27. Devoting Our Best Efforts

A bishopric message that appeared in the November 1999 issue of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward Newsette.

In a message addressed earlier this year to members of the Church throughout the world, the First Presidency wrote, “We call upon parents to devote their best efforts to teaching and rearing of their children in gospel principles which will keep them close to the Church.” This same statement was repeated in a second letter just last month.

The commandment to teach and rear children is not new. Parents have always had that responsibility (see, for example, D&C 68:25–28; 93:40–49; and Mosiah 4:14–15). Our prophets seem to sense some urgency, however, in our getting about the task. “We counsel parents and children,” the First Presidency continued in both their February 1999 and October 1999 letters, “to give highest priority to family prayer, family home evening, gospel study and instruction, and wholesome family activities.”

In the February letter, they also added, “However worthy and appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be permitted to displace the divinely-appointed duties that only parents and families can adequately perform.”

We are to give highest priority to these things. There are some things that only parents and families can perform to survive what must surely lie ahead and to go where the Lord wants us to go as we enter the new century and the new millennium. Both parents and children need to be wise in not letting other activities and demands, however worthy and appropriate they may seem, divert them from focusing on these stated family duties (family prayer, family home evening, gospel study and instruction, and wholesome family activities).

“Husbands and wives—fathers and mothers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations,” we read in the proclamation on the family. “We warn that individuals . . . who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God.”

As we approach the holiday season, may each of us may find the joy, happiness, and fulfillment in our family associations that the Lord intends us to enjoy. May we take our leaders’ counsel seriously when they call upon us to give these things our highest priority. And may the Lord bless us as we do so.

26. Let Us Live the Gospel in Our Homes

A pastoral message written on Monday, July 26, 1999, as the bishopric message for the August 1999 issue of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward Newsette. The same thought was also printed as “A Final Word” in the July 26, 1999, issue of the Family Journal.

In the last general conference President Gordon B. Hinckley urged, “Let us live the gospel in our homes. Let there be an honest manifestation of love between husbands and wives, between children and their parents. Control the voice of anger. Be absolutely loyal one to another” (Ensign, May 1999, 51).

Simply put, that is the message of the Lord to us in our day. It comes from our prophet. It is fully consistent with what apostles and prophets have been teaching us for many years.

In His preface to the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord declared, “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same” (D&C 1:38).

How are we doing at hearkening to the voice of the Lord through His servants? How are we doing at living the gospel in our homes, the place where surely it matters most? These are thought-provoking questions that deserve our honest attention. Every husband and father, every wife and mother, every son and daughter might ponder such additional questions as these:

• Am I doing my part to make my home a nice place to live?

• Am I carrying my fair share in the chores and responsibilities of the home?

• Am I spending the time I should with each family member?

• Do I take part in daily family prayer?

• Do I study the scriptures alone and with my family?

• Do I participate willingly in a weekly family home evening?

• Do I contribute to the success of that home evening?

• Do I control my anger?

• Do I show love and respect to the members of my family?

• Am I willing to forgive and forget the offenses, real or perceived, of other family members?

• Am I loyal to the members of my family?

“No other success,” taught an earlier prophet, “can compensate for failure in the home” (David O. McKay, in Improvement Era, June 1964, 445). That is not just nice sounding rhetoric or a trite cliché. It is literally true.

Another prophet said, “The greatest of the Lord’s work you brethren will ever do as fathers will be within the walls of your own home” (Harold B. Lee, in Ensign, July 1973, 98). The truth in that simple declaration surely applies to the sisters as well.

May the Lord preserve, protect, and bless our families—fathers, mothers, children, all of us—as we seek to follow the Lord by living the gospel in our homes.