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The story of the Abrahamic covenant is your family story. Kerry Muhlestein says, “We don’t often think of it in that manner.” But our grandfather Abraham grew up in a turbulent time, where “his own father was steeped in idolatry. He saw his immediate family involved in horrible practices, including human sacrifice, but he knew there was a better way. Records had come down from his forefathers and foremothers, from Adam and Eve, Seth and Enoch, and Abraham reached for the heavens hoping to join his ancestors in the covenant. “Then one starry night, God came to him, putting His hand over him, opening his eyes, and pouring out the power and blessings of the covenant upon him, welcoming Abraham and Sarah into the community of God and those who were bound to him. They had sought God and now they had found him.” These are the covenants offered …

This is the fourth episode of a series. To read the previous article, CLICK HERE.

Photography by Philippe and Regula Kradolfer

Talia has a deformity. Born with a club foot, she relies on a crutch to walk and is constantly struggling to keep pace with the other girls in our retelling of the parable.

Yet her weakness becomes one of her greatest strengths. 

Her disability has shaped her into someone resilient, compassionate, and deeply devoted to those she loves. 

But where is Talia in the original parable?

She isn’t there.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins in Gospel of Matthew 25 is only thirteen verses long. Our screenplay is 110 pages. To bring the story to life as a feature film, we needed to imagine who these young women were—their families, fears, hopes, wounds, personalities, and dreams. Great storytelling requires more than events; it requires people whom audiences can …

Question:

I always feel guilty when I have to say “no” to things. I grew up believing that you don’t say no to callings, to service, or other things like that in the Church. My husband has no problem saying “no” to things and thinks I am too giving. I want to be Christ-like and not be selfish with my time. I do understand that I can’t do everything, so I do decline some requests, but I can’t figure out why I’m still struggling with a feeling that I’m being selfish. Where is the balance and how can I know that I’m truly consecrating everything to God when I still say “no” to things?

Answer:

The fact that you feel guilty for longing to do more says much about the desires of your heart. It’s not easy to have limited time and resources when our hearts long to be there …

On the tenth day of the seventh month, Israel stopped. The plow waited in the field, the oven cooled, the market fell silent. Not Rome’s world, or Babylon’s, or the merchant routes winding down through the Levant. This was Israel’s world, the world shaped by covenant and sacrifice and the long thunder of Sinai. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Israel watched her high priest do something stranger than putting on glory. He took it off.

He laid aside the ephod threaded with gold, the breastplate blazing with twelve stones, the mitre with its plate of pure gold engraved Holiness to the Lord. He bathed. He dressed in plain white linen. And in that linen, alone among living men, he passed through the great embroidered veil into the Holy of Holies, carrying the one thing no sinner could afford to spill and no sinner could live without.¹ …

ONE

 
Elder W. Mark Bassett Dies at Age 59
Monday, May 11, 2026
In the News

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the following statement today on the passing of Elder W. Mark Bassett: We are deeply saddened at the sudden passing of Elder W. Mark Bassett, a General Authority Seventy who had been serving since April of 2016. Elder Bassett passed away on May 11, 2026, as a result of a traumatic brain injury. He was with his family in St. George, Utah, when the incident occurred.  At the time of his death, Elder Bassett was serving as the Executive Director of the Missionary Department, overseeing worldwide missionary efforts. READ STORY HERE.

TWO

 
At 93, How Healthy is President Oaks?
Saturday, May 9, 2026
In the News

Most 93-year-olds might limit talk of their health problems to close family and friends. But Dallin H. Oaks …

As a missionary in Brisbane, Australia, we had finished teaching all of the lessons to a very smart lady. She had nearly finished reading The Book of Mormon and loved it. She had also read other articles we’d given her — and really enjoyed them. For several weeks she had attended church. After this final lesson, we once again invited her to be baptized.

Once again she said, “No, because although I love everything you’ve taught and all I’ve read, I cannot say “I know it is true.”

We couldn’t think of anything else to say. I looked at my companion hoping he had an idea. His wide eyes and shrugged shoulders showed he was out of ideas. Then an idea came to me. “Well, Sister Thompson, I don’t know what else we can do, but, this Saturday night at the Kangaroo Point Chapel an apostle of the Lord, Elder …

This was originally published by Public Square Magazine. To read more from them, CLICK HERE.

Imagine you live in an apartment with roommates. One is a bit of a slob, struggles with school, and eventually stops doing the dishes altogether.

A sociologist is curious about what’s happening and comes to interview you and your roommate. The sociologist asks you why you think your roommate stopped doing the dishes. You tell the sociologist that your roommate is probably struggling in his broader life, doesn’t have a very clean personality, and might even be a bit lazy.

The sociologist then asks your roommate why. The roommate answers that it was because the rent was too high, school got busy, and you weren’t doing your fair share in other areas.

The sociologist then announces that you didn’t know why your roommate stopped doing the dishes.

Replicate this experiment across dozens of apartments, and …

It was Mother’s Day, and the beautiful flower in Terri’s window brought back a wonderful memory.

Terri had always loved plants. Growing up, her bedroom had been full of them. She even talked to them and told them all her secrets. She had been raising them since she was in junior high, and she struggled to find window space for all of them. So, for her birthday, her parents had given her a grow-light.

When Terri was graduating from high school, the great class of 1980, she planned to head off to college. She was concerned about her plants while she was away. It was far enough that she wouldn’t be able to come home too much. Who would water her plants?

“Mom,” Terri asked, “would you water my plants while I’m away at college?”

“I suppose I can,” her mom replied. “How often do they need to be watered?”…

I’ve been sharing a few things on Meridian that I wrote while I was still a young mother that was collected into a pink book that now sits on my shelf.

My daughter dances. I remember watching her out the window when she was young, arms out-stretched, palms toward the sky, leaping and twirling and full of life, moving to music only she could hear.

As she has grown, she dances still. When most of us walk into a room, she dances. As she does the dishes, scraping scraps dutifully down the drain, she dances. She dances in front of picture windows so she can see how she moves, she dances when she walks in the door from school to show us a new step she’s learned, dances because there is something inside of her that is light and must dance.

So this explains why one night when she and …

This article was originally published by Public Square Magazine. To read more from them, CLICK HERE.

“I feel so sorry for you.”

My relative’s words took me by surprise. We were enjoying an afternoon together at a big family gathering, immersed in a conversation completely unrelated to her abrupt and pitying sentence.

“Oh?”

“You must be so bored,” she said with compassion. “You’ve spent so many years on your education—reading the most difficult texts, solving complex legal problems. I can’t imagine how monotonous taking care of babies must feel compared to that. Do you ever miss the intellectual stimulation?”

Her tone was sincere. She genuinely worried I might not be enjoying my decision to put my legal career on hold—my decision to dedicate all my time and energy to my children. She wanted to make space for me to voice any frustrations or regrets.

But I had to tell her …