By Alan on Jun 15 in Blog tagged alan, Alan and Suzanne osmond, army lead, as He did, barrack, challenges, church, dedication died, education, eight boys, eternal, example, Family, family life, forever, George, George and Olive Osmond, good meals, help others, impacted, Jesus Christ, knowledge, lare family, Like Father, Like son, live again, love, love at home, loving home, married, memories, nurtured, order, organization, Osmonds, osmonds second generation, parallel, passed away, point the way, prayer, regimentation, respect, righteous, role model, same way, showed me, Sons, spirit, spirit world, Suzanne Pinegar, tender, The Family, traditions, truth, watched him, worked hard | 2 Comments

Father’s Day – “Like Father, Like Son”

“Having been born of goodly parents”, I was blessed to be the third member of a family of eight sons and one daughter of George and Olive Osmond.  We grew up in the town of Ogden, Utah with fond memories of a wonderful family life.

My Mother, Olive, was so kind and tender as she nurtured us children.  She love to cook and taught us music in a most wonderful and loving home.  Her parents were both educators and my mother would have been too, but she fulfilled her first priority and married my father and had a large family.  Because she loved education, she asked my father to build a schoolroom in the attic of our home where she used her skills as a teacher and theologian to teach us children many truths.

My Father was my hero and my role model.  We called him “Father” out of respect and I wanted to be like him when I grew up.  I was by his side when he built, plumbed, wired, and remodeled homes as a great carpenter. I watched him and was by his side when he milked cows, hauled hay, irrigated the orchard and fields, or as we stamped and packaged postal items at the post office that he had.  Father also loved to sing.  I sat behind him while he was driving the car and as we sang together, he would sing in harmony with Mother.   That was how I learned to sing harmony.  Learning that skill truly impacted my life.   Father taught me how to fish, to hoe sugar beets and how to drive the tractor and haul hay.  He always involved my brothers and me in his work projects and led by example.  He always stood by us when the going got tough or was challenging.  You see, Father had been an army sergeant and knew how to lead men.  Several evidences of that training showed up in how he raised our sister Marie and us eight boys.

One example of that was when we got older and our home needed more bedrooms.  Father decided to build on to the back of our house and built what he called, a dormitory.  Yes, you are right, it was like an army barrack with seven military  metal framed army cots and blankets, foot lockers at the end of the beds, and open closets where our clothes needed to be neatly hung and arranged as there where regular inspections that occurred.  He knew how to lead and train military men in the army so like them, Father taught us in many of the same ways and how to have order.  Some neighbors had asked him if the way he was raising his kids wasn’t ‘regimentation’.  He would just smile and respond back saying; “I look at it as organization.”

I remember many times when he helped friends by serving them.  My Father and Mother were always doing things to help others.  They started the Osmond Foundation to raise money for deaf children, two of which were my older brothers.  This was a pattern of my father and I wanted to be like him,  “Like Father, Like Son.”  He was a hard worker and organizer and gave freely of his time in headed up several fundraising projects within the church and the community.

Like my father, I too, found and married the most wonderful girl in the world, Suzanne Pinegar, and she is my eternal partner.  Suzanne has blessed me with eight wonderful
sons.  As a father, I tried to raise them the best I knew.

I can look back and see a parallel in many of the same ways and traditions that I learned from my father.  Those patterns and traditions of life now exist among us as a family with our sons and their families.  Yes, they honor me and call me Father and they have learned to work hard and to never give up.  Yes, they also love

music and have excelled in it masterfully.  I told them to get “real jobs” and they did get good educations with a love to learn.  Yes, they love the out of doors like I did as a son and are all Eagle Scouts.  Seven of them so far have served full time missions and have returned and married.  Yes, they grew up in a home with respect, order, good cooking, love, and with religious convictions that honors our Lord Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.  We learn from Jesus’s example that even what He did, was as His Father has done; “Like Father, like Son”.

This Father’s Day, I reflect back on my father’s life and how much he showed me by example the way to be and to become.  He taught us to be positive and to never give up when we were challenged and would say, “You can do it”.  He also taught us that “You can be what you want to become, if you become what you want to be.”  He was hard working yet a righteous man with a tender “marshmallow” heart”, as my mother would say, as he blessed his family and took us all to church.  He served in the bishopric and held several other church callings in which he blessed others.  We never had a meal together without first having a word of prayer and giving thanks and blessing the food.  We always had family prayer at night and even before every show that my family and I did later when we became entertainers.  When major decisions were made, we would counsel with the Lord together in kneeling family prayer seeking inspiration and giving thanks.  This was the way we grew up because it was the way he did.

 I remember the day my mother passed away and which was a hard thing and then not long after that when my father died.  It is not easy to see them go but it is those times when the knowledge of that they had taught us gave us the understanding that we would live again and be with them.  When my Father died, I was the first one to be by his side.  I saw him lying cold and still on his bed.  His body was there but my Father’s spirit wasn’t.  I shed some tears and held his hand as I offered a prayer of gratitude to my Heavenly Father.  I thanked Him for giving me the greatest earthly father I could ever have and for the good man that he was.  It was then that I honestly started to smile as I knew he was now once again with my Mother in the Spirit world.  I looked at him and said, “Father, save me a place, up there.”

Some day, I too, will graduate and do as my Father, my Savior, and my God have done, and live on eternally.  ”Like Father, Like Son”.

Alan Osmond
For The Family

By Alan on May 20 in Blog tagged a blessing, attitude, balance, blessings of work, children should learn to work, commanded to work, created the earth, enjoy work, God condemns Idleness, god's work and glory, help others, honest work, lazy, no work on Sunday, privilege to work, provide for family, work in heaven to do, Work is an eternal principle, work together | 1 Comment

Work Is an Eternal Principle

Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have shown us by Their examples and teachings that work is important in heaven and on earth. God worked to create the heavens and the earth. He caused the seas to gather in one place and the dry land to appear. He caused grass, herbs, and trees to grow on the land. He created the sun, the moon, and the stars. He created every living thing in the sea or on the land. Then He placed Adam and Eve on the earth to take care of it and to have dominion over all living things. (See Genesis 1:1–28.)

Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).

He also said, “I must work the works of him that sent me” (John 9:4).

We Are Commanded to Work

Work has been the way of life on earth since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden. The Lord said to Adam, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). Adam and Eve worked in the fields so they could provide for their own needs and the needs of their children (seeMoses 5:1).  

The Lord said to the people of Israel, “Six days shalt thou labour” (Exodus 20:9).

A prophet of God has said, “Work is to be reenthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.” (Heber J. Grant)

Family Responsibility

Parents work together to provide for the physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being of their family. They should never expect anyone to take care of this responsibility for them. The Apostle Paul wrote, “If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith” (1 Timothy 5:8).

Couples should seek inspiration from the Lord and follow the counsel of the prophets when establishing individual responsibilities. Creating a home where principles of the gospel are taught daily and where love and order abound is as important as providing the basic necessities of food and clothing.

Children should do their part in the work of the family.
It is necessary for children to have work assignments to fit their abilities.

They need to be praised for their successes. Good work attitudes, habits, and skills are learned through successful experiences in the home.

Sometimes people encounter hardships when trying to provide for their families. Chronic illness, the loss of a spouse, or the addition of an elderly parent can add to the responsibilities in a home. Our Heavenly Father remembers the families in these situations and gives them the strength to carry out their duties. He will always bless them if they ask Him in faith.

We Can Enjoy Our Work

To some people work is a drudgery. To others it is an exciting part of life. One way to enjoy life’s fullest benefits is to learn to love work.

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.

We can help one another in our work. The heaviest load becomes lighter when someone shares it.

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.”

In any honest work we can serve God. King Benjamin, a Nephite prophet, said, “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17). If our work provides only enough for necessities for ourselves or our families, we are still helping some of God’s children.

God Condemns Idleness

The Lord is not pleased with those who are lazy or idle. He said, “The idler shall not have place in the church, except he repent and mend his ways” (D&C 75:29). He also commanded, “Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer” (D&C 42:42).

As far as they are able, families should accept the responsibility to care for their relatives who are unable to provide for themselves.

Work, Recreation, and Rest

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

Not only is it pleasant and necessary to rest, but we are commanded to rest on the Sabbath day (see Exodus 20:10; D&C 59:9–12). This day of rest after each six days of labor brings refreshment for the days that follow. The Lord also promises the “fulness of the earth” to those who observe the Sabbath day (see D&C 59:16–20)

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.

The Blessings of Work

God revealed to Adam, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). In addition to being a temporal law, this was a law for the salvation of Adam’s soul. There is no real division between spiritual, mental, and physical work. Work is essential to each of us for growth, character development, and many satisfactions that the idle never know.

A Prophet of the Lord, 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 plan 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).

Additional Scriptures

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” John 17: 3

Alan Osmond
For The Family

By Alan on Mar 18 in Blog tagged appreciate what you have, Bill Gates, business, do what your feel, drives car, focus on people, help others, humble, invest, live simple, lose money, no brand name, no cell phone no computer, no credit cards, no jet, not more than you really need, own companies, right people, second richest man, small house, Warren Buffet, waste money | 4 Comments