Encouraging Words

Since we were on vacation and missed Saturday's opening sessions of conference, I have been listening to them throughout the week. I loved Elder Bednar's talk about being consistent in our family prayers, family home evenings, and reading the scriptures. A few months ago, Kent and I were asked to speak during a 5th sunday combined RS/Priesthood meeting about the importance of and ideas for family home evening. Two other couples were invited to present too, a couple with young children, a couple with teenagers (us) and an empty-nester couple. In an effort to prepare for this assignment, I asked the kids which family home evenings they remembered. As I recall, they laughed and said they didn't remember any of them. Of course, I was slightly stunned, as we have had a few here and there that were memorable, or at least I thought. I really felt like I had nothing to offer at the meeting, (especially since the couple with young children brought a laundry basket full of cute cutouts, object lessons and various other items) except for the fact that we had mostly been consistent in these three things and that somehow, that consistency had a cumulative effect on our family.  Your can imagine my relief when Elder Bednar expressed the same concerns. He compared each individual and daily effort to a painting of a wheat field.  When standing very close to the picture all you see are individual paint strokes of gold, yellow and brown, that by themselves are unimpressive and even maybe dull. But as you back away from the painting, you see the whole picture and that each brush stroke, combined with all the other brush strokes work together to form a masterpiece. (He used a better picture, but I couldn't find it). I loved this analogy. If you wish to read the entire text of his talk, you may visit www.lds.org, click on General Conference, Saturday morning session. Very inspirational and comforting to all parents who have ever wondered if their efforts are paying off. I loved it. It was one of my favorite talks from conference. Please take the time to read or reread his talk. He was much more eloquent and he was funny at times, but his message was as timely as it is serious. We need to do all we can to protect and prepare our families.