Gospel Story Finder

Kwan Wah Kam of Hong Kong first decided to plant a garden to supplement her home storage. She had never attempted to grow her own food but assumed she could learn all she needed to know by reading books.
Although the information she found was helpful, Kwan soon discovered that the greatest lessons she learned came through the process of actually planting the garden. With each additional year of experience, she has learned more about the best soil to use for different seeds, how to distinguish between good seeds and bad seeds, different ways to water and fertilize plants, and the best seasons to grow various vegetables.
The lessons Kwan learned were not limited to gardening alone, however. One evening, a terrible storm threatened to destroy her garden. In the morning, she was surprised to discover that the plants were not damaged, but instead, grew stronger from the additional water.
“From that experience, I learned that with faith in God, we can become stronger as we face our trials and difficulties with courage,” Kwan says. “The blessings I have received from gardening are both temporal and spiritual.”

In this vein, I had a provocative meeting with an internationally recognized advertising expert a few months ago. We were discussing the influence of evil and the consequences of bad choices.
He envisioned an interesting hypothetical account of Lucifer meeting with an advertising agency. The adversary described his dilemma: he and his followers had rebelled and rejected the Father’s plan and had come to understand that they could not prevail against God. Lucifer understood that while the Father’s plan was about joy and happiness, his own plan resulted in grief and misery. The problem, Lucifer explained to the ad executive, was how to attract followers.
It was determined that Lucifer’s only hope of success was to achieve a paradigm shift or values inversion—in other words, to characterize the Father’s plan as resulting in grief and misery and Lucifer’s plan as resulting in joy and happiness.
This hypothetical meeting serves a useful purpose. The truth is, not only do the enemies of the Father’s plan attempt to undermine the doctrine and principles of the plan, but they also attempt to mischaracterize the blessings that flow from the plan. Their basic effort is to make that which is good, righteous, and joyful seem miserable.

When he was young, he saw a vision of an angel holding a trumpet to its mouth.
John: What could this mean?
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The angel he saw in his dream was like the Angel Moroni on top of latter-day temples, proclaiming the gospel to all lands.

One day at school my friend and I were playing with some plastic worms that we use for math. My friend said, “Let’s take some home because they’re so cute.” I said, “No thanks,” and walked away. I am happy that I didn’t steal.

And to the near-perfect elderly sister who almost apologetically whispered recently, “I have never been a leader of anything in the Church. I guess I’ve only been a helper,” I say, “Dear sister, God bless you and all the ‘helpers’ in the kingdom.” Some of us who are leaders hope someday to have the standing before God that you have already attained.

At the San Jose 23rd Ward, youth representatives had decided to clean up the meetinghouse as their service project. This posed a problem for Burke Perry, 12, the bishop’s son. He is the only boy his age in his ward. So he recruited some help.
Urged on by Burke’s promises that they could compete in the chariot race, several of his nonmember friends also grabbed buckets and sponges to help scrub down chapel benches and the kitchen, joining forces with the girls in the ward. Such fellowshipping is typical for Burke, who kept 10 nonmembers coming to church all year so he could play on a ward basketball team.
“I just call them up and ask them to come,” he said. “They’re used to it, I guess. Their parents really like it.”

President Thomas S. Monson: “Many years ago I stood by the bedside of a young man, the father of two children, as he hovered between life and the great beyond. He took my hand in his, looked into my eyes and pleadingly asked, ‘Bishop, I know I am about to die. Tell me what happens to my spirit when I die.’

“I prayed for heavenly guidance before attempting to respond. My attention was directed to the Book of Mormon, which rested on the table beside his bed. I held the book in my hand, and, as I stand before you here today, that book opened to the fortieth chapter of Alma. I began to read aloud:

“‘Now my son, here is somewhat more I would say unto thee; for I perceive that thy mind is worried concerning the resurrection of the dead. …

“‘Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection—Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body … are taken home to that God who gave them life.

“‘And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow’ (Alma 40:1, 11–12).

“My young friend closed his eyes, expressed a sincere thank-you, and silently slipped away to that paradise about which we had spoken” (General Conference, October 1981).

A true story from the Philippines.
Chim opened his sleepy eyes. It was finally the weekend!
“Time to wake up, or we’ll be late,” Mom called.
Chim wished he could sleep longer, but today was market day. He needed to help Mom buy food for the week. So he got up and quickly ate his breakfast.
Mom did a lot for Chim and his two brothers. She was very busy working, and she didn’t have much time to be at home. Chim and his brothers worked together to do most of the chores. Chim was happy to help.
When Chim and Mom got back from the market, Mom had to leave for work. While she was gone, Chim and his brothers got ready for Sunday. Chim set out the shoes, pants, and shirt he would wear to church tomorrow. His older brother, Robin, helped him iron his shirt. Then they made dinner.
Chim was cleaning up the kitchen when Mom came home. She looked really tired.
“Here you go, Mom.” Chim handed her a bowl of hot food to eat.
Mom smiled. “Thanks for your help today. This looks delicious!”
The next morning, Chim woke up early and got ready for church. He was excited to see his friends in Primary and learn about Jesus Christ.
“Mom?” he called quietly, knocking on her door. “Are you coming with us to church today?”
“I can’t,” Mom said. “I have to work this afternoon.”
“OK.” Chim felt a little sad. It had been almost a year since Mom came to church with them. “Drive safe and have a good day,” he told her.
“Ready to go?” his little brother, Mattew, asked.
“Yes!” Chim put on his shoes and ran out the door with his brothers to catch the bus.
Chim felt happy when he walked into the church building. He tried to think about Jesus Christ during the sacrament. And in Primary, he tried extra hard to listen to Sister Ortega’s lesson.
“Today we are learning about the Holy Ghost,” said Sister Ortega. “The Holy Ghost brings us messages from Heavenly Father. Kind of like a radio.”
Chim looked at the picture of a radio Sister Ortega was holding up.
“A radio works by receiving a signal and turning it into sound waves we can hear,” she explained. “You have to set it to the right channel to hear it. To hear the Holy Ghost, we need to set our hearts and minds to the right channel too. How can we do that?”
Everyone was thinking. Then Chim said, “By following Jesus Christ and keeping the commandments.”
Sister Ortega smiled. “That’s right.”
After church, Chim helped make dinner again. He felt warm inside as he helped. He knew that by serving his family, he was setting his heart to the right channel to feel the Holy Ghost.
When Mom got home, Chim gave her a big hug. Then they prayed over the food and started to eat.
“Guess what I learned at church today,” Chim said. He liked to tell Mom about Primary.
“What?” Mom asked.
“We learned about the Holy Ghost,” said Chim. “It’s like a radio. When we keep the commandments, we can turn our hearts to the right channel to hear Him.”
Mom nodded. “That’s great. So what’s an example of keeping the commandments?”
Chim smiled. “Help your mom!” He laughed. “I love you, Mom.”
Illustrations by Uran Duo

“For most of my life I wished I had lived during Joseph Smith’s earthly life. Then, when I read the History of the Church completely through about ten years ago, the Spirit touched me again. I said to myself, ‘Glenn, if the Lord had wanted you to be alive when Joseph Smith was a prophet, that’s when you would have been alive. You were sent here now. If you aren’t valiant in defending the truth and the gospel now, you would not have been as valiant as you think you would have been with Joseph.’ I do have a testimony that we are all brought forth when we are for a reason.”

Today was an awesome day. Timmy’s cousin Madi was coming over. And she was going to stay for a whole week! He couldn’t wait to show her his toys and to play together.
When Madi came over, the adventures began right away. For the first two days, they played with toy dinosaurs and pretended to be pirates. It was lots of fun. But on the third day, things didn’t go as well. Timmy and Madi couldn’t agree on anything.
“Let’s go outside and turn the tree house into a spaceship!” Timmy said.
“I don’t want to. Let’s just stay inside and draw,” Madi said.
“Inside is boring!”
“No, it’s not! We always play the games you want to play. Why do you always get to choose what we do?”
Timmy and Madi kept arguing. They weren’t having fun anymore. Timmy didn’t like the way he felt when they fought. Then he thought of something.
“Hey, Madi,” Timmy said, “let’s be like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies.”
“The who?”
“The Anti-Nephi-Lehies. They were people in the Book of Mormon who buried their swords. They had been in lots of fights, and they were sorry, so they repented. They promised Heavenly Father they would never fight again. Then they buried their weapons in the ground to show that they wanted to keep their promise.”
Suddenly an idea popped into Timmy’s mind. “Let’s make some toy swords and bury them and promise we won’t fight each other.”
“OK,” Madi said.
Timmy and Madi got some plastic building toys from Timmy’s room and made different kinds of swords out of them. Some were long. Some were short. And some had lots of different colors. When they were done, Timmy and Madi carried their weapons to the big rug in the entryway.
“Let’s pretend the rug is a big hole,” Timmy said.
They sat down by the edge of the rug. Then one by one, they set each of their swords onto the rug, pretending to bury them.
“I promise that I’m not going to fight anymore,” Timmy said, dropping his last toy sword onto the pile.
“Me too,” Madi said. “Now let’s go play! What do you want to do?”
“Let’s draw,” Timmy said with a smile.
Madi smiled back. “Then let’s play spaceship outside.”
For the rest of the week, Timmy and Madi kept their promise. And they had a lot more fun playing together after leaving their fighting behind.

President Thomas S. Monson shared the experience of Jay Hess, an airman who was shot down over North Vietnam in the 1960s: “For two years his family had no idea whether he was dead or alive. His captors in Hanoi eventually allowed him to write home but limited his message to less than 25 words.” President Monson asks: “What would you and I say to our families if we were in the same situation—not having seen them for over two years and not knowing if we would ever see them again? Wanting to provide something his family could recognize as having come from him and also wanting to give them valuable counsel, Brother Hess wrote [the following words]: ‘These things are important: temple marriage, mission, college. Press on, set goals, write history, take pictures twice a year.’”

After the sacrament had been passed, my brother Robert took out a pencil and paper and began to draw. I worried about Robert, a 16-year-old priest, who should be outgrowing that kind of thing by now. I looked at my mother’s face. She seemed composed, as always. She ignored his behavior in church. “I’d rather have him come to church and draw than stay home,” she had told me once. “Someday something will change.”
She and I both knew Robert would rather have been in the hills this morning waking up in a cold sleeping bag. If we had left him at home he would have gone hiking with Juno, his trusty dog. “I get more in the mountains than I ever did in a stuffy old meeting,” he shouted once to my father.
“Nevertheless, we are a church-going family,” Father had said gently. “And you are part of the family while you live here, and you will go with us to church.”
I stared at Robert’s hands. They were roughened young hands, accustomed to chopping and whittling wood, tying knots, digging tent trenches. The fingernails were chipped off and dirty. He looked like he belonged in the mountains, not in church.
Sometimes I thought I could understand him. He wanted to worship out there where he said God really was. He had never read the Book of Mormon; he made jokes in Sunday School class. And I don’t think he ever heard anything that was said in sacrament meeting.
Robert continued to draw and I was watching and shouldn’t have been. I tried to concentrate on the woman who was speaking. She was talking about her son who had just returned from his mission.
I sat up and my eyes opened. I wished Robert were listening instead of making silly drawings.
I thought at that moment that maybe Robert shouldn’t listen because he might be getting some ideas. But I noticed his hand had paused. He was listening! Now all I could do was pray he wouldn’t hear the wrong message in the mother’s speech, and go out with his dog for several days.
I looked over at Robert. He was listening all right. I wasn’t sure that was good. But the mother continued. Her boy had changed. He had gone on a mission. It had been a miracle.
Robert thought he had heard all of the rest of this before and returned to his drawing. And then it was time for the returned missionary to speak.
Robert was not watching the missionary.
The ward members laughed. Even Robert smiled.
I thought Robert would have loved a similar two weeks in the desert right during testing time at school, though I couldn’t imagine him taking the Book of Mormon.
The chapel was hushed. I felt I was not there in the church, but with the missionary on those blue hills in the rain. And so was Robert.
I could hear my own breathing, and I could feel my own heart beat. The piece of the paper with the drawing on it fell to the floor. Robert moved closer to Mother, and she put her arm around him. It seemed that, sitting there in sacrament meeting, we were in our own circle of light.

A very different experience occurred in a later game in which I was totally committed. At one point I ran with real intent into a contact; immediately I felt some pain in my face. Having been taught by my father that I should never let the opposition know if I was hurt, I continued to play out the game. That night, while trying to eat, I found that I couldn’t bite. The next morning, I went to the hospital, where an X-ray confirmed that my jaw was broken. My mouth was wired shut for the next six weeks.
Lessons were learned from this parable of the fat lip and the broken jaw. Despite my memories of unsatisfied cravings for solid food during the six weeks when I could ingest only liquids, I feel no regrets about my broken jaw because it resulted from my giving my all. But I do have regrets about the fat lip because it symbolized my holding back.

I’m sure we’ve all been impressed by the miracle that has occurred in our valley. Joshua Dennis, age ten, is alive today because of his own fervent prayer, faith, and overwhelming optimism, and, in addition, because of the fact that he listened to his mother and obeyed her counsel. In addition, we remember the feeling, and I call it inspiration, given to John Skinner, who led the search party to Joshua. I hope our youth will remember this great lesson of prayer as they pass through life’s journey.

I was discussing options for my Eagle project when I heard about the tsunami that had caused widespread devastation on the island of Samoa. I also learned that a sister in our ward, Savili Martin, would be traveling to Samoa with her family to visit relatives during the Christmas holidays. While I realized that the main concern of the people of Samoa was to rebuild and make the best of what they had, I also knew that all children love to receive gifts, and I felt inspired to organize a service project to provide Christmas presents to the children whose lives had been affected by the disaster. Although the gifts wouldn’t be extravagant, I felt that this project would be a blessing to the children and would help ease the burdens of their parents.
I worked with the Scouts in my ward to start a Christmas stocking gift drive. So many people were eager to help with this project. The Scouts and Young Women in my ward helped pass out flyers and collect donated gifts. We received donated material to make the stockings. My family and another family in the ward made the stockings, and the girls at the Primary activity days in our ward stuffed them. We gave all the gifts too big to put into stockings to the school district’s Project Help for Christmas.
We completed the project in time for the James and Savili Martin family to take the boxes of stockings with them to Samoa, where they gave the stockings to the Primary children.
When Sister Martin and her family returned to Arizona, she brought back a video of the children receiving their Christmas presents. I felt so warm inside when I saw how grateful every child was for his or her gift. One young boy in particular was wrapping his little arms around his Christmas stocking, making sure everybody knew it was his. Their appreciation and excitement more than compensated for all the hard work put into this project. The Spirit was strong after we watched the video, and I felt that the Lord blessed us in our efforts to help and serve His children.

I am so grateful for the articles about President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf in the July 2008 Liahona. After reading these articles and praying, I received answers to questions that had been a source of distress to me. I learned that the challenges that my family had experienced had also come to President Eyring and his family, and I saw that we are making the correct choices, even though the logic of the world may say otherwise. Reading of the difficulties President Uchtdorf and his family endured led me to have more humility and gratitude for the blessings I have.
Luane Izabel Fernandes Dias, Brazil

A year later, Prince was ready to serve as a full-time missionary in the Kenya Nairobi mission.

“I can say missions change lives,” he says. During the time he served, there was a lot of persecution of the Church in Kenya, with anti-Church sentiments frequently being printed as newspaper headlines.

“As I walked the streets of Nairobi, I was many times accused of joining the Church for the sake of money”. A particularly difficult confrontation with a detractor became his turning point. That evening, he says, “I realized I had to pack my bag and go home or know for myself.”

Prince received his answer.

“For the first time, like the Prophet Joseph Smith, I could say I knew it, the Lord knew it and I could not deny that I was in the true Church.”

I served eight months as a teaching missionary in Los Angeles, California, before transferring home to a service mission in Utah. Despite the different assignment, I know that the calling to serve a mission and help others come unto Christ is the same.

Nephi’s mention of eating “raw meat” (1 Ne. 17:2) intrigued—and repelled—us, so we were surprised to find ourselves eating it in Cairo when our friend Angie Chukri served us this local delicacy. It was not dripping with blood as we had imagined it, but spicy with garlic and other flavorings. It had been allowed to dry in the sun until it was dark brown on the outside. But it was pinkish-red on the inside and soft to chew, not tough like jerky. Garlic was the dominant flavor, of course, but it left a sweet taste that changed our impression of the hardship of eating raw meat. Later, we saw raw meat for sale in Egyptian, Jordanian, and Saudi Arabian markets; it was formed in large loaves like bologna and spiced much like the pieces served us by Angie. Of special interest to us was the name the Arabs gave it—basterma, meaning “raw meat”—suggesting that Nephi’s terminology was not merely descriptive but the proper name. Was this process, or something similar, the method the Lord showed Nephi to make their food “sweet” so that they would not need a fire in the perilous passage overland from the Red Sea coast to Bountiful?

On that note, Luke was fortunate enough to connect, through a social media group, with the mother of one of the Persian-speaking missionaries in his mission. She was thrilled to hear from Luke and offered to send him some language-training tools her son used before his mission.
Luke has been using those tools ever since.