teach that sacred truth: the family is of God.

Inspiring music is just one of the many ways

we can feel the Spirit whisper to us, filling us

with light and truth.

The concept of being filled with light and truth

became particularly important to me because of an experience

I had many years ago.

I attended a meeting where members of the Young Women

general board taught about creating spiritually

strong families and homes.

To visually demonstrate this, a Young Women leader

held up two soda cans.

In one hand she held a can that was empty,

and in the other hand a can that was unopened and full of soda.

First she squeezed the empty can.

It began to bend and then collapsed under the pressure.

Next, with her other hand, she squeezed the unopened can.

It held firm.

It didn't bend or collapse like the empty can--because it was

filled.

We likened this demonstration to our individual lives

and to our homes and families.

When filled with the Spirit and with gospel truth,

we have the power to withstand the outside forces

of the world that surround and push against us.

However, if we are not filled spiritually,

we don't have the inner strength to resist the outside pressures

and can collapse when forces push against us.

Satan knows that in order for us and our families

to withstand the pressures of the world,

we must be filled with light and gospel truth.

So he does everything in his power

to dilute, distort, and destroy the truth of the gospel

and to keep us separated from that truth.

Many of us have been baptized and have

received the gift of the Holy Ghost, whose role it

is to reveal and teach the truth of all things.

With the privilege of that gift comes the responsibility

to seek truth, to live the truth we know,

and to share and defend the truth.

One place where we best seek to be filled with light and truth

is in our own homes.

The words in the chorus of the song we heard remind us,

"God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be."

Families are the Lord's workshop on earth

to help us learn and live the gospel.

We come into our families with a sacred duty

to help strengthen each other spiritually.

Strong, eternal families and Spirit-filled homes

do not just happen.

They take great effort, they take time,

and they take each member of the family doing his or her part.

Every home is different, but every home

where even one individual seeks for truth

can make a difference.

We are continually counseled to increase

our spiritual knowledge through prayer and through studying

and pondering the scriptures and the words of the living

prophets.

In his general conference talk about receiving a testimony

of light and truth, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said,

"The Everlasting and Almighty God ...

will speak to those who approach Him with a sincere heart

and real intent.

He will speak to them in dreams, visions, thoughts,

and feelings."

President Uchtdorf continues:

"God cares about you.

He will listen, and He will answer your personal questions.

The answers to your prayers will come in His own way

and in His own time, and therefore, you

need to learn to listen to His voice" (end quote).

A short family history story illustrates this counsel.

Several months ago I read the testimony

of my great-grandfather's sister Elizabeth Staheli Walker.

As a child, Elizabeth immigrated to America from Switzerland

with her family.

After Elizabeth married, she and her husband and children

lived near the Nevada border, where they ran a mail station.

Their home was a stopping place for travelers.

All day and all night they had to be ready to cook and serve

meals for travelers.

It was hard, exhausting work, and they had little rest.

But the greatest thing that concerned Elizabeth

was the conversation of the people they associated with.

Elizabeth said that up to this time

she had always taken for granted that the Book of Mormon

was true, that the Prophet Joseph Smith had been

authorized of God to do what he did,

and that his message was the plan of life and salvation.

But the life she was experiencing was anything

but what would strengthen such a belief.

Some of the travelers who stopped

were well-read, educated, smart men,

and always the talk around her table

was that Joseph Smith was "a sly fraud" who

had written the Book of Mormon himself

and then distributed it to make money.

They acted as if to think anything else

was absurd, claiming "that Mormonism was bunk."

All this talk made Elizabeth feel isolated and alone.

There was no one to talk to, no time to even say her prayers,

although she did pray as she worked.

She was too frightened to say anything to those

who ridiculed her religion.

She said she didn't know but what

they were telling the truth, and she

felt she could not have defended her belief if she had tried.

Later, Elizabeth and her family moved.

Elizabeth said she had more time to think

and was not so distracted all the time.

She often went down to the cellar

and prayed to Heavenly Father about what

was troubling her, about the stories those seemingly

smart men had told about the gospel being bunk

and about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

One night Elizabeth had a dream.

She said: "It seemed I was standing by a narrow wagon

road, which led around by the foot of a low rolling hill;

halfway up the hill I saw a man looking down and speaking,

or seemed to be speaking, to a young man

who was kneeling and leaning over a hole in the earth.

His arms were stretched out, and it

looked as if he was reaching for something in the hole.

I could see the lid of stone that

seemed to have been taken off from the hole over which

the boy was bending.

On the road were many people, but none of them

seemed to be at all interested in the two men on the hillside.

There was something that came along with the dream that

impressed me so strangely that I woke right up; ...

I could not tell my dream to anyone,

but I seemed to be satisfied that it meant the angel Moroni

[instructed] the boy Joseph at the time he got the plates."

In the spring of 1893, Elizabeth went to Salt Lake City

to the dedication of the temple.

She described her experience: "In there I

saw the same picture [that] I had seen in my dream;

I think it was [a] colored-glass window.

I feel satisfied that if I saw the Hill Cumorah itself,

it would not look more real.

I feel satisfied that I was shown in a dream

a picture of the angel Moroni giving Joseph

Smith the [gold] plates."

Many years after having this dream and several months

before she died at nearly age 88,

Elizabeth received a powerful impression.

She said, "The thought came to me as plain ...

as if someone had said to me, ...

'Do not bury your testimony in the ground.'" Generations

later, Elizabeth's posterity continues to draw strength from

her testimony.

Like Elizabeth, we live in a world of many doubters

and critics who ridicule and oppose the truths we hold dear.

We may hear confusing stories and conflicting messages.

Also like Elizabeth, we will have

to do our best to hold on to whatever light and truth

we currently have, especially in difficult circumstances.

The answers to our prayers may not come dramatically,

but we must find quiet moments to seek

greater light and truth.

And when we receive it, it is our responsibility to live it,

to share it, and to defend it.

I leave you with my testimony that I

know as we fill our hearts and homes with the Savior's light

and truth, we will have the inner strength

to withstand in every circumstance.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen.