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Attending sessions of April general conference with my wife in 2007, I was reminded in many ways of the goodness of the Church. Joining fellow Saints flowing into the Conference Center on a bright Sunday morning, I was aware that I was part of a body of believers whose collective faith and devotion constitute a vital force in the world. I was reminded of this goodness while watching the October 2007 general conference on television. The music for the Saturday afternoon session was performed by a chorus of young women in their midteens, all wearing a garden of blouses in solid colors. As the camera swept over that array of bright, beautiful faces, I was impressed by what they represented of the three great human quests—Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—whose fusion and harmony, as Wayne Booth argues, constitute God. Their faces, the words spoken during the conference sessions, the music, and the feelings—all of these things engendered in my heart a remembrance of the ways the goodness of the Church has blessed my life over the years.

Cory and I more or less live in the cab of a long-haul semi. We have a house in Indiana, but we don’t make it home very often. It’s not unusual for two months to…

Nothing thrilled me more as a little girl than hearing my parents’ courtship story: my mother, diminutive and dimpled, was eighteen, Australian, and a recent convert to the Church, living with her parents and six…