The following is from the 2014 BYU Religious Education Student Symposium. In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the revelation that extended the priesthood to black men in the Church, we wanted to share this article highlighting female black pioneers and their sacrifices for their faith.

While taking out the trash at home one day, Henry B. Eyring received a phone call from President Gordon B. Hinckley, who was then the prophet. Surely he had the wrong number, the then-Elder Eyring thought. He had no way of knowing the magnitude of what he was about to hear.

Editor's note: This adaptation from Matthew O. Richardson's The Christus Legacy originally ran on LDS Living in 2015. During April 2020 general conference, President Nelson introduced the Church's new symbol, which includes a representation of Thorvaldsen’s marble statue, the Christus. This iconic representation of the Savior is well-known to Latter-day Saints, but it wasn’t always that way. Check out how this statue came about and how it eventually earned its fame in the Latter-day Saint world.

Donald W. Parry’s insights may be just what you need to take your temple worship to the next level.

In this week’s Come, Follow Me, readers learn about the priesthood in Alma 13 and how priesthood holders are “called and prepared from the foundation of the world” (Alma 13:3). While the topic of men and the priesthood has long been taught by prophets and apostles, the subject of women and the priesthood has recently garnered more attention.

Consider the following story:

The story of how the Church came to be in the cold, northern climate of Alaska is truly the story of one man—one man and a series of remarkable firsts.

1. The “preface” to the Doctrine and Covenants (section 1) was given only after William E. McLellin, Oliver Cowdery, and Sidney Rigdon attempted to write a preface themselves. Section 1 of the Doctrine and Covenants was revealed in November 1831 at a conference where Joseph Smith and other Church leaders decided to publish Joseph’s revelations as the Book of Commandments. According to William E. McLellin, he, Sidney Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery were appointed by the conference to write a preface for the publication. When they presented the draft to the conference, the conference participants “picked it all to pieces” and asked Joseph to request a preface from the Lord. Joseph and those at the conference then prayed, after which Joseph dictated the preface “by the Spirit” while “sitting by a window.” According to McLellin, “Joseph would deliver a few sentences and Sydney [Rigdon] would write them down then read them aloud, and if correct, then Joseph would proceed and deliver more.” In this way, McLellin declared, “the preface was given.” Section 1 served as the preface for both the Book of Commandments, whose printing was interrupted in July 1833 by mobs in Jackson County, Missouri, and the Doctrine and Covenants when it was first published in 1835.

The 35-acre campus is an island of young people, where teens and 20-somethings outnumber grown-ups by 10-to-1. Sure, the place is awash in fresh-faced students, but even the workers — from the cafeteria to the copy center, the mailroom to the bookstore — and most of the teachers are under 30.

Saturday, April 25, in Nepal the Lord watched over His saints. The tender mercy when the 7.9 earthquake hit was the members of the Kathmandu branch were sitting together in the chapel having sacrament meeting. Being together made all the difference.