When I was a very small boy, my father found a lamb all alone out in the desert.  The herd of sheep to which its mother belonged had moved on, and somehow the lamb got separated from its mother, and the shepherd must not have known that it was lost.  Because it could not survive alone in the desert, my father picked it up and brought it home.  To have left the lamb there would have meant certain death, either by falling prey to the coyotes or by starvation because it was so young that it still needed milk.  Some sheepmen call these lambs “bummers.”  My father gave the lamb to me and I became its shepherd.

For several weeks I warmed cow’s milk in a baby’s bottle and fed the lamb.  We became fast friends.  I called him Nigh—why I don’t remember.  It began to grow.  My lamb and I would play on the lawn.  Sometimes we would lie together on the grass and I would lay my head on its soft, woolly side and look up at the blue sky and the white billowing clouds.  I did not lock my lamb up during the day.  It would not run away.  It soon learned to eat grass.  I could call my lamb from anywhere in the yard by just imitating as best I could the bleating sound of a sheep:  Baa.  Baa.

One night there came a terrible storm.  I forgot to put my lamb in the barn that night as I should have done.  I went to bed.  My little friend was frightened in the storm and I could hear it bleating.  I knew that I should help my pet, but I wanted to stay safe, warm, and dry in my bed.  I didn’t get up as I should have done.  The next morning I went out to find my lamb dead.  A dog had also heard its bleating cry and killed it.  My heart was broken.  I had not been a good shepherd or steward of that which my father had entrusted to me.  My father said, “Son, couldn’t I trust you to take care of just one lamb?”  My father’s remark hurt me more than losing my woolly friend.  I resolved that day, as a little boy, that I would try never again to neglect my stewardship as a shepherd if I were ever placed in that position again.

Not too many years thereafter I was called as a junior companion to a home teacher.  There were times when it was so cold or stormy and I wanted to stay home and be comfortable, but in my mind’s ear I could hear my little lamb bleating, and I knew I needed to be a good shepherd and go with my senior companion.  In all those many years, whenever I have had a desire to shirk my duties, there would come to me a remembrance of how sorry I was that night so many years ago when I had not been a good shepherd.  I have not always done everything I should have, but I have tried.

As told by James E. Faust in general conference, April 1995.