Finding the joy in Good Friday’s sorrow

The family of Elizabeth Elena Laguna Salgado gathered in Hobble Creek Canyon to visit the site where the returned missionary's remains were found earlier this year and to mourn her death, which police are investigating as a homicide. "I feel they're [the police are] going to be able to find the monster of monsters that did this," Salgado's uncle Rosemberg Salgado said. "We want to avoid that it will happen to another girl."

Conflict and disagreeing opinions in themselves are not a bad thing. In fact, studies show these can have a positive impact, which means we may need to change the way we see disagreements as we try to create church environments where people can feel comfortable sharing their experiences and ideas.

“She was so great, she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, and she was brave, and she was kind, and she was so funny," Lindsey Jackson says of Kaylee Marvin, who died after a 100-foot fall. “She still is, up in heaven — loving horses, and camping and fishing,”

Editor's note: This article contains graphic descriptions of torture.

Take a step back in history and read the accounts of courageous men and women who contributed to the unfolding of the restoration of the gospel. Be inspired by the testimonies of living prophets and countless men and women who trusted in God and labored faithfully amidst trial and heartache.

I have always enjoyed pointing out to my students verses in the scriptures that are about them. Last week as my New Testament students studied John 17, I suggested that certain verses in this great prayer were about them:

The Church issued the following statement Monday about the separation of children from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border:

“What I’ve learned about Nephi is in the decisions he’s made. He had to trust in the Lord that that was the right thing to do,” Jackson VanDerwerken said. “These videos really humanize him, and I believe I was cast as him because of experiences I have had that have allowed me to react to situations the way he would have reacted. I just trust that how I would act is how Nephi would have reacted. Of course, Nephi was a much more faithful person than I am, but he still is a man. He made the right choices at the right time. And that’s what we need to realize — that the big choice matter but also the little ones, too.”

“I did not hear a voice, but it was as if God told me, ‘I have been telling you all along that it is true,’” Elder Renlund said. “That experience changed me. It changed my life. It began a process of belief, a process of being on the covenant path and trying to do more and trying to do better.”