Last week, President Oaks visited one of the world’s religious centers, Rome, Italy, and spoke about the global indispensability of religious freedom.

Jesse Stay, LDS author of “Google+ Marketing For Dummies,” reached out on Facebook with this fantastic tip: “Here's an idea for all of you to never miss anything the LDS Church posts. 1. Go to Google+ and circle all the Church Pages there in an ‘Official LDS’ circle. 2. Click on the circle in the options at the top of your newsfeed so you're only seeing the posts from the ‘Official LDS’ circle. 3. In the upper-right, there will be a slider. If you slide that all the way to the right, it will send you email notifications of every post the Church makes on Google+. 4. Now, +1, comment, and share for every post — on every post you do this, it improves authority for each post and improves our visibility on the web!” What a great idea. If you are using Google+ (or even if you are not), click in to set it up!

For those of you looking for a short pick-me-up, something to remind you to stand strong and smile even in your struggles, you need to read this message from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

Local painter Salvador Alvarez paints happy pioneers as well as a variety of other subjects. Alvarez’s painting “Joy in the Journey” was shown during President Uchtdorf’s talk at the October 2015 women’s session titled "A Summer With Great-Aunt Rose." He also recently illustrated the book based on that same talk.

He left everything behind. His family, his friends, his girlfriend, his glove. He packed his bags for Europe, walked away from the game, and was prepared to never come back. It was 1999, and Jeremy Guthrie, having just finished his freshman year at BYU, was off to Spain to serve a mission for the Mormon Church, and over the next two years, he did not pick up a baseball—he barely even thought about baseball. “It wasn’t one of those things where I prayed one night and said, ‘Lord, if I do this, you promise [to do this for me],” Guthrie recalled last week during the World Series. “It was not that way. It was: ‘I'm going to give this up, and I know whatever happens will be the best for me.’”

Ann Romney Tuesday night became the first member of the Romney campaign this year to use the word "Mormon" in public, marking a new turn in a five-year debate inside Mitt Romney's circle about how to handle his faith. Since Romney announced his second presidential campaign 15 months ago, his strategy in dealing with questions about his Mormon faith could be boiled down to three steps: duck, dodge, and weave. But in the past two weeks, the candidate and his team of advisers have made a dramatic about-face in their approach to the religion question; allowing reporters to tag along with the family at church, instructing surrogates to cooperate with cable news specials about Mormonism, and devoting valuable primetime chunks of the Republican convention to anecdotes about the candidate's church service — an unexpected series of moves that comprise, as one campaign adviser conceded, "a total 180."

For several nights each summer, the picturesque hillside below the Manti Utah Temple becomes the site of one of the largest outdoor productions in the world. The event draws an average of 100,000 people each season. The production comes with a cast of more than 950 performers, including 650 under age 18. Approximately 400 people set up (and later take down) about 14,000 metal folding chairs. Another several hundred people — the directing crew, wardrobe and make-up artists, ushers and security personnel, the stage and production crew, as well as those who serve dinner to the cast — volunteer in various ways. The Sanpete County Search and Rescue and the Manti-Ephraim Emergency Medical Technicians are also on hand to assist when needed. Lastly, dozens of Primary children and adult leaders from local wards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints walk the temple grounds the morning after performances to clean up trash.

With the launch of mormonsandchina.org, a new website aimed specifically at those from the People’s Republic of China who have joined the LDS Church while living in other nations of the world, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is publicly addressing for the first time a number of questions about its membership and operations in China. “Our more open communication about the church in China follows our developed relationship of trust with Chinese officials and our concern for the PRC citizens who are joining the church throughout the world,” said Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the LDS Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who has supervised the church in the People’s Republic of China under the direction of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for a number of years.

With the worldwide LDS missionary force surging due to the recent reduction in age for missionary service, church leaders on Sunday spoke via satellite to a global gathering of missionaries and local church officers and members, presenting innovative approaches to missionary work, including the use of the Internet by full-time missionaries in their work and the opening of local meetinghouses to guided tours. Emanating from the Marriott Center on the campus of Brigham Young University, the Worldwide Leadership Broadcast featured pre-recorded messages from President Thomas S. Monson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and President Boyd K. Packer of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve, as well as live and pre-recorded presentations from other members of that quorum.

When uncertainty strikes, you can find the faith to move forward.