Did you know that the first Latter-day Saint to play in the Major League Baseball World Series was in 1925?

‘I have been overwhelmed with a sense of belonging. I have been inspired, humbled, and changed.’

(2 Nephi 31-33)

2 Nephi 31-33

Through the years, temples have had direct or close encounters with brush fires, sand storms, tsunamis, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes/typhoons, flooding, and lightning strikes.

Latter-day Saint Mark Henshaw never anticipated writing a religious book. For 15 years, the security analyst, military historian, and author had been writing well-reviewed espionage thriller novels that follow CIA agents in their chase to secure American safety. He had never imagined that writing stories of spies and secret missions was actually training for a special, spiritual project down the road.

In 2021, we will start a new year of Come, Follow Me in the Doctrine and Covenants. Whether your children are young or grown, make sure your family has everything you need to dive a little deeper and to learn a little more in your daily study.

Last fall, my wife and I took our three kids on our first official family Disneyland trip. It was magical. It was memorable. It was everything we wished it could be.

There are many reasons why Jesus came to earth, and our word Atonement has come to embody them all, but I think, if I had to be specific, I would say that the essence of His life centered on forgiveness. In the great hymn of the Restoration, Joseph Smith caught that spirit when he wrote, “Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven” (D&C 128:19). The Savior is the incarnation, the personification, the grand architect of forgiveness and mercy. It is inherent in almost every act of His life. It is the one single most significant quality of the Father that Jesus came to teach us with His words and show us by His example. Indeed, the most beautiful words He spoke during those last agonizing hours of His life are, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Whenever I feel the difficulty of forgiving in my own life, I read those words and the feeling of forgiveness moves into my soul.

As he battled brain cancer in the hospital, videos of Tom Brady cheered him up more than anything. He dreamed of watching the NFL quarterback in person, but he never imagined he’d catch Brady’s attention from among the crowd.