Gospel Story Finder

Sometimes that love comes in unexpected ways. Kristen was finishing a graduate degree and had recently given birth to her second child. She felt the other graduates had accomplished so much more and was reluctant to attend the graduation dinner. Her fears were confirmed when, at the dinner, the students were asked to list their professional accomplishments. Kristen recalled: “I suddenly felt embarrassed and ashamed. I had nothing to call myself, no lofty position, no impressive job title.” To make matters worse, the professor read the lists as he presented a diploma to each student. The woman ahead of Kristen had many accomplishments: she already had a PhD, was receiving a second master’s degree, and she’d even been a mayor! The woman received grand applause.
Then it was Kristen’s turn. She handed the professor her blank sheet, trying to hold back the tears. The professor had been one of her teachers and had praised her performance. He looked at her blank paper. Without missing a beat he announced, “Kristen holds the most critical role in all of society.” He was quiet for a few seconds, then declared in a powerful voice, “She is the mother of her children.” Instead of a few courteous claps, people rose to their feet. There was just one standing ovation that night; it was for the mother in the room.

I know that God watches over our intellectual endeavors. The surgical testimony of Elder Nelson shows that God will help things happen that far exceed human ability (see Russell M. Nelson, “Sweet Power of Prayer,” Ensign, May 2003, 7–9). Have miracles ceased? No. In fact, Mormon says that miracles are ministered “unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness” (Moroni 7:30; emphasis added).

I have asked for and have received His support in many academic pursuits, often through the unimaginable help of other people. One day, with no appointment, a person walked into my office with the precise skill set I had been praying for, only to tell me she didn’t know why she had come but that she had decided not to stay with another job and wondered if I needed any help.

Last Christmas, facing a crucial year-end deadline after months of work, my staff finally downloaded a huge collection of scanned Church historical documents onto 74 DVD production masters; with those master disks safely in hand, they watched as our linked hard drives crashed irrecoverably only a few hours later.

I cannot believe that these things were mere coincidences.

I know that God will support us as we strive to love Him with our minds.

In addition to questions about his goals and strengths, I asked Elder Handsome about his social life.
“Tell me about your girlfriends.”
He virtually leaped out of his chair.
“Girlfriend, not friends. There is a one and only. She’s the greatest. I can’t live without her.”
“What will it do to your mission when she marries someone else?”
“If I hear of her even dating anybody else, I am gone, I am history, I am out of here. I’ll go straight home.”
For months Elder Handsome struggled to become involved in his mission. He was continually figuring out clever things to write to his “one and only.” He spent much of his time thinking about her instead of the work.
When the “Dear John” came, Elder Handsome struggled even more. But he did not go home. He eventually became an outstanding missionary and a dedicated district and zone leader. He learned to love his mission, his area, the prospective members, and the local members.

A personal example to me of handling big, unexpected changes in life is my dad. Growing up, he worked hard on the family farm. On hot summer days he loved to water-ski with his brothers in the irrigation canals. Rather than being pulled by a boat, they would strap the rope to a tractor and drive it along the bank of the canal. In high school, he was a star athlete in football and track. Between his junior and senior year, at the age of 17, he got a summer job helping run telephone lines across the desert of southern Idaho. His responsibility was to check the depth of the lines as the machines buried cables in the ground. But at some point they ran out of cable, so the company sent him to another site for a few days to drill holes in lava rock. These holes were being created for telephone poles that would carry the lines across the lava fields. The first day on his new job, my dad quickly drilled one hole by wrapping his legs tightly around a jackhammer and then chiseling away at the rock. After completing one hole, he had started on another when suddenly there was a large explosion. The company had been blasting the rock with dynamite the day before and some of the explosives had not detonated. My dad had drilled directly into these charges and they exploded, throwing him high into the air. In an instant, his life was forever changed. The explosion resulted in the loss of both of his legs below his knees.

In order to walk again after his recovery, he had to be fitted with prosthetic legs, which he’s worn his whole life. But my dad has never viewed his prosthetic legs as limitations and has found ways to still do extraordinary things. He was active in sports like racquetball and basketball, and even continued his love of water-skiing. Despite needing a wetsuit to keep himself attached to his prosthetic legs, he was still a pretty good skier, most of the time. (And he always made sure to plug his nose on the way down.)

His accident brought on many other health challenges and countless surgeries throughout his life, but one thing I’ve never seen my dad do is complain about it. He’s been a tremendous example to me of how to face challenges and unexpected changes with action instead of self-pity and to make the most of any situation.

A woman who was required to move frequently because of her husband’s employment was planting flower bulbs in her yard. Her neighbor stopping to watch asked her, “Why do you bother planting these bulbs when you know you won’t be here when they bloom next spring?”
“I may not be here,” the woman replied, “but someone else will. I always try to leave my homes, temporary as they may be, a little more beautiful because I was there.”

The university is equally well served by wonderful performing groups that are also sustained by a powerful spiritual force. And this largely because of the quality of leadership in our music program. I recorded the following on December 12, 1981.
Last night the community enjoyed a powerful experience in music. The Honolulu Symphony performed in the Cannon Activity Center with the BYU-Hawaii Concert Choir and the La`ie Choral Union directed by Dr. James Smith. Carolyn and our two daughters Merrilli and Angela sang with a 125 voice choir which had practiced for several months pieces from the Messiah and Hodie. According to Carolyn, the practices were discouraging, even ragged. It was embarrassing that the choir stumbled so badly even in the main practice with the main orchestra on Friday.
But our prayers and the great need of the people brought about a miracle of beauty seldom experienced. . . The choir sang brilliantly, one hundred times better than ever before in practice. I was stunned.
Afterwards Carolyn mentioned to me several times that as they sang she heard strong beautiful voices, not the choir's, blending in, strengthening and magnifying. She saw no angels but she heard them. She could even pinpoint in the choir where they were standing. Certainly the impact was heavenly, for the choir was resonant, in tune, responsive to the orchestra. They were magnificent as was our wonderful Dr. Smith. Dr. Preston Larson of our Music faculty came up to me afterward bubbling, almost jumping up and down with enthusiasm. The angelic support was manifest abundantly in an eighteen voice choir which sang in the Celestial Room of the remodeled Hawaii Temple in 1978. The rich beauty of that choir is unforgettable. When Dr. Smith retires at the end of this year, we hope that he does not take his angels with him.

Illustration by Greg Newbold
When my family moved a few months after I turned 18, I found myself in a new ward and facing a challenge. Within two weeks of my moving in, almost all of the priests were made elders. I was also called to be the first assistant in the priests quorum.
In giving me this calling, the bishop explained that there were a lot of priests on the roll, but almost no one showed up. We had a lot of work to do to encourage people to attend.
“Just invite people to come,” he said.
Only one other priest came to church, a guy named Ryan, who showed up a couple times each month. I decided to go knock on doors of our less-active quorum members and invite them to our activities. I was nervous, afraid that they’d get upset at me for inviting them to church. I figured they weren’t coming because they didn’t like church. But I also figured it was good practice for my upcoming mission to try to invite, so I gritted my teeth and started calling the other priests or stopping by their houses. I invited them to firesides, to activities, to church.
What surprised me was that some actually responded and came. We eventually had a group of four priests who started coming on a regular basis. It wasn’t that they didn’t like church—they had just been waiting for an invitation to come. They were just as nervous about a new situation—attending church—as I had been.
Some activities were more successful than others. Everyone showed up for volleyball, but I struggled to get people to attend other activities.
Youth conference that year was especially rewarding as I watched some of these young men stand up and bear their testimonies. I felt like I had made a difference in their lives.
One of the differences I saw was that Ryan was attending church every week and we had become good friends.
Ryan and I both received the Melchizedek Priesthood about six months after I moved in. I had chosen to wait until after my mission to attend college so I could work to save for my mission. Ryan was already established in a trade, and he decided not to go to college either. After work we often hung out together.
Once, we stayed up most of the night trying to get through the book of Alma as Ryan read the Book of Mormon for the first time. It was exhausting but spiritually energizing. It was also great to see the changes Ryan was making in his life. He gave up old habits, created better ones, and changed some of his friends so he could be with people who shared his standards.
I had been looking forward to my mission since I had started going to church a few years before. Ryan wasn’t sure if he would go. While hanging out, we discussed my mission and my excitement to serve. As I encouraged him and answered gospel questions, I gained more confidence in my own abilities to serve as a missionary. Ryan was old enough to go but struggled with his decision.
“I wasn’t sure if my testimony was strong enough, even though I felt good about the Church at the time,” he said. “I did want to go, but it was really difficult to leave family.”
The day finally came when I could start filling out my mission papers. When I told Ryan, he surprised me by saying he had decided to serve as well. Our mission calls arrived on the same night. Ryan left to serve in Canada a month before I started my mission in France.
When I came home two years later, I looked up all the priests I had worked with. It saddened me to learn that some had stopped going to church shortly after I left, but I was happy to see Ryan again. He had served an honorable mission, and just as with Alma and the sons of Mosiah, I had more joy to see that he was still my brother in the Lord (see Alma 17:2).

The McDowell family moved into Mr. Capper’s house nearly six months ago. They sure are different from the rest of the families in the neighborhood! The first McDowell I met was Nephi, the family’s eleven-year-old son. Nephi told me that his parents named him after an ancient American prophet. I’d never heard of any ancient American prophets, but he showed me a book where his name was written—a book called the Book of Mormon.
My family goes to church, and sometimes we read the Bible, but neither my parents nor I had ever heard of the Book of Mormon. Nephi called it a second testament of Jesus Christ, and said that it was an ancient record of the Lord’s dealings with people in the Americas. That was my first clue that Nephi and his family were “different.”
Next, I met Nephi’s older sister, Glitchen. She wasn’t named for a prophet, but for her great-grandmother, Glitchen Kelly, who came to America from Ireland a long time ago. Glitchen’s great-grandmother had red hair and married a man from Poland named Alex. Glitchen knows all this because her family studies their family history.
All I know about my family is that my parents were born in Mexico and grew up in Arizona. I’d like to know more, but I can’t imagine spending the time that Glitchen’s mother does researching their ancestors, or “growing the family tree,” as she calls it.
When the McDowells first moved in, the whole neighborhood changed. For one thing, it looked better. Mr. Capper hadn’t kept up his house too well, but not long after unloading their furniture, the McDowells set to work repairing their new home. They put a fresh coat of paint on the house and fixed the front gate on the picket fence. Then Mr. McDowell put Nephi to work in the old garden plot, clearing weeds and tilling the soil.
Back then, no one in the neighborhood cared much for gardening, but Nephi said that their prophet wanted them to grow a garden and be as independent as they could. At first I thought he meant the same prophet Nephi was named after, or maybe Moses or Abraham. But Nephi said that he meant the living prophet, the one that stands at the head of their church today. A man who speaks for God down here on earth. After all, he said, the world needs a prophet today as much as ancient Israel needed one in the Bible.
When I told Mom about this living prophet, she didn’t laugh, like I thought she might. Instead, she sighed and said that she prayed that such things were true. That evening we went into our own abandoned garden plot to pull weeds.
So Mom, Dad, and I grew our garden, and the McDowells grew theirs. In the fall, Mom and Mrs. McDowell swapped zucchini recipes, and Mrs. McDowell taught Mom how to bottle fruit and freeze corn. Then Nephi’s dad and my dad began fishing together on Saturdays and sometimes on Friday evenings—but never on Sundays. We learned fast just what the McDowells would and would not do on Sundays.
“It’s our Sabbath,” Nephi told me. They didn’t fish or hunt or have birthday parties or go boating or shopping or do anything but spend family time together and do church stuff. I really felt sorry for Nephi and Glitchen, but they didn’t seem to mind, even when I heard Nephi’s stomach growling one Sunday when he’d been fasting all day.
Now, believe it or not, after all I’ve seen of the McDowells, I still like them. Maybe it’s because they laugh a lot and seem to enjoy each other. Or maybe it’s because Nephi throws such a mean fastball. Or maybe it’s because I just feel good when I’m with them.
Tonight, after dinner, the McDowells are bringing over some missionaries to tell my parents and me more about their church. Mom has cleaned the house and made cinnamon cake, and Nephi and Glitchen are bringing a Book of Mormon just for me.
I’ll soon know all about Nephi the prophet, and about family history stuff and gardens and the Sabbath day, plus a whole lot more. I’ll even learn what it means to be different, like the McDowells. Sometimes different is good.

I was born in the Dominican Republic. But at age 15, when my parents divorced, I moved to Spain to live with my mom. I love Spain because of the fun places and good food—especially churros.
My mom joined the Church before I moved in with her. She always had a Book of Mormon in our house. So one day I started reading, and I really identified with Nephi. I attended church, and I could feel the Spirit there. I knew the Church was true, and I was so happy to be baptized at age 16.
I can see the impact being baptized and having the gift of the Holy Ghost have had on my life. My bishop is helping me prepare to serve a mission, and I just received my temple recommend.

As I thought about a magical mango, I couldn’t help but think about my mission serving in Antananarivo, Madagascar, which had great mangos by the way. On my mission, one of my favorite things to do was family home evenings with the members. I loved having them re-enact parts of 1 Nephi 8. When we would get to verse 15, I would explain to the family members acting out the scripture that they had just received a gift that caused them to have the most happiness they have ever had, and this happiness lasted forever. Then, I would ask them to shout in a loud voice to beckon the rest of their family to share this happiness with them. It was a fun time to see them waving arms and shouting for the family to join them. Often my companion and I would ask follow-up questions about what the family could do to strive to stay on the path to eternal happiness. Many comments, such as going to church, sharing the gospel with friends and family, receiving temple ordinances, and living the Word of Wisdom, would be shared.

To emphasize our points of the lesson in the family home evening, we would at times do an activity. I would pull out of my sun-faded backpack a medium sized cup, a small coin, a bag of flour, a plate, and a kitchen knife. The first thing I would do is put the coin at the bottom of the cup. I would then open the bag of flour and ask, “What good things add to our testimony, keep us on the covenant path, and help us hold on to the rod of iron?” As answers were given, I would add flour in the cup. I would keep probing for more and more answers even once the cup seemed full.

Once the flour was heaping, I would compress the flour with the knife. In order for the activity to work, the flour would need to be very compact. At the moment the flour was compact enough, I would place the plate upside down on the cup and turn the cup and plate over carefully. I would then tap the edges of the cup gently while pulling up on the cup. If done correctly, I would have a tower of flour, much like a sand castle. At this point, we would talk about things that would eat away at our testimony, pull us away from the covenant path, or keep us from everlasting life with our family. As each member of the family took their turn, they would use the table knife to slice away a part of the testimony tower. The object was to not have the tower fall during your turn. If the tower fell on your turn, you had to find the coin in the pile of flour with your mouth. Remember the coin which was on the bottom of the cup was moved to the top of the tower and is now buried in flour. This usually produced a face full of flour by the end of the activity. I had my son help me with the pictures for this description. However, the results were the same in the mission field.

While I would have enjoyed having done this activity with each of you during your home evenings, I hope that you can envision the effect of building the tower, the tower falling, and the toil of finding the coin. One last part of this activity is that the flour can be put back in the cup, repacked, and rebuilt. All is not lost if the tower falls. However, a lot can be learned about the importance of keeping our testimony towers strong.

I was at the lowest point in my life. My wife had asked for a divorce after leaving me for another man. I was 30 years old and living with my mother. I was also close to losing my job.
The senior editor of the newspaper where I worked warned me, “If you come to work intoxicated again, you will be immediately dismissed.” On my way home, I wondered how I could stop drinking.
Just then, two missionaries stopped and talked to me about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I told them I was not interested. But being a journalist, I felt compelled to give them my card.
Several days later, my mother told me that two Americans were there to see me.
“They have one of your cards,” she said.
They were the same missionaries from a few days before. One of them handed me a pamphlet and talked about the Prophet Joseph Smith. Then his companion handed me a Book of Mormon. He asked if I would read several chapters from it. When I agreed to do so, he looked at me closely and asked if I would read 150 pages.
“Impossible!” I said.
“Well, we’ll come back on Thursday,” he said. That was several days away. I didn’t think I could read those pages in that time.
After work the next day, I felt a strong urge to find my friends and go drinking. Then I remembered the senior editor’s warning and the 150 pages I had been asked to read. I went home and began reading the Book of Mormon. I also read the pamphlet about Joseph Smith.
The Spirit touched my heart as I read about Joseph Smith. I also felt the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon as I read and learned more about the Savior. Soon I had read 150 pages. On Thursday, the missionaries returned and asked if I had read.
“Yes!” I said. “All 150 pages!”
I wanted to know more. When they taught me about the Word of Wisdom, I told them I was ready to give up alcohol.
The next Sunday, I went to my first fast and testimony meeting. I shared my newfound testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. A short time later, I was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church.
In the 48 years since my baptism, I have tried to keep the commandments and stay close to the Church. I remarried and served a mission with my wife. Over the years, I accepted many callings. I now serve in the temple. Every time I’m there, I thank the Lord for pulling me from the darkness and bringing me into the light.

From a stand of trees on the Hill Cumorah, I watched as Anna knelt in the mud. She was praying. I was too far away to hear what she said—but I sensed what was in her heart, because we had been working together for a week.
I was a missionary, called to serve in what was then the Cumorah Mission. As part of our service, for two weeks every year, we missionaries joined volunteers from the area and elsewhere in preparing for and then presenting the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Anna (name has been changed) was one of these volunteers.
The day I met Anna was the first day of preparing for the pageant. I was immediately struck by how unhappy she was. I assume she had not volunteered for this two-week mission; more likely, her parents had drafted her. She made it clear she would rather be anywhere else than here. She was grumpy, uncooperative, unfriendly—your basic pain in the neck.
Like the full-time missionaries, the volunteers followed a missionary routine. We all rose early and had a morning devotional. We read the scriptures. We prayed. We bore testimony to one another. In addition, since part of our duties during pageant week was to greet visitors at the hill, the volunteers were taught how to approach people and invite them to learn about the Church.
Anna was assigned to our work group. At first, she was miserable to be around. But sometime during that week of preparation, she connected with a power greater than herself. She received a witness, borne by the power of the Holy Ghost, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Book of Mormon really is God’s word, and that the church she belonged to truly is the restored Church of Jesus Christ. Anna’s heart softened, and her mind opened.
The transformation was amazing. By the time the pageant began, Anna was the happiest person there. Our group was posted at the angel Moroni monument at the top of the Hill Cumorah. We would normally wait for people to walk up to the statue from below before introducing ourselves and explaining what the statue represents. Anna couldn’t wait. She would literally run down the path to greet those toiling up the hill. They connected with Anna and her message so quickly that by the time they reached us, she had them nearly ready for baptism. She did so much talking that, by the time the pageant started each night, she was hoarse.
One day during pageant week it rained. The water came down in buckets, and we were afraid the pageant would be cancelled that night. This experience was not unusual. New York in July gets rain. When it happens during pageant week, the missionaries and members always ask the Lord to intervene. And the rain usually stops, at least during pageant time.
That day the rain was so fierce we wondered whether prayer would be enough. So we started a fast. We knew from experience what a great missionary tool the pageant is, and we didn’t want anyone to miss it. Just before the pageant was to start, the rain stopped.
That’s when Anna went to her knees in prayer. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I was sure she was thanking the Lord for His mercy—to her, to all of us.
I don’t know what happened to Anna after the pageant was over. I imagine she returned home, finished school, and married. I have no doubt she remained faithful to the gospel, a beacon of light in a worried world. I can see her now in my mind, running down life’s path to greet some troubled soul seeking an angel—and finding one in Anna.

Six months into my mission, I had a special interview with my mission president during one of our mission conferences. In essence President Waite told me, “Elder Agüero, I’m going to give you an assignment. You have to learn English because when you return home you will be a member of a stake presidency, a mission president, and a leader in the Church. You will need English to communicate with the General Authorities.”
I laughed, perhaps because at the age of 20 I couldn’t see myself in these positions and because I came from a new stake in Argentina that was among only three that had been organized in the country.
He said, “Don’t laugh, Elder Agüero. I’m being serious.”
I felt the Spirit very strongly through this man, my leader, who then explained to me the way in which I was to fulfill this assignment.
He said, “From now on, you will speak only in English, every day, for half the day, with your companion.”
My companion received the same instructions in his interview, and we started doing so. It was extremely difficult for me at first, but later after much effort, I began to understand basic ideas. I prayed at night, crying many times out of frustration and helplessness because I wanted to be obedient to the task I had been given.
After some months and a few companions later, the miracle came. While a missionary was giving a beautiful talk in English during a zone conference, I suddenly began to understand every word. The miracle did not end there. Over time I came to serve as the mission’s financial secretary, which helped me read and write English. I tried to understand the language by reading Church News, the Ensign, and other English materials. Through these I was able to get a feeling for the English language, which is still with me today.

Markus sat in the temple with his new family. They were all dressed in white. Now that Markus was adopted, he was so excited to be sealed to his family!
Brother Ray stood up. He was the temple sealer. “This is a big day,” he said. “Do you know why?”
“Now we can be together forever,” Markus said. He looked at his parents and his big brother, Caleb.
“That’s right,” Brother Ray said. “In the temple we seal families forever.” He looked at Caleb. He asked, “Do you know how we can do that?”
Caleb smiled. “With the priesthood,” he said.
“That’s right. Heavenly Father gives us His power. We use it to bless people in big ways and little ways.”
The family knelt down. Caleb was already sealed to his parents. He watched while Markus was sealed to them too.
The sealing ended. Dad pointed to two mirrors. They faced each other across the room. “How far can you see in that mirror?” he asked.
Markus stood up tall. He saw his family in the mirror. He saw them over and over again. “Forever and ever!” he said.
Question for You
How has Heavenly Father blessed your family?
“Our family can be forever too. Isn’t that right, Caleb?” Dad said. “Now you and Markus can be forever brothers!”
“Yeah.” Caleb put an arm around Markus. “I waited a long time for a brother. I want to keep him forever!”

Olivia burst through the door after school. “Mom! I’m supposed to write about the strongest person I know! Who should I write about?”
Mom looked up from her computer. “The strongest person you know, huh? Well, how do you know if someone is strong?”
Olivia flexed her arms. “They have really big muscles!”
“What else?”
Olivia thought for a moment. “Um … they can lift really heavy things.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Mom said. “When is your paper due?”
“In two weeks,” Olivia said. “I’ll keep thinking about it.”
Later that night, Olivia watched her little brother, Reese, play with their stepdad, Trevor.
“Can you lift me over your head?” Reese asked.
“Sure!” Trevor swung Reese into his arms and held him up high. “How long do you want to stay up there?”
Reese giggled. “Forever!”
Olivia laughed too.
At first she hadn’t been sure about Trevor, after her parents divorced and Mom married Trevor. He was all right, but he wasn’t her dad. She had clashed with Trevor over a lot of things, especially when he tried to give her chores. But then she started getting along better with him. He liked a lot of cool things, like biking and running. And she could see that Trevor really cared about her family.
Reese started flapping his arms. Trevor had been holding him up there for so long that Reese was pretending to be a bird. Suddenly Olivia had an idea. She ran to the kitchen.
“I’m going to write about Trevor!” Olivia said. “He’s been getting ready for his half marathon, so he’s really strong.”
“I think that’s great!” Mom said. “Are you going to tell him about it?”
Olivia shook her head. “I’ll show him when it’s all done and graded. I want it to be a surprise.”
After dinner Olivia got out a clean sheet of paper. She wrote, “The Strongest Person I Know” at the top. Over the next two weeks, Olivia wrote a little bit every day. At first, she wrote about how Trevor lifted heavy weights and went on long runs.
Then she started noticing all the things he did for their family, like helping Olivia shop for silly hairbows the night before her school’s “crazy hair day.” Or when Mom got sick and he stayed home from work to take care of the family. That week, Trevor hadn’t been able to train for his half marathon, even though it was only a week away. He was too busy doing laundry, cooking meals, and helping Mom feel better. But Trevor said he didn’t mind. “Family comes first,” he told Olivia.
Olivia realized that there were many ways to be strong, like doing hard things. She wrote about how being strong meant choosing the right. It meant making sacrifices to help those you love.
On the day of Trevor’s half marathon, the whole family came to cheer him on. Olivia found Trevor stretching before the race and handed him her essay. The teacher had given her an A+!
“I wrote this about you,” she said.
Trevor read it. There were tears in his eyes. “Thank you!” he said. “This means so much to me.”
Olivia grinned. “Good luck,” she said. “We’ll see you at the finish line!”
Mom, Reese, and Olivia watched excitedly as runners made it to the end of the race. When they saw Trevor, they waved and cheered.
Nobody cheered louder than Olivia.

Many years ago, while on vacation with my family, I had an experience that taught me a great lesson. On a Saturday, my wife and I decided to take the children for a drive and to do some shopping. During the drive the children fell asleep, and not wanting to wake them, I volunteered to stay in the car while my wife ran into the store.
While waiting, I glanced at the car parked in front of me. It was full of children, and they were looking at me. My eyes caught the eyes of a small boy, six or seven years old. As our eyes met, he immediately stuck his tongue out at me.
My first reaction was to stick my tongue out at him. I thought, “What have I done to deserve this?” Fortunately, before I reacted, I remembered a principle taught in general conference the week before by Elder Marvin J. Ashton.1 He taught how important it was to act instead of react to the events around us. So I waved at the little boy. He stuck his tongue out at me again. I smiled and waved again. This time he waved back.
Soon he was joined in his enthusiastic waving by a little brother and sister. I responded by waving this way and that until my arm became tired. Then I rested it on the steering wheel and continued with every creative wave I could muster, all the time hoping their parents would quickly return or that my wife would soon come back.
The parents finally did come, and as they pulled away, my newfound friends continued to wave for as long as I could see them.
That was a simple experience, but it demonstrated that in most encounters we can determine the kind of experience we are going to have by how we respond. I was grateful that I chose to act in a friendly way rather than react to my young friend’s childish behavior. In doing so I avoided the negative feelings I would have felt had I followed my natural instinct.

As the Ellsworth company crossed the plains, it was closely followed by the McArthur company. The companies passed many homes and settlements that had recently been built as the prairie began to be settled.
One day when six-year-old Arthur Parker of the McArthur company sat down to rest, he was accidentally left behind, and members of the Ellsworth company, traveling close-by, delayed their travel to help search for the boy. When the boy wasn’t found, his father stayed behind to continue the search while the companies moved on.
Arthur’s mother gave her husband a bright shawl and told him that if the boy was dead to wrap his body in it. If the boy was alive, he was to use it as a signal to let her know. Arthur was found a few days later in the care of a kind couple, and his father happily waved the red shawl when he and the boy finally came within sight of the handcarts.
2
Men searched for lost Parker boy of McArthur company; camped by Nishnabotna River (10 miles)
5
Company washed clothes and rested; Brother Parker brought son into camp—camp rejoiced (no miles)

The first smell of fall did it, like it does every year about this time. Oh, some times a sound will bring it back too, but the smell even brings back the taste and the slippery sweetness. When it is in the air you look at the mountains early in the morning anticipating that first touch of white. The smell seems to bring back the sounds too. The big balloon tires on a Schwinn bike crunching the colors out of fallen box elder and locust leaves on the way home from school and Miss Wasden’s fifth-grade classroom. It’s a smell that is almost too full of pleasant memories, like the sound and the sweet gush of juice when biting into autumn’s first frost-touched apple with its golden, water-cored center.
The smell of fall also meant hunting seasons with rites of preparation by red-flannel-shirted practitioners of horseshoeing, gun cleaning, and sighting in. Closeted drill-sergeant voices would come out every fall along with the red shirts.
“Only three shots at a time; then adjust for windage and elevation. Hold tight and squeeze. Don’t pull?
I was too young that year to get in on much more than the sights and sounds of hunting preparations. I was feeling pretty bad about not going hunting and about school. It seemed time for something special to come into my life. I never doubted the fairness of life, and I was sure something good would finally happen to me. I’d waited for my first man teacher, and then on the first day of school our principal, Mr. Clayson (principal of both junior high and grade school and also the grand presider of the lunchroom), announced that Mr. Wall had gone to Provo, “had gone back to school to finish his degree.” He introduced a Miss Wasden who would be our teacher for the coming year.
After a week we all got to like her quite well. She was nice, and it’s hard for any young boy not to like someone who is nice to him. But she still didn’t know a bat spaulding from an aggie taw, and her voice reading Bomba the Jungle Boy wasn’t nearly as real as Mr. Wall’s would have been.
The school weeks began to blur by and run together in my mind, and I remember now that the beautiful frosty smell was in the air. The crisp stillness of it, the way it pinched the insides of your nose while you were doing chores so that the breakfast smells of oatmeal and bacon were even better than they really were. Each morning you were reminded that winter was approaching and in the afternoons again as the sun was going down.
One day Doug, Jimmy Peterson (there were two Jimmys and one Pete in our class already so at least one of the three of us had a known last name), and I were riding our bicycles home from school on this diagonal trail that cuts through the old Second Ward chapel lot. A good hard path was worn through the weeds and grass between the Church and the two old outhouses. They weren’t used anymore except to tip over on Halloween and to hide in so we could give girls walking by a good scare. They were still weathering and leaning more every year despite their repeated rerightings the week following Halloween. I could see the chrome fenders on Doug’s new red bicycle bobbing back and forth ahead of me several yards when he slipped sideways with all his weight stomping on the coaster brake and leaping off the bicycle all in one motion.
“Look what I found,” he said as he scrambled to his knees along the edge of the worn track. “A purse!”
“Let’s see it,” we answered almost in unison.
“Shh, someone will see us.”
Together the three of us scurried back up the path past our tangled, still-turning wheels and akimbo handlebars to the outhouses. The ladies’ door had been nailed shut, but the men’s was open, and we crowded together inside to examine the contents of the purse.
It really wasn’t much of a purse, looking back at it now. It was too shiny and too green and made out of some of the first plastic, the kind that they used when they were still trying to think of things to use it for, before the Korean War made them start putting it in automobiles and furniture.
There wasn’t much talk in the dim outhouse light. We found only about 50 cents in change in the purse and no name or pictures. The name card was shiny and new like the rest of the purse. If we had known who it belonged to, I’m sure we wouldn’t have done what we did with it. But as it was, in a flash we had the money—Doug carried it because he saw it first—and we dropped the purse down the biggest hole into the black undeniable bowls of the outhouse. Then we were out of there and on our bikes and down to LaRue’s Market like a shot. Mr. LaRue was busy with a man in a white shirt, so we went over to look at the comics. I’d found a couple of good “Tarzans” with the top third of the front covers cut off. Mr LaRue always did that to the comics that didn’t sell the month before, and then you could buy them for half price.
“Come over here, boys.” It was the man in the white shirt.
“I’m telling you, Jack,” he was talking to Mr. LaRue, “you won’t be able to keep them in once people get a taste. I’ve seen new products come and go, but this is a real breakthrough.”
The sewn-on picture of a loaf of bread kept bobbing back and forth on his short-sleeved white shirt, and he kept waving his arms.
“Watch,” he said.
“Here, boys, come and try a free sample.”
And he cut a dark brown, almost black, slickly frosted cupcake in half, and as he did, we saw that the middle was white and part of it stuck deliciously to his knife. The cake separated, showing its white insides as it rolled over on the tray.
“Here, each of you take a half.” Then he cut another one, making us wait a little longer before handing any of the pieces to us.
In turn he placed a rich brown half, exposed white center up, in our hands. We timidly took a smell as we held them up to our faces, our eyes still on the salesman waiting for his permission to go ahead. We were in his power. “Take a bite. It’s more delicious than you can imagine.” They were delicious, and all the while we were eating them, he went on talking.
“The combination of the devil’s food and our secret cream filling is without parallel in food merchandising.”
By then all the rest of us, including Mr. LaRue, were into the cream centers, and I have to this day not tried anything sweeter or more delicious or memorable to my taste than that first bite of moist marshmallow cream in the center of that devil’s food cupcake. It was as if a breath of heavenly pure white ambrosia was centered in the chocolate cake.
“Don’t you want to buy some, boys? How many, Jack? Think a gross will last you till next week?”
All of us nodded yes. What else could we do, now? He continued to fill out his order, then went out to the truck and brought in more cakes. For a good part of our allotted going-home time we stood in the corner of LaRue’s Market and read comic books, only the ones with the tops off, and ate more of the new cupcakes, bought and paid for with the contents of the purse we had found.
To this day I don’t remember whether I was really alone or not. Doug and Jimmy Peterson may have gone on before me. I was still deep in “Red Ryder,” “Little Beaver,” and “Tarzan,” sure that I could finish soon and catch them in a block or two if I had to. But I was reading, facing the magazine rack, when I heard other people come in behind me.
The lady seemed old to a fifth grader; she was probably at least 35. With her were two little girls, one small and the other one about eight. It seems funny now that I didn’t know them, because even then I thought I knew everyone who lived in Santaquin. One grade school, two small grocery stores, two wards, and two pages in the telephone directory pretty well took care of Santaquin and still does.
I had never seen the mother before. The younger child is still faceless in my mind, but the face of her older sister has remained vividly with me to this day. In her pale, delicate, almost china-fragile white face were set enormous lavender eyes. She had the lacy delicacy of a sego lily, one growing under a sagebrush in a marginal area where it has barely enough light to survive. Her eyes were out of proportion to the rest of her face. Their dark liquid presence made you look deep into her soul before you could take your own eyes away. You could look a long time and never be stopped by a light reflection in them. They were now rimmed with tears, and her soft, shoulder-length hair covered the collar of her blue woolen coat. Her hair was the lace that framed her china face. I even wonder now if this striking creature was really an older being inside of a child’s body. Yet, her eyes could not have looked more hurt nor mirrored any greater sadness than they did that day. She started to sob softly as if she were already exhausted from crying. “I don’t know where I lost it. I had it right here in my pocket when I left school.”
“Are you certain, Susanne?” the mother asked. And I remember the feeling of surprise to hear an ordinary mortal name attached to something so angelic.
“Yes, I’m so sorry I lost it, Mama.”
“Well let’s go back once more. Maybe if we walk clear back to school we’ll find it. Your father will feel so bad. He already felt terrible about missing your birthday. He sent you the purse, and now you have lost it and your birthday money. Look carefully now. I’m sure we’ll find it if we watch carefully all the way back to school.”
I stood there dumb and immobile. I wanted to blurt out the truth. I couldn’t. It was as if I had grabbed onto an electric fence and couldn’t let go. I didn’t want it to be true. If only I could have willed the purse back to the path, I knew they would be able to find it. But they wouldn’t now; they couldn’t and I knew it. Sickness came in a wave from my depths. I was suffering. Speechless and frozen and dying inside. My first experience of feeling that excruciating torture and hurt and conscience for someone else that is more severe, that is wider in range and deeper in feeling than you can possibly feel for yourself. For the first time I was living the pain of someone else, and what made it even worse, I had caused it.
I don’t remember the rest of the day—when I got home or what was said when I did. I don’t remember ever seeing that incredibly sad little girl with the haunting eyes again except in my mind. She is not a memory, thank goodness, that is too accessible now. She is hidden deeply in among the stretch marks and scar tissue of growing. However, she does come back annually with the smells of fall, and the many good memories of growing up. She is there like an old war wound that helps you tell the seasons, a part of you you’d rather not have but learn to live with and accept, another ache or heart murmur. Yet her memory and the burning feelings inside come together to remind me on mornings when this first smell of winter is in the air. Then I think of her again, and of that fifth-grade day many years ago, and of the first scorching of the taste buds of my soul.

Perhaps only couples who have been childless can understand the heartbreak, frustration, and envy that can develop in nine and a half years of a childless marriage. My husband’s patriarchal blessing had promised him children, but mine did not even mention marriage. We had asked for and received priesthood blessings twice—one from my father, who was our bishop, and one from our stake president five years later. The first promised children “in the Lord’s good time”; the second that we would lose no opportunity for a rich, full life.
Time passed. My husband received his Ph.D. in June 1975, and with it came a job offer from Brazil. We put all our belongings in storage and flew to Brazil with two suitcases, a bag of books, and a violin to begin our new life.
There are many children in Brazil—most are loved. The poorest father will tell you proudly how rich he is in children. But some are put up for adoption, and we knew adopting a child would be easier here than in the United States. In spite of our eagerness to adopt a child, however, we always felt “not yet” when we spoke of it.
Some weeks after arriving in Brazil—partly because of the different language and customs, but mostly because of an empty house—I became homesick. It was an aloneness I had never felt before. The feeling continued to oppress me until, one day, I suddenly felt a sweetness enter our home. With the sensation came the feeling that a spirit child was there with me. Though I could not see him, I sensed that he was as anxious as I was—excited, expectantly waiting. And then he said to me distinctly, though the words were never audibly spoken, “I will be born in February.”
February was the month of Carnival. Everything simply stopped, and all of Brazil was a gigantic festival for a week. We did not participate—we found ourselves chaperoning a Church youth conference instead. The last weekend in February was our district conference. Then the month was over and there was no child, even though we had prayed earnestly that we would be guided to find him. The speakers at the conference only intensified the pain we felt by their references to the importance of having children.
Thursday night following conference, a sister who works in the children’s hospital came to our home, greatly excited. There was a baby boy in the maternity hospital, and the social worker would save him for us till noon the next day. We were at the hospital by 7:30 A.M. We had had a sleepless night and had prayed fervently that we would have no problems—we had already had sufficient experience to know how difficult adoption could be. The social worker was very kind, but the natural mother had changed her mind and had taken the child home early that morning.
Then she hesitantly said, “We have another boy here. Would you like to see him?”
It seemed like we climbed a million stairs going to the nursery. Then they showed us a clear plastic crib containing a very wrinkled little baby. His tiny face turned to ours, and he looked at us with intensely blue eyes. We knew for a surety that this baby was for us.
By noon all the paper work with the juvenile court was done, and at 6:00 P.M. I went to get our son and took him home. We discovered that he had been born February 7, but since he weighed only two kilograms at birth he had stay in the hospital for nearly a month. As it was, when he came into our lives he weighed only 2.2 kilograms and was too weak to cry. We worried that we would lose him.
That Sunday was fast day, so we fasted for him, and Larry gave him a priesthood blessing. That very day he started waking up for meals, and two days later he managed a feeble cry and rolled himself over. Six months later he was a smiling, giggling, 6.8-kilogram, 68.5-centimeter normal baby boy.
We wait for the Lord’s “own good time,” and sometimes we find it very hard. We get frustrated and angry; we cry, hope, envy—I even felt resentment during those nine years. But when the gift is given, we understand.
Like Abraham and Sarah, (Gen. 12:5) like Jacob and Rachel (Gen. 30:1), like the parents of Samuel (1 Sam. 1:20) and John the Baptist (Luke 1:13), my husband and I have felt the greatness of God’s giving. And watching this tiny, growing gift from God, we pray that we, like them, will be equal to His trust.

Mala opened one eye and saw that dawn had lighted the sky. Then she opened the other eye and carefully turned her head from one side to the other. All about her she could see the rest of the family still sleeping on the stone floor of the fale. This was good!
Holding the edges of her sleeping mat closely, she rolled like a cocoon to the open side of the fale. Last night she had put her mat close to the open side so that she could slip out early and alone. She even had a good-sized rock waiting to put on her mat so it would not blow away.
She straightened up and glanced around the village. No fire smoke yet rose, no dog had begun wandering, no pig was yet rooting, and only one chicken was out scratching.
Mala smiled her special secret smile as she silently stole past her friend Fea’s fale, and then just as she was about to slip into the dim shelter of the forest, she heard her mother’s voice, soft and clear, calling, “Mala.”
Instead of answering, Mala dropped to her hands and knees and disappeared under the broad taro leaves. Finally she stood up and reluctantly turned back toward home. By this time many people were awake, and Mala tried to slip back without being seen in order that no one would know she had left her fale early so she would not have to do her share of the work.
But she was too late. Her mother was already caring for the baby, and her big sister, Lila, was ready to scold. Mala hung her head in shame and embarrassment.
“You don’t like to tend the little ones or cut the grass or gather firewood or carry water or gather coconuts or learn to make mats and baskets. You’re a lazy girl, Mala! You don’t like to do anything.”
Mala’s head came up in a flash. “No,” she cried, “that is not true. I like to do many things.”
“Oh? What many things do you like to do?”
“I like to play with the baby. I like to serve my father his food and go to Church meetings in my white dress. I like to sing in the bus going to town, and I like to swim in the sami and try to catch fish. When it’s dark and the grownups are singing and dancing, I like to go in the shadows and dance siva siva too. And most of all I like—”
Mala faltered and stopped because everyone was laughing at her. Even Lila was shaking her head and saying in her grown-up voice, “I think with Mala it is useless to try. I give up on her.”
Embarrassed, Mala dived into her father’s arms and hid her face against his chest. She was glad she hadn’t finished telling her likes, for what she liked most of all was to climb high to the top of Mount Olotele in the early dawn and play with her friends, the little white birds. The birds were so used to her that they would swoop down in a soft flutter of wings and catch the crumbs she threw to them. Then they would play together, girl and birds, darting among the trees and chasing and calling one another.
“My father does not laugh at me,” Mala whispered to herself, safe in his arms. “He taught me how to be friends with the white birds when I was just a little girl.”
Then Father turned her face to his. “Eat some banana, child,” he said kindly. “Then do your work before you play. Today you are to go with your mother and sister and gather matapisu. The good matapisu are at Sliding Rock, but you know that is a very dangerous place.”
“I know,” Mala said, her eyes round with wonder that she would be allowed to go there. “I’ve never gone there before because you have told me I must not.”
“That is so,” Father agreed. “But I think you are big enough now. I am trusting you to be careful. I am also trusting you to work hard,” Father continued. “You can climb the rocks easily because you are small and utu. Go now and help your mother.” And Father gave Mala a hug.
The flat stretch of shore called Sliding Rock is a smooth rock shelf. A low cliff rises on the land side. On the sea side the ocean waves slap at the rock when the tide is low, but when the tide is high, the great waves bash like thunder and come churning hungrily up and over the rock all the way to the cliff. When the tide is high, only a strong swimmer can pull out through the wild waves and swim around the high jutting point, Black Rock, to the quiet tidal pool on the other side.
On Black Rock point Mother and Lila found matapisu most plentiful. Mala soon learned how to pry the little umbrella-shaped shells just right so that she could flip them into her basket.
Mother and Mala worked together.
“I will climb down the ledge, Mala,” Mother said. “You stay here to hand my basket down.”
When the basket was nearly full, Mother called for Mala to take the basket. “The tide is coming in,” she explained, “and I must climb back up before the waves reach me.”
But Mother soon discovered that climbing up was not as easy as getting down had been.
“It’s no use,” she called to Mala. “The tide is too rough. Call Lila to come quickly. Maybe she can reach her arms over to help me. I’ll get beneath the rock crevice out of the spray till she comes. Hurry, I’m afraid I’ve stayed too long.”
“Lila! Lila! Come quickly. Mother will soon be in the sami.”
Lila could not hear Mala’s words, but she knew that her younger sister was frightened. Lila scrambled up and ran to see where Mala was pointing.
The girls flung themselves down as Mother crept out and held herself against the rock. All three strained to reach each other’s hands, but it was no use!
“Run, Mala,” Lila screamed in her ear. “Run for Father while I stay with Mother; I can’t run as fast as you.”
Down over the rocks Mala dashed and scrambled, ignoring all the cuts and bruises on the way. Off across the watery Sliding Rock, slipping, skidding, falling, up and on she went. Finally she was over the treacherous Sliding Rock and racing up through the forest. Vines and bare roots seemed to reach for her nimble feet.
What a long way it is to Father, she thought, and the same long way back to Mother. And then Mala ran even faster—as if the sea were right at her heels.
As she came crashing through the forest, dogs began to bark, pigs ran squealing, and chickens squawked and flopped out of her path.
The people came running to see what was happening. Mala’s father dropped the net he was mending and caught her in his arms.
“Mother!” gasped Mala, “Black Rock! Go, Father—the sami will take her. Run! Run!”
Father let Mala go and ran, shouting to Grandfather without slowing down or looking around. Grandfather dropped the coconut he was husking and ran after Father!
Women and children babbled with questions, but Mala sank down exhausted and weeping in Father’s net. Then as if the net were hot, she sprang up again, gathering it frantically into her arms as she sobbed, “No rope! They have no rope!”
With the net held in a big wad against her chest, she staggered and stumbled away from the fale. Then, getting her balance, she fled through the forest, calling for Father and Grandfather to wait for the net. Already the two men with their strong legs were deep in the forest, and so Mala had to run with the net herself.
When she reached the sami, she could see them far ahead splashing across Sliding Rock, now awash with water. She could see Lila almost lost in spray at the top of Black Rock. Mala’s heart went stone cold, realizing that the waves must be beating at the rock where Mother crouched.
Taking no chances and praying with all her heart, she made her way carefully to the highest places and finally to the top of Black Rock. Looking like a straggle of seaweed, she flopped close to Grandfather.
Grandfather and Lila were holding Father’s legs while he slid farther and farther over the edge of the rock, trying to reach Mother’s hands. Seeing the net, Grandfather shouted and dragged Father back. In an instant the net flew up and out like a round wing of gauze. It flew over the cleft of the rock and landed between waves exactly at the right instant.
It seemed almost forever before Mother’s precious head finally appeared over the edge, and the two strong men carefully pulled her up as she clung to the net. Mother was scraped and cut and half-drowned, but she smiled gratefully.
In the cool dark that evening, friends came from all over the village to hear Lila tell the whole adventure again.
“And after Father and Grandfather pulled Mother out of the sami, we had to get away fast,” recounted Lila. “They carried my mother in the net, for she was sick and badly hurt. The doctor said she must stay in the hospital at least a week.”
“I’m going to help Lila take care of the children and the house,” spoke up Mala.
“Good!” Lila smiled and put her arms around Mala. “I’ll need my sister to help. She is a very brave and clever girl, this Mala. Besides, she’s not fat like me. She is skinny like a spider, and she can run very fast.”
“She can run faster than a spider,” one of the boys laughed. “When I saw her come out of the forest, scaring the dogs and chickens, I thought she was a crazy wild pig.”
Everyone laughed. Then Mala’s father lifted her onto his lap.
What a nice place Father’s lap was for his weary and aching little girl. Snuggling close, warm and happy and sleepy, Mala heard her father say, “I do not think this girl runs like a spider or even like a wild pig. When I saw her zooming out of the forest this morning, she was not running at all. She was flying through the forest like her little white bird friends on the top of Olotele.”