Brightening My Light

Teach your children how to use modern media in righteous ways by incorporating them in Family Home Evening: Have everyone share their favorite Mormon Message. Download hymns and Primary songs to iTunes, iPods, or iPhones. Make playlists for certain activities, such as "On our way to church" or "Wiggle songs." Take photos or make videos to submit to the media library on lds.org. Make profiles on mormon.org. Read an Ensign (or other Church magazine) article, General Conference talk, or the scriptures and have everyone follow along on their laptop/tablet, phone, or iPod touch. Or have each person read or watch a talk of their choice and then share what they learned with the rest of the family. Work on Personal Progress or Duty to God online. Listen to the LDS radio . Work on scripture mastery or memorizing the Articles of Faith together. Play games from The Friend online. Have Family Home Evening with family members elsewhere via Skype. For more ide

In my Doctrine and Covenants class at BYU, my professor gave us the following talk by Elder Ballard to read when we got to section 102: " A Chance to Start Over: Church Disciplinary Councils and the Restoration of Blessings ." Not having ever been in an disciplinary hearing, I did not know much about them, and this address really enlightened me. Church disciplinary councils seemed scary, but not anymore (though the idea of confessing something to that many people is still scary). Having had to talk to bishops, though, I can imagine that the love and encouragment a truly repentant person may feel in a hearing is hundredfold. Elder Ballard shared the following analogy in his talk: I remember as a child occasionally coming unkempt to the dinner table. My mother wisely sent me to clean up and then return. My parents would have been pained if I had taken offense and had run off—and I would have been foolish to do so. In the same way, the servants of the Lord occasionally

ldsclipart.com Imagine the Prophet were to come to your ward. What would you do? Would you arrive early to church? Would you dress your very best? Would you make sure you and your family were reverent, attentive, and smiling? Would you be respectful and full of admiration if you got to talk to him? You probably would do all these things. And why? Because he is the Prophet of God, of course. But why wouldn't you do these things any Sunday for any priesthood holder? President Boyd K. Packer shared this story in General Conference of October 2007  (I recommend reading the entire address): When I was a young man, I was a home teacher to a very old sister. She taught me from her life experience. When she was a little girl, President Brigham Young came to Brigham City, a great event in the town named after him. To honor him, the Primary children, all dressed in white, were lined up along the road coming into town, each with a basket of flowers to spread before the carriage o