Counsel from the Sunday Afternoon Session - April 2011

Sunday Afternoon Session

Richard G. Scott

·    “If you are a young man of appropriate age and are not married, don’t waste time in idle pursuits. Get on with life and focus on getting married. Don’t just coast through this period of life.”

·    “Young men, serve a worthy mission. Then make your highest priority finding a worthy, eternal companion.”

·    “When you find you are developing an interest in a young woman, show her that you are an exceptional person that she would find interesting to know better. Take her to places that are worthwhile. Show some ingenuity. If you want to have a wonderful wife, you need to have her see you as a wonderful man and prospective husband.”

·    “If you have found someone, you can form an extraordinarily wonderful courtship and marriage and be very, very happy eternally by staying within the bounds of worthiness the Lord has established.”

·    “If you are married, are you faithful to your spouse mentally as well as physically? Are you loyal to your marriage covenants by never engaging in conversation with another person that you wouldn’t want your spouse to overhear? Are you kind and supportive of your spouse and children?”

·    “Brethren, do you lead out in family activities such as scripture study, family prayer, and family home evening, or does your wife fill in the gap your lack of attention leaves in the home? Do you tell your wife often how very much you love her? It will bring her great happiness. I’ve heard men tell me when I say that, ‘Oh, she knows.’ You need to tell her. A woman grows and is greatly blessed by that reassurance. Express gratitude for what your spouse does for you. Express that love and gratitude often. That will make life far richer and more pleasant and purposeful. Don’t withhold those natural expressions of love. And it works a lot better if you are holding her close while you tell her.”

D. Todd Christofferson

·    “Perhaps some of the things said in this conference have come to you as a call to repentance or change, which if heeded will lift you to a higher place.”

·    “Even when we encounter mean-spirited criticism from persons who have little regard or love for us, it can be helpful to exercise enough meekness to weigh it and sift out anything that might benefit us.”

·    “Parents can and must correct, even chasten, if their children are not to be cast adrift at the mercy of a merciless adversary and his supporters.”

·    “Remember that reproof should be timely, with sharpness or clarity, ‘when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy’” (D&C 121:43).

·    “Remember that if we resist correction, others may discontinue offering it altogether, despite their love for us. If we repeatedly fail to act on the chastening of a loving God, then He too will desist.”

·    “Eventually, much of our chastening should come from within—we should become self-correcting.”

·    “It is a diligent, devoted effort on our part that calls forth this empowering and enabling grace, an effort that certainly includes submission to God’s chastening hand and sincere, unqualified repentance. Let us pray for His love-inspired correction.”

Carl B. Pratt

·    “Let us not be accused of robbing God. Let us be honest and pay our debts to the Lord. All He asks is 10 percent. Integrity in paying our debts to the Lord will help us be honest with our fellowmen.”

·    “[The Lord] expects us to pay tithing not from our abundance nor from the “leftovers” of the family budget but, as He commanded anciently, from the “firstlings” of our income, be it scarce or abounding.”

·    “Let us show our faith in the Lord by paying our tithing. Pay it first; pay it honestly.”

·    “Teach our children to pay tithing even on their allowance or other income, and then take them with us to tithing settlement so they know of our example and our love for the Lord.”

Lynn G. Robbins

·    “To become as [Christ] is, we must also do the things He did.”

·    “When children misbehave, let’s say when they quarrel with each other, we often misdirect our discipline on what they did, or the quarreling we observed. But the do—their behavior—is only a symptom of the unseen motive in their hearts. We might ask ourselves, ‘What attributes, if understood by the child, would correct this behavior in the future?’”

·    “We will never have a greater opportunity to teach and show Christlike attributes to our children than in the way we discipline them. Discipline comes from the same root word as disciple and implies patience and teaching on our part. It should not be done in anger. We can and should discipline the way that Doctrine and Covenants 121 teaches us: ‘by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness and pure knowledge’ (verses 41–42).”

·    “Through discipline the child learns of consequences. In such moments it is helpful to turn negatives into positives. If the child confesses to a wrong, praise the courage it took to confess. Ask the child what he or she learned from the mistake or misdeed, which gives you, and more important, the Spirit an opportunity to touch and teach the child.”

·    “When our children misbehave, we must be careful not to say things that would cause them to believe that what they did wrong is who they are.”

·    “Never let failure progress from an action to an identity, with its attendant labels like ‘stupid,’ ‘slow,’ ‘lazy,’ or ‘clumsy.’”

·    “We need to be careful, therefore, about using permanent phrases such as ‘You always …’ or ‘You never …’ when disciplining. Phrases like these make actions appear as an identity and can adversely influence the child’s self-perception and self-worth.”

·    “In helping children discover who they are and helping strengthen their self-worth, we can appropriately compliment their achievement or behavior—the do. But it would be even wiser to focus our primary praise on their character and beliefs—who they are.”

·    “During family scripture time, look for and discuss examples of attributes discovered in your reading that day. Because Christlike attributes are gifts from God and cannot be developed without His help, in family and personal prayers, pray for those gifts.”

·    “At the dinner table, occasionally talk about attributes, especially those you discovered in the scriptures earlier that morning.”

·    “May your efforts to develop Christlike attributes be successful so that His image may be engraven in your countenance and His attributes manifest in your behavior.”

Benjamin De Hoyos

·    “Humble members of the Church who conduct daily family prayer and scripture study, engage in family history, and consecrate their time to worship in the temple frequently, become Saints.”

·    “The Saints, or members of the Church, also come to know our Savior through afflictions and trials. Let us not forget that even He had to suffer all things.”

·    “Even though our understanding of the gospel may not be as deep as is our testimony of its truth, if we place our confidence in the Lord, we will be sustained in all of our difficulties, our trials, and our afflictions (see Alma 36:3).”

C. Scott Grow

·    “There are times when each of us needs ‘relief from feelings of guilt that come from mistakes and sins.’ As we repent, the Savior removes the guilt from our souls.”

·    “As you consider your own life, are there things that you need to change? Have you made mistakes that still need to be corrected?”

·    “If you are suffering from feelings of guilt or remorse, bitterness or anger, or loss of faith, I invite you to seek relief. Repent and forsake your sins. Then, in prayer, ask God for forgiveness. Seek forgiveness from those you have wronged. Forgive those who have wronged you. Forgive yourself.”

·    “Go to the bishop if necessary. He is the Lord’s messenger of mercy. He will help you as you struggle to become clean through repentance.”

·    “Immerse yourself in prayer and scripture study. As you do so, you will feel the sanctifying influence of the Spirit.”

Jeffrey R. Holland

·    “As our conference comes to a close, I ask you to reflect in the days ahead not only on the messages you have heard but also on the unique phenomenon that general conference itself is—what we as Latter-day Saints believe such conferences to be and what we invite the world to hear and observe about them.”

·    “Consider the variety of the messages that you hear—all the more miraculous with no coordination except the direction of heaven.”

·    “In wanting to measure up to the stern as well as embrace the soothing in our general conference messages, please be reassured that when we speak on difficult subjects, we understand not everyone is viewing pornography or shirking marriage or having illicit sexual relationships. We know not everyone is violating the Sabbath or bearing false witness or abusing a spouse. We know that most in our audience are not guilty of such things, but we are under a solemn charge to issue warning calls to those who are—wherever they may be in the world.”

·    “So if you are trying to do the best you can—if, for example, you keep trying to hold family home evening in spite of the bedlam that sometimes reigns in a houseful of little bedlamites—then give yourself high marks and, when we come to that subject, listen for another which addresses a topic where you may be lacking. If we teach by the Spirit and you listen by the Spirit, some one of us will touch on your circumstance, sending a personal prophetic epistle just to you.”

Thomas S. Monson

·    “May we long remember the messages we have heard. As we receive the issues of the Ensign and Liahona magazines which will contain these messages in written form, may we read and study them.”

·    “May we be examples of honesty and integrity wherever we go and in whatever we do.”