From interfaith efforts in support of Islam to "I am Mormon" billboards, it's become common for religious organizations to buy public ads to promote their faiths and causes. But a national atheist organization is taking it a step further, using Monday's presidential debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., to launch a week-long attack on the faith of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Tanner Linford, a 17-year-old student at Davis High School, is living proof of his own advice: “If, at first, you don’t succeed… keep trying.”

For most people, “Climb Every Mountain” is a popular song from the classic musical "Sound of Music." But for Nile Sorenson of Yorba Linda, California, it’s a way of life.

In a recent interview withwhosay.com, LDS actor and star of Napoleon Dynamite, Jon Heder, shared a bit about the new horror-comedy he'll star in, Ghost Team, as well as how his faith and family have impacted his career.

We all have times when answers come easily. We have times when answers come clearly and distinctly. And we all have times when we really pray about something and seemingly receive no answer. On some such occasions, we may feel that we've conscientiously followed the instructions in Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-9. We have studied the issue out in our minds, prayed about it (perhaps we even fasted), and asked the Lord if our decision or understanding is right. But after all that, we still do not feel we have received a burning in the bosom—or a stupor of thought—and thus it appears we are left to our own resources to try to solve the problem. Or we may be certain we have received an answer—but then things don't work out the way we thought they would.

Editor’s note: “This week from the pulpit” highlights recent messages from General Authorities, General Officers, and leaders of the Church. This story has been updated throughout the week. Find summaries of remarks below or use the menu to jump to a specific section.

Taysom Hill knows a thing or two about adversity.

“There will be a convergence of discoveries (never enough, mind you, to remove the need for faith) to make plain and plausible what the modern prophets have been saying all along…[I] do not expect incontrovertible proof to come in this way…, but neither will the Church be outdone by hostile or pseudo-scholars.” (Neal A. Maxwell) In 1997 a group of Latter-day Saints who frequented the Mormon message boards of America Online found that they were responding to the same LDS-critical arguments over and over. They decided to form a non-profit organization so they could share information and create a repository of responses. That organization was The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, or FAIR. In 1999 FAIR held their first conference in Ben Lomond California. A large percentage of the few who attended this first conference were the speakers themselves. Two weeks ago FAIR held their fifteenth annual conference in Provo, Utah, with about 400 attendees.

The first member of the royal family of Tonga to join the LDS Church was Princess ‘Elisiva Fusipala Vaha’i, who was baptized in the 1980s. Later, her nephew, the King of Tonga's second son, joined the Church in 2015 despite opposition from his family. A report from Kaniva News even claimed that his Majesty warned the prince he could have some of his royal privileges revoked if he joined the LDS faith. However, recently the Tongan government made this new announcement:

What a powerful testimony from this Latter-day Saint and a fellow sister in the Church: "My faith is in God. . . . I don’t think I could live my life as well or as happily if I weren’t a member of the Church. Thanks to the Savior and His gospel, I can become better and find peace through any struggle I have."