This week the one thing that really caught my attention was the discussion about children of divorced parents and their chance of divorce in their own marriages. I have a friend who is really close to me, whose parents went through a divorce when he was younger. He is also a convert to the church. We talked all about it after class, I asked him his views on marriage and such. He told me that before he joined the church he did not think he'd ever get married. He said he thought that all marriages just ended in divorce and unhappiness. Once he joined the church and learned more about how the lord views marriage his opinions changed. I asked him how confident he felt his marriage would succeed. Although it was significantly higher now that he's a member, it was still quite a bit lower than mine. (I have never been faced with any kind of divorce in my life) It was so interesting to take something I learned in class and talk to a friend about it. I let him know that it by NO MEANS means he will get a divorce and that everyone has the opportunity to change things their parents did for a better future for their children.

Budgets are such a good idea. I took money management a couple years ago, but never put my knowledge into practice. While on a mission I really learned the importance of budgeting.My companion and I would sit down once a month (usually really close to the beginning) and take all of our money and deciding TOGETHER where every cent needs to go. We had multiple envelopes, with labels such as rent, food, utilities..etc. We would talk and counsel together where we thought we should put all the money. We made sure to only buy what we needed and not too much of things we wanted. We were living in Latvia, it was one of the most expensive countries to live in in my mission. at the end of the transfer we found out that we had a whole bunch of money left over just because we budgeted. But the budgeting did more than just save us money, it brought us closer together in unity. We worked very well together. It taught me a valuable lesson about how much of an impact budgeting has on a relationship. It was fun to read over the church's pamphlet and teach it to a class mate.

What is the purpose of parenting? I said it was to be able to raise loving, righteous, capable children who will build up society and who will be able to raise children of their own who will do the same. I also really liked the examples that were shared in the class. To protect, and help our children to survive in this world and the eternities.

I had never heard the quote by Orson F. Whitney talking about the sealing power and you children being with you in the eternities. How comforting is it to know as long as my husband and I keep to our temple covenants, our children will always be with us. I was actually wondering about this exact thing a while back. I knew that if you were sealed and lived faithful to your covenants then your children would be sealed to you... but then if your children didn't then they would be lost. That just didn't seem right to me, What would be the purpose of the sealing power if it didn't work. I know that everyone is entitled to agency and can choose for themselves whether or not they are willing to live righteously they will have to suffer for their own choices.

I learned that power is the ability to influence how people feel, think and act. I don't think it's a healthy thing to have power in a relationship. My uncle on my moms side had a lot of power over both my grandmother and my grandfather. It did not end well. There were many conflicts.

I LOVED our discussion on counsel with councils. Growing up in my family, I never once remember having a family meeting. It was pretty much my parents made decisions and we had to follow them or we were grounded. The first presidency and quorum of the twelve apostles are a great example to us. I started opening my eyes, looking out for little things before meetings and I noticed a lot! Just before devotional starts, president clark, and the speaker come out about 10 minutes early and greet each of the people on the stand, with kind handshakes and loving hugs. It's their way of showing their love. It is a great example to me.  I love the idea of talking to each member of the family and asking them how their week went and what can the rest of the family do to support them. I think that would be a great way during family home evening each week to strengthen the family.

I use to think to myself quite often "Why me?", "Why now?", "Why this?". I never understood why we were given hard things to deal with. The more trials I get, the more I realize how important they are for our progression here on earth. I feel that they are a way for us to reach out to our Heavenly Father. It gives us the opportunity to summit ourselves into the hands of God, and allow his will to be ours.

I don't get angry that often, I always questioned what the motives were for other people. Learning that people who are angry usually have an underlying emotion made a lot of sense to me. People just don't know how to show, or recognize their feelings so it just comes out as anger. We should be able to talk through things and help our friends figure out exactly what emotions they are feeling.

I was amazed in class when Brother Williams talked about your spirit being hurt after abuse. I had a companion on my mission who had had some major trials in her life, as we were talking she mentioned the same exact thing. She mentioned that your spirit can be hurt. It can be healed through the atonement of Jesus Christ. She also mentioned that your soul knows how to fix it. That it takes time, and sometimes help from other sources. It was fascinating.

I loved how we talked about sex as a means to bring a couple closer together. The world teaches you if you love someone, you should demonstrate that love by having sex. Once I joined the church I learned that is not true, but then I was confused as to what purpose sex had. I knew of course it was to procreate. It was cool to learn about how it's one of the strongest ways to bring your relationship closer together. That may be one reasons it's not good to do before you are married. It reminds me of that chart. Your touch can not be above your know. You don't want to rely and trust someone you don't know. When you have physical intimacy you can create emotional bonds that are not supposed to be there before you are married. I've always been worried about how much information I am required to disclose to my future spouse. I had always thought that once you are baptized everything from your past is erased in the eyes of the Savior, so why should anyone have to know. I was surprised while in class when we talked about being honest. I never had thought about it before. Then after talking to a really good friend I realized how important it was to him to know everything about his wife before he marries her, I realized my future spouse may feel the same way.

Weddings

Woah, I knew weddings were expensive, but I had no idea how expensive they can be. $21,000 for a California wedding. I won't be having one of those. I loved when brother Williams said, "The way you start your marriage is the way you'll end it. If you start it well, then it doesn't have to end." I completely agree with it. My parents were engaged for a year before they got married. I believe they dated for maybe 5 months. They always told us kids, we couldn't get married fast, that we'd have to be engaged for a year. After coming to BYU-Idaho, I learned this isn't the best thing to do. We are taught to have long courtships and short engagements. I think that the best way to do things. Temptation is much greater once the ring goes on the finger, and you know you'll be with that person for eternity. Satan's main purpose is to bring others down with him. He is attacking the family. One of the ways he can do that is by tempting people so that they may not be worthy to enter into the temple and create an eternal family. My parents are right about a lot of things, but I would have to disagree with them on this one issue.