Work and Personal Responsibility
Given by Shanel Bliss

Work is an antidote for anxiety.

Not all of us can choose the kind of work we do. Some of us labor for long hours for the bare necessities. It is difficult to enjoy such work. Yet the happiest people have learned to enjoy their work, whatever it is.

Our attitude toward work is very important. The following story shows how one man saw beyond his daily labor. A traveler passed a stone quarry and saw three men working. he asked each man what he was doing. Each man's answer revealed a different attitude toward the same job. "I am cutting stone," the first man answered. The second replied, "I am earning three gold pieces per day." The third man smiled and said, "I am helping to build a house of God."

Honesty--Quintin L. Cook, Nov. 2010 Ensign, Let there be Light.
'The thirteenth article of faith begins, "We believe in being honest." Honesty is a principle founded in religious belief and is one of God's basic laws.

Many years ago when I was practicing law in California, a friend and client who was not a member of our faith came in to see me and with great enthusiasm showed me a letter he had received from an LDS bishop of a nearby ward. The bishop wrote that a member of his congregation, a former employee of my client, had taken materials from my client's work site and had rationalized that they were surplus. But after becoming a committed Latter-day Saint and attempting to follow Jesus Christ, this employee recognized that what he had done was dishonest. Enclosed in the letter was a sum of money from the man to cover not only the cost of the materials but also interest. My client was impressed that the Church through lay leadership would assist this man in his efforts to be reconciled to God.'

From the earliest days of the Church, the prophets have taught Latter-day Saints to be independent and self-sustaining and to avoid idleness. True Latter-day Saints will not voluntarily shift from themselves the burden of their own support. So long as they are able, they will supply themselves and their families with the necessities of life.

We should each find the proper balance between work recreation, and rest. There is an old saying: "Ding nothing is the hardest work of all , because one can never stop to rest." Without work, rest and relaxation have no meaning.

On other days of the week, in addition to working, we may spend time to improve our talents and enjoy our hobbies, recreation, or other activities that will refresh us.

There is no real division between spiritual, mental, and physical work. Work is essential to each of us for growth, character development, and may satisfactions that the idle never know.

President David O McKay said, "Let us realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that the power to work is a blessing, that the love of work is success."

"Men are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2: 25). Work is a key to full joy in the play of God. If we are righteous, we will return to live with our Heavenly Father, and we will have work to do. As we become like Him, our work will become like His work. His work is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).