Gospel Story Finder

As a young 12-year-old Scout, I received a gift of a much-desired addition to my Scouting equipment. It was a hatchet with a heavy leather cover! On the next overnight hike, we arrived in camp after dark, wet and cold from the heavy snow on the trail. All I could think about was building a big roaring fire. I immediately went to work chopping a fallen tree with my new hatchet. As I chopped, I was frustrated because it didn’t seem to be cutting very well. In my frustration, I worked harder. Disappointed, I returned to camp with only a few pieces of wood. By the light of someone else’s fire, I discovered the problem. I hadn’t taken the cover off the hatchet. I can report, however, the cover was chopped to shreds. The lesson: I became distracted with other things.

After finishing his service in the Brazil São Paulo North Mission in 2002, Ricardo Aurélio da Silva Fiusa used a PEF loan to earn a four-year degree in business administration.
“The fund has helped me grow up, prepare for work and marriage, and serve better in the Church,” says Ricardo. Like many PEF recipients, he was offered employment before he even finished his degree. “The fund has been a blessing in my life. I’m grateful to make monthly payments on my loan so that other people can use the fund as well.”
On his mission Ricardo learned to talk to people, study hard, and obey—qualities that have made him a good student and employee.
“A lot of my professors said there was something different about me that they couldn’t explain,” says Ricardo, who works in logistics for a company at Port Suape, south of Recife. “I told them it was because of my religious principles.” That answer has led to opportunities for Ricardo to talk with his professors and others about the Church.

Around then, the COVID-19 pandemic forced New Zealand into a lockdown, and all Church gatherings were suspended. “No one knew how long we would be required to shelter in place,” says Adele, “but the temple groundbreaking ceremony had to go on.” She needed to come up with an alternative for a live choir.
Adele researched the possibility of a virtual choir. “I put the idea to some professionals and was told that this kind of project would cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours.” It was disappointing news, which normally would have discouraged Adele, but this time was different. This time, “it wasn’t just anyone we were preparing for,” she said, “It was the Lord.” She persevered and reached out to a young filmmaker and musician in her stake: Brother Anthony Butters.
“What I loved about Anthony is that it didn’t occur to him that [something] couldn’t or shouldn’t be done.” Even though Anthony himself was not sure how to make a virtual choir happen, the challenge “piqued his interest,” Adele says. “He was willing to give it a go.”
They immediately got to work.
They knew that choir practices would be impossible during the lockdown, so they recorded the instrumentals and each vocal part of Adele’s musical arrangement for singers to learn at home. Then they put out a general call seeking members for their virtual choir.
Next, they had to somehow make sure—without the luxury of rehearsals—that all the singers learned their parts correctly. They also had to figure out how to record each singer’s vocal contribution, how to edit dozens of vocal recordings together so they sounded like one choir, and how to produce a performance video that could be broadcast on the day of the temple groundbreaking ceremony.
For Adele and Anthony, it was very much a matter of being “led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which [they] should do”1. But they pored over Google and YouTube tutorials, and courageously worked through all the obstacles that arose along the way.
The experience was difficult for the choir, too. To leave enough time for editing, the singers had only three weeks to learn the music, and then each had to make both an audio and a video recording. The challenge proved too much for some. Singing on your own is quite different from singing in a choir, and after hearing themselves recorded alone, Adele says, “I had a few messages asking if they could humbly bow out because they felt their voices weren’t good enough.” Other singers were okay with the vocal recording, but not so happy to be filmed, and several more were not comfortable at all using the technology required.
Those who persevered managed to send their audio recordings to Adele, whose next job was to begin editing them together. This required a quiet space in her house, so she had to convert a walk-in closet into a makeshift recording studio. Then, her computer and software broke down. In the middle of a nationwide lockdown, Adele couldn’t just go out and purchase new equipment.
“I became overwhelmed with the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to get my part of the job done on time,” Adele says. “I asked my husband for a priesthood blessing.”
A couple of hours later, she received an unexpected phone call from a friend in Hawaii. Adele told her friend about the difficulties she was having with the virtual choir, and he said, “I can help you.”
“I went silent, hoping I heard properly,” Adele says, “because I thought for sure he was too busy to do what would be a very tedious and time-consuming job. But he actually got excited about the challenge.”
This friend—Milton Kaka—called back the next day to announce that his boss at the Polynesian Cultural Centre, which was also in lockdown, was allowing him two weeks to work on this special project with Adele. Filled with gratitude, Adele sent a thank you message to Milton’s boss, who replied that this was the Polynesian Cultural Centre’s contribution “for our M?ori cuzzies.”
Milton joined forces with Adele and Anthony, and the audio and video recordings were finally stitched together—in enough time, even, to fix one final glitch: a singer’s footage that was missing.
Once that was sorted, the virtual choir performance video was ready to release for the temple groundbreaking celebration.

We bowed our heads as Travis said the closing prayer in our Sunday School class.
I had only lived in the ward for a few months, so I did not know much about Travis. I eventually became aware of his slurred speech and slightly awkward walk. From what I understood, he had been hit by a car when he was a small child. As a result, he had suffered some permanent brain damage.
From my first day in the ward, Travis had always been kind to me. He was happy, outgoing, and sincere. He never hesitated to strike up a conversation with me. Because his speech was sometimes slurred, I found it difficult to understand him at first. But gradually I became a better listener, and conversation became easier. However, every once in a while, Travis’s speech was nearly impossible to understand.
This was the case one day as he began to say the prayer. His words were garbled and incomprehensible. I felt a giggle swell up inside me. I sensed a chorus of laughter about to erupt from my classmates. It seemed hilarious that we couldn’t understand the prayer.
But the inclination to laugh suddenly ceased. Instead I felt tears pushing on my closed eyelids. I still could not understand Travis’s prayer, but I realized Heavenly Father did. Heavenly Father heard each word with perfect clarity. Travis knew this. He knew Heavenly Father understood his prayer. Travis prayed with sincerity and, I believe, a knowledge that he was in communication with God. Then I knew I could not understand Travis’s prayer with my ears, but I could with my heart.

I recall a few years ago seeing a drama enacted at the Salt Lake International Airport. On this particular day, I got off an airplane and walked into the terminal. It was immediately obvious that a missionary was coming home because the airport was full of conspicuous-looking missionary friends and missionary relatives.

I tried to pick out the immediate family members. There was a father who did not look particularly comfortable in an awkward-fitting and slightly out-of-fashion suit. He seemed to be a man of the soil, with a suntan and large, work-scarred hands.

There was a mother who was quite thin, looking as if she had worked very hard in her life. She had in her hand a handkerchief—and I think it must have been a linen handkerchief once, but now it looked like tissue paper. It was nearly shredded from the anticipation only the mother of a returning missionary could know.

Two or three younger brothers and sisters were running around, largely oblivious to the scene that was unfolding.

I found myself wondering as to who would be first to break away from the welcoming group. A look at the mother’s handkerchief convinced me that she would probably be the one.

As I sat there, I saw the returning missionary appear. I knew he was the one by the squeals of excitement from the crowd. He looked like Captain Moroni, clean and handsome and straight and tall. Undoubtedly he had known the sacrifice this mission had meant to his father and mother.

As he neared the group, sure enough, someone couldn’t wait any longer. It wasn’t the mother, and it wasn’t any of the children. It was Father. That big, slightly awkward, quiet, and bronzed giant of a man ran out and swept his son into his arms.

The missionary was probably 6?2? (188 cm) or so, but this big father grabbed him, lifted him off the ground, and held him for a long, long time. He just held him and said nothing. The boy put both arms around his dad, and they just held each other very tightly. It seemed like all eternity stood still. It was as if all the world had gone silent out of respect for such a sacred moment.

And then I thought of God the Eternal Father watching His Son go out to serve, to sacrifice when He didn’t have to do it, paying His own expenses, so to speak, costing everything He had saved all His life to give. At that precious moment, it was not too difficult to imagine that Father speaking with some emotion to those who could hear, “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). And it was also possible to imagine that triumphant returning Son saying, “It is finished” (John 19:30). “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Even in my limited imagination, I can see that reunion in the heavens. And I pray for one like it for you and for me. I pray for reconciliation and for forgiveness, for mercy, and for the Christian growth and Christian character we must develop if we are to enjoy such a moment fully.

One experience of wanting more holiness came for me in the Salt Lake Temple. I entered the temple for the first time having been told little of what to expect. I had seen the words on the building: “Holiness to the Lord” and “The House of the Lord.” I felt a great sense of anticipation. Yet I wondered if I was prepared to enter.
My mother and father walked ahead of me as we entered the temple. We were asked to show our recommends, certifying our worthiness.
My parents knew the man at the recommend desk. So they lingered a moment to speak with him. I went ahead alone into a large space where everything was sparkling white. I looked up at a ceiling so high above me it seemed an open sky. In that moment, a clear impression came to me that I had been there before.
But then, I heard a very soft voice—it was not my own. The softly spoken words were these: “You have never been here before. You are remembering a moment before you were born. You were in a sacred place like this. You felt the Savior was about to come into the place where you stood. And you felt happiness because you were eager to see Him.”
That experience in the Salt Lake Temple lasted only a moment. Yet the memory of it still brings peace, joy, and quiet happiness.
I learned many lessons that day. One was that the Holy Ghost speaks in a still, small voice. I can hear Him when there is spiritual peace in my heart. He brings a feeling of happiness and assurance that I am becoming more holy. And that always brings the happiness I felt in those first moments in a temple of God.

While on a business flight several years ago, I found myself seated next to a man from the Netherlands. I was eager to visit with him since I had served in Belgium and the Netherlands as a young missionary.
As we became acquainted, he gave me his business card with the unique job title of “professor of happiness.” I commented on his amazing profession and asked him what a professor of happiness did. He said he taught people how to have a happy life by establishing meaningful relationships and goals. I replied, “That’s wonderful, but what if you could also teach how those relationships can continue beyond the grave and answer other questions of the soul, such as what is the purpose of life, how can we overcome our weaknesses, and where do we go after we die?” He admitted that it would be amazing if we had the answers to those questions, and I was pleased to share with him that we do.

Illustration by Alex Nabaum
It all started when my dad left to go on a scuba diving trip with some friends. This was nothing new to my family—my dad loved scuba diving. But three days into his trip, my family received a call from the Coast Guard. They told us my dad was missing at sea and that they were doing everything they could to find him.
We started praying for a miracle, asking Heavenly Father to help us in any way He could. The answer to our prayer didn’t come in the way I imagined it. I prayed that my dad would somehow be alive, but eventually the Coast Guard called to give us the news: my dad had drowned and they had just found his body.
I was devastated. I fell down to my knees in anger, telling Heavenly Father this was not what I asked for. How could this be the answer to our prayers? I felt hopeless and overwhelmed with pain and loneliness. I was frustrated with God. I remember praying and asking, “Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” My best friend, role model, hero, and father was just taken out of my life. All I could think about was the future and how he wouldn’t be in it. I wanted him in my life, but I felt like that was no longer a possibility.
In that moment, I could’ve continued feeling angry, and I could’ve taken the path that Satan wanted me to take. But I realized that I had another choice. Instead of letting this trial destroy me, I could let it build me up and mold me into the person God wanted me to be.
This was such a life-changing realization for me. With a tremendous amount of faith, prayer, and scripture study, I chose to take the path that would lead me to my Father in Heaven. I felt comfort in knowing that although I wouldn’t physically have my dad, he would still be there. Many times since he died I’ve felt that my dad still loves me. Because of the plan of salvation, it is possible for him to still be in my life.
I’ve learned how important it is to build a relationship with our Heavenly Father and to have an eternal perspective. I wasn’t able to learn these things on my own, though—it was through my Savior and Heavenly Father. Because of them, I know that the plan of salvation is true. As challenging as life is, I’m grateful for every new experience. With new trials comes change. I’m changing in ways that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to if it weren’t for my trials. The Lord has a plan for each of us, and I know that if we trust Him and replace our fear with faith, we can learn to be happy in every circumstance.

Sister Jill Berrett, a full-time missionary in the Vancouver mission, tells of an investigator who toured the meetinghouse at the invitation of her 18-year-old friend. “While she was on the tour she became so excited she wanted to take the lessons right away. Her friend gave her a Book of Mormon, and another friend invited her to Young Women camp. She felt so loved and so involved that she began referring to the ward as ‘her ward’ even before she was baptized.”

The TET offensive was at its height in Vietnam when I received orders to report to Korea. I was to become Chief of Professional Services for the Surgeon of the U. S. Army and for the United Nations Forces. I had been at my new assignment only a month when a male nurse, no older than many of the other young soldiers I deal with daily, arrived at the same command.
My surprise came when he asked to see me alone one day and said, “Colonel, as near as I can see, there are only six ‘straight arrows’ in this entire command (‘straight arrow’ was a term the soldiers used to mean a man who maintained his chastity while in the service). You are the one I admire most. I desire very much to go back home to my wife and family pure, but I’m afraid I don’t have the courage and stamina to do it. Are you going to remain a straight arrow? How are you going to do it?”
I was a bit surprised by the abruptness of his inquiry, but I knew the answer. I had faced the same decision and found my own answer long before I had arrived in the Far East. I told him I would remain a straight arrow throughout my tour in Korea and forever. I said I didn’t know how strong I was because I didn’t allow myself to get in a position where I could be tempted. I also told him I didn’t anesthetize my conscience by drinking.
Then I bore my testimony about Church-related activities during my off-duty hours, noting that they provided a wholesome means for keeping me occupied.
As our conversation progressed, I realized that this young man deeply loved his wife. I told him that if he lost his virtue, it would somehow be conveyed in the next letter he wrote to her and that a great wall would begin to rise between them. He acknowledged that he knew this to be true, and we both realized that we had seen it occur in the lives of our unchaste friends. We then made a contract. He promised to maintain his chastity as long as I maintained mine. We attempted to involve others in a similar agreement, but no one wanted to join us.
About two months later, my friend returned to my office. “Well, Colonel,” he said, “there are now only four straight arrows left in this outfit.” Shortly after that he came again to tell me that the number was down to three. When I had just four months remaining to finish my duty in Korea, he came in one day and said, “It’s down to you and me.” I asked him if he was going to make it. His reply? “Absolutely.”
When the time came for me to return to the United States, my friend faced one more month before he could rejoin his wife. We had often discussed the gospel and our friendship was a sturdy bond. We both wept as I bid him farewell. He assured me that he would do nothing during his last month that would jeopardize in any way the happiness he had worked for until now, not when he was so close to reaching his goal.
Even though that young man was not a member of the Church, he understood some vital lessons of life. He knew that it is necessary to set a goal in order to obtain it. Returning home clean and pure would require struggle, and he was willing to put forth the necessary effort. He also was humble enough to let someone else know about his objective so that he would have a person to turn to who could strengthen him during a moment of weakness.
The Savior would like to have a similar relationship with those he loves. He wants us to set our goals high, founded on his commandments. We can work with him by planning in advance what we hope to achieve and reviewing our goals with him regularly in prayer. Many of the other soldiers in our outfit thought about remaining straight arrows. However, this young fellow and I were the only two who succeeded, and there was a reason why. The others succumbed in a moment of weakness. We accomplished our goal by planning what we would do in advance.

Amy bounced up and down in her seat.
“What are you so excited about?” Mom asked, smiling at her from the front of the car.
“It’s England Day!” Amy squealed. Mrs. Harvey’s second-grade class had been learning about countries around the world. Amy had already learned to do the Mexican hat dance and sing a song in Japanese. Today her class was having a special party with lots of English food.
“Your ancestors joined the Church in England,” Mom reminded her. “They were very brave and stood up for what they believed in.”
“Today I’ll pretend to be just like them. It’ll be fun!” Amy said happily.
When she reached her classroom, Amy stared in awe. The school chairs were arranged in a circle around a table filled with warm crumpets, lemon custard, and raspberry jam. There was even a bowl of English toffee! Amy couldn’t wait for the party to start.
But then Amy noticed something. At the back of the table, a small, blue teapot was labeled TEA. Amy felt a knot form in her stomach.
Mrs. Harvey clapped her hands for the children to settle down. “Class, take a seat!” she sang out. “Today we’re having a very special party—a tea party! In England, people drink tea and eat crumpets as a snack. Who can tell me what a crumpet is?”
Amy’s classmates eagerly raised their hands, and one explained that a crumpet is a small cake. But Amy just sat in her seat feeling sick. Tea! She knew that tea and coffee were bad for her body. A commandment in the Word of Wisdom said not to drink them. The knot in her stomach kept growing. If she refused, what would her teacher and classmates think?
Then Amy thought of a better question. What would Jesus think? What would her ancestors think? Amy remembered Mom saying her ancestors were brave people who stood up for what they believed in. They followed Jesus Christ. They had been baptized in England, the same way Amy had been baptized. She still remembered that warm, clean feeling from her baptism, and how she always wanted to choose the right.
Slowly the knot loosened, and she knew what she had to do.
When Mrs. Harvey came to pour her some tea, Amy put her hand over the cup. “No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t drink tea. May I have a glass of water instead?”
“Of course you may,” Mrs. Harvey said, and she continued down the row.
As Amy drank her water and ate a crumpet dripping with jam, she felt warm inside. She had obeyed the Word of Wisdom, and—like her ancestors—she had been brave and stood up for what she believed.

One time we were talking about the Savior’s Atonement, and I raised my hand. I just told how thanks to His Atonement, Jesus Christ not only frees us but can also help us become closer to Himself and to God. I talked about my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and how it has been strengthened as my understanding of the Atonement has grown. After class, a man came up to me and thanked me for my comments. He told me he had never thought about things the way I had said them and really appreciated my insight.

Seito no michi: There must have been problems involved in the building of the temple because of its unique nature.
Mr. Nakajima: Yes. Because the building differed completely in purpose from general commercial buildings, apartment buildings, office buildings, and so forth, we were unable to proceed according to the construction methods that we have used in the past. In this sense we did have a great deal of difficulty. Assembling the tower and placing the oxen which support the baptismal font caused special headaches. The tower was constructed first in parts that were assembled later; and the oxen statues weighed nearly one ton apiece and had to be lowered carefully down to the basement level with an oil pressure crane. We were also forced to alter the original building plans with regard to structure and design on a few points in order to conform to Japan’s climatic environmental conditions as well as legal standards.

America was deep in the economic depression of the 1930s. I was one of several small children in our family, and our father had been unemployed for many months. There was no government assistance for the unemployed, and the Church welfare program was not yet in operation. Our needs were many. Some might have said we were destitute. Though I was only a child, I felt the anxiety and concern of my parents.
Each morning we knelt together as a family, and each one in turn led our prayer. One memorable morning it was Mother’s turn. She described some of our immediate needs, and then she thanked our Heavenly Father for the privilege of living the law of tithing. I immediately experienced a feeling of comfort and assurance. Living the law of the tithe was a privilege and would bring blessings. I did not doubt it because my mother knew it. Those feelings have remained and intensified throughout my life.

Quietly the ten-year-old girl tiptoed toward the big oak tree. Her bare feet stepped lightly on freshly fallen leaves. A twig snapped. The girl stopped a moment, hoping the boy on the other side of the tree had not heard. There was no sound.
The girl moved closer. Soon she stood beside the boy and, without warning, grabbed the slate shingle he held in his lap.
“Hey, what—”
Before the boy could say another word, Sarah Lincoln waved the shingle high in the air. “Look at this, everyone,” she teased. “This is my worthy brother and his shingle for writing. You ask what my worthy brother is worth? Why, look at his shingle. He has written his name again and again. Surely he must fancy he is worth a giant treasure.”
Eight-year-old Abe jumped up and grabbed his shingle board. “You are always teasing!” he scolded. “You might do well to practice your own writing.”
Sarah laughed. “If I did, I’d write something better than my name—or yours. Vanity brings pain, dear brother.”
Still smiling, she ran off into the Kentucky woods. Abe sat down again, looking at his name on the shingle board.
“That Sarah,” he said to himself. “She’ll always be a tease.”

Nellie and her sister eventually moved south from the Salt Lake Valley to Cedar City. Here Nellie married William Unthank and reared their six children. With a leather apron slid under her damaged legs, Nellie crawled about their small home on her knees, keeping it spotless.
Nellie willingly worked at whatever she could to help provide for her family. Along with other jobs, she took in other people’s clothes to wash, and made articles to sell to add to the family income. If anyone offered food or assistance, she insisted on repaying the favor. As a way of showing gratitude, she gathered her children once a year to clean the church meetinghouse. While the boys carried water, the girls washed windows, and Nellie scrubbed the floors.
William carved wooden “cup feet” for Nellie, but they only irritated her never-healing stumps. Later, through donations, wooden legs were given to Nellie, but these she only wore on special occasions, because they added to her constant pain.
Despite poverty and pain, Nellie rarely complained. She had come to know her Heavenly Father in her sufferings. From the shoes provided for her bare feet, the carriage sent when she couldn’t go on, help given to her through a lifetime of affliction, Nellie Pucell Unthank knew she could count on the Lord.

I was born in 1929 in Meissen, Germany. My parents were simple people. My father was unemployed for many years, and my mother worked in a factory. When World War II began, my father was immediately called to military service and became a prisoner of war in 1945.
My parents were not happy in their marriage, and when my father returned from the war in 1947, they divorced. My world fell apart.
I was eighteen when my father left our apartment to live alone. I lived with my mother, but there were many conflicts. Kindness, warmth, and understanding were foreign to me, and I began to lose faith in the possibility of living a harmonious life. I gave my all to my job, but my life had no real meaning. As the years went by, an iron wall developed around my heart.
When my mother died in 1991, the emotional pains of my childhood flooded back to me. I felt forlorn, once again like a lost child.
Just two months later, the missionaries found me. They spoke quietly, with understanding, warmth, and kindness. The spirit they radiated penetrated my iron heart, and on 11 November 1991 I was baptized.
Since that day, peace has entered my heart. I have learned to pray, to fill my mind with the scriptures, and to live according to the Word of Wisdom. Of course I have much to learn, but I will gladly do it, because I know that our Heavenly Father is with me every day, helping and leading me. I have found peace at last.

Lanny and I never talked about religion. He was a Catholic, but his family only went to church at Christmas and Easter. He knew I was a Mormon, but for the last few years I’d been less and less excited about it. And Lanny knew better than to bring it up.
But one Saturday, the winter when we were 16, almost 17, something changed all that.
I was walking back from the store. My little brother, Tom, was behind me. He was tired and was kicking snowballs the plow had left along the middle of the road.
“Move it,” I told him.
“I um,” Tom whined deeply, his nose full. He looked up at me and gave me a pathetic smile. I rolled my eyes but bent down, and he ran and jumped onto my back. When we turned down our road, I began to jog. Behind me, my brother laughed and covered my eyes with his wet gloves.
“Hey!”
We spun and landed in a yaffle [a jumble] in the slushy snow in front of Lanny’s house.
“Huh, huh … huh, huh, huh,” Tom laughed.
That’s when I noticed them—a couple of bikes leaning up against the side of the O‘Briens’ house. It was strange. Who would ride bikes in one of our rare snowstorms? Then I noticed two figures in the O‘Briens’ window. Two guys in dark suits. Familiar faces.
Then it hit me. The missionaries were in Lanny’s living room, standing in front of the fire to warm themselves like they belonged.
“Cum onnnn,” said Tom. He was standing a couple of yards away, flapping his arms up and down.
“Yeah, yeah.”
I pulled myself away from the window, and we trudged the last few meters home.
On Saturday nights, Lanny usually stopped at my house and we’d wander down to the town building where they’d play a movie or have a dance. That night he knocked about seven o’clock and I grabbed my coat. We dug our hands in our pockets and walked outside. Since it was too early to be seen at the dance, we headed down toward the harbor.
The wind had been blowing in snow from the island all day, and it was dumped in little drifts in front of every one of the blue and yellow houses. But as we crunched along, the wind began to die and the beginnings of a fog started moving in from the ocean.
Lanny began whistling between his teeth. He couldn’t whistle very well, and he only did it when he was nervous.
“You ever get sick? I mean really sick?” he asked me.
That’s how Lanny McDonald O‘Brien started out most conversations—with a question about something he’d been thinking up all day. He was always thinking, always wondering about something.
“You ever see me go to the hospital?” I asked him back.
“I guess not.”
“Then you know the answer.”
We walked a little more before he said, “I was just thinking I could be a doctor one day.”
“I guess. I could see you cutting people up, taking out stuff, charging them lots of money.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I could do that.”
We walked a bit more, thinking about Dr. Lanny McDonald O‘Brien, until he said, “Those Mormon guys came over today.”
“Hmph.”
Lanny took a glance at me, to size up my mood, then added, “Said your parents sent them.”
That ticked me off and he noticed my face redden. “My parents sent ’em?”
“What they said.”
“I’m gonna … Gosh, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care. Didn’t bug me.”
We rounded the fence at the bottom of Main and jumped the ballycater [an icy fringe] at the edge of the dock. Under our feet, the snow hadn’t settled on the rough boards, and we took two to a step. Farther along we walked into the cold ocean fog that hung like a veil. We were alone. No one came out on the dock on a winter night.
“They want to come back again,” said Lanny.
“Who?”
“The missionary guys.”
“They always do,” I said. “That’s their job: to come back and back until you join.”
“Join what?”
“The Church. The Mormon church.”
“Nah, they didn’t say that,” said Lanny. “They were just visiting.”
I laughed. “One of those guys is from the States. You think he came to Wolf Point to talk Maple Leafs hockey with your dad?”
Lanny shrugged.
“What part of the States?” he asked.
“I don’t know. They give you a lesson?”
“I guess. They talked a lot.”
“They teach you how to pray?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the first discussion. They want you to join,” I said.
“Hmmmm.”
We reached the end of the pier and leaned on the rail—the same rail that one winter Lanny had licked to see if his tongue would really stick to frozen metal. It did. And for a month Lanny had talked with a lisp.
We stared out at the icy water, but it was too dark and the fog was too thick to see much.
“Okay, I got a question,” said Lanny, nodding his head.
“Always.”
“The Mormon guys said the Book of Mormon is like the Bible. I know that’s not right ’cause it says at the end of the Bible that there isn’t supposed to be anything added to the Bible.”
We had talked about that in Sunday School once, but I couldn’t remember the answer. “Well … um …”
“And they told us about the guy who said he saw God and started the Mormons.”
“Joseph Smith.”
“Yeah, I thought it was Brigham Young. Anyway, how does anybody know he didn’t just write the book himself?”
“Well, there were a bunch of witnesses who saw the plates he wrote it from,” I said.
“Yeah, they were probably Mormons too. Do you guys pray to him?”
Lanny kept asking questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. My first instinct was to defend the Church. But he was my friend. I should tell him how I really felt: that I wasn’t even sure if I believed anymore, that I was kind of embarrassed to be a Mormon.
I drew in a breath, ready to tell him everything … but I couldn’t. From somewhere inside I felt the need to do something I hadn’t done in a long time—say a prayer.
I opened my mouth to say something, but I didn’t have the words.
Okay, I thought, I’ll pray.
So as Lanny talked I silently told Heavenly Father that I didn’t know if the Church was true or not, and I didn’t really know what to say.
I waited a few seconds. No answer.
I opened my eyes. Lanny had stopped talking and was looking out to the harbor. He was squinting, trying to focus on the dim lights of a trawler that was bobbing in and out of view in the fog.
I don’t know why, but I guess that was the moment when everything started making sense.
Lanny needed the gospel, just like I did. We were young. Our lives were confusing. The gospel would answer questions we both had about where to go, who to become.
This time, as I opened my mouth, I felt a peace that I hadn’t felt since I was a kid. “At church once, some old guy told a story,” I began. “It’s about a kid who’s 18 and goes to work on a fishing boat out of St. John’s. And sometime in the summer of his first year on the boat it hits a sandbar and sinks. Most of the crew climbs aboard the lifeboat, but this guy and the captain get caught by a current and pulled away.
“They don’t have life jackets or anything, and for a long time they just tread water—hoping for someone to find ’em.”
“Wow,” from Lanny, who had been on enough fishing boats to know how big the ocean was, and how impossible it would be to find anyone swimming in it.
“Anyway, finally the captain realizes that the water’s too cold for them to last much longer, so he swims over to the kid and says ‘We’re not gonna make it.’ And he asks the kid if he’s religious. Well, the kid is just like me. He’s a Mormon, but he’s been kind of goofing off and it’s been a while since he’s been active. But he says he’ll say a prayer for ’em.”
“And what happened?”
“He and the captain close their eyes, and the kid says a prayer out loud … And when they open their eyes they see the light of a buoy. They swim over and hang on, and a few hours later they are found.”
Lanny smiled. “And the guy telling the story turns out to be the 18-year-old kid, right?”
“Uh, no. The guy telling the story was the captain. He joined the Church.”
“Hmmm.”
I pulled my hands out of my pockets and stuffed them back in again, not sure what to say next. I was feeling guilty for my years of goofing off, for not being able to answer Lanny’s questions. But somehow I knew it wasn’t too late.
“You said the missionaries told you how to pray. Did they say a prayer too?” I asked.
“Yeah, but no one was drowning.”
“Wise guy. How did it make you feel?”
“I don’t know, didn’t think about it.” He looked out to the ocean and breathed out. “Okay, maybe I thought about it.”
I turned to him, my eyes wide. “And?”
“Before I left tonight I prayed by myself.”
That night, instead of climbing in bed, I opened my desk drawer and pulled out my copy of the Book of Mormon. I flipped through the pages. They were filled with red and yellow highlighter, but I realized it had been a long time since I’d studied what was in there.
It was a story. It was a light in the darkness.
I began to read.

11. In 1956, after returning home from several years in Washington, D.C., and having declined several attractive offers there, I received an offer to work at the University of Utah. My wife said I should take it. She said presciently, “I feel if you go there, maybe you will have some influence on students.” I replied impatiently, “I’ll be typing news releases, not working with students.” The subsequent opportunities included being a bishop of a student ward, dean of students, and teaching hundreds of fine students in political science. It wasn’t status that mattered, of course, but being stretched and being given opportunities to serve.
Our wives are often inspired but sometimes in counterintuitive ways—a reality, young men, which your fathers may be brave enough to explain to you sometime.

“Mom!” Amy yelled. “Garrett hit me! Make him stop!”
“She started it!” Garrett yelled back. “Make her stop!”
“Kids, kids!” Mom said. “Time for the get-along bucket. Garrett, will you get it?”
Garrett frowned at Amy. But he brought the small plastic bucket to Mom.
“Thanks,” Mom said. “Amy, you pick.” The bucket had slips of paper inside. They had to pick one. Then do what it said. Together.
Garrett hoped they got something fun. Last time they had to wash a window together.
Amy closed her eyes. She pulled a paper from the bucket. “Play in the sandbox together.”
Garrett grinned. That sounded fun! He followed Amy outside.
They got to the sandbox. Amy grabbed a stick. She drew a line down the middle of the sand. “Stay on that side,” she said.
“OK,” Garrett said. He used a little shovel to dig some holes. He pushed some toy trucks around. He didn’t say anything.
A minute went by. He looked at Amy. She was poking holes in the sand with the stick.
“Hey,” Garrett said. “Want to dig a huge hole together?”
“OK!” Amy said.
Garrett handed her a shovel. Together they started digging. Garrett used his dump truck to move sand. Soon they made a big hole! They pretended it was a tunnel to the other side of the world.
“Remember when we washed the window together?” Amy asked. “That was fun too.”
Garrett remembered how they made smiley faces on the glass. Then they washed them off.
“Yeah,” he said. “That was fun. Maybe tomorrow we can play together—without the get-along bucket!”