Strengthening Families: Our Sacred Duty ~ Part Two

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening,

this post should take approximately five minutes to read from start to finish.

This post focuses on April 1999 General Conference talk and it is called, Strengthening Families: Our Sacred Duty" by Elder Robert D. Hales. This post is part two. I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk.

Elder Hales mentioned the following; "Teach our children the significance of baptism and confirmation, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, partaking of the sacrament, honoring the priesthood, and making and keeping temple covenants. They need to know the importance of living worthy of a temple recommend and preparing for a temple marriage.

If you have not yet been sealed in the temple to your spouse or children, work as a family to receive temple blessings. Set temple goals as a family. Be worthy of the priesthood which you hold, brethren, and use it to bless the lives of your family. Through the power of the Melchizedek Priesthood, dedicate our homes. ... Talk to our children’s teachers, coaches, counselors, advisers, and Church leaders about our concerns and the needs of our children.

Know what our children are doing in their spare time. Influence their choice of movies, television programs, and videos. If they are on the Internet, know what they are doing. ... Encourage worthwhile school activities. Know what our children are studying. Help them with their homework. Help them realize the importance of education and of preparing for employment and self-sufficiency.

Young women: 

Attend Relief Society when you reach your 18th birthday. ... You may fear that you won’t fit in. ... There is much in Relief Society for you. It can be a blessing to you throughout your life.

Young men: 

Honor the Aaronic Priesthood. It is the preparatory priesthood, preparing you for the Melchizedek Priesthood. Become fully active in the elders quorum when you are ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. The brotherhood, the quorum instruction, and the opportunities to serve others will bless you and your family throughout your life.

FAMILIES 
Families are the Lord's workshop on earth to help us learn and
live the gospel." - Cheryl A. Esplin.

Every family can be strengthened in one way or another if the Spirit of the Lord is brought into our homes and we teach by His example. Act with faith; don’t react with fear. ...

This is the time for added love and support and to reinforce your teachings on how to make choices.

 It is frightening to allow our children to learn from the mistakes they may make, but their willingness to choose the Lord’s way and family values is greater when the choice comes from within than when we attempt to force those values upon them.

The Lord’s way of love and acceptance is better than Satan’s way of force and coercion, especially in rearing teenagers.


... While we may despair when, after all we can do, some of our children stray from the path of righteousness, the words of Orson F. Whitney can comfort us: “... Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving [mother’s and] father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for [our] careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with [our] faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God” (Orson F. Whitney, in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, 110).

What if you are single or have not been blessed with children? Do you need to be concerned about the counsel regarding families? Yes. It is something we all need to learn in earth life. Unmarried adult members can often lend a special kind of strength to the family, becoming a tremendous source of support, acceptance, and love to their families and the families of those around them.

Many adult members of the extended family do much parenting in their own right. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, cousins, and other family members can have great impact on the family. ... Sometimes extended family members can say things parents cannot say without starting an argument. ...

Knowing that we are in mortality to learn and to develop our faith, we should understand that there must be opposition in all things. During a family council in my own home, my wife said, “When you may think that someone has a perfect family, you just do not know them well enough.”

Brothers and sisters, as parents let us heed the admonition, even the rebuke, given by the Lord to Joseph Smith and the leaders of the Church in 1833 to “set in order [our] own house” (D&C 93:43). “I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth” (D&C 93:40). “Set in order [our] family, and see that they are more diligent and concerned at home, and pray always, or they shall be removed out of their place” (D&C 93:50).

The prophets of our day have given a similar admonition and warning to parents to set in order our families. May we be blessed with the inspiration and love to meet opposition with faith within our families. We will then know that our trials are to draw us closer to the Lord and to one another. ... The family is strengthened as we draw near to the Lord, and each member of the family is strengthened as we lift and strengthen and love and care for one another. “Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we’ll ascend together” (Quaker proverb). ..."

If you would like to read the whole talk either now or in your own time, here's the link below.
www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1999/04/strengthening-families-our-sacred-duty

Stay Tuned until next time.