I love general conference. Sometimes, I don’t get to hear every talk, or I may doze off, and only hear half of it. Other times, I may not truly “listen” to the speakers that aren’t the apostles or prophet, but there was a talk in the Sunday afternoon session that somehow stuck with me. I am amazed that I internalized any of it when the kids were definitely done with conference, and things were winding down. But, Elder Lynn G. Robbins gave a great talk. He started off with the question, “To be or not to be”, and then spoke of the Lord’s question, “What manner of Men Ought Ye to Be?”
I like this talk because he talked a lot about doing versus being. There is a difference, yet they are linked together automatically. In order to BE a great baseball player, you have to DO a lot of practicing for example. This was the overall theme of his talk.
As a young Mom, I think a lot about all the things I have to DO. I don’t often give a lot of thought to what I want to BE each day. With the day to day tasks, it is hard not to focus on the lists of things that are required to me. Elder Robbins mentioned that no one ever makes a “To Be” list. Why is that, he asks?
I loved when he said, “As a parent, when can we ever check a child off our list as done?” We can’t. Yet, how often, are we just trying to make it through the day trying to get all of the to do things done, rather than focusing on teaching our children the importance of BEING good. He mentioned how as parents, we may focus on what a child DID that was wrong. He said, “the do is the symptom of the unseen motive in their heart. What attributes if understood by the child would correct the behavior in the future?” In other words, if they knew the principle behind not taking a toy away from a sibling, would they be more likely to understand what they are doing wrong, and maybe avoid doing it again?
This is a talk that I think we can think about everyday. What are we teaching our children to BE that day, rather than what are we teaching them not to DO. And, the same goes for ourselves. If we awoke each morning and thought, “What kind of Mom do I want to BE today?” then maybe, we might just be a better one than we thought possible.
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