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Transcript

We welcome you to this annual auxiliary training session. Our participants are Brother Tad Callister, the Sunday School general president; Sister Bonnie Oscarson, the Young Women general president; Elder Todd Christofferson, my colleague in the Quorum of the Twelve; Sister Linda Burton, Relief Society general president; Rosemary Wixom, the Primary general president; David Beck, Young Men general president; and Bishop Gary Stevenson, the Presiding Bishop of the Church. We're your ward council, and we're really going to focus primarily on one issue: learning and teaching and the gospel experience in the home as well as in the chapel or as well as in the meetinghouse. As I've thought over the years of the Savior as the Master Teacher, the Master in every way, our Exemplar in every way, by all odds we would see most of His ministry being teaching. And yet almost none of that teaching was done in a church building. His teaching was out where the people were. It was in highways and byways and hillsides and seashores and in homes. And I think in the Church, we need to think that way a little more. None of us are minimizing the in-chapel, in-meetinghouse teaching. We've all done that all of our lives. But we'd like it to be 24/7 out in the lives that we're living. I was just thinking about the most meaningful teaching, I think, or learning I've ever had was when my dad would come and sit on my bed at the end of each day. No matter how busy he was in his Church experiences, he'd always come and sit on my bed at the end of the day and just have a little chat. And I think I learned more there about the gospel than any other formal setting. Wasn't it Sister Eyring that said to her child, or her boys sometimes as they would come home from school, "Come in and sit down. I have a truth to share"? And that's the welcome they got after school. I think parents are already implementing Come, Follow Me in many ways because it's such a natural way of teaching. It's a conversation. In the home, that's a natural place to have a conversation and a two-way interchange. As President Monson, I think, has said, lessons learned in the home last the longest. And when you consider the places where we learn--a meetinghouse or a temple or educational institution--that's really quite a statement, that it is in the home where we learn lessons that will stay with us for our lifetime and for perhaps even eternity. I'm taken by a statement that you read in the Bible Dictionary where it talks about temples. And it says, "Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness." And so that's a rather profound thought, that sometimes we don't think about that place being so sacred and being a place where we'll learn truths that will last for eternity. I do think in the home and in the Church, we generally talk more readily about teaching maybe than we do about learning. And we probably have to strike that balance a little better in the years to come. I think we kind of get teaching. But I think the learning, if we can see ourselves, as parents or grandparents, as being a part of that learning instead of always being the teachers-- Exactly. --I think that's the culture that would--I think it takes a lot of pressure off of parents if we can learn together with our families. Great point. Terrific point. To follow up on that point, in section 88, verse 119, where the Lord says, "Establish a house," it was a house of learning-- Yeah, good point. --that needed to be established. And I think that's one of the important points with Come, Follow Me, is to be more focused on the learning that's going on than just our presentation of doctrine or downloading information. Don't forget that the teacher learns most. Exactly. That's true. Learning is teaching. Who are the teachers and who are the learners in a home? Maybe we could see in this video and talk about it. Let's watch it. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] Every day we have spiritual time, and it can happen in the morning or afternoon or the evening. We read the scriptures, and they make comments. I learn from them. I'm still learning every day. That's what makes it fun. How can I make this better and listen for the answers? I've never felt like I lacked the power of the priesthood in my home even though we don't have a patriarch in the home.

[END VIDEO PLAYBACK] Well, that, to me, is the ideal. I mean, if you have the primary instruction happening day in, day out, formally and informally at home, reinforced by the Church, is the ideal. We recognize that a lot of homes and personal situations are not the ideal, and maybe all they have is the Church. And in that case, we want it to be the very best kind of help and teaching and learning that it can be. But where we can have any part of that ideal, we want it, and we ought to strive to achieve it. I was thinking about the young men who are members in their home with parents that are nonmembers and thinking, "Who is doing the teaching and learning there?" They looked like they were learning, but I think they were really teaching whoever else was maybe looking on. Holding a family home evening. Together. With four boys. And I think you can take that--I know that all of us, as we've asked the youth what they like best about Come, Follow Me, they talk about the fact that they love learning from one another. And that certainly happens in a family, that families learn from one another, even the youngest child in a family. We all learn from one another. I love what the mother says in there: "I learn from my children." Yes. I've learned more from my children than I ever taught. The message here is consistency, and it's really obedience to follow what our prophets have asked us to do with family prayer and family home evening and reading the scriptures together. But we learn that through Lehi's dream. Those who were able to get to the tree and consistently stay there were continuously holding on to the rod, that-- Pressing forward. Pressing forward, there you go. Well, they were acting. They were acting. Holding on. And who's to say who has the corner on it? Who is the leader in the home to make that happen? As families, we have goals for our children, that they're based on ordinances. Well, the same goal--we share the same goal, as auxiliaries, to that family--that we're looking to the next ordinance. And how can we help? How can we help? And if those are the things we're focusing on in the ward council, we'll be a better support to the home. Every family has members in the family that may be in a different place, but to be able to focus to one of the members in the family--it might be the 7-year-old that's preparing for baptism, or it might be the 16-year-old that's preparing for Melchizedek Priesthood, or a sealing of a daughter, an endowment. Whatever that might be, that just creates a wonderful curriculum for the family that's very personal for the family. I just think that should be kept at the center of so much of what we are teaching: covenants, the importance of covenants in our lives, the importance of keeping our families centered on the temple, and what that means to a family. The meaning of covenants in our lives to help us have power and draw on the strength of the Lord. Each of us is on a covenant path, and we're all at different places along that covenant path. And that becomes one of the great places to find a way to teach towards needs. I was thinking about this whole process. We really don't do the application at church. The application takes place in the home. The actual putting it into practice, we really don't put it into practice as much at church, but we really do at home and in interaction with our neighbors. That's when the learning and the conversion are going to take place. Well, the Lord said to Emma Smith, "Lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better." And when we take opportunity to teach and to learn of the temple, of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, and consecrate our lives through living the gospel, we will see the better, we'll feel the better, and our children will see it, and they too will want to follow. I love that. I love that. I think it might be well if we just paused here for a minute and we let you talk locally. We're going to just shut the camera down for a minute, and why don't you just discuss with each other anything you're hearing, anything you're feeling? We'll give you a minute to talk about that for a while.

Learning and Teaching in the Home and the Church - The Home

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The home is a sacred place to learn and teach gospel principles. This informal setting allows daily teaching moments and is focused on meeting the needs of individuals and families.
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