Speaking in Church!

Steven and I had the opportunity to speak in our Church on Sunday! Each week the bishop asks different members to prepare talks on certain subjects. Ours topic was fathers!!! Here are some of the highlights of my talk that involve Elliott stories :-)

President James E Faust taught that Children need to know who they are. a “golden thread” running through surveys on the faithfulness of our youth. The information shows that the most compelling element in helping our youth make righteous decisions is knowing they will one day be accountable to the Lord for their actions. Hence, he invites us to teach them well and have the Spirit touch their hearts so they will “choose for eternity.”

I am grateful to my parents, leaders and Seminary teachers who challenged me to choose eternity and decide as a young woman that I would marry in the temple. As I grew up and dated I remember times when my father would casually and loveingly remind me you marry who you date, thus reminding me that perhaps dating individuals who could not have taken me to the temple would interfere with the choice I had made years earlier to marry in the temple.

Each morning my three year old son Elliott wakes up with a smile of his face. The first thing he asks me is where is Lillian? When he sees his little sister he will rub her bald head and say mommy I love the baby please can we keep her forever? Oh the joy I feel in my heart knowning that I have kept the promise I made to myself years ago and married in the temple. I tell him yes Elliott we can keep her forever.

Then as most three year olds he will follow up with WHY? Each morning over oatmeal or pancakes I explain that Dad and mommy were married in the temple and because of special promises we made with Heavenly Father if we keep them we can be together forever.

Now the first time this happened I thought this was cute and told Steven and my parents. It happens almost every day now.

This week while tucking Elliott in for bed I told him I loved him and asked if I could keep him forever. He giggled and answered yes. I followed with WHY? He then explained to me that because you got married to daddy in the temple and promised with Heavenly father. I was amazed, some where between pouring milk and getting him more oatmeal he had listen and understood about eternal families.

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and also
2.

President Uchtdof “Be responsive to the promptings of the Spirit. The Spirit will influence your conscience and help you to refine yourself by working on the little tasks of self-control—like controlling your thoughts, words, and actions—which leads to self-control of your whole self, of mind, body, and spirit. remember anger is on letter away from danger.

The prophet Brigham Young said: “We should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do. We should set them an example that we wish them to imitate.”

When Elliott was a baby I was blessed with a teaching moment though listening to the Holy Ghost. Somehow he had gotten ahold of a bright red sample tube of Lipstick and in the matter of minutes while I did some house hold chore smeared it all over himself and the floor. I saw his smiling face and my first reaction was to get upset, angry made etc. I felt my heart change

Then for a moment it was as if the pause button was pushed on my life. I realized that yelling at a baby would do no good. He would not understand and If I allowed myself to fill my heart with anger then, what would happen in the years to come when he knowingly got into mischief.

In stead of being upset I carefully took Elliott to his high chair were I let him have at a bowl of oat meal thus giving him a facial to scrub of the lipstick. To this day when my first reaction is to get angry I have to pause, I know if I get upset at moments in parent I will be missing out moments to teach with the spirit.

:-)