Top 5 LDS Living Stories: 


David Archuleta joined motivational speaker and contributing author of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" Dan Clark on a tour throughout the Middle East from July 8-25.

MR says: Construction for the Fort Collins Colorado Temple is going forward according to plan, even after vandals damaged the construction site Sunday morning. In fact, the construction hit a major milestone when a 7-foot-tall angel Moroni was placed atop the temple on August 26.

The moment for me was one of deep reflection, one in which memories seemed to play before my eyes like a series of movie scenes. This cinema of memories occurred as I was seated in a beautiful house of worship in Nauvoo, Illinois (USA)—a temple—a building which members of my faith consider to be the literal house of God. My memories were triggered by an event held just a few days earlier in which I had accomplished one of the most significant feats of my life—graduating with a Ph.D. from a highly regarded university. My wife and I had set the goal when we were newly married and had nothing to live on except for love and Ramen Noodles that I would complete a graduate degree in something, somewhere. Little did we know at the time that our higher education journey would extend for eight years, take us to three different states, and at times, zap every ounce of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy that we possessed.

The priests at Meiji Shrine in Tokyo — a shrine of such importance in Japan that it can be compared to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. — recently invited Church leaders here to describe how Latter-day Saints conduct their humanitarian efforts around the world, but especially in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku. Meiji Shrine is in the heart of Tokyo and was built in 1910 to honor the Emperor Meiji who re-opened Japan to the world in the 1860s. It is one of the three most important shrines in the Shinto religion and is a Tokyo landmark known to almost every visitor from abroad.

Have you ever stepped back and looked at your life, or your current situation and said these words?

Recently, History Channel's popular television show Pawn Stars featured an unusual—and valuable—artifact familiar to Latter-day Saints: an 1842 fifth edition copy of The Book of Mormon. Adam, who owned the book and brought it in, explained that theological books are not often very valuable, but because of the history surrounding it, valued it at $25,000.

LDS cake-artist Tersey Bolin will be competing on Season 6 of Food Network’s Halloween Wars premiering Oct 2, 2016.