Last summer, I had the chance to hop on an inflated, rubber tube and ride it down a river. It was fun to be out on the cool water with my wife and some of our friends on a hot day.
The river was running high enough that the ride was smooth, but it wasn’t so high that we would get bounced around.
Partway down the river, I pulled my phone out of a pocket that had been zipped closed. I took a few photos and then put the phone back. A few minutes later, I pulled it back out and shot a quick video of us.
My confidence grew too quickly.
One last time, I pulled out my phone and took some more photos and videos of us meandering down the calm river. With no rapids or drops, I was sure I was fine to have my phone in my hand.
At one point, the current turned me around, and I was floating slowly backward down the river. This gave me a chance to capture the adventure from a different angle.
Unfortunately, I can’t share those photos or videos.
While floating backward, I moved close to the shore of the river, where an overhanging branch politely shared my phone with the rocks and water below me.
I hopped out of my tube and quickly began searching the river bottom. My wife and friends gave it a shot as well. It was to no avail. The phone was gone.
While I lost the photos and video I shot that night, I didn’t lose some of the most important data on the phone.
Because I am logged in to the Gospel Library app, all of my highlights, annotations, tags and notebooks are all synced with the Church’s servers. While all those functions are available to users without logging in, their efforts would be lost if they encountered their own overhanging branches along the riverside.
I still have my first set of scriptures that my parents gave me when I was baptized. I have the set I used in seminary. And I have both the English and Spanish sets that I studied with on my mission. I’d be heartbroken to lose any of those.
Likewise, I would be sad to lose the notes from my study in Gospel Library.
Regular scripture study is part of what President Dallin H. Oaks called “the fundamental spiritual maintenance plan” that also includes personal prayer and frequent repentance (see April 2025 general conference message titled “Divine Helps for Mortality”).
Having the ability to make my own links from one verse to another or from a verse to a line from a general conference message is a huge blessing.
In the app, I use tags to maintain my own list of names of the Savior, counsel to parents and promises made to those who keep the commandments, among other topics of study.
I also have notebooks saved in the app that I’ve created for callings and to act as a journal of impressions.
In recent years, I’ve also enjoyed the fact that I can track my own streak of consecutive days of study. That serves as a good reminder for me to do my best to study a little bit every day. The streak is only for me to see, and it might not be some impressive total to some. For me, it’s simply a helpful reminder.
Being logged in also means that I have instant access each Sunday to the hymns we’ll sing in my ward’s sacrament meeting. Our ward music coordinator selects the hymns, and everyone in the ward can see what we’ll sing. Click on the title, and Gospel Library opens to that hymn. It’s great.
Our elders quorum president selects a lesson, and all the elders can see what it is. No massive group texts or out-of-date email lists need to be maintained. The same goes for Relief Society. And if I miss a week or want to remember what we studied together a couple of months ago, the history of messages studied is available as well.
My patriarchal blessing is available in the app too.
And, as of a few months ago, I can also create my own playlists of music in the Gospel Library app. I made one in December with some of my favorite Christmas songs. I have another, of my favorite songs from the youth theme albums over the years.
Being logged in with the app helps me know that I’ll be able to continue to build on what I’m studying for years to come, regardless of the rivers that swallow my phone in the future. In this way, being logged in helps me stay locked in with my efforts to study and learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ every day.
— Jon Ryan Jensen is editor of the Church News.
