President Henry B. Eyring: Help Them on Their Way Home

President Eyring is speaking to those who work with youth - as parents and/or youth leaders in the church. He also starts off with a good story from when he was a bishop and had a youth with a problem. He also counseled:

Heavenly Father wants and needs our help to bring His spirit children home to Him again. And he needs our help to get them back to the path quickly should they begin to wander.


We help God's children best by providing ways to build faith in Jesus Christ and His restored gospel when they are young. Then we must help rekindle that faith quickly before it dims as they wander off the path.


Heavenly Father has assigned us to a great variety of stations to strengthen and, when needed, to lead travelers to safety. Our most important and powerful assignments are in the family.


We all can help. Grandmothers, grandfathers, and every member who knows a child can help. It doesn't take a formal calling in Primary. Nor is it limited by age.  As I read this section I had the impression that I need to pay attention to all of the children (and youth) at church and encourage them. I feel like I do that on a limited basis already. I just need to do more.

We encourage young people in the rising generation to see their own potential to build great spiritual strength. And we plead with those who care about those young people to rise to what the Lord requires of us to help them. I can do this in a limited extent at school too because everyone is a child of God.

Next, President Eyring spent a lot of time talking about the Personal Progress program and the new Duty to God program.

The Personal Progress booklet for young women makes the purpose clear for them."The Personal Progress program uses the eight Young Women values to help you understand more fully who you are, why you are here on the earth, and what you should be doing as a daughter of God to prepare for the day you go to the temple to make sacred covenants.
     It goes on to say that young women will "make commitments, carry them out, and report your progress to a parent or leader."  It also promises that "the patterns you establish as you work on Personal Progress - such as prayer, scripture study, service, and journal keeping - will become personal daily habits. These habits will strengthen your testimony and help you learn and improve throughout your life.


The Duty to God program . . . will be contained in one simple book for all three Aaronic Priesthood offices. It is a powerful tool. It will strengthen the testimonies of young men and their relationship with God. It will help them learn and want to fulfill their priesthood duties. It will strengthen their relationships with their parents, among quorum members, and with their leaders.


Both of these programs put great responsibility on the efforts of the young people themselves.  These programs expect consistency, great effort, and the accumulation of learning and spiritual experiences over the years.


Personal Progress helps young women prepare to receive the ordinances of the temple.


Of all the help we can give these young people, the greatest will be to let them feel our confidence that they are on the path home to God and that they can make it. We do that best by going with them. These inspired programs . . . will lead the young person to invite and receive the companionship of the Holy Ghost.


Then, speaking again in general to those who serve the youth:
The best counsel for us to give young people is that they can arrive back to Heavenly Father only as they are guided and corrected by the Spirit of God.


We then, get our assignments to help the youth.
So if we are wise, we will encourage, praise, and exemplify everything which invites the companionship of the Holy Ghost.  They will feel in our praise and our smiles the approval of God. And should we feel the need to give corrective counsel, they will feel our love and the love of God in it, not rebuke and rejection, which can permit Satan to lead them further away. (Great counsel for parents!)

The example they most need from us is to do what they must do.  We need to pray for the gifts of the Spirit.  We need to ponder in the scriptures and in the words of living prophets.  We need to make plans which are not only wishes but covenants. And then we need to keep our promises to the Lord.  And we need to lift others by sharing with them the blessings of the Atonement which have come in our lives.
     And we need to exemplify in our own lives the steady and prolonged faithfulness that the Lord expects of them. As we do, we will help them feel from the Spirit an assurance that if they will persist, they will hear the words from a loving Savior and Heavenly Father: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant.