Gospel Story Finder

Audrey felt wiggly. It seemed to her that sacrament meeting would never end. She twisted and knelt backwards on the bench. Mom made her turn around. She slid to the floor and sat under the bench. Dad picked her up and set her back in her seat. She made a face at Rebekah, her older sister. Rebekah put a finger to her lips and whispered, “Shh!”
Audrey frowned. She leaned forward and looked down the long row. Except for Audrey’s family, the only person on the bench was an old man. A cane rested against his leg. Audrey looked at the old man’s cane. It was smooth and shiny. She looked at his hands, resting quietly in his lap. Then she looked at his face. He seemed to be listening to the speaker, but when the other people laughed, his mouth did not even smile. Audrey thought his eyes looked sad.
She wanted to help. Slowly and quietly, Audrey slid off the bench. Softly and reverently, she tiptoed over to the old man. Mom and Dad watched her go. She put her finger to her lips and smiled at them. Then she climbed onto the bench next to the old man.
He looked down. Audrey scooted closer to him and patted his wrinkled fingers. He opened his fingers and wrapped her little hand in his. Audrey leaned her head on the old man’s arm and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Be happy,” she wanted to tell him. She tipped her head to look up at his face. The old man smiled down at her and winked.
During the closing hymn, Audrey heard him singing. His voice was low and scratchy, but Audrey thought he didn’t sound sad. After the meeting, Audrey’s mom and dad came to shake hands with him.
“We’re Brother and Sister Noe,” Dad said, “and this is our daughter Audrey.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I am Brother Campbell,” he said.
After that Sunday, Audrey’s parents invited Brother Campbell to sit with their family during sacrament meeting every week. Audrey always felt less wiggly sitting next to Brother Campbell. And even better, Brother Campbell always smiled.

These girls from Richardson, Texas, pulled their handcarts as part of a fourth-year girls’ camp hiking activity. One participant, Lanae Ford, said, “I like the way that, even though we had to stop a lot, everyone had a good attitude.”

Immediately after the shock of the eruption, even with the uncertainty of not knowing what was going to happen, the young people of wards across Washington jumped wholeheartedly into helping other people. Calling committees checked to see that ward members were safe; teachers and priests quorums and the young women organized to help clean chapels and homes. Volcanic ash started flying as young volunteers got out their shovels and brooms and started the cleanup.
“The youth in my ward were helping even as families started leaving the chapel the morning of the eruption,” said Bishop Terry Brandon of the Yakima Fourth Ward, Yakima Washington Stake. “The teenagers comforted the children, talked with them, and in many cases scooped the young ones into their arms and delivered them safely to waiting cars and their parents. Breathing was uncomfortable, and the falling ash was irritating their eyes, but these youth didn’t care about that.
“Then early the next morning I began receiving phone calls from teens wanting to help anyone who needed it, so we organized a cleanup force. They spent eight, nine hours at a time in the grittiest, dirtiest mess you’ve ever seen helping other people, in addition to the efforts spent in cleaning up their own homes. They took a lot of initiative themselves. All of them helped clean up the stake center.
“It was such a spiritual uplift to work alongside such cheerful youth during a depressing, messy week of cleanup. We have a fine generation of young people here with goals and ideals that just won’t let them be defeated. When we didn’t know if we’d be able to hold church the next Sunday, I was determined we should, just so I could let them know how I felt towards them. I’ve never seen a finer group of young people,” said Bishop Brandon.

I read to you from a New York Times News Service article:
“For Michael Sandberg, it started a few years ago with nickel-and-dime games among friends.
“But last fall, he says, it became the source of a six-figure income and an alternative to law school.
“Sandberg, 22, essentially splits his time between Princeton, where he is a senior and a politics major, and Atlantic City, where he plays high-stakes poker. …
“Sandberg’s is an extreme example of a gambling revolution on the nation’s college campuses. Sandberg calls it an explosion, one spurred by televised poker championships and a proliferation of Web sites that offer online poker games.
“Experts say the evidence of gambling’s popularity on campus is hard to miss. In December, for example, a sorority at Columbia University conducted its first, 80-player, poker tournament with a $10 buy-in, a minimum amount required to play, while the University of North Carolina conducted its first tournament, a 175-player competition, in October. Both games filled up and had waiting lists. At the University of Pennsylvania, private games are advertised every night in a campus e-mail list” (Jonathan Cheng, “Poker Is Major College Craze,” in Deseret Morning News, Mar. 14, 2005, p. A2).

Extended family, friends, neighbors, and ward members can be a source of great comfort or the cause of deep pain for families experiencing the trauma of drug abuse. One family, for example, found that most of their ward members had only criticism to offer, not support. “Some people told us we were too strict; others said we were too permissive,” says the mother. “It was really hard for awhile to not despair and keep going to church when we felt that people were against us.”

“He has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said” (Mosiah 2:22). A few weeks after I turned down my dream job, another position opened, and I was given the job without Sunday in my work schedule.Elder Thomas George Haroldsen, 20, Sweden Stockholm Mission

It was a dreary January day in 1928. As I looked out of the schoolroom window at the gathering clouds, I wanted only to be home sitting on my mother’s lap. It had been a very hard day. My family had recently moved from a small farming community in Utah to a mining town in Nevada. My first day in second grade in this new and very different school had been anything but pleasant.
My mother had brought my older sister, Marjorie, and me to school early in the morning. The principal took me to my classroom and introduced me to the teacher. I heard the other students whispering about “the new girl,” and I felt my face turning red. I wanted to find my mother and go back home. The children were not very friendly and I didn’t feel welcome. The only bright spot had been the teacher, Miss Quigley, who was very friendly. She tried to make me feel a part of the class.
As I looked out the window and saw huge snowflakes filling the air, I longed for the bell to ring so I could find Marjorie and go home.
The minutes dragged by. Finally, Miss Quigley announced that it was time to put away our pencils, books, and papers and line up to go home. How I welcomed those words! I quickly put on my coat and found a place in the noisy line.
My mother had reminded me several times to wait for Marjorie, who was in fourth grade. She would help me find my way home. So I stood by the radiator in the school entrance and waited. She didn’t come and I began to worry about where she was. The snow was now swirling down. I was anxious to go home and talk to my mother about my miserable day, but still Marjorie didn’t show up.
Miss Quigley appeared and asked, “Avonell, why haven’t you gone home?”
I explained that I was waiting for my sister who was in the fourth grade.
“She won’t be out of school for another hour,” she explained. “You had better run along home before the storm gets worse. Can you find your way home alone?”
I was too proud to admit that I really wasn’t sure. So I nodded my head and said, “Yes.”
I left the warmth of the school and ventured out into the cold, snowy world. By now there was a blizzard going on and it was hard to see where I was going. I walked in the direction of my home but when I arrived at the first row of houses I realized that in this mining town all the houses looked alike. I felt a gnawing in my stomach and wished I had stayed and waited a little longer for Marjorie. But I pushed on through the snow hoping I could remember where my house was. I walked up one row and then another. I couldn’t even remember the number on my house. I began to get colder and more worried.
What should I do? It wouldn’t do much good to stop at a house and ask because we had just moved in a week ago and we didn’t know the neighbors yet. Besides that, I was too shy to even consider that choice. I thought of going back to the school and waiting for Marjorie, but I wasn’t even sure where the school was in this blizzard. Tears rolled down my cheeks, mixing with the snow that was blowing in my face. I was cold, scared, tired, and lost.
Then I thought of my mother telling me about prayer and reminding me that when I needed help I should ask Heavenly Father. This made me feel better. I bowed my head and asked Heavenly Father to please help me find my way home. As I finished my prayer I noticed my new shoes were all wet, and I realized that I hadn’t put on my galoshes that morning. I had left them sitting on the top step of our porch.
Then a beautiful thought came into my head. All I had to do was walk up and down the rows of houses until I saw my galoshes. Then I would be home. A flood of happiness filled my whole body and I hurried through the gusts of snow looking for my galoshes. They were not on the first row nor the second. But on the steps of the second house in the third row I saw a most welcome sight—my galoshes! I was finally home! I opened the door and ran into my mother’s loving arms.

I was having a hard time feeling like I fit in. My family had recently moved to the East Coast from California after living there for the first 15 years of my life. The ward we moved to had a good-sized youth group, but this was the first time that I would be the “new kid.” I figured that since I had been friendly with the new people in our ward back in California, this new youth group would be the same way with me. It was a lot tougher than I had imagined. The worst part was going to a new school. I worried about who I would sit with at lunch. Maybe I’d see someone from church, but then again, I didn’t want to barge in on someone else’s lunch table, especially since I didn’t know if they would want me there to begin with.
The first day of school seemed to drag on forever. I kept feeling as though everyone was staring at me. Then the lunch bell rang. As I slowly entered into the lunch room, I prayed to Heavenly Father to help me find someone I knew. I glanced around to see if I could recognize anyone. No one. So I made my way to a table on the far side of the lunch room and ate my lunch.
Later that day during my math period, there was a familiar face. I had seen David at seminary that morning. At the beginning of class he and a couple of people around him asked to see my schedule. He discovered that we both had the same lunch period.
“Hey where were you at lunch today?”
“I was there. I ate on the far side of the room,” I responded.
He thought for a second trying to remember seeing me. Then he said, “Well, tomorrow come and sit with me at lunch.”
I’m grateful for a loving Heavenly Father, who knows each of our needs individually and who answers each of our prayers. I’m so grateful for someone who was willing to extend a hand of friendship. Something as simple as an invitation can make all the difference in the world.

The river is a poem, a rune, a mystery. The water flows deep with rhythm and verse and beauty. But beneath the beauty, beneath the constant silk flow and tranquility, there are teeth.
“If you aren’t afraid of the river, if you don’t respect it, it will get you,” Bill Barnes said. But he reassured us that all of the guides are expert swimmers and are trained in lifesaving and first aid.
We started quietly, two to a boat, a zigzagging line of canoes desperately pursuing our guide’s course downstream. The current coaxed us away from the shore and slapped us back and forth in the choppy waves. We knew we had experts leading us, but a wariness gnawed at us just the same. The sheer power of the current increased rapidly, pulsing and coursing with a raw anger that could snap a tree trunk. Soon paddles seemed almost useless, but paddles were all we had.
“They had warned us not to run into trees,” David Black of Cottonwood said. “But we thought we could push against one. We tried to push away and it didn’t work. They had told us not to lean the wrong way, but we leaned the wrong way. We went under.”
Thanks to his life preserver, David popped to the surface, grabbed his paddle, and this time following instructions, clung to the canoe. A guide raced up alongside, made sure Dave and his partner were safe, righted their canoe, and coached them as they climbed back in. It was a scene repeated often, sometimes several times for the same partnership. “I’m wetter than a wet dog,” one frustrated Explorer yelped after he had swamped for the fourth time in a row.
“I tipped over nine or ten times,” said Steven Allred of Brigham City. “It demoralized me. But after a while you got used to cold water. And you figured out that if you didn’t want to spend all day swimming, you’d better pay attention.”
As the day wore on, confidence grew. We learned that there were difficult times and times to recover. At a smooth place in the river, everyone was relaxing.
“King Rapids is next,” one of the guides shouted. “Get ready!”
The guides had been talking about King Rapids for two days. It was the biggest, meanest, orneriest, most grizzly rapid on this stretch of the Snake. There were stories about it throwing canoes clean out of the water.
We were close to the base. We could stop and carry out our canoes if we wanted to and avoid King. But none of us did.
“I knew if I quit I’d regret it,” Doug said. “I’d look back later and say, ‘That would have been fun.’ I knew I could make it if I’d just keep trying. I’d already made it through a lot of tough things.”
The water sprayed. It pounded our canoes. We lost our breath, but this time from exhilaration. Even though many of us capsized, we didn’t panic. We glided on down to a smooth basin where the current eddied and fished ourselves and our boats out of the water. Then we all returned to the base to head for home.

I was quite young when World War II started, but I was old enough to be frightened by what was happening. My father assured me that the Lord was in control and that all would be well. As he told me not to worry, he put his arms around me, enveloping me in security and love. I had the same feeling of safety as we knelt in family prayer and I listened to my father, a bishop, pray for the servicemen who were from our ward. I knew that Heavenly Father lived and that He was listening.

I didn’t think a magazine could do so much good in my life. Every single issue has been a blessing. I especially thank you for “Somebody’s Going to Get Hurt” (Sept. 1997) and “Leave It Alone” (Jan. 1995). They have completely changed my view of TV and movies. It’s sad the things they show today. After reading these articles, I’ve committed myself to staying completely away from media that takes the Spirit away. “Leave It Alone” made me realize how awful some things are. I’m still working, and it’s hard to give up movies I like. So thanks a thousand times for a wonderful magazine.
Name WithheldOregon

It would be seven years before children would join the Bragg family. “At times we felt out of place, even in our family,” recalls Elder Bragg.
Then—“on the best day in the world”—Sister Bragg gave birth to the first of four children. “I remember … thinking there couldn’t be anyone happier than I was at the moment,” Elder Bragg says.

Jamie’s conscience pricked him as he climbed to the top of the tree. He knew that he should be helping his dad on the farm—after all, he was twelve years old now—but something important was happening in Colesville, New York, today, and the whole town was talking about it.
Joseph Smith was coming back to their little farming community after attending the first conference of the recently organized Church in Fayette, New York. His wife, Emma, was traveling with him, as were Oliver Cowdery and John and David Whitmer. Some of the people in Colesville wanted to be baptized while the Prophet was there, and Jamie was one of them. He’d sat in the back of the room when Joseph had preached to them before, and he knew that the Prophet’s words were true. Now Jamie wanted to look again upon the face of the man who had actually seen God the Father and Jesus Christ, and he wanted to do it without the Prophet knowing that he was being watched.
Before long, Jamie caught sight of the wagon. He could see a woman in the wagon and noticed the other men too. But one person seemed to stand out from the others. A burning feeling quickened Jamie’s heart as he watched, and he knew more surely than ever that this man was the Prophet. Even after the Prophet had passed and Jamie had climbed down from the tree, his feeling of elation continued as he returned to his home.
As Jamie stepped onto the porch and slipped inside the kitchen, he heard his mother say, “But I’m not sure! I’ve known Joseph for some time now, and I want to believe that he speaks the truth. But to have someone say that he has actually seen and heard God! That’s hard for me to accept.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that what Joseph says is true,” his father said. He walked over to the shelf and took down a book. “I’ve read the Book of Mormon, and I believe that it’s true—every word of it,” Father testified to her. “If Joseph lied about seeing God, then he lied about this book being true. The reverse is also true. If this book is true, then Joseph actually saw the Father and Jesus Christ. Joseph is a prophet, and I intend to be baptized this Sunday when they hold the service.”
Jamie walked forward. “Me too. I know that what Joseph teaches is true.”
“How can you, a young boy, know if a church is true?” his mother asked, smiling gently to soften the words.
“I know,” Jamie stated. “And I’ve read the Book of Mormon. It’s true!”
“I’ve really wanted to read it, too,” Mother said with a sigh, “but I just haven’t found the time. There are so many chores …”
Jamie’s heart started pounding. More than anything in the world, he wanted his family to all be baptized at the same time. But if his mother didn’t have time to read, she wouldn’t know that the Book of Mormon is true. He could give her that time.
“If Father will give me time from my own chores, I’ll do yours, Mother. Then you’ll have time to read the Book of Mormon. I just know that when you’ve read it and prayed about it, you’ll know that it’s true.”
“I can do Jamie’s chores if he’ll do yours,” Father agreed. “How about it, Martha?”
Mother looked at her husband, then at her son. She loved them both very much. “All right. I’ll read the Book of Mormon. But I’m not promising that I’ll be baptized.”
For the next two days Jamie was busy from morning till dark. He’d never realized before all the work that his mother did during the day. At night he fell into bed exhausted. He even missed the special meeting where Joseph announced the baptism on Sunday. All his strength was directed toward helping his mother.
Saturday afternoon Brother George Riggs rode up to their farm. Jamie went out with his mother and father to greet him.
“Brother Johns,” Brother Riggs said after the greetings were over, “I need a pair of strong arms to help dam that stream above Brother Knight’s farm. That’s where we’ll hold the baptismal service. Could I have your son’s help for the afternoon?”
Father glanced at Mother, who nodded her head.
“We’d be proud to have him help,” Father answered. “He desires to be baptized also, so it’s fitting for him to help dam the stream.”
Brother Riggs smiled at Jamie. “That’s just fine. Brother Joseph will be glad to know that.” Turning to Father, he asked, “And you, Brother and Sister Johns? How about you?”
“I’ll be baptized, too,” Father spoke out clearly.
The group then turned to Martha for her answer. She hesitated for a moment, then smiled at her son. “Jamie gave me the time to read the Book of Mormon and to ponder and to pray. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I, too, want to be baptized!”
Jamie had never felt happier in his life.

The following spring, Martin Harris traveled to Harmony with some bad news. His wife had filed a complaint in court, claiming Joseph was a fraud who pretended to translate gold plates. Martin now expected a summons to testify in court. He would have to declare that Joseph had fooled him, or Lucy would charge him with deceit as well.8
Martin pushed Joseph to give him more evidence that the plates were real. He wanted to tell the court all about the translation, but he worried people would not believe him. Lucy, after all, had searched the Smiths’ house and never found the record. And though he had served as Joseph’s scribe for two months, Martin had never seen the plates either and could not testify that he had.9
Joseph took the question to the Lord and received an answer for his friend. The Lord would not tell Martin what to say in court, nor would He provide him any more evidence until Martin chose to be humble and exercise faith. “If they will not believe my words, they would not believe you, my servant Joseph,” He said, “if it were possible that you should show them all these things which I have committed unto you.”
The Lord promised to treat Martin mercifully, however, if he did as Joseph had done that summer and humbled himself, trusted in God, and learned from his mistakes. Three faithful witnesses would see the plates in due time, the Lord said, and Martin could be one of them if he stopped seeking the approval of others.10
Before closing His words, the Lord made a declaration. “If the people of this generation harden not their hearts,” He said, “I will establish my church.”11
Joseph reflected on these words as Martin copied the revelation. He and Emma then listened as Martin read it back to check its accuracy. As they read, Emma’s father came into the room and listened. When they finished, he asked whose words they were.
“The words of Jesus Christ,” Joseph and Emma explained.
“I consider the whole of it a delusion,” Isaac said. “Abandon it.”12
Ignoring Emma’s father, Martin took his copy of the revelation and boarded the stagecoach for home. He had come to Harmony seeking evidence of the plates, and he left with a revelation testifying of their reality. He could not use it in court, but he returned to Palmyra knowing the Lord was aware of him.
Later, when Martin stood before the judge, he offered a simple, powerful testimony. With a hand raised to heaven, he witnessed of the truth of the gold plates and declared that he had freely given Joseph fifty dollars to do the Lord’s work. With no evidence to prove Lucy’s accusations, the court dismissed the case.13
Joseph, meanwhile, continued the translation, praying the Lord would soon send him another scribe.14

Later I moved from home. Eventually I faced a serious crisis that left me with deep emotional and spiritual pain. Without the necessary faith in Christ to guide me, I felt lost and alone. I had stopped praying sometime earlier and had just decided that I was no longer going to go to church. Then my home teachers, Dan and Terry, came by. I was a little embarrassed because I hadn’t been to church that day and had no good excuse for my absence. The Spirit told them that something was seriously wrong, so they persisted in presenting a lesson that seemed to be especially for me. They visited with me for a while, and when it was time for them to go, they offered a powerful prayer. The Spirit lingered after them for a short time, and I felt more hopeful than I had in a long time.

There is also a weekly gathering of the covenant people to the house of prayer on the Lord’s day, that we may “more fully keep [ourselves] unspotted from the world.” It is a gathering to partake of sacramental bread and water in remembrance of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and a time “to fast and to pray, and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of [our] souls.” As a teenager, I was the only member of the Church in my high school class. I enjoyed the association of many good friends in school, yet I found that I relied heavily on this Sabbath gathering each week to refresh and renew me spiritually, and even physically. How keenly we have felt the loss of this regular covenant gathering during the current pandemic, and how eagerly we anticipate the time when we can come together again as before.

Contrast that experience with Stacey’s. Stacey has been going to church for about a year and will be baptized as soon as she’s 18. She has no trouble attending all her meetings faithfully. “Everyone is really nice to me,” she says. “They’re understanding, and they accept me, and they always help me. I just feel comfortable here.”

Mr. Plum’s Paradise Can just one person do any real good? Mr. Plum did when he created his wonderful garden.Elisa Trimbyall ages

I had been admiring the new baseball glove in the sporting goods store for weeks, hoping that some day it would be mine. Every day on my way home from school, I took the long way and stopped at the store to look and wish. There were lots of other mitts there, but only one that was just right for me. That was the one I grabbed each day. I pulled it onto my hand, pounded my fist into it, and pretended I was in left field, waiting for that long fly ball.
Each time I walked into the store, I crept down the last aisle, almost afraid to look, for fear someone had already bought it.
I already had a baseball glove, but one of the seams was coming loose, and it was worn and scuffed. I was planning to make the Little League all-star team, and I figured that I needed the best mitt possible.
My birthday was coming up. I’d hinted to Mom and Dad a hundred times that it would sure be nice to have that mitt at the sporting goods store. They nodded and smiled, but they didn’t make any promises. I even took my dad into the store and showed him what a great glove it was. He agreed with me, but the morning of my birthday, the glove was still there.
After my birthday dinner, Mom brought in my presents and set them before me. Right away I could see that my baseball glove wasn’t there. I tried not to be disappointed, but it was hard. And then I got a real surprise. Brother Tice came back from his vacation early and paid me twenty dollars for taking care of his dog and mail and mowing his lawn and stuff. I had already saved nineteen dollars, so with Brother Tice’s money, I had enough to buy my glove now!
As soon as I finished the last of my cake and ice cream, I raced to the sporting goods store. The man was just getting ready to put the CLOSED sign in the window, when I burst in and grabbed the glove.
I had eighty cents left over, so on the way home I stopped at the drugstore and bought a half pound of cinnamon bears.
I left with three cents in my pocket, my new glove on one hand, and my sack of cinnamon bears in the other. I couldn’t have been happier.
That night, I propped up my new glove on the dresser so that it would be the last thing I saw before I went to sleep and the first thing I saw when I got up in the morning. And all night long I dreamed of playing in the all-star game.
The next morning was Saturday, and no one had to wake me. As soon as the first bits of light streaked across my room, I was up and getting dressed. I snatched my glove and bounded for the door, knocking half the stuff off my dresser. That’s when I saw my tithing can. My empty tithing can.
Suddenly I got a sick feeling inside. Mom and Dad had always told me to pay my tithing before I used my money for anything else. I had always remembered to do that—until yesterday! Yesterday the only thing I had had on my mind was getting my baseball glove.
I looked down at it. I looked over at the paper sack that had only three cinnamon bears left inside. I swallowed hard and figured out how much money I had stolen from the Lord. I’d received twenty dollars from Brother Tice, so I owed the Lord two dollars. Two dollars! Where would I ever get two dollars before Sunday?
Clutching my glove, I promised myself that the next time I had two dollars I’d give it all for tithing. I sneaked out of the house and tried to forget about everything except the all-star game.
When I reached the park and showed my teammates my new glove, they all said that they were sure that I’d be able to catch any ball that came to me. But the first time Rodney hit a fly ball in my direction, I missed it. When Charlie knocked a grounder my way, it slipped right past me. The guys said that I just wasn’t used to playing with a new glove, but I knew that that wasn’t the reason. I couldn’t stop thinking of the two dollars I owed the Lord.
While the other guys kept playing, I headed for home, dragged myself to my room, dropped my glove on the bed, and stared at my empty tithing can. Finally I got on my knees and said a little prayer, telling the Lord that I was sorry for taking His tithing and using it for my glove, and that I would pay Him back as soon as I could. But I still had that sick feeling inside.
Slowly I set my baseball glove on the dresser and pushed it way back. Then I set my tithing can in front of the mitt.
“Mom,” I asked as I walked into the kitchen, “do you have any work I could do?”
She was making bread at the kitchen table and looked up at me like I might be feeling sick. “I thought you were playing baseball with your new mitt.”
“I went,” I muttered, hanging my head down, “but I need to earn a little money.”
“You need more money?”
“Well,” I stammered, “I owe somebody else some money, and I forgot about paying up before I spent it all.”
Mom thought for a minute. “The garage needs cleaning. I suppose if you did a really good job there I could give you fifty cents.”
Fifty cents wasn’t a lot of money, especially considering how much work was to be done in the garage, but I didn’t care. I needed to square myself with the Lord.
For the rest of the morning I worked in the garage. I stacked all the boxes, straightened all the tools, swept the floor, and hauled out the trash. I’d cleaned the garage before, but never as well as I did then. When Mom inspected my work, her eyes got big. “Well, Justin,” she exclaimed, “I’ve never seen the garage look so good. I think that’s worth at least seventy-five cents.”
“Brother Tuckfield,” I asked my neighbor across the street, “do you have any work a guy could do?” Brother Tuckfield was digging in his flower bed. He looked up and wiped a big drop of sweat from his nose.
“I’m trying to earn a little money,” I explained. “I’ll work hard. And I don’t charge much.”
“Well, there are some weeds along the ditch bank in my backyard. If you’d chop those down for me, I could pay you twenty-five or fifty cents.”
There was a jungle of weeds along Brother Tuckfield’s ditch. I worked for over an hour, pulling and chopping and digging. Before I quit, there wasn’t a single weed left along that ditch bank. Brother Tuckfield gave me fifty cents, and I went down the street still looking for work.
Sister Caldwell needed trash hauled out to the curb. That was another ten cents. Sister Hadfield wanted the grass raked in her front yard. That was worth twenty-five cents. Brother Henderson let me pull the weeds in his rose bushes. I ended up with scratched hands and arms, but I earned twenty-five cents there, too.
I stopped by Brother Raymond’s home and helped him weed his garden. It was about the hardest work I’d done all day. I had to get down on my hands and knees and pick the tiny weeds among the carrots and the radishes. It was worth it when Brother Raymond pulled two quarters out of his pocket and dropped them into my hand. I’d finally earned enough money to make things right with the Lord!
When I finally headed for home, I was too tired and sore to do more than drag my feet over the hot sidewalk. I was thirsty and had two big blisters on my hand.
I passed the park. All the guys had gone home long ago, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t thinking of baseball and the all-star game anymore.
I made my way to my room. The tithing can was waiting on the dresser, still empty. I poured my two dollars and thirty-five cents into the can, grabbed my new ball glove—the mitt that was honestly mine, now—and pounded my blistered fist into it with a satisfied smile.

My wife and I, with the Area Presidency, recently accompanied Elder David A. Bednar to the dedication of the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple. Our son Jorge, who came with us, said about his experience: “Amazing, Papa! As soon as Elder Bednar started with the dedicatory prayer, I could feel the room fill with warmth and light. The prayer added so much to my understanding of the purpose of a temple. It really is the house of the Lord.”