I’m often confronted with the demand that I prove the Book of Mormon true. Surely, if I possessed real evidence for the Book of Mormon, historians and archaeologists would be falling all over themselves with eager excitement.

May 6, 2014 is the annual Teacher Appreciation Day. I am certainly grateful for many teachers that I knew and met. However, I want to focus on those teachers I read and learned from in the scriptures. Their power has also blessed my life. It may only be one man’s opinion, but here are the top ten best scriptural teachers ever.

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Preach My Gospel to missionaries. Since that time all members have been encouraged to read and study the missionary manual. In honor of the anniversary, I selected 10 of the best self-improvement activities for 10 years of Preach My Gospel.

Clayton Christensen, 58, is one of the most influential business theorists of the last 50 years. The Harvard Business School professor's 1997 book, The Innovator's Dilemma, introduced in elegant terms the notion of "disruptive innovation," which explains how cheaper, simpler or unexpected products and services can bring down big companies like U.S. Steel, Xerox and Digital Equipment. Every day business leaders call him or make the pilgrimage to his office in Boston, Mass. to get advice or thank him for his ideas. A consulting firm he started popularizes his work, while a hedge fund run by one of his sons puts money to work betting on disruptive technologies. One industry that always eluded Christensen's influence was health care. Caregivers and insurers told him his theories didn't apply to their complex industry. Christensen knew they were wrong. His investigation culminated in his 2009 book, The Innovator's Prescription, written with two doctors. It exposed the many ways health care was broken and recommended numerous ways it can be systematized and disrupted the same way mainframes gave way to PCs and now iPhones.

The Dental Clinic at Primary Children’s Medical Center is one of the last places you might expect to find a former major league baseball player, especially one with a sparkling World Series championship ring. Yet there is Brian Banks, standing 6-foot-3 and dressed in green scrubs, in the final weeks of his residency. Becoming a pediatric dentist is a goal the 42-year-old has worked toward since retiring from baseball in 2004.

Every now and then you hear the story of an individual that is able to demonstrate incredible faith, and endurance, that is as uncommon as is their life experience. That is the case with Misty Nielson. Her story shows the importance of family, just perhaps not in the way you may think.

The last we heard of Neleh Dennis she was coping with her new-found fame as the runner-up on a “Survivor” reality TV show and starting a TV career.

How relevant is religion? It’s a question each new generation asks itself. As times change, new circumstances present new challenges and possibilities. And yet, through it all, this immemorial longing we call religion continues on. In the 1960s, sociologists came to a consensus that religion was fading. As knowledge and freedom increased, they theorized, so modern society would outgrow religion. Thirty years later, however, that hypothesis was reversed. One of these sociologists, Peter Berger, explained the miscalculation this way: “Religion has not been declining. On the contrary, in much of the world there has been a veritable explosion of religious faith.”[2] He concluded that just because the world is becoming more modern doesn’t necessarily mean it is becoming less religious. Religion, it can be said, is just as relevant now as it has ever been.

From Sister Linda K. Burton, Relief Society general president, to former NFL quarterback Steve Young, several members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have taken the mound to throw ceremonial first pitches for baseball games.

I was reminded last week, upon reading Simon Critchley’s opinion piece in the New York Times, what a unique stretch of time we’re in. Much has been written about the Mormon Moment. As a columnist, I’ve been watching this moment snowball for more than a decade, from the rustlings that came during the 2002 Winter Olympics up until now. A lot has changed in that period of time. The number of famous Mormon faces has grown, thanks to reality shows, business success, blogging, politics and some best-selling books. The way we’re scrutinized has changed. A decade ago, the media often deferred to non-Mormon experts on Mormonism. Now they reach more from within the faith to source their stories.