Father's Day Message

I was asked with the other wives of the Bishopric in our ward to give a talk in Sacrament meeting on Father's day. In my pondering before starting my preparation I thought it would be good to give the message focusing on our Heavenly Father. I left out the story of Enos from Pres. Kimball (because it would have taken too much time) but I put it here because I really liked Pres. Kimball's comments about Enos' example of prayer. I know this is long. I worried it was too long, but each of us spoke @ 15 minutes and we had 2 songs by the Primary children and it worked well. We have so many new converts and investigaters that some things need to be explained.
I feel that Father’s Day and especially Mother’s Days aren’t really favorite days sometimes but days of guilt and reminders of how far we need to go to be better.
Today this message is of Hope.
My first memory of my father was when I was 2 years old. We were living in Denver Colorado where I was born during the time my father was going to school to finish his degree in Architecture. He needed to travel to Grand Junction Colorado on business and he decided to take me with him. My grandparents, his parents lived there and we were going to stay with them. We needed to go up and over the Rocky Mountains to get to the western slope of Colorado. It was winter and the weather forecast was for a storm to come. We stopped by a Ranger’s Station because in those days that was the only way to get more information about the travel conditions. I can remember being awakened in the warm car to be carried with my favorite teddy bear out into the cold and not liking it. I can remember what it was like to be carried and comforted by someone I had complete trust in. Once in the Ranger’s station I understood the concerned faces and manners as my dad tried to decide whether to travel on or go back home. I remember the profound disappointment at the decision to go home and me not getting the special trip with my dad. He rescheduled his trip but I had contracted the measles and couldn’t go with him. He left without me. That night, I stood at the window and just cried “Daaadddyy”, “Dddaaadddyy” over and over. I just wanted so badly to have been able to go with him. Aren’t there days in your lives as there is in mine where we long so much for our Father-in-Heaven? Days where our heart aches to just go home and be in the comfortable, with the familiar?
As a mom I love to hear from my children. I love to hear the funny stories they tell me and what they are doing and what they are thinking about. We have one son who we worry about sometimes. When I would start worrying I used to call him up and he used to say, “Mom, what do you want?” I used to answer, nothing I just wanted to see how you are doing, because he answered me like that I used to know how he was doing, he was not happy. Now I don’t worry about him anymore, he is happy. He calls us sometimes just to talk. I know how he is doing because he is willing to call. Prayer is like that. Elder Scott said in General Conference in 2007 and I quote, “ Prayer is a supernal gift of our Father in Heaven to every soul. Think of it: the absolute Supreme Being, the most all-knowing, all- seeing, all-powerful personage, encourages you and me …. to converse with Him as our Father. Actually, because He knows how desperately we need His guidance, He commands, “Thou shalt pray vocally as well as in thy heart; yea, before the world as well as in secret, in public as well as in private”. D&C 19:28
It matters not our circumstance, be we humble or proud…. We can address him. We need no appointment. Our supplication can be brief or can occupy all the time needed. It can be extended expression of love and gratitude or an urgent plea for help. He has created numberless cosmos and populated them with worlds, yet you and I can talk with Him personally, and He will ever answer. “ Elder Scott suggests that we just talk with our Father and a way to improve prayer is to learn to ask the right questions, Consider changing from asking for the things you want to honestly seeking what He wants for you. Then as you learn His will, pray that you will be led to have the strength to fulfill it. Elder Scott said that Peace comes as an answer that shows Father in Heaven’s love and concern for us.
Pres. Kimball gave us this message in 1981. Pres Kimball was the President of the church before Pres. Hinckley, who was President before Pres. Monson. President Kimball was a small gentle man with a big heart and clear messages . He said concerning prayer.
"Learning the language of prayer is a joyous, lifetime experience. Sometimes ideas flood our mind as we listen after our prayers. Sometimes feelings press upon us. A spirit of calmness assures us that all will be well. But always, if we have been honest and earnest, we will experience a good feeling—a feeling of warmth for our Father in Heaven and a sense of his love for us. It has sorrowed me that some of us have not learned the meaning of that calm, spiritual warmth, for it is a witness to us that our prayers have been heard. And since our Father in Heaven loves us with more love than we have even for ourselves, it means that we can trust in his goodness, we can trust in him; it means that if we continue praying and living as we should, our Father’s hand will guide and bless us.
And so in our prayers we say, 'Thy will be done'—and mean it. We would not ask a leader for advice, then disregard it. We must not ask the Lord for blessings and then ignore the answer. Thus, we pray, 'Thy will be done, O Lord. Thou knowest best, kind Father. I will accept and follow thy direction gracefully.'
We do this because the scriptures remind us that sometimes we may “ask amiss” (James 4:3), or ask for that which is not expedient (see D&C 88:66), or ask for that which may not be “right” (see 3 Ne. 18:20). Yet even in this, our loving Father is as a kind parent, for the Master taught:
“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?' (Luke 11:11, 13.)
It is such a privilege and joy to pray to our Father in Heaven, such a blessing for us. But our experience is not finished after our prayer is completed. Amulek correctly taught: “And now behold, my beloved brethren, … after ye have [prayed], if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.” (Alma 34:28.) We must never forget that we are to live the gospel as honestly and earnestly as we pray. President Kimball promises…..
If we will do that, the blessings of heaven will be ours. Our prayers will be seen to reflect the truth about our lives. In our total honesty of word and deed with our Father, we will find the capacity to sincerely seek his help, particularly his forgiveness, as we repent and witness to him that we do righteously live as we pray."
President Kimball continued with this—About this story from the Book of Mormon
"I have always loved the story of Enos, who had great need. Like all of us—for none of us is perfect—he had strayed. How dark were his sins I do not know, but he wrote, 'I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins.'
The account is graphic and his words impressive: “Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests …”
But he took no animals. He was searching his soul, reaching, knocking, asking, pleading. He was being born again. He would have lived all his life in a weed patch, but now he sought a watered garden.
Enos continues: '… and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart.'

Memory opened the door to his past, and he was warmed and inspired by the word pictures his father had painted which now stirred his soul.
“And my soul hungered. …” The spirit of repentance was taking hold. He was remorseful, eager to bury the old man of sin, eager to resurrect a new man of faith, of godliness.
“… and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul. …” He realized that no one can be saved in his sins, that no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of God. He came to realize that there must be a purging, a new heart in a new man.
He knew it was not a small or easy thing, for he wrote: “… and all the day long did I cry unto him.”
Here is no casual prayer, no trite and worn phrases. Minutes turned to hours, and when the sun had set, relief still had not come; for repentance is not a single act, nor forgiveness an unearned gift. So precious to him was this communication with God that his determined soul pressed on without ceasing: “Yea, and when the night came, I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.”
And then, after crying mightily, covenanting sincerely, having surely demonstrated the integrity of his prayer, the voice of the Lord came to him: “Thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.” (Enos 1:1–5.)
What a blessing and a joy for each of us to know that our Father lives and that he loves us, that he forgives us when repentance is forthcoming, that he is ever willing to help and give love to his beloved children. Still quoting Pres. Kimball....
After a lifetime of prayers, I know of the love and power and strength that comes from honest and heartfelt prayer. I know of the readiness of our Father to assist us in our mortal experience, to teach us, to lead us, to guide us. Thus, with great love, our Savior has said, “What I say unto one I say unto all; pray always.” (D&C 93:49.)
If we will do so, we shall gain for ourselves personal knowledge that our Father in Heaven truly hears and answers prayers. This knowledge he wants each of us to have. Seek it, my beloved brothers and sisters! Seek it!" Close Quote
Love takes time. Elder Aston spoke on this subject in 1975 when he told a story about a father greeting his little boy as he came home from work with a pat on the little boy’s head and the dad said, “Son, I want you to know I love you”. The son responded with, “Oh, Dad, I don’t want you to love me, I want you to play football with me”. The world is filled with too many of us who are inclined to indicate our love with an announcement or declaration. True love is a process, True love requires personal action. Love must be continuing to be real. Love takes time.
As we take the time to truly pray to our Father in Heaven, share with him vocally as well as privately the reality of that Love will manifest itself in our hearts. We will know that he loves us and be able to share that message with others who so desperately need to know that.
When I prayed about my message to you I felt I should share with you about Heavenly Father’s love for you and also encourage you to go to the temple. Which is a place where we can be closer to Heavenly Father than any other place on earth. Since we have lived here we have not gone to the temple but just a couple of times, it seems so far, expensive and takes so much time. But we have missed it, we have missed the beauty, calm and peace of the temple. We have missed the instruction, the feeling of closeness to our God, the course corrections that are necessary for our growth. We have missed going. We need to do better. It does take time but it is worth it.
I used to honestly believe that ones relationship with our Heavenly Father could be directly tied to our relationship with our earthly father. Recently I have learned that that is not necessarily the case I have gotten to know a person who’s father was not respectable in anyway and yet as a two year old girl she developed a deep relationship with her Father in Heaven that grows deeper every day. We can learn of His love for us and learn to love him in any circumstance. We can take the time to go to the temple to learn more of our Father in Heaven, as we take the time to talk to him, back that up with actions showing love for others, there will come into your soul a full assurance that Jesus is your Savior, that He and Heavenly Father loves you and their Love will abide with you forever.
I have had wonderful examples of Fatherhood in my life from my own father, from my Step Dad, my father-in-law but most of all from my beloved husband of ,as of Friday, 39 years. He has been a great example of fatherhood to our six children. There were of course days of struggle, but he has been ever the beacon of hope for them. Always the example of right living, showing how to repent when necessary sometimes saying what needs to be said when they didn’t want it to be said. The true example of love for them and for me. I thank him for that example.
Testimony