Beautiful thoughts from this post:

Carson Hardman credits mixed martial arts with saving his life.

Each person featured on the cover of LDS Living magazine is a powerful, inspiring example of the many different ways Latter-day Saints are doing good in the world.

Instead of choosing between faith and reason, truth within the restored gospel and truth in the wider world of God's children, learn how to seek “anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report.”

TJ and Dixie Orton have been married for 23 years and are the proud parents of three teenagers. They first met in Orlando, Florida, while serving missions—an experience that sparked both their relationship and their shared commitment to faith and service. TJ, raised in the small town of Woodruff, Utah, values family, hard work, and the outdoors. Dixie is originally from Tucson, Arizona and she brings joy, creativity, and a deep love for others into their home. Together, they’ve built a life centered on love, laughter, and purpose.

Some years ago while I was in graduate school, I had a conversation with a friend over lunch that taught me truths about God that I had formerly misunderstood.

Manual 1; Excerpt from "The Transforming Power of Faith and Character" by Richard G. Scott

In 2008, as my book Shaken Faith Syndrome was getting ready for publication, I contemplated on the fact that most of the book engaged the negative influences toward belief; my book addresses these negative influences and provides specific answers to common anti-LDS arguments. But I was a bit bothered that I hadn’t really included some of the wonderful and exciting evidences in favor of belief. So just a few short months after Shaken Faith Syndrome came off the press, Cedar Published my book, Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. While the critics cannot prove that God does not exist and that Joseph Smith did not speak to the Father and Son on a hill in Palmyra, neither can believers prove that an angel led Joseph to an ancient Nephite record, or that resurrected beings restored the priesthood to the young prophet. Instead, critics attempt to show that Joseph borrowed teachings and stories from his environment to create a fictional Book of Mormon as well as a man-made Church. These criticisms are addressed in Shaken Faith Syndrome. Believers can show, however, that there are many evidences which support and are consistent with the story told by Joseph Smith. There is evidence consistent with the claim that an ancient family from Jerusalem traversed the Arabian Desert in about 600 B.C. There is evidence consistent with the claim that Joseph possessed actual metal plates with the appearance of gold. There is evidence consistent with the claim that Joseph restored authentic ancient Christian teachings that were no longer practiced and/or taught by Christianity in his day.

Despite Harry Connick Jr. calling Jenn Blosil's performance this week a "flawless lyric delivery" and telling Jeneve Rose Mitchell he hears something in her voice that is compelling, different, unexpected, and something he just "gets," bad news came for both LDS contestants in American Idol''s Top 14 Thursday night.

The day I hit the mission field, it was February 5th and the snow was going sideways instead of straight down. Three weeks before that I was surfing North side Pier in Oceanside wondering how I was going to pull off serving a mission. I never dreamed my first step into the mission field would be into a full blown blizzard.