On March 3, President and Sister Oaks sat together as keynote speakers in the closing session of the 2018 RootsTech conference—the largest family history conference in the world.

“The parables of Jesus are brief but brilliant and profound literary gems. Though they were given more than two thousand years ago, the lessons taught and the language used still ring in our minds and hearts.”

Scott and Ashley Laneri share the stories behind two very different adoptions and the miracles that brought their family together.

Sheryl Ellsworth is the Family/Community Engagement Specialist for the Utah State Board of Education (USBE). In this role, she supports and trains schools, namely administrators and teachers, in engaging families through evidence-based strategies in urban, suburban, rural, remote, and indigenous reservation communities. Before working at USBE, Sheryl taught in Washington, D.C., and played an integral role in helping her school move from the second-lowest performing position in the district to being the first school out of priority/turnaround status. She resides in South Jordan, Utah, with her family. Emily Bell McCormick is the mother of five and owner of a boutique advocacy and communication consulting firm and founder of The Policy Project, a group working to implement healthy policy in Utah and in the United States. She is also the style and fashion contributor for KSL’s morning show, Studio 5, and the former co-founder of Shabby Apple. She resides in Salt Lake City with her husband and children.

Brent and his wife Sharon Kaye have four daughters and Jacob, the youngest. Brent has lived eight years overseas including Germany, Japan, and Brazil where he served a full-time mission. He holds a BA in International Relations and Portuguese from BYU and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin. Jacob is a junior at BYU where he studies statistical science among other things and enjoys playing jazz with his trombone. His paper, “The Two Atonements” was recently accepted for presentation at the BYU Religious Education Student Symposium in February 2023.

Get the entire FHE lesson series on "The Family: A Proclamation to the World."

Students at Brigham Young University will begin their fall semester on August 30th. Two time-honored traditions at the university are the weekly devotionals and the forums held at the Marriott Center on campus. Devotionals are spiritual in nature, while forums tend to focus on a more secular topic. These weekly addresses cover a wide variety of topics and speakers range from local leaders to nationally recognized names, but they all bring welcome perspectives, insights, and spark discussion among students and faculty alike.

The people of Connecticut in those days thought it wicked to believe in any religion, or belong to any church, except the Presbyterian. They did not believe in having any prophets, apostles, or revelations, as they had in the days of Jesus, and as we now have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On this week’s All In podcast, author Jason Wright shared the story behind his first novel, a novel that went on to become a New York Times bestseller. The fictional story, Wright explained, began because he missed his father, who passed away when Wright was 16 years old. In an effort to cheer up, Wright and his family began putting their spare change in a jar. The week before Christmas, they decided on someone who might benefit from receiving their “Christmas Jar.” Their little jar brought joy to Wright’s family and began a tradition—a tradition that led to Wright’s first novel, Christmas Jars, which has been turned into a film premiering this year.