Lesson centers around D&C 93:40: But I have commanded you to bring up your children

in light and truth.

What is Light and Truth?

Now read D&C 93:36-40: 36 The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light
and truth.

37 Light and truth forsake that evil one.

38 Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man
from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.

39 And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience,
from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.

40 But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth.

From the Life of Joseph Fielding Smith

President Joseph Fielding Smith described his father, President Joseph F. Smith, as “one in whom I have
had more confidence than in anyone else I have known in this world.” 1 He recalled that his father
frequently gathered the family, “instructing his children in the principles of the gospel. They one and all
rejoiced in his presence and were grateful for the words of counsel and instruction which he imparted. …
They have never forgotten what they were taught, and the impressions have remained with them and will
likely do so forever.”2 He also said: “My father was the most tender-hearted man I ever knew. … Among
my fondest memories are the hours I have spent by his side discussing principles of the gospel and
receiving instruction as only he could give it. In this way the foundation for my own knowledge was laid in
truth, so that I too can say I know that my Redeemer lives, and that Joseph Smith is, was, and always will
be a prophet of the living God.”3

Joseph Fielding Smith also spoke lovingly of his mother, Julina L. Smith, and her teachings. He said: “I
was trained at my mother’s knee to love the Prophet Joseph Smith and to love my Redeemer. … I am
grateful for the training that I received and I tried to follow the counsel that was given to me by my father.
But I must not give him all the credit. I think a good part of it, a very great part of it, should go to my
mother whose knee I used to sit by as a little child and listen to her stories about the pioneers. … She
used to teach me and put in my hands, when I was old enough to read, things that I could understand.
She taught me to pray [and] to be true andfaithful to my covenants and obligations, to attend to my duties
as a deacon and as a teacher … and later as a priest. … I had a mother who saw to it that I did read, and
I loved to read.”4

When Joseph Fielding Smith became a father, he followed his parents’ example. His daughter Amelia
said:

“Father was the perfect student and teacher, one who not only taught us from his great store of
knowledge but encouraged us to learn on our own. …

“With his children he followed the counsel found in D&C 93:40: ‘But I have commanded you to bring up
your children in light and truth.’

Hardest part (to me) about being a parent is that everything is exposed to the children - the
good and the bad, they see you all the time. And they test you. In our society there’s a lot of
tendency to focus on the bad. I think we try to whitewash history books a lot of times and there’s
a tendency to do that with church leaders too. Joseph Fielding Smith had many very racist
comments, and had polarizing views on evolution and offended a lot of people. But from
everything I read, Joseph Fielding Smith had this parenting thing nailed. He was a very kind,
compassionate parent.

“He taught us at the breakfast table as he told us stories from the scriptures, and had the ability to make
each one sound new and exciting though we had heard it many times before. The suspense I felt
wondering if Pharaoh’s soldiers would find the gold cup in Benjamin’s sack of grain is real even today. We
learned about Joseph Smith finding the plates of gold, and the visit of the Father and the Son. If Father
had time to walk to school with us, the stories continued. We walked past the [Salt Lake] Temple on the
way to school and he told us about the Angel Moroni. We learned the temple was a very special place,
that you had to be good to go there, and when you got married there it was forever. He taught us by the
things he prayed for in our family prayers when we knelt by our chairs before breakfast and again at
dinner time. …

“Today his teachings not only lift and sustain his descendants but countless numbers of faithful members
of the Church as well. What a great privilege and blessing it has been to be his daughter.” 5

Scriptures have great stories. Part of how we transmit their message to our kids is
through storytelling. How can we be become better storytellers?

There’s this great power in the church of “likening the scriptures to ourselves.” When they are
going through things, we can relate spiritual stories to them.
(To withstand the influence of the adversary, parents must bring up their
children in light and truth.)

The importance of family unity—love and consideration for one another in the family—cannot be
overemphasized. Spiritual solidarity in family relationships is the sure foundation upon which the Church
and society itself will flourish. This fact is well known and appreciated by the adversary, and as never
before, he is using every clever device, influence, and power within his control to undermine and destroy
this eternal institution. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ applied in family relationships will thwart this
devilish destructiveness.6

There are many great and real dangers to be reckoned with, and those which concern us more than all
others combined have to do with our children. The only real protection or adequate defense can be
afforded by the home and its influences.7

In “The Simpsons” the character that is the minister’s wife, whenever there is a town hall
meeting, whatever the topic is, she’ll say “will somebody please think of the children?” But I
think there’s a lot of truth in that - your perspective changes when you have children. Many
things would be different if everyone thought of the children.

Our children will have to be taught to discern between good and evil, otherwise in many respects they will
not be able to understand why they are not permitted to indulge in practices that are common with their
neighbors. Unless they are instructed in the doctrines of the Church, they will not, perhaps, understand
why there is any harm in the Sunday concert, a Sunday theatre, picture show, ball game, or something of
that kind, when their playmates, without restraint and with encouragement, indulge in these things
forbidden of the Lord on his holy day. The parents are responsible for the proper teaching of their
children, [and] the Lord will condemn the parents if their children grow up outside of the influence of the
principles of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8

The Lord has commanded us, one and all, to bring our children up in light and truth. Where this spirit
exists, disharmony, disobedience, and neglect of sacred duties will not, cannot, succeed. 9

Relationship with children is more important than what we teach our children.

Speaking of Faith podcast, “The Spirituality of Parenting”

MS. SASSO:Well, we do know that, from research, that all children by the time they are
age five have a conception of God, whether or not we've talked about God to them as
parents. And we also know that children ask these really large questions. And there
seems to be an innate spirituality, a great sense of wonder, spontaneity, imagination and
creativity, and a connection to something larger than themselves. What children seem to
lack is a language to give expression to that sense of something deeper. And I think, as
parents, our responsibility is to provide them with a language, an opportunity to have a
conversation about these matters that they care very deeply about. Because I think what
happens is, if we don't provide the language and if we don't encourage the conversation,
then children stop asking. If you don't exercise your muscles, they atrophy. If you don't
exercise your soul, I think your soul atrophies as well.

You don’t have to be perfect.

(Parents are primarily responsible for the teaching of their children.)

The Father has never relinquished his claim upon the children born into this world. They are still His
children. He has placed them in the care of mortal parents with the admonition that they be brought up in
light and truth. The primary responsibility, and fundamentally so, is upon the parents to teach their
children in light and truth.10

I think that this is a very strong principle, but to me it’s misinterpreted sometimes. Many times
we think that we just need the kids to follow the doctrines of the church, that that is our duty.
That’s the way I always looked at it. But the scripture reads differently when you switch out light
and truth with intelligence.

I think it’s very important to not only teach principles and obedience to our children, but also to
explain why. Not just “because I said so.” Teach them to think for themselves, we won’t always
be around.

I’ve seen in many cases where parents were forced into obeying gospel principles, and it didn’t
turn out well...as soon as the parents influence was gone, the kids rebelled. Any thoughts on
striking that balance?

The first duty pertaining to the training of the children of the Church belongs in the home. It is the
responsibility of the parents to bring up their children in light and truth, and the Lord has declared that
wherein they fail to do it, they will stand before the judgment seat to give answer. 11

If you think of this as answering to God for what you taught your children, I don’t think that jsut
saying well, all my children were married in the temple is a complete answer. The Glory of God
is intelligence. I think it’s most important to instill intelligence in our children, to teach them how
to obtain knowledge and use it for good.

For me, an even stronger motivating factor is the desire to not bring unhappiness to my children.
I know that if they go down wrong paths, then they won’t be happy. Max Hall - no judgment, but
can you imagine the horror of seeing your son’s mugshot on the news? I think it’s the fear of
that that motivates me.

The Church helps parents in their efforts to teach their children.

The chief responsibility to do [the] things which lead to salvation rests with each individual. All of us have
been placed on earth to undergo the testing experiences of mortality. We are here to see if we will keep
the commandments and overcome the world, and we must do all that we can for ourselves.

The next responsibility for our salvation rests with our families. Parents are set to be lights and guides to
their children and are commanded to bring them up in light and truth, teaching them the gospel and
setting proper examples. Children are expected to obey their parents, and to honor and respect them.

Adapting - I feel like I have one thing figured out and then it changes. How do you handle
scripture study, FHE, etc. at different stages of life?

The Church and its agencies constitute in effect a service organization to help the family and the
individual.14

I listened to a stake president talk about how the stake is there to support the wards, and the
ward is there to support the families, and the families are there to support the individuals.
Sometimes we have it backwards, and think the family is there to support the ward, and the
wards are the to support the stake and all the things they are doing.

I know it focuses a lot in the lesson on the influence that parents have and that’s a lot. But I also
want to focus on the influence or lack of influence that non-parents can have. I’m going to tie
this back into what we talked about last week (how to stay spiritually strong without prominent
callings) Going to skip the last section, instead focus on 3 stories from my own life.

The first was when I was a youth, we had a mutual activity where we went and saw a Jazz
game. This was in their heyday, not sure if it was one of the years they went to the finals or not,
but anyway, great game, good time, until after the game I start looking for my leaders and I don’t
see them, and I start walking around and start getting scared. I’m stranded downtown late at
night, we live like 30 miles away from downtown, so I was thinking I was going to have to walk...
This was before everyone had cell phone so I had to bum a quarter off a guy and call home, my
single mom (even though she has early work the next morning) comes out to get me. To this
day (I’ve stopped waiting for it) I’ve never received an apology for that. So that’s the story of why
I stopped going to mutual. I never completely left the church over that because of the example
of my mom. Even though she wasn’t the greatest example of church activity, she was a great
example of perseverance. That was something she instilled in me from the beginning. So I
share this to say that even though we do our best jobs as parents, some people come along
and ruin all of that.

Fast forward a few years to my mission. I had a mission president by the name of Brad Wilcox.
He was very interesting in that he focused his mission on the conversion of the missionaries. He
felt called to do that and that’s what he did. The area presidency even came down on him pretty
hard because the baptism numbers weren’t where they wanted them to be, but he fought back.
And the personal attention that he gave to me had maybe the most powerful influence in my life,
and he’s not my parent.

The last one comes from when I was deciding to go to UPenn or BYU. I had a tough first year at
Penn - academics were rigorous, I felt out of place, and I was just unsure of a lot of things. I
thought at BYU I would have a better religious education. I wrote a letter to Jon Huntsman Jr.
and asked his advice. I don’t know why I did, I think I just wanted to get things off my mind and
onto paper. One day I’m sitting at home and my stepdad comes in and says Manny, “Jon
Huntsman is on the phone.” We talked for a while about my situation and long story short,0 he
told me not to go to BYU. So I didn’t. I don’t have any great miracle that happened because of
that, but I wanted to share that story because that man impressed the heck out of me. And he
didn’t know me and wasn’t attached to me in any way. So I think all of these concepts we’ve
talked about today, let’s not just teach them to our kids, let’s share them with everyone.

Extra:

First Presidency Message, 1978:

“How sad if the Lord should charge any of us parents with having failed to teach our children.
Truly a tremendous responsibility falls upon a couple when they bring children into the world.
Not only food, clothes, and shelter are required of them, but loving, kindly disciplining, teaching,
and training. “Of course, there are a few disobedient souls regardless of training and teaching,
but the great majority of children respond to such parental guidance. The scripture says, ‘Train
up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.’ (Prov. 22:6.)
And if he departs, he will probably return if he has been brought up in the right way.”