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 ...

Primary means "1. first or highest in rank or importance; chief; principal ; 2. first in order in any series, sequence, etc; 3. first in time; earliest; primitive." When we think of the Church Primary program, we think it so named because of definitions 2 and 3. But I believe the first definition is most accurate of the Primary program. Primary children, including those in Nursery, are building the foundation of their testimonies now . The experiences they have at church while young will affect their attitude toward church when they are older. The Nursery manual states , The purpose of the nursery class is to help children learn the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and live it. The nursery class should help the children increase their understanding of and love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, have positive experiences in a Church setting, and grow in feelings of self-worth. This statement applies to all ages of Primary. The other Primary ...

Adapted from President Monson's talk "Charity Never Faileth " given in the Relief Society broadcast for General Conference October 2010. I begin with a short anecdote which illustrates a point I should like to make. A young couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door neighbor hanging out her wash. “That laundry’s not clean!” Lisa exclaimed. “Our neighbor doesn’t know how to get clothes clean!” John looked on but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments. A few weeks later Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash hanging in her neighbor’s yard. She said to her husband, “Look, John—she’s finally learned how to wash correctly! I wonder how she did it.” John replied, “Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You’ll be interested to know that I got up ear...

Challenge: Go to the temple--no excuses.

The top of a tithing slip reads "Tithing and Other Offerings." Most of us are good tithe payers, but we usually forget about the "other offerings" besides fast offerings. The other funds listed on a tithing slip are: Ward missionary : helps young men in your ward serving missions elsewhere General missionary : helps missionaries all over the world, including their training at MTCs Book of Mormon : pays for printing and other costs Humanitarian aid : helps people in need worldwide, especially after natural disasters Temple construction : pays for building temples and buying the lands upon which they are built Perpetual education : helps people escape poverty by loaning them funds to get an education Other (specify) : for example, a newly established one is the general temple patron assistance fund , which helps people who are poor or far away get to the temple so they can receive their ordinances Of course regular tithes go to these funds and much more ...