Pianika Duncan is a mother of two and a Latter-day Saint from a small town called Ngaruawahia in New Zealand. She wrote a song called "Bring Mana to Your Name," which was inspired by her love for family history. Duncan explains the word "Mana" means pride and strength. She incorporates Maori, the native language of New Zealand, and English into the song.

Prescott, Arizona: Head of the Class, LLC., announced today its release of its Head of the Class Infant & Toddler Web site, available to users from within Facebook with the click of a mouse! Immediately becoming Facebook’s premier education application (app), Head of the Class Infant & Toddler provides several hundred skills parents, as well as soon-to-be parents, must know. For newborns, one-year old, two-year old, and three-year old children, the site provides must-know content.

Photo from Shade Clothing.

For Juliann Ashcraft, widow of Arizona firefighter Andrew Ashcraft, the longest week of her life came to a merciful end Saturday, when a message from her husband — and, perhaps, from God — presented itself in the form of a charred rubber bracelet. “It has been a whirlwind of emotions,” the young mother of four said during a telephone interview Saturday night as her brother drove her home from a planning meeting for Tuesday’s public memorial service for her late husband and 18 other firefighters. The 19 men died June 30 when treacherous, shifting winds turned the relatively small wildfire they were fighting near Yarnell, Ariz., into America’s most devastating loss of firefighters since the tragedy of 9/11.

If the major purpose of all scripture is to bear testimony of Christ, (and I believe it is) then the Doctrine and Covenants makes a remarkable contribution to that testimony. With few exceptions, everything that the Doctrine and Covenants teaches us about the Savior is taught in the actual words of the Savior. Almost all scripture is in some way about Christ. But the Doctrine and Covenants is by Christ. The words are His words. The voice is His voice. Most of the information in the Doctrine and Covenants is given in the first person singular by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

As we dawn a new year and prioritize between good, better and best, consider the parable of the Great Supper in Luke 14:16-24. The Savior teaches an invaluable lesson about the destructive consequences of allowing worldly excuses to annul the things that matter most. In the parable, a certain man hosts "a great supper" and bids his guests to attend, saying through his servant, "Come; for all things are now ready" (Luke 14:17). But one by one, the diners who had committed to the feast make excuses, including awaiting a land inspection, caring for oxen, busy with domestic life, etc.

Since moving back to a family ward I have spent most of my time working with the youth. Other than a brief stint as a Relief Society teacher (cushiest calling ever…) I have either worked in the Sunday School with the 14-15 year olds or as the Laurels advisor. I found Sunday School to be particularly challenging, both because the mixing of genders often changes the dynamic, and because you tend to have less of a personal relationship with the kids than if you work in the Young Women/Men organization. To make matters worse, when I was teaching Sunday School we were still using the Gospel Doctrine manual, which had no suggested activities and was in no way tailored to help teachers reach teenagers. I like to think my frequent complaining letters about this through lds.org helped them move toward the new curriculum. The women of Exponent II were having a conversation on the backlist about how to work with youth and there were so many good ideas that we decided to make it into a post. Many of these ideas come from the other bloggers. If you readers have any more ideas of how to make church more engaging for teenagers, we would love to hear them.

When a Baptist church was struggling to find volunteers to help tutor young students struggling in school, Mormons stepped up to the plate, forming relationships they'll remember for the rest of their lives.

For one young missionary, Elder Bodine, the invitation to a drug lord to come watch general conference became a miracle story that would change the man’s life forever.

Newspapers and periodicals are often overlooked resources that can provide extensive value in genealogy research.