🏡 Turning Hearts or Turning Temples?
🏡 Turning Hearts or Turning Temples?
(Reflections on Elder Oaks’s Family Talk, Oct 2025)
I listened closely to Elder Oaks this conference. He painted a warm picture of family gardens, grandparents filling gaps, campouts, and family prayer around the kneeling circle. 🍲🌿⛺ That part stirred something real in me—because that’s where the gospel actually lives.
“Parents, single or married, and others like grandparents who fill that role for children are the master teachers. Their most effective teaching is by example.” — Elder Dallin H. Oaks
That’s truth. ✨ Families are the Lord’s schoolrooms. Not conference centers, not church offices, not even temple corridors—but living rooms, backyards, and dinner tables where kindness, forgiveness, and honest work are taught day by day.
🕊️ The Simple Gospel Is Learned at Home
Christ didn’t teach sealing rooms or recommend family reunions that lead to temples. He taught:
“Repent, be baptized in My name, receive the Holy Ghost, and become as a little child… this is My doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon My rock.” — 3 Nephi 11:37–39
And Nephi echoed it:
“For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost. And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? … Nay.” — 2 Nephi 31:17–19
The real “family sealing” begins when hearts are turned, not just names written. Christ’s doctrine binds us to Him—and through Him, to each other. That’s the true family chain.
📜 The Nemenhah Taught This Plainly
The Nemenhah Records speak powerfully about this. Parents are charged to teach children to seek the Peacemaker’s commission directly:
“If you teach not your little ones to seek the Haymehnay to confirm in them all things, teach them nothing at all beyond the providing of their provender or the making of their clothing or shelter.”
— Book of Mohmeht Ahkehkt, ch. 3, vv. 51–52
They held family councils and village councils where mothers nominated leaders, grandparents were honored as keepers of memory, and family work was consecrated, not consumed. Their homes were their temples.
No need to build hundreds of buildings—because Zion began in the hearth and the heart. 🔥
🧓👵 Grandparents, You’re More Than Babysitters
I loved Oaks’s story about his widowed mother teaching him after his father died. That’s a true Zion moment. It echoes the Nemenhah pattern:
“The mothers and the grandmothers are the keepers of the way of life, for they preserve the story and the ceremony and teach the children to remember.” — Nemenhah, Book of Tsihmlayi 2:14 (paraphrased theme)
Grandparents and parents are the living scrolls. They pass down identity, covenants, and the memory of God’s hand. Family stories are scripture-in-the-making. 📖
📶 “Turn the Family On by Turning Tech Off”
Oaks nailed this one. Many parents today are drowning in screens, running on fumes, and trying to substitute programs for presence. The cure?
👉 Turn off the noise.
👉 Gather the family.
👉 Pray together. Work together. Laugh together.
This isn’t old-fashioned—it’s Zion-fashioned.
🏛️ But Here’s Where the Talk Took a Turn…
After a warm, homey family discourse, the talk ended (as many do) with:
“The sealing powers of the priesthood, erected by the keys restored in the Kirtland Temple, bring families together for eternity. They are currently being exercised in a growing number of temples of the Lord throughout the world. This is real. Let us be part of it.”
And just like that—the focus shifted from home to institution, from Christ’s voice to temple programs.
But remember: the Book of Mormon never once teaches that temple ordinances are the way to eternal life. Not once. It teaches faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, enduring to the end—the Doctrine of Christ. (2 Nephi 31, 3 Nephi 11, Moroni 7–10)
The Nemenhah warn that in the latter days, Gentile churches will build many temples but lose the power if they forget the simple way. (Tsihohnayah Ahkehkthihm 14:55–63; Mohrhohnahyah 4)
✨ Final Thought
Elder Oaks was right about this:
“Following Christ and giving ourselves in service to one another is the best remedy for selfishness and individualism.”
Yes. Not temple recommends. Not programs. Not sheer busyness.
The Savior Himself is the binding power. If families turn to Him—truly hear Him, repent, and follow Him—the sealing will happen by His voice, whether in a kitchen or a canyon.
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