Fireside focuses on families

Don't put off having children, LDS Church apostle tells students

PROVO — College students should not put off creating families until they have completed all of their studies, an LDS Church apostle said Sunday.

Elder Russell M. Nelson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also reminded young adult members of a church's family proclamation that declares marriage to be a union of a legally wedded man and woman.

Elder Nelson made the statements during a Church Education System fireside broadcast around the world and translated into 28 languages.

Using examples from his life, Elder Nelson, a surgeon and medical researcher, said he and his wife struggled financially early in his career while he earned medical degrees.

By the time he set up his practice his wife had given birth to five of their 10 children.

All but the last were girls, said Elder Nelson.

"Our home was like a girls dormitory," he quipped. "For years (our son) didn't know who his real mother was."

He urged college students in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University and gathered in LDS Institutes of Religion around the world to visualize their life in 50 years.

By then, careers would be over and faith and families would be their focal points.

"Broad minds and narrow waists would have traded places," he said.

He urged his listeners to seek first to follow the teachings of the church before seeking wealth, which includes the commandment to create families.

"The beauty of family is much more than physical. It is spiritual," he said.

Times have changed in half a century, Elder Nelson said

"Temptation and sin exceeds anything we knew in our day," he said.

"Satan is waging war directly at the heart of God's plan — the family," he said.

The age of couples getting married for the first time is increasing, as is the number of unmarried couples, he said. "It takes real faith to withstand this attack," he added.

LDS Church leaders wrote "The Family — A Proclamation to the World" when they became very worried about the state of the family. LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley read it for the first time on Sept. 23, 1995 at a General Relief Society meeting.

"If you heed this proclamation, you will be blessed," Elder Nelson said.

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E-mail: rodger@desnews.com

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