Related articles:
Worldwide Leadership Training - Feb. 2012
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: 'Acting on the Truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ'
Elder Russell M. Nelson: The doctrinal importance of marriage and children
'The gospel answers life's problems and challenges'
Serving in Church leadership as an apostle or in guiding a ward as a bishop or a counselor in an Elders quorum presidency is "secondary to being a father and a husband who holds the priesthood and lives worthily of it," said .
"That is the source of happiness and the great achievement in mortality."
Speaking during the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting broadcast on Feb. 11, President Packer, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, addressed the topic "Priesthood Power in the Home."
He explained that when the Doctrine and Covenants was assembled, revelations were pulled together by the Prophet Joseph Smith. One revelation, given as an introduction, is now Section 1 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
"There is one phrase in that revelation that changed the work of the Church and, if they will, changed the work of the Christian churches forever," he said. "That was simply 'that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world' (Doctrine and Covenants 1:20)."
Putting together a Church where the authority of the priesthood was to be given to every worthy adult male would seem like a very reckless, dangerous thing, he said. "But that is the way it is. So as we look at you across the world, you members of the Church, we are never afraid of the progress of the Church, because we know that there will come by conversion and baptism a little group of brethren upon whom the fullness of the priesthood can be conferred."
President Packer explained that any elder holds as much priesthood as does the President of the Church.
"The priesthood is not delegated out and parceled a little here and a little there. It is given all at once. In the ordinance where ordinations take place, the priesthood is conferred, and then the office is conferred."
President Packer said the priesthood is the "consummate power on this earth" — the power by which the earth was created.
"We know that every father can, or should be, an officer in the priesthood, meaning that he holds the priesthood and presides over his family in righteousness."
President Packer said sometimes the Church is charged with being unkind to the sisters because they do not hold the priesthood. "But it is well understood that whether or not we are exalted depends upon the sister who is at our side — the wife, the mother of our children — and no holder of the priesthood would in any way depreciate or mitigate the value and power of his wife. When I hear those comments that the sisters are less than the brethren, I wish that they could see inside the heart of every worthy holder of the priesthood and understand how he feels about his wife, the mother of his children — a reverence, not quite worship but a kind of worship, a respect for the companion in life that causes it to be that he can be exalted ultimately."
President Packer said the Church is very practical in its organization. "We are not confined to having one prelate or priest or pastor or vicar given authority then to rule over the congregation, but as that simple expression in the Doctrine and Covenants says, 'Every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world'."
There are responsibilities in the Church that are permanent, said President Packer.
"We call a man to be a stake president or a bishop or some other presiding officer, and we pay proper respect for that authority, and yet the tenure of it is temporary. One day a stake president will be released, or a bishop will be released, but an elder is not released, and a high priest is not released, and a Seventy is not released. They hold that authority, and the honor of presiding over a family and being a father is eternal."
He said that gives him a lot of comfort "at my young age" when he thinks about his 65 years of marriage and realizes that could come to an end. "Then I realize that the gospel is true, and it will never come to an end."
In the Church, he said, ordinances are performed "in the name of Jesus Christ."
"When we have children of our own and hold the priesthood and those two things are together in our life, then we know what the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ is about, and we know who He is: Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father, Who wrought the Atonement through which we can have erased all of the mistakes we have made in life and stand clean and pure before the Father in that day of judgment.
"It is an interesting thing that across the world 'every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world.'"
President Packer explained that as holders of the priesthood, Latter-day Saint men should "respond to every call that comes to perform every service that will come, the most important of which is within the walls of our home."
"The last few Presidents of the Church, conscious of what the adversary was doing, have centered their teaching, their preaching on the home and the family. And we have done that in this meeting as well. The Church is made up of families. We talk about the organization and how many wards and stakes we have, and they are incidental and temporary. When we talk about how many families we have, then we see the real growth in the Church."
President Packer concluded his remarks with his testimony: "I have lived a long time. I have traveled widely — 2.5 million miles in the countries across the world. Many of them I have visited dozens of times. I have learned that we are the children of God, and I have come to know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. When we come to you as leaders in the auxiliaries and in the priesthood and in the stakes, we come with a fervent testimony and knowledge, for we know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father, and all that we do, we do in His name as His agents."
