Gospel Story Finder

The Lord said, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). I believe the influence from this institution will be like that of the Portuguese navigators who, in the 14th and 15th centuries in the Age of Discovery, went to the ends of the earth. And those who go will take the unique essence of this remarkable institution worldwide. This has already begun to happen. My wife and I, with Bruce Olsen and Randy Boothe, were privileged to take the first group of Young Ambassadors from Brigham Young University to China in 1979. This provided the opportunity to rededicate that ancient land. Our students were so outstanding that they were almost mobbed in several places. The performances were televised and rebroadcast over and over again all through China. So very much has happened since that event in the contacts with members and leaders of the Church with China.

My father shared this experience from when he was younger:

When I was in high school, I learned how to play pool. I am not sure where I learned, but we did have a pool hall in town. Several other boys and I would go downtown at noon, go to the pool hall, and play pool. The front of the pool hall was a bar, and it seems there was always someone there drinking. We never paid much attention to them; we would just go to the back of the room where the pool tables were and play pool. The owners never said anything to us as long as we were just playing pool.

Our stake president owned a grocery store almost directly across the street from the pool hall and had observed us going into the hall nearly every noon. One day while I was in the store, he asked why we were going into the pool hall. I explained that we were just going in to play pool. He explained that some people who saw us going in may not think that and might get the wrong idea about what kind of boys we were. He then explained what it meant to “shun the very appearance of evil.”

My father recognized what he had been doing and how it was more important and valuable to set a good example than satisfying his love for playing pool.

With almost any conversion story, I believe the process begins with members of the Church attempting to share what they believe. I was fortunate enough to have such a member do exactly that for me when I was a sophomore in high school. Her name was Cami, and she often invited me to Mutual activities and to church. Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready to accept the gospel at that point in my life, so I kindly turned her down. However, her efforts were not in vain.
During my high school years, I played football and had a good friend named Ryan. I frequently offered him rides home from practice. Early one morning in February of 2003, my senior year, I was at school getting help from my math teacher. A girl walked in the door and announced the death of my friend Ryan. I was astonished and almost didn’t believe the words I had just heard. A good friend of mine, whom I had just talked to a week before, was now dead.
I made the decision to miss school the next week and attend the funeral services. Upon arriving, I noticed that the building was very beautiful and bore the logo of the church to which it belonged—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The moment I walked in the door, I felt something different: a sense of peace, joy, and happiness—feelings that are not typically experienced at a funeral. As the services progressed, I noticed a new vocabulary, one that I had never before heard. The words gospel and Atonement entered into my mind for the first time. It was something new and unheard-of but, oddly enough, familiar. I listened attentively as Ryan’s mom spoke, and tears came to my eyes. Something was telling me that this “plan of salvation,” which she was speaking about, was true. I felt that the people in this chapel had something in their lives that I did not, and for some reason, I felt a desire to get it.
Now, I was not completely oblivious to Mormons. I grew up in Mesa, Arizona, where members of the Church come in great abundance. I knew two things for sure: first, many of my friends were members of the Church, and second, Church members believed in something called the Book of Mormon. I had a newfound desire to get my hands on this book and to find out what this religion was all about.
In March of 2003, one of my good friends, Bret, invited me to help with his Eagle Scout project. After school the next day we drove in his truck with another friend of ours, Camden, to where the project would be. Inspired by the Spirit, Bret directed Camden to a Book of Mormon situated in a holder in the passenger-side door. He told him to open to a verse he had recently read in the Book of Alma. My interest was sparked, and for the first time, I saw the book I wanted so very badly. However, I was too scared to say anything right then. Upon returning that evening, I worked up the confidence to ask Bret for the book. He happily gave it to me and told me to read it. That night I read nine chapters. From the moment I picked up the book, I fell in love with its message.
The next evening, I was sitting in Bret’s living room with his family and two young men dressed in dark suits, both of whom were named “Elder.” I learned these were missionaries for Bret’s church. We watched Finding Faith in Christ. I will admit that I cried during the movie and loved every bit of the lesson. I decided to continue investigating and to come to church. I eventually finished the lessons and accepted everything the elders taught me about being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.
One night as I was kneeling in prayer after reading a portion of the Book of Mormon, I specifically asked if what I was learning was true. Overwhelming feelings of peace and joy came into my heart. I was feeling the Spirit, and it was answering my prayers. After that time, I knew without a doubt that the Book of Mormon was true. I felt it in my heart and had the knowledge given to me in my mind.
With this new knowledge, I knew what my next step would be. I was baptized on May 3, 2003. The following day, I was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I will always remember my baptism, the Spirit I felt, and the covenants I made with my Heavenly Father.
My first year as a member of the Church was a long and difficult one, but also full of rewards. Being the only member in your family isn’t the easiest thing, and I also received much persecution from old friends. In May of 2004, I received the Melchizedek Priesthood and a call to serve in the Virginia Richmond Mission, speaking Spanish. I left my nonmember family in July of 2004, not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into or just what it was that I was leaving behind.
During the beginning months of my mission, I heard many things from many friends about the progress of my parents in the Church. They had been attending church off and on and had allowed the missionaries to come by every so often. I was always excited to hear news. Then one Saturday morning my mission president told me he had just spoken with my stake president about my parents. My parents had decided to join the Church. The gospel had now changed their lives for the better, just as it had mine only two years before.
I am so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and for the opportunity I had to serve Him as a missionary. I now understand more fully the plan of salvation. I know that this is the gospel and Church of Jesus Christ. Upon returning from my mission in July of 2006 I was overjoyed to enter the Mesa temple with my parents, where we were sealed as a family for time and all eternity. It’s a day I could hardly have imagined just a few years earlier.

But one man on the land watched them—with his eyes hardly comprehending, with his camera clicking like a telegraph, and long afterward with a notebook and pencil, remembering. Kent Keller, of Orem, Utah, had seen golden eagle courtship flights before, but like any reasonable person, he could only fully believe it when he was seeing it.
Perhaps it is partly this aura of impossibility that draws Kent to eagles, just as it has drawn poets, prophets, and emperors for centuries.
Actually, it all started with snakes. From the day he was born, Kent seemed to delight in all wild creatures, but snakes were his first real love. As a very young boy, he turned his backyard into a reptile menagerie with cages full of crawling snakes, gila monsters, horned toads, lizards, and just about any other tail-twitching belly-crawler he could find. As soon as he learned to read, he went hunting for reptiles in the library too.
But a new love was waiting in the wings, and at 12 years of age, Kent was to have his eyes snatched from the delightful snake-harboring ground to the wide, blue, eagle-bearing sky.
One day on a camping trip Kent’s Scoutmaster pointed at a dead cottonwood tree and said, “Hey, guys, there are two eagles!” The two golden eagles perched on skeletal limbs burned their image into an unexposed surface of Kent’s brain and filled his life’s appointment book all in an instant. He came. He saw. He was conquered.
But finding eagles isn’t all that easy until you learn where to look, and it was two years before Kent was able to make a house call. One rainy afternoon in early May he stepped onto a tiny protruding ledge that overhung more than 150 feet of sheer emptiness. As he peered over the edge, the sun burst through the rain clouds, spotlighting the golden hackles of a female eagle on her nest about ten yards down. Seeing Kent, she soared silently away but left behind two eaglets who sat cheeping at him in a blaze of downy sunshine.
Kent says of that instant: “At that moment I was so inspired by the beauty and majesty of the eagles that I felt more alive myself. The air smelled fresher, and the stream far below sparkled more brightly than before. I had simply opened my eyes and had really seen and felt what was around me.”

Over the past year my best friend has been struggling with leukemia. He had to stay in the hospital for many months and had to undergo chemotherapy. I have prayed for him every night and have been able to see him make progress. Throughout this difficult time, I have grown to know that Heavenly Father is there for us, and He loves all his children. I know that He wants us all to return to live with Him someday and that He wants us all to be happy.
When I think about my friend’s illness too much, I start to worry about the future. But when I think of Heavenly Father’s love for all of us, the pain goes away. I have come to know that I can always turn to Heavenly Father in prayer and that He will be there.
When my friend had a relapse and his cancer returned, I wondered if all of our faith and prayers were in vain. But I soon turned to the Lord for comfort and realized that no matter what happens, Heavenly Father loves my friend and will look after him. I just have to have faith in His plan.

I’ll share another personal reflection. Many years ago when I was a young intern, we had a wonderful neighbor lady named Netta Davis. She had a serious heart condition—a diseased mitral valve—destroyed in her youth by the ravages of rheumatic fever. Her husband, Don, was a fellow physician. Because he and I were usually at the hospital, Netta and my sweetheart, Dantzel, became very close friends. Sadly, as the years went by, Netta’s strength ebbed. Her congestive heart failure worsened. Her little body finally died because of this malfunctioning valve.

This was long before the advent of surgical repairs within the heart. Such was hardly dreamed of in those days. But Netta’s passing changed my life. I determined that her death was not to have been in vain.

Then I joined forces with a small team of researchers at a well-known university. Together we embarked on a project to develop an artificial heart-lung machine, as I mentioned earlier. The ultimate purpose of this effort was to allow repairs to be made within the empty heart while the circulation of the patient’s blood was temporarily maintained by the apparatus we were developing.

To make connectors for tubing, I learned quite a bit about glassblowing. And I learned how to operate lathes, drill presses, and other machines required to make pumps, valves, and cylinders. With my associates, I also had to learn the physiological requirements for oxygenation of the blood and the requirements for blood flow to and oxygen consumption of the tissues. We had to learn how to anticoagulate the blood and then reverse the anticoagulation so normal clotting could again be restored. And we learned the hard way that bacterial contamination could destroy an otherwise successful experiment. Incidentally, the conquering of that problem was the project for my Ph.D. thesis.

Long years elapsed before we were able to graduate from the laboratory to practical application in the operating room of a hospital. But finally it happened in 1951. The human heart could be opened. In the years that followed, thanks also to research in laboratories and clinics at many other universities, defective valves and other components could be repaired. The pioneering road was long and rugged. More than eight years elapsed from the time I received my doctor of medicine degree before I performed the first successful open-heart operation in Utah in 1955.

Netta Davis did not die in vain. Her desperate need motivated me as nothing else could. I thought of her the day I operated upon the heart of President Spencer W. Kimball. In a real sense, it was partially because of Netta that I was able to perform that operation President Kimball needed.

This story happened in Brazil.
Later that day …
Those are some nice colored pencils! I’ve never seen them before.
Well … I found them in the hall at school.
How would you feel if those were your pencils and you lost them?
Sad.
Whoever they belong to is probably looking for them. How can you help return them?
Maybe I could put them in the lost-and-found area at school!
The next day …
I found your pencil case and put it in the lost and found. I hope you get it back. They are really cool pencils!
From,
Rafaela
I hope whoever the pencils belong to finds them!

I have certainly seen this in my own life.

When I was very young, my family was twice forced to flee our home and leave everything behind. On both occasions, it became apparent that people in our new locations considered us as “less” than them. Among the children my age, my accent marked me as an outsider, and it was a rich source of ridicule and laughter for them.

The trauma and stress of our relocations caused me to fall behind in my studies, and I lost one full school year. In East Germany, I had studied Russian as a second language. It was difficult, but I managed. Now, in West Germany, I was required to learn English.

This seemed impossible to me! I believed that my mouth was simply not made for the English language.

During my teenage years, I had a crush on a most amazing girl with beautiful large brown eyes. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in me.

So there I was, a rather insignificant and struggling young man living in post-war Germany who didn’t seem to have much chance of success in life.

However, I had a couple of good things going for me. I knew that my family loved me. In school and in church, teachers encouraged me to always set my goals high. I still remember when a young American missionary taught this principle from the scriptures: “If God is for [you], who can be against [you]?”2

There was something about this that struck me with great power. “If that’s the case,” I thought, “then why should I fear?”

So, I believed. And I trusted God.

For a time, I was in an apprenticeship program. One of my teachers challenged me to aim higher and attend night school to study mechanical engineering. It took a great deal of extra work, but it led me to discover my great passion for aviation! It came as a shock when I learned that to become a pilot, I needed to know English. But I wanted to become a pilot, and somehow miraculously my mouth seemed to change, and English no longer was such an impossible language.

With new motivation, a fresh commitment to work hard, and trust in Heavenly Father, I took small steps that helped me to build the confidence that I could do it. Of course, that didn’t mean things always went smoothly.

When I was 19, I traveled to San Antonio, Texas, USA, to begin my air force pilot training. On the airplane, I sat next to a man who spoke with a Texan accent. I realized to my horror that the English I had worked so desperately to learn was not the same English he spoke!

At pilot training school, things were difficult too. It was an extremely competitive program, with everyone vying for the top spot at graduation. I knew right away that I was at a disadvantage because most of my classmates were native English speakers.

My flight instructors cautioned me about another potential disadvantage—I spent a lot of time at church. The local members welcomed me into their branch and into their homes, and we even built a chapel in Big Spring, Texas, together. My instructors worried that such activities were impairing my chance at a high ranking. I didn’t think so. So I trusted God and did the best I could.

Eventually, I did learn English, though I’m still working on it. I completed my pilot training—and finished first in my class. I became a fighter pilot and later an airline captain. And that beautiful, brown-eyed girl of my dreams became my wife.

The chapel I worship at in Nigeria is close to a school whose principal wants nothing to do with the Church. On one occasion the principal told a teacher never to return to the school after learning that the teacher was a Latter-day Saint. A Church member who volunteered to visit and explain the mission of the Church was rebuffed.
As a salesman for laboratory and medical equipment, I often visit schools and hospitals to make sales. After one unsuccessful month, I had no choice but to visit this school. My plan was to sell my product and leave, hoping the principal would not find out I was a member of the Church. The Spirit, however, told me that she would want to know about my religion.
My business with the head of the school’s science department went smoothly, and he took me to the principal for payment. After filling out the check, she started asking questions to get to know me better. When her questions became personal, I began to feel uncomfortable. Then she asked the question I had been praying she would not ask: “Which denomination are you a member of?”
I was tempted to lie, collect my check, and go because I badly needed the sale. But I felt I should tell her the truth. After all, the early Saints had experienced worse than this minor test of my faith.
With renewed courage, I looked her straight in the eye and said, “I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Then I bore my testimony. To my surprise she smiled, said we all worship the same God, and handed me the check.
As I left, a scripture came to my mind: “Now this was a great trial to those that did stand fast in the faith; nevertheless, they were steadfast and immovable in keeping the commandments of God, and they bore with patience the persecution which was heaped upon them” (Alma 1:25).
I was happy not to have disappointed Heavenly Father or myself. Because of this experience, I made a commitment to always be a good sales representative. More important, I committed to always be a good representative of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When the doctor released Tracy’s father from the hospital, it was to send him home to die. The cancer had been discovered too late and was too widespread for there to be much that could be done.
It wasn’t entirely for his father’s benefit that he wasn’t told he was dying; his mother needed some time to deal with the situation before she talked to her husband about it.
Tracy, then eighteen years old, numbly endured the last few weeks of high school, then it was summer. He worked on a highway department survey crew, which left him his weekends free to wait.
His three older brothers and their wives each took turns flying into town on weekends, spending a day or two with their father before returning to their jobs in faraway places.
One day his father called him into his room. It was dimly lit and smelled of pain; the bedside table was littered with glasses and bottles of pills.
“Have I ever lied to you?” his father asked.
“No.”
“Then don’t lie to me. Am I dying?”
Tracy suddenly found it difficult to speak. He tried to remember hopeful words about “being up in no time” that his brothers and their wives had used so easily. But it was no use.
“Am I dying of cancer?” his father again asked.
“Yes,” Tracy answered.
His father sighed and said quietly, “That’s what I thought.”
Over the next few weeks, his father made all the necessary preparations—calling in a lawyer to complete the will and other financial matters, and picking out a reasonably priced casket and a cemetery lot for his burial.
Then he lay back and patiently waited to die. But death, like sleep, does not always come when invited.
He even seemed to improve a little.
One warm summer day in July he looked out his bedroom window and said, “I want to go fishing.”
Of course, it was impossible. That was what his mother said; that is what the older brothers and their wives said; that is what the neighbors said.
The doctor said, “If he feels up to it and somebody can go along to do most of the work, why not let him go?”
Tracy was put in charge of taking his father for one last trip into the mountains. After a busy few days of planning and buying groceries and stocking up on pills and reading his mother’s never-ending list of how to care for his father, finally one Saturday morning, Tracy stepped inside the small camping trailer to make his last inspection before getting his father.
For all the years I was growing up, he thought as he looked at the worn path in the cracking linoleum floor of the camper, this has been dad’s church.
For as long as he could remember, his father had not been active in the Church. Long ago someone in the Church had offended him—about what and by whom no one could now remember. But it had been enough to keep him out of church, except to watch his sons perform, for twenty years.
For all the years that Tracy had been alive, his father treated Sunday as his day. “I work hard at the store six days a week. At least one day I ought to be able to do what I want to do.” And that meant fishing in the spring and summer, hunting in the fall, and doing some home carpentry in the winter.
Tracy drove the camper up the canyon, and his father sat in the front seat and silently watched the twisting mountain stream beside the road.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful it is up here,” his father said. “I know this country as well as anyone. Every road, every hill, each turn in the river—I know it all. See that place where the river goes under the railroad bridge? Right down there on that point is a good place to fish. If you use the right fishing equipment, I’ll guarantee you could catch two or three nice brown trout.”
“You make it sound easy, dad, but it never is when I try it.”
“Well, I’ve spent the last twenty years fishing this river. I should’ve learned something. You know, I should write down all the good places for you. Somebody ought to benefit from all I’ve learned about this river.”
They drove in silence for several kilometers as his dad studied the river and the condition of every fishing area.
Tracy wondered if his father knew that he didn’t care at all about fishing.
“We should’ve come out here more often, just father and son.”
“Mom never would’ve let me come on Sundays.”
“No, she was strongly opposed to your doing that.”
“But we could’ve come on Saturdays, dad.”
“Sure, we could’ve done that,” his father said wistfully, “if I’d ever had an assistant manager I could trust to leave the store with. You know Saturday was our busiest day.”
“I know; that’s what you always used to say.”
We’re strangers, Tracy thought as he drove. I really don’t know much about him. And what does he really know about me?
Soon they arrived at the lake. They discovered that the campsite, which for years had been his father’s favorite, was still vacant. It was the last one along the road to the lake and was located on a hill, giving a good view of the lake and mountains.
After lunch his father took his pills and lay down for a nap.
About mid-afternoon he woke up. “I feel terrific!” he announced happily. “This mountain air has done more for me than all the doctors in the world. Let’s go fishing!”
First Tracy carried down two folding chairs, next the fishing equipment, and after that a sunshade that his mother had made him promise he’d set up for his dad to use. After everything was ready, he escorted his father down the trail to the lake.
Not much happened for a couple of hours, but suddenly, his father shouted and his fishing rod bent over sharply. At the same time thirty meters out into the lake, a large trout jumped out of the water, shaking its head back and forth in an attempt to get rid of the hook.
“He must be about nine kilos!” his father yelled excitedly.
It was a long battle between man and fish. When the fish relaxed, the slow, steady reeling in of the fishing line brought it closer to shore. A couple of times it was within six meters of them before it surged its way back into deeper waters.
“Dad, I can see it now. It’s huge.”
Finally the fight was over.
“Get the net, Tracy. Careful now.”
Tracy stood near the water and waited for the fish to get close enough, then dipped the long-handled net into the water and pulled the exhausted fish into the air, causing it to frantically writhe.
“It’s beautiful,” his father said reverently.
Tracy picked up the large knife and prepared to strike the fish sharply on the head with the handle to put it out of its suffering. That was something his father had taught him.
“Don’t kill him!” his father cried out. “I don’t want to keep him.”
“No?”
“I want him to stay alive. He belongs in these waters. He fought too bravely to die. Can you remove the hook very easily?”
Tracy grabbed the fish by the gills and looked to see where the hook had lodged. It was deep in its throat.
“He swallowed the hook, dad. I can’t get the hook out without killing him.”
“Then cut the line and put him back in the water. Quickly now.”
He took his knife and cut the line a few centimeters from the fish’s mouth, then gently lowered it into the water. For a second or two, it just lay still; then sensing freedom, it quickly swam away from them into the deep.
Tracy looked back at his father, wondering why he let loose the largest fish they’d ever seen in the lake.
“He’s free now, isn’t he? Free to move through these waters. He can go places we’ll never see. I’m glad we didn’t keep it, aren’t you?”
Since anything else after that fish would be anticlimactic, they quit and packed everything back to the trailer.
“How’d you like to go to California with me for a few weeks this summer?” his dad asked, the excitement of catching the fish still bubbling over. “There’s a hospital there where they treat people with diseases like mine. We could drive down there. They claim they can cure people even worse off than me.”
His father was as positive as Tracy had seen him for years.
“We can fight back at disease, can’t we? We don’t have to just sit and accept defeat, do we? We’ll leave in a week or two, just you and me. And when I’m all cured, we’ll have mom fly down and meet us. We’ll take a little vacation and show her all of California, just the three of us. Maybe we’ll even go down to Mexico and Central America and take a boat through the Panama Canal. How does that sound?”
Even as Tracy cooked supper, his father talked about visiting Mexico. He cooked hamburgers and opened a can of beans. His father took the pills and then they had their meal.
Thick clouds had moved in during the late afternoon, and by evening they were in the middle of a violent thunderstorm. Looking out, Tracy watched the wind drive sheets of rain across the lake in sporadic patterns. Several times lightning crashed around them.
His father, suddenly looking much older, his forehead drenched with sweat, went to bed after taking his pills. Tracy stayed up reading a book.
At eleven o’clock his father woke up coughing and retching, and vomited the food he had eaten for supper.
Tracy got out of bed and turned on his flashlight. His father was sitting up, his body hunchbacked with pain.
Tracy got a pan of water and a towel and began to clean up the mess on the floor.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” his father repeated over and over again. “It must’ve been the effect of the pills.”
Tracy finished with the floor and then took a wash cloth and cleaned up his father as best as he could. They got him out of his sweat-soaked pajamas and into a pair of old pants and a shirt.
At first his father was afraid of taking any more pain pills that night. As the night progressed, he sat on the edge of the bed and rocked back and forth, his head down, his teeth clenched, fighting against the pain.
Finally, at one o’clock, unable to stand the pain any longer, willing to risk vomiting again, his father asked for a slice of bread and his pills.
“Does the fish hurt tonight?” his father asked after taking his last pill.
“I don’t know, dad. It’s only a fish.”
“It’s out there swimming around with the hook digging in with each breath.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“Do you think it’s grateful to me for sparing its life, or is it cursing me for allowing it to continue to suffer?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Every time it tries to eat, every time it swallows, the hook will be there, tearing at it. Maybe it’d be better off dead. Maybe we should’ve let it die.”
“Dad, please, you’ve got to sleep.”
“Maybe it’s already dead; maybe it’s floating belly up in the water.”
His father stood up and walked to the window to look out at the lake. The rain had turned to a steady drizzle.
“It’s so hard to know what we should’ve done—so hard to play God even for a fish.”
Tracy lay back in bed, hoping his father would soon go back to his bed and rest, but he remained standing there by the window looking out into the blackness of the night.
Tracy must have fallen asleep, but a few minutes later, he heard the door shut and his father walk out into the darkness.
He jumped out of bed, got dressed, and ran out.
A few minutes later, he found his father standing at the edge of the lake, flashlight in hand, shining the light across the surface of the water.
“Dad, what are you doing down here?”
“I want to know if the fish is dead.”
Suddenly Tracy was terrified. He knew he couldn’t forcibly move his dad up to the trailer. He was too big.
“Dad, please go back inside. It’s raining.”
“I know it’s raining,” his father said, shining his light back and forth across the water.
“You know mom would be mad if she knew you were out here in the rain. Please go back.”
Finally satisfied, his father turned around to face Tracy. “He’s not belly up. He must still be alive. We can go back now.”
Tracy put his arm around his father’s waist and helped him up the trail.
“Do you ever pray about me?” his father asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“What do you pray about?”
“That you’ll get better.”
“Don’t pray for that anymore. Pray that God’s will be done. We’ve got to trust him to know what’d be best. You and I can’t even decide that for a fish.”
Back in the trailer, his father slept the remainder of the night.
When Tracy woke up the next morning he discovered a gray, dull, rainy day. His father woke up at ten o’clock. Tracy fixed them both some hot cereal and his father a cup of instant coffee.
“This is Sunday, isn’t it?” his father asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s the first Sunday I ever recall you missing church. I shouldn’t have come up here with you. Especially with this weather. We’re not going to get much fishing today, are we? Of course, fishing is sometimes very good when it rains—if you want to.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“I’ve been thinking about what I said yesterday—about going to California. It would use up all our savings if we went. One thing’s for sure, the insurance money would never pay for it. And if the treatment is no good, then where would your mother be without any money?”
Tracy ached inside as he realized that California was his father’s last hope for recovery, and that hope had slipped away.
“I guess I’ll never see the Panama Canal, will I?” his father said, looking up from his cup. “Well, we’ll just have to make the best of what we’ve got here while we can.”
Tracy, still drying the pan he’d cooked the cereal in, looked away as the tears fell.
“I’ve got some money set aside for your mission and part of your schooling, but if there’s anything else you need from me, let’s talk about it now, before we head back home.”
Tracy knew what he wanted but didn’t know if he dared to ask his father. He knew it wasn’t what his father expected him to say.
“Dad, I want a father’s blessing.”
His father sadly shook his head. “You know I can’t give you that. I’m not an elder. Why do you want that?”
“All my life I’ve been ordained and given priesthood blessings by other men, sometimes by men I don’t even know. But what I wanted was for you to do that, my own father.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it meant so much to you.”
“I used to think that I if tried hard to be the best kind of boy that you’d see what the Church was like and become active again. Dad, I never did any of the things that other guys in school were doing. Why didn’t that make you love the Church?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t even notice, did you? You took it all for granted. And now it’s too late. Dad, I want a father’s blessing.”
“I can’t do it. If you want a priesthood blessing, you’ll have to see the bishop or the home teachers.”
“They’re not my father. You are.”
“I can’t do it. I don’t hold the Melchizedek Priesthood.”
“Dad, you can give me a father’s blessing even if you don’t hold the priesthood. But if that makes you uncomfortable, just put your hands on my head and say a prayer,” Tracy pleaded.
“No, I can’t. Please don’t ask me. I don’t know how. God wouldn’t hear anything I say anyway.”
“I’d hear it. Doesn’t that matter to you? Please, this may be my only chance to receive a father’s blessing.”
His father sat on the kitchen chair and looked out the window for a long time.
“Please, dad.”
“What do I do?”
“Stay in the chair, and I’ll kneel down so you can put your hands on my head.”
Tracy kneeled down in front of his father.
“What do I say?”
“Just say a prayer.”
He felt the big hands of his father rest gently on his head.
“God,” he began slowly, “Tracy wanted me to do this. I don’t have the right priesthood, but he thought if I just said a prayer.” He paused for several seconds and then began again. “He’s been a good boy, always has been. Not that I can take any credit for that. I should’ve been a better example for him, but there was always enough food on the table, and I taught him about honesty and about work. When he’s given a job to do, he does it. There’s a lot of people, even Mormons, who can’t finish a job.”
Tracy knew there were tears streaming down his face, but he didn’t care about that.
“I wasn’t everything I should’ve been, I guess you know that, but I think he’s turned out okay—well, better than okay. I think he’s the most wonderful boy a father could have. God, you better take care of him. He’s going to need that, because I’m dying. You’d better help him, that’s all I can say.”
Suddenly all the heartache that had been locked inside Tracy was gone.
“Maybe he could remember,” his father continued with a strange calmness, “the good things I did as a father and not think of my failings. And maybe when he’s a father, he won’t be too busy to take his son out and play ball with him. I used to do that, you know. And maybe he won’t be too eager to look down on people in the Church who drink coffee or have a beer now and then. Instead, maybe he’ll try to help them, and not be like those who sniff their noses when somebody who smokes goes to church.”
His father paused and then began again. “I want him to go on a mission, but only if he works hard. And I’d like him to be married in the temple. I never was, but I think it’d be a nice way to start a marriage. You’d better bless him. He’s a good boy, and I love him.” There was a long pause. “I guess I’m through. Tracy, how do I end it?”
Tracy told him, and his father ended the prayer.
Tracy wiped the tears away on his sleeve and stood up.
“Was it okay?” his father asked.
Tracy silently nodded his head, unwilling to trust his voice to explain what it meant to him. Then he reached out and threw his arms around his father and hugged him.
“It wasn’t so bad. I just hope the blessing works,” his father said with a slight smile through the tears.
The rain continued through lunch.
After lunch, his father suggested that they go back home, because if they left then, they would be in time to go as a family to sacrament meeting.
They went to church for the next three Sundays, and then the pain became too much for his dad and he had to stay at home. They had the home teachers help Tracy with the sacrament each week for the family in their home until the end of August, when his father died.

Emily liked to make hearts. She made them all different sizes, and on all kinds of paper.
On the day before Valentine’s Day, her mother watched her busily cutting out her umpteenth heart. “Emily, are you going to do something special with your hearts?”
Emily grinned. “Yep—you’ll see!”
Early the next morning, Sister Wong brought some cookies when she came to visit. When Emily returned her cookie plate, she found a bright red heart on it, which said:
Dear Sister Wong,Thank you for bringing us such good cookies! I especially like them with milk after school! Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Emily
When Dad opened his sock drawer when he was getting ready for work, a big red heart with glittery sparkles on it lay across his socks. It said:
Dear Dad,I think you are the best father in the whole world! I love you! Love, Emily
Later that morning, when the mailman opened the mailbox, he pulled out a pink heart that said:
Dear Mr. Mailman,Thank you for bringing our mail. I especially like the letters from my grandma. Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Emily
Mom was just putting the last dish away in the cupboard, when she saw a bright pink heart trimmed with paper lace sitting on the stack of plates. It said:
Dear Mom,I think you are the most wonderful mother of all! I love you! Love, Emily
When Emily turned down the covers on her bed that night, she found a pink heart-shaped box. Inside were her favorite chocolate chip cookies, and a heart-shaped note that said:
Dear Emily,We are so thankful that you are our daughter! You bring love to everyone! We love you very much! Love, Mom and Dad

Mom put bricks in the oven and then wrapped them in blankets so our feet would stay warm as we traveled in our car without a heater. It was 1935, and we were making the 60-mile (96 km) drive from Salt Lake City to Payson, Utah, to visit my grandparents in early December. The snow was falling lightly around us and swirled in what looked like little tornadoes on the road ahead. My big brother, Fred, and I were bundled in heavy coats and itchy wool socks and mufflers. The drive seemed endless to me as a seven-year-old.
We made this trip every December. The Christmas season didn’t really start until we were in Grandma and Grandpa Tanner’s warm kitchen making popcorn balls. Grandpa would stoke up the fire, and Grandma would fill a wire basket with popcorn and shake it vigorously over the fire until it filled with puffy, white corn. Then Grandma would pour hot honey butter over the popcorn in a big cast-iron kettle and mix in peanuts. When the mixture cooled, we would dig in with our butter-covered hands and make festive balls to share with family and friends.
This Christmas, however, would be different. Usually Fred and I rode in the backseat, but this year we were wedged between my parents on the bench seat up front. A small white coffin carrying the body of my one-year-old brother, Gerold, took up the backseat. A case of measles had turned into pneumonia and snuffed out his young life. Earlier we had gone to the mortuary to pick up the small wooden coffin.
As we made the two-hour journey, Dad led us in singing Christmas songs. Mom and Dad harmonized, and the beautiful music comforted us as we grieved the loss of our baby.
When we got to Grandpa’s house, the usually jovial crowd of family and relatives was waiting solemnly. The coffin was taken from the backseat and brought into Grandma’s spotless parlor. My grandparents’ bishop spoke a few kind words, and then we were back in the car to ride to the cemetery, where we all wept as this precious little boy was laid in the frozen ground.
Christmas did come. The fire was stoked, the popcorn was popped, and the festive popcorn balls were delivered on Grandpa’s horse-drawn sleigh. There was sadness that day but also a resonant peace as I listened to my faithful grandparents reading the story of Christ’s birth.
My grandparents had been born of pioneer parents who had laid many babies in the ground. As our family mourned our loss, we turned to where our ancestors had turned—to the Son of God and His words. I remembered the Christmas story with a different heart that year, for it was because of the baby born in a manger that the baby we had laid in the ground would rise again and be ours.
Many decades have passed since then, but each Christmas I still pour honey butter over popcorn, mix in peanuts, shape the mixture into balls, and remember.

I’ve admitted that school was never really easy, but I can identify a few discrete examples of things that made it more enjoyable. The first occurred early in grade school. I was not an early reader. My mother, who had been a first-grade teacher, encouraged me all that she could, but for some reason I was not interested. A defining moment transpired at the beginning of the third grade. Mrs. Brown, our teacher, evaluated our entering reading competence and determined that I was more suited to take the B, or easier, version of the Weekly Reader. This was based on her evaluation of my poor reading skills.

I was shocked, my mother was embarrassed, and together we agreed to change things in short order—which we did. My fifth-grade teacher could not understand my mother’s elation when it was reported at parent-teacher conference that I had developed the “terrible habit” of always having a book open in my lap even when the class was supposed to be working on something else. I have never gotten over my love of reading or my appreciation for Mrs. Brown.

“I forever am amazed by nature and its beauty,” says Marlies Hammerl, Laurel class president from the Salt Ash Branch, Newcastle Australia Stake. “One aspect of nature I especially enjoy is the night sky and the glorious stars.” Marlies will now get to study those glorious stars more in depth after being awarded one of only 12 Stellar Astronomy Scholarships offered to young women in New South Wales, Australia.
“It is easy to be grateful for all the blessings I have and realize that I, like the stars, need to let my light shine even though my two sisters and I are the only members at my school.” Marlies travelled to Sydney last April, where she was awarded her scholarship by the Governor General of Australia.
Marlies adds, “I am just so grateful that I have taken heed of our prophets’ counsel, to gain the best education that we can. It’s definitely important to strive in all you do.” In other words, we should reach for the stars.

Strong evidence for the existence of the devil is often given by individuals who know they have come in contact with him. Beth, a young California housewife, has been involved in astrology and fortune-telling since high school. She had attended many séances (meetings in which spirits are invited to come to a group to possess the body of an individual and to speak through that person). At one séance, after she dared to invite the spirits to take control of her body and as she felt them actually doing so, she panicked and changed her mind, fighting them off.

Following this close call, there were aftereffects. “I felt like I was in a pit,” she says, “and all these spirits were standing over me. I heard them laughing at me and saying, ‘We’ve got you now.’” Also, Beth found herself developing a split personality.
Both psychiatry and psychology recognize the crippling effects of spiritistic activity upon the mind. In his book, The Haunting of Bishop Pike, Merrill Unger states, “Sustained practice of occultism produces symptoms of split personalities. Psychiatry characterizes the resulting disorder as ‘mediumistic psychosis.’”

In Answers to Gospel Questions, President Joseph Fielding Smith gave some very sound advice concerning the problem of receiving guidance from mediums, magicians, or astrologers. He said:
“The Lord has pointed out very clearly the course that we should take in obtaining inspiration for our guidance. When a person is baptized and receives the Holy Ghost, he is promised that he will receive the necessary guidance for his spiritual and temporal good, provided he is true to his covenants. The Lord will not dwell in unclean tabernacles. Therefore, in order that we may keep ourselves in harmony with the Spirit of the Lord, we must be mentally, spiritually, and bodily clean from every contaminating influence.”
Remember, nothing Satan does is good, although he does a lot of things that look good.
Coming back to Isaiah’s reaction to the astrologers and soothsayers, we see a genuine prophet about his Father’s business. His answer, unsophisticated and deceptively simple, is nevertheless an illuminating ray of spiritual insight for today.
He merely asked: “Will it save you?”

When the full-time missionaries came to my home in France to do a service project, my parents were not active members of the Church, and I hadn’t been baptized. Soon the missionaries taught me the gospel, which I loved. And soon my parents returned to church.
“Who’s going to baptize you?” the missionaries asked me.
“My father,” I replied.
My father, who was from Italy, was a good man. He taught me to see people as Jesus would see them. Sadly, he died a few weeks before my baptism.
Later, when I received my mission call, I was so excited that I asked my mother to open it.
“You’re going to be happy,” she said, crying. “You’re going to your father’s home country!”
I had dreamt of serving in Italy. Missions are about serving people, not about serving in areas. But I prayed that I would serve in Italy, specifically the city of Gaeta, where my father’s ancestors had lived since the 10th century.
After serving in Rome and Sicily, I received the glad news that I was being transferred to the area that included Gaeta. Before that transfer in early 2023, my companion and great friend Elder Jack Beck gave me a gift I will never forget. Elder Beck is a talented artist. From a small picture I had of my father, Elder Beck drew a beautiful portrait of him.
I looked at that portrait every day during personal study. It gave me strength to share the gospel.
As soon as I was assigned to Gaeta, I sought out my relatives. When I showed my father’s older brother the portrait, he wept. He hadn’t seen his brother for years and had no pictures of him.
I taught my uncle that one day he would see his brother again—not in a portrait but in person. I taught him that through the gospel, he could live with his brother again in love and peace with the Savior.
I saw great miracles in Gaeta as I shared with family members the good news that because Jesus Christ overcame death, loss of loved ones is only temporary (see Mosiah 16:8). I testify that through His atoning sacrifice, the Savior has made it possible for our families to be gathered eternally.

My sister had to give an important talk in seminary. She spent two hours working on it on the computer. Then she started working on something else on the computer. When she went back to print out the talk, it had been deleted from the computer. This happened at 10:00 P.M., and I was in bed asleep. She and Mom woke up my older brother and asked for his help. They even called Dad, who was in North Carolina for the week. Neither my brother nor Dad could help get the talk back. They all went to bed upset and discouraged.
In the morning, Mom told me about the talk being deleted. I asked, “Did you pray about it?” Mom said that they hadn’t done that. When I went upstairs to get ready for school, a part of a scripture, Moroni 10:4, came to my mind: “… if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ. …” I thought, Well, I think I have a sincere heart, and I really want my sister to have her talk back, and I have faith in Christ. So I decided to pray as the scripture told me.
When I came home from school, Mom met me at the door and told me that when she got on the computer to work on her Scout committee records, the talk came up on the screen. She printed it out immediately for my sister, who did a good job when she gave the talk. We all learned from that experience how important it is to have faith and to pray and ask Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ for all the things that we need help with.

When I was twelve, two things of great significance occurred in my life.
I became a Boy Scout. We did not have the Cub Scout program then, and a boy had to be twelve to be a Scout. This was 1922, only nine years after the Church adopted the Scout program. I lived in a very large ward by today’s standards. There were more than eleven hundred people in that ward. We had a large troop, and we met in the cultural hall of the old First Ward. We made a lot of noise. The floors were of hardwood; the walls were hard and smooth, and the sound bounced around them. Our Scoutmaster had a whistle which he blew frequently to get order.
I filled out an application and paid the fifty-cent registration fee, which seemed like a lot of money at the time. I learned the Scout motto: “Be Prepared.” I learned the Scout slogan: “Do a Good Turn Daily.” I learned the Scout Oath: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
I learned the Scout Law: “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent.” (We said it just about that fast.) And when we recited the law, one of the boys always added, “A Scout is hungry.” I think it was literally true. He came from a very large family, and getting enough to eat was always a challenge.
When I was twelve, I also became a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. My name was presented to the entire congregation of our ward. Everyone was asked to sustain me if they felt me worthy of the office. All hands in the large congregation went up. I was honored to think that all of the members of my ward raised their hands in my behalf.
Then two men, good and true and faithful—one of them my father—placed their hands upon my head and conferred upon me the Aaronic Priesthood and ordained me to the office of deacon. I did not have any oath, slogan, motto, or law to memorize in connection with this. But I did memorize section 13 of the Doctrine and Covenants, and I have remembered it ever since. These are the words of an angel. They are the words of John the Baptist when he conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery on May 15, 1829:
“Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.” [D&C 13]
Unlike Scouting, we did not have one large deacons quorum that met in the cultural hall. Rather, we were divided into four quorums, with up to twelve boys in each. I thought it was a good arrangement because there were fewer of us in a group, with less noise and a more intimate relationship between us and our priesthood leader. I later learned that this number had been wisely designated by the Lord in revelation. He said, “And again, verily I say unto you, the duty of a president over the office of a deacon is to preside over twelve deacons, to sit in council with them, and to teach them their duty, edifying one another” (D&C 107:85).

One of the best examples I have seen of a bishop who helped provide this kind of vision for his youth was Bishop Moa Mahe. He was called to be the first bishop of the San Francisco Tongan Ward. He was an immigrant from Vava‘u, Tonga. His ward was located near the San Francisco, California, airport, where he worked.
The ward had a large number of youth, most from families who had recently immigrated to the United States. Bishop Mahe not only taught them in word and by example how to be righteous disciples of Jesus Christ, but he also helped give them a vision of what they could become and helped them prepare for the temple, missions, education, and employment. He served for almost eight years, and his dreams and desires for the youth became a reality.
Nearly 90 percent of the young men in the Aaronic Priesthood quorums served missions. Fifteen young men and women were the first members of their families to attend college. He met with the principal of the local high school (not of our faith), and they forged a friendship and collaborated on how to assist each young person to achieve worthwhile goals and overcome problems. The principal told me that Bishop Mahe assisted him in working with immigrants of all faiths who were struggling. The young people knew that the bishop loved them.
Sadly, Bishop Mahe passed away while serving as bishop. I will never forget his touching and inspiring funeral. There was a huge crowd. The choir was composed of more than 35 faithful young members who had served missions or were attending college and who had been youth during his service as bishop. One speaker expressed the intense feeling of appreciation from the youth and young adults in his ward. He paid tribute to Bishop Mahe for the vision he had given them in preparing for life and righteous service. But most important, Bishop Mahe had assisted them in building faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the foundation of their lives.

When Petra and I were students at BYU, we were blessed with the birth of our first child just before our first wedding anniversary. It was important for us to counsel with the Lord and prayerfully consider His will for our growing family in regards to our education and job situation. Because there are a variety of individual and family circumstances around the world, this decision may be different for someone else, but in our case, Petra had a strong impression to postpone graduate school to be a mother and homemaker, while I worked 2-3 different part-time jobs to provide for our young family. When I saw the birth of our first child, I just wept, and my love for Petra and her sacred call as a mother deepened significantly with each passing day.

As a young married couple, Petra and I also worried about our finances and the ability to provide for our growing family. But as we exercised faith and followed Father’s Plan for us, we experienced many miracles at His Hands. As young parents, we made plenty of mistakes; nevertheless, we were comforted by President Harold B. Lee’s reminder that “The [greatest] work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own home.” [10]

For Petra and I, becoming parents increased our faith and trust in the Father’s Plan of Happiness for us, and provided a graduate level education and understanding of our Heavenly Parent’s love for Their children.