What More Could I Do for My Daughters?

By Georgina Montemayor Wong, Nuevo León, Mexico

I wanted to spiritually strengthen my daughters, so I turned to Heavenly Father in prayer.

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children looking at a tablet

Photograph courtesy of the author

I teach at the same school my daughters attend. Every day we have to hurry off together at 6:00 a.m. When we arrive, I go to my classroom and they go to their classrooms.

After school, we hurry home, eat, and rush off to other activities, such as Young Women and music lessons. My husband is the elders quorum president, so he’s also very busy.

I began to feel that our family was too busy. We didn’t have time for personal, intimate discussions about the gospel, except on Sundays.

I want my daughters to develop strong testimonies of the Savior Jesus Christ and His gospel—starting now, while they’re young. As their parents, my husband and I know that that responsibility belongs to us (see Doctrine and Covenants 68:25). I decided to pray about it.

“Besides holding family home evening and taking our daughters to church,” I asked Heavenly Father, “what more can we do?”

The answer I received was to read the scriptures in the morning and use music. So, on the way to school each morning in our van, I began playing hymns and other appropriate music. Then, for a few minutes after we arrived at school, we started reading the scriptures together, discussing the gospel, and praying before heading to class. Even my five-year-old wanted to participate.

It’s a beautiful thing to see my children read and testify of Jesus Christ and to see my older daughters, 9 and 12, willingly help the youngest one, 5, to read the scriptures.

After we had added our short devotional to our crazy morning routine, I asked my daughters, “What do you think?” Their answers touched my heart.

“I had a test today, and I felt very nervous,” one of them said. “But I remembered from this morning that we could ask God for help. I said a prayer in my heart, asking Him to help me be calm, and He did.”

Another said, “Mamá, I know a girl that nobody talks to. I remembered from our devotional that God loves everyone, so I decided to talk to her and be her friend.”

I’m very grateful to Heavenly Father for helping me better fulfill my role as a mother. I know He answers prayers and has given us the gospel to make us happy.