My First Sacrament Meeting Talk

Stephen Covey said, “Through traditions we reinforce the connection of the family. You give a feeling of belonging, of being supported, of being understood. You are committed to one another. You are part of something that is greater than yourself. You express and show loyalty to one another. You need to be needed. You need to be wanted and you’re glad to be part of a family. You express and show loyalty to one another. When parents and children cultivate traditions that are meaningful to them every time they go back to that tradition it renews the emotional energy and bonding of the past.”
In our family we have family traditions. One is when we all gather around the kitchen table to eat dinner, play games, do homework and sometimes just talk. When we have dinner as a family sometimes it can get really loud because we are all talking at once about how our day was. My sister Cindy made a sign that says, “What Have I Done For Someone Today.” My Dad asks that question every single night. Usually the answer is I played with my brother or sister or I helped my Mom clean up the house. This quote is talked about by Thomas S. Monson. President Monson said in conference, “A few years ago I read an article written by Jack McConnell, medical doctor. He grew up in the hills of southwest Virginia as one of 7 children of a Methodist minister and a stay-at-home mother. Their circumstances were very humble. He recounted that during his childhood every day as the family sat around the dinner table his father would ask each one in turn, “And what did you do for someone today?” The children were determined to do a good turn every day so they could report to their father that they had helped someone. Dr. McConnell calls this exercise his father’s most valuable legacy for that expectation and those words inspired him and his siblings to help others throughout their lives. As they grew and matured their motivation for providing service changed to an inner desire to help others.
The Apostle Paul said, “By love serve one another.” King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon said, “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” The Savior taught His disciples, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”
This talk by President Monson has helped our family be nicer to each other and look for ways to serve each other. My sister Cindy made a sign that says, “What Have I Done For Someone Today?” and put it by our table so we can talk about it at dinner.
Another family tradition we have is family home evening when we all gather in the living room and give lessons every Monday night. Family home evening is very fun and important to our family. One thing we do in family home evening is we recite our family motto. Our family motto is the same as my Dad’s. It is:
If it is not clean do not think it.
If it is not true do not speak it.
If it is not good do not do it.
My Mom is trying to convince our family to add:
If it is not yours do not touch it because we are always messing with her stuff. Kate, my one year old little sister, doesn’t know how to talk so she does actions. Every Family home evening Kate goes up the fireplace and screams in the middle of the lesson. Then she does the actions to our motto and keeps on being annoying until we do the motto with her.
TESTIMONY