As women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), we are dedicated to “strengthening marriages, families, and homes.” We live in a day when more than 50% of marriages in our country fail, dividing families, and wrecking homes. Latter-day Saint women are not left to their own devices, or the offerings of a crumbling culture, to fortify the marriage, family, and home. We have a prophet and God uses him to help us strengthen our marriages, families, and homes. We also have the Holy Ghost to help us apply this general counsel to our specific family’s needs.
I have been working on my Master’s Degree in Education. A few days ago, a friend asked about my thesis/project. I shared that as a society, parents have pushed their children into education, with little thought of teaching them how to build a happy marriage, manage family, and home. Education is important, but not to the exclusion of home and family. The result has been high divorce rates, broken homes, and dysfunctional families. Many fathers do not seem to know how to be fathers, many mothers do not seem to know how to be mothers, most struggle with debt, and few know how to maintain a home. I became LDS when I was a senior in high school, and had been raised in a home broken by divorce. The woman I was talking to is a divorcee. She said that her son needed a man in his life to help teach him how to be a man. Then she asked, “Donna, what is the solution?” Though my thesis deals primarily with the lost arts and relationships that were once nurtured in the home, I feel the best solution is found in gospel living.
Where can a person learn what they need to be a better spouse and parent, especially if they were never taught? Some of the resources the Lord has blessed us with are:
The Scriptures teach about healthy family relationships and standards of gospel living, and when the counsel found in scriptures are heeded, bring happiness into our lives.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches us principles of happy families.
General, Stake, and Ward Conferences are where we are taught standards of gospel living and we receive counsel for families, marriages, and relationships.
Relief Society and Young Women’s organizations help women strengthen testimonies through gospel teaching and teach women how to be good daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, and neighbors, as well as, skills that can help us with home, family, personal enrichment, and with provident living.
Visiting Teaching is a way to strengthen each other as women and give encouragement to women in their roles as sisters, daughters, wives, mothers, and neighbors.
The Priesthood and Young Men’s organizations teach men how to administer the temporal affairs of the God’s Kingdom on earth, and how to be good sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, and neighbors.
Home Teachers can be a great blessing to single mothers, widows, families, and individual women. They teach, assist, and bless.
The Primary organization reinforces the teachings of the home and helps children be better, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, and neighbors.
The home is the schoolroom and laboratory where these core values and skills are learned and refined. The Lord has provided families with additional helps:
The Family Guidebook teaches parents principles of establishing a happy home.
A Parent’s Guide helps parents understand good parenting practices.
The Family Home Evening Resource Manual is an excellent resource for families to use to teach gospel principles in the home, in weekly family home evenings.
With all of these wonderful examples and resources, I feel God’s love and guidance in my life and I feel strengthened and guided to be a better mother.
