Gospel Story Finder

Leonard and Vera Chisango of Zimbabwe experienced challenges even with effective planning. They had prepared to serve missions their whole married life, and they knew their pensions and investments could sustain them for their first mission at the Johannesburg South Africa Temple. But while they were serving, the economy suddenly took a huge downturn, and their investments were greatly reduced.
With the help of their family, the Chisangos stayed on their mission. The blessings of that sacrifice were gratifying: their son’s business performed well, their daughter was promoted at work, and their children learned to work together in support of their parents.

Let me tell one last story. Recently a husband and wife traveled to a hospital in Manila to collect their young daughter who was dying of cancer and who the doctors could not save. As they traveled home by cab, the child died in her mother’s arms. Instead of going home, the parents immediately instructed the cab driver to take them to the temple. As you can imagine, the arrival of the grieving parents with their dead child caused some heartaches for the temple staff. However, it was significant to me that when this family needed comfort and help the most, their thoughts turned to the temple.

On June 1, 1843, Addison Pratt left Nauvoo, Illinois, to preach the gospel in the Hawaiian Islands, leaving his wife, Louisa Barnes Pratt, to care for their young family.
In Nauvoo, as persecutions intensified, forcing the Saints to leave, and later at Winter Quarters as they prepared to migrate to the Salt Lake Valley, Louisa faced the decision of whether to make the journey. It would have been easier to stay and to wait for Addison to return than to travel alone.
On both occasions, she sought guidance from the prophet, Brigham Young, who encouraged her to go. Despite the great difficulty and her personal reluctance, she successfully made the journey each time.
Initially, Louisa found little joy in traveling. However, she soon began to welcome the green prairie grass, colorful wildflowers, and patches of ground along the riverbanks. “The gloom on my mind wore gradually away,” she recorded, “and there was not a more mirthful woman in the whole company.”

Illustration by Joshua Dennis
I was called to teach the Aaronic Priesthood in my branch, and one Sunday the topic was respect for womanhood. During the lesson we discussed that respect should be shown to every female, from infant to adulthood, as stated in the Aaronic Priesthood manual.
Gabriel (name has been changed), one of the young men in the class, said that to him a woman is a female who is old enough to be his mother and any female younger than that should respect him because he is a man. No one else in the class agreed with him, which was hard for him to believe.
We continued to discuss ways to show respect to women, and I told them that one thing I do is give up my seat on the large public transportation van when a woman boards, even if it means standing for 30–40 minutes before arriving at my destination. I told them that men ought to stand and let women have the seats. Gabriel was still uncomfortable with the lesson.
Two days later, I boarded a van and sat down in the front. All of the seats were full when a man and his young daughter boarded and walked to the rear. Soon after, an elderly woman entered the van, and I stood up and offered her my seat.
A man behind me tapped my shoulder, pointed to the back of the van, and told me a young man had asked him to get my attention. I walked back to see who this young man was. Everyone nearby was smiling because the young man had just given his seat to the man and his four-year-old daughter who had boarded earlier. It was Gabriel, the young man in my priesthood class, who had been uncomfortable with the topic of respect for womanhood.
He said to me, “I was watching to see if you would stand for the woman who entered the van. I was moved when I saw that you did, and I remembered our lesson on Sunday and had to stand up for the little girl and her father.”
How happy I was to see that our young men live what they are taught in the Church. He used to think that respect was reserved only for older women, but after our Sunday lesson, he chose to show respect for a four-year-old girl.
I was also happy that I chose to live what I taught, helping him learn to show respect for women of all ages. I wondered what his feelings would have been if I had not stood up for the woman in the van. A scripture came to my mind: “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:17).

The leaders at the Sandy Utah Hidden Valley Stake youth conference can’t hear themselves think, and as you might expect, it’s the youth making all the noise. So are the advisers doing anything to stop this racket? Hardly. Actually, they’re encouraging it.
Why? Because this is a construction site, and the young men and women are busier than a swarm of honeybees. They’re building a dairy and hay barn next to Brigham Young’s farmhouse at This Is the Place State Park in Salt Lake City, Utah, and they’re doing just about all of it themselves. They’re throwing up walls, laying down shingles, and much more, all while dressed in long pioneer clothing. It’s hot and the work is hard, but you won’t find anyone complaining here. They’re having too much fun.
The Hidden Valley youth decided to build the barn as both a service to the park and a way to kindle their own pioneer spirit.
“Everyone pulled together,” said Lance Banks, 18, a member of the stake youth council who helped plan the event. The whole stake got into the act. Materials and labor were donated by members who had the means or the right skills. “A lot of prayers were answered right there,” Lance says.
Today’s the big day for most of the physical work, but the youth have done a lot just to prepare for this event. First they dug the footings by hand, and then they helped assemble the structural frame. Now they’re hauling and cutting the lumber—which came from a 1904 railroad trestle that once spanned the Great Salt Lake—and using it to build the walls and a loft on each side. Just a little hammering, right?
Not exactly. Each of the nails being used is three inches long and thicker at the bottom than some nails are at the top. Not only that, but several are required to secure each board. They’ve been fashioned by a blacksmith to resemble nails used by the pioneers, and they’re making for some pretty sore muscles.
“It took a lot of strength,” admits Rob Hunt, 16. “I had to switch arms.”
After pounding for several minutes on the same nail, many of the young men and women are beginning to wonder how the pioneers ever got anything built. That’s where cooperation comes in.
“Teamwork is the most important thing here,” says Allison Berrett, 14, and she’s not joking. To finish driving some of the nails, quite a few of the young people are taking turns with the hammer, giving each other a break. Not only does the work go fast, but spirits are lifted as well, and several of them say that the hammering will be their most memorable part of the day.
With fatigue, heat, and constant noise all around, one might expect to see a slower pace as the day wears on. Not here. You’d be hard pressed to find someone willing to give up their post, even when it’s time to give someone else a turn.
“[The leaders] were telling us to get out of there because other people needed a chance to work,” says Kelly Peterson, 17, when her time was up. “I wanted to do more, but there were just too many people.”
It’s obvious that everyone wants to contribute, maybe because they’re beginning to realize the great pioneer legacy they’re becoming a part of. They’re grateful for what the pioneers gave them, and they’re learning to appreciate things the early Salt Lake settlers had to do without, like modern tools.
“It’s hard because you don’t get to use all the electric stuff you can, like a nail gun,” says Amanda Robinson, 16. “It teaches us how hard it was for the pioneers.”
“It makes you appreciate what you have,” says Robert Burton, 15.
Nate Smith, 16, sees another important lesson in these trials. “The sacrifices [the pioneers] made are things we can really turn to when we feel like we have it hard,” he says. “If they can do it, with the Lord’s help, why shouldn’t we?”
While they’re here, the youth are learning more about the pioneer lifestyle by touring Brigham Young’s home and visiting an authentic pioneer village. They’re also doing other small service projects, like weeding around the village, mowing Brigham Young’s lawn (tell that to your grandchildren), and tying quilts for a homeless shelter. Not many of the youth have ever tied a quilt before.
“It makes you feel like a real pioneer,” says 14-year-old Laura Campbell. “We’ve known about [quilting], but we just haven’t experienced it.” That seems to be the key: To fully appreciate what the pioneers went through, sometimes you have to be there.
“We’re pioneers ourselves,” says J. D. Price, 14, and he’s right. Never before has a group of nonprofessionals been allowed to do anything like this in the park, the place marking the spot where the first pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. Whether or not others are invited in the future will depend on how everyone behaves today. No pressure, right?
Some of these youth are lucky enough to have pioneer heritage in their ancestry as well, and while it’s not necessary to gain an appreciation of pioneer history, it never hurts. Take Alicia Bruening, 18. She tells the story of how her great-great-great grandfather crossed the plains and helped build the great doors for the Salt Lake Temple. How does that make her feel?
“It’s really great, because one day when I get married, I’ll be so excited to go stand in front of those doors,” Alicia says. “It’s neat to see that my ancestry actually contributed to the temple. Part of me is in the temple.”
Back at the barn, the walls and the loft are nearly done, as young men and women continue to swarm around every corner of the building. The events of the day have given them a newfound appreciation for those who came before, and now they feel as if they’ve given something back.”
“It’s almost as if we’re rebuilding part of the past,” says Kelly Peterson. “Brigham Young walked around these grounds. He probably walked right where I was walking. He probably had a barn here at one time. We’re bringing it back to life.”
For these youth, this barn is a piece of their own history, a new legacy. “It’ll be cool to come back when you’re older and take your grandkids,” says Rosie Simmons. She and many others, including all of the stake Primary children, each signed their names to the back of one of the shingles adorning the roof. “It will be neat to go and say, ‘My name’s up on that,’” Rosie adds.
As the day winds to a close, many of the youth are taking the opportunity to step back and look at what they’ve added to the landscape here. Some are even drawing a comparison between barn and testimony construction.
“We’re starting out with the framework, and that’s the gospel,” says Abbey Daw, 15.
Her friend Rianna Berger, 14, continues the analogy. “The nails help strengthen your testimony,” she says. “A nail could be a talk that you heard, and a board could be something that someone said that really helped you.”
Put them all together and you’ve got a shelter to protect you from spiritual storms, just as a barn protects from physical elements. Building such a shelter is never easy, but that’s often what makes it worthwhile.
“You can’t do it unless it’s hard work,” Abbey says. “Hard work is the only way to gain a testimony.”
Now there’s something you can build on.

Thanks for sweeping the front walk so quickly after I asked you to.
Huh? I didn’t do it. I was going to do it right after my homework.
Down the street at Mrs. Foster’s house—
Huh? I don’t remember taking the trash out to the street.
Back in his bedroom hideaway, our hero slips out of his disguise. Once again he becomes simply Matt Cooper, ordinary kid.
Thanks for keeping my secret, trusty sidekick.
Sidekick? Do I get a cape too?

Many faithful Latter-day Saints have demonstrated that they are “settled” in keeping their covenants with God and are forever changed. Let me tell you about three such individuals—Brother Banza Mucioko, Sister Banza Régine, and Brother Mbuyi Nkitabungi.
In 1977 the Banzas lived in Kinshasa in the country of Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were highly respected in their Protestant church community. Because of their talents, their church arranged for their young family to go to Switzerland to study and provided a university scholarship.
While in Geneva, on the bus route to school, Brother Banza frequently saw a small meetinghouse with the name “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” He wondered, “Does Jesus Christ have Saints now, in the latter days?” He eventually decided to go and see.
Brother and Sister Banza were greeted warmly at the branch. They asked some of the persistent questions they had about the nature of God, such as, “If God is a spirit, like the wind, how could we be created in His likeness? How could He sit on a throne?” They had never received a satisfactory answer until the missionaries explained restored doctrine in a brief lesson. When the missionaries left, the Banzas looked at each other and said, “Isn’t this the truth that we have heard?” They continued coming to church and meeting with the missionaries. They knew that baptism in the restored Church of Jesus Christ would have consequences. They would be stripped of their scholarships, their visas would be revoked, and they and their two young children would be required to leave Switzerland. They chose to be baptized and confirmed in October 1979.
Two weeks after their baptism, Brother and Sister Banza returned to Kinshasa as the first and second members of the Church in their country. The members of the Geneva Branch stayed in contact with them and helped them connect with Church leaders. The Banzas were encouraged to faithfully await the promised time when God would establish His Church in Zaire.
Meanwhile, another exchange student from Zaire, Brother Mbuyi, was studying in Belgium. He was baptized in 1980 in the Brussels Ward. Soon thereafter, he served a full-time mission to England. And God worked His miracles. Brother Mbuyi returned to Zaire as the third member of the Church in his country. With parental permission, Church meetings were held in his family home. In February 1986 a petition was made for official government recognition of the Church. The signatures of three citizens of Zaire were required. The three happy signatories of the petition were Brother Banza, Sister Banza, and Brother Mbuyi.
These stalwart members knew the truth when they heard it; they made a covenant at baptism that anchored them to the Savior. They metaphorically threw their old ways into a churning waterfall with no intention of retrieving them. The covenant path was never easy. Political turmoil, infrequent contact with Church leaders, and challenges inherent in building a community of Saints might have deterred less-committed individuals. But Brother and Sister Banza and Brother Mbuyi persevered in their faith. They were present at the dedication of the Kinshasa Temple, 33 years after they signed the petition that led to the official recognition of the Church in Zaire.
The Banzas are here in the Conference Center today. They are accompanied by their two sons, Junior and Phil, and daughters-in-law, Annie and Youyou. In 1986, Junior and Phil were the first two individuals baptized into the Church in Zaire. Brother Mbuyi is watching these proceedings from Kinshasa with his wife, Maguy, and their five children.

My wonderful parents welcomed four sons and me, their only daughter, into their home in close succession. We have always been close to each other’s hearts even more than we are in age. We have supported each other and had many precious memories of time spent together. We have always been such good friends!
That is why I felt so broken when one of my brothers ended his life. I worried my heart would not be able to survive the pain—pain is not really the right word. There is no word strong enough to convey the awful experience of losing a loved one to suicide. It turns your world upside down.
I relied on the Lord to help me care for my family and meet my other commitments while I dealt with soul-distressing questions about my brother and his death.
When I asked the Lord for help, I felt prompted to write my questions to the prophet in a letter. I truly believed that my questions were so big and deep that only a prophet could answer them, but I knew it probably wasn’t necessary to send the prophet a letter. I hesitated but then recalled the success I’ve had acting on past promptings.
I went ahead and wrote a tearful letter to President Russell M. Nelson. I wrote about how I felt and how I could move forward if I just knew the answers to the questions swirling in my mind. I concluded my letter, put it in an envelope addressed to President Nelson, and tucked it into my scripture bag.
I forgot about the letter. I noticed it in my scripture bag some time later and opened it. As I read through the letter, I realized that through faith and my own scripture study, prayer, temple attendance, and patience, the Holy Ghost had led me to the answers to every single question I had written down! I felt close to the Savior and His love.
I am so glad I did not mail the letter! Instead, I gained important experiences that taught me again that the Lord cherishes me and all His children individually, and that He will guide and direct us.
I once believed that my questions were so complex that only a prophet could answer them, but I have come to know for myself the truth of the Savior’s words: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18).

While we were living in California, one of our sons was seriously injured in an automobile accident. His skull was badly fractured, and doctors gave us very little encouragement that he would survive. Three days after he was admitted to the hospital, he contracted meningitis and his condition worsened. Our family doctor and neighbor came to our home and said, “All we can do now is pray.”

And pray we did. For several weeks our neighbors, friends, and business associates joined us in praying for our son and for our own strength. After almost a month, our son’s condition finally stabilized and then improved, and we were blessed to see him eventually recovered and smiling again.

I would not wish a similar experience on anyone, but that terrible, difficult period taught us the principle that President Thomas S. Monson has taught the Church. Said he, “Prayer is the passport to spiritual power.” During our son’s illness, we saw and felt the spiritual power of prayer! Our ward had never prayed harder than it did then, and I don’t think that the members had ever been closer to each other. Our family was sustained by the collective faith and prayers of our friends. And even as our hearts were breaking in fear that we might lose our son, we felt closer to Heavenly Father and more aware of our dependency on Him than at almost any other time in our lives.

Tolosa district president Jose Medina and his wife, Felicitas, had their own trial of faith. Felicitas was active in another church but had doubts about it and was searching for the Lord’s true Church. She was praying fervently that she could find it while her children were still young, so she could teach them about it. Then one day while sweeping the floor, she found a pamphlet about Joseph Smith. To this day she doesn’t know how it got there because their house was located in a gated community missionaries were not allowed to enter. She read the pamphlet and wanted to know more about the Church, so she requested that the missionaries visit.
Her husband missed the first three discussions, but the missionaries told her to pray about what they had taught. Felicitas prayed, and she had a dream about the Savior. “It was as if it were the Second Coming,” she says. “People were rejoicing, but we were not because we were not a part of them.” She knew she had found the true religion, and she wanted her husband to share in her discovery.
Jose listened to the missionaries, but he wasn’t interested in baptism because he was a heavy smoker. He told the elders he believed in the Ten Commandments, and one of the missionaries asked him why he was not keeping all of them. The elder said one of the commandments was “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13). “You’re killing yourself little by little by smoking,” he said.
Finally Jose agreed to be baptized, but because he was still smoking, the missionaries had to delay his baptism. Felicitas knew her husband needed extra motivation, so she told him she would fast one meal for every cigarette he smoked. “You will die then,” he replied, “because I smoke five packs of cigarettes a day.” But with the Lord’s help, he quit smoking and was baptized 15 days later.
Within three months Brother Medina was called as branch president. Later he served as district executive secretary and district clerk. He now serves as district president. Sister Medina has served as Young Women president and Relief Society president in both the branch and the district and has taught seminary for 10 years. “We love it,” she says. “It’s worth it. All the blessings we receive are from God.”

Abraham Kwaku Fokuo joined the Church in August 1985, when his oldest daughter, Alison, was 14 years old. He had traveled to Washington D.C. in the U.S., to do his master’s program. He had finished his masters and was working on a PHD in seminar at Wesley Seminary to become a Methodist minister. One day he was in his apartment filling out forms for a promised scholarship when he heard a knock at the door. He peeked through the hole and saw two young white men. He opened the door, and the two young men greeted him. He started being taught and then was baptized. Alison said, “Like Father Lehi, he realized that the fruits were desirable to taste, and he wanted his family members to enjoy the same, so he abandoned his studies and came back to Ghana”.
When he came to Ghana, his closest friends, family and even his mother thought he was going insane. They asked, “Why would you abandon your studies and come back to Ghana simply because you have met the Church?” He explained that he was taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and he wanted everyone to join. They didn’t understand and many spoke ill about him.
The family lived in Mankessim, in the central region about 1 ½ hour’s drive from Cape Coast. Alison said, “Later we moved to Yamoransa because my daddy had learned that the Church was there, and our family could go to church every Sunday.” The family stayed there for 1 year and Abraham got a job teaching geography at Adisadal College, a secondary school in Cape Coast.
While there, the Abura Branch was formed, and he was made the branch president. The children were all baptized in a river in Mankessim. His next idea was to get his mother and siblings to join the Church. He left Cape Coast and moved to Assin Fosu which is on the Cape Coast Kumasi Highway and is closer to their hometown. “My father went to his hometown almost every day trying to teach them. He wanted them to join so badly,” she said and added “at first, things didn’t go so well. They were heavily involved in their churches. His brothers were in the choir and without them the church would not be as nice. His mother was the treasurer of the women’s group.”
He would fast almost every week for his family. Eventually, his mother, then brothers, then aunts joined the church until about 95 percent of all his family members were part of the Church.
His next goal was to set up an orphanage and school. He adopted 78 of the children and about 40 of them went on missions. Alison and her sisters also served missions.
Alison has a strong admiration for her father. “He is very generous, honest, forgiving and spiritual”, she says, “He was a district president while he served as a parliamentarian. He would drive 4-5 hours each weekend so that he could be back for church”.
She also relates this story about her father:
“One time when I was at home, a man came to the door asking for my father. He was not around. The man gave me an envelope and asked me to give it to him. I thought it was a letter, so I took it and put it under his pillow, which is what we always did with anything that came for him. When he got home and found that envelope, he was very upset, and I heard him screaming from the bedroom. He said, ‘Who put this under my pillow?’
“I told him I had done it. He said, ‘You are my first born and I would expect you to know better’.
“I did not understand what I had done. He said, ‘Take this and give it back to the owner, he is not going to take care of me and my family’.”
“I still did not understand and asked him to explain. He told me it contains money. The man had a problem with his land and my father was trying to help him. The following morning the man came and asked me if I had given my father the money. I told him that if he had told me yesterday that it was a bribe he wanted to give to my father I would have warned him against doing that. I told him that my father was very angry and did not ever want him to enter his office again. If he was the rightful owner of the land, my father would help him without accepting money.”
“When it was time for me to go back to the town where I taught. I asked him if I could use one of his office cars to take me there since he was the district chief executive. He said, ‘the cars at my office are not for family use, they are government cars. I will help you pay for a taxi if you don’t have enough money.’”
Alison shared more thing about her father. “Because he would not be dishonest, some people wanted him out of office. One morning we woke up and there was a can of petrol in front of our house with matches on it. A week later a guy came on his knees apologizing. He said he was hired to burn our house. He had come one night, and it looked like our whole house was sparkling and it scared him, so he ran away. I believe it was an angel of the Lord that stopped him from burning our house down.”
In October 2019, Abraham returned to the United States. One Sunday, he was teaching a lesson at church. There was a man in the class that got up and went out. Unknown to Abraham, this man was a doctor and had called an ambulance. He recognized that Abraham was exhibiting signs of a stroke. The family is so grateful their father went to church that day and that the doctor was there too. Even though he is currently down with a stroke and uses a wheelchair, he still sees himself as blessed and he’s forever grateful to Heavenly Father.
Many people joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of Abraham Kwaku Fokuo. His legacy runs deep within the Church and in the communities in which he has lived.

Many years ago an elder who served a mission in the British Isles said at the end of his labors, “I think my mission has been a failure. I have labored all my days as a missionary here and I have only baptized one dirty little Irish kid. That is all I baptized.”

Years later, after his return to his home in Montana, he had a visitor come to his home who asked, “Are you the elder who served a mission in the British Isles in 1873?”

“Yes.”

Then the man went on, “And do you remember having said that you thought your mission was a failure because you had only baptized one dirty little Irish kid?”

He said, “Yes.”

The visitor put out his hand and said, “I would like to shake hands with you. My name is Charles A. Callis, of the Council of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am that dirty little Irish kid that you baptized on your mission.”

That little Irish boy came to a knowledge of his potential as a son of God. Elder Callis left a lasting legacy for his large family. Serving as a mission president for 25 years and in his apostolic ministry for 13 years, he blessed the lives of literally thousands. I feel privileged to have known this great Apostle of the Lord when I was a young man.

When I was in my early thirties I had a very devastating life experience. I suffered a painful and very sad breakup of a relationship that I thought was leading to marriage. I thought I was getting ready to get married and then it did not happen. It was very painful and made me very sad, but, I can honestly, from the deepest part of my soul, tell you today how grateful I am for that experience because it forced me to turn to the Savior in a way I never had before. Now, do not misunderstand—I had always had a testimony that Jesus was the Christ; I had always been able to feel the Spirit since I was a little girl. I had loved the scriptures since I was a little girl. But I do not think I really understood at all what the Savior did for me when he atoned. In this particular phase of life though, I was so sad and had such a broken heart and just felt such emotional pain, that I did not know what to do except turn to the Lord. I found myself immersed in the scriptures, trying to better understand faith, trying to better understand where to turn for help. What I began to understand was that the source of all true healing is Jesus Christ. In fact, I have come to think of the doctrine of the Atonement in many ways as a doctrine of healing. The Savior will heal us from our mistakes if we repent. He will heal us from our weakness if we will turn to him and plead with him.

Think of the weakness that you have. Do you know that the ultimate source of solving those weaknesses and of making them strong, of turning them into strengths, is the Savior? It is not some behavior-modification course. It is the Savior. I started to learn for myself that there is profound power in Jesus Christ to help us cope with the various kinds of experiences we have in this life so we are never alone and we are never left to our own resources.

Since my early thirties challenging assignments have come like waves—one right after the other. I was thinking as I stood on the North Shore the other day and watching the waves roll in that that is how it has felt to me in my life. In some of those assignments I have been asked to do things I did not know how to do, things I did not feel prepared to do, and sometimes things I did not want to do; but, because I had had an earlier struggle where I began to learn how to draw upon the enabling power of Jesus Christ, and the healing power of Jesus Christ, I have at least had the strength to go forward because of him. President Eyring is right; Satan will come after you—count on it; we can just count on it. The only way to be ready for him is to understand how to draw the power, the enabling power, the strengthening power, the healing power of the Atonement into our lives.

Her father chuckled. “He’d have to, to convince a constable sent to arrest him, and a hardhead like you. I’d like to hear him speak. My family and I will join you next Sunday.”
At noon on Sunday the Weston family began the long walk to the Benbow farm. Charity didn’t mind walking. She’d waited all week for this. Maybe something exciting would happen!
The meeting hall was almost filled when they arrived. She sat high on her father’s knee so that she could see over the heads of the people.
Suddenly a wave of whispering rolled through the people. Charity turned and saw two men dressed in dark suits sit down behind them.
Charity heard Father whisper to Mother, “Those are the rector’s clerks. He must have sent them to find out what is so all-fired appealing about this new preacher. I hope that they won’t cause any trouble. I have my heart set on hearing a good old-fashioned sermon.”
The audience quieted as Mr. Woodruff stood to speak. In a short time another wave flowed over the audience. This time it was the power of the Holy Ghost. Everyone sitting there could feel the truth of Mr. Woodruff’s words. They knew that he’d been sent to teach them about the Savior.
Tears rolled unchecked down her mother’s cheeks, and her father’s arm tightened around Charity as he grew more absorbed in the sermon.
When Mr. Woodruff finished speaking, he invited everyone to join the true church. Her father and mother stood up, ready to join those seeking to be baptized. Before they could move, the two clerks shouldered their way toward the pulpit.
The crowd parted as the two black-garbed men made their way to the front. Their faces were solemn, and Charity began to shiver. What would they do?
Mr. Woodruff greeted them pleasantly and waited for them to speak. With heads high, they humbly asked to join Christ’s church.
Another wave of noise filled the hall. Everyone wanted to talk about the clerks, the constable, Elder Woodruff—and their own baptisms! This was unheard of! It was an exciting time.
Father’s chuckle soothed her like the sound of water flowing over smooth rocks. “That does it for the rector,” he said and chuckled again. “He’s lost a constable and two clerks. I don’t think he’ll dare send anyone else to hear this preacher. Any good man will recognize the truth of his words. Any good person would feel the Spirit. I believe him. I’m going to be baptized into Christ’s church by someone with the authority to do so.”
Charity held onto his hand as he cleared a path to the front for his family. She felt a feeling of peace and security, and she knew that her father and mother would guide her along the right path until she, too, was old enough to be baptized.

In 1883 the Widtsoe family immigrated to Logan, Utah, where young John later enrolled in Brigham Young College. A hard worker and bright student, he graduated in 1891, studied chemistry at Harvard University, and graduated with highest honors in 1894. While at Harvard, he met Leah Eudora Dunford. They married in the Salt Lake Temple in 1898 and became the parents of seven children, only three of whom lived to adulthood.

That is why things like visiting teaching are so important. Just before Mallory left for college, her mom asked her if she wanted to go visiting teaching. Mallory brushed off the offer by rolling her eyes and asking, “How hard could it be?” She admits that she didn’t take it very seriously, but now she understands what a wonderful support system it is. “It is so important for women to check up on each other and to support each other,” she says.

It had been an unusually warm day in Lüneburg, Germany, and Elder Kevin Pepper and I were tired. Our last appointment ended at 9:00 P.M., and we had a half hour more to work before returning to our apartment. It was too late for knocking on doors, so we got on our bikes and rode to Lüneburg’s central shopping district. Most of the shops had closed three hours earlier, and the busy daytime crowds were gone—leaving only a few window-shoppers enjoying the evening, in no hurry to get anywhere.
We pushed our bikes slowly, stopping now and then to ask fellow pedestrians if they would like to know something about the restored gospel. No one was interested. And this was typical. Germany was considered a “hard mission.” Few baptisms. Lots of knocking on doors and stopping pedestrians. People were usually polite, but they were cautious about anything new, for the most part unwilling to consider a change in religions.
We reached the far end of the street at about 9:25. Time to head for our apartment. But there in the evening shadows, leaning against a wall, was a man with thinning hair and a somewhat straggly beard. I looked at Elder Pepper; he looked at me. We were tired, we’d had no success that day, and I could tell we were thinking the same thought. One of us may have even spoken it aloud: “He’s probably just like the rest of the people we’ve talked to today. Let’s go home.” But something inside me said, “Go talk to him.”
We approached the man and asked if he knew anything about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He didn’t. Would he like to learn something about it? Yes, he said, and he gave us his address.
When we visited Alfred Kliche later that week, we discovered he was markedly different from most of the people we talked with. He was more reserved, more serious than most, but also more open-minded. He was searching for something. As he later put it, “I was considering becoming acquainted with other people who, like me, had not yet lost their faith in God.” He showed us a book he was reading, a book from an Eastern religion. We taught him about Joseph Smith and gave him a book of our own. He accepted it with reserved curiosity and said he’d read it.
We left after that first discussion not knowing quite what to think about Herr Kliche. Personally, I doubted he’d read the book. The first year of my mission—a year with no baptisms and plenty of disappointments—had left its mark on me. I’d seen enough “reality” to dilute my hopes with a fair dose of skepticism. But Herr Kliche invited us back, and when we came to teach him again, he told us he had read a good deal in the Book of Mormon. He said he particularly enjoyed the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi. During my 10 months in Germany, no one had ever made that claim before. In fact, I don’t recall having heard it in the 23 years since.
We taught Herr Kliche all through an unusually hot July and into August. He made slow, steady progress but seemed in no hurry to make any permanent changes in his life. Elder Pepper and I didn’t really know what was going on inside him. He was as indecipherable as the Eastern religious book he had shown us.
Then one day in early August a letter came from the mission office. I was being transferred. Elder Pepper and I had a few good investigators by this time, and it was hard to leave them. I wondered what would happen. But immersing myself in a new area and in the lives of a new group of investigators and members took all my attention and left me little time to worry about Lüneburg.
One day several weeks after the transfer, however, I received a phone call from Elder Pepper. He told me Herr Kliche was getting baptized on 16 October, and he wanted me to be there. Since my transfer had been merely to the other side of the Hamburg stake, our mission president gave me permission to attend.
Elder Pepper told me over the phone that Herr Kliche had made slow, steady progress for the most part, but in the end he completely surprised them. The missionaries had given him a baptismal challenge on 21 September, and he had accepted. But on 28 September he was concerned. He believed he had received a witness but wanted to be sure. Then, a few days later, everything seemed to fall apart. Herr Kliche informed them he wasn’t interested in meeting with them anymore. Elder Pepper and Elder Hardy were devastated. Where had they gone wrong? What could they do?
But on 3 October something unexpected happened. Elder Pepper recorded in his journal: “Herr Kliche came to church this morning. … The Spirit was so strong that everyone in the tiny chapel could feel it, especially Herr Kliche. He sat in the second row to the left all by himself. … With tears in his eyes he stood and bore his testimony. The sun shone through the large windows, and a beam of light appeared to shine directly on him as he bore a simple and beautiful testimony. It was so sincere. He said he felt fulfilled in this Church and hoped to become a member soon. Just seven weeks or so ago he was ready to give up his search for the truth; he didn’t see any reason why he should change churches, because they were all about the same. And now the Spirit of Truth has helped him see the difference, and he wants to be a member. I was so thrilled I could hardly keep the joy I felt inside. Today will always be a cherished memory.”
Ironically, four days later Elder Pepper was transferred to Kiel and was unable to attend the baptism. But on 16 October 1976, my companion and I took the subway into Hamburg, walked to the stake center, and there witnessed the baptism of Alfred Kliche, a rare and gratifying event in the course of a difficult mission. I have kept in touch with Bruder Kliche over the years. Indeed, his conversion, because it was complete and enduring, has brought me much joy.
The little Lüneburg Branch was dissolved a few years after Bruder Kliche’s baptism, and the members were absorbed into a Hamburg ward. Bruder Kliche, always solid in the gospel, has served in the bishopric and on the stake high council. He also married a fine Latter-day Saint, and after several years they served a temple mission together. “I am here to serve the Lord,” he wrote me recently, “and to make progress. We are very thankful for our time in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
As I look back to that summer evening in 1976, I am glad Elder Pepper and I were not too tired to talk to just one more son of our Heavenly Father. We almost didn’t, and it has been a lesson to me ever since. Had we quit a few minutes early, what a loss it would have been—for us, for the Church, and, most of all, for Bruder Kliche.

Two young boys in the Camas Ward, Vancouver Washington Stake, saved the lives of five other children in a house fire.
Jeffrey Albrechtson, 13, and Marlen Davis, 12, were babysitting the other five younger Albrechtson children when the smoke detector sounded. The boys led four of the children from the burning house. Marlen then reentered the house to look for three-year-old Justin who was in his bedroom. The smoke prevented Marlen from taking Justin out through the door so they broke a window and were pulled to safety by neighbors.
Through the children’s quick action, a tragedy was averted. All the children had been trained in fire safety and did exactly the right things under that emergency situation.

When Brigham Young looked into the faces of the St. George settlers, he knew they had been pushed almost beyond endurance. The great storm had left them discouraged. The rivers seemed impossible to harness, and dams and canals had washed out time and time again. In turn, crops had failed. Desert malaria sapped the strength from many. And then there was the intense heat, with inadequate shade or shelters to provide relief. The settlers were worn and despondent. Hope was failing. Then Brigham Young did something incredible! He requested that these same people commence building a magnificent tabernacle.
Miles Romney pored carefully over the building plans. For an architect to design a fine structure and then build it with only a small outlay of cash and a minimum of skilled labor was going to be a challenge. But the “Dixie” settlers were willing, and that gave him heart. Of course local materials must be used whenever possible. That meant red sandstone and plenty of it. The necessary lumber needed to be hauled by wagon trains from Pine Valley some distance away. Since there were no local sawmills, the trusses that would span the width of the building were to be hewn by hand with broad axes.
The graceful, free-standing circular staircases would enrich the interior, and on these he would use his own woodworking skills. He hoped to contribute to a setting where the dedicated southern Utah settlers could worship their Lord.
Under the direction of my great-great-great-grandfather Miles Romney, the St. George Tabernacle was built! It stood like a jewel in the desert.
The building project provided support for many of the struggling pioneer men and their families. They were paid, not with cash, but with eggs, butter, corn, chickens, etc., commodities that were more important to a people whose very necessities had been waning. While working on their tabernacle, they learned skills and trades that they would later use to build their desert community.
The St. George Tabernacle stands today as a monument to the courage, endurance, and faith of the committed southern Utah pioneers.

The pandemic reaffirmed to me that people—we, us, you—are inherently good, and we need each other. The world came to a halt in March of 2020. Students, including many of you, left campus housing and went home to wait and see what would come. Some students could not get home because of borders closing or other logistical matters out of their control.

Imagine you are one of the students still on campus and alone in your apartment. The stores are closed and, if you remember, toilet paper became a scarce resource. Many students bought food and cooked together to save money. But that collaboration couldn’t last for long. What do you do? How will you eat? Your family is so far away.

I’ll tell you, I witnessed magic. Not the magic of illusions or misdirection, but the magic of people ministering one by one.

As the pandemic made its way across the world, BYU-Idaho was required to close, and most employees began working remotely. But Food Services? Not so much. They went into extra innings. The Director of Food Services, Todd Huchendorf, assembled his team, and they got to work. In addition to their daily tasks, they prepared, packaged, and delivered over 152,000 meals at no cost to our students.

If you had COVID or were in quarantine, Student Life organized volunteers to deliver these meals to your apartments. Solutions Manager Karl Karstad developed a program seemingly overnight, one that allowed the university to assist those in quarantine and extend support with tutoring, mental health counseling, academic advising, notifying your instructors that you were in quarantine, peer mentors if you were feeling lonely or disconnected, and meals as needed.

In the Kimball Building on the second floor there is a plaque with a quote from President Spencer W. Kimball. It reads, “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.”[4] I testify that this is true. I watched a legion of people come together to ensure students had food, were cared for, and received appropriate support beyond the classroom. This did not solve the global crisis, but it did provide a semblance of peace when the world was in tumult and families and loved ones were time zones apart.