13 Weeks of FHE

Obama met with LDS Church leaders at the hotel, including President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf of First Presidency, and Elder L. Tom Perry and Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The timing was uncanny. Wayne Burton’s new national inspirational music release coincided with the tragic elementary school shooting in Newtown Connecticut. Only weeks before the tragedy, the new original song “In Times Like These” had been penned by Burton, and after work in five studios in the United States and Canada and the arrangement of hit producer Tyler Castleton, the studio recording had been completed. Burton, known in the Intermountain West and among LDS music fans, had recruited another respected artist, Jessie Clark Funk, for a duet aimed to help hearts heal from an ever increasing number of societal ills.

As I listened to the women’s session of the October 2019 general conference, my focus was on a number of things. The talks were inspiring. I was looking forward to the additional information and changes to the Young Women program that had been promised in the previous session. My thoughts drifted from one to the other. Then my mind snapped to attention: Did Sister Aburto just say her father committed suicide? I listened intently to confirm that what I thought I heard was accurate. Indeed, it was true. Quite frankly, it was a bit of a shock. In over 40 years of general conference sessions I’d listened to, I cannot ever recall a brother or sister sharing something so intensely personal from that pulpit. I pondered, what are people going to think? Perhaps there would be some Church members that would think Sister Aburto had overshared, or that general conference might not be the best venue for such a personal experience. My thoughts were, Thank goodness; it’s about time.

As of this week’s Come, Follow Me study, there are 208 dedicated temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (including those in operation and those closed for renovation). Each was dedicated, and some re-dedicated, with a prayer after the pattern recorded in Doctrine and Covenants section 109. In this week’s sections, we can read the Lord’s inspired words over the first constructed temple of this dispensation, as well as the visions and miracles that took place in that holy house.

Editor's note: The following is excerpted from Chapter 4 of the book "The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith," by Matthew Bowman, published this week by Random House. Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Bowman. All rights reserved. If the Mormons saw themselves as a new Israel, the trek west was inevitably their Exodus. For generations of Mormons, including the one that walked across the prairies, what mattered more than the destination was the act of the journey. It was a collective rite of passage that thousands of Mormons endured, as they had learned to endure all suffering: the death of their prophet, their flight from Ohio and Missouri, and their march across the plains all were taken as divinely sent education, clarifying and refining, testing the bonds that the temple ordinances had created, and they saw God's hand in every bush of berries. Many Mormons were rebaptized upon reaching Utah; they had traveled not only from the United States to the Utah territory but also from the secular realm to God's promised land, reborn into a sacred world. The banks and courts still close in Utah on July 24, the day Brigham Young crossed into the Salt Lake Valley, and the Mormons there celebrate it still, though the number of those who have ancestors who walked across the plains is a fading minority. They have become an archetype.

If you’re joining us for the first time this month, we have had members of our Magnify team pick some of their favorite episodes from our past and share some of those stand out moments. And this week we are going to hear from Stephanie Bryson, our content and portfolios manager. Her pick was Lisa Valentine Clark’s first episode on our podcast, “How to Mourn with Those That Mourn.”

According to the National Retail Federation, you and I will drop north of $20 billion on our mothers this week. That’s a lot of flowers, jewelry and spa gift certificates.

The year 2023 will include a couple of firsts related to the Churchwide curriculum.

The directors of the staggering seismic upgrade and renovation of the iconic Salt Lake Temple fully expected the unexpected when they started to excavate the pioneer landmark’s foundation.