Cornucopia

Mother’s Day is Looming

by  •  • 18 Comments

And for thousands of Latter-day Saints who will be delivering a Mother’s Day talk tomorrow, it is looming large. Expectations are high and scriptural sources are limited.

Motherhood is not a prominent topic in the Book of Mormon — you won’t find many quotes from Nephite women in the text. In fact, Sariah’s complaint (“Behold thou hast led us forth from the land of our inheritance, and my sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness,” 1 Ne. 5:2) is the only direct quote from a woman I’m aware of. A selection of phrases employing the term “mother” doesn’t help much either: mother of harlots (1 Ne. 13:34, 14:17), mother of abominations (1 Ne. 14:9, 10, 16), and great mother of abominations (1 Ne. 14:13) don’t give you much to work with, while “mother of the Son of God” (1 Ne. 11:18) sets the bar a little too high.

So it’s not surprising that some of tomorrow’s talk writers send an online prayer to Google to find some additional sources (I’ve seen several of these pop up in blog stats over the last day or two). Google “LDS mother’s day talk” and LDS blogs provide four of the eight hits that come up on the first page, with only one Conference talk making the first page. Good news: the blog entries are pretty good and won’t make you crawl under the pew should they appear in someone’s talk tomorrow. But presenters are still advised to head to LDS.org for their Sunday morning online research. Here are a few handy links to get you started:

18 comments for “Mother’s Day is Looming”

  1. I gave a Mother’s Day talk on my last MD on my mission (I was also the branch president). I quoted the first couple of verses of 1 Nephi, and noted that while the language of Nephi’s father, it was certainly his mother who taught him, and we probably have her to thank for him.

  3. and aren’t you forgetting the annual praise for the mothers of the sons of helaman? :-)
    i’m focusing my talk on eve and mary, mother of humanity and mother of divinity.

  7. HELP! i am a youth assigned to speak on the teenage views of motherhood. I have searched and searched. All i have is a paragraph. i need info!

  8. Oh the memories! I used to always plan to have a reason to be out of town on Mother’s Day to avoid the guilt trip. Until one year my husband was in charge of planning sacrament meeting for that day. He had asked a family to speak, but on Saturday the father called and said that he had stage fright to the point that they wouldn’t be able to do it. That left me and our kids as the only people he dared ask (!) to do it at the last minute. I threw together some stuff about the mothers of the prophets for the kids and picked a bunch of random sentimental stuff out of one of those “Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul” books for myself. I probably got more teary-eyed compliments for that talk than any other I ever gave.

  10. Hopefully we can think just a little bit creatively when it comes to talks on motherhood. (Not the 2000 warriors again…!) You know, ALL of the scriptures pertain to mothers. All of them.

    One of the best Mother’s Day talks that I have heard was dedicated to mothers of children with special needs.

    Kimberly, the best place to search is your heart … how do YOU feel about motherhood? People in your ward would probably much rather hear that than just about anything else.

  11. Kimberly,
    You don’t need to get up there and read a story about somebody else’s mother who sewed or baked or anything. People (especially your own mother) would love to hear that you appreciate your own mother for who she is. Mothers are never perfect and often feel inadequate to do the overwhelming job of raising children.
    Try interviewing your mother to help give your talk. What does she like best about being a mother? What does she work the hardest on? What does she think mothers want to be appreciated for? What does she hope to teach her children? What is she most proud of as a mother?
    Mothers are all unique and bring different strengths in their role. We should celebrate that! Whether it is a sense of humor, a love of games, time spent reading to children, or being an example….each mother brings completely different talents to her role.
    So if you were in my ward, I’d love it if you got up there and spoke about your own mother and what she brings to you and your family…..and also make it clear that every mother brings her own individuality in how she mothers and we should appreciate each individual mother’s contribution.
    Then you won’t have a congregation of depressed mothers who feel like they are a failure because they aren’t perfect.

  12. Being Mother’s Day, it would be entirely “appropriate” to schedule a talk on tithing, fasting, or food storage. ;)

  13. I plan on forgetting that church starts at 1pm tomorrow — this is how I’ve dealt with Mother’s Day for years, and I recommend it to anyone stressed out about tomorrow. Though if you’re scheduled to talk, you’re pretty much stuck. As far as I can tell, nearly everyone is doomed to fail at something on Mother’s Day (I sometimes wonder why Father’s Day doesn’t have the same attached nonsense.)

    For people who really do want to do a good job on a talk scheduled for tomorrow, I suggest looking through the YW and Relief Society manuals — YW 1, 2, and 3 and The Latter-day Saint Woman A & B. Even the manuals that don’t say anything about mothers usually say something about happiness in family life, honoring your parents, etc. There are also quotes here.

  14. I’m having a hard time finding a suitable quote for the back of our ward program. Nothing I can find on LDS.org really strikes me. Any ideas, anyone?

  16. In our ward today, the talks were:

    “How the Personal Progress program has helped me in my life” (an *excellent* talk by one of the YW)

    “The Holy Ghost Can Help Us Become Who We Want to Become” (an *excellent* talk by a young mother)

    “All Things Denote There is a God – and What We Can Learn about God from His Use of Families” (an *incredible* talk by a young father)

    Each speaker mentioned motherhood in some way at some point in the talk, but there wasn’t a single “guilt-inducer” moment in any of them. It was an amazing meeting.

  17. Re: Women quoted directly in the Book of Mormon

    Lamoni\’s wife is quoted extensively in Alma 19, and is praised by Ammon for possessing greater faith than could be found among the Nephites.

  18. thank you. Im sorry to tell you so late, but I’v been busy. THANK YOU! I really apreciated the help.

Comments are closed.