Gospel Story Finder

President McKay was prepared for this work and responsibility from his earliest childhood in Huntsville, where he was taught by the example of his parents that the Lord and His work were to come first in a person’s life. When he was eight years old, his two older sisters died, and a short time later, his father was called on a two-year mission to Scotland. Sister McKay was to give birth to a baby girl in ten days, the farm had to be run, and the young family needed to be fed. It was a time of testing and of sacrifice—and David learned much about faith and commitment. As his father climbed on his horse to leave, he lifted young David up into his arms, kissed him good-bye, and said, “David, take care of Mama and the family.” From that day forward, David O. McKay developed an exceptional sense of responsibility.

As a young woman, I participated in Personal Progress. There were activities to do, projects to create, and goals to achieve.
For one project, I decided to read the words for all the songs in the hymnbook, look up the scriptures referenced for each song, and learn to play them on the piano.
I thought it was a practical project that would help me in the future, so I went to work reading, studying, and practicing the hymns.
Fast-forward a few years.
I served a mission in Argentina, and one of my challenges was speaking a different language. At first it was very hard to put words together fast enough to be able to share my thoughts with anyone. However, I learned that I could find a hymn that said just what I wanted to say faster than I could translate my thoughts. I would find the hymn I wanted to share, and even though the words were in another language, the tune and the message were the same. I sang my testimony to many people and was able to share gospel truths this way until I became fluent in the Spanish language. I had the Lord to thank for the inspiration behind my Personal Progress project.
Because I know the words of the hymns, God has been able to send very specific messages to me many times. If I didn’t know the words, I wouldn’t have been able to receive the messages of hope, encouragement, and love that were there. I may have been able to feel the Spirit and be uplifted by the music, but without knowing the words, I would have missed the full message.
This was an unforeseen blessing of my practical Personal Progress project. Heavenly Father has been able to send profound and timely messages to my heart through the hymns.

My second story centers around Great-Uncle Grover, who lived in a house out in the country, far from the city. Uncle Grover was getting very old. We thought our sons should meet him before he died. So, one afternoon, we took a long drive to his humble house. We sat together to visit and introduce him to our sons. Not long into the conversation, our two young boys, maybe five and six years old, wanted to go outside and play.
Uncle Grover, hearing their request, bent over with his face in theirs. His face was so weathered and unfamiliar that the boys were a little scared of him. He said to them, in his gravelly voice, “Be careful—there are a lot of skunks out there.” Hearing this, Lesa and I were more than startled; we were worried that they might get sprayed by a skunk! The boys soon went outside to play as we continued to visit.
Later, when we got in the car to go home, I inquired of the boys, “Did you see a skunk?” One of them replied, “No, we didn’t see any skunks, but we did see a black kitty cat with a white stripe on its back!”
In the second account, the boys were blissfully unaware of the unsavory threat they faced from a skunk. Unable to properly identify what they had actually encountered, they ran the risk of suffering some unfortunate consequences. These are stories of mistaken identity—presuming the real thing to be something else. In each case, the consequences were minor.

They also do an annual Christmas “open house,” where they go caroling at a number of houses in their ward and neighborhood. Everyone who hears them delights in the Bennions’ performances. The practicing is hard, and sometimes performing is scary, but all their hard work pays off in the joy they bring to other people through their music.

My family and other families who read the scriptures daily have found that the word of the Lord has a powerful effect in our lives. The first change we noticed was that the scriptures and other spiritual matters began to take a much higher priority in our lives. We thought about them much more often, and we missed them when we neglected them. We even found ourselves planning for deviations from the normal schedule so we wouldn’t miss reading the scriptures. One day my wife, Jean, and the children were planning to call for me at work at the end of the day so that we could travel to a nearby city to visit friends. When we realized that the children would probably be asleep by the time we returned home, we decided to take the scriptures in the car with us and read on the way.

Mary Jane Driver was eager and excited. James Buchanan had been elected President of the United States that year of 1856, and on such an occasion, as on all national holidays, her father flew their flag.
Mary Jane, her brothers and sisters, and a number of neighbor children gathered around her father, Captain William Driver, as he opened the camphorwood chest and removed the folded flag. Mary Jane knew how much he loved that flag, for he handled it with tender care. “That’s my Old Glory,” he told them proudly. Mary Jane never tired of hearing the story of the flag.
Her father had been born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1803, when the United States was very young. He had gone to sea when he was just thirteen. He loved the sea and ships, and he had become an expert seaman. By the time he was twenty-one, Mary Jane’s father had been made captain of a merchant ship, the Charles Doggett.
Captain Driver’s mother and his friends wanted to show him how happy they were about his new command, so they made a flag of worsted bunting for the Charles Doggett. It was a large flag, measuring nine feet five inches by seventeen feet. Captain Driver named the flag Old Glory.
“It was the proudest day of my life,” he told his children. “The flag looked beautiful flying up there on the mast of my ship.”
Old Glory flew from the mast of Captain Driver’s ship as he sailed to Australia and to Pitcairn Island—and on two voyages around the world.
But in 1837, when Mary Jane’s mother became ill, Captain Driver gave up his life at sea and settled his family in Nashville, Tennessee. It was here that Mary Jane grew up and where she watched her father take the flag out of his old sea chest on important occasions.
When the Civil War broke out, three of Mary Jane’s brothers fought for the Confederacy. Her father, however, remained loyal to the Union, the country of his flag. And because Nashville was in confederate hands, Captain Driver, fearful that his flag would be destroyed, hid it.
The Confederates knew that he had a Union flag, and several times they came to his home, demanding that he turn it over to them. Mary Jane’s heart beat fast on those occasions. But though Captain Driver allowed the soldiers to search his home, they were never able to find the flag.
Then, on February 25, 1862, Union forces entered Nashville. Mary Jane’s father asked a captain of an Ohio regiment to accompany him home, where he took his flag from its hiding place, stitched inside a quilt. Mary Jane watched proudly as soldiers escorted her father, carrying the folded flag, to the state’s legislative building. Once more his flag flew proudly in the breeze—this time over the Tennessee State Capitol! After the flag was raised, Captain Driver said, “I lived to raise Old Glory on the dome of the Capitol of Tennessee; I am now ready to die and go to my forefathers.”
Old Glory was flown throughout the night, and Captain Driver stayed at the capitol to guard the flag against possible harm.
The Ohio soldiers liked Captain Driver’s nickname for his flag, and as news of what had happened in Nashville spread, the term “Old Glory” became popular. Soon the Stars and Stripes came to be known as Old Glory on many battlefields.
In 1873 Captain Driver gave Mary Jane his dearest possession, Old Glory. He knew that she loved his flag, too, and would care for it. Mary Jane was very grateful, and for years she flew it on all holidays over her home in Nevada, where she had moved after she was married.
In 1886 Captain William Driver died. He was buried in Nashville. On his tombstone was engraved, “His ship. His country. And his flag, Old Glory.”
Usually the flag of the United States is flown only between sunrise and sunset, but Congress authorized a flag to fly day and night over Captain Driver’s grave.
Mary Jane kept Old Glory for many years as a reminder of her father and to honor the country that he had loved so dearly. Then, in 1922, she decided to give the flag to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Although Old Glory was worn and faded by then, it was put on display there with other famous historical flags of the United States.

When we were getting ready for the groundbreaking for the Tijuana Mexico Temple, we were very happy. We went as a family to give service. We cleaned the grounds of the temple. I know the Lord will visit His house when it is finished.
Jesus S., age 6, Mexico

In 1952, super-athlete Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia won both the 10,000 and 5,000-meter races. To celebrate his victory, he announced he would enter the marathon, even though he had never run the 41.8 kilometer event before.
“Do you really think you can win?” a newsman asked.
“If I didn’t think I could win, I wouldn’t have entered,” Zatopek replied.
At the 24.1 kilometer mark, Zatopek was side-by-side with Him Peters of Great Britain, the pre-race favorite.
“Don’t you think we should be going a bit faster?” Zatopek asked, then ran ahead. He was grinning when he won.

Well, you may well understand, the second day I stood up to bat, I was not so confident as before. The same bowler stood opposite me and began that mind-bending warm-up. He threw a fast ball with a spin so wild that it hit the ground and bounced off, knocking me over to the left of the wicket with a force so hard I almost fell down.
The next thing I knew, everybody was yelling “Howzat?” to the umpire—the standard query for an umpire decision. Unless that is said, the umpire will remain silent the whole game. As far as I was concerned, he should have kept quiet, for I saw, unbelievably, the letters “L.B.W.” come to his lips. I was next to him in a minute to argue the decision.
It was then that I learned another important lesson about the game and the British character. It was Trevor who rushed to my side to inform me, “No player ever disputes an umpire’s decision once it’s been made.”
“You mean you can’t beef about a lousy decision?” I complained.
“Of course not,” Trevor said in a matter-of-fact voice. “That just wouldn’t be cricket.”
I had to admit he had me there. As I hobbled off the field (suspecting that the name of the game came from that grasshopperlike animal, the cricket, which is the only creature physically equipped with the muscles necessary to avoid getting hit with a L.B.W.), I vowed that never again would I make fun of something I knew nothing about.
The next day I was as cheerful as ever and persuaded the boys to play a game of rounders—from which, of course, I arose the hero. However, I was quiet about my laurels. After all, no sense in becoming a sticky wicket about it.

In 1907 a wealthy Englishman named George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, moved to Egypt and took up an interest in archaeology. He approached a well-known Egyptologist, Howard Carter, and proposed a partnership. Carter would oversee their archaeological excavations, and Carnarvon would provide the funding.
Together they successfully explored a variety of locations. Then they received permission to excavate in the Valley of the Kings, located near modern-day Luxor, where the tombs of many pharaohs had been found. They decided to look for the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun had ascended to the throne of Egypt more than 3,000 years earlier and reigned for 10 years before his unexpected death. He was known to have been buried in the Valley of the Kings, but the location of his tomb was unknown.
Carter and Carnarvon spent five years unsuccessfully searching for Tutankhamun’s tomb. Eventually Carnarvon informed Carter that he was finished with the fruitless quest. Carter pleaded for just one more season of excavation, and Carnarvon relented and agreed to the funding.
Carter realized that the entire floor of the Valley of the Kings had been methodically excavated—except the area of their own base camp. Within a few days of digging there, they found the first steps leading down to the tomb.
When Carter eventually peered into the antechamber of Tutankhamun’s tomb, he saw gold everywhere. After three months of cataloging the contents of the antechamber, they opened the sealed burial chamber in February 1923—100 years ago. This was the most famous archaeological find of the 20th century.
During those years of ineffectual searching, Carter and Carnarvon had overlooked what was literally under their feet. Some five centuries before the Savior’s birth, the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob referred to taking for granted or undervaluing what is nearby as “looking beyond the mark.” Jacob foresaw that the people of Jerusalem would not recognize the promised Messiah when He came. Jacob prophesied that they would be a “people [who] despised the words of plainness … and [would seek] for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness [would come] by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall.” In other words, they would stumble.
Like those people in Jerusalem, and like Carter and Carnarvon, we too can be prone to look beyond the mark. We need to guard against this tendency lest we miss Jesus Christ in our lives and fail to recognize the many blessings He offers us. We need Him. We are counseled to rely “wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.”
After Carter and Carnarvon excavated elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings looking for Tutankhamun’s tomb, they realized their oversight. We do not need to labor unsuccessfully, as they did for a time, to find our treasure. Nor need we seek counsel from exotic sources, prizing the novelty of the source and thinking such counsel will be more enlightened than that which we can receive from a humble prophet of God.

As Sister Johnson and I were raising our children, we encouraged each of them to learn to play a musical instrument. But we would allow our children to take music lessons only if they did their part and practiced their instrument each day. One Saturday, our daughter Jalynn was excited to go play with friends, but she had not yet practiced the piano. Knowing she had committed to practice for 30 minutes, she intended to set a timer because she did not want to practice even one minute longer than was required.

As she walked by the microwave oven on her way to the piano, she paused and pushed some buttons. But instead of setting the timer, she set the microwave to cook for 30 minutes and pushed start. After about 20 minutes of practice, she walked back to the kitchen to check how much time was remaining and found the microwave oven on fire.

She then ran into the backyard where I was doing yard work, yelling that the house was on fire. I quickly ran into the house, and indeed, I found the microwave oven in flames.

In an effort to save our home from burning, I reached behind the microwave, unplugged it, and used the power cord to lift the burning microwave off of the counter. Hoping to be the hero and to save the day as well as our home, I swung the flaming microwave in circles with the power cord to keep it away from my body, got to the backyard, and with another swinging motion flung the microwave out onto the lawn. There we were able to extinguish the fiery flames with a hose.

What had gone wrong? A microwave oven needs something to absorb its energy, and when nothing is on the inside to absorb the energy, the oven itself absorbs the energy, becomes hot, and may catch on fire, destroying itself in a pile of flames and ashes. Our entire microwave went up in flames and burned because there was nothing on the inside.

Over the years, our Heavenly Father has continued to bless us in miraculous ways. In 1947 our daughter was called to serve a mission. Although we had very little money, and our family would greatly miss the income from her job, we agreed to support her. Never was our family so blessed as during our daughter’s mission. Occasionally someone would tell me that they wished their child could serve a mission, but that they didn’t have the money. I always told them that we didn’t have the money either, but that the Lord blessed us so that somehow we were able to support her each month.

In the vicinity where I lived and served, we operated a poultry project. Most of the time it was an efficiently operated welfare project, supplying to the storehouse thousands of dozens of fresh eggs and hundreds of pounds of dressed poultry. On a few occasions, however, the experience of being volunteer city farmers provided not only blisters on the hands, but frustration of heart and mind. For instance, I shall ever remember the time we gathered together the teenaged Aaronic Priesthood young men to really give the poultry project a spring cleaning. Our enthusiastic and energetic throng gathered at the project and in a speedy fashion uprooted, gathered, and burned large quantities of weeds and debris. By the light of the glowing bonfires we ate hot dogs and congratulated ourselves on a job well done. The project was now neat and tidy. However, there was just one disastrous problem. The noise and the fires had so disturbed the fragile and temperamental population of several thousand laying hens that most of them went into a sudden molt and ceased laying. Thereafter we tolerated a few weeds, that we might produce more eggs.

Another challenge is religious studies classes at school that require answers that conform to theories printed in textbooks rather than individual beliefs. Heather Jones of the Weston Super Mare Ward explains that in the religious education class, “you have to answer like they want, rather than what you believe.” Heather went on to say, “There was a kid in our school that failed the exam because he put down that God created the earth. It was marked incorrect. He had to put down another theory to pass.”

There’s a roar of a small engine from Norma Bench’s Riverton, Utah, backyard. It means only one thing. Randy’s there. The noise is from the lawn mower.
It’s Tuesday, and Tuesday is the day Randy Johanson cuts Norma’s lawn. Well, Tuesdays and Saturdays. Why mow the grass just once a week when two cuts make it look so much better?
“I like to mulch her lawn so it doesn’t get too long and leave clumps on the grass. That doesn’t look good,” says Randy matter-of-factly.
No it doesn’t. But imagine what the lawn would look like if Randy wasn’t taking such immaculate care of it.
“He’s certainly been a lifesaver to me,” says Norma.
When it seemed as if Norma Bench’s world was falling apart, a 12-year-old deacon helped her realize things weren’t so bleak after all.
One week after Norma’s son, Brian, received his mission call to the Brazil Recife South Mission in August of 1994, her husband, Gail, died of cancer. So when Brian left for his mission, Norma was all alone.
Then another trial came her way. While helping her brother move some things, Norma fell and shattered her femur in six places. As accidents go, this one was a doozy. Doctors inserted 13 screws into her leg, and she was told she wouldn’t be up and at ’em any time soon.
Next, word came that Brian had to come home from his mission early because of medical problems that couldn’t be treated in Brazil. Norma had a lot on her mind.
During her ten-day hospital stay, she lay in bed, unable to move, pondering her situation. One of the things she worried about was who was going to take care of things around her house. She certainly couldn’t, and Brian’s condition would prevent him. But Randy had it figured out.
Randy, a member of the Riverton Fifth Ward, had been mowing the Benches’ lawn since he was ten. With Norma laid up, he just added the weeding, trimming, and general repair to his list of things to do.
“I’m happy about working for her because it’s nice to do a lot of things for neat people,” he says.
What Randy fails to mention is that he’s working for free—if you don’t count the occasional can of soda or ice cream bar that Norma gives him.
“I’ve tried to pay him,” Norma says. “I’ll hand him some money, and he says no. He’s such a good example for me. He sees things, and he knows what has to be done. He’s just a neat kid.”
Once, when Norma was still on crutches, she dropped a drinking straw to the floor. Unable to pick it up, she asked Randy if he would. The next thing Norma knew, Randy had the vacuum going through the house.
“That’s just the way he is,” says Randy’s mother, Debra. “He learned to work with his dad when he was two years old. I’ve got pictures of him helping his dad push the lawn mower.”
Norma Bench is doing much better now. It’s been more than a year since her fall, and she’s able to get around again. But Randy is still one of the constants in her life. When a tree needs to be trimmed, he’s there. When a winter storm rolls in, there’s Randy shoveling her driveway.
“I have a responsibility,” he adds. “I have the priesthood, and I’m learning more things about the Church all the time, and I feel that I can do a lot more things,” he says.
He’s right about that. But you’d have a hard time convincing Norma that Randy could do any more than he’s already doing.

I have asked that serious question of myself: “Where would I be without the gospel?”
It was that gospel testimony that persuaded me to say no to my Navy friends when our first “liberty” came to leave boot camp training in Farragut, Idaho, in early 1944. On the train from Farragut to Spokane, Washington, the invitations were presented in a most appealing way to go with them to get a “manly” tattoo and then be off to find the real pleasures that men seek.
I was the only Mormon in that group, and, yes, I felt a little lonely as I broke off to go by myself to the USO facility and then to a movie. The following day I found church services and church friends who strengthened and reinforced a lonely Mormon boy from Provo, Utah.
To have come home from the service in World War II with virtue intact has held for me eternal rewards.

He walked into the seminary classroom somewhat frightened, maybe a little belligerent, certainly not at ease. He came because most of the students in his grade came to seminary, but he came alone. Few spoke to him; no one walked with him. He had almost no friends.
For one so young his life had been a most difficult one. His father had been killed in a drunken brawl. His mother was not interested in sending her children to church, and she was not really interested in sending them to school. She was on state welfare, and much of that money was used to purchase liquor for herself and her boyfriends. There were two other children in the family; all three had different fathers.
Even the most basic material goods were lacking in the home, including adequate food and clothing. The boy had only a sweater to keep him warm in the cold weather. As he walked to school, he would take the sweater off as he approached the building because it had large holes in it and he didn’t want his peers to see. (I say peers because he had no friends.) He wore no socks because he had none. His hands were rough and chapped because the house had only cold water and no soap with which to wash. This boy was thin and lacked vitality. Food was not plentiful, and that available was of the junk food variety. He lived in an unkempt area on the far side of town and was uncomfortable when he visited any other section of the community.
The first day of class I invited him to sit on the front row. He did so willingly but not comfortably. I tried to make friends with him, but it was very difficult. He appeared to trust no one.
After school had been in session for several weeks, I asked if he would like to give the prayer. He quickly and emphatically refused. I later learned that he had never heard a prayer until his first day in that class. He had never been to church, he had never belonged to the Boy Scouts, he had never held the priesthood. As the days passed there was little change in his willingness to communicate, to smile, or to seek friends.
A month before the Christmas holidays, one young lady requested class time to present a matter of concern. The young man was absent that day, and as she stood before the group her message was simply, “We are not friendly with him, we do not speak with him, we do not walk with him, we do not associate with him. This seems to me to be very wrong. After all, he is important too.” Then she suggested that they could and should be friendly to him and help him to understand how important he was—his importance to them and to himself. They all agreed to respond to her recommendations. Then she suggested that they each contribute a small amount of money toward buying him a coat for Christmas. This they also willingly accepted.
One did not have to be told they were succeeding. It was in his eyes, in his walk, and in his smile. It was obvious to everyone that there was a change in his life. He walked a little taller. He was able to look others in the eye and smile as he extended a friendly greeting.
One day there was a note on the teacher’s desk which read, “If you cannot find someone to give the prayer today, I will,” and he signed his name. Strangely enough no one would give the prayer that day, so I called on him. He did not close his eyes. He did not fold his arms. He did not bow his head or do any of the things we normally do in prayer. He simply looked up to the ceiling with his hands by his side and said, “Oh, God, help us. Amen.” No one smiled. No one coughed. No one said a word. It was a wonderful prayer to him and to every member of the class.
Two or three days before the Christmas vacation, the young lady who had proposed the plan came to class with a beautifully wrapped Christmas package and again requested class time. She stood and thanked each of the students for their kindness and their willingness to respond to her earlier suggestions. Then she spoke for just a moment about the value of individuals regardless of their status in life, their home background, their scholastic abilities, or their popularity. She said that every one is very important. The young man, a bit suspicious at first, suddenly became aware the young lady was about to involve him in a new experience.
After some moments, she took him by the arm and had him stand by her side. She told him how much they appreciated him and how valuable he was to the class. She said they all appreciated him and were pleased he was their friend. By now he had tears in his eyes, but so did the teacher and most of the class. She then laid the package in his arms, and the tears increased. After a moment or two passed, another young man in the class said, “If you will open the package you can see what’s in it.”
Slowly, methodically, with great care and a desire not to tear the paper, he opened the package and held up a beautiful jacket. He continued to display his emotions, and so did the class. After some moments, the same boy said, “If you’ll unzip it you can put it on.” He opened the zipper and slowly put his arms into each sleeve, pulling the jacket around him and displaying a happy smile through the tears. He wore the coat every day until the last week in May.
Something had happened in his life that had never happened before. Someone gave him something, and in that gift was an expression of appreciation and love that he had never known. He later related to some of us that he had only had one Christmas present in 14 years, and that had been an orange.
Needless to say, the young man’s life had changed. He became happy in his school work, he participated in many activities, the other students enjoyed him, and he made many friends. If the story ended there it would be a great story, and the young lady who recognized the worth of a soul would have performed a miracle. But the miracle continued. This young man filled a mission, married in the temple, and is the father of two lovely children. One of the other children, his half sister, has also married in the temple. She and her fine husband are both active in the Church. The third child, a half brother, also filled a mission and has completed his college work. And the mother—oh, yes, the mother. She reports that each night she thanks her Heavenly Father for many things, including a young lady who knew the value of her son and was willing to make her feelings known. Secondly, she thanks her Heavenly Father for the great principle of repentance and forgiveness. Third, she thanks him for her membership in the Church, for a loving Savior who helped a family change. Then she thanks him for the privilege of being the secretary in her ward Relief Society and for the love and kindness of all her sisters there.
Yes, he was someone special, and the class was special.

The presidencies and planning committees met several times during the winter. The young people read histories and studied pioneer journals. They learned how their ancestors had answered a mission call by President John Taylor to come to this wild corner of the world and establish a peace mission among the Indians, how in addition to this challenge they were to provide a civilized buffer in this part of Zion because to that time the San Juan country was controlled by thieves, outlaws, and murderers who used this corner of southern Utah as a place to hide out from the law.
Two hundred and fifty people, including women and children, answered the call. They brought 85 wagons and hundreds of cattle and horses with them on the journey, traveling southeast from the settlement of Escalante to what is now San Juan County. The company was made up of Saints from Cedar City, Parowan, and Paragonah. They traveled across more than 200 miles of unexplored wilderness. The pinnacle of their pioneering effort was in carving a road bed down the side of Glen Canyon to the Colorado River below. They started their descent in a notch or hole in the rim of the 1,800 foot-high canyon wall. This notch then became known as Hole-in-the-Rock. The incredibly steep grade down the upper portion of the road dropped one foot for every two feet forward.

Now I had been studying the gospel and made it a matter of prayer. I knew Jesus’s answer to Nicodemus as we find recorded in the third chapter of John: “Except a man is born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven.” So on August 30, 1873, I was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Mons Andersen and confirmed by Abraham Lossee in Lehi.

I have a really busy life, running to school or ballet classes or other errands. During all of that, I don’t get alone time or feel peace. When I read my scriptures or say a prayer, I do feel peace. It’s nice to feel that way and have a break from the craziness. In those moments of peace, I grow closer to the Savior and grow in the gospel.
Zoe B., 17, Utah, USA