Real Life in Jesus Christ's Church

The Church Almanac contains a boatload of fascinating facts. For example, if a conversation drifts  to the question of what the most common first names in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are, you can quote the 2013 Almanac: “Maria, the identification word for nearly 400,000 individuals, is the most frequent name by a 200,000-name margin over the next top name in the Church. “The second top name is the most frequent male name,  José . About 100,000 names below that is the next most frequent name, David, that is followed more closely by other male names of Juan, Michael, and Luis. Male, because their contemporary frequency on the female side of things, are by now still named Maria.             “Finally we come to the second most popular female name. No. 7 on the chart of most popular LDS names: Ana. The roughly 85,000 Ana’s of the Church are followed by another spate of male names—Carlos, John, Robert, James, Daniel, William, ...

A couple of years ago I typed the Pearl of Great Price as a way to understand it better and discover unique vocabularies. In the process I realized the Restoration led by the Prophet Joseph Smith was not the only restoration. Throughout history, when decadence was the norm and the people became ripe in iniquity, God called a prophet to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each head of each dispensation did a reset on truth, restoring pure doctrine, priesthood, covenants, ordinances, and organization.            It is interesting to me that our shortest book of scripture, just sixty-one pages, contains such specific detail about how the seven heads of the seven dispensations restored the gospel. As a bonus, there are first-person quotes from Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Joseph Smith. To me this testifies that our Father in Heaven’s great and eternal plan is consistent, enduring, and all-encompassing.  As you...