Having Children

Many messages these days are being sent out that make people believe that you do not need to have children to be fulfilled. Most people these days believe that when you are married, having kids is not a number one priority. Most believe that their profession comes first, and then come the kids. Kids are now a liability to the family instead of a benefit because kids used to help out with the family work, but that has now ended. People do not see the importance of having children anymore. I think it is very sad that only 9% of all families will have 3 or more kids. I really think that not having kids goes fully against God's plan for happiness. Because we are supposed to bring to pass the work of Heavenly Father here on the earth, we should bring more of His children here. Although there are circumstances where a husband and wife cannot have children, I believe that how many children any couple has should be something they decide between themselves and the Lord. One thing that I realized in class this week was that about almost everything that has to do with family relationships is up to the husband and the wife to decide. There are so many things where there are no clearly stated correct answers, and that is where we have to come up with our own answers. Those answers must be based off of what we know and what we have learned, and most importantly of all, what we feel the Lord wants us to do.

Finance$

There is an amazing pamphlet that the church puts out called One For the Money. This pamphlet gives all kinds of advice about budgeting your money and how to not get into debt. If you are in debt, there is a great table in there about how to get out of debt. Basically what you do is put the things you have to pay for each month in order from most important, and then each month you pay each of your bills. Once you finish the first payment, you take the money you would have used for that one the next month and you add that to the payment of the next thing you have to pay off. Once that is paid off, you add the amount you would pay off on that one to the next thing in line, and soon after you have gotten yourself out of debt. Money is a very important thing to budget in a marriage, and it is especially important to budget it together as a companionship. It is a very powerful thing when a husband and wife make money decisions together. Brother Williams said that it's not really the dollar amount that matters, it's the fact that the husband and wife make the decision together. When couples are under stress, they commonly buy things just to make themselves feel better. If you did not have to budget, you would not develop much intimacy in marriage. My favorite thing that I have learned about money management is that when it comes to wants and needs, DATES ARE NEEDS!

Comunicacion (Communication)

This week we have learned some very interesting things about communication in the home. President Harold B. Lee once said, "We need to communicate in our families not to be understood, but to not be misunderstood." One thing I liked is that sarcasm is almost always guaranteed to be misunderstood.

In one of the general conference talks that we read this week, Elder Ballard gave a great quote about how no one needs to stand alone. "God never intended that His children should stand alone. Children have parents, and parents have the Church, with the scriptures, living prophets and Apostles, and the Holy Ghost, to help them understand proper principles and act upon those principles in fulfilling their parental responsibilities."
Another thing that I really liked was how Elder Ballard taught that when making decisions in a counsel (or you could even relate it to between a husband and wife) all points of view should openly be discussed. We should listen to each other with respect for the abilities and experiences that each person brings to the counsel.  Once a decision is made, even if some do not agree, all members should be united and determined concerning the decision that is made. I think that is a very interesting point that Elder Ballard makes. As a husband and wife, Once we have prayerfully discussed things while listening to the spirit, we must make a decision and be committed to that decision even if one or the other is not fully convinced about the decision.

Crisis

It is amazing how we are here in this life to learn and gain experience so we can return to live with our Heavenly Father. Many ways that our Father in Heaven tries us in this life are through crises. This week we learned how crises most of the time can become a major benefit in our lives. We tend to see things much differently when we are at a distance, and for this reason when we are going through a crisis, we think it is the worst thing in the world, but afterwards we tend to see the hidden blessings. The way we react in these critical circumstances defines many of the aspects of the future and of other people's lives. Miracles can happen depending on how we react in situations of crisis. Our total experience is bigger than just the event. Crisis events have the ability to completely destroy families, or to bring them together even more. Our reactions during crises determine what kind of benefit we will have from situations. When we are accustomed to always working together, it makes so much easier to pull through together during crises. One really good thing I liked from class was the definition of punctuation. It is the way you explain the story; where you start/end, what you emphasize, the way you talk about it, and what parts you tell about it.

Marriage Loyalty

This week I read an article for class about preventing affairs in marriage. It really helped me understand that even after a temple marriage, a husband and wife must be extremely careful and continue faithful to each other, because a celestial marriage doesn't come until this life is over and both have been faithful to the end. The adversary works so hard so separate families, and infidelity in a marriage is one of the leading causes of divorce. It is sadly amazing how the adversary can even take down bishops and relief society presidents in the church for falling into infidelity. Infidelity is such a sad thing to me and it makes me want even more to strengthen my love and affection for my soon to be wife, Janelle. This article gave some great advice on how we can prevent even getting close to the edge, because even though we never even think of the idea of being unfaithful to our spouses, the adversary is still working very keenly. This story about a college student after she just got married really helped me realize the amount of effort we need to put into being faithful to the end.                            
One female married college student reported this tender and powerful story:
One principle that really pricked my mind was the idea of being emotionally unfaithful. This really hit home to me. I have a certain guy friend, Jake, who has been a big influence in my life and will always be important to me. I could have married him, but chose not to. I love and cherish my husband, Chad, and don’t doubt that I made the right decision in marrying him, but I have found myself still wanting that friendship with Jake from my past. I felt myself having the thoughts described in our text of, “Why can’t Chad be more like Jake?” I looked forward to running into Jake on campus. I spoke to him occasionally on the computer. As I read the chapter on purity in our text, I was horrified, and tears filled my eyes when I realized that I was in those beginning stages of an emotional affair. The thought of being unfaithful to my sweetheart is disgusting to me, and yet in a way I was playing with emotional infidelity. I really loved the quote, “The grass is greener … on the side of the fence you water!” (Marshall, 2007). It is so true! My friendship was not bad, but what was bad was that I was putting energy into it
which should have been put into my marriage.
I made a strict commitment to myself and the Lord that I would not share my heart with anyone but my husband. I had been thinking about Jake, worrying a lot about him and I decided this was the end and I cut it out of my mind. Jake had other people and the Lord to take care of him.
I changed my usual route walking to class because I knew that sometimes walking that way I would run into Jake. I stopped talking to him on the computer. All that energy, the thoughts, the time on the computer, everything, I turned over to my husband plus more. I am again looking for little acts of service I can do to show Chad how much I do totally adore him. I am doing the things to build our relationship spiritually and to give God his place in our marriage. I want to have the greenest, most beautiful grass on the side of the fence where my husband is, and I will not let anything in to harm that.

Along with this story there is a great quote from President Hinckley, which says,

“Determine that there will never be anything that will come between you that will disrupt your marriage. Make it work. Resolve to make it work. There is far too much of divorce, wherein hearts are broken and sometimes lives are destroyed. Be fiercely loyal one to another.” (Hinckley, 1999, p. 4, emphasis added).

A celestail marriage requires a heroic effort from both parts of a marriage, the husband and the wife. It is such a reward to be able to obtain a celestial marriage, which means that there should be nothing that stands between a husband and wife.