How Burdens Can Become Blessings

Through faith and patience, we can learn how the burdens of today can become the blessings of tomorrow. Experiencing an overload? Obligations, illnesses, decisions—each of us carries a load. Sometimes our loads seemingly become too heavy to bear. But Elder L. Whitney Clayton shows us that our burdens don’t have to… Continue reading

Discover Your Own Path: Steps from Jesus Christ’s Young-Adult Years

group on top of mountain

Jesus doesn’t just understand young-adult life, he has lived it—perfectly. When we imagine the Savior, we typically visualize him as an adult––full beard, broad shoulders, and traces of wrinkles showing the joys and sorrows of 33 years. Kent F. Richards instead paints us a portrait of Jesus during his young-adult… Continue reading

Not Just a Hand-Me-Down Plan

When God’s plan for us seems like a thrift-store, hand-me-down plan, we need to be patient, have faith, and remember the blessings God has promised us. Maybe you’re past the “standard” Mormon marrying age or you’re working in a job unrelated to your degree. Or maybe you’re wondering if you’re… Continue reading

Turning Trials into Opportunities

We cannot learn by study alone. We must also learn through experience and action. Chronic illness. Natural disasters. Premature death. Many trials surface in our lives, often seeming random, with no one to blame for their appearance. It’s easy to ask, “Why? Why do good people suffer such hardships?” In… Continue reading

Weaving Discipleship into Our Spiritual Tapestry

Being a disciple isn’t just what we do; it’s who we are. When I’d hear the word disciple, I used to imagine the ancient apostles Mark, Peter, and John literally following in the Savior’s footsteps. Since two millennia separated me from when Christ lived on the earth, I felt that… Continue reading

When It Doesn’t Get Easier

When the unrelenting trials in my life were threatening to tear me down, I was reminded by a general conference talk that “hard is good.” By the time the weekend of the October 2017 general conference arrived, I was completely overwhelmed. I felt like I had thirty-five hours of work… Continue reading

Hope: A Journey to Faith

Sometimes it can take seconds to gain faith in certain aspects of the gospel, but what if it takes twenty years? For twenty years, I didn’t have a testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet. During these years, I served in numerous callings and even went on a mission. Despite… Continue reading

Love Yourself: A Key to Patience

Perhaps the best way to learn patience with others is to first be patient with yourself. How many perfect days have you had? Days that were truly perfect: love and harmony abounded, the sun shone brightly, and you were the paragon of patience. Or do you more often find yourself… Continue reading

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust

What’s the little bit of magic we need to recognize and understand so we can continue exercising faith and trusting in God’s plan for us? Patience. It’s a word and a concept I’ve come to both love and hate. We’ve all heard the saying “good things come to those who… Continue reading

Trials Can Be For Your Good

Our success and happiness are determined by how we choose to react to trials. By Heavenly Father’s eternal design, mortality wasn’t meant to be easy. Though trials may weigh us down, we can face them with confidence as we look to Christ. The challenge? To have an eternal perspective in… Continue reading