Yearly Archives: 2026

Before there was a Book of Mormon to place on a shelf, there were handwritten pages to protect, a printer to persuade, and a bill that somebody had to pay. In Palmyra, New York, the bill came to $3,000. Martin Harris put his property behind it. Upstairs in Egbert B. Grandin’s shop, the work began one small piece of metal type at a time. The first edition looks wonderfully unfamiliar to a… Read more

The road stopped at a crack in the sandstone. The families still had to get their wagons down. In the winter of 1879–1880, a company of Latter-day Saint settlers confronted a problem that seems almost impossible to picture from a modern highway: how do you move a wagon train, children, supplies, and livestock through a steep passage above the Colorado River when no usable wagon road exists? Their answer took weeks of… Read more

He Lost His Leg—Then Walked 22 Miles Back to Help Build the Salt Lake Temple John Rowe Moyle had already crossed an ocean, pulled a handcart across the American plains, established a farm on the Utah frontier, and spent years helping raise one of the most ambitious buildings in the American West when an ordinary farm accident threatened to end his working life. A cow kicked him with enough force to cause… Read more

Into the Blizzard: Ephraim Hanks, the LDS Frontiersman Who Rode Into a Frozen Wilderness to Save the Handcart Pioneers The story of Ephraim Knowlton Hanks and the 1856 handcart rescue is one of those episodes in Latter-day Saint history that hardly needs embellishment. Hundreds of men, women, and children were stranded on the plains of what is now Wyoming as an early and devastating winter descended upon them. Food had dwindled to… Read more

Transformed Through Christ and the LDS Gospel: Kyle Merkley’s Journey Through Gender Dysphoria, Marriage, and Faith Kyle Merkley’s story is one of the more remarkable modern Latter-day Saint testimonies about gender, marriage, agency, and the power of Jesus Christ. His story is different from Joshua Johanson’s because Kyle’s central struggle was not same-sex attraction. Kyle describes experiencing severe gender dysphoria, beginning when he was only around ten or eleven years old. He… Read more

Transformed by Christ: How the Church’s Teachings Guided Joshua Johanson Toward Marriage and Family Joshua Johanson’s story is a powerful example of what can happen when someone decides that Jesus Christ and the teachings of His Church will guide his life more than labels, impulses, or expectations from the world. Joshua has spoken openly about experiencing same-sex attraction. He said that before meeting Alyssa, he had never been attracted to women. Then,… Read more