Living After the Manner of Happiness

One of the many temples we visited while were there Three years ago, Mike and I had the opportunity to spend several weeks in Bengaluru, India. After nineteen hours in the air and two layovers, we landed at the Bengaluru Airport in the middle of the night. I immediately noticed the uncomfortable lack of personal space walking through the airport and standing in line at border control. Our airport experience was a precursor for our entire trip, and I quickly learned that personal space expectations were different in their culture. Think about exiting a football stadium after a sold-out game and magnify it ten times. The crowd outside the cricket arena after the match had started We purposely arrived late to avoid the bigger crowds The markings on a divided road might indicate three lanes in each direction; however, road markings have no meaning there. Six, seven, even ten cars travel in those three lanes with mere inches between each vehicle. It is common to see motorcycles, Vespas, and...

Artwork by Katie Lee I heard the panic as soon as I answered the phone. I jumped in my car and reached them a few minutes later. Still visibly shaking, they recounted their experience. Three mornings a week, these sisters met with a lady I will call Sally. Sally had heard the missionary lessons from at least eight sets of missionaries over the years, and these sisters were the most recent to teach her. They began by teaching her the lessons, but she asked if they could read the Book of Mormon together instead. She eventually asked if they could move their meetings from the church building to her home, so their meeting location changed without anyone else knowing. Unbeknownst to these sisters, all kinds of questionable activity riddled Sally’s neighborhood. Following their meeting with Sally that morning, the police stopped these cute sisters, invited them to get out of their car, and asked to search their vehicle. In their innocence, they did not realize what was going on and asked the...

Gentle Healer by Greg Olsen I cannot explain how, but I found myself carried away to another place as soon as the dramatic organ started playing. What transpired those few minutes as I listened to the Tabernacle Choir sing “O Divine Redeemer” can only be described as sacred. This sacred tutoring continued during the thirty-minute drive home from that seminary inservice meeting. I had heard the song plenty of times before, but this time was very different. Little did I know how often I would return to this experience in the coming months.  The following week we received some news that made me stop and consider the days ahead. Life as I knew it was changing, and I wondered how we would get through this experience as a family. The next year was messy . . . really messy. Over and over again I found myself knocked to my knees with nowhere else to turn. Perhaps you have been there before. Maybe you are there right now.  Each time I prayed, I felt prompted to listen to this hymn agai...

“Can I introduce you to my daughter,” he asked, taking me by the hand. A recent convert, this young African man felt unsure of his ability when he accepted the call to teach seminary in his branch. As the only person he knew who attended seminary, this man reached out to my son for help and guidance. Knowing I was also teaching seminary, my son encouraged his African friend to email me his questions. Thus, we began our year-long adventure teaching seminary together – him on the west coast of Africa and me on the east coast of the United States. We stopped at the school where he taught that day in late May. He asked his wife to come to the school during his lunch break to meet us as well. Handing me his daughter, he said, “This is Emma. Like Emma Smith.” He had not even known who Emma Smith was at the beginning of the seminary year but had grown to love her as he studied and taught the Doctrine and Covenants. “I want her to grow to have the faith and courage of Emma,” he continue...

Photo by   Em bé khóc nhè  on  Unsplash It seems 2020 has been a year of mourning. The past few weeks I found myself once again mourning what was supposed to have been a time of family … all together at last. We’ve had a couple of these trips planned this year only to have them all canceled. I’m sure you have had similar experiences of anticipating and planning only to have them canceled.   I have seen such parallelism to the private and public battles we are dealing with this year woven throughout the war chapters as I’ve studied the last couple of weeks. Have you recognized them as well? I’ve had the overwhelming feeling the Nephites completely understood what it means to have a tough year (or years). Yet, tucked in the middle of their difficult years is this nugget:   “… there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than the days of Moroni; yea even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges” (Al...

photo credit: Becki Simonsen I am a lover of light! I decorate more with light than things. I eagerly throw open the shutters each morning allowing the morning sun to fill our home with light! Sitting with the majestic view of Mount Timpanogos in front of me studying my Come Follow Me one morning this week, I was reminded of my first visit to her cave many years ago. Have you ever visited a cave? The darkness, the change in temperature, and the unique formations can make you feel as if you have entered another world. The only way to see the Timpanogos cave system is on a tour. There are lights highlighting the cave formations and helping to light the way. Many of the walkways and staircases are narrow with very low ceilings. The natural beauty inside the cave is breathtaking. On my last trip, I remember thinking this must be the “awesome wonder” the familiar hymn describes (“How Great Thou Art,” Hymn #86). At one point, in the middle of the tour, the rangers turn off all the ...

Several years ago, before he became President of the Church, then Elder Nelson gave a talk in General Conference titled “A Plea to My Sisters.” I have had the words of this talk etched in my soul since then. “Today, … we need women who know how to make important things happen by their faith and who are courageous defenders of morality and families. … We need women who are devoted to shepherding God’s children along the covenant path toward exaltation; women who know how to receive personal revelation, who understand the power and peace of the temple endowment; women who know how to call upon the powers of heaven to protect and strengthen children and families; women who teach fearlessly. … “… [W]e need women who have a bedrock of understanding of the doctrine of Christ and who will use that understanding to teach and help raise a sin-resistant generation. We need women who can detect deception in all of its forms. We need women who know how to access the power that God makes...