Who can calculate the worth of mothers?

The tributes and adulation they receive on Mother's Day call attention to how important their contributions are to both mortality and eternity.

Nothing, really, can compare to the role of motherhood. And how important it is for mothers to understand that!

Unfortunately, we live in a world where we're too often deceived into thinking things are as important as people; that more and better things will provide answers that loving and caring for our own family members won't.

That is what Satan, the master of deceit, would have us believe. He'll do what he can to entice mothers out of the home, having them rationalize that when there are problems with the children, maybe a nicer home in a nicer neighborhood or better clothes or maybe their own car will bring stability and peace into their lives.

The answer lies within, not without. Those who bring these precious souls into mortality — mothers — already possess the attributes children need to solve their problems. Children need to feel loved. That requires being around those who love them.

The power of a mother's love is incalculable. It must not be sacrificed at the altar of worldly things.

President Gordon B. Hinckley emphasized that when he addressed the Relief Society in the General Relief Society Meeting last September:

"You have nothing in this world more precious than your children. When you grow old, when your hair turns white and your body grows weary, when you are prone to sit in a rocker and meditate on the things of your life, nothing will be so important as the question of how your children have turned out. It will not be the money you have made. It will not be the cars you have owned. It will not be the large house in which you live. The searing question that will cross your mind again and again will be, How well have my children done?

"If the answer is that they have done very well, then your happiness will be complete. If they have done less than well, then no other satisfaction can compensate for your loss."

That echoed sentiments that President Hinckley expressed during a regional conference in Utah in May of 1995:

"In this age when more and more women are turning to daily work, how tremendous it is, once in a while, to stop and recognize that the greatest service that any woman will ever perform will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. There is no other thing that will compare with that regardless of what she does.

"I hope that the women of the Church will not slight their greatest responsibility in favor of a less responsibility. To the mothers of this Church, every mother who is here this day, 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.

"Its been the mothers who have been the great carriers and purveyors of faith throughout the history of this Church. I believe that with all my heart."