After All

At Relief Society chorus practice, we were singing “The Arrow and the Song.” After singing the words “I shot an arrow into the air / It fell to earth, / I knew not where,” a sister remarked: “With the pollution we now have, the words will have to be changed. We should sing ‘I shot an arrow into the air—and it stuck.’”

—Mrs. Joyce Johnson, Layton, Utah

“My father’s taking up French, Spanish, Chinese, and Swedish.”

“At what university?”

“None. He’s an elevator operator at the United Nations.”

Elder Orson F. Whitney of the Council of the Twelve used to tell of a missionary who had a ready answer for those who refuted the Prophet Joseph Smith’s claim that he had seen God. When they cited John in the New Testament —“No man hath seen God at any time”—he reminded them that “God is a businessman. He can be seen only by appointment.”

—Joseph M. Flake, Snowflake, Arizona

Dogs, cats, and children had ruined enough new cement for one do-it-yourself contractor. He chased everyone and everything away from the newly troweled strip of concrete.

His wife, unruffled by all of his efforts to keep the cement undefiled, carefully inscribed the slab with these words: “Maxine loves Carl.”

Carl left the inscription in the concrete.

—M. G. Fairbanks, Orem, Utah

A bishop, upset because the elders had a habit of waiting until the last day of the month to do their home teaching, addressed the quorum president: “Do you mean to tell me that if I should die, my home teachers wouldn’t come to see me in my casket?”

“Oh, bishop, they certainly would—if your funeral were on the last day of the month.”

After sealing an envelope addressed to a bookstore, I thought how humorous my order must have sounded. Having ordered the book as a present for my husband, I had written, “Please send The Miracle of Forgiveness as soon as possible—I need it right away.”

—Liz Elvidge, Lancaster, Wisconsin

Now what I desire and the ambition of my life is that from now on until my end comes I can accomplish more year by year than I have accomplished in the past, for the reason that I should have, and I believe I do have, a greater comprehension of the duties and the responsibilities that rest upon me and that rest upon all of us than I had many years ago. I am grateful beyond expression that as the years come and go, my love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ that has again been restored to the earth is stronger, and that there is a greater desire in my heart to labor for the spread of truth and the building up of the Church of Christ here upon the earth today than there has been ever before, and I believe that ought to be the ambition of each and every one of us.

—President Heber J. Grant