Latest from Mormon Land: Mic drops from top LDS women’s leaders

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Women at the pulpit

The church’s top female leaders took center stage in recent days at a string of gatherings.

• On Sunday, President Camille Johnson, global head of the women’s Relief Society, preached a green gospel in calling on Latter-day Saints to be “righteous stewards” over “God’s creations.”

“I know this is a topic about which your generation cares deeply,” Johnson told a worldwide devotional of young adults streamed from the historic Salt Lake Tabernacle.

Noting that her pioneering great-grandfathers worked on the oval-shaped building, she then pointed to three R’s of environmentalism.

“Building materials were at a premium in the Utah Territory,” Johnson said. “‘Repurpose,’ ‘reuse’ and ‘recycle’ were their buzzwords long before they became part of our vernacular.”

• Days earlier, high-level female church leaders spoke at Brigham Young University’s Women’s Conference.

There, J. Anette Dennis, Johnson’s first counselor in the Relief Society presidency, urged her listeners to follow Christ and bravely embrace the future.

“As you choose to abide in the Savior, he will abide in you, and you need never walk alone, no matter where you go or what you do in this life,” Dennis said. “You do not need to fear the future, even marriage and parenthood, because the Savior will be with you.”

President Susan Porter, worldwide leader of the children’s Primary, meanwhile, touched on the power of humility.

“Humility touches hearts. Humility changes hearts. Humility opens our hearts to receive the Spirit of God. Being humble fills us with the desire to leave behind old habits and choose to walk with the Savior,” Porter taught. “Our hearts open to receive his strength and his power to persevere and stay with him through our hard battles of life.”

Apostle Quentin Cook closed the conference with words of praise for “incredible” Latter-day Saint women.

“Our women are not incredible because they have managed to avoid the difficulties of life — quite the opposite,” Cook said. “They are incredible because of the way they face the trials of life and their commitment not only to have faith in Jesus Christ but also to walk with him.”

• Finally, Tracy Browning, second counselor in the global Primary presidency, represented the church at the White House observance of the National Day of Prayer last Thursday.

The latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: ‘Just a mom’?

Latter-day Saint women who forestall their education and careers to raise kids at home too often find themselves struggling financially when they return — either by choice or necessity — to the workforce. Experts explain why this happens and how to prepare for such a scenario.

Listen to the podcast.

Bonus show • In the premiere episode of our “Mormons in Media” and “Mormon Land” partnership, Latter-day Saint Rebbie Brassfield, a Tribune guest columnist, and nonmember Nicole Weaver, a “Mormon Land” co-producer, do some Celestial thinking through the eyes of Heather Gay of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.”

Living water

Tears of joy flowed in a tiny Navajo (Diné) community in southwestern Utah recently as water streamed into their homes for the first time.

Thanks to a partnership that included the church, the state and the Navajo Nation, Westwater residents now have access to clean, dependable running water without having to haul jugs from distant filling stations.

“I got emotional,” Westwater leader Thomas Chee said in a news release, “just turning on my own faucet.”

Added general authority Seventy Michael Dunn, “The church is so proud to be involved in so many humanitarian efforts worldwide, be that in Westwater or the West Indies, and whether it’s 29 homes or 29,000 homes.”

From The Tribune

• Tribune guest columnist Eli McCann revisits the surreal day he resigned his church membership. “I had no idea what this letter was supposed to say,” he writes, so “this poor bishop began Googling anti-Mormon websites for instructions.”

• An 18-year-old missionary from Magna was killed in North Carolina when a car veered onto a sidewalk and struck him.

• The church is growing in Spain at a rate not seen in nearly two decades — but not because of native Spaniards.

• In the second part of our exclusive interview, anti-fed fugitive Ammon Bundy, who says he is back in good standing with the church, has a warning for the MAGA faithful about President Donald Trump.

• Do tall temple steeples really matter? Tribune columnist Gordon Monson wonders.

• Mormon Women for Ethical Government and its allies are needling lawmakers about Trump-era cuts by, yes, quilting.