Mormon Bloggers

Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapping occurred on June 5, 2002, when 14-year-old American was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Smart was found nine months later on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee, who were indicted for her kidnapping, but initially ruled unfit to stand trial. However, on March of this year U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball declared Brian David Mitchell competent to stand trial. Because of this new development, Elizabeth Smart who is serving a mission for the Church of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church) in Paris, France, had to return temporarily from her mission to testify in the  trial. Today I was reminded of this story by a long article on CNN about Elizabeth Smart’s Mormon mission. The article explains that For more than a year, Smart, who recently turned 23, has been in the midst of her LDS Church mission, a rite of passage hallowed by members of The Church... Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, July 17, at 7:00 p.m., there will be an Internet broadcast of the Pioneer Day Commemoration Concert, featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. Video Streams will be shown in the following languages (universal media player): English French Spanish Portuguese American Sign Language Links for streams using Media Player are below: English French Spanish Portuguese American Sign Language Audio streams will also be available. See the website above for details. Next week at Mormon Women, we’ll be having our own celebration of Mormon pioneers, both early and modern.  Read More →

Where does one begin with an introduction…..? There are many details and history to my story, most of which I am sure will bore, so I will spare you as I am sure many of those specifics will unfold in time as I reveal elements of my testimony to you. It is precisely that history and those experiences that are intricately woven into the very being that sits and writes this rainy night from Austin Texas. I suppose if we were to meet in person and had the opportunity to share with you a few things about me… what would I want you to remember me by?  Sure, I could monopolize space on this page with all kinds of words as it pertains to my hobbies (which are many) or my talents (which are few) or all the things I am involved with, or past and present church callings and on and on…but none of that is really important to me. What I would want you to know about me is that I am happy, overwhelmingly so. I am a daughter of God; I know it, I feel it and am gaining an essential understanding... Read the rest of this entry »

~by Rachel During winter the first thing I do every morning is peek through the blinds to gauge the weather for the day. Some days I am surprised by a blanket of soft white snow. The fresh snow is always breathtaking. Rarely, it seems, a bright clear sky welcomes me, the kind of winter day that calls for sledding and snowballs. Most often the view is a dirty grey all the way to the horizon: cloudy, foggy skies above and icy grey snow beneath. This kind of day makes me want to crawl back into bed. I often let the weather decide my mood, struggling through the grey days and bouncing through the sunny, cold ones. In the middle of a particularly long stretch of miserable grey this winter, I came across this scripture: “Whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify... Read the rest of this entry »

~by Elizabeth I have struggled (for what seems like an eternity) with such a simple principle of the gospel—faith. It is something that we sing about being like a seed, if planted it will grow and other pretty simple concepts. But faith, for me, it is not always so simple. I seem to question myself way too often. Do I have faith? Do I have enough faith? And just what is faith? And how can I have it if I don’t even know exactly what it is? I tend to worry. These days I worry about my kids dying of the swine flu, and if or when my cancer will come back (again dying), and will the lymph nodes in my neck go down, and what will happen next, and please let nothing bad ever happen to us again. And then my faith departs and I can’t see out of all of the black clouds of the worries. Repeat this process over and over….and you have the story of my life. The worries used to be, will I ever get married, will I ever have children, will I be happy, will I ever __________(fill... Read the rest of this entry »

~by Jenny** The ways that Mormons celebrate the holidays are varied. Because we are part of a worldwide church, and tend to include long-standing family and cultural traditions in our celebrations, this discussion is about those traditions as well as Mormon traditions. I have enlisted the help of several women for this post to help exemplify the differences in Mormon celebrations. There are certain aspects of our faith that require us to tweak traditions on occasion, such as eliminating alcohol from our festivities. We are also encouraged to keep the main focus of our celebrations on the Savior. A Catholic neighbor once asked me, “I know that you believe in Jesus and celebrate Christmas, but why don’t you have church services on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?” That was a year that Christmas fell on a weekday, so we didn’t have an organized church service on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve (which we do when the holiday is on a Sunday). There have been times that I have longed to... Read the rest of this entry »

A gentleman visiting our video conversion stories, listened to one of them four times, and then requested a Book of Mormon.  After reading and studying the Book of Mormon twice with online resources, and visiting other positive MGF and LDS sites, he began missionary lessons and joined LDS.net. He recently set a baptismal date. Please follow the nudge if you feel one to post your conversion story online, or to participate in some way in this effort to share our faith globally.  For more information, see ways to help, on this site, or send your comment or question to us. Hi Karen, Great to hear from you! Yes, it is true, I have a date set for the 29th of March to be baptized. I am so excited! I am going to be baptized in Huntington due to the  fact that the ward that I belong to, is still under renovation.  From what I understand it will be another 6 weeks or so before the [other] chapel is ready. Do you want to know another neat thing? One of the other guys on LDS.net was scheduled... Read the rest of this entry »