Mothers Who Know

Good Morning, or Good Afternoon, or Good Evening, 

this post should take four to six minutes to read from start to finish.

This post focuses on a October 2007 General Conference talk and it is called "Mothers Who Know" by Sister Julie B. Beck." I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk.

Sister Beck mentioned, 

"Mothers Who Know Bear Children

Faithful daughters of God desire children. In the scriptures we read of Eve, Sarah, Rebekah and Mary, who were foreordained to be mothers before children were born to them. Some women are not given the responsibility of bearing children in mortality, but just as Hannah of the Old Testament prayed fervently for her child, the value women place on motherhood in this life and the attributes of motherhood they attain here will rise with them in the Resurrection. Women who desire and work toward that blessing in this life are promised they will receive it for all eternity, and eternity is much, much longer than mortality. There is eternal influence and power in motherhood.

Mothers Who Know Honor Sacred Ordinances and Covenants

Mothers who know honor sacred ordinances and covenants. I have visited sacrament meetings in some of the poorest places on the earth where mothers have dressed with great care in their Sunday best despite walking for miles on dusty streets and using worn-out public transportation. They bring daughters in clean and ironed dresses with hair brushed to perfection; their sons wear white shirts and ties and have missionary haircuts. These mothers know they are going to sacrament meeting, where covenants are renewed. These mothers have made and honor temple covenants. They know that if they are not pointing their children to the temple, they are not pointing them toward desired eternal goals. These mothers have influence and power.

Mothers Who Know Are Nurturers

Mothers who know are nurturers. This is their special assignment and role under the plan of happiness. To nurture means to cultivate, care for, and make grow. Therefore, mothers who know create a climate for spiritual and temporal growth in their homes. Another word for nurturing is homemaking.

Homemaking includes cooking, washing clothes and dishes, and keeping an orderly home. Working beside children in homemaking tasks creates opportunities to teach and model qualities children should emulate. Nurturing mothers are knowledgeable, but all the education women attain will avail them nothing if they do not have the skill to make a home that creates a climate for spiritual growth.

Mothers Who Know Are Leaders

Mothers who know are leaders. In equal partnership with their husbands, they lead a great and eternal organization. These mothers plan for the future of their organization. They plan for missions, temple marriages, and education. They plan for prayer, scripture study, and family home evening. Mothers who know build children into future leaders and are the primary examples of what leaders look like. They do not abandon their plan by succumbing to social pressure and worldly models of parenting. These wise mothers who know are selective about their own activities and involvement to conserve their limited strength in order to maximize their influence where it matters most.

"MOTHERS WHO KNOW ...

Bear Children Faithful daughters of God desire children.

Make Covenants Mothers who know honor sacred ordinances and covenants.

Are Nurturers Mothers who know are nurturers.

Are Teachers Mothers who know are always teachers.

Do Less Mothers who know do less.

Stand Strong & Immovable Who will prepare this righteous generation of sons and daughters?"

Mothers Who Know Are Teachers

Mothers who know are always teachers. Since they are not babysitters, they are never off duty. Think of the power of our future missionary force if mothers considered their homes as a pre–missionary training center. Then the doctrines of the gospel taught in the MTC would be a review and not a revelation. ..

Mothers Who Know Do Less

Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all.

Mothers Who Know Stand Strong and Immovable

Who will prepare this righteous generation of sons and daughters? Latter-day Saint women will do this women who know and love the Lord and bear testimony of Him, women who are strong and immovable and who do not give up during difficult and discouraging times. We are led by an inspired prophet of God who has called upon the women of the Church to “stand strong and immovable for that which is correct and proper under the plan of the Lord.” He has asked us to “begin in [our] own homes” to teach children the ways of truth. Latter-day Saint women should be the very best in the world at upholding, nurturing, and protecting families."

I encourage you to read the whole talk in your own time. Here's the link.
www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/mothers-who-know

Stay Tuned until next time.

Because She Is a Mother} Part Two

Good Morning, or Good Afternoon, or Good Evening, 

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

This post is part two. This post focuses on an April 1997 General Conference talk called "Because She Is a Mother" by Jeffrey R. Holland and I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk.

But one thing, she said, keeps her going: “Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that in my motherhood I am in an eternal partnership with Him. I am deeply moved that God finds His ultimate purpose and meaning in being a parent, even if some of His children make Him weep.

“It is this realization,” she says, “that I try to recall on those inevitably difficult days when all of this can be a bit overwhelming. Maybe it is precisely our inability and anxiousness that urge us to reach out to Him and enhance His ability to reach back to us.

Sometimes the decision of a child or a grandchild will break your heart. Sometimes expectations won’t immediately be met. Every mother and father worries about that. Even that beloved and wonderfully successful parent President Joseph F. Smith pled, “Oh! God, let me not lose my own.” That is every parent’s cry, and in it is something of every parent’s fear. But no one has failed who keeps trying and keeps praying. You have every right to receive encouragement and to know in the end your children will call your name blessed, just like those generations of foremothers before you who hoped your same hopes and felt your same fears.

Remember, remember all the days of your motherhood: “Ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.”

Rely on Him. Rely on Him heavily. Rely on Him forever. And “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope.” You are doing God’s work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even no, especially when your days and your nights may be the most challenging."

I encourage you to read the whole talk in your own time. Here's the link below.
www.lds.org/general-conference/1997/04/because-she-is-a-mother

Stay Tuned until next time.

Because She Is a Mother} Part One

Good Morning, or Good Afternoon, or Good Evening, 

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

This post is part one. This post focuses on an April 1997 General Conference talk called "Because She Is a Mother" by Jeffrey R. Holland and I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk.

Brother Holland mentioned,
"To the women within the sound of my voice who dearly want to be mothers and are not, I say through your tears and ours on that subject, God will yet, in days that lie somewhere ahead, bring “hope to [the] desolate heart.” Today I wish to praise those motherly hands that have rocked the infant’s cradle and, through the righteousness taught to their children there, are at the very center of the Lord’s purposes for us in mortality.

In speaking of mothers generally, I especially wish to praise and encourage young mothers. The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work.

Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. Husbands especially husbands as well as Church leaders and friends in every direction, be helpful and sensitive and wise. Remember, “To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

"Few of us will reach our potential without the nurturing of both
 the MOTHER who bore us and the MOTHERS who bear with us."
- Sheri L. Drew.

Mothers, we acknowledge and esteem your faith in every footstep. Please know that it is worth it then, now, and forever. And if, for whatever reason, you are making this courageous effort alone, without your husband at your side, then our prayers will be all the greater for you, and our determination to lend a helping hand even more resolute.

One young mother wrote to me recently that her anxiety tended to come on three fronts. One was that whenever she heard talks on LDS motherhood, she worried because she felt she didn’t measure up or somehow wasn’t going to be equal to the task. Secondly, she felt like the world expected her to teach her children reading, writing, interior design, Latin, calculus, and the Internet all before the baby said something terribly ordinary, like “goo goo.”

Thirdly, she often felt people were sometimes patronizing, almost always without meaning to be, because the advice she got or even the compliments she received seemed to reflect nothing of the mental investment, the spiritual and emotional exertion, the long-night, long-day, stretched-to-the-limit demands that sometimes are required in trying to be and wanting to be the mother God hopes she will be.

But one thing, she said, keeps her going: “Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that in my motherhood I am in an eternal partnership with Him. I am deeply moved that God finds His ultimate purpose and meaning in being a parent, even if some of His children make Him weep."

Stay Tuned until next time.

Your Greatest Challenge, Mother

This post is based on an October 2000 General Conference talk called "Your Greatest Challenge, Mother" by Gordon B. Hinckley. I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk.

President Hinckley mentioned, "Your hearts are all of one kind. You are gathered together because you love the Lord. You have a testimony and conviction concerning His living reality. You pray unto the Father in Jesus’ name. You understand the efficacy of prayer. You are wives and mothers. You are widows and single mothers carrying very heavy burdens. You are newly married women, and you are women who have not married. You are a vast concourse of women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Along with Sister Dew, I charge you to stand tall and be strong in defense of those great virtues which have been the backbone of our social progress. When you are united, your power is limitless. You can accomplish anything you wish to accomplish. And oh, how very, very great is the need for you in a world of crumbling values where the adversary seems so very much to be in control.

Teach your children when they are very young and small, and never quit. As long as they are in your home, let them be your primary interest. I take the liberty tonight of suggesting several things that you might teach them. The list is not complete. You can add other items.

Teach them to seek for good friends. They are going to have friends, good or bad. Those friends will make a vast difference in their lives. It is important that they cultivate an attitude of tolerance toward all people, but it is more important that they gather around them those of their own kind who will bring out the best they have within them. Otherwise they may be infected with the ways of their associates.

Teach them to value education. “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth” (D&C 93:36).

Teach them to respect their bodies. The practice is growing among young people of tattooing and piercing their bodies. The time will come when they will regret it, but it will then be too late. The scriptures unequivocally declare:

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

“If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:16–17).

Teach them to be honest. The jails of the world are filled with people who began their evil activities with small acts of dishonesty. A small lie so often leads to a greater lie. A small theft so often leads to a greater theft. Soon the individual has woven a web from which he cannot extricate himself. The broad road to prison begins as a small and attractive pathway.

Teach them to be virtuous. Teach young men to respect young women as daughters of God endowed with something very precious and beautiful. Teach your daughters to have respect for young men, for boys who hold the priesthood, boys who should and do stand above the tawdry evils of the world.

Teach them to pray. None of us is wise enough to make it on our own. We need the help, the wisdom, the guidance of the Almighty in reaching those decisions that are so tremendously important in our lives. There is no substitute for prayer. There is no greater resource.

God bless you, dear friends. Do not trade your birthright as a mother for some bauble of passing value. Let your first interest be in your home. The baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise and the sunset of the rushing days. I hope that when that occurs you will not be led to exclaim as did King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” (King Lear, I, iv, 312). Rather, I hope that you will have every reason to be proud concerning your children, to have love for them, to have faith in them, to see them grow in righteousness and virtue before the Lord, to see them become useful and productive members of society. If with all you have done there is an occasional failure, you can still say, “At least I did the very best of which I was capable. I tried as hard as I knew how. I let nothing stand in the way of my role as a mother.” Failures will be few under such circumstances."

If you can't see the Image for this post, it says "I know of no better answer to [the] foul practices that confront our young people than the teachings of a mother, given in love with an unmistakable warning."

I encourage you to read the whole talk in your own time. Here's the link below.
www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/10/your-greatest-challenge-mother

Stay Tuned until next time.