Gospel Story Finder

Among the early converts in Ohio was Luke S. Johnson. His parents, the John Johnsons, who owned a large farm near Hiram, Ohio, visited the Prophet at Kirtland. Mrs. Johnson suffered from chronic rheumatism and had been unable to use one of her arms for six years. During the visit, the Prophet took Mrs. Johnson by the hand and declared, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command thee to be whole.” Mrs. Johnson was healed. The occurrence left a lasting impression upon witnesses as evidence of priesthood power. This miracle was followed by other manifestations of varied gifts of the spirit among Latter-day Saints. But when certain former Shakers (members of a religious sect, started in England) attempted to imitate the true gifts with so-called “spiritual operations” practiced in their former religion, they were rebuked by the Prophet for their foolish rolling and turning and facial grimaces.

When President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke to the Saints of Ghana in 1998, Adjoa Darkoa Asare-Addo, 11, was present. She stood and sang “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet” with undisguised joy. “The Holy Spirit was with me, and I knew that President Hinckley was a prophet of God,” she recalls.
When President Hinckley announced that a temple would be built in Accra, Adjoa was thrilled. “Temples are so important!” she explains. “That is where families are sealed forever.” She intends to be married in that temple someday.

Many years ago when at the age of 12 I was ordained a deacon, my father, who was president of our stake, took me to my first stake priesthood meeting. … He walked up to the stand, and I sat on the back row, feeling a little alone and uncomfortable in that hall filled with strong men who had been ordained to the priesthood of God. The meeting was called to order, the opening song was announced, and—as was then the custom—we all stood to sing. There were perhaps as many as 400 there. Together these men lifted their strong voices, … all singing these words with a great spirit of conviction and testimony:
Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah!
Jesus anointed that Prophet and Seer.
Blessed to open the last dispensation,
Kings shall extol him, and nations revere.
(“Praise to the Man,” Hymns, no. 27.)
They were singing of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and as they did so there came into my heart a great surge of love for and belief in the mighty Prophet of this dispensation. In my childhood I had been taught much of him in meetings and classes in our ward as well as in our home; but my experience in that stake priesthood meeting was different. I knew then, by the power of the Holy Ghost, that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet of God.1

Cait and Lily are friends. They like swinging and going down the slide.
Lily likes to poke Cait. But Cait doesn’t like it.
“Poke, poke!”
“Did you have fun playing with Lily?”
“Lily likes to poke me. I don’t like it.”
“If you don’t like being poked, then you should tell her.”
“But what if that makes Lily sad?”
“If you’re not having fun, it’s OK to say stop.”
Heavenly Father wants us to take care of and protect our bodies.
“If someone touches you and you don’t like it, you can tell them no.”
“Maybe I can make up a new game to play with Lily.”
“Great idea!”
The best games are when everyone is having fun!

Approximately a month after Nancy’s death, there came a night when the grief I felt was absolutely crushing. I had been in very deep pain and sorrow all of that day. I remembered Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles teaching that “the path of salvation has always led … through Gethsemane.”1 Though my suffering can’t be compared to the Savior’s, that night I was in the midst of my own “dark and bitter hours.”2
After experiencing this for some time and praying for help, there came into my mind something that I had read and bookmarked on my computer several years before. I located the document and scrolled down to what I was looking for. It was an interview with Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1928–2015) in which he was asked about losing his wife, Jeanene, to cancer in 1995. Elder Scott responded, “First of all, … I didn’t lose her. She’s on the other side of the veil. We’ve been sealed in that holy ordinance of the temple, and we’ll be together forever.”3
That night those words came with a power that I have never felt before. It was like a lighthouse beacon being switched on in a dark night. I have never read something that had such a sudden and profound effect on me. The darkness and the pain were gone. It was like Alma when he could “remember [his] pains no more” (Alma 36:19). This apostolic witness penetrated me to the very core. I marveled that a concept I had understood since childhood could suddenly seem so remarkable. I found myself wondering how it was possible that Elder Scott could know something like this. And in the moment, I realized that I know it too. If I am faithful, I can have all of the hope that Elder Scott had. While there has certainly been sadness and mourning since then, I have never again felt the depths of pain and sorrow that I experienced that night.

When he was just a little boy, Harold B. Lee started to climb over a fence to explore some old buildings in a neighbor’s yard. He heard a voice saying, “Harold, don’t go over there.” Looking around, he could see no one, and he realized that the Spirit was warning him of danger, so he didn’t go. He never learned what the danger might have been, but he always testified that the experience had taught him that the Lord knew who he was and was watching over him.

Many things have been said about missionaries and missionary work. That has been the first love of my life, and I have been reminded of several things that happened sixty-eight years ago when I went to England. One I should like to relate.
I had gone to a certain house several times and had been rejected and warned not to come back again, but I was prompted to go again and again. And then as I was attempting to walk past that house, I was prompted to go in and try again to make contact. I used the big brass knocker on the English door without any response. I could see a lady in the front room knitting, and I made considerable noise with that knocker. She did not come out, and I went around to the back door. There was no knocker on that door so I used my walking stick, and I knocked with considerable vigor; in fact, it echoed through all the house.
Very soon the lady came out, and her coming out reminded me of my early days on the farm when I teased a setting hen off the nest. (I see some of you have had farm experience.) You know that a setting hen when she is teased off the nest comes off with her feathers going in the wrong direction, with her beak in perpetual motion, and this woman reminded me of that.
I apologized and said, “I am sorry to have interrupted you and have insisted upon an interview, but, my dear sister, I have come over six thousand miles to bring you a message which the Lord wants you to have. He sent me here to give you that message. I am going back to Canada in a few days, and I must tell you what the Lord wants you to know.”
She said, “You mean the Lord sent a message to me!”
I said, “That is right; he did.”
I told her of the restoration of the gospel, the organization of the Church, and the message of the restoration. She was quite impressed by what I told her. And I said when I left, “I am sorry to have disturbed you, but I could not refuse to carry out the message and the mission that was given to me when I came here. When we meet again, and we will meet again, you are going to say, ‘Thank you for coming to my back door. Thank you for loving me enough to carry the message of the Lord to me. When you left I could hardly contain myself. I was worried, disturbed, and wondered what it was all about. I finally went to the mission home, got some literature, studied, and became a member of the Church with my family.’”
Ten years later I was in England again, this time as a soldier, and at the end of the meeting a lady came up with two grown daughters. She said, “I do thank God and thank you that you came to my door with that message many years ago. I and my daughters joined the Church and we are going to Utah in a short time, and we thank God that you had the courage, the fortitude, and the faith to come to me with that divine message and to leave it with me in the name of the Lord.”

Chase and Heston watched as Sister Lind interrupted their Primary lesson by placing an empty chair between them.
“President Benson has a family saying about chairs. Have any of you heard it?” she asked, glancing at the extra seat. When no one held up his hand, she gave the answer herself: “‘no empty chairs!’ What do you suppose President Benson means?”
When still no one responded, Sister Lind help up a picture of Jesus holding a lamb. Smiling, she continued, “Could it have something to do with our lesson on Jesus and His lost sheep?”
Sharla raised her hand timidly. “Is the chair missing a person, like Jesus was missing a sheep?”
Sister Lind nodded. “That’s it, Sharla. Just as Jesus brought back His lost sheep, we’re supposed to find our friends missing from Primary and bring them back to their empty chairs.” She placed her hand on the chair between Chase and Heston. “Now, who is missing from our class? Who needs to come back and sit in this chair?”
The whole class turned to one another and mumbled one name—“Charles.” No one dared to shout it out. They were all reluctant to talk about Charles because his mother had died only two months before.
Charles had loved Primary, especially singing time, but he hadn’t come to church for almost three months. The empty chair in the classroom suddenly seemed very lonely. Charles wasn’t in it, and the other children missed him.
“What can we do?” Heston asked.
“Well, Charles is what the rest of our lesson is about. We’re going to discuss what we can do for him, and then we’ll pray for help.”
The class had a lot of ideas: “Let’s ask him to play soccer!” “How about inviting him to the Primary talent activity?” “Isn’t it almost time for his birthday? Why don’t we do something for his birthday?”
Sister Lind checked the class roll and looked at the birthday list. “You’re right,” she announced. “His birthday is next Saturday.”
Jessica jumped up and suggested, “What if we took balloons and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him at his house?”
Heston and Chase pulled faces. “The balloons are okay, but do we have to sing?”
Sister Lind laughed. “Of course you’ll sing.” She smiled at Jessica and said, “That’s a fine idea.” To the whole class, she added, “I also think that while we’re there, he’d like to be invited to the Primary activity. Let’s meet at my house on Saturday at ten o’clock.”
When everyone agreed, Sister Lind looked at the empty chair again. “Before we have the closing prayer, I want to remind you to remember Charles in your individual prayers this week.”
On Saturday morning the children met at Sister Lind’s house and they all went to visit Charles. “Before we go in,” she said, turning to the children, “don’t forget about the talent activity.” She smiled at Chase and asked him to invite Charles to the activity. “The rest of you must show Charles that you really want him to come,” she told them.
The balloons bobbed gaily as the children walked to the door. Only Chase walked slowly—he was wondering how to invite Charles to the activity.
A dog ran out the door when Charles opened it. “Look who’s here, Dad!” he shouted with a surprised look on his face. “It’s Sister Lind and my Primary class!”
“Happy birthday to you,” they sang. “Happy birthday to you. …”
“Ar-rooo!” a strange voice joined in, unheard by all but Sister Lind.
“Happy birthday, dear Charles. …”
“Ar-rooo!”
This time they all heard Charles’s dog, Bowser, “singing” with them. He was sitting by the door with his head thrown back for a full-throated sound.
“Ar-rooo-ooo!” he finished the song for them, then gave them a big doggy smile, rolling his head to one side and watching the children and Sister Lind laugh.
“Charles, Bowser likes to sing, too,” Heston shouted.
“He sure does,” Charles said, hugging his dog tightly. “He loves music as much as I do.”
Chase saw his opportunity. “Then how about singing with us for the Primary talent activity?”
The class stopped giggling at Bowser and looked expectantly at Charles.
“Dad, can I?”
Charles’s dad was quiet. He just looked down at the floor. Their whole plan might have ended awkwardly right then if Heston hadn’t started giggling again. “Hey, Charles,” he laughed, “can Bowser sing with us for the show? Do you think he’d do it?”
Bowser loved the idea! He lifted his head high and sang his loudest “Ar-roo.”
Charles’s dad lifted his head, too, and watched the happy faces of his son and his son’s friends as they again broke into helpless laughter. “Sure,” he said softly. “Maybe I’ll come too.”
During the next few weeks Charles, Bowser, and the rest of the class practiced their special act at Sister Lind’s house. Bowser enjoyed certain notes more than others, so Sister Lind played through her music until they found the song that appealed the most to him.
On Primary Talent Night, everyone’s family and friends crowded into the cultural hall. After the opening prayer, the bishop announced, “And now for a very different opening act, Sister Lind’s Valiant A class will accompany Bowser, the singing dog!”
Charles and his classmates led Bowser onto the stage, and Sister Lind stood below them. “Look across the room and tell me what you see,” she whispered.
The children looked out at the hall filled with people. Charles waved when he saw his dad sitting in the back, surrounded by Sister Lind’s family.
“No empty chairs!” Sharla told Sister Lind excitedly. “There are no empty chairs here tonight—or in our class, anymore.”
“That’s right!” Sister Lind gave them all a big smile and Bowser a pat, which made his tail wag with a thud on the stage. “Now let’s sing!”
The children’s voices rang, and so did Bowser’s. The room filled with laughter at the hound’s musical howls. Everyone—including the children and Bowser—was having a good time. And best of all, there were no empty chairs.

As a young woman, I participated in Personal Progress. There were activities to do, projects to create, and goals to achieve.
For one project, I decided to read the words for all the songs in the hymnbook, look up the scriptures referenced for each song, and learn to play them on the piano.
I thought it was a practical project that would help me in the future, so I went to work reading, studying, and practicing the hymns.
Fast-forward a few years.
I served a mission in Argentina, and one of my challenges was speaking a different language. At first it was very hard to put words together fast enough to be able to share my thoughts with anyone. However, I learned that I could find a hymn that said just what I wanted to say faster than I could translate my thoughts. I would find the hymn I wanted to share, and even though the words were in another language, the tune and the message were the same. I sang my testimony to many people and was able to share gospel truths this way until I became fluent in the Spanish language. I had the Lord to thank for the inspiration behind my Personal Progress project.
Because I know the words of the hymns, God has been able to send very specific messages to me many times. If I didn’t know the words, I wouldn’t have been able to receive the messages of hope, encouragement, and love that were there. I may have been able to feel the Spirit and be uplifted by the music, but without knowing the words, I would have missed the full message.
This was an unforeseen blessing of my practical Personal Progress project. Heavenly Father has been able to send profound and timely messages to my heart through the hymns.

In 1989, our family of seven was returning from a ward outing. It was late. Lynette was expecting our sixth child. She felt a strong prompting to fasten her seat belt, which she had forgotten to do. Shortly thereafter we came around a bend in the road; a car crossed the line into our lane. Going about 70 miles (112 km) an hour, I swerved to avoid hitting the oncoming car. Our van rolled, skidded down the highway, and slid off the road, finally coming to a stop, landing with the passenger side in the dirt.
The next thing I remember hearing was Lynette’s voice: “Shayne, we need to get out through your door.” I was hanging in the air by my seat belt. It took a few seconds to get oriented. We started lifting each of the children out of the van through my window, which was now the ceiling of the van. They were crying, wondering what had happened.
We soon realized that our 10-year-old daughter, Emily, was missing. We yelled her name, but there was no response. Ward members, who were also traveling home, were at the scene frantically looking for her. It was so dark. I looked in the van again with a flashlight and, to my horror, saw Emily’s tiny body trapped under the van. I called out desperately, “We have to lift the van off of Emily.” I grabbed the roof and pulled back. There were only a few others lifting, but the van miraculously flipped onto its wheels, exposing Emily’s lifeless body.
Emily was not breathing. Her face was the color of a purple plum. I said, “We need to give her a blessing.” A dear friend and ward member knelt with me, and by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, in the name of Jesus Christ, we commanded her to live. In that moment, Emily took a long raspy breath.
After what seemed like hours, the ambulance finally arrived. Emily was rushed to the hospital. She had a collapsed lung and a severed tendon in her knee. Brain damage was a concern because of the time she was without oxygen. Emily was in a coma for a day and a half. We continued to pray and fast for her. She was blessed with a full recovery. Today, Emily and her husband, Kevin, are the parents of six daughters.
Miraculously, everyone else was able to walk away. The baby Lynette was carrying was Tyson. He too was spared any harm and was born the next February. Eight months later, after receiving his earthly body, Tyson returned home to Heavenly Father. He is our guardian angel son. We feel his influence in our family and look forward to being with him again.
Those who lifted the van off of Emily observed that the van seemed to weigh nothing. I knew that heavenly angels had joined with earthly angels to lift the vehicle off of Emily’s body. I also know that Emily was brought back to life by the power of the holy priesthood.

I’ve always been a curious person.
Growing up, I had big questions about how the earth was created, how human life was formed, and why we’re on this planet. When I learned about and accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ at age 14, I found so many answers and greater meaning for my life. I did my best to keep God’s commandments and felt real joy living the gospel.
I continued progressing in many exciting ways—I served a mission, attended university, and more. But as I approached age 30, I became discouraged that I hadn’t had the opportunity to get married. Although I saw many people around me choose to live contrary to the law of chastity, I was firm in my commitment to keep my covenants and prepare for a temple marriage.
I believed that happiness comes from obedience (see Mosiah 2:41). But as I looked around at my friends who chose not to keep the law of chastity, they seemed happier than me. They were having new experiences with dating and relationships, and I felt a sense of unfairness. As a curious and well-educated person, I was frustrated that my friends now seemed wiser and more mature than me.
The commandments began to feel less like a blessing and more like a roadblock keeping me from living my best life.
I was tempted to walk away from the idea of a temple marriage and a gospel-centered life after a while. The law of chastity just felt too hard to keep when I was surrounded by a world that didn’t view physical intimacy the same way I did.
When I was struggling the most, my institute teacher shared a story about having the missionaries over for dinner. He shared how his whole family prepared for and participated in the spiritual thought the missionaries shared.
In that moment, I realized that more than anything, I wanted to raise a family that could enjoy the blessings of the gospel all together.
It all clicked. The law of chastity wasn’t a roadblock keeping me from experiencing the gift of sexuality—it was a blessing keeping me pointed toward the temple and my eternal family.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught: “Is it wrong to have rules? Of course not. We all need them every day. But it is wrong to focus only on rules instead of focusing on the Savior. You need to know the whys and the hows and then consider the consequences of your choices.”
When I remembered the Savior and His sacrifice for me, I decided that the blessings of keeping my covenants, including the law of chastity and being married in the temple, would be worth the wait. True happiness isn’t about doing whatever you want. It’s about being worthy to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost.
There can be other instances when we feel tempted to break our covenants. Living the gospel isn’t always easy! But the covenants we make and the commandments we keep were put in place by a loving Heavenly Father who has our best interests at heart. We can trust that He knows so much more than we do and that following Him over the world will always lead us to joy.
I feel grateful that I recently fell in love and was married in the temple. I’m glad I was dedicated to the commandments so I can now enjoy the blessings of eternal marriage.

It was a dark and stormy night.
Well, okay, maybe it was a sunny afternoon.
Whenever it was, somebody sneaked up outside the window of James B. Young’s dormitory room on the Ricks College campus. They pulled out a roll of masking tape. Then cautiously, they formed letters—backwards—on the window, so that when Jamie opened the curtains in the morning, he would read the words the right way. This was their message:
“We Love U.”
All of which brings us back to the masked message taped on Jamie’s window one dark and stormy night.
“We Love U,” it said.
If James Brigham Young has anything to say about it, that may well become the official nickname for Ricks College.

Hiking into the foothills and onto the mountain east of Manti, Utah, was a favorite activity for me when I was growing up. One crisp fall day when I was about ten years old, my friend and I decided to go for a hike.
My mother carefully wrapped two peanut butter and jam sandwiches and pieces of raisin pie in waxed paper and put them and an apple apiece in brown paper bags for us to take for our lunches.
I enjoyed the cool, fresh air and the smell of the fields and orchards as we made our way past the outskirts of town, past one neighbor’s farm and through another’s apple orchard. The trees were loaded with delicious red apples.
We were each carrying a large burlap sack, as we hoped to find pine nuts. As we took the narrow trail through the sagebrush and into the junipers, we found a piñon pine tree here and there, and a few pinecones.
We put the cones, sticky with fresh pine gum, into our burlap sacks, with the knowledge that each hard, green cone contained a number of pine nuts locked tightly inside it. I loved pine nuts then; I still do. The Indians liked them, too, but they gathered them for survival. They made a pine-nut bread that was half pine nuts and half grasshoppers. I preferred my pine nuts straight.
My friend and I climbed higher until we came to a maze of flat, white rocks laid out so that they formed a huge letter “M” visible throughout the valley below. At the top right side of this letter, we found a large, flat rock and sat down to rest. Taking our shoes off to cool our feet on this smooth rock, we enjoyed looking down on Manti, out across the fields and valleys, and beyond. The air was clean and clear, and we could smell the mixture of sage, juniper, and pine. It was good to be alive!
So that we could roast some of our pine nuts, we gathered dry brush and limbs and started a fire. It was soon blazing quite high—too high!
The flames caught onto a nearby clump of sagebrush, then another and another. It looked as though it would soon spread to the whole mountainside and be a forest fire. We had learned to put a fire out by pouring water on it, but we had no water, so we tried to beat it out with our burlap sacks, but every time we beat at the fire, it seemed to fan out and spread more. In desperation my friend said, “I’ll go for help.” He pulled his shoes on and took off running down the mountain.
I was alone! I went to my knees in prayer. “Father in Heaven, help me put this fire out.” This is all I remember saying. I don’t know what I expected. There was not a cloud in the sky, and it didn’t suddenly start to rain. I didn’t hear a voice telling me what to do, but He answered my prayer.
Before I’d even gotten off my knees, I was impressed to start throwing dirt on the nearest burning bush, and then on the next one. I threw dirt on another, and another until I had encircled the entire fire and had it under control and only smoke was left blowing up on the mountain where the fire had been.
I had not heard a voice saying, “Throw dirt on the fire,” but I had felt strongly impressed to do it. In some way Heavenly Father had conveyed that intelligence to my mind. If I forgot to thank Him then, I have thanked Him many times since then!
I am grateful, too, for the way He answered my prayer. He didn’t put the fire out. He could have, but I’m glad that He didn’t. I would have been embarrassed. Instead, He allowed me the dignity of putting the fire out, which boosted my self-confidence and helped me realize that I could solve difficult problems with His help.
I learned many lifelong lessons from this experience, the first being to not start a fire next to brush with a breeze blowing. More important, I learned that the prayer of a small boy on a mountain would be heard and answered. I also learned that Heavenly Father will generally not do for us what we can do for ourselves but will prompt us to use our own intelligence, our own strength, and the materials at hand, such as the dirt under our feet.

There was a song I heard first when I was a little boy—a song about Christmas and home. Those were days of war when many people were away from their homes and family—a dark time for those who feared that they might not be reunited with loved ones in this life. I remember my feelings for home and family when I walked by one house on the way to school at Christmastime and saw a little flag with a gold star on it hung in the window. It was the home of a girl I knew in school. Her brother, not much older than I, had been killed in the war. I knew his parents and felt some of what they did. On the way home after school, I would feel grateful anticipation for the glad welcome I knew awaited me.
When I turned on the radio in our living room during the Christmas season, I would hear words and music that still echo in my mind. A few lines of that song touched my heart with a yearning to be with family. I was living with my parents and my brothers in a happy home, so I knew somehow that the yearning I felt was for more than to be in a house or in the family life I then enjoyed. It was about some future place and life, even better than I knew or had yet imagined.
The line of the song that I remember best is “I’ll be home for Christmas / If only in my dreams.”1 The house in which I decorated Christmas trees with my mother and father in those happy days of my childhood still stands, largely unchanged. A few years ago I went back and knocked on the door. Strangers answered. They allowed me to step into the rooms where the radio had been and where our family had gathered around the Christmas tree.
I realized then that the desire of my heart was not about being in a house. It was about being with my family, and it was a desire to feel enveloped in the love and the Light of Christ, even more than our little family had felt in the home of my childhood.

Elder David A. Bednar told a story about two of his sons. Once, when the younger brother got a little hurt playing outside, the older brother took care of him. He washed the scrape, put on medical ointment, and bandaged his brother’s whole arm. The younger brother was so happy to feel better that he went outside and started putting ointment and bandages on his friends, so they could be happy too! Elder Bednar explained that this is like missionary work. Because the gospel has blessed our lives in many ways, we want to share that blessing with others.

“My favorite babysitter was my grandaunt Bertha Irvine, my grandmother’s older sister. She was a personal secretary to Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, Heber J. Grant, and George Albert Smith. Sometimes I went to her office in the Church Administration Building and sat at her feet while she worked. Or I would play outside and climb on the building and around its big pillars. We’ve had twelve prophets, and I’ve known and shaken hands with six of them. I never even dreamed that I would ever have an office in that very building, but I serve today with a number of men who knew Aunt Bertha well: President Kimball, President Benson, and President Hinckley. She worked with Elder Joseph Anderson for years in the office of our wonderful prophets.
“My experiences with Sunday School and Primary teachers were important to me as I was growing up. I remember the little red chairs we used to sit in and how church was always an exciting and pleasant place to go. I looked forward to summer Primary, when we would make things out of wood and out of paper. I loved that. As I think back and remember Sister Condie and Sister Anderson and Sister Barnes and some of the other lovely teachers I had, I can remember them more clearly than I can my school teachers. I won a copy of Huckleberry Finn because I had the best attendance record. I still have that book. I appreciate the teacher who gave it to me.
“I had a great experience when I graduated from Primary. Back in those days we each had a green bandalo. I had lost mine. I looked everywhere, including under my bed and through everything in the closet. Finally my mother said, ‘Why don’t you pray about it. Ask Heavenly Father to help you find it.’ So I went to my room and prayed. Even as I was praying, a voice seemed to say, ‘In the dresser, caught underneath the drawer.’ The dresser was in the hall because there wasn’t enough room in my tiny bedroom. When I pulled out the drawer and reached up inside, there it was, caught on a silver! That was the first direct answer to prayer that I can remember receiving. I was proud that I could wear my bandalo when I stood next to Bishop Rulon Sperry as he nominated me to graduate from Primary and to be ordained to the office of a deacon.
“Many summers my family went to Cedar City and stayed on my uncle’s farm. There was no electricity or water in the house, so we carried buckets of water into the house from outside. I experienced farm life as it really was in those days. Now my assignment is with the people in that very same area. It is special to go there—it’s like going home. Some of the people there remember my uncle and aunt and other families I knew.
“A special message that I give to all the children in the world is this: First, love Jesus. He especially loves children, and if children can learn to love Him, then when they are older, they will continue to love Him and understand Him. I think that little children sometimes understand Jesus better than older people do because children forgive so quickly and love so easily.
“Second, live the commandments. The people I know who are truly happy are those who live the commandments. Whatever Heavenly Father wants us to do—such as paying our tithing and going to church and being nice to our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers—that’s what we should do.
“Third, obey Church leaders. When I was a Primary boy, my parents would always talk about our wonderful bishop, Bishop Sperry. When I was a deacon, my bishop was Rex C. Reeve, Sr., a man with whom I serve today. I have always loved those men. When I don’t have a Church assignment on Sunday, which isn’t very often, I attend my own ward. My bishop there is Ole Johnson, and I love him today just as I loved Bishop Sperry and Bishop Reeve when I was young. If we love our Church leaders and obey what they tell us to do, then we’ll never make serious mistakes.”

Michael and Logan had been best friends since nursery. They liked to compete. Michael was taller, but Logan was three weeks older. They raced to see who could run the fastest. They jumped on the trampoline to see who could jump the longest. They held their breath underwater in the neighborhood pool. Sometimes Michael won, and sometimes Logan won. Sometimes they would get angry at each other.
“I’m the tallest!” Michael would yell.
“Well, I’m the oldest!” Logan would yell back.
But they always said they were sorry and forgave each other.
When Michael and Logan were in CTR 6 class, their ward boundaries were changed. They had to go to different Primaries.
When Sunday came, Michael didn’t want to go to church. He was upset that his best friend was going to a different ward. When Mom tried to help him put on his white shirt, he ran away. He hid under the kitchen table, behind the couch, and under his bed, but Mom found him every time.
“I don’t want to go to church!” Michael said while Mom helped him put on his shirt and tie. “Logan won’t be there! I bet my class only has girls in it!”
“Michael, you know we always go to church,” Mom said. “We need to learn what Heavenly Father wants us to do so we can be like Jesus Christ. You want to be like Jesus, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Michael muttered. He wanted to choose the right so he could live with Heavenly Father someday. But he knew he wouldn’t be as happy at church without his friend.
Michael sulked during the car ride to church and all through sacrament meeting. He glared at his older sisters, who sat quietly in their seats. When the ward boundaries changed, they got to keep their friends. Michael thought about pinching them so they would be angry too, but he decided he didn’t want to get in trouble.
When Michael walked into his new Primary class, he sighed. It was full of girls. There was not one other boy in his class. The girls giggled and chatted with each other. Michael sat at the end of the row and scowled. He knew he wouldn’t make any friends today.
One of the girls leaned over to him. “Hi, I’m Stephanie,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Michael,” Michael muttered. He didn’t want to make friends with a girl. He knew no girl could be as good a friend as Logan.
“I’m having a birthday party this week,” Stephanie said. “You should come. It’s going to be a pool party.”
Michael hesitated. He loved swimming. Maybe he could be friends with a girl. “OK,” he said. “If my mom says it’s OK.”
“And I’m going to have a piñata shaped like a dinosaur,” Stephanie said.
“Dinosaurs are my favorite!” Michael was surprised. His sisters didn’t like cool things like dinosaurs. But this girl seemed all right.
Michael and Stephanie talked about dinosaurs until the lesson started.
After church, Michael ran to meet his mom. “Mom! I got invited to a birthday party, and there’s going to be swimming and a dinosaur piñata!”
“I’m glad you made a new friend,” Mom said. “What’s his name?”
“Stephanie,” Michael said. “I told you my class would be full of girls. But she’s all right. Logan is still my best friend, but I think Stephanie will be a good friend too.”

Second, we can give more generously to the poor and needy. As I visit with Church members, I am overwhelmed with the goodness of faithful Latter-day Saints. A young man in Colombia, raised by his grandmother, owned several shoe repair shops and served as the custodian in his ward. When he was called on a mission, he had saved not only enough money to pay for his own mission but also contributed extra funds to support another missionary.

What about sharing our food, clothing, and furniture? The Lord commands that we not covet our own property (see D&C 19:26). In many places we are blessed to have Deseret Industries. We can teach our children to go through their closets regularly and share their clothing while it is still in style, allowing others to dress fashionably too.

Many rewards come from sharing our material possessions. King Benjamin reminds us of this when he says, “For the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God … impart of your substance to the poor, … such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief” (Mosiah 4:26). We can all be searching for the many opportunities in our lives to give—to share.

“You hide your horses in this grove of trees by the tracks. The train will be coming up the grade out of the canyon. Mike, you flag it down. The rest of you board the train. I’ll be up in front here and shoot anything that moves. All right, let’s go!”
That wasn’t Butch Cassidy talking. That was me, and that day I shot horses, people, trains, a guy carrying a canoe, and a bird watchers club by mistake. I shot them with a super-8 movie camera as part of one of the greatest, most colossal spectacles ever to hit the silver screen—at least we thought so: “The Great Train Robbery” (we titled it) produced by the Edgemont Fourth Ward Aaronic Priesthood MIA and featuring a cast of dozens (including some we hadn’t planned on).
If you’re looking for a different activity for your Aaronic Priesthood MIA, maybe a movie spectacular is the answer. A movie is a large undertaking, but it’s fun, and you may excite some previously unexcited kids. We did. Don’t worry too much about the technical aspects of movie making. Enthusiasm covers a multitude of blunders, and humility covers the rest. There is almost always a willing expert in the ward or neighborhood or down at the camera shop.
We started out like this:
“Let’s make a movie,” said the members of the bishops youth committee.
“Great idea,” said the ever-enthusiastic drama specialist. “Uh … which end of the camera do you point?”
Fortunately today’s automatic camera equipment is designed with a medium I.Q. in mind. You don’t have to be Stanley Kramer to come out with something on the film. Speaking of equipment, snoop around the ward a little. Especially after Christmas. You can probably unearth both a camera and cameraman. If worse comes to absolute worst, you can usually rent equipment from a camera store.
You will probably want your colossal extravaganza to run more than three minutes (that’s the length of a roll of film), so you’ll need a film editing machine and some adhesive splicing tabs to stick the films together—also available at the camera store. Anybody who finds film editing exciting has lived a very uneventful life. Also, the handy-dandy splicing tapes require the finger dexterity of a professional pickpocket. But it has to be done, so stick with it (pun intended). It is satisfying when you’ve finished. Film and development are the biggest costs, of course. We spent $105.00 for a 25-minute epic. Writing the script isn’t hard; just remember to put in plenty of action, plenty of people, plenty of outdoors. Look around for any unusual settings for action scenes. Is there a park with an old airplane, or an outdoor museum? Are there stores, houses, or barns with unusual exteriors? If nothing else, is there an open space where you can stage an indian raid or a medieval jousting tournament?
We decided on a train robbery because we had the elements close at hand. The Heber Creeper is an old-time steam engine that carries sightseers between Heber, Utah, and lower Provo Canyon. The owners were happy to participate in the robbery and even showed us the best spot to pull off the job.
Our ward had enough riding enthusiasts to get the outlaw band more or less mounted. We had purebred stallions, ancient hay burners, a Shetland pony, and one reluctant donkey. He was the only member of the cast who didn’t think it was a good idea. We first noticed this lack of enthusiasm when we had to drag him stiff-legged down the road behind my Volkswagen to load him on a truck. If you’ve got 53 horsepower on one end of the rope and one donkey power on the other, you’ve got a toss-up contest that could go either way. But we finally won.
We loaded him and the rest of the horses and outlaws and headed for the hills.
The train route winds through Provo Canyon, then hugs the hillside around Deer Creek reservoir, and cuts through the fields and pastures of Heber Valley. We set up near a grove of trees and waited.
“Here she comes!” shouted the lookout.
I hollered, “Lights! Action! Roll ’em!” (Whatever that means.)
Lights and roll ’em we didn’t get, but action we did. One blast of the engine whistle and every horse sponsored his own Kentucky Derby in his own direction. Only the donkey was left. He was too ornery to be scared. He just stood stiff-legged by the tracks and sang two-part harmony with the train as it thundered by.
The Creeper was a white puff of smoke in the distance by the time we rounded up the last of the horses, so we dubbed in the train scene later. Speaking of dubbing in, try as much as possible to shoot the scenes in order. Rehearse them while looking through the camera; then try to get it right the first take. It will save film costs and editing time later.
Our script called for a brawl scene climaxed by a pie in the face. For this scene we got the bishop’s permission, because he got the pie in the face. Blueberry cream. It was a beautiful scene and performed with excellent taste, the bishop said.
Close-ups and reaction-to-the-action shots help pace the action. And also try to frame your characters as large as practical in the shot unless it’s a deliberate long shot or scenery shot. Mount your camera on a tripod whenever possible. Even though your cameraman lives the Word of Wisdom, he’s got shaky hands.
You can get synchronized sound with some super-8 movie cameras, but this was more trouble and expense than we wanted. We used a silent screen format with printed titles to show the dialogue and credits. You can type these and photograph them with a close-up attachment on the movie camera. Here, especially, use the tripod, We recorded a rinky-tink piano background (put thumbtacks in the piano hammers to get the “tink”). We play the tape whenever we show the movie.
Showing the movie is, of course, the climax, particularly the premiere showing. We staged a variety show titled “Salute to the Silver Screen.” The whole ward was invited (and came), and the kids did songs, dances, and skits based on great movies of the past. (Unfortunately most of the great movies are in the past.) Then we honored the cast and showed the movie. “The Great Train Robbery” will never get an Oscar, but it was a “ward winning” movie.

Genuine gratitude was expressed by the writer of a letter received some time ago at Church headquarters. No return address was shown, no name, but the postmark was from Portland, Oregon:
“To the Office of the First Presidency:
“Salt Lake City showed me Christian hospitality once during my wandering years.
“On a cross-country journey by bus to California, I stepped down in the terminal in Salt Lake City, sick and trembling from aggravated loss of sleep caused by a lack of necessary medication. In my headlong flight from a bad situation in Boston, I had completely forgotten my supply.
“In the Temple Square Hotel restaurant, I sat dejectedly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple approach my table. ‘Are you all right, young man?’ the woman asked. I raised up, crying and a bit shaken, related my story and the predicament I was in then. They listened carefully and patiently to my nearly incoherent ramblings, and then they took charge. They spoke with the restaurant manager, then told me I could have all I wanted to eat there for five days. They took me next door to the hotel desk and got me a room for five days. Then they drove me to a clinic and saw that I was provided with the medications I needed—truly my basic lifeline to sanity and comfort.
“While I was recuperating and building my strength, I made it a point to attend the daily Tabernacle organ recitals. The celestial voicing of that instrument from the faintest intonation to the mighty full organ is the most sublime sonority of my acquaintance. I have acquired albums and tapes of the Tabernacle organ and the choir which I can rely upon anytime to soothe and buttress a sagging spirit.
“On my last day at the hotel, before I resumed my journey, I turned in my key; and there was a message for me from that couple: ‘Repay us by showing gentle kindness to some other troubled soul along your road.’ That was my habit, but I determined to be more keenly on the lookout for someone who needed a lift in life.
“I wish you well. I don’t know if these are indeed the ‘latter days’ spoken of in the scriptures, but I do know that two members of your church were saints to me in my desperate hours of need. I just thought you might like to know.”
What an example of caring compassion.