Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting Text Accessible to All Members

The complete text of the recent worldwide leadership training meeting will be printed in the June 2006 Liahona and Ensign, the first time all talks from such a training meeting have been made available in the magazines.

The broad release of all talks from a worldwide leadership meeting is uncharacteristic, since the broadcast is specifically for the priesthood and auxiliary leaders of the Church. However, Church leaders are making these talks accessible to all members of the Church because they are on the topic of the family.

“We recommended inserting the proceedings in the Ensign and Liahona because strengthening the family is a major message for our time from the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles,” said Elder Dale E. Miller of the Seventy, Executive Director of the Priesthood Department of the Church. “Members will be more receptive to the teaching of these principles by local leaders if they have the confirming voice of General Authorities and officers.”

The talks are already available in text, audio, and video formats online at www.lds.org and feature the words of President Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency; Elder L. Tom Perry and Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; and Sister Bonnie D. Parkin, Relief Society general president.

“Our thoughts have centered on home and family as we have been reminded that the home is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place or fulfill its essential functions,” President Monson said during the broadcast.

Elder Perry spoke to members “heart to heart” about their service in the Lord’s kingdom. Quoting President Gordon B. Hinckley, he shared a message from a 2003 worldwide leadership training meeting: “It is imperative that you not neglect your families. Nothing you have is more precious” (“Rejoicing in the Privilege to Serve,” Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, June 21, 2003, 22).

Elder Bednar said such instruction has never been more needed in the world than it is today. “Today I will speak with you primarily as men and women, as husbands and wives, and as mothers and fathers, and secondarily as priesthood and auxiliary leaders in the Church,” he said.

Sister Parkin spoke on the sacred duty parents have to provide for, protect, and nurture their children and expressed the importance of showing love in the home. “One of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is to show them they love each other,” she said.

All of the talks will be distributed as usual on DVD and in booklet form to individual units. Online, the text will be available in more than 40 languages. In video, audio, and MP3 files, the talks from the meeting are already available in 11 languages, with more than 60 to follow.