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Tonight we are once again gathered as brothers and sisters in what has become our traditional Christmas devotional. We have truly been touched as we’ve listened to heavenly music and inspiring messages. What a beautiful depiction of the Savior’s birth we have seen on video.I, with you, have witnessed during the past few days and weeks what has become over the years the annual commercialization of Christmas. I am saddened to see Christmas becoming less and less about Christ and more and more about marketing and sales, parties and presents.And yet, Christmas is what we make of it. Despite all...

I am grateful for this opportunity to celebrate with you the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. His birth was a gift to all of us. John the Apostle, quoting the Savior, wrote of His birth in these stirring words:“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” 1 And then the Savior made clear that true faith leads to...

What a wonderful, joyous time of the year! I always look forward to being here on the first Sunday of December, when we have the opportunity to listen to beautiful music and hear messages that lead into another blessed Christmas season. And again we look forward to hearing from God’s prophet, our dear President Monson. Christmas has always been a special time for me. When I was very young I lived in Czechoslovakia, and the rich, centuries-old traditions of Christmas were everywhere around us. Although many years have passed, I still look back on those days with a fondness and...

More than 100,000 Church members, friends and invited guests are expected to attend the 181st Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions more will watch or listen to conference proceedings via television, radio, satellite and Internet broadcasts. Five sessions of the conference will be held Saturday and Sunday, 1-2 October 2011, in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. ... Information regarding audio and video streams via the Internet can be found at lds.org/general-conference. A detailed broadcast schedule of general conference can be found at bonneville.info. General conference, with the exception of the priesthood...

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...

If we desire to have a proper spirit with us at all times, we must choose to refrain from becoming angry. Brethren, we are assembled as a mighty body of the priesthood, both here in the Conference Center and in locations throughout the world. We have heard inspired messages this evening, and I express my appreciation to those Brethren who have addressed us. I am honored, yet humbled, by the privilege to speak to you, and I pray that the inspiration of the Lord may attend me. Recently as I watched the news on television, I realized that many of...

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...

THE BOOK OF MOSIAH CHAPTER 15 How Christ is both the Father and the Son—He shall make intercession and bear the transgressions of his people—They and all the holy prophets are his seed—He bringeth to pass the resurrection—Little children have eternal life. About 148 B.C. 1 And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. 2 And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father,...

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....

SALT LAKE CITY 26 June 2008 In an effort to reduce misunderstanding among the public and occasional misreporting among the media over the question of polygamy and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Newsroom” today is doing something a little different. The stories and linked materials on this page are designed to help the public — and the news media — draw clear distinctions between the polygamous group associated with the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Once again, as it has done many times, The Church of...

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 -- 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...