Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote, “Nothing is more absolutely universal than the Resurrection.”[1] Though all people will be resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:22), not all will be resurrected at the same time. Technically speaking, there are four resurrections.

With the announcement of the new meeting schedule, it is more important than ever that the sacrament become a pivotal point in our weekly devotion. I share this Pondering in the hope of deepening our sacrament worship. It is based on notes for a talk I gave in a sacrament meeting a couple months ago in Mongolia.

Conference Talk:

President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints brought glad tidings Tuesday night to hundreds of gathered Church members at the Premier Centre Sen Sok in Phnom Penh. He unveiled an artist’s rendering of what will become one of the Church’s most sacred worship spaces—the Phnom Penh Temple.

At a recent stake conference I attended, one of the speakers briefly made a comment about how we can hold fast to the sturdy iron rod while also being flexible enough to follow the direction of the Liahona. Though it was meant to be a passing thought, this idea was all I could think about for the rest of the meeting. I mean, how interesting—within one scriptural family’s story, we have two seemingly opposing examples of obedience.

The poem was signed with a rhyme: “And so forthwith, remember Joseph Smith.”

The traditional family road trip is on the decline. During the 1960s and '70s, the Golden Age of the family road trip, parents loaded kids in the station wagon, rolled down the windows and set off across America. They would be gone for weeks at a time camping, exploring national parks and getting righteously sunburned. Sometimes they spent an entire summer lakeside.

Try this. Type “church,” “Old Testament” or even “friend” into Google, and the Web site of the LDS church, the Mormons, pops up near the top of the list. In the age of the Internet, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has found a way to dominate what is arguably today’s most important information source: the search engine.

Mary Magdalene is one of the best-known characters in the New Testament, yet we know surprisingly little about her. In all but one of the twelve times that she is mentioned in the four Gospels, she is either named alone or first in a list of women. The sole exception is in John’s account of the women who stood by the cross in which the mother of Jesus is listed first (John 19:25). Nevertheless, in the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene is the premier witness of the Resurrection and the only one commissioned to tell others the stunning truth. The primacy of her name in these accounts, the frequency of her mention, and her role on the morning of the Resurrection suggest that she was a prominent and respected disciple in the first century. From the earliest interpretations of her, however, she has been assigned polar opposite roles: at one extreme, a repentant sinner who quietly served; at the other, the apostle to the apostles.

Past the gravel roads, a dairy farm, and a street sign with the name Cumorah Drive near Goshen, Utah, lies something straight out of 1 Nephi—the Church's Book of Mormon video set.