Ensign

February 2000

Volume 30 Number 2

Contents

• First Presidency Message: An Attitude of Gratitude

  President Thomas S. Monson

• The Goal I Thought I’d Never Reach

  JoLyn Cornelsen

• Teach the Children

  President Boyd K. Packer

• On Being a Father

  • From Lecturing to Loving

    Randy J. Gibbs

  • “Daddy, What if I Do My Best?”

    Bill Schlofman

  • Repairing the Relationship with My Son

    Max K. Kennedy

• Climbing Back

  Cindy Newell

• One Family’s Testimony of Christ

  Kent P. Jackson

• An Eye Single: Blessings of the Temple

  Wendy L. Watson

• Hyrum Smith: The Mildness of a Lamb, the Integrity of Job

  Ronald K. Esplin

• Dispelling the Darkness of Abuse

  Name Withheld

• Uniting Generations

• Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy

  Elder Earl C. Tingey

• The Power of One

  Jan U. Pinborough and Marvin K. Gardner

• Priesthood Perspectives

• I Have a Question: Why some physical infirmities persist despite faith, prayers, and priesthood power

  Richard R. Hart

• Latter-day Saint Voices

  • “Do This Each Year?”

    Norma Chapin

  • A Debt for Half a Bicycle

    Alfredo P. Blanc

  • “Was That Really Us Singing?”

    Sandra H. Fitzgerald

  • The Promised Blessing

    Suzanne H. Hill

  • “I Cannot Do Much the Way I Am”

    Thomas Henry Porter

• Portraits

• The Visiting Teacher: Nurturing a Love That Lasts

• Random Sampler

• News of the Church

On the covers: Front and back: Joseph and Hyrum, by Kenneth A. Corbett, oil on canvas, 24″ x 30″, 1996. Courtesy of Robert Corbett. The Prophet Joseph Smith, left, and his brother Hyrum, five years older, were known by all to be close and loyal to each other. “In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated,” Elder John Taylor wrote of the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum, Assistant President and Patriarch to the Church (D&C 135:3). This year marks 200 years since Hyrum Smith’s birth on 9 February 1800.

Inside front: Upper City Creek Mill, by Al Rounds, watercolor on paper, 18″ x 31″, 1993. A view from northeast of the Salt Lake Temple as it would have appeared in 1893. City Creek, shown in foreground, was used to power various mills along its banks. One of these mills furnished power to operate a blacksmith shop in which tools were made and sharpened for use in building the temple.

Inside back: King Benjamin Confers the Kingdom on Mosiah, by Robert T. Barrett, oil on canvas, 33″ x 26″, 1999. After delivering a great address on following the ways of God to his people in Zarahemla, King Benjamin “consecrated his son Mosiah to be a ruler and a king over his people, and [gave] him all the charges concerning the kingdom” (Mosiah 6:3).