Presidency Message for June

Dear Sisters: 

I am truly grateful for each of you and the quiet acts of service that I see you do for one another and for your families.   You are great examples to me.  I admire so many qualities that you each possess and am thankful for our united desire to serve the Lord and keep the commandments.  It is so wonderful to be a ward family and to be sisters, one with another to love, support and serve. 

Our first Sunday lesson for June is from the April 2013 General Conference by Elder Boyd K. Packer titled, “These Things I Know.”  This talk is his testimony and witness of Christ.   Elder Packer shares with us an experience that he had recently in his backyard where he witnessed a snake crawling thru the ivy to the nesting place of house finches after attacking a nest and taking two fledglings and another time catching and killing the mother bird.  Elder Packer said he wondered if the Garden of Eden is being invaded again.                Then he makes the following statement: “There came into my mind the warnings spoken by the prophets. We will not always be safe from the adversary’s influence, even within our own homes. We need to protect our nestlings.  We live in a very dangerous world that threatens those things that are most spiritual. The family, the fundamental organization in time and eternity, is under attack from forces seen and unseen. The adversary is about. His objective is to cause injury. If he can weaken and destroy the family, he will have succeeded.”                                                                                               We desire to have our homes be our heaven on earth.  Our homes, families, and marriages need to be protected from the influences that would work to destroy them.  We do this by knowing what we believe and then living it.   We hold fast the covenants that we have made and have faith in our Heavenly Father.   We must constantly evaluate our progress and when we falter, pick ourselves up and try again.   We make sure that we are on constant guard to protect all that is most precious to us.  May we each, as a daughter, wife and mother, do our part to keep our homes safe from the snakes waiting to invade.