Family is heaven on earth

"A happy family is but an earlier heaven." - George Bernard Shaw

Measuring our success as parents

"The measure of our success as parents [...] will not rest solely on how our children turn out.  That judgment would be just only if we could raise our families in a perfectly moral environment[...]."

Boyd K. Packer ("Our Moral Obligation" April 1992 General Conference)

Family

“In like manner our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth, having been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, or reproof and instruction, to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.”

–Joseph F. Smith (qtd by James E. Faust, Ensign, May 2006, 51)

Family

“…if they would look for the virtues in their wives instead of looking for their failings, love would bloom and the home would be secure.”

–Gordon B. Hinckley (Ensign, Nov 2000, 50)

Family

“Brigham Young once said: “When people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honor and keep it, do not manifest that you have acted unwisely and say that you have made a bad choice, nor let any body know that you think you have. You made your choice, stick to it, and strive to comfort and assist each other” (Deseret News, 29 May 1861, 98).”

–Gordon B. Hinckley (Ensign, Nov 2000, 50)

Family

“In terms of your happiness, in terms of the matters that make you proud or sad, nothing—I repeat, nothing—will have so profound an effect on you as the way your children turn out.”
–Gordon B. Hinckley (Ensign, Nov 2000, 50)

Family

"What matters most is what lasts longest, and our families are for eternity."

-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

"We should not need a hurricane or other crisis to remind us of what matters most. The gospel and the Lord’s plan of happiness and salvation should remind us."

-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

"No matter who or what we are, we help ourselves when we help families."

-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

"Remember that the expression of love and encouragement from an extended family member will often provide the right influence and help a child at a critical time."
-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

"There is no happiness without service, and there is no service greater than that which converts the home into a divine institution, and which promotes and preserves family life.”

-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

"If we live and act upon this knowledge, we will attract the world to us."

-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

"In India a concerned Hindu mother said, “All I want is to be a bigger influence on my children than the media and the peer group.” And a Buddhist mother in Malaysia said, “I’d like my boys to be able to operate in the world, but I don’t want them to be of the world.” Parents from all different cultures and faiths are saying and feeling the same things we are as parents in the Church."

-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

“I believe in the family where there is a husband who regards his companion as his greatest asset and treats her accordingly; where there is a wife who looks upon her husband as her anchor and strength, her comfort and security; where there are children who look to mother and father with respect and gratitude; where there are parents who look upon there children as blessings and find a great and serious and wonderful challenge in their nurture and rearing.”

–Gordon B. Hinckley (Teaching of Gordon B. Hinckley 1997, 205)

Family

"In the routine of life, we often take our families—our parents and children and siblings—for granted. But in times of danger and need and change, there is no question that what we care about most is our families! It will be even more so when we leave this life and enter into the spirit world. Surely the first people we will seek to find there will be father, mother, spouse, children, and siblings."
-M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 41)

Family

“The family is divine. It was instituted by our Heavenly Father. It encompasses the most sacred if all relationships. Only through its organization can the purposes of the Lord be fulfilled.”
–Gordon B. Hinckley (Teaching of Gordon B. Hinckley 1997, 206)

Family

“There is no substitute for kindness in the home. This lesson I learned from my father. He always listened to my mother’s advice. As a result, he was a better, wiser, and kinder man.”

–Joseph B. Wirthlin (Ensign, May 2005, 27)

Family

“There is no substitute for kindness in the home. This lesson I learned from my father. He always listened to my mother’s advice. As a result, he was a better, wiser, and kinder man.”

–Joseph B. Wirthlin (Ensign, May 2005, 27)

Family

"The theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints centers on the family. Our relationship to God and the purpose of earth life are explained in terms of the family. We are the spirit children of heavenly parents. The gospel plan is implemented through earthly families, and our highest aspiration is to perpetuate those family relationships throughout eternity. The ultimate mission of our Savior’s Church is to help us achieve exaltation in the celestial kingdom, and that can only be accomplished in a family relationship."

-Elder Dallin H. Oaks (Ensign, Nov 2005, 24)