Real Life in Jesus Christ's Church

             Heavenly Father communicates uniquely with each of His children, one-by-one and one-on-one. He knows needs and understands hearts. He speaks every language, including love languages and unspoken emotional longings. Your personal connection with Him is yours alone. I believe each of us has a distinct frequency through which we individually communicate with Him via prayer and sacred pondering. When I pray for Sarah, He knows which Sarah I am referring to. His communications come through a secure channel. A revelation for you never comes to me. He connects reciprocally and exclusively on your wavelength to answer your prayers, show His love in tender mercies, supply needed inspiration, and grant miracles—all forms of personal revelation.  This direct link to Heavenly Father comes through the Holy Ghost. Speaking of Joseph Smith, President Henry B. Eyring said: “ Not only was he then called of God to establis...

When I was eleven, my maternal grandparents David F. and Emma Geneva Huish Haymore who lived in Arizona came for a visit to our home in Salt Lake City. One evening Granddaddy asked me if I would like to go to General Conference with him the next day. He told me he had been asked to give one of the prayers. He showed me a letter notifying him that he was to pray and telling him that he could bring one person with him. “Doesn’t Grandmother want to go?” I said. “No, he answered. “We think it would be a good opportunity for you.” And it was. I sat beside him on the front row in the Tabernacle. I felt honored but nervous as I sat under the kind and powerful gaze of President David O. McKay.  October 2015 yielded an entirely different conference experience. A thousand miles from home some of our family—grandparents, parents, grandchildren—crowded into a hotel room to watch General Conference on a computer. Perhaps it was the closeness in physical proximity, the girls sat on one bed ...

Maybelle at age five was shy. Lydia at four was self-assured. One day their aunt came to visit. Maybelle would not leave her room. Lydia, sensing it was important for Maybelle to be social and visit with their aunt whispered, “Be brave, Maybelle, be brave.” (She actually said, “Be brabe, Maybelle, be brabe.”) I wonder what “brabe” means to a four-year-old. How did she even know the word? Had she heard  Brené  Brown define being brave as “soldiering on,” “showing up and being willing to try,” and “the courage to be vulnerable”? Had she read in scripture what Moses counseled his successor Joshua: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid… for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Deuteronomy 31:6). Did she know about King David’s advice: “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart” (Psalm 27:14). Had she been taught that Zoram (1 Nephi 4:35) and Zeezrom “took courage” (Alma...