Fullfilling My Assignments

Since the first of the year, I've been a sub in primary twice, helped teach a lesson to the young women, taught relief society on this conference talk, and finally today, spoke in church.

I really hope this means I'm done for a little while.

Me preparing to speak or teach is not a pretty experience. While I love the studying part of preparing to speak or teach, collecting my thoughts, and organizing them into something with an introduction, main points and conclusion, with personal experiences, analogies, scriptures, and original material mixed with quotes from prophets ... is in GR's words, painful to watch. The entire house comes to a screeching halt while mom is glued to the computer pouring over conference talks and Ensign articles, trying to decide what exactly she's suppose to share with a room full of people who are so much more qualified to speak on any topic than she is.

I must have followed the Spirit correctly on Sunday and shared what I was suppose to, because in all my years of speaking in church, I can't remember ever having more than two or three people tell me they appreciated my talk, and this time I did.

My topic was the topic for Primary on Sunday as well, "The priesthood blesses my family." We talk a lot about the blessings of the priesthood in the church, but not so much on how it directly blesses the family, so I found preparing for this talk very interesting as it pertains to our family.

I'll share two points from my talk ...

First ... "... the most important exercise of the priesthood takes place in the family. [We have been taught that] each husband and father in the Church should strive to be worthy to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. With his wife as an equal partner, he presides in righteousness and love, serving as the family's spiritual leader. He leads the family in regular prayer, scripture study, and family home evening. He works with his wife to teach the children and help them prepare to receive the ordinances of salvation (see D&C 68:25–28). He gives priesthood blessings for direction, healing, and comfort.(True to the Faith)" ...

"Elder Merrill J. Bateman, in a conference talk a few years ago stated, “It is expected that worthy holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood will use the power delegated to them to bless others, starting with their own families. One of the great inheritances of the Restoration is that a father ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood has the right to bless his wife and children when prompted and when a blessing is desired by them.”

Second ... "One of the lessons I will take from preparing this talk is that my husband and I need to do a better job of providing opportunities for our children to receive priesthood blessing from their father. To see, beyond the influence of having a righteous loving priesthood holder lead our family in family prayer and family home evening and scripture study. Over the years, they have watched him, after hanging up the phone, stop what he is doing, put on a white shirt and tie, double check his consecrated oil, and quietly walk out the door to assist in giving a blessing many times, but have rarely witnessed it in our own home."