Parents
Stand Ye in Holy Places
Each year I am assigned to speak in all of the units of the La Grande Oregon Stake. I was surprised to learn that all stake patriarchs aren’t given that same assignment. I am grateful that I have the privilege. I actually enjoy doing it.
Read MoreJoy in Your Posterity
I look out my kitchen window at Amy Geese, the Canada goose that nests in my nesting box. She and her mate come to our pond every year. She lays a clutch of six eggs, and dutifully sets on them for 30-35 days. Once a day she carefully covers her precious eggs with the hay that I’ve put in the nest and the down that she has plucked from her own body, and briefly leaves the nest to get a drink and a quick bite to eat. Then it’s back to the nest where she patiently sits for day after boring day. Why does she do it?
Read MoreAlma and His Children
In the middle of the book of Alma are seven chapters that are his parting instructions to his sons. Alma knows that the Lord is going to shortly take him, and there are things he needs to do to prepare. He has two concerns. One is the records and sacred things with which he has been entrusted. The other is his children.
Read MoreThe Fulness of Mine Intent
Nephi wrote that “the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto (God).” (1 Nephi 6:4).
What is the fulness of mine intent? What is yours?
Discipline
The leaders of our ward are struggling with what must seem to them a huge problem. It is a family of four children ages 11 to 4, their unemployed father, and their cancer-stricken mother. The mother has just been sent off to Utah to be cared for by her sisters-in-law. Her leg broke because of the cancer, and her outlook is bleak. The father quit his job to take care of the children.
Read MoreGrandparenthood
Father’s Day. It’s been an excellent one. The only thing better than being a father is being a grandfather. There are all sorts of advantages. For instance, this is the first time in the history of my fatherhood that I’ve made it home from church with my Father’s Day cookie intact. Up to now I’ve had to divide it between my begging, hungry children. Eli still begged, but he was old enough this year to realize that he didn’t have a valid claim.
Read MoreBuilding Your Nest on a Straight Limb
Elder Thomas S. Monson tells the story of a very young boy who was abducted from his home and parents and taken to a village situated far away. He grew to young manhood not knowing who his parents were nor from whence he came. A yearning came into his heart to find and return to his home.
Read MoreDiligent or Delinquent
It occurs to me that Satan is like a window. He’s easy to see through, yet he is an invisible barrier into which the unwary can crash with fatal consequences.
Read MoreAre You Listening?
Dear Heidi, My morning has been very Holy Ghost because of you. I woke up at 4:00 with your painting in my head.
Read MoreRobots Are the Key
I fell asleep while preparing my lesson. I had a dream. The dream said, “Robots are the key.”
Read MoreSpectator or Participant?
The secret to living a joyful and a successful life is to live it as a participant rather than as a spectator.
Read MoreA Sin-resistant Generation
Inspired men and women have flooded the earth with products and materials that are resistant to all sorts of harmful things.
Read MoreThe Yoke of Christ
My piano-playing wife has a new, favorite composer. Through all of our married life she has daily been at the piano playing Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Scott Joplin, and the like.
Read MoreA Mark of Distinction
I have an irritation. I caught glimpses of myself yesterday in windows and mirrors, and was shocked at what I saw. I saw images of a very stooped man. I tried straightening my back, and I was still stooped.
Read MoreTested, Tried and Stretched
In the conference just past (October 2014), Elder Richard G. Scott spoke about our being “tested, tried, and stretched.” As he said “stretched,” he held his fists close to one another, and pulled them apart as if stretching an object between them.
Read More