“But he that believeth these things which I have spoken, him will I visit with the manifestations of my Spirit, and he shall know and bear record. For because of my Spirit he shall know that these things are true; for it persuadeth men to do good.”

Ether 4:11 (emphasis mine)

As a prophet, President Hinckley led and guided his people. As a leader, he touched our hearts and helped us do good. As a person, he was a humanitarian and someone who loved others. A recent insert to the Daily Universe, Brigham Young University’s student newspaper, highlights many of the major accomplishments of his life.

I am very grateful to have been able to listen to his words, including a few times when I was able to listen to his teachings in person. His words touched my heart and helped me become a better person.

My wife and I both noticed that a lot of time was devoted to polygamy and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but I think that may have been because they are both topics that are not well understood by the general public. I must admit that I only learned about Mountain Meadows a year ago, and I would certainly say that it is a topic that isn’t understood by the general population of the Mormon Church, either.

While I don’t necessarily agree with everything that was presented in the documentary, overall I was extremely impressed. I’m definitely looking forward to part two tonight.

The great part about these ideas is that they’re based on proven principles and common sense. Here are some of the basics

• Start a budget
• Set money aside for emergencies
• Get out of debt
• Save money for the future

These items all start with action words. If you want more information, a professor at BYU has set up a great financial website to help you learn about financial basics. It’s set up like a class, but all of the information is free and very rewarding. Although religion is deeply rooted in these resources, they certainly ring true for people of all faiths.

Readthescriptures.com has many features, but its main purpose is to help you to read the scriptures. You can pick from several predefined reading schedules (e.g. to read the New Testament in 60 days or read the Book of Mormon in 90 days) or you can create your own custom schedule to read from one of the standard works. These reading assignments are then sent to you via email, and you click a link in the email to let the system know that you’ve finished reading. You won’t receive your next reading assignment until you finish your current one, and there are also statistics to help you track your progress to let you know if you’ve slipped a bit in your schedule.

Some other features include teams for added community support from friends or family, as well as a secure personal journal and notes system. The notes are incorporated into the web-based scripture reader so that you can type in thoughts that are specific to a particular verse of scripture.

One thing I like about the website is its flexibility. The designers of the site recognize that not everyone studies the scriptures the same way. If I wanted to, after seeing my daily reading assignment in my email inbox, I can pull out my scriptures and read from there, but I’m still left with the option of reading it in my email client or online with the added note-taking features.

As my sister said, this site is great for people who find themselves with enough time each day to read my email, but not enough time to read the scriptures.

Everyone knows about the importance of networking when looking for a job, but are you aware that it can help you once you already have a job? Did you know that your peers might actually have something worthwhile to say? Social networking helps you communicate some of those things. For me, the best social networking websites are those that can give you benefit even if your friends aren’t already signed up. Del.icio.us is a prime example of that: they are “a collection of favorites: yours and everyone else’s”. Even though I might not know a lot of people that use this site, it’s still very useful to me. I can save my bookmarks and use them from any computer (and I do – I use it all the time from school, at work, and at home). Feel free to read my del.icio.us links.

Websites like this allow for community learning. That’s important! We can’t expect to be able to learn everything by ourselves, or even to be able to find the few needles of useful websites in the haystack that is the Internet. This can apply to spiritual aspects, as well. The ancient American prophet Moroni highlights this in The Book of Mormon (Moroni 6:5), “And the church did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls.”

Although this scripture directly applies to literal church meetings, the Internet has plenty of useful websites that allow this type of conversation. Wikis such as Feast upon the Word and MormonWiki.com allow for some of that conversation. Do you know of any more out there? What sites do you like to visit?