Unlimited LDS Audiobooks and Ebooks - All on YOUR Smartphone!

What does a 30 day FREE membership get you? 

1,500 free ebooks

500 audiobooks

All on your smartphone!

Deseret Book has launched it's new ebook and audiobook service called Bookshelf Plus. And for a monthly fee of $9.99, or an annual membership of $99/yr, you get access to thousands of books. 

I am a book fanatic. (I don't just write books, I avidly ready them too.) I listen to or read a new book almost every 3 days. But it can be very hard to find LDS ebooks at a reasonable price! Drives me crazy! So it is a great gift that I can FINALLY access the Deseret Book catalog, and listen to them on my phone. 

Fun fact- The subscription/membership (service) is called Bookshelf Plus - that's the membership/subscription service that allows you to read or listen to UNLIMITED ebooks and audiobooks.
The actual app you download (from the Google Play store or the Apple iTunes store) to your phone is called the Deseret Bookshelf. You can use Bookshelf without a Plus membership. You will just be limited to a small amount of free materials. You can still use the app to buy ebooks/audiobooks at regular price.

To clarify- pay for a membership with Plus, and you get access to THOUSANDS of free books. Without a membership, pay regular price to buy ebooks. 

Bonus- when I downloaded the Bookshelf, it wasn't some crazy huge app that killed the memory on my iPhone 6. (With over 1,000 pictures on my phone, mostly of my adorable baby nephew Charlie, free space on my phone is a thing of the past. And don't even dare suggest I remove some of the pictures!) 

When you download the app, it comes with links/icons for official Church materials (Gospel Doctrine lesson book, Teachings of the Prophets, etc) right on the front. It even has links to the most recent General Conference talks right there the minute you download the app. That's links to both the audio and e-book version, which is really convenient. There are even links to classic church talks, and to free literary classics (I immediately downloaded Les Mis and Large Catechism (by Martin Luther)). 

You can see from my phone screenshots below how easy it is to download a book. You see it in the "discover" tab, click on it, then click download and open, and voila, it downloads. That fast and easy. And because you have your annual membership, you don't have to pay for it!

Don't forget the 30 day free trial membership if you aren't sure you want to commit yet! But you will want to commit, trust me. It's great!

Let's say you wanted to buy my first published book, "Beyond Perfection." If you check it out on Amazon, the Kindle version is $14.99 (of which yours truly gets something like 50 cents if you buy it.) (Seriously, moms, don't let your babies grow up to be authors.) 

On Deseret Book, you only have to pay $9.99.  But if you have a Bookshelf Plus membership and the Deseret Bookshelf app, YOU GET IT FOR FREE!

If you are a regular consumer of Mormon books, LDS Church materials, clean e-books, and uplifting audiobooks, you are going to love this new offering from Deseret Book. 

RECAP-

DESERET BOOK BOOKSHELF PLUS MEMBERSHIP

30 DAY FREE TRIAL!!

THOUSANDS of free e-books! THOUSANDS!!

Tons of audiobooks that you can't get anywhere else!

After your 30 day free trial, it's either $9.99/mo, OR $99/yr. 

And you can get it all on your smartphone. 

Affiliate Blogger Disclaimer- I did not get paid to write this post. I am a beta user and blogger of the product. If you use my links to purchase the Deseret Book Bookshelf Plus membership, I receive a commission. But it no way, shape, or form, effects the cost of your membership or purchases for me to receive the commission. 

Mormon dot org

If you are reading this through an RSS feed, and not on the actual blog, you are missing out on seeing the awesome ad to the right! It's my dear friend, Tim Gates of Due West, in a Mormon.org spot. I've seen the video featuring Tim and it's just wonderful. I highly encourage you to watch it. Learn more about what makes Tim (and his family, and his Due West family) so incredibly awesome. Makes me humbled and happy to call him my friend. 

Faith, Patience, and Love Come at a Price

There have been a few things going on in my life lately that I am not at liberty to really discuss or reveal. They have been of an interpersonal relationship, miscommunications, accusations, and short temper nature. And it has really started to take its toll on me.
I feel like I spend much of my time walking on eggshells around certain people. I have to be on constant guard regarding what I say or do. And I have to be hyper-vigilant that I don't do anything that someone could take out of context to use against me.
It has been an uncomfortable and unhappy period in my life. Just to add salt to the wound, it is happening during what I had expected to be a fairly happy and enjoyable period. I never could have seen this coming or have been prepared for it. It's just one of those unexpected life twists that come and rock your entire world, possibly changing your course forever.
I wish I could explain more or give details. But I have no doubt that the person it involves would find the details and somehow use it against me, even if I only spoke straight facts with no emotion or bias.
I have had to work harder than I ever have before in my life to control my emotions and not react to a situation. It breaks my heart that we are all having to go through this. It all seems so unnecessary. I have learned I have levels of patience I never before imagined I had. And I have had to rely on faith in a way I never have needed to before.
I was struck this week with a new thought. In 2 Nephi 2:11 it reads, "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things..." This current period in my life I had expected to be easy and full of love for everyone involved. But now we are all forced to think twice, learn, and rely on faith. If it had been easy for all of us, we would not have grown from the experience. But with this unexpected force of opposition, we must find our own strength and will grow to be better people as we struggle to get through it.
I am trying to take this thought and be grateful for the difficulty, and rely on my faith and knowledge of the scriptures to get me through. I believe it has helped me immensely to find the patience and love I need to get through this, to know that there must needs be opposition in all things.
If all things have a reason or purpose for happening, and there must be opposition in all things, then I can endure this experience and be better for it in the end.
Love, faith, and patience don't come easy. They often come at a price and take a toll on a person. But that doesn't mean they aren't worth it in the end. 

Men Are That They Might Have Joy?

It's time to pull out the same picture I use over and over again when my heart is in emotional turmoil. 

My stormy seas picture gets used every time I'm faced with complications, confusion, and heartbreak. 

The picture of the skydiver - 

- is what I use when I've made a decision, and I'm jumping into the unknown. 

But the stormy seas picture is for when I don't know what to do, or when I'm not ready to accept my options. And today it's all about the stormy seas. 

This scripture has been on my mind a lot lately. 

 2 Nephi 2:25, 27 

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

"Men are that they might have joy." 

I struggle with this. I wish that I didn't. I hate that I struggle with it. I envy people who believe that everything around them is always good. I get annoyed by people who use this scripture to justify narcissistic or selfish behavior and choices. 

Over the past several years, particularly through my long stints and trials of unemployment, it has been very hard to believe that I am that I "might have joy." It all too often feels like my entire life is designed to be a punishment or to really define where my breaking point is. 

Today was another roller coaster of emotions for me. Things I firmly believed and accepted to be true, and that I am supposed to have joy, were nearly impossible to accept at the end of the day. In one moment I could believe that answers to prayers were found, and I was about to say goodbye to some of my biggest struggles. And then in the next moment, in just the course of a simple conversation with a friend, I learned nearly be accident, that I was completely wrong about my answers. 

In a few more weeks I will have to accept that someone else's selfish actions will profoundly change my life. (To be more honest, I've already accepted that those actions will have a negative impact on me. But in a few weeks, I will have to make the necessary changes to my life as a result of those actions.) Accepting that I have to take an option that I don't want, I don't like, and will make me profoundly unhappy, is what makes it so hard to accept "men are that they might have joy."

I know we each struggle with our own issues of faith. But this one is mine. I struggle to believe and accept that we are supposed to have joy, when my life has turned out so very far off from what I wanted. I have found joy in the life that I have. But I have had more "trials" than happiness in the last 7 years. Where is the joy? Where is the end of the struggles? Where is the path that leads to my joy? 

I have no answers. I have no neat and tidy way to wrap this up. All I can say is that I guess my hope is tied up in believing that this scripture is true. That men are that they might have joy. I do believe it. And as such, I will continue to have the faith that my situation will improve. Things will change and get better. I will find joy. Somewhere, somehow.