Love Is a Verb: And Other Thoughts on the Greatest Commandment


Mary Ellen Edmunds - 2002
    Through her experiences with the Grasshopper Hospital, her sister Charlotte, carrot seeds, refugees in Thailand, and many other people and places, Mary Ellen Edmunds shares a powerful personal view of how we can learn about love. The more we learn, the more we are able to serve, making love a mighty force for good in the lives of those around us.

Our Latter-Day Hymns: The Stories and the Messages


Karen Lynn Davidson - 1988
    In this volume you will find the stories of all the hymns in the 1985 LDS hymnbook, so far as those stories are known. Some of the hymns came about in ways that are quite dramatic and personal; others came into being under ordinary circumstances. And each of the more than three hundred hymns has a message all its own. Prepared with the cooperation and assistance of the General Music Committee of the Church, this companion to the hymnbook gives brief biographies of the authors and composers of the hymns, the stories of the hymns themselves, and an account of changes that may have ocurred in the words or in the music. Our Latter-day Hymns gives insight into the beliefs and history, hopes and fears of the people who sing these hymns. Church members who have music callings as well as those who simply enjoy singing will find this volume fascinating and informative.

Return: Four Phases of our Mortal Journey Home


Robert D. Hales - 2010
    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.

Holy Places: True Stories of Faith and Miracles from Latter-Day Temples


Chad S. Hawkins - 2006
    Holy Places includes more than sixty faith promoting stories with accompanying artwork from temples around the world, including the most recent temples in Ghana, Manhattan, Newport Beach, and Nigeria. Based on more than a decade of personal interviews and in-depth research, each story in this beautiful volume conveys a sense of God's hand in the important work of temples and the faith of Church members as they seek to perform that work. Families will love this treasured collection of stories documenting the faith and miracles associated with the most holy places on Earth.

Joseph Smith the Prophet


Truman G. Madsen - 1978
    This one the product of Truman Madsen's deep love for the subject and years of research illuminates specific facets of Joseph Smith s greatness. The topics discussed include Joseph Smith's First Vision; his personality and character (including perspectives on his family life); his spiritual gifts and attributes; his varied trials; his Kirtland Temple experience; doctrinal developments in the Nauvoo era; and the last months and martyrdom. The book is filled with fascinating detail about key events in the Prophet's life and his impact on people. The result is a vivid, riveting portrayal of this remarkable prophet. Those who knew Joseph Smith best testified that he lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people. This wonderful book by a beloved scholar will serve to confirm and strengthen that conviction for Latter-day Saints today.

21 Principles: Divine Truths to Help You Live By the Spirit


Richard G. Scott - 2013
    Scott. “Principles are concentrated truth, packaged for application to a wide variety of circumstances.”In this exciting book, Elder Scott offers 21 principles distilled from his life experiences. These “concentrated truths” will help you understand more fully how to be guided by the Spirit. Elder Scott's brief explanations open the way for your own discovery and exploration.“I bear witness that Jesus Christ knows you personally,” Elder Scott writes. “He will provide answers to every difficult problem in your life as you trust Him and do all you can to understand and apply His doctrine and strive to live by the Spirit.” 21 Principles will be a valuable tool in that quest.

Doing What We Came to Do: Living a Life of Love


Ardeth Greene Kapp - 2011
    Love enables us to bless others as we reach past our own concerns. Love provides opportunities to heal, to hope, and to have faith - even when dreams have to wait and the challenges of life weigh us down.When we are filled with love, we can make a profound difference in our own lives, in our homes and circles of influence, and in the world in which we live. Love makes it possible for us to do what we came to do.

Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans


Adam S. Miller - 2015
    It’s more like a paraphrase. Rather than worry over the letter of the text, the goal has been to illuminate the large scale patterns that structure it. The King James Version, for instance, renders Paul’s letter with uncanny beauty but is opaque as an argument. Modern translations tend to have the same problem. Their overriding concern is with the letter of the text, not with its logic. As a result, Paul’s forest is always getting sacrificed for the sake of his trees. But Paul’s work is too important, his good news too urgent, to leave so much of him locked in the first century. We need our renderings to do more than mimic the original, we need them to bleed and breathe. This work argues that the deep logic of Romans comes into sharp focus around a single premise: Paul’s claim that grace is not God’s backup plan. Paul never quite puts it like this, but he implies it at every turn.

The Divine Center


Stephen R. Covey - 1998
    The book introduces, explains, and illuminates such a principle - centering one's life on Christ. It examines twelve other "centers" and their effect on key dimensions of our lives: our security, guidance, wisdom, and power. Although those other perspectives offer some value, only the "divine center" meets all the tests. This powerful principle is given life by an inspiring presentation of "how-tos" -imaginative, thought-provoking explanations of the divine-centering process and steps necessary to achieve the goal.

Restoration: God's Call to the 21st Century World


Patrick Q Mason - 2020
    

Mormon Doctrine


Bruce R. McConkie - 1958
    Since it is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance of God and his laws, and since man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation, it follows that men are obligated at their peril to learn and apply the true doctrines of the gospel. This gospel compendium will enable men, more effectively, to "teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom"; to "be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient" for them "to understand." (D. & C. 88:77-78.)

Re-reading Job Understanding the Ancient World s Greatest Poem


Michael Austin - 2014
    While a cursory reading of the text seems to relay a simple story of a righteous man whose love for God was tested through life's most difficult of challenges and rewarded for his faith through those trials, a closer reading of Job presents something far more complex and challenging. The majority of the text is a work of poetry that authors and artists through the centuries have recognized as being one of--if not the--greatest poem of the ancient world.In Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem, author Michael Austin shows how most readers have largely misunderstood this important work of scripture and provides insights that enable us to re-read Job in a drastically new way. In doing so, he shows that the story of Job is far more than that simple story of faith, trials, and blessings that we have all come to know, but is instead a subversive and complex work of scripture meant to inspire readers to rethink all that they thought they knew about God.

The Message


Lance Richardson - 2000
    While his body was being kept alive by medical support equipment, his spirit passed into the world beyond. In "The Message," Lance describes his experience in the world of spirits and delivers to us a message giving a greater understanding of the importance of families and the future of America. He was also taught concerning a most important principle of their society of peace, which, if followed by the people of this great nation, would rescue us from self-destruction.

Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale


Frederick Buechner - 1977
    A fresh, creative look at the underlying meaning of the Gospels that stresses the many dimensions of God's relationship to humanity.

The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints


Jacob Z. Hess - 2019
    But for some, an over-emphasis on “doing” can cause us to go through the motions and miss the deep, rich spiritual power that can come from being still. Sometimes, we try to dig ourselves out of feeling spiritually drained by doing more. When that doesn’t work, we can feel stuck—and arrive at one of two conclusions: the Church “formula”’ isn’t working so it must have been wrong to begin with, or maybe something is wrong with us?There is a third alternative—that our spirituality could reignite by approaching it from a more “mindful” place. When it feels like we’re on a runaway train, mindfulness returns us to a peaceful place where we can observe our thoughts and feelings without jumping on board with them. Using Latter-day Saint vernacular and examples, The Power of Stillness explores the ways in which mindfulness can deepen testimonies of the gospel. Practicing mindful principles can reinvigorate the joy inherent in our faith and helps us feel calmer, more present and engaged in our lives, and more spiritually connected to our Savior.