The Family: The Basis of a Righteous Life

I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday. I spoke using just a brief outline, but here is the draft that outline was created from:

In a 1993 Conference talk, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin quoted a woman who described her feelings about a winter storm in Canada. She said, ““I love a winter storm. … When the wind starts to blow and the snow begins to fall, a feeling of excitement starts to build. … When I can’t see the trees at the neighbor’s farmyard, … I phone my husband! … He then picks up the children who are at school. … It is hard to describe the feelings I experience as our family is gathered home, and the storm rages outside. … And I love it! Everyone is safe; we are together. We have lots of food and water. The longer it lasts, the better. … We are shut off from the world. … We bask in the warmth of our home and in the warmth of our love. My heart is full, and I am at peace. Sometimes, I wish I could just stay like that forever, with my family gathered around me, protected, shut off from the evil influences of the world. But alas, the storm blows itself out eventually, we dig ourselves out, and off we go to face the world again.” 1

There is a lot of evil in this world. From drug and alcohol abuse to unwed teenage pregnancy, to violence and war, this world can be a scary place. I worry sometimes about what my children are being exposed to at school. What language are they hearing? What substances are they being offered? What things are they being taught? Like the woman in Canada, I want to protect my family from those evil influences in the world. I want my home to be a sanctuary, and for my children to grow up sheltered from the evil influences in the world.

Unfortunately, in our society, that is difficult. We can’t totally isolate ourselves from the world. We leave our homes to go to school and to work. We need to learn how to be in the world without becoming of the world. We need to learn how to live righteous lives in spite of the world.

In his 1993 talk, Elder Wirthlin said, “The place to cure most of the ills of society is in the homes of the people. Building our homes as fortresses of righteousness for protection from the world takes constant labor and diligence. We can’t just sit back and expect our families to be righteous without work and guidance.”

President Ezra Taft Benson said, “First we need to strengthen families. We must recognize that the family is the cornerstone of civilization and that no nation will rise above the caliber of its homes. The family is the rock foundation of the church. We therefore call on the head of every household to strengthen the family.”

So how do we strengthen our families? In the Book of Mormon, we read about how often the people sank from righteousness into wickedness – and often it was the rising generation that didn’t adhere to the teachings of their parents. The proverb says “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”(Proverbs 22:6)  But even in the best families, children sometimes go astray. Even Alma the younger, whose father was a prophet, used his agency to rebel against his father’s teachings. So what can we do in our families to give our children the best start possible, to give them the best foundation to help them live a righteous life? How can we help them be more like the 2,000 stripling warriors who remembered  and believed the words their mothers had taught them?

First of all, we need to build our families on a solid foundation. Remember the wise man who built his house upon a rock, and the rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the rock stood still. What is the rock on which we should build our foundation? It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As Helaman taught his sons, “It is upon the rock of our Redeemer who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” (Hel 5:12)

So our homes should be built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. How do we do that? By teaching our children by word and by deed. President Lorenzo Snow taught, “If we wish to sway a proper influence over our families, we must show them good examples as well as give them good precepts. We should be able to say, do as I do, as well as to say do as I say. Strive to teach your children in such a way, both by example and precept, that they will unhesitatingly follow in your footsteps and become as valiant for the truth as you have been.” (TOPC:Lorenzo Snow, pp 132-133)

Like Nephi, I was born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught in the learning of my fathers. My parents lived by the words in The Family: A Proclamation to the World (even though it hadn’t been written yet) that say, “Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law abiding citizens wherever they live.” They understood that “successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”

I’d like to share some of the things that my parents did that helped me to gain a testimony, to become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. These are the things that gave me a foundation, that helped me to want to live a righteous life. I hope that as you listen (or read), you will think of your own family and experiences, and maybe you will think of something that you could be doing better to make your home a foundation for living a righteous life.

All through my youth my family would attend church every Sunday. If we were on vacation, we would seek out a ward to attend. General Conference? We dressed in our Sunday clothes and went to church where it was broadcast so we could hear the words of our prophet and apostles. Stake Conference? We got to church early so we could sit near the front and would have fewer distractions. Our only excuse for not going to church was if we were sick. Our family always sat on the second row in the chapel. (Again, there were fewer distractions up there.) My brothers and sisters and I watched as our parents served in callings, went home teaching and visiting teaching, gave lessons and talks, and bore their testimonies. I don’t remember ever hearing my parents say an unkind or disrespectful word against any church leader. As a child, I had no doubt that the Church was important to my parents.

Monday evenings in my family were always reserved for Family Home Evening. As our family grew, my parents had to add more and more assignments so that everyone could participate. We had someone conduct the meeting, someone choose an opening song, we had an opening prayer, someone would recite an article of faith, someone would share a talent, someone would give a lesson, another would choose an activity, and someone would prepare a dessert. We even had someone record the minutes of the meeting in a notebook.

I mentioned that someone would recite an article of faith. In my dad’s family when he was growing up, he had to learn the articles of faith “letter perfect”, which included learning which words had “s”s at the end and which didn’t. (We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.) And my dad held us by that same standard. We repeated them over and over again until we got them perfect. We knew them, and we knew what they meant.

Our family had family prayers every day. In the mornings before we all went our separate ways for seminary and school and work, we would kneel down for a family prayer. We would kneel again in the evening before we sat at the table for dinner for another family prayer. My dad’s prayers seemed awfully long to me when I thought I was starving and the floor seemed hard. I just wanted to eat, and he was droning on about the prophet and the missionaries, and the leaders of the nations, and the people in the military, and about fifty million other things he was grateful for... but I never doubted my dad’s sincerity and faith. He was talking to a loving Heavenly Father who loved him and cared about him.

Another family ritual was family scripture reading. My parents would wake us and we’d all go downstairs with our scriptures, and gather around our kitchen table. We would have a prayer, and then we would take turns reading a few verses from the Book of Mormon. Occasionally we would stop to discuss what we had read. I don’t remember very well now what we read or discussed then. I was probably half asleep most mornings, but I do remember that we studied the scriptures together as a family.

My parents also taught us the gospel in less formal settings. I remember we’d be sitting on the floor in the family room or out in the back yard, and my dad would tell us stories from the scriptures in a way that made them come alive to me. I enjoyed hearing his stories, and learning the lessons that went along with them. He was the one who showed me the similarities between Samuel and Samson, and the differences that our choices can make. My dad has a love for the scriptures, and he passed that on to me.

I remember having personal interviews with my parents. One particularly memorable interview, my dad invited me into his room and together we read Moroni’s exhortation to read the book and then ask God if it was true. Then we knelt down and we prayed. I don’t remember receiving an answer at that time. I don’t think I was ready yet or spiritually prepared enough to really desire an answer at that time, but I do remember how important it was to my dad that I receive a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Eventually I did receive that confirmation for myself, but until that happened, I never doubted that my parents knew that it was true, and I knew how to go about getting that answer for myself.

My parents taught us to serve one another. In a family the size of mine (Did I mention I am the second oldest of eleven children?) There was a lot that needed to be done. There were always chores to do and little kids running around who needed help with one thing or another. My wise parents assigned chores and also paired us up so that each of us “older children” had a “younger child” to take care of. My brother Joel is about eleven years younger than me, and he was my baby. I was responsible for taking care of him and watching out for him. I helped him with his chores when he was old enough to do them.

My parents also taught us to serve people outside our own home. I remember an elderly lady that my mom visit taught. More specifically, I remember going over to her little house a few times and helping to clean, because the lady was too sick to do it herself.

I remember attending tithing settlements with my parents every year. I was aware of how tight money was sometimes because of the size of our family, but I also knew that my parents paid an honest tithe. I learned then to trust that the Lord would provide a way for our needs to be met if we did our part by paying our tithing.

My parents also taught me about the importance of the temple. We lived about an hour and a half drive away from the San Diego temple, but all through my teen years, my parents went to the temple faithfully, every week that the temple was open, as their Friday date night. They taught me about the importance of going to the temple often, of making covenants, of serving our ancestors who have passed away. I remember as a teenager, discussions we had when they returned home from the temple, and the things they learned while serving in the temple. I looked forward to the day that I could go to that holy house and receive my own endowment. Even today, my parents are serving as temple missionaries in the Nauvoo temple, and in weekly letters, they continue to teach their children about the blessings of serving in the temple.

Brothers and sisters, it is in our families that our children learn the things that will lead them to a righteous life. It is at home that we develop the habits of prayer and scripture study that will help us to draw near to our Father in Heaven. We can’t get that just by attending church once a week.

I am grateful for my parents who taught their children lovingly. All through our growing up years, we knew that our parents loved us and cared about us. We also knew that our parents had a testimony of Jesus Christ and of his gospel. Since then, every one of my siblings who has gotten married, has followed my parents example and been married in a temple by proper authority. The one who hasn’t yet gotten married recently returned home from a mission in the Philippines. Each one of us has had struggles and questions and we’ve all had to develop our own testimonies of the gospel, but the foundation that our parents provided for us has helped us to gain a good understanding of gospel principles. My parents taught us the gospel, and they lived what they taught and encouraged us to follow their example.

If we strive to strengthen our families, to live the gospel in our families, we can give our children the foundation they need to live righteous lives. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.