See Doctrine and Covenants 89.

The revelation asked Mormons to avoid tobacco, alcohol, coffee, and tea. (Some Mormons avoid other forms of caffeine but that is not required. The term “hot drinks” in Joseph Smith’s time referred only to those drinks.) They were encouraged to eat a diet of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables in season, to enjoy herbs, and to eat meat sparingly. They were taught to get enough sleep. Those who followed this command would be healthy, have plenty of energy, enjoy wisdom, and be protected from Satan’s powers.

In his day, this might have seemed unusual, but over time, scientists began to be curious about the eating habits of Mormons. In 1925, Franklin S. Harris and Newbern Butts published a scientific study revealing Mormons had fewer incidents of cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia and kidney diseases and were less likely to commit suicide or to kill others.

In 1975, a study out of UCLA showed that Mormons had far fewer heart problems than did other people—one third to one half fewer, in fact. Studies continued to show other health benefits—fewer cases of diabetes, continuing lower rates of cancer, and even a lifespan for highly committed Mormon men that was more than nine years longer than that of the average American male.

Scientists have begun to suspect that the Word of Wisdom might play a contributing role in these showings of good health. If it does, it can become a model for healthy eating, and in fact, many experts already recommend just such a pattern. As we better understand addiction, many are choosing to avoid addictive substances. Many are included more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables in their diet.

Read more about studies on Mormon health.

Another aspect of Mormon life that scientists are beginning to become interested in is the monthly fast. Once a month, Mormons fast completely for twenty-four hours, avoiding all food and drink. The money they save by doing so is donated to the church to care for the poor in the congregation. This is done, of course, for spiritual benefit, allowing Mormons to become closer to God through the fasting process, as taught in the Bible. Jesus fasted prior to starting His mission. In addition, it allows Mormons the privilege of taking care of others. By experiencing hunger for a day, we can better understand the hunger faced by others on a regular basis and have the means to help resolve it without having to spend more money to do so.

However, Mormons believe all things are spiritual and so it turns out there may be a physical benefit as well. Some scientists believe it allows the body to reset itself and Mormons who fast have a forty percent lower risk of Coronary Artery Disease. The study factored in other Mormon health practices to isolate the actual benefit of fasting.

Mormons believe their bodies are a gift from God and that we must take care of them for this reason. They are essential to our growth and development on earth and were made in the image of God. Mormons try to show respect for their bodies by living a healthier lifestyle and also living a moral lifestyle. They practice the law of chastity—no sex outside of marriage. This helps to prevent a wide range of health problems, from sexually transmitted diseases to teen pregnancy.

They also try to make their primary identity be that of a child of God. By remembering who they are and that God loves them, they reduce their mental health risks. By trying to live a life of service to others, they increase their self-esteem and focus outwardly more often. All of this serves to lower stress when done with the proper attitude and eternal perspective.

While no lifestyle can prevent all health problems, Mormons are well on their way to a healthy life—and do so following a diet prescribed by God Himself.

The average American spends about 48 hours a year volunteering for charity. That’s a lot, but Mormons volunteer for 427.9 hours per year. Much of that is spent teaching or leading or working in church positions that largely benefit other church members, but 151.9 hours are spent volunteering in church programs that are not religious in nature. They volunteer in the Boy Scouts of America or participate in non-sectarian humanitarian work or welfare programs.

Programs carried out within the Church are often open to people who are not Mormon and benefit the community as a whole. For instance, the literacy program, run by the Mormon women, certainly benefits the entire community, as does the employment program. When anyone in a community gets a better job, learns to read or to speak the native language, or improves his parenting skills, everyone in the entire community benefits and future generations are blessed. Mormon welfare programs, carried out largely for Latter-day Saints (Mormons), mean that Mormons are not taking money from the government or community charities, leaving those resources for those who cannot get them elsewhere. The Humanitarian Aid program provides initiatives that serve people regardless of faith. Donations to that fund are used exclusively to provide the actual care, with the administrative costs paid for through other church funds. The totals of moneys spent listed on the LDS website do not represent the full cost of services given, since it does not include those administrative costs, nor does it include the many other programs operated by the Church.

Mormons also donate 1,821 dollars a year to non-LDS charities and causes. These donations are in addition to their tithing. 88.8 percent of Mormons who are active in the Church pay a full ten percent tithe, as taught in the Bible.

One unique humanitarian program carried out by Mormons is the Fast Offering. One Sunday a month, Mormons go without food or drink for twenty-four hours—skipping two meals—and then donate the money saved to assist people in their congregation who are in need of food or shelter. This is an important aspect of the commandment to take care of our own. Mormons believe we should take care of those in our circles whenever possible. By going hungry for 24 hours, Mormons are able to prevent long-term hunger among their friends. This also helps them to gain a small understanding of what it means to be hungry in a world that seems to have plenty. Their temporary and voluntary hunger each month increases their compassion for those in need.

Mormon charitable giving of time and money is rooted in a commandment to become more like the Savior. Again and again, the Bible tells of the Savior’s concern for those who had the greatest need  He commanded His followers to be like Him and to love their neighbors as themselves. This motivates Mormons to serve others, both in and out of the church, with their time and their money.

Although it might seem the Mormons (a nickname sometimes used for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) have so many rules they would all be just alike, in reality there is great diversity within the church. The church is a lot like a sonnet. A sonnet has many rules, but there are millions of sonnets, all different, written within that strict format. Mormons can choose from many different varieties of life within the framework God has created for them. They belong to a variety of races, have many different nationalities, belong to different political parties, and work in a wide range of secular careers within their own communities.

It is likely you know many Mormons and don’t realize it. They don’t dress differently than anyone else, except that they dress modestly while remaining fashionable if they choose to be fashionable. They live in ordinary homes in whatever community they choose and have ordinary jobs. However, if you don’t know any Mormons, or aren’t aware that you do, there is a place you can visit to peek into the lives of everyday Mormons.

Mormon.org is a website created to help people who are not Mormon learn more about the religion. On this site are profiles of many ordinary, everyday Mormons. Mormons can volunteer to post these profiles. They are asked questions about their lives and their beliefs. It is not required and the people in these profiles are not chosen by the church. (The people featured in the video profiles have been selected for their interesting stories, but the written profiles were done because a Mormon decided to share his or her story.)

Meet Mormons allows you to filter to find people a lot like you. You can select by age, gender, ethnicity, and previous religion. Then just start reading. Choosing at random, I found these stories.

Becky is a single parent of nine children who works as a customer service representative. At church, she teaches adult Sunday School.

Isaiah Gray is very athletic, but has chosen to put sports on hold to serve a two-year volunteer mission for the church. He will be sharing his faith in the Dominican Republic.

Jen is Korean-American and is in graduate school, obtaining a dual MD-PhD degree. She plans to be a physician-scientist.

Elizabeth, another grad student, became Mormon two years ago. Before that, she was actually very anti-Mormon. Just below her profile, she explains why she once thought Mormonism was a cult—and why she doesn’t now.

Here is a video of another (somewhat) ordinary Mormon:

Mormons are taught that their talents are a gift from God and that they therefore have a responsibility to develop them and to use them for good. This motivates many Mormons to work hard at their skills and then to find ways to turn them into a career, a hobby, or a way to serve.

Following is a sampling of Mormons whose talents have led them to a life of fame:

The Osmond family began singing as children. It was one way they chose to earn money to buy hearing aids for the two oldest boys and to help fund volunteer missions when the children grew up. Eventually the talented family, which included nine children, became famous world-wide for their music and their high moral standards. Several of them today include gospel information on their websites and many converts first learned of the religion through their interest in the family. The Osmonds even produced an album outlining core principles of their faith.

Gladys Knight attracted considerable attention when she became a Mormon after learning about the church from her children, who had converted. Today she uses her talent to run a prestigious Grammy-winning choir of volunteers who share the faith of the Mormons in special concerts held in church meetings. There is no cost for these fireside concerts, but visitors are invited to fill out a form requesting more information about the Mormons.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is a historian who received the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1991. She has authored many prestigious and extensive books, with a particular focus on the histories of ordinary women.

Henry Eyring was a chemist who was a nominee for the Nobel Prize and a winner of the National Medal of Science. His son, Henry B. Eyring, is a member of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the highest governing body of the church).

Orson Scott Card, Stephanie Meyer, Allie Condie, Lisa Mangum, and Jessica Day George have produced novels that appeal to people of all faiths. Mormons are especially known for their work in fantasy and science fiction.

Of course, Mormon athletes have attracted a great deal of attention. Jabari Parker is drawing attention as the best high school baseball player in the country, and is capturing the curiosity of the press because he says baseball is what he does, but not who he is. Who is he? A Mormon, and comfortable talking about it to the world. Steve Young and Danny Ainge graduated from Mormon-owned Brigham Young University.

Some Mormons have set their sights on politics. Mitt Romney is conducting his second run for the United States presidency and became the first Mormon to win the party nomination. Ezra Taft Benson served as the Secretary of Agriculture under Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jon Huntsman served as an ambassador to China under Barack Obama.

In nearly every worthy field, Mormons can be found serving, some in the spotlight and others quietly doing whatever they do best and known only to those who personally know and love them.

One fairly unique factor of the program is that all money donated to the program is used directly to provide aid. Administrative costs come from other sources, so anyone who donates to the fund knows his money will be helping to make the life of a person in need better. Since the church began keeping records of donations in 1985, it has spent more than 1 billion dollars on humanitarian aid to 167 countries.

Some aid is used to assist during national disasters, such as floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Others work to alleviate long-term problems. Long after the media has moved on to the next big story, Mormons are still quietly at work, helping with the long-term needs of the area. Many disasters, for instance, receive extensive attention, donations, and volunteers for only a few months before a new disaster becomes the popular project, but the problems often require many years to solve, and the Mormons stay behind when many others are gone, working on those issues.

Many of the initiatives are carried out through other organizations, making use of their extensive knowledge and resources about a given area. This makes more efficient use of the funds and of the time of the volunteers involved.

The church has a number of ongoing initiatives that assist people with ongoing needs. One such program is wheelchair distribution, a program that began in 2003. These chairs are distributed through other charities. In 2006 alone, the church donated 54,840 chairs to people in 54 countries. The program increases a person’s ability to become self-sufficient, a foundational goal of the Mormon humanitarian aid program.

Mormon humanitarian efforts often revolve around training local people to serve their community. In this way, the church can move on to help a new group of people while the local people care for their own. Not only does this provide job skills, but it allows the church to help a wider range of people. The vision treatment program is one such program. The church organizes volunteer ophthalmologists to go into areas in need and teach local medical care providers how to treat many common vision problems. This program has helped more than 20,000 people since 2003.

Another training program is the neonatal resuscitation training program. Local birth attendants are trained by volunteer doctors and nurses in the skills need to resuscitate a child who seems to be dead. In 2009, the Mormons held training in 31 countries. Many children’s lives have been saved as a result of this training.

The clean water initiative is carried out in a way that differs greatly from many other clean water programs. Many organizations come into an area, build a well, and leave. When the well breaks, the people return to their dirty water and wait for someone to come in and fix it since it is not their well and they don’t know how to care for it. Mormons operate differently. They ask the local people to form a commission to be in charge of the water system. Local people help to build the water system, which also trains them in how to do this. They are then taught how to repair anything that breaks and, if needed, how to come up with the money to do so. When the church leaves, the local people own the well, not the church. They run it, fix it, and care for it. They are no longer dependent on foreigners for their well-being, but instead, are self-sufficient. The wells frequently provide employment for local people, as well as increased sense of pride in caring for themselves.

Programs such as those described above are carried out because Mormons have a spiritual mandate to follow in the Savior’s footsteps. This means to serve others, care for the needy, and to help people become self-sufficient wherever possible.

Learn more about the Mormon humanitarian program.

Sunday services are three hours long. The main worship service, called Sacrament Meeting, is just over one hour. Since the Mormons have a lay church, they do not have a paid minister. Instead, a bishop, similar to a lay pastor, is chosen from among the men in the congregation. He generally has secular employment and a family, so his church work is completed in the evenings and on weekends. This means the work that might normally be done by a full-time paid employee must be divided among many people, including the teenagers.

The bishop does not give the sermon each week. He and two counselors take turns conducting the service, but the prayers and sermons (called talks) are given by ordinary church members. Most Mormons speak about once a year and each service includes two or three speakers. Teenagers can begin giving talks at age twelve. By this time, they have had considerable experience, since they have been giving 2 ½ minute talks in the children’s Primary since age three. As teens, they speak in the regular adult service for about five minutes. When they are adults, they will speak for ten to twenty minutes, depending on the number of speakers.

The sacrament, similar to communion, is prepared, blessed (prayed over) and handed out to the membership by teenage boys who hold the priesthood if there are enough of them. If there are not, adults assist. Teen boys can receive the priesthood at age twelve, which is different from being a priest in other churches. It gives them the opportunity to serve God in increasingly more responsible positions, but priesthood is strictly a service opportunity. They cannot use their priesthood to bless themselves, only others. Having this opportunity means they are expected to be more mature and responsible than most teenagers, not just at church, but always.

Mormon teens attend two classes each Sunday with their own peers. Sunday School is for both boys and girls, and, when there are enough teens, they divide into several classes based on age. Boys also attend a priesthood class and girls attend a comparable class called Young Women’s. In this class they learn how to put their religious knowledge into their real lives.

During the week, teens meet one evening a week, with the boys participating in Scouting or their Young Men’s program, and the girls participating in a church-created Young Women’s programs. They have combined meetings once a month. During this time, the boys work to earn their Scouting badges while the girls work on the requirements for a unique Personal Progress program. Both programs give them opportunities for hands-on application of gospel principles and teach them to set and meet intense goals. Both programs require extensive community service.

The Mormon youth lead their own programs with shadow leadership from the adult leaders. This means the adults mentor and guide, but do not take over. For instance, when the youth are planning an activity, the adults might ask questions that cause the teens to think about whether or not the activity will meet a goal, improve lives, and honor church standards, but they won’t tell them whether or not it will. Eventually, the teens learn to carry out their programs with less guidance. In the meantime, they are trained in leadership skills and learn to work with adults and peers both. They learn to plan, carry out, conduct, and evaluate activities and meetings, learn to lead music, speak in public, and serve others. The youth leaders, who are chosen by adults and who are rotated often, learn to put the needs of their organization before their own and to pay attention to which teens might be lonely, who has special needs, and how they can create activities that are both meaningful and fun.

Each school day, Mormon youth attend a religion class in which they study the scriptures in-depth for four years. They study the Bible for two of these years, the Book of Mormon for one, and the Doctrine and Covenants for one. The study is in-depth and, while spiritual, is also more academic than Sunday School.

These programs help to explain why Mormon youth were found in a non-Mormon study of religious teens to be better able to discuss their religious beliefs than other religious teens and also to have a greater personal commitment to their faith than other teens. They are designed not just get teens to show up in order to be entertained, but to teach them to be responsible, participating members of their faith.

When people are considering becoming Mormons or when they have questions, they are taught to study the issues before deciding. While they will, of course, pray for guidance as they study, they will study before praying for final wisdom. This study can take many forms, but include a study of the scriptures and teachings of the prophets. Having studied, they then make a decision and take that decision to God to know whether or not they are correct. God gives us this process in order to help us learn more about the gospel and to be an active participant in the building of our testimonies.

Mormons are supporters of secular knowledge as well. They teach that all things are spiritual to God. They can use their spiritual learning to help them view their secular learning accurately and secular learning can shed light on spiritual knowledge as well.

The church operates a number of educational systems for its members. They operate three highly respected universities and one business school. Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah, is perhaps the best known and has prestigious programs in a number of fields, including animation, engineering, law, and business. BYU-Hawaii was described by a 2006 U.S. News and World Report survey as the most internationally diverse college in the United States. BYU-Idaho began as a two-year college, but is now a full university.

In addition to formal schools, the church also operates Institutes of Religion for college students. These are held on or near campuses and offer classes in religion, scripture, and preparation for a spirit-driven adult life. The religion classes are taught at a college level and are more in-depth and scholarly (while still very spiritual) than are Sunday School classes.

High school students have a similar program called Seminary. Classes are offered during the school year either as a release-time program or before public school classes. Home study is available for students who do not have a program available to them. During the four years of high school, they study one book of scripture each year for the full year. Two years are devoted to the Bible, one to the Book of Mormon, and one to the Doctrine and Covenants. These classes are, naturally, more in-depth than their Sunday School class and are taught at a high school level.

Mormons, both men and women, are encouraged to get as much education as they can in order to better care for their families and to improve their knowledge. They are also encouraged to create an education-rich home for their children. In addition to formal education, Mormons are taught the importance of continuing their educations throughout their lives by reading, attending informal classes, and talking with mentors. The auxiliaries often offer classes and workshops that increase learning in an informal, non-threatening way.

The Relief Society, an auxiliary for women, runs a literacy program world-wide. Both members and non-members are invited to learn how to read or to develop other types of literacy and the programs offered depend on the needs of the congregation. They might include adult reading, literature, foreign languages, learning a nation’s native language, computer skills or writing a personal or family history.

“Remember, you are interested in education, not just for mortal life but for eternal life. When you see that reality clearly, you will put spiritual learning first and yet not slight the secular learning. In fact, you will work harder at your secular learning than you would without that spiritual vision.” (Real-Life Education, President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, From “Education for Real Life,” Ensign, Oct. 2002, 14.