Elder David A. Bednar: Watching with All Perseverance

This is a great talk on parenting and helping our children gain a testimony and then become valiant in that testimony.

Spiritual warnings should lead to increasingly vigilant watching. You and I live in “a day of warning” (D&C 63:58)

Elder Bednar introduces his thoughts on a “spiritual early warning system”:

I pray for the guidance of the Holy Ghost as I describe a spiritual early warning system that can help parents in Zion to be watchful and discerning concerning their children. This early warning system applies to children of all ages and contains three basic components: (1) reading and talking about the Book of Mormon with your children, (2) bearing testimony of gospel truths spontaneously with your children, and (3) inviting children as gospel learners to act and not merely be acted upon. Parents who do these things faithfully will be blessed to recognize early signals of spiritual growth in or challenges with their children and be better prepared to receive inspiration to strengthen and help those children.

Component Number One: Reading and Talking about the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon speaks to the spirit and to the heart of the reader like no other volume of scripture.  Regular reading of and talking about the Book of Mormon invite the power to resist temptation and to produce feelings of love within our families.  And discussions about the doctrines and principles in the Book of Mormon provide opportunities for parents to observe their children, to listen to them, to learn from them, and to teach them.

Such conversations can help parents to discern what their children are learning, thinking, and feeling about the truths contained in this sacred volume of scripture, as well as the difficulties they may be facing.

Reading this from Elder Bednar makes me grateful for two things. First, we have tried to follow this counsel as our children have been growing up. Though we didn’t study scriptures every day, there were many times we would have family scripture study together and we have read the Book of Mormon a few times as a family during that scripture study. Second, we have seen the blessings of having our children grow up to be fine people. I believe that has been a direct blessing from reading the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, as a family.

Component Number Two: Bearing Testimony Spontaneously

Testimony is personal knowledge, based upon the witness of the Holy Ghost, that certain facts of eternal significance are true.  The knowledge and spiritual conviction we receive from the Holy Ghost are the result of revelation.

Parents should be vigilant and spiritually attentive to spontaneously occurring opportunities to bear testimony to their children. Discussions – especially when parents are as eager to listen intently as they are to talk – can foster a supportive and secure environment in the home and encourage ongoing communication about difficult topics.

I really like that phrase “especially when parents are as eager to listen intently as they are to talk”. As parents we need to listen. It’s hard when we feel like we have so much to share, and that we are right! But we are still learning, and to learn we need to listen.

Component Number Three: Inviting Children to Act

As gospel learners, we should be “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22)

Learning requires spiritual, mental, and physical exertion and not just passive reception.

I wish there was a way for my students to catch the visual of that preceding quote. Elder Bednar then expounds on this idea that learners (especially children) need to put forth effort to really learn.

Are you and I helping our children become agents who act and seek learning by study and by faith, or have we trained our children to wait to be taught and acted upon? [Great question?] Are we as parents primarily giving our children the equivalent of spiritual fish to eat, or are we consistently helping them to act, to learn for themselves, and to stand steadfast and immovable? Are we helping our children become anxiously engaged in asking, seeking, and knocking? (See 3 Nephi 14:&) I especially like the idea of “consistently helping”; that is an important principal in parenting.

The spiritual understanding you and I have been blessed to receive, and which has been confirmed as true in our hearts, simply cannot be given to our children. The tuition of diligence and of learning by study and also by faith must be paid to obtain and personally “own” such knowledge. [I like that analogy to tuition – the cost- is diligence, study and faith.] Only in this way can what is known in the mind also be felt in the heart. Only in this way can a child move beyond relying upon the spiritual knowledge and experiences of parents and adults and claim those blessings for himself or herself. Only in this way can our children be prepared spiritually for the challenges of mortality.

Elder Bednar finishes his talk with a promise to parents: The spiritual discernment and inspiration you will receive from the combination of these three holy habits will enable you to stand as watchmen on the tower for your families – “watching . . . with all perseverance” (Ephesians 6:18) – to the blessing of your immediate family and your future posterity.

Great talk!

Brother Russell T. Osguthorpe: Teaching Helps Save Lives

When missionaries and teachers draw upon the Spirit, they teach the appropriate principle, invite their learners to live that principle, and bear witness of the promised blessings that will follow. Elder David A Bednar shared these three simple elements of effective teaching in a recent training meeting: (1) key doctrine, (2) invitation to action, and (3) promised blessings.


This is great instruction for teaching any church class at any age-level. It will also work for any church talk. Make sure that these three components are at the core of your lesson or talk:

• teach the appropriate gospel principle in your lesson.
• invite your students to live that principle.
• bear witness of the promised blessings they will receive for following that principle.

The guide Preach My Gospel helps missionaries teach key doctrine, invite those they teach to take action, and receive promised blessings. The guide Teaching, No Greater Call helps parents and teachers do the same.  It is to gospel teaching what Preach My Gospel is to missionary work.

This is a very profound statement. It really raises the importance of Teaching, No Greater Call. If it is that important (and I agree that it is), then I think that we should make it the focus of our family scripture study after we finish Preach My Gospel.

As President Monson has taught: "The goal of gospel teaching . . . is not to 'pour information' into the minds of class members . . . The aim is to inspire the individual to think about, feel about, and then do something about living gospel principles."

Again, this counsel can be applied to teaching a class or giving a talk.

Elder Osguthorpe related a story from his young adult years where a teacher impressed him to . . . "think about, feel about, and then do something about living gospel principles." Then he added, "His teaching helped save my life."

Questions we should ask about our own teaching:

1. As a teacher, do I view myself as a messenger from God?
2. Do I prepare and then teach in ways that can help save lives?
3. Do I focus on a key doctrine of the Restoration?
4. Can those I teach feel the love I have for them and for my Heavenly Father and the Savior?
5. When inspiration comes, do I close the manual and open their eyes and their ears and their hearts to the glory of God?
6. Do I invite them to do the work that God has for them to do?
7. Do I express so much confidence in them that they find the invitation hard to refuse?
8. Do I help them recognize promised blessings that come from living the doctrine I am teaching?

Learning and teaching are not optional activities in the kingdom of God. They are the very means by which the gospel has been restored to the earth and by which we will gain eternal life. They provide the pathway to personal testimony. No one can be "saved in ignorance" (D&C 131:6).

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: Two Principles for Any Economy

This was a very good talk to give us hope in these economically troubling times.

I have seen enough ups and downs throughout my life to know that winter will surely give way to the warmth and hope of a new spring. I am optimistic about the future.  This is why it is great that we have "seasoned" leaders at the head of the church.

He talked about a time when he was 11 years old and was a refugee (with his family) living in Frankfurt. He had an Eastern German accent and that led to ridicule from his peers. But even with that, he learned valuable lessons from how his parents handled adversity.

I admired their determination and optimism. from them I learned that adversity, when confronted with faith, courage, and tenacity, could be overcome.


Knowing that some of you are experiencing your own periods of anxiety and despair, I wanted to speak today about two important principles that sustained me through this formative period of my life.


The First Principle: Work
It wasn't easy, but the work kept us from dwelling too much on the difficulties of our circumstances. Although our situation didn't change overnight, it did change. That's the thing about work. If we simple keep at it - steady and constant - things certainly will improve.   How the Lord loves the laborer!


Those who are unafraid to roll up their sleeves and lose themselves in the pursuit of worthwhile goals are a blessing to their families, communities, nations, and to the Church.


The Lord doesn't expect us to work harder than we are able. He doesn't (nor should we) compare our efforts to those of others. Our Heavenly Father asks only that we do the best we can - that we work according to our full capacity, however great or small that my be.  Work is an antidote for anxiety, an ointment for sorrow and a doorway to possibility.


When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer - no matter how eloquent the oration.  President Thomas S. Monson put it this way: "It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we'll make the effort. . . . It's in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled."


Remember, we are only temporary travelers in this world. Let us not devote our God-given talents and energies solely to setting earthly anchors, but rather let us spend our days growing spiritual wings.  This is a great quote, I really like the way we are told to look beyond what the world is enticing us to spend our time on and towards eternal pursuits.

Now a word to us seasoned brethren: retirement is not part of the Lord's plan of happiness. There may be those who, after many years of Church service, believe they are entitled to a period of rest while others pull the weight. To put it bluntly, brethren, this sort of thinking is unworthy of a disciple of Christ. A great part of our work on earth is to endure joyfully to the end - every day of our life.  Whether you are the youngest deacon or the oldest high priest, there is work to do!


The Second Principle: Learn
Education is not so much the filling of a bucket as the lighting of a fire.  For members of the Church, education is not merely a good idea - it's a commandment.


The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, "Knowledge does away with darkness, [anxiety], and doubt; for these cannot exist where knowledge is."


In our learning, let us not neglect the fountain of revelation.


I know this for a certainty: it is often in the trial of adversity that we learn those most critical lessons that form our character and shape our destiny. (Another great quote)

I pray that during the coming months and years we can fill our hours and days with righteous work. That sounds like a good challenge for the next six months!