Gospel Story Finder

President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles tells of a time during World War II when he and other members of his bomber crew made a six-day trip across Texas and Arizona. It was very hot, and they hadn’t had a chance to take a bath or wash their uniforms. When they went to a nice restaurant, one woman looked at them and said in disgust, “My, what untidy men!”
President Packer said, “All eyes turned to us. I felt dirty, uncomfortable, and ashamed.”

I remember that when my brother was called to be a stake president, he came to me and said, “Now, tell me all about this welfare program.” He asked many questions. After answering them, I said, “You have been in dozens of meetings where I have addressed all of these questions, haven’t you?” He answered, “Yes, I’m sure that’s true, but I wasn’t a stake president then.”

It was midnight, December. Outside my parents’ bedroom window, snow fell lightly, softly, beautifully. The earth was covered with a layer of white like a shroud. I sat on a chair next to my mother’s bed watching the snow. The house was silent. The only sound was my mother’s breathing. Her breath came in such long intervals I wondered how anyone could live on so little air. I realized how close death was for her.
Early in the fall, after four years of chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and surgery my mother came home and said, “Enough, I won’t go back.”
In the following months she grew thinner and weaker and the pain she felt seemed to increase every hour. It was all so gradual, like watching summer turn to fall and fall turn to winter, but with a terrible twist. My mother had always taken care of herself, eating right and exercising, but by Thanksgiving she was too weak to take more than a few steps.
In the first week of December, when the powerful drugs my father gave her with an injection began to wear off, the pain would leave her screaming. Something in some untouchable secret part of me began to unravel.
A few weeks later she slipped mercifully into a coma, and then we took turns sitting with her day and night. We didn’t want her to be alone when she died. Somehow all of us felt she knew we were there.
Sitting with her in the night it seemed a darkness settled over me. How do I explain what I felt? I never realized anything could reach me so deeply.
What I felt sitting with mother was much more terrible and darker than what I felt under the ice. This thing cracked the very bones of who I am, and I knew I would never be the same again. It’s not death that hurt this way. Death is hard but I could accept it as a natural process, something which happens to all of us. What hurt and what challenged everything I thought and believed and felt was watching someone I love suffer incredible pain for months. It’s an age-old question, an ancient nightmare rune. How can God let this happen? At midnight, at one o’clock and two o’clock, with the weight of this question a darkness settled over me like snow covering the earth out the window, and I felt the faith and belief I had slipping through my hands like water.
A few weeks later, just before Christmas, my mother died. It was a good funeral, but there was no answer to the question burning inside me. For months I moved through life an awake somnambulist. Why? Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why does God allow it to happen?

Elder Palmer stepped out of his hotel room and into the dimly lit hallway.
“Out of the way, young man.”
Elder Palmer turned toward the voice. “Pardon me.”
The man barely glanced at him from under the brim of his top hat as he bristled by.
Elder Palmer wanted to say, “I’m a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I have an important message for you.” But he didn’t. Instead, he shoved his hands in his overcoat pockets and trudged on toward the stairway. That man wouldn’t have believed his words anyway. Why should he? Why would anyone believe a teacher who had never even read the scriptures?
At the top of the stairs, Elder Palmer pulled a small reading primer from one pocket and his Bible from the other. “Just as soon as I learn how to read,” he whispered, “nothing is going to stop me from preaching the gospel.”
“It’s a disgrace for the Mormon Church to send an ignorant man to try to convert the good people of Michigan!”
Elder Palmer froze. He recognized the voice that boomed from the parlor below. It was the preacher he’d visited with last night.
“I know he’s rough-looking,” said a female voice, “but that doesn’t mean he’s ignorant.”
“I’ll prove to you I’m right. When he comes down this morning, I’ll ask him some questions about the Bible.”
Elder Palmer backed away from the stairs. The preacher was right. He was ignorant. Somehow, he had to get away! He raced down the opposite hall, looking for another stairway, but there wasn’t one. He was trapped.
With nowhere else to turn, he rushed back to his room and closed the door. If only he’d been able to go to school when he was a boy! He had spent most of his childhood blind. And even though he had eventually—miraculously—received his sight, he had only received enough to get around, not enough to read. It wasn’t until he was a grown man that he had been blessed with enough sight to read, but by then it was too late to go to school.
“I need help, Heavenly Father,” he whispered.
This memory reminded him of the power of prayer. He dropped to his knees. “Heavenly Father, Thou hast called me to do Thy work. I have done all that I can, but I need Thy help.” When he finished, he went directly to the parlor.
The preacher waved to Elder Palmer. “Ah, Mr. Palmer, come in. These people—” the preacher motioned to several men and women—“have been discussing the Bible with me. Would you, as a minister, be so kind as to explain this passage?” He then read from his Bible.
Elder Palmer listened closely to the verses. When he was a boy, his mother had helped him memorize many scriptures, but he didn’t recognize these.
“Well?”
Elder Palmer looked hard at the preacher, and as he did so, the familiar voice of the Holy Ghost filled his mind. “It is interesting that you should ask me this,” he said, “as I have a scripture I would like you to explain to me.”
The preacher laughed. “Go ahead.”
“‘And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.’”
“Oh, Mr. Palmer, that is not in our Bible. It must be in your Mormon Bible.”
“You will find it in Revelation 14:6.”
The preacher flipped to the book of Revelation. His face turned bright red. “Well, well. I have never seen that before. I will have to look it up in my Bible commentary.”
“That is the position I am in with your passage. Perhaps when we meet again we can explain to each other.”
The preacher nodded curtly, then turned back to the women who were seated on the circular sofa. One of them stood. “Mr. Palmer?”
“Yes?”
“You seem to have a good understanding of the scriptures. Can you please explain this verse to me?”
“I have a question, too.” It was the man he had bumped into earlier.
Elder Palmer smiled. He still felt a bit nervous, but he now realized that in many ways he was prepared to serve the Lord, and much of that preparation had come when he was a boy.
“I’d be happy to help each of you,” he said, “but I have one request. As you read from your Bible, please read slowly, and I will follow along in mine. That way, the Lord will help us both to understand.”

In February 1852, a young woman by the name of Hannah Last Cornaby was baptized in Yarmouth, England. It was not the quiet, reverent experience most have but was described by her in these words: “We found the house surrounded by a mob, through which we with difficulty made our way. … Before we reached the water’s edge, the whole horde was upon us; and my husband baptized me amid a shower of stones, and shouts … and, although the stones whizzed around us thick as hail, not one touched us, and we reached home in safety, thanking God for our miraculous deliverance” (Hannah Cornaby, Autobiography and Poems [1881], 24–25).
Her life that followed was not an easy one. Years later, she wrote these words:
Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who?
Now is the time to show.
We ask it fearlessly:
Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who?
(“Who’s on the Lord’s Side?” Hymns, no. 260)

“Last April, President Thomas S. Monson gave a message that stirred hearts across the world, including mine. He spoke of the power of the Book of Mormon. He urged us to study, ponder, and apply its teachings. …
“Like many of you, I heard the prophet’s words as the voice of the Lord to me. And, also like many of you, I decided to obey those words. …
“The happy result for me, and for many of you, has been what the prophet promised. Those of us who took his inspired counsel to heart have heard the Spirit more distinctly. We have found a greater power to resist temptation and have felt greater faith in a resurrected Jesus Christ, in His gospel, and in His living Church.
“In a season of increasing tumult in the world, those increases in testimony have driven out doubt and fear and have brought us feelings of peace. Heeding President Monson’s counsel has had two other wonderful effects on me: First, the Spirit he promised has produced a sense of optimism about what lies ahead, even as the commotion in the world seems to increase. And, second, the Lord has given me—and you—an even greater feeling of His love for those in distress. We have felt an increase in the desire to go to the rescue of others. That desire has been at the heart of President Monson’s ministry and teaching. …”

The story of Antoinette and Christopher Peart, members of the Constant Spring Ward, and Sister Norma Grant from the Kingston Branch is something to be featured. Being able to attend the temple was a great blessing as their previous attendance at the temple was in 1999. Antoinette explained that it was quite an emotional time for her.

Seeking to end the many disagreements and arguments regarding the Godhead which were prevalent at the time, the emperor Constantine in the year a.d. 325 convened the Council of Nice in order that this body might make “a declaration of … belief that would be received as authoritative.” This council brought forth what is known as the Nicene Creed, followed some time later by the Athanasian Creed which reads in part:
“We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated; but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty; and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God.” (Talmage, The Articles of Faith, pp. 47–48.)

Through my calling I was able to help people despite our different backgrounds. One woman in particular whom God led me to serve was a woman in her late 20s, a single mother of two children. It didn’t take me long to realize that she and I had different lifestyles. I wasn’t sure how to be her friend, but in time we did develop a friendship.

A friend of mine once asked me this question, and I asked her where she had gotten this idea. She told me that a man had shown it to her in the Bible. I then remembered John 1:18, where he says that no man can see the Lord. With the help of seminary, I remembered other scriptures in the Bible that say men like Moses and Jacob, being full of the Holy Ghost, saw God. And so I was able to answer my friend confidently and bear my testimony.
Luis M., 17, Mato Grosso, Brazil

I want to remind you that six months ago, following conference on Sunday, we went home to listen to a television program. We were concerned for President Gordon B. Hinckley. (I had the privilege and the honor to watch him for a number of years before he became our prophet and leader. I watched the careful way that he carried on the affairs of the Church that had been his while he was a counselor to three Presidents.) President Hinckley was to appear on a nationwide television program, and we wondered how it would come across. We knew of the importance of it and what it would mean to us. We knew of the work and the hours of prayer and meditation and study that our prophet and leader had done in being prepared for this exposure which would reach, according to the information we have received, some 35 million people. You will remember, as I remember now, the anticipation and the wonderment of how this would come across.

After that program was over, my heart was beating fast, and I felt it would burst. I was filled with joy and thanksgiving to the Lord for the way our prophet and our leader had handled the interrogation by one who had a reputation of attempting to ask questions that might be difficult to handle. What a joy it was for us to witness how our prophet and our leader had been blessed and magnified! As I watched his face on the television (and I’m sure you would have had the same reaction), I realized that a vast number of people were seeing what a prophet of God looked like: a kind, good, and handsome man, clean and intelligent. You could see the outstanding character, the personality of our prophet and leader, who would be exposed to that vast audience of people. And then when the interrogator asked President Hinckley, “Do you really believe that story that heavenly beings appeared to that young boy in that grove of trees? Do you really believe that to be true?” And here our prophet just instantly said, “Of course I do. Isn’t it great?”

Those words have been ringing through my ears ever since that happened: “Of course I do. Isn’t it great?” He made that pronouncement with such confidence and with that wonderful personality he has, declaring it to all of the world. We want President Hinckley to know that since that time, missionary activity in the United States in the area where people who heard that program reside has picked up, and member activity has picked up too. More people have become interested in the Church because they have seen a living prophet in the flesh stand before that immense audience and declare to the world, “Of course I do. Isn’t is great?” We would hope and pray that the missionaries throughout the world would have that same feeling and that same understanding and that same determination—to want to so declare this message of hope and salvation and eternal life to all the world.

Our Dog What happens when Mom and son take their dog for a walk is funny—and so is what happens when they get home.Helen Oxenbury3–6 years

Why would a person without compelling challenges, needs, or questions be interested in meeting the missionaries and listening to their lessons? Well, in my case it was love—love for a girl, a girl named Renee. I fell in love with her, and I wanted to marry her. She was different and had standards different from most young women I knew. But I fell for her and asked her to marry me—and she said no!

I was confused. I thought I was quite a catch! I was handsome, 24 years old, and a college graduate with a great job. She spoke of her goals—of marrying only someone who could take her to the temple, of having an eternal family—and she declined my offer. I wanted to continue the relationship, so I agreed to listen to the missionaries. Is this a good reason to meet with the missionaries? Well, it was for me.

Adjei Kwame was guided into the Church by spiritual promptings he felt when he took a teaching position in Zimbabwe. “I had been searching for the true church,” he says. “I kept having dreams about a church building. When I went through Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe, I saw it and wanted to go in to find out what kept coming into my dreams all the time.” When he visited the church one Sunday, he says, “I felt I was actually with some people that I knew a long time ago who had been good friends.”

As part of the service, members of the Kwe Kwe Branch bore their testimonies. Brother Kwame went to the pulpit. He said that he believed in God and wanted to be a member of the Church. He later met with Sister Hamstead, the wife of the mission president. “What actually descended upon the two of us I cannot explain. I became aware that I was weeping. I can’t explain the feeling. I was released of all burdens. I felt that I had gone to a place where I visited often, but now I was at home.”

When I went to interview Amina Inot from the Kabiria Branch, Nairobi Kenya West Stake, she smiled and said, “Oh, I was just thinking about my patriarchal blessing! I was not making progress on some goals I had set and went to read my blessing in order to get my focus back. It reminds me of the things that are genuinely the most important in my life. I could then see how to move forward. I am promised so many wonderful blessings if I will do my part. My blessing is like a Liahona to me.”

Annie sat on the floor of her closet, her arms wrapped around her knees. Every so often she picked up one of her shoes and tossed it into a corner.
She sighed slowly. The last time she’d hidden in her closet was when she had knocked Grandma’s cookie jar off the shelf and it had broken all over the kitchen floor. She had felt real bad then—kind of like now.
“Annie,” Mother called from the hallway, “are you working on your talk?”
Annie groaned and pulled the closet door shut. Almost as soon as she did, the door opened and Mother looked down at her. “Annie, what are you doing in the closet?”
“I’m just thinking. Maybe I should ask Sister Haslam to have somebody else give a talk about fathers.”
Mother sat down next to the closet and smiled at Annie. “Are you embarrassed because Daddy isn’t a member of the Church?”
Annie pressed her hands against her eyes and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “No, I don’t think so. But Sister Haslam talks about us getting baptized by our dads, and when the kids talk about what their families did at the ward party, I feel left out.”
Mother stared out the window for a long time, then said, “Annie, the other kids just don’t know your dad very well. Why don’t you tell them about him in your talk?”
Annie sat up. “Should I talk about where Daddy works or about the games that we play?”
Mother smiled. “Annie, you talk about whatever makes your dad special to you.” Mother stood up and left Annie to think about it.
Annie leaned back against the closet wall. She pulled an old canvas shoe out from under her leg. As she tossed it in the corner, she saw the water stains on it and smiled, remembering that she had worn it the last time she and Dad had gone fishing.
“I know what I’ll talk about!” Annie exclaimed. She went to her desk and printed “My Dad’s Shoes” in big letters at the top of a sheet of paper. Then she hurried to her parents’ bedroom and opened the closet door. She dropped to her knees and studied the shoes scattered there, then picked up a pair of worn suede ones and carried them back to her bedroom.
On Sunday morning, when Annie woke up, she heard the birds chirping outside her window. She carefully dressed in the clothes that she had laid out the night before, then hurried downstairs to breakfast.
Dad was cooking pancakes and telling Mother about a book that he had read.
“Hi, hon,” Dad said when he saw Annie. “Your mom said that you’re going to give a talk today and that I should ask you what it’s about.”
Annie smiled. “My talk is called ‘My Dad’s Shoes.’”
Dad winked at Mother as he plopped a pancake onto Annie’s plate. “‘My Dad’s Shoes,’ huh? That sounds pretty interesting. Do you have time to tell me at least a part of it before you go to church?”
“Nope. I want you to hear it all at once.” Annie took a big bite of pancake covered with blueberry syrup.
“Well,” Dad responded with a smile, “I guess I’d better put on my tie and jacket and come with you then.”
As soon as Annie had finished her breakfast, it was time to go to church. She ran up to her room and carefully tucked her talk notes into a paper sack. Later, when it was her turn to talk in Primary, she carried her paper bag to the pulpit, smiled at Mom and Dad, and took out her notes—and Dad’s old leather shoes.
“This is a pair of my dad’s shoes,” Annie began. “They’re old now, but once they were new.
“My dad first wore these shoes to work at the hardware store. He helps people find the supplies that they need. He likes people, and he works very hard to help them get just the right things.”
Annie could see her mother smiling in the back row.
“As these shoes got older, Dad wore them around home and when he helped Mom and me shop for groceries. He wore them when he took Mom and me out for ice-cream cones on my birthday, and he wore them when he delivered cookies to our new neighbors.
“Then these shoes got even older.” Annie held the shoes up again for everyone to see.
“Now he mostly wears them to do chores. He wears them when he mows the lawn. But he doesn’t mow just our lawn—he mows the lawn of the lady across the street too. She’s an older lady who lives all alone. My dad really takes care of her. He mows her lawn during the summer and shovels her driveway in the winter.
“My dad wears these shoes when we go camping. He helps me toast my marsh-mallows just right. He lays out my sleeping bag. When Dad is around, I’m not afraid of the dark or of anything.”
Annie smiled as she turned the shoes around on the podium.
“My dad wears these shoes to my baseball games. He never misses one of my games. He always cheers when I hit the ball and get to a base. And if I don’t do very well, he pats me on the shoulder and tells me a funny joke on the way home.
“Best of all, Dad gives me hugs and kisses. I love him very much, and I’m thankful that Heavenly Father gave my dad to me.”
As Annie sat down, a glance at her dad’s face told her he felt exactly the same way about her.

“I didn’t take Young Women very seriously for a while as a teenager. But one day I saw my mom (who was a Young Women leader) working on projects for the youth program. I remember feeling so inspired by her example to progress spiritually, so I tried to change my attitude.
“I started truly learning what the gospel of Jesus Christ meant for my life. Over the years, I felt a witness that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. Even when life was hard as I was figuring out my life after my teenage years, as I kept holding onto those things I knew were true as a young woman, I had so many spiritual experiences that have made my testimony what it is today.”
Sundae I., Misamis Oriental, Philippines

“My father had a truck dealership in Winslow. When World War II came along, Dad couldn’t get any vehicles to sell, so he decided to leave his business and find new work. He found a welding job in Monrovia, California, and we moved there. When he was offered a job as master-mechanic for the harbor that the government was building in Moro Bay, California, we moved there for a year. Later we moved up to the San Francisco Bay Area to a walnut ranch until the war was over. Dad worked for a machine shop in Oakland.
“After the war, Dad decided that he wanted to move to a small community and open a machine shop. We moved to San Luis Obispo, California, where I went to high school. Later we moved to Santa Barbara. Living in so many different locations in California helps give me a love for my new assignment in the Church as second counselor in the North America West area presidency. It doesn’t make any difference where I go in California—I have some connection there!”

The corners were curled from frequent use. The pages were wrinkled and torn in places. The text was thoroughly marked, and notes were added to the margins. The blue cover was nearly separated from the other pages, and the gold lettering was beginning to lose its shimmer.
I couldn’t believe it. My Book of Mormon looked nothing like that. I had had mine since I was 9, and now that I was 18, my book still looked new. The cover, as well as the pages, were crisp and clean. The binding had barely been opened, and the few notes and markings I had made had little significance to me.
I had never seen a Book of Mormon so worn from use. My friend had not abused her book—she had studied the word in a way I simply couldn’t comprehend. I had read the book, and I had prayed about it. I truly felt it to be the word of God. Yet when I saw her Book of Mormon and the light in her eyes, I knew there was something more I could do with the words I had always taken for granted.
I began to pray that I would have the Holy Ghost with me as I read the Book of Mormon, and I began to read several times each day. I pondered the things I read and studied any verses I didn’t understand.
I found a scripture I had seen many times, but it had never before meant so much: “Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do” (2 Ne. 32:3). I had always read the word, but I had never before feasted on it.
Somewhere in my efforts I stopped merely glancing at the words and began to see the message. I looked forward to the time I spent with the Book of Mormon. It no longer was a chore; it became a blessing.
My Book of Mormon is still not as worn as my friend’s. The pages are still not as marked, and the cover is not as tattered from repeated use. But someday it will be. Jesus Christ truly does fill those who feast.

I learned a valuable lesson once long ago from a sweet lady, Sister Lucy Grant Cannon, who became violently ill while visiting her daughter in Arizona. We elders were promptly called, and we administered to her. The next day she was asked if she wished to be administered to again and her reply was, “No, I have been anointed and administered to. The ordinance has been performed. It is up to me now to claim my blessing through my faith.”
Sometimes when one still feels the need of further blessing after having recently had an administration, a blessing without the anointing oil is given.