We didn’t intend to be the only nonmembers in our ward. We knew we’d be in the religious minority when we moved to our small town in Utah County, Utah, in 2002, but we expected that minority to be more than two-ish percent.

Every time I give a talk in church I feel obliged to begin with a warning, so here it is. I do not consider myself an expert on spiritual matters. I plan to share ideas that I hope will be helpful and inspiring, but please take them for what they are: the opinions and ideas of a guy who isn’t totally sure he knows what he’s talking about.

After receiving her endowment, one sister said to me, “I was disappointed I didn’t see more about Christ’s Atonement.” I was stunned. She may as well have said she just walked through a forest and didn’t see any trees. As our discussion continued, it became clear she had expected to see portrayals of Christ’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, pictures of Him on the cross, and depictions of His empty tomb, so she was surprised when none of these were presented directly.

As societies across the globe become more and more accepting of immorality, it can sometimes feel like protecting our families from the onslaught of pornography is an insurmountable task. What can we do to stem the tide?

Mitt Romney can’t quite shake the Mormon question. My Daily Beast colleague McKay Coppins obtained some emails from a Perry evangelical adviser to a “leader in the development of Christian talk radio” showing that at least some within the Perry camp want to keep the issue, as they say, alive. The New York Times reported lengthily Sunday on Romney’s years as bishop of the Boston LDS temple. Christopher Hitchens has now declaimed on Mormonism’s “weird and sinister” belief system (rather tame adjectives, for Hitch). Is all this fair? Or, as Romney and his backers have it, is it religious bigotry? I’m not an expert on religion. But I do think I know a thing or two about politics, and from a nakedly political perspective, Romney definitely has a couple of questions to answer. Religious bigotry has nothing to do with it. Let’s begin with the obvious background. In 1960—121 years after Joseph Smith had an audience with President Martin Van Buren to lay before him the case for action against the persecution of his flock—John F. Kennedy famously established the idea in his Houston speech that there should be no religious test for the presidency. I support this. We all should.

Uncanny, I think when the archivist hands the old photographs to me, a jackpot of images related to the Ogden Stockyards. These 60-year-old albums illuminate exactly what I need to see. The special collections director says, “These literally just came in, so new they haven’t even been indexed yet. I knew you would be excited.” When I ask their origin, she says, “The estate of Alice Petersen just donated them.” Alice Petersen died in 2015, but the collection arrives exactly when they can help tell the stockyard story.

Conference Talk: "Keep the Commandments" by President Thomas S. Monson

When I was nine years old, I had a brilliant idea.

The life, heritage and birthday of Ezra Taft Benson were celebrated Saturday with an all-day gathering that drew hundreds of people.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's two-and-a-half years as a Mormon missionary in France had a significant impact on his personal and business life, according to a YouTube video of a pep talk he gave to the French during the 2002 Olympics that's now making its way around the blogs.