General Conference Talk Summary: David A. Bednar

David A. Bednar: Watching With All Perseverance

• "Spiritual warnings should lead to increasingly vigilant watching. You and I live in “a day of warning” (D&C 63:58). And because we have been and will be warned, we need to be, as the Apostle Paul admonished, “watching . . . with all perseverance” (Ephesians 6:18)."
• "I pray for the guidance of the Holy Ghost as I describe a spiritual early warning system that can help parents in Zion to be watchful and discerning concerning their children. This early warning system applies to children of all ages and contains three basic components: (1) reading and talking about the Book of Mormon with your children, (2) bearing testimony of gospel truths spontaneously with your children, and (3) inviting children as gospel learners to act and not merely be acted upon. Parents who do these things faithfully will be blessed to recognize early signals of spiritual growth in or challenges with their children and be better prepared to receive inspiration to strengthen and help those children."
• " Regular reading of and talking about the Book of Mormon invite the power to resist temptation and to produce feelings of love within our families. And discussions about the doctrines and principles in the Book of Mormon provide opportunities for parents to observe their children, to listen to them, to learn from them, and to teach them."
• "Parents should be vigilant and spiritually attentive to spontaneously occurring opportunities to bear testimony to their children. Such occasions need not be programmed, scheduled, or scripted. In fact, the less regimented such testimony sharing is, the greater the likelihood for edification and lasting impact."
• "The reactions of children to such impromptu testimony bearing and their eagerness or reluctance to participate are potent sources of spiritual early warning signals."
• "As gospel learners, we should be “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22). Our hearts are opened to the influence of the Holy Ghost as we properly exercise agency and act in accordance with correct principles—and we thereby invite His teaching and testifying power. Parents have the sacred responsibility to help children to act and to seek learning by faith. And a child is never too young to take part in this pattern of learning."
• "Are you and I helping our children become agents who act and seek learning by study and by faith, or have we trained our children to wait to be taught and acted upon? Are we as parents primarily giving our children the equivalent of spiritual fish to eat, or are we consistently helping them to act, to learn for themselves, and to stand steadfast and immovable? Are we helping our children become anxiously engaged in asking, seeking, and knocking? (See 3 Nephi 14:7.)"
• " The spiritual understanding you and I have been blessed to receive, and which has been confirmed as true in our hearts, simply cannot be given to our children. The tuition of diligence and of learning by study and also by faith must be paid to obtain and personally “own” such knowledge. Only in this way can what is known in the mind also be felt in the heart. Only in this way can a child move beyond relying upon the spiritual knowledge and experiences of parents and adults and claim those blessings for himself or herself. Only in this way can our children be prepared spiritually for the challenges of mortality.
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My Thoughts:


I feel like of all of the talks I have gone over so far, this is the one we have to work on the most. I have listened to this talk several times since it was given in April, but I have only just come to realize that Elder Bednar wishes us to read and discuss the Book of Mormon, bear our testimonies spontaneously, and invite our children to act so that as parents we can know by their reaction how they are feeling about gospel matters and spiritual things. If a child is eager to talk about the scriptures then that is a good sign. If a child seems embarrassed by a spiritual conversation or annoyed then that is a warning to the parents. John has been doing a really good job at talking to the kids about spiritual things. I need to get into a better habit of making spiritual matters a part of my daily conversation with my children. Our stake president has asked that every member of our stake read the Book of Mormon by November 20th. He has included the very young children in this as well. We have been reading three pages of the Book of Mormon each day to our children. That is up from about 10 verses. Our family scripture study is a lot harder, but it has been a lot better. John has really gotten the kids to participate and to ask questions, and to seek out the meaning of the scriptures. I think this has been good for our family in following Elder Bednar's counsel.