Learning/Education

While secular education is important, I loved learning about where the priorities of education are. Our first learning should be spiritual. After we have learned about the spiritual things, we then will need to gain secular knowledge. We will use that secular knowledge after this life in the eternities to come, but our secular knowledge will be deemed worthless if we don't have eternal increase.
I have loved continuing my education. My husband had just graduated from BYU-Idaho right before we got married, but I have been going off and on since. I know my most important calling right now is to be a mother. I am excited to be a life-long learner and really enjoy each class I choose to take.

Here are my quotes relating to Learning or Education:

"While the formal classroom may be intimidating at times, some of the most effective teaching takes place other than in the chapel or the classroom. Well do I remember that some years ago, members holding the Aaronic Priesthood would eagerly look forward to an annual outing commemorating the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. By the busload the young men of our stake journeyed 90 miles (145 km) north to the Clarkston Cemetery, where we viewed the grave of Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. While surrounding the beautiful granite shaft which marks the grave, a high councilor would present background concerning the life of Martin Harris, read from the Book of Mormon his testimony, and then bear his own witness to the truth. The young men listened with rapt attention, touched the granite marker, and pondered the words they had heard and the feelings they had felt." -President Monson, "To Learn, to Do, to Be" October 2008

"Beyond ecclesiastical study there is the challenge of education. Resolve now, while you are young, that you will get all of the education you can. We live in a highly competitive age, and it will only grow worse. Education is the key that will unlock the door of opportunity.
You may plan on marriage, and hope for it, but you are not certain that it will come. And even though you marry, education will be of great benefit to you. Don’t just drift along, letting the days come and go without improvement in your lives. The Lord will bless you as you make the effort. Your lives will be enriched and your outlook broadened as your minds are opened to new vistas and knowledge." -President Hinckely, "Let Virtue Garnish Thy Thoughts" April 2007


President John Taylor said, “It is true intelligence for a man to take a subject that is mysterious and great in itself and to unfold and simplify it so that a child can understand it”


"The words study and faith each portray a type of education. First, we are commanded to “teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom.
“Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God.” (D&C 88:77–78.)
And we are also “to obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion.” (D&C 93:53; see also D&C 88:79.)
The Church must concentrate on moral and spiritual education; we may encourage secular education but not necessarily provide it." -Boyd K. Packer "To Be Learned Is Good If..." October 1992

Elder Nelson (Oct. 1992): "Because of our sacred regard for each human intellect, we consider the obtaining of an education to be a religious responsibility. Yet opportunities and abilities differ. I believe that in the pursuit of education, individual desire is more influential than institution, and personal faith more forceful than faculty."

Elder Monson (Oct 1991): "There is no more important aspect of public education than the teacher who has the opportunity to love, to teach, and to inspire eager boys and girls and young men and young women. President David O. McKay said, “Teaching is the noblest profession in the world. Upon the proper education of youth depend the permanency and purity of home, the safety and perpetuity of the nation. The parent gives the child an opportunity to live; the teacher enables the child to live well.” (David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1953, p. 436.) I trust we shall recognize their importance and their vital mission by providing adequate facilities, the finest of books, and salaries which show our gratitude and our trust."

Elder Packer (1992): "Our purpose is to produce students who have that rare and precious combination of a superb secular education, complemented by faith in the Lord, a knowledge of the doctrines He has revealed, and a testimony that they are true.For those very few whose focus is secular and who feel restrained as students or as teachers in such an environment, there are at present in the United States and Canada alone over 3,500 colleges and universities where they may find the kind of freedom they value. And we are determined to honor the trust of the tithe payers of the Church.Students at other schools soon learn that some professors deliberately undermine faith and challenge your moral and spiritual values. You in turn must be free, even in our own schools, to return that challenge and defend your right to believe in God, to keep the covenants you have made through baptism and which you renew through the sacrament."

Elder Oaks (1971): "My beloved brethren who hold the priesthood of God: Over the past several months I have had occasion to ponder the problems and to reflect upon the ideals of education in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As I have studied this subject, my thoughts have been drawn to some lines I read at BYU some twenty years ago. The first of these lines you will think strange as an illustration of the subject of education in the Church. They were written by Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth century English political philosopher, in his greatest work, The Leviathan.In describing the nature of man, Hobbes wrote that “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” This is a classic example of the philosophies of man. I am grateful that my education exposed me to that thought and others like it, because my familiarity with these thoughts has helped me to understand the world and its peoples and its problems."