Our Responsibility to Nurture the Rising Generation

This month's visiting teaching message is awesome!

"Without nurturing, our rising generation could be in danger of becoming like the one described in Mosiah 26. Many youth didn’t believe the traditions of their fathers and became a separate people as to their faith, remaining so ever after. Our rising generation could likewise be led away if they don’t understand their part in Heavenly Father’s plan.

So what is it that will keep the rising generation safe? In the Church, we teach saving principles, and those principles are family principles, the principles that will help the rising generation to form a family, teach that family, and prepare that family for ordinances and covenants—and then the next generation will teach the next and so on.

As parents, leaders, and Church members, we are preparing this generation for the blessings of Abraham, for the temple. We have the responsibility to be very clear on key points of doctrine found in the proclamation on the family. Motherhood and fatherhood are eternal roles and responsibilities. Each of us carries the responsibility for either the male or the female half of the plan.

We can teach this doctrine in any setting. We must speak respectfully of marriage and family. And from our example, the rising generation can gain great hope and understanding—not just from the words we speak but from the way we feel and emanate the spirit of family."

 - Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president.

I think as we get older and our children get older we figure out better ways to instruct them.  I sometimes feel that we have failed our older children because we didn't teach them enough; or protect them enough from the ways of the world.

I look at our four younger children and I understand them better than the older ones.  Victor and I are on the same page when it comes to them.  Our expectations of serving missions; getting married in the temple and having families raised in the gospel are known by our children.  We have tried to teach them correct principles.  We have also taken special care to participate with them in their youth activities as well as the youth programs and setting goals.

Seminary has become extremely important and we encourage participation and study.  We have seen how Evan especially has benefited from this early morning education.

I also think about my siblings and how they are constantly checking themselves against the standards of the church.  I see their deep love and concern for their children and their desire to help them along the way.  I do not fear for my children or my nieces and nephews.  I know that they are being taught and nurtured in the gospel. 

I look forward to the day when we all will be standing in Holy Places in the presence of our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
I know that we each have been given the strength to endure and the knowledge to bestow upon our children from a loving Heavenly Father who only wishes for his children to come home.