At the BYU Campus Education Week in August of last year, Elder David A. Bednar told Latter-day Saints that their efforts to communicate gospel messages through social media channels was a good beginning, but only a small trickle. “I now extend to you the invitation to help transform the trickle into a flood,” he said. “I exhort you to sweep the earth with messages filled with righteousness and truth—messages that are authentic, edifying, and praiseworthy—and literally to sweep the earth as with a flood.”

It all started with a hunting trip.

Here are just a few of these profound principles about the after-life that are unique to the Church.

How did Motown legend and Grammy Award–winner Gladys Knight become a Latter-day Saint? And how has joining the Church affected her fame? Here's the inside scoop.

I love words. Like, seriously love them. You know the person who starts off their sacrament meeting talk by saying, “Webster’s defines ‘prayer’ as…”? That’s me. I’m that guy. I read the dictionary for fun, you guys.

Jane Elizabeth Manning was born in Connecticut in about 1820. Her mother had been enslaved, but she was emancipated by the time Jane was born. Jane’s father died when she was a young child and, perhaps in part for that reason, Jane began working as a domestic servant for a wealthy white family in the next town over. As a young woman, she was baptized and joined the local Congregational Church, but not long afterward she heard a missionary from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints preach and she was convinced by his message. She was baptized a short time later, and she appears to have persuaded her family to join the Church as well. In 1843, the Mannings joined an interracial group of converts for the journey to Nauvoo. Although they left the Northeast together, the group was separated at some point during the journey. The white members continued to Nauvoo on public transportation; the black members walked. When Jane and her family reached Nauvoo, they were welcomed by Emma and Joseph Smith and stayed in the mansion house for a short time while they found jobs and housing. Jane remained in the mansion house, working for the Smiths as a domestic servant.

The following has been republished with permission from gospelstudy.us.

The celestial kingdom—the highest kingdom of glory and home to our Heavenly Parents and our Savior.

Though they may be rich, influential, and glamorous, these famous Latter-day Saints have the same troubles we all face when it comes to love. Awkward dating moments, insecurity, and embarrassing failures all mingle with the sweet to make these real-life romances something far more fascinating than what you'd find in a fairytale.

One Friday in 2015, nearing the end of my shift in the ER, an EMS radio call came: cardiac arrest. We were told it was a male, approximately 30-years-old. He appeared to have overdosed and didn’t have a pulse. The day before, arguing again with my 29-year-old, heroin-using son, I had threatened to throw him out of the house. He responded that he would kill himself with an overdose. After the EMS report, I rushed to call my son—he didn’t answer. I called my wife. She hadn’t seen him.