Mothers and Fathers and the Fire of Testimony

I have been thinking lately about the roles of mothers and fathers.  As the Supreme Court of the United States redefines marriage and family, I have thought about the role of my mother and my father and the influence they have had in my life.  I wondered, how did the parenting styles of their parents affect their own parenting?

James and Maxine Owen Family

My mother was a quiet person.  She was friendly and kind to all, but didn’t like to be out in front or speaking from the pulpit.  One time we were in the Wasatch County Daughters of the Utah Pioneer Museum.  There was a red velvet pulpit similar to one in the Heber City 2^nd Ward meetinghouse where the Moulton family attended when she was a girl.  

Hyrum and Lillian Moulton Children.  Maxine is in black in the middle.

 She told us how she was assigned to give the “Sacrament Gem” as a young girl.  She worked hard to memorize the short scripture during the week.  That Sunday morning she got up to the red pulpit and totally froze.  She couldn’t remember what she was to say.  I can’t remember what happened next but t hat paralyzing fear remained with her for most of her life.  She would prefer that others take the “limelight” and she would work hard in the background.

My father, on the other hand, was very gregarious and outgoing.  He taught the Sunday School Gospel Doctrine class for years and always enjoyed visiting with people.  He gladly took the leadership in the home and mom was totally content to play a supportive role.

Dad had been an LDS Seminary Teacher for the first four years of their marriage.  He delighted in sharing Gospel truths as a Stake missionary.  He also desired to be a “missionary to his family” and taught his children well.  

Black 3 ring binder like the ones we used as chldren.

I remember when I was about 15 years of age, all nine of the children had black notebooks where we wrote down our questions and kept notes of our Sunday discussions.  We would have “Gospel Question and Answer Time” when we could Dad ask anything. He would teach us from the scriptures the answers to our Gospel questions as he understood them.  I think I first became comfortable with the idea the scriptures had answers to most of my important questions in that setting.

I actually have little black 3 ring notebooks that were kept by both my Dad and Mom. Here they made collections of important gospel quotes and inspirational ideas they cherished through the years.  

Elder Boyd K. Packer taught:

 “Keep the fire of your testimony of the restored gospel and your witness of our Redeemer burning so brightly that our children can warm their hands by the fire of your faith.”  -President Boyd K. Packer, "The Golden Years"

I felt the fire of the faith of my parents.  Not all nine of their children have remained “true to the truths that our parents have cherished.” Individual moral agency we each exercise has played into the choice all the children made to live according to the teachings we were taught in our youth, but we were all well taught.

It is a tribute to our parents that we saw them try to live the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Life in a big family is rather chaotic at best, but we were taught these gospel living patterns:

Attending church meetings each Sunday together as a family

Family scripture study

Family Home Evening on Monday nights

Family Prayer each night before family dinner

Monthly family testimony meetings

James A. Owen-the teacher.

In the Old Testament, the Prophet Jeremiah said of the Gospel message:  "his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay" Jeremiah 20:7-9).  That was my Dad, always talking of Gospel truth.

Jeremiah-Prophet of the Old Testament

As I look back, I can better understand the great effort it took to pull off these regular family religious practices.  It wasn’t by chance that we did these things, it was a choice made by parents who were striving to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It took the leadership of a father and the support of a mother. 

So now we live in a day when the choices are not so simple.  Our grandchildren will have to separate God’s Law from Man’s Law in the areas of abortion and same sex marriage and other social trends. 

I like to think that my ancestors, like Mom and Dad, did their best in raising their children in the paths of Gospel truth. 

It is from the mothers and the fathers that we learned to pray and walk uprightly. 

It is from the mothers and the fathers that we learned to work. 

It is from the mothers and the fathers that we learn obedience. 

It is from the mothers and the fathers that we learned how to parent our own children.

I am thankful for the patterns my mother and father set for their children. They likely learned these patterns from their own faithful parents.  Mom and Dad lived their deeply held beliefs.  Indeed, we warmed our hands by the fire of their faith.  

LDS Apostle Boyd K. Packer  1924-2015

 Boyd K. Packer said it best:  

 “Keep the fire of your testimony of the restored gospel and your witness of our Redeemer burning so brightly that our children can warm their hands by the fire of your faith.”