Ensign

October 2007

Volume 37, Number 10

Do You Have a Story to Tell?

The Ensign invites you to share lessons you learned from your father and other father figures in your life. How have these experiences influenced you? Please label your submission “Fathers” and send it by November 16.

We also welcome other submissions. See our links Do You Have a Story to Tell? and Ensign Magazine Writers’ Guidelines at http://www.ensign.lds.org.

Send submissions to [e-mail] or Ensign Editorial, 50 E. North Temple St. Rm. 2420, Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3220, USA. Include your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, ward (or branch), and stake (or district). Because of the volume of submissions, we cannot acknowledge receipt. Authors whose work is selected for publication will be notified. If you would like your manuscript, photos, art, or other material returned, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The Ensign can be found on the Internet at http://www.ensign.lds.org

Using This Issue

Preparing for the temple. Several articles in this issue focus on the blessings of the temple (see pp. 18, 23, 26, and 64). Consider recording your feelings as you have prepared for your own temple experiences.

Continuing conference. After reading “Learning from Conference” (p. 30), consider how some of these approaches could affect your family home evenings and personal study. What other ways might you effectively bring the spirit of general conference into your life?

Visiting the sites. You might not have known about the Tomlinson Inn in Palmyra, New York (p. 56), and perhaps you’d like to learn about other places of historical significance. To get more information and to find Church history sites near you, visit www.lds.org. Select About the Church and then Places to Visit.

Coming in November

Addresses from the 177th Semiannual General Conference

Contents

• Messages

  • 4

    First Presidency Message: They Marked the Path to Follow

    President Thomas S. Monson

    We can look to spiritual pioneers for examples of righteous, obedient living.

  • 51

    Visiting Teaching Message: Preparing for the Second Coming of Our Lord

• Feature Articles

  • 10

    My Unexpected Route

    Becky Thomas

    How the scriptures have helped me navigate life’s unexpected paths.

  • 12

    For the Strength of You

    A conversation with the Young Women general presidency.

  • 18

    Come to the Temple

    President Boyd K. Packer

    How do temples make the Church unique?

  • 23

    Worthy to Enter

    Elder Daryl H. Garn

    We must do all we can to keep our minds and our bodies—our personal “temples of God”—clean and pure.

  • 26

    Our Long Road to the Temple—Together

    Name Withheld

    After I joined the Church, I wasn’t exactly prepared for the challenges ahead—or for the fact that I’d encounter them at home.

  • 29

    Standing before Carl Bloch’s Painting Christ Healing the Sick at the Pool of Bethesda

    Sharon Price Anderson

    A poet’s experience with the famous work of art.

  • 30

    Learning from Conference

    Do you want to make the messages and spirit of general conference a regular part of your life? Members tell how they do it.

  • 34

    Literacy Improves Lives

    Discover how the lives of a young girl from Mexico and a man from Africa were changed when they learned how to read.

  • 37

    Holiday Tips for Military Families

    Ideas for how to celebrate the holidays together in spite of separation.

  • 38

    M. Teichert: Artist of Dramatic Vision

    Enjoy a glimpse of some of the large-scale narrative murals by Minerva Teichert on exhibit at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art through May 26, 2008.

  • 42

    Helping Those Who Struggle with Same-Gender Attraction

    Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

    The Church is made stronger as we include every member and strengthen one another in service and love.

  • 52

    Questions and Answers

    I recently married, and I don’t relate to my in-laws very well. How can I develop better relationships with them?

  • 56

    Living in a Chapter of History

    Marjorie H. Rice

    Church history fills the atmosphere of the Tomlinson Inn in Palmyra, New York.

  • 62

    The Football Game That Changed My Life

    Alexander M. Solorzano

    Throughout the game, there was no cursing or fighting, no angry exchange. Who were these people?

  • 64

    Turning Hearts in a Land of Temples

    Adam C. Olson

    Taiwan is a land of many different temples, a land where honoring one’s ancestors is part of a long, rich history.

• Departments

  • Lessons from the New Testament

    46

    “I Will Not Leave You Comfortless”

    Elder Cecil O. Samuelson Jr.

    Elder Samuelson reviews nine ways we can more surely qualify to receive spiritual comfort.

  • 70

    Latter-day Saint Voices

    Serving our families and our neighbors brings blessings to the giver and to the receiver.

  • 74

    Random Sampler

    Ideas on sharing the gospel, using food storage, and influencing young children.

  • 76

    News of the Church

• President James E. Faust, Beloved Shepherd

  July 31, 1920–August 10, 2007

On the cover: Front: Photograph by Laureni Fochetto, posed by models. Back (photographs clockwise from left): Seoul Korea Temple by Floyd Holdman, Copenhagen Denmark Temple and angel Moroni by Craig Dimond, Accra Ghana Temple by Norman Childs, Washington D.C. Temple by Christina Smith.

Inside front cover: The House of the World, by Minerva Teichert. Courtesy of Brigham Young University Museum of Art, all rights reserved, may not be copied

Inside back cover: Jordan River Temple, 1995, by Larry Winborg. May not be copied. The following words from the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836 can apply to all of the Lord’s temples. The Prophet Joseph Smith asked the Lord “that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord’s house may feel thy power, and feel constrained to acknowledge that thou hast sanctified it, and that it is thy house, a place of thy holiness” (D&C 109:13).