Gospel Story Finder

In 1999, Skaidr?te was looking for a church. She saw a building with a sign that said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a weekday, but she opened the door and went inside.
“There was a sister missionary. When I walked in, she was smiling—a very open smile. I thought there was somebody behind me. Then I realized that smile was for me, and I smiled back. I felt like I was meeting a best friend, long not seen.
“She was the one who introduced me to the Church. I had never met anyone like the missionaries. I felt like they were angels, literally come from heaven to earth.
“Basically from that day, everything changed in my life.”
Skaidr?te stopped going to her previous church, even though people there warned her she would find bad things in this new Church. “I told them if there was something bad, I would stop going,” Skaidr?te says, “But there was nothing but good to find.” That was 17 years ago.
Today, Skaidr?te, age 71, is so happy and full of life that it’s hard to believe that hasn’t always been the case.
“When I first saw that sister missionary, when I found the Church for the first time, since that day all the thoughts of suicide were gone. There were no thoughts of life being dark. In spite of everything, I am positive. Life is beautiful to me.”
Skaidr?te is so happy and full of life, it’s hard to imagine that for years she struggled with depression and thoughts of suicide. “Now I have the gospel,” she says. “Life is beautiful for me.”
While investigating the Church, Skaidr?te asked many questions. “As I did, I found answer after answer,” she says.
Years ago, when others warned her about investigating the Church, she told them there was nothing but good to find.
The first time Skaidr?te entered a Church building, a sister missionary greeted her with a smile. Skaidr?te was so impressed with the missionaries of the Church that she accepted an invitation to attend meetings. Today, Skaidr?te smiles all the time.

“Oh, Mom, it’s just not fair!” Sarah heard Ben say as she neared the kitchen. She stopped, a wave of guilt sweeping over her. She knew what he was referring to.
“I know it isn’t, Ben,” Mother replied in a soothing tone, “but you’ve got to remember that it’s not Sarah’s fault. She knows she shouldn’t be afraid of dogs, but when that little dog bit her on the lip when she was just a little girl he left more than just a scar on her face. The scar in her mind is a deeper one.”
“I’m not blaming her, Mom,” Ben sighed. “But you know how much I’ve wanted a dog.”
Sarah silently tiptoed away from the kitchen, not wanting her mother and brother to know she’d overheard. She walked slowly upstairs to her bedroom and flopped on the bed. Why do I have to be such a baby? she berated herself, unconsciously tracing the scar on her lip with her finger. Ben really wants a dog, but whenever I get near one I’m scared out of my mind!
Sighing, Sarah got up and mechanically prepared for bed. After calling goodnight to everyone and saying her prayers, she climbed under the covers. But she couldn’t go to sleep.
The sudden, far-off howling of a dog broke the stillness. Sarah sat upright in bed, shivers running up her spine. I must be imagining things, she thought disgustedly. The sound’s not coming from the direction of the Johnson’s farm, and they’re the only ones with a dog around here. She lay back down and tried to make her mind a blank. Again she heard the faint but piercing cry. Thinking of Ben, tears welled up in her eyes, and she said out loud to the blackness, “But I can’t help it!” Then, burying her head under her pillow, she fell into a fitful sleep.
The next day was a busy one, for there was a lot to do on their farm. The events of the night before were forgotten until lunchtime. As everyone walked into the kitchen, Sarah lagged behind, exulting in the freshness of the air and the stillness of the countryside when the noise of the tractor was stilled. Suddenly she heard the unmistakable barking of a dog.
“Ben, Ben!” Sarah called, running after her brother. “Did you hear that dog barking?”
Ben frowned and glared at his sister. “That’s not funny, Sarah, and please don’t joke about it.”
“I’m not joking, Ben! I heard it last night and again just now—a dog barking and howling, but it sounds like he’s far away. Don’t you hear it?”
They both stood still for a moment. Then Ben shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Sarah, but I don’t hear anything—except my stomach growling! Let’s go in and eat. Your mind must be playing tricks on you.”
Sarah tried to forget what she’d heard until that night when she lay in bed again. However, she was so exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before that she soon fell asleep.
The next morning as she climbed into the truck to go to church, Sarah thought she heard the phantom dog again. Her dad declared it must be the Johnson’s dog, but Sarah had an uneasy feeling that he was wrong. When she heard the dog again late Sunday evening, she tiptoed into her brother’s room and shook his shoulder gently.
“What is it?” Ben asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
“Ben, you’ve got to listen. I keep hearing that dog and I’m not imagining it! I’m sure it isn’t the Johnson’s dog. Please, just listen for a minute.”
After a few moments of silence, the unmistakable yowl of a dog came drifting faintly on the night air. “You’re right, Sarah!” Ben whispered excitedly. “It’s a dog in trouble, all right, and it isn’t the Johnson’s dog. We’d better go see if we can find it.”
“Right now?” Sarah asked. “You know we could never find anything in the dark!”
“You’re right,” Ben admitted reluctantly. “Let’s get up early and start looking as soon as it’s light. We can split up so we can cover more ground before school.”
“But Ben,” Sarah’s voice quivered a little, “can’t I go with you? What’ll I do if I find him? You know that I …”
“If you find him, you can come and get me, OK? Don’t worry. Now go back to bed and get some sleep.”
The next morning as soon as it began to get light Ben and Sarah were up and out looking for the dog. After nearly an hour they still hadn’t found anything, so they decided to try again after school. As soon as they got home that afternoon, they each got a couple of cookies and went out the door.
“You may want to take your waterproof cloak Sarah,” Ben said, glancing up at the sky. “It looks like it might storm.”
Sarah grabbed her cloak off the nail on the back porch and went toward the cornfields. “Why don’t you try over by the south boundary of the farm, Sarah?” Ben suggested. “Dad covered a lot of ground plowing Saturday, but he didn’t get down that far. I’ll go the other way.”
Sarah had been looking around for about twenty minutes when she heard the mournful wail again. I’m getting close, she thought apprehensively. “Where are you?” she called, hoping the dog would bark at the sound of her voice. It did. Feeling a few drops of rain, she pulled her poncho over her head and went in the direction of the sound, calling again as she went. The dog responded each time she called, even though she could tell from its tone that it was getting weaker with each bark.
Coming to the edge of a large irrigation canal, Sarah stopped and sharply drew in her breath at what she saw. The dog was caught in the partly flattened end of a pipe—probably crushed by a tractor, Sarah surmised. He must have gotten stuck chasing a rabbit or something. I’ve got to go get Ben so he can help get him out. Sarah turned to go, but the dog’s pleading whimper brought her back again. Rain was beginning to pelt down harder now. She looked back into the ditch and realized that if the rainwater increased the water level of the canal, the dog would drown. The way this storm is increasing, by the time Ben gets here it will be too late! Sarah thought.
For a minute she panicked. “I can’t! I just can’t go near him!” she cried. Then the words seemed to enter her mind, You’ve got to, or he’ll drown! She looked again at the stricken animal and took a few faltering steps. Oh, help me! She silently prayed, then plunged down the bank.
She stopped a couple of meters from the dog and looked at him. When the dog saw her, he whined plaintively and stared at Sarah with the most incredible look of relief and joy that Sarah had ever seen. That look is almost human, Sarah thought, surprised. Impulsively, she fell to her knees and stroked the dog’s head. “You poor thing!” she murmured.
She began to tug at the dog’s shoulders in an effort to free him. The water was already beginning to collect in the canal. I’ve got to work fast, she determined. The dog was too weak to help, but he licked her hand with his tongue as she tried to lubricate the end of the pipe with a little mud and water. Days of going without food had helped to make the animal a little thinner. Before long she had him free.
“You’re going to be all right,” she said over and over as she stroked his muddy fur. Then suddenly she realized what she was doing. Sarah Blackhurst, you’re petting a dog! And you’re not scared at all! The thought took her breath away. The years of fear had been forgotten in the love and pity she felt for the suffering animal.
The dog was too weak to walk, so Sarah, already muddy and wet, wrapped him in her cloak and carried him out of the gully toward home. The dog never quit looking at her, even when Ben took him out of her arms at the door to the kitchen.
“Sarah! Where did you find him? I was beginning to worry about you!” Ben cried breathlessly. “I was about to …” Suddenly Ben stopped and turned, staring into Sarah’s eyes. “Sarah, you’ve been holding a dog!”
“I know,” Sarah grinned sheepishly. “I know.”
Later that evening after the dog had been fed and given a warm bath, the family sat around the fireplace talking. The dog lay curled on a blanket in front of the hearth. “You know, Sarah, I don’t think that dog’s taken his eyes off you since you found him!” Father said.
“I’ve never seen such a look of love and devotion in my whole life,” Mother commented.
“From Sarah or the dog!” Ben said with a twinkle in his eye.
“Where do you think he came from, Dad?” Sarah asked. “Do you think we can keep him?”
“Well, I think we should advertise in the newspaper that we’ve found him,” Dad responded, “but I doubt anyone will come for him. He’s probably a stray dog, abandoned in the country by somebody who wanted to get rid of him.”
“I hope we can keep him,” Sarah murmured.
“I never thought I’d ever hear you say something like that!” Ben teased. Then after a minute he said, “I thought I was supposed to be the one who got a dog!” But he winked at Sarah as he said it.

The tree had been young when Olivia Tucker McCoy joined the Church. In her diary she wrote: “We were baptized Oct. 3, 1897. My husband’s father had given him the place he settled on with the understanding that he would help him work and pay for that place and the one his father bought, but as it was his father’s he never got the deed. So, after we joined the Mormons his father told him he would have to move.”
Their little daughter had been burned in a fire in December, and they asked for time before moving the child but were ordered out. On January 3, 1898, “We put her in the wagon on a bed, moved to what they called the Coates place, and rented the same from Jim Smyly.
“The Christmas of 1898 I spent with my sister, a Mrs. Guinn, the one I lived with when I was married. But the folks didn’t seem just the same. You see, I had joined the Mormons and I was reminded of it.”

In 1982, Elder Hugo E. Martinez and his wife, Sister Nuria Alvarez de Martinez, were both in their medical residency training in Mississippi, USA, when an unexpected knock came at their front door.
There stood two Mormon missionaries.
“We opened our home to them, but we knew nothing about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We didn’t even know about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” Elder Martinez says, smiling.
Still, the gospel lessons shared by the elders immediately resonated with the young couple. They soon accepted the missionaries’ invitation to be baptized.
“And we have not looked back ever since.”

As missionaries in Ghana, we washed our clothes by hand on preparation day. Elder Moss, my companion who had recently arrived from the United States, had not experienced this way of doing laundry. But being a native of Ghana, I was used to it.
Every Monday Elder Moss set out to scrub his clothes, but about halfway through the job, his hands and knuckles would start bleeding. I would then need to take over his work, in addition to finishing my own.
One Monday when washing time came around, Elder Moss seemed a bit worried. I had injured my hand the previous day, and he knew that I was not going to be able to help him with his laundry. I wouldn’t even be able to do my own. He started his washing, but as usual, he needed help halfway through.
Since I couldn’t help my companion with the actual washing, I encouraged him to endure—to let his hands rest and then keep trying. He stopped for a time and then continued. I told him he could find a way to finish. His hands and knuckles were still sore, but he pushed on. When the washing was completed, he said, “I am proud of myself. Elder Asante, are you proud of me?”
“Yes, of course I am proud of you,” I answered.
As I have thought about this incident, I realized that Heavenly Father knows our potential, but He tests us so we can develop diligence, patience, and faithfulness. He is pleased with us when we make righteous choices and prove that we can bear our afflictions.
When we work hard and endure the trials placed before us, we can say, “Heavenly Father, art Thou proud of me?” I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are pleased when we endure and that They will tell us so one day when They welcome us home.

“Sickness can do a lot of good things,” says Michael, who is suffering from kidney failure. Because his illness has increased his gratitude for the gospel, he says, “it is a good trial.”
I was born in Ethiopia in 1942 and went to Poland to study in 1965. In 1991, I met the missionaries and joined the Church. I have served as a branch president for three and a half years. I served as a counselor in the mission presidency for 12 years. I was a branch president again and then a district president. Then I became sick with kidney failure.
Now I can do only a few things in the Church. I try to attend on Sundays.
At first I was angry.
“Why me?” I prayed. “I have served you, Lord.” After a while, I understood. The scriptures say, “He that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed” (D&C 42:48).
This verse says we will be healed if we’re not meant to die.
Church members keep praying for me, but my health is getting worse. They think their prayers are not heard, but they are heard because they become better people and because I feel the love they show to me.
Even if I was healthy, how much time would be left at my age? Still, a lot is before me.
I like to go to the scriptures and find heroes who help me. When I was healthy and serving, I liked to follow Nephi, but now many times I think of Job. He was a good man, and he suffered too. There is always hope in the gospel.
In a city like Bydgoszcz, if I want to visit the mayor, I’ll not have a chance because I am too small for that. But through the gospel, the door is always open to call on God. That is why I love my church.
I have the Church. I have a way of contacting God through prayer, through fasting, through all the things we do. What else do I need?
Sometimes I say to myself, “Maybe that’s why I am sick—so that I could understand what a great thing I am in, what a great cause this is.”
I see my wife, Renata, become sad because I am sick. I wouldn’t like that to happen, but sorrow is a by-product of love. If she didn’t love, she wouldn’t be sorry. Love helps you feel that you are not alone and that there are people who care.
To die is nothing. Everybody will die. It depends on how we approach death. I know that God lives. He loves us all—me too. That’s what I can say.
Michael’s illness has been a difficult trial for his wife, Renata. “I see my wife become sad because I am sick,” he says. “But sorrow is a by-product of love. Love helps you feel that you are not alone and that there are people who care.”
Despite the limitations caused by his illness, Michael still finds ways to serve and uplift those around him.
Michael finds hope and direction in the scriptures. When he was healthy and serving, he admired Nephi. “But now many times I think of Job,” he says. “He was a good man, and he suffered too.”

Elder Holland: Matthew 7:16 says, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” For example, even when our children were very young, they could recognize their mother’s devotion to the gospel and the role that a woman plays in it. They were often with her as she served her Relief Society sisters. Sometimes they had to pray that our old car would start. They saw her in an old coat trudging through the snow to care for Relief Society sisters in New England. They were only little, but they’ve never forgotten that. They saw their mother’s sacrifice and faithfulness, and as a result our daughter is a Latter-day Saint woman deeply committed to service, and our sons have deep respect and admiration for the commitment and devotion of our daughters-in-law. It is clear from their mother’s example that our children know the crucial, exalted place of women in their lives and in the kingdom of God.

After I went home, I didn’t want to lose the connection to the Spirit that I had felt during the conference, so I made a goal to do what was necessary to keep my newfound foundation in the gospel firm and keep the Spirit with me.
Making changes was a little hard at first. I had to stop spending time with certain friends because they were not a good influence on me. I worked to give up some bad habits. I started taking church seriously. Making these decisions helped me fill my life with goodness. What has helped me stay consistently connected to the Spirit is setting aside time each day to study the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon.
The teachings in the scriptures remind me what is really important in my life. When I feel lonely in my faith, especially with so few members here in Bulgaria, I allow the truths of ancient prophets to deepen my faith in Jesus Christ.
One of my favorite verses is Moroni 10:32: “Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ.”
It’s scriptures like this one that remind me of the light the gospel offers and keep me strong when I’m having a hard time. The scriptures always strengthen my foundation of faith.

Neither of my parents or any of my siblings are members of the Church, so a year after my dad, Gerald Prior, passed away, the time came to do his temple work.
It was decided to do the work at the Preston England Temple. Upon our arrival on a Friday afternoon, I booked an appointment with the temple registrar and explained that I wanted to try to complete all the ordinances for my dad the next day. He informed me that the only way that it would be possible was if the baptism work was done that evening. There was a youth temple trip scheduled, and if I came back to the temple at 7:00 pm, I could join them and get the work done for my dad.
I returned to the temple at 7:00 pm and waited. Around 7:30 pm, the registrar informed me that the stake youth had cancelled their appointment, assuring me, “Don’t worry; we will get something sorted.” True to his word, 15 minutes later, he returned and invited my wife, Tracey, and me to the baptistry.
There, we met with about 10 temple workers who had already finished for the day. Upon hearing of my predicament, they generously sacrificed their time to assist. They asked whether I would be happy to be involved in doing the work for other people as well as my dad. I was more than happy to oblige, and it also gave me the opportunity to baptise Tracey, which I had never done before.
A great couple of hours were had in the Preston temple that evening. The following day I carried on doing the necessary ordinances for my dad, and several times met with the temple workers that I had met the evening before. They enquired how the work was progressing, and it was touching to see their support and encouragement for the work for my dad.
At the end of the day, I was able to participate in the sealing of my mum and dad. My daughter, Lauren, and her husband, Gabe, joined us and with their help, I was able to be sealed to my parents. Officiating were the very workers from the previous evening.
It was truly a wonderful experience, and one that will never be forgotten by Tracey and myself. I will always be grateful to those temple workers who selflessly sacrificed their own time to help me and my father.

James H., age 11, from Salt Lake City, Utah, likes to learn about history, use computers, and search for clues like a detective. That’s why he got really excited when his parents invited the ward’s family history consultant to teach James’s family about the Church’s online family history program. It’s called Family Tree, and James loves using it to search through his family history chart to find the green arrows next to the names of ancestors who weren’t baptized or sealed to their families.
Since that day, James has found more than 80 of his ancestors’ names. It feels good to know he can help his ancestors by sending their names to the temple. “Someone up in heaven is thinking, ‘They finally found me!’” he says.
When I find a new ancestor who needs to have temple ordinances done, I print out the ancestor’s name so the temple work can be done.
I taught my little brother, William, how to type in names so he can help search for our ancestors online.
My mom and dad and older brother and sister have helped me by doing baptisms for the dead and other ordinances in the temple for the ancestors I find.

When we observe the covenants we make at the altar of sacrifice, we discover hidden reservoirs of strength. I once said in exasperation to my wife, Marie, “The Lord placed Adam and Eve on the earth as full-grown people. Why couldn’t he have done that with this boy of ours, the one with the freckles and the unruly hair?” She replied, “The Lord gave us that child to make Christians out of us.”
One night Marie exhausted herself for hours encouraging that child to finish a school assignment to build his own diorama of a Native American village on a cookie sheet. It was a test no hireling would have endured. At first he fought her efforts, but by bedtime, I saw him lay “his” diorama proudly on a counter. He started for his bed, then turned around, raced back across the room, and hugged his mother, grinning with his fourth-grade teeth. Later I asked Marie in complete awe, “How did you do it?” She said, “I just made up my mind that I couldn’t leave him, no matter what.” Then she added, “I didn’t know I had it in me.” She discovered deep, internal wellsprings of compassion because the bonds of her covenants gave her strength to lay down her life for her sheep, even an hour at a time.

John Lloyd Stephens, a New York lawyer, and Joseph Smith never met, nor is there any evidence that Stephens ever read the Book of Mormon. Yet Stephens’ most important achievement in life would later stand as a physical testimony to that spiritual book translated by his fellow New Yorker, Joseph Smith.
That achievement began in the Honduran jungle on a hot, steamy November day in 1839 when John Stephens and his two native helpers dug up a statue from the forest floor. “Francisco found the feet and legs, and Bruno a part of the body,” wrote Stephens, “and the effect was electric.” Victor W. Von Hagen wrote that on that date, “a new world, a new science—American archaeology—came into existence.” John Lloyd Stephens was its founder.
No stranger to travel or fame, Stephens had already rambled through and written about Europe, the Near East, Egypt, Arabia, and the Holy Land. But he still had itchy feet and visions of the past and had not yet discovered his real destiny.
On a visit to London, Stephens first stumbled over his future in the form of Descriptions of an Ancient City, by a Capitán Del Rio, who had visited a strange, ruined city in Mexico called Palenque. He later learned of a second lost Mexican city, Uxmal. In 1835, he eagerly pounced upon a professional journal describing a ruined Honduran city, Copan.
Palenque, Copan, Uxmal. His mind now stirred with visions of nebulous civilization that had existed in Central America. Amazingly enough, he seemed the only one interested. “Instead of electrifying the public,” he wrote, “little notice was taken [of the Copan article].” Nonetheless, he announced his intention to search for those lost cities.
“Nonsense!” roared scientists and public alike. Indians had never progressed beyond savagery. Americans of that age could believe in almost anything other than an “Indian” civilization, in spite of evidence from the conquest. Such proofs were either ignored or downgraded as Spanish public-relations puffery. Scholars and historians held fast to their antiquated beliefs and scorned Stephens’ efforts.
There was, in truth, little documentary evidence to counter what scholars supposed. Joseph Smith’s detractors would vilify him for plagiarism, for example, when there was nothing to plagiarize. Even in 1839, the very well-educated—and rich—Mr. Stephens had great difficulty scraping up any real evidence of an ancient American culture. His meager references were poor in detail. And in Joseph Smith’s time, records were even poorer—or nonexistent.
This dearth of information made even the irrepressible Stephens a bit skeptical, but he had high hopes. In company with a kindred spirit—and accomplished artist—Frederic Catherwood, he set sail for Central America.
Their first goal, Copan, was a sickly village of mud-walled huts. But discovery loomed near. A native guide led them through the jungle to a riverbank. Opposite reared a hundred-foot-high stone wall—the edge of ancient Copan and of a new era in history. Quickly crossing the river and scaling the wall, they found themselves amid the fallen relics of a forgotten civilization.
“Working our way through the thick woods,” Stephens wrote. “we came upon a square stone column, about fourteen feet high … sculptured on all four … sides … in very bold relief … they were works of art … some equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians.
“America [said historians of the 1830’s] was peopled by savages; but savages never built these structures, savages never carved these stones. When we asked the Indians if they knew who made them, their dull answer was ‘Quién sabe? [Who knows?]’”
The scholars and historians of the Western world could not have answered any better. Copan—and the Mayas—surged to their lofty level of art and culture while Europe descended into the gloom of the dark ages. They conquered the jungles and strung their cities through Yucatan like sparkling gems on a jeweled collar. But for the Old World, their deeds and histories were as quiet as the silent jungle they lived in.
Sometime before A.D. 900, however, the Mayas abruptly and mysteriously stepped off the stage of history. For a thousand years, Copan lay buried by the thick, heavy Honduran jungle until disturbed in 1839 by Stephens and Catherwood.
The pair could not see it all—the jungle was too thick. They concentrated on the unburied “idols,” or stelae. These were huge, thirty-ton monoliths carved with an incredible profusion of figures, flowers, and animals. Erected on set dates to commemorate events unknown to us, they climaxed the Mayan genius.
In a two-year journey, Stephens and Catherwood discovered and rediscovered Copan, Palenque, Uxmal, Chichén Itzá, and forty other ruined Mayan sites. The mystery deepened, and Stephens’ reactions were rhapsodic. At Palenque, he said:
“Here were the remains of a cultivated, polished, and peculiar people, who had passed through all the stages of the rise and fall of nations; reached their golden age, and perished entirely unknown. The links which connected them with the human family were severed and lost, and these were the only memorials of their footsteps upon earth … In the romance of the world’s history, nothing ever impressed me more forcibly than the spectacle of this once great and lovely city, overturned, desolate, and lost; discovered by accident, overgrown with trees for miles around, and without even a name to distinguish it.”
The dedication of the two explorers in uncovering these mysteries baffles the modern mind. In an age when gentlemen stayed at home, these two suffered hunger, malaria, myriads of insect attacks, extreme physical discomfort, and near brushes with death. To accomplish what?
History judges Stephens among the great. His contribution is rated equal to Jean Francois Champollion (1790–1832), French Egyptologist who discovered a stone that had writing in three languages. From the stone, he was able to decipher ancient Egyptian writing; or to Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890), German archeologist, who excavated the city of Troy in Anatolia, proving this legendary Greek city actually existed.
From our point of view. Stephens’ importance is momentous: John Lloyd Stephens and Joseph Smith never met, but the Book of Mormon’s cry in the wilderness was now reinforced as Stephens’ physical testimony of Lehi’s people swept over the world.

I would like to give you my own experience. While serving as president of the Calgary Stake in Alberta, Canada, I was attending the general conference in Salt Lake City in October, 1960. On Friday evening I received a call at the Hotel Utah, where I was staying, advising me that President McKay wanted to see me Saturday morning—the next morning. Naturally, not knowing what he wanted, I slept very little that night. I met him in his office at the appointed hour. As I sat in a chair facing him, he looked me in the eye, put his hand on my knee, and said, “President Tanner, the Lord would like you to accept a call as a General Authority, as an Assistant to the Twelve.” Then he asked how I felt about it.
I do not know exactly what I said. I tried to assure him that I felt highly honored and very inadequate, but ready and willing to accept a call and to give my whole time and effort in the service of the Lord.
That morning my name was read, along with the names of Elders Franklin D. Richards and Theodore M. Burton, to be sustained as Assistants to the Twelve, with the other general officers of the Church. We were approved by the conference. Officers throughout the Church are selected in much the same way at their particular level.
At this point I might answer the question of how we deal with a dissenting vote. We had one at the October 1977 conference. Some of you heard the proceedings and will remember that the dissenter wanted his vote recorded. This is the way we deal with a dissenting vote: all the people other than this one voted to sustain those who were presented, so I asked him to see a member of the Twelve. The purpose of asking him to see somebody is so that he can report why he was not prepared to support the slate of officers. That gives him an opportunity, if he knows some good reason why a person should not be or is not qualified to be sustained, to tell the person assigned to see him; this person can then advise the First Presidency.
I should like to tell you of an experience I had when I was called to go to New Zealand to reorganize a stake. I had never met anybody living in New Zealand, other than the president of the stake at that time. I asked for a list of the bishops and high council in that New Zealand stake, and as I read over the list I saw one name that just seemed to stand out. The name was Campbell. Each time I read the list I noticed it. Bishop Vandenberg was with me, and we interviewed all these people, after having prayed that we might be guided.
After all the interviews I said to Brother Vandenberg, “Let us call upon the Lord for direction.” We did, and as we stood up I asked, “If you had the responsibility, whom would you choose as president of this stake?”
He said, “Bill Campbell.” I had never mentioned his name to Bishop Vandenberg. This was another evidence that the Lord does direct these appointments.

President David O. McKay and President Harold B. Lee used to relate an incident from the life of Bishop John Wells that is instructive to all of us. Bishop Wells was responsible for many Church reports and so had to devote a great deal of his time to details and statistics.
A son of Bishop and Sister Wells was killed in a railroad accident in Salt Lake canyon. He was run over by a freight train. Sister Wells could not be comforted at the loss. She felt no relief from her sorrow during the funeral and continued her mourning after her son’s burial. Bishop Wells was concerned for her health, as she was in a state of deep anguish.
One day, soon after the funeral, Sister Wells was lying on her bed in a state of mourning. The son appeared to her and said, “Mother, do not mourn, do not cry. I am all right.”
He then told her how the accident took place. Apparently there had been some question about how the accident had happened because the young man was an experienced railroad man. But he told his mother that it was clearly an accident.
Now note this: He also told her that as soon as he realized that he was beyond the mortal world, he had tried to reach his father but could not. His father was so busy with the details of his work that he could not respond to the promptings of the Spirit. Therefore, the son had come to his mother.
He then said, “Tell Father that all is well with me, and I want you not to mourn any more.” (See David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1953, pages 525–26.)
President McKay and President Lee used this experience to teach that we must always be responsive to the whisperings of the Spirit. These promptings most often come when we are not under the pressure of appointments and when we are not caught up in the worries of day-to-day life.

A bright flash lit the night sky as the Russian built surface-to-air missile roared from its launcher. In a few seconds, it passed through the cloud cover over Hanoi and raced toward its rendezvous.
It was December 20, 1972. Two days earlier President Nixon had ordered full-scale bombing of Hanoi, hoping to force North Vietnam to negotiate an end to the war.
Captain Deverl Johnson, a pilot of one of the eighty B-52s sent on this mission, leaned forward intently in his seat.
This was the time in the flight when they were most vulnerable to enemy missiles. A few minutes earlier, as they approached Hanoi, they had evaded seven other missiles. Hanoi was living up to its reputation as one of the most heavily defended antiaircraft areas in the world. Now, as they approached their designated target, there could be no dodging. The mission came first.
The missile electronically locked onto the radar signal aimed at the plane by the enemy radar crew on the ground.
The crew released its bombs on target. Johnson began a turn to their out-bound heading back to their base in Guam.
The missile exploded when it was only a fraction of a second from the plane. It was not a direct hit, but its bright ball of fire hurled thousands of tiny pieces of metal through the plane.
In the cockpit, glass gauges on the instrument panel blew out as the shrapnel burst through the plane’s shell.
Fire warning lights flashed on two of the engines. Instinctively, Johnson quickly shut down the two engines.
Suddenly the lights went out, and they were flying in darkness, uncertain how much longer the plane would continue to fly.
Much later, when he was telling about this experience to a group of young people at a fireside, he was asked if he was praying then. “No, not then. It was all I could do to fly the plane. But before every flight, even now, I take several minutes for prayer. Of course, I have to hope that my Father in heaven has a good memory because some of our flights last up to 14 hours.”
In checking with the crew, he found out that his navigator had been wounded with shrapnel, but not seriously.
“See if you can get us some electrical power,” Johnson asked his copilot. The electrical monitoring equipment was on the copilot’s side of the cockpit.
Johnson retrieved a flashlight and shone it on the instrument panel. Most of that complicated set of flight instruments were useless to them without electricity. He had four flight instruments that didn’t need power to operate: a compass, an altimeter, a vertical velocity indicator, and an air speed indicator.
Two hundred fifteen knots was the optimum speed. Any slower than that and the wings would give more drag and less lift.
“I can’t get anything,” the copilot finally said, finishing his inspection of the plane’s electrical system. The electricity for the plane was generated by air-driven generators. Apparently the shrapnel had punctured the air lines.
The air speed indicator slowly approached the critical speed—217, 216, 215, 214. Johnson edged the plane downward in order to pick up speed. They were descending at 200 feet per minute.
Johnson felt his legs getting cold. The outside air, at 40 degrees below zero, whistled noisily into the plane through each tiny hole made by the shrapnel.
“We’re heading west,” the navigator announced. “We need to be heading south. At this rate we’re going to wind up in China.”
Johnson tried to turn the plane, but it wouldn’t respond. “I can’t turn it. We’ve got a fuel imbalance on one wing.” Without electrical power, he was flying the plane with his own strength. To make matters worse, the missile’s shrapnel had made enough holes in the fuel tanks on the left side that the resulting weight imbalance made it impossible to maneuver the plane.
The air speed indicator took another drop as the plane again slowed down. Johnson nosed the plane into a steeper descent—500 feet per minute. Four of the eight engines were working.
“At least we’ve got a full moon,” he thought, looking down on the cloud cover. The tops of some of the more rugged mountains jutted above the layer of clouds below.
His copilot retrieved a hand-held, battery-operated radio from a survival pack and tried to make radio contact.
Once more the plane slowed down. They were flying on three engines. Johnson steepened their rate of descent to 1000 feet per minute.
“If we can just make it to Thailand, we’ll be all right. It’s a friendly country, and everyone who’s made it back there has been picked up safely.”
The magic line was the Mekong River. Johnson and his copilot looked out, trying to spot the river by the light of the full moon.
“My legs are so cold,” he thought. Reaching down to feel them, he touched a strange, thick wetness. He shined a flashlight on his hand and saw blood. It was the first time that he knew he had been hit.
A panic began to gnaw at him—the fear that he was approaching his death—but years of training would not allow the panic to gain control.
A few minutes later another engine flamed out. They were flying on two engines and descending with a vertical velocity of 1500 feet per minute.
He checked the altimeter—20,000 feet. “How high are the mountains around here?” he asked his navigator.
“Five thousand feet.”
“Then we’ve got ten minutes to get out of here.”
Ahead of them, Johnson could see a rugged range of mountains about five minutes from them. “That’s the safest place to bail out,” he thought, “where the enemy soldiers will have a harder time reaching us than the rescue helicopters will.”
Each of the crew prepared for the ejection sequence. Each man went in his turn. The three crew members downstairs went first.
Finally it was the copilot’s turn. A hatch above him blew open, and suddenly he disappeared, seat and all, into the emptiness overhead.
Captain Johnson was the only one in the plane. As he let go of the controls so that he could begin the ejection procedure, the plane, now dangerously out of balance, lurched over on the heavy side.
He grabbed the controls and leveled the wings. “What if my ejection mechanism won’t work?” he thought desperately. The normal procedure in that case was to get to the openings left by the downward ejection of either the navigator or radar navigator, but with the plane out of balance, it would go into a steep dive the minute he let go. He wouldn’t be able to reach the bomb bay before the plane would crash.
His mind raced as he tried to come up with a plan in case his seat would not eject him. Finally he decided that he would try to crawl out the hole where the copilot had ejected.
The plans were not necessary. He pulled the ejection seat trigger. The hatch above him blew out. Automatically the control column stowed forward. An instant later he was hurled out of the open hatch as an explosive charge fired the pilot’s seat.
Out of the plane the seat, with him still strapped in it, tumbled about wildly. A second later, on schedule, the seat automatically separated from him.
He was spinning over and over in the air.
“The chute, what about the chute?” The panic, which he had controlled before, now consumed his mind as he realized the parachute should have automatically opened.
He felt an overwhelming depression. His thoughts were of his small family; he wouldn’t be able to be a father to his two children.
Seconds flew by as he plummeted to earth.
Suddenly he remembered there was a manual parachute release. He gained control over the panic.
He tried to pull his arms into his side to reach the manual release. Because of his rapid tumbling, the centrifugal force made it difficult to move his arms.
Finally he managed to move his arm to the handle. He pulled it and felt a beautiful jerk as the parachute opened.
He looked around. A few seconds later he saw a huge fireball light the sky as his plane crashed into a mountain peak a few miles from him.
Then he was falling through the cloud cover. Still disoriented and in shock, he was unaware of the ground coming up rapidly.
He slammed into the ground. Still in the darkness of night, he felt himself sliding down a steep slope.
Suddenly he stopped. His parachute had snagged on some bushes.
He spent the remainder of the night hanging upside down from his parachute straps. He was afraid to move until he found out where he was.
When it became light enough, he could see that he was about two-thirds of the way up a steep canyon about a thousand feet deep.
Cautiously he released one parachute strap and used the other strap to slowly pull himself hand over hand up the 15 feet to a more level area where he could rest.
Eventually the gray of night gave way to the colors of day.
Looking around he saw that a bright orange life raft had inflated when he hit the ground. He stood up and walked over to the raft. Taking his knife, he punctured it, then hid it in the bushes where it would be less likely to be spotted by the enemy. He also hid his parachute.
Looking around to make sure he was not leaving any signs of his presence to be picked up by the enemy, he limped into the deep vegetation and hid.
Alone in a jungle in Laos behind enemy lines is probably as good as any place to review your life. They had landed in Laos, about four miles from the North Vietnam-Laos border.
Rescue efforts depended upon radio. When the parachute opened, a radio tone was automatically broadcast on guard channel, which all U.S. aircraft monitored. Planes flying over the area picked up the beacons and notified rescue units.
The rescue helicopters decided to wait for the clouds to be burned off by the sun before attempting the rescue.
After five hours of waiting, he heard the helicopters coming in. He talked to the helicopter pilot by radio until he was nearby. Then he fired a flare to pinpoint his position.
The helicopter maneuvered until it was directly overhead and then lowered a rope. As the rotor wash from the helicopter blew the branches of trees madly about, Johnson had to fight to maintain his footing on the steep hillside.
Finally he managed to climb into the seat at the end of the rope. He gave a thumbs up signal and was reeled up into the helicopter.
The crew members were strung out over a four-mile area, and all but one were rescued. The missing man was never heard from again. It still isn’t known what became of him.
Johnson spent a week in the hospital in Thailand. He had lost quite a bit of blood from the shrapnel wounds in his legs. When he left the hospital, he was flown home for convalescent leave.
His night in enemy territory was over.
He has since been promoted to major and currently serves as a B-52 flight instructor at Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City, South Dakota. In the Church he serves as seventies group leader in his ward and stake.
In a recent sacrament meeting in his ward, he told about this experience.
“Sometimes people ask me what it was like to go through an experience like that.
“We were in a fairly secure environment in Guam. One day we were told about a hazardous mission we were to perform. We were warned that the enemy would do everything in his power to stop us. We were assured that if we had learned the information contained in our Air Force manuals, it would be a help to us in succeeding.
“Even if we had trouble, we were told that there was help for us. There was a way to be rescued. It involved sending someone in for us, someone who would be willing to put his own safety on the line for us.
“Above all, we were assured that there would be communication channels open for us to ask for help when we needed it.
“Doesn’t this sound a little familiar? To me it sounds like the same experience that every one of us here on the earth is going through.
“We also once lived in a reasonably safe environment. We call it the premortal existence. We were told about a dangerous mission and about the obstacles that the enemy would put in our way.
“The manuals that can help us to succeed here on earth are the scriptures. If we read them and learn the lessons contained in them, they will help us to accomplish our mission on earth.
“Even if we get into trouble, there is still hope for us. The Savior put his safety on the line to come to the earth to provide a way for us to be rescued.
“There are also communication channels here on the earth for us. If we pray, God will hear us and provide help. We also have a prophet on earth who can give us help and guidance.”

In the middle of my sophomore year, my high school drama department announced auditions for the annual Shakespearean play. “This is great!” I thought. I pictured myself in colorful Elizabethan costume, playing a rousing Shakespearean role. It was something I had wanted to do all year. So between American History and lunch I ran into the office and picked up a dittoed sheet of dialogue.
“What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distempered head so soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.”
“That sure doesn’t sound like English to me,” I thought, reading through the rest of the tryout material. I couldn’t make sense of what was going on or of how I was supposed to say one word. I’d seen Shakespearean plays before and even movies. The lines had always sounded easy and natural.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked myself. The audition line I had joined after school was getting shorter. I stood in the C-wing stairwell and reread the pages: “What early tongue …” I was growing frantic.
Matt Ricks filed into the line behind me. “Hey, Brad, it’s good to see you trying out.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. Matt was the best actor in the school, and I was in awe.
“Oh boy,” I thought. “Now I’ll really look like a fool when he tries out after me. Well, I don’t have to look like a fool. I’m not going to walk out on that stage and make a total idiot of myself.” I turned away from the audition line and walked quickly to my hall locker. Luckily Matt was surrounded by his usual harem of admirers and didn’t notice me leave.
I argued with myself: “Don’t be dumb. We’ve gone through all this before. Of course you might not make this play, but then, you might! You have to try.” I climbed the main hall stairs to upper B-wing. “You can’t read Shakespearean English now, but you can learn.”
Then, somehow, all the ifs and theys got to me. “Even if I learned it, what would they say if I botched it?” I crumpled the dialogue sheet and shoved it in my back pocket. It was easy to imagine the hateful names they might call me; it was easy to feel the hurt when they would laugh at me or whisper cruel things if I failed. I envisioned myself onstage—“What early tongue so sweet saluteth me”—dodging all the pencils, spitwads, shoes, rocks, and desks that they would throw.
“I’m not trying out,” I decided firmly. By now I’d missed my bus and knew I would have to walk all the way home. I snatched up my books, kicked the locker door closed, and drooped back down the B-wing stairs. Why should I worry about what they would think? But I did.
When I ate only one taco for dinner instead of my usual three, dad realized something was on my mind.
“I’m not holding myself back,” I told him. “I want to try out and do what I know is best for me, but they won’t let me. They’re intimidating me right out of my best intentions.”
“Who are they?” dad asked.
“Well, you know, they.”
“Who?” he asked again.
“The kids at school,” I answered exasperatedly.
“Who?”
“You know,” I fumbled. “Friends, peer group, the kids trying out who are better than me.” Inside I was frantic. Not a single name came to my mind except Matt Ricks, and he was the only one I was sure wouldn’t laugh.
Then, with the infallible wisdom of most fathers, dad explained that as people mature it becomes less and less important what other people think or say. It took him until 7:00 to finally convince me that “mature people are self-confident enough to live in a way that will please their Heavenly Father. They do what is best, what they know is right, regardless of what they say. Some people never reach that point of maturity, while others reach it quite early in life.”
He reminded me of when our family would go to the park to play baseball. The older family members would leave Chris, my younger brother, and me to play at the small baseball diamond while they went around the wire fence to the grown-ups’ baseball field. “Do you remember how you two would play until you were bored, and then both of you would climb to the top of the dugout to watch the grown-ups play ball? That fence always seemed a tangible measure of age and ability. Now it can be a symbolic measure of maturity as you judge in which ballpark you’d like to play. You need to commit to your goals, never caring about what they may say. It is up to you to reach the fence as early in life as you can.”
Before bed that night I rescued the wrinkled tryout sheet and read it over again. “What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distempered head.” Finally the words were beginning to make sense. I sat right in the middle of my bedroom floor laughing out loud. “Dad’s right.” I thought of where I was and imagined where I could be if I hadn’t talked myself out of so many opportunities, or let others do so, without even trying. Maybe I might not have made the team, or won the office, but maybe I might have. When I was younger I didn’t have the personal courage to try, so I shall never know. But that night dad taught me that one of the nicer things about trying is that you can never lose something you don’t have. You only take a chance on winning.
Dad told me, “Trying is like climbing a hill. If you stand with your feet firmly planted at the bottom and declare that there is no way you can climb that hill, you could stand there forever. If you dare to try, you have nowhere to go but up.”
Of course, it does matter what other people think and say since we all live together on this earth. Heavenly Father tells me I must consider others, that I am my brother’s keeper. Actually, other people are the incentives for most good things I do. Other people and their feelings toward me are often my reward. My happy balance will come as I learn to keep the opinions and actions of others in perspective. I must remember not to let others dictate my actions. In turn, I must not be the one whose remarks or actions could dominate someone else’s life. We must all play in the grown-up park by acting and not reacting.
“All right,” I told myself on the bedroom rug, “if they aren’t holding me back, then what other excuse do I have? The audition is up to me.” Despite the late hour, I practiced the passage again. As the Shakespearean sentences began to flow, my confidence returned. I berated myself for being so stupid as to have given other people that strong a vote in my election. Yes, they have a voice, and there will always be those who encourage and those who discourage, but I have free agency. I cast the deciding ballot, and I vote for what is best for me.
As I practiced, somehow Shakespeare, the man, became a reality to me. What if he had been afraid to try to write a play because of what people might think? What if he had never produced his plays because he feared being laughed at, or called names, or run out of town? I felt foolish. How infinitely poorer our world would be without William Shakespeare, or for that matter, without Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, and Thomas Jefferson. What if Joseph Smith had not prayed in the grove? Or then, what if he had never told anyone else about his marvelous vision of the Father and the Son because of what they might (and did) think?
I would never want the Lord to say of me, “But with some I am not well pleased, for they will not open their mouths, but they hide the talent which I have given unto them, because of the fear of man. Wo unto such, for mine anger is kindled against them.
“And it shall come to pass, if they are not more faithful unto me, it shall be taken away, even that which they have” (D&C 60:2–3).
“Tomorrow,” I vowed as I climbed into my waiting bed, “tomorrow I will really act—in more ways than one.”

Sammy liked to memorize scriptures. He couldn’t read yet, but he already knew six articles of faith and many verses from the Book of Mormon and Bible. Mom wrote a scripture on a card and drew a picture on the back to help Sammy remember. Sammy knew scriptures about the Savior, gratitude, service, the stripling soldiers, and Nephi. He felt good inside because he was learning the scriptures.
One Sunday before Primary opening exercises, Sammy waited reverently on the CTR 5 bench beside his teacher, Sister Taylor. He folded his arms and listened to the music. Then he heard Sister Hunter, the Primary president, talking to Sister Taylor.
“I just found out that the boy who was going to give the scripture is sick today,” Sister Hunter said. “I’m going to see if an older child can read a scripture for us on short notice.”
Sammy quickly thought about all the scriptures he knew. “I can give a scripture today,” he told Sister Hunter.
“That would be great, Sammy,” Sister Hunter said. “Can Sister Taylor help you find and read a scripture?”
“I don’t need any help,” Sammy said.
Sister Hunter and Sister Taylor looked surprised. “Are you sure?” Sister Taylor asked.
“I have lots of scriptures memorized,” Sammy said. “I just learned a scripture about King Benjamin. I could say that one.”
“OK,” Sister Hunter said. “Will you please come sit up front?”
Sammy felt his heart beat faster as he walked to the front of the room and sat down. He was a little nervous, but he was confident he could say the scripture.
After singing “Book of Mormon Stories,” Sister Hunter said that Sammy would give the scripture.
Sammy walked to the pulpit and stood on the step stool. He took a deep breath and then spoke into the microphone: “Mosiah 2:17. When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”
Sammy stepped down and went back to his seat, smiling the whole way. A warm feeling came over him. He was grateful that he had helped Sister Hunter in Primary. And he was grateful that even though he couldn’t read, he could still learn the scriptures.

I could go on and tell of similar experiences with other General Authorities. Just before a recent general conference, we attended a luncheon at the Hotel Utah. Elder LeGrand Richards had recently undergone an operation and was walking with his cane. Elder Packer gave him his arm to steady him going down the steps and along the walk to the Church Office Building, matching his steps to those of Elder Richards in a show of affection. As we passed them, Elder Franklin Richards said, “Take good care of him, Elder Packer.” He replied, “I surely will. He’s precious.” And he is.

Forty-one years ago I climbed into the driver’s seat of an 18-wheel semitruck with my beautiful wife, Jan, and our infant son, Scotty. We were taking a heavy load of construction materials across several states.
In those days there were no seat-belt restrictions or infant car seats. My wife held our precious son in her arms. Her comment “We sure are high off the ground” should have given me a clue about her feelings of apprehension.
As we made our descent over historic Donner Pass, a steep section of highway, the cab of the semi suddenly and unexpectedly filled with thick smoke. It was difficult to see, and we could hardly breathe.
With a heavy rig, brakes alone are not enough to rapidly decrease speed. Using the engine brakes and gearing down, I frantically attempted to stop.
Just as I was pulling to the side of the road, but before we had come to a full stop, my wife opened the door of the cab and jumped out with our baby in her arms. I watched helplessly as they tumbled in the dirt.
As soon as I had the semi stopped, I bolted from the smoking cab. With adrenaline pumping, I ran through the rocks and weeds and held them in my arms. Jan’s forearms and elbows were battered and bleeding, but thankfully she and our son were both breathing. I just held them close as the dust settled there on the side of the highway.
As my heartbeat normalized and I caught my breath, I blurted out, “What in the world were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous that was? You could have been killed!”
She looked back at me, with tears running down her smoke-smudged cheeks, and said something that pierced my heart and still rings in my ears: “I was just trying to save our son.”
I realized in that moment she thought the engine was on fire, fearing the truck would explode and we would die. I, however, knew it was an electrical failure—hazardous but not fatal. I looked at my precious wife, softly rubbing the head of our infant son, and wondered what kind of woman would do something so courageous.
This situation could have been as emotionally hazardous as our literal engine failure. Gratefully, after enduring the silent treatment for a reasonable amount of time, each of us believing the other person was at fault, we finally expressed the emotions that were churning beneath our heated outbursts. Shared feelings of love and fear for the other’s safety kept the hazardous incident from proving fatal to our cherished marriage.
When our truck cab filled with smoke, my wife acted in the bravest manner she could imagine to protect our son. I too acted as a protector when I questioned her choice. Shockingly, it did not matter who was more right. What mattered was listening to each other and understanding the other’s perspective.

How grateful I am for the power of example. The New Era truly sets a good example for the youth of today—our leaders of tomorrow. I’m thankful to a friend of mine who set an example for me four years ago when I was 18 by asking me if I would listen to the missionaries. I did and was shortly thereafter baptized. Now I am on a mission serving the Lord—supported by my non-LDS family. I hope I am setting an example for them. Thank you, Mike Johnson, for sharing the gospel.
Elder Chris D. AxentyIdaho Pocatello Mission