LDS Audio
There’s a lot of good (and mostly free) downloadable audio for Latter-day Saints out there. If you’re feeling guilty about all you’re not listening to, here’s what I suggest:
1) Go get an iPod
2) Create a Smart Playlist in iTunes for each day of your commute. Set it up to include only files where Play Count=0 and Rating=0 so you don’t get the same thing twice. (If you want to skip a file without listening, give it a one star rating first so it doesn’t come up again.)
- Mondays – Ensign articles – download free MP3s from lds.org.
- Tuesdays – BYU Speeches – get free MP3 downloads (or cheap MP3 CDs and videos) of many BYU Devotionals going back as far as 1949. Search by author, year, topic. Or subscribe to the Classic Speeches podcast, which has some great ones. I highly recommend Gordon B. Hinckley’s Building an Eternal Home from 1959, mostly for his sense of humor — he forgot about the speech until the night before. They also have a New BYU Speeches podcast, but I haven’t enjoyed it as much.
- Wednesdays – LDS Authors – this bullet used to talk about ldsaudio.com, but they went out of business. That means Wednesdays are perfect for pagan literature from audible.com.
- Thursdays – General Conference Talks – free downloads from lds.org or subscribe to the General Conference podcast. MP3s of recent conferences are available in Cantonese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
- Fridays – Gospel Scholars – go to The Maxwell Institute for a few free downloads. If you’re in Utah your library may have audiobooks from authors like Hugh Nibley, Brent Top, and Truman G. Madsen you can rip to MP3. You may also like The Fair LDS Podcast.
More at lds.org
There are a bunch of other free downloads at lds.org’s Audio Library – New Testament, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants, priesthood and Relief Society manuals, Friend and New Era magazines, hymns and other Church music, primary songs, etc.
I haven’t listened to all of these yet, but MP3 archives of “The Worlds of Joseph Smith“,
An International Academic Conference at the Library of Congress (May 6-7, 2005) are also available for free.
BYU Broadcasting
Another good resource is byubroadcasting.org, which has MP3 files of things like Doctrine & Covenants discussions by BYU professors. They’re 30 minutes long and are (depending on the episode) a good supplement to your weekly study for Gospel Doctrine class. (And they’re free.)
Some Favorite Speeches
- Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled by Gordon B. Hinckley
- But For a Small Moment by Neal A. Maxwell
- When Thou Art Converted, Strengthen Thy Brethren by Hartman Rector, Jr.
- Love Is Not Blind by Bruce C. Hafen
- Everybody’s Ignorant, Just On Different Topics by Eliot Butler
- Our Identity and Our Destiny by Tad R. Callister
- What E’er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part by Quentin L. Cook
- Israel, Israel, God Is Calling by Jeffrey R. Holland
- How Lucky Can You Be! by Gordon B. Hinckley