CHURCH TALKS ENGLISH WARD

Eileen's Talk

I have been asked to speak on habits.  The Webster dictionary describes a habit as an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. Wouldn’t it be nice to have everything good in our lives run on autopilot? What if chores, exercise, eating healthy, reading your scriptures, getting to work on time, and having harmonious relationships all just happened automatically?  Life would be so much easier. Yet would we really be fulfilling the reason why we are here on earth? We are here on earth to be tried and tested.  God’s plan for us is beautiful and simple.  He wants us to have joy and to become more like Him.  God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but he does expect each one of us try to do the best of our ability to be more like Him and learn and grow from our mistakes. Each time we make a poor choice with painful consequences, that decision leads to unhappiness—sometimes immediately, sometimes much later. Likewise, choosing good eventually leads to happiness and helps us become more like Heavenly Father.

In order to become the kind of people that God would have us be we need to cultivate good habits.  This is difficult.  The ways of the world often leads us to distractions that even though they may not be evil, may not utilize our time in the best way.

Elder Delbert L. Stapley said: "We are not born into this world with fixed habits. Neither do we inherit a noble character. Instead, as children of God, we are given the privilege and opportunity of choosing which way of life we will follow-which habits we will form.  Good habits are not acquired simply by making good resolves, though the thought must precede the action. Good habits are developed in the workshop of our daily lives. It is not in the great moments of test and trial that character is built. That is only when it is displayed. The habits that direct our lives and form our character are fashioned in the often uneventful, commonplace routine of life. They are acquired by practice."
--Delbert L. Stapley, "Good Habits Develop Good Character", Ensign, Nov. 1974, 20

We are responsible for the habits that make or break us - not the situation, the environment or our family. In this respect, we are the masters of our fates. We are what we repeatedly do, and become what we pursue.

President Spencer W. Kimball counseled young people, leaders of youth, and all Church members to take a careful inventory of their habits. “Change,” he said, “comes by substituting good habits for less desirable ones.” Then he added, “You mold your character and future by good thoughts and acts.” (New Era, Sept. 1974, p. 7.)

A favorite saying often quoted by the late President David O. McKay was “We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions; we sow our actions, and we reap our habits; we sow our habits, and we reap our characters; we sow our characters, and we reap our destiny.” (C. A. Hall, The Home Book of Quotations, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1935, p. 845.)

There is no deep mystery to mastering habits. We make them, and we can break them through similar processes.  Just as we often don’t realize the habits we are forming as we eat a few extra calories, come in late to work, or neglect our children, we can consciously form habits by continuously adhering to a decisive schedule.

Steve Pavlina, a popular motivational speaker has suggested the following steps to developing a habit in 30 days:

1) Focus on one change for thirty days. After that time it has been sufficiently conditioned to become a habit.   Choosing to focus with just one habit at a time you can work on really making it stick. Multitasking between three or four often means none become habits

          2) Write it down.  Don’t leave commitments in your brain. Write them on paper. This does two things. First, it creates clarity by defining in specific terms what your change means. Second, it keeps you committed since it is easy to dismiss a thought, but harder to dismiss a promise printed in front of you.  Elder Healy is very good at this.  We have a white board at work that he writes things down on. He also writes down simple goals on cards after we discuss them. That way if there are any questions as to what we are doing, he refers back to the card.

              3) Get a friend – Give a buddy or family member some money with the condition to return it to you only when you’ve completed thirty days without fail. Make a public commitment to everyone you know that you’re going to stick with it. Offer yourself a reward if you make it a month. Reward yourself somehow when you complete your goal for one month.

              4) Keep it Simple – Your change should involve one or two rules, not a dozen. Exercising once per day for at least thirty minutes is easier to follow than exercising Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays with yoga the first day and mountain biking the third day, except when it is raining in which case you will do… Simple rules create habits, complex rules create headaches.

             

              5) Consistency is Key – The point of a habit is that it doesn’t require thought. Variety may be the spice of life, but it doesn’t create habits. Make sure your habit is as consistent as possible and is repeated every day for thirty days. This will ensure a new habit is drilled in, instead of multiple habits loosely conditioned.

              6) Experiment – You can’t know whether a different habit will work until you try it.  Mix around with key habits until you find ones that suit you. 

When we first arrived in Indonesia we had several goals we wanted to reach.  They seemed simple enough.  We wanted to do daily exercise, scripture study and daily language study.  I knew this might take some compromising as we have different sleep needs. Elder Healy has always gotten by on significantly less sleep than me. I have never been an early riser.  During much of our married life he has traveled, or when he has not been traveling he has gone into the office early in the morning and exercised at the office gym.  I like to get up leisurely and exercise when my body is used to being up for a while then exercise at that point.  Scripture study as a couple has never been our strong suit.  We knew that would have to change as a missionary couple. Elder Healy suggested that when we came on our mission we would have scripture study  early in the morning.  I told him that I hoped he enjoyed himself and to let me know what he learned.  (Couple missionaries don’t have quite the same rules as young missionaries).  We eventually decided we would need to work together to reach our goals. While living in a small apartment, being together 24 hours/day we thought we would have to somehow work things out. Our first morning in our apartment we woke up startled by the sound of several mosques broadcasting call to prayer at 4 a.m.  Elder Healy continues to wake up at 4 a.m. and studies Preach My Gospel in Bahasa Indonesia. I try and sleep later.  We tried different schedules all that met with frustrations.  If we leave late for the office, we run into several problems.  We get stuck in traffic, we don’t get our work done, and I get really cranky. So I think we have finally found a solution. After 10 weeks here, I have finally gotten in the habit of waking up by 5:30- 6a.m. and exercising.  We leave early for the office.  Elder Healy has compromised with being willing to leave the office in the evening before everything is done.  That way we do actually get to go home at night and we don’t have to leave when traffic is at it’s worst.  We have scripture study as soon as we get home from the office.  We study the scriptures in Indonesian and take turns translating verse by verse.  We don’t go very fast through the Book of Mormon, but we are reading the scriptures and getting some language study in at the same time. It took compromise on both sides, but I think it is working.  If you had asked me one year ago if I would be up that early every day, I would have answered with a resounding NO. Now even when I try and sleep in, I can’t.  I guess for me being an early riser has become a habit.

Elder Stapley said “Maintaining good personal habits which are pleasing to our Heavenly Father will strengthen our character, increase our influence for good, improve our example, bless our loved ones and friends, enrich our lives, and enable us to accomplish those things that yield true personal satisfaction and build peace and happiness in our hearts. We will have joy eternally, possessing a treasure to be much desired and sought after, for the Lord gives this assurance: “Inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.” (D&C 58:28.)

It all starts with a single step—we decide that we can do it.”

Throughout his life, Heber J. Grant worked diligently to improve himself, believing that “every individual can improve from day to day. He told the following story about a time in his youth when he displayed the quality of persistence:

“When I joined a base ball club, the boys of my own age, and a little older, played in the first nine, those younger than myself played in the second, and those still younger in the third, and I played with them. One of the reasons for this was that I could not throw the ball from one base to the other; another reason was that I lacked physical strength to run or bat well. When I picked up a ball, the boys would generally shout, ‘Throw it here, sissy!’ So much fun was engendered on my account by my youthful companions that I solemnly vowed that I would play baseball in the nine that would win the championship of the Territory of Utah.

“My mother was keeping boarders at the time for a living, and I shined their boots until I saved a dollar, which I invested in a base ball. I spent hours and hours throwing the ball at a neighbor’s barn, (Edwin D. Woolley’s,) which caused him to refer to me as the laziest boy in the Thirteenth Ward. Often my arm would ache so that I could scarcely go to sleep at night. But I kept on practicing, and finally succeeded in getting into the second nine of our club. Subsequently I joined a better club, and eventually played in the nine that won the championship of the Territory. Having thus made good my promise to myself, I retired from the base ball arena.” 

President Heber J. Grant often quoted the following statement, which is sometimes attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do—not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased.”

President Dieter Utchdorf has said, “The first step to become a disciple of Christ is simply to try…that which is impossible becomes a habit.”

 Remember that whether you think you can or can’t… you’re right.  Remind yourself that failure is never final.  If you are not successful at first, accept the fact that you have failed, pick yourself up and begin again. We have our loving Father in Heaven who wants us to succeed. Our older brother Jesus Christ made it possible for us to repent of our sins and wrongdoings and start over again.  He loves us. I bear testimony of this.

Russell's talk 

Sister Healy has talked about habits, some of the good habits we should strive for and how we might go about doing so.  As we develop good habits we see the benefit of them and it is natural to want to share that with those we love the most – our children.  I would like to address that subject today.  Two years ago in April general conference, Elder Robert D. Hales spoke on teaching our children.  I will be borrowing significantly from his address in my talk today.

Recently, we have celebrated Fathers Day and Memorial Day in the U.S. and I have thought about my parents and grandparents, the good things they have taught me and the habits they have helped me develop.  I hope you don’t mind my mentioning some those personal examples today.

The Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that we have “an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation” (Doctrine and Covenants (“D&C”) 123:11).  Elder Hales explained that fulfilling our duty to God regarding teaching our children about him should entail three distinct steps.  First, we must “lead by example.”  Second, we must “understand our children’s hearts and walk alongside them on the gospel path.”  And third, we must “teach our children the gospel and prepare them to participate fully in the Saviors’ church” (Ensign, May 2010).

When I first read Elder Hales’ talk I thought the order of his three steps interesting and I have come to recognize the wisdom in it.  If we as parents don’t live the gospel principles we are trying to teach our children, they will not take us seriously.  And the better we understand our children, the more likely we are to be successful in teaching them the gospel.

Regarding his first point, Elder Hales tells us, “For all of us, doing our duty to God as parents and leaders begins with leading by example – consistently and diligently living gospel principles at home.  This takes daily determination and diligence.

“For youth, there is no substitute for seeing the gospel lived in our daily lives.  The stripling warriors did not have to wonder what their parents believed.  They said, “

‘We do not doubt our mothers knew it’ “ (Alma 56:47-48).  Elder Hales then posed a question, “Do our children know what we know?”

Do our children see us fulfilling our church callings, supporting our church leaders, praying to our Father-in-Heaven?  Or do they see us failing to keep the Sabbath day holy, gossiping, or a host of other transgressions?  Either way we are teaching them by example.

In both the Old Testament and in the D&C we read about “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations” (Ex 20:15, D&C 98:28-30).  Because of our children’s propensity to follow our example and habits, our transgressions can have a detrimental effect on our posterity for generations.  The opposite is also true and I would like to share with you a few lessons I learned from my father.

First, my father taught me to work.  Exactly how I’m not sure.  But through his example and ample opportunities he provided for practical experience over the years, I not only learned how to work, but how to like to work.  Somehow he taught me to find joy in work itself not just the reward or paycheck at the end.  Second, he taught me independence.  If I needed a helping hand, I learned the place to start was at the end of my own two arms.  He strongly believed that although you may pray as if all depends upon God, that you must work as if it all depends upon you.  Third, he taught me to finish what I started.  Whether it was “eat everything you dish yourself” when I was a child or sticking out years of difficult French classes in Jr. High and High School, the counsel was the same, “Finish what you start.”  As the oldest child I watched my father take care of my mother through her almost decade long, ultimately unsuccessful fight with cancer.  I now recognize that opportunities for better jobs, more money and outside interests passed by him as he took care of my mother and was thus tied to his work’s health insurance policy.  No other insurance company was going to insure my mother with all of her health problems.  He never complained and rarely even commented on the situation.  You finished what you started, you played the hand you were dealt no matter how bad it was.  You never give up, you hang on and endure to the end.

One of the greatest blessings you fathers can give your children is to love their mother and show them you love her.  Growing up, I knew my father loved me.  But I also knew he loved my mother more.  He did not allow me or my brothers to forget that she was his wife first and the love of his life, and we were to treat her with respect.

About his second point, Elder Hales said, “Besides showing youth the way by example, we lead them by understanding their hearts and walking alongside them on the gospel path.  To truly understand their hearts, we must do more than just be in the same room or attend the same family and church activities.  We must plan and take advantage of teaching moments that make a deep and lasting impression upon their minds and hearts.”

We plan teaching moments when we have FHE, family prayer and family scripture study, when we sit down together at the dinner table and discuss the matters of the day.  Even though we plan for teaching moments, the moments when our youth are ready to hear and learn may not come as frequently as we desire and we must take advantage of the opportunities when they arise.

Two of my children are adopted from India.  We have always been open with them about their past and told them about how they came to us.  While my daughter has shown some interest in her Indian heritage, my son had, until a couple of years ago shown no interest at all.  It was not until after filling a mission, marrying and having a child that he asked us one night about his biological mother and the circumstances around his adoption.  At that moment he was open to hearing.  We were able to not only answer his questions but bear our testimonies to him regarding the miraculous events surrounding his early life and God’s hand in bringing him to us.  That was not the first time we had told him of these events but I think it was the first time he actually heard it.

Elder Hales asks, “Mothers and fathers, as you drive or walk children to school or their various activities, do you use the time to talk with them about their hopes and dreams and fears and joys?

“For our interactions with youth to truly touch their hearts, we have to pay attention to them just as we would pay attention to a trusted adult colleague or close friend.  Most important is asking them questions, letting them talk, and then being willing to listen.”

Recently the youth of my home stake had the opportunity to participate in trek.  As a member of the support staff I was able to observe as the youth were assigned to their various trek families, most of whom they were previously unfamiliar with.  In almost all cases, over the period of just a few days those youth formed strong bonds with their new Ma’s, Pa’s, brothers and sisters.  Those bonds were forged by the shared physical struggle of the journey, the conversations along the way, the sharing of deep feelings and testimony bearing, and witnessing the sacrifice by others on their behalf.

A major key to building quick relationships on trek was what I call the “de-teching” of the youth.  No cell phones, no texting, no video games and of course no television.  While these modern communication devices may be great blessings, they can become stumbling blocks to the building of relationships if allowed to crowd out discussion time with our children.

Elder Hales notes, “It is impossible to overestimate the influence of parents who understand the hearts of their children.  Research shows that during the most important transitions of life – including those periods when youth are most likely to drift away from the church – the greatest influence does not come from an interview with the bishop or some other leader but from the regular, warm, friendly, caring interaction with parents.”

Grandparents can have a similar influence on youth.  From my earliest memories my grandfather was encouraging me to go on a mission and get a graduate degree from college.  He had a love for the gospel of Jesus Christ and for education, which he desperately wanted me to have also.  Without his influence during my youth, I don’t know if I would have gone on a mission or graduated from college.  How much richer has my life been because of his influence?  There is no way to put a price tag on it.  But the greatest gift or blessing he imparted to me was an introduction to my wife.  Both of them were working on Temple Square and my grandfather was sure he had found the perfect person for me.  The problem was that I didn’t feel I needed any assistance in that area of my life.  After a prolonged extended family disagreement – my mother was on his side and my grandmother was on mine – I gave in and let him introduce me to Eileen.  Six weeks later we were engaged.  The lesson I learned was that those who love me and have far more experience than I, just may, once in a while know what’s better for me than I do.

I used to mow my great grandfather’s lawn when I was a boy.  By that point in his life his eyesight was bad.  At the end of each job, he would pull out his checkbook.  Since he couldn’t see well he would have me write out the check and then line up the check properly under the pen in hi hand as he would sign his name to it.  Each time as I would write out a check, he would tell me the same story.  It was of when he was young working at the silver mines around Tintic, Utah.  And of how one day he found among the bags of silver coins a loose coin.  He related his dilemma about keeping it, he could have really used the additional money and no one would ever know, or he could turn it in and preserve his integrity.  He turned the coin in.  At the time I failed to see the connection between his telling the story while I filled out a check he could not read.  As a child I just thought my great grandfather couldn’t remember he had already told me that story.  None-the-less, the lesson stuck.

Some of you may feel that your time of influencing your posterity is past, that differences in age, energy level and life style between you and the rising generation are just too great to span.  If so, I beg you to reconsider.

When I first met my wife’s paternal grandmother Sarah she was almost ninety years old.  She was living in a small apartment near the capital building in Utah, the same apartment that she had lived in for nearly thirty years.  Sarah’s life had not been an easy one.  Although she described her childhood as generally happy she was afflicted by life threatening disease and two of her siblings died in their youth.  Unlike other young women of her day, she did not marry in her late teens or early twenties.  She was 28 years old when she married a widower 19 years her senior.  Taking care of his five children from the first marriage was a challenge.  Over the next 12 years she bore five children and lost one of those within two months of his birth.  

Three years into their marriage, Sarah took care of the large family herself while her husband was gone on a mission for a year.  And then five years later accompanied her husband when he was called to serve as a mission president in Europe.

Three years after returning from the mission to Europe, just two years after giving birth to her last child, and after only 14 years of marriage, Sarah’s husband died.  It was 1931, in the midst of the Great Depression and money was scarce.  Most of the insurance money they had was used up paying for medical expenses and burial costs.  Sarah lived as a widow for 56 years until she passed on at age 98.

Although her life appeared quite challenging to me, she was not one to complain.  She found joy in her family and her membership in the church.  She served in a number of church callings throughout her life and bore witness of the truth of the gospel to her posterity.  She was the perfect example of one who faithfully endured to the end.  Even though her life experiences were far different than what most of her posterity were going through, and her mobility was very limited due to her advanced age, these challenges did not stop her from engaging with her grandchildren and great grandchildren when the opportunities arose.

For most of Sarah’s life she was surrounded by men in high church callings.  Her father and brother were apostles.  Her husband was the stake president and a former mission president.  Her father-in-law was also an apostle.  Compared to these great men, one might wonder about her relative influence on her posterity.

I asked my wife, Eileen, who had the greater influence on her and her siblings, was it her grandmother or those four men.  She said it was her grandmother.  I had Eileen ask her father the same question and his answer was “without a doubt, my mother.”  Sisters, never underestimate the influence you can have on your posterity!

Regarding Elder Hales’ third point, he notes, “An equally important part of fulfilling our parental duty to God is teaching our children the gospel and preparing them to participate fully in the Savior’s restored Church.”

The prophet Nephi addressed this subject saying, “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.  And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they must look for a remission of their sins.”  (2 Nephi 25: 23, 26)

Elder Hales went on to say, “It is our imperative duty to help youth understand and believe the gospel in a deeply personal way.  We can teach them to walk in the light, but that light cannot be borrowed.  They must earn it for themselves.  They must obtain their own light of testimony directly from the source of spiritual light – God Himself – through prayer and study and pondering.  They must understand who they are and who Heavenly Father wants them to become.  So, how do we help them?

“In these perilous times it is not enough for our youth to merely know.  They must do.  Wholehearted participation in ordinances, quorums and auxiliaries, inspired programs, and fortifying activities helps youth put on the whole armor of God.  To truly choose the Lord’s way, they must know His way.  And to truly know his way, we must teach and lead them to act, to participate, to do.”

The new Duty to God program is organized on this principle of action or doing.  Each section is based on three steps: learn, act and teach.  Learning about something is not enough, we must put the lessons into action for them to become part of us.  And we need to help our youth to do the same.

Some of us, perhaps most of us, now or in the future will have to face the challenge of helping a wayward child.  Watching a child stray from the strait and narrow path back to God can be one of life’s most painful experiences.

My own experiences with wayward children have caused me to consider the sorrow I have caused my Father-in-Heaven with my sins.  I am grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ and the knowledge that if I repent and return to Him, that he will rejoice when I do so.

Elder Hales stated, “The greatest missionary work we will ever do will be in our homes.  The greatest rescue, the greatest activation will be in our homes.  Of someone in your family is wandering in strange paths, you are a rescuer, engaged in the greatest rescue effort the Church has ever known.  There is no failure except in giving up.  It is never too early or too late to begin.  Your child is Heavenly Father’s child.  You are about His work.  He has promised to gather His children, and He is with you.

“To a small group of mothers, President Monson recently said, ‘Sometimes we are too quick to judge the effect of our successes and failures. ‘ “ Elder Hales then said, “May I add, don’t look at today’s trials as eternal.  Heavenly Father does His work in the long term.”

Brothers and Sisters, may we heed the counsel of Elder Hales to help our children to understand and believe the gospel through our example, love and teaching of its doctrine so that, as noted in 3^rd Nephi 22:13, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.”