Mothers day:
We will be making the flower pens, but I wanted to somehow say something about following the prophet and relate it to the prophet obeying his parents when he was young.

I decided to tell the following story. It is from Pres. Hinckley's book, "Standing for Something," and can be found on pages 13-15.

When Gordon B. Hinckley started junior high, the building was too small to hold all of the students. So his class was sent back to the grade school. He and his friends were mad and decided to go on strike. The next day they did not show up for school. They wandered around town and wasted the day.

The following day they showed up at the grade school. The principal told them they could not come back to school until they brought a note from their parents.

Gordon went home and told his mother what had happened. He says:

"She wrote this brief note, the most stinging rebuke she ever gave me:

Dear Mr. Stearns,
Please excuse Gordon's absence yesterday. His action was simply an impulse to follow the crowd.

I have never forgotten my mother's note. ... I resolved then and there that I would never do anything in which I was simply following the crowd. I determined that I would make my own decisions on the basis of their merits and my standards, and would not be pushed in one direction or another by those around me. And I also determined that I would be honest and would never again resort to deception.

That decision has blessed me many times, sometimes in very uncomfortable circumstances. It has kept me from doing some things that might have resulted in serious injury and trouble, and, at the very least, would have cost me my self-respect and integrity. It has helped me be true to what I believe and honest with myself and with others. I have often quietly thanked my mother for the rebuke that had such influence on me as a young seventh-grade boy." (13-15)