Gospel Story Finder

How we rejoiced almost six years later when the Sydney Australia Temple was dedicated in September 1984. We drove 1100 km to attend the temple dedication. From then on, faithful saints from Melbourne and Brisbane regularly participated in weekend bus trips (12 hours each way) to the Sydney Australia Temple—leaving after work on Friday, spending Saturday in the temple and then journeying back overnight on Saturday to arrive in time for church on Sunday.

A few years ago, on the day of my parents’ anniversary, my mom was diagnosed with a stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The results of her CT scan showed that her cancer was life-threatening and her body was deteriorating. It was in that moment that I knew my mom wouldn’t live much longer.
I was not ready for that. I foresaw what life would be without my mom. Everything was dark, gloomy, and sad. There was no more joy or laughter—and no warm hugs from my mom that would comfort me. There didn’t seem to be life at all.
Months passed by and my mom’s body continued to weaken. But what amazed me the most was her desire to go to church, participate in our daily family scripture study, give lessons in our family home evenings, and even laugh with us.
One day, I asked her, “Haven’t you questioned Heavenly Father? Haven’t you wondered why you have to have cancer?” My mom smiled and shared her testimony about the plan of salvation. She told me that I needed to understand the plan of salvation to feel the genuine happiness that it gives. She said if I understood where we come from, what our purpose in this life is, and where we are going, I would understand that we will always be together, that I would never really lose her. She encouraged me to continue preparing for a mission and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation with others so that they could receive the blessings of comfort and happiness as well.
I realized that my mom was right. Why would I fear losing her here on earth if I knew that as long as I kept my covenants and completed the will of the Father that I would see her in the next life? I felt peaceful.
A little while later, my mom passed away. During my mom’s wake—a celebration of her life we held before her burial—even though it was hard and I was sad, everything seemed peaceful, and I could still feel my mom’s presence. Even the people around me seemed to be uplifted. I knew that I was feeling the true blessing of understanding God’s divine plan.
Later, when it was time to take my mom to the cemetery, a young boy came up to me and asked me why I wasn’t crying. I remembered how I thought of my mom’s death before and how I had only seen a lot of sadness and grief. I smiled and knelt down to his level. I told him, “I know that I will see my mom again if I continue to follow God’s commandments.” The boy smiled too, and I knew that he felt the same peace I was feeling.
My mom was gone, but the darkness, gloom, and sadness I thought would fill my life weren’t present. I said goodbye to her and told her that we would see each other in the next life. I felt comforted despite our loss. It was a blessing that came from understanding the plan of salvation.

Because the Lord is kind, He calls servants to warn people of danger. I can still remember my mother speaking softly to me one Saturday afternoon when, as a little boy, I asked her for permission to do something I thought was perfectly reasonable but which she knew was dangerous.
She said, “Oh, I suppose you could do that. But the choice is yours.” The only warning was in the emphasis she put on the words could and choice. Yet that was enough for me.
Her power to warn with so few words sprang from three things I knew about her. First, I knew she loved me. Second, I knew she had already done what she wanted me to do and had been blessed by it. And third, she had conveyed her testimony that the Lord would tell me what to do if I asked Him. Love, example, testimony: Those were the keys.

—Kevin Leach, 20, from Sparks, Nevada, spent a summer as an emergency medical technician intern in Atlanta, Georgia. He was able to associate with a lot of other people in the medical field. He came to see that besides his EMT and paramedic training, a nursing degree would be important. Since returning, he’s taken the additional courses necessary, and will soon graduate with three degrees.
“I’m not only going to be able to be a paramedic out on the streets, but I’ll be able to be a nurse in the hospitals, to ride on Life Flights, to teach emergency medicine up to a certain point, and to move up into administration. What I discovered was that some extra work can open a lot of doors.”

There was something different about the group from Las Vegas in the St. George (Utah) Temple. All of them were there to do the ordinance work for their own deceased family members and ancestors. They had participated in a program in which ward members submitted ten times as many names for temple work as they had the year before.

Larry Halsey, bishop of the Las Vegas ward, had been wondering how to help the members of his ward respond more to the spirit of Elijah. Suddenly he realized that, though individuals can accomplish a little by themselves, a ward working together can do a lot more. So in December 1986, he challenged the ward members to each submit the name of one deceased family member or one ancestor for temple ordinance work in 1987. Bishop Halsey then turned to his priesthood executive committee and correlation council for ideas on how to help the members. He says, “I wanted to get rid of the idea that family history research was hard. I thought that few could be intimidated by submitting just one name. And I knew the total results on a ward level could be quite exciting.”

The bishop assigned the high priests group leader to coordinate efforts. The ward leaders began to make brief presentations before the priesthood quorums, the Relief Society, and the youth. In July, Bishop Halsey reemphasized the challenge through a ward newsletter. Though slowly at first, ward members started to take notice.

Because the challenge included all ward members, ward leaders also emphasized preparing members to go to the temple. A temple preparation seminar was started. Home teachers, visiting teachers, and friends also helped less-active members to prepare. The Sunday School contributed by beginning a family history class. The Relief Society called a family history consultant who gave two- to three-minute presentations every week to encourage progress.

By April 1988, enough names had cleared for the ward ancestral temple trip. Eighteen ward members participated that first time—usually only five or six went on the two-hour trip to the St. George Temple.

As news of the experience spread, interest in the project increased. A program on the stake level was initiated. Meanwhile, ward members who had not made the April trip began asking for help to get their records ready. Later, Brother Howard Weisman participated in more than 182 ordinances for his own family.

Brother Weisman and his wife, Terri, were called to be family history consultants and they began visiting with ward members, sitting beside them as the families researched family records, guiding them in what to do. Terri Weisman says, “Many have gathered information and just need to know how to submit or fill in unknown information. We look at our work as missionary work. We teach one on one—part-member and less-active families, young singles, widows and their children, ward and stake leaders—and we challenge them to pray about what they’re doing.”

Bishop Halsey noted that “once the ward members became involved, they learned how simple family history work is and how wonderful the rewards are. The program became self-motivating.”

By the end of 1988, ward members had submitted 1,018 names for work in the St. George Temple. As Sister Weisman points out, “When people do the work for those who are dear to them, they catch the vision.”

This story happened in the USA.
Xóchitl lay in her bunk bed, looking up at the bed above her. Her family had just said family prayer, and it was time to sleep. She hadn’t said her own prayer before bed yet.
Why do we need to pray? she wondered. Her family always said the same things, like thanking God and asking Him for good dreams. Were their prayers really answered? Sometimes she still had bad dreams anyway.
What would happen if she stopped praying? Ready to test her new idea, she turned over on her side and fall asleep.
For the next few days, Xóchitl didn’t pray. Then the days turned into weeks. Nothing really changed. She didn’t feel that much different.
She finished the rest of the school year, and soon it was summer. Xóchitl had fun going to swimming lessons and playing with her dogs. She got to see her cousins at a big family gathering.
Every night, she joined her family for prayer. But she still didn’t pray on her own.
Soon summer had to end, and Xóchitl started to get ready for school. But she wasn’t excited at all. A few days before school started, she met her new teacher, found her locker, and got a new backpack. Whenever she thought about going to school, she felt sick. Every day the feeling got worse.
One night she stayed awake in her bed, thinking about school. I don’t want to go. It’s scary, she thought. Then she remembered what her parents taught her about prayer. They said she could pray anywhere and that she could pray for help and comfort.
Xóchitl knelt down next to her bed and took a deep breath. For the first time in months, she said her own prayer. She prayed to Heavenly Father. She thanked Him and asked Him for good dreams just like they did in family prayers. When she finished, she didn’t feel much different inside.
The next night, she tried again. And again. She asked Heavenly Father to bless the prophet and her family. Soon she was telling Him her feelings and what she hoped for at her new school.
“Heavenly Father,” she said one night, “I’m so scared about school. I can’t sleep. Can you help me not feel scared anymore?” She felt a strong feeling of peace wrap around her, almost like a warm blanket. Right away, she knew it was the Holy Ghost.
So this is why we pray, she thought. To feel Heavenly Father’s love. It was an amazing feeling. For all those months she didn’t pray, she had been missing out on this feeling.
Xóchitl smiled. She was still nervous to start school, but she felt much stronger knowing God could comfort her. She really could pray for comfort anytime, anywhere, because God really was listening.

Richard was to spend only a few years in Nauvoo. After the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in 1844, the Saints prepared to leave their homes and travel to the Great Salt Lake Valley. In charge of building wagons and carriages, Richard was among the last to leave Nauvoo. In September of 1846 he prepared to cross the Mississippi River.
As an officer in one of the companies of pioneers, Richard made rounds every night to see that all was well. One night he met Huldah Meriah Clark. He was attracted to her immediately. On February 18, 1847, they were married by Heber C. Kimball in Winter Quarters. Two years after leaving Nauvoo, the Ballantynes arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley.

Grandmother was visiting us, and we were just ready to go out on a fun family outing when a minor disaster struck—we couldn’t find the keys to the car. Children, parents, and Grandmother searched everywhere, but the keys were not to be found, and we thought in dismay that we would probably have to stay home. Then Grandmother excused herself and went into her bedroom. In just a few minutes one of the children suddenly found the keys just barely hidden under a corner of a rug.
As we drove happily to our outing, someone asked Grandmother, “Why did you go into your bedroom instead of looking for the keys?” Grandmother’s answer was absorbed carefully by five young children: “I knew how disappointed everyone would be if we didn’t go on the outing so I went in and prayed that we could find the keys. I knew we would find them after that.”

One young woman from Haiti in the Caribbean showed her desire to be a disciple of Christ by inviting her friend who was not a member of the Church to come with her to an FSY conference. At first her friend’s father did not want to give his daughter permission to go. Church leaders explained about the positive experiences that awaited her and the wonderful young adult counselors who would be watching over her. The father gave permission for his daughter to attend, and after seeing the difference it made in her life, he also gave her permission to attend Church meetings and—six months later—be baptized.

I recently read the account of a man who, just after the passing of his wife, opened her dresser drawer and found there an item of clothing she had purchased when they visited the eastern part of the United States nine years earlier. She had not worn it but was saving it for a special occasion. Now, of course, that occasion would never come.

In relating the experience to a friend, the husband said, “Don’t save something only for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion.”

That friend later said those words changed her life. They helped her to cease putting off the things most important to her. Said she: “Now I spend more time with my family. I use crystal glasses every day. I’ll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket if I feel like it. The words ‘someday’ and ‘one day’ are fading from my vocabulary. Now I take the time to call my relatives and closest friends. I’ve called old friends to make peace over past quarrels. I tell my family members how much I love them. I try not to delay or postpone anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives. And each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day. Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.”

Early in her marriage, Lucy prepared herself to raise a prophet. On one occasion she became seriously ill, and the doctors said she would die. Lucy records that she “made a solemn covenant with God that if He would let me live I would endeavor to serve him according to the best of my abilities.” After a voice assured her that she would live, she told her mother, “The Lord will let me live, if I am faithful to the promise which I made to him, to be a comfort to my mother, my husband, and my children.”3

He also remembers an interesting family home evening lesson with a missionary couple from Utah. Elder and Sister Krogh brought over a tin of homemade cookies, which was wrapped up in a long piece of metal wiring. After the lesson, each person took a turn unwinding the metal wire off the tin until, finally, they were able to open it and enjoy the cookies inside. Elder Krogh then testified: it is only when we open (unwind) our hearts to the gospel that we can enjoy the sweetness of its blessings.

I remember bearing my first testimony at age nine. We hadn’t been in our new chapel in East Garland, Utah, very long. President Heber J. Grant had dedicated it. One Sunday when we were in fast meeting, I felt the Spirit and had a feeling come over me that I should stand and bear my testimony. I stood up and had a difficult time emotionally, but I said that I knew that the Church was true. I still remember that the man who was conducting the meeting, Brother Edwin Isaacson, thanked everyone, including me, for bearing our testimonies. I knew then that the Church was true, and I know it now. I remember the feelings I had when I received my patriarchal blessing at age eleven. The patriarch in our stake, Joseph Kirkham, traveled to the various wards to give blessings. When it was announced that he would be in our ward area on a certain day, I wanted to get mine. I talked with my parents about it, then got my recommend. My patriarchal blessing meant a lot to me and has continued to do so. I’ve always taken it seriously, and throughout my life I have tried very carefully to follow the counsel that I received in it.

Sasha was only 14 when he received a Book of Mormon from his older sisters, who had joined the Church in another city.
“They emphasized the fact that I was 14, just as Joseph Smith was when he had his First Vision. He was greatly blessed at a young age, and I could be too,” he says.
So he started reading. He read until he got to the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi, and then he stopped. He read the Book of Mormon again a year later, but as a historical document, not with a desire to know if it was true.
But when he read the Book of Mormon the third time, Sasha focused less on its history and more on the work of God it recorded.
“As I read it, I thought it was true, but I didn’t have a firm testimony yet,” he admits. “I wanted to talk to the missionaries.”
When the elders arrived a few years later, they answered all of his questions and helped him prepare to be baptized and confirmed.
“As I walked into the waters of baptism, all my doubts were gone, and I knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the gospel is true,” he says. “I was not afraid, even though I knew the rest of my life would be different.”
His life is different now. As a home teacher Sasha is learning how to magnify the priesthood he holds and serve in the Lord’s kingdom.
Within a year of his baptism Sasha baptized his mother and his grandfather. His entire family has now joined the Church, and Sasha is excited to bring the gospel to others.
“I am preparing to serve a mission so that I can preach the gospel and bring someone else to God,” he says. “His work must go forward.”

The alarm went off, and Tyler (7) rolled over to see if Jason (12), was awake. Boy, what I’d give to be like him! thought Tyler. Jason plays great football and is one of the fastest runners in the seventh grade. He even passes the sacrament with no trouble.
“I’m going to do it,” Tyler said out loud.
“Going to do what, little brother?” Jason asked.
“Play basketball for Brigham Young University.”
“Aren’t you a little young for them, Ty?” Jason smiled. “Besides, you have to learn to walk before you learn to play basketball.”
“Yeah, I know. But I figure if I dream, I might as well dream big. I mean, who’s going to cheer just because I walk to the kitchen?”
“Mom for one, and me for another. Cerebral palsy isn’t something that you get over in twenty-four hours like the flu, Ty.”
“I know,” sighed Tyler. He rolled out of bed onto the floor. “I’m starved. Race you to the kitchen!”
Tyler scrabbled on his hands and knees down the hallway to the kitchen, where his mom and his sister Cherie were. His mom was busy making breakfast. Cherie (16) was looking for the car keys to go to seminary.
“How’s my tiger this morning?” Tyler’s mom asked as Cherie helped him into his chair. “Ready for something to eat? The people will be here soon.”
“Oh, Mom, I’m so tired of patterning. Can’t they just stay home today?”
Every day, for two hours, volunteers from the community help Tyler learn to use his body. In a special program called patterning, which teaches Tyler’s healthy brain cells how to control his body, they simultaneously move Tyler’s arms, legs, and head while he lies on his stomach on a table. Then they toss him up and down on a sheet to help him develop his sense of balance. Finally, he does something called masking, by breathing into a mask to help him take in more oxygen.
Tyler has been doing patterning for five months, and already he can hold his head up straight when he sits in a chair. He can also bend his knees enough to crawl around the house. But to him, his progress is too slow. He thinks that he should be walking by now.
“Patience, Tyler,” said Mom. “In order for you to walk, you must do this every day. It isn’t much fun for you, but just think how grateful you’ll be when it’s over and you can play ball with Jason.”
Tyler heard the people come in downstairs just as he finished the last bite of his breakfast. Mom picked him up, kissed his cheek, then put him on the floor so that he could crawl down the stairs to meet them.
The next two hours went by quickly, and Tyler decided that it wasn’t so bad once he got into it. After the people left, Tyler’s mom carried him upstairs for lunch.
After lunch Tyler crawled into the living room and leaned against the couch while Mom set out his flash cards and got everything ready for his lessons. Because Tyler has to pattern every day, it isn’t possible for him to go to the local school. Instead, Mom teaches him at home. Once in a while, though, he gets to go to school to see some of his friends. Tyler hopes to be able to go to school with them next year.
Tyler worked hard on his lessons for most of the afternoon. Afterward, he and Mom sat on the floor, talking.
“Mom, I need to earn forty cents so I can get my CTR ring next Sunday,” Tyler said. “Do you have any ideas on what I can do?”
“I tell you what Tyler, if you help me with the laundry and the dishes this week, I’ll pay you the forty cents you need. Deal?”
“Deal!” Tyler said, crawling to the kitchen.
Later in the evening, everyone in Tyler’s family, except Gena, who was away at college, gathered in the living room.
“Whose turn is it to read from the Book of Mormon tonight?” asked Dad.
Mom said, “We left off with Cherie reading from Mosiah last night. How about if Tyler starts tonight?”
Everyone took a turn reading, with Jason reading last. “The scriptures show what can be accomplished when you have the Lord’s help,” he said. “I mean, look at Tyler. He’s come a long way toward learning to walk, and he couldn’t have done it all by himself.”
Tyler smiled at Jason. “I’m glad I have the help of so many others.”
After Teri (9), one of Tyler’s other sisters, had said the prayer, Tyler hugged everyone, then Jason carried him to their room. “You’re doing great, little brother. And don’t worry—you’ll be playing ball before you know it.”
“Thanks. I just hope it’s soon.” Mom came, helped Tyler change into his pajamas, and kissed him good night. He soon drifted off to sleep.
It’s the start of the second half, BYU leads by two, and Tyler Young has the ball …

The moon was big and round and bright, just as it should be on the night of the Moon Festival. I held my glowing paper lantern higher, hoping that the Old Man in the Moon would see me amid the other children. The whole park gleamed with brilliant Chinese lanterns.
I dashed up the hill to where my parents and sisters sat on a blanket, nibbling moon cakes. My eldest sister, Mei Lai, was gazing at the moon. I knew that she was probably dreaming about that boy who took her to the dance last Saturday. That’s a girl for you! I thought. I’m glad that I’m not a girl.
Not that Mei Lai didn’t have a right to think about love tonight. Everyone thought about love during the Moon Festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival, the proper name that my sister preferred to call it. On this night the Old Man in the Moon supposedly wove an invisible red thread around couples who would one day get married.
Even I was thinking about love. But not that kind. I was thinking about how I could love my neighbors. My Primary teacher had told us last Sunday that we should, and ever since then, I had been wondering how I could ever do it. I couldn’t think of any neighbors in our apartment building that I even liked—especially not that new boy down the hall! Why, he didn’t even speak Chinese! The first time I saw him, I just kept looking at his eyes. I had never seen such blue eyes, except maybe on TV.
Once I had tried talking to him in the English that I was learning in school. “Where are you from?” I asked.
Looking at me oddly, he lifted up his nose and declared, “I’m an Aussie.”
Whatever an Aussie was, I certainly didn’t know. I went home and asked Mei Lai, who knew English well.
“An Aussie is someone from Australia,” she told me.
My mother’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Sun Ling, it will soon be time to go home.”
“Oh, let me run once more through the park.”
“Well, you be careful with that lantern. Remember that you have a lighted candle in it.”
“I will.” As I sprinted down the hill, I looked up at the Old Man in the Moon to see if he was still watching me and my glistening paper lantern. I ran and ran, with my eyes turned upward toward the beautiful full moon.
Suddenly—CRASH! Was it a wall? No, it was a body. Another person and I tumbled over and over each other. It was the Aussie. When we finally stopped, we raised our tousled heads and looked at each other. I blurted out, “What are you doing here? This is a Chinese holiday!”
It was a good thing that he couldn’t understand my Chinese. I indignantly grabbed my lantern, which miraculously lay unharmed on the grass. In my mind I grumbled, Even if I wasn’t looking where I was going, it wasn’t really my fault. After all, he’s the one who doesn’t belong here.
A sizzle and a flare made us both jump up. His colorful paper lantern was in flames. My mother’s words flashed through my mind, “Be careful with that lantern.”
I looked at him. Then I cocked my head in amazement. Out of those blue, blue eyes tears were dribbling! It had never occurred to me that an Aussie could cry too.
The boy’s lips began to quiver, and he said, “My dad gave me that lantern.”
I didn’t understand all his words, but I understood what he meant. And I felt awful! I tried to remember how to say I’m sorry in English, but all my words came out in Chinese.
Suddenly, in Chinese, he said, “I’m sorry too.”
I blinked with surprise. Why he knew some Chinese words after all. He smiled at me. I smiled back.
The next day I strode into the house, banging the door happily behind me.
“What’s that huge grin for?” Mei Lai asked as she stirred vegetables and pork together in the wok.
“Oh, I’ve been learning to love my neighbor. Jim’s my friend now.”
“Who’s Jim?” she asked
“He’s the Aussie I told you about,” I replied, peering over the sizzling wok. I perched on a tall stool. “Do you know what? Before he came here, Jim had never even heard of moon cakes. So I gave him one with an egg-yolk center. When he bit into it, he sort of shriveled up his nose and tried to smile. I could tell that he didn’t like it.”
“So, do you think he’s still your friend?” Mei Lai laughed.
“Well, I did let him try a lotus-seed moon cake after that, and he ate every bit of it and smacked his lips.”
“I’m glad that you gave him something he likes,” said Mei Lai.
“I did give him one other thing that I hope he likes. I gave him my Book of Mormon.”
“Your Book of Mormon!” exclaimed my sister. “Whyever did you do that?”
“Well, because it’s the most special thing that I could share with a friend,” I answered.
“But how do you expect him to read it?” she said. “He doesn’t even read Chinese.”
“Joseph Smith translated the characters of the Book of Mormon from another language. Maybe God will give Jim the gift to translate too.”
“Look,” Mei Lai explained, “Joseph Smith was a prophet. Not everyone receives the gift to translate another language.”
I looked at my sister intently. “Mei Lai, I’m still glad that I gave the Book of Mormon to him.”
It was the week before Christmas. Someone knocked at our door, and Mei Lai opened it to blond-haired Jim. My friend didn’t see me sitting in the corner, so he spoke in English to my sister. “I read your book,” he said, holding up a blue book with Chinese characters of the Book of Mormon engraved on it.
“You read it!” she gasped. “But—but you don’t know Chinese, do you?”
“No. What I meant to say,” Jim explained, “was that my tutor read it to me. He comes every day to teach me Chinese, and so we have been reading it together. In fact, my tutor was wondering if he could get a copy of his own. Also, would it be possible to get a copy in English for my father?”
My sister finally closed her mouth from her astonishment. She smiled, motioning to me.
Jim turned and saw me. “Oh, Sun Ling,” he said in halting Chinese, “this book you gave me is very interesting. I am curious to find out more about it. Can you help me?”
“I’ll be happy to help you,” I replied slowly to make sure that he understood my words. “I can think of no better way to love my neighbor from Australia.”

Summer Saturdays are special times for my brothers and me. After eating an early lunch, we usually take a large jug of water and drive with our dad to the Gila Indian Reservation a few miles south of our home in Tempe, Arizona, to look for dust devils. There, on dry fields that don’t have any crops growing on them, giant swirling columns of dust regularly form and march across the landscape. We like to run into them and release colored balloons or smoke bombs, while our dad takes pictures of them. These pictures help him understand how whirlwinds are created and how they grow and finally disappear.

Elder Marcus Bell Nash remembers as an eight-year-old boy puzzling over something a nonmember friend had told him. This friend had said that he believed his own church was true. Elder Nash says, “I knew our Church was true. I had never thought that someone else could think his or her church was true. I walked home puzzling and pondering this question. If he thinks his church is true, and I think mine is true, who is right?”
As he sat on the front steps, his head in his hands, he asked himself, “How do I figure this out?” Elder Nash says, “A voice came into my mind, and it said, ‘Now you know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, don’t you?’ I answered the question inwardly, ‘Yes.’ Then the voice said, ‘Then you know the Church is true, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’ All the doubt disappeared.”
That answer set the foundation of his testimony. Elder Nash developed a great love for the Prophet Joseph Smith and a powerful feeling for the Book of Mormon that built upon that foundation.

Arturo Toscanini, the late, famous conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, received a brief, crumpled letter from a lonely sheepherder in the remote mountain area of Wyoming:
“Mr. Conductor: I have only two possessions—a radio and an old violin. The batteries in my radio are getting low and will soon die. My violin is so out of tune I can’t use it. Please help me. Next Sunday when you begin your concert, sound a loud ‘A’ so I can tune my ‘A’ string; then I can tune the other strings. When my radio batteries are dead, I’ll have my violin.”
At the beginning of his next nationwide radio concert from Carnegie Hall, Toscanini announced: “For a dear friend and listener back in the mountains of Wyoming the orchestra will now sound an ‘A.’” The musicians all joined together in a perfect “A.”
The lonely sheepherder only needed one note, just a little help to get back in tune; he could go on from there. He needed someone who cared to assist him with one string; the others would be easy. Then, with all strings in tune—in harmony—the lonely sheepherder would have a source of companionship and joy and could play uplifting strains.

Now may I just share with you a wonderful and beautiful story. Brother Isogai is 17 years old, and he passed on to me his conversion story.
“My family consists of three members. We are now living in our grandparents’ home because two years ago my parents got divorced. Since then our grandfather and my mother started working to support us. Some time in October 1979, I met the missionaries on the street near Shibuya station. I studied and I was baptized, and I became inactive following my baptism.
“Since my family was not stable, I was not happy, and I wondered about my future, though I was baptized—about my life, about my family. I wondered, I wondered, I wondered every day.
And one day I wandered through Shibuya again. I was feeling depressed. With the feeling of depression and emptiness in my heart, I was walking toward a church without conscious direction. While there, I attended a beautiful baptism service. I was very impressed and inspired by it. I decided to come back to the church, which I did.
“I learned of the importance of the missionary work, and I helped the missionaries, and I did this almost every day. I went to the street with the missionaries. And I contacted many people. One day I had been praying, and I received a strong feeling that I should teach my own family. I had baptized seven of my friends within two months. So I started to introduce the gospel to my family. First, I thought I should introduce it to my mother. My mother has many friends, and she was attending another Christian church. Because of that, she refused to be baptized. But because of the beautiful fellowshipping and the cooperation of the missionaries, I finally did baptize her. Then we went into the temple during the open house for the Tokyo Temple. When we saw the sealing room, we all cried because we knew that we could be together for all eternity, and we have decided to go to that sacred spot again. My sister got baptized September 11, and I felt so strongly I should introduce the gospel to my grandparents, which I did. Now they have studied and believe, and they are ready to be baptized next Saturday, this Saturday. And I will baptize them. Oh, what great blessings I receive.”