Sam's Sacrament Meeting Talk 4-28-2013

 I debated whether or not I should post this. I don't want to sound proud or boastful. But I do think that it was one of the best talks that I have even given and think that's because I was so passionate about the topic- my own family. Anyway, in case anyone is interested here is the talk I gave yesterday in Sacrament meeting. Sean also spoke and did a great job speaking about missionary work but I don't have his talk to share. Sorry.

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Sean and I are both from Snohomish, Washington. Washington has interesting city names – Issaquah, Sammamish and Skagit to say a few. Snohomish is 30 miles North of Seattle where it’s start feel a little less like a big city and a little more small town.

Sean’s parents are both from Utah - Tremonton and Provo. Their move to Washington was supposed to be a temporary one for work. The bought a small three bedroom house and over 30 years later Sean’s dad is still there but plans to retire in St. George in a few years. Sean is the fourth of six kids. There are four boys and two girls. I have to share with you a funny little known fact about my husband. Sean spent most of his life sleeping in a make-shift room built in the garage. When you have six kids in a 3 bedroom house, you have to get creative!

Sean’s mom, Pam, is one of my idols. She was the stay-at-home mom who was always there for her family. She was a simple woman who loved God and shared the gospel by how she lived her life. This summer will be 10 years since Pam passed away from a long fight with cancer. She suffered from cancer almost all of Sean’s high school years and then passed away the week before he graduated. If you want to know why my husband is so strong, it’s because learned to trust in the Savior and the gospel as he’s passed through tough times of trial early in his life.

I’m the oldest of two kids. My parents divorced when I was three and my mom met Donn when I was five. They dated for five years before they married. They’ve been married now for over 15 years and I’m grateful every day that Heavenly Father sent Donn to us to be my dad. My biological father essential walked away from us. And we never even know where he was the majority of my life. But Donn chose us to be his family. He adores my mother and they still act like newlyweds when they’re together. 

I was sealed to my parents two years ago- it’s a blessing that I have wanted all of my life. I’ll be honest with you, as a child, I didn’t like the song, “Families Can Be Together Forever” because I felt like mine never would be. I made it my goal at a young age to my make my future family my top priority and to make sure that my family begin in the temple.

Sean and I meet at our Stake Youth Conference. Stakes in Washington are nothing like those here in Utah. Our stake had five school districts and five high schools in it. Sean and I went to different high schools and lived 10 miles apart on opposite side of the valley. When we met, I was 15 and didn’t have braces yet and Sean was 16 and just got his driver’s license. The first night of Youth Conference, I asked Sean to dance. I had no intentions of being a walk flower! And guess what? Some amazing happening when we danced - he wasn’t awkward and could engage in a conversation. We’re both motor mouths and we haven’t stopped talking since.

We became best friends and eventually dated. Later Sean served in the Peru Lima East Mission while I went to school in Washington, at BYU-Idaho and studying aboard in Chile. We married six months after Sean got home in Seattle Temple. Which was six years ago this month.

It’s been a fun six years! In those six years we’ve had five vehicles and five different couches. We’ve lived in four states, and had three kids. And we’ve received two bachelor’s degrees. I studied Child Development and Family and Family Life. And now I’m a stay-at-home-mom.      Sean studied accounting and now audits for the D.O.D.. I enjoying blogging, photography, reading, finding new recipes and being outside. Sean loves BYU football, politics, economics and loves geography. He can tell you where almost any country is! And recently Sean has taught himself how to play the ukulele.

Our oldest daughter Alexia will turn five this summer and starts kindergarten in the fall. Avery is three years old today. Happy Birthday Avery! Our son Eli is six month old and he has us all wrapped around his chubby little fingers. Our greatest joy in life comes from the moments when we’re all together as a family. Sean and I adore our children- they bring us more happiness than anything else could and we want to have a bunch more of them. As a couple, we have decided that we need to put our family first.

Have you heard the saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results? It’s true, you’ve got to make changes if you want changes. Sean and I have decided to make some changes in our home that will help our family focus on each other and the Savior.

Have ever noticed that sometimes we give the least to those who should matter most in our lives—our families. Every family should make the necessary individual and family course corrections which will put the Lord and their families first and fill their homes with a gospel focus. I’ll share with you a few things that we have done to simply our lives and put our families first. Note that I’m not saying that you should do what we have done. What you should do is pray and see what you can do to bring your family closer together and closer to the Savior.

We recently canceled our cable, Netflix and the put our TV “in time out” aka our master bedroom closet, so that we could have more time to focus on each other and not the things of the world. We live in a consumer society. And today people are worried so much about their stuff. Their cars, houses, clothes, gadgets and toys and keeping up with the infamous Joneses. Sean and I have decided that we don’t want our things to run our lives. We have chosen to not have smart phones, or to have expensive furniture or cars. We are trying to avoid eating out. And we only try to go grocery shopping a few times a month. We know that we are supposed to spend as much time as we can together at home with our family.

We have been making a greater effort to have meaningful, planned Family Home Evening’s- which is easier when you don’t have TV to distract you. We have been using the Primary manual to teach Lexi the lessons before her primary teachers teach them so that she can be ready to participate in class. Sean and I know that we are our children’s first and most important teachers.

I’m so grateful every day that Heavenly Father has entrusted me with these sweet spirits. No words can express how much I love being a mother and how much I love my children. My children teach me more about myself and life than anyone else ever could. I’m so grateful for my family. 

Heavenly Father has organized us into families to help successfully meet the trials and challenges of life. The home also exists to bless us with the joys and privileges of family associations. Our family is our safety place, our support network, our sanctuary, and our salvation. Our homes should be the strong place to which children can come for the anchor they need in this day of trouble and turmoil.

President Joseph F. Smith said, “There is no substitute for the home. Its foundation is as ancient as the world, and its mission has been ordained of God from the earliest times.”

Today, evil forces are challenging the home as never before. If our homes are to endure, parents and children must dedicate themselves to the gospel ideals that ensure preservation of home and family. Families aren’t failing, but we are failing the family because we have not learned how to put family life first in our world. There can only be one number one. “Is it your family?” If your family does not come first, your family will not last.

In homes where high ideals and gospel values are maintained, it is parents, not teachers, who lay the foundation of character and faith in the hearts of their children. If the training a child should receive in the home is neglected, neither the Church nor the school can compensate for the loss.

Following President McKay’s well-known statement “No other success can compensate for failure in the home,” he went on to say: “The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family is of greater value to God and future humanity than any other riches. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles.”

I’d like to share with you a few quotes about the family…

Harold B. Lee said, “The most important of the Lord’s work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own homes.”

Ezra Taft Benson stated, “There can be no genuine happiness separate and apart from the home. The sweetest influences and associations of life are there.”

Joseph Fielding Smith declared, “The primary function of a Latter-day Saint home is to insure that every member of the family works to create the climate and conditions in which all can grow toward perfection.”

Joseph F. Smith said, “We are living for eternity and not merely for the moment. Death does not part us from one another, if we have entered into sacred relationships with each other by the virtue of the authority that God has revealed to the children of men. Our relationships are formed for eternity.”

I believe that we came to this life to become families and to learn to have an eye single to the glory of God. Heavenly Father wants to see if we’ll choose Him and His path. Latter-day Saints whose eyes are single to God’s glory see life from a vastly different perspective than those whose attention is directed elsewhere. 

Such members, for instance, care little about receiving credit or recognition for their good deeds. They are more interested in feeding the Lord’s sheep than in counting them. In fact, they frequently find their greatest happiness in serving anonymously, thereby leaving the beneficiaries of their kindness with no one to thank or praise except the Lord.

I’d like to share an experience that our family had this past Christmas. Sean and I had decided that it was time to get bunk beds for our girls. While we were at the storing looking at the bunk beds we were going to buy and nice man stroke up a conversation with me about our soon to be made purchase. Then he handed me an envelope with the words, “Merry Christmas” written on the front and told me, “This should help.” And then he walked away quickly. I opened the envelope to find $100 inside. Sean and I were so grateful for his kindness and we thanked the Lord that night.

When our eyes are fixed on God’s glory, we feel the majesty of His creations and the grand scope of His work on this earth. We feel humble to be participants in His latter-day kingdom. If we pause and quietly reflect on our role in all of this, we will come to know that placing our egos and our vain ambitions on the sacrificial altar is one of the most important offerings we can ever make.

D&C 88:67-68 states:

“And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things.

“Therefore, sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you, and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will.” 

Those are some remarkable promises. I would love to be able to comprehend all things. Wouldn’t you? And how miraculous will it be to see the Savior again. I am not sure how I will feel when I’m with Him again but I know that I want to do all that I can to feel worthy and ready. So I know that I must always remember Him and always be trying to align my will with His. This is keeping an eye single to the Glory of God.

Keeping an eye single to the glory of God means forgetting yourself in a deep regard for our neighbor’s needs, or problems, or sorrows. It means having a vision of the infinite purpose of God’s work on earth and the total value of each fellow traveler on life’s way. It means realizing that our behavior has an impact on all those who journey with us and adds or detracts in their lives from His glory. Keeping an eye single to the glory of God means that we bring our behavior in line with the life of Jesus Christ. Beginning each day with an eye single to the glory of God would be like awakening each morning with a childlike expectancy of Christmas to good things, in and from, and about everyone.

When we’re filled with the light of the gospel and the love of the Savior, the most natural desire is to share it with all those around us.

D&C 4 states:

1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.

 2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.

 3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;

 4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;

 5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

 6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.

 7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.

I really do believe that the spreading of the gospel and building up of the kingdom on earth today is a marvelous work. And how wonderful it is that we can witness the rolling forth of the gospel. It’s not enough to just witness the work of God. We need to be doers of the work. The best place to start is within the walls of our own homes. Our homes need to be missionary training centers.

I challenge all of you to go home today and to prayfully consider how you can align your will with that of the Savior. I also challenge you to find ways to simplify your lives so that you have more time and energy for the people that need you the most, your family. I bear witness that Jesus is the Christ, our Redeemer and Savior. Amen.