Experiment upon the Words of God

As we implement the commandments in our lives, we can understand the blessings God promises to the obedient. As a chemist, my dad tests hypotheses about compounds to better understand how they react with one another. He doesn’t know the outcome of an experiment until he completes the procedures. Just...

Witnessing the Power of Community Care

The Lord has blessed us with friends and neighbors to strengthen us when the floods of life—literal or metaphorical—threaten to overwhelm us. I’d never truly understood the destructive power of water until I witnessed it submerge my hometown under seven feet of water. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey overtook many homes...

Building Healthy Community through a Gospel of Beauty

Building a healthy community may mean asking for help—Minerva Teichert did just that, helping her paint a gospel of beauty through her art. Building a healthy community means supporting one another, but it begins by having the courage to ask for help. In Laura Paulsen Howe’s article “I Have Dreamed...

How to Slow Down and Savor the Scriptures

Is speed-reading the scriptures a regular habit? This principle for appreciating art may aid in slowing down and savoring the word of God once again. I dreamed of seeing the painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I for almost ten years. When I finally stood in the main room of the...

Hear, Hearken, Obey: A Pattern to Overcome Adversity

When it feels like our life is cracking under pressure, how do we continue? Sometimes the answer is to submit to the will of God. I was 12 years old when I lost all my friends—for the second year in a row. Another move, another state. With burgeoning depression, I...
How to Build a Boat to Handle Life’s Storms

How to Build a Boat to Handle Life’s Storms

The storms of life can be plentiful and scary, but when we build a strong boat, even the biggest storms become easier to handle. One summer day at a beach in the Puget Sound, two of my brothers and I decided to build a makeshift boat. We borrowed some rope...
Finding God in Our Storms

Finding God in Our Storms

In our storms, God is with us. Though he doesn’t always calm the storm, he can calm us to be able to bear the storm. Have you ever felt like a sailor lost at sea in the middle of a storm, like your life is chaotic and frightening and lonely?...
My Mother’s Prayer

My Mother’s Prayer

I’ve seen the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise in Doctrine and Covenants 19:38 many times. That blessing was particularly meaningful one night on a train in Europe. When I was a junior in high school, I and 80 classmates in AP European History went on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe....
Eternal Truths Provide Eternal Perspective

Eternal Truths Provide Eternal Perspective

The perspective we gain from God’s plan helps us recognize how God’s love for us motivates Church policies. When an Apostle feels the need to reemphasize something he said just three and a half years before, I can’t help but feel that it must be very important. In President Dallin...
The Perfect Church for Imperfect People

The Perfect Church for Imperfect People

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do we have it in us to be “saints”?
How I Faked Conversion

How I Faked Conversion

I wasn’t even close to being a disciple of Christ, but I was able to fake it. Fortunately, God saw straight through me.  I think you should know right off the bat that I was born into a super-normal Mormon family. We went to church, we had family prayer, we...