One of the expected outcomes or aims of a BYU education is to prepare a student to engage in lifelong learning. Elder Robert D. Hales challenges us all, not just BYU students, to begin a journey of lifelong learning in our lead article based on his talk delivered at Campus Education Week in August 2008.

We then turn our attention to another thoughtful essay by Elder Marlin K. Jensen regarding “Those Who Are Different.” Elder Jensen challenges us all to be more considerate and kind. In his typical personal and affable way, Elder Jensen convicts us of our past failings while challenging and encouraging us to do better as we meet our brothers and sisters along our busy journey through life.

The remaining articles include an interview with Clyde Williams regarding his efforts to collect President Packer’s teachings (published in Mine Errand from the Lord: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Boyd K. Packer [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2008]); an examination of the Savior’s last week; the life and ministry of John the Baptist; a personal essay by former Religious Education dean David H. Yarn; a lively debate about the geography of the Book of Mormon by two thoughtful scholars, Andrew Hedges and Matthew Roper; and conversations about the Doctrine and Covenants and lessons from the scriptures.

Right in the middle we have three essays based on a panel discussion from a recent annual Mormon History Association meeting. Steve Harper and John Thomas, colleagues at BYU and BYU–Idaho, join our non-Latter-day Saint friend and colleague Mark Miller in an intriguing discussion that will cause us to ponder some rather important issues.

As we release another issue in the tenth volume of the Religious Educator, we hope these essays will provide you with a variety of experiences that will inspire you to worship, study, contemplate, and apply eternal principles that can enrich those who will take the time to consider them. We are grateful to our authors for providing us some food for thought.

Best wishes!

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel

Editor