Paisley: Paisley. Hey everybody, Paisley,
imperfect here, and today we're going to talk about one of
President oaks talks. It's from the 2018 general women's session
of conference, and it's called parents and children. There's
really a lot that we could talk about in this talk, but I'm
primarily just going to talk about the third section of his
talk. When you look at it online, there's he's got, like,
Roman numerals one, two and three. I'm really just going to
talk about the third section, and honestly, really, just like
the last nine paragraphs of his talk. This particular section
was shared specifically for young women in 2018 I wasn't
that much younger than I am now. I, for sure, wasn't in young
women's as a young woman. But I mean, honestly, I don't feel as
old as I am and more importantly, I feel a need for
this section in my life right now. I know that I've said this
before, but these little discussions are just as much for
me as they are for you. I am not perfect, and I I needed this one
this time. Um, so I think you already know this, but I have
three daughters. My oldest just turned eight, and my young my
twins just turned six. My husband and I spend the majority
of our time with them at dinner and in the evenings, mostly
dinner and bedtime at dinner, we we like to talk about our day at
dinner time. My husband's favorite. My eight year old
calls it the dinner question. And we used to have this little
box where we would pull out a dinner question and everybody
would answer it. But now that the girls are in school full
time, it's more of a tell me three things about your day that
I don't already know. So we do that at dinner time, and then at
bedtime we read stories together. We have what we call
talk time, where they get to tell us about things that are
going on or things that they they get to ask questions. They
get just they've got mom and dad, mom and mom or dad's ear.
We tag team it. And then we also read a little bit from the Book
of Mormon every night, too. And the twins have these two my
first book of mormon like board books. I know they're six. We're
going to graduate them from those soon, but they these two
board books. They have differing stories, and so they kind of
alternate back and forth, but and the scent, I mean, they do a
pretty decent job of only giving like one to two sentence stories
from the Book of Mormon. And one of the things that we have kind
of pulled out from one of those books is the teachings of King
Benjamin. So we have a saying that goes something like this in
our house, um, King Benjamin taught us to what, and they
usually know to say, be nice sometimes if they're not being
nice, they'll pretend like they don't know or refuse to say it.
Sometimes the question is more like, who was it in the Book of
Mormon that told us that we need to be nice? And then they'll say
King Benjamin, depending on their moon, some of them will
say King Benjamin, if one is being mean to the other one, the
one that's the one that's being mean doesn't want to say
anything, but the other ones, like King Benjamin, said it
anyway. It's kind of funny, but I share all of that as kind of
an intro into what President Oaks is talking about. At the
end of this talk he's talking about he's specifically talking
to, again, the young women, and he gives them two pieces of
counsel to help them as they are striving to do what's right,
make good choices. The first piece, I'm not going to spend a
lot of time on. It actually was only a paragraph in his talk,
and it was about their cell phones, about using their cell
phones less. Because there he quotes a study. Doesn't quote
it. He references a study that was done on teenagers and their
use of their cell phone and how they feel anxious when they're
when they don't have their phone with them. And so he was
encouraging them to use their cell phones less. I'm there's a
lesson in there for all of us, I'm sure. But the second
counsel, he said, and to me, at this time in my life, is more
important. He said, be kind to others. Just that those four
words, be kind to others. Years. He also acknowledges that many
are already doing that, and many of you are already doing that.
Sometimes I'm even nice to others, but I don't know, I just
I felt like I needed it after acknowledging that many people
are all are already kind. He says this persistent unkindness
is known by many names, such as bullying, ganging up on someone
or joining together to reject others. These examples,
deliberately inflict pain on classmates or friends. My
sisters, it is not pleasing to the Lord, if we are cruel or
mean to others, there is so much hate in our world right now,
there are former members of our congregations who are joining
together to reject others. Those others being us as a church, we
have been ridiculed, misunderstood, rejected,
exterminated and hated for much, if not all, of the church's
history. But we are consistently, we are and have
been consistently asked to rise above that. So going back to
King Benjamin for just a second. He's the one that said that when
we are serving others, we are serving God. Everyone is a child
of God, whether they're a hater or not, everyone is a child of
God, and so however we treat them is how we treat him. If you
have nieces and nephews or children that you really love.
Think about how you feel when someone is not nice to them.
Before I had kids, I remember this one time I took my niece to
the park. My niece has, she has autism, and she also has
something called Fragile X, and we took, I took her to the park.
And she's, she's mostly non verbal. At this time, she was, I
think she was four, four or five. I didn't take her to the
park. We were at a Harvest Festival for her older brothers
elementary school, and I took her over to the playground. She
loved the swings, loved playgrounds, and so I took her
over to the playground, and there were these other I can't
remember if it was two two girls or three girls. My niece is 14
now, so this was like 10 years ago. So I don't remember if it
was two girls or three girls, but she kind of went up to them,
but she she didn't know how to communicate with them, that she
wanted to play with them, and so she just kind of went over and,
like, started copying them, and the girls got weirded out, like,
obviously weirded out, and ran away from her. And my heart just
broke for my niece. I am not here to fault those other two
girls. They didn't know how to respond to her. It was not they
just didn't know. They didn't know they weren't any older than
she was, and they didn't know how they didn't know how to act,
they didn't know how to behave, they didn't know how to respond
to her. I don't fault them for that. My heart broke for my
niece, because she she wasn't one to just go up to somebody.
It took a lot of courage for her to do that and for them to run
away from her. Just it was heartbreaking. So I, I went over
and I played with her and helped her on the swings and going down
the side, and we had fine we had a fine time. The point is,
everyone is a child of our heavenly Father, and the way
that we treat them matters. There's a quote that I'm kind of
reminded of. I've seen it in various forms, but the essence
is show respect even to people who don't deserve it, not as a
reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.
And I would switch out show respect to be kind, be kind even
to people who don't deserve it, not as a reflection of their
character, but as a reflection of yours. President oaks. He
quotes President Nelson as saying, stand out, be different
from the world. You and I know that you are to be a light to
the world. Therefore the Lord needs you to look like, sound
like, act like and dress like a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
We don't have time to be mean to each other. We have way more
important things to do in these last days than judge others by
what they're wearing or saying or thinking the way that they're
behaving. Excuse me,
we have Israel. Together, we have way more important things
to do. President oaks also says that we need to follow the
Savior's teaching, to reach out and be loving and considerate of
others, even to turn the other cheek when we feel someone has
wronged us. And I want to share something that I learned about
turning the other cheek not that long ago. Gosh, I'm sorry. Um, I
used to think that turning the other cheek, figuratively
speaking, meant that if somebody did something like that felt
like a slap to the face, turn the other cheek and let him do
it again. That's what I used to think. Or at least just kind of
stay there and take it. That's what I used to think turning the
other cheek meant. But that is not at all what it means to me
anymore. And I don't know how to explain how I learned this. It
really was more of a conversation with the spirit,
but turning the other cheek to me now means that I walk away
and let them be who they are. I don't need to sit there and take
their disrespect. I don't need to listen to their hate. I don't
need to internalize their anger. I also don't need to engage in
it. I don't need to defend myself my beliefs, my values,
morals or mission, I can simply turn away, turn the other cheek,
turn my back. There's really no point in arguing anyway, because
by the time it gets to an argument, by the time it's
gotten there, they're not gonna hear anything I have to say
anyway. There's no point in arguing. It's time to turn the
other cheek and move on. Some call it setting a boundary. Turn
the cheek, turn the other cheek and move on. Let them be who
they are going to be and move on. So back to what President
oaks said, Follow the Savior's teaching to reach out and be
loving and considerate of others, even to turn the other
cheek when we feel someone has wronged us. He also says this,
be kind to one another. Jesus taught us to love one another
and to treat others as we want to be treated as we strive to be
kind we draw closer to Him and His loving influence. My dear
sisters, if you participate in any meanness or pettiness,
individually or with a group, resolve now to change and
encourage others to change. So you guys, for someone who is
pragmatic and logical, it is sometimes difficult for me to
understand why some other people do what they do or how they do
what they do. I just sometimes I just don't get it, especially
when in my logical brain, there is a much better, easier, nicer,
more efficient, more ethical way to do what they're doing. That's
my challenge. That's what I struggle with. The best example
that I have right now is school drop off. Some of you may be
chuckling at potentially former memories of school drop off when
you were dropping off your own kids or grandkids. School drop
off is meant to take two to three minutes. You drive up,
your kid gets out of the vehicle. You drive away. There's
a curb, and on that curb there are signs, no parking. Student
drop off, only right. So you pull up. Your kids get out. You
leave the gate at the school. The gate to the palm to the gate
to the school itself opens at, let's say, eight o'clock. School
starts at 820 there's a 20 minute window for all parents to
drop off their kids. But every single day, there are at least
two parents that get there at 755, and park in the drop off
lane to wait until the gates open, like turn off their put
their car and park and turn it off, park and wait in the car
with their kids for the gate to open. Sometimes their kids get
out and go play with their friends, but they sit there and
they wait. It's five minutes, 755, to eight o'clock. It
doesn't sound like a lot of time, but when you consider
that, sometimes it takes their kid forever to get out of the
car when the gate finally does open, and then we're sitting
there at 805 when the kid finally gets out of the car.
Anyway, see, this is my challenge, right? It doesn't
sound like a lot of time, but it is. And the this morning, there
were five parents, and those two to five parents that park in the
drop off lane to wait cause traffic issues that back up then
into the neighborhood. It causes congestion, not just for. For
the parents dropping their kids off at school, but for everybody
in the surrounding neighborhoods, or just who are
just trying to get to work, I am not kind to those parents
individually. I am not kind to those parents. I try so hard,
and I have justified my unkindness by saying that I'm
sticking up for everybody else who's in the line. We all have
jobs to get to. It's not like we're just sitting here waiting
all day for our kids, like I'm not dropping them off and
sitting here and wait, see here I go. I want to be kind, and
these people test me every day. I try so hard to be kind, and
the testing just keeps coming. Okay, so that's mine. I shared
mine. This is my current kindness challenge. Be nice to
the parents who are trying to drop their kids off and make
sure they are safe. Just be kind. Who do you need to be
kind? To share it with me. Tell me or don't. I mean, this isn't
a confessional. It's, I'm not trying to get you to confess
something you don't want to confess, but I would love it if
you'd share it with me, maybe it would make me feel a little bit
better. I appreciate your time. Be kind. There's enough hate in
the world without us hating on each other. Be kind, be nice,
and try to remember that everybody else is also a child
of God. Sometimes that's hard. Sometimes it's harder than other
times. Anyway, thank you for spending your time with me
today. I appreciate it. I really do keep learning, keep growing,
keep trying, try to be nice and be of good cheer. Thanks,
everybody until next time
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