Unique Nativities to set the scene this Christmas

Editor's note: Our bi-weekly Friday column, “Found in the footnotes,” explores some of the footnotes from remarks given by General Authorities and General Officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Editor’s note: “This week from the Pulpit” highlights recent messages by General Authorities and General Officers of the Church.

When Sister Kristen Oaks married Elder Dallin H. Oaks in June 2000, she wasn’t just marrying an Apostle—she was stepping into a brand-new family.

In this week's episode of This Is the Gospel, MeiLani and her family try to enjoy some time at the beach together while on a work trip. But when rain and snow periodically dampen their plans, they quickly realize that every moment of sunshine should be seized outside. During such a moment of fun in the sun, MeiLani gets a prompting to be near her two children who are paddle boarding in the water. As the weather quickly takes a turn for the worst, MeiLani is forced to watch helplessly as her children struggle to make it safely back to land—until she remembers two words that carried her family through a storm of a different kind.

In LDS Living’s latest 5-minute Fireside, two musicians take the floor to share a message about the Savior in both word and song. Chad and Ben Truman, singer-songwriters known as the Truman Brothers, tell how difficult it was for their family when their aunt passed away from brain cancer, just two months before the birth of her first granddaughter, and amid a worldwide pandemic that prevented many traditional forms grieving. Chad says that experience and other trials in the past year, have brought a line from Doctrine and Covenants 122:7 to his mind often:

Gathering, selecting, and editing hymns was not a typical project for women in the nineteenth century. That did not stop Emma, a visionary woman in her own sense of the word.1 She had been promised in her 1830 revelation: “Thy time shall be given to writing, and to learning much.”2 She probably gathered hymns from her hometown newspaper as well as other papers and denominational hymnals.3 The process, like so many other endeavors in her life, would ebb and flow with loss and compensation, requiring more than five years to produce.

We are thrilled that the stories and messages in the March/April LDS Living magazine are now available. As spring begins and we feel the joy of sunshine and warmer days, the voices in this issue remind us that hope and joy can be found in days of both sunshine and rain.

Spokesman Sam Penrod released the following statement on Tuesday, March 9, 2021, about the death of a mission president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines:

General Conference is something we all look forward to twice a year. We know Church leaders spend so much time preparing to speak to us. But how are we preparing to listen to them? How can we be ready to receive counsel from our leaders and get the most out of the experience? And how do we make the experience last longer than conference weekend? Here are a few excellent resources to help you and your family get ready for general conference, make your conference study and note-taking easier, and help you reflect and revisit the talks in the weeks and months to come.