Gospel Story Finder

In my fifth-grade class, we started studying Russia. We planned a “Russian Party.” There was mostly Russian food, and we had a quiz.
When the Russian party was about to begin, I put the potatoes and vinegar I’d brought on the table. We all went to our seats. When our teacher called our names, we went up and got a little bit of everything from our teacher, who was standing behind the table.
Before we started eating, she asked everyone who had made something to tell the class what it was. It turned out that the drink was a Russian tea.
When I ate everything on my plate except the tea, my friends who aren’t members of the Church asked me why I didn’t drink it. When I told them about the Word of Wisdom, they understood. So, when our teacher came around to see that we all tasted everything, my friends and I told her that I didn’t want to drink the tea.
I didn’t have to drink it. I’m glad that I can try to set an example to be like Jesus Christ.

President Thomas S. Monson tells of a Robert Blatchford who, 100 years ago “in his book God and My Neighbor, attacked with vigor accepted Christian beliefs, such as God, Christ, prayer, and immortality. He boldly asserted, ‘I claim to have proved everything I set out to prove so fully and decisively that no Christian, however great or able he may be, can answer my arguments or shake my case.’ He surrounded himself with a wall of skepticism. Then a surprising thing happened. His wall suddenly crumbled to dust. … Slowly he began to feel his way back to the faith he had scorned and ridiculed. What had caused this profound change in his outlook? His wife [had] died. With a broken heart, he went into the room where lay all that was mortal of her. He looked again at the face he loved so well. Coming out, he said to a friend: ‘It is she, and yet it is not she. Everything is changed. Something that was there before is taken away. She is not the same. What can be gone if it be not the soul?’”35

I have gone through this situation and learned that the best thing to do is pray. God will always be there and help us when we need it. People will never fully agree with what we do or say, and we do not have to please them. If we know who we are, what other people say about us does not matter.
Let us forgive others, and try to love them even when they hurt our feelings.
Areli B., 19, Mexico

I always look forward to the priesthood blessings my dad gives us before the school year because they give me strength and peace for the year ahead. I remember being scared when I was going into middle school for the first time because we had just moved. In my blessing I was promised that if I chose the right and was kind to everyone around me, the Lord would watch over me and bless me.
That year I tried to reach out to others and choose the right. I began reading the Book of Mormon, and throughout the year I was filled with peace. I knew the Lord was keeping His promise because I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. At the end of the school year I knew it had been a hard year, but I had tried my best, and the Lord had kept his promise.
I am so thankful I have a dad who can give me priesthood blessings. Those blessings have strengthened my testimony because I have been able to feel and see them working in my life. Knowing that the Lord is able to work through my dad to speak and help me has strengthened my relationship with my Heavenly Father and my earthly father.

I experienced every missionary’s dilemma: I missed my family and wanted to see them as soon as I went home, but I enjoyed serving so much I didn’t want to leave my mission... My family was glad to see me, but pretty soon the temporal concerns we faced began to overwhelm me.
I needed to pay for my education and help with the needs of our family, and soon I became the breadwinner. I worked in a fastfood restaurant, was in construction, took odd jobs, and accepted any offer that would help put food on the table. I began to miss Church, and my RM friends would visit and remind me of my covenants.
I realized how hard life was when I didn’t put the Lord first, so I talked to my bishop, and he helped me with my repentance process. I began to truly understand the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
All the emotional and spiritual pain went away, and I was blessed because when I came back to Church my two younger siblings also joined the Church. Feeling stronger spiritually, my desire to marry my girlfriend in the temple also grew.

In the summer of 2021, I took my family to Berlin, where I showed them the spot where the wall used to stand. It no longer stops God’s servants from sharing the message of the Restoration with the people of Eastern Europe. God’s miracles continue in our day.

My orthodontist told me I needed to have four teeth pulled. My permanent teeth were ready to come in, but my baby teeth were not yet loose. I was very frightened. That same day, the September 2008 Friend arrived. There was a letter in it from a girl my age who went through a similar experience. She said a prayer to help her get through it, and all she felt was a small tug as her teeth were pulled.
It made me feel better to know that someone else had gone through the same thing. Before I went to the dentist, I said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to comfort me. Like the girl who wrote the letter, all I felt were a few tugs and the teeth were out. I know Heavenly Father can help us when we have difficulties.

Eva and Darilyn and Sabrina have introduced the gospel to some of their other friends. Naomi Diven is on the rally squad with them, and Quinn Rogers is a school mascot with Sabrina. Naomi was given a copy of a videotape, “Our Heavenly Father’s Plan.” She was intrigued by what she heard. For Naomi, her answer came quickly, “It was quite sudden. During the first discussion we all knew that I would be baptized.” Her decision was reinforced as she heard the missionary discussions several more times with their friend Quinn.

One Sunday, my Primary friends Rebecca and Crystal were going to another ward.
That would make me the oldest child in my Primary class. I was pleased, but two of the boys sometimes don’t respect me—maybe because I play with them too much. So I try to be a better person.
One of the two boys, Sammy,* doesn’t always pay attention in class. Sometimes he makes fun of me and makes me angry. But I decided to not get so angry. That’s how you become a better leader. Jesus Christ would not get angry if He was here. I know that Jesus is true and is our Savior. It’s hard to be a good leader, but it is good to be a leader like Jesus Christ.

Alan Spencer, American Fork, Utah, has walked off with first place in Weber State University’s arts and letters research competition. Alan presented an illustrated lecture on “An Archaeological Survey of the Knolls and Vicinity, Utah County, Utah,” The prize won him a trip to Durham, North Carolina, and an opportunity to compete for the final prize—a trip to England.

“President Lee once told of a woman in New York who approached him concerning her nonmember husband. Her spouse wanted her to attend parties that were far below Church standards. President Lee advised her that whereas a woman should follow her husband, she need not follow him to hell. The husband, upon hearing this from his wife, was, like your parents, extremely resentful.

“Let your parents know how much you love them and appreciate their offer but also that the Lord has said that sacrament meeting is the most important meeting we have to attend. Being the only member or active member of a family is sometimes a lonely ordeal. But if we seek to do the Lord’s will over the conflicting desires of loved ones who don’t or won’t understand, he will bless us. He certainly blessed the lady from New York. A few months after she had revealed the advice of the prophet, her ‘resentful’ husband was baptized.”

Not very many years ago in a Maori village in New Zealand, a baby boy was born. He soon received a blessing from his grandfather who said in the blessing that this boy would one day become an educational leader among his people. Some of the men in the village laughed at that blessing; it seemed so unrealistic. That boy, Barney Wihongi, earned his doctorate degree and is now president of the Church College of New Zealand. He became president of the Church College of New Zealand at age 35 and, increasingly, has influence among other educators in the country of New Zealand. The promises given to Brother Wihongi as a baby amused some people. Today, Brother Barney Wihongi inspires many people!

After the phone call, I called in my wife, and I told her what had happened. We sat and visited for a while about how this would affect our lives, our five daughters, our business, our home that we just bought. And then it seemed that almost automatically we knelt together and thanked our Father in heaven for his confidence, for his love, and for the things that he has done for us. We thanked him for our children and for their love for their Father in heaven. And I thanked him for her, this eternal sweetheart of mine. I thanked him for allowing her to remain on the earth for another season. I thanked him for her faithfulness in all the calls that have come into our home.

I Am a Pioneer, Barbra Jackeline Gomez Yalderrabano, 5, Mexico. “I will be a pioneer in a remote area, and I will teach the gospel to children. I will help them to know Christ and his teachings.”

It was on his mission that Brother Han learned a great lesson about the Book of Mormon. “As missionaries, we were told to tell the people first about the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith story. I felt that those things were harder to understand and accept and that it would be easier for investigators to accept the gospel principles gradually,” Brother Han says.
However, he quickly became frustrated with the lack of response from investigators. After fasting and praying, “I received my answer,” Brother Han says. “I knew I had to teach the Book of Mormon first. I recognized that I hadn’t been relying on the Spirit’s ability to touch people and change their attitudes. It surprised me, but when I was obedient, people accepted those gospel principles and ideas that I had thought would be so difficult for them.”

Everything went according to schedule—everything, that is, except for feelings of apprehension. I started worrying that my father might criticize my mother, my wife, or me. He had done it before. How would I handle it this time?
Only when two dedicated home teachers—to whom I will be eternally grateful—came to our home a few days before our departure and gave us a priesthood blessing, did I feel at peace. They blessed my wife that she would be a source of inspiration to me, and they blessed me that I would be receptive to the promptings of the Spirit and would know what to say. I then knew that everything would be all right.

once-upon-a-blusty, gusty, march
my eyes swept the sky and found
minute specks of soaring color
dipping swingingly with loops and bounds
pursuing the wind
like bright kittens chasing their tails.
suddenly the bravest speck drops—
seizing its tail and racing earthbound.
before the dreadful crash, it turns—
and, heading for the sky,
it flies away into forever.

I first learned to pray by kneeling with my family in family prayer. I was taught the language of prayer as I listened to my parents pray and as they helped me say my first prayers. I learned that I could talk to Heavenly Father and ask for guidance.

Every morning without fail, my mother and father gathered us around the kitchen table before breakfast, and we knelt in family prayer. We prayed at every meal. In the evening before bed, we knelt together in the living room and closed the day with family prayer.

Although there was much I didn’t understand about prayer as a child, it became such a part of my life that it stayed with me. I still continue to learn, and my understanding of the power of prayer still continues to grow.

Even some of the most difficult clients responded differently than expected.
Shelly is deaf and blind. She can’t talk, can’t communicate. In her dark world, she only knows how to scream when she gets alarmed or frustrated or disoriented. Staff expected to quietly take her back to her room after a very short time. But she was assigned to three girls as her friends for the day. They held her hand, patted her, touched her, stayed with her constantly.
“We were amazed at Shelly. Those girls managed to communicate a sense of love and caring that penetrated her darkness,” said Brother Holmes-Gull. Shelly was seen quietly laying her head near the girls while they sat on the grass.

“Want to try again?” he asked as we approached a group of houses next to a church.
I knocked on the door and stood back waiting. A tall man wearing a clerical collar opened the door and smiled at us.
“What can I do for you boys?” he said with a very proper British accent. He obviously knew who we were.
I glanced at the postbox as I swallowed and stepped back. “The Reverend Richard Cutts, Ph. D.,” it said.
What could I say to this man? How could I challenge what he believed? I whispered a quick prayer. I could see Elder Higgins getting ready to jump in.
It’s funny how much can go through your mind in a few seconds. I thought of my first Primary teacher, Oma Santos, telling the story of Moses and the burning bush; my Sunday School teacher, Cloe Davis, explaining the importance of Joseph Smith’s first vision; Velda Dalton teaching about the Sermon on the Mount; and my Uncle Elton talking about the restoration of the priesthood in deacons class. I grew up in a small town in southern Utah. None of my teachers had Ph.D. behind their name. None of them read Greek or Latin as Reverend Cutts most likely did. But it didn’t matter. What they knew was much more important.
“I’m Elder Roberts,” I said feeling, for the first time, the strength and importance of what I’d been taught, what I was here to teach. “This is Elder Higgins, and we’d like to tell you about the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The expression on Reverend Cutts’s face changed. He looked a little surprised. “Come in,” he said, smiling.