Growing Up Unto the Lord: Recognizing and Responding to the Voice of the Spirit, Living in Peace, and Blessing Generations

I was called as a General Authority Seventy in April 2006 and was released and became an Emeritus General Authority in October 2018. With my many weekend stake conference and other assignments, I occasionally felt impressed to address in my teaching the importance of helping all of God's children to recognize and respond to the voice of the Spirit, knowing this to be the enduring source and means of deep conversion and the exercise of faith in Jesus Christ. While participating in the development of the Come, Follow Me curriculum at Church Headquarters I began to feel a greater urgency with the topic and began to address it more regularly in my weekend assignments. In doing so, I found that in addition to drawing lessons and examples from the scriptures, sharing my wife's and my experiences in rearing our family seemed to be particularly meaningful in communicating the message. This was evidenced by regular requests from members following conferences for copies of anything I might have written on the subject, but I had written nothing at the time. Following my release, I felt it was time to put some of what the Lord had taught me in writing. My wife and I had talked about these things with our children over the years and they were now in all lifecycle stages of rearing their children. At the time of this writing we have 46 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Although they had experienced many of the things discussed in the book while growing up in our home, they also voiced desires to have something in writing to which they and their children could occasionally refer. Thus, this book was written. It is written to a broader audience, with the hope that it will be useful to many. As required of Emeritus General Authorities, the manuscript has been reviewed by the Office of the First Presidency, and they have confirmed that they have no objection to its publication.