Ensign

December 1986

Volume 16 Number 12

Contents

• Special Features

• First Presidency Message: “The Field Is White Already to Harvest”
  President Gordon B. Hinckley

• Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin: Finding Happiness Serving the Lord
  Don L. Searle

• The Divine Law of Tithing
  Bishop Robert D. Hales

• Tithing Came First
  Osborne N. Smith

• The New Testament—A Matchless Portrait of the Savior
  Elder Neal A. Maxwell

• Joseph Smith and the New Testament
  Robert L. Millet

• The Land of Jesus, Part 1
  David H. Garner

• “On the Morrow Come I into the World”—The Book of Mormon Christmas Story

• Two Dimes and a Nickel
  Richard A. Robb

• We Can Walk It Out
  Sandra F. Jones

• The Day of the New Edition
  Joy L. Young

• Regular Features

• Poetry: Dressed in White
  Roger Bushman

• Sharing
  The Things That Really Matter
  A Time of Enrichment
  Sharing the Season
  Year-Round Christmas Spirit

• Mormon Journal
  A Picture-Perfect Christmas M. C. O’Bryant
  To Give and Give Again Rebecca Strand Russon
  The Horse That Saved Christmas Jane Brooking Flint
  Merry Thanks and Happy Respect Kelly Strong Thacker

• Random Sampler
  A Stockingful of History
  The Gift of Tradition
  Our Christmas Tree Symbols

• Handbook for Families: Talking with Your Children about Moral Purity

• I Have a Question
  Displaying the gold plates Monte S. Nyman
  The weight of gold plates Roy W. Doxey

• News of the Church

On the cover: Photography by Michael M. McConkie.

Inside front cover: The First Presidency, photography by Don Busath

The First Presidency: (left to right) President Gordon B. Hinckley, First Counselor; President Ezra Taft Benson; President Thomas S. Monson, Second Counselor.

Inside back cover: The Nativity, by Robert Barrett, 24″ by 36″, oil on canvas, 1986.