Out of the Best Books

For Latter-day Saints, few promises run deeper than the hope of being sealed to those we love. It's a covenant that stretches beyond the grave, carrying the assurance that families can be bound together forever. And yet, Anthony and Cindy Sweat write that the temple sealing is also one of the most daunting, mysterious, and misunderstood ordinances of the Church. So what makes a temple sealing diff...

The world's suffering can feel overwhelming: wars, natural disasters, and cities stricken with poverty. And in the face of it all, it's easy to wonder how we can possibly chip away at such enormous problems. That's the question Sharon Eubank takes on in her book,  Doing Small Things With Great Love.  Her message is powerful and hopeful for the average person who wants to make a difference. Sharon...

The Latter-day temple experience may seem abstract and hard to grasp, but author and professor Anthony Sweat offers a different way in—making the temple endowment more vivid and tangible. In his book, The Holy Invitation , Professor Sweat tells a fictional story that frames the temple endowment as a 'sacred rehearsal,' an intentional preparation for the very real day when we will stand before God...

In a church that teaches us to "always abound in good works," it might feel a little unusual to also have a commandment to "be still."  We're a people who love to do! And yet, woven deeply into our faith is a divine invitation to stillness. In the chapter you're about to hear, the authors of The Power of Stillness —Carrie Skarda, Jacob Hess, Kyle Anderson and Ty Mansfield—explore how slowing down,...

For many of us, peace is something we imagine as a life void of opposition and tension. A calm home. A quiet heart. A life where nothing rubs, nothing breaks, nothing hurts. And while this is certainly aspirational, we know that life has inevitable conflicts. So as followers of Christ, we want to learn not to avoid conflict but instead transform ourselves into people who can navigate disagree, ten...

In his brand-new book, Learning to Listen , Elder Dale G. Renlund compares hearing the Holy Ghost to the delicate art of listening through a stethoscope.  We are diving into Chapter 12: Feeling the Savior's Love.   In this chapter Elder  Renlund draws from his career in cardiology and offers a prescription for the Latter-Day Saint who longs to better feel God's love. A patient's heart beats whethe...

It's common for many of us to unconsciously subscribe to a prosperity gospel. That if we follow with exactness God's commands, we'll receive a life void of strife. One where there is no unpleasantness or unmet expectations. Yet this is not taught anywhere in the gospel, and it's actually an incorrect interpretation of what God's love and mercy looks like.  This episode helps reframe what we might...

Many of us go through life with certain expectations—about relationships, about blessings, about what it means to live a faithful life. But life often doesn't play out the way we planned. People we love make choices we wouldn't choose. Pain enters in ways we didn't anticipate. And we may start to wonder: If God loves us, why does such opposition exist?  In her new book, But If Not: Finding God in...

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we care deeply about agency. It's part of our purpose. We believe we came to earth to choose—to grow, to become, and ultimately to return to God because that's where we want to be. But what happens when our choices bring suffering? Or when suffering finds us through no choice of our own? And what do we make of grace—not just as a backu...

As believers but also as people with natural man tendencies, we sometimes struggle to really know what God's love feels like. We often wrestle with the question, does God love me? Am I loved? That's a question we want to approach in this episode. It's core to the human experience to want—and need—love. God promises us His love. So why does it sometimes feel like we don't have it?   Wendy Ulrich jo...

Theosis, or becoming like God, is the kind of weighty topic that may not come up every week in Sunday School, but has more to do with our daily devotion than you might think. Author Daniel Belnap gives biblical precedent for this belief and in the chapter we are opening to today, he connects that belief with the most basic gospel principles.  Professor Dan Belnap is an educator and author of many...

When President Nelson calls on us to stay on the covenant path, it is easy to think about a few steps along that journey, baptism, temple ordinances, marriage. But what is the end point of that lifelong path? Our celestial destination is one of the less understood points of LDS theology, and in this episode, a professor of ancient scripture helps put it into plain words that every member and curio...

The need to feel seen and heard is something we can all relate to. It's what gives us assurance, love, and even sometimes the endurance to keep going. It's how the Savior ministered. And, it's something Joseph Smith learned to do well.  A few examples of Joseph Smith's abilities to notice others are captured by historian Matt Godfrey in his new book God Knows You: Getting Real About Spiritual Chal...

Joseph Smith lamented in Doctrine and Covenants section 121 "Oh God where art thou?" It is a universal experience to have times where you feel like you can't see God or He doesn't see you. And it can make our experience at church complicated when it seems like everyone else talks about miraculous answers when you don't feel like you can get any direction at all. Matt Godfrey is the author of a new...

You've heard the phrase "you do you." Now, author Terryl Givens points out that Latter-day Saint theology on Agency elevates our thinking to something like the phrase "you choose you." This discussion is an invitation to consider deeply how we are empowered in Gods plan to make choices that make us very individual, move us forward in everyday life and over time, lift us to a higher version of ours...

Perhaps as curious believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we may have all had this question: what is truth? It's a wrestle that many of us have felt, and it's one that is soul-deep as we're seeking to grow closer to Jesus Christ. How do we navigate the quiet and simple truth that comes from God against the noisy onslaught of "untruth" that comes from the world?  It's something that this episode...

We have been given the gift of curiosity and discovery, and something all of us as Latter-day Saints share is the desire to know truth. It started with Joseph Smith asking that very question, and perhaps we've all had our sacred grove moments. If you've found yourself asking, "what is truth? How do we cut through the noise of the world and the many "untruths" that are out there and find the true p...

Finding a reliable source to learn about the temple can be difficult. We know the temple is meant to bring us closer to God, but how do we study what we learn there? Anthony Sweat's book  The Holy Covenants explains the motivations of Covenants in a matter of fact way. For anyone preparing to go to the temple for the first time, or finally looking to analyze what we learn about God in those walls,...

Since it's founding more than 150 years ago, the Young Women organization of the Church has influenced millions of women across the globe. And at the center of their mission is to draw from and contribute to the good things of the world.  Carry On  provides an incredible history of the creation and development of the Church's Young Women's program. Lisa Olsen Tait is a co-author on this history an...

In our restored gospel, it's crucial to understand the doctrine of the priesthood. And it's something that matters to all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The fact that women are not ordained to the priesthood has been a wrestle for many, but we also have trusted teachings from apostles and prophets that help us better understand and explore this topic. In  Women and the...

When the scriptures tell us that "men are that they might have joy", do we believe it? Learning and growing from trials are a part of life and today we are focusing on the intersection between joy and the hard things. Sunny Mahe has seen her fair share of tough moments and has kept her sunny disposition throughout it all. She shared some of her experiences in a message captured in Made for This ....

The house of the Lord is just that, His house. In her new book An Endowment of Love , author Mindy Brown talks about the temple, our attitudes toward it, and the sacred covenants we make there, with that mindset. Reminding us all that we have Heavenly Parents that will welcome us lovingly back home.  We introduce that idea with Chapter 1: Feeling at Home in the House of the Lord. You can find An E...

We often look at the temple as sort of a finish line, but can we reframe our temple experience so that it feels like a starting point? In this episode, you'll hear a fresh approach to the temple experience. Melinda Brown, author of An Endowment of Love joins and shares this revolutionary message: "if the temple is making your life better now, then the concerns for the eternities will figure themse...

In the whole of the Doctrine and Covenants there are only two women mentioned by name. The first being Emma Smith, whose story most of us are familiar with. But the second is a woman provides an insight into what life was like as a saint in the early Church. Today's conversation is all about Vienna Jaques. And her story will help illuminate our study of the Doctrine and Covenants this year. Joinin...

In preparation for the Easter Season we are spending this episode learning about the Atonement of Christ. Elder Cook said in this weekend's General Conference that "The Atonement of Jesus Christ provides the ultimate rescue from the trials we face in life." And doesn't that sound like the kind of saving we all need. Tad R. Callister's book The Infinite Atonement teaches about many principles of th...