Gospel Story Finder

The young missionary had spent the morning scrubbing the floors of the mission home, washing and ironing his shirts, and mending his socks. Then, since it was preparation day, he had decided to visit the university library. Finding nothing of particular interest in the book stacks, he pulled out his own copy of the Doctrine and Covenants and began reading section 76—Joseph Smith’s vision of heaven.
He became so absorbed in the Prophet’s description that he didn’t notice the passing of time, and it was night when he finally left the library. As he walked across the spacious lawn toward the streetcar, he looked up into the heavens: “There was no moon, but the sky was clear. … The Southern Cross and other brilliant stars, visible in the Southern Hemisphere, shone with unusual grandeur. As I gazed in wonder, I seemed to see beyond the stars the things I had been reading about. I could not then and I have not been able since to recall walking across the lawn.”
Retelling this experience in 1965, President Romney said: “Since that Saturday evening in Sydney, Australia, forty-three years ago, I have never been content to view life through the lens which reveals only the narrow span between mortal birth and death. I cannot remember of having made, during the intervening years, a single voluntary major decision or judgment without testing it by my knowledge of revealed truth.” (Address delivered at Brigham Young University, 27 May 1965, p. 20.)

Some time ago I had a delightful conversation with an impressive 16-year-old young woman. I discovered she was the only member of the Church in her high school. I asked her, “What is the most difficult challenge you face being the only member?”
She was thoughtful and gave a very astute answer: “It is believing something is true when everyone else believes it is false, and believing something is wrong when everyone else believes it’s all right.”
I asked her a second question: “Do you know Joseph Smith is a prophet of God?” Her response was, “I think so, but I’m not sure.”
This morning I would like to ask the youth throughout the Church, “Do you know?”
The first time I knew I had a testimony of Joseph Smith was when I was just 11 years old and my parents took me to Temple Square in Salt Lake City.
My favorite activity was to collect all the free stuff. I became very adept at working the system. I would ask, “Is this free?” After a positive response I would reach out my 11-year-old hand and say, “Thank you. Is that free too? Thank you!” On occasion someone might say, “No, I’m sorry; those cost five cents.” Undeterred, I would lower my head and, showing much disappointment, say, “Oh, I always wanted to read that pamphlet, but I don’t have any money. Thank you!” It worked every time. The truth is, I never read it. I just collected it.
However, on this particular trip, I was alone in our 1948 Chevrolet, waiting for my parents, when I became inescapably bored. In desperation I looked down at the seat and spotted my stack of free stuff. I picked up a pamphlet entitled Joseph Smith Tells His Own Story and began to read it.
I was riveted, and my heart was filled with joy. After completing it, I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror, and much to my surprise, I was crying. I didn’t understand then, but I understand now. I had felt a witness of the Spirit. My parents weren’t there. My sister wasn’t there. My Primary teacher wasn’t there. It was just me and the Spirit of the Holy Ghost.
Now, this can happen to you, and something similar probably already has.
When seeking a testimony, those of you born into the Church may be looking for some spectacular spiritual feeling different than anything you have ever felt before. You may have heard converts testify of their conversion and wonder if you’re missing something. One reason it seems so spectacular to them is that it is new.
You have had the same feelings your whole life during family home evenings, youth testimony meetings, seminary classes, scripture reading, and on many other occasions.
Our missionaries are trained to help investigators recognize when they are feeling the Spirit. I remember on numerous occasions stopping in the middle of an intense, spiritual discussion and saying, “Let’s pause for a moment and talk about what you are feeling right now. You’re feeling like we’ve reminded you of things you had forgotten. You’re feeling that we are telling you the truth. You’re feeling peace. You’re feeling the Holy Ghost.”
I remember teaching an extremely intelligent woman who had a hard time accepting anything until she had nailed down every intellectual loose end. However, at long last we heard her say, “I cannot deny this feeling any longer.”
She joined the Church and was very happy for the next few years, but she gradually let her intellectual doubts creep back in and ultimately left the Church.
Fifteen years went by, and she came to visit our family. We took her to Temple Square. As we started up the circular ramp leading to the statue of the Savior, she paused and tearfully said, “Here comes that feeling again. My heart still yearns for what my mind won’t accept!”
Once you have felt it, you can never forget it.
Spiritual witnesses come at a young age to those who are exposed to spiritual experiences. As parents, teachers, and leaders, we are good at making certain you understand the rules and commandments. We could improve on helping you gain a testimony of the principles and doctrine. Perhaps we could pause more often and help you learn to recognize the Spirit.
Once you recognize those feelings for what they are, your faith in them will increase. Soon you will find that you have developed a spiritual sixth sense which cannot be misled.
At 11 years of age, I knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I didn’t hear voices, see angels, or anything like that. What I felt was much more certain. My spiritual sense had been touched. I felt elation springing forth from the innermost part of my being, which is protected from all deceit. This spiritual sense vibrates only when activated by the Holy Ghost.
How does this spiritual witness feel? It is as difficult to describe as the scent of a rose or the song of a bird or the beauty of a landscape. Nevertheless, you know it when you feel it.
The scriptures give us some insights into these feelings:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy; and then shall ye know” (D&C 11:13–14).
Sometimes the feeling is like a memory. We first learned the gospel in our heavenly home. We have come to this earth with a veil of forgetfulness. And yet lingering in each of our spirits are those dormant memories. The Holy Ghost can part the veil and bring those things out of their dormancy. Often my reaction to a supposedly newfound truth is, “Oh, I remember that!”
“The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost … [will] bring all things to your remembrance” (John 14:26).
My young brothers and sisters, I invite you to “experiment upon my words” (Alma 32:27). Will you read and pray about the Joseph Smith story?
The wonderful thing about knowing it is true is that you know simultaneously that God the Father and Jesus Christ live and stand at the head of this Church today. I gained that knowledge when I was 11, and now I stand before you as an ordained especial witness of Jesus Christ and testify it is true. I also testify that the Lord wants you to know it is true, and He “will [reveal] the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Moroni 10:4). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

There was scarcely a dry eye in that packed audience as President Kimball spoke. He not only blessed and inspired the large congregation, and the brother on the stepladder, but also a sister in a wheelchair, as well. Sister Margarete Hellmann had suffered an ailment of the hip since youth. As the years came and went, the affliction brought her an ever-increasing burden of pain. Finally, she could walk only with the aid of a pair of crutches. To facilitate her travel from place to place, and to alleviate the terrible pain she keenly felt with every single step, some of the Saints contributed money and bought her a wheelchair. But this relief was short-lived. Soon, even sitting in her wheelchair was accompanied by almost unbearable pain. Then an inflammation of the nerves on the left side of her face further intensified her suffering. One day she heard the heartening news: the prophet of the Lord was to be in Dresden. She had one all-consuming desire—to attend the conference and touch the prophet.
She had faith and the absolute conviction that the prophet would not even have to take the time to lay his hands upon her head and give her a blessing. She felt assured that it would be with her as it was with a certain woman who, according to St. Mark, had suffered for twelve years and still grew worse. And “when she had heard of Jesus, … she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” This she did, and Jesus “said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” (See Mark 5:25–34.)
Sister Hellmann had asked her grandson, Frank, to bring her to the service at an early hour and position her wheelchair near the aisle where the prophet was to pass. This statement from her letter tells the rest of the story in her tender words: “When our prophet came close to me,” she wrote, “he warmly shook my hand and looked at me in the spirit of love, as did those who were with him. After that, I did not feel any more pain—not then, nor any to this day. That is the greatest testimony of my life!”

Elder Daniel Gifford was promised in his patriarchal blessing that he would serve closely with a General Authority while he was on his mission. He wondered how this would be when he received his mission call to Texas, where the mission president had only served two or three months. While he was in the Missionary Training Center listening to the final session of October general conference, he heard President Tanner announce that the next speaker would be Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and newly called president of the Texas San Antonio Mission. When Elder Gifford was later called to be an assistant to the president, he shared his patriarchal blessing promise with us. Do you think he has any question about whose work this is?

José felt Carmella nudge his ribs. “We’re going to be late for school!”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to go, anyway.”
“Why not?” Carmella’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “You like school.”
José sighed. “We’re having a review test in math today, and I’m afraid I’ll forget everything.”
Soon the children were waiting in the car for their father. When he got in and turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. The car just sat there.
“It’s probably the battery,” he said. He went back into the house to call an auto repair shop.
The bright blue tow truck arrived very quickly. Jim’s Auto Service was printed in red letters on its door. Out jumped a smiling man in a red cap and blue coveralls. Those, too, had his name on the front pocket.
“Now then, let’s see if we can get you folks on your way,” he boomed, looking under the hood.
“Is it broken?” asked José.
Jim shook his head. “Nope. It just needs a jump-start.”
“A jump-start!” Carmella giggled. “What a funny name. Do you jump up and down on it to make it go?”
“Now wouldn’t that be a sight?” Jim’s laughter rumbled in his chest. “We want to start it—not crush it!” Then he explained, “If the battery is low, sometimes it needs help to turn the motor over.”
Carmella hopped out of the car to watch, her wide brown eyes full of wonder. She’d never seen anyone turn over a motor before. “You must be very strong!”
“No, no!” he laughed. “We don’t actually turn it over. That’s just an expression. It means ‘start the motor.’ That’s what these are for.”
He hooked up fat black and red cables between his truck and their car. “Once we get it running, it’ll do just fine.”
Sure enough, the motor was soon humming with quiet power.
“You’d better bring it in for a battery charge, though,” Jim cautioned.
José and Carmella got to school in plenty of time, but that didn’t cheer up José. He felt just the way he had when he had the flu last winter—miserable! His stomach seemed all knotted up, and his head ached. He just knew that he wasn’t going to pass the test.
When he and Carmella got home that afternoon, their mother gave them each a hug. They kissed their brother, Miguel, who drooled happily at them from his high chair, and sat at the kitchen table for their after-school snack.
“How did your big math test go, José?” Mother asked. “I know you were nervous about it.”
“Boy, was I ever! And when Miss Chung passed out those test papers, I couldn’t remember anything I’d learned. I thought if I could just get started, I’d be OK, but I kept looking at the test and all the problems seemed so hard. It was as though I couldn’t move. I sure couldn’t think!”
“What’d you do?”
“I said a prayer. Right away, I found a problem I could solve. Then I finished another one and another one. Everything came back into my mind. Pretty soon I was done. It wasn’t so awful, after all.”
“Wow!” Carmella was impressed. “That was neat! What did you say in your prayer?”
José licked the milk-moustache from his upper lip. His eyes twinkled. “I told Heavenly Father that I could really do all right if He would please give me a jump-start—and He did!”

Will W., 14, from San Francisco, California, USA, probably doesn’t do many spiritual belly flops because he believes in making choices before the last minute.
“If you make the choice to do or not to do something before it even comes up, it makes things a lot easier,” he says. “Say you went to a party and someone offered you a drink. If you had to choose right then to take it or not, you might be tempted to take it. But if you had decided a long time ago to say no if anyone ever offered you a drink, you’d feel a lot surer of yourself. You wouldn’t even have time to be tempted. You’d say no because you had already decided to a long time ago.”
The 2018 Mutual theme says, “Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me” (D&C 19:23). For Will, peace means feeling confident as he chooses the right and not worrying about negative comments from others. That peace comes to Will from making the decision to listen to—and obey—Jesus Christ’s words in advance.
“Sometimes kids give me a hard time for what I do or don’t do, but it doesn’t really bother me because I decided a long time ago that that is how I would live,” he says.
One thing Will and his family decided a long time ago was to keep the Sabbath day holy. That got a little tricky when Will made an elite soccer team. But, like Nephi, his family believes that “the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1 Nephi 3:7).
To Will, soccer is just about everything. As his mom says, “He eats, drinks, sleeps, and just loves, loves soccer. It’s his passion and he’s very good.”
So when Will made one of the highest-ranking teams in the area, he was thrilled. The only problem: the team played many of its games on Sundays. Most teams wouldn’t accept a player who would miss every Sunday game. Choosing not to play on Sundays could mean losing his spot on the team.
But Will had made that decision a long time ago. He would keep the Sabbath day holy.
Will and his family prayed together and told Heavenly Father of their desire to keep His commandments and asked for His help. Then Will and his mother talked to the coaches of the team about their beliefs. To their surprise, the coaches wanted Will on the team even if he didn’t play on Sundays!
“I know that when I honor the Sabbath, I am blessed,” Will says. “I may not get to play as many games as the others, but I’ve seen blessings, like Sunday games suddenly getting changed to another day. I also think I play better because I have a day of rest.”
It gets better. Will soon found out that one of his teammates was also member of the Church. After a few months of playing together, the other boy followed Will’s example and stopped playing on Sunday too.
If you feel like you are not receiving the blessings of obedience, that might be because you can’t see all that Heavenly Father has in store for you. Deciding to listen to Christ’s words and to serve the Lord is always the right decision, so make it now!
“I plead with you to make a determination right here, right now, not to deviate from the path which will lead to our goal: eternal life with our Father in Heaven,” said President Thomas S. Monson (“The Three Rs of Choice,” Oct. 2010 general conference).
Don’t make your life a game of “Jump or Dive.” Don’t risk spiritual or any other kinds of belly flops. Decide right now to follow Jesus Christ and enjoy the peace He brings into your life.

“Sarah, your father needs my help with the planting for a few hours this morning. Would you please take care of John and Laura for me? It would be a big help to us. I would like you to finish washing the breakfast dishes for me, too, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Ten-year-old Sarah was annoyed and frustrated by her mother’s request. She had wanted some time by herself today so she could finish the poem she had started last week. Sarah had gotten the idea for the poem when she had seen a mother robin feeding her tiny babies in the nest outside her bedroom window. She had just started on the poem that day when she had had to stop and help her mother.
Sarah could see, however, that her mother really needed her help again today, so she answered, “All right, Mama, I’ll help you. But do I always have to be the one to take care of the children? Isn’t there anyone else who can do it? John’s almost six. Isn’t he old enough to help out with some of the work?”
Mother smiled and replied, “John and Laura really do need someone older to take care of them. We don’t want to take advantage of your good nature, dear, but I always have a calm, secure feeling when I know you are home taking care of things. We love you and appreciate your help.” Mother kissed the children and quickly left the house.
“Sarah, why don’t you like to watch us?” asked Laura, her dark eyes flashing. “John and I are always good.”
Sarah looked at her four-year-old sister and tried to smile. “I know you’re good, Laura. It’s just that I wanted to finish writing a poem I started. I want to be a writer when I grow up, and I’ll never be any good if I don’t have time to practice. Will you and John go outside and play while I clean up the kitchen, please?”
“We’ll go outside if you tell us a story first. Your stories are always good,” said John.
“Not now. I’m just not in a storytelling mood,” Sarah replied.
The two younger children knew better than to bother Sarah when she had something on her mind, so they went outside. With a sigh Sarah began to wash the breakfast dishes. She watched the soapy water cover the plates in the large dishpan and thought about her life. Here she was, ten years old, and all she really knew how to do was wash dishes and take care of Laura and John. Would she ever have time to learn to be a real writer, like the people who wrote the books and poems she loved to read?
After the last dish was put away, Sarah hurried outside. She found Laura and John and told them a story she had written for a school assignment. Then it was time to fix lunch for the three of them. Just as they finished eating, Mother returned.
“The kitchen is so clean, Sarah! What would we ever do without you? Would you like to walk into Kirtland and meet Mary when she gets out of school? I won’t need you until later this afternoon.”
Sarah was delighted. There were a lot of things she needed to straighten out in her mind, and this would give her a chance to do it. Walking into Kirtland, she was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hardly noticed the temple. Usually when Sarah walked into town, she gazed at the beautiful temple and admired the sparkly outside walls. Her mother had given some of their best china to the Church building committee. Their dishes, along with those of other members, were ground up and mixed with the plaster for the outside walls so that the temple would always sparkle in the sun.
Not far from the temple was a small building that was used as a school for young ladies. Sarah’s best friend, Mary, attended the school. Mary often talked about her teacher, Sister Snow, and the exciting things she taught. Sarah had seen Sister Snow many times at church and thought she was beautiful with her dark hair and eyes. Sarah hoped that she, too, would someday be taught by this fine lady. She knew that Sister Snow was a great poet, and she wanted to grow up to be just like her. As Sarah waited for Mary to come out of school, she wondered how Sister Snow had ever found the time to learn to write poetry. Girls and women had so much to do around the house every day.
“Sarah, what are you doing here?” Mary asked smilingly, interrupting her friend’s thoughts.
“Mother let me leave the house for a while. May I walk home with you?”
“Oh, you know you may. I want to tell you about our lesson in school today. Sister Snow told us about her early life. Did you know that she had a lot of younger brothers and sisters and that she always had to take care of them? She told us today that no matter how hard she worked, she always made time for her writing because it was important to her. When she was only twenty-two, she was asked to write a poem in tribute to President Thomas Jefferson and President John Adams when they both died on the same day. Her poem was published, and Sister Snow could have been famous if she had wanted to be! But she told us that such things were not important and that she would much rather write for the people she loved.”
Sarah was silent as they continued walking. When they reached Brother Whitney’s store, they went in. Sarah had brought several pennies with her from home, and she bought them some candy.
As they were sitting on the porch of the store eating their candy, Sarah said, “I’m glad you told me about Sister Snow’s life. If she could do all of the things she had to do in a family with younger brothers and sisters and still become a great poet and writer, so can I. If I do everything I’m supposed to do every single day, I can still find a little bit of time to do what I want to do. I’m going to become a great lady and a great poet just like Sister Snow. Come on, Mary. I want to get home. If Mama doesn’t need me, I’m going to work on my poem.”

One young woman allowed a young man to kiss her and later discovered that he had also kissed someone else he was dating. She felt betrayed. Why? Because his expressions of affection didn’t carry the level of commitment she thought they did. This kind of miscommunication often leads to hurt feelings and tears. President Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency, cautioned, “Men, take care not to make women weep, for God counts their tears.”2

Had this couple communicated better in words what expressions of affection mean, they would have postponed the sharing of affection and avoided the heartache that comes when it appears that one has lied with his actions.

I hated school. There was too much homework. It was too hard, and my grades were bad. I thought dropping out was the best thing to do, so I did.
With no high school diploma or GED, I couldn’t get a job. I couldn’t get into the armed forces. I was really having a hard time.
I decided to get my GED, and it took me seven years. Now I know that dropping out was a stupid idea.
Finish school. You’ll be glad you did.
Blake Combe, 25Orofino, Idaho

My aunt sent me a crisp one dollar bill for my birthday. It was in a card with an unusual message:
Dear Matt,Please share this dollar with as many people other than your family as you can. Try to do it without them knowing it. I know that you’ll have a happy birthday if you do. Please let me know what happens.
Love,Aunt Maureen
I was very puzzled. How could I share one dollar with many people? When I asked Mom about it, she said it might help if I traded the dollar bill for change. Then I’d have more pieces of money to share. So I gave her the crisp dollar bill and she gave me ten pennies, two quarters, two dimes, and four nickels.
First, I took two of the nickels and put them into a tithing envelope. I knew that my tithing could help a lot of people and that they wouldn’t know who it came from. So I felt good about that. Now I had ninety cents left.
Aunt Maureen wanted me to let her know what happened, so I asked Mom for a card and wrote:
How I spent my birthday dollar
10¢ for tithing
I looked at the rest of the money and thought hard, but I couldn’t figure out what to do with it.
Mom needed to run some errands, so I put the money in my pocket and went with her. I hoped some ideas would come to me while we were out.
We had just gotten on the bus, when the man in front of us tried to give the bus driver a dollar bill. The driver told him, “It’s fifty cents in exact change only, sir.”
I guess the man didn’t have it, because he looked sad and turned to get off the bus. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my two quarters, and gave them to him. “Here’s the money,” I said.
The man looked surprised but then smiled at me and said thank you twice!
I felt great! After Mom and I sat down, I pulled the card out of my pocket and wrote:
50¢ to a nice man for bus fare
Now I had ten pennies, two dimes, and two nickels left. I wondered what I would do with them.
When Mom and I got off the bus, we walked to the market. On the way, one of the parking meters changed from white to red. A woman was frantically searching her purse for change to put into the meter. I heard her mutter, “Why can’t I find that dime—I know I had one!”
I knew just what to do! I gave her one of my dimes. When she protested, Mom explained why she had to take it. She did, and even though I hadn’t done it without her knowing, I still felt good inside.
While mother was shopping, I wrote on my card:
10¢ for a lady at a parking meter
Now I had ten pennies, one dime, and two nickels left.
Since it was my birthday, we stopped at the ice-cream shop on the way home. I ordered a double-scoop of mint chocolate chip. While we were waiting for our cones, I heard a little girl crying. I turned and saw a lady cleaning up spilled ice cream on the floor. “I’m sorry you dropped it, honey,” she was saying to the little girl. “You can have the rest of my cone.”
“How much is a child’s cone?” I asked the man serving ice cream.
“Twenty-five cents,” he said. So I gave him my two nickels, my dime, and five pennies. I asked him to get the little girl another cone and to promise not to tell her who bought it. The little girl was so excited to have another cone, she did a dance. I grinned so hard I thought my face would break.
When we got back on the bus, I wrote on my card:
25¢ for ice-cream cone
Mom leaned over and patted me on the knee. “I’m proud of you! I know that Aunt Maureen will be too. And Heavenly Father is always pleased when you’re kind to others. Has this been a happy day for you?”
“Yes—I didn’t know I could help so many people with just one dollar!” I pulled out the rest of my money. “But what can I do with my last five pennies?”
Mom tapped me on the arm and pointed out the window of the bus. We were coming to our stop, and there on the corner was a lemonade stand. A little girl and boy were sitting behind a sign that said: 5¢ A GLASS.
“Do you think the bus driver likes lemonade?” I asked my mother.
“I’m sure he does.”
She was right. And so was Aunt Maureen. My dollar was gone, but giving it away made it one of my happiest birthdays ever.

Young men and women, you can be a great influence for good in your homes as you help to achieve worthy family objectives. I shall never forget the family home evening years ago in which the name of each member of our family was placed in a hat. The name you picked from the hat would be your “secret friend” for the week. You can imagine the love that filled my heart when I came home that Tuesday after work to sweep out the garage, as I had earlier promised, and found it cleanly swept. There was a note attached to the garage door which read, “Hope you had a good day—your secret friend.” And on Friday night, as I turned down my bed, I uncovered an Almond Joy, my favorite candy bar, wrapped carefully in scotch tape and plain white paper, with a note: “Dad, I love you a lot! Thanks, your secret friend.” Then to top it off, after returning home from a late meeting Sunday evening, I found the dining room table beautifully set, and written on the napkin by my place were the words “SUPER DAD” in big bold letters and in parentheses, “Your secret friend.” Hold your family home evenings, for this is where the gospel is taught, a testimony is gained, and the family is fortified.

A valiant mother courageously fighting a debilitating illness spent untold hours laboriously completing a large, challenging needlepoint work of art. It was a gift to a couple experiencing trials. For the couple it is a priceless treasure, a constant reminder of the precious fruits of resolute effort in the face of adversity, an enduring message of hope bound in the bonds of pure love and willing sacrifice.

I am not a great letter writer, but I enjoy receiving letters and keeping them so that I can reread them from time to time. As a matter of fact, I have a pen pal. Her name is Liv. Liv is a young woman from Harrisburg, North Carolina. She was eleven years old when we met. Shortly after we met, she wrote me a letter, and we have been exchanging letters ever since. Liv is now sixteen. Recently I received a thick envelope from her. Inside was a letter and a stack of different-sized cutout paper hearts. On each paper heart was a quote, scripture, or inspirational message that Liv said had helped her through this difficult pandemic period.

Liv wrote:
Back when everything was initially shut down because of the virus, I went through a hard time. I felt a lot of despair and sadness, and I worried that the world, which is already pretty evil and dark, was going somewhere even worse. I felt hopeless. But I tried to submit to Heavenly Father. I pleaded with Him to give me hope and light in the darkness. And as a result, I had multiple unforgettable spiritual experiences that filled me with empowerment, courage, and faith. My well of hope, which had been emptied, was filled back up by the love of God. . . . I [am] so grateful to God for giving me this brightness of hope.

Liv’s “heart-filled” messages could not have come at a better time for me. It was a very charitable act of service.

Just outside Omaha, Nebraska, in the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery stands a monument commemorating the suffering of the Saints at Winter Quarters and honoring the faith and dedication of these Mormon pioneers. These statues portray a grieving father and mother holding each other in their arms looking down at the tiny grave of their child. There were many such graves along the trail—graves of babies, little children, young adults, even mothers and fathers who were laid to rest in often hurriedly dug shallow graves or just beneath the snow when the ground was too frozen to break.

Caroline and Jedediah Grant buried their four-month-old daughter, Margaret, near the Sweetwater River in Wyoming. With the grief over the loss of her baby weighing heavily on her soul, Caroline’s health soon began to decline. Suffering from the effects of cholera, her condition rapidly became critical. The camp fasted and prayed in her behalf, but it was apparent that Sister Grant would not recover. About midnight she rallied a little and called for her husband and daughter. Susan Noble remembered that Caroline looked at her husband, Jedediah, and whispered

“All is well! All is well! Please take me to the valley—Jeddy. Get Margaret—bring her—to me!” Brother Grant answered tenderly and meaningly as he sobbed with sorrow, “Yes, yes, Caroline. I’ll do my best. I’ll do my best.”

Jedediah built a coffin, placed the body of his wife in it, and then drove day and night the last 75 miles to the Salt Lake Valley. On September 30, 1847, he buried her a short distance from the pioneer fort then under construction. The next day Jedediah Grant took with him his friend Bates Noble and headed east on his promised mission to retrieve the body of his baby daughter, Margaret, and return her for burial next to her mother. After several days on the trail they arrived in the Sweetwater region where Margaret had been buried. Bates Noble recorded:

Another day or so and we were at the end of our eastward journey. As we intended making it back to Sweet Water for the night, we stopped our rig [near the campsite] where just a month previous a terrible night had been spent [digging a grave] in a driving thunder storm. We now stepped forward, carrying the box and shovels. A few paces from the little grave we stopped hesitatingly, set down our things and stood with eyes fixed before us. Neither tried to speak. An ugly hole replaced the small mound; and so recently had the wolves departed that every sign was fresh before us. I dared not raise my eyes to look at Jedediah. From the way I felt, I could but guess his feelings. Like statues of the wilderness we stood, grown to the spot, each fully realizing that nothing more could be done. After several minutes of silent tears, we quietly withdrew, carrying away again only that which we had brought.

Jedediah Grant could do no more. He had done his best, as he had promised. But now all he had left was his faith and hope in Christ.

It’s near enough to Christmastime that I am reminded of two little stories I would like to tell you. While our youngest daughter was in school, she came home just before Christmas and said to her mother, “Do you know what they tell me at school?” Her mother said no, and my daughter said, “Well, those kids tell me there’s no Santa Claus.”
My wife said, “What did they say about the presents?”
“They say their fathers and mothers give them to them.”
“What did you say?”
“Well, you don’t know my dad and mother.”

It was a cloudy day at the end of the summer. My friend Iveta and I were going to the older part of our city. We had been doing missionary work for quite a long time, finding members of the Church who had been converted before World War II. During the Communist rule in our small country of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech and Slovak republics), many of the Church members had died. But we had a list of names and went in search of the few remaining members of the Church.
We met a woman who told us her parents had been LDS before they passed away. We decided to visit her and ask what she knew about the Church—we thought she might be interested in the gospel, or would perhaps be able to refer us to others who had been related to Church members. When we got to her home we discovered that her grandmother was still living. She was so happy to see us—she was a Church member! She told us lots of stories about the Church before the war. Then she showed us an old picture of the Salt Lake Temple.
Her words gave me reason to think about my own life. Would I be able to distinguish the Spirit so easily after 50 years without contact with the Lord’s church? My heart was full of gratitude to Heavenly Father for leading us to this wonderful woman.
Doing missionary work in my spare time that summer taught me many great lessons. I now understand that the Lord will never forsake those who believe in him.

I served in the United States Navy toward the end of World War II. I was a seaman, the lowest possible rank in the navy. Then I qualified to be Seaman First Class, after which I qualified to be Yeoman Third Class.
World War II ended, and I was later discharged. But I made a decision that if ever I went back into the military, I wanted to serve as a commissioned officer. I thought, “No more mess kitchens for me, no more scrubbing the decks, if I can avoid it.”
After I was discharged, I joined the United States Naval Reserve. I went to drill every Monday night. I studied hard that I might qualify academically. I took every kind of examination imaginable: mental, physical, and emotional. Finally, there came the beautiful news: “You have been accepted to receive the commission of an ensign in the United States Naval Reserve.”
I gleefully showed it to my wife, Frances, and said, “I made it! I made it!” She hugged me and said, “You’ve worked hard enough to achieve it.”
But then something happened. I was called to be a counselor in my ward bishopric. The bishop’s council meeting was on the same evening as my navy drill meeting. I knew there was a terrible conflict. I knew that I didn’t have the time to pursue the Naval Reserve and my bishopric duties. What was I to do? A decision had to be made.
I prayed about it. Then I went to see the man who was my stake president when I was a boy, Elder Harold B. Lee (1899–1973), then of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I sat down across the table from him. I told him how much I valued that commission. In fact, I showed him the copy of the letter of appointment I had received.
Illustration by Paul Mann
After pondering the matter for a moment, he said to me, “Here’s what you should do, Brother Monson. You write a letter to the Bureau of Naval Affairs and tell them that because of your call as a member of the bishopric, you can’t accept that commission in the United States Naval Reserve.”
My heart sank. He added, “Then write to the commandant of the Twelfth Naval District in San Francisco indicating that you would like to be discharged from the reserve.”
I said, “Elder Lee, you don’t understand the military. Of course they will decline to give me that commission if I refuse to accept it, but the Twelfth Naval District isn’t going to let me off. With a war brewing in Korea, a noncommissioned officer will surely be called up. If called back, I would rather go back as a commissioned officer, but I won’t if I don’t accept this commission. Are you sure this is the counsel you want me to receive?”
Elder Lee put his hand on my shoulder and in a fatherly way said, “Brother Monson, have more faith. The military is not for you.”
I went home. I placed a tear-stained commission back in its envelope with its accompanying letter and declined to accept it. Then I wrote a letter to the Twelfth Naval District and requested a discharge from the Naval Reserve.
My discharge from the Naval Reserve was in the last group processed before the outbreak of the Korean War. My headquarters outfit was activated. Six weeks after I was called to be a counselor in the bishopric, I was called to be the bishop of my ward.
I would not hold the position in the Church I hold today had I not followed the counsel of a prophet, had I not prayed about that decision, had I not come to an appreciation of an important truth: the wisdom of God ofttimes appears as foolishness to men.1 But the greatest single lesson we can learn in mortality is that when God speaks and His children obey, they will always be right.

Relying on prayer doesn’t mean that Lindsey and Stephanie don’t prepare for performances. Lindsey says she typically practices about two hours every day, but if she has a competition or performance coming up, she pushes it to three or four hours. As well as playing solos, the sisters play duets with each other or with their mother, so they need to practice together. Now that Stephanie is away from home at Harvard, coordinating their practicing is a challenge. They practice their pieces separately but make use of holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas when they are together to play their two-piano pieces. “A lot of two-piano playing isn’t just knowing the notes; it’s feeling the music together,” says Lindsey.

After Halloween, people’s attitudes toward me changed, and questions about my faith evolved into peers asking me for advice about their own lives. To my surprise, friends and acquaintances who had gotten over the initial shock of learning that I do not drink, smoke, or do drugs and that I am waiting to have sex until I’m married turned to me for guidance specifically on those topics.

I found myself reassuring friends who were feeling pressured into having sex that they had the power to choose, encouraging some to go to the school counselor to talk about mental health and addiction concerns, and even consoling someone who made a mistake that would likely lead to expulsion. I was baffled by the way many of my peers could transition from mocking me to seeking my advice.

Over time, I understood that being completely confident, open, and vulnerable about who I was drew others to me who were seeking a judgment-free space and a listening ear.

I am grateful for two of the many important lessons I learned that year. The first is that healthy laughter can dissolve apprehension and contention and is an excellent way to unify people. The second is that choosing to be confident in who you are brings remarkable opportunities to help others that would have never come otherwise.

There were many times when I wanted to hide my religion and be known for something else. But having a sense of humor and vulnerability about who I am allowed people to get to know me as Matteo, not just someone with different beliefs.

Having overcome her shyness, upon returning from her mission, Salamatu decided to give Zainu a chance and agreed to date him. It did not take her long to realize that Zainu “really wants me in his life. He wants us to make a family. He wants us to be together forever, not only here but in the life to come. He is the man for me!”
When Zainu told Salamatu he wanted to get married, she said, “If you really mean it, you need to go to my people.”
Like many young people, the Deens faced some big obstacles when thinking about marriage. Zainu explained, “One thing that makes us in Africa find it difficult to get married is that young people think about the cost of living. No job, nothing that can bring in income. Some of us, some of the young people in the church, have the mentality, ‘How can I get married? How can I feed my family? Where can I get money? Where can I start?’”
Zainu said, “In Africa setting of marriage, people think that before getting married you have to acquire everything. That is the mentality. I must get money first. I must get a house. I must get a car. So those are some of the . . . [barriers] to getting married.”
By the time Salamatu returned from her mission, neither one of them had a job even though Zainu had been looking and volunteering the entire time she was on her mission. They both had taught the principles of marriage and family on their missions. They knew what was right. The obstacles seemed very large.
That is when Zainu took the action he knew from two years of practice on his mission. He told Salamatu, “I want us to pray that I can have a job, any kind of job. Then I think we can proceed.”
He said, “All of a sudden, God heard our cry, and I got a job, a security job!”
The way to marriage seemed to open, but there was still a lot of preparation. As soon as Zainu got a job, Salamatu said, “When they pay you, we must take a small amount of the money, $300,000 Sierra Leones, and we will save it. In fact, you will not save it in your own account. You will open a small account for me so that you won’t have access to take from that money.”
Zainu thought, “$300,000? What can $300,000 Sierra Leones do for marriage? It’s too small.” He continued, “Well, as time goes on, $300,000; $600,000; $900,000; $1,200,000. It is true! It is working! Now we can get married.”
Zainu said that Salamatu was his motivation. When he felt, “We don’t have much,” she told me again, “We do it little by little.”
When Zainu was paid, they worked their plan. They took out a set amount to put into Salamatu’s account. Then they would buy one thing necessary for their future or for their wedding. “We go buy material,” Zainu said. “We buy two yards. We do not have money to buy six yards at once. We go buy two, and we keep it. This is how we do it. Little. Little. Little. Little.”
Just as they both encountered opposition when deciding to serve their missions, so too, the Deens had people questioning their decision to marry, suggesting they should spend their money on things, or they should wait until they had a better job. But Zainu said, “I am obeying commandments. ‘If you love me, keep my commandments’ (John 14:15), and marriage is a commandment. Marriage is ordained of God.”
Salamatu quickly added, “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1 Nephi 3:7).
She tells her young women that she wants them to go and serve the Lord and then get married. “The gospel blesses families so when you go out there and serve the Lord, the Lord will not only bless you, but even the families you leave behind, they will also receive the blessings.
“I also want to tell those who are struggling to marry that they should not struggle. They should not think about the worldly things that say ‘I have to do this; I have to get everything before I get married. Like me and my husband, we do not have plenty, but we have enough because the Lord is for us. The Lord always provides for us. The Lord always loves us. That is why we are so happy. We are so blessed. We have a handsome son. That is one of the blessings we have.”
Zainu added, “If we serve Him wholeheartedly, then there are blessings, which me and my wife, as a family are experiencing. People are coming now to us, wanting to know our way of living. These are the blessings. The Lord knows our hearts.”
“I want to testify that serving a mission is a good opportunity to serve the Lord with all our heart, might, mind and strength. Even when we return home, the things that we learn on a mission, we should not let them go away. If we apply them in our lives, we will receive a blessing, especially in our marriage. I always know that the Lord loves us. That is why He wants us to have a partner, not only here but even when we return to Him that we will always be happy. We should not be afraid of being married because the Lord, He stands for us wherever we are. If we are having any constraints, He will stand for us,” said Salamatu.
“I testify that marriage is ordained of God. As me and my wife have endeavored to follow the principles and the commandments of the Church, we are receiving the blessings,” finished Zainu.