Gospel Story Finder

When Michael was in junior high, his father, Calvin, suggested that he get involved in a sport. He wasn’t tall enough for basketball or big enough for football. He went out for track. “I wasn’t very good at it,” said Michael, “but I stuck with it because I thought it’d get better the next year.”
There’s the first clue. Stick with it.
Calvin would watch his son run. The only advice Michael remembers his dad giving was, “Pay attention to what your coach says, and work hard.”
Another clue. Listen to those who know best. And work hard.
It paid off. Michael became the second best man in the distances on the cross-country team. His best friend, Darrin, could always beat him.
Next clue. After you do the best you can, support those ahead of you.
At the end of his sophomore year, Michael decided to get involved in school government. He ran for junior class council. Yvonne, Michael’s mother, said, “He didn’t even tell us he was running. He just did it.”
The next year, Michael ran for student-body president even though someone else seemed more likely to win. He ran and was elected.
One more clue. Try, you never know what you can do until you try.
Throughout his school years, Michael had friends from different groups and with different interests. But there were certain things that Michael had decided and those decisions never changed. He was determined to never miss seminary. Even when he came back from a track meet late, he was there.
And he never let his friends influence him into breaking the commandments. How did his friends react? Michael said, “They sort of understand. They say, ‘This is Michael, and this is the Church he belongs to. And this is what he does.’”
Another point for our list. Stick to your standards.
After graduation Michael knew he wanted to prepare for his mission. His birthday was in December, so he decided to stay home from college and work to earn money for his mission. His dad helped Michael get a job with him working with a tugboat company. As the rookie, Michael got all the jobs no one else wanted—cleaning up, painting, picking up supplies.
Two more things Michael learned. Sometimes you have to put up with jobs you don’t like to earn the goal you do want—going on a mission. And as a bonus, Michael learned to take righteous pride in the kind of man his father is. Michael said, “Working around tugboats is a rough environment. There’s a lot of bad language. But Dad’s not different at work than he is at home. He always lives what he believes.”
Michael has followed the advice of his parents and his Church leaders and made some good choices. He gets a chance to help his younger sisters, Joleane and Elizabeth, and brother, Daniel, with the choices they are making. “He gives us advice,” said Elizabeth. “He tells us what movies to go to. He’s always been that way, telling us what we should do.”
Now Michael is serving his mission in Ukraine. He’ll be going places where they have never heard of the Church. How will he do? Michael knows how to stick with it, work hard, listen to those who know best, try, and keep his standards, which are now mission rules.
Cal Higgins had one more word of advice for his son before he left home—“Finish the race.”
And that’s the last piece of the puzzle. The scriptures phrase it a little differently, but the meaning is the same: Endure to the end. That’s the key to many of Michael’s accomplishments. After working and trying, listening and learning, then finish the race.

Marcelino Tossen believed in God, read the Bible, and enjoyed talking about religion, so when the full-time missionaries knocked on his apartment door one warm January day in 1992, he invited them in. That decision changed his life.
“Elder Zanni and Elder Halls worked under the impressions of the Spirit,” recalls Marcelino. Before that first discussion had even ended, the elders told him that he would be baptized into the Church, even telling him the exact day he would be baptized.
“I’m not going to get baptized,” Marcelino countered. “I want only to talk to you.”
The missionaries gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him to read several verses and pray that night about their message. He did so but felt nothing.
During a subsequent discussion, however, Elder Zanni asked him, “Would it be all right if we prayed so you can ask Heavenly Father if what we have been teaching you is true?”
As he prayed, Marcelino says, “my heart began to burn fervently within me. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I couldn’t even finish my prayer, and I arose from my knees.”
Elder Zanni asked Marcelino if he had felt anything during his prayer. When Marcelino told him no, the missionary said, “I felt the Spirit very strong. It’s strange that you didn’t feel anything.”
When he admitted what he had felt, Marcelino says, “the elders read from the Doctrine and Covenants, telling me that when the Lord wants us to know if something is right, He will send His peace or make our heart burn within us [see D&C 6:23; 9:8]. That day was a turning point for me.”
From then on, the Spirit labored with him and testified of the truth through numerous spiritual experiences. “I’d feel the burning again while I was alone in my apartment,” Marcelino says. “When I would open the window, I’d see the elders nearby on a corner teaching people about the Church. I could feel when they were close, and I began to take seriously what they were teaching me.”
Marcelino received a warm welcome when he began attending church. He was baptized a short while later on April 22—the exact day the missionaries had named three months earlier. Today, after serving nine years as president of the Ushuaia district, he serves as the second counselor in the presidency of the Buenos Aires north mission.
“When we read that the Lord will ‘send forth [His] word unto the ends of the earth’ [D&C 112:4], that’s Ushuaia,” says President Tossen. “Ushuaia is the end of the earth. But for those like me who found the gospel here, it’s the beginning of everything. Here you’ll find the lighthouse at the end of the world. But here is where I found faith and the lighthouse of the Lord.”

My wife and I recently received a letter from one of our daughters that, in part, read, “I’ve become a nurse. Four of the six kids have the flu. I’m changing my ambitions from psychiatrist to nurse. Anyway, nobody in this family is sick in the head; we are just all sick.” Then in capital letters she wrote, “I WANT MY LIFE BACK!”
When we read the letter, we gave each other a knowing smile. But those last words, “I WANT MY LIFE BACK,” have stuck in my mind. My daughter’s situation was temporary and for a good cause, but I’ve been hearing more often about people who are filling their lives with meaningless and harmful things.
A cluttered life is a life that you do not have control of. It is a life in which the things you have surrounded yourself with, and allow to use up your time, are controlling you and negatively influencing your happiness and eternal progress.
Our lives can become cluttered by many things. Some are obvious, such as material things. We can surround ourselves with the material things to the extent that we have no time for the spiritual. Look around and you will see all the gadgets and toys and the nice and the fun things that cause us to squander and pay and to wander and play.
Other things that clutter our lives and use our time are not as obvious. They are more subtle and just seem to evolve, taking control of us.
Whenever I think of something subtle—something kind of hidden that we know is there if we stop to think about it but don’t suspect it of cluttering or negatively influencing our lives—I know Satan is busy at his work.
Nothing suits the devil better than to become a silent partner with us. He knows that we have agency and are at liberty to make choices for ourselves. He also knows that while in mortality we are subject to time. If by his subtle means he can become our silent partner, he can influence us to make wrong choices that use our time unwisely and prevent us from doing what we should.
I have learned that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to unclutter one’s life by starting at the top of the pile with the idea that the solution is to just get things sorted and better organized. It is nice to get better organized, but that is not enough. We must actually get rid of what we do not need.
To do this we need to develop a list of basics, a list of those things that are indispensable to our mortal welfare and happiness and our eternal salvation. This list must follow the gospel pattern and contain elements needed for our sanctification and perfection. It must be the product of inspiration and prayerful judgment. It should separate need from greed. It must be our best understanding of those things that are important as opposed to those things that are just interesting, between things we really need and things we just want.
We need to examine all the ways we use our time so we can better understand what we should really be spending our time doing. After all, we give our lives to that to which we give our time.
We must learn that none of the exciting and entertaining and fun things are worth it if they take us from the path that will lead us back home to our Heavenly Father.
We must remember that a person who is not living the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ is not living them, no matter who or what has caused it. We must also remember that a family divided is a family divided, no matter who or what divides it.
We need to ask ourselves some serious and soul-searching questions. One of these would surely be, Do I have time for prayer? I don’t mean just an occasional, quick, repetitious prayer that is like giving a wave of the hand to your Father in Heaven as you pass Him on your way to something “important.” I mean sincere, honest, “from the depths of a contrite spirit and a broken heart” prayer; kneeling in humility, demonstrating to the Holy Father that you really love him; private prayer which involves you in the process of repentance and pleading for forgiveness and allows time for pondering and waiting for the answers to come.
The next question might be, Do I study the scriptures? If you do, you know that Lehi saw a rod of iron, which, interpreted, means the word of God (1 Ne. 11:1–23). Those who held to the rod, using it as a guide at all times, came safely through the mist of darkness and arrived at the tree of life and partook of its glorious fruit (1 Ne. 8:19, 30). I solemnly testify that the holy scriptures are the word of God. Constant study of them is the act of holding to the iron rod. They will guide you to the Tree of Life. If you are one who has said, “I want my life back,” I exhort you to go to the Tree of Life, where you will find the pure love of God.
God’s plan is a plan of simplicity. It involves being obedient to simple laws, laws that have within them an automatic blessing and happiness for obedience and an automatic punishment and unhappiness for their disobedience.
I urge you to clear away the clutter. Take your life back. Use your willpower. Learn to say no to those things that will rob you of your precious time and infringe upon your agency to choose to live in exactness to God’s plan of happiness and exaltation. Don’t let the subtle influences of Satan take away any part of your life. Keep it under your own control and operated by your own agency.
It is my humble prayer that by our choices we may preserve our individual agency from the subtleness of Satan and live our lives bright and clear and on the path that leads us back to the presence of our Heavenly Father.

I remember a critical time in my life and how grateful I was when a still, small voice gave me direction to make an important decision. I had been with a retail firm for a number of years. We had enjoyed extraordinary success. We wanted to expand the business but needed a great deal of capital. In an attempt to raise the money, we contacted the best financial advisers we could find. They encouraged us to merge with a larger firm. The merger was successfully completed, and I was asked to sign a five-year contract to give continuity to management. Within a matter of months I found myself in a very difficult situation. The new owners wanted me to violate a trust that I felt I just could not do. After long discussions, they continued to insist and I continued to refuse. Seeing there was no way to break the deadlock, I agreed to leave the company. The timing for me was devastating. I had a wife who was seriously ill and required a lot of medical attention, a daughter away to college, and a son on a mission. I spent the next year just getting enough consulting work to pay my expenses.
After struggling for about one year, a company called me from California and invited me to come out and talk to them about working for them. I went out and negotiated a very good contract; I was delighted with the opportunity. I told them that I had to return home and discuss it with my family before I could give an answer. I returned home and after a careful discussion, I convinced my family that it was the right thing to do. In the process of calling the firm to accept the offer, a voice just as strong and powerful as I have ever heard came to me and said, “Say no to the offer.” I could not ignore the voice, so I turned the offer down, but I was distressed. I could not comprehend why I had been told to do such a thing. I went upstairs to my bedroom, sat on the bed, opened the scriptures, and they fell open to the Doctrine and Covenants, section 111. This was the only section given in the state of Massachusetts, where my home was at that particular time. These words literally jumped out of the page and met my eye:
“Concern not yourselves about your debts, … I will give you power to pay them. …
“Tarry in this place, and in the regions round about” (D&C 111:5, 7).
A great peace came to my soul. Within just a few days I was offered a fine position in Boston. A few months later I had the great privilege of hosting a conference in which President Harold B. Lee, then First Counselor in the First Presidency, was the featured speaker. The conference was a glorious success as we feasted on the words of President Lee. The following July, President Joseph Fielding Smith passed away and President Lee became the prophet. Three months later I was asked to come to Salt Lake, where I received a call to leave my profession and join the General Authorities.
I have often wondered what would have happened if I had not heeded the Holy Spirit in its counseling me not to leave Boston.

Brothers Terii and Emile Mau enjoy the simple life of fishermen on the tropical island of Moorea, 12 miles from Tahiti. On Sundays they attend the Haumi Branch of the Church, and almost every other morning of the week they awake before dawn, load their nets into outrigger canoes, and travel out to the edge of the coral reef where they spread their nets. Like many other Polynesian islands, Moorea is surrounded by coral reefs that leave beautiful, protected lagoons between the open ocean and the beaches. After Terii and Emile bring their catch in, they put the fish in pole-and-wire corrals in shallow water, so the fish will stay alive until they are needed. The brothers then hang their nets from trees to dry.
And because they love the water and because it is a warm January day, they decide to go fishing again, this time more for fun than food.
After the short paddle across Miti lagoon, they tie their canoes to the reef, don face masks and flippers, and holding their spear guns, slide over the sides of the canoes into the warm tropical waters. A glance in any direction underwater presents a world that looks like an ocean-sized, fully stocked tropical aquarium. Brightly colored fish of every imaginable shape swim everywhere, enjoying the sanctuary of the reef.
Today is a good day for the brothers—the swimming is good, they find some beautiful shells, and Emile catches one of the biggest apai that either of the brothers has ever seen.

While I was a little boy during the Second World War, my country had been invaded; danger was all around us. My mother taught me a great lesson of trust and unity that I have never forgotten. She alerted me to the perils of war and simply said: “Trust my word and follow me; listen to my voice. If you do so, I will protect you the best I know how.” I simply listened to my mother because I loved her and trusted her.
A little later, school started, and this, for me, was a new bridge to cross. As a preparation for this new experience in my life, leaving the home, my mother told me to listen to my teacher and to be obedient. Again, I trusted my mother’s advice. I decided to be obedient to my teacher and a new code of rules. School therefore became a bridge of knowledge instead of a wall of ignorance.
That lesson of trust and unity was vital to become one with my parents, family members, and teachers. It allowed me later to become one with my Savior by being baptized into His Church. It reminded me as a husband, father, and grandfather to continue to build trust and unity among our family members by keeping the temple covenants. As President Hinckley has stated: “The temple is concerned with things of immortality. It is a bridge between this life and the next” (Stand a Little Taller [2001], 6).
In our day, it is so easy to isolate ourselves by erecting temporal, spiritual, and even family or religious walls. Let us instead build more bridges of faith, of reconciliation, and live by the peace that is given “not as the world giveth” (John 14:27), but by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the bridge of faith unto eternity.
I testify that Jesus is the Christ; I put my trust in Him and in His gospel of salvation to be reunited someday. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

As a young man just returning from military service, I anxiously looked forward to attending BYU, completing my degree, beginning my life’s work, and getting married. I had been away nearly two years and saw many of my friends getting married and doing the things I wanted to do. While in the service I had saved my money, worked an extra job on the army base several evenings and weekends, and begun my college training by taking several classes at the local college. I was really enthused about the prospects for the future and, now that I had completed my military commitment, I could move forward without further interruptions.
On returning, I purchased the car I had worked and saved for and entered BYU. Life was good. I was living at home among friends of many years, and the prospects for the future were excellent. At BYU I became involved as a cheerleader, joined several service agencies, worked part-time, and became totally immersed in the Church. My life was full to overflowing.
Then, one day several months later, my bishop tapped me on the shoulder and asked me in for an interview. What did he want, I wondered. I had just recently come home, and I was already teaching Sunday School and serving as president of the M-Man class. And then I learned: he wanted me to accept a call to serve a mission. Oh yes, the thought had crossed my mind several times, but very few young men went on missions in those days following the end of World War II because of years away from home and also because of age and a desire to settle down and complete their education.
My first thoughts were, I don’t have time now; there is so much to do, so many years of education ahead. Then I remembered several things. First, my patriarchal blessing said that I would be a missionary; and second, I had been taught by parents that the Lord would bless me as I accepted any calling that came to me. I must admit today that those were anxious moments for me, being pulled in one direction by the life I enjoyed so much and contemplating leaving all that to serve a mission. I enjoyed every day and awakened with enthusiasm for the many things that lay ahead that day and week. And yet, there I was with a patriarchal blessing—“your own personal plan of salvation,” as President Harold B. Lee used to say—and a request from a bishop to go and serve the Lord.
I thought that two and a half years would cause me to forfeit many of the goals that were important to me, all of which I thought were creditable and acceptable to the Lord. I would be behind so many of my friends, some of whom were already married. But the Spirit of the Lord continued to work upon me, and after much supplication unto the Lord I knew, by the Spirit, what I must do and began to develop an anxiousness to serve the Lord in the mission field.
I would be the first, the very first Paramore ever to serve a full-time mission and would be setting the example for others of our family to follow. It would be little repayment indeed for the blessings that had come to our families—the Paramores from England, the Nielsens from Denmark, the Maxwells and Lamonts from Scotland—because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the eternal sealings that had been done for our families and the principles of truth which had come to be ours. I would go and take these blessings to others, first, because I was asked to go, and then, because I wanted to share these blessings with others.
The weeks passed and finally an interview (in those days this was always done by a General Authority) with Elder Marion G. Romney, who was then a member of the Council of the Twelve. And finally that special day arrived when my call came to serve the Lord in the French mission. That day will always live in my mind, and, as I have reflected hundreds of times since in my life, it was one of the most important days and one of the most important calls to ever come to me to serve here upon the earth. I have thought many times, suppose I hadn’t served? There would have been some testimony I would not have received, people I would never have known and helped to love the gospel and receive its blessings.
That time in the mission field was one of the most dramatically important experiences of my life. It gave me hundreds of witnesses that the gospel is true, that it was established by the Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth, and that it brings joy, health, peace, progress, and eternal blessings to every person who fully embraces it. I would have the witness in my life forever, and it would propel me to serve the Lord all the days of my life. What a foundation for the future, for my family, to know from missionary service what the gospel can do for all who are involved.
How did I know then how the Lord would use me in the future? What were his plans for me here upon the earth? The mission was the first crossroad that I had to walk through, and since then it has been easier when faced with important decisions to ask, “What would the Lord have me do?”

Paul was looking for a book when someone pushed him into the shelf. The shelf wobbled, and several of the books almost fell. He turned around. Danny stood a few feet away, pretending to look for a book. He had his softball glove under his arm.
“Why did you do that?” Paul asked angrily.
Danny shrugged and started to walk away.
Paul caught him by the arm. “Why did you push me?”
“Don’t touch me,” Danny said, grabbing Paul’s arm.
Paul tried to pull his arm away, but Danny wouldn’t let go. They pushed and pulled until they both crashed into the shelf and fell, while books rained down on top of them.
“Paul, Danny, stop that right now,” the teacher said. “Stop fighting and pick up those books!”
“He started it,” Paul said as he stood up.
“Did not,” Danny said, still on the floor. He kicked at Paul’s leg from behind a desk where the teacher could not see.
“I don’t care how it started,” the teacher replied. “I want it stopped. Clean up that mess and go back to your desks. If I see you boys fighting again, I’ll send you both to the principal’s office.”
They picked up the books without looking at each other.
Paul sat at his desk with the book he’d picked out open in front of him, but he was too angry to read it. He looked over at Danny, who sat at his desk, picking at the stitching in his glove. Why was Danny out to get him all the time? Couldn’t the teacher see what was happening? Why did he have to get in trouble for something Danny did?
Paul felt miserable. He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer. “Heavenly Father, please bless me that Danny will get in trouble for bothering me, so he’ll leave me alone.”
He opened his eyes. He still felt miserable. Then he remembered the words to one of the songs he’d sung in Primary—“‘Jesus said love ev’ryone.’”*
Paul frowned. He didn’t want to hate Danny. But he didn’t want to love him either.
Recess came and his classmates started a softball game in the field. Paul stayed on a bench at the other end of the schoolyard. He had his softball glove in his backpack, but he didn’t want to play. Not if Danny was playing.
He looked down the field and noticed Danny wasn’t playing either. He sat at the edge of the field with his softball glove beside him.
Paul remembered the Primary song again—“‘Jesus said love ev’ryone.’”
His stomach twisted itself into a knot. He couldn’t go and talk to Danny. They’d get in another fight, and he’d be sent to the office. But as he thought of the words, “‘Jesus said love ev’ryone; treat them kindly too,’” he knew what he had to do.
Paul got up. He pulled his softball glove out of his backpack. He picked up one of the extra softballs and went over to Danny.
“Hi,” he said.
“What do you want?” Danny asked.
Paul held up the ball. “Do you want to play catch?”
Danny looked up at him for a moment. Then he picked up his glove. “OK.”
They started to toss the ball back and forth. Paul couldn’t throw very well, and said “sorry” every time he threw too short or too far to one side.
Danny didn’t complain. He just retrieved the ball and threw it back to him. He threw the ball better than Paul and didn’t miss as often, but after a while he started saying “sorry” as well whenever he threw it too far.
Paul didn’t feel miserable anymore. He started to relax and enjoy himself. He smiled. He knew that Heavenly Father had answered his prayer, just not the way he had thought he wanted.
When the bell rang and they had to stop, Paul noticed that Danny was smiling too. Paul hummed the Primary song to himself on his way back to class— “‘Jesus said love ev’ryone; treat them kindly too. When your heart is filled with love, others will love you.’”

There are so many great young people. One who comes to mind was a well-dressed, good-looking young man, sharp, well-spoken, and contemporary in every constructive way, but he was obviously deeply distressed as he rose to offer a greeting in behalf of the university student body of which he was president. His audience was made up of regents and trustees of institutions of higher education meeting in conference at his school. The group had listened to a series of speeches from educators, noting with approval the abandonment on college and university campuses of the doctrine of in loco parentis, a term that means, as you may know, “standing in the place of a parent.” The schools, the speakers said, no longer accept the responsibility of standing in the place of a parent to the students who attend them. Knowledge, intellect, reason—these are the goods with which these institutions deal; the private life of the individual is not their proper concern.
The young student president said what many of us were thinking:
“I’ve listened to your announcement of the abandonment of the principle of in loco parentis,” he said, “and feel there is something you should know. If in fact the school is no longer interested in or willing to fill that role—if it doesn’t care about us as persons, as good parents would care—then that leaves a great many of us with no parents at all anyplace.”
No further explanation was made, and none was needed.

Finally! I’m at the end of this ordeal. I can get on with life! That’s exactly how I felt early the morning of my final day in the hospital. After four days of being tested, retested, poked, prodded, and squeezed, I was more than ready to “get outta here!”
I had been admitted to the hospital after suffering a collapsed lung. It happened while playing water football with a group of guys at the Austin Texas Fourth Ward picnic.
I’d have been just fine had I not tried to save the day for my team by attempting to tackle Kevin Horrocks. There I was, by far the skinniest guy in the ward, and big Kevin was on the fast track to score with only me left to stop him. The last thing I remember is being flattened and stuffed into the mud face first. Kevin was kind enough to assist me out of the ooze, but by then the damage had been done.
I had recuperated nicely and was to the point where the rest of my recovery could be handled at home. There was only one thing left to do—remove the chest tube which had been surgically implanted between two of my ribs.
It seemed a simple enough procedure. I was, however, a little curious as to why two doctors and three nurses had gathered in my room for the occasion.
“Are your ready?” the doctor asked.
“Doc,” I told him, “this thing has been in my chest for four days. I’m ready. Pull it!”
“Arrrggghhhrrrghhhggg!” It felt like my heart was being extracted instead of the tube. For a brief flash, I felt as if my body was being turned inside out. Though the experience was brief, I thought I was going to die.
The trauma having subsided somewhat, I asked, “Doc, why didn’t you tell me what that was going to feel like?”
He chuckled. “Because if I had, there is no way you would have let me take it out.” He was right.

The first angels that I will mention are the two sister missionaries who taught me the gospel when I was a young man: Sister Vilma Molina and Sister Ivonete Rivitti. My younger sister and I were invited to a Church activity where we met these two angels. I never imagined how much that simple activity would change my life.
My parents and siblings were not interested in learning more about the Church at that time. They were not even willing to have the missionaries in our home, so I took the missionary lessons in a Church building. That small room in the chapel became my “sacred grove.”
One month after these angels introduced me to the gospel, I was baptized. I was 16 years old. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of that sacred event, but I do have a picture of my sister and me at the time we participated in that activity. I may need to clarify who is who in this picture. I am the taller one on the right.

While visiting a sacrament meeting on Okinawa, I was so impressed with the manner in which the Aaronic Priesthood prepared and passed the sacrament that, when my turn came to speak, I invited two of the deacons to join me at the pulpit. Of one I asked, “What are your goals in life?” His prompt reply: “To become like my Savior!” Of the other I asked, “What does it mean to you to know that you hold the Aaronic priesthood?” He drew himself to his full height and looked out over that pulpit, and proudly said, “It is the greatest honor in my life!”

I knew that studying the Book of Mormon during my final year of seminary would also fortify my testimony. As I truly studied, I felt Heavenly Father’s love for me. The stories inspired me to the point that all I wanted to do was read the Book of Mormon. I began to take the Book of Mormon to school and would read it during my free time. I also began to discuss what I was reading with my father.
One day after a long conversation with my father about the gospel, I challenged him to read all of the Book of Mormon. I testified that, like me, he could receive a testimony.
I am happy to say that my father read the Book of Mormon. When he did, he knew the Church is true and was eventually baptized! My family is now preparing to be sealed in the temple. I know that attending seminary and reading the scriptures helped me develop my own testimony, and I know that they bless families.

In 1955, after my freshman year of college, I spent the summer working at the newly opened Jackson Lake Lodge, located in Moran, Wyoming. My mode of transportation was a 14-year-old 1941 Hudson automobile that should have received its burial 10 years earlier. Among the car’s other identifying traits, the floorboards had rusted so badly that, if not for a piece of plywood, I could have literally dragged my feet on the highway. The positive is that unlike most 14-year-old cars in this time period, it used no oil—lots of water in the radiator, but no oil. I could never figure out where the water went and why the oil continually got thinner and thinner and clearer and clearer.
In preparation for the 185-mile (298-km) drive home at the end of the summer, I took the car to the only mechanic in Moran. After a quick analysis, the mechanic explained that the engine block was cracked and was leaking water into the oil. That explained the water and oil mystery. I wondered if I could get the water to leak into the gas tank; I would get better gasoline mileage.
Now the confession: after the miracle of arriving home, my father came out and happily greeted me. After a hug and a few pleasantries, he looked into the backseat of the car and saw three Jackson Lake Lodge towels—the kind you cannot buy. With a disappointed look, he merely said, “I expected more of you.” I hadn’t thought that what I had done was all that wrong. To me these towels were but a symbol of a full summer’s work at a luxury hotel, a rite of passage. Nevertheless, by taking them I felt I had lost the trust and confidence of my father, and I was devastated.
The following weekend I adjusted the plywood floorboard in my car, filled the radiator with water, and began the 370-mile (595-km) round trip back to Jackson Lake Lodge to return three towels. My father never asked why I was returning to the lodge, and I never explained. It just didn’t need to be said. This was an expensive and painful lesson on honesty that has stayed with me throughout my life.

As a mother of an autistic four-year-old girl, I have struggled to find answers to how I should help my daughter along the covenant path. Normally simple things like sitting still, observing reverence, or paying attention to the speakers are very hard for her to do. Without these in place, I have struggled to teach her many of the basic rules that lay a foundation to knowing and loving the Savior and the Lord’s purpose for us in this life.
I often wondered how I was to obey the Lord’s commandments to teach our children the gospel. So many of my favorite scriptures in relation to teaching the gospel sometimes became a sad reminder of what I am unable to do.
As time went by, I blamed myself and asked where I went wrong, and if Heavenly Father was unhappy with me.
Because of my daughter’s inability to observe reverence or to stay in a classroom for long, church attendance became a challenge for me. In the beginning, I thought that the days of sacrament meeting attendance were gone for me. I knew I couldn’t leave my child behind as my attendance was not complete without her; I needed her at my side.
I have kept pushing on, each week attending as much of the sacrament meeting as possible. I have prayed on my way to church that I would at least be able to partake of the sacrament before my daughter became too much of a distraction.
I’m grateful for the bishop’s encouragement and belief in my daughter’s ability to be able to settle down in a sacrament meeting. He didn’t judge me for not being able to get my daughter to be reverent all the time. I will never forget the day he assigned me to give a talk on the responsibility of a mother. I felt it was a role I had fallen very short on, but my bishop didn’t. On Mother’s Day, the bishop, knowing that I often had to leave church early, ran after me to ensure that he personally handed me my Mother’s Day card and gift. That deeply touched my heart.
I have come to feel the confirmation from the Holy Ghost that my daughter too, is a unique and loved spiritual daughter of God. I have learnt so much from her uniqueness. I have learnt to put all my trust in God, I have been humbled by her innocence and her zeal to keep learning and trying to do the simple things so many take for granted. She has taught me to be grateful for many small and simple things and to exercise faith in God and most importantly to have an eternal perspective. In more ways than one, she is such a big example of God’s eternal plan of salvation.
I am grateful for the boundless support and positive influence her father has been in her life, helping her walk along this path of the plan of salvation.
I have a testimony that Jesus Christ is the strength of parents, and that He endured all things, so that He may know how to comfort us. My prayer is that we all learn to walk the sometimes-lonely path back to our Heavenly Father while holding on to the iron rod amidst the mocking and laughter from the great and spacious building.

While teaching in Alaska, I had an Eskimo student who was completely blind. She came to class with the intention to learn how to do sculpture. I must admit that I doubted that this girl could do any sculpture work in my class. She looked like a living ghost when I first saw her. I witnessed that she had empty eye sockets where eyeballs should have been. She was born without sight. She was escorted to class by a trained dog as her guide. How could she handle the art activities in class, I wondered? To my amazement, she pulled out from her school bag, sculptures that she had created at home. There were sculptures of animals: a dog, a horse and a cat. They were individually executed with proportion and details beyond belief. I stood there dumbfounded, and asked myself this question. Am I the teacher, or was I there to be taught by this amazing student.
‘Who is handicapped here? I asked myself. Is it the student who is totally blind with no eyes, or the ones with beautiful eyes but cannot see?

Ben Carson said of himself, “I was the worst student in my whole fifth-grade class.” One day Ben took a math test with 30 problems. The student behind him corrected it and handed it back. The teacher, Mrs. Williamson, started calling each student’s name for the score. Finally, she got to Ben. Out of embarrassment, he mumbled the answer. Mrs. Williamson, thinking he had said “9,” replied that for Ben to score 9 out of 30 was a wonderful improvement. The student behind Ben then yelled out, “Not nine! … He got none … right.” Ben said he wanted to drop through the floor.
At the same time, Ben’s mother, Sonya, faced obstacles of her own. She was one of 24 children, had only a third-grade education, and could not read. She was married at age 13, was divorced, had two sons, and was raising them in the ghettos of Detroit. Nonetheless, she was fiercely self-reliant and had a firm belief that God would help her and her sons if they did their part.
One day a turning point came in her life and that of her sons. It dawned on her that successful people for whom she cleaned homes had libraries—they read. After work she went home and turned off the television that Ben and his brother were watching. She said in essence: You boys are watching too much television. From now on you can watch three programs a week. In your free time you will go to the library—read two books a week and give me a report.
The boys were shocked. Ben said he had never read a book in his entire life except when required to do so at school. They protested, they complained, they argued, but it was to no avail. Then Ben reflected, “She laid down the law. I didn’t like the rule, but her determination to see us improve changed the course of my life.”
And what a change it made. By the seventh grade he was at the top of his class. He went on to attend Yale University on a scholarship, then Johns Hopkins medical school, where at age 33 he became its chief of pediatric neurosurgery and a world-renowned surgeon. How was that possible? Largely because of a mother who, without many of the advantages of life, magnified her calling as a parent.1

At a nursing home on First South, we might interrupt, as I did a few years ago, a professional football game. There, before the TV, were seated two widows. They were warmly and beautifully dressed—and absorbed in the game. I asked, “Who’s winning?” They responded, “We don’t even know who’s playing, but at least it’s company.” I sat between those two angels and explained the game of football. I enjoyed the best contest I can remember. I may have missed a meeting, but I harvested a memory.

An example of this comes from a mission president as he describes an unforgettable couple:
“I confess,” he said, “that when Elder and Sister Leslie arrived, I wondered how well they would do. He was seriously overweight and wore a hearing aid. She was limited with two artificial knee implants. But their spirit was sweet and their enthusiasm so strong. Two wonderfully ordinary people—full of love.
“I felt inspired to send them to Jamestown, Tennessee,” he said, “where we had a tiny, struggling branch that had been without missionaries for years.
“I knew they couldn’t tract, and for the first few weeks nothing was noted on their weekly reports. Their letters said, ‘We are getting to know the people.’
“After a few weeks their letters told of nonmembers who were attending church with them—at first two, then four, then seven. They had as many as twenty-four investigators at church on one occasion. Soon the baptisms started to flow. No set of missionaries, young or old, equaled the baptisms they brought about.”
And the mission president went on to say, “I doubt that either of them could give the missionary discussions in a way that closely resembled the suggested form that we have for the regular missionaries. What they had was a great love for the people. They wove themselves into the fabric of that little community, winning them over with friendship, compassionate service, and understanding hearts.
“Today, the Jamestown Branch is thriving, with a new building and more than 100 members attending. Many contributed their faith and works, but none more significantly or generously than Harry and Frances Leslie.”

My father helped me see the consequences of trying something “just once.”
He and I are industrial mechanics. One day he suggested that I should go to work wearing a white shirt instead of my regular work clothes. I couldn’t do that, I said. The shirt would be badly stained by the grease and powder from the machinery. Oh, it’s all right, my father replied; it’s only for one day. But again, I protested that the stains and dirt would be difficult to remove. That’s when he explained that trying alcohol or tobacco “just once” would be like wearing a white shirt to work. The alcohol and tobacco may not harm my body, he said, but using them even once would harm my spirit.
Sin is like grease; it stains us, and the stain can be hard to remove. Repentance is possible, but it is never easy. It is better to never sin—even if it is for just one time, or just a little bit.
Fábio Máximo, 20,Campinas Fourth Ward, Campinas Brazil Stake