6 What in the world

A milestone for the Ensign
The Ensign is the official Church magazine for adult members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The January issue begins the 40th year of publication and has been significantly redesigned and reorganized. You will be interested in checking it out (see, for example, "Your Guide to Using the Ensign," in Ensign, Jan. 2010, 10-13).

The first issue of the Ensign was published in January 1970, replacing the Improvement Era and the Relief Society Magazine. The New Era magazine for youth and the Friend magazine for children were also first published 40 years ago in January 1970.

2010 Church curriculum
A newly redesigned version of the Gospel Principles manual has been published for study during the Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society classes on the second and third Sunday of each month during 2010 and 2011. It replaces the Teachings of Presidents of the Church series that we have been using since 1998. (See the article by Elder Russell M. Nelson, entitled "The New Gospel Principles Manual," in Ensign, Jan. 2010, 29-31, for more information.)

The Gospel Doctrine classes in Sunday School will be studying the Old Testament (as well as the books of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price) during 2010 as a part of the four-year rotation through the scriptures (the Old Testament in 2010, the New Testament in 2011, the Book of Mormon in 2012, and the Doctrine and Covenants and Church history again in 2013).

Bowl games
This past week was a good one for teams from the Mountain West conference. BYU (ranked 14th) beat Oregon State (ranked 18th) 44-20 in the Las Vegas Bowl on Tuesday, December 22. And Utah (ranked 23rd) beat Cal 37-27 in the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego on Wednesday, December 23.

TCU (ranked 4th) will meet Boise State (ranked 6th) in the Fiesta Bowl on Monday, January 4.