Index

Welcome to my blog! This is the way this blog works. I want to help you prepare for your talks for Sacrament meeting. We all know that Christ used stories to bring meaning to his lessons. Stories serve the same purpose for us. As we use stories to teach, we deepen the meaning of lessons because it helps us relate to it more personally. So to make it simple for you, I continue to collect and organize stories of gospel principles, quotes, and object lessons right here in the index.

Please leave comments and suggestions for further topics or story ideas!

Index:

Acceptance
Atonement
Attitude

Blessings
Book of Mormon

Callings
Character
Children
Chosen
Christ

D

E

Faith
Forgiveness

Gossip

Holy Ghost
Humor

I

Joseph Smith

K

Life
Light and Truth

Membership
Member Missionary
Mission Experience
Missionary Work, Blessings of
Missionary Work, Success in
Mother

N

O

Potential
Prayer

Q

R

Scriptures
Service

Thanksgiving
Trials

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Character

You

Edgar Albert Guest

You are the person who has to decide

Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside;

You are the person who makes up your mind

Whether you’ll lead or will linger behind

Whether you’ll try for the goal that is afar

Or just be contented to stay where you are.

What do you wish? To be known as a shirk,

Known as a good man who’s willing to work,

Scorned as a loafer, or praised by your chief

Rich man or poor man or beggar or thief?

Eager or earnest or dull through the day?

Honest or crooked? It’s you who must say!

You must decide in the face of the test

Whether you’ll shirk or give it your best.

Nobody here will compel you to rise;

No one will force you to open your eyes;

No one will answer for you yes or no,

Whether to stay there or whether you go;

Life is a game, but it’s you who must say

Whether as cheat or as sportsman you’ll play.

Fate may betray you, but you settle first

Whether to live to your best or your worst.

So whatever it is you are wanting to be

Remember, to fashion the choice you are free,

Kindly or selfish, or gentle or strong,

Keeping the right way or taking the wrong

Careless of honor or guarding your pride

All of these are questions which you must decide.

Yours the selection, whichever you do;

The thing men call character is all up to you.

Thanksgiving

UNTHANKED PEOPLE

When William Stidger taught at Boston University, he once reflected upon the great number of unthanked people in his life. Those who had helped nurture him, inspire him, or who cared enough about him to leave a lasting impression.

One was a schoolteacher he’d not heard of in many years. But he remembered that she had gone out of her way to put a love of verse in him, and Will had loved poetry all his life. He wrote a letter of thanks to her.

The reply he received, written in the feeble scrawl of the aged, began, “My dear Willie.” He was delighted. Now over 50, bald and a professor, he didn’t think there was a person left in the world who would call him “Willie.” Here is that letter:

My dear Willie,

I cannot tell you how much your note meant to me. I am in my eighties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely, and, like the last leaf of autumn, lingering behind. You will be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years, and yours is the first note of appreciation I ever received. It came on a blue-cold morning, and it cheered me as nothing has in many years.

Not prone to cry easily, Will wept over that note. She was one of the great unthanked people from Will’s past. You know them. We all do. The teacher who made a difference. That coach we’ll never forget. The music instructor or Sunday School worker who helped us to believe in ourselves. That scout leader who cared.

We all remember people who shaped our lives in various ways. People whose influence changed us. Will Stidger found a way to show his appreciation -- he wrote them letters.

Who are some of the unthanked people from your past? It may not be too late to say, “Thanks.”

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith

Andrew C. Skinnner

Perhaps the most important revelation of this last and greatest dispensation: was Joseph Smith’s First Vision of the Father and the Son. When Joseph Smith walked out of the Sacred Grove, at least 14 things were clarified or reestablished that had been lost or unknown during the previous 1,700 years.

• Ÿ  God the Father and Jesus Christ are alive and reside in Heaven.
• Ÿ  Their relationship is a familial one-Father and Son.
• Ÿ  They are separate and distinct personages, not one spiritual essence.
• Ÿ  They possess a glory beyond description.
• Ÿ  They look act, and speak like human beings.
• Ÿ  Humans are created in the image of the Father and the Son.
• Ÿ  The Father and the Son hear and answer prayers.
• Ÿ  The Father and the Son know individuals by name.
• Ÿ  There is an opponent to righteousness; he is real.
• Ÿ  That adversary to righteousness tries to thwart prayer.
• Ÿ  Revelation was a continuing reality 1,700 years after the so-called era of primitive Christianity.
• Ÿ  The Father testifies of His Son, and the Son of God deals directly with humankind.
• Ÿ  There had been an apostasy from Christ’s Church.
• Ÿ  None of the churches on the earth in Joseph’s day possessed the fullness of Christ’s gospel.

Gossip

On Gossip

Ann Landers

REMEMBER, before you repeat a story, ask yourself: Is it true? Is it fair? Is it necessary? If not, do not repeat it.

KEEP QUIET.

GREAT minds discuss ideas. . . Average minds discuss  events.. . Shallow minds discuss people...

Which are you?

Children

MAKING THINGS BETTER FOR OUR KIDS

(Written with a Pen by Paul Harvey)

For my grandchildren, I’d like better. I’d really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes, homemade ice-cream, and meatloaf sandwiches. I really would. My cherished grandson, I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated. I hope you learn to make your bed, and mow the lawn, and wash the car, and I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen. I hope you have a job by then.

It will be good if at least one time you can see a baby calf born and your old dog put to sleep. I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in. I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And it’s all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he’s scared, I hope you let him. When you want to see a Disney movie and your little brother wants to tag along, I hope you’ll let him.

I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely. On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope your driver doesn’t have to drop you two blocks away so you won’t be seen riding with someone as uncool as your mom. If you want a slingshot, I hope your dad teaches you to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books. When you learn to use those newfangled computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head. I hope you get razzed by your friends when you have your first crush on a girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what Ivory soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove, and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole. I hope you get sick when someone blows cigar smoke in your face. I don’t care if you try beer once, but I hope you don’t like it. And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he’s not your friend.

I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your grandpa and go fishing with your uncle. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and the joy of holidays. I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through the neighbor’s window, and that she hugs you at Christmas time when you give her a plaster of Paris mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you -- tough times and disappointment, hard work, and happiness.

Mother

The Meanest Mother in the Whole World 

— Author Unknown —

We had the meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast. When others had a Pepsi and twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And, you guessed it our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You’d think we were convicts in a prison. She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, and all sorts of other cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds. Then, life was really tough! Mother wouldn’t let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother, we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other’s property, or ever been arrested for any crime. It was all her fault We never got drunk, took up smoking, stayed out all night, or a million other things other kids did. Sundays were reserved for church, and we never missed once. We knew better than to ask to spend the night with a friend on Saturdays.

Now that we have left home, we are all God-fearing, educated, honest adults, and we are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom. I think that is what is wrong with the world today....there just aren’t enough mean mothers anymore.

Forgiveness

SERMON FROM A CHILD

Author Unknown

One rainy afternoon, I was driving along one of the main streets of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads were wet and slick. Suddenly, my son, Matthew, spoke up from his relaxed position in the front seat.

“Mom, I’m thinking of something.”

This announcement usually meant he had been pondering some fact for awhile, and was now ready to expound all that his seven-year-old mind had discovered. I was eager to hear.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“The rain,” he began, “is like sin, and the windshield wipers are like God wiping our sins away.”

After the chill bumps raced up my arms, I was able to respond. “That’s really good, Matthew.”

Then, my curiosity broke in. How far would this little boy take this revelation? So, I asked.

“Matthew, do you notice how the rain keeps on coming? What does that tell you?” He didn’t hesitate one moment with his answer. “We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us.”

It really is that simple, isn’t it?

Acceptance

The Old Fisherman

--Mary Barte--

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance to John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic.

One summer evening, as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking old man. “Why he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But, the appalling thing wais his face -- lopsided from swelling, red, and raw. Yet, his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus ‘til morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon, but with no success. “I guess it’s my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments...”

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me. “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch meanwhile. Then, I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you, I have plenty,” and he held up a brown paper bag.

When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take long to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me that he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded, and the little old Man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for the bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit -- I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment, then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grown ups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.”

I told him he would be welcome to cone again. On his next trip, he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought us a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he had left so they would be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4 a.m., and wondered what time he had had to get up in order to do this.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times, we received packages in the mail and always special delivery - fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed, Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and how little money he had, made these gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away. You can lose roomers by putting up such people.”

And maybe we did, once or twice. But oh, if only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family will always be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently, I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all - a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But, to my great surprise, it was growing in an old, dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, if this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had. My friend changed my mind.

“I ran out of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.

She Must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.”

But, that’s behind now, long ago, and in God’s garden how tall this lovely soul must stand!!