Gospel Story Finder

Many years ago, our family planned to spend Christmas with my wife's family in Seattle. Because of my work schedule, I was not able to travel with my family but planned to join them a few days after they arrived. One night my wife's younger brother, who was in high school at the time, invited a group of friends to hang out. Unbeknownst to them, it started snowing, and soon all the roads were closed, leaving everyone stranded for the night at my in-laws' home. Trying to accommodate the group for the night meant that my wife ended up having a new roommate. They made small talk, eventually said goodnight, and turned out the light. As my wife was lying in bed, it dawned on her that she hadn't said her personal prayers before retiring. She didn't feel right saying her prayers as she lay in bed, but at the same time, she didn't feel comfortable getting out of bed and kneeling with a stranger in the room. She feared what this girl might think, especially if she didn't believe in God. She feared that maybe she might be considered a religious fanatic or some type of weirdo. She feared that somehow her new roommate might feel uncomfortable, be offended, or have a negative opinion of the Church. She even feared that she wasn't being true to her own conscience by not doing what she has done most every night of her life and pray kneeling by the side of her bed. What should she do? She decided to wait silently until her new roomie was asleep and then take action.

Feeling certain that her roommate was indeed asleep, my wife carefully and silently slid out of bed, not wanting to wake her guest. She would have made the stealthiest ninja proud. She knelt by the side of her bed, offered her prayer, and then repeated the ninja-like return to bed. Mission accomplished. She had scarcely settled in when she heard a voice in the dark ask, "Lisa, were you just praying?" My wife answered, "Yes, I was." It was silent again for a moment, and then she heard, "All my life I've wanted to pray, but I just didn't know how." Another silent pause. "Will you teach me?" Lisa turned on the light, talked about a loving Heavenly Father, the power and process of prayer, and then they kneeled together, and a "first" prayer was offered.

Lisa's faith drove her to action--to her knees--rather than to remain passive and overwhelmed with fears. I have been privileged to witness this woman of faith overcome her fears as she has acted on promptings, accepted callings that pushed her beyond her comfort, and courageously maintained her standards without dilution. She overcame the fears of what the future might hold--especially being married to me--as I worked through three university degrees, and full-time employment that was not in sight. Her first response to worry is to pray. Her first inclination when fear sets in is turn to God. I know saying this embarrasses her, and I will surely hear about this on our drive home today, but she is a fine example of what it means to have faith to conquer fear.

Though Sig had never denied the existence of God or committed grave sins, religion was not a significant part of his life. But he couldn’t accept the philosophies of his atheistic and agnostic friends. Once, Sig had pressed one of the agnostics with the question, “If you were to join any church, which one would it be?” The man answered, “I would become a Mormon,” and cited the goodness of the Latter-day Saints as his reason.
In fact, it was the good example of the only Latter-day Saint he had ever known—“an example of a good man”—that persuaded Sig Verano to listen to the Latter-day Saint missionaries for the first time. What they taught sounded like the truth to him. The Word of Wisdom made enough of an impression that the young mechanic gave up his cigarettes and liquor and began to pray on his own. Nevertheless, it wasn’t easy for him to go to church because he had long since broken the habit of attendance. Soon, he stopped listening to the missionary lessons.
But the Verano children enjoyed Primary, which then was held one afternoon a week. Sig or Ana would drive them to the chapel for the meeting. One afternoon, the car wouldn’t start. “Well, it isn’t my fault,” Sig told them. “I guess you won’t be able to go.”
Back in the house, six-year-old Edison wouldn’t give up. “Let’s pray,” he pleaded. So they knelt in prayer, then went back out to the car. To Sig Verano’s surprise, it started immediately.
After this experience, the Veranos attended Church meetings for a time, but quit after a few weeks. During this period there were several “coincidences” that helped to keep the Church in their thoughts. Sig’s mother-in-law, visiting from Colombia, spoke favorably of the clean-cut young American missionaries whose meetinghouse was near her home. An old friend from Colombia, now a sailor in the merchant marine, came for a visit. At dinnertime, he asked if he could say a blessing on the food—and Sig Verano recognized from his prayer that he was a Latter-day Saint. The friend, a convert who studied the scriptures ardently during his long voyages, bore his testimony to the Veranos, not knowing they had been investigating the Church.
Earlier, Sig Verano had told one pair of missionaries that they could come to visit as friends, but not as teachers. Before one of them went home at the end of his mission, he and his companion stopped by to visit and to invite the Veranos to meet his parents at a small farewell gathering hosted by friends. The Veranos were so impressed with the loving Latter-day Saints they met that they began taking the missionary lessons again.
But Ana Verano, faithful to the traditions of her forefathers’ church, became stubborn when she realized her husband was serious about joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She felt she didn’t need to be baptized again. So they reached an agreement: since the children liked the Church, he would take them there after his baptism. She would continue to go to her church.
But repeatedly during the week preceding Sig’s baptism, Ana dreamed of the Savior’s baptism by John in the River Jordan. She concluded that it was an indication, meant just for her, of the right thing to do.
Sigifredo and Ana were baptized in January of 1974. Their son Edison was baptized later that year, after his eighth birthday.
The Veranos’ struggles with faithfulness were not yet over, however, and neither was the loving work of others in fellowshipping them.
A fine home teacher, George Baker, helped keep them active in the Church, Brother Verano recalls. Unused to attending church meetings three times a day, beginning with priesthood at seven A.M., Brother Verano was ready to quit. The early meetings were difficult because he was working from midnight to six A.M. But Brother Baker, who could not go himself, arranged for someone to drive the Veranos to ward meetings, and kept them coming.
The Veranos’ spirituality grew as they faithfully attended meetings and obeyed gospel principles.
He was called as president of his stake’s Spanish-speaking branch, created in 1978, and was made bishop when, after five years, it became a ward.
The creation of that branch was a blessing also for Ana Verano. What little English she knew had made it difficult for her to participate in an English-speaking ward. In the Spanish-speaking branch, she could hold callings and grow in service as her husband had.
“My real testimony has come through working in the Church,” Brother Verano says. “Constant service is one of the things that strengthens one’s testimony.”
The first Spanish-speaking ward in their stake was divided shortly after its creation, and Sig was called to the high council. He now serves as stake executive secretary for the three Spanish-speaking wards in the Los Angeles California North Hollywood Stake. Ana serves in the stake’s English-language name extraction program.
Among the vocational courses Sig Verano completed in his wide-ranging studies was one in real estate sales. It led to a profitable new career—and to further strengthening of his testimony.
His sales career didn’t begin well. He was fired after only one week when the owner of the real estate agency learned the new salesman’s religion following Brother Verano’s refusal to work on Sunday.
“The gospel is so important in our lives that Sunday is empty if we can’t go to Church meetings,” he explains. But the owner of the real estate company said that the Mormons put too much time into Church service to be successful. Go work for a small agency where the owner will not care so much about sales success, he told Sig Verano.
Brother Verano took the dismissal as a challenge. He found a job with a larger agency, and, working only part-time in 1979, was its top salesman. He has consistently refused to work on Sundays; as branch president and bishop, he also devoted part of his Saturdays to Church service. Yet for several years he has been among the company’s top five salespeople.
In Church service, Brother Verano says humbly, he has gained knowledge that the Lord lives, that through him we can be redeemed, and that he has placed prophets on earth to help guide us. Those who only tentatively believe that the gospel is true can come to know of its truth with certainty as he has—by testing it in obedience and in service to others.
“When I was baptized into the Church,” he reflects, “I believed. But now I know.”

In addition to so many other responsibilities, the President of the Church receives a great deal of correspondence each day. I am reminded of one such letter and share it with you. I have changed the name of the young man who wrote the letter. It begins:
“Dear President,
“Hi. My name is David Smith. I live in an area where the starlings are very bad, and they are making nests in my step-grandpa’s boat and in my dad’s barn and all over the place. My step-grandpa and my dad both think I should shoot them, but my mom doesn’t. I know the law says it is okay, but I am not asking your opinion as a hunter. I am asking your opinion as a Church leader.
“Sincerely, David Smith
“P.S. A starling is a black bird that eats other bird’s eggs and other bad things.”
Each letter which comes in is answered. A response to this particular letter was sent by the secretary to the First Presidency, F. Michael Watson.
“Dear David:
“I have been asked to acknowledge your letter of April 30 addressed to the President of the Church about the problems you have been having with starlings.
“The Church does not have an official policy on this matter. The Brethren feel it should be left up to your parents to give you appropriate guidance.
“I hope this information is helpful to you.
“Sincerely yours, F. Michael Watson”

I remember one evening years ago, while attending a Sunday School party, I looked at the clock, and it was past the time I was told to be home. Just then a knock came on the door. I was horrified—my dad had come after me. I felt humiliated in front of my friends. I thought I wanted to die. I was not pleasant with my dad; disobedience never makes one pleasant.
A few years later, my friends and I were driving home from a dance across an Indian reservation, ten miles from any shelter. It was 40 degrees below zero, and the windchill continued to lower the temperature. A few miles farther into the blizzard, we discovered that there was no heat in the car. Then the car froze up and would not run. We came to a slow stop. We watched the snow swirling in front of us only until the windows quickly froze over. We were quiet and sober as we contemplated our fate—our lives were in danger. The silence was broken as a friend in the backseat asked, “How long do you think it will be before your dad will get here?”
Why do you think they thought my dad would come? One time I had thought I wanted to die because he had come after me. This time we lived because my dad came through the blizzard to save my life and the lives of my friends. This time I was pleasant with my dad—pleasant and very grateful.

Out of power. My mind floated back to a precalculus class the past spring. We’d been studying trigonometry. Normally I was a straight-A student, and most of the class had been a breeze. But the endless ribbons of sine and cosine graphs had tied themselves into a granny knot in my mind. On the pretest, I’d flopped. I’d forgotten my calculator, and the teacher had none to share.
Then came the day of the real test. Calculator firmly in hand, I dug in. Question one … all right, not too bad. Question two … a few swift strokes and my graph faithfully produced the answer. Question three. Question four.
Question five … I needed a graph for question five. I punched in the equation and pressed “enter” on my calculator. Suddenly the screen went blank. Frantically, I pressed the “on” key. Once again … again.
Like a paramedic trying to elicit a response from a victim of cardiac arrest, I pounded on the button. The screen darkened briefly, as if struggling for a breath, but still nothing. I flipped the calculator over and moved the batteries around, knowing full well they were dead. Still nothing. I waited a few seconds then tried everything again. With a sigh I finally set my calculator down. It was out of power.
The test before me was more than half incomplete. I tried a few questions, mostly guessing, and started to feel the cold tingle of panic. My eyes fixed on the hummingbird wings of the clock. “Please slow down, please,” I wanted to say. Helplessly I looked outside, wondering what it felt like to fail a test.
Then it hit me. I knew what I hadn’t done. Surreptitiously, I scanned the room, then bowed my head. “Dear Heavenly Father, I thank thee for all my many blessings, and I’m grateful for all I have. I know this is just a math test and not really important in the big picture, but it’s important to me, and I need help …” I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was one of the most earnest prayers I have ever offered.
I looked up. Trembling, I pulled the calculator close. Now what? Nervously, I fingered the keys. What if it still didn’t work? What if I didn’t have enough faith? What if there was nothing to have faith in? A nebula of doubts clouded my head. No. I traced the “enter” key with my finger. No. Simultaneously I both pushed away the whispers in my head and pushed the square designated “on.”
The display blinked to life. Fighting back the urges to either yell or cry, I covered my mouth. I would make it through the rest of the test.

Not long ago while I was sitting on the stand during the closing session of a youth conference, just as the young priest conducting the meeting rose to his feet to bring the meeting to a close, Kathy, sitting next to me, jumped up and unhesitatingly slipped in front of the young man, took her place at the pulpit, faced the audience, raised both hands in front of her with outstretched fingers, and said, “I’ll bet you’re all wondering why I’ve been wearing this ugly green nail polish.” A soft ripple could be heard across the audience, and I realized that I was not the only one sharing that curiosity.

“Well,” she said, “it’s like this: I knew my responsibilities as one of the leaders of this conference were big. I knew I had some real challenges ahead, and I didn’t want to be sorry after the chance was gone that I didn’t do what I really wanted to do.

“You see, I needed something that would remind me of what I really wanted to do and help me through the things I didn’t want to do. So I thought of a plan. And it worked! You see,” she went on, “I wanted something that would remind me of what I really wanted to make myself do. I knew my fingernails would always be there, and if they were green, I would be sure to notice them.”

After giving further details and bearing a strong testimony of the joy that comes when you do what you should, she took her seat.

It seemed like a great way to earn a backpacking merit badge. A five-day trip, 14 miles in, 14 miles out, and a few side trips up canyons to achieve 32 total miles, just what the members of Varsity Scout Team 6475 needed to finish their qualifications. And along the way through the red rock country of the Colorado Plateau, from Hurricane Wash through Coyote Gulch to the Escalante River, there would be some remarkable scenery: Jacob Hamblin Natural Arch, hand-hewn by nature, time, wind, and water; and Lake Powell, Hole-in-the-Rock, and Dance Hall Rock, to be visited by car on the way home.
But as hikes often do, this one turned out to be harder on the trail than it appeared on the map. “It started out dry,” said Rob Perkins, 14, a member of the Orem 75th Ward, Orem Utah Windsor Stake, which sponsors the team. “Then it got drier and drier. Then finally, just when you were wondering if your canteen water would be enough to last, you noticed a trickle of water in the rocks at your feet. Pretty soon we were following a creek and catching tadpoles. Then we were following a river.”
The wash joined the gulch, which dropped deeper and deeper, crossing the path of water which would normally be far beneath the earth. At that point, the water simply flowed out of the ground.
But walking in the sneaker-deep stream presented some problems of its own. First of all, the water was full of silt.
“It would fill your shoes so full you couldn’t walk in them anymore,” said Willie Holdman, 15. “So you’d take your shoes off and walk barefoot. But then you’d come to a place on an S-curve where you could cut across open, sun-baked sand. Was it ever hot! I’ve never run so fast in my life. And at the end of the day, the tops of your feet would be sunburned. That makes it hard to want to put your shoes on anyway.”
Simple walking also created friction, which inflicted additional foot damage. “I felt like the soles of my feet had been rubbed with sandpaper,” Shriedhar Dusara, 15, said. “Sometimes they would get really tender.”
Of course, after a while packs got heavy and it seemed hot all the time. “It wasn’t a killer heat,” Brad Nelson said. “In fact, the farther down the gulch we got, the cooler it got. But anytime you’re carrying a lot of weight, you’re going to get tired.”
And, once again, thirsty. “We had to treat all of the water to make sure it was safe to drink,” Shriedhar said. “But even though it tasted funny, we were sure glad to have it.”
The gulch grew narrower and deeper. The sides became walls, some 50 feet tall and only four feet apart. Then the crevasse opened into a true canyon, with the river running broadly down the middle. Huge cliffs towered high on either side. Holes weathered in some rocks made them look like Swiss cheese. Elsewhere, rocks bore a remarkable resemblance to human faces or animals. In one side canyon, the weather had shaped rocks into small, round, ping-pong sized balls which literally covered the ground.
Brad explained that the Scouts would get their hats wet and let the water drip down and evaporate to cool their skin. He said he remembered being exhausted, then looking up and seeing a tree, the first greenery he’d seen for miles.
“All right,” he said. “Vegetation!”
And the river banks got greener from then on, even though rust red remained the predominant hue.
During the days, the Scouts discovered that there were plenty of grottos along the trail where they could rest in the shade. They learned that water collects at the base of cliffs and in sink holes, that plants often grow in such places, and that frogs congregate in the water. They also found some shallow quicksand and discovered that after they walked on it enough, the water was forced out and it became more solid. Evenings were spent in fireside discussions, lizard chases, games, hiking, showering under a waterfall, looking at cougar tracks, and cooking dehydrated meals over portable burners. One night the Scouts awakened to the sight of hundreds of daddy longlegs mounded together in vibrating heaps.
“We still don’t know where they came from or what they were all doing in one place like that,” Floyd Holdman, the team coach (equivalent to a Scoutmaster) said.
But of all the sights along the way, the Scouts were most impressed by Hamblin Arch.
“How can you not be impressed by something that big?” Shriedhar asked, and the others wondered with him about what hand could have sculpted scenery so monumental.
“You get an almost reverent feeling down there, wondering where it all came from,” Brad said. “It makes you feel so small.”
Brother Holdman reminded his boys of the scripture in Alma 39:44, “All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it.”
“Yeah.” Willie nodded his head. Floyd is his father, so Willie is used to hearing him quote scriptures. But this passage seemed to mean more out where nature is so prominent. “I guess that’s right,” Willie added. “You sure feel that way when you see all these rocks. And think how long it took for the wind and rain to make an arch. It’s kind of like God is making sculptures, beautiful things for us to enjoy. This is like part of his art gallery.”
Finally the team arrived at the Escalante River.
“On the way, we had to tie ropes to our packs and lower them over cliffs by the waterfalls. Then we had to find our own way down,” Rob explained. “Sometimes on a short cliff we’d just jump down. On one of the highest cliffs, somebody had built a ladder and left it.”
“We’d been wandering around because we couldn’t find a way down,” Willie said. “Then we saw a sign scratched in the rock, ‘Ladder this way,’ with an arrow.”
“If I could meet the guy who built that ladder,” Brad said, “I’d sure tell him thanks!”
That night, the group camped away from river banks where water might rise, unrolling their sleeping bags on higher ground. The precaution paid off.
“We got up the next morning and looked at where we had planned to camp,” Brother Holdman said. “The water had risen a foot. If we had stayed there we would have been wet.”
It was a long, hard hike to make it all the way out the next day, but after coming in, going out would seem anticlimactic. And everyone was eager to make the additional stops at Lake Powell, Hole-in-the-Rock, and Dance Hall Rock. “It’s only 50 miles to Hole-in-the-Rock, once you hike out from Coyote Gulch,” Brother Holdman explained.
“Thinking about the additional things we would see kept us going,” Brad said, “but after five days of dehydrated food, so did the idea of eating the treats we’d left in the car.”
By 1:00 P.M., four hot, tired young men and one exhausted adult leader were snacking on candy bars, then relaxing in a car rolling down the highway.
“If you think you had it bad hiking out of Coyote Gulch, imagine what the pioneers went through,” Brother Holdman said. “The group that went through Hole-in-the-Rock took six months to go 300 miles, through all kinds of country even rougher than this. And they had to build trails and move wagons and cattle over mountains and through canyons.”
The words took on a deeper meaning when the young men actually stood at Hole-in-the-Rock, where in 1879 colonizers dropped down into Glen Canyon through a narrow gorge to cross the Colorado River.
“If you ever come this way it will scare you to death to look down it,” wrote one settler, Elizabeth Morris Decker. “It is about a mile from the top down to the river and it is almost strait down, the cliffs on each side are five hundred ft. high and there is just room enough for a wagon to go down … They put the brake on and rough locked the hind wheels and had a big rope fastened to the wagon and about ten men holding back on it and then they went down like they would smash everything. I’ll never forget that day. … [My son] looked back and cried and asked me how we would get back home” (Miller, David E., Hole-in-the-Rock, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1966, p. 116).
Shriedhar, Rob, Willie, and Brad had probably never thought so much about the sacrifices others made for the Church as they did looking out at the waters of Lake Powell that day. Although the lake water now covers much of the area the pioneers traversed, the courage of the moment was evident.
“I don’t even know how they did it,” Rob said. “I’d rather go 500 miles the other way.”
“You can still see the stairs they carved in the solid rock,” Willie said. “You can see blasting holes they drilled when they tried to make the opening wider.”
Shriedhar said, “It’s not something I’d want to do. All those rocks and steps to try to take wagons and cattle down. It’s so steep. And that’s just to get you to the bottom where there’s more work to do.”
Later however, as the group visited Dance Hall Rock, they glimpsed another side of pioneer life—recreation. Dance Hall Rock is a huge sandstone formation shaped like a natural amphitheater with a smooth floor. With three fiddlers in the company to supply music, pioneers spent several pleasant evenings dancing. Even today, some expeditions to the area will provide music so their participants can enjoy the acoustics.
“You think of pioneers just being in wagons all the time,” Rob said. “It’s nice to know they danced and had fun too.”
After the stop at Dance Hall Rock, it was time to head home.
During their five-day journey through Coyote Gulch, the members of Varsity Scout Team 6475 hiked enough to qualify for a merit badge, and they were proud of what they’d accomplished. But they also had learned a little bit about history and gained some empathy for colonizing pioneers.
“The next time I hear the names of those places I’ll pay more attention,” Willie said, “because now I’ve been there.”

The year after I was baptized, I became a volunteer firefighter. I kept the Word of Wisdom even though my friends offered me tobacco, alcohol, tea, and coffee. When they asked me why I refused these things, I told them it was because I was a Mormon. Most of them mocked me and laughed.
One day we were required to take a three-hour physical exercise test to determine who could stay on as firefighters. We each wore a heavy uniform and boots and carried breathing equipment. Before the test I saw the others smoking and laughing at me because I was only a teenager and they thought I wouldn’t be able to pass the rigorous test.
First, we had to run laps around a field, carrying extremely heavy hoses. After the first lap my legs and body ached, and my co-workers laughed at me. It was then that I remembered what it says in Doctrine and Covenants 89: “All saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in the navel and marrow to their bones; … and shall run and not be weary” (vv. 18, 20).
I knelt down and prayed to the Lord, asking Him for faith to see the promise fulfilled. Several men came over to see if I was OK, and I told them I was fine. Then we started running again. Right away the pain left my legs. I ran and ran and realized that the others had fallen to the ground with fatigue, but I didn’t even feel like stopping. I passed the test, while my co-workers had to repeat the exercise.
I know that thanks to my obedience to the Word of Wisdom, I was able to get through that test. I know that God was with me that day and that if we obey His commandments, He will bless us with His infinite mercy.
Cristian Castro Marin, Santiago, Chile

Not even a week until Christmas and still no sign of snow. But that was the least of my worries. My mom and dad had separated, and divorce was looming in the wings. I suspected they would announce it as soon as the tinsel was put away so as not to put a damper on the holidays.
Too late.
And now my mom had informed me that I would have to make some heavy revisions to my Christmas wish list. My brothers and sister and I would get only a few presents.
I was sulking over my list when Mrs. Rollins [names have been changed] and her four children appeared on our doorstep. Why were they standing on our porch? They were in our ward but had never been to church. We were mere acquaintances.
The oldest boy, Gary, and I were in the same grade, but I carefully avoided him and his tough-guy buddies. He didn’t look so tough now as he stared at his shoelaces. Brett and Allison, both in elementary school, didn’t make eye contact with me either. But Robbie, four, looked straight at me with wide, clear eyes.
“We ran away,” he said.
I ushered them in, and the suspense and drama unfolded right in my living room. Mrs. Rollins had snatched up her kids and left her husband, vowing she’d never let him lay a hand on them again. Her firm jaw testified of her resolve, though her eyes brimmed with tears.
By this time, my mom and brothers and sister were standing at attention in the living room. Mrs. Rollins told my mom that she didn’t know where else to go and didn’t think her husband would find her and the children at our house. She pleaded with my mom to let her stay for a few days until she could figure something out, but her pleading was unnecessary because already we were caught up in something much bigger than ourselves.
While we played games and ate popcorn with the kids, my mom made some phone calls. She contacted the bishop and the Relief Society president. Meals were brought in, and a deposit and first month’s rent were paid on a small rental house in our ward boundaries. The only catch was that the house needed some work.
“Some work!” I gasped, when I saw the house a few days later with my brothers. The whole place was grimy and filthy. For three days my mom loaded us up with cleansers, disinfectants, and scrubbing brushes. Together with Mrs. Rollins’s four children, we scrubbed toilets, floors, windows, and walls. But we also laughed as we worked. And we marveled as ward members poured in bearing food and secondhand furniture and clothing.
On December 23, we were just finishing our cleaning when we heard screams of delight from the living room. We all rushed in to find Allison’s nose pressed against the living room window. Outside three men were lifting a Christmas tree from the back of a truck. Their wives followed them into the house with decorations for the tree.
“I didn’t think we were going to get a Christmas tree this year,” Allison beamed.
Back at our house that night we spread sleeping bags and pillows all around the lighted Christmas tree in the family room. For our last night together, we watched the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Mrs. Rollins’s family had never seen it.
Mrs. Rollins kept thanking my mom for all we had done and saying the Lord must have sent her to us. I remember thinking that we hadn’t done much. It was the whole ward who had given of their time and money and belongings. And then I thought of what Mrs. Rollins and her children had given all of us. A purpose. A sense of unity and usefulness. They had helped us forget our own problems and focus outside ourselves. Maybe the Lord had sent them to us.
Before we dropped off to sleep, my mom gathered us together and asked if we would be willing to give up half our Christmas money so Mrs. Rollins and her children would have gifts to open on Christmas morning. None of us had to think twice. We gave Mom our re-revised lists and set out shopping with her the next day. My mom wandered off looking for our gifts, while my siblings and I scattered throughout the store to find just the right presents for our new friends. It was amazing to witness my younger brothers and sister hunting down gifts and comparing prices, asking each other for opinions. How had this happened? Weren’t we supposed to be complaining and moping about how unfortunate we were?
That night was Christmas Eve. With our ward, we filled small paper bags with sand and lighted candles and placed them along the sidewalks of our neighborhood, illuminating the dark, nippy night with a toasty glow. To me that Christmas was outlined with that same warm glow. It should have been impossible. My parents were on the verge of divorce, and I received so few gifts. And yet it didn’t bother me at all when I returned to school after Christmas vacation wearing the same old clothes. I’ll always remember what I received for Christmas that year. It’s something I now put on my Christmas wish list every year—the spirit of Christmas.

So thrilled was Judy with new blessings flowing from Tammi’s gift of the New Era, that it seemed a good idea to share in like manner with another pen pal.

A new 12-month subscription winged across the world. This time to teenage correspondent Albert Wong in Hong Kong.

“I’d been writing to Albert for some time before sending the New Era,” Judy adds. “But after meeting my husband-to-be, who was baptised shortly after me, and getting married at age 19, I lost contact.”

Awhile later Judy was in a hospital recovering from an operation. Visiting time arrived together with her excited husband, Ian. He’d come from a branch presidency meeting where they’d been reviewing Church Magazine subscriptions. “And there was this brother’s name, Albert Wong from Hong Kong,” he exclaimed. “His original donation came from Coventry, England, and somehow he’d reappeared on our lists.”

After further correspondence, Judy found out that Albert had indeed joined the Church. When Judy’s letters stopped earlier, he made friends with a Latter-day Saint boy in his own town. Baptism quickly followed.

Albert attributes his conversion process to reading how the Saviour works in and through the lives of other worldwide youth facing similar problems to his own.

“I love to read his testimony when he writes now,” says Judy. “He’s busy in Church callings and has married a beautiful Latter-day Saint girl. Every letter expresses gratitude for the gospel, his church work, and personal growth.”

Youth from the Newcastle Stake and surrounding districts in Australia make the most of their Easter break youth conference. Some 120 young people gathered for last year’s activity, with the theme, “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.”

They had dances. They had waterfights. They had fun old movies. They put snags (sausages) on the barby. They had firesides, church meetings, and the best-loved testimony meeting.

But a major part of the conference was spent cleaning up the land around the Richmond Vale Mine Museum, at a historic coal mine. They pulled weeds, cleared train tracks, moved logs, and basically tidied up the area.

When gold was discovered in California in January of 1848, men of the Mormon Battalion were there and participated in the discovery. Completing their contract, they came to the Salt Lake Valley to join their families. Some of them brought with them gold, and in the hard and desperate days that followed, particularly in the bitter winter if 1848–49, many wanted to go to California, where life was easier and gold was to be picked from the riverbeds. In that time of gloom, Brigham Young stood before the people in the old Bowery on Temple Square and said:

Some have asked me about going. I have told them that God has appointed this place for the gathering of his saints, and you will do better right here than you will by going to the gold mines. . . . We have been kicked out of the frying pan into the fire, out of the fire into the middle of the floor, and here we are and here we will stay. God has shown me that this is the spot to locate his people, and here is where they will prosper. . . . We shall build a city and a temple to the most high god in this place. We will extend our settlements to the east and west, to the north and south, and we will build towns and cities by the hundreds, and thousands of the saints will gather in from the nations of the earth. This will become the great highway of the nations. Kings and emperors and the noble and wise of the earth will visit us here, while the wicked and ungodly will envy us our comfortable homes and possessions. [Autobiography of James Brown, pp. 119–23, cited by Preston Nibley, Brigham Young, the Man and His Work (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1936), pp. 127–28]

What a remarkable statement under such circumstances!

My heart goes out to those who were cold and hungry that winter. I am sure there was much of grumbling and criticism, and understandably so. But how marvelous when a man looked beyond the winter and spoke as a prophet, under the power of the Holy Spirit, of better days to come.

Those days have come. Last year more people visited Temple Square in Salt Lake City than visited Yellowstone Park. This has become the great highway of the nations. Kings and emperors and the noble and wise of the earth constantly visit us here.

Not long ago I was assigned to a stake conference—and I shall not mention where because an uncle or grandfather of someone here probably presides there. The stake president’s home where I was to stay—as we General Authorities normally do on weekends—was a very modest home. The family consisted of seven children and, of course, the two parents; the house had three bedrooms and one bath; then here came a General Authority visitor. In order to make room and a little privacy for the visitor, they evicted three children out of the one bedroom adjacent to the only bath. In the group of three there was a little seven-year-old boy; he went along with the arrangement, but you could tell that he was not all that excited. He did not say a whole lot on Saturday. Recognizing, with my military training, that it would take a little organization the next morning, I got up extra early and slipped across the hall into the only bath. There standing in the hallway was my little seven-year-old friend. He did not say a word, but just looked at me—then he put his hands on his hips and said, “Boy, I’ll sure be glad when you go.”

He had no trouble getting up. The alarm would go off, and Chris Muraski was wide awake. Things to do, you know.
No, getting up was never the problem. Being where he was supposed to be was.
Here’s the scoop. At 5:30 A.M., Chris would get dressed, grab a banana, head out the door, and go straight for a couple of blocks. He then had a choice. He could continue driving for another block until he arrived at Libertyville High School in this Chicago suburb. Or he could hang a left and go to Libertyville’s civic center for early-morning seminary.
For two years Chris never used his turn signal on that morning drive.
As a freshman he attended seminary. He even went for part of his sophomore year.
But come on. He was an outside linebacker and he wanted to get stronger. Early-morning weight lifting—extra work on his own—would make him a better player. It was something he had to do.
Midway through that second year of high school, Chris decided he’d skip early-morning seminary even if it would make him a better person.
During the two years he was in the weight room, Chris got stronger and became a solid high school football player, playing for a very good team. The weight lifting was paying off. Unfortunately, injuries began occurring—more specifically, concussions.
“It’s ironic because that’s when the concussions started—when I stopped going to seminary,” he says.
The concussions, bruisings of the brain due to hard hits, were a bit scary because of both pain and memory loss.
The first concussion came during Chris’s sophomore year. He took a hit to the head that forced him to sit out the second half of a game. “It was like waking up from a dream. I couldn’t remember the plays before. I couldn’t remember where I was supposed to go. It took me 10 minutes to pull it all together,” he remembers. “I wanted to go back in during the fourth quarter but the coaches wouldn’t let me.”
Then during the second game of his junior season in 1997, after being cleared to play, Chris took another hit to the head and the result was another concussion. This time it was a bit more serious. It was a kickoff return, and Chris came in for the tackle. Much of that play is a foggy memory, but he does remember this vital statistic: the guy that leveled Chris was six-foot-six and 250 pounds.
“The guy that hit me was huge. I just went full blast into him, and that pretty much ended my season right there,” he says.
It’s worth mentioning that despite the extra work in the weight room, Chris only tipped the scales at a lean 152 that year. It was hardly a fair fight.
After sitting out much of the season on doctors’ orders, Chris played in one more game, then sustained a third concussion in practice. “That was it. I didn’t know if I would even be able to play the next year. The doctors were concerned, and I didn’t want to mess up my brain,” Chris says. “I didn’t feel very confident that I’d be fine, that I wouldn’t have any more problems.”
Chris, at the time a priest in the Buffalo Grove Second Ward, Buffalo Grove Stake, thought often about his love for football. Would he ever play again? Would there be any long-term effects from the blows to the head? These were all questions a high school junior didn’t want to face.
That summer Chris’s bishop approached him. He didn’t want to talk about football. Instead he asked him, “So, Chris, how’s seminary coming?”
But the bishop already knew the answer. When he asked Chris if he would start attending again, Chris said, “No, probably not.” The weight lifting was still too important. At least that’s what he thought.
“I was still active. I was going to church every week. I wasn’t in the gutter,” he explains. “But I wasn’t doing all the little extra things.”
Like going to seminary.
Chris began thinking about his choices, about seminary, about his future. And it wasn’t like he disliked seminary the one year he did regularly attend.
Later the bishop approached Chris again. He had something important to tell him. Chris said that the bishop talked to him and promised him that if he would go to seminary, the Lord would bless him and he wouldn’t have problems with concussions. But Chris needed to aim for 100 percent attendance.
“When he said what he said, I thought, I’ll do it. So I put my faith in what the bishop promised me right there.”
On the first day of seminary to begin the 1997–98 school year, there sat Chris Muraski.
He’d finally made the left turn.
Chris missed exactly one day of seminary last year—because of a conflict with wrestling. But he made that day up. He also didn’t miss one football game during a year when he was one of Libertyville’s team captains. Last summer he earned a spot on an Illinois all-star team that traveled to Australia.
And he never came close to getting another concussion.
“I regret putting lifting in front of seminary,” he says now. “Every morning I was at seminary I felt I was in the right spot, and I got that spiritual flavor that kind of gives you that boost. I feel more spiritual. My testimony has grown from it, from striving to be better.”
Once upon a time Chris was bench pressing 240 pounds. Today it’s down to 200.
Yeah, he may have lost 40 pounds off his bench press, but after returning to seminary, Chris was still plenty strong.

The Gordon-Smith family’s cosmopolitan story begins more than twenty years ago in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where eighteen-year-old university student Rostya saw little hope for a future in her native country. Her parents were divorced. Her mother had escaped to Austria, and her father was in prison. Upon his release, “I told him I couldn’t live in Czechoslovakia any more,” she says. “I had seen a glimpse of freedom.” That “glimpse of freedom” had come during a student demonstration, when she and others of her generation had determined to live the ideals of liberty and equality, in spite of the opposition they faced.
Rostya obtained a visa that would allow her to leave for England, ostensibly to study English. “It was a sad and lonely time for me,” she recalls. “I arrived in London unable to speak English, with one suitcase and five American dollars.” Before leaving Czechoslovakia, she had arranged for a job as a maid with an English family in London. But after a year with the family, Rostya felt she wanted something more out of life.
With the encouragement of friends, she applied for admission to the University of London. “To pay for my studies, I sold newspapers at a railroad station from 5:00 to 10:00 A.M., attended classes in the afternoon, worked again from 6:00 to 11:00 P.M., and then returned home to my attic room to study and sleep.”
Two years later, she met Simon, also a student. A week after they met, he proposed marriage to her. At first, Rostya was hesitant. “I told him that I wanted to have a career and that I was not interested in marriage or children. But he persisted.” They were married eighteen months later. Both graduated the same year, Simon in civil engineering and Rostya in Eastern European studies. Simon’s first job was in Scotland.
Two years later, Simon came home from work and asked Rostya if she would like to move to Brazil on a company assignment. “When?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” he replied. They were soon in Santos, Brazil, where Simon began work on an oil pipeline along the coast. They knew they had opened a new phase in their life. But the real change was yet to come.
The young couple soon joined a club for expatriates, where Rostya was attracted to a group of women that seemed enthusiastic and open. When Rostya introduced herself, one of the women said, “‘Gordon-Smith’ sounds English enough, but ‘Rostya’ certainly doesn’t.” “That’s because I’m Czech,” Rostya replied. To Rostya’s surprise, the women started speaking in Czech. Rostya had just met Zaza, a native Czech raised in Brazil, married to an American, Don Clark.
The Clarks and the Gordon-Smiths soon became friends, attending movies together, playing tennis, and just visiting. One day, two Latter-day Saint missionaries called at the Clark home while Rostya was there. “I did not know they were missionaries at that time,” Rostya says. “They were just two young men with short haircuts, dressed in shirts and ties. I asked them who they worked for, because I presumed any foreigner was working for a company. They gave me a very vague answer: they were working for a church, they said, and they were visiting people and reading scriptures with them in their homes. I thought it sounded very strange at the time.”
Don and Zaza Clark, who were members of the Church, began to talk to the Gordon-Smiths about the gospel. Soon, the Clarks invited their friends to attend a Church meeting with them. It was a fast and testimony meeting. “It was a shocker for me,” Rostya says. “All I could see was that everybody wept: men, women, and children. I was very, very embarrassed, and my husband was, too. When Don Clark asked me what I thought about the meeting, I looked at him and said, ‘I think it’s mass hysteria.’”
A short time later, Don and Zaza invited Simon and Rostya to an area conference in São Paulo, where President Spencer W. Kimball announced the building of the temple in Brazil. Rostya was impressed by the affection the people showed for the prophet. Following the conference, the Gordon-Smiths agreed to take the missionary discussions.
Nothing much happened until the lesson on repentance. “I was good at justifying any of my actions,” Rostya says, “but somehow the process of repentance seemed logical to me.” She found herself thinking about repentance, even writing letters of reconciliation. “But when the missionaries asked me to pray about the principle of repentance, I said, ‘How can I pray if I don’t believe in the existence of God?’ ‘How will you know if anyone lives on the tenth floor,’ they asked me, ‘if you don’t ring the bell? Ring the bell and see if anyone answers.’
“I was thinking about what they said while I was doing the dishes one day. I decided to follow their suggestion. I knelt down and said, ‘Heavenly Father,’ and a wave of warmth enveloped me. I started again, ‘Heavenly Father,’ and the warmth intensified. I felt enveloped in love and protection for the first time in many years. I asked all the questions: ‘Is this the true church?’ ‘Is Joseph Smith a prophet?’ ‘Is the Book of Mormon true?’ ‘Do you love me?’ My answers came in the affirmative by the power of the Spirit.
“I telephoned my friend Zaza Clark. ‘I’ve got it! I’ve got it!’ I cried. ‘What have you got?’ she asked in alarm. ‘A testimony!’ I exclaimed.”
Rostya and Simon were scheduled to be baptized after a stake conference. During the conference, Elder James E. Faust of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles called on members of the congregation to bear their testimonies. He motioned for Rostya to come to the podium. With Don Clark translating into Portuguese, she bore her testimony in English. When she finished, tears were running down her cheeks. “At the end, when I said, ‘Amen,’ Don Clark turned to me and smilingly said, ‘I don’t understand. What is all this mass hysteria about?’”
Before they left Brazil, the Gordon-Smiths introduced their friends Richard and Sally Hardwick to the Church. When Richard sustained a serious injury that required surgery, the Gordon-Smiths accompanied Sally to the hospital. Rostya said, “Simon, I wish you would give Richard a blessing.” Sally asked, “What is a blessing?” The blessing was given and fulfilled. The Hardwicks joined the Church.
From Brazil, the Gordon-Smiths moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where Simon worked on another pipeline project. When construction ended in 1985, the way opened up for Simon to move his family to Hong Kong and work for the Church. Simon supervised the construction of meetinghouses for the Asia Area—Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. He also provided management support for Japan and Korea.
During this time, political changes in Czechoslovakia made it possible for Rostya to return home for the first time in twenty-two years. “I cannot describe my feelings,” she says. “I know that the new wave of freedom and enlightenment will bring the gospel into the lives of the people and then they will achieve real freedom.”
As for the four boys, they enjoy traveling and have learned to adjust well. Rostya calls them “citizens of the world.” “We found they are learning tolerance and acceptance of other people, cultures, and beliefs,” she says. David sings and plays piano. He loves soccer and swimming. He wants to be a lawyer or businessman. He bears his testimony of the gospel almost every testimony meeting. George also sings and plays piano. He is a gymnast. He wants to be a doctor and serve a mission in Czechoslovakia. He gained a testimony of the gospel for himself by praying after reading from the Book of Mormon. Richard draws and excels in mathematics. He also plays piano and is a gymnast. He wants to be an architect. Henry tries to emulate whichever older brother he is with.
Rostya says that their many experiences in all parts of the world have helped her family understand better who they are. “I am raising my sons with the idea that we are all equal to each other,” she says. “It does not matter what sex or what nationality you are. I firmly believe that. I am teaching them that the world is a very small place, and that with love and with the gospel, we can conquer all the evil.”

My mind raced back to the days of my youth on the farm. In the summertime one of our responsibilities was to haul hay from the fields into the barn for winter storage. My dad would pitch the hay onto a flatbed wagon. I would then tromp down the hay to get as much as possible on the wagon. One day, in one of the loose bundles pitched onto the wagon was a rattlesnake! When I looked at it, I was concerned, excited, and afraid. The snake was lying in the nice, cool hay. The sun was glistening on its diamond back. After a few moments the snake stopped rattling, became still, and I became very curious. I started to get closer and leaned over for a better look, when suddenly I heard a call from my father: “David, my boy, you can’t pet a rattlesnake!”

With a few months left in my mission in eastern Canada, I was transferred to a new area. The day I arrived, Elder Miller, my new companion, could not stop talking about one family with four boys—Jason, 14; Dawson, 11; Tyson, 8; and Robin, 5. Elder Miller was excited about this family. He said the Lord had truly prepared them.
The four boys all loved sports, especially baseball. I was elated since I thrived on sports of any kind. On our visits, the gospel and sports were our major topics of conversation. Occasionally we were able to play catch with the boys on their front lawn or watch them participate in athletic events.
My first discussion with the White family is forever embedded in my memory. That evening as we spoke about the plan of our Heavenly Father, the spirit of the Holy Ghost fell upon all of us. As the Spirit prompted us, my companion and I knew it was time to invite these good people to be baptized. We turned to the father and extended the invitation to baptism. He accepted. We then turned to his wife and asked her. She replied, “I do not feel ready at this time.”
Normally when someone says that they do not feel ready for baptism, missionaries ask them why. This time we did not even attempt to ask her why.
Next, we turned to the oldest son, Jason. We invited Jason to be baptized and he said yes.
His mother was a little shocked at his quick acceptance. She turned to him and said, “Jason, why do you want to be baptized?”
Jason started, “Well, Mom, you know how you feel when you win a championship game? You know how it makes you feel inside?”
She nodded.
“Well,” said Jason, “that’s how I feel right now, and because of that, I want to be baptized.”
As Jason concluded his comments, tears flowed from his mother’s eyes. She then turned to my companion and me and said, “I too would like to be baptized.”
Jason had powerfully taught us all that the Holy Ghost’s promptings are real and must be acted upon.
A few days later this faithful family was baptized.

Earlier this year, my wife and I drove past the apartment where we lived 40 years ago. That was the darkest period of my life, the “Slough of Despond” [4] in my life. Like Elder Holland, I found myself saying to my younger self, “Don’t you quit!! You keep trying. You are going to make it. There are great things to come.” I did keep trying, and over the next two years, my prospects turned around and have been on an upward climb ever since.
While my path has been upward, it has not been without it’s valleys.

Another great blessing for us was meeting Elder and Sister Bednar, and Elder and Sister Yan. The questioning session chaired by Elder David A. Bednar was a fantastic way to interact with the youth and clear up the questions and doubts for every youth. While answering questions, he said to all of us, “If any one of you think that I cannot answer the questions you ask, then you must repent.” That showed his boldness, and when the youth asked him questions, for some questions he handed the microphone to the other leaders who were seated along with him—that showed his humility. I remember one question that a sister asked Elder Bednar: “What should we do to prepare to become a missionary?” Elder Bednar handed the microphone to Elder William, who asked the sister, “What do you think you should do to prepare for the missionary work?” She said we have to follow the commandments, we have to seek the Holy Ghost, we have to ponder on the scriptures in our daily scripture studies, share the gospel. Elder William replied, “You have got your answers sister.” And such great joy we felt by the Holy Ghost at such moments.

Perhaps the most challenging leadership assignment in the Church is that of leading a family. In this role, fathers and mothers delegate many responsibilities to their children. Not the least of these is the job of choosing a mate. Few things, however, create more anxiety in parents than watching this procedure in action and trying to refrain from taking over the job. That is why I was so impressed with the calm manner in which Sister Reese (wife of President Cecil Reese of the Kinston North Carolina Stake) described to me the very comprehensive campaign that a seemingly unsuitable young man was making for the hand of the Reeses’ daughter. I asked Sister Reese how she could be so totally confident that her daughter would not marry this young man. “Oh, he’s not a door opener,” said Sister Reese. “You see,” she went on, “Cecil treats me and all of his daughters as if we were something very special. He always opens the car doors for us, sees that we are seated first at the dinner table no matter how informal the meal, and when he is making introductions, he always makes us feel proud of our womanhood. And you see, this young man is not a door opener. One day when the glamour of the courting rush is over, this is going to occur to our daughter, and then it will be all over.” And interestingly enough, it was not long before that very prediction came true. It would be difficult to think of a better example of the Prophet’s admonition to teach correct principles and let people govern themselves—a fundamental principle of delegating.