As a rabid gourmand, I'd be lying if I said my stomach didn't leap a bit at their coming. And yet, because we have worked so hard to earn our own culinary place, there's also a parallel constriction of my heart, a burning twinge of protectionism.

Aren't Ducasse and Robuchon culinary carpetbaggers taking advantage of our Midwestern hospitality and standing upon the labor of our pioneers? Despite our success, the Tribune's Good Eating section still features a syndicated column from Wolfgang Puck. Hasn't Charlie Trotter or Paul Kahan at Blackbird earned a voice in our local pages? Legends, especially French demigods, cast long shadows, ones that may shroud our own identity.

It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to every-body else, and still unknown to himself.

Women as 'nurturers and teachers'

Granddaughters, do not be deceived in your quest to find happiness and an identity of your own. Entreating voices may tell you that what you have experienced in your own homes—that which you have seen your mothers and grandmothers do—is old-fashioned, unchallenging, boring, and drudgery. It may be old-fashioned and perhaps routine; at times it is drudgery. But your mothers and grandmothers have sung a song that expresses the highest love and the noblest of womanly feelings. They have been nurturers and teachers.

Not long ago, I saw how the bonds of belonging can cross the generations. Our oldest son was born just after the death of my father, and, in his memory, we gave our son his grandfather’s name as his middle name. For years, this old-fashioned name seemed awkward to our son.

But when he took up debate in high school and learned that his grandfather had been a champion debater for Brigham Young University, our son began to identify with his grandfather. My father had kept a personal journal during much of his adult life, and one day I showed my son an entry describing a debate between BYU and Princeton. I left that volume of the journal with him, and he ended up reading all three volumes.

Some months later, our son worked his way through a particularly trying experience and came to me late at night to tell me what had happened. He said, “Dad, I never knew Grandpa Hafen, but I felt that he was there to help me.”

Not long afterward, as that son was anticipating receiving his mission call, we went to a weekend family reunion in southern Utah. On Sunday afternoon, our son borrowed his grandmother’s car and drove alone to the isolated little canyon where his grandfather had loved to ride his horse—the place, in fact, where he had passed away. At an appropriate spot, my son knelt to pray, asking for the Lord’s help to sort through his questions about his mission and his faith. Something very special then occurred, and at his missionary farewell, he described the deep assurance and new insights he had carried out of the canyon that day.

As I think about those precious personal moments, I have no doubt about the reality of a bond and a sense of belonging between the generations on both sides of the veil. Through these experiences, my son gained a sense of identity and purpose. His tie with the eternal world became more real, and the resulting sense of destiny and mission he felt sharpened his life’s focus and lifted his expectations.

There is something else Joseph accomplished—something that is obliquely suggested by the very difficulty of knowing whether to define the people who now revere him as a church, a religion, a culture, an ethnicity, a global tribe, or something else. Joseph succeeded in creating a community with no real parallel—and few precedents—in the history of the world. The Prophet’s brother Hyrum tried to capture the unique quality of this society when, a few months before Joseph’s death, he said: “Men’s souls conform to the society in which they live, with very few exceptions, and when men come to live with the Mormons, their souls swell as if they were going to stride the planets.”

It is the quality of this community, not its rate of increase, that is the more vital fact—and the more enduring mystery—of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My beloved young friends, I know of no other way for you to succeed or to be happy or to be safe. I know of no other way for you to be able to carry your burdens or find what Jacob called "that happiness which is prepared for the saints" (2 Nephi 9:43). That is why we make solemn covenants based on Christ's atoning sacrifice, and that is why we take upon us his name. In as many ways as possible, both figuratively and literally, we try to take upon us his identity. We seek out his teachings and retell his miracles. We send latter-day witnesses, including prophets, apostles, and missionaries, around the world to declare his message. We call ourselves his children, and we testify that he is the only source of eternal life. We plead for him to swing open the gates of heaven in our behalf and trust everlastingly that he will, based upon our faithfulness.

My view is that blogs are becoming our resumes, our digital portfolios, our public identities.

By paying more attention to what we are rather than exclusively to what we do, our public and our private persons will be the same—the man or the woman of Christ. Our intrinsic value is not dependent upon mortal acclaim anyway; in fact, the world may actually see us as weak and foolish (see 1 Cor. 1:27). Countering, however, are divine affirmations, including this one: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8:16).

God is infinitely more interested in our having a place in His kingdom than with our spot on a mortal organizational chart. We may brood over our personal span of control, but He is concerned with our capacity for self-control. Father wants us to come home, bringing our real résumés, ourselves!

Having a true sense of our identity gives us security and overcomes our tendency to judge.

"Motherhood...is the essence of who we are as women"

Just as worthy men were foreordained to hold the priesthood in mortality, righteous women were endowed premortally with the privilege of motherhood. Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits our Father gave us.