Teaching the proclamation to Children Part 8

This Month’s Selection

“The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.”

How to Explain This to Children

Heavenly Father teaches us how families can be the most happy. He says children should be born to moms and dads who are married, love each other, and teach about Jesus Christ. Faith, prayer, kindness, and having fun together can all make your family stronger. Fathers and mothers both do important things. They work together to care for their families. Even if life doesn’t go as planned, we should do the best we can to have a happy family.

Activity Idea

Explain what “wholesome recreational activities” are, and then go do something fun!

Teaching Children Resources

Parents and teachers now have an additional resource for helping them find materiel for teaching children: the new Children's Lesson Helps website, available at http://lds.org/children/resources

The site is organized into three sections:
...resources for primary lessons
...resources by gospel topic
...weekly thoughts and tips


From April 2012 Ensign page 75

Sacrifice Time for family history

Sister Nelson: It is my testimony that however fabulous your life is right now, or however discouraging and heartbreaking it may be, your involvement in temple and family history work will make it better. What do you need in your life right now? More love? More joy? More self-mastery? More peace? More meaningful moments? More of a feeling that you’re making a difference? More fun? More answers to your soul-searching questions? More heart-to-heart connections with others? More understanding of what you are reading in the scriptures? More ability to love and to forgive? More ability to pray with power? More inspiration and creative ideas for your work and other projects? More time for what really matters?

I entreat you to make a sacrifice of time to the Lord by increasing the time you spend doing temple and family history work, and then watch what happens. It is my testimony that when we show the Lord we are serious about helping our ancestors, the heavens will open and we will receive all that we need.

President Nelson: We can be inspired all day long about temple and family history experiences others have had. But we must do something to actually experience the joy ourselves. I would like to extend a challenge to each one of us so that the wonderful feeling of this work can continue and even increase. I invite you to prayerfully consider what kind of sacrifice—preferably a sacrifice of time—you can make in order to do more temple and family history work this year.

From a presentation at the RootsTech 2017 Family History Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 11, 2017. To watch a recording of the presentation, visit lds.org/go/1017Nelson.

Missionaries Measure By Commitment

Missionaries who want to be perfect now may become anxious or discouraged if learning their mission language, seeing people baptized, or receiving mission leadership assignments do not happen fast enough. For capable young people accustomed to accomplishment, a mission may be life’s first great challenge. But missionaries can be exactly obedient without being perfect. They can measure their success primarily by their commitment to help individuals and families “become faithful members of the Church who enjoy the presence of the Holy Ghost.”

Elder Gerrit W. Gong, “Becoming Perfect in Christ,” Ensign, Jul 2014, 17.