Sixteen-year-old ballerina Gisele Bethea of Mesa, Arizona, has received numerous awards, traveled the world to perform and been asked to join the American Ballet Theatre.

“You have 24 hours.”

Politics is not new to the former Ann Davies. Her father was a mayor in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She was with Mitt Romney when his father, George Romney, was governor of Michigan and running for president, and when his mother, Lenore Romney, ran for U.S. Senate. In the 1970s, Ann Romney herself ran for Town Meeting in Belmont, Mass., and won. But her real passion and focus has been raising her five sons.

In the common lexicon of the past few decades, the word “cult” has conjured up images of fiery leaders and fanatical adherents indulging in all manner of religious excesses that often end in death. When we hear of cults, we think of Texas compounds burning, mass murders within Charles Manson’s “family,” and suicides in Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate. Cults are generally thought of as bizarre, isolationist, anti-government, fundamentalist, controlling, and on the extreme fringes of society. Sociologists once used the term “cult” to refer to small and distinctive religious movements such as the Amish or Mennonites, but since then, the word has become so politicized that they generally avoid its use in academic discourse. The term today has such negative connotations that it has become a universal insult designed to discredit any group it might be hurled at.

You may have seen the adorable video that recently went viral of young cancer patient and Utah Jazz player-for- a-day, 5-year-old JP Gibson. Now, hear from his sweet mother, Megan, about the heartache and struggles of being a cancer Mom along with heavenly blessings found, lessons learned and talents and gifts revealed.

Through four games at the World University Games, playing time has been scarce for BYU's Tyler Haws. The 6-foot-5 swingman has averaged just 1.8 points and 7.5 minutes per game. The normally sharp-shooting Haws has struggled with his shot, making only 2 of 9 from the field and 0 of 3 from 3-point range. Notwithstanding his early struggles, Haws has said he's grateful for the opportunity to represent his country. The BYU star recently cited his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a reason for a lot of his success on the hardwood.

On a recent Friday night when their peers were probably hanging out at the mall or posting on Facebook, some 150 Mormon teens pulled 10,400-pound covered handcarts for seven miles through Connecticut's Mohawk State Forest.

Kim Pomares was on a plane the first time he saw “Evan Almighty.” Turned off by religious comedies in the past, Pomares wasn’t sure if the 2007 film — a sequel to “Bruce Almighty” and a story about an unsuccessful congressman's transformation into a modern day Noah — would be suitable for him and his family.

Håkan Palm feels blessed to live a mere four miles from the first temple in Scandinavia and the only temple in Sweden. He served on the committee to find the wooded site about 15 miles south of Stockholm in 1981, was there for the groundbreaking and, as LDS public affairs director for the country and a member of the temple committee, organized the open house where an expected 2,000 visitors turned into nearly 50,000 before the Stockholm Sweden Temple was dedicated in 1985. Ten years later, he arranged for Sweden’s king and queen to visit the temple grounds and meet President Thomas S. Monson. Despite the impressive resume, it’s the value of the temple covenants to his posterity that matters most to him.

A long time ago in a far away galaxy, when I was just past the midpoint of my German-speaking Swiss mission, a professor who had been an influential mentor of mine wrote to say that he was coming to Switzerland for research. Would my companion and I like to do dinner with him? My companion, it so happened, had also enjoyed a class from this charismatic professor, so we replied that we would love to meet him for dinner. But unfortunately, although he'd indicated the date of his arrival and promised to send his flight time and number, his second letter never arrived. So we had no idea where he was coming from, what airline he was coming on, nor what time — morning, noon or night — he would be arriving.