Enos 1:1

[pam]

Enos 1Â*

1 Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man—for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—and blessed be the name of my God for it—

Quotes for Discussion

Parental Influence

Sometimes as I go throughout the Church, I think I am seeing a man who is using his church work as a kind of escape from family responsibility. And sometimes when we’ve talked about whether or not he’s giving attention to his family, his children and his wife, he says something like this: “Well I’m so busy taking care of the Lord’s work that I really don’t have time.” And I say to him, “My dear brother, the greatest of the Lord’s work that you and I will ever do is the work that we do within the walls of our own home.” Now don’t you get any misconception about where the Lord’s work starts. That’s the most important of all the Lord’s work. And you wives may have to remind your husbands of that occasionally. That here in the home— family home night—you must see to it that all the principles are involved so that father takes his place and doesn’t neglect the children.

Harold B. Lee, Address to Seminary and Institute Personnel, BYU, 8 July 1966

In the divine scheme every soul has been given a father whose responsibility is not only to sire and provide the necessities of life, but also to train for mortality and life eternal. Undoubtedly Sarah cooperated with Lehi, but it was the father who called his family together to teach them righteousness. The teaching of the children by the fathers is basic from the beginning. The Lord ordained it so. Though Enos had strayed for a time, the teachings of his father prevailed, and he returned to worthiness.

Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, Apr. 1965, pp. 61-62

We emphasize that the greatest work you will do will be within the walls of your home….It is not uncommon for responsible parents to lose one of their children, for a time, to influences over which they have no control. They agonize over rebellious sons or daughters. They are puzzled over why they are so helpless when they have tried so hard to do what they should. It is my conviction that those wicked influences one day will be overruled. “The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught a more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God.” (Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1929, p. 110)…When parents keep the covenants they have made at the altar of the temple, their children will be forever bound to them. President Brigham Young said [Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 208]: “Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang.”

Boyd K. Packer, Ensign, May 1992, p. 68

One new father wrote: “Often as I watch my son watch me, I am taken back to moments with my own dad, remembering how vividly I wanted to be just like him. I remember having a plastic razor and my own can of foaming cream, and each morning I would shave when he shaved. I remember following his footsteps back and forth across the grass as he mowed the lawn in summer. “Now I want my son to follow my lead, and yet it terrifies me to know he probably will.”…

At a vulnerable moment in young Nephi’s life, his prophetic future was determined when he said, “I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father” (1 Ne. 2:16). At the turning point of the prophet Enos’s life, he said it was “the words which I had often heard my father speak” (Enos 1:3), which prompted one of the great revelations recorded in the Book of Mormon. And sorrowing Alma the Younger, when confronted by the excruciating memory of his sins, “remembered also to have heard [his] father prophesy…concerning the coming of…Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world” (Alma 36:17). That brief memory that personal testimony offered by his father at a time when the father may have felt nothing was sinking in, not only saved the spiritual life of this, his son, but changed forever the history of the book of Mormon people.

Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign, May 1999 [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1999], 15-16

Ten Ways to Spend Time with Children—

Be at the Crossroads….[T]ake time to always be at the crossroads when your children are either coming or going—when they leave and return from school, when they leave and return from dates, when they bring friends home.

Be a Real Friend ….Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, play with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them.

Read to Your Children ….You will plant a love for good literature and a real love for the scriptures if you will read to your children regularly.

Pray with Your Children ….Have your children feel of your faith as you call down the blessings of heaven upon them. Paraphrasing the words of James, “The…fervent prayer of a righteous [mother] availeth much” (James 5:16).

Have Weekly Home Evenings ….Participate in a spiritual and an uplifting home evening each week….Make this one of your great family traditions.

Be Together at Mealtimes ….Happy conversation, sharing of the day’s plans and activities, and special teaching moments occur at mealtime because mothers and fathers and children work at it.

Read Scriptures Daily….Reading the Book of Mormon together as a family will especially bring increased spirituality into your home and will give both parents and children the power to resist temptation and to have the Holy Ghost as their constant companion.

Do Things as a Family….Make family outings and picnics and birthday celebrations and trips special times and memory builders. Whenever possible, attend as a family, events where one of the family members is involved.

Teach Your Family ….Catch the teaching moments. This can be done anytime during the day at mealtime, in casual settings, or at special sit-down times together, at the foot of the bed at the end of the day, or during an early morning walk together.

Truly Love Your Children ….A mother’s unqualified love approaches Christlike love.

President Ezra Taft Benson, Fireside, To the Mothers of Zion, 1987

The most potent influence over the mind of a child to persuade it to learn, to progress, or to accomplish anything, is the influence of love. More can be accomplished for good by unfeigned love, in bringing up a child, than by any other influence that can be brought to bear upon it. A child that cannot be conquered by the lash, or subdued by violence, may be controlled in an instant by unfeigned affection and sympathy. I know that is true….Govern the children, not by passion, by bitter words or scolding, but by affection and by winning their confidence. If you can only convince your children that you love them, that your soul goes out to them for their good, that you are their truest friend, they, in turn, will place confidence in you and will love you and seek to do your bidding and to carry out your wishes with your love. But if you are selfish, unkindly to them, and if they are not confident that they have your entire affection, they will be selfish, and will not care whether they please you or carry out your wishes or not, and the result will be that they will grow wayward, thoughtless and careless…. If children are defiant and difficult to control, be patient with them until you can conquer by love, and you will have gained their souls, and you can then mould their characters as you please.

Teachings of Presidents of the Church—Joseph F. Smith

[salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1998], 299

Not long after we were married, we built our first home.

…the first of many trees that I planted was a thornless honey locust….It was so supple that I could bend it with ease in any direction. I paid little attention to it as the years passed. Then one winter day,…I chanced to look out the window at it. I noticed that it was leaning to the west, misshapen and out of balance….I went out and braced myself against it as if to push it upright. But the trunk was now nearly a foot in diameter….It seemed to say, “You can’t straighten me. It’s too late. I’ve grown this way because of your neglect, and I will not bend.”

Finally in desperation I took my saw and cut off the great heavy branch on the west side. The saw left an ugly scar, more than eight inches across….I had cut off the major part of the tree, leaving only one branch growing skyward.

More than half a century has passed since I planted that tree….The other day I looked at the tree. It is large. Its shape is better….But how serious was the trauma of its youth and how brutal the treatment I used to straighten it.

When it was first planted, a piece of string would have held it in place against the forces of the wind….

I have seen a similar thing, many times, in children whose lives I have observed. The parents who brought them into the world seem almost to have abdicated their responsibility. The results have been tragic. A few simple anchors would have given them the strength to withstand the forces that have shaped their lives. Now it appears it is too late.

Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley [salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997], 419-20

Now I have one more suggestion, and it’s very important for you to know that some parents feel they don’t have the right to ask worthiness questions of their children. They think that that is the prevue of the bishop alone. Allow me to dispel that myth once and for all. Not only do you as mothers along with your husbands as fathers have the right to know the worthiness of your children, you have the responsibility. It

is your duty to know how your children are doing with regards to their spiritual well-being and progression. You need to monitor carefully the issues and concerns they share with you. Ask specific questions of your children regarding their worthiness and refuse to settle for anything less than specific answers. Do not slip Sisters, into the mistaken idea that you need to be just a best friend or a pal. You need to be a mother or a church leader who teaches God’s commandments for His children and the expectations God has for His children. And that means that you will need to be firm yet loving expecting your children and your youth to be obedient. There are far too many of our youth who are living by their own rules rather than the rules set by God.

M. Russell Ballard, Raising the Greatest Generation of Missionaries, 2003

But no child in this Church should be left with uncertainty about his or her parents’ devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Restoration of His Church, and the reality of living prophets and apostles who, now as in earlier days, lead that Church according to the will of the Lord, the mind of the Lord, the word of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation…. Parents simply cannot flirt with skepticism or cynicism, then be surprised when their children expand that flirtation into full-blown romance. If in matters of faith and belief children are at risk of being swept downstream by this intellectual current or that cultural rapid, we as their parents must be more certain than ever to hold to anchored unmistakable moorings clearly recognizable to those of our own household…. Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony! Don’t just assume your children will somehow get the drift of your belief on their own….

Nephi-like, might we ask ourselves what our children know? From us? Personally? Do our children know that we love the scriptures? Do they see us reading them and marking them and clinging to them in daily life? Have our children ever unexpectedly opened a closed door and found us on our knees in prayer? Have they heard us not only pray with them but lso pray for them out of nothing more than sheer parental love? Do our children know we believe in fasting as something more than an obligatory first- Sunday-of-the-month hardship? Do they know that we have fasted for them and for their future on days about which they knew nothing? Do they know we love being in the temple, not least because it provides a bond to them that neither death nor the legions of hell can break? Do they know we love and sustain local and general leaders, imperfect as they are, for their willingness to accept callings they did not seek tin order to preserve a standard of righteousness they did not create? Do those children know that we love god with all our heart and that we long to see the face and fall at the feet of His Only Begotten Son? I pray that they know this.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, A Prayer for the Children, Ensign (CR), May 2003, p. 85

Edited December 30, 2010 by pam