Three of Utah State University's most experienced offensive linemen have something in common.

The scriptures are relatively silent regarding the life of Jesus Christ between birth and the age of 12 and again between 12 and the beginning of His formal ministry at age 30. What was it like for the Savior as He grew from boyhood to manhood?

When FamilySearch announced last year that Latter-day Saints would be able to receive free access to three major genealogy websites, there was a collective gasp across the genealogical community-at-large. Subscriptions to Ancestry.com, FindMyPast.com, and MyHeritage.com can total up to about $900 a year. At the upper extreme, this represents about $13.5 billion in free genealogy resources for more than 15 million Church members.

A unique part of working at LDS Living is getting familiar with a wide variety of Deseret Book products. We have so many favorites that we wanted to share with our fabulous readers. As you'll see, a couple of us couldn't narrow it down to just one!

If you expect your patriarchal blessing to make wild or unusual promises and predictions, you may be misunderstanding what a patriarchal blessing is. Your patriarchal blessing isn’t a fortune cookie, and the patriarch isn’t a fortuneteller.[1] The patriarch is a prophet, called to convey God’s words and will to you. He is only authorized to pronounce the promises he is prompted by the Holy Ghost to give. Patriarchs are counseled by their leaders to avoid making sensational or extravagant promises in the blessings they pronounce, even if the Spirit shows them rather remarkable things about the blessing’s recipient. President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972), tenth President of the Church, explained, “I know of one or two cases … where a brother has been blessed by the patriarch and told that he would become a member of the Council of the Twelve [Apostles]. Usually [the patriarchs] don’t say that … even if the patriarch felt that the chances are [very good] that a man will be called to the leading councils of the Church.” President Smith added, “Patriarchs should be very careful in giving their blessings not to make extravagant expressions and to be conservative in what they say.”[2] Thus, you should not expect extravagant things to be mentioned in your blessing. Patriarchs generally avoid, for example, talking about things like the timing of the Second Coming when they give a blessing. While the young man or young woman being blessed may live to see the second coming of Christ, most patriarchs simply wouldn’t mention that in the blessing. President Smith further explained:

It was a discussion about the sacrament. A seminary student was sharing feelings about the sacredness of the ordinance when another student jumped in.

The Science

The beginnings of the Church were not always so harmonious. In 1841, Elder Orson Hyde was on his way to dedicate Palestine to the preaching of the gospel when he stopped in Vienna. Although he felt prompted to preach the word among the people there, he was not commissioned to dedicate the land, and the country of Austria had to wait 25 more years for Orson Pratt and William W. Ritter to arrive and begin the missionary work there.

Take a step back in history and read the accounts of courageous men and women who contributed to the unfolding of the restoration of the gospel. Be inspired by the testimonies of living prophets and countless men and women who trusted in God and labored faithfully amidst trial and heartache.

Eveline Marie Charlet Kleinert was born at Pully, Vaud, Switzerland, on February 9, 1878, the daughter of Marc Louis Charlet and Delphine Catherine Vionnet. She was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on October 1, 1896, at the age of 18, about a year and a half after her parents’ baptism.