Brightly Beams

I love the word love. Love is such a powerful word. You love your friends, you love your family and you love your dreams. Love has been the inspiration for many great things. Many things have been done in the name of love. That is why I believe love is the most powerful force on earth. Jesus Christ talks about how we need to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves. I feel that when we love ourselves and others, we get a glimpse of heaven. The word “love” is in the bible 310 times, so it seems like it is a pretty important word. Just think what would happen when we follow the following advice: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” One of my favorite songs says the following, “Can't explain all the feelings that you're making me feel, my heart's in overdrive and you're behind the steering wheel.” Love can get us to do some crazy stuff. Another one of my favori...

Growing up in an LDS family was just like growing up in most non-LDS families. Sometimes we got along with our siblings, other times we wanted to kill them. Sometimes we loved our parents, other times we thought they were aliens from a different planet. One thing which made us stand out from the crowd is our weekly three-hour worship at church on Sundays. I always enjoyed going to church, I had a lot of friends there. During my teenage years, I noticed that something about church bugged me, something which now looking back I am so glad it bugged me. Once a month at church we have what is called a “testimony meeting.” For those who don’t know what that is, it is where anyone in the congregation can go up to the podium and share what they believe in. A lot of people use the term “I know this is true.” This line is what bugged me the most. How could anyone know if any of this is true? How could they know if the Book of Mormon is true? How could they know if Joseph Smith was a prop...