Lost and Found

By Shyrl L. Sevey

For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do (2 Ne. 32:5).

There it was, just lying on the sidewalk! I stopped and stared at it. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” I looked up to see my new friend, Sally, standing beside me. “Look,” I said, “someone’s wallet.”

Sally had just moved to our neighborhood, and I was glad to finally have a member of the Church who was my own age around. “Let’s see if there’s any money in it,” she said, picking it up. “Wow! Have you ever seen so much money in your life!”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. There must have been a thousand dollars in it. “See who it belongs to,” I said. But Sally was too busy counting the bills in the wallet to pay any attention to what I said. I tried again. “Stop that—it doesn’t belong to us.”

“It isn’t our fault somebody lost his wallet,” she said. “Besides, haven’t you ever heard of ‘finders, keepers—losers, weepers.’”

“But it isn’t ours,” I repeated.

“Don’t be such a baby!” Sally was getting angry. She made me promise not to tell anyone about the wallet.

“Come on,” she said, “we’re rich! Let’s go buy some candy.”

I didn’t want her to be mad at me, so I went along.

Later that night, when I was in my room, Mom came in. “Are you feeling OK?” she asked. “You hardly ate any supper.”

“Sure,” I mumbled.

“Are you worried about your talk next Sunday?”

I had completely forgotten about my talk. It was supposed to be on how the Holy Ghost can guide us.

After Mom left my room, I tried to work on it, but all I could think about was the wallet and whoever it belonged to.

A few days later my older sister, Beth, said she’d help me work on my talk. “What’s wrong with you, Shortstuff—you’re not paying attention.”

I started to cry. I’d promised not to talk about the wallet, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Sally and I found a wallet with tons and tons of money in it. We spent some, and now I feel just awful!” I blurted out as fast as I could. I felt better just having told her.

“No wonder you’re having so much trouble writing this talk, kiddo.” She smiled.

“Huh?”

“Your talk is on how the Holy Ghost can guide us, and you’re experiencing that firsthand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it—about what you’re feeling now about the wallet. Where do you think those feelings are coming from?” She looked at me, waiting for an answer.

“You mean it’s the Holy Ghost trying to guide me to do what’s right?”

“You’re a smart kid! Now I think you need to talk to Mom and Dad.”

I went to my dad and told him the whole miserable story. He called Sally’s dad, and they came over. I could tell that Sally was really upset with me. My dad had me replace the money I’d spent. Sally grudgingly promised to repay her dad for the money she had spent. Then my dad called the owner of the wallet, who came over right away. Dad told him the whole story.

The man shook our dads’ hands and smiled at us. “Thank you for returning my wallet,” he said. “I was worried about it. It must have been very hard to find that much money and give it back.”

I looked down at my feet and mumbled, “Yes.”

“Well, I’d like to give you a reward.” He reached into the wallet and took out a twenty-dollar bill.

“We can’t take that,” I said. “We should have returned the wallet to you right away.”

The man nodded, put the money back into his wallet, thanked us again, and left.

Sally wouldn’t even look at me, let alone talk to me. But I was glad that I’d told, even if it meant losing Sally as a friend. I felt good inside knowing that I’d followed the promptings of the Holy Ghost and finally made the right decision.

That Sunday I gave my talk on how the Holy Ghost can guide us, even when we don’t want to listen at first. Sally sat in the front row and smiled at me. I think she was as glad then as I was that we’d returned the wallet.

After church we walked home together and talked a lot. I hoped that we wouldn’t find anything else. But I knew that if we did, the Holy Ghost would guide us to do what we should.

Illustrated by Roger Motzkus