Articles

Big Questions Come, Follow Me Insights Volunteer Spotlights

Dec 11, 2023

“The Blood of the Lamb”

by Craig Lindquist

Sitting on my bunk as a young marine, I decided to take a look at the Book of Mormon my mother had sent me. I honestly gave it my best, but try as I might, I could hardly understand a word of what I was reading. I soon gave up and set the book aside, not to touch it again for a number of years. When I did, I continued to read for days, looking for what I had been unable to understand before. Yet all of it now flowed so easily into my soul. The difference was the Spirit and my own readiness.

Dec 8, 2023

“I Did Not Feel the Cold”

by Maddie Christensen

“On the 31st of Dec I with my Brother Azmon Woodruff . . . went forward in baptism.”¹

Sam Day, professional artist and illustrator, was commissioned to create a work of art detailing Wilford Woodruff’s baptism for the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation Conference, “Building Latter-day Faith.” Having been an artist for over forty-five years, Sam has extensive experience in painting spiritual topics and portraits.

Before this commission, the only known painting of Wilford Woodruff’s baptism was of a beautiful spring day. However, Wilford was baptized on December 31, 1833, in upstate New York, where over three feet of snow blanketed the ground at the time—unlike the scenario depicted in the earlier spring painting.

Dec 4, 2023

"Glory and Power, Be Unto the Lamb for Ever"

by Debi Hales

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto [me].”

Nov 27, 2023

A Foundation: Love of God and Fellow Man

by Rob Swanson

Come, Follow Me

On October 6, 1887, Wilford Woodruff helped pen an epistle to the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA). Unable to attend the YMMIA’s conference, President Woodruff and fellow Apostles Joseph F. Smith and Moses Thatcher sent an epistle encouraging the young men of the Church and providing counsel and direction. They offered the young men this counsel for how to leave the conference:

Nov 22, 2023

How One Woman’s Scholarship Helps Us Better Understand Church History

by LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ashlyn Pells

When she was eleven years old, LaJean Purcell Carruth found an old Improvement Era in her parents’ basement open to an article on the Deseret Alphabet. She was instantly, completely fascinated. She taught herself to read and write the Deseret Alphabet and decided that she would be a Deseret transcriber when she grew up. Little did she know where that early passion would lead.

The Rocks in Your Cairn

by Shauna Horne

Come, Follow Me

I love to hike. Whenever I have a chance, I hit the trail. I have lists of places that I want to hike and mountains I want to summit.

As I read in 1 Peter this week, I thought of cairns. A cairn is a manmade pile of rocks that is assembled to be a marker or a memorial. Often people make these cairns to mark a trail that could be difficult to find or as a guidepost to reassure hikers that they are on the right path. Cairns are also often built as memorials. For instance, they may be built at the top of an especially difficult mountain summit to memorialize the sacrifice and accomplishment of finishing the hike.

Nov 17, 2023

“A Most Precious Season”

by Steve Thorsted

Many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are familiar with the events at John and Jane Benbow’s Farm in Herefordshire, England, in the spring of 1840. Elder Wilford Woodruff was inspired to teach the Benbows and the members of the United Brethren congregation. The impact on the growth of the Church was enormous.

Nov 13, 2023

Volunteer Spotlight: Laurie Low

by Maddie Christensen

Volunteer Spotlights

“I have felt a spark kindled regarding my family history in the early days of the Church,” shares Laurie Low, a member of the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation Board.

Nov 13, 2023

“Let Patience Have Her Perfect Work”

by Lyndie Jackson

Come, Follow Me

We live in a world of immediate results. Lose weight fast. Get rich quick. Be successful now.

With the constant pressure to have it all immediately, James’s counsel to “let patience have her perfect work” seems a little unreasonable—but I love the promise that follows: “That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:4).

Nov 6, 2023

“Good Things to Come”

by Craig Lindquist

Come, Follow Me

“We have now learned that God means what He says, and says what He means. . . . When He gives to us revelations of the greatest moment to us, will He not set forth His mind and will in their true meaning, as He intends they shall be fulfilled, and as He intends we shall understand them?”