Gospel Story Finder

I love to read the New Era. I can’t wait for it to arrive each month. But the April 1987 issue came just at the right time.
On March 17, one of the best friends I’ll ever have died. I received the April issue in March, so I thumbed through it on the day after she passed away. I remember seeing the article “When a Friend Dies.” I was emotionally struggling with her death—very much so in fact—when I picked up the New Era and started to read it.
When I had finished, I was so deeply touched that I knew she was all right and that everything was okay.
I want to thank you so much for that article. I don’t know how I could have overcome this crisis without you.
Brooke WakefieldTaylorsville, Utah

Some time later another family crisis occurred. My teenage daughter lost her contact lenses—both of them. She accused herself, saying—“How could I be so stupid”—and other family members silently agreed. Again everyone scurried around looking everywhere for contact lenses. As I was doing my part in the search, I passed my daughter’s room. The door was slightly ajar, and I could see her kneeling by her bed and could hear her soft, pleading words asking if Heavenly Father would please, please help us find those contact lenses. We all hunted for hours, but despite our best efforts the contact lenses never appeared. My daughter was perplexed; she said, “After I said my prayer I knew we would find those contact lenses. Grandmother’s prayer helped us find the keys. But we didn’t find the contact lenses and I don’t understand why not.”
This teenage girl was wrestling with one of the great issues faced by many people—does the Lord truly hear and answer our prayers, for it seems that sometimes our prayers are answered, and sometimes they appear to be ignored. And some further questions arise because of experiences such as those with the contact lenses and keys—does the Lord answer prayers for Grandmothers and not for teenagers? Do some people have greater influence with the Lord than others? Or is the finding of keys or contacts merely a matter of chance, and the Lord has nothing to do with it?
To answer some of the above questions, let us go to the scriptures. When the Savior was on earth, he gave us the pattern for our prayers. He said, “After this manner therefore pray ye.” (Matt. 6:9–13.)
A. “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”
First there is a recognition and acknowledgment of God as our Father in heaven and an expression of our personal reverence for him.
B. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
As we pray, Jesus advises us to ask always that God’s will be done. Many people do not include this as a part of praying. Even for lost keys or contact lenses we often want our will to be done—we want them found right now, please. When even more important matters are of concern—a loved one is ill, a child is away from home, a difficult decision must be made—many people want the Lord to answer their prayers in a specific way. They are afraid that if they ask for God’s will to be done, his will or plan may be different from theirs. It takes great maturity or faith to pray that our own desires be put aside and the Lord’s will be done. Even in little matters like lost contact lenses, the Lord might feel that the lessons learned from not locating them at all may be more important than giving a person what he wants immediately. In the Lord’s perspective of things, what is needed may be far more important than what is wanted.
C. “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Should we pray for such simple things as lost articles? Certainly. The Lord is aware of everything that happens to us. Jesus clearly taught that the very hairs of our head are numbered. (See Matt. 10:29–30.) We are advised to pray always, about all of our concerns, our fears, our sorrows, hopes, aspirations, and problems. In the Book of Mormon we are told to pray over all things in our daily lives. In the case of the Book of Mormon people, they were told to pray over their flocks and fields, representing the concerns of each day just as the Savior said we should ask for our daily bread. But recall that the admonition is to pray for the necessities, not luxuries, the unnecessary things or what you might like to have today. When you are not sure whether you are praying for a necessity, the basic rule is always to pray but ask that “thy will be done.”
D. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
This matter of forgiveness is so important that immediately following the Lord’s prayer in Matthew, the Savior emphasized again the matter of forgiving. He said, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt. 6:14–15.)
When we pray we should consider our own lives and pray for help in putting our own lives in order. It is interesting that the Savior identified the issue of forgiveness as one area we should all try to improve in.
E. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Would God ever lead us astray? Of course not. James E. Talmage comments about this part of the prayer: “We are not to understand that God would ever lead man into temptation … The intent of the supplication appears to be that we be preserved from temptation which we do not have the power to withstand.” (Jesus the Christ, Chapter 17, pp. 240–241, paragraph 20.)
When we look at the counsel of the Lord to us in these latter days, we find that many of the references to prayer in the Doctrine and Covenants have to do with praying that we will be able to resist the power of the adversary, that we will not be overcome, that we can be delivered from evil. Sometimes we pray only for the little daily crisis—for lost keys and contacts—and the more important matters are ignored. Surely we should ask for help in small matters, but we also should pray constantly that we will have the power to resist temptation.
F. “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”
Again at the end, we should acknowledge the greatness and power of God. He is our Creator, our Heavenly Father, and we are dependent on him. Sometimes, if we think about all the matters that are important in his kingdom and the greatness of his power and glory, we may feel ashamed that we even bother him about misplaced glasses. But he is aware of every sparrow and hair of the head, and he is never too busy to hear the sincere prayer.
Sometimes it seems that Heavenly Father might be more influenced by the prayers of a grandmother than of a teenager, because Grandmother has lived a long life of dedication and service, and teenagers are beginning life. God is no respecter of persons. (See D&C 1:35.) He does not favor one person over another. Each is precious in his sight. But we know that an increase in our own worthiness qualifies us for the blessings of our Father in heaven. It is not so much who prays, but the spirit in which the prayer is given and the faith of the person offering the prayer.
We must also remember that Jesus condemned those who prayed to be seen of men, (see Matt. 6:5) who used vain repetitions (see Matt. 6:7) and were boastful and proud. He was impressed by the humble prayer of the sinner who would not even lift up his eyes to heaven and who prayed only that God would be merciful unto him—a sinner. (See Luke 18:13.)
We are told in the scriptures, “Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers.” (D&C 112:10.) The Book of Mormon teaches us, “And he inviteth them all to come unto Him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.” (2 Ne. 26:33.)
Isn’t it possible that the keys would have been found whether Grandmother prayed or not. Yes, that certainly is possible. Good things occur by chance, or by diligence, or by practice and not just by prayer. Jesus indicated that the rain fell on the just and the unjust—everyone will receive some measure of good fortune (see Matt. 5:45). We are told that there are laws established “before the foundations of the world upon which all blessings are predicated. When we obtain any blessing it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130: 20–21.) Anyone who obeys a law will receive the blessing attached to that law. Sometimes we will receive some blessings because of our obedience to a law not connected to a prayer.
The golfer, Arnold Palmer, once hit a golf ball into a hole that was quite far away to win a tournament. An observer remarked, “Arnold, you certainly were lucky.” Mr. Palmer then commented, “It is interesting that the more I practice the ‘luckier’ I get.” Would the Lord answer prayers to hit golf balls into holes far away if we didn’t practice? Probably not. Some blessings require more than just prayers for as James observed, “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17.)
However, the scriptures are also clear that God is aware of everything that happens. Jesus told us that the Father was aware of our needs even before we asked him. The Lord has said, “And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.” (D&C 59:21.) The Lord’s hand is in all things, and we should acknowledge that Heavenly Father can have an influence in those things that are for our good.
How then do we understand prayer? It is one of our most effective connecting links with Heavenly Father. We should be careful to use it wisely and in the right spirit. He knows what we need and in his wisdom will grant us the blessings we need and quality for. In all things we pray for his will to be done and we also pray for the faith to accept his will in our lives.

Nicole Davie and Luwana Qummou of Brisbane, Australia, built a bridge together. It wasn’t a massive stone-and-steel structure like the one that arches over the bay behind them as they stroll the waterfront of Brisbane’s business district; Nicole and Luwana built a bridge of trust and love.
While they were teenagers, Nicole met Luwana at Sunnybank High School. They became good friends and have known each other for five years, including the past two years as university students.
“If the full-time missionaries had come to my door, I’m not sure if I would have listened to them,” Luwana says. “But Nicole was my friend. We had lots of fun at school, and I vaguely remember her talking about the Church. It took years before I felt comfortable asking about her religion.”
That finally happened late in 1993. “The first time we had a spiritual talk, she just wanted to learn more,” Nicole says. “She had a lot of questions and was troubled by some things she’d heard from others. I said a prayer for her that night, and I think the Holy Ghost went to work on her.”
“The next day, as we talked again, everything I’d been upset about didn’t seem to matter anymore,” Luwana says. “I felt the Holy Spirit strongly. I felt calm and happy. I knew I needed to study the Church, so I took the missionary discussions and started reading the Book of Mormon. The feelings got stronger and stronger.”
Friendship became a bridge of trust between Nicole and Luwana, and helped Luwana build a bridge of faith linking her to her Heavenly Father. With that kind of path to understanding, it wasn’t long before Luwana was baptized and became an enthusiastic member of the Church.
Now, as Luwana looks out over the waterfront in Brisbane, she knows she is building more bridges—bridges to eternity. Soon she will be married to a returned missionary in the Sydney Temple, and she thanks Nicole for the knowledge that made that possible.
“We’re best friends,” Luwana says. “To know that she wanted to see me marry a worthy man in the temple, that she wanted me to have that happiness, that’s really wonderful.”

Second, your mission president is the Lord’s representative. Do not criticize or demean him, privately or publicly. If you will respect his authority, be obedient, humble, teachable, and follow the mission rules, you will be a successful missionary. For instance, one of the hardest rules to follow is to get up in the morning when your mission president directs. Many young men think the best time to sleep is in the morning. I’m grateful to my obedient senior companion, Elder William Grant Bangerter, who would set the alarm clock to get up early. When the alarm went off, it would jangle my nerves. In the winter it was dark, damp, and cold, and we never had any hot water for bathing or showering. He would cheerfully shower in that cold water; I would start to shiver as soon as he got out of the shower. I could not do anything but follow his example, but I have to confess that I was not quite as cheerful because my teeth were chattering.

Let me share a personal example of how our family learned the hard lesson of receiving Heavenly Father’s help by allowing others to serve us. I won’t share too many details, but hopefully you get the point. Our family tries to be self-reliant, but I in particular maybe push it too far sometimes. I try to be the do-it-all handyman, handling most of our home and vehicle maintenance. Our family loves to provide service to others, but we find it hard to allow others to serve us. However, Heavenly Father has ways of humbling us when we tend to be prideful. In the spring of 2015, I was diagnosed with stage 3-4 colorectal cancer. In the ensuing year I had to receive initial chemo and radiation treatments, followed by life-changing but life-saving surgery, and finally hard-hitting chemotherapy treatments. I was literally knocked off my feet. To make matters worse, it seemed like everything around the house started falling apart, and we had two vehicles break down during our treatment trips to Utah. These were things that I would usually attempt to fix on my own, but now it was impossible for me do so, and my family felt the weight of it all. Humbled in our situation, we acquiesced and allowed others to serve us. They were as angels sent from above. Service did soothe our suffering. Our lesson was needed again almost immediately, because the suffering was not over. In the next year, we lost my mother, her sister, two young nephews, our newly wed son-in-law and a grandson. However, this time, we were more willing to accept the service of others. Our suffering was truly soothed through the service of friends and family, and we made it through.

Keeping a personal history is a fun and easy way to do genealogy work. Young Women in the Castro Valley Second Ward, San Leandro California Stake, found a fun and creative way to get started. Each Young Woman created a time capsule by decorating a new paint can. Then she filled the can with important information and items like newspaper clippings and other memorabilia. Then the cans were sealed.
The Young Women will meet again during Christmas of the year 2001 to open their time capsules and share their memories with each other.
It’s history in the making.

When President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) first conceived of building smaller temples, Utah sculptor Karl Quilter was asked to design a smaller version of the angel Moroni that could be adapted for placement on temples of different sizes. The process of creating the new figure began with the construction of a metal armature, or support structure. Foam was then sprayed into this structure and sculpted into a basic human body shape. Clay was then applied to the foam and sculpted into more detail. More clay was applied in order to sculpt the clothing. It took about eight months before Brother Quilter’s 7-foot-tall model was ready for the First Presidency’s review. Once it was approved, Brother Quilter scaled up his model to produce larger versions, and molds were made from the clay models. From these molds the figures were cast in fiberglass under the direction of craftsman LaVar Wallgren. Brother Quilter’s Moroni design is now used exclusively in the Church, and the Church owns the molds. About 10 figures can be cast from each mold. Today it takes less than a week to fabricate a figure.

Rhett Wyatt, 18, of the Gresham Oregon Stake is involved in drama at his high school, jogs daily, maintains a B-minus average, and has started his own business. He is also blind.
Rhett lost his sight when he was eight. He was hit by a car, which left him in a coma for six months, damaged his leg, and cost him his sight. He hasn’t let his accident stop him.
Although limited in his participation in sports, Rhett still runs daily and works out on a trampoline thanks to an invention of his brother’s. Rhett has become interested in drama. He has been in two school plays, including playing the part of a sighted character. He memorized steps in order to dance in the plays. His entertaining abilities include stand-up comedy routines.
He and his mother founded a small business called “Out of Sight Industries.” They sell T-shirts and backpacks for the blind.
Rhett plans to attend college where he hopes to study counseling or drama.

When Elder Perry was seven years old, his family started to remodel their home in Logan, Utah, USA. They were taking out some of the walls in the house. Each day, the workers would tear down the old walls, leaving many boards full of nails. One of young Tom’s tasks was to take care of these boards.
Each night after the workers had finished, Tom gathered up the boards and took them out to the back lawn. There he made a big pile of boards. Then, one at a time, he put them up on two sawhorses and pulled out all the nails with a crowbar.
After pulling out the nails, Tom did his best to straighten them. Then he threw the straightened nails into a big green bucket and stacked the boards in a neat pile. The workers were able to use the old boards to remodel the house.
Elder Perry says this project helped him learn good lessons. First, it taught him the discipline of working hard. Second, it taught him not to waste things. These lessons have helped him his whole life.

I relearned something else. Once before I had painted a picture inspired by comments that I heard when I was a boy. It depicted the Willard Peaks. I had heard the older folks refer to them as The Presidency. These three gigantic, solid peaks standing against the sky typified the leaders of the Church.
That was nine years ago. My son had taken me to Willard and photographed the peaks. We went back a second time when there would be more shadow and contrast.
After those years I had to awaken that which I had let go dormant. At first it was a terrible struggle. I threatened to quit several times. One of my friends urged me on by saying, “Go ahead! There’s always plenty of room at the bottom.”
I did not quit, simply because my wife would not give me permission to do so. I am glad I didn’t now. Perhaps, now that I am into it again, I’ll do another painting sometime—who knows.
I suppose trying to get back into painting is not unlike someone who has been inactive in the Church for many years and decides to return to the fold. There is that period of struggle in getting the feel for what has lain dormant but is not really lost. And it helps to have a friend or two.
That is another principle of learning—drawing lessons from ordinary experience in life.

Members of my seminary class often share missionary experiences. But one time, two months had gone by since anyone shared, so I thought it was time to make a move. I prayed to Heavenly Father, saying that if He would let me have a missionary experience that day at school, I’d do everything in my power to teach others as much about the gospel as I possibly could. The first question came from my locker partner and close friend, Tabitha.
“Are Mormons Christians?” she asked.
“Of course I’m a Christian!” I cheerfully responded, “I believe in Jesus. Did you know that the actual name of my church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” Then we talked a little more.
Throughout the day it seemed like people flooded me with questions.
The next day, as I related my stories to my seminary class, I knew that I’d have missionary moments as long as I desired them.

When I was a senior in high school I was excited to be called to serve as a member of the Amarillo Texas Stake’s youth conference committee. Most of the planning for the conference was left up to an enthusiastic group of about a dozen young people. Our committee met a few Sundays a month for almost a year at our stake center, an hour’s drive from my home. We also dedicated several hours in between meetings to researching ideas and praying for inspiration. I could see that serving on the committee was bringing me closer to the Lord. Although I had to travel an hour each way to the meetings, I felt good about what I was doing.
Generally, I enjoyed having uninterrupted quiet time to myself in my car on those Sunday afternoons to ponder the items we had discussed at our meeting or just to think. However, as the seasons changed and the hours of daylight shortened, I found that more of my drive home was in the dark. Even though I had had my driver’s license for about a year, something about driving on the highway alone at night made me uneasy.
One night was particularly distressing. Although the roads were relatively straight and safe, I was paralyzed by fear. I managed to go only half the speed of the other cars on the highway. My knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel. I poured every ounce of my consciousness into focusing on the road ahead of me and, after a few miles, was nearly exhausted by the effort. I realized that by driving so slowly I was only prolonging my terror, but try as I might, I could not make myself go any faster.
Keeping my eyes open and my hands on the wheel, I said a fervent prayer aloud, asking that I might be comforted. I thanked the Lord for the opportunity that I had to serve Him while I was on that committee and asked that He would grant me the ability to fulfill my calling—which included traveling to and from my meetings.
Immediately after I finished my prayer, a scripture I had studied in seminary came to my mind. I had heard the words a hundred times: “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (D&C 82:10).
Simple as it may seem, those words were an answer to my prayer. Immediately I felt the comfort of the Holy Ghost reassuring me that as long as I did the things the Lord expected of me, I would be taken care of. I also knew that if I was obedient to the laws of the land by wearing my seatbelt and not speeding, I would be doing all I could to allow for Heavenly Father’s protection.
Relief swept over me following my appeal to the Lord. I am grateful that my seminary teacher encouraged me to learn the scripture mastery scriptures. That night I learned firsthand what a blessing familiarity with the scriptures can be.

In Malawi, Africa, everyone had to walk. There were very few cars. One afternoon, the Spirit whispered to Elder Henderson to give a ride to a young man walking along the road. Elder Henderson invited Steven, his wife, and his two small daughters to come to church that Sunday. They came, and we taught them the gospel and the blessings of making covenants or promises by being baptized into the Lord’s true church. They were baptized. However, Steven and his little family soon faced some hard challenges. When the landlord found they were seeing Mormons, they came home one day to find all their furniture on the road, and they were kicked out of their house. Then Steven faced some hard temptations at work and made some mistakes.
When Elder Henderson and I flew back to the Utah, we were a little discouraged. Many hungry children had been fed from our factory and our little church group was meeting each week, but could it last without us? Maybe we did more bad than we did good. Maybe it would have been better if we had not come.
Months later, we heard that the Church was growing. A few years later, we heard that our convert friend Steven had returned to church. He had forgotten some of his baptismal covenants and had made some mistakes, but the Lord had not forgotten His part of the covenants. Even though Steven was lost for a time, the Holy Ghost reached out to him and helped him remember the promises he made. Steven repented. He paid back the people he hurt. He confessed his mistakes to the branch president and became a stronger husband and father. Soon Steven and his family were back in church each Sunday and helping others to learn about the Savior’s plan of happiness.
Two weeks ago, we received an email from Steven:
“This morning I went to lead at a new church group, which will soon be organized into a branch. This will be the fifth branch in the capital Lilongwe. As I was sitting there in front and watching these members who have been walking many miles every Sunday to the Lilongwe branch, I was filled with the Spirit, and I was reminded of you. In a few days to come, Lilongwe will be organized into a district (like a small stake). The Church in Lilongwe is growing so fast that we cannot even understand it. I will always remember that Saturday afternoon when you gave me a ride and introduced the Church to me. Steven.”
We learned from this experience that teaching Steven and the Ntoloas is not our work. It is Heavenly Father’s work. We are His servants, and if we are willing, He will use us to bless many, many people.

The clowns must make up and be ready before everyone else to “warm up” the audience for the rest of the show. The clowns do slapstick comedy and vaudeville-type routines to get laughs from the crowd. Sometimes they all work together in one big rollicking show, and other times they work alone doing a routine of their own creation. Tim is the very first performer in the arena. He walks in with his huge shoes slapping on the hard rubber runway and a big bandage wrapped around his head. He groans and screams in pain from the most terrible toothache that anyone has ever had. But never fear, who should appear at the other end of the arena but a clown-faced dentist in a tuxedo who obviously has the equipment and know-how to help Tim get rid of his horrible toothache. This all seems fine to Tim until he sees the dentist’s equipment—a large hammer and a huge pair of pliers. Tim makes several attempts to escape but all to no avail. The dentist and Tork finally wrestle Tim to the ground right in front of the center ring, and with his huge pair of pliers the dentist extracts a huge foam-rubber tooth that had been hidden in Tim’s bandage. It’s a great laugh for everyone, and the clowns seem to enjoy it most of all. After a few more good routines, the crowd is warmed up and the show begins.

I will now share two stories wherein angels communicated love to mortals. At one point in his life Parley P. Pratt remained captive for months in a Missouri dungeon. He was very discouraged. After fasting and praying for a number of days, Elder Pratt experienced a powerful answer to his prayer. He wrote:

A personage . . . stood before me with a smile of compassion in every look, and pity mingled with the tenderest love and sympathy in every expression of the countenance. . . . A well known voice saluted me, which I readily recognized as that of the wife of my youth, who had for near two years been sweetly sleeping where . . . the weary are at rest.20

This personage, as an angelic messenger, delivered her message to Elder Pratt and then departed.

I started my doctoral program in 2013. In my first class, we had an assignment to research and present our findings on the traditional use of Hawaiian words in a specific context. I chose to focus on religious lexical terms since we were reading the story of Kamehameha the Great, printed in the old Hawaiian newspapers in the early part of the 1900?s. The author was Joseph M. Poepoe, well known in Hawai?i for his literary publications and editorial work on eight Hawaiian language newspapers over a span of 24 years.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the religious lexical terms of a traditional Hawaiian story with those used in the Doctrine and Covenants that were printed around the same time. Little did I know at the time that there were two different publications of the Doctrine and Covenants in Hawaiian, one by our Church, translated by Ernest L. Miner, and the other by the Reorganized Church, who hired Poepoe to translate their Doctrine and Covenants. I learned that Poepoe had died in 1913, one hundred years prior to my research.

I felt impressed to learn more about him. Who was he as a person? Who was his family? Promptings led to old newspapers that contained the genealogy of his ancestors. I found that his temple work had been completed, but work for his family unit and extended family still needed to be done. I did what I could by inputting all the information I had, going back several generations, but did not request to do the temple work since I was not a direct descendent. A few weeks later, a high priest from our ward called, stating that his good friend was visiting. He was a descendent of Poepoe, and that he had requested the temple ordinances; however, he permitted for me to take the names to the temple.

All that week, the Spirit prompted me with urgency to go to the Kona Temple on Saturday. I remember asking my husband if we should invite one of the young men in the ward to go with us. Tim answered, “No, the Lord will provide.” And he did. When we walked into the baptistry, there were two young men from Maui there with their father. When it was time for the male members of Poepoe’s family to be baptized by proxy, these two young men were invited to do the ordinances. Afterward, I went to speak to the father and found out that these two young men were Hawaiian immersion students and were fluent in Hawaiian. I asked him to please explain to his sons regarding the work they did for the Joseph Poepoe family.

When I arrived at church the next day, I was surprised to see the same father and two sons visiting our ward, especially since the temple is in Kona, and our ward is on the opposite side of the island. They were staying with longtime friends in Puna who were members of our ward. During Relief Society, the mother of the two boys introduced herself to me and explained that she is a descendent of Poepoe. Through the whisperings of the Spirit, I am convinced that the Lord had a hand in putting these worthy young men in exactly the right place and at the right time to bring about sacred eternal blessings for their family.

I am still amazed how all the moving parts of this story just seemed to fall into place in a remarkable way. Doubters may say it was coincidence, but I cannot deny the inspirations, promptings, and the thinning of the veil that was experienced on that special day.

“I’ll race you to the church!” Mórmon said, pointing to the church steeple poking out above the palm trees. Then he ran as fast as he could to stay ahead of his younger brother, Morian.
The boys and their parents had already walked about a mile from their home, but Mórmon and Morian were still racing hard when they reached the metal gate outside their ward meetinghouse. They stopped to catch their breath.
Before they could decide who won, a boy called out to them, “Want to play futebol?”
Mórmon loved futebol, but he and his family were going to clean the ward building so it would be ready for church the next day.
Mórmon shook his head. “Not now—maybe later!” he called back.
Soon Mórmon and Morian were working hard. Mórmon moved chairs and swept floors with his dad while Morian mopped floors with his mom.
Later the boys were washing mirrors in the bathroom together. “I didn’t think I’d like cleaning the church, but it’s fun,” Morian said. “What about you, Mórmon? Is that why you came instead of playing futebol?”
Mórmon thought about his dad. He was the bishop of their ward, but he still took time to help clean the meetinghouse.
“I’m here because I want to be like Dad,” Mórmon said.
Then he thought about the missionaries in his ward. They were busy knocking on doors and sharing the Book of Mormon with others. They would invite people to come to church at the building the boys were cleaning.
“I’m here because someday I want to serve a mission too,” Mórmon thought. “I can help the missionaries by getting the church ready.”
Mórmon thought about tomorrow, when he and his brother would get up at 6:00 a.m., walk to church in their white shirts and ties, and prepare the chairs and songbooks in the Primary room.
“I’m here because I want to serve in a Church calling,” he thought.
Mórmon thought about how he would soon be a deacon. He would pass the sacrament and do many other things to serve.
“I’m here because next year I will receive the priesthood, and I want to do everything I can now to get ready.”
Mórmon had already done something to prepare for the priesthood: he had earned his Faith in God Award. He was already learning to live the gospel and serve others.
Finally he looked at his brother’s reflection in the mirror and smiled.
“I’m here because I love the Lord,” he said, “and because serving now will help me get ready to serve later.”

During 1992, Relief Society women throughout the world have joined together in service projects in their own communities. I know many of you were involved. A sister from Peru wrote that the women of her Relief Society had helped a family whose mother had died. The sister said, “We felt fellowshipped and strengthened spiritually, and we were happy to have been able to imitate our Lord, Jesus Christ, by serving our needy brothers and sisters.”

One transfer day I had the chance to talk to Brother Tsuya. I found out that he had joined the Church in Hawaii. I told him that my grandfather had served a mission in Hawaii and was there during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Brother Tsuya was very surprised and said he had joined the Church then but didn’t remember an Elder Squire. I told him that it was my mom’s father, Elder Thurgood, who had served in Hawaii.
Brother Tsuya almost fell out of his chair and yelled out “Elder Thurgood is your grandpa?” He related the story of their meeting. He said while he was eating a meal in the Hawaiian community style, he was being inappropriate and was taking the Lord’s name in vain among other things. A missionary, my grandfather, had spoken up and asked him to stop. Brother Tsuya said he took the name of the Lord in vain again. He said that my grandpa had come over to him, hit him on the shoulder, and lectured him about how little he knew about life, how he wasn’t as smart as he thought, how he needed to quit smoking and do a bunch of things differently or he wouldn’t ever amount to anything.
Brother Tsuya told me that when he went home that night, he knew my grandpa was right. He thought about it and decided he wanted to make some changes. He ran into two similarly dressed missionaries a couple of weeks later and listened to the discussions with a sincere desire to change. Brother Tsuya gave much of the credit for his decision to listen to the missionaries to my grandpa.
I quickly wrote home telling my family I had huge news and that Grandpa Thurgood needed to be there when I made my telephone call at Christmas. When I called home, I finally told him that I had met somebody he brought into the Church. I will always remember how quiet he became as he said, “Ryan, you are mistaken. I never brought anybody into the Church on my mission.”
I asked him if he remembered hitting a smart-aleck Japanese kid at dinner in Hawaii and then lecturing him on how much he needed to change his life. He became instantly curious and said that he did remember the incident well. He was transferred away shortly after that and hadn’t heard more.
I told him that two weeks later that boy had decided to listen to the discussions because of what you said to him that night. He had later married in the temple in Hawaii. He had served in various callings in the Church and blessed many, many lives. He served as a mission president in Japan for three years. He also served as president of the MTC in Japan. He had served multiple missions with his wife.
My Grandpa Thurgood was in tears and couldn’t talk to me after that. He had spent over 50 years thinking his mission hadn’t made a difference to anybody. When the Tsuyas completed their mission in Brazil, my grandpa and his wife went to the temple with them and had a tearful reunion.

Then there is the remembered Christmas tale by O. Henry about a young husband and wife who lived in abject poverty yet who wanted to give one another a special gift. But they had nothing to give. Then the husband had a ray of inspiration: he would provide his dear wife a beautiful ornamental comb to adorn her magnificent long hair. The wife also received an idea: she would obtain a lovely chain for her husband’s prized watch, which he valued so highly.

Christmas day came; the treasured gifts were exchanged. Then the surprise ending, so typical of O. Henry’s short stories: the wife had shorn her long hair and sold it to obtain funds to purchase the watch chain, only to discover that her husband had sold his watch so that he might purchase the comb to adorn her beautiful long hair, which now she did not have.