Gospel Story Finder

Jared Womack, of Franklin, Idaho, knows what team spirit is all about. After managing the Preston High School football team for five years, he received his letter in the sport. Jared also plays basketball and is a great example of good sportsmanship; he is always cheering for his teammates on the basketball team and finding ways to serve those around him.
“That’s just Jared,” says one classmate.
Although Jared has Down’s Syndrome, he is able to participate in school activities and hold an after-school job at a local grocery store. Jared is active in his priests quorum and blesses the sacrament regularly.

In my pre-wheelchair stage of life, I loved seeing a clipboard come around in Relief Society. I often signed up to give service. It was a way to show my willingness “to bear one another’s burdens” (Mosiah 18:8).
It wasn’t the clipboard’s fault I couldn’t sign up anymore. In fact, I couldn’t sign my name at all. Because of my disability, I couldn’t even hold the clipboard. No one expected me to sign it. But, oh, how I wanted to! Service encircles us with God’s love and connects us to others. I desperately needed that feeling of connection myself.
Because I needed people to help care for me, my service didn’t seem worth the effort it would require of others to help me. That clipboard became a reminder of what I could no longer do—at least until my ministering sister saw my longing.
She asked me what I would like to do to serve, not just what I needed done for me. Then she signed my name on the clipboard. She came to my home and helped me make the meals I’d volunteered to prepare for others. She never suggested that I was in need of so much help myself that I shouldn’t be trying to help others. She was happy to spend time with me.
In the end, I realized my efforts were worth it. With my ministering sister’s help, I was able to do something. Whether or not that something meant anything to anyone else, it made a difference to me. Though it didn’t directly benefit my family or heal my body, it helped heal my heart.
EmRee Pugmire
Utah, USA

This gathering of Latter-day Saints at BYU brings a shared commitment to Karl G. Maeser’s feeling that education should shape both the head and the heart.28 Two years ago I taught a young woman in an introductory class in the mechanical engineering program. She was eager to learn and to take advantage of all that BYU has to offer. Since that course she has dropped by my office from time to time to keep me updated on her classes, activities, and plans for the future. During her time as an undergraduate student, she involved herself in the research project of a faculty colleague in another department. Not long ago this young woman approached her bishop about the possibility of receiving her temple endowment and began to prepare herself. When the time came for her to enter the temple, neither her father nor her mother was able to join her. Among those few whom she invited to share with her that first temple experience were her BYU research faculty advisor and his wife. Where else but at BYU could such associations be cultivated and where else could a student turn to a faithful faculty member to share in such a sacred experience? I would call that inspiring learning.

At the university where I used to study, there was a young man who persecuted me because I am a member of the Church. He always wanted to contend, so I just tried to avoid him. Then one day I bore my testimony to him, and he quit persecuting me. We should always stay firm and remember how our testimonies were gained. We should react with self-control so the Holy Spirit may always be with us and strengthen us, no matter what others may say or think. We should pray for those people so that someday they may receive Jesus Christ.
Brezka E., age 21, Valparaíso, Chile

The pressure. That’s something else these boys are forced to deal with, and at a very young age they’re learning some amazing things. Steven was ecstatic about landing the lead role in a professional production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, until he heard his understudy sing. His voice was like silver. “Oh Mom!” Steven said, with tears in his eyes, “He’s so much better than I am! He should have my part.” It was then explained to Steven that the boy who was singing had grown too big for the lead, and Steven’s part was secure.

Steven decided right then and there that he would be very nice to his understudy and treat him without jealousy or malice. Steven knew how that felt, because he’d been treated poorly as an understudy before. This decision turned out to be better than Steven ever expected. His understudy in Amahl was Andrew, and now they’re the closest of friends.

Early in our married life when Sister Nelson and I lived in Minneapolis, we decided to enjoy a free afternoon with our two-year-old daughter. We went to one of Minnesota’s many beautiful lakes and rented a small boat. After rowing far from shore, we stopped to relax and enjoy the tranquil scene. Suddenly, our little toddler lifted one leg out of the boat and started to go overboard, exclaiming, “Time to get out, Daddy!”
Quickly we caught her and explained: “No, dear, it’s not time to get out; we must stay in the boat until it brings us safely back to land.” Only with considerable persuasion did we succeed in convincing her that leaving the boat early would have led to disaster.

What’s wrong?
I heard Miguel and Julia talking about me.
They said I was annoying. And they don’t want to be my friend anymore.
I’m really sorry.
You know, they’re just missing out! I always have fun with you.
Seriously! You even make chores fun somehow. You have the best jokes! And the best ideas. And you’re nice to everyone.
OK, OK. You don’t have to say all that.
Hey, I’m just telling the truth.
Thanks, Paolo. You always know what to say. I feel a lot better.
Illustrations by Katie McDee

There are many ways in which we can misuse our opportunities. Some time ago I read a tender story written by Louise Dickinson Rich which vividly illustrates this truth. She wrote:
“My grandmother had an enemy named Mrs. Wilcox. Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox moved, as brides, into next-door houses on … Main Street of the tiny town in which they were to live out their lives. I don’t know what started the war [between them]—and I don’t think that by the time I came along, over 30 years later, they themselves remembered what started it. …
“… This was no polite sparring match. This was … total war. Nothing in town escaped repercussion. The 300-year-old church, which had lived through the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War, almost went down when Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox fought the Battle of the Ladies’ Aid. Grandma won that engagement, but it was a hollow victory. Mrs. Wilcox, since she couldn’t be president, resigned … in a huff. … What’s the fun of running a thing if you can’t force your … enemy to ‘eat crow’?
“Mrs. Wilcox won the Battle of the Public Library, getting her niece, Gertrude, appointed librarian instead of my Aunt Phyllis. The day Gertrude took over was the day Grandma stopped reading library books. [They became] ‘filthy germy things’ … overnight.
“The Battle of the High School was a draw. The principal got a better job and left before Mrs. Wilcox succeeded in having him ousted, or Grandma in having him given life tenure of office.
“… When, as children, we visited my grandmother, part of the fun was making faces at Mrs. Wilcox’s … grandchildren. … One banner day, we put a snake into the Wilcox rain barrel. My grandmother made token protests, but we sensed tacit sympathy. …
“Don’t think for a minute that this was a one-sided campaign. Mrs. Wilcox had grandchildren, too. … Grandma didn’t get off scot free. … Never a windy washday went by [that the clothesline didn’t mysteriously break, with the clothes falling in the dirt].
“I don’t know how Grandma could have borne her troubles so long if it hadn’t been for the household page of her daily Boston newspaper. This household page was a wonderful institution. Besides the usual cooking hints and cleaning advice, it had a department composed of letters from readers to each other. The idea was that if you had a problem—or even only some steam to blow off—you wrote a letter to the paper, signing some fancy name like Arbutus. That was Grandma’s pen name. Then some of the other ladies who had the same problem wrote back and told you what they had done about it, signing themselves One Who Knows or Xanthippe or whatever. Very often, the problem disposed of, you kept on for years writing to each other through the columns of the paper, telling each other about your children and your canning and your new dining room suite. That’s what happened to Grandma. She and a woman called Sea Gull corresponded for a quarter of a century. Sea Gull was Grandma’s true … friend.
“When I was about 16, Mrs. Wilcox died. In a small town, no matter how much you have hated your next-door neighbor, it is only common decency to run over and see what practical service you can do the bereaved.
“Grandma, neat in a percale apron to show that she meant what she said about being put to work, crossed the two lawns to the Wilcox house, where the Wilcox daughters set her to cleaning the already immaculate front parlor for the funeral. And there on the parlor table in the place of honor was a huge scrapbook, and in the scrapbook, pasted neatly in parallel columns were [Grandma’s] letters to Sea Gull over the years and Sea Gull’s letters to her. [Though neither woman had known it,] Grandma’s worst enemy had been her best friend.
“That was the only time I remembered seeing my grandmother cry. I didn’t know then exactly what she was crying about, but I do now. She was crying for all the wasted years that could never be salvaged.”

Having to defend their choices to live gospel standards is a regular part of school life for the teens in the Concord New Hampshire Stake. Many are just one of a few members in their schools. Some of the standards outlined in For the Strength of Youth pamphlet are easy to defend, while others end up being hard to talk about with friends.

The girls overwhelmingly found modesty to be one standard that they had little trouble defending. Jessica Payne, 17, of the Laconia Ward, says, “Modesty is easy. I do sports, but I’m the goalie, and I wouldn’t wear tank tops anyway. It has never been a subject I have to talk about with my friends. They like to wear long pants or long shorts. We’re used to dressing that way.”
“Modesty and no drinking are easy to explain, and people understand. But language is tough,” said Arica Chatterley, 16, of the Manchester Ward.
But for Sarah Ayer, 16, of the Laconia Ward, the subject of drinking has become a sticking point with some classmates. “Someone in my chemistry class asked me what would happen if I drank.
“They asked, ‘Would your parents disown you?’
“‘No, they wouldn’t do that,’ I answered.
“‘Then why don’t you just try?’
“‘First of all, it’s bad for you. God gave us the Word of Wisdom, so we can know what is good and bad.’
“‘Would you go to hell if you were swearing and drinking?’”
Sarah stopped for moment in her story and shook her head. “It’s weird how extreme some people get. I had to explain about repentance.”
Then Sarah said something that truly answered her classmates’ questions about standards. “Living them daily makes it easy to continue to live them.”

My wife and I are retired senior citizens from Portsmouth, England. We’ve been married for 48 years and are Anglican Christians. Before a memorable trip to Canada, we had the impression that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were a bit pushy, overly religious, and determined to convert everyone not of their faith. However, a snowstorm in Canada began changing our impressions.
We were in a group of mainly older British tourists traveling through Banff, Canada; Yellowstone National Park; and the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately, the weather was not very kind to our group. After staying in Lethbridge, Canada, we awoke to find it had snowed in the night. Later that morning as we traveled toward the U.S. border, the rain turned to snow, and at the border we discovered the road was closed on the American side. There was nothing we could do but turn back. Five miles (8 km) down the road we encountered a jackknifed truck and trailer blocking the highway. We were unable to go forward and unable to go backward.
Stranded in our bus, we settled down to guessing games, a sing-along, and general fun, confident that help would arrive and that we would be safe in the bus until then. More than five hours later, help finally did arrive.
A Royal Canadian Police Mountie on a snowmobile found us, and a fire truck managed to carve a track in the snow, allowing the bus to turn around. Weary and hungry, we made our way to the nearest community and found ourselves pulling up to the church that several of the firefighters attended—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Coutts, Alberta, Canada.
The Anglican church we attend is 150 years old, with a small communal hall and limited facilities, so the thought of a church congregation taking in 40 strangers stranded in the snow didn’t seem feasible. But within an hour of our arrival, the women and young people of the ward had served up a full meal of jacket potatoes and chili.
We were particularly impressed when we discovered that our rescuers had pressing problems of their own. A young mum had had the power cut off to her home, but she left her younger children with a kind friend and came with her older children to help us. A counselor to the bishop gave us a tour of the building and took time to ensure that we were cared for before going to work that evening.
Before we went to bed, the youth of the Coutts Ward treated us to an impromptu performance of a play they had been rehearsing. And finally the central heating was turned up, and we were made comfortable for the night.
The next morning the roads had improved sufficiently for us to continue our journey. After the ward members prepared breakfast, we set out again on our enjoyable trip. But we remained overwhelmed by the hospitality shown by the Latter-day Saints. They willingly opened up their church and provided food, bedding, and, above all, friendship to stranded strangers.
Although we had believed Latter-day Saints to be somewhat pushy, we saw instead kind, caring people who demonstrate their beliefs in their day-to-day lives. Back in England, we keep our holiday fresh in our minds, and we thank God for our Latter-day Saint friends and Samaritans.

President Romney tells an interesting experience he had with regard to following the living prophet:
“One day when President Grant was living, I sat in my office across the street following a general conference. A man came over to see me, an elderly man. He was very upset about what had been said in this conference by some of the Brethren, including myself. I could tell from his speech that he came from a foreign land. After I had quieted him enough so he would listen, I said, ‘Why did you come to America?’
“‘I came here because a prophet of God told me to come.’
“‘Who was the prophet?’ I continued.
“‘Wilford Woodruff.’
“‘Do you believe Wilford Woodruff was a prophet of God?’
“‘Yes,’ said he.
“‘Do you believe that his successor, President Lorenzo Snow, was a prophet of God?’
“‘Yes, I do.’
“‘Do you believe that President Joseph F. Smith was a prophet of God?’
“‘Yes, sir.’
“Then came the ‘sixty-four dollar question.’ ‘Do you believe that Heber J. Grant is a prophet of God?’
“His answer: ‘I think he ought to keep his mouth shut about old age assistance.’” (Conference Report, April 6, 1953, p. 125.)

One day as I was riding home on a bus from a sporting event, someone on the bus started a game of truth or dare. Bored, some of the other kids and I joined in. When it came to my turn, I was dared to do something that I knew wasn’t right. This could’ve been a hard decision for me to make, but the words of my Young Women leader came to my head, and the choice was easy. I quickly declined. I had already made up my mind on what I would do in that situation.

One such experience occurred during the open house of the renovated Idaho Falls Temple. One evening, I had volunteered to clean the temple following a day of temple tours. Before starting the cleaning shift, the volunteers met in the downstairs chapel for a devotional. The lead custodian who gave the message read from King Benjamin's address, "When you are in the service of your fellow beings, you are only in the service of your God."[16] She offered that in most of our service to God, there is always a middleman. She added, "Tonight there is no middleman; tonight you have the privilege of serving the Lord personally by cleaning His house." This thought really hit me! As I vacuumed the temple that night, I felt it such a privilege to be in His house vacuuming His floors. Here He was, the Savior of all mankind, the one perfect being to walk the earth, the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all things therein. And here I was, a very imperfect being, privileged to be in His house cleaning His floors. Certainly, the Lord has even greater things in store for us if we will keep our covenants and live up to our privileges.

Baptism Then and Now
Maggie, age 11, and Lily, age 9, were baptized in a font near the place where the first members of the Church were baptized.
Both girls were very excited to be baptized. When it was Lily’s turn to be baptized, she had an interview with her bishop. “He asked me if I had a testimony of the prophet and if I paid my tithing,” Lily said.
The girls both have good memories of their baptismal days. “When I came out of the water, I had a feeling that I could do anything,” Maggie said.
Both girls got journals so they could record their feelings about their special days.

First let me share with you what I experienced overseas as I listened to a modest, gentle, manly father wearing the uniform of his country, leading and doing a job of importance while he gave great service to the Kingdom and his fellowmen. He told me of his work among many other officers in the prosecution arm of the United States Army—men who were not like him, who were not living the kind of life he was living. They had not been very much interested in the fact that he was a Mormon leader, or that he had a strong sense of loyalty to his wife and children and to God, or that he had control of his tongue and a way of speaking different from their own. None of that impressed them very much. He and his wife found themselves leaving required social events early quite frequently because the activities of the evening were not wholesome. As such an evening would progress, other guests occasionally became ugly as they imbibed additional spirits, lost their normal restraints, and sometimes acted less like men and women than like animals. He was not one to judge lightly or readily, and he was not expressing harsh judgments against them; he was simply presenting a setting for an incident that I shall not forget.

He said that they went to a Christmas party, more happily this time because the host family was a fine family who had little children of the same general age as their own. The children came in their pajamas by invitation and, joining the host family children, played together in another room while the adults ate their dinner. Periodically the children came out and interrupted proceedings with childish playing or questioning until finally the Mormon father, his sense of humor tried a little bit, said, “Now, look—you kids go on in the other room and stay there and don’t come out again or else.”

They sat at dinner in peace for a time; then the bedroom door opened and a little line of children filed out, the two-year-old in the vanguard. (They were sure daddy would not do too much violence to him.) The older brother had him by the shoulders and was egging him on. As the father, disturbed and feeling that he had to do something because he had said he would, began to push back his chair, the two-year-old said, “Daddy, you and mama forgot family prayer.”

Instead of expressing embarrassment, the mother said, “Honey, we did forget.” She pushed her chair back, he rose from his, and they excused themselves and quietly took their children and the other children into the bedroom where they performed this simple act of family unity and faith. Then they quietly came back to the table, seated themselves, and went on with the dinner.

“It was a different night,” he said to me, “and it’s been a different office. That party didn’t end like all the rest. And at the office things are different now.”

To be and not to seem brings great blessings.

Last year, when I was five years old, I wanted to practice being a missionary. I decided to give the family home evening lesson. I prepared the lesson by myself. I cut out temple pictures from old magazines so I could talk about temples. When I showed a picture of a temple, I asked my family to guess which temple it was. Then I read the name that was written on the back of it. I wore my church clothes. On my white shirt, I had attached a little missionary tag that my grandparents had given me. It said “Future Missionary.”
This experience helped me to be more like Jesus Christ because He was a missionary too. He taught and served many people. I want to be a missionary like Jesus Christ.

Winter is a cold time of year in the Russia Moscow Mission. To a missionary this sometimes seems true of not only the weather but also the people. They become introverted. Everybody seems to be rushing home after work. People are ill, the roads are terribly slick, and the cold ruthlessly bites every exposed piece of skin. Smiles are rare.
My companion and I found ourselves in these conditions during the winter of 2005. We wanted to cheer people up by sharing our message of faith, hope, and love, but nobody wanted to listen. And to be honest, my mood wasn’t all that great. I couldn’t help but feel discouraged. Day after day we walked the cold streets in search of people to teach, freezing our feet to the bone. In spite of the discouraging circumstances, we didn’t want to give up. Christmas was getting close, and we wanted to help people feel the Christmas spirit. But how?
One evening as we were on the train returning home, a small group of musicians walked into the railcar. They played wonderfully, but to my surprise, their performance didn’t have an effect on anybody. Maybe a person or two gave them some pocket change, but the rest just stared out the frosty windows. I felt bad for the performers and gave them a few coins.
Soon we arrived at the station near our apartment and ran home. As soon as I closed the apartment door, the phone rang. I picked it up and recognized the voice of our district leader. That day we were supposed to have thought of ideas for celebrating the Christmas season as missionaries. I had totally forgotten, but I didn’t want him to know that. Straining for an idea, I remembered the group of musicians and suggested that our district could sing Christmas hymns on the trains. I could accompany them on the violin. To my surprise and perhaps dismay, our district leader loved the idea. We decided on a day. “What was I thinking!” I said to myself, remembering that three of the missionaries in our district were tone-deaf.
The day came and the missionaries met on the platform. The sun had set long ago, and it was terribly cold. My feet were already numb. We rehearsed for about five minutes until the train crept slowly up to the platform. We gladly entered its open doors, getting out of the cold wind and snow. I took my violin out of its case and silently prayed that God would touch the hearts of the listeners.
As we boarded the train, most of the people didn’t pay any attention to us. My fingers hadn’t warmed up yet, so when I started to play, the tone of the violin sounded very simple but very piercing. Suddenly the mood in the railcar changed. It was almost as if something could be felt in the air. The passengers seemed to hold their breath. The other missionaries joined with me, singing the words to “Silent Night”:
Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and Child.
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace;
Sleep in heavenly peace.1
While I played and the other missionaries sang, nobody in the railcar spoke a single word. When we finished the hymn, I looked around at people’s faces. Everybody was looking attentively at us. Tears were flowing down the cheeks of several women. It was silent for a minute as nobody wanted to interrupt the moment. Finally a man standing in the back of the railcar exclaimed, “They are Saints, genuine Saints!” Everyone began to applaud.
As we walked down the aisle, many people wanted to give us money. When we didn’t accept it, they became all the more surprised. I heard somebody saying under his breath, “This just doesn’t happen.” One man even tried to give us a thousand rubles and was shocked when we refused the money. Instead, we offered him a pass-along card, which he gladly took. Soon other passengers began asking for pass-along cards. They also asked about the Church and us. It seemed like wherever we looked, our eyes were met with smiling faces and warm greetings. At the end of the railcar, we wished the passengers a merry Christmas and waved good-bye to our new friends.
On the other side of the door, we looked at each other in disbelief. “What just happened?” we asked. Then, with twice as much energy, we entered the next door. At first the passengers didn’t pay any attention to us, but after we performed the hymn, they had the same miraculous reaction. For the rest of the evening, we made our way through the railcars, experiencing the same thing in each one. Never before had I seen such acceptance and love.
Returning home that night, I realized that I had experienced a miracle wrought by music, a message about the Savior, and the spirit of Christmas. Even in the coldest times of our lives, we can be comforted by the Lord’s presence. How blessed I was to have seen how drastically people can change under the influence of the Spirit. I will always remember that evening and treasure it in my heart. May the Spirit forever work such miracles!

In Vava'u, Elder Jensen and Elder Welker met Sione Pota, a preacher in the Free Church of Tonga. At the time there were only two Protestant churches in Vava'u, the Free Church of Tonga (Siasi Tonga Tau'at?ina) and the Wesleyan Church (Siasi U?siliana). Both churches strongly opposed the work of the two LDS missionaries. It was during this time that Sione Pota developed a close friendship with the two LDS missionaries. It is not clear from the journals how a preacher of a Protestant church became close friends with the LDS elders. Somehow, Sione Pota reached across both cultural and religious divide and embraced the missionaries. In other words, Sione Pota opened a path, t? e fihi, and laid the foundation for the Lord's work in the Vava'u islands.

After serving in Vava'u for several months, Elder Jensen remained while Elder Albert Jones (from Provo, Utah) replaced Elder Welker. Shortly after Elder Jones arrived in Vava'u, the missionaries needed to find a new home. In June 1896, they began looking for a new home in Vava'u. Sione Pota, heard about the missionaries situation and he offered his home to Elder Jensen and Elder Jones. Elder Jensen recorded the event in his journal:

July 2, 1896: "I arose about 7 o'clock washed and combed then started to read my bible when a native friend [Sione Pota] came in, he having heard that we would have to move from the place where we were then living, offered us his house, [he] said he did not care for any pay, but desired that we should come and live in his house. We decided the best way to keep a friend was to treat him well...The afternoon we went to his [Sione Pota's] place and made arrangement with him for his house for six months" (Jensen, Journal #2, p. 124).

It was a great risk for preacher to invite the missionaries to live in his home. I am sure that many of the people in Vava'u were wondering why a preacher would invite LDS missionaries to live in his home.

On July 9, 1896, Elder Jensen and Elder Jones officially moved into Sione Pota's home. It was at this home that many of the people of Vava'u heard about the principles of the gospel. The missionaries reported that people came to their home and asked questions about the Gospel. It was also at this home that the missionaries ran a school (taught English) and held their Sunday services. Every Sunday, the elders called the meeting by pounding a lali, a large Tongan wood drum. In Tonga, during this period, pounding a lali was the common method for letting people know that Church was about to begin. Tongans, both young and old, flocked to Sione Pota's home to hear the message of the Restored Gospel from the missionaries. It was not always easy to get people to attend their Sunday services. Young people were more interested while older folks were not so receptive. Perhaps it was difficult because the missionaries did not have a chapel to hold their meetings. Sometimes the Sunday service had about 12 people and other times they had only four people in attendance. Sunday services consisted of each elder speaking for about 30 minutes on the principles of the Gospel, and then performing the sacrament ordinance.

A true story from the USA.
Kaci smiled as she took her seat in Primary. Today had been the children’s sacrament meeting presentation. It had been scary to say her part, but she did it!
Sister Dench, the Primary president, stood up front. “Good job in sacrament meeting today!” she said. “I know you each worked hard to learn your parts.”
“Except for Kaci,” one of the older boys said. “No one could tell what she said.”
Sister Dench frowned at the boy, then turned to smile at Kaci. “You did a wonderful job.”
Kaci tried not to cry. She’d done her best to learn her part. But sometimes her words didn’t come out right.
On the way home, Kaci couldn’t stop the tears any longer.
“What’s wrong?” Mommy asked.
“One of the boys made fun of me. He said I didn’t say my part right.” She started crying harder.
“You did a good job. Daddy and I are proud of you,” Mommy said. “Do you know who else is proud of you?”
Kaci shook her head.
“Heavenly Father,” Mommy said. “He knows you did your best.”
Kaci felt a lot better. She wanted to use her words to help other people feel happy too.
At school, Kaci told her teacher that she was doing a good job teaching.
At home, Daddy was fixing a shelf. Kaci told him he was doing a good job making their house nice.
Outside, Kaci and her brother played ball together. Kaci told him that he was doing a good job throwing.
Telling people they were doing a good job made Kaci feel good inside. When she saw others smile, she knew that her simple words made a big difference!
Watch a video of this story at friend.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Illustrations by Greg Paprocki

With this unique capability and emphasis on the worth of souls in the sight of God also comes the opportunity for confusion. We live in a materialistic world. Some become confused and seek identity through riches or the accolades of men. The Savior makes it very clear in his teachings that it is not possible to realize the identity of which I speak through such means. In Luke 18:18–25 we read:
“And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
“And Jesus said unto him, …
“Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
“And he said, all these have I kept from my youth up.
“Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
“And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.
“And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God.
“For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
It was not that the man was rich but that he coveted his riches and would not share his wealth with the poor.
Another example is also recorded in Luke:
“And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
“And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
“And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
“And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
“But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16–21.)
Contrast these with the story of a sixteen-year-old priest who answered the telephone one day to hear the voice of a popular disc jockey on a local radio station. He was asked a question and when he answered it correctly was informed he had won an expensive sports car. It seemed like a dream come true for a teenage boy. A loving bishop was concerned about what such a car might do to the boy, thinking it might draw him away from all we hold dear. He asked him about his feelings. The bishop could hardly believe his ears when the young man indicated he was not going to take the car but would accept a cash award instead. He said, “Now my mission is paid for.” What an outstanding example of proper balance in an attitude toward worldly wealth or recognition and Christlike values.