From beloved gospel scholar David Ridges, this valuable book contains the complete text of the Doctrine and Covenants, sections 1-42, including Brother Ridges's classic in-verse notes, and additional insights and commentary. Bring your family together and master latter-day scriptures with this helpful study companion.

    Michael Quinn masterfully reconstructs an earlier age, finding ample evidence for folk magic in nineteenth-century New England, as he does in Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s upbringing. Quinn discovers that Smith’s world was inhabited by supernatural creatures whose existence could be both symbolic and real. He explains that the Smith family’s treasure digging was not unusual for the times and is vital to understanding how early Mormons interpreted developments in their history in ways that differ from modern perceptions. Quinn’s impressive research provides a much-needed background for the environment that produced Mormonism.This thoroughly researched examination into occult traditions surrounding Smith, his family, and other founding Mormons cannot be understated. Among the practices no longer a part of Mormonism are the use of divining rods for revelation, astrology to determine the best times to conceive children and plant crops, the study of skull contours to understand personality traits, magic formula utilized to discover lost property, and the wearing of protective talismans. Ninety-four photographs and illustrations accompany the text.

    Monson. Beginning with President Monson's family heritage and his early years in Salt Lake City, it included his vocational preparation and his career in the world of journalism. More important, this inspiring book recounts his lifetime of Church service. Called as a bishop at the age of twenty-two, as a mission president at thirty-one, and as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve at age thirty-six, he has traveled the globe to minister to the Saints for more than fifty years. This book shares many of his personal experience, from his visits behind the Iron Curtain to his contributions on the Scriptures Publication Committee and in the missionary and welfare areas; it also provides up-to-the-minute information about his work as Church President.Filled with wonderful photographs and little-known accounts, this biography is a portrait of a leader who ministers both to the one and to the many, and who is completely dedicated to doing whatever the Lord prompts him to do.

    Through complete access to Nibley's correspondence, journals, notes and papers, Petersen has painted a portrait that reveals the man behind the legend. Starting with a foreword written by Zina Nibley Peterson (the author's wife and Nibley's daughter) and finishing with appendixes that include some of the best of Nibley's personal correspondence, the biography reveals aspects of the tapestry of the life of one who has truly consecrated his life to the service of the Lord.

    These were passionate relationships which also had some longevity, except in cases such as that of two young sisters, one of whom was discovered by Joseph’s first wife, Emma, in a locked bedroom with the prophet. Emma remained a steadfast opponent of polygamy throughout her life. The majority of Smith’s wives were younger than he, and one-third were between fourteen and twenty years of age. Another third were already married, and some of the husbands served as witnesses at their own wife’s polyandrous wedding. In addition, some of the wives hinted that they bore Smith children—most notably Sylvia Sessions’s daughter Josephine—although the children carried their stepfather’s surname. For all of Smith’s wives, the experience of being secretly married was socially isolating, emotionally draining, and sexually frustrating. Despite the spiritual and temporal benefits, which they acknowledged, they found their faith tested to the limit of its endurance. After Smith’s death in 1844, their lives became even more “lonely and desolate.” One even joined a convent. The majority were appropriated by Smith’s successors, based on the Old Testament law of the Levirate, and had children by them, though they considered these guardianships unsatisfying. Others stayed in the Midwest and remarried, while one moved to California. But all considered their lives unhappy, except for the joy they found in their children and grandchildren.

    To understand her mission, we must first recognize Eve’s proper, elevated place — a noble position beside Adam, with a beautiful, balanced interdependence between them. Their example of enthusiastically embracing mortality with all its accompanying challenges provides meaning, encouragement, and direction for each of us along our complex and sometimes thorny paths home.“For millennia,” writes author Melinda Brown, “the world has dismissed the story of Adam and Eve as simply a choice between good and evil, with the obvious conclusion the Eve chose evil. But on much closer inspection, we can discover, and lead others to discover, that the choice was in fact between certainty and uncertainty, security and risk, fear and faith. Eve’s most remarkable choice had everything to do with stagnation versus progress. Hers was a decision to trust God.”With its in-depth examination of the scriptural account Eve and Adam provides an opportunity for deep pondering and reflection on our own mortal experience and how they draw us, step by step, toward exaltation.

    This translation is readable and accessible for a wider range of readers than the King James Version. The original structure of the New Testament is restored and highlights features such as quotations, hymns, and poetic passages. New and extensive notes provide alternate translations, commentary upon variant manuscript traditions, and historical insights. Where applicable, the Joseph Smith Translation has been included. The notes contain the most complete list of cross-references to New Testament passages in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants that have ever been assembled.

    Parley P. Pratt was one of the early leaders in the Church and his story is interwoven with that of the early Church. Maurine and Scot, a husband and wife team, have been depicting scenes from Church history for several years. Maurine received her master's degree in teaching from Harvard University and Scot received his master's degree in instructional technology from Utah State University.

    The resulting Senate investigative hearing featured testimony on every peculiarity of Mormonism, especially its polygamous family structure. The Smoot hearing ultimately mediated a compromise between Progressive Era Protestantism and Mormonism and resolved the nation's long-standing Mormon Problem. On a broader scale, Kathleen Flake shows how this landmark hearing provided the occasion for the country--through its elected representatives, the daily press, citizen petitions, and social reform activism--to reconsider the scope of religious free exercise in the new century.Flake contends that the Smoot hearing was the forge in which the Latter-day Saints, the Protestants, and the Senate hammered out a model for church-state relations, shaping for a new generation of non-Protestant and non-Christian Americans what it meant to be free and religious. In addition, she discusses the Latter-day Saints' use of narrative and collective memory to retain their religious identity even as they changed to meet the nation's demands.

    

    Church leader and business executive Robert Hales discusses the four stages of life's journey--preparation, decision, serving, and enduring--and considers how each stage prepares us for eternal life.

    The path to salvation and happiness is explored and explained.

    This book shows that these doctrines did not originate in a vacuum but were rather prompted and informed by the religious culture from which Mormonism arose. Early Mormons, like their early Christian and even earlier Israelite predecessors, brought with them their own varied culturally conditioned theological presuppositions (a process of convergence) and only later acquired a more distinctive theological outlook (a process of differentiation).In this first-of-its-kind comprehensive treatment of the development of Mormon theology, Charles Harrell traces the history of Latter-day Saint doctrines from the times of the Old Testament to the present. He describes how Mormonism has carried on the tradition of the biblical authors, early Christians, and later Protestants in reinterpreting scripture to accommodate new theological ideas while attempting to uphold the integrity and authority of the scriptures. In the process, he probes three questions: How did Mormon doctrines develop? What are the scriptural underpinnings of these doctrines? And what do critical scholars make of these same scriptures? In this enlightening study, Harrell systematically peels back the doctrinal accretions of time to provide a fresh new look at Mormon theology.“This Is My Doctrine” will provide those already versed in Mormonism’s theological tradition with a new and richer perspective of Mormon theology. Those unacquainted with Mormonism will gain an appreciation for how Mormon theology fits into the larger Jewish and Christian theological traditions.

    Richard D. Draper, a popular Education Week speaker, discusses the themes of Revelation, examining the book section by section. Some questions he addresses include: • What is apocalyptic literature? • What do the various beasts represent? • What is the significance of numbers and their use? • What are the differences and purposes of the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls? • How does the book testify of Jesus Christ and warn of Satan? • What does the book say about the last days, the Millennium, and the final judgment? Opening the Seven Seals will help the reader find the fulfillment of this promise: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Rev. 1:3).

    More than 120 men, women, and children perished in the slaughter. Massacre at Mountain Meadows offers the most thoroughly researched account of the massacre ever written. Drawn from documents previously not available to scholars and a careful re-reading of traditional sources, this gripping narrative offers fascinating new insight into why Mormons settlers in isolated southern Utah deceived the emigrant party with a promise of safety and then killed the adults and all but seventeen of the youngest children. The book sheds light on factors contributing to the tragic event, including the war hysteria that overcame the Mormons after President James Buchanan dispatched federal troops to Utah Territory to put down a supposed rebellion, the suspicion and conflicts that polarized the perpetrators and victims, and the reminders of attacks on Mormons in earlier settlements in Missouri and Illinois. It also analyzes the influence of Brigham Young's rhetoric and military strategy during the infamous "Utah War" and the role of local Mormon militia leaders in enticing Paiute Indians to join in the attack. Throughout the book, the authors paint finely drawn portraits of the key players in the drama, their backgrounds, personalities, and roles in the unfolding story of misunderstanding, misinformation, indecision, and personal vendettas. The Mountain Meadows Massacre stands as one of the darkest events in Mormon history. Neither a whitewash nor an exposé, Massacre at Mountain Meadows provides the clearest and most accurate account of a key event in American religious history.