Happy Homes

Bring up your children in light and truth (D&C 93:40).

Your parents love you. You can learn about how to follow Heavenly Father’s commandments and how to be happy from them. President Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency, wrote about this recently.

Happiness does not consist of [great] luxury, [or] the world’s idea of a “good time.” Nor must we search for it in faraway places with strange-sounding names. Happiness is found at home.

All of us remember the home of our childhood. Interestingly, our thoughts do not dwell on whether the house was large or small. … Rather, we delight in the experiences we shared as a family. …

Seemingly little lessons of love are observed by children as they silently absorb the examples of their parents. My own father, a printer, worked long and hard to support our family. And yet, following church on Sunday, he often visited elderly family members and brought cheer into their lives.

One was his uncle, who was crippled by arthritis so severe that he could not walk or care for himself. On a Sunday afternoon Dad would say to me, “Come along, Tommy; let’s take Uncle Elias for a short drive.” Climbing into the old 1928 Oldsmobile, we would proceed to Eighth West, where, at the home of Uncle Elias, I would wait in the car while Dad went inside. Soon he would emerge from the house, carrying in his arms like a china doll his crippled uncle. I then would open the door and watch how tenderly and with such affection my father would place Uncle Elias in the front seat so he would have a fine view while I occupied the rear seat. The drive was brief and the conversation limited, but oh, what a legacy of service and of love!

My young friends, let us determine … to make of our houses happy homes. Let us open wide the windows of our hearts, that each family member may feel welcome and “at home.” Let us open also the doors of our very souls, that the dear Christ may enter.

(See Ensign, October 2001, pages 2–8.)

Illustrated by Steve Kropp