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SALT LAKE CITY — The LDS Church re-emphasized Thursday night that its doctrine on marriage and family is based on respect and love, as 2,000-3,000 people protested for gay rights and recognition in downtown Salt Lake City. "Of course, the church recognizes the right of groups to voice their opinion in the public square. However, those familiar with the church's doctrine on the importance of marriage and family know it is based on principles of respect and love for all of God's children," the church's statement said. "We have continually emphasized that there is no room in this discussion for...

WASHINGTON Federal immigration officials will not be taking custody of Antonia Rivera of Santa Ana and her fellow illegal immigrants arrested on Capitol Hill Tuesday for demonstrating for a bill that would give her and others brought to the United States as children the chance to live here legally. “None of them have been referred to ICE,’’ said Gillian Brigham, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Our focus is on smart immigration enforcement that focuses first on criminal aliens and people who post the greatest threat to the communities.’’ Rivera, 28, a graduate of UC Irvine, was arrested Tuesday along...

WASHINGTON – A UC Irvine graduate arrested Tuesday on Capitol Hill while demonstrating for a bill to help illegal immigrant students knew she could be deported but decided to sacrifice for the cause, fellow activists said. Capitol police arrested Antonia Rivera, 28, of Santa Ana, and 11 other young people for disorderly conduct as they sat in a circle in the middle of the Hart Senate Office Building. Nine more activists were arrested later Tuesday for unlawful entry at the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Antonia Rivera, a UC Irvine graduate, came...

My brothers and sisters, it has been six months since my call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. To now serve with men who have long been my examples and teachers remains a very humbling experience. I deeply appreciate your prayers and sustaining vote. For me, this has been a time of fervent prayer, of earnestly seeking the acceptance of the Lord. I have felt His love in sacred and unforgettable ways. I testify that He lives and that this is His holy work. We love President Thomas S. Monson, the Lord’s prophet. I will forever remember his kindness...

In response to the Prophet Joseph Smith’s inquiry, the Lord instructed: “And no one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love, having faith, hope, and charity, being temperate in all things, whatsoever shall be entrusted to his care.”1 The instruction on being temperate in all things applies to each of us. What is temperance, and why would the Lord want us to be temperate? A narrow definition might be “exercising restraint when it comes to food and drink.” Indeed, this meaning of temperance could be a good prescription for keeping the Word of...

Suppose for a moment someone told you these three facts about a New Testament personality and nothing more: first, the Savior said of this man, “O thou of little faith” (Matthew 14:31); second, this man, in a moment of anger, cut off an ear of the high priest’s servant; and third, this man denied knowing who the Savior was on three occasions, even though he had walked with Him daily. If that is all you knew or focused upon, you might have thought this man a scoundrel or a no-good, but in the process you would have failed to come...

SALT LAKE CITY -- In the first month following Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has provided an estimated $4.25 million in assistance to date, with plans for ongoing relief and recovery support for the ravaged Caribbean nation. Relief efforts have included providing food, relief supplies, shelters for displaced Haitians and medical teams to treat the injured and ailing. Recent fatality estimates are between 170,000 and 230,000, with many times more left homeless and destitute from the magnitude 7.0 quake. To date, the LDS Church has shipped 28 truckloads of relief supplies...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The day started with a drive through Port-au-Prince at 6:30 a.m. in the back of a military transport truck. The air was still cool, the streets still shaded as the sun began to rise. The traffic was light, and many people were already awake, smiling and waving at our convoy. I'm comfortable here, now. I'm used to the smells, sights and people that were so foreign to me two weeks ago. I have seen and done amazing things, and I know why I have come to Haiti. It is deeply personal and sacred, but gratitude fills...

Last week, the Deseret News team that traveled to Haiti to report on the January earthquake returned to Utah. While in Haiti they slept in tents, near a runway crowded with relief planes and in the grass with earthquake survivors. They ate MREs, typed their stories on BlackBerrys and called in on satellite phones the destruction they saw. But these minor hardships paled in comparison to the suffering they witnessed. They watched a Utah widow save the life of a 4-year-old boy who had lost his arm. They marveled as a young Haitian bishop tended over his shell-shocked flock of...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI When Deseret News photographer Jeff Allred and I learned our assignment to cover post-earthquake relief efforts in Haiti would keep us there over a Sunday, we talked with anticipation of attending meetings with one of the local Latter-day Saint wards. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Church member and father of five, Dademis Pierre Genois, poses with his children Mandy, Dorothy, Beverly, Coraly and Glory at the Petion-Ville Ward grounds after church services in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We projected how our coverage might convey the imagery and messages at a meetinghouse providing both temporal and spiritual sanctuary to affected Haitians....

Latter-day Saint help and support in Haiti will be a long-term effort, said Dennis Lifferth, managing director of Church Welfare Services. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News RESponse Doctors and volunteers unload water sent by the Church on Jan. 24 for earthquake victims. Speaking to the Church News two weeks after a Jan. 12 earthquake leveled much of the Caribbean island nation — and more than a week after Church medical teams arrived in the country to offer help — Brother Lifferth said the next steps for Church relief in the devastated country are being developed "at this very moment." "The...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI The earthquake that rocked Haiti on Jan. 12 left in its aftermath an estimated 200,000 dead and more than 1 million homeless in the reeling and already impoverished Caribbean island nation. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Nadine Dely and her children McElliott and Nashnaydine of the Petion-Ville Ward, Port-au-Prince Haiti Stake, stand in the chapel of their meetinghouse after Church services Sunday, Jan. 24. They lost their home in the Jan. 12 earthquake and live on the meetinghouse grounds, but can still smile. In the two weeks since, President Colin Prosner of the Port-au-Prince Haiti Stake and Ghemmald...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Tuesday evening marked the two-week mark since the Jan. 12 earthquake leveled much of Haiti and the capital city of Port-Au-Prince, resulting in an estimated 150,000 deaths to date. Tuesday, Jan. 26, also marked the eight-day mark in Haiti for the LDS Church-sponsored medical team of volunteer doctors and nurses, who provided care for those injured in the quake and others needing daily medical attention, with local clinics and hospitals either jammed with the critically injured or toppled in the disaster. The second and final wave of the volunteers packed Tuesday night to head back home to...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Richard Long has managed on-site emergency-relief efforts after tsunamis in Indonesia, Samoa and Tonga and earthquakes in Peru. He arrived at massive California and Utah wildfires before the ashes cooled. And he knew hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike and Gustav on a first-name basis. As he scrambles to deliver relief in the wake of the most recent major disaster, Long says efforts following the deadly Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti have proved to be the most challenging. "This by far has been the most difficult one," said the field operations manager for Bishops' Storehouse Services of The Church...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Sunday as a day of rest? Hardly so in Haiti. However, reminders of the Sabbath day were visibly apparent throughout the devastated capital city. Men in crisp dress shirts, slacks and ties and women wearing clean dresses or skirts and blouses -- with many also carrying their Bibles tucked under their arms -- walked along the streets Sunday, headed to or from church services. Too bad we couldn't make any ourselves. Petion Ville ward members Nadine Dely and her children, McElliott and Nashnaydine, stand in the chapel after church services in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday. They lost their...

Liz Howell Editor's note: Liz Howell is a member of the LDS Church-sponsored medical team providing care last week in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Before leaving Saturday to return to Salt Lake City, Howell recounted a final experience in aiding the injured Haitians. These are her words, as told to the Deseret News' Scott Taylor. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Friday afternoon, some of our medical team were at the clinic at the Centrale Ward meetinghouse while the rest went to Dr. Jeff Randle's Helping Hands of Haiti clinic. We were to meet at University Hospital at about 5 o'clock. We left Centrale to...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The involvement of LDS Church members and volunteer medical personnel came full circle in the case of the diagnosis and treatment of a Port-Au-Prince man injured in the Jan. 12 earthquake. Haitian church members had brought the man to a makeshift clinic at the Centrale Ward chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. David Sindel, right, a nurse from Provo, works in the emergency room treating earthquake victims at the Sacred Heart Central Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Jan. 21. Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred  There, volunteer doctors and nurses from the church's team of...

Fabiola Beauvil holds her 3-day-old baby Klaira Eliska at the LDS Central Ward Chapel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday. Photo by Jeffrey D. Allred PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- As the death toll from the Jan. 12 Haitian earthquake soars from tens of thousands to possibly several hundred thousand, little glimmers of light and hope still have shone through in Port-au-Prince. Two such stories were told Tuesday morning at the Central chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the church's emergency-response team of volunteer doctors and nurses arrived to start assessing medical needs and treating the injured and...

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- Tuesday at the crack of dawn. That's the anticipated time that the LDS Church's team of volunteer doctors and nurses are expected to finally reach Haiti, and hopefully by late morning reach chapels that will become makeshift clinics and provide critical medical help for those hurting in the wake of last week's devastating earthquake. It has been nearly two full days of on-again-off-again travel for the 18-member team sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and includes 14 volunteer doctors and nurses and two emotional-health specialists, all members of the Mormon...

Houses where they lived have become piles of rubble. People they loved are bleeding and crying for help. For former LDS missionaries who served in Haiti, last week's massive earthquake demolished more than just a place on the map. It crushed a country that, for two years, they called home. "When you serve a mission, you get to know people, and care about them a lot, in a different way than otherwise," said David Cope, who served in Haiti from 1989 to 1991 and visited again in 1995. Cope, a general contractor by trade, is desperately trying to find...