Help Them on Their Way Home

This entry is part of my general conference application series.

Help Them on Their Way Home, by President Henry B. Eyring
First Counselor in the First Presidency


As I prepared to serve as a full-time missionary as a nineteen-year-old, I took opportunity after opportunity to be with the missionaries then serving. Of each missionary I met, I would ask the same question: "How can I best prepare to serve the Lord as a missionary." Perhaps not surprisingly, their answer was always the same: Learn to hear and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

At the close of a successful mission (where, incidentally, I did my best to hear and follow promptings), I did my best to apply that same way of life to education, courtship, and, after a time, marriage. As I reviewed President Eyring's talk on helping children, I chuckled to realize that his advice for parents was the same as the many missionaries that helped me in Chicago was: learn to hear and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. However, in Elder Eyring's application, parents (and others who help the youth) are also to help young people to likewise hear and follow.

The best counsel for us to give young people is that they can arrive back to Heavenly Father only as they are guided and corrected by the Spirit of God.

I'm grateful for my little ones. They know that my favorite places to be are at home with my family, or somewhere else with my family. I love when they come with me on errands, on walks, or on trips in our imaginations. Likewise, I want to go with them. President Eyring spoke of the greatest help we can give:

Of all the help we can give these young people, the greatest will be to let them feel our confidence that they are on the path home to God and that they can make it. And we do that best by going with them.

I love my family. I'm grateful for the advice we've been given to continue on our path home. . . together!