How to Have Good Thoughts Unceasingly

Here are some Mutual activities and family home evening ideas that can help you let virtue garnish your thoughts:

• Read the scriptures listed in Guide to the Scriptures under “Thoughts” and “Virtue.”

• Memorize or review the thirteenth article of faith. What does it mean to you? List ways you can “seek after these things.”

• List synonyms for the words virtue and virtuous. How can you apply these words in your life?

• What does pure mean? Why does water need to be pure before we drink it? Why should our thoughts be pure?

• Read the account of Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39. When should you flee and get yourself out? How can you be in the world but not of the world?

• Make a booklet with a favorite scripture or thought from each young man and young woman in your ward.

• Choose a “scripture of the week,” and post it someplace where you can read it every day. See if you can memorize 52 scriptures this year—one every week. If you memorize scripture mastery scriptures, you’re halfway there!

• Make a commitment not to use any profanity.

• With your quorum or class, make a commitment to avoid any form of pornography. How will you help each other?

• As a family, decide on ways you can show your love and support to each other through positive words and actions.

• Read and study the sections “Entertainment and the Media” and “Language” in For the Strength of Youth. Highlight the word Spirit in those sections. List ways the Spirit will bless your life as you live these standards.

• Discuss Internet and media safety as a class or quorum and as a family.

• “Holiness to the Lord” is inscribed on our temples. Discuss how virtuous thoughts help prepare you to attend the temple. If possible, attend the temple to perform baptisms for the dead.

• Memorize two favorite hymns you can hum or sing to replace bad thoughts with inspired words.

• Work on Duty to God or Personal Progress. The spiritual development section of Duty to God or the integrity value in Personal Progress will especially help you understand more about purity and the blessings of letting “virtue garnish [your] thoughts unceasingly.”