Eric and Chris were best friends and drinking buddies during and after high school and while Chris was a member of the Church, religion was definitely the farthest thing from their minds. When a personal crisis led Eric toward God, his lifelong friendship with Chris and their shared experiences years before showed them both that the path back to the Savior can look very different from the way you might expect.

Manual 1; Excerpt from "Safety for the Soul," by Jeffrey R. Holland

Stand-up comedy that’s a stand-up act? In this 2012 comedic world of shock and smut, there are, indeed, living, breathing comedians cleaning house on the laugh track to success. You know the big-timers: Brian Regan, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan, Bill Cosby. But what if we told you that dozens of LDS folks are bringing the funny to the fold and to the masses?

General Conference is one of my favorite times of the year. The season is changing, and along with these beautiful changes, we get to hear from our prophets. I'm hard-pressed to think of another time during the year that I feel more reinvigorated and energized to press forward.

Official statistics are hard to come by, but it has become clear over the past several years that Mormonism is seeing many of its 18- to 30-year-olds reduce their participation in the church or leave the faith altogether. Two recent actions confirm this trend and reveal the church’s initial responses in trying to stem the tide. First, in an effort to better track singles and help them feel connected to a local unit by providing new opportunities for callings and meeting other singles without “ward hopping,” the church has disbanded Utah student wards and reorganized them into singles wards in all-single stakes. And second, because it seems to recognize that it meets the needs of families better than it does singles, it has begun re-emphasizing the counsel for young adults to not delay marriage, to not be afraid of finding a worthy partner and starting a family right away even if this means possibly experiencing financial and other struggles not faced by those who delay marriage and children until after completing school or professional training. In this podcast, host Dan Wotherspoon and panelists Joanna Brooks, Tresa Edmunds, and Jared Anderson explore this issue of a church seemingly in danger of losing a generation of young people.

The following is an excerpt from Elder John H. Groberg’s book Fire of Faith, which details his experiences with his family as he served as a mission president in Tonga. During his service, Elder Groberg helped plan a jubilee celebration for the Saints in Tonga and promised the missionaries that, leading up to the jubilee, 500 people would be baptized into the Church in one month. The number seemed impossible. In 1966 the total number of members baptized into the Church for the entire year was 604. In 1967, the number rose to 833, but Elder Groberg understood the Lord was working miracles to move His work forward in Tonga. Below are some of those miracles that helped bring 507 people into the Church in one month in Tonga.

“My mom said to me, ‘Jesus Christ is always stronger than any darkness.’”

You may have noticed the Church’s Instagram account sharing a number of beautiful art pieces along with quotes from general conference talks over the weekend. But who were the artists featured and are any of their pieces available through Deseret Book? We wanted to know the same thing. Here’s what we found out:

Conference Talk:

1. Mormonism? I don’t have an opinion about it.