Strengthening Your Family

This is the talk I gave in church today. I hope you enjoy it! :) I highlighted the quotes and scriptures.

Strengthening your Family

I have had the opportunity in my life to play on both winning teams and losing teams in the game of football. My college football career was at Weber State University in Ogden, UT. Even though our college team had very talented individuals, four of who made it to the NFL, that’s all we had were individuals. Our collective team effort was not strong and as a result we lost and lost and lost and lost again. In fact in the 2004 season we only won a single game to Idaho State University. Everyone hated losing, who doesn’t? However, the season was not a total loss; I gained the biggest win of my life, I had the privilege of meeting my wife and since then I have never been happier! I knew meeting her was the reason I received a scholarship to play ball.

The winning team I had the chance to be a part of was my High School football team at Red Mountain right here in Mesa. Which by the way is the most talented school in Mesa. We only lost two games all season and won the state championship against Westwood High. Now that I look back on it there was a major difference between my team at Weber State and my team at Red Mountain; Team Work. Our high school team wanted victory and we did everything we could to get the win. I think a main reason we knew teamwork was so important was the prior season. As juniors we were on the varsity squad and the seniors were very talented and athletic. But guess what??? They didn’t work as a team; they were “individuals.” We didn’t go far that year, we made it to the playoffs but that’s it. Once we became seniors we knew what it took to win, Team Work. Every day we would strive to help others improve rather than just looking out for ourselves. As a result we all improved our skills and dominated football in state of AZ. It might have also had something to do with every lineman being 6’3” or taller and 230 lbs or more, but I still think it was teamwork.

A team can achieve nothing when there are just a couple talented individuals that are out for themselves (I mean look at the Utah Jazz). Even though a single person may achieve personal success, most of the time they leave their teammates in the dust.

I like to compare a team and teamwork to a family and their success. Eternal family success is a team effort; one person cannot make the team successful alone.

Example: Growing up my dear Mother lead FHE every Monday and often times with rumblings and grumblings from “men” of the family. I just thought that was the way it was; until I got on my mission, needless to say, I was humbled. My awesome mission parents taught me that the father presides and is the patriarch over the family and therefore it is their responsibility to lead their family home evening discussions. Come to think of it, if Family Home Evening was my Dad’s thing, we kids would have definitely been more attentive, because ya know it’s Dad.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson said, “Brethren, let us stand with women, and share their burdens…”

Moses 3:24 Therefore shall man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.

Men and women are bound together in every sense of the word. How can we, as men, not support our wives by sharing their burdens? Many times in this world men not only forget to share their wives’ burdens; they put their responsibilities on their wives’ shoulders when it should really be theirs, like with FHE.

In Dec 1970 when FHE was rolling out, this is the promise that was given by Boyd K Packer: “With this program comes a promise from the living prophets that if parents (insert fathers there) will gather their children about them once a week and teach the gospel, those children in such families will not go astray.”

Wow can that be more cut and dry??? Notice that he says, “…once a week and teach the gospel…” while it is awesome to play ball as a family, go hiking as a family or go to a movie as a family according the prophets it is not FHE without a gospel discussion.

The First Presidency of the church in 1999 wrote a letter to the church saying: “Dear Brothers and Sisters Monday nights are reserved throughout the Church for family home evenings. We encourage members to set aside this time to strengthen family ties and teach the gospel in their homes.”

Howard W Hunter: “As patriarch of the home, exercise your priesthood through performing the appropriate ordinances for your family and by giving blessings to your wife and children. Next to your own salvation, brethren, there is nothing so important to you as the salvation of your wife and children.”

While collecting these scriptures and quotes and pondering on strengthening my own family these last couple days, I learned a lot. I would encourage each of you to ponder and study how you can improve your family’s relationships.

President Henry B. Eyring: “Jesus has offered us the family as an example of an ideal setting in which we can learn how to love as He loves. That is because the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows we experience are in family relationships. The joys come from putting the welfare of others above our own. That is what love is.”

 I would like to offer some suggestions that I found while researching these past few days:

First to the YM:

Young Men, before my mission all I was engaged in and all I cared about, was hanging out with my friends and having fun; all day every day if permitted. However, I learned very quickly how much I loved my family once I left the country to serve a mission. I realized then, that there is nothing more important to me than my family; not friends, not sports, not cars, and not even all the fun I had. I would encourage each of you YM you to want to spend your spare time with your family. If you currently do not want to, then you can fix that.

Video on LDS.org -http://bcove.me/vw26gfid

I want to underline YM, that it was the young man who took the first step. That means you can too! No matter who it is in your family that you struggle with. Decide today to improve your relationship. 

To the sisters:

D. Todd Christofferson: “Dear sisters, we rely on the moral force you bring to the world, to marriage, to family, to the Church. We rely on blessings you bring down from heaven by your prayers and faith.”

He goes on to say:

“…whether you are single or married, whether you have borne children or not, whether you are old, young, or in between, your moral authority is vital, and perhaps we have begun to take it and you for granted.”

To the men:

Brethren, I hope we can avoid taking the women in our lives for granted by respecting them more in every way.

Gordon B Hinckley: “Every woman is a daughter of God, you cannot offend her without offending him.”

It seems like each father has a built-in, fierce protective instinct when it comes to his daughters. There is one word that always seems to come up when a father talks about protecting his daughter, “SHOTGUN.” I look at the love and protective instincts I have with my daughters and I am fairly confident in my ability to protect my daughters.

If we fathers are so protective of our daughters can you imagine how protective our Father in Heaven is over his daughters??? I think he has something more dreadful than a “SHOTGUN” in store for those men whom offend one of his precious daughters. All I know is I don’t want to be on the receiving end of his wrath when it comes to disrespecting his daughters.

Fathers, Husbands, brothers, sons, grandsons…what can we do better today to increase our love and respect for these precious daughters of God?

If we have weaknesses that is ok, we can change:

Ether 12:27 And if men [I like how it says MEN] come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

If we struggle with anything in regards to our relationships with the women in our lives, let us have the courage and faith to improve that today! Tomorrow may be too late.

As many of you know just over a year ago my Father passed away.  When my father passed away I made a personal goal to never miss a family function or gathering because you never know when one of our loved one’s time is up, you never know who is next. I am grateful the Spirit prompted me to do this because, two months ago, exactly a year to the day after my Dad died, my dear cousin who was only 18 years old died in car accident. My family was devastated by his unexpected death. However, I am very grateful that I followed the Spirit to make it a point to not miss any family functions and as a result I was able to spend that much more time with my dear cousin before he passed away. I am grateful for that time and because I followed the promptings of the Holy Ghost, I do not have any regrets.

May we use the limited time we have now to strengthen our family relationships.

May I conclude with a quote from Brigham Young: “Our Families are not yet ours. The Lord has committed them to us to see how we will treat them. Only if we are faithful will they be given to us forever. What we do on earth determines whether or not we will be worthy to become heavenly parents.”

I have a testimony that Family relationships are vital to the success of our eternal potential. We must work as a team in order to achieve our end goal. Fathers, I am a strong believer that it all starts with us and I think that is how Heavenly Father intended it to be. I know that if we endure the hard times in righteousness and faith we will be grateful in the end. Eternity is a long time to look back and wish you would have done something different but chose not to because it was too hard. I know that with The Lord everything is possible for our families to achieve.