Gospel Story Finder

In September Sally represented Utah in the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where she performed with orchestra Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
At the close of the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Sally Peterson was named Miss Congeniality, a title valued second only to that of Miss America.
The Award was made after the 50 contestants had voted to select the girl who, throughout the exciting and sometimes exhausting week, had been most friendly, appreciative, genuine, cheerful. It is an honor which recognizes inward as well as outward beauty.
As Miss Congeniality, Sally received a $1,000 scholarship. She also won a $1,000 Grand Music Award for her performance with orchestra of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

A medical professional maintained a typical practice but felt guided to set aside one day each week to provide free care to individuals with no health insurance. Because of this man’s and his wife’s willingness to bless others, the Lord provided a way for them to support hundreds of patients in need while also raising their large family.

One day when I was really struggling, I read my patriarchal blessing. As I read it, I realized that I do have a future. God has a plan for me, and He actually loves me. Going to church, taking the sacrament, reading the scriptures, and praying has brought so much light and happiness into my life. I soon realized, “This actually helps me.” That’s when I knew I always wanted the gospel in my life. After everything I’ve been through, I know that the gospel has saved my life, and I’m very happy about that.

In Act One by Moss Hart, the author tells of a particularly difficult experience he had one Christmas. His father was working several jobs, his mother had taken in renters, and still they were barely making it.

“Obviously Christmas was out of the question—we were barely staying alive. On Christmas Eve my father was very silent during the evening meal. Then he surprised and startled me by turning to me and saying, ‘Let’s take a walk.’ He had never suggested such a thing before, and moreover it was a very cold winter’s night. I was even more surprised when he said as we left the house, ‘Let’s go down to a Hundred Forty-ninth Street and Westchester Avenue.’ My heart leapt within me. That was the section where all the big stores were, where at Christmastime open pushcarts full of toys stood packed end-to-end for blocks at a stretch. On other Christmas Eves I had often gone there with my aunt, and from our tour of the carts she had gathered what I wanted the most. My father had known of this, of course, and I joyously concluded that this walk could mean only one thing—he was going to buy me a Christmas present.

“On the walk down I was beside myself with delight and an inner relief. It had been a bad year for me, that year of my aunt’s going, and I wanted a Christmas present terribly—not a present merely, but a symbol, a token of some sort. I needed some sign from my father or mother that they knew what I was going through and cared for me as much as my aunt and my grandfather did. I am sure they were giving me what mute signs they could, but I did not see them. The idea that my father had managed a Christmas present for me in spite of everything filled me with a sudden peace and lightness of heart I had not known in months.

“We hurried on, our heads bent against the wind, to the cluster of lights ahead that was 149th Street and Westchester Avenue, and those lights seemed to me the brightest lights I had ever seen. Tugging at my father’s coat, I started down the line of pushcarts. There were all kinds of things that I wanted, but since nothing had been said by my father about buying a present, I would merely pause before a pushcart to say, with as much control as I could muster, ‘Look at that chemistry set!’ or, ‘There’s a stamp album!’ or, ‘Look at the printing press!’ Each time my father would pause and ask the pushcart man the price. Then without a word we would move on to the next pushcart. Once or twice he would pick up a toy of some kind and look at it and then at me, as if to suggest this might be something I might like, but I was ten years old and a good deal beyond just a toy; my heart was set on a chemistry set or a printing press. There they were on every pushcart we stopped at, but the price was always the same and soon I looked up and saw we were nearing the end of the line. Only two or three more pushcarts remained. My father looked up, too, and I heard him jingle some coins in his pocket. In a flash I knew it all. He’d gotten together about seventy-five cents to buy me a Christmas present, and he hadn’t dared say so in case there was nothing to be had for so small a sum.

“As I looked up at him I saw a look of despair and disappointment in his eyes that brought me closer to him than I had ever been in my life. I wanted to throw my arms around him and say, ‘It doesn’t matter … I understand … this is better than a chemistry set or a printing press … I love you.’ But instead we stood shivering beside each other for a moment—then turned away from the last two pushcarts and started silently back home. I don’t know why the words remained choked up within me. I didn’t even take his hand on the way home nor did he take mine. We were not on that basis. Nor did I ever tell him how close to him I felt that night—that for a little while the concrete wall between father and son had crumbled away and I knew that we were two lonely people struggling to reach each other.

“I came close to telling him many years later, but again the moment passed.” (From ACT ONE, by Moss Hart. Copyright 1959 by Catherine Carlisle Hart and Joseph M. Hyman, Trustees. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.)

Reader 1: A small child, put to bed, gazes into hollow darkness.
Reader A: A darkness possibly filled with airy, whispered harms, silently hissing slithers, and babbling ghosts of terrors past.
Reader 1: The child, with innocent trust, speaks to the darkness:
Reader A: “You will not hurt me. Uncertainty is as often kind as not. You must be my protector.”
Reader 1: The darkness dares not argue with innocence.
Reader A: Love casteth out fear.

A bad and dangerous attitude? Of course. But it’s not limited to gang members. There’s the experience of author Geoffrey Canada, who grew up in a violent neighborhood in New York’s South Bronx. As he reached college age, he saw the increasing viciousness of the gangs in his area. Out of fear, he bought a gun. He describes the feeling of power it gave him, a feeling that would cause his behavior to “become more and more reckless every day. … I knew that if I continued to carry the gun I would sooner or later pull the trigger.” He got rid of the gun.

A few years later I was called to be a counselor in my ward Relief Society presidency. I felt inadequate to fulfill this calling. I began to study the principle of charity. I prayed to develop more Christlike charity for the sisters I served. But I wasn’t quite sure what this spiritual gift would look or feel like.
My anxiety was weighing on my mind as I made lunch one day. My third daughter, Annie, was sitting on the middle landing of our stairs, engrossed in her two-year-old imagination. I watched as she leaned forward to grab a toy, lost her balance, and tumbled down four or five stairs. I ran to her and tried to calm her as she cried. I quieted her enough to hear a little sob coming from the kitchen table. I looked over to see five-year-old Claire crying.
“Come here.” I said. “What’s wrong?”
She ran to join Annie and me in a family hug. The words she spoke were a direct answer to my prayerful question about charity.
“I saw Annie start to fall, and then I watched her and saw how sad she felt,” she said. “I would rather fall down the stairs for Annie than watch her have to fall down.”
The thought immediately came to my mind through the Spirit, “That is charity.”

Stuart Deacon of the Sunderland England Stake is a promising track athlete. He said, “Two years away from track is a lot when you’re that age. I decided to go on my mission because I knew if I put God first he would help me when I came back.” In addition to the blessings he received having served a mission, Stuart said, “A spiritual career is a lot more important to get started than an educational one.”

Two mothers in my class tried this, with somewhat different results. One knew her son was upset because he had not done as well as he wanted on a school project and in a musical program for which he had to play an instrument. She found occasion to talk about how miserable she had been when she got a bad grade, feeling down on herself; but she had finally accepted the fact that she could not always be perfect. She told him she knew that he probably got some of his perfectionism from her, and she hoped he would be able to deal with mistakes better than she had. Her son listened with interest and afterward said, “Thanks, Mom, that was a real help.”

Because his father was not a member of the Church, President Hunter had to wait until he was twelve-and-a-half years old to be _____________. When he was finally able to pass the sacrament with the other boys his age, he felt very happy.

Realize
What often helps me is realizing that I’m unique. By making this a positive thing, I can feel better about myself and not get so frustrated when people don’t understand me. They just think different from me, and Heavenly Father has made them unique as well.
Jeshua M., 14, New Zealand

Bees use these same “tubes” to get nectar out of flowers. When our mother was in high school, she went to Germany one year and brought back some hollyhock seeds. She planted them in Grandpa’s garden; and now the bees get nectar out of the giant blossoms every year.

The story goes back at least eighteen years.
It was then that what Elder Cannon calls “an extraordinary phenomenon” began occurring in Western Africa. Africans learned of the Church from other Africans who had studied in the United States. They came across some missionary pamphlets. No one now knows how those pamphlets got to Africa in the 1950’s—but the effect was remarkable. Many who read them recognized the truth. Then—independent of each other and without knowledge of the other’s actions—several groups of blacks in both Nigeria and Ghana started their own religious organizations, patterned after the Church. However, visa problems prevented representatives being sent to officially establish the Church.
The groups built small meetinghouses and met regularly. They copied organization, doctrines, songs, and titles after the Church, as much as they were able to discern from the literature they received. Occasionally they had contact with members of the Church visiting Africa.
The Africans even proselyted. One man, after a stirring spiritual experience, “was constrained by (the) Spirit to go from street to street … to deliver the message which we had read from the Book of Mormon and from the pamphlets.” Despite some “persecutions” and sometimes being labelled as an “anti-Christ organization,” the “missionaries” were undaunted.
“We persisted with the word and won forty people that day even to the admiration of the Muslims around,” one man reports. The “missionaries” and their forty converts gathered to learn the doctrines of the Church. Later they “won 47 more members.”
Such experiences were not uncommon among the independent groups who, without authority, organized themselves in the name of the Church. Groups in Nigeria and Ghana—again, without knowledge of each other’s activities—registered in their respective countries under the name The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The next day at the dedication, I could not sing the first verse of “The Spirit of God” for tears of joy. I knew then and there that President Hinckley is a prophet appointed by our Heavenly Father to help and guide us. I will be better able to share the gospel with my friends because I know with all my heart that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ.Tasha H., age 12, Texas

Joseph Smith was born on December 23. Have you ever wondered what his life was like when he was very young? Some children went to the place where Joseph Smith’s home was in Vermont to find out.
They got to see stone fences that Joseph’s father and uncles built. These fences kept the cows on their land. In the meadow are some apple trees, like the ones the Smiths would have grown to make apple cider, applesauce, and pie.
The children helped archaeologists dig for clues! They uncovered what was left of the Smiths’ small log home. They sifted through the dirt and found plates, bowls, and even a fork!

c. The wife of United States President Andrew Jackson loved this hymn, and he asked that it be sung at his deathbed. It was also sung at the funerals of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Since 1773, many churches have included it in their hymnals.

Missionary service has ever called for courage. One who responded to this call was Randall Ellsworth. While serving in Guatemala as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Randall Ellsworth survived a devastating earthquake that hurled a beam down on his back, paralyzing his legs and severely damaging his kidneys. He was the only American injured in the quake, which claimed the lives of some eighteen thousand persons.
After receiving emergency medical treatment, he was flown to a large hospital near his home in Rockville, Maryland. While Randall was confined there, a newscaster conducted with him an interview that I witnessed through the miracle of television. The reporter asked, “Can you walk?”
The answer: “Not yet, but I will.”
“Do you think you will be able to complete your mission?”
Came the reply: “Others think not, but I will. With the president of my church praying for me, and through the prayers of my family, my friends, and my missionary companions, I will walk, and I will return again to Guatemala. The Lord wants me to preach the gospel there for two years, and that’s what I intend to do.”
There followed a lengthy period of therapy, punctuated by heroic yet silent courage. Little by little, feeling began to return to the almost lifeless limbs. More therapy, more courage, more prayer.
At last, Randall Ellsworth walked aboard the plane that carried him back to the mission to which he had been called—back to the people whom he loved. Behind he left a trail of skeptics and a host of doubters, but also hundreds amazed at the power of God, the miracle of faith, and the example of courage.
On his return to Guatemala, Randall Ellsworth supported himself with the help of two canes. His walk was slow and deliberate. Then one day, as he stood before his mission president, Elder Ellsworth heard these almost unbelievable words spoken: “You have been the recipient of a miracle,” said the mission president. “Your faith has been rewarded. If you have the necessary confidence, if you have abiding faith, if you have supreme courage, place those two canes on my desk and walk.”
After a long pause, first one cane and then the other was placed on the desk, and a missionary walked. It was halting, it was painful—but he walked, never again to need the canes.
This spring I thought once more of the courage demonstrated by Randall Ellsworth. Years had passed since his ordeal. He was now a husband and a father. An engraved announcement arrived at my office. It read: “The President and Directors of Georgetown University announce commencement exercises of Georgetown University School of Medicine.” Randall Ellsworth received his Doctor of Medicine degree. More effort, more study, more faith, more sacrifice, more courage had been required. The price was paid, the victory won.

I used to be guilty of judging by appearance back in the days when I could see, before I lost my sight because of diabetes. I remember in particular my girls’ chorus teacher in junior high school. She was about as plain as a person could be, and she wore drab clothing. Even in conducting the choir she seemed to be a shy, backward person with about as much personality as a soda cracker. I am ashamed to admit that we girls made many rude remarks and cruel jokes about her behind her back.
One day at the end of the school year, some friends of mine thought it would be funny to leave an anonymous note on her desk telling her what we really thought of her. I was elected to do the dirty work. But as I went into the empty room to leave the note, I couldn’t do it. Instead, overcome by what I now suspect was the Spirit, I quickly wrote a note thanking her for her efforts in leading the chorus and telling her I had enjoyed singing.
As I was leaving the note on her desk, she entered the room. I was frozen to the spot as she walked to the desk, picked up the note, and read it. As I watched, I was astonished to see tears come to her eyes and flood down her cheeks. She clutched the note to her heart and in her mild way said, “Thank you.”
As I looked into her eyes at that moment, I believe I saw her clearly for the first time. I felt like I saw straight into her soul and sensed at once her loneliness, her pain, and her gentle goodness. At that moment, I loved her with a love that was far more powerful than anything I had ever felt for my favorite teachers. The Lord permitted me to see her heart as he sees it.

And yet he knew that friendship was more than an abstraction. He learned one day that a brother’s house had been burned by enemies. When Church members said they felt sorry for him, the Prophet took some money from his pocket and said, “I feel sorry for this brother to the amount of five dollars. How much do you … feel sorry [for him]?” (in Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, comps., They Knew the Prophet [1974], 150).

As I spoke, Mrs. Pfeil’s eyes became wet. “I have to tell you a story,” she said. “I have always wanted to be a writer, even though I felt God wanted me to teach. Last night I was feeling hurt that I had never received any appreciation for my work. I told God that unless I received some thanks the very next day, I was going to retire from teaching and work on my writing. And now here you come after all this time to thank me on this particular day—this blessing is almost too much!”