It all started with a hunting trip.

Recently the Instagram account @BofM365 extended the #PhotoBofM challenge to their 95K followers. The goal for this challenge is to flood Instagram with touching testimonies of the Book of Mormon. Al Fox Carraway and hundreds of other Instagrammers have already joined in sharing their testimonies. If you'd like to join in, just follow these three simple steps:

On June 1, 1801, Brigham Young was born in Whittingham, Widdham County, Vermont. At the same time, approximately 900 miles southwest of Whittingham, four-year-old Elisha Hurd Groves was growing up on a farm in Madison, Kentucky. No one could guess at the time the succession of events that would bring these two men together as they fled their homes and journeyed halfway across the country.

Jane Elizabeth Manning was born in Connecticut in about 1820. Her mother had been enslaved, but she was emancipated by the time Jane was born. Jane’s father died when she was a young child and, perhaps in part for that reason, Jane began working as a domestic servant for a wealthy white family in the next town over. As a young woman, she was baptized and joined the local Congregational Church, but not long afterward she heard a missionary from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints preach and she was convinced by his message. She was baptized a short time later, and she appears to have persuaded her family to join the Church as well. In 1843, the Mannings joined an interracial group of converts for the journey to Nauvoo. Although they left the Northeast together, the group was separated at some point during the journey. The white members continued to Nauvoo on public transportation; the black members walked. When Jane and her family reached Nauvoo, they were welcomed by Emma and Joseph Smith and stayed in the mansion house for a short time while they found jobs and housing. Jane remained in the mansion house, working for the Smiths as a domestic servant.

Oftentimes within the restored Church of Jesus Christ, missionary work can have a negative connotation attached to it, being perceived as an overwhelming obligation rather than a blessing or an opportunity.

One Friday in 2015, nearing the end of my shift in the ER, an EMS radio call came: cardiac arrest. We were told it was a male, approximately 30-years-old. He appeared to have overdosed and didn’t have a pulse. The day before, arguing again with my 29-year-old, heroin-using son, I had threatened to throw him out of the house. He responded that he would kill himself with an overdose. After the EMS report, I rushed to call my son—he didn’t answer. I called my wife. She hadn’t seen him.

This article is sponsored by Ketōnd

Over the years, President Thomas S. Monson shared several Thanksgiving tales that help us remember gratitude, charity, and the hand of God on our lives.

Alma 32-35

Some people dread getting old. They focus on the limitations rather than the possibilities of aging. The actress Bette Davis, seeing few film roles from her agent and more wrinkles in the mirror, famously said to a reporter during a newspaper interview, “Old age ain’t for sissies.”