President Ezra Taft Benson said, “Foster wonderful family traditions which will bind you together eternally. After all, eternity will be but an extension of righteous family life”.
The righteous family traditions that may come to your mind are that of studying the scriptures together, attending church on Sunday, keeping the Sabbath day holy, having family prayer and holding a regular Family Home evening. Those are the ones we always hear about and for the most part I think that we try to accomplish these with various forms of regularity and commitment. Maybe having pot roast on Sunday is a tradition; but not one necessary for salvation.
Maintaining righteous daily family traditions requires desire and effort. Don’t expect everyday to be perfect. Part of the gospel plan is repentance; we can start anew each day or week. Just as we partook of the sacrament today and promised to keep his commandments and always remember him. His promise in return is to always have his spirit to be with us. Let us do as Pres Kimball admonished to “try a little harder, to be a little better” each day and each week.
In an Ensign article, Bro. Donald Halstrom says: Of all the traditions we should cultivate within ourselves and our families, a “tradition of righteousness” should be preeminent. Hallmarks of this tradition are an unwavering love for God and His Only Begotten Son, respect for prophets and priesthood power, a constant seeking of the Holy Spirit, and the discipline of discipleship which transforms believing into doing. A tradition of righteousness sets a pattern for living which draws children closer to parents, and both closer to God, and elevates obedience from a burden to a blessing.
I would like to talk about some of the less common traditions that came to my mind. Since school just started last week let’s start there. Like many of you did when your children headed out the door for their first day of the new school year, our family has a tradition of taking a photo of the kids. I thought this was cute that my oldest daughter Danielle, carried on this tradition and took a picture of her husband with his backpack on; on his first day of dental school. (even though he was like 25 years old!)
Another tradition that our family has at this time is to have Dan give each of the children a Father’s blessing. Andrew was the only one in line this year; but I always get in line behind the children because I’m going back to school too, even if it is as a teacher. I testify that these father’s blessings are a great comfort and gift to our family each year. If you haven’t taken the time to that or don’t have a priesthood holder in your home to do so; get another family member or your home teacher to assist you.
A father’s blessing is a tradition that brings a tender spirit of unity into many homes at the beginning of each school year, or at other times of change or challenge.
Traditions like these give children a sense of identity and of belonging.
Another righteous tradition is attending the temple. (many last night) We have also built the tradition of visiting temples when we travel and even building vacations around temple open houses. Our children cherish their memories of performing baptisms in proxy in temples such as Hawaii, San Diego and Palmyra. We were able to fit in a temple session on our one day trip to New York City just a few weeks ago. If you haven’t made this a tradition; I’d highly recommend it. You can even schedule temple attendance in with your family reunions. There are temples being built in Brigham City and Payson and we hope to get in on the Philadelphia temple also underway.
Bishop Thompson has done a great job with his emphasis on temple attendance and holding monthly interviews with our children. I hope you have witnessed the blessings that these activities have brought into your families.
At Lindsey’ temple wedding this summer; the sealer told them that with their marriage they were now a family. He said it was now their duty to begin righteous family traditions with each other and then carry them on as their children join them in the future.
One tradition that they have started together, is the paying of tithing. All summer they were attending church at various locations and their records didn’t catch up with them until just recently as they moved to Philadelphia. Lindsey had been bothered because they hadn’t had a ward to pay their tithing in. After the mail arrived in St. George this past Monday, I emailed her and asked her if she had paid her tithing yesterday. She wrote back that yes she finally had been able too. She said why you ask? I told her that a refund from BYU had been made that she wasn’t expecting and that she had got a nice wedding gift check from a relative that day in the mail. She replied back that the Lord always keeps his promises.
Brothers and sisters, I testify to you that the Lord is bound to keep his promises. Through our obedience he will bless us, he has too. I’m so glad that my children have learned this principle on their missions. Speaking of which, Missionary service is also a righteous family tradition. I’m grateful for the examples of Grandparents, cousins, and Aunts and Uncles who have served. It does make it easier to go if there is that tradition of missionary service in your family; but that doesn’t mean that you can’t lead the way and start that tradition. As older couples you can serve and set an example for your grandchildren. The new Ensign that just came has a lot of great articles about missionary service. Dan’s mom has a missionary wall…
Service: this is another great Righteous family tradition. When all of our children were home we set the first Monday of the month aside as service FHE night. We ‘d find someone in the ward who had just moved in, or needed their weeds pulled or another kind act of service and help them out. Our favorite acts were the ones that we could do anonymously. Now, service for us comes more impromptu like leaving your chores and Saturday bike ride aside to go and help a scout with his Eagle project or to taking our turn cleaning the church building. Service brings not only blessings but happiness and we forget our own troubles and reach out to lift another. As the ward compassionate service leader I have seen many of you carry out these acts of service and I always appreciate your willingness to accept an opportunity to serve when it comes.
I mentioned FHE and our leaders have recently stressed having dinner together nightly. The blessings of holding these can be very obvious in our family relations. The dynamics of our family and ability to do these regularly change over the years. Poor Andrew is the only one home with us now but we spent an enjoyable time last Monday night on Mormon.org watching the little video segments of members and why they are Mormons. I highly recommend you visit and use this site if you haven’t. You can even put your own profile on there and add your testimony. This would be a really great FHE project for several weeks and would allow your family to look at the blessings of being a member of the church and how they formed their testimonies. There are some great articles in the new Ensign about this too. (EFY DVD’s)
Each of us has traditions in our families. Some of them are material or built around holidays. Some of them have deep meaning. The most important traditions are connected with the way we live our lives and will last beyond us, as our children’s lives are influenced and shaped. In the Book of Mormon, we read of the Lamanites who were deeply affected by the traditions of their fathers. King Benjamin said they were a people who knew nothing about the principles of the gospel “or even do not believe them when they are taught them, because of the traditions of their fathers, which are not correct” (Mosiah 1:5).
Unwanted traditions are those which lead us away from performing holy ordinances and keeping sacred covenants. Our guide should be the doctrine taught by the scriptures and the prophets. Traditions which devalue marriage and family, degrade women or do not recognize the majesty of their God-given roles, honor temporal success more than spiritual, or teach that reliance upon God is a weakness of character, all lead us away from eternal truths.
What kinds of traditions do you have? Some of them may have come from our fathers, and now we are passing them along to our own children. Are they what we want them to be? Are they based on actions of righteousness and faith? Are they mostly material in nature, or are they eternal? Are we consciously creating righteous traditions, or is life just happening to us? Are our traditions being created in response to the loud voices of the world, or are they influenced by the still, small voice of the Spirit? Are the traditions that we are creating in our families going to make it easier for our children to follow the living prophets, or will they make it difficult for them?
A few weeks ago we packed up are daughter and her new husband and drove them 37 hours straight across the country to Philadelphia where they will be living for 4 years. During that long drive, somewhere in the middle of the night in Colorado, I asked my new son in law how he obtained his testimony. He told me that he was pretty into tennis and was always playing in tournaments and more and more of them were on Sundays. At age 17 his parents gave him a choice to pursue tennis and they would support him or to go on a mission. The decision he made changed the course of his life. By choosing to serve a mission he chose to follow the Lord’s plan and he committed to his testimony and realized that he believed the church to be true. He was able to go on and continue his tennis through a scholarship at BYU Hawaii, not have to play any more on Sundays, and through his mission was blessed to develop good habits and a strong testimony to change his life and a bonus blessing was that he met our daughter, Lindsey, on the mission and together they are off to do great things. In fact they already have a baptismal commitment from a lady that they met and have been teaching. (They make pretty good mission companions now; even though they weren’t able to serve together on their mission!) I testify that the Lord will bless you and watch out for you as your serve him diligently!
I am grateful for wonderful son in laws, who have been obedient and who preside faithfully in their homes. For Daughters who have been blessed through their missionary service and honor their husband’s priesthood. Dawson continues our tradition of missionary service and has been learning humility going his first 8 months in California without a baptism and struggling to learn the Spanish language. It is interesting to me that when Pres. Topham set him apart, that he talked to him at length about humility. The scripture that Dawson chose for his mission plaque is “If men come unto me I will show unto them their weaknesses. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble.” We hope that Dawson has been learning humility and that he and others he teachers will soon be able to reap the blessings of his faithful missionary service. We must all remember that the blessings are promised and will come, but that they do come in the Lord’s time.
Elder Richard L. Evans counseled, “Oh, parents, we would plead, give good and happy memories to your children—not pampering or overindulging, not satisfying everything they take a fancy to—but memories of love, encouragement, of peace and harmony and happiness at home—memories that will bless and lift their lives wherever they are, always and forever
Parents must never lose sight of the spirit in which the activity is conducted. How easily we overshadow the beauty of any special occasion when we allow force, anger, or impatience to intrude. Showing love and respect in the home is the most important family tradition. And the bottom line is that our kids learn more by who we are and what we do not by what we preach to them.
I would invite all of us to take a moment to reflect on the traditions in our lives and how they might be affecting our families. Our traditions of Sabbath day observance, family prayer, family scripture study, service and activity in the Church, as well as patterns of respect and loyalty in the home, will have a great effect on our children and on their future. If our parenting is based on the teachings of the scriptures and of the latter-day prophets, we cannot go wrong.
I testifly that if we are obedient in fostering righteous family traditions we will be able to claim the blessings promised in Mosiah 5: “that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life”
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