Responding the question, ‘How did you learn to have family prayer?’ (since he didn’t grow up with it in his home). “You just try to figure out how it ought to be done and then you experiment. There will be many … who say, ‘But I never saw how to do that.’ It begins with you. And, in some ways, that even can be an advantage.” (Because you get to decide the right prayer practice for your family instead of just modeling how your parents did it).

“In the Doctrine and Covenants (68:25), it says that parents are to teach their children to understand the doctrine of Christ. … I would argue that that verse is admonishing parents to create a home where the Holy Ghost is the teacher, not the parents — they have a role to play — but, ultimately, it’s the Holy Ghost who witnesses to the heart. So you have a home where the Spirit of the Lord can dwell and, as you discuss gospel truth, it will bear witness to yourself, to your spouse, to the children. That, to me, is what it means to help your children to understand — not just repeat it. … [L]ive it in your home. Talk about it with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and then the Holy Ghost will deliver that gift of understanding….”

“We have three sons, and when they were little, one was preparing for baptism. [His younger brother] said, ‘Let’s memorize the Articles of Faith.’ …. [W]e’d be driving around … and I’d just say, “Seven!” And they would … race to see who could do it first. … On our refrigerator, we had a list of scriptures that we were learning and memorizing. And so we’d just [say], ‘Section 89, what’s that?’ … ‘What’s in 107?’ And they could tell you the overarching theme of each one of those sections in the Doctrine and Covenants. So, it’s enjoyable and edifying. Those are not mutually exclusive.”

Elder Bednar’s young son once refused to remove his new American football helmet for family prayer. “This present was the greatest thing he had ever received, and he wouldn’t take it off. He ate with it on. So we asked him to say the prayer, and … he started barking signals instead of saying, ‘Our Heavenly Father.’ It wasn’t very edifying, but it was one of the funniest things that ever happened in our family. … We all just laughed like crazy. And then we said, ‘Okay, now let’s try to gain our composure and let’s be serious, and let’s have a meaningful prayer.’ I think so many parents get frustrated. They want to have a Come, Follow Me discussion or some kind of a lesson. And they want it to be formalized, and they want it to be, you know, everything that you think it’s supposed to be. I don’t remember that we ever had one of those. And you always will go and say, ‘I don’t know why we’re doing this. It doesn’t seem to be doing any good.’ I absolutely believe that no one lesson, no one session of scripture reading and study, no one family prayer is going to make that much of a difference. It’s in the consistency of doing it. That’s where the difference is made.”

“Now in terms of how do our covenants help us if someone is wandering? Joseph Smith and other Church leaders have talked about a pull — a bit of a spiritual tug…. It is not the case that the faithfulness of parents can save a wayward child, but the faithfulness of the parents in honoring covenants exerts a bit of a spiritual tug. Now I don’t know how that works, but it’s a part of the covenant connection. So the best thing that a parent can do if there’s a wayward child is to honor the covenants so that that tug, if they’ll let it, can have an influence on the child. That same principle is true for a child who’s faithful with wayward parents. Many members of the Church have mistakenly thought, ‘If I honor my covenants, then I can save my kids.’ No, Jesus saves, but we have to follow His path.”

“I have a recommendation for everybody …, that, as often as feasible, we refer to the temple as the house of the Lord. … [T]here’s nothing wrong with the word temple, but it’s different when you say the house of the Lord. … Imagine you’re rearing a child, and temple is not the word they hear the most, but the house of the Lord is the phrase that they hear. … That will have an impact on that child as he or she grows up.”

“[T]he gospel of Jesus Christ is joyful. There are very hard challenges that we face, and there are hard things to do. But with the help of the Lord, as His covenant sons and daughters, we have access to a power that helps us to face and overcome all of those challenges and adversities. And for that, I can’t imagine why we would not be smiling every second of every minute of every day, knowing what we have been blessed with. We should never be casual. We should never take that for granted, but always — daily — express our heartfelt gratitude to live when we live in the places that we live and have access to the blessings of the gospel.”

“We live in a world where showing reverence for sacred things is becoming increasingly uncommon. In fact, the world celebrates the irreverent …. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are invited to cultivate the gift of reverence in our lives in order to open ourselves to a deeper communion with God and His Son, Jesus Christ, simultaneously strengthening our spiritual character. … Showing reverence for sacred things gives meaning to much of what we do every day and strengthens our feeling of gratitude—inspiring awe, respect, and love for higher and holier things.”