A Parent's Promise...

 

Enlisted to Serve God at Baptism...

Photo: Douglas Stewart

The Prophet Joseph pointed out that before your baptism, you could be on neutral ground between good and evil. But “when you joined this Church you enlisted to serve God. When you did that you left the neutral ground, and you never can [go] back.” His counsel was that we must never forsake the Master.
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At baptism we promise to take upon us “the name of [Jesus] Christ, having [the] determination to serve him to the end.” Such a covenant requires courageous effort, commitment, and integrity if we are to continue to sing the song of redeeming love and stay truly converted.

-Elder Quintin L. Cook

Scriptures, A Healing Balm...

Photo: Lydia Stewart

Immersion in the scriptures is essential for spiritual nourishment. The word of God inspires commitment and acts as a healing balm for hurt feelings, anger, or disillusionment.  When our commitment is diminished for any reason, part of the solution is repentance. Commitment and repentance are closely intertwined.

-Elder Quintin L. Cook

A Good Marriage...

Photo: Abraham Romney

There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.
-Martin Luther

The Nobility of Gender Difference...

Photo: Lydia Stewart

If you try to teach young people that there are no essential differences between men and women, that brings chaos into the whole social fabric.  You take away the nobility, and the beauty, and the dignity of gender differences, and then try to get men and women to be good men and women... it won't happen.

-John Eldredge, Absent

Believe Deeply and Actively in the Family...

Photo: Lydia Stewart

“Many of the social restraints which in the past have helped to reinforce and to shore up the family are dissolving and disappearing. The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us” 

-President Spencer W. Kimball (in Conference Report, Oct. 1980, 3; or Ensign, Nov. 1980, 4).

A Bit of Heaven...

Photo: Lydia Stewart

“If we really try, our home can be a bit of heaven here on earth. The thoughts we think, the deeds we do, the lives we live influence not only the success of our earthly journey; they mark the way to our eternal goals”

-Thomas S. Monson

Be an Active Priesthood Holder...

Photo: Lydia Stewart

“It is not enough to receive the priesthood and then sit back passively and wait until someone prods us into activity. When we receive the priesthood, we have the obligation of becoming actively and anxiously engaged in promoting the cause of righteousness in the earth, because the Lord says:
“‘… He that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned’ [D&C 58:29]” (So Shall Ye Reap [1960], 21).
-President Ezra Taft Benson

“One breaks the priesthood covenant by transgressing commandments—but also by leaving undone his duties. Accordingly, to break this covenant one needs only to do nothing” (The Miracle ofForgiveness [1969], 96).
-President Spencer W. Kimball

The Way We Eat...

Photo: Lydia Stewart

"The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world."
-Michael Pollan

Faith is a Choice...

Faith is a choice, not a gift.

Be Patient...

Photo By Douglas Stewart  (Huntington Beach, California)

Be patient with yourself.  Perfection comes not in this life, but the next.  Don’t demand things that are unreasonable, but demand of yourself improvement.

-Elder Russell M. Nielsen