Mothers day

So I was suppose to give a talk today on Mothers and Brady decided it was a good morning to start puking out of both ends. Since I thought alot about mom in the preperation I thought I would post it here. Happy Mothers Day!


Brethren and sisters, if you will bear with me, I wish to share with you a personal privilege. Nearly 6 years ago, my own mother, Meriden, passed away. It was very difficult to watch her mortal life drain out of her as she struggled with cancer. I admit that I was overcome with mixed emotions. She was an example of true motherhood. She was good, she was true, and she was a saint. She was and is a royal daughter of God. To her I owe my very existence and also my success in life.

Many of you have been similarly blessed. After all, there are few people in our lives that can make such a tremendous impact on us as our mothers.
So in remembrance of my dear sweet mother and in gratitude for the mother that today teaches my sons to be raised in righteousness, I am grateful to share a few thoughts on the mothers and righteous women that affect our lives.

In primary the last few weeks the lessons have been on the creation of the world. The time when the almighty directed our savior Jesus Christ, the Great Jehovah, to create the earth and all that is on it.
The heavens and the earth were formed along with light being separated from darkness. Waters and land were divided and vegetation and animals followed. Then came the creation of man and Genesis 1:31 states that “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold it was very good”

It was good but something was missing. “For Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made women, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bones of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman.
God’s last creation was Eve. The mother of us all. President Hinkley called the creation of women the “Grand summation of all of the marvelous work that had gone before.

I think sometimes men have forgotten what a special place heavenly father created for Women. Throughout history women were often given second class status. And yet with all the trials women have had to face some of the greatest people in scripture are women. The list is long. Esther, Naomi, and Ruth from the Old Tetament. Sariah and Abish and all of the rightouss mothers of the strippling warriors from the Book of Mormon. Then in the New Testament we have Mary the mother of the Great Jehovah. She spent so much effort to try to protect her baby that she fled to Egypt and was later pained to watch his body hang on calvary.

There are also many examples of women in the early history of the church. One of my favorite stories is of Mary Fielding Smith, the widow of Hyrum Smith. When the saints were preparing to leave Nauvoo and cross the plains she with her two teenage sons prepared her wagon and brought it to the starting area. When the captain she had been assigned to came to meet her he told her that she was foolish to attempt the journey and that she would be a burden to the company the whole way. Mary must have had some of the same fire that my wife does because she told him that not only would she not ask for his help but that she would beat him to the valley.
She worked hard driving he wagon and team and it seemed that she was going to be able to uphold the statement that she made to the captain until on a hot day one of her oxen collapsed. The captain came and said the ox was dead and that he would have to find a way for them to load the provisions into different wagons and that he knew all along that Mary was going to be a burden.
However, Mary hadn’t let her faith falter. She went to her wagon and returned with a bottle of concectated oil. She asked two priesthood holders, what must have been her equivalent of home teachers to administer to the ox and shortly after they did the ox stood as if nothing had happened.

Not far from reaching the salt lake valley Mary had another trial. Some of her cows had wandered off. While her stepson john went to look for them the captain ordered the company to move on without her. Mary waited for John and prayed fervently for his return. Then suddently a rainstorm came and the company that had moved ahead was thrown into confusion. The cattle scattered and it took all day to round them up.
Meanwhile Mary moved ahead of the company and on into the salt lake valley. Mary had kept her word and due to her courage and faith led her family into the valley 20 hours ahead of the captain that had tried to discourage her.
Her son the prophet Joseph F. Smith later said this about mothers
“I think that the best mothers in the world should be found, and consistently found, among the Latter-day Saints. I believe the best wives in all the world are found among the Latter-day Saints. I do not know if any women in the world that have the same conception of wifehood and motherhood that the latter day saints possess.
We shall prosper and build zion upon the earth ;for this is our mission, and the work of your mothers and daughters of zion-the mothers now and by and by the daughters who will in turn be mothers in isreal. Great responsibility rests upon you. Upon you depend the training and the direction of the thoughts and the inspiration of the hearts of your children, for they drink into the spirit of their mothers, and the influence of the mother over the children is the most enduring impression that can be made. There is nothing so imperishable as the influence of the mother; that is when she is good and has the spirit of the Gospel in her heart, and she has brought up her children in the way they should go

Our mothers, and the mothers of our children, whose hearts are filled with solicitude for the welfare of their children, having had conferred upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit, by the laying on of hands, can go to their secret chambers and bow down before God and commune with Him as no other mothers on earth can do, if they will only observe the principles they have embraced and will live up to their privileges. By the influence that they will thus gain over the hearts of their children they will lead them in the path of righteousness and truth, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, in the love of truth, in obedience to His commands, in such a way as others cannot do who are destitute of these privileges, blessings and endowments, so freely conferred upon the mothers in Israel.”

I don’t believe there has ever been a more difficult time to be a mother. You women may not have to lead a wagon team across the plains, but you have a more difficult task. It is so difficult today to keep our children from the ways of the world, from transgression and temptations that will lead them astray.
Just like Mary Fielding Smith don’t ever let your faith falter and the Lord will bless you with strength and wisdom.

Every mother has the right to know what to do in her family and in her sphere, over her children, in their guidance and direction; and that mother and every mother possessing that spirit has the gift of revelation, the gift of inspiration and the gift of knowledge, which is the spirit of prophecy, the spirit of discernment, a gift of God to them, to govern their households and lead their children in the path of righteousness and truth.