If we truly want to be tools in the hands of our Heavenly Father in bringing to pass His eternal purposes, we need only to be a friend.

Nothing is more inspiring in today’s world of easily dissolved marriages than to observe a husband and wife quietly appreciating and enjoying each other’s friendship year in and year out as they experience together the blessings and trials of mortality.

Like so much of what is worthwhile in life, our needs for friendship are often best met in the home. If our children feel friendship within the family, with each other, and with parents, they will not be desperate for acceptance outside the family. I think one of life’s most satisfying accomplishments for my wife and me is to have lived long enough to see our children become good friends.

I think in all of us there is a profound longing for friendship, a deep yearning for the satisfaction and security that close and lasting friendships can give.

Please, shun darkness, and like trees, always seek to grow toward the light.

Friendship is also a vital and wonderful part of courtship and marriage. A relationship between a man and a woman that begins with friendship and then ripens into romance and eventually marriage will usually become an enduring, eternal friendship.

Sometimes after an enjoyable family home evening, during a fervent family prayer, or when our entire family is at the dinner table on Sunday evening eating waffles and engaging in a session of lively, good-matured conversation, I quietly say to myself, 'If heaven is nothing more than this, it will be good enough for me!'