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Marriage and Parenthood: Preparing Our Families for Eternal Life (Wilford Woodruff 16)

W. Douglas Shumway, "Marriage and Family: Our Sacred Responsibility," Ensign, May 2004, 94 - Shortly after I was married, my three brothers and I were sitting in my father's office for a business meeting. At the conclusion of our meeting, as we stood to leave, Dad stopped, turned to us, and said: "You boys are not treating your wives as you should. You need to show them more kindness and respect." My father's words penetrated my soul. Today we are witnessing an unending assault on marriage and the family. They seem to be the adversary's prime targets for belittlement and destruction. In a society where marriage is often shunned, parenthood avoided, and families degraded, we...

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Lesson 32: "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth"

John S. Tanner, "Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job?" Ensign, Dec. 1990, 49 - I think of Job whenever I come face to face with good people struggling to maintain their faith. When I listened to a widower recount how his wife died from cancer, leaving not only a grieving husband but several sons who still needed a mother--I remembered Job. When I heard a young mother share her feelings as she learned that, against all odds, she was carrying her second spina bifida baby--I remembered Job. When another mother told me how her children had been sexually abused by her former husband--I remembered Job. The Book of Job resolves neither the particular perplexities of...

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Lesson 31: "Happy Is the Man That Findeth Wisdom"

Robert E. Wells, "The Cs of Spirituality," Ensign, Nov. 1978, 24 - My dear brothers and sisters, I pray that you and I might be united by the Spirit, uplifted together, and rejoice in the beautiful things of the gospel. I have in my pocket a silver dollar. On one side it says, "in God we trust." We have been taught by the prophets to trust in the Lord, to trust as did young David when facing the giant Goliath. Now, there is another side to that coin. Would that it read, "and God can trust in you." The Lord wants us to trust in him, but he also wants to be able...

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YW 31: Group Activities: A Basis for Wise Dating

"Idea List: The Do's of Dating," New Era, Nov. 2000, 15 - * Prepare long before dating. Decide now to keep your standards high, so your decisions will already be made if you are faced with a difficult situation. * Group dates are definitely the way to go. The more people the merrier! * Have a definite plan. Involve everyone going on the date in the planning process, if possible. * Be smart. Stay away from potentially uncomfortable or unsafe situations. Choose an activity and a place that is consistent with your moral standards. * A ward dance, Church activity, or service project might be a good way to get to know someone...

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Raising Fit Kids

Bridget Swinney - Just take a look at kids at the mall or in the schoolyard. You can also see a shortage of kids outside playing, biking, or running. What can parents do to make sure their kids are not part of the statistics? Here are some answers from Bridget Swinney, author of Healthy Food for Healthy Kids by Meadowbrook Press. Exercise together as a family. This shows your kids that you think exercise is important enough to make it a family activity. That doesn’t mean you should necessarily head to the gym together. Fun family activities that also help you work up a...

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Keeping Track

Caroline J. Cederquist, M.D. - That’s because most people really have no idea what they’re actually eating every day. Research shows that most people have an idea about what they’re eating that is quite a bit off from the reality.   One of the most effective tools for helping people assess their weight and nutritional issues is the dietary diary. For some, being required to actually write down everything that goes into their mouth can be a real eye-opener. There are people who have looked back over a diary and realized they hadn’t eaten a bite of fresh fruit or vegetable for days at a time!   For...

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Earth, Water, and Snow

Jena Peterson - Staying healthy is more than swimming laps and lifting at the local gym. Enjoy a workout in the beauty outside. We’ve covered three activities you’re always aching to try—one on earth, one in water, and one in snow—how to get into them, and how to love them.   High on a Mountain Top Every morning you walk out the door on your way to your nine-to-five, look up, and say, “One of these days we’re going to hike to the top of that mountain.” But have you ever done it?   There’s hiking, and then there’s glory hiking. You want a...

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Camp Family Fun

Debra Sansing Woods - Eight years ago, our family set out on a midsummer cross-country odyssey that we will likely never forget. My husband, children, and I piled into our high-top van and drove from our home in Austin, Texas to upstate New York, into New England, then Canada, Old Quebec City, Chicago, Nauvoo, Winter Quarters, and Lincoln, Nebraska. And after some thirty days and 8,000 miles on the road, we returned home tired and yet refreshed and notably closer as a family. I’d like to say that our family takes trips like that every summer, but money doesn’t grow on any of the trees...

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Sparkly PALS Shine

Jordan Marie Williams - Jani and JaLeah Holman, two college students in Utah, took on Sparkly PALS five years ago. They first encountered the program when directors Marion Tannie Peters and Mark Shipley moved to Utah and started a dance class for participants with Down’s Syndrome like two of Jani and JaLeah’s siblings. However, when the directors moved away, the group shifted into the hands of the Holman sisters, who had experience in dance performance and working with people with Down’s Syndrome. They began instructing ten students in their mom’s basement, and now they have forty dancers. Realizing the potential they saw in their dances,...

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Chuck’s Hats for Chemo

Jordan Marie Williams - Before long, the project reached Ann Senne of Schaumburg, Illinois, where she is her ward’s Relief Society president. Having lost two siblings to cancer, she felt strongly about helping such patients, and brought up the service project in a Relief Society meeting. The women embraced the idea and thirty attended an enrichment night where Ann and others taught them to crochet. “The women in the ward took to the idea with so much enthusiasm,” Ann says. “Some of the women crochet the hats, and some are making the hats on a loom. Some women made one or two hats, and some...