For Consolacion Pilobelle, Mother's Day is more than gifts and kinds words. It offers a moment to contemplate the joys and responsibilities of motherhood.

"My children and grandchildren are a great blessing to me," says Sister Pilobelle, a mother of eight from Manila, Philippines. "We are enjoying seeing the grandchildren coming along now; it reminds my husband and me of how precious Heavenly Father's children are."This Mother's Day, on May 11, children around the world will once again take a few moments to appreciate their mothers - for the times they played with them, for the things they taught them, and for the ways only mothers could make them feel.

"The great service that any woman will ever perform will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging and rearing her children in righteousness and truth," said President Gordon B. Hinckley during the Heber City/Springville (Utah) Regional Conference in May 1995. "There is no other thing that will compare with that regardless of what she does. . . .

"To the mothers of this Church, . . . I want to say that, as the years pass, you will become increasingly grateful for that which you did in molding the lives of your children in the direction of righteousness and goodness and integrity and faith."

Zeena Shtetz, from Vladivostak, Russia, was only 7 years old when her mother was arrested for buying stolen corn to feed her children. She died three years later in a prison camp. But Sister Shtetz still remembers - and passed on to her children and grandchildren - her mother's most important lesson: how to pray.

Dolly S. Ta'ala from western Samoa called her 15 children her "choicest blessings." She raised them with faith, and a heart full of gratitude - for them and her own mother.

Elisabeth Pietsch also considers her only child, Iris, her "greatest gift." They are best friends and enjoy walking together through Vienna, Austria, where they live. Sister Pietsch said it makes her most happy to see her daughter following "the way of Jesus Christ."

Iris treasures the time she and her mother talk together. This Mother's Day she will take one moment to let her know she is greateful that their relationship will last through eternity.

Gladys Sitati of the Parklands Branch, Nairobi Kenya District, is thankful for her mother because, among dozens of other things, she taught her children to be teachable.

"My mother couldn't read and write, so we taught her. My children teach me how to play the piano and how to speak French."

Sister Sitati explained, "I love my mother, that little woman who worked all day for the greatest gift God gave her - her children."