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Families are Special

"If we are practicing our faith and seeking the companionship of the Holy Spirit, his presence can be felt in our hearts and in our homes.  A family having daily family prayers and seeking to keep the commandments of God and honor his name and speak lovingly to one another will have a spiritual feeling in their home that will be discernible to all who enter it.  I know this, because I have felt the presence or absence of that feeling in many LDS homes."

Elder Dallin H. Oaks,  CR October 1996.


"The greatest forces in the world are being used against families and traditional family values.  These values are being undermined in subtle and in not-so-subtle ways.  Because of this assault on family values, it takes all of your best efforts to fortify your family.  It takes hard work and planning.  It takes sacrifice.  'In the setting of the family...may I suggest that we give more of ourselves.'" 

From the book Knit Together in Love


"The founding of the home is as sacred a work as the founding of a church."

David O. McKay


"The Church teaches that everything should center in and around the family.  It stresses that the preservation of family life in time and eternity takes precedence above all other interests."

From the  book The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson


"Woman knows what man has long forgotten, that the ultimate economic and spiritual unit of any civilization is still the family."

Clare Boothe Luce


"As important as your obligations as a doctor, lawyer, or business leader will be, you are a human being first, and those human connections--with spouses, with children, with friends--are the most important investments you will ever make. 

"At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal.  You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend, or a parent...Our success as a society depends not on what happens in the White House but on what happens inside your house."

Former First Lady Barbara Bush, Commencement Address at Wellesley College, 1990


"If we do not teach our children, society will.  And they--and we--will live with the results."

Stephen R. Covey   Book:  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families


"The Lord expects us to strengthen the family — an institution of God — by supporting, sustaining, strengthening and teaching one another. 

"The family is falling apart all over the world.  Young people who come out of homes without roots, wander aimlessly, destroying their lives with drugs and other practices, joining gangs, molesting and even shooting one another. 

"[The family] was designed for His eternal purposes, to bring happiness into the lives of His children.  Fatherhood and motherhood are blessings without peer. 

"It is this family solidarity which is the only hope I see for the future of our nation."

 President Gordon B. Hinckley Madison Square Garden, N.Y., April, 1998


President Gordon B. Hinckley (April 25, 1998) said the families of Latter-day Saints ought to be "the best families under the heavens."

"Brothers and sisters, there is much of trouble in the homes of our people.  There is much of unkindness, of unkind words, of bitterness, of hatred even, in the homes of our people.  We deal with it constantly.  This is a day of repentance when you and I can turn around and face up to our responsibilities as husbands and wives, as fathers, as parents, and as children.

"The family is a creation of God.  It is the basic unit of society.  All else depends on it.  If the family falls apart, the nation falls apart.  There isn't the slightest question in my mind concerning that."

He said that Latter-day Saint families have more light and knowledge and understanding than is had by any other people on the face of the earth.

"Great are the blessings that are promised.  Marvelous are the gifts of God, which are given us out of His love when we are so married.  Take a good look at ourselves and see if we are the kind of husbands we ought to be.  If we are the kinds of wives we ought to be.  If we are the kinds of parents we ought to be.  If we are the kind of children we ought to be."

(Columbus, Ohio--to about 6,800 people in the Polaris Amphitheater.  Church News,  May 9, 1998)


"Many things will not get better until we have better families, but this will require much more self-denial, not less."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Apr.  Conf.  1995


"The strength of the nations lies in the homes of the people.  God is the designer of the family.  He intended that the greatest of happiness, the most satisfying aspects of life, the deepest joys should come in our associations together and our concerns one for another as fathers and mothers and children.

"God bless the homes of our people.  May He bless those homes that there may be loyal and true fathers, and good and wonderful mothers, and obedient and ambitious children reared in 'the nurture and admonition of the Lord'."

 President Gordon B. Hinckley,  CR  April 1991


"Homemaker is the ultimate career.  All other careers exist for one purpose only---to support the ultimate career!"

 C. S. Lewis


"This world will be no better than its homes."

Richard L. Evans,  Area Conference Report (England)  8/71:71


"Brothers and sisters, of all the places where our charitable acts should shine forth, where our discipleship must rise above the weaknesses of self, the family is the most important place.  There is no other setting that comes close in comparison.  Yet many--far too many--are more charitable to others than to their own."

H. Burke Peterson "Our Responsibility to Care for Our Own" General Conference, April 1981


"Have the same courtesy in your homes that you have when you are out in society. Thank your wives; thank your children; and say, 'If you please,' 'Excuse me.'  These little things mean so much and make life so much sweeter."

David O. McKay  (Improvement Era, December 1968, p. 109)


"If the foundation of a well-ordered society is a healthy, happy home, then the problem of lawlessness will not be solved by more laws or legislation; but by fathers and mothers exerting a moral influence and example in their own families, tempered with love and understanding."

J. Spencer Kinard


"The strength of any nation is rooted within the walls of its homes."

(Gordon Bitner Hinckley)


"No other success can compensate for failure in the home."

President David O. McKay, Improvement Era, June 1964, p. 445.


"We emphasize that the greatest work you will do will be within the walls of your home."

President Harold B. Lee, Ensign, July 1973, p. 98