By Susan Adkins
President Boyd K. Packer counseled LDS women to not accept the the growing trends in the world, to stay strong to their gospel principles and to teach their children the gospel at the concluding session of Women”s Conference on Friday, May 5, 2006.
“In all that you do as women, do not forget we are all children of God,” President Packer said. “We are all children of God. It is just as simple as that.”
The divine pattern and gospel design were laid out before the world was and it was the plan of happiness, he explained. The rules and principles are in the scriptures.
“Tolerance can be a trap,” President Packer said. “There is a dangerous trap when tolerance is exaggerated.”
President Packer then read a large excerpt from “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He read the sections about marriage, emphasizing that marriage is ordained of God between a man and a woman. He also emphasized the section on families, citing that husbands and wives have an obligation to love, care and provide for their children and that children have a right to be reared in a home with a mother and a father. He spoke on the influence that mothers have on their children and how important it is for mothers to be in the home to rear their children.
“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world,” President Packer said, quoting poet William Rose Wallace.
The LDS community has a particular set of issues with the declining birthrates in the United States, he said. With declining birthrates there are fewer children and with fewer children, there will be fewer missionaries in the future.
President Packer encouraged the sisters to guide their children and to teach them to choose the right in a “world that is full of iniquity” and to remember the blessings that come from being a woman.
“Do not envy manhood or priesthood,” President Packer said. “To woman is given the most supernal part of the plan. Women were given to make it [life] all worthwhile.”
He concluded his talk by invoking the blessings of the Lord upon each sister and by reminding each sister of their divine calling.
“The future of the church depends on you,” President Packer said.
