Welfare is an important part of what we do at church. Until I served in ward leadership callings and watched my husband serve in them, I had no idea just how important it is. As Relief Society president I had expected to spend time thinking and praying about how to bring women to Christ (and I did do that!). But I found that I spent even more time figuring out how best to help families who didn’t have enough food, couldn’t pay rent or were suffering from serious mental or phy

We come to the final narratives of Paul’s trials and journeys in this reading, and, much as I like to live in the past and be immersed in the experiences of biblical missionaries, these old place names and stories of hardships have been launching me forward in my mind to the present day, to those thousands upon thousands of people whose road from Damascus, Syria fills our hearts and sympathies.

These heavy chapters begin with God’s words of comfort to His covenant people. We are given to see the end from the beginning—all the crooked byways of the earth will be made passable and humanity will participate in one great theophany. All flesh will see the glory of the One Lord together!