Gospel Story Finder

I don’t know what to say! I was pleasantly surprised and happily shocked when I found the August 1987 contest issue of the New Era in my mailbox. I guess it came at the perfect time for me.
My older sister and I are both interested in drama. She is a wonderful actress and sister, but it seemed as though we were always competing against each other. I was beginning to think perhaps drama wasn’t really for me because of it, but your issue helped me to understand that we can share the drama field while at the same time we each have our own talents. For instance, she sings and I play the piano. She writes and I decorate. Even now the Lord is waiting for the right time in our lives to bless us with even more. Thank you for a wonderful magazine that adds so much to my life.
Name withheld

Next day we visited the Global Expo centre. It was the most emotional day, seeing 2,800 refugees living without basic medical help, and a mountain of volunteers in dire need of additional financial help. The volunteers, from many different churches, were addressing spiritual as well as physical needs. We were with Bellwether International, a human-rights nonprofit organisation, and with them we were able to give socks and other practical clothing.

The story is told of a professional driver who applied for a job driving high level government officials to their various destinations often on dangerous winding mountain roads. The interviewer asked each applicant the following question: “How close can you drive a car to the edge of a dangerous mountain road and remain safe?” The first applicant responded, “I can get within ten centimeters and still be safe.” The second said, “I can get on the edge and still be safe.” The third driver stated, “I can get one wheel over the edge and still protect the passenger.” Finally, the last driver said, “I will stay as far from the edge as possible.” It is he who got the job.

I can remember in my high school in Portland, Oregon, two contrasting young people. One was a young man named Steve Troy. Steve as a freshman was six foot six, weighed 220 pounds. He was tall, had dark, curly hair, and was a marvelous athlete. In the course of his high school days, he was all-state in football, baseball, and basketball. I guess everybody would like to be a Steve Troy in high school. Then there was Robert Calderwood. Robert was five foot two, wore glasses, carried his briefcase to school, got straight A’s, and all of the other kids asked him for help with their homework. Do you have any Robert Calderwoods in your school?
Now it is interesting to see what happened to those two young men some years later. Both of them served in the navy. Steve Troy came back and, still a fine person, wound up working in a small shop owned by his father. The interesting thing is to see what happened to Robert Calderwood, the ugly duckling, who emerged some time later, graduated from college, and became a banker. The last I heard he was vice-president of one of the large banks in Portland and was married and had a fine family; he is a person who truly has emerged, who didn’t give up because he had been the ugly duckling at Franklin High School.

There is a living God who loves us and is constantly nearby and available. Doubt need not be part of our lives. The reality of God’s influence is felt by all Church members who comply with divine laws. It can also be tangibly felt by non-members, when it is his will. This is evidenced by the following experience in the Sao Paulo Temple.

The temple was opened to the public during the month of September 1978 before being closed in preparation for the dedication. Among the many visitors who felt the influence of this special temple was a certain nonmember newspaper reporter.

During the tour he eventually arrived at the door of the celestial room. Those few people who were accompanying him saw him abruptly stop and bow his head. He remained in that position for some time, with his eyes closed and head bowed. Then he slowly moved his head from side to side and at the same time opened his eyes, as if to inquire by this gesture “who is there?” or “Is anyone there?”

After some time his head was raised and his eyes opened. His expression indicated that he knew something holy was there, and those about him witnessed the tears streaming down his face. He had felt the beautiful influence of the Spirit found so often in the temples. He knew something good was there and felt joy inside. It was a real, tangible feeling.

William’s heart beat a little faster. He knew it was wrong to tease the old blind shoemaker, but at the same time, it was exciting being out after dark with his friends. Even the fear of getting caught was not enough to make him turn back. William watched as the kerosene lamps were turned low inside the houses that lined the main street of their small town. The lights flickered and went out, but in one house a lamp continued to burn.
Wilhelm Dithmer sat on his front porch playing his clarinet.
William reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of pebbles. His bare feet padded quietly through the dirt along the side of the road, and he and his friends approached the house that was Wilhelm Dithmer’s home and shoe shop.
William let his small stones fly and watched as the man jumped at the sound of the rocks raining above his head onto the tin roof.
“Stop! Come back!” Wilhelm stood and waved his fist into the air.
The boys laughed and darted away. “See you tomorrow,” William called to his friends as he headed for home.
In the light of early morning, William lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. The thrill seeking of the night before was haunting in daylight. What was it his father had said about the shoemaker—something about him going blind because he had the measles when he was a boy? And had he really been an orphan in Denmark?
The day seemed longer to William than usual. What was this uncomfortable feeling? Still, after school he agreed to meet with his friends again that night.
As he crept up the street watching for the lights to dim, William heard the sounds of Wilhelm’s clarinet. The melody was high and mournful. William stopped a moment to listen. Every night, Wilhelm closed up the shoe shop and then sat on his porch to play his music. It had become almost a ritual, but tonight the notes ended abruptly. William listened, but the only noise was the croaking of the bullfrogs.
William drew back his arm to throw the stones in his hand, but suddenly someone grabbed his arm.
“Help!” William cried, but the other boys ran away. “Let me go!” William struggled to loose himself from Wilhelm’s grasp.
“I only want to show you something,” Wilhelm said.
William stopped squirming, curious why the man did not scold him or call out for the authorities. “What?” William asked.
“I want to play a song for you on my clarinet,” Wilhelm said. “But first, promise me that you will not run away.”
William didn’t know what to say. “I guess,” he said at last.
“No,” Wilhelm said. “Promise.”
“All right,” William said. “I promise.”
Wilhelm relaxed his hold. He led William to his front porch and sat down in his chair. William watched as Wilhelm took a deep breath and began to play his clarinet. The melody lifted soft and sweet into the night air.
William sat still and listened. What must it have been like to grow up alone in Copenhagen? How hard would it be to lose both a father and a mother? He couldn’t imagine leaving his home and traveling across the ocean by himself to a strange land where no one understood the language he spoke. All the heartache of Wilhelm’s life seemed to be played out in the notes that came from the clarinet.
Wilhelm finished. He placed the clarinet across his knees and waited for William to respond, but the boy was silent.
“What is your name?” Wilhelm asked.
William hesitated. He wanted to reach out and touch the clarinet, but if he told the man his name, he would surely get into trouble. Still, there were not many musical instruments in the town.
“My name is William,” he said. “Almost like yours.”
“Well then, William,” Wilhelm said with his strong Danish accent. “Would you like me to teach you how to play my clarinet?”
“You would teach me how to play?” William asked.
“I will teach you to play my clarinet. If you practice very hard and learn to play well, I may even help you buy one of these for yourself. Maybe we could start a band.”
“A real band?” William asked. “Like the ones that play at dances?” This wasn’t at all what he had expected.
Wilhelm nodded. “But you must stop raining pebbles on my roof. And you must come every day after school to practice.”
William did learn to play, and so did his friends. They played for high school dances. They played when the town put on their Christmas plays. They played in the outdoor pavilion on warm summer nights. Long after their school days ended, the band stayed together.
For years, Wilhelm gave free music lessons in the evening after working all day in his shop. When Wilhelm died, many of his students played music at his funeral. William, now a grown man, was one of them.

The youth planned camp to include service projects, a testimony meeting, and activities designed to build spiritual strength and group unity—important things for leading any group, class, or quorum. For example, the youth replaced worn-out picnic tables at the camp so the young men and young women could work and serve together. Stephanie T. learned that leadership includes helping others use and develop their talents: “We put together new tables without power tools. We learned to let the ones with know-how lead and to include the others by having them measure and then stain the tables. It was a humbling experience and changed me for the better.”

I was a junior in high school when Allison befriended me. She had moved from Boise, Idaho, that year, but to me it seemed she was from another planet. We sat next to each other in seminary, and I had never met a teenager who was so dedicated to her religion.
On the other hand, I was struggling with my testimony, slowly becoming inactive in Church and seminary activities. My parents were at a loss. They offered to answer any gospel questions I had, but I didn’t want their help. I wanted to find the truth on my own.
Despite our differences, Allison and I became good friends. We spent many weekend nights staying up late, lying on her trampoline. Sometimes I would bring up questions I had about the Church.
Her answers always made sense to me, and as our talks continued, the gospel began to make more sense to me, too. Still, there was one vital thing I lacked: the Spirit. It seemed the world always called to me much louder than the Spirit did.
One school day, I noticed Allison sitting on the floor in front of her locker. She was eating her lunch and wearing headphones. She looked up at me and smiled.
“What are you listening to?” I asked, trying to shout over the noise of the hallway. Lockers slammed. Students laughed and yelled. I wondered if she liked any of the same groups I liked.
“Listen and see,” she said.
I put on the headphones and suddenly the world melted away. The music played serenely. The singer sang of Christ, His life, His death, His love for us. This wasn’t what I had expected.
Amid the chaos, I felt peace enter my heart. I felt my Savior’s love.
I looked at Allison with tears in my eyes. I didn’t want to give back her head-phones. I wanted to keep that feeling forever. For a brief moment, I felt what it meant to be in the world but not of it.
It wasn’t a lightning strike, and I can’t say my life changed overnight. But that day, a seed began to grow in my heart. I had felt the Spirit, and I hungered to feel it again. As time went by, I gained a testimony that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are there, and they love all of us so much. I now know that if I seek the Spirit and follow God’s plan, I can have the peace of the Holy Spirit with me always, and I can leave the chaos and confusion of the world behind.

By 9:00 her morning work was done, and she was kneeling in her chrysanthemums, acting very busy with weeding, looking for any evil little bug that would bring harm to her small, delicate beings. Her thoughts kept wandering to the events that had happened just last week.

Her morning had started as usual, but at 7:30 her phone rang and it was bad news from her daughter. Her grandson, one of those with the long hair and bad habits, had been involved in what started as a stay-out-of-Africa rally and ended in a blood bath between students with rocks, signs, and knives and a local garrison of guardsmen with their clubs, shields, and guns. The rally ended with one dead national guard member and five dead students, of which her grandson had been one.

The shock lingered long after the telephone call. She sat staring at the kitchen wall for an hour, and finally she had dragged herself down to her flowers. There she sat, trying to forget.

Sister Peterson in the South Carolina Columbia Mission advised, “Learn to live on a limited income early in life, and then you won’t have trouble living on the bare essentials as a missionary. I didn’t know I was going on a mission, so I didn’t have any savings. I did have a few debts. I worked in a commercial laundry to pay my doctor and dentist bills. I sold my car but depend on my parents for most of my support. My companion, a Navajo Indian, sold cosmetics to support herself.”

Jill and I have always had family scripture reading. Generally we had scripture reading at 6 A.M. Our children would come to the table half asleep, and we sometimes wondered what they were learning. But years later, our second daughter, Mindy, came to visit us after she had children of her own. She attended church with us on Fast Sunday and bore testimony that of all the experiences she had in our home, family scripture reading was one of the most important to her.

On June 27, 1844, the persecution of Joseph Smith culminated when he and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob in the Carthage Jail.

Soon after the Martyrdom and in fulfillment of Joseph’s vision, Brigham Young and the Church began preparations to move to the Rocky Mountains. Hardship, affliction, death, and apostasy were ever present. Still, the work moved forward. In the 1850s some 705 missionaries were called to serve in areas including Scandinavia, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Hawaii. Missionary work also began in such diverse parts of the world as India, Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, South Africa, and the West Indies.

Among faithful converts from Scandinavia and Britain baptized during the decade of the 1850s were those who suffered and died, on land and on the seas, as they journeyed to join with the Saints here in the Rocky Mountains.

The faith of the Saints was tested in every footstep as Brigham Young led them to build temples and establish more than 350 colonies in the West. By the time Brigham Young died in 1877, worldwide Church membership had grown to more than 115,000. Despite all of the persecution, the truth of God was indeed going forth boldly and nobly.

The following winter, Joseph Jr. hobbled through the snow with his mother, brothers, and sisters. They were on their way west to a New York village named Palmyra, near where Joseph Sr. had found good land and was waiting for his family.
Since her husband could not help with the move, Lucy had hired a man named Mr. Howard to drive their wagon. On the road, Mr. Howard handled their belongings roughly and gambled and drank away the money they paid him. And after they joined up with another family traveling west, Mr. Howard kicked Joseph out of the wagon so the other family’s daughters could sit with him as he drove the team.
Knowing how much it hurt Joseph to walk, Alvin and Hyrum tried to stand up to Mr. Howard a few times. But each time he knocked them down with the butt of his whip.10
As Joseph limped along beside the wagon, he could see his mother was certainly bearing with Mr. Howard. They had already traveled two hundred miles (322 km), and so far she had been more than patient with the driver’s bad behavior.
About a hundred miles from Palmyra, Lucy was preparing for another day on the road when she saw Alvin running toward her. Mr. Howard had thrown their goods and luggage onto the street and was about to leave with their horses and wagon.
Lucy found the man in a bar. “As there is a God in heaven,” she declared, “that wagon and those horses as well as the goods accompanying them are mine.”
She looked around the bar. It was filled with men and women, most of them travelers like her. “This man,” she said, meeting their gaze, “is determined to take away from me every means of proceeding on my journey, leaving me with eight little children utterly destitute.”
Mr. Howard said that he had already spent the money she paid him to drive the wagon, and he could go no farther.
“I have no use for you,” Lucy said. “I shall take charge of the team myself.”
She left Mr. Howard in the bar and vowed to reunite her children with their father, come what may.12
The road ahead was muddy and cold, but Lucy led her family safely to Palmyra. As she watched the children cling to their father and kiss his face, she felt rewarded for all they had suffered to get there.
The family soon rented a small house in town and discussed how to get their own farm.13 The best plan, they decided, was to work until they had enough money for a down payment on land in the nearby woods. Joseph Sr. and the older sons dug wells, split fence rails, and harvested hay for cash, while Lucy and the daughters made and sold pies, root beer, and decorative cloths to provide food for the family.14

A cooling breeze was starting up, and I could feel it lapping at the edges of something smoldering inside me.
“What’s the matter, Missy?” Leatrice asked. “You seem mad at somebody.”
We were kneeling on the damp lake bank beside the dock watching black fish, small shiny ones, darting among the green seaweed. Our knees were wet and cool, and the sun was shining warm on our backs.
Lee was dropping pebbles, trying to bomb the fish. “I wish we could stay here all summer,” she said. “Don’t you?” I didn’t answer, and she kept plopping little rocks into the water. Soon she stood up and came over to where I was.
I still didn’t answer, and Lee went over to the lawn by the cabin. She was good about minding her own business. She knew my problem wasn’t with her.
A little breeze was coming from the west. I walked into it, out to the end of the dock, and stood. The water was deep there. If I fell in, what would happen? A dumb question. Of course I’d just dog-paddle to shore. But what if I didn’t know how to swim? What then?
Behind me there was a new noise. I turned and Lee was coming, rowing the old tin boat. She pulled to the dock, and I stepped in over the side, staying low. She turned us with the oars and started rowing across the lake, north toward the Canada shore. She fastened her life jacket. It was a faded orange. I picked up the other one, a little wet from the boat’s bottom.
She rowed a long time without saying anything. We were facing backward, so the sun was in our faces.
“Did you tell Mom and Dad where we were going?” I asked.
“Yes,”
“What were they doing?”
“Mom is asleep with the baby. Dad is still reading those Columbus books for his talk.”
“Of course he is. He’s always reading, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, like you.”
It was true. Dad and I were a lot alike. In some things anyway. But I didn’t want to say that. Instead I said, “He probably is reading, unless he’s too busy yelling at somebody.”
Leatrice looked at me. “What do you mean, Missy? Dad doesn’t do that.”
“He sure used to. And John told me he remembers when Dad would really throw his weight around. Back when John was little. I sort of remember it too.”
“That doesn’t sound like the dad I know,” Lee said. She looked right at me, like she was trying to see inside. “I asked Dad to come out here with us, but he told me, ‘Not now.’”
“I could’ve saved you the trouble.”
We were getting out quite far. There were small waves now. Faint voices came from somewhere on the west shore. We carefully switched places, and I took the oars. I rowed hard until I began to sweat, even in the breeze. I was overdoing it and getting tired and less steady. Suddenly, I missed the water with the right oar. The left one caught and unbalanced me. I fell off the seat into the bottom of the boat. The fall hurt my elbow and scared me a little, but then I started laughing.
I was near Lee’s feet. She pulled the oars in, and then sat in the bottom of the boat with me. We stretched our legs up over the bow seat. The boat rocked gently in the water, like a cradle.
“What do they remind you of?” Lee pointed up at clouds high overhead, fluffy masses drifting east, each looking different from the others.
“That one looks like an old man with a beard. Do you see him?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, it does. He looks faraway, thinking his own thoughts.”
“Who is it?”
“Maybe Heavenly Father. That’s how he is. Faraway.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know,” I said.
“I don’t think it’s like that.”
“Well, I do. It’s like nothing is any use. I can’t manage to feel any other way.” I shifted positions, and it made the boat rock a little.
We lay for a long time, drifting, not talking. Finally Leatrice rowed home. As we were beaching the boat, it came to me that I should tell her something else that had been bothering me. “You know, Lee, in my Young Women class, Sister Norland asked me a question. We were pretending to be New Testament people. She said it would help us learn prayer language. She said, ‘Missy, doth thy father love thee?’ I was going to say ‘Yes, Sister Norland,’ but what came out was ‘Maybe, sometimes.’”
Lee took my hands in hers. Her eyes were a little wet. “Missy, it bothers me what you said before about Dad. Even if that was all true once, I don’t think you need to feel hard toward him. He was young, too. It’s got to be hard at first to learn to be a dad. You and I will probably need some forgiveness too for the mistakes we’ll make while we’re learning to be moms.”
Coming from her, it sounded right, like the truth.
That night we went to bed early, the little kids first, then Mom and Dad. Today had been the first day of vacation without rain. Leatrice said her prayers. I decided I better try. I didn’t kneel, but I tried to pray on the bed. “Help me get over this alone feeling … ,” but I didn’t feel any different after.
I lay and watched the trees’ shadows on the screen and the wall and thought about the world and the moon, floating in space alone, making their slow endless circuits, maybe running forever on automatic. Some of the Founding Fathers, I’d read, called it Deism—that God had set it all going and gone away. About there I faded off to sleep.
When I woke up, I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. The shadows and the moonlight were still there outside. Our bedroom door was ajar, and a faint shifting light was coming into the room. A mosquito was whining near my ear. I didn’t know if it was that or the feeble light that had disturbed me. I got up and looked into the living room where the little kids were asleep on the couches and on blankets on the floor.
Dad was kneeling by the cone fireplace in the center of the room. He was reaching inside it, doing something. I went over to him. “What’s wrong?”
“Hold the flashlight for me, Missy, will you? Mosquitoes are coming down the stovepipe.”
“So that’s how they’re sneaking in! We checked all the screens. Boy, aren’t they tricky?”
“It’s the first night with no fire. That must be why they’re bothering us now but not before.”
I wadded up papers and handed them to Dad. He pushed the last one into place and stood up. “That should keep the little devils out. I found them on the baby’s face.”
“Were they biting you, Dad?”
“No, I heard somebody crying out in their sleep. That’s how I knew. I heard it from the other room.”
That hit me. Sometimes I’d thought he didn’t hear much of anything from us.
“Pretty smart, Dad, your figuring out how they were getting in.”
“Thanks, Missy.” He put his arm around me and squeezed. It startled me. It had been a long time since he’d done that. It did feel good though.
“Good night. Remember to say your prayers.”
I went back into the bedroom and stood by the window. The moon was up there, floating and still. And there were night sounds, an insect orchestra pulsating. I could hear it through the closed window. I hadn’t heard it while I was asleep, and I hadn’t wakened when the little children cried out. Dad had. Why had he heard, and I hadn’t? Somehow that struck me as a necessary question. I stood and thought about it, but why it could be important wasn’t clear in my sleepiness.
I thought about my father and other fathers, and as I stood at the window the words came, those that my teacher Miss Carroll had us memorize:
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
In class Hamlet’s words had bothered me. Now I said them over several times. It seemed presuming and even arrogant to claim to be that faithful. Such lovely words, but could they be true for any man?
I went over and got back into bed. From there I could still see the moon, just right to show through my window. Oddly, it no longer seemed so distant and impersonal, but warmer and nearer. The moon sailed, and I drifted off to sleep.
Some indefinite time later, I again found myself awake. I was still hanging to a dream. There had been a powerful song in it, already undefined and indistinct, but the force of the music remained with me. And suddenly I had a comforting, understanding feeling. It was surprisingly strong, and it came to me like a revelation—that really there is a being who is as reliable, as fully reliable, in His love as Hamlet had claimed to be.
I lay still awhile and savored that amazing thought. Perhaps half an hour went by. The moon was past my window. I slipped from under the covers and knelt by the bed. I prayed, still cherishing the warmth of the new feeling. And with it I recognized another extraordinary impression, that I was being heard. The perception was almost tangible.
Leatrice said something in her sleep before I got into the bed, but she didn’t wake up. I thought I’d lay there in the moonlight and listen to the outside sounds and watch the shadows. And think about fathers.
But I didn’t. I went right to sleep.

It was a cold spring in Denmark. I had just begun my full-time mission, and my testimony was struggling. I was a convert of only 19 months and full of insecurities about facing a foreign country, a language I couldn’t speak, and a maze of streets I couldn’t fathom navigating. My once gratitude-filled prayers soon became sour accusations: “God, why have you left me all alone?”
One morning I pled with Him in prayer. But instead of asking “why” with anger in my heart, I begged for a witness of the gospel’s truth and suppression of my doubts.
After praying, I flipped my scriptures open. I landed on Deuteronomy 31:6: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
My heart was full of joy as I realized the answer to my prayer: God had been there all along. He was simply waiting for sincere prayer rather than accusations of abandonment.
God will never leave me, even when all seems hopeless. And we can feel His sunshine through prayer and His scriptures.
Clayton E., Texas, USA

Soon the corn was growing in straight green rows. We’d weeded out the suckers and weaker plants, leaving only the sturdiest stalks. Papa pulled three white crayons from his pocket and handed one each to Caroline, Ed, and me.
“I want you to draw a line around the bottom of each cornstalk, so the ants don’t crawl up. They won’t cross that line,” he said and showed us what he meant.
“Will the ants hurt the corn?” I wanted to know.
“No, but the aphids will, and where there are ants there are aphids.”
“Why?”
“The ants milk the aphids like we do cows. They need each other.”
“Do we have to do all the corn?” Ed asked.
“Every plant,” Papa said. “If you each do ten rows a day, it will soon be done. That will help keep the worms out too.”
“Ten rows?” Ed complained. “That’s impossible.”
“OK, eight then,” Papa compromised. “Now get to work.”

A cow helped provide necessary nourishment on the trail for the family of my great-grandmother Margaret McNeil as she came to Zion from Scotland. As a 12-year-old, it was Margaret’s task to arise early and get breakfast for the family and milk her cow. She would then drive the cow on ahead of the company to let it feed in the grassy places. She wrote:
“The cow furnished us with milk, our chief source of food. … Had it not been for the milk, we would have starved. …
“One night our cow ran away from [the] camp, and I was sent to bring her back. I was not watching where I was going and was barefooted. All of a sudden I began to feel I was walking on something soft. I looked down to see what it could be, and to my horror found that I was standing in a bed of snakes, large ones and small ones. At the sight of them I became so weak I could scarcely move; all I could think of was to pray, and in some way I jumped out of them. The Lord blessed and cared for me.
“We arrived in Ogden, Utah, on the fourth day of October [1859], after a journey of hardships and hunger. … I walked every step of the way across the plains.”

Just 12 years after Elder Jorge Fernando Zeballos was born on July 19, 1955, the first Latter-day Saint missionaries came to his hometown of Ovalle, Chile, in 1967.
The four North Americans walking around town piqued his curiosity, as did a favorable interview with them in the local newspaper. When the missionaries began playing in a local basketball league, Jorge, who loved basketball, followed their games with interest. Once he managed to slip behind the officials’ table to catch a glimpse of their team roster. Surprisingly, all were named “Elder.”
When a classmate told young Jorge that he and his family had joined the missionaries’ church, Jorge asked if he could come too. He attended meetings faithfully for seven months before the missionaries discovered that Jorge had not been taught or baptized. With the permission of his parents, Alberto Zeballos and Ines Zeballos, that was soon remedied.

Just before my mom passed away, she asked me to take care of her younger sister, who was in a hospital in Korea. My family and I lived in California, USA, so unfortunately there seemed to be no way to fulfill my mom’s compassionate last wish. Then my job unexpectedly relocated me to South Korea, and I had to be separated from my family for a year. Although I was concerned about living far from my family, I also anticipated visiting my aunt and my dad, who was in a Korean hospital suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
I asked Heavenly Father for divine help in living away from my family. As I thought about the time I would spend in Korea, I resolved to visit my dad, my aunt, and the temple weekly as well as to pray for my family daily.
Once I was in Korea, the bishop of my new ward called me to be the Young Men president and the Gospel Doctrine teacher. My ward and the hospitals where my dad and aunt stayed were far from each other, and I had a very demanding job; but Heavenly Father blessed me with strength and stamina to magnify my callings and to keep my resolutions.
Soon after I started visiting my aunt, I discovered she rarely had any visitors. I decided to pick her up and have her stay with me on the weekends at my hotel, which had an extra room. However, I had a problem: should I take her with me to church on Sunday? I thought she would neither be interested in nor understand the meetings, and she would have to wait for hours after church for me to be done with meetings and other duties. But for some reason I felt I should take her.
That Sunday I took her with me, and, as expected, she had to wait for me afterward. After my meetings, I took her back to the hotel to eat. I noticed that she held a bag. I asked her about it, and she said a sister had given her some snacks.
Whenever I had duties after church, this sister—who did not know my aunt—always offered my aunt snacks. One week during my Sunday School lesson, a familiar voice volunteered to read a scripture. I had never imagined my aunt would volunteer, but a kind sister sitting next to my aunt had prompted her to read for the class. Although my aunt was not good at socializing because of her time isolated in the hospital, all the members kindly greeted and chatted with her.
Every Sunday evening I would take her back to the hospital and promise to pick her up the next weekend, which always brought a happy smile to her face.
One day a friend of mine shared a concern that my aunt might have a hard time when my visits suddenly stopped when I left Korea. As my scheduled departure from Korea came closer, I felt mixed emotions—happy to be soon reunited with my family but distressed and sad about leaving my aunt alone.
Finally, I explained to my aunt that I would not be able to visit her as often. She paused a moment, obviously disappointed. Then she tried to compose herself and asked if I could visit her again in a year. I cried and desperately asked Heavenly Father to help this lady.
On my last Sunday in Korea, the bishop asked if ward members could pick up my aunt on Sundays to bring her to church. He said that a number of members were willing to visit her on a regular basis—so many that they would have to organize and take turns. I could not believe his offer! This was the unexpected answer to my desperate prayers.
Since the members lived far away from my aunt’s hospital, I offered to leave some money for them to cover the travel expenses, but the members refused to take my money. They told me they would take turns visiting once a month, but I found out later that they actually visited every week. One faithful sister picks up my aunt every Friday to attend institute and have lunch. She even took her to a beauty shop for a haircut. Another sister, a single mother of two teenage children, volunteered to pick her up every Sunday morning. She cooks for my aunt, takes her for a walk, and listens to music with her. Most importantly, she tries to be a friend, and my aunt has finally opened up and comfortably chats with her and other members. Every Sunday evening the bishop picks up my aunt from a member’s home after his long day of Church meetings and other duties to take her back to the hospital. Every Thursday he sends a kind email to me to report their heavenly service for my aunt.
I believe that my mom saw the actions of faithful Latter-day Saints serving her younger sister. And now I know, more clearly than ever, why we call our fellow Church members “brothers” and “sisters.”

I also understand Joseph Smith’s wanting to be alone as he prayed. On another occasion a few years later, I was in a similar situation, this time with a young man I didn’t know. I was nervous about praying in front of him, so I waited for him to go to bed so I could kneel and pray without him watching me.
But he wouldn’t go to bed, so I finally knelt and prayed and got into my sleeping bag. When he got into bed a few minutes later, he said, “Lynn, do you always pray like that?”
“Yes, I try to. If I ever hurry and get into bed forgetting to pray, I get out of bed and kneel and pray.”
He said, “I should do that.”