Finding Peace While Pursuing Perfection

How do you know when you’re forgiven? In many LDS homes, a favorite activity for teaching children about repentance involves food coloring. In this object lesson, parents bring out a glass of water and add a few drops of food coloring to it, tainting the water to represent what happens… Continue reading

Not Feeling the Spirit? It Might Be for One of These Two Reasons

Man in red sweatshirt walks along a road

What keeps us from always feeling the Spirit? Recently, I was reading emails and letters that I wrote while I was a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I remembered how I felt as I wrote them—and how I felt all the time when I… Continue reading

Will Being Holier Really Make Me Happier?

We can increase our personal happiness today by taking the needed steps to become more holy.  “Keeping the commandments makes you happier.” At times, this may feel like a line said by well-meaning parents and leaders simply because they want us to improve our behavior. In fact, we may think… Continue reading

Changing for the Better

Picture of a small branch and leaf

Changes range from fun and exciting to devastating and frightening. Here’s how to prepare for whatever comes your way. An unexpected plot twist makes a novel engaging, but an unexpected life twist usually causes a headache. We can’t control all of the changes that come our way, but we can… Continue reading

The Surprising Lesson We Can Learn from Pickles

Pickles

Cucumbers become pickles through a deliberate process of transformation. Similarly, each of us must be transformed, or born again, through Jesus Christ. I still remember the day I learned that pickles used to be cucumbers. As a young girl, I couldn’t fathom how one food could turn into another with… Continue reading

As If You Had Never Sinned

Man adjusting his orange tie

Do you sometimes forget the miracle of repentance and forgiveness? Through the Savior, you don’t just have your sins washed away. You become as if you had never sinned. “And now, my brethren, if our brethren seek to destroy us, behold, we will hide away our swords, yea, even we… Continue reading