Years ago, I remember watching President Packer in a General Conference Session and thinking to myself, "he should have been my grandpa." I have felt that way about him ever since. He, as one of my Priesthood Leaders, has taught me more about the DOCTRINE OF THE FAMILY than any other. Things he has said come back to me at critical times and make me think, "I have a grandpa, I have a family, and my job is to get this family safely sealed and delivered to them!"
This talk that he gave in the last General Conference touched my heart perhaps more than any other. I just wanted to share a few quotes and thoughts:
President Packer:
Some years later in Cusco, a city high in the Andes of Peru, Elder A. Theodore Tuttle and I held a sacrament meeting in a long, narrow room that opened onto the street. It was night, and while Elder Tuttle spoke, a little boy, perhaps six years old, appeared in the doorway. He wore only a ragged shirt that went about to his knees.
On our left was a small table with a plate of bread for the sacrament. This starving street orphan saw the bread and inched slowly along the wall toward it. He was almost to the table when a woman on the aisle saw him. With a stern toss of her head, she banished him out into the night. I groaned within myself.
Later the little boy returned. He slid along the wall, glancing from the bread to me. When he was near the point where the woman would see him again, I held out my arms, and he came running to me. I held him on my lap.
Then, as something symbolic, I set him on Elder Tuttle’s chair. After the closing prayer the hungry little boy darted out into the night.
When I returned home, I told President Spencer W. Kimball about my experience. He was deeply moved and told me, “You were holding a nation on your lap.” He said to me more than once, “That experience has far greater meaning than you have yet come to know.”
Me:
Over the last little while, I have realized (by watching myself and others), that the way we feel about children is a great lithmus test for our own spiritual meter. When I can't love something pure, there may be a lot of purity missing in my own life
President Packer:
One of the great discoveries of parenthood is that we learn far more about what really matters from our children than we ever did from our parents. We come to recognize the truth in Isaiah’s prophecy that “a little child shall lead them.”
Me:
A couple of weeks ago I was waiting in a grocery line with all 5 of my children, to which I heard this comment (one of the nicer comments that I have gotten in a grocery line)....."Wow! You must be a Saint!"
To which I said, "Nope! But I am hoping that when I get done raising them, I will be, that is the point anyway!" Can you believe that I said something so profound? Really! The greatest lessons in life happen within the family!
President Packer:
I was number 10 in a family of 11 children. So far as I know, neither my father nor my mother served in a prominent calling in the Church.
Our parents served faithfully in their most important calling—as parents. Our father led our home in righteousness, never with anger or fear. And the powerful example of our father was magnified by the tender counsel of our mother. The gospel is a powerful influence in the life of every one of us in the Packer family and to the next generation and the next generation and the next, as far as we have seen.
I hope to be judged as good a man as my father. Before I hear those words “well done” from my Heavenly Father, I hope to first hear them from my mortal father.
Me:
Amen! I think I love Heavenly Father so much because I learned how a child can love a dad with my own. Amen!
