Class member: Sunday’s lesson with Sunday School was geared towards this. I mentioned what you said about those little things we are doing. I brought up those little things we do as Mom’s or Dad’s that are preventing the spirit in our home and giving Satan a window to come into our lives. I don’t think everyone agreed. Some of them are probably in a little bit of denial. I think it’s that they don’t realize they are participating in it as they are.
I think it’s interesting to set a standard for the spirit to guide you, but as you get older there is an adult standard and a youth standard. There shouldn’t be.
Class member: I thought it was interesting. My best friend had to give a talk in Stake Conference and it was all about the Proclamation on the Family. It was good to hear the kids perspective of it. You just need to start somewhere. One of the sites she had everything broken down by sentence. I can start with FHE, but memorizing seems a little overwhelming.
Class member: “What you know by heart is what your heart really knows.”
Class member: We have a bunch of binders and page protects. I blew up each paragraph on it’s own page and page protector with dry erase markers. It’s ready to go to get it memorized.
The scriptures I want to memorize is right there on a 3x5 card by the sink. You can read it while you are doing your hair or makeup. Don’t look at the whole thing.
One of the things I hope you got is the fact that we need to teach family. That was something that was just accepted. We taught you have to get married in the temple to have an eternal family, but to teach the actual doctrine until just now we didn’t have to teach it, but now you do with real intent. We have to teach that the family unit is the keystone of salvation. We get a little frightened by society and thinking we want to teach our children to be tolerant and acceptable of people. We need to teach them to be kind, but now allowing of sin. Satan is so subtle. He makes it very appealing. As they become more familiar with it…it just becomes a choice to them, not a principle of doctrine.
Class member: With my little boy that has so much energy. I feel like I was prepared for you to come into my life we had signed up for Cable. It was a joke how easy we jumped into that. We ad already decided we were cancelling that. I was dropping the cable off after our 1st class, but we still have Netflix. The kids just shifted into Netflix and detest a lot of the shows that are ok for kids. We broke Netflix this last week. It was harder for me to admit how hard it was for me to give that up. We played at the park a lot. It’s lazy parenting. It’s easy.
I think that’s marvelous. That’s huge. Give yourself lots of credit for that. Isn’t it interesting how we take our children and see their behavior and we want to train them not to watch a certain movie or say certain words. We know that’s not what we want them to be, but we are doing it and justifying it in ourselves. Why is it different? The Spirit is the Spirit!
Class member: I had a situation with my 14 year old girl. She and all her friends wanted to have a movie night. They wanted to watch 2/3rds of Les Mes. They were going to skip parts of it. When I think of that show I am physically ill. I told her know and why and she was good about it.
They want us to set barriers. I used to tell my kids that I was the scape goat. Prom dresses….your seniors know if they are modest or not. Many of you parents allow yourself to be broken down with “It’s just this once. There isn’t anything else around.” When you rationalize not living a commandment with exactness.
Class member: They will remember when you ‘allowed’ it not how many times you don’t allow them to do something.
When does the council of Heavenly Father becomes applicable. You can’t wear the sundresses when you are little, but not when you are older. It goes the same way when you are older.
Class member: My old ward had heard of some concerns in the schools. They decided that they needed to take action on it. They had the parents and all the youth for Sunday School meet together and the bishopric went over what was happening. I like how you said you need to teach the doctrine. Basically what came out of it was that some people have those feelings it is not wrong unless you act upon it. Some people think I am bad because I have these feelings. So what’s the point because I am a bad person. We have tendencies to have attractions to other sins that aren’t good, but if we don’t act on them we are still being good. We can’t judge.
That is exactly right. That is the doctrine that we teach that we don’t act upon it. That gets really grey in some parents mind. How you teach that is where our youth and even adults get foggy about accepting the sin, making it ok. We have to be very clear on doctrine. We need to focus on teaching true doctrine and helping them get the testimony of the true doctrine.
Class member: We can’t change the world, but we can control what comes into our home. Do we still have to teach them that people will still make their own choices?
That’s where we have to distinguish that if we have taught them the doctrine and someone comes into their circle and have someone that has a different family type what is the first things you want to say…”That’s not good.” Turn it to a question, “We have talked about this. What does Heavenly Father teach about families?” Then tell them we love them. Heavenly Father loves them, but they are not good choices. Then the Holy Ghost can testify that it’s true. We validate that we love them, but they are not good choices. Teach this is the Lord’s plan. We love them. They are not making good choices. WE can’t teach them that it’s ‘ok’. As soon as we say they are free to make their own choices then they feel like ‘It’s ok. It’s just my choice.” Heavenly Father still loves them, but not the choice.
Class member: “I Love My Friends” audio talk---He was talking about righteous judgment and how to apply that. It made a difference in my 8 year old. It helped her to talk about and see what we were talking about last week in seeing how they can have what Heavenly Father has designed for their family. It was an interesting conversation about righteous judgment. A lot of times we talk about being non-judgmental. There is a difference between being judgmental and righteous judgment.
Class member: The stuff you are talking about is really personal to me. It has been difficult to find how to treat that. Everyone is in a different place. Some are single. Some are married. Mom was so afraid of losing him that she got really mad at us when we said we can’t accept this around our kids. I do feel so good about how we have handled it. We have made mistakes. It’s hard to find how do I still love him, but teach our children that it’s not ok. Everyone loves him and he is talented, but what he is doing is not ok. We don’t agree with those and we know that is wrong. We have started a more in-depth study of the Proclamation on the Family. I have to be faithful and trust that what we are doing is right.
I really appreciate you being brave enough to share. This is the bottom line truth. You teach the doctrine. You teach Heavenly Father’s doctrine. Everyone of you sometime in your family will come in contact with this…in an extended family member. Definitely in the very close world. They will face this and it will be personal. When it becomes very personal if you get down on your knees and say, “I’ve done what you have asked me. Now how do I move forward?” He will guide you in what to do next. If we don’t do our homework and lay that foundation then we go to Heavenly Father it’s like giving him a ‘to do’ list. If you go through the Book of Mormon…underline with some weird color that have passages that talk about the Korihors and Anti-Christ that flatter the people and lead them away. This is what they are doing. They are telling the people what they want. It’s cyclic. You will see if over and over and over. Satan is having a hay day right now. He is laughing at how good people are slipping.
Class member: This year in my family I’ve had 3 cousins that have had babies without husbands. I don’t want to go celebrate this. I can’t not go and have them think I’m ‘better than they are’.
Class member: There is a young woman in our ward that has had a baby out of wedlock. A lot of us were not surprised, but to watch her go through the process of repentance she is more on the track than she has ever been. She named the baby meaning ‘God’s gift’. I was impressed watching this mother love this wayward child right back onto the path.
All of these people can repent and be forgiven. In not holding judgement we still have to teach our children doctrine. What would you teach your children? Do you see how difficult and hoard this has been, but you can still repent. Sometimes we teach repentance as saying “I’m sorry.” It is a process of changing our heart, but it is a process. Yes we can change our heart. We can do that and we must allow other people to do that. That’s why we talked about restitution as one of the tools.
Class member: I’m a single mom. I think that I learn off consequences. What my parents taught me is that this is how you are going to end up for eternity. If you are comfortable with this then you will be here. I think my children really saved me. I was not in a good place. My Mom always told me that I would be accounted for. He is going to ask you if you taught your children. Once I had them that responsibility came up and I have to teach them what is right no matter what I did in the past. I can see the repentance process. It is still your responsibility.
Some of you have been doing some good thinking on last week.