Craig Rydalch had entertained suicidal thoughts before, but never to the point of acting on them.

At age 19, Mormon men typically leave home to do voluntary mission work for two years. France24.com caught up with one young Mormon, Taylor Johnsnon (pictured), who is doing his mission in France, as Mitt Romney did nearly 50 years ago. Taylor Johnson is a 20-year-old Mormon from Orem, Utah, currently doing two years of volunteer missionary work in France, as per Mormon tradition. First placed in Vannes (in the Western coastal region of Brittany) and then closer to Paris (in Torcy and Antony), Johnson had never previously met the other Mormon missionaries – an international group including other Americans, French, Finnish, and British – with whom he found himself working in France. In accordance with the Mormon Church’s recommendation, he will not return to the US during the two-year mission, or have his family visit him in France.

I own several Disney soundtracks. And sometimes, it’s just as much fun to rock out to “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” as it is to whatever’s on the top of today’s pop charts. With their fun music that brings movies to life and makes you want to sing and dance along, Disney songs seem to have a nearly universal appeal. And because Mormons seem to watch Disney movies more prolifically than perhaps your average American because of their much cleaner content when contrasted with the increasingly sketchy world of Hollywood, we seem to also have a much greater love for the music than your average person.

Jacqueline Smith fits no one’s stereotype of a political kingmaker. A home-schooling Mormon mother of five, Ms. Smith lives in a modest ranch-style house here in the mountains outside Salt Lake City with her husband, Cleve, a plumbing contractor.

It's ironic that a discussion of the public's comfort-level with Mormons should be pegged to a question about politicians, since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is meticulously neutral in partisan politics.

Has darkness ever overwhelmed you? Have you seen cities sink and communities set ablaze? Has a voice saved you? If you know the Book of Mormon, then you are familiar with the tale I tell. After hundreds of pages chronicling the ebbs and flows of civilizations, the narrative reaches a climax. In Palestine, Jesus Christ was crucified and buried. The world felt the reverberations. “Thick darkness” fell upon the land. Nothing could bring light, “neither candles, neither torches; neither could there be fire kindled with their fine and exceeding dry wood, so that there could not be any light at all.” The sounds of howling and weeping pieced the darkness. Sadness reigned. It is difficult to overstate the drama and the beauty of the Book of Mormon’s rendering of these days. As one who watched silvery strands cloud the corneas of my infant son and darken his vision onto blindness, as one who takes the Christ story seriously in the depth of my soul, and as one who more and more considers the place of the sun and the moon, the land and the sea, in our religious imaginations, this scripture leaves me in tears. It also leaves me spinning about why the Book of Mormon is vital for American religious historians. It is not simply an artifact. It is also a treasure trove of ideas. To me, it should be required reading for anyone in my guild, and here are a few reasons.

Hand-The children of the Demerara Branch in Georgetown, Guyana, have never been to Los Angeles, much less California, but this Christmas the colorful handmade ornaments they inspired adorn one of a dozen Christmas trees that greet holiday guests at the Los Angeles Temple Visitors’ Center.

The sheer beauty of Sunday worship at the Salt Lake Valley LDS First Ward reflects an elemental fact:

Prof. Bushman, the character of Elder Price, an American Mormon missionary in modern-day Uganda, questions his faith, but regains it while performing the song, “I Believe.” He sings, “I believe that God has a plan for all of us. / I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet.” Is that lyric based in Mormon belief?

After steady performances all season long and winning an individual national championship, BYU junior Miles Batty has been named the National Men’s Track Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. “I never really would have thought I would win something like this,” Batty said. “Knowing I was voted this honor gives me a lot of confidence and added pressure to accomplish all my goals going forward.”