Gospel Story Finder

Calling the Twelve Apostles in 1835
In 1829 the Lord gave a revelation to Joseph Smith in which He explained some of the duties of the Twelve Apostles. He asked Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer to “search out the Twelve. … By their desires and their works you shall know them” (Doctrine and Covenants 18:37–38).
Then in February 1835, Joseph Smith asked the brethren to gather in Kirtland for a special conference. At the conference, the names of the Twelve were announced.
“We have a work to do that no other men can do,” Oliver Cowdery said as he instructed the brethren. “You must proclaim the gospel in its simplicity and purity.” Not only would they strengthen nearby Saints, but he promised that they would preach in faraway nations.

Mom smiled. “Sometimes friends find us. And sometimes we have to find them.” She put her arm around Connor. “When I was younger, I was really lonely too. I prayed for two years, and then I found a very special friend.”
Connor’s back straightened. “Who did you find? Was it Jamie?”
Mom nodded. “I prayed and looked for someone and found Jamie.”

I’ve seen many inspirational Young Women leaders who exemplify living their roles with nobility and joy. I remember the powerful example of my Laurel adviser, who was faithful in rearing her children in the Church even though her husband was less active. I know a young woman whose parents weren’t active in the Church. She was impressionable and teachable and learned well from the examples of her leaders. She learned how to fast and how to hold family home evening by participating with her teachers in these activities.

Sometimes temptation to let down her standards can be almost overwhelming, especially when a cherished goal comes in sight. Like the time Jenny was invited to meet with well-known disk jockeys from a major radio station—on a Sunday.
She wanted so much to be there, supporting her hospital team and meeting influential people, possibly improving her career opportunities. Workmates kept pressuring her to go. But she refused, at the same time explaining her feelings for the Sabbath.
“I felt awful letting them down,” she says, “but I’d have felt even more awful letting myself and Heavenly Father down—and my workmates, too, because eventually they would have seen me as a bad example.”

Illustrations by Craig Stapley
There’s a hospital for cancer patients in my area called City of Hope. I never knew this hospital existed until I advanced to the office of a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, when I learned that the LDS chaplain at the hospital was a member of my ward. One day he asked me and another member of the priests quorum to help him take the sacrament to some members of the Church who were receiving treatment at City of Hope.
When we arrived, I was shocked by the number of people who were really sick. The care they received at the hospital really was their last hope. We entered the first room and met a woman from Missouri, USA, who had just started treatment. She was surprised to learn that the hospital had a connection with the local ward and that young men would take the time to come and administer the sacrament.
We returned again the next week and found there were now eight members checked in to the hospital. Not only did we administer the sacrament to them, but we visited with each one as well. I felt a deep sense of gratitude for my own health and for the opportunity to help the patients.
The following week I was on a family trip, so another quorum member went in my place. He told me that the members at the hospital had asked where I was. It made me feel happy to know that my service mattered to them, and it motivated me to continue to go when I’m needed so that my service will bring peace to people who “stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9).

There are many chronic cases—individuals who endlessly seek counsel but do not follow the counsel that is given.
I have, on occasions, included in an interview this question:
“You have come to me for advice. After we have carefully considered your problem, is it your intention to follow the counsel that I will give you?”
This comes as a considerable surprise to them. They had never thought of that. Usually they then commit themselves to follow counsel.
It is easier then to show them how to help themselves, and more than that, how to help others. That is the greatest therapy.

As a new bishop many years ago, I noticed a faithful sister who always attended church without her husband, John. I learned that he had previously been a branch president during the time their meetinghouse was being built. He received so little help from branch members that he burned himself out doing most of the work and became less active.
When ward members came to their home, he would light up his cigarette and set his beer can by his chair as if to say, “You won’t get me to come back.”
Eventually, I learned that John was an appliance repair man. Older members in the ward often called me to fix things. Now that I knew of John’s skills, I would call John and ask for advice on repairs.
I continued this for maybe a year. At that time, we needed to call a ward clerk. After prayerful consideration, I felt impressed to extend the call to John.
I told the stake president and he said, “We can’t call him now! He smokes and has his beer.” I asked the stake president to call him in for an interview anyway. John came to the interview but emphatically answered, “No, I am not worthy.”
Things continued as before—John remained less active, and I called him for advice. During this time, I didn’t say anything to him about coming back to church. I asked the stake president to interview him a second time. Again, John said no, but this time he added, “I will tell you when I’m ready.”
After this I still called John for advice and fellowshipped him the best I could.
One day I answered the phone and heard, “Is this the ol’ Bishop?” He had started calling me by that title. “This is John. I’m ready.” He was then called and served as our ward clerk.
As the years passed, John served in a number of callings. He and his wife served a mission together, and now they serve in the temple. At my 50th wedding anniversary party, John wrote a note that said, “Bishop, thank you for saving my life.”
I can’t put in words the joy I feel knowing that John returned to church in part because I was patient and asked him for help when I needed it.

Every time I hold a newborn child, I find myself wondering: “Who are you, little one? What will you become through the Atonement of Christ?”

We ask similarly reflective questions when someone we love dies: “Where are they? What are they seeing and experiencing? Does life continue? What will be the nature of our most cherished relationships in the great world of the spirits of the dead?”

In that world, our family has two granddaughters, Sara and Emily, and a grandson, Nathan. With each grandchild’s passing, we as a family held on to the gospel truths with both hands. Our questions were answered with comfort and assurance through the Atonement of the Savior. Although we miss our grandchildren, we know they live, and we know we will see them again. How grateful we are for this spiritual understanding in times of personal and familial turbulence.

Six days later, on 6 March 1970, my whole world came apart. My child was lying in a coma in a hospital and no one could help him. He was dying.
I’ll never forget that awful day as long as I live. March 5 had been a beautiful day. The sun shone and it seemed as though the whole world was ours. We had everything I had never had as a child—security, health, love, and now the Church. Little Bill was just nineteen months old, and that evening he had so much fun at the birthday party we held for his grandma. He was so happy, he ran and played and had a good time. Then in the wee hours of the sixth I awoke to the sound of Bill choking and crying. I ran to his room and there he lay, a tiny bundle of tears. He had turned nearly black, and foam was pouring out of his mouth. He was so hot to the touch that I had to wrap him in a blanket to even hold his little body.
We rushed him to the emergency room at the hospital, where we could do nothing but wait while the doctors ran tests and worked frantically to save his life. Finally our doctor came and told us that Bill’s temperature was 108 degrees. He said they could not find any cause for our baby’s frightful condition. He sent for the best baby specialist in the state. He, too, was baffled. Later in the morning we were taken into his office where he told us there was nothing he could do, that the fever would not break. My whole world was dying. I can’t recall those last hours too clearly, but I do know that I felt alone again as I had when I was a child
Ben was called away to talk to someone, and I was all by myself. I phoned my friend and told her Bill had only a few hours to live. Then I went to his room. He was so little, so very beautiful, and so still.
I sat down next to his bed, feeling numb at heart. And as I did, a feeling came over me that I cannot describe—a feeling of complete peace, the like of which I have felt only one other time, in the temple of the Lord the day our family was sealed for time and all eternity. It fell on me with such force that I was stunned and shaken. Then I looked up, and there standing at the door was a man I recognized as one of the high priests from our ward. I didn’t know his name, but I knew why he was there. I reached over and picked up Bill from the bed. He awoke when I touched his body. He looked at me for one short second, and smiled.
The man at the door said, “I am Brother Walters. The Lord has sent me to administer to this child.” Because Bill had been placed in isolation, the nurses wouldn’t let more than one visitor at a time into the room; so Brother Walters had to leave his companion in the hallway. He anointed Bill with oil and then laid his hands on his head and blessed him with health and strength—and that he would be made whole that very day.
Shortly afterward the doctor returned with a paper for me to sign. It was an autopsy consent. I refused, and he said he would be back. Ten minutes later I looked up to see my child sitting up, completely well! He climbed out of bed as if nothing had ever been wrong and padded out into the hall as fast as his little legs would carry him—his usual speed. He ran up to the doctor and grabbed him around the legs. The doctor, who was always composed and cool, looked down in astonishment. Then he picked Bill up and came running down the hall to me, laughing and crying at the same time. He shouted, “It’s a miracle!”
I agreed.
I don’t know who called Brother Walters to administer to Bill. I only know he was sent by God.

My military experience came after I had returned from a mission. My companions knew that I had been a missionary, which meant, to them, a minister. I remember lying in my tent, bunked next to a young fellow from Tennessee who would often look at me with a wondering expression. When I would ask him what was troubling him, he would say: “I can’t believe it. As I grew up through my childhood, ministers were people so highly respected that we hardly dared speak to them, and here I find myself sleeping next to one in this tent.”

They seemed to sense they were laboring on a House of the Lord and approached their task prayerfully. For example, “When they started to assemble the massive steel beams framing the temple, which were required to meet earthquake standards, the workmen gathered themselves in a group and offered a prayer that they would be able to do the work in the best possible manner and that no one would be injured as the section beams were put in place. In the years of construction, not a single injury was sustained.”

Our older son, Cornel, had stamped in out of the snow for a brief visit after a late afternoon class when the call came. Automatically reaching for the phone, as he had done so often before his recent marriage, he listened briefly, asked, “Where are you?” and began to zip up his parka, still beaded with melting snow. He said, “Okay,” and hung up.
To our questioning looks he answered simply, “Ryan can’t get his car started and needs a push.” At the door he suddenly grinned and said, “I wonder if every family gets as much mileage out of Proverbs 17:17 as we do.”

One evening my missionary companion and I knocked on the door of a young man who was an international student studying at one of London’s many universities. He invited us in, and we explained that we were missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He seemed eager to learn more about the Restoration of the gospel, so we testified of the Prophet Joseph Smith and told him about a sacred book from our Heavenly Father called the Book of Mormon. We emphasized that it was sacred because it testifies of Jesus Christ.
We explained that he could know for himself of its truthfulness and offered to give him a copy. As I handed the Book of Mormon to him, he got up from his chair and left the room without saying a word. I held the Book of Mormon in my hand momentarily, and my companion and I looked at each other in puzzled silence, wondering what to do. I put the book down on the table.
We could see our young friend in the kitchen washing his hands and drying them on a fresh towel. He came back into the room and picked up the Book of Mormon from the table and simply said, “My people always wash their hands before they touch something sacred.” Tears came to my eyes as I watched this young man open the Book of Mormon for the first time and turn its sacred pages with his clean hands.
I was sent on a mission to teach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, yet I was the one being taught by this young man with his clean hands. In many cultures—including my own—it isn’t necessary to wash our hands before reading the scriptures, but his simple gesture of respect was a reverent and powerful reminder of the sacredness of the Book of Mormon.

The Saints are without the Prophet Joseph. Persecution intensifies. Mobs begin to burn Nauvoo. The whole auditorium glows red, and there is a wind rippling through the backdrop curtains that makes the stage look like flames enveloping the city beautiful.
“Our place is not in Nauvoo. There’s another place for us.”
The Saints begin the trek, moving across the stage in deliberate and solemn strides. They leave a lush green city with sturdy brick homes and fine furniture that they had labored hard to obtain to face the rigors of weather and walking day after day after day. The physical strain and, in some cases, deprivation takes many lives. It is so with little Bess Wooley. The child is with her parents as they cross the American prairie, and one day she dies in the arms of her father.

Our relationship with Deity is something we need to work on constantly. President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) once observed: “I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, edited by Edward L. Kimball [1982], 135).

May I relate a personal experience from the Peterson family. Several years ago after wrestling with the problem for some time, my wife and I, sensing the urgency of our parental charge, devised a new battle plan. You see, up to that point, Satan had been winning the battle of “Should we or should we not read the scriptures together in the Peterson home?” We had tried off and on for years with no sustained success. Our big problem was that someone or something always interrupted our schedule. With a 17-year spread in our children’s ages, we felt we had a special challenge.
As we studied and prayed over it, we concluded that the best time for our family of girls to read would be when no one else wanted our time. Since the older girls had to be in seminary by 7:00 a.m., our controllable time had to be early. We decided on 6:15 in the morning. We knew it would be a challenge to get teenage support. The idea was good, but its implementation was most difficult and it still is. Our family is still struggling.
Our great new plan had its birth one hot August day in Phoenix, Arizona. My wife suggested we give them a whole month to think about it and prepare for it. We went about their mental preparation in a very positive way. The plan was to start the first day of school in early September. To their protests that it was impossible to have their heads all filled with rollers in time, or that it was not likely they would feel happy so early in the morning, or that they might be late to seminary, or not have time to eat breakfast either, we replied very cheerfully that we knew they were clever enough to cope with any minor problems that might arise.
At its announcement, we also told the girls we had been praying for guidance in this family problem. This made it easier, because they had been schooled in prayer and had been taught not to question its results.
The historic first morning finally came. My wife and I got up a little early so we would be sure to be wide awake and happy. Our initial approach must meet with success. We entered each bedroom singing and happy at the thought of the prospects before us. Purposely we went to one special bedroom first. Here slept a daughter who would be able to get up early but who couldn’t wake up before noon. We sat her up in bed and then went to the others and started them all into the family room. Some stumbled, some fell, some had to be carried in, some slept through that first morning—and I might say through subsequent mornings too.
Little by little, we have learned over the years what reading the scriptures 15 minutes each morning can do for our family. You should know that we don’t try to discuss and understand each point we read. We try to pick out only a couple of thoughts each morning to digest. You should also know we still have to struggle with the plan’s performance, even though we now have only two children at our home.
Can you imagine how a parent would feel to ask a little girl, “What did King Benjamin mean when he said, ‘When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God’?” (Mosiah 2:17.) And she would respond, “I suppose he means that I shouldn’t be selfish and should do little things for my sisters because it makes Heavenly Father happy—and Daddy, I want him to be happy with me, so I’m going to try harder.” Innumerable are the blessings that will accrue to the family that persists in this noble effort of reading the scriptures together daily.

When I was about five years old, while my parents built our home, we lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, in an apartment owned by my Aunt Elizabeth. We had heavy snows that winter and then a quick thaw, which caused a tremendous flood to sweep through the area where we lived, bringing rocks and sand with it.
When the flood waters were finally gone, my aunt gave me the task of shoveling the dirt it left behind into a little red wagon and unloading it onto a big mound, which was later hauled away. She paid me one or two cents a wagonload. That was how I earned a large part of the money to buy myself a Red Flyer wagon. What a great thing that was! I thought it was a privilege to have a job. My aunt could have had somebody else do it a lot more quickly and easily, but the experience helped me learn the value of working hard. This lesson has helped me at school, in the mission field, at work, and in other areas of my life.

Russell M. Nelson
(81) After a group of exiled Saints pass a “merry night” in the cold, Eliza R. Snow observes that “Saints can be happy under every circumstance.”

Kathleen Armstrong said, “Because I was an Osmond fan, I read an article about them and found out that they were Latter-day Saints. ‘What is that?’ I wondered, so I investigated further and was later baptised.”

A short time ago little Ruby was born into our family. As I looked into her sweet face, I marveled at the knowledge that before she came to earth, she lived in the presence of our Heavenly Father. She had accepted His great plan of happiness and chose to follow Him and Jesus Christ, our Savior. Because of her decision, she was permitted to come to earth to experience mortality and progress toward eternal life. With her spirit united with her body, Ruby has entered a time of learning in which she can prove herself, choose to follow Christ, and prepare to be worthy of eternal life.
Ruby came to this earth pure, but as part of the plan, she will face trials and temptations and she will make mistakes. Through our Savior’s Atonement, however, Ruby can be forgiven, receive a fulness of joy, and be pure again—ready to live forever in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
A few hours after her birth, I was privileged to hold this precious child in my arms. I said to her mother, "Oh, we have to teach Ruby how to be a virtuous woman, pure and priceless as her name implies."
Her mother replied, "I am starting today."