INTRODUCTION: Joseph Smith, speaking of the work of redemption for the dead called it the “most glorious of all subjects belonging to the everlasting gospel” (D&C 128:17). Why? What is there about this work that would cause the prophet to place its importance above any other subject belonging to the restoration of the gospel?

President Joseph Fielding Smith taught an important principle when he explained that “all revelation since the fall has come through Jesus Christ, who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. In all of the scriptures, where God is mentioned and where he has appeared, it was Jehovah who talked with Abraham, with Noah, Enoch, Moses and all the prophets. He is the God of Israel, the Holy One of Israel. . . . The Father has never dealt directly and personally since the fall, and he has never appeared except to introduce and bear record of the Son.”1 Elsewhere President Smith pointed out that “after Adam’s transgression he was shut out of the presence of the Father who has remained hidden from his children to this day, with a few exceptions wherein righteous men have been privileged with the glorious privilege of seeing him. . . . Since the fall all revelation and commandments from the Father have come through Jesus Christ.”2

As a swimmer, I always wondered about the saying I sometimes heard from Church members: "Satan has dominion over the water."

February 1833 to March 1834 was a time of dramatic ups and downs for members of the Church. They experienced great spiritual blessings but also violence and suffering. Some aspects of these events are familiar to Church members today, but the context surrounding them, as well as some of the events themselves, are less well known. Here are a few things you might not know about Church history from this time period.

On Thanksgiving day, Kayden Carlos stepped off a plane in Salt Lake City after completing a two-year assignment for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Maryland Baltimore Mission.