Gospel Story Finder

If I go over what happened a hundred times, I still can’t make any sense out of it.
Look, it was this normal weekend night in the city, and Mother was planning my Sabbath. (We are all supposed to call it the “Sabbath,” or “Church Day.”) The Sabbath, she reminded me, was the next day.
“Now tomorrow afternoon after church,” she was saying, “Brother Matthew wants you to be available for home teaching. Fortunately for you, all your home teaching families are within walking distance from our house. Your father has no end of trouble getting across the city to see his families all in one afternoon.”
I would not have to ask whether our families would let us in the door. Years ago, some of the families would have slammed their door in our faces, and left me with the afternoon free. But since the city church leaders’ activation efforts, everyone is super nice now. They are all more than happy to see me and talk the day away!
But I had no intention of going home teaching the next day. Or even going to church, for that matter.
“Oh, Mother, …” I began, knowing full well how this conversation would end. Pleading to get one Sabbath free never seemed to work with my parents. “Oh, Mother, …” I began again, “you know I have 100 percent attendance at all my meetings, but just this once, just this one Church Day, I want to do something on my own, in place of church …”
“In place of church?” Her eyes widened. I knew that I was pushing a lost cause, but I kept right on babbling. I have a bad habit of that.
“Yes, in place of church! You know how you are always telling us to get out and enjoy God’s world, so I want to go out with my friend Sam on the lake tomorrow. He just built a new boat, and the lake is just a little way from the city …”
I was going to end my request with something about “communing with God’s world right out in nature,” but one look at my mother told me that, even with the theological ending, my argument was not going to get a fair hearing.
“Going boating! On the Sabbath day! Now, what was it we were just discussing in our last family home evening?”
I groaned. The last family home evening had been on keeping the Sabbath day holy. They had asked me to prepare the lesson, and evidently I had been especially convincing.
I tried a different tack. “Now, Mother, you don’t believe Heavenly Father is going to send me straight to hell just because I miss one church meeting, do you?”
Her face softened just a bit. But only just a bit. “I believe Heavenly Father wants to give you as many blessings as he possible can. But if you don’t keep the commandments, you may miss some important blessings that he wants you to have.”
Like being bored, I thought. Well, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I knew through painful experience that outright defiance would get me nowhere. The last time I tried that I wound up with my mother crying all night while I had to listen to my father give me a lecture on a son’s responsibility to listen to his parents. No, this controversy had to be handled with stealth and guile.
The next morning I got up bright and early and dressed in my best. Both Mother and Father were pleased; they usually had to drag me out of bed. I put on my most innocent expression and told them that I was going to attend church on the other side of the city, so I might be back a little late. They gave me a big smile and kissed me good-bye. I almost felt guilty.
The rest, of course, was pretty simple. As soon as I got clear of the city and down by the lake, I stashed my good clothes in the bushes, having worn my fishing cutoffs underneath. I had a great day with Sam on the lake, communing with nature.
At sundown I started back to the city. I didn’t think I would have any trouble convincing my parents I had been engaged in healthy church activities the entire day. They were so full of goodness that they seldom even suspected anything less in others.
But when I got to the main highway that’s supposed to lead right into the city I didn’t see any city lights. That’s odd, I said to myself. But I just kept running down the road. The road came to an end, and still, no city.
I mean, there was just an empty field. Now, how could the whole city of Enoch just disappear?
Then I heard a voice behind me saying, “You were not supposed to be here today.”
I turned around and there stood a man in white. He looked at me for a long time and then said, “You were not supposed to be here today. Your city has been taken up, and your parents are not in it.”
I remember standing there, stunned, while he went on to explain that the city had been translated because the people were so righteous, and only those who had gone with it were with my parents.
I asked him how I was supposed to get there, but he told me it was too late.
Then he said, “If you had been where you were supposed to be, you would have been with them.”
I could only stand there and cry. I had missed the city of Enoch because I wanted to go boating on the Sabbath day.

Heavenly Father has given us all talents and gifts that can help us provide for ourselves and our families. Learning to recognize our talents and gifts—and interests—is an important first step in career preparation. President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, learned from his father, Henry Eyring, to choose a career that complemented his interests.

Because of his love for science, Professor Henry Eyring encouraged his sons to major in physics as preparation for a career in science. While President Eyring was studying physics at the University of Utah, he had an exchange with his father that changed his career direction. He asked his father for help with a complex mathematical problem. “My father was at a blackboard we kept in the basement,” President Eyring recalls. “Suddenly he stopped. ‘Hal,’ he said, ‘we were working this same kind of problem a week ago. You don’t seem to understand it any better now than you did then. Haven’t you been working on it?’”

A little chagrined, President Eyring admitted he had not. President Eyring recalls his father’s response: “When I told him no, my father paused. It was really a very tender and poignant moment, because I knew how much he loved me and how much he wanted me to be a scientist. Then he said, ‘Hal, I think you’d better get out of physics. You ought to find something that you love so much that when you don’t have to think about anything, that’s what you think about.’”2

Perhaps we can be helped by a story about Johnny Miller, who recently won $500,000 in a one-million-dollar golf tournament, the first of its kind in the world. Several years ago he came to speak to the missionaries and youth in London. The year before that he was the British Open champion. He came as a champion; he spoke as a champion.

The next year Johnny Miller came to speak to us again. He had missed the cut on the second round of the tournament, and the headlines in the London papers and throughout the world revealed that the champion had not made it to the finals. Now he faced another group of missionaries and young people, and he had a hard time deciding whether he could make it. Like the champion he is, he decided to come. He stood and, gripping the sides of the podium, trembled all over. The first words he said were of great courage: “I don’t know why you feel you can go through life without a score card.” And then he proceeded to give his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to talk about our score cards of life.

When we were expecting our second child, nothing went as expected, and ultimately, our sweet, 1 lb. 1 oz. daughter’s heart only beat for a couple of hours because her lungs just couldn’t take in air.

I remember one day sitting in my living room grieving that loss, when these words from Elder Maxwell came: “[True submission brings] the reassuring realization that we are in the Lord’s hands! But, brothers and sisters, we were never really anywhere else!” [12] Then I saw a picture in my mind. It was a young mother, pain and anguish on her face, handing her baby back to the hand of God. [13] At first, that is all I saw, but then I realized where that mother was standing. Do you see it? She is standing in the palm of God’s other hand. And then peace came. I understood that our daughter is God’s and ours because of the covenants we made with Him in His Holy House, and the way to honor that bond was to live for the promises. I could feel cheer even in grief.

Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles tells the story of his father teaching him to set goals by sitting down with the children individually and offering help.

“I had the desire to engage in this practice with my children,” Elder Cook said. “When our son, Larry, was five years old, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said he wanted to be a doctor like his Uncle Joe. …

“Several months later, I asked him again what he would like to be. This time he said he wanted to be an airline pilot. … I said, ‘Larry, last time we talked you wanted to be a doctor. What has changed your mind?’ He answered, ‘I still like the idea of being a doctor, but I have noticed that Uncle Joe works on Saturday mornings, and I wouldn’t want to miss Saturday Morning Cartoons.’

“Since that time our family has labeled a distraction from a worthwhile goal as a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

“What are some of the Saturday Morning Cartoons that distract us from attaining the joy that we desire? … If we examine the reasons we don’t do what we ought to do, we find that the list of Saturday Morning Cartoons is almost endless.”

Elder Cook’s teachings show us that we need to reflect on how we are doing, avoid distractions, and stay focused as we seek to achieve our goals.

In 2007, the United States was in the middle of an economic downturn. Because of this recession, some of my business clients were filing for bankruptcy and shutting down their businesses. This was hurting my business. As I sought to provide for my family and to help my clients, I was seeking guidance from Heavenly Father on what I should do. I wasn’t getting a clear answer and I didn’t know what to do. One morning as I was praying and reflecting upon this problem, I picked up the Book of Mormon and began to read. As I read this wonderful book, I felt ideas come to my mind on what I could do to help my clients and my business. It was a clear answer to my prayers.

In October 1918, 100 years ago, President Joseph F. Smith received a glorious vision. After almost 65 years of dedicated service to the Lord in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and just a few weeks before his death on November 19, 1918, he sat in his room pondering Christ’s atoning sacrifice and reading the Apostle Peter’s description of the Savior’s ministry in the spirit world after His Crucifixion.
He recorded: “As I read I was greatly impressed. … As I pondered over these things … , the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead.” The full text of the vision is recorded in Doctrine and Covenants section 138.
In the Lord’s due time, the additional answers, comfort, and understanding about the spirit world President Smith sought came to him through the marvelous vision he received in October 1918.
That year was particularly painful for him. He grieved over the death toll in the Great World War that continued to climb to over 20 million people killed. Additionally, a flu pandemic was spreading around the world, taking the lives of as many as 100 million people.
During the year, President Smith also lost three more precious family members. Elder Hyrum Mack Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, his firstborn son and my grandfather, died suddenly of a ruptured appendix.
President Smith wrote: “I am speechless—[numb] with grief! … My heart is broken; and flutters for life! … O! I loved him! … I will love him forever more. And so it is and ever will be with all my sons and daughters, but he is my first born son, the first to bring me the joy and hope of an endless, honorable name among men. … From the depths of my soul I thank God for him! But … O! I needed him! We all needed him! He was most useful to the Church. … And now, … O! what can I do! … O! God help me!”
The next month, President Smith’s son-in-law, Alonzo Kesler, died in a tragic accident. President Smith noted in his journal, “This most terrible and heart-rending fatal accident, has again cast a pall of gloom over all my family.”
Seven months later, in September 1918, President Smith’s daughter-in-law and my grandmother, Ida Bowman Smith, died after giving birth to her fifth child, my uncle Hyrum.
And so it was on October 3, 1918, having experienced intense sorrow over the millions who had died in the world through war and disease as well as the deaths of his own family members, President Smith received the heavenly revelation known as “the vision of the redemption of the dead.”
He alluded to the revelation the following day in the opening session of the October general conference. President Smith’s health was failing, yet he spoke briefly: “I will not, I dare not, attempt to enter upon many things that are resting upon my mind this morning, and I shall postpone until some future time, the Lord be willing, my attempt to tell you some of the things that are in my mind, and that dwell in my heart. I have not lived alone these [last] five months. I have dwelt in the spirit of prayer, of supplication, of faith and of determination; and I have had my communication with the Spirit of the Lord continuously.”

My wife, Harriet, is a wonderful example of this. When we were living in Germany, she would find a way to work Church-related topics into her conversations with friends and acquaintances. For example, when someone asked about her weekend, she would say, “This Sunday we had an impressive experience in our church! A 16-year-old young man gave a beautiful talk in front of 200 people of our congregation about living a clean life.” Or, “I learned about a 90-year-old woman who knitted more than 500 blankets and gave them to our Church’s humanitarian program to be shipped to people in need all around the world.”

More often than not, the people who heard this wanted to know more. They asked questions. And that led to opportunities to talk about the gospel in a natural, confident, nonpushy way.

One day in high school, I had a geography test where I was asked to recognize and name each continent and country in the world. Sounds tough, right? Well, it was. Especially since I am mostly blind.
I have tunnel vision, so my eyes—well, the one that works—can only focus on a small portion of a page at a time. Not ideal for a test where I needed to see the whole picture all at once.
I got frustrated pretty quick. I couldn’t tell Europe apart from South America or Africa from Australia. I got so frustrated that I started to cry, making the already jumbled shapes on my paper even more blurry. Thankfully, I was saved when my dad walked in to pick me up at the end of the day.
My teacher gave me extra time to complete the test at home. After dinner that night I sat at the table, ready to try again, while my siblings watched a video in the living room.
I started trying to fill in the map when something in the video caught my attention. A blind man was asking the Savior if He would give him sight. At that moment, that’s what I wanted more than anything.
Suddenly I realized that if anyone could help me, it was Jesus Christ. I didn’t have sight given to me that day, but as I listened to the Savior heal that man, I felt joy! I knew Jesus Christ cared about me and would help me finish my test.
I knelt down and offered heartfelt thanks to my Heavenly Father for the gift of His Son. Then, with newfound determination, I picked up my pencil, ready to try again.

When Deepak Shrestha’s older brother, who was the first missionary to serve from Nepal, told him the Church was the greatest thing in the world, Deepak was interested. Then his brother challenged him to live the Word of Wisdom. Deepak quickly felt the wisdom of this advice because “it affects the future.” The result of that decision has been the start of Deepak’s strong and continually growing testimony of the gospel.

Brother Featherstone recounted an interesting story about Orson Spencer and his wife, Katherine. In the mid-1830s, the Prophet Joseph Smith sent missionaries back to Boston, Massachusetts. When they arrived, they started meeting with a man by the name of Orson Spencer; he believed and was converted. His fiancée was taught at the same time. They wanted to get married, and they both wanted to join the Church; so they went to her family to see if they could get permission. The interview did not last very long; Katherine’s father told her, “If you choose to marry Orson and if you join this Church you are no longer welcome in our home. We never want to see you again. We disown you. We disinherit you.” That was about the summary of the interview. As they left this interview, Katherine said, “Well, Orson, I only know one thing—I want to marry you and will do whatever you say.”

So they joined the Church. They were married, and they had five children back in Massachusetts. But Katherine was a frail little girl, and I guess that having five children rather close together was really too much for her. Her health was not good. They decided that they ought to move to the west with the rest of the Saints, and so they made their way to Nauvoo, Illinois; no sooner did they arrive there than Brother Brigham gave the word that they were going to move on westward.

Brother Orson was concerned; he felt that his wife would never be able to make this kind of a trip. In desperation, he wrote back to her family and he said, in essence, “Please let Katherine come home to be nursed back to health. She has been sick; I despair for her life. I don’t believe she will make it across the plains. We are going to leave soon. Please let me know.” Then he added these words, “I will do anything that you ask.”

The weeks passed and it became a month, and it was time to leave. They fixed a little pallet for a bed and put it in the wagon, and they began to roll westward. It was in the middle of the winter, as you know, and the going was very difficult. At night the roads froze hard as granite; but when the sun came out in the morning the roads became a quagmire, and the wheels were up to their axles in mud many times. They could only make a few yards an hour. Finally, about eighteen days out, they made an encirclement, and into the camp rode Porter Rockwell. He had picked up mail, and he distributed it around the camp. He gave Orson a letter written by Katherine’s parents.

He read the letter, “Yes, we would love to have our daughter come home. We’d love to see her again, but only on the condition that she leave you and leave her newfound Church. Then we will nurse her back to health. We would love to see her again, but only on these conditions. If not, we never want to see her again. We disown her. We disinherit her, and she is not welcome in our home.” Orson, feeling terrible, climbed into the wagon and gave the letter to Katherine. She read it; she had not known until then that he had written it. He said, “I told them that I would do anything. And this is their answer.”

She asked, “Orson, would you hand me the Bible?” He did. She opened to a particular scripture; you will find it in Ruth, the first chapter, verse sixteen. She handed it back to Orson and said, “Would you read this, please?”

He read, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

“No, Orson,” she said, “I won’t leave you.”

He sat by her a while. They held hands and shared a tender moment. And then he touched her pallid face as she closed her eyes, never to open them again in mortality. The next morning they held a brief service beside a shallow grave, with nothing but the lowing of cattle as music. Then Orson climbed up onto the covered wagon and prepared to roll westward. His oldest daughter came and climbed up beside him. Her name was Aurelia Spencer Rogers; she was to become the founder of the Primary.

I love Sister Aurelia Rogers for what she did. It has affected my family, and it will affect my family’s family. It came as a result of sacrifice. But even more, I love Katherine, because it was her sacrifice that really made it possible. You see, sacrifice does bring forth the blessings of heaven, and I am convinced that sacrifice is absolutely necessary if one is to develop true spirituality. It may seem at the time to cost dearly, but in the end the Lord restores it all in full measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

A fortnight ago I received an interesting letter from a member of the Church who grew up in a country located high in the Himalaya Mountains of southern Asia. He wrote: “I was brought up in a royal, aristocratic, Hindu priest family. I was taught to work but not to hope for a reward. I thought, Why should I work if there is no reward? Am I following the right way? I was offended with polytheistic and pantheistic philosophy. I wanted to know the real truth and the [right] way.” He told how he had found the truth and the only right way through the Mormon missionaries in Seoul, Korea. He bore a powerful testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ that brought tears to my eyes.
My friend from the Himalayas will have his trials and tribulations as he returns to his homeland to share this important message with his people: that Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and our Savior and our Exemplar who will direct them along the right path that leads to exaltation; that there is a reward, but it must be earned; and that the reward is glorious beyond description. He tasted of that reward when he asked the Lord, “Is it true?” and the Holy Spirit bore witness to him that truly it is.

Through professional help and acts of faith on my part, I have learned more about myself and how OCD affects my relationship with Heavenly Father.
Although scrupulosity, otherwise known as “religious OCD,” is just one aspect of how OCD affects me, it has been debilitating.
In my battle with OCD, I felt like if I didn’t read my scriptures, pray, or attend the temple, God would be angry with me. With that perspective, worship became dutiful, dull, and repetitive. Like the Zoramites worshiping upon the Rameumptom, I began to “pervert the ways of the Lord in very many instances” (Alma 31:11).
Because of my disorder, scripture study became a time of mindless reading and relentlessly avoiding any passages that had anything to do with repentance. Praying became an apathetic effort. Temple attendance made me feel guilt-ridden and fearful rather than uplifted and fulfilled.
Gratefully, my feelings and perspective gradually changed. As I worked with my therapist, my anxiety became manageable. I began intentionally exercising faith and believing that I could always be forgiven and that God knew my circumstances. I began giving myself more compassion, and for the first time in a while, I felt that God was pleased with me and loved me. My relationship with Him began to be more fulfilling and more empowering. As I prayed for help and healing, I began to understand the gift of repentance and to worship God because I loved Him—not out of fear.
Although scripture study caused (and sometimes still causes) me anxiety, seeking the healing power of Jesus Christ and gaining helpful tools in therapy have helped me connect with Him and Heavenly Father again.

As a young BYU student I learned a little something about staying on course when heading home. One Christmas Eve my brother and I left to drive home to Kansas. But early in our journey we learned that a huge snowstorm was heading our way, so we pulled out a map, identified a detour that would skirt the edge of the storm, and headed into parts unknown. Our creative navigating proved dangerous. Our new route was unfamiliar, and we still ran right into the blizzard. To make matters worse, late that night as we were creeping along in blinding snow on an obscure highway, our old Ford quit. We were stranded. And we had absolutely no idea where we were.

Eventually we caught a ride to the nearest town, where we found that we were still hours from home and marooned in Last Chance, Colorado. At that point there was only one thing to do. We called home for help. In the middle of the night our father left to come and rescue us. By the next afternoon we were all safely home.

I’ll never forget Christmas Eve in Last Chance, where we were immobilized by a problem largely of our own making and one we were unequipped to solve. That day our father did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Now, each one of us is on the path towards our eternal home. And for various reasons we all need rescue—rescue from loneliness and heartache, from despair and disillusionment, from the consequences of innocent mistakes and blatant sin.

For example, when I was a first-year MBA student, the only other Mormon in my section of eighty students was a bright, enthusiastic close friend. One fall afternoon he was crossing the bridge from our student housing to campus and collapsed and died of a heart arrhythmia. He was twenty-six years old and left a young widow and two small daughters. Jim Rasband, now dean of BYU’s law school, was a law student in our ward at that time and was the family’s home teacher, rendering much-needed service. I had the assignment to speak at this man’s funeral as a representative of the business school student body—the most difficult assignment of my life to that point.

I learned for the first time in my short twenty-something years that life is precious—and life is fragile. The question becomes not why our loved ones suffer and why they are called home when they are but how: How can we ease their suffering and how can we be as prepared—as hopefully they were—when our time comes?

In the middle of her tenth summer, Cassie decided to have a Great Adventure.
“A Great Adventure? What’s that?” Morgan, her best friend, asked.
“It’s like when my big brother does things with the Boy Scouts,” Cassie said. “They work and save money and then do really fun things, like boating or camping or horseback riding.”
“Wow!” Morgan exclaimed. “What will you do?”
Cassie thought for a moment. “I think I’ll spend a whole day at the amusement park, ride on every ride, and have all the cotton candy I want.”
“Sounds great—can I come, too?”
“Sure. We can have a Great Adventure together. But you’ll have to help earn the money for it.”
“OK. What can we do to earn money?”
“Lots of things. Let’s make a list.” Cassie took out a piece of paper and a pencil. “Let’s see—we can mow lawns, baby-sit, and collect aluminum cans.”
“Walk dogs, sell lemonade, and weed gardens,” Morgan added.
“That’s probably enough ideas to get started,” Cassie said. “Let’s meet at my house every Saturday and see how much money we earned during the week.”
“Great!” Morgan’s eyes gleamed. “I can almost taste the cotton candy already.”
On Saturday Cassie brought out a big glass jar and set it on the kitchen table. “OK, Morgan, let’s see what you have.”
Morgan reached into her backpack and brought out a bag of homemade cookies.
Cassie looked puzzled. “What are those for?”
“That’s what I made this week,” Morgan said quietly.
“What?”
“Mrs. Burke gave them to me for mowing her lawn. I couldn’t ask her for money. She can’t even afford to fix her old lawnmower.”
“All right,” Cassie said. “I understand. Here’s my haul.” She dropped a handful of coins into the jar. “I made it recycling pop cans. I did have fifty cents more, but the lady at the recycling center looked so hot that I bought her a cold drink.”
Morgan sighed. “That’s OK.”
Cassie smiled. “We’ll do better next week. You’ll see.”
The next week Morgan dropped a few dollars into the jar. “I opened my lemonade stand,” she said.
Cassie laid down some wilted flowers. “They weren’t wilted when Mr. Jeffries gave them to me,” she explained. “I got them for weeding his flower patch.”
“That’s nice,” Morgan said without enthusiasm.
The next week Morgan plopped a big zucchini onto the kitchen table. “Don’t tell me,” Cassie said. “You weeded someone’s garden.”
“Uh-huh. Mom’s going to make zucchini bread to sell at my lemonade stand. I’ll make tons of money. What do you have?”
Cassie slowly pulled from her pocket a ten-dollar bill.
Morgan’s eyes lit up. “That’s terrific! Where did it come from?”
Cassie frowned. “I walked Mrs. Peterson’s dog every day this week. But I hated to take her money. Her dog is sick, and she can’t even afford to buy its medicine.”
“Maybe it’ll get better with all the exercise you gave it,” Morgan suggested hopefully.
Cassie shrugged. “Maybe.”
The next week Morgan brought thirteen dollars from her lemonade stand, and Cassie made fifteen dollars baby-sitting.
Morgan grinned. “Now the money’s really rolling in!”
“But not fast enough,” Cassie pointed out. “It’s almost the last week of summer vacation, and we don’t have nearly enough money for our Great Adventure.”
“We could still buy all the cotton candy we could eat,” Morgan said.
“Or we could avoid a stomachache and do something better with our money.”
“Like what?”
“Like pay for a sick dog’s medicine.”
“Do we have enough?” Morgan’s eyes got big.
“I think so. Let’s count it up.”
They were still several dollars short.
“We have to earn more,” Cassie said. “My brother is going to Scout camp this week and said he’d pay me to do his paper route.”
“I’ll ask my dad if I can wash the car and clean out the garage,” Morgan said.
“Great! See you next week.”
The next Saturday, when Cassie and Morgan counted up their money, they were excited to find out that they had more than enough for the medicine. They hurried right over to Mrs. Peterson’s house and gave her the money. Mrs. Peterson got tears in her eyes and hugged them again and again. Then she gave them some homemade cookies.
As they walked down the street, Cassie said, “Isn’t this where it all began?”
“Whu whub beguab?” Morgan asked, her mouth full of cookie.
“Our Great Adventure. It really started when someone gave us cookies instead of money.”
“Oh, yeah.” Morgan thought for a minute. “What should we do with the extra money? Still want to get cotton candy?”
“No.” Cassie bit into a cookie. “These are much better than cotton candy. I was thinking we should save our money.”
“For what?”
“For next summer’s Great Adventure.”
“Next summer?”
“Yeah. I thought maybe we could cross the ocean on a cruise ship.”
“Or maybe get Mrs. Burke’s lawnmower fixed?”
“That would also be a Great Adventure.” Cassie grinned. “Don’t you think so?”
Morgan nodded. “I can hardly wait.”

I think of Levi Savage, a member of the Willie handcart company. After expressing his concern that the handcart company was leaving too late in the season, Levi nonetheless supported the decision of the captain and the other Saints. He assumed leadership for 100 persons in the company, and worked tirelessly to aid them. In the difficult river crossings, he was often the first in the water and the last one out. A fellow traveler said of him: "No man worked harder than he to alleviate the suffering which he had foreseen."[4]

Lugging a bucket of warm, foamy milk, I stepped from the barn and slammed the heavy door behind me. A chill wind blasted across the barnyard and tore at the buttons on my coat, almost snatching my cap away. Ducking my head into my collar, I pushed toward the house, possessed with an anxious longing to escape the late autumn’s icy breath. I glanced at the gray, forbidding sky and hoped it wouldn’t snow, at least not until Ma and Pa and the girls returned from Uncle Tommy’s.
I was almost to the house before I saw him. He was shuffling tiredly down the dirt lane that came from the highway to our farm. Squinting against the onslaught of the wind, I watched him approach, all the while loathing him for coming.
I didn’t know him, and yet he was familiar, not as a person but as a representative of the motley mob of defeated wanderers who had stopped at our door in the past. I recognized the slumped shoulders; the hollow cheeks; the sunken, searching eyes; the rumpled, ill-fitting clothing; the dusty shoes; and the apologetic reluctance—all of which characterized this singular breed. They were cast-off by-products of these lean Depression years of the 1930s. Their only crime had been misfortune and circumstances. Nevertheless, my own selfishness caused me to despise them.
“Hi, son,” he greeted me, a cautious humor in his voice. “This wouldn’t be the Lorenzo Platt place, would it?”
I glanced toward the empty house. No one would know, I told myself. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to lie, even to him. “Yeah, it is,” I mumbled.
“I wasn’t sure,” he said with a smile that revealed a chipped front tooth. “The barn wasn’t finished before, and the house wasn’t painted.”
“We did that last summer,” I replied tartly, trying to discourage conversation.
“Sure looks nice.” Uneasily he looked around, obviously stalling. I knew what he wanted. They were all the same. Pa had never needed more excuse than that they were hungry, discouraged, displaced, or cold. He had always brought them into the house, given them a chair by the stove, a place at the table, and a home for the night.
I had especially disliked these gaunt, faceless guests who intruded and disrupted our home. If Pa had been content to offer them a bowl of beans and a place on the front step to eat, I could have ignored their intrusion, but that wasn’t Pa’s way. When night fell, Pa didn’t send them off to the barn loft; he offered them a bed in the house, usually mine. I would sleep on the couch, always resenting the one who supplanted me.
“Why do we have to do it?” I had accused Pa one afternoon while we were stacking hay. “Why can’t they find their own place and their own food? We’ve got to work for ours. Let them work for theirs.”
Pa had picked up a fork full of hay and carried it to the corner of the stack and said gently, “Every night and morning when I pray, I thank the Lord we have work, that we can provide. We’re not rich, son. No one is these days, but we have sufficient. I wouldn’t trade places with any of those men. It isn’t their fault that the winds blew the land away and tore them from their farms. It isn’t their fault that these are hard times. No, son, I don’t condemn them. My heart aches for them, and as long as I have a single chicken, a meager cup of beans, or a crust of bread, those men won’t leave here hungry.
“But Pa,” I protested warmly, “you do all that for the folks in the ward, too. Whenever they need something, they always come to you. It just isn’t fair, even if you are the bishop. But I wouldn’t mind that, because they’re our folks, our neighbors, and our friends. But not those others.”
Pa didn’t listen. He continued to reach out to them, and they continued to come. Although they were complete strangers, they all seemed to know that here was home for the night.
As I stood in the cold wind eyeing this new stranger, this intruder, I was determined to send him away as I had wanted to do with the others.
The man stuffed his hands into his pockets, glanced at me, and then kicked at the dust with the toe of his battered boot. “Is your pa here, son?”
I shook my head. “He’s over at my Uncle Tommy’s helping out. My ma and sisters are with him. Uncle Tommy and Aunt Lacerne are both sick. Been that way for a week or so. Won’t be back till tomorrow afternoon. I’m here alone.”
I watched the spark of hope in his eyes flicker and then die. He glanced about the place. Like all the others, he was too proud to ask. I wasn’t about to extend an invitation, not today when the decision was completely mine.
“You can come back tomorrow,” I suggested with calloused indifference. “He’ll be back then.”
“I see,” the man mumbled, knowing what coming back tomorrow implied. He looked back down the long dusty lane to the highway then peered over my shoulder toward the house. There was a longing not easily concealed in his famished eyes. He turned toward the barn and then back at me. But there was no encouragement in my unflinching stare. This man represented the whole mob that had imposed upon me, crowded me at the kitchen table, and forced me from my bed. Sending him down the road was a vindictive retaliation against all of them.
“Well, I guess I’ll be on my way,” he said more to himself than to me.
As he turned to go, I said, “I’ll tell Pa you stopped.”
The man nodded his head and waved weakly. “You’ve got a nice place here,” he commented, motioning to the barn and house with his hand. “I’ve got a boy about your age watching after my place, too. What’s left of it. It’s not as big and nice as yours, but he’s got plenty to do. I sure hope he’s getting along. Well, tell your pa I stopped by. He won’t remember me, but he helped me once before.”
I didn’t watch him pass through the front gate and start down the lane. Not even I could do that. With as much indifference as I could muster, I stepped up on the porch, put the white pad in the strainer, and poured the milk in, listening to it drip into the clean bucket below.
Suddenly I thought of Pa. Just before he had climbed into the truck and driven over to Uncle Tommy’s, he had given me his last-minute instructions. Now his words flashed into my mind, and I couldn’t drive them out: “Son, I’ll trust you to watch after things. I wish I didn’t have to leave you alone this long, but we’ve got to help Uncle Tommy out. If we don’t get the rest of that corn in, his cattle aren’t going to have much this winter. I don’t know how good it is now. I know the frost got a lot of it. If you need anything, run over to Brother Ramsey’s place. I told him you’d be here alone.”
“Pa, I can do it,” I protested, hurt that he had deemed it necessary to speak with Brother Ramsey. I was 17 and felt capable of taking care of things for the three days.
“I know, Son. You can handle things as well as I can.”
His unconditional confidence mocked me now. A gnawing shame bore into my soul.
The last drops of milk pattered into the bucket. Without thinking I glanced up and gazed down the lane toward the departing figure, hunched and plodding against the wind. I don’t know why, but I thought of his son. It was strange that I had never considered that these wanderers could possibly have families, folks who cared, who wondered whether they were safe, had enough to eat or a place to lay their heads. Suddenly, so unexpectedly, he became a real person.
A horrifying vision leaped to my mind’s stage, a vision I could not close my eyes to. The man was transformed. He was no longer a stranger, a mere wanderer, tacitly begging for a place to stop for the night. He became Pa! And I was the selfish youth who had refused him even a corner in the barn. It was a shattering revelation, one that staggered me with its vividness, one that made me loathe the merciless boy who had sent him away.
Leaving the milk on the porch, I started down the lane on a run, impelled by an awful dread that this man would escape me in the cold, dreary dusk. The terrible realization of my heartless act haunted me.
“Hey, mister,” I gasped when I was still several yards away. The man stopped and turned around. “I didn’t ask you if you wanted to spend the night. You can you know.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to …” the man stammered.
“I’m not much of a cook,” I pressed, “but I can give you something and a place to stay.” He looked down the road as though debating. “It’s getting colder. There’ll be frost for sure tonight,” I pointed out.
To my relief he came back with me. Neither of us spoke as we returned to the house. I invited him in and stirred up the coals in the stove and insisted he pull up a chair to warm himself. I could tell he was cold through and through. He rubbed his hands together and reached out to the warmth, beckoning it to penetrate his chilled body.
“Ma left some lima beans,” I apologized, wishing Ma were there to fix something nice. “But there’s bread, and we’ve got lots of milk. I can’t fix anything like Ma, but it will fill you up.”
The man nodded, “Anything, son. Beans sound good.”
We ate supper in silence. I gave him three bowls of beans, a half loaf of Ma’s bread, and a quart of milk. He wouldn’t have eaten it all, but I insisted. I could see he was hungry, and I knew he wouldn’t ask for more.
“I didn’t mean to make a pig of myself,” he apologized.
“We don’t eat steaks and stuff, but what we’ve got we have plenty of, and you’re welcome to it.”
By the time the work was done, darkness had settled and there was nothing to do but go to bed. “Son,” he began, “if you’ve got a blanket I can go out to the barn and bed down. I’ll get up early in the morning and be on my way and won’t have to even bother you. You’ve been real good to me, son.”
“You can’t sleep out there. Pa never lets folks sleep out there, not when we’ve got plenty of room in the house. I’ll fix you up.”
“Then I can lay down by the stove,” he replied.
“No, Mister, we’ve got beds. Come in here.” I led him into my room. “I think there’s enough quilts. If you need more, we’ve got plenty.”
“Isn’t this your room, son?”
“Not tonight,” I explained simply.
The man seemed embarrassed and unsure of himself. “I appreciate all this, son. I stopped by here once before on my way to California looking for work. Your pa took me in, just like you’ve done.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “You know, there’s a lot of mean folks in this old world, folks that don’t care about anyone but themselves. Folks like that could turn a man sour on everybody. I know. When I was looking for work, sometimes I was bullied and cheated and sent on my way. I’d get real mad. All I was doing was trying to make enough to send back to my family and keep them going. But these other folks didn’t care. As soon as the fruit was picked or the cotton in, then they sent us on our way. It wasn’t my fault I was in hard times. I got to hating.”
He paused and looked down at his dry, calloused hands. “Then I remembered your pa. He didn’t make me eat on the front steps and sleep in the hay in a ditch like most folks. I was somebody to him.” He smiled wanly and brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. “I had to come back. You see, I’m on my way back to Arkansas to get my family. Going to take them out to California. But I had to stop here.”
I nodded my head and looked at the floor. For a moment there was a heavy silence. “Well,” I mumbled, “if you need anything, Mister, just call.”
“Son,” the stranger said just as I turned to go, “you got a good pa. You’re Mormon folks, aren’t you?” I nodded. Out of his coat pocket he pulled a worn copy of the Book of Mormon. “Your pa gave me this. I haven’t read it yet because I don’t read too good, but I’ve kept it with me. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about you Mormons, but I haven’t believed any of it.” He rubbed his rough, chapped hands over the book’s cover. “They said you weren’t Christians and such.” He wagged his head. “But I don’t believe them. How could I? I’ve met just one Christian man in my life. It was your pa. I’m going to get my boy to read me this book and maybe then I’ll find out why your pa’s so different.”
The next morning I was up early to milk. The stranger was up and dressed and ready to head down the road, but I said he couldn’t go until he’d had breakfast. I milked, and he went with me and helped me feed the stock and strain the milk. All the time he talked about his boy and his family. All the while I could picture Pa talking about Ma and the girls and me like that man talked about his folks. I shuddered to think I had almost sent him away.
After breakfast I put a loaf of bread in a brown paper sack and wrapped a chunk of cheese in wax paper and handed them to him. “I wish I could give you more,” I said.
“You’re just like your pa, son. Your pa can be proud of you,” he said hoarsely. With that he turned and started toward the front gate.
As I watched him start down the lane, it seemed his head was a little higher, his shoulders were not so stooped, and his step had more spring in it. I didn’t take my eyes off him until he reached the highway and walked over a little rise out of sight.
It was late afternoon when Ma and Pa and the girls came home. I was out in the barn cleaning the stable. Pa came out as soon as he took the things from the truck into the house.
“How’d things go, Son?”
“Good.” I leaned the fork against the wall. “A man came.”
“Who?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t ask. He was just passing through. Like the others.”
“You put him up, didn’t you?” There was an edge of panic in his voice as though he was worried that someone in need had come and he had not been there to help.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I did what I could.”
Pa sighed, then took a deep breath, obviously relieved.
“I didn’t finish cleaning out the pig pen, though. I ran out of time.”
There was no rebuke in Pa’s look or tone of voice. “There will be time for that. If you looked after the man, that’s all that matters for now.”
Suddenly I felt hot tears burning in my eyes. I didn’t even care that Pa saw me. I didn’t care that I was 17 and supposed to be grown up. I felt something inside me warm and reassuring, something that almost burst my soul. Pa put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me down on a bale of straw beside him. He didn’t say anything for a long time. We just sat there together, knowing what the other was feeling. I knew Pa’s eyes were filled with tears too, but I wasn’t ashamed. In a strange kind of way, I was proud we could shed tears together.
Finally he squeezed my shoulder tight and whispered, “Son, you’re a man now. You’ve proved it today.”
I swallowed hard, remembering the stranger, glad he had come. I offered a silent prayer that before nightfall he would find another man like Pa.

The next stop was in Trinidad and Tobago, where both sisters comforted families in their homes and also trained the leaders of that country.

Devrani Barrios, a Church member from Trinidad and Tobago, remarked: “It was good, I enjoyed it. Their sense of humor and their interactions with the kids was amazing. The prayer they left with my family is unforgettable.”

Taramatie Kotiah, another sister from Trinidad manifested: “I truly enjoyed the home visits. The sisters were very friendly with us all, as if we knew each other. They have such a welcoming spirit. They taught me what ministering truly is.”

I sat in a meeting at a university seminar where Dr. John A. Widtsoe in his older years was one of several panelists speaking to the subject of alcoholism. One stood representing a great Christian denomination and justified the use of alcohol in moderation, declaring that there is nothing wrong with such use. A second speaker represented another part of the Christian world, a young man of considerable conviction, who announced that he differed with the viewpoint of the preceding speaker. He said, “I look upon alcohol, used even as it is used by men who think they are moderate, as a tool of the devil.” He talked about the terrible destruction visited upon humankind through alcohol. Dr. Widtsoe was the last speaker. He was an internationally famous chemist and a man of celebrated intellectual accomplishment. He stood and said, “I think there is little need for me to add much today. I link arms with my young brother in what he has just said and walk with him.” And then he said, “Because I am a chemist and know something of the nature and effects of alcohol, perhaps I could talk a little about that.” And he did, and let it go at that.

I have never forgotten the imagery, and I have enjoyed the blessing frequently of trying to practice it. We must link arms with good people who have similar or common objectives and walk with them as long and as far as we can.