Gospel Story Finder

There are many modern day Calebs and Joshuas. One such man was my wife’s grandfather John Hulme. One day in 1926, the bishop had a conversation with John. The bishop brought up the topic of a mission. This caught John off guard.

John had always wanted to serve a mission, but his life was complicated. Why? Because John was 42 years old. He was a married man with four children, ages 15, 12, 4, and 2. He was a self-employed rancher. He had land and cattle that would need supervision while he was away. He would have to find a way to make sure his family and property were taken care of while he was gone.

The bishop told John that this was not an official call, just a suggestion. John told the bishop he would think about it and let him know the next day.

John sought out the bishop early the next morning and said he would accept the call to serve. That morning, after what was probably a very sleepless night, John did not know how he would make arrangements to serve a mission. He only knew he would serve. Like Caleb and Joshua, he knew God would help him find a way. And God did. John was able to hire a neighbor to care for his land and his cattle, and the ward and community rallied to support his wife and children.

It must have been quite a culture shock when John, a rancher from a small town, arrived to serve his mission in New York City.

John came from a small country town with a population of about 500. He was accustomed to riding a horse and working the land. When he was called to serve in New York City, it must have been quite a culture shock. He probably felt like a grasshopper among giants. But John served a successful mission. His example has given his posterity the desire to place their trust in God regardless of the obstacles and unknowns. “With God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

The blessings of the priesthood were never greater in my life than three years ago when my husband, Dave, lay critically ill in a hospital. Medical examinations had revealed a massive, cancerous tumor that could not be operated on. The doctors explained that modern methods could extend life perhaps many years; some people were even being totally cured of cancer. So we were full of hope, confident that Dave would be one of the lucky ones.
He was recovering well when he began to have severe chest pains. He had developed pneumonia and blood clots in his lungs. For the next three weeks our concern over the cancer became secondary as the doctors battled to save his lungs and life. Finally, he underwent major chest surgery and was once more on the road to recovery.
We breathed a sigh of relief. One problem at a time was enough for me. Now we could think about the cancer again. I was feeling optimistic when I asked the doctor about Dave’s outlook for the future. He answered that if the treatment of chemical injections worked, we might expect a slowing of the cancerous growth for as long as two years.
I was stunned. I thought he’d speak in terms of fifteen or twenty years; now he was telling me that it would be marvelous if my husband survived for two. I gave myself up to grief; it couldn’t have been worse if Dave had actually died. For three days and nights I thought I would perish myself from the anguish I suffered. On Sunday evening I attended sacrament meeting, and several people, including our bishop and home teachers, asked what they might do to help. I desperately needed a priesthood blessing, but was afraid that if I spoke I would lose all composure. So I nodded that everything was all right and left the building.
A few minutes later, on my way to the hospital, I was angry at myself for not letting them help me. I knew I couldn’t survive much longer in my present state. “What am I going to do now?” I asked myself. Then suddenly the answer came: “Dave has the priesthood. He could give me a blessing.”
It did seem a bit strange that he should do it; after all he was the one who had been receiving one blessing after another in efforts to save his own life. It would be like asking the “sick” to bless the “well.” But I had nowhere else to turn.
I’ll never forget how my husband looked standing before me that evening as I sat on his bed. Wearing a hospital robe, gaunt and pale with pain and so weak he could hardly stand, he finally lifted his left arm to my shoulder, and with his right hand on my head proceeded to give me a priesthood blessing.
Oh, the magnificence of the priesthood of God exercised by a righteous man! My husband spoke with strength, power, and authority, asking the Lord to remove the sorrow from my heart. Immediately I felt great relief from my pain; it was though the Lord had reached into my heart and removed the sadness.
My grief never returned, though many difficult days lay ahead.
Dave’s struggle against cancer has been painful and hard the past three years, but he lives—and his doctor tells us that he now has a good chance of total cure. We’re convinced the reason he is alive today is because of the power of the priesthood.
I have learned without reservation that, as the hymn says, “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” (“Come, Ye Disconsolate,” Hymns, no. 18.) I thank our Father in heaven daily for the blessings I have received through the priesthood; but never had the priesthood been so dear to me as it was that night—filling a room with power under the hands of a courageous man in a hospital robe.

A series of events he considers providential prevented him from enrolling immediately. He spent several weeks in late 1979 and early 1980 visiting with his sister in Geneva, Switzerland—long enough to determine that instead of political science he wanted to study mime with the man who is widely recognized as the master. Brother Aedo knew that through his faith it would happen, if he persevered. So he returned to Paris and was persistent enough that he was finally able to see Marcel Marceau and become one of his pupils.

I understand now why I had those feelings. It is not because we worship the prophet. We don’t. It is because he is the mouthpiece of the Lord. The prophet is a channel, and through him the Savior’s love is projected to the whole world. That channel is open today. After I was called to be a General Authority, I came early to one of the special meetings in the upper room of the temple. President Ezra Taft Benson was sitting in his place, and as I walked into the room, I looked at him and he looked at me. I wanted to take him in my arms and tell him how much I loved him, because I could feel his love. It was the same kind of love I had felt from President Smith as a twelve-year-old boy. That is why the Saints in South America embrace me and tell me to please give their love to the prophet. They can feel his love even far away. It transcends, or goes beyond, mere miles.

“Well, didn’t you always tell me that your sister gave you a hard time when she stayed with you, making you go to bed at the same time, even when it wasn’t a school night?”
Jason remembered the many times that Christine had watched him. “Yeah. Nine o’clock, even on weekends!” Then he remembered something else. “Nine o’clock without fail except for that night last year when we had the bad storm and the lights went out.”
Randy elbowed his friend. “She made you go to bed earlier, right?”
“Well, … no,” Jason admitted. He smiled a little. “Christine got out our sleeping bags and flashlights, made some sandwiches, and turned on her portable radio. We camped out in the living room.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah! It was neat!”

There are 1,200 students at Memorial High in Joplin, Missouri, and not one of them can match Ralph Green when it comes to making pizza.

Last year Ralph worked at a local pizza parlor to support his older sister through a semester at Brigham Young University.

This year, at 16, he is the only male enrolled in his school’s family foods and clothing construction classes. He has found the experience to be a good missionary tool in more ways than one. In the school paper he explained, “I am taking these courses because I want to learn to cook and sew. I want to learn because I am going on a two-year mission for my church.” The student paper went on to explain that at 19 Ralph plans to serve a mission wherever the Church sends him, and he wants to be able to fend for himself.

Although he cooks more pizza than anything else, fried chicken is his favorite dish. He’s been kidded a lot, but Ralph plans to take another sewing class next year.

Ralph is a member of the Springfield Missouri Stake.

We recently served as international relations missionaries, working with foreign diplomats at the United Nations. We felt humbly blessed to meet so many loving, caring people from around the world seeking to serve their countrymen.
We had the privilege of dispersing the Light the World Giving Machine funds to recipients throughout the world, through UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) and CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere).
We could feel the Spirit as we told leaders that our granddaughter was serving a mission in Guatemala and helped deliver chickens, purchased through Giving Machines, to those in need. What a blessing to know that families had eggs to eat or sell as they wished.
Brent and Julie Hill, New York, USA

In the darkness we started along an icy ledge that dropped off into some unseen black depth. The night and the darkness had come quickly—too quickly for me. Our only source of light now came from a hazy moon rising up between the horizon and a ceiling of storm clouds.
“What am I doing here? What are we doing here?” I kept asking myself. It was late November, the day after Thanksgiving, and, as is almost always true of high places in the Northeast, in winter, there was a hard, icy wind blowing. I was with Scout Troop 235 from the Westchester Ward in New York State.
“Nor far now,” one of the leaders ahead of us shouted. “You won’t want to miss this.”
But I did want to miss it. What I wanted most was to be back in the camp we’d just set up, back safe and warm and dry in my sleeping bag. We’d come a long way since morning and were all wet and tired. The Scouts and the leaders ahead of us stopped and were forming a line on the ledge.
“This is incredible,” I heard someone say. What I saw was incredible. I forgot the cold and the wind and found my heart beating faster. In a lifetime a few scenes, a few images, have seared their lines and shapes and colors indelibly into my memory: there was a lightning storm rolling over the Grand Canyon, 50-foot waves crashing into rocks on the northern coast of California, the moon at midnight rising over El Capitan in Yosemite Park. This was such an image. It was as if the universe had been tipped upside down and we were looking down into a clear, star-filled night sky.
These were no ordinary wilds. These were the wildest of the wilds, a place of legends and dreams, the capital of the new Byzantine Empire. These were the wilds of the Big Apple, New York City; and the Milky Way galaxy we were looking down into was the east river, and the stars, the lights of Manhattan Island.
The place where we were standing—the place that, beyond the railing, dropped straight down 107 stories—was the top of the World Trade Center. The twin towers of the World Trade Center are the tallest buildings in New York City and the second tallest in the world. We—Troop 235 plus 150 other Scouts and their leaders, all from the Yorktown Stake, New York State—were to be the first group to camp out there.
The camp-out on the World Trade Center began that morning when we arrived at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery district of Manhattan Island. Good weather had been forecast, but the night before the camp-out it started raining, and by morning the rain turned to snow. By the time we had started on a seven-mile hike that was to end at the World Trade Center, a hard wind was blowing, turning the storm into a blizzard. What had started out as an easy hike down Broadway became a test of survival just like any winter camp-out can become. On a regular winter camping trip we would have been able to find temporary shelter from the storm in caves or in quickly constructed lean-tos. Here we had to improvise, stopping at laundromats and restaurants. The stops were short. One hundred and sixty Scouts and their leaders in a laundromat doesn’t leave much room for customers.
The rain and the snow and the wind gave the city a kind of iridescent beauty. The streets were a black pearl color reflecting the bright reds, yellows, and greens of street lights, stop signs, and taxi cabs. “It even made the graffiti look good,” John Merrick, 13, from Poughkeepsie, said.
Like bulbs from Christmas trees, in the alleys, against fences, and in the gutters, umbrellas, some of them with broken spines and some that had been stolen by the wind from unsuspecting hands, were piled like tumbleweeds.
The Scouts followed the Old New York Historical Trail, visiting China Town, St. Paul’s Chapel (George Washington worshipped there during his presidency), Wall Street, Trinity Church, Battery Park, and Fraunces Tavern, where George Washington said farewell to his troops after the Revolutionary War.
Manhattan Island is rich in history, beautiful buildings, and parks, but for Rich Poccia, 15, from the Westchester Ward, they weren’t what he found most interesting about the city.
“The people are the most interesting thing here,” he said. “You can stand on any street corner and in just a few minutes see people from a dozen different countries.”
Even though the wind was blowing at over 40 miles per hour and the snow was coming down hard, most of the streets we passed through were crowded. It was business as usual for the Hasidim, wearing full beards and long, dark wool coats; Indians with colored turbans wrapped around their heads; and businessmen with heavy trench coats and copies of the Times held over their heads.
In the city, where almost nothing is surprising, people stopped and stared as they watched 160 Scouts and their leaders march down the streets.
Hiking through Manhattan and camping on top of the World Trade Center was unusual enough to be front-page news in the Reporter Dispatch of White Plains, New York. USA Today and the Poughkeepsie Journal also covered the story.
Late in the afternoon, the fury of the storm began to slow until the wind and the snow stopped. The evening sun dropped below the dark clouds, and golden light spilled in long rays onto the city. The effect was magical. The city was transformed into the fabled city of gold, El Dorado. The buildings and sidewalks, the water in the bay, and the people were turned into a bright, warm, gold color. The air was cool and clean. The city was at its best. In this golden light the Scouts took a ferry to Governor’s Island to eat dinner.
Because of the work the leaders put into organizing the trip, costs for the Scouts were kept to a minimum. Discount rates were obtained for meals, ferry and subway rides, and admission to museums. Several food companies donated hot dogs, drinks, and snacks. A national sporting goods company donated eight basketballs to give away as awards. The U.S. Olympic Committee donated 160 U.S. Olympic pins.
“What we have learned from this event,” Doug Jackson, a Yorktown stake Scouting leader said, “is that people and corporations are very willing to help the Scouting program.”
After dinner the Scouts returned to Manhattan and took a subway to the Natural History Museum. The rides on the New York subway were among the most exciting events of the trip.
Imagine, if you can, a group of 160 Scouts waiting in a subway station, the subway cars rattling and groaning with the sound of a flood roaring down the tunnel, then screeching to a stop. Amazed passengers watch as leaders hurry Scouts onto the cars. The doors slam shut as the Scouts get on. Then the subway cars groan again, shake, rattle, and start off with a jerk. The ride has the smoothness of an old-fashioned buckboard wagon and makes a roller coaster seem smooth. Lights flash off and on. Through the windows other stations are seen—a blur of lights, people, and graffiti. The leaders are studying the subway route, schedules clutched in their hands, with worried looks.
Erik Anderson, 12, from the Poughkeepsie Ward, said the subway was great but that he wouldn’t want to ride it every day.
Tired and wet and hungry, the Scouts finally arrived at the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
We had planned to sleep on the roof of the number two tower. But when the leaders found the decks were iced over and there was a 30-mile-an-hour wind blowing, it was decided the Scouts would spend the night one floor down in the warmth of the observation deck. The Scouts were able to go up onto the roof to see what is one of the most spectacular views in the world.
“Nothing beats this,” said Warren Moon, 14, from Pawling, as he looked down at the city lights.
Elder Robert L. Backman of the First Quorum of the Seventy, and a member of the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America, joined the Scouts at the World Trade Center and spent the night with them on the observation deck. Among the highlights of the trip for many of the Scouts, along with the views of the city at night and the sun rising up over the city the next morning, was the talk Elder Backman gave.
“This morning when I saw the sunrise and light started to hit all of the buildings up and down Manhattan,” Elder Backman, dressed in full Scout uniform, stated, “it occurred to me that none of us better limit ourselves as to what we can accomplish. Just look at this engineering marvel we’re in, 107 stories up. It’s breathtaking. I’m convinced that if we really understand we are sons of God, and I know we are, we can accomplish even greater things. Being sons of God, we can even become like him, and there’s nothing more exciting than that.”
While he was packing his gear and getting ready to leave the building, Brian Fields from the Newburg Branch said camping on the top of the World Trade Center was something he would never forget.
“Camping here overnight and having Elder Backman with us—well, it’s the kind of thing I’ll tell my grandchildren about. We were the first people to ever camp up here. It’s history.”
During the night the storm blew out to sea, leaving the sky cloudless and a deep blue color.
We visited the Statue of Liberty, watched a recreation of a Revolutionary War battle, and explored the aircraft carrier Intrepid (now an air and space museum).
Then it was time to go home. While we waited for our rides, tired and happy, we sat watching the city. The air was cool and still smelled of the rain from the night before. Sea gulls circled overhead. There was a rushing sound, like the sound of a river, coming from the city. A lone man moved along a street pushing a hot dog cart.
“Hot dogs. Get your red-hot hot dogs here. Pretzels, hot fresh pretzels,” he was singing the words.
“It’ll be hard to beat this one,” Douglas McEldowney said, biting into a pretzel covered with mustard. “But I can’t wait to try.”
We all agreed.

A convert was ministered to by personal example. As a young man, he said he spent his days lounging at the beach. One day, he said, “I saw an attractive girl in a modest swimsuit.” Amazed, he went to ask why such an attractive girl would wear such a modest swimsuit. She was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and asked with a smile, “Would you like to come to church Sunday?” He said yes.

Even if the Lord has inspired people to preserve these records over the centuries, if the devil can persuade us to procrastinate and not get the temple work done, he will succeed in frustrating the Lord’s work. The story is told that Satan called a council of his agents and asked how they would combat the forces of righteousness. One said, “I’ll go and tell them it isn’t true.” Satan said, “No, that wouldn’t do.” The second said, “I’ll tell them it’s only half true.” “No,” Satan said, “that’s not enough.” The third said, “I’ll go and tell them it’s all true, but there is no need to hurry.” “Go,” Satan said. “That will get them every time.” Lucifer cannot win. We must do the Lord’s work for our ancestors or the earth would be “wasted at his coming.” (JS—H 1:39.) It seems that the destiny of this earth depends on whether or not we get this temple work done.

On one occasion I was organizing a new stake on Upolu Island in Samoa. As is customary, we were conducting interviews with local priesthood leaders, asking each to suggest a few names of brethren of stature to be considered for a call.
One dignified branch president had walked from the other side of the island. He stood before us in a white shirt and tie, with a lavalava, or skirt, tied about his waist. He wore no shoes; he had never owned shoes.
I asked for names. He gave but one: “Bishop Iono will be our stake president.” He was right, for that had already been revealed to me. But I did not feel he should make the announcement.
So I asked for other names, for we had counselors and others to call as well. He replied, holding up his finger, “Just one name.” “But,” I said, “suppose he could not serve, would you not like to name others?” This humble priesthood president then asked me a question, “Brother Packer, are you asking me to go against the witness of the Spirit?”

The first day of his mission, Samuel walked 25 miles (40 km). He visited four homes, but no one wanted to buy a copy of the Book of Mormon. Hungry, tired, and discouraged, he stopped that night at an inn. Samuel asked the innkeeper if he would like to buy a copy of the Book of Mormon.

“I do not know,” said the innkeeper. “How did you get hold of it?”

“It was translated by my brother, from some gold plates that he found buried in the earth,” Samuel explained.

“You liar! Get out of my house—you shan’t stay one minute with your books,” said the innkeeper. So the Church’s first missionary slept that night under an apple tree on the cold, damp ground.3

I was born in the Church, but my family rarely attended while I was growing up. Despite this, I always found a way to get to church on my own. In the early 1970s I was serving as a seminary teacher in Pittsburg, Kansas, USA. When we studied the Book of Mormon, I challenged the class—myself included—to read the entire book. One day while reading, I received a powerful testimony that it is true.

Elder Dale G. Renlund visited remote locations while on assignment in Argentina and Chile, such as Antofagasta in the desert region of northern Chile; a conference for the Argentina Comodoro Rivadavia Mission; the El Calafate Branch in Argentina, where a small chapel was filled with people far beyond the 30–40 who were expected to attend; and a gathering in Ushuaia, Argentina, where the 600 in attendance represented the majority of active members throughout the entire region of Tierra del Fuego. In places like Rio Gallegos, Argentina, Elder Renlund spoke about the blessings of the home-centered, Church-supported curriculum and how families will be blessed by observing the Sabbath day.

I had about two months left on my mission in Costa Rica, and I was serving with an American companion, Sister Nguyen. We were excited to be celebrating Christmas and were preparing small bags of sweets and cookies to deliver on Christmas Eve to friends and families in the small city where we lived.
I had spent most of my mission in very poor areas, and I was grateful. The Lord had blessed me by allowing me to teach people in humble homes, to live among them and learn of their kindness, their humility, and their spirit of sacrifice.
The last family we visited to drop off some treats was the Carmona family, a large family that was one of the poorest in the ward. They all—parents, children, in-laws, and grandchildren—lived in a small wooden hut covered with sheet metal, lacking electricity and any other modern comfort. They were preparing traditional tamales that they would eat during the holidays. We made our delivery and returned to our house.
Very early on Christmas morning we heard a knock on the door. To my surprise, I found myself face-to-face with Minor, the 13-year-old son of the Carmona family. He was holding a small package in his hand.
“Sisters,” he said, “Mother sent me to give you these tamales. Have a merry Christmas!”
I was so thankful they had thought of us—we who had not yet received anything from our own families, we who had not been expecting anything. And this family that probably had just enough for themselves offered us a part of their Christmas “feast.”
I showed my companion the package, and I could see tears running down her cheeks. “Sister, what’s wrong?” I asked.
She answered me very simply: “Sister Burcion, it’s Christmas!”
Yes, it was Christmas, and they had shared the little they had with us, the missionaries, as they would have shared with Christ. It was the only gift we received that Christmas day, a gift I will never forget.

“What’s wrong, Bryan? You look pretty disgusted,” Grandpa said, coming out of his house next door.
“I am disgusted, Grandpa,” Bryan grumbled. “Today we were assigned a subject for our reports, and Mrs. Hall gave me leaves. Who cares about leaves? And how can a teacher expect me to find any of them in the winter? I counted twenty-seven trees and shrubs in your yard and ours, and every one of them is bare! The only green things I found were some needles on pines and other evergreens. But no leaves!”
“You aren’t trying, Bryan,” the pleasant gray-haired man said. Reaching down, Grandpa plucked a three-leaf clover from a tiny patch of grass between Bryan’s feet.
“The best place to look for leaves in the right season is on trees, because they have so many of them. But look at this tiny leaf. It’s a bit of green, but each leaf is a miraculous little factory gathering sunlight to make a chemical called chlorophyll.
“A leaf can be any size, but because of its distinctive shape, you can tell whether it once grew on a towering oak, an elm, or a maple tree. No two leaves are ever exactly the same.”
Bryan examined the clover leaf with new interest as his grandfather talked.
“All most people know about a tree is that it is pretty, makes property more valuable, gives birds a nesting place, and has leaves that make cool shade,” Grandpa continued. “But one single well-watered tree does a lot more than that. The daily evaporation from one tree can produce the cooling effect of hundreds of air-conditioners.”
“Wow!” Bryan said with new interest. “Then trees should be preserved instead of being bulldozed down. No wonder the ladies from the garden club worked to save those big trees in front of the library!”
“Those trees were large even when I was a boy,” Grandpa told Bryan. “Did you know that leaves protect the soil from raindrop impact that erodes the soil away? Leaves also stabilize water tables in the ground so wells don’t go dry, and they have the ability to absorb polluted air and throw off air rich in oxygen,” he added.
“Leaves are essential to life. They help muffle noise and moderate temperature, wind, and water. Some maple leaves will turn upside down, exposing their lighter sides, to warn of approaching rain!”
“I wonder if the people interested in ecology know all that,” Bryan said thoughtfully. “All I knew was that we find millions of leaves on the ground in autumn. I knew that leaves hang onto trees until fall, when they turn many beautiful colors and then fall off.”
“Dead leaves can still serve man,” Grandpa explained. “Plants can be covered with them to survive in the winter. When ground up or shredded, leaves make a good mulch to fertilize the lawn, or they can be turned into rich compost for the garden.
“Certain leaves also represent different things. The laurel leaf is a symbol of victory. Olive leaves have been symbols of peace and hope ever since the time of Noah when a dove brought an olive leaf back to the ark to show that the flood was over. Oak leaves stand for strength, glory, and honor.”
Bryan stared at the three tiny leaves wilting in his hand. “My report on leaves will be much more exciting than I thought. But I wish I had some leaves to tape into my notebook.”
“What do you see filling all of Grandma’s windows over there?” Grandpa asked.
“Plants! Her house plants,” Bryan answered. “Grandma must have lots of different kinds of leaves! Thanks, Grandpa.”
I’ll bet no one else was given a subject as important as mine, Bryan thought as he started across the yard to ask Grandma for some leaves for his notebook. Now he could hardly wait to get started on his report!

In high school I tried rowing. It sounded easy enough—sit in a boat and move the oar blades to go fast on the water. I had no idea what I was in for.
For a while, I couldn’t keep the boat balanced, and my use of the oars caused me to stop instead of sail smoothly on the water.
Over time, I changed how I balanced the boat and handled the oars. I slowly made other changes and improved—often without realizing. Then rowing became fun! I loved the soothing motion of rowing as I glided quickly and quietly across the water.
I had to make changes if I wanted to get better at rowing. Only then could I experience the joy rowing offers.

Another experience I’ve had of receiving personal revelation was when I served as a stake patriarch. I was amazed and so humbled to receive revelation from the Holy Ghost each time I laid my hands upon the heads of those members who came to receive their patriarchal blessing. On every occasion, the clear inspiration I received was profoundly instilled in my mind and I was able to bestow upon each person the blessings that God, their Father, wanted them to receive. My task was to listen carefully . . . and to verbalize that which I had received.

Illustration by Eva Vazquez
After our nephew got into a serious accident, my wife, Ana María, and I talked about our desire to know the truth among so many different religions and beliefs. One afternoon I sat down on my bed and prayed, “Lord, please help me find a way to know which church is true.”
Five minutes later, the phone rang. A friend called to invite my wife and me to his home to learn about some nutritional products. We went, and while we were there, our friend gave us a Book of Mormon. On the title page was a personal note: “I hope this book helps you get closer to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The next day, I looked at the book and prayed again, “Lord, tell me if this book is true. I don’t want to offend you by reading something bad.”
I began reading. As I read, I felt as if I knew the people in the Book of Mormon. When I reached the end, I was so pained by the destruction of the Nephites that I wept. I had read hundreds of books, but no book had touched me the way the Book of Mormon did. I knew it was true.
One Sunday I invited Ana María to accompany me to a nearby chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I thought she wouldn’t want to come, but she agreed. We liked what we heard. Afterward, ward members asked if they could send the missionaries over. “Of course,” we replied.
The missionaries soon arrived with the Book of Mormon in hand and said they had a message to share with us. “That’s a beautiful book,” I said. “I’ve already read it.” This surprised them. Then Ana María surprised me. “And I’m reading it now,” she said. “I’m in Mosiah.”
She had found the book on the table where I left it every day before work and began reading herself. Later she surprised me again when she said that when I was praying for direction from Heavenly Father a few weeks earlier, she had been uttering the same prayer in another part of our home.
I told the missionaries I was ready to be baptized. They taught us the lessons, and two weeks later, my wife and I were baptized and confirmed. We are so thankful that the Lord sent us the Book of Mormon to help us know which church is true.

The memory of that particular summer will always stand out in my mind. It was about a week before school let out when my dad announced that I would be spending the next three months with my grandpa in the mountains, tending sheep.
At first I had been really excited about the idea. That was until I told my best friend about it.
“Awful!” She had said. “How boring. Why do you want to do a dumb thing like that?”
To hide my embarrassment, I quickly explained that I really didn’t want to do it, but that I had to because my parents were worried about Grandpa being in the mountains alone all summer. He’d had a mild heart attack earlier that spring, and the doctor had disapproved of him going. But he insisted that he’d gone every summer since he was a boy and that this summer wasn’t going to be any different.
So, because I was young and strong and could do most of the work, I was to help him. My parents also reasoned that it would be a good experience for me and give me an opportunity to get to know Grandpa better.
The first month of that summer seemed endless, and I became more depressed and lonely by the day. Grandpa didn’t help matters much. He was a quiet man, never wasting many words, and I wondered how I’d ever “get to know him better.”
One night after supper we were sitting near the campfire. It was quiet except for the occasional bleating of sheep in the distance. The sky was particularly clear that night, and I remember leaning my head back to study the stars. They winked back at me, and I tried to imagine the many secrets they held. Maybe someday I’ll be an astronaut, I thought to myself, and uncover some of those secrets. Anyway, whatever I become, I won’t be a dumb old sheepherder!
“Grandpa,” I said finally, “haven’t you ever wanted to do something exciting?”
He chuckled. “Like what?” he asked.
I shrugged, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”
“You aren’t enjoying yourself much these days, are you?”
“Well, it’s kind of boring.”
“And maybe a little lonely?” he asked, smiling at me.
“Yes, that, too,” I admitted. “How can you stand this, year after year, Grandpa?”
He poked at the fire with a long stick. “For me it has never been a question of standing it. I’m a sheepman. This is just part of what I do.”
It’s hopeless, I decided. I’ll never understand him.
The silence between us lengthened until he rose and walked over to the small trailer where we slept. A few minutes later he returned with a worn Bible in his hands. I had seen him read from it every night, so that didn’t surprise me. It did surprise me when he started to speak.
“When I was young, I felt a lot like you do right now. I wanted to do something really important in my life.
“My father, your great-grandfather, died when I was about your age. This old Bible was his. It wasn’t until after he was gone that I opened it and for the first time noticed certain scriptures he’d underlined. One in particular made me do some hard thinking. I thought you might like to read it.”
He handed the old Bible to me. It was opened to the second chapter of Luke. I recognized it immediately as the Christmas story. In the light from the fire I could see that the pages were yellowed and wrinkled from years of use. My eyes went to the underlined verses, and I read: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. …”
As I read on, the familiar words began to take on new meaning. At last I closed the book and carefully handed it back to my grandpa.
He fingered it lovingly. “My father was a sheepman, and his father before him,” he said. “I’m proud to have followed in their footsteps.”
Grandpa rose then and left me. I sat alone for a long time, gazing up at the sky. Those were the same stars that had shone that night so long ago, along with that one very special star.
The rest of that summer passed swiftly, and before I knew it, I was back in school. My friends teased me a lot about being a sheepherder, but I didn’t let it bother me. I knew something they’d probably never know.