My great something pioneering ancestor was referred to in this talk by Elder Oaks. It's very inspiring. I hope you enjoy it, too.
Nourishing the SpiritBy Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Ensign, Dec 1998, p. 7
From a devotional address given at Ricks College on 13 February 1996.
Among the most important things parents can do for their children is to provide them with worthy examples and with opportunities for personal religious experiences. Statistical studies of Church members in North America show that the example of parents is the most important single factor in shaping the behavior and beliefs of youth. These studies also show that family experiences are the strongest methods of affecting religious behavior—clearly exceeding the effect of Church activities. Family religious observances when young people are adolescents are important predictors of their values and behaviors when they become young adults.
The same effect shows up when the scholars study those who become what they call “disaffiliated” from the Church. Where the family is religious in its ideals and practices, the proportion of youth who remain lifetime active participants in the Church is four times higher than that of those raised in families that are not religious.
None of this is surprising, but it is sobering. Think of the responsibility parents assume when they neglect family religious observances or when they engage in behaviors they would not recommend for their children. Further, intellectual methods and experiences are not sufficient to transmit faith and spirituality. Parents who fail to provide their children with good examples and positive personal religious experiences seriously jeopardize the transmission of faith and spirituality to the next generation.
Parents teach most effectively by what their children see them do. The parental examples that influenced me most were my mother’s expressions of faith in God, her absolute support and total noncriticism of the leaders of the Church, and her faithful payment of tithing, even when times were hard.
I will describe three parental examples of the kind that give children the spiritual nourishment to sustain them throughout their lives.
Levi M. Savage was a Latter-day Saint pioneer called to settle eastern Arizona . Year after year, he labored faithfully in his assigned area. Finally, after his large family was reared, he wanted a little rest. He would not ask to be released from his mission, but he allowed his stake president to contact President Joseph F. Smith in Salt Lake City to advise that at age 70 Brother Savage was still “doing day’s work on the Woodruff Dam, walking six miles to and from the place of his work.” The emissary asked whether Brother Savage had fulfilled his mission and could now leave and live in another place, but added that “he is willing to stay provided we think it is best for him to do so.” The president of the Church sent word that Brother Savage should “consider himself free to make his home elsewhere” (Joseph F. Smith, quoted in Nels Anderson, Desert Saints [1966], 359).
After receiving that word, Brother Savage remained for an additional time until the new dam was built to get the water into the valley again. Only then did Levi Savage feel relieved of the duty imposed on him by priesthood authority in 1871, 47 years earlier. What a heritage of faith and service for the spiritual inheritance of his posterity and others!
My second example also comes from pioneer times. When the Saints needed a large quantity of rags to process in their paper mill, the First Presidency asked bishops to sponsor rag drives in their local wards and settlements. In 1861, President Brigham Young called George Goddard, a loyal Church member, on a “rag mission” to promote this effort. Brother Goddard recalled:
“[This calling] was a severe blow to my native pride. … After being known in the community for years, as a merchant and auctioneer, and then to be seen on the streets going from door to door with a basket on one arm and an empty sack on the other, enquiring for rags at every house. Oh, what a change in the aspect of affairs. … When President Young first made the proposition, the humiliating prospect almost stunned me, but a few moments’ reflection reminded me that I came to these valleys of the mountains from my native country, England , for the purpose of doing the will of my Heavenly Father, my time and means must be at His disposal. I, therefore, answered President Young in the affirmative” (quoted in Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom [1966], 115).
For over three years, George Goddard traveled from Franklin, Idaho, in the north to Sanpete County, Utah, in the south, visiting hundreds of houses. On Sundays he preached what were called “rag sermons.” By the end of this three-year mission, he had collected more than 100,000 pounds of rags for the paper project. It was humble work, but it was essential for the progress of his community, and it was assigned by priesthood authority.My third example is more modern. In Tongan Saints: Legacy of Faith (Laie, Hawaii: Institute for Polynesian Studies, 1991), BYU—Hawaii President Eric B. Shumway shares something he experienced as a young missionary in Tonga . He was invited to the evening meal of a faithful Tongan family who were living in what we would call extreme poverty. Brother Shumway writes:
“Now the Kinikini family had no plantation and no animals on Tongatapu, except for a small flock of ducks that eventually dwindled to one little duckling. When I sat down on the floor in the family circle that night, four young children watched their mother put pieces of boiled breadfruit before each one of us. Then, before me, she put a freshly boiled duckling. The sight and the aroma of this delicacy made a visible impression on the children who were sitting quietly with their hands clasped in their lap. It was clear that the duckling was for me.
“ ‘I’ll not eat this by myself,’ I said to Brother Tevita Muli. ‘We will all share.’
“Before I could start dividing it, Tevita Muli quickly interrupted, ‘No, you will eat it by yourself. It is yours!’
“‘But your children?’ I protested.
“‘They do not want to touch it,’ he continued. ‘You honor them by eating it yourself. Some day they will be proud to tell their children they went without kiki (meat), so that a servant of the Lord might eat and be filled’ ” (page 10).
Parental examples like these provide spiritual nourishment and build faith in children and others who observe. This is the kind of teaching that builds testimony and passes faith and spirituality to the next generation.
Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well remind us of the difference between worldly things and heavenly things, between physical nourishment and spiritual nourishment. “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again,” He told the woman.
“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13–14).
Jesus frequently used the familiar examples of food and drink to teach His lessons. In the Beatitudes He declared, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). The inspired account in the Book of Mormon reveals the spiritual means by which this promise is fulfilled: “… for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” (3 Ne. 12:6; emphasis added). In the Book of Mormon we also learn that partaking of the emblems of the sacrament—bread and water—is one of the means by which this is accomplished:
“He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled” (3 Ne. 20:8).
Similarly, John reports Jesus’ saying: “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
When we think of how to teach our children the things of the Spirit—how to give them the living water and the bread of life—we should understand that this must be done in the Lord’s way, not in the world’s way. Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote:
“A special standard of judgment is needed to prove anything in the spiritual realm. No scientific research, no intellectual inquiry, no investigative processes known to mortal man can prove that God is a personal being, that all men will be raised in immortality, and that repentant souls are born of the Spirit. … Spiritual verities can be proven only by spiritual means” (The Millennial Messiah [1982], 175).
Intellectual methods—study and reason—are essential to our progress toward eternal life, but they are not sufficient. They can prepare the way. They can get the mind ready to receive the Spirit. But what the scriptures call conversion—the change of mind and heart that gives us the direction and strength to move resolutely toward eternal life—comes only by the witness and power of the Holy Spirit.
President James E. Faust taught this same truth when he urged us to nurture what he called “a simple, untroubled faith,” observing that we sometimes “spend time satisfying our intellectual egos and trying to find all the answers before we accept any.” He continued: “We are all in pursuit of truth and knowledge. The nurturing of simple, untroubled faith does not limit us in the pursuit of growth and accomplishment. On the contrary, it may intensify and hasten our progress” (Reach Up for the Light, 15).
Gospel truths and testimony are received from the Holy Ghost through prayerful seeking, through faith, through scripture study, through righteous living, through listening to inspired communications and counsel, through serious conversations with persons of faith, and through reverent personal study and quiet contemplation. It is by these means that our souls are nourished and we realize the promise given in 3 Nephi that we will be “filled with the Holy Ghost.”
