"Touch Not the Evil Gift, nor the Unclean Thing"
Elder H. Burke Peterson
- Emeritus Member of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker expresses concern about the lowering of social norms of morality, particularly through media portraying sex, nudity, and vulgarity, which he equates to pornography. He warns that even priesthood holders are succumbing to this entertainment and losing their spirituality.
Satan, the very devil and the father of all lies, has slyly and slowly lowered the social norms of morality to a tragic and destructive level. In magazines and books, on CDs and tapes, on our television and theater screens is portrayed more and more often a lifestyle that might even rival the excesses of those who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah. The screens, music, and printed materials, etc., are filled with a profusion of sex, nudity, and vulgarity.
One of the great tragedies is that too many men ... (continued)
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"Touch Not the Evil Gift, nor the Unclean Thing"
Elder H. Burke Peterson
- Emeritus Member of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker urges his audience to avoid any media with illicit content, emphasizing the spiritual consequences and the need to protect oneself and one's family from such influences.
We must come to understand fully the consequences of having an appetite for such entertainment. Fathers and mothers must warn their children and make them aware of the eternal penalty. No man or boy of us here tonight can look at, read about, or listen to such explicit vulgarity, even in its mildest form, without bringing sorrow to a loving God and a terrible injury to one’s own spirit. We cannot look at or listen to these unholy depictions in our own living room or wherever they are show ... (continued)
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"Touch Not the Evil Gift, nor the Unclean Thing"
Elder H. Burke Peterson
- Emeritus Member of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker explains that consuming impure media dims the light within us, hinders our ability to think clearly, and restricts our entitlement to personal revelation, leading to a decrease in happiness and an increase in contention.
In an application of this scripture today, it is my understanding that anytime we look at or listen to the kind of material we have been speaking of—even in its mildest form—the light inside of us grows dimmer because the darkness inside increases. The effect of this is that we cannot think as clearly on life’s challenges—be they business, church, school, family, or personal—because the channel to the source of all light for the solving of problems is cluttered ... (continued)
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"Touch Not the Evil Gift, nor the Unclean Thing"
Elder H. Burke Peterson
- Emeritus Member of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker offers a plan of attack for those struggling with the problem of consuming impure media, including prayer, scripture study, and confession, emphasizing persistence in seeking help and the promise of miracles.
Now, if you have this problem we speak of, let me give you hope and a plan of attack. If you are young, go to your parents or your bishop for help. Both young and older must go to the Lord. Stopping the activity and cleansing the spirit of the impurities of which we’ve been speaking will not be easy, and it will not be quick, but it can be sure. I quote from a talk given at this pulpit several years ago.
“The secret to cleansing our spirit of whatever the impurity is not very compli ... (continued)
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"Touch Not the Evil Gift, nor the Unclean Thing"
Elder H. Burke Peterson
- Emeritus Member of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker testifies of the Savior's leadership in their work and echoes Moroni's farewell address, inviting all to come unto Christ and be perfected in him.
I testify that the Savior is at the head of this work. May I echo the words that great prophet Moroni offered in his farewell address:
“Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the p ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child . . ."
Bishop Victor L. Brown
- Of the Presiding Bishopric
📅 0
📖 general conference
A young woman experiencing marital difficulties with her third husband was still having decisions made for her by her mother.
Of course, good sense must be used in determining how far to go in letting a child make his own decisions. Recently, I visited with a young woman who is having marital difficulty with her third husband. This young lady has a mother who is still making her decisions for her.
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"Train Up a Child . . ."
Bishop Victor L. Brown
- Of the Presiding Bishopric
📅 0
📖 general conference
A young man from a good LDS home struggled with excessive drinking, smoking, and legal troubles despite hating these activities, due to feeling like a failure in his perfectionist father's eyes.
Take, for instance, the young man who had almost reached the state of incorrigibility when he came to a counselor for help. He was drinking excessively; he was a chain smoker; he was continually in trouble with the law; and yet he came from a good LDS home. I'm sure his parents loved him and would have done anything in the world to help him, but let us see what the counselor discovered.
When asked if he liked the taste of liquor, the boy replied that he hated it. When asked if he enjoyed smoki ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child . . ."
Bishop Victor L. Brown
- Of the Presiding Bishopric
📅 0
📖 general conference
A young college student named Susie Jones struggled with her identity and independence due to her parents' expectations and decisions made on her behalf.
A few months ago I had a most revealing interview with a lovely young college student. This young lady was the youngest in her family. All her brothers and sisters had married and left home. Her father was a farmer. She had worked on the farm each summer plowing and doing other farm work generally done by boys and men. This she did not mind, but now she was 19. She said she loved her parents with all her heart and would never do anything to hurt them. She said, "Bishop Brown, my folks expect ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder Mark E. Petersen
- Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Bishop Brown reads about the Jones boy's incarceration for robbery and reflects on the boy's past misbehavior and the general increase in juvenile delinquency.
A man we shall call Bishop Brown, for the sake of anonymity, sat reading his evening newspaper and came across one item that especially interested him. After reading it he said to his wife who sat nearby, "I see that Jones boy has finally gone to jail. It's a wonder he didn't go sooner, considering the record he had." And then he recalled that this Jones boy, when he used to go to Church, was rather rowdy and hard to handle. Later he became a truant at high school, sluffed his classes to go out ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder Mark E. Petersen
- Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Bishop Brown frequently discusses juvenile delinquency in his Sunday meetings, citing statistics to support his concerns, and emphasizes parental responsibility.
This was a favorite theme with the bishop. He would talk about it quite frequently in his Sunday evening meetings and would quote statistics to prove his point. Among the statistics he would use were some like these: The F.B.I. reports that the first six months of 1946 show the highest rate of increase in crime in the United States of any period since crime figures have been compiled on a national basis. The increase was fifty percent higher in rural areas than in cities, contrary to the prevail ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder Mark E. Petersen
- Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Bishop Brown overlooks the responsibility of church leaders in preventing juvenile delinquency and fails to recognize the shortcomings in his own ward's youth programs.
I do not in any way wish to minimize the responsibility of the parents with regard to their children, but if Bishop Brown had read further into the reports of these national experts, he would have discovered that these same authorities declare that a large part of the responsibility for the juvenile delinquency in America must also be borne by the local leaders of various churches; that the religious leaders of our communities must shoulder a good part of the responsibility. Some of the young pe ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder L. Tom Perry
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Elder Scott reflects on the mindset of some parents who believe that sending their child on a mission will compensate for years of not teaching them gospel principles.
I have also had the same feeling about some of the missionaries I have had opportunities to interview in the field. Some parents must feel that "if I can only get my child on a mission, it will make up for those years when I have failed to teach him the principles of the gospel."
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder L. Tom Perry
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Elder Scott observes a father bringing his resistant son to Junior Sunday School and leaving him there for the teacher to manage, which Elder Scott interprets as the father expecting the teacher to take over his responsibility to train his son in reverence.
Many years ago I had the great pleasure of having the assignment as second counselor in the Sunday School presidency with specific responsibility for what was then the Junior Sunday School. Each Sunday I would watch a particular father bring his son to church. The boy would be crying and screaming, begging not to be turned over to the teacher. I watched the father take him to the classroom, push him through the door, and then hold onto the doorknob on the other side"”so his son could not come ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder L. Tom Perry
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Elder Scott compares parents bringing their children to BYU with the expectation that the university will complete their training to the father leaving his son at Sunday School for the teacher to handle.
I had almost the same feeling the other day when Elder Featherstone and I spent a few hours with the president of Brigham Young University. We had asked for an appointment to discuss with him what the priesthood leadership could do to help enforce the standards required of the students when they are accepted at Brigham Young University. As we sat with the leader of this great institution, I was reminded of this experience in Junior Sunday School many years ago. I had the feeling that many parent ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder L. Tom Perry
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Elder Scott recounts the observation by the president of BYU that students from farms, who have been taught to work and conserve, are less likely to violate school standards compared to those who have been spoiled with worldly goods.
It was interesting to me, as we discussed concerns of students at BYU with the president, that he remarked that the students from the farms where they had been taught to work, save, and conserve were the ones who seldom stepped out of line in violating school standards. Students whose parents had spoiled them with worldly goods were the ones who seemed to create most of the problems. It was the student who arrived at school driving an expensive, fancy car who seemed to think he was above abiding ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder L. Tom Perry
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Elder Scott shares Brigham Young's advice on teaching children to work and create, using the example of girls making clothes for their dolls and boys building sleds and wagons.
Brigham Young taught: "I believe in indulging children, in a reasonable way. If the little girls want dolls, shall they have them? Yes. But must they be taken to the dressmaker"™s to be dressed? No. Let the girls learn to cut and sew the clothing for their dolls, and in a few years they will know how to make a dress for themselves and others. Let the little boys have tools, and let them make their sleds, little wagons, etc., and when they grow up, they are acquainted with the use of tools and ... (continued)
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"Train Up a Child"
Elder L. Tom Perry
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
Elder Scott tells the story of a little girl in a family of boys who has been taught to wear dresses, indicating she will have no problem with Church dress standards because she has been taught this from the beginning.
I know a little girl who is the last child in a large family in which the other children are all boys. I guess the shock of being a girl in this big family of boys has made her keenly aware of the fact that she is different from the other children. Her mother has wisely taught her that the boys wear trousers and that she wears dresses. Now you cannot get her to wear anything else but a modest dress. I am certain she will have no problem adjusting to Church dress standards anytime in her life bec ... (continued)
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"True to the Faith"
President Gordon B. Hinckley
📅 0
📖 general conference
Wallace Stegner, a non-member observer, details the significant contributions of the Mormon pioneers in settling the American West, including establishing communities, building roads and bridges, and influencing the settlement of various regions.
Permit me to quote to you from Wallace Stegner, not a member of the Church but a contemporary at the University of Utah who later became professor of creative writing at Stanford and a Pulitzer Prize winner. He was a close observer and a careful student. He wrote this concerning these forebears of ours: “They built a commonwealth, or as they would have put it, a Kingdom. But the story of their migration is more than the story of the founding of Utah. In their hegira they opened up southern ... (continued)
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"True to the Faith"
President Gordon B. Hinckley
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker recounts the hardships faced by the Mormon pioneers as they fled Missouri, built Nauvoo, Illinois, and were eventually forced to leave after the death of Joseph Smith, leading to their difficult journey to the Salt Lake Valley.
In a period of seven years, our people, who had fled the extermination order of Governor Boggs of Missouri, came to Illinois and built the largest city then in the state. It was on the shores of the Mississippi, where the river makes a great sweeping bend. Here they constructed brick homes, a school, chartered a university, erected an assembly hall, and built their temple, reportedly the most magnificent structure then in the entire state of Illinois. But hatred against them continued to enflame ... (continued)
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"True to the Faith"
President Gordon B. Hinckley
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker describes the journey of the first company of Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young's declaration of their destination, and the subsequent growth and expansion of the Mormon settlements.
In the spring of 1847, the wagons of the first company pulled out of Winter Quarters and headed west. Generally they followed a route along the north side of the Platte River. Those going to California and Oregon followed a route on the south side. The road of the Mormons later became the right-of-way of the Union Pacific Railroad and the transcontinental highway. As we all know, on July 24, 1847, after 111 days, they emerged from the mountain canyon into the Salt Lake Valley. Brigham Young decl ... (continued)
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