A piece to the puzzle of family.

I bore my testimony in Sacrament Meeting today. I have not done it in awhile because I am usually taking care of an ever present catastrophe about to occur by the designs of my children. I was thinking about what I could share if I had the chance to go up and some of my recent thoughts about family and the unique and powerful role the family has in the plan of salvation came to mind.

Family is as central to the plan of salvation as the Atonement of Christ. The Atonement is of no exalting use to us without the family organization and the family can not fulfill it's purpose without the Atonement. Both validate and bring each other to a higher plane that they otherwise could not achieve. In my testimony I talked about the importance of learning from each other. As a parent I always thought the learning was very one sided, but if one is to be exalted with their family then it is something that is progressed toward together. We are given the members of our family specifically to learn from and grow with. Russell M Nelson, talking about Celestial Marriage said, "While salvation is an individual matter, exaltation is a family matter".

In each family there are strengths and weaknesses each individual possesses, but those qualities can be magnified or minimized as a family works together to follow the teachings of the Lord. What parent would not want to learn from their children once the realization hits that their child posses a different perspective that can broaden an otherwise narrow view of a situation or gospel principle. Whether young or old, single or married the effort to work as a family to return to God together is part of the mortal experience and helps us develop attributes that will in the end rise with us and perfect us in our journey back to our Heavenly Father.