In a Church News interview ahead of his 90th birthday in 2022, President Dallin H. Oaks reflected on some of the lessons he learned in his life.
“I remember the goodness of my parents,” he said. “I saw them treating others with respect and generosity. And it had an impact on my life, that I was supposed to be good like my parents.”
He spoke of how his father, a doctor, would provide medical services for people who couldn’t afford to pay him. After Dr. Lloyd E. Oaks died, many of those people helped his mother in her widowhood.
“I saw that as an endorsement of the goodness of my father,” President Oaks said.
Speaking of his mother, who raised three young children as a widow, President Oaks said she was truly noble and capable.
“Throughout my life, I have never felt to discount the wisdom or the efforts or the leadership or the importance of women, because I was raised by a role model who was both father and mother, community leader, teacher, Church leader.”
All around the world I have met others who also honor the goodness of their parents and all they learned — especially about the gospel of Jesus Christ and His restored Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In Uruguay in 2025, I met Laura Pujado, who was born with an inheritance of faith, perseverance and strength she received from her parents and others who joined the Church when it was new in that country.
Those pioneers accepted multiple callings, fulfilled assignments joyfully and worked around the country to strengthen the members.
Her aunt, Gladys Cristobal, was baptized in July 1950, and then her mother, Margarita Cristobal, in December of that year.
“Before my mother was baptized, she was already working in Primary,” Pujado told me. “We didn’t have leaders yet. I think that’s why my mother and my aunt got that sense of responsibility — they had to do something.”
Pujado now serves in the Church as her mother did.
“These stories are common to share,” Pujado said. “We’ve been all our lives doing over and over again the things our mothers have done. That is something we can say — maybe you inherit that faith.”
She remembers her mother’s perseverance and love. “I am now in that place. I need to be better because my mother was great.”
In Armenia in 2022, I met Elder Noah Zatikyan Wright, a young full-time missionary from Bountiful, Utah, whose mother grew up in Armenia, miraculously survived the 1988 earthquake and met the missionaries.
Hripsime Zatikyan Wright was born when Armenia was part of the Soviet Union, and she was never taught that there is a God. Wright, who has recounted her experience in an article in Gospel Library, was in school when the shaking began.
As a crowd started to run down the stairs, she followed an impression to go back and get a red knit scarf her mother had made.
She then watched, red knit scarf in hand, as the stairway collapsed, killing everyone on it. Her family also survived the earthquake. When her father found them sitting in the street, the only thing he said was, “Blessed be Thy name, God.” Wright wrote, “I had lost my home, but for the first time I heard the name of God.”
When she met two missionaries who taught her the gospel, she joined the Church despite opposition and challenges, saying, “I had found my way home.”
Years later, her son, Elder Wright, was teaching the gospel to others in Armenia, just like the missionaries taught his mother.
“My whole family — we are covenanted together for eternity,” he told me. “How could I not love my mother? She wouldn’t give up, and because she knew it was true and wouldn’t deny it, I am here.”
Our ancestors’ examples, testimonies and perseverance teach us. President Oaks taught in his talk “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother” at April 1991 general conference, “A worthy example repeats itself from generation to generation.”
One of God’s commandments is, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12). President Oaks explained in his address that this commandment “has strands that run through the entire fabric of the gospel.”
As he has taught and continues to teach about the importance of the family in Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation, President Oaks has shown us through his prophetic words and personal example how to honor the goodness of our parents and continue with their testimonies today.
— Mary Richards is a reporter for the Church News.
