were when he went to church. Clint did not want to talk to him.
After a few minutes, Brother Ernest got back into his car and drove away. Clint waited a long time. It was nearly dark when he finally climbed down. He picked up his slingshot, pulled off the rubber band, then flung the stick into the bushes and walked slowly down the road, feeling worse with every step. By the time he got home, he was miserable, and it showed.
“What’s wrong?” Clint’s mother asked when he came into the house. Feeling that he could carry the burden no further, he blurted out everything. His mother put a hand on his shoulder. “What do you think you should do now?” she asked softly.
“I know what I need to do,” Clint said. “I just don’t want to do it.”
She nodded. “It’s hard to make things right when you’ve done wrong. But if you do your part, the Lord will take care of the rest. And you’ll feel good again. I’ll drive you to Brother Ernest’s house, if that will make it any easier.”
Without a word, Clint went out to the car. When they arrived at Brother Ernest’s house, he saw the car with its broken taillight in the driveway. He was relieved that there were no police cars.
The house was dark, and he had a glimmer of hope that maybe Brother Ernest wasn’t home. Clint slowly climbed the front steps and rang the doorbell. A dog barked. The porch light suddenly came on, and the door was flung open.
There stood Brother Ernest. “Ah-ha! You’ve come to pay your dues!”
“S-sorry about your car light, B-brother Ernest,” Clint stammered. “I’ll pay you for it.”
“You bet you will! I’ll send the bill to your parents, and if you don’t pay, I’m calling the police.” He slammed the door and turned off the light, leaving Clint standing alone in the dark.
It took Clint more than three months to repay his parents. It took all his allowance, all his paper-route money, plus anything extra he earned doing chores. But at last the bill was paid in full. And Clint discovered that his mother had been right. He did feel good again. He was glad that he had done the right thing. He was particularly glad the next time he saw Brother Ernest. …
It was Clint’s first Sunday as a deacon, and he and another deacon, Dan, were assigned to collect fast offerings. He was surprised when the second house they visited was Brother Ernest’s. It was shabbier than Clint remembered. The front step was warped, and the porch light was broken. Seeing the porch light brought back all those memories about the broken car light. He wondered briefly if someone had broken the porch light with a slingshot and hadn’t repaired it. Suddenly he felt sorry for Brother Ernest.
“This one’s yours,” Dan whispered, handing Clint the fast-offering envelope. Clint took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and rang the doorbell.
There was a sound of movement within the house. Then the front door opened slowly and Brother Ernest peered out. “What do you want?” he asked gruffly.
Clint swallowed hard. “We’re from the Church, Brother Ernest. We’re collecting fast offerings.”
“Don’t you people ever give up?” Brother Ernest grumbled. “Go away and stop bothering me.”
Clint was turning away when the front door suddenly opened wide, and Brother Ernest stepped out onto the porch. He peered closely at Clint. “Don’t I know you, boy?”
Clint stood up straighter. “Yes, sir.”
“Weren’t you that boy who—”
“Who bought you a new taillight? Yes, sir, I am.”
Brother Ernest stared at him in surprise for a few moments and then did something Clint had never seen him do before. He smiled. “You’ve changed, boy,” he said.
Clint shrugged. “When we do our part, the Lord takes care of the rest.”
Brother Ernest seemed to ponder Clint’s words a moment. He nodded. “You keep your envelope. I’ll pay my offerings next week at church. And I expect to see you there, too, young man. I don’t want to find you hiding in some apple tree.”
Clint smiled. “I don’t need to hide anymore.”

I recently went with priesthood leaders to visit the homes of four women in Honduras. These sisters and their families were in need of priesthood keys and authority, priesthood ordinances and covenants, and priesthood power and blessings.
Our next visit was at the home of two single sisters, women of great faith. One sister has a son preparing for a mission. The other sister is receiving treatment for cancer. In times of discouragement and despair, they remember the Savior’s Atonement and are filled with faith and hope. They both need the additional blessings and power available through temple ordinances. We encouraged them to join the future missionary in their home in preparing to receive those ordinances.
In each of the three homes we visited, a wise priesthood leader asked each sister if she had received a priesthood blessing. Each time the answer was no. Each sister asked for and received a priesthood blessing that day. Each wept as she expressed gratitude for the comfort, direction, encouragement, and inspiration that came from her Heavenly Father through a worthy priesthood holder.
These sisters inspired me. They showed reverence for God and His power and authority. I was also grateful for the priesthood leaders who visited these homes with me. When we left each home, we counseled together about how to help these families receive the ordinances they needed to progress on the covenant path and strengthen their homes.

After World War II ended a few years later, my grandparents were still living in Czechoslovakia when two young missionaries knocked on their door. After attending the small branch and taking the discussions, they received a witness of the truthfulness of the gospel and decided to be baptized. The evening of the baptismal interviews, however, the missionaries and Church leader did not arrive. At the next branch meeting, my grandparents learned that due to political upheaval, all of the missionaries had been required to leave the country. Any further religious practice would now also be prohibited. Nevertheless, the small group of Saints in the area kept their faith, now directed through local leadership and priesthood keys. My grandparents and my aunt were baptized in secrecy in 1950.

The youth of the Brea Second Ward, Fullerton California Stake, had an unusual opportunity. They helped a member of their ward celebrate her 99th birthday! Because Sister Polly Hall is unable to leave her nursing home to attend church, two priests from the ward visit her every Sunday to administer the sacrament.
Through their service, the priests have become friends with Sister Hall, and decided they would give her a birthday party.
Sister Hall was pleased to be the guest of honor at the party, which included games, dancing, music, and presents.
“I just love the youth of the Church,” says Sister Hall. “My testimony is strengthened each week when the boys come to visit me with the sacrament.”

I will share with you an experience I had before I was a General Authority which affected me profoundly. I sat in an airplane next to a man who so strongly expressed his disbelief in God that I bore my testimony to him. “You are wrong, I said, “there is a God. I know He lives!”
He protested, “You don’t know. Nobody knows that! You can’t know it!” When I would not agree with him, the man, who was an attorney, asked perhaps the ultimate question on the subject of testimony. “All right,” he said in a sneering, condescending way, “you say you know. Tell me how you know.”
I felt perhaps, that I had borne my testimony to him unwisely and was at a loss as to what to do. Then something came into my mind. I said to the man, “Let me ask if you know what salt tastes like.”
“Of course I do,” was his reply.
“When did you taste salt last?”
“When I just had dinner here on the airplane.”
“You just think you know what salt tastes like,” I said.
He insisted, “I know what salt tastes like as well as I know anything.”
“If I gave you a cup of salt and a cup of sugar and let you taste them both, could you tell the salt from the sugar?”
“Now you are getting silly,” was his reply. “Of course I could tell the difference. I know what salt tastes like. It is an everyday experience.”
“Then,” I said, “assuming that I have never tasted salt, explain to me just what it tastes like.”
After some thought, he said, “Well, I suppose you could say that it is not sweet and it is not sour.”
“You’ve told me what it isn’t, not what it is.” After several attempts, of course, he could not do it. He could not explain, in words alone, so ordinary an experience as tasting salt. I bore testimony to him once again and said, “I know there is a God. You ridiculed that testimony and said that if I did know, I would be able to tell you exactly how I know. My friend, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. I am no more able to tell you in words how this knowledge has come to me than you are able to tell me what salt tastes like. But I say to you again, there is a God! He does live! And just because you don’t know, don’t try to tell me that I don’t know, for I do!”
Since that day, I have never been embarrassed or ashamed that I could not explain in words alone everything I know spiritually. The Apostle Paul said it this way:
“We speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:13–14.)

There was a point in my life when I was so emotionally hurt that it affected every other aspect of my life. I couldn’t focus on classes or homework, my relationship with my roommates was strained, and I was constantly on the verge of tears. More than anything, I was having a hard time forgiving the person who had caused me hurt in the first place—and even madder that I was having a hard time forgiving.
Finally, I decided I was done being sad and angry. I no longer wanted to carry that burden. I pleaded with Heavenly Father to help me forgive. Before I knew it, the pain was bearable. It wasn’t gone, but I could bear it. Through this experience I learned that the Savior’s Atonement does not just allow us to repent; it also helps us heal. When I approached Heavenly Father with my burdens, in humility and with a sincere heart, He helped me carry the hurt, pain, and heartache I held.
Dani Lauricella, California, USA

When we seek the guidance of the Lord, we must be humble enough to accept his answers and faithful enough to carry them out. Sometimes the Lord asks us to do things that are difficult.

Several years ago, I was serving as the Bishop in our ward. Monica and I were blessed to be living in a wonderful neighborhood with supporting families all around us. We and our children had many dear friends in the area, people who are still important in our lives. I was very busy teaching, running my research lab, and fulfilling my responsibilities to my family and to the ward. My father, whose health had been declining for years, became seriously ill and spent more than a month in the intensive care unit. During that time, Monica and I had the added responsibility of supporting my mother, attending to their home and yard, and visiting my father in the hospital to our lives. We lived far enough from them that it was very difficult to fulfill our responsibilities. To better support my parents, we would need to sell our home, leave our responsibility as Bishop before the normal term of release, and find a way to live closer to them. Monica and I studied this out carefully. As much as I love my parents, I did not want to leave my ward. I wanted to keep making the drive and find a way to do it all. However, after careful study and discussion we were led to kneel in prayer and tell our Heavenly Father that we believed the best course of action for our family was to leave and care for my parents. I desperately wanted the answer to be a stupor of thought.

It was not. Monica and I both felt feelings of calm and confirmation from the Lord. I was heartbroken. I cried tears of sorrow that night, and many subsequent nights as we walked the new path that Heavenly Father had revealed to us. We were blessed greatly for following that direction. My father passed away just 4 years later. We were able to have experiences with my parents and with our new neighbors that defined our family and our faith in ways that could never have occurred otherwise.

Everybody had finished the spaghetti, the cake was being served, and Leonard Potts Junior and the Barnstormers were banging up a cloudburst. John Phillip Sousa would have fainted dead away, but “The Stars and Stripes Forever” had never been played with more enthusiasm.
“Za-za-zee-za-za, thwack,” duetted the kazoo and bucket. In the cultural hall parents futilely pulled their children down from precarious tiptoe perches on folding chairs.
“Thomas, stop that,” reprimanded one young mother as she snatched two ragout-smeared paper plates from her son who had been intently banging them together in accompaniment to a trash-can-lid solo.
Mothers looked in exasperation at each other. After tonight nothing bangable would be safe around their offspring.
The jugs finished their solo. “Hooga hooga hunk hunk hunk hunk hunk.” Then as the band geared up for a crashing finale, even the ward organist was stomping her feet and clapping her hands. She stopped when she caught herself shouting, “Eeee-haaa!” The Relief Society president looked over the long rows of tables in amazement. “It’s the first time,” she muttered, “the kids haven’t been most interested in who got the biggest piece of cake.” The aspiring mother of a concert pianist smiled in anguish as her future prodigy looked earnestly in her face and asked, “Mom, can I learn to play the washboard like Leonard Potts?”
After wolfing down the remains of the ward dinner, the Barnstormers packed away their jugs, garbage cans, broomsticks, cardboard boxes, kazoos, and washboards. But before you could say “possum up a gum tree,” someone from the audience came and asked Leonard if his band would play at the next stake dance. “Sure,” said Leonard dropping completely the loquacious southern drawl he had used during the show, “we’d be happy to.”

My mother has been an example to me of hearing the word of the Lord and then putting her faith into action. At the age of 20, she was a young German woman living in Vienna, Austria, with her mother, who had previously joined the Church. It was near the end of World War II. During that time, she prayed, “Please, Heavenly Father, tell me if this is your Church.” [7] In answer to her sincere prayer she recorded, “Suddenly a wonderful feeling came over me. I felt like light was surrounding me. . . . It was a marvelous feeling, hard to describe. At that very moment I knew the Church was true and I knew I wanted to be baptized. The Holy Ghost had testified the truth unto me. I will be eternally grateful for this blessing!” [8] She acted and was baptized.

“The missionary work of the Church is a panorama of more than a century of service and privations and hardships and sacrifices. The closer one is to the program, the more completely one can understand and appreciate it. When my grandfather Heber C. Kimball left for his mission, he and Brigham Young left their families destitute and ill and they themselves needed help to get into the carriage which took them from their homes. As they started off they raised themselves … and waved back to their weeping wives and children. Thousands of people came into the Church as a result of those missions, and tens of thousands have been benefited indirectly and are now enjoying the blessings of the gospel because of those sacrifices. To one who did not understand, such devotion and sacrifice on the part of those men would have been considered foolhardy and silly. But to the Young and Kimball families it was a mark of great faith. And to the thousands who will, through the eternities, call the names of those missionaries blessed, the privations and sacrifice were not wasted.”President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball (1982), 253.

I had just turned 14, and my bishop had invited me to enroll in seminary. Unfortunately, my bishop’s invitation came right when I was embarking on a system of torturous school examinations known as the General Certificate of Secondary Education. In England (I live in Manchester), we refer to them as the GCSEs. So here was the bishop inviting me to seminary, while the storm of exams, homework, mock exams, projects, tests, and experiments that are the GCSEs were just beginning.
Consequently, apathetic would be the best word to describe my approach to seminary. There was the initial excitement of studying in the same class as my big brother, but that quickly wore off. It wasn’t until I decided to find out about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon that I began to appreciate what seminary could do for me.
When I began the course, we had been taught that Moroni 10:4 [Moro. 10:4] was our key scripture for the year. I had marked that scripture in red and green, and I had felt prompted to ask Heavenly Father for a special witness concerning the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
As I knelt by my bed to talk with my Father in Heaven, I realized I had not prepared myself very well. I remembered the passage in the Doctrine and Covenants where the Lord tells Oliver Cowdery that he “took no thought save it was to ask me” (D&C 9:7). I knew I was doing the same thing, and when I prayed to Heavenly Father I felt nothing different except a feeling that I was right to ask. But I didn’t feel like I’d received an answer to my prayer. I knew I had to do all that the Lord asked of me before I was to find out whether the Book of Mormon was a book of scripture or just a very clever novel.
One night I was alone in the house. My homework was already completed, and usually such times are a welcome opportunity to sit in front of the television or get lost in a science-fiction book. But that night I felt like doing neither.
On impulse, I went to my room and picked up my new copy of the Book of Mormon. I searched for the final chapters of Nephi’s life in 2 Nephi.
Somehow I felt that these were important chapters, so I said a short and simple prayer before I began to study, asking that the Spirit be with me. I had often asked for the same thing when I would pray before seminary lessons, yet this time my request seemed to mean more. I felt I needed to feel these words as I read them, so I began to read the scriptures out loud to myself.
As I read one chapter, then another, I began to feel as if I could actually hear Nephi himself saying those things to his people. As I read of his love for his people, I could feel the words of a prophet crying out, each sentence filled with the anguished cries of a loving man who had served God all his life. I read through chapter 32, spellbound by the words of a man who was suddenly becoming very real to me. The things he said were beautiful and right. When I turned the page and began to read chapter 33, my empathy for this man overflowed. I could not contain my tears as I read how this prophet cried day and night for his people, and so I cried with him—desperately aware that those words were the last ones we have from him in the Book of Mormon.
I finished the final testimony of Nephi with a clogged throat and teary eyes. Yet inside I felt on fire, alive with a knowledge that had settled in my heart. Nephi was a prophet of God, a real man, with a real life.
Many weeks after I had first prayed to know if those words were God’s words, I had fulfilled my part in Moroni’s promise and received a testimony that I hope will stay with me forever.

When I turned 12, I started to really think about how I could be involved in the gospel.
I was living in my hometown of Taranto, Italy. It had been only a few years since my brother and I had met the missionaries and become members of the Church, but I started feeling eager to participate more. I began to feel a desire to pass the sacrament. I remember walking to church each Sunday with a prayer in my heart that I would be called to pass the sacrament.
One Sunday morning, my branch president called me into his office. He said, “Massimo, the Lord wants you to receive the priesthood and be ordained a deacon.”
When I heard those words—“the Lord wants you”—something struck me. I felt that it wasn’t a human asking me to do something, but that it really was the Lord personally extending a responsibility. When my branch president looked at me, I felt that the Lord was reaching out to me.
As I began to pass the sacrament every Sunday, I could feel the power of godliness in my life. I felt responsible, I felt involved, and I knew that I was doing the Lord’s work. I felt closer to Him by serving Him.
This experience of feeling the Lord’s hand both through my leaders and in my responsibilities helped me develop a deeper personal relationship with Him. I wanted to be more involved in the gospel; as I lived that way, I felt the presence of God in my life. Developing this kind of relationship with Him is one of the most important things you can do in your youth.
As I met with my branch president, it made a deep spiritual impression on me when I felt that it was the Lord, not just my branch president, giving me a responsibility. By recognizing the Lord in my leader, I felt closer to Him, and my relationship with Him deepened.
We can also develop a personal relationship with the Lord by recognizing His presence as we participate in the ordinances of the gospel. When we are involved in the ordinances—like the sacrament—we know that “the power of godliness is manifest” (D&C 84:20). When I passed the sacrament, even at the age of 12 or 13, I really felt that I was an instrument in His hands. I felt the presence and power of God in those ordinances and the power of godliness in my life. Having that sacred experience each week by recognizing the Lord in this ordinance helped me deepen my personal relationship with the Lord.