Max pulled his notepad and pen from his apron pocket and approached the woman sitting alone at a table in the restaurant. The lamp over the table cast a halo over her arms and the laminated menu in her hands. He had seen her here before, but Max was a new enough employee that he hadn’t learned her name. “Hi, I’m Max,” he told her when he reached her. “Do you want to start with a drink? Or are you ready to order?”
In ancient times, in the absence of a temple, the Lord’s prophets might summit a mountain to find a holy place to commune with him. The example that often comes to mind is Moses receiving the commandments upon Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:18–20). Abraham and Isaac climbed a mountain to perform the sacrifice the Lord had directed them to (Genesis 22:2). In the Book of Mormon, we read of two other prophets who conversed with the Lord atop mountains: Nephi when he needed directions how to keep the Lord’s commandment to build a ship (1 Nephi 17:7), and the brother of Jared when he required help with some logistics of his own journey (Ether 3:1). Jesus Himself climbed mountains to pray (for example, in Matthew 14:23).
By Christine Stuart
I was doing my best to keep my anger and frustration contained as my senior companion, Sister Jones, drove us back to our apartment for the night. I reflected on the day’s events now that I had the full picture.
Today we had split up and worked with another set of sister missionaries. Sister Jones and her companion for the day had been talking to people in the downtown area trying to find new people to teach about the gospel. The plan was that we were all supposed to meet up at the library afterward, but when I got there, Sister Jones was nowhere to be seen. I had debated what to do. Should I wait or proceed with the next part of the plan?
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Language is a fascinating concept to me. Both concrete objects and abstract ideas are represented by combinations of sounds we make with our mouths. Very small children begin to learn it before they can learn many other things. A linguistics professor I took a couple classes from in college believed that language is the only thing that sets humans apart from animals—so for him, it was significant.
Of course, the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that there’s much more than the capacity for speech that sets humankind apart.
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A certain man had a full-time job as a custodian in a museum. Every day the museum was open, he could be seen before and after public hours mopping, dusting, or polishing. Typically, he made himself scarce while visitors toured the building, but once in a while he made an appearance to take care of something that couldn’t wait. Even then, he went about largely unnoticed—people glancing his way and then elsewhere at something more worthy of their attention.
The Weekly Parable 