“Bee-Ware the Mite”
By Brenda High
Recently I heard of an epidemic that is killing millions of bees.
A little microscopic mite, called the varroa mite, stunts the growth of
bees, eats them from inside and slowly collapses and kills the colony.
Worse, this is happening when crops come into flower. While chemical
treatments can help manage the problem, many pesticides have been so widely
used that some mites have developed resistance.
In today’s world, we have a “mite” on society by way of social engineering
of our families. Its common sense that pornography, immorality, and
violent movies and games, will become the “mite” that eats a family from
within. However, there are other mites that take a toll on families.
These are the mites that slowly collapse and kill the family unit - the
lack of responsible legislation and judicial activism by judges.
If we are unwilling to try to correct the course of our country, change
the direction of the courts and bolster the family, we shouldn't be outraged
when those little microscopic mites finally destroy our last great unit
of government, the family. The only resistance we have is to support
good, honest State and Federal Leaders, with a firm resolve to save our
families.
Stand Strong against the Wiles
of the World
Excerpts taken from a talk by President Gordon B. Hinckley,
(Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), from the
Ensign Magazine, Nov. 1995, pg. 98
...He who is our Eternal Father has blessed you with miraculous
powers of mind and body. He never intended that you should be less
than the crowning glory of His creations. ...What marvelous potential
lies within you.
This evening I look into the eyes of beautiful younger
women, who dream of lives of accomplishment and happiness. I look into
the eyes of mothers, who carry in their hearts anxieties concerning their
homes and their children. I look into the eyes of single parents whose
burdens are so very heavy, and who, in their loneliness, plead and pray
for strength and companionship. I look into the eyes of grandmothers and
great-grandmothers whose years are many, who have weathered the storms
that have beat upon them and who have drunk deeply from the waters of life,
some of them brackish, some of them sweet. I am grateful for the presence
of each one of you. I am grateful for the strength that you have and for
your loyalty, your faith, your love. I am thankful for the resolution which
you carry in your hearts to walk in faith, to keep the commandments, to
do what is right at all times and in all circumstances.
I believe this is the best season for women in all the
history of the world. In opportunities for education, for the training
of your hands and minds, there has never before been a time when doors
were so widely opened to you as they are today.
But neither has there been a time, at least in recent
history, when you have been confronted with more challenging problems.
I need not remind you that the world we are in is a world of turmoil, of
shifting values. Shrill voices call out for one thing or another in betrayal
of time-tested standards of behavior. The moral moorings of our society
have been badly shaken. So many of the youth of the world, and likewise
so many of their elders, listen only to the seductive voice of self-gratification.
You single young women face tremendous challenges, and we know it is not
easy for you. I cannot say enough of appreciation for your determination
to live by the standards of the Church, to walk with the strength of
virtue, to keep your minds above the slough of filth which seems to be
moving like a flood across the world. Thank you for knowing there is
a better way. Thank you for the will to say no. Thank you for the strength
to deny temptation and look beyond and above to the shining light of your
eternal potential.
How bitter are the fruits of casting aside standards of
virtue. The statistics are appalling. More than one-fourth of all children
born in the United States are born out of wedlock, and the situation grows
more serious. Of the teens who give birth, 46 percent will go on welfare
within four years; of unmarried teens who give birth, 73 percent will be
on welfare within four years (see Starting Points—Meeting the Needs of
Our Youngest Children, New York: Carnegie Corporation, 1994, pp. 4, 21).
I believe that it should be the blessing of every child to be born into
a home where that child is welcomed, nurtured, loved, and blessed with
parents, a father and a mother, who live with loyalty to one another and
to their children. I am sure that none of you younger women want less
than this. Stand strong against the wiles of the
world. The creators of our entertainment, the purveyors of much
of our literature, would have you believe otherwise. The accumulated wisdom
of centuries declares with clarity and certainty that the greater happiness,
the greater security, the greater peace of mind, the deeper reservoirs
of love are experienced only by those who walk according to time-tested
standards of virtue before marriage and total fidelity within marriage.
We pray that as you walk the paths of life you will walk in ways that are
straight with the strength to conform even though those paths be narrow.
There are those who would have us believe in the validity
of what they choose to call same-sex marriage. Our hearts reach out to
those who struggle with feelings of affinity for the same gender. We remember
you before the Lord, we sympathize with you, we regard you as our brothers
and our sisters. However, we cannot condone immoral practices on your part
any more than we can condone immoral practices on the part of others.
To you wives and mothers who work to maintain stable homes
where there is an environment of love and respect and appreciation I say,
the Lord bless you. Regardless of your circumstances, walk with faith.
Rear your children in light and truth. Teach them to pray while they are
young. Read to them from the scriptures even though they may not understand
all that you read. Teach them to pay their tithes and offerings on the
first money they ever receive. Let this practice become a habit in their
lives. Teach your sons to honor womanhood. Teach your daughters to walk
in virtue. Accept responsibility in the Church, and trust in the Lord to
make you equal to any call you may receive. Your example will set a pattern
for your children. Reach out in love to those in distress and need.
...It is the home which produces the nursery stock of
new generations. I hope that you mothers will realize that when all is
said and done, you have no more compelling responsibility, nor any laden
with greater rewards, than the nurture you give your children in an environment
of security, peace, companionship, love, and motivation to grow and do
well.
Now to you single mothers, whatever the cause of your
present situation, our hearts reach out to you. We know that many of you
live in loneliness, insecurity, worry, and fear. For most of you there
is never enough money. Your constant, brooding worry is anxiety for your
children and their futures. Many of you find yourselves in circumstances
where you have to work and leave your children largely to their own devices.
But if when they are very small there is much of affection, there is shown
much of love, there is prayer together, then there will more likely be
peace in the hearts and strength in the character of your children. Teach
them the ways of the Lord. Declared Isaiah, “All thy children shall be
taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children” (Isa.
54:13).
...Now to you grandmothers and great-grandmothers may
I say just a word. Tremendous has been your experience. Tremendous is your
understanding. You can be as an anchor in a world of shifting values. You
have lived long, buffed and polished by the adversities of life through
which you have passed. Quiet are your ways, deliberate your counsel. You
dearly beloved women are such treasures in this topsy-turvy society. God
bless you. May your waning years be filled with sunshine, with the love
of those whom you love, and with love for the Lord.
I have touched lightly on some of the serious problems
which confront many of you sisters.
With so much of sophistry that is passed off as truth,
with
so much of deception concerning standards and values, with so much of allurement
and enticement to take on the slow stain of the world, we have felt to
warn and forewarn.
See The Proclamation to the
World
May the Lord bless you, my beloved sisters. You are the
guardians of the hearth. You are the bearers of the children. You are they
who nurture them and establish within them the habits of their lives. No
other work reaches so close to divinity as does the nurturing of the sons
and daughters of God. May you be strengthened for the challenges of the
day. May you be endowed with wisdom beyond your own in dealing with the
problems you constantly face. May your prayers and your pleadings be answered
with blessings upon your heads and upon the heads of your loved ones. We
leave with you our love and our blessing, that your lives may be filled
with peace and gladness. It can be so. Many of you can testify that it
has been so. The Lord bless you now and through the years to come, I humbly
pray in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.>>
