In the past nine years I have loved and lost hundreds of precious sons and daughters. And I have seen inexplicable miracles in the lives of hundreds more. I know what it means on one day to have “joy and great hopes… that they would walk in the paths of righteousness”[1], and to feel the searing agony of seeing them throw it all away on the next. Through it all I’ve learned that almost all losses are temporary, and that much of my parental misery comes from my misunderstanding of redemptive labor.

My extended family lives at an unusual school called The Other Side Academy. Adult men and women come to us after decades of homelessness, scores of arrests and after perpetrating innumerable acts of evil. They live with us for free for 2-4 years. We labor with them as they struggle through confronting monstrous demons. I’ve …

Maurine

I remember, following Enos’s example, of going to the woods to pray in my life, in fact, more than once. Then, I recently was talking about Enos with a friend, and he said he, too, had gone to the woods to pray. I know, Scot, that you took Enos’s example, but went to a mountain. I don’t think the location matters because it can be right in our own bedroom, but there is something magnificent to learn about prayer from Enos in his book.

Scot

Welcome to Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me podcast on the Book of Mormon. We’re Scot and Maurine Proctor and today’s lesson is called “He Works in Me to do His Will” which covers the chapters from Enos to the Words of Mormon. If you are looking for the transcripts to this podcast they are at latterdaysaintmag.com/podcast. That’s latterdaysaintmag.com/podcast.  While you are there read some …

Question:

I was born into a loving Latter-day Saint family. I was raised in the Church and was active until I reached my teenage years. I lost my testimony in high school and chose to become inactive when I left for college. I dated non-Latter-day Saint men and, as a result, I married my husband 36 years ago. After learning about Mormonism, he didn’t take kindly to my religion but because I was inactive, it didn’t matter to me.

Then, our sons came along and I had a desire to have them blessed. My husband reluctantly agreed and my father gave them both their blessings, but my inactive life kept going along, nothing changed.  I always believed the Church was true but just didn’t want to make the effort to go, especially knowing my husband’s anti-Mormon feelings. I also knew he did not want our sons to become Mormon. Every …

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April celebrates poetry and I have gathered some wonderful picture books full of rhymes. Poetry is one of my most favorite genres because language can flow with the ebbs of description while clinging to nuances. You’ll find the ages best suited on each book.

Poetry Comics, by Grant Snider, cleverly demonstrates poems through comic panels. Vibrant artwork illustrates each phrase, sentence, or question, bringing the words to life in a captivating visual narrative. Spanning various seasons, these evocative poems culminate with an inspiring call to action, urging readers to craft their own verses. Rendered in pen, marker, and colored in Photoshop, the artwork exudes brightness and charm. Don’t miss the delightful end-pages. Recommended for ages eight to twelve.

Stomp and Chomp: My First Book of Dinosaurs, by Simon Mole and brightly illustrated in full-page spreads with mixed media by Matt Hunt, seamlessly merges imaginative poetry with fascinating facts …

To read more from Larry, visit LDS365. 

A new feature in Leader and Clerk Resources (LCR) allows Church leaders to assist members in gathering information on deceased family members to do proxy baptisms and confirmations in the temple. Family Name Assist requires no family history research, and it creates natural opportunities for meaningful conversations about eternal families between leaders and members of their congregation.

As bishopric members or branch presidents complete a temple recommend interview, they can ask the member if there is a specific deceased family member for whom they would like to perform a temple baptism and confirmation. Simple prompts will then guide them to enter basic information the member recalls about their family. This information is automatically added to FamilySearch, and family name cards are generated for printing.

Alternatively, other ward leaders with access to Leader and Clerk Resources can be invited to guide members through …

I remember this grief when it was raw.

New grief, fresh and stunning, is a ragged wound. Every touch, however gentle, awakens the pain again. It is all searing edges; there is no center. It is filled with nothing but loss and removal—the child, the spouse, the parent, the dream, the plans, the expectation for the future, has been ripped out and left nothing but these raw edges behind.

You are always alone in grief, no matter who else shares the sorrow, because the particular hole left in you does not conform to anyone else’s. No one else grieves exactly this.

Grief is enormous; it expands you because you cannot hold it. Grief is miniscule; it shrinks you because you are so alone.

I remember the feeling of betrayal as other lives went on, other people returned to the routines that craft a life out of moments. Mine was …

During the recent conference my interest was piqued when two speakers both advised us not to ask, “Why,” but instead ask “What?”  Susan Porter suggested that if we want knowledge we should “ask Heavenly Father not why but what.”  Elder Paul Pieper recommended that rather than asking why, “ask what we can learn.”

Clearly these statements jumped out at me because I’m one who asks, “why?”  I understand that knowing the answer to the “why?” will not change what I am experiencing.  If I have an illness, knowing why I have the illness will not make it go away.  I understand that as long as I have this trial, I might as well make the best of it and learn what it has to teach me.  However, knowing “why?” because it brings me a level of comfort.

Sense of Control

When bad things happen to us, we feel the shock …

Author Ted Gibbons passed away after a long battle with cancer. In honor of his memory and the wonderful insights he shared here on Meridian, we will continue to publish his work periodically.

I have frequently read Jacob 5 searching for historical applications of the events described regarding the olive tree, which is the House of Israel (Jacob 5:3). But I have found that the chapter is more useful when I apply the messages to the lives of individuals. This approach allows me to search for principles that can be applied to my own life or to the lives of others.

The master of the vineyard was grieved at the possibility of losing his tame olive tree and its fruit to decay (Jacob 5:3,7). He began to labor with his servant to save the tree and its branches and its fruit. When the pruning and digging and nourishing (Jacob 5:4) …

The following comes from the Church Newsroom. To see the original post, CLICK HERE. 

Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared the following greeting of peace to those celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the joyous time that marks the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting and spiritual reflection for Muslims.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE. …