Gospel Story Finder

Elizabeth “Buffy” Tateoka Fairbanks of Holladay, Utah, loves serving others, and she always wanted to work in the medical field. But by the time she graduated with a degree in biology, she realized medical school wasn’t for her.
Then she discovered a 15-month accelerated nursing program that seemed a perfect fit. Still, she would need help with tuition expenses. Buffy looked into scholarships and found that the military offers tuition assistance programs for those on active duty as well as for those who finish their military service.
“I decided to join the Navy because my husband, Tom, is already in the Navy. He received a scholarship to pay for his degree in mechanical engineering,” she says. After discussing the idea with him, and making it a matter of fasting and prayer, Buffy applied for and received a scholarship “to help me get through nursing school and become a registered nurse.”
Buffy was accepted into the Nurse Candidate Program. “I wasn’t required to do anything but go to school and pass my state licensing exam after graduation,” she explains. “But once I graduated, I was commissioned in the Navy Nurse Corps.”
Nursing school, Buffy discovered, emphasizes critical thinking skills and ways to apply those skills as a nurse. “It was exciting to come through the program knowing how to help save people’s lives,” she says. “I enjoyed learning how to care for patients and getting to know them as individuals.”
The thought of serving in the Navy appealed to Buffy’s sense of adventure as well as her desire to serve others. “In addition to getting help to pay for my schooling, I also knew the Navy would provide opportunities for experiences that I otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Serving in the military means time away from home and family. Fortunately, Buffy and her husband are stationed near each other and they can be together. Even during times of separation, the Internet helps them communicate with each other frequently.
They also know how important it is to rely on their testimonies of Jesus Christ to repel Satan’s temptations. She says, “We are all faced with adversity throughout our lives, and sincere prayer and staying in tune with the Spirit are important to keeping us on the right path, and also help us when we have difficult decisions to make.”
Buffy knows that faith and prayer are important in choosing educational and career paths—and in life in general. She knows that for her, choosing to join the Navy and become a nurse helps fulfill her desire to serve others.

For the past few years the Yarmouth Branch has met in the Yarmouth Congregational Church, and the members are making the most of their association with their friends of another faith. Recently they met together for a joint worship service. A combined choir consisting of members from both congregations performed.
“It was pretty cool,” David says about the experience. “You could definitely feel the Spirit. Everyone had such a good time. At the end of the meeting we all mingled and talked, and some people found out they were related.”

Seven hundred Lamanites of high school and college age represented the United States, western Canada, and parts of Polynesia and Latin America at a recent Lamanite Conference in Salt Lake City. The theme “Making the Priesthood a Power in My Life” was developed in essays, speeches, and panel discussions. Felipe Campa from Mexico summed up his feelings about the priesthood when he said: “I remember a long time ago when I was studying to be a priest to have the power to act in the name of God. But when I started studying, I got disappointed, and I ran away from that church. Now I can say I have the power of God—the priesthood.”
Participants were encouraged to preserve their ethnic identity and develop their leadership ability. Whitecloud, a full-blooded Lamanite, is proud of his heritage. “My grandfather didn’t talk English. He was chief. His braids hung down to his hips. He wore earrings. He wore paint. He wore blanket and he said, ‘Grandson, my father’s, father’s, father’s father was chief, and our homeland was in the north, and our homeland was God’s land, and in God’s land the tree of life grows. We live here now, but one day we are going back North.’ Our homeland was Nebraska and Missouri. When the elder came preaching to me, he said, ‘One day your people shall go North and in the North, in God’s land, Jackson County, Missouri, the tree of life shall grow.’
“I know what it is to be an Indian. I do not give up our ways, and I admonish you: You may talk English. You may get an education, but do not forget what your grandfather tells you because we are children of God. One day when death comes to me and I lay on my bed, I can tell my children’s, children’s children that when I was young our people in Zion, they sing, our people in Zion, they pray, our people in Zion, they follow.”

The doctrine of repentance allows us to correct or fix defects, but it is better to focus on meeting God’s standards than to plan on invoking the principle of repentance before the Judgment. I learned this lesson when I was young.

As a teenager I spent my summers working on my grandfather’s ranch in Wyoming, USA. It was a sheep and cattle ranch of more than 2,000 acres (810 ha), plus additional rangeland. The ranch operation required a lot of equipment. Because the closest repair center was far away, my grandfather taught us to carefully maintain the equipment and to inspect everything before we left the ranch house. If we had a breakdown, it was usually miles from the ranch house, and that meant a long walk.

It didn’t take long for me to learn the law of consequences. It was always better to avoid problems than to take a long walk. The same is true with the commandments of our Heavenly Father. He can tell the difference between someone who truly is striving to become like Him and an individual who is pushing the edges but trying to stay just inside the acceptable limits.

A poignant experience with a former patient shows how gratitude for generosity and compassion can transform us. In 1987, I became acquainted with Thomas Nielson, a remarkable man who needed a heart transplant. He was 63 years old and lived in Logan, Utah, in the United States. Following military service during World War II, he married Donna Wilkes in the Logan Utah Temple. He became an energetic and successful brick mason. In later years he especially enjoyed working with his oldest grandchild, Jonathan, during school vacations. The two developed a special bond, in part because Tom saw much of himself in Jonathan.
Tom found waiting for a donor heart frustrating. He was not a particularly patient man. He had always been able to set and achieve goals through hard work and sheer determination. Struggling with heart failure, with his life on hold, Tom sometimes asked me what I was doing to speed up the process. Jokingly, he suggested avenues I could pursue that would make a donor heart available to him sooner.
One joyous yet dreadful day, an ideal donor heart became available for Tom. The size and blood type were a match, and the donor was young, just 16 years old. The donor heart belonged to Jonathan, Tom’s beloved grandson. Earlier that day, Jonathan had been fatally injured when the car in which he was riding was struck by a passing train.
When I visited Tom and Donna in the hospital, they were distraught. It is hard to imagine what they were going through, knowing that Tom’s life could be extended by using their grandson’s heart. At first, they refused to consider the proffered heart from Jonathan’s grieving parents, their daughter and son-in-law. Tom and Donna knew, though, that Jonathan was brain dead, and came to understand that their prayers for a donor heart for Tom had not caused Jonathan’s accident. No, Jonathan’s heart was a gift that could bless Tom in his time of need. They recognized that something good might come out of this tragedy and decided to proceed.
The transplant procedures went well. Afterward, Tom was a different man. The change went beyond improved health or even gratitude. He told me that he reflected every morning on Jonathan, on his daughter and son-in-law, on the gift he had received, and on what that gift had entailed. Even though his innate good humor and grit were still readily apparent, I observed that Tom was more solemn, thoughtful, and kindhearted.
Tom lived an additional 13 years after the transplant, years he otherwise would not have had. His obituary stated that these years allowed him to touch the lives of his family and others with generosity and love. He was a private benefactor and an example of optimism and determination.
When we remember the greatness of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and what They have done for us, we will not take Them for granted, just as Tom did not take Jonathan’s heart for granted. In a joyful and reverent way, Tom remembered each day the tragedy that brought him extended life. In the exuberance of knowing that we can be saved and exalted, we need to remember that salvation and exaltation came at a great cost. We can be reverently joyful as we realize that without Jesus Christ, we are doomed, but with Him, we can receive the greatest gift Heavenly Father can give. Indeed, this reverence allows us to enjoy the promise “of eternal life in this world” and eventually receive “eternal life … even immortal glory” in the world to come.

At the time of the commencement of work on the Kirtland Temple my great-great-grandfather, Artemus Millet, was a wealthy construction contractor living in the area of Toronto, Canada. He was also a non-member of the Church. It has been said that he was surprised to find Brigham Young at his door saying that he had been sent by Joseph Smith to convert him to the Church and that he was to leave his business and come to Kirtland to assist in the construction of the temple. Brigham also said that Joseph wanted him to bring $1000 so they could buy supplies. Artemus was baptized, left his business in the hands of employees, and went to Kirtland where he worked tirelessly on the temple. Accidents and fatigue weakened him physically, he gave liberally of his funds and in the end had little of economic worth left. His wife died leaving him with four children. In short he, along with numerous others, gave everything he had to the building of the temple. He later followed the Saints to Nauvoo where he again worked on the temple, giving all that he had and more. Is there any doubt in your mind that Artemus loved the temple? It is probable that most of you have ancestors about whom a similar story could be told. It almost seems improper to even raise the question: do you think they loved the temple?

Recently I was running a little late to church and hurried into the chapel during the opening hymn. When I walked into the chapel, I saw that it was fuller than normal. As I looked around at the numerous visitors, I realized two things: it was our ward’s Primary program, and my usual spot was taken.
I hurriedly took a seat on the first row of chairs in the overflow seating just in time to see a young mother arrive with her two-year-old son in tow and her six-month-old daughter in her arms. I noticed that her husband didn’t follow her in. When I glanced around the chapel, I saw that he was on the stand, sitting at the piano—he was the accompanist for the Primary.
Because I am single, I usually sit with a particular friend. But that day my friend was out of town. I thought it might be nice to sit with the young mother and her children instead, so I asked if I could join them. The mother agreed. Throughout the meeting I enjoyed helping with the young boy and listening to the Primary children.
At the end of sacrament meeting, the mother leaned over and said she had prayed for me that morning. I waited for her to elaborate. She said she had prayed that I would be at church and that I would sit with her and help her. She had thought she might not be able to make it through sacrament meeting by herself. I felt overwhelmed that I had answered her simple prayer, offered just that morning.
I know that the Lord loves us more deeply than we can truly comprehend. Witnessing an answer to a simple request taught me a powerful lesson, and I am sure the experience taught this mother as well. When I asked if I could sit with this sister, I wasn’t thinking about being the answer to a prayer—I was just doing what I would want someone to do for me if I were in her situation.
Truly Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers, even the seemingly small ones.

I want to share my testimony about prayer. When I was around thirteen years old back in Brazil, on a Sunday morning I went to church and went to my Sunday School class. My Sunday School teacher invited us to pray for 30 minutes that day. When he made that invitation, at first I thought, "Oh, we don't need to be timing, counting the minutes of our prayers. The prayers, it doesn't matter if it's five or twenty minutes; it needs to be made with our heart." But at the same moment, I had a big, a huge desire to accept his invitation.
So I went back home, and later in the afternoon that Sunday, I decided to go to my room, close the door, look at the clock, and then get on my knees and start to pray. Since I had a long time to pray, I started first by saying to Heavenly Father all the things that I was grateful for. Then I started to talk to Heavenly Father about my feelings, my desires, my fears, and who I want to become.
I felt during that prayer that my prayer made it to heaven. It was the first time in my life that I felt that. While the Spirit was so strong, after I finished my prayer, I looked at the clock and saw that I went over thirty minutes. After that day, I never again counted the minutes of my prayers, but I knew after that day, and I know, that our prayers can make it to heaven.

I was sitting on a crowded bus one morning, on the way to my typing class at our local education center, when suddenly I heard a voice within me say, There is no typing class today; it’s the half-term holiday. Get off the bus and go see Sister Benson.
I looked about in amazement. Slowly I realized that it really was the half-term holiday, and that the bus was fast approaching the stop near Sister Benson’s home. The voice had been quiet yet clear and unmistakable, so just before the bus pulled away from the stop, I arose and stepped off.
Feeling rather bewildered, I stood on the street corner in front of a grocery store. “What now?” I wondered. Then the impression came: Buy some groceries and take them to Sister Benson.
I looked into my purse. There wasn’t much there. Then I looked up and down the road, wondering if I should just catch the next bus home. But the spiritual direction I had received urged me on: I entered the shop, considered the fact that I was short on money that week and couldn’t do the impossible, and decided that I could buy small amounts of the basic foods—a packet of sugar, a pot of honey, bread, butter, cheese, and one or two other things. These would do. “Do for what?” I wondered. I paid at the cash desk and once again stood outside on the street corner.
Looking in my purse again, I found I had just enough money to get home on the bus. I also remembered that my own kitchen wasn’t too well stocked with food at the moment. “Maybe I’ll just go straight home and have these things for myself,” I thought. But again the Spirit whispered: Take those groceries to Sister Benson. So I walked up the street to her house.
Sister Benson smiled wearily as she opened the door for me. When I told her that I had brought her a few groceries, her eyes filled with tears. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said. But as we talked, I learned that after paying her tithing that week, she had no money left for food at all. How humble I felt!
The experience taught me once again that the Lord is very much aware of our needs. I also learned that he is continually working through his children to provide assistance to those in need, and we never know the moment when he may call on us to do just that.

In South Africa I met the Cleverlys, who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The mother of the family invited me to their home at various times. She always told me about young adult activities, but I could never attend due to my job schedule. Then she invited me to attend church, and I accepted. But before Sunday came, I had three nights of duty. I went downstairs to the embassy library where there was a computer with a huge search capacity. I just typed in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All kinds of information came up, and I read for eight hours the first night, eight hours the second night, and eight hours the third night. What I looked at most of all was what Latter-day Saints believed and how they applied it in their lives. Did they live according to what they had established as laws or standards of the Church?
The week preceding my visit to church, I had a dream. I was sitting at a table, and there were two young men with white short-sleeved shirts and black name tags. They were sitting at the sides of a table, and I was seated at the head. When I woke up, I didn’t think much about the dream.
The first time I walked into a Latter-day Saint meeting, I knew there was something different about this church. It happened to be the first Sunday of the month, which meant the members had an opportunity to stand and bear testimony. Now this is the true order of church, I thought.
I was introduced to two missionaries. One of the young men was one of those in my dream, the exact person. Sister Cleverly invited the missionaries and me to her home for dinner. She placed us at the table exactly as my dream had predicted. The missionaries began teaching me.
Later, when I learned the principle of baptism for the dead, I thought it amazing that one could go to a sacred place and do these things for people who had passed away. I thought about my two grandfathers and my grandmother who had passed away. That’s when I started to feel the Holy Ghost. The teachings sounded right to me.
We got to the next principle, which was about families, and I realized I had always known that was true. When I heard about eternal families, I told the missionaries, “I knew this existed.”
Then the missionaries taught me about the Word of Wisdom, and it was then I made a discovery. It felt as if my soul unfolded, and I shed a sort of shell and a new person came out. I felt like I was floating off the ground. I had always lived the Word of Wisdom, and I had wanted to know why I was the way I was. No one had ever had the answer for me. But the Lord did, and I learned that answer through the missionaries and the discussions. I knew everything they had taught me previously was true and everything they would teach me would be true. I had never felt the Spirit so strongly reading the scriptures as when I read Doctrine and Covenants 89:18–21. I knew it was true. I always knew my body was important, and I knew it was never to be defiled.
From this point forward, I began to experience mixed emotions about becoming a member of the Church. I was concerned about my father’s opinion and his reaction to my decision.
During the sixth discussion, I received the message that I had an incoming call from my father. The phone rang. I picked it up, and it was indeed my dad.
He said, “Your mother informed me you’ve made a decision to join the Latter-day Saints.”
I said yes.
He said, “I’m here to prevent that from happening.”
And I said, “You know what, Dad? I love you and you’ll always be my dad. You’ve done a great job with me. But I’m 22. I’m a man now, and these decisions are for my family and my future. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me and will continue to do for me, but this is my decision. I’m going to do it, and I know the Lord wants me to do this.”
My dad wasn’t very happy when he hung up the phone. Immediately I got on my knees and asked the Lord to help me see and understand that what I was going to do was correct. I was thousands of kilometers from home. I was all alone, and nothing was going right. Only when I was with the missionaries did I feel good. At that moment the Spirit testified to me that it was the Lord’s will and that the Lord wanted me to be baptized. A very clear voice said, “You are to do the Lord’s will. You are to follow His example.” Then I knew. I never looked back after that. I was baptized on 12 October 1995.
It was a year to the day of my baptism, 12 October 1996, that I entered the Washington D.C. Temple to be endowed in preparation for serving full time in the Spain Madrid Mission.
During the first year of my mission, my parents were not supportive of my missionary service. The Lord revealed to me while I was on my mission that my family was fine and they would be taken care of. Then things changed all of a sudden. The last six to eight months of my mission, my family was very supportive. They said they were receiving blessings, and they knew it was because of my mission.
After I returned from my mission, I stayed with my family for three weeks before leaving to enter Brigham Young University. Before school started my father visited me, meeting my friends and seeing Salt Lake City. When I took him to the airport, he embraced me and said, “Out of all 46 years of my life, never ever have I felt more love or the Spirit of God in my home than when you were home the last few weeks. I know we owe it to the service you gave in Spain for two years.”

Illustration by Allen Garns
I was finishing my mission in the Illinois Chicago South Mission when I received special permission to visit a previous area and have dinner with the Tremillo family. I had served in their ward for a whole year and had grown close to them.
During dinner, Brother Tremillo encouraged me to share at least one message of happiness on my way home. He said the Lord would put someone on my flight who would need my help. I promised him that I would.
From that time to the time I left Chicago, I was also praying to receive confirmation that the Lord would accept my sacrifice of serving a mission.
Three weeks later, I boarded the plane that would take me home. As I approached my seat, the person in the seat next to mine looked up. “No way!” she said. “I can’t believe it!”
My first thought was, “Great, she hates Mormons!” When I sat down, she told me that her name was Kelly and that she was a recent convert. She expressed how happy she was that a missionary was sitting next to her. Kelly told me that the last person she had sat next to was anti-Mormon and unkind in how she expressed her opinion of Kelly’s newfound faith. Kelly was distraught and had questions. She had been praying for answers and comfort.
I said a prayer in my heart and testified of the truth of the gospel and of God’s love for His children, including her. I told her about the advice I had received from Brother Tremillo. I said that God had prepared this special moment just for her.
With tears in her eyes, Kelly thanked me. She also said, “I can tell that you were a good missionary and that the Lord accepts your sacrifice.” At that moment, I felt God’s deep love for me. It was my turn to cry. With tears in my eyes, I thanked Kelly and told her that she had been an answer to my prayer. I answered a few more of her questions, and we exchanged email addresses.
Our flight landed and we waved goodbye as she walked to her next flight. I will always be grateful that Heavenly Father was willing to bless us in such a tender way.

Some summers ago, my family met some friends at Waimea Bay for a lazy summer beach day. My son and his friend, during their turn on our paddleboard, got caught in a rip current that made it difficult for them to paddle back to shore. I watched over the course of a few minutes as they went from near the rock, to well past the rock, to finally outside the bay. I quickly grabbed my swim fins, mask and snorkel and raced into the water and began to swim. By the time I reached them, they were well past the bay and beyond sight of the sandy shore as they drifted toward Haleiwa. It was a long exhausting paddle back, me holding onto the back of the paddleboard kicking like an outboard motor.

Currents of sin are quick to sap us of the ability to grow spiritually. Once caught in sin, it can be painful and difficult to escape its hold. By applying the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be forgiven of sin and escape its telestial hold on us. I testify to you that this is true.

Following their marriage and Hal’s eventual appointment to the faculty of the business school at Stanford University, late one night in December 1970, just a few months before Hal was released as the bishop of the student ward in Palo Alto, Kathy asked a question seemingly out of the blue. As Hal climbed into bed after a demanding day, she leaned over and asked, “Are you sure you’re doing what you ought to be doing with your career?”
Her question caught him by surprise. Everything in their life seemed perfect. The future seemed bright and clear, even down to the Eyring dream home that Hal had recently outlined in his journal. It would include such niceties as “a room for projects, large enough and rough enough to work on and store a kayak,” along with “at least five electrical outlets by the kitchen table” and “a shed or bathhouse retreat for writing.”
“What do you mean?” Hal asked his wife.
“Couldn’t you do studies for Neal Maxwell?” she suggested, referring to the Church’s new Commissioner of Education. At this, Hal was truly dumbfounded. He had only met Neal A. Maxwell once, and he knew that Kathleen had never met him at all. He tried to describe to her why such a career shift would not be a good fit for him, yet she insisted he at least pray over the matter. This he did immediately, dropping to kneel by the bed and offering a short prayer. When no answer came, Hal felt the matter decided and soon went to sleep.
The following morning, however, Hal received two distinct spiritual impressions that would forever alter the course of his career and his life. He captured both in his journal. First, “Don’t use your human judgment to eliminate opportunities presented to you: pray about them all with an open mind.” And second, “Do the tasks you are assigned in the Church and your profession as well as you can; they are preparation.”
The first impression came as something of a rebuke that Hal would forever thereafter live by. After having previously rejected three different job offers without praying over them, into his mind came the words, “Don’t you ever make that mistake again. You don’t know which end is up in your career.”
With this spiritual direction fresh in his mind, Hal was prepared when less than three weeks later, Commissioner Maxwell called to schedule a meeting with him in Salt Lake City. Brother Maxwell got right to the point. “I’d like to ask you to be the president of Ricks College,” he said. Hal replied that he would have to pray about it. He did and the terse answer he received was, “It’s my school.” The rest, as they say, is history. His service in the Church since then has been as exemplary as it has been conspicuous, moving on to serve as Deputy Commissioner of Education and then Commissioner (twice), followed by calls to the Presiding Bishopric, the Quorum of the Seventy, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and as a counselor to three Presidents of the Church.

You know, every member is a missionary. I think President David O. McKay first emphasized that duty. I was up in Montana some time ago visiting a stake conference. After the morning session, I was wandering around outside. I saw this young boy standing there all dressed up in his Sunday clothes. I went over to him and said, “Son, you’re a fine-looking boy. What’s your name?”
He said, “Joseph Smith Curdy.”
I said, “Joseph Smith Curdy! That’s a fine name. You’re going to be a great missionary.”
He said, “I’m already a great missionary. Down the street a couple of blocks from where we live there’s a family with a couple of boys about my age, and over a period of three or four months, I have been bringing them to church with me. A month or so ago, I said to them, ‘How would you like to have the missionaries give you the discussions?’
“They said, ‘Oh, we’d have to talk to our parents.’
“So we talked to the parents, and the parents said, ‘Well, if you will let us listen in, why we’ll be glad to have the missionaries teach them.’”
There wasn’t any problem with that, so the missionaries gave the family the discussions. Joseph Smith Curdy told me, “That whole family is going to be baptized next Saturday. I’m already a great missionary.”
I couldn’t help but agree with him.

I still remember the moment I was glad for social distancing.
I’d been given the news that, as South Africa embarked on its lockdown in an effort to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus, 9.6 million school children in South Africa would be going without food.
The school feeding scheme in South Africa forms a vital form of social support. For many children in the country, it is the only meal they can reliably look forward to each day.
As a journalist, I had just finished five consecutive interviews with various leaders from civil society. They were desperately concerned about how the children would get through the next few months.
“I am highly and extremely worried about what the kids are eating,” one lady who usually runs a feeding scheme for 150 children in one of Johannesburg’s townships had told me. “And there’s just nothing, absolutely nothing I can do about it.”
After hours of similar conversations, I could hear my voice beginning to crack from emotion. At the end of the last interview, I hung up the phone, put my head into my hands and cried.
It was then that I was glad that for social distancing. In normal times, I would probably have been having that conversation face to face. Crying would have been awkward, to say the least.
At least this way I could sob without being seen.
I felt a mounting sense of heaviness and desperation. How could I sit in my home doing nothing while millions around me were going to bed with empty stomachs? I felt like I needed to do something, and yet, in the circumstances, I did not know what.
And then the text message came.
It was from a sister in my ward, a perennial do-gooder. She told me about an old age home that she had been assisting. The home had permission to remain open during lockdown and was now helping to feed the extra mouths that usually relied on feeding schemes that had been forced to shut. They needed food, and lots of it.
At first, I planned to simply go to my friend’s home and drop off some food donations. But then a thought occurred to me. What if I were to open up my home as a collection point? What if, instead of simply donating to the cause, I created my own “forcefield” of influence?
I created a digital poster for distribution. I double-checked the legality of what I was doing. I collected plastic containers and lined them up outside my gate. Then came the hard part: sending the poster, along for an appeal for help, to my neighborhood WhatsApp group.
There were about 250 participants in the group, and I knew some could be harsh critics. What if they attacked me for suggesting that people leave their homes in order to drop off food? What if I was accused of inadvertently spreading the virus? What if I exposed one of my three young children to COVID-19? To be completely honest, I was terrified.
After re-writing the message about 20 times, with my heart in my throat, I finally pressed send. A few minutes later I received a message from a stranger.
“We would be happy to put a box of food together for you,” he said. “Thank you for this.”
For the second time in a few days, I felt my eyes fill with tears.
The phone calls started shortly thereafter. There were people I had never met who had heard about the project from a friend and wanted to help. Friends—local and international—wanting to transfer cash from afar. A sister from my ward sent a truck from her local wholesaler. And a seemingly unending stream of strangers silently deposited maize meal, rice and canned goods outside my gate.
In the end, I raised R100,000 in cash and food donations. Some sisters from my ward sewed 150 cloth masks. Instead of helping one home, we were able to help three. Hundreds of families were assisted at a time of desperate need thanks to the combination of many small efforts. Galvanized by this experience, my friend went on to organize a nonprofit organization called Bubele (meaning kindness and generosity in Xhosa), helping unemployed people to clean up the city and receive food parcels in return.
What did this experience teach me? It taught me the sacred interlink between faith, hope and charity.
Taking that first step of faith was truly difficult and scary for me. But the result?
A sense that our Heavenly Father knows and is mindful of each one of His children. A greater feeling of love for my fellow men. An ability to better see the potential in everyone around me. An inkling of charity, in the truest sense of the word.
The sweetest part about it, though, was hope. I felt that feeling of despair begin to dissipate. I felt, as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland puts it, that when I when I exercise faith and determination, I can keep moving, keep living, and most importantly, I can keep rejoicing.1

One evening in April 1836 Elder Parley P. Pratt had retired early with pressing worries and a heavy heart. He didn’t know how he was going to meet his financial obligations. His wife had been seriously ill, and his aged mother had come to live with him. A year earlier the house he had been building had gone up in flames.
While he was deep in thought, a knock came at the door. Elder Heber C. Kimball entered and, filled with the spirit of prophecy, told Elder Pratt that he should travel to Toronto, Canada, where he would “find a people prepared for the fulness of the gospel” and that “many [would] be brought to the knowledge of the truth” (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, 130–31).
Despite his worries, Elder Pratt departed. When he arrived in Toronto, at first no one seemed interested in hearing what he had to say. Among those he met was John Taylor, who had been a Methodist preacher. John received Elder Pratt courteously but coolly. John Taylor had heard distorted rumors about a new sect, their “golden bible,” and stories of angels appearing to an “unlearned youth, reared in the backwoods of New York” (B. H. Roberts, The Life of John Taylor, 34).
A wise man, John Taylor had been seeking the truth all his life. He listened to what Elder Pratt had to say. Among other things, the stranger from America promised that anyone who investigated the gospel could know for himself, through the influence of the Holy Ghost, that it was true.
At one point John Taylor asked, “What do you mean by this Holy Ghost? … [Will it give] a certain knowledge of the principles that you believe in?”
The Apostle replied, “Yes, … and if it will not, then I am an impostor” (Deseret News, Semi-Weekly, Apr. 18, 1882).
Hearing this, John Taylor took up the challenge, saying, “If I find his religion true, I shall accept it, no matter what the consequences may be; and if false, then I shall expose it” (The Life of John Taylor, 38).
Not only did he accept the challenge, but he “received that Spirit through obedience to the Gospel” (Deseret News, Semi-Weekly, Apr. 18, 1882). Soon he knew for himself what millions of others have since known, that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth. Eventually, this man who had devoted his entire life to seeking the truth became the third President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Although many of our experiences in the house of the Lord are too sacred to share publicly, some we can share. Forty years ago, while living in Florida, Kathy and I traveled to the temple in Atlanta, Georgia. On Wednesday night, May 9, 1984, as we completed a session in the temple, an ordinance worker approached me and asked if I had time to do just one preparatory initiatory ordinance. The name of the person I represented was unusual. His name was Eleazer Cercy.
The next day, the temple was full of Saints. As I prepared to perform my second endowment of the day, I was given the name of the person I would represent. Surprisingly, the name was the same individual from the night before, Eleazer Cercy. I felt the Spirit of the Lord as the endowment was completed. Later in the afternoon, still in the temple, Kathy saw an elderly family friend, Sister Dolly Fernandez, who now lived in Atlanta. With no male members of her family with her, she asked if I could possibly assist in the sealing of her father to her father’s parents. I was of course honored.
As I knelt at the end of the altar for this sacred ordinance, I heard once again the name that was now inscribed in my mind, her father, Eleazer Cercy. I fully believe that following this life, I will meet and embrace a man known in his mortal life as Eleazer Cercy.

Some years ago I had an acquaintance who had allowed himself to become a compulsive user of alcohol. He drank before he had dinner, and he would have what he called a “bracer” before involving himself in major business decisions. During a routine physical examination one day, a doctor told him that, for the good of his health, he should break the drinking habit. When I asked him what he intended to do, he said, “That’s easy. I’ll just change doctors.”

Sometimes the answers we receive won’t make sense at the time. Near the time I turned 21, I was trying to decide whether to serve a full-time mission or not. I prayed about it and the answer I received was to not serve a mission.
At the time, this was challenging for me. Years later, I realized that if I had left grad school to serve a mission, and because of the transition from Ricks College to BYU-Idaho, there probably would not have been a faculty position available when I finished my master’s degree and I would not be here in Rexburg where Heavenly Father wanted me to be.
I sometimes half-jokingly refer to my employment at BYU-Idaho as my “forty-year mission.”
This is just one example; most of the time, I don’t know why I receive specific revelation or answers to prayers. I actually have a list of “why did that happen” questions to ask when I get to the other side of the veil. We have to trust Heavenly Father and move forward along our paths.

Certainly no one could write the life story of Jesus of Nazareth or Judas Iscariot without knowing what happened during their last hour. And I would like to tell you about some of the things that one man thought about during his last hour. This is the old legendary story of Faust. Dr. John Faust died in Wittenberg, Germany, in the year 1540. But twenty-four years before his death, he sold his soul to Satan. He said to Satan, “If you will aid me for twenty-four years, punishing my enemies and helping my friends, at the end of that time, I will forever deliver up my soul.”

Now at that time that seemed like a good idea to Faust. Twenty-four years was a long time. Twenty-four years may last forever. And anyway, what difference did it make what happened after twenty-four years? But Satan, with better perspective, said, “I will wait on Faustus while he lives and he shall buy my service with his soul.”

And then the twenty-four years began, and Faust had every experience of good and bad. But almost before he was aware, it was said to Faust as it must be said to everyone of us, “Thine hour is come.” Now this is the first time that he had ever thought about the consequences of what he was doing. Only now did he discover how badly he had cheated himself. Then he wanted to revoke the bargain, but that was impossible. And then he prayed and he said, “Oh God, if thou canst have no mercy on my soul, at least grant some end to my incessant pain. Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years or even an hundred thousand, but at last be saved!”

But he knew that, according to his own bargain, even this could never be. And then during his last hour he sat and watched the clock tick off the seconds and finally, just as the hour struck, the last words of Faust before he died were: “Faustus is gone to hell!”

Now if Faust had lived his last hour first, he never would have permitted himself to come to this unprofitable place. I have a relative who, when she reads a novel, always reads the last chapter first. She wants to know before she begins where she is going to be when she gets through. And that is a pretty good idea for life.