Built on a Rock

The picket fence and the rose bushes outside the house in Fairfield, Melbourne, Australia, differ little from those on the rest of the street, but the family living inside is anything but typical.

Greg Kidd is a quadriplegic. With the aid of a motorized wheelchair, he works as a liaison officer for the Australian Quadriplegic Association, helping others with spinal cord injuries come to terms with their disabilities. He is also a consultant to the Public Transport Corporation and a freelance editor.

At age fourteen, Greg injured his spinal cord when he dived into a river, hitting a sandbar and breaking his neck. It took many months for him to learn to become as self-sufficient as he is today. He taught himself to write using a pen threaded through his fingers, and he pecks away at a computer keyboard.

“Until the gospel came into my life, I was just drifting,” Greg remembers. A friend encouraged him to meet the missionaries, and he agreed to listen. “But I was not ready to be baptized, or at least I didn’t think I was.”

Greg sent the missionaries away before they gave the last discussion. “After they left, I lay on my bed, my mind in turmoil,” he recalls. “I turned to the scriptures and read 3 Nephi 24–27, which admonishes us to build on a rock foundation. I realized that my life was really on a sandy foundation. Once I acknowledged that, a feeling of peace swept over me, and I could finally sleep.” The next morning he contacted the elders and made arrangements for his baptism.

Now Greg is high priests group leader in the Fairfield Ward, and he attends church regularly with his wife, Jennifer, and nine-year-old daughter, Moana. He and Jennifer were sealed in the temple thirteen years ago.