Posts by jek
Mother Superior Convert
In Portugal, in the city of Funchal, on the Madeira Island, lived a lady named Asencao Frango who had been a nun for twenty years. As a matter of fact, she was a Mother Superior at a home for poor children and orphans.
Read MoreTorn Buddhist Family Reunited
Just a few weeks ago, while in Bangkok, Thailand, our hearts were touched by a young lady….Let me share (her) message of good cheer as told in her own words.
Read MoreDivinity Student Joins Church
I was going to tell you the story of a friend who recently joined the Church. Rather than do that, I am going to ask him to tell it himself.
Read MoreMinister Becomes General Authority
For forty-five years I have had close association with the land of Brazil. Many tens of thousands have joined the Church in that country. I had great joy yesterday in hearing of the call of Elder Helio da Rocha Camargo, our companion and fellow member of the Church.
Read MoreIntroductions
The Spirit giveth light in this church. I am thinking of a wonderful new convert in England. In response to my asking, he told me about his conversion. He explained how he was kneeling at his flower bed on a Saturday morning preparing the soil for spring planting. All of a sudden an unseen voice from behind asked the simple question, “Sir, do you love the Lord?”
Read MoreLove Beats Knowledge and Pride
One reason I desired to serve a mission was that I had seen the impact that serving a mission had on my father and mother. Many times in our family home evenings Dad would mention his mission.
Read MoreCatholic Commits to Serve Mission
A year ago at Flagstaff, Arizona, a special banquet for Eagle Scouts was held. There were 1,150 Eagle Scouts. John Warnick, the director of Mormon Relationships, invited all those who would commit to go on a mission to stand. All 1,150 stood.
Read MoreBesieged By Love
A few years ago, a retired couple (the Krugers) moved west to spend their last years. They went by bus and stopped in Provo, Utah, for a while. They had no particular destination in mind, and they took a cab and rode around the Provo area.
Read MoreShe Vowed to Never Speak Again
In a refugee camp in Asia was a young former schoolteacher who with her mother had escaped their country after having watched the brutal murder of others in their family. She had been viciously violated to the point where she had vowed never to speak again in this depraved world.
Read MoreLittle Girl Sends Book of Mormon to Daddy
My beloved brethren and sisters, how blessed we are to meet together in peace in these comfortable and happy circumstances.
Read MoreHis Sins Will Be Washed Away
Shortly before coming to this conference, I received a beautiful letter from a woman who had lost her husband thirteen years ago. I will read it to you. She said: “I was left alone to raise my two sons.
Read MoreMidshipman Shares Gospel
The truth of our message—the impact of its spiritual influence upon hearts previously prepared—is the greatest influence for good in the world.
Read MoreCome On In To Primary
Recently a California family, driving through St. George, Utah, on vacation, was attracted by the unusual architecture of the St. George Temple. They walked around the building, admiring its beauty.
Read MoreIt Must Have Been Like This
There is a silver-haired Argentine sister who knows the Shepherd. She has given a long life of service to the Lord, his Church, and her fellowmen.
Read MoreTracts in Shoes—John A. Widtsoe
Many years ago in the country of Norway, a young widow with two small sons sent a pair of shoes to a shoemaker for repairs. When the mended shoes were returned, the mother was surprised to find a religious tract tucked into each shoe. Shortly thereafter, curious about the tracts, and with a parcel containing another pair of old shoes, she set forth for the half-hour walk to the shoemaker’s shop.
Read MoreBaptism Heals Crippled Man
May I share with you a beautiful missionary experience I encountered recently? I saw a miracle performed by one of your missionary sons who so dearly loved an investigator. I met this gentleman at a special fireside.
Read MoreThere Is a Living Prophet
Near the turn of the century two missionaries approached a mountain village in one of the Hawaiian Islands. A man standing near his hut saw them coming and said to his children who stood nearby, “Run down the hill and tell those men to go back. We are not interested in what they are preaching.” The children obeyed their father.
Read MoreThe Warm Spot Grew
A recent convert from Canberra, Australia, says the following: “I was born into a religious family where religion was taken seriously. I had a strict Christian upbringing. However, I drifted away from the church at about twenty years of age when I left home to attend teachers college.
Read MoreConversion of a Lutheran Pastor
I would like to share with you a conversion story. The account concerns Louis Novak, a Lutheran minister, and his wife, Alice, and their two children, Kurt and Kristin.
Read MoreTelephone Call Brings Conversion
The Lord communicates in a miraculous way his purposes to achieve. A new elder in Italy by the name of Gary D. Shaw, in following the promptings of the Spirit, discovered this reality.
Read MoreAdney Y. Komatsu’s Conversion
A little over 34 years ago, when yet a high school student, I was first contacted by the missionaries—who invited me to attend MIA and join their basketball team. Not knowing anything about the Church, but being very interested in basketball, I attended MIA. Later I attended Sunday School, then sacrament meeting.
Read MoreDad Was Elder’s Final Baptism
Today Craig Sudbury presides over a ward here in Salt Lake City, but let me turn back the clock just a few years to the day he and his mother came to my office prior to Craig’s departure for the Australia Melbourne Mission. Fred, Craig’s father, was noticeably absent. Twenty-five years earlier, Craig’s mother had married Fred, who did not share her love for the Church and indeed did not belong to the Church.
Read MoreWhy Are They Different?
The other day I was talking to an enthusiastic returned missionary who had been a member of the Church for only five years, and this is the story he told me, which I found most interesting.
Read MorePlease, May I Serve A Mission?
I’ve been impressed and amazed as I have met with and observed the Aaronic Priesthood young men throughout the Church.
Read MoreYoung Convert Serves Mission
In the last fortnight I have been privileged to meet with some 200 of them (missionaries) laboring in a foreign country. One of them, a tall, smiling young American with his plastic raincoat folded in his coat pocket, approached.
Read MoreDifferences in Lives—5 stories
I am thinking, first of all, of a South Pacific family of 14 whose family unit had been so badly broken through parental indifference and irresponsible acts that four of the older children were in reform school and three youngsters were in foster-home custody.
Read MoreJohn Taylor Reconverts Parley Pratt
In the lives of many of our great Church leaders of this dispensation we’ve seen this process of conversion interpreted into a powerful desire to strengthen the lives of the brethren. One example that has always impressed me is the story of John Taylor.
Read MoreFrom Christian to Jew to Mormon
I think today of a young man I know who, as a Christian, trying one church after another, could find none that taught of a prophet. Only among the Jewish people did he find reverent mention of the prophets, and so he accepted and embraced the Jewish religion.
Read MoreBeginnings of Church in Philippines
I think today of a young man I know who, as a Christian, trying one church after another, could find none that taught of a prophet. Only among the Jewish people did he find reverent mention of the prophets, and so he accepted and embraced the Jewish religion.
Read More“I’ll Buy It”
Twelve years ago, in company with the mission president from Hong Kong, it was my opportunity to initiate the work in the Philippines. On April 28, 1961, we held a meeting that will never be forgotten by those of us who were present.
Read MorePraying Wife Softens Husband
A brilliant and highly educated young woman spoke in Berchtesgaden, Germany, to a conference of American military personnel who were members of the Church. I was there and heard her.
Read MoreThen What Else Matters?
Mine has been the opportunity to meet many wonderful men and women in various parts of the world. A few of them have left an indelible impression upon me. One such was a naval officer from Asia, a brilliant young man who had been brought to the United States for advanced training.
Read MoreBeginnings of the Church in Brazil
Some seeds lie dormant for years; others spring forth immediately. Some years ago such a precious seed was planted in fertile soil in Germany.
Read MoreConverted Behind the Door
Several years ago, after returning from touring a mission, I said to one of my friends, “Did you make any converts when you were on your mission in a certain town?” And I told him the name of the town.
Read MoreDisinherited By Family
A stake president in California told me the following missionary experience.
A young man in his stake from a well-to-do family had been taught the gospel by missionaries. His interest in the Church was very displeasing to his parents.
Read MoreMen Find Gospel in Prison
In June of this year I was invited to attend a graduation exercise conducted by the LDS Institute of Religion and Church Social Services Department held at the Utah State Prison.
Read MoreBookmark Makes Convert
While I was president of the Southern States Mission, a schoolteacher loaned a book to one of our Mormon children; and when the book came back, in it was an Articles of Faith card, and that schoolteacher read it.
Read MoreHome Teachers Made Converts
[The Lord’s] charge to us is to be with and strengthen our brethren. To those who diligently pursue such a course, miracles come to pass, evidenced by testimonies that declare “He was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”
Read MoreConvert Converts 60 More
One hears much these days about the slow death of the churches, and yet the Lord declared that this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached…for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matt. 24:14.) Can it possibly be accomplished? I recently had an insight into that possibility.
Read MoreWe Love One Another
A lonely young Persian student was in Munich, Germany, struggling to find a meaning to life. He was deeply disturbed by the materialism and selfishness that seemed to fill the world, and especially postwar Europe.
Read MoreRunning From a Mission
A few years ago I was asked to speak to a group of young men. I don’t remember now exactly what was said, except that near the end I made the statement that no one, but no one, present had done anything for which he could not be forgiven.
Read MoreBoy Fell Through Garage Roof
Some young people want to rebel against restraints. Some of you think it isn’t “cool” to be obedient to your parents or to follow the counsel of your bishop or quorum president. Bishop Richard C. Edgley shared an experience he had as a young boy about the consequences of being reckless and disobedient:
Read MoreThe String Holds the Kite Down?
The boy was very young. It was his first experience with kite flying. His father helped him, and after several attempts the kite was in the air. The boy ran and let out more string, and soon the kite was flying high.
Read MoreDishonest Sailors Couldn’t Swim
The boy was very young. It was his first experience with kite flying. His father helped him, and after several attempts the kite was in the air. The boy ran and let out more string, and soon the kite was flying high.
Read MoreShip’s Captain Disregarded Orders
On the day the Indianapolis sailed toward Leyte, I enlisted in the United States Navy. At the Naval Training Station near San Diego, California, I endured the extreme discipline of boot camp and the intense training for combat.
Read MoreDon’t Go Near the Quicksand
On July 16, 1945, the USS Indianapolis departed the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California on a secret cargo mission to Tinian Island in the Marianas. The cargo included highly sophisticated equipment which could well bring an end to the Second World War, with all its suffering, remorse, and death.
Read MoreThe Pilot Who Failed to Prepare
When I was five years old, my mother helped me to learn about boundaries when she said to me nearly every day, “Jimmy, don’t go near the quicksand,” which was just a couple hundred feet away from our house.
Read MoreFederal Official Tried to Take Over
It happened in the aftermath of a disaster. A dam in Idaho broke on a June day. A wall of water struck the communities below it. Thousands of people, mostly Latter-day Saints, fled their homes to go to safety.
Read MoreSpiritual Pioneers Then and Now
Just three months ago we joined under the inspired leadership of President Gordon B. Hinckley in the dedication of the rebuilt Nauvoo Temple. It bought us back to the Prophet Joseph and renewed our memories of the early Saints; their sacrifices, sorrows, and tears; but also their courage, faith, and trust in the Lord.
Read MoreMost Important Class in Cambridge
Nearly 25 years ago, our family lived in Massachusetts, where I was enrolled in graduate school. My program of study was very demanding, leaving me little free time. One Sunday in church the ward Primary president approached me and asked if I might substitute as a Primary teacher for two weeks.
Read More