Primary Leaders Challenged at Annual Conference

“One or more in ’74.” That’s the challenge issued by President LaVern W. Parmley, general president of the Primary Association. Speaking at the auxiliary’s 67th annual conference in the Salt Lake Tabernacle April 4 and 5, Sister Parmley challenged Primary leaders throughout the world to bring at least one additional child—member or nonmember—into activity in every Primary class in the Church.

Other goals of the Primary for 1973–74, Sister Parmley said, are increased reverence, love, scripture reading (particularly the Book of Mormon), and children’s choruses. “Primary should be a year-round program,” she stated, emphasizing the importance of continuing meetings and activities into the summer.

Reiterating Sister Parmley’s challenge of reading the scriptures, President Marion G. Romney, second counselor in the First Presidency, admonished Primary leaders to depend on the scriptures as the prime source for answering questions. In Primary, he said, teachers must teach that “God is a personal being, and although he can’t be everywhere at a given moment, by his power he is everywhere. The Holy Spirit is God’s agent—the great wireless system of communication from God to man.”

Elder Thomas S. Monson of the Council of the Twelve, who addressed the opening session of the conference, declared that Primary officers and teachers must live and act in accordance with the Lord’s commandments. “The power to lead is also the power to mislead,” he said, “and the power to mislead is the power to destroy.”

The conference theme was taken from Doctrine and Covenants 88:119: “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.” [D&C 88:119]

Assisting Sister Parmley in conducting the conference were her counselors, Naomi W. Randall and Florence R. Lane. Other speakers at general sessions included Thomas R. Harris, administrator of the Primary Children’s Hospital, and Don H. Flanders, chairman, Cub Scouting Committee, Boy Scouts of America. Bishop Vaughn J. Featherstone, second counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, was featured speaker at one of the department sessions.