Gospel Story Finder

We know this because over 30 years later, a Methodist minister, Hiram McKee, who had been Brigham’s friend in Oswego, wrote reminding him of the times when Brigham had been his friend and fellow seeker after truth there in Western New York: “I have not forgotten your advice, counsel, prayers. My confidence was great in you, in view of your deep piety, and faith in God. You was one of my early spiritual friends, and guides.”

Reverend McKee went on to wonder, on the basis of the scandalous reports in Eastern papers he had been reading, “if Brigham enjoyed as much piety now as then, or whether ambition, and love of power, and distinction did not hold some sway in that mind that was once so humble, contrite and devoted. … O, my brother how is it? How sweet was our communion in Old Oswego, how encouraging our prayers, and enlivening our songs we used to sing. … Now Brother Brigham, before the all-seeing God, who in the judgement will judge us, can you lay your hand on your heart and say that your hope of heaven is as good as then?”19

Brigham assured the good Reverend that he was “as honest a seeker after truth as I was during our acquaintance in Oswego.”20 He and Miriam, as a young married couple, had apparently joined with McKee in a little group of independent “seekers,” and may have done so in the other towns where they lived. We know they did with Brigham’s brothers and father when they moved to Mendon in 1829. Phineas Young, who was the leader of the group, described it thus: “We … opened a house for preaching, and commenced teaching the people according to the light we had; a reformation commenced, and we soon had a good society organized, and the Lord blessed our labors.”21

A few years ago, Alice E. Smith, of Yuba City, California, wrote of a faith-promoting experience in finding a record of her great-grandfather’s death. She and her husband were returning from their annual trip to visit their daughter who lived near Seattle, Washington. Although Sister Smith knew how much her husband disliked making stops during their return journey, she asked him if they could stop briefly at a cemetery to see if there were any record of her great-grandfather’s death. She was surprised and delighted when he readily agreed to the side trip in a little town along the Columbia River.
On a hunch they drove to the nearest of three cemeteries, parked in the middle of an older section, and started to search. Within ten minutes, their youngest daughter called, “Here’s a Bailey. I think this is the one!”
With a can of water and a rag from the car, her husband carefully began to scrub away the years’ accumulation of moss, revealing the name, dates in full, and a little inscription: Note the significance of the inscription: Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for thy courts above. Surely it was heaven-sent help that had brought them to this message from her devout Methodist ancestor to the family today.
Another family member was able to identify the inscription, taken from the old hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”3 The divine message of that hymn will sing in the hearts of an expanding family forevermore. The word sealing will take on greater significance.

Let me give you an example of counsel from one of the Twelve. Nearly two years ago Elder Dallin H. Oaks addressed you in an evening like we are sharing tonight. You will remember that he caught your attention when he raised the issue of dating rather than “hanging out.” He said:
My single young friends, we counsel you to channel your associations with the opposite sex into dating patterns that have the potential to mature into marriage, not hanging-out patterns that only have the prospect to mature into team sports like touch football.
Now, the important question: What did you do following his talk? Did anything change? Elder Henry B. Eyring gave this warning:
The failure to take prophetic counsel lessens our power to take inspired counsel in the future. . . .
Every time in my life when I have chosen to delay following inspired counsel or decided that I was an exception, I came to know that I had put myself in harm’s way. Every time that I have listened to the counsel of prophets, felt it confirmed in prayer, and then followed it, I have found that I moved toward safety.
How do your actions over the past two years show that you are holding fast to the iron rod? Those who responded positively and promptly to Elder Oaks’s counsel surely found that the blessings of heaven followed. Let me read from a letter sent to Church headquarters from a couple in Arizona more than a year after his talk:

Your remarks have had a lasting impact on our lives. . . .
. . . Your direct and clear counsel helped us realize that dating was an opportunity to get to know one another better and not an immediate commitment to a long-term relationship or marriage.

The result was that they were married in May in the Washington D.C. Temple.

When Darron Moller and his family moved to a new ward in New Zealand, Darron was assigned a young man named Scott, a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, as his home teaching companion.
“I didn’t know who Scott was, and when I asked, I was told, ‘Just look for someone taller than you.’ I soon found him,” Darron remembers.
Scott, 15, is a counselor in his teachers quorum presidency, and like Nephi, one of his heroes in the Book of Mormon, Scott is large in stature. He also has Nephi’s determination to follow the Lord’s commandments.
“At school I listen to people in my class congratulating each other about doing crazy things, and I just think, ‘I’m so glad I don’t do that,’” Scott says. “Ever since I was small it’s been in my mind that those things are wrong, and knowing the consequences makes it easier not to do wrong things.”
As a member of the teachers quorum, which has the responsibility to prepare the sacrament, Scott was faced with an unfortunate situation one Sunday: there weren’t enough sacrament cups for his large ward.
“I felt bad—feeling that we hadn’t fulfilled our duty,” Scott says. “We decided that the teachers had to be more organized, and now our quorum presidency meets the hour before sacrament meeting for our presidency meeting to make sure everything is in order for the sacrament and to prepare for the next few weeks. I like the order in the Church. When there is order, you don’t have to worry.”
As his home teaching companion, Darron has found that Scott adds a new dimension to his calling. “I resolved to be 100 percent in visiting our families, and Scott definitely makes that possible. He calls me to make sure I’ve made the appointments. And when he taught the lesson the first time, he asked me to go early so I could hear what he’d prepared. Even the little children we taught listened to him.”
And how does Scott feel about being a home teacher? “I like going home teaching with Brother Moller. If it were two teachers going together, we just wouldn’t know as much. But by having someone older than me, I get to hear different viewpoints from different age groups. Sometimes it’s scary giving a lesson to just a few people—you don’t know how you’re going to be received. But it feels good when they listen.”

I begin with a story from H. David Burton, former presiding bishop of the Church.1 Like me, Bishop Burton served a mission in Australia. Through a unique set of circumstances, he had the opportunity to play golf with the legendary Arnold Palmer in an event in Melbourne near the completion of his mission. Bishop Burton expressed how nervous he was, given both the level – and legend – of his playing partner, let alone the fact that he’d not swung a golf club in the two years he’d been on his mission.
He joked that he hit his drive, then his second and third shots before arriving at Mr. Palmer’s ball for him to take his second shot. (I feel the same when I play with Brother Bliss over here – or most anyone else for that matter!) Bishop Burton described the “conversation between …. Palmer and [the] young caddie he was using for the first time. The young caddie, while handing Mr. Palmer his club, told him the distance to the flag was 165 yards, there was an unseen stream on the left, [with] … long and treacherous rough on the right. In a very kind, but firm way, Mr. Palmer reminded the young man that the only information he required was the distance to the hole. He further suggested he didn’t want to lose focus by worrying about what was on the right or left.” In my words, Arnold Palmer wanted to keep his eyes on the flag, which marked the hole, or destination, he was aiming for.

In the summer when Spencer was five, his father gave to him and Alice [Spencer’s sister] a patch of planted potatoes. When Spencer had dug them with a garden fork and Alice had cleaned them, Spencer put on clean overalls, Alice a dress, and off they went with a box of potatoes in Spencer’s red wagon. The potatoes sold, Spencer and Alice returned home jubilant. Andrew [their father] listened to them count their money, then said: “That’s capital! Now what will you do with the money?” The children answered: ice cream, candy, Christmas presents. Andrew gently said: “… The Lord has been kind to us. We planted and cultivated and harvested, but the earth is the Lord’s. He sent the moisture and the sunshine. One-tenth we always give back to the Lord for His part.”

“Pa made no requirement.” Spencer remembered, “He merely explained it so convincingly that we felt it an honor and privilege to pay tithing.” (Page 32.)

I experienced the blessing of this promise when Aaron and I lived in Virginia getting ready to go to Law school. One morning when I went out to check our mail I saw a lady on the other side of the street carrying a sewing machine towards the dumpsters. She looked Asian and I thought, maybe she’s Filipino. I called out to her and asked if she was going to throw the sewing machine away. She was looking at me funny and nodded yes.. Then she asked if I wanted it. She said she got a new one and didn’t need her old one. It was still in great condition so I asked for it. Judging by her accent, I asked if she was Chinese. She said yes and without thinking, I said “my husband speaks Chinese. He served as a missionary for our church for two years in Taiwan.” I saw her face light up when I said Aaron spoke Chinese and then a confused look crossed her face as she said “missionary?” I further explained that we were Mormons and when our young men turn 19, they go on missions to different places to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From then on Regina and I got together often so our sons could play. We became really good friends. She asked me a lot about the church and what I believe in but I never asked her to take the missionary discussions. I did invite her to church and she came a few times but then she started a laundromat business and got really busy. After a few months, I wondered to myself if I was just scared to ask her if she’d be willing to listen to the missionaries. So Aaron and I prayed about it and decided it’s time for me to ask her. On my way to her laundromat, I prayed for the strength and courage to make the invitation. When I got there, she was so excited to see me. She said “perfect timing, no costumers,” and when we sat down she said “May, I want to ask you something.” I thought she was going to ask me her usual questions about the church, but I was surprised to hear what came out of her mouth next. She said, “May, do you think I could join your church? And what should I do to get baptized?” At that moment, all my fears vanished and my heart was filled with gratitude to my Heavenly Father and love for my dear friend.

Perfect love casteth out all fears! Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, “The most effective missionaries, member and full-time, always act out of love.… I hope no person we approach with an invitation to hear the message of the restored gospel feels that we are acting out of any reason other than a genuine love for them and an unselfish desire to share something we know to be precious. If we lack this love for others, we should pray for it” (Sharing the Gospel, Ensign, Nov. 2001).

I know that as Aaron and I prayed for Regina, we both grew to love her and wanted so much for her to enjoy the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was the love I had for my friend that helped me have the courage to go see her with the intention of inviting her. And in the end she beat me to it. While Regina was taking the missionary discussions she invited her nephew, who was staying with her, to join her learn more about the LDS church.
Aaron baptized Regina Au on June 1, 1997, and Regina’s nephew got baptized a week earlier.

Permit me to illustrate this point. A young man of faith practiced diligently and became a championship swimmer. He excelled to the point that scholarship offers from many universities were extended. One by one he turned them aside. His father asked, “Son, why won’t you accept one of these free-ride scholarships?”
“I can’t,” the boy answered. “I’m going on a mission, and it would not be honest for me to accept it and then drop it before the year is gone.”
Angrily the father shouted, “How foolish can you be! You are throwing away an opportunity of a lifetime.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” the boy added respectfully, “but I take seriously what the Lord said about his coming again, and when he does, I don’t want to be found in the swimming pool practicing the backstroke.”

“Life’s a disaster,” Travis mumbled, slouching into the bench at the back of the chapel. It was Sister Stott’s last Sunday in the ward, and he hadn’t felt this bad since he fell off his skateboard into a muddy ravine.
He scanned the chapel, looking for Sister Stott, his Valiant teacher. She had just finished teaching his Primary class and now was sitting in her favorite spot, the center of the second row. Her shiny brown hair hung over the back of the bench as she hugged her one-year-old daughter, Tiffany.
I don’t care if I ever go to Primary again, Travis decided, looking away.
Now she was leaving. Travis’s stomach knotted up as the bishop read her name to be released. Staring at the podium, he raised his hand in a vote of thanks.
As Bishop Olson read names to be sustained to new callings, Travis gripped the bench in front of him. Who will be my new teacher? He wondered. It could be Brother Coty, probably the strongest man in the ward. Or maybe Sister Campbell. Every year she won a blue ribbon for her homemade pie at the state fair.
Travis sighed. It didn’t matter who his new teacher was—class would never be the same.
Bishop Olson shuffled through his papers at the podium. “We have called Brother Rolf Meyer as Valiant teacher in the Primary.”
Travis stared at the bishop. Brother Meyer! Travis was sure Bishop Olson had made a mistake. Brother Meyer had to be a hundred years old, and he walked with a cane. Because of his German accent, he was also a little hard to understand. Even so, Travis raised his hand to sustain his new teacher.
After sacrament meeting, Travis stopped to look out the large glass door in the foyer.
“Hello, Travis.”
Travis jerked around.
Smiling, Sister Stott moved Tiffany from one hip to the other. “I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed being your teacher.”
Travis dug his shoe into the carpet as he looked away.
“Travis,” she said softly, “you’re going to learn a lot from Brother Meyer. You know that, don’t you?”
Shrugging, Travis slowly lifted his eyes to meet Sister Stott’s.
She placed her hand on Travis’s slumped shoulder. “Can I teach you one more thing before I leave?”
“Sure,” Travis muttered, wishing she hadn’t reminded him of her move.
Sister Stott bent slightly to be at eye level with Travis. “There are lots of ways to teach. If you give Brother Meyer a chance, just like you gave me, you’ll learn more than you’ve ever imagined.” Smiling, she stood up.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Sister Stott said, nodding. “Remember it.”
“I will.” He pushed open the heavy door and ran across the parking lot to his family’s station wagon.
As he scanned the parking lot, the only other person outside was Jennifer Mizway, practically on her knees, staring at the rear tire of her mother’s car. Travis knew she had just gotten her driver’s license. Normally, he’d ask if he could help, but this afternoon he wasn’t in the mood.
The rear door of the meetinghouse opened, and out stepped Brother Meyer. He slowly made his way across the parking lot and called something to Jennifer. Reaching her car, he set his cane against it, then bent down to examine the tire.
Travis watched as Brother Meyer and Jennifer struggled to pull a spare tire out of the trunk of the car. The tire slipped from their hands, bouncing twice before falling with a thud in front of them.
“Brother Meyer, Jennifer,” Travis hollered, going over to the car, “let me help.”
“You know how to change tire?” Brother Meyer’s German accent brought life to his words.
“No,” Travis replied as he came up to them, “but you can tell me what to do.”
“Das ist gut (This is good)!” Brother Meyer nodded at Travis and signaled him to pull out the jack from the trunk.
Pumping the jack, Travis listened as Jennifer told them how grateful she was for their help. Her father had taken her mother home early with the flu, and they would worry that she’d had an accident if she was late getting home.
Travis stopped pumping to rub away the burning sensation in his upper arm.
“Here.” Brother Meyer handed his cane to Travis. “I show you a trick to help.” Bending on one knee, he pulled out the jack’s lever and inserted his cane into the opening where the lever had been. “My cane is longer. It will be easier to pump now.”
Travis began to pump again. A smile spread across his face as his arm moved faster with less effort. “It is easier!”
As Travis set the hubcap on the tire, he felt a thumping on his leg. Turning, he saw Brother Meyer smiling.
“Is good to help, ja (yes)?” Brother Meyer asked.
Travis smiled. “Yeah, it is. Well, I’d better get going.”
He and his father arrived at the station wagon at the same time.
“Is everything all right?” Father asked.
“Yep.”
“Your mother and I were worried. We know how you feel about Sister Stott. She was a special teacher, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was.” Travis waved to Brother Meyer as he got into the car.
Rolling down his window, Travis thought about Jennifer dejectedly examining the tire. He thought about Brother Meyer tapping him with his cane, saying “Is good to help, ja?”
Valiant class was going to be different, Travis decided, but he had a feeling that one thing wouldn’t change—he was going to learn a lot this year.

Arms pumping hard, Mark and Brian Chapell race up the hillside on a concrete stairway. Their long legs devour two and three steps at a time. Neckties flap as they struggle for the lead, competing as only brothers can. Two hundred steps to go. One hundred. Fifty. With a final lunge, they crash against the missionaries’ door in a dead heat.
A few minutes later they’re walking up and down the streets of Welch, West Virginia, with the full-time missionaries, sharing the light at the center of their lives.

Keeping the mighty works of God in our memory builds in us knowledge, confidence, and a profound reverence for His magnificent power. On one occasion we stayed overnight in the Austrian Alps. Our lodging was a small guesthouse on the edge of a deep precipice. Across the divide rose a sheer wall of rock thousands of feet high. Early in the evening a fierce storm arose. As thunder and lightning reverberated against the rock wall, the whole valley seemed to shake. With profound respect for the awesome power of God, we could not help but compare our puny experience with the account found in 3 Nephi:
There arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land.
And there was also a great and terrible tempest; and there was terrible thunder, insomuch that it did shake the whole earth as if it was about to divide asunder.
And there were exceedingly sharp lightnings, such as never had been known in all the land. [3 Nephi 8:5–7]
The mightiest of all His work is, of course, His magnificent Atonement, which brought to pass the immortality and eternal life of you and me. May we always remember His mighty works.

Locker Room Prayers—I asked Coach Landrum tonight if we could have prayer before our football games. We all just repeated the Lord’s Prayer, but we are united as a team. We don’t pray to win but to have the strength to be men on the field—using good sportsmanship, wishing no physical injury to either team, winning in the column of character and determination.
A Later Note: I played on many winning teams in elementary and high school. Never did I play on a team as united, as spirited, as our football team this year. It may be secondary that this was the first unbeaten, untied football season in our school’s history.

My missionary companion and I were having difficulty getting along well together. I still do not know all that lay at the root of our difficulties, but after we had been together only a few weeks, walking the streets of a small Brazilian town, resentment, pride, and petty differences began to darken our relationship. Our prayers together became more and more perfunctory, and resentment more and more frequently broke out in sharp words. Almost unnoticed, the Spirit began to slip away from us.
One afternoon, after one of many unfruitful days of tracting and visiting members, and with what promised to be a barren afternoon stretching before us, we decided that we could fill some of the empty spaces on our daily activity records by visiting Antonio. Antonio was a non-member whose wife had joined the Church several years before but had been only marginalIv active. He respected the missionaries and several times had shown sufficient faith to ask them to administer to him when he was ill. My present companion and I had administered to him twice, and I knew that earlier elders had done so. All of that took place before we learned that Antonio was dying of an abdominal cancer and had only a few months, perhaps weeks, to live.
When his wife answered the door that day, she looked drawn and worried. She took us into her kitchen, from which an open door led to Antonio’s room. Through the door we saw Antonio threshing in agony on a narrow bed, unconscious that we were even there.
We were suddenly at a complete loss for what to do or say. Antonio’s wife looked at us silently. We looked at each other, at Antonio, at the floor. We had no idea what to do, and worse, without a word being spoken between us, we knew that we were both thinking that we were in no spiritual condition to do anything. Finally, one of us asked if there was a room where we could be alone for a while. Antonio’s wife showed us to a bedroom, and we closed the door behind us.
We knelt and took turns praying, at first asking the Lord to make known to us his will concerning Antonio. In the silence that answered our first prayers, the knowledge of our unworthiness to receive an answer fairly shouted at us. Then, at first awkwardly and cautiously, and finally pleadingly, we began to confess to the Lord and to each other our sin in allowing vanity and pride to rob us of the power to use our priesthood. We pleaded that Antonio not be denied release from his suffering because of our unworthiness, that the Lord would forgive our sin and bless us with faith and power to bless Antonio, or that he would bless Antonio without us.
We must have prayed for half an hour, taking turns, before a peace came to us. We agreed that we should go out, lay our hands on Antonio, and let the Spirit guide us.
When we went out, his wife asked, “Did you pray?” We said yes, and she said, “He has gone to sleep.”
We left the house subdued and chastened. Permanently and profoundly recorded in our hearts was a hard-learned lesson in the foolishness of allowing personal differences to cut us off from the source of the power to bless.

One man I know of was called to a position of service in the Church, but he felt that he couldn’t accept because his investments required more … of his time than he could spare for the Lord’s work. He left the service of the Lord in search of Mammon, and he is a millionaire today.

But I recently learned an interesting fact: If a man owns a million dollars worth of gold … , he possesses approximately one 27-billionth of all the gold that is present in the earth’s thin crust alone. This is an amount so small in proportion as to be inconceivable to the mind of man. But there is more to this: The Lord who created and has power over all the earth created many other earths as well, even “worlds without number” (Moses 1:33); and when this man received the oath and covenant of the priesthood (see D&C 84:33–44), he received a promise from the Lord of “all that my Father hath” (D&C 84:38). To set aside all these great promises in favor of a chest of gold and a sense of carnal security is a mistake in perspective of colossal proportions. To think that he has settled for so little is a saddening and pitiful prospect indeed; the souls of men are far more precious than this.

One young man, when called on a mission, replied that he didn’t have much talent for that kind of thing. What he was good at was keeping his powerful new automobile in top condition. … All along, his father had been content with saying, “He likes to do things with his hands. That’s good enough for him.”

Good enough for a son of God? This young man didn’t realize that the power of his automobile is infinitesimally small in comparison with the power of the sea or of the sun; and there are many suns, all controlled by law and by priesthood, ultimately—a priesthood power that he could have been developing in the service of the Lord. He settled for a pitiful god, a composite of steel and rubber and shiny chrome.

Ashlyn read the story “Giving Our Best” in the September 2006 Friend about a family who gave food from their pantry to the local food bank. Ashlyn came up to me and said, “Mom, I want to do this.” I called our local food bank to find out what donations they would accept, and I talked to Ashlyn about the list. She picked out some bags to use and gave one to her little brother Cooper. They went to our pantry and picked out some things. Then we went to the store and bought baby cereal and other things. Ashlyn really enjoyed picking them out. Then we went to the food bank and gave the bags to the people working there. As we were leaving, Ashlyn said, “I feel warm inside. I feel happy. I did a good thing.”
Ashlyn R., age 7, Arizona

A young woman working at Morton Thiokol, just west of Brigham City, found her eternal mate in an interesting way. A nonmember had moved there from Ohio, met her at work, and had asked her out. She accepted and they went on a date. When she would not cooperate with his sexual advances, he became upset and took her home. The following Monday at work he was joking with other men in his department about how she would not cooperate with him, and how straight she had been. A recently returned missionary who worked there listened to the ribald conversation. Later he went back to the man and asked for the name of the uncooperative date. He told him. She was exactly what he had been looking for. Apparently things went quite well. Four and a half months later they knelt across the altar and were married forever.

Shortly before the dedication of the Frankfurt Germany Temple, a group of us stood in an unfinished room. Building materials and tools were scattered over the floor and craftsmen were busily engaged in placing finishing touches on the walls and ceiling. Though the room was untidy and a beehive of activity, we were subdued by the emerging beauty of the temple.
I asked Brother Henry Haurand, the construction supervisor, “Do the workers appreciate the significance of this project?”
“No,” he answered, “they are not members of the Church and they don’t understand the sacred nature of temples. To them,” he added, “this is just another job.”
My wife inquired of Henry, “Do you always feel the Spirit of the Lord when you come here?”
“No, I do not,” he responded. “When I enter the temple during the working day, I do so as a building supervisor and I look with a critical eye for flaws in the construction. In this inspective mood, I feel nothing special about the place. But,” Brother Haurand continued, “when I come here in the quiet of the evening and the place is free of noise and confusion, and I am able to reflect upon the holy purposes of the temple, I am overwhelmed by the Spirit of the Lord.”
I have pondered Brother Henry’s words many, many times. I’ve concluded that he taught us two profound truths: (1) sacred things are seen and appreciated only through “the eyes of faith,” and (2) things of the Spirit can only be discerned by “purer eyes” (Alma 5:15; D&C 131:7).

Mary Ellen Edmunds described it this way in her book Love Is a Verb: While in the post office, she noticed a man who looked as if he might have come from Mexico. He was trying to buy stamps from the stamp machine with a very worn five-dollar bill. The stamp machine repeatedly rejected the bill. Mary Ellen was struck with a deep feeling that she wanted to help the man get his stamps. She found new, crisp bills in her purse, and she and the man were able to buy the stamps he needed. Mary Ellen wrote:
I had another thought that added even more meaning to the experience. I imagined Them Up There somewhere in a meeting. . . .
. . . I could imagine someone interrupting the meeting with an important message: “Excuse me. I hate to interrupt, but there’s a man down there in the Springville Post Office, and he’s trying to get some stamps and can’t make the machine work.”
Wouldn’t it be something if someone in the meeting had said, “It’s okay. Edmunds is on her way. She’ll help him. We can go back to the agenda.” Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if God could count on MEE?

In 1932, Lauri Lehtinen of Finland was favored to win the 5,000-meter run. An American named Hill challenged Lehtinen on the home stretch, bringing the crowd to its feet. As Hill moved to pass, Lehtinen swerved into his path. Hill tried to pass on the other side, and Lehtinen blocked his path again and forced the American to break stride. Hill barely missed catching Lehtinen at the wire.
The fans booed so long and loud that officials held up naming the winner for more than an hour. But since there was nothing illegal about the blocking, they declared the Finn the winner.
As Lehtinen mounted the victory stand’s top step, an enormous chorus of boos erupted. When the olive wreath was placed on his head, Lehtinen removed it, stepped down, and placed the wreath on Hill’s head.

“The Family: A Proclamation to the World” teaches my family the importance of work. Have the children hold up fingers to count each of the nine principles while you read paragraph 7 from “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” beginning with “Successful marriages and families” and ending with “wholesome recreational activities.” See if they can remember the eighth principle (work). To teach the importance and value of work, tell the following story about President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. As a young boy, he worked at his parents’ laundry business, delivering laundry before and after school. For many years he had to ride a big, heavy bicycle, pulling a laundry cart up and down the streets of their town. He said, “Sometimes the cart seemed so heavy and the work so tiring that I thought my lungs would burst, and I often had to stop to catch my breath. Nevertheless, I did my part because I knew we desperately needed the income as a family, and it was my way to contribute.” Dieter knew his hard work as a delivery boy was helping his family. But it wasn’t until many years later that he learned how his hard work helped cure him of a lung disease he never knew he had. He said, “My regular exercise in fresh air as a laundry boy had been a key factor in my healing from this illness” (“See the End from the Beginning,” Ensign, May 2006, 43).