Gospel Story Finder

When Hurricane Irma came through my town in Georgia, it did some damage. We were out of school for two days, and we had no power. Then we started hearing about the destruction in Florida. So many homes were flooded and damaged by winds. Families lost many of their belongings. My family started making plans to go down with the Mormon Helping Hands teams for the weekend relief efforts. I was sad that I wasn’t old enough to go help.
Then a teacher at my elementary school heard that my siblings were going down to help. She offered to send school supplies. I was so excited when I heard about this because now I had a way to serve. I started collecting backpacks. With the help of my Primary friends, we collected and put together 63 backpacks. We filled them with school supplies to give to children impacted by the hurricane. I learned that you are never too young to serve. If you have a desire to help others, Heavenly Father will provide a way.

“Hey, What’s Wrong With This One?” If there isn’t a movie about the escapades of these three boys who want to find a mother, there should be. The boys are very real, and the scrapes they get into will have you guffawing.Maia Wojciechowska8–12 years

When I was young I was overly dependent on my older sister. For example, I was a fussy eater, and when we went to visit our grandparents I was constantly faced with being offered food I didn’t like. To minimize my embarrassment, when the plate was passed to me, I would turn to my sister and ask, “Collene, do I like this?”
If it was familiar and she knew I didn’t like it, she would say, “No, he doesn’t like that.”
I could then say to Grandma, “She’s right. I don’t like it.”
If it was something we hadn’t eaten before, she would say, “Just a minute,” and taste it, and then tell me if I liked it or not. If she said I didn’t like it, no amount of coaxing could get me to eat it.
I know it is past time for me to rely on my own taste buds and stop denying myself healthy food just because my sister told me I didn’t like it.

They left for the Salt Lake Valley in May 1848 with President Brigham Young’s company. In the Valley, they lived in a log room their uncle built for them, until their father’s return.

A family from Africa now living in the United States said, “From the first day, Church members were friendly and welcoming. Everyone made us feel at home. No one looked down on us.” The father said, “The Holy Bible teaches gospel fruits come from gospel roots.” “And the missionaries,” the father and mother said, “we want our son and daughter to grow up like those missionaries.” Brothers and sisters, may we each warmly welcome all to His Inn.

When I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 35, one of the many things I quickly learned was that I needed to be willing to serve others. Whether it was to help someone move, offer lawn care, do repairs, or provide transportation, I tried as much as possible to respond to requests for service from my quorum or from individuals.
I felt that I was serving in a good way. In retrospect, however, I realize that I was serving out of a sense of duty and not out of a sense of love for those who needed help. I didn’t really view my service as trying to become the Lord’s hands.1
After I moved to central Missouri, USA, I had the opportunity to serve an older couple. Their small, old country home needed a lot of repairs, including its leaky roof. The couple, however, suffered from serious health challenges that prevented them from doing physical labor.
On a hot day in July, my good friend Dallas Martin and I were up on the roof putting down new shingles. We were uncomfortable and dripping with sweat. Suddenly, Dallas stopped nailing, stood up, and looked at me.
“Do you realize how blessed we are to be the ones capable of being up here doing this work and not the ones inside who can’t?” he asked.
His question hit me like a bolt of lightning. It was literally a life-changing moment. My whole perspective on service took on new meaning. I realized how blessed I was to be able to do all the things that I could do.
At that moment, I felt that Dallas and I were not simply helping because of a sense of duty but were helping with a sense of gratitude. The Lord had blessed us with the ability to truly be His hands. With that realization, it was easy for me to feel love for those we were helping.
Since that day, whenever I have helped with a service project, or whenever someone has needed assistance that I was capable of providing, I have tried to keep that perspective in mind. I have not always been successful, but that perspective has been a huge blessing in my life. It has truly helped me keep a positive attitude about service.
When I have problems or challenges, I try to think of people who face more serious trials than I do. Then I express my thanks to the Lord for all the blessings He has given me.

When I was born, I was given the name of Ronald A. Rasband. My last name honors my father’s ancestral line. The middle initial A was given to me to remind me to honor my mother’s Danish Anderson ancestry.
My great-great-grandfather Jens Anderson was from Denmark. And in 1861 the Lord led two Mormon missionaries to the Jens and Ane Cathrine Anderson home, where the missionaries introduced them and their 16-year-old son, Andrew, to the restored gospel. Thus began a legacy of faith of which my family and I are the beneficiaries. The Andersons read the Book of Mormon and were baptized a short time later. The following year, the Anderson family heeded the call of a prophet to cross the Atlantic to join the Saints in North America.
Sadly, Jens died on the ocean voyage, but his wife and son continued to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving on September 3, 1862. Despite their hardships and their heartaches, their faith never wavered, and neither has the faith of many of their descendants.
In my office hangs a painting that captures so beautifully a symbolic reminder of that first meeting between my ancestors and those dedicated early missionaries. I am determined not to forget my heritage, and because of my name I will forever remember their legacy of faithfulness and sacrifice.

The words in one line of the chorus originally read, “Teach me all that I must know.” After the song was written, President Spencer W. Kimball attended a conference where a Primary children’s chorus sang the song. He later asked if Sister Randall would agree to change “Teach me all that I must know” to “Teach me all that I must do,” and so the line reads today.
“To know isn’t enough,” President Kimball said. “The devils know and tremble; the devils know everything. We have to do something” (“New Verse Is Written for Popular Song,” Church News, April 1, 1978, 16).

The original dedication of the Suva Fiji Temple on June 18, 2000, was also remarkable. As the temple neared completion, members of parliament were taken hostage by a group of rebels. Downtown Suva, Fiji, was looted and burned. The military declared martial law.
As the Area President, I went with the four stake presidents in Fiji and met the military leaders at the Queen Elizabeth barracks. After we explained the proposed dedication, they were supportive but concerned about the safety of President Gordon B. Hinckley. They recommended a small dedication with no events outside the temple, like the cornerstone ceremony. They emphasized that anyone outside the temple could be a potential target for violence.
President Hinckley approved one small dedicatory session with just the new temple presidency and a few local leaders; no others were invited because of the danger. However, he emphatically stated, “If we do dedicate the temple, we will have the cornerstone ceremony because Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone, and this is His Church.”
When we actually went outside for the cornerstone ceremony, there were no nonmembers, children, media, or others present. But a faithful prophet demonstrated his courageous and unwavering commitment to the Savior.
Later President Hinckley, speaking of the Savior, said: “There is none to equal Him. There never has been. There never will be. Thanks be to God for the gift of His Beloved Son, who gave His life that we might live and who is the chief, immovable cornerstone of our faith and His Church.”

I had an appointment scheduled a few days later with a neurologist, but that January morning, my older sister, Kylie, felt prompted that my family should take me to the emergency room at a nearby hospital. Doctors quickly ordered a computed tomography (CT) scan and the first of several spinal taps to reduce cerebrospinal fluid pressure. The next day, I had two MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging). Then an ophthalmologist examined me.

“How many fingers can you see?” he asked, holding up several fingers right in from of my face. I couldn’t see anything.

After his examination, he concluded that I had symptoms of both pseudotumor cerebri and optic neuritis. Neither condition on its own seemed fully responsible. He explained that with the severity of my vision loss, recovery could take over a year and that my vision might not fully return. He recommended a high dose of intravenous steroids and other medication.

After he left, I started crying. My mother reassured me, “If you can’t hold on to your faith right now, you can rely on ours.”

A friend recently asked me for a Book of Mormon. When it came time for me to give it to him, I was afraid that it wasn’t a good time for it. As I prepared to give the Book of Mormon to him, a scripture kept coming to my mind: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ” (Rom 1:16). I know that “I’m Not Ashamed” (Jan. 1999) is what gave me the strength to follow through. If it wasn’t for this article, I may not have had the courage to introduce the Book of Mormon to him.
Sarah DaviesDouglasville, Georgia

1890: President Woodruff presents the Manifesto in the October general conference (see Official Declaration 1).

Recently a group of bright, faithful young Latter-day Saints wrote down some of the most pressing questions on their minds. One sister asked, “Why doesn’t the Church defend itself more actively when accusations are made against it?”
To my inquiring sister and all who seek to know how we should respond to our accusers, I reply, we love them. Whatever their race, creed, religion, or political persuasion, if we follow Christ and show forth His courage, we must love them. We do not feel we are better than they are. Rather, we desire with our love to show them a better way—the way of Jesus Christ. His way leads to the gate of baptism, the strait and narrow path of righteous living, and the temple of God. He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Only through Him can we and all our brothers and sisters inherit the greatest gift we can receive—eternal life and eternal happiness. To help them, to be an example for them, is not for the weak. It is for the strong. It is for you and me, Latter-day Saints who pay the price of discipleship by answering our accusers with Christian courage.

There is a poem called “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. This is a long, skinny poem—the lines are short. It goes down the page in a thin way with a very prosy rhythm. The way a poem looks on the page is important. That is part of the structure of the thing.
The poem is about catching a fish in a pond, a huge fish, the monarch of that pond. It had six leaders broken off in its lower lip. It had outwitted any number of fishermen. I am a miserable fisherman. All fish are smarter than I am. I can’t outwit any fish; I’ve given it up.
But, Elizabeth Bishop caught this very wily fish and held it out of the water and looked at it. She said of the fish—this is in the course of a much longer description, but this is the passage I focused on:
I looked into its eyes
That were far larger than mine
But shallower and yellowed,
The irises backed and packed
With tarnished tinfoil
Seen through lenses of
Old, scratched isinglass.
Now just as a joy of using your eyes, take that passage into your imagination. I have tried to teach students to look. I used to wish there were courses called Elementary Looking, and Intermediate Looking, and Advanced Looking. Every good poet educates your eyes because you don’t see with your eyes; you see with your brain. The eyes are just windows letting in impulses. And then, where there is an organization behind it that receives this thing, you see with it. You see with your intelligence, and I say it takes a tremendously intelligent person to see as well as Elizabeth Bishop sees.
I have had students who could look at a fish and get the beginning of that description. They could get as good as, “I looked into its eyes.” Anyone can say that. But then a good student could say, “that were far larger than mine, but shallower and yellowed.” A good student could go that far. But it is a rare person indeed who has enough eyes to write the next few lines: “The irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil.” See all of those rods and cones; that is just the texture. The analogy is exact and the coloration is exact—the tarnished tinfoil. And then because the air is cloudy in the fish’s eye, “seen through lenses of old, scratched isinglass.”
Now there is a description! She falls in love with the looking. And the poem ends with, “And I let the fish go.” There is a sudden release of joy. That is an affirmation. You are not being preached to. It is like hearing the choir sing, “And I let the fish go.” It is a praise—it praises the world. What is the world for but to be lived in and responded to? What is so important about looking at a fish’s eye? I suggest, as a first answer, that anything significantly looked at is significant.
But that is only a beginning, that is only an evasion, because what does significant mean? Putting it another way, a thing is significant that teaches us something more about ourselves. Elizabeth Bishop teaches me with both a sense of delight and a sense of shame. She teaches me how well it is possible to see the world, and then she shames me that I haven’t looked better, that I haven’t entered my own act of joy sufficiently. She educates me. She makes me want to identify more closely. She enriches me in this way. And I am glad for her, and there is a shudder of pleasure when she says, “And I let the fish go.” I want to let all fish go in this way—it is that affirmation.

Let me tell you an experience of the girl who later became my wife. At one time she was a member of a stake Sunday School board. As such, it was her responsibility to instruct teachers in a union meeting class. The lesson for a particular session was the Prophet’s vision of the Father and the Son. She was aware that in the class there would be a graduate from the University of Idaho who was not a Latter-day Saint and who did not believe the gospel. It occurred to her that the account of the Father and the Son’s coming to the Prophet Joseph Smith would not be accepted by this educated, refined, and lovely woman. Thinking about it, she became greatly disturbed. She was not sure that she herself knew it was true. She was so distraught that she sought out her mother. Weeping she said, “Mother, I can’t give that lesson. I don’t know that Joseph Smith had that vision. That woman will laugh at me and ridicule me.”
Her mother was not an educated woman, but she did have a testimony. She said to her daughter, “You know how the Prophet got the vision, don’t you?”
“Yes,” answered her daughter, “he got it by praying to God for wisdom.”
“Why don’t you try that?” said the mother to her daughter.
The daughter went to her room and tried it; she “wrestled” with God, as did Enos. The result was that she went to that union meeting and gave the lesson convincingly, with power beyond her natural abilities. How could she do it? Well, the Holy Spirit came to her in response to her inquiry. She received a burning within her soul. She knew that Joseph Smith had seen the vision, as well as he knew it. She had not seen exactly the same things with her eyes that the Prophet saw, but she had the same knowledge. She knew from Joseph Smith’s description what he had seen, and she had a witness from the Holy Ghost that his account was true.

Why Paint?
I asked,
Until I saw
The well-loved scene
With captur’d mood.
A feeling rare, hard to
Explain. Just to
Allude,
I’d have to paint.

During this time I started going to church. I cried at my first sacrament meeting—I felt the Spirit so strongly! As I listened to the testimonies of others at that first fast and testimony meeting, I remember wondering if I would ever have my own testimony. Young Women was my favorite meeting. I loved being with other girls who shared my values and some of my interests and learning about how I was a daughter of God. I felt so much love at church.
That night, I asked Heavenly Father in prayer if joining the Church was the right path for me. My mind was filled with one word: John. I had never read much in the Bible, but I knew I’d find my answer in the book of John. I found John 14:6: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Christ was meant to be the way for me too.

As a young man, I stood at the fence of an international airport and watched those magnificent flying machines.1 The take-offs and landings were a miraculous sight. One that stirred my soul! How I wanted to be in the cockpit of one of those impressive airplanes and feel the thrill of rising up from the ground, climbing above the clouds, and traveling unto new horizons.

But was that dream possible? I was not born into wealth. My family had twice been refugees, taking only what we could carry. I was considered by some to be an outsider. While other children played with their friends, I had to spend my afternoons and weekends working in our family laundry business, often as a delivery boy.

I say this because some of you might also be wondering if your dreams will ever become reality. I understand what you are feeling. If I could go back in time and talk to that young boy who stood on the other side of the fence yearning for a better future, I would say:
“It’s not going to be easy, but you can do it. You will be all right. The journey will be filled with challenges, Dieter. But the struggle itself will transform you into the person you want to be. Work hard. Be consistent. Focus on the things you can change, not so much on the things you cannot change. Have faith. Have hope. Trust in God. Know that if you do your part, things will work out.”
This is also my advice to you today.

“I asked my seminary teacher this question. He said, ‘Just be kind, Jordan. You’re already doing the right thing.’ Initially, I thought, ‘Just being kind isn’t enough.’ But then I thought about my friend who needed my friendship and example. The Spirit helped me to be kind and know what to say. Now, she wants to be baptized someday!”

Jordan S., 17, Utah, USA

For some of the students in Buenos Aires, the weekend’s activities begin with an early-morning testimony meeting. And what better place to hold it than in Parque 3. de Febrero, where Elder Ballard dedicated their land?
The park is quiet at 6:00 on this Saturday morning. The palm trees are still dark silhouettes against the pale pink dawn. Sleepy bird calls mingle with the voices of sleepy students as they gather in a clearing, offer prayer, and begin to bear familiar testimonies: “I know the Church is true.” “I know Joseph Smith was a prophet.”
Afterward, walk through the park with Virginia, Esteban, Carolina, and the others. They cluster around a mulberry tree, picking the purple fruit and staining hands and faces. It’s obvious they like each other and spend a lot of time together. As María José Menjoulou observes later, “It’s easier to do the right things if we are surrounded by people who share the same goals and strive to achieve the same things.”
They spend as much time together as possible, playing basketball or soccer, bowling, eating pizza and ice cream. And dancing. They love to dance. In fact, they’d probably be dancing on this Saturday night if it weren’t seminary graduation.