How one couple raised 8 kids to recognize the Spirit for themselves

As a 9-year-old girl, Mary Ann Mele Wong Song traveled with her family from their home in Kauai to Oahu for the dedication of the Laie Hawaii Temple in November 1919.

The following story originally ran on LDS Living in 2016 but is being shared again to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Laie Hawaii Temple on November 27 through 30, 1919.

“How would you summarize your three-year mission assignment in just one word?”

The following has been republished with permission from taylorhalverson.comand complements this week's Come, Follow Me study.

This sequel to the hugely popular Frozen (2013) has been highly anticipated by squealing fans—and me. When the first trailer was released, it had 116,400,000 views within the first 24 hours, making it the most viewed animated trailer of all time.

When I was just a baby, my father, because of concerns in his own life and challenges that he was having, left our family. Our mother alone, therefore, raised my sisters and me, and as I was growing up, my father had very little to do with us as children. I realize he was working with things in his own life, but his decisions created certain challenges and hardships for my mother, my sisters, and for me. At age fourteen or fifteen, if you were in my situation, and you knelt down and said: “Father in Heaven, help me find peace concerning my father leaving us and really having nothing to do with us for all these years. Help me forgive my father,” would you not think that was an appropriate prayer, one that deserved an answer? But no answer came at age fourteen and fifteen. Twenty, twenty-one comes, same prayers, still no answer. Twenty-five, twenty-six passes, same prayers, yet still no answer. Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-three, thirty-four all come and go. Surely I’m in the fourth watch by now, would you not agree?

Latter-day Saints in Phnom Penh, Cambodia just received prophetic counsel from Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and President Russell M. Nelson during their recent ministry to the Southeast Asia region.

Directed by Marielle Heller, this dramatic and touching film is inspired by the life of Fred Rogers and his friendship with journalist Tom Junod. Before seeing the movie, I thought it was going to be a biopic, but it’s not at all. Mr. Rogers wouldn’t have wanted a movie to be about him anyway. It’s actually based on an award-winning article in Esquire magazine in 1998 entitled “Can You Say . . . Hero?”

One question we hear people say all the time is, “How is it possible that a story this good was out there, but I’ve never heard of it?” Surely, with our great love and interest in our Church’s history—and the fact that these events take place in Palmyra—you would expect we would all know and be familiar with Willard and Rebecca Bean.