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.

Relationship with God the Father

In Moses chapter one (found in a book of scripture held as sacred by Latter-day Saints known as the Pearl of Great Price), God reveals himself to Moses while he is on an exceedingly high mountain. In verse 3 and 4 God establishes his relationship with Moses by saying “Behold I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years…And, behold, thou art my son.”

First- Moses learns that he is a son of God.

Second- In subsequent verses he learns about God’s character. Someone once taught me that if you really want to know God you have to know his character. If you want a relationship with him you will have to come to know him. Moses is taught directly by God some of his most important characteristics: he is endless, knows all things, full of grace, truth, and glory, many works (all-powerful), and he desires to teach us.

Third- He is also taught that, although God is all-powerful Moses can still talk with God and ask Him questions.

Fourth- After the presence of God withdrew from Moses, Moses realizes that man is nothing.

Fifth- Moses learns that the work and glory of God is to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men” (See Moses 1:39). In this last conference President Uchtdorf, in his talk “You Matter to Him”, tied these two seemingly opposite ideas together. He says, “This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God.” What an amazing experience this must have been for Moses-to view the most magnificent creations of God and yet be taught by God that these things were created for men.

What I think he really gets from this experience is captured in the phrase “Thou art after the similitude of mine Only Begotten” (See Moses 1:6). This is what he repeats a couple of times to Satan when he comes temping him. This is what I do as well, during hard times. I repeat scriptures, meaningful phrases, etc. over and over to remind myself of my relationship with God. Otherwise it is so easy to get up in the moment and forget what past experiences with the scriptures have taught me. Although Nephi taught us to liken the scriptures unto ourselves, it is easy to say, “yes but God was talking to MOSES, it can’t apply to me as well.” The important thing to remember is that the scriptures were written for us. While God did not call me to lead the children of Israel out of bondage by having the very water obey me, He is still interested in me achieving immortality and eternal life because I am His daughter.

I do not know exactly how it works, but God knows who I am and is interested in me and my life. He knows me well enough to send my oldest sister to pull me out of a sneaker wave in the ocean when I was two, to help my older brother to notice me drowning when I was 5, to stop my car from going off a cliff in the middle of nowhere Oregon even though I was traveling on Sunday when I should’ve been at church, to prompt Elder Scott to talk about missionary work when I was trying to decide whether or not to go on a mission, to pave my path right into a master’s program, and countless other experiences that I have forgotten about or not even noticed. Although Moses, chapter one, does not say it exactly, I think Moses must’ve felt overwhelmed and unworthy, but he was given the strength by God to move forward. The relationship that Moses has with God can help me to remember that I am a daughter of God and therefore he knows me, loves me, and I am everything to Him.

Additional Resources:

We can have a personal relationship with Heavenly Father. Learn more at the official site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called by friends of other faiths as the “Mormon Church”).

Learn more about our relationship with God.

Request a free copy of the Book of Mormon or Bible.