Gospel Story Finder

“Grrrr,” I scowled as I stormed into the house a few weeks later.
“What’s your problem?” Jason yelled from the kitchen.
“Annemarie,” I growled back, flopping onto the couch. My brother quickly slurped down his orange juice and then sat next to me, all too eager for me to beg his advice. His mission enthusiasm had not worn off in the two months he had been home, and I wondered if he considered himself my part-time psychiatrist.
“How can I help?”
“Baptize my friend,” I pouted.
“Oh … what has Annemarie done?”
The day after we first talked on the football field, I gave Annemarie a Book of Mormon, which she still hadn’t admitted to cracking open. And that very day, she had reluctantly agreed to attend early-morning seminary. It was nothing short of disaster. Annemarie challenged nearly every point covered in the lesson until, finally, unsatisfied with my teacher’s diplomatic answers, she recoiled into a shell of silent disapproval and doubt. At the end of class, she thanked me for inviting her, but politely let me know she wouldn’t be back.
After sharing the incident with my brother, I wailed, “What else can I do? I’m so frustrated! I thought as long as I did all the right things—you know, like not going to drinking parties, keeping the Sabbath day holy, bearing my testimony—as long as I was a good example for her, then she would eventually want to understand the Church. Annemarie still doesn’t care.”
“Do you care about her?” Jason returned.
“What kind of question is that?” I snapped. “She’s my best friend.”
“From Annemarie’s perspective, she may think you only care about your own church and getting another convert. The Savior loved completely. Exemplify that love in the way you treat her, no matter how she apparently feels about your church.”
“She knows I love her,” I argued. “We’ve been friends since ninth grade. And she thanks me all the time for being one of the few friends she can actually count on. I only thought it was time to start encouraging her to investigate the Church since she hasn’t exactly taken the initiative herself.”
“Okay, I have another question. Do you love Jesus Christ?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. Why?”
“Really think about it,” he said quietly. “Do you love Jesus Christ? Do you love our Heavenly Father? Are you obedient to the commandments because you love them or because you are more concerned with Annemarie watching you?”
I was surprised. Meekly I questioned, “Isn’t one way of showing love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ by sharing the gospel with others?”
“Yes,” Jason agreed. “But sometimes a testimony shines through your actions because Christ has changed your heart to one of charity. It’s charity and service that touch people. Remember Ammon? His first concern was to be the king’s servant before he shared what he knew.”
I thought about that for several moments. “Are you suggesting I concentrate only on myself? Work on becoming more charitable?”
“I’m not telling you to give up,” he smiled. “But you have no control over what Annemarie decides. Maybe if you concentrate on coming unto the Savior with all of your heart, being truly meek and penitent before Him, others will follow. If not, you will have gained the charity to feel love and acceptance for Annemarie and patience about her decisions.”
I knitted my brow in thought, stewing over all he had suggested.
“One more thing,” he added before hopping off the couch. “Don’t forget that Annemarie has already chosen the plan. That’s why she’s here. Her Father in Heaven knows how she can best be touched. In the meantime …”
“In the meantime, what?”
“I’ll be eating leftover pizza. I’m starving.” He disappeared back into the kitchen.
I began serving Annemarie by praying for her nightly. I introduced her to my circle of LDS friends, where she was warmly welcomed. We shared the gospel with Annemarie when she seemed most receptive, but I couldn’t help wondering if our friendship would bring about anything more than memories to cherish. During the remaining year and a half of high school, Annemarie did not show any more interest in the Church. On the other hand, my testimony grew in ways I never could have imagined. I had always known the Church was true, but now I loved it with all of my heart. Annemarie helped me more than she ever knew.

Every morning Zach looked outside to see if it had snowed. “Will it snow today, Mommy?” he asked.
“I’m afraid not—the first snow is late this year.” Mommy hugged him sympathetically. She knew that Zach wanted to play in the snow.
It hadn’t snowed in November or so far in December. A week before Christmas, Zach looked out the window and sighed. He wanted to build a snowman and run all over the backyard and leave his footprints in the snow before he went to bed. “But there still isn’t any snow,” he said sadly to himself.
Mommy heard him. She thought about the dishes in the sink and the ironing she had planned to do. Zach is more important, she decided. “Let’s pretend that there is snow and go out and play in the backyard,” she said. She got out their coats and boots and mittens.
Zach and Mommy stomped all over the backyard, pretending to make footprints in the snow. “What big feet you have!” Mommy exclaimed. That made Zach laugh.
They rolled invisible snowballs around the yard and put them together to make a make-believe snowman. Then they went inside to drink hot cocoa and admire their snowman through the kitchen window.
Just as Mommy asked, “Did you have fun today?” a snowflake drifted past the window. Soon there were lots and lots of snowflakes falling faster and faster.
Zach said, “It’s fun to pretend, but”—he gave Mommy a big smile—“it will be even more fun tomorrow, when we make a real snowman!”
Mommy looked at the dishes in the sink and the pile of ironing. Then she looked out the window at the snow and smiled back. “You know,” she said, “I think so too!”

The garage? These girls in Pennsylvania are flocking to a garage?
It might make a little sense to Lani Atkinson, 18, who secretly wants to be a mechanic.
But what about her sisters, Cory, 12; Arin, 14; and Nicky, 17? They come from a family of 11 children and work hard for everything they get. They have their own business that involves cutting and trimming lawns in many of the historical graveyards in the area. It requires a lot of time, yet midweek, at the appointed hour, no matter where they are, the sisters toss their weed whackers in the truck, drive the mowers onto the trailer, and head for the garage.
And what about Heather Hulings? You can often find her strolling around the lake next to her home with an admiring male friend. When it’s time, she’ll run back to the house, jump in the car with her sisters Stephanie, 16; and Darcie, 12, and head for the garage. If the young men are gathering and the male friend is interested, he can come along too. He usually does.
Then there’s Carrie Guskiewicz. She could be on deck in the seventh inning with two outs and the bases loaded, but if it was the right time, she’d drop her bat, race to the car, and have her mom drive her to the garage.
Beth Humphreys is the one who will really surprise you. She’s 19, has graduated from high school, and is on scholarship hundreds of miles away at Alford University in New York. Yet she still thinks wistfully of the garage, and heads there every chance she gets when she’s home on vacation.
What is it about a garage that entices these girls to drop whatever they’re doing and gather there for midweek activities? All right, so the Young Women’s room of the Indiana Branch, Pittsburgh North Stake, doesn’t exactly look like a garage any more. Members have worked hard to convert a small private residence into a church. Kind of gives the word meetinghouse a whole new meaning. Primary meets in the former living room; the chapel is in the basement. And the garage is now a finished room with white walls, and the Young Women’s room in the corner of it has your basic posters, folding chairs, even a window.
But it really isn’t what they find in the garage that pulls them there. It’s more what they bring with them. These young women share an uncommon camaraderie among girls so varied. They belong to a group in which everyone loves each other, the older girls look out for the younger ones, and nobody feels left out.
“There’s a special sisterhood-type thing we share,” says Arin Atkinson. “The girls in the branch are just as easy to talk to as my own sisters.”
Lani, Arin’s older sister, agrees. “All of us are really pretty different from each other, but whenever we get together, no matter what our differences are, we have a great time.”
“We meet in a small house, so we have to be close,” laughs Teri Gibbs, 18. “There’s nowhere else to go. It’s neat because the Laurels are close to the Beehives and the Mia Maids are close to everyone.”
Some of these girls seem to have about as much in common with each other as Christmas and Halloween. What is it that keeps them united? What is it that makes them want to drop whatever they’re doing and gather in the garage?
Sitting in the garage with them, you begin to see. These girls go to at least five different high schools. Most of them are outnumbered about a thousand to one, when it comes to a non-Mormon to Mormon ratio. The garage and the girls there form a sort of shelter—a respite. This is where they meet with others who feel the same way they do, and who never stop encouraging each other in their lives and beliefs.
Try to get them to tell you about themselves, and they’ll talk about their friends.
“Jenny (Snyder) makes all her own clothes and they’re beautiful—she’s going to design costumes for the theater someday.”
“You’ll have to hear how well Heather (Humphreys) plays the piano. She’s really great.”
“All the boys at school respect Teri (Gibbs) so much they say she’s the cookie jar up on the shelf that every one wants but is too high to get to.”
You might think that in a group this tight, it would be a little difficult for a newcomer. But not so. Just ask Amanda Curry, 16, who started attending the branch a few months ago. Amanda is pretty and talented—in many situations, girls would be jealous. But Amanda says they welcomed her with open arms. “The girls accepted me completely,” she said. “They treat me like a sister.”
Maybe that’s why so many non-LDS people in the area are comfortable visiting. Almost every girl has a missionary story to tell.
“I’ve had one friend who has known for a long time that we are Mormons,” said Stephanie Hulings. “But I was really taken aback when she asked if she could come to my youth group with us. I took her to a fireside, and now she comes to almost all the midweek activities.”
“I’m in sixth grade and the only Mormon in my class,” said Carrie Guskiewicz. “I found out that the missionaries are visiting my teacher at school—it makes me realize I have to be a really good example.”
The girls in the branch are great examples to the non-LDS boys they sometimes date. You’ll find a handful of those boys at every baptism, joint activity, fireside, sacrament meeting, and Sunday School lesson. Some even come when the girls who invited them aren’t in attendance. Their appetites may have been whetted by the young women, but once at church, they find there’s a spiritual banquet they’d never anticipated.
It seems the LDS girls greatly outnumber the LDS boys in the area, but that doesn’t bother the girls. “We don’t have any problems with guys who don’t accept our standards,” says Lani Atkinson. “We just don’t date anyone like that.” It’s that simple.
Truly living your religion is not such an unusual thing in this part of Pennsylvania. The Amish people have been here for years, and their religion has changed little. Their horse-drawn buggies, simple, homemade clothes, and avoidance of modern machinery make them stand out. The young women have an affection for them, knowing how difficult it is to avoid the ways of the world.
“As members of the Church, we definitely stand out here. There are just a few other Mormons in our school,” says Stephanie Hulings.
Her sister Heather agrees. “Since we stand out, there’s a lot of peer pressure from others to make us like them. They want us to smoke and drink, and a lot of drugs come out here from Pittsburgh, which is about an hour and a half away. At least, by being so different, though, we have a lot of chances to tell people about our beliefs.”
Other factors that unite these girls in the garage and help them ward off worldly influences? Music is a big one. These girls can sing! You’ll hear them spontaneously harmonizing at any hour of the day or night—while they’re driving to seminary, while they’re weeding the meetinghouse lawn, while they’re doing just about anything.
They look forward to girls’ camp because it means continuous days of nonstop harmonizing. Even those who aren’t musically gifted get a thrill out of being a part of such an angelic chorus. Visitors are mesmerized when these girls start to sing.
But when the music dies down, the talking has stopped, and the investigators have gone home, there is still something that binds these girls together. It would be there whether they met in a garage or in a massive, elegant chapel. For all their varied backgrounds, they have a basic core in common. They’ve all felt the true love of Christ. That love is so wonderful to them they do their best to make it work in their lives, and they want to share it with others.
“We have seen the greatest thing on earth, the love of Christ, light up the face of a lonely, elderly woman as the Young Women brought her dinner and sang to her,” says Teri Gibbs. “We have seen that love lift a frustrated mother’s heart as the Young Women baby-sat her children so she could enjoy a night out. It is through this that I have grown closer to Heavenly Father and to other youth in the Church. We strive to be more like Christ.”
That’s why the girls are so eager to get to the garage. It’s there that they can feel and nurture the love of Christ. In the garage, they help each other recharge their batteries; then they go out and share that energy with everyone else.

The pair of old skates had hung on the basement wall for as long as I could remember. When my brother Duncan told me they were Dad’s, I couldn’t believe him.
“You mean Dad?” I asked. “Our father. He skates?” Duncan nodded.
Dad just wasn’t the athletic type. On Saturdays, while the other kids’ fathers played ball or dressed in Argyle sweaters and went off to golf, my dad returned his overdue library books. Most fathers went fishing or dug in a garden in their spare hours; my dad read about the Roman Empire and the last days of Pompeii.
He loved books. He knew the date of every battle in British history. He knew how to conjugate French verbs and could mentally add up my math problems in seconds. He was a hero to the neighborhood kids when they needed help with their Latin or physics, but all his gray matter did little good when we needed an outfielder on Saturday mornings.
When the first signs of winter came to Ottawa, Canada, I waited anxiously for Dow’s Lake to freeze over. My brothers, sisters, and I would go down into the basement and drag out skates, scarves, and gloves in anticipation of the first skate of the season.
When I awoke one winter morning there were frosty patterns on the windowpane and a tingle in the air. I knew instinctively that the first day of skating had arrived. But I was not at all prepared for the announcement made at the breakfast table.
“I’m going skating with you kids this morning,” my father said.
“But Dad,” said my sister Eleanor, thinking quickly, “I thought you had to return library books. You have an overdue notice on your desk.”
“Figure eights,” he said, ignoring her remark. “I’m going to show you kids how to do the best figure eights this side of Lake Placid.” With that he stood up and headed for the basement.
We all looked at one another nervously. I thought of our friends and what they would say when they saw Dad dressed in a dark business suit out there on the ice. Dad always wore a suit and tie even on picnics.
When he appeared with his tube skates polished and thrown jauntily over his shoulder, I breathed a little easier. He had found an old rain coat that covered his suit. He did, however, have on ugly red ear muffs and a bowler hat.
We met Duncan’s friend Arnie halfway there. Arnie’s favorite subject was his father’s great athletic prowess. To hear him talk, you’d think his dad was Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger rolled up into one man. He was telling us how his father had played for the Montreal Canadians (a claim never proven), when he caught sight of my dad’s skates. “You mean your dad’s going skating?” he snickered to Duncan.
“Yeah,” Dunc nervously answered. “Going to show us some figure eights.”
“Hope you brought along a stretcher,” Arnie needled.
Dad was walking several paces ahead of us, whistling nonchalantly. Dunc, loyal but worried, just stared straight ahead.
When we arrived at the lake most of our friends were already there. While Arnie spread the news of my father’s intentions, Dad quietly put on his skates, leaning on one of the high snow banks around the edge of the ice. Within a minute he was ready.
Dunc diverted the attention of his friends so they wouldn’t see the disaster about to happen. My ankles were always a little weak so I wobbled as I started out on the ice. Just then a figure glided by me, taking long smooth strides. I admired the ease and grace with which he moved. With shock I recognized the rain coat and red ear muffs. It was Dad! His hands were clasped tightly behind him, head down in top Olympic racing style. He glided over the ice so smoothly you could hardly hear the cut of his skates on the ice.
Dunc was racing behind him, trying to keep up. My sisters were screaming from the sidelines, “Look at Dad! Look at Dad!”
We all held our breath as suddenly he began to go into the long, graceful circles of a figure eight. Our friends applauded as Dad modestly demonstrated his technique.
Later, when we walked home, a soft snow began to fall. Our friends were trailing behind. One yelled at Dad, “Hey, Mr. Johnson, you want to play for our hockey team?”
Dunc walked beside him, trying to keep up. “Hey Dad,” he said hesitatingly. “Do you want to try the ski jump tomorrow?”
Arnie came up to Dunc, panting from the exertion of the skate. Arnie nudged my brother and chortled, “You should have seen my dad skate at the Olympics.”
Dunc rolled his eyes.

When I was a mission president in Australia, I once said to those of my missionaries in Tasmania: “Tomorrow we shall climb Mt. Wellington and hold our missionary meeting on the top. We shall there seek to commune with the Lord and partake of his Spirit.”
We made the climb, and while on top of the peak we visited a television broadcasting station. A bright young man explained to us in words I had never heard, and using principles I could not and do not understand, how the sounds and scenes of television were broadcast into the valley below.
That night, back in the city of Hobart, my two young sons and I sat before a television set that was tuned to the proper wave band, and we saw and heard and experienced what had been described to us in words.
Now I think this illustrates perfectly what is involved in the receipt of revelation and the seeing of visions. We can read about visions and revelations in the records of the past, we can study the inspired writings of people who had the fullness of the gospel in their day, but we cannot comprehend what is involved until we see and hear and experience for ourselves.
This Tabernacle is now full of words and music. Handel’s Messiah is being sung, and the world’s statesmen are propagandizing their people. But we do not hear any of it.
This Tabernacle is full of scenes from Vietnam and Washington. There is even a picture of men walking on the surface of the moon. But we are not seeing these things. The minute, however, in which we tune a radio to the proper wave band and tune a television receiving set on the proper channel, we begin to hear and see and experience what otherwise remains completely unknown to us.

He also served several missionary assignments, accompanying American missionaries to other areas for proselyting. On one of these journeys, Opapo, his long-time friend Elisala, and one of two American missionaries went to the island of Manu‘a. Upon arriving they found that the local king, Tuimanu‘a, had forbidden anyone from receiving or assisting the Latter-day Saints in any way—the punishment for disobedience was immediate stoning. However, the missionaries were determined to succeed and stayed for two months, eating fallen coconuts from the beaches and sleeping each night in holes. They covered their heads with leaves to protect themselves from the mosquitoes, each one taking a turn nightly to help the others arrange their leaves and then unassisted himself, suffering from bites the rest of the night.
After several weeks of this grueling ordeal, Opapo was awakened by the smell of some freshly baked food in a nearby basket. The missionaries did not know whether through a human or a divine source; but after weeks of coconuts, they were profoundly grateful. Near the end of their stay the incident was repeated when an elderly woman brought them some food, saying that if she had to die for her kindness, she would, but she did not fear Tuimanu‘a.
A few weeks later, after exhausting every possible avenue, the missionaries prepared to depart. Ceremonially, Opapo and Elisala spoke directly to Tuimanu‘a and his people, warning them that they would feel the wrath and power of God if they did not repent. As his last act before boarding the longboat, Opapo paused at the edge of the village and dusted off his feet as a witness against the island. A couple of weeks later a devastating hurricane struck the island, killing many, destroying all of the crops above ground, and leveling every house except one—the fale (hut) in which lived the elderly lady who had helped the missionaries.
It is true that miracles strengthen the faith of believers but do not necessarily give faith to the unbelieving. It was not until 1974 that a branch was actually organized in Manu’a. On the other hand, the Saints to whom Opapo returned heard of the incident and increased in faithfulness.

More than twenty years ago, my Primary-age daughter tore out a newspaper ad that featured a beautiful, two-story Victorian playhouse. She showed her father the picture and asked, “Can you build us one of these?”
That was the beginning of a five-year project that taught our family the joy and value of working together to accomplish what we thought was an important goal. Our son drafted the plans, and our seven children, my husband, and I all worked side by side building the playhouse. We hammered and nailed. We sandpapered and painted. We installed electrical wires and plumbing.
Our little family sacrificed a lot to build that house. We gave up vacations and playtime. We spent our money carefully so that we could purchase the materials needed to complete the project. Together we built the playhouse of our dreams, and to this day, that darling little building symbolizes the feelings of accomplishment and unity that we enjoyed when we worked together.
When Brigham Young built his house in Salt Lake City, he named it the Lion House and placed a stone lion head over the door so that his children would remember to have courage. We placed a little lion head on the door to our playhouse so that our children and their children and their children’s children would be reminded to have courage. Children need courage to “Choose the Right.”
Building the playhouse only reinforced the principles of work I had learned as a young girl. My parents taught us that work was essential. We helped Dad feed the chickens, gather the eggs, and then deliver them. We helped Mother prepare meals and wash clothes.
We also had wonderful times playing together. Some of my favorite family playing memories are of fishing and camping. My family felt united and close when we worked and played together.
In addition to working hard, we learned to be willing to serve others. When I helped deliver the eggs from our chicken farm, I visited with the people who bought the eggs. They were grateful for the eggs, and they always thanked me for delivering them. I felt that I was helping them, and I liked that feeling. The Spirit tells us when we do good things that make a difference in other people’s lives. I wanted to always have that wonderful feeling.

Young women in Liberia, Africa, taught each other about their divine nature and the Young Women Personal Progress program with a little help from young women on the other side of the world during a special district Young Women conference in August 2009.
Training and preparation began three months in advance for the young women, who live in the Monrovia Liberia Bushrod Island District of the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission. The theme for the conference was “Princess for a Day, Queen for Eternity.” Each branch in the district was responsible to present a workshop on a value and create a short skit teaching another value, emphasizing how a daughter of God would treat others and herself.
“These young women are the future of Africa, the pioneers of their country in this glorious gospel,” said Sister Belinda Wire, a full-time missionary who participated in the conference with her husband, Elder Bill Wire.
After the workshops, skits, and other activities, organizers presented the young women with letters sent by young women from a different country, sharing their testimonies of the gospel and Personal Progress.
“Hearts were united across the world,” Sister Wire said. “As these young sisters held the letters, they knew that those young women believe as they do, read the same books, follow the same programs, are guided by the same prophet, and are loved by the same God.”

I also had the privilege to go to the Nauvoo Temple and participate in baptisms for some of my ancestors. The Nauvoo Temple was beautiful inside and out. I felt a special spirit there and was grateful to the early Saints in Nauvoo. Building the temple was so important to them. They worked hard to finish the temple’s construction, so they could complete temple ordinances and make and keep sacred covenants before they were forced out of this beautiful city.
As our time to leave the city of Nauvoo drew near, I felt very sad. It was easy to imagine how difficult it was for the early Saints to leave. My family and I walked down Parley Street, following the Trail of Hope. As I looked back at the Nauvoo Temple, it stood so beautiful and brilliant on the hill. I realized that the Saints of Nauvoo had great faith to leave their beautiful homes and a temple of God. As I walked to the very edge of the Mississippi River, I recognized that many of the early Saints did not know where they were going. They had great faith that God would guide them and protect them.

I served as president of the Fiji Suva Mission. One day on the island of Kiribati I was walking with two elders when a man came up to us. He was drunk. I wanted to chase him off, but he saw my name tag and called me by name. “President Tefan, I would like you and your missionaries to come to dinner at my home.”
I thought, “Uh-oh, maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” I turned to the elders and asked, “How do you feel? Would you like to accept the invitation?” They said that they would like to go. I felt impressed to accept his offer.
The following night we all had a nice Chinese dinner—chicken, fish, other meats, and noodles. The missionaries were happy because it was a change from their daily menu of fish and rice. At the end of the dinner, I thanked the man and said, “Now I have a gift I would like to offer you. Would you like these missionaries to teach you the gospel of Jesus Christ?”
He said he wasn’t interested but the missionaries could teach his wife and 18-year-old son. Three months later the son was baptized. One year later the wife was baptized, and her husband started attending church. He asked me for a blessing to help him stop smoking and drinking, and he was able to quit. The last time I visited that family, the son had been admitted to Brigham Young University–Hawaii on a full-tuition scholarship and had also received a mission call to Hong Kong.
When I think back on my experience with that family, I’m glad that I didn’t chase the “drunk man” away but instead followed the prompting of the Spirit to accept the dinner invitation, open my mouth, and ask him to hear the gospel.

“That old man’s a regular puzzlement, isn’t he?” Nathan blurted out to his six-year-old brother, B. J., who walked beside him down the dirt road toward home.
“What old man?” B. J. asked without looking up as he stomped his already muddy feet in the December rain puddles along the wagon-rutted road.
“You know,” Nathan returned, “the one who moved into the Kelsay place six months back. Josiah Potts. It’s less than three weeks until Christmas, and he’s just as ornery as ever.”
“You mean because he never smiles?” B. J. asked, jumping like a frog over a dirty puddle.
Nathan stopped to stare at the sod house nestled in a tangle of dogwood trees just off the road. He leaned against the rickety fence that bordered the little yard. “I guess so,” he said barely loud enough to hear. Thunder boomed and jagged flashes of lightning rent the damp air like the sights and sounds of the war his pa had gone to fight and had never come home from.
A frigid wind tugged at B. J., and he squinted up impatiently at his twelve-year-old brother. “Don’t fret about it, Nathan. Mr. Potts is just a grumpy old man.”
Nathan nodded, still gazing intently at the house.
“Maybe Mr. Potts lost somebody in the war, too, B. J. Maybe that’s why—”
Nathan stopped abruptly as Josiah Potts appeared on the little warped porch in front of his house. His long, ghostly white beard whipped every which way in the stiff wind, and his deep-set eyes seemed every bit as dark and foreboding as the sky above.
Nathan jumped back from the fence, his sleeve catching on a rotting picket and breaking it loose.
“Well,” the old man barked, “just what’re you staring at?”
Nathan swallowed hard. “Nothing in particular, sir.”
“Since when am I ‘nothing in particular,’ boy?”
“Didn’t mean no spite, sir,” Nathan uttered meekly.
“Then get away from my fence,” Mr. Potts growled. “I lost enough in Atlanta during the war without some young scalawag coming by here and busting up my fence.”
Nathan couldn’t keep from asking, “Did you lose anything besides property, Mr. Potts? Kinfolk, maybe?”
Gray, wiry brows buckled over Josiah’s eyes in tired pain. “My wife and boy, if it’s any of your business—which it isn’t!”
Nathan fidgeted uneasily. “My brother and I lost our pa at Shiloh.”
“You two had best get on home before you get caught in the rain,” Mr. Potts muttered, adding, “The heavens have a way of dropping a heavy load on a fellow’s shoulders without warning and of leaving him in the lurch.”
Nathan sensed the old man’s despair. Maybe Mr. Potts doesn’t know what B. J. and I know, Nathan speculated, about how families can be forever. He doesn’t know about —
“Well?” Josiah’s voice interrupted Nathan’s thoughts. “What are you dawdling for?”
As soon as Nathan had hauled wood and taken the lids off the rain barrels under the eaves to catch the runoff so his ma would have water for the next washday, he hurried into the dugout. He stuffed something under his arm and was on his way out the door when his mother stopped him. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, Son?” she asked.
“I just want to give something to Mr. Potts, Ma.”
Nathan revealed a little worn Bible under his arm.
“Your Bible? What on earth for, honey?” his mother asked.
“I’ve read it twice,” Nathan explained. “Maybe it will help Mr. Potts as much as it did me. Besides, I still have the Book of Mormon Pa gave me when he got home from his mission before the war, and we have our family Bible that I can use.” Nathan eyed the scriptures in his hands. “There’s something in here I want Mr. Potts to read. See, I marked the pages.”
B. J. looked skeptical. “He’ll probably just throw it away.”
Nathan sighed. “Maybe. But it’ll give me some peace of mind. I’ll be able to walk by that old man’s place and say that at least I tried to mend his hurt, and it won’t weigh on me so much any more.”
Ma looked at him a long moment, her eyes misting. “I’m seeing more and more of your pa in you every day, Nathan. We could use another good Mormon missionary right here in Mapleton.”
When Nathan reached the sod house, he paused, talked himself into going up the steps, and almost knocked on the door. Instead he decided to write a note on the inside of the Bible’s cover. When he had finished, he placed the book on a chair on the stoop and left as quietly as he had come.
Two days later, as Nathan was passing Josiah’s house on his way to the gristmill, he heard Mr. Potts call, “Hey, boy!” The old man was standing just behind the screen door. “Why’d you give me the Bible, boy?” He stepped out onto the porch for an answer.
Nathan took a deep breath. “It’s … it’s almost Christmas, Mr. Potts. It’s … a gift.”
The old man stared at Nathan, a ragged smile starting to push at the edges of his melancholy. “Why would you want to give me a gift?”
“I figured you could use one,” Nathan answered.
Josiah’s knotty, leathery hand brushed a wad of unshorn hair from his unblinking gaze. “You marked a place in it that says, ‘He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’
“‘And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’
“I take it that means that a body’s loved ones who have passed on are waiting somewhere for those still alive in the flesh?”
Nathan nodded. “That’s right, Mr. Potts.”
Tears spilled in streamlets down the old man’s face. “I’d give anything in the world to believe like you do, boy. Anything.”
Nathan thought he would burst inside as he said, “Well, for a start, Mr. Potts, how about an hour of your time this Sunday? Would you come to church with us—with Ma, B. J., and me?”
“I think I’d like that,” Josiah answered slowly. “Yes, I do believe I would.”
A few minutes later as Nathan continued on his way to the mill, rain started splintering down. Funny, Nathan thought as he walked along, it sure feels warm.
That year, on Christmas day, Josiah Potts was baptized in Cold Water Creek by Bishop Nephi Cole. When he came up out of the water, Nathan saw him gaze toward the heavens in a way he never had before.

I have always been fond of a story from the era of the Great Depression. The Mayor of New York City, Fiorella LaGuardia was an unusual leader. New York named an airport after him and perhaps that has something to do with how he cared for his people. While in office he sometimes presided at the Police Court just to keep in touch with what was happening in the streets. One bitter cold day the officers brought in a trembling, ragged man charged with stealing a load of bread. He defended his actions by explaining that his family was starving.

"I've got to punish you," declared LaGuardia. "The law makes no exception." So he fined the man ten dollars. But, as he said that, the Mayor reached into his pocket and brought out a $10 dollar bill which he tossed into his hat. "The fine is paid," he said. "And I'm going to fine everybody in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a man has to steal bread in order to eat. The Bailiff passed the hat and the incredulous man, with a light of heaven in his eye, left the courtroom with forty-seven dollars and fifty cents.

Melanie, Wendy, Tony, and Matthew Hardman are working hard to follow in the footsteps of older siblings Andrew, Daniel, and Katrina. This family from the Eight Mile Plains Ward, Brisbane Australia Stake, isn’t shy about sharing the gospel, or the high standards it embraces, with others.

Both older brothers have served missions, and older sister Katrina recently led an effort to have an offensive advertising campaign removed from her university campus.

“I collected signatures to have offensive posters removed,” says Katrina, 19. “I met many good people during this process, and one of them came to church with me.”

Melanie, who is the next in line for university study, will join Katrina, Daniel, and Andrew at the Queensland University of Technology. She is 17 years old, and is looking forward to participating in institute.

Boy, was it snowing now! Little snowflakes had fallen off and on all day, but up until now the roads had been clear. Grandpa’s ranch, where we were going for Thanksgiving, was on the Smithfork River. There are no major roads in that part of the Colorado Rockies, just little two-lane highways.
“Would you look at that cloud!” Dad’s voice startled us in the quiet car.
Connie and I scooted to the middle of the back seat and squinted between my parents. Looming in front of us, completely covering old Saddle Mountain, was a cloud as black as a cellar.
“I don’t think we’d better be on the road when that thing rolls off the mountain,” Dad said almost too quietly. “If I cut across Missouri Flats, we can be at Grandpa’s in thirty or forty minutes and maybe beat that thing.”
“But isn’t that a gravel road?” Mom asked.
“Yes, but I know it well, and it’s all snowpacked just like this.”
“Let’s just hurry, Mac. Only don’t have an accident.”
I alternated watching out the side windows and watching the monster cloud out the front. The wind started blowing, and when it came, it didn’t come all nice and gradual. It came like a wall and jolted the car. Suddenly the back of the car fishtailed, and we were all thrown to the passenger side. Dad immediately slid back under the steering wheel and restarted the motor, but we sank deeper into the soft snow despite all Dad’s efforts.
“Mac?” Mom’s voice was hardly a whisper.
“We’re OK,” Dad replied. “We have our lap robes to help us keep warm, and I don’t think we’re far from the old Dietche place. We ought to be able to go there for help if this doesn’t let up soon.”
“There’s a stockmen’s advisory and travelers’ warning for the mountain regions tonight and tomorrow,” the radio droned a half hour later. “The first major storm of the winter is descending on most of Colorado, with high winds and heavy snow expected—”
Dad snapped off the radio and grinned at us. “OK, this is going to be great!” He sounded exuberant. “This may be our grandest adventure yet.” (Whenever things went wrong, Dad called it an adventure.) “Just up the hill and off to the right is a sturdy barn belonging to Mr. Dietche. It’s nice and tight against the wind and probably has some hay in it. We can stay warm there for a long time. Lilly, hand me the flashlight and matches in the glove compartment, please. I’ll carry them. Connie, I want you to hold my hand with one of yours, and your mother’s with the other. Michael will hold Mother’s other hand; then you all follow me. Whatever you do, don’t let go of anyone’s hand. Do you understand me? Don’t let go for anything!”
We kind of dragged each other through the snow. Even Dad fell a few times. I don’t know how Dad found the barn. I didn’t see it until we were actually inside the half-open double doors on the sheltered side of the structure.
The barn was dark and smelled of musty hay and animals, but the wind didn’t blow through it. We shut the doors, and Dad flicked on his flashlight. Next to me something shuffled, heaved a sigh, and gave a terrible moan. I jumped, Connie screamed, and Dad spun his flashlight into the sober face of a brown and white cow. “Well, it looks like we have company,” he chuckled.
“She scared me,” Connie giggled.
Dad began to explore. Soon he shouted, “Hey, look what I found!” and started fussing with an object on the floor.
It was an old kerosene lantern, and it was almost full of oil. In a few moments a dim but steady light illuminated our surroundings. One entire end of the barn was filled with baled hay. The five stalls were large, clean, and empty, so the cow was apparently a temporary resident also.
“Look out below!” This time Dad’s voice echoed from the dark loft above. A large mound of hay whooshed onto the middle of the floor. Several smaller piles followed irregularly. The hay dust billowed through the barn, and we all started sneezing. Dad scrambled down the wood ladder, saying, “Now I need everyone’s help with the rest of our accommodations.” He was really having fun.
We hauled bales of hay into the middle stall and built a wall of them higher than its wooden ones. We found loose pieces of wood, laid them across the top, then covered them with armloads of hay. We spread more loose hay on the floor. When it was about two feet thick, Mom spread two lap robes on one side of the stall, crawled onto the far side of them, and lay down. “Come on, Connie—you next. When we’re all in, we’ll put the other two robes over us, then pull the rest of the hay on top to keep us warm.”
“This really is an adventure,” I laughed as I crawled in next to my sister. “Come on, Dad.”
“Just a minute. I’ve one more thing to do.”
The doorway darkened as Dad reappeared and backed into our homemade cave, leading the cow. “We don’t want her to get cold, do we?” he asked. “Besides, we need her body heat in here.”
The cow lay at the far side of the stall. Dad closed the stall door, turned the lantern off, lay down, and we all helped get the other lap robes and hay over us. It was real dark, and I could hear the cold wind blasting outside, but I was beginning to feel very warm and cozy.
“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, …” Mom started to sing.
“But, Mom, it’s not even Thanksgiving,” I protested.
“No, but like Joseph and Mary, we’re travelers, too, Son,” Dad said quietly. “And this is a sort of stable, and we even have a cow. I think that it’s just the right kind of song for us tonight.”
Mom sang it again, then “Silent Night,” then a Spanish carol.
When I awoke, everyone was gone. “Mom! Dad!” I shouted.
“We’re all up here, Michael,” Connie yelled from the loft.
I groped around, trying to get out of the hay, and fell against the warm back of the old cow. She just looked around at me—sort of pleadingly, I thought—and didn’t even moo. I scrambled up the ladder to where my family stood. The loft door was open, and I could see that the snow had drifted so high that it was only a few feet below the loft floor. The wind had stopped, but huge snowflakes continued to fall rapidly.
“I’m hungry,” Connie complained.
Nobody had a satisfactory answer for that, so we just stared at the snow again.
“That bump over there must be our car,” Dad said as he sighted down his arm.
“There’s no way to get there right now, Mac,” Mom said.
“No, I suppose not.”
“There’s nothing to eat there, anyway, except two candy bars in the trunk. I was saving them for the ride home,” Mom added.
Just then the cow gave a long, low bellow.
“That’s it!” Dad cried. “You guys wait here. I have to see if I can find something.”
Mom began to smile, but she wouldn’t tell us what Dad was doing. We could hear him rummaging in the stalls and bins. After a while, he called, “Michael, come here. I need a hand.”
I scrambled down the ladder, feeling very important that Dad needed me. He was holding the cow’s halter with one hand, a bucket with the other.
“Come on, Mike, we’re going to get breakfast. Take this pail and ladle and clean them out with snow. This old girl is hurting. She needs to be milked, so we’ll help her and have some warm, fresh milk as our reward.”
I was sort of dubious, but milk did sound better than candy for breakfast. Besides, Dad had grown up on a farm and knew what he was doing. “OK,” I said, “I’ll get these as clean as I can.”
Soon the milk was pounding into the old bucket. As it rose in the pail, Dad adjusted his grip a little. “Milkers always develop a strong grip,” he said, “but it’s been a long time since I’ve done this.”
I was tired of watching and getting hungrier by the minute. I thought that if Dad would show me how, I could both help him and divert my thoughts from my own stomach. Boy—I learned fast just how strong a farmer has to be! Besides my hands cramping on me, my back began to ache from hunching over to reach the udder. I leaned my head against the cow’s warm flank. She didn’t move, and it helped ease my back.
When we were done, we put the cow into another stall with some more loose hay. Then we all sat on our blankets and bowed our heads while Dad thanked Heavenly Father that we were safe and warm and that we had this milk. He blessed it and also prayed that Grandpa and Grandma wouldn’t worry too much and that we might soon be with them. Then we all took turns drinking milk. Connie said that warm milk sounded yucky, but she drank more than anybody else—and I drank four ladlefuls!
The barn was really neat. I found another bucket, and we melted snow in it for us and the cow. I also found a broken file, a bridle bit, and an old currycomb. I brushed the cow real good late in the afternoon, after Dad and I milked her again. Dad said that you didn’t normally curry cows, but it was all I could think to do for her having given us her milk. Connie felt the same way, so I let her help.
The next morning it had stopped snowing, and Mr. Dietche came on his snowmobile, looking for his cow. He hauled us out on his snowmobile and a sled, and we were at Grandpa’s ranch in no time. Grandma had saved Thanksgiving dinner, so we had it that night, after Dad and I helped Grandpa milk his cows. The turkey and potatoes sure tasted good, but what I’ll always remember is the milk from our Thanksgiving cow.

On a Friday when our workbook pages were due, a friend of mine asked for the answers on one section. At first I said sure. But after thinking about it, I didn’t want to get a “lunch bench,” one of the consequences at my school. When I told my friend it wasn’t the right thing to do, I felt a strong feeling inside. Later that day my teacher announced that if anyone copied answers they would get a lunch bench, and so would the person who let them copy. I felt so relieved. I realized the strong feeling was the Holy Ghost. I know the Holy Ghost helps us choose right from wrong.

Let me tell you about a time when our family needed the Lord to stretch forth his hand, dispel the darkness, and touch our lives with light.
Late one February afternoon in New Zealand, just as I was going into a Primary conference, my husband and I received a phone call from our son Paul in Arizona. He told us of the birth of their third child, Amy, but he said that she had some serious problems. Her lungs were very congested, and when the doctor inserted a tube into her throat, he discovered there was not a passageway from her mouth to her stomach. The baby would be flown by helicopter to a newborn intensive care unit in another city.
When Amy was just one day old, surgery was necessary. This little family was in a stressful situation. Our daughter-in-law, Kathryn, was still recuperating in the hospital in Mesa; the new baby was at another hospital. The two other children, ages two and three and a half, needed constant care. Kathryn’s parents were serving as missionaries in the Bahamas. We were on the other side of the world.
The first surgery was to repair the esophagus (the tube which extends from the mouth to the stomach). But even after that operation, Amy developed pneumonia. After weeks of intensive care, the doctors determined that another surgery was critical for Amy’s survival. A test showed that when Amy slept, she stopped breathing.
These were difficult weeks for Paul and Kathryn. Kathryn’s days at the hospital were full of discouragement and loneliness as she watched the little infant struggle for life and wondered if this were the last time she would hold Amy’s small hand. Each day she and Paul would meet briefly at the hospital as he came from work to spend the night with Amy and she went home to care for the other two children.
We had many prayers and special fasts. The family was sustained by loving, compassionate ward members who cared for the two children for more than three months. At regular intervals, the young women in the ward cleaned their home. The visiting teachers made arrangements for meals to be brought in every day. They also did the washing and the ironing.
Interestingly enough, one visiting teacher told Kathryn that it was the happiest time in her life because she had had an opportunity to serve.
What carried the family through this anguish? We never lost hope. Paul had given Amy a blessing as soon as she was born. He felt that all would not be well immediately and that they would have to put their trust in the Lord. We all knew that if we did all we could, we would have the courage to face whatever would come.
That is the nature of hope. We do all we can, and then the Lord stretches forth his hand and touches our lives with light and courage and, most of all, hope.
What happened to Amy? Well, after more than three months of hospital rooms, intensive care, respirators, and close calls, the doctors announced that they must take her off the respirator. They had little hope that she would breathe on her own.
All of the family members had a special fast. The morning the respirator was removed, the doctor stood by, ready to perform yet another surgery. But because of the faith, hope, and prayers in her behalf, Amy began to breathe. Almost immediately her color returned. She was on the road to recovery.
Amy is now three years old—normal and happy. And what if there hadn’t been such a blessed outcome? Could we still go on with hope? Yes, because hope is knowing that whatever comes, the Lord can whisper peace. Our hope in Christ gives us an unchanging reason to rejoice.

About two months before I concluded my mission in February 1980, my mission president allowed my companion and me to travel overnight with stake members from Rio de Janeiro to the temple in São Paulo so I could be endowed and sealed to my parents. Like my parents, I had waited years for the promised blessings of temple ordinances and covenants.
That experience changed my vision of the future and gave me my first glimpse of the truthfulness of President Russell M. Nelson’s recent words: “Time in the temple will help you to think celestial and to catch a vision of who you really are, who you can become, and the kind of life you can have forever.”
My brief time in the temple on that occasion deeply influenced the remainder of my missionary service. With that new vision, testifying of the temple and the importance of God’s plan for families also had a lasting impact on my life.

Ivan speaks with great conviction of an experience he had as an 11-year-old. “I had just joined the Church. We were celebrating someone’s birthday at the chapel when all the lights went out. Someone whispered to me, ‘Why don’t you say a prayer, Ivan?’ I knelt down and said, ‘Heavenly Father, please let the lights come back on so we can continue.’ And the lights came back on.
“Children have incredible faith. Now I’m trying to have that same childlike faith. My life went dark. But I have prayed and believed with everything I have, and the lights are back on.”

Such a family was Oskar and Albertina Andersson, who became members of the Church in 1915. After World War II, Oskar, Albertina, and seven of their children who had married members made the heart-rending decision to sell all they owned and “travel to Zion.” From 1949 to 1950, 29 members of the Andersson family left Sweden. Oskar and Albertina left their home, three children, and four grandchildren, whom they would never see again. They arrived in a desert and a city where the people spoke a language they did not understand. But for these faithful members, being close to the temple was more important than anything else.
Members of the Andersson family have since served as missionaries and Church leaders in all parts of the world, including as an Area President in Africa and a temple president in Sweden.

Last time you tried that backward shot, the ball ended up in the tree.
Your turn to get the ladder, Matt.
Dad, how can I be a missionary with Franco like Mandy is with Audrey? I don’t know what to say.
Franco knows you’re his friend, right?
Yeah. And I try to be a good example.
Sounds like you’re doing the right things.
I know! I could invite him to our next Primary activity!
Good idea. And if he says no, you’ll still be friends, right?
Of course!
Hey, I just thought of a new shot I want to try.
Good thing the ladder is still out.